A Fading Fire

by D. K. Holmberg

  He paused. Atop the mountain, he took a step. He focused on that energy, and he thought about the Guardian. By drawing upon the energy of the Guardian, Tolan had been able to reach for a power that had been there before. He could feel the Guardian, mixing with the pure sense of earth, holding back spirit.

  There was something else here.

  He focused on the way the element bonds were mixed together. Earth and spirit. There was a binding of them, a way that they intermingled, twisting around each other. Tolan could feel that energy as it twined together, and he thought he might be able to use it. What he needed was to pull them apart.

  This close to the element bonds, Tolan felt as if he could reach that energy far more easily than before. He drew upon it, letting it fill him. All he wanted was spirit. Much like all the Guardian wanted was earth.

  By separating them, Tolan felt a flash of spirit. It connected him more greatly to the sense of spirit. He thought about the lizard, and he thought about what he had felt when he had been around the creature. There was a surge of light, and yet it wasn’t as all-encompassing as he had detected before.

  Could that be because I am within the earth bond?

  He needed understanding.

  Standing atop the mountain, he felt a certain sense of peace. He could almost imagine that he was here in truth, rather than just in his mind. The power continued to flow through him, a sense of energy he let consume him.

  Understanding.

  That thought continued to come to him. It was what the elemental had wanted. Unlike when he had come the last time, Tolan wasn’t as terrified. There was fear at being within the bond. He didn’t know if that would ever disappear.

  Tolan tentatively sent out a streamer of power. This time, he used both earth and spirit, using them to probe, trying to determine what Roland had done to the bond. If the lizard wanted him to gain understanding, then this was the only way he could.

  In a distant channel, a flow of power Tolan could feel turned toward him.

  It was earth alone. There was no spirit within it, not as there was within the other elementals. Each time Tolan probed, he felt power pushing against him.

  It was separate, not even an elemental. Just earth.

  Different than the rest of the bond, where spirit wrapped into the bond, weaving amongst it.

  As Tolan continued to push, the sense of spirit flowing from him, he could feel the effort of it, could feel the way this power struggled, straining against what he was doing, almost as if it were alive—and fighting against his attempt to use spirit.

  With each passing moment, Tolan continued to push on spirit, letting that power flow from him. Power pushed against him. Tolan ignored it.

  He wove spirit within the bond of power, trying to squeeze, to tie it to the power he could detect. He felt that ongoing resistance. He had to overpower that.

  Tolan called upon spirit. There was what existed in him, but also within the bond. It filled him with it. He thought about the way that earth and spirit were wound together. They were woven within each other. Bonded in a way.

  The power started to thrash against what he was doing. Tolan continued to weave them together, binding spirit to earth. A flash of knowledge exploded within his mind from the lizard. Within that knowledge, he recognized what he needed to do.

  Tolan twisted the connection, forcing more power into it. Rather than striking the elemental, he began to bind it within. It was slow at first. Slowly, Tolan continued to weave, binding that power, and he worked it together.

  With a flash of light, it was done.

  It was a connection.

  Through it, Tolan could feel how the power was restored, at least as much as Tolan could. Now that it was done, he focused on what else was around him. He focused on the rest of the earth bond. By holding on to spirit, holding on to earth, he could feel the earth bond, the way that it was connected, and he realized that the strangeness that he had been detecting, that unusual sense that he had felt all along, had been restored.

  Whatever else was out here, he no longer felt what had once been there.

  Have I fixed it?

  That didn’t seem likely. If that were the case, then the strange branch of power had been responsible for it, and Tolan wasn’t entirely sure if it was even possible for a single branch of power to be responsible for what had changed with the bond. Maybe there was something else here that he still had to detect.

  Distantly, there was the sense of the Guardian.

  From here, Tolan could feel the way that the Guardian was wrapped in the earth bond, but only the earth bond.

  He closed his eyes, thinking about the lizard.

  “Does the Guardian need to be brought into the spirit bond as well?”

  Tolan waited, thinking that if nothing else, the elemental might respond to him, but there was no response. There was nothing other than the vast emptiness. Power continued to push upon him, and he was aware of the Guardian, and he was aware of the other sense of elementals out there, but nothing more than that.

  “Lizard. Does the Guardian need to be brought into the spirit bond?”

  He thought that the lizard should be able to reach him here. If the lizard was tied to spirit as he knew that it was, then stepping into the earth and spirit bond should be no problem for the elemental.

  There was still no answer.

  Tolan pushed again, trying to connect to the lizard. He focused only on spirit, releasing his connection to earth, and tied to the Convergence.

  As he did, he tried again.

  “Lizard. Does the Guardian need to be bound to spirit?”

  There was no answer again.

  Tolan focused on the sense of the Guardian. He could feel his presence, the way that he was bound to power, the way that the sense of the Convergence locked him to that power.

  For whatever reason, the Guardian had been separated from spirit.

  If that was the key, and if there was something that had taken place that had at one point separated the Guardian from spirit, then there would have to be something that he could do now.

  Tolan focused on the spirit bond. The knowledge of what was necessary remained within him. The lizard had given him that, though it had been for a different purpose.

  Focusing on the Guardian, Tolan began to weave spirit.

  Unlike with the sense of the other elemental, there was no struggle. The Guardian didn’t fight and Tolan pushed spirit, weaving it within the Guardian, using that connection in order to find a way to bind them together. It happened quickly, and when he was done, he withdrew, recognizing that the Guardian no longer needed him to hold onto spirit. He could feel it was there.

  The Guardian drew on the earth bond—all of the earth bond. Now the Guardian could access spirit, and with it, he was changed.

  Now it was time to leave the bond. There was no reason to remain. He didn’t know if the knowledge and understanding that the lizard had wanted from him had been obtained, but he thought that he had done enough. He stepped down from the mountain. It happened in a single leap, and that leap carried him across the grassland and toward the forest. As he was heading toward the forest, movement near him caught his attention and he stopped.

  There were elementals around him.

  When he had looked around before, focusing on the power here, he had recognized that there was energy, but this was something altogether different. He could feel that energy, he could feel the way that it was flowing around him. He could feel the elementals. There were dozens of them. Dozens upon dozens.

  Did that mean that they no longer tried to retreat? If not, then why not?

  The idea that the elementals would want to stay within the bond was strange to him, but he also had to wonder if perhaps he had changed something. If he had, then changing it might not have been for the best. He didn’t know what exactly he had done, only that something had certainly changed.

  Tolan reached the forest. Within that, there was a connection to the Convergence. With
a sudden understanding, Tolan realized that there were connections to other Convergences here.

  The key would be finding them.

  Was that the purpose of the Convergence? Did they tap into the power of the bonds directly? Could I use the bond to find Convergences outside of the bond? Perhaps even in the Beyond…

  It wasn’t something that he could grasp now. He would have to step out of the Convergence, leave via the same path as he had before, and then try to return.

  He focused on that power above him, letting that sense of energy flow from him. It carried him up and away. This time, though he was fighting upstream, he had the power and pressure of the sense of earth behind him. It no longer felt as if it was nearly as challenging. He held onto the power of the Convergence, but with the way that he was bound within it, he could carry himself through the bond and up toward the Convergence.

  He awoke, sitting up, and he looked over to see Master Minden leaning against the wall. Her lips moved in a steady murmuring, but she said nothing.

  “Master Minden?”

  She didn’t open her eyes.

  Tolan took a step toward her, climbing out of the liquid. When he was free, he grabbed his clothes, slipping them on.

  “Master Minden?”

  She still didn’t move.

  He reached for her, probing with a combination of spirit and water, and found that she was uninjured. There was a sense of energy within her, power that flowed from her, but nothing else.

  “Master Minden?”

  He probed again, pushing spirit and water out from him, but he couldn’t awaken her.

  She continued to murmur wordlessly. He suddenly realized that her eyes trembled, and he shook her, searching for some way to help her. Yet without knowing what was wrong, he wasn’t entirely certain what that was going to be.

  Whatever happened had to be his fault. He was the reason that she was here, and it had to be something tied to what he had done within the earth bond.

  But what?

  Tolan continued to probe at Master Minden, using spirit before adding each of the elements. He attempted various healings, but nothing that he knew worked. As he probed at her, he detected something, though.

  Power that seemed disrupted.

  Why would that be disrupted?

  Perhaps it was something that he had done, but all he remembered was what had happened while he was within the earth bond. It didn’t seem as if he had done anything that would have affected Master Minden.

  He pushed a shaping through her, sending as much power as he could sweeping through her, trying to restore her, but finding that he could not.

  Everything that he attempted failed.

  She needed his help.

  11

  “I can’t say with any certainty what happened to her,” Master Wassa said.

  He was a large man, with the girth of a water shaper, and dressed in a long, flowing robe while holding onto a bondar for water—something which surprised Tolan. Wassa crouched near the bed where Master Minden rested. Her hair had pulled down around her side, and she looked so thin and frail. It pained Tolan to see her that way.

  He was reminded of something Roland had told him. He had used Master Minden against him because Tolan had an affinity toward her, and it was the same reason he had used Ferrah against him. He had chosen people Tolan cared about. It surprised Tolan how much he cared about Master Minden, and how much he wanted to be able to do anything to protect her.

  “I don’t know what happened to her.”

  “You said you were near the Convergence?”

  Tolan had admitted to Master Wassa what he had been doing, at least to a certain point. He wasn’t about to reveal to Master Wassa that he had tried to connect to the earth bond in a way that would allow him to try to fix whatever had happened, but he wasn’t entirely sure that it had been necessary. Master Wassa seemed to recognize that Tolan had done something, though he didn’t know what it was.

  “We were near the Convergence. I was connecting to the power, and as you know when connecting to the Convergence, there is a sense that flows through you. You aren’t fully aware of what is taking place when you are there. I didn’t know what happened to her until I stepped out of the Convergence and then I saw her like this.”

  Master Minden continued to move her lips, though no sound came out. That was part of what was taking place that troubled him the most. Whatever it was seemed to be affecting her in such a way that she wasn’t able to speak.

  Tolan had tried to probe with water, but his own water shaping ability wasn’t enough to heal. He could restore himself, but that was about it. Nothing like what a true water healer could do. He had even probed her with spirit, thinking that if nothing else, he might be able to uncover whether there was any sort of bond to spirit that had affected her, but there was nothing.

  “I will keep looking,” Master Wassa said. “There are certain afflictions that aren’t easy to discern.”

  Tolan looked around the inside of the tower for water. They were in the hospital section, and it reminded Tolan of when he’d come here during his student years. He hadn’t spent much time here in the time since then. Most often, he could restore himself whenever anything happened. Now with Master Minden, and with his inability to do anything to help her, he couldn’t help but feel as if he were helpless. It was almost like being a student again.

  These days, there were so many things happening that left him feeling helpless. He hated that sensation. In the time that he had been a master shaper, Tolan had grown accustomed to being able to do everything that he needed, but in this case, he wasn’t able to do anything.

  He had no way of knowing how to help Master Minden.

  The door to the hospital section opened and the Grand Master entered. His wire-frame glasses slipped down his nose, but he didn’t bother to adjust them. Tolan wondered if the glasses were nothing more than a prop, especially considering that he likely could shape his vision in any way that he wanted. It was much the same way as Master Minden appeared to be elderly and frail with her milky vision, but could see quite clearly.

  “What happened?” he asked, taking a position next to Master Minden and squeezing her hand.

  “She won’t come around,” Tolan said. “We were near the Convergence, and I was”—Tolan glanced over at Master Wassa before turning back to the Grand Master—“using the Convergence to see if I could understand what had happened to the earth bond. When I came out of it, she was like this.”

  The Grand Master studied him for a long moment, and Tolan could practically see the question burning in his eyes. The other man likely was trying to get a sense of just what Tolan had done, and probably was trying to understand whether there was anything that Tolan had done that had been successful. A sense of shaping power exploded from him, flowing outward, and then released.

  “What did you do?” the Grand Master asked.

  “There was an aspect of the bond that had separated from spirit.”

  “That should not make a difference.”

  “It seems as if it did.”

  He would tell the Grand Master about it later, but he didn’t know if sharing about spirit within the element bonds was something that he wanted to do with Master Wassa present. It was possible that the other man didn’t need to know. Learning about it might change how he shaped. That was Tolan’s concern. He didn’t want to impact the other master shapers in a way that would impact their ability to teach.

  “I feel that something has shifted,” the Grand Master said.

  “I did more than just shift something. I’m not entirely sure what will become of it, not until I get to the waste.”

  The Grand Master pressed his lips together and turned toward Master Minden. Another shaping built from him, this one of spirit. The Grand Master shared Tolan’s knowledge of spirit, but more than that, he had experience. It was that experience Tolan hoped would make a difference.

  “I don’t detect anything,” the Grand Master said.r />
  “I can keep working with her,” Master Wassa said. “Eventually, I will find the key to helping her.”

  Master Wassa might know about healing, but there was the possibility that what afflicted Master Minden was different than what he could heal. He didn’t know anything about using elementals, and he didn’t know anything about the Convergence, things that Tolan thought were crucial for what had taken place and what had happened to her.

  “Why don’t you let me know if she comes around?” he asked Master Wassa.

  The man waved his hand. “Of course.”

  Tolan patted Master Minden’s hand and headed out of the room.

  The hallway outside the water tower was wide and open. Several sculptures representing the various water elementals rested along the hallway, something Tolan had always found amusing given the Academy’s reluctance to access the power of the elementals. Several paintings hung on walls, though nothing quite like what was found within the hall of portraits. Otherwise, the stone floor was bare. Lantern light, all of it shaped by fire, illuminated the hallway.

  The Grand Master was there behind him, and he closed the door and used a shaping of wind and earth around them to seal them off. “What really happened?”

  “I went into the earth bond.”

  “You went into it?”

  “Again,” he reminded the Grand Master. “This time, she was there with me, and she had told me that she would keep an eye on me.”

  “Do you think that she came after you?”

  Tolan thought about it, but there hadn’t been a sense of Master Minden there. If there had been, he thought that he would’ve recognized it. “No. I’m pretty sure that she didn’t. She wouldn’t have been able to do so without stepping into the Convergence, and she still had her robe on when I came free.”

  “What exactly did you do while you were there?”

  “I felt that there was an aspect of earth that was separated from spirit.”

  “You said you were within the earth bond.”