The Enduring Flame Trilogy 003 - The Phoenix Transformed

by James Mallory

  The last place Tiercel really wanted to be was stuck in a tent with Harrier, but at least it would also be full of Nalzindar. He sighed and nodded.

  IT was easier to walk back through the camp tonight, which didn’t improve Tiercel’s mood. The tents had been grouped in blocks of nine, with lanes between each block. The outermost tents of the outermost block faced the desert; the rest faced the clear space in the center. The new arrangement meant that some tribes—like the Kareggi—overflowed several blocks, while others—like the Nalzindar—didn’t even take up a fraction of one block. Tiercel didn’t know where the Nalzindar were, but he didn’t think even Harrier could convince Shaiara to set her tent on one of the inside blocks, so he simply kept walking around the outside of the camp until he came to something that looked familiar. As he walked, Kuram and Zin passed him, several dozen yards further out. They were quiet and intent, their eyes fixed on the horizon.

  When Tiercel finally got to the Nalzindar tent, Ciniran was sitting on the edge of the carpet, coaxing a miserly fire to warm a pan of broth. “Tomorrow at the midday halt we are to see what stocks of foodstuffs remain to each of the tribes and order them for the good of all,” she said when she saw him. She made a rude noise of amusement. “Here, it will be a simple matter. There is salt.”

  “That’s all right,” Tiercel said. “I’m not really hungry.” He was thirsty, though, and at least they still had water—for the moment. He took down one of the waterskins that hung on the outer tentpole, and drank thirstily. After that, he moved to go inside.

  “No,” Ciniran said, stopping him. “Shaiara says tonight that tent is yours.” She pointed to the tent set next to theirs.

  Tiercel frowned and shrugged. He hadn’t thought—after all the people they’d lost to the Shamblers—there was any point in putting up a second tent, but it wasn’t worth arguing over. He walked the few steps to the doorway and ducked inside. Even in the middle of the night cold, the tent smelled of heat, and dust, of the goats and shotors whose hair had gone to make the felt of its fabric, and of a faint lingering scent of smoke. By now the tent-smell was familiar and homelike, and it took an effort of memory for Tiercel to summon up the smells of his own bedroom back in Armethalieh: the sharp scent of the cedarwood that lined his closet, the sweet soft scent of the beeswax that was used to polish the wooden furniture, the clean sunshine and lavender scent of the linen sheets on his bed . . .

  It wasn’t an effort he made very often.

  One of the bespelled lanterns hung from the center tentpole. It didn’t give a lot of light, but it was enough for him to see that this tent seemed to be being used for storage. He could see their third tent and its poles, the carpets that went with it, a neat line of saddles waiting for morning. The saddles belonging to the slain Nalzindar had been one of the things used to burn their bodies, because the saddletrees were wood, but all the rest were here. He counted. Eleven. Take away three for him, Harrier, and Bisochim, and that left . . . eight. It was true there hadn’t been a lot of Nalzindar when he and Harrier had first gotten to Abi’Abadshar, but there’d been more than eight. And soon there’d be fewer, because he might disagree with a lot of Harrier’s decisions today, but he couldn’t dispute what he’d said. Ahairan was going to keep on killing them.

  Tiercel sat down on the carpeted floor and rested his forehead on his knees. “I’m supposed to be the one who knows what we’re supposed to do. And I don’t.”

  Maybe Harrier thought he did, but Tiercel didn’t like any of the things Harrier had thought of, and the last person who’d thought he knew what he was doing had been Bisochim, and because he had, he’d called up Ahairan. If Harrier had fallen to the Dark without anybody noticing, Tiercel wouldn’t be able to sense it. The High Magick didn’t work that way. And while it was true that the Wild Magic could sense Taint, Bisochim couldn’t sense Sandwalkers. For all Tiercel knew, there might be enough difference between a Wildmage and a Knight-Mage that Bisochim would put down anything he sensed in Harrier to that and not to something worse.

  After a moment Tiercel sighed, and rolled to his feet to get his sleeping-mat and a blanket. If Harrier were actually Tainted, they’d probably already be bowing to Ahairan right now. In the morning he’d talk to Saravasse. Maybe she’d have some ideas.

  He’d just laid everything out where he wanted it—there was plenty of room in here tonight for a change—and stripped down to his undertunic, when there was a flare of light at the doorway. A ball of Coldfire floated in and Harrier followed it.

  “Put that out, will you?” Tiercel snapped. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”

  Harrier gestured and the light vanished. He walked over to the center-pole and hung up a waterskin, then went to get his own sleeping-mat and lay it out.

  “I don’t want to fight with you,” Harrier said, standing with his back to Tiercel as he unbuckled his swordbelts, “but if we have to, let’s do it now and not tomorrow while we’re riding.” He took a moment to fold the straps neatly, then laid both weapons beside his mat.

  I don’t see what we’ve got to fight about now that you’re getting everything your own way. Tiercel opened his mouth to say that, but what came out was: “If you fell to the Dark, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you, Har?”

  Harrier turned around, and for once Tiercel saw his friend too stunned to be angry. “I . . . What?” Harrier finally said. “No,” he added quickly. “I don’t want to hear it again. Do you—Do you have any . . . I could walk right out of this tent—now—and in less than five minutes I could not only Summon Ahairan here, I could guarantee she’d give me whatever I wanted! My life! Your life! My family—she’d probably agree to leave Armethalieh completely alone and just take the rest of the world! Five minutes, Tyr! All I have to do is cast a Healing Spell on Saravasse—and oh, hey, if that takes too long, I bet just casting Coldfire on her would do as well! And you’re asking me if I’m Dark-Tainted? When tonight you told me you’re still having visions about her? You’ve been having them all the way across the Barahileth, and every time I asked you about them you said they were just dreams, just nightmares, nothing like your visions of the Lake of Fire. Well, now that you’ve changed your mind, why don’t you tell me just what she’s been telling you for the last few moonturns? Because I think that if anybody’s going to come clean about being Dark-Tainted, you might be the one who should start.”

  If Harrier had started out stunned, by the time he’d finished talking, he was as furious as Tiercel had ever seen him. Tiercel stared at him in shock, part of him wanting to recoil from Harrier’s fury, part of him wanting to rage right back at him for the first time in his life. If the rest of the camp hadn’t known about any of this before, it certainly did now. “She . . . I . . . She . . .” He took a deep breath. Anger won. “Who do you think you are, Harrier Gillain? Who do you think I am? Do you think I’d serve someone who did what Ahairan’s done? Ahairan killed Simera—or have you forgotten her? She killed Ancaladar—don’t tell me he’s alive! If he were, he would have come back! She killed Macenor’Telchi. She made me kill people. If you think I lied to you: fine! But I thought they were nightmares—until I saw the Shamblers, I thought they were nightmares. I don’t even remember most of them. I don’t know why I remembered tonight. And I know you arranged things the way you did because Sathan and Phulda and Calazir were inconvenient and you couldn’t wait to get rid of them. And everybody who trusted them gets to pay the price for your convenience.”

  “I gave them a choice. I told you why,” Harrier said. He was staring down at the carpet, his hands clenched into fists.

  “Because your magic won’t work? You don’t do any magic now!” Tiercel shouted.

  “I don’t do magic—I am magic!” Harrier shouted back. “All the time! Every day! Every night! Seeing how things have to go. Seeing how I can push them that way if I do the right things. Seeing things nobody else sees. I can’t see far enough. I’m afraid to see farther. The Wild Magic isn’t books and recipes and little rhymes and d
rawing pictures in the sand and do-this-get-that like the High Magick is! I didn’t want it! I didn’t want to be a Wildmage, I didn’t want to be a Knight-Mage. I did it . . .” There was a long pause, and when Harrier spoke again, the last of his anger had drained from his voice, leaving nothing behind but weariness. “I did it because you were going to face a Demon and you’d need help.”

  “Oh.” Suddenly Tiercel had the strange jarring feeling that he was awake—really awake—for the first time in sennights. As if the whole grinding exhaustion of the journey—heat and hunger and fear and uncertainty—was a kind of blindfold that had just been removed, along with his inability to see that his dreams weren’t dreams at all. “The Barantar. They’re dying. The others will too,” he said, and this time, the words weren’t an accusation. They were a plea to something—anything—to change that. And he knew that nothing could.

  “I know,” Harrier said miserably. “I could have kept them with us. I could have lied to them, or scared them until they couldn’t think, or just not let them loose from their promise, because I knew what they should do and I wanted my own way. And—then—I really wouldn’t be different from Ahairan. I’d keep wanting my own way, and doing everything I could to get it. That’s how it happens, Tyr. Going to the Dark. Just so you know.”

  Tiercel wanted to ask how Harrier knew, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear. He remembered the things Bisochim had told him as the two of them had crossed the desert with Saravasse, but those things hadn’t been quite like this. And he didn’t think Harrier had ever had those sorts of conversations with Bisochim.

  “I suppose I should tell you everything I know about Ahairan?” Tiercel said tentatively.

  Harrier sat down on his sleeping-mat and began pulling off his boots. “If you want to share that kind of stuff with me,” he said. “Might drive me to the Dark.” And if it was only half a joke, but at least it was that much of one.

  IT was hard to do. Most of it was things Tiercel didn’t know he knew until Harrier asked him—and then the information was there, in his mind, as clear and sharp as if he’d been told. Not images, and not memories, but certainties.

  Were the Barantar dead? Not yet—except for Sathan—but they’d been captured. The Binrazan and the Thanduli were still free. The Thanduli were still at the last campsite. The Binrazan had already headed eastward.

  “Why didn’t she just kill them all?” Harrier asked.

  “She wants—She wants—I don’t know! I don’t know!” It wasn’t true. Tiercel did know. He could feel the shape of the knowledge inside his mind. He just couldn’t imagine any way to make it into words. “She wants . . . a thing,” Tiercel said more quietly. “I can’t describe it. Something. Something she wants. Har, you have to . . . I’m still linked to her, I know I am!”

  “When you figure out how to cast a Healing Spell so Saravasse can fly again, I’ll think about killing you, not before,” Harrier said bluntly. “You might be linked to Ahairan and you might not be. What you aren’t, is Tainted. As for linked, if you are, that’s the first luck we’ve had.”

  “You’ve been out in the sun much too long,” Tiercel said slowly, and Harrier grinned at him wolfishly.

  “Think about it. She already knows where we are, so a link doesn’t do her any good. But a link would tell us what she’s doing. Maybe that will help.”

  “You mean I’m some use after all?” Tiercel said. He hadn’t meant to blurt that out—hearing him feeling sorry for himself was the last thing Harrier needed right now. But he was tired, and the few hours of sleep he’d managed to snatch in the past two days had been filled with a Demon’s thoughts, and his every waking moment had been filled with death, Shamblers, and his own whipsawed emotions.

  “You’re the Anointed Champion of the Light,” Harrier said with utter seriousness. “Never think you’re useless, Tyr. Never.”

  Light deliver us, he really believes that, Tiercel thought in shock. Maybe he’s crazy after all.

  But the gravity of the moment was shattered by Harrier’s next words. “Besides, you keep Liapha from hitting me too often. She likes you. Now come on. Let’s get some sleep.”

  HARRIER drove the Isvaieni hard in the next ten days in every possible way. Keeping them on the move farther into the night and the day. Insisting on guards and patrols and sentries—not only over the night camp, but at the midday camp and while the caravan was on the move.

  He’d searched every tent and confiscated everything that even vaguely resembled food—even the stores of rekhattan. Some things—like the rekhattan—he’d returned to those who used it, though he’d done so in plain sight and given people a chance to object. Some things—like salt and spices—he’d divided up evenly, no matter who they’d originally belonged to. Some things that were luxuries in quantities too small to share fairly—the last of the kaffeyah, a few jugs of date wine, some sugared dried fruit—he’d sealed up in a large chest so that no one could have what everyone couldn’t have. Anyone might ask to inspect it to see that its contents were still there. And some things—like anything that might possibly be induced to grow at Sapthiruk—were in a chest that Bisochim had sealed with a spell, not to be opened until they arrived at the oasis: the list of people Harrier didn’t trust was very long.

  It was Karufhad who suggested that if they poured water upon the ground to soften it, the roots of the grasses and bushes that Bisochim caused to sprout could be dug up whole and carried with them to their next stop and replanted, assuring their steadily-dwindling herds of lush grazing no matter what. It was a profligate use of water—both in moistening the ground to dig up the roots at one stop, and in moistening it at the next so the roots could be planted again in holes made with a tent-peg. But it was better than seeing their only source of food starve.

  They were attacked four more times during those ten days by Shamblers—twice in night camp, once at a midday halt, and once while they were on the march.

  The first attack was at night, and it taught them that the Shamblers could pass through any spell-shield Bisochim cast as if it weren’t there. The second attack was at a midday camp, and it taught them that their sentries were useless against the creatures: the Shamblers simply appeared out of nowhere a few hundred yards away as if they’d sprouted from the ground. They nearly despaired until Tiercel, from his own experience in casting spells designed to mislead the eye, suggested that Ahairan was bespelling the Shamblers, or the sentries, or both. After that, Bisochim simply called a Sandwind to scrub the desert for miles around them—whether they saw anything or not—as they made camp. Unfortunately, there was a limit to the area a Sandwind could cover without becoming so large a storm that it would destroy them as well, and Ahairan had many thousands of Shamblers available to her. That was the reason for the success of the third Shambler attack—the second at a night camp—which succeeded by the simple stratagem on Ahairan’s part of sending two groups of Shamblers against them, the attacks timed to come several hours apart. Harrier wondered if Ahairan had noticed that they’d come up with a reasonably effective way of getting rid of her creatures. If she had, would she react the way a person would and try something else? Or would she just keep throwing Shamblers at them because an Elemental Spirit of Darkness didn’t think like anything Harrier could imagine?

  The fourth attack was when they were on the march, and it taught them that the best defense was simply to run away. If they were attacked while they were camped, they had little choice but to stand and fight, but otherwise, Harrier saw no reason to do anything but run. When Shamblers had come at them from the north and the east, Harrier, Tiercel, and Bisochim had been able to burn the desiccated bodies while the caravan fled. But there’d been thousands of the Shamblers, and the caravan had lost half a day’s travel time to that feint of Ahairan’s.

  Perhaps the worst thing of all about their new enemy was that the Isvaieni could no longer leave their dead any dignity. At the very least, they must dismember the bodies of their dead as completely as possib
le, so that Ahairan could not use them.

  If they’d only faced Shamblers, the journey and their battles would have been bad enough: no one had missed the fact that leading the long-dead against them were the fresh bodies of those who had left the party when Harrier had offered them the choice. But there were still Sandwalkers—which preferred shotors to their riders, but would not hesitate to devour both—and the atish’ban-jarrari, which were aggressive, hard to spot, and lethal. In that same ten days they fought off Sandwalkers twice, using spears made from the poles of tents they no longer needed. Four people died fighting Sandwalkers. Eighteen died of jarrari stings. But in the last ten days they had lost almost two hundred to the Shamblers.

  EARLY in the first sennight after he had left the three tribes behind, Harrier had started the practice of gathering all the surviving leaders—Ummarai, chaharums, and, in practice, anybody who wanted to stand nearby and listen, since the end-of-the-day meetings were conducted in a tent opened to the night air—to talk about what had happened that day and about what might happen tomorrow. It was a time to air concerns and disagreements before they turned into murderous arguments, to speak of small problems—lame goats, irritable shotors—in hopes someone might have a solution, and simply to speak to someone who wasn’t someone you were spending every minute of your day and night riding and sleeping beside. Saddest of all, it was a time to add up the deaths of the previous day. Most of Ahairan’s attacks still came at night, but it often wasn’t until the following evening—after a day spent getting away from the scene of the attack—that an accurate count of the dead could be reckoned up. With all these good reasons to be present at the evening meetings, Tiercel had been surprised at how quickly people had made excuses to leave Harrier’s discussion early, or even not to come at all. Karufhad still insisted she was not the Ummara of the Adanate. Bakhudun said that any word of Harrier’s was a good word to the Hinturi. Ummara Kinaraf said that the Laghamba “cared not to meddle in the affairs of Wildmages.” Even after all the deaths, there were still nearly two dozen Ummarai—and so at least that many chaharums—and practically all of them had some good reason not to bother to attend.