A Fading Fire

by D. K. Holmberg

  How could Laurent feel that this was anything to be afraid of?

  There was nothing to fear here. The elemental only wanted the opportunity to escape; to be out of the bond.

  He could feel that desire coming from the elemental as he pushed on spirit with a connection to fire. Tolan could feel more and more power from the elemental and became increasingly aware of how it was bridging.

  Then he felt the elemental escape.

  Flames danced in the room.

  “There you are,” he whispered.

  The students jumped to their feet, backing away from him.

  Tolan held his hand out, reaching for the elemental. “Easy,” he whispered.

  The elemental darted, twisting in place, spiraling upward. Tolan focused only on the elemental, ignoring everything else around him. “I need you to relax,” he whispered to the elemental. “No one here wants to harm you.”

  Many of the elementals had tried to escape from the bond before, and when they had, they had known shapers would try to force them back down into it. Tolan wasn’t about to do that to the elemental; he was not at all interested in scaring the elemental. He wanted to help soothe it.

  Gradually, the elemental began to settle and the darting of flames started to ease, and Tolan breathed out. Saa twisted in the air, spinning in place, but didn’t move.

  “Can you see the elemental?” he asked, looking around at the other students. “This is saa. Flames. Not exactly plentiful here, but common enough. This is one of the runes I made on the bondar. Shaper Rens has done well by demonstrating how the elementals are tied to those runes.”

  “Does he control it?”

  Tolan couldn’t tell who was asking the question, but he shook his head. “It’s not a matter of controlling the elemental. Now that the elemental is freed of the element bonds, there is no control. It’s more about speaking to the elemental; asking.”

  “How do you speak to the elemental?” Emily asked. She was one of the few who hadn’t backed away, and Tolan didn’t know if it was that she was unafraid or that she was trying to prove herself to the others.

  “I speak to the elemental the same way that I speak to you. To anyone. You ask the elemental what you need of it. If it chooses to, the elemental will speak back.”

  “Has it spoken to you?”

  Tolan looked over his shoulder at Grace. “Not yet. Sometimes it can be difficult for the elemental to choose to speak to a shaper.” He turned his attention back to saa. “In time, this elemental may choose to speak to me. It may not. That would be up to the elemental.”

  “They don’t attack?”

  Tolan shook his head. “The elementals don’t attack. They may resist if you try to force them back into the element bonds, and they would only do so if they truly did not want to return, but they don’t attack.” He looked around the room. “There was a time when shapers were connected to the elementals. There was a time when they worked with the elementals, wanting to share that connection and an understanding of each other. That is what we need to get back to. When we can understand the elementals, they can begin to understand us again. We can work together.”

  “Are all elementals like that?” Laurent asked, staring at saa. He seemed transfixed. That was at least better than he had been before.

  “All I have met.”

  “Are there any that aren’t?” Grace asked.

  Tolan took a deep breath, focusing on the elemental, and then shook his head. “No. The elementals all need an opportunity to work with us. They all need that chance.” He leaned toward saa and whispered to it, “You may go.”

  With that, the elemental flickered and then disappeared.

  Tolan swept his gaze around the classroom. “I think that’s enough for today.”

  3

  Tolan lingered on the top of the Academy, looking all around. He felt the energy of the city sweeping out before him, power that drifted from shapers within Amitan, but also a connection to those who didn’t necessarily have the ability to shape. All of it felt potent to him, all of it pressing in upon him, granting him an awareness of the energy that was there. He breathed it in, recognizing the signature of Amitan, thankful that he could still feel it.

  Underneath all of it was a strange undercurrent.

  There was something not quite right, and it didn’t take probing all that deeply into each of the elements to know that what troubled him the most was that earth remained shifted; altered from how it should be. All it took for Tolan to feel that was a light touch, sweeping out with his connection to earth, letting it flow from him. In doing so, he recognized that so much of the connection to earth had been modified. Those within Amitan who were earth shapers didn’t reach for it the way they once did. They hesitated, though Tolan couldn’t blame anybody for hesitating to reach earth in its current state.

  Why would they want to reach for something that might cause problems? Why would they want to place themselves into danger by touching upon a tainted aspect of the element bond?

  Tolan released his connection to earth. There was no point in trying to touch it now. He could still access earth through himself, but reaching for that greater source of power was beyond him, or at least beyond what he wanted to do.

  “Are we going to the land Beyond?” Ferrah asked.

  Tolan looked over at her, shaking his head. “Not yet. The Grand Master wants us to go, but I’m not sure who else will need to come with us.”

  “At least you’re willing to bring somebody else with you.” She offered a hint of a smile, but he could feel the edge underneath the words.

  She didn’t like that he had gone to the land Beyond without her before. She also didn’t like that she wasn’t able to shape there, though that was going to be a challenge for anybody who went with them. He could bring one of the master librarians, someone like Master Minden, who might be connected to the elements in the same way as Tolan. Through that connection, she shouldn’t struggle to shape in the land Beyond. The hesitation Tolan had about that was that Master Minden, much like all of the master librarians, wasn’t equipped to battle with Roland.

  That was assuming they encountered Roland. So far, it had been difficult to find any sign of Roland. He was out there. Tolan was certain that he was, but other than the residual effect upon the earth bond, Tolan had found nothing to suggest that Roland was anywhere nearby.

  “I’m not trying to upset you,” Ferrah said.

  “We’ll go soon. First, I wanted to explore the Convergences.”

  “What do you think you’ll find when you do that?” she asked.

  Tolan shook his head. “I don’t know. I keep thinking back to Roland and his plan. It has to be tied to the Convergence in some way.”

  “Why must it be?”

  “Because of what he was doing in Telfair. If we can figure that out, then we can figure out what else he might be after. All we need to do is find some way to stay ahead of him, to stay ahead of what he’s planning, and to protect the Academy and those within it from anything that he might intend.”

  “You’re assuming that he intends to attack again.” Tolan looked over at her, and Ferrah shrugged. “It’s possible he won’t. I know you don’t want to hear it, but what if he has been beaten now and has decided it doesn’t make sense to continue to come at you? He knows you have gained access to some of his spirit shaping, so you pose more of a threat to him. He knows the lands Beyond better, anyway.”

  Tolan turned his attention out to the city. Down in the distance, he could see people moving through the streets, either by foot or some by cart, and could feel the energy of it. It was that of the elements, that of life. “I think he wanted me to have the shaping knowledge that he gave me,” Tolan said softly. “All of this is some plan of his, and once I know what that is, then I can figure out what I need to do to stop him.”

  “And if there isn’t a way to stop him?”

  “There has to be some way to keep him from succeeding.” He breathed in, holding out
his hand, and Ferrah reached for it.

  “Are we staying in Terndahl?”

  Tolan nodded. “For now.”

  He pulled upon each of the elements, wrapping them together, adding spirit with a burst of lightning that struck down, carrying them.

  The warrior shaping brought them away from here in the blink of an eye. When they landed, they did so atop the tower in Par. The sky was gray, and the sudden shift upon his senses from each of the elements was a little jarring, though not so much that he struggled with what he detected. He could feel the different signature that was down in the city below him. Some of it came from the people and their connection to earth and spirit. Yet some of it came from the land itself; the way that it pressed upon the elements and the element bonds in a distinct manner.

  “Why here?” Ferrah asked softly.

  “You didn’t want to come home?”

  She looked over at him. “This isn’t home to me anymore. It’s no more home to me than I suspect Ephra is to you.”

  Tolan inhaled, breathing the salty air. This close to the sea, he could feel the difference in the air and recognize that there was some aspect of it that connected him to this land, some aspect that bound it to the elements the same way that all lands were bound to the elements. “Ephra isn’t home. Amitan is, which if I’m perfectly honest, surprises me. It’s the reason I want to do everything that I can to protect it.”

  “And you don’t think I want to protect it?”

  Tolan shook his head. “That’s not it at all. We need to protect all of Terndahl. And Par is a part of Terndahl.”

  Ferrah approached the edge of the tower. A low stone lip kept her from stepping off the edge and out into nothingness. She would have been able to catch herself on a shaping of one of the elements were she to do so, but having that low stone lip there was at least a reminder of the edge. There was energy within the tower that reminded him of the energy within the Academy. Perhaps it was tied to the runes that were marked upon this tower; runes that were similar to those which he found within Amitan. Shapers from long ago had created both places, and they had bridged the Convergence with the power of the runes.

  “What do you think you might find from the Convergence here?” She spoke softly, but her voice carried toward him on a faint shaping of wind.

  “I don’t really know. This is a Convergence I figured you would know well. It’s also the very first Convergence I found Roland attacking.”

  Ferrah looked over her shoulder, glancing at him. “Roland didn’t attack here.”

  “He had my mother attack here. It’s the same thing. Considering he was shaping her to control her, it has to be the same.”

  She frowned but didn’t say anything more.

  He joined her at the edge of the tower, taking her hand. Using a shaping of fire, he lowered them down to the ground and they entered the tower. There was no one here.

  Tolan wasn’t surprised.

  The tower had been closed for a long time, and there weren’t many who knew how to reach the Convergence. He headed to the back of the tower, to an opening that was there, and used the warrior shaping to carry them down to a vacant chamber deep beneath the tower. As soon as he emerged from the warrior shaping, he could feel the power of the Convergence swirling around him. Runes were marked along the walls, hundreds upon hundreds of them, all meticulously made. He imagined shapers from long ago creating those runes to seal in power, concealing the presence of the Convergence, as if they needed to hide it from anyone who might come looking.

  Ferrah made a circle around the Convergence. It was a silvery pool of liquid set into the floor. The stone worked all the way up to the edge of the Convergence, runes set into each stone for the various elements, marking power and signifying that the ancients had certainly known about the Convergence, but more than that, they had seemed to understand how to mask it.

  Tolan pressed briefly into the various runes, pushing power out from him in order to determine whether there was anything that he could feel stretching away from these markings and toward the Convergence itself.

  There was nothing.

  “Are you going to get in?” Ferrah asked.

  Tolan shook his head. “I don’t think that I need to. Why? Do you want me to?”

  “I’ve always enjoyed the way you look when you step free from the Convergence.” She gave him a devious grin.

  Tolan just shook his head. “Maybe you should be the one to go in.”

  “I’m happy to,” Ferrah said, stepping toward it, reaching the edge. “The only problem is that I don’t have the same connection to spirit as you do. Unfortunately for you, if I were to do so, I would disintegrate.”

  “We don’t know that,” Tolan said.

  She shrugged. “We don’t, but you and Master Minden have speculated that would be the case.”

  Tolan nodded slowly. They had spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what would happen if somebody without a connection to spirit would step into the Convergence. No one really knew. No one had been foolish enough to attempt it without having somebody else with them to ensure their safety. Tolan suspected that if he went into the Convergence with Ferrah, he could funnel spirit over to her to protect her, but short of that, no one would dare go into the Convergence on their own.

  “We don’t know,” he said.

  “I’m not about to be the one to test it.”

  Tolan stared at the liquid. It seemed thick; almost impossibly so. “I seem to recall that you were the one who was most interested in reaching the Convergence.”

  “I was interested in knowing whether or not there was a Convergence here. Stepping into it myself is a different matter altogether.”

  He smiled. “Is it?”

  She glared at him. “You know that it is.”

  They lingered for a moment. As they did, Tolan probed toward the Convergence, feeling for the power within it. The reason he had come here was to try to understand what Roland might have been after. He wasn’t the first one to come to these Convergences, either. Others had visited, spending far more time than Tolan had, and they had enough experience that they would have been able to find anything Roland might have been up to. Unfortunately for Tolan, along with the Academy, there wasn’t any new information about Roland.

  “That was the first time that I learned my mother was still alive,” Tolan said softly.

  “It doesn’t change anything.”

  He looked over at her. “Doesn’t it? I’ve struggled, if I’m honest.”

  She took his hand, squeezing. “I know you have.”

  “It’s been difficult for me, knowing she put on an act my entire life. It’s been difficult knowing the person I thought she was isn’t the person she happened to be.”

  Tolan stared at the Convergence, and he could feel its power. He recognized the energy within it, and there was a part of him that wanted nothing more than to step within it and let its energy overwhelm him, giving him the power that could explode from within the Convergence. There was no purpose in doing so, though. He wouldn’t learn anything more by entering the Convergence here than he would within Amitan. That wasn’t the reason he had come, either.

  As he looked around, feeling the energy radiating upward from the Convergence, Tolan had to wonder what exactly he had thought he might find by coming here. He still didn’t know. Though there was power and energy here, Tolan wasn’t at all certain of the purpose of it and didn’t know what he might find by being here. There was only that power around him.

  “She redeemed herself at the end,” Ferrah said. “That has to matter.”

  Tolan nodded. Perhaps that was all that mattered. His mother had become someone different at the end of her life, gifting him the knowledge that he needed in order to defeat Roland once and giving him a chance of defeating him again. Were it not for that gift, Tolan might not have been able to have succeeded. He might have been lost in the land Beyond. Even with that knowledge, it might not be enough. Tolan struggled, searching
for answers, wanting to see if he might learn more, but finding those answers had proven difficult.

  “We should keep moving,” Tolan said.

  “Where else do you want to go?”

  “I want to see if there’s anything that we can learn from the other Convergences. There had to be something that Roland was searching for by coming here.”

  Tolan didn’t know what that was, only that the Convergences had been targeted.

  They took off on a warrior shaping, bursting out of the tower in Par, and he brought them to the next Convergence. This one was on the edge of Terndahl, in a place that he had been surprised to find a Convergence. There was no city built around it, though much like every other Convergence, there were runes surrounding and shielding it. The power of those runes masked the presence of the Convergence from anyone who wouldn’t know how to look for it.

  Ferrah paced around the inside of the cave, shaping fire to give it some light. It was dark, with shadows stretching into the distance, the air smelling of dampness. This place was quite a bit different than any of the others they had visited, and as he peered around, Tolan felt the energy of the Convergence as it pressed upon the room.

  “I haven’t been to this one before,” she said.

  “Not many have been,” Tolan said. “I found this one while I was exploring.”

  She shot him a look. “When did you find your way here?”

  Tolan shrugged. “It wasn’t long ago. I came looking for places I haven’t explored.”

  “What sort of places?”

  “Places Roland might have attempted the same danger that he did before.”

  “Are we still in Terndahl?”

  Tolan nodded. “All of this is Terndahl. I think if we left Terndahl, you would know. You can feel it.”

  “What do you mean I could feel it?”

  Tolan shrugged. “You would feel the shifting and you would be aware of the difference here.”

  “The same way that I’m aware of the difference in the Beyond?”