Light of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 10)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Tan hadn’t known whether Fur followed Issa in the same way the Servants did, but considering his deference to the San, he shouldn’t have been surprised to hear that Fur did. “What does your San tell you about the mysteries of Issa?”

  Fur’s brow furrowed and he brought a slender finger to his lips. “He tells me that I should seek Issa in all that I do.” His voice dropped to a whisper, and he looked toward Cora. “There were many years—too many—when I couldn’t control the way fire raged within me. I thought that served Issa. Since you restored me to fire, I feel it more intimately than I ever had before.” His eyes closed and he let out a breath that was mostly steam. “I often wonder. What would have happened had we killed you, warrior? I know Issa so much differently than I did when fire raged through me. Perhaps that is why she saved you.”

  “Perhaps,” Tan agreed.

  Fur stood in place and fire built from him slowly, and with a control reminiscent of the way that Cora had shaped fire during her Calling of Issa. It swirled around him, and Tan realized that Fur did it as a way to comfort himself.

  He left the lisincend standing alone, wrapped in fire, as they continued toward the distant city.

  Cresting a slight rise, Tan looked upon the city more easily. Behind him, with every step that he’d taken, they had released the elementals bound to this place, leaving hard, stark rock in its place. Each elemental freed had been tied to spirit, wrapping them in a way that would keep them separated from the darkness and its reach.

  Within the city, earth and spirit sensing showed him people living within it, but not nearly as many as the size of the city would predict. There was a certain familiarity to the design of the buildings, one that harkened to the archives in Ethea, as well as some of the oldest buildings within it. A low wall surrounded the city. Beyond the wall, all sense of shaped elementals ceased.

  “They don’t bind the elementals there,” Tan said to Amia.

  “Like the other part of the city you found?”

  Tan shook his head. “This is different than that place. There, I think the elementals once had been bound but were no longer.” He thought about the way that the wall around it had created a separation and suspected that the other side had once had the same bonded elementals but that the darkness had somehow overwhelmed or tainted them, destroying the connections.

  “We should be ready,” he said.

  “For what?” Roine asked. He had been mostly silent as they approached the city, though everyone had been strangely silent. Little more than soft whispers had passed between them.

  “For anything.”

  Tan wrapped shapings of each element around himself and pulled on the connection to the element bonds as he approached the city. Near him, he sensed the others doing the same.

  Moving forward, holding onto the shaping as he did, he felt the connection to earth that those within the city possessed, combined with spirit. None were spirit shapers; they existed within his mind as something like a void when a sensing of spirit washed over them, and Tan had no sense of that void coming from the city.

  But shapings built.

  When other shapers worked with their abilities, he detected it as a pressure within his ears, the same sort of pressure he felt when soaring with the draasin or shaping himself along the wind. The stronger the shaper, the greater the pressure that he detected.

  Given the shapings that he sensed, there was great power coming from the city.

  “Tan?” Amia asked.

  “I sense it,” he told her. How could he not? The shaped energy that he detected was enormous and didn’t seem to come through the elementals, meaning that whoever shaped had significant power.

  Fur growled a thick, low sound that rumbled from deep within his chest. Fire pressed out in waves from him, flowing like lava as it washed away from the lisincend.

  Elle slid nearby, staying on her trail of water, the thin green film of masyn supporting her in the air as she made her way toward the city. Elanne hovered in the air just on the edge of Tan’s vision. Surprisingly, Roine and Zephra held back.

  They passed the outermost buildings.

  Tan glanced at them, but these buildings were empty.

  He continued onward, now floating on wind mixed with more fire, the heat propelling him even faster. The fire bond carried awareness of the draasin flying overhead, circling and watching them. Shapings built from those with him, coming from each of the elements. Tan kept his focus on the city, on what might come. But nothing did.

  Each building they passed was empty. The sense of shaping came from deeper within the city, but Tan had to reach it first. He had thought that he might find others in this portion of the city—earth sensing had suggested that he would—but the closer he got, the less he detected them. Either they moved, or the strange distortion to his shaping in these lands affected him more than he realized.

  The simple square structures became larger the deeper into the city they went. Buildings began to rise two or three stories, blocking the rest of the city from view. The strange disconnect from what he sensed, that awareness of people in the city and what he saw in front of him, persisted.

  Tan took to the air, rising higher than the buildings, not wanting to have his line of sight obscured. Spreading out in front of him, more of the same buildings stretched before ending along a rocky cliff.

  He frowned. What he sensed was near the cliff, but also down.

  He streaked toward the edge of the rock. The city pressed against the cliff before stopping, almost as if the city that had been here had fallen off with the rest of the rock. A wide chasm opened, the bottom of it so far below that it was impossible to see. The other side of the canyon had to be over a thousand feet away.

  “Where are they?” Ferran asked.

  He stood on a shaping of earth that somehow held him in the air. Tan still hadn’t completely worked out how he managed to shape himself like that. “Not in the city,” he said.

  That would explain why the sense of Norilan’s population had shifted as they continued to make their way through the city. But why wouldn’t they be in the city? And where would they have gone?

  “They’re below,” Elle said, sliding to stand next to him, simply holding onto a platform of shaped water. “That’s what we did in Doma when Par-shon attacked. We were able to remain beneath the city.”

  “But how did you survive?” Ferran asked. “What did you eat?”

  Elle shrugged. “Doma has always known how to harvest from the sea. We managed to pull tides through the gaps in the rock, and caught fish and seaweed. Enough that we were able to survive until Tan came and cleared them out.”

  “There is something amiss here,” Ferran said. “If they are beneath us, then why the shaping?”

  Tan agreed. The shaping that he detected was incredibly powerful. Possibly it was the work of many shapers, and enough of them that they could project just how potent their shapings were.

  “I need to go down there,” Tan said.

  “Are you sure that is wise?” Ferran asked. “Feel the pressure of this shaping, Athan. There is much power to it. A shaping like that…”

  Tan could feel it, but he didn’t know the purpose behind it. Could these shapers have been twisted by the darkness to serve it? Were they the reason that the binding had failed?

  But he didn’t have answers, not to the questions that he possessed.

  Amia squeezed his hand. “This is why we’re here.”

  “We came for Honl,” Tan said with a whisper. “This… I don’t know what this is.”

  “This could be answers. Isn’t that what we need?”

  She was right. If they could find answers, even if it meant that they had to capture some of these shapers, it would be worth it. They might finally be able to understand what had happened centuries ago and how those shapers had managed to suppress the darkness. As much as helping Honl, that was the reason he was here.

  He sighed, nodded, and dropped on a shaping of wind and fire
toward the rock cliff.

  Tan shaped as went down, feeling along the rock as he went, searching for how to find the other shapers. Passing below the level of the city, Tan felt a tingling cool sense across his skin that reminded him of the time he had passed beyond the failing barrier in the kingdoms. Clouds and mist swirled around him.

  Watch from above for now, he sent to the draasin, but be ready. I may have need of your assistance.

  The draasin sent a sense of agreement through the bond and Tan continued down, unable to see anything around him. Nothing but the mist and the clouds.

  With a shaping, he swept them away.

  And gasped.

  Nestled along the rock, he saw another city. This was built onto the edge as if clinging to the sheer wall. Dozens of buildings, all small and compact, as they were recessed into the stone.

  The shaping that he detected came from here. Now that he could more clearly see, he felt the power surging from the buildings but directed in all directions. The shaping that maintained the barrier came from here, as did the shaping that held the bonds in place.

  Tan turned to Amia but stopped, realizing that a man dressed in dark pants and a long, flowing jacket shaped his way toward them. Silver hair streamed behind him in the wind. And elementals swirled around him.

  “Who are you?” the man demanded.

  A powerful shaping built from him that combined each of the elements. This was a warrior shaper and one who had either bonded the elementals or had forced a bond on the elementals.

  “What did he say?” Ferran whispered.

  Only then did Tan realize that the warrior had spoken in Ishthin, a language that had rarely been spoken aloud in centuries.

  Tan focused on the water bond, realizing this to be the elemental that the man had swirling around him, an elemental that was much like masyn in the way that it called to the mist, but this formed the clouds and the rain and left a soft sheen on the man’s brow.

  There was no evidence that he had forced a bond. Which meant that he had formed the bond with the elementals on his own.

  Tan used a spirit shaping, searching for evidence that the man had been tainted by the darkness, but the shaping was rebuffed.

  The warrior glared at him.

  “I am Tannen Minden. Your elemental may know me as Maelen.”

  The man’s eyes darkened. “You can shape. And not weakly, it would seem.”

  In answer, Tan pulled on the connection of the elements he felt all around him, using not only the element bonds but the elementals as well. “I can shape. Who are you? What is this place?”

  “Fools, all of you,” the man said, his eyes sweeping up the rock and seeming to take in all of the shapers that Tan had brought with him, “to come to the Order of Warrior like this.”

  Dozens of other shapers suddenly appeared, likely warriors each, and a shaping that Tan hadn’t detected suddenly lifted as they surrounded him and the others.

  24

  The Order of Warriors

  Do not attack, Tan sent through spirit. He mixed the message into each of the element bonds, hoping that it would carry through to those with him.

  Could these shapers truly be from the Order of Warrior? Some of the oldest texts that he’d found in the archives referenced the Order of Warrior, but that was supposed to have been from a time long ago, from when the kingdoms were first founded.

  “The Order of Warrior?” he asked. He raised his hand, hoping to signal to the other shapers to remain calm. Did they know what he indicated? Did it matter if they did not? If the warriors attacked, they were outnumbered enough that Tan wasn’t sure that he would be able to get everyone to safety, not without risking an attack that might put others in danger. And if these warriors were not tainted by the darkness, there would be value in learning from them.

  The kingdoms had only a few warriors remaining. Tan. Roine. Perhaps one or two of the upcoming students. Cora from Incendin. None from Doma. And Chenir, with the Supreme Leader. Even Par had not had many warriors. Those they did had died with the attack.

  “This is the Order of Warrior. We are an ancient and powerful group. And you have intruded.” He tipped his head toward the water elemental. “This was you? You disrupted the bonds?”

  “Not only me,” Tan said. He would protect Light but let the warrior think that there were others with him capable of disrupting the connection to the bonds. “They hold the elementals in place.”

  “They protect the elementals. You are too ignorant to understand. It is our very protections that allow you to remain ignorant.”

  Fur growled softly, and Tan glanced over at him.

  The lisincend had no wings like some of the others now in Incendin, but he was so attuned to fire, and connected to kaas, that his skin glowed a soft orange as he hovered in the air. A trail of smoke and flame streamed behind him.

  “What kind of elemental is this?” the warrior asked. “What have you done to them?”

  “I am no elemental,” Fur said. “I embraced fire.”

  The warrior studied Fur and a shaping of fire built as if probing toward him. When it reached Fur, the shaping fell apart, fizzled out by the lisincend’s control over fire.

  “You would be wise not to attempt that again,” Fur said.

  Two other shapers approached, joining the man across from Tan and the others. As they did, Tan felt a soft pressure around him.

  They were sealing them inside of some kind of shaping.

  Drawing on each of the elements, Tan pressed against the shaping.

  It bulged and then collapsed, exploding away from him.

  He drew on more shaped power, a growing irritation rising within him.

  Two of the warriors fell, no longer able to support themselves. Tan reached for them with earth and wind, catching them before they reached the ground. He pulled them toward him and held them bound in his shaping.

  “Perhaps I am not the only fool,” he said.

  The warrior glanced at the fallen shapers and then at the others around him.

  Another shaping built from them, this time less subtly, but with much more power. It wrapped like a bubble around Tan and those with him. Someone—possibly Elanne—gasped as it began to constrict around them.

  The shaping combined each of the elements. The intent of the shaping was clear as soon as it began to form. They intended to separate the shapers from their ability to shape.

  Tan had experienced something like this before.

  Not like this. It was the same shaping, only more controlled.

  The Utu Tonah had used a shaping like this, intent on pulling Tan from his ability to oppose him.

  “Tan,” Roine said more calmly than he likely felt, “I can no longer shape.”

  Maelen. Should we come? Asgar asked.

  Not yet. Be ready.

  Tan glared at the warrior who stared at them from the other side of the shaping.

  “You should not have come here,” the man said. “This is a place of power, and of danger. Your presence has disrupted a stable balance that the world has known for hundreds of years.”

  The others might have been cut off from their ability to shape, but he was not. He reached through the connection to the element bonds and added spirit, drawing most strongly upon it. Amia added her ability as well, pressing her enormous strength and control through to him.

  Tan pushed.

  The warriors might have more knowledge of shaping, but Tan had battled the archivists, the lisincend, and then the Utu Tonah. All of those battles had taught him about shaping and had brought him a great understanding of his ability with the elements. He may not have the same finesse and understanding, but he had something that he suspected they did not: he could reach the element bonds and spirit.

  Using spirit, he knifed against the shaping surrounding him.

  There was resistance, but Tan was connected to the spirit bond. He surged through it.

  The shaping exploded.

  This time, when the explod
ed shaping struck those attempting to hold it, he did nothing when they fell. Nearly a dozen of the shapers were thrown back, spinning wildly. Spirit told him that many were unconscious.

  “You would do well to save your people,” Tan said simply.

  The warrior frowned and then raised a hand, making a motion with his fist. Those who survived suddenly streaked away, racing toward the fallen shapers. Tan felt earth and wind used to catch them. Some shaped water, likely to heal. Little fire was used. He found that interesting.

  Tan pulled on more spirit, feeling the power of it coursing through him. “Now. Would you like to have a conversation, or do you want to continue to battle? The Utu Tonah, a man much more powerful than you, thought to face me—and failed.”

  The warrior’s face fell. “Utu Tonah?” He said the name with a different accent to it, placing emphasis on the middle of the name and speaking in Ishthin. He looked at Tan with a new interest, staring from him to the others with him, and then nodded. “You may come with me.”

  They sat on a rock ledge, in the middle of a circle of stone. Wind whipped around him and clouds hovered in the sky as if restored by a shaping. And, Tan realized, they might have been.

  Rocks had been stacked in a circle, and a small flame flickered within. Part of Tan expected elementals to be drawn to the flame, but none were. It remained small and weak.

  He considered adding to it, shaping fire into it, but decided against that. He held back the knowledge of the draasin, still not certain about the warriors sitting across from him on a stone ledge.

  There were five of them, including the warrior who had first come to them. Tan suspected him their leader or something like it. The others with him were similar in age. Two men, one with a long face and a thick beard, and much more darkness remaining in his hair, sat to the first warrior’s right. Another man, thicker and almost pudgy, sat off to the side. Two women sat on his left, both dressed in the same style as the men.

  All, Tan realized now, wore warrior swords.

  Roine and Amia sat on one side of him. Cora and Fur sat on the other. The rest of the shapers who had come with Tan waited near the edge of the rocks. All held onto shapings, each readied in case they were attacked again. Tan knew that if these warriors attacked, even those who had faced Par-shon might not be prepared. Only his connection to spirit had saved them, as it had saved him time and again.