The Shape of Fire

by D. K. Holmberg

  He paused about halfway along the wall, staring at one particular portrait. This one always drew his eye, though he had never really come to understand why it should. In it, there was a young girl sitting next to what appeared to be a glowing lizard. The lizard had to be an elemental, though it was none that Tolan knew. There was darkness around them, as if it were pressing toward them, trying to squeeze inward.

  “You always come to that one,” a voice said.

  Tolan looked up to see Master Minden staring at one of the portraits.

  He hadn’t even noticed her, though it was possible she hadn’t been here when he’d first arrived. She was an older woman, her back stooped by time and age, a long black robe brushing along the ground, and her hair pulled into a tight bun. When she turned toward him, the light in the hallway reflected upon her milky eyes. Tolan had long wondered how she was able to see anything.

  “I always come to it because there’s something about it that seems to draw me.”

  “Everyone has one portrait that draws them,” she said.

  “And that is yours?” Tolan walked along the hall and stopped near her. In it, three draasin flew in the sky, circling, and there was a lump along the ground. The definition to these paintings had increased for him over the last five years, the image shifting and evolving over time—likely tied to his connection to the elements, though it might simply be the frequency with which he visited. Now he was able to see the draasin far more easily than he had when he had first begun coming here.

  “This one has always called to me.” She smiled as she said it, staring at the portrait. “I’m not really sure why, only that I think it has to do with the draasin. There’s something so compelling about them.” She shook her head. “Perhaps it’s nothing more than my childhood fascination with the draasin.”

  “You don’t speak about your childhood very often.”

  “Because there isn’t much for me to say.”

  “I imagine there’s more than what you let on.”

  “Perhaps,” Master Minden said.

  Her hands clasped in front of her, resting on her stomach. A shaping built from her, that of spirit, but it was mixed with each of the elements, and she used it on the painting, shaping through it. He’d never found shaping the paintings did anything for him, though he had tried. The nature of her shaping was such that it added a hint of spirit to it. Tolan wasn’t able to tell what purpose she had for shaping that way.

  “I haven’t found anything about this painting that makes sense,” he said. “What reason would they have for adding this girl with this creature?”

  “There’s always a reason, Master Ethar,” the master librarian said.

  “I haven’t found a shaping to be all that helpful here.”

  “Perhaps not,” Master Minden said. “You might find it different when you spend more time here. I have spent considerable time studying these portraits.”

  “Not all of them are actually portraits, though.”

  “I suppose not,” Master Minden said. “Still, all have something impressive about them.”

  “They’re all impressive,” Tolan agreed. There was no point in arguing with her about that point—especially not when he agreed with her.

  The paintings were impressive, more so considering the level of shaping that went into them. He could feel the energy of that shaping, and he was all too aware of how much power existed within them, power he could feel when he was here. There was a time when he’d come to believe there was something about the portraits he might be able to uncover by being here. Tolan had long ago given up on that idea. Though there might be power within these portraits, it was one he hadn’t been able to master.

  Master Minden continued staring at the same painting. “They placed so much of themselves into these paintings.”

  “They wanted us to better understand the nature of the elementals,” he said.

  “The elementals. The power that existed then. The nature of what we may lose if we were to abandon them.” She shook her head. “All of that seems tied to what is here.”

  Tolan focused on the way she shaped, copying her technique by pushing out with his own shaping through them. Within the paintings, Tolan didn’t uncover anything obvious. He focused on the energy, and while there was a sense of shaped energy within the paintings, there was nothing else he was able to uncover.

  He withdrew his shaping, turning his attention to Master Minden. “You know I enjoy talking to you about these portraits.”

  “I don’t know if you so much enjoy it as you are willing to accommodate an old woman.”

  “I do enjoy it,” Tolan said.

  “You’re the only other person I know who can see as much as I can when I come here.”

  “There are others. Master Jensen—”

  “Master Jensen does not see half of what you do, Tolan. When he comes, he recognizes there are aspects to these portraits he cannot see, and he recognizes there are things that exist within those portraits he would like to see. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Master Jensen is unable to notice anything more within them.”

  “What about the other shapers? What about the Grand Master?”

  Tolan had long suspected the Grand Master hid from others—including Master Minden—just how connected he was to spirit, along with the other elements. Tolan had also long suspected that the Grand Master was capable in ways he didn’t want others to know about. Tolan had no idea why he would feel the need to hide that from others, only that it seemed to be the case.

  “Ah, but the Grand Master has never had much in the way of talent with being able to see much. He tries, but unfortunately, he can see even less than Master Jensen.” Her shaping continued to pour out of her, flowing into the portrait. “It’s why I have wanted for you to take a greater role within the library.”

  “I know that you do, it’s just—”

  She swiveled toward him, fixing her milky gaze on him. “I know what it is, Tolan. I understand you feel that you can serve a better role by serving spirit. Perhaps that’s true. There hasn’t been a spirit shaper like yourself teaching within the Academy in… well, for a long time.”

  “I promise that eventually I will consider the offer.”

  “I worry that in time you won’t have the opportunity to reconsider,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  She turned her attention back to the portrait, shaping flowing from her. “Only that I fear we will lose something.”

  She breathed out in a heavy sigh and Tolan watched her, thinking about the nature of what she had shaped; the nature of the power she pulled upon, and he focused his shaping on the same portrait. When he did, he noticed that the paint seemed to shimmer. It happened slightly, little more than a flickering of the image, enough that Tolan wasn’t even sure if it was real or not, but thought it was. As that shimmering faded, retreating back into nothingness, the image drifted back toward the draasin.

  “I found something before returning,” he said.

  “The older student.”

  He looked up. “You know?”

  “There aren’t many things that come into the Academy that I’m not aware of, Master Ethar.”

  Tolan smiled. Despite her milky eyes, she still saw everything. “I realize he’s a little beyond our typical age range, but he has considerable ability.”

  “There are many shapers that have come to the Academy who have considerable ability. There are many who have come who have no ability.” She glanced over at him, hint of a smile curling her face.

  “It’s not his ability with shaping that brought me to him. He speaks to the elementals, Master Minden.”

  She said nothing for a long moment. “Are you certain of this?”

  “I was there. He’s connected to jinnar. He was talking to it, summoning it, and though he doesn’t listen, at least according to the jinnar, he has an ability to reach the elemental.”

  “You have to be careful with that, Tolan. We still struggle with others
within the Academy recognizing and accepting the nature of the elementals. When you bring others who can speak to the elementals…”

  “We need to welcome others who can,” he said.

  “I don’t disagree with you. In time, that will become increasingly necessary, it’s just…”

  “I think their entire village of Telfair knows about the elementals.”

  “Do they?”

  “There’s more.”

  “Of course there is.”

  “There was an elemental they were talking to. It was one I’ve read about, but I haven’t seen. Hashin.”

  She frowned, strolling along the hall before pausing in front of one of the paintings. In it, there was something of a rolling landscape with what appeared to be a hole dug in the ground. As Tolan stared at it, he thought he’d been to this place. There was such a feeling of familiarity, almost as if he recognized it.

  “Are you sure about it?”

  “I know what I sensed,” he said.

  “Can you show me?”

  “Of course. I just didn’t realize you’d be so intrigued by it.”

  “This elemental is unusual. And if you saw one, it makes me question what else we might find out there. If you would allow me to accompany you, I would like to see what we might be able to determine there.”

  Tolan glanced over. “It’s more than hashin.”

  Master Minden nodded. “It is.”

  “You detected the elementals moving.”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “No, but it’s unusual. Which is why we should try to understand it.”

  “It’s more than the elementals moving,” he said, turning back to the paintings. “I feel something amiss, though I can’t quite put my finger on it.” He looked over at her.

  “As do I,” she said softly.

  She was worried. If Master Minden was concerned, then he was concerned.

  Something was taking place—but what?

  8

  Tolan remained outside the Academy, looking all around. He waited, wondering how many of the master shapers might bother to come to him. Given what he had offered, he didn’t expect too many. Not with the topic that he intended to discuss.

  He’d opened it up to upper-level students as well.

  There was no point in keeping shapers of talent from understanding the elementals. In his mind, it was better for as many people as possible to better understand the elementals, especially as there began to be changes with power within the world.

  He looked around the small garden just outside the Academy. This was a place where students came to get closer to the elements, though none came to get closer to the elementals, as far as Tolan knew.

  As he stood there, he touched upon the element bonds and could feel something off, though not what it was. He was aware of the energy that was off, though he didn’t know why he should feel that way. He found himself delving into that power and searching for what bothered him.

  A familiar face entered the park and Tolan looked over to see Ferrah approaching. She was dressed in her robes of office, a concerned look on her face. “I suspect you thought you would have more people here,” she said. “Perhaps if you spent more time at the Academy and less time chasing rumors—"

  “I figured that some would want to know more about the elementals.”

  She regarded him a long moment before her expression finally softened. It was the first time that it had in a while. “That’s what you’re concerned about?”

  “Yes. The Draasin Lord and the others…”

  She shook her head. “You have to give people time.”

  “I have given them time. Think about how long it has been since the Draasin Lord threat. We know better now. Because we know better, we know that we don’t need to fear the elementals.”

  “The elementals aren’t forced back into the bond when they escape. Not the way they used to be. That is progress.”

  It was slow progress, though perhaps any progress was better than none.

  “I was hoping that we might have some additional people willing to try to learn.”

  “You probably will. You just have to give them time.”

  He started to say something when he saw another figure coming through the garden.

  Master Sartan was the master of fire, a bearded shaper with the dark complexion of someone who had shaped fire closely and for a long time. He’d served in his position for as long as Tolan had been with the Academy. He glanced around him as he approached, and stopped next to Ferrah, nodding to Tolan. “An interesting location for you to hold this session, Master Ethar.”

  “I didn’t think that we would have much luck in getting people to leave Amitan and understand the elementals. I figured it would be easiest to offer the opportunity to learn about them in a familiar location.”

  “And you believe that this can be accomplished here?”

  Tolan shrugged. “The elementals are all around us, Master Sartan. It has been my experience that it merely takes attempting to reach them, learning about the connection to those elementals and trying to master the way to speak to them.”

  Tolan whispered softly, focusing on saa. It was a subtle elemental, and in this part of the world, not nearly as potent as Tolan had experienced in other places.

  The elemental began to spiral into view. It happened slowly, though not so slowly that it could be anything other than an elemental.

  “Did you pull saa from the bond?” Master Sartan asked, holding his hand out and already shaping fire.

  He approached carefully, and as he held his hand out, he used a swirling bit of fire to loop it around the elemental. Not to suppress it, at least as far as Tolan could tell. It was more to probe and see if there might be something Master Sartan might be able to uncover.

  “I don’t need to pull elementals out of the bond any longer,” Tolan said. “The elementals are around us everywhere. All you have to do is look.”

  Master Sartan looked up. “Everywhere?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to get others to understand. They are everywhere. When you begin to pay attention, and learn about how to connect to them…”

  He closed his eyes, focusing on earth.

  It rumbled, though there was a strange feeling within it.

  He wasn’t quite sure why that should be.

  Jinnar appeared.

  It wasn’t a large elemental, but it rumbled up from the ground, still towering over Tolan. Some jinnar were much larger than that; massive giants of an elemental that could crash through places. It was elementals like jinnar—and the draasin, he had to admit—that made people fear the elementals.

  He had a strange twinge coming from this elemental.

  He leaned closer, focusing on jinnar.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Tolan still didn’t understand what had happened to the elementals in the North. Something had changed for them. Whatever it had been had caused them to flee. He had no idea whether it was tied to anything he had to be concerned about. Only given everything he had seen recently, Tolan began to suspect something was taking place.

  “The bond,” jinnar rumbled.

  He frowned, focusing on the elemental.

  “What’s wrong?” Ferrah asked, moving to stand next to him. She still had a fear of the elementals, though it was much less than it once had been. As she stood next to the jinnar, studying the elemental, the massive creature towering over her, he marveled at the fact that she was willing to do so—something that she would not have done even a few years ago.

  “The elemental is trying to tell me something.”

  “You can speak to them?”

  Tolan looked over and realized three other shapers had arrived. One of them was Velthan. Considering the time they’d spent traveling together, he wasn’t sure if the rapport he had with Velthan had changed. He had to admit that he was pleased Velthan was willing to at least come to try to learn about the elementals.<
br />
  The others were master shapers who were affiliated with the Academy; Grady and Beckah, both shapers who had progressed before Tolan’s time.

  He noted that so far no Inquisitors had come.

  Still, that others were here was promising.

  “I can speak to most of the elementals,” Tolan said. “Not all, though. It takes effort, and sometimes the elementals don’t speak to me. Even when they do, there are times I don’t understand what they say.”

  “I don’t hear anything from them,” Master Sartan said.

  “It is a matter of adding a familiar sense to them. The way that I do it is through spirit, though I suspect there are other ways of communicating with the elementals. I just haven’t uncovered them,” Tolan said.

  There were stories of elementals and those who had connected to them. In those stories, Tolan recognized that those shapers had a connection to the elementals that was different than what he even had.

  “Can you teach that?”

  “I don’t know that I could teach you how to speak the elementals without you having the ability to shape spirit,” Tolan said. “Without that…”

  He held his hand out, and he focused on wind. There were several wind elementals around, swirling near them, and as Tolan focused on them, he could feel the energy around him, and he let the connection to the wind elemental flow from him so that he could summon it.

  Ara answered the summons.

  It cycled around him, translucent, every so often flashing into something more, shimmering so that he could see a face appear.

  “I see that,” Beckah said. “Wind.”

  “We don’t usually see wind elementals,” Grady said.

  Several other shapers had arrived, and they stood back, almost as if they were afraid to get too close.

  Tolan didn’t mind.

  Perhaps it was for the best that he had done this.

  He had hesitated.

  In the years that he had been back at the Academy, Tolan had been attempting to try to explain the elementals to people, but he had never thought to bring them out here where he could bring them closer and give them an opportunity to see the elemental themselves, to see that there wasn’t any violence within them.