He had no idea what that was going to take, only that it would require power.
Out in the waste, power was at a premium.
Three people looked up at him.
Tolan hovered, focusing on them, feeling a surge of energy from them, and he recognized a shaping coming from them.
How were they able to shape? When he had come here, it had required all of his skill in order to figure out how. In all of the time that shapers had been coming out here, they had been trying to uncover some way of shaping but had failed. What had changed that had allowed these men the ability to do so?
Something glowed in one of the men’s hands.
Tolan used an earth shaping and drew earth up, trapping them. He hit them with wind, fire, and then tapped into spirit, holding them in place.
He dropped to the ground in front of them.
They stood motionless, though they were fighting. He recognized their dress as people from within his father’s village, but there was a look of rage on each of their faces. They were fighting him, they were straining to get away, and they were straining to attack.
How were they shaping?
Even now, there was a sense of shaped energy coming from them. It was considerable energy, and it continued to build, sweeping outward.
They were holding onto something.
Tolan grabbed for the glowing item. It was spherical, some sort of orb, and filled with shaped energy.
He looked at the other two. They held something similar.
That was how they were shaping?
Tolan studied one of them. There were markings along the surface, tiny runes that forced some sort of energy inward.
He tapped into the orb he held, and power started to flow outward. He gripped it tightly, holding on to it, worried that he might harm himself, but needing to understand. If these orbs would somehow allow shaping, he was going to need to know how.
Power surged. It was a bondar, only different than the ones he’d used. Rather than tapping into some almost infinite source of power, Tolan was aware of the limitations of it.
By taking these orbs from these three, they wouldn’t be able to shape.
That didn’t mean they were harmless. More than anything, he realized if his mother had influence over them, there was still danger.
Somehow, he would have to find a way to release that influence. Either that or return them to their village, where the bondars had offered a certain protection.
He shaped, landing back near the Convergence. Master Minden was there, crouching, holding onto a shaping, and there was another assault. It was considerable power, swirling toward her, and he could see her doing all that she could in order to withstand the nature of the attack. She held her hands outward, forcing the shaping away, and her thin arms trembled under the force.
“They’re using bondars,” he said.
She looked over, and there was an intensity in her gaze. “They shouldn’t be able to reach the element bonds with bondars out here.”
“These are a different kind of bondar. These bondars hold power.”
He looked over at the Grand Master and then Ferrah. He handed one to the Grand Master and one to Ferrah, and then waited. “They can be shaped through. Treat it like a bondar. There’s one more, and if whoever is attacking us can be stopped, we should be able to get more of these.”
The Grand Master handed the remaining bondar to Master Sartan. “Do what you can.”
Tolan realized that Master Jensen and Master Stole were standing in the center of the waste, though neither of them were appearing to move. Surprisingly, he could feel shaped energy coming from them. They were adding to what Master Minden was doing. The master librarians were fighting.
Tolan focused on the source of the attack. If there were people under his mother’s influence, and if they all had bondars like this—something Tolan thought was incredibly likely, considering how they were using power—then if he could take that from them, it would limit their ability to attack.
He shaped himself into the air.
Someone was with him. He looked over to see Ferrah joining him. “You aren’t doing this yourself.”
“The bondar’s power is finite,” he said.
She squeezed it. “When it starts to fade, I will refill it.”
“How?”
“Just trust that I will.”
They shaped toward the source of the attack. The Grand Master was there as well, and the shaping that he was using was exquisite, a tightly controlled sort of energy, so different than the blast of explosive power that Tolan held onto. Even knowing he was now a master shaper, he still had a considerable amount to learn.
He found seven people arranged in a line, all angled toward the Convergence. All of them held the same glowing orb. Power was bursting from them, and it was targeting Tolan, Ferrah, and the Grand Master.
Tolan had a different source of power than the other two, but given the numbers, they were facing something difficult. Possibly dangerous.
He had to work quickly.
If they could incapacitate these seven, they could outfit the other master shapers with the orbs, and then they might have enough energy with which to battle.
Tolan used spirit. He tried to suppress the nature of the attack but suppressing all of them at one time was too much.
He had to try a different tactic.
One at a time.
Holding onto his connection to fire, he used that, and he blasted the nearest of the attackers.
Tolan didn’t like the idea of attacking blindly, and he certainly didn’t care for the idea that he was going to harm someone who was under his mother’s influence, but they needed to stop this.
With a surge of fire and spirit, the attacker was thrown.
Tolan streaked toward them, grabbing the sphere before they had a chance to recover, and as he took to the air, something struck him.
Tolan fell.
He hit the ground harder than he intended, and pain washed through him.
It exploded within him.
Something shattered, though Tolan couldn’t figure out what it was. It was all he could do to focus on anything other than the pain. It rolled through him, an agony unlike anything that he had ever felt. Other shaped energy began to blast at him, stone encasing him, fire swirling around him, even the sense of hot mist filling him, making it difficult for him to breathe. And then the wind was sucked out of his lungs.
He struggled but holding onto his connection to shaping proved to be almost impossible.
He faded. If only he could reach for a shaping, he might be able to recover from this, but they turned their focus on him, recognizing that he was a threat. It was possible his mother directed them, knowing that if he were removed, the others would have a harder time. Little did she know that Master Minden was there. Tolan thought she would be able to counter his mother, if no one else could. The Grand Master had an orb, and he would be able to help. Even Ferrah. She was powerful and holding onto an orb meant she would be able to help fight, to combat the attack from these others.
He tried to take another breath. He tried to focus on the elements, to connect to hyza, but all of that faded away. There was too much pressure. Too much element energy upon him. Blackness called to him.
23
A bright white light surrounded him and for a moment, Tolan thought he was in the afterlife, now with the Great Mother. It was almost enough to let him smile, but a memory of what he had encountered before appearing in this place took that from him. It wasn’t his time. His people needed him. His friends needed him. His father needed him to help stop his mother.
The white light filled everything around him. He struggled against it. He wondered if there was any way for the Great Mother to return him if he shared with her what he’d been doing. Fighting on her behalf, working with the elements and the element bonds, along with the elementals—surely, she would recognize that he was serving her.
Then he felt pain.
&nbs
p; It rolled through him, the same agony he’d known before he had faded.
This couldn’t be the afterlife if he was feeling pain.
Where was he then?
Nothing but white around him.
It was the white of the pain that he felt.
Tolan focused, thinking about what had happened to him. The attack had crushed him under the earth, stealing the breath from his lungs, burning him from the inside with the hot steam of a water shaping, but all of that was familiar. It was a dangerous sort of shaping, but none of them were too complex.
It was simply the overwhelming nature of it. The fact that out here on the waste he was unable to call upon his own power, to augment it with other power, was what left him weakened.
He could reach for hyza.
The elemental had supplemented his strength more than once, and in order to even have come out onto the waste, he had needed for hyza to be a part of it. Hyza had restored him, letting him connect to the elemental’s power, but that power wasn’t infinite.
The elemental was connected to the element bond, though.
Some distant part of Tolan knew that. He was aware of how the elementals were connected to the bond, even though they wanted to be parted from it. They didn’t want to live within the bond, but they were still part of it.
Could hyza grant him strength now?
The pain continued to build.
Tolan needed to draw on that strength.
Hyza was fire, but hyza wasn’t only fire. Hyza was earth, a hint of it, and a part of both bonds.
How had he not considered that before?
Because he had never been dying like this before.
Are you there?
Tolan didn’t know if hyza would answer, or whether the elemental would even be able to answer. Given the pressure upon him, the way the elements were squeezing him, trying to kill him, he didn’t know how much time he had. It was possible it was already too late and that he was actively dying. The pain within him suggested he was far enough along that he might not be able to survive this.
I am with you, always.
Tolan wanted to take a deep breath, but he knew that he couldn’t. Not only that, but he shouldn’t. With the way they were using water shaping against him, it would have burned his lungs.
I’m dying.
There is no death. Only a cycle of life.
I don’t want my cycle to end.
There is no end to the cycle.
My friends need me. I need to stop whatever she’s planning.
Then take what you need.
I’m injured.
Your body is, but then, your body is nothing but a vessel. Draw what you need. Restore the vessel.
Hyza retreated, but the sense of power didn’t.
There were two element bonds he could call upon, knowing he was bound to hyza, though not what it meant to be bound to the elemental like that. He used fire and earth, wishing for water, though wondering whether it would even matter. Water would heal him, restore him, but somehow, he would have to use these two element bonds in order to draw upon what would heal him.
Tolan let the sense of fire fill him first. It burned through him, roiling with a power. Fire was that which gave him warmth, gave the power of the sun. Fire was life.
Earth was there. Earth was everything. It was life. Death. It was everything.
He could use both to heal himself.
Each of the elements was a part of the world. Each of the elements was a part of life. And Tolan could use that.
He drew that power within him.
The pain remained, but it became muted and distant.
He could feel the pressure bearing down on him, and it was almost too much, but he pushed against it, letting the power explode away from him.
Then he was free.
The pressure eased, and as it did, something grabbed at him, hands pulling upon him, trying to move him.
Tolan used earth to slide them away.
Distantly, he heard his name called. Lights still surrounded everything, a pale white light that was almost overwhelming, but he didn’t know if that light was dangerous or if that light was merely the sun.
Life.
As he focused, he examined his surroundings. There was a sense of power. There was that sense of energy, and all he needed was to draw it in.
Fighting around him caught his attention, and he pushed against that.
Tolan tried to stand. Pain still worked through him but gradually faded. He took a breath, hesitating as he did, not knowing whether or not his lungs would tolerate it, but with the wind shaping having retreated and the heat around him no longer nearly what it had been, he thought that he could.
His body was a vessel.
It was a strange way to view things, but it made a certain sort of sense. The elements and the element bonds could restore him.
He let that power fill him. He breathed it in.
Everything began to clear.
Ferrah was there, standing above him, holding an orb and trying to get down to him. Tolan realized he was in some sort of pit, though that had likely formed during the attack, trying to crush him beneath the weight of stone. The Grand Master joined Ferrah at the pit’s edge. He held onto an orb and the two of them watched him, struggling to reach him.
Using earth and fire, the two element bonds that he held onto for now, he carried himself up. He landed next to them.
“How did you survive that?” Ferrah asked.
“My connection to hyza.”
“What do you mean a connection?” the Grand Master asked.
Tolan looked around the waste. There was a section that had just been blasted by him, he supposed. There was a sense of power here, and he could see where he had tossed rock, and there were bodies that had been scattered, likely by his shaping as he had struggled for freedom. Orbs rested on the ground near them, and Tolan strode toward them, grabbing them. They didn’t hold nearly the power the first three had, and he realized what it had taken from the other attackers to try to suppress him.
“When we were here before, I had a vision of hyza, and I was able to draw upon his power.”
“A particular elemental?”
Tolan looked over at the Grand Master before nodding. “It’s the same hyza each time.”
“Why do you think that is?” Ferrah asked.
“There was a time when people would bond to particular elementals. It granted them a different sort of strength.”
“Bond?”
“It was a connection. It was beneficial to both, at least according to the records.”
“Is that why the elementals were pushed into the element bonds?” the Grand Master asked.
“Tolan —”
He shook his head. “I think we need to understand that. We need to understand whether or not the element bonds are beneficial, or whether the power that we gain by having access to them has taken something from the world.”
He took a deep breath and looked toward the heart of the waste, toward the Convergence. There was other shaping nearby. He could feel it, and knew he needed to do something to stop it. His mother could have recruited dozens of attackers. Here he thought they’d risked being outnumbered, but that risk was not at all what he had feared. He would never have imagined his mother had some way of shaping out on the waste. It wasn’t something he had even considered. He thought that it was rare enough that he was able to shape out here.
“There are too many,” he whispered.
“Then we should go,” Ferrah said.
“If we go, she succeeds.”
“Tolan, we don’t even know what she is after.”
Tolan turned toward her. “We know what she’s after. She’s after the waste. She’s after the Convergence here. She’s after…” As he trailed off, he thought about what it was that she was after.
The answer was there.
The elementals.
More than that. It was the Guardians, which would then give her access t
o other elementals.
“I know where I need to go.”
“Then go. We will hold them back,” the Grand Master said, motioning for Ferrah to follow. “We will take these bondars to keep shaping.”
Tolan looked at Ferrah a moment, and then drew upon a shaping.
The warrior shaping blasted him, carrying him toward the draasin.
When he landed, he was not alone.
There were a dozen shapers, all of them holding orbs, and all of them facing the draasin. The draasin lay motionless, tired. He didn’t try to fight, and Tolan didn’t even know if he would be able to fight. He breathed heavily, steam drifting from his nostrils, heat radiating from his sides, but nothing more than that.
Tolan pushed out with spirit. He sent it sweeping over the draasin, and when he did, he felt the anger within the draasin, the violence and the attempt to fight, but there was nothing he could do. Being out on the waste, serving as the Guardian, had taken so much out of him that he was barely able to do anything.
With a sudden understanding, Tolan realized why the draasin had been in the free elemental land when he had seen him. He looked around, knowing the other three Guardians were here. Had they done something similar from time to time? They couldn’t exist out on the waste indefinitely. Being here drained them.
He had a moment, possibly not much more than that, before these dozen orb shapers knew that he was here. Tolan would have to draw upon the necessary power in order to stop them, but what could he use?
How could he draw on what he needed in order to overwhelm this many at one time? They were calling upon power from orbs, not from anything else.
That meant their power was limited. Tolan was able to tap into power through hyza, reaching for fire and earth, drawing from the element itself. By connecting through hyza, through that bond, he would be able to call upon enough power that he could and should be able to overwhelm the attack.
Tolan exploded.
He used both fire and earth, and he did so in a ring around the draasin, sending power shattering upward. The shapers were tossed away, and he pushed with that explosion, letting it swirl outward. The heat blasted them away from the draasin, freeing him.
The Chaos Rises (Elemental Academy Book 6) Page 24