Phoenix Burning

by Bryony Pearce

  Toby started back towards Ayla. Her trousers were dark with sweat and her lips were chapped from the blazing sun. Her eyes closed in a blink and took a long time to open back up again.

  “Not long now.” He forced a smile but it felt more like he was baring his teeth. “Let’s find some shade.”

  An hour curled in the shade of the sanctuary wall and Toby and Ayla had begun to pinch one another to stay awake. Brothers and sisters walked among them, bending close and checking over and over again. “Are you awake?”

  Leila was the next to fall; she simply curled in on herself, exhaustion dragging her into unconsciousness.

  Adele’s eyes flicked from Matus to Noah, willing them to sleep with desperate eyes. Until one of them slept, she and Adrien were still losing.

  Summer’s breathing began to deepen, her cheeks flushed like a doll’s, her eyes closed and her head dropped on to Arthur’s shoulder. Arthur sat bolt upright, his eyes watering as he fought to keep them open.

  Zahir was awake, but Toby wasn’t sure about Uzuri – she was sitting upright, her legs crossed, but her eyes were closed and she hadn’t moved for a long time.

  Celeste and Aldo were still holding hands. They sat facing one another, their foreheads pressed together, murmuring in low voices.

  Somehow Brody and Moira also remained conscious, singing strange prayers that Toby couldn’t make out.

  With a final anguished groan, Noah curled up beside his sister and passed out.

  Adele’s eyes widened in triumph. “Look!” She staggered to an attendant, caught her arm and dragged her over to the sleeping couple. “You see that, don’t you? A couple is sleeping.”

  Ayla clutched Toby’s arm and pointed. He wrestled his gaze in the direction of her finger and his heart leaped. The sundial had reached the centre of the square. It was midday.

  “The bells will chime soon.” Relief was in her voice. “That was harder than I thought it’d be.”

  “We did it though.” Toby leaned his head backwards on the warm stone.

  “Don’t sleep now.” Ayla twisted the pale skin inside his elbow. Toby barely felt it. As he rolled his head to glare at her, it throbbed with the ringing of the bells.

  The teens leaned on one another as they staggered into the sanctuary.

  “They’ll let us go to bed now.” Summer raised her head from Arthur’s arm.

  Toby hardly saw the opulence around him. He paid no attention to the lines of sunblind brothers and sisters kneeling for their midday prayers. All he wanted was to lie in the darkness of his cell until his head stopped pounding.

  “Kneel before the Sun.” Father Dahon was standing at the altar waiting for them.

  Toby fell to his knees and tugged an unresponsive Ayla to his side.

  “Midday prayers.” Father Dahon bowed his head and the teens began to pray. Exhaustion turned their voices to a drone. “We believe in one Sun, the Father, the Almighty, Heater of heaven and earth, Revealer of all that is seen, and unseen…”

  When they had finished, Father Dahon raised his arms. The sunblind brothers and sisters stood and processed back to their quarters. Toby stared as Morris swept by him, unaware, so close that his robes brushed Toby’s feet.

  Finally Father Dahon spoke. “The first test has been completed. There were many failures, but only one couple showed true disdain for the Orb.”

  Toby looked around, wondering where Mother Hesper was. To his right Noah and Leila held hands, their heads hung in shame. Adele bit her lip and glared at her twin.

  Mother Hesper appeared at Noah’s back. She had been waiting in one of the old chapels. At her order, two attendant uncles appeared and lifted the couple to their feet.

  “We’re sorry. We just couldn’t stay awake,” Leila moaned. “We love the Sun, we’re devout. We had been travelling all night.”

  Mother Hesper nodded and the attendants brought the couple to the altar.

  “As the Sun and Moon are paired, you were being tested as a pair,” she said, and her voice was sad. “Although you were not the first to fall asleep, Leila, you were the first couple to do so.” Mother Hesper fixed a sharp gaze on to the flushed Adele. “You were lucky.”

  “The Sun watched over us,” Adele said proudly.

  “Praise the Sun,” Adrien chimed.

  “This couple has been eliminated. They will not be our Sun and Moon in the festival.” Leila sobbed and Noah squeezed her hand. “However, you all had your chance to leave. Noah and Leila are now committed to the Solar Order, so they will become silent attendants, they will have the honour of working with the sunblinded and in the lower levels among our deepest secrets.”

  Leila brightened and Noah raised his head. “Praise the Sun,” he said.

  “Yes, Praise the Sun.” Mother Hesper gestured and the attendants lifted the pair on to the altar. “There is just the matter of your … initiation.”

  Toby’s head snapped up. Before he could cry out a warning, Mother Hesper grabbed Leila’s chin and forced her mouth open. Then, as the confused girl frowned up at her, she picked up what looked like a pair of pliers.

  Toby lurched to his feet but Ayla grabbed his arm. “There’s nothing you can do.” She pulled him back down.

  “What’s happening?” Summer wriggled.

  “Cover her eyes,” Toby cried.

  “Ashes!” Arthur closed a palm over Summer’s face.

  He was just in time. In one smooth movement Mother Hesper gripped Leila’s tongue and sliced it off.

  Blood spurted over Noah. Leila made an odd choking noise and Noah screamed.

  The others were shocked into silence. Celeste fainted and Adele started to cry.

  Noah tried to run from the altar, but the two attendants held him down.

  “Stop,” Toby shouted. “Why are you doing this?”

  He was given no answer. Before he knew it, Noah and Leila were kneeling on the altar, their hands in front of their faces, blood dripping between their fingers. Ayla’s eyes were pinned on the channels that were now running crimson.

  Mother Hesper dropped the pliers and they bounced on the marble floor with a clang.

  The two tongues lay in a wooden bowl that Toby hadn’t noticed before. Now he couldn’t take his eyes from it.

  “Those who fail the trials become silent attendants,” Father Dahon said, his voice echoing up to the fake dome on the sanctuary ceiling.

  “After blindness, silence is the most precious gift of the Sun.” Mother Hesper raised her hands in a sun sign. “Only those who fail the trials may become silent attendants and look after the most secret of all our mysteries.” Her shoulders relaxed. “There can be only one winning couple. The true Sun and Moon will be sunblinded and trained to be mothers and fathers. The rest is silence.”

  Toby dragged his gaze from the pliers and looked at Ayla. Fury burned in his eyes. “Did you know about this?”

  “I didn’t,” Ayla lowered her voice.

  “Because if you did—”

  “Do you really think I’d have put myself in this position?”

  “Yes.” Toby ground his teeth. “You thought we’d win.”

  “We can still win.”

  “We don’t know what the other tests will be.” Toby’s hands curled into fists. “There’s no way out till the end.”

  “I didn’t know, Toby.” Ayla touched his arm.

  “She couldn’t have.” It was Summer, her voice was barely above a whisper. She climbed unsteadily to her feet. “I didn’t know. I researched every source I could get my hands on before we came. I spent hours with our minister. Even he didn’t tell me.”

  “They’d have no candidates if they told us.” Cezar murmured.

  “We would still have come.” Lenka’s face was pale, but she stood resolutely. “Our lives will be dedicated to the Sun either way. It is an honour.”

  “An honour,” Matus echoed weakly.

  “You may now rest or eat, it is up to you.” Mother Hesper turned her back on them. “The next
trial will take place tomorrow.”

  THIRTEEN

  Toby woke up, disorientated. How long had he slept? He had one arm slung over his face, so at some point the sunlight must have disturbed him. He swung his legs over the hard cot and looked at his cell door. It was locked. Night, then.

  “Ayla, are you awake?”

  There was no answer.

  He moved to his door. “Wake up.”

  The quality of the silence seemed to change and Toby remembered how Ayla woke – she went from fast asleep to firing on all cylinders in an instant, like a boiler.

  “Ayla?”

  “I hear you.”

  He sighed, relieved.

  Then she spoke. “You still don’t believe I didn’t know?”

  Toby said nothing.

  “I couldn’t have known it would be like this.”

  He leaned his forehead against the door and imagined she was doing the same. “We knew we were going in without enough information and we made the decision to go ahead anyway.” He swallowed. “It’s worse than we expected, but … we can deal with it.”

  “They keep their secrets down here,” Ayla muttered.

  “They haven’t any choice. Silent attendants, remember?” Toby shuddered.

  “What do you want to do?” Ayla whispered.

  Toby turned to look behind him, checking the hatch in his wall. It was closed, but that didn’t mean no one was listening.

  “We could leave,” he murmured. “Over the wall and along the cliff.”

  “And give up the mission?” Ayla hissed. “Even if we can get over the glass without being seen, there’s no way off the island – not yet.”

  Toby banged his forehead on the door. “You’re right. Wren might not be here yet. We have to stick it out for at least another day.”

  “How bad can it be?” Ayla whispered. “We can out-fight and out-think every one of these landlubbers.”

  Toby thought of Arthur and Cezar. “Maybe not all.”

  “We just have to stay ahead of the competition for a bit longer, while we think of something.”

  “Right.” Toby closed his eyes. “Are you still tired?”

  “Not really. My clock’s screwed up. I have no idea what time it is.”

  Bells chimed and Toby jumped, shocked. “You hear that?”

  “Yes.” Ayla cocked her head as sounds emerged from the other cells.

  “They ring just after midday, don’t they?” There was a frown in Ayla’s voice. “How come it’s still dark?”

  A figure swept past the outside of Toby’s cell, a darker patch of shadow sliding through the darkness.

  “Only darkness can teach us to truly love the light,” Mother Hesper’s voice rang out. “You will remain in your cells until you ask to be released. The first to beg for freedom will lose the challenge for their pair.”

  “So we just have tae remain in our cells?” Brody called.

  “That’s right. In your cells … in the dark.”

  Mother Hesper had been gone for some time.

  “I don’t see how this is going to be a problem.” Toby was lying on his camp bed with his eyes closed. “I like the daytime as much as the next person, but I’m planning to sleep this one through.”

  Ayla made no reply, but his ears caught voices from a couple of cells down. It was Summer. “Arthur … when are they going to feed us?”

  Toby sat up, suddenly feeling sick at the mention of food. If the bells had rung he had already slept through at least two meals. And he had skipped a meal the night before.

  “Ashes,” he clutched the camp bed with shaking hands. This was more than just darkness – it was another endurance test; the couples were going to go hungry and thirsty.

  Suddenly all Toby could think about was water: the rain the Phoenix caught in barrels, freshwater from streams, even the poisonous salt. He rolled over and leaned against the wall.

  “Ayla?”

  “I heard, Toby. We’ve had hungry times.”

  Toby nodded to himself. Now he knew what the alternative was, he would go hungry for as long as it took.

  He thought of Adele and Adrien. Two meals a day she had said. How would the French couple cope with hunger?

  The Scots would have no problem. He sensed that they had lived harder lives than any of them. What about the others? Arthur and Summer seemed decently fed, as did Celeste and Aldo. Would they suffer the most through this test, or would their own reserves keep them going when Toby and Ayla could not.

  He ground his teeth.

  “Go to sleep, Toby, it’s the best way to get through this.”

  But Toby’s body told him he had slept long enough so he lay in the dark, staring blindly at the ceiling.

  This time round there was no singing and the couples who spoke did so in whispers; afraid of helping out their competitors. Toby knew that Arthur was speaking to Summer from the low rumble of his voice, but he couldn’t make out the individual words.

  Toby licked his lips. Was there anywhere he could get a drink? He touched the walls of his cell. They were earth – no chance of moisture. He touched his door. Surely the cool night air might mean moisture developed on the hard plastic. He had only to wait a few more hours to find out.

  When the hatch in the back of his cell opened, Toby sat with his back to the wall. He would not give his watcher the satisfaction of his attention. Assuming they could see him in the deep darkness that was.

  The darkness … Toby’s eyes started to play tricks on him. In the farthest recesses of his cell he was sure that he could see movement. The shadows seemed to be gathering. Colours danced in his peripheral vision, but each time he turned his head there was nothing, only more dark.

  He closed his eyes tight, forcing bright colours to burst behind his eyelids. That way he could pretend for a moment that the gloom was his choice.

  He lay down and rolled on to his front, covering his head with his arms, keeping his fantasy going, not allowing himself to look but it was impossible for Toby not to go back in his memories to when darkness did cover the whole world – when day differed from night only in the quality of the grey overhead. Then it was cold all the time and the Phoenix had needed her ice-breaker for more than the junk that filled the seas. Icebergs had floated down out of the North Sea and into the Pacific; whole islands of ice that slowly dissipated into the poisonous water, raising sea levels and freezing wildlife.

  It had been worse on land. Even with populations decimated following the recessions, the wars and disease outbreaks that followed the eruption, the food reserves ran out. Those who did not fight for every mouthful died and populations headed for the rivers and seas – there was no power to run water, no sewage plants; they had no choice.

  Toby had been born into a twilight world. Day had never followed night. When he was young the sun, moon and stars were nothing but stories. The captain had navigated by following birds, spotting landmarks and noting the direction of the wind and the shape of swells. And, of course, he had the compass and sextant that never left his side. Some of Toby’s earliest memories were of his father working with his charts and the sextant, staring at the slight alleviation in the darkness that told him roughly where the sun hung in the sky.

  Toby desperately wanted to see the sun.

  He rolled over and opened his eyes, almost believing that if he did so, light would shine in. It did not.

  The hatch in the back of his cell opened once more. Toby curled his lip and ignored it. But when the hatch slid closed there was a slithering and skittering from the back of his cell. Alarmed, Toby rose to a kneeling position.

  “Ayla … is there something in your cell?” he whispered.

  Her answer was instantaneous. “Yes. For some time.”

  “What is it?”

  “What do you think?”

  Toby listened. The sounds grew louder, magnified by the darkness. Whatever it was seemed to be crawling up the walls.

  “Insects,” he groaned.

  “Roach
es.” There was thump from Ayla’s cell and the faint sound of crunching. At least she still had her boots – Toby’s feet were bare.

  “I hate roaches.” Toby’s skin felt as if it was trying to crawl around the back of his spine.

  “At least it’s something to eat.”

  “That’s disgusting.” Toby jumped as something touched his hand. Swiftly he shook the insect off.

  There was a loud shriek from Uzuri’s cell. “What the Sun is this?”

  Screams and shrieks began to fill the air.

  “Fools!” Ayla muttered. “Roaches can’t hurt them.”

  As desperate as Toby was not to lose the competition, he quailed at the idea that two of the other teens would have their tongues pulled from their mouths. Who? Arthur and Summer, Cezar and Bianca?

  “I want to go home,” Summer wailed.

  “Hold on,” Arthur called. “They’re creepy, but they won’t hurt you.”

  Toby smiled grimly. Ayla had said the same thing of the blind brothers and sisters when they had arrived: creepy, but harmless.

  Toby could feel movement on the blanket and his skin crawled. He was steeling himself to brush his bare hand across the material when his hatch opened once more. “What is it this time?” he asked, not expecting an answer.

  But one came.

  “Rats,” a quiet voice said. “Good luck.”

  And the hatch slammed closed.

  Toby hoped the rats were not as hungry as he was. On the other hand…

  “Ayla, do rats eat roaches?” he called.

  “R-rats?” Adele’s screams turned to hysterical sobs.

  “Hang on, Adele.” But Adrien’s voice was as shaky as his twin’s. “Think of the Sun.”

  “I am thinking of the sun. I want to be out in the sun.”

  “Sing, Adele. Sing.” Adrien started a hymn to the Sun, but Adele didn’t join him, she only screamed louder.

  Strangely none of the others raised their voices, shocked to silence by the crazed sound of Adele’s shrieks.