The Phoenix Unchained (57 page)

“What?” Tiercel asked.

They were staying in today. It had rained once or twice since they’d arrived in Karahelanderialigor, but those had been brief showers in the late afternoon, over quickly. This morning, when they’d awakened, the sky was overcast and the rain was coming down in a steady patter that indicated it intended to rain for quite some time, and neither of them was really interested in riding in the rain. Armed with one of the books from the shelves, Tiercel had suggested they try to learn
xaique
, and Harrier was just bored enough to go along with the idea—but not bored enough to actually concentrate on the game.

“Well,” Harrier said, “Elunyerin and Rilphanifel usually practice swordplay in the mornings, and Idalia gardens. We haven’t seen any of them at all for the past few days. Not even at meals.
And Ithoriosa hasn’t been out on the sunning terraces, which means there isn’t anybody I can ask about it.”

“Not really,” Tiercel admitted. Because when the Elves didn’t want to tell you things, they just . . . didn’t.

“So what do we do?” Harrier asked. “Because you know I’ve been thinking, Tyr, it seems like a moonturn is an awfully long time to wait to get a horse and cart, don’t you think?”

Tiercel shrugged and frowned down at the book on his knee. “Maybe. I don’t know. All we can do is wait for them to tell us, I guess. Or—not.”

BUT the following morning, when the boys came down to breakfast, they found that an enormous dark blue silk canopy had been erected in the lawn beyond the garden, now that the rain had passed. Carpets had been laid down over the grass, and the breakfast table had been carried outside.

“It looks like we’re having breakfast with Ancaladar this morning,” Tiercel said. From the windows of the now-empty breakfast room they could see that the great black dragon was coiled most of the way around the outside of the blue pavilion.

“I wonder if he’s hungry?” Harrier said uneasily.

“You two really should try to get along,” Tiercel said, amused. “Come on. I’m sure Farabiael will want us to carry something out.”

The table was already set, and by the time they arrived from the kitchen—Harrier with a jug of cider and Tiercel with a basket of still-warm bread—everyone had gathered. Even Jermayan was present, carried out of his rooms on a litter to be set at the head of the table.

There was an air of expectancy over the meal—and not, Tiercel thought, simply because Jermayan was present.

“You will rejoice to know that the King comes to visit, with his
Council and all his court,” Idalia said at last, when the platters had gone around and everyone had been served. “Sandalon, King of the Elves, with his dragon Petrivoch, and his daughter Vairindiel, the Heir to the Veiled Lands, will come to Karahelanderialigor to cast a Great Spell, do matters unfold as some here wish. They will arrive within the fortnight.”

“Ah, that’s . . . nice,” Tiercel said uncertainly.

“No it isn’t,” Ancaladar snapped.

“It is my wish,” Jermayan said.

His voice was barely a whisper, and Tiercel realized, with a shock, that Jermayan was weaker than he had ever seen him before. “If you can Bond with a dragon, Tiercel, the power to work the Greater Spells of the High Magick will be yours. And so I wish for Ancaladar’s Bond to be transferred to you.”

“But hey, I—Wait a minute! Isn’t that—You can’t—Somebody explain to me why people don’t go around saving dragons this way all the time!” Harrier sputtered, dropping the bread he was holding onto his plate.

Ancaladar actually snickered, a peculiar sound from a creature so large. “Yes, Jermayan, do explain to the boy how what you propose is different than the bargains the Endarkened struck with the Wildmages so long ago, for I fear he has been listening to idle gossip.”

Idalia put a hand over Jermayan’s, and turned toward Harrier. “It is a thing that has never been done, for the cost is high; we shall not conceal that. One Great Spell is given, once in a lifetime, to any Mage who is Bonded to a dragon to cast. The casting of this spell consumes the caster and his dragon utterly. This is the spell Sandalon has come to cast, the spell which, if it works, will transfer Ancaladar’s Bond. All that is required is Tiercel’s consent.”

“So
they’ll
die? The—the—other two?” Tiercel said.
“No.”

Idalia sighed. “Tiercel, Sandalon is very old. He and Petrivoch
have both agreed to this, and so has Ancaladar. It will gain you the power you need. Without it, I . . . do not think you will survive your coming journey.”

Tiercel set down his cup. A moment ago he’d actually had an appetite for breakfast. It would have been nice, he thought, if they could have sprung this on him somewhere a little more private. In addition to Jermayan and Idalia and Elunyerin and Rilphanifel, there were another dozen Elves at the table—all people he knew slightly, all close members of Jermayan’s household, perhaps even family, though apparently Elves didn’t think it was important to specify exact relationships. He did his best to keep his head. There must be a good reason Jermayan wanted to make this discussion so public.

“You know, don’t you?” he said to Idalia. “Whether I’d survive or not?”

The moment after he’d spoken, he realized he’d been unforgivably rude—asking a direct question—but Idalia didn’t seem to mind. She only smiled sadly.

“I have looked into the eyes of the Queen of the Endarkened as she ripped the beating heart from my chest,” Idalia said quietly. “I do not wish to do so again. Nor do I wish that fate on any other.”

Tiercel stood up.

“Do you think this is a good idea?” he asked Ancaladar. “They say you’ve said ‘yes.’ ”

The black dragon raised his head just enough to be able to stare directly into Tiercel’s eyes.

“From my point of view, it isn’t going to last very long,” Ancaladar snapped sullenly. “I saw the Second Endarkened War start, and I wasn’t a young dragon then. Think of yourself. It’s going to last for the rest of your life. What little there is of it.”

“But you can give me the power I need to do . . . whatever I need to do,” Tiercel said.
Whatever that is
.

“Yes,” Ancaladar answered, his voice softening. “I can do that. It’s what my Bonded wishes, and I will not deny him.”

“Then I’ll do it,” Tiercel said.

“Of course,” Ancaladar added, “there’s always the possibility it won’t work at all. Which would be entertaining for all five of us.”

Tiercel opened and closed his mouth several times. He knew there were a lot of things he ought to say right now—polite things, diplomatic things, even things that might somehow get him out of this situation. He couldn’t think of a single one.

“Ah, I’m afraid I don’t really have much of an appetite this morning. I think—if everyone doesn’t mind—I’ll just go for a walk instead.”

He turned away from the pavilion and walked quickly away. He had no idea where he was going, and right now he didn’t care.

“ARE you crazy?” Harrier asked him almost an hour later.

Harrier had caught up to him a few minutes after Tiercel had left the breakfast table—Tiercel hoped Harrier’s apologies to their hosts had been more polite than his had been—and the two of them walked in silence for a while, almost the whole way down to Tiercel’s schoolhouse. Eventually, by mutual consent, they’d turned back toward the house, ending up at the stables.

“I guess,” Tiercel said. “I mean . . . it’s not as if someone’s asking me to kill a young dragon by Bonding to it for just a few years—well, my whole life, but it would be just a few years from the dragon’s point of view, and . . . Ancaladar’s going to die anyway. Soon. At least this way he won’t have to die right now.”

“You’re going to have a dragon. A permanent dragon,” Harrier said. “I mean . . . what are you going to feed him?”

“I don’t know,” Tiercel said, shaking his head. “I guess he’ll have
to tell me.”
If we both live through it
. From what Ancaladar had said, that wasn’t certain.

He’d had more time, now, to get used to the idea of having a dragon—being
Bonded
to a dragon. It was still as mind-boggling, really, as it had been almost a moonturn ago when he’d come up with the idea as the solution to the problem of gaining the power to cast the spells of the High Magick. He really had no idea of what it would be like. But at least he could pretend to think about it now.

“I don’t like it,” Harrier said stubbornly.

“I know.” Tiercel sighed and leaned against the wall of the stables. He wasn’t even sure how he felt about it, only that it seemed as if this was where he’d been heading from the moment he’d ridden out of Armethalieh. To find out about the High Magick, and then to find a way to use it. If he were Bonded to Ancaladar—he still couldn’t quite make himself believe in the idea—he’d have the power he needed to cast the spells. And maybe Jermayan would let him take some of the Spellbooks with him.

“It doesn’t change anything. I still have to go find that place.”

“Even if you get turned into a High Mage?” Harrier asked.

“Especially then, I guess. You heard what Idalia said. I know they must have sort of been planning to do this even before I made up my mind to go, but I think they guessed I would go—somewhere—eventually. And they figure I can’t survive wherever I go without being able to do magic.”

Harrier thought about that for a while. “So . . . either it better take us twenty years to get to the Madiran Desert, or you’d better learn how to be a High Mage really fast.”

“I guess.”

“Okay.” Harrier sighed and seemed to relax. It wasn’t that he’d come to a decision—Harrier rarely reached decisions quickly—but Tiercel knew that Harrier had known, long before he’d been willing to admit it to himself, that this was the only decision Tiercel could
make: Bond with a dragon. And in a way, it was a relief for both of them that Tiercel had accepted his . . . fate.

Tiercel only hoped it was something they could all live with. Literally.

“Do you think there are any leftovers in the kitchen?” Harrier asked. “Because—you know—I missed breakfast.”

Fifteen

A Necessary Sacrifice

O 
N THE FOLLOWING day, the Elven Court arrived from Githilnamanaranath on the wings of dragons.

Elunyerin and Rilphanifel had come to waken Tiercel and Harrier early that morning, telling them that there was a sight to see that they would not wish to miss. The boys had dressed and the four of them gone directly to the stables, where their horses had already been saddled and made ready for them.

“Don’t worry,” Elunyerin had said, noting the look of dismay that Harrier could not completely conceal. “There is breakfast waiting in the saddlebags. But I do not know precisely when they will arrive—there is much to do before tonight—and you will not wish to miss this.”

“Tonight,” Tiercel said. He hoped it didn’t sound too much like a question.

“And, it would be good to know, of your courtesy, what it is that is supposed to happen tonight,” Harrier said.

Rilphanifel glanced at Tiercel, then away. “The Great Spell will be cast at moonrise. Greatfather’s health is too uncertain to wait.”