The Phoenix Transformed

by James Mallory

  “At first we all thought he’d been drinking, not to have seen them approach. And we thought these must be the brigands the refugees had talked about. It was too dark to see them clearly. All we could see was that they were naked. After Captain Micabe ordered them—at the Consul’s orders—to disperse, and they did nothing, no matter how many times he said it, Lord Felocan suggested tossing down some torches. By now they were right below the walls.”

  “It wasn’t my fault,” Lord Felocan said irritably. “How was I to know?”

  “No one is blaming you for any of this, my lord,” Magistrate Perizel said quietly.

  “By then we’d all gone to the wall over the Main Gate for a better view. The Watch tossed the torches down and . . . the people burned. They burned like dry wood, and the fire caught, and spread. In the light, we could see that they were all . . . they couldn’t be alive. They were dead. They’d been dead for moonturns. No one knew what to do—we’d seen them walk up to the walls, and they were just standing there, burning. Consul Tacanin ordered water to be brought to pour on them, we just couldn’t . . . That was when we heard the Watch blowing horns on the other side of the city. Later I spoke to a local woman—Taudini—she’d been close enough to see—she said that a swarm of insects just ate their way through the gates, devouring them until not a scrap of wood was left.”

  Harrier glanced toward Tiercel in puzzlement.

  “Sounds like atish’ban-tiehaans,” Tiercel said, frowning slightly. “They—the real tiehaans—chew up wood, trees, books, paper, leather—and then puke it up again and make nests out of the mud.”

  Harrier nodded. His expression plainly said: nothing for us to worry too much about, then.

  “Those things, the—you called them ‘Shamblers’—could walk right in to the city now. And they did. The ones on our side started walking along the wall, away from the Main Gate—even the ones that were still burning. All we knew at the time was that we’d heard the alarm. We didn’t know what had happened. Consul Tacanin said we should get back to the Palace, and on our way there, a messenger reached us and said the gates had been opened and the enemy had entered the city. You have to understand,” Kave said plaintively. “We didn’t know what they were. And the city was full of refugees. They were even sleeping in the plaza in front of the Consular Palace, because they had no place else to go. The Consul offered us horses if we wanted to leave at once. He was going to send his own family. Magistrate Perizel—all of us—we agreed—we agreed to try.”

  “Yes,” Master Froilax said. “It was all of us. We all agreed.” He glared at Tiercel and Harrier, as if they might doubt his word, or Kave’s.

  “The only gate that was—would have been—passable was the Main Gate,” Kave said, resuming his narrative. “The streets leading to the others were too narrow for horses and riders, and the Shamblers were coming through them. We were mounted, waiting, but when the Watch went to open the gates, they pulled on the counterweight chains and insects showered down on them. They screamed and fell down and the insects just kept coming. Our horses began to panic. We abandoned them and ran back to the Palace. I was the last one inside. The stones of the Plaza were covered with a moving black tide—alive, but you couldn’t see where one part of it ended and the next began . . .

  “Everyone outside—in the Plaza—died. Everyone who tried to cross it that night died. The Palace Guard poured oil on the steps and guarded the entrance with torches, but they waited to set the steps alight, because there wasn’t enough oil in the Palace for them to do it more than two or three times. The horses’ bodies were eaten down to bones. We could see them from one of the upper windows.”

  His voice was barely a whisper, but there was complete silence inside the tent.

  “By morning the city was quiet, and there was no sign of the insects. Consul Tacanin said we had to try to escape. We went up to the roof. The city was still surrounded by the . . . Shamblers. All the City Watch were standing with them. Some of the people, too. Because of that, we didn’t think there were any of them inside. We never did see any. We thought that—with enough of us—we could fight our way through them. We went to the stables, and all the horses, the mules, even the shotors were either gone or dead. For the next two days we didn’t see a single live animal, anywhere in the city. We never saw any dead people.” He stopped, as if he didn’t know how to go on.

  “You spent two more days there?” Tiercel asked, when the silence had stretched nearly to breaking point.

  Kave nodded. “Yes. There were still several thousand survivors in the city—in the Light Temples, the Guild Houses—anywhere large enough for a few dozen or a few hundred people to huddle together. Consul Tacanin gathered them in the Plaza and we started making plans to go north on foot. Supplies. Water. Medicines. The Shamblers didn’t come back into the city. We kept watch. That first day, some people went up onto the walls, and . . . they saw people they knew outside, I think. They went out to them. When they got close, the Shamblers killed them. We tried to stop anyone from going out at first. All of us did. After a while we gave up. We gave up.”

  “They’d all be dead now anyway,” Lord Felocan said roughly.

  “I know,” Kave said. “I know. I know. But—”

  “Be quiet, boy,” Lord Felocan said. “That first night, we crammed as many people into the Consul’s Palace as possible. Priceless antiques and civilization hardly mattered in the face of the abominations we’d all seen. The rest of them were in the Light Palace across the Plaza, but I hardly think the Eternal Light would mind. It wasn’t restful, but we managed. By the end of the second day, we were as prepared as we could be—most of the Tradeborn had those pushcarts, or baskets, or somelike, and those of us who could use them had swords. Everyone carried water—yes, even I was reduced to the level of a miner’s dray horse. We waited for dawn, and headed for the Eastern Gate. No one wanted to risk trying to open the Main Gates again. It didn’t work,” he said, meeting Harrier’s gaze defiantly. “Oh, the things let us walk out through the gate. Took us a while, too, and they kept backing up, and all the while we were thinking they might back up all the way to Armethalieh. And when the last of us were out of the gate, more of them came walking through it behind us—been in the city the whole time watching us go—and lined up along the wall like the Militia on parade. We could all have cut our throats right there, but then we would have missed the opportunity to enjoy your so-charming company, now, wouldn’t we?”

  There were a few moments of silence. Tiercel could imagine the scene too clearly: the early-morning cool, the ranks of withered brown corpses, and—here and there among them—the bodies of those who’d died in the previous three days, standing bloodless and untenanted, controlled by Ahairan. And—just when the survivors of Akazidas’Iteru had been preparing for the fight that would gain them freedom, more Shamblers appearing, surrounding them, closing the trap.

  “Abail screamed,” Kave said softly. “She . . . screamed. I knew she was betrothed. Magistrate Vaunnel was supposed to witness the marriage. It was set for the thirty-fifth of Harvest. She’d been asking me ever since this had started if I was sure we’d be back in time. I’d always said I was sure we would be. I shouldn’t have lied. She ran at the Shamblers in front of us. And they killed her. She fell down. And . . . then . . . she . . . got . . . up.”

  “Kave—” Tiercel said helplessly, but Kave wasn’t listening.

  “They killed—I don’t know, a hundred?—of us before we realized that we had to stay away from them when they approached us. They started herding us like sheep. And they started walking. And we started walking. There were thousands of us, you know, at first. We tried to help each other. That first day. That first sennight. Share food. Share water. Share blankets. But the days were so hot. And they didn’t stop. They walked so slowly, but they didn’t stop. And if you fell far enough behind, you’d touch one of them. And it would kill you.

  “After a few days, I think it was, they started to stop now and then. Oh, o
h, oh, oh Light, I saw . . . I saw women carrying children fall down, and nobody helped them, nobody helped their children, nobody picked up the babies, I couldn’t get to them, we left them behind . . .” Kave began to cry, helplessly, gulping painful sobs, staring at them as if he didn’t realize he was crying, until finally he put his hands over his face and bent down over his knees. Mistress Pallocons stared at him, horrified, her face blotched and streaked with tears, until Lord Felocan put a hand on the back of her neck and she turned and pressed her face against his thigh.

  “Is that what you wanted to know?” Eugens said furiously. “Was it helpful? Was it fun?”

  “You don’t ever get to ask me that, Gens. Not you. Not ever,” Harrier said in a flat voice. “Just tell me how the eight of you survived a pleasant thousand-mile walk without food or water with a bunch of Shamblers for an escort.”

  “We stole from the dead, what do you think?” Lord Felocan snarled. “From the dying. From the living, if we could get away with it and if they didn’t look like they had much time. About a thousand people died in the first sennight, and I figured that if I didn’t want to join them, I’d need to put aside all my pleasant scruples and survive. You may thank me for your brother’s life at your leisure.”

  “You can thank me for yours any time you want,” Harrier answered icily. “I’m the one who told the Isvaieni you weren’t some new trap of Ahairan’s.”

  Eugens shook his head as if flies were buzzing around it. “Now—Now look here, Har. It’s bad enough that Tyr”—he stopped, looking angry and momentarily wary, then plunged onward—“that Tyr’s gone sick in the head raving about being Kellen Come Again like a Flowering Fair Mock-Mage. Do you have to follow him?”

  Harrier smiled, and it wasn’t a happy expression at all. “Actually, Gens,” he said, and his voice was deceptively, frighteningly, soft, “Kellen Tavadon was a Knight-Mage. A Wildmage. Cilarnen First Magistrate was a High Mage. Tyr is a High Mage, too. If you want to complain about somebody thinking they’re Kellen Come Again, complain about me.” He spread his hands a little way apart, and a ball of Coldfire began to grow between them. It didn’t glow very brightly in daylight, but it didn’t have to: everyone could see it. “If you get home again, congratulate Brelt for me, Gens. I’m not coming back to become Harbormaster after Da. I’ve got the Three Books.”

  Eugens gaped at him and then simply sputtered, trying to force out words that he couldn’t manage.

  “ ‘If’? What do you mean—‘if’?” Master Froilax demanded. “Look, you—Wildmage—You—You really have to see that Magistrate Perizel . . .” he stared at the globe of Coldfire.

  Harrier shrugged and let the glowing ball of Coldfire drift up toward the ceiling. “ ‘If,’ ” he repeated mercilessly. “I told you it’s three moonturns just to get to the foot of the Trade Road from here. And I’m guessing, because the Isvaieni don’t bother with maps. Ahairan attacks us all the time, and people die—an atish’ban-jarrari is half the size of your hand, and if it stings you, you’re dead, that’s all. The Isvai is full of her creatures, and even by itself it’s deadly. There’s no water here except what Bisochim can Call. The only reason he can do that is because he’s Bonded to Saravasse. We’re running low on food—which is why we’re going to stop at Sapthiruk, no matter what you think we should do. Madame Magistrate,” Harrier said, now speaking directly to her, “with all due respect, the Ummarai take my advice because I’m a Wildmage. You don’t know their customs. You don’t know the desert. Tyr and I have been trying to find Ahairan and stop her for over a year. Just . . . we’ll do our best, okay?”

  “I don’t believe this,” Eugens said. “I don’t believe it.”

  “I know,” Harrier said. “Tyr told me, and I didn’t believe him. Kareta brought me the Three Books, and I didn’t believe her. Just . . . I think our tent’s up now. Let’s give Ummara Fannas and his people back their tent, and you can come and lie down for a while. You’ll feel better. Bring your saddles. You’ll want them later.” He got to his feet, shaking out his robes absently as he stood, and adjusting his sword-harness. The others got slowly to their feet. Neither Lord Felocan or Magistrate Perizel made a move to pick up the saddles they’d been using as seats. “I meant it,” Harrier said quietly. “Nobody has servants here. It’s not an Isvaieni custom.”

  “So you’re expecting us to go native, are you?” Lord Felocan asked, and Tiercel couldn’t quite tell whether the tone of his voice meant incredulity or exhaustion or simply that he was furious.

  “Yes,” Harrier said simply. “Something you may not know—I didn’t—is that the Isvaieni have no custom of charity. Water is free to anyone who asks. Food and shelter and transportation aren’t. I’ve persuaded them to treat you as if you’re Isvaieni. Thirty-one people died rescuing you from the Shamblers, so we have the resources available. But you’d better do your best to fit in. Now come on.”

  Tiercel couldn’t decide whether he was just as horrified as the new arrivals were by Harrier’s behavior—Harrier had to know how it would look to them—or whether he agreed with Harrier that it was something that had to be done for the reasons he’d just told them, no matter how brutal and arrogant it must seem. It suddenly occurred to him that as soon as he’d recognized Magistrate Perizel, a tiny part of him had been hoping that when she woke up, she’d have answers, solutions, that she could do this so he and Harrier wouldn’t have to do it anymore. She was a Magistrate, one of the people who judged and considered and ruled over Armethalieh, the Nine Cities, the lands that the Nine Cities governed, one of the people he’d been raised all his life to respect. An interpreter of the law, fair-minded and educated and just.

  And she couldn’t. All of this—what Ahairan had already done, what she was going to do—was outside the scope of anything the Magisterium could possibly deal with. Magistrate Perizel’s judicial authority, Lord Felocan’s hereditary privilege—neither one mattered here, and Tiercel didn’t think Harrier had even thought about that as much as he was acting on instinct and pure stubbornness without understanding quite why.

  Acting like a Knight-Mage.

  Tiercel shuddered faintly, and wondered for the first time if there might be a reason beyond their own convenience why the Wildmages of the North kept themselves so completely hidden. In the Isvai, the tribes depended on the Wildmages for their lives (had depended on them, before Bisochim had killed all of them, and if he hadn’t, Ahairan would probably already have what she needed, and Tiercel was certain Harrier had realized sennights ago that Bisochim had been serving the Wild Magic even while he’d been summoning up the Dark) and because of that, the Isvaieni accepted everything the Wildmages did. In the Isvai, a Wildmage’s ruthless devotion to the will of the Wild Magic wouldn’t be any more ruthless than the desert itself. In the north . . .

  I am not going to think about that, Tiercel told himself firmly. Not here. Not now.

  The others had all shuffled off after Harrier—Lord Felocan and Magister Perizel and Master Froilax resentfully carrying saddles—but Kave was still sitting on the carpet. “Are you all right?” Tiercel asked.

  After a moment Kave hauled an end of his chadar loose to mop his face and scrub at his nose, then looked up. “Please don’t judge any of us too harshly. You can’t imagine . . .”

  “I know,” Tiercel said with weary sympathy. “I can’t imagine what it was like for you. But you can’t imagine what any of us have experienced, either. Things happen. Horrible things. And afterward, what you feel most of all is frustration that you’re still alive.”

  “Can’t . . . Can’t someone stop her, it, Ahairan?” Kave asked. He pulled himself painfully to his feet. “The Endarkened were defeated.”

  Tiercel felt too much sympathy to laugh, and he was too tired to, anyway. “We hope someone can. Wildmage spells can’t. Bisochim tried. We’ll hope the Elves can think of something.” They did. They sent me. They sent Ancaladar.

  “Well shouldn’t we . . . send a messenger to the Veiled Lands?”
Kave asked hesitantly.

  “The Veiled Lands are even farther away than Armethalieh is, and nobody but a Wildmage could get through Pelashia’s Veil,” Tiercel said. “Come on. You need to lie down. It’s hot, and everyone’s always really tired after they’ve been Healed.”

  WHEN the two northerners, Tiercel and Harrier, had first arrived at Abi’Abadshar, she had thought they were a danger. It hurt Shaiara’s heart now to look back on the brief moonturns she had spent there and see them as an interlude of comfort and safety, when at the time it had seemed—to her and to all the Nalzindar—to be a time of constant fear, and a life lacking in so many things they had once had.

  But one did not see the day for what it was even when one stood in the midst of it. The danger the two northerners had brought with them was not one of discovery, but of something far worse.

  Knowledge.

  Possessed of the knowledge that Tiercel and Harrier brought with them, how could she turn aside from aiding them? And one act led to the next, and the next, as one grain of sand upon the wind was joined by another and another, until the deadly Sandwind blew, destroying all that lay in its path. Had she turned her back upon them and upon the Star-Crowned on that first day, perhaps the Nalzindar might even now be safe within Abi’Abadshar. Perhaps the Star-Crowned would not have been lost. Perhaps the Demon would now be slain. Perhaps all would be better. Perhaps it would be worse. Darak-her-father had said always that “perhaps” was a net thrown to trap the caster and not the prey. Shaiara could not contemplate “perhaps.” She could only set the nets of her thoughts against what was, and what she must work against.