Serpent of Fire (10 page)

Roine glanced from ball of fire, now glowing with a faint blue light, hotter than almost any shaping Tan had ever performed. “I don’t understand.”

Tan smiled. “Because this is no longer my shaping.” Roine’s frown deepened. “You can sense how much heat is here, yes?”

“I couldn’t shape something that hot, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“And it would take me considerable focus, but with the elementals, I don’t need to use such focus. This, Roine, is saa. Not draasin. Not inferin. Not saldam. Saa. You claim saa a ‘lesser elemental,’ but you once said the same about the nymid. And like the nymid, saa has much strength burning within it, but not everywhere. Here, in Ethea, saa competes with other elementals of fire, but there are places where saa is incredibly strong.” He cupped the flame again, encouraging saa to send it dancing. “Without saa, I doubt I would have escaped Par-shon. Saa is fundamentally different than the draasin, but even the draasin do not consider them weaker. Only different.”

Roine studied the flame, and his eyes danced with the light of it. He reached toward the fire, but then jerked his hand back and swore under his breath. He glanced over at Tan and shook his head. “If this is saa…”

“None in the kingdoms are bonded to saa, Roine,” Tan said. “I can ask saa for help with things like this, and I can use the strength of saa found here, but it’s different than the communication I have with the draasin. I would
know
if something were to happen to the draasin I bonded to, but to the hatchling? I didn’t know at first. And saa is even harder. So to assume that worrying about the so-called greater elementals is all we need to do, we risk losing more than you realize.”

Roine settled back in his chair and ran his hand across the back of his head, scrubbing through his hair. “And this is how the Utu Tonah has bonded countless elementals?”

Tan nodded.

Roine let out a controlled breath. “When you told me that before, I never thought the lesser elementals amounted to much. Sure, I figured it gave him some measure of increased strength, but I didn’t think that having other elementals would help him. I thought that was why he wanted the draasin bond.”

Tan sent a quiet request to Honl, letting the warm breeze of the wind elemental draw through the room and then fade. “I’ve bonded to ashi, not ara. I will tell you that this bond is not weaker than ara.”

“Great Mother,” Roine whispered.

“I’m sorry, Roine. I thought you understood before.”

“I heard what you’d told me before, but apparently I wasn’t listening.” He met Tan’s eyes. “I still don’t know what to make of this. And regardless of what you think, Tan, Incendin remains dangerous. They will do whatever it takes to keep themselves safe, the same as
we
must do.”

“What they must do is recognize the shared threat,” Tan said. He sent a request to saa to release the shaping back to him, and then Tan let it fade out.

Roine laughed. “Were it only so simple. If all were able to simply recognize what
should
be done, there would be no need for war.”

“Roine, there’s never a need
for war.”

The king regent shook his head. “If only that were true.” He took a deep breath and then stood, his eyes hesitating as he looked at the spot the fire shaping had occupied. “Now, I need my Athan to first take care of the traps, then go onto Incendin.”

Tan crossed the small office to the door. As he pulled it open, Roine caught him.

“Tannen,” he started, “thank you for serving as Athan. I don’t know if I could do what I need to if I didn’t have faith that you would do what needs done.”

“I won’t do things the same way as you would.” Tan looked over his shoulder to see Roine nodding.

“I wouldn’t expect you to. But I trust that you’ll always do what needs to be done, regardless of how you feel about it. It was not always easy for me either, especially after what happened with Anna. I wanted nothing to do with the kingdoms. Nothing to do with shaping at all. But Althem convinced me—whether shaped or not—that I needed to serve, so I did what was needed. As will you.”

Tan watched him for another moment, trying to decide if there was anything that he could say, that he
should
say, but realized there was not. Roine—his king regent—had told him what he needed to do, and now Tan would have to see it complete.

“
I
don’t see where you think I should go.”

Tan and Vel stood a league outside of Ethea, nothing but a small stream splitting through the countryside. Tan wished that he had asked someone else to help with the traps around the city, but Vel had seemed the best option. With his bond stolen from him, he didn’t have to worry about risking a severing, and Vel understood the need to remove all the traps. He was driven nearly as much as Tan. But then there was the fact that Vel still wasn’t ready to return to Doma. He could still shape water, but when he’d last been there, he’d been a powerful bonded shaper. Elle had told Tan how important that had been for Vel.

There was another reason, one that Tan hated admitting to himself. As someone who had bonded naturally to the elementals, Vel appreciated the connection. Tan didn’t have to worry about him attempting to steal the traps they had found.

“You need to better explain what you think I should be doing,” Vel went on.

The sun was nearly to midday, but a cool breeze still gusted. He was not cold—he no longer felt cold the same way as he once did—but he recognized ara’s influence. “It’s along here, I think,” he said, pointing to the stream, ignoring the question.

So far, they had removed nearly two dozen earth traps, circling the city about a league out. How had Par-shon managed to place so many traps without detection? Why would they
need
so many traps? Each was the same as the one he’d found with Ferran. Runes coated them, looking less ominous in the daylight. Once removed from the ground, Tan sealed the holes with an earth shaping and a request to golud.

They moved on to the water traps. The stream here was the first, but neither Tan nor Vel had figured out how to find the trap. “I don’t know how to describe it. You’re from Doma. Haven’t you seen their water traps before?”

Vel grunted. “They use
ships
as their traps. Nothing about streams. Why would they bother? What good is the water elemental from something like…?”

With a draw upon the nymid, Tan sent a stream of water spraying at Vel. “What good are the nymid? Is that what you were going to ask?” He used a combination of earth sensing mixed with spirit and water as he combed the shore, searching for the trap. He still couldn’t find it.

Vel wiped his hand across his face and smiled at Tan, showing a mouthful of missing and damaged teeth. “You’re feisty. Much like your mother.”

Tan grunted in response and turned away. Why did everyone seem to find the need to compare him to someone else? His mother said he was like his father, or like Roine. Now Vel said he was like his mother. Rather than let the comment bother him, he decided to ignore it. “You’re a water shaper. Help me find where they placed these traps.”

Tan used a combination of sensing, pulling on water and spirit, straining for evidence. They had to be here. The memories from the dead Par-shon woman told him that they would be here.

Yet he couldn’t find them.

Tan kicked at the water, trailing his legs through the cool stream. It moved quickly through here, gliding against the rocks, flowing away from Ethea and out toward Vatten and the sea beyond. Tan walked in the middle of the stream, letting the water rise nearly to his waist. Using a shaping as he walked, he made his way through the stream.

There was nothing. Only the sense of the water.

Nymid,
Tan sent. Standing in the water solidified the connection, but now that he’d bonded to them, it was easier than it had been. Once, reaching the nymid would have taken great strength. Now he could almost feel their slippery sense in the back of his mind, trailing there constantly, granting him access to water.

He Who is Tan.

Tan smiled tightly at the greeting.
I need help. There are those who would trap elemental power. They would force the binding.

We have seen this.

Tan hesitated.
You know where the traps could be found?

The water became turbulent around him, flowing past his feet, throwing up green-tinted spray that splashed against his face. He followed the turbulent flow, searching for what caused the water to be disturbed.

Along the shore, a series of stones created the shape of a rune for water. Etched into the stones were other runes, marking a binding of some sort. Tan grabbed the stones and threw them out of the water toward Vel.

He picked the first one up and turned it over in his hands. “This is the water trap?”

“I don’t know. It’s something,” Tan said.

Vel held the stone out. “The earth traps, those were clear. The runes they used had a distinct intent to them. The rods circled the city, Tannen.”

Tan stood up after tossing the last of the stones. “I was with you, Vel. I remember.”

“Yes. Yes.” He pulled the rock back toward his face and studied it, his eyes going wide as he did. “This is different, yes? You can see how the rune marks a binding, but it is not to force a bond.”

Tan stepped out of the water. With a gentle shaping of water and fire, he dried his pants. Behind him, the stream’s restless burbling grew quieter now that the stones had been removed. “What do you mean?” he asked.

He took the stone from Vel and studied it. Using the Par-shon woman’s memories had another advantage besides only letting him know where the traps were found. That was useful, but more useful was her knowledge of the runes, and the meaning behind them. She had known more about runes than even the First Mother.

As he stared at the stone, he understood what Vel said. “This wasn’t to bind water,” Tan said.

“No. No. No.”

Tan glanced up at Vel. The water shaper had the wild gleam to his eyes, much like when Tan had first met him. Maybe he’d been mistaken in bringing him with him. Vel had been a prisoner within Par-shon for years. Not long enough to lose his mind, not like Cora had nearly done, but long enough that he suffered from it. Tan had healed him as much as he could, and Amia had attempted a spirit shaping, but this wasn’t the first time Tan had seen the return of his crazy glint.

“Vel?”

He blinked and shook his head. Then he smiled. “You see what they do, don’t you?”

“I’m not sure that I do.” Even understanding the runes didn’t mean Tan knew what they would do. He recognized the shapes and some of the intent, but it was like learning another language without someone like Amia to gift him with knowledge as she had with
Ishthin.

Vel dropped the stone onto the ground and knelt next to the stream. He trailed his hand through the water, letting it swirl around his fingers, over and across them. He scooped a handful and let it drip back in. “Nymid is here, yes?” Vel asked.

“Nymid. Possibly others,” Tan said. There were other water elementals, much like the one of mist that Elle had bonded. With udilm healing her, Tan had expected her to bond to it. If she had, though, would Par-shon have found her sooner? How many of the udilm were bonded by Par-shon now? Vel had once had such a bond, but they had stolen it from him. From what Cora described, Par-shon trawled through the sea with massive ships to trap the elementals.

“Why nymid? Why here?” Vel asked.

Tan snorted. “Better to ask why are any of the elementals found here.”

Vel’s eyes widened. “Yes. Much better to ask that. Why are the elementals found here?”

“Elementals are part of the world, Vel. They’re as natural as the water itself.”

He shook his head. “Not the same. You’ve see it, Tan. Doma has udilm. Incendin has saldam. But the kingdoms? They have each of the elementals. There is a reason the Great Mother provided such a gift. And do not say it is because you have the wisdom to keep them safe.”

From what he could tell, the kingdoms had never had that wisdom. “This is a place of convergence,” Tan said.

The water shaper shrugged. “Perhaps, or maybe there is something that holds them here.”

“Or draws them.”

Vel smiled darkly. “Are they not the same?”

“No. The elementals have choice. They have always had choice.”

Vel stood and wiped his hands on his pants to dry them. He kicked at the pile of stones near Tan. “Choice like this? These do not bind an elemental to a person, they bind the elemental to the land.”

Tan stared at the stones, frowning at them. Could
it be as Vel said? Could the stones attempt to hold the nymid to the land? What Vel implied meant something different than trapping the elementals, and what Tan saw on these stones looked different than what he expected from a trap.

He stepped back into the stream, letting the water swirl around him.
Is that what these do?
he asked of the nymid.

The water swirled again, growing more agitated.
He Who is Tan. You ask of things that have little meaning to the nymid.

Tan wondered if there might be another way to convey his meaning.
Do they restrict you? Force you to flow in certain places?

They draw the nymid.

Draw, but for what purpose? Pulling the nymid here would be different than trapping them, and Tan would know if the nymid were trapped. Then what purpose did Par-shon have with these?

Can you tell me how long they have been here?

Time to the nymid is different than for you. We do not count the passage of time in the same way. Water rushes through rivers and streams and joins the ocean. There are cycles, but you would not understand.

Tan sighed, wishing he had a better way to communicate.
Is there anything you can tell me about these?

Water is pleased to see them gone. We can flow freely now.