The Shape of Fire

by D. K. Holmberg

  It was that spirit shaping which had changed everything for Tolan and his father. His mother had been a powerful spirit shaper, and she had used her connection to spirit in order to overpower both Tolan and his father. Using that power, she had overwhelmed both of their minds, coercing them into a series of beliefs that had left Tolan still wondering how much of his childhood he actually remembered.

  “The first one is always the hardest,” Tolan said. “You’ll get it, I’m sure.”

  “Your father tells me you have something of a knack for it.”

  “I do, but I do also have the advantage that I can shape.”

  “I heard that as well. What is that like?”

  Tolan smiled. “Sometimes it’s difficult.”

  His father tapped him on the shoulder. “Why don’t you come in, Tolan? Then we can talk about what you need.”

  Tolan joined them inside, and his father guided him to a chair near a hearth in one section of the room. A fire crackled warmly, and there was a hint of saa within it, the flames of the fire elemental giving off warmth and energy. Every so often, the elemental danced within the fire, easy for Tolan to notice because of how he connected to it. He could feel other elementals within the village. There were dozens upon dozens of free elementals roaming through the village, all connected to this place, drawn by the Convergence. That had been something that had surprised him when he had first uncovered that connection, but it shouldn’t have. The Convergence was a place of power for elementals; a place where they were able to get closer to the source of energy that fueled them.

  His father brought him a mug of steaming tea, and Tolan took it, sipping at it.

  “What brought you here?” his father asked.

  There was no accusation, though Tolan hadn’t visited in quite a while. “I may need to show you.” That was part of the problem. He didn’t necessarily want to carry his father to Telfair, but he wasn’t sure how to show him the nature of the bondar otherwise.

  “A bondar, I presume. Otherwise I doubt you would have come to me with this.”

  “It is a bondar. It’s one for earth—and strange.”

  “You don’t have it with you, I suppose.”

  Tolan shook his head. He took another sip of the tea. It was good. It had a hint of spice to it along with a trace of mint. It warmed his throat as he swallowed it. It left him with a tingling sense of alertness.

  “You like it?” Liza asked.

  Tolan nodded. “It’s quite pleasing.”

  “Oh, good. A special recipe I’ve had. Your father likes it as well. He says it helps focus his mind. I don’t know if it does that—I think he’s being kind—but it’s meant to be soothing.”

  “Thank you,” Tolan said.

  “Can you show me?” his father asked.

  He handed Tolan a stack of papers and a pen.

  That was a better idea. Tolan leaned forward before starting to draw the shapes he’d seen within Telfair. Most of the shapes in the bondar were similar. There was a repeating pattern to them that Tolan had identified; one per stone. They ringed the entirety of the pit, and it wasn’t until Tolan had started to draw that he began to recognize the nature of the pattern. There were five in total, five different patterns, and five repetitions of it.

  Twenty-five altogether, and they circled the entirety of the pit.

  He didn’t know if the others were the same. When he’d visited the other homes, he’d spent some time trying to get a feel for them, but he didn’t remember whether or not the patterns were the same.

  His father leaned over his shoulder, looking at the drawings as Tolan worked. “That is an interesting combination,” his father said.

  “That was what I thought,” Tolan said.

  “Why interesting?” Liza asked.

  “It’s the repetition. When we create bondars, repetitions concentrate power. Now, the more you repeat a pattern, the more power is concentrated—but there are limits to it.”

  “I haven’t seen any with five repetitions like this before,” Tolan said.

  “There are some. The bondar within the waste has thirteen repetitions, at least on some of the patterns. Not all of them required quite that much repetition.”

  “I realize that.” Tolan had been a part of creating the bondars to seal the Guardians back to the heart of the waste and recreate the connection from the Convergence to the Guardians.

  “The repetition creates an augmentation even as you’re making it. The more you place that pattern, the more that energy builds. With the right type of connection, power can explode before you’re ready for it to do so.”

  Tolan thought about what he had experienced when he had been replacing the stones holding hashin. He had been wrapped up with the power of the elements, and so he may not have even noticed any sort of building energy. They also had already been formed, so he had needed to do nothing other than replace the stones, forcing them back into the position they’d been in.

  What purpose would Roland have had with it, though?

  “This one had five repetitions. Only five different patterns.”

  “I never thought the complexity of the pattern was crucial,” his father said.

  “I thought the more you create different patterns, the more complicated it becomes,” Tolan said.

  “In some respects, that’s true. When you use the bondars they have at the Academy, the patterns are tied to the specific elemental. In other situations, the patterns are tied to the element and not the elemental.” His father shrugged. “As I’m not a shaper, and as I can only speak to the elementals—not control them the way some can—I can only tell you what I know about the elementals and the runes.”

  “Do these markings represent any specific elemental?” Liza asked. She stood on the other side of Tolan, pressing toward him. He used spirit to sense her interest.

  “There is a familiarity to it, almost as if there’s a sense of the elemental within it. This one,” his father said, pointing to one of the markings, “looks as if it is tied to feranl, an elemental of dust, but that rune is a little bit more like this.” Tolan’s father took the pen from Tolan’s hand and began to draw, making a similar rune, though not quite the same. There was just a hint of it that was different. When he was done, he frowned. “It could also represent yaloh, though that would looks more like this.” He scribbled another rune.

  Tolan marveled at his father’s understanding of the runes. He knew his father was skilled, and with everything that he was able to do to make the bondars, he’d known his father had considerable knowledge when it came to them. However, this was more than what he remembered his father knowing. He had clearly been studying.

  “I don’t know either of those markings,” Tolan said.

  “It’s from something Master Minden lent me. She thought I might benefit from one of these ancient journals you have at the Academy.”

  “I wish she would’ve offered it to me,” Tolan said.

  “I suspect she thought you were too busy with your new assignment.”

  “Yes,” Liza said, clapping her hands together. “I hear you’re the master spirit shaper.”

  He didn’t know why, but there was something about her that annoyed him. It rubbed at him in an irritating way.

  He wanted his father to be happy, and suspected the irritation came from residual spirit shaping used on him. When he was younger, all of the memories he had of his mother had been spirit shaped by her. When she’d died, Tolan had been conflicted. While she’d ultimately given him something that would protect him and had saved him, she’d been the reason he was in danger in the first place.

  “Is there anything more you can tell me about this?”

  “It is unusual,” his father said. “Maybe if we experiment with it, we might be able to test the purpose of it.”

  “I don’t know if I have time for that.”

  “You have to get back the Academy so soon?”

  “This is… a bit of a side project of mine,” Tolan said
.

  His father didn’t need to know about the danger Roland posed. This village had been through enough pain caused by Tolan’s mother under Roland’s influence.

  “If you were to help me, I suspect we could get this done sooner.”

  Tolan flashed a half smile. He could help with this.

  He had an understanding of the runes, and he also had an understanding of the elements and elementals, which allowed him to make bondars. It had been quite a while since he’d made his own bondar. Most of the time, he didn’t really find the need. He had the warrior sword, a bondar he’d created. Other than that, there wasn’t much he needed to do.

  “I can help as well,” Liza said.

  Tolan started to object, but his father headed him off. “I think you would help a great deal. Why don’t you work with me on what I’m going to do? Tolan often works best alone.”

  She smiled, still far happier than Tolan was comfortable with.

  They headed to the back of the home where his workshop was. Within it was a workbench, a wall of tools, and an entirely empty floor. Tolan glanced at the workbench, looking to see what his father had been working on. There was a stack of various shapes, some of them cracked from the bondar having failed, while others were intact.

  “It looks like you’ve been busy,” Tolan said.

  “It’s more about practice,” his father said. “Now that I remember how to make bondars, and am now back at it, there’s something to be said about being able to use them in a way that allows for us to connect to that power.”

  An idea came to him. “Have you had anybody from the Academy come to you?” Roland could probably use spirit to pose as anyone. Tolan swept spirit through his father, but found no influence.

  “Do you mean other than you and the Grand Master?”

  “There are others who’ve come.”

  “Others have come, but they mostly come to see the elementals. It’s a curiosity, not that I can blame them. The first time I came here and experienced the free elementals, I recognized the power that was within this place and how different it was from everything else.”

  “You haven’t really talked about that before.”

  “I think that was what happened,” his father said, rubbing the side of his head. “I don’t even know.” He took a deep breath. “How terrible is that? I have memories of this place, memories of coming here, memories of my reaction to it, and memories of the time I was here, but I still don’t even know how much of those memories are mine and how many were forced upon me.”

  Tolan had tried to use what he knew about spirit to reach into his father’s mind and see if there was anything he could do to help, but hadn’t uncovered anything. Spirit left little in the way of traces of energy there.

  It was the same thing for him. While he wanted to know whether or not there was any influence within his mind, there wasn’t an answer. The Grand Master himself had probed Tolan, searching for whether or not there was any way to restore his memories. Even Tolan had attempted to delve into his own mind, using the power of spirit, along with the spirit bondar, and hadn’t found anything.

  Whatever shaping had been done to both of them had changed them.

  Tolan and his father both took up implements and began to make the shapes on the bondar from Telfair.

  Tolan worked slowly. He didn’t have the same knack with forming shapes on the stone as his father did, though Tolan did have the understanding of the rune. He tried to focus on what he felt as he carved it. There was something to the making of the bondar that helped him understand the bondar itself. It was freeing in a way.

  His father worked next to him, saying nothing. He and Liza whispered softly to each other, the two of them working together. Tolan made an effort to ignore them.

  There was the sense of the shape that he was able to bring out of the stone, and he was certain he replicated it the way it had been on the bondar within Telfair, but he didn’t learn anything.

  There were times like this when Tolan wished he had more experience with making bondars. He’d worked with his father often enough that he had some experience, but nothing like his father possessed. When it came to the bondars, he could replicate them, and he could even grasp the making of them, but he wasn’t able to make new bondars from scratch.

  Every so often, Tolan glanced over at his father, listening to him and Liza as they whispered softly. They laughed with each other, making small comments and generally enjoying each other’s company.

  It felt as if it had been a long time since Tolan had done anything quite like that, when he had been able to relax—and laugh—like that. Instead, he’d been so focused on his responsibilities within the Academy and on what Roland Var might be doing that he’d neglected to spend the time he could have—and should have. Maybe Ferrah needed to be here, though he didn’t know if she’d come.

  “How is Ferrah?” his father asked, as if knowing his thoughts.

  “Disappointed in me, I think.”

  His father looked up. “Why?”

  “I’ve been preoccupied with chasing rumors that I haven’t spent the time needed with her. Or teaching. Or doing all the things she thinks I should be doing.”

  “Is she right?”

  Tolan looked down at his work. “Roland is out there. He’s still attacking.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  Tolan nodded slowly. “She’s probably right.”

  “What will you do to fix it?”

  “Fix it?”

  “You do want to fix it, don’t you?”

  “She’s been with me through everything.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “I… I don’t think I can do it without her.”

  “Have you told her that?”

  “She should know that.”

  “How could she know if you don’t tell her? You’re the spirit shaper, Tolan.”

  It was such simple advice, but nonetheless accurate.

  His father had never been one for much advice, but maybe his experiences meant something Tolan could use. He’d have to talk to her as soon as he could.

  Tolan finished with the bondar he worked on and took another piece of stone and began to create another. This one was a little different than the last; the symbol less familiar to him. He didn’t recognize the rune, nor did he recognize which elemental it was tied to, if it was tied to any at all.

  He still wasn’t sure whether or not the bondar that was found in Telfair was connected to any of the elementals. It was possible that it was simply runes marking other symbols.

  Tolan finished with the second stone and stepped back, studying it. Even after having made two of them, he still didn’t really understand their purpose. These weren’t the same kind of bondars he expected for earth.

  Tolan frowned, thinking about that.

  The runes were similar to earth elementals, but not the same.

  What if that was the key?

  As they’d been working, Tolan had been focused on the idea that all of this was bound to the earth elemental, but it was possible it was not tied to that at all. It was possible that there was another aspect within it that he hadn’t even considered.

  When he’d been within the earth bond, he’d detected earth and spirit intertwined.

  Besides, Roland shouldn’t be able to use earth. What if the combination was the key?

  Tolan focused on the sense of spirit, probing at the recreated bondars.

  When he did, there came a strange echoing. It surged, filling him in a way that it hadn’t before. Tolan’s breath caught.

  That was it.

  These weren’t just bondars for earth—though that was a part of it.

  There was spirit here as well.

  “Father,” Tolan said.

  His father and Liza were laughing. They had stopped working quite so diligently on trying to create the bondar, and they were talking to each other. His father was motioning somewhere toward the other end of the house.

>   Tolan tore his gaze away, turning it back toward the bondars. “Father. I think I found the key.”

  His father and Liza’s conversation died off and his father made his way over to him. “What do you mean that you found the key? We need to make the other parts of this bondar for you to be able to understand the sense of it. Sometimes, it takes experimenting to be able to understand what’s trapped within it.”

  Tolan glanced over at the other two. He suppressed his frustration. “Spirit.”

  “I thought you said this was a bondar for earth.”

  “I thought it was. Maybe it partly is. Spirit is mixed in as well.”

  His father took a seat at the table and pulled out a piece of paper along with the pen. He began to draw, adding flourishes to the shapes he was making, and he worked quickly, drawing out the form of the bondar. As he went, he added a few other elements that Tolan hadn’t seen.

  When he was done, he looked up at Tolan. “Try this,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I was looking at it from a different way. When you brought it to me saying that was an earth bondar, I let that focus how I thought about it. I should have known better, but…”

  His father flicked his gaze back to Liza. His father had been distracted, and because of that, his father hadn’t been thinking quickly.

  Should Tolan begrudge his father that?

  “Thinking about it as spirit, I see something different. Not the runes, at least not so well that I understand the purpose of this bondar, but I recognize there are a couple of complementary shapes missing.”

  “What happens if they’re missing?”

  “The focus of the bondar changes. Rather than focusing power and allowing it to augment, without these complementary shapes, there’s a piercing nature to it, like focusing a beam of the element.”

  “What would happen if you added these complementary aspects?”

  “It should soften it. It should make it so that it opens up the effect of the bondar. Of course, I’m not entirely sure whether or not that would even work.”

  He shrugged and looked up from his work.

  “It’s possible I’m wrong. As I said, I haven’t seen anything quite like this before, and with the power within it, it’s possible what I’ve been able to determine isn’t even accurate. If we went where you found the bondar—”