The Phoenix Unchained (4 page)

And he? Well, he’d be at University. Papa said you had to study hard there.

And after that?

Oh, maybe someday he’d win one of the coveted City Magistrateships. Magistrates spent their whole day solving other people’s problems. That would be nice. Tiercel tried to work up an interest in his future.

“
There
you are, Tiercel! This is no night to be hiding in corners! Come and dance!”

“Oh, Mama, I don’t—”

“Come and dance,” his mother said firmly, taking him by the elbow and leading him out from behind the ornamental garland behind which he’d been—fairly successfully until now—hiding. Ignoring his half-voiced protests, she conducted him out toward the dancing floor. “They’re making up a set, and we don’t want to delay them.”

But just as the dancers were about to begin—he was paired up with Brelt’s wife, Meroine, to his relief: she was a good dancer, and would get him through the elaborate figures without disaster—there was a sudden disturbance in the doorway.

“What? Starting without me? Now, I call that rude!”

“
Alfrin
!” Divigana cried in delighted surprise.

“Now, little sister, how could you possibly think I’d miss my little nephew’s Naming Day? After all he’s—what? Eight? Nine?” the
eccentrically-dressed stranger roared cheerfully, swooping Divigana off her feet and swinging her around as if she weighed nothing at all.

“Seventeen, Uncle Alfrin,” Harrier said resignedly, stepping forward.

His uncle regarded him in disbelief. “Surely I haven’t been gone that long,” he muttered.

“Surely you have,” his sister said firmly. “It was supposed to be only a
short
trip to the Selken Isles.”

“Ah, but Divvy, once I was there, the stories I heard! There is a land—far to the west of the Isles—where, so they say, there are people with skin the color of the night sky. And others with the wings of birds! They say there’s a country where dogs and horses can talk, and the people go about without any clothes at all, and do exactly what the beasts tell them. They say—”

“And did you see any of that, Alfrin?” Divigana interrupted, sounding indulgent.

“Well, no,” her brother admitted. “But I saw wonders enough. “Why, let me tell you about the time our ship was attacked by pirates—sunk, too—and if not for a great warm-blooded fish that swam up out of the depths and carried me to safe haven, I wouldn’t be here to tell you about it.”

Divigana wrinkled her nose doubtfully.

“I swear by the Wild Magic, it’s all true,” her brother said virtuously. “It carried me to an island where the people use the creatures to herd their livestock, just as we do with dogs.”

“Their sheep must get very wet,” Antarans commented disbelievingly. “But come, let me get you something to drink. And then you can tell us all why you aren’t still there.”

“As to that, there were no books, of course,” Alfrin said virtuously. “And speaking of books, it’s a poor guest I’d be if I came all this way and forgot young Harrier’s Naming Day present. I have it right here.”

He delved deep into one of the enormous pockets of his gaudy traveling cloak and pulled out a gaily-wrapped parcel, thrusting it at Harrier and regarding him expectantly.

Watching his friend’s face, Tiercel’s heart sank in sympathy. It was obviously a book, and Harrier had little use for books. Tiercel’s own present to Harrier had been a detailed and elaborate model of a full-rigged Selken sailing carrel, one that he knew Harrier had been admiring in the modelmaker’s window for moonturns.

But Harrier opened it and exclaimed politely over the book just as if it were something he’d been hoping to receive all year. Tiercel craned closer, trying to get a glimpse of the title.

It was certainly not a new book. The dusty blue velvet binding was worn to threadbare shininess with age, and only the fact that the title was composed of metal letters fixed somehow into the cover of the book rendered it legible at all.
A Compendium of Ancient Myth and Legend, Compiled from the Histories of the City
. But if the letters had ever been gilded, the gilding had worn off long ago, and they were now simply black with tarnish and age.

“You’re no better a liar now than you were at six, Harrier Gillain,” his uncle said with fond irritation. “You’d rather have a new pair of boots, or a fine cloak, or whatever shiny new distraction entertains the young this season. But I assure you, there are more wonders to be found in this book than in all of Armethalieh, if you’ll only take a moment to look. And isn’t this the season above all others when we should contemplate the marvels of the past? Those days when magic and wonders filled the land and things were never as they seemed? I promise you, the world is wider than your silly little harbor with its silly little ships.”

“Well, without our silly little harbor and its silly little ships, you’d hardly have a place to sail away from and back to, would you, Alfrin?” Antarans said, a bit sharply.

“Is it about magic?” Harrier asked doubtfully.

“That and more,” Alfrin said grandly. “And I look forward to hearing what you think of it,” he told his nephew meaningfully.

Tiercel saw Harrier do his best to repress a sigh.

At last Divigana was able to lead her brother toward the sideboard filled with good things to eat and drink, helping him off with his cloak as she did so.

“Don’t worry, Har,” Tiercel said. “I’ll read it for you and tell you what’s in it. I’m sure he won’t ask too many questions.”

Harrier shot Tiercel a grateful look, but in fact it was as much curiosity as friendship that prompted Tiercel’s offer. The book looked interesting.

“He probably won’t be here long enough to ask any at all,” Harrier said with a relieved grin, promptly handing the book to Tiercel. “I can’t even remember the last time Uncle Alfrin came back to Armethalieh. He’s always off traveling somewhere. We’ve gotten some pretty strange presents over the years, though.”

Tiercel grinned back. He remembered those. Most of them had wound up in the Gillain attic, like the giant stuffed lizard and the musical clock. Some had been pretty but baffling, like the set of glass fish that whistled when you put them out in the rain. And some, Harrier’s parents had never let their youngest child see at all.

THE party broke up rather later than it might otherwise have done. For the rest of the evening, Alfrin Auvalen had been the center of attention, telling amazing tales of his adventures and dancing with every woman there. Tiercel had been fascinated. It wasn’t, of course, that he actually wanted to
go
anywhere. He was perfectly content with life in Armethalieh. But he loved hearing stories of exotic places. And when the Rolforts left that evening, Harrier’s Naming Day present was tucked firmly under Tiercel’s arm.

FOR the next several days, the
Compendium of Ancient Myth and Legend
languished in Tiercel’s study unread, as Festival was a very busy time of year for everyone in Armethalieh. For the Rolfort family, there were parties to be present at, shrines to visit, commemorative ceremonies to attend at the Great Temple of the Light and the Magistrate’s Palace, and, of course, Tiercel’s studies, which could not be neglected even over Festival holiday. He’d only gotten a couple of opportunities to glance into it—it was a very thick book, and quite old—but it looked very promising, with pictures of unicorns, Otherfolk, and men in grey robes with
very
odd hats.

He saw little of Harrier during that time, because of course, even if school was not in session, that hardly meant that the Harbormaster’s son had nothing to do, either. Harrier was at the Port from Second Dawn Bells till Evensong Bells, just as a good going-to-be Apprentice Harbormaster should be. But at last, as Festival Sennight drew to a close, Tiercel finally found the time to fulfill his promise to Harrier. He would treat reading Harrier’s book just as if it were a school project, taking notes and writing a report and everything, so that just in case Alfrin Auvalen
did
ask Harrier about his Naming Day present, Harrier would be able to answer all his questions.

IT was a damp dull day. A steady soaking rain pounded the streets of the City, washing away the last of the early spring snow and muting the carillons so that—if not for the clocks—it would be almost impossible to tell the passing of one bell from the next. Tiercel took the
Compendium
off to the window seat in a corner of his study and settled down to read.

“Those days when magic and wonders filled the land and things were never as they seemed”
indeed. The title called the book “Myth and Legend,” but it almost seemed to be history. Ancient history.

Tiercel had never really had the opportunity to read a lot of Ancient History. There weren’t really very many books on it in the General Section of the Great Library. Oh, there were the traditional tales of the Great Flowering and the Blessed Saint Idalia, but they were so skimpy on details that he’d just skimmed them. They raised more questions than they answered, and nobody seemed to have the answers. Instead, he’d read books on Literature, Geography, Botany—even slightly-more-recent history (the kind that people could actually prove had happened). These were all courses taught in Preparatory School, and all subjects he’d dabbled in on his own time. He’d learned a lot, but it had frustrated him, too, because none of them had ever really engaged his interests. At heart, Tiercel had begun to wonder if he was nothing more than a dabbler. A dilettante. Light-minded.

But the
Compendium
—which said in the front that it contained excerpts from something else called
A History of The City In Six Volumes
—talked about the Time of Mages not only in more detail than any book Tiercel had ever run across before, but it spoke as if whoever had written it had actually been there and understood
why
those things had happened.

“In that time, all Otherfolk and Other Races were Banished beyond the Bounds of the lands claimed for the City of Armethalieh, for the High Mages saw them as a rebuke to the power of the High Magick.”

High Magick? What was that?

“Thus, when King Andoreniel of the Elves invoked the Ancient Treaty and called the humans to fight for the Light against the Endarkened—then called Demons—the High Mages refused to fight, or to allow their subjects to fight. It was only when they at last came to understand that they had been the first victims of the Endarkened in the Third War Against the Light—”

Third War? There’d been others?

“—that the High Mages were at last brought to set aside a thousand years of fear and prejudice and blend their power once more with the Wildmages and their ancient Allies of the Light to defeat the Endarkened.”

There was more, though not much more about the Third War—the war Tiercel had thought of all his life as the
only
war. The rest of that chapter talked about the High Mages from before the war.

And that was fascinating enough.