Cycle of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 11)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Tobin looked over at him. “We have tried what you call layering, Maelen. That is how most great shapings occur. But even our greatest has never managed to so much as start something like this.” He stood. “It is less than these, but I can see the technique would be similar.”

  “Less only because it would take weeks—or longer—to make anything like these,” Tan said.

  “You think you could recreate what the ancients made?”

  Tan shrugged. “With time. The tree has to grow, Tobin. All the shaper is doing is helping it along.”

  Roine had moved away from the tree and now knelt much like Tan had. He cupped his hands together and Tan detected the shaping building from him. There was power and control to it, almost more than even what Tan possessed. Roine was an incredibly skilled shaper.

  As he worked, a shoot sprang from the ground.

  Roine’s eyes widened and he held his hands in place, continuing to feed energy into the creation. As he did, Tan detected where the shaping drew from, noted that he pulled from the tunnel, much like Tan had. His shaping layered, moving more quickly than Tan’s, but with somewhat less strength. As he worked, the sprout became a sapling, and then became a little taller. Branches started to spread, leaves sprouting on them.

  Roine sighed and settled back on his heels. “I’d do more, but even that much has taxed me. I can see how this would take them weeks to shape.”

  Tan nodded toward one of the larger trees within the cavern. “Some might even have been longer,” he said.

  Tobin looked between the two of them before attempting it himself. Much like the others, his shaping came slowly, but of the three of them, Tobin had the most control. His shaping layered neatly, building with such skill that Tan could almost not see how he managed it, forcing him into the earth bond to watch. He marveled at Tobin’s skill, impressed by how he was able to shape. How had they not managed to do this before? How had they needed Tan to demonstrate, when these shapers so clearly had the necessary level of skill?

  They thought only to force it, not build it, Light said. This shaping you use does not destroy, and it does not create. It only changes what has already been made. The Mother does not frown on something like that.

  Tobin’s shaping continued, and he stopped when it had reached a similar height to Roine’s. The trees each of them had created were different, but they were recognizable as trees. Tan’s had been an oak, Roine’s appeared to be the beginning of a maple, the wide leaves already forming, and Tobin started with a pine, sharp needles emerging from it. All they needed was the pine scent.

  Tan considered how to create something like that and attempted a layering of the wind. He started with the idea, little more than that, and added shapings over and over. There came a flash of pine scent, but it faded.

  He shook his head. “That will have to take more time,” he said.

  Tobin sighed. “I have tried my entire life to create what we see here, and you come in and demonstrate it in an afternoon. I can see how the shaping will form, and how I will need to keep adding to it, just as I can see that it is not beyond our weakest shaper.” He studied the ground, shaking his head a moment. “Incredible. This is not what you came here for, so come with me.”

  The warrior started away from them, disappearing through the trees. Tan followed with Roine at his side, uncertain what they might find. Tobin made his way with a determined stride, hurrying between the trees, not giving Tan much of a chance to enjoy the work that had gone into shaping them. They were all impressive, each of the trees well crafted, shaped in such a way that he enjoyed the majesty and the sense of power radiating from them. They contained something of the shaper who had created them, as if they had given of themselves in the creation.

  Light licked him.

  The trees began to thin, and as they did, Tan noted the water he’d heard before. It crashed with a little more strength, waves that he understood were shaped, a miniature sea within the cavern.

  “Does this connect to the ocean?” Roine asked.

  “We thought the same thing,” Tobin said. “Through the years, shapers have searched for where the water would come in, as the level rises and falls, much like the tide. None have managed to detect it, leaving us to believe that much like the trees, the sea here is shaped.”

  “Everything down here is shaped,” Tan said. “Even the breeze. I can’t tell where it all comes from, but it’s all shaped.”

  Tobin nodded and continued on, leading them along the edge of the shore.

  Roine hesitated, staring out at the water, watching the waves rolling up. “He’s right, you know.”

  “About what?”

  “That you come in here and demonstrate skills these warriors could not discover, even with all of their knowledge. I think of the warriors in the university I once knew, some who were among the most skilled in generations, and they would not have been able to come up with what you simply know. It’s impressive, Tannen.” He stared at the water and a hint of a smile played on his lips.

  “What is it?”

  Roine laughed. “I still hear him. He tells me not to give you a big head, but in the next breath, he tells me that with a bigger head you would make a tastier snack.”

  Tan laughed. You would be afraid of how bitter I would be, he sent to Asgar.

  I am draasin. I fear nothing.

  Tan withdrew, wishing that were true for him. Asboel had feared nothing, not even death, though now that Tan knew that fire cycled and would one day return, perhaps death didn’t have the same finality to the draasin. Asgar did fear. He had experienced the pain of the darkness tainting him, and he feared it happening again. And Tan didn’t blame him; it was something he feared as well.

  Making their way after Tobin, they found him on the edge of a flow of orange fire. Lava poured out, though there was no real heat to it. Tan reached toward it but Tobin grabbed his arm, pulling him back.

  “It might not seem hot, but men have lost themselves to fire here, Maelen.”

  Tan smiled. “I am not most men.”

  Tobin chuckled. “Perhaps not, but I still think you should not risk burning your hand off like a child near a flame. Come. You have not seen everything yet.”

  “What more is there?” Roine asked.

  “The Sacred Pool,” Tan reminded him. If his suspicion was right, then the Sacred Pool would be spirit. He had only known liquid spirit in one place and had not detected it in any of the other places of convergence.

  They reached a series of boulders, each one larger than the next, the boulders creating a circle. Tobin started climbing, grabbing invisible handholds as he made his way up the nearest rock. He stood atop it with his neck craned, looking down at something below.

  “Do you think it’s in there?” Roine asked.

  “This is too much like the other place of convergence for it to be anything else,” Tan said.

  “That was what I was thinking as well.”

  They climbed the rock and when Tan reached the top, his breath caught.

  Beneath him stretched a massive pool of silver liquid, much like what he’d seen in the other place of convergence and pretty much what he’d expected to find here. Within that pool of spirit, he felt its reflected power. Now that he was here, he could feel how the spirit in this pool matched that of the spirit bond and might even be the source of it.

  Memories flooded into him, those from when Amia had climbed into the pool and he’d been unable to take his eyes off her. He had known the strength of her ability then and had realized how powerful she truly was.

  Even that didn’t keep his attention.

  Within the pool, suspended over the middle, was a long cylinder.

  An artifact.

  “Great Mother,” Roine breathed. “There is another.”

  11

  The Sacred Pool

  “You know of it?” Tobin asked.

  Roine glanced at Tan, who answered. “We have seen something like it.”

  Tobin nodde
d. “When you weren’t surprised by the shaping within the Cavern of the Sacred Pool, I suspected you had seen something similar. I would not have expected the ancients to have left another.”

  Tan sighed. “I hadn’t either.”

  “We call it the Warrior’s Pride,” Tobin said. “None have ever managed to reach it. We have tried shaping ourselves to the device, but anything we use to shape ourselves over the surface fails. It is as if the shaping fizzles out.”

  “It would. The pool is spirit.”

  “Spirit?”

  Tan nodded. “There are few places like this, Tobin. This is a pool of spirit. It would take someone able to shape spirit to reach the device.”

  “We have shapers able to reach spirit, and they have not managed to shape themselves to it.”

  Tan stared at the artifact. There was another. Knowing it existed worried him. If there was one here, and there had been one in the kingdoms, did that mean there had been a third?

  What would happen if Marin were allowed to reach it?

  Tan didn’t have to think long to come up with what she might do with it. If she could corrupt it, she might be able to reach power she would not be able to otherwise. She was a shaper, so there was nothing that would stop her from using it, and if she did… he imagined that she would be even more destructive. The tainting that she’d managed so far would be nothing compared to what she would be able to accomplish with it.

  “It’s not a shaping,” he said.

  He sighed and started taking off his cloak and jacket, moving next to unbuckle his sword.

  “Tan,” Roine started, “it’s safer here. Think of the last time. We won’t be able to keep it as safe as it would be here.”

  Tan shook his head. “That’s not true. If Marin somehow manages to discover this is here, she could reach it. She has a connection to spirit and she would be able to do the same as Amia when we found the last. I can’t let that happen.”

  “And you think she would be able to get through the Order and reach it?”

  Tan shot him a hard look. “She uses the darkness, Roine. She has disciples. And she’s growing stronger. I don’t know what she’s capable of doing, but I do know that she can’t be allowed to reach this.”

  As Tan stepped out of his pants, Tobin watched, a strange expression on the man’s face. “Maelen?”

  Tan walked to the edge of the rock and prepared to jump, steeling himself for what he might experience as soon as he touched the liquid. Would it freeze him in some way? He didn’t think it would hurt him—he hadn’t been hurt the last time that he’d gone into the spirit—but it was possible that this time would be different. The device looked different than the first artifact they’d recovered. It was possible that even the pool was different.

  Tobin grabbed his arm. “Maelen, this is even worse than fools who attempted to touch the lava. Men who have stepped into this have died, consumed by it.”

  “I’ve told you before, I’m not most men,” Tan said.

  He stood, naked atop the rock, hesitating. The last time he’d come to a pool of spirit, he’d been able to wade in. This appeared different—deeper.

  Then he jumped.

  He was surprised when Light jumped as well, joining him in the pool of spirit.

  When Tan struck, his breath was sucked out of him, and he sank.

  Tan tried swimming, sweeping his arms, but it was like swimming through mud and he couldn’t get anywhere. Instead, he continued to sink, deeper and deeper, pressure building around him.

  Light?

  Trust the Mother, Maelen.

  He trusted, but he hadn’t expected the pool to be so deep. The last time, they had waded into it and been able to wade back out. There would be no wading out this time, and he wondered if he should not have avoided jumping in until he knew how deep it was. Even were he to reach the surface, he didn’t know if he would be able to swim out.

  And Tan kept sinking.

  The pressure became pain. His chest burned and he realized it came from an inability to breathe. Would the Mother have brought him here, allowed him to come so far, only to die here? That didn’t seem right, and that didn’t seem like anything that she would do, especially with Light somewhere near him, but without being able to swim, there was nothing he could do.

  The pain became too much. Without wanting to, he sucked in a deep breath, filling his lungs with the liquid. It went into his throat, his nose, his belly, and pooled, growing thicker, seeming to push him down even more.

  He felt a growing certainty of his own death.

  The pain faded.

  He seemed to stop sinking.

  Tan floated.

  As he did, he noted a surge of light, that of color and brightness. Through it, he saw Light, her form long and snakelike, different than she had been before. She swam through the liquid and reached him, brightness all around him.

  Light?

  You are safe, Maelen.

  I can’t move.

  Only because you choose not to move. You are safe, Maelen.

  How am I able to live?

  You breathe in the Mother. She is life.

  All elementals think they’re life.

  They are, because they are all a part of the Mother. She is life.

  What now?

  You wait.

  For what?

  For the Mother to tell you what must be done.

  Tan floated. Time passed, an unknowable amount of time. He was disconnected from his bonds and could not hear any of the elementals other than Light. It was as if only the two of them existed.

  That wasn’t quite true.

  There was a distant flickering in his mind, like a tapping. When he traced it, he found Amia and smiled, relieved that he had not lost that connection. From there, he detected another, a brightness that rivaled Light, and discovered it was Alanna.

  How?

  She was powerful here, as bright as an elemental.

  As he focused on her, he discovered something else. She had aspects of the elementals. In some way, because of him and his bonds, she was an elemental.

  How had he never seen it before?

  How is it possible?

  You serve the Mother, Maelen, and she knows what is needed. Trust.

  He began to understand why the elementals thought that she should be a part of whatever he planned. She was more like them than he had realized. He thought of his daughter like a child, and she was, but she was something greater than a child.

  Has there ever been anything like this before?

  The Mother creates what is needed, Maelen.

  And she had created Alanna.

  What did that mean? How was she intended to help them?

  Would those answers come to him while he was here?

  Tan tried, reaching for her, trying to gain that awareness, but felt only the connection to his daughter. It filled him in a way that he hadn’t been connected to her before, a sense of warmth and love that radiated from her. Tan radiated it back to her, hoping that he offered her nearly as much as she offered him, but thinking that what he was able to show her was a pale reflection.

  He pulled Amia into the sense and felt her on a different level than he normally did. She was there, practically with him. He detected the bond between them, the one that she had forged so long ago, and fed this power into it, welcoming it. They would remain bonded, and because of that bond, they had created Alanna.

  Together, they embraced their daughter.

  Power surged from them, a bright light that together matched what Alanna was able to show them. She burned more brightly back to them, a flash of the sun, a brightness that could not be denied.

  He stayed there, connected to his family.

  From there, he began to feel other connections. They trailed away from him, not as strong as his connection to Amia. That wasn’t quite right, he decided. They were strong, only different.

  The bonds to the elementals.

  There was Light, so close to him tha
t he could touch her. There was the bond to Honl, and he pressed the power of the Mother through it, solidifying it. The nymid had bonded him as well, and he touched upon that. Kota, the hound watching his family while he was away, came to him as well.

  Lastly, there was Asboel.

  The bond remained, and Tan was surprised to note that awareness of his first bond filled him. Touching upon it, he felt the connection stretch to the fire bond, and into fire itself. As he did, awareness of Asboel—not only the draasin, but of all the lives he’d lived and would live—came to him.

  How is this possible?

  The Mother, Maelen.

  It was Asboel, speaking to him, not only through the fire bond, but speaking to him as he once had spoken to him. In this place, Asboel had not died—would not die. He lived on through Tan, and would be born again to fire. Tan could see it, and knew that he would, as well as when he would. Asboel would always live.

  My friend, he said to Asboel.

  Within his mind, he felt a huff of fire. Warmth surged through him and he glowed.

  He understood why he had never felt compelled to bond another fire elemental. He had not needed to. The bond had not disappeared. Death did not separate them, much as it wouldn’t between him and the other elementals, much as it wouldn’t between him and Amia, or Alanna. They were connected.

  The only thing that can separate us is Voidan, Asboel said. It can destroy, That is what it wants. You must serve the Mother. Serve creation.

  I do serve.

  That is why she chose you, Maelen. She chose well.

  Awareness of Asboel, mixed with the other bonds, left him practically glowing.

  As he focused, he realized that he was glowing.

  Tan smiled. He would keep this connection and use the power he felt around him, the power within the pool, to hold it steadfast within his mind. Asboel might not live, not in the same form, but he still lived.

  Now, Maelen.

  Light intruded upon his sense, and he knew what was expected of him. It was time for him to leave the pool of spirit.

  He didn’t know what he had accomplished, and maybe there was nothing other than to know his bonds, to understand that they were the reason he served the Mother, but he would take the message the Mother had given him, and he would continue to do what was needed.