Phoenix in Shadow - eARC (9 page)

As It explained, the yellow eyes began to dance with excitement, and It knew that success was assured.

Come, Phoenix and your friends. All will be ready when you arrive.

Chapter 10

The crumbling path stretched up between slopes dotted with trees that were touched with a stronger, somehow virulent green, and then vanished into shadow cast by the mountains about.

“Rivendream Pass,” the Wanderer said quietly. “This is as far as my magic can take us, as close to your mystery as I can go without traveling with you.”

“So, will you?” Poplock asked. “Because that would be really useful, even if you’re only half of what they say you are.”

He felt Tobimar jerk slightly under him at the casual question and could see Kyri shoot an outraged glance at him from beneath her helm. The two still held the Wanderer in some awe, and Poplock
was
being rather informal.

The Wanderer merely chuckled. “Sorry, Poplock. I can’t go much farther; I’ve got other places that need me, and as I said, I can’t tell you what’s going on. Going with you, with what I know, that would be potentially worse.”

He raised the rune-covered staff and pointed. “The only
good
thing about Rivendream is that it’s not a tricky maze. It’s the one decent, halfway level path through the Khalal range, and if you stick with the reasonably easy pathways, you will most certainly emerge in Moonshade Hollow. No getting lost, as can happen crossing through mountains in other places.”

He turned back to the group and looked at them.
Looks more serious than usual.
“I can’t even give you much more advice, let alone direct aid. Kyri...just remember, this
is
part of the mission you follow for Myrionar. While this is also Tobimar’s quest, much of what is to come is yours as well, part of your own journey, and a terribly important one.

“Tobimar, I can only tell you this: you are, indeed, the true descendant of the Lords of the Sky, of their rulers. That much have your people remembered and kept true and pure. You were chosen by the turn of a card that represents Terian himself; I cannot watch over you...but he may.”

Finally he looked at Poplock. “I don’t underestimate you, Poplock, but be careful.” He reached inside his clothing and took out a small ivory colored cylinder with strange writing on it below an outline of a sailing ship. The cylinder—a container of some sort—rattled. He unscrewed the top and poured many somethings that glittered into his hand, selected one, and poured the rest back, putting the container away. “Take this.”

Poplock reached out and took the sparkling object.
Ooh, it’s a crystal. Shiny, natural facets...not quite so sparkly as diamond, though. Water-clear, though with a few black inclusions—not perfect. Six-sided, double termination...
“Quartz crystal? No offense, but I’ve got—”

“—none like
that
one, my amphibious friend.
That
crystal I mined, with my own hands, and have carried with me ever since first I came to this world.”

Poplock almost dropped the sparkling stone. “You...this is from
Zaralandar
—what you and Xavier call Earth?”

“It is indeed. One such as yourself might do many things with that. Save it. Think on it. Use it when you are certain. But it carries with it some of the essence of my world—some of
my
essence, in fact, for as I said I dug it from the stone by hand, broke the stone from the earth and split it with hand-forged steel wedges and a sledgehammer. My sweat—and maybe a little blood—was shed getting that very nice crystal out of its stone. It’s a part of me. That by itself makes it unique.”

The little Toad bowed as deeply as his anatomy permitted. “I’ll be very careful with it. And I’ll think real hard on what I can use it for.”

“Good.” He bowed to all of them, a dramatic gesture with a flare of his cloak. “I hope we shall meet again...when you return.”

He took three strides...and vanished.

Poplock shook his head. “Makes it look so easy. Well, let’s get moving, right?”

“Right,” Kyri agreed, and Tobimar nodded, hitching his pack up and making sure it was settled properly. “No point in waiting.”

For a while as they moved farther up and into Rivendream pass, Poplock studied the crystal. There
was
something strange about it, an aura that interacted strangely with his attempts to divine something about it. Finally, though, he put it away carefully into his pack.
Figuring that thing out will take more than an hour riding on someone’s shoulder. Quartz has its own virtues, but a crystal from the Wanderer? That’s gonna be something special.

Rivendream Pass continued up—a relatively steep incline at first, but one that abated after a mile or so. The air was somewhat cooler here, and Poplock noticed something. “Look at those trees.”

“What?” Tobimar paused and looked. “You’re right. Different, not what we’re used to at all. I think, from something I read in Skysand’s library, that this one’s an oak.”

“It is,” agreed Kyri. “Lythos taught me to identify the higher-slopes’ trees. That’s a maple, over there, and the dark-barked one over by that rock is
santki
.” She frowned. “But all of them look...”

“Wrong. Yeah, I noticed,” Poplock agreed darkly. “Branches growing at funny angles. Leaves not quite right. Trunks not really straight.”

Tobimar stiffened. “And listen.”

Poplock sat up and listened—and looked, no point in not looking.

At first he didn’t get what Tobimar was pointing out. There were the faint sounds of movement that you hear in any forest—little creatures, occasionally a larger one...

...but...

...but they were somehow not right, as well. Poplock couldn’t clear the mud off it, so to speak, but he could just tell that nothing in this place was quite the way it should be. Reflexively he let his tongue snap out and snag a passing fly, and suddenly he found himself gagging, spitting the mangled insect back out. “Ack! Uggh! That was
vile
.”

“You couldn’t eat an
insect
?” Tobimar studied him with growing concern. “I’ve never seen anything you wouldn’t eat.”

“You haven’t seen enough, then. But that was in a special class all by itself.”

“Poisonous?”

“Don’t
think
so...not exactly, anyway. But...lemme catch another. Without eating it, this time.”

He managed to snag another fly, but transferred it to his front paws instead of his mouth. Kyri came over to watch. “Umm...Not the fat, sleek shape I expect. Narrower. Faster, maybe. But more importantly...” he mumbled a few words, took a look at the thing. In his eyes, the insect dimmed, a pattern of dark lines rippling around it. “Dark,
dark
magic influencing it. Don’t know how eating it would affect me. Not going to try it to find out.”

Kyri’s face went grim. “That means we don’t dare eat anything we catch here. Or we have to find some way to purify it that we can afford to use.”

Tobimar nodded slowly. “A good thing we
did
pack a lot of provisions.”

“Even so...” Poplock frowned. “There’s a
lot
of Moonshade Hollow on the other side, isn’t there?”

“You’re right.” Concern deepened on both the humans’ faces. “If we take too long, we could easily run out.”

“Depending on how long it takes to get through the pass, it could be not long after we get there,” agreed Poplock.

Tobimar nodded again. “Well...we can think about possible solutions as we continue. We’ve got a few more hours until nighttime, I’d like to move on.”

“Yes. We’ve got to get going,” agreed Kyri.

But she slid Flamewing from its sheath, and Tobimar drew his new, shining blades as well. Poplock didn’t draw Steelthorn, but he did make sure it, his clockwork crossbow, and a few other things were close to hand.

This isn’t going to be fun at
all.

Chapter 11

Kyri shook herself, breaking out of a reverie of remembrance, seeing again the darkness of Rivendream Pass, the serpent’s corpse, the burned bush. The memories of how they had come here seeming to have streamed by her in a moment, she shivered anew at the oppressive
wrongness
that now weighed upon her. “We were warned,” she repeated. “Warned that even Myrionar’s powers would be weakened here.”

“True...but the Wanderer had said that was inside Moonshade Hollow. Instead, we’re barely halfway through Rivendream, and it’s already affecting you.” Tobimar looked at where the charred corpse lay. “And these things...”

“Almost familiar, aren’t they?” Poplock commented.

“Yes...” The three stood, contemplating the remains for a moment, and then Tobimar snapped his fingers. “I have it. The things we fought in the clearing, after Thornfalcon died.”

“Very similar in feel,” agreed Kyri. The same feeling of
wrongness
and ancient evil pervaded most of the things in this pass. “But yet...”

“Yeah. Yet,” agreed the Toad. “These things are disgusting monsters, but all the ones we’ve seen have been, well,
normal
twisted disgusting creatures, if you know what I mean?”

Kyri blinked. “Umm...I’m not quite sure I do, actually.”

“Well, a
lot
of the things that attacked us in the clearing weren’t...well, they weren’t
one
thing, if you know what I mean.”

That
made sense. “You’re right. There were those nameless monsters like men crossed with centaurs and something worse, the
bilarel
with a crab’s arms, and so on.”

“And there were a
lot
of them,” Tobimar said. “If that was a gateway, there had to be just an
immense
herd of the things waiting to come through.”

“Bad news twice over,” observed Poplock. “First, means someone has a heck of a lot of monsters—and probably
made
the things, too, somehow. I’ve heard of lifestitching of various types, but...that’s
hard
magic. Not just dark, though the way those things were made it’s definitely dark, but really, really difficult. Playing with life—changing it—that’s one of the harder parts of magic. Second, means whoever it is can keep these things from fighting
each other
, or they’d have ripped each other to shreds as soon as they came through.”

“By the Light, you’re correct. I hadn’t thought of that, but it makes sense. And it’s ugly.”

“This whole
thing
is ugly.” Kyri couldn’t keep from shivering, and not just from the air which was cooler than she was used to. “Tobimar, if the maps we have are even
close
to correct, Moonshade Hollow is
hundreds
of miles across in all directions. Can we even
survive
in that place, with what we’ve seen so far?”

“Do you have faith in Myrionar?” he asked her quietly.

“Yes,” she answered without hesitation.

“Then believe in him and the Wanderer. They said we
could
get through this, and while the Wanderer said he wasn’t going to be able to help us, I’ll bet he’d have at least given us a decent
hint
if he thought we were underequipped. Somehow there’s a way through this.”

Kyri nodded and smiled at him.
He knows how to support me, support my faith, even when it isn’t his.
That meant a lot to her...especially now. “You’re right. I must have faith, and I
will
have faith. Somehow we will find a way through even the Hollow.” She glanced back at the charred area. “Honestly...we’ve been sort of lucky, I think.”

“You’ve got a
strange
idea of luck!” Poplock muttered.

“No, really. Most of the things we’ve run into have been, well,
obviously
dangerous, actively hostile. I think that thing was a
voromos
originally, or its ancestors were.”

“Voromos... Yes, I think you’re right. The poison spitting fits, and the three ridges on the head look close.”

Tobimar nodded. “It was bigger, more hostile, and its venom was actively controlling things it touched instead of just making them docile and eventually killing them, but yes. So...?

“Ohhhh, I think I get her point. These things, they’re all up-front killers. How’d you like to deal with Rivendream’s version of a forestfisher or a, what’s the name,
itrichel
?”

Tobimar shuddered, and so did Kyri. “A mindworm? No thank you. Nor the other. You’re right. Let’s hope we stay that lucky, at least.”

Kyri shivered again. Forestfishers, or
jilyesh
, were giant spidery creatures that would use their webs to drop poison onto sleeping victims;
itrichels
were worse—intelligent parasites that used guile and stealth to acquire new hosts. Both were, fortunately extremely rare. But they were, indeed, excellent examples of what she meant. “Yes, let’s hope so,” she agreed.

They continued along the deceptively green and bright valley; a few flat blocks, here and there, were the only reminder that a great throughfare had run from one side to the other of Rivendream Pass, once Heavenbridge Way. Kyri watched ahead of them carefully; she knew that Tobimar was checking the sides, and the little Toad was watching their rear. But the discovery that the Wanderer’s warning had been true weighed on her. “Poplock, are you feeling the same resistance to your magic that I was feeling with Myrionar’s power?”

“Hm. Haven’t tried yet; summoning crystals use mostly power you stored up before, you know. And they’re sorta aided by the use of the crystal medium. Not as much as gemcallers, though. Let’s see...” He mumbled some words, sketched a symbol in the air; shimmering light twined in mist, touched with fire, descended over both her and Tobimar, cleansing them of the mess from the last battle. “
Whooof!
Yes, that was
tough
. Normally that’d be really easy to do, but that felt more like it was a spell twice, maybe three times that complex.” The brown Toad rubbed his broad chin thoughtfully, looking back behind them. “No, that’s not quite it. It didn’t feel more complicated, but like I was having to...
drag
the magic out of the world, instead of it just flowing. Like walking up a flowing stream, how the very nature of it fights you. Right?”

That
described the feeling she’d gotten very well. “I think you’ve got it. Perhaps also like trying to draw a breath underwater through a long tube.” She glanced to Tobimar before returning her gaze forward. “Your abilities are unhindered?”

“They seem to be so far. This fits with what we were told.”

At least
one
of us will be at full strength.
She knew that even with this handicap, her sheer power would probably exceed that of Tobimar—weakened or not, Myrionar
was
still a god, and she was Myrionar’s last, final hope, to which all power might be directed in extremity. And she still had the Vantage strength; nothing could take that from her unless it were something like poison.
And anyone else trying to use magic in here will be handicapped as well
.

The real problem, she thought, still remained food and drink. Purifying what they found here to be safe wasn’t easy, and now it would be even harder. Moonshade Hollow was supposed to be
worse
than Rivendream Pass—the source from which this stuff at the edges
came
from.

She honestly wasn’t sure she
wanted
to know what could be worse.

Then she saw what was ahead. “Oh, Myrionar’s
Balance
.”

Here, near or perhaps just past the crest of the pass, halfway to their destination, the mountains had lost part of their great battle with the elements, and unleashed their fury on the valley below. The pass was filled with jumbled, sharp-edged rock and earth to a depth of seventy to a hundred feet—a recent, massive landslide, probably no more than a few weeks, maybe less; in the relative stillness of the area, she could still hear muffled but definite sounds of shifting, settling rock.

It was clear there was no going around the slide; they had no choice except to go over it or through it. Briefly she thought of the unstoppable power she had unleashed in the final strike against the army of abominations on Thornfalcon’s estate, but shook her head; that had been a truly justified action, one of vengeance finally attained. Using that level of power just to clear the road—even if she could
reach
that level of power here—would not be looked upon kindly.

“Sand and grit,” muttered Tobimar. “That’s going to be an absolute
gem
of a climb, let me tell you. We’ll be lucky to get over it with only one of us crippled.”

“Might not be so bad for
me
,” Poplock said, eyeing the massive tumbled wall of fractured stone. “It’s settled enough that a little Toad of my weight probably won’t bother it. But you guys...that’s not going to be a fun climb.”

What had she just been thinking?
Go over it
.

“I’ve got an idea,” she said. “I haven’t tried this before, but I
think
it should work.”

“What? Remember the power—”

“I know. It’s probably going to be pretty hard to do here, if I can. But if I can it’ll save us time, and potentially injury. Honestly,” she looked again at the unstable mass, “I can see too many ways this wall of shifting rock could
kill
us outright.” She looked up and took a deep breath. “So let’s see if I can
fly
us over.”

Tobimar looked at her and his eyes suddenly showed a child’s wonder. “Fly? You can
fly
?” He looked suddenly embarrassed. “I mean, I’d heard the stories, but Thornfalcon didn’t fly, so I wasn’t sure...”

“I
think
I can. It’s one of the powers of most if not all of the Justiciars; Thornfalcon knew I was right there with him, so he probably didn’t think it was worth the risk to become an aerial target.” She felt her own heart starting to beat in anticipation, not just in tension for success or failure, or in fear of what might be waiting.
Flying
. Wasn’t this one of the greatest dreams? And by his expression, one that Tobimar shared. “Let me try, anyway.”

She closed her eyes and concentrated. “Myrionar, God of Justice and Vengeance, hear me. Give me the Wings of the Phoenix, wings strong and true enough to carry me and my friends over this barrier, carry us into the sky and to the lands beyond the wall before us.”

A shiver of anticipation washed down her back, and then suddenly it was
more
than anticipation; between her shoulderblades a warmth, a tingling fire that energized her, even as she felt the
effort
of drawing the power through, and threw her own will into
dragging
the energy through the interference of Rivendream Pass. And as the power slowly yielded, the sensation became warmer, spread, and she saw a golden glow beginning to illumine the world through her eyelids. She let her eyes open slowly, but still did not look behind her, only focusing on her need, seeing only what was before her, cast into brilliant relief and sharp shadow.

Tobimar was staring in awe, and even Poplock turned to take his time to stare.

With a final effort she felt the blessing complete, and looked.

Gold-flaming wings stretched glittering, shimmering pinions fifteen feet on either side of her, and she could feel...she
knew...
how to use them. She laughed, even as she felt a little trembling in her knees from the effort she’d just expended. “It
worked
.”

“It would certainly appear so,” Tobimar said, still staring. “Can you carry me? Poplock, obviously, will not be a problem.”

“I’m sure I can. But let me just test the wings first...”

With a spring she leapt from the ground and found herself arrowing upward, wings both beating and simply
lifting
with a marvelous lightness that made flight simplicity itself. She glanced down, seeing that behind her she left a trail of auric light that only slowly faded.

The height, without anything below her, was a bit dizzying, but she focused on direction, on motion, on understanding how to
move
in the air. It was something like swimming, something like running, something like swinging by a rope, but at the same time nothing like any of them, a glorious speeding through the air that was as natural as breathing and as wondrous as dawn.

She alighted in front of Tobimar, and wondered if her eyes were shining like his, and suddenly laughed.
We’re still young. I can laugh for joy if I want, and here, in this place? It’s
needed
.

Tobimar echoed her laugh, his voice joining hers and sending echoes of pure wonder chasing through Rivendream Pass. “You’re amazing, Kyri!”

“Me? It’s Myrionar, not me.”

“Myrionar may have the
power
, but this is
you
,” he said firmly. “So...can you lift us?”

“I’m sure I can. That felt no harder than walking or running, and I could carry you easily enough for quite a distance.” She held out her arms. “Let’s try it.”

She was surprised to see his already-dark skin flush darker, but Tobimar stepped forward and let her pick him up. “Hold on—I don’t know how my balance will be affected when I do this,” she said.

“Hold...on? Um... Oh, of course.”

His right arm slid easily behind her neck. She found her heart beating faster.
What am I...

Oh, by
Myrionar
, I’m not...

But as she felt his other arm come up to clasp his hands together, forming a strong, solid loop around her neck, pulling his head in to rest against her shoulder, she realized that
she
must be blushing too.
Oh, I think I am. Of course I am. How stupid of me not to have noticed before.

“Ready?” she asked.

He looked up at her, and their gazes met.

It was at least several seconds before he blinked, and shook his head. “Oh, yes, I’m ready. Sure.” He muttered something that she couldn’t quite catch.

“Oh, for Blackwart’s
SAKE
, what’s
WRONG
with you two?” burst out Poplock, who bounced on her head and then dropped back down to Tobimar’s chest. “
Kiss
already!”