The Enduring Flame Trilogy 002 - The Phoenix Endangered

by James Mallory

  “We’re the same people who left an hour ago! And now you’ve got a spell-shield around your city that the army can’t get through! And you ought to be happy about it!”

  Batho withdrew from sight without answering.

  Harrier went over to Tiercel’s horse. It was jerking its head skyward fretfully, but he grabbed its reins and held it steady long enough for Tiercel to dismount. As soon as he had, it trotted off after the other one, kicking up its heels as it went.

  “I think he’d like it better if he knew why the shield was there,” Tiercel said quietly.

  Harrier looked up at the wall. No one was in sight. “Hard to explain that to a wall,” he said.

  As they stood there, the sky began to lighten. It was only possible to tell because the MageShield seemed to change color and intensity as the light outside it grew. Every few minutes, someone would glance over the edge of the wall to see if they were still there, then withdraw.

  “Where do they think we’re going to go?” Harrier muttered. Tiercel only sighed.

  Harrier was starting to wonder what they were going to do. They didn’t have any shelter—MageShield wouldn’t protect them from the sun—and the watering-troughs for the flocks, though outside the city and inside the shield, were fed from the city wells. Water had to be pumped into them by hand. He wasn’t sure that anyone within the city would do that for them. And if Tiercel did drop the shield so they could go off in search of one of the other springs, well… he didn’t think they’d reach it before the Isvaieni reached them. “I don’t suppose you’d consider calling Ancaladar now?” Harrier asked in long-suffering tones.

  Just then there was movement on the top of the wall once again. Harrier looked up. “Light defend us,” he said softly. Batho was back, and standing with him was the Telchi, Consul Aldarnas, and someone Harrier recognized after a few moments’ study as the Chief Light-Priest of the Main Temple, Preceptor Larimac.

  “Do you swear by the Light that you mean us no harm?” Batho shouted down.

  “Oh, for the love of—Batho, if Tiercel hadn’t cast that spell, this damned city would be on fire right now and you know it!” Harrier bellowed back.

  “We mean you no harm!” Tiercel called up. “I swear it by the Light!”

  There was another long pause. The party on the top of the wall retreated.

  “Do you really think yelling at them is going to do any good?” Tiercel demanded.

  “Oh, sorry. I’m afraid I was thinking about how much fun it would be to die here outside the gates because they wouldn’t let us come back inside after you’d saved their city.”

  “Look, if you’d just let me—”

  “Shut up,” Harrier said, because he’d heard the sound of the bars of the gates being lifted. A moment later they began to swing inward. And a moment after that, people began to emerge from the city.

  First came a dozen Guardsmen, all fully armored, all with swords drawn. Next came Consul Aldarnas, surrounded by members of his personal guard, with a couple of nobles and the Telchi in attendance. Next came Preceptor Larimac and four sub-Preceptors, followed by another dozen Guardsmen. (“I wonder if there’s anyone left guarding the city?” Harrier muttered.) The Telchi must have spoken for them; it had to be why he was here, because there was no other reason for him to be in the Consul’s party.

  Consul Aldarnas was a robust man old enough to have grown children. They and their families—along with his wife—had been quietly sent north sennights ago, while he had stayed behind to keep order in his city. Now he pushed forward through the mass of guards and advisors that surrounded him (none of them really wanted to get too close to the wall of MageShield except the Telchi) and walked forward until he came to a stop in front of Tiercel and Harrier.

  “You are the one who has cast this spell?” he asked Tiercel.

  “Yes, sir,” Tiercel answered.

  “I have known many Blue Robes—you have always been welcome in my city and at my court—yet never have I known you to have such spells in your keeping,” the Consul said.

  Tiercel glanced toward him, and Harrier knew that he ought to speak up, and say that he was the Wildmage, not Tiercel. But he remembered what the Telchi had said before, and didn’t. For all they knew, Tiercel was about to be arrested. And even if he wasn’t, there were a lot of other people here, and any one of them might take it into their heads to blame one or the other of them—or both of them—for that army out there. He needed to be free in order to rescue Tiercel. If Tiercel needed to be rescued.

  “I’m not a Wildmage,” Tiercel answered. “Once, a long time ago, there was another kind of magic, called High Magick, that those born with something called the Magegift can learn. When I discovered I’d been born with the Magegift, I studied the ancient spellbooks. There are many books about the High Magick in the Great Library at Armethalieh.”

  Harrier was impressed. Nothing Tiercel had said was a lie, but the statements, taken together, provided a very different picture of things than the actual truth.

  “Why have you come here?” the Consul demanded bluntly.

  “The magic sent me visions of danger,” Tiercel answered simply. “I needed to know where they came from. You know, I imagine, that I have been asking if anyone in the city knows of a Lake of Fire anywhere in the desert. My vision has shown me this place. But I don’t know where it is.”

  The Consul’s mouth tightened; whether it was in rueful acceptance of Tiercel’s honesty, or in irritation at the situation, Harrier wasn’t quite sure. “You’re only a boy,” he said. “If you were having visions of danger, surely there was someone you could have told? Your parents?”

  “It took me a long time to learn my spells,” Tiercel said quietly. “Until I did, I couldn’t prove anything to anyone. Even afterward—all I could prove was that I could do magic. I couldn’t prove there was any danger. I can’t even prove it now. I think the Lake of Fire is somewhere in the desert. I think that whatever’s there, it’s convinced the Isvaieni to band together to attack you. The spell I’ve cast around your city is called MageShield. I’ll hold it in place as long as I can.”

  If it had been up to Harrier, he would have left out the part about Tiercel needing to hold the shield in place and possibly not being able to do it forever, but it must have been the right thing to say, because the Consul nodded. “If you and your friend will swear before the priest that you mean no harm, you may come back into the city,” he said.

  It was oddly disturbing to be called upon to do something like that. Everyone knew that an oath was sacred, and an oath sworn before a Light-Priest was doubly so, but except in the cases of Nobles who married (since a marriage between Nobles could not be set aside once it was made, and so a Noble-class marriage was an oathbound matter) a person might go his or her entire life without making such an oath. Certainly Harrier had never expected to take one, unless he became the next Portmaster and married the sea just as Da had done.

  But it had to be done, so both Tiercel and Harrier put their hands over the Light-Priest’s and swore an oath in the name of the Eternal Light—and in the names of the Blessed Saint Idalia and Kellen the Poor Orphan Boy (which Harrier found more than a little disturbing, knowing that he’d now met Idalia in person) that they meant no harm to anyone within the city walls. It was only the truth. And after that, the Consul was satisfied, or at least satisfied enough that they were beckoned to his side.

  “I feared, watching, that I would need to seek out a new apprentice,” the Telchi said quietly.

  “I’d been thinking the same thing,” Harrier answered somberly.

  Now that the oath had been sworn, the party marched back into the city once more. It was too much to hope for that the three of them would be allowed to simply go home after that, and they weren’t.

  The plaza outside the entrance to the gate was weirdly empty—guardsmen stood blocking off every entrance to it, and the ends of most of the streets were blocked off even further with makeshift barricades of carts
and rubble, though people crowded the streets beyond—and they tramped across it until they came to the entrance to the Consul’s Palace. The colonnade of pale stone glowed weirdly in the combination of dawn light and MageShield, as if the stones were lit from within.

  At the steps, Harrier abandoned his last hope that Tiercel would simply be thanked and dismissed. The Consul gestured, obviously expecting all three of them to follow him up the broad steps. Since they still had half-a-dozen soldiers behind them, there was little doubt that they would.

  Harrier had never been inside the Consul’s Palace. Tiercel had been here several times, since a number of the maps and records he’d consulted in the past sennights were located here, but Harrier had never gone. He’d gotten the impression, though, from everything that Tiercel’d said, that the place was kind of … spacious.

  If it was, there was no way to tell right now, because it was as jammed full of people as the main marketplace at the height of selling time. Every noble and rich merchant in the entire city—and probably every member of their families, and most of their servants—were here, jammed into the outer courts of the Palace, and all of them were talking at once. The Consul’s personal guard shoved through them ruthlessly—Harrier had to admire their efficiency, even while something inside him cringed every time someone went sprawling because of a too-enthusiastic shove. Their methods worked, though. Soon enough the Consul’s party had worked its way through several sets of rooms—each set less crowded than the last, though there were people in all of them—until finally they were in rooms that were—nearly—empty.

  At least they were empty of people. They were furnished with a degree of opulence that would have made Harrier blink if he hadn’t been a guest in an Elven household where the plates laid out on the table for dinner each evening were probably worth more than the contents of this entire palace.

  “I thought you would be more comfortable here,” the Consul said, turning to them.

  Than in our own home? Harrier wondered. Yeah, right.

  “Are we prisoners?” Tiercel asked, looking around. A footman stood quietly just inside the door. The Consul’s personal guard waited outside in the corridor. The Light-Priest and his retinue—and the City Guards—had left them at the last set of rooms. It was just them now—Tiercel and the Telchi and Consul Aldarnas and him—and it should have been reassuring, but somehow, Harrier had felt less nervous when there’d been more guards.

  “Could I hold you prisoner if you did not wish to be held?” the Consul asked.

  “No,” Tiercel answered simply. “Please believe me. I only want to help.”

  “Of course,” the Consul said, and Harrier felt faintly uneasy. “But I must ask you, with this great power that you possess, why did you not come forward sooner? Why conceal yourself among my citizens?”

  He did not even glance toward the Telchi, but Harrier knew that Consul Aldarnas was perfectly aware that the Telchi had brought them to Tarnatha’Iteru and sheltered them and he probably suspected that the Telchi knew far more than he’d told.

  “What difference would it have made?” Tiercel answered. “Either you’d think I was crazy, or—maybe—you’d think I was the reason the army was coming here in the first place. Which doesn’t make much sense if they’ve been destroying cities for at least four moonturns and I only got here a moonturn and a half ago.”

  “If you aren’t allied with them, how do you know how long they’ve been attacking the Iteru-cities for?” the Consul asked.

  “Because they’re Isvaieni,” Harrier said, taking half a step forward. “And when we arrived, people were saying that nobody had seen any Isvaieni since Snows—if not longer.”

  The Consul turned and looked at him, and Harrier saw in his eyes the knowledge that Harrier wasn’t telling everything he knew. He had a sudden mad impulse to confess, to tell the Consul that no, he wasn’t a High Mage, but he was a Wildmage. A moment later he realized with a feeling almost of panic that his Three Books were back at the Telchi’s, and he probably wasn’t going to be able to go and get them, or even send the Telchi to get them, because the Telchi was certainly under as much suspicion now as he and Tiercel were, and there was no one else he could possibly send. But he kept silent with an effort, and after a moment, the Consul merely nodded.

  “The city is … unsettled,” he said. “I shall tell my people there is nothing to fear, and that the light they see in the sky will defend them.” He paused, regarding Tiercel. “It is said that the High Mages of old had many other spells at their command. Is there more you can do to save this city?”

  Tiercel hesitated for a long moment. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said finally. “I’ve read those stories too. The old High Mages slew the Endarkened, and called down lightning out of the sky. Those aren’t spells I know. I’m sorry. If I did know them, I might be able to use them. I’ll try to think of something that will help.”

  “I hope—for all our sakes—that you can,” the Consul said. He nodded to both of them, and walked from the room.

  Tiercel looked at the Telchi. “You could …” he began, and the Telchi smiled. “Yeah, I guess not,” Tiercel said, sighing. “Wait outside,” he said to the footman. The servant bowed and withdrew, and Tiercel walked over and closed the door.

  The Telchi was in motion, walking through the inner rooms, opening the shutters and peering out, closing them again. “We are alone,” he announced, returning.

  Harrier sat down on the nearest chair, feeling suddenly exhausted. “Are you all right?” he asked, looking at Tiercel.

  Tiercel shrugged, sitting down as well. “Sure. It isn’t hard to hold the spell, not with Ancaladar’s power to draw on. I just have to be … awake.” His voice flattened on the last word, and Harrier glanced at the Telchi. The man’s face was grim, and Harrier knew they were both thinking the same thing: that Tiercel had bought the city a little time, but not very much.

  “I do not think this spell will drive them off,” the Telchi said quietly.

  “Not since they seem to think we’re the Darkspawn,” Tiercel said in frustration. “I don’t know where they could have gotten such a stupid idea.”

  “From the Endarkened, where else?” Harrier said irritably. He didn’t want to be angry at Tiercel, but he didn’t think he’d ever been so frightened in his life—not even when they’d been facing the Goblins and he’d been certain he was going to die within the next few minutes. “Think about it, Tyr. You don’t even have to subvert them if you can just convince them that the people you want them to destroy are evil. They’ll go out and do it thinking they’re doing good.”

  Tiercel laughed raggedly. “Oh, that’s just great! Even if I did know how to call down lightning—which, fortunately, I don’t—how could I possibly use it against a bunch of innocent people?”

  “The inhabitants of Kabipha’Iteru and Laganda’Iteru would perhaps disagree with you as to the innocence of this army,” the Telchi said. “Were any of them still alive. And if this army is not stopped, the people of Tarnatha’Iteru will join their fellows in death. And so will we.”

  Tiercel looked from one to the other of them, wild-eyed. “What do you want me to do?” he asked desperately. “What do you want me to do?”

  “We will think, together, calmly, of what you may do,” the Telchi said. “And then we will plan.”

  But as it turned out, there wasn’t a very great deal that Tiercel could do in defense of the city beyond what he was doing now. Ancaladar and Tiercel had been working—very hard—at the High Magick ever since they had Bonded. And nearly all of their work had been on shields.

  “And wards,” Tiercel said, with the air of one who knew it wasn’t very helpful. “Which means if we were to be attacked by a High Mage, an Elven Mage, or certain sorts of Otherfolk, I’d be all set.”

  “And why was he having you learn something that… useless?” Harrier demanded.

  “Because the Endarkened are classified as Otherfolk, Har,” Tiercel said, sounding def
eated. “He was teaching me to protect myself against the Endarkened.”

  “Do not apologize for being prepared to do battle, even if you are not prepared for the battle that has been offered,” the Telchi said.

  “Well, you weren’t just casting a bunch of wards and shields at Blackrowan Farm,” Harrier said.

  “Transmutation,” Tiercel said. He smiled painfully. “If we were the attacking army, that would actually be useful. I could turn the walls to water. As it is, no.”

  “Can this spell be used on living flesh?” the Telchi asked.

  “No!” Tiercel said in horror. Then: “No,” more quietly. “It can’t. And even if it could … it would kill them.”

  “Sometimes some must die so that others may live,” the Telchi said.

  “You aren’t talking about ‘some,’” Harrier said grimly. “Unless they’re all killed, whichever ones aren’t dead will just go on with their attack. So you’re talking about killing almost five thousand people.”

  “There are nearly that number within this city,” the Telchi said remorselessly. “It seems a choice must be made.”

  “Not by me,” Tiercel said. He got to his feet and strode away.

  Harrier wasn’t sure what to do, not really. He’d hoped, when he’d first heard the word “army,” that it would be, well, smaller—if there was one thing he’d learned growing up on the docks of Armethalieh, it was how much a tale grew in the telling. He’d hoped, too, that no matter what size this army was, it would be something that Tiercel could frighten away. Because that had been a good plan: to convince the enemy that Tarnatha’Iteru was a place that just wasn’t worth their trouble.

  But now that he’d seen the army and listened to Zanattar, he just didn’t think that it was going to work. And it wasn’t … fair … that Tiercel should have to make decisions like this (because the final decision was Tiercel’s, Harrier knew; nobody could force him to cast a spell). The trouble was both Tiercel and the Telchi were right. In one sense, it didn’t matter how many people the Isvaieni outside the gates had killed. They’d been tricked into doing it, so killing them just because you could was wrong. They deserved a trial, a sentence, the same protection of law that anyone else living in the lands ruled by the High Magistrate got. And in another sense, if they weren’t killed immediately, by anyone who could (and the only one who might be able to was Tiercel, Harrier knew that perfectly well), they’d kill everyone in Tarnatha’Iteru as soon as they could. And they weren’t going to just go away.