The Firebird's Vengeance

by Sarah Zettel

  “I swear, Kalami,” said Bridget hoarsely. Tears glistened in her eyes. “Whatever you want, just …”

  “No, no, my dear Bridget. Whatever I want, and then.” He smiled. “Go. You will see the path. Do not one of you look back.”

  Mae Shan turned to face the mountain. She did see the path, thin and snaking up the hills that blended together to become the mountain. It was far more green than brown, apparently a lightly traveled route. Still working her hands to keep them limber, Mae Shan marched toward it, keeping her shoulders and arms relaxed and loose, remembering to breathe. There would be some chance. There would be some way. She traveled with sorcerers. She still had the spear. There would be some way.

  To believe otherwise was to despair, and she had not come so far, she had not witnessed so much to give way now.

  She did not hear Sakra and Bridget fall into step behind her. The sound of the ocean was too loud to hear footfalls on sand, but neither did she look back to see they were there. The path of the dead from Hell this might be, but she would not make the mistake the poems spoke of and look back to see where she had been and thus lose her promised freedom. Kalami would not kill Anna on this path. He needed her yet to control her mother, and Mae Shan, and through them Sakra. What chance she would have lay ahead of her.

  The path up the mountain was steep and winding. The trees were stunted, but they grew together in tight clumps, leaving room for little between them but bracken, or a patch of grey or black stone. The cool of the ocean breeze soon fell behind them. Mae Shan began to perspire freely, and her lungs strained to keep her supplied with air. Now she could hear the others moving behind her, the rustle of cloth, the crackle of sticks and last year’s leaves, the hiss of labored breath. Anna’s whisper, then Kalami’s. She almost forgot the orders not to look back, but caught herself in time.

  Gradually, the trees grew taller and straighter, cutting off the sunlight. Clouds of tiny, black insects swarmed around Mae Shan’s face, settling on her neck and behind her ears to drink their fill. She did not let go of her spear. She did not look back or shake her head to try to clear them. She thought she would go mad with itching, but she did not want Kalami to become tense and wary again. She wanted him to think they were cowed.

  The path steepened. Despite her efforts, the feeling in Mae Shan’s hands began to drain away, replaced by an aching in her elbows and shoulders. Her feet felt leaden and the cloth of her shoes was damp with sweat.

  “No, Anna,” said Kalami suddenly. “Not there. We have a way to go yet.”

  So they kept climbing.

  The path wandered through the trees and the thickets that sprang up wherever there was a patch of sunlight. That sunlight was steeply slanted now, and the forest was dimming toward twilight. Hunger cramped Mae Shan’s belly and thirst made her throat itch as badly as her face and neck did from drying sweat and insect bites. A dozen times she thought she saw a place where she might dive out of sight, and turn, spear at the ready. But who would she kill like that? He had already shown her he had no reason to fear her weapon. She could turn, throw the spear to distract attention, snatch Anna and run away, vanish into the forest and wait for darkness, but could she do any of that before the black knife flickered?

  Patience. Patience. It is still ahead of you. Keep walking. You will meet your chance.

  Eventually, the trees began to thin and shrink again. Mae Shan emerged, blinking, into the deep golden light of evening. The forest spread out behind and below her now. Ahead, the ground rose steeply enough to become jagged walls of grey veined with black. Here and there she saw the white forms of mountain goats, looking calmly down at the humans, and knowing themselves to be perfectly safe. There was no climbing these cliffs.

  “To your right, Mae Shan,” called out Kalami. “Go carefully. These screes are treacherous.”

  Her arms ached as they never had. Her legs were weakening as well, and still, Mae Shan turned as she was bidden, putting the cliffs on her left side and the open, stony slope on her right. She let her eyes dart quickly to the side as she did, and managed to glimpse Kalami, who was — oh, thank Heaven he had that much compassion — carrying Anna now. The exhausted child lay limp against his chest. Her color did not look healthy.

  The knife still glittered in his hand.

  Sakra and Bridget marched grimly between Mae Shan and Kalami, with Bridget closest to her child. Their shoulders were slumped and they stumbled against the ridges that centuries of wind had carved in the stone. Her own balance was none too certain, and she wobbled and skidded like a clown on stepping stones in a bad comic play. The light was dimming rapidly. Soon she would not be able to see at all.

  Soon I will break my neck, and at least I will be able to wait for Kalami in the Land of Death and Spirit.

  Forgive me, Anna.

  “Look sharp, Mae Shan,” called out Kalami. “Watch for the marking stone of obsidian. Turn toward the cliffs when you see it, and walk straight ahead.”

  Her eyes were bleary, her head ached, and the light was only getting worse, but Mae Shan gritted her teeth and tried to obey. Stones clattered underfoot and behind her. Overhead, a goat let loose a tiny bit of scree, and a pebble bounced down in front of her, startling her and almost robbing her of what little balance she had left. The wind blew cold against her exposed and bloodless hands. She stumbled, and stumbled again.

  Then she saw something glint in the last rays of day. A finger of black and glassy stone thrust itself out of a rock fall. As she had been ordered, Mae Shan turned to face the cliff and trudged forward, wondering sardonically to herself if Kalami would be happy once she had broken her nose against the solid wall of stone.

  Then, in the fading light, she made out a narrow crack hidden in a cleft in the cliff face. There seemed to be a grey twilight shining through, and she realized this was a passageway, through to … somewhere.

  “That’s far enough, Mae Shan. Stand aside.”

  Mae Shan did. She fell back with Bridget and with Sakra. They were as disheveled, as exhausted and filthy as she. They let Kalami pass them, able to do nothing more than glare at him. He cradled Anna against his chest and held the knife pressed against her back. He couldn’t cut her throat quickly from this position, but if such knives were as sharp as she’d heard, he could sever her spine and leave her to die slowly.

  “There, there, Anna,” he said in a mocking parody of father’s love as he passed Bridget. “We’re almost done.” He kissed the half-sleeping child on top of her forehead. “And you will all please remember, I know what is on the other side of this, and you do not. I still hold her life as I hold her body. If you do not all come through before a man may count to one hundred, she will die within moments and your only consolation will be that it will be quick. Mae Shan, you will come first.”

  Kalami vanished into the crevice. Mae Shan looked to Bridget. Her face was wet with tears but if anything, her expression had hardened.

  You had better pray I get to you before she does, Valin Kalami.

  Mae Shan faced the cliff. The only cold comfort this moment offered was that she had to lower her spear in order go through the low, narrow passage. Her shoulders screamed in protest but she did not take the time to listen. She turned her body to fit through the crevice.

  As she did, Sakra caught her eye. “They shape glass,” he murmured.

  What? Mae Shan did not take time to speak the question. She did not want to risk being overheard. She instead squeezed as quickly as she could into the cramped darkness.

  To Mae Shan’s relief, once inside the opening, the stone was smooth and the way was short. The evening light opened before her, and she was through in a space of time measured in heartbeats.

  Once she had straightened up, the first thing she saw was Valin Kalami holding Anna close and watching Mae Shan with his sly eyes.

  Then she saw the valley.

  It was a perfect bowl shape with the teeth of the cliffs rising high overhead. Where outside there had been scrub and r
ock, here there was grass like a verdant carpet. Even in the twilight it glowed with color. Clusters of daffodils broke the green here and there to shine with a gold that rivaled the setting sun. Small brown birds like quail, and larger ones with red heads that might have been gulls of some sort nested in the short grass, undisturbed by their arrival, for by now Sakra and Bridget had come through the crevice. The white mountain sheep and goats grazed serenely on the lush vegetation, or settled together in knots, preparing for sleep.

  The only things that rose higher than the heads of the sheep waited down on the smooth floor of the valley bowl. A circle of trees grew down there, where it was closer to night than day, but Mae Shan could still tell those trees were scarlet red, branches, trunks, twigs, leaves and all. They were perfect in their shape, with thick, straight trunks and beautiful spreading branches. They must have been tended as carefully as the trees in the gardens of the Heart, and for as many centuries. As she stared, however, she saw how they gleamed unnaturally in the last rays of day, as if they were made of red ice.

  As if they were made of glass.

  “They destroyed the crucibles where we wrought our greatest shapings,” Kalami said. “They smashed our creations and took our artisans to be their slaves. They slaughtered our sorcerers, our teachers, our leaders. But they never found their way here. Never.” His smile was positively wild as he gazed out at the great valley. “Did your emperor make the Heart of the World? The gods themselves made this heart for us.”

  How could such things be made? Mae Shan could not take her eyes off the trees. They were too big for any crucible. They were too perfect for any human craftsman. From this distance, only the tiniest sheen showed them to be other than creations of nature.

  Only the tiniest sheen.

  Mae Shan looked again at Kalami, as he stared over the top of his daughter’s head. His skin shone as well. At first she thought it was perspiration from his exertions, but now she looked again. She saw the smoothness of his arms and face and hands.

  Glass. They shape glass.

  It was this that shook Mae Shan back to herself. Anna was watching her. The child’s skin was grey, and yet she seemed flushed with fever. Ordinary concerns touched Mae Shan, the daughter of a large family. When had the child last had a proper meal? When had she last slept? There was something beyond plain worry or confusion in her face. Mae Shan had seen her look this way before. She wanted reassurance. In her father’s arms, she was looking to Mae Shan to give it to her.

  But Mae Shan had none to give, not yet, so she would find a way to give her what she could. She would let the child know she still cared, that she knew it was not Anna who had done what had been done.

  And she would give Anna her mother as well.

  “Anna, you are not well,” she said succinctly in the language of Isavalta. Beside her, she felt Bridget stiffen.

  “My daughter is fine,” returned Kalami. “She is only tired. If you care for her” — this was said to Bridget — “you will see that we conclude our business quickly.”

  Anna was looking at Bridget again. Wondering, surely, who this woman who bore the title of mother actually was. Her mind was not completely made up yet, or it had been changed, and that was something else.

  There were dark, lumpish shapes in the center of the ring of scarlet trees. Only one of them moved. It paced back and forth in a pattern of ritual, or of working. Someone below them was preparing for their arrival and a light burned low and orange on what looked to be an altar.

  “As you were before,” said Kalami. “Let us go.”

  Mae Shan thought her shoulders would break, but she swung the spear high over her head again.

  “Your mother saved my life,” she said to Anna as she did.

  Kalami answered before Anna could. “That one traitor saves another is not surprising. We know who you are, Mae Shan.”

  “Yes,” Mae Shan said as she turned away to march down the steep slope of the valley. “I know you do.”

  Fortunately, the dew had not yet fallen. The way would have been nearly impossible if the grass had been slick as well as soft. By the time they reached level ground, night had truly arrived. Birds and sheep had fallen silent. The wind blew through the grass without sound. It might have been the Land of Death and Spirit, except for the sky. The sky above was indigo and black, and the stars, the landscape and inhabitants of Heaven, came out in their millions to witness whatever thing Kalami had in store for them, and for his daughter.

  Ahead of them, in the grove, someone was lighting lanterns that hung in the tree branches. Tiny lights like infant stars shone through scarlet leaves and branches, making them dance as if they swayed in the night breeze. It was beautiful and it was eerie for everything was the exact color of fresh blood.

  As the ring of glass trees grew nearer, Mae Shan expected them to seem less real, but they did not. The lines of the trunks were rippled and grooved, as tree bark was. Each red leaf had its own individual shape and color. She could see no join where leaf met twig, and she wondered almost hysterically if they fell in the autumn and needed to be swept up with special brooms. The wind freshened, and Mae Shan heard a new sound. As the leaves shivered, they sang, ever so slightly, high, fragile, almost painful notes, making a song of knifelike beauty that set all the senses on edge.

  Mae Shan walked into the grove of trees the color of blood surrounded by the singing of ancient glass, and faced a monster. A brown and wasted man hunched in a robe that had once been white, but that age had turned yellow, belted round with a leather braid those same years had stained black. He had a long taper in his hand that he had been using to light the lanterns, that Mae Shan now saw were also made of glass, clear instead of scarlet. By their light, she saw the greed in his eyes at their approach.

  “Kneel before the Holy Father,” barked Kalami, as if they should have known what to do. Mae Shan knelt in the cooling grass, with Sakra and Bridget following suit. Kalami set Anna down on her feet, keeping her close, but not, she noticed, with the knife immediately at her throat. He felt safer here, more sure of them, weakened as he knew they were. Neither he nor Anna made the obeisance.

  The one Kalami called Holy Father laid the taper aside on what Mae Shan had taken for an altar. She saw now it was a squat, square crucible of black stone, its fire burning so brightly, it was painful to look at. Beside it lay a heap of ore speckled with gold, and beside that lay a perfectly round pool that reflected all the stars in the darkening sky.

  “Welcome,” said Kalami’s Holy Father, his tongue slipping against gums that had no teeth left. “Now you see what not even all those of the True Blood have looked upon. Now you see the Holy of Holies. It is from here you will be the means to shape our salvation.”

  The holy monster shuffled up to Mae Shan, and took her spear in his skinny hands. Mindful of Anna and the knife, Mae Shan let it go. Her arms fell painfully to her sides, and she wondered if she’d ever find the strength to lift them again.

  “Good,” he said, surveying the shaft and the honed tip as if he meant to purchase it. “A soldier should die with her weapons beside her.”

  “Are we all to die, Holy Father?” inquired Sakra.

  “Or just Mae Shan?” added Bridget.

  “Keep quiet!” snapped Kalami.

  Mae Shan risked another glance at Anna. She seemed to have recovered a little now that she was on her feet. Her eyes were clearer, and they were watching Mae Shan, and they were watching the stranger who was her mother, and they were determinedly not watching the knife in her father’s hand.

  Where is my chance? It is here, I know it is. Where?

  “Tonight we finish the work begun by our most loyal son,” the Holy Father went on, smiling broadly, so the firelight played across his wet gums.

  He waited, letting the words sink in, waiting for comprehension, and it came.

  “God Almighty,” said Bridget hoarsely. “The Firebird. You’re going to try to cage the Firebird and keep it for Tuukos, like the dowager kep
t it for Isavalta.”

  “The murhata have had a taste of its power now,” said the holy madman. “They know how well they should fear it now. They will bow before the ones who gave them their gods, as they should have all these long years. Their blood will shape our workings as it did before, and they will understand our greatness afresh.”

  Mae Shan looked at the scarlet trees, and realized what blasphemy had made them. Her stomach, which she thought must now be beyond such delicacy, turned over inside her.

  “I can’t cage the Firebird,” Bridget was saying.

  “A pity,” said the madman, smiling serenely. “If that is the truth then when it is called here, it will kill us all.” He nodded significantly toward Anna.

  It was a gesture Bridget could not miss. She flung herself down on the grass. “Please. Please, not the child. I don’t know how to do this thing you ask. Let Kalami take Anna away from here. She is one of your people. She does not deserve to die because I don’t know what to do.”

  Those words, that gesture, must have cost her everything, and yet Mae Shan knew she made them freely, even gladly, if it would help. If it would save Anna.

  But did Anna know it? With only the flickering lights of the tiny lanterns and the bloody reflections of the trees, Mae Shan couldn’t see her silent, solemn face well enough to know for sure.

  “You can stop this pretense,” Kalami said. “Anna knows you for the false mother you are. No show of devotion will undo what you have already done.”

  Slowly, deliberately, like one who was no longer concerned for consequences, Bridget climbed to her feet. “What I have done?” she whispered. “What I have done!” she shouted, her voice rising to a shriek. “Why are you holding a knife at her throat, Valin Kalami? If my heart is so hollow, why is her life the only card you have to play against us all? Where are your magics, your bribes, your compulsions? Where is all your power, Sorcerer? Why is threatening my daughter all you can do to be sure of me if I don’t care?”

  “Disloyalty, disobedience, and dishonesty. Of these, which is the worse fault?” murmured Mae Shan in the language she and Anna shared for so long. It was one of the many lessons they had both been taught, reciting dutifully with the other children in their classes. Dishonesty is the worse fault, for dishonesty encompasses the other two.