A Fading Fire

by D. K. Holmberg

  Tolan nodded again. “The same way. There’s something there that is different. At least within Terndahl, we’re still connected to the element bonds, but once we leave here…”

  He looked around the inside of the cave. It was poorly lit, only a little light drifting in, though he didn’t need all that much to see. It was almost as if the Convergence glowed with a soft light of its own, as if the spirit within it radiated energy, reminding him of the lizard. He hadn’t encountered the lizard, the spirit elemental that he’d somehow separated from the painting in the hall of portraits, again since defeating Roland, though he believed that he was somewhere. Perhaps crawling through the various element bonds, or perhaps he had retreated, returning to the wall of portraits.

  “We don’t know that Terndahl is unique in the connection to the element bonds,” Ferrah said, stopping at the edge of the Convergence. “We haven’t traveled well enough to know.”

  “The borders create a separation,” Tolan said.

  “Have you traveled much beyond Terndahl?” She turned to him. “I’m asking because I haven’t. If there is something beyond here…”

  Tolan shook his head. “There isn’t anything that I know of.”

  He was curious what might be found beyond the borders of Terndahl. The only place he’d ever visited was the land Beyond. Even there, they’d found no signs of human life other than the tower that suggested it had once been something more. That and the strange elementals. There was nothing else for them, nothing that would indicate they would be able to find much else.

  “That’s what you want to do.”

  Tolan looked over at Ferrah. “I don’t know.”

  “You can admit it. You want to explore beyond Terndahl.”

  He turned in place, sweeping his gaze around the inside of the cave. “Even if I want to, I’m not sure that I should. Terndahl needs me. The Academy needs me. If I were to leave, I feel as if I would be abandoning those who rely upon me.”

  “With your warrior shaping, you could leave and return quite quickly.”

  He smiled slightly. “It never quite works out that way. Something always seems to happen that delays us.”

  He made his way to the edge of the Convergence and crouched down in front of it, tracing a finger through the silvery liquid. It stuck to his finger, sending a jolt of power coursing through him. Immediately, Tolan was aware of that energy, the power, and he was aware that it felt off, at least in some way. He couldn’t quite place the reason behind it, only that something was not quite right.

  Ferrah watched him, saying nothing.

  Tolan pressed out through the Convergence, reaching for the various element bonds. He started with fire, probing for it, but didn’t detect anything wrong. Tolan rotated through the bonds, using the same connection that he had when he was in the park holding onto the power from the others, and let that energy swirl through the Convergence, connecting him to the bonds. By doing so, Tolan became aware of something off. He could feel just how much that power flowed out from him, connecting him to the strangeness that was within the earth bond.

  It was that strangeness he needed to come to grips with. If he could master what it was and why there was something that felt wrong within that connection, then he believed there would be a way to overpower it, and a way for them to resolve it.

  Until they did, Roland had the advantage. No other shaper could access earth safely, not without going through the strange tainted edge of it that impacted how earth could be shaped.

  Tolan reached for the earth bond in particular, holding onto a connection within it, and he felt the strange edge. He attempted a simple shaping, little more than to create a stone, and felt the resistance that bubbled up within him from the earth bond.

  He pushed more power, drawing it through the Convergence, and each time he attempted to do so, he could feel the resistance pushing against him, making it so that he could not do it. That was what he had to overcome.

  How could I overwhelm that resistance even when connected to the Convergence?

  He had no idea what it was going to take. He had no idea whether it was even possible.

  Perhaps he had to do what the Grand Master suggested, a subtle touch rather than a burst of strength. If he were able to do that, then he might find the answers he needed.

  Tolan pulled his hand out of the Convergence, waiting for the liquid to drip off, separating from him. He looked over at Ferrah, who watched him.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “It’s you,” she said.

  “What about me?”

  “I can tell that something is off.”

  “Other than earth?”

  “This is more than about what is going on with earth.”

  Tolan sighed. “I’m not exactly sure what it is. I can feel something here, and it troubles me. I can tell that there is something more that we need to be doing, only I don’t know how to do it.” He looked over at Ferrah. “Roland damaged the bonds in some way. As far as I know, he hasn’t managed to damage any of the other bonds, but I keep waiting for us to find evidence that he is starting to.”

  “It’s been a few months, Tolan,” she said. “If he hasn’t done it yet, then maybe he won’t. Maybe he can’t.”

  Tolan doubted it was a matter of Roland not being able to do so. Perhaps he was only biding his time, trying to find the right opportunity. If that were the case, then they had to find a few more answers. They had to be ready for his next attack. All Tolan wanted was to protect the other element bonds.

  But what if there isn’t a way to do it? What if there isn’t a way to stop Roland?

  Ferrah watched, and he could almost tell what she was thinking without needing to reach through spirit to connect to her.

  Worse, she was right.

  What troubled him was the fact that everything that he had gone through so far had proven that he was incredibly connected to the elements. Not only was he connected to the element bonds and could shape without the bonds, but he understood runes and he could reach the elementals. All of that power he had access to still wasn’t enough for him to undo what Roland had managed to do through his access to spirit.

  There should be something he could do to stop Roland, and there should be something he could do to undo what Roland had already completed. Why did it seem to him that he continued to fail? He looked over at Ferrah, found her watching him, and forced a smile.

  “There is something you haven’t tried,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  She shook her head, looking around the Convergence chamber before settling her gaze back on Tolan. “I hesitate to even say anything, but knowing you, you’re going to keep trying until you get to it yourself. You went into the element bonds once before. What would happen if you did it again?”

  Tolan shivered. The idea of going back into the element bonds terrified him. When he had gone into earth before, he had very nearly not managed to make it out. “That’s not a great idea.”

  “It’s not a great idea, but it’s an idea. And considering what you have been dealing with, I am starting to wonder if it might be the only idea that we have.”

  He wished that it wasn’t the case, but maybe she was right. Maybe what he needed was to attempt to go back into the bond. It was a dangerous gambit, but it might be the only way that they would find answers. The only problem was that Tolan hadn’t had any control when he had gone to the element bonds before, and he had very nearly lost himself. If that were to happen again, though he had escaped once before, he didn’t know if he could escape a second time.

  If I didn’t, what would happen to me? Would I be trapped within the element bonds for all time? Or worse, would I eventually die, losing myself and becoming a part of the bond?

  Tolan needed answers to those questions before he dared to risk going into the bond again, but he suspected the only way to find those answers would be to attempt to go into the bond. It was almost as if he had to risk it in order to find what he nee
ded, but risking it was the one thing he feared the most.

  He looked around the inside of this chamber once again, finally shaking his head. “We should go.”

  “Where to now?”

  “We need to visit more of the Convergences.”

  “Will that really help you?”

  Tolan shook his head before shrugging. “I don’t know, but I feel we need to do something.”

  “I’ll go with you. You know I will. But we also have to get back. You have to teach, and the students need me.”

  “It would be easier if we didn’t have to worry about the Academy.”

  “Easier, but not the right thing. We’re doing this because of the Academy, Tolan.”

  He nodded. “I know we are.”

  “Then show it,” she said.

  He took her hand, pulled upon a shaping of each of the elements, adding spirit last as he often did when creating the warrior shaping, and a burst of lightning came for them.

  4

  Tolan crouched in front of the Convergence. This was the seventh place they had visited, and each of them had been much like the one within Amitan. He had no answers about what he was searching for, no explanation about what Roland had been after, other than what they had seen when they had been attacked before.

  At the time, Tolan had believed there was some darkness that his mother was twisting within the Convergence, something that he believed was Chaos, but he had come to question whether that was real or not. There was a part of him that wondered whether or not it could even be real.

  How could it when it seemed that rather than Chaos, she had been spirit shaped?

  That was a far more obvious explanation than some mysterious element that he had never encountered before or since.

  “We haven’t found anything,” Tolan said, shaking his head as he stood. They were inside a small building, little more than a hut, hidden on the edge of Terndahl, though not quite as isolated as the one within the cave. The walls were made of stone, shaped into place, creating a domed chamber. There were some runes along the walls, but not nearly as many as there were in some of the other places. Tolan pushed out with a connection to spirit, shaping through the chamber as he searched for anything that Roland or his mother might have done, but found no answers.

  “I still can’t tell…”

  He hesitated.

  That was different.

  As he was shaping spirit, he had anticipated searching for anything that would explain what Roland had been up to. And though he found something, it wasn’t at all what he expected. There was pressure here, but it was a strange sort of pressure, a connection different than what he would’ve expected.

  “Tolan?” Ferrah asked.

  Tolan raised his hand, urging her to silence.

  He hadn’t imagined that. He knew that he hadn’t. Which meant that whatever else was here, something was real.

  He pushed out with spirit again, sweeping around him. He added a hint of the other elements, but withdrew them when he felt the strange irritation within earth again. There was no point in adding earth to anything these days, as the shaping only failed, but there was resistance upon him when he tried to use it.

  He paced, making a circuit of the inside of the Convergence. There was no natural light here, nothing other than a shaped lantern that provided a dim glowing light that emanated with the pale orange of fire, but it was enough to push back the darkness, and enough for him to feel as if there was something more here.

  It wasn’t any of the other elements that had irritated him.

  Spirit.

  That was the one piece that he could feel, and because of it, Tolan was certain there was something more that he had to find here.

  It was a matter of continuing to push.

  As spirit washed away from him, he felt the energy here and realized what it was.

  There was a familiar sense to the connection of spirit. It took him a moment to recognize why that familiarity would be there, but it was because he had linked to Roland before. It was a connection to him.

  “He’s been here,” Tolan breathed out.

  “Who?”

  Tolan looked up, locking eyes with Ferrah. “Roland has been here.”

  “When? Recently?”

  Tolan took in a deep breath. The air was stale, humid, and he suspected that were they to step out of the small hut that surrounded the Convergence, humidity would press upon them along with a baking sun. Inside the hut, however, there was at least a more temperate quality to the air. It wasn’t quite as comfortable as some of the places they had visited, but it was at least tolerable.

  “I don’t know if it was recent or not. I can’t tell that from the connection to spirit. I can feel that he has been here, though the tracing of it is faint.” Tolan could practically see where Roland had walked. As he closed his eyes, focusing on spirit, he found himself following the footsteps that Roland had left, following his path, and he made a steady circuit. Something pressed upon him.

  Tolan paused.

  He was near the edge of the hut. The wall stretched up, curving overhead, and yet what he detected was near his feet. He crouched down, running his hand along the floor until he found it.

  The ground was irregular and rocky all throughout here, and without the same runes on the tiles, it was easy to get distracted by what he encountered. When he lifted a particular rock, he realized that wasn’t what he’d found at all.

  It was a bondar. An orb bondar.

  He turned to Ferrah. He held it out, and she joined him.

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  “It is. This must have been how he got here.”

  Tolan pressed power into the bondar and felt energy reverberating back.

  “It’s not spent, either,” Tolan said. “I wonder why he would’ve left it?”

  “Maybe he didn’t know there was still energy left within it,” Ferrah said.

  It was possible. Considering that Roland didn’t have the same understanding of the other elements as he had of spirit, it was entirely possible that he wouldn’t have known that the orb bondar still held power within it, but given Roland’s reliance upon the bondars, Tolan would’ve expected that Roland would have come to understand the power within them and would have mastered a way of depleting them entirely. Even the bondar itself was valuable. It surprised Tolan that he would’ve left it behind—unless Roland had found others able to make the bondars.

  That was certainly possible. There were many who now understood how to make bondars, such that it was no longer the same hidden talent that it once had been. And if Roland had found others capable of making them for him, then he might not rely upon having them with him.

  Tolan stuffed the bondar into his pocket, looking over at the Convergence. “We can study this later,” he said.

  “What more do you think you will uncover from a bondar like that? It’s no different than the bondars we use. We knew that he needed them since he can only reach for spirit.”

  “I know. I just keep thinking that if we can uncover a little bit more about what he intends, we might be able to use that against him.”

  She smiled at him. “I’m not so sure a bondar is going to help you in any way.”

  Tolan reached his hand into his pocket, squeezing the orb bondar, feeling the stirring of power within. It was subtle, but there was still energy there. He couldn’t tell which element it was for. That surprised him. Maybe Roland had used spirit upon it, or maybe he had stored spirit within it.

  “We should get back,” he said.

  “You don’t want to explore more of the Convergences?”

  Tolan looked over the Convergence. “If I said that I did, what would you say?”

  “I’d ask what you thought you might find.”

  Tolan shook his head. “To be honest, I don’t really know.”

  “Then we should go.”

  Taking her hand, he used the warrior shaping, and they emerged upon the tower atop the Academy. As so
on as they did, Tolan felt something change, a fluttering sense that irritated him, stirring within his pocket.

  It was the bondar.

  Tolan pulled out, holding it up.

  Standing here atop the tower, under the bright sunlight within Amitan, he studied the bondar in a way that he hadn’t while within the Convergence chamber. It was a pale stone, almost white, and perfectly round. He should have known that something was off about it when he had first encountered it, and should have known that it was a bondar rather than simply rock. Of course, in the dim light within that chamber, regardless of the shaped lantern that was there, Tolan couldn’t see well enough to determine much of anything.

  “What is it?” Ferrah asked.

  “Just the bondar,” he said. “I felt something when we came here on my shaping.”

  “Well?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I am going to have to study it.”

  “While you study it, I’m going to return to my responsibilities.” She flashed a smile at him, releasing his hand. “You should return to yours, too.”

  Tolan waved his hand. “I will. I am going to study this, and then…”

  Then he didn’t really know what he was going to do. He had been determined to try to find answers when it came to what Roland was up to, but all he had were questions.

  More than that, he needed to have answers as to what was going on with the earth bond and whether there was any way to restore it, but anything that he had done had failed to provide him those answers.

  She watched him, and Tolan could feel a surge of concern radiating from her. She was worried about what he might do.

  “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’m not going to do anything foolish.”

  “It’s not a matter of you doing anything foolish that I’m concerned about,” she said.

  Tolan arched a brow at her. “It’s not?”

  “Well, it’s not entirely about you doing something foolish. I suppose I am worried you might do something that you shouldn’t.”

  “What exactly shouldn’t I do?”

  “Leave without me.”

  Tolan shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere without you. When we do eventually go to the land Beyond, I know you need to come with me.”