If he were to turn down another street, he could reach the Ephra Academy of Shaping, a place in which he had never been allowed to learn, and for so long, he had thought it was a deficiency within himself. Maybe it still was. He hadn’t reached his shaping until he had gone to the Academy, freeing his mind, using the bondars to better understand how to access the elements, but perhaps it was all because of his parents.
Tolan turned away.
He wasn’t here to reminisce and think about the perceived slights he might have experienced over the years. He needed to move past that. He was a shaper now, and there was little doubt in his mind he would be able to become a master shaper, graduate from the Academy, and then… Tolan didn’t know what he wanted.
Perhaps that was part of the reason for this journey, part of the reason Master Minden had sent him, encouraging him to go. Maybe she wanted him to know what he was supposed to be so he could eventually find himself. Was it to be a master librarian like her? According to the Grand Master, he had the potential, and because he had some ability to see the portraits, it had opened him in a way to that power, though Tolan wasn’t sure if that was even what he wanted.
If it was, what then?
Would he spend his days in the library, finding a research topic the same way the master librarians did, copiously taking notes, never changing anything, only researching and observing?
That was not what he wanted.
Despite the fact it was a place of—and he would have a position of—respect, Tolan wanted more for himself.
How could he not after everything he’d experienced?
More than that, he wasn’t sure if he could be content at the Academy in such a fashion any longer. After having seen the elementals free—truly free—he didn’t know if he could be in a place where they were not.
There was a strange presence here. It had more to do with the elementals than he had realized. There was an emptiness. When he had lived here after all those years, there had never been this sense of emptiness, though perhaps he had not been attuned to it at the time.
Even now, he wasn’t sure if it was the fact he was attuned to it or whether it was something else, and that something had changed. Perhaps that was all it was and if so, he thought he needed to understand it. If it was nothing more than the way the city had always felt, then he needed to get an understanding as to why. If there was another reason, if it was about something that had changed, Tolan thought he needed to understand that, as well.
He continued to wander the streets and opened himself up to spirit.
Of all the elements, spirit seemed the one that would offer him the most understanding. As he focused on it, he could feel the way it flowed around him. He could detect the connections between the elements, but strangely, it was different than what they had been before.
That couldn’t be a coincidence. Then again, if it wasn’t, then why was it happening now? What was he detecting?
Perhaps it was merely the fact he’d been spending time on the other side of the mountain, in a place where the disciples of the Draasin Lord existed, where a proximity to the elementals gave him a greater understanding of their presence—or absence.
Then again, perhaps it was something more.
What if something had changed?
Tolan wandered slowly, carefully, and continued to press outward, using his connection to spirit in order to do so. It was there, the faint sense of spirit existing all around, and he thought he could use that to help him reach an understanding of what was taking place, but it failed.
Perhaps he needed a different approach. If it wasn’t only spirit, could he add aspects of other elements to it?
He had never really tried combining spirit with the other elements, not the way he’d tried mixing shapings of earth and wind and water and fire. How would spirit mingle with them?
Without having any formal spirit training, it was possible he wouldn’t really know, and equally possible that trying this on his own was dangerous.
He needed to get an understanding of what was taking place because the longer he was here, the more certain he was that something had changed within the city.
What if it had to do with the elementals?
Why would the elementals have anything to do with what he detected?
Standing in a small square—Araln Square, he realized as he looked around, wondering at the name for the first time and curious as to whether it was at all tied to the wind elemental—he focused on wind and spirit. He bound them together, tying them as much as he could, though was careful not to bind them too tightly. He wasn’t sure whether mingling them in such a way made a difference or not. Perhaps there was nothing to it, but perhaps it didn’t matter, and perhaps he could use it.
Hadn’t he connected to the elementals using spirit?
Tolan had to think he could do something similar now.
In this case, he wasn’t trying to connect to the elemental. It was connecting to the element.
That was different than the element bonds. Different than the elemental.
As he focused, he thought about what he’d experienced outside of Amitan the night he’d left the city, traveling with the disciples of the Draasin Lord. That night, he had felt a closeness to the elements, one that was different than the element bond, different than even the elementals, and together, it had given him a knowledge and understanding of things he didn’t have otherwise. It was the first time he’d ever really felt that same proximity to the elements, a sense there was power within them by themselves, different than the element bond, and different than the elementals.
He needed that connection now.
Tolan focused on the way the soft breeze caressed his cheeks. There were people all around him and they left him alone, but he heard their voices. As he focused, he could almost feel them breathing. All of that went into the sense of wind in this place. Tolan continued to focus on it, reaching for that awareness, and as he did, he let that sense fill him.
It was there, a calling.
Tolan drew upon it, welcoming it.
As he did, he added a hint of spirit. Little more than that, just enough that he could push that sense into it.
Everything changed.
Not only did he have a sense of the wind, but he felt it connect. Not just his breath to the gentle breeze that blew through the clearing, but the breaths of all people around him. They were all connected. Wind was interconnected. He was interconnected to them, and they were interconnected to something even greater.
The recognition of it was amazing. Awareness filled him, power and warmth. He no longer felt quite as isolated. With the wind and how they were interconnected, he recognized the elementals would be as interconnected as he was to everyone else.
And that was what was missing.
Why should it suddenly be missing? The elementals had been forced into the bonds in Ephra and throughout Terndahl for many years. Nothing had changed.
Tolan continued to walk, and he found himself guided, caressed forward. With his hold on wind and spirit, he felt as if they both wanted to push him forward, urging him toward something.
He should have tried something like this with oshal, but he’d been so surprised by his success in freeing the elemental that he hadn’t.
Tolan followed the urging of the wind, choosing to listen rather than object in any way. Not that there would be any way to object. It wasn’t that he wanted to refuse the request of the wind. As he held onto this sense, this awareness, he felt even more certain he wanted to know what message the wind had for him.
He followed, making his way outside the city once again. He paused, looking back, curious if it was a mistake or not, but it didn’t seem to be. The wind wanted him to go in this direction. Whatever was here was where the wind wanted to take him.
Tolan went where he was guided. And as he did, he hurried forward, obeying an increasing intensity in the way the wind pushed him, almost as if he needed to reach the outskirts of the city as qui
ckly as possible. Away from Amitan.
It was the opposite direction from where he’d been heading, but connected as he was, feeling the sense of wind and everything around him, Tolan couldn’t help but feel as if this was exactly where he needed to go.
It might not be back to Amitan, but perhaps it was something more.
In the distance, a haze grew. Tolan stared, frowning as he did. He didn’t remember that outside of Ephra—at least not quite so close. It reminded him of the waste. The waste should be another day’s walk from here, far enough away that he wouldn’t be able to reach it easily without shaping. As far as he could tell, he wasn’t shaping at all.
Tolan wasn’t entirely certain if he was or was not. Perhaps he was shaping. Maybe there was no other way to detect the wind in this manner but by shaping, though the longer he listened and focused on the wind and the way it guided him, the more he felt he was not.
As the distant haze came closer, Tolan recognized it. It was the waste.
The waste shouldn’t be here. It was far enough from the city that people could leave Ephra and not ever deal with the terror of it.
As Tolan approached, he saw that the line of demarcation with the waste had changed, shifting, and there were the dried husks of trees that appeared strangely fresh.
Standing there, the wind caressing him, he noticed something else.
The wind seemed to stop at the border between here and the waste.
Tolan lingered at the edge, letting himself feel the power as it flowed outward. He had rarely spent much time this close to the waste. Now he was here, he couldn’t help but feel as if it was more dangerous than it ever had been. Perhaps that was nothing more than his imagination, but Tolan didn’t think it was.
He cocked his head, listening to the wind. Perhaps there would be a message within it that he could hear, but as he focused, he was aware of nothing.
“What do you want me to learn? That it’s moved closer?”
The wind continued to caress him, though it no longer pushed him forward the way it had. It was almost as if even the wind hesitated to send him any closer to the waste.
All of that had to be his imagination. And yet, Tolan couldn’t help but think it was not.
He looked at the ground, and the abrupt change between the border of Terndahl and that of the emptiness—the bleakness—of the waste was striking and stark.
More than that, it seemed to be moving.
That had to be his imagination, didn’t it?
But the border of the waste had moved once before. He’d been there when it had started, the way the border had suddenly changed, requiring the master shapers to hold it. The border had gone from straight to irregular.
There was an emptiness here. Having been connected to the elementals as he was, he recognized the reason for such emptiness.
The elementals.
For the waste to be retreating like this, it meant the elementals had been removed.
Keystones.
This was what the Inquisitors had been doing. They had wanted the power of the elementals, power that wouldn’t be found any other way. Trapping the elementals had moved the waste. And the draasin had known.
That was what he’d felt when he’d encountered the Inquisitors while leaving Amitan with the disciples.
If removing the free elementals had done this, what would it mean for Terndahl?
What would happen to all of Terndahl?
The idea terrified him.
22
After searching along the edge of the waste for a Keystone and failing, Tolan hurried back toward Ephra. More was taking place than even the Grand Master would have known. He had wanted the Inquisitors back, but in doing so, had given them even more access to the elementals of Terndahl—and to finding a way to trap them.
He had to reach the Convergence to stop this.
Moving beyond the far side of the city, Tolan sensed for the Shapers Path, finding it where he expected. With a burst of wind and fire, he landed upon it. His mind raced with what he’d seen and how he would frame it for those in the Academy.
It was possible the Grand Master wouldn’t believe him. Master Minden would. If necessary, he’d go to her, see what it might take to convince her, and then…
Free the elementals.
He raced along the Shapers Path. Under the bright sun, there was a hint of warmth, and Tolan used fire and wind to speed along the Path, giving himself an added boost of speed. He had followed this Path several times now, enough that he had at least a sense of where he was going, though there were branchings leading off it, heading to other places throughout Terndahl. Tolan ignored each branch point, following the road where he needed to go, and by the end of the day, he was already nearing the city. As Amitan loomed into view, Tolan barely slowed. There was no point in doing so. He needed to reach the Academy.
Just at the edge of the city, a strange sense emerged.
Power bloomed, shaping power, and Tolan recognized it.
It was the shaping power he’d detected the night he’d left. It was more than just a shaping, more than just a calling of spirit. This was something else. Could it be how they formed the Keystones?
There was shaping within the Academy, though it was muted compared to what he normally expected to see. Throughout the city, he detected an occasional flicker, a sense of the shapers living there. Their shaping wasn’t that powerful—certainly not enough to account for what he detected.
Heading in during the remaining daytime risked exposing him, so Tolan dropped down from the Shapers Path, wandering through the city. He didn’t want to come in too abruptly.
The city was like Ephra. Buildings surrounding him, many of them with a sense of shaping coming from them, and others carrying with them the sense of having been shaped. Quite a few of these buildings had required the assistance of the Academy in order to have been built, and that power flowed through them, an incredible sense that filled Tolan. He couldn’t help but marvel at the control those shapers would have needed to have in order to build some of these homes. He had never really noticed that before, but as he wandered, not holding onto a shaping, merely allowing his awareness of the elements to fill him, it was quite clear.
Perhaps it was nothing more than the fact he’d never allowed himself to have such awareness.
Tolan took a deep breath, letting a shaping flow out from him. It was spirit, and he unleashed it without fully meaning to. Using spirit, he was better able to determine whether there was anything here he needed to be concerned about. He added a hint of earth to it, his experience staying tied to wind giving him the idea. The two elements mingled, giving him a greater understanding of everything around him.
Earth alone could be powerful, a and as Tolan’s first skill had been earth sensing, he was familiar with the ways in which it could be used. Adding spirit to it changed not only his connection and what he could do, but also the sorts of things he was able to detect.
As he went, his combined spirit and earth shaping swept away from him. It touched upon the various people he passed. Many of them gave off no sense of anything other than their connection to the world, but others had something more. It took Tolan a moment to realize they were the ones who could shape.
With that realization, he stopped.
He could use this combined shaping to detect other shapers?
Could that be what the Selection was all about?
It seemed far too simple, and yet, the Selection did involve the Inquisitors, and because of that, there was an element of spirit within it. He’d believed the need for the Inquisitors came from the fact they were able to erase the memories of those who failed, but perhaps that was not it at all.
Tolan continued along the street, using this new shaping as he pushed it outward. If only he could figure out some way of uncovering those who might pose a threat to him. If he could find other spirit shapers, then he would know who the Inquisitors were and who he needed to avoid.
As far as he could
tell, the shaping did not allow that degree of understanding.
There were far more with shaping ability within the city than he had realized. Much of it touched his combined shaping softly, barely more than a tap, as if their connection to the element bonds was faint, whereas others were stronger, the detection more of a pulse, a burst of power flowing from them.
Those were the ones who had real power, and the ones he thought he should steer clear of. It was possible they were still with the Academy. He wanted to avoid members of the Academy until it was time to make his way back into the building. For now, he wasn’t sure it was safe.
Tolan wandered along the outskirts, heading toward one of the nicer buildings, and looked up when he reached it, unsurprised it was shaped into existence much like so many of the other buildings here, but also that there were several shapers of reasonable skill within it.
Tolan continued onward.
Strangely, as he went, there seemed to be a demarcation between those who could shape and those who could not. Beyond a certain point within the city, there were no shapers. He would’ve expected it would come on the outskirts of the city, but the sense of shaping was absent more toward the center of the city, closer to the Academy.
Were those who had shaping ability so fearful of getting close to the Academy that they stayed away?
It didn’t strike him as anything he’d have expected from those he’d encountered. It suggested another reason.
Near the Academy, on the other side of that demarcation, came a different sense. It wasn’t an emptiness. As he focused, he could detect shaping, but there was something else within it.
Tolan made his way slowly and focused on what he might detect on the other side. In a way, it reminded him somewhat of what he had detected near the waste. It was a barrier.
The Wind Rages (Elemental Academy Book 4) Page 24