The Phoenix Transformed

by James Mallory

  It took two or three kicks before Eugens roused. “Get up, you filthy thief,” Harrier said. “By the Eternal Light, I’m glad Da isn’t here to see you steal food from people who are starving.”

  “What . . .?” Eugens sat up, blinking groggily at Harrier. “Har . . .?”

  “You stole food from our tent,” Harrier said. “And then you stuffed yourselves.”

  “I—no!” Eugens said. He looked stubborn and angry and guilty. “Believe what you want.”

  “I believe it’s gone,” Harrier said. “Where are the others? Looking for more? Do you know what the penalty is for stealing food? Do you think I’m going to protect you?”

  “Nobody . . . all right. I suppose they did.” Magistrate Perizel sat up, rubbing her head as if it hurt. “What is the penalty for stealing food?” She sounded as if she was curious.

  “It’s death,” Harrier said quietly.

  “But you—” Kave said. He’d sat up while they were talking, looking as if he had the same headache as the other two.

  “Have so much?” Harrier asked in contempt. “What’s stored in our tent is all there is—was—in the entire camp. It was in Shaiara’s tent so I could—we could—guard it. Now I need to go and tell them that you took it.”

  “Yes, we searched your tent,” Magistrate Perizel said. “I admit that much. But Lord Felocan was looking for weapons and supplies. He—they—took it with them. And most of the wine. But he said it would be better for us if we couldn’t say where they’d gone . . .”

  “So we all drank some,” Kave finished defiantly. “They filled some water-skins with the rest. Lord Felocan said they’d need it to purify the water.”

  Harrier stared from Magistrate Perizel to Kave to his brother. All of them looked angry. None of them looked sorry. You all have to have drunk more than “some” if you slept through the entire attack, he thought uncharitably. But it was possible. They were still drained from the Healing Trance, underfed—like everyone else here—and the desert heat was exhausting. It still didn’t excuse them.

  “They left—and you didn’t try to stop them? Are you crazy? What do you think they can possibly do out there in the desert except die?” Harrier demanded.

  “They wanted to take their chances on their own,” Eugens said stubbornly. “Even if the Iteru-cities were attacked, the wells will still be good, and—”

  “The wells were all poisoned,” Harrier said flatly. “And unless your friends figured out some way to take a tent, a dozen shotors, and a couple of barrels of water with them, they’d never get there even if Ahairan isn’t going to kill them by midday. You are irresponsible,” he said to Magistrate Perizel. “Now take those jugs back to the other tent, put them back where you got them, and pray that nobody finds out they were tampered with until I get back.”

  “Where are you going?” Kave asked, as Harrier strode from the tent.

  “To bring back those idiots,” Harrier said.

  IF he could get back the food they’d stolen, there might be a chance to save their lives. He’d still have to announce the theft. Someone would discover what was missing sooner or later—the chests that weren’t sealed by magic were available for inspection at any time. Suspicion would tear the camp apart. Announcing what had happened would be better than that, no matter what it led to. Even if it meant the others had to die, because anyone who grew up around ships and the sea knew that if you made a rule meant to keep people alive you had to enforce it when you didn’t want to. Especially even then. Because if you didn’t, it was worse than never having made the rule at all.

  But Harrier desperately hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  At first he was confident that it would be easy enough to bring back the five Armethaliehans. They couldn’t get far without shotors. He supposed it was wrong to be thinking of them as criminals to be hunted down, but Harrier couldn’t help it. It had been less than two days since the Isvaieni had rescued them from the middle of Ahairan’s Shambler army, and the moment the Isvaieni dropped their guard—because Ahairan was attacking them again—the Armethaliehans had stolen anything they could lay their hands on and run off.

  No one Harrier passed as he walked through the camp had seen Lord Felocan, Mistress Pallocons, Master Froilax, or Goodsir and Goodlady Oriadan since the first alarms had sounded hours before. He’d have to go ask Saravasse: even though she couldn’t fly, she had a much higher vantage point than anyone, and could see for miles. Since she was still out helping the “burial” parties, he went down to the shotor grounds. He might have to run all over the camp looking for a bunch of idiots who couldn’t wait half a day like civilized people to get things explained to them, but he was damned if he was adding a mile hike onto the top of it.

  The wind was freshening with dawn by the time he reached the shotor grounds. Normally he’d be getting up just about now, but in fact he hadn’t been to bed yet. He was trying to remember when the last time was that he’d been to bed. Not last night. Maybe the night before. Tiercel would probably know.

  Halban of the Kamazan (not really Kamazan now, since the few survivors of the Kamazan had joined the Khulbana, but in the way of the Isvaieni he would be known as “Halban of the Kamazan” until he died) and Tiralda of the Kareggi were two of the Night Herd Guards. Harrier had grown to like both of them a lot over the past moonturns. He tried not to think about the fact that both of them had been at Tarnatha’Iteru. When he had nothing else to occupy his mind—something become more and more irregular as the sennights passed—he wondered if Macenor’Telchi would have liked them too. He thought he would have, and could never decide whether he was betraying his teacher’s memory by thinking that the Telchi might have liked some of the people who’d been responsible for his death. They hadn’t mean to kill innocent people, but that wasn’t really an absolution; Bisochim hadn’t meant to call up a Demon, either. Which mattered more, intentions or actions?

  A year ago he wouldn’t have asked.

  “You should go and get someone to take over for you,” he said when he got there. “We’re going to be here for . . . Well, we’re going to be here a while longer.”

  “That sack of suet can sleep here as well as in his tent,” Tiralda said, with a twitch of her hip in Halban’s direction.

  Harrier thought that Halban might have been big—or even fat—once, but no one was now. Fannas had been as plump as an Armethaliehan merchant when they’d left Telinchechitl. He was as gaunt as any of the Young Hunters now.

  “True,” Halban said placidly. “And perhaps with the northerners gone, the Demon-queen will turn her thoughts to them instead of us for a day, and I can sleep undisturbed.”

  “You’ve seen them?” Harrier asked sharply. “Tonight?”

  “Huh. Only five of them,” Tiralda said. “They came two handspans ago, after you had slain the Black Dogs, and took five of the shotors that I had left saddled for the new sentries, for you know that with all being so disordered no one would think to look upon the sky until the last minute, and who would wish to ride longer than he must?”

  “You just . . . let them,” Harrier said slowly.

  “It is true, Harrier, it was bad and rude of them to steal, but far better that they be gone than here to plague us, so it is already forgiven,” Halban said. “Should any dispute my decision, indeed Ummara Ranurnin of the Khulbana, my tribe now, will be certain to pay the cost in shotors of his own holdings.”

  Harrier didn’t bother to start another chapter of the endless debate over whether or not any tribe still owned specific shotors or numbers of shotors. Two handspans was two bells, maybe as much as three. He didn’t know why Saravasse hadn’t seen them go—or maybe she’d just shared the general feeling of “good riddance”—but she probably wouldn’t be able to spot them now.

  He had a surer way.

  “Halban, may I borrow your geschak for a moment?” he asked.

  “Take it, Harrier, with my blessing. It is a rare thing to be able to give a gift to a Blue Robe.”
>
  “Thank you, Halban. I’ll remember this,” Harrier said.

  The small curved knife was sharp. All the tools of the Isvaieni were sharp. Harrier made a ragged scratch across his forearm and then smeared the blood on both palms for good measure, just as he always did. A Finding Spell was simple enough to cast—all you needed was a drop of your own blood and a sincere desire to find what you were looking for. And he did.

  No matter how many times he cast these “minor” spells of the Wild Magic—spells large enough to carry MagePrice, though usually a light one—Harrier never got used to how between one moment and the next the need to do what he actually wanted to do anyway came over him.

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to saddle even more shotors,” he heard himself say. He walked among the harnessed and waiting animals, threading each lead-rope through the hitching place on the saddle of the beast before it, “I need to take six of these.”

  “Of course, Harrier,” Tiralda said, looking surprised that he was asking.

  As Harrier climbed into the saddle of the first animal, tucking the lead-rope of the first shotor in the line behind it beneath his thigh, Shaiara came running toward him.

  “Where do you ride in such haste?” she demanded, her breathlessness conflicting with the composure of her question.

  “I’m pretty sure you already know,” Harrier answered. Shaiara would have been back to the tents by now. She would have known in an instant that somebody had been tampering with the trunks. And Magistrate Perizel might be a Magistrate of Armethalieh, but Harrier didn’t think that really counted for a lot with the Ummara of the Nalzindar.

  “They are foolish, and only a liability—as they have already proven,” Shaiara said. “They have made their choice. Let them go.”

  The fact that he’d said almost the same words to Tiercel not that long ago—I’m giving them a choice—didn’t make them any sweeter to hear. And he couldn’t really explain why letting the Binrazan, the Barantar, and the Thanduli leave because they wanted to was different than letting the five Armethaliehans leave because they did. All he knew was that he couldn’t follow Shaiara’s advice, and he couldn’t ask the rest of the Isvaieni to help him search. If the whole encampment went after them, he put them all at risk. But if they abandoned them, it was still a precedent for abandoning innocent (if stupid) people just for convenience.

  “Going after them would be pretty stupid after they ran off, wouldn’t it?” he said.

  “And yet you are,” Shaiara answered. “You cannot possibly expect to track even five shotors. I will—”

  “I’ve already done a spell. It’ll take me right to them,” Harrier said. He could feel it pulling at him harder with every moment he delayed.

  “You cannot go alone,” Shaiara snapped, sounding really annoyed now.

  “Well I’m not taking you!” Harrier snarled back. He tapped the shotor on its shoulder to urge it to its feet. He’d never actually tried to cast one of these spells and then see how long he could ignore it; he was starting to get a headache and he felt a sense of driving urgency that felt as if it would tip over into panic at any moment if he didn’t get going.

  Shaiara reached out and snatched the shotor’s bridle-rope from his hand. “And why do you not wish me to ride with you in pursuit of these sun-touched fools?” she asked dangerously.

  “Look,” Harrier said desperately. “We can’t win any of the battles, but we have to win the war—and that means not letting Ahairan have innocent lives, or abandoning people if there’s a chance you can save them, or letting her take people you love as hostages and that’s why you have to stay here—because I can’t stand watching the Isvaieni die but I think I really wouldn’t be able to stand watching you tortured to death.”

  Shaiara stepped back, dropping the lead-rope, a look of shock on her face. Harrier couldn’t stop to think about what he’d just said—he couldn’t think—so he grabbed up the trailing rein and turned the shotor’s head toward the open desert, tapping it across the shoulders until it and the five he was leading moved into an inelegant trot.

  Sixteen

  Chasing Death

  ONCE HE WAS moving, Harrier’s head cleared a bit and the feeling of panic subsided. He knew exactly where to go. The Wild Magic’s pull was like the feeling he had of always knowing where Armethalieh was—but he never felt a driving bone-deep urgency to get to Armethalieh as fast as he possibly could. Reluctantly, he let his shotor drop back to a fast walk. Nothing would be gained by killing the poor beast. The Armethaliehans might not be dead yet—he didn’t think they could be, or the Finding Spell wouldn’t have worked—but if Ahairan meant to kill them, it wouldn’t matter how much—or how little—of a head start on him they had. All Harrier was really hoping to do was to get them back before the desert killed them.

  He’d been riding for only about half an hour, when he heard sounds of pursuit. The desert was quiet enough that he could still hear the sounds of the encampment at his back, and over that, he could hear the sound of sand squeaking, the creaking of wood and leather, the rattle of a (precious and hoarded) quiverful of spears. He glanced back. Ciniran, Larasan, and Thadnat—and three of the Young Hunters, Luru of the Kadyastar, Suram of the Kareggi, and Hingi of the Lanzanur—were approaching at a brisk trot, obviously intending to come with him. Harrier wanted to stop and argue with them, to tell them to go back, to . . . he wasn’t sure what. It wasn’t possible, any more than it was possible to turn away from the call drawing him south and east. South and east. Exactly the direction those idiots don’t want to go, because Eugens said that Lord Felocan’s stupid plan was to head for the Iteru-cities, so he should have gone due west to strike the Border Road—and he may be an arrogant pig-headed Noble out for what he can get, but I’m damned sure he knows east from west and which way the String of Pearls should be.

  Realizing that wherever the refugees were going it wasn’t in the direction that they thought promised them safety added urgency to the pull of the Finding Spell. When Ciniran drew abreast of him, Harrier didn’t bother to say all the things he was thinking. He just tossed her the lead-rope for the spare animals and urged his mount to a faster pace.

  BY the time the sun had cleared the horizon, there were tracks visible ahead of him in the sand. They were heading out of the regh into the soft and shifting sand of the erg. The going was slower and more dangerous. Dunes could shift at a moment’s notice; sand could drown someone as easily as Great Ocean could. And beyond those practical fears, anything at all could hide in soft sand, from Sandwalkers to all the species of Demonic bug that Ahairan seemed to take such joy in creating. Harrier wondered sometimes if making monsters entertained her. He wondered where she went to get the creatures she turned into monsters, or if she just . . . made them up. And all the time, the Wild Magic was urging him to hurry, hurry, hurry, until he hardly noticed that he’d urged his shotor to a fast trot again.

  The sand here at this hour was as white and cold as moonlight, and for a short while—before the sun climbed too high—the tracks five shotors had left would be easy to follow. Harrier didn’t need them and couldn’t read the stories they held—Shaiara had told the truth when she said he was no tracker—but it was obvious even to him that the animals he was following were walking. The Armethaliehans might have been able to steal shotors and even ride them, but they couldn’t get them to run. Harrier wasn’t thinking now about anything but his need to reach them, because the pull of the Finding Spell was stronger than ever.

  “There, Harrier—see?” Ciniran said softly.

  He looked up. They were just cresting another dune, and even though he knew his shotor was as sure-footed as, well, a shotor, he couldn’t keep from watching the ground on the treacherous slope as if paying attention would make a difference to its footing. It was already hot enough to be uncomfortable out here. Not if you were taking it slow and easy, but they weren’t. He needed to force himself to slow down, because he was the one setting the pace.

  Th
en he saw where Ciniran was pointing. At the edge of the horizon—already indistinct with heat-shimmer—he could just see a small cluster of mounted figures. He urged his shotor down the far side of the dune as fast as it would go, and when they reached the firmer sand again, he goaded it until it ran flat out.

  How far away were they? Distance in the desert was impossible to judge. The horizon might be five miles or fifty or a hundred miles away and still look the same, and the shimmering of the heat-haze kept him from being able to judge distance by the sizes of the figures. He wished he’d told Ciniran to wait here, told all of them to wait. He was sure he was going to kill the poor beast he was riding, and it wasn’t fair . . .

  Harrier had closed perhaps half the distance to the Armethaliehans when suddenly the sand somewhere in front of them seemed to explode. Jets of sand hung in the air as if sand was water as the Sandwalker lurched up out of its hidden burrow, the morning sun shining down on its black carapace. Run, damn you, run, Harrier thought desperately. If the Armethaliehans ran in their direction, they could sacrifice the remounts they’d brought—because Sandwalkers would rather have shotors than people—and they might be able to get away. If they’d just run . . .

  And they did run, but none of them ran anywhere useful. He heard the distant shotors’ squeals of terror and saw a riderless shotor running free—straight south—and another two galloping eastward with riders in their saddles. Those two had been fortunate enough—apparently—to be farthest away from the Sandwalker when it surfaced, or to have better animals, or both. Three, his mind supplied. There should be five. Where . . .?

  Suddenly he saw one of the riders fall from the saddle. The wind whipped her chadar away and he saw a flash of bright hair. Vianse Pallocons. The fall saved both her and her shotor—unburdened, it was fast enough to escape—and the Sandwalker was more interested in killing shotors right now than women. It turned away from her and scuttled across the sand, heading for the nearest remaining animal. Fast as a terrified shotor was, this one was weighed down with the burden of a rider, and the Sandwalker was faster. It reached its prey and lunged at it, knocking the rider from the saddle with its improbable crablike claws as it devoured the shotor in only a few bites.