Phoenix in Shadow

by Ryk E. Spoor

  She squeezed back, still looking depressed, then sighed. “It is, sometimes. Especially when people are looking at me like I know all the answers, like I’m something . . . holy, when I know I’m not really any different from them.”

  “You sometimes ride a fine line between humility and self-denial,” Hiriista said dryly. “But yes, I see the pressure, and it is understandable.”

  “Plus all of us having to watch ourselves around Miri—whenever she isn’t out somewhere else—just puts more strain on everyone,” Poplock pointed out. “Especially since we have to act like we’re not watching ourselves.”

  “I hate doing that,” Kyri muttered. “She’s such a . . .”

  “I know. There seems to be nothing to suspect in her, yet we can’t ignore the possibility.”

  “After all,” Hiriista said, “you’re perfectly nice people and you’re fooling her into thinking you have no possible suspicion. It would be exceedingly unwise of us to assume that she is incapable of equal or greater duplicity, especially since she is one of the Lights, and by all accounts the favorite of Lady Shae herself. If anyone in Kaizatenzei is capable of playing a part to perfection, it would be Miri.”

  “Or you,” Poplock said.

  “Or me, yes,” agreed the reptilian magewright.

  “I suppose,” Tobimar said, thoughtfully, “that if there were several factions of what we would consider enemies, then you could be an agent of one faction and the Unity Guard mostly on the side of another. But that’s pretty far-fetched, especially with what we’ve seen and heard in the main cities. That kind of infighting would cause other problems, and it really seemed that problems of any significant kind were rare.”

  “It is,” agreed Hiriista. “In fact, I find it quite astonishing that we have seen so many problems—and serious ones—along the way.”

  Poplock squinted at him. “And do you think there’s a reason?”

  Hiriista was silent in thought for a few moments. Tobimar took the opportunity to look around at the lush forest. The marshlands that had surrounded the Necklace all the way past the “V” intersection with the other branch of the Necklace had finally faded into solid forest and the feel of rightness was strengthening; the trees were arrow-straight, their bark unblemished, the leaves brilliant green, with flowers of a thousand hues scattered about the foliage below. The calming hum of bees at work pervaded the air. For those few moments, he simply enjoyed walking with Kyri, holding her hand, as though they were merely out to enjoy the view.

  “I do,” Hiriista said after a moment. “Coincidence can only be taken so far, and in a normal patrol along the Necklace I would expect only one such incident, not the half-dozen we have dealt with. Yet . . . I cannot think of what purpose this would serve, or how so many diverse challenges could be prepared in such a manner as to raise no suspicion among the people most involved, and timed so perfectly that our small party alone was the only group to be called in to resolve the issue.”

  Tobimar glanced at Poplock, who shrugged. “We can’t figure it out, either. But at least it’s worth thinking about.”

  “Oh, I assure you I am thinking about it, and will continue to think about it until I have resolved the problem. I do not like unsolved mysteries.”

  “Hellooooooo!”

  The call was distant, but there was no mistaking the high, clear voice or the glittering blue-crystal armor on the figure that was fast approaching—from, to Tobimar’s surprise, in front of them.

  “Oh, drought,” Poplock cursed. “Back to the silent stupid Toad. And she’ll be babytalking me! And want to keep me on her shoulder!”

  “Ahh, the torments you must suffer,” muttered Tobimar, perhaps not with a terribly sympathetic tone in his voice.

  “You try it sometime!”

  “I can’t fit on her shoulder.”

  The Toad gave him a wrinkle-faced glare. “Bah. Talk to you all later.”

  The little Light covered the distance in mere moments and threw herself onto Kyri, who looked startled but not distressed; after that moment of surprise, Kyri returned Miri’s hug, and then Miri bounced over and gave a quicker but still emphatic hug to Tobimar, grabbing up Poplock and giving him a kiss between his golden eyes and setting him on her shoulder—as the Toad had predicted—before clasping hands with Hiriista. “Oh, you’re all here so soon! I mean, I knew you would make good time, but I never thought you’d have already gotten this far from Kalatenzei.”

  “We were trying to make up some lost time,” Kyri said, and Tobimar saw she couldn’t keep a fond smile from her face. If Miri does turn out to be an enemy, it’s going to hurt Kyri most of all. “I guess we were doing pretty well.”

  “Pretty well? Amazing. I’m glad that I got out when I did.”

  “Got out?”

  She grinned, blue eyes dancing. “Oh, yes. Just in time, too. You’re closer to the end of your journey than you think.”

  Tobimar had been wondering if he should start looking for camping spots; at that remark, his attention was riveted back on Miri. “We’re that close?”

  She pointed. “See the hill a ways off there? Reach that hill, and from the top you shall first see Sha Kaizatenzei Valatar, greatest city of the world.”

  Remembering Zarathanton, with its five hundred foot eternal walls, towers stretching a mile and more into the heavens, and a thousand species of people living, working, and playing within those walls, Tobimar had to be a bit doubtful. Still, the idea of reaching the end of this part of their journey was exciting in and of itself. “Then let’s go!”

  They all hastened their pace (except of course Poplock, who simply held on). “Are we expected, then?” Kyri asked.

  “You’ve been vaguely expected for weeks, but specific preparations aren’t yet finalized. You’ll be brought to the Valatar Throne directly, of course—Lady Shae’s directives were very clear on that—but as to other proper welcoming for such unique guests, well, that will take a bit more time.”

  Tobimar caught Kyri’s eye-roll towards the heavens. Yes, it does sound like we’re going to be caught in more formality and speechmaking. Poor Kyri. At least I was raised with the idea that I’d be a governor of one of the cities of Skysand, possibly even the Lord of Waters, so diplomacy and meetings and formality are pretty much in my blood. Kyri never had that much of it, even though her people were Eyes of the Watchland; Evanwyl’s too small to really support that much formality.

  “But our friends have their own urgent reason for their journey,” Hiriista said. “I hope there is no plan to waste overmuch of their time on empty formalities.”

  “I’ll try to keep Lady Shae reminded of that. But if I understand correctly, Phoenix, you are indeed a representative of your own country? And Tobimar as well?”

  Tobimar felt a small shock in his gut. We’d tried to hide that aspect . . . But even as he thought it, he realized that side comments in their story would have revealed that he had considerable rank and station, even if they had managed to avoid revealing exactly where that rank and station came from.

  “Er . . . I suppose I could be called that, yes,” Kyri said after a pause. “The Watchland’s Eyes have served as emissaries and ambassadors on occasion.”

  Can’t contradict what we’ve already said. But that doesn’t mean I can’t do a bit of dodging. “Technically I am in exile,” said Tobimar, “but not a dishonorable one, and certainly that makes me a representative of my country by blood and tradition, even if one who cannot at this time escort you or your own representatives to my homeland.”

  Miri laughed and gave an apologetic shrug. “Then I am sorry, but there will be only so much I can do. Remember, we’ve had no contact with anyone beyond what you call Moonshade Hollow since our records began. You’re all too important as symbols and contacts for us to not formally welcome and try to establish relations with.”

  Tobimar shook his head and looked sympathetically at Kyri. “Sorry, Phoenix.”

  Inside he was more tense. We know for a fact that
Miri’s wrong; there’s been contact with something in our part of the world for a long, long time; leaving aside Thornfalcon’s secret weapon, the language proves it. And it’s pretty much guaranteed that whoever or whatever it is has to be somewhere in their capital city.

  Then they crested the hill; even before then, Tobimar realized he was seeing something in the sky, but only as they reached the top did it dawn on him what that something was.

  For long moments Tobimar was only conscious of staring, his mouth half open.

  Sha Kaizatenzei Valatar lay before them, less than five miles distant. The city walls were pure white, fifty feet or more in height, surrounding a perfect circle two miles in diameter. But those walls looked tiny, a mere line of snow-brightness around an assembly of delicate, shining constructs that soared into the air, floating, held down—or supported?—by spiraling crystalline threads.

  In the center, a Tower stretched into the sky so high that the wisps of cloud in the blue were drifting below the Tower’s apex, which shone with a spark of polychromatic brilliance, a Tower shimmering like a tracery of frost and a dusting of rainbow against the endless blue of the heights and the deeper blue of the great Lake behind, a Tower so slender that it looked like a single stalk of wheat thousands of feet high, growing from a building like a closed flower, with arching traceries of gold and silver surrounding crystal and marble curves dotted with windows.

  Bridges as thin as dreams connected the high buildings across the city, bridges with no supports that arched half a mile and more across the sky. Below, Sha Kaizatenzei Valatar sparkled, a thousand handfuls of gem-dust sprinkled in a perfectly arranged wheel, radiating out from that central Tower.

  Tobimar finally closed his mouth, then bowed low to Miri. “I must beg your pardon, Light Miri,” he said.

  She blinked in surprise, though her smile at their astonishment could not be hidden. “My pardon? For what?”

  “For our doubts,” Kyri replied, bowing herself.

  “We have seen many cities,” Tobimar said, unable to keep his eyes from the shining city before him, “including Fanalam’ T’ ameris’ a’ u’ Zahr-a-Thana T’ikon, Zarathanton as we mortals have called it, and we were agreed that there was no possible way in which any city in this small and hidden country could rival the majesty or beauty or power we saw there.”

  “And we were wrong,” Kyri said, an awed tone in her voice. “For I cannot say for sure which city looks greater to me.”

  “Nor can I,” Tobimar said. “So we beg your pardon for having doubted you. If Sha Kaizatenzei Valatar is not the greatest city in the world, it is surely a close-run race indeed.”

  Miri laughed and clapped her hands. “You are forgiven! For really, I rather thought you’d believe that, and hoped to astound you once more.” She grabbed Kyri’s hand. “Come on, then! If we hasten, we can take our supper at the table of Lady Shae herself!”

  CHAPTER 32

  Kyri couldn’t keep herself from gawking as they finally entered Sha Kaizatenzei Valatar. The sun was setting, casting long, pink-tinted shadows across the city, and the softening light made the buildings with their impossible delicacy look even more ethereal. The bridges they had seen, bridges which in some cases spanned half the city, were made of polished slabs of shining metal, stone, and wood that simply sat on thin air, with exquisitely slender traceries forming railings on either side. Aside from the railings, nothing linked the slabs together or supported them.

  Pointing with her one free hand (Miri having the other currently), Kyri said, “Miri, how is that possible? I know that in theory magic can do almost anything, but that’s . . .”

  Miri laughed. “Oh, we can’t do that by ourselves. Not yet, anyway.”

  “Not yet,” agreed Hiriista. “I had forgotten how this must look to one who had never seen such things. The civilization that was here before us . . . they had solved many riddles that elude others, and one was obviously how to conquer the rule of air and weight. Within buried wreckage and ruins across Kaizatenzei there are pieces of what seem to have been ships and buildings which, freed of their entombment, could soar of their own accord into the sky, needing neither power nor ritual to do so.”

  “Amazing,” she said. One more confirmation of the legend of the Lords of the Sky. Even now, twelve thousand years later, parts of their ships are still ready to soar. “So you built all of this?”

  “Almost all,” Miri said. “The Tower of Light was here before any of us, and holds the Great Light within it. Its delicacy and beauty inspired us, however, and thus we have tried, as much as we can, to make our city complement and reflect the loveliness of the Tower.”

  The Great Light. Tobimar’s glance was lightning-quick, but she knew what he was thinking. Unless our deductions are entirely wrong, then up there is the Sun of Terian, probably the most sacred relic of Tobimar’s religion.

  “The Great Light?” Tobimar asked, even as she thought that.

  “Our symbol and support,” Miri said, pointing to the shining multicolored brilliance at the very top of the Valatar Tower. “The Great Light and its Tower were here in the beginning, and have endured even when the other towers across the land finally fell.”

  A perfect opening. “I remember someone mentioning towers standing in the other cities. So were there lights of some sort in those, as well?”

  “According to the old records, yes; lights very like the Great Light, but they faded or vanished eventually, and when they did, their towers crumbled.” Miri anticipated their next question. “And we don’t know why they faded; some think that their light was merged with the Great Light, others that it was used defending us from the darkness surrounding Kaizatenzei.

  “But the Great Light has never flickered or faded, and we believe it is eternal.”

  “I would truly love to see it. Is that possible?” Kyri was impressed by how controlled Tobimar’s apparently casual question was.

  “You will have to ask Lady Shae—but, honestly? I can’t see that she’d say no! Not only are you unique visitors, but also you’ve done so much for us simply on your way here that I can’t imagine her denying you much of anything.”

  Even the houses within Valatar were beautiful, though Kyri realized that part of that was the singing rightness which was more intense and pure here than ever before. To her eyes, everything was touched with a hint of light, from the older gentleman who bowed and stepped aside to let them pass to the little girl chasing a feathered lizard—obviously a pet—around her yard, to the houses and even the birds that fluttered by. What must it be like to live here?

  The base of the Valatar Tower was even more beautiful at close range than it had been from afar. Kyri was entranced by the filigree of crystal and metal—gold, platinum, and others—worked through the polished stone of the folded-petal walls. It even seems . . . no, it does shimmer with light of its own. She could feel, now, a faint Presence far above, a power that was not that of Myrionar but echoed the purity and majesty that she had felt from the god when it had manifested to her. It must be the Sun, then. What else could it be?

  But as she concentrated on that sense, for a moment—a splintered instant—she felt another Presence—no, at least two other Presences, in a flash as though a door had abruptly opened and shut, or she had walked past a wall with a tiny hole through which light could pass in only one direction. But these Presences were neither light nor comforting. One was immense, black, brooding, hungry, filled with fire and resentment. The other was cold, calm, calculating, but with dark amusement waiting just beneath and a vast well of power waiting to be drawn upon.

  At the same moment the ground shook beneath them, a faint but emphatic shudder that jingled crystal, set the Tower swaying for a moment, and made everyone stumble just a bit.

  That gave her enough time to hide her reaction. She managed to keep any expression from her face, caught herself and kept moving forward without more than the slightest hitch in her stride. Her heart sank, and Kyri realized that part of her had real
ly started to believe that Kaizatenzei was as pure as it looked.

  But it’s not, and there are dark, dark enemies waiting for us, perhaps within the castle itself.

  At the same time, that didn’t mean that most people here were not exactly what they appeared to be. She believed . . . she had to believe . . . that most of what she saw was real.

  “Are earthquakes common here?” Tobimar was asking.

  Kyri thought that there was a fractional pause before Miri answered, as though she were distracted. But if there was, it was extremely short. “Not common, but not unheard of.”

  She pointed to the shore of the great lake, which was visible down one of the streets; Kyri could see small, disturbed waves lapping chaotically at the beach. “The source appears to be somewhere out in Enneisolaten. You remember there are volcanoes near Alatenzei; if such are somewhere beneath the great Lake, it is unsurprising we’d have these occasional shakes.”

  The door to the Tower flowered open before them, and she saw the entrance hall was as light and airy as the exterior, with arching filigrees of silver and pearl outlining and emphasizing the curves of the almost translucently delicate walls, and marble of many subtle shades—rose, white, violet, shading to aqua and azure below.

  Within were two guards—a somewhat-overbroad man, dark-skinned with a great black bushy beard, and a slender waifish woman with startlingly pale blonde hair—both wearing armor similar in design to Miri’s. The man’s armor was deep violet and indigo overall, while the woman’s was amber and citrine with hints of orange.

  The man straightened up instantly—he had been leaning nonchalantly against the wall—and raised an eyebrow. “Back so soon, Miri? Why, you left only this morning!” His voice had the rumbling timbre of a man who, if he chose to shout, could probably be heard a mile away.

  The other guard had looked more at the newcomers. “I think she completed her mission, Tanvol.”