The Phoenix Endangered (16 page)

“Thank you,” Harrier said. “I will, if—If it works out that way,” he finished awkwardly. Both Elves nodded, as if what he’d said seemed perfectly reasonable to them, and Harrier mounted up to the bench of the wagon, collected the reins, and headed the team up the path back to the main road.

I
T TOOK HIM
almost a chime to get the wagon settled down the main road again and he had to rein the horses in the entire way. Usually they were slow first thing in the morning, which was fine—you didn’t really want a draft-horse
that was going to take off down the road at a canter and jounce the wagon behind it to kindling—but this particular morning they were frisky with a day and a half of rest, and Harrier thought they
might
think about cantering. Or at least trotting.

When he reached the road, he could tell from the position of the sun that it was still several chimes before Morning Bells. Ancaladar made a low pass over the wagon, and Tiercel leaned down from the saddle and waved energetically. Harrier waved back, but if Tiercel had something to say, it was going to have to wait until lunch, since there was no way for them to have a conversation: Ancaladar could do many wonderful things in the air, but as far as Harrier knew, hovering wasn’t one of them. The dragon veered away, sliding up into the sky again, and Harrier watched him go. The air was sharp and cold with early morning chill, but the day was clear, and later it would be warm enough for Harrier to bundle his heavy stormcloak behind the seat and enjoy the sun. He wondered how much colder it was up in the sky. Tiercel had often offered to take him for a ride on Ancaladar’s back—the saddle was built for two—but he’d always refused. Maybe—

“There
you are! I thought you were supposed to be in a hurry to get wherever it is you’re going! I almost got tired of waiting! At least you took the time to read your Books!”

Harrier’s automatic startled tug on the reins brought the wagon to a halt. He took a deep breath—grateful he hadn’t yelped in shock—and glanced down at the side of the wagon. Kareta was standing there looking up at him.

He resisted his first impulse—which was to deny having read any of the Books at all—and his second one—which was to climb down from the step and try to chase her away. He had the feeling that neither one would work out very well. “Why didn’t you come to the farm?” he asked.

“You don’t know much about unicorns, do you?” Kareta asked in return.

“Are they all as annoying as you are?” Harrier asked.

“I’m not annoying,” Kareta denied. She sounded hurt,
but she’d fooled Harrier thoroughly the first time he’d laid eyes on her and he was determined she wasn’t going to do it again.

“Sure you aren’t,” Harrier muttered. He slapped the reins on the horses’ rumps to get the team moving again. This was probably what Tiercel had been waving at him about a few minutes ago—he’d certainly have been able to see Kareta coming a lot further away than Harrier could. Even if he’d been looking for her.

“So did you get apples?” she asked, once the wagon was moving again. “And oat cakes? And—
oh!
—chestnuts for roasting, because roast chestnuts—”

“And why in the name of the Blessed Saint Idalia would I have been asking for a bunch of things like that, considering that you vanished without a word and I had no idea you were ever coming back?” Harrier demanded.

“You missed me!” Kareta exclaimed in delight.

“I hoped you were gone for good,” Harrier growled.

“No you didn’t. You missed me.”

“You wish I missed you. And I didn’t. And now you’re mad because pulling that mysterious unicorn disappearing act means I didn’t ask the Elves for a bunch of things you could stuff yourself with,” Harrier said. Now that she was back he was sure he’d wanted her gone, though he hadn’t been as certain of that when she’d actually
been
gone. And he knew Kareta was a unicorn, but if he closed his eyes, she really sounded a lot like Hevnade Rolfort, the oldest of Tiercel’s younger sisters, who was fourteen and incredibly annoying.

“I do
not
stuff myself!” Kareta protested.

“Well you won’t be doing it now, because I didn’t take your provisions list to the farm,” Harrier pointed out.

“I’m sure you got at least
some
good things to eat,” Kareta said hopefully.

“And how in the name of the Eternal Light do I know what unicorns like to eat?” Harrier demanded. He sighed. “Yes. Probably. Maybe. We’ll see.”

“Oh, good!” Kareta galloped up the road for a short
distance, stopped in the middle, and, well,
capered
was the best way Harrier could describe it. The early-morning sun gleamed off her golden coat, and her spiral horn sparkled like the inside of a seashell. And even while Harrier was trying to be cross, he had to admit she was beautiful.

The legends and wondertales all said that Kellen had ridden the Magic Unicorn Shalkan into battle. Looking at Kareta, Harrier just couldn’t imagine it. Until he’d seen the Light-Temple at Imrathalion, he’d always just assumed that unicorns were the size of horses, but Kareta was about the same size as the ones depicted in the carved wall panels at the Temple (the size of a small deer), and those dated back to the Time of Mages, so Harrier had to imagine that they were fairly accurate, and that unicorns hadn’t changed much in the last thousand years. He still couldn’t see how you’d ride something that size, though. Fortunately, he thought it was going to be one of the few problems he wasn’t going to have.

She came trotting back, tossing her head and looking very pleased with herself. “It’s a beautiful day,” she announced.

“Would you rather it was raining?” Harrier asked, just to be difficult. He pulled the hood of his stormcloak up and tugged it as far forward as it would go. He didn’t really need it, but he wasn’t exactly in a position to go stomping off and slamming a door between him and Kareta right now.

“Humans don’t like to get wet,” Kareta answered loftily, just as if she were an expert on the subject of humans.

Harrier decided to ignore that, as the only things he could possibly do would be to agree with her—which would make her unbearably smug—or try to argue that he
did
like to get rained on. And he didn’t. And he wasn’t quite sure whether or not unicorns could tell when you were lying.

“So,” Kareta said brightly, when the wagon had rolled along in silence for a few more minutes, “how do you like being a Knight-Mage?”

“I’m not a Knight-Mage,” Harrier said, because this was a point he
was
willing to argue.

“You’ve read your Books, haven’t you?” Kareta said, as if this were all that was necessary.

“I
looked
at part of
one
Book,” Harrier said.

Kareta didn’t say anything.

“What?” he demanded. “It isn’t like that makes me … anything. I’ve read books before. Lots of them.”

“Why are you arguing with me?” Kareta asked ingenuously.

Harrier slumped down on the bench and didn’t reply. Arguing with Kareta—even
talking
to Kareta—was like juggling with a ball of tar. You ended up with it all over you and no idea of how it had happened. And no way to get easily unstuck, either.

U
NFORTUNATELY, IT WASN’T
possible to simply
ignore
her. If she wasn’t asking him idiotic questions—like what sort of armor did he think he’d like to have as a Knight-Mage—she was pointing out things along the way that were actually almost
interesting
—like exotic sorts of trees, or the flocks of sheep grazing on the distant hillside, or mentioning that in another day or two, when they were beyond the edge of the land held by Blackrowan Farm, they’d be in country as wild and uncultivated as any part of the Veiled Lands got. Since he couldn’t shut her up, and couldn’t out-run her, Harrier was very grateful to see Ancaladar on the ground up ahead, meaning it was time to stop for lunch.

He drove the wagon off the edge of the road, onto the grass. It was always a mystery to Harrier how everything in the Elven Lands could be so neat and tidy, as if armies of invisible gardeners were everywhere, clipping the grass and raking the ground beneath the trees. Of course, for all he knew, maybe they were.

He climbed down from the bench and stretched. Elunyerin and Rilphanifel had said there was no need to unhitch
the team if they’d only be standing for an hour or so, but it would still be a good idea to get them a drink if that could be arranged. He opened the back of the wagon. He’d go and see if it was possible to lead them down to the stream without unhitching them after he’d gotten the brazier set up. “You want to get off your lazy tail and help me with this?” he called to Tiercel. He wasn’t sure what was in the hamper the Elves had given him this morning, but he knew it would take two people to manage it.

“What do you—oh,” Tiercel said, peering into the wagon. “It’s full.”

“Of course it’s full. There isn’t another farm or village that we know of between here and the Madiran,” Harrier said.

“But how am I going to get at my books? Or our clothes? Or—”

“We’ll move things, Tyr,” Harrier said, sighing. “And most of this is going to be gone in a sennight or two.”
You wouldn’t believe how fast it’s all going to disappear, in fact
, he thought darkly. “Now come on. Lanya and Siralcar packed us some special stuff this morning, and we’ll need to eat that first.”

Once the extra hamper was out of the way, Harrier was able to get out the heavy blanket to spread on the grass, and the tea-brazier and pot, and the basket with the rest of the supplies for the meal—napkins and plates were vital when they couldn’t just hand over their clothing to household servants to get it washed. Once everything was out of the wagon, and Tiercel was setting it up, Harrier decided he had time to take the water bucket and go looking for the stream. “And don’t let her stuff herself!” he called over his shoulder, since Kareta was hovering greedily over Tiercel’s shoulder as he unbuckled the straps of the hamper.

Elven roads always followed the landscape. Harrier wasn’t sure what this road was called—possibly “Road That Goes Nowhere in Particular,” since it went in the general direction of the southern border of the Elven Lands and then just sort of stopped—but what he
did
know about it
was that there was a stream here, and the road went along beside it, and it wouldn’t stop doing that, well, as long as there was a road at all. He supposed if you lived as long as the Elves did, you weren’t ever in a hurry to get places. At least it meant he never had to spend half the day looking for water.

There weren’t many trees on this side of the stream at all, and he decided he wouldn’t have to unhitch the team to bring the horses down for their drink. He’d let them cool off a bit first, though. They’d been working all morning.

He knelt on the bank, automatically checking to be sure that the water was clear and running freely before filling his bucket. Simera had taught both him and Tiercel, moonturns ago, how to be sure that you were taking good sweet water out of a stream.

Even now, thinking of his dead Centaur friend made Harrier’s chest hurt. She would have loved to have seen the Elven Lands! And she’d so much wanted to know what she’d always called “the end of the tale”—the reason for Tiercel’s visions, and what he was going to do about them. Discovering that Harrier was to be a Wildmage—well! He couldn’t know for sure, but he imagined the thought would have made Simera laugh until she couldn’t stand up. Light knew
he’d
be laughing, if it weren’t happening to him. He felt like the Mock-Mage in the Flowering Festival Plays. Only the Mock-Mage thought he had magic and didn’t, and Harrier … well, it looked like it was going to be the other way around. He had magic—or he would—but it didn’t feel like it.

When he walked back to the wagon with the bucket of water, Tiercel looked up at him in helpless exasperation. “I just set it down for a minute,” he said.

Kareta had her face in a pie dish gobbling up its contents enthusiastically. Harrier sighed. There wasn’t even any point in being angry. “You probably couldn’t have stopped her,” he said. “Unless you, you know, hit her with a lightning bolt or something. You couldn’t do that, I suppose?”

“It’s good!” Kareta said, raising her head. Her muzzle was covered with what looked like blackberries. She was purple halfway to her eyes.

“You look ridiculous,” Harrier said flatly. “And you’re a thief.” He walked over, picked up the pie dish, and skimmed it a few feet away. It hit the grass and slid.

“Hey! I wasn’t done with that!”

“Then go finish it,” Harrier said unfeelingly. He sat down on the blanket and filled the kettle. Tiercel had already lit the fire in the brazier, and the water would boil soon. “You didn’t let her get into anything else, did you?”

“No, I… no,” Tiercel said. He shrugged again. “She—”

“And you with four sisters,” Harrier scoffed. He’d have thought that Tiercel could manage one pesky unicorn, after riding herd on a house full of younger sisters all these years.

“But she’s a unicorn!”

“Okay, so none of your sisters has hooves and a tail. As far as I can see, that’s about the only difference.” He opened the hamper and began to investigate the rest of the contents.

The Elves of Blackrowan Farm had certainly given them a luxurious send-off. In addition to the pie that the two of them hadn’t gotten any of, there were several loaves of fresh bread, a couple of cold roast chickens, apples, and some loaves of the spicy fruit-bread that had been served at breakfast both days the boys had been there. There was a large piece of cold mutton as well—Siralcar had been right; the contents of the hamper would keep them for several meals. Harrier tore off a large chunk of chicken and a piece of bread, grabbed a plate and a napkin, and began to eat.

“I’m still hungry,” Kareta said a few minutes later, coming back.

“Go eat grass,” Harrier said heartlessly.

“You’re mean,” she said.

Tiercel laughed—nearly spilling hot water on himself, since he was filling the teapot. “I suppose there are all kinds of unicorns,” he said after a few moments. Harrier
recognized the sound of Tiercel hastily backpedaling when he recognized that he’d said something that might hurt someone’s feelings.