The Phoenix Endangered

by James Mallory

  “IT’S A CITY!” Tiercel said excitedly, as Ancaladar made a long low circle over it coming in for a landing. Harrier only hoped that Tiercel would bear in mind that he couldn’t fly, and stay where he was until they were down on the ground again.

  “Not for a long time,” Harrier answered, looking down.

  The bits and pieces and scraps of broken stone and chunks of road going nowhere covered an area he thought might even be as large as Armethalieh. It was impossible to tell whether this city had ever had a wall, but somehow Harrier got the impression that it hadn’t. He thought everything would have been more bunched up if it had. All the bits of ruin he could see seemed to be laid out on a grid, as if the whole city had been built—or at least planned—all at once.

  Ancaladar landed, and as soon as he did, the heat radiating up from the sand struck Harrier like a blow. “Hot,” he said comprehensively. He thought he’d gotten used to desert heat in the last several sennights, but this was like standing inside a bake-oven. He began to sweat immediately, and rubbed at his face, trying to keep the trickles of moisture out of his eyes.

  “Yes,” Ancaladar said apologetically. He stretched out his neck so that they could both slide off. It was even hotter standing on the ground; Harrier could feel the heat soaking up through his boot soles. Now his skin was only prickling, as the sweat dried on his skin immediately, leaving behind a flaking crust of salt. It itched, and he rubbed at his face distractedly.

  “There is water there. And shelter, I believe. I shall return as quickly as I can.” Ancaladar swung his head in the direction of something Harrier had glimpsed as they’d been coming in for their landing: it looked like an open basement. The air above it shimmered faintly—if there was an uncovered well here, the sun was probably doing its best to suck it dry of moisture.

  “Come on,” Harrier said to Tiercel. “If we stay out here, we’ll fry.”

  THERE WAS A well. It was down at the bottom of a flight of stairs, and it was open to the sky. The air directly around the well was a little cooler than it was everywhere else here—probably because the sun was sucking water into the air, but even so, the stone of the basement was too hot to kneel on until they splashed water from the waterskin Harrier carried on it. The stone didn’t quite sizzle, but the water dried almost immediately, and as soon as it did, the stone heated up again. Everything in direct sunlight was hot enough to cook on. Harrier took the precaution of refilling the waterskin he carried, even though they both drank directly from the well itself.

  It was just as well that Ancaladar had been right about there being shelter here, too, because unless they climbed directly into the well itself, Harrier didn’t think they could survive here at all for very long, and even if they did, they’d be badly burned. But a sort of tunnel led off from the basement, and while neither of them was in any mood to go exploring, once they’d gone a few feet along it, they were out of the sun. Even that much shelter was enough to make them feel cooler, after a few minutes’ exposure to the sun of the Desolation.

  Eighteen

  Forged in Fire

  IT WAS A small matter to shape wood or stone or metal or a dozen other substances in the semblance of living things. Men and women did it daily, and called it art.

  It was a greater task to take such semblances and give them the seeming of life. That required magic, and a greater magic than had been seen in the world of Men in a thousand years. Yet it could be done, with time and skill and patience.

  One might even, with utmost skill in magic, take the inanimate semblance of a living thing and make it a housing for a thing that lived but had no physical body of its own. To conjure the very Elemental Forces that gave the land itself life, to capture and tame a portion of their vast and nearly boundless essence to animate an object of one’s own creation, was a dangerous and delicate task.

  Bisochim had done it, merely to see if he could. He was not interested in an unhappy or an unwilling servant, however, so he had released the creature immediately. His ambitions reached far higher.

  He intended to create—by magic—what others—what he himself—had only crafted in stone and wood and metal. A human seeming. Living, breathing, real. And then he would conjure up the elemental spirit to inhabit it and give it life.

  Not an unwilling captive this time. A willing—even eager—tenant.

  And once she was bound within her prison of flesh, once she had granted him the immortality that was his payment, the immortality that would free Saravasse from death forever, he would bind her with spells, trapping her eternally both in flesh and rock. Darkness, returned to the world to set the Balance right, yet imprisoned where it could do no harm. Then his task would be complete. The Balance would have been restored. And his people would be safe.

  His task was a slow and laborious one—both learning what he must to craft the crucible into which he would pour the alien spirit, and in conjuring that spirit back into the world. When he had begun, so many years before, the alien spirit had been no more than the weakest of whispers against his thoughts; barely more than a desperate hope that what he had longed for so desperately for so many seasons could find a way to come true. He had carefully nurtured the guttering flame, learning all that it could teach, working toward the day when he could set the last of the elaborate complex spell to work and gain his heart’s desire.

  In the beginning, the ancient power had hungered to possess him, he suspected. He had withstood those tentative assaults, and they had stopped. Once it had understood his strength, his work had proceeded more quickly. As the years passed, he had learned so much. And now the work was nearly done.

  But if there was no True Balance left in the world, the teachings of the Balance remained, so Bisochim well knew that each act he performed called up a response from the False Balance that sought to remain unchanged by his actions. The closer he came to the completion of his work, the greater became the efforts of the False Balance to stop him. Knowing the Isvaieni would be but pawns in the war that the False Balance would not hesitate to begin, he had brought them into the Barahileth, to the garden his magic had created—but the Nalzindar had not been among them, and the Isvaieni had not been made to live a life of idleness and plenty. Desiring to cool hot tempers and restless spirits, Bisochim had sent the young warriors of all the tribes upon a fool’s errand—to seek out the Nalzindar that he already knew they would not find. In their absence, the gardens of Telinchechitl were peaceful, and Bisochim returned to his work, certain that when the young Isvaieni tired of their futile quest, they would return. He gave them no more thought than that.

  KAZAT SON OF Gatulas of the Thanduli Isvaieni had been born in one birth with his twin brother Larazir eighteen turns of the Wheel of Heaven ago, and in each day of all those years, Kazat and Larazir had been as inseparable as the fingers of a hand, for where Kazat was, there was Larazir, and where Larazir was, there was Kazat.

  No longer.

  Larazir had always been first into every battle, rejoicing in their most hard-won victories, even those that must be bought with sorrow, such as the battle to win Laganda’Iteru from the Shadow-Touched. And so it was that he had been among the first to mount his shotor that day, and first to ride against the walls of Tarnatha’Iteru when—so they had believed—the Demon-child’s spell had failed. And it had been a coward’s trick, and Larazir had died beneath the hooves of his shotor, his body crushed to a bloody ruin against a Demon’s magic.

  But Kazat did not grieve for him. The loss of his twin had been repaid, the cowardice and treachery of the city-dwellers washed clean in blood. The fire would follow, when the last of the Isvaieni had left that place, but that time was not yet.

  In this battle, unlike all the others, they had taken captives, at Zanattar’s decree. By the power of the Wild Magic, the Demon-child had been bound into unconsciousness, and though many warriors of the Isvaieni had died in subduing his servant, it had been done at last, and Zanattar had said that these two should be taken before Bisochim so
that he might discover the Great Enemy’s plans and purpose. Though some had argued against this plan, saying it would be safer to kill them at once, Zanattar had said that they could not be sure that even the child-warrior was human, for what human boy could kill a score of Isvaieni warriors as he had done? And so to slit their throats might be only to free their spirits to enter the bodies of any of the Faithful who now stood as sworn brethren, so that no man or woman might know the face of their true enemy. These were prudent words, and when Zanattar’s chaharums had set these words before all the people, everyone agreed they were wise words indeed. So the Darkspawn were taken to the tents of the people, bound and hoodwinked and drugged upon sweet wine so they could not wake. In this fashion, Zanattar said, they might be brought safely even to the plains of Telinchechitl themselves, where Bishochim, surely, would know how they might be let out of life without harm to any.

  But though he would risk carrying such powerful captives to Telinchechitl, Zanattar was not so rash as to think he might safely bear them farther upon the war-road, and so he sent further word among the chaharums that Akazidas’Iteru would be spared the cleansing fire of the Faithful. Let the armies of the north come so far and no farther, and rage in impotent despair, for with the String of Pearls shattered beyond reclamation, they could not provision their great armies to cross the Isvai.

  And so it was that the great army that Zanattar had gathered together flowed away from the walls of Tarnatha’Iteru as water flows from a cracked jug, slipping off into the desert in their handfuls, their shotors fat with grain and water from the Iteru-city they had cleansed of evil, their bellies full with bread and meat from its storehouses. First among those who departed rode Kazat son of Gatulas of the Thanduli Isvaieni, for he was one of Zanattar’s most trusted chaharums, who had been with him since the moment Luranda had uncovered the bones of the slain Wildmage in the desert, and Zanattar knew that Kazat would say to Bisochim all that he would say himself. It was Zanattar’s place to remain, as a good leader must, until the last of the people had departed from Tarnatha’Iteru, and to take upon himself and those who would accept such danger the burden of bearing the Demons across the Barahileth to their judgment.

  It was both comfort and relief, after so many moonturns upon the War Road, crowded into the company of thousands of his brethren and coursing the very edge of the Madiran, for Kazat to return to the Isvai once more in the company of no more than a handful of his fellows. It was true that they were not Thanduli, but Zanattar had told him thoughtfully over a cookfire one evening that the Time of tribes was broken. Before they had set out to search for the Nalzindar, all of the young warriors had sworn a blood-oath to consider every other Isvaieni as much kin as if they had been born within the same tent, and Zanattar did not think this oath would have its end simply because their search was over. If Gatulas was Thanduli, Kazat was not: he was more. There must be a new name for the tribe that they all shared. Perhaps they would be known now simply as Isvaieni.

  But if Kazat was no longer Thanduli, he was still a child of the desert, and welcomed his return to its clean open spaces, its silence and its vastness. In his heart, he regretted the need that would bring him, far too soon, back to the crowded tents and strange foreign lushness of Telinchechitl, for even the desert waste beyond it was unfamiliar—too harsh, too barren, not home.

  It was not his choice, not Bisochim’s choice, not the choice of any Isvaieni, that had exiled them to that strange place, he reminded himself. It was the act of the False Balance, that Great Enemy which had slain the Blue Robes, which had sent Demons to defend Tarnatha’Iteru. They would endure it just as they had endured the harshness of the Isvai itself, until the time came to reclaim their true home.

  ON THE DAY when Kazat returned to Telinchechitl, Bisochim was sitting in the highest and farthest of the upper gardens of his fortress, taking a rare rest from his labors because Saravasse had come back. She never sought his company anymore—preferring to sleep upon the upper air, descending to earth only to drink and to hunt, or of course, when he summoned her. But she had come today, and at first Bisochim had hoped that the day he had long dreamed of had come, when he would receive her forgiveness and be able to speak to her of his hopes and dreams once more.

  But it did not matter what he said to her—how carefully, how patiently he spoke of what was to come, and how necessary it was, not only for the good of all who lived beneath the sky, but to save her life. She still would not speak.

  He spoke for hours, using all the most persuasive words he knew—words that had swayed clever and cautious men. He told her everything, holding nothing back from her—every truth, every hope, every fear that he held within his heart, while she watched him with expressionless golden eyes and said nothing.

  He made promises to her that he would have made to no other between Sand and Star. He swore that once his work was done, that he would do anything that she bid him to do. They would journey to the Veiled Lands, or beyond Great Ocean, or to any place she chose. Any task she set, he would perform. She had but to name it. Once his task here was complete.

  She spoke not a single word in reply.

  “Master, you must come. It is urgent.”

  At the summons, Bisochim flung himself to his feet with a snarl. He glared at Zinaneg’s expressionless stone face. The creature had been one of his earliest experiments in fully animating stone: to give stone a voice as well as sentience and movement was still such a delicate task that he didn’t see the need to waste the work on his other servants. But to have one among his servants who could carry messages—and speak them—was a thing he had sometimes found useful, though at this moment he was sorely tempted to summon Lightning from the sky and blast it back to the lifeless stone from which he had once summoned it.

  “What can be urgent now?” Bisochim demanded with ill-grace.

  “Kazat son of Gatulas of the Thanduli Isvaieni has returned from the Isvai. He says that their losses were heavy, but they have been successful: the murders of the Blue Robes have been avenged and the Iteru-cities are no more.” Zinaneg’s voice was as expressionless as its face: the stone homunculus spoke of triumph or disaster in the same even monotone.

  But at its words, Saravasse threw back her head and began to laugh.

  BY THE TIME Bisochim arrived among the tents to seek out Kazat, Hargul of the Fadaryama Isvaieni was bringing her own band of warriors into the camp as well. On the bodies of those who followed her, Bisochim saw half-healed scars where no scars should be, and both Isvaieni and shotors bore the stamp of long privation.

  “They are avenged!” she cried, when she saw him. “The Nalzindar and the Wildmages! The Isvai is purified!” The Isvaieni riding with her cheered, brandishing their awardans.

  All around him, he saw preparations being made for a lavish feast of welcome. Kaffeyah simmered in open pans, pots of stew bubbled over open fires, sheep and goats roasted upon the spit, and the smell of baking filled the air—not merely the customary flatcakes that were eaten with nearly every meal, but the strong sweetness of the honey-cake reserved for only the most special occasions.

  As he walked through the encampment, congratulating the young hunters upon their safe return, Bisochim’s heart was as heavy as his tongue was burdened with questions he dared not voice—for all believed he had sent them forth to seek out the Nalzindar, and he dared not let them suspect that he had never expected them to find them. But there was little need for him to ask anything at all, for everyone he met was eager to relate their triumphs to him, and long before the feast of welcome was set out upon the carpets, Bisochim had the whole of the tale from Kazat himself.

  For several sennights the various roving bands of Isvaieni had searched for the missing Nalzindar without success, just as Bisochim had intended. Just as they had been about to give up and turn back, Kazat’s band, led by Zanattar of the Lanzanur Isvaieni, and counting as its chief tracker Luranda of the Adanate Isvaieni, had discovered the half-buried bones of a dead Wildmage.


  And seeing them, they had declared war upon the Iteru-cities.

  “She knew no Blue Robe could have died in an ordinary Sandwind,” Kazat explained simply. “We all knew, once they explained it to us. Do not the Blue Robes command the Sandwinds to turn aside from us? How could they be killed by one unless it was sent by the False Balance? Luranda and Zanattar told us that soon the False Balance would send, not spells, but armies of men, and we must deny them the aid that the Iteru-cities would give them.”

  And so they had. While Bisochim had labored in the depths beneath his palace, thinking there was no need to do a spell of Farseeing to look upon the bands of roving Isvaieni (for he had inspected the desert closely in his own search for the missing Nalzindar, and had been certain that they could come to no harm in the Isvai), Zanattar had come to a similar conclusion—that Bisochim would come to him if the course he, Zanattar, intended to follow now were wrong. And Bisochim had not. So Zanattar had gathered together all the roving bands of Isvaieni, and together they had destroyed every single one of the Iteru-cities—all but Akazidas’Iteru.

  “At Tarnatha’Iteru there was an evil sorcerer from the north,” Kazat said, bringing his tale to a close. “The road north from Laganda’Iteru was a hard one. There was little water. Zanattar knew we must take Tarnatha’Iteru quickly. But a monster with the face of a child rode out from its gates to mock him, and then to wrap himself and the city in a wall of light. It endured for many days, but by the virtue of the True Balance it fell at last. They sent forth their great army, thinking to slay us as we lay helpless, but we had feigned weakness. We fell upon them like the pakh upon the sheshu. Soon the city was ours, and the Demon-child and his creature became our prisoners.”

  “You captured them?” Bisochim asked, suddenly alert and wary.

  The Isvaieni lived their life in service to the Balance, and by the guidance of Wildmages, but they were neither credulous nor superstitious folk. If Kazat said they had captured Demons, he had good reason for his belief.