The Phoenix Endangered

by James Mallory

  “I’m fine,” Tiercel snarled sulkily. “We have to—”

  “Think,” Harrier said. “And rest, and plan.” He dropped the bag of supplies that Tiercel usually carried to the mat and pulled off his heavy cloak. It was as cold as an Armethalieh autumn night in the lower levels, but up here it was baking hot—and humid, too. He could never figure out what he ought to be wearing.

  Tiercel didn’t seem to notice the heat. He sat on the sleeping mat, still wearing his cloak, with his arms clasped around his knees, staring at nothing. “I’m fine,” he repeated.

  Harrier knew he wasn’t, but he couldn’t think of anything to do for him. Tiercel said that the Bond with Ancaladar had been broken—or, to be completely accurate, he’d said that he couldn’t feel it any longer. Harrier refused to believe that it was broken, because that would mean that he didn’t even understand what little he’d thought he understood about magic. And he also didn’t want to think about the fact that if the Bond were broken—and Tiercel was, by some miracle, still alive—he might have been hurt by its breaking in some way that no Healer could touch.

  He was grateful, though he would never have admitted it aloud, when Shaiara poked her head through the tent flap and he could get to his feet, and leave Tiercel’s side, and go over to her. She studied his face as he approached, and backed away without a word to let him exit.

  Anyone else Harrier had ever known would have assaulted him with questions and demands until he could barely think. Shaiara simply walked away from the tent in silence allowing him to follow and find his words.

  “Something I don’t understand happened down on the tenth level,” he said at last. “Ancaladar vanished. Tiercel says the Bond is gone, but… he isn’t dead. There’s no place Ancaladar could have gone. The tenth level doesn’t look like any of the others. There’s nowhere to go from there.”

  Shaiara absorbed his disjointed explanation in silence. “You saw nothing,” she said, after a pause long enough to let Harrier know she’d thought carefully about what he’d said.

  “Ancaladar went first. You know the staircases curve.”

  Shaiara nodded, then looked sideways at him, her expression considering. “No, nothing,” he said, just as if she’d spoken. “Not until Tiercel … screamed. Nothing from Ancaladar.”

  “Tiercel was injured?” she asked, after another pause.

  “Shocked, I think,” Harrier said, frowning. “This is … the Bond is forever. For a human’s life, or an Elf’s, and certainly for the life of the dragon. Ancaladar was never supposed to be Bonded twice. The Elves were only able to do it—they called it transferring Ancaladar’s Bond—by casting what they called a Great Spell. It… it cost the life of the King of the Elves and his dragon to cast it. That was the price.”

  If he’d expected Shaiara to be shocked, she wasn’t. She simply nodded, and kept walking, as if this was merely more information. “So, if this was not a natural Bond, perhaps it came undone?”

  Harrier stopped. That hadn’t occurred to him. Did all dragons vanish when they died? Petrivoch had, but had that been natural, or part of the Great Spell? “It wouldn’t matter,” he said at last. “If the Bond came undone and Ancaladar died, Tiercel would be dead too. Because whether it was natural or not, it was real. Tiercel could use Ancaladar’s magic.”

  Shaiara nodded again. “That is so.”

  Their footsteps had taken them to one of the stands of bushes that flourished directly under one of the gaps in the roof where the sunlight was strongest. The Nalzindar dried and cured the leaves and used them to make a beverage that Harrier preferred by far to kaffeyah. Marap was squatting beneath one of the bushes, harvesting leaves. Shaiara touched her shoulder to summon her attention.

  “Tiercel requires a tea to help him sleep,” Shaiara said.

  “I’ll make him drink it,” Harrier said grimly.

  WHATEVER HERBS THERE were in the potion of Marap’s brewing, the honeyed drink was strong, for Tiercel barely finished the cup before his eyes were closing, and he had not awakened by the time for the evening meal. Harrier simply lowered the inner flaps of the tent for privacy and left him to sleep when the outer flaps were pegged out so that the Nalzindar could gather around the communal dishes. He ate automatically, without any particular appetite, although the last meal he remembered was the cold bread and meat of breakfast.

  He was a little surprised to find that Shaiara announced the fact that Ancaladar had vanished on the bottom level of Abi’Abadshar today. She spoke of it in the same calm fashion that she would have mentioned that one of the hunters had taken down an especially fat goat, or that tomorrow they were finally going to try eating fish, or that one of the ikulas-hounds was expecting puppies.

  “—but the Wildmage was there, and has inspected the entire area, and there is no Taint,” she finished calmly. “It is merely more work of the Balance that we do not understand.”

  Harrier took a deep breath to deny it, and then blinked. Okay, maybe he wasn’t the best Wildmage in the world. But he’d been over every inch of the Tenth Level, and there was one thing he was willing to swear to: there was nothing Tainted down there. He hadn’t thought about it until now. But just the way he’d known the berries Marap had offered him hadn’t been safe to eat, the way he’d known what the Mageprice for healing the Telchi had been and when it had come time to pay it, Harrier knew he would have known if there were anything bad or dangerous down there. Anything … wrong.

  “There is nothing Tainted down there,” he agreed firmly, looking at the Nalzindar gathered around the small cookfire.

  As for Ancaladar’s disappearance being more work of the Balance, Harrier wasn’t quite prepared to go that far.

  AFTER THE MEAL, Harrier looked in on Tiercel as the rest of the camp—it was still hard to think of it as anything else, although, by rights he ought to be able to call it a village—prepared itself for sleep. Ciniran followed him inside and seated herself on the rug beside Tiercel’s head. “I will watch over him,” she said quietly.

  HARRIER FOLLOWED SHAIARA down to the waterfall. It felt strange to be going without Tiercel and Ciniran—Tiercel to be explaining at great length everything they’d seen today and Ciniran to ask her occasional odd-but-interested questions. Even making a ball of Coldfire—something he’d done dozens of times because Tiercel insisted that he wasn’t going to be the only one casting spells around here—didn’t feel the same.

  When they got down to the pool, he just watched the water for a while in silence.

  “I’m not sure what we’re going to do,” he said at last.

  “Without Ancaladar, Tiercel doesn’t have the power to cast spells. It’s really hard to explain.”

  “You may try,” Shaiara said, so Harrier stumbled through a long explanation about lamps, and lamp-oil, and how without Ancaladar to provide the power Tiercel needed, he had the knowledge, but not the ability.

  “—and even knowing as little High Magick as he does—he keeps telling me he doesn’t know much, and Ancaladar always agreed—he, well, maybe we had a chance. Now, well, he can still make Coldfire and Call Fire. That’s about it. For anything else, he needs Ancaladar’s power to draw on. He runs out of power too fast. The equivalent of Ancaladar is … well, there’s nothing. Not since there were High Mages in Armethalieh doing something neither Tyr nor I understands to make their magic work.” Harrier sighed. “We were investigating the rest of the city because … Tyr hasn’t had any more visions since we got here. So he was guessing that the city had protective wards over it, wards that still worked. It has to be why Bisochim hasn’t found you, and why Tyr hasn’t seen the Lake of Fire again since we got here. He thought if those protective wards were in place, there might be something else here.”

  “There was,” Shaiara said, and Harrier winced.

  “I just can’t figure out why any spells set up by a bunch of old Elven Mages would want to hurt a dragon,” Harrier said, baffled.

  “I do not claim to understand the minds of
the Elder Brothers, much less the minds of their ancestors,” Shaiara said, “but it eases my heart to know that here we cannot be found no matter how eagerly the Tainted One seeks us.”

  Harrier sighed. “Yeah. But we can’t stay. At least Tiercel and I can’t. We have to try to stop him anyway. As soon as we can. Because … we know where to go. And we know there’s no more reason to wait.”

  There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of falling water. Harrier thought that decisions like this ought to be, well, more momentous. In a wondertale he’d be wearing glittering armor and standing in a Light-Temple—maybe in front of the High Altar—and the Light-Priest and the First Magistrate would be there, and all the nobles and the Chief Merchants of the city, and he would announce …

  That I’m going off to get myself killed—oh, and Tiercel too—by doing something that we have even less chance of succeeding at doing than we had this morning. And we didn’t have much chance then …

  “I will accompany you,” Shaiara said.

  “I, um, what? No. You can’t do that,” Harrier said.

  Shaiara turned to stare directly into his face. Her black eyes glittered hotly. “Will you tell me I may not make amends for the shame that Bisochim has brought to all the Isvaieni, Wildmage? That I may not set my face against the Shadow as my ancestors did? That I may not keep you and your friend alive in the desert until you reach this place he speaks of? The Barahileth is not the hospitable place that the Isvai is. It can kill in an hour. Less.”

  It was the longest speech he’d ever heard from her. “There’s an, uh, road,” he said stumblingly. “And water.” Yeah, his internal voice reminded him. And you were counting on Tiercel to be able to make the two of you invisible or something if you ran into anybody.

  Shaiara snorted, outright derision in her tone now. “Spaced a day’s travel apart for Isvaieni. Are you certain you can say the same? Do you know to avoid the ishnain-wastes, and what to do if you are befouled with the dust? How long is the journey? What will you do if you run out of food? What if you encounter those who look to Zanattar? Can you pass yourself off as Isvaieni, even in the heaviest robes?”

  “All right!” Harrier said. “We’ll take a guide.”

  “I will take you,” Shaiara said firmly. “We will depart a sennight from now. The journey will be a difficult one. Much will be required in the way of preparation.”

  “Wait—look—wait—Shaiara.” Harrier couldn’t quite bring himself to touch her, but he lifted his hand, caught halfway between exasperation and a feeling he couldn’t quite name. “You …” He swallowed hard. “I really don’t think we’re going to be coming … back.”

  Shaiara’s fierce expression softened, and she reached out and placed her hand on his knee for just a moment. “I know,” she answered. “Kamar will lead the Nalzindar wisely and well.”

  Epilogue: Cold as Fire

  BISOCHIM COULD DO nothing as he waited for Zanattar’s return to the plains of Telinchechitl but attempt to school his unquiet spirit. So many of his people lost and dead! And in battles that need never have been fought—for surely, surely, once the True Balance had been restored, everyone would see there was no need to fight at all? Why fight a battle that was already lost—or won?

  He might—at any time—have summoned Saravasse and gone forth in search of Zanattar and his captives, but caution held him back. To broach the spell-wards with his own body would be enough to destroy them, and if the Enemy had gathered Mages and sorcerous Otherfolk in sufficient number against him, such hasty action would bring doom to his Isvaieni, precipitating the vision that he feared. Even a spell of Far-Seeing would be enough to pierce his spell-shield’s impenetrability. He could do nothing as he waited save question the Isvaieni who returned. Their stories were all much the same, tales of march and siege and battle, and most of them had not even seen Zanattar’s captives.

  It was true that Saravasse could pass back and forth through his wards without disturbing them—but of what use was a scout who would not speak to tell of what she had seen? Three times Bisochim summoned her to him and sent her forth, and three times she mocked him with silence upon her return.

  But the bitterest blow of all came a fortnight later, when Zanattar himself returned at last. He did not bring prisoners. He brought a nearly unbelievable tale.

  IN HIS EAGERNESS to see the agents of his great Enemy in the flesh at last, Bisochim rode out to meet them, when sentries came dashing into the camp just past dusk announcing that the light of a cookfire had been seen out upon the Barahileth. Bisochim met the returning war-party just inside the white stone markers that denoted the edge of Telinchechitl’s spell-wards. The grief and shame upon Zanattar’s face the moment he saw Bisochim told Bisochim all that he needed to know.

  “Your captives have escaped you, Zanattar of the Lanzanur Isvaieni.”

  But to his surprise, Zanattar shook his head. “No, Wildmage. They did not escape. They were rescued.”

  THE BEGINNING OF Zanattar’s story was much like thousands of others that Bisochim had heard, differing only in that it had been Zanattar’s decision to make this war in the first place, and his planning that had given the Isvaieni’s campaign against the String of Pearls much of its success. It had been his decision to keep the prisoners with him at Tarnatha’Iteru and to depart from there last of all the people so that if the captives should have the ability to summon allies after all, he would not have unwittingly led the enemy back to the hiding place of his people. Zanattar reasoned that any prisoner would naturally summon rescue as soon as possible, and hoped that by dallying at Tarnatha’Iteru for sennight after sennight he might goad them into rash action.

  In the end, it had not taken so long. Less than a handful of days after the fall of the city, Zanattar and his comrades had been driven in terror from their campsite outside the walls of Tarnatha’Iteru by the assault of a monstrous black dragon. It had spoken to them in a human voice, threatening them with death if they did not flee at once.

  Their shotors had fled, maddened with fear, and they had fled on foot, without pausing to take up so much as a waterskin in their flight. If not for the fact that another group of Isvaieni had left Tarnatha’Iteru only hours before and been made curious at the dust raised by the herd of fleeing shotors, if not for the fact that they had paused to capture them, recognizing them as Isvaieni beasts, and then followed along their backtrail to discover Zanattar and his people, if not for the oath of brotherhood they had all taken that made any aid extended to them not charity, but the help that kin might extend to kin—Zanattar and his comrades would never have been able to return to the Barahileth at all. Zanattar and his band of warriors did not lack courage. Neither the sort that every Isvaieni must have merely to accept life between Sand and Star, nor the bright sharp sort forged in blood and fire, for every man and woman of them had fought their way up the String of Pearls, taking each city by force, and surviving the privations of the long marches between. Yet not one of them had been willing to risk turning back to face the black dragon again, or even to see if it was still there.

  “We have failed you, Bisochim,” Zanattar said, when he had finished his tale.

  “You have not failed me, Zanattar,” Bisochim answered, for the length of the tale had given him time to settle in his mind the words he wished to say. “You have done far more than I could ever have imagined possible. Let our enemies recover two of their pawns. It means far more to me that you have come back safely.”

  Zanattar smiled with relief. “You will need every awardan by your side when the People of the North come, Wildmage. I promise you, my warriors will not fail you a second time.”

  The tale had brought them from the edge of the Barahileth, through the fields and orchards, through the numberless tents of the Isvaieni, to the tent of Zanattar’s mother Kataduk, and to the carpet spread before it, where they had sat as dusk became night, eating dates and drinking small cups of bitter kaffeyah. Now that the tale was ended, Zanattar rose to his f
eet to go within, and Bisochim stood as well, turning away to begin the long climb up the steps to his solitary palace. His steps were as heavy as his heart.

  Zanattar had spoken of a war to come as if it were not only inevitable, but a joyous thing. The visions Bisochim had seen of such a war had shown him only death. Death for his Isvaieni. Death for Saravasse, as the enemy Bisochim feared knew well that to slay the dragon was to slay the dragon’s Bonded as well.

  His Isvaieni had destroyed the Iteru-cities thinking to deny their resources to an invader. Bisochim had leeched the water from the wells and oases of the Isvai for the same reason. But Zanattar had spoken of a dragon coming to the aid of his captives, and if the enemy army marched with a dragon-Bonded Mage at its head, none of that would matter. The power such a Mage could call upon—twin to Bisochim’s own—would allow him to call up water from rock and sand anywhere he chose. Enough to provision an army large enough to destroy all who sheltered here at the Lake of Fire. To destroy everything Bisochim had worked so long and so hard to achieve.

  There was only one thing he could do.

  He must work faster.

  One

  A Terrible Beauty

  THE BINRAZAN WERE one of the largest and wealthiest tribes to make their home between Sand and Star. Fully ten double-hands of tents could Phulda their Ummara number when he counted that which the Binrazan held—and swift shotors, and flocks of fat sheep, and goats as well—for Binrazan wealth lay not in its hunting skills, as did the Khulbana’s, nor yet in its ability to wrest gold and gems from the secret places of the desert, as did the Kadyastar’s, nor in its trade in rare spices, like the Hinturi, nor in its harvest of salt, as the Kareggi did. The Binrazan were master rug makers and weavers, whose carpets graced the floor of every tent of every tribe, and the homes of the soft city-dwellers as well, who paid in cloth and glass and kaffeyah and glittering sugar from distant lands, in cakes of xocalatl and in medicines and in good steel knives and even in gold. Gold bought little among the Isvaieni, but it bought much in the Iteru-cities, and so the Binrazan accepted it in trade, for it could be held for a season or full turn of seasons and then exchanged for as much value as on the day it had been given.