Endless Night

by D. K. Holmberg

  Eating a few more meals helped her regain her strength. Now the sense of water flowed through her much more strongly and she recognized the steady beating of Wyath’s heart as he approached and lowered the shaping that sealed her into the room.

  As she had regained her strength, she had regained some sensing ability, too. She began to wonder if the shaping she’d thought was to keep her in was actually to keep others out. Wyath set the food down but looked over to her with a wry smile. “Thought that I might bring something else this time.”

  Ciara watched, a familiar fear fluttering in her chest that she forcibly pushed away. Wyath had been nothing but kind to her, hadn’t he? Unless that was what he wanted her to think.

  “What did you bring?” she asked.

  He knelt on the ground across from her and pulled a stack of what looked to be paper from his pocket and set it on the ground. “This is called sapat. It’s a game I learned from Cheneth. Thought you and I could play while we wait for him to return.”

  “I don’t read Terran.”

  Wyath glanced up from the cards and shook his head with a smile. “Not to read. These are cards. This is a game.” He began to peel the top few off and turned them up. The first had an image of an older woman, long hair flowing down past her back, and she clutched a long staff. In some ways, the staff reminded her of what Olina carried. “This is the Mother. A powerful card.” He turned the next, and flames were depicted on the corners. In the center was a young woman with wild hair. “This is Isash. She is fire.” He turned another, a stout man with a rake or a hoe. “Veran of earth.” The next card had a swirling face in the water. “Neamah of water.” The last was a wisp of blackness that seemed strangely the shape of a man mixed with smoke. “Ebrel of wind.”

  As he continued to turn the cards, she realized that they didn’t repeat, but each card had a different shape, and each one was tied to the elements. “These are the elementals?” she asked.

  Wyath studied the card he had up. Rather than a shape, this looked to be a cloud, or dirt, but it reminded her of the shadow man.

  She gasped. “Tenebeth.”

  Wyath held the card out and studied it. “Not Tenebeth. This is Nightfall. It’s a card of power, but one that is difficult to play well.”

  Ciara stared at the card, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that the card he called Nightfall—a name her people had for one of the other gods—reminded her in some ways of Tenebeth. The shadow man.

  “I don’t want to play,” she said.

  Wyath tried to hide the look of hurt that crossed his face, but he failed. He took the cards and slipped them into his pocket. “Well, I thought we could pass the time with them, but I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. Tell me, nya’shin, what can I do to help put your mind at ease?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You call me nya’shin, but what do you know about my people?”

  Wyath’s back straightened as he met her eyes. “I know that the people of Rens and those of Ter have fought for too long. I know the endless war serves the wrong purpose, but those who lead don’t see that. And I know that the draasin who attack along the border only do so by coercion.”

  Ciara squeezed her j’na. “Then why do we fight?”

  “That is a question I don’t know the answer to.”

  He reached into his pocket again and Ciara tensed, fearing that he would pull the cards back out once more. She didn’t want to see the card for darkness again, regardless of what he might call it.

  Rather than drawing out the cards, he brought out a series of smooth stones and shook them in the palm of his hand. “Maybe a different game then?”

  He tossed the stones across the floor, and she realized that shapes were placed onto them. Wyath tapped each one, and a strange sense of pressure burst from them, almost as if he shaped as he did. The stones began to glow.

  “A variation on an old game, one that I learned when studying in Atenas. Don’t know what it was called then, but we always just called it shaper’s stones.”

  “I’m not a shaper,” she said softly.

  Wyath looked from her j’na to her with a frown. “No? Thought that all nya’shin have some shaping ability. And back in that village, you seemed to direct fire pretty well.”

  “That wasn’t a shaping.”

  Wyath smiled. “No? What would you call it then?”

  Ciara didn’t know what she would call it, only that she couldn’t shape fire. Her father had demonstrated a way for her to summon draasin, and perhaps she had used that to summon the other elemental, that strange lizard she seemed able to speak to, but she had no control over fire.

  “I… I don’t know what it was.”

  “Hmm,” Wyath said. “Seems to me that you were the one to control the shaping, and you pulled fire into it. Without you there, I’m not sure we would have managed to help that draasin.”

  Ciara tried to force herself to relax, but struggled to do so. Tension filled her at the mention of the possibility that she might have shaped. Wasn’t that what she had always wanted? Hadn’t she wanted to be able to shape, to use that to help her people? But the nya’shin were water shapers; they could use that power to help the people. What did it mean that she could sense water, but she could call fire?

  “Anyway, it’s because of your help. Not such a good thing that we have you here like this, but I had hoped Cheneth would have been here by now. Soon enough, though. Soon enough. Then he can begin your education.”

  Wyath swept the stones back into his hand and shook them onto the ground. This time when he shaped them, leading to dark blue lines on them, she felt the way he did it even if she still didn’t understand what exactly it was she felt.

  Wyath looked over at her and smiled. Ciara swallowed, knowing she should not trust these shapers. They were Ter. The same people who had attacked throughout Rens. The same people who had attacked her village! But how could she not at least try?

  And if she could learn to shape something other than water, even if it was fire, maybe she would be able to help her people in another way. And maybe she could do something to prevent the shadow man from returning, from attacking again. If she could, then she needed to remain and see if there was anything she could learn.

  Not only for herself and the power she had long desired but for her people, to protect those who had been lost and to prevent another attack.

  When Wyath handed her the stones, she took them and tossed them to the ground. She touched them as he demonstrated and felt a surge of pressure before colors spread across the stones. Wyath smiled, and she didn’t know if he had shaped the stones or if it had been her.

  3

  Ciara

  Eldridge should have returned. I know that he would agree, though reluctantly, and he would likely find more than I have managed. I have discovered several pieces that are helpful, but there is more than I cannot learn without access from a bishop or someone higher.

  —Rolan al’Sand, Enlightened of Hyaln

  When the door opened again, Ciara looked over, expecting Wyath. He had been back to the room a few times, each time to play stones with her. Each time he did, she began to wonder how much of the game he shaped and how much was because of something she managed to do. The game itself wasn’t all that difficult to play, requiring chance with the toss, but there was something about the shaping that mattered. So far, she didn’t think she had done anything that assisted with the shaping, but maybe there was more to it than she realized.

  At the door, a thin, stoop-backed, elderly man paused and pushed up a pair of wire-framed glasses that he peered through. A smudge of blackness—likely ink, she realized—smeared across his cheek. Heavy lines around his eyes made him appear more weary and aged than she suspected he was.

  He made his way toward the desk and leaned on it. As he did, she realized he had a large gash in his head that oozed blood.

  Ciara leapt to her feet and hurried to him. “You need bandaging and a poultice.”

  “I
’ll be fine.” The man’s voice had more strength than she would have expected. He touched a callused hand to the side of his face, and the bleeding from the wound began to ease. “Healing can be helpful, but it’s not predictable here.”

  As she watched, the wound slowly bound together. Did he shape himself? Ciara hadn’t known such a thing was possible. With the nya’shin of her village, even those with the ability to control water weren’t able to press their shaping or their control over themselves.

  “Who are you?” she asked in a soft whisper, stepping back. If he was powerful enough to heal himself, then he was more than powerful enough to harm her as well. Wyath might not have any interest in harming her, but that didn’t mean the others in these lands weren’t interested in it.

  The man smiled and pushed his glasses back on his face. “Who am I? I could ask you the same, as you’re in my office.”

  Ciara clasped her hands in front of her and turned her gaze to the ground. “Cheneth?” If this was Cheneth, then he was the reason Olina had suggested she come to Ter, the reason she had suggested Ciara work with these shapers. Ciara had been here for days… maybe a week… and hadn’t seen him in all that time. “Where have you been?”

  He took a seat in the plain wooden chair behind his desk and leaned forward on his elbows, fixing his gaze on her. He tapped one slender finger against his lips, frowning as he did, while seeming to consider what he would do with her. “Yes, I am the one called Cheneth. You must be Olina’s student.”

  “Not student. She sent me here.”

  “Only because she thought that she couldn’t teach you as you needed. There is no shame in recognizing your strengths or understanding your weaknesses. Olina might be one of the most skilled of the wise, but even she knows a difference to her expertise.”

  “You studied with her? You… you are enlightened?” Ciara still didn’t know what that meant, but there was something to the title that made him more in Olina’s eyes than one of the Wise Ones of Hyaln. And if he was enlightened, then he would be able to teach her, to work with her, so that she could learn to master the draasin call. Wasn’t that why Olina had sent her?

  “I studied with her for many years. Olina rarely takes on students these days, so she must have seen something in you.”

  “She thinks I can call the draasin,” Ciara said.

  Cheneth tapped his lips again. “Hmm. And what do you think you can do?”

  Ciara ran her hand across her j’na, feeling the carvings placed there by her father. He had guided her through the first dance, helping her as she tapped the j’na along the hard rock of Rens. As she did, the draasin had responded, had come to her. But then it had taken her to Tsanth, where she had found the village, almost as if the draasin had known she needed to find Olina. But Olina had sent her here. What did the old woman intend for her to learn?

  “I think I can sense water. Other than that, I don’t know if there’s anything I can do.”

  Cheneth eyed her j’na. “You are one of the nya’shin, are you not?”

  She hadn’t realized the shapers of Ter knew so much about her people. Wyath had known some, but Cheneth seemed to understand immediately what her spear meant. “I am nya’shin.”

  “All of the nya’shin are water seekers.”

  “Seekers, yes.”

  His eyes narrowed and he frowned. “But not seekers only. Most have the ability to call water as well. You are saying that you do not.”

  Ciara gripped her spear. “I am nya’shin.”

  Cheneth laughed. “I wouldn’t claim that you aren’t. You hold the j’na, and one which appears well carved, at that. So it seems you are nya’shin. Who am I to argue with the wisdom of your ala’shin?”

  “You understand the customs of Rens?”

  Cheneth’s smile deepened. “They are your customs, but not those of Rens.” As she opened her mouth to argue, he shook his head. “I mean no offense, nya’shin, only that in most of Rens, there is less of a search for water. There is no worship of the Stormbringer. They have no Stormcallers. What you worship is older than Rens, and more noble in many ways.”

  Ciara stared at her j’na. “How do you know this?”

  “I know a great many things.” He turned his full attention to her and pulled his glasses from his face. As he did, the color of his eyes changed from deep blue, to yellow, to a hint of orange, and then back to blue. It happened so fast that she wasn’t sure she saw it. Pressure built in the air, reminding her of a shaping. “Which is why I suspect Olina sent you here. Now. You will show me what you are able to do with your j’na.”

  He pushed his chair back and waited, his hands crossed over his lap.

  Ciara sat unmoving. What did he want her to show him? That she could use her j’na in some way? Did he want to see her attempt to summon the draasin? What would that do here, anyway? Trapped as she was in this room, she wouldn’t even know if the summons worked. Besides, she wasn’t at all certain she knew how to effect a summons on her own. The first time she had tried it, her father had been there, guiding her. The second time, she had been with Olina.

  When Cheneth still said nothing, Ciara climbed to her feet and watched him as she began to make a small circle. With each step, she flicked her j’na so that the point of it struck the stone floor with a loud crack. Each step that she took, she flicked again, followed by the crack of the j’na as it bounced back into her hands. Step. Flick. Crack.

  As she went, power began to build. Ciara could feel it as much as anything, and it began to writhe around the j’na, as if the spear summoned power along with summoning the draasin.

  She lost herself in her steps. With each one, she continued to flick the spear, bouncing it off the ground and then catching it, only to step again and repeat. With each one, the power built.

  Distantly, she was aware of another sort of power. It seemed to add to what she did, building along with her summoning.

  Ciara wondered if she would be calling one of the draasin again or whether the lizard would answer. The steps she took were different than what she had done in K’ral, making her wonder if maybe the lizard would not appear, but they were also different than even what she’d done while in her village with her father.

  She continued. Step. Flick. Crack.

  Over and again.

  A deep rumbling began to build beneath her feet, and the ground shook.

  The door to the building slammed open, and she turned to see Wyath standing there, his eyes narrowed. He threw the door closed, and this time she felt it as he sealed it closed, recognizing the shaping that he used in order to do so.

  “Cheneth?” he said.

  The other man didn’t say anything. Ciara continued her dance. Step. Flick. Crack. Over and over.

  Then the power reached a crescendo.

  Ciara tapped once more, and it exploded from the spear.

  The ground rumbled. As it did, the floor rippled. She had no other word to describe it.

  She staggered back, and Cheneth caught her by the elbow and guided her forward.

  “You must remain here. You summoned this.”

  “I don’t know what I summoned.”

  Wyath took her other elbow and stood next to her. He looked over her at Cheneth, and she could see the worry in the way his eyes crinkled, as if he stared too long at the sun. “Earth. She has summoned earth.”

  Her legs felt weak. Earth? How had she summoned earth?

  “I can see that, Wyath.”

  “She called… whatever it was in Tsanth.”

  “Nobelas. A creature we have not seen in ages.”

  “And your woman Olina says she summoned the draasin as well. How many elementals can she summon?”

  Cheneth turned his attention to her. “I can see why Olina sent you to me. You are much more than a nya’shin, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not—”

  With a wave of Cheneth’s hand, the rumbling eased. “He came for you, didn’t he?”

  Ciara only stared.
/>   “Who came for her?” Wyath asked.

  Cheneth ignored him. “That is the other reason she sent you here, isn’t it?”

  Ciara nodded slowly. What else could she do? They claimed she had called earth, but what did it mean that she had?

  “Cheneth?”

  “Tenebeth,” Cheneth answered. “I have discovered little about that power, but if she can summon nobelas, and multiple elementals, then she would be someone he would very much like to control.”

  4

  Jasn

  I have managed to find several texts with references to the shadows. They were obscured within a lower section of the library, and I wonder if that was intentional. Without my connection to spirit, I doubt I would have found them. How many others would have succeeded?

  —Rolan al’Sand, Enlightened of Hyaln

  “That Rens girl hasn’t left his dorm since we returned,” Jasn said to Wyath.

  They stood in the midst of the barracks, the steady sounds of activity all around, that of swords clanging as warriors practiced, the pulsing pressure of distant shapings, and the occasional murmur of voices. All of it sounded too… normal, especially after what they’d been through. Jasn hadn’t expected normal. Stars, but he didn’t know what he should expect, only that facing the darkness that was Tenebeth should have changed something other than him.

  Instead, he had returned to a sense of normalcy in the barracks. Maybe not for Alena, but Jasn had worked with Wyath in the meantime, continuing to master his ability with shaping, learning tricks he had never considered while in Atenas. In the week since they’d been back, Wyath had taught him shaping tricks he thought Jasn might need, starting with ways to shield his shaping, masking it so that others wouldn’t know he was there. He continued to force Jasn to stretch himself, straining with the effort of his shaping, and asked him each day to focus on water, wanting him to develop his ability there as much as he could.