He experimented with a shaping. At first, nothing seemed to work. Tan mixed fire and earth together, and felt as Kota added her influence, but they weren’t able to pierce through the door. Shifting his attention to the stone on the side of the door did no better. Adding water and wind shaping, pulling on the wind bond now that he understood that he could, and reaching for his distant connection to the nymid—in some ways the first, but still the most distant of the bonds that he had formed—and adding that to the shaping.
Still there was nothing.
Tan stepped back. How would he get through the door?
“What is it, Maelen?”
“Shaping doesn’t work. I’m not sure that I can do anything to open this.” If he couldn’t, did that mean that the Utu Tonah had finally won?
The draasin crawled over to the door and stood on two legs. As she did, she stretched out her tongue, almost impossibly far, touching a series of different patterns on the door. As she did, her connection to fire and spirit surged. The patterns started to glow slightly.
Then the door opened with a soft gust of air. As Tan entered, the draasin jumped onto his shoulders, still glowing brightly.
The room on the other side of the door was small. Much smaller than Tan had expected, though he wasn’t sure what he should have expected. The walls were carved out of the earth, a lighter shade of gray than the stone of the tunnels but barely higher than the top of his head, and without any of the same polish that was evident in the rest of the lower level.
A short table abutted one wall. Stacks of thin, leather-bound books rested on the top. A bottle of ink remained stoppered and pushed to the wall, and a pen rested on the table. One of the books lay partly open, resting on a chair, almost as if whoever had been here—likely the Utu Tonah—had left in something of a hurry.
Other than that, a few shelves lined each wall, and books were stuffed into them. So many that Tan could scarcely believe that they were here. Why would he have brought them here? Why secure them in this way?
Unless he feared others gaining access.
He picked the journal off the chair and started to read. Written in Ishthin, the writing was more difficult for him to piece through, but as he did, he realized that this was one of the Utu Tonah’s journals. This one in particular might have been the earliest, as it mentioned leaving his home, searching for a way to prevent something that he called a dangerous force from returning. From his writings, he was clear that it was his destiny.
“What have you found?” Elanne asked.
“The Utu Tonah. Or what is left of him.”
This was what Tan had been searching for. These were his journals, his records. And now Tan might finally understand what had brought the Utu Tonah to Par, and whether it had anything to do with what Marin represented.
He glanced up at Elanne as the door closed.
Her eyes widened. “Was that you?”
Tan pushed on the door, using a shaping to try to surge past, but found that he couldn’t.
Kota? The hound had remained outside the room. There hadn’t been enough space for her to enter, and she hadn’t wanted to crowd Tan anyway.
She didn’t answer. It was almost as if she weren’t there.
And Tan understood. Whatever shaping the Utu Tonah had placed on this room would prevent him from reaching out and reaching beyond. There was a barrier, but then there was another barrier, one placed on the room by the Utu Tonah when he placed the runes.
“Maelen?”
He shook his head. “I can’t open the door with shaping. And I can’t reach the elemental on the other side to help.”
Elanne’s eyes widened slightly. “I can’t… I can’t reach the wind.”
Even managing to find what he’d searched for, they were trapped.
24
REASON FOR BINDING
“You are the Maelen. Can’t you do something to open the door?”
Tan could shape, but it had no effect on the door.
The draasin crawled from his shoulders and traced her tongue around the door. There is nothing from this side, Maelen.
Did you sense something before the door closed?
Tan hadn’t, but the draasin had proven to be more resourceful in some ways than him.
There was nothing.
As she said it, Tan became aware of a soft trembling.
It started in the ground, like a steady vibration, and then began working from there. It was a familiar sense, and one that he associated with Kota’s ability to control earth. Was she trying to get past the door to them?
He tried reaching her through their bond, but couldn’t. In some ways, it reminded him of his time in the room of separation, where the Utu Tonah had placed runes all around with the intention of separating him from his bond, but he was not completely separated. He could shape, and he could reach the draasin hatchling and communicate with her.
The trembling became more. A shaking that filled the earth, leaving it groaning.
This wasn’t Kota.
What, then?
The only thing that he could think was that they were under attack. But from who? Who would be able to get through the estate?
Someone that they knew was the only answer he could come up with. And if he had been wrong about Marin, it was equally possible that he was wrong about someone else. Tan didn’t use spirit to sense everyone and search through their intentions, but maybe he should. And Amia’s ability had changed with the pregnancy, so her normal intuition was different.
Was Amia in danger? If someone had reached them, it had to have been through the estate. She would have been there, alone, and if she had and someone had come for her, or come through attempting to reach him, then she might be in danger.
Tan felt his anger begin to rise, and tamped it down. Getting angry was no way to help her. She had been through enough that she would know how to protect herself. Besides, she was not helpless. Even pregnant, her ability to shape spirit remained, if even weakened somewhat.
He needed to find a way out from here.
The shaking continued. Now the stone overhead began to crack.
The binding. It fails.
Tan looked between Elanne and the draasin, who licked the wall. How can it fail?
I do not know. I cannot detect anything behind here, only that it is failing. That is what we feel.
What would it take for the binding to fail? he asked. The Seals?
That had been what Marin had been after before, but that hadn’t worked for her.
There are other seals that would succeed, Maelen.
As she reminded him, he knew that there would be. The massive runes on the sides of the tower would probably do it as well. Now that he understood that the tower was part of the place of binding, he could see how the runes on the side of the tower itself would be a part of it. If they failed, if those runes that represented the elements, and the connection to the Great Seals, somehow were damaged, the entire pattern would fall. It was possible that those runes were more important than any of the others, even the Great Seal.
And Marin had gone after them before. With sudden understanding, he realized what Marin had been after. He had done nothing to bolster the defenses of the tower since then. He might have repaired the Great Seals, but that might not have been enough.
This is her, isn’t it? Tan asked.
I cannot tell. Whoever does this seeks to break the binding.
Have you been able to determine what would happen if the binding fails?
You have sensed the power that is trapped here, Maelen. I detected that from you very soon after my birth.
That… entity? That’s what’s trapped here?
The bindings. They are meant to restrain a power that grew too dangerous.
And Marin?
I do not know. She may think to control it. From the woman you healed, I sense that she was around someone who believed herself strong enough to not serve it, but control it.
Tan looked over at t
he stack of journals. Is that why the Utu Tonah came to Par? Did he think to control it as well?
He had begun to wonder if maybe the Utu Tonah had come to Par for a better reason, that it had at first been less about power that had gotten corrupted the longer he was here and the more bonds that he acquired, but what if he was wrong? Tan had seen firsthand how the Utu Tonah had used that power and the lengths that he had gone to maintain, and grow, his power. Why should he believe that he might have come here for any other reason?
He still held a journal, and he threw it against the wall in frustration.
“Maelen?”
“I have been a fool,” he muttered. And now they were trapped here.
The walls continued to shake, the trembling becoming violent. Much longer and the earth would split. Without a greater connection to earth, the most that Tan figured that he would be able to do would be to slow their death as the earth steadily crushed them.
Could he have another connection to earth?
He had reached the wind bond. Why could he not reach an earth bond?
Earth was the element that he should know the best. His father had guided him toward earth, teaching him how to stretch his connection away from him, to use that to reach beyond himself. More than anything, Tan felt that connection, and in some ways, it was his remaining connection to his father.
As with the other elements, he started by looking inside himself, reaching deep. First feeling for the way the stone felt beneath his feet, the steady rumbling that he felt, and then straining beyond that. Earth was life, much like wind, and fire, and water. And Tan connected to them all, first through shaping and then through his connection to the elementals.
Tan continued to focus on the earth, on the way it shook his feet, on the solid way the walls rose up around him, even the pressure of Elanne on the ground, as well as the draasin. All of this connected, reaching the earth, touching the same center. As he focused, he could see the elementals in the walls, their willingness to hold the bond, but a willingness that sagged.
Remain steady, Tan urged.
He detected elementals in the ground beneath him, and from the traces of debris that fell from the ceiling, even the dust scattered across the Utu Tonah’s desk. All of this was earth, and each of these elementals was connected.
Understanding of earth surged within him, greater than before. This was more than about shaping, and more than about the elementals. They were tied together, to the same source of power. Earth and elemental were one. A bond. An earth bond.
He reached for the bond, and knowledge surged within him. He was meant to reach the earth bond, to know it, and to know the slow, steady movement of the earth and the power behind it.
Through that power, he sensed a change.
And he understood the reason why the walls and earth shook around him.
Not only had the runes on the tower been attacked, but particular runes had been chosen. Earth first, though Tan did not know why. Connected to the bond, through the earth itself, he could crawl across the stone and trace the way the rune failed on the tower, the attack that had been done, intentionally trying to destroy the binding.
Tan pressed more earth into place around the rune, holding it, but that would only sustain it, not prevent it from failing altogether. For that, he would need to get free from here, and he would need to find who attacked the runes.
With the earth bond, and reaching for wind and fire, he pressed outward on the door.
It resisted, but Tan drew from a different place of strength. Not only on the elementals, but on the connections shared between them, on the source of their strength, and added his own ability to shape. The Utu Tonah might have placed this door here, but he had never known the power of the bonds between the elementals.
The door exploded outward.
Kota leapt at him.
Had Tan not been wrapped in earth, he might have been overwhelmed. Still, the attack surprised him.
He pushed her back and probed quickly with spirit, knowing what he would find. There, trapped within her, was the same sort of darkness that had attacked Asgar. This time, Tan didn’t hesitate, pulling on the darkness, dragging it from Kota, using earth and fire and spirit. Kota thrashed and fought and tried to bite at him, but Tan kept her controlled, not wanting to harm her. Then the darkness was pulled away and he bound it in the air, preventing it from dissipating as it had before.
What are you?
If it was the same entity that Tan had connected to before, he knew that it would be able to answer, though not whether it would.
The darkness strained against the barriers that Tan erected, almost making it free. Elanne screamed.
Tan glanced over and saw her facing another creature, this one a long lizard like he had seen in the streets of Par. Fire surged from it, and Elanne did all that she could to keep back.
With an angry twist, Tan forced the darkness toward the lizard and split his focus, reaching through the fire bond and adding earth and spirit and, this time, water to free the darkness within this lizard.
Now two hazy shapes hung in the air.
Tan mashed them together and bound them within each of the elements, holding tightly to the three element bonds that he knew.
Water is here, Maelen.
This came distantly, through the nymid, and Tan quickly reached through himself, questing deep into the earth and beyond, knowing that there would be a water bond, not needing proof this time and not fearing that he would fail. Like the others, it was there, powerful and swift, but also touched by a sense of healing calm. Water had always been there, coursing through his blood, and he flowed with it.
Adding the water bond, he pushed with even more strength, sealing the dark cloud entirely.
The lizard that had been attacking Elanne scampered off.
There will be others, won’t there? he asked the draasin.
For a moment, he feared that she might have been attacked as well. With her unique abilities, he feared what would happen were she to attack. She might be more than he could manage, especially with her capacity to influence spirit.
There will be others. You do not need to fear for me, Maelen.
I don’t?
That is one advantage of my growth. There are things I am immune to.
He pulled the dark cloud toward him and was nearly startled to see that something like a face had started to form in the darkness. What are you?
I am the beginning and the end.
Tan shook his head. That is no answer.
That is all that you will get.
I’ve stopped you once. This was the same entity that had gotten into his mind. This was the same entity that had attacked Amia, and had attempted to attack him. This was the same darkness that had attacked Asgar.
Now I gain my freedom. You may contain this fragment, but there are others. Do you think that you can contain them all?
You were bound away once, Tan said, finally understanding the reason for the place of binding.
Bound by those who know much more than you can ever imagine. You will fail. If not now, then soon, much as the other bindings will fail.
Tan pressed on his shaping out of frustration, but sensed only laughter from the darkness. You can be so easily influenced. All of your kind are the same.
What do you mean?
There came another peal of laughter. This one surged against the shaping that Tan held it with. Tan had to refocus on the element bonds and had to grab tightly to keep this thing from gaining its freedom. If it could control elementals, he had little doubt that it could control him.
The laughter came again. Now you see.
You haven’t been controlling me. I kept you from my mind.
Did you, or did I allow you to think that you did?
Tan had to push on the bond, squeezing with the shaping. As he did, the darkness began to compress, more and more, until suddenly, it disappeared with a pop.
His shaping rebounded and nearly hit Elanne, bu
t the wind surged and moved her to safety.
“What was that?” she asked, settling back to the ground.
“That,” Tan began, looking to Kota to check on his bonded elemental, “is nothing I have ever experienced before. But that is the reason the binding exists.”
25
DARKNESS ATTACKS
Tan checked on Kota to ensure that she was truly freed from the dark creature. The earth elemental was unharmed. Weakened, but she drew strength from the earth much as Tan managed to pull strength from the elementals—and maybe now the bonds to the elements themselves—to restore herself.
What happened? he asked.
The darkness came, Maelen. I could do nothing.
The finality of it made him shiver. Something about Kota still seemed off, as if she were tentative, with less of the confidence that he was accustomed to her possessing. She was an elemental of earth and was normally strong and solid. Looking at her now, Tan could see a hesitancy.
She will recover, the draasin informed him. Not all are as resilient. You saw saldam’s response.
Saldam. The lizard. Tan hadn’t realized that was what the fire elemental looked like. In Par, where saa was normally so strong, saldam was less common, unlike in Incendin, where it was the focal elemental of fire.
The draasin jumped from his shoulder and scurried to Kota. She began licking at the hound’s feet, then climbed to her back. There, she continued to lick, running her tongue along her back before reaching her head. The hound didn’t seem to mind, though Tan wondered if they could communicate.
“That is an unusual draasin,” Elanne said.
“I’m not certain she’s a draasin anymore.”
Elanne looked around. “What now?”
The ground still rumbled. He felt the attempted fracture on the tower and knew what needed to be done, but would he be strong enough? If there were other elementals that had been attacked as these two had been, would he manage to keep himself safe and free them at the same time? Did he dare not try?
Broken of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 9) Page 20