The Phoenix Endangered

by James Mallory

  Once mounted, the tribe rode in ghostly silence beneath the desert moon. Their few remaining pack-animals, more lightly laden than those bearing riders, raced on ahead. There was no need to lead them—they would go nowhere other than to the nearest water.

  The moon had crossed very little more of the sky when Shaiara saw it. From a distance, the black shapes looked like nothing more than wind-worn stone. But there was grass growing around the edges of the stone, and she could see the large pale shapes of Nalzindar shotors browsing upon it.

  They had reached Abi’Abadshar.

  The Nalzindar allowed the shotors to lead them to the water. The Iteru was the largest Shaiara had ever seen, standing at the center of what was—now—an open courtyard, though surely it must once have been far beneath the ground, for it was reached by descending a long series of shallow terraces carved out of the ground.

  The Iteru itself was a wonder, for here, in the depths of the Barahileth, it was open to the sky, allowing the wind to steal its moisture as it pleased. Yet the water seemed inexhaustible.

  The thirsty shotors crowded forward, bleating and jostling in their attempts to get to the water, and the ikulas-hounds snarled and quarreled, pushing between them, their narrow bodies gaunt with privation. The Nalzindar shouldered through them, plunging waterskins and cups into the water to fill them, and passing them among the people. All the tribe drank carefully after so many days of privation, but no matter how much water they drew from the Iteru of Abi’Abadshar, its level did not drop.

  At last, the thirst of all was slaked, and every waterskin was refilled, and the shotors were unpacked and unsaddled, hobbled and set to graze. For the first time since she had led her people upon this exodus, Shaiara’s spirits rose. Grass meant something to feed upon it, for the Isvai wasted nothing. And there would be things to feed upon the feeders as well. Though she had long suspected that they would be forced to slay all of their shotor-herd—not only for meat, but because there would be nothing to feed them upon here in the arid waste—it might be possible to delay that time a little longer. And more than that, now that the way to Abi’Abadshar was known, hunters could return to the Isvai to seek food, so long as they carried enough water for the return journey.

  “You have led us to safety, Shaiara,” Kamar said.

  “That is as Sand and Star will it,” she answered absently. There were too many questions that must still be answered before she could know whether Abi’Abadshar represented true safety.

  Without sand in which to anchor the tent-poles, it was not possible to erect their one remaining tent here beside the well, but Shaiara did not wish to pitch it upon the sand outside. Better it would be to seek shelter within, but though three archways led off into darkness from the Iteru-courtyard, and lamps and a scant bit of oil remained among the packs, Shaiara did not yet wish to risk a light. Light and fire could be seen at too great a distance in the desert. For such explorations as required a lamp to light their way, it would be better to wait until dawn. Meanwhile, she would explore that which could be seen by moonlight, for improbable as it was that any had traced their tracks, it was not impossible.

  Once the people were settled into the great stone courtyard surrounding the Iteru, Shaiara took several of the most keen-eyed of the young hunters and set out to explore as much of the Nalzindar’s new home as she could by night. Two of the ikulas followed them, obviously hoping for food, though most of the animals were content simply to lie beside their masters and rest.

  Though the moon had passed its zenith, it still shone brightly enough to illuminate the scene sufficiently for a Nalzindar’s keen eyes. Pale sand stretched as far as the eye could see, and nearly as far stretched the small outcroppings that were all that remained of what once had been a great city. Shaiara had never seen a city, but she thought that perhaps even those who lived in the Iteru-cities would be daunted by the vastness of Abi’Abadshar.

  She walked on, watching carefully, her mind uneasy at the sheer strangeness of what she saw. Though the Song of Rausi had described all that he had seen and found at Abi’Abadshar, a part of Shaiara had not truly believed, for in all her young life, the largest work of human hands she had ever seen was the campsite of the Gathering of the tribes, when many tents were pitched together at the lushest oasis to be found within the Isvai. When so many Isvaieni were gathered together, it might take from dawn until midday to walk from one edge of the encampment to the other, moving at a pace politeness demanded, but only a few minutes’ walk was enough to tell her that Abi’Abadshar was far larger than even such a vast encampment. An entire day—from sunup to sundown—would not be sufficient to take a person from one edge of the ruins to the other, even walking at the brisk pace suitable for journeys.

  Here and there the capricious wind had exposed a stretch of flat smooth stone that seemed to be meant for folk to walk upon, though surely it would heat to burning within an hour, perhaps two, after sunrise. Elsewhere, broken cylinders, like the stumps of strange trees, jutted up out of drifts of sand; she could not imagine their purpose. It was not possible to see the true shape of what had once been, far longer ago than even the oldest story-memory of the most learned storyteller stretched, for Time had worn away the stone to the point that even the tallest pieces of what remained barely reached Shaiara’s knee. As with the Iteru-courtyard, the desert wind had randomly scrubbed the ruins clean in some places—exposing deep pits and more of the strange shallow terraces—and covered them in others, so that in places where Shaiara was certain there must be more fragments of the ancient city, she could see nothing but mounds of soft sand.

  As she stopped to peer into the distance, Natha pointed silently at the sand. There, sharp and clear, was the sinuous track of a desert adder, and beside it, a row of faint dots—the track of the mouse which was its prey. Shaiara’s spirits lifted slightly. She had not dared to hope for antelope or wild goat here in the Barahileth, but she had feared she was leading her people to a refuge where they would simply starve to death. She was heartened, too, to see that tufts of the wiry desert grass had taken root in many places, kept alive by the moisture carried on the wind from the Iteru she had already seen. If Abi’Abadshar were as vast as she began to suspect that it was, there was grazing here to keep the shotors alive for moonturns to come.

  Soon the ikulas, growing bolder and urged by instinct, began to hunt ahead. Shaiara did not call them back. Israf and Ardban were wise dogs, well-seasoned, and she would not begrudge them any prey they might find. Before she, Natha, Kamar, and Ciniran had walked on for much longer than it would take for a pan of kaffeyah to come to its first boil, Ardban came loping back toward them, with a small pale shape dangling from his jaws. He dropped it at Shaiara’s feet and looked up at her expectantly. She bent down and picked up the still-warm body of a sheshu. With a quick economical motion, she drew her geschak and cut off its head, tossing it to the eagerly waiting hound. Entrails, skin, and a hind leg followed, for Ardban had done well to bring the fruit of his hunt to her when his hunger must be as sharp as her own. She tucked the rest of the body into the hunter’s pouch at her belt; they still possessed the largest of the cookpots, and both salt and spices. Meager fare this, to share among so many, but she did not wish to slaughter any more of their own stock if it could be avoided. And if the sheshu made its home within the ruin of Abi’Abadshar, the Nalzindar would survive here as well.

  When the moon had crossed another handspan of the sky, they turned back toward the Iteru-courtyard. Such a vastness as this would not be explored all in one night.

  WHEN THE SKY at last lightened toward dawn, Shaiara felt safe enough to take a lamp and begin to investigate one of the tunnels; fuel they would have in sufficiency once the well-fed shotors began to dung, but she disliked the thought of building a cookfire anywhere it could be seen. The Nalzindar were not unfamiliar with caves, for there were both cliffs and caves in the Isvai—and in the worst of the Sandwinds no other shelter would do—but the idea of a strange sort of cav
e that men had built was a thing that Shaiara had never thought to see.

  The lantern she held in her hands gave only a little light, for she had made the flame as small as possible to conserve its little store of oil. Kamar and Natha accompanied her, for in such a strange place, no one thought it a good idea that anyone should go somewhere alone.

  The ground beneath her feet was stone, as flat and smooth as the surface of an oasis pool, just as the ground in the Iteru-courtyard had been. Every few steps Shaiara squatted down and rested her palm flat against it, still mistrustful of what her senses told her was so: though the desert wind had covered it with a thin pale dust as soft as the finest flour, beneath that the stone was as chill as dawn-water, and as smooth as a polished geschak-blade. The great virtue of the dust was that it disclosed any mark made in it; as she looked behind her, Shaiara’s fingers itched for a grass-broom to sweep away the traces of their passage, little need for it though there might be, but ahead of her, the powder held only the faint marks of such desert creatures who would naturally be drawn to water, and no sign of Man.

  Though her senses were alert—for not all of those creatures that the desert could hold were as harmless as the timid sheshu—Shaiara could not help marveling at what she saw. This was only one tiny part of Abi’Abadshar, yet she believed it must be large enough to hold all of the Isvaieni within it. The path upon which she now walked was wide enough that four shotors could be led along it side-by-side, saddled and laden, and each would not jostle the next, and the roof above her was so far away that it was lost in darkness. On either side, the walls rose up as straight as the trunk of a young palm tree, and as smooth and unmarred as the surface of a pool of water when no wind blew. The Nalzindar loved decoration and ornament as much as any of the Isvaieni, trading hides and leatherwork at the Gatherings for bright rugs and colorful woven baskets, and this starkness seemed unnatural to Shaiara. If one made a thing, why not make it beautiful?

  After a short time they came to the first break in the smooth walls: an archway, much like the one through which they had come—though smaller—but this one was blocked.

  Shaiara handed the lantern to Kamar and stepped forward to run her hands over the barrier curiously. It fitted into the archway exactly, as if it had been made for it.

  “It is wood,” she said, startled into speech. She ran her hands over its surface again, more carefully, this time marking the places where the pieces had been joined together to make the whole. So few! She tried to imagine such a tree as this might have come from, and failed. But what was its purpose? Metal bands crossed its surface, and there was a large ring, larger than the largest bracelet, in the center of one side. She closed her hands around the metal ring, and tugged at it gingerly, but nothing happened.

  There would be time enough later to solve this mystery. She took back the lantern, and the three walked on. They passed more of the blocked archways, but Shaiara did not bother to test them. Time for that later.

  They walked until the lamp began to gutter, then returned. Shaiara had learned what she wished to know, and so, when she returned to the Iteru-courtyard, she ordered her people to lead the shotors down into the dark made-cave, and there to make their cookfire, and take shelter against the heat of the day. Tomorrow they would begin the task of turning Abi’Abadshar into their home.

  IT WAS UPON the third day of their residence in Abi’Abadshar that Shaiara realized that the Gods of the Wild Magic had truly taken the Nalzindar into their care. At evening on the first day, everyone but the children went forth to hunt, and after several hours, they returned with a startling bounty. Not only adders and scorpions and mice, but sheshu in abundance—all the more puzzling when Natha said that for every sheshu he brought to the cookpot, he let one escape, just as the Balance asked of them. But that night, all the Nalzindar ate well; the shotors grazing upon the rich forage that grew among the ruins, and the ikulas and falcons and every person of the tribe feasting upon the bounty of the day’s hunt.

  On the second day, Shaiara and her people went forth as soon as the sun had passed its greatest heat, for they must have light to see by if they were to properly explore their new home. The ikulas accompanied them; Shaiara hoped both that the hounds’ keen senses might discern what the Nalzindar could not, and also, that they might flush more game, for keeping so many people fed was a constant struggle even in the Isvai, and here in the Barahileth, the task would be far more difficult.

  Though no Isvaieni was a stranger to the heat of the desert, the furnace heat of the Barahileth in daylight was nearly too much even for the Nalzindar. If not for the fact that they possessed a copious supply of water, Shaiara would have turned back immediately. Even the shotors seemed uncomfortable in the heat; the Nalzindar brought them under cover, into the tunnels, during the heat of the day, of course, but now Shaiara was setting them loose to browse. She did not fear to lose them. No shotor would willingly travel far from water.

  The people avoided the exposed stone road; as all of them knew from the experience of having to cross the Iteru-courtyard to reach the surface that it was far too hot to walk upon, and the sand was very little cooler. In the Isvai, Shaiara would have chosen to investigate by night, but in the Isvai, she would have been able to carry a lantern burning the liquid of the oilbark bush or a lamp whose wick was soaked in thrice-purified animal fat. They had not yet found any oilbark bush, and to gather and purify the amount of fat needed was a long and laborious process when they had cast away so many of their possessions. It would be long before they were once more able to light the few lamps they had retained.

  Everyone chose a different path through the city, moving off into the distance in groups of two and four. In the Isvai, the Nalzindar hunted alone. In this strange land, it was as well for every Isvaieni to have assistance close at hand. Shaiara walked beside Ciniran, with Kamar a few steps behind them. Shaiara and Ciniran were age-mates, and they had done everything together from the time each had taken her first hesitant steps upon the twilight sands, sharing small triumphs and quiet sorrow in the way of their people. Ciniran had been bold where Shaiara had been quiet, and before their first hunt, when it had become clear that Shaiara was to be Darak’s only child, there had been talk that Ciniran should be named his heir, or her cousin Hauca. That was the first time Bisochim had come to the tents of the Nalzindar, and said to them: Wait. The Wild Magic will make all things clear in time.

  Only a few years later, Darak had laid his body upon the sand, and Shaiara had neither expected comfort nor received it. Now Ciniran’s mother, Katuil, had chosen to relinquish her life upon the journey here, and Ciniran, too, accepted that with the impassive response that Shaiara expected. Katuil had died as she had wished to, as Darak had died, as all Nalzindar hoped to die: at a place and time of her own choosing.

  But life between Sand and Star was demanding, and it did not encourage hope, for to hope was to live in a place that was not of the here and the now, and the children of the Isvai must live in the world upon which they set the soles of their feet, neither in the dreams of the past nor the shadows of the future. Yet the wise hunter searched not only the ground before his boots, but the horizon as far as his gaze could reach, and now that—so it seemed—they were to live, Shaiara’s mind was busy with the future, and not just tomorrow and next season, but such future as the leader of the tribe must think on. If the Nalzindar were to survive, there must be husbands and wives for them; Ciniran was of an age to marry now, and Shaiara already knew that there was no man of the Nalzindar who pleased her, nor was Ciniran a one for women, nor yet to live alone all her days. For one not born to the Nalzindar to come to their ways was a delicate matter, yet in every generation, at the Gathering of the tribes, a handful of men and women made that choice. Some left again, in a moonturn or a season or at the next Gathering. Some became as much Nalzindar as if they had been born within their tents. But now that Bisochim had driven the rest of the Isvaieni down the path to madness with the goad of smooth words, who wou
ld there be for any of them?

  At least she need not worry for herself. The Nalzindar did not require the leadership of the tribe to pass to a child of her body. Nor did it even need to remain in Darak’s line if another were more competent: in each generation, leadership of the Nalzindar went to the one best suited to rule, not the one born to it, though often those two things marched together. In any event, the child who would lead the Nalzindar in the next generation was known early, by his or her ways, and taken into the chief’s tent to learn all those things that could only be learned by watching the leader of the Nalzindar lead the people. Shaiara’s heir might not yet have been born, or still lie in swaddling clothes, or just be learning to walk. She did not need to concern herself with the matter of finding and choosing a mate. She did not think one existed for her anywhere between Sand and Star.

  And that, she told herself with a small inward smile, is so much the least of all your problems that you could number them all until the days grew long and short again and not reach that one!

  When the sun had moved two handspans more across the sky, a thing Shaiara had not imagined to be possible—in this whole moonturn of unimaginable events—occurred. Israf and Ardban, who had so far been content to pad along at her side, suddenly raised their narrow heads, quivering all over, and dashed off. A moment later she saw something—a large something—scurry over the top of a dune, pursued by the hounds, and a moment after that, she heard the single sharp bark the ikulas gave when they had taken down prey. Despite her concern, neither Shaiara nor her companions ran to see what it was. One did not run in desert heat unless life was at stake.

  A few moments later they reached the ikulas’s side. The animals stood proudly, plumed tails slowly wagging, over the body of a fat young desert goat.