The Enduring Flame Trilogy 001 - The Phoenix Unchained

by James Mallory

  It was certainly not a new book. The dusty blue velvet binding was worn to threadbare shininess with age, and only the fact that the title was composed of metal letters fixed somehow into the cover of the book rendered it legible at all. A Compendium of Ancient Myth and Legend, Compiled from the Histories of the City. But if the letters had ever been gilded, the gilding had worn off long ago, and they were now simply black with tarnish and age.

  “You’re no better a liar now than you were at six, Harrier Gillain,” his uncle said with fond irritation. “You’d rather have a new pair of boots, or a fine cloak, or whatever shiny new distraction entertains the young this season. But I assure you, there are more wonders to be found in this book than in all of Armethalieh, if you’ll only take a moment to look. And isn’t this the season above all others when we should contemplate the marvels of the past? Those days when magic and wonders filled the land and things were never as they seemed? I promise you, the world is wider than your silly little harbor with its silly little ships.”

  “Well, without our silly little harbor and its silly little ships, you’d hardly have a place to sail away from and back to, would you, Alfrin?” Antarans said, a bit sharply.

  “Is it about magic?” Harrier asked doubtfully.

  “That and more,” Alfrin said grandly. “And I look forward to hearing what you think of it,” he told his nephew meaningfully.

  Tiercel saw Harrier do his best to repress a sigh.

  At last Divigana was able to lead her brother toward the sideboard filled with good things to eat and drink, helping him off with his cloak as she did so.

  “Don’t worry, Har,” Tiercel said. “I’ll read it for you and tell you what’s in it. I’m sure he won’t ask too many questions.”

  Harrier shot Tiercel a grateful look, but in fact it was as much curiosity as friendship that prompted Tiercel’s offer. The book looked interesting.

  “He probably won’t be here long enough to ask any at all,” Harrier said with a relieved grin, promptly handing the book to Tiercel. “I can’t even remember the last time Uncle Alfrin came back to Armethalieh. He’s always off traveling somewhere. We’ve gotten some pretty strange presents over the years, though.”

  Tiercel grinned back. He remembered those. Most of them had wound up in the Gillain attic, like the giant stuffed lizard and the musical clock. Some had been pretty but baffling, like the set of glass fish that whistled when you put them out in the rain. And some, Harrier’s parents had never let their youngest child see at all.

  THE party broke up rather later than it might otherwise have done. For the rest of the evening, Alfrin Auvalen had been the center of attention, telling amazing tales of his adventures and dancing with every woman there. Tiercel had been fascinated. It wasn’t, of course, that he actually wanted to go anywhere. He was perfectly content with life in Armethalieh. But he loved hearing stories of exotic places. And when the Rolforts left that evening, Harrier’s Naming Day present was tucked firmly under Tiercel’s arm.

  FOR the next several days, the Compendium of Ancient Myth and Legend languished in Tiercel’s study unread, as Festival was a very busy time of year for everyone in Armethalieh. For the Rolfort family, there were parties to be present at, shrines to visit, commemorative ceremonies to attend at the Great Temple of the Light and the Magistrate’s Palace, and, of course, Tiercel’s studies, which could not be neglected even over Festival holiday. He’d only gotten a couple of opportunities to glance into it—it was a very thick book, and quite old—but it looked very promising, with pictures of unicorns, Otherfolk, and men in grey robes with very odd hats.

  He saw little of Harrier during that time, because of course, even if school was not in session, that hardly meant that the Harbormaster’s son had nothing to do, either. Harrier was at the Port from Second Dawn Bells till Evensong Bells, just as a good going-to-be Apprentice Harbormaster should be. But at last, as Festival Sennight drew to a close, Tiercel finally found the time to fulfill his promise to Harrier. He would treat reading Harrier’s book just as if it were a school project, taking notes and writing a report and everything, so that just in case Alfrin Auvalen did ask Harrier about his Naming Day present, Harrier would be able to answer all his questions.

  IT was a damp dull day. A steady soaking rain pounded the streets of the City, washing away the last of the early spring snow and muting the carillons so that—if not for the clocks—it would be almost impossible to tell the passing of one bell from the next. Tiercel took the Compendium off to the window seat in a corner of his study and settled down to read.

  “Those days when magic and wonders filled the land and things were never as they seemed” indeed. The title called the book “Myth and Legend,” but it almost seemed to be history. Ancient history.

  Tiercel had never really had the opportunity to read a lot of Ancient History. There weren’t really very many books on it in the General Section of the Great Library. Oh, there were the traditional tales of the Great Flowering and the Blessed Saint Idalia, but they were so skimpy on details that he’d just skimmed them. They raised more questions than they answered, and nobody seemed to have the answers. Instead, he’d read books on Literature, Geography, Botany—even slightly-more-recent history (the kind that people could actually prove had happened). These were all courses taught in Preparatory School, and all subjects he’d dabbled in on his own time. He’d learned a lot, but it had frustrated him, too, because none of them had ever really engaged his interests. At heart, Tiercel had begun to wonder if he was nothing more than a dabbler. A dilettante. Light-minded.

  But the Compendium—which said in the front that it contained excerpts from something else called A History of The City In Six Volumes—talked about the Time of Mages not only in more detail than any book Tiercel had ever run across before, but it spoke as if whoever had written it had actually been there and understood why those things had happened.

  “In that time, all Otherfolk and Other Races were Banished beyond the Bounds of the lands claimed for the City of Armethalieh, for the High Mages saw them as a rebuke to the power of the High Magick.”

  High Magick? What was that?

  “Thus, when King Andoreniel of the Elves invoked the Ancient Treaty and called the humans to fight for the Light against the Endarkened—then called Demons—the High Mages refused to fight, or to allow their subjects to fight. It was only when they at last came to understand that they had been the first victims of the Endarkened in the Third War Against the Light—”

  Third War? There’d been others?

  “—that the High Mages were at last brought to set aside a thousand years of fear and prejudice and blend their power once more with the Wildmages and their ancient Allies of the Light to defeat the Endarkened.”

  There was more, though not much more about the Third War—the war Tiercel had thought of all his life as the only war. The rest of that chapter talked about the High Mages from before the war.

  And that was fascinating enough.

  TIERCEL Rolfort had grown up in a world with magic.

  Of course, you almost never saw it, but everyone knew it was there. Pretty much like Wildmages; everyone knew that they were there, but a person could go their whole life without seeing one—or knowing that they’d seen one, at least—because it wasn’t like a Wildmage to announce his or her presence unless it was absolutely vital to the task at hand. And—according to the stories—they often swore the people they helped to secrecy.

  And certainly he’d grown up in a world full of Otherfolk. Fauns and Centaurs and Brownies at least, and Harrier swore that there were merfolk in the deep ocean and Selkies on some of the more secluded Out Islands, though they hardly counted as magic.

  And everyone knew that far to the East was the Kingdom of the Elves, and that even though the Elves had no magic, they shared their land with numberless races that did: unicorns and dryads and dragons and the Light knew what else. But this was something else entirely. If Tiercel was reading this boo
k properly, once, long ago, there’d been another kind of magic besides the Wild Magic. A kind that you could, well, learn. The way you learned Maths or Geography or dancing. Something called High Magick.

  And that—not the Wild Magic—had been what the High Mages who had ruled the City in the Time of Mages had practiced. They’d ruled Armethalieh for a thousand years before the Great Flowering.

  Knowing that, realizing that, gave Tiercel an unsettled feeling, like standing in a room and suddenly realizing that it was twice as big as he’d thought it was. Of course he’d heard of the Time of Mages, and of course he’d known that the world didn’t just start on the day of the Great Flowering, but for the book in his hands to speak so casually of events that took place so many years before that, well . . .

  It was fascinating.

  He wondered if anyone, anywhere, still knew anything at all about the High Magick.

  ON his next free afternoon, Tiercel went down to the Great Library. The Library had always been one of his favorite places in the City. First his nurse, then his tutor, had brought him here, introducing him to the wonders of a building filled with books on every subject there was.

  Though the Great Library had been rebuilt and expanded many times over the centuries, parts of it were as old as the City itself. When the “new wing” had been added a few centuries ago, it had been at about the same time the old City walls were being taken down, and several sections of the wall had been incorporated into the new wing, blending old and then-new together. Tiercel liked to go into the New Wing just to admire the brightly glazed and ornamented stones. The ancient Armethaliehans must have loved beauty above all things if they’d surrounded their city with such a highly-decorated wall.

  On most days he wandered aimlessly through the library galleries, seeing what was new and then visiting the sections that held his favorite subjects. Today, however, he didn’t dawdle. He was on a mission: research. Quickly he sought out Master Cansel.

  Master Cansel was the Chief Librarian of the Great Library, and ordinarily he would have little time for someone Tiercel’s age, but Tiercel’s persistence in seeking out books far beyond those one of his years would normally be interested in had long ago piqued Master Cansel’s interest, and the two of them, the aged scholar and the young student, had become friends. Master Cansel often said it was a great pity that Tiercel was bound for a clerkship, for he would have made an excellent librarian, and more than once Tiercel had been tempted to agree with him.

  “I’m looking for some books on history, Master Cansel. Really ancient history. From before the Great Flowering. I’m wondering if you have—” Tiercel pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket and consulted his notes “—a copy of something called A History of The City? It’s in six volumes. It’s supposed to be from then.”

  Master Cansel looked puzzled for a moment, then smiled. “You’re interested in pre-Flowering History, Tiercel? Have you decided to study that at University?”

  “I, um, well, I’m not sure. I think so. But I thought I’d read some of it now to make sure.”

  Master Cansel smiled indulgently. “Well, we do have some, of course. There’s not much call for the books in the general collection. Let me get you a pass, and we’ll go down to the closed shelves.”

  A few minutes later, with his new pass hung securely around his neck, Tiercel accompanied Master Cansel into the Closed Collection. The rooms were completely dark.

  “This is the Old Building,” Master Cansel said, holding his lantern up high. “As you’ll note, there are no windows here. Scholars believe that in the Time of Mages, the building was kept lit by Coldfire, though no one is quite sure why anyone would waste magic in lighting a building.”

  “Armethalieh was the City of Mages,” Tiercel said.

  Cansel smiled. “I see you’ve already been doing a bit of reading. Yes, so they say. But it’s hard to imagine that Wildmages would have been so wasteful. Of course, it is certainly fortunate that they spent so much time preserving the books. They’re in better condition than many published only decades ago.”

  Not Wildmages, Tiercel thought to himself. High Mages.

  As they entered the main room, Cansel stopped to light several lanterns that hung from brackets on the walls. As their flames grew and steadied, they provided enough light to allow Tiercel to see that the entire room was filled with books. Along one wall, directly under the lanterns, were several small desks.

  “When the scholars from the University come here to do research, of course we light more of the lamps,” Cansel said. “But this should be enough light for you to find a few books to read. Come, let’s see if we can find that History for you.”

  A moonturn and a half later, Kindling had given way to true Spring. As Tiercel exited the Great Temple of the Light one Light-Day morning, he was surprised to see Harrier waiting for him at the foot of the steps.

  There were many Temples to the Light in Armethalieh; the Gillains attended Light-Day at the one near the Port, where the main Light-Day service was held much earlier in the morning than at the Great Temple in the center of the City. Harrier had obviously already been and gone to Light-Day Litany; he’d changed from his Light-Day best back into his everyday clothes.

  “Tyr!” he cried as he spotted Tiercel standing with his family in the press of the crowd. Harrier shouldered his way through the press of Light-Day worshipers clustered in front of the Temple steps, and—obviously too excited to make his polite greetings to Tiercel’s parents and sisters, began talking at once. “A ship came in—late last night—and they swear it was attacked by a kraken. Come and see!”

  Lord Rolfort cleared his throat meaningfully and Harrier flushed at his own rudeness, hastily greeting Lord and Lady Rolfort and Tiercel’s four younger sisters, who giggled at his discomfiture until Lady Rolfort regarded them sternly in turn.

  “I’ll come,” Tiercel said hastily. “In a bell. Or two.”

  A chime less than two bells later, Tiercel arrived at the Port. It didn’t matter that this was Light-Day; the business of the Port must go on. Ships could not be asked to stand out in the Harbor and wait until the next day to dock, after all, so he was not in the least surprised to find Harrier waiting for him at the Portmaster’s office.

  “So,” he said, sticking his head in the doorway. “About this ship?”

  Harrier looked up from a table in the doorway. He pushed his russet hair out of his eyes and grinned. “The Marukate limped into the harbor just after Watch Bells this morning. Swearing absolutely that she’d been attacked by a kraken. And everybody knows that there aren’t any kraken, but something tore up her hull; Da had to send them over to drydock before they sank in the slip. Come see.”

  Harrier came to join him, and the two of them began to walk down the dock.

  “No kraken?” Tiercel said lightly. “You might as well say there are no unicorns—though I grant neither of us is ever going to see one. But there certainly are kraken—at least there used to be before the Great Flowering, although since they were creatures of the Endarkened, I admit there probably aren’t any now.”

  “Been reading Uncle Alfrin’s book have you?” Harrier asked with a relieved grin.

  “Ask me anything. Or . . . did you know that there used to be another kind of magic besides the Wild Magic? A kind you don’t have to be born with, or Called to by the Gods of the Wild Magic? A kind almost anybody can learn? They called it the High Magick. There are books about it in the Library. They used to call Armethalieh the Mage City.”

  Harrier regarded him with a combination of exasperation and disbelief. “Is that why you’ve been spending so much time down at the Great Library these days? I thought you were just studying for your entrance exams for the University.”

  “Oh, I’m doing that too. But the books I want to read are delicate, and Master Cansel let me borrow some of them, but he won’t let me borrow the ones I want to read now. Still, I have to pick a subject to study at school, and I might as well pick ancient hist
ory.”

  “Because it doesn’t really matter?” Harrier asked.

  Unfortunately, that was a little too close to the truth. “One subject’s as good as another,” Tiercel answered lightly.

  By now they’d reached the area of the docks where the ships that needed more extensive work than could be done on them while they stood at anchor were brought. When a hull needed to be scraped clean of growths—or otherwise repaired—the ship was brought to dry dock, where even the largest hull could be lifted free of the water to be worked on. There were several ships here at the moment, but it was obvious which was the Marukate. Her hull was still damp.

  And it was obvious why Portmaster Gillain had been in such a hurry to get her into dry dock, even to someone like Tiercel. Her hull looked as if it had been clawed.

  There were long white scars in the dark salt-seasoned oak. Deep ones, too, running nearly the length of the ship.

  “Could be anything,” Harrier said dismissively, startling Tiercel. He thought the gouges in the hull were pretty impressive. “Rocks—even whales.”

  “Then why would the captain say it was a kraken?”

  Harrier grinned. “If the bondholders can prove the ship’s master was negligent, they won’t have to pay off on the damage. And running your ship up on a shoal—or into a pod of whales—counts as negligent seacraft under bond. But a kraken is the same as a storm. The bond would have to pay off then.”

  “So . . . who’s going to win?” Tiercel asked, blinking slowly. “The bondsman or the ship’s master?”

  Harrier shrugged. “Probably the bondsman.” He stepped up onto the timber balks holding the ship upright and pulled out his belt knife. “This ship has been badly maintained. See how soft the timber is?”

  He set his knife to the hull beside one of the gashes and, without any great difficulty, carved away a long splinter of wood. “I shouldn’t be able to do that,” he explained for Tiercel’s benefit.