Serpent of Fire (17 page)

Tan sighed. Had he better instruction when he first knew that he could shape, it might not have taken him so long. Then again, he might never have developed the ability to reach the elementals had anyone taught him, so there was some value in learning on your own.

“I will do what I can,” he promised.

Roine nodded. “That’s all we can ask. You will show me what you know of these tunnels?”

Tan used a shaping of fire and allowed saa to take control of it, lighting their way. Roine studied the walls, stopping at each door as they went. Finally, he stopped and turned to Tan.

“The only other time I was here.…”

Tan clapped him on the shoulder. “I know. It was the day Lacertin died.”

“It was the day a part of me died,” Roine said softly.

“And another part born,” Tan said. “Come. There is something you should see.”

He led Roine through the tunnels, stopping partway along at the door leading up into the palace. Roine focused on the rune, this time almost managing the shaping himself. Tan again guided him, helping him combine the different elements so that he could reach spirit. Like the other, this door opened easily.

“These lead throughout the city?” Roine asked.

“This leads into the palace. There are others that lead up into other parts of the city. There’s even one that leads into the university.”

Tan hadn’t begun the work on that particular set of steps yet. It didn’t seem to matter until the university itself was rebuilt, though it was nearly done. Each day, the shapers managed to build the walls higher and higher. Ferran had even convinced golud to infuse the walls, strengthening them just as much as the walls of the archive were strengthened, though as far as Tan could tell, it might even be different than what was in the archives. Ferran made a request to golud, whereas Tan couldn’t tell if the runes on the archives held the elemental in place.

“This isn’t what you wanted to show me?” Roine asked.

“You knew about these tunnels already. I think it’s only right that you should be able to access them as well. You’re a warrior, Roine. You
should
be able to reach spirit. But this isn’t what I wanted to show you.”

They continued into the tunnels. As they moved, the air changed, the cool sense of ara shifting, gaining hints of warmth, that of ashi. There came the occasional buzzing sound, a harsh sense much like swarming insects, which Tan associated with ilaz. Wyln, the other wind elemental Tan knew of, remained essentially silent.

Tan stopped at one of the massive doors with the single run marking it. This wasn’t the draasin den—he wouldn’t show Roine which door led to the draasin, not wanting to endanger either Roine or the fire elementals—but it was similar. Tan pressed on the door with a shaping of spirit and fire, opening it.

“What is this?” Roine asked.

“This,” Tan began, “is a secret that the kingdoms have kept for centuries.” The other side of each door was the same. There was an enormous room. Large chains, most long since rotted and damaged by time, hung from the walls. Golud was strong here, a counter to the fire that had once been contained.

Roine examined the chains, his eyes seeming to take everything in, sliding around the room. “I don’t understand. What was this place meant to hold?”

“What do you sense here?” Tan asked.

Roine frowned. Tan waited as Roine used an earth sensing, reaching out around him. “This is ancient. From a time before the city was born.”

“The archives predate the city,” Tan said. He still didn’t understand why.

“What did they keep here?” Roine asked. He touched the remains of one of the chains, and it crumbled beneath his fingers. Roine turned to another chain, this one near the floor, and touched it as well. It was more solid, or golud remained within it. It held.

“What would you need enormous earth strength to contain?” Tan asked.

Roine’s eyes widened. “Tan, there are no records of the ancient shapers holding the draasin.”

Tan smiled sadly. “No records? I think we’ve seen otherwise. The draasin were held in the ice. And they were held in places like this. I think the ancient shapers thought to harness them, much like they did the other elementals.”

Roine looked up. “Why would they do something like this?”

Tan sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe we’ll never know.”

“If any can learn, it will be you, Tan.”

Tan shook his head. The more he learned of the ancient shapers, the less he wanted to know. They were nothing like the shapers he’d idolized, nothing like the shapers the entire university idolized. They treated elementals more like Par-shon and used them in ways that the Great Mother never intended.

He almost told Roine what happened to the artifact then, but bit it back. Roine wasn’t ready. He didn’t see things quite the way that Tan did. Maybe he never would. Roine still didn’t understand how they needed to work with Incendin, regardless of the cost. How could he see that it was a good thing the artifact had been damaged?

T
an was again awoken by the elementals, this time from ara blowing against his face with a restless energy. This was a different type of calling, but so similar to how golud had summoned when attacked by the earth traps.

He jumped from the bed, somehow managing to avoid waking Amia. He didn’t want her to see him leave, didn’t want her to look at him with eyes that begged him to return safely. It would only distract him from what must be done. And right now, he didn’t even know what that was.

After strapping on his sword and stepping outside the wagon, he stood, focusing on the draw of ara. It came from the east and the north, but distantly.

What is it?

The wind elemental didn’t speak to him but blew with more urgency.

Tan shaped himself into the air, assisted by Honl. He focused on ara, letting it draw him forward, though he didn’t know where it pulled him. The sense was vague and persistent, but it was there, agitated as golud had been when the earth traps had been placed. This was different, though Tan didn’t understand why.

As he followed the pull, he debated summoning help. The last time the elementals had summoned him, he’d nearly been overwhelmed. Did he dare risk the same?

He decided against it. If ara were involved, then his mother would know.

But what if she didn’t? Who did he trust to help? Who would be strong enough to help him if this was another Par-shon attack? He didn’t want to disrupt the Chenir celebrations, so didn’t dare summon Ferran or Roine.

For the second night in a row, he used the summoning coin to call on Cora.

Tan trailed ara, moving ever faster on the wind. Soon he was flying across Ter, the wind whipping around him.

The ground beneath him looked peaceful in the silver moonlight. Shadows trailed across the earth, and the rolling hills were welcoming. Life was down there, and power from the elementals that lived among the land, living with people oblivious to their presence, oblivious to the forces powering their streams, creating the hills and grasses, the breezes blowing, and the fires that crackled within their hearths.

Even as the landscape shifted and Tan passed over the remnants of the barrier—now again growing stronger with whatever shaping that Roine had the shapers working—the elementals were involved. Tan didn’t need to be close to the ground to see how the nymid flowed through the streams or golud lifted the mountains. They might not be found in such concentrations as were found near Ethea, but the elementals were there.

And then ara’s pull slowed.

Tan readied a shaping, not certain what he would find.

Hovering on the wind, he remained suspended above the ground, staring down at what he suspected was now part of Chenir. What did it mean that he was drawn to Chenir so soon after their delegation appeared in Ethea? Was there was connection?

Below him, he didn’t sense anything unusual, but then he was still high above the ground. The one thing that he feared—finding evidence of kaas—he couldn’t detect. Tan focused inwardly, reaching for the fire bond. Trails of flame leapt up around him, streaking along the ground far below. There was no sign of elemental power mixed within. Nothing that would indicate something for ara to fear. What, then, had drawn him here?

Tan lowered himself to the ground.
Careful here, Honl. If ara is irritated, then we must be vigilant.

I am ready, Tan,
Honl answered.

As he did, pain, searing and sharp, split through his mind.

The sense was familiar, one that he’d experienced when Par-shon tried separating him from his bonds. This came quickly and suddenly, and without warning.

Tan dropped to his knees, barely able to focus. Pain watered his eyes, but he forced himself to see through it. If he could find the source, he could destroy the attack before it succeeded.

He found nothing.

Had he not been focusing inwardly to reach the fire bond, he might not have recognized the slow rumbling suddenly coming beneath him. As it was, Tan sensed it as much as he felt it physically rolling through him.

A shadow overhead blurred out the moonlight.

Tan looked up. “No!” he shouted. The effort split his skull nearly more than he could tolerate, but he couldn’t risk Cora landing, not with Enya only recently bonded to her. Another attack might be more than she could tolerate.

He reached for spirit. That had been the only thing that saved him in Par-shon. It was the one element that he could shape that Par-shon could not.

It was there, but weak and distant. Tan strained to connect to spirit, feeling it burbling just below the surface of his mind, and plunged himself into the well of spirit deep within him.

The pain lessened and then stopped altogether.

The fire bond still raged within him.
Stay back, Enya. They try to separate the bond.

No, Maelen, it is worse than that.

At first, Tan didn’t know what she meant. Then the pain returned, a raw and angry sense, burning against his mind. Wind whipped around him, the warmth of Honl, but it grew weaker. The wind elemental had barely survived the last time Tan had faced kaas. Now, he was being ripped from Tan, the bond severed. Holding onto spirit as he did, he could practically see it happen. And it was terrible.

Honl!

Tan could sense the wind elemental struggling to reach him but failing. Somehow, kaas—fire—drew the elemental toward it.

The fire bond told Tan where to find kaas, but it was a blurry sort of sense, as if kaas didn’t exist in the fire bond the same way the other elementals did. Kaas raged deep beneath him, burrowed into the earth like some massive worm. Fire blazed there, drawing his wind elemental.

Tan did the only thing he could do. He shaped spirit, adding wind and fire, pulling against kaas. Honl was always an indistinct elemental, becoming vaguely translucent only when he wanted, but Tan’s shaping changed something, drawing Honl into him, pulling on him.

Without meaning to, Tan pulled on other elementals around him. As he did, he recognized the danger. Kaas began to pull on them as well.

If Tan wasn’t careful,
he
would be the reason the elementals were drawn to kaas.

How could he stop an elemental? When Tan had been attacked before, he had always broken the bond to stop the attack. The elemental had
wanted
the freedom. This was different. This time, the elemental wanted nothing more than to feed on the other elementals.

The Great Mother would not want this!
Tan shouted along the fire bond. He didn’t know if it would work, if kaas even connected to the fire bond the same way that the other elementals seemed to, but what else could he try?

A great heaving laughter rolled through the fire bond. That was the only response that Tan heard. It reminded him of both the draasin and the nearly unintelligible speech of golud.

You will not do this!

Tan pulled through his sword, starting a shaping of spirit only. To this, he bound each of the elements, mixing them as he once had done simply to reach spirit. Tan pulled from within himself, but when he recognized that it might not be strong enough, he drew from the elementals around him. From draasin, and ara, and nymid, and even golud, buried deep beneath him, Tan reached for them all. They filled him with power, and he exploded it outward, reaching
through
the earth, pressing downward, racing toward the massive fire connection that he sensed moving through the earth.

His shaping struck the elemental. There was resistance. Tan thought kaas might attempt to overpower him and pulled on more elemental strength, drawing everything he could around him.

The fire elemental could only withstand so much. The shaping pressed it down, back into the earth, and away. Through the fire bond, he sensed it as kaas slithered deeper into the ground, eventually losing the ability to track it at all.

Tan held his connection to the elementals until he was certain the attack was over. Then he released them, and they faded back to recover, although not all did. A shadowy figure stood near him, drifting above the ground.

Tan pulled on a shaping of wind, wanting to warn Honl away.

The figure moved toward him.

Tan shaped earth, reaching toward the figure, but it did nothing, simply passed through.

He frowned. What was this?

Tan?

The figure approached, becoming somewhat more real as it did. There was something familiar about the figure and about the way that it moved toward Tan. Almost an ethereal quality, a wispiness, and a warmth….

“Honl?”

Tan spoke his name aloud, not fully intending to do so, but surprise at the elemental overwhelmed him.

Tan. What happened?

You’re… visible,
Tan said.
Is this my fault?

I remember being torn from you. There was the sense of fire. Great pain. And then you were there. Warm and vibrant and pulling me together.
The figure that was Honl stretched out long, smoky arms and seemed to stare at them.
How is this?

I don’t know. Kaas attacked. I sensed that it would destroy you. I did what I could to prevent it,
Tan said. He hadn’t intended to
change
Honl into something different, but what had he done?
Does it hurt?

I feel,
Honl began, and turned his arms around again, as if trying to find an answer,
I feel different. Not pain. Not like there was.

Are you still connected to the wind?

Tan had only wanted to protect the elemental, not lead him to more harm, but if he had severed the connection between Honl and the wind, then he had done more damage than even kaas would have done.

Honl flickered in the wind, drifting up and then down.
The wind is… different.
I
am different. The connection remains.

Tan let out a relieved sigh.
Do you know what happened here? Ara called me to this place.

Ara. The wind
was
here, but now ara is gone.

Gone?

Kaas claimed the wind from these lands.

Tan hesitated, listening for the gentle breeze, the cool wind that had called him, expecting to find ara, but there was nothing. That was why he hadn’t been able to speak to ara, why the elemental had summoned. Kaas had destroyed ara in these lands.

You will stop this?
Honl asked.

I’m not sure that I know how,
Tan told him. Above him, Enya and Cora still circled, remaining away from the danger of kaas. Cora would want to know what had happened. Enya might know—the fire bond could have told her—and then she could have passed it on to Cora.
Can you return with me?

I must find the ashi. Understand what happened.

I will do all that I can to stop kaas, Honl. I don’t yet know how, but know that I will try. I… I am sorry.

You saved me, Tan. Do not be sorry.
The elemental drifted away on a trail of dark smoke.

Tan searched the clearing around him for evidence of what had called him here. There had been something that drew ara, that had attempted to tear him and Honl apart. He would find it.

Moonlight caught off something that looked like branches twisting in a tree overhead, but the wind was still and it should not have been moving. Tan leapt to the air on a shaping and plucked the strange shape from the tree. It was made of metal, and dark runes were etched along the surface. Some were for wind, but others were different. Not binding, but summoning, if he recognized them from the Rune Master’s memories. Tan searched for another and found it anchored to a pile of stones. There was a third seemingly hanging in the air. And a forth covered with needles, as if intending to hide. Each was the same, covered with dark runes and marked with patterns for summoning.

Tan pushed them together in anger fueled by earth shaping, balling them up. Had he known how, he would have simply destroyed them, but he didn’t know the secret to doing it without harming himself.

He carried it into the air on a shaping and faced Cora. Raged burned through him, growing hotter the more he thought about what the elemental had done. He thrust the balled-up elemental trap in front of him, showing it to her.

“This is what called me here,” Tan spat. “An elemental trap, but one meant to summon. Not for Par-shon to trap the elementals, but for this kaas to
feed
on them.”

Cora gasped. “They use the elementals; they would not destroy them!”

“This is not the first. They attempted an earth trap around Ethea, but we managed to stop them.” With a dawning horror, he thought he understood now what had been planned along the border with Incendin. “And fire. They were attempting to trap fire when we interrupted them.”

“Where were you?” Cora asked.

“Near Nara.” Tan breathed out, remembering where they had been. “Near the den. They were trying to trap draasin.”

And water. Had he stopped the water trap, removing the stones before they could do anything dangerous?

How many other places had they targeted? The elementals would never be safe until he did what he promised Honl: He would have to destroy kaas.

Only, he had no idea how to do so. Both times he’d encountered the elemental, he’d nearly lost.

“But why? What purpose would it serve for this kaas to feed on other elementals? And why so many?”

Tan shook his head. “I don’t know. If the First Mother still lived, or even if Lacertin still lived, we might have someone we could ask, but there is no one. There might be records, but the archives are too extensive and we don’t have the time to spend searching.”

Enya focused on Tan, her deep yellow eyes unblinking.
You must stop this, Maelen.

I’m not sure that I know how.

The Eldest may know.

Asboel. But Asboel hadn’t shared with Tan anything that he might know about kaas, other than for Tan to feel fear.
There must be a way, but he does not share how kaas was banished the last time.

I was a hatchling then. I had not yet claimed a name. The Eldest must remember.