Phoenix Rising

by Ephie Risho

  The rest of the day passed uneventfully. The phoenix left at one point, and Amber was worried. But Theo said, “He’s just going for a little fly around the countryside to keep an eye on things. If he sees the wizard coming, he’ll come back right away.”

  Amber understood—but it didn’t make her feel any better about being left alone for the time being. Without the phoenix, they were as good as dead, so Amber and Theo stayed out of view as much as possible.

  Basil returned later that afternoon with two rabbits. When it grew dark, they guessed the wizard wouldn’t return, so they cooked the rabbits and relaxed, then set up mats and slept out in the woods. They figured if he did return while they were sleeping, their plan wouldn’t work, but at least they’d be out of sight.

  In the morning they ate more of the rabbits, then packed up their camp gear with their horses and returned to the cave. The phoenix was there and greeted Theo cheerfully. They found hiding spots outside the cave and waited.

  About midday, the phoenix, who was sitting outside its cave in the sun, raised its head and stared at the sky. They all turned to look. A speck in the sky was coming toward them. From their hiding spots, the three mentally prepared themselves and waited. Their stomachs were gurgling with fear and anticipation.

  A couple of minutes later, the hippogriff came flapping into the clearing outside the cave, bearing the dark wizard. A fierce, scorching anger covered his face. The phoenix, under Theo’s guidance, acted as it had before and stood watching the man arrive.

  He dismounted and strode over to the phoenix. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.

  He pulled the scepter off his waist and raised it when Basil shouted, “Now!” All at once, the three went into action. Theo spurred the phoenix to spit fire at the man, Amber entwined his feet with thorny vines, and Basil shot an arrow at him.

  The wizard responded with incredible reflexes. A small tornado erupted around him, causing the arrow and the fire to deflect.

  Basil continued shooting arrows, but the wizard had his hands lifted and the whirlwind surrounded him, deflecting the arrows so that they all wobbled elsewhere. It was like he had a magical bubble of air protecting himself.

  The phoenix breathed fire again, but it was yet again blocked by the wizard’s air funnel. The hippogriff charged and leaped at the phoenix. The two took to the skies, attacking and pecking at each other with their enormous beaks. The phoenix grew brighter and flames appeared all over its body.

  The only attack that seemed successful against the wizard was Amber’s—a thorny plant twined its way up his legs. Unfortunately, he was wearing black leather pants, and the thorns didn’t have the painful effect Amber had hoped. But they did hold him down somewhat.

  The wizard turned toward Basil first, since he was shooting arrows, and lifted his hands so that a spiral of wind flew toward him, sending him flying into the trees. Basil crashed into them and disappeared.

  The wizard then turned and pointed his wand toward Amber. “Incapacio!” he shouted.

  She felt her body turn sluggish. It was hard to move anything, hard to even open her mouth. But her mind still felt sharp. She asked the plants to keep growing around the wizard’s legs. It was definitely much easier when she’d had her hands free.

  Theo ducked back into his hiding spot behind a rock. He mentally reached out to all the rats and bats he’d found earlier.

  The wizard looked around wildly. “I know there’s another of you! Where are you?” He tried to lift his legs, but they were stuck by the vines.

  He pointed his wand at the vines and shouted, “Bravix!” They immediately withered and died.

  Amber felt a pain inside her heart, like a knife jab, sensing their death deeply within her. She reeled, and tears welled up, but she could barely move or cry out because of the spell.

  The wizard walked around the area. He glanced toward Basil, still lying battered in the trees, at Amber sitting immobile, and then at Theo’s hiding spot. He smiled evilly and strode toward the rock when the air filled with a rushing sound—the sound of many wings flapping and feet scurrying. Hundreds of rats and bats came pouring out toward the man.

  “Aaah!” he yelled, then sent a tornado of air toward the bats. Nearly all of them were picked up by the whirlwind and sent flying into the sky. The few left fluttered around his face, distracting him, while a hundred rats crawled up his legs, looking for a place to bite.

  Unfortunately, the rats couldn’t bite through the man’s leather armor. But they did tickle.

  “Aah! Ha ha! Stop! Aaaah!” The man laughed and slapped at the rats, wiping them off his arms. There were so many that he couldn’t get them all.

  With the wizard distracted, Amber used all her will to bring the other vines she’d placed to snake their way over and creep up his legs again. It was utterly exhausting, especially without the use of her arms, but she focused all her inner strength toward it.

  The wizard kept whacking at the rats and bats, then lifted his hands and floated, buoyed up by wind currents whirling around him. The rats that fell couldn’t get back on, and the wind whirled faster around him, causing most of them to fly off.

  Even floating in the air, the wizard had some vines around his legs. They weren’t attached to the ground anymore, but Amber felt like she could entwine more of him. So she focused on twining all the way up and around his arms.

  Theo continued focusing on the few rats who remained on the wizard and urged the other bats who’d been swept away to return as quickly as possible.

  Basil sat up and saw what was going on, then raised his arms and drew deeply on the power he knew was inside him. The wizard suddenly stopped mid-air, halted by the counter-wind from Basil.

  “Enough!” the wizard yelled, and a huge gust of wind came whipping through, peeling the rats off his body and causing those on the ground to hold on or be blown away.

  The wind buffeted Amber, sending her body a few feet along the earth. She bumped into some rocks painfully. She panicked—would she be injured seriously if she flew into something head-on?

  Meanwhile, Basil gripped a tree and tried to create a bubble of safety around himself.

  The sky grew dark with thunderclouds and a crackle of thunder echoed down the mountain. The wizard had an evil grin as he flicked the last of the rats off his body and pointed his wand at Basil.

  A bolt of lightning flew down from the cloud, onto the wizard’s wand and straight toward Basil. It just missed him, jarred by the wind tunnel Basil was creating, and exploded a tree right next to him, sending branches crashing everywhere.

  Pieces of bark and branches crashed into Basil painfully. His eyes flashed, and he called out to Amber, “We have to get rid of his wand!”

  Amber closed her eyes. The only useful plants she could sense were the last straggling vines still on the wizard’s legs. She urged the vines to hurry and climb up his arms. They crept up to the arms and wrapped all around.

  Then, a loud shriek pierced the air above them. The hippogriff hurtled toward the ground, completely ablaze, and crashed into a nearby tree. The phoenix followed behind, looking like a ball of flame.

  It turned toward the dark wizard and sped toward him.

  The wizard partially lifted his wand to point it at the phoenix, but Amber’s vines tightened and held his hand down just enough that he couldn’t point it directly at the flaming bird.

  The phoenix barreled toward the wizard, and with panic in his voice he shouted, “Abrazio!”

  The phoenix faltered for a moment, then continued. The wizard tried raising his arm more fully but couldn’t. His eyes filled with terror. “Abrazio!” he shouted again.

  In an instant, the phoenix powered into him, clutching him in its fiery claws and pulling him into the blaze. The wizard screamed for a moment, and then there was only the sound of fire and flapping as the phoenix flew back up into the air, carrying the dark wizard in the inferno.

  Basil stood ruggedly and staggered toward them. Theo finally g
limpsed up from behind his big rock and braved standing. Amber still couldn’t move, but out of the corner of her eyes, she could follow the phoenix.

  The fiery bird flew up, holding onto the wizard, a huge ball of deep red flame that grew brighter and more fierce the higher it went.

  Nobody could live through that, Amber thought. Not even a powerful wizard.

  Theo crouched down and patted her. “Are you ok?”

  She couldn’t answer. Her whole body was still completely paralyzed. She grunted slightly. “Uuuuuugh.”

  His eyes grew wide, and he put his hand with the healing ring on her. Sensation and warmth slowly returned to her body. Her tongue was released, and she breathed in relief.

  “Thanks, Theo. It’s working.” She smiled at him, and he continued to hold his hand on her.

  “Hey! We did it!” Basil staggered over, looking happy. “We really did it!” He winced in pain as he limped. Theo gave him a silent look that said, It’s your turn next.

  Basil smiled, despite his obvious suffering. “I think I now understand just how powerful air can be!”

  “You’ve got that right!” said Theo. “That wizard could create lightning and even fly! I wonder if you could do that, Basil?”

  “Probably. But who knows?” He limped over to Amber and sat down on the rocks next to her. “But now I get it. He had a lot of effect by creating whirlwinds. He did that the whole time.”

  Amber slowly sat up. “I bet all of us have the potential of that guy. I wonder how many years it took for him to get that powerful?” She moved her arms around, then stood on wobbly legs.

  “Good question.” Theo placed his ringed hand over Basil’s shoulder, which made him sigh in relief. “I can tell you one thing, though, he really seemed to favor that wand in a totally different way than the scepter he used yesterday on the phoenix.”

  “Yeah, I wonder what that was about,” said Basil. “The scepter is obviously used for enchanting creatures. But that wand . . . he paralyzed Amber, killed vines, and sent the lightning right toward me. Without that phoenix, I doubt we’d have survived.”

  As if on cue, the phoenix flapped over and landed nearby with a loud thump. The bird’s flames were now flickering and going out, but the trio could still feel intense heat coming from it. When the flames died out completely, the phoenix walked over to them.

  “Speaking of which,” Theo said, “If we want to keep hanging out with this guy, we need to give him a proper name. He’s not just an it, you know.”

  “He certainly came in like a blaze of fire,” Amber said.

  “Let’s call him Blazey,” Basil said, jokingly.

  Amber laughed. “Ok, why not? Hi, Blazey! Welcome back. And thanks for helping us take out that evil wizard.”

  The phoenix gave Amber a look and cocked his head. Theo laughed. “I’m pretty sure he’d say, ‘You’re welcome’—if he could. He seems to understand you. Or some of what you’re saying, anyway,”

  Basil shook his arm and slowly stood. “Thanks,” he said to Theo, then turned to look at Blazey with the others. “So about that scepter—Blazey, do you know where it went?”

  Theo focused on the phoenix for a moment. “I think we could find it where he dropped the body. That would probably be our best bet.”

  “Sounds good.” Basil stretched out his arm. “I definitely want to get that back to Sage and figure out what it is. Or maybe we could even try using it ourselves. I don’t know. I just don’t want us to lose it, in case it’s important.”

  “Get it back to Sage, huh?” Theo looked thoughtful. “So does that mean we haven’t finished our adventure? We’re not going straight home?”

  Basil grinned and looked at Amber. “Maybe not. But yeah, Theo, we did it.” He patted Theo on the back. “You did it. I knew you could. You’re an adventurer after all!”

  Theo rolled his eyes. “Well, I did a lot of hiding, it feels like . . . but yeah, I guess so. You guys definitely needed me out here!”

  “You can say that again!” Amber’s eyes sparkled. “We couldn’t have done it without you.” She turned to Basil. “I want to go home and see my parents. But I definitely want to get this scepter-thingy to Sage. And something doesn’t sit well with me.”

  “What’s that?” asked Theo.

  “Well, Sage said there are probably multiple wizards, and we found one. But why was he asking Blazey to attack all the villages by the sea? What’s going on with that? And if he’s just one of the wizards, will the others pick right up where he left off? Will my village ever be safe until we figure out more and stop all of them?”

  “You think we can stop these powerful wizards?” Theo asked.

  Basil put his hand on Theo’s shoulder. “Well, we did just stop one, I’ll have you remember.”

  “Yeah, but it was four against one—if you include Blazey, and we had the element of surprise. How could we possibly take on other wizards who are just as powerful? I don’t think I’m up to it, honestly.”

  “I know, Theo, I know.” Basil wrapped his arm around Theo’s shoulders. “It’s your decision. But we need you. What if we really are the kids from the prophecy? Who knows? But if so, well, maybe we’ll have an extra bit of luck.”

  Theo pulled on his sleeve. “Yeah . . . maybe.” Then he turned toward the phoenix. “Well, there’s one thing I’m extremely curious about with Blazey.”

  The phoenix walked over to him and put its beak out toward Theo’s hand.

  “I wonder,” Theo said, then paused with a wry smile. “I wonder if Blazey would take us for a ride?”

  The phoenix gave Theo a gentle look and lowered his head. Theo grinned and climbed up. After adjusting slightly, he said, “Now what?”

  At that moment, Blazey spread his wings and gently lifted into the air.

  Theo yelled, “Woohoo!” as he swooped down the mountain riding the phoenix.

  Basil chuckled. “Well, I guess that answers that question! I call the next ride!”

  Amber laughed. “For sure. I’m in no rush.”

  As the phoenix and his rider glided over the trees and headed toward the sea, Amber couldn’t help but feel happy. For the first time in many weeks, she felt hopeful that they might actually succeed in their huge mission.

  “I wonder,” she said, elbowing Basil in the side, “what that crazy old Sage is going to want us to do next?”

  Basil looked up in thought, then smiled.

  “What is it?” Amber asked.

  Basil raised his eyebrows slyly. “How do you feel about dragons?”

  Epilogue

  A GRUFF-LOOKING MAN walked up to a woman who was completely white—her clothing, hair, and skin, top to bottom, pure white. The man bowed. “Your majesty.”

  “Yes?” she replied. “What news?”

  “The goblins are almost ready. As well as some of the other creatures you’ve asked for. Their army is now joined by two other goblin tribes and two sizable giants.”

  “Excellent,” she said. “We’ll begin marching on the human cities first. Once the goblins are ready, tell them to march on the human settlements. They should kill anyone on sight and keep their eyes out for brave youths with powers.”

  “Youths, my queen?”

  “Yes. It’s that pesky prophecy.” She tapped her wand in her other hand. “We must be prepared for all possibilities. But we have many surprises for them. Their efforts will be too little. We’re ready this time. Still, if anyone comes across them, send word to me at once.”

  “Yes, my queen. Any other orders?”

  “Indeed. I received word that another scepter has been reported in Somerville. I want you to do everything in your power to bring it to me. Take any resources you need.”

  “Of course.” The man bowed. “And any word from Lucio?”

  “No.” She shook her head and frowned. “He hasn’t reported back for three days, ever since that phoenix failed to burn the next village on the coast.”

  “Do you think something happened to him?”r />
  “Unlikely,” she scoffed. “Lucio can take care of himself.” She paused. “But I do need that scepter of his to finish the plan.” She turned to the gruff man. “How far along are we on enchanting the army of creatures? I mean, besides the goblins, who are easily manipulated.”

  “Very far indeed, my queen. We’ve enchanted nearly all the magical creatures for hundreds of miles. Our army is already strong—it will only continue to grow in strength. We are ready to focus on the next phase of our plan. The good news is that most of the pixies on the coast have fled from the towns, from what we can tell.”

  “Excellent. And can we find out where the pixies are going?” She stared at him with piercing eyes and a firmly set face.

  “Maybe.” The man looked uncomfortable. “The general direction—from what we can gather—is they all seem to be headed to the southwest.”

  “Nothing more than that?” She tapped her fingers together.

  “Not yet. But we’ll continue to flush them out. One of them is bound to lead us there. Caster remains diligent on their trail with an army of imps.”

  “Well then,” she said, “we will continue as planned, whether Lucio is successful or not. We’ll start by sending our army against the largest human cities.”

  “Yes, my queen.” The man bowed.

  “And remember, tell all the spies and generals to send word if they find youths with powers. Once we know who they are, they won’t stand a chance. Mark my words—this time, it’s going to work.”

  About the Authors

  Ephie (dad) has been writing his whole life. Inspired by his sixth-grade teacher to write a story every week, he enrolled in the writing program at his undergrad Middlebury College and has been writing ever since. He loves the outdoors, music, community, his family, and telling stories. He currently lives in beautiful Bozeman, Montana, where he works in software development and is active in various community groups.

  Celia (daughter) is an avid book lover and packs a novel with her wherever she goes. She developed the book idea at age nine inspired by a 3rd grade writing assignment. She was born in Vancouver, Canada where her first two syllable word was “hockey”! She, along with her brother, is being raised in the mountains of Montana, where she enjoys sewing, 4H, performance art, and visiting hot springs.