“That’s why I summoned, Tannen,” Roine said. “I think I might know where to look.”
Tan followed Roine’s lead through the temple, his eyes tracing the way the spirit binding sent trails of light so that the temple seemed to glow, each trail leading to one of the hidden Seals, the Marks that connected to the central spirit bond. Those connections had been here when Tan had left, but not with the same strength that he saw now. The connection had solidified and intensified.
They continued through the temple, but not toward one of the arms spiraling off, as Tan had suspected. Roine led them to a hole in the ground. Steps descended downward into the darkness. With a shaping of fire, the darkness burst into light. A few shaper lanterns were set along steps leading down.
“I brought them from the archives when we found this,” Roine explained. “It can be a little disorienting when you first go down, and I don’t have the same control with fire that you do,” he said to Tan.
“Where does it go?”
“Follow me,” Roine said. He jumped into the opening on a shaping of wind and hurried down the stairs.
Tan glanced over at Elanne and then followed. Light squeezed her tail more tightly around his neck as they went but licked his face, her way of telling him that she was fine.
Wide stairs led deep beneath the earth. Or did they? At one time, the now-buried temple had been out of the ground, not covered by centuries of dirt. It was possible that they simply made their way to the previous temple entrance.
Continuing onward, Roine paused when the stairs opened into a massive room. Lanterns set into the walls glowed with a soft white shaped light. These were different than most of the shaper lanterns that Tan had ever seen. Shaper lanterns were a circular globe that anyone with the ability to shape could illuminate. These were elongated, almost like blades, and recessed into the wall rather than jutting out from it. Runes set on either side were the source of their power.
“They were lit when we found it,” Roine said. “It reminds me of the shaped cavern where we found the artifact.”
“This is different,” Tan said. “That was power and tied to the elementals, but this is raw power here.” And simpler. What they had found in the place of convergence had been a complicated shaping. Even now, he didn’t think he could recreate such a shaping. The ancients had formed trees and a breeze and sounds within the cavern, all of it shaped into existence. The temple and the runes within it might be complex, but the power that came through here was more of a raw energy.
“Why did you bring us down here, Roine?” Tan asked. “And where is Logan?”
Roine pointed toward the center of the room, and Tan followed. As he did, he felt an edge of nervousness. There was something about the temple that made him uncomfortable, though Tan couldn’t say with certainty what it was. The temple had been restored, the connection that had been damaged recovered. Why should it trouble him?
They stopped near one of the massive stone tiles that made up the floor. It had been removed, slid to the side, and the surface of it was covered with runes. Really, Tan realized, all of the tiles in this level were covered by runes. He hadn’t seen it when they first entered, but now that he was here, he recognized them.
Elanne sucked in a breath. “Look at all the bonds!”
Roine motioned to the space beneath the ground, where the tile had been shifted away. “This is where Logan has gone. This leads beneath the temple. At first, we thought it would take us to where those Marks were, but this doesn’t do that at all. There are tunnels. Massive tunnels that lead away from here.”
Tan began to suspect where Roine was going, and where the tunnels might lead. But the distance to Ethea… it would have been enormous for someone to have shaped. Yet, Tan had never followed the tunnels found beneath the city, not all the way. Some of the paths were blocked, preventing him from following them, but could they reach all this way?
“If these lead to Ethea, how does this help us find where the third binding would be?”
“There isn’t one single connection here, Tan. There are dozens. And I don’t think that any lead to Ethea, at least none that we’ve found.” A troubled expression passed across his face, almost as if he hadn’t considered the possibility before. “But think of what had been here before. Logan tells me this was all part of Vathansa, a collection of islands the ancient shapers somehow pulled from the sea. These connections, they go between the temple and other places within Vathansa. Even that, while impressive, is not what I wanted to show you.”
“What did you want to show me?”
“A map. And on the map is Vathansa, Par-shon, and another location.”
The third binding. Roine and Logan had found it.
“You should know, Tan, something about where the map indicates. It’s in a place that no one has ever has been known to go.”
Tan realized that Roine knew of it. “Where is it?”
Roine dropped into the floor and was swallowed by darkness.
Tan followed and lit a shaping of fire, expecting to have to follow quite a ways to reach this map, but he did not. Roine stood in front of a massive stone wall, and on that wall was a carving that could be nothing other than a map. Tan noted the position of Vathansa as a cluster of islands. In the center was a symbol that looked like spirit, and he realized that it indicated the location of the temple. There was what would be the kingdoms, but with geography that was different than what he knew today. To the south, he found a marker that was Par, with another spirit marker over it. And then, to the north and the east, was a third symbol for spirit.
And Tan realized that he had seen it. The icy place that he could not reach, one where there was a shaping built like a barrier around it, one that Lacertin had been rumored to have copied as he came up with the idea of the barrier.
“This… was known as Norilan,” Roine said.
“Not Norilan,” Elanne told him in a hushed breath. “In Par, we call this place Volan. It is the end of the world and a place where nothing survives.”
14
The First Barrier
Back outside the temple, Tan stared at the sky. How was he going to find a way into Norilan? The only time that he’d managed to get close, he had been with Asgar, and even then, he hadn’t known of a way to shape past the barrier that he’d detected there.
“I need to see it again,” he said.
“Again? Tan, if you have been there, you know how far it is from the kingdoms. You might be tied to the elementals, but even you would be weakened crossing the distance to that place.” Roine held one hand on his sword as if intending to unsheathe it to prevent Tan from going.
“I can ride with the draasin,” Tan answered. But once he was there, even if he could find a way past the barrier, he wouldn’t be able to bring the draasin with him. He couldn’t risk the draasin getting trapped with him. Only, in a place of ice and water, having one of the great fire elementals might be the only way that he would get free.
“Maelen, we know of Volan in Par. Any ship that goes too near does not return. There is nothing there.”
“Other than the third binding,” Tan answered. And Honl was there, he was certain of it. Somehow, the wind elemental had managed to make it through the barrier. At least now Tan had an idea about why he hadn’t been able to reach Honl all this time. If the wind elemental had gone behind the barrier, he would have been restricted from reaching Tan. It made sense why the connection had faded. And Honl claimed that the binding held, but Tan knew that some part of it did not, not if the spirit connection that should form between the bindings no longer flowed. And maybe that was the result of the barrier as well. Much like the separation that had formed between the kingdoms and Incendin when the barrier between the two had been placed, could the barrier around Norilan disrupt the bindings?
But if that were the case, how was it that the darkness hadn’t escaped before now?
Tan focused on wind, pulling himself into the wind bond, reaching for the connection th
at he shared with Honl. He was there, faintly in the back of his mind, but not enough for Tan to even find him easily. As before, he reached into the spirit bond, adding this to his connection, but unlike when he had reached Honl before, this time, there was nothing but silence.
Did Honl refuse the connection, or had something happened that prevented him from responding?
Either left Tan with concern.
And still, he had no way of knowing how to bypass the barrier around Norilan.
If only Lacertin still lived…
There was someone who might know what he had known. Before Tan made an attempt at breaking through the barrier that existed around Norilan, he needed to learn all that he could about the barrier. Who better to help than the one person that Lacertin had been closest to?
The San might not have been willing to help him find Cora, but Tan could discover what he needed through the fire bond. At least he could learn where she might have gone.
Focusing on the bond, he reached first for Enya. The draasin was there, deep within his mind, and surged within his awareness as he connected to the bond.
Maelen, she said.
Are you well?
As well as I can be with the passing of the eldest.
Tan rarely thought about how much the loss of Asboel would affect the draasin. Asgar had been bothered, but he seemed to understand that Asboel had moved beyond this world and back into the fire bond. Sashari grieved and mourned, but no more than Tan had. But he knew little about how Enya had responded. Maybe that was part of the reason that Cora had remained distant. Was it possible that her connection to the draasin had changed with the loss of Asboel? Was it possible that Enya refused to listen and assist as she once had?
The bond between Cora and Enya already was tenuous, formed out of necessity and not necessarily because Enya had wanted to do so. Cora was the right person to share the bond, but Enya had not wanted to bond to anyone, leaving the connection as less than desirable.
What of Corasha?
She is distant.
Distant?
I would understand her better, but she remains distant to me.
She wants the bond, Enya.
Perhaps the bond, but I am not sure that she wants it to me.
Tan found it almost amusing that she would feel that way. It was much the same way that Cora had felt about Enya, fearing that the draasin hadn’t wanted the connection. Do you know where she might be found?
She is within the temple.
Tan frowned before realizing that Enya meant the Fire Fortress. The San had referred to it as a temple as well, though it was a temple much different than the one that loomed behind him.
Can you still reach her?
I can reach her, but the connection is distant.
Where would Cora be within the Fire Fortress that her connection to her bond would be distant? Was there something that the San had done? Or was it because of the draasin?
Tell her that I am coming to her. And that I need her help.
I will try, Maelen.
The connection between them faded, and Tan looked over at Elanne. “I need to go to Incendin. There is someone there who might know more about Norilan.”
Roine stopped behind him and grabbed his shoulders, pulling him around to face him. “Why Incendin?”
“Cora was close to Lacertin. If he was responsible for the barrier in the kingdoms, maybe he had talked with her about how it was made. Maybe there’s a weakness she knows about.”
“The barrier’s only weakness was that it needed to be maintained by shapers. Without enough shapers, we weren’t able to hold it in place.”
“When I was near Norilan,” Tan started, thinking that had to be where he and Asgar had gone, “There was significant shaping power there that pushed me away. I couldn’t get close enough even if I pulled on the connection to the elementals.” He didn’t know if it mattered that he could now borrow from the bonds themselves and didn’t have to rely on shaping or the connection to the elementals to reach that strength.
Roine nodded. “The barrier that we had in the kingdoms had no real weakness. At least, the longer that we held it, there had been no significant weakness. I don’t know if there even is one, but if anyone would have known about it, Lacertin would.”
“Keep studying the temple,” Tan said to Roine. “Have Logan keep studying. If we understand the bindings, we might be able to keep ourselves safe.”
Roine looked back at the temple and nodded slowly.
He missed the troubled expression on Tan’s face, or the worry about whether it was too late to restore the bindings and suppress the darkness.
Light licked his cheek. This time, he didn’t feel reassured.
15
A Servant’s Help
The shaping coming from the Fire Fortress burned with a familiar energy. Tan could detect the influence of his shaping within it. More than that, he felt the way that fire called to him, washing over him and over all of Incendin. Through that, he wondered if maybe it drew fire shapers toward the Fire Fortress, almost as a way to claim them.
If he saw the San again, he would have to ask.
This time, he did not wait for someone to greet him at the entrance to the fire fortress. Instead, he reached through earth and spirit, searching for the connection to Cora. If she were here, as Enya had indicated, Tan would be able to find her, especially as close as he now was.
Elanne had remained in Vatten, at the temple to study the runes. Tan knew that she suspected that she would find something that would help her understand her people, and the Records in Par, better but he also suspected the Records were more important than only to Par. If they were a record of the time of the bindings, then they would need to know, and to understand, how the bindings were secured and what those ancients might have known about Nightfall and the darkness.
Inside the Fire Fortress, he detected Cora, but much as Enya had said, the sense of her was distant, faded somewhat. In that way, it reminded Tan of how Honl felt within his mind.
Through spirit, and adding the spirit bond, Tan could tell where to find her. She had a specific energy about her, and Tan reached for this, holding onto the connection that he detected deep within the Fortress.
He saw no one in the Fire Fortress.
The last time that he had been here, there had been servants making their way through the building. Now it was almost as if they knew that he was here—and hid from him.
Tan didn’t worry about it. He couldn’t, not if he wanted to find Cora.
The sense of her pulled him up and up in the temple, but not all the way to the top, and not to the peak where the fire shaping took place. There was a separate landing, one that reminded him of the place where the San had tested him. Behind a door, he found Cora.
And saw that she was engulfed in flames.
Not like she had embraced fire. Cora did not become one of the lisincend. He had a sense from her that she appreciated what the lisincend had done for Incendin but didn’t want to serve fire in that way. But she knelt on the stone fully nude, with her back bent and her arms stretched in front of her. Flames ran from her fingers along her arms and consumed her flesh, trailing all the way down her body until it reached her toes.
The shaping that ran across her skin was more tightly controlled than anything that Tan had ever seen before. Not only was it controlled, but there seemed a certain intent behind it. And it wasn’t only fire. From what he could tell, earth, water, and wind mixed into the shaping, but in such subtle ways that they might not have been.
He stood staring, unable to turn away, his hands stuffed in his pockets, fingering the book that he had been given the last time that he had come here. Then, the San had claimed that he would be welcomed in Incendin if he chose to become a Servant of Issa.
Whatever she did must be because of Issa. He wished he’d had the time to study the Book of Issa, but even if he had, he didn’t understand old Rens. And though Cora was nude, there was nothing sexual
about what she did or the way that the shaping consumed her. Tan was unable to tear his eyes from what happened to her.
A soft touch at his elbow caught his attention, and he turned to see the San watching him. He nodded and guided Tan away, making a point of closing the door tightly behind him. The San led Tan to a room not far from where Cora performed her shaping and sat him at a simple wooden table and long bench. Rows of shelves were behind him, but the San ignored them, focusing on Tan.
“That is known as the Calling of Issa,” the San said. “It is one of the final shapings the Servants will learn, and requires perfect control. You will notice that there are no others within the temple who disturb her. If she is disturbed, the Calling can go awry, and Issa might injure her unintentionally.”
“Why does she do it now?”
“Because she is ready.”
“Was this what she had done when I was here the last time?” That had been a week at least, maybe a little longer. Could Cora really have been working a shaping for that long?
“She had been performing this shaping for the last two months.”
Two months of shaping. Tan had shaped for long stretches of time, but never more than a day. He could draw upon the strength of the elementals to augment his ability to shape, but could Cora? Did she draw through Enya?
“The Calling requires a unity with Issa,” the San said. “Without that unity, the Servant is not able to reach the connection to Issa reliably.”
Tan suspected that meant that she was pulling on the fire bond, but if she was, wouldn’t he be able to detect it? Wouldn’t Enya?
Unless he had been wrong. What if there was more to Issa than what he had expected?
Could Issa be some other elemental? That would make sense why Incendin would worship it. But Tan had stood in the fire, and had known that sense. That had been Fire. True Fire, and not only the fire bond. Maybe that was the difference.
“Have you come to learn to listen to Issa? To become a Servant? It would not take you long to decide to participate in the Calling.”
Light of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 10) Page 11