Rise of the Firebird

by Amy K Kuivalainen

  She woke, thrashing at invisible enemies. It felt like she had only been out for seconds, but the sun was almost gone and a fire was blazing, Yvan and the others sitting around it to ward off the chill.

  “Welcome back,” a voice said from the shadows. Anya could only make out the shape of a figure sitting on the rock that Aramis had thrown. She couldn’t make out his face clearly but his gold eyes burned.

  “What did you do to me?” Anya asked as she sat up. Someone had placed a blanket over her, but otherwise, had left her where she was.

  “I put up some blocks in your mind. You won’t be able to touch your magic properly for the next twelve hours, and by then, it should have regulated with the flow of the Otherworld.”

  “Thank you…I’m sorry. I can’t remember your name?”

  “That’s something we would all like to know,” said Aramis. All of the faces around the fire were watching him cautiously.

  “Very well,” the man got up from the rock and walked closer to the fire. “I’m Eldon Blaise and I’m here to help her.” He pointed a finger as Anya shuffled over to sit at the empty place next to Yvan.

  “You know this guy, Anya?” Katya asked, glaring at him.

  “I saw him in a vision in New Orleans.”

  “What a coincidence, I saw you in a vision too.”

  “How did you know where we would be?” demanded Izrayl. “Of all the places in all of Skazki.”

  “I told you, I had a vision and I knew where to go.”

  “Really, just like that.”

  “I’m yet to learn another way. Tell me, Anya, are your friends always this suspicious?”

  “I’m afraid so,” she grinned.

  “Good! Very good.”

  “Not for you,” Katya growled.

  “He isn’t our enemy.” Mychal joined them as he came back from his watch post. “If he was, Anya would still be in pain. Besides, he’s powerful enough that none of our weapons could work on him.” Eldon Blaise stared Mychal down.

  “He’s right, I’m afraid,” he said slowly, “though if anyone could stop me, I’m sure it would be you…”

  “Mychal.”

  “Of course.” Eldon turned his attention to the other faces around the fire. “Now, who else have we got here?” They introduced themselves one by one until only Yvan remained.

  “I know who you are, Lord Yvan,” Eldon said. Yvan’s eyes flashed red and he added, “And good greetings, adar tân.”

  “Good greetings to you, Ancient One,” Yvan replied in a voice not entirely his own. Eldon gave him a short bow.

  “Why have you come?” Anya asked. He sat down cross-legged and held his hands out to the fire.

  “I saw you at the same time I believe you saw me. I was sent to you.”

  “By who?” Aramis demanded.

  “By the master of us all,” Eldon pointed upwards.

  “So Anya is your mission from God?” Katya scoffed.

  “Why not?” Eldon’s voice held the sharp crack of rebuke. “Look around you. We have a fairy tale prince and his firebird, one of the Shining Álfr, a volk krovi. You, yourself, was born in Skazki, which means you’re a little bit stronger and faster than your human counterparts are. Not to mention a man with the blood of angels in his veins and a woman who is a gate chooser, a gifted seer and the only one out of any of you with any faith at all. But you dare mock me for saying God sent me to teach Anya? Don’t be so naïve.”

  “Teach Anya what?” Aramis asked.

  “About her power, of course.”

  “I am teaching her.”

  “No, you aren’t. You’re her guardian, Aramis, not a mentor. I’ve nurtured people of power for my entire existence. You are Álfr trying to teach her Álfr magic ways, but she is human, mostly, and she must be taught differently.”

  “Doesn’t Anya have a say in this?” Yvan said quietly.

  “Anya is the only one who has any say in this,” Eldon snapped as he turned his fierce gaze on her.

  Anya remembered the vision, heard his cry of pain. She held her hand out to him. He took it carefully between his own. Very slowly, he let a fraction of his magic touch hers and in it, she felt his truth and sincerity despite the feeling of his many secrets. She knew looking into his golden eyes that he could be the one to give her the answers she needed and so desperately wanted.

  “He stays,” she said. He smiled as he let her hand go.

  “Very well, but I still want to know more about you,” Aramis said. “Where do you come from? What do you get out of helping Anya anyway?”

  “By heritage, I’m Welsh, but I was in Glastonbury when I first saw Anya and you all. I am a bard, a poet, a prophet, and I’ve lived longer than I care to. What is in it for me? By helping Anya stop the worlds from being torn apart by war, I might get the only thing I want and that is to die. It’s my hope that it will be enough to work off my great failings and God will finally be satisfied enough to let me.”

  “I thought it was the Devil you had to pay your dues to,” Aleksandra smiled nervously.

  “Oh, dear lady, the Devil gives up after a while, but no one holds a grudge like the Almighty.”

  Chapter Fifteen - Acquainted

  “How are you feeling?” Aleksandra asked the next morning. The three women had wandered off to collect firewood, even though they would be moving on that day.

  “I feel empty. My magic has been doing odd things since we stayed with the Álfr. I was getting used to it being so reachable in the real world that coming here overwhelmed me. I will need to learn to make stronger blocks,” Anya replied as she vigorously rubbed her cheeks to get some warmth into them.

  “Maybe the thrift shop pirate can help you there,” said Katya as she threw her knife at a knot in a fir tree.

  “Give him a chance,” interrupted Aleksandra before Anya could speak.

  “I’m sorry, Anya. I trust your judgement, but I don’t trust him yet. We have all been through so much together. The thought of bringing in a stranger now…it doesn’t sit well.”

  “Can I be honest with the both of you?” Anya asked. The two sisters stopped and faced her. They were so different and yet, sometimes, they would do something and look frighteningly similar. “I am not…good,” admitted Anya, trying to find the right words. “I haven’t been since Trajan. I’m not in my right mind. The thing with the Groenn Skaer, it has done something to me. I’ve changed and I don’t mean personality or emotions, but something on a deep level, like my foundations are broken. My magic is different. It is more somehow, and that scares me. I saw Eldon in that vision and at the same time, I saw Baba Yaga and Yanka together. I can’t do this on my own anymore. I know I can trust Eldon Blaise. I saw him, felt him, and I know he’s the only one that can help me. I don’t know what else to do.”

  Anya was hugging herself tightly as sharp pains dug into her insides by admitting aloud what she had been thinking for weeks. Aleksandra put a comforting arm around her.

  “I’m sorry, Anya. I will ease up about Captain Crazy,” Katya pulled her knife out of the tree. “Maybe it’s meant to be this way. What do you think, Aleki? Have you seen anything?”

  “Nothing to suggest he’s anything more than what he claims. Try not to worry, Anya. We will figure it out. For now, we’d best get back to camp before Mychal comes charging through the trees looking for us. Then we will really be in trouble.”

  “I would have thought he would ease up by now, soră,” said Katya. The subject was changed and Anya’s awkward confession was cautiously ignored. Anya felt considerably lighter when they made it back to the river.

  Eldon was standing quietly watching the water, his shaggy raven hair blowing in the breeze. His sharp stubbled face looked no older than forty, but his dark hair was streaked underneath with grey. Immortals were always shy to admit their age, so Anya wouldn’t dare ask.

  Something very formidable about Eldon made her approach him with caution. Anya had to admit that Katya was right about him looking like a pirate.
He was well over six foot tall and lean as a beanpole. He was wearing a navy wool military style coat, a faded waistcoat of indiscernible colour and navy blue lace up shirt. His black jeans and boots were splattered with mud and had a green and blue scarf wrapped around his neck.

  “Why are you staring at me, Anyanka?” he said pulling her up on her observation of him.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to. You know what it’s like when you see someone in a vision. It is like seeing them washed out. When you see them in real life, everything about them is so much more vivid than the dream.”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” his top lip twisted. “For one, I didn’t see so many interesting characters escorting you. From what I can gather, you left even more behind.”

  “Skazki is perilous enough with a few, let alone a whole tribe. They are safer where they are.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. They are in a different kind of danger. When Baba Yaga and Yanka get going, like all bullies wanting power, everyone feels the effect of it.”

  “Even so, if I’m not with them they might be left alone for a while.”

  “We should go soon, shalosť.” Yvan joined them, his curly black hair wet and faced flushed from dunking his head in the freezing river. “Aleksandra says the tribe was near an opening to Karelia last summer so we are heading north.”

  “Navigating the Otherworlds is so much easier with members of a world walker tribe.” Eldon smiled before walking to one of the boulders to retrieve a well-used leather pack and a tall rowan walking stick.

  “He is odd,” Yvan whispered to Anya, “but for some reason, I like him.”

  “Me too,” she admitted, “but I like the tall serious types.” He flushed as she winked at him before joining the others.

  Aleksandra walked at the front of the group, her hand gripping Mychal’s. She was the leader for once, but there was no way he would let her walk alone.

  “The air feels different here,” he said. “I don’t know how to explain it. It is if…”

  “It is alive?” Aleksandra offered and nodded. “This is a land of magic and stories. It is unpredictable, but for the most part, wonderful.”

  “When I was a boy, I’d dream of running away with one of the Skazki tribes, but I didn’t want to leave my mother,” he said. Aleksandra risked a look at his troubled face. He very rarely talked about his early life. He very rarely referred to himself at all. Aleksandra had always accepted that the mystery came with the man.

  “It made life interesting,” she admitted, “though children will always think that the grass is greener in the other world. There are things in the real world that I still shake my head at. Simple things too like taking tablets when you are sick instead of trying to heal with nature and magic. Instead, they put poisons into them. I don’t understand that.”

  “The real world has forgotten its magic. Science has taken it and belief in magic or God barely exists. Even when the proof is right in front of them, they choose unbelief because it’s easier,” Mychal said. “Did Baba Zosia ever try to heal real worlders?”

  “No, she never trusted them. My mother would though. I remember going into a town one day to buy something. I don’t even remember what now, and we saw this little boy who had a spirit of sickness clinging to him. It was causing him to have a blood sickness because the evil spirit would drink from him in the night. My mother tried to warn his mother, but the woman screamed and called us liars, filthy gypsies. I never saw so much hate. My mother winked at the boy who was staring at us, afraid. He was smart though, and came to the camp that night when his parents were sleeping. My mother banished the spirit and he was well again.”

  “It sounds like we both had good mothers.” Mychal moved a branch out of her way and looked at the others coming up behind them. “Eldon and Anya seem friendly already. There’s something strange about him. He isn’t in any way evil, but he is very…”

  “Enigmatic.”

  “Yes, that’s the word.”

  “He seems very knowledgeable.”

  “He knew I had angel blood. He didn’t pretend he didn’t know like Ruthann.”

  “I don’t think Eldon believes in subtlety.”

  “I like that.”

  “You would,” she scoffed and then squealed as Mychal lifted her unexpectedly and kissed her laughing lips.

  “Get a room,” Katya rolled her eyes as she walked past them. Izrayl was in wolf form, checking the perimeters around them. Aleksandra, Katya and Yvan were Skazki natives but it was always perilous even without the threat of a supernatural war.

  Aramis had been edgy since the crossing, but whether it was to do with being back in Skazki after so long or the appearance of Eldon Blaise, Aleksandra could only guess.

  As they walked, Anya could feel the forest around her humming with life and power. Every time she touched a branch, trunk or rock, she could feel it tingle in her skin. Her power had come back and as Eldon had foreseen, it had calmed to the rhythms of Skazki.

  “I wonder why Skazki has so much more magic in it,” she wondered aloud.

  “Has the Álfr shown you how to connect with the earth?” Eldon asked. Anya nodded. “Then you would’ve seen all the lines of power that run through the world like a grid, yes?”

  “I saw them in a forest near Budapest. I could feel the forest sleeping around me and the life growing underneath the snow.”

  “Good, then you know what I mean. Some people call these ley lines. The earth has hundreds upon hundreds of them all connecting together like a great net or web. The Otherworld is the same but it has infinitely more of them. They cross over and over like a tight weaving. That is why you feel the power in everything. That and you have had a forest spirit inhabit your body.”

  Anya stopped short, “How did…you saw that in your vision?”

  “Let’s say it takes one to know one.” He was looking down his sharp straight nose at her. His looks felt like he was not only in your head but that he was rearranging the information in it.

  “It happened to you too?”

  “Yes, a long time ago, back when I was young and grieving.”

  “Sounds familiar,” Anya said as she started walking again. “I lost someone I loved very much a few months ago. I had met an Elemental, the Álfr call him the Groenn Skaer, the Green Stag, and he put his mark on me. When I was losing my mind, I heard a call, went into the forest and everything gets a little hazy from then on in.”

  “Oh, dear, and what interesting results came from this pairing?”

  “I let the spirit of the forest inhabit me and then I wasn’t powerful enough to fight it out of me.”

  “Then how is it that you are here and yourself, for the most part,” Eldon asked thoughtfully. Anya pointed at Yvan moving through the forest in front of them.

  “Yvan and the firebird threatened to burn the Álfr forest to the ground unless it released me. Then all was black and the firebird was in my mind and it started to burn until the forest left me and I was myself again.”

  “What other effects have occurred from this temporary possession?”

  “It may be nothing but I found these.” Anya reached into her pocket, pulled out a small velvet jewellery bag, and handed it to him. Eldon opened it and tipped the contents into his hand. He stopped and stared at the three glowing drops.

  “Congratulations,” he said, trying hard not to laugh.

  “What is that supposed to mean? What the hell are they?”

  “You really don’t know?”

  “Of course I don’t!”

  “This is what happens when you have relations with a forest Elemental.”

  “How did…I never said…” Anya went red with embarrassment.

  Eldon passed her the velvet bag back, “These are your children, Anya. Each seed is a forest. Not a normal forest, one that is primordial. A potential Eden is in every one. If the world burned tomorrow, these seeds could terraform it if needed.” Anya was dumbfounded as she tucked the bag back into he
r pocket.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Well, you couldn’t expect to do something like mate with a forest god and have no side effects,” Eldon said. “How does the prince feel about it all?”

  “Yvan, what do you mean?”

  “I can’t imagine he would’ve been happy about the whole thing.”

  “He was disappointed, and worried. He’s always looking out for me and I do the most stupid things. I’m surprised he hasn’t left me alone to be an epic fuck up,” Anya admitted as she watched Yvan talk animatedly with Aramis.

  “I don’t believe you’ll ever have to worry about that, Anya.”

  “You have been here what? Five seconds? You wouldn’t know.” She was being defensive without any cause, which confused her.

  “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. That man is so honourable that he’d follow you into Hell and back with no thought of reward for himself. Don’t even try to argue that point with me, Anyanka. I’ve lived many lives and seen too many things. This thing I know. I also know how rare it is.”

  “Anya!” Yvan called before she could answer. “Yabloko?”

  “Dva pozhaluysta,” she called back and quickly caught the two apples that were tossed back to them. She handed one to Eldon. “Subject change, right now. What happened when you let a forest spirit take over your body?”

  “How good is your geography?”

  “Average.”

  “Have you heard of the Caledonian Forest?”

  “In Scotland, isn’t it?” Anya bit into her apple, munching as he talked. He had a good storyteller’s voice and she wanted to ask him if he used words for magic like she did.

  “That’s the one. I was mad with anger and grief much like yourself. I went to spend a few days in the forest to stop myself from hurting anyone. I was sickened by people and couldn’t stand to be around them a moment longer. I let the forest into my body because I thought it would stop the pain. I was in that forest for two of the lifetimes of normal men before I was made to go back to the land of the living.”