Honl?
There came no response through the bond. It was a question he would hold onto and ask later, especially as Tan didn’t think he would have time to remain and read everything in the book.
“It predates even the Order as I know it,” Tobin answered. “It comes from a different time and a different world, and speaks to an end of the darkness, of a time when the Shaper of Light brings about a change, one where darkness is no longer feared.” He nodded to the book, and Tan handed it back to him. “Scholars have argued over the meaning for centuries, and most think it simply a reflection on the time, that the ancients feared the night.”
“For good reason, it would seem,” Tan said.
Tobin’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps. Regardless, none ever believed that Tenebeth could end. The darkness is as much of the world as the light. But there must be balance, and the darkness must be held in check.” He sighed, closing the book. “Or so I thought. So much has changed.”
Tan stared at him. “Do you fear change?”
“Too much changes, Maelen. That is all you bring.”
“I have changed what needed to be changed,” Tan said. “As to the rest, that’s not up to me. That’s up to the connections you make. That’s up to the elementals and the Mother.”
Tobin watched him as if he expected Tan to say anything more, but what else was there for him to say? Norilan represented the old way and the old warriors. Tan valued what they had done, and valued the fact that they had been more skilled with actual shaping than he would have been, but they had not known nearly what they should have known. They were not connected to the elementals the same way he was, and because of that, they were not bound to the Mother the same way.
Either Norilan would help, and they would do what they could to be a part of the defenses needed to stop the darkness from spreading, or they would choose to avoid their responsibility and would hide. Tan hoped that they took part, but if they didn’t—if they were unwilling to help—then he would still do what he needed to do, regardless of whether they participated.
And staying here much longer didn’t accomplish anything. Marin and her disciples were still out there, and he needed to discover what she intended so that he could determine what he could do to stop her.
Now that he’d sunk into the pool of spirit and had reconnected to the elementals, he wondered whether he would be able to detect her. Could he use the knowledge of the elementals, of the connections that were formed between he and them, to discover what she might be after?
Tan thought that he might be able to do so, but he needed to get away from here first. There was too much suppression within Norilan, as if the land itself still remembered what had been done to the elementals for all that time.
Still… he detected something, an odd sense that plagued him, leaving him with a vague awareness that something was off. Was that Marin?
It was far from here, if so.
“Roine,” he said, looking up, “I think it’s time for us to leave.”
Roine watched him for a moment, his brow furrowed in such a way that Tan thought he wanted to say something, but he refrained. Instead, he nodded.
As they returned to the doorway leading out from the Seat of the Order, Tan glanced back at Tobin. “There are others who could learn from you. Ethea and Par have students of shaping, and they would value the knowledge of the ancient Order.”
“They have no need of the Order. If you offer your services and your lessons, what more can the Order do for them?”
Tan smiled slightly. “You’d be surprised. The Order has more skilled shapers than any found in the kingdoms.” He waited for Roine to object, but he didn’t. “If you want to ensure the Order lives on, working with the others will be your way to do so. Consider that a positive change.”
He had pulled open the door when Tobin caught him with a question. “Does the Shaper of Light command this?”
Tan blinked. He suspected he could tell him that he did, and that the Shaper of Light wanted them to work with the other shapers of the world, but what message did that send? Was it a conciliatory message or one that would only lead the Order to rebel against him? He might need them when he faced Marin. Considering what he had needed when he faced the Utu Tonah, he might need anyone when it came time to contain the darkness. It was much more powerful than anything he’d ever encountered.
“Not the Shaper of Light, and not a command,” Tan answered. “Maelen asks. That is all.”
As he stepped out into the street, noting the people looking at him, still standing within their homes, hiding but not really hiding, he wondered if that would be enough. The Mother knew he hoped that it would be, but Tan was not certain.
Taking a long look around the city, he shaped himself into the sky and to the draasin.
13
Blessed by the Mother
The shaping carried him above the clouds, where he rejoined the draasin. Wasina bowed her head to him. Asgar did the same. Both flicked their tails excitedly as he appeared.
What is it? he asked Asgar.
He focused on the fire bond, but it felt strange doing so. Not because it was difficult to reach, but because he seemed able to reach the bond more easily than he expected. Fire flowed to him as if he were sitting within the bond. All he had to do was reach over to the draasin and he could know their thoughts.
Tan suspected he could reach through the bond and find Ciara with Sashari or Cora with Enya, though Cora sat within the bond more than most shapers. He had always felt connected to the bonds, but this was a greater connection.
And it was changed since he’d gone into the pool of spirit.
He had been less connected before entering spirit. The bonds had been easy enough to reach, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t as if he stayed within it at all times.
The more he focused on fire, the more he became aware of the fact that he was still connected to the other bonds: earth, wind, and water. The sense of them all seemed to fill him.
Had the pool of spirit somehow brought him closer to the bonds themselves?
He knew that it had brought him closer to his bonds, those of the elementals as well as his family, but he hadn’t expected the same from the element bonds. If he were this connected to them, there would be advantages when facing Marin.
Even spirit… Tan had managed to reach the spirit bond, but that had always seemed a distant sense. This was more acute, more present within his mind.
Why should he feel it now?
Because he was out of the city.
Within the city of the Order was something that prevented him from fully detecting the new connection. Maybe that was intentional, and those of the Order had done it so that they wouldn’t risk themselves facing angry and tainted elementals, or maybe it was because he had been closer to the place of convergence and the elementals drawn toward the convergence limited that connection in some way that he didn’t fully understand. Or maybe it was nothing like that. It could be only that there was such a connection to the Mother while there that he wasn’t able to notice the distinct difference to the rest of the element bonds.
Asgar laughed, and it came out as a huff of smoke and fire. You come looking like this and you question?
Looking like what?
The draasin let out another streamer of steam and smoke, this time more focused than before. It is you, Maelen. You have been blessed by the Mother.
Tan laughed softly. There seemed a hesitancy to Asgar that wasn’t normally there. Was it because of what had happened in the pool of spirit, or was there more to it?
Connected as he was, he sensed the issue with Asgar. It was fear, though not the fear that Tan would have expected. He didn’t fear Tan, or the shapers in Norilan, or even fear the darkness, in spite of what Tan had thought. He feared disappointing the Mother.
Was he alone with that fear or did other elementals feel the same way?
Tan stretched through the bonds and noted that many of the elementals—at lea
st those he detected close to him—felt much the same. And it wasn’t a fear of how the Mother would react, it was that they would fail her in some way.
Pulling from spirit—and Tan didn’t know if he drew from his own pool of spirit or the spirit bond or even from the spirit that he’d nearly drowned in—he sent out a reassuring sense to the elementals, letting it course through his connection to all of them. It surged through the bond, streaking away from him, a wave of reassurance that he hoped helped soothe the elementals that thought they might do something that would disappoint the Mother.
Then he retreated and focused on the elementals in front of him, on Asgar in particular. You won’t eat me, then?
I think the Mother would be angry were I to try.
The Mother would not be angry. Didn’t she make you a hunter, Asgar?
All the draasin hunt, Maelen. You know this.
Then you should know that would not anger her if you acted because of how she made you.
Asgar snorted, seemingly amused. There are times you show real wisdom, Maelen.
Only because she has helped me see.
Is that what you were doing here? Is that why you disappeared, and then when you appeared again, you were… much brighter than you had been before?
I think she needed me to see certain things.
What sort of things?
The kind that tell me we need to return.
You questioned that?
No, but I think I have a different sense of urgency now than I had before. I know what we risk by not stopping Marin from attacking.
We risk life.
More than life, Asgar. We risk our connections. Those are what brings us life. Without those connections, there is no life. There is nothing to live for.
It started to make sense to him now, though he didn’t know why it would have taken him so long to understand.
What bonds?
That was what the Mother had shown him, wasn’t it? Even more than the connections that he possessed, she had shown him the connections that were formed by others, that must be formed by others. If they didn’t have those connections, then there would be no way for them to keep living.
Alanna was a part of it, and one that might be greater than he expected—or would have wanted. She had a connection to the elements and the elementals that he didn’t fully understand.
The elementals needed that connection as much as the shapers did. They needed to connect to the life, to help them come closer to it.
Tan had helped encourage it over the last few years, but he hadn’t done enough. He had changed the elementals—all of them. He thought of what had happened with first the hounds, and the way that he had brought them back into the fire bond, and with what happened to Honl. He had thought the elemental changed, and he had been changed, but not always in the way that Tan realized.
Now that he was better connected to spirit and to the wind bond, he thought he understood, and he began to have an idea of what he might need to do.
Would it be possible?
Asgar looked over at him, his bright yellow eyes full of knowledge and life. Tan suspected that the draasin knew exactly what he was thinking, much as he knew what Tan began to suspect he might have to do.
Is it possible?
Maelen—
Is it possible? Can I shift all those able to shape closer to the bonds? They already reach the bond, even if they aren’t aware of it.
You are connected to the Mother in ways that none have ever been connected before. I would think that anything is possible for you, Maelen.
He had to understand more, which meant returning. Now, it was not only because of what he knew Marin would attempt, but because he wanted answers. He could get them, and he could make some changes, but they might be more than what any would have expected.
And yet… hadn’t he discovered that the changes he made were the ones that the Mother sanctioned? If he did anything that she didn’t want done, she wouldn’t have given him the power that she had.
You will carry him back?
I will. And what of you?
Wasina will bring me.
That is not an answer.
You can know what I’m doing through the fire bond, Asgar. You will know as soon as the others.
You really intend for this to happen?
He looked over at Roine. The man had remained silent, yet he watched Tan. He probably knew that he was having some conversation with the elementals, but not what he was saying. If Roine did, what would he think?
For us to have the strength to withstand the darkness, I think this is what must happen.
What of the elementals?
You are already connected to the bond. I don’t think anything will change for you.
Not at first, Asgar agreed, but if you really intend to forge a connection between the bonds and all those able to access it, then there will be changes. I don’t know what they might be—I don’t claim to have the understanding of those things—but I recognize what might happen when the power is changed.
Everything must change, Asgar.
That seemed to be the problem in the past. That was what Tan wondered. Perhaps the darkness had not been subdued for long because they had not changed nearly enough over time. The shapers had maintained their connection to their power, and the elementals had retained their connection, but other than that, nothing else really changed.
Everything has changed, Maelen. When you first appeared, it changed.
Then it must continue to change.
Yes.
You will return him to Ethea?
I will return him, and then I will join you. What you intend should be interesting.
There won’t be much of a hunt.
I don’t know that you can make a promise like that. When you are involved, there’s always a hunt, even if it’s not one you intend.
Tan smiled and shaped himself up onto Wasina before turning to Roine. “The draasin will take you back to Ethea.”
“That’s it? We come here, you go for a swim in spirit, and then we return? What did we accomplish?”
Tan sighed. “I think the swim in spirit is what needed to be accomplished, Roine. I think that was the reason that we came.”
“What of the Order?”
Tan shrugged. “They will either help or they won’t. It’s the same as what happened when we faced the Utu Tonah. I didn’t know whether you would help.”
“You always knew that I would come.”
“I couldn’t force you to come. I had asked you to do something you had never imagined doing.” Tan hadn’t been able to understand that until hearing it from Roine as he described the effect Tan had on him to Tobin, but he got it. “Much as we can’t force anything with Tobin. He will either offer his help, or he will not. If he does, we should be prepared to take it. If not, then we continue as we have been.”
Roine glanced at the ground with an almost longing in his eyes. “Think of what we could learn from them,” he said. “I imagine it would be nearly as much as what you have learned from the elementals.”
“We can all learn from the elementals,” Tan said.
“Only if you speak to them. The only reason I speak to this elemental is because you have granted it. Without that, I wouldn’t have that ability. I’m thankful of that, but I know that those given the chance to communicate with the elementals have a much better understanding of what they can do, and how that power works in the world.”
Tan patted Wasina’s side. “You’re right. Which is why I intend to change that.”
14
A Daughter Speaks
It was late. The sun, now set, left only a few streaks of color in the sky. Wasina remained perched on the top of the tower, waiting for Tan much like Asgar often did. He detected her watching, looking around, surveying the city. It was rare for her to spend time near Par. Most of the time when she was here, she did so in the caverns, waiting near the eggs and the ancient records. Tan left her as he returned
to his family.
What would they have detected during the time he was in the pool of spirit? Would they have known that he was there? He’d made a point of not communicating with Amia since then, telling her only that he was well but not wanting to worry her, and he knew that she would worry were she to know what he’d been through.
Then there was Alanna.
The bond had given him a different insight to her. She was his child, descended from he and Amia, but she was like the elementals as well.
How?
Tan needed to understand before he was faced with another attack. He knew that they would be faced with another one, and sooner than he wanted. Already he could feel the dragging sense that Marin did something. For the first time, he thought that he could find her, but doing so required Alanna, of that he was now certain.
Would Amia understand?
For that matter, did he?
As he strolled through the halls, the estate felt cooler than usual. None of the servants were out in the hall, and he was thankful for that. Had he passed anyone he recognized, how would he explain what had happened to him? How would he explain that he was still Maelen, and that the change to his skin didn’t mean anything?
But that wasn’t entirely true. The changes did mean something. They meant that he could reach the bonds and that he was better connected to them. They meant that the Mother had wanted him to have the power that he did and she would be fine with him using it. And they meant that he would be the one who had to stop Marin, though he had known that fact before.
“Maelen.”
He turned and noted Maclin coming down the hall. The man had refused to abandon his post as household servant even after assuming the title of Master of Souls.
Cycle of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 11) Page 12