The Phoenix Transformed

by James Mallory

  So many generations gone that a story-singer might chant them from noon to noon and not speak them all in a moonturn—did the ancient names yet survive—the ancestors of Shaiara’s people had stood against the Shadow when the Shadow harried no others. The most ancient of their songs, The Song of Atroist, began: Once did the Isvaieni live in a desert of cold, a desert of stone, a desert beneath a cold bright sky. Look, children, to the north. Look, children, to the west. Look, children, to the sky, for from the sky comes Death and Shadow on great dark wings. It was enough, if she must die, to die defying the Shadow as her far-distant ancestors had.

  This night, however, the return to her own tent did not bring peace. Tiercel was seated upon the carpet before the second tent, speaking quietly and earnestly to Kave and Eugens. Harrier was standing several trayas from the end of Shaiara’s carpet, staring out at the desert as if he wished something to appear so that he might slay it. Neither Felocan nor Perizel was anywhere to be seen, but Froilax, Pallocons, and the two Oriadans were inside the second tent. Shaiara knew this, because they spoke in the same loud voices that Harrier and Tiercel had used in the very beginning, and so Shaiara—and people for tents around—could hear every word.

  “How can they possibly expect us to survive with nothing more than a mug of broth?” the female Oriadan said. “They have sheep—and goats! Herds of them! Arhos, you have to explain to them that expecting anyone to ride for hours with nothing more than some cold soup is cruel and heartless! I’m sure they don’t!”

  “I don’t think—” the male Oriadan said.

  “That’s right, Arhie. Don’t think. Leave the thinking to Benke Froilax, just as your sister always does. Good woman, Handene, Light deliver her, and all praise that she’s home and safe,” Froilax said. “Now, Leiled has a good thought. Never you mind what these friends of that brother of Master Gillain are putting on for show. I’m sure that somewhere here tonight somebody’s sitting down to a nice mutton stew. We just have to convince them to share.”

  “And how do you think you’ll manage that?” Pallocons asked derisively. “I don’t see a wallet of Golden Suns at your belt, merchant.”

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t have difficulty persuading any man to give you anything you asked for,” the female Oriadan sneered.

  “Perhaps,” Pallocons answered. “There are some men I wouldn’t ask, though.”

  “Come,” Kamar said, seeing Shaiara. “Share our roast mutton, our kaffeyah, our warm flatbread with spiced sauce.” He raised his mug.

  Shaiara made a rude noise at his teasing and sat down, accepting a mug of watered broth. “They shriek like those tiny fur-covered men who lived in the trees in Abi’Abadshar,” she said in bafflement.

  “Monkeys,” Harrier said, walking over and joining them. “And not yet. Not until tomorrow, maybe—when they realize we really do expect them to get up an hour before dawn and ride—or the day after that, when they’re really stiff and sore. Or when that blustering bully of a merchant realizes that nobody’s sitting down to roast mutton dinners, and that nobody cares who he is in Armethalieh.”

  “I am sorry—for your sake—that they are not more grateful for the gift of their lives,” Ciniran said softly.

  Harrier shook his head wearily. “It would be nice if they were. But—and I know all of them have been asking me to ‘understand’ and I’m sick of it—the thing of it is, Tyr and I, we spent a year and a half, pretty close, getting used to the whole idea of Demons and magic little by little as things got slowly worse and worse. Them, they just came down to Akazidas’Iteru and the next thing they knew they were being marched across the desert by a whole army of Shamblers while everyone around them died. And Armethalieh, it isn’t a place where . . . You could go your whole life without ever seeing somebody die. Without ever being too hot, or too cold, or thirsty, or hungry, or being in danger. It’s just the way things are there.” He shrugged. “They want to go back there. They don’t want to hear that they can’t. They’re afraid.”

  “They’re soft.” Thadnat said flatly.

  “They’re different, that’s all,” Harrier said, without apology or forgiveness in his voice. “Thadnat, if you’d never heard of Bisochim, or Ahairan, or any of this, and a thousand Shamblers came to the tents of the Nalzindar one evening . . . what would you have done?”

  Thadnat bowed his head. “I shall think upon your words, Harrier, and seek their wisdom.”

  “It’s not—” Harrier said. “It’s just—Okay, fine. Think about my words if you like. But it’s just common sense. Not wisdom.” He glanced at the sky, then at Shaiara. “I suppose it’s time to go and let Fannas tell me what a stupid idea saving their lives in the first place was.”

  “I think it will be some days before Fannas speaks such words—at least openly,” Shaiara said. “For tonight, we must consider what that which you have learned from the northerners means.”

  “Yeah,” Harrier said. He got to his feet. “Coming, Tyr?” he asked. Tiercel waved a hand vaguely, which might mean “yes,” or “no,” or “later.” Shaiara stood, and the two of them walked off.

  Fifteen

  Choosing Sides

  TONIGHT’S COUNCIL WAS more heavily attended than usual. Not only Liapha and Fannas and Zanattar, but Omuta and Ogmazad and a dozen more Ummarai—and their chaharums—came to listen to what Harrier had to say, and the space outside the tent was ringed with watchers. Even Bisochim came. There wasn’t any point in Harrier’s pretending he didn’t know what they’d come for, so he began with a brief summary of what he’d learned from Kave and Eugens and Lord Felocan about how Ahairan had taken the city and what she’d done then. He suspected it was old news to everyone here: if Fannas hadn’t told them about it within the hour, then somebody from Fannas’s tent certainly had—gossip spread through the camp as fast as it ever had on the Armethaliehan docks.

  The important thing wasn’t that the city had been destroyed—they all knew that by now—but that it had been attacked by the dried-out kind of Shambler they’d all grown too accustomed to seeing: the ones Ahairan Called up out of the destroyed Iteru-cities. According to Kave, the enormous Shambler army that had herded them south had been almost entirely composed of these “old” Shamblers—but the army Bisochim had just destroyed had been made up of “new” Shamblers—the former residents of Akazidas’Iteru.

  “—so I think Ahairan was actually trying to move an army of durable Shamblers into position, and if Kave and the others have given us anything like an accurate count of what she sent to Akazidas’Iteru, she must be just about out of Shamblers now. So that means—”

  He stopped as Magistrate Perizel and Lord Felocan walked into the tent.

  “If this is a planning meeting, Master Gillain, I feel that it is inappropriate of you to hold it without me,” Magistrate Perizel said stiffly.

  “Why?” Harrier asked bluntly.

  “You’ll want—need—Magistrate Vaunnel’s future assistance—and mine, as a representative of the authority of the Nine Cities. Mistress Liapha was most forthcoming this afternoon—something you apparently couldn’t trouble yourself to be. You allowed me to believe that the destruction of the Border Cities was caused by some kind of Demonic blight, not a collection of . . . murderers, bandits, and criminals. And this Wildmage, Bisochim, wherever he is—he’s the man who summoned up the Demon in the first place! And instead of . . . You’re helping them. Do you have any possible defense for your actions?”

  “Why yes, Magistrate Perizel. As a matter of fact, I do.” Harrier got smoothly to his feet. “I’m a Wildmage.”

  Magistrate Perizel stared at him in silence, obviously waiting for more.

  “Let me explain something to you about the nature of Demons, Madame Magistrate, since apparently you paid even less attention in Light Temple than I ever did. There’s this thing about Demons. They’re powerful, and they’re evil, and they lie. Ahairan spent years lying to Bisochim—that’s him, over there, the man who saved your life—and so Bisochim
lied to the Isvaieni. This is Zanattar. He led the armies against the Iteru-cities. The people he trained while he was doing that are the people who rescued you and the people with you from the Shamblers. Now, as Lord Felocan is happy to remind me, I’m only Tradeborn scum. I don’t know the law. But it seems to me that if somebody tricks somebody into doing something, or forces somebody to do something, they’re the one to blame, not the person who was lied to.”

  Harrier felt as if he ought to be angrier, but it was hard to be angry when you were trying not to let anyone see how frightened you were. He wasn’t afraid of Magistrate Vaunnel’s wrath or of armies from the Nine Cities. He was afraid because he’d finally faced the truth he’d been running from since the moment Kareta had given him the Three Books. A Wildmage bowed to no authority in the world outside the Wild Magic itself. It was complete freedom, and complete bondage, and even if he’d wanted to accept Magistrate Perizel’s authority, he couldn’t. Not now. Never again.

  “That . . . isn’t exactly the point,” Magistrate Perizel said uncertainly. “My authority—”

  “You’re right,” Harrier answered. “It isn’t the point. These people aren’t guilty of anything—any of them—because they’ve been victims of a Demon. And you have no authority here. You can’t blackmail me by saying I need to grovel to you so you’ll put in a good word for me later. You can’t threaten me with Magistrate Vaunnel’s wrath. You—and your people—are all here on my sufferance. Mine, Magistrate Perizel. Nobody else’s. Being here doesn’t mean that you get to pretend you have any authority, and it doesn’t mean you get to give orders. You’re just another person in this camp, and right now you’re not a particularly useful one. So I suggest that you go back to your tent, and sit down, and shut up—both of you—until I have time to deal with you.”

  Magistrate Perizel stared at him until Lord Felocan put a hand on her arm. Then she spun around and began to push her way back through the crowd surrounding the tent. When she turned to go, there was mocking laughter from the Isvaieni, and even Shaiara smiled faintly. At the sound of the laughter Lord Felocan paused, looking back at Harrier. His eyes were brilliant with rage, but Harrier didn’t let himself react. He’d warned them over and over, and Magistrate Perizel had chosen to try to pull rank publicly. It had been a stupid thing for her to do.

  She and Lord Felocan finally managed to get through the crowd of onlookers, and in their wake, Tiercel walked into the tent and stood just inside. From the sick expression on his face, it was obvious that he’d heard every word. Harrier turned away and sat down on the carpet again. He didn’t want anyone here to see how badly his hands were shaking. It was one thing to be on your own, your own sole authority, wholly responsible for your own actions—and responsible for the lives of thousands of other people. It was another thing to admit it out loud. To have to admit it, and to know that if (miraculously), Ancaladar suddenly reappeared, bringing with him The Blessed Saint Idalia (the one he’d venerated in The Litany of the Light, not the one he’d met), Kellen The Poor Orphan Boy, Cilarnen First Magistrate, and an entire Elven army to destroy Ahairan and rescue all of them, he’d still have to live out the rest of his life with no authority above him but the Three Books.

  “You should have let them come in,” Tiercel said, sitting down next to him. At the moment, Shaiara and Zanattar were leading the Ummarai in a discussion of what Ahairan might send against them if she had no more Shamblers, and Harrier was so grateful for that that he could have kissed, well, Zanattar.

  At Tiercel’s words, Harrier glared at him balefully. “And spend the next two hours listening to them explain what we ought to be doing?”

  “Yes, actually. Having everyone hear that would have been good,” Tiercel said, so low that—probably—only Harrier could hear him. “I was talking to Kave this evening after we stopped. Lord Felocan thinks we should bargain with Ahairan. Give her the Madiran on condition she stays here.”

  “Oh blessed eternal and perfect Light,” Harrier said softly.

  “I’m not sure I mind him being eaten—or whatever she’d do—if he tries to bargain with her,” Tiercel said in a low voice. “What I worry about is him persuading people that it’s possible.”

  Harrier wanted—desperately—to think that couldn’t happen, that the people who’d seen the worst that Ahairan could do could never be tempted to believe she would keep any promises she made. But they—all of them—were exhausted and frightened and slowly starving to death. There was nothing more likely than that they would believe it. And if they did, there might come a day—not so far off—when he, Tiercel, Bisochim, Shaiara, Zanattar, and the few dozen more people he knew absolutely he could trust would have to take the livestock and the shotors and fight their way free of the rest of the Isvaieni, abandoning them to death and Ahairan for the slim chance that they could manage an impossible journey north.

  An impossible journey. Which meant that the moment the Isvaieni began to believe that Ahairan might be bargained with, Ahairan had won. Oh, Harrier could probably manage to keep himself and Tiercel—and even Saravasse and Bisochim—out of her hands. Probably. But only long enough so that they could manage to die rather than become her pawns. “Yeah,” Harrier said. “Thanks. When we’re done here, I’ll go talk to him. Them. Explain why leaving her here to breed a new race of Demons is a stupid idea just to begin with, even if we thought she would.”

  “Try to be a little more diplomatic than you were here,” Tiercel said.

  “Oh, sure,” Harrier said. “I’ll tell him there’ll be food at the end of the sennight. That should cheer everybody up.”

  TIERCEL thought that actually might help, especially if Harrier didn’t mention that what was probably going to be on the menu would be roast shotor instead of roast mutton. He was hoping that a few days of sitting in one spot would give everyone time to think things through and decide they were happy to have been rescued, to realize that unfortunately they were still in a terrible situation that they’d never asked to be in, and to decide that they were going to do what they could to make the best of it.

  He was actually worrying a lot more about Harrier right now.

  Even before Harrier had made the speech that had led to Sathan and others riding off to their deaths, Tiercel had seen the changes in him. Knowing that a Demon wanted him not for who he was, but for what he was couldn’t have been doing Harrier’s nerves any more good than it was doing Tiercel’s. Tiercel knew they’d never see Armethalieh again, but part of him had always insisted that that they’d manage—somehow—and also wanted to believe that as soon as they did, everything that had happened to them would just melt away. They’d pass the Delfier Gates, and walk across Council Square, and Harrier would laugh, and clap him on the shoulder, and say: Light and Darkness, that was a long vacation, wasn’t it, Tyr? I’m just as glad to be home, though, and I hope Ma hasn’t thrown my supper out into the yard for being so late! And Tiercel would smile, and answer, just as he had on a thousand other evenings: Well if she has, come around to our house. You know Mother’s always happy to see you. And to feed you, too—

  And now he knew it would never happen.

  Nobody growing up in the Rolfort household thought that Magistrates were godlike and faultless or even (unfortunately) incorruptible, but no matter what faults they had as people, as Magistrates they were symbols: of the safety and order and rule of law that he and Harrier were trying to defend here with not only their own lives, but with a lot of other peoples’. And Harrier had just flatly rejected all of that, and Tiercel didn’t think he understood his friend at all any longer. Harrier had said all along that he was fighting for the Light, but if the Light wasn’t all those things Magistrate Perizel stood for, then what was it?

  But no. That wasn’t really the question. The question was, what did Harrier think he was fighting for—if he wasn’t fighting for those things—and who had he become?

  “YOU know, I’ve been thinking,” Tiercel said carefully, as they walked away from Fannas’s
tent afterward. “About the best way to be diplomatic with the Commissioners.”

  It had taken almost another two hours before the council decided that it was impossible to predict or plan for Ahairan’s next attack, and that the best thing to do was just get to Sapthiruk Oasis and decide what to do once they were there, now that they knew that Ahairan had taken Akazidas’Iteru. Tiercel wondered when Harrier planned to tell them that his strategy for fighting Ahairan didn’t involve getting out of the Madiran or even carrying a warning to Armethalieh. Ever?

  “Let Gens do it. He’s family,” Harrier answered without particular attention.

  Tiercel sighed. “I know he’s your brother, but right now he’s part of the problem. And I know that nobody here cares who they are, and Ahairan doesn’t either, and they don’t have any actual power, but . . . You just can’t talk to a Magistrate of the Nine Cities that way, Har. You can’t.”

  “Have you been paying any attention at all?” When Harrier laughed, it wasn’t in anger or contempt. It was the sound of someone at the edge of despair. “I’m a Wildmage. I’ve taken up the Three Books. My only job in the entire world is to do what the Wild Magic wants me to. Not Consuls. Not Magistrates. Not Elven Queens. Just the Wild Magic.”

  “And you said I was crazy for having visions.” Tiercel stared at him, not sure whether to feel anger or pity.

  “That was before I believed in visions. Not that I’m having visions. I hope I don’t.”

  The fact that Harrier was saying these things—was discussing visions in the same matter-of-fact way he’d used to discuss dinner—was more distressing proof of how much their lives had changed. “What if you did?” Tiercel asked, because suddenly he had to know. “What if you had a vision and it told you to just go walking out into that desert out there, away from all of us, right then?”