Phoenix in Shadow - eARC

by Ryk E. Spoor

  “Four? But—” she froze. It can’t be. That stupid little creature—

  “You are utterly blind, and nigh lackwit, as near as I can tell. If you and Shae did not have resources necessary to my research...” Weiran controlled himself with a visible effort. “Yes, four. The Toad that accompanies Tobimar is intelligent, perhaps the most intelligent of their party. He is the observer, their secret weapon, and—I suspect—their party’s magician.”

  Wieran turned away, adjusted a valve and gestured, causing another valve a distance away to open. “Were you completely unaware of the fact that they have gaps in their stories, that there were clear areas where events did not quite match up correctly—where even a very minor bit of thought would reveal there was a missing factor—a third companion who was being excluded from the descriptions consistently?”

  “I...”

  “Pah. Leaving that aside, you are clearly unable to use those blankly gazing orbs that you call ‘eyes’ for anything useful. That creature’s anatomy differs—in easily observable particulars—from that of any nonintelligent Toad in at least four ways.”

  She found her fists clenching, felt power starting to crackle around them, glaring at the back of the alchemist-sage. Just one strike, just one, and he will never speak again!

  However, she knew they still needed Wieran. “Well, then, my apologies for this failure. Will it delay the final opening?”

  Wieran opened one of the sealed tubes, looked in, shook his head, and called Tashriel over. “This subject is no longer functional. Clean this out and we will find another.”

  He turned back to her, by which time she had managed to force herself to relax back to her normal harmless self; by the quick glance Tashriel gave her as he began removing a dessicated mummy from the tube, her momentary lapse might not have completely escaped notice.

  Wieran showed no sign of being aware of how close he had come to being cut down, however. He merely nodded. “A minor delay, perhaps, to evaluate the effect and impact of this Toad’s presence. But the major delay will simply be the final preparations for the opening. For that I do need to characterize Tobimar Silverun in detail, and—”

  An ice-cold shock overwhelmed her. “Wait. What did you call him?”

  “Tobimar Silverun. Seventh of Seven of Skysand.” He looked at her pale face in chill amusement. “So even that you did not know?”

  “He...he is one of the Lords of the Sky?”

  “The Lords of the Sky are dead, Ermirinovas. He is a descendant of their line, yes. What did you believe the key was that I needed?”

  “You said it had to be someone of particular characteristics—magical characteristics you enumerated, and you had me send that information to my contacts, but I never imagined that you were talking about—”

  “Who else?” Wieran snapped, clearly out of what little patience he had. “What other being on Zarathan—save only Terian himself, the creator of the artifact—would be able to unlock that power? Only a rightful descendant, by blood, of those to whom the Seven Stars and Single Sun were given in the beginning, or, perhaps, one whom Terian selected to replace them, had they died out entirely.”

  “And you never thought to tell me this directly?” she asked, feeling an unnatural calm settle on her, a calm backed by a towering rage that rose in the background like a tsunami approaching the shore.

  “I had thought you had the wit to—”

  “ENOUGH!” She felt her form expand, talons extending from her hands as she backhanded the white-haired alchemist, sending him tumbling across the dark, rune covered stone. “Your arrogance and belittling of my capabilities is bad enough, but you use that arrogance and your disregard for others’ ability as an excuse for every single failure of communication! I have had enough of it, Master Wieran!”

  As he began a gesture, calculating anger on his own face, she pointed a finger at him, with red-black fire seething about it. “No. Do not try it, or I swear I will bring down this entire room on you, ruining every experiment you have set in motion.” Weiran froze. “Good. Yes, that would cost us dearly as well, but I am now beyond any patience with this.

  “We were hunting them down, you idiot!” she thundered, and crystal chimed in sympathy all around the great array. “If you’d bothered to make sure I understood what you were looking for, I might have been able to get such a key myself, and at the least I would have called in the demons who were busy hunting down any of the line that left their homeland!”

  Wieran looked at her expressionlessly for a long moment, then sighed and slowly—unthreateningly—rose from the floor. He ignored the trickle of blood flowing from his mouth—a trickle which was already slowing. He bowed with more emphasis than his usual automatic salute. “I accept your...critique of my performance, Ermirinovas,” he said, and his voice held a small but audible note of apology. “Your capabilities and knowledge in my speciality are of necessity going to be less than my own—otherwise you would have no need of me—and I should have made sure you understand the nature of the key in all its aspects. I should also endeavor to be less...judgmental of you in our interactions.”

  She suspected he was not nearly so contrite as he wished her to believe, but even this was a major concession, and she knew they couldn’t afford to kill Wieran. Her real regret was that by not being told the true nature of the key, several of her best agents had been left following a course of action that was exactly the opposite of what was needed, and at least one of them—Lady Misuuma—had ceased to report, presumably killed, quite some months back.

  Now that she thought on that, and the location and timing of the reports, she realized that Misuuma’s death must have been one of the “various adventures” which Tobimar had skipped over in their retelling. They’ve been successfully hiding details of who and what they are, even from me. “What about the Phoenix?” she asked. “What do you know about her that I don’t?”

  “She is hardly relevant. I know nothing more of her than you do; the only important point was that she is an emissary of a god, and I will characterize that as well during the next week or three.”

  “Not relevant?”

  “Not for our goal, no.” He looked at her with mild surprise. “After all, you will kill her prior to the event, yes?”

  “Of course,” Miri heard herself say, but within her was suddenly a strange, deep ache, a pain that sapped her of the joy and anticipation such a wonderful opportunity would normally offer. “Well...I have other preparations to make. Will you be able to gather your information without the monitors in their rooms?” It now occurred to her that the little Toad’s intelligence explained the minor mystery of how and why those monitors had gone dark, without any apparent actions by Phoenix, Tobimar, or Hiriista. She had thought it might be Hiriista doing something extremely sneaky, which would have been worrisome; Hiriista going rogue would be a problem.

  “Yes; that was an anticipated setback. I will take them on a tour of my secondary laboratory, and during that time I believe I can gather all the remaining key information.”

  “Then I will leave you to your work.”

  By the time she made it up the stairs, Miri had managed to banish the pain from within her. It might not, after all, be necessary to kill Phoenix, or she might force the issue.

  But why was the idea even worth worrying about?

  What’s wrong with me?

  The unsettling feeling made her angry and nervous, but fortunately there was an obvious outlet for that, and she headed for her own room and a certain shining scroll.

  “Ermirinovas? What a pleasant surprise,” Viedra said, smiling his usual urbane, infuriatingly calm smile.

  “It would have been much more pleasant for me if you had mentioned that Phoenix had two companions rather than one!”

  The smile broadened. “I wondered when you would realize that. Yes, that little Toad is a most formidable opponent. I would strongly recommend you do not underestimate him, because—”

  “Why didn’t you tell me
?”

  Now the smile narrowed, and the glint of teeth sharpened. “Because it amused me not to, Ermirinovas. It wasn’t relevant to your questions, and you didn’t ask the questions to which it would have been relevant.”

  “He has had nearly a day here without anyone knowing to keep an eye on him. I don’t think he’s discovered anything crucial, but it could have been devastating—”

  “Yes, it could have been, and I was wondering when and how you would discover it.” The smile returned to its bland form, but the teeth still glittered with death. “I have given you much assistance, Ermirinovas, my dear; that does not mean you are yourself of terribly great importance to me.”

  “I could tell Father of your—”

  “Oh, tish! I assure you, Father has far bigger things to worry about than our little maneuverings.”

  “The Black City...?”

  “Is under seige as we speak, yes. And to my considerable surprise, two of the Sixteen have joined the forces.”

  “What?” Miri was stunned. “But I thought—”

  “Yes, indeed, the cycle currently favors the Elderwyrm, and I had rather hoped that this would cause all of the T’Teranahm of any note to retreat to their great slumber for a few centuries or millennia, but someone—probably the old Spiritsmith, though perhaps the Wanderer en route to something else—kicked both S’her and Valorkhlmba hard enough to keep them awake. So Father’s going to be rather well entertained. Besides,” he continued, leaning back and grinning, “he’s going to have so many more reasons to be unhappy with me shortly.”

  What? He sounds completely relaxed with that idea! Making the Lord of All Hells unhappy with you—“What do you mean?”

  “Oh, it will be mostly a matter of the plan coming apart here and there—I suspect Aegeia isn’t quite as neutralized as reports would have had it, the Academy’s probably managed to prevent its utter destruction, and something appears to be giving Balgoltha a truly difficult time finishing off Nya-Sharee-Hilya. Oh, and those forces sent to try and actually make a real assault on Skysand, well, I’m not expecting good news from that quarter, either. That old soul-wizard’s been a busy man, I must say. Yes, Father will want me putting out fires and patching the plans, I think, at least until he’s sure that he can crush all the major opponents to his rule in one battle. And that will be...three months from now, more or less, if I read things right.”

  She recognized the warning tone in his voice. If she brought up the minor maneuverings Viedra had done that might annoy Father now, they might prove a distraction to Kerlamion’s main plans...and anything that distracted him from that goal would trigger his wrath. In other words, even if Viedra suffered, so would she.

  “I see you understand. Now that you’ve figured out the last surprise of our traveling band of heroes, I’m sure you can address the problem. Yes?”

  She ground her teeth. “Yes.”

  “Excellent. How is little Condor doing?”

  “Oddly.”

  “How so?”

  “He’s carrying a weapon that I can smell Father on—I swear it’s almost like a piece of his sword—”

  “It is, in fact, a shard of that blade,” Viedra said cheerfully.

  “By the Dark! How...never mind. But that just makes it stranger. He’s carrying something as black of essence as anything I’ve seen, yet all he’s doing is heroic work. I can distract and slow him by making sure he hears about any trouble in the vicinity, and he may be annoyed at the delay, but he always seems willing to help those in need.”

  “Really?” Viedra broke into peals of hearty laughter. “Well I must say that’s a surprise—a pleasant one, in some ways, but very much a surprise. I rather expected he’d be something more a monster than you or I in some ways by now.”

  “Well, he’s not. And why a pleasant surprise?”

  Viedra’s smile shifted hardly at all, but suddenly she was seized with the conviction that what she saw was not what she had thought it was, but something far worse; there was a momentary flash of deathly yellow in the eyes, the expression showed a vast and ancient amusement that seemed that of a being very different from even Viedraverion. “Oh, now, that’s part of my plan, Miri. If you complete your little project, now...if you do that, I may even explain that plan to you. But not yet.”

  That alien, terrifying sensation was gone, even in the moment she had felt it, but the effect of it was not. She had no desire to continue to speak with Viedra at all. “Very well. We will speak again.”

  She cut off even before his usual jaunty farewell and sat in the quiet comfort of her room, alone and silent, for long minutes. Finally, she took a deep breath and forced thoughts of doubt and confusion from her mind.

  I’ll go let Shae know about our extra visitor, and then I’ll find out what Phoenix is up to!

  The thought gave lightness to her heart, and she found herself once more bouncing along, anticipating the next sight of the tall Justiciar, while a part of her wondered why.

  Chapter 35

  “Draw your sword, little human. Draw your sword and let me kill you fairly.” The distorted face of the bilarel grinned broadly, showing huge yellow teeth that looked even worse contrasted with the clay-gray skin, and matched the dull yellow eyes.

  Condor’s lips tightened as he evaluated the rest of the creature. It wasn’t, really, a bilarel, but something that used to be, or could have been, one of the giant humanoids; the thing must have come over the Wall here at Evening Dawn, midway between Hishitenzei and Ruratenzei, and it showed all the hideousness of the other things from that twisted forest. Bilarel normally looked like gigantic gray strongmen, all smooth, impossibly huge muscles bulging on a frame that simply exaggerated the ideal.

  This thing’s skin was covered with rough patches like stone, some of the patches growing sharp spines. It wore a swaying shirt of mail that reached nearly to the knees, a shirt whose looseness still failed to conceal the warped shape of the torso beneath, and held a huge axe in one hand; the other hand gripped a large shield. Worse, the forearms had naturally-growing blades running from wrist to elbow, and he had already seen that these were poisoned; Mallan Helbert lay twitching on the ground, his daughter trying desperately to administer some form of antidote.

  No more time to waste; other people are hurt or in danger. “I’m not wasting my sword on something like you; you’d just get it dirty.”

  The thing’s grin vanished, but it did not charge in anger, as Condor had hoped. Tilted Balance, the thing’s a lot smarter than it looks. The yellow eyes were studying Condor now, recognizing that only someone insane would make that speech...unless they had something to back it up with.

  “Is that so?” it finally growled. “Well, I’ll do my best to relieve you of that worry...forever.” Instead of charging, it closed in slowly, cautiously, shield raised, knees bent so most of its body was protected, eyes watching the False Justiciar’s every move as it moved forward, passing the large gray boulder that marked the border of Helbert’s front yard.

  Condor found himself tempted to draw the Demonshard. This thing was dangerous. But he knew full well that every contact with the sentient blade was a risk; yes, it was now cautious and recognized he was stronger-willed, but Condor knew it would never entirely give up; it was made as a tool of corruption. As I should have expected from the King of All Hells; a part of me did, but didn’t care, not then. And now...a little late.

  The axe screamed down and Condor leapt back, evading the strike, then tumbled sideways to force the creature to turn. This confirmed what he’d noticed when the thing first appeared; it was demon-quick with its arms, but the misshapen torso and perhaps other parts lower down hampered it slightly on the turns. Which means...

  Condor sprinted sideways, forcing the thing to turn again. Then reversed, barely evading another strike of the axe, and reversed again, then reversed a third time. By this point the creature had realized the pattern and settled itself, readying for the next evading reverse.

  Which nev
er came, as Condor continued around, now almost behind the distorted bilarel, and then launched himself into the air, pushing off from the boulder he’d noted earlier. He somersaulted in midair and used the spinning motion to drive his heel down and around.

  The Condor Raiment’s black-forged boot smashed into the bilarel’s head like a sledgehammer; Condor could feel the crunching, squashing sensation of bone and flesh being crushed. He rebounded from the impact and completed a flip backwards, landing on his feet, and even as the monster roared in pain and stunned confusion, drove a gauntleted fist into the thing’s side, ducked under a wild swing of the axe, and then caught the other arm, gauntlets protecting him from the bladed edge, levering down and around, and the creature teetered, then went down with an earthshaking crash.

  That won’t finish it, Aran, he told himself. But the impact had knocked the axe from the thing’s grasp, and Condor dove for it, calling on the power that might be false as the Justiciars, but was still strong, strong, and he felt the massive weapon grow light in his hands; even as the creature shook itself, trying to rise, Condor brought the axe up and then down, as hard as he could. The meaty thud was met with an agonized grunt...and then silence.

  He turned immediately to Mallan Helbert, whose breath was coming fast and irregular. “Please, let me,” he said to Istiri Helbert. The young woman glanced at him helplessly and moved aside.

  Using the power to heal was difficult—and these days Aran, the Condor Justiciar, appreciated the irony far less than he used to. But he forced the power to flow just so, and blue-gold light shimmered around the darkwood-skinned farmer; Istiri’s eyes were wide as she saw the blood-wet cut across her father’s chest closing up, a wound in reverse. Mallan’s eyes slowly opened, showing his own wonder.

  “Son...I don’t know who you are, or how you came here at the right time, and I don’t know how to thank you, either. But I’d surely like to know all three of those answers,” he said after a moment.

  Condor chuckled. “You can call me Condor.” He gestured at his armor. “As for my timing, I’d heard about your troubles with disappearing livestock and such in town, and thought I’d come check it out. Apparently it decided there was no more need to be cautious just about the time I arrived.”