The Phoenix Transformed

by James Mallory

  “This is the Time of the Breaking of Tribes, and all the young hunters are sworn to hold each other as their blood kin, a tie above the ties of family or tribe. I do not believe that your words hold wisdom for the Isvaieni. If they did, then surely Bisochim would be here to say so,” Zanattar said scornfully. He smiled triumphantly at Harrier, certain of his victory.

  Harrier looked away from Zanattar, down at the Ummarai and the chaharums still seated on Ogmazad’s carpet. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Not with Zanattar intending to stand here and shout him down every time he opened his mouth.

  “All right,” Harrier said quietly. “I’m done. I’m leaving. Maybe you’ll all still be alive when Bisochim gets back. I doubt it. You see, the only water here is that lake up there, and that could vanish tomorrow. But that’s not your actual problem. There really is a Demon loose. Tiercel and I were sent to stop her. But we got here too late. She’s free. The rain yesterday was Bisochim protecting you from her. If you’re really lucky, she won’t come back and kill all of you.” He looked down at Ogmazad. “Thank you for your hospitality. I guess there really isn’t anything else to say. I hope things work out for you.”

  “But . . . have you not come to tell us how to fight the False Balance?” Ogmazad asked, sounding bewildered.

  “Don’t any of you get it yet? There is no False Balance!” Harrier cried. “There’s only the Balance! And a Demon! She lied to Bisochim and Bisochim lied to you! Bisochim lied to you! And because of that, you, Zanattar—and everyone who followed you—murdered thousands of innocent people! Because of Ahairan! And now, an army is going to come down from the North. Not because they’re evil! They’re going to come because you killed—”

  “The Shadow-Touched lies!” Zanattar roared, drowning out the rest of what Harrier had to say. “At Tarnatha’Iteru, we—”

  “At Tarnatha’Iteru you survived because Tiercel didn’t kill you!” Harrier shouted back. “He didn’t think it was fair to use magic against you! He knew you’d been lied to!” He locked eyes with Zanattar. He couldn’t remember another time in his life when he’d been this angry and hadn’t hit something. “I wish he’d killed you. All of you. Maybe then everyone here who hadn’t been with you would get the chance to live. Maybe I could convince them that there’s no False Balance, no True Balance, just the same Balance there ever was. And you know, everybody keeps talking about what the Wild Magic wants, and how it’s going to take care of them, and being a Wildmage really sucks sometimes, because I actually know that the Wild Magic doesn’t care about me, Zanattar, and it doesn’t care about you, and I’m not really sure what it does care about—except that I know that whatever it does care about, it’s big, and it’s good. I serve the Wild Magic, and I’ll die for it, and I hope by the Light that you can say the same thing about whatever you believe in, because for an entire year my best friend and I have been trying to get here before the Dark got loose. And we failed. And it’s loose. And Tyr is still trying to stop it, and I hope he can, because I have no idea how to. Not one. And if Ahairan decides to come back here before Tyr and Bisochim get back with help you are all going to die. And I’m not staying here to argue with you about whether I’m a Demon or not. Get out of my way.”

  When he’d started speaking, he’d been furious. By the time he finished, Harrier was just tired. There wasn’t a passageway between the bodies of the men and women sitting on Ogmazad’s carpet, but he stepped carefully over and between them. The ring of spectators backed away to let him pass.

  “Blue Robe! Where will you go?” Ogmazad called after him.

  “Home,” Harrier said. He pushed his way through the Isvaieni in front of him. The onlookers shuffled and sidled away from him, giving him space to push his way clear of the crowd.

  Seven

  Dark Deception

  TIERCEL GRIPPED BISOCHIM’S sash tightly as Saravasse began her long galloping takeoff run. Almost too quickly, she crouched and sprang, spreading her wings for the series of stomach-turning swoops and spirals that would carry her up into the sky. All of Tiercel’s earlier calm was gone, and he was only grateful that everything had happened so fast that he hadn’t had time to show Harrier just how scared he was. It was one thing to tell Harrier that Bisochim had just been tricked by the Dark when Tiercel’s whole knowledge of the Dark came from a collection of ancient histories written about ancient wars and some visions—that were terrifying but still only visions—and another thing when he actually saw the price of dealing with a Demon. Of gazing on its face, of working its spells of twisted magic year after year . . .

  He couldn’t imagine having anything happen to him that could make him treat Ancaladar the way Bisochim was treating Saravasse, or that could make Ancaladar react to him the way Saravasse was reacting to Bisochim. But no. That wasn’t true. Tiercel could imagine it. He’d just managed to convince himself that nothing like that had happened to Bisochim. But what if it had? He’d placed himself at Bisochim’s mercy. By the time Saravasse reached a height where she could glide instead of having to flap her wings constantly, they were already out of sight of Telinchechitl. If Bisochim chose to, he could fling Tiercel to his death and Harrier would never know. And even at that, imagining that Bisochim might kill him because Ahairan had driven him mad was better than thinking that Bisochim had figured out some way to fool the Wild Magic into thinking that he wasn’t Shadow-Touched when he was.

  When Tiercel had ridden on Ancaladar’s back, the altitude at which they flew had never bothered him. Now all of Tiercel’s childhood fear of heights came rushing back more potent than before. He realized that he had his eyes tightly closed, flinching in terror each time Saravasse’s body sank from beneath him in the rise and fall of her flight. The fact that he wasn’t falling, that he was clutching Bisochim’s robes so tightly that if he fell, Bisochim would fall with him, was small comfort.

  “Strange, that one of the Bonded should fear the sky.”

  Tiercel could barely make out the sound of Bisochim’s words above the whistling of the wind. He was shivering with cold as much as with fear: they were high enough now that the heat of the Barahileth was no more than a distant memory. “Flying with someone else is different,” he forced himself to say.

  “If I sought your life, I would have ended it long since,” Bisochim said. “I do not make war on children.” His voice was harsh, filled with self-loathing, and it startled Tiercel enough that he blinked his eyes open, wondering what he could possibly say in reply.

  Suddenly Saravasse slewed sideways through the air. “Fool of a dragon!” Bisochim shouted.

  Tiercel slid sideways on Saravasse’s neck as she shot skyward. Bisochim twisted around, grabbing him before he could fall. When Saravasse banked again, Tiercel was ready for it—this time he had his arms wrapped tightly around Bisochim’s waist.

  He wasn’t ready for what he saw.

  There was another rider in the sky. For an instant, Tiercel felt a pang of relief. The Elves already know what’s happened. They’ve sent help.

  Then Saravasse went into another of her desperate escape maneuvers, and Tiercel realized uneasily that the other creature in the sky wasn’t a dragon. It was large and winged, and there the similarity ended. Instead of a dragon’s long graceful neck, its body simply seemed to stop, and a pair of enormous arms ending in cruel pincerlike claws grew from its massive shoulders. Three pairs of spindly legs dangled beneath its body, and instead of the tapering whiplike flanged tail of the dragon—used for stabilizing its flight—it possessed a curved clublike tail with a wicked barb at the tip. The hideous thing resembled nothing so much as a giant bat-winged jarrari. Poised upon its back was a scarlet-robed figure. It was too distant for Tiercel to make out any of the details about the rider beyond the color of the robes, but Bisochim recognized her.

  “Ahairan,” he said, his voice filled with hate.

  If Tiercel had been afraid before, he was terrified now. Ahairan—the Fire Woman—the Demon—the creature he’d hoped
to defeat by preventing her summons into the world. And now that she was here—and Ancaladar was gone—every single half-formed plan he’d ever made seemed incredibly stupid—

  “She won’t be able to pass Pelashia’s Veil!” Tiercel shouted up to Bisochim. I hope.

  They were still somewhere over the Isvai. Glancing away from Ahairan for an instant, Tiercel could see dune-shadows and the gray of rock on the desert below. Far below.

  Saravasse had obviously made up her mind to flee to the Veiled Lands before either Tiercel or Bisochim had spotted Ahairan. Though she wasn’t his Bonded, Tiercel could almost feel Saravasse strain as she sought to outrun Ahairan’s winged mount and gain altitude. But whatever that creature was, it was faster. In a few more seconds, it would be close enough to attack them.

  Moonturn after moonturn, Ancaladar had drilled Tiercel in spells of shielding and protection for a battle such as this. Shield and MageShield, Guard, Transmutation (to water, to rock, even to air), Discovery, Invisibility . . . and a few, a very few, spells of attack. Lightning. Cold. Even the uses of Fire, for Fire could be a weapon. Tiercel had known only a few spells out of the thousands that a true High Mage in the Age of Mages would have known, but he’d known them well. Ancaladar had trained him for one purpose: to find the creature in his visions, or the one who meant to summon her, and to get close enough to it to do what he needed to do.

  Now his ability to wield the spells he knew was gone. And Bisochim had received no such training. Bisochim was Tiercel’s equal in power, and possessed infinitely more experience, but Bisochim had never expected to have to fight Demons.

  “You have to do something!” Tiercel shouted in Bisochim’s ear. MageShield would protect them—only no Wildmage could cast it.

  “The Sandwind will not reach so high!” Bisochim shouted back.

  Tiercel knew that the High Magick and the Wild Magic didn’t have the same spells to call. He wracked his brain for everything he’d ever heard Harrier say about the Three Books. “Lightning!” Tiercel shouted.

  And suddenly there was lightning, but it wasn’t Bisochim who’d summoned it. Saravasse dodged sideways through the sizzling reek of burning air, falling hundreds of feet in seconds. She screamed out a challenge—the first time Tiercel had heard her voice—as she attempted to regain lost height, but it was too late. The Darkspawn creature was upon her.

  Now—at last—it was Bisochim who summoned Lightning, and half-a-dozen coruscating bolts hissed down out of the cloudless sky, striking the desert all around them, but Tiercel didn’t need to hear Bisochim’s muttered curse to know that the jarrari-thing had evaded all of them. And the fact that Bisochim was casting spells of the Wild Magic so close to him was having its usual effect: Tiercel was suddenly so ill that it was all he could do to cling to Bisochim as Saravasse desperately attempted to do something—anything—to escape.

  Bisochim continued to attack as Saravasse was forced closer and closer to the ground. Tiercel sensed a blast of heat, one of cold, more bright flash-cracks of lightning, and the scent of burned air. He couldn’t tell whether they were Bisochim’s spells, or Ahairan’s. All he knew was that he’d never felt this sick in his life. Suddenly the sound of a woman’s laughter made Tiercel force his eyes open. What he saw made him forget his physical anguish entirely. The bat-winged creature was flying right toward them. It was barely a dozen feet away.

  For a timeless moment Tiercel stared into Ahairan’s eyes. The world of his visions and the real world became one. Her hair streamed out behind her—not fire-pale as he had dreamed it, but dark like banked coals, with flashes of red. Her skin was the color of pale honey, and her teeth were as white as a cat’s. Her eyes were the bright gold of a bird’s. As vividly real as she was, Ahairan shouldn’t have had the power to terrify him the way his visions had. But as he stared at her, all Tiercel could think of was getting away, even if it meant leaping from Saravasse’s back to his death.

  Before he could act on that impulse, Saravasse did the only thing she could do to evade a head-on collision. She twisted herself in mid air and rolled, so that for a few heartbeats she would fly upside down, and Ahairan and her winged jarrari-thing would pass above her.

  But Saravasse wore no saddle to keep her riders with her no matter what aerial acrobatics she performed. As soon as she rolled, Bisochim and Tiercel began to slip from her back. Saravasse twisted upright again immediately to keep them from falling, but she was too close to her enemy as she did, and the bat-winged creature pivoted in the air and grabbed her wing in its pincers. She turned her head and struck at it, but she was too slow.

  Tiercel heard a loud pop and a crackling, like the sounds of a campfire made with green wood. For a moment he wondered—dazed with terror—how he could be hearing those sounds here and now. Then Saravasse screamed, lurched sideways in the air, and began to fall. The bat-winged creature had released Saravasse immediately. It didn’t attack her again. It didn’t need to. She was still high above the desert floor.

  Tiercel stared in horror at the fluttering ruin of her right wing. All that was left were trailing scraps of membrane. Most of the long ribs had been broken or sheared away. Saravasse keened in agony as she desperately beat her good wing. The shattered remains of the other one clicked and fluttered as she thrashed it reflexively, but it was useless. He clutched at Bisochim, wondering if he had the courage to simply jump.

  The horizon spun around them as Saravasse fell, and he glimpsed Ahairan hovering above them. Waiting.

  THE next thing Tiercel was aware of was heat and pain. He tried to move, and was rewarded with lancing pain . . . everywhere. He tried to open his eyes, and couldn’t. He began to struggle, panicking.

  “Do not move.” He felt a hand on his forehead, and the pain vanished. Only then did he realize it had been Bisochim’s voice that he’d heard.

  “Alive,” he croaked.

  “Barely.” Bisochim’s voice was grim. “Had we not fallen into soft sand, you would not be. Lie still, and let me Heal you.”

  “No, I—” Tiercel wanted to protest, to explain about the shields Ancaladar had taught him to keep around himself at all times—so simple and so basic that they didn’t require any power outside what he naturally possessed to keep them in place—but Bisochim had already begun to work.

  Tiercel wasn’t sure whether Bisochim dismantled his shields, or simply blasted through them. All he knew was that suddenly the pain he’d felt before was back, and this time it grew until all he could do was scream in protest and struggle against the strong hands holding him down. Then suddenly the pain was gone. He felt a tingling rush of something cascade through his body, a sensation that he could only describe as “warmth.” When it had ebbed, he drew a deep breath, and rolled to his side, coughing and gagging.

  “There should no longer be injury,” Bisochim said anxiously. “I will—”

  “No!” Tiercel croaked. His throat was raw from screaming and he was desperately thirsty. “I’m a High Mage. The Wild Magic makes me sick.”

  It probably wasn’t the best way of putting it, not when they’d just almost been killed by a Demon, but he was nauseated, and exhausted, and weak. Being Healed had actually hurt worse than falling out of the sky had. Ancaladar had helped him put up his magickal shields, and Bisochim had just smashed through them, and Tiercel didn’t think he could manage to put them back again by himself. It probably didn’t matter, since he wasn’t really a High Mage anymore, but it felt as if Bisochim had destroyed the last of Ancaladar that Tiercel had.

  “The time of the High Mages is ended,” Bisochim said.

  Tiercel forced himself into a sitting position. That gave him a pounding headache and a new wave of dizziness in addition to feeling sick. “I’m the first one in a long time,” he said. Talking made his throat ache, and he coughed, and that made everything hurt more. He raised his hands to his face. There was blood there, still wet, and he wiped it away. After a few tries, he got his eyes open far enough to take a good look at Bisochim. The Isv
aieni was disheveled and his robes were bloody, but he must have Healed himself before coming to Tiercel’s aid, because Tiercel couldn’t see any wounds.

  “When I recovered my senses, Ahairan and the Balwarta were gone,” Bisochim said, when he saw he had Tiercel’s attention. “I know not why she did not choose to claim our lives. Perhaps she thought us dead. But her folly is our fortune, for now I shall Heal my Bonded, and we shall continue on our mission.”

  He rose to his feet, dusting the sand from his robes. A few yards away, Tiercel could see Saravasse sprawled out awkwardly on the sand. She looked as if she’d hit a dune when she’d fallen—saving her life—and the two of them had been flung free, hitting another—and saving theirs.

  Tiercel frowned. Ahairan had to know that the fall hadn’t killed Bisochim. Saravasse was hard to miss, and a dragon vanished at the death of its Bonded. Ahairan might trust the desert to kill him—but only if the other two were dead. He wasn’t sure which of them she’d been after, but if she’d meant to kill either of them, she had to know she’d failed. He got carefully to his feet, staring at Bisochim as he walked slowly across the sand toward Saravasse. Since the very beginning of my visions, Ahairan has been asking Bisochim to come to her, and he hasn’t. Now what . . .?

  “No!” he shouted, just as Bisochim reached Saravasse and placed his hands upon her shoulder. His shout mingled with hers.

  Bisochim recoiled in shock—as much from the sudden movement of Saravasse’s head as the sound of her voice. Tiercel ran to him, staggering and stumbling through the shifting sand. He grabbed Bisochim’s arm. “No,” he repeated, more quietly. “You can’t.”

  “I will Heal my Bonded,” Bisochim repeated, his mouth drawn into a thin line of determination.