Isan crossed his arms over his chest, a gesture that was mimicked by many others in the courtyard, almost as if every person wanted to prevent Tan from passing. Whatever the prior Utu Tonah had done still lingered. None trusted him, and Tan wondered if there were anything that he could say or do that would change that. Forcing his way past was a sure way not to succeed.
Tan decided to take a step back, and he bowed his head in respect to the Mistress of Souls. Of all those on the council he’d met, she had at least treated him with a modicum of respect so he would do the same to her and her people. She might be the key to helping him get through to the people of Par-shon and finding a way to reach them.
“I will wait,” he said to Marin. “But I would like to continue our conversation.”
The edge of a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “I would like that, Utu Tonah.”
With that, Tan backed away, unable to help how it felt like a retreat.
11
A Bond Restored
The wind gusted more strongly through Par-shon than usual, and Tan shaped a small protection around himself to avoid it. There was a hint of warmth to it that reminded him of the ashi wind elemental, but he knew that in Par-shon, ashi wasn’t the primary elemental. Here, wyln served as the primary elemental, much like how in the kingdoms, ara blew the strongest.
“You don’t have to follow me, my Utu Tonah,” Elanne said.
“I told you that I only want to understand your role.” It had been hard enough to find her after leaving Marin, and he didn’t want to lose her quite yet.
“And you think to do that by following me.”
“Working with you, perhaps, would be a better way of putting it.” Tan hadn’t been sure how to approach her but decided that the best way would be to come at it from a direction of seeking to understand. If he did that, everything else would fall into place. Or so he hoped. “Tell me again what you’re doing.”
Elanne, stooped over a small wall near the edge of the city, looked up. The wind blowing over the top of the wall sent dust and debris swirling around, and he shielded his mouth. Elanne had the sense to wear a scarf wrapped around her mouth, which kept most of the dust from bothering her. Only her dark eyes were visible.
“As I have said, I am ensuring that our protections are in place.” She turned away from him and focused on the wall again, tracing her fingers through a series of patterns etched into the stone.
Tan looked over her shoulder and watched her work. These weren’t the same runes that had been used in the jewelry, or on the bonded shapers themselves. These were a different type of rune, one that appeared more like those used on the buildings that he’d seen elsewhere in the city, and similar to those that he’d found in the kingdoms.
Tan focused a trickle of shaping energy and sent it into the rune. This mark was for wind, and as he shaped wind into it, the gusts surged and sent Elanne’s scarf blowing.
She swore under her breath, and her eyes went wide, and she glanced over at Tan, as if afraid of how he might react. He offered her a smile, one that he hoped was reassuring.
“Sorry about that,” he said.
“That was you?”
Tan touched the rune, feeling the power bubbling beneath it. This was not a mark that forced the elementals here; rather, it was one that called to them. In the kingdoms, runes like this had summoned the elementals, not trapped them. What purpose would there be having a rune for wind along the wall?
“That was me,” he said. He trailed his fingers along the mark, pushing with a hint of wind, feeling the way it settled beneath his touch. There was no harm to the elemental in what he did here, but once the mark settled, the swirling and gusting settled as well, calming.
“Great Mother,” he whispered. Had the wind actually wanted him to help fix the rune?
“You have a gentle touch,” Elanne said. “There are not many able to modify these marks. Most are very old, and from a time before Par-shon, before Par.”
Tan studied the rune and wondered if there was a connection to the ancient shapers, even here. “How is it that you can repair them?” he asked her. To know what needed to be done, he had used the connection to wind and let the elemental guide him. But Elanne wouldn’t have that same benefit.
“I don’t shape if that’s what you’re asking,” Elanne answered. “There is a texture and a shape to these. Only the most skilled with bonding can understand.”
“This isn’t bonding,” Tan said. “Bonding was forcing the elementals to connect to the shaper, something the elementals did not want. This… this is something different.”
Elanne shrugged. “This is the same, at least in Par-shon. The purpose might be different, but the shape of the marks and the need for caution when making them is the same.” She stood and dusted her hands along her clothes. She was dressed in something like a wrap of fabric with muted colors streaking through it. Elanne had pulled a part of the wrap up over her chin and breathed through it, keeping her mouth covered. Now that the wind had settled, there was less of a need, but she still didn’t lower it. “That is the reason we have a Master of Bonds. This person is responsible for many things, but one of the greatest is ensuring that these bonds remain around the city. When they are lost… strange things happen.”
“What do you mean that strange things happen?”
She nodded over the wall. “You sensed the way the wind blew before the bond was repaired. It is that way with the others.”
Tan studied the rune—not a bond, regardless of what she might call it—and wondered what purpose it might serve. There was no denying that the wind had eased the moment that he had fixed the rune. What of the other marks throughout the city? Would they be the same? Were there others that needed repair?
“How many of these do you maintain?” Tan asked.
She cocked her head to the side and closed one eye, her mouth pinched together as she seemed to consider. “There are nearly a thousand throughout the city.”
“How many were placed before the Utu Tonah arrived?”
She blinked and turned back to him. “All were here before the Utu Tonah.”
A thought came to Tan. “How many were damaged in the time after he arrived?”
She thought about it and shook her head. “That is not for me to know. I was not Master of Bonds at that time. There are many bonds now that need repair, enough that I am too busy to be…” She trailed off as if realizing again that she was speaking to the Utu Tonah. “I should not speak so freely, my Utu Tonah.”
Tan shook his head. “You can speak freely. And all I want is to understand what you’re doing, not interfere.”
“You could not interfere, Utu Tonah—”
Tan silenced her with a wave of his hand. “You’ve already shown me that you have a skill I don’t understand. Please, Elanne, I would like to see the other… bonds… you repair.”
Using her word for it was particularly difficult, especially since he didn’t agree with the way that Par-shon had used them in the past, but the Master of Bonds could teach him something, and if he wanted to understand Par-shon, and if he wanted to know what might have motivated the Utu Tonah, then he would need to be willing to listen and learn from those he didn’t agree with. Recognizing that need and succeeding were difficult challenges.
Elanne shifted the wrap and uncovered her mouth. “You do not need to waste your time on this, my Utu Tonah, but I will show you.”
Tan followed Elanne through the city, stopping periodically at buildings or walls or even once at a holding pen for sheep that reminded Tan of friends he’d lost when Nor fell. Thinking of Cobin and his daughter Bal reminded him that he should have sought them out long ago. So few had survived the fall of Nor that he should have taken the time to find them. By now, they would have moved on and hopefully had no idea of the challenges that Tan had faced. As far as he was concerned, he preferred to keep anyone else from knowing the dangers he experienced. That meant that those without the ability to shape were
safe, protected from the horrors of the initial Incendin attack, or from what Par-shon had done.
The only thing that he couldn’t hide was the release of the draasin. They hadn’t been seen in a thousand years and now flew freely. There were only four remaining now that Asboel had died, and without the greatest of the draasin, Tan wondered if there would be others. That was a question for Sashari sometime when she had finished mourning, if she ever would.
Each time they stopped, Elanne would trace her finger along the runes, either deepening the etching or modifying it in some way. Tan chose simply to watch. With each pattern she repaired, the elemental behind it surged, strengthened by what she did. He thought that he could sense her process and had enough connection to the elementals that he might be able to recreate it, but there was a delicate artistry to her work.
“How did you learn to do this?” he asked as she repaired the third pattern. They stood next to a small building near the edge of town. It had a low, sloped roof and a faded sign hanging in front of it that he couldn’t read. The scent of burnt oil drifted from within. “These bonds,” he clarified. “How is it that you know how to do this with them?”
Elanne had grown more comfortable with him watching and didn’t refer to him by title every time she spoke, but remained deferential. “These are the bonds,” she said patiently as if explaining to a child.
“What you call bonds are different,” Tan said again. He wanted to understand, not to argue, because what she did now was not what he would have expected from Par-shon. “The bonds the prior Utu Tonah used were different.”
“Those were not of Par. Those bonds were Par-shon.”
“I don’t understand.”
Elanne traced a small length of sharp steel across the pattern. This one only needed to be more clearly defined, not modified. Tan could sense that without touching it and thought that he could manage it with a simple shaping of earth, but doing so would only diminish what Elanne did.
“This is Par-shon,” she said.
Tan nodded.
“But it was not always.” She hesitated and lowered her eyes, looking away from him. In all the time that he’d been watching her, she had never really been this obsequious.
“You can speak freely,” he urged.
She swallowed and met his eyes. “Before the Utu Tonah, this was Par. Before that… I do not know. The records do not speak of it.”
“Records?”
She nodded. “The records of the land. We don’t have anything from before Par. When the Utu Tonah came, he destroyed much, but the records remained, though they are difficult for us to fully understand. Par remained. But the time before Par, that is gone.”
Tan had searched for archives throughout Par-shon and had not found anything. He had thought that the tower would hold the answer, but there had been nothing other than the journal written by the Utu Tonah. There was insight hidden in those pages, but not the answers that he sought. He wanted to know whether Par-shon was a place of convergence and whether the people had known. From what he’d discovered, they must have known, but there were no other records that he could find.
“Where are the records?” Tan asked, careful not to sound too eager.
Elanne looked down again, avoiding his eyes. “Utu Tonah… I have said too much.”
He shook his head. “No. I would like to understand Par and would like to know the history of this land.”
She took a deep breath. Emotions warred through her before her back straightened. “You want us to believe that you are a benevolent ruler, but you are no different than him. You come and destroy our heritage, much as he did. Would you force me to reveal what remains?”
The force of her anger took him aback. “I only want to understand.”
“Understand. So that you can use that to destroy even more of our past? Have you not done enough, Utu Tonah?”
She clapped a hand across her mouth as she froze, then she turned away and ran down the street.
Tan stared after, thinking that he should do something, chase after her, but what would that accomplish? She would only fear him more. All he wanted was to understand, but when he tried, he seemed to fumble. How many more mistakes would he make?
He looked down at the bond that she’d been working on and noted that she’d dropped the short, sharp length of metal that she used for repair. Tan took it and noted that it had patterns along the length of it, much like his warrior sword, but smaller and more compact. Using a gentle shaping, he probed the runes and found that they held shaped power. At least he understood how she managed to work the repairs.
Tan turned his attention to the pattern. On this building, it represented water and pulled on the elemental. He ran his fingers across it, tracing it, and realized that there was more to it than simply a mark for water.
He tipped his head but couldn’t decipher it. Amia might be able to help, or Honl if the wind elemental ever returned from wherever he’d gone. But now Tan had to come up with answers without their help.
What he needed was a way to copy the pattern. If he had paper and charcoal, he might be able to create an etching. He would have to return. Besides, there were other patterns that he could study.
Tan stared at the rune a little longer. Understanding the part that he missed seemed just out of reach, and he thought that if he could just study it a little longer, he might grasp what he couldn’t see. But nothing came.
He might rule in Par-shon, but he didn’t understand the people. Marin told him he needed to know more before he could understand how she served. Tolman worked with him, but reluctantly. And Elanne feared him and what he might do to her people. In that way, how was he any different than the prior Utu Tonah?
With a sigh, he turned away.
12
A New Perspective
Tan stared at the rune on the wall inside the tower. Much like those outside, the ones that he’d watched Elanne repair, he detected something else in it but couldn’t quite see it. Even shaping it didn’t help; it only left him with a sense that he missed something.
Pulling his eyes away from it, he stopped at the door in the hall, and behind it, the reason that he’d come. Voices drifted through the door, most excited and chattering away. In spite of the welcome that he’d received elsewhere in the city, the children, at least, seemed interested in hearing from him. Part of that was because he was the Utu Tonah, but Tan had caught the attention of a few of them—like Fasha or Mat—that went beyond his title.
He considered turning away and leaving them to the happiness they clearly had without him disturbing it. Hadn’t they been through enough without having to face the new Utu Tonah as well? Did they deserve him coming in and disrupting their peace?
But he had returned to Par-shon for a reason. He needed to ensure that there would not be another attack, and doing so meant that he needed to lead. He might not be comfortable with what was required of him, and he might not want the title, but he could not turn away from the responsibility.
As he opened the door, the children fell silent.
Tan studied the room. It was a large space with a dozen chairs, a rectangular table, and a hearth along the back wall. Most of the older children sat to the side nearest the hearth, while the younger ones wrestled or chased each other around. A carefree energy filled the room, one that Tan regretted stealing from them.
“Utu Tonah,” one of the older children said. He stood nearly as tall as Tan and was thin, with the first traces of hair growing on his chin. His dark hair was swept back and hung to his shoulders, a style more common in Par-shon than in the kingdoms.
Tan nodded. Those sitting stood, and the children wrestling and chasing the others stopped and hurried over to stand in front of him.
Why had he come again? He thought to teach, but what would he be able to show them? These were children accustomed to the forced bonds, and though they might know the elementals, there was a different understanding here than what he would like. Exposing them to Asgar had
frightened some and emboldened others.
He glanced at Fasha and saw her standing near the edge of the older children with her arms crossed over her chest. Her black hair was braided today, and she wore a dark wrap that reminded him of Elanne. She met his eyes with much of the same defiance that he saw from Elanne.
“Come with me,” he decided suddenly.
He turned and led them out of the tower and through the city, not bothering to watch if they followed. Earth and spirit sensing told him that they remained behind him, close enough that he didn’t have to worry about losing them.
Outside the city, he stopped. A wide road led away. Tan had only shaped himself here but had taken the road once, when he first had been captured. Tolman had been there and had been the more compassionate of those who had captured him.
“What do you see?” he asked. He stretched his senses out around him, letting the awareness of all the elements fill him. Away from the city, different senses took over. He detected the trees ringing the city, some with flowers budding along them. Squirrels and rabbits and fox and other creatures that he had no name for scurried through the trees.
He realized that the last time that he’d been here, when he’d been carried through on a shaping, flown here using the elementals in ways that he hadn’t conceived, there had been an absence of life. The trees had been diminished, and the surrounding wildlife had been silent. The only place where life had remained had been within the city. Near the place of convergence, he realized now.
With the Utu Tonah gone and the bonds separated, life had returned. More than his ability to simply sense it on the air, he could smell it, could practically feel the change.
“Trees, Utu Tonah,” one of the children called to him.
Tan smiled. “Trees. Do you see anything on the trees?”
A young girl stepped forward. Her hair was parted on either side and bound with bright orange string. “Flowers,” she said softly.
Born of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 8) Page 11