The Phoenix Transformed

by James Mallory

  “I’m not hungry,” Tiercel muttered, not looking up.

  “More for me, then. The only thing that worries me is that I don’t think it’s either goat, squirrel, or hare—because I know what all those taste like, and this isn’t it. The sort-of-acorn bread isn’t bad, though. Anyway. You know, I could hear you yelling all the way out to the passage wall, so at this point there isn’t anyone in the camp who doesn’t know we’re all pretty much doomed. Good going there,” Harrier said.

  Tiercel sat up and glared at Harrier, who was sitting cross-legged beside his sleeping mat eating his—Tiercel’s—breakfast. “It can’t really be a surprise,” he said sullenly.

  “Maybe not,” Harrier said, “but that doesn’t mean they want to hear about it, either. Look, Tyr,” his voice gentled in a way that made Tiercel look at him sharply, “I know neither of us was expecting this to happen. And I know you can’t tell me what it’s like to lose Ancaladar—any more than I can tell you what the Wild Magic is like. But I know it has to be bad. So I went and did a spell, to see if we could get help.”

  “You did a spell?” If there was one thing Tiercel knew for certain, it was that Harrier was about as fond of doing magic as he was of dancing. Less, actually—Harrier just thought dancing was an annoying waste of time that made him look stupid, while he thought that the Wild Magic (specifically) had a bunch of complicated rules designed to make him look stupid that it was always changing so he couldn’t memorize any of them. Tiercel knew from experience that Harrier hated random change almost as much as he loved getting his own way. And if there were two things Harrier was pretty much guaranteed not to get as a Knight-Mage, they were consistency and his own way.

  “Yeah. I did a spell. I figured that if Kareta had brought me my Three Books in the first place, she’d probably know what was going on if anyone did, or she’d know who did. So I Called her, and she came. She says Ancaladar is still alive but that she can’t tell where he is. I’m sorry, Tyr. She’d have said if she knew. She said you were still Bonded to him, but that she couldn’t sense him anywhere.”

  Tiercel had been trying so hard to get used to the idea that Ancaladar was dead and he’d survived—somehow—that he found it almost impossible to adjust to the idea that Ancaladar was alive. It was just too huge. “Maybe—” he began.

  “No,” Harrier said quickly, cutting off the hope before Tiercel really knew it was there. “If there was some place he might be that she hadn’t looked, she’d have told me. She said there wasn’t any place she could even tell us to look.”

  “There has to be,” Tiercel said stubbornly. If he was still Bonded to Ancaladar, then Ancaladar had to be somewhere.

  “Sure,” Harrier said. He set the empty bowl aside and reached for the cup beside it. “But you don’t know where it is and neither do I, and we just can’t go looking for him right now. We know he’s alive. If he’s . . . a really long way away, he’ll come back as soon as he can.”

  “If he were somewhere he could come back from, he already would have,” Tiercel said miserably. He didn’t want to, but it was as if he couldn’t stop himself. “And I’d know he was there, Har. I’d be able to tell. And I’d have his magic to draw on, at least.”

  That was the worst thing of all, because while losing the comfort of Ancaladar’s presence affected only him, losing the Dragonbond—and with it the ability to cast the spells of the High Magick—affected everybody. Tiercel’s spells had been the most potent weapon they had against the Dark. Now those spells were gone.

  “I’m pretty sure you don’t know as much about being a Dragonbond Mage as the Elves do,” Harrier said dismissively. “Or about magic, either, come to that. All we actually know is that he’s somewhere you can’t sense him and Kareta can’t find him. And that’s all we know.”

  “I suppose you can explain why she can sense the Bond and not where he is? Or why it would still be intact but I couldn’t . . . ?” Tiercel made an impatient gesture and Harrier snorted rudely.

  “Starvation has obviously addled your brains. I know even less about magic than you do, idiot. The Wild Magic isn’t about studying—which is a good thing, since I hate studying. It’s about doing,” Harrier added, in a mock-superior tone.

  “Meaning you just go charging into things without any kind of plan?” Tiercel asked. Even he wasn’t sure whether he was teasing or actually angry. He wanted to know. He didn’t want more impossibilities to pile up on each other. Half of a Dragonbond who survived. Ancaladar gone beyond his reach, but somehow still—maybe—alive. Kareta knowing the Bond was intact, but not knowing where Ancaladar was. “You said you did a spell. That means a MagePrice, doesn’t it?”

  “Not really.” Harrier looked oddly guilty.

  “What do you mean ‘not really,’ ” Tiercel said, suddenly alarmed. Losing Ancaladar was terrible. Losing Harrier too would be unbearable. “You didn’t just turn into a High Mage between last night and this morning. Every time you cast a spell, there’s a Price.”

  “Not true. I can Call Fire and Cast Coldfire without a MagePrice, and a couple of others,” Harrier said.

  “Right. Two or three minor spells that are barely cantrips in the High Magic—the ones that are even duplicated there—and even I can still do those. Come on. Either tell me, or I’m going to go out there and get Shaiara, and make her make you tell me.”

  “The Isvaieni revere Wildmages.” Harrier actually managed to sound smug about it. “She won’t make me do anything.”

  “Yeah, well, she doesn’t revere you. And if you won’t tell me, I know it’s got to be bad.”

  Harrier blew air through his lips with a vulgar blatting noise (the Wildmages in the Festival plays always behaved like a combination of Sub-Preceptors of the Light and Magistrates’ Senior Clerks trying to overawe petitioners, and Tiercel thought the people who wrote the plays ought to have the chance to spend a few hours with Harrier Gillain, Knight-Mage). “ ‘The Wild Magic made the Eternal Light, and all other forms of the Light which guide the hearts and the steps of all people—’ ” Harrier recited.

  “ ‘—the Herdsman, the Steersman, the Good Goddess, the Huntsman and the Forest Wife, Leaf and Star, Sand and Star, the Great Herd, and all things between Earth and Sky,’ ” Tiercel finished.

  “So how can it be bad?” Harrier said triumphantly. “It’s just something I wasn’t expecting, that’s all. Once Bisochim is defeated, I’m going to have to renounce my Three Books and give up being a Knight-Mage.”

  “So . . . then you won’t be a Wildmage anymore?” Tiercel said. “But . . . you’ll like that, right? It doesn’t seem like a very reasonable MagePrice, though . . . ow!” He rubbed the back of his head where Harrier had smacked him.

  “When magic starts seeming reasonable, we’ll both know you’ve run into one too many walls head first. Now get up, get dressed, and come and eat breakfast. The sooner we get started, the sooner I can pay my Price.”

  Three

  A Journey Into Darkness

  THERE WAS NO purpose in delaying. Kamar would guide the Nalzindar in her absence. Shaiara told herself no tales of her absence being a temporary thing: Kamar was Darak’s brother, he who had been Ummara of the Nalzindar before her, and knew well what to seek for in one who must lead the Nalzindar. There would be one among the children who would serve by the time Kamar’s years were run. Or there would not.

  For the journey along the Dove Road, Shaiara drew ruthlessly upon the wealth of the tribe. Ten shotors—more than half of their remaining stock—one of their three tents, water skins, knives, meat, meal, blankets, salt . . .

  Did she travel alone, or even in the company of those who were not Nalzindar but were still Isvaieni, Shaiara would not have made her preparations with such elaborate care, but those she meant to escort into a place where even Nalzindar did not go were soft northern boys who had never even seen a desert a handful of moonturns ago. If each day there were a hundred ways for a fool to die in the Isvai, there were a thousand ways for a sage to die
in the Barahileth.

  She could not plan for the length of their journey, for they did not know it. Did their provisions run out, they would starve, for there would be nothing to eat save their shotors, and they must preserve them for their own survival. If the wells established by their enemy were dry or foul their death was also certain, for though she was confident that Harrier would call upon the Wild Magic, there was no water to find in the Barahileth. It was not a journey Shaiara would have chosen to make, had she been given any choice. But the patterns woven between Sand and Star decreed otherwise, nor would she let the courage of innocents shame her own. Tiercel and Harrier meant to make this journey whether she accompanied them or not, and Shaiara knew that without her aid, Tiercel and Harrier would die long before they reached their destination.

  It was easy to summon up anger with Tiercel, harder to quench it. He flaunted his loss like a toddling child with its first bruise, sulking and fasting as if he had taken a mortal wound, then crying “danger” and “failure” in a voice loud enough to be heard from one end of the camp to the other. Bad enough that the loss of the Star-Crowned meant the loss of their greatest weapon against the Tainted One, but far worse that Tiercel should cause her people to fear their home, for there was no other refuge for the Nalzindar should they leave Abi’Abadshar. And to think that Bisochim might yet seek them out in this place was a hard thing to hear. But though he displayed his fear and his grief and even his anger as no Nalzindar ever would, Tiercel summoned up to set beside them the courage and determination of a man grown, for even weaponless he meant to continue down the path the Gods of the Wild Magic had set his feet upon. And where Tiercel went, there Harrier must follow.

  No Isvaieni grew to adulthood between Sand and Star without encountering those who wore the Blue Robes, for it was they who Healed injury, guided the tribes to new sources of water, forewarned of the lethal Sandwind days before its sign appeared upon the horizon, and even—at need—turned its fury aside. Yet if that was all the Blue Robes did, their aid might have been dispensed with, for the Isvaieni were inured to hardship, and the Blue Robes were not there to Heal every hurt, nor turn aside every storm. But beyond those things, the Blue Robes were the voice of the Wild Magic itself, the living embodiment of the Balance. They gave wise counsel to those who sought to live their lives by the Balance, those who sought to understand that which was “good” and “right” and “best,” even when they might not all be the same thing. To those who must lead, the Blue Robes offered wisdom that favored no one. To those who must follow, they offered the counsel of those who had sat upon the rugs of many tents and spoken with those of many tribes, so that all might live together in peace.

  Harrier was like no Blue Robe Shaiara had ever met.

  He did not come to them with wise counsel beneath his tongue—more than that, he swore, loud and long, that he was a fool in all things, so much so that it had taken her many days to see that he was not. His protestations of foolishness were disguise, nothing more, just as the dappled scales of the desert adder, the dun fur of the sheshu, served to hide both predator and prey against the desert sands. It was true that Harrier had much ignorance—he had as little knowledge of the desert and its ways as Tiercel did. True, equally, that the Wild Magic had not held him in its embrace even a full wheel of the seasons, and that he spoke of it as one who thought of it as a thing that must be mastered, as a rider mastered an unruly shotor, rather than a thing that simply was, like air and sand and fire. He brawled and complained and went through all his days—so far as Shaiara could tell—bawling like an overladen shotor about whatever crossed his mind. Quick to complain, quick to argue, quick to take offense.

  But if these things were true, then it was true also that the ignorance and foolishness he boasted of did not gall him, for he was always willing to turn his hand and eye to any new thing with eagerness and joy. And if he wrestled with the Wild Magic, then he did so in love, for many times since he had come to them its wisdom had spoken through him to save the Nalzindar from such trials as their new home might set before them. As quick as he was to argue, he was as quick to turn away from an argument. If he took offense quickly, he was just as quick to forgive. And if he complained constantly, Shaiara had quickly realized that it was either about trivial matters that he could set right himself—cold tea or a wrinkled sleeping mat—or of matters so vast that no one could change them at all, such as the desert heat or the brightness of the sun. And so it was that she would take the two of them where it was that they must go, even though it was upon a journey whose road would only run in one direction.

  IT was eight days now since the disappearance of the Star-Crowned. Shaiara had already explained that they must expect to travel by night as much as they could. Merely to survive day in the Barahileth was achievement enough, without moving as well. And so it was that as soon as night fell, the Nalzindar roused their ill-tempered, sleepy shotors from their rest to prepare them for their journey. They could have left any time in the last sennight, but Shaiara had been waiting for the dark of the moon. She did not know that people watched over the desert by night—but she did not know that they did not. The day had been spent in preparation: striking the tent they would take, choosing the rugs and the mats, preparing the last of the provisions. Now Harrier went with Shaiara up and down the line of animals as they were made ready for the journey, running his hands over their harness, asking quiet questions.

  “Wait,” Harrier said, seeing the four shotors saddled for riding and waiting at the head of the line. “One each for you, me, and Tiercel. Who else?”

  Even though his face and body plainly showed his distress and confusion, he kept his voice low, for they stood just inside the entrance to the underground city, barely far enough down the passageway that the glow of the Coldfire by which they worked could not be seen from the outside world.

  Just then Tiercel and Ciniran arrived. They were both dressed for travel, and Ciniran carried her hunting bow and a good supply of arrows. Hunting arrows, with tips of fire-hardened wood, were the one thing that the Nalzindar had in abundant supply here in Abi’Abadshar, for there were many birds whose feathers they could use to fletch the tips, and much wood to make shafts.

  “No,” Harrier said flatly. “Look, Noble’dy. It’s bad enough that—”

  “I tried—” Tiercel said.

  Shaiara cut them both off. “Do you mean me to do all the work of the camp by myself? To set a tent is not the work of one pair of hands. Can you aid me?” she demanded of Tiercel. “Can you?” she asked of Harrier.

  “I can learn,” Harrier answered hotly.

  “Not quickly enough to save us from death. When we come to the place of fire, the army of Zanattar will be there, so we must believe. You cannot convince them that you were born to the tent of any tribe, nor can Tiercel, and all will wish to know who you are and how you have come there.”

  “Well, we’ll, uh—” Harrier said. His halting speech only confirmed Shaiara’s suspicion: if he had possessed any magic that he could use to turn away distrust, he would have told her of it now.

  “Your women will speak for you. It is—just barely—possible that will succeed. But if you travel with only one woman, it will not. The time would come when one of you must speak. And then we will all die. I shall tell anyone who asks that I am your sister,” she announced to Harrier. “That way I may strike you as much as pleases me.”

  She saw him blink in surprise, and then the corner of his mouth quirked in the odd smile of the northern people. “Yeah, well, won’t people think you being my sister’s a little odd, considering I don’t look a thing like you?” he said after a moment.

  “Does anyone see your face clearly enough to remark such a thing, we are all dead twice over,” Shaiara said simply. “Come. I shall show you how your chadar must be tied.”

  Until now, neither Tiercel nor Harrier had yet troubled himself with the headscarf that was a habitual item of Isvaieni dress—even for the Nalzindar here in Abi’
Abadshar, where so many of them no longer went out beneath the sun at all. Now Shaiara took the long scarf of thin fine wool—as wide as her arm was long and as long as a tall man—and showed Harrier how to wrap and tuck and tie it, and then to pull it forward at the top far enough so that his eyes were in shadow. It would hide his hair, his eyes, the northern shape of his face—and besides concealing him from his enemies, it would do all that it was meant to do, and protect him from the cold of the desert by night and the glare and dust of the desert by day. Should the wind rise, he could pull its folds over his nose and mouth as well. Behind her, Ciniran was performing the same function for Tiercel.

  “Don’t do this, Shaiara,” Harrier said softly. “It’s bad enough that you have to go with us. I know we won’t get there alive without help. Can’t Ciniran stay here?”

  She looked up at him, and his eyes were pleading. Suddenly it was in Shaiara’s mind, sharp like a knife, that when she had led her people to Abi’Abadshar, she had led them knowing that all would not survive the journey. But she had faced the same dangers they had. And the alternative was death for all. It was different, in a way she did not quite understand, from choosing one from among many—casually, as she had chosen Ciniran—and asking that one if they would accompany her upon a journey where death was not merely possible, but certain. And Shaiara was asking that one to die not for the tribe, or even for the Isvaieni, but for many people far away. But Harrier, she saw, had that knowledge in his heart already—the knowledge of what it was to offer up lives to that large distant thing, simply because it must be so.

  “It is as I have said,” she answered, and the words were iron on her tongue. “This is a task too large for my hands alone.”

  He sighed deeply, but she saw him accept the truth of her words. It was as if he bowed to the burden of a heavy pack. For a moment her eyes grew thoughtful, contemplating the days ahead, and the possibility they might win through to their goal. There were many more men Tiercel’s size among the Isvaieni than there were Harrier’s. And the Isvaieni carried the geschak and the awardan—not the crossed swords Harrier wore upon his back. It would not be a simple matter to convince anyone that Harrier was Isvaieni.