The Firebird

by Nerine Dorman

  “Are you ready?” he murmurs.

  I nod, incline my head in the direction we need to go, and fear in my heart of hearts that our Illuminant already knows we’re on our way. We tread on cat feet, moving from pillar to pillar, two ghosts in the shadows edging closer and closer to the pool of red-gold light where I’m told the Illuminant maintains a constant vigil. He looks ever inward, the Word says, to delve deep into Self and bring to us new truths. The Word is ever evolving, ever growing, ever reflecting. Or, maybe, if Ailas is to be believed, he’s in silent communion with the demon lodged deep in his heart.

  We’re a score or so paces away, and the white-robed figure seated with his back to us seems to be utterly focused on the single pillar that is bigger than all its brethren, a soaring thing that holds up the edge of the cavern. Either he is utterly engrossed in his practice or he is waiting for us to make the first move. The former bothers me as much as the latter, but I’m not quite sure why. And I’m not certain what will happen when we reach him, what Ailas intends, for surely it is dishonourable to strike down a man whose back is turned to his assailant.

  Ailas’s breath is warm on my shoulder and he turns me so that I face him, one hand playing down my cheek, tender. “My beautiful sister. I must thank you. Despite the ignoble start to our venture.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “For everything.”

  “Hush now.” He places a kiss on my forehead, and I want to say more, that we need to be focused on the matter at hand, but a curious lassitude steals the strength from my limbs.

  My brother lowers me gently to the ground, rests me so that I’m propped up in a seated position against the pillar.

  “Watch, bear witness,” he says. “My true name is Ilafas. Guard it well.”

  My obsidian blade whispers from its sheath, a black tooth in his hands, and his lips are pulled back in a rictus grin as he steps away from me.

  I try to warn, try to offer some word of alarm, for I am convinced of the folly of this mission. One doesn’t simply step into the position of the head of an organisation such as the Fennarin if one is a fool, unaware of possible dangers. Yet by equal measure, I should trust that my brother, who has walked such a different path from mine, has an inkling of what he is on about.

  Yet you were able to defeat him.

  “No.” I mouth the word but no sound passes my lips beyond a soft puff of air.

  I’ve seen demons depart from the body of the afflicted. A soft glow ripples the air around them, there’s a taste of ozone on your tongue and the small hairs rise on your nape. Then the crying out of dozens of voices, and a soft implosion as the spirit is lacerated into tatters and dissipates like mist.

  Only this is not quite like that.

  Ailas’s form grows indistinct, fuzzy around the edges, and it is as if there is another superimposed around him—a great being with upsweeping sickle wings of flame. The glow around him coruscates like light filtered through a many-faceted crystal, the effect almost as if he’s dancing through liquid. The hand that grasps the blade is afflicted by tongues of emerald flame that dribble down his arm and his eyes reflect back hints of this gleam.

  And yet the Illuminant sits, his back to the approaching peril, still seemingly unaware, uncaring of the stalking death. My breath rattles in my throat but my tongue is paralysed. I’m not even certain for whom my warning is. This entire situation is wrong, and I did not try hard enough to divert Ailas from this ill-considered course.

  My brother is every inch the demon-tainted thing we’ve been warned about, and I’m the one who’s unleashed him here at the very heart of everything I’ve ever held dear. I’ve loved the Word of Fennar more than life itself.

  The inevitability of the downward swing, of the blackened fang descending, the claw-like left hand grasping for the hair—he means to slit the man’s throat.

  When the Illuminant responds, the motion is so fast I blink and the two are locked in a mortal struggle, limbs wrapped around each other. The grunting and grasping is animalistic, and fabric tears. An unearthly shriek shakes the very stars and the mountain groans. Fragments of stone patter down.

  I’d imagined fireballs and lightning crackling but instead it’s two men rolling around on the ground like scrapping children, their forms shimmering and blurring—one shaded in green fire and the other nearly violet in incandescence. Where that awful black blade bites flesh, the light bleeds out in rays that blind in their brilliance.

  The awful truth of Ailas’s accusations settles. No mere mortals writhe here, but those who would be gods. Our Illuminant is as riddled with demon taint as my brother.

  For how long they slash, punch and bite at each other, I can’t tell. It’s like that time Ailas and I watched the kama birds at the pits. We sneaked down to the market despite Mama warning us that this was something we did not want to see. But Ailas’s eyes gleamed with the excitement at hearing the men talk about laying bets, about the money they’d make, of how the ground shakes when kama birds pounce. The way their quills rattle with the hissing of a thousand angry snakes.

  Except it’s not at all like that.

  There’s nothing noble in blood sport.

  There’s nothing beautiful about those who’re intent on dealing death to each other.

  The way blood smears on pale stone.

  The crack of broken bone.

  The way nails rake flesh and the shriek of a creature in pain.

  Ailas is the one who ran out first, who vomited under the spreading lamin tree.

  Now Ailas crouches above the prone form of the Illuminant, who gasps up at him, his mouth fish like. My brother has raised the obsidian blade, ready to bring it down, when the Illuminant spears him with a hand through his abdomen, burrowing upward to vital organs seated deep within his chest.

  The man bares teeth and somehow finds the strength to sit up. Ailas’s thrust loses power so that his arm flops, boneless.

  “You fail, demon spawn,” the Illuminant spits.

  My brother convulses once, and instantly the shadowy form with which he has been cloaked billows away, smoke dissipated on a strong breeze. His shocked expression burns itself in my memories; it’s one of those instants that will return to haunt me ever after. Blood wells out of his mouth, black in the low light, and he topples over with a sigh.

  In that very instant, whatever power my brother’s magic holds over me is gone, and I lurch to my feet, rush towards the two bodies. It’s pointless. No one can survive such an awful wound. The Illuminant’s arm is still buried up to the elbow in Ailas’s chest cavity and the stench of ruptured bowels turns my stomach.

  The Illuminant turns his head, and leers at me with teeth stained crimson. That’s when I see it—Ailas’s strike is perhaps not a killing blow, but has been delivered with enough power so that the blade is embedded in the right side of his abdomen. He grips the haft with one claw-like hand.

  “Go fetch Elder Decis.” He coughs, and a fine spray of blood moistens his lips.

  This is a mortal wound. Even with the treatments we have at our disposal, even if we manage to stop the bleeding, the wound will undoubtedly sour. My muscles tense, as I ready myself to scurry back down that hole, but then I pause. Here he lies, prone. I can finish what my brother started.

  And then what?

  Without witnesses to exonerate me, the elders and allies will have me burning on my brother’s pyre before noon. I should go now, fetch help, while there is no blood on my hands.

  “Little traitor,” he whispers, and his smile is ghastly.

  The fire in the braziers gutters and the air cools around us.

  “You’re dying,” I say. “By the time I fetch help, you’ll be dead, and the demon thing inside you will have no host.” I tremble as I utter those words, because I am still not sure.

  He draws breath, but then a fit of painful coughs wracks his bony frame.

  “And you’ll be lost in the night where the vyra will hunt you down and tear you into tatters and shreds.”
>
  I have no idea whether this is the truth, but I’m recalling a horror story my brother once told me late at night, about the spirits of the night that dwelled above a shrine where the attendant priest would give burnt offerings to sustain them. In return, they protected him from disembodied spirits that bore him ill will, of which there were quite a few.

  The dying Illuminant’s eyes bulge and he lashes out, claws at me, but all he does is rake at the hem of my robe, and his fingers lack the strength to do actual harm. The metallic tang of blood twines with the sickly sweet incense, and I gag, close to vomiting.

  “Fin— Ish. It.” The man’s motions are shuddery, frantic.

  A fresh wind scented with meria blossoms lifts my hair, cool, with the hint of the ocean, and a verdant hazes settles over my skin. A night-whistler’s call sounds nearby, insistent, the trilling notes raising the small hairs on my arms.

  At my feet, the Illuminant thrashes, his terror plain.

  My brother’s vyra spirit surrounds me, fills me with calm, with sadness. If you take me into your heart, I can show you what to do. If you let me.

  Yet again I’m standing at the edge of an abyss, and this one is even darker, so very, very dark, and I’m deeply afraid. On my own, I’m in trouble, a hunted woman if I ever manage to escape the place. If I give in, if I let these demon things ride me then... Then I’m also dead. A different kind of dead.

  No. A different kind of life. One you’ve denied all these years. You’ll have power to change things. Let me in. I can show you how.

  I take a step back, a sense of inevitability washing over me. The green glow envelopes me, trails soft fingers over my skin. Tears course down my cheeks, from fear, and this inescapable knife blade that cuts both ways. Because I know exactly what I will do now.

  We don’t have much time. When he dies, he’ll free the other one.

  “Will it hurt?” I ask, but at the same time I open my arms, close my eyes. Exhale. “Come, Ilafas.”

  I can only describe it as a slow plunge, as my blood catches fire, and I’m immersed in the depths. Pressure from all sides, and the night-whistler’s cries turn ragged round the edges. Countless firefly images flit before my mind, memories, moments captured in eternity. Alien thoughts entangling with my own, broadening my senses so that I am conscious of that which lies beneath me but also the susurrations of other intelligences brushing their fins over me the way fishes swarm in a river.

  The fierce exultation brings me to my knees, accompanied by a cry of joy that echoes around the cavern. When I open my eyes, the world is painted in rainbow hues, fractured and connected with arcs of luminescence. The dying Illuminant groans and the sharp stench of urine hits my senses. My skin is too tight.

  Finish him. Take his power. He is at our mercy.

  “What then?”

  I’ll show you.

  “Is this how it was for my brother?”

  Phantom laughter peals through me. You have much to learn, child of earth. Together we will accomplish much.

  The haft of the blade is slippery with blood, but this is not the first occasion, nor will it be the last, that I kill. Besides, there isn’t time to dawdle. Someone is bound to discover my brother’s absence and eventually come here seeking guidance.

  The man gasps up at me, limbs now twitching as I bring the blade down to his neck. My fingers smear blood on his forehead as I hold him down, kiss the cutting edge along his exposed throat and draw a crimson line.

  Violet fire erupts from the fissure and the power that now resides within me reaches out for it. I am drunk on it, as one would become intoxicated on vadis-pod spirits, and I am smoke curling around tongues of flame that blaze brighter, reach all the higher for the untouchable stars. The earth shatters beneath my feet as I stride beneath a dizzying starscape. All the while that accursed bird shrieks, the cries elongating and belling before spinning into an ear-splitting whine that shivers right through me.

  Then it is over, and I’m left clutching a bloody blade in one hand, the fingers of the other splayed across freezing flowstone smeared with drying blood. How long I’ve been crouched like this I don’t know, but my stomach roils, I gulp air and soon I’m throwing up. Yet all that comes out is a little bile. My skin is clammy, alternating between hot and cold, while inside of me a wildfire rages.

  Of my vyra-passenger I have no tangible sense—the shadow of an alien intelligence has vanished—yet there’s no denying the inferno of power within. If my brother were—

  “Ailas!” I gasp as I stumble to my feet.

  He lies prone not far from where I’ve come to my senses, as I’ve left him. Limbs splayed out heavily, mouth open and eyes staring into infinity. He’s dead. What do I expect?

  I clutch the blade to my chest and let out a keening howl—the first of many.

  This is what I’m doing when the elders find me.

  EPILOGUE

  Shadows

  There is an inquest. Of course there is one. Did I think I’d somehow magically be exonerated? They can’t put me to Trial, however. It’s complicated.

  I kneel on the ground in the Hall of Remembrance, my knees and feet gone numb from the hours of being forced in this position. But I will not move, keep my gaze fixedly ahead of me in the middle distance.

  They’ve given me the dull smock worn by the lowly penitents, as if I am to be demoted.

  Yet every elder worth his black sash can sense the melange of vyra-taint in me inextricably intertwined with the essence of Fennar that shouldn’t have taken up residence in me, and they don’t know what to do.

  I know what they aren’t saying, however. I can feel the threads binding the very walls, and with slightest tug, I can collapse the roof, pull down the walls, and bury us all in a mountain of rubble. And, speaking of mountains... Mount Ferion’s anguish fills me with a frightful joy. So. Much. Deep in the hot, hot belly of the earth.

  This is the power our Illuminant nurtured when they kept him safely enshrined in the sanctuary. This is the dirty secret held close to their breast for centuries, and in one night my brother and I have destroyed everything that they’ve held dear.

  If it were only Fennar within me, they could negotiate, perhaps, to find another more suitable vessel. Or they could install me in the Illuminant’s place until such time that another vessel is found.

  But now...

  I am both, but neither.

  Now something else gleams in my eyes. The air shimmers and seethes around me and instead of a shadow, I drag with me a spectral glow. No mortal has ever been meant to contain so much.

  Yet here we are.

  Here I am.

  “This cannot be allowed,” Elder Saitas says.

  Elder Decis merely shakes his head, his smile grim. “Yet it is.”

  Owl-eyed men arranged in the semi-circle before me.

  Little toy men. Here are their strings. See how I tug.

  “We must destroy her,” my former mentor states.

  Oddly enough, now that I’ve gone past the edge of my limits, the idea of death doesn’t frighten me in the least. Even before this, I’d thought I’d had options. I exist on borrowed time as it is, so I allow a smile to creep across my features.

  Death will be a blessing. My skin cannot contain it all; the fire needs to spill out. They may have bruised this body when they grasped it and shook it and dragged it from the sanctuary. They may have spat upon it, kicked it and smashed it into walls, but it is strong. Tempered by the fire it contains.

  Too much for one vessel.

  This time I turn my head so I can look Elder Decis firmly in the eye. He flinches, gulps reflectively and his head bobs on his vulturine neck.

  “Are you and your brothers worthy?” I ask. My heart thrums.

  Ailas sculls in the deep, deep pool below, his face turned up to where I stand on the edge of a precipice. “Jump, Lada! The water’s warm and deep enough! Let go!”

  “Worthy for what?” Elder Decis snaps.

  He will do, for now.
As will the others.

  My skin cracks, and the flames pour out. For a moment their faces are etched in horror, the realisation of what is happening, and then my power slams into them, wriggling insidious roots interlacing with their life essence. One by one they flare up, their cries turning from terror to exultation.

  We are all vessels, we are the wind, and we will tear down these walls and share the light among many instead of hoarding it up in the darkness. No more will Fennar be tucked away. Ilafas/Fennar, light and dark, threads through us, grows greater for the sharing. And this is just the beginning.

  Later, I’m walking along an overgrown track. I have no recollection of how I’ve left the Place, made it through the streets of the port city. The mud is tacky, squelching between my toes, and in the distance the ululating cry of the ghost-lemur echoes, sending shivers down my spine.

  But it’s not just that which has me in awe. The world is bathed in a ruddy glow; the earth’s heart is spilling and spraying into the night sky, growling and shooting great gobbets of fire at the stars. Every so often, the ground trembles and a rumble, more felt than heard, shudders through my bones.

  Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, Mama told me and Ailas, that far away and in another aeon, there was a bird with flames for wings. It sang such sweet songs, that filled the forest with fierce beauty. All who heard it paused in whatever it was they did to marvel at the sheer abandon of the music. The firebird flew from tree to tree, rock to rock, and wherever it alighted, the plants grew more lush, and living beings became more invigorated. Now it came to pass that the firebird was drawn to a young man, and it sang especially by his window at night. Inspired by the beauty of the spirit’s song, yet not understanding the firebird’s devotion, the young man was moved to write poetry. For as its song nurtured the young man’s heart, so the words he wrote brought the spirit pleasure. The young man himself was in love with a maiden, whose father had her locked in a tower. Often enough, when the young man went to the library, he would perchance glance up to see the maiden comb her hair by the window. Though they traded no words, their eyes shared the burden of their souls. So it came to be that the firebird would carry the young man’s poems to the maiden, and laid them upon her dreams. Likewise, the maiden’s ardour made the firebird’s flame-wings burn brighter. Perhaps this dance would have continued indefinitely were it not for the young man’s ill health. For mortals cannot bear the fires of passion for so long, lest they be reduced to nothing but dying embers.