The Enduring Flame Trilogy 001 - The Phoenix Unchained

by James Mallory

  But none of this was useful now. The War Magic had been gone since the Great Flowering, and Bisochim knew that he wasn’t a Knight-Mage. All aspects of the Wild Magic flowed strongly through him, and he lacked the Knight-Mage’s special gifts—and limitations. So he did not understand why it was he should have received such a warning.

  Perhaps, he decided at last, it is so that you can convey it to one who needs it but cannot sense it.

  He could not imagine who such a person could be. The only ones who would need such a warning would be those with the power to act upon it. And any with such power would be other Wildmages, who would certainly be able to sense for themselves that the Balance was out of true. At any rate, with little more than a sense of wrongness to go on, there was little he could do. It wasn’t even possible to seek out the source of the wrongness, for it was far too subtle. All he could do was watch, and wait. And so, after many moonturns of solitude, Bisochim re-entered the life of the Isvaieni, wandering among the tribes, and doing what he could to serve the Balance and grow stronger in the ways of the Wild Magic. The spells he was called upon to cast were as humble as a Finding Spell that uncovered the location of a wandering goat, and as sophisticated as a Shield spell that protected an entire encampment from the Sandwind’s destruction. His Mageprices were always light ones, for his solutions to the problems he faced were always simple and elegant. He became—though it was the last thing he would ever have wished to be—a legend among the tribes. They gave him a veneration he did not want, as if the power was his, and did not come from the Gods of the Wild Magic. Soon they began to speak of him as if he were more important than other Wildmages. As if he were more important than the magic itself. To be set apart in that fashion angered him, and such anger was against all he had been taught of the Balance, and so, less than a score of moonturns after he had left the tents of his own people, Bisochim withdrew once again, this time to the deepest part of the Isvai, a place where the Isvaieni did not go, for there was no grazing to be had there, and no water.

  But once, long ago, the land had been otherwise, and there had been cities here, though not cities of Men. The Wild Magic led him to a city carved into the walls of a deep canyon, and there Bisochim coaxed long-dry wells back to life, and with water and labor caused ancient gardens to bloom once more. In silence and solitude he found peace, and only the greatest need called him back out among the Isvaieni. When he went, he no longer wore the blue robes. Like his cousins to the north and east, he worked in secret whenever he could. And then one day something happened which changed his world forever.

  Her name was Saravasse.

  IT was a fine cool spring morning, and Bisochim was hunting. By now his little canyon held a small herd of goats as well as a few chickens—for the valley had bloomed under his care—and he did not truly need to hunt for meat. But pig and antelope made a nice change from chicken and goat, and stretched the time he could go without looking for a caravan to trade for supplies. Besides, he liked to hunt. He was good at it. A skill unused was wasted, and the desert abhorred waste.

  His falcon circled above him in the high sky, wings outspread. His ikulas paced along beside him, jaws open and tongues lolling. His shotor’s pads made soft drumbeats in the sand.

  The water he had summoned to the canyon’s wells had brought life back to the Deep Isvai, for that was the way of the desert. The plants that had flowered in the brief winter rains did not die, but sunk their taproots deep, so now there was thornbush and dagger-grass to keep game here that once would have migrated elsewhere. Over the years it had grown tall. That the desert creatures came down into the valley as well did not bother him particularly, since Bisochim hunted them for food in turn. That was the Balance.

  Suddenly his falcon ceased its lazy hunting circles. For a moment it almost seemed to flounder in the air, then it banked and turned, fleeing as if from an enemy. But falcons fled only from eagles, and there were no eagles here. Bisochim whistled, and swung his lure, but in the end it took magic to bring the falcon to his glove. Only when she was safely hooded and on the block was he willing to investigate what might have frightened her. Whatever it was, it was something in the rocks ahead.

  He whistled his ikulas to heel and rode cautiously forward. He had only gone a little way into the rocks before the hounds’ hackles began to rise and they began to whine uneasily. He silenced them with a gesture. He could smell what they could not. The scent of magic.

  At his touch, Sharab knelt, and he swung down from his saddle. She settled herself in the soft dust with a grunt, too lazy to get to her feet since he would obviously be returning soon. He scratched her absently behind one large hairy ear—receiving an echoing groan for his troubles—and walked cautiously forward.

  “Man. Come no closer.”

  The source of the deep soft voice was still hidden by the rocks ahead. All that Bisochim could tell from the sound was that the speaker was female—and not human.

  “Are you in trouble?” he asked, stopping where he was. “I am a Wildmage. I can help you.”

  There was a faint scraping noise from the rocks ahead. “In trouble, yes. But beyond your power to aid,” the voice said.

  Bisochim scrambled forward through a narrow cleft between two rocks. And saw . . .

  A dragon.

  Dragons were known in the story-songs of the tribes of the Isvai. They were among the Otherfolk who had been reborn in the War Against the Endarkened, and who had gone into the East when the Elves had withdrawn across the mountains in the aftermath of the Great Flowering, when the Great Desolation had become fertile once again. He had never expected to see one.

  She was larger than the largest tent he had ever seen. Her head alone was larger—far larger—than Sharab. She was scaled like an adder, and her scales glinted as brightly as polished metal, in the deep fiery golden red of garnets. Her wings were like the wings of bats—enormous sails of skin and rib—and at the moment they were swept out behind her at an awkward angle, their membrane pierced and shredded by the stand of thornwood trees she’d tumbled into.

  “I told you to stay back!” she cried, rearing up. The movement pulled sharply at her wings, causing her to hiss in pain.

  “I can help you,” Bisochim repeated quietly.

  The red-gold dragon chuckled painfully. “You might be the greatest Wildmage born in a thousand years. But the Mageprice to make my wings whole would be more than even you could take upon yourself.” She hesitated, as if she would say something more, but she did not.

  “It would indeed,” Bisochim agreed, once the silence had stretched for a while. “But you must agree, they will heal far better once they have been untangled from these trees.”

  The dragon blinked in astonishment, as if the idea had never occurred to her. “So they would, Man,” she said at last.

  “Shall we begin, then?” Bisochim asked.

  It was hot, back-breaking work to untangle the dragon’s wings from the grove of tall thornbush into which she had been driven by the storm. The Sandwind that had been her undoing had been a violent one, as deep desert winds often were. It had caught her by surprise, she told him, as she flew low to the ground nearly a hundred miles from here, catching her up in its violence, hammering her into near-insensibility before flinging her to the ground in the midst of a stand of thornwood. The tall twisted branches, nearly as hard as metal, had pierced and torn the abraded membrane of her wings, shredding them so thoroughly that she was now incapable of flight, even if she had been able to work herself free.

  Bisochim was forced to ride back to his canyon for axe and ropes to cut away branches and—in some cases—cut down entire trees. It was evening by the time he was finished, and at last—for the first time in many days—the dragon was able to fold her wings to her sides once more and straighten herself into a comfortable position.

  “I suppose I must thank you for your aid,” she said, still with the same odd reluctance with which she had spoken to him at all in their infrequent exchanges.
“It is only fitting that you know my name. I am Saravasse.”

  “And you already know that I am Bisochim. You must be tired and hungry. I know nothing of the ways of dragons, but there is a canyon a little way from here where you can find shelter. There is grass and sweet water—”

  Saravasse snorted in amusement.

  “—and I can offer you goats.”

  “I know little of the desert, Bisochim. But I know it does not offer charity. Once I have rested—and I can repay you for your shelter with tales of the lands beyond the mountains—I shall be able to hunt my own food. Just not on the wing.”

  “Will your wings heal?” Bisochim asked. Having seen the damage they had sustained, he was greatly worried. He had offered to sew the torn flaps of skin together—as much as that was possible—but Saravasse had refused.

  “In time,” she said quietly. “And I have time. Without a Bond, I shall live forever. And now, young Wildmage, I suggest that you look to your shotor. Were I to make a sudden appearance, you would find yourself walking home.”

  IN the sennights that followed, Saravasse was as good as her word. In exchange for her shelter—water was a gift of the desert itself and was never seen as charity—she told him tales of lands beyond Bisochim’s imagining. Of a world where it was so cold that water froze at midday, and fell from the sky as snow. Of Elves and unicorns, of forests that stretched as far as the widest desert, of Elven cities as exquisitely made as the most beautiful lacquerwork box. She spoke to him, also, of dragons.

  Even now, a thousand years after Jermayan and Ancaladar had brought dragonkind back to life, they were rare, for in a time more ancient than Bisochim could imagine, the dragons had made a Great Bargain with the Elves, for the safety of all the peoples of the Light. Creatures of magic, they had bound their magic first to Elven Mages and then, when the time of Elven Mages was no more, to human Mages. Since the Great Bargain, only when Bonded to a Mage could a dragon express its innate magic . . . and produce offspring.

  The Mage to whom the Dragon was Bonded became powerful beyond others of his or her kind, for with the Bond, all Prices were paid, and the Mage possessed an endless wellspring of Power from which to draw. But the Bond came at a high price for both of the Bonded, for the death of either meant the death of both. And though an unBonded dragon had an infinite natural lifespan, it was no more invulnerable than any other natural creature, as Bisochim had already seen. A dragon could be killed—by mischance, or by a creature more powerful than itself. And the Bond did not lengthen the human Mage’s years at all. Were Saravasse—a young dragon still, as her kind counted time—to Bond, her life would be shortened from eternity to decades.

  This was the reason she had been so curt and distant with him. A dragon recognized those with whom a Bond could be forged long before their potential human partners did. And while either—or both—parties could refuse to accept a Bond, refusing what was meant to be came at its own price. One of heartbreak, longing, and eternal regret.

  “I knew the moment I saw you,” Saravasse said sadly. “But I did not wish to believe.”

  It was high summer now, but the desert nights were cool. They sat together in the meadow that had grown up in the depths of Bisochim’s canyon home. He had dug the irrigation canals himself last winter, and now the floor of the canyon bloomed lush and green, even in summer, for there was plenty of water.

  “You must leave,” Bisochim said urgently. “I do not have long to live.”

  Saravasse chuckled sadly. She was nothing more than a shadow to him, for the moon had not yet risen over the canyon wall, and her eyes were closed so he could not see their light. “You are but a child,” she answered softly.

  “I am more than a man grown, and the balance of my life will be measured in a few decades, not so very much more. The desert is harsh. The Isvaieni do not make old bones. Nothing to the life that you should have,” Bisochim answered.

  “Where shall I go? Shall I walk back across the mountains? Even a dragon needs water. It will be long before my wings are healed enough for me to take the wind again.”

  “Then I will leave and never return. I shall give you this place and all it contains. A gift.”

  “Gifts are only given between lovers, Bisochim. Would you leave me to mourn you?”

  “I would leave you to live.”

  “Once I thought that was important. As did another of my kind. He is a legend, I believe, even among your people.”

  “You speak of Ancaladar the Star-Crowned.”

  “Such a fancy name. Ancaladar did not wish to Bond, either. And in those days—I speak now of a time thousands of years ago, of a war that your people have forgotten, the war that Elves and humans once called The Great War—the Bond between Mages and Dragons could not always be counted even in decades, child. Often it was counted in only so many years as you can count on your fingers. For it was wartime, and the Endarkened were powerful. Not even the spells of the Dragon-Bonded could save them. When I was . . . younger than I am now, I heard those stories. They terrified me beyond reason. Child, I have slept for longer than the lives of those Bonded. And I vowed—oh, yes—that I would never succumb. Just as, I imagine, Ancaladar vowed, in his time. It is why there are no dragons in human lands now; when the Bond is made, now, it is made among the Elves; their lives are short, but not so short as humankind.

  “Those who had Bonded assured me it was a fair bargain—as it must be, since it was set by the Wild Magic itself—and that I should not fear it if it came to me. It does not always. Some seek it, and never find it. Some avoid it, and are sought out. But I was determined to take matters into my own claws, and control my own fate absolutely. I could have retreated into a deep cave and slept away the centuries, but I did not want that. I wanted to explore the world, to cross Great Ocean. They say there are no Mages on the other side. I thought—perhaps—there . . . Instead, the winds blew me to your feet.”

  “I shall refuse the Bond,” Bisochim said, though the words nearly choked him. There was nothing he had ever wanted more in his entire life. Not to be a great hunter. Not to become a Wildmage. Not to Heal his father and see him standing before him once again hale and whole. Nothing. But to accept what he wanted with all his heart would doom the creature he loved most in the entire world to death.

  “Will you refuse me, Beloved?” Saravasse asked softly.

  “Yes!” Bisochim groaned.

  “Then you will doom me to an empty and meaningless life,” the dragon said implacably. “I shall grieve for the loss of you every hour that I live.”

  “You will find another!” Bisochim said without thinking.

  “And Bond with them? And die with them?” the dragon asked. She laughed bitterly. “Beloved, tell me how that is a better bargain!”

  “You’ll be in the Elven Lands,” Bisochim said. “So your Bonded will be an Elf. You’ll have thousands of years.”

  “Hundreds of years,” Saravasse corrected. He heard a rustling of scales as she got to her feet. “But you’re right. It’s possible—if I start looking immediately—that I might find someone else with whom I can Bond in a century or two. I’d better get started.” The ground shook with her footsteps as she began to walk away.

  “Wait!” Bisochim yelped, scrambling to his feet. “Where are you going?”

  “Back to the Elven Lands,” Saravasse said over her shoulder. The sound of her voice came from several dozen feet in the air.

  “What? Now? You’re going to walk?”

  “I can’t fly. And I won’t stay here.”

  Bisochim ran after her, but even though she was walking sedately, she was a dragon and her steps were long. He fell farther behind at every step.

  “Come back here!” he shouted. “You can’t do this! You’ll die in the desert! You’ll never get there!”

  The ground stopped shaking as Saravasse stopped moving. “I might survive. It’s a chance I’m willing to take. You have no claim on me, Bisochim. You want none.”

  “I wan
t you to live!”

  He heard Saravasse sigh in the darkness. “To live is good. I wish to live. But I do not wish to live an empty meaningless life filled with pain. Do you? I am a creature of magic, governed by its laws. You are a Wildmage, keeper of the Balance. Mageprices are harsh things, so I have been told. I do not know; you are the first Wild-mage I have ever met. Yet I know that I did not know what happiness was until the moment I saw your face, and I would trade all the long years of a dragon’s unBonded lifetime to know that happiness in full. You think only of what I will lose. Think of what we both will gain.”

  “You would be happy, Saravasse?” Bisochim asked uncertainly.

  “I would. For all my days.”

  “They would be short.”

  “I could have died a moonturn ago if the rocks had been sharper or I had fallen from a greater height. Nothing in life is certain.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I am certain of you if you are certain of me,” the dragon answered softly.

  “I have never wanted anything so much as I want you, Saravasse.”