Cycle of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 11)

by D. K. Holmberg

“Much has changed for me. Since my capture, I was reminded of the fact that I am an elemental.”

  “You had forgotten that?” Tan shaped himself toward Honl and reached him, failing to anticipate a measure of angst on his face.

  “As I took on this form… I think in some ways, I became more like a man.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  Honl smiled slightly. “I do not know what I want. Perhaps in some ways, I am like you, Maelen.”

  “Are you saying I don’t know what I want?” Tan asked with a laugh. In this place, with the Undoing wiping away everything the Mother had created and leaving a foul taint overtop of the world, the laughter died off quickly.

  Honl turned to him. “You would have your life, Maelen. That is all I meant.”

  “For me to have what I want, I can’t remain silent when I’m needed. The Mother gifted me with these abilities for a reason. I believe that. And so I need to use them.”

  “You are the Shaper of Light.”

  “That’s what I hear.”

  “You do not believe that to be true?” Honl asked.

  “I believe that I connect to the great powers of the world in a way others cannot. I believe that gives me an advantage, but I’m not certain that it’s enough of an advantage that I will be able to defeat Marin, especially as she continues to connect to Voidan.”

  “The longer that she acts, the more that power slips into the world.”

  Tan looked around, feeling the weight of the Undoing. He shaped a binding and layered it on the ground beneath him, forcing back the Undoing. The shaping drained him briefly, but color began to return to the earth.

  “It reminds me of what happened when Par-shon attacked,” he said.

  Tan lowered himself to the ground and walked to the edge of the circle, where the rim of Undoing pressed against his binding. He added another binding, this one angled in such a way that it pressed against the Undoing again, pushing it back. He would have to keep at this, and continually force back the Undoing, but how many bindings would he need to place? What effect did that have on the rest of the world? Perhaps none, but were these bindings any different than what the Order of Warrior had placed all across Norilan? They had forced the elementals to remain tied to the land. The bindings here didn’t do that, but there were similarities he couldn’t easily move past.

  “They are the same, in some ways,” Honl said. He joined Tan on the ground, not floating, but seeming to walk. A binding of wind appeared, touched with a hint of spirit, and it pressed back the Undoing again.

  Tan looked over at him. The elementals had been unwilling to work with the bindings, fearful that they would be either harmed or touched by the Undoing, but Honl had simply created one. He had changed—and more than any other elemental.

  Light licked his cheek and scampered down, sitting on the reclaimed ground. She had been silent, seeming to recognize that Honl needed Tan’s attention for now.

  “I remember how bleak Doma looked when the elementals had been pressed away,” Tan said. It had not only been Doma, but Incendin as well. Their particular type of shaping had changed the Sunlands. They were already a dark and dangerous place, but by using fire in the way that they had, they had tormented the elementals in some unintended ways. That, combined with the barrier that prevented the elementals from easily passing between the two lands, had changed them for the worse. “That was how I knew I needed to intervene.”

  “And Chenir,” Honl reminded him.

  “And Chenir,” Tan agreed. In Chenir, they had withdrawn the elementals intentionally, hoping to save them from the Par-shon attack. That had made the lands nearly as bleak as this, though still not quite as tainted. Here, the land had an appearance of a place that had been ravaged, that life had abandoned it, and there was the foul sense over everything.

  Strange that the Utu Tonah had been involved in that, especially as he had sought to become a Shaper of Light, as if to claim a title through forced bonds.

  “What have you learned about Voidan?” Tan asked as they walked forward, both of them placing bindings as they went.

  Honl’s were simply wind and spirit, and though of wind, and though they should dissipate as soon as he created them, spirit seemed to hold them, to twist them into creation so that they held, allowing the Undoing to be pressed back. With each step, Tan felt a return of life around him. Elementals would eventually return as well, and then the land would be back to normal, other than for the bindings that now covered everything.

  “This is not the first time he has escaped,” Honl said.

  “I didn’t think it was. Those ancient shapers wouldn’t have needed the protections they placed if this was the first time.”

  Honl frowned. “I don’t think that was the first time, either. Records are sparse, though we do have them from a thousand years ago.”

  “And before that?”

  “There are others, remnants that I can find. They are difficult because they are fragmented. It seems that this darkness bubbles up every so often and men are forced to face it. I have found records of a time before the last, during something the people referred to as an endless war, but have not found anything more than that.”

  “How would the darkness bubble up every so often? If the bindings are solid enough—”

  “They are never solid enough. That’s part of the problem, Maelen. Think of what we know of this darkness. When you’ve faced it, there is destruction to it. Even the bindings, the seals placed, will erode over time. I think that’s the only way it can be.”

  Tan paused as he finished placing another binding. Blackened grass began to take on a hint of brown, enough that Tan could detect the life within it once more. “Are you saying this is part of a cycle?”

  “It seems that way.”

  “How are we to know what we can do to stop it?”

  “I think,” Honl began, turning toward the south. “I think places like Alast and like the tower in Par were meant for us to remember. The Records in Par would seem to indicate that they wanted to share what they knew about this so that those who came after would be able to defeat it.”

  If that were the case, then the Records had failed. Language had changed over time, and the people had changed. Fear and urgency had faded as this darkness faded, to the point where no one knew how to face it.

  Could that be why the elementals had been bound?

  They would have known the darkness and would have been tied to it, but Asboel had not seemed to remember. Tan hadn’t taken the time to speak to Sashari or to Enya, but he didn’t think either of them had remembered, either. Why would that be?

  They reached the end of the peninsula and both he and Honl placed the final bindings. They still hadn’t come across any of the disciples, though they hadn’t fully cleansed the land. There would be more time needed to finish.

  And now Tan had new questions.

  Sashari. Enya.

  He sent the summons through the fire bond. If they heard—and he had little reason to doubt that they would—he would have them join him here.

  “You wonder whether the others would have known about it,” Honl noted.

  “They were from that time. I’ve been wondering about the artifact they protected, thinking that maybe the ancients knew more than I have been giving them credit for. If they did, and if they faced the same thing that we face now, then it only makes sense that the elementals of that time would have known something as well, don’t you think?”

  Honl stared out over the sea. His eyes narrowed, the hollows seeming to deepen as he stared across the ocean. White-capped swells rose and fell, the water catching the reflection of the sun, sending streaks of color across the water. A few gulls cawed as they circled. Distantly, Tan felt the pull of udilm, the elemental of the sea, but even that had retreated from the shores when the Undoing had been placed.

  Why here? What was it about this land that made Marin and her disciples want to place it here? The one in Xsa could simply have been a te
st, but this one… this seemed something else, almost as if she expected to find something here.

  “Time passes to the elementals the same as it does to man,” Honl finally said. “Many live for centuries, longer than you would believe, but even their lives are not limitless. They return to the bond and are born again.”

  “You said theirs,” Tan noted.

  Honl turned to him, frowning.

  “You mean your lives?”

  Honl tipped his head. “I have changed enough that I no longer know whether I can claim to be an elemental, Maelen. Then again, does it matter? If we are all part of the Mother, if we all exist to serve her creation, it might not matter what I am and what you are.”

  Tan wondered if that were true or not. There were plenty of people with no ability to shape, or even to sense. Were they connected to the Mother the same as everyone else, or was their connection somehow lessened?

  “You think they would have forgotten over time?”

  Honl appeared to shrug. “It’s possible that they did. Much is possible, Maelen.”

  Was that why Sashari and Enya hadn’t mentioned anything since the darkness had returned? Was that why Asboel had never said anything to him? He knew memories had faded for the draasin, and that over time, much that they had known had changed. In that way, the memories of man had been better. They remembered the draasin, and still feared them, even though they had been effectively gone from the world for nearly a thousand years.

  They reached the place where they had begun placing the bindings. Tan noticed something that he hadn’t before, and maybe he wouldn’t have been able to notice before the bindings were placed. He hadn’t been able—or willing—to step foot on the ground. Now that he was, he saw a pile of rock that he had assumed nothing more than rock, but renewed sensation through the earth bond shared with him an opening deep beneath the ground, stretching away from the sea.

  Tan motioned toward the rock with Honl. “There’s something we need to evaluate.”

  “Is that safe to do alone?”

  “I won’t be alone. You’ll come with me. And Light.”

  Honl glanced at the lizard. “I will not have the same power beneath the ground.”

  “Wind blows underground. There is often a breeze in the tunnels beneath Ethea.”

  “A breeze, but I am descended from ashi. I think I will be diminished as we descend.”

  “If you’d rather not go…”

  Honl shook his head. “I will accompany you, but I wanted you to be aware that I might not be able to offer as much help as you might need.”

  Light surprised him by scurrying over to Honl and climbing up his shoulders. She situated herself there and ran her tongue along Honl’s face. It seemed strange to Tan that she would even be able to do that, that Honl could exist in a form that was solid enough for Light to climb, but then, Honl was different. Perhaps he really no longer was an elemental.

  If that were the case, what did that mean for their bond?

  Tan pushed the thoughts away as they approached the tunnel hidden by the rock.

  As they did, stone exploded out from it.

  6

  Disciples Attack

  Tan caught the first attack in a shaping of wind, throwing debris back toward the tunnel. The shaping slipped over something—the darkness, he realized—and he maintained it, continuing to press.

  Next to him, he detected Honl using a similar shaping. Why should he be aware of Honl using his connection to wind? Was it the wind bond that allowed it, or was it the changes to Honl that made it more likely?

  Tan didn’t allow himself the time to consider for long. Five dark-cloaked shapers strode free from the tunnel, each of them drawing on the power of the darkness. None of them were Marin.

  Where was she?

  Would she trust an attack on him to her disciples?

  Likely, she would. He suspected that she would prefer her disciples be the ones to attack, especially as they could weaken him.

  Tan took a moment to study the men and women appearing before him. He did not recognize any of them. Three were men of varying ages. One had a beard much like what Honl now preferred, and two had clean-shaven faces. Those two were also completely bald, and one of them had a healed scar running across the top of this head, as if he had long ago been attacked. The women were both dark haired and had youthful faces. All five summoned the darkness.

  Pulling on spirit, he began a shaping that would bind them, but didn’t have enough time to complete it.

  One of the women sent a streamer of darkness toward Honl.

  He stood there, motionless.

  Tan shaped the earth, sending her flying, and Light seemed to push Honl down.

  Watch him, Light.

  I will keep him safe, Maelen.

  Turning back to the attack, Tan discovered that the three men had split off and surrounded him. He placed a binding around himself, much as he had with Marin. Using that, he maintained his connection to the element bonds and to the power of the elementals. Tan used neither.

  Instead, he opted for a different approach. Shaping hadn’t defeated Marin before. The darkness was powerful, and Tan wasn’t entirely certain that he had enough strength to stop all of them using shaping alone. Sealed in his binding, there was another thing he could try, and he suspected it would surprise them.

  Tan unsheathed his sword.

  The warrior sword bore runes down the blade, and he pulled on a shaping of each of the elements. The blade glowed with a bright white light, almost blindingly so. He pointed the sword at the nearest of the disciples, and the man smiled.

  “You intend to shape me?” he asked in a hoarse voice. “She has given me power over shapers. I see how you fear it!”

  “Not shape you,” Tan said.

  He lunged forward.

  The tip of the blade sank into the man’s stomach, and his eyes widened. Tan pushed the shaping he’d drawn through the blade out and into the man. Darkness shattered, and he sank.

  Tan spun, remaining in his binding.

  The element of surprise was gone. The other disciples backed away from him.

  Remaining in the confines of the binding, he could direct his shaping outside of it, but that didn’t allow him to help Honl. The wind elemental—or whatever he now was—sent swirling gusts of wind at the dark disciples, but they managed to deflect them, sending them back down and into the sky. Honl was forced back under the attack of the two women.

  Tan would have to help him. It didn’t appear that Honl could help himself.

  He focused a shaping on the ground in front of him, nearest the closest disciple. As he set it, he surged forward, slashing with his sword. The binding held the disciple inside, and Tan needed only a moment to finish him. The man sank to the ground, blood spilling from the sword wound in his chest.

  Could he confine the disciples within the bindings?

  That wasn’t something he had considered before, but it had seemed to hold the other man. If he could, then he could take the time he needed, and maybe even get answers. A part of him even hoped that he would be able to heal them, prevent them from reaching the darkness again. Wasn’t that what the Mother expected of him?

  Tan created another binding, this one narrow in focus, and shaped it beneath the other man. As it took hold, the man was trapped, sealed inside.

  You can bind them, he told Honl.

  The wind elemental shifted his approach as well and sent a shaping directed at the ground, catching one of the women. The other seemed to recognize what they intended and started to take off.

  Tan didn’t want her to escape. He couldn’t risk Marin learning that he had discovered some way to confine her disciples, a way that would prevent the darkness from attacking. When she learned, she would come up with some way to counter, and he needed the advantage for now.

  With a lancing shot of fire, he knocked the woman out of the sky.

  When she landed, he quickly formed a shaping, circling it around her, and dr
ew it tight.

  She struggled, writhing within the shaping, but he held onto it.

  Tan sighed. They had them. The bindings worked for another purpose.

  “What will you do with them now that you’ve captured them?” Honl asked. His gaze went from the fallen disciples to the bloody sword Tan held.

  “We need answers from them,” he said. “They might not want to share with us, but they will.”

  He knelt before the woman lying on the ground, bound within his shaping. She no longer struggled as she had, and looked up at him with a malevolent darkness within her eyes. Tan sank his sword into the ground near her, and her gaze drifted over to it.

  “You should kill me as you killed the others,” she spat.

  “What were you doing there?” he asked.

  Her gaze remained fixed on his sword. He maintained a steady shaping through it, enough to keep the blade glowing with a steady white light. Even better if it upset her.

  “Kill us now or release us. You will not be able to hold us for long.”

  “I think I’ve proven I can hold you.”

  She drew upon her dark power and it surged against the binding. Tan had to redouble his efforts to maintain it, and the glow to the sword faded as he did.

  “As I said, you will not be able to hold us for long.”

  “Maelen!”

  Tan spun, grabbing his sword. Honl’s binding began to falter under the strength of the dark disciple continuing to shape within it. Before it had a chance to fail completely, Tan stabbed him with the sword, sending light coursing through him. Darkness exploded from him.

  He turned to the other man and did the same, stabbing into him with his sword, pulsing a bright shaping of each element through him until darkness exploded and the man collapsed.

  Finally, he turned his attention back to the woman.

  A smile crossed her face. “As I said, kill us or release us. If you kill us all, you are nothing more than us.”

  Tan knelt next to her again. He could feel the power she summoned and the way it pounded at his binding. She was powerful, perhaps the strongest of all who had attacked. “Who said I need to kill?”