Endless Night

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Have you heard what’s happened here since you left?” Jasn asked.

  “Only that you’ve had some trouble.”

  “Trouble? I’d say that Thenas appearing would be some trouble.”

  Wyath tapped on his thigh and turned his gaze toward the north. “Thenas was dead. We left him in Tsanth—”

  “We thought he was dead. You should have seen the power he possesses, Wyath. There were five shapers attacking, and we were doing nothing to stop him.”

  “Even Alena?”

  “The egg. When she attached to it, the egg took most of her shaping ability, like it was absorbing it from her. She wasn’t able to do anything against him.” That hadn’t stopped her from trying, though. Jasn shouldn’t have been surprised, but still he was. She had been willing to face Thenas with little more than her sword and the memory of what she could shape. Now that the egg had hatched, she had some of her ability back, but she was still not the shaper she had been. Jasn wondered if she ever would be.

  “Ah, damn,” Wyath whispered. “Then how did you manage to defeat him?”

  “Not sure that defeat is what we did. Ciara—the girl from Rens,” Jasn explained, and Wyath nodded, “there’s something she can do. I don’t fully understand it, but she uses that long spear of hers and can summon shaping power. She was able to use it to draw enough power to scare him off.”

  And more than that, really. She had managed to draw enough that she had forced Tenebeth from him.

  “Cheneth knows of this?”

  “He wasn’t here during the attack, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Wyath’s eyes narrowed. “Not here? Who’s been teaching Ciara, then?”

  Jasn shrugged. “He’s been in and out of the barracks the past few weeks. Ciara has studied on her own.” Jasn didn’t know if that had been Cheneth’s intent, but that was the result. And maybe she had learned enough because of that, though he had the sense from Ciara that she hadn’t wanted to study by herself, that there was something she feared when she attempted to do things on her own.

  Wyath started toward the main part of the barracks, moving quickly, his steps determined.

  “Where are you going?” Jasn asked.

  Wyath glanced back. “Time to find out what’s been going on. Need Cheneth to answer a few questions.”

  “About Ciara?”

  “That, and others.”

  Jasn hesitated before hurrying along with Wyath. Since Ciara had managed to defeat Thenas, a growing discontent had settled into him. He might be able to learn enough to speak to the elementals, though the connection was faded since they had returned, making him wonder how much of that had been because of the draw on him from the draasin egg through the connection to Alena, but facing Tenebeth was another thing altogether. If five shapers, one connected to the elementals, couldn’t slow a servant of Tenebeth, how did they intend to stop him?

  Now, more than ever, Jasn knew that was what he needed to do.

  As much as he wanted to search for Katya, he couldn’t. The threat to others from Tenebeth, from the darkness, was too great for what he might want.

  The thought hurt, but it was one that she might have understood. She had always wanted him to be a healer, had always pushed him to learn as much as he could from Oliver. Only now that she was gone did he really understand.

  34

  Jasn

  Will Tenebeth target the draasin and the egg? Does the darkness prefer the younger elementals?

  —Rolan al’Sand, Enlightened of Hyaln

  Cheneth waited for them in his dorm, the door left unlocked, as if he had known they were coming. Wyath pushed it open and hurried inside, barely pausing as he made his way into the room.

  The scholar sat in the back of his room behind his desk, face buried in one of the books piled on top. A shaper lantern glowed with a soft bluish light, different than the pale white light found in the lanterns within Ter.

  Behind him, Ciara knelt on the ground and seemed to be doing something with her spear, as if tracing the patterns found on it. Jasn had seen what happened when she managed to light those patterns, how power managed to flow from it, though he still didn’t quite understand what it was she did. Something that required a certain dancing and her tapping on the ground with her spear. Beyond that, Jasn still didn’t know what she did.

  Cheneth looked up as they entered. “Wyath. You’ve returned.”

  “You knew that I’d returned the moment I came back.”

  Cheneth smiled. “That I did. I expected you to come here first, but I suppose you wanted to get a feel for what was happening around the barracks.”

  “Seemed like that would have been for the best, don’t you think?” Wyath asked. “Especially after what I’ve seen.”

  Cheneth closed his book and sat up. “What did you see?”

  “Movement in Rens. Massive buildup of soldiers sent by the order. You have any idea what that’s about?”

  Cheneth took a breath. “Some. I still am not certain about everything.”

  “Because you’ve been gone.”

  “No. It’s because I’ve been gone that I have the questions I do. There is”—he glanced at Jasn—“something afoot in Atenas. I thought I might find answers, but there are none for me there. Only more questions.”

  Wyath nodded to Ciara and grabbed a chair, pulling it around to sit across from Cheneth. “Buildup taking place makes me nervous, Cheneth. I think it should make you nervous, too.”

  “It does, but for different reasons than you realize.”

  “And what reasons are those?”

  Cheneth closed his eyes and sighed. “I’ve… been trying to understand what has changed and why Tenebeth has become more powerful.”

  “And do you think you do?” Jasn asked.

  “I think there is more to it than I expected. The simple answer is that he should not have been able to escape from the dark. There were… measures… in place that held him there. But something changed, and now he is gaining a strength he should not have. I’m afraid it has progressed beyond the point of our ability to contain him, at least fully.”

  “What kind of measures?” Jasn asked.

  “The kind that we’re beginning to comprehend.”

  Jasn stood for a moment, not sure that he followed. “You mean the elementals?”

  Cheneth nodded. “I think so. They seem to serve a purpose, one that few of us really understand. Perhaps none really understand,” he said, mostly to himself. “They are connected to the elements, tied to the greater force that flows in the world, that which Ter calls the Creator, that which Hyaln refers to as Ethera, and that the elementals call—”

  “The Mother,” Jasn said.

  Cheneth nodded. “The Mother. Perhaps the same. Or maybe it is not. There is still so much that I don’t understand, and that makes me afraid. If Tenebeth fully escapes… when he escapes… there will only be a few with the knowledge and the potential to stop him.”

  “Ter has been attacking the elementals. The draasin at least,” Jasn said.

  Cheneth nodded. “The draasin aren’t the only elementals that suffer, but they are the only ones you can see. The others face much the same pain as the draasin. They fade, falling back against the onslaught that is Ter’s attack.”

  “The attack is on Rens,” Jasn said.

  “Is it?” When Jasn didn’t say anything, Cheneth went on. “You think the attack is on Rens, but how certain are you?”

  “I know the reason the order was sent to Rens,” Jasn said.

  “You know the reason the Seat claims to have sent you to Rens,” Cheneth said. “Is it possible there might be another reason, and that there might be another attack that could take place, one that you aren’t aware of?”

  Jasn thought about it. He’d seen the attack on Rens, the way that countless shapers and warriors had been sent to Rens, so many of them dying… or disappearing. Always the reports were that the Rens attack was too fierce. Seeing Ciara, he could believe
that, but he began to wonder if maybe there was more to it. What if there was some other reason the order had gone into Rens?

  “I see that you have questions,” Cheneth said. “I do as well. Something released Tenebeth, and I fear whoever did will think to use that power. We need answers, and I can’t find them on my own.”

  Wyath grunted. “Where do we look then?”

  Cheneth met Jasn’s eyes. “I would have you search. Perhaps you will get them where I cannot.”

  Wyath leaned forward. “You think to send him away? Where, back to Atenas?”

  “Not Atenas,” Cheneth said. “We have others in Atenas that I would ask to help, but there is another place that Jasn Volth could go, were he to choose.”

  Jasn held his breath. “Where would you have me go?”

  “It is a place you have never been, one that will require you to travel beyond Rens.”

  Wyath turned to Jasn, shaking his head. “You don’t have to do this, Volth. The last time you were there…”

  “I know what happened the last time I was there.” And he knew what Wyath meant. Not the last time Jasn had gone to Rens. That had been when they discovered the draasin egg that had bonded in some strange way to Alena. No, Wyath feared what would happen if Jasn returned and had to be the Wrecker of Rens.

  Only he wasn’t sure that he could, even if that was something he wanted. The Wrecker was dead, and only this Jasn Volth remained.

  “I want to help,” Jasn said.

  “There are other ways you can help,” Wyath said, looking from Jasn to Cheneth.

  Ciara had sat silently but now had her spear resting on her lap. What must she be thinking? Jasn hadn’t asked her if she had ever heard of him, if she knew what he had done in her lands before returning to Ter, but mostly that was because he hated the idea of admitting who he had been.

  “There are other ways,” Jasn said. “I don’t know what Cheneth has in mind, but I want to help defeat Tenebeth. I want to do all that I can to ensure that Thenas and any others like him are stopped.”

  “And Katya?” Wyath asked.

  Jasn swallowed, avoiding the strange look that Ciara gave him. “Katya would understand. At least, the woman I knew would understand. She would have wanted me to do anything I could to help.”

  Cheneth nodded to him. “Then it is time for you to take the next step in your training.”

  35

  Eldridge

  I have been a fool. The endless war distracted my attention from this greater threat.

  —Rolan al’Sand, Enlightened of Hyaln

  “What do you see from up here?” Eldridge asked.

  Reyanne leaned on the block overlooking Rens, her face an unreadable mask. She’d said little since Eldridge guided her from the great hall, and moved with a soft, shuffling gait. Where had the order found her? And how had she managed to rise so quickly within the order?

  “I see Rens,” Reyanne said.

  “Your homeland.”

  Her expression didn’t change, but something flickered across her eyes. Irritation? Sadness? Maybe a mix of both, he decided.

  “Once it was, Bishop.”

  “You can call me Eldridge.”

  She turned away from the view of Rens. “You are a bishop in the College of Scholars, are you not?”

  Eldridge nodded. The title meant little these days. Once, before he’d left Atenas, earning the rank of bishop had been important. He’d had dreams of one day rising to the level of cardinal, perhaps even leading the scholars, but his interests had changed the moment Cheneth selected him to study in the barracks. Even then, Eldridge had known Cheneth was more than he appeared. Only now did he understand why.

  “Then you have earned the right to be called bishop.”

  “You have studied in Atenas?” he asked. The wind swirled around her. As usual with the wind, he could almost see it, as if he could stare hard enough and the elementals would appear. He knew they floated in the wind. More than one, from the way that they spoke to him. But he’d never seen them, not really.

  “I could not be raised to the order without studying in Atenas,” Reyanne said. “As you well know, Bishop. Why don’t you ask me the question that’s really on your mind?”

  Her youth disarmed him, but then he wondered if maybe he’d been misled. Perhaps she wasn’t quite as young as she appeared. The people of Rens often had a more youthful appearance than they should, in spite of the heat and the sun they lived under.

  “When did you leave Rens?” he asked.

  “I have not left Rens.”

  “Then you still serve your people.”

  A smile played across her mouth and she turned back to the wall overlooking Rens. They stood atop Jornas Keep, the turret here rising high, high enough to give a good vantage of the rest of the city below as well as the shifting landscape between what had once been Rens and Ter. The wide Foash River flowed between the lands, and Jornas sat just on the Rens side of the water. Vibrant green plains stretched across the Ter side, but on the Rens side, the ground had already begun to dry as it approached the river, as if something more than simply the water separated the two lands.

  “As you serve yours, I suspect,” she said softly.

  That time, Eldridge smiled. Few picked up on the fact that he was not of Ter. He had taken much effort to hide that fact, even though within the College of Scholars, many came from outside the borders. The college served all lands and none. But many came from Ter.

  “You’re observant,” he noted.

  “As are the scholars.”

  “I couldn’t help but note how you managed to calm Deidre within the hall.”

  “She can be excitable, but she means well.”

  “How were you able to calm her as you did? It was more than what you said.”

  Reyanne said nothing for a moment, letting the increasing breeze billowing around the tower pull at her. The wind was unshaped, though he didn’t know what effect the elementals had in it. Possibly they were one and the same, if what he’d learned while studying in the barracks was true, though he no longer knew how much he really understood. These days, he didn’t feel like a bishop within the College of Scholars. He felt more like the newest initiate, fumbling with every bit of knowledge he acquired.

  “You are a powerful shaper,” she noted.

  “I think you’re mistaken.”

  “Am I?” she asked, turning toward him. “You pull on the wind and command it in ways that few others manage. I would say that equates to power.”

  “Much like the way you were able to soothe Deidre. Was it earth?”

  It was a guess more than anything. Eldridge didn’t have the ability to shape anything other than the wind, but he had knowledge of each of the elements and an understanding of the way they could be used. Earth could be used to soothe another, but very few shapers ever managed to use it in such a way.

  “Earth,” she said quietly. “Earth can be seductive, you know. Much like the wind. And fire. But water came first. Always water in Rens.”

  The girl they’d found in Tsanth had said much the same. She had gone with Volth and Alena back to the barracks with the intent of learning from them. Since leaving, Eldridge hadn’t returned to the barracks and didn’t know if she really had the potential that Wyath suspected. But the woman had seemed to think something special about the girl, and Cheneth had claimed the woman should be trusted. So where did that leave Eldridge?

  “That wasn’t a water shaping,” Eldridge said.

  “No? I thought you weren’t able to shape, Bishop.”

  “I shape wind. And I study the elements. That would not be water you used on Deidre.”

  Reyanne let out a frustrated breath.

  Connected to the wind as he was, Eldridge recognized the way she forced it away from her, soft but annoyed. There were advantages to reaching the wind, to listening to the way it flowed around everything. Not the least was his ability to hear conversations he would otherwise be excluded from, though some—l
ike Cheneth—knew how to seal him off so that he couldn’t overhear what was said.

  “You have a connection, don’t you?” Eldridge asked.

  “What do you know about it?”

  “Only that there are some shapers with the ability to reach a deeper connection to the elements. They have a more profound attachment, and through that, their abilities manifest in ways other shapers are not capable of.”

  That seemed about as specific as Eldridge dared go with her. Revealing more meant he would reveal secrets she might not be ready for, especially if she denied the connection to the elementals. But they needed to find others with that ability, and before Tenebeth managed to claim them, especially after seeing the way Thenas had been used.

  “Earth answers me,” Reyanne said. “Water first, but not as strong as earth. I can do things with it. Use it in ways that others…”

  “Your instructors?”

  She met his eyes. “Atenas taught me many things, Bishop. I learned to control the water in ways I would not have in Rens. I learned to draw upon fire, even if my touch is not as strong as some. And I learned to listen to the wind, including the way that you pull at it.”

  Eldridge suppressed his surprise. Had she known the way he used the elemental, drawing upon the strength of his connection to shape more strongly than he would otherwise? That seemed unlikely, but only as unlikely as her ability to soothe another shaper with earth.

  “And earth?”

  “There was only so much that I could learn of earth in Atenas.”

  “Because you already knew?”

  “Because the way I use earth is different than what I found in Atenas. I don’t understand it, and maybe I’m not meant to, but it’s almost as if I hear a voice guiding me, showing me ways to use it that I would not otherwise be capable of doing.”

  Eldridge stepped forward. That was the admission he’d been waiting for. The acknowledgement that she could speak to the elementals, even if she didn’t know what she did. “There is a place where you can learn to control this ability,” he began, “a place where others know such a connection.”