The Phoenix Unchained (37 page)

BECAUSE of the Mountain Patrol’s new regulations, the mountain inns they stopped at were (so they were told) fuller than usual. Harrier got the opportunity to catch up on all the gossip they’d missed crossing the Plains—and to hear the first news from the East.

“It’s going to be the ruin of my master, I assure you.” The speaker sounded cheerful, for all that he was prophesying immanent doom. Harrier recognized him, from what others had said, as the Wagon-master of a westbound train. He eavesdropped shamelessly.

“Ah, Kerreld, you say that every year.”

“But Baald, this year it happens to be true! In all my years bringing the early harvest down over the mountain, I have
never
seen the crops in the Dragon’s Tail fail so spectacularly! With the drought, no one expected the rice to do well, but then frosts killed most of the
naranjes
and my master hoped that the wheat and the apples would make up for it, though he wouldn’t be able to compete in the first markets there, of course. But half the fields of summerwheat didn’t even come up, and as for the apples . . . I would be ashamed to feed them to my horses!”

“Your horses are unlikely to be in the markets. People will buy them. If they can afford them.”

Harrier heard both men sigh.

“With what I’ve had to pay for extra guards on my wagons—” Baald said, sighing. “Guards! On the Delfier Road! The price of a bolt of Selken velvet will be triple in Ysterialpoerin what it was last year.”

“Triple?” Kerreld said, sounding surprised. “You’re gouging them, my friend.”

Baald snorted rudely. “Not I, but those Light-blasted Selkens! My factor in Sentarshadeen says the cost at dockside Armethalieh has doubled for Selken wares since the spring. Fewer ships from across the sea are coming into Port. No one knows why, only that the list of Missing Ships is longer than it’s ever been. But if the goods aren’t there to buy, costs must be passed along.”

Kerreld chuckled sourly. “Not that anyone will believe that, when a bushel of apples costs four times what it did last year. My master will be lucky not to spend all his time in Magistrates’ Court. Before, of course, he must declare bankruptcy.”

Baald clapped Kerreld on the shoulder. “There will still be work for the likes of us. And before you must seek new employment, I believe it is your turn to buy the next round.”

The two men moved off, leaving Harrier thinking hard.

Once he would have dismissed the talk of drought and blight out of hand as nothing to do with him. But the talk of the late frost reminded him of the cold back at the Inn of the Three Trees that had nearly killed all of them.

Could this, too, have something to do with magic?

The talk of the missing ships worried him far more, for it touched on something he knew well. Travel across the Deep Ocean was never completely safe, of course, and a ship or two was lost each year or so to storms. But to lose so many that it was actually affecting the price of foreign goods at dockside?

That wasn’t natural.

If it was no longer safe to sail to Armethalieh, the Selkens would stop coming. Perhaps they already had. The gossip he’d just heard was at least a couple of moonturns old—the Harbormaster’s son certainly knew how long it took a wagonload of freight to go from Armathalieh to Ysterialpoerin as well as he knew his sums and letters.

Harrier sighed, draining his tankard of cider. Should he tell Tiercel
about this? Probably not. He’d find out on his own soon enough. And it wasn’t as if there were anything either of them could do about it.

ON the far side of the Mystrals, the land was still thickly-forested, and it was easy for Tiercel to imagine the great battles that had taken place here against the forces of the Endarkened. Unlike the west, the east was only lightly-settled; outside of the irregular triangle of land called the Dragon’s Tail defined by the eastern three of the Nine Cities, with Ysterialpoerin at its base, Windalorianan to the north, and Deskethomaynel to the south, the land beyond the Mystrals was much as it had been a thousand years ago.

Fortunately for them, their path took them directly through the heart of the settled lands: up the Dragon’s Gate Road to Ysterialpoerin.

After that, they would take the Triad Road from Ysterialpoerin toward Windalorianan. In Windalorianan, if the weather held, they could take the Bazrahil Road through the Gatekeeper Pass and head through the mountains toward Pelashia’s Veil.

There weren’t any maps after that.

TIERCEL hoped that even if he couldn’t get more money at the Banking House here, that the remains of their funds would stretch to at least a sennight in Ysterialpoerin. After so many sennights on the road, both they and their animals were tired, and the hardest part of the journey lay ahead. He and Harrier had learned the names and locations of some cheap safe inns that catered to travelers, and he still had a few silver unicorns in his pouch.

But to travel farther would require more than a few silver unicorns. Pack horses, warm clothes, a
lot
of supplies . . . things that
would require him not only to draw against his quarterly allowance, but against a portion of his inheritance as well. That had been available to him since his last Naming Day, since Lord Rolfort had felt that Tiercel should be aware of what his position in the City would someday be, and begin to learn to manage his own wealth responsibly. He’d always known that his father could revoke the privilege if he abused it, and he certainly never had. He only hoped that the money was there now.

And that Lord Rolfort simply hadn’t sent orders to take anyone into custody who called for it.

There was no way to know in advance.

And as much as he hated the idea of stopping in a city—where any sort of disaster could happen at any moment—Tiercel actually
did
want to consult the Great Library in Ysterialpoerin. Before the Elves had given the city to Men, it had been—so the ancient legends said—the capital of their empire, where all their ancient learning was stored. For a century after the Great Flowering, Elves and Men had lived together, as Elves had taught Mankind the secrets of their ancient learning before withdrawing over the mountains to the east. If there were books from before the Flowering in Armethalieh, there might be more in Ysterialpoerin. Elven books.

Maybe there was some shortcut to the Elven Lands.

He hadn’t said anything to Harrier, but whatever the talismans Roneida gave them were for, it didn’t seem to have had any real effect on the dream-visions he was having. And now that he suspected the Fire Woman was one of the Endarkened, the dreams were much worse.

It wasn’t so much that their content had changed—because it hadn’t—but the way he felt about it had.

All his life the Endarkened had been the monsters that the Blessed Saint Idalia and Knight-Mage Kellen, the Poor Orphan Boy, had destroyed to bring about the Great Flowering a millennium
ago; nothing scarier than sugar decorations on Festival cakes, or the paper demons in Festival plays. Harmless and kind of exciting. When he’d been a child, Tiercel had played at Knights and Endarkened with his sisters, and of course he’d always made them be the Endarkened.

But now the Endarkened weren’t wondertale monsters any more. They were in his dreams. They were
possible
. They might be coming back. If he was guessing right.

He didn’t want everything to depend on whether or not he was guessing right. Having the Magegift didn’t count. It only made sense that hundreds of people might be born with it every year and just never notice.
He
wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t started messing around with the High Magick, would he? And the Goblins, and the kraken, and the wolves being chased down out of the mountains by
something
. . . that didn’t
have
to mean that the Endarkened were somehow being reborn, did it?

You might be able to fool Harrier with that argument, but you can’t fool yourself. If it’s not the Endarkened, it’s something Dark. And if it’s not coming this year, or even this century, it’s still coming. And the Fire Woman is definitely part of it
. Who was she summoning? And what was she going to do with him when she got her hands on him? Tiercel had absolutely no idea, except that it was something bad.

What was worse—because the danger was more personal—was that he still had the sense of being
watched
. Whatever was stalking him—for whatever reason—was still out there. It was only a matter of time before it came after him—after both of them—again.

MIGHT as well get it over with
, he thought nervously.

The Great Armethalieh Counting House had offices everywhere
in the Nine Cities. It held all the wealth of the Nine, and bound them together in a web of commerce and trade.

They’d stopped first to find a lodging for the next few days, and a place to stable their horses. Harrier had paid close attention to the gossip in the inns through the pass, and was able to direct them to one that was both cheap and clean. It was far from quiet, and there was certainly no attached bath, but they were able to wash the worst of their journey-grime from them, and ask directions to the Counting House.

“Are you sure this is the brightest thing you’ve ever done?” Harrier asked. Tiercel had insisted on going in alone, warning Harrier that he might not be coming out. Though what Harrier could do in that case, other than throw himself on the mercy of the nearest Magistrate, Tiercel wasn’t entirely certain.

“We’ll be starving in the streets in another sennight if I don’t. In a moonturn if we sell the horses, maybe,” Tiercel said grimly. “Besides. That’s only the worst that could happen.”

“My Da would do it,” Harrier said, with feeling.

“He’d be afraid you’d buy a ship and turn pirate if you could get your hands on that much money,” Tiercel gibed.

“Independent trader,” Harrier corrected, with a faint smile. “And you know, I
still
don’t see why he took against the idea so.”

“You were twelve.” Tiercel sighed. “I’m going now.”

“Light be with you,” Harrier said automatically. “Ah, not that you’re going to need it, of course.”

Tiercel raised a hand in salute and walked into the building.