The Phoenix Unchained (35 page)

Harrier sighed. Simera would have known. “That’s a problem.”

“Or—” Tiercel continued doggedly, “whether there’s going to be anybody alive in Thunder Grass when we get there.”

“That’s a real problem.” Harrier watched the sun rise for a while. “We could stay here,” he said. “Somebody’s going to come
down this road eventually.” He was sure they could figure out some way to explain why the shrine was glowing.

“I think it
was
a kraken,” Tiercel said.

Since Harrier had known his friend practically from the time Tiercel had learned to walk, he didn’t find anything particularly unusual in the abrupt change of subject. That didn’t mean, however, that he knew what Tiercel was talking about.

“Krakens live in the ocean,” Harrier reminded him.

“The captain of the
Marukate
,” Tiercel explained patiently, “said his ship had been attacked by a kraken.”

“Oh, yes,” Harrier said, nodding. “That makes perfect sense.”

“And krakens are creatures of Dark Magic. They were in your uncle’s book.”

“And haven’t been seen in . . . how many hundred years?”

“A lot. And neither have Goblins. I think those things last night were Goblins. I’m not sure. If they were, we’re safe during the day. They only come out at night.”

“The Blessed Saint Idalia destroyed all the creatures of the Dark,” Harrier said uneasily.

Tiercel glanced up at him, folding the map back into the guidebook. “I know. She made the Great Sacrifice at Kindling and broke the power of the Endarkened, and they and their creatures were all destroyed, which is why the land flowered again. Everyone says so. And the Priests and the Wildmages said it was forever, but . . . But I think they’re coming back.”

I don’t want to hear this
, was Harrier’s first, automatic thought.
But I’m only seventeen!
was his second.

He looked around. Empty sky, empty earth.

And the blue light flooding out from the door of the Light-shrine. Light that Tiercel had put there.

“
The Gods don’t send us gifts we don’t need
.”

Roneida had said that.

Was that why Tiercel had the powers of a High Mage? Because the Darkness was coming back? But Tyr had no idea of what to do with them!

And there was only one of him.

Even Kellen the Poor Orphan Boy had had an army.

“Because you did one little Dark-damned spell?” Harrier demanded angrily.

“I don’t think so,” Tiercel answered slowly. “I just think everything’s all unraveling at the same time. I think the fact that it’s unraveling is why there are krakens and Goblins and probably other things out there that we haven’t run into. And why I’m having visions.”

“Although you don’t know what they’re visions
of
,” Harrier pointed out.

“Maybe I do. Har, what do the Endarkened look like?”

Harrier sighed deeply. “You went to all the same Flowering Festival plays that I did. They’re giant black monsters with wings and tails that live—well,
lived
—under Shadow Mountain.”

“That’s just what we
think
they look like. Nobody really knows. The only thing we know for sure is that they could look like anything.”

“I really hate to break this to you, but Knight-Mage Kellen and the Armies of the Light killed all the Endarkened a thousand years ago. They’re gone.”

Tiercel just kept looking at him, in the way that he did when he wasn’t going to argue about something any more. And Harrier didn’t want to argue either. This was too important for that. Tiercel was right: the Endarkened could look like
anything
. That was how they’d snuck into Armethalieh to steal Saint Idalia from her cradle, and how they’d managed to place the Demon Queen’s own son, Anigrel the Black, in a nobleman’s house to be raised as a Prince of the City.

“We have to tell somebody,” Harrier said. But tell them what?
That the ancient evil that had been destroyed forever was—somehow—coming back? Who was going to believe them?

Tiercel laughed bitterly. “I’ve told everybody I can think of, Harrier: my tutor,
three
Healers in Armethalieh, my Preceptor, the Chief Preceptor in Sentarshadeen. I’ve even told a Wildmage.”

“You didn’t tell them this,” Harrier pointed out. Not that the Creatures of the Dark were coming back. It was almost proof. It would be proof—providing anyone saw them besides him and Tiercel.

And lived to tell. He took a deep breath, trying not to think of Simera.

“I don’t think it’s going to make any difference. I can’t prove any of it, any more than the captain of the
Marukate
could prove he’d been attacked by a kraken. The only thing I
can
prove is that I have the ability to do High Mage magic, and while that might prove something to somebody eventually, I don’t know if we have, well,
time
. I think it’s just going to keep . . . getting worse. Roneida said we should—
I
should—go find the Elves. That’s what I’m going to do,” Tiercel said stubbornly.

“This is crazy,” Harrier said desperately. “Things like this don’t happen to people like us. Things like this don’t happen to
anybody
.”

“They happened to people once.”

“About a thousand years ago.”

“One thousand and eight years ago this last Kindling.”

“Pedant.”

“Dock-rat.”

“Book-nose.”

“At least I can read.”

Harrier stuffed the last of the trail-bar into his mouth and chewed noisily, spraying crumbs. “So,” he said, after he’d swallowed. “Elves?”

Tiercel sighed. “We’ll stop in Thunder Grass first and see what
we can pick up in the way of supplies, I guess. Then go on over the Southern Pass.”

Harrier nodded. It was pretty much what he’d decided as well. He just hoped Thunder Grass was . . . there. “We might as well catch a few hours sleep first.”

THEY headed up the road around midday. Their luck turned, and they spent that evening in the camp of a wagon train heading west toward Sentarshadeen.

The wagonmaster thought it was odd to find two boys in the middle of nowhere, traveling with little more than the clothes on their backs, and Harrier wasn’t at all sure what to say to him by way of explanation.

Tiercel, of course, told him nearly everything.

He left out the part about being a High Mage, about having visions, and about intending to go visit the Elves—for which Harrier was profoundly grateful—but he told him about meeting Simera on the road to Sentarshadeen, and traveling north with her, and meeting Roneida, and stopping in Windy Meadows and finding it completely deserted. About encountering the strange creatures there, and being followed by them. About Simera’s death.

“And why were you and your young friend heading all this way north?” Wagonmaster Matteus asked.

“I’d wanted to see the Great Library at Ysterialpoerin,” Tiercel said simply. “I’m going to be entering University in Armethalieh to study Ancient History, and Master Cansel—he’s the Chief Librarian at the Great Library in Armethalieh—said that the Library there had an excellent collection of ancient texts.”

Harrier attempted to keep his face completely blank. Had Tier-cel actually just
lied?

Matteus shook his head in disbelief at the foolishness of boys, but there was no doubt that he accepted Tiercel’s explanation. “I am very sorry for your misfortune. You’re welcome to travel back with us to Sentarshadeen, if you wish. Your horses look as if they can stand the pace.”

But Tiercel shook his head in turn. “No, I’d rather keep going. We’ve come so far already. Isn’t there a town near here where we can buy a pack-horse and supplies to take us through the Mystrals?”

Matteus pursed his lips, thinking. “Thunder Grass should be able to sell you what you need. It’s about three days up the road, and half a day off it, but the turn-off is well marked. There’s a post-inn and a Light-shrine between here and the turn-off. Both have wells, so you won’t lack for water, and you’ll be able to buy food and drink at the inn, though there’s no place to sleep. And we could let you have a bit of food as well.”

“We’d be happy to pay for anything you can spare,” Harrier said quickly.

THAT night, curled up in a new set of bedrolls—Matteus had insisted on making them a gift, saying the information they’d given him about what they’d encountered in Windy Meadows was well worth the reward—Harrier took the opportunity to quiz his friend.

“Tyr, did you actually
lie
to the Wagonmaster?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

Tiercel chuckled in the darkness.

“Well, I
am
going to study Ancient History. And I
do
want to see what the library has at Ysterialpoerin. But no, Master Cansel didn’t actually suggest I go there. I guess I’m picking up bad habits from you.”

“Good thing.”

“Go to sleep.”

In the morning they continued north.

THE Posting Inn was a simple one-room structure, designed mainly to serve the needs of the dispatch riders who took the northern route. There were not so many riders as on the other road, for most of the traffic went by way of Ondoladeshiron, and took the southern pass across the Mystrals before swinging north to Ysterialpoerin. But the northern pass was the most direct route between Sentarshadeen and Ysterialpoerin, and the needs of those who rode this way must be served as well. If Harrier and Tiercel had followed the road instead of riding directly over the Plains, they would have seen Posting Inns set all along their way. Anywhere there was not a town set close to the road—such as Windy Meadows—there would be a Posting Inn, each one set a day’s ride apart.

The inns could provide food and drink for travelers and their horses, but were really only intended as brief stopping places for the post-riders who carried the Magistrates’ most urgent messages—and those letters that private individuals were willing to pay the premium to get to their destination in sennights instead of moonturns. Tiercel checked with the innkeeper, and discovered that a westward post-rider was expected to come through the day after next. They would be able to send a letter with him, if they wished.

It had been far too long since their parents had gotten word from them. Their last letters had been sent from Sentarshadeen; it was possible that there might be a response waiting in Ysterialpoerin, though it would only be an exceedingly lucky guess on the part of either of their families that would lead them to address a letter there. And what might it say? “Come home”?

Tiercel couldn’t do that, even though he wanted to. But certainly
both of them owed their families fresh word, even if it couldn’t be the words he knew his and Harrier’s parents wanted to hear. And so, after a brief consultation, he and Harrier bought paper and ink, and borrowed pens, and sat at one of the tables in the small common room with mugs of watered ale to compose the letters they needed to send. The cost of sending anything by a Dispatch Rider was high, but Tiercel didn’t want to wait and hope a caravan that was willing to take their letters stopped here. This method, at least, was certain.

They also wrote a letter to Simera’s Guildhouse in Sentarshadeen, giving an account of how and where she had died, and signing both their names to it. They weren’t certain what else to do—she’d never spoken much of her family—but the Forest Watch would be able to get word to any family she had. They might even be able to find the Wildmage Roneida and get her account of matters; in a part of his mind, Tiercel was thinking that no matter how carefully he phrased his account of what had happened at Windy Meadows, it would sound very suspicious. At least the Wildmage could vouch for their honesty and innocence.