A Fading Fire

by D. K. Holmberg

  Maybe spirit would help with the Draasin Lord, though Tolan didn’t know if that was possible. As far as he could tell, the Draasin Lord was bonded to spirit. Perhaps not the same as some elementals, but there was spirit within him. Without it, Tolan didn’t know if he would be able to speak to the Draasin Lord.

  “Were you already tied to spirit?” Tolan asked.

  “All are tied to spirit.”

  “The lizard told me they weren’t always that way. Maybe there was a time when the draasin weren’t connected to spirit.”

  The Draasin Lord made a circuit, dragging his tail along the ground. Steam hissed from him, and he rumbled with a sense of power. Irritation flashed from him, a distinct sensation that Tolan could detect.

  “What is it?” Tolan asked.

  “There have been many times when I wished I could recall what it was like before.” He looked up, his bright eyes meeting Tolan’s. “I have lived a long life, and much has changed, but much has been lost for me as well.”

  “What do you think you should remember?”

  “There is something about you that is familiar.”

  Tolan started to smile, but a memory of something Master Minden had said came to him.

  What if the Draasin Lord had known me, or at least a version of me that had existed before?

  The Draasin Lord lived such a long life compared to men that it would be possible. “We haven’t talked about what happens when you are gone.”

  The Draasin Lord swiveled his head, turning so that he could look at Tolan. There was a weight in his gaze, and there was something else that shone within it as well. It was a sense of power. Of age. There was a heaviness, almost as if the Draasin Lord feared having this conversation.

  Tolan wasn’t sure if that fear was real or whether it was imagined. It was possible that he was placing emotion into the Draasin Lord that wasn’t there. As far as he knew, the Draasin Lord feared nothing, possibly not even death.

  “When I’m gone from here, I rejoin fire.”

  “The bond, or fire itself?”

  “Are they different?”

  Tolan frowned. “I guess I don’t know.”

  “Fire is the bond. The elementals are fire. Even shapers such as yourself are connected in that way.”

  “So when you are gone, you rejoin the fire bond?”

  If that was the case, then he thought there might be some way to visit the Draasin Lord, even when he was gone.

  “I rejoin the bond, but I am not reborn. Not at first. I am a part of fire. A part of the bond.”

  Tolan thought that he understood. When he had been within the bond, there had been a sense of power there. He had recognized that power, and he had recognized that energy.

  “You become the power of the bond.”

  “Yes.”

  “When shapers move on, does the same thing happen?”

  The Draasin Lord rumbled softly. “There is no reason it should not. Are shapers any different than the elementals? You are a part of the world, and your power is a part of the world, which means it’s a part of the bond.”

  “Which part of the bond?”

  “Spirit.” The Draasin Lord said it as if it should be obvious.

  “If I’m going to rejoin the bond, and if those who have come before us have rejoined the bond, then you suggest we are all reborn.”

  The Draasin Lord settled down near him, watching him. “I suggest there is the possibility.”

  “And you think there is something similar about me.”

  “It feels that way.”

  “If that’s the case, then perhaps you and I knew each other before. Maybe that’s the reason you allowed me to work with you.”

  “Perhaps,” the Draasin Lord said.

  Tolan looked at the Draasin Lord, thinking about his power and the connection they shared. The idea that he would not truly die was somehow reassuring, though he didn’t want to consider the possibility of what might happen to him when his time was over. If he were to rejoin the bond, even if it was spirit, then there was something about it that he should be reassured by.

  “Is there any way of knowing who I might have been?”

  The Draasin Lord settled down, lowering his head to look at Tolan. “No more than there would be a way for me to know who I had been.”

  “Were you always a draasin?”

  “A draasin is fire.”

  “There are other elementals of fire.”

  “There are.”

  “So you’re saying that it’s possible there are other elementals that you could be.”

  “I don’t know. When my time is over and I rejoin the bond, it’s possible I won’t recall anything beyond what I was.”

  Tolan wished he had a better understanding of the Draasin Lord and who he was and what they might’ve been. Then he might be able to borrow from those memories.

  “I feel like I need the Guardians to share more with me.”

  “Perhaps you might understand more.”

  Tolan focused on spirit. Now that he had bonded the Guardians to spirit, he thought he could use that power to help him better understand them. He let spirit flow from him to each of the element Guardians. They were there, sitting where they had sat for generations. The sense of the bondar that connected them to the Convergence was there as well, drawing them deeply toward the elements.

  Tolan could feel the energy flowing from the Convergence toward the elementals, and from there it flowed outward. It rolled toward the center of the clearing, toward the heart of the waste, and toward the Convergence here. He breathed in that power, focusing on it, thinking about how much of that power he could detect. It was all around him.

  He recognized something more within it.

  “I wasn’t able to detect the Convergence quite as strongly as I can now,” Tolan said softly, not turning to the Draasin Lord but somehow aware of him regardless.

  “It has always been here.”

  “Why hidden, though?”

  “The Guardians have protected it.”

  “Why have they needed to?”

  The Draasin Lord didn’t respond.

  Tolan had a sense from him, a surge of understanding coming through the connection they shared, and it was one of confusion. It wasn’t that the Draasin Lord didn’t want to answer. It was more that the Draasin Lord simply didn’t know the answer.

  There was power here. That had never been in doubt. Now that he could feel it, he sensed that the Draasin Lord simply didn’t know what it was and how to use it.

  “Could that be what we need to uncover?” He looked over at the Draasin Lord. “We need to understand the Convergence.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Tolan focused on spirit, but then he shifted, thinking about the other elements.

  It was long past time for him to try to grasp the key to this Convergence. His mother had come out here, searching for power. At the time, Tolan hadn’t understood what it was, nor had he understood what she intended.

  I suspected it was tied to Chaos, but what did I really know?

  Tolan remembered the way that she had used that power, at least the way that he believed that she had used that power. He had thought it was tied to another element, or perhaps another elemental, one that they didn’t have as much experience with. Now he was no longer as certain.

  Perhaps Chaos had been nothing more than a spirit shaping.

  When his mother had attacked, there had been a reason that she had been after this space. He had thought that it was tied to the Convergence, and perhaps it was. He didn’t really know whether or not that was the case or whether there was something else that she was after. At this point, every memory that he had of his mother, and everything that he had experienced with her, was tainted by what had come before.

  Tolan couldn’t help but feel as if there were aspects to those memories that were clouded and needed to be clarified. As he thought about the Convergence, he couldn’t help but wonder that if by trying to reach into it and t
rying to better understand it, he would be doing exactly what Roland wanted of him.

  Tolan focused on the Guardians and the connection he shared with them, along with the power they commanded. He hesitated a moment, and then he pulled upon shapings of each of the elements, adding spirit as he reached toward each of the Guardians.

  It was a quest. A question.

  “Is the Convergence forbidden?”

  The Draasin Lord rested next to him, silent, though there was power coming from him. Gradually he began to hear an answer. First was earth. He didn’t know if it was because he had spoken to earth first, that he had restored earth to the bond soonest, or whether it was something else.

  “Not forbidden.”

  It was a rumbling sense that came from the earth elemental.

  Fire came next.

  With it, there was a sense of energy and understanding. Within that fire, he detected the source of the elemental. “You may reach for the Convergence.”

  Tolan breathed out a sense of relief. He hadn’t known whether or not the other elementals would agree to allow him to reach for the Convergence. Earth was easier. It was odd to him that he felt as if he had a greater connection to earth, especially after the earth bond had shifted, but he did feel that way.

  Turning toward wind and water, Tolan waited.

  The wind Guardian gave an answer on a breath of air that filled him, a whisper of sound that braided within his mind. He focused on water, and that sense washed through him as well.

  Tolan shaped, using power to carry him into the air, and then he turned his attention down. By focusing on it, he allowed that power to blast out from him, watching toward the ground and then beyond.

  He focused on the energy of the Convergence. He could feel that power. It rolled through him. Tolan focused, probing deep into the ground as he reached for the Convergence.

  Other Convergences had been within places of power. Places like the Academy or within the tower in Par. In this case, as he probed and searched for the Convergence, he wasn’t entirely sure how to reach it or where he could find it.

  Tolan pushed out with the elements, probing deep into the ground. Far beneath him was the energy that he detected. By holding onto it, he could feel that power flowing. It was there. It filled him. It called to him. All he needed to do was use a warrior shaping and he could be carried to it.

  The unknown worried him. What might he find down there?

  He had to know.

  There was only one way to find the answer he needed.

  With a blast of power from each of the elements wrapped together, lightning streaked from the sky, carrying him from where he stood in the heart of the waste to a place deep beneath the ground. Tolan hesitated as the burst of lightning cleared, worried about where he was, and then opened his eyes to a vast open chamber.

  16

  There was something unusual about this chamber. Tolan swept his gaze around, trying to get a feel for where he was. Distantly, the sense of the Guardians was above him, the power he detected from them high overhead. That sense pressed upon him, giving him an awareness of the Guardians, along with spirit he had detected from them.

  If the warrior shaping were able to carry him down here, then it was almost certain that it would be able to carry him back. Holding onto each of the elements, he readied a shaping that would return him back to where he had been.

  Tolan looked around him, holding onto a faint shaping of fire to illuminate this space. It was an enormous chamber. The walls were all smooth. Pillars stretched through the center of it. The ground was equally smooth and firm. As he made a small circuit, his feet thudded on the tile. A layer of dust swirled up as he walked. Lanterns hung along the walls, and Tolan hesitated before lighting them with a shaping of fire.

  As they flickered to life, the entire hall took on a gentle glow.

  It was a temple deep beneath the ground and familiar to him from the last time that he’d been here. He could feel the draw of the Convergence. It was near him, near enough he could feel its energy, though he couldn’t see it quite yet. Not like he had seen the other places of Convergence when he had appeared within them.

  Making a steady circuit, he studied the walls. There were no runes along the walls; they were on the tile beneath his feet. They were runes similar to the ones he used. He hesitated to push power through them, uncertain about what they would do. Perhaps nothing. Runes were simply meant for power.

  He crouched down, studying some of the nearest runes. Not all of them were familiar. There was something near enough to runes he did use that he thought he should recognize them but didn’t.

  He frowned as he studied them. He’d seen similar runes before.

  Those in the Beyond.

  Tolan pulled upon fire, drawing from the element bonds, from Thoren, and even from the Draasin Lord. He pushed that power out from him, and it completely illuminated the entirety of the chamber. Light glowed everywhere, almost as bright as the sun.

  Tolan looked up at the ceiling overhead. It curved high above him, far enough overhead that it disappeared into the darkness. He could feel something from it, and whether that was power of the elements or runes marked upon them, he didn’t know. He turned his attention to the markings along the tile. Many of them were runes he recognized, though there were some he did not. He crouched down in front of one, tracing his finger along the pattern, noticing earth, then water, then wind, then fire. Each tile had a different rune upon it. There were none for spirit. He paused in front of the pillars, making a circle. There were five columns, each of them massive and stretching toward the curved ceiling overhead. There were markings around the base of the pillars, but none along their surfaces.

  As he stepped toward the center, he felt the power of the Convergence.

  It was here.

  This was a different sort of Convergence than the others.

  It seemed strange that it should look so different than the others, but it wasn’t only the way that it appeared that left him uncertain. It was the power he detected. There was a strange sense from that energy.

  That power flowed from high overhead, drifting from the Guardians, from their connection to spirit, and toward him. It was tied to the bondars, that power that he had held onto, that energy that he had recognized when he had first formed the seal that tied the bondars and the Guardians to the other Convergence.

  As he stood here, he could feel power flowing.

  He could feel power coming from the distant sense of the other Convergences, through the bondars, and here. It connected this place.

  There had to be some reason that the Guardians existed, some purpose that tied them to this land and held them here. There had to be some reason the ancient shapers had created the massive bondar that bridged the other Convergences to this one.

  Where was the Convergence itself? Could it be buried beneath the tile?

  Tolan crouched down, running his hand along the surface. He pushed out with a gentle shaping. He didn’t dare use too much power, not wanting to overwhelm anything that might be here.

  He detected a steady rumbling that echoed within him. The Convergence was separated from him, though he could feel it.

  What reason would there be in sealing off the Convergence?

  He remembered how the Draasin Lord had warned him about coming to the Convergence. At the time, the Draasin Lord had been serving as one of the Guardians. It was more than that, though. The Draasin Lord had said Tolan wasn’t ready for what was here.

  Within that power was something more.

  Knowledge.

  That was what he was after, wasn’t it?

  Everything that he had witnessed and experienced when it came to Roland—and his mother—came back to him.

  With a burst of memory, Tolan realized that when he had been here before, he had been pursuing something different. His mother had used power in a strange and twisted way.

  That was what this was tied to. That was what Roland was after.

&
nbsp; He wanted to access this power, however twisted it might be.

  Could it be held here within this Convergence?

  The symbols on the tiles, runes similar to those in the tower in the Beyond, seemed to suggest that it was possible. Tolan strode along the tiles, feeling the energy within them. The markings signified power. They signified something more than just power.

  The Guardians had allowed him to come here.

  That suggested there was something they thought he needed from here.

  Maybe it was the same thing the lizard wanted him to know. He’d told Tolan to pursue understanding. His mother had come for the elementals when she’d come here. She had freed one of the Guardians, but she had been after the others. He’d thought it was tied to control, her desire to not only control the elementals but to control the power and the flow between here and there, but when it came to interactions with his mother, spirit shapings made him miss things.

  Could I have missed a shaping? What if my mother had shaped me about why she was here? I might not have even known it.

  He’d discovered how subtle her shapings were.

  He focused on spirit.

  When it came to his mother, it was always about spirit.

  Tolan stood in the center of the five pillars, pulling upon spirit, drawing through the element bonds and through the Guardians, connecting to power here.

  A surge of bright light bloomed around him. The lizard was about the size of a large cat, and he scurried across the ground. He had scaled sides and a long, fat tail that seemed to drag across the ground as he moved. Some part of him persisted with a glowing white light, energy that radiated out from the lizard, emanating power of spirit. Tolan wondered if he could borrow that power, but suspected he would need to better connect to the lizard in order to do so.

  “This is what you wanted me to find,” Tolan said.

  The lizard made a circuit around the outside of the pillars. “I wanted you to have understanding.”

  “You trapped me within the Convergence.”

  “Did I?”

  Tolan tried to think about what he had experienced there, trying to understand just what it was. “I remember what you did.”