The Phoenix Transformed

by James Mallory

  “Or have them laid there,” Harrier said bitterly.

  “Yes,” Zanattar said evenly. “Even so. An Ummara must do that which is for the good of all, not the good of one—you have ridden with these men and women many sennights, Harrier. Would you have such a one in your tent and upon your carpet, when it might be that you must place your life—or your child’s life—into their hands?”

  “No,” Harrier said reluctantly. “No.”

  “I do not seek to lighten the burden of your shame, for I know that this cannot be. I say only this: see clearly what was lost this day, and what was gained.”

  Harrier didn’t say anything, and Zanattar didn’t say anything else. Harrier went on making Coldfire, and Zanattar stood beside him in companionable silence for a few minutes more before walking away as quietly as he’d come. Harrier sat there for a while longer, making Coldfire and trying to decide whether Zanattar had been right or not. He knew Zanattar was right about why the Young Hunters had attacked the Border Cities. Bisochim had told them that the North was going to come and wipe them all out. Bisochim had told them that because Ahairan had tricked him. It was the whole “burden of his shame” thing he was mulling over.

  Was it wrong to sacrifice thirty-one lives to save eight? What if the eight people they’d rescued all died before tomorrow morning? Would it have been different if the Isvaieni who’d died hadn’t been people who’d “long sought death”—if they’d been people Harrier liked? Would he have made different choices if he’d known for sure before he’d started that thirty-one people would die? What if he’d ordered those people to go, and not asked Zanattar to find him volunteers?

  He didn’t have good answers to any of those questions.

  You’d better find some—and fast, Harrier told himself savagely. Because there’s one more thing Zanattar was right about. This isn’t the last time something like this is going to happen. You either need to know the answers—or you need to tell Shaiara and Liapha and everyone else counting on you to know that someone else is going to be making the decisions from now on.

  But he wasn’t going to find answers here. Not tonight. He looked up and realized that he could see the stars now. Twilight was over and the Sandwind was over, too. Harrier got to his feet and picked up the saddle. Time to go back.

  WHEN Harrier got to the Nalzindar tent, the spare one was set up beside it. Saravasse was curled up out in front like a gigantic scarlet cat. She raised her head at his approach. “Bisochim has Healed the refugees,” she said softly. “They were badly burned.”

  “Yeah, I bet,” Harrier said. No telling how many miles they’d been forced to walk through the desert. They’d all improvised some protection for their heads and faces, but it hadn’t been nearly enough. “Who are they?”

  Saravasse snorted softly in amusement. “You’ll have to ask them when they wake up. The badly-injured always sleep after a Healing, Harrier, you know that. I imagine they will sleep for some hours.”

  No point in trying to wake someone in a Healing trance—he’d had the chance to see Healing trances often enough by now. Harrier shrugged and turned away.

  “Wildmage, a word with you?” Fannas asked.

  Uh-oh, I’m in trouble, Harrier thought. Fannas never called him “Wildmage” except when he wanted something. And the Kareggi tents were across the encampment on the inside of the square—even if Fannas wanted to talk to him before their usual evening meeting, he’d be more likely to loiter outside Liapha’s tent—where they were held—than Shaiara’s. Assuming Fannas wanted to talk to Harrier about anything that could possibly be discussed in one of their meetings.

  “Sure,” Harrier said.

  He turned and walked back up the line of tents with Fannas. The Adanate not-a-tribe were next to the Nalzindar, and next to them were the Tunag, another tribe that had kept to the Deep Desert. Harrier had decreed the shape of the camp, but the tribes themselves had chosen the places where they would set their tents.

  Tiercel had been fascinated to learn that—before Bisochim, before Ahairan—each tribe had possessed a specific territory that it ranged through, sometimes taking years to complete one elaborate criss-cross navigation of the region. None of them had claimed exclusive right to any part of the Isvai, but just as the Kareggi had rarely entered the Isvai, preferring to stay in the lusher Madiran, the Nalzindar had never left the Deep Desert. When Harrier had finally realized that the tribes were positioning themselves in the encampments on the basis of what part of the desert they’d used to occupy, he’d thought of telling them to stop, then decided not to. Why borrow trouble?

  “I must naturally begin by congratulating you on the bold strike you led against the forces of our enemy this day,” Fannas said. “Your victory has strengthened the hearts of our people.”

  “I didn’t win any victory,” Harrier said evenly. “Ahairan stripped Akazidas’Iteru to raise an army of Shamblers to send against us. Bisochim destroyed them.”

  “But before he did, you rode into the heart of that great army and brought forth eight people from its midst—alive—which is truly a great blow to the power of our enemy. And now we come to the matter upon which I must touch, Wildmage. I know that no one is more aware than you are of how fine-stretched our resources are.”

  Every day’s journey left Harrier both jittery and dragged-out by its end. Tonight he was merely so tired that he thought he might actually fall asleep standing up. It was just as well. He suspected he knew where Fannas was heading with his smarmy long-winded flattery, and on an ordinary night, he would have already lost his temper. Tonight he simply said: “Go on.”

  “I did not wish to raise such a delicate matter in the tribal council, for I was certain that you would prefer to consider it privately,” Fannas said. “I know that you will have realized—as I have—that these refugees—poor innocent victims that they are—are merely a test the Demon is setting us. There is no question of offering them “charity” as if we were city-dwellers. Were we even to consider it, certainly more such refugees would follow. We cannot feed ourselves, let alone—”

  “Stop,” Harrier said quietly. “There are eight of them. Thirty-one people died today. If you can count, Fannas, that’s a net gain of twenty-three people we don’t have to feed since this morning. If you’d like to go and lay your bones on the sand, we could make it twenty-four. I understand that the Isvaieni don’t practice charity. I don’t give a damn. My parents fed and clothed and sheltered me, and when we are fighting Demons, we are all members of the same family. So we will feed and clothe and shelter these people—and anyone else we can save from Ahairan.” He stopped himself before he could issue an ultimatum: If you don’t like that, Fannas, you can leave—with anybody willing to go with you.

  Fannas inclined his head. “Surely it will be as you say, Wildmage. I thank you for hearing my words.”

  Harrier turned his back on Fannas—it was rude, but that was the nice thing about having spent this much time with the Isvaieni, he’d finally learned how to be rude intentionally instead of just constantly by accident—and walked back to Shaiara’s tent. He stepped onto the carpet and knelt among the circle of Nalzindar.

  “Fannas sought you,” Ciniran said with simulated casualness, darting him a sideways glance as she handed him a mug. The water inside was cold and tasted faintly of mutton—it was spring-water cut with a little of the highly-salted broth that was their staple food. A year ago, Harrier wouldn’t have believed it would be possible to survive, let alone do day after day of grueling labor on nothing much more than clear soup—but anything was possible if you were desperate enough. More broth was being cooked and would be ready by morning, but these days the Isvaieni boiled the carcasses of the slaughtered animals in the largest pots they had until it was nothing but bones, and then distributed the broth equally among all the tents. Harrier was doing everything he could think of to avoid the possibility—or even the accusation—of food hoarding.

  “Fannas found me. He wanted to tell me th
at we shouldn’t feed and clothe the people we rescued today,” Harrier answered. He handed back the mug, and Ciniran refilled it.

  “Huh,” Shaiara said dismissively. “The Blue-Robes do as the Wild Magic wills. I do not see Fannas wearing the Blue Robe.”

  Harrier sighed. He didn’t want to argue with Shaiara, even if she seemed to be agreeing with his position for the wrong reason completely. “Dogs fed?” he asked instead.

  “Yes.” Ciniran sighed. “It takes a whole goat to feed them now.”

  “I hate goats anyway,” Harrier answered.

  When the Black Dogs had slaughtered almost every ikulas hound the Isvaieni possessed, a few had survived: two litters of puppies eight sennights old, fifty-two older puppies between the ages of three and eight moonturns. Despite everything they could do, the tribes had lost all but three of the nursing puppies in the next fortnight, but the others had thrived. They’d still lost nineteen of the older puppies over the next several sennights—to atish’banjarrari, atish’ban-barghusi, Shambler, Sandwalker, or simply because the animal had simply vanished and not even a Finding or a Calling spell could retrieve it. The other thirty-five were energetic and healthy, and to the bottom of Great Ocean with Fannas and his demi-sun-pinching ways: having the dogs around to fuss over reminded them all of why they were doing this. Harrier had no intention of even suggesting they get rid of—or, Light defend him!—eat the puppies just to save a goat a day.

  Which brought him inevitably around to Fannas, though Harrier really wished it didn’t. He knew perfectly well that “Surely it will be as you say,” was the way the Isvaieni said Yeah, like that’s going to happen.

  Thirteen

  Discoveries and Alliances

  THERE WASN’T MUCH to talk about at the meeting that evening. Harrier thought that Fannas looked a little surprised that he brought up the question of taking care of the people they’d rescued as soon as they’d discussed everything else. Tiercel actually looked shocked at the suggestion of killing them—which was what it would amount to if they didn’t actively care for them—but it occurred to Harrier that he hadn’t seen Tiercel at all since he’d swiped Tiercel’s shotor, and right now, Tiercel looked like somebody who’d swallowed a live snake.

  “I’m sure you’ll all want to discuss it among yourselves—at great length,” Harrier said once he’d summarized both sides of the conversation he’d had with Fannas. “Let me know what you decide. I’ve told you what I think.”

  “And should the tribes think differently?” Fannas asked, regarding him with narrowed eyes. “Will you then abide by our will for the good of all?”

  “Hell no,” Harrier said indignantly. “I’ll leave. Uh, anyone who wants can come with me, of course,” he added conscientiously.

  “The Nalzindar will go with Harrier,” Shaiara said calmly.

  “And the Kadyastar will go with the Nalzindar,” Liapha remarked blandly. She made a clucking noise with her tongue. “Young man, if you were so eager to join Sathan and his Barantar, you need only have brought forth those words at the proper time, you know. But no matter! Why, even now Ahairan must be looking about herself and saying: ‘whatever shall I do for fresh Shamblers?’ I’m sure she would welcome you, and any Kareggi who have entirely taken leave of their wits.”

  “This isn’t solving anything!” Tiercel said loudly, before anybody else could say anything.

  “It is not,” Omuta agreed gently. “I must ask: can the lives of eight people be more important than maintaining accord among us all?”

  Harrier rested his elbows on his knees and dug the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. He’d had a long brutal day and now Omuta wanted to argue philosophy. Well, that was a Fadaryama for you. “No,” he said. “They can’t.”

  Beside him, Tiercel opened his mouth to speak.

  “Shut up,” Harrier said. “Not their lives, Omuta. But . . . the idea . . .” He struggled to put into words things he’d never even thought about before he’d come to the south, and right now he didn’t care whether he died, won, or got rescued, as long as he didn’t have to think about them ever again. “We can’t just kill people because it’s convenient,” he finally said. “We can’t kill them because we’re scared. Or greedy,” he added, looking at Fannas. “Or because we think something might happen but we don’t know. Those people are not Tainted. They were Ahairan’s victims. They are the same people we’re trying to save by doing . . . They’re the people we’re trying to save, Omuta. I’m not going to kill them. Anybody who wants them dead is on Ahairan’s side, not mine.” He got to his feet and looked at Fannas. “Pick a side. This is the last time I’ll ask.”

  “I merely wished to raise the matter for discussion, Wildmage,” Fannas said with pretended sincerely. “Omuta is right. The lives of eight people are not worth discord among us. Now, as before, I follow you against Ahairan.”

  “I STILL trust Fannas about as far as I can throw Saravasse,” Harrier said. “One-handed.” He and Tiercel were walking back to the tent, but for some reason Tiercel had decided he didn’t want to take the straightest path, so Shaiara and Ciniran would get there way ahead of them.

  “Yeah,” Tiercel said. “Har, there’s something you don’t know.”

  “What happened today?” Harrier demanded instantly, because the only thing he could think of was that it was something—had to be—about Tiercel and-Ahairan, and it was the last thing in the world he wanted to even have to think about, but he didn’t dare wait.

  “No, it isn’t . . . anything you’re thinking,” Tiercel said, still in that oddly nervous tone.

  “Fine,” Harrier said in exasperation. “Tell me what I’m not thinking.”

  “After Bisochim Healed the people you rescued, and made the nightspring, I went into the tent with Tukildu and Gindin and Thara—they’re Tabingana—”

  “Tyr, I don’t care if they’re shotors,” Harrier snapped.

  “—because they were afraid to go alone, and anyway they needed light, and Saravasse said that the people needed to be washed and clothed. So they took water and clothes—”

  “And a Deep Ocean Trader and get to the point.”

  “The people you rescued—they’re from Armethalieh. I recognized some of them. One of them is your brother Eugens.”

  If you could be used to being shocked, Harrier had gotten used to it in the last half-year. Shocked, and terrified, and horrified, and confronted with awful, unbelievable things that he had no choice but to accept as his reality and deal with in the best way he could manage. But Tiercel’s simple ordinary statement—your brother is here—was almost too much for Harrier to stand. It was as if the two halves of his life—Before and Now—had come crashing into each other with stunning force. The ground seemed to tilt slowly beneath his feet as if it were the deck of a ship, and Tiercel grabbed his arm to steady him.

  “He can’t be,” Harrier said hoarsely. “He’s in Armethalieh. He’s in the Customs House.” Eugens was the oldest of the Gillain offspring, thirteen years older than Harrier. He’d married early, to the middle Corolen daughter, and Eugens and Naneida had three children. There was no reason between Sand and Star for Eugens to have been in the middle of a Shambler army hundreds of miles from home.

  “He’s here,” Tiercel said.

  “I want to see him,” Harrier said, with as much hostility as if Tiercel was saying he couldn’t. It wasn’t fair to be angry. It wasn’t Tiercel’s fault Eugens was here.

  But all Tiercel said was, “They’ll all still be asleep,” and followed him.

  “I didn’t recognize half of them,” Tiercel said a few moments later, following Harrier to the tent where the Armethaliehans were, “but I did know who three of the others were. Magistrate Perizel is an important Junior Magistrate in Chief Magistrate Vaunnel’s office, and she’s brought her Principal Clerk with her. Breulin, I think his name is—I only met him once. And Lord Felocan is here.”

  From his tone of voice, Tiercel had no idea why. Harrier was gritting hi
s teeth and trying to care, because it was going to be important. He knew that. “Felocan is who?” Harrier managed to ask.

  “Oh. Tasoaire is the family. Lord Felocan is the second son. His older brother Astrudin will inherit the title if Lord Tasoaire ever dies, along with whatever money there is. Lord Tasoaire hates both his sons, so he’s planning to live forever, and Astrudin hates Felocan, so he’ll set fire to his entire inheritance rather than see Felocan gain a demi-sun of value from it.”

  Tiercel rattled on about Armethaliehan politics as if that was the most normal subject in the world to be talking about. Harrier looked around at the tents, and thought about getting up that morning, and about everything that had happened in all the hours since, and thought it would seem utterly reasonable to him right now if the sand suddenly turned blue, or if all of a sudden the sky was patterned like one of Shaiara’s carpets, or if all the shotors turned into unicorns between one heartbeat and the next. Everything seemed equally ridiculous, and equally likely.

  “You’re tired,” Tiercel said, breaking off and looking at him.

  And you might be a pawn of Ahairan, and I have no idea of what you’re going to do when you figure out that’s what I think, and I don’t know why Eugens is here, and it’s been a damned long day. “Yeah,” Harrier said.

  “It’s not much farther,” Tiercel said, and Harrier bit back a snappish answer about how he knew exactly how far it was to his own tent, thank you, and if Tiercel hadn’t dragged them the long way around they’d already be there. Tiercel had done it out of kindness, he knew that, wanting to give him the news in as much privacy as they could get.

  WHEN Harrier stepped into the doorway of the tent, the globe of Mage-Light Tiercel had Summoned earlier was still here. It was a large one, and the inside of the tent was dimly but clearly lit. Bisochim had Healed the refugees, and the Tabingana had obviously washed them clean of the filth their ordeal had left behind before dressing them in undertunics. Each of them lay on a sleeping-mat, breathing in the slow deep sleep of a Healing trance. Neatly-folded sets of garments—overtunic and outer robe and inner sash and outer sash and chadar—lay waiting at the head of each mat. Isvaieni garments weren’t exactly tailored, so there probably hadn’t been much difficulty in finding things that would fit. By now they had a lot of spare garments. Too many.