Born of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 8) (4 page)

A few of the children murmured. They wanted to know what they would be asked to do, and what it meant for them that the Utu Tonah had come to them.

Using spirit, Tan sensed their mood. Most were nervous, more than he had expected, but there remained a level of fear.

He probed more deeply and realized the source of that fear was him, and what he might ask them to do. Tan shifted the direction of the spirit sensing, reaching Tolman as he stood near the wall of the tower, and realized that fear bubbled within him as well, though a different type of fear.

Tan couldn’t force these children to go to the university, he realized.

They would go. He didn’t doubt the fact that they would do what he asked, but they would do so out of fear, not out of a desire to learn and understand. For them to learn, and understand, and to
believe
, they needed to learn from a different place.

“Tolman,” Tan said.

Tolman came forward, hands gripping the cloth of his robe. “My Utu Tonah?”

“Do you think you can find these children boarding within the tower?”

Tolman blinked. “The tower?”

What are you doing, Tan?

I can’t send them to the university like this. It will delay our plans.

You do not have to apologize. I see what must be done as well as you.

Amia might not admit to it, but Tan sensed her disappointment.

“If they will take it, I will offer the opportunity to teach them.”

Tolman swallowed. “
You
will teach, my Utu Tonah?”

Tan glanced over at Amia. She watched him with an unreadable expression, one shielded from him through their connection to spirit.

“Only those who would allow me. But I will not be the only instructor. There will be others. And they will need someone to oversee them. I would have that person be you, Tolman.”

He nodded slowly. “And the others?”

“Return them to their parents.”

Asgar approached and landed behind him, coming down harder and faster than Tan would have expected, but then he saw the look on Fasha’s face, the wide-eyed excitement that she wore openly.

She climbed from Asgar’s back and bowed to him before returning to stand with the others, who began asking her questions immediately.

Thank you, Asgar.

She has known fire, Maelen.

It was a forced bond to saa.

Asgar snorted before speaking.
Do you think you can change them?

Tan turned and looked at the children. Tolman stood near them, like a shepherd watching over them.
I hope I can change their thinking.

I cannot fly with each of them.

You’re not strong enough?
Tan asked.

Asgar growled softly.
There are limits to even my patience, Maelen. And some will not be able to listen to fire long enough.

Tan thought about the way that Fasha had embraced the opportunity, the quick way that she had jumped onto Asgar, and decided that he needed to help as many as he could convince to come around to seeing the elementals in a way that benefited all.

I intend to stay longer than I planned,
he told Asgar.

I see that.

What of you?

I will remain. This place interests me. And there is something else about it that I do not understand yet.

What?

Later, Maelen. When I have answers.

The draasin leapt to the air on a flap of wings and disappeared into the clouds.

Tan nodded to Tolman and took Amia’s hand, then shaped himself away from the garden.

“
W
hy have
you come to me, my Utu Tonah?” Marin asked him.

Tan stood near the edge of the city. It had taken some time to find Marin, but he was interested in understanding her role as Mistress of Souls. Many of the titles Tolman had explained to him made sense, but this one did not.

“I came to understand.”

Marin leaned over a bucket and dropped it into a well. It splashed far below. Tan could offer to be helpful and shape the water out of the well, but doing that would only frighten Marin. From what he had seen of her, she had a timid nature and seemed to scare easily, in spite of the title she carried.

Somehow, he would have to get through to each of the people who led in Par-shon. Tan didn’t know how he would be able to do that, or even if he could, but if he didn’t, his rule would be defined by control. There was no hope of a lasting change if that was how he served as Utu Tonah.

“What is there to understand, my Utu Tonah?” Marin asked. She pulled the rope, and the bucket began ascending from the well.

“What it is that you do. How you have come to sit among the councilors of Par-shon. These are things I don’t understand as an outsider,” he said, realizing at once that he should not have reminded her. Her back stiffened and her fingers clenched along the rope. “I want to know how to help Par-shon succeed.”

Marin remained quiet as she finished pulling the bucket out of the water. She set it to the side and then dipped three ceramic pots into the water, murmuring something softly. Tan couldn’t hear the words, and those that he did hear, he didn’t understand.

She stood and gently lifted the bucket and sent it back down into the well. “You want Par-shon to succeed, but you have taken away the ability to do so.”

“You mean the elementals.”

Marin tipped her head. She still hadn’t met his eyes, preferring to keep them focused on the ground. The belt she had worn with the runes on them had been replaced by a length of plain rope. She grasped the fabric of her dress in her hands as she stood in front of him. “I mean the strength of the people. How many do you think have these bonds?”

Tan hadn’t thought about how many in Par-shon had bonds but suspected that only those working for the Utu Tonah, his shapers, had been bonded. “Tell me, Marin, what I don’t know.”

She lifted the three ceramic bottles and balanced them in her arms. “May I speak freely, Utu Tonah?”

When Tan nodded, she started forward, toward the city. Par-shon had a unique style of construction to its buildings, with flat roofs stretching over the streets, shielding them from the sun. Down one street, Tan saw one of the strange lizards that he’d noticed during his initial visit, with two people sitting atop the creature as it made its way through the streets. Many were dressed in thin wraps, and some had wraps that covered their necks and faces.

“You are an outsider, Utu Tonah, and so there is much that you don’t know. The people need guidance, leadership, and mostly security. If you are not willing to provide those things, then perhaps another would be better.” She stopped at a gate along a long, low wall and twisted the handle to enter the fenced-in area. “For the people, and for Par-shon.”

“Would that be you?”

She lowered her eyes again. “I provide guidance for their souls, Utu Tonah.”

“I intended for another to rule,” Tan started, “but when I get word that nothing has changed, and that those who sought to lead in my time away from Par-shon revert to patterns and behaviors that led to this war in the first place, I was given no choice but to return and see if there is anything that I can do to influence the people.”

“Influence?” Marin asked. “Is that what you think you were doing when you destroyed generations of bindings?”

“You mean your bonds?” When Marin nodded, Tan suppressed an annoyed sigh. Was this going to be the conversation that he would have to have with everyone in the city? Would he be forced to convince each person about why they could not bond the elementals, and what the consequences from him would be if they did? “How many generations of bonds did the previous Utu Tonah possess?”

Her mouth twisted slightly. “Generations? It is unfortunate that you know so little, Utu Tonah.”

“Then explain it to me,” he said. “Help me understand.”

Marin pushed open the door and started through. “If you will excuse me, Utu Tonah, but there are others who need my services.”

She paused long enough for him to nod to her, and then disappeared behind the gate, closing the door.

Tan lingered for a moment, wondering what she might have meant by that. How could he know so little? He had seen the effect of the Utu Tonah, and had seen the way that he had forced the bonds, stealing them from other shapers, and foraging—harvesting—elementals. Didn’t he know enough?

But maybe there was something more that he hadn’t understood. Hadn’t he once thought Incendin simply wanted to attack the kingdoms because they enjoyed the destruction? There had been another reason, one that Tan had only learned when he discovered Par-shon. He had never known—and had not been able to appreciate—the fact that Incendin had faced Par-shon far longer than any other nation, and that they struggled with their shapers, using the shaping that kept the Fire Fortress burning, to prevent Par-shon from attacking. Wasn’t that safety worth something? There had been a cost, and Incendin had paid it, with shapers willing to embrace fire and turn into the lisincend so that the rest of Incendin could be safe.

He made his way through the street, walking instead of shaping himself along. Amia should be with him. She would have insight gleaned from her years of travel with the Aeta. As a wandering people, they were accustomed to visiting strange places and integrating into the different cultures. But she had remained back in the home of the Utu Tonah, needing to communicate to her people. Just because she had crossed the sea with him didn’t mean her responsibilities as First Mother had changed. They were different, and delegated, which he knew Amia appreciated, as she claimed she no longer had the desire to lead, but there were decisions that only she could make, decisions that she didn’t trust to be delegated.

At an intersection, he stopped and simply looked around. Nothing that Marin said made him feel comfortable that he understood the people of Par-shon as he would need to. And perhaps that was the point. She
wanted
him to question, but for what reason?

He tried seeing if there was something to the people around him, but could identify nothing unexpected. The people were all dressed differently than they would have been in the kingdoms, or even within Incendin and Chenir, places where they had such a different culture than any that he knew. For the most part, everyone moving past him ignored him.

Tan had made a point of wearing the same clothes that he would have worn in the kingdoms. He didn’t necessarily want to blend in. That was not the reason that he’d come to Par-shon. He needed to be here, make the necessary changes that he might find, and then leave.

Only, now he wasn’t sure that he would be able to leave easily.

In some ways, it frustrated him that this wasn’t a challenge that he could simply shape away. He’d grown so skilled with shaping, and so connected to the elementals, that he couldn’t imagine a situation where his ability to shape wouldn’t be able to save him. There was nothing to this that he could shape.

Tan considered the homes and the shops around him. The style was different, with less of the arching rooflines and more of a flatter and squat design, almost as if Par-shon strained to sink into the land. There almost seemed a pattern to the way the homes were arranged.

Some of the buildings had a series of markings on them that reminded him of the ancient runes, but these were different. He paused at one of them and traced his fingers through the pattern. As he did, a surge of earth pressed through him.

Tan pulled his hand back and frowned.

That wasn’t only a rune, it was a mark for the elementals.

There was something similar in the kingdoms. The one that came to mind was on the archives, a rune for golud that helped seal the elemental into the stone. Tan had always assumed that the elementals had chosen to assist with the archives, but what if they were placed there much like the bonds were forced by Par-shon? He’d already learned that the ancient shapers of the kingdoms were in some ways not so different from Par-shon.

Then there had been what the Utu Tonah had said. He had claimed that the kingdoms were the homeland of his ancestors. It might have been a boast, a claim made in the heat of battle, but there was something about it that made Tan wonder.

He hadn’t spent enough time thinking about it, wondering whether there might be more to the former Utu Tonah than he knew. What if the Utu Tonah
had
descended from the same people as the kingdoms? What if there were secrets that he had understood that Tan had yet to learn?

He pushed the thoughts away. He
was
different than the Utu Tonah, regardless of what the man had claimed. He was different than those of the kingdoms, for that matter.

But the pattern on the building, a house that seemed no more unique than any of the others surrounding it, had the power of earth within the stone, supporting it in ways that he would not have thought necessary for a simple home.

Tan listened for the elemental. It was there, a distant rumbling sound coming from deep within the earth. There were many elementals that he had no name for, and this was no different. Earth might exist in the bones of this building, but it had been there a long time.

He made his way down the street, keeping his eyes on the buildings. A few others had similar marks, and Tan found the surge of earth within each as he touched them. This bond was different than the forced bonds, wasn’t it? Different than what they used with the runes?

Maybe it was not. Could that be why Marin and Elanne were angry with him? The runes they had possessed were different than the ones that the Utu Tonah had placed on his body. They had been fashioned into jewelry, or clothing, and set in ways that may not have been the same.

He didn’t know.

Anger had motivated him, and the memory of what the Utu Tonah had done. The people of Par-shon had used the forced bonds of the elementals, hadn’t they? What if there was a different answer than what he understood?

Tan reached a small clearing and noted a tall windmill that pulled water from a well. On the blades of the windmill were marks that he recognized as for wind. He wouldn’t be surprised to find a mark for water as well.

And he did. On the long drain leading to a hook for the bucket was a mark for water. Tan traced it, feeling a reverberation within him that signaled a connection to water, but different than anything he had experienced.

Were these the marks of people who had used the elementals?

Yet, they were also unlike the marks the Utu Tonah had used. Not only for the fact that they weren’t placed on an individual person, but also because they were a different shape and drew from another sense of power. These were older and, in some ways, more like the runes that he’d found in the kingdoms.

Marin had referred to him as an outsider. Tan didn’t deny the fact that he was, and had thought that being an outsider brought him a greater understanding of the elementals. Maybe it did. Maybe his connection to the elementals was the right one, and everything that he saw here was wrong. It was possible that these elementals were trapped, forced by the runes to serve in ways that they would not have chosen, but it was also possible that these were simply markers of power that drew upon the energy of the elementals. If that were the case, then it meant that at some time, Par-shon knew how to work
with
the elementals.

He could destroy the marks, much like he had destroyed the runes worn by the leaders of Par-shon, but what if he was wrong?

He needed more information before deciding.

There were few people in Par-shon he trusted, but could he reach the elementals themselves?

* * *

T
he fire
in the hearth flickered with a vibrant energy. Saa flowed through the flames with more strength than the elemental would have managed in the kingdoms. There, saa was little more than a flicker of energy, the barest spark of life. With enough influence, saa was drawn to the flames and could be used to maintain a fire, but the elemental had none of the same strength that Tan had found here in Par-shon.

Amia sat in a large and ornately carved chair facing the fire. The chairs were much more decorative than any he had ever possessed, and Tan felt a little strange sitting in them, almost as if he claimed the title that he didn’t want. Amia, though, appeared much more at ease, lounging with her legs propped onto a pair of pillows and a notebook spread across her lap. The colorful dress she wore spilled out around her, and her deep blue eyes danced around the room.

“Are you sure that you detected the elementals?” she asked.

“I thought so, but it was different. These weren’t runes, Amia, not like they used in the branding to seal the elementals to themselves.”