“It is,” Tolan said.
“But it’s not as rapid as what you’ve been able to do. And I don’t resent that. I recognize you’ve gained in skill. It’s just…” Jonas turned away, staring out at the pond. “It’s just hard for me, I guess. When you leave, I don’t know who I have left.”
“You’ll still have Draln,” Tolan said.
Jonas shot him a look, shaking his head. “You know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean.”
They fell into silence, and as they did, he thought about the shaping Jonas was using. He was mixing several of the elements at one time, doing so with considerable power. He was sure it wouldn’t be long before Jonas was promoted, eventually to master shaper, and yet it was going to have to be when Jonas thought he was ready. How long would that take?
Knowing Jonas as he did, knowing he had that uncertainty within him, and knowing he might doubt himself because of Draln, Jonas might take a long time to progress to that point. And that troubled Tolan.
“When you’re ready for testing, you’ll know it,” he said.
“Will I? Are you ready for testing?”
“I think so,” he said.
Jonas watched him, and a hint of a smile crossed his face. “I bet you are.” With that, he got to his feet. “I’ll leave you to your preparations. I’ll support you. Good luck, Tolan.”
When he left, Tolan turned back to his shapings, working them one after another. He sent power surging away from him using various shapings, one after another after another, and each time he did, he could feel that energy lifting from the element bonds, from the elements, and even from the elementals.
The more he shaped, the more certain he was that he was drawing from all three sources at one time.
And here in the park, where he had access to that power, he felt even more tied to the elements than in other places. It was almost as if he was meant to use that power here, as if he was meant to understand it. The longer he stood here, the more he focused on the shaping, the more certain Tolan was that he was going to have to better understand just what he could do.
And he had to understand it.
In order to pass the test, whatever test that was going to be, he would have to know himself. The answer was out there.
A shaping built somewhere nearby.
It was a blast of power, a mixture of elements, and Tolan got to his feet.
He had felt a similar shaping before, and in this case, he thought he understood why it was subtly different.
It wasn’t from the Disciples of the Draasin Lord.
It was a summons.
It was time for his testing.
Tolan pulled all the energy from each of the elements to him, wrapping them together, and then he added spirit.
The shaping combined all of the elements. When the bolt of lightning streaked from the sky toward him, he was ready for it.
When it struck, it lifted him.
There was a gentle sense of movement and a certain sense of power. It erupted along his skin, leaving a tracing of current crawling along him. When it passed, he was carried up and headed toward that distant shaping.
Tolan held that focus in his mind, the destination where he wanted to go, and when he burst down to the ground, he recognized the clearing. It was where he had been tested before.
Surprisingly, each of the master shapers from the various towers was there. As was the Grand Master. There was no sign of the Grand Inquisitor.
The Grand Master came toward him, watching him. “You have demonstrated quite the shaping.”
“It came to me when I needed it,” he said.
“An impressive discovery,” the Grand Master said.
He hadn’t realized he’d not previously shared with the Grand Master that he had discovered the shaping. Perhaps now wasn’t the right time to suddenly demonstrate a shaping like that. As he looked around the clearing, his gaze settling on each of the masters, he turned finally to the Grand Master. “Is this my testing?”
“This is.”
“What will be involved?”
The Grand Master cocked his head to the side, watching him. “Survival.”
5
A shaping exploded and Tolan reacted, creating a physical barrier around himself.
He felt the initial aspect of the shaping, recognizing it came from spirit.
It was directed at him, and he had to protect his mind. He wrapped each of the elements around his mind, drawing from someplace deep within himself, and he called upon spirit, using it to protect him.
The shaping parted around him.
Tolan looked at the other shapers. They watched him, almost as if unconcerned about him. A shaping like he had just been slammed with was powerful, and though he wasn’t entirely sure of the purpose of it, he suspected if it would have struck, it would have incapacitated him, likely rendering him useless for the rest of the testing.
Something like that would have done nothing more than prevent him from being able to participate in the testing. He would’ve failed.
Had he not recognized it, had he not been exposed to a shaping like that before through the Inquisition, he might not have been able to withstand it.
How many others were able to tolerate a shaping like that?
Tolan didn’t know, and perhaps it didn’t even matter. The only thing that really mattered was that he had deflected the first shaping.
But deflecting a shaping and surviving were different things.
He had experienced that often enough that he understood there would be more.
He felt the buildup of power near him. It was fire, and Tolan reacted, adding earth, drawing upon the earth elemental without meaning to, and he twisted, turning that fire shaping into nothing, letting earth absorb it. Wind battered at him, and Tolan added water, countering it. That came from him, but also from the element bond.
He backed up, feeling the onslaught of various shapings. They came one after another, a series of them, but they came one at a time and he was able to deflect each one. There was controlled power in those shapings, but not so much power he wasn’t able to withstand them.
Each shaping had a counter, and each shaping was something he had seen during his time at the Academy. Some of them were shapings taught by the masters who were now attacking him. Others were shapings he had experienced during other attacks. All were powerful, and the more he focused on them, the more certain he was that he could withstand these sequential shapings. He had encountered far worse when he had been facing his mother and the other Inquisitors.
And then the shapings started to combine.
The first was a blast of fire and earth.
He reacted, deflecting it, using earth and fire against it, but even that wasn’t enough.
There came another attack: water, wind, and even spirit.
They began to assault him, rapidly, one after another, the steady onslaught of power and shaping beginning to flood into him. The more he focused, the more he thought he was going to have to find a way to withstand it, but he wasn’t sure he was strong enough. He drew upon the element bonds, twisting each shaping, trying to react, but he was forced backward.
That was a mistake.
He called upon the warrior shaping.
In doing so, it forced him to deflect, but thankfully the warrior shaping didn’t draw upon as much strength as others did and he was able to use it. He jumped on the lightning and landed behind them.
Tolan pushed, attacking the master shapers.
If this was about survival, he was not going to fail.
He called upon fire, attacking Master Rorn, using wind against Master Sartan, and earth against Master Shorav.
He continued to fling element power against them. As he did, he started to add other aspects, mixing the elements, doing the same thing they had done to him. In doing so, he forced them back.
Survive.
That mantra came through his head, a message of what was going to be required in or
der to succeed with this testing.
He wasn’t concerned they would actually harm him, and he had little doubt they would try to do anything that would completely overpower him, but he did think they would push him. Which meant he had to push back.
He fell into a series of attacks using a mixture of the elements, adding the element bonds… and finally adding in the elementals.
He forced the master shapers back.
They stumbled and he trapped them, holding them with a shaping, and added a hint of elemental power to it.
He smiled to himself.
He had succeeded.
And then the Grand Master approached.
Tolan had thought he was ready, that he had enough power, but as soon as the Grand Master approached, he could feel the onslaught of a different sort of shaping.
There was an energy in it far more than anything Tolan had ever experienced before. When the Grand Master began his approach, his attack began to spin, focusing on Tolan, and he combined each of the elements, adding spirit, and used them in ways Tolan had never seen before.
What was he thinking, that he was ready for testing for master-level shaper?
He had never seen any shaping like this. He continued to deflect, trying to counter, and found his knowledge just wasn’t there.
He created nothing more than a barrier that deflected what the Grand Master was using against him. With each attack, Tolan pushed more and more power out, but he grew weak.
Could the Grand Master be using a bondar against him?
It was possible he was. If that were the case, Tolan wouldn’t be able to draw upon enough power.
Not without a bondar.
They hadn’t said anything about what he could use here. All the Grand Master had said was that he had to survive.
Tolan checked his pocket, but he didn’t have the bondars with him. He had been preparing for his testing but didn’t expect he would have been able to use a bondar during it.
He had only his connection to the elements, the element bonds, and the elementals.
And even with as much as he had been using, as much power as he had been drawing, he wouldn’t be able to overpower the Grand Master. He might be using those powers, but the Grand Master was stronger. With each attempt Tolan made, each shaping he created, the Grand Master pushed against him.
Tolan attacked, squeezing out power. As he did, he could feel the Grand Master countering him. The other man was incredibly skilled, and each shaping he used deflected what Tolan was able to do.
He was forced backward, retreating. The longer he was shaping, the harder it was to think he was going to be able to do anything to escape what the Grand Master was doing to him.
He didn’t think his warrior shaping would help.
Getting behind the Grand Master wouldn’t be effective, especially not against a man who had already shown he had some way of using a similar shaping.
That meant he was going to have to find something else.
If the Grand Master was using a bondar, was there any way Tolan would be able to draw upon enough power?
He could feel energy flowing into him, and he thought maybe he could find a way to create runes. If he did that, maybe he would have enough strength to overpower the Grand Master.
But why would he need to create them?
He was near enough to the Academy, and near enough to the runes on it, that he could use them. And if he could use those runes, he could dip into the power of the Convergence.
Very few understood the way the runes were designed to delve deep beneath the ground, to tie into the power of the Convergence. And because few knew it, few understood just how to reach that power and access it.
The runes were incredibly powerful, and they could augment his other connections.
He tripped and the Grand Master used a series of shapings, one with earth that tried to grab at him, wind trying to throw him back, and a sense of heat mixed in with it. Tolan surged against it, scrambling back to his feet.
He turned his focus back to the Grand Master, holding his attention on what the other man was doing. The other man used considerable power, but not so much that Tolan didn’t think he would be able to resist.
He pushed against him again. He held onto his shaping energy and pushed yet again.
More and more power poured out of Tolan. As it did, it struck the Grand Master and dissipated almost uselessly.
Survive.
Somehow, he was supposed to survive against the Grand Master?
If he didn’t do something soon, if he didn’t find some way of defeating the Grand Master, the other master shapers were going to recover and begin to attack him again. So far, he had linked them to the ground, holding them in place using a mixture of his element shapings as well as the elementals, but Tolan couldn’t help but think it wouldn’t be much longer before they were able to escape.
The Grand Master used another shaping, and suddenly, the ground beneath him sank. Water swelled up around him and heat surrounded him.
Spirit forced him, trying to jam down on his mind, trying to confuse him, but Tolan recognized what he was doing, the way he was using that power. The more he focused, the harder it was to know whether there was anything he was able to do to withstand the Grand Master.
That doubt wasn’t his. It had been placed within him by the Grand Master.
He wrapped spirit around his mind and shattered what the Grand Master was doing. It was an illusion.
Even the earth and water and fire were illusions. It was all forced upon his mind, trying to trip him up, to confuse him. Now he was aware of it, Tolan thought he could use that, so he pushed outward against what the Grand Master did, straining against the shaping.
He lashed out, using spirit.
He didn’t think he was going to be able to attack the Grand Master with spirit, but he could defend himself with it. The more he focused on spirit, the more he thought he could drive that against the Grand Master.
Then the other master shapers were freed.
Tolan felt the pressure against him, the way they had torn free of the elementals holding them, and he pushed out the shaping spirit he had been using on the Grand Master, and he shoved it on them.
He forced it with more energy than he probably should have, but all he used was an image: a sense of helplessness.
The attack that had begun to build ceased.
He turned his attention back to the Grand Master, and he wrapped each of the elements around himself, preparing to add spirit. As he did, he focused on the runes on the tower behind him. He tried to draw that power.
There was a resistance to drawing upon that power. As he focused on it, he could feel that energy and the resistance, and thought he had to find some way to overpower it. The more he focused on that rune energy, the more certain he was he could call to it.
And as he did, he dragged that power to himself.
It exploded within him.
It was surging, powerful, and he embraced it.
More and more energy filled him, and Tolan called to each of the runes: earth, fire, wind, water, and lastly to spirit.
As they filled him with energy, he was connected to the Convergence.
It was a strange and powerful sensation, the way that connection cascaded through him, calling across the distance. With that power available to him, all he needed now was to find something more.
And that something more was a way to hold back the Grand Master.
He pushed.
He didn’t want to hurt him. And as he used the combined powers, drawing off the runes but feeling that energy filling him, he knew he could use it to wrap around the Grand Master.
He did so, sweeping around him, holding him in place.
He turned his attention to the other master shapers. They stood dazed, not moving and not attacking.
Tolan breathed out, his breath shaky, everything within him trembling. He felt a sense of power far greater than anything he had drawn, other than when
he had been in the Convergence.
The Grand Master stood calmly in the center of the shaping, watching Tolan.
It was only then Tolan realized which bondar the Grand Master had: the bondar Tolan had made. The sword hung from his hand.
How had he missed it?
“You were using my bondar?” Tolan asked.
“I thought it was appropriate for me to use a creation you had made,” the Grand Master said.
“Are you able to escape from the shaping?”
“Perhaps in time I would be, but the testing is done.”
“Because I used the runes? You didn’t say I couldn’t, and—”
The Grand Master smiled at him and waved his hand. As he did, there was a sense of power that pushed against the barrier Tolan had created. He wasn’t able to push through it, but he was able to push enough power against it that Tolan could feel the barrier beginning to shiver and shake.
The more the Grand Master would push, the more certain Tolan was he might be able to escape from the bonding he held. And yet, Tolan didn’t want to hold the Grand Master indefinitely. There was no point. The Grand Master wasn’t his enemy.
“You can release it now. The testing is over.”
Tolan breathed out, and he gradually began to release the energy he held upon the Grand Master, starting with spirit, but then each of the elements began to dissipate.
With a wave of his hand, the Grand Master powered through the rest of it, shattering the shell. He turned his attention to the other master shapers, and he sent a surge of spirit washing over them. It was quick and sudden, and the power of it was jarring.
As soon as the Grand Master acted, each of the master shapers turned back to Tolan, beginning to shape, but they saw the Grand Master with his hand up, his fist closed, and they approached, their shaping energy beginning to dissipate.
“Tolan Ethar. You have survived testing.” This came from Master Sartan.
“Tolan Ethar. You have survived testing.” This was from Master Wassa.
“Tolan Ethar. You have survived testing.” Master Sartan nodded slightly as he spoke.
The Chaos Rises (Elemental Academy Book 6) Page 5