The Phoenix Unchained (40 page)

“YOU didn’t even tell him who you were!” Harrier said, outraged.

“The point was to avoid a fight, not start one,” Tiercel said patiently.

“He wanted to hit you!” Harrier sputtered.

“But he wouldn’t. Then he’d have to explain to Lord Whoever why it was that
he
was fighting in the Library Plaza. He just wanted me to bow to him. So I did. Problem solved.”

“I will never understand you.”

“Just as long as you find us something to eat. I’m starving.”

The two boys set off once again in the direction of a cookshop they remembered from the morning, where the food was both cheap and plentiful.

“ARE you sure it’s this way, Har?”

“I thought it was.”

The sun had set while they’d been walking back in the direction of their lodgings, and the lamps made all the streets look different than they had when they’d set out for the Library in the early afternoon. The two of them realized that they were not only completely lost, but completely lost in a part of Ysterialpoerin where—from
the look of things—it would not be a good idea to stop and ask for directions.

Garbage clogged the drainage gutter running down the center of the narrow street, and rats scuttled through the piles of refuse that lay heaped in drifts along the walls. All of the windows that they saw were barred and shuttered, and the shutters themselves were chipped and battered.

Neither boy was entirely certain of how they’d ended up in this narrow maze of twisting alleyways when they’d been walking down a pleasant—though shabby—merchant street a moment or two before. They’d been on a street that sold books. . . .

“I’d better look at the map,” Tiercel said, reaching into the pocket in his cloak.

Harrier looked around. It was already so dark that they could barely make out each other’s faces, let alone the fine print and finer lines on the street map Tiercel had bought that morning. The walls of the alley hadn’t been whitewashed in living memory, and there weren’t any lanterns—even at the intersections—rendering their surroundings even gloomier. And of course,
they
didn’t have a lantern. They’d been sure they’d be back at their lodgings before it got dark.

Abruptly Harrier realized what Tiercel was about to do.

“Tyr, I’m really not sure it’d be a good idea to do that glowy thing right now,” Harrier said. Tiercel still hadn’t figured out how to make the globes of MageLight he could create go away.

“Well, without it we aren’t going to be able to see,” Tiercel answered, lowering his hand. He sounded irritated. “Find me something to cast it on, then, and I’ll use that. We can at least hide it, or stuff it under our cloaks, or something.”

Harrier
really
didn’t want to go poking around in the trash-heaps at the edges of the alley, but fortunately somebody had dumped the broken remains of an old chair among the debris. He
pulled it cautiously free of its pile of garbage and was starting to pull it apart in order to get a handy length of wood when he heard the sound of many pairs of feet coming toward them. Torches flickered on the walls of the intersection at the end of the alley.

“Come out, street rats! It’s time to take your thrashing!” an oddly familiar voice bellowed. After a moment, Harrier recognized it as the stranger they’d bumped into in front of the library. He stared at the advancing torchlight, more in disbelief than in any recognition of possible personal danger. How had the stranger found them? And why had he bothered? As he was still staring at the light, Tiercel ran forward, grabbed his arm, and dragged him back up the alley in the other direction.

“I will find you!” the voice bellowed from behind them.

THEY no longer concerned themselves with trying to find their way out of whatever part of Ysterialpoerin they were lost in. All Tiercel cared about now was staying away from the creature that pursued them. He was sure it was the same creature that he’d met before, on the High Plains; whether it had also been the steward he’d bumped into outside the library, he wasn’t sure.

It didn’t matter.

Whether due to the stranger’s magic, or simply because the people who lived in this district, being no strangers to violence, knew enough to avoid it whenever possible, the alleys and backstreets down which they fled were completely deserted, despite the early hour. Tiercel and Harrier knew they were probably running in circles—they had to be; if they’d been running in a straight line they’d undoubtedly have reached one of the main streets by now. Even the few tiny shops that they passed were barred and shuttered, their windows dark.

“WE should stand and fight,” Harrier growled.

Both boys were sweaty and out of breath. It didn’t matter how fast they ran, or how far—and by now they were feeling their way through total darkness, as the last light had faded from the evening sky—every time they stopped to catch their breath, they heard the taunting voice of their pursuer half a street behind them, and the chase was on once more.

“And get killed?” Tiercel panted. “We don’t know how many people he has with him.”

“Okay.
I
should stand and fight. You should keep running,” Harrier amended.

“That’s not any better,” Tiercel said.

“Those seem to be our only choices.”

They saw the glare of torches behind them and staggered off down the alley once more.

“WE should have turned back there,” Tiercel said with resignation.

“It’s a dead end,” Harrier snarled, kicking the wall.

Tiercel spread his hands, and the air between them began to glow.

“Don’t
do
that!” Harrier said, automatically.

“If I’m going to die, I want to see who’s responsible,” Tiercel said. The small ball of MageLight hovered for a moment, then rose up to hover several feet above his head.

The alley was narrow, barely ten feet wide. Decaying garbage heaped the three walls of the dead end, its scent sickeningly sweet even in the cool night air. Buildings rose up five stories high on all three sides, but there were no windows within their reach. The ancient brick was crumbling and irregular, but not uneven enough to give enough purchase for climbing.

There was nothing anywhere within reach that could possibly
be used as a weapon. Neither boy was carrying anything more threatening than their eating knives.

They waited in silence, panting, hearts hammering.

Nothing happened.

Their pursuer didn’t arrive.

“YOU know,” Harrier said after several minutes, “none of this makes any sense. Why chase us around this Dark-damned rabbit warren for an entire bell and then—when he’s got us cornered—
not
come finish us off?”

“Yes,” Tiercel said.

“ ‘Yes’ is the answer?”

“It’s a riddle. It’s not a ‘he,’ Harrier, it’s an ‘it.’ Something that isn’t human. It doesn’t think like a human being. When it came after us—me—on the Plains, it didn’t act human at all. I think it’s learning about . . . us.”

“About you, you mean,” Harrier said with sudden insight. “It wanted to see what you’d do when you thought it was going to kill you. I don’t see why it bothered. It already sent the Goblins after us.”

“No,” Tiercel said slowly. “I think that’s something else doing that. And I think this—whatever it is—is testing me.”

“Well . . . did you pass?” Harrier asked, still looking up the alleyway.

“I have no idea,” Tiercel answered. “Maybe I was supposed to confront it instead of running away from it. Try to set it on fire or something. But I can’t see how that could possibly have been a good idea.”

“Probably not,” Harrier said with a sigh. “We’re still lost, though,” he said after a moment.

“Not if this map is at all accurate,” Tiercel said with a faint grin, reaching into his cloak pocket once again.