by Helen Savore
The Phoenix Grail
Helen Savore
Contents
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Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
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Reviews
Acknowledgments
About the Author
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Pete, this is technically your fault.
Prologue
Moralynn glanced back to the little man following her. She shook her head, not just at him, but at the hall’s construction. Not a proper stone in sight, not even wood, though some of it was meant to look it. Maybe a composite of sorts; these modern materials were complex, but dead. None held the energy to support shaping.
“This way.” She jerked her head to Boderien. Her metal-rimmed boots made strange echoes within the modern door-ridden corridor, but no one turned or gave notice. If anyone had they would have found a tall, muscular female, wearing painted chain mail from shoulder to toe. She had known she would encounter no martial challengers here so did not bother with the helm, though she still carried some of her weapons on belts as they were foci. This left her long, brown, not-quite black hair to trail down her back.
She was attired and equipped at the height of Shaper might. Too bad their time on Earth had passed centuries ago.
Boderien, the only one who could hear or see her, did not follow. He hesitated by a door, his nose twitching. “She is here.”
Moralynn grabbed him. “She is there, but the child is not. We must find the children.” Her words were true, but that was not the only reason she did not want to enter. Neirin would be in there. It still hurt to have lost him; he had so much promise. Those years were but a blink to her centuries though, and she would continue her work with the next generation.
Boderien grumbled but complied. Moralynn slowed her pace so she would not get ahead of his squat legs. Better they walk together.
Though she disapproved of it, there were still some redeeming qualities of this hospital when compared to other modern structures. Most places were built too wide, too open. This building maximized its space and contained real smells, no matter how brief, as one passed. Too much of today’s world suppressed expression. Too white, too bright, bland aromas, and too much uniform space.
Soon they reached the maternity ward. She peered through the glass, looking at the names. Oh, how script had changed through the ages. Storing knowledge and meaning in written word, however, was too useful a tool to lose, so she borrowed tomes from her apprentices every several decades. Lewis, Lloyd, Penderson, Powell… wait no M’s? Ah there it was, shifted one more rank to the right: Morgan.
Moralynn stared at the squirming little thing. Birth, the beginning of life, was one of the few things that fascinated her still, breaking through her own jaded eternity. It filled her with hope, but also dread.
She put a leather-gauntleted hand on the glass and stepped away. No reason to linger, this was best done sooner than later.
Boderien tapped the glass. “The fae do not birth like this.”
Moralynn glared at him as she crossed the threshold. “I, of all people, understand that.”
“I do not understand why they birth here. Or separate young from their mothers. They seem to be an important part of things.”
While considering her response, Moralynn caught the eye of a young nurse, cleaning a child in the back. The young lady did not react, but Moralynn did enough for both of them.
“Time passes, and some things change. They try to make it safer, more successful. However, the more things change, the more some things cannot. People cannot remove all the visceral mess of life.” Moralynn blinked, then her eyes shut and saw another mess. Bodies along a shore. Not one moving. Well, of their own volition. Blood and fluids leaked from different breaks and tears. The wind caught hair and trappings, making a mockery of motion.
I was not there. Focus.
She could never focus for long; the older she became the harder it was. Memories came to her when she did not want them, even ones not entirely her own. When she did wish to summon memories, they hid for some time, or could not be found.
Boderien’s voice broke the vision. “Which is she?”
Moralynn nodded towards the Morgan child and walked the rest of the way. Boderien followed, his small stature putting him eye level with the babies’ cots. It was a curious sight to see the dwarf amongst modern human furnishings, but she could not do this without him. A Smith had certain talents, and a Life Smith in particular had talents denied to her. She was but a shadow of the Phoenix, only the Phoenix Sparked.
It was one of many ignominies she had to deal with. Moralnn was life for the fae realms, performing the rite of reincarnation an untold number of times, cursed to do it ever since they wiped out the druids over a millennium ago, including herself. She still had nightmares from that dreadful day, the bloodbath of Camlann, where the fae turned on their human allies. In a rage, Merlin killed himself, leaving the fae without a Phoenix to perform reincarnations. How she survived Raebyn’s vicious attack no one knew, but life found a way. It took many years, but as Merlin’s apprentice, the Phoenix Sparked, she eventually woke to a new body and a new responsibility.
Though she retained the Phoenix Spark—attached to her soul—she could not call on the full powers of the Phoenix magic normally handed down from human to human. She had become something else, a half-breed, a chimera. The Phoenix would not fly within her, that power was denied to her.
But not to others, if they could find their way again.
Moralynn rested a hand on the cradle, but did not touch the little one. While the child could not yet communicate, it would not stop the little Morgan from recognizing her presence, unlike the adults. Such a small thing. She would grow and change, but there were already hints of what made her special. There was a curve to her chin and a point to her ears. She would have an elfin cast, and Moralynn wondered if that was auspicious.
Moralynn sensed she would be a character, and hoped it was not imagination. She wished she knew the little one’s name; neither she nor Boderien had overheard Neirin’s or Aderyn’s choice, though perhaps they still debated.
“I will watch over you, little one. I name you family.”
Boderien raised a bushy brow. “I did not know you could claim people so easily. Sounds like ownership. I thought humans had go
tten over that ugly practice.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Yet the fae organize themselves into extended families.”
“That is about loyalty.” Boderien flicked his eyes to the child. “Your newborn starts too young. She cannot speak for herself. How can she pledge loyalty?”
Moralynn closed her eyes and composed herself. “Her family is pledged to me, Bedivere’s descendants. I promote and protect them, since they bear the smallest slip of blood from those golden times.” Moralynn peered again at the newest Morgan. Her wiggling slowed, her head shifted in Moralynn’s direction, and she cooed.
Boderien laughed. “You made her do that.”
“I did nothing of the sort.” Moralynn disobeyed her instinct and gently stroked the dark brown fuzz on the little one’s head. She wished she could give a foci to the child as a token, but the adults would refuse it. Not just any foci, but an alloy, something through which she could lend strength, and help the Morgan straddle the mundane and magical worlds.
Moralynn took in another breath. Boderien was more ally than partner. There was mutual benefit in working together, but they did not share the same ideals. How could they? For all she was broken, she was still human enough on the inside.
The mechanized beeps of the hospital reasserted themselves as Moralynn and Boderien remained silent.
“This will not hurt the child,” said Moralynn. “She won’t pledge until she is old enough to choose. But this must be done early. In new birth the body is stabilizing.”
Boderien tapped the edge of the cot, but his eyes were still large and thoughtful. “Perhaps a later sharing could be accomplished when combined with their medicine.”
Moralynn frowned. “What do you know of it?”
He stroked his beard. “Though I keep to myself, I live on this Earth more than you now, Moralynn. Or do you think it is safe for me in the fae realms?”
Moralynn stilled and spoke in a steady voice with half-lidded eyes. “There have been no more Life Smiths for Oberon’s heralds to gift grisly deaths, so it is hard to tell.”
“Precisely. I know a few things, though I am not sure I completely understand them. Medicine does not maintain the balance of the elements, it allows them to not just shift life, but extend, promote, using knowledge and tools. But they produce a greater potency than the effort to produce them. I cannot help admiring the efficiency, though it does not feel natural.”
“Efficiency?” Moralynn raised a hand, and looked with that peculiar other sense, beyond her armor and skin, seeing the paths of life within her own mangled body. Medicine seemed to be about probabilities, while shaping, life, elements, and even psyche, were all about proper cause and effect. If you accumulated enough foci of the proper strength, and the requisite knowledge, you would accomplish what you meant to. Life shaping was somewhat different in that it drew from a human’s inner life flow, and while it could be boosted, it did not require a foci. If you were a human with the right inner life flow and the knowledge of how to direct it, you could tell the body to fix most anything. “Efficient, perhaps, but not entirely effective.”
“No doubt.”
New apprentices, generation after generation, were just probabilities, like medicine. Granted, they waited for the proper tool.
Boderien was not just here to help with the connection. He was a Smith, and his greater task was recreating the Phoenix Grail, the original no doubt lost to Oberon’s vaults for all time. It was cruel for the fae god to withhold an artifact so important to humans, despite the fact he had forged it. Without the Grail plate the Phoenix could not rise and she would continue to be mired in death, except the one she most yearned for. Thus she needed the Phoenix Grail. And an apprentice.
She closed her eyes. “I cannot go through this again.”
“Afraid the next one will outright say no?”
“No, I…” She blinked at Boderien. “I have lasted too long. One should not count their life in centuries. It is a curse, not a blessing.” She could not return to the person she was, a small someone, a mere child in the golden court of King Arthur and Merlin’s last apprentice. She was separated from those she loved and was now forced to support those she despised.
At least I remember… but I am losing that as well. Memories were not meant to linger this long.
She continued out loud. “If you would complete the Grail someday—”
“Imitating the work of a god is no easy chore. I should not dally long.”
Moralynn grabbed the cot and leaned over it. It jerked, and the Morgan child cried out, but only for a moment.
The nurse in the corner spun her head. Her eyes darted, but she quickly returned to the child she was tending.
Moralynn let out a sigh. “You still believe you can do it?”
“Of course.”
Although it had been many years, it was a fraction of Moralynn’s life, so she held out hope. Her first few centuries after the Battle of Camlann and the death of the Druids she had spent in a fevered sleep. During the next two she adapted to her new life, roles, responsibilities, and it was only then she thought to grow a more formal presence on Earth. From there it took time for a plan to form, to find and then attract a Life Smith to her side, though she owed that more to the steady disappearances and deaths of the others rather than her own diplomacy. Life abilities, in shaping or smithing, apparently were no longer welcome in the fae realms.
It was hard to believe, but she sensed she was running out of time. Her memories, her ability to function—things were slipping away. But she could not let Boderien see that, know that. She must explain it another way.
“Boderien, people are dying, faster and faster in this world. Without the Phoenix to manage life forces, conflict, strife, and disease will control these people.”
“Moralynn, we are both doing what we can. We have the Spark, samples from the previous Phoenix just in case, and the Mantle. However, we need the Grail and a host Druid with a bit more humanity than you have remaining. What else do you wish to do to hasten the return of the Phoenix?”
Moralynn fingered the diamond in the mess of chains and gems she wore, the Phoenix Mantle. As her hand trickled to the other gems—emerald, sapphire, garnet, and then turquoise—she realized it was a fair question. She supplied Boderien his forge needs, space, metals, and plenty of quiet, but beyond that, there was little more she could do. Once they had the Grail, she needed a ready apprentice.
She offered her left hand. “Take a specific aspect. Take my wonder.”
“No.” Boderien shook his head, his beard shuffling. “Nothing so large, Moralynn. Only the tiniest splice is safe. This is no easy thing, splitting a soul.”
Moralynn grit her teeth. “I know, but this one, she must understand. She must not walk away… She needs wonder, to see. To appreciate this faerie world just out of phase with her own. To help me save this mundane one.” She paused as her mind raced. “So she can make her own full pledge of loyalty, like the fae families, when she is old enough to appreciate the role I offer her. And wise enough to see how she might accomplish it.”
Boderien drew himself up. It wasn’t so much making himself taller, but an adjustment to his posture. Though they had been allies for some time, and had developed a certain comfort around each other, there were aspects of this dwarf she did not understand.
He nodded. “If you insist.”
“I do.”
He took her hand. “This will not be comfortable.”
“I—” An incorporeal force pierced Moralynn and cut off her response. It was nothing like the other times. There was no single thread, a barbed one that snaked along her life lines in a space she could sense but not touch, scratching along within her body. Instead this was a wallop, a mesh that twirled like a vine, searching, sifting for something. She gagged, unable to bring in breath, as if her body’s functions had paused the longer this took, trying to wait out the invasion. Yet she could feel it grasping from within. A yank that pulled at her, once, twice, and then it f
elt like something left her hands.
Once she regained her breath, she looked at the girl. The baby Morgan’s eyes were open, wide, staring straight at her. Moralynn blinked, and the child blinked right back. She brushed her hand along the child’s head again. She couldn’t figure it out, but something was different from a few moments ago.
“Miss Morgan,” she said softly, “I will see you again, soon. You are my apprentice, my avatar… and my child.”
The babe opened her mouth and cooed, not for a second taking her eyes off Moralynn.
Moralynn smiled. Though she was losing herself, perhaps this little one would find a way to bring her back home.
1
Jamie knelt to the floor, pretending to retrieve something. Cleanliness was important in a hospital, so it was an easy excuse to hide his surprise and revulsion from spotting the phantoms. Another had joined the ward, hovering by Mr. Pryce, a patient of several days. The demonic tree’s branches caressed Mr. Pryce’s chest, leaving raw red skin. The rash itself was mundane, normal. Everyone saw that. Only Jamie saw the phantom terrorizing him. It was the clearest one he’d spotted since his father.
Jamie’s heart skipped a beat. He shoved the memory away before it gripped him. That moment had driven him to medicine at a young age, but there had been no lesson on predictive hallucinations. It wasn’t like they were consistent, phantoms did not appear for everyone who died. But when a phantom appeared, that person died. All he could do was treat people and make sure the phantoms never arrived in the first place.
