Tolan struggled with whether there was anything he might be able to uncover but failed.
There had been three people who had stood over top of him. He remembered that acutely. Not only that, but there had been a sense of elemental energy from them.
What if they weren’t people at all?
Tolan didn’t know. That might be the most terrifying thing, the idea there might be elementals he couldn’t identify. Ever since going to the Academy, he’d had an understanding of the elementals.
Could they be similar to what he’d seen in the hall of portraits? He’d assumed they were shapers from that time, but what if they were something else?
He had to focus on the Draasin Lord. If he was able to figure out what had happened to the draasin, and if he could figure out what had happened to Ferrah, then maybe he could connect to at least the Draasin Lord and alert him of what had happened and inquire whether or not there was anything that might be done to help him. Tolan tried to reach for that understanding, focusing on the sense of the elemental, but he detected nothing.
Maybe there was something else he might be able to uncover.
Hyza was still out there. If he could grab onto the sense of that elemental, then Tolan thought he might be able to use it and identify whether there was a way out.
All of this because he had wanted to find the place beyond the waste.
He remembered it. There was something beyond the waste. All the time they had searched, thinking they might be able to uncover something beyond the waste, and here he had found something.
Tolan rolled, trying to clear his vision again, but there was nothing other than a sense of darkness around him.
As he focused on shaping, he tried to determine whether or not he would have any connection to any of the elements. He started with fire. At least with fire, he thought he had not only his own natural connection, but he had that of hyza. He could use that connection, reach through it, and he could borrow strength.
There was a flutter of something within him.
It was faint, little more than that. A stirring. Not much more than a stirring.
Tolan hesitated and then reached for it again.
He needed to find a sense of not only fire, but of each of the elements. If it was going to require he try to escape, he would need to be able to draw upon all of the elements.
Hyza should be able to grant him a connection to earth as well.
Tolan attempted to reach for that, but the sense of earth was absent.
It was almost as if he were out on the waste again.
He didn’t have that sense from where he was.
Slowly, his vision began to clear. He looked around. It was a stone building, simple. The walls were bare. Even the flooring was bare. Smoke drifted from a hole near the center of the structure, heading overhead.
That was the sense of fire.
Why couldn’t he have a sense of earth with as much of the earth as there was around him? With the smoke drifting up, there should be a connection to wind as well, but as he searched for that connection, he didn’t find one.
He continued to reach for each of the elements while getting up. There was no sense in lying where he was, staying motionless. What he needed was to get moving, to figure out where he was and if there was anything he might be able to do to find Ferrah. In the meantime, he had to find a way to reach for the other elements.
Where was the opening here? There had to be some sort of door with access to the outside, but he didn’t see anything.
That meant the way out was through shaping.
He focused on the power of the elements.
If it was going to take shaping, then Tolan was going to find his way free. He had to view it as if it were a test at the Academy. He had to find some way to move beyond where he was, and then to figure out what he needed to do next.
Closing his eyes, he embraced the emptiness. There was fire. That much he still was aware of. He needed to go beyond the sense of fire, though. He could find it by reaching not only through himself, not only to the sense of hyza, but he could reach it by feeling the smoke. The heat that caused that smoke. That allowed him to connect to this land.
That was the key. Tolan had done that enough times within the Academy, trying to get an understanding of the land and where he was, and he thought he should be able to do so now.
He breathed in that sense. It took a moment, but he centered himself, locking onto the awareness of it. When he was done, he turned his attention to earth. The sense of earth was there; he just had to find it. It was all around him. The building itself pressed against him. The stone beneath his feet. The way the structure curved overhead. All of that tied him to earth. Tolan had to find a way to latch onto that sense, to use it to enable him to reach beyond…
There.
The sense of hyza flared in his mind. Fire and earth, the combination coming together. Tolan breathed that sense in, focusing on it. Welcoming it.
With each passing moment, he was able to call upon more power, letting that sense fill him.
What about the other elements?
He waited, calling for wind. That was here. He was certain of it in the way that the smoke drifted up, and he could see it.
He didn’t have the same connection to wind, but perhaps he didn’t need it. It was within himself, and it was all around.
The wind came with the breath in his lungs. Each time he breathed in and out, he moved with the wind. He started there, focusing on that, holding onto that awareness as it filled him.
From there, Tolan moved outward, locking onto how the smoke drifted overhead.
It was there. A stirring. Power that fluttered around him.
Holding onto earth and fire, Tolan prepared, readying himself for a connection to wind.
Then he stabilized it.
He added what he could of the wind, what he could of earth and fire, holding those three elements.
That left water.
Was there water around him?
It was trickier to reach. There was a sense of water, but finding it involved reaching for an awareness that was different. There was moisture in his mouth. There was the thundering of his blood through his body, and as he focused on both of them, he realized he could connect to that sense of water.
Holding onto them, he reached for that element.
Gradually, the sense came to him.
He held onto it, latching onto the awareness of water, adding it to the others.
All four elements were bound to him.
That left only spirit.
Finding spirit shouldn’t be difficult. Tolan had always been aware of it within himself, ever since he had discovered the source of it. If he could use what he was able to uncover, to draw up that sense of power within himself, then he could mix all of the elements together and create a warrior bond.
In doing so, he could leave.
He wanted all the reassurance he could. That was all he really wanted at this point. He held onto his connection to the others and forced himself to strain, searching for what he could of spirit.
If it was anywhere, it would be deep within him.
Spirit was different than the other elements. It was one he had spent the least amount of time studying. His spirit instruction within the Academy had been disrupted by the spirit teacher, and it had minimized his ability to reach for it.
Irina had helped. She had taught him during their brief travels, which left him thinking that perhaps he should have tried to spend more time with her.
Tolan closed his eyes, breathing in that sense. There was an absence.
That was what he had to find a way past. Spirit was within him. It just required he dig deeper and find it.
What would his mother have done?
Not he wanted to think like that, but his mother was powerfully connected to spirit, and using that power and connection, she would have been able to draw upon it in ways he still did not understand.
Tolan held onto that
awareness.
He thought about what his mother would have done, and how she would have used spirit. She might even have tried to create some sort of illusion, making herself look different. She had used spirit on him so many different times and in so many different ways that she had served as something of a master instructor to him, almost without intending to. Never had she helped him reach the connection to it.
That connection was there; it was just a matter of digging deep enough within himself to find it. Tolan strained for it. He had to find some way to dig deeper within himself and uncover the key. He held onto it, thinking about what he might be able to discover, and in doing so, he found the sense of spirit faint, though present.
It was a strange sensation, little more than a flare of power.
He had to grasp that sense.
He tentatively reached for it.
There.
As he pulled on it, he readied himself to mix spirit with the other elements. He wasn’t going to be trapped here. He could use spirit and he could connect to it in a way that would allow him to bond the elements together and create the warrior shaping.
Then he could leave.
Later, he could return. The Draasin Lord would come with him. Maybe Ferrah, or maybe others. He would need someone to be able to protect him and prepare him for the possibility he would be attacked again. Tolan had to be ready for that potential attack. He could not suffer again.
As he readied the shaping, there was a flutter near him.
“Who taught you that?” The voice was strange and distant.
Tolan opened his eyes, prepared to call the shaping to him, but curiosity overwhelmed him.
He didn’t see anything.
“Who’s there?”
Could it be an elemental?
He focused on the sense of the elements, but as he did, there was nothing within it that allowed him to detect what he heard.
He had to be careful here. If it was something of power, he was going to need to draw upon his own energy and power and try to find a way to blast himself free. The warrior shaping could carry him from here. Tolan had little doubt that it would be successful, and he had little doubt he could use it, even here. He could feel that energy coursing within him. Holding onto each of those elements and the power within him, he prepared for that sense.
Still, he hesitated.
“Where did you learn that?”
This time, the voice came closer.
Tolan looked around, but he didn’t see anything.
He was going to have to act. If he did not, and if he waited too long, then whatever was near him might have a chance to slow him. He didn’t know if there was any reason to fear whatever it was he was detecting, but he suspected that there was. If this being, this possible elemental, tried to attack him, then he would have to be careful.
“Show yourself.”
He shifted the nature of his shaping, still holding on to each of the elements but pushing it outward. Rather than readying for a warrior shaping, he created something of a barrier. If nothing else, that barrier would offer him some protection.
Tolan squeezed that sense away from him, trying to be prepared for whatever might come, but even as he did, he wasn’t sure that this shaping was going to keep him safe.
Without knowing what was here, he didn’t know if there was anything to be concerned by. He couldn’t feel anything. That, more than anything, left him troubled. Most of the time, Tolan was able to detect the sense of elementals, or even other people. There was no sense.
Either they were separating him from that ability, or they were hiding from him.
Then again, his mother had managed to mask herself from him. She had used some sort of control over spirit to keep him from knowing she was hiding within plain sight.
Could whatever this was do the same thing?
Tolan had to depart. To get to safety, he wasn’t willing to remain here, not if it involved getting attacked by whatever this was.
As he gathered the shaping again, pulling on each of the elements, the stirring came again.
It was closer this time.
“I can feel you there,” Tolan said. “I’m leaving unless you show yourself.”
There came another stirring. The sense of it was strange, but he could feel it. Why should he be able to feel it so strongly?
Gradually, something twisted within the air, a translucent shape shimmering for a moment before appearing before him.
It was a man. But it was no man. An elemental.
Tolan frowned, all thoughts of leaving fading away.
Curiosity was the primary emotion now, and he wanted and needed to know just what he was detecting. Who was this? What was this?
He stared at this elemental, pushing out with each of the elements, probing to see whether or not there was anything he might be able to uncover. The elemental was not earth, not fire, though the way that it had shimmered and appeared in front of him had told him that. He wondered if perhaps it was a combination of water and wind. That might explain the way it was able to suddenly appear before him, but as he focused on each of those elements, only wind seemed to respond.
It was a subtle effect, though. Even though he was able to detect the sense of wind, Tolan wasn’t picking up on an overwhelming awareness of it from this elemental.
“What are you?” Tolan asked.
There was some part of him that wondered whether or not the creature would even respond, but he had already spoken. Tolan had heard the elemental as it had spoken to him, wanting to know where he had learned the shaping.
Why did that matter to him?
That seemed significant.
He frowned as he focused on the shaping, holding onto the awareness of it, prepared for the possibility he might need to use it again.
“You wanted to know where I learned this shaping. Why?”
The elemental started to shimmer, almost as if he was going to disappear again.
“If you leave, I’m leaving.”
The elemental hesitated.
There was a surge, and then hesitation.
Tolan breathed out, focusing on wind again, trying to connect to the elemental, but wind didn’t seem to be fully effective. It meant that the elemental was mixed with something else, but what?
He pushed outward, probing.
The elemental was there before him, but there seemed to be something different about it. He was unlike any wind elemental that Tolan had never experienced before, and his time within the Academy had shown him many of the elementals. Certainly enough he would have an understanding of most of them.
This one was different. This one was strange, as if something wasn’t quite right.
He probed through him again, reaching with each of the elements, struggling for a sense of which of the elements he might be able to uncover.
The only element he hadn’t probed with was spirit.
Could it be?
Tolan pushed out with spirit.
Adding that caused the flare of awareness within him.
The elemental was tied to spirit. Wind and spirit.
“How?” he breathed out.
The elemental started to shimmer again, and Tolan reached for him, trying to keep him from disappearing. He wanted answers, and if that elemental disappeared, Tolan wasn’t sure he would ever be able to know anything about it. He would never know anything about how it was here.
He tried grabbing the elemental, trying to get more of an understanding, but it shimmered, disappearing for a moment.
Tolan backed up, wrapping the shaping around himself again. That was what the elemental had been most curious about. If he could use that, and if he could draw that sense to him, then he thought he might be able to find some way to understand the elemental.
It wanted to know about the warrior shaping. Tolan was willing to show it anything that it needed.
He readied the shaping again.
The elemental hesitated.
“That’s it,
isn’t it?” Tolan asked. “You want to know about the warrior shaping, but why?”
“It should not be.”
Tolan stared at the elemental, his mind racing. “How are you here?”
“Found you.”
“You did?”
“We.”
“We?”
“There are others.”
“I was looking for—”
“You found it.”
Tolan frowned. Did they know what he was going to say? “Someone attacked me.”
“Not us.”
There was something strange about how the elemental spoke to him. “How many are there like you?”
“Many,” the elemental said.
“You’re different.”
“Different. We are…”
The elemental tipped his head, and there came a strange surge of power. It flowed through the connection, and Tolan was aware of how the elemental used wind, but it also mingled with spirit. The elemental frowned, and Tolan found there to be something quite human about the expression.
Tolan couldn’t take his eyes off him.
Was this what his mother had been working with?
There was nothing dangerous about this elemental, but combined with spirit as it was, he could easily imagine his mother using her ability and doing something dangerous. Harmful. And if there was someone else she worked with, then there was an even greater risk of danger.
Tolan had to understand.
There was some part of him that wanted to leave. It would bring him to safety. It wouldn’t take much to pull upon the warrior shaping, to use that in order to be guided to safety, but if he were to do that, then he would abandon any attempt at learning what was taking place.
He needed to know.
Tolan closed his eyes for a moment, using that quiet and solitude to detect the connection between himself and this elemental. And there was a connection. It came through spirit. It came through wind.
There was something almost familiar about the elemental, though Tolan wasn’t sure why that should be.
“Where are we?”
“Safe,” the elemental said.
“I was in the waste.”
The Elements Bond (Elemental Academy Book 7) Page 10