The Shape of Fire

by D. K. Holmberg

  “What happens if this elemental doesn’t know?” Ferrah asked.

  “I’m more concerned about whether or not he will answer me.”

  Ignoring the scholars working, much like they ignored him, he strode through the buildings and headed toward the massive earth Guardian. It was an elemental that didn’t have a name, at least not one Tolan knew. It was enormous, something like jinnar, but not quite the same. There was power from the elemental emanating from deep beneath the ground.

  He paused in front of the earth Guardian, focusing on him. Out here, the only thing he was able to do was to focus on the elements, and not upon the element bonds.

  He held his hand out, focusing on earth and spirit. That was going to be how he was going to reach this elemental, but Tolan didn’t know if he would even be able to communicate with the Guardian.

  “I need your help,” he said softly. There was no point in shouting or yelling or whispering. There was no point in doing anything other than saying the words. Even then, Tolan didn’t know if speaking was necessary. When it came to the elementals, some of the communication came through a different means. Some of it came through spirit, as if they spoke in the back of his mind.

  There was no answer.

  Tolan probed again, sending out another request. “I need your help,” he said to the elemental.

  There came a distant and faint rumbling.

  He held onto that, focusing on it, and tried to embrace it. It was that rumbling he needed to latch onto and see if there might be anything he could understand from it.

  “There has been a change to the bond. I need to understand what it means.”

  He waited. After having asked the question, he held onto anything he could in order to understand if the elemental would be willing to help.

  Perhaps it was not even a willingness to help but an ability to speak to the elemental.

  Once again, Tolan pushed outward, using everything he could in order to reach for the elemental. He focused on earth, focusing on spirit, mixing them together in a way he hoped would allow him to reach for the sense of the elemental. He still didn’t feel anything change.

  Pushing through the sense of his connection to Thoren, Tolan quested for the answer. In his mind, he formed the request. Help me reach the Guardian.

  The answer was faint, distant, but it was there. Tolan could feel the energy coming up from hyza, could feel the connection, and Tolan thought he heard an answer and a way for him to do what he needed.

  Earth.

  He wasn’t entirely sure what to make of that. He knew he needed earth in order to reach the earth elemental, but what was it going to take? Could it be merely about focusing only on earth, or was there something else that he might be able to use?

  Maybe it was not spirit.

  All the other elementals required him to reach through not only the element bond, and not only to the connection that he shared with each of the elements, but also to connect to them with spirit.

  Why would the Guardians be different?

  But then, they were protecting something. They used the sense of the element, holding onto power through the connection to the Convergence, and tied to them in a way a bondar would hold that power.

  He could reach for earth.

  He pushed outward, focusing on earth, and used a shaping similar to what he used when he was trying to communicate to the elementals, but this time he left spirit out of it. It was only earth, and it came from someplace deep within him.

  He felt another rumbling.

  This time, it came more clearly. He recognized the sense of it, and he felt it throughout him. There was something else within it that he recognized.

  Tolan pushed more shaping energy through him and toward the elemental.

  Gradually, he became aware of the energy.

  The elemental started to stir.

  Somewhere behind him, the scholars who were studying the Guardians shouted.

  Tolan understood why. The Guardians remained still, motionless, and for them to stir meant that something was changing.

  “Let them know what I’m doing,” Tolan said to Ferrah.

  “How? I don’t even know what you’re doing.”

  “I’m shaping earth at the Guardian to see if we can learn from him.”

  The earth rumbling struck again, and this time it was powerful, loud. Tolan could feel it echoing through him.

  It was trying to talk to him.

  Tolan pushed more power out from him, using more of earth shaping.

  The earth Guardian was trying to talk. He was using the rumbling to do so.

  There was some sort of frequency to it. Tolan closed his eyes and found himself moving in time with the elemental. Vaguely, he recognized it, and he thought he might be able to use what he uncovered to know what the elemental was doing.

  As it rumbled through him, Tolan thought about that power and about the nature of what was out there.

  Then he heard it.

  Earth.

  It came to him, knowledge of what Thoren tried to explain, and an understanding of what he was supposed to do as he used earth. It wasn’t just a way of shaping the elemental and trying to connect to it. It was also way of understanding it.

  He shaped earth through himself, using the same sort of shaping that he tried to use upon the earth Guardian.

  Suddenly, a voice rumbled in his mind.

 

  The suddenness of it almost overwhelmed him. It filled him, a throbbing sort of sound that reverberated, thundering through him.

  The element bond has changed. I’m trying to understand the nature of that change and whether there’s anything I should be concerned about.

 

  It seemed as if he was simply repeating what Tolan had said.

  The earth bond has changed. I’m trying to find out why. I need to know if there’s anything to be concerned about.

 

  Tolan glanced over at Ferrah, who had gone over to speak to some of the scholars. They were talking to her. One of them was waving his hand, watching Tolan and pointing. This was the confirmation he needed. The bond had changed.

  Would others believe?

  The earth bond has changed, and I’m trying to understand the nature of it. Hashin went into the earth bond.

 

  When he said it this time, the elemental began to move. There was a sense of energy from him as he separated from the ground, standing. It was the first movement Tolan had seen from him like this ever since this place had once been attacked. There was an energy coming from the elemental that rumbled through the ground.

  All around him, there was another sense of energy from the other Guardians. They all stirred.

  Could the Draasin Lord have been wrong about sending him here?

  He didn’t want to anger the Guardians. All he wanted was to understand.

  Is there anything that we need to be worried about?

  the earth Guardian said.

  I know.

  He tried to get more from the Guardian, but soon he realized his mistake. The earth Guardian was old; impossibly so. He was no different than the Draasin Lord in that way. It was possible that what he was telling him wasn’t all that Tolan was hearing.

  Could there be more within that connection that he needed to try to grasp?

  Tolan focused on the nature of the communication, holding onto the rumbling energy, thinking about what it was that the elemental was saying, but wasn’t able to pick up on anything else.

  There had to be something more within it, but Tolan didn’t detect it.

  All he heard was the elemental say over and over again that the bond had changed.

  Tolan knew the bond had changed and didn’t need for the elemental to tell him that. What he needed was to try to find something else.

 

  He sighed, staring at the earth Guardian
. He towered over Tolan, power rumbling from him, washing over him. The other Guardians stirred for a few moments as well, but then all of that began to fade. All of them began to settle down, and eventually they dropped back to where they had been and fell quiet.

  The earth Guardian stopped moving. The rumbling within him faded. The connection to the earth Guardian disappeared.

  Tolan turned back to Ferrah.

  “I don’t have any idea what he was trying to tell me,” he said.

  “Did you hear anything?”

  “He said the bond had changed.”

  “That’s what you came here to tell him.”

  “Not so much to tell him, but to speak to him about it.”

  “What if—”

  She cut herself off as Master Jensen strode toward them. Tolan hadn’t even seen that Master Jensen was here. He was older man, balding, and he was dressed in a light shirt and thin pants, clothing better suited to the waste than to the Academy.

  “Master Ethar. What is this that I heard you saying about listening to the Guardian speaking?”

  “The Guardian spoke to me, but I’m not entirely sure what he was saying.”

  “How did you hear him talking?”

  “I shaped earth at him.”

  “What about these others?”

  Tolan shook his head. “I didn’t talk to them.” He didn’t even try, which maybe he should have done, now that he thought about it.

  “This is the first time that they’ve moved in… well, ever since the attack. We didn’t know if they were even still alive.”

  “They stayed by the bondar.”

  “We aren’t able to detect that. I know you can feel a connection to them, but the rest of us…”

  Tolan glanced at the other scholars. All of them were from the Academy, though most were shapers Tolan didn’t know all that well. Only a few of them were like Master Jensen, librarians who had the ability to shape out in the waste. Even Master Jensen’s ability to shape out here was limited, at least compared to Tolan’s.

  “They still live. If they’re anything like the Draasin Lord, they’re tired.”

  “I don’t think elementals can get tired,” Master Jensen said.

  “They can get tired,” Tolan said.

  He swept his gaze around the heart of the waste, thinking about the communication he’d had with the elemental. He thought about the nature of what he’d said to the elemental and wondered whether there was anything that Tolan might be able to learn from it. He thought about the power he’d detected; the rumbling. If only there was some way to store that rumbling, the communication the elemental had said to him, so he could keep trying to understand it.

  Perhaps spirit would help there. He had the memory of it, and Tolan had already seen how memories could be used; how shaping could help him. If he were able to use spirit later on to determine whether there was anything else within that message from the earth Guardian, then maybe he would find the answers he sought.

  “Did you come to help us study?” Master Jensen asked.

  “We came because we had an experience following a Selection.” Tolan told him about hashin, knowing that Master Jensen was intrigued by the elementals, and knowing that if there was anyone else who might be able to help him, it would be Master Jensen.

  The other man watched, saying nothing as Tolan spoke, and frowned deeply. “What do you think that means?” Master Jensen asked when he was done.

  “I’m not sure. That’s why I came here. The Draasin Lord suggested the earth Guardian might know, especially as he was tied to the bond as well as he was.”

  “I take it he did not.”

  “Not anything useful,” Tolan said.

  “Perhaps it’s nothing,” Master Jensen said.

  Tolan didn’t know. He wished that it was nothing, but as he thought about what he’d detected, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something to it. Unfortunately, it might be something more than he could comprehend. He had knowledge and experience with the elementals, but there were still so many things he didn’t know and so many things he wasn’t able to do.

  He turned to Ferrah, nodding to her. It was time for them to go.

  When they returned to Amitan, it meant he was returning to his role as the Master of Spirit. It meant he abandoned the possibility he might be able to uncover something about what had taken place here. It meant he acknowledged that perhaps hashin going into the bond wasn’t anything to be concerned about.

  All of those things might be true.

  It didn’t change that Tolan remained unsettled.

  Still, there was something that he thought he could do. He had yet to go to Jersan and Kelvin. That was where Ferrah had wanted him to go in the first place. Now, perhaps he needed to do so. Perhaps there would be answers there. Or perhaps he would find that there were no answers, only more questions.

  Whatever it was, Tolan would have to do something. He had to find the answers to understand why the bond had changed. He would have to find why an elemental would want to change the bond.

  The problem was that he could think of one reason an elemental would do that. He could think of one person who would want to do that.

  If the elemental had harmed the bond, then Tolan would have to do something he had never considered before. He’d need to be prepared to tear hashin back out of the bond, and perhaps more than that: keep it from rejoining.

  13

  Tolan made a steady circuit in front of the spirit classroom. Students sat on the floor, obscuring the spirit rune, though he could still feel the power from the rune even now. His mind was elsewhere, but he did his best to focus, knowing he needed to be here. It was his responsibility to teach the students as much as he could.

  It was difficult, though. Many of the students would never reach spirit, but at the same time, he had to do everything in his power to try to help them understand the nature of the element and prepare them for the possibility they might have to face someone who could reach spirit.

  It was unlikely they would find themselves confronting danger the same way that Tolan had when he was first at the Academy. At that time, there was the threat of what people believed was a shaper called the Draasin Lord. Now there was no such threat. How could there be, when the issue with the Draasin Lord had been all about releasing elementals, and Tolan was determined to do just that?

  His mind drifted, thinking back to what he’d experienced with the elementals and what he could detect of the earth bond. The bond was changed.

  What was that supposed to mean, anyway?

  Tolan could feel that the bond had changed. The elemental hadn’t needed to confirm that for him. What Tolan wanted was to understand why. More than that, he had to figure out if Roland was involved, though he’d seen no sign of him otherwise.

  For now, he had to teach—even if his mind wasn’t where he needed it.

  “I would like you all to focus on yourself,” he said and paused in the middle of the room, standing directly above the center of the rune of spirit. It was something very few people not connected to spirit were even aware of. Even those who were connected to spirit weren’t fully aware of the nature of the rune within the room. He inhaled deeply, letting the sense of this place fill him, connecting to spirit.

  “It is not enough that you tried to reach for the sense of energy you can detect. It’s not enough for you to be able to simply focus on yourselves. You need to focus on the sense of what you have within you.” There was a soft murmuring. Tolan smiled to himself. He was well aware of just how confusing his instructions were. “Spirit flows through all of you.”

  “All of us?”

  This came from a young woman in front of the classroom. She had dark hair and dark eyes, along with pale skin. She looked up at him, watching him. He detected a fire and water shaping mingling together. Many of the students who came here who didn’t have any access to spirit resorted to reaching for one of the other elements they were familiar with. It was easier to fee
l as if they succeeded with something rather than to fail at something like this.

  “All of you,” Tolan said. “Can anyone remember the very first lesson I taught you?”

  They were all second-level students, and he’d worked with them infrequently during the latter half of their first level. Spirit wasn’t a significant part of shaping education for the first-level students. That was one of the advantages he had in being a spirit shaper. He didn’t have to work with the newest of the students, but at the same time, he wasn’t able to get a chance to spend the time that he thought he needed in order to better understand some of them. Students like Jersan and Kelvin. As Tolan had been the one to Select them, he was still curious about them, and wondered whether or not they would fit in within the Academy.

  “You told us that we all have an ability to reach spirit.”

  This came from Baron, a redheaded shaper from Par. Ferrah had known his family, but she didn’t know him all that well. Seeing as how she had been away from Par for the better part of a decade, that wasn’t terribly surprising.

  “That’s not exactly what I said,” Tolan said.

  “You said we all have spirit,” a woman near the back of the room said. Her auburn hair matched her eyes, and she barely looked up. She seemed more annoyed than anything.

  Tolan smiled at her. Clarice had some potential, though he wasn’t entirely sure if it was with spirit shaping or merely sensing. Many of the shapers here would be able to reach for the sense of spirit. In their mind, it made them intuitive. It made them connected. It allowed them to better understand some of the people around them. It helped them, but it also was difficult for them to know entirely what they were doing. Shaping, on the other hand, was something else entirely.

  “That’s right. Everyone has spirit.”

  “If we have spirit, then should we be able to use it with the bondar?”

  “The bondars allow everyone who can shape spirit to use it.” Tolan paused on the rune and focused on the power within it. He chose his next words cautiously. “Spirit has always been different than the other elements.”