Cycle of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 11)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Light swirled around him, creating something of a vortex within the liquid.

  Tan slowly eased toward the surface and added a shaping, mixing each of the elements to it as he went. He lost track of how he shaped, knowing only that power flowed from him. In this place, each of the elements was the same. Each meant power, each meant life, much as Tan was meant to use them.

  It carried him to the surface.

  His head appeared above the top of the silver liquid.

  Above him, he saw the artifact, the ancient device created to summon the Mother. He hadn’t taken the time to try and understand why, but knew that he should possess it, and that he needed to prevent Marin from reaching it.

  Tan reached for the device. When his hand gripped it, the pool of silver liquid, that of the Mother, began to recede.

  He continued his shaping and managed to elevate above the surface. Once there, he hovered, the liquid dripping from him. Using wind and fire, he shaped himself to the rocks.

  “Tan?”

  He reached for his clothes and started dressing, pulling on his pants and then shirt before covering himself with the cloak. Lastly, he strapped on his sword.

  “Tan?” Roine repeated.

  He looked up at his friend. “What is it?”

  “What is it? It’s you.”

  Tan paused and looked down at his arms. They had taken on a translucent tint, and he glowed softly. Was he shaping and didn’t know it?

  Light climbed out of the pool then and shook herself. In the pool, she had been a long, snakelike lizard, but on the surface, she was back in her usual form. Tan had learned that Light could change her form, but had thought that she would have been more changed from jumping into the spirit pool.

  Am I shaping?

  Light licked him and he heard something that seemed like a laugh from within his mind.

  Do you not know when you shape?

  I don’t think I’m shaping, but this…

  You have always been touched by the Mother, Maelen. This is just an extension of that.

  What does it mean?

  It means it is time for us to depart.

  For where?

  Only you can answer that, Maelen.

  “We should return,” he said to Roine.

  “I think that’s probably a good idea. We can get you back to Ethea, and—”

  “Not Ethea. I need to go to Par and get my daughter.”

  “Alanna? What do you intend for her?”

  She was somehow key to what was happening. First the elementals showed him, and then the Mother. Whatever role she would play was important. He just had to be willing to let her.

  “She will help us fight this darkness.”

  12

  Filled With the Mother

  Back in the city within the valley, Tobin continued staring at Tan as if he didn’t know what to say. Tan held onto the artifact, and stuffed it into his pocket as he ran his finger along the runes carved into the sides. Power thrummed through it, and there was a distant part of him tempted to draw upon that power, but he knew not to let himself. It was the reason he knew he needed to protect it. Others might not have the same control and might let themselves get overwhelmed by the desire to pull on that power.

  Tobin’s gaze continued drifting toward Tan’s pocket. Would he try to take it from him? Would he be so overwhelmed by desire to hold the artifact and call upon the power of the Mother that he would attempt to harm Tan?

  Now that Tan had been in the pool and practically drowned in the connection, he wasn’t certain whether Tobin could harm him.

  He felt different, but found it difficult to describe why, even to himself. There was the sense of power, but it was not the same sort of power that he’d been able to draw before. This was a vague sense, almost a blurring of power, one where he wondered if perhaps his connection to the elements had changed again.

  Had the Mother made it so that he no longer shaped?

  “How do you feel?” Roine asked as they approached the city. People within it began to come out, making their way toward the doors or pausing in the street. They all looked in their direction.

  “I feel the same as I always feel,” he said. “Has more than my skin changed?”

  He’d been changed by the elements before. When he had nearly pulled on fire and had practically become one of the lisincend, he had changed, so he knew the power of the elements. This didn’t feel the same, but then, he hadn’t been aware of what he had been doing, either. He had tried to help the Aeta and taken the power of fire into himself. Had he not done something similar with spirit now?

  You haven’t been changed that way, Maelen, Light shared with him.

  Not in that way, but he had been changed. He didn’t know what it would mean for him in the long term, but for now, it meant that his skin glowed and that he had some difference to his shaping, but not one that seemed like it would cause him any real problems.

  They reached the city. It was more like a town, not nearly the size of Par or Ethea, but there were enough people, especially those that had come out of their homes, almost as if they had known where Tan had been.

  Had they?

  Did they recognize that he had been to the Sacred Pool and returned?

  When he had emerged from it, it wasn’t like when he’d left the place of convergence in the mountains. Then, there had been violence and an attack, as the lisincend had followed him when Fur still wanted him dead. Now that he was an ally, Tan couldn’t imagine the anger the creature had when he’d chased him.

  “Why are they all watching us?” Roine asked.

  Tobin glanced back. “They know that the Shaper of Light went to the Sacred Pool. They might not know what it means, but they know that he went. I suspect they hope to learn that you have failed as so many have failed before you.”

  “Failed?” Roine asked. “You don’t think they will hope that he succeeds?”

  “We are a proud people. For Maelen to have come, and for an outsider to be the Shaper of Light, that was bad enough. And now for him to claim the prize, that will be worse. The pool is a special place for the Order.”

  “You can demonstrate to them how to shape the forest,” Roine suggested.

  Tobin cocked his head, a hint of a smile coming to his lips. “Yes. That might help.”

  “You could even claim to have discovered it,” Roine suggested.

  “I think most will know that I would not have. They will see the Shaper of Light return. Some might even visit the Sacred Pool and discover the prize is missing. All will have seen the way his skin burns with the light of the Mother. They will know who rediscovered the key to the forest, which is probably how it should be.”

  As they entered the village, Roine grabbed Tan’s arm. “How much longer do you want to stay here?” he asked.

  “There’s another reason for us to be here,” Tan reminded him. “It’s not only about the convergence.”

  “After this,” Roine said, motioning to Tan with a sweep from his head down to his toes, “you still want to see if the Order will help teach? Does that even matter anymore? Look at everything you can do, Tan! We need only you to teach.”

  Tan shook his head. If he were gone, he wanted to ensure that the shapers continued to have a way to protect their homes. He wanted to make sure that Par was safe, and that Ethea was safe. Tan didn’t think he could even teach them what they needed to know. His connections had always been different enough that it made it more difficult for him to explain to another shaper how he did what he did. If nothing else, the failings of the past proved that even the best documentation would eventually fail.

  “I think it’s important for us to know what they know. If they’ll be willing to work with our shapers, then we will have another way to ensure the safety of all of our people.”

  Roine sighed. “I suppose you’re right. It would be much easier if you could just shape that knowledge from them.”

  Tan smiled. “I could, but where is the experience
in that?”

  They reached the inside of the city. People continued watching them, but none followed. For that, Tan was thankful. He didn’t want to have to chase the people away, but then again, he could simply shape them away if it came to it.

  They reached a long two-story building that had been formed by a powerful earth shaping. Tan could feel the power within the shaping and could detect the way they had moved the earth to pull it from the ground. In that way, it was something like the way the university had been built, though with the university, the elementals worked with it, holding the stone in place. There was more grace in this shaping than any that he’d seen in Ethea, even from the original university. As old as it was, it hadn’t the same skill these shapers possessed.

  “What is this?” Roine asked.

  “This is the Seat of the Order,” Tobin said. “It’s not the same as what the seat once had been. Our records describe a place of great power, a massive tower like a monument to the Great Mother, but this is what we have today.”

  A tower? Could it be a coincidence that Par had a tower? He didn’t think that the tower in Par was a Seat of the Order, but there was little doubt that they had been a part of its construction. Those shapers would have to have been much the same. The markings that spread throughout the city, those that held the Records of Par, had been much more refined than anything that could be made today, so he suspected that the ancients were involved.

  Maybe there was another relic of that time to find. If he could discover the ancient seat of the order of warriors, they might be able to find answers—and they might be able to understand what they had once known.

  The inside of the building was exquisitely decorated. Everything was shaped. There were sculptures that represented the elementals, all of a smooth white stone streaked with black lines. There were other carvings made of wood, though they seemed to have been hardened, as the shaping of earth had not only created them, but had modified them so that the wood looked more like rock. There were plants that grew where plants should not, blooms of color from flowers that he suspected were fed by shapings.

  A massive fireplace ran along one wall, and the fire dancing within cast much warmth. Unlike in Par, where saa would be drawn to such a fire, there was nothing drawn here. There was a sense of the flame, but no elementals were pulled toward it.

  The crafting of the mantle above the hearth looked equally impressive. He couldn’t help but note the detail and the tight carving that worked figures into its surface.

  Not figures, but runes.

  Tan made his way to the hearth and stared at it. The runes exuded power, though he didn’t know why. It wasn’t that the elementals were trapped within them, but that the elements were, as if a shaping were held confined by the rune.

  How was that possible?

  Could he recreate it? Were he to have that ability, he could think of many ways that he could use it. The only other ways he’d seen something similar had been when he’d seen the way that the elementals had been bound, but this didn’t seem to be anything that held the them.

  “They are called rune traps,” Tobin said, watching him as he studied them.

  “Rune traps?”

  He nodded. “They hold element power. When they’re made a different way, they can hold the elementals. These do not.”

  “I see that, Tobin.”

  “Good. I don’t want you coming in and thinking that you need to destroy our rune traps. These only grant strength; they are not meant for much else other than decoration. Few even know how to make them anymore.”

  “Why?”

  “They are not considered as useful as many of the other shapings. The traps can hold power, but using the elementals would be more effective and longer lasting.”

  “And more harmful,” Tan said.

  A troubled look crossed over his face. “We didn’t know that we harmed the elementals by binding them with the runes. They were thought to be nothing more than power to be used.”

  “You had bonded shapers. You should have known better.”

  “Those who are bonded cannot explain what they use, Maelen. They are powerful, and others would like to be as powerful as them.” He traced one of the runes and a surge of color sprang from it. Tobin seemed not to notice. “Who could blame them for wanting to become powerful enough to stop Tenebeth?”

  That was what drove these people, he realized. They wanted power, but they wanted it for a specific reason. They each wanted to be able to do what they could to stop the darkness from spreading. In that way, they were much like Tan.

  He could find a common ground. With that, he could work with them, and they could find a way to stop this Tenebeth together.

  “We will stop it,” he said.

  “Now that the Shaper of Light as appeared, I believe that we will,” Tobin said.

  “I will need help.”

  “You have the power of the Mother. You need nothing more.”

  Tan shook his head, thinking of all the bonds that he had seen while within the pool. Connections stretched from him and to others, many different connections that reminded him of the way he’d drawn enough power to defeat the Utu Tonah. Those were what he needed in order to stop this darkness. Without those connections, they would fail.

  “Why did you bring us here?” Tan asked.

  “I wanted you to see the pride of the Order, Maelen. I wanted you to know that we have value.”

  “I have always believed that you have value.”

  “Have you? You come to our land and you demonstrate power unlike anything we have witnessed in centuries. So much changes because of you, Maelen.”

  Roine covered his mouth and laughed.

  Tan shot him a look, but Roine only shrugged.

  “He’s right, you know. It’s that way wherever you go, Tan. You changed the kingdoms, and then you changed Incendin, and Doma and Chenir. You went and changed Par. You are the catalyst for change.”

  “Those were all things that needed to change,” Tan said.

  Roine laughed and nodded. “That doesn’t change the fact that they are changed because of you.” He looked over at Tobin. “I understand, even if Tannen here doesn’t. Change can be difficult, but trust me when I tell you it’s not all bad. In fact, he usually does things for the right reasons. When he does that, then the change is good.”

  “Usually?”

  Roine shrugged. “I don’t want you to think you’ve always been right.”

  Tobin laughed. “You have changed other places, Maelen?” he asked.

  “Other places? He changes every place he’s ever gone. There is nothing that he has visited that he hasn’t changed. My homeland, for example,” Roine said. “The place I knew had a wall between it and another country, a barrier that prevented our peoples from mingling. It stopped a war, but it limited us in ways that we never understood. Tan removed that barrier, and he forced us to see that the other side was not the threat we once thought them to be. Now… now he counts them as friends.”

  “You could count them as friends as well,” Tan said.

  “It’s harder for me,” Roine said. “You changed what we knew, but it’s hard to change those memories, Tan. I fought them for most of my life. Giving up on that is easier for you because you never knew it like I did. It would be easier for you to forgive. For me… it will take longer.”

  “There was a barrier?” Tobin asked.

  “One of our people created the barrier, though I think they had the idea from Norilan,” Roine said. “He was a great shaper, a man I had misunderstood when I was younger. He had helped create our barrier as a way to stop a war. And it did. Shapers didn’t die the way they once did, and we thought that we thrived, but I think we separated ourselves and lost something.”

  “You lost the elementals,” Tan reminded him. “They want no part of a barrier. They’re meant to roam the land, holding the connection to the Mother.”

  Roine sighed. “We know that now. Like I said, there were many thi
ngs that he changed.”

  Tobin nodded slowly, running his hand along the mantle. “Why did you come here, Maelen? What would you have change about Norilan?”

  “I came because of the convergence,” he started, but realized there was another reason that he needed to have been here. A prophecy, one that he had forgotten about. The Order possessed it, and he wondered if it was something the ancient shapers had seen while connected to spirit. Perhaps while he had been in the pool of spirit, he would have been able to see it as well, but Tan hadn’t gone looking for any prophecy. “You once told me the Order had a promise of the Shaper of Light.”

  “You are he,” Tobin answered. “You are what was foretold.”

  “What else was foretold?”

  Tobin stared at him before turning to a shelf and grabbing a thin leather-bound volume off the shelf. He flipped it open and traced his fingers along the page. “We have records here that stretch back for several thousand years, Maelen. They are shaped to preserve that knowledge, as the pages would otherwise crumble. This is one such volume.”

  He handed it to Tan, who took it carefully. In a glance, he noted the pages were thicker than any he had seen in the archives within Ethea, even those in the lower archives. The texture of the cover was smooth, and not leather as he had initially believed, but something else. The writing was made in a neat script, and it was one he didn’t recognize at first. With a flash of insight—Tan wondered if it came from the connection to the spirit bond—he could read the words.

  “This predates the kingdoms,” he said, skimming the page.

  “Is it Ishthin?” Roine asked.

  Tan shook his head. “Older. I don’t recognize it.”

  “How are you able to read it?” Roine asked, looking over his shoulder.

  Tan glanced at him. “The connection to spirit, I think.”

  Reading through the pages, he noted a comment about the Shaper of Light. Was this where Honl had discovered the phrase? Tan had never heard of it before Honl and didn’t think it came from anything in the archives or even from the records in Par. And Honl had spent time searching through Norilan, which made it possible that he had discovered this text. The elemental would have understood what was written here, the same as Tan now did.