The Phoenix Endangered

by James Mallory

  Nearly every door opened at her touch, and though she could see, by Ciniran’s marks upon them, which chambers had already been visited, Shaiara wished to see what lay within them for herself.

  The first chamber was filled with dust. Ciniran’s quiet warning stopped Shaiara before she entered, but even the opening of the barrier was enough to fill the air with a cloud that made both of them sneeze violently. With determination, Shaiara pushed the barrier through the debris upon the floor until it would go no further.

  “I think—once—there was much paper here,” Ciniran said quietly. “Long ago.”

  Shaiara nodded. Perhaps something remained—but if it did, would it be marked in any fashion she could read? She thought of the strange carvings upon the walls, and glanced at Ciniran. Her age-mate shrugged slightly. “I put my scarf over my face and went inside. The chamber is large, and its sides are filled with places where one might lay a body. Or even sleep. Now: dust.” Her expression was plain for Shaiara to read: how could there be so much paper in the world? “And there are more chambers beyond.”

  Shaiara nodded. They left the barrier open, and continued.

  The next barrier opened into a chamber so small that Shaiara’s lamp lit every part of it. The walls were entirely covered in wood, and she could see that once they had been as elaborately inlaid as the barrier to the chamber itself, but now the walls were dried and cracked with age, and pieces of the inlay had fallen to the floor. She could not imagine what the purpose of this space had been.

  The next barrier could not be shifted at all, and the next several chambers further along the passage, upon being opened, contained much the same as had the first—contents rotted away to dust by the passage of uncounted years. Though there might be some information to be gained by searching them thoroughly, their contents were not that which had disturbed Ciniran so greatly.

  The barrier to that chamber slid inward easily, for in this chamber little had rotted away. Ciniran took the lamp from Shaiara’s hand and stepped forward into the darkness. Shaiara had counted fifteen paces, watching the small flame strike gleams from gold everywhere around her, when Ciniran stopped and lowered the lamp. There was a surface before her, a cube of green stone as tall as a kneeling shotor, and it was not opaque, but translucent, for even the tiny flame of the lamp made the stone glow.

  Shaiara reached into her pouch and withdrew the second lamp. In this room, she wanted all possible light. When she had filled it again and lit it, she set it beside the first.

  Ciniran had selected samples of the items here to bring back to their camp, but knowing Shaiara would come to see for herself, had not brought one of every item that was here. Now Shaiara lifted a long heavy chain from the top of the green stone cube—each link was fashioned in the seeming of an adder, its tail held within its mouth, and each adder’s eyes glinted with tiny gems. Beside it lay a dagger—cunningly wrought, but the blade was of soft useless gold. What manner of people were these, to have made weapons that could not be used?

  There were more cups, both the tall footed sort, and the more familiar ones such as Shaiara might use herself—though hers were clay or wood, and not gold, silver, or glass. There was another bowl of gold, so large that Shaiara could not encircle it with both arms, and it was filled with what seemed, at first glance, to be fresh fruit—both the figs and sand-plums familiar to any desert-dweller, and the strange new fruits the Nalzindar had only found here in Abi’Abadshar. Yet when Shaiara touched them, all were stone.

  There were tall footed cylinders of both gold and white silver, whose purpose Shaiara could not guess at, for though there was a small opening in the top, they would hold no more than a drop or two of liquid.

  And this was only that which stood upon the top of the cube. Along one wall there were chests—some of metal, some of wood—piled four and five and even six high. Some of the highest had fallen down and broken open, and this was the source of the disks Ciniran had brought back. There were gold ones, and others of white silver, and still others in metals of other colors—green and blue and red—and many that the years had simply turned black. Not all were round: Shaiara held her lamp over one glittering spill of metal and counted more shapes than she had fingers and toes.

  The chamber was not small, nor was the green cube the only cube within it. Shaiara saw things she recognized—a metal coffee-service; a broken shamat-set—and things she could not imagine the use of—something like a hunter’s bow, if a hunter’s bow had been made of gold and then savagely twisted. There were low tables of metal and of bone which had survived the passage of time, some of wood which had collapsed beneath their burdens, still others which had survived. And every surface, and the floor between them, was covered with objects. Here, in this single chamber, there were more things than were possessed by all the Isvaieni together, and after a while, Shaiara found herself doing nothing more than standing beside the nearest cube—one of clear yellow stone—resting her forearm upon it and gazing down at the objects that it held in confused exhaustion.

  Behind her, Ciniran refilled the other lamp with deft motions. “I do not know what to think,” she said.

  Shaiara drew a deep breath. “I think,” she said, “that should we need cups for drinking or bowls for washing, it would be well to remember this place, and return. But if we do not, there is nothing here that is of the least use.”

  Four

  Magic’s Cost and Magic’s price

  WHEN THEY STOPPED to make camp that evening, Tiercel could see that Harrier was no closer to being settled in his mind about having received the Books of the Wild Magic, though he was apparently much closer to fighting with Kareta.

  The golden unicorn either didn’t notice Harrier’s black mood or simply didn’t care (which Tiercel felt was much more likely). If this were any evening such as they had spent in the sennight journeying from Karahelanderialigor with Elunyerin and Rilphanifel, Tiercel and Ancaladar would already have headed off for some nearby quiet spot so that Tiercel could practice his spells, but this evening Tiercel thought that a much better use of his time would be to stick around and make sure that Harrier didn’t simply murder Kareta, and Ancaladar seemed to agree, because once they’d landed and Tiercel had removed Ancaladar’s saddle and harness, tucking them carefully out of the way until they’d be needed again, the great black dragon merely folded his wings and curled up like an enormous—a really enormous—cat.

  That didn’t leave very much for Tiercel to do besides stay out of the way. Since he’d been studying as hard as he could from the moment he’d been Bonded—including during their entire sennight on the road—Harrier had pretty much been handling all the camp chores. Even though Rilphanifel and Elunyerin had been traveling with them up until this morning, the two Elves had let Harrier cope with the bulk of the daily tasks, since he’d have to be able to do them by himself once they left to return to Karahelanderialigor. Of course Tiercel could have offered to help; although he wasn’t as handy as Harrier was at doing things like these, and never had been, they’d both been equally ignorant of how to deal with life on the road when they’d left Armethalieh, and Tiercel hadn’t spent six moonturns sleeping on the ground without picking up some idea of what to do around an encampment.

  But when Harrier was in a temper, the best thing to do was to stay out of his way until he cooled down. Only Kareta didn’t seem to have any interest in letting Harrier cool down. As he unhitched the horses and turned them out to graze (after leading them down to the stream for their evening drink), as he unrolled the thick blanket of fine mesh quilted around heavy bars of fired clay that the Elves used to protect the earth from the heat of their fire-pots and braziers, filled both firepot and brazier with charcoal, filled the kettle with water and set it to heat, and began preparing the soup for the evening’s meal, Kareta pestered him with incessant questions. Although, Tiercel thought, listening, they were really closer to demands.

  “You really have more important things to do, you know. Don’t you?
Well, if you mean to do them at all. And I have to say, you don’t seem terribly interested. Don’t you know how many people there are who yearn all their lives to be chosen to receive the Three Books? And here you are: you’ve had them almost one entire day, and have you looked in them once? You aren’t even carrying them! You could have spent the whole day reading The Book of Moon: I’m sure you’d at least be able to cast Fire by now if you had! It’s a very simple spell, you know, and doesn’t even come with a Mageprice! But have you even read it? And you’re going to need to know what’s in them, you know, and how to cast spells. Isn’t that what you want? After all, you’re a Knight-Mage, now.”

  “Not. Yet.” Harrier spoke each word very precisely, and if Kareta had been a boy their own age—and not a unicorn—Tiercel would have been certain that the next thing Harrier would do would be to take a swing at her.

  “But you will be!” Kareta said, as simply as if the decision had already been made. “And then you’ll need to cast spells. Lots of spells. And you’re going to need a teacher, aren’t you?”

  “I thought Wildmages didn’t have teachers?” Tiercel asked hastily, because Harrier had the griddle-stone for griddle-cakes in his hand, and Tiercel thought that in another minute he might forget that Kareta was a unicorn and try to hit her with it.

  Kareta stopped and looked at him, blinking as if she’d forgotten he was there. Tiercel stared into her glorious blue eyes and found it hard to remember what his question had been. He couldn’t imagine how Harrier was not only managing to be mad at her now, but had evidently managed to stay mad at her for the entire day. She was so incredibly beautiful that it was simply hard to think about anything at all while you were looking at her.

  “Huh,” Kareta said, snorting rudely and switching her long tufted tail. “And he said you were smarter than he was! Everyone knows that the Three Books are where Wildmages learn all they know about the Wild Magic. But Harrier’s going to need someone to teach him how to be a knight, too, you know. Of course, maybe you don’t.”

  On the other hand, maybe Tiercel could see Harrier’s point.

  “Leave him alone,” Harrier said flatly. “You’re the one who said there hasn’t been a Knight-Mage in a thousand years. Well, we don’t see that many Wildmages in Armethalieh either. And … I’ve spent the last half-year finding out that everything I thought I knew was wrong, so … why shouldn’t everything we think we know about Wildmages be wrong, too?”

  Tiercel glanced at Harrier in alarm. Harrier had complained all the way from Armethalieh to Ysterialpoerin—and on to Karahelanderialigor—but Tiercel had never heard him sound quite so … tired.

  “It is not wrong,” Ancaladar said, speaking up for the first time that evening. “It is merely … incomplete.”

  “Why?” Tiercel asked. Partly because he really wanted to know—and Ancaladar hadn’t actually been in a mood to answer many questions so far—and partly because if he and Ancaladar were talking, it might mean that Kareta would leave Harrier in peace for a little while.

  Ancaladar blinked slowly, and Tiercel got the impression the dragon was smiling. “Magic is … long,” the dragon said slowly. “Humans are … brief.”

  “That is enormously helpful,” Harrier snapped. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Sorry,” he said. “But—Ancaladar—it doesn’t make sense. Um, okay, there are Elven Mages. But … I’ve never heard of an Elven Wildmage—and then there are—were—all these High Mages—like Tiercel—so … you just said that most magic is done by people who can’t do it.”

  Tiercel did his best to keep from looking surprised. Harrier always said he hated to think, and back in Armethalieh he’d always done his best to give the impression that he wasn’t very bright. But Tiercel had always known better: Harrier wasn’t stupid. He was deliberate and methodical. Where Tiercel’s mind skipped ahead, arriving at conclusions by intuition and instinct, Harrier’s worked its way slowly and carefully toward a solution, weighing and judging each element of a problem carefully before he spoke. It had made Harrier’s teachers think he didn’t know his lessons and call him slow, and over the years, Tiercel knew that Harrier had started to believe them. It wasn’t surprising that Harrier had reached the conclusion he had, merely that he’d been willing to say so.

  “No,” Ancaladar answered. “I do not say that the Children of Men cannot do magic, but that magic has its own purpose, which does not always align itself with the needs and desires of those whose lives are brief, and therefore, those whose lives are filled with magic, and those whose lives are not, will rarely have a great deal to say to one another.”

  “But the Wildmages keep the Balance,” Harrier said, and now he just sounded puzzled.

  “Indeed,” Ancaladar answered. “And Men—and Elves—are only a part of the Balance. Some Wildmages weave spells and pay Prices to set into motion events which their grandchildren will not see come to pass. I will set you a riddle, Harrier Gillain: does the weed thank the gardener?”

  “That’s not a riddle,” Tiercel said instantly. “Of course not.” No gardener wanted weeds in his garden: Tiercel’s own mother uprooted them ruthlessly from their tiny back garden whenever they appeared.

  But Harrier was looking thoughtful, and not as if he liked the idea of being either the gardener—or the weed.

  At least Ancaladar’s cryptic lecture had gotten Kareta to stop bothering Harrier for a while. She went wandering off on some mysterious business of her own and let them eat supper in peace. After dinner, Tiercel insisted on helping Harrier clean up. Most evenings he was so exhausted from practicing that he just rolled immediately into his blankets and fell asleep, but not tonight.

  So tonight Harrier didn’t need to carry a lantern with him to light his way down to the stream to wash up. Tiercel gestured, and a ball of glowing cerulean Coldfire appeared over their heads.

  “I’m still not used to that,” Harrier sighed.

  “You—” Tiercel said, and stopped. You can do it too, now. It’s a Wildmage spell. In Karahelanderialigor he’d learned that the High Magick had been created out of the Wild Magic during the Great War in order to fight the Endarkened, because the Endarkened could taint and subvert the Wildmages but not—or not as easily—the High Mages (who had originally been—at least until the war was over—called War Mages). The two magicks combined could slay the Endarkened.

  Harrier shrugged irritably and said nothing.

  With two pair of hands instead of one, the task went quickly. Neither boy was a stranger to hard work, though, back in Armethalieh, Tiercel was (technically) “Lord” Tiercel, a member of the minor Nobility, and Harrier was the son of the Portmaster (and so, in down-to-earth terms, from a family just as well-off and far more important). Because of the boys’ friendship, and because of their fathers’ professional relationship (Tiercel’s father was the Chief Clerk to High Magistrate Vaunnel, the ruler of the City), the two families had been close since Tiercel and Harrier were children, in no small part because the families had shared a similar ethos: that rank, wealth, and privilege should not keep any of their children from learning the value of hard work or the satisfaction of being able to do things for themselves. Tiercel’s father had told him over and over that true power came not from commanding people, but from leading them: that leadership grew out of respect, and respect grew out of ability; that to rule a city, one must be able to perform the tasks that any of its inhabitants could. Tiercel knew that Harrier’s father must have said something similar to him: one did not reign over the Port of Armethalieh—a city within a city—without knowing how to keep it running smoothly.

  When the plates and cups and cookware had all been scrubbed clean and set aside, Harrier sat back on his heels. There was obviously something on his mind, but Tiercel didn’t think it was magic. Harrier’s mind didn’t work that way. Certainly he was brooding over the unexpected (and unwelcome) gift, but he wasn’t likely to ask Tiercel’s advice on what to do about it. Or at least not yet.

  “How
far to the Veil?” Harrier asked.

  Tiercel thought about it for a moment. There were some things he knew without knowing how he knew them—thoughts caught from Ancaladar’s mind, probably. Other things he knew simply because he could see so much more of the road ahead from dragonback. And the more he practiced his spellcraft, the more it seemed he could actually see magic. It was a little disconcerting.

  “I’m not quite sure.” He wondered why Harrier was asking. Pelashia’s Veil was the Elven Ward that marked the boundary of the Elven Lands. Once they crossed it, they’d be not only in unknown territory, but very likely uninhabited territory as well, but he wasn’t sure that was the reason. “I know we’re going to reach a settlement of some kind tomorrow—Ancaladar and I could see it today. Beyond that… a sennight? Maybe ten days?”

  “Huh.” Harrier picked up a stone and tossed it into the water. “And we’ve been able to get provisions—for us, for the horses, for Ancaladar—wherever we stop in the Elven Lands. And House Malkirinath is paying for everything—which is nice of them, considering that they’re sending you off to be killed. And considering how much Ancaladar eats. But what about when we leave the Elven Lands?”

  Tiercel blinked at him in puzzlement. “Leave the Elven Lands?”

  Harrier sighed in exasperation. “Leave. The Elven Lands. I don’t know what you were doing when we were studying Geography in school, but I was paying attention. We’re east of the Bazrahils. Which means that we are far to the east of Windalorianan, which is as far east as civilization goes. There might be a few other scattered villages east of the Dragon’s Tail, but I guarantee they’re all west of the Bazrahils. We aren’t going to bump into another city until we hook around the southern span of the mountains and head west into the Madiran—and since I have no idea where we are, I have no idea how far away it is. Now, you may have some idea of what we’re all going to eat between here and there, but I don’t. The only thing I do know is that we can’t possibly load up enough supplies before we cross the Veil.”