The Enduring Flame Trilogy 001 - The Phoenix Unchained

by James Mallory

  The great red-gold dragon turned around and paced slowly back to where Bisochim stood. For the first time she lowered her head to a level with his own and looked deeply into his eyes. Her eyes were the glowing gold of the rising desert moon.

  Ah, so this is it . . . Bisochim thought distantly. Power poured into him like a torrent of sweet water, and with it, more than he could ever have imagined. Acceptance. Love. Knowledge.

  Later that night he Healed her wings—and then, for the first time, he saw the desert from the air. He was changed utterly.

  NO longer did Bisochim need to count Mageprice, or go to the tribes for assistance with the spells he cast for their benefit. Thanks to Saravasse, all Prices were paid forever. He had an endless wellspring of Power to draw upon, limited only by his own strength. Where once he could coax dormant desert wells into life, he could now—did he wish—summon rivers to flow where none had ever been.

  But to do that would be to go against the ancient ways of the desert. It would change too many things in the Madiran. Respect for the balance of life in the desert was bred into the bones of all who lived in the Madiran, and so, though Bisochim could easily have turned the sands into a garden with his new power, he did not. He continued to help the Isvaieni, but now he did not have to ask their aid to do so. At last he could remain utterly apart from them if he chose. To trade wild game for needed supplies was a small matter, and thanks to the spells he could cast with his new power, he was always able to convince those he spoke to that he belonged to a trading caravan that was just out of sight. Two things only eroded his peace.

  The knowledge that the years of his Bonded were now as short as his. And the conviction that had been born in him the first time he had opened his Three Books that somehow the Balance was out of true.

  The spells Bisochim could cast now were beyond the imagining of even dreamers and story-singers. More years passed, and he searched as he had never searched before. Not in written books, for the wandering tribes kept few of those, and it would never have occurred to Bisochim to search for his answers there. But in spells, and dreams, and the riddles Saravasse taught him. And at last he found his answer. He’d had it all along.

  Every child in all the world was taught one thing about the Wild Magic if they knew nothing else: that it was the magic of Balance. North and south, east and west, city-dweller and tent-dwelling nomad, hunter and farmer, craftsman and artisan, all knew this one thing about the Wild Magic. Though they might never see a Wildmage in the flesh, never come closer to magic than saying their prayers to the Eternal Light that was the aspect of the Wild Magic given to Men to revere, everyone knew that. The Wild Magic was Balance.

  And a millennium ago, the Creatures of the Light had gathered together and smashed that Balance beyond all resurrection, by destroying the Endarkened and all their creations. Half the Balance.

  What was Light without Darkness?

  The Sandwind that scoured the desert was a terrible thing, feared by all, but without its destruction, the desert would not bloom, for many plants relied upon its scouring winds to carry their seeds to new places. Without the Sandwind, those plants would die, choked by their own growth.

  In the Elven Lands, so Saravasse told him, there were moon-turns of darkness and cold every year, a season when the land lay buried beneath drifts of frozen water. Yet without this time of renewal, so she told him, their crops would not grow at all, and the land would suffer. So it was even here in the west, in the lands far to the north. Saravasse and Bisochim had flown north one winter, and he had seen the frozen water that fell from the sky with his own eyes. Only his spells had protected him from freezing to death. He had never imagined such cold. Without Balance—even harsh balance—all things suffered, in the end.

  Even when presented with the evidence of his own eyes and senses Bisochim did not wish to believe, for the stories he knew, and the stories he learned from Saravasse, of the battles that had led to the Great Flowering, convinced him that the Endarkened were truly terrible things. Yet he was a child of the Isvai, raised in a harsh land, and knew the pitilessness of Nature’s balance. There was no balance if the world was all softness and light. And he was a Wildmage, sworn to serve the Balance. If the Balance had been damaged, he, above all people, must restore it.

  Yet he would not act hastily. With Saravasse, he journeyed deeper into the desert, going farther than anyone had ever gone before, to places of which there were not even legends. He was drawn only by a conviction that somewhere there in the Barahileth—the deepest part of the Isvai where even the Isvaieni did not go; the very center of the Madiran—would be the proof he sought, for if Bisochim were truly being called upon to restore a measure of Darkness to the world, he must be very sure it was the right thing to do before he began. He must have utter and absolute proof that he was right to do the things he would be called upon to do. And there, in the Barahileth, he found what he sought.

  Thousands of years before, the world had been filled with races destroyed by the Endarkened. They had worshiped at places of Power that had wrapped the land in a jeweled net. Once there had been nine for each of the races that lived beneath the sky. These ancient Shrines had been born with the land itself, wellsprings of eternal power, as indifferent to Good and Evil as Sand and Star. Most of the ancient Shrines had been lost to war, to treachery, and to Time itself. One remained.

  Even if humans had remembered its existence, they could have made no use of it. The creatures who had worshiped here so many centuries ago had been the essence of Fire Itself: the Fire-sprites. The marking stones of their shrine were buried beneath the surface of a lake of fire that shimmered and seethed and boiled, just as it had in a time long before even Elves had walked the surface of the land. The moment he first saw it, as he flewhigh above it on Saravasse’s back, Bisochim knew that this was the place he needed to be—a place that had once echoed to the magic of the Endarkened.

  The ancient story was told everywhere, the story of the victory of the Blessed Saint Idalia over the Endarkened Queen, and of how the Great Flowering had begun with her dying blood. How that war had been not merely a war of Men and Otherfolk, but of Gods as well, for the ancient Land-Gods of the Elves had roused up from a sleep of ages to fight so that the Black God the Endarkened served could be chained forever. And because the Black God of the Endarkened had come so near to the world at the now-lost Shrine where the Blessed Saint Idalia had died, it was possible for Bisochim to reach out to touch the faint echo of that Darkness here, for what touched one Shrine touched all.

  To conjure up the Dark Forces merely to consult them was madness and evil, and Bisochim would not have considered doing such a thing for a moment, no matter how desperate his suspicions that the Balance was currently in grave disarray. But here, in this untouched place of ancient power, older than the Wild Magic itself, the echo of the Darkness was preserved like an insect in amber. Here he could study the Darkness without being touched by it, and determine if that Darkness were truly a part of the Balance.

  He would, of course, be very careful.

  AT the edge of the Lake of Fire Bisochim created for himself a new home that rivaled in majesty the dwelling-places of the ancient Kings of Men. This task he had set himself would surely be the work of years, and perhaps the rest of his life. It did not matter. There were others who could shepherd the people of the Madiran through the turmoil and crises of their lives. Only he could solve this riddle. And he must have a place to live while doing so. With Saravasse’s power to draw upon, he summoned up water from the depths of the desert and used it to create fountains to protect himself from the Lake of Fire’s killing heat. Here, at last, he created the garden that his power permitted, a paradise for himself and Saravasse. He withdrew from the world entirely, leaving his garden stronghold rarely, and only to gather those things his magic could not bring to him. He no longer traded with the tribes of the deep desert. When Bisochim required something, he went to one of the cities at the edge of the Madiran and bought it
, for gold, like a merchant. Gold was easy to summon from beneath the sand; a pretty yellow metal that the city-dwellers placed great value upon, though it had never yet saved a man’s life on the sands of the Isvai.

  As time passed, his needs from the outside world grew fewer, for he had gardens to provide his food, and that of his animals, and spell-conjured servants to tend them both. Saravasse ranged wide, hunting her own food and riding the high winds of the desert. Bisochim studied, dreaming and casting spells of augury and prophecy. Ranging, through his dragon-fed magic, deeper into the depths of the ancient Earth Power that fed the Firesprite Shrine than any Mage before him had ever delved. And slowly he became aware that to solve this riddle would do more than redress the ancient Balance gone wrong. If he were to set right the ancient Balance of Dark and Light in a proper fashion, he would be able to adjust the Bond that linked him and Saravasse.

  Their years would still be linked, it was true. But her life would not be as short as his. His life would be as long as hers. If he brought Darkness back into the world, Saravasse would not have to die. It was that which made Bisochim certain at last that restoring the Balance was a good thing, for how could saving his Beloved’s life be wrong?

  EVEN though he had at last made up his mind to attempt the restoration of the Balance, it was no quick and easy thing to conjure back into Being what had been so thoroughly destroyed. It was necessary, too, to convince Saravasse that it was right for him to do so, for though the Bond ensured that she would never act against his wishes—and that, in fact, he could use her magic just as he chose—he hated to make her unhappy. He wanted her to see that what he did, he did for her good, and for the good of all who lived between Sand and Stars.

  He went to her in her special garden, the largest of them all, the one at the edge of the cliff where she could take off and land easily. It was sunset, and the rocks radiated the heat of the day, but the fountains here had been carefully designed, and a constant veil of fine mist filled the air, making it just cool enough—at sunset—for him to join her here.

  “You are happy,” she said, lowering her head so that he could stroke the fine soft skin just behind her jaw-hinge. It was the only part of her body that was even remotely soft.

  “I have found my answers at last,” he said.

  “It has taken you many years.”

  “That does not matter now,” he said. “For we shall have all the time in the world, Beloved.”

  He told her everything, then. How the Balance must be restored—that though he did not entirely know how to do it yet, the pattern for the restoration of the Darkness was locked, in its faint echo, into the very fabric of the Shrine itself, and that all that was needed was to work it free and make it whole once more. How he had been uncertain at first that this was the right thing to do, but that he had always known that the Balance was flawed and that he was the one who must set it right. And that he had known that setting the Darkness free again was the right thing to do when he had realized that in doing so, he would be able to claim immortality for himself, so that Saravasse need not die in a few brief years. He had expected joy at his news.

  He had not known a dragon could weep.

  It angered him. He’d thought her so wise. Instead, she was as foolish as any of the Isvaieni he’d wasted so many years of his life protecting when he could have been doing this instead. Perhaps linking her years to his had destroyed her ability to see beyond the moment.

  It was that realization that made Bisochim understand that he must save her in spite of herself, so that he could return her to the glory of what she once had been. Fierce, proud, independent—not this fearful creature who begged him to come away and forget what he now knew to be his life’s work. Could she not see that he was doing this for her, and for the Balance? There was no Light without Darkness.

  The voice in the fire told him so.

  THOUGH she begged him—over and over—to change his mind, to come away, to stop, there was nothing Saravasse could do to stop him. She did not need to be close by for him to draw upon her power. And so Saravasse ranged farther and farther away on her flights. Bisochim missed her presence and her company, but told himself that they would have centuries together once his work here was done. Then she would see that it had all been for her. There would be time then.

  He threw himself into the work, drawing on Saravasse’s power to bring the world back into order and balance once more. The voices in the fire told him what to do, and how to do it. They told him more. They told him that there were those who did not wish him to succeed, who wished the Balance completely destroyed past all repairing.

  The enemy was still weak—as weak as the Darkness that Bisochim was coaxing toward life—but Bisochim knew that the enemy’s power would grow. That power was tied to the Light, and the Light was out of Balance. His enemy would gain swiftly in power and strength, and destroy all that Bisochim had labored so long to create. Long before another who shared Bisochim’s vision could be born, the Great Balance would have been shattered forever.

  He did not wish his enemy any personal harm. Whoever it was, Bisochim knew that the enemy acted in ignorance of the damage it was ultimately causing. But Bisochim dared not fail—for his own sake, and for that of Saravasse. A terrible death for his enemy would serve as a warning to any allies that enemy might have—and perhaps do something, in a small way, to redress the Balance Itself. And so, from the shores of the Lake of Fire, Bisochim sent the worst death he could imagine.

  Cold.

  Five

  A Killing Frost

  PAIN WOKE HIM. He’d never been so cold in his life.

  The dream he’d been having vanished the moment Tiercel opened his eyes, leaving his head stuffed full of jagged uncomfortable images that slithered away when he tried to think about them. His lips were cracked and bleeding.

  He tried to move, and the hay beneath his blankets crackled as if it were shards of glass. Cold-cramped muscles protested, shocking him further awake. The loft was pitch dark. No lanterns here, of course, but there should be lanterns burning in the stable below, and light should be coming up from there through the open trap door.

  It was cold.

  So cold his eyes burned with it, so cold the blood on his mouth froze and flaked. The queasiness he’d felt that morning as he and Harrier had been leaving the City was back—stronger now—and with it, the same sick terror he felt in his dreams of the Fire Woman and the burning lake. But he was awake now, and this was not fire, but cold. Unnatural cold.

  “Harrier.” He meant to shout, but his voice came out in a whispery croak. He rolled over to shake Harrier awake. Harrier didn’t wake up.

  Fear for Harrier did what fear for himself could not. Tiercel’s only thought was a need to lash out against the cold before it killed everyone sleeping here. Magic against magic. He knew in his bones what this cold was. Magic. This was summer in the Delfier Forest—not the High Mystrals at Midwinter—and cold like this should not be. There was only one thing that could save them. The first spell, the simplest spell of the High Magick. It spilled into his consciousness like water through a gate.

  Fire.

  With a sudden whoosh the hayloft was burning.

  NO one blamed Tiercel for setting the hayloft afire, but of course, no one knew he had. The moment he cast his spell, the killing cold vanished.

  The men sleeping in the hayloft were groggy with cold, but managed to rouse themselves to smother the fire before it spread too far. Fortunately, the cold had not affected those sleeping in the inn as badly. The smell of the smoke roused the kitchen boys, who managed to get to the warning-bell and awaken the rest of the inhabitants of the inn. They ran to the loft, pitching its burning contents out to the bare ground below, smothering the burning hay with boards, blankets, anything that came to hand. The fire had to be smothered. There was no water. The well, the trough, even the water in the buckets in the stable was frozen solid. When the fire was out, the damage was assessed. The chickens penned be
hind the stable were dead of cold. The stable cat was dead as well. Their bodies were frozen.

  “WE have to leave,” Tiercel said.

  He was huddled next to Harrier in the inn’s Common Room. Both fireplaces had been built up with roaring fires—despite the season—and everyone who had been in the stable was huddled around one or the other, wrapped in blankets. Those who had slept in the loft were as cold as if they had slept naked in the snow at Midwinter, and their lungs were wracked with smoke, but all would live.

  “Now?” Harrier asked shakily. His hands were wrapped around a mug of steaming cider, but he was still shivering so hard he was spilling nearly as much as he drank.

  “As soon as it’s light,” Tiercel said in a low voice. A spasm of coughing shook him, and he huddled closer to the fire. He didn’t think he would ever be warm again.

  “You think this was you.”

  Tiercel shot him a look of fond disgust. “I know it was me. When are you going to admit it? I had another dream, then I woke up, and we were all freezing to death.”

  This time Harrier glanced around to see if they were being overheard before speaking. Simera was standing before the other fireplace. Fortunately she’d chosen to sleep outside that night, near the animals, and so had been away from the worst of the cold. It had centered on the hayloft.

  “About that woman?” Harrier asked.

  “I don’t remember this one, actually. But it was the same kind of dream, I think. The cold woke me, and I knew I had to do something.”

  “And you . . . set the hayloft on fire.” For the first time Tiercel heard belief in Harrier’s voice. Belief. And fear.

  “I had to do something.”

  “You set the hayloft on fire,” Harrier repeated. He sounded as if the fact that Tiercel might have done so were a personal insult.

  “Keep your voice down. I’ll pay for the damage.”