A Fading Fire

by D. K. Holmberg

  Unlike in places like Amitan or Par, places where he had the awareness of the elements and the elementals, in this land, Tolan didn’t have the same signature of the elements. There was nothing, really.

  He turned toward the waste. Even now, Tolan could feel the waste nearby. It was a constant presence, an awareness that pressed upon him, something that seemed to trigger him as if it were trying to tell him something. Tolan knew that was only his imagination, but he believed the waste had some purpose. He just didn’t know what it was.

  “We should go,” he said, taking Ferrah’s hand.

  With the shaping of wind and fire, they took to the air. As soon as they did, Tolan thought he felt another echoing response of the elements, something that was a faint reminder, a calling of the power he knew to be the elementals, but then it passed. It wasn’t real.

  He guided them toward the waste. When they reached the edge of it, he paused again. Once there, he began to prepare a warrior shaping. It would be the easiest way to return to Amitan, and it was long past time that they do so. Ferrah was right in that. They had spent far too much time here, and without having others who could assist them, they needed to be more cautious with the time they spent. They could return to the library here, but they would have to do so with others who would be able to offer them the help they needed to ensure their safety.

  More than that, they would have to bring master librarians, those who were equipped to handle the vast volume of texts that were found here. As he prepared the shaping, another sensation came to him.

  This time it came from out in the waste.

  There should be nothing out in the waste. No evidence of shaping, nothing that would trigger him. The fact that he felt anything troubled him.

  “There’s something out there,” he whispered. “A shaping. Or perhaps not a shaping.” It was possible that it came from one of the Guardians, though he had never detected anything from them before.

  Tolan prepared his warrior shaping, and instead of heading back to Amitan, he focused on what he had detected. The shaping carried them across the waste, settling them near massive pillars of rock. There was movement.

  More than that, there was a shaping energy.

  Tolan reacted, creating a buffer around himself and Ferrah with wind and earth, trying to conceal them, but it was too late.

  A blast of energy came toward them, disrupting the rock nearby.

  “Is that—”

  “Roland,” Tolan growled.

  Roland was about twenty years older than Tolan, with dark hair and only a hint of gray streaking through it. He had an athletic build, one that suggested that he had remained active ever since escaping death the very first time, and had managed to remain well fed. He was dressed all in black today, which should have made him easier to see, though it seemed almost as if shadows swirled around him. Tolan felt the power radiating from Roland and worried what that might mean for him.

  Roland had a pair of orb bondars in hand. Tolan targeted them, shooting a burst of earth and spirit at it, and could feel the bondars beginning to crack.

  Power exploded, sending Roland off to the side.

  Tolan darted forward, trying to get to Roland, but he had already recovered. He grabbed for another bondar, and he used a mixture of power out of it, swirling it toward Tolan.

  This was a burst of fire, wind, and earth.

  The suddenness of it was overwhelming.

  Ferrah was there, already adding a hint of power to the shaping, but Roland deflected it, pushing away from what Ferrah had done, somehow managing to avoid the attack.

  Tolan turned, sending another burst of power, this time angling it at Roland, trying to create a circle of wind around him. It was a shaping that he would have found much easier anywhere else but on the waste. Out here, separated from the element bonds as he was, he was at a disadvantage. Roland could summon power from those bondars, and it gave him a strength that was nearly the same as Tolan’s.

  He gritted his teeth, darting forward. He focused, thinking about Thoren, sending a desire for that connection through the elemental. These days, Tolan rarely attempted to reach for the hyza elemental, not needing that power, though it was only when he was in trouble that he found himself calling out to the elemental. Times like now.

  Tolan pushed again, and again Roland resisted. He set several of the bondars on the ground.

  How many does Roland have?

  There were more than Tolan could counter. Already he could feel pressure building from Roland.

  Ferrah landed behind him but Roland spun, blasting at her with wind and fire. Ferrah stood, the wind whipping her flaming red hair around and tearing at her jacket, and somehow she managed to withstand the attack.

  Thoren granted him a connection to the element bonds.

  They were there within him. Bonded to the elemental, Tolan could reach through that connection and find the element bonds. Through that, he attached to fire and earth.

  He reached for fire first.

  Fire was the most effective, the most helpful, and it was the only one that he really trusted. By calling upon the element bonds, Tolan wrapped a flame tunnel spiraling around Roland. It whipped at Roland, spinning toward him, and flames began to engulf him.

  Only they didn’t.

  Roland countered.

  He turned to Tolan, standing there in the midst of the flames, a grin on his face. “I’m surprised you found me.”

  Tolan focused on the Draasin Lord. He needed his help, but would he answer? The connection between them allowed Tolan to feel for him across the distance, but it was a faint sense. “I’m going to stop you. Whatever you intend to do to the element bonds will be stopped.”

  Roland grinned again. “Will it?” He swept his gaze around, and Tolan realized that he turned toward the heart of the waste. Which meant that he turned his attention toward the Guardians. Toward the Convergence that was there, isolated.

  Was Roland after that power?

  Tolan had thwarted him once before, stopping his mother’s attack, keeping her from releasing whatever was there.

  “Is this about Chaos?”

  Roland grinned. “You really believe that, do you? So much has happened that you don’t understand. And it will be too late for you to understand.”

  “What do you mean that it will be too late for me to understand?”

  Roland sent a burst of power in his direction. It blasted at him, surging toward him, leaving Tolan only able to react. He responded by countering, sending another source of fire toward him, but somehow Roland seemed to be immune to Tolan’s attack with fire.

  In order to be immune, he would need an incredibly powerful bondar. An elemental bondar. The bondars on the ground around him began to take on a different meaning. Roland had trapped elementals.

  “You aren’t going to hold those elementals,” Tolan said.

  “Do you really believe you can stop me?”

  Tolan focused on the bondars on the ground. There were five of them, and he realized Roland was placing them in a pattern, trying to hold Tolan inside.

  Did he think that would work?

  He focused on the nearest of the bondars. He hammered at it with spirit, adding a mixture of the other elements, drawing through what he could shape without needing to reach for the element bonds, but even as he did, he felt something fading.

  Failing.

  Roland watched him. “So much still to learn, Tolan Ethar. And no time to do it.”

  Tolan focused on hyza.

  He needed Thoren to help.

  As he borrowed that power, he let it surge up through him, and he added fire to his shaping, mixing it with everything else, and it blasted at the nearest of the bondars.

  It cracked.

  The elemental slipped out.

  Tolan was too distracted by Roland’s own attack to focus on which elemental it was, only knowing that it was one. Which meant that each of the bondars held at least one elemental. It was possible they held more
than one, given the nature of the power Roland was throwing at him. It was possible that Roland had some way of manipulating these bondars that would allow him to counter anything Tolan might do.

  This was a time when he needed help.

  Draasin Lord!

  He tried communicating, but there was no answer.

  This was a time when having others with him out on the waste would be far more beneficial, but he feared what would happen to them. Roland was skilled, and he seemed to have a depth of knowledge that even Tolan didn’t possess.

  Could I link spirit with him?

  He attempted to shape spirit at Roland but felt the other man brush it off.

  “That won’t work this time,” Roland said. He set another bondar down, and now there were seven surrounding Tolan.

  Where was Ferrah?

  He found her outside of the circle of bondars. She attempted to get to him, but a wind battered at her, making it difficult to push through. She had the power of the bondars, but even with those, Tolan knew that she would be limited if Roland was using as much power as he detected.

  Tolan focused on spirit again, and he tried to latch onto Roland. If he could know what he was doing, the way that he was intending to attempt another shaping, he might be able to figure out how to counter it. Even as he focused on that, there wasn’t anything within the shaping Roland used that Tolan could identify.

  “I have to thank you,” Roland started. “You thought to borrow from me throughout our connection to spirit, and yet it was me who gained.”

  That was how Roland had learned as much as he had about the elements.

  “My plan was wrong. You showed me that. You showed me just what I needed to do.”

  “You aren’t going to gain access to the element bonds.”

  Roland glowered at him. “And you aren’t going to be able to stop me.”

  Tolan turned in place and felt the power building against him, holding him in. Each of the bondars set on the ground pressed upon him, squeezing him, trying to constrict him. Tolan held onto his connection to the elements, and he reached through Thoren in order to find another access point, but even as he did, it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t call on as much power as he needed. That energy was there, but he couldn’t overwhelm the bondars.

  And what was worse, Roland knew it.

  The bondars began to collapse. The power started to compress around Tolan. It was squeezing. Each of the elements pressed in upon him, and it wouldn’t be long before he was crushed under the strain of it.

  He struggled again.

  He would have to break through these bondars. Not only to release himself, but he needed to release the elementals. If he managed to release those elementals, then it was possible he might release help. Only, out here on the waste, the elementals didn’t survive quite as well, either. Tolan would need to offer them a different kind of help. He didn’t know if he could do all of that. The only thing he could think of doing was breaking through the bondar.

  He had to use the power of Thoren, connect through the element bonds, and only then could he possibly find a way to draw enough strength. Distantly, he was aware of hyza. It was growing more distant the longer he waited.

  There was a connection to the fire bond. It wasn’t strong enough.

  Without the Draasin Lord answering him, Tolan would have to use the earth bond. He was reluctant to do so. Given Roland’s attention to the earth bond, Tolan thought that he had to be careful.

  But what choice do I have?

  Even tainted, the earth bond would still offer him power. That was what Tolan needed right now. He called on both fire and earth. He added spirit to it, wind and water from himself, and targeted the bondars.

  Focusing on one bondar at a time wasn’t going to be enough. He was going to have to target them all. Which meant that he was going to have to use an incredible shaping. Tolan filled himself with the energy of the element bonds. As he did, he was acutely aware of the strangeness within the earth bond. It might not hold, but he had to try.

  In order to overcome Roland, he needed that power.

  Tolan forced more energy out from him. It slammed outward, sweeping in an arc around him.

  There was resistance. He could feel how the element bonds were pressing against the bondars and the power trapped within them, but he could also tell that that resistance wasn’t going to be enough.

  He shoved a bit more, pushing out with everything that he could, and found a way through.

  Again.

  With a surge of energy, Tolan overpowered the resistance, and with a loud crack, the bondars shattered. Elemental energy swept outward, and the pressure upon him was released.

  He pulled that energy through him, using earth and fire, shaping himself toward the sky, preparing to attack Roland…

  Then he fell.

  Earth collapsed, the shaping failing.

  Tolan gathered himself up, looking around.

  Roland was gone.

  Tolan took in a deep breath and made his way over to Ferrah. The wind that had been battering her had died. She held onto three bondars. Two were in one hand, and another was in the other. Her eyes were wide and she dropped the bondars, shaking her head. “They were spent. It didn’t take long for me to burn through that power, either.”

  Tolan nodded. “I know,” he said.

  “We didn’t stop him. We had a chance, and we—”

  “I know.”

  Tolan crouched down near one of the bondars, lifting it up. “He’s after something that has to do with the elementals. He’s trapping them in his bondars.”

  “To use them on us,” Ferrah said.

  “What if that’s not all there is to it?” Tolan asked. He pulled the cracked remains of the bondars to him. “What if he is after something more than just a way to trap power?” He got to his feet. He pushed out with his own connection to earth and spirit but didn’t detect any more bondars here. Roland had taken everything else with him. He couldn’t find a tracing of where he had gone, either. “He said that he had learned something from me.”

  “He was just trying to use you,” Ferrah said. “He’s trying to bait you.”

  Tolan turned in place. The rock of the waste here was flat, other than the massive pillars of rock that stood near them. It was as if they were standing within a bowl formed by these pillars. It was a strange location, and stranger still was that it was devoid of any power or pressure. Much like all of the waste.

  He hadn’t seen anything quite like this before.

  Had it been here?

  He had seen pillars of rock when he had come to the waste, but he didn’t know if this was new or if this had existed before.

  “You can’t let him get to you,” Ferrah said.

  Tolan held a hint of his connection to Thoren, all too aware of how earth remained tainted. “I’ve been avoiding something,” Tolan said.

  “Him? Or going to the land Beyond? Either way, you haven’t been avoiding it. You’ve been preparing.”

  Tolan looked over, meeting Ferrah’s eyes. “I have been avoiding something. We’ve needed to restore the earth bond. Not only for ourselves but for our shapers, so that Amitan can be protected. It’s more than that, though. I need to know what I can do to help the earth bond so that I can ensure the other bonds aren’t altered as well.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “What you suggested before. I hesitated because honestly, it terrifies me, but I think it’s time for me to enter the earth bond again.”

  He expected Ferrah to object, to argue with him, to tell him not to do it. There were valid reasons that he shouldn’t. Most of them revolved around the possibility that he wouldn’t be able to return when he went into the earth bond, but she didn’t say any of the expected responses. Instead, she nodded.

  “When you go, bring help. Master Minden.”

  Tolan sighed. “I think you’re right.”

  He looked around, convinced there was something here, some aspect of th
e waste that he was missing, but failed. It was one more thing Roland had been doing that Tolan still didn’t fully understand. One more thing Roland had that Tolan needed to know. And it was one more thing that he worried he would not learn in time.

  9

  The hall of portraits was a familiar sight to Tolan these days. He stood within it, staring at the paintings. The lizard had suggested there was something here he might be able to understand, but perhaps the only thing he could understand would be what he had already realized. He had been here before; he had learned there was something about these paintings that mattered. There was something within them that suggested a sense of power, and Tolan had been able to reach for that power, to draw upon it, but he wondered if that was always going to be the case.

  It was a narrow hallway, filled with paintings of various scenes depicting elements, elementals, and even ancient shapers. He had found that over time, his understanding of the hall of portraits changed, giving him an awareness of this place that he had not had before. He could practically feel energy here that called to him, as if the shaped power within these portraits demanded that he understand them. There were some who had studied their entire lives trying to understand the hall of portraits and had come up with no greater understanding than Tolan had in his brief time having visited here. At least the paintings were no longer blank the way they had been when he had first come here.

  He was alone, holding onto both the stack of books he had brought and the books that Ferrah had brought. Tolan tried to find whether there were any new answers here, but didn’t see anything. The only thing that he saw was the girl in the painting where the lizard had once been. She seemed to glow even more brightly than she had before.

  That didn’t seem accidental to him, but had no idea what it might mean. Having seen the bright light from the elemental, he suspected that it was tied to that, though not why. He let out a soft sigh.

  “Each time you come here, you seem as if you’re frustrated.”

  Tolan turned to Master Minden. She was at the end of the hall wearing a long gray robe, her thin silver hair pulled back in a bun, studying the same painting that she often did, her hands clasped behind her. It was one with three draasin flying overhead.