Phoenix in Shadow

by Ryk E. Spoor

  “By the Light,” Cirnala said, and the faces around showed their horror. “That means that the children—”

  “You have it!” Zogen shouted, and the door swung open. “They’ve been sick, all of them, but they’ve been getting violent—”

  “You have the children and you never told us?!” the Reflect’s hand went to his sword-hilt.

  “I didn’t know if I could trust anyone!” Zogen snapped back.

  “Come on!” Kyri said, striding towards Zogen. “Enough time for recriminations later! We have to help those children now, before it’s too late!”

  Hiriista and Tobimar followed, but Hiriista’s tense walk and muttered words gave Tobimar a cold feeling. “For some, it has been many weeks. If the brain-rider has had so long to grow and be established . . .”

  “I will not let children die,” Kyri’s voice was cold iron. “If they still live now, then I say that Myrionar will forbid them from dying. It would be unjust for us to have solved the riddle and still fail to save them.”

  Beneath Zogen Josan’s cabin was a surprisingly large basement, hewn by impressive effort from the rock and earth and well furnished. The furnishings, however, had been hastily rearranged, and five cages were set along the far wall. They were well-made cages, and cushioned, not rudely fashioned or uncomfortable, but Tobimar could see they were strong and secured on the outside by locked steel clips.

  Kyri glanced grimly at the children restrained within them, and suddenly went pale. “Ur-Urelle?”

  The far right cage had a young Artan boy in it . . . but at the same time, Tobimar felt a . . . pressure that had no physical source, a push inside his head that came up hard against the discipline of High Center. But though there was a momentary blurring, a hint of other features, he saw only the young boy. At the same time, Kyri’s expression showed that she saw someone she recognized. Which was of course impossible.

  “Unless your ‘Urelle’ is an Artan child, she’s not there,” Tobimar said quietly.

  Kyri shook her head, then glared at the end cage. “So. The last evidence we needed.”

  “That’s new,” Zogan said. “Tirleren was the worst off, but projecting a different seeming? No.”

  “If it can do that, it is nearing maturity,” Hiriista said bluntly. “I am afraid the host is . . . unsalvageable.” His voice was cold, filled with anger and helplessness.

  “We are not separate,” Tirleren said. “We are one, now. If I leave him, he will die.” The smile that suddenly appeared was more a rictus, something aping the expression but not quite familiar with how it was done. “Of course I will leave soon anyway.”

  “Soon,” agreed a little human girl in the third cage. That must be the second victim, Demmi.

  A third child, a Child of Odin, looked vaguely puzzled, as though there was some thought or idea that was just coming to him, while the other two were horrified. “No, no, I don’t want to have something in my head!” the little boy—Minnu?—said tremulously.

  “Don’t worry,” Kyri said, taking off her helm and putting it down. “I’ll take care of it. It’s going to be all right. Even for you, Tirleren.”

  For an instant, Tirleren’s face showed a flash of horror and hope, and then went back to cold watchfulness. “Separate us and he dies. I will not.”

  “Whether or not he does die,” Reflect Jenten said, “I assure you, you will die, no matter what tricks you might have to escape. Correct, Zogen?”

  The ex-Color straightened. “Correct, Namuhan,” he said, using the Reflect’s first name in return.

  “Hiriista, do you have anything that could help?”

  The mazakh swayed his head doubtfully, but pulled out a red vial of liquid, and fished a particular green-glittering amulet from within his assortment of jewelry. “This may suffice for the least-affected. But I very gravely doubt that anything can be done for Demmi and Tirleren, save to . . . end this.”

  Cirnala turned away at those words.

  “Try,” Kyri said. “Try, and I will do the rest.”

  “What can you do, if even the Magewright believes it is impossible?” Cirnala said, his quiet voice filled with hopelessness.

  Kyri’s head came up, and Tobimar saw a faint golden glow about her. “All I can do is have faith. But what I have faith in is Myrionar, and I do not believe It will allow such injustice this day.”

  Hiriista gazed at her, then sighed and nodded. “I will require each of them to drink a portion of this restorative. To get at least those two to drink will require force.”

  Tirleren’s eyes narrowed, and his eyes momentarily showed a yellowish cast, even a faint glow. “Oh, yes, try that.”

  “Don’t let him intimidate you,” Kyri said. “The itrichel isn’t yet full-grown. If we hadn’t forced the issue, it would not have revealed itself—just used its powers to get Zogen to release it and the other four once it was full-grown.”

  Cautiously, Zogen opened Tirleren’s cage.

  As the door came fully open, Tirleren’s arms tore free of their bindings and whipped out, sending Zogen tumbling away. Tirleren leapt from the cage, shredding the bindings on his legs, straight for Kyri.

  Kyri’s gauntleted hand caught the mindworm-possessed Artan in midair and held him high, with scarcely a sign of effort as he hammered uselessly at Phoenix’s hand and forearm. I’d forgotten how strong she is. That’s the legendary Vantage strength they talk about in Evanwyl—and if he can’t break her arm through the Raiment, he’s got nothing to give him leverage. “Now.”

  Tobimar had already increased his own strength and speed, and saw both Zogen and the Reflect stepping up to help. Between the three of them, they were able to use leverage of their own to restrain Tirleren and force his mouth open. Hiriista poured a small portion of liquid from the vial into Tirleren’s mouth and poked the throat in a fashion that forced a reflexive swallow.

  Instantly Tirleren went nearly limp, twitching. Hiriista looked grave, but had them repeat the maneuver for Demmi. Hamule, the little Child of Odin, was able to force herself to sit still for the dosing, and while she looked to be in terrible pain didn’t seem in as much distress as the other two; both Minnu and Abiti took their doses easily.

  Then Hiriista took up the green-stone amulet. “By Ocean and Forest, let impurity be banished!”

  Emerald light blazed from the stone and exploded into the five children. Hiriista held the stone in a deathgrip, scales standing up around his hand from the tension, and drove the power forward.

  All five screamed, but those of Demmi and Tirleren were shrieks of tearing agony. Something rose up in that forest-green light, five somethings struggling and scrabbling with multiple pairs of legs to hold on as they were rejected by the bodies they had inhabited, creatures not entirely solid nor entirely immaterial being ripped from the napes of the childrens’ necks. Tirleren’s was the largest, the length of Tobimar’s forearm and giving vent to its own high-pitched keening of pain and fury; Demmi’s was only slightly smaller.

  Shades paler than normal, Zogen Josan and the Reflect stepped forward as one, and blades leapt from their scabbards; the floating creatures were sundered instantly in a pair of mirrored strokes.

  Hiriista’s light faded. Minnu and Abiti lay crying, Hamule was barely conscious, but the other two were sagging down as though nothing was left.

  Kyri caught the two before their heads hit the floor, gazed at them, and put her hands on the two. “Myrionar, hear me. Heal these children, innocent victims of monsters who sought more than their mere deaths.”

  The golden, singing light of Myrionar answered her, and Tobimar once more felt the rush of awe that power inspired. He had seen it more than once, but there was something different about it that made even great magics less impressive by comparison. You knew that you saw the power of a god in action.

  But in his current state, seeing with the High Center through his trained senses, he saw something else; Kyri’s power poured into the two bodies, and most of it was pouring out again. “P
hoenix! Something’s wrong!”

  Kyri’s shoulders tightened. “I . . . see it. These monsters . . . wove into their souls, not just their bodies. These are soul wounds, their very essences ripped apart. I should have suspected it.”

  “Then . . .”

  “Then I have to do something else.”

  The auric aura flared higher, filled the entire room with the tingling power of Myrionar, and he could see something else happening; a weave of golden energy, extending from Kyri, twining about the shining but tattered spirits of the children. By Terian, what’s she doing? How can she be pulling that much power from Myrionar here, when—

  No. Oh, by the Light in the Darkness, she’s not getting it from Myrionar . . .

  “Stop, Phoenix!” he shouted, barely keeping himself from using her real name. “Stop! You can’t tear your own soul apart to—”

  “I swore I would not let this happen! And it can work, I know it can! I saw the Arbiter—”

  He remembered her story—and that the Arbiter was still, a year later, hurt and weakened by the attempt that ultimately had failed.

  No. She’s going to kill herself doing this! Maybe they’re not as hurt as her brother was, but one soul can’t possibly bind—

  One soul?

  He reached out and put both of his hands atop hers, resting on the heads of Tirleren and Demmi. “Let me help, then. Take from me.”

  A blink, a hesitation . . . and then a rush of understanding and gratitude.

  Tobimar could not restrain a grunt of agony as the tearing began, ripping delicate strands of his very soul carefully away from the edges, sewing up the ruptured spirits of the children they were saving.

  And then there was another presence. “I cannot allow you to take all of the risks for my own people,” the Reflect said.

  And another. “We are comrades, are we not? Let a Magewright support you as well!”

  And a third, touching hesitantly, then clamping down with decision. “And can I do less who was once a Color?” asked the voice of Zogen Josan.

  And even Poplock bounced to her shoulder—wordless, of course, so as not to give himself away—but Tobimar knew she would understand the offer as clearly as if it were spoken.

  Kyri looked up and her smile lit the room more than her own power.

  Myrionar’s power mingled with their own and stripped pieces from all of them—but among so many, six souls to heal two children, Tobimar could tell that the damage was so much less that Kyri would not die, would not even be crippled from this attempt, because they were supporting her, giving her the strength that she could never have survived tearing from her own soul alone.

  Even as he became aware of another commotion behind them, the blazing gold-fire detonated around the six of them, all flowing and channeled by the power of Kyri Victoria Vantage, the Phoenix Justiciar of Myrionar. A towering, shining sword-balance burned in the air, visible above and through the cabin as though the walls were made of clearest crystal. “Myrionar, by the sacrifice of the willing and bindings of pure soul, by the power of mercy and of justice, and by my will and your wisdom seal these wounds, heal these souls and let these children live again!”

  The concussion of power scattered them across the floor like pebbles, yet Tobimar felt no more pain, only tired exaltation. He blinked, clearing fiery afterimages from his eyes.

  Tirleren and Demmi lay still in the middle of the floor, Kyri collapsed beside them. And then Tirleren slowly raised his head, Demmi as well, and suddenly began to cry—tears of pain and fear, yes, but also clear tears of relief and joy.

  From the floor, Kyri opened her eyes and looked at them all, a smile on her face. She looked past him and her exhausted smile widened.

  Crowded around the bottom of the stairs, mostly fallen from the same final shock of the ritual that had felled the five involved in it, were half a dozen of the villagers—and, still standing but staring with impossibly wide blue eyes, was Miri, Light of Kaizatenzei.

  CHAPTER 28

  Miri stepped into her guestroom at the Reflect’s mansion and closed the door, leaning against it heavily. I’m shaking! Shaking like a terrified human!

  Her current body was human, in a way . . . but in all the centuries she’d been in such bodies, she’d never had such a reaction. Miri held her arm up in front of her, watched the trembling of the delicate hand, the imprecision of its movements, with stunned fascination; it took twice as long as normal to set the wards and seals of privacy.

  In a way, she could understand it. So many shocks, one after another. First, stepping into that cabin and seeing the true power of a god unleashed—through the constant oppressive interference of Moonshade Hollow which impeded even her kind—and the incredible, heart-wrenching beauty of that power and the Phoenix, tearing her own soul and the voluntarily offered souls of the others so she could patch together the shredded, dying spirits of two children, and beyond. Though Phoenix had not realized it, her power had flowed even beyond the two most wounded, touched upon Hamule and bound her wounded spirit just a touch, eased the pain and memories for all five.

  Miri found a wondering smile on her face at the thought, then banished that expression with shock and panic.

  It didn’t hurt. Why didn’t it hurt?

  But that question hadn’t occurred to her right away. She had been uplifted, confident, and helped Phoenix to rise. It was agreed by all three—herself, Phoenix, and Tobimar—that the master itrichel had to be dealt with immediately, and that it had to be in the Reflect’s household.

  And they’d been right; Nimelly, his Head of House, had been the host of the creature. Once she realized she was cornered, she had fled, with the three of them in close pursuit. Tobimar had outdistanced them for a few moments and brought the itrichel to bay . . .

  And that was the second terrible shock.

  Tobimar had faced the itrichel-Nimelly with a serene face, a transcendent look in his eyes, twin swords held parallel before him, and she knew that pose, that stance, remembered the terrible gray-eyed calm that had advanced through the armies of Kerlamion as though the demons were blades of grass before his vengeful hurricane, in the days after the Fall. That Art is not lost, and does that mean that . . . He . . . is returning?

  She had stumbled, but somehow—though the terror was nigh-overwhelming—caught herself, regained control, only for yet another shock to overtake her.

  For the itrichel had snarled, “How do you resist?” as her blade rang against Tobimar’s.

  “Yield and you may learn. Fight and you will die,” Tobimar had said bluntly. “For my companions are here.”

  Nimelly then leapt back, with an agility far beyond human, and came on guard, watching all three. She smiled. “But are they companions you can trust?” she had asked . . . and for a moment the narrowed eyes had flickered yellow-green, looking directly at Miri.

  It knows what I am! It could betray everything!

  She had launched herself into the air, even before her course of action was clear; by the time she reached the apex of the leap, she had known what she must do. The two companions must believe she was their ally and friend, which meant she must somehow save Nimelly—and absolutely, permanently silence the itrichel before it could reveal the truth.

  She unleashed a Shardstorm, impaling Nimelly in multiple yet non-vital points with the glittering blue-ice fragments. The itrichel, realizing it was trapped, had abandoned the body, tried to flee, but in doing so gave Miri a clear opportunity, and the Hammer of Thunder obliterated every trace.

  And even then there was no respite from the tension; for what if Nimelly remembered what the itrichel knew? She hadn’t . . . but there were also other itrichel out there by now, matured from the sithigorn and other young animals. If they knew the truth . . .

  She sat down on the bed, trying to clear the confusion and panic and elation and fury, to get some kind of idea of what she actually felt, to make sense of it all. I cannot have felt joy at the Phoenix’s ritual. I cannot! That would mea
n . . .

  She drove that thought out with sheer terror and denial. For if that was true, then somehow the thing she had resisted for millennia, that had been trying to eat away at her self for all the time they had been here, was finally overcoming her, now, just when complete victory was in her grasp. It wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. It was the persona she had adopted, that was all. “Miri” would of course be awed and overjoyed, fascinated even, by such a miracle. And miracle it was; not all the magic of Kaizatenzei could have saved those children, but the Phoenix of Myrionar had made it look easy—though as Miri had seen, it was certainly not.

  In a sense, that was good; attention was entirely on the emissary of the God of Justice and Vengeance, and for once that meant that people downstairs weren’t all crowded around Miri, so she had been able to get away without drawing attention to herself. And she needed this time alone.

  And there were people she needed to talk to. Oh, yes, immediately.

  The golden scroll was instantly out of her pack and set up. Miri found herself bouncing her knee in nervousness as she waited for the other person to answer. Stop that! I must not show any such weakness in front of him.

  But that was easier said than done. The problem was that she was feeling entirely too many things right now, some good, some bad, and some just confusing, and that made her twitchy and annoyed. Which wasn’t at all a good thing to be in conversation with Him.

  Even as she drew a breath and tried to focus on calming herself, on dealing with the mission, the golden scroll darkened and cleared to show the ever-pleasant features of Viedraverion’s current form. “Ermirinovas! Always a pleasure.”

  She decided that his infuriating cheer needed to be dealt a bit of a blow, and that would also help cheer her up. “You treacherous little nyetakh.”

  Instead of looking taken aback, the smile widened. “And as always I can rely on your unswerving politeness! What is it that—”