The Enduring Flame Trilogy 001 - The Phoenix Unchained

by James Mallory

  “I can’t wait,” Tiercel said with a groan. He staggered over to one of the benches in front of the stable and sat down with an inelegant thud. “I have to get to Sentarshadeen now.”

  Simera stared at him. “What could possibly be that urgent?”

  “I’m—”

  “Tiercel—”

  “I’m looking for a Wildmage to interpret a vision I’ve had,” Tiercel said defiantly, glaring at Harrier miserably.

  To Harrier’s profound relief, Simera didn’t laugh. And to his faint disgust, she seemed to think it was a perfectly reasonable reason for tearing off somewhere as if your tail was on fire. She thought the matter over for a moment, and then nodded.

  “Oh. Well. You’re going to have to go farther east than that, I guess. I don’t think there are any there, though they don’t always reveal themselves. The Light Temple will know. And if you really need one—”

  “I really need one,” Tiercel interrupted.

  “—one will probably find you. But if you’re seeking one out, you’ll probably have to go as far as Ondoladeshiron or Ysterialpoerin to be sure of finding one.”

  “But—they’re moonturns away!” Harrier groaned. “We’re only supposed to be gone a few sennights.”

  Simera shrugged. “Maybe a Wildmage will find you,” she repeated.

  Harrier sighed. “Well, a Wildmage won’t find us tonight. And those mules need to be unsaddled. Tiercel, you stay here.”

  “I can help.”

  “You can sit.”

  “WHAT’S wrong with your friend?” Simera asked, as the two of them made their way to where the ostlers had left the mules.

  Harrier shrugged. “Nothing. I don’t know.”

  “If you don’t want to tell me, fine.”

  “I’ve just told you as much as the best Healers in Armethalieh know,” Harrier said defiantly. “Maybe he’s just . . . worried.”

  “He kept a cool head with those brigands. He seems very nice.”

  “He is nice,” Harrier said, a little more forcefully than he intended to. “That’s why he’s always getting into trouble.”

  “And I suppose you’re always around to keep him out of trouble?” Simera asked perceptively.

  “Not that it works,” Harrier said, grinning in spite of himself. “I don’t know what’s wrong. Nobody does. But something’s . . . wrong.”

  And it started at Kindling.

  “Well, in that case, you’re sure to find a Wildmage, if you just keep looking. They keep the Balance, you know. So when there’s wrong, they put it right.”

  In that case, Harrier thought, why didn’t one just come to Armethalieh and save us all the trouble of going to Sentarshadeen? “Come on, let’s get these mules unsaddled,” he said firmly. “You have no idea how much trouble Tiercel can get into when your back is turned.”

  But for once Harrier’s dire predictions about Tiercel’s trouble-finding abilities didn’t come true. When they returned to the front of the stables—making the first of what would have to be several trips—all they found was Tiercel at the center of a ring of human and Centaur children. From the sound of things, he was telling them fascinating wondertales of times gone by. And by the time Simera and Harrier had completely unloaded the pack mule and brought the equipment into the stable, Harrier had heard enough of the story to recognize it.

  “—but of course Kellen didn’t realize that he was a great Knight-Mage, you see, because he was a Poor Orphan Boy, and his only relative, the Blessed Saint Idalia, had been taken away from him as a child and enchanted into the form of a Silver Eagle by the wicked Endarkened. And he was beaten and starved and forced to work on the docks of Armethalieh as a slave. And one day he broke a whole crate of Elvenware, and so he was cast out of the City in the depths of winter to starve.”

  Tiercel’s audience “oohed” and “aahed” in sympathy.

  “—and as he was lying in the snow about to die, who should come along to save him?”

  “Shalkan! Shalkan!” Tiercel’s audience cried.

  “That’s right. The magic unicorn Shalkan. And he dried Kellen’s tears and told him of his glorious destiny, and that he was the true son of the Arch-Mage of Armethalieh and the Wildmage Queen of the High Reaches, and that to claim his destiny he must draw the Sword of Light from the Black Cairn in the heart of the Lostlands and use it to turn his sister back into a human girl again, so that she could marry the King of the Elves, Jermayan Dragon-rider. And the two of them would unite the Armies of the Light and slay the Endarkened, so that Spring would return to the world. And now, I think, I have work to do. And your parents are probably missing you.”

  There were groans of disappointment from his audience as the children reluctantly got up to leave.

  “You tell stories well,” Simera said.

  “I’ve heard that one every year since I was a child,” Tiercel said, getting to his feet and reaching for one of the packs. “I’m not sure, anymore, that any of it’s true.”

  LATER that night he lay awake in the hayloft beside Harrier, surrounded by their gear—and the slumbering bodies of the dozen or so other travelers to whom the landlord had sold sleeping space in the stable’s second story. It was comfortable, and even warm, and after a long day on the road, Tiercel was exhausted, but he fought sleep with a desperate intensity. He feared his dreams.

  The worst part was that there was nothing in the dream to fear. A woman made of fire, standing in a lake made of fire. When you described it that way, it sounded pretty. Other than being made of fire, she looked perfectly normal. And she wasn’t even looking at him. Not really. He’d been having the dream for long enough that he knew there was someone else in it. Someone he could never see. That was the person the Fire Woman was calling to. The one who—if he reached her, and did whatever it was she wanted him to do—would cause all the horrible things to happen.

  Whatever they were. Whoever he was. Assuming the dream was real.

  But it was real in some way, Tiercel knew, because even though the Fire Woman’s calling wasn’t meant for him, he’d gotten tangled up in it somehow. So that even though she was actually calling to this other person, somehow he was—or could be—visible to her too. He didn’t think he was, yet. But the moment when he would be, came closer every time he had the dream, and he had no idea what would happen then. So he really hoped that Simera was right, and that a Wildmage would show up—soon—and tell him what was going on, and how to fix it. Meanwhile, he’d just better stay awake.

  But that didn’t turn out to be possible. And this time, when he slept, he dreamed a different dream entirely.

  Four

  A Life Between Sand and Stars

  HIS NAME WAS Bisochim, and he had been born in the Isvai Quarter of the Madiran Desert, far south of the Armen Plains. The Isvai was a sea of sand, harsh and trackless, and one must live by the desert’s own law to survive here.

  The desert held little of kindness, but there was no cruelty here. Its inhabitants did what they must to survive, but no creature made another’s burden heavier. That was the first and most ancient law of the desert, for Bisochim’s people, like all the peoples of the world, followed the teachings of the Wild Magic.

  Wildmages plotted the routes the nomadic herdsmen took through the great dune sea of the Isvai; Wildmages told them when the Sandwind would blow; Wildmages led their herds to new pastures when old ones failed; and when the deep wells that meant survival in the arid desert ran dry, Wildmages led them to new ones.

  Bisochim had never expected to become a Wildmage.

  The Three Books had come to him when he was a child. Like all the other boys and girls too young to perform any more useful tasks, his duty was to guard the flocks of the Adanate Isvaieni, for the hardy desert sheep and goats were both their wealth and the life of their tribe. But Bisochim had ambitions to become a hunter someday, and a hunter must have a falcon, both to take small game, and to drive larger prey into the waiting jaws of the hunter’s fleet-footed Ikulas.
And so he had left the sheep and the goats to the care of the other children one morning and climbed the rocks where he had seen a pair of nesting falcons. If he were careful, and lucky, he could take one of the chicks for his own and raise it himself, taming it to his hand.

  But when he reached the nest, it was empty, though he’d been watching it for many days and had been certain that the young falcons were all far too young to fly. The only thing that had been in the nest were three small books bound in brown leather. He’d recognized them at once.

  The Book of Sun.

  The Book of Moon.

  The Book of Stars.

  He’d stuffed them into his tunic and scrambled back down the cliff with a lot less care than he’d taken getting up. He hadn’t dared look into them, nor had he told any of the other children what he’d found. It wasn’t until that evening, when he had returned to the camp, that he had even dared think about what he’d found. The Books of a Wildmage.

  He’d taken them from his tunic and wrapped them carefully in his best shirt, and gone off to tell his father.

  BISOCHIM’S father was seated at the loom in the main room of the tent, working while there was still light to see. Nedjed’s body was small and twisted; what had once been strong muscle was now gaunt sinew, and skin was stretched tight over bone.

  Nedjed was a man only in his middle years, but the desert life was hard. He had been one of the tribe’s greatest hunters until a battle with a desert lion had left him lamed and crippled. The tribe could support none who could not earn their keep, so Nedjed had learned a new skill, weaving the yarn that his wife spun from the hair and wool of the flocks into the heavy sturdy cloth from which Bisochim’s people made so many things. He was neither good nor fast, having come to the trade so late in life, but the work was enough to earn him life, and the respect of the tribe.

  “Father,” Bisochim said, kneeling beside his father’s weaving-stool. “A thing has happened today, and I seek guidance.”

  “Instruction is the only gift freely given,” Nedjed replied. “Tell me what is in your heart, son of my heart.”

  “Today I found the Three Books of the Wild Magic,” Bisochim blurted out after a long agonized pause. “And I do not know what to do.”

  Nedjed pulled the shuttle to rest and sat back, reaching for his crutch to steady himself. “And is it truth that you did find them, or did you take them from the hands of another?”

  “They were in a falcon’s nest. I had hoped to take a fledgling. I found the Books instead,” Bisochim answered honestly. Theft was not unknown in the Isvai, but the greatest crime possible was to steal from your own people.

  “Bring them here,” his father said.

  When Bisochim had returned with the Three Books, Nedjed regarded his son for a long moment.

  “Open one and tell me what you see.”

  Hands trembling, Bisochim did as he was told, tilting the page toward the sunset light streaming in through the open tentflap.

  “It is filled with sayings,” he said, after a moment. “Like the ones Socorro the storyteller ends his stories with on feast days.” He closed the Book again.

  “Then the Gods have made their judgment. These Books have been sent to you. They have chosen you to keep the Balance. You must read them, and learn from them, and hold their wisdom in your heart. Your mother will be pleased.”

  Bisochim stared down at the Three Books in his hands. He was a Wildmage, now, even though he didn’t feel any different than he had when he had gone out with the flocks before dawn. He turned his father’s words over in his head.

  “Are you, Father? Are you pleased?”

  “Son of my heart, it is a great destiny to keep the Balance. Some men yearn to be so chosen, thinking of the glory it may bring them. But the tales tell us it is the hardest life the desert can send. I take great pride that the Gods think you are worthy of it. But for a child of my body, I would wish an easier future between Sand and Stars.”

  Bisochim bowed his head. His father had never been one to praise lavishly or lightly. “Thank you, Father. I shall always try to be worthy. And I shall never seek glory.”

  “If you were one to do so, the Books would never have found you. Now go and wash yourself. It is time to eat.”

  THOUGH he was now a Wildmage, little in Bisochim’s life changed immediately. His days were still spent herding goats and sheep. But in the evenings, when once he had played shamat and gan with his brothers and sisters, now he studied the Three Books. Soon the magic came to him, and the tribe flourished.

  He could not Heal Nedjed—though he tried. No spell of Healing could restore what was gone forever, merely encourage that which was damaged to heal quickly and well, and the wound-fever that had settled in his father’s leg after the lion’s attack had forced the tribe’s Healers to cut most of the leg away. But he was able to ease much of his father’s pain, just as he eased the hurts of all who came to him, for all the Adanate were eager to lend Power to his spells, and the Mageprices he was called upon to pay were light, and easily discharged. But the more Bisochim delved into the deep mysteries of the Wild Magic over the years, the more he became convinced that there was something . . . out-of-Balance in the world.

  The Wild Magic held all things within its grasp. Life and Death. Dark and Light. All in a perfect balance, just like the life of the desert itself. And something wasn’t right. He knew he had to find out what it was. The time had come for him to leave.

  His people had been expecting the day to come for a long time, for the Wildmages did not belong to any one tribe alone. They went where they were called, across the whole of the Madiran—and even beyond, if that were their fate. Some were called out of the Isvai to live in the cities at the edge of the Madiran. These things went as Sand and Stars willed.

  When he went, Bisochim took a proper share of the tribe’s wealth, enough to keep him alive in the desert, for that was only proper, and he had earned it by his magic. Waterskins, bedroll, the weapons of a Master Huntsman—for Bisochim had achieved this childhood ambition over the years—he would take all these things away with him when he left the tent of his mother for the last time, but these things had been his for many years, as had been his falcon and his ikulas hounds. His share of the tribe’s wealth lay in the animal he would ride away upon: a fine riding shotor, the hardy, swift, long-necked beast, more enduring than a horse, that could go days without water and traverse the burning sands of the Isvai in speed and comfort.

  The second thing he had earned by his magic, Bisochim donned for the first time upon the day he left; the blue robes of a Wildmage of the Madiran, so that every desert-dweller would see him and know him for what he was at once. Their blue was as bright as the desert sky at morning, before the sun had bleached it to whiteness, and they were woven of the finest, whitest wool of the young kid and dyed with the costly flaxflower blue usually reserved for the weavings sent to the cities as trade goods. The robes ensured that Bisochim would be seen, and known, and welcomed at every oasis and cookfire. To host a Wildmage was never charity. It was service to the Balance.

  Gazing down at himself in his mother’s tent as he stood there, dressed, for the first time in his life, as a Wildmage, Bisochim felt very odd and uncomfortable. There had never been any need to wear the blue among his own people, for every one of them had known what he was. And though he had not hidden his Wildmage gifts when his tribe had encountered other tribes in their travels, that was a different matter than meeting another tribe as a lone wanderer. In the desert, lone travelers were viewed with suspicion, and the Wild Magic could not protect him from an arrow in the dark. So now he would wear the blue robe. The color of water. Of life.

  When Bisochim stepped from his family’s tent for the last time, garbed in his new finery, all the tribe was gathered to see him depart. There was cheering when he appeared, but it quickly fell silent. The people he had known all his life, who had known him as a Wildmage for ten cycles of seasons, suddenly saw him as something entirely a
part from them now that he wore the blue robes. He had been set apart. This, Bisochim realized, was how it would be for the rest of his life.

  The people before him cleared a space, and he walked quickly through them to his kneeling shotor. Placing a booted foot upon its knee, he swung himself up into its saddle and clucked to it, giving it the command to rise. It lurched to its feet and he gathered the reins, tapping it on the shoulder with his goad to command it to move forward.

  Soon Bisochim left the only home he had ever known far behind.

  FOR sennights he traveled through the Isvai, seeing no one. The Wild Magic made it a simple matter to arrive at wells and be gone from them before others came, to seek out solitary grazing for Sharab, to call such game as he needed for himself and his ikulas to his snare. If he chose, he could live out the rest of his life in this fashion—but if he were the sort who would make such a choice, it was very unlikely that the Three Books would have come to him in the first place.

  It was not impossible, of course. The Wild Magic was as mysterious as the desert. Who could say that Bisochim did not serve the Balance by spending the rest of his life wandering as a lonely hermit pondering the intricacies of the Balance? Perhaps the whole purpose of his life was to die in a certain place so that his Books could be found by another? There was truly no way to know, and life in the Isvai did not encourage idle speculation on things one truly could not affect. Bisochim did not spend a great deal of time worrying about it. What he did worry about—alone, between Sand and Star—was his growing belief that there was something flawed in the Balance of the World. For if the Balance was flawed, didn’t that mean the world was flawed?

  It was true that the world had gone out of true before. Many times. But when that happened, so the old tales said, the Wild Magic itself defended the Balance, calling up extraordinary creations out of itself: Knight-Mages and War Mages. They were the essence of Light itself—not of Balance as the Wildmages were—and were just as out-of-tune with true Balance as any creature of Darkness. This was why they appeared only rarely, in moments of great peril, and vanished again once the danger was past, for in their own way, they were just as dangerous to the Keeping of the Balance as the unchecked Darkness. The Balance’s tools of Pure Light burned brightly and briefly against the threat to the Balance, giving up their lives so that harmony could be restored; they were not meant to last longer and draw the Balance out of alignment in the opposite direction. Thus the storytellers taught, for had not the War Magic once lingered beyond its time and become a yoke about the neck of its own people, ultimately forged by the Darkness as a blade against their throat?