The Phoenix Endangered (23 page)

There was no sign of the Nalzindar. Not a tent, nor a footprint… or even a body.

It took him a sennight to be utterly certain. Each time he returned to his fortress, there was more tension, more uncertainty, in the tents of the tribes. He knew that if he did not do something—soon—he would not have to wait for the war he saw in his visions to destroy his people. They would destroy themselves. And so he called an unprecedented council of the leaders of all the tribes. He spoke to them, not of the trouble in their own camps, but of another thing they all knew: the absence of the Nalzindar from among them.

Even before this past sennight, the tribes had accorded Bisochim respect and deference beyond that they had ever accorded to any Wildmage of the tribes, beyond anything
he had ever sought or wanted. But then he had led them into the Barahileth and called water out of the arid sands to slake their thirsts. He had brought them to a garden beyond any paradise in their story-songs. And then he had summoned a dragon—creature of ancient legend—down from the heavens, and rode forth upon its back. They whispered now behind his back, linking his name with those of Kellen the Poor Orphan Boy and the Blessed Saint Idalia. Saying that poor Saravasse must be Star-Crowned Ancaladar come again.

He did not want that. He did not want any of it. But he would use it, to keep them safe. And so he spoke to them of the Nalzindar and their mysterious absence.

“Forgive me, Wildmage, but—with all your power …” Bakuduk, headman of the Hinturi, spoke hesitantly. Around him, the other leaders of the Isvaieni shifted uneasily. These men and women, unafraid of anything that lay between Sand and Star, feared now to ask one of their own a simple question, and it angered Bisochim further.

“Have you not asked to do battle with the enemy?” Bisochim said sharply. “Now—when I tell you that I have discovered that he has swept your brethren from the sand—you ask me to do your work for you. Have I and my Bonded not searched for them? That we found no sign of them tells me that they are hidden by magic more subtle than my own. Yet magic hides most of all from magic. I hope that if you seek for them, you will discover them.”

It was not a lie, for unless a spell was truly designed to conceal a thing from all—which took great power—it would work simply to turn aside the gaze, to misdirect. And it was a thing nearly impossible to manage if many watched at once.

But Bisochim did not truly believe the other Isvaieni could find the Nalzindar where he had not been able to. He hoped merely to give their restless energy a focus and an outlet. Let the young men and women of the tribes scour the empty desert while their more prudent elders settled into this new life he had made for them. Let the absence of
so many cool tempers and bring wisdom to hearts—for there were few aged among the Isvaieni, and did all whom he hoped go forth upon this search, where once seven Isvaieni now stood among the tents of this new encampment, only one would remain. And when the young warriors tired of searching, in a moonturn or even six, they would be ready to embrace safety and security here upon the plains of Telinchechitl, and would have their elders to counsel them as to its desirability.

It would be a longer road to his goal than he had hoped to take, but the result would be the same: the Isvaieni would become one tribe, and settle here at the foot of the cliffs which bordered the Lake of Fire, and Bisochim’s vision would never come to pass.

“To cross the Barahileth even once more will be a thing which will leave the bones of many upon the sand,” Fannas said slowly. The headman of the Kareggi Isvaieni led a large and wealthy tribe, one that had traded frequently with the
Iteru
-cities. One did not survive in the Isvai by being rash, but it was sometimes said that Fannas did not act when action would be best.

“I shall make a safe road for our people that will take them securely as far as Kannanatha Well,” Bisochim said. “The Barahileth shall be our guardian, the path into it known only to us, and may the Gods of the Wild Magic grant that we may soon share that secret with the Nalzindar.”

I
T WAS ANOTHER
sennight before that part of his plan was ready to be set into motion, for it required the creation of wells in the Barahileth. Not the temporary summoning of water as he had done before, but deep permanent wells that would not fail, for if they did, the people who depended upon them—his Isvaieni—would die.

The water to fill these wells must come from somewhere, and Bisochim arrived at an elegant solution. The water would come from the Isvai. The new wells of the
Barahileth would flourish, and the old wells of the Isvai would decline.

Not all at once. Not overnight. But slowly the springs and oases of the outer desert would fail. Slowly enough so that the creatures who depended on them for water would go elsewhere in search of it. To the desert verge, the comparatively fertile land of the Madiran. He wished to harm no innocent creature.

But by the time the Armies of the Light came in search of the Isvaieni—long after his people had abandoned their search for the Nalzindar (they must)—there would be no water to sustain their great armies. Not for hundreds of miles. No army could possibly carry enough water with it to cross the Isvai
and
the Barahileth, and as soon as he knew they had first set foot upon the sand, he would turn the wells of the Barahileth to dust.

As Bisochim prepared the stone-covered wells in the Barahileth, eradicating as he did so every trace of the Ingathering from the fragile surface of the desert, the young warriors of the Isvaieni prepared themselves. With such a holy mission to undertake, tribal rivalries were set aside. Blood-oaths of fellowship were sworn, that each of them would hold all the others as dear as the kin of their own tents.
Geschaks
were honed to razor sharpness, bows restrung, hunting spears tested for soundness,
shotors
chosen for speed and stamina. And when Bisochim returned to tell them all was in readiness, the search parties began to depart, a few score at a time, to begin their hunt for the missing Nalzindar.

Another sennight passed before all of those who wished to join the quest had departed, for though each hunting party was small in number, even a full water-jug could be emptied drip by drip, and Bisochim had gathered thousand upon thousand of his people upon the plains of Telinchechitl. Less than two thousand Isvaieni remained among the tents when the last of those who wished to search had gone forth once more into the Isvai. In that time, the encampment became as peaceful as Bisochim could have hoped. It
was the only contentment he had found since he had been forced to execute the rogue Wildmages, for in the days of waiting for the camp to become calm he had sought the Nalzindar with his strongest magic … and he had not found them.

If the Enemy had slain them, he would pay the greatest price Bisochim could exact. But Bisochim did not believe Shaiara and the Nalzindar were dead. Their deaths would have left traces his magic could sense.

No.

They were hidden from him.

Prisoners of the Enemy.

Or his willing—deluded—slaves.

Nine

A Feast for Crows

T
O
H
ARRIER’S RELIEF
, he was finally able to drive the wagon out of the forest four days later. Ancaladar had thought he would make it in two, but the wagon’s progress was slower than any of them had hoped. After the first day, Harrier started sending lunch along with Tiercel—the forest canopy on this side of the Veil was a tangled mess, and expecting Ancaladar to take off and land through it twice a day wasn’t fair to him. Or to Tiercel. As Tiercel pointed out rather crossly, “Ancaladar has an armored hide, Har—but I don’t, you know.”

Each night Ancaladar told Harrier what lay ahead of him on the following day—since a dragon’s eyes could penetrate the mass of tangled branches, old nests, and dying leaves to see what lay beneath—and Tiercel drew crude maps in the dirt of the forest floor to show Harrier what he could expect when he finally managed to get the
wagon free of the trees. And though Harrier didn’t doubt what he heard, he still argued.

“Are you sure it’s a road? There can’t be a road.”

“You said that the first time,” Tiercel said patiently. “It’s a road. It pretty much heads south, too, which is good. We didn’t see any sign of settlements. There’s a lake, though. Unfortunately, you’ll have to leave the road to get to it.”

“Worth doing,” Harrier said. “Everything we’ve got could use a good scrubbing.”

“Don’t I know it,” Kareta said, wrinkling her nose fastidiously.

“Hey!” Harrier said, wounded. “You’re welcome to—” he waved his hands, pantomiming everything from “
leave”
to “
stand upwind
.” “It hasn’t been
that
long since I’ve had a bath.”

“It hasn’t been that recently, either,” the unicorn answered pertly.

“And I’m not really looking forward to a cold swim in this weather,” he added. Even though they were heading south, it had to be either Mistrise or Frost by now—he’d lost track—almost the end of the year, and it seemed to be colder by the day now that they’d crossed the Veil. A fire at night wasn’t a luxury, it was a necessity, and Harrier was wearing his warmest clothing. Tiercel must be freezing up in the sky.

“We’ll just have to build up a couple of big fires,” Tiercel said with a heavy sigh. From his expression, he wasn’t looking forward to a cold bath any more than Harrier was. “I could probably heat the whole lake, but… it wouldn’t be that good for the fish.”

“Unless you want poached fish,” Kareta suggested.

“A lot of poached fish,” Harrier said, resigning himself to the inevitable.

It took Harrier another sennight to reach the lake. When he finally rolled out of the forest, he spent a day in scrub woodland—worse than the woods, because the wagon’s wheels caught in everything, and he worried the whole
time that either one of the axles would break, or one of the horses would put a leg down some badger hole—before getting out into really open country. Now he could see where they were going, and the ground was solid, but it wasn’t level. Or smooth. The wagon jolted and jounced all day along the ground. The horses had to work hard if there was even a little upward slope, and Harrier had to be careful to catch any downward slope in time to set the brake before the wagon rolled over the team. He supposed he was lucky it was winter, not spring. The ground was hard-frozen, at least. In the spring, he probably would have had to convince Tiercel to coax Ancaladar into pulling the wagon. And at night they had to be more careful than ever before when setting up camp that a stray wind-borne spark didn’t fly off and set the grass around them on fire, because it was tinder-dry. Tiercel thought he could probably stop a fire if it started, but neither of them wanted one to start.

Not only that, before he got to the lake, Harrier’d had to make one more detour—to a spring Kareta found for him—to spend most of one afternoon refilling the water barrels because they were out of water. The spring was tiny, but it was the only source she could find. And then he spent the rest of the afternoon—and the evening—listening to Kareta preen about how indispensable she was. At least when she was rejoicing in her own cleverness, Kareta wasn’t nagging at him to do a spell. Harrier might be willing to
read
the Three Books—when he could get the light and the free time to do it—but he was damned if he’d do any magic. Tiercel could make all the Coldfire and light all the fires that they needed—Harrier had no intention of doing anything that would involve him with this mysterious “Magedebt” and “Mageprice.” He didn’t understand it very well, but Mageprice sounded a little like a mortgage: you got something—a spell—and then you had to pay for it later. And what he knew about mortgages was that the captain who couldn’t pay one lost his ship. Harrier didn’t think the Wild Magic worked quite the same way, but he didn’t
know how it
did
work. He was sure (pretty sure) that it couldn’t be anything
bad
, but at the moment, he and Tiercel couldn’t even afford something
inconvenient.

When he finally reached the shore of the lake, Harrier chopped wood while Tiercel washed everything they owned—dishes and cookware and clothing and odds and ends of linens. Unfortunately, Ancaladar had been able to assure Harrier that the lake
did
indeed contain fish, so all there was to do to keep from freezing was build up two large bonfires. Their heat would help to dry the clothing as well; since Ancaladar hadn’t gone along with Harrier’s first suggestion that they just drape everything over him and let the radiant heat from his body dry it quickly. As he undressed, Harrier groused that apparently magic couldn’t be used for anything
useful.

The only reason he was willing to get into the water at all—the day was overcast, and the water looked gray and cold—was that it was more than a fortnight since they’d left Blackrowan Farm, and even in winter, that was entirely too long to go between baths. It would have been nice if they’d been able to bring a washtub along with them, but there really hadn’t been room in the wagon, even if he’d thought to ask for one. The next time he had to go haring off into the middle of nowhere, Harrier vowed, he was bringing
enough stuff.