The Phoenix Transformed

by James Mallory

  “So no one is dead yet,” Liapha said cheerfully. “But where is the other Northerner?”

  “Is this the hospitality of the Kadyastar?” Shaiara snapped, and Liapha, continuing to smile broadly, gestured for them to be seated.

  Harrier ended up sitting beside Liapha. It wasn’t his idea, but he’d certainly heard Da complain about formal City banquets often enough to know about protocol. Shaiara sat on his right with Ciniran beside her. Hadyan sat on Liapha’s left, and Rinurta knelt and began to prepare the kaffeyah. While the kaffeyah was boiling, Liapha spoke idly of the numbers of animals that had been recovered from the desert, of how many were still lost, of those that had injured themselves in their flight, of the unfortunate number of chickens and goats killed by free-roaming ikulas and unleashed falcons, of how Fannas’s prize stallion had gotten among the trees and gorged itself on unripe windfall fruit, so that no man among the Kareggi could be allowed a moment’s rest until Fannas discovered whether Tarush would survive his unfortunate banquet. To hear Liapha talk, Fannas’s numberless foolishnesses were capped by an attachment to his horse-herd, since to hear her talk, horses were creatures which any fool could plainly see belonged in the Veiled Lands, or the Great Cold, or the Meadows of the Moon, rather than in the Isvai, let alone the Barahileth. Harrier did his best not to fidget, but the only real interest he had right now in a horse, or a herd of horses, was to wonder if one could possibly make the journey out of the Barahileth.

  “I would not wish to shame the tents of the Kadyastar with the knowledge that my words hold such little savor in the ears of the Blue Robe,” Liapha said.

  Harrier realized that he was staring off into space. Not only did he have no idea what Liapha had just said, Rinurta was offering him the tray with kaffeyah cups.

  “I don’t think any of us really cares if somebody’s horse explodes,” he said to Liapha, reaching for one of the cups. “And for that matter, I wouldn’t Heal the stupid thing even if Fannas asked me to.” The words sounded callous even to his own ears—he didn’t like to see anything in pain if he could do something to help it—but as he spoke the words he felt a faint sense of being pushed toward them by something outside himself. Magic carried MagePrice. He was already carrying a heavy one. He didn’t dare take on another unless it was vital. But Tiercel will be back soon! he thought frantically. He’ll bring help! The same inner voice that was certain he must not incur MagePrice without true need was not certain of that.

  “Just so,” Liapha said, while Harrier was mentally kicking himself for being rude. It wasn’t as if these people couldn’t still kill the three of them just because Bisochim was gone. In fact, they were far more likely to do it if Bisochim wasn’t here than if he was. “And perhaps you are concerned about your friend,” she added helpfully.

  “Tiercel and Bisochim and Bisochim’s dragon Saravasse have gone on an, um, journey together,” Harrier said. He just hoped she wouldn’t ask him when they’d be back. He sipped cautiously from the cup in his hands. He didn’t really like kaffeyah. The taste and the smell conjured up memories of the siege of Tarnatha’Iteru. But it was strong and sweet and he hadn’t gotten much in the way of either food or sleep since sunrise yesterday.

  “So you no longer believe that Bisochim has sought your life, as you said before?” Liapha regarded him with a shrewd dark gaze, smiling faintly.

  For a moment Harrier couldn’t think of what he’d said yesterday, then the memory came back to him. “Bisochim’s been killing my friends for over a year now.” “No,” he said evenly, meeting her eyes unflinchingly. “That was true. But he was tricked into doing it. He knows that now.”

  The teasing expression faded from Liapha’s eyes, and her expression grew sharp and hard. Harrier was sure she was going to ask the next question, the obvious question, the one he didn’t want to answer: “How was the great Wildmage Bisochim tricked?” But she said nothing, merely studying his face.

  “Ummara, I must speak! Zanattar has said—” Hadyan said.

  “You must be silent!” Liapha countered sharply, raising her hand to silence him. “Zanattar does not rule the tents of the Kadyastar—not yet! Go. Fetch meat and tea and fruit, and tell Kisrah to come and make fresh flatbread, for I will not serve stale leavings to the Wildmage and the daughter of my daughter and her companion.”

  Harrier was sure that Hadyan was going to object—or least recite all of Zanattar’s arguments in favor of Harrier’s Demonhood one more time. Instead he got to his feet in silence and walked into the tent.

  “And you, Rinurta, would you speak as well?” Liapha asked, but her tone was milder now.

  “I would only ask—if the Blue Robe would not Heal the horse of Fannas, what of the fountains and the wells? Will he leave them to run dry?”

  Fountains. Wells. Abruptly Harrier realized that when he’d been here yesterday, the air had been moist. And some of that had been from the rain, but most of it hadn’t. He remembered seeing canals full of water, and fountains spraying water into the air. He couldn’t see the orchards from here, but he knew the grass on the meadow between the lake and here had been dying.

  “You can drink the water from the lake,” he said awkwardly. “I know it’s a long walk in the heat, but I’ve drunk it myself. It’s fine.” He didn’t know what else to say. Even if he wanted to keep the Isvaieni here, he wasn’t sure he knew how to repair the fountains. Whatever had made the lake might be the same thing that had drained them dry.

  “There, child, see,” Liapha said calmly. “We shall not all die by nightfall.”

  Harrier was saved from having to answer any further questions by the return of Hadyan with two other Kadyastar bringing food. He knew that the Isvaieni normally ate their main meals in the cool of the morning and the cool of the evening, and this long after sunrise, Liapha had already eaten. But he really wasn’t in a mood to care. When the food was set out, he waited to be sure that Shaiara and Ciniran were going to eat as well. He knew just enough about the Isvaieni by now to know they had elaborate rules for everything and not enough to know what they were. Once Shaiara began to eat, he followed her example. The meat was beef, which was surprising, but he remembered Liapha last night saying she was going to talk somebody into slaughtering a cow. Apparently she’d succeeded. He was starting to get the idea Liapha could talk most people into most things, and that might be a good thing, as long as she was willing to talk them into the things he wanted her to talk them into.

  He wondered how many of the Kadyastar had been in Zanattar’s army. He wondered who they were going to follow now—Liapha or Zanattar. They couldn’t follow both.

  “Mutiny” was an ugly word, probably the ugliest one Harrier knew. Everyone who served the ships that sailed Great Ocean knew that no ship could have two masters. On a ship at sea, the Captain’s word was law and his crew followed it. Or they mutinied, and that was never a quiet or a peaceful business. Mutiny began with murder and ended with theft and piracy, because no lawful port would allow mutineers to dock. Usually, Harrier knew, the mutineers were hanged by the crew of the ship that took theirs. The land wasn’t the sea, and a tribe wasn’t a ship, but Harrier had already seen what would happen if half the Isvaieni chose to follow Zanattar and the other half chose to follow Liapha and the other Ummarai. War. And maybe it wouldn’t be war on the scale that Ancaladar had seen, but after Tarnatha’Iteru, just the thought of war made Harrier feel sick.

  Blood and pain and fear. That’s what the Endarkened fed on. That’s what the Dark feeds on. Tiercel and Bisochim had each told him the same thing in different ways. Ahairan is an Elemental. The Elemental Spirit of Darkness bound in flesh. If the Isvaieni started fighting among themselves, Harrier thought that would probably be enough to bring her back here. He didn’t know exactly what she could do, but he was pretty sure Ahairan could keep them fighting each other until every last one of them was dead.

  IT was just as well that no matter how hungry he was, Harrier knew better than to bolt his food in the steadily-
increasing heat, because the meal was a long drawn-out process—more like a social event with food than a meal with conversation. Liapha was the leader—the Ummara—of the Kadyastar, and during the entire duration of the meal, men and women approached the edge of the carpet, were invited by Liapha to seat themselves, were offered kaffeyah, and eventually explained why they had come. It was like watching Harbormaster’s Court, if Harbormaster’s Court had been entirely about goats and chickens and had always ended up with people wanting to know why the dragon had come and where they were going to water their livestock. At least Liapha had answers for them.

  The Kadyastar weren’t the only Isvaieni who came to pay their respects to Liapha during the course of the meal, though Harrier could only tell the ones that weren’t Kadyastar by the fact that they didn’t come and sit down, but stood politely at the edge of the carpet. He got the impression that they’d come to look at him as much as to speak to Liapha, though nobody spoke to him directly, and the two important pieces of information—why Saravasse had come, and where the nearest water supply was—were always dropped into the discussion so casually that anyone would think they weren’t the actual reason for the conversation.

  The meal eventually drew to a close with tiny sweet honeycakes and more cups of kaffeyah. Shaiara wrinkled her nose and refused the sweets; her behavior during the entire meal had bordered on rudeness, and Harrier wished he could ask her why. Liapha didn’t seem to have noticed. When the cakes had been eaten, Liapha lit her pipe once more. “I thank you for the honor of your company this day, Wildmage, and I give thanks that the Wild Magic still casts its long shadow over the Isvaieni,” Liapha said.

  She wouldn’t say that, Harrier thought, bleakly, if she knew what he did about the Wild Magic. He wondered what he was supposed to say to answer her. He couldn’t bear to lie, and a lifetime wouldn’t be long enough to tell her the truth.

  “Be sure that all shall go as the Wild Magic wills,” Shaiara answered for him.

  Liapha’s words hadn’t precisely been a dismissal, but they were expected at Ogmazad’s tent so that Harrier could try to convince the Isvaieni to return to the Isvai, so when Shaiara set her cup back on the serving tray and rose to her feet, Harrier got up as well.

  Liapha told Hadyan to conduct them to where the tents of the Tabingana were, adding that she saw no reason to hurry in order to hear again what she had already heard, since three people could not agree upon a thing, let alone thirty.

  “Is that how many tribes there are?” Harrier asked Shaiara, when they were walking after Hadyan. Hadyan was walking quickly enough that Harrier thought he might be trying to lose them in the maze of tents, but between wandering dogs, wandering goats, and wandering children, it wasn’t possible. His escort was a matter of courtesy, even though it was grudging courtesy. Harrier was fairly sure anybody here would be more than willing to show them where Ogmazad’s tent was.

  “There are as many tribes as there are nights in a moonturn, no more,” Shaiara answered, after a moment’s thought, “but some are so great in numbers that they have not only Ummarai, but very many chaharums as well, so they seem as if they are many tribes in one.”

  “Chaharum” was a word in the desert speech that meant, more or less, “second in command” or “deputy.” “And I have to convince all these people?” Harrier asked.

  “Harrier, I do not know,” Shaiara answered, and her voice was troubled. “Did you ask me such a question when last the Nalzindar came to the Gathering of the Tribes I could say to you that the chaharums would heed the word of their Ummarai and know I spoke truth. Now, I cannot.”

  It was a fair answer, even if it wasn’t very reassuring.

  UMMARA Ogmazad of the Tabingana was the first portly Isvaieni Harrier had seen—not exactly fat, but what Ma would have called “fond of his dinner.” His full thick beard was more gray than black, and the sight of it made Harrier rub his own unshaven jaw reflexively. He’d expected there to be a crowd already gathered, but the area around Ogmazad’s tent was more deserted than any place in the camp that Harrier’d been yet. There weren’t even any children playing nearby. Even as he noticed that, he felt himself reaching out—not with hands, or even with thoughts, but with the new part of him that worried him even while he trusted it completely. The part of him that wasn’t Harrier Gillain, son of the Portmaster, but Harrier Gillain, Knight-Mage.

  For a brief disorienting moment the world wasn’t his normal world of shapes and colors, sounds and scents, but a flat and silent world made up of simple glowing lines. Lines of attack. Lines of defense. Lines of advance. It stretched into past and future—here that which has happened—here that which shall be—showing him things he couldn’t possibly see.

  Here the enemy. Here the ally.

  And then—between one footstep and the next—the otherworldly image was gone and the world was simply the world again. But Harrier knew there was no threat, no ambush, anywhere around him, even concealed in the tents on either side. Automatically his hand went to the sash at his waist, and the reassuring lump of the Three Books folded into the fabric there. While it was nice to know he wasn’t about to have to fight for his life, if this was the Wild Magic’s idea of a way to reassure him, all Harrier had to say was that he wasn’t particularly reassured.

  “Welcome, Wildmage from the Great Cold! You do the tents of the Tabingana great honor,” Ogmazad said. “Be certain that we are eager to hear all you have to tell.”

  “Thank you,” Harrier said. He stopped at the edge of the carpet. Shaiara shoved him forward until he stepped onto it. “Ah, Ummara Shaiara tells me I’m not very good at making speeches. And I’m not. But there are things you need to know.”

  “And who but a Blue Robe should come to tell them to us?” Ogmazad said, continuing to smile. “We will be grateful to hear any news you have for us. We feared that you and your brethren were all dead—for is not the Cold North the stronghold of the False Balance?”

  Harrier had barely opened his mouth to reply—though he had no idea what he could say that would be even marginally polite—when Ogmazad interrupted himself to say that of course Harrier would not wish to share his news until the kaffeyah had brewed.

  “You must talk about the water first,” Ciniran whispered in his ear as he and Shaiara moved forward to seat themselves upon the carpet. “The water is the most important thing.”

  Ciniran didn’t sit down with the two of them, but stepped back to stand in the shade of a nearby tent. Harrier nodded distractedly, only half listening. He supposed the Isvaieni would think that water was more important than Demons. Then suddenly he thought of something that made him think Ciniran was right.

  If the lake hadn’t been there two days ago, who was to say it would be there two days from now?

  Their arrival had obviously been a signal, for even before the two of them were seated, people began to appear from the other tents, moving toward Ogmazad’s tent with a kind of purposeful idleness, and soon there were at least three dozen Isvaieni seated upon the carpet, and a crowd of spectators standing behind them.

  Shaiara was the youngest person in the gathering of Ummarai and chaharums, but there were one or two who didn’t look much older. Most of the people here looked as if they were probably around the age of his parents. Less than a quarter of them looked as old as Liapha. A third of the group were women.

  At least I know that none of these people rode with Zanattar, Harrier thought to himself. It was his only consolation.

  The kaffeyah, when it was ready, was poured into tiny cups only large enough to hold a single sip. The cups were placed on trays, and the trays were passed, each person taking a cup, draining it, and upending it upon the tray. As the trays made their way through the seated audience, the mood grew more expectant. At last all the trays were returned. Harrier didn’t need anyone to tell him that the formalities were over. He took a deep breath. He really hated speaking in public.

  “My name is Harrier Gillain,” he said firmly. Better to s
tart with simple facts, he told himself. “I was born in Armethalieh. Several moonturns ago a unicorn named Kareta brought me the Three Books and told me I was going to become a Knight-Mage. I got here—”

  “Only a Demon would dare to mock the Tale of Kellen so!” Zanattar pushed his way through to the front of the standing spectators and glared toward Harrier. “Where is Bisochim? Gone—and no man may say where! For sennights the tale has been in my mouth, told to any who wish to hear: at Tarnatha’Iteru, Demons defended the city, and when through the power of the True Balance I and my army captured them—”

  “Bisochim has gone to the Veiled Lands,” Harrier snapped. He stood up. He had no intention of staying seated while Zanattar towered over him. “He called Saravasse—that’s his dragon’s name, if you care—and went to the Veiled Lands with Tiercel—that’s my friend’s name—to ask the Elves for help.”

  “To slay the Demon!” Zanattar mocked.

  “No,” Harrier said. He took a deep breath, reining in his temper with an effort. There was more at stake here than just who was right. The Isvaieni who’d followed Zanattar when he’d led them as an army would probably be just as willing to follow him now. Zanattar wouldn’t have to do much to become not just the only Ummara the Isvaieni had, but their King. “Bisochim is flying him there on Saravasse. Tiercel is the one who’s going to ask the Elves for help, since Vairindiel Elvenqueen knows that he’s the chosen Champion of the Light.” No matter how many times he said it, it still sounded ridiculous.

  “Lies,” Zanattar said again.

  “Look, you were there yesterday when Bisochim said that neither Tyr or I was a Demon. So were a bunch of other people. Either Bisochim told you the truth yesterday, or he’s been lying to you all along. Which is it?” Harrier said.

  Many of the spectators began to whisper to each other excitedly, passing his words back through the crowd. It was getting larger. Zanattar simply glared, and Harrier could sense the confrontation he didn’t want to have coming closer, as inevitable as the collision of a storm-driven ship with a reef.