She turned away. “The Great Mother has gifted me with insight, son of Zephra, but there are limits to even my abilities.”
“Why would they have gone to Ethea?”
Silence built between them before she answered. “Because I sent them.”
If that were true, then the First Mother was responsible for everything the archivists did… and she seemed to have no remorse. “Did you know what they would do?”
“Some of this you would not learn until you were raised to Mother,” she said to Amia. “I chastised you for sharing secrets of the People, and now here I am, about to do the same.” She closed her eyes. Fingers drummed on the long stone, running over a few of the runes. “Our people are blessed by the Great Mother. Some have a greater blessing than others, but all have some element of the gift.”
Tan nodded. “Spirit sensing.”
The First Mother tipped her head. “A crude term for something so precious, but yes. We are blessed with the ability to sense what you call spirit. Some can touch it and shape it. Those who can are rarer, and those with any real ability with it rarer still.” She smiled at Amia. “You would have served your people well, Daughter.”
Amia didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. Tan felt the sense of loss through their connection.
“I thought only the women of your people are shapers,” Tan said.
The First Mother sniffed. “Are only the women of your people able to shape? Women lead the People. It is how it has always been. The men serve in other ways. Those with ability are tested at the Gathering. If they have aptitude for shaping, they remain, protected, here.”
“If they remained at the Gathering, how did some end up as archivists?” he asked.
“Those with particular strength are sent to the university to learn. The First Mother has taught for as long as the People have wandered. But there are limits. Many have gone to learn, study in a place where it is welcomed.” She glanced toward the fire, where the Brother continued to walk among the Aeta. “In time, and when I have found a suitable replacement, the Brother would be among them. Like the others, he will go and learn from those who’ve gone before them, serving both the People and your kingdoms in a way, maintaining our connection to the ancient stores of knowledge we were once responsible for.”
There was so much about what she said that he wanted to question. “Did you know about the artifact?”
The First Mother hesitated before nodding. “We have known since the beginning.”
Amia gasped.
If the First Mother knew, how much could have been avoided? How many of the Aeta could have been saved? Could Nor have been saved?
“You have held it, have you not?”
Amia nodded.
“Which means you were the one to wade through the pool.”
“I have seen the pool,” Amia said carefully. “We both have seen it.”
The First Mother shifted her attention from Tan to Amia. “You understand what it is?”
“It is the Great Mother,” Amia answered quickly.
As far as Tan could tell, it might have been more than that. When he had been in the pool of liquid silver, he had experienced an understanding of the world that had lasted only as long as he had been there. He had undone the twisted shaping on the draasin Enya and freed Amia’s mind from the torments she experienced. Had he more time, he might have managed to stop all of Incendin, but he had the sense that wasn’t what the liquid pool of spirit was meant for.
“It is power,” the First Mother breathed. “And the device was created from that, made solid by an infusion of elemental power. It was Aeta scholars who first suggested its creation. Without the Aeta, there would have been no artifact.” There seemed a measure of pride in her comment.
“Do you know what it does?” Tan asked.
“None but those scholars knew with certainty.”
“But you suspect.”
He needed to know. If the Aeta were responsible for the artifact, the First Mother must know what it did. Could it control the elementals, as Roine suspected, or was there another purpose for it, something greater than they yet knew?
The First Mother let out a shivering breath. “I don’t know.”
Tan grunted. “Theondar suspects it is meant to control the elementals.”
She blinked at the mention of Roine’s real name. “Elemental power infuses the device. It is possible that by lending strength to it, the ancient elementals sacrificed something.”
“But why?”
The First Mother leaned back. “To ask why is to seek and understand the world of that time. None of us today truly understand what it would have been like in a time when draasin flew freely across the sky, or when udilm crashed against the shores, or when eyris and tolmud still served as the great elementals.”
The last two names struck a memory with Tan, a sense of recognition he suspected he had gained when Amia had shaped understanding of the ancient language into him.
“Ara and golud were not the great elementals of the time?”
“They were by then, but that had not always been the case. Elemental power flows through time, some increasing through generations while others lessen. The lesser can become the greater. And vice versa.”
Tan nodded. “That’s what Incendin hopes.”
The First Mother tapped her pursed lips. “Why do you say that?”
“The lisincend. They are Incendin’s first attempt to create the power of an elemental, shaping a closeness to fire they could not possess simply as shapers.”
Her eyes closed. A powerful shaping built. When it released, it radiated past the Aeta, as if not intended for them.
The First Mother opened her eyes. “You said ‘first’ attempt.”
“There is another, created at the place of convergence using the artifact.”
“You saw the transformation?”
Tan nodded.
“What did it involve?”
Tan held her gaze. “She sliced the archivist’s wrist and his blood pooled into an obsidian bowl with runes like the one on your stone. She performed a shaping, drawing through the bowl. As she did, she turned into—”
“One of the lisincend,” the First Mother interrupted.
“Not the lisincend. At least, not as we know them. Whatever she became was different. She had much the same leathery skin and control of fire, but she had wings.”
The First Mother stared thoughtfully past them. “We have often wondered what the lisincend intended. They are powerful, but not so powerful that the risk of the shaping made sense. So many are lost as they attempt to transform. If they think to gain the power of an elemental…”
“There are some who fear it will work,” he said.
The First Mother took a deep breath. “There are other elementals of fire. Saldam, inferin, saa. Each with their own strengths.”
“But fire is different,” Tan said. It was what the draasin had told him. The elementals of fire did not do things the same way as other elementals. There was no guarantee that saa or inferin would ascend if the draasin disappeared.
“Fire is different,” the First Mother agreed. “Where are the draasin now?”
Tan hesitated. He knew generally where the draasin had gone, but he couldn’t pinpoint them with any accuracy. “Safe, I think.”
An amused smile turned her mouth. “Strange to think we refer to the draasin as safe.”
“Were they really so terrible?”
“Who is to know? It was a different time. The elementals spoke to man freely then. Not as it is today.” She looked at Tan. “Where is the artifact now?”
“Incendin has it. The new lisincend took it with her.”
The First Mother avoided the accusation in his gaze. “I don’t think she will succeed in using it. Doing so should require shapings of each element.”
“But others could use it to transform?” Amia asked.
“It… it is possible.”
But there might be another rea
son Incendin wanted the artifact, Tan thought. If they could make it work, they could use its power for whatever purpose they planned. And Roine—his mother—would be unprepared.
“Would it work if it’s shaped by several at the same time?” he wondered.
The First Mother frowned. “I don’t even know what it will do when shaped. To answer what might happen when many shape it…”
“I understand, but do you think it requires a warrior shaper?”
“Since Incendin possesses the device, it matters little. Only fire shapers emerge in those lands.”
“There might be another way Incendin could use the device, another way they might succeed in using it. They have other shapers. Stolen shapers,” he said. “Men and women taken from Doma and brought to Incendin.”
The First Mother shifted in her chair.
“You know about them,” Tan said.
Amia looked from Tan to the First Mother.
“There is nothing that can be done for them. They must trust their people will protect them,” the First Mother said.
“What people? Shapers taken by the lisincend, depriving them of anyone who might be able to help?”
The First Mother raised her head proudly. “There is nothing that can be done.” She hesitated, and then addressed Amia. “I cannot do what you need. If Incendin has the device, I need to protect the People.”
“But—” Amia began.
The First Mother crossed her arms. “You know I cannot.” To Tan, she said, “And you will learn nothing here, son of Zephra. You are not of the People and will never understand the reasons for what must be done.”
Tan inhaled slowly and stood. “This was a mistake, Amia. We should go and return to Roine. We can reach the kingdoms and then decide what needs to be done. Maybe with enough time, you can help the king.”
Amia hesitated. “First Mother?”
There was hurt in her words, but it also came through the shaped connection. Amia didn’t want to believe the Aeta could be responsible for the archivists—that the First Mother had known what they were doing and still did nothing—but as much as she might claim Tan wouldn’t understand, he thought he did. She protected her people.
The First Mother turned. The hard edge had returned to her eyes. “You are one of the People, Daughter. And blessed by the Great Mother. You should stay with your people. Retake your place. Establish your family.”
“I have stood by while my family was destroyed by the lisincend. I watched my family—my Mother—burn in front of me. And then, when I returned to the People, I was treated—” she choked back a sob “—treated as if I was no better than a dog, chained into the Mother’s wagon while those who should have protected me used the gifts of the Great Mother to torment me, twisting my mind. And then, when I thought everything lost, it was Tan who came and rescued me.” She stood with hands on her hips, golden hair slipping down and around her shoulder. She touched the back of her neck and there came a soft snick. The wide band of silver fell apart. Amia tossed it at the First Mother. “You claim he is not of the People and that I should establish my family. Well, I have established my family.”
She took Tan’s hand and pulled him with her, storming away from the First Mother.
14
ATTACKING SPIRIT
Amia didn’t stop until the light from the fire was a distant glow. The night had grown cool and a chill wind gusted around them. The air smelled crisp, the earthy scent of fallen leaves clinging to it. But other than the wind, nothing else moved, as if the forest itself held its breath as they passed.
Soft bells tinkled. At first, Tan thought they came from the wagons at the Gathering, but then he realized they came from deeper in the trees and were moving closer, coming toward them. Another caravan coming for the Gathering.
Tan stretched out with his sensing. The caravan was not large—not compared to the Aeta family that had tortured Amia—and barely only a dozen wagons. There was something odd about the caravan, though it could simply be Tan’s irritation with what had just happened tainting his sensing.
“Do you need to rest?” he asked.
Amia clutched his hand tightly. Tears stained her cheeks and she wiped them away with her sleeve. Her neck appeared bare without the silver necklace. For as long as he’d known her, it was her marker of the Aeta. Now, without it, what would she be?
“We should reach Roine,” she answered. “He still needs me in Ethea. Now that you’re not staying here…”
“They will need me in Incendin.”
“You still need training.”
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her on the brow. “Then it will have to be you. I know you worry you can’t teach me, but what choice do we have?”
“I’m not sure…”
“Can you shape me again?” he asked, thinking of how she had gifted him knowledge of the ancient language.
She frowned for a moment, biting her lip, and then pulled away from him slightly. “It is different. I don’t think I can share this knowledge the same way I did the knowledge of Ishthin. With Ishthin, I simply modified a shaping, one I had seen before. I can show you what I know of shaping spirit, but there is something the First Mother does, a way of opening understanding, that I can’t replicate.”
Tan wondered if it were anything like when he’d been in the pool of spirit. Standing there, he had seemed to know anything he wanted. All the knowledge of the world existed for him to reach, if only he asked.
Could he have learned how to spirit shape while there?
Perhaps, had he considered the question, but now he would need to summon each of the elementals to call spirit back to the cavern. Even if the others answered, he wasn’t certain the draasin would. Wherever Asboel had gone, he deserved time alone, time with his family, especially if the vision he’d granted Tan with two eggs clutched in his talons was accurate.
He stopped and turned when he felt a shaping build distantly.
Roine?
It didn’t feel the same, not like the spirit shapers he had felt at the Gathering. This was different.
Tan concentrated. Rather than from the south, the direction he and Amia had come after leaving Roine, this came from the northwest.
“What is it?” Amia asked.
Tan let his concentration return to Amia. “There’s a shaping coming from the Gathering. Powerful, but I don’t know what it is.”
“Probably just from the First Mother. She is the most powerful shaper I’ve ever met.”
Tan looked at her with surprise. With her travels among the Aeta, Amia likely had met many shapers, now including at least two of the last warriors.
“It’s not the First Mother,” Tan said.
“How can you be certain?”
Tan examined the shaping again. “Since helping you, I can tell the difference between shapings.”
Amia frowned. “Different than before?”
“I’ve been able to sense shapings longer than I’ve been able to consciously attempt them. But it’s changed since we were in the cavern. Now there’s something like a signature to each shaping.”
Amia pushed her hair back behind her ear, twirling it around one finger as she did. Her other hand trailed to her neck, rubbing where the silver necklace once had been. “If it’s not the First Mother, who is it?”
Tan waited as the shaping continued to build. As it did, he recognized another part to it, as if another shaper added their touch.
But it was more than that.
The shaping was not spirit. Somehow, he knew that with certainty.
What, then?
It continued, becoming a painful pressure that built and built until he couldn’t tolerate it. He grabbed his head, trying to hold back the pain as it threatened to split him open.
And then it released.
The shaping occurred as a flash of light and a gust of wind.
As it did, Tan recognized a part of it. He had felt it before. Incendin.
Fire and light filled the nig
ht, burning brightly behind Tan and Amia.
She gasped softly. Fear came through their shaped connection. She clung to his hand.
Gusts of wind drew the shaping forward, as if they drove the fire, feeding it as it blew through the trees.
Could Incendin really attack the Aeta a third time? Could their people truly be so unlucky as to have Incendin come after them again? “The Gathering,” Tan whispered.
Amia stared at the blooming flames. A shaping built from her but she winced, jerking back from whatever she sensed through her shaping.
“Stay here,” Tan suggested. “I will go.”
Amia put her palm flat on his chest. “You can’t go alone. If this is Incendin, we barely survived last time, and that was with the draasin helping.”
“I have to try,” Tan said. “I can’t stand here and watch as Incendin destroys more of your people.”
Amia bowed her head. “They are no longer my people.”
Tan took both of her hands and squeezed. “They will always be your people.”
The tears that had dried in her eyes welled up again and she wiped them away. “Can you reach him?”
She didn’t need to specify who she referred to.
“I can try, but I don’t think he will come.” Even if the draasin did answer a summons, he wouldn’t be able to reach them in time to stop the flames.
But others of the great elementals might answer.
“What if she’s there?” Amia asked.
If the fire shaper twisted into the winged creature was among the Incendin shapers, Tan didn’t think he would have much of a chance of stopping them. If only Asboel would answer, but calling him might be more than dangerous. It might be exactly what Incendin wanted.
“I’m coming with you. If one of the…”
She trailed off, but Tan knew what she had started to say. If Incendin had an archivist with them—and how could they not, if they found the Gathering?—then she might be needed.
He took a deep breath and they started forward, running through the trees.
Changed By Fire (Book 3) Page 12