Light of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 10)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Such strength returning to the world. And it couldn’t be coincidence, he didn’t think.

  “She speaks to earth,” Tan told Ferran.

  Ferran looked over to his students, studying them for a moment. “You can tell that through shaping?”

  “No.” Tan considered how much to share with Ferran. The earth shaper had been something of a friend, and Tan had no doubt about his connection and interest in the well-being of the elementals. Why shouldn’t Ferran know? The earth bond—really, all bonds—were part of the power that moved through the world. Shaping power and the connection to the elementals. As an earth shaper bonded to golud, Ferran was as much connected to the earth bond as Tan. “There is a connection within earth. Through that connection, I can see how she is drawn to earth, and how the elemental has claimed her.”

  “She is bonded,” Ferran said. “That would explain much about her talent.”

  “She is bonded,” Tan agreed. “You will need to continue to work with her. You might speak to a different elemental, but you are the best equipped to teach her what she knows.”

  Ferran smiled. “I think there is another who would be able to teach better than I.” He clapped Tan on the shoulder. “It is good to see you again, Athan.”

  He motioned to the students and started guiding them away from the university, leading them down the street. Tan watched them disappear, feeling a pang of jealousy toward Ferran. How much easier would it be if all that he had to do was teach? Tan could focus on the students in Par, see that they were trained as he knew they needed to be. That was something he would gladly do. But taking the time to teach pulled him away from other things that he needed to do.

  With a sigh, he turned toward the archives.

  It will not always be so, Maelen.

  Are you certain of this? Tan asked Light.

  She licked his face but didn’t answer. And Tan knew there was no answer, only more questions, the ones that had brought him back to Ethea. When he found the answers he needed, would he be strong enough to stop Nightfall and the darkness that it brought? Would the strength granted to him by the Mother be enough?

  So many questions without answers.

  Light licked his face again.

  8

  The Return to Alast

  The lower level of the archives had changed since Tan was last here. Then, the doors to the rooms had all been closed and locked, sealed by spirit. Now they remained open, and shaper lanterns glowed with their bright white light along the walls.

  Tan stepped from the tunnel into the archives hesitantly. He had come this way, choosing an indirect route, not wanting to have to force his way through the archives. Roine might have allowed the archivists to return, but Tan still remained uncertain that he should have. In many ways, he felt the archives were his place. Since the archivists were disbanded or destroyed, the archives had essentially been empty other than for him.

  A soft humming came from one of the open doors.

  Tan stopped in the doorway. This particular room had been the one he used the most. Within it, he had stored the artifact before destroying it. Here he had sat and read the ancient texts, hoping to learn from the shapers of the past before he learned how they had treated the elementals. And here he had spent hours simply sitting, talking with Amia, back when Asboel still lived.

  He cleared his throat, and the man standing along the shelves turned to him.

  “You should not be here…” The man frowned as he saw Tan, and a shaping built.

  Tan clenched his jaw, thankful that his ability with spirit protected him, but if this archivist were so willing to shape spirit that he would quickly attempt it around Tan, then he would most likely attempt to shape spirit on others. Not all would have the ability to protect themselves from the shaping.

  “Why should I not be here? Because I am not one of the archivists?” Tan slipped his hand into his pocket and placed the stone ring, the marker of his position as Athan, onto his finger.

  “This level is protected,” the archivist said. He stepped toward Tan, and only then did he appear to take in Tan’s sword, and his dress, his eyes drifting toward Light curled around his neck. “Who are you?” he asked in a hushed whisper.

  Tan grunted. “I think I could ask the same of you.”

  As he crossed his arms over his chest, the archivist’s eyes darted to the ring and widened. “Athan. I am sorry that I didn’t recognize you. Of course, you would be welcome here. King Theondar explicitly said—”

  “What did King Theondar explicitly say?”

  Tan turned to see Roine standing behind him, an amused smile playing across his lips. “Roine.”

  “You sent a summons and then disappeared. You know that when you summon through the coin, you really should wait until the person responds.”

  Tan smiled. “I figured you could find me.”

  Roine grunted. “You wear the ring. And here I thought that you had all but abandoned your position.”

  “If you’d prefer another to have it…”

  Roine laughed. “No. I don’t have another who I would trust with it. And you still serve as Athan as you always have. By that, I mean in your own way.”

  “Much like you did, I seem to remember.”

  Roine laughed again. “Yes. Much like me. You returned to Ethea…”

  “For information.” Tan glanced at the archivist, debating how much to share in front of the archivist. But he’d come to Ethea for answers that would require trusting the stranger to a certain extent. And Amia trusted them. Shouldn’t that be enough for him? “Zephra remains in Par,” Tan went on.

  “With Amia’s pregnancy, she wanted to help as much as she could. And now she would help her grandchild,” Roine said with a smile.

  “Yes, and with what I need to do—”

  “I didn’t think that you knew what you needed to do yet.”

  Roine had come after the last attack and had lingered while Tan recovered, but he had not faced the darkness. Roine couldn’t understand what it was like to endure that. And Roine didn’t share Tan’s connection to the elementals or know what it meant to watch the attack on them.

  “I understand some of what I need. But not all.”

  “And that’s why you returned here. To the archives.”

  Tan nodded.

  “You will help my Athan find whatever he needs, Logan.”

  The archivist glanced from Tan to Roine before nodding. “Of course. May I ask what he searches for?”

  Roine watched Tan, likely wanting the same answer.

  “I need everything that you can find on ancient gods.”

  “Gods? You mean the Great Mother?” Logan asked.

  Tan shook his head. “Not the Great Mother.” He paused and thought about it more. “Maybe. Whatever you can find that might help me understand the ancient view of the Great Mother. But not only the Great Mother. There will be others. One called Nightfall. Perhaps more. I need as much as you can find.”

  Logan nodded slowly. “Nightfall,” he repeated, shifting the fabric of his robe. “You would not want to search for Stormfather or Issa?”

  “I have gone to Incendin to ask about Issa already,” he said, touching the book through his cloak. “Issa is Fire, perhaps no more than that.”

  “Hmm,” Logan said. “I would have expected it to be more. The way their Servants speak about Issa, you could almost believe that she was a person alive.”

  In some ways, Fire was alive, but perhaps not in the way that Incendin viewed Issa. There was power in their god, but that power came from the connection to the Great Mother, not as a separate entity, not like the darkness that had attacked him. That had been different, distinct from the Mother, though Tan didn’t know quite how.

  You must explain, Light said.

  I don’t know if I can trust him.

  The Daughter trusts him.

  Tan sighed. Amia did trust them. They were of the People. Aeta, no different than her. And as far as Tan knew, Logan had not
even been an archivist when the previous ones had attempted to shape half of the kingdoms, attacking Amia along the way. Shouldn’t he try to trust them?

  Tan glanced at Roine, wondering what he would say. Roine supported the archivists as well. It was because of Roine that Assan had gone in search of the Temple of Alast.

  The temple.

  Tan hadn’t considered the temple before, other than as a binding that had failed. But what if the temple would be able to offer understanding about its purpose? The ancients who had taken the time to create the temple would have known why they had placed it where they had. But then, he would have thought the same about those who had created the tower in Par, and the Records, but he had not found anything that explained it. Nothing more than the ramblings of the Utu Tonah that suggested he knew more than others in Par-shon.

  “Athan?” Logan asked.

  Tan shook his head, dragging his attention back to them. “I’m sorry. I… I wonder if perhaps you might be able to help me in a way that I hadn’t considered before.”

  Roine frowned at him.

  “I buried the temple, but that was one of the bindings, Roine. If there is anything that we can learn, it would be in a place the ancients used as the bindings, don’t you think?”

  Roine twisted a ring on his finger, new since the last time that Tan had seen him. Made of gold and silver, a few runes were worked across the surface. Tan smiled sadly, remembering that his father had once had a similar ring, though without the runes. “You think that we need to return to the temple.” When Tan nodded, he said, “Then I will come.”

  “Roine, you are needed here. You can’t come shaping across the kingdoms and risking yourself.”

  “And I think,” Roine went on as if Tan had not even spoken, “that my Athan needs to remember who now rules in the kingdoms.”

  Tan sighed and shook his head. “Fine. But in the temple, you follow my lead.”

  “We’ll see.”

  With a shaping of lightning that carried Tan and Logan to Vatten, where they would find the temple, there was the usual sense of movement that came with traveling like this, but nothing else. No wind whipped around him, and the air smelled stale. The shaping itself felt unusual, but Tan couldn’t put a finger on why that would be.

  They landed near the ruins of the excavation. Tan had smoothed the earth back into place, trying to cover the evidence of the temple so that Marin or another like her could not recover it, but there was no hiding what had been done to the earth. Partly that was because of the effect that the temple itself had on shaping, but partly that was the haste with which Tan had departed, needing to get somewhere safe once Amia went into labor.

  “This is where Assan passed?” Logan asked.

  Tan sighed. “I don’t know what happened to him.”

  “He is gone,” Logan said softly. “He was connected, and then he was not.”

  Tan hadn’t thought about the way that the archivists connected, but they were Aeta spirit shapers, so why would they not share some sort of connection? He and Amia shared a spirit connection, but it was part of a bond, and he didn’t think that the others of the Aeta had something similar, but that didn’t mean that they had no connection. Tan knew that the Aeta shared something and had never thought to question Amia about it, but maybe he should have.

  “You were aware of him?”

  “The People share a connectedness,” he said. “Those powerful with their ability share it best. Assan was very strong.” He glanced at Tan and a smile spread across his face. “Perhaps not as much as the First Mother, but enough for those of us who would never be Mother.”

  That was another thing that Tan hadn’t given much thought to. Many of these shapers would never be able to lead their people. The Mothers of the families would lead, with Daughters learning from them. Even strong shapers, like Assan apparently had been, would never be given the opportunity to lead the People. That was probably the reason that so many had come to the kingdoms and served as archivists. It did not explain why so many of the archivists had let themselves use their abilities in the awful way that they had.

  “When I was here before,” Tan started, glancing at Roine as he made a steady circuit around the remnants of the hole, “there were men from Xsa working with Assan and Sani. They helped excavate the temple, but then, when I came back, they attempted some sort of shaping that was meant to trap me.” And it nearly had. Without reaching spirit, they might have trapped him. Tan didn’t know if they were forced to aid the darkness that Marin served, or whether they had served of their own accord. Maybe it didn’t matter. They had fallen and had been left behind, buried within the earth.

  “The people of Xsa have long been rumored to have a strange power,” Logan said. “Some think it is tied to shaping, but others… others do not know. The People have never been able to learn, though maybe it does not matter.”

  “I think it matters,” Tan said. “If they were able to use that on me, to trap me, then they could do the same to others.”

  “I will see what I can discover, Athan.”

  Tan hadn’t expected him to attempt to find anything for him, and the offer surprised him but was one that he would accept. “Thank you.” He considered the pile of earth, the heavy earthy odor telling of the recent rain. “I am sorry that you lost your friend.”

  Logan sighed. “There is a dangerous energy here,” he said. “Assan should have recognized that as well.”

  “I think that he might have. But I don’t think that he knew what it meant. None of us did, at least, not at the time.” Perhaps Sani did, though Tan was no longer certain. Maybe she had been used as well. It was possible that Marin had found a way to shape her and force her to assist. And that would have been Tan’s fault as much as anyone’s. Marin remained free. By not trying to discover what she was after, he could be risking others.

  “Why did you bring us here, Tannen?” Roine asked.

  “This is the Temple of Alast. If there is anything that we can find that might help me understand what happened, maybe it will be here.”

  “But you buried it. How do you expect to learn what the temple might hide when it’s under the earth?”

  Tan called softly through the earth, to the earth bond, and reached for the strength of the hounds. They were strong in these lands and had grown stronger in the time that they remained here. Now they rivaled what golud would be able to do, a strength that Tan once would have thought unlikely.

  The earth began to rumble and then, with a shaping that he added, the soft earth began to slide up and away from the temple, freeing the pale white stone once more. As before, the temple pressed against him strangely, as if it wanted to resist shaping, but the effect was less than before as if the attack had drained it of some of its power. As the circular shape began to emerge from the ground, Roine gasped.

  “This has been here?”

  “This has always been here,” Tan said. “This is from ancient Vathansa before the rest of Vatten was pulled from the sea.”

  The archivist nodded. “All of this was water and islands once.”

  Roine lowered himself into the pit that Tan had shaped. He tentatively touched the stone, resting his hand upon it, carefully at first, but then with a shaped effort. “There is power here. It’s stored, trapped.”

  “I think the power here prevents shaping,” Tan said. “I don’t understand why, but the temple is meant to separate shaping.” In that way, it was much like what the Utu Tonah had done in Par-shon as he tried to strip bonds away from shapers.

  “There is something similar to it. I… I recognize it,” Roine said. “Something like the barrier.”

  Tan considered the temple and realized that it did have something of the barrier to it. It was the same that he’d found in Par. “Didn’t you say that Lacertin had been the one to create the barrier?”

  Roine nodded slowly, leaning his head toward the temple. “Lacertin did, but there are some who thought that he borrowed the idea from another place.
”

  “Where would he have borrowed it from?” Tan asked. Where else would they have the ability to shape? And where else would there be a need for a barrier like that?

  “There’s a place far to the north. Not many know of it because it is too difficult to reach, but that is where Lacertin supposedly learned of the barrier.”

  “You don’t think he did?”

  “Norilan is nothing more than a rumor,” Roine said. “Even warrior shapers cannot go beyond the ice. So for Lacertin to have reached someplace… let’s just say that I think it unlikely.”

  Tan thought about the place that he had gone when flying with Asgar. That had been far to the north, hadn’t it, and beyond the ice? In some ways, it had been the ice, as if the water itself had been shaped into ice.

  Would Tan have managed to reach that place without riding the draasin? Had he traveled only via shaping, would he have managed to make it quite as far? He didn’t know. He might not have tried without knowing there was even something there. And then, had he tried, he would have been able to pull from the strength of the elementals to give him the ability to reach all the way north. Without that strength… Tan didn’t know.

  That was a question for another time, he decided. Now was to understand the temple and see if there might be something here that they could learn, and maybe something that would allow him to discover the purpose of the bindings and what the ancients had known of them.

  “How would we be able to enter this?” Roine asked. “The stone is smooth, and I don’t see anything that would give access.”

  “Not smooth,” Tan said, pointing to the long crack in the stone. Shaping into the stone wouldn’t open it. He had tried before but hadn’t discovered a way in. And he hadn’t learned what Marin had done that had granted her access. Somehow she had managed to get past the door and released the binding enough that the darkness could seep out. Tan reached through the various element bonds, wondering if any of them would allow him to make his way past, but none worked. That left spirit.