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

“There was no Par-shon before the Utu Tonah,” Tolman said softly.

“What was there? This place is older than him. I can see the effect of what he did, the way that he placed his touch on the tower, but it wasn’t always like that, was it?”

Tolman swallowed and finally looked up and met Tan’s eyes. “No. Before the Utu Tonah arrived, there was only Par.”

Tan looked at Amia, whose eyes went distant. He could sense the way she reached across the seas, trying to connect to the other Aeta Mothers, but couldn’t hear the conversation.

“What do you mean there was only Par?” Tan asked.

Tolman stared at Tan for a moment. “Before Par-shon, and before the Utu Tonah—the first Utu Tonah—came to us, there was only Par.”

“Tell me about Par.”

Tolman paled, becoming whiter than Tan had ever seen him. “My Utu Tonah,” he began, “I don’t think that it is my place—”

“Your Utu Tonah asked you about what it was like before he ruled,” Amia said. “You would do well to answer him.”

Tolman looked at her, his eyes wide and in some ways reminding Tan of the way that Mat had looked at him. “Utu Tonah?”

“Tell me about Par,” Tan repeated.

Tolman glanced down the hall, almost as if he thought that he could escape from Tan, as if he intended to run off, but there was nothing there, no support that he could gain by reaching for the children or perhaps the other shapers in the tower. Tolman was left to face Tan and Amia himself.

“Par was different,” he began, his voice halting as he started. “A place where we used the elementals in a different way than the Utu Tonah would have us use them.”

“Different even than I would ask of Par-shon?” Tan asked.

Tolman nodded. “There was a time when few of us understood that the elementals of our land were able to bond. It was a time when the elementals were a part of our life, and our culture, but not the same way that the Utu Tonah had used them.”

“And what of the way that I would have you use the elementals?” Tan asked.

“My Utu Tonah,” Tolman began, his voice catching as he did. “There are many of us who don’t know what you intend from the elementals. We have seen the Utu Tonah, and how he forced us to use the elementals. We expected much of the same from you.”

Tan looked over at Amia, but she studied Tolman without saying anything.

“Where did the Utu Tonah come from?” he asked.

Without the connection to Par, and this place, the Utu Tonah must have known about the place of convergences and what that meant for the elementals. Tan had always thought that the Utu Tonah had come from Par-shon and that his beliefs, and the desire to bind and essentially harness the elementals, had come from the same place, but what if he had been wrong? What if the Utu Tonah had not been from Par-shon, and what if he had come to Par, chasing after the power and strength of the elementals, using the place of convergence to bind to the elementals?

What would that have made the Utu Tonah?

For that matter, what did that now make Tan?

Tolman sighed and looked from Tan to Amia. “You don’t know, do you Utu Tonah?”

Tan shook his head.

Tolman frowned. “The Utu Tonah came to Par with the ability to bind to the elementals. He claimed a right to rule, one that he said that we should share. At first, few understood what he intended. He claimed a desire to study, to understand the elementals as we knew them within Par, but it became clear that he didn’t want to know the elementals the same way that we knew them. He wished to subjugate them. That wasn’t the experience that we had with those ancient powers.”

“What experience did you have with the ancient powers?” Tan asked.

He had assumed that Par-shon had shared much of the same perspective regarding the elementals as the Utu Tonah, but what if that wasn’t the case? Then he would need to find who he could work with.

“We are of Par,” Tolman said. “And Par has long recognized the power of the ancients.”

“What of the fact that the Utu Tonah required you to bond?” Amia asked.

“Not all wished for that bond. Most wished for nothing more than the ability to refuse what the Utu Tonah requested of us.”

“And the children?” Amia asked.

Tan wasn’t sure what she was getting at, but there was something about the children, and the fact that they could shape, that bothered her. That much he could sense from her. But what it was, he still didn’t know. It was more than about the way that the elementals were treated, and more than about the way that the children were asked to work against the kingdoms, forcing them to forge a bond that might not have been the right one for them.

“There were those of us who tried to protect the children,” Tolman said.

Amia nodded. “That’s why you wanted to keep them from Tan.”

Tolman considered Tan, taking a deep breath before nodding. “The Utu Tonah is different than the one who came before him, but how different remains to be seen. There are some who think that he might wish to force the same bonds as his predecessor, though we haven’t seen any sign of that.”

“What of those who have the ability to shape?” Amia asked.

Tolman frowned. “There are several with a different ability than those who were bonded. The previous Utu Tonah recognized them and thought that they would be valuable, but didn’t tell us why.”

“I don’t intent to treat them the way that the prior Utu Tonah treated them,” Tan said. “They will learn, but they will not be forced. As I have said, forcing the bond is anathema to what the Mother has asked of shapers.”

Tolman’s eyes flicked to the portion of the wall destroyed by Mat’s shaping. “What of him?” he asked carefully.

“You will work with him,” Tan said. “Teach him what you can. And when you cannot teach him any longer, then you will send him to me.” There might not be anything that Tan could teach, but he would do what he could. The kingdoms would pose too much of a threat to the Par-shon shapers and would make those of this land feel as if they couldn’t do what needed to be done. Tan wouldn’t make that any worse than it needed to be.

Tolman’s gaze drifted past Tan and made it to the panel on the wall where Tan had revealed the connection to the elemental. “And you, Utu Tonah? What will you do now that you know what we were before?”

Tan sighed and wished that he had the answer, but unfortunately, he didn’t.

T
he tower was much larger
than Tan had expected. He had spent the past week searching through the tower for a place of learning that he would equate to what was in the kingdoms, but he found nothing. Each day, he searched, and each day, he ran into the same dilemma. There were servants willing to help, and others within the palace who were willing to assist him, but none knew of an archive much like the one that he could access in the kingdoms. After the last few days, he began to wonder if maybe there wasn’t anything that would be the same.

Yet, his connection to Honl told him that there had to be something more than he knew. There had to be some sort of place of understanding, but it was one that he didn’t fully grasp. That was the reason that Tan still searched.

Amia spent her days trying to understand the children. She had offered to teach and used the opportunity to demonstrate a different type of focus than the children would otherwise have been exposed to. The Aeta had another way of focusing on the connection to shaping, one that was different even than the kingdoms, and Tan appreciated the fact that Amia had been willing to demonstrate that with the children. There was much they could learn from her. She claimed that they
were
learning, though Tan had not taken the time to meet with them again.

His time was focused on trying to understand what he might be missing.

From what he could tell, he had to be overlooking something. The covered panels throughout the tower pointed to a connection to the elementals that was different than the one that the Utu Tonah had possessed, but each time he attempted to connect to the elementals so that he could understand what purpose they served here in the palace, he failed to reach anything more than the sense of power that surged through them.

Today was no different. Tan had been back in Par-shon for the last week, and each day he spent trying to study the connection to the elementals that he detected in the hidden panels. Whatever the Utu Tonah had done to hide or shield the connection, there was much more to it that Par-shon possessed, almost a connection as deep as that which the kingdoms possessed. If only he could understand.

The elementals were no help to him. Tan tried reaching out to them, but they had few answers when they did respond to his summons. There was the faint and distant sense of saa, and the faded sense of the earth elemental that flowed through the tower—likely noln, from what he had learned from the boy—but he didn’t have the same connection to the elementals who were strongest here. A part of Tan considered simply returning to the kingdoms, but that wouldn’t help him understand what took place here in Par-shon any better than what he currently knew. Besides that, it was a source of pride to Tan that he was the only person who could understand the elementals, and returning to the kingdoms, basically running away from the challenge, made him feel as if he had failed.

So instead, he searched.

Tan hated that he did it alone. He should have Amia with him, or one of the elementals, but Asgar watched from above the tower and Honl was someplace distant and far removed. The nymid had rarely bothered to remain involved. And Kota? Tan tried not to abuse his relationship with her any more than he needed to, even if she and the rest of the hounds had no problem with it.

When he opened the next door, he let out a long sigh. He had tried finding something, anything, that would help him understand not only the connection that Par-shon once had with the elementals but also but also the existing connections.

What he needed was to find the Mistress of Bonds, but she wanted nothing to do with him. She might answer his questions, but she had no interest in actually helping. Elanne had made that clear the last time that he had seen her. Tan wished that he could ask the Mistress of Souls, but Marin was much like Elanne.

Tan recognized that it was his fault neither of them wished to work with him. He didn’t understand the connection that Par-shon had with the elementals, but had he taken the time to question, to try and understand, he might have had less of an issue, but he had come to Par-shon thinking that he had all the answers. Hadn’t that been the same way that he had approached Incendin? And just like in Incendin, Tan didn’t know what he was doing.

What he wouldn’t give for the elementals to help, but there had been no assistance from them, either. Saa had given the advice that it could, which had guided him back to the fact that he knew nothing about Par-shon.

He needed to know where the previous Utu Tonah had come from. If he could trace him back to his own lands, it was possible that Tan could understand the expectations

Tan turned his attention to the Utu Tonah’s home. Everything about the building was ornate. From the incredibly detailed artwork that adorned the path leading to the home to the trim around the doors. The Utu Tonah had appreciated the fancier side of things.

Tan didn’t care for that nearly as much. He hadn’t done anything to remove it, but he didn’t need the decorative trim or the heavy carving like the prior Utu Tonah had. The rooms were all equally ornate, though Tan found one, a smaller room that had nothing more than a desk and a few strange books, that he thought might be from the Utu Tonah prior to the one Tan had unseated

Tan took a seat behind the desk and pulled the books in front of him. He had a distinct sense of the fact that the previous Utu Tonah had once sat here and had once had these same books in front of him. The man might have been many things, but Tan hadn’t had the sense that he was ignorant. Rather, he suspected that he was intelligent and driven by power and the might of his office.

He flipped through the pages. All were written in
Ishthin
, but in a longhand and difficult-to-read form. He wished for a moment that he had Honl’s ability to simply absorb the knowledge from the books placed in front of him. Had he been able to, he wouldn’t need to try to struggle through these books.

As he began to puzzle through the pages, he realized something: these were written by the prior Utu Tonah. This wasn’t some book that he had used for research; this was a journal of sorts, a record.

Tan slowed as he began to puzzle through the pages. Not only a record but a comment about the bonds that he had taken. The first pages were more descriptive, detailing the effects of adding the bonds and the way that he suddenly had access to more shaping strength as he forced them. The descriptions were written in a clinical way, with such a distance to them and no regard for the elementals.

Had Tan not known what kind of person the Utu Tonah was before, he did now.

Still, there was something compelling about reading these pages. Not insight into the mind of the man, but Tan gathered a sense of purpose, though he didn’t understand
what
purpose the Utu Tonah would have in forcing as many bonds as he had.

Tan glanced up for a moment. The book should probably be destroyed. He didn’t want others to see the way the Utu Tonah described absorbing even more power. What would happen if another saw this and chose to attempt the same?

He sighed. He needed to understand the Utu Tonah. Needed to know if there
had
been a reason for what he did. Maybe there would be something within these pages that would explain why he had come to Par-shon.

* * *

T
an’s vision
had blurred from staring at the pages of
Ishthin
for the last few hours. He had discovered nothing new while reading through it, at least nothing that might help him understand the former Utu Tonah.

The farther he read in the journal, the clearer it became that the Utu Tonah had started down the path of bonding with a purpose. Tan still didn’t understand
what
that purpose had been, and now doubted that the answer would be found in these pages, but the purpose that had driven him to begin with changed over time and became about gathering power. That much was clear.

Toward the end of the journal was the most recent section that the Utu Tonah had written. There he spoke of obtaining the draasin bond and claimed it would bring him into something he called Unity. There were a few references to this state, but nothing with enough clarity for Tan to understand what he hoped to gain, other than power.

He made his way to the room he shared with Amia and found her sitting by the hearth. She looked up and smiled as he entered, though it was a troubled smile and the corners of her eyes held the edge of a frown.

“I didn’t want to distract you,” she said.

Tan took a seat next to her and stared at the fire. As usual, saa flickered within the flames. Through the fire bond, he could almost hear the connection, but saa chose not to speak to him. “I’m not certain what I’m supposed to be doing here,” he admitted. “I came to try to enforce a rule that I’m not sure the people of Par-shon need.”

Amia folded her hands in her lap. “They need guidance, Tan. That’s why you returned.”

“But what kind of guidance? They weren’t always ruled by the Utu Tonah. This place,” he said, sweeping his hand around him, “was built for an invader.” He held out the journal that he’d discovered, and Amia took it with a frown. “I couldn’t find any sort of archive like we have in the kingdoms, but I found this.”

“What is it?”

“A record written by him.” Tan sighed. “He didn’t begin his journey the same way he ended it. It wasn’t always about power for him. Not from the start, at least.”

“You saw what he became.”

“That’s what he became, but I don’t know what he was before then.” He tapped the book. “Look at his earliest entries. He speaks of the bonds in a way that is calculating, but not with animosity. He sought the power of the elementals for a reason, but one that wasn’t clearly about power.”

That had been the most troubling for Tan. If the Utu Tonah had not simply sought power, what else could there have been? Did it have anything to do with the darkness that Honl described?

He wished Honl would have remained behind rather than venturing off to… wherever he went. Far enough that the connection was faded and Tan had to strain to even sense him. Had Honl remained, he might have been of assistance.

Maybe Honl could even help him understand the dynamics within Par-shon. Tan struggled there almost more than anything else.

“Why are you doing this?” Amia asked him. “What’s with your desire to understand the Utu Tonah?”

When Tan turned to her, she gave his hands a reassuring squeeze. There was a strength to her that he didn’t possess. It was only part of the reason he cared so much for her.

“I made a mistake with Incendin once,” Tan started carefully. Amia might agree with him most of the time, but she had distinct feelings about the lisincend after what they had done to her family. He understood how she felt, and struggled with it at times as well, but had he only understood the reason that the lisincend attacked, how much would have been different?

Was it the same with the Utu Tonah?

Tan wondered if he should have taken the time to understand him better, to learn why he abused the elementals as he did. If he had, maybe they could have avoided the attack.

“Sometimes there is darkness for no reason,” Amia said softly. “I know that you want to explain
why
, but there might not be a why. The world is full of people who don’t think as you do, Tan. Most struggle to even consider the needs of the elementals, even to realize that they exist, yet you not only understand that they live among us, you speak to them and try to understand them. What you do is powerful, and it’s why you are so well equipped to lead.”

He sighed. “I don’t know that I’m equipped for anything. I don’t understand the people of Par-shon, I don’t know how to forge trust, both for them with me, and for me to be able to trust them. Without that, I don’t think there’s anything I can do.”

She patted his hand. “There are ways to rule until you create that trust.”

“Not that will have a lasting benefit,” Tan said. “I don’t
want
to be Utu Tonah. And until I can be comfortable that whoever takes my place will rule in a way that doesn’t abuse the elementals here…”

He trailed off. It wasn’t only Par-shon that he had to worry about, was it? Within the kingdoms, he had fought against something similar, and there he had done it without authority. He might have been named Athan, but that meant nothing compared to the level of authority he possessed with his current title.

How had he managed to sway the people of the kingdoms?

It hadn’t been about convincing each individual person. Rather, he had worked with Roine and his mother, Cianna, and Ferran. Shapers who had taken the lessons of the elementals and begun to understand them. All had started with the conversation with the elementals.

Could the same be said here? Was that the mission that he would have to achieve?

The council wanted nothing to do with him. They wanted him gone from Par-shon and hated the fact that he would change things. But maybe he had approached it in the wrong way.

“You’re not the only one given power and authority you don’t want,” Amia said.