The Shape of Fire

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Where do we go now?” Carson asked.

  “Telfair.”

  Tolan looked around. There was one more shaping he hesitated to reveal, especially around all of them, but perhaps it didn’t matter. After having given them the knowledge he had, they would understand the nature of the warrior shaping. They may have seen him using the shaping, but knowing how to create it was a different matter.

  “Follow me. Be careful with earth or you may go astray.”

  Tolan took Ferrah’s hand, pulled on each of the elements—but not the element bond—and added spirit. The warrior shaping carried him away.

  When he landed near Telfair, he could already tell something was amiss. There was energy here, and there was more than just that.

  There was a shifting of power.

  It pressed upon him. It reminded him of what he’d detected within the earth bond, but this was strangely different. It pressed against him, almost immediately beginning to try to battle with him.

  Tolan erected barriers within his mind, prepared for the possibility that Roland was attacking him, but he didn’t feel anything. The only thing that he detected was the strangeness around him.

  One by one, the other shapers appeared.

  He wasn’t surprised the Grand Master was first. The Grand Master had controlled the warrior shaping even before Tolan had demonstrated it, and the Grand Master was incredibly gifted. He truly was deserving of the title Grand Master. He had knowledge and experience the others didn’t.

  “Something’s wrong,” Carson said.

  “Protect your minds,” Tolan said.

  “Do you think that we will be attacked already?”

  Tolan shook his head, sweeping his gaze around. He had no idea what was out here. “We still need to be careful.”

  Tolan started forward, Ferrah staying with him. The landscape around Telfair remained empty, bleak, and he realized something with a start.

  It had changed in the time since he’d first come here. Each time he’d come, something had changed. The first time he’d come, it seemed as if it was a rolling grassland, with a hint of power. The next time he’d come had been with Master Minden, and they had focused on the bondars around the rune. Each time after that, something else had changed.

  It came from the absence of the elementals.

  He looked around. There was no sign of Roland. Tolan closed his eyes, focusing on power around him, on the energy here. It had to be tied to what happened with the earth bond.

  Could it be tied to the other bonds?

  Tolan probed, reaching for fire.

  When he did, he felt something off.

  At first, he wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but the more that he probed, the more he recognized there was power pushing back against him. It surged, trying to combat him, trying to force its way against him. Tolan struggled not to fight against it.

  One of the Inquisitors was standing near one of the pits.

  He stood over it, holding onto the stone, and started to shape.

  “No!” Tolan shouted and headed toward the shaper, pushing him back.

  It was too late.

  They had started shaping through the stone, and the shaping bounced back, crashing into them. An enormous explosion of power rebounded, tossing everyone forward.

  Several Inquisitors fell into the pit.

  Tolan raced over toward them, trying to reach them, but by the time he did, they were gone. He probed, searching for a sense of spirit and of them, but there was nothing.

  Erica was gone.

  Tolan considered reaching into the pit, but as he shaped spirit there came a sense of nothingness. Whatever had happened to the Inquisitor meant he was gone.

  Where was Roland?

  He had to be here somewhere. Considering the power that Tolan could detect, there should be some sign of him, but he didn’t see anything.

  The other Inquisitors were nearby, all waiting. Tolan surveyed the remains of Telfair. There was no sign of anyone else here. Unless they were here and they used an illusion.

  Tolan focused on what he wasn’t able to see.

  It wasn’t so much an illusion as it was a spirit shaping. Tolan understood that now.

  Perhaps it was a shaping upon him that he hadn’t detected. The key wasn’t clear. If only he had thought to grab a bondar.

  Bondars.

  That was what he needed.

  He could create one… or better yet, disrupt the ones that were here.

  Tolan focused on the power forming the pit. He pushed energy into it, sending a burst of power outward, and it struck the bondar.

  He felt it reverberate; rebounding upon him. It was different than what had happened when the Inquisitor had attempted to shape it. Tolan only tried to disrupt it. When he forced energy outward, he felt the echoing of power, but he felt the way that it bounced back upon him. He braced himself, expecting the blowback. When it struck, he was prepared for it.

  He looked around and saw the other Inquisitors trying to do the same thing.

  They had his knowledge, and some of them had more experience than him.

  He had to understand the bondars here.

  He thought about what he knew. Something had happened to the earth bond. And Telfair. All that was tied together. He understood the nature of bondars. He had knowledge accumulated from shapers within the free elemental village, and that knowledge was within his mind.

  He turned a shaping upon himself, turning spirit internally so he could recreate that effect—and that knowledge. He turned his attention to the bondar in front of him. Shaping slowly, letting the power build gradually, he pushed it through, linking the bondar to his knowledge.

  There were the five repeating runes. Each one represented one of the elements. That much he had already known. His father had suggested it was tied to spirit. That was the piece he didn’t fully understand.

  Using that knowledge, the answer came to him in a flash.

  When his father had mentioned the idea that the bondar had been a way of focusing a beam of power, he hadn’t really understood the purpose behind it. There didn’t seem any reason for there to be a bondar to create anything quite like that.

  The focus would allow a powerful spirit shaper to use spirit on whatever passed through. Tolan could guess just what Roland would use this for.

  He wanted to control elementals. With a focus like that, it might be enough to gain control—real control—over the elementals. Once he had control of the elements, then he could truly use that power.

  He wanted power like Tolan possessed.

  Roland had already shown he was knowledgeable enough to be able to use spirit in order to control shapers, even shapers of spirit. It was possible he could use it against other creatures of incredible power. The elementals would be lost.

  Destroy the bondar.

  That was first.

  The key to destroying bondars was in his mind. He used that and pushed upon the runes, cracking the nearest of the pits. When it shattered, each stone collapsed, one after another.

  Tolan turned his attention to the others. There were dozens of them. Far more than he would have imagined Roland would’ve needed. Far more than he could have imagined would have been even useful.

  Why would he have had so many?

  Hashin had been here. Earth. An elemental that was interconnected—and would have allowed Roland to create a series of connected bondars. Was that how he had intended to control this connection to the bonds?

  He couldn’t have controlled the bondars all at one time. It would have required him to have a focus, and to use that at the same time…

  Spirit shapers.

  In order to be successful, he needed spirit shapers.

  What had Tolan done but bring him spirit shapers?

  Tolan got to his feet, looking around, and realized the Inquisitors who’d come with him had all turned toward him.

  26

  Tolan reacted as quickly as he could and sealed Ferrah in a shapin
g of each of the elements to hide her. It might not work against spirit shapers, but without spirit of her own, she was in danger, and he had to do whatever he could to protect her. Hopefully she understood.

  The Inquisitors turned to him and he focused on the spirit within them. He thought they’d been protected—and that they knew enough to protect their minds—but that was against a regular spirit shaper, not against somebody like Roland, who had this kind of knowledge and control over spirit.

  The Inquisitors began to circle him.

  Was the Grand Master involved?

  Tolan turned, testing, and couldn’t feel anything within the Grand Master’s mind. When he tested the other Inquisitors, he couldn’t feel anything within their minds, either.

  Velthan stood nearby, his eyes wide.

  Tolan smiled at him.

  He could practically feel the protection that Velthan had placed around his own mind. He had done as Tolan had instructed. He had protected himself the way that Tolan had taught him.

  “Good work,” he said to Velthan. He shouldn’t be surprised. Velthan had proven himself a skilled student.

  Velthan pressed his lips together in a tight frown. “What happened?”

  “Spirit shaping. A powerful one, if they’re all influenced.” And had they done as Velthan and protected their minds at the moment of the attack, it wouldn’t have mattered. They would have been safe. “Grand Master?”

  “I see it,” the Grand Master said.

  “Roland must still be influencing them.”

  “It seems to me he was taking cues from what your mother had done.”

  Tolan could only nod. Unfortunately, it was the same thing his mother had done. She had gone to the Academy, using her ability to shape, and using everything Roland had taught her to gain control over the Inquisitors. She had forced them to serve her.

  Roland hadn’t taken nearly as long to accomplish the same thing.

  Tolan would somehow have to figure out how to keep the Inquisitors from attacking him. Not only attacking him, but from harming him. Power began to build upon him; a shaping focused inward.

  It was spirit, but it was mixed with other elements.

  Here Tolan had hesitated to give them knowledge and information, and had only been willing to do so when he thought he could trust them.

  “We have to incapacitate them.”

  “I’m trying, Master Ethar.”

  Tolan started to shape. He reached for the elements, but that wasn’t going to be enough. Against these shapers, and with the knowledge Tolan had gifted them, they had more than enough to withstand what he tried to do to them.

  What he needed instead was to try to reach for something they couldn’t use. They had power of the element bonds, and though he could reach for the elements, the element bonds offered far more strength. What he needed was to use not only the connection to the elements and the element bonds. He had to reach for something more.

  There was the power of the runes. If he could connect to that power, he might be able to dive into the energy that existed within Amitan, and he might be able to connect to the power of the Convergence. It would be challenging from this distance, and something he had not had much experience attempting, but if he could reach it he might be able to draw on enough to slow them.

  He needed his sword.

  He drew a marking on the ground.

  Someone shaped an attack toward him, but Tolan pushed back against it. Another shaping came toward him. This one was equally powerful. Tolan deflected it, hurrying to add another shaping on the ground.

  Between each attack, he continued adding power to his defense. Tolan added the next rune and began to shape through them; using them to connect to a greater power.

  It wasn’t even something that Tolan was certain would work. The only thing he knew was that the runes offered a different sort of protection. A different sort of power. Without intending to, Tolan borrowed from the knowledge of the bondars and he had added elements that turned the ground in front of him into something of a bondar. By the time he added the fourth rune, there was an incredible amount of energy bubbling up from within it.

  The Grand Master began to shape through it as well.

  Tolan wasn’t sure if that would even work, but the combined energy of the two of them shaping through it built, creating a bubble of power that expanded around them.

  “How is it that you knew to do this?” the Grand Master asked.

  “I’m not even entirely sure what this is.”

  “You connected us to the Convergence. As far as I know, that shouldn’t be possible, not without being closer to Amitan.”

  “It’s knowledge of bondars from the village.” He didn’t have to explain which village to the Grand Master. He would know.

  The Grand Master nodded, and he pushed his glasses up on his nose before turning his attention to the shapers all around them. “We cannot kill them.”

  “I know.”

  Carson turned his attention toward Tolan. The shaping that swept over Tolan was powerful. It battered at the barrier that he had erected. He focused on that power and, with each battering the Inquisitors used, forced himself to draw more through the runes, through the makeshift bondar he had formed.

  He continued pull upon that power, and it exploded outward.

  He and the Grand Master sent it surging away from them, and it knocked most of the Inquisitors down. Another surge, and Tolan held them down.

  The Grand Master strode forward.

  He used a twisting shaping of spirit, mixed with each of the other elements, a technique that Tolan didn’t know, and he pounded it into each of the Inquisitors.

  As he went, they collapsed.

  Finally, the Grand Master took a deep breath, sweeping his gaze around him. “It’s done. They shouldn’t cause any more trouble—”

  The air shimmered near the Grand Master and a shaping exploded, sending him flying. He landed with a sickening thud. Velthan collapsed next to the Grand Master, landing alongside him. Neither of them got up.

  Tolan looked over to see Roland appear.

  He watched Tolan, a look of amusement on his face. He carried Tolan’s sword.

  “You have become predictable, Tolan. Your mother thought more highly of you. She thought you would be far more impressive than this by now, but it seems to me you are no different than so many others we’ve faced over the years.”

  “What are you after with this?”

  “You really don’t know? Considering everything you supposedly know about the elements and the elementals, you have to ask me?”

  “You’re focusing spirit in order to control the elementals.”

  “Something like that,” he said.

  “I destroyed all of the bondars,” Tolan said.

  “I’m sure you did, but can you destroy all of them in every place I’ve put them?”

  Roland smiled at Tolan, and there was a flicker of darkness in his eyes.

  As Roland looked at Tolan, a shaping started to slither inside him.

  It was subtle, but it wasn’t so subtle that Tolan wasn’t aware of what was happening. He tried to resist, aware of the way Roland was trying to shift that shaping underneath his defenses, and tried to seal his mind, using each of the elements in order to do so. Tolan even went so far as to borrow from the bondar and the runes he’d formed, thinking that in doing so, he should be able to protect himself.

  Even as he focused on those elements, the power continued to seep within his mind. Tolan forced that power away, thinking there had to be some way to defend himself. The spirit shaping began to slow, but it was still there, working within his mind.

  “You won’t be able to hold onto that for long,” Roland said.

  “You won’t be able to use me.”

  “Much like I haven’t been able to use all of them?” He swept his hand around him, motioning to the Inquisitors. “Your mother did offer some good ideas during her time serving me. She wasn’t always the brightest, unfort
unately, but she wanted to serve well. As I’m sure you remember. She longed to serve me. She loved it.”

  Tolan glared at him, thinking about the spirit Roland used upon him. “If you think taunting me with my mother and her death is going to affect me, you’re wrong.”

  “Oh, I’m well aware that won’t. What about this one?”

  The air shimmered again, and suddenly Master Minden was there. She remained standing, locked in place, unmoving.

  The spirit shaping used upon her was strong enough that Master Minden wasn’t able to move. Tolan could only guess at the depths of Master Minden’s power, but the one thing he’d long suspected about her was that she had enough power and control over spirit to make her formidable. Had she known about his mother, she might have been able to stop her before they got to the point they had.

  “I feel your affection for her. You try to hide it from me. Much like you try to hide your affection for him.” He nodded toward the fallen form of the Grand Master. Tolan had to hope the Grand Master could recover and somehow was able to use a shaping of water—or even any of the other elements—to heal himself, but Tolan didn’t have the time to test and determine if that was the case. “When I’m done with all of this, there is another I know you feel affection for.”

  Tolan resisted the urge to turn. So far, Ferrah was hidden, a masking over her, but…

  “It seems I don’t even have to go for her, do I?” Roland asked.

  He used a shaping that swept out around them, sweeping through Telfair, and it revealed Ferrah.

  Tolan resisted the urge to scream. It would’ve done nothing anyway. The only thing it would accomplish would have been giving the other man what he wanted. He wanted that reaction from Tolan; to know he’d gotten to him.

  Tolan had to continue to fight.

  “Why?” Tolan had to keep him talking. The one thing he’d learned about Roland was that he loved to hear himself talk. If Tolan could convince Roland to keep going, he would give up something and perhaps even reveal the purpose behind his actions. “If you’re after the elementals, there would be a better way to go about it.”