Cloud Warrior 05 - Forged in Fire (3 page)

Tan hugged her, not knowing what else to say. Amia had been broken more than any of them. Most of the time, she managed to stay strong, but she did it by burying the pain she felt deep within her. Only Tan still felt it, aware that it was there, but hidden. If she were to survive what was to come, she would need to work through that pain. The first step, he knew, was coming to grips with what the First Mother had done. There might never be forgiveness—Tan didn’t think she deserved forgiveness—but there could be healing.

“I will help,” he offered. “Together. We can learn together.”

She didn’t answer.

Tan didn’t need her to in order to know what she thought. “Can you let me work with Cora, not the other shapers?” he asked Roine.

Roine tipped his head. “Tannen—”

“No. I saw the way Wallyn treated her. There was no real interest in healing her. Oh, he tried, but he gave up too easily. He doesn’t understand what she went through. No one can really understand unless they shared that experience of having the bond torn from you.” Tan had only known that pain for a brief period of time, barely enough to gain a true appreciation, nothing like what Cora or Vel had gone through at the hands of the Par-shon shapers. But he knew how he had felt when he sensed Asboel being ripped from him. He knew how he would feel were Amia’s bond taken from him. It was different, but no less a connection.

“You don’t understand,” Roine said with a smile. “What I was trying to say is that you don’t have to ask. You’re a warrior now, Tannen. You’ve proven it time and again to me, but now the others see it, too. So trust me when I say that you don’t have to ask. You have every right to be involved.”

Tan glanced down at Cora. He might be a warrior, and he might have a shaping ability that had been lost for centuries, the ability to reach spirit, to shape spirit, and bind that with the other elements, but he still felt so unprepared. With everything that had happened to him, he felt as ignorant as he had felt the first time he realized that Roine could shape and what that meant. But he was determined to learn. He
needed
to learn, to understand everything the Great Mother had given him.

“There’s a caravan of Aeta coming toward the city,” Tan said. “Can we welcome them?”

Roine looked over at Amia, but she kept her eyes down. Tan sensed the unease she felt at the impending questions. In time, he hoped that would subside. She deserved to have a connection to her people. And he hadn’t shared with Roine, but they might need the Aeta. If there were spirit shapers among them, such ability might be needed in the times ahead. Not to shape others’ minds, but spirit had been important in removing the forced bonds from the elementals.

“They will be welcomed,” Roine answered. “You went searching again?”

“With the draasin,” he said.

Roine flickered his eyes toward the sky, as if expecting to see it circling. “There is still too much fear around here regarding the draasin. You have been wise to keep them from the city.” He paused and looked down. “They are safe?”

Tan hated that he had to keep what he was doing from Roine. Likely, he would understand. He might even agree with Tan’s actions. “They are safe.”

There was a nagging question in the back of his mind, the concern he felt around the draasin, especially knowing the Utu Tonah’s desire to bond to one of them: How long could he keep them safe?

T
an stood
next to Cora’s bed. Her long hair spilled over her shoulders and a thin woolen blanket covered her. She hadn’t moved since they had brought her to this room, in a house much like the one he shared with Amia. And just like at his house, a small hearth held dancing flames that saa slithered through. As Tan watched, he could
almost
see the fire elemental.

There was a small window open to the street below, and a warm breeze flittered through, reminding him of his bonded wind elemental. Since bonding to Honl, one of the warm wind elementals, ara had mostly left him alone. But there was more responsiveness to ara now when he reached for it, something he suspected came from the fact that Tan had managed to heal Zephra and save Aric, her wind elemental, from a forced bond.

The First Mother stood near the end of the bed, one wrinkled hand on either side of Cora’s head. She held her with more gentleness than Tan had expected after everything she had done. The First Mother’s shaping pulled from deep within her, drawing out from her and stretching into Cora.

The shaping was subtle and steady, probing not only Cora’s mind, but her heart and stomach. The last two were unexpected.

“Can you see what I’m doing?” she asked without looking up. Her voice was strong and sharp, so much like the woman she had once been.

“Yes,” Tan said.

The First Mother glanced over at him before staring at Amia. “And you?”

Amia didn’t answer at first, and when she did, she spoke softly. “I see what you’re doing.”

“Good. If you are to repeat this, you will need to know the shaping.”

As they watched, Tan realized the shaping she placed over Cora repeated, coming in waves. Each time, it changed slightly, but each change made sense, as if the change added to what the First Mother had already done.

“You won’t repeat this?” he asked.

“How am I to know whether you will allow me out again, Tannen?” she asked. Her shaping paused. “You come to me with a request for healing, but the People suffer, and will suffer more without a steady hand to guide them.”

“Theondar has offered protection,” Tan said.

She covered her mouth and coughed once. “How is the protection he offers so different than what I offered? Everything is not as simple as you would like. I made choices necessary to keep the People safe, the choices a First Mother must make.”

When Tan didn’t give in to the argument, the First Mother turned her attention back to Cora. “This is one of the more complex shapings the Mothers learn. There are others, but this one serves most of the time.” She didn’t look over at Amia, but the words were meant for her. “There is no change done by the shaper with this. It is meant to heal trauma, which this young woman certainly experienced.”

Cora was young? With her gray hair, he had figured her older than his mother. “The shaping heals the trauma?”

“The shaping allows the mind to heal. They work together, body and mind, which is why the shaping cannot focus simply on the mind. You can see that it does not?”

“I can see,” Tan said.

Amia remained silent.

The First Mother grunted. “Once the shaping is in place, then you can begin the more difficult work. Like this.”

Tan had thought the shaping she used was difficult enough, but then she changed it, the steady pressure of spirit coming from the First Mother now pressing with more intensity and focused completely on Cora’s mind. The shaping seemed to flicker, twisting as it probed through her, the movements more complicated than Tan thought he would be able to create.

“What are you doing with that?” Amia asked suddenly.

The shaping slowed, enough to make it clearer how the First Mother manipulated spirit. Tan could see what she did, though he would need much more practice before he could manage such complexity.

“This,” the First Mother explained, pointing to where the spirit shaping slithered into Cora’s mind, “must be done with care, but once it’s there, you can press like this.”

She did something that Tan couldn’t really see, moving her fingers in such a way that the shaping shifted and twisted. It had a delicacy that reminded him of Zephra’s ability to handle the wind. The control was so much more refined and exquisite than the blunt shapings of spirit that he used for strength and to bolster other shapings.

“Try, Daughter,” the First Mother said.

Amia said nothing, but she assumed control of the shaping, quickly taking the spirit shaping and wrapping it delicately around Cora, using much of the same skill that the First Mother had shown. She was not as deft, but the control was there, and Tan could tell that in time, she would be able to use the shaping with much the same skill. That was the reason the First Mother had been so disappointed that Amia had abandoned the People.

The shaping went on like that for nearly an hour. The First Mother would demonstrate one and Amia would replicate it. Each time, the shaping became ever more complex, to the point where Tan could no longer follow the distinction between each.

While connected to spirit, he could sense Cora slowly coming around. Whatever the First Mother and Amia were doing seemed to be working. Tan was certain that it had nothing to do with him. He had taken to holding the steady spirit shaping the First Mother used when the healing began. Even that taxed him, straining his ability to concentrate.

Then the First Mother nodded. “That is enough for now.” She glanced at Tan as she stepped away from the bed and pulled a chair away from the small oak table nestled into the corner by the window, dropping to it. Exhaustion painted onto her face, but there was something else there as well. Relief? “When I first met you, I did not think you would manage spirit. Then when you forced spirit together with sheer strength, I did not think you would ever manage spirit with much skill. You have grown, Tannen.”

He wasn’t certain what to make of the compliment. “I think I’ve always been able to shape spirit. That’s why Amia I and are connected.”

The First Mother smiled wearily. “You think spirit the only reason for your connection?”

“Not the only reason, but a part,” Tan said.

The summoning coin vibrated softly in his pocket. He resisted the urge to check who it was. Probably Roine trying to make certain they were safe.

The First Mother frowned and leaned back in the chair. Her eyes looked as tired as the rest of her, but she watched how Amia remained near Cora, shaping occasionally, not exhausted after everything that they had done. A hint of pride shone in her eyes.

“Will she recover?” Tan asked. He had sensed a hint of what could happen with Cora, but it was not enough for him to know with certainty.

“Only the Great Mother knows the answer.”

“How was it that she was fine before?” he asked. “When she came with me from Par-shon, she wasn’t like this.”

“She was never fine,” Amia said softly.

Tan went over to her and placed his arm around her shoulders, pulling her against him. With his other hand, he pulled the summoning coin from his pocket and glanced at the rune. Wind. That meant his mother.

“When we left Par-shon, I could sense it. She might have walked and eaten, but that was all. She was something like a shell, nothing more. With healing, her body recovered enough that her mind began to rebel. That was when she attacked us.” Amia met his eyes. “Your shaping took away that last protection on her mind. I can feel what she had done. It’s almost like she placed a shaping of spirit to keep her from remembering.”

“Are you saying Cora can shape spirit?” Tan asked.

Amia shook her head. “I don’t know what I’m saying. Spirit is a part of it, but it’s hard to tell. You did what you could to keep her alive. I can see that. But it confuses what is left.”

Tan shifted his attention to Cora. She breathed slowly but steadily. Her eyes remained closed and she had not moved in the entire time that they had been working. “I… I thought I was helping,” he said.

“You
did
help. Without your shaping, I think she would have died.”

“And without my shaping, she wouldn’t have lost what protection remained over her.”

“You did what you needed to,” Amia said.

Tan sighed. There might have been a different way, but he had thought using spirit would have been the least likely to risk harm. Instead, his shaping had only caused her more.

“I will stay with her,” Amia said. “It is slow, but there is hope for her.”

Tan didn’t push, but if Cora could shape spirit as well as the other elements, they would need to know how. She might have bound the other elements together and used those to forge the connection to spirit. Even that had value.

“I wish I knew what elemental she had bound,” he said. “Maybe that would help you to understand how to heal her.”

The First Mother came over to the bed, standing where Amia had been when the shaping began. “It may be too difficult to determine without her help. Whatever bond was there has been gone for a long time.”

Tan took a deep breath and stepped away. The effort of shaping Cora had weakened him too, but strength came back more quickly these days than it had when he first learned how to shape. Now he was able to draw on the strength of the elementals, use them to restore his reserves. It didn’t even seem to matter
what
he shaped.

Tan glanced at the rune coin again. Amia nodded at it. “Go. See what she wants from you.”

“You don’t want to come?” he asked.

“I would like to see if there’s anything more I can do for her.” She focused on the First Mother, her expression growing harder. “That is, if you are able.”

The First Mother placed her hands flat on the bed and took a deep breath. “I think it will be helpful for her to have additional healing,” she agreed.

Tan pulled Amia to him and gave her a tight hug. “Be safe.”

“You’ll know if I am not.”

The connection would tell him. He was thankful for that fact.

As he left, he heard the First Mother’s voice become sharper, and more like it once had been. “Now, Daughter, this next shaping will be even more complex.”

T
an found
Zephra waiting for him in the home he shared with Amia. She sat in one of the plush chairs angled in front of the hearth. A book spread across her lap as she stared down at it, scanning the page.

She looked up as he entered. “Where did you find this?” she asked, holding the book out in front of her.

It had a thin leather cover marked with a rune for fire, and was one of the oldest books he’d come across that had such rune markings. The other covers had been blank.

The book speculated about the various ways the draasin could be harnessed, though most of the beginning had to do with the actual hunting of draasin. In order to understand what Asboel had known before he had been frozen in the lake at the place of convergence, he had to learn what the ancient shapers had known of the draasin.

“The archives,” he said.

Zephra glanced at the book and back to him. “I have searched the archives. There weren’t texts like this.”

Tan sat in the chair next to her. He took it from her hands and set it on the armrest. The book had once been meant only for shapers like him, but he wanted to understand the views of the ancient shapers before he let his mother or any others begin to go through it. The author’s feelings about the draasin were too much like what he’d seen from the kingdoms shapers.

“These are where most can’t reach,” Tan said.

“They should be brought out for others to study. The teachings of the ancient shapers should be shared, not confined like that. Think of how much we’ve lost because we can’t replicate the shapings they so easily managed.”

Once, he’d felt the same way. He had wanted nothing more than to understand how those shapers of old had managed some of the things they had. The way their wielded their abilities seemed impossible. He had yearned for that level of mastery and skill.

It had taken no more than this one book to change his attitudes. He had grabbed it, thinking he might understand something new about the draasin. Instead, he had learned the various ways shapers trapped the draasin, the techniques to hold them, the creations to confine them. As he had suspected, part of the tunnels beneath the city had been carved out with the intent to trap them. He still didn’t understand why. Asboel didn’t think the draasin had ever bonded before, but could it have been forced?

“There are some teachings that should be forgotten,” Tan said.

“Are you so certain that we can’t learn from the past?”

He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts. How to put it to her in a way that she would listen to him? With her grey hair wound tightly behind her head, held in place by slender rods and the thin lines that stretched from her eyes – brighter than he’d seen in some time – she looked every bit the master shaper she was.

“I think we must learn from what happened before,” Tan agreed. “But some lessons are dangerous.”

She rested a hand gently on his leg. “What do you fear, Tannen?”

“The same as you, Mother. I fear losing my bond, of having my connection to the draasin severed from me. Now that I’ve bonded wind, I fear losing him as well.” The connection to Honl didn’t go as deep as it did with Asboel, but that would likely come in time. Tan and Asboel had shared too much in too short a time to not have depth to their bond. It was much like what he shared with Amia. “I fear what Par-shon intends, knowing the lengths they went to try and trap the draasin before. Now that they know what I can do, now that they know what the kingdoms can do, what more will they try?”

“You think you will lose your connections?”

“I know how Par-shon severs bonds. And you’ve seen how they can do it without the room of separation.”

Zephra sighed and thought for a moment. “You’re wrong about one thing, Tannen,” she said softly. “The ancients didn’t force bonds on the elementals.”

Tan wasn’t so sure. There had to be a reason to hold the draasin confined as they were in the pens beneath the city, using golud and the nymid to trap them. What other reason than to force the bond, to gain the additional power that came with connecting to the elemental? And if the ancient shapers had done that, what made them so different from Par-shon?