Born of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 8)

by D. K. Holmberg

“It has been too long, Honl,” he said.

  “You don’t need me the way you once did, Maelen.”

  They stopped above the tower, hovering there. Honl swirled in the wind, becoming insubstantial as he touched each of the runes that Tan had repaired before returning to stand next to him on the air.

  “There is much strength to these patterns. You repaired them?”

  “They were degraded,” Tan said. “Time and…” He wasn’t sure what else had led to the degradation. Had that been the result of the Utu Tonah, or had he even known what they had here? Tan doubted that he truly understood, or else wouldn’t he have covered them with tiles as he had with the others inside the tower? “What of the spirit rune?”

  Honl studied the top of the tower where the rune took shape out of the stone. “This is subtle work,” he commented, “but it could not be the only such pattern. There would be too much strength for it to be alone.”

  “This is the only one.”

  “Do you sense it?” Honl asked.

  “Sense what?”

  “The energy. The summoning call. And now there are others.”

  “It’s the only one that I’ve found. The rest were all carved into the stone.”

  Honl swirled above him, disappearing for a moment before reappearing to the north of the tower. Tan followed him and turned to face the tower.

  “Do you see it, Maelen?”

  Tan stared at the tower until it came into focus. Much like the pattern on the top of the tower, the stone along the side had variations in color as well. From above, he had barely made out the shape of the pattern, but from the side, it was even more difficult, as if whoever had constructed the tower had done so with an eye toward using the pattern in its building.

  “That’s earth,” he said with a whisper. The shape of the rune stretched the entire length of the building, using the tower’s shape to guide it. Toward the base were the two parallel lines that formed the prominent part of the symbol.

  He’d never seen it before, but then, he hadn’t been looking. Without knowing that it was there, he simply could ignore the subtle changes to the contour of the stone, but now that he knew it was present, now that he understood, he couldn’t see anything else.

  Tan made his way around to the next side of the tower, and there was water. A circular pattern with something resembling waves rolling through. The pattern was distinct for Par-shon but similar enough to the one that he saw in Ethea as well.

  On the opposite side of earth, he found fire. And then air.

  All of the elementals, even spirit, represented on a grand scale built into the stone of the tower itself. And he had never seen it.

  “This has been here all along,” Tan said, turning to Honl. “Did you know?”

  The elemental studied the wall, focusing on wind. “Now I feel the pull of the pattern.”

  “Not before?”

  “There was no drawing sensation, Maelen, nothing that would not be expected in a place like this.”

  “What kind of place?”

  “We have already spoken how this is a place of convergence. This is a place of the Mother, much like your home.”

  A place of convergence, but one that was different than in Ethea as well. Something had been done that obscured the elemental draw, but Honl was right: now that Tan knew it was there, he could feel the pull of the elementals.

  “This is different than the other patterns,” he said. “Those were designed to speak to the elementals.” Tan felt certain of that now, especially now that he knew what the patterns could do and had felt the strange draw. He needed to examine the other runes to see if they were the same, and now with Honl, he might be able to understand, but that was for later, after he figured out what had happened to Amia.

  “They are different, Maelen, but the ancients who designed this place were not ignorant to the ways of the elementals. There is understanding at work here that I am not entirely certain about.”

  “Will you stay to help me understand?” Tan asked.

  Honl looked troubled, as much as a creature of wind and spirit could look troubled. “I will stay, Maelen, but I fear any delay allows the darkness time to grow.”

  “That’s where you’ve been? That’s why you won’t answer when I try to summon you?”

  “Do not place blame on me,” Honl chided.

  “Had you been here, this might not have happened!”

  “If I do not search, none will know to prepare.” Honl turned and looked to the northwest, the direction of Incendin and the kingdoms. “I have wondered at my purpose. Why would the Mother create a being like me? I am no longer ashi, but something else. Perhaps greater, or lessened, I don’t know. But I wonder why. I think I have come to understand.”

  “What did you come to understand?”

  “That I have a purpose. We each have a purpose. Yours is to prepare, to train, those who will oppose the darkness while mine is to understand.” Honl appeared to smile and turned back to face Tan. “It is the reason that I can absorb the centuries of knowledge contained in your records. With time, I can piece it together, to help you, guide you as you prepare.”

  “I don’t think that’s my purpose, Honl,” Tan said softly. “I can speak to the elementals and can teach how the elementals must be treated, but that is the extent of my purpose. That was why the Mother granted me the gifts that she did, so that I could defeat someone like the Utu Tonah. So that I could bring the draasin back from extinction. More than that…”

  “Maelen, you are meant to be the Light.”

  He said it as if there was some title behind it.

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  Honl laughed, a sound that disappeared on the wind. “Neither do I, but that is why I must study. And I cannot do that here, confined by these lands.”

  “What of the Daughter?”

  “Look at these patterns. There is an answer here, if we can understand it.”

  “Honl, she has bonded to the pattern of spirit. I feel how it trails from the top of the tower, like a physical connection to her.”

  Honl tipped his head to the side in the strange way that he had taken to doing, and then floated to the top of the tower. When Tan joined him, Honl dropped and floated just above the surface, the effect disconcerting. He looked like a man and was dressed like a moan, but floated like an elemental. So much had changed for him in the last few months.

  “A connection?” Honl asked.

  “Yes. Why? Does that mean something to you?”

  “How did you heal her mind again?”

  “I used a shaping of each of the elements to wrap her, and then separated her from spirit.” Tan hadn’t taken the time to consider what that shaping would do, other than the fact that it had protected her and kept her from the convulsions. Had he not, he feared that she wouldn’t have survived. He’d only seen one other person die from a shaping like that, and when the First Mother had done it, Tan suspected she’d chosen her fate. This… this was more like an attack.

  “Would the same thing happen to me if I shaped into the stone for any of the other elements?”

  Honl shook his head absently, the gesture so human. “You have already bonded, Maelen. You would be protected.”

  Tan frowned at the choice of words. “What do you mean by that?”

  The wind elemental looked up and met Tan’s eyes. “These patterns,” he said, motioning to the top of the tower. “They are meant to summon. Surely you must sense that.”

  Tan considered what he sensed of the patterns. Now that Honl pointed it out, he did detect a drawing sensation, a force practically pulling him to the tower, as if he were compelled. But it was not a uniform sense. Rather, he felt most strongly drawn to fire. “I feel the drawing of fire, but nothing else.”

  Honl tipped his head. “Fire. You do reach the fire bond, so I suppose that makes the most sense. In that way, you are nearly a creature of elemental energy yourself.”

  “I still don’t know what you’r
e getting at, Honl.”

  “These patterns are meant to call to the elementals. There is no coercion, not like what the Bonded One had used, but simply a calling. It is an ancient pattern, one that is found in your home.”

  “Where in my home…” He trailed off, realizing that Honl meant the archives. The patterns were found there, most clearly in the stone, but also beneath the archives, where the other elementals were drawn. Tan had always believed that places of convergence happened naturally, but what if the elementals had to be summoned there? “You’re saying that the ancient shapers asked the elementals to create these places?”

  “I haven’t been able to determine that yet,” Honl answered, “but that is the most likely answer. There is the power of the Mother there, but to reach it, the others must be present. It is different here.”

  Tan’s breath caught. The power of the Mother. The source of spirit shaping.

  And he had thought that Par-shon had no knowledge of spirit, and that the Utu Tonah had only learned of it after discovering Tan and attempted to use the Aeta to help him access what he could not. But what if that assumption was wrong?

  “What did you mean about the bond?”

  “You have bonded. You could not form a bond to the elementals these patterns draw.”

  “Honl,” Tan began, realizing where he was going, “there is no elemental of spirit.”

  Honl tipped his head to the side again. “We did not believe that there was, but what if there is?”

  22

  Search for Help

  Tan drew through a connection of spirit and earth, straining for Marin.

  He needed someone who understood spirit in Par-shon. From his connection to the other elementals, he’d learned the response to the elements was different in every land he’d visited, from the way the wind blew in Galen versus Incendin to the way he managed to find earth. Each place had its own rules and rhythms.

  Par-shon would be no different than the others. And he wasn’t certain, but it was possible that this extended to the connection to spirit.

  For Amia, he would find out if there was anything that would explain what had happened, and how to fix it. The only person he could think of in Par-shon to help was Marin.

  Only, Tan didn’t know if she would be willing to give him assistance.

  He returned to the place she’d taken him. As far as he could tell, it was something of a place of worship, where the Mistress of Souls guided the people she served, leading them through her connection to spirit.

  It was empty.

  The fading sun sent streamers of light into the plaza. No children moved within or along the street, almost as if they had been removed or brought somewhere else.

  Using earth and spirit, he reached again for Marin but still couldn’t find her. Frustration bubbled within him. He needed to understand if there might be something to what Honl had suggested. What would it mean if there was an elemental of spirit, and if there was, had Marin known?

  Tan could speak to the elementals and had used that connection to reach to the Great Mother, binding together his connection to them so that he could access even more strength, so that he could practically tap into the Great Mother herself, and he hadn’t known about an elemental of spirit.

  Unless what Honl suspected was wrong.

  That was what he wanted to learn from Marin.

  He stopped at one of the pillars occupying the middle of the room. There was nearly a dozen, arranged in such a way that he was forced to weave through the empty room. When he’d been here before, he hadn’t known that the bonds had any additional piece to them. Knowing gave him better insight to the people, but he still didn’t know how to use that information.

  And Amia depended on his learning. At least Honl watched over her. It gave the wind elemental a chance to study her as well. But he needed to find answers so that she could recover. If he didn’t… Tan didn’t want to think about what would happen.

  The nearest pillar had none of the runes some of the buildings did. Tan circled around it, hoping for answers, but found nothing. He moved on to the next, but there was nothing more for him there, either.

  Near the center of the room, he found the first marking on the pillar.

  Tan crouched close and traced his fingers across it. It was different than some of the others he’d seen in the city, and as he shaped into it, he realized that it was connected to spirit.

  Rather than shaping spirit alone, he used a combined shaping of each of the elements to probe it. This was the way that he had learned to shape spirit from the beginning, but that wasn’t the reason that he’d chosen to shape the rune in that way. Whatever had happened to Amia had come because she had shaped spirit alone. Tan would not risk the same until he knew what had happened, and how to avoid the same happening to him.

  The shaping surged into the pattern. At first, he detected a resistance, but the more that he pushed—and, he realized, the more that he used pure spirit—the better he was able to stabilize the pattern that had been here.

  This reacted differently than the other shapings that he’d done when the runes were involved. With those, like the one on the buildings or those upon the tower that he had helped repair using a shaping, the shaping seemed to take hold on its own, requiring little guidance from him. This rune for spirit demanded his input.

  Tan wracked his mind for what he knew about spirit runes. They weren’t common, even in Ethea. Other than the uncomplicated runes that had been made by the archivists in the lower level of the archives, the only patterns that he could think of he had learned from the First Mother and Amia.

  Fixing one of those runes in his mind, he focused on the shaping, and sent it into the pattern on the post, hoping that it worked. If it didn’t, and if it rebounded on him, he wasn’t sure if he would be injured like Amia had been.

  His shaping met resistance.

  Tan pressed through it, using an increasing draw of power.

  The pressure against him continued and for a moment, he didn’t think that he would be able to overpower the resistance. Drawing on the strength of the elementals around him, something that he hadn’t had the need to do since defeating the Utu Tonah, he pulled on more strength than he could summon on his own.

  The shaping built, swelling with power and force, and then it settled into the rune, taking hold.

  Tan released the shaping with a sigh and stepped back to see what he’d done.

  The rune was much like the one he’d visualized as he shaped, but there were subtle differences. He detected a drawing of spirit strength toward the rune, a strength that he had not felt in any other form before.

  He wiped his hands on his pants and let out a shaky breath. Once, a shaping like that would have nearly overwhelmed him, or at the least would have left him fatigued and unable to stand, but now that he could draw from the strength of the elementals, he no longer had the same challenges. But he felt the strength required to perform the shaping and wondered if there had been any real purpose to what he’d done. Why would there have been such difficulty in placing this rune? It was almost as if everything here served to prevent him from repairing it.

  You have created the mark of the Mother.

  Tan turned to see Kota crouching in the shadows. He hadn’t sensed her approaching and wondered how she made her way through the city without causing some sort of chaotic scene.

  Not the Mother, Tan said. He studied the rune. It was different than his vision of the runes used for spirit. This is spirit, but not spirit that I recognize.

  That is the mark for the Mother, Kota said again. She approached slowly, her stubby tail pointing behind her and her fur standing on edge. Maelen, there is something else here.

  What do you sense?

  I do not know, Kota said.

  Tan didn’t detect anything, but the hound had a different sensitivity than he did and a different connection to the elemental. The Daughter is injured. Honl tries to understand, but we don’t know how to draw her bac
k.

  That is why I’m here.

  You sensed what happened?

  I can tell the connection changed. A bond was drawn. You had asked me to search for the other, but I have not been able to find her.

  Tan clenched his eyes closed, frustrated. If this were somehow tied to Elanne, then he would know. And he needed Marin to help, especially if she could shape spirit, to determine if there was anything else that he could do to help Amia.

  And he’d been unable to find either of them.

  Honl thinks there might be an elemental of spirit that bonded her.

  Kota prowled around him, her hackles raised. What did she detect that had her on edge?

  There is no elemental of the Mother, Maelen.

  What if there are? What if we only haven’t seen them? There are elementals for each of the other elements; why wouldn’t there be one for spirit?

  Maelen, the connection to the Mother comes from the shaper. You are the spirit elemental.

  What did Kota mean by that?

  The shaper connected to the Mother? Tan started to think about what that might mean. There had been the possibility that they hadn’t seen elementals of spirit simply because they could hide better than the other elementals, but the reason could also be that there were not any spirit elementals.

  Then what bond are you talking about?

  I do not know, but I’ve seen that there is much strength in these lands. More than I would have expected from what I knew before we came.

  What kind of strength? Tan asked, but he already knew that the people of Par had valued the elementals. A dichotomy existed in this place, that of Par-shon and that of Par. Those who still supported Par-shon sought power, and perhaps something else. But those who supported Par… Tan didn’t fully understand what they wanted. They protected the draasin and had done so for generations. They created bonds formed of runes older than what he’d ever found in the kingdoms and used these to speak to the elementals. Other than that… he didn’t know.

  A connection to the elementals that is as great as what you had in your lands. That is why the hatchlings were here. And it must be why the Bonded One came to these lands. We must find a way to understand.