Jinnar took a step toward Tolan. He once would have been terrified by the sudden nature of the movement. For as large a creature as jinnar was, the stone elemental moved quickly.
He towered over Tolan. In that way, he was not all that different from the Guardian.
He should be able to understand the elemental, but for some reason he wasn’t able to grasp what the elemental was saying in the way he was accustomed to. Tolan focused on his words but heard only the same sort of rumbling he had heard from the Guardian.
“The bond,” the elemental said again.
Tolan took a step forward. He had to try a different way, but he was afraid of using element bonds. In order to reach jinnar, he thought he might need to.
He connected to the earth bond. In doing so, there came a faint echoing sense, almost a reverberation of power. It was off, but not so off that Tolan was able to identify its source. He connected to that and pushed outward toward the elemental, mingling spirit into it, using the two in order to try to reach the elemental.
“Something’s changed. I can’t understand you the way I should.”
The elemental took another step toward him. Now he was just across from Tolan, and the power radiating off the elemental was immense. It was almost more than Tolan could fathom. He stood in place; afraid to move.
“The bond,” the elemental said.
“I understand the bond, but what I don’t understand is what you’re trying to tell me about the bond. The Guardian mentioned the bond as well—”
The elemental began to tremble.
There was something about the sudden shift of energy that was enormous. He took a step away, and then another. All of a sudden, the elemental shot downward, power bursting into the ground, and jinnar disappeared.
Tolan could only stare.
“What happened?” Jersan asked. “He never left like that before. What did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything that should have chased him away,” Tolan said.
“You mentioned the Guardian. I heard that. What is that?”
Tolan shook his head, looking over at Ferrah.
What had happened here?
He had mentioned the Guardian, and for whatever reason, that seemed to have upset jinnar. He held onto the connection to earth, focusing on the elemental, but even as he did, the awareness of jinnar began to drift away until he was no longer able to detect him.
Ferrah caught up to them and looked over at him. “What happened?”
Tolan reached through his connection to earth, straining for whether or not he might be able to uncover of the sense of the element and the elemental. They should be bound together, but as he pushed outward with earth, mixing it with spirit, he didn’t detect anything more of jinnar.
“I didn’t think the elementals were afraid of the Guardians,” Ferrah said.
Tolan shook his head. “They’re not.”
The bond had changed—and now his ability to speak to the elementals had changed.
What was Roland doing?
Tolan looked around the village, focusing on the buildings. All of them had a connection to earth in a certain way. When he had been here before, there had been earth, and he had noticed it from the runes upon the buildings. He had noticed it from the bondars that formed the pits within them as well.
Tolan headed toward the nearest of the homes. He pushed open the door with a hint of wind and fire, avoiding earth, and stepped inside. The air was still. He breathed in, noting a musty odor to it, and focused on his awareness of the room. The pit at the center of the room was like the other place he’d visited. Tolan crouched in front of it, running his fingers along the surface, noting the bondar and the runes. There was something within those runes that he thought he should have been able to feel, but there was nothing more than an emptiness.
That was different than when he’d been here before. Earth had been strong enough that he was able to pick it up, and when he pushed out, he could feel it deep within the ground.
“What is this thing?” Ferrah said, crouching across from them. For the first time in a while, she seemed interested. “It looks like a bondar.”
“When we came the last time, Master Minden and me, there was a feeling of hashin having been freed. The bondar was disrupted and the elemental was coming up from the pit. I realized they were all connected, and so I replaced the bondar.”
“I don’t see why that’s an issue.”
Tolan shook his head. “At the time, I didn’t, either. I felt as if we were almost attacked by the sense of hashin, and I had to force it down into the ground, sealing it back with the bondar, but…”
Getting up, he found Jersan near the edge of the village, holding onto a shaping of earth. He was likely probing, trying to reach for the sense of jinnar again, but with as much as he was pushing, nothing was responding to him.
“What are the pits in your homes for?” Tolan should have asked before but had thought they used them to speak to the elementals.
Could it have been something else?
“Nothing,” Jersan said. “They’re fire pits.”
Tolan shot him a hard look. “Not fire pits. They have runes around them, and the markings are for earth, not for fire. What are they for?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“I wouldn’t? I was here when hashin was released.”
Jersan didn’t react.
Tolan wasn’t sure whether or not the other man would even show any sign of what had occurred, and seeing nothing from him confirmed Tolan’s suspicions.
“Were you and Kelvin trying to release one?”
“It was our turn,” he said softly.
“Your turn for what?”
“Our turn to let him out.”
“I don’t understand.”
Jersan looked up, and Tolan could see the concern in his eyes. Maybe even fear. “This village. It’s for hashin. We serve him.”
“Serve him how?”
Jersan looked away, and he continued to hold onto the sense of earth, mixing wind with it this time. The sense of it swirled around, lifting. “My people have long been connected to this land,” Jersan started. “Some of us are more connected than others.”
“Shapers,” Tolan said.
“Shapers. We have used that connection to help us support…” He closed his eyes, looking down. Earth and wind twisted together from within him.
“To support what? Hashin?”
“Yes. You celebrate the Great Mother. Others celebrate other things. We have always celebrated the earth. Hashin.”
The pits within the homes suddenly took on a different meaning. Tolan had thought that they were a way of holding the elemental down, and perhaps they did that, but the elemental was interconnected from what he understood. Within that interconnectedness, they would have been able to tie the elemental in place.
“When you said it was your turn. What did that mean?”
“Each week we take turns. Hashin grants us an opportunity to visit.”
“So you and Kelvin?”
“It was his home, not mine. I was working with him; trying to help him. He has potential, much like I had potential, and much like the Golad had potential.”
“Who is that?”
A chill worked through Tolan, along with fear about what Roland might have been up to. With his control over spirit, it wasn’t hard to imagine that he would set himself up as someone else.
Could he be the Golad?
“He leads us.”
When Tolan had been here before, he hadn’t detected anything else. Certainly nothing more of earth that would explain another shaper, but what Jersan described suggested there would’ve been somebody else with a connection to earth here.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
There was something Tolan felt through spirit that told him Jersan wasn’t completely honest with him. “You know something. What is it?”
“He… he has a way of reaching us.”
&n
bsp; Tolan glanced at Ferrah before turning his attention back to him. What had he missed here? “How?”
“He speaks to us.”
Spirit. It had to be. Which meant it was Roland.
“Can you speak to him now?”
“He’s been silent.”
“Ever since you went to the Academy?”
“Yes.”
“Now that you’re here, can you try reaching him?”
“I’ve tried, but…”
“What would you normally do to reach the Golad?” Tolan shared a glance with Ferrah, and she watched Jersan, worry in her eyes.
“When he’s here, we simply speak to him. When he’s away, he still provides guidance.”
Tolan shook his head. Roland had been here—and he’d missed him. Now he didn’t know if he would be able to track where he’d gone and find him again. “I think it’s time for us to get you back.”
“I can’t go back. My people are gone. I need to learn what happened to them.”
“I’m going to do everything I can in order to figure out what happened,” Tolan said.
“You won’t be able to do anything.”
“I’m a master shaper at the Academy. There’s much I can do.”
Jersan shook his head. “The only person who can help us is the Golad.”
“I will find him.”
“Like you found me?” Power swirled around Jersan before settling. “I don’t want you to harm him. He’s led our people for a long time.”
“I’m sure he has,” Tolan said.
Ferrah joined him and Tolan held onto the warrior shaping, wrapping it around them, and used a burst of lightning to carry them back to the Academy. He made sure he didn’t borrow from any of the element bonds this time. When they emerged on top of the tower at the Academy, Tolan breathed out, relieved the shaping had worked as it was supposed to.
Ferrah watched him, concern radiating from her that he wished was more for him, and forced a smile at Jersan. “I think it’s time for us to get you back to your classes.”
As they left, Jersan cast a glance back over his shoulder, looking at Tolan, concern showing within his eyes. There was nothing Tolan could do to reassure him. The only thing he was going to be able do would be to find Roland. Though he wanted to figure out what he’d done to the rest of the people of Telfair, he was more concerned about the bond.
The bondars in Telfair were the key. Luckily, he had someone who could help him understand the purpose of those bondars.
19
Back at the Academy, he caught a glimpse of Carson and one of the other Inquisitors down the street. They looked up, almost as if aware of his shaping, and Tolan hurriedly protected his mind, using a shaping to do so.
Carson would likely use his sudden appearance and then disappearance against him. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to lose his position as Master of Spirit. He felt conflicted about it, though he certainly didn’t want someone like Carson taking over for him.
Unfortunately, now wasn’t the time to worry about him. He had other things he needed to be concerned about.
The shaping carried him over the mountains and toward the free elemental village. Tolan went alone, no longer confident in his warrior shaping the way he needed to be in order to carry others. He’d been relieved to have brought Ferrah and Jersan back to the Academy without getting lost by the shaping. With the way the bond had been altered, he couldn’t count on succeeding again.
The village was nestled into a valley on the far side of the mountains that separated this land from the rest of Terndahl. It made it nearly impossible for others to reach, a place that shapers had once attempted to get to, thinking that it was the key to understanding the Draasin Lord. With his control over shaping, Tolan was able to find his way to the village much easier than he once had, not needing to use a shaping of earth to practically walk through the mountain itself as he had when he had first come.
The homes here were simple. All were built out of shaped earth, and most carried runes around them to solidify them, strengthening the structures against the elements. Domed roofs covered them, some with plants growing from them, while others were simpler, just stacks of rocks. Others were covered with branches and leaves. All of the homes seemed to grow out of the landscape around them.
The energy of shaping filled the entirety of the village.
At the heart of the village was a Convergence. The building that surrounded the Convergence was open; a shaping that permitted it to shift when triggered by someone within the village, revealing the Convergence inside. The silvery liquid caught the sunlight, radiating some of the light, and as Tolan looked around, searching for anyone who might have opened the Convergence, he found no one.
That wasn’t to say that someone hadn’t been responsible for shifting the Convergence.
Or perhaps something.
Tolan could feel the elementals around him. There were dozens of them, all from different elements, and they roamed freely. This had been the very first place that Tolan had ever come where he had detected the free elementals.
Given the feeling he’d had in the North, the way the elementals had wandered, he was tempted to approach them to see if there might be something he could uncover about what had been taking place, but he had another task first.
When he landed near the Convergence at the heart of the free elemental village, he looked all around. It had been a few months since he had come here. In that time, the elemental village had changed. There was more activity than there had been before. There were other shapers, as well. Some had come out of Terndahl, and some had actually come from the Academy. This was where Tolan was going to be able to find the greatest influence on reconnecting people to the elementals.
He looked around at the buildings. Most of them were connected to the elements in a specific way, and all of them served as a bondar. The entire village formed an enormous bondar that wrapped around the Convergence at the heart of it. Tolan could feel that, and he could feel the energy within it, though he didn’t need to do so in order to recognize the power here. He could feel that power.
He strode through the village, heading toward his father’s home, and knocked. When the door came open, his father looked at him, his eyes weary and his forehead creased. “Tolan?” He looked past him before shaking his head as if trying to clear his mind. “You came by yourself?”
Tolan looked at his father. He was dressed as he often was in a simple brown jacket and pants. He had a satchel strapped to his side, and Tolan knew from his experience with his father that within that satchel were the tools he used to form bondars. “I need help.”
“What kind of help?”
Tolan looked behind him. Every so often, he could feel the power of shaping through the village, but it faded. When that of earth burst near him, he tensed. Tolan wanted to be away from that sense. “Can I come in?”
His father glanced at him, and Tolan looked past to see that his father wasn’t alone. There was another shaper there.
She was an older woman. Darker of skin and with black hair, she had an easygoing smile. Tolan didn’t recognize her. She hadn’t been in the village when he’d been here last.
“I’m sorry, Tolan. This is Liza.”
Tolan hesitated only a moment before smiling. “Liza. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Liza started toward him. She was a robust woman, and her smile widened. “Tolan.” She said his name warmly, almost as if she had known him her entire life. “I’ve heard so much about you. Your father speaks about you in such glowing terms.”
Tolan looked at his father. There was a bit of tension around his eyes. “How do you know my father?”
“We met in the village of Theon. Your father came with a few of the others, demonstrating his bondars. I’ve always had a knack for crafts, and he thought he might be able teach them to me.”
Tolan looked over at his father, suppressing a smile. “What sort of things are you teaching her?”
“She understands the nature of the elementals,” his father said, a hint of defensiveness in his tone. “I’m just trying to help her learn whether or not she has the potential to make bondars.”
It wasn’t as if the creation of bondars was something that needed to be kept a secret. In fact, the opposite was probably true. There’d been a time when making a bondar was hidden from shapers. The knowledge of how to create a true bondar—not just a replica—had been lost. Anyone who might have the potential to make them should be valued.
“How has it been going?”
“Better than I expected. When your father described what he did, I thought there was no way I’d be able to do anything close that, but in the time that we’ve been here, working together, he’s shown me quite a few things.”
This time, Tolan did smile. “I’m sure he has.”
“I’ve almost succeeded with my first one,” she said.
Tolan shot a half smile at his father. Perhaps that was for the best. For so long, his father had been tied to Tolan’s mother, and considering that she’d spirit shaped him, forcing a level of emotion Tolan wasn’t even sure was real, it was good to see that his father had moved on. In the time since he had rediscovered that his father still lived, there had always been a sense from him that he was unhappy.
That sense wasn’t there now. He could feel something within his father; a joy that had been missing before.
It didn’t even take Tolan to shape spirit to be able to determine that. He could practically see it on his father’s face. It was in the easy smile he offered to Liza. It was in the lack of tension within him.
Tolan and his father had a strained relationship. Partly that came from how his father had been shaped by his mother, something that was not Tolan’s father’s fault, but partly that was how his father had shown no real desire to try to return to Terndahl with Tolan. He was content here.
It left Tolan suspecting that his father remained under a spirit shaping, though every time that he had come to this village, Tolan had tested him, probing to see if there was any evidence that his father had been spirit shaped. Each time he did so, Tolan found nothing. There was no sign that a spirit shaping lingered.
The Shape of Fire Page 20