The Phoenix Unchained (20 page)

“So?” He sounded irritable. But the irritation didn’t come from interrupted sleep, Tiercel knew. It came from the suspicion that Tiercel was about to tell him—once more—something he wasn’t going to understand.

This was the part that Tiercel hated most. Not the part where he thought he might be dying. Not even the part where he worried that he might be being stalked by a monster out of a wondertale that might kill his best friend, his new friend, and any strangers they might meet. After all, those things were so unbelievable that he managed to forget them most of the time. The part he hated was that he really believed in the High Magick and Harrier really didn’t. No matter how many fires he saw Tiercel light just by looking at them. It was as if Tiercel had accidentally stepped around a
corner and found himself in a completely different world, one from which he could see his old world, but wasn’t a part of it anymore. His world had become . . . different. No matter how much he explained things that seemed logical and ordinary to him now, even reasonable, Harrier just shook his head, like a bull trying to drive away a fly. It was driving the two of them apart.

“So . . . I think my visions are changing. Or else I’m having more of them. And different kinds.”

Harrier sighed. “Well, I guess these are better than the other ones, if you can’t remember them. But you said ‘something’s coming.’ What?”

“If I knew, I’d tell you.”

“That’s just great.”

Simera walked over to them, her hooded sleeping-robe wrapped tightly around her.

“The forest is quiet,” she offered.

“It’s the only thing that is,” Harrier said in disgust. He reached for his pants and shook them thoroughly, then began to put them on. “How long until dawn?”

Simera glanced at the sky, reading the time by the position of the stars. “A couple of hours. You should go back to sleep.”

Harrier simply shook his head, reaching for his tunic.

BISOCHIM was so certain that his spell had worked that he did not look to check its results for many days.

To send the cold into the north had required him to draw greatly upon Saravasse’s power, and though she always yielded to his will—as she must—she had begged him not to do it.

Other spells—to turn the Sandwind, to bring water to the wells, to cause the desert plants to bear or bring game to his nets—those she gave her power to gladly. She had even helped him build
this fortress without complaint. But she was unwilling to do the things that he knew would keep her safe. It was frustrating. For that reason alone Bisochim had delayed, and delayed again, in seeking out the proof of the success of his spell. Yet at last prudence had required it, even though Bisochim was certain of his success. The desert taught its children not to assume.

On the seventh day after he had sent the cold into the north, in the innermost chamber of his fortress, Bisochim set out to see
what would be
.

It was not a simple Scrying Spell, such as he had cast all his life, using date wine and desert lily and a pool of still water. This spell was far more powerful, calling for blood and powdered bone. Nor did it show him, as the Scrying Spell did, what he might need to see in the world as it was. It showed him the shape of the world to come.

THERE were many wellsprings within his fortress, for when he had first built it, the desert Wildmage had delighted in his newfound power to summon water from beneath the living rock at will. Fountains filled the courtyards, wasting water into the desert air, for by his magic Bisochim had procured an inexhaustible supply of the desert’s most precious element. But here, in the deepest room of his fortress, was a special pool.

The room itself was one he had found, not made. Its walls and ceiling were a domed bubble of smoky glass, cast up from the Lake of Fire at some time in the unimaginable past. He had smoothed the floor, though he had made no other changes, and in the center of the chamber he had called up a small, perfectly circular, pool of water from the deep earth. The pool was still and black, and he used it for no purpose but his magic.

Despite being surrounded by fire, the glass-walled chamber was cool, for it was deep beneath the surface of the earth. Bisochim entered,
crowned in Coldfire, and the pale blue-white light reflected off the myriad cracks and bubbles in the walls, making the whole chamber glitter until it appeared as if he were not beneath the earth, but beneath the stars. He knelt before the pool, arranging what he would need. If he had been successful—as he was certain he had—the vision he would see would change.

But when he sifted the bonemeal across the surface of the unmoving black water, and starred the now-pale surface with drops of his blood, the vision that rose up before him was unchanged. His enemy still lived.

Bisochim paced the chamber in angry confusion.

How could this be?

His enemy, he knew, was weak, while he was powerful.

His spell had been strong.

It should have worked.

But it hadn’t, and wondering
why
it hadn’t would not save Saravasse or avert the terrible future he saw: fire and pain and marching armies and her death. He closed his eyes. He would waste no more time in wondering why what was, was. That was as useless as weeping over the dead. One could not change the truth. One could only change the future. He had been trying to change the future for years.

For years the vision had been the same.

He stood upon the ramparts of the Lake of Fire, looking out over the sand. Below him, two vast armies galloped toward each other, their weapons glittering in the sun. One was his. One belonged to the Enemy. He raised his hands, summoning up the Sandwind. It was their only hope: it would destroy the Enemy’s army
.

But it would also destroy his own
.

He heard Saravasse scream, and knew, in that terrible moment, that an army of merely human warriors was not the Enemy’s only weapon. . . .

No. That day must not come to pass. The Enemy must be destroyed now, while he was still foolish and weak. Before he had
gathered his army. Before he had found Bisochim’s fortress. Before he attempted to keep Bisochim from restoring the Balance.

“Do not be either too quick or too slow. Too much thought is as great a flaw as too little.”

Suddenly the words of
The Book of Sun
came to him, making him pause. The future had not changed.

But what if he’d succeeded? What if his spell had worked, and the future
still
had not changed? What if he had more than one Enemy?

Bisochim groaned in exasperation, running his hands through his long black hair. The work to bring the Balance back into alignment once again—without allowing it to slide over toward the Dark, of course—was painstaking, and took all his concentration. He could not spend his time seeking out the Enemies of the Balance and destroying them one by one.

He needed an ally.

TO create an artificial being that would do his bidding was not beyond the skill and power of a Dragon-bonded Wildmage. But such creatures lacked the imagination that Bisochim suspected would be needed to track down and destroy all the Enemies of the Balance as they presented themselves.

In the Lands Beyond The Mountains there were many Shining-folk. But he was not certain that any of them had the power for this task. Nor was he entirely certain he could trust them. A Balance was a delicate thing. Something long out of true would not, necessarily, seek to be set true again. Rather, it would seek to remain as it was, even if that was in . . . imbalance.

Fortunately, there was another way. Difficult, but barely possible.

In the time before first the Elves, then Men, had taken up the
Keeping of the Balance through the service of the Wild Magic, the land had resounded to the interplay of Elemental Forces far greater than any power that might be wielded by the races that had lived between Sand and Stars. The races that had worshiped at the Shrines had observed them, given them names, and called upon them for aid. The Elves had worshiped the Starry Hunt. Men had worshiped the Stag King and the Mare Queen.

The Firesprites—long vanished—had worshipped the Fire-crown. Here, where Bisochim now made his home, had once been the Firesprite Shrine. And something of the Firecrown must remain.

To waken a god, even a dead one, was a delicate task, yet it was one Bisochim preferred to attempting to create an artificial creature to seek out and destroy his Enemy. And best of all, though Saravasse would know what he had done, it could be accomplished without drawing upon her power, for even the shadow of a dead god contained all the power he would need.

PROPERLY, he should call the Firecrown at noon of the Longest Day, but he dared not wait. Cloaked in stored magic, Bisochim walked across the surface of the Lake of Fire until he stood over the spot where once, thousands upon thousands of years before, a race of beings whose shape he could not even imagine had danced and sang in communion with the being he was about to summon. His offering was a carafe of perfume. As soon as it left the protection of his spells, it exploded in a burst of flame.

The ancient words he had learned in his quest for knowledge left Bisochim’s lips in a whisper. Even cloaked in the most powerful spells he knew, the heat was punishing. He could not stay here long.

One . . . calls . . .

It was not the Firecrown Itself. It could not be. At best, it was the Shrine’s memory of the Firecrown, wakened into life by Bisochim’s
power. But it was the echo of a Greater Power, and he hoped it would be enough. For Saravasse must live, and so her enemies must die. When he felt the Shrine’s power begin to waken, Bisochim poured into that awakening all he knew of the Enemy, and all his will that the Enemy—in all its shifting guises—must be stopped. He felt a flicker of interest from beneath the fire.

A . . . test? . . .

“Yes!” he said aloud. “The Enemy is unworthy! Test him and see for yourself!”

So I shall, Child of Water
.

As Bisochim’s shields began to crumble against the punishing onslaught of the searing heat, he felt a sudden sense of
absence
. The Firecrown—or its echo—was gone. But he was content. It would seek out his Enemy. If the Enemy had survived Cold, he would not survive Fire.