Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

by Anthology

  “I want the secret you keep. I want the secret of life and death.”

  “I do not have any such secret.”

  The djinn held out the spear. “You are the secret. You are an immortal. I will cut out your heart and use it.”

  There was no change in the phoenix’s posture, save a slight tightening around his eyes, and a dangerous tone to its voice when it said, “Take care, djinn,” smooth and soft as woven silk. “For I am still fire; I will tolerate no falsehoods here, not in my eyrie. Speak them, and I will burn your tongue to ash.”

  The djinn readied his arm. “This spear,” he said, “is made from a fallen star.”

  “You cannot kill me with simple steel, be it from this world or any other.”

  “And if this is not simple steel? If it this is from the massive star that fell so long ago and rose a cloud of ash to blanket the sun? When the land was cold, so cold and barren. This spear contains within it that selfsame power, from the endless nights when you were weak and dying. You almost did die, didn’t you? Without the sun, without its fire to sustain you, you are merely a bird.”

  The phoenix shrieked in anger, a thin birdlike keel that drove rocks to pebbles below far them. The djinn’s ears stung and he was momentarily deaf. The phoenix was standing now and facing him, its lips moving, but the djinn heard nothing.

  There was a flash of heat, and suddenly his hearing returned. Flames roared in his ears and he closed his eyes against the brightness. As he blinked black spots from his eyes he saw the phoenix transformed, now a tall waterbird with reed thin legs and dark feathers, every feather of its wings equal to the weight of a human soul. But its eyes did not change. With another wail, it launched itself at him.

  The djinn sidestepped, dodging its razor talons, and swung his spear. It should have cut, but the bennu had feathers like iron. He pulled back and jabbed at the bird’s soft underbelly, just as it rose into the air and grabbed his spear with its claws. Cursing, the djinn pulled it free and rolled out of the way.

  Time was lost to him, and seconds seemed to slow as the world faded to a single moment of flashing steel, sweat, and blood. He fought with all the skill he possessed, using magic and spearplay together, yet the fight dragged on. And as he fought, it slowly dawned on him that he could not feel the sun on his back. It should have risen, but it seemed as if the heat was coming from in front of him.

  It was, he realized with a start. The phoenix was giving off heat. His looked down to find his clothing scorched and burned away in places, but he himself was unharmed. It was the alchemist’s charm that was keeping him alive. The cuff was still tight on his wrist, but it was becoming looser. And the tip of his beard was beginning to singe…

  When he finally he manage to stab the bennu, it was just below the wing. The ifreet had told him what would happen when the bird was injured, and he pulled away in time. There was another roar and a heat and wind that drove him balking to his knees, and when the haze cleared, the phoenix had changed form.

  Every time you kill it, the ifreet had said, it will be forced to revert back to its previous form. You must keep fighting until you have driven it back to its original shape, then you can slay it permanently.

  He lost track of how many forms there were. There were a dozen tiny birds with sharp raking claws, and a creature with the head of a dog and wings of an eagle that hocked fire like phlegm. There was a man, he remembered, with the head of a green bird and armed with a broadsword taller than he was. Its strength was colossal, and when his own spear kissed the flaming blade of his foe, he felt as if his arm would break under the force. It was only through a spell that wound grass tangles through its feet that he was able to win at all. There was a bird that resembled a peacock, in shades of vermillion and orange, with long trailing feathers that stung like acid when they touched him. Firebird, red crow, Zhu Que, Suzaku, all these names, all these forms, and both of them were growing weary.

  He was bruised all over, and had broken at least two ribs. The battle was too intense for him to heal his wounds; he sealed a cut here and there when he found respite, but for the most part he was hard-pushed and weary. Once he received a cut above his eye and when the blood began to impede his vision, he grabbed a handful of grit and rubbed it into the wound. It hurt, but absorbed some blood and let him fight on.

  It was only when he fought a form that was more manticore than phoenix and serpentine enough to be a basilisk that he succeeded in wounding the beast heavily. This form was slow, weighed down by its heavy plate of scales, and he ducked around its sweeping tail and stabbed downwards. It hissed and tried to fling him off as he pulled his sword free and climbed onto its back. Howling, he stabbed it as fast as he could, again and again. He felt a scale give away, and his spear plunged in so deeply his hand almost went in as well. The beast screamed, reared, and tumbled to the ground with a crash, pinning him between its scaly coils. He shrugged himself free with effort and heaved the spear out of the beast. There was no blood.

  It’s over. It’s really over. I did it, I killed the—

  HEAT. Heat a thousand times worse than the blazing sands of the desert at noon, fire so bright he was blind, and a force that threw him like dry autumn leaves through the air, to land at the very edge of the plateau, one arm resting over the edge.

  He would have screamed if his throat were not burned. He raised a hand to his face, and it came away covered with skin. There was little blood: The fire must have cauterized his wounds or burned all the blood away. He pushed himself up on one elbow, tears forming in his eyes against the pain. He shoved his fingers into his eyes, trying to gather the precious liquid and suck it from his fingertips. The salt only fed the burn.

  The cuff the alchemist had given him was broken now. His skin was free to blister and burn, and half his beard was already gone. He was going to die from the heat. It was too much, too much. Then he saw what lay before him, and his bladder released. He was too terrified to feel the cool liquid running down his legs.

  The phoenix had taken its final, primal form, and stared him down in all its infernal majesty. It was a bird larger than any he had ever seen, large enough that a house could have stood in the shade of its wings. Its breast and head were scarlet, the light feathers of its belly and legs shot with gold, and the heavy swords that made up its wings ended, not in points, but in flames. Its head was resplendent: pure, virgin white, armed with a beak that could have crushed him whole. Its eyes were jet and gold. And it glowed so strongly the dark felt like day.

  “You came for fire, djinn. So why do you hide now? Have your fire…HAVE IT ALL.”

  It flapped its wings, and another wave of heat washed over the djinn. He groaned deep in his throat and tried to crawl away. The beast only pinned him down with a humongous talon. He could feel it tearing into the flesh of his back, exposed now that his clothes had burned away.

  “Don’t run, little mouse. Stay and play a while.”

  He felt the claw encircle him and lift him up, almost gently, so he was face-to-face with the phoenix. He stared into its eagle eyes, full of malice. It blinked once, slowly. My spear, he thought weakly, Where is my spear?

  The phoenix opened its beak slowly, and for a second the djinn was afraid it was going to eat him, and then it exhaled, and his breast was awash with fire.

  “Kill me, will you?” it said over his cries. “Kill the sun? You rat, you scurrying mortal, how dare you?”

  Then the fire was gone, and it bent down, and touched him lightly on the forehead with the tip of its beak.

  He wanted to scream then. Oh, it would have been sweet to scream, it would have been release. But the fire was now in his mind, scourging him in his most private places. He could feel the fire stripping him of his memories, burning away the very synapses that held his mental self together, a headache so powerful it paralyzed him, left him unable to move or breathe. And pain, in its pure form, without physical malady or injury. Pain was a form of energy, he realized. And it was being poured into him.
>
  He tried to reach for his magic, but the phoenix saw his move and tossed him aside, and there was a wall between him and his magic, a wall he couldn’t reach, because the fire was burning him, burning him all over.

  And then it dropped him, and he fell to the ground and broke another fragile rib. In a daze of pain he heard the bird say, “Perhaps that will teach you humility. But you mortals are arrogant by nature, it is not something you can shed easily. Yes, I shall have to find a better way, won’t I?”

  It flapped its wings and rose into the sky, circling him, the flames of its wings and tail trailing behind it like the streamers of kites. Then he heard it say, in a voice that froze his heart, “Now what, oh what, do we have here?”

  No.

  He heard those fearsome wings flap again, and the bird screamed in triumph as it dove.

  “NO!” he shouted back, anger lending strength to his lungs. He stood and cast a look for his spear. There it lay, on the far side of the plateau. He thrust out his hand and shouted a spell, and whipped around without seeing if it had worked or not—and jumped off the edge.

  He was hurtling through the air, and the bird was still below him, swooping down on the boy who stood helplessly on the ground, watching in absolute terror. He could see the desert spread out before him, in all the predawn colours and the last stars faint above. The vermillion monster was the only source of light in this desert. And the little boy he had come to love so much, even if he was the son of the man who had kept him captive, all those years. The boy’s scream mingled with the phoenix’s cry as he looked up and saw a glint high above him.

  The djinn spun and slashed his hand through the air and the spear shot past, looking like a pillar of fire, and slammed into the phoenix in between its two great wings. The gigantic beast jerked, and howled, and rose upwards in a violent reflex motion, and his boots landed right on its back. He grabbed the spear with both hands and shouted the spell that lay dormant within the iron, the enchantment he had hoped to use to kill the thing, and the words seemed to drive all the sound from his ears. He felt the shaft vibrate in his hands, and the bird must have screamed as it jerked and thrashed and slammed into the lone spire that stuck out from the endless desert. He had one last view of the desert, in the blues and purples of the dawn, and his second-to-last thought was whether the child would be safe, and his last sight was the eyrie of red stone, tumbling, breaking, falling, taking him and the monster down with it. I hope sand makes for a soft landing, he thought.

  ***

  When the dust cleared, the djinn was able to push away some of the smaller rocks pinning him down and get to his feet. The phoenix was still trapped somewhere beneath the rubble, but where was the boy?

  “Abdullah!” he called, “Where are you?!”

  “Here! I’m here, Uncle!” He was clambering up the mountain of rubble, dusty but otherwise unharmed. The djinn held him tightly. “Are you sure?” he asked, “No cuts, no bruises?” The boy said no.

  The djinn sighed, and turned to inspect the scree of crushed rocks and boulders. He had to find the phoenix quickly, before it began to regenerate—

  He heard a muffled scream and a large rock went sailing over his head. The phoenix pulled its way out of the wreckage, now in its human form. Its robes were in tatters and the jeweled collar it had worn was missing. The djinn’s spear had been pushed down deep, and the star-metal blade emerged clean from between his ribs, bloodless.

  The phoenix staggered, and placed a hand against its chest. “What is this?” he said, panting. Its entire body had changed color. It was grey now. As grey as ash.

  The djinn stepped up to him and grabbed the tip of the spearhead gingerly. “This is the magic that will finally defeat you.”

  “How?”

  “Can you feel it?” the djinn asked, “Can you feel the fire inside you, dying? Can you feel the connection between you and the desert now? It’s only dawn, and the sands are still cool. They will sap your fire, suck it from you, absorb it like they absorb the heat of the sun.” He leaned forward, so his words were better heard. “All the deserts, not just this one. The cold deserts to the north, the rocky deserts to the east, to the west and south and every direction there is, every bit of land, every little rock, is bound to the sword which pierces your heart. Slowly, bit by bit, the fire is dying, choked like a cookfire doused with water. Yes, even the deserts above, cold and black and airless, everything is working against you. You don’t have much time left. The desert sucks up heat quickly, don’t you know?”

  He danced around and grabbed the spear from the back and gave it a violent pull. It came out cleanly, and he spun it hand over hand and shoved it back inside, neatly as a key fitting into a lock. The phoenix roared and arched its back in agony, hands clenching at empty air. It took a step forward and staggered, and looked at him hatefully. Then its eyes slipped past him, behind him, and its face lit up with glee. A bolt of red fire shot from its mouth, and the djinn heard the muffled sound of a toppling body from behind him.

  He turned and ran, knees slamming into the ground as he came face to face with the boy, and cradled him in his arms. His eyes were closed and a lock of hair had fallen over his brow, and the area directly over his heart was blackened ash. It had burned straight through his clothing and skin and muscle, searing him from the inside and damaging all his vital organs in an instant. There was no chance of survival.

  The djinn did nothing but stare at his blank face, till he felt the heat of an explosion wash over his naked back and heard the sound of a final, triumphant, bird-like scream. Gently placing the boy on the ground, he revolved to look at the crater. The fire had been so hot it had turned the sand to glass, and his spearhead had melted to form a depression of mirrors with splotches of silvery grey. In the center of this small hole was a red sphere that glowed dully with heat.

  The heart of the sun, the ifreet had said, it is the phoenix’s true connection to fire, and it will remain for a while after it dies. You must take it while it lasts, it will momentarily bear the regenerating life-force of the bird. Use it to return your wife to the realm of the living. He had looked almost sad then, and had said, I hope you find what you seek. Then he crumbled into dust as the djinn released him from his bonds. One more prison without a captive.

  The heart of the sun. It looked like a pomegranate, but when he peeled open its tough red skin there was only a single seed inside, ripe and swollen with juice.

  It was his. Finally, after two hundred years of dreaming and waiting and plotting, it was his. He could feel the power through his fingers. I can take it. I can take it and become a god. His wife had died in one of his experiments. He’d been looking for a way to live forever.

  And now I can. No one will ever bind me, or tell me what to do. No master. Nothing, no one, will ever control me. Nothing…

  He looked over his shoulder at the boy.

  He turned it over in his hands, whispering under his breath. He heard a new voice say, “My beloved.”

  She was just as beautiful as he remembered, and stood on the glass floor in the silks and jewels she had worn on the day of their wedding. She reached out and brushed his face, and he began to cry when he felt the warmth in her fingers.

  “My beloved,” she went on, “You cannot.”

  “It was my fault,” he sobbed, “You only died because I was blinded by my greed. I wanted to live forever and I lost you for it. But I can fix it now! I can be with you again, you can be with me again. My sweet desert rose, we will be together forever.”

  She was crying too. “I know, my sweet. I know. But it cannot be. What is gone must stay gone; it would be a perversion of nature for the dead to return to life. Please, my love. Use it wisely. The boy is near death, but he is not yet gone.”

  “No, no, I won’t! I won’t lose you again!”

  She smiled faintly, and in the light of the oncoming dawn her eyes shimmered with tears. She began to sing, softly. His heart nearly broke when he heard her sing. It was the song she
had sung for him when they first met, the song she promised to sing to their children. “Is it me, said the rose, is it mine heart you desire? Or is it my fragrance that soothes your heart, or my petals, red as fire? For in the desert few flowers bloom, and we take what beauty we may. And live our lives on the sands, with each brand new day.”

  Still crying, he pulled her close, and held her for a while. He held her till the ache in his heart began to soothe, and he realized his arms were only wrapped around empty air.

  He knelt down beside the boy, and held the fruit of the sun over his lips. The djinn crushed it in his fingers, and the bright red juice dribbled down his fingers into the boy’s mouth. The boy’s chest began to heave, and he opened his eyes.

  The djinn folded him in his arms, and then he was crying all over again and the boy was looking dumbfounded and asking what happened. The djinn laughed and kissed his forehead. Then the boy asked what he was holding.

  All that remained of the fruit was the skin, still wet. He stared at it, wondering…and then made up his mind.

  The djinn put the fruit back in the glass hollow alongside the leathery skin, and recited a simple summoning spell. Small pouches of cowhide materialized in his hands and he opened them and began to pour the contents into the hollow. Frankincense, camphor, myrrh, vermillion saffron and dark cinnamon, sprigs of lavender and vanilla, twigs from elder, ash and olive. Cardamom and cloves, and jewels from far-off lands that shone in colours he could not name, beaten silverleaf, the juice and oils of fruits. He poured more expensive spices and the roots of ancient trees, and sprinkled it all with a covering of fine, white sand. Then he stood, took a step back, and uttered a single word in a tongue rich in magic.

  “Burn.”

  The light from the blaze was reflected and thrown in a hundred different directions by the facets of glass, and it burned clean and hot and fast. And when the flames died down and the coals smoldered, a beak poked its way out of the ash. With a cry wilder and fiercer than any bird, the new phoenix rose, a falcon with a plumage of silver and wings of dusky midnight-black, and circled twice in the sky before landing on the djinn’s outstretched arm. A silver sun. It looked at him with eyes that were now white swimming in silver, and he fancied he saw a touch of amusement in them.