Broken of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 9)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Was it simply a coincidence that the Aeta First Mother used the same pattern for binding? Possibly. “Are there other runes for binding?” he asked.

  “Maelen, there are many patterns that mean much the same,” Elanne answered. “That is the power of the ancient runes. They are tied to the ancient language in that way, which also has many words that mean much the same.”

  That much, Tan had seen himself. Ishthin was a complex language, one that he probably would not have managed to learn if not for the gift of understanding that Amia had granted him.

  “Then why this pattern?” he asked.

  The same pattern that was used to create a place of binding. The same pattern that Marin—another spirit shaper—intended to destroy. Could that be a coincidence?

  A rumbling told him that Kota neared.

  The door slammed open and the hound stalked in. She had shifted her form again, shrinking so that she could more easily fit through the halls of the estate, looking no different than any other dog that would be seen in Par. In that way, she reminded Tan more of the hound she once had been, before he had restored them to the fire bond, before he had known that the hounds were elementals.

  I prefer the other form, he said.

  She shook and quickly grew larger. As do I. What did you need from me, Maelen?

  Before searching for the other level, he wondered if Kota might know anything about the binding. Have you seen this pattern before? He pointed to the drawing that he’d made on the hearth.

  The draasin nipped at Kota, who absently swiped a paw at the draasin. The little draasin somehow managed to jump quickly enough that Kota wasn’t able to connect.

  This mark is within this city, Kota said. You have seen it.

  I have?

  Where the Mark of the Mother is found.

  Tan didn’t remember seeing the binding rune there, but didn’t doubt that Kota was right.

  What is it?

  That’s what I need your help to determine. There is a place beneath this building but I cannot reach it. Something blocks me.

  Kota pawed at the ground, and a low rumble echoed up as she did. Tan listened, searching for what she did, trying to understand what obstructed his ability to sense whatever was hidden beneath the estate, but could not.

  The hound growled and then pawed at the ground again.

  This time, there was a deeper rumble, one that shook the estate.

  Elanne gasped and shaped the wind. Amia grabbed his arm. The draasin licked at the floor.

  When the rumbling stopped, the obstruction was gone.

  What did you do?

  There was a… bond of sorts. It prevented access to earth in a way. Not completely, but enough that it pushed against me. I have never seen anything like it before.

  Pushed?

  Kota pawed at the ground more softly this time, and it shook slightly in response. Pushed. There was emptiness, but not emptiness. As I said, I have not seen anything like it before.

  An emptiness. That reminded Tan of the buried temple in a way, but also of the barrier that used to exist between the kingdoms and Incendin. Even with the barrier?

  The barrier that your people created was different in some ways. I do not know how else to explain.

  Can you help me find what might be below here?

  It is already done, Maelen.

  Kota nudged him toward the hearth, and he realized that the stone around it had sunk. The hatchling—he would have to think of some other way to consider her, now that she was both no longer a hatchling and may not even be draasin—curled along the wooden planks at the edge of the sunken hearth.

  “This has been here?” Amia asked.

  “Apparently the whole time,” Tan said. He couldn’t believe that it had been here, or that he hadn’t sensed it before, but then, he had never taken the time to focus on what might be beneath the estate.

  They stopped at the edge, and he looked down. The flames in the hearth remained, still crackling and casting a dancing light on what appeared to be steps leading down and away.

  “What are you going to do?” Elanne asked.

  “I need to understand why he chose here,” Tan said. “The answer has to be beneath us.”

  Why a place of binding, and why had the Utu Tonah chosen Par to invade when others would have been easier?

  The more that he learned, the more that he knew that he hadn’t understood enough about the Utu Tonah. Not nearly enough.

  “Amia…”

  She smiled and patted his arm. “I will stay above ground, I think.”

  “I will work with the Maelen, if you will permit it,” Elanne said to Amia.

  Amia smiled. “I would appreciate that.” Kota growled, and Amia petted her. “Of course you will go with him.”

  The Daughter is wise, Maelen.

  Tan chuckled. She is wise. He looked at the draasin and wondered if he should bring her with him or whether she should remain above ground.

  The draasin didn’t give him a chance to answer. She hopped to his shoulder in a single leap and curled around his neck.

  I guess that means that you will be coming with me.

  I think that I must, Maelen.

  Did you know this was here? he asked, looking at the wood she had licked, and how her tongue had left something like a charred surface behind. Thankfully, she didn’t do the same with his cheek.

  There was something here. I was not certain what it was.

  And licking? Does that help you understand?

  There are different ways of experiencing the world, Maelen. Not all of them are yours.

  He patted her on the head, hugged Amia, and then jumped down next to the hearth. Heat from the flames pressed on him and he pushed them back, not wanting to burn Elanne. The others with him all shared his immunity to fire.

  Once there, he stared at the steps that led down beneath the estate. They were widely cut, and smooth, and appeared to have been well maintained. Either they were shaped into place… or they had elemental infusion within them. Tan started down, with Elanne at his side.

  Earth is strong here, Kota agreed. That is why I should not have been excluded.

  He sensed how much that troubled her. Has earth changed for you recently?

  Earth is no different. She hesitated again, and Tan wondered why.

  And the elementals? he asked.

  Kota looked up to him, pawing the ground as she did. Most are unchanged.

  Most?

  I should have shared with you, Maelen. There has been a change. The elder draasin sensed it as well, but we have not managed to determine what it is.

  Now he understood why they hunted together. Cianna had been upset that she had been excluded, but there had been a reason for it. What of water?

  I am not connected to water, Maelen.

  Or wind, but Sashari was. And Tan could now reach the wind bond. Had he noticed anything? Had Elanne?

  What did you find?

  Nothing. The elder draasin thinks that it is because the elementals of this place were forced to bond. They are trying to establish themselves again.

  But you aren’t as certain.

  I do not know, Maelen. And with earth… refusing me. Now I do not know.

  As they reached the bottom of the stair, a worried chill worked up his back. What else might he be missing?

  23

  SEPARATION

  At the bottom of the stair, a wide open area greeted them. Tan shaped a tiny spark of fire, expecting that saa would be drawn to it, as was usual in Par. The elemental did, but came with much strength, almost too much, flooding the room with light, forcing Tan to tamp back the shaping.

  You are too powerful here, he sent to saa through the fire bond as way of apology.

  Let me help, the draasin said, jumping from his shoulders. A shaping of sorts built from her, something, Tan realized, that he had never noticed from other elementals, and her entire body started to glow with a soft white light. This intensified, growing stronger
, and pushed away the shadows in the space below.

  You continue to have new tricks, don’t you?

  I continue to change.

  When will you be done growing?

  Are you done growing?

  Tan almost laughed, but remembered their conversation about change and growth. Maybe he wasn’t quite done growing. His body might no longer change, but his understanding and his abilities continued to, as did his knowledge of the world and the elementals. Would he ever be done?

  Where does this lead? he asked Kota.

  The hound had modified her form again, shrinking somewhat, almost becoming more compact. There are many paths from here, Maelen.

  “Where would you have us go?” Elanne asked. “Wyln tells me that this opens in multiple directions.”

  “As does the hound.”

  Earth sensing gave him an understanding of where this opening went, but he wondered how much more he might learn from the wind. Tan focused on his connection to the wind and reached the wind bond, noting how it gusted softly through the room. Corridors or tunnels led off in many directions. Tan closed his eyes, thinking about the way that they moved, and realized that the tunnels followed the shape of the pattern he saw from above.

  “We should go toward the tower,” he said.

  “How do you know this can reach the tower?”

  “Listen to your connection to the wind and form the pattern in your mind. You will see that they match.”

  “Maelen, I am not strong enough with wind to use it in that way.” She turned to him, her brow creased. “Can you?”

  He nodded slowly. “The wind. Earth. They work together for me. Through the combination, I can see how this stretches away from here.”

  Elanne cocked her head to the side as she considered him. “I understand how he was no match for you.”

  Tan had started forward and reached the opening leading away from the estate, which he suspected he would be able to follow until it reached the tower. “He was more than a match for me. But when I faced him, it wasn’t only about me. It was about everything, and everyone, I connect to.”

  Tan started into the tunnel, thinking that it would be much like what was found in Ethea. There, the wide tunnels were shaped deep beneath the city, and for a moment, he paused, thinking of the pattern that they formed, before deciding that it wasn’t anything like this. They were simply tunnels, a way to move through the city unseen – which the archivists had exploited ruthlessly. Now they were Tan’s preferred method of moving between the archives and the palace when in Ethea.

  This corridor looked less like it was shaped and more like a formal hallway. Timbers crossed overhead, creating a pattern in the smooth sheet of rock. Tan wondered if they were decorative or truly supportive. The walls were nearly as smooth. He expected to find lamps or shaper lanterns, but the walls were otherwise unadorned. Even the rock was nearly perfectly smooth, almost like a floor set in tile. This corridor was meant to be accessed.

  The estate can’t be the only access, Tan realized.

  I sense none others, Kota shared.

  He continued onward, the draasin moving quickly on one side, Kota on his other, and Elanne trailing behind them. She spoke little.

  The long corridor curved, matching the spiraling arms that he had seen from above. Tan knew that they neared the tower itself.

  They passed through another doorway and opened up into a wide space that matched what he expected would be the base of the tower. The ceiling now rose to nearly twenty feet, but remained perfectly smooth. The timbers in the ceiling took on more decorative shapes. The outer walls of the room matched where he expected the outer walls of the tower to have been.

  With the size of the room, even the light from the draasin was no longer enough to see all the way across.

  Tan again shaped a spark of fire, this time knowing that it would burst into brighter light and ready for the way saa raced to it, flooding the shaping with even more power. He held onto it, rather than releasing it and letting saa control it. He swept the shaping out and around him, careful to keep it from getting too close to the ceiling and risk damaging the thick wooden beams. They might be nothing more than decorative, but he didn’t want to take that risk. If the tower were to collapse on him, he didn’t think even his shaping, or his connection to the elementals, would be enough to save him.

  “This is the tower,” Elanne said.

  Tan looked around, searching for some reason why this would be hidden. Maybe even a way back up into the tower, but he saw nothing.

  That wasn’t quite right. A far wall wasn’t quite as smooth as the others. Tan shaped himself over on wind, followed by Elanne. The wall had a slightly lighter shade of gray than the rest, and the light from the flame reflected off it with a strange sheen.

  “There was something here,” he told her. “Look at the wall. I think these were stairs.”

  He looked up, but the ceiling appeared no different than the rest. Using his connection to earth, he detected the difference and the way that there was an opening above him that he could almost shape open, but like in the estate, there was something blocking him.

  “He prevented others from reaching this level,” Tan said.

  Elanne stared up toward the ceiling, unable to take her eyes off it. “Why would he have prevented others from reaching here?” she asked.

  Tan wondered if he feared someone discovering the rune, or if there was another reason. Did he hide something here? The binding rune could be seen from the sky, and he certainly hadn’t been afraid of his shapers taking to the air, so that made Tan wonder if maybe there was another reason.

  He doubted that the Utu Tonah had left other ways into this level. If he had gone to such pains to hide it, and had made a point of keeping his estate as the only way down, then it was unlikely that he’d ignored others.

  Tan frowned. Stairs wouldn’t be necessary, not to reach this level. A shaper would need to have access, which meant peeling back the doorway overhead, but stairs? Any of his shapers would have been able to shape themselves to the ground.

  Are other stairs removed like this one? he asked Kota.

  Kota pawed at the ground, and it trembled slightly beneath their feet. The hound tipped her head to the side and listened.

  The others remain.

  Tan reached toward the wall. If the others remained, that meant that he had removed the stairs here for a purpose, but what purpose would that be? Not to prevent others from reaching this level. He had already decided that whatever shaping the Utu Tonah used to obscure entrance to these caverns would do that well enough. And not to keep someone from simply walking down. Shapers, or anyone with a rope for that matter, would be able to reach here just as well.

  The Utu Tonah must have had a reason. Tan was sure that he had been the one to remove the stairs, much like he was sure that the Utu Tonah was the one who had sealed access to this level.

  Using a shaping of earth, he found the same resistance as there had been above. Now that Kota had mentioned it, Tan recognized it as well. It was different than what he’d seen with the Alast Temple. This was more like the barrier.

  At least the barrier was something that Tan had experience with. The shaping required binding each of the elements and twisting them in such a way that the effect caused a push back. In the kingdoms, it had been done by individual shapers, but Tan knew that Lacertin had been the one to originate the barrier.

  And had he seen it before?

  Tan would have to ask Roine about that the next time he saw him. Lacertin and Theondar had not been close, but they were both warriors and they had both served the king.

  This barrier was more complex in some ways, but connected to fire, and now to wind, he saw the individual patterns of the shaping mixed in, tying it to the stone. Using a steady shaping, Tan pulled the strands of fire and then wind away. As he did, the shaping unraveled with a burst of air.

  The wall suddenly changed.

  Where there had been a slightly
different shade of gray, now there was a large slab of steel. A series of runes had been etched into the steel, some darker and others lighter than the surrounding door. Tan only recognized a few of them.

  “Can you read these?” he asked.

  Elanne shook her head. “Some. Most are complex, and… and I don’t think they are meant to say anything.”

  Runes of power, then. In the kingdoms, there were similar runes, though they were markers of the different elements. Tan used these type of runes to reach the archives, or to reach the draasin den.

  He stepped back, eyeing the door, but even the distance didn’t reveal enough for him to recognize anything. “I can’t see what they might be, either,” he said. Frustration seeped into his tone, and Tan wasn’t able to do anything to keep it away.

  Attempting a shaping met with resistance. Tan had expected that it would. Much like in the archives, shapers couldn’t simply pry open the doors to the lower level; they had to use the right rune and have the right kind of shaping. Without that, there was no access.

  But there, the walls were infused with elementals. That was the reason that he couldn’t simply shape past the stone.

  Are there elementals in the walls? Tan asked Kota.

  As I said before, earth is strong here.

  Only earth? Was it possible that he would be able to use fire or water or wind to get past? He hated the idea of damaging the walls and didn’t know how that might damage the binding rune, if at all, but what other options did he have to find what the Utu Tonah might have been hiding? Tan needed to understand the Utu Tonah. Par needed for him to understand the Utu Tonah.

  Search for yourself, Kota suggested. I think the others remain as well.

  A thought came to him. By choice?

  Kota pawed at the ground. I cannot tell.

  Could the Utu Tonah have forced the elementals to bond to the door here? If he did, how was that any different than what the ancient shapers of the kingdoms had done? They used bonds that tied the elementals to the archives, essentially holding them in place. With the rebuilding of the university, that had changed. Ferran had ensured that golud was treated differently, more welcoming, and they had willingly joined with the building. Tan doubted that the elementals would have willingly worked with the Utu Tonah, but then, he didn’t know for certain.