The Enduring Flame Trilogy 001 - The Phoenix Unchained

by James Mallory

  “There should be another town near the road a day or two north of here; a place called Thunder Grass. It’s hard to tell. The trouble is, we don’t have any way to carry enough water for the horses. And I’m not sure where the next well is. Or which of the rivers are still running in summer.”

  Harrier sighed. Simera would have known. “That’s a problem.”

  “Or—” Tiercel continued doggedly, “whether there’s going to be anybody alive in Thunder Grass when we get there.”

  “That’s a real problem.” Harrier watched the sun rise for a while. “We could stay here,” he said. “Somebody’s going to come down this road eventually.” He was sure they could figure out some way to explain why the shrine was glowing.

  “I think it was a kraken,” Tiercel said.

  Since Harrier had known his friend practically from the time Tiercel had learned to walk, he didn’t find anything particularly unusual in the abrupt change of subject. That didn’t mean, however, that he knew what Tiercel was talking about.

  “Krakens live in the ocean,” Harrier reminded him.

  “The captain of the Marukate,” Tiercel explained patiently, “said his ship had been attacked by a kraken.”

  “Oh, yes,” Harrier said, nodding. “That makes perfect sense.”

  “And krakens are creatures of Dark Magic. They were in your uncle’s book.”

  “And haven’t been seen in . . . how many hundred years?”

  “A lot. And neither have Goblins. I think those things last night were Goblins. I’m not sure. If they were, we’re safe during the day. They only come out at night.”

  “The Blessed Saint Idalia destroyed all the creatures of the Dark,” Harrier said uneasily.

  Tiercel glanced up at him, folding the map back into the guidebook. “I know. She made the Great Sacrifice at Kindling and broke the power of the Endarkened, and they and their creatures were all destroyed, which is why the land flowered again. Everyone says so. And the Priests and the Wildmages said it was forever, but . . . But I think they’re coming back.”

  I don’t want to hear this, was Harrier’s first, automatic thought. But I’m only seventeen! was his second.

  He looked around. Empty sky, empty earth.

  And the blue light flooding out from the door of the Light-shrine. Light that Tiercel had put there.

  “The Gods don’t send us gifts we don’t need.”

  Roneida had said that.

  Was that why Tiercel had the powers of a High Mage? Because the Darkness was coming back? But Tyr had no idea of what to do with them!

  And there was only one of him.

  Even Kellen the Poor Orphan Boy had had an army.

  “Because you did one little Dark-damned spell?” Harrier demanded angrily.

  “I don’t think so,” Tiercel answered slowly. “I just think everything’s all unraveling at the same time. I think the fact that it’s unraveling is why there are krakens and Goblins and probably other things out there that we haven’t run into. And why I’m having visions.”

  “Although you don’t know what they’re visions of,” Harrier pointed out.

  “Maybe I do. Har, what do the Endarkened look like?”

  Harrier sighed deeply. “You went to all the same Flowering Festival plays that I did. They’re giant black monsters with wings and tails that live—well, lived—under Shadow Mountain.”

  “That’s just what we think they look like. Nobody really knows. The only thing we know for sure is that they could look like anything.”

  “I really hate to break this to you, but Knight-Mage Kellen and the Armies of the Light killed all the Endarkened a thousand years ago. They’re gone.”

  Tiercel just kept looking at him, in the way that he did when he wasn’t going to argue about something any more. And Harrier didn’t want to argue either. This was too important for that. Tiercel was right: the Endarkened could look like anything. That was how they’d snuck into Armethalieh to steal Saint Idalia from her cradle, and how they’d managed to place the Demon Queen’s own son, Anigrel the Black, in a nobleman’s house to be raised as a Prince of the City.

  “We have to tell somebody,” Harrier said. But tell them what? That the ancient evil that had been destroyed forever was—somehow—coming back? Who was going to believe them?

  Tiercel laughed bitterly. “I’ve told everybody I can think of, Harrier: my tutor, three Healers in Armethalieh, my Preceptor, the Chief Preceptor in Sentarshadeen. I’ve even told a Wildmage.”

  “You didn’t tell them this,” Harrier pointed out. Not that the Creatures of the Dark were coming back. It was almost proof. It would be proof—providing anyone saw them besides him and Tiercel.

  And lived to tell. He took a deep breath, trying not to think of Simera.

  “I don’t think it’s going to make any difference. I can’t prove any of it, any more than the captain of the Marukate could prove he’d been attacked by a kraken. The only thing I can prove is that I have the ability to do High Mage magic, and while that might prove something to somebody eventually, I don’t know if we have, well, time. I think it’s just going to keep . . . getting worse. Roneida said we should—I should—go find the Elves. That’s what I’m going to do,” Tiercel said stubbornly.

  “This is crazy,” Harrier said desperately. “Things like this don’t happen to people like us. Things like this don’t happen to anybody.”

  “They happened to people once.”

  “About a thousand years ago.”

  “One thousand and eight years ago this last Kindling.”

  “Pedant.”

  “Dock-rat.”

  “Book-nose.”

  “At least I can read.”

  Harrier stuffed the last of the trail-bar into his mouth and chewed noisily, spraying crumbs. “So,” he said, after he’d swallowed. “Elves?”

  Tiercel sighed. “We’ll stop in Thunder Grass first and see what we can pick up in the way of supplies, I guess. Then go on over the Southern Pass.”

  Harrier nodded. It was pretty much what he’d decided as well. He just hoped Thunder Grass was . . . there. “We might as well catch a few hours sleep first.”

  THEY headed up the road around midday. Their luck turned, and they spent that evening in the camp of a wagon train heading west toward Sentarshadeen.

  The wagonmaster thought it was odd to find two boys in the middle of nowhere, traveling with little more than the clothes on their backs, and Harrier wasn’t at all sure what to say to him by way of explanation.

  Tiercel, of course, told him nearly everything.

  He left out the part about being a High Mage, about having visions, and about intending to go visit the Elves—for which Harrier was profoundly grateful—but he told him about meeting Simera on the road to Sentarshadeen, and traveling north with her, and meeting Roneida, and stopping in Windy Meadows and finding it completely deserted. About encountering the strange creatures there, and being followed by them. About Simera’s death.

  “And why were you and your young friend heading all this way north?” Wagonmaster Matteus asked.

  “I’d wanted to see the Great Library at Ysterialpoerin,” Tiercel said simply. “I’m going to be entering University in Armethalieh to study Ancient History, and Master Cansel—he’s the Chief Librarian at the Great Library in Armethalieh—said that the Library there had an excellent collection of ancient texts.”

  Harrier attempted to keep his face completely blank. Had Tier-cel actually just lied?

  Matteus shook his head in disbelief at the foolishness of boys, but there was no doubt that he accepted Tiercel’s explanation. “I am very sorry for your misfortune. You’re welcome to travel back with us to Sentarshadeen, if you wish. Your horses look as if they can stand the pace.”

  But Tiercel shook his head in turn. “No, I’d rather keep going. We’ve come so far already. Isn’t there a town near here where we can buy a pack-horse and supplies to take us through the Mystrals?”

  Matteus
pursed his lips, thinking. “Thunder Grass should be able to sell you what you need. It’s about three days up the road, and half a day off it, but the turn-off is well marked. There’s a post-inn and a Light-shrine between here and the turn-off. Both have wells, so you won’t lack for water, and you’ll be able to buy food and drink at the inn, though there’s no place to sleep. And we could let you have a bit of food as well.”

  “We’d be happy to pay for anything you can spare,” Harrier said quickly.

  THAT night, curled up in a new set of bedrolls—Matteus had insisted on making them a gift, saying the information they’d given him about what they’d encountered in Windy Meadows was well worth the reward—Harrier took the opportunity to quiz his friend.

  “Tyr, did you actually lie to the Wagonmaster?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

  Tiercel chuckled in the darkness.

  “Well, I am going to study Ancient History. And I do want to see what the library has at Ysterialpoerin. But no, Master Cansel didn’t actually suggest I go there. I guess I’m picking up bad habits from you.”

  “Good thing.”

  “Go to sleep.”

  In the morning they continued north.

  THE Posting Inn was a simple one-room structure, designed mainly to serve the needs of the dispatch riders who took the northern route. There were not so many riders as on the other road, for most of the traffic went by way of Ondoladeshiron, and took the southern pass across the Mystrals before swinging north to Ysterialpoerin. But the northern pass was the most direct route between Sentarshadeen and Ysterialpoerin, and the needs of those who rode this way must be served as well. If Harrier and Tiercel had followed the road instead of riding directly over the Plains, they would have seen Posting Inns set all along their way. Anywhere there was not a town set close to the road—such as Windy Meadows—there would be a Posting Inn, each one set a day’s ride apart.

  The inns could provide food and drink for travelers and their horses, but were really only intended as brief stopping places for the post-riders who carried the Magistrates’ most urgent messages—and those letters that private individuals were willing to pay the premium to get to their destination in sennights instead of moonturns. Tiercel checked with the innkeeper, and discovered that a westward post-rider was expected to come through the day after next. They would be able to send a letter with him, if they wished.

  It had been far too long since their parents had gotten word from them. Their last letters had been sent from Sentarshadeen; it was possible that there might be a response waiting in Ysterialpoerin, though it would only be an exceedingly lucky guess on the part of either of their families that would lead them to address a letter there. And what might it say? “Come home”?

  Tiercel couldn’t do that, even though he wanted to. But certainly both of them owed their families fresh word, even if it couldn’t be the words he knew his and Harrier’s parents wanted to hear. And so, after a brief consultation, he and Harrier bought paper and ink, and borrowed pens, and sat at one of the tables in the small common room with mugs of watered ale to compose the letters they needed to send. The cost of sending anything by a Dispatch Rider was high, but Tiercel didn’t want to wait and hope a caravan that was willing to take their letters stopped here. This method, at least, was certain.

  They also wrote a letter to Simera’s Guildhouse in Sentarshadeen, giving an account of how and where she had died, and signing both their names to it. They weren’t certain what else to do—she’d never spoken much of her family—but the Forest Watch would be able to get word to any family she had. They might even be able to find the Wildmage Roneida and get her account of matters; in a part of his mind, Tiercel was thinking that no matter how carefully he phrased his account of what had happened at Windy Meadows, it would sound very suspicious. At least the Wildmage could vouch for their honesty and innocence.

  What both boys were certain of was that Simera shouldn’t simply vanish without a trace. And it was just as important that the Forest Watch should be told about the creatures that had killed Simera, and that might well attack others. A letter taken from the Posting Inn by the post-rider would be in Sentarshadeen within a fortnight, and certainly Tiercel had told the story of what had happened at Windy Meadows to the Inn’s proprietor as well. They were both determined to spread the warning as far as possible.

  By mutual consent, they did not mention Simera’s death, or the Goblin attack, in the letters they wrote to their families, but when Tiercel sat down to write, he found himself telling his parents nearly everything else. Unlike some of his age-mates, who’d bragged about how little they told their parents, Tiercel had always been honest with his. He had always been rewarded: with their understanding, with their advice (sometimes it had been useful, sometimes not), and with the perspective of two people who had simply been alive much longer than he had. He’d been very guarded in what he had put into the letter he had written from Sentarshadeen, but now he told his parents everything about the reason for his journey, including that he’d met a Wildmage who felt he should seek out the Elves.

  He didn’t want to imagine their reaction when his letter finally reached them—it would go by regular post after it reached Sentarshadeen—but he felt a great sense of both guilt and relief at having finally told them the truth.

  He had no idea what Harrier had written—beyond not telling his parents that they’d been attacked—and Harrier didn’t say.

  TO their great relief, Thunder Grass was just what Windy Meadows ought to have been: a small town of herders and farmers, untouched by any taint of disaster. There, they were able to buy a pack mule and replace most of their supplies.

  After they left Thunder Grass, they entered the foothills that would lead them to the pass through the Mystrals. This far to the north and east the land was changing again; they were back in lush settled farming country. After the isolation of the Plains, it was almost a shock to see evidence of civilization on every side, but now the road that they followed led them through orchards and fields, and the only cattle they saw were fat and lazy and safely penned behind fences.

  They saw no sign of Goblins, but in a town called Pinehold, where they stopped because Lightning had thrown a shoe, they heard news nearly as disturbing as the sight of Goblins would have been.

  “GOING over Breakheart Pass, are you?” the smith asked. Harrier grinned at him good-naturedly.

  “Not much else to do here, unless we want to turn around and go home,” he answered. Beyond Pinehold there was only one more village close to the road, and after that, they were on their own. All they would encounter from here to the other side of the Mystrals would be other travelers like themselves, and the roadside inns that served them. For the last sennight, he and Tiercel had been arguing about whether it would be safe to use the inns, or whether they would need to try to camp out under the stars. Harrier argued that Roneida’s talismans would protect them from anything that might still be following them, but after Windy Meadows, Tiercel wasn’t willing to take the risk. Whether the Goblins had been drawn to his magic, or were simply a sign of the coming disaster, just as his own Magegift was, Tiercel wasn’t willing to take the risk.

  The smith nodded. “There’s that. I’m just saying. You might want to be careful.”

  Tiercel—who’d been examining every item in the forge, the way he always did in a new place, as if every unfamiliar item might hold the key to the mysteries of the universe—turned around and regarded the smith curiously.

  “It’s late in the year for snow-slide, isn’t it?” he asked. Which also meant that sleeping out as they went through the passes would be cold, Harrier knew. Not that Tiercel cared.

  The smith interrupted his careful tapping at the shoe on the anvil. “Oh, Breakheart’s been dry for moonturns. T’isn’t snow you’ve got to worry about. It’s wolves.”

  Both boys looked at him.

  “Best you take me serious, now,” the smith said, watching their faces. “You can go down to El
don’s house when you’re done here and see the skins. No trouble all winter, when you’d think there’d be—not that we’ve had trouble with wolves here since my great-grandsire’s time—but come the springtide, the beasts come down out of the hills like there was something chasing them. Haven’t been able to send the sheep out to the far pastures at all.”

  “Springtide?” Harrier asked, when it became clear that Tiercel wasn’t going to say anything.

  “Oh, ah. Nigh about Kindling. Before Breakheart thawed, come to it. Oh, we’ve passed word to the Mountain Patrol and the Forest Watch, but they can’t be everywhere. So best you keep a watchful eye, and be sure you’re safe within doors before night falls.”

  “We will,” Tiercel said quietly. Not that Harrier believed him.

  Ten

  Into the Mountains

  PAST PINEHOLD, THE road began to ascend sharply, and even in deep summer the air was crisp and cool. Lasthold was the final town close to the road before they ascended to the mountains themselves, and the villagers there corroborated the Pine-hold smith’s story. Though wolves had not been seen in this area in over a century—and this wasn’t the season for raiding wolfpacks, besides—they had come swarming down from the mountains in early spring.

  In Lasthold the villagers also mentioned that bears had been seen in greater numbers this spring than usual, and said that westbound travelers had said they’d seen ice-tiger tracks in the higher reaches of the Mystrals, though nobody really believed that. Ice-tigers were fearsome predators, but shy and reclusive creatures, unlikely to come anywhere near humans.

  “We’ll be lucky to get across the pass alive,” Harrier muttered as they left Lasthold.

  When they’d arrived, he’d hoped to talk Tiercel into spending the night there, but once the villagers had started talking about tigers and bears and enormous wolfpacks, his heart really hadn’t been in it. He’d settled for adding a couple of heavy wolfskin robes to their supplies before they left. Since they were apparently going to be sleeping in the snows of the mountain passes, Harrier had a feeling they were going to need them.