The Firebird's Vengeance (52 page)

Grey stones stuck out of the earth like bones. Wind whipped her hair in front of her face, bringing with it the roar and the salt tang of the sea.

Where the world was not grey, it seemed to be all shades of green. Deep black-green for the moss on the boulders and cliffs, pale lime-green in the cups of the little flowers that grew in the shelter of the stones. Vivid emerald in the grass and the new leaves of the trees flashing out in the clean spring sun. The low hills that curved around in a cluster in front of her joined together to become one great mountain that rose up almost to the sky.

It was a place wholly different from any Anna had ever seen and as she gazed out at it, she felt her father’s love rising in her mind like mist from still waters. This was the place of his boyhood. He knew the names of the tiny flowers — veridian, maiden’s cup, moth’s heart. The hill at her right shoulder was Urho’s Barrow, and as the name came to her, so did the story of the giant buried beneath it. The forest that covered its broad slope was the perfect place to find whiteback mushrooms, pitcher moss, and everheart root for tea, for sleeplessness and easing a cramped stomach. Everything she could see caused meaning and longing to well up in her mind.

But at the same time, Anna could only blink stupidly at it all.
I’m tired, Father
.

Of course, Anna. Let me take you. The Holy Island is generous with food and shelter. I’ll show you
.

She did not want to walk. She just wanted to sit down where she was, but she did not struggle. Under Father’s will, her feet moved lightly and all but ran her up Urho’s barrow until the trees engulfed them, turning the bright day into twilight, and reminding Anna, for all she saw everything through the warmth of her father’s love for each detail, of nothing so much as the deep woods of the Land of Death and Spirit.

Was Mae Shan all right? she wondered. Should she even be thinking about her? Would Father be mad?

But if Father knew her thoughts in the back of her own mind, there was no stirring, no touch, and best of all, no scolding. And he did not lie about the food. He knew where the squirrels kept their winter nuts and just how to crack them open. He knew about the tender hearts of reeds that grew by the streams of snowmelt that tasted tangy and salty. The whiteback mushrooms were peppery and the fiddlehead ferns were crisp and juicy. She wished for rice and tea, and a sweet cake, but she wasn’t hungry anymore, and Father wasn’t angry. The moss sheltered by old trees and new ferns was damp where she lay down, but she was cradled by memories of doing this a hundred times before and it didn’t seem so bad. Maybe the bad part was over now that they were on the Holy Island where Father always wanted to be. Maybe he’d be happy now and live contentedly in her heart and they’d have a home by the sea and he’d teach her to swim and to sail a boat …

Filled with the hopes of finding a life to replace the one she’d lost, Anna was able to settle deeply into sleep.

Anna, wake up
.

Anna sat up, staring all around her, trying to remember why she was here in the woods. Her stomach felt sick. Her head was light.

Memory came back slowly. “What is it, Father?”

We are called. We must go
.

Anna pushed her hair back irritably. Dead leaves fell onto the scuffed moss beside her. “I don’t hear anything.”

Anna, don’t argue. Let me take you
.

Anna didn’t want to. It suddenly all seemed wrong. She didn’t feel good. She wanted tea. She wanted Mae Shan and Master Liaozhai. But Father pressed her to one side and made her legs stand up and start climbing up the hill. Anna tried to feel warm and safe. Father would take care of her. But all she could do was watch, and try not to feel the way her feet hurt, and the way her stomach ached.

Father made her climb steadily. If he could feel her discomfort, he ignored it. Memory of the blows he had given her in the Silent Lands kept Anna quiet.
I must be good
, she told herself.
I must be good
.

The slope got steeper. Rivers of stone ran between the tree roots, and great outcroppings jutted from the mountainside. One of those outcroppings had split open to make a cave, and Father took them straight inside.

The world went dark in an instant, and even Father had to stop. In charge of herself again, Anna swayed back and forth on tired legs and tried to catch her breath. Her heart pounded hard against her ribs. There were splashes of bright light in the back of the cave, but she couldn’t see straight.

Slowly, though, Anna’s vision cleared. Light and shadow resolved into sense, but her heart still pounded. She saw now that the orange glow was light reflected off damp stone and off a still pool worn into slick rock. The fire burned before an old man, naked to the waist, sweat shining on his skin the way the water shone on the cave walls. But where the walls were dark, he was pale, pale as death, pale as the bellies of the fish who lived in the depths of the ocean and never saw the light while they were alive.

Anna realized she should have felt scared, but she only felt sick.

As the old man seemed to take shape in front of her, the rest of her senses seemed to clear, and she knew what else was wrong. This place was filled with magic. It was as full of power as it was of air. It was not being drawn or called, it simply was, a whole great pool of magic unformed and unshaped, constant. How could that be? Magic had to be called. It required an act of will. Even in the most sacred spaces. And it had to be shaped, or it dissolved. It could not simply be captured like water in a bath, could it?

The old man spoke. His voice was high-pitched and broken. She didn’t understand his words, but Father did, and she heard them ring in her mind through him.

“Welcome, Daughter. Welcome, Son,” the old man said.

Kneel, Anna. Kneel
.

She hesitated but Father bent her knees for her and bowed her head. Sounds filled her mind, and she realized they were words, the language of the Holy Island that Father had always said he’d teach her one day.

“Holy Father,” she said, awkwardly, for her tongue wasn’t used to shaping these sounds. “Bestow your blessing on your poor daughter.”

Anna looked up at the wrinkled creature before her. His cheeks and mouth were sunken in and his black eyes protruded. His hair hung in twisted clumps like snakes and his skin was loose on his bones. The kilt that was his only clothing was leather scraps sewn together with gut and smeared with soot and grease. His hands were black with ash and there was a stench that reminded Anna sharply of the city of T’ien while it burned.

This was a holy man? Anna thought about the clean temples, the monks and priests with their shaved heads, and the white faces of the gods and goddesses. They did not leer like this man. They did not grin with sunken gums. Anna trembled.

Do not be disrespectful, Daughter
, warned Father sharply.

“You fear this old man?” the “holy father” lisped, and Anna saw his tongue was stained as black as his hands. “You fear what you do not understand.”

Father gave her no words, and Anna was glad. She tried not to shake. She tried to remember that power, and holiness came in many forms.

“You have neglected this child, Valin Kalami,” said the old man. “You have given her education over to foreigners.”

Anna shrank back gratefully to give Father room to speak. “It was a matter of necessity, Holy Father. But she is home now.”

“Yes, yes.” The old man peered forward. His eyes were pale with cataracts and Anna wondered that he could see at all. “She is as you promised. New in her learning, great in her power. She will be a great seer for Tuukos.”

A thrill of fear ran through Anna at those words. A seer for Tuukos? What did that mean? Hesitantly she moved to touch Father, but the old man began to sway back and forth and she retreated again.

“Will be, will be,” he crooned. “Come from water, come through fire to call fire back again.” His whitened eyes stared into the darkness of the cave, but his hands began moving, like creatures with minds of their own, working among the bones and stones that surrounded him.

And Anna saw. A hundred images, a thousand opened in front of her. She saw a young man, tall and proud wearing a crown of horn with people kneeling at his feet. She saw the years parade past and the crowned man becoming shrunken, bitter, and mad. She saw the madness in waves and storms, a vision within a vision.

She saw the Phoenix in a golden cage.

She saw Father in a palace of stone talking with an old woman, urging her to something … she could not hear.

She saw Father in the dark lifting an infant from a cradle and wrapping a blanket around it as it slept.

She saw herself. She saw herself in the cave with a crown of horn on her head. She saw herself beneath the spreading wings of the Phoenix, her mouth open wide to scream. She saw herself beside a woman with auburn hair and green eyes in a plain grey dress. The woman wrapped her arms around Anna and wept.

She saw herself beside a golden cage, her arms lifted to the sky. She saw Father looking out of her eyes and calling the Phoenix down. She saw the Land of Death and Spirit open up around her. She saw a woman and a man holding hands in a little boat on a wide sea.

What is this? Anna, what are you doing?

“Nothing, Father. I swear.” Before her, the old man only swayed back and forth, lost in his visions or his madness, she couldn’t tell which.

Stop this at once!

“I can’t,” Anna cried.
I can’t help seeing
.

These are shadows and fables. Your power is confused by the presence of the Holy Father
.

But she didn’t believe him and she felt his realization that she knew he lied and Anna bit her lip. She did not want this. She wanted to obey, to believe, to be dutiful and good. She did not want to see by the power of a madman. She closed her eyes, but she knew it would do no good. While the Holy Man called the visions, Anna must see.

She saw Mae Shan holding a demon at spear’s length, a real one this time, not a ghost of ash.

Then, the Holy Father shook himself, laughing and crying all at once at whatever he had seen.

In the next heartbeat he frowned hard at Anna. “No, no, no,” he spat. “It will not do. You are too much for her. Come, come, Daughter. Learn now the craft and power you are heir to.”

The old man got himself to his feet and scuttled like some huge crab toward the back of the cave, beyond the reach of the firelight. Something lay there in the dark on the stony floor. Anna did not want to move toward it. She didn’t want to see anything more this madman had to show her. Father’s anger washed through her, and tears began to trickle from her eyes. He didn’t wait, he didn’t even ask, he just took her body and moved it forward until she stood beside the Holy Father, and looked down at what he had to show.

It was a man of glass, laid out straight on the bed of stone. It was perfect in every detail, down to the lines on its knuckles and the shape of its nails. It was dressed simply, in a loose brown tunic and trousers. Its eyes were shut, but the artisan had even given it eyelashes.

“It was made many centuries ago, when we were great.” Spittle flecked the Holy Father’s lips. “See it now? See the fire, the earth, and water that went into its making. See the blood and the metals that painted it and made it whole.”

And Anna did see. She saw the fire in the great crucible, she saw the sorcerers crowded around with their buckets and their knives.

Stop, please. I don’t want this
.

Father paid no attention.

“Strike it, hear it ring.” The old man knocked his knuckles against the statue’s torso, and it rang like a bell. “Does it not call beautifully to you?”

Yes
, said Father in the back of her mind.
Yes
.

“Lay your hands here, Daughter.” He indicated the statue’s heart. Anna obeyed. What else was she to do? The glass was smoothly contoured underneath her palms. It felt exactly like a man’s chest, only cold and hard as death and ice.

The seer picked up a knife. It too was made of glass, but this glass was as black as coal. The edge was so keen, Anna could barely see it in the dim and flickering light. He lifted his left hand just long enough for Anna to see it was thick and twisted, not only with age and calluses, but with scars. His face was almost peaceful as he drove the tip of his knife into the tip of his first finger, setting the blood free to run in scarlet threads down his hand.

Anna felt the magic this place held twist and shiver. She felt the blood call it and it obeyed, eagerly. The old man murmured his charm, as lightly as a woman would hum a lullaby. The magic here was so rich and so ready, he needed no more force than that. He leaned across the statue and began smearing its face with his blood. Slowly, Anna saw that he was painting eyes on it.

Anna’s heart tore open and she screamed, falling to her knees. Father rushed out of her with all the breath in her lungs.

The statue’s eyes opened, and they were Father’s eyes. Its hand moved, and it was Father’s hand. He sat up and pulled his knees up under him, slowly, stiffly, like someone waking from a long sleep. Anna felt her eyes bulge in their sockets. It was Father. Truly. He was perfect in every way, just as she had seen him in the Land of Death and Spirit. For all her staring, she could see nothing false about him, except the tiniest glimmer in the light, that might have been a sheen of perspiration on his light brown skin.

“Father,” she whispered, reaching out to touch him. To her relief, his skin felt warm beneath her fingertips, not cold like the glass.

The seer was grinning. Anna tried not to look at him.

Father moved his lips experimentally a few times, then he spoke. “This is not life.”

“No.” The seer shook his head. “That is beyond what even the greatest of us could give. But you need no longer exhaust your daughter with your presence.” He turned the smile to her, and she saw all his black gums. “She needs to be nurtured and cared for, not used up.”