Light of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 10)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Tell me, strange warrior,” the other warrior said, “you call yourself Maelen.”

  “As I said, I did not give myself the title.”

  The man smiled. “Title? You think Maelen a title?”

  Tan shrugged. “Some do. I see from the way that you say it, you are familiar with the word.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Familiar, yes. Why is it that the elementals use this term for you?”

  “Because it was given to me by one of them.”

  The warrior waited, but Tan didn’t explain more. He would not reveal the draasin yet. “You haven’t told me who you are,” he said.

  “I am Nator L’chen.” The name flowed from his tongue, a name of Ishthin and power. “Now. You mention Utu Tonah. Where did you hear of this?”

  Tan glanced at Elanne, who stood near the rocks. She had her head cocked to the side and listened. Of those with him, Elanne and Amia likely knew the most Ishthin and could understand what Nator said. The others might understand a word here and there, but not the same as those two.

  “There was a man who went by such a title,” Tan said.

  Nator looked at those sitting next to him. “Title?”

  Tan nodded. The slight widening of Nator’s eyes caught Tan’s attention. The man recognized the word, but there was more than that.

  He thought about the Utu Tonah and the journals written in Ishthin, the fact that he had known how to bind elementals. The Utu Tonah had been a warrior. Tan had discovered that when stripping him of the forced bonds.

  “You knew him, didn’t you?” he asked Nator. “He’s from these lands.”

  Nator frowned and pressed the tips of his fingers together. “Many years ago, there was a man of the Order who disappeared. In these lands, such a thing is not uncommon. We have lost many shapers. As I said, these lands are dangerous.”

  “Was he called Utu Tonah?”

  The man next to Nator smirked. “You pronounce it wrong, Maelen. It is utaton.”

  Tan thought about the word and realized its definition. An insult in Ishthin laced with animosity, and one without a clear translation. Could the Utu Tonah have taken his insult and embraced it?

  Hadn’t that been what Tan had done with the word Maelen?

  “He was of the Order?” Tan asked.

  “This man could not have been the same, Maelen,” Nator said. “As you no doubt know, these lands are inaccessible.”

  “I reached them.”

  Nator nodded. “You reached them. And you are the first to have reached them in… possibly hundreds of years.”

  Hundreds. Norilan had been isolated for so long, but that would explain much about the Utu Tonah. “Why did you call him that? Why give him another name?”

  Nator glanced at one of the women before he answered. “He was of the Order, but he was never particularly skilled. He had dangerous ideas, claiming that he knew of a way for us to leave our land and leave our responsibility.”

  Tan thought about what he knew about the Utu Tonah. Could it really be possible that he came from Norilan? Tan knew that it was. None had heard of him before he arrived in Par. And why Par?

  The binding. He would have known about the binding.

  Did that mean he knew about the darkness? Had he come to Par thinking that he could defeat the darkness?

  “His ideas,” Tan said. “They involved the elementals, did they not?”

  Quick glances were passed along the warriors sitting across from him. “What do you know of this?”

  Tan leaned forward. Through the water bond, he was able to detect the elemental that Nator had connected to. “Imagine if your bond was stolen from you, Nator. How would you feel? What would the elemental feel? And then imagine that the elemental was forced to bond to another, and through that forced bond, required to serve in ways that the elemental did not choose. Now tell me, what do you know of those bonds?”

  “He forced bonds?” The fifth person, an older woman with long, gray hair tied behind her with a length of brown silk, stared at Tan with crystal blue eyes. She wore a silver necklace that drew his attention for a moment.

  “You say that as if you’re surprised. Is that not what you have done? I see the way that the elementals are trapped by the bonds, forced to serve in your shaping, creating your artificial landscape.”

  “That is a sacrifice that they agreed to, Maelen. That is a bond that protects them.” She closed her eyes and a subtle pressure built from her, the shaping so slight and skilled that had Tan not been connected to the element bonds, he would not have noticed. The shaping slid away from her, disappearing as no more than a wisp of air. “Or did. You have released them, haven’t you?”

  “I have released those that I can.”

  She studied Tan, her eyes narrowing slightly. “You understand the consequences of what you have done?”

  Tan sighed. “I understand that your bond sealed them to the land.”

  “What you do puts them in danger, Maelen. You have skill, I will give you that. And more power than any seen by the Order in generations, but you know so little. And your ignorance places all in danger.”

  “You might have blocked them from the darkness, keeping it from tainting them, but I restored them to spirit, bringing them to the Mother. The darkness will not touch them now.” He hoped that was right. Otherwise, what she said would be true. Tan didn’t want to harm the elementals and didn’t want for the darkness to reach them and attack. Given the strength that he detected here, there wasn’t much holding back the darkness. And maybe that was what the Order did. Could they be the reason that Nightfall hadn’t fully escaped?

  She sniffed softly. “Darkness. A term as good as any.”

  “What term do you have?” Amia asked. “Other than darkness. Or Nightfall. What would you call it?”

  “Nightfall? Is that what you think? You believe that the Order opposes some superstition?”

  “Superstition?” Tan asked. “What is it, if not Nightfall? What do the bindings suppress if not this darkness?”

  The woman looked from Nator to the others. “You have found them?”

  “The bindings? One was never lost. The other was buried but has been found. Only the third remained hidden.”

  She took a quick breath. “But if they’ve been found, they are in danger. The seals could fail—”

  “They failed, but I repaired them.”

  She shook her head. “You might be many things, Maelen, but repairing the seals requires more than one man.”

  “Tell me what you know,” Tan said. “Help me understand the purpose of the bindings. Help me to ensure the darkness does not escape.”

  “What you know as the darkness,” she said, “we call another name. Not Nightfall. Nightfall was a superstition long ago, a belief in a god who stole the sun from the sky at the end of each day, bringing the dark. This creature that we confine, that the Order alone still controls, went by another name. To us, he was known as Tenebeth. And he struggles, striving to get free upon the world once more.”

  “Not striving,” Tan said. “He has escaped into the world.”

  The woman glanced at the others sitting with her before turning her attention back to Tan. “If that is the case, then we have already lost. For Tenebeth is powerful, and he seeks to destroy all the light.”

  25

  A Warrior Falls

  Tan stood near the edge of the rock, looking down toward the distant canyon floor, unable to see anything more than blackness. Amia stood with him, one arm slipped behind his back, and she rested her head on his shoulder. The others in their party waited nearby. Waiting for him. He needed to reach a decision, only he wasn’t quite sure what that would be.

  The older woman—Jorma, he had discovered—approached. She stood near the edge of the rock, a few steps from Tan. She stared into the depths as well, and after a moment, the clouds cleared, and Tan could almost make out shapes. As he did, he realized what she showed him. There was another city, and more people, below.


  “Why do you stay here?” he asked.

  “If we did not, who would prevent the coming of Tenebeth?”

  “Your shaping does not hold him.”

  Tan could feel the flows of their shaping. What they intended did nothing against the darkness, but it suffused the barrier, and Tan could feel the way it pressed against the shapings above him, holding the elementals in place. In that way, it reminded him of the shaping that Incendin used with fire.

  “The shaping does more than you can understand, Maelen,” Jorma said.

  Tan pushed a shaping from him, joining with what he sensed below. His shaping stretched away, sweeping into the flows, much like what he had done when shaping with the Incendin fire shaping.

  “We might not understand all that the Order does, but don’t think that we are ignorant. Or that we can’t learn.” When she frowned, he asked, “How did the binding fail?”

  “The binding did not fail.”

  “No? Then what is that place at the center of your city? Is that not the binding of these lands, one that was intended to hold this Tenebeth?” He pulled on spirit, but there were no flows here, nothing that he could detect as he now could from the bindings in Par and in Vatten. “There should be three, and they should connect. From the others, I can feel how the connections should be, but they are not joined.” That connection was what had—or should have—sealed in the darkness. “When did it fail?”

  Jorma stared at him, unblinking, for a long moment. “It never failed.”

  “What do you mean? The biding should have held.”

  She shook her head. “The binding never failed because it never held.” She folded her arms together. “Long ago, our records claim, there were three bindings placed to protect our lands from Tenebeth. The first began to seal him, and stood tall above the land.”

  That would be Par, Tan suspected. The tower as one of the bindings still stood tall.

  “Another, those scholars felt, had to be buried deep within the land.”

  Alast. Had it always been buried, or had they converted the temple into that purpose when they realized what needed to be done?

  “And the third binding was started, but those scholars quickly learned that it was not enough. That Tenebeth was too strong for them. They changed their shaping, turning it to seal off his power as best as could be, but there was only so much that could be done. To maintain the separation, the seal had to be held. The Order would have to serve. And they have, willingly, all these years later.”

  “Your binding fails. Even as you want to hold it, it fails,” Tan said. “I have faced this darkness and know that it has made its way into the world.”

  “If you faced Tenebeth, you would not have survived.”

  “You know so much about those times, and the time before, but I don’t think that you know this Tenebeth.” Tan turned to her, focusing on spirit, pulling through the spirit bond as strongly as he could, allowing himself to revel in the power that he could access with the bond. As he did, his skin began to glow. He felt it as warmth seeping from him, but then more strongly as it continued to pour from him. “The Mother opposes him, doesn’t she?”

  “Only Light opposes Tenebeth.”

  “And I am a Shaper of Light,” Tan said.

  Jorma blinked slowly. “Where have you heard that phrase?”

  “The elementals.”

  She sniffed. “The one who you call the Utu Tonah. He thought to become the Shaper of Light.”

  “He knew of this?”

  “All of the Order know of this. Records from long ago speak of shapers so powerful that they could channel the Light themselves. They were able to draw upon the source of all things and use that energy to stop Tenebeth. Most feel that this is nothing more than superstition, much like your stories of Nightfall. But that one, he chased power, believing that he could understand it.”

  “That’s why he wanted to force the bonds?” Tan asked.

  “What is known about Shapers of Light was that they were connected to the source of all things, that they could reach powers that others could not. We know connections to the elementals, and we have shapers able to use each of the elements, but even then, we cannot reach the source. Many have tried. Some were even rumored to have created devices that would let them reach for more than they could on their own, but our people have not found a way to reach this. That is why we think it is superstition.” She paused, staring at Tan and the way that his skin glowed. “Thought. Perhaps it is possible that you are the Shaper of Light, Maelen.”

  Tan still didn’t know what that meant for him. He could reach the different element bonds and could speak to the elementals, and through those connections, he was more tightly bound to the Mother. Is that what made him a Shaper of Light?

  But she didn’t say “a” shaper of light. Jorma referred to “the” Shaper of Light.

  “You speak as if there are only one of these individuals,” Amia said, asking Tan’s question.

  “Perhaps there had been more. We know only that such individuals were rare, even then. They are the ones who left records. Through those records, they had a vision, a prophesy if you will, when one would come who was more powerful than the rest, one who could tap into the energy of the creator. Only when this person appeared could Tenebeth be stopped.”

  “And this is why the bindings were put in place?” Amia asked. “This is why you only contained rather than attempted to destroy him?”

  “You can’t use this power to destroy,” Tan said softly.

  Jorma looked at him with renewed interest. “Anything can be destroyed, Maelen.”

  “Not this darkness,” Tan said. “And not with the power that I can use. I can create, and I can work to serve the elements and the elementals, but I can’t destroy.”

  Jorma watched him, a frown wrinkling her face. “You still haven’t said why you have come here. Why have you come to the Order if you did not know we existed?”

  Tan glanced over at Amia. The connection to Honl was still there, deep in his mind, but faded. He no longer had an idea of where he might be, or how he could find his friend.

  “I have bonded to the elementals—”

  “More than one?” she asked.

  He nodded. “And there is one of my bonds who came to these lands, but is now lost to me.”

  Jorma pressed her lips together into a deep frown. “If he is lost, then he was likely claimed by Tenebeth.”

  That had been Tan’s fear until he realized how spirit protected the elementals, and Honl was tightly bound to spirit. He should be protected. “Not this elemental. Spirit was strong with him.”

  “There are no elementals.”

  Light licked his face and Tan smiled. “Perhaps not only of spirit, but there are several who have gained an awareness of spirit, who have merged with it, and that keeps them safe. This bond had once been of pure wind, but he was injured, and healing him required the touch of spirit. And now… now he is as much spirit as he is of wind.”

  “Wind?” Jorma asked, suddenly interested.

  Tan frowned. “You’ve seen him, haven’t you?”

  “You are not the first to have come to our lands in recent days. Another, one who walked like a man but carried with him the fabric of wind, came many months ago. Few knew that he had come and fewer still knew that he has gone missing.”

  There was a part of what she said that stuck with Tan. “You know where he is?”

  “We didn’t know that he belonged to anyone. We didn’t know that he was bonded. When we realized that he was an elemental…”

  “You forced him into a bond, didn’t you?”

  “We wanted to protect him. There are so few free elementals that make their way through the barrier. Some do. Nator managed to connect to water, but he is the exception. A few others have spoken to the elementals, knowing that there is a connection that they can share, but few have managed to bond. When an elemental is discovered, the Order recognizes that we must protect it. Here, in this place,
with the touch of Tenebeth so close to the surface, that is all that we could do.”

  Tan turned, rage already starting to fill him. Amia grabbed his arm, trying to hold him back, but she understood the source of his anger and let go as he stepped closer to Jorma.

  “Where is he?” he asked. “Where is my bonded?”

  Jorma swallowed as he loomed over her.

  Tan realized that he held a shaping of spirit so tightly within him that he glowed. Light licked his face, trying to soothe him, but Tan wanted nothing of soothing. He wanted to find Honl.

  “You will take me to him.”

  Tan and Amia stood at the bottom of the valley, the buildings on the surface high overhead. On this level, Tan could detect other buildings and the people who lived down here. Hundreds of men, women and children made this place their home, living far below the rocks above, far below the shaped landscape that Tan had seen when he first came into Norilan, trying to survive in a place within the elementals, and with barely any sunlight. He wondered how many of these people were able to shape. Enough that there were dozens of warriors. Enough that the Order had survived when so few other warriors outside of Norilan existed.

  As Tan focused on the people within the city, he realized that his initial estimate was off by an order of magnitude. There had to be nearly a thousand, maybe many thousands of people.

  Jorma led him away from the city, moving silently as she did. She glanced back at him from time to time, and Tan simply glared at her.

  She stopped outside of a cavern and motioned inside. “The elemental is in here,” she said.

  Tan sent a shaping of fire into the cavern but saw nothing more than the bleak walls of rock. There was no sign of Honl, and Tan wasn’t even sure that he would know what he looked for.