Cycle of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 11)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Elanne had come with him. Tan could feel her within the wind bond, a soft whispering within his mind. She had embraced the connection quickly, understanding exactly what it was and what it meant for her. The connection gave him a surprising benefit, one that he had realized extended to all who joined the bond.

  Careful, Maelen. I know this one from when she served the Mistress of Souls. She was hard even then, Elanne told him.

  He nodded. These were spirit shapers. That was why Marin preferred them. With spirit, even Tan would not be able to reach beyond their defenses, not without dipping heavily into the spirit bond to draw out the answers. He had a growing sense that Alanna would not have such limitations.

  One of the disciples, a dark-haired young woman, watched his approach with a dark smile on her face. She crouched on the ground, his earth shaping holding her. Though he had cast out the darkness from her, that hadn’t changed her attitude. In fact, it might have strengthened it, making her opposition to him even bolder.

  “Maelen. You come before me with a child? I knew you to be arrogant, but I thought even you had limits to your arrogance,” she said.

  “Do you think I should fear you would harm this child?” Tan asked.

  “You would deny that she’s yours?” the disciple asked.

  Tan looked at Alanna, a smile coming to his face as he noted her soft cheeks and the deep blue eyes that reminded him of Amia. “I would never deny that.” He looked up. “But do you really believe that I cannot hold you confined with element power?”

  The woman stood. Then she took a step.

  Had he misjudged her ability?

  She smiled and tapped her hand on her leg. Darkness swirled around her.

  No, he hadn’t misjudged her ability, only neglected to account for the fact that she could somehow summon the darkness, much like the shapers of Chenir could summon the elementals. He had seen her do it and thought that he had her confined so she couldn’t recreate the summons, but somehow she had still managed.

  Tan didn’t bother stopping her.

  It was a risk, but the disciple needed to understand that she would fail.

  Maelen?

  We are fine, Elanne. I won’t let her harm you.

  I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about that little girl of yours.

  Tan sniffed, sensing the way Alanna had already started drawing on a steady spirit shaping. She allowed him to know how she created it, and he knew it would be a powerful shaping, one that he probably would not have been able to counter.

  I would worry about what Alanna intends to do to her.

  “Your powers aren’t limitless, Maelen,” the disciple said, oblivious to Tan’s conversation with Elanne and with the shaping Alanna built. “There are powers that are beyond you, powers that you fail to recognize.”

  “I recognize those powers,” he said.

  She took another step toward him. With each step, he noted a rhythm to the way she moved, and the tapping on her leg increased. Tan could almost make out the pattern before deciding that he didn’t want to make it out. Doing so risked understanding the darkness, but more than that, it risked him opening himself up to it.

  “No. You only think you understand. Tenebeth is greater than all of us. The mistress has shown this truth to me, as she would show it to you were you willing. Once you touch this power, you will see how powerful you could be. You could remake the world—”

  “Not remake. Destroy,” Tan said. She hesitated, watching him. “The power of the Great Mother allows you to remake, were you to want to, but that’s not what you want at all. That’s not what any of you want. You think only to destroy.”

  The disciple smiled. “I am surprised, Maelen. You are more small-minded than I would have expected. I thought that one such as you would see the appeal of Tenebeth.”

  “One such as me?” he asked.

  She cocked her head to the side. “You’ve taken power wherever you’ve gone. Don’t deny it. We’ve seen what you did in the kingdoms, and then in the Sunlands, and now in Par. You pretend you do it for noble reasons, but you want power and to inflict your vision of the way the world should work.”

  “Not my vision. The Mother’s.”

  “And who is to say that she is right?”

  The disciple brought her hands together, and darkness surged between them.

  Tan felt it flow around him, a power that he did not understand.

  He shaped, pressing back with each of the elements, drawing through the bonds to protect himself, Alanna, and Elanne, and pushed back.

  The darkness continued to press, now collapsing around him.

  Had he made a mistake?

  He had thought that he would bring Alanna here, and could use her to help him understand what Marin intended when she attacked, but he began to wonder if that had been an error. As he tapped into the spirit bond, pressing back against the shadows, he felt a surge of power, but it was the power of the darkness, and a power that his connection to spirit failed to stop.

  Reaching into the spirit bond, Tan discovered he was not there alone.

  The sense of Alanna filled it.

  She wriggled free of his arms.

  Light and warmth burned from her, exploding from her, dispersing the darkness.

  The disciple stood frozen, the movement she attempted to make, the summons she attempted, stuck in place.

  You will speak for me, Maelen?

  You can’t speak for yourself?

  There are limitations to my body. Perhaps one day, she said, though there was something in the way she said it that made him wonder.

  I will speak for you.

  The message flooded into him and Tan almost staggered back under the weight of it.

  Are you certain this is what you want to convey?

  This is what you must tell her, Maelen.

  Tan stared at the disciple, still not certain that he should say what Alanna wanted him to say, but he couldn’t deny that she was the one more powerful with spirit. She was connected to the Mother in ways that he was not. If this was what the Mother wanted…

  “You are mistaken in thinking Voidan can bring the power you seek. There is only one power, and that comes through understanding,” he said. “Believing there is an easier way will only lead to failure. Believing you have control will only lead to destruction. You will be granted this opportunity to disperse the darkness, but it will be your last.”

  Only her mouth moved. “Release me.”

  Tan shook his head.

  “You will not be able to hold me indefinitely. I have proven that I can escape from your torture once before, and I will do so again. And now I know your daughter has power. She will be brought to the mistress and shown the power of—”

  Alanna didn’t allow her to finish.

  Light surged from her, arcing across the distance between them. Where it connected with the disciple, there came a flash of greenish darkness before it burned away, leaving a brilliant white light, bright as the sun. It continued to burn, forcing Tan to look away, spirit surging brighter than any shaping he could manage.

  Then it faded.

  Tan looked over to the disciple and saw that she was gone.

  “What did you do?” Elanne asked

  She is returned to the Mother. She will be shown the power she seeks then.

  Alanna—is that what the Mother wants of you? You are to destroy?

  His daughter turned to him and looked at him with her knowing eyes. Do you believe that death is destruction, Maelen, or is it only a continuation of life? Have you not seen how your bonded are returned to you?

  People are not elementals.

  What are people but fragments of spirit, all parts of the Mother?

  Tan blinked. Even those with no abilities?

  All is life. All come from the Mother, Maelen.

  I needed her so we could know what Marin planned. With her gone—

  There are other ways to determine what she planned. Her physical form might
be gone, but as I said, she has returned to the Mother.

  Won’t her darkness taint the Mother? Doesn’t her presence there disturb what the Mother is?

  Can you be cold beneath the sun?

  What does that have to do with anything?

  Can you be thirsty standing in a river?

  You’re saying the power of the Mother overwhelms everything else she might have attempted.

  Now you understand, Maelen.

  And there’s some way for us to reach that power?

  As you have learned, there is no destruction, only change. She exists with the Mother, much as everyone who came before exists with the Mother.

  Can I reach it through the connection to spirit?

  It is possible that you could, Maelen, but finding it would be like searching for a grain of sand in a desert. You would need guidance.

  You?

  I have the Mother for guidance.

  What did she know? Tan asked.

  He wasn’t sure what to expect, but a series of images came to him. Some he recognized—like the building darkness in the place of convergence near Xsa and where he’d stopped the disciples while facing them in Vatten—but there were others he didn’t recognize. Flashes of mountains he at first thought indicated the mountains near Galen where he had summoned the shapers, but were not. There were massive crashing waves, slamming into shores he had never seen. Dry and arid air, that of a desert of flowing sand, nothing like he would find in Incendin.

  Where is that? he asked.

  I can show you what she knew, but nothing more than that, Alanna answered.

  She smiled at him and plopped onto the ground and curled up, falling quickly asleep.

  Tan stared at her, at first surprised that she would be able to sleep here before realizing that she must be as exhausted as he usually got after shaping spirit and connecting to the spirit bond. In that way, maybe they weren’t so different.

  “What was this, Maelen?” Elanne asked, making her way over to him. “What happened here?”

  Tan had forgotten that she was here. She’d been so silent during the attack of darkness, and then had remained quiet while he had been speaking to Alanna, that he had not remembered her presence. Tan scooped Alanna off the ground and held her against his chest. She writhed a moment and he realized that it wasn’t her at all but the elemental she had bonded slithering around her. It felt strange holding her like this.

  “Where did she go?”

  “She’s gone,” Tan said. “The Voice of the Mother claimed her.”

  “The Voice? That’s your daughter, Maelen!”

  Tan looked down to Alanna and brushed her blond hair back from her head. She snuggled up against him and for that moment, he could imagine her being the little girl she was supposed to be. “She’s my daughter, and she’s so much more.”

  “What of discovering what Marin intends? How can we do that if the Hand destroys those who might know anything?”

  “She didn’t destroy. I don’t think she would be allowed to destroy,” Tan said. “And she was able to give us the insight about where Marin has gone.”

  “Where is it?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “She showed it to me in visions, so I don’t know where it is. But we will find it.”

  Elanne sighed. “You intend to visit the others as well?”

  There were several other disciples remaining, but what would it serve to continue bringing Alanna in front of them? Elanne was right—if Alanna did wake to help, would she only bring them back to the Mother, essentially killing them, regardless of what she claimed?

  “No. I think it’s time for her to rest. I have another place I need to visit.”

  “Will you need my help, Maelen?”

  He smiled at her and shook his head. “This is one I must do myself.”

  19

  The Mistress’s Plan

  Wind whipped around him, cold and biting, with a hint of snow and ice from the north. Tan stood on a shaping of wind and earth, studying the bindings that held back the darkness within Norilan. He had come with Alanna, knowing that her connection to spirit—if she were the Voice of the Mother—would grant a greater understanding of what they were to do. When she’d fallen asleep, he had intended to leave her behind, but Alanna had woken before his departure, almost as if knowing his intent.

  He still didn’t know what to make of what she’d done to the disciple. Amia hadn’t either. Perhaps traveling together would help him begin to understand better.

  Tan feared that the binding had been released, but the binding remained as stout as it had been when he first placed it. Perhaps even stronger, as several of the Order had come and continued placing bindings around it, holding the seal in place.

  Marin had attacked here once, but he didn’t think she would be able to attack again. There had been too much strength placed here, enough that she would not be able to destroy it without a significant battle. Even the elementals within this land assisted, helping to hold the binding in place, something that they didn’t do in the other places of convergence. Then again, the elementals of this land had suffered in a different way than those elementals had, struggling with the forced connection to the land that the others—save for those in Galen that Tan had first freed—did not have.

  The wind shifted, blowing warm for a moment. Tan looked over to see Honl appear. His weathered features were more drawn than before, as if he really had suffered under the weight of some great worry. The hair that he now created was a more uniform gray, and hung wavy and long down to his shoulders. Somehow, he even made it appear to flutter in the breeze, matching the long gray cloak he wore.

  “You should not have come here alone, Maelen,” Honl said.

  “This place is as safe as any, I think.” He glanced to Alanna, who seemed to be playing near the rocks. Now that he understood what she had become, he doubted that she actually played. She sat quietly, as if she simply surveyed the land around her.

  “You didn’t know.”

  “No. But I thought I should determine whether there was anything she could do to free him from here.”

  Honl floated around. That wasn’t quite right, Tan realized. He appeared to walk, actually touching the rock, his boots crunching with each step. Why would he choose to make the illusion so complete?

  “You have sealed this place well. It holds,” Honl said.

  “It holds,” Tan agreed.

  “Why have you returned to these lands?” Honl asked. “Have you not gained what you needed here? What more do you want?”

  Tan looked around. As much as he would like to press the sense of Voidan back and complete the seal, he could not do that himself. He became less and less certain that he was intended to do that himself. The bindings that had restrained Voidan had been placed long ago, and though stout and even though they had held for all that time, they still failed eventually. Would anything he could place do any better?

  “Understanding, I think,” Tan said. He looked up at Honl, thinking back to the book the Order possessed. “You came through here more than once, didn’t you?”

  “The barrier made it difficult.”

  “You passed through it. When you returned to help me face the darkness and rescue Amia the first time, you had already found the Order.”

  Honl looked away, the embarrassment on his face almost human. “I had discovered them. I still wasn’t certain what to make of them. They were… destructive. They had a secret, and I was determined to know what it was before I shared with you. With the barrier in place, I didn’t think there was any harm in waiting.”

  “Until you were captured.”

  “Until then,” Honl said softly.

  “You found their prophecy?” Tan asked.

  “Is that what they would call it?”

  “A foretelling. Prophecy. Tobin has used both terms during my talks with him.”

  “A glimpse of the Mother would be more fitting, Maelen. You have had a similar glimpse.”


  “I wasn’t focused on seeing what would be.”

  Honl smiled at him, wrinkles forming at the corners of his eyes. “It’s not as simple as that, Maelen. There is nothing quite as certain as what will or will not be, only what could be. That is what the ancient order mistook. They saw a Shaper of Light and claimed a prophecy of one, which led to the Utu Tonah and suffering of a people.”

  “As well as to the Mistress of Dark. They are related,” Tan said.

  “They are, and more than the Order would recognize. I suspect those who were able to reach the Mother did not know what it was, and did not know how to handle what they were seeing. Their minds processed it as a certainty.”

  “What if my mind also couldn’t handle it?” Tan asked.

  Honl smiled again. “You have been trained over the years, prepared to handle your exposure to the Mother. Do you think that she would have shown you what she has without your being ready?”

  “I don’t think I can be ready for what she has shown me. Can anyone?”

  “You mean can your daughter.”

  Tan swallowed and nodded as he looked back at her. She had moved farther away from him, but he could still feel her in the bond. “I changed Alanna. Stepping into the pool of spirit—”

  “Is that when you think you changed her, Maelen?”

  Tan frowned. “That wasn’t it?”

  Honl shook his head. “She has been connected to the Mother since before birth.”

  With a terrifying understanding, Tan knew what Honl meant.

  Amia’s attack.

  Alanna had been shaped with spirit, and connected to spirit, long before she had been born, before he had even known Amia was pregnant. In order to save her from the darkness, in order to protect her before he had understood what they were facing, Tan had connected to spirit, and had bound that to her.

  He had changed his daughter, but not when he had thought.

  She would have been conceived by then, but might not have been anything more than a tiny glimmer of life, nothing more than a spark.