The Phoenix Transformed

by James Mallory

  “Very well.”

  For several minutes nothing happened, except that the sun rose higher in the sky and the day got hotter. Then:

  “Look,” Tiercel said, pointing.

  There was a familiar shape in the sky, silhouetted against the sun. A dragon.

  TIERCEL knew it wasn’t Ancaladar, but the sight of the familiar dragon-shape against the sky still made him ache with longing. To be with Ancaladar, to know where he was, how he was . . .

  He hadn’t even gotten the chance to say goodbye.

  From the beginning, he, Jermayan, Harrier, even Bisochim had all thought it was unbearable that dragons, born immortal, should die because they Bonded. And Tiercel still thought that. But now he thought that the hidden mercy in the Dragonbond was that if the dragon died, their Bonded did too, because no one should have to survive who’d once been a part of such a joining. He didn’t think he could explain that even to Bisochim.

  The dragon—it must be Saravasse—circled once and landed a few dozen yards away. The landing looked neat and graceful—a winged thing floating delicately to earth—but even with her wings spread and beating, the ground shook as she came to rest.

  Tiercel knew already that dragons came in different colors. He’d seen a lot of different-colored dragons in the Elven Lands—Petrivoch had been blue—and Saravasse was a brilliant scarlet. The sunlight shining through the membranes of her spread wings turned them a glowing orange-red, like the flesh of ripe naranjes, and her scales glittered in every shade from bright hot ruby on the large plates along her skull to dark garnet-black on the smaller scales that edged along toward her flanks and tail. She was only about two-thirds the size of Ancaladar, but she was still nearly the size of a full-rigged sailing vessel. She folded her wings and stood gazing down at them.

  “I have summoned Saravasse at your bidding,” Bisochim said coldly. “Let us go.”

  “I . . . wait. Aren’t you going to introduce us?” Tiercel asked.

  Bisochim turned away from him, as if his words held no meaning. “Come here,” he said harshly, and Saravasse stepped forward. No. Slunk. Head down, crouching, and it would have been ridiculous in something that size if it weren’t so . . . pitiful.

  Tiercel inhaled sharply, trying to conceal his shock, though nobody was looking at him but Harrier, who was just as stunned as he was. Harrier wouldn’t use a tone like that with one of the Port’s sentry-dogs, and Harrier didn’t particularly like the Port’s sentry-dogs.

  Saravasse reached Bisochim and lowered herself into a crouch. It was the same position Ancaladar had assumed hundreds of times so that Tiercel could clamber the several dozen feet up to the saddle on his neck. But everything about it was different.

  “I . . . my name is Tiercel,” Tiercel said, walking up to Saravasse’s head. “I . . . I was Bonded once. To Ancaladar. Did you know him? They say he isn’t dead and that’s why I’m still alive. Do you know—”

  “She will not answer you, boy,” Bisochim interrupted brusquely. “She does not speak any longer. Come, if you would have us do your bidding.” He turned away, walking back toward her shoulder and beginning the climb up onto her neck.

  Tiercel waited another moment, but Saravasse said nothing.

  “Be careful,” Harrier said, his voice barely a whisper.

  “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?” Tiercel answered sadly. He turned and followed Bisochim.

  HARRIER hadn’t liked this idea when he’d had it, and he hadn’t liked it when he’d thought about it through the night, and he hadn’t liked it this morning when he’d somehow finally managed to force Bisochim to go along with it. But the point at which he really hadn’t liked it was when he’d seen Bisochim treating Saravasse the way Da wouldn’t even let somebody treat one of the mules that turned the Port cranes. “People can choose and beasts can’t, and if you ever forget that, I’ll make you wish the Light had made you a beast instead of my son.”

  Harrier knew he couldn’t really know what the Dragonbond was like without having been Bonded. But he knew enough to know that what he’d just seen was wrong. Which means you were right in the first place, and Bisochim is crazy. Being right didn’t make Harrier feel any better. There still hadn’t been a better solution. Assuming, of course, that this one even works.

  It was too late now to call Tiercel back. He watched as Tiercel settled himself behind Bisochim and Saravasse got to her feet and turned away. She began to run across the desert, her body an intense blaze of color against the pale dun clay. Moments passed, and then there was a flash of orange fire as she leaped skyward, spreading her wings wide. There was an impossible moment where she seemed to hang in the air as if she were frozen midleap, then her wings pounded furiously against the air and she began to rise in the long flat spiral that Harrier remembered seeing Ancaladar use to take off.

  He waited, watching. Then he realized he was holding his breath, looking for the flash of green-and-white robes against the sky as Tiercel fell, thrown to earth from Saravasse’s back. He forced himself to breathe out. Breathe in. Look away.

  “I had not thought . . .” Shaiara began, and stopped.

  Harrier looked toward her. She and Ciniran had come up beside him as he’d watched Saravasse’s takeoff run. Both of them looked troubled. It wasn’t hard to guess why. Both of them had seen Tiercel with Ancaladar often enough.

  “They should reach the Veiled Lands within a couple of hours,” he said. It was better than saying any of the other things he was thinking. It was better than explaining his suspicions about why Saravasse’s behavior was so different from Ancaladar’s. “What now?” he said.

  “Now we shall go and you shall call upon the Ummarai to hear your counsel,” Shaiara said matter-of-factly.

  IT was a little over two miles from the edge of the lake to the encampment—not a walk anybody wanted to take through the Barahileth during the day, even less than two hours after dawn. They stopped at the near side of the lake long enough to drink as much water as they could, and to pour water over themselves until their robes were soaking wet. Even Shaiara couldn’t protest the waste of water when there was an entire lake of it right here.

  “So much water,” Ciniran said again, gazing out across its surface. “Is it true, Harrier, that there are great oases like this all over the Cold North?”

  Even now her questions made him smile. “In the north, Ciniran, this is a small . . . oasis. And it’s a lot smaller than Great Ocean. I don’t think I can describe Great Ocean, really. When we’re done here, you and Shaiara should come home with me. I can show you Great Ocean, then. Don’t worry about the Nalzindar, Shaiara. You can bring all of them, too. Ma will be so glad to see me back again that she won’t mind a bit. And we’ve got plenty of room.” He wanted to believe in that future. He wanted to believe in any future, in a life where living beyond the next sunset wasn’t so unbelievable that planning for tomorrow seemed like lying.

  Shaiara regarded him as if she thought he might be telling a joke at her expense. “Are you the son of the Ummara of Armethalieh, Harrier? I have never asked.”

  “What? Me? Oh, uh, no. I’m, uh, my Da’s Portmaster, that’s, um . . . He runs part of the City, but the Port belongs to the Chief Magistrate just like the rest of the City does.” It had never occurred to him before how hard it would be to explain Armethalieh to someone who’d never even seen one of the Iteru-cities—and Tarnatha’Iteru hadn’t actually been that much bigger than all of Armethalieh Port.

  “So your father is Chief Magistrate Vaunnel’s trusted chaharum, just as Kamar is mine,” Shaiara said, having settled the matter to her satisfaction.

  “Close enough,” Harrier answered, giving up.

  THE grass that had been wilting at dawn was visibly dying now, turning yellow and crisp in the sunlight. As the three of them moved toward the encampment, Harrier could see that there were no longer any downed tents, and the animals no longer wandered freely. He could see Isvaieni standing beneath the canopies of their tents to
watch them approach. With Harrier dressed like a giant bright blue flower (as he uncharitably thought of his outfit) he’d have been hard to miss.

  No one did anything but watch at first, but when the three of them were about half a mile away from the closest tent, a party of Isvaieni came walking out to meet them. No one moved quickly in the desert heat. Shaiara had explained this to him and Tiercel before they began the journey here, speaking in the simple patient tones someone would use to impart information to a child. But it was a lesson Harrier had already learned from hours of sword practice in the Telchi’s walled garden at Tarnatha’Iteru. The desert heat could kill. You didn’t exert yourself unless the matter was urgent. And so he didn’t assume that the leisurely approach of the two dozen Isvaieni meant that they were friendly. At least Zanattar wasn’t with them.

  The Isvaieni stopped about thirty feet away and waited for the three of them to reach them. Harrier didn’t draw his swords. He wouldn’t do that unless he didn’t have any other choice. The truth was, they had no choices now. It was as true today as it had been yesterday: they were trapped here. They’d never reach Abi’Abadshar without shelter and supplies, and they couldn’t steal either one in a hurry. If they did run, they’d certainly be followed, which meant that all they could do by running would be lead their pursuers to the rest of the Nalzindar. But when the three of them reached the group of Isvaieni, they parted, allowing Harrier, Shaiara, and Ciniran to pass between them—if they chose.

  It was nerve-wracking for Harrier to walk calmly forward as if these people—people who thought he was a Demon and Shaiara and Ciniran were Shadow-Touched—weren’t his enemies. But he could tell that there was something different, at least for some of them, in how they saw him today than in how they’d seen him yesterday. Today they didn’t see an outsider, a Demon. Now they saw the blue robes and reacted as if he were wearing the high-crowned hat and carrying the gilded staff of office of the Chief Magistrate herself.

  He couldn’t tell whether the ones who were willing to see him as a Wildmage were the ones who’d stayed behind when Zanattar had gone off to slaughter thousands of innocent people, or whether they were just the ones who were smart enough to believe Liapha and Bisochim instead of their own fears. It was going to be important soon because Harrier had already gotten a pretty good idea of how the tribes were governed. It wouldn’t matter if the leaders agreed to do what he said if their people didn’t agree.

  “Wildmage, I am Marnet, and before the Breaking of Tribes I was of the tents of the Tabingana—”

  Harrier glanced toward the woman when she began to speak, but he didn’t miss the grunt of contempt from the man on his other side when Marnet named her tribe. He didn’t have to guess whether or not the man had ridden with Zanattar—the numerous and recent scars he bore were proof enough that he had.

  “—and we all saw the dragon fly to where the Cliffs of Telinchechitl once stood and then fly away again, as it has done before when the—when Bisochim summoned it. Has he sent the stranger with it upon some errand?”

  She means Tiercel, Harrier realized. For a moment he wasn’t quite sure what to say. He had the feeling that telling them that Bisochim had flown away with Tiercel and Saravasse might upset them, but then he decided to simply tell the truth. While you might still get into trouble if you told the truth—and in Harrier’s experience, you always did—at least you wouldn’t have a complicated set of lies to remember.

  “The stranger’s name is Tiercel. He and Bisochim have both gone with Saravasse. I don’t know how long they’ll be gone.”

  “But why has he left us now—when we have such need of him?” Marnet asked. She sounded so distressed that Harrier had to keep himself from looking back toward Shaiara to see if she had any idea why.

  “The Wildmage Harrier has come to give his counsel to the leaders of the tribes for this reason,” Shaiara answered, with a confidence Harrier had to admire. “Will Ogmazad offer the shelter of the tents of the Tabingana to the Blue Robe so that he may speak?”

  “The Tabingana have always honored the Blue Robes, Nalzindar. None may say otherwise,” Marnet said sharply. “So it shall be upon this day, as it was yesterday and will be tomorrow.”

  “So you say, Marnet. And Zanattar says that this is no Blue Robe at all. You may dress a shotor-calf in fine robes—but I would not wed it!” the man who had jeered at her said.

  “As to that, Turlam, the shotor probably would not have you either!” someone else said, and several people laughed.

  “You! Demonspawn! Why should we now believe you are a Wildmage, when all know that they have been slain by our enemies?” Turlam said.

  Harrier glanced toward Turlam, but didn’t stop walking. “Do you have any idea how annoying you are?” he demanded. “If I were a Demon, you’d be dead. Yes, all the Wildmages in the Isvai are dead. I’m from Armethalieh. Idiot.” He turned away and walked just a bit faster.

  Everyone here had heard of Armethalieh. According to The Book of the Light, it was where the Queen of the Endarkened had been slain by the death-spell of the Blessed Saint Idalia. Now half the Isvaieni wanted to ask Harrier questions about Armethalieh while the other half wanted to make rude jokes at Turlam’s expense. Harrier ignored them all. He was doing his best not to think of the Isvaieni surrounding them as guards or jailers, but it was getting harder.

  When they reached the tents, Marnet hurried away. Even now, she didn’t run.

  Shaiara came up to walk beside him once they reached the tent-city itself. Mostly, Harrier suspected, to make sure he didn’t trip over the bewildering array of tent-ropes, or accidentally walk into somebody’s tent by mistake. There were hundreds of tents, and they just seemed to be scattered in no particular order between the orchards and the lake. Some of them had colored pennants (in every color but blue—Harrier noticed that now that he was looking for it) flying from the top tentpole. Some had colorful cloth curtains (still no blue) screening off the interior of the tent. Most of the tents were grayishdun, the color of the felted wool they were made of, but a few were black. The only thing that was alike from tent to tent was the bright colors of the rugs that could be seen inside of, and sometimes in front of, each one.

  People called out to them as they passed. The Isvaieni with them were happy to explain that Harrier the Wildmage from Armethalieh went to honor the tents of Ogmazad of the Tabingana and there he would offer counsel to the tribes. Harrier was just glad he wasn’t trying to keep any of this a secret. He wondered what he was going to say.”

  But now that he’d seen both Marnet’s and Turlam’s reactions to seeing him dressed as a southern Wildmage, Harrier watched the faces of those they passed carefully. Some looked interested and hopeful. Others looked angry. Harrier wished he knew more about what the Isvaieni thought about Wildmages. The Nalzindar believed absolutely that he was a Wildmage and had asked his advice, but they’d never been particularly deferential. Zanattar had attacked the Iteru-cities because he’d thought he was taking revenge on the people who’d killed . . . all the ones in the south. Harrier was doing his best not to think about the fact that he’d sent his best friend, alone and defenseless, off with that man. He really wished it was Tiercel here, and he was the one off with Bisochim. Tiercel was the one who liked learning weird new things. Tiercel would like figuring out everything about the Isvaieni and their Wildmages. For all Harrier knew, Tiercel would probably remember having read a book about it. He’d known Tiercel since before either of them could read, and by now Harrier was convinced that there was probably a book written about everything and that Tiercel had read it. It was just too bad that Tiercel wasn’t the Wildmage and Harrier wasn’t the one who could ask the Elves for special favors. Maybe Tiercel would get back soon.

  Just then a young woman hurried up to the group surrounding the three of them, bringing it to a stop. She pushed her way through it until she’d reached them.

  “Shaiara—Ummara Shaiara—Liapha of the Kadyastar asks if you and the Blue Robe will grace
her tent. She says—in the name of the blood you share—there can be no charity between you, for that which would have been Ganima’s blood-right may come to you.” The speaker was Rinurta, the young woman they’d met the previous day. The one who’d done so much screaming.

  “Say to Ummara Liapha that we will come,” Shaiara said regally.

  Rinurta hurried off. She still seemed nervous around them—or at least around him—but at least she didn’t seem as if she was going to start screaming again. Shaiara ruthlessly elbowed her way through the Isvaieni standing around them so that the three of them could follow.

  “Aren’t we supposed to be going somewhere else?” Harrier asked quietly. They were still being followed, but only by about a dozen people now.

  “Yes,” Shaiara answered patiently. “To Ogmazad’s tent. And he will know that we go now to Liapha’s tent to drink kaffeyah and eat flatbread and so he will have time to prepare all as it should be prepared if you wish to speak to all the Ummarai together.”

  WHEN the three of them reached Liapha’s tent, Harrier could see that it was no longer a makeshift kitchen, but had been refilled with chests, cushions, low tables, and that the inner partitions of the tent were lowered. Underneath the shade of the outer canopy there were half-a-dozen seating-cushions set out on the carpet in a half circle around the kaffeyah brazier. A pair of ikulas-hounds lay at ease on the carpet, regarding their approach incuriously. Rinurta stood waiting for them, and Hadyan—who must be related to Liapha somehow if he was going to be the next leader of the Kadyastar—was there too. He glowered at them sullenly, but didn’t say anything.

  Liapha was seated on a large cushion smoking a pipe, and Harrier caught the sweet resinous scent of rekhattan. In Armethalieh they fumigated warehouses with it to drive out vermin. Here, people smoked it in pipes.