The Spirit Binds

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Do you know about a Shapers Path?” he asked the two of them.

  Tanner shook his head, but Bryn nodded. “A Shapers Path leads between most of the places in Terndahl,” she said.

  “Very good. We’re going to take it and follow the Shapers Path back to the Academy.”

  “How will we reach it?”

  Tolan hadn’t given it much thought. When he had first reached the Shapers Path, it had been Jory who had brought him to it, and because of Jory, he had been carried up to the Shapers Path. That was now his responsibility.

  Could he carry both of them?

  He wasn’t sure he had the strength to lift two others with him, nor was he sure he had the control.

  “I will bring you,” he said.

  Tanner watched him, and Bryn only nodded. With that, Tolan focused on wind and fire, using the two elements and mingling them together as he lifted them into the air, carrying them to the Shapers Path.

  Once there, he paused. In the distance, he had the sense of a shaping emanating from somewhere. It was a powerful sort of shaping suggesting it came from the Grand Inquisitor. If that were the case, then why did it seemed to be coming from farther to the north—a place only near the waste?

  Tearing his gaze away, he didn’t have time to worry about what the Grand Inquisitor might or might not be doing. He had a task, and he’d fulfill it. It was because of him they had proceeded with the Selection, and he suddenly realized he was the reason the Grand Inquisitor had assigned him the responsibility of escorting them back to the city.

  He would ensure their safety.

  “Come along. We have a long way to go,” Tolan said.

  11

  It was late in the day when the wind shifted. They had been walking for most of the day, Tolan adding a hint of shaping to their journey to give them a boost of speed. As they went, he’d been focused on the distant sense of Amitan. With every passing moment, he was more and more aware of how they approached the city.

  Having that awareness was surprising, something he hadn’t expected he would be able to do, but he recognized that sense of Amitan. It seemed to call to him, a beacon drawing them toward it.

  Tolan paused, listening to the wind. A sudden change was startling. It had been gusting up from the south, carrying with it a hint of cool air and mixing with the scents of Amitan along with the rest of Terndahl. It was the kind of wind he felt should have elemental energy mixed within it, but as far as he could tell, did not. When it shifted, he focused on it, cocking his head to the side, feeling the way it whistled past him, caressing his cheeks.

  “Tolan?” Tanner asked.

  He’d been generally quiet throughout the entire journey, almost as if he didn’t know what to say to Tolan, though for his part, Tolan wasn’t entirely sure what to say to his friend, either. There had been some small talk, but mostly it had been excitement for Tanner and Bryn, the kind of excitement he remembered the other shapers having when he had found them on the journey to Amitan. The only person who hadn’t shared in that excitement had been Tolan.

  “What is it?” Tolan asked.

  “Why did you stop?”

  “The wind changed,” he said.

  He still couldn’t tell if there was anything he needed to be concerned about with the changing of the wind. It might be nothing. Changing weather patterns weren’t all that uncommon. He had enough experience to know there were shifts to the wind, and when it did change, there was nothing dangerous to it, but the suddenness of it, along with the nature of the shift, left him a little uncertain.

  “Why are you concerned about changing wind?”

  “The changing wind can mean different things. When you shape the wind—”

  Tanner started to grin. “I think I know about shaping the wind, Tolan. If you remember, I’ve been doing it for longer than you.”

  Tolan turned back to Tanner. “And in your time studying at the academy in Ephra, has your mastery of the wind helped you understand what is taking place?”

  “I doubt anything is taking place. If it’s like you said and the wind shifted, there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Only, there might be.”

  Tolan turned away from them, ignoring the hushed conversation between Bryn and Tanner, her warning him not to push Tolan. For his part, Tolan didn’t want Tanner to say anything more, not wanting to get upset with his friend. Even though he’d been the one pushing for the Selection, Tanner viewed him as the same person who had left Ephra. He didn’t see Tolan as the man who now had control over each of the elements—and the elementals, for that matter.

  The wind continued to push on him. In this case, it had a distinct nature to it. He had felt wind gusting like this, and…

  “Elemental,” he whispered.

  “What was that?” Tanner asked, pushing up against him.

  Tolan looked around. Most of the time when there were elementals, he wasn’t concerned about them, but something in this gusting wind left him uncomfortable, and it made him question whether there was something to be concerned about. It could be the elemental had been freed from the bond. If that were the case, there tended to be a certain wildness to the elemental. When that occurred, they had to be calmed.

  With Tanner and Bryn here, Tolan wasn’t sure he’d be able to calm a wild elemental. Anything he’d do would be observed. At the same time, he had the advantage they wouldn’t know exactly what he was doing. He could do whatever he thought was necessary in order to soothe an elemental. Once that was done, he could try to dismiss it rather than forcing it back into the bond.

  “The changing of the wind is an elemental. With the way it is pushing on us, I suspect this is ara, though I can’t be certain.” Tolan focused on the wind, reaching out toward it, using his connection to wind sensing in order to try to gain that understanding, but it didn’t come to him as quickly as he needed it to.

  “An elemental?” Bryn breathed out a nervous laugh. “We haven’t seen any rogue elementals near Ephra for a while.”

  “No. I doubt you have.” The runes the Inquisitors had placed would have ensured any rogue elementals would have been drawn to them, forcing them away from whatever it was that had drawn them out of the bond. Which meant the last rogue elemental they had experienced in Ephra had been the one Tolan had been a part of.

  “Are you sure it’s an elemental?” Tanner asked. “I mean, it just feels like the wind blowing.”

  “What can you feel about the wind?”

  Tanner chuckled. “Tolan. Like I said—”

  “What can you feel about the wind?” he repeated. He glanced at Bryn. “Are you able to shape wind?”

  She shook her head quickly. “Not yet. Fire. A little bit of water.”

  That meant whatever happened, he’d have to convince Tanner, and more than that, Tanner was the one from whom he’d have to mask his actions.

  “When you focus on the wind, you can feel the way it’s blowing from out of the south. It’s not just the nature of the gusting wind, it’s the way it is pushing, the power behind it, and it tells me it is not completely natural.” That wasn’t quite right, but Tanner didn’t need to know that in some ways, the elemental energy was even more natural than anything else. “If you focus on it, you can feel the ongoing pressure. It’s almost as if it’s shaped, but not quite.”

  Tanner stared at Tolan skeptically. “Why don’t we just keep going? I think you were supposed to bring us back to the Academy?”

  Tolan nodded. “I was supposed to bring you back the Academy, and I will get you there safely, but I’m not willing to rush onward until I know whether we have anything to be worried about with this elemental.”

  “Tolan—”

  Tolan shook his head. Could he really have to argue with Tanner like this? He hated that it would come to that, but he hated just as much that it seemed Tanner didn’t recognize Tolan was different than the person who had left Ephra long ago. Then again, with everything Tanner had been through, his memories were jumble
d, and even now, he probably only remembered Tolan in that way. How could he see him as anything else?

  The wind slammed against Tolan and he wrapped a shaping around them, holding them to the Shapers Path.

  But too late.

  The blast of wind struck Bryn. It forced her to the edge of the Shapers Path, and with a gasp, she started to fall.

  Tolan jumped. He exploded downward, using a shaping of fire and wind, driving him toward the ground. He reached Bryn, scooping her up, and as they crashed toward the ground, he shifted his shaping, adding a hint of earth below them, trying to soften the anticipated impact.

  When they landed, he released Bryn, glancing up at the Shapers Path. Tanner was there, the wind whistling around him, yanking at him, swirling in ways appearing designed to throw him off.

  As Tolan stared, he realized that wasn’t quite right.

  Tanner wasn’t fighting the wind. He was the one shaping it.

  What?

  Tolan held his gaze up toward the Shapers Path, staring at his friend, and realized he’d missed something. Not only was Tanner shaping, but he was calling to the elemental, dragging it out of the bond. As he realized what was happening, he noticed something about the summons was troubling.

  It was laced with a threat.

  Was Bryn the same sort of danger?

  Tolan glanced over at her. He didn’t recognize anything about her, and because of that, he didn’t know whether or not she was involved in this. If she was, he wasn’t about to leave her to do something similar.

  He didn’t detect anything from her. There was no sense of shaping, and there was no sort of summons coming from the shaping.

  That left only Tanner. And for whatever reason, Tanner was continuing to draw on the wind, the summons he called angry and violent, the kind of summons leaving Tolan filled with agitation. It was the kind of summons posing a threat to the elementals. Considering everything they had gone through, everything he knew them to have experienced, Tolan wasn’t willing to stand aside while Tanner continued to threaten them.

  That meant he would need to act.

  “You need to stay here,” Tolan said to Bryn.

  “Where are you going?”

  “There’s an elemental causing trouble.” He frowned for a moment. If he left her here, she might observe what was happening. Was there anything he could do?

  A shaping of spirit might be enough.

  He pulled from deep within him, dragging up the sense of spirit, and as he did, he sent it washing toward her, letting it flow over her. When it struck, she dropped.

  It was nothing more than a slight shaping that should allow her to sleep, and hopefully she could do so long enough that she wouldn’t see what he was going to do next, but he didn’t know whether that was the case or not. Either way, he decided it was best for her to be here, sleeping, away from anything else that might occur.

  Drawing upon fire and earth, Tolan shaped himself, sending himself streaking into the sky, coming to land on the Shapers Path. Wind battered at him, the power within the elemental familiar.

  “It’s okay,” Tolan whispered.

  Tanner frowned at him. “What are you doing?”

  “Why did you release the elemental?” Tolan asked.

  That wasn’t even the real question he wanted answered. It wasn’t so much about releasing the elemental; it was more about the threat implied in that release, the threat Tanner had for the elemental, the anger it filled the elemental with. It was easy to control the elementals when it came to threatening to force them back into the bond. They were quick to do whatever it was the shaper attempted, thinking in doing so, they might be granted a certain sustained freedom.

  Didn’t Tanner even know what he was doing?

  His friend shouldn’t have had enough power to release an elemental before now. It wasn’t the kind of thing he’d ever demonstrated any real ability with. Tanner had reasonable wind shaping strength, but not much more than that.

  “Tolan?”

  He continued to stare at Tolan, the confused expression on his face making Tolan pause for a moment, concerned perhaps he’d made a mistake. He didn’t think he had. The longer he stood here, the longer he held onto his shaping, the more certain he was that he detected exactly what he thought.

  Tolan shifted his attention to the elemental. If he didn’t calm it, it was going to continue to lash at him.

  Using a shaping of earth and water, Tolan created a seal, wrapping it around Tanner, holding him in place. With that done, he focused on the elemental.

  It was ara, the gusting coming from it telling him that, and as he focused on the wind, as he felt the continued pressure coming from it, he knew he had to do something quickly.

  When he’d worked with the elementals before, it had always been with ones he’d released, and there was something very different about that. With those elementals, there was never a threat of return. He’d never tried to force elementals back into the bond, and he’d always made certain they were unharmed. Partly, that was ignorance. He hadn’t known what he was doing, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have done anything to the elementals to harm them.

  The only times he’d dealt with a rogue elemental agitated like this had been in Ephra when he’d observed it, and when he’d been at the Academy, but that one had been under the control of someone else. Never had he tried to calm a rogue elemental on his own.

  Tolan wasn’t even sure he could. What would it take to soothe an elemental?

  Tanner was trying to say something to him, and he was fighting at the shaping Tolan had used to hold him in place, but Tolan ignored him. There was no point in giving Tanner much attention. Once he dealt with the elemental, he could focus on Tanner, and he could figure out what had happened, how his friend had released an elemental—and why. There had to be some reason behind it.

  “You don’t have to return,” Tolan whispered. He let his voice carry on the wind, trying to shape a soothing sense into it.

  That wasn’t quite right. Adding a shaping of wind wasn’t what was needed; it was spirit.

  Drawing upon that, he focused on the elemental. Ara was unique, translucent and difficult to see, but he knew he’d be able to find a specific point he could focus his shaping on. If he could find that, he would be able to offer a soothing touch possibly enough to calm it.

  Another push, this time with more force. He sent a shaping away from him, letting power flow outward, and as it did, it struck something. It was almost as if he hit darkness. There was anger within it. Violence. He could feel the rage within the wind, and it was that rage causing the wind to continue to gust, slamming against him, wanting to ensure it remained free. There was the threat, an understanding of violence, that he could tell the elemental feared.

  Tolan shifted his shaping of wind, adding spirit to it. As he did, there was a slow release.

  Gradually the wind began to calm. The more he pushed on the elemental, the more energy he forced into the shaping, the more the elemental began to ease, finally relaxing. Tolan continued to push, knowing if he could hold on to this, if he could find the necessary strength to do this, he should be able to suppress the agitation within the elemental.

  Something pushed against him.

  Tolan frowned. There wasn’t another shaper nearby who could use a spirit, was there?

  Ara began to thrash, fighting wildly.

  “No,” he whispered.

  He infused it with a shaping of spirit, trying to augment it in such a way the elemental knew he wasn’t going to harm it, but wasn’t sure it was enough. He held onto his shaping, pushing more and more spirit into it. It was taking considerable energy.

  Maybe there was something else he could do.

  If he could use another elemental, perhaps something complementary, this elemental would recognize Tolan didn’t mean any harm and would realize everything he was trying to do was to help.

  Pulling on more power, he shifted the focus of his shaping. This time, he sent a summons.
It would be easier if he had a bondar. When he’d had the withering, he’d been able to draw upon an elemental much easier, but he’d practiced with this enough times, and had enough experience using that power to draw out the elemental. In doing so, he felt the surge of power, the way the elemental was separated from the bond. He wasn’t sure if he could separate it completely, but another gust of wind struck, and this time ara was a little bit more translucent, a creature almost visible and yet not.

  “Help me,” Tolan whispered.

  The wind swirled around itself. It formed a funnel, and within the funnel was the agitated and angry elemental ara Tolan continued to try to help. He needed to help it. If he didn’t, the elemental would break free and attack. Not only Tolan, but it would attack throughout Terndahl.

  He needed more strength.

  Tolan slipped the ring onto his finger, squeezing it. With the bondar his mother had once possessed, Tolan was able to send more power, more shaping energy, through it. With it, his connection to spirit increased.

  In doing so, Tolan continued to push outward, letting that flow toward ara. He brushed up against it, sending his connection along to it. In doing so, it began to calm. This time, it was more than just what he was able to do. The added additional elemental, whatever he’d summoned, provided a benefit, and he was able to soothe ara.

  Slowly, far more slowly than he wanted, the elemental began to calm. The wind stopped whistling around him. The agitation within ara eased.

  Tolan breathed out, pushing once more, drawing through his bondar as he shaped spirit a little bit more, enough that he could provide a hint of peace to the elemental. With that, it finally relaxed and he was able to take a deep breath, releasing his hold on it.

  “Go,” he whispered. “You don’t have to remain bound. You will find other free elementals in the north.”

  He watched for a moment. With a swirl of wind, it disappeared, leaving him with Tanner.

  Tanner was watching him, an unreadable expression on his face, but there was a hint of darkness there as well. Mixed within that darkness was something Tolan had never seen from his friend. Could it be hatred?