Prelude to Fire: Parts 1 and 2 (27 page)

A
s they walked
, the Servants of Issa brought them nearer the kingdoms. Lacertin noted that they walked more quickly than he would have expected and realized that the Servants had been using a subtle shaping of fire as they walked. Without knowing, it, he had copied the shaping, sending a faint tendril of fire behind him, as if he used fire to push himself along.

It shouldn’t work. Lacertin worked with fire often enough and well enough to know that such a shaping
shouldn’t
work, but there was no doubting the fact that they were much closer to the kingdoms than they should be. They had been gone for three days, and in that time, they had nearly crossed the entire waste.

To the south and west, he would reach Nara, but they didn’t guide him that way. Lacertin found his attention dragged to the west, toward his homeland, and thinking of the last time that he’d been there. It was when he had learned of the hound venom, and he had killed several hounds. Lacertin had learned that his barrier had a weakness, one that could only be exploited from the other side.

The pressure of the barrier built the farther he walked. It pushed against his senses, almost a heavy, physical presence, and much stronger than the last time that he had been this close to the border. Althem and Theondar had done as they promised and built the barrier up, making it into something more robust, a true barrier and one that would repel shapers of Incendin.

Cora scratched at her arms and stared ahead.

“What did your people do?” she whispered.

Had it not been his idea, he would have argued about them being
his
people, but then the barrier had been his idea, stolen from Norilan. “There is a shaped barrier between our countries now,” he said.

“Shaped?”

He nodded. Like Cora, he felt the effects of the barrier as an uncomfortable tightening along his skin. “All the elements are used, and it prevents those with the ability to shape any of the elements from passing.”

“From passing which way?”

“Both.”

Cora stared toward the distant barrier as if she could see it. “Why would they do such a thing? Who would imagine it?”

He swallowed. “Me.”

She turned to him. “This is your creation?”

He breathed out and shook his head sadly. “The barrier was my idea, borrowed from another that I saw. Our archivists discovered a way to implement it, and now our shapers maintain it. It takes much strength to build, but very little to hold.”

“And there is no way to cross.”

“Not that I know.”

She nodded. “I don’t know if this is the reason Alisz has brought you here,” she said. “Perhaps there is another,” she suggested.

Lacertin couldn’t think of any other reason that Alisz would bring him to the barrier. Even if he knew a way past it, there was nothing that he would do to help Incendin cross. That was a greater betrayal of Ilton than anything that he’d done so far, great enough that he simply refused to be a part of it.

He considered shaping himself back to the Fire Fortress but decided to wait. He would see why Alisz claimed she brought him here.

The Servants of Issa continued to lead the way, guiding him as they made their way toward the border with the kingdoms. Lacertin noted that they approached Galen, reminding him of where he had crossed the barrier when making his way to Incendin.

Lacertin stopped. Cora pulled on his arm, but he resisted. “No. I will not help you cross the barrier,” he said.

The other Servants all continued on, but Alisz turned to face him. “You have not been asked to do anything, Lacertin Alaseth.”

“There’s only one reason you would bring me to this place.”

“And you presume to know that reason?”

Lacertin stared at the distant green trees of Galen. The winds would be cooler there, gusting from the north and competing with the hot winds of Incendin. “Why else would you bring me here?”

“Why do you think the answer is about you?” Alisz asked. Her gaze flicked to Cora before returning to Lacertin.

Lacertin frowned and looked over to Cora. “What is this? Why did you have them bring me here?”

“This was not me,” Cora said.

“Do not blame Corasha, but Issa has called her to become a warrior, only one of the Sunlands rather than your kingdoms. To do so, she must reach earth. Did you not tell her that you found earth where it was strongest?”

As Lacertin realized what Alisz intended, he shook his head. “I can’t bring her across the barrier,” he started. “I’m not even certain that I can make it across the barrier.”

Alisz studied her sister. “You will try, Lacertin Alaseth.”

“It will not—”

“The San said you will teach. And Cora claims you came to these lands to reach earth. If that is what it takes for Cora to serve as Issa requires, then you will do this for her.”

She left him standing with Cora. “You do not have to do this,” Cora said softly.

Lacertin took her hands and pulled on a shaping of wind, guiding them past the Servants and setting them down near the barrier. “What do you sense?” he asked as they settled to the ground.

Cora reached her hand toward the barrier and Lacertin pulled it back.

“Not like that. With the elements. What do you sense here?”

She closed her eyes, but he didn’t think that was necessary. Even with his eyes open, he could feel the way the barrier pushed against his senses, a pulsing, powerful sense that worked to repel him. In that way, it was much like the shaping of fire that the Servants used to push back the hounds, only the scale of what was used here by the kingdoms was enormous.

“I feel the way fire is pushed away. Wind does not want to work with it. And water… water is different.”

Lacertin took her by the hand and stepped up to the barrier. “Feel it,” he said.

She reached out carefully and tried to push through the barrier but it resisted, blocking them no differently than a wall.

“Now watch,” he said.

He used a shaping of each of the elements, holding it without much power, not willing to attack the wall too strongly. He released the shaping and it bounced off, racing toward him. Lacertin jumped to the air on a shaping of wind to avoid it bouncing back on him.

“This is the barrier,” he told her. “There is no way for us to cross.”

Cora stood for a moment, studying it. Lacertin felt the presence of the other shapers behind him, arranged in something like a circle. They gave them space but held a shaping that joined together, much like the shaping that they used near the celebration fire.

“How did you cross?” she asked.

“The barrier was weaker then,” he said. “It has been strengthened now. They will not make the same mistake as they made before…”

“What mistake is that?”

Lacertin frowned, thinking of what Veran had done for him before he crossed. Hadn’t he made a weakness in the barrier specifically so that Lacertin could cross? Would it still be there, or had someone detected it and strengthened it?

“Come with me,” he said to Cora.

He took to the air on a shaping of wind and fire, sensing his way along the barrier. Everywhere he went, it pressed almost painfully against him until he found the place where he thought that he had crossed.

Using wind, Cora trailed behind him. She took to it naturally, her strength in wind not far behind her strength in water, and both nearly at the same level as her ability with fire. When she learned earth, she would be a formidable warrior, stronger than many within the kingdoms, and rivaling even he and Theondar in some ways.

Lacertin lowered himself to the ground near the spot he crossed through. He stretched his awareness toward the barrier, using each of the elements. Had he not known that it had been weakened, he wasn’t sure that he would know that it was even there, but the weakness remained, like a stain or blemish.

He grabbed Cora’s hand and pulled on a warrior shaping, wrapping each of the elements together. “I don’t know if this will work,” he warned.

Then the shaping pulled on him.

Lacertin surged toward the barrier, pulling Cora with him. He didn’t have to go far, and wasn’t sure that he would be able to pierce the barrier. When they struck, he felt it pushing against him.

At first, the sense was hard and painful, but Lacertin persisted, holding onto his shaping.

Cora screamed something, but Lacertin could not hear it.

He pushed even harder and felt the barrier begin to weaken.

Drawing on even more strength, the barrier bent, and then they slid through.

Lacertin tumbled toward the ground, his shaping failing.

They had been high above as they went through. Falling from this high was dangerous. He struggled to reach for wind or even earth to soften the fall, but nothing came. It had taken all of his strength simply to cross.

He had made a mistake.

Wind gusted beneath them, scooping them before they crashed into the earth and whisking them away from the barrier.

Lacertin looked around, searching for the wind shaper who had helped, and found no one.

Then he realized it was Cora.

She lowered them to the ground, bringing them down with less control than he would manage, but the fact that she’d managed to hold both of them with her shaping impressed him. It was challenge enough shaping wind to carry one, but carrying another… that was a different level of ability.

Cora’s face contorted as she looked around. “This place. It is so… green.”

“This is Galen,” Lacertin said, standing and dusting his hands on his legs. The Incendin garb that kept him comfortable in the heat did not help the same with the cool gusting Galen winds. The air smelled different on this side of the barrier, earthy and with the heavy scent of rain and moisture.

In the distance, the Gholund Mountains rose up to white-capped peaks, and on the other side he could almost feel the pull of Ethea, as if the university or his faded sense of duty called to him. Massive oak and elm trees rose along the lower edge of the mountains, with pine trees beginning to mix in, the higher up the mountain he looked. A hawk circled high overhead, and a lone wolf howled—the sound more natural than the horrible call from the hounds that pierced the fading daylight.

“You know these lands?” she asked.

“I know these lands,” he agreed.

Cora started toward the distant tree line, sliding on a shaping of wind as she went. Lacertin followed, his strength not yet returned, and he struggled to catch her. When she reached the trees, she paused and waited for him.

“You found earth here?”

Lacertin looked up the slope of the rock. “Not here,” he started. “This is the Incendin side of the mountains. When I was brought to these lands, I was on the other side, coming from Ethea.”

He reached out with his sense of earth, letting the heavy sense fill him. Galen might be a land of wind, but these lands were also powerful in earth. His earth instructor Ignan had claimed that the elementals still filled these lands. Given the speed with which he had discovered earth here, Lacertin couldn’t argue that was true.

“Listen for earth,” Lacertin said to Cora. “Earth can fill you here. It is everywhere.”

Cora let her eyes fall closed and breathed in and out. “The wind is powerful here,” she said.

“You have to ignore the wind. Galen is a place of much wind, and the archivists claim that ara blows through here, but you don’t have to listen hard to hear earth, either. It is everywhere.”

Lacertin felt as if it practically filled him, the power of earth surging, flowing through him, and he could pull on it, draw it forth, but released it.

Cora strained for earth. The effort pulled at the corners of her eyes and pinched her mouth, drawing it tight. Rather than earth, wind swirled violently around her, lifting her hair and pulling on her clothes. Water added to the wind, plentiful in these lands, and needles of water slammed against him. She added fire, and steam hissed from the midst of her shaping.

Then she relaxed. “It doesn’t work for me.”

Lacertin led her deeper into the Gholund Mountains. This was an ancient place, even for the kingdoms, and the power of the mountains and the trees and even the air pressed upon him. He
felt
the elemental power, even if he couldn’t reach the elementals.

“Just let your focus relax,” he said. “Set your feet and try to reach through yourself, through the ground beneath you, and feel the way everything connects.”

Earth sensing brought him awareness of not only the dirt and rock, but of the trees and animals within the mountains of Galen. More than any of the elements, earth sensing let him feel that he was a part of something. Fire burned and was essential for life. Without fire and heat, nothing could live. Wind was the breath of life, the current that moved men and women, important for different reasons. Water was the blood within him, the cleansing power of the sea, the quenching of his thirst. But earth brought a connectedness that was different than the other elements.

He breathed it in, letting the sense of earth fill him, surging through him.

Through earth, he sensed others nearby, and moving quickly.

“We need to leave Galen,” he said softly, his heart quickening.

Cora scanned the area around them. “What is it?”

Lacertin had made a mistake bringing her here. And now she would be endangered because of him. “Shapers.”

L
acertin shaped
them toward the barrier, and Cora followed on wind. When they reached the barrier, it pressed against them, a buzzing sort of sense that rubbed against his shaping. He probed against the barrier, reaching for the spot high overhead that they had used to come through, but found no traces of it, almost as if coming through the barrier had destroyed the weakness.

“It’s gone,” he told Cora.

“How do you propose for us to escape?”

Lacertin sensed along the barrier, but couldn’t find any weakness. They wouldn’t be able to cross, not without the assistance of the kingdoms’ shapers, and Lacertin doubted that they’d help him a second time. Veran had allowed him to pass once, but he didn’t think that he would be given another opportunity.

The shapers approached and were nearly upon them.

Pulling on earth, Lacertin wrapped them in a shaping, obscuring them.

Against an earth shaper, it wouldn’t work. Whoever came must have some earth sense for them to detect their presence, unless they’d only picked up on the crossing of the barrier.

He raised a finger to his lips to silence Cora.

“The barrier remains intact,” a voice said. Lacertin could see who spoke, and the voice didn’t remind him of anyone, though he knew so few people within Ethea and the university that it was possible he hadn’t met them.

“There was a disturbance here,” said another.

Lacertin recognized the speaker and pulled on a subtle shaping of wind that drew in front of his eyes to see. Jayna stood near the edge of the trees, dressed in the heavy wool of this region of Galen, a troubled expression pinching her mouth. The last time he had seen her, she had attempted to heal the princess. Had she kept the secret?

He suspected that she had. Otherwise Incendin would have heard something, wouldn’t they? But had the priest heard anything, would he have said something to him?

Lacertin doubted that he would.

“We need to return. You know what Theondar said about moving too far out of position.”

“Theondar doesn’t come to the border, does he?” Jayna said. She barely hid the irritation in her voice.

The fact that she was out here meant that she had been elevated to master shaper. At least her helping him hadn’t destroyed her opportunities with the university. When he left, Lacertin had worried that she would have been punished for her role in helping him.

“Besides, there is something here…”

She started toward him and Lacertin tensed, wondering if she would be able to detect him, even masked as he was. It was possible that she could. Jayna had proved that she was a potent water shaper, and there might be a way for her to detect him with water.

“Can you use water to shield us?” he whispered to Cora. With the earth shaping he held, he wasn’t sure that he would be able to add another shaping, especially with everything that he’d done to get them across the barrier in the first place. And with water, Cora might not have as much skill as he possessed—though he suspected she would in time—she had more strength than he possessed.

Her eyes narrowed as she considered the question, but then she nodded. Her shaping of water began to build, slowly growing and swirling around them. As it touched him, a cold gripped his chest, a sensation unlike any shaping he had ever experienced.

Jayna stopped only a few paces from them. From here, he could see the intense expression on her face, and could smell the clean scent of her. He silently willed her away, wanting to push her from them, not wanting to need to do anything more than that. How hurt would she be if he revealed himself, only to show that he truly
had
abandoned the kingdoms?

“What is it?” The other shaper was a younger man, with deep brown hair. Lacertin had never seen him before, but he looked at Jayna with a fondness that sent pangs through Lacertin.

But it shouldn’t. She deserved happiness. And he was pleased that she hadn’t suffered for assisting him. The only person who should suffer for his decision should be him.

“I thought I sensed… Nothing. I guess nothing.”

Lacertin detected the buildup of her water shaping and it swept around them, but whatever Cora had done protected them, keeping Jayna from realizing where he hid.

“We should continue north. You heard the reports.”

“I heard them. I don’t believe them,” she said.

“You don’t think the lisincend are in the north?”

Jayna shifted her attention toward the barrier. A soft shaping swept over it, barely enough to disturb it, before withdrawing. “I don’t think they could cross the barrier. They may be in the north, but still on the Incendin side.”

“That’s not what the report—”

“I know what the report said.” Jayna shook her head and then turned away, heading back toward the trees. “Let’s move north. If there
is
anything to the report, then we have a day or more before we reach them.”

The shapers moved off and Lacertin couldn’t hear what the other shaper said.

He sighed and released his earth shaping. When he nodded to Cora, she did the same with water.

He looked north. “Did the lisincend cross the barrier?” He asked the question mostly to himself, not really expecting that Cora would answer.

“Those who embrace fire have much strength,” she said.

“Enough to cross?”

“I don’t know. I hadn’t experienced your barrier before today.”

His barrier. She called it his and he couldn’t even argue. The barrier was because of him, wasn’t it? Without his contribution, the barrier would never have been constructed, only now… Now Lacertin wasn’t sure that the barrier had been well designed. It was effective, but separating Incendin, especially the more he learned, might have been a mistake. How much did both of the peoples lose by not have some sort of connection, an interaction?

Without crossing the waste, he would never have learned the way that Incendin worshipped Issa, bordering on fervor. He would never have understood the purpose of the Fire Fortress, even if he didn’t fully know everything about it. He would never have learned that a fire shaper of Incendin could become skilled enough to become a warrior. Did that not make their people
more
alike?

“I need to find out,” he said.

“Lacertin Alaseth, we came to determine whether I could connect with earth.” Cora sounded hurt and disappointed, as if he would leave her here or force her back without him. But Lacertin didn’t even know how to cross the barrier again. He doubted that he would be able to force her back.

“I don’t know that detecting earth here is right,” he admitted. He should have seen the mistake before now. “You are a warrior of Incendin. You discovered fire, wind, and water all within Incendin. That is where you will find earth as well.” If only he knew where earth flowed most strongly in Incendin, he could help her find it, but he didn’t.

The familiar sense of duty pressed on him. The responsibility that Ilton had instilled in him, tying him to the kingdoms, almost as if he were afraid that Lacertin would depart and make the crossing to Incendin. He wanted to know whether the lisincend could cross. More than that, he
needed
to know whether they could cross.

“We need to see if they crossed,” Lacertin said.

“We?”

“You don’t have to come,” he told her. He studied Cora and the way the heat radiating from her body felt against him, the comfortable way that he’d become around her. She looked at him with concern, real concern in her eyes. Lacertin had so few who had ever cared about him. Ilton had cared in his way, but Lacertin had been a tool to the king as much as a friend. Ilianna might have cared, but not enough to reveal her secret sooner. Not when he might have been able to do something for her. And other friends had come too late for him in the kingdoms. Veran and Jayna and… no others.

Could he have found something unexpected in Incendin? Lacertin almost didn’t dare hope that he could have.

He touched Cora’s arm, letting a gentle shaping of fire mingle with her shaping. “I need to know. You don’t have to come with me,” he repeated, “but I would like it if you would.”

Cora glanced south, where they had left the Servants of Issa arrayed on the other side of the barrier. “They will wonder what you’ve done with me.”

Lacertin smiled. A part of him wished answers were simpler and wished that his life had been simpler, but maybe the priest was right. Maybe Issa had called him. Given the fact that Lacertin had nothing else, could he ignore the call?

But he would do this last thing for his kingdom. If the lisincend had crossed, he needed to know.

He grabbed Cora’s hand and built a shaping and carried them north.

* * *

T
he land changed here
, spreading out with fewer trees and hills as they grew closer to the Gholund Mountains. This far to the north, they were closer to Doma than the kingdoms, though near enough the border with the kingdoms that the barrier still pressed against him. Lacertin brought them to the ground, guiding them on his shaping to a wide, flat clearing.

“Why here?” Cora asked.

Lacertin wasn’t entirely certain, but he hadn’t seen anything along the borders that indicated the lisincend had crossed the barrier. It was possible that they hadn’t, at least not yet. “I don’t see anything.”

“You might not,” Cora reminded him.

The lisincend were capable of hiding themselves, masking with a heat veil much like what radiated up from the rock within Incendin after the sun began burning along the ground. Lacertin thought such an ability would be useful, but there were drawbacks as well. They could use the veil, but could not mask the heat. Within Incendin, that wasn’t usually a problem, but within the kingdoms, especially a cool section of the kingdoms like Galen, that heat disturbance would be detectable.

“Here I would,” Lacertin said. During his time serving as First Warrior, he’d had the opportunity to detect the lisincend. His ability with fire granted him enough sensitivity to do so easily, much more than most within the kingdoms. “I don’t detect any of their heat.”

Cora frowned, and her brow furrowed as she did. “Why would they attack here?”

Lacertin hadn’t worked that out. There would be nothing for them to gain from attacking along here, other than risking drawing more of the kingdoms’ attention. As they traveled here, he had tested the barrier, working along it and searching for weaknesses, but detected nothing. The barrier was as stout here as it had been further south. If nothing else, Theondar and Althem had taken the construction and maintenance of the barrier to heart.

Cora reached out with fire, sending a much more controlled shaping than he would have managed. Lacertin still marveled at her skill. There was much the Servants could teach the kingdoms, much as he suspected there was much the kingdoms could teach Incendin. Cora was not likely the only shaper capable of learning other elements. With her strength, she would learn to shape regardless of whether she chose it or not, but others, those with potential but not the same strength, would need it drawn from them. Without a more formal instruction, there would be no way to pull those shapings from them.

“Do you detect anything?” Lacertin asked.

“There is… fire somewhere here,” she said. “It is faint, and unlike anything I have ever felt.” She turned her head to the side, frowning. “I can almost hear it.” Her eyes opened and she shook her head. “Perhaps there is nothing,” she said. “Imagination.”

Lacertin felt fire strongly but had never
heard
it, but maybe his connection to it was different than what she managed. With her control, it was possible that she experienced the draw of fire in a unique way. Or maybe she truly heard Issa.

He strained with his connection to fire, adding each of the other elements as he listened for anything that didn’t belong. She had strength with fire—strength with the other elements as well—but strength was not the same as experience, and Lacertin knew these lands and knew what might not belong.

At the edge of his awareness, but closer than he would have expected, he detected something different.

He started forward.

Cora grabbed his arm. “Lacertin—”

“I don’t know what I sense, but there is something.”

She studied him a moment and then nodded. “Where?” she asked.

Cora used a shaping that combined fire, water, and wind. She took his hand and Lacertin realized that he could guide, and directed her shaping in the direction that he detected, much like with the shared shaping used around the celebration fire. It was another thing that the kingdoms could learn from Incendin. No shapings were ever shared in this way. And maybe he could use it to help trigger something with earth?

But first he would help her understand.

The combined shaping was more powerful than what he managed alone. Without her contribution to earth, it was imbalanced, and he withdrew the shapings he used, reducing them so that the combined shaping remained constant. Taking the lead, he stretched toward the faint difference.

Her eyes widened. “I sense it,” she whispered.