The Firebird's Vengeance

by Sarah Zettel

  “Your aunt sleeps,” he reported.

  Sakra walked past her to the windows. He found the trick of the sash and the shutters and threw them both open, letting in a rush of cold spring air. For a time, he did nothing but stand there and breathe deeply, grounding himself, bringing order back to his mind.

  “Is she hurt?” asked Bridget softly, remembering the blood. “Does she need attention?”

  “No.”

  Bridget’s fingers knotted in her stained skirt. It was an old gesture, one she had strived to rid herself of in that place where she was more likely to be wearing linens and brocades rather than plain, starched work clothes.

  “This is what they were all afraid of. This … explosion.”

  “Yes.”

  She could only see his profile from where she was. The dark blotch of a bruise darkened his temple. Turn around. Look at me.

  Forgive me.

  Sakra did not turn. He watched the night through the window, drinking in deep draughts of air that smelled of clean water and returning green.

  Bridget’s fingers wove themselves together. Sakra had been a source of strength and reassurance to her almost since she’d met him, and now she wanted to be anywhere but next to him. “Were you afraid too?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s why you came.” She spoke the words as a statement, not a question.

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Under the bruise, a muscle twitched. “I am not your teacher, Bridget. She did tell you, and you did not listen.”

  “If you had told me …”

  “You still would not have listened.” He threw back his head, looking to Heaven for strength or patience. “I have never known anyone who longed so much for place, for purpose, but when those ties you want so desperately bind you, you fight like a tiger to be free, and look surprised when those around you are hurt!” At last, Sakra granted her wish, and he looked at her, but there was no forgiveness in the gesture, instead there were bruised eyes full of bewilderment, and hurt, of his body and of his spirit. “You want change, but do not want yourself to change or be changed. You want to be given obedience without giving any in return. Mothers All! How can you have reached such an age and not realized the living world does not work in this fashion!”

  His words might have jolted Bridget to her feet, but her knees were too weak to support her. Rage thrummed dangerously through her mind, and the memory of how strong she could truly be set her fingertips twitching, but she also heard the memory of breaking glass and saw afresh the heavy bruises on Sakra’s face.

  She had been warned, time and again, by Mistress Urshila, and she had dismissed those warnings. She had taken an oath of loyalty to the emperor and empress, and she had dismissed that as well.

  She thought about her years at the lighthouse. Was there ever anyone more mistress of their domain than she? Nothing to do days and nights but keep her house, read her books, tend the light, and be alone with her memories. She had no one to answer to but the lighthouse board, and as long as the lamp stayed lit, and the inspector they sent out ever few years could see that regulations were being followed, they left her alone.

  She had always thought of herself as a prisoner, but there had been a kind of freedom to her life. The freedom that came of having nothing outside oneself to hold on to.

  That was what she had truly given up when she returned to Isavalta, and she had done so without realizing it.

  Sakra was again looking out the window across the dark and sleeping expanse of Bayfield.

  “You must decide,” he said. “Now. Do you accept a life that binds you to others, or do you return to your light and your freedom?” His face was rigid. There were so many things she knew he would not say. He would not say, “Do you care for me?” He would not say, “What of your daughter?” He would not say, “I cannot let you return to Isavalta as you are. You may lose control again.”

  But I want to come back. I want my past, my daughter, my love. I don’t want to be lonely and lost anymore.

  But could she? After all her years alone, could she throw herself into such a life? She had made a very poor job of it so far.

  She could go back, turn away. Stay here. If she couldn’t go back to the light, there was surely somewhere she could go, to be alone, to be free.

  Amid the surging jumble of thoughts, two things were very clear. If she stayed here, she would still be aware every moment of the untutored, uncontrolled power she carried within her, and she would know she had turned her back on Anna. Neither thing would ever leave her free again.

  “I cannot do this alone,” she said, her voice hoarse with more emotions than she could name. “I cannot be alone anymore, and I do not want to be alone anymore.” Slowly, she unwound her fingers from each other and laid her long, work-worn hands on her knees. “I do not know what to do. I’m only certain of what must be done. I must help Aunt Grace. I must find Anna. Even if … even if she were not my daughter, she is a child trapped by disaster, and should be helped.”

  Slowly Sakra nodded. “I can help with these things, if you permit. But we do not have much time. I feel there is more happening here than our immediate concerns. The dead are not lightly involved in the affairs of the living.”

  “I don’t understand. Medeoan involved herself.”

  “There is very little the dead can do if they are not permitted to. There is great freedom in death, and there is no freedom at all.”

  Bridget wanted to say that was nonsense, but bit the words back and tried to think of what she knew instead. She remembered her mother’s ghost, coming to her on the night of the solstice in Vyshtavos, speaking of this meeting being permitted, by time, by Vyshko and Vyshemir. Even the dead had choices and limitations. Even the dead could be used.

  “Permitted by whom? Or by what?”

  “I don’t know,” said Sakra. “But I’m afraid we will find out before all this is over.” The distant look of contemplation came into his autumn eyes. “I do know we would have had to come to this place, whether to find your daughter or not.”

  “Why?”

  “Because knowledge comes in the abandoned places,” he said, bringing himself back to the here and now to face her, his bruised face looking as tired as she felt, but his voice calm and even refreshed. “Because Medeoan knows how to cage the Firebird.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The cook grimaced as he slurped a ladleful of Urshila’s soup. “It’s cold.”

  “Yes, but at least it’s cooked.” Urshila poured the remainder of the broth back into the crockery pot, and into her hand dropped the round stone that had been part of her spell to turn the water, bones, and raw vegetables into soup.

  After a whole day’s trying, no spell had been able to raise the smallest spark. Hearth and oven remained cold and dead. The inner corridors of the palace were as dark as if the sun had never risen. Tannery, forge, and brewery were silent, and for once the work yard smelled of nothing but dust and the blowing wind.

  Despite the house guard that was sent out at first light to both cry and gather the news, to urge calm and that people stay in their homes, the first of the townsfolk showed up at the gates just a few hours after sunrise. It had been the emperor’s inspired idea to send Bakhar, the keeper of the emperor’s god house, out to meet them and see that the gates were opened. Prayers to Vyshko and Vyshemir had been sung all morning, with the new arrivals joining in and replacing the tired voices. Whether the gods were listening or not, Urshila was not prepared to say, but it kept the people calm until the palace could make shift to feed and shelter those who would not, or could not, return home.

  Like the other court sorcerers, Urshila had gone to the Red Library as soon as it was light, and with the others she had searched scroll, book, and memory for the lore of the Firebird, and the spells of bringing and controlling fire itself. But despite her work with Bridget, the habits of study were returning only slowly to Urshila, and as the sun passed
noon and began to descend toward the horizon, she found herself cramped, angry, and more than a little frightened that there was so little of use in this great storehouse of knowledge.

  It was of no help that the lord sorcerer was obviously dying. Daren had ordered a couch to be brought into the library so he could lie down and whisper orders to his two apprentices. The boys scurried this way and that to find the books Daren wanted. His skin was the color of ash and his eyes looked nearly blind. The boys had to hold up the books for he lacked the strength to raise his hands. Urshila was not even certain he could read them anymore.

  Not one of the sorcerers said a word. They just read and consulted and murmured one to another as if nothing were happening. Daren had declared no one was to waste time and strength healing him, and that was that, and all obeyed, including Urshila.

  Urshila tried very hard not to see Isavalta itself in his clouded eyes.

  So, rather than loose her temper onto her colleagues and the dying man, she had retreated to the kitchens to see if there was anything she could do to help with the food. There was not enough bread, butter, cheese, or salt meat to keep the palace and those seeking its shelter fed for two days, never mind if their plight stretched out into weeks.

  So, she had resurrected an ancient spell, one of the first her own master had taught her as being both extremely useful and very impressive should she, as many sorcerers did, ever have to take to the road and earn her keep in a strange holding or village. But while the soup was flavorful and the vegetables in an edible state, it seemed the Firebird would not even permit a single kettle full of warmth in its new domain.

  But at least she had done something. There was soup to feed the hungry, and bread to eke out the palace’s supplies, and she had gotten away from the books, the Isavaltan books that were full of rules and instructions as to what was allowed, and what was blasphemous, and what was even worse, what was Tuukosov.

  “There exists the theory that history or sacrifice can permeate a place and cause it to be more favorable to one element or another,” she had read, in the middle of a treatise on the symbols and sympathies that could be used to raise fire from earth, metal, or air. “But this is to be despised as the bloody art of the Tuukosov, and should you encounter any such who work from this theory you may know them to be untrue and place them suspect before the magistrates and boyars.”

  It did not surprise her. She had long known the books and scrolls were full of such. The gods all knew how each quarter day she had to listen to how Vyshko and Vyshemir saved the city of Isavalta from the foul Tuukosov invaders. But she paid that little attention, having set Tuukos aside a long time ago. This passage would not have even made her blink had it not been for her meeting with the ancient scullery woman yesterday. After that her thoughts had started traveling down old paths, pushed farther and faster by the growing fear that they would find nothing in the Red Library to defeat, delay, or appease the Firebird, even if they had all the power to be summoned by Bridget Lederle and her mythical daughter.

  But there were other magics, older magics, older ways of knowing and other guardians to ask. But if she suggested any of them, she would be revealed. After that, even if she was not exiled or jailed, not one of those now closeted in the Red Library would hear a single thing she had to say.

  Why am I even thinking of this? It’s useless. Turning back to the old ways of Tuukos never saved one life. There is power and knowledge enough here. We will find what we need. I have made my choice. I will stand by it.

  The cook gestured to one of his assistants who picked up the clay vessel and emptied it into the great iron kettle that would hold the needed amount, but being iron, resisted her workings.

  “That should do for now, such as it is,” said Cook. “Thank you, mistress.” His reverence was perfunctory, and he turned to order his lounging assistants into motion. Two of them caught up the great kettle and struggled to carry it through the kitchen behind him without sloshing soup over the rim. For the moment when Cook passed, there was a vigorous banging of pots and scraping of vegetables. It all faded away when the door closed behind him.

  Momentarily ignored, Urshila let herself sigh with relief. Her head was beginning to ache from repeating the same working a dozen times. Vyshemir grant they would have their answer soon, or her aching head would be the least of their worries.

  “I thought sorcerers were able to conjure fantastic banquets from thin air.”

  The voice was so close beside her, Urshila nearly jumped out of her skin. When she was able to look around again, she saw the ancient scullery woman, a bucket in one hand, a worn scrubbing brush in the other. Her eyes twinkled shrewdly as she cocked her head toward Urshila.

  Tired as she was, Urshila was not certain whether she wanted to laugh, or just turn away at once. “Without the tools for it, Honored Mother, I am as likely to be able to conjure down the moon.” But that was a thought. The treasury held tools of magic locked in its depths. There might be one of the fabled cloths or staffs down there that could produce such a banquet. She must ask the lord sorcerer … if he could still speak.

  She should get back to the library. She was wasting her time here, but she did not move.

  “My daughter has forgiven me for importuning her earlier, ha?” The old woman squinted up at her.

  Urshila shrugged. “We are all in this together now, Honored Mother. We will each grow as cold and hungry as the others.” The unease in the kitchen was palpable. The servants were chatting and laughing as they idled by the great worktables, as if this were an unexpected holiday. But voices and laughter were brittle, and there were too many sideways glances and hunched shoulders. A fundamental thing had gone wrong with the working of the world. No one could help but wonder what could come next, when not even one of the court sorcerers could bring them warmth.

  “None of the other fine sorcerers is willing to come down so far as to worry about feeding us all?” The old woman spoke softly, and she spoke in Tuukosov.

  “No other so impatient as I,” answered Urshila in Isavaltan. “But I have done what I can and must get back to the library.”

  “Done what you can?” said the woman before Urshila could finish turning away. “Are you sure? All that you can, Ulla?”

  The last word froze Urshila where she stood. Only slowly was she able to force herself back into motion, and set down her heel, turn her torso, lower her chin to fully face the ancient woman again.

  “How did you learn that name?”

  The woman smiled. “I see farther than most.” She swung the cloudy bucket of water toward Urshila, and Urshila looked automatically down into its depths, and glimpsed the tiny sphere of glass that rolled across the bottom.

  A witch’s eye?

  Impossible. It could not be. That would mean this old woman was …

  The servant gave Urshila a gap-toothed grin. “It is most likely, Daughter, that I am the one who remembers the year of your birth.”

  A thousand questions swarmed up in Urshila’s mind: How did you get here? What are you doing here? Who are you?

  But the ancient sorceress did not wait for her to voice any of them. “Would you save your precious Isavalta? Come with me.”

  Urshila had only a heartbeat to make her decision. The woman was already toting her bucket down the narrow servant’s hallway, striding confidently into the pitch-blackness. In another moment, Urshila would not be able to see her at all.

  Urshila snatched up her hems and followed the ancient sorceress into the shadows.

  Within a few strides, Urshila’s only guides were the slap of the sorceress’s shoes on the flagstones and the rough stone and plaster of the walls under her outstretched fingertips. The darkness quickly took her sense of time, and the turns of the hall her sense of direction. The suspicion rose in her that the old woman was deliberately trying to disorient her.

  I should have thought of that earlier.

  Up ahead, the footsteps slowed and stopped. Urshila did the same. A door
scraped open and a dim shaft of light fell across the grey flagstones. On the other side was some old drying room, or perhaps a cool room. Right now it seemed to be used for nothing but storage. Anonymous bales were stacked on all sides. Venting slits up near its ceiling let in a few grey and dusty sunbeams.

  The woman set down the bucket and began shuffling through the bales, raising dust and the smell of ancient cloth. Urshila finally remembered she had a tongue.

  “How am I to call you?”

  “I am Senja Palo. The murhata know me as Semona.”

  Murhata. There was a word she had not heard in many a year. It meant “murderer,” and was the Tuukosov way of referring to the Isavaltans, when none of them were listening, at any rate.

  “Honored Mother, you spoke just now of saving the murhata.” The word felt strange on her tongue, and brought back memories long buried. Memories of armed men in the darkness, of a young man pleading for his life, of the creak of the gallows tree as the bodies twisted in the winter wind. Of the ones who stood and stared and did nothing, nothing at all.

  Of her father, with his dark eyes and face like stone. Of her mother shaking her and saying, Do you want to die like your brother? Clinging to the old life and the blood magics bleeds them white, and they can’t even see it!

  Them. Was that the first time mother had referred to the Tuukosov as “them”? It was the first time Urshila remembered.

  “What voice do you hear?”

  Urshila shook her head. Senja had straightened up and was staring right at her.

  “Honored Mother.” Urshila shook her head. “Time is precious. What is it you have to tell me?”

  “Not yet, Little Daughter.”

  Urshila thought of the cold kitchen, the silent work yard, the growing crowd at the gates, Daren coughing out his life in the Red Library, and the coming night with its cold. “Vyshko’s pike,” she swore exasperatedly. “Yes, Honored Mother. Here, and now.”

  Senja wagged her head in regret that might have been real or only feigned. Urshila could not tell.

  “You speak the name of the murhata’s high god,” she said, sitting heavily down on one of the bales. “Have you ever heard the true story of their Vyshko and Vyshemir? Did your mother ever tell you?”