The Enduring Flame Trilogy 001 - The Phoenix Unchained

by James Mallory

  “And explain that how?”

  “I’ll think of something. But we have to leave. If we stay, and something else happens . . .”

  It will be my fault. And I don’t think I can live with that.

  “You’re right,” Harrier said with a sigh. “I just don’t . . . This is crazy, you know. You. Casting spells.”

  “It was just one spell.”

  Tiercel looked around the room. The Common Room was full, though it was only a little after Watch Bells, as close as he could guess. Everyone the Three Trees held was here, filling the Common Room and all four of what were usually the private parlors. They were gathered together in small groups, talking in low voices, trying to make sense of something that could not be explained.

  “Everybody’s really scared,” Harrier said.

  Tiercel looked at him. “Me, too.”

  A few moments later Simera came over with a steaming jug, working her way carefully through the knots of standing travelers.

  “You should drink more,” she said, refilling both their mugs. “There’s Allheal in the cider. Smoke hurts the throat.”

  “I’m so thirsty,” Tiercel said hoarsely. He gulped at the fresh mug of cider, wincing only a little at how hot it was.

  “It’s because of the cold,” Simera answered. She frowned faintly. “It was an unnatural thing. If that fire hadn’t started when it did, I think we would have all died—in the stable and the stableyard both.”

  “Lucky thing,” Harrier said quickly.

  She glanced at him sharply.

  “Is this why you’re looking for a Wildmage?” she asked Tiercel, taking care to keep her voice low.

  “Nothing like this has ever happened before. I swear by the Light,” he answered, his voice a low whisper. “I don’t . . . Simera, do you have any idea what happened?”

  “Me?” The Centauress looked surprised. “A whole inn nearly freezes to death at the beginning of summer—you think it’s your fault—and you want to know if I know why? What I think is that you should go back where you came from and get somebody to help you.”

  Tiercel shook his head. “They can’t. I know they can’t. And . . . what if what happened tonight had happened in Armethalieh? What if I hadn’t woken up?” He looked at Harrier. His friend’s face was grim.

  “There are thousands of people in Armethalieh,” Harrier said quietly.

  “Well, Sentarshadeen isn’t that small, and you’re planning to go there. What if it happens again in Sentarshadeen?” Simera asked reasonably.

  Tiercel shook his head wearily. “I don’t know. But I’ll have a couple of sennights on the road to figure something out—away from people. Maybe it won’t happen again at all. Maybe a Wild-mage will be waiting for me in Sentarshadeen. There was one waiting the last time I was there. Maybe . . . I don’t know. But I can’t stay here. And I can’t go back.”

  Simera studied his face for a moment, then nodded.

  “All right. But I’m going with you.” At both boys’ look of surprise, she made a face, then continued. “I may not be Forest Watch yet, but almost. It’s my duty to protect you—and the forest. You need to stay away from people and still get to Sentarshadeen. I can help you. You need to survive in the forest, and I bet neither of you has ever done that before. Am I right?”

  Tiercel and Harrier both reluctantly nodded.

  “You need someone who can hunt for food, because we won’t be going near any inns. I can do that too. And if there’s something chasing you, well, I’m not afraid of it. You’re a good person, Tiercel Rolfort, and whatever this is that’s happening to you, I’m sure you don’t deserve it.” She glared meaningfully at Harrier, as if daring him to argue with her.

  Harrier just shrugged.

  WITH the inn in such turmoil, it was easy for them to make their departure unnoticed a few hours later. Before they left, Tiercel managed to slip a large handful of silver unicorns into the inn’s cashbox—one of the Golden Suns would have been far too conspicuous—without anyone seeing what he’d done. He hoped it was enough to pay for the damage to the hayloft and the destruction of the fodder that had been stored there. He felt bad about that, but he didn’t see anything else he could have done. If he hadn’t cast the spell—and he still wasn’t sure how he’d done it—they’d all be dead now.

  Simera had helped them collect their gear. The heavy packs were still in the lower portion of the stable, and their personal packs had been thrown out the window of the loft along with everything moveable that had been burning or might burn, and they’d brought those packs with them when they’d come into the inn’s Common Room. Everything smelled of smoke.

  “And to think I’d been looking forward to a hot bath last night,” Tiercel joked feebly, as they saddled the mules and put their gear once more on the pack mule’s saddle.

  The horses inside the stable had taken the worst injury from the cold. The sudden sharp drop in temperature had not been good for them, and some of them were now sick. The animals picketed outside had fared better, though all of them—even the usually placid mules—were bad-tempered and skittish this morning.

  “At least you’ll be able to get a cold one in a few hours,” Simera said, holding the pack-mule’s head firmly as Tiercel and Harrier worked. “There’s a pool a few hours from here. I don’t think we should go any farther today. You both need more rest, and it’s only by the Herdsman’s Grace that you escaped frostburn last night. I know you’re in a hurry, but a day of rest now will mean we can travel faster later. And your animals can use the additional rest as well.”

  “What are we going to feed them?” Harrier asked suddenly. “I mean—”

  “They’re mules, and it’s summer. They aren’t going to starve,” Simera said briskly. “Now come, before someone thinks to ask us where we’re going.”

  THOUGH the thought of stopping so soon had filled both Harrier and Tiercel with reluctance when Simera had proposed the plan, they were both glad to do so by the time they reached her destination, for last night’s unnatural cold had left their muscles stiff and aching. By the time they’d unsaddled the mules and hobbled them so that they could graze without wandering too far, neither of them wanted to do anything but sit where they were. But Simera insisted that they gather wood for a fire, and prepare a camp before they rested. She then announced that she was going off to hunt their dinner, and that if they intended to be finished with their swim before she got back, they’d better hurry.

  “That water looks cold,” Tiercel said mournfully, when he was sure she was gone.

  “Today everything looks cold,” Harrier said.

  “Still, I’d rather be clean,” Tiercel added musingly. “I don’t think I’ve felt this grubby since I was eight, and talked you into exploring the old sewers with me.”

  Harrier snorted. “One of your lamer ideas.”

  “Well, I wanted to see where they went. How was I supposed to know they’d still be . . . icky?”

  “Everybody in Armethalieh knew after the City Watch rescued us,” Harrier reminded him. He pulled off his vest and began to unlace his shirt. “Let’s hurry.”

  Once they got into the water, it wasn’t as cold as they feared. The day itself was warm, and their own exertions warmed them further. Still, their swim was brief, and they hurried out of the water and into dry clean clothes.

  Standing beside the pool, clean and dressed, eating cold pastries out of their packs—the last of their supplies would be gone by tomorrow’s breakfast, but there was no point in trying to save anything, for the bread and pastry would only spoil—it was hard for either of them to quite believe in what had happened only a few hours before. Magic like that belonged in wondertales, not in people’s lives. And why should these things be happening to them?

  It was true that Tiercel had experimented with the High Magick. Once. But he wasn’t terribly important, even if he was the son of the Principal Secretary to the Chief Magistrate. He wasn’t a prince or the son of a King or even a Wildmage. An
d it was true that Harrier was the son of the Harbormaster, but there wasn’t anything remotely magical about that. And while Harrier was supposed to become the next Harbormaster, he had three elder brothers, and, well, from everything Harrier had said (and hadn’t said), Brelt was much better suited to the job. If both of them vanished tomorrow, their parents would grieve, certainly, but it wouldn’t affect the administration of the City one little bit. And if it didn’t affect the running of Armethalieh, it was hard to see how it could affect anything beyond Armethalieh.

  And if—it was the only thing Tiercel could think of—he’d somehow managed to intercept a message meant for somebody else, somebody who was actually important—he really couldn’t figure out why the cold had come last night. Because his dreams had always just been the same vision over and over again. And the cold was something new.

  He didn’t have enough information to figure this out. He didn’t think he could figure it out even if he went back to the Great Library of Armethalieh and read every book there. Twice. He only hoped there were answers in Sentarshadeen. And he hoped they got there alive.

  For the first time, it occurred to Tiercel that he might not get there alive, and he found the idea profoundly disturbing. Almost as disturbing as the idea that Harrier was in danger because of something he, Tiercel, had or hadn’t done. Harrier had almost died last night, along with a lot of other people at the Three Trees. Because of him.

  “Look, Har, I’ve been thinking. We’ve got a good compass with us, and Sentarshadeen is almost straight east of here. There’s no reason you need to go with me. I’m sure I can find it by myself. Why don’t you turn around and head back?”

  “Uh huh. Think we ought to wash these?” Harrier said, regarding their discarded clothing dubiously.

  Tiercel looked at Harrier. Harrier was staring fixedly at the pile of clothing. He obviously had no intention of responding to Tier-cel’s remark, or even admitting that he’d heard it.

  “I’m not sure how,” Tiercel finally replied, giving up. “We were supposed to get our laundry done at the inns. I suppose we could just throw it in the pond for a while and then see if it dries.”

  Harrier shrugged. “Maybe we’ll wait and see if Simera has some ideas. I do know something you should do, though,” he added.

  Tiercel looked at him inquiringly.

  “Well, if you really think you can cast spells, maybe you ought to practice them.”

  “ ‘Practice?’ ” Tiercel echoed in surprise.

  “Maybe you’d stop burning things down all the time,” Harrier said pragmatically. He shrugged. “Hey, it’s a thought.”

  Tiercel stared at him, his mouth hanging open in shock.

  “I still don’t believe you can do it, you know,” Harrier added.

  Without a word, Tiercel turned his back and stalked over to their packs. He’d brought his notebook with him, the one in which he’d written down everything he’d found out about the High Magick. He’d drawn all the glyphs in it, the ones he now knew he’d used so incorrectly the night he’d tried to cast the spell of Knowing. He opened the book and paged through it until he found the one he was looking for.

  The one for Fire.

  “If I do this wrong, I’m going to burn down the whole forest,” he warned, brandishing the book.

  “Well, we’ve got plenty of water this time to put it out,” Harrier said. “What are you supposed to do, anyway?”

  “Concentrate on something. See this symbol—in color—over it. Well, draw it with my mind. Then whatever I’m concentrating on is supposed to catch on fire. Why don’t you try first?” He handed the book to Harrier.

  Harrier studied the symbol. “It looks a little like the Good Luck signs the Selkens paint on their ships. Maybe the Selkens are all High Mages,” he suggested. He handed the notebook back to Tiercel, then concentrated on the neat stack of firewood they’d piled at the sandy edge of the pond. He made a good job of it, standing very still for several minutes, brows drawn together as he stared silently. Nothing happened.

  “Nope,” he said at last. “I think the firewood’s pretty scared of me, though.”

  Tiercel grinned faintly. “My turn,” he said.

  And there it was. Easy. Quick. The symbol in his mind, a shimmer of movement, not a static thing as it was on the page, but a flash of coming into being, and just as it did, he felt an instant where he almost—almost—understood what he was doing. And the pile of wood burst into flames. With a startled gasp, he let the image in his mind dissolve and again he felt that strange moment of weakness, as if, just for a heartbeat, the ground was insubstantial beneath his feet.

  “Oh,” Harrier whispered, staring from Tiercel to the fire. “Oh. Okay. Oh.”

  The fire burned brightly. Tiercel walked over to it cautiously. It was a real fire, as normal as if he’d lit it with coals and kindling. He held out his hands to its warmth, reassured by the fact that the flames weren’t blue, or green, or black. That it was just like any fire that might burn on his hearth at home. Only he’d lit this one with a spell.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “For being weird?” Harrier said roughly. “You’ve always been weird.” There was a long pause, as if he was trying to work something out in his mind. “But the High Mages and the Wildmages were on the same side, right? In the war?”

  Tiercel let out a long breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He’d been afraid of . . . what? That Harrier was going to run screaming into the forest? Pick up the nearest rock and bash his brains out? Harrier had been his friend since, well, since before he’d actually been all that good at walking. He couldn’t remember a time when Harrier hadn’t backed him up, no matter what his moon-addled scheme had been. Even the time he’d tried to make umbrastone (which fortunately hadn’t worked).

  “Right.”

  “So that’s okay. It’s not like you’re turning into an Endarkened or something, like Kellen’s evil stepbrother Anigrel the Black.”

  “And thanks for bringing that up.”

  “We’ll just find a Wildmage who can get rid of this High Mage thing, and you’ll be fine.”

  Tiercel sighed. Harrier was his best friend, but Harrier liked things to be simple. He was always sure that problems had simple solutions. Tiercel’s problems had started because he’d been playing around with the High Magick? Get rid of the High Magick, and everything would be fine.

  Tiercel only hoped he was right.

  “I see you’ve gotten the fire going,” Simera said when she returned. Three large rabbits—skinned and gutted—hung from her belt, and she looked pleased with herself.

  “You’ll need to gather more wood, though, to keep it burning through the night. What you have here should do to cook these beauties, though. Take a knife and cut some green sticks from the trees so we can roast them.”

  She showed them how to secure the carcasses to the sticks so that the rabbits wouldn’t fall into the flames as they cooked, and then they settled by the fire to roast their midday meal.

  “I’ve no taste for raw meat myself,” she said conversationally, as she insinuated her stick closer to the flame. “Burnt is better, but properly-cooked is best. I’m glad you have a teapot with you. It will be nice to have a good cup of properly-brewed tea. It’s just not the same when you make it in a saucepan.”

  Tiercel laughed, and almost dropped his rabbit.

  “I warn you, ashes do not improve the flavor,” Simera said. “But if you’re hungry enough, you’ll eat it.”

  “I’m hungry now,” Tiercel said, watching grease bubble to the surface of the rabbit’s skin. The smell of the cooking meat was wonderful. He didn’t think he’d ever been so hungry in his life.

  “It isn’t done yet,” Simera and Harrier said, nearly in chorus. They looked at each other, and Harrier shrugged and smiled.

  “My mother always said a good tale made the cooking go faster,” Simera said. “That cold last night . . . you thought it was after you. Or because of you. Why
?”

  Tiercel shrugged. “I don’t know why. I only know—I think I know—that it was. Maybe something like that happens to all High Mages when they first start doing High Magick. I don’t know.”

  Simera frowned curiously. “What’s a High Mage?”

  “Now you’ve done it,” Harrier muttered.

  Tiercel explained. In detail. And by the time he was done, so were the rabbits.

  “So,” Simera said, as they ate, “you say that once there were two kinds of magic and now there aren’t except you found out you can do the other kind?”

  Tiercel shrugged. “Pretty much.”

  “Only you don’t understand it, and that’s why you need to find a Wildmage? But how is a Wildmage going to help you understand it if it isn’t the Wild Magic?”

  “I have no idea. Harrier thinks a Wildmage can get rid of it for me. The important thing—I think—is that a Wildmage can explain these . . . dreams. Because I think they mean something, too.”

  “Maybe every High Mage has them,” Simera suggested helpfully.

  “Oh, I hope not. Because if they did, I can’t imagine why there would ever have been any High Mages at all.”

  ONCE they’d finished their meal—and brewed tea—they spent quite a long time scouring the nearby woods for enough felltimber to keep the fire burning through the night. Simera took the opportunity to show them some of the edible plants that filled the forest—and to warn them away from the dangerous ones. Some of the most enticing-looking berries and mushrooms could be deadly—or at least make the eater very sick.

  While it was too early in the season for most of the forest fruits, Simera harvested a fine crop of mushrooms and a few early berries, and by the time they returned to their campsite with the last load of wood, it was late afternoon.

  “Now you should rest,” she said. “I’ll keep watch. At night the fire will keep most creatures away—and I sleep lightly enough—but in daylight, anything might happen.”

  “Watch?” Harrier asked, slightly startled. He hadn’t seen a single living soul on their way here—and every forest creature had fled their (admittedly noisy) approach.