A Fading Fire

by D. K. Holmberg

  Roland wouldn’t have been able to hide under this connection to spirit. The other man had knowledge and experience with spirit, but he didn’t know the bonds. Reaching for the spirit bond was something Roland wanted from Tolan.

  Through his connection to spirit, there was a sense of Ferrah behind him. He focused on her, thinking about the power within her much like he thought about the power within himself.

  Every so often, he felt a twinge against spirit.

  Tolan held onto spirit and swept it around.

  He felt the sense of movement, but then it ended.

  Within that movement came a strange familiarity. It was almost as if he had been here before. Almost as if he had seen something here before.

  “Ferrah?”

  There came a flash of white light.

  This time, Tolan thought that he could see where it was.

  Spirit was the energy all around him.

  He closed his eyes. Doing so blocked out the flash of spirit around him, and he could focus on what he could feel. There was a strange shifting, almost as if he moved—or was drawing on a shaping, but that wasn’t what he had done.

  “Who’s here with me?”

  He said it, but the words didn’t seem to come from his lips. They rang in his mind.

  It was as if he was talking to elementals.

  “Did you think you were alone?”

  This voice came from everywhere. It came from within his mind, it came from someplace deep within him. It was strange and musical and seemed to be filled with power.

  Spirit.

  The lizard.

  Master Minden had wanted him to try to find the lizard. If they were right, then the lizard was a spirit elemental.

  If they were right, then the purpose of it was to help draw upon the necessary power, but why now?

  According to Master Minden, the last time that the lizard had appeared had been a time of great need for shapers. For the lizard to return suggested that there was another great need.

  “You,” Tolan said.

  He sensed amusement, though he didn’t hear anything. It was almost as if he had connected to the lizard the same way that he connected to hyza when he was around. If he could sense the lizard, then it suggested that the lizard could sense him as well.

  “You search, but you search for the wrong thing.”

  “What am I supposed to search for?”

  “You’ve been searching for power, but you need to search for understanding.”

  There was another sense of amusement within the lizard, and it flowed outward, pressing all around Tolan. He focused on the lizard, on the energy he could detect, and tried to see if there was something more that he might be able to uncover. As he probed for the lizard, he couldn’t uncover anything else.

  The lizard was there, seemingly amused.

  “You pulled me here,” Tolan said.

  That was the shifting. Tolan had moved from the library.

  Where am I now, then?

  “Did I, or did you come?”

  “I didn’t come anywhere. I was within the library at the strange Academy, and…”

  That was the light he’d seen.

  By drawing upon the spirit bond, he had connected to the lizard, or whatever it was that he had done here.

  “What happened?” he asked the lizard.

  “You found your way to us.”

  “To who?”

  “Spirit.”

  “I don’t fully understand.”

  “You will. When you seek understanding, you will.”

  There came another flash, something of knowledge, and the lizard seemed to laugh.

  The sense of it was strange and musical and seemed to fill him. Nothing around him changed. The light around him didn’t change. The power around him didn’t even change. The only thing that changed was the sound of the lizard. There was an energy to it, and within the lizard’s voice, there was something musical.

  “How is it that you were within the painting?”

  “Are you sure that’s where I was?” There was more laughter. “You ask questions, but you don’t seek to understand.”

  “What are the paintings?”

  The lizard laughed again. “That is a better question.”

  “Are the other elementals in those paintings trapped there?”

  “Trapped, or have they chosen to remain?”

  “They don’t seem as if they have chosen anything.”

  “You know the elementals?”

  “I know some of them.”

  There was a surge, and it seemed to press deep within Tolan’s mind.

  “That you do. Not many have chosen to come to understand the elementals recently. There has been fear.”

  “I’m not afraid of the elementals. I am afraid of what might happen to them if Roland succeeds.”

  “Roland doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

  “You know him?”

  “Roland has touched spirit.”

  “Does that mean that you know him?”

  “That means he has touched spirit.”

  Tolan focused on the lizard, trying to connect and learn from it, but there was no additional knowledge within it. It was almost as if the lizard was there, trying to provide him with something, but Tolan couldn’t reach it.

  “Where are you?”

  “I am in spirit.”

  Tolan tried looking around him, focusing on anything that might be around him, but he still wasn’t able to see anything. He could feel the energy of the lizard, and he could feel the power that came from him, but there was nothing more.

  “I saw you in the painting. And I saw you out of the painting, as well.”

  “Then you have seen me.”

  “What would happen if Roland were to see you?”

  “That one believes he understands power. He believes he is in control of it, and he believes he is far more capable than he is. If it were up to him, he would control the elementals.”

  “That’s what he was trying to do in Terndahl.”

  “Yes.”

  “We stopped him,” Tolan said.

  “Do you believe him stopped for good?”

  “No. My experience with him has been that much of what he does is different than reality. I don’t know if it’s illusion or his way of shaping spirit upon us to create his own reality so that I don’t know what is real.”

  The lizard seemed to move around him, though Tolan couldn’t see anything. He could feel the sense of movement, and he could feel a sense of energy there. It was almost as if he were supposed to feel that, though when it came to the lizard, Tolan wasn’t entirely sure what he was supposed to feel.

  “You have never known the truth.”

  Tolan shook his head, though he didn’t know if it mattered to the lizard. “I have never known the truth.”

  “At the same time, you have always known the truth.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that you believe that you don’t have answers, but you do. They have always come from you.”

  It was more than Tolan had expected to discuss with the lizard. They were questions that he hadn’t considered; that he had intentionally avoided asking.

  “How can I know myself if I don’t know anything about where I came from and what happened to me?”

  “What have you done in your time within the Academy?”

  “I tried to learn how to reach the elements.”

  “The elements. The element bonds. The elementals. You have tried to reach for aspects of all power. You have succeeded in ways that others have not. Do you think you have been held back?”

  “I might have known those powers sooner otherwise.”

  Even as he said it, Tolan knew that wasn’t true. He had long believed that the way his mother had influenced him had likely helped him reach for power in a different way. Because she had influenced him as she had, and because she had shaped his mind, he had struggled more than he would’ve otherwise. He h
ad searched for understanding, and because of that search for understanding, Tolan had been able to find something else. He had found a connection that he would not have known about otherwise.

  “I see you already know the answer.”

  “Even knowing the answer doesn’t help,” Tolan said.

  “Perhaps not,” the lizard said. “But knowing the answer brings you closer to knowing yourself. I suspect that you feel as if you don’t know yourself.”

  Was that what it was?

  Tolan thought about what he knew, and what he believed about himself. He knew he had a connection to the elements, and he knew that he had a connection to the element bonds. He knew that he had a connection to the elementals. He was a shaper. He was the master of spirit at the Academy in Terndahl. He was Tolan Ethar.

  The lizard suddenly shimmered into existence in front of him.

  “It seems as if you do know.”

  “What do I know?”

  “That is what you must pursue.”

  “What if we don’t find anything?”

  “Then you keep looking.”

  “Is this library going to be helpful?”

  “Is there knowledge here?”

  “I imagine quite a bit.”

  “Then you must use it.”

  “What about the other elementals in this land? Am I right in thinking the elementals here are different than they are in our land?”

  There was a hesitancy from the lizard that Tolan detected, almost as if it came across a connection to spirit between them. At first, he wondered if the lizard would answer, then there was a fading.

  “You are not wrong,” the lizard said.

  The brightness all around him began to retreat, and the library took shape around Tolan. He blinked, looking for signs of the lizard, looking for anything that might explain what had just happened and holding onto the sense of spirit that still flowed through him. Even as he did, he couldn’t detect anything more.

  Ferrah stood behind him, and he lurched forward.

  “Did you see that?” he asked Ferrah.

  “See what?”

  He focused on spirit, thinking about the lizard, and even as he did, he realized that the lizard would be gone. The lizard had chosen to allow Tolan to experience him, but he doubted that would happen again so easily.

  “I just saw the lizard elemental.”

  “Where?” Ferrah leaned past him, but Tolan shook his head.

  “He was here, but now he’s gone. I think he wanted me to find him.”

  “What did you learn from him?”

  Tolan frowned. “I don’t really know.”

  What he learned was that the lizard was connected to spirit. But then, Tolan had known that. He had felt that before. Noticing it now, knowing that the lizard was there, that he was connected to the power of spirit, didn’t really change anything. The only thing that it changed was that he had spoken to the lizard.

  When I had been within the painting, had I spoken to the lizard?

  He had been aware of the lizard, and he had been aware of that power, but he didn’t know if he had actually spoken to him. This time, there was no question that he had.

  “I think it’s time for us to get back.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then we keep looking. The lizard told me that we needed to keep looking for understanding. Though I don’t know if there’s anything we’ll be able to understand, it feels as if we need to. At least, we need to try.”

  Tolan looked around the library again, clutching the stack of books he’d gathered together. When they reached the top of the tower, he held tightly to the books as he called upon the warrior shaping, letting that power surge toward him. As the bolt of lightning struck, he looked around the tower, wishing they would have answers, but then the shaping carried them up and away.

  8

  As he and Ferrah headed toward the waste, Tolan became aware of something different. It was a pressure that was unique; a surge of energy that reminded him of what he had felt before. He looked over at Ferrah, testing whether or not she was aware of anything, but she only watched him, no expression of concern on her face. She didn’t detect the same thing he did.

  Why should that be surprising?

  He was near the waste, but even if he hadn’t been near it, they were still in the land Beyond, and it was there where he detected the strangeness. There was no real connection here, nothing that bonded him to the elementals or the element bonds in the way that he needed.

  He slowed, lowering them to the ground.

  “What is it?” Ferrah asked him.

  Tolan swept his gaze around. He pushed out with his connection to the elements, straining to test whether there was anything here in this land that would help connect him to the elements more effectively. There was nothing. The shaping energy came from him, isolating him from everything else.

  “I feel something.”

  “Something as in one of the elementals?” She looked around her, eyes wide. “We haven’t seen any sign of the elementals since we came here.”

  Tolan shook his head. “Not elementals.” At least, he didn’t think it was elementals. He didn’t have enough experience with them to know for sure. In the time that they had been in this place, Tolan had not seen any sign of the other elementals. It had been a long time since he had encountered them at all, leaving him to wonder whether they were even still active. It was possible they were not. If not, then he couldn’t help but wonder where they had gone. His experience in this land had not revealed anything more. Just the tower.

  “If it’s not elementals, then—”

  A burst of energy came from behind them and Tolan spun, already beginning to pull on a shaping that would mix the elements together. He wasn’t sure what was there, but he wanted to be prepared for whatever it might be.

  He stared, looking around him, but found nothing.

  Ferrah stayed close to him. “This is why we should’ve brought others with us,” she muttered.

  Tolan glanced over at her. “If we would’ve brought others with us, they wouldn’t have been as willing to stay within that library to try to find answers.”

  “Did we find any answers?”

  Tolan frowned, shaking his head. “No.”

  “We were concerned about what was here.”

  “It’s probably nothing. Just one of the elementals.”

  Even as he said it, Tolan didn’t know if he could even believe that was the case.

  If it was one of the elementals, then why would I feel that bulging of power?

  He headed toward what he detected. They passed over the bright and vibrant green grassland, the strangeness of it, and the lack of any energy coming from it, calling to him. He swept over the landscape, moving quickly. He glanced over at Ferrah as they traveled, but she remained silent. Tolan tried to offer her a reassuring smile, but he wasn’t completely convinced that she was reassured by him.

  Power flowed from him.

  He had to be careful. The more energy he summoned, the more likely it was that he would deplete his own stores of power. If he did so too quickly, he would run the risk of extending himself more quickly than he should. If that were to happen, they would have only Ferrah’s bondars.

  He glanced over at her once more. She remained silent. Strangely, though the wind whipped around them as they traveled, there wasn’t the same pressure coming from the wind as there normally was. There was not the same sense of the wind, nothing other than the soft stirring of a breeze. It was almost as if the absence of the elementals here and the difficulty that Tolan had connecting to the elements extended to the strangeness of how they behaved.

  He slowed as they approached what he had detected before, and he shot a look at Ferrah. A single tree grew nearby, its branches stretched and stunted. Through his connection to earth, Tolan could feel something off about the tree, though he couldn’t quite place what it was, only that there was something that felt wrong.

  “Have you n
oticed that the elements don’t feel quite right here?”

  Ferrah looked over at him. “The elements?”

  “Right. Something isn’t the way that it should be.”

  “Tolan, nothing in this land is as it should be. I’ve been telling you that from the very beginning. You might be able to shape, but you’re the only one who can.”

  “I’m not the only one,” he said.

  “Fine. Roland could shape here as well. Your mother. And I suspect the librarians could shape, especially after what you’ve told me about them, but that would have to be it.”

  Tolan sighed. “That probably would be it.”

  “Which is why I am somewhat concerned. I have always been concerned about this place and what we have detected here. Nothing is the way that it should be.” She looked over at him before sweeping her gaze around her, bringing it to bear upon the entirety of the landscape. Tolan turned in place. A rolling hillside flowed before them, and other than that tree, there was not much else that blocked his ability to see anything out here. He attempted to stretch out with his connection to the elements, but it didn’t bring him a greater awareness.

  Tolan sighed. “I wonder if all I felt was the elementals that are here,” he said.

  “And if that’s what it was, think about what we encountered when we were here before. The elementals don’t necessarily want to interact with us.”

  “There’s something that’s off about them,” he said.

  “I know. Which is why you need to either leave them alone or you need to have others with you who can shape when we come here.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  Ferrah started to laugh. “Maybe? There’s no maybe about it. I am right. I was willing to come with you here, but only because I thought that this would be a brief visit. If we’re going to explore this land, more than just visiting the tower, then you really do need other people with you.”

  Tolan looked around. Not only did he not see anything, but he didn’t feel anything either. It was the strangeness that surrounded them, the odd signature to this place that struck him, the same he had felt the last time he had been here.