Born of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 8) (14 page)

T
hey stopped
at the edge of a steep slope. Far below, Tan saw craggy rocks that hadn’t fully recovered after the Utu Tonah had drawn the elementals from the land. That restoration would take time. Even in Chenir, where the shapers there knew ways to speak to the elementals, to draw them back into the land, Chenir hadn’t fully recovered.

“What do you want me to see here, Tolman?”

To the north, the land sloped downward and toward the sea, the crashing of waves audible. South stretched toward a river that probably had once taken up much of this ravine.

Tolman stood at the edge of the rock and pointed. “There,” he said. “You must use fire. I… I have no strength in fire.”

Tan searched with earth first, figuring that if Tolman could detect anything, it must be with earth, but there was nothing. Switching to fire as the other man suggested, he detected a nagging sense at the edge of his senses, but not one that he recognized. “What is it?”

“You asked what the Utu Tonah sought while in Par.”

Tan nodded.

“This is what he sought. Only, he was never able to find it.”

Tan sucked in a breath. “You hid it from him?”

“Not me, my Utu Tonah. All of Par. It was a quiet rebellion.”

“Why show me now?” Tan wondered what he would find. What would be so important that they would protect it from the Utu Tonah and keep him from discovery?

“You… If you speak to the elementals, you would learn eventually.”

“What is it?” Tan asked again.

“This is something that you will have to experience on your own.”

Tan wasn’t sure that he liked that answer, but there didn’t seem to be any way for him to find out without simply going and looking.

If Tolman claimed a connection to fire existed down below—and Tan had detected that there was—then he would use that as a guide. Holding onto the sense of fire, he followed the faint sense, dropping down the side of the rock on a shaping of wind and fire until he was nearly to what he detected. Whatever it was had been buried deep within the ground.

Tan glanced up, wondering if Tolman played some kind of prank on him. Reaching any farther from here would require him to shape through the stone, but using earth sensing, Tan detected a massive void deep beneath. Whatever Tolman intended for him to find would be under there. Maybe it was nothing other than a strange cavern, but maybe there really was something. Without his connections to fire and earth, he doubted that he would have detected anything. Not only earth but the connection that he gained through Kota.

What is this?
Tan asked her.

He sensed her loping across the rock as the hound raced toward him. A mixture of curiosity and a sense of uncertainty radiated from her. Whatever he was about to go after had her nervous.

Careful Maelen,
she said.
I cannot reach there. Another protects it.

Another?

Of earth. They are strong and do not care for my intrusion.

An earth elemental protected whatever was in the cavern, and Kota couldn’t reach it. That piqued his interest more than anything else.

Using a shaping of earth that he mixed with a touch of fire, he burrowed a hole through the rock, straining for the cavern that he sensed deep below. The shaping required him to push with more effort than he would have expected, and Tan added a rumbling call to the earth elemental that he suspected was involved in hiding the cavern from him, requesting the elemental’s help.

Tan doubted that he would have been able to reach the cavern had he not attempted to connect with the elemental. Whatever was there was meant to be difficult to reach. The longer he held onto the connection, the more he became aware that there was something else protecting the cavern. There was a connection there, one that he wasn’t expecting to find but one that he had sensed throughout the city. Bonds. Runes that called to the elementals, asking for their help. And in this place, they answered gladly.

Not only earth but all the elementals worked here to protect this secret. When Tolman had said that Par had protected this place, he might have downplayed the strength that gathered here.

Tan sent a call out to all the elementals that he could reach. Par-shon possessed much strength in many of the elementals, not only fire with saa, but also of earth, the silent but powerful elemental that he detected here, and wind, with wyln gusting through, and even water, with udilm connected to these lands nearly as much as it was to Doma.

He could speak to them all, and did, sending his call for help.

As he did, he asked them to recede, to leave the cavern, if only long enough for Maelen to enter.

The response came slowly, but it did come. The elementals departed, pulling away, all but earth and a trace of fire. Saa made it clear that it
needed
to be there.

If he hadn’t been interested before, Tan was definitely now. For saa to want to remain, even when earth was so prominent here, told him that there was something to this cavern that he really
had
to discover.

Using a shaping of earth, Tan pushed earth to the side. With fire as prominent as it was here, he decided to add more of it to his shaping, ultimately mixing fire and earth in equal measures. An opening formed, slowly widening. The walls glowed from Tan’s shaping, enough for him to see that the tunnel led down—far down to the cavern below.

Can you tell what it is?
he asked Kota.

That way is still blocked to me.

When I go down, can you join me?

I do not think I will be allowed.

Tan had suspected as much, given the tight way that the earth elemental he detected here controlled the cavern, but descending below placed him at some risk, didn’t it?

He looked up and saw Tolman lowering himself on a shaping of earth. He eyed the tunnel Tan had shaped into place. “I can see that I was right. Had I kept this from you, you would have discovered eventually.”

“What is below?”

“As I said, you must experience that yourself.”

Had Tan not been so intrigued by the sense of fire he detected in the cavern, he might not have attempted to reach it, but he wanted to know. He practically
needed
to know.

“You will come with me.”

Tolman shook his head. “Not here. Earth is strong here, but not for me. There would be others if you do not wish to go alone.”

Tan sighed. Others. And more questions about Par versus Par-shon. If only he had a clear answer, but then that was the reason that he came here, to gain a clearer understanding of what Par hid from Par-shon and the previous Utu Tonah.

“She will watch you. Do not think to betray me.” Tan nodded to Kota, and his bonded flashed her fangs. Tolman turned and saw her and his eyes widened.

Without waiting to see how Tolman would react, Tan jumped into the tunnel.

Heat pressed against him, but he no longer feared heat. Fire was a part of him and would not burn him. In spite of his effort to maintain a uniform width to it, the tunnel narrowed as he descended. He dropped quickly, practically sliding through the earth.

And then he stopped. Tan had reached the cavern. Curiosity filled him. All the elementals had worked together, much like they had at the place of convergence when Tan had rescued Asboel. That much collaboration between the elementals surprised him.

Tan shaped fire, drawing on saa. A ball of light sparked into view, and he fed the flames with a shaping of fire, adding more and more until the flame took hold on its own, not needing him to add anything more to the shaping. He released control and saa fed it, filling the cavern with light.

It was a massive space. Walls of smooth stone surrounded him, and he knew that they had been shaped. Power radiated from somewhere nearby, filled with the strength of fire.

Tan made his way toward the sense of power. Earth sensing didn’t give him any insight as to what he might find, and neither did fire. Wind and water left him with no more answers.

Could there be something of spirit here?

Tan didn’t think that was the case, but what, then?

He reached an array of stones, each nearly up to his waist, with ribbed sides layered in striations of color: black and deep blue and scarlet. They were almost perfectly oval but had a wider section on the bottom. All were about the same size, and they clustered in something like a circle, nearly two dozen in all.

This was where Tan detected fire, but he didn’t understand why he would. There was noting about the rock that seemed like he
should
detect fire from it.

He laid his hand on the first stone. The rough edge was hot, much hotter than he would have expected. The cavern stone seemed to draw away the heat, but why would it do that? The other elementals seemed to add to the effect, helping the stone pull away the heat.

Tan frowned. With a powerful sensing of fire, he reached for the stone.

And felt pushed back.

It was the first time fire had repelled him.

But he was connected to the fire bond. He didn’t have to rely on his ability to sense only.

Focusing his mind as he had learned to do when connecting to the fire bond, he reached for it. Once there, he felt the connection, the drawing sense of fire, and pulled through that to determine what hid from him in these stones.

A great stirring answered him, and he nearly lost his focus.

“Draasin?” he whispered.

The word reverberated through the cavern.

He made his way around each of the stones and realized that each of them were not stones as he had thought, but draasin eggs.

Great Mother.
All
of these were eggs. But how?

Had Asboel known? Tan had never asked whether there was any way for the draasin to remain viable now that they had returned to the world, and Asboel had never spoken of it, but Tan had feared that with the passing of his friend, the draasin would eventually fade from the world as well. But what if Asboel had known that there was a collection of eggs like this?

At least Tan understood the reason that Par felt strongly about protecting this place. With as much as the former Utu Tonah had sought the draasin, claiming the need for a bond that would bring him to Unity, having it so close to him, where he would have needed nothing more than to discover a way for the eggs to hatch… that would have made him incredibly powerful, especially if he managed to force bonds to
all
of these draasin here.

Did you know?

He sent the connection through the fire bond and on to Sashari. She remained in the kingdoms with Cianna, and he recognized that she was distracted hunting, but this was too important not to question.

Maelen.

She came from a long way away, and it seemed muted as if the shaping that protected this place also limited his ability to reach her.

Tan pulled an image of the eggs into mind and sent that through the fire bond to Sashari.
Did you know that so many remained?

There was a delay before she responded.
So many. We had hoped…

You didn’t know?

We didn’t know, Maelen. So much had been lost in the time that we were away.

Away. Tan noted that she did not remind him how the draasin had been trapped and forced to be a part of the shaping that had hidden the artifact. Sashari didn’t hold any more anger about that than Asboel had near the end. The draasin could hold their anger deep, but they had come to understand the need for their service. The anger that drove Asboel at the end had been directed toward those who thought to use the draasin against the elementals, not against the ancient shapers who had used him to protect the artifact.

You knew there would be eggs?

That is how it has always been, Maelen. A clutch is buried, and some are lost. Fire would not let the draasin light extinguish.

Will there be others?

Sashari didn’t answer at first.
It is possible that these will be the last.

Tan ran his hand over one of the eggs. Deep within, he felt a subtle stirring that reverberated against his connection to the fire bond. With enough fire and enough coaxing, Tan suspected that he could convince the egg to hatch.

Was that part of his purpose now? Honl spoke of how the Great Mother used him, at first to free the draasin, and then to show that Incendin should not be feared, and finally to defeat the Utu Tonah. Maybe she was done with him yet. And he didn’t mind, especially when he was used like this.

Now wasn’t the time to attempt to hatch the eggs. Before he did that, he would want Sashari, Enya, and Asgar nearby. The other hatchling still hadn’t taken her name, so Tan didn’t think that she would be of much use with the eggs. And the eggs would need to be moved from Par-shon.

No, Maelen. They cannot hatch anywhere but the land they were laid. They will not be viable.

There are nearly two dozen here. These are all of Par-shon?
Or Par, since they were from the time before the Utu Tonah had come.

Not all. The colors are wrong for that land. You must learn where they belong and return them to that land to hatch.

There were so many! But for the draasin, especially given everything they had done to help him, and save the people of the kingdoms, Tan would make whatever sacrifice they demanded of him.

How will I know?

The fire bond will show you.

Tan started toward one of the other eggs. It was lighter colored and streaked with black. In many ways, the egg itself was beautiful. As he made his way toward it, the walls of the cavern began to rumble.

Maelen!

It was Kota, and the urgency in her voice surprised him, as did the difficulty she had even reaching him. Tan glanced at the eggs, concern for them growing with the continued rumbling from the ground, and sent a shaping to the earth, asking the elemental within the rock to come up and protect the eggs. The floor shook and then, slowly, the rock began to form around the eggs, sealing them in place.

Thank you
, Tan sent to the earth elemental.