The Phoenix Transformed

by James Mallory

  “Where are Shaiara and Ciniran?” Tiercel asked. He wanted to ask if Harrier was all right, but he didn’t quite dare.

  “Scavenging,” Harrier said. He gestured vaguely, back in the direction Tiercel had come from.

  Tiercel knelt down beside him. There was grass all the way to the water’s edge: grass and mud, and the familiar smells of home. He dug the fingers of one hand into the topsoil as he began scooping water into his mouth with the other. The water was tepid and tasted faintly of stone, but if Harrier had been drinking it, it wasn’t likely to poison anyone. When he’d finished drinking Tiercel dipped both hands into the lake, rinsed his hands clean, and then washed his face.

  “Do you think it would have made a difference if we’d come straight here as soon as we could? Not waited?” he asked hesitantly. Ancaladar would be alive if I hadn’t insisted on exploring all of Abi’Abadshar. He refused to say it aloud. He didn’t think he could stand to hear Harrier reassure him that Ancaladar had to be alive when all of Tiercel’s instincts told him that he wasn’t.

  It was a long moment before Harrier answered. “I think it would have made a difference,” he said at last. “I think we’d be dead now. And so would a lot of other people. And nothing else much would have changed.”

  Tiercel recoiled in shock. He didn’t know what he’d expected Harrier to say, but not that. “But—But—” he stammered.

  “But Bisochim has a dragon too,” Harrier said flatly, turning Tiercel’s half-made protest into something else entirely. “Saravasse. He’s had her for years. He’s been a Dragonbond Mage for years, not just for a few moonturns. Weren’t you listening? He made this place just to have somewhere to work, a long time before he decided to call up a Demon. He’d never have believed he was wrong about doing that until Ahairan told him flat out that the Dark had been lying to him all along. So . . . say we got here—with Ancaladar—before Ahairan was out. Would you have killed Bisochim knowing you’d kill Saravasse too?”

  “I . . .” The words Tiercel wanted to say died in his throat. He wanted to think he would have. He knew he wouldn’t have been able to.

  “So he’d kill us. And then he’d set Ahairan free. But say that didn’t happen. Say you killed him, and Saravasse, and we flew away. Those puzzle-boxes you told me about—remember? What if they were almost open already? What if somebody else came along and finished opening them?”

  “Stop saying if!” Tiercel said angrily.

  “You started it,” Harrier said. He didn’t even sound angry. He just sounded tired.

  “You make it sound like—Like Ancaladar being gone is the best thing that could have happened,” Tiercel said furiously. “It isn’t! It isn’t.” He swallowed hard and scrubbed at his eyes. The anger was like a stone in his throat, and Tiercel thought he’d choke on it. He couldn’t either swallow it down or cough it up.

  “I never said that, Tyr. You know I didn’t,” Harrier said softly.

  “You lied to me. Tell me the truth,” Tiercel said, and his voice was hard and ugly.

  “Lied?” Harrier’s sudden astonishment was genuine. “Tyr, as—as the Eternal Light is my witness, I’ve never lied to you. I swear it.”

  “Do Wildmages swear by the Eternal Light?” Tiercel asked, after a moment. He wanted to believe Harrier more than he’d ever wanted anything, but something held him back.

  “I don’t know,” Harrier said. “I guess so. I do. The Eternal Light is part of the Wild Magic, so it’s got to be okay.”

  “If it wasn’t, would you know?” Tiercel asked.

  “Yeah. I think. I guess. I get a kind of headache-thing when I’m trying not to pay a MagePrice when it’s time. I guess it would be something like that. Why are we talking about this?” Harrier just sounded confused now.

  “Because you’re sitting here making Coldfire,” Tiercel said viciously, “and back in Abi’Abadshar, you told me the MagePrice for Summoning Kareta was to destroy your Three Books and give up being a Wildmage after we’d defeated Bisochim.”

  “Oh. That.” Harrier looked away. “He doesn’t exactly look defeated.” He got to his feet. “Look—”

  “You didn’t Summon Kareta at all, did you?” Tiercel said.

  “Tiercel Isallen Rolfort, if you ever again say to me that I would lie to you about a spell I cast, or about Ancaladar, you won’t have to worry about the Dark killing you,” Harrier said. “But you’re right: I didn’t Summon Kareta. I Called her. She came. She told me exactly what I told you she did. There was MagePrice involved. Bisochim’s name wasn’t mentioned, but MagePrices aren’t always set in words. I got to choose what I’d pay.”

  Tiercel had never heard Harrier’s voice so angry and so quiet at the same time. He knew he was hearing both honesty and truth—he could count the times Harrier had used his middle name on the fingers of one hand—and the sense of mixed relief and shame he felt was enough to make him lightheaded. He had no idea of how to begin to make this right between them. “What was the thing you didn’t pick?” he finally asked.

  “To leave with her right then,” Harrier said. “Come on. It’s cold here.”

  They walked back to the other side of the dune. Shaiara and Ciniran had dug a number of items free of the sand—jugs, cups, bowls, pitchers. They’d opened the chest that Harrier had been sitting on and draped its contents—cloth, probably clothing—over the sides. Now they were dragging a carpet free of the sand. Harrier joined them and began helping them haul the carpet free.

  HARRIER had done a Finding Spell to try to locate Bisochim. It hadn’t worked, but afterward Harrier had gone off—alone—to the pile of sand and dug, bare-handed, for almost an hour. When he came back, he was shivering with cold and his hands were bleeding, but he’d found them food—hard cheese and dried fruit. Tiercel wasn’t sure whether Harrier had been paying MagePrice for the spell he’d cast, and he didn’t want to ask.

  While Harrier was gone, Shaiara and Ciniran had scoured the desert for tracks, for any sign at all of Bisochim, starting from the place where he’d been sitting. They’d done it once in the dark, and a second time with globes of MageLight that Tiercel made for them. They found no sign of any fresh tracks but his, theirs, and Harrier’s. Whatever spell Bisochim had used, it had made him disappear more thoroughly than anything Tiercel could imagine. When Harrier returned, they gave up their search. What they would have done—could have done—if they’d found him, Tiercel wasn’t sure.

  “Are we really sure we want to stay here for the night?” Harrier asked, dropping his finds onto the scavenged rug. It looked very odd sitting out here in the middle of nowhere, without even a tent near it.

  “I will not seek charity from the tents of the Kadyastar,” Shaiara said, her chin held high. “Let others do as they will.”

  Harrier snorted wordlessly. “At least if somebody takes it into their head to come “Demon-hunting” after a long day of goat-herding, we’ll have a hope of seeing them before they get here,” he said after a moment.

  “I think they will not, Harrier,” Ciniran said, after a moment’s thought. “Bisochim said to them that this was a matter for Wildmages, and that he wished to be left to deal with it alone. I think that not even Zanattar will slink back during the hours of night, for neither Kataduk nor Harbatta will wish to bear the shame of it.”

  Tiercel heard Harrier sigh. “Yeah. I hope you’re right. Okay. If we’re sleeping here, let’s get to work.”

  AFTER a couple of hours, the four of them had scavenged a surprisingly comfortable place to spend the night. The best of all their finds—better than the enormous brazier and the sacks of charcoal, even better than the food—was the chest of clothing. Though Shaiara made disdainful faces at the garments—for all of them were dyed and patterned, and the Nalzindar wore only undyed fabrics—at last they were all fully—and warmly—dressed.

  Tiercel’s outfit was the gaudiest—a green-and-white striped vest, with a matching sash and chadar, and a tunic in the same green as the stripes. The chest contained
enough garments that they were all able to pick and choose: Shaiara and Ciniran had chosen solid colors, and Harrier had just grabbed the first things that fit; while he had clothes, they were crusted in mud, and his skin itched.

  “You should dress yourself suitably,” Shaiara had said when they’d first opened the chest. She’d held out a tunic and robe to Harrier. Though hue was difficult to tell by the cerulean light of Coldfire, it was obvious that both garments were a bright deep blue. The tunic might be a little short on Harrier, but both items would fit him. Isvaieni garments were voluminously cut.

  “As a Wildmage?” Harrier had said, recoiling slightly. “Um, Shaiara, with all due respect, I don’t think that’s a really good idea.”

  “The people respect the Blue Robes,” Ciniran had said, as if pointing out that water was wet or fire was hot, and Harrier had laughed.

  “Yeah. Unfortunately they think I’m a Demon, so it wouldn’t really matter,” Harrier replied, dropping the garments back into the chest.

  Now the four of them sat around the brazier and ate handfuls of dried fruit and passed around a tankard they’d found—silver, and of northern manufacture—refilling it when it was empty from the large metal jug Ciniran had filled at the lake. It was odd, Tiercel thought, that the water should actually be cooler now than when they’d first taken it out of the lake. The brazier radiated welcome warmth. There was enough charcoal to keep them warm all night, and the circle of piled chests and scavenged furniture would help trap the heat. Tiercel leaned back against a chest and gazed up at the stars.

  “So . . . nobody’s actually trying to kill us right now,” Harrier said, picking up one of the balls of cheese and starting to peel it with the geschak he’d found in the sand. He tossed each triangle of wax into the brazier as he pared it away. It made a bright flash and sizzle as it struck the coals and burned. “That’s good.”

  He wouldn’t look at Tiercel. Tiercel didn’t know if Harrier was still angry with him, or if he was supposed to be angry with Harrier. He didn’t know what he ought to feel. He could barely comprehend that Harrier could sit here in the middle of their artificial wreckage and talk calmly and almost cheerfully as if they hadn’t already lost.

  If there’d ever been a time that Tiercel had been tempted to hate his childhood friend, it was now. He was exhausted and angry and grief-stricken and tired. He was afraid to give up, but he didn’t see a way to go on. He just didn’t think a stubborn refusal to face reality was the way to do it. What if Harrier missed something important because he was refusing to see? What if Tiercel missed something equally important because he thought there wasn’t anything to see?

  “—Demon out there somewhere and we’re in the middle of a bunch of Isvaieni who probably want to kill us,” Harrier was saying. “So. Tyr and this Wildmage and his dragon can deal with the Demon—once they get the Elves to help—and I guess Shaiara and Noble’dy Liapha can get the Isvaieni to back down in the morning. But those aren’t our only problems.”

  Tiercel said: “They aren’t?” at the same time Shaiara said: “You will explain.” Ciniran merely sat forward and looked troubled, but the Nalzindar weren’t a people to waste words; if Shaiara had spoken Ciniran’s thoughts, Ciniran would feel no need to repeat them simply to hear the sound of her own voice.

  Harrier divided the ball of cheese into four parts and passed the pieces around the fire. Tiercel knew there was no point in trying to hurry Harrier into explaining something before he was ready, and apparently Shaiara had reached the same conclusion, because she said nothing further. Tiercel glanced toward Ciniran. She looked grave but composed, and he knew she wouldn’t speak to urge Harrier to explain either.

  “Refugees from both Laganda’Iteru and Tarnatha’Iteru left for Akazidas’Iteru about a moonturn before Zanattar’s army arrived, and I know at least some of them were planning to keep going north to Armethalieh,” Harrier said. “The Consul probably sent word north by Dispatch Rider anyway. No matter how, they got word in Armethalieh that there’s a marauding army sacking and burning the Trade Cities. If First Magistrate Vaunnel hasn’t sent a delegation south to check the report . . . well, I’ll be surprised.”

  Tiercel groaned, leaning forward and resting his head on his knees. “Tarnatha’Iteru,” he said.

  “Right,” Harrier answered with a sigh. “And then she’ll actually do what Bisochim was telling the Isvaieni she was going to do in the first place. She’ll assume the Isvaieni have declared war. And as soon as her troops get here, I’m betting Ahairan will attack them. Attack them, turn them into sheep—or just turn them around and march them on Armethalieh with herself at their head.”

  “This must not be,” Ciniran declared. She regarded Harrier determinedly.

  “It’s already late spring—if not summer—so we can’t expect the army before winter. That’s the only good thing,” Harrier said.

  “And you think Ahairan will stay here and just wait for the army to show up?” Tiercel blurted out.

  “I don’t know,” Harrier answered, his light mood turning sober. “I hope so. I’m sorry, Ciniran, Shaiara,” he added.

  “Not even to save my own kin would I see all the world become as the Barahileth,” Shaiara said.

  “We need to get Tiercel to the Veiled Lands to talk to Vairindiel Elvenqueen. We need their Elven Mages to find and trap Ahairan. Then we need to get back to Armethalieh and . . . explain things to the Chief Magistrate,” Harrier said.

  Tiercel fought the urge to say that making a list of problems wasn’t the same as solving them. Saying that wouldn’t make anything better. He knew that Harrier was just as tired as he was. Just as frightened. Making lists was Harrier’s way of making problems look smaller. Tiercel only wished he could think of something that would make his problems look small and simple.

  “So many great tasks,” Ciniran said, sighing. She bit off a piece of the cheese in her hand and chewed as if even the thought of eating made her weary.

  “We’ll manage,” Harrier said encouragingly, and suddenly Tiercel couldn’t take one more minute of Harrier being calm and cheerful and refusing to admit that they’d lost, they’d failed.

  But none of that was really true, was it? They might all be lost, but he was the only one who’d failed. Because he was the only one who’d been given this task. Tiercel Isallen Rolfort, age seventeen, son of Barover, Lord Rolfort, and Anointed Champion of the Light. He was the one who’d failed.

  He pushed himself to his feet.

  “Where are you going?” Harrier asked.

  “For a walk,” Tiercel snapped.

  THIS was freedom. This was the World of Form—the world of things—the world that she and her progeny would make into their nest and their spawning ground, growing in power and grace until she and they could open a gateway to allow the hungry shadows that were her brethren to spill through at last to claim it as their dominion and slake their appetites.

  Always, eternally, the Shadow hungered. But in this moment Ahairan was free. Free to feed herself upon blood and pain and death until she forgot even the memory of hunger.

  Upon the back of the beast whose shape and self she had twisted, Ahairan sped across the desert, away from the place where she had been brought forth into this rich feeding ground. Four creatures had died at her hands before she had discovered how to twist the flesh of the fifth in the fashion she desired. Though the shape into which she had been bound was fragile and limited, it must serve her until the day of her victory had been assured. Only then could she risk what she must do to break the spells which bound her. Until that could be done, she who had been an eternal consciousness of shadow and fire was not only trapped within this form, but unable to cast any spell so powerful that it might destroy it.

  But her offspring would be neither trapped nor bound. They would not be Darkness imprisoned in flesh, but Darkness fused with flesh—just as the ancient Endarkened had been.

  But she was not He-Who-Is, to create such magnificent works with a wave of His
hand. She must have the magic of the World of Form itself to bind her children to it. The reward of becoming her slave and consort should have gone to He-Who-Had-Called-Her, the Wildmage who had set her free. Long and long, she and her brethren had whispered to him through the flames—before she was she, before she was Ahairan—corrupting all he held dear, twisting his loyalties. When she had stood before him at last in the beautiful tomb of flesh that he had fashioned for her, he should have fallen down before her and worshiped her, become her creature, her plaything, hers to do with as she chose.

  And he had not. He had dared to command her, and in her fury she had punished him for his insolence. Yet in the end, both hunger and caution had led Ahairan to flee rather than fight. He-Who-Had-Called-Her drew his power from a Bond with one of the Dragonkind, and Ahairan did not fear them, but she had known—even as she stood upon the sands below the Lake of Fire—that if she cast the single spell to slay He-Who-Had-Called-Her and all his people, in the instant of his death, all his dragon’s great power would be his for the casting of one last spell. And such a Great Spell might be sufficient to unmake her flesh-form and set her wandering the World of Form as a disembodied, eternally-ravenous, spirit.

  She would seek elsewhere—reluctantly—for a consort prince.

  Upon the back of her spell-twisted mount, she had outraced the storm He-Who-Had-Called-Her had summoned, fleeing across the hard lifeless clay into the sands beyond. The atish’ban-shotor she had created was swifter than the flight of a dragon, faster than the fastest unicorn. With its limbs strengthened by her spells, it would reach the bounds of the great northern city that Ahairan had glimpsed in the thoughts of He-Who-Had-Called-Her before the sun had set in the sky. There she would find many to do her bidding.

  And to feed upon.

  But as she neared the far edge of the desert, a whirlwind sprang up before her. No matter how she drove the beast beneath her, the swirling column of sand was there before her. At last Ahairan realized it was not to be evaded.