He pulled open the door the woman had come out of, not certain what to expect, but surprised nonetheless.
Inside was a massive room. Shelves lined the walls, and books were stuffed into the shelves, packed so tightly that no space remained. It was an archive, and one much like the archives in Ethea.
He pulled the door closed and looked around. Light came from a single lantern hanging from the ceiling and glowing with a brilliant white light. A shaper lantern, and much like those found within the kingdoms. Had he any doubt that the ancient kingdoms and the people of Rens once communicated, the similarities would have removed them.
Lacertin made his way around the room, looking at the covers of the books. Most were written in old Rens, a language he didn’t speak well enough to understand, but a few had evidence of Ishthin, the earliest language of the kingdoms.
He pulled one of the books from the shelf at random and started flipping through the pages. The book was ancient, much older than any that he’d ever been allowed to access in the archives. The words would take hours for him to decipher, but there were diagrams as well, most depicting strange animals that he had never seen.
He set it down and reached for another when a soft cough made him turn.
The woman he’d seen in the hall stood at the door, watching him with a flat expression. “Are you supposed to be here?”
Lacertin touched the book that he’d been reaching for, his fingers running along the supple leather cover. He pulled it from the shelf as he debated his answer. For him to get the answers to the questions that had brought him to Incendin, he would need help. The priest seemed more interested in trying to convert him. This woman, dressed like one of the Incendin shapers, at least spoke to him as if he were a person.
After all the time that he’d been isolated, a part of him craved the connection with someone else, even if it might be a fire shaper who might eventually want to torture him again.
“I don’t know.”
Her eyes widened as he spoke. “You are from the kingdoms.”
“From Nara.” Lacertin had decided before attempting the crossing that he would have to reveal his ties to Nara. Most in Incendin had sympathy for those of Nara, thinking that they could be drawn back into Rens.
She stepped into the room and pushed the door closed. “Many come to us from Nara. Few manage to learn enough to be useful. Fewer still are allowed within the Temple.”
Lacertin frowned. What temple had he entered? Would she do something to him now that he had?
“I didn’t mean to offend,” he said.
She glanced at the book in his hand. “Not offend, but to study, it seems.”
“I didn’t know that you had such a collection.”
The woman glared at him. “You think the kingdoms the only place that cares about scholarship? You think your university the only place where one can learn about the ancients and their connection to the elements and the elementals?”
Lacertin looked back down to the book in his hand, puzzling through the language before realizing that the word was likely old Rens for saldam. He knew of saldam as one of the elementals, but there had been none able to speak to the elementals, to listen to them and understand them, for generations. Most of the scholars now believed such a connection had been lost to time, that perhaps the ancient shapers had somehow angered the elementals.
He cared little for such questions. He was never going to be a scholar, regardless of his interest in the ancient histories and the connections that could be made to the present day politics. He had been asked to serve in a different way, drawn by a different skill set.
“I didn’t think that,” he said softly. “Again, I am sorry if I offended.”
The woman took another step toward him, her eyes flashing with a bright intensity. “How long have you been within the Sunlands?”
“I don’t know.”
She sniffed. “You think to hide from me the answer?”
Lacertin shook his head. “I don’t think to hide from you anything. I don’t know.”
Her eyes seemed to appraise him differently, taking in the shirt he wore and glancing down to his feet. As she did, her eyes widened. “How is it that you survived the testing?”
Lacertin laughed bitterly. “Why is it that everyone continues to refer to it as testing? Why not admit that you tortured me?”
“Issa would not permit that. Not in her temple.”
Lacertin glanced around. “That’s what this is?”
“You think it is something else?”
“I thought…” He didn’t know what he had thought, but certainly not that the Fire Fortress was some sort of temple to Issa. That explained the energy expended to maintain the shaping, and the desire to have an ongoing connection to Issa.
“You didn’t answer how you survived,” she said.
“Because I don’t know. I was… tested,” he said, and she nodded, “and then it stopped. When I made my way from the cell,” he paused, wondering if she would take offense to him calling it a cell, but he had no other term for it. He had been locked in a cell, regardless of whether he would have been allowed to leave. “When I made my way from the cell, I found the priest. The San.”
The woman’s eyes widened again. “Not just tested, but made a Servant,” she whispered.
“What does that mean?”
She took the book from his hands and placed it back on the shelf. “It means that you have a connection to Issa, even if you do not know it now.”
The woman stepped between Lacertin and the shelves, thrusting her chest forward, as if attempting to draw his attention. Lacertin stepped back and turned toward the door. He didn’t need any fire shaper attempting to seduce him.
Fire burned brightly, raging hot and intense, and most who shaped fire felt it as an intense connection, one that could flame passions as well as hatred. Warrior shapers generally avoided that fate, but shapers of fire exclusively usually did not. Most quickly surged to anger, but just as quickly surged to lust.
“You’re no better than the priest.”
The woman smiled at him, the barest hint of amusement turning her mouth. “Indeed?”
“If I’m not tortured, I’m being told that I will serve Issa.”
“If you’re not here to serve, then why did you come?” She started toward him, shifting her hands to her hips.
Had he angered her already? Doing so would not help his need for information, but so far he hadn’t found anything useful anyway, nothing other than the fact that Incendin had an archive much like existed in Ethea.
“I came because I wanted to know fire.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and her sharp jaw clenched. “You cannot know fire without Issa, son of Nara. And you have been chosen if you passed the test.”
“What does it mean for me to be chosen?”
Her mouth pinched in a frown. “If you wish answers to these questions, you should ask Issa for enlightenment.”
Lacertin grunted. “And if Issa does not answer?”
She pulled on her cloak and started for the door. “Then you do what the rest of the Sunlands would do.”
“What is that?”
She glanced over her shoulder as she reached the door. “Ask the San.”
CHAPTER 5
No one made any attempt to stop him as he wandered the Fire Fortress over the next few days. The priest joined him for meals but was absent for much of the day, leaving Lacertin with the choice of either remaining in the room by himself or venturing out and exploring. Given the reason that he’d come, he often wandered.
Lacertin had learned that the servants would not speak to him. They all nodded respectfully but they never met his eyes and backed to the wall whenever he approached, attempting to speak.
The days confined in the fortress took on a certain normalcy, leaving him almost forgetting what had happened to him when he’d been confined to the cell. Lacertin learned his way around this level of the fortress, discovering that
there were others he could not access, a set of stairs blocked from him.
Most of the time, he remained within the archives.
Partly he searched for answers, but partly he found the selection of texts impressive. The age of the texts was clear from the texture to the paper and the leather of the cover. Within Ethea, such texts would have been reserved for the archivists only. There seemed no such restrictions here.
The other reason he went to the archives was the hope that he might see the fire shaper again. When Lacertin had spoken to her, there had been something about her that reminded him in some ways of Jayna, and in other ways of Ilianna. Serving Ilton had prevented him from ever having the opportunity to have the chance with Ilianna, as much as both of them would have wanted such a chance. And Jayna… with her, there had been a connection, but the timing had been terrible.
Not that now was any better, but he felt a certain loneliness here, a sense that worsened the longer he was here, trapped within the fire fortress.
When he made it to the archives, he found it occupied.
Not by the fire shaper, though a part of him had wished that she had been there when he arrived, but the San. He sat at one of the tables and glanced up as Lacertin entered. The Book of Issa sat next to him on the table.
“Lacertin Alaseth,” he said.
“You don’t have to use my full name each time you see me,” Lacertin said.
The priest smiled. “Are you certain that Issa hasn’t requested that I show you the meaning of your name?”
Lacertin took a seat opposite him. The priest hadn’t seemed surprised by Lacertin’s sudden appearance, meaning that he either knew that Lacertin had been coming here, or that he didn’t mind that he did.
Was it strange that he’d been in the Fire Fortress for as long as he had and still had seen no sign of the lisincend? He would have expected them to be present within the fortress. More than the fire shapers within the palace, Lacertin feared what would happen when he encountered the lisincend.
“Why am I here?” Lacertin asked.
The priest smiled. “If you must ask, then you are farther from where you need to be than I realized, Lacertin Alaseth.”
Lacertin grunted. “You don’t care that I come here?”
The priest spread his hands and motioned toward the rows of shelves. “What is here that Issa would not reveal to you?”
“The archives in the university are restricted,” Lacertin said. He should be more careful and try to keep details from Incendin, but there was a part of him that wanted to share with the priest. The man had been nothing but friendly to him, and with his wire-framed spectacles and closely shorn hair, he seemed harmless rather than dangerous.
He realized the folly, even as he made it. Incendin would want to ease him into a sense of relaxation, and when he began to believe that they wanted nothing more than to work with him, to teach him how they shaped fire, then they would begin tormenting him again.
Only, he saw no sign of that from the priest.
“Why would knowledge be restricted?” the priest asked.
Lacertin shrugged. “The archivists feel that knowing what transpired in the past can be dangerous, and that there needs to be a certain level of understanding before you can see them.”
The priest set his hands on the table. A book lay flat in front of him, the edges of the pages curling slightly up, and he leaned forward to fix Lacertin with an amused expression. “If we fail to learn from the past, how can we avoid repeating our mistakes?”
Ilton had often had the same philosophy. It was because of Ilton that Lacertin made a point of studying the histories, learning as much as he was allowed, preparing so that he would be ready for what Ilton asked of him next.
“You sound like the king.”
“Indeed?” the priest asked.
Lacertin shrugged. He looked over the priest’s hands and at the page he had open, trying to see what the priest might be reading about. The page was written in Ishthin, and the language was difficult to read as it always was, but diagrams were fixed on the page about halfway down.
“What are you reading about?” he asked.
The priest glanced up from the page and turned the book so that Lacertin could better see it. He worked through the Ishthin, noting the parts of the language that he recognized, and realized that he studied elementals.
Lacertin smiled. “Does Issa think that you should learn to speak to the elementals again? Perhaps Issa has answers why we no longer can.”
The priest took the book back and turned it so that the writing faced him. He looked at Lacertin, and with the barest hint of a smile, asked, “Are you so certain that we no longer speak to them?”
Lacertin shrugged. There were stories of people still able to speak to the elementals, but he doubted that any of them were true. If they were, why wouldn’t the elementals choose to speak to someone with power and the ability to use the knowledge that they offered? Why keep the secret hidden?
“I think that we have lost much of what we once were,” he answered.
“Perhaps in the kingdoms.”
“And your lisincend? Do they serve Issa? Do they still even serve fire?”
The priest closed the book and pulled the Book of Issa back in front of him. For a moment, Lacertin thought that he might stand and leave, but instead, he started thumbing through the pages of the book. When he found the section he was looking for, he opened the page and began reading. He was otherwise silent.
Finally, he took a deep breath and closed the Book of Issa. “The creatures you call the lisincend serve Issa more than you will ever know.”
“Even with the hatred that surges through them?”
Lacertin didn’t have to struggle to understand the way that fire twisting the lisincend would draw them even deeper into the passions. They would be filled with lust, and anger, and rage, and passions of all kinds. It was the only explanation that he had for the way the lisincend were.
The priest nodded slowly. “They embrace fire,” he started. “And most feel they are called by Issa to serve.”
“Is that what you think of me?”
“Is that what you think of yourself, Lacertin Alaseth?”
Lacertin couldn’t imagine the desire to change himself with a shaping, to use such fire and turn it upon himself as the lisincend had done, but could not deny the power that they achieved in the shaping. He had wondered what would happen if an earth shaper did the same, or wind, or even water. Was something like the shaping the reason there were elementals?
Only, the lisincend were not elementals. They had enhanced power and strength with fire, but they were not the same as the energy that under laid everything in the world, the connections that together were accessed by the Great Mother.
“I could not,” he said.
“Then that is not how Issa will call you to serve.”
Lacertin laughed softly. “I thought that Issa had already called me. That it was the reason that I had been spared from my torture.”
“Test,” the priest said.
“Test. If you think that is what it was, then you should experience it.”
“How would I serve Issa if I did not know the strength and the power that could be given by following? No, Lacertin Alaseth, I think that you should understand the nature of the test.”
The priest reach across the table and grabbed his hands. He had moved so quickly that Lacertin had been unable to react. As he did, the steady sense of fire began creeping across his skin. He recognized it from the last time that he’d been tormented, only this was much more subtle and built slowly, steadily, until he felt it within his veins, as if trying to burn through him.
Lacertin had been ready for it. He thought that he could ignore it, but a part of him simply didn’t want to experience the torment any longer. He had known it often enough since coming to Incendin.
More than that, though, he had seen the way the priest had drawn off the effect of fire. Learning from another’
s shaping wasn’t always easy, but for Lacertin, and with fire, he had never had much difficulty in seeing a shaping and understanding how to form it. This was no different.
As the shaping built, as the torture built, he pulled it away, sending it into the stone.
He didn’t dare pull the shaping into himself. From everything the kingdoms had learned, that was the beginning to the lisincend. Lacertin knew there was more to it—there had to be for such a shaping—but he wouldn’t risk himself.
The burning in his veins and along his skin faded, deflected into the ground.
“I’m tired of being tormented,” he said softly as the shaping dissipated.
The priest smiled. “How are you certain that this isn’t still all part of the test?”
Lacertin pulled his hands back, resisting the urge to jerk them away. The priest stared at him, watching Lacertin with knowing eyes, and smiled.
“You have shown the reason that Issa has chosen you, Lacertin Alaseth. There are shapers in the Sunlands who will study their entire lives and still not be able to pass the testing. There are shapers who will search for answers, never to find them. They will want to move with Issa, to be one with Issa, but they will not have the potential that you have just shown.”
Lacertin rubbed his hands together, keeping his eyes fixed on the table. “That is not Issa, priest. That is shaping.”
The priest smiled. “And where do you think the ability with shaping comes from?”
“I think that we’ve had this conversation before,” Lacertin said. “And my answer is no different now then it was then.”
The priest pulled the Book of Issa to him and smiled. “You think the Great Mother is the source of everything, but you will see, Lacertin Alaseth, there are things that even your Great Mother cannot explain.”
The priest stood and tipped his head to Lacertin before leaving him alone in the archives.
CHAPTER 6
The nights in Incendin were cool, much cooler than the day. Even on the edge of the waste, in his homeland of Nara, the nights would be much cooler.
Prelude to Fire: Parts 1 and 2 Page 19