The Phoenix Grail

by Helen Savore

  “You have… no idea,” he panted in between touches, “how long I’ve imagined this.” He even surprised himself. Putting lips to her brought back memories he’d forgotten from all the way back in secondary school. Perhaps he’d always wanted her, just a little bit.

  She beamed and slid her hands under his jersey, wiggling it up as she caressed his flat stomach, then his chest.

  He pulled away as she wrestled his jersey off.

  Now relieved of his shirt, he felt the slightly cool autumn air and Drea’s firm little body pressing against his. His mind reveled in the supple touch of a female and he closed his eyes as he went in for another kiss.

  Something crushed his throat.

  His eyes flew open as he tried to breathe. A tentacle held his throat, coming out of Drea’s arm.

  “Did you imagine it like this?” the not-Drea said. Its voice sounded less and less like Drea, slippery echoes surrounded the deepening sounds.

  Jamie clawed at the tentacle thing, trying to pry it loose. No, the phantoms were done. No hallucinations, no trouble, just life. Some air must have gotten through because he was still thrashing, but it wasn’t as much as he would have liked.

  “Stop struggling, I need to take this limb back at some point, you know.” The creature glanced about and made a few swift motions with it’s free hand. “Ah, trees oblige?”

  Branches shot out, twining around Jamie’s wrists and ankles.

  “No, I do not think you did, which is too bad. We could have a lot of fun like this.” The creature withdrew its tentacle, and it reverted to Alexandrea’s arm.

  Jamie wheezed, getting air into his system. If he hadn’t been he’d be crying. He thought it couldn’t get worse, but this was terrifying and terrible.

  “Do not worry. I will not choke you yet. That was merely to get your attention. No, we have things to talk about, you and I.” The creature drew a sleek metallic pipe from behind her back and twirled it.

  Jamie struggled against the tree limbs. Now that he had an air supply again, his mouth turned to swearing. He didn't want to get hit by that thing. Through his wobbliness he managed to kick free from one of the restraints. Before the Alexandrea-creature could blink, he tore away and reached for her. “What are you?”

  Unfortunately, a tug jerked him back. A thicker tree had grabbed him.

  “You do not want to know.” Its voice dropped octaves on the last word as tree limbs crawled further up his arms. “You should avoid our kind.”

  “You bothered me!” Jamie twisted in his binds. “You keep attacking me. I want nothing to do with your kind, whatever you are. Leave me alone!”

  The figure shook her head at him and advanced closer. “Whether you know it or not, you have, Jamie. You suspect. It is in your eyes, you see things others do not. Then, you pursue the Phoenix Sparked heir.”

  She slapped the pipe into her hand.

  Jamie eyed it. Maybe it wasn’t a pipe, but he couldn’t place what it was. Besides solid enough to hurt. “I don’t know anyone from Phoenix! Or the States for that matter.”

  She rose to face him. “You do. Look at me.” She pointed towards the weird twisting necklace Drea used to wear. The one that he found broken and stabbing her neck after the sinkhole. “This is her sigil.”

  He growled and spat at the creature. “How dare you bring her into this.” Jamie’s eyes swelled; he was so frustrated. Even though he knew that whatever new vision came would pass, the fact that it had interrupted him and Drea… “You ruined something. You suggest my oldest friend is a monster?” Jamie shook his head. “No. I don’t believe you.”

  He ground his teeth, because as he said his words he realized it might be true. Drea was such a loner now, so who knew what she saw? There was that phantom that had hovered near her when they were in the middle of her store wreckage. No, he did not want this awful creature to be right, even if it was plausible. A small selfish part of him wished he could share this curse with someone, but that was wrong. He didn’t want anyone else to go through this.

  “Get your prattling done, I want this vision over.”

  The thing grinned unnaturally wide, showing teeth, skull, and jawbone. It twirled the pipe and thwacked his belly.

  Jamie screamed. The pipe didn’t feel right, not that he was hit with pipes that often. It wasn’t only a punch to his gut—it crackled, arcing over his skin, burning.

  “You aren’t here,” he mumbled through a gasp. “This isn’t happening.”

  The creature’s pipe burst into fire. She dropped it beneath him and wandered around the clearing, gathering sticks.

  Ash trickled into Jamie’s nose. “It’s a trick of my mind somehow. I understand now,” Jamie said, becoming more frantic as events didn't revert to reality. The fire underneath him was too real. “You aren’t here, I know it. What is the point of this? Please stop.” He jutted his chin out and bared his teeth. “Get out of my world.”

  He heard a rustle. Apparently so did the creature.

  “What now?” its voice curled into a high-pitched whine.

  “Jai-mee?”

  “Over here!” he yelled. “Past the… trees?” He had no idea how to describe where he was.

  “Oh no,” the creature said, and slapped him. “And I thought we were making such good progress.”

  Before she could go any farther, a new figure burst onto the scene.

  Or more rightly, an old one.

  Alexandrea.

  “Jamie! What's going on? Rhys saw you run off this way, I’m sorry I-” Her eyes fell on the creature.

  “You,” it hissed.

  “What are you?” Alexandrea gasped and took a step back.

  The creature looked to Jamie and back to her. “You play coy in front of your friend? You cannot hide our presence forever. It is not your place to decide the disposition of Earth.” It poised to jump. “I shall rid my Master of your pesky existence.”

  Jamie pulled at his restraints. “Drea!”

  A quiet part of his brain told him it would revert soon, and all would be well. This might not even be Drea, but another part of the vision.

  Alexandrea waved her arms, but did not move.

  “Drea, run!”

  She glanced at him, and her face was draped in fear. Tears pooled in her eyes.

  The creature lunged, but it must have over-judged its step. It fell down, almost like it was repelled from Drea.

  Still twirling her arms, she approached the creature.

  Jamie couldn't contain himself. “Not closer, farther! Get away!”

  Drea reached a quivering hand out. The air crackled around it. Did the creature have a shield or something? When she passed whatever barrier was there and touched its skin, it burst apart into a thousand beetles.

  She bounded over them and faced Jamie again.

  “How did you get caught in this?” she asked, her hands caressing the branch. “It’s like the tree grew around your arm. Uncanny.” She wiggled and tore at the branches. It didn't take too long to get him out.

  “Thank you.” He braced his wrists, wishing to ease the hurt away. Why didn’t this vision cut back to reality?

  “Jamie?” Drea said, a quaver in her voice. “How did you lose your shirt?”

  Just when had he lost track of reality?

  “I, uh, was hot after the game,” He said, finding it on the ground and getting it over his head. “Drea, what did you see?”

  “What do you mean, Jamie, what did I see? I saw you! Caught in a tree, somehow. And I saw…” She put a hand to her check. “I saw me. It was me. Jamie, what’s going on?”

  She held her face tight, as though she needed to cling to something. A small voice in the back of Jamie’s mind wished it was him. He had to resist physically reaching out to her, his head spinning in confusion right now.

  He reached out with words instead. This wasn’t selfish, and if she saw it, too, maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t think him crazy. He could finally share.

  “I don’t know, Drea.
There’s something haunting me. It always seems so real and then, poof, it’s gone. As if it never happened. It isn’t usually this terrible, more just a single phantom figure.”

  He looked down at her. She didn’t have the full necklace, but she still wore the bird charm around her neck. “Except, not this time. You saw them, too, and it didn’t just disappear or fade away.”

  Drea spoke softly, her head—no, her whole body shaking, her disk bracelet and bangles jingling too. “No, I don’t know. I couldn’t have seen this.”

  Jamie stepped back. It made sense, her words, her actions, but something wasn’t right. It didn’t feel true, it felt like too much. Like she was over-reacting.

  Like she knew something.

  “You’re lying.”

  He stepped back, putting a hand near her cheek, but not quite touching. He fought the desire to kiss her—the real her, not the not-Drea from earlier—and grab her and not let go until he had his answers.

  “Drea you know something. I know you do.” He grabbed her shoulder. “We’re not going anywhere until you explain.”

  “I’m sorry Jamie.” A gust of air pushed them apart and Drea stepped back. She shook her disk bracelet in one hand and motioned with the other. “You’re just not ready.”

  24

  Moralynn followed the dissipation of ripples as she dribbled water into the pool. It was strange; it did not reflect this place. No shine or flare of iridescent tile reflected in that water or the shaky echoes of the other portals, not even Moralynn herself. No, this pool reflected an emerald-green bank and a tree with limbs bowing. Water rushed underneath.

  She tapped the water and ruined the image again. When the ripples calmed, the gentle bend remained.

  “Why are you here?”

  Moralynn lifted her head, letting her tresses peel away from her face. She rarely left it free. Why was she here? A good question. There were many possible reasons, but which drew her? Her mission, of course, but what fueled that these days? Would the earth even accept the magic that was her due if she could return it? Or was it more to deny the fae, those who hurt her and her family? Or rather, was it because this was an avenue towards rest?

  Through half-lidded eyes, she studied Viviane. Who else would be here? She was even more terrifying than before as her tentacle-hair danced in the air. Moralynn was uncertain, given the shadows of the room, but she felt a small prickle of moisture on her own skin.

  “I am not sure.” She offered Viviane a cupped palm. “Why are you here?”

  Every fin raised off Viviane’s body. She blurred with the many small things surrounding her. “You insult me in my own halls?”

  A smile spread along Moralynn’s face flaring her life energy on the inside. She could not trust her memories. A part of her regarded the fae as an equal, both elders from a lost age. But the Lady of the Lake had already been a legend during her childhood. If only she could remember it better, and summon the proper reverence.

  Viviane snapped. “You mock me as well?”

  The Lady of the Lake could certainly manage one thing—Viviane was the first person in centuries to make Moralynn feel young. She almost wanted to encourage the chastisement.

  “I do not mean offense,” she said, clasping her hands to her head. She bowed. “I more meant, why are you still here? I thought I was the last from those golden times.”

  “Golden?” Viviane’s fins twitched but became still after that. “Perhaps from your perspective, young human.”

  Moralynn could not summon the usual vehemence she felt for such a statement from this awesome being, but she spoke her words. “I am nearly fifteen centuries old.”

  Viviane stamped the floor, sending a thin wave against the tile mounds. “What have you done with it, Moralynn? You hide on Annwn. You resurrect fae. You have made yourself adrift from time.”

  So she knows. Have I ever resurrected her? No, then she would not remember.

  She slipped back and swiveled her head over to the pool. “No one knew you were alive. You have removed yourself from time as well.”

  “I am imprisoned. My choices were limited.” Viviane rose and dashed up to the lip of the nearest pool, reaching towards the ceiling. “Yet I chose to oppose my sentence. Do you think Oberon left me these waterways?”

  Viviane sunk her right finger-fins into the water and pulled herself up. She did the same with her left until she hung from the ceiling, her head sinking into the portal as well. The myrial looked less imposing with her tentacles submerged by the water above. “I burrowed out of my trap and made these myself.”

  “Prison?” Moralynn whispered. She had no idea. Should she have? She slid along the floor, seeking an angle to tilt her head, so she could look at Viviane more properly. Between the ridges of the patterned tiles and a layer of water, the ground was uncomfortable, but she ignored these things. “You, too, oppose Oberon?”

  “Ha!” The laugh rippled through Viviane, and into the water. She yanked, and her fin legs raised. Once she settled those into the water she flipped her arm fins and face down, standing on the ceiling. “How do you oppose Oberon? You, Phoenix Sparked, perpetuate the cycle of reincarnation. Such responsibility, with no support, no power, no family. Would that I had such loyal detractors.”

  That was going too far. Moralynn shot up, or tried to. She grabbed for the tile under her back, but could not make it move. Not getting the support she expected, she fell and flopped on the floor.

  Viviane’s mouth turned upward, and her neck fins rattled. “Do you enjoy my creation? I do not suggest using Elemental Shaping down here. Well”—a tendril of water snaked its way out from her ceiling pool and spiraled to tap Moralynn on her forehead—“anything other than water.”

  Moralynn grabbed for the tendril, and once it was in her hands, took it over, yanking herself off the floor. She now stood face to face with Viviane, one right side up, the other upside down. It was difficult to tell who had the better perspective.

  Moralynn raised her brows, and Viviane blinked.

  “I did not expect such mastery from you.”

  Moralynn smirked. “I have had time.”

  “And with that time, what is on your mind?”

  Moralynn considered her words. She could not stand these allegations. “Without the Phoenix, my bond through the Phoenix Spark orients to the one who created us all. I am compelled to return those fae to life. I cannot stop outright. But while forced into perpetual distaste and self-loathing, I have not done nothing.”

  Moralynn questioned if her pride would be her downfall. She came thinking Viviane an ally. Perhaps she was not. She may have been from those times, but she was fae, despite her support of Arthur. “It has been this life’s goal to foster and reclaim magic for the Earth. It has taken generations.”

  Viviane’s head wiggled again. “Generations? A human term, from one who has not had such a human life in some time. You came to ask me of my age, so speak to me as elder peer, not a gawk-eyed wanderer.”

  Moralynn took in a breath. She could not mold the air as she was accustomed, but the deep, purely mechanical breath calmed her. “Why are you imprisoned?”

  Viviane’s eyes closed, and her head tentacles fell limp. “So many reasons. Fear, pride, impatience, insolence.” She twitched, and her dark orbs opened wide. “Did you ever feel such things, once upon a time, Moralynn? Or do you only know how to obey?”

  Moralynn’s breath left her, but she had taken stronger slurs in her many years, so she maintained her stance. “You remember that time?”

  “What time? What do you speak of? Compared to you I am time.” Viviane brought her hands out of the water and held them open wide. Water coated and spun around them, creating a fury of a roaring rapid.

  “You remember a time, further back. Did I feel these things? I do not know. I do not remember my life before the massacre. My origins are slipping away. There is too much I do not remember. Beyond my near death—”

  Viviane tucked and tumbled out from the water ceil
ing hole. She faced Moralynn again, her eye orbs still dark, but the rest of her stilled. “I cannot help you with your memory, Moralynn.”

  A pressure lifted from her. Viviane listened now, but, she could not help. She did not have the same issues. Her affliction may be unique; mere age had not eroded her memories. “You could remind me. Of those times.”

  “Which?”

  Moralynn squared her shoulders. “You knew my… predecessor. You knew my king. You were a part of my past. You might have known me, back then… I do not recall anymore.”

  “It is not so long ago.” Viviane extended her hand-fin. The water guards melted off, crashing to the floor and creating waves in the small layer of water above the floor.

  Moralynn took it, allowing the wet curl of scales to slither over her hand.

  Viviane tugged them both down to sit on the lip surrounding the what might have been the original portal Moralynn had studied. She wasn’t entirely sure since the water remained still. It no longer rippled along its surface, despite a percolation of drips.

  “There is not much to say,” Viviane said. “My focus was on Arthur, not on his court.”

  Arthur. Why did it always come back to her king? First Adhomai and his belief in the quest for the regalia, and now Viviane.

  “Why Arthur?"

  Viviane blinked sideways. She heaved for several moments, her cheeks and neck fins pulsating. She lowered her head, closed her eyes and brought her hands together before leaning over the portal. The still waters solidified—no, iced. Then, as she lowered her hands closer an apparition of chains appeared, surrounding her wrists, twining around and between her finger fins. The air turned brisk, like the first touch of frost, and tinkled with the sound of metal links scraping.

  She had seen many magics in her many years, but nothing like this. This was the form of Viviane’s prison?

  “You see now.” Viviane opened her eyes and looked to Moralynn. She brought her hands back, and the world returned to normal. “Arthur gave me hope.”

  It was not the story she wanted to hear, but this could have been part of her life. “Did you truly give him Excalibur?”