The Spirit Binds

by D. K. Holmberg

What about the other elements?

  Tolan didn’t know if the other elements could be used in the spirit shaping like that, but it had to be possible. If he could mix them, the same way he could mix the shapings for the strange warrior lightning bolt, maybe he could use that to remove and lift the shaping free.

  It was potentially dangerous. This was the kind of thing that could damage and destroy her mind. This was the kind of thing the Grand Inquisitor had warned him about.

  He started slowly. He mixed each of the elements together, adding them one after another, and used those with his connection to spirit, sending it through the bondar. There came a surge.

  The power flowed, building from within him. At first, he worried perhaps he was too aggressive, but the longer he sent that surge, the clearer it became that something was changing.

  Hopefully it was what he needed to change.

  Ferrah started to thrash, and Tolan almost abandoned the shaping. He didn’t want to do anything to cause her pain, and the way she was thrashing suggested this was causing her significant discomfort.

  She cried out. “Tolan?”

  The word was strangled, twisted, and there was something mixed in with it.

  Darkness.

  He had recognized that as the same sort of thing used on the wind elemental.

  Was it not a shaping of spirit? Could it have been something else?

  Whatever he was holding onto now, the shaping he was drawing away, certainly felt to him to be spirit. The more he pulled, the more certain he was of drawing off spirit, and if he could lift it, then she would be free of the taint.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  There was a sense of her affection for him, but he had to ignore it.

  “Don’t do this to me,” she whispered.

  The last came out strangled, and it was almost enough to make him abandon his attempt, but he could not. He knew he could not.

  Sending more power into the shaping, he realized maybe there was another approach. Not only did he need to add each of the elements, but what he needed to do was use something similar to what he’d done with the wind elemental. If he could send a soothing sense through the shaping, he might be able to calm her, the same way he’d calmed the wild elemental. If he did, he could lift that shaping off, remove the threat of whatever had been done to her, and restore her. More than anything else, that was what he wanted to do.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered.

  “But you are.”

  “I’m helping. I care about you. Regardless of what they did to you, I care about you.”

  He took a step toward her, wondering if he’d made a mistake before. He’d had her wrapped up near him, his arms encircling her, and he had held her against him. That closeness should have given him a way of maintaining that connection, but for some reason, he’d released the hold.

  What he needed to do now was bring her back to him, to wrap his arms around her again, to push out the power of the shaping he used. If he could do that…

  He took another step. She thrashed again, and Tolan felt the way she was raging against his shaping. What choice did he have but to continue toward her?

  He reached her. As he did, he grabbed her, pulling her to him. He pressed his shaping out, washing it over her, and then he pushed. He started slowly, but the shaping continued to build, rolling through her with increasing intensity.

  More pressure.

  There was resistance. It was almost an active thing.

  Tolan didn’t know what to make of it as it squirmed beneath him. As it continued to thrash, he realized there was something else he could try. What he’d been doing before had been trying to either push it out of her or pull it out; instead, now, what he wanted to do was wrap it in spirit. Once he did, he could mix the other elements within it.

  The shaping continued to build, and he shifted the way he held onto it, spinning it so it would turn inward. As he did, the shaping focused on her mind, twisting and rolling inward. He swirled it around the strange darkness he detected.

  He captured it, sweeping it within his shaping, holding it in place. Only then did he add the surge of the other elements. Power exploded from him.

  She thrashed again, kicking and screaming, reminding him of what had happened to those they’d tested during the Selection. He continued to push, sweeping the strange foreign shaping tighter and tighter inside his bond, constricting it. As he did, he could feel the way it continued to fight, but Tolan ignored it. He squeezed, more and more pressure building. He recognized the pressure was going to overpower whatever strangeness was here.

  There came a burst of energy, a flash of light, and the foreign strangeness was gone.

  Ferrah dropped to the ground. She kicked, and for a moment, Tolan thought she stopped breathing.

  Fighting whatever it was that had happened to her had taken considerable strength on his part, and he found himself weakened and tired. He didn’t know if he had enough strength to return to Par, though he knew he needed to. The Grand Inquisitor was there and still needed him.

  Crouching down next to Ferrah, Tolan took her hands. He squeezed them before lifting her, scooping her off the ground, carrying her toward the tower. Master Minden would have to understand what he had done. She would have to understand he’d tried to save her.

  The door came open before he reached it and Master Minden approached.

  “Where is it?”

  Tolan looked around the rooftop. The sun hadn’t really moved across the horizon since he’d left. He hadn’t been gone all that long before needing to return with Ferrah, and as he stood here, studying Master Minden, he frowned.

  “Where is what? I found Ferrah in Par, but something had been shaped across her mind.”

  “Yes. It was shaped across her mind, but where is it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  For a moment, Master Minden’s eyes cleared, as if the milky film always present across them faded. As it did, she looked over at Tolan, irritation flashing within them. “Did you release it?”

  “I didn’t release anything. I just—”

  “You just removed the shaping on her mind.”

  Tolan looked down at Ferrah. She was still breathing, and it looked as if color had returned to her cheeks. He hadn’t realized how much color had been missing until just now. Now he was aware of it, he couldn’t help but stare.

  “What was it?”

  Master Minden continue to shape, looking around. The power building from her was incredible, and as she held on to it, she swept her gaze along the rooftop before settling on Ferrah. She touched two fingers, one from each hand, on either side of Ferrah’s forehead. A surge of shaping, a mixture of water with spirit, washed over Ferrah. As it did, the shaping seemed to help her relax and Ferrah took a deep breath, breathing in and then out again before seeming to fall into a slumber.

  “Bring her down with me,” Master Minden said.

  Tolan followed her downstairs along the hall of portraits, the color in them increasing in intensity since the last time he’d been here. That had to be his imagination. She brought him to a door along the hallway and pushed it open. It was similar to where he’d awoken, and she motioned for him to set Ferrah down.

  Tolan did, and Master Minden pressed her fingers on either side of Ferrah’s temple again, a wave of shaping washing through her before she motioned for Tolan to follow her back out of the room. When they did, she paused in the hallway, pressing her hand across the door, sending a surge of power flowing into it.

  “Is that necessary?”

  “I don’t really know if it’s necessary or not. All I know is a dangerous power has been once more unleashed.”

  “The shaping across her mind?”

  “Yes. Do you have any idea what it was?”

  “No, but what you’re saying suggests you know what it was.”

  “Not personally, but there have been stories of that kind of power out in the world. I have heard about it, read about
it, and have feared seeing it.”

  She motioned for him to join her along the wall of portraits, and Tolan did so, standing near the middle. He had been here with her before, and this time, she paused, motioning to one of the paintings. “What do you see?”

  Tolan studied the painting. Was it the same one he had seen before? It was difficult to tell; all he knew was something about it seemed strange. It came from the nature of the image. Almost as if there was darkness swirling around it, but it wasn’t just the darkness in the image. It was the sense of destruction all around it.

  “I don’t know. It’s unusual.”

  “It has to be unusual. There aren’t very many ways to depict this.”

  “What is it?”

  “We don’t have a name for it. The power this represents is something ancient, as ancient as the power of the elements and the element bonds. As ancient as the elementals.”

  “Is it an elemental?”

  “Possibly. And yet, if it’s an elemental, it’s vastly different than any others we’ve encountered. The nature of it is destruction.” She sighed. “You have a better understanding than most about the nature of the elementals. But you also recognize that power is a part of everything. It’s a part of life, a part of the world around us, and because of that, because of that elemental and element power, we all exist.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “When you shaped that thing from her mind, I felt it fighting.”

  “That was something real?”

  “As real as the wind elemental you fought. It’s destruction. It thrives on death and decay and chaos. And yet, there are some who seek its power.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No. I didn’t imagine you would. The Academy was founded at a time when the memory of that had faded. There were stories, rumors mostly, about a creature and power built from destruction, but I think even then, they didn’t know whether to believe it or not. How could you believe it when you never experienced it? And yet, the longer we went, the more we faced whatever it was, the clearer it became that power had to have existed. We find it in things like this painting. We find it in references, small details we uncover during our search of the archives. We find it within the darkness of people’s minds.”

  Tolan shivered. As he stared at the painting, he had a sense of an unpleasant and almost oily sort of power. “When I faced the wind elemental outside the city, it came across as twisted. Angry.”

  “I suspect whoever summoned it used this chaotic elemental.”

  “Chaotic?” He glanced over at her and found her staring at the painting. Her jaw was set, clenched in a tight frown, and he had a hard time reading her expression. It seemed to him she was angry, but that couldn’t be. What would she have to be angry about?

  Maybe it wasn’t anger at all. Maybe it was nothing more than fear.

  If this creature—this strange and chaotic elemental—had not been seen in some time, he understood having fear. He shared in it.

  “What else could it be but an attempt to bring chaos to order?” She shook her head. “We have been trying to understand who the Inquisitors served, trying to understand what could cause them to turn from serving the Academy. I, along with the Grand Master, had thought perhaps it had something to do with them believing the Academy had turned away from its purpose. It was possible they began to understand how we recognized the nature of the elementals and begun to realize keeping them trapped as we have, holding them within the bond, does nothing more than continue to torment them. I would never have imagined they were responsible for this.”

  Tolan’s mouth was dry. Could that be only because he’d been battling some strange power? Or was it more? Did it have to do with his uncertainty with this… Whatever this was?

  He continued to stare at the portrait. He wanted nothing more than to turn away from it, but he felt as if he needed to stare so he could understand, to try to know what it was Ferrah had encountered.

  “How would she have come across this?”

  “Someone released it. That same someone is the very same person we’ve been trying to find, Shaper Ethar. Despite our best effort, we haven’t been able to uncover who is responsible for everything that’s been taking place. In this case, whoever it is has used that power on her.”

  “Did they use it on her because of me?”

  He knew it was ridiculous to ask, but at the same time, he thought he needed to. If it was his fault, if they had used the shaping on her because of him, then he needed to know.

  “I wish I could tell you it was otherwise, but the possibility exists they did use that on her because of you. It’s equally likely they would have expected you to be unable to remove the shaping.”

  “So, they attacked her without giving her any way of removing it.”

  “Unfortunately,” Master Minden said.

  That angered him. Perhaps that was the point, though. He could imagine the attackers had wanted to anger him, but he also could imagine it was about more than that. He had to wonder if they had not only hoped to use her against him, but they could also have intended to infect him, if such a thing were possible.

  “What will happen to her?”

  “That’s a good question. I don’t know. I think we were successful in removing it. And by that, I mean I think you were successful in removing it. If you were, then she needs time to recover.”

  “What about others who might have been attacked in the same way?”

  “If there are others, we may not have anything we can do for them.”

  “There has to be something,” Tolan said.

  “How many do you think you can work with?” Master Minden looked over at him, meeting his eyes with her strangely milky ones. “With as much effort as it took on your part to remove what was done to her, do you think you can repeat it?”

  Tolan only stared. He wasn’t sure, but what choice did he have other than to try?

  “There have to be others who are capable of doing it.”

  “I’m afraid, Shaper Ethar, that this element—or elemental, as I don’t know which it is—requires a different approach. It is not simply a matter of shaping strength. If that were the case, then someone like Shaper Changen wouldn’t have succumbed to its effect.”

  “Then what is required?”

  “In order to defeat this, one needs to have an understanding of the various powers. Not just the elements, not just the element bonds, and not the elementals. The entirety of it. Unfortunately, considering how we have structured the Academy, there are very few who have the necessary ability to do that.”

  Tolan glanced back at the door where Ferrah rested. If others had been twisted in the same way, he couldn’t simply stand aside, could he?

  And yet, there might not be anything he could do. As much as he wanted to help, as much as he might want to fight, it might be beyond him.

  “The soldiers were in Par,” he said.

  “You saw one.”

  Tolan nodded.

  Master Minden turned her attention toward the painting.

  “I don’t think they were tainted.”

  “Even if they were, it’s possible we wouldn’t know.”

  “Why not?”

  “Their training is different. It has always been that way. Despite everything we’ve tried over the years, the soldiers have separated themselves.”

  “What if they are responsible for what’s taken place?”

  “Then we are in far greater trouble.”

  Tolan went to the other room and crouched next to Ferrah, and when he did, he found something on a chain around her neck. Pulling it out, he held it up, studying it.

  A bondar.

  That had to be what it was, but more than that, the bondar reminded him of the one he wore.

  Could it be coincidence?

  “Shaper Ethar?”

  He tore his gaze away, holding the ring up for Master Minden. “I think I know who’s responsible for these strange bondars.”
>
  She leaned close, studying it. “Who?”

  “My father.”

  17

  As he had done with the shaping of each element before, he held a place in his mind, a vision of what he wanted to do and where he wanted to go, uncertain whether it would be enough, or whether he’d be enough.

  Then again, he didn’t feel as if he had any choice but to try.

  As the shaping surrounded him, coming for him, he felt lifted, pulled free from the building. There was a brief sense of movement and then he was shot back down toward the ground.

  The moment he landed, power swirled around him. It was a strange change. The power he detected in these lands—a place of the Draasin Lord—filled him in a way he rarely felt power.

  All around him was elemental energy. When he’d been here last, he’d been dependent upon someone else guiding him and bringing him away. Now he’d discovered this warrior shaping, this burst of lightning that could carry him away in a moment’s notice, he felt strangely free.

  The energy of shapings continued to build around him, one after another, and Tolan searched for a particular shaping he could track. He needed to find his father. He needed to understand.

  He strode along a path. In the distance, the mountain with the pathway through it blocked him, and though he knew there was some way of shaping a doorway through it, that his father had used an earth bondar in order to do so, Tolan no longer needed that path. He no longer needed the Draasin Lord to carry him back to the Academy and to Terndahl.

  What he needed was to understand why there seemed to be a connection between these bondars.

  As he made his way along the path, he noticed hyza off in the distance. Was it the same elemental that had helped him all those times? He didn’t really know without speaking to the elemental, and he wasn’t even certain whether something like that was possible. If it was, then perhaps he could get a better understanding of where to find his father. He could ask the elemental to guide him, though he didn’t know if hyza would be able to do so or if hyza would even know where to find him.

  Instead, Tolan focused on the nature of the shapings he could follow, searching for something to help him. In the distance, he noticed the building where he’d been brought, a temple of sorts. There was power within that building, shaping power unlike anything he could find anywhere else.