The Phoenix Endangered (14 page)

A globe of Coldfire hovered over his head, but by now, Harrier hardly noticed the things any more.

“If Aressea is anything like my Ma, she’ll whale you for dripping on her clean floors,” Harrier said.

“I’m not dripping,” Tiercel said. He snapped his fingers, and the glowing blue ball of light vanished.

“You’re wet,” Harrier said.

“I’m damp,” Tiercel corrected. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Harrier answered reflexively.

“You’re reading your Books, aren’t you?” Tiercel said. “Can I see them?”

Harrier felt an automatic impulse to deny that he’d been doing any such thing, but this was
Tiercel.
He dug the satchel out from under his pillow and tossed it across the room. “Knock yourself out,” he invited.

Tiercel walked over and sat down on his own bed, where the light was best. He opened the satchel and pulled out one of the books. “It sort of tingles,” he said as he opened it. He looked down at the first page, frowned, turned the book over, opened it from the other end, paged through it quickly. “Also, it’s blank.”

“What?” Harrier sat up hastily and reached for the book. Tiercel passed it to him across the gap between the two beds. Harrier glanced at the spine. There was a small cluster of stars stamped there, so—obviously—this was
The Book of Stars.
He paged through it. All the pages were covered with the same dense script as
The Book of Moon
. “No it isn’t,” he said.

“Well,
I
couldn’t read it,” Tiercel said. “I couldn’t even see it.”

“Maybe—” Harrier began, but Tiercel shook his head
quickly, rubbing his fingers against his pantsleg as if they still tingled.

“Maybe they’re something only a Wildmage can read.” He tossed the satchel back over to Harrier’s bed. It landed beside Harrier with a thump, but he barely noticed.

He’d
been able to read them.

Was that all it took? Did this mean he already
was
a Wildmage, or a Knight-Mage, or whatever it was he was supposed to be now? Did it mean there was nothing else he needed to do to be able to light fires just by thinking about it and summon up winds and make balls of Coldfire just the way Tiercel did? He didn’t feel any different than he had when he’d sat down to dinner!

“I’m really not going to be a very good… Knight-Mage,” Harrier said quietly.

Tiercel looked at him, and his mouth drew into the shape that it took when he was thinking. He started to say something, then he started pulling off his boots instead. “I’m not really the best High Mage,” he said softly, when he’d gotten them off and set them aside. “Certainly not as good as First Magistrate Cilarnen. Or Jermayan Dragon-Rider, come to that. Even if he … was … an Elven Mage and not a High Mage. But.” He stopped, and Harrier could tell that Tiercel was thinking carefully before he spoke. Funny, because usually Tiercel just charged right into things, especially with him. “But you know, Har, it’s not like I
decided
to become a High Mage. Oh, sure, I went poking around the Great Library because of your Uncle Alfrin’s book, and then I decided to go and do a spell, and those parts were pretty much up to me. But I was a High Mage before that, really, because I had the Magegift. And that was the Light’s decision. And the Gods of the Wild Magic, because you know, I think I would have died when I was a baby because of the Magegift if there hadn’t been a Wildmage in Sentarshadeen to make me better. So it’s because of the Wild Magic that I’m here now, being a High Mage.”

“You’re a
good
High Mage,” Harrier said, determined to defend his friend.

Tiercel shook his head. “Not really. I don’t know. But the thing is, I was
picked.
And you were picked. By the Wild Magic. And, Har, you’ve kind of got to, I don’t know, hope or believe or trust that the Wild Magic knows what it’s doing to have picked us. Or … I don’t know.”

We’ll be lost before we start.
Harrier didn’t know how good a High Mage Tiercel was—he had to be a good one, didn’t he, with all the practicing he was doing and with Ancaladar to help?—and he knew exactly how bad a Knight-Mage he himself was going to be. Even if they weren’t exactly like all the stories told about Kellen the Poor Orphan Boy, Harrier did know one thing: a Knight-Mage could fight, and probably even command armies. And he was strong, and good with his fists, and he’d never backed down from a fight—in fact he’d even started his share—but he’d seen Elunyerin and Rilphanifel spar against each other back at House Malkirinath, and he knew he couldn’t do that. And as for leading an army … he wouldn’t even know where to start.

Not that they
had
an army right now.

But Tiercel was right about one thing, even though Harrier was enormously reluctant to admit it. The Wild Magic had picked both of them. So he either had a choice between deciding it didn’t know what it was doing and refusing the books—and while he’d like to do the second, the first was just terrifying—or just muddling on and pretending he thought everything would work out. Although no matter what Ancaladar said, Harrier was absolutely certain Kellen had
never
felt this way. Ever.

“I’m tired if you aren’t,” he grumbled. He stuffed
The Book of Stars
back into the satchel and stuffed it under his pillow, then bent over to remove his own boots.

A
FTER SO LONG
on the road they were both used to getting up as soon as it was light, and even if they were sleeping indoors in soft beds, habit woke both of them a few minutes before Talareniel—one of the Elves they’d
met the previous evening—scratched on the door to let them know that the morning meal would be upon the table shortly. Both boys were up, dressed, washed, and in the dining room quickly enough to be able to help Aratari, Siralcar, and Talareniel bring the dishes to the table.

Today, Harrier discovered, Tiercel would be gone for most of the day, since at some point yesterday when he’d been out of earshot, Tiercel and Ancaladar had offered to assist with a number of tasks around the farm. “Ancaladar says it will be good practice for me,” Tiercel said when the subject came up again at breakfast, from which Harrier figured out that the “tasks” referred to all had to involve magic in one way or another.

That left him to get everything ready for tomorrow’s departure. Half a year ago he wouldn’t have known where to begin, and now half his mind was occupied with lists of things they’d need, while the other half was engaged in framing his requests in accordance with the demands of Elven politeness.

Salt was the first thing on his list. If they could hunt on the other side of the Veil, they’d need to be able to preserve what they caught. Fishhooks, because he’d never thought to ask for any at their previous stops. Grain, because horses who pulled a wagon all day couldn’t be asked to live on grass. Bacon and meal and tea—and honey for the tea—because they had some dried and preserved foods, but he wanted to load up on as much more as they could. Rope, because his Da had drummed into him that there was
always
a use for rope.

“I would be lacking in courtesy—and a very poor guest—did I abuse the generosity of those who had offered nothing but kindness,” he said at one point. He wasn’t quite sure if the Elves could refuse to give you things when you asked for them, even indirectly.

Aratari had assigned Siralcar to assist him for the day. Harrier had no idea at all how old Siralcar might be—he looked like a grown man, but among Elves, that could mean
he was anything from a few decades to several centuries old. Siralcar regarded him, smiling faintly.

“I do not think that it would be possible for you or Tiercel Human Mage to exhaust the bounty of Farm Blackrowan, Harrier Gillain,” he answered. “And Tiercel does us great honor by aiding us today as he does. The work come the Springtide will go more quickly with the fields cleared now. And calling the queen home to her own hive will mean more honey for all. Yet it would be good to know, should you care to tell it, what purpose could take you across the Veil.”

Harrier knew that even if the Elves didn’t ask direct questions, that didn’t keep them from being just as curious as anyone else. And while he didn’t intend to tell Siralcar everything about everything, there was no harm in telling him where they were going—especially since none of the Elves had the least interest in leaving the Elven Lands.

“Far to the south and the west there’s a big desert called the Madiran,” he answered. “Back home—in Armethalieh—we trade with them. And that’s where we’re going. I’m just not quite sure how far from here it is.”

“It would be good to know what such trade might consist of,” Siralcar said, after he’d mulled Harrier’s words over for a few moments.

Harrier thought carefully, trying to picture in his mind some of the cargoes he’d helped to check aboard outbound ships. “Rugs, a lot of it,” he said. “Nothing as fine as I’ve seen here, of course. Spices. Goldwork. Metalwork and pottery. Some stays in the City. Some is loaded onto ships and goes across Great Ocean, and is sold in other lands.”

“Even here we have heard of Armethalieh,” Siralcar said. “It is a very long way from here.”

Harrier sighed. There wasn’t much to say to that.

W
HEN THEY’D BROUGHT
everything Harrier wanted to take with him on the journey to the storage barn where the
wagon was being kept, Harrier’s heart sank. Even if Tiercel never wanted to be able to get at any of his High Magick
junk
ever again, there was no way they could fit all this stuff inside the wagon.

“Storage baskets may be attached to the outside of the wagon,” Siralcar said quietly, seeing Harrier’s expression. “They can be lined in oilcloth to keep their contents from the damp, and they will not add much to the weight of the wagon. It will be only the work of a few hours to attach them.”

Harrier nodded. It was a good solution, and the load would only grow lighter as they used up the supplies. “I thank you for all your courtesy. It would be good if such a thing could be done. There is … one item more that I… I think …” he stopped.

Siralcar regarded him with obvious curiosity.

“It is difficult to describe something if you don’t know it exists,” Harrier said with a sigh.

“Things which do not exist can be made, if they can but be described,” Siralcar said helpfully.

Harrier ran a hand through his hair. “It would be a sort of a brazier, I suppose. But very small. Just something that would hold one of those little cakes of charcoal that go into a tea-brazier to keep the water hot.”

Siralcar frowned, considering. “Perhaps such a thing can be found.”

G
ATHERING TOGETHER THE
list of provisions had taken the entire morning, and even though it hadn’t involved a lot of lifting and carrying—much less than Harrier would have done any afternoon on the docks in Armethalieh—he’d still worked up enough of an appetite to be more than interested in the midday meal.

The weather was mild enough that the meal was taken outdoors, even though as far as Harrier could remember, it should be Vintage or even Mistrise by now, and back home there would be heavy frosts at night and everyone would
be watching the skies and predicting the date of the first snow. Several long tables were set up under the trees; Harrier had already noticed that for all that the Elves built so many things to last, they didn’t build one more permanent thing than they needed, or leave something standing a moment longer than necessary. Where humans would have just left the outdoor tables up year-round—or at least during the moonturns of good weather—the Elves took them down and put them up between uses.

Interestingly enough, there were many more people gathered for the midday meal than there had been for either breakfast or supper. Harrier didn’t have enough experience of farms in general (let alone Elven ones) to know whether this was typical—and whether it was or not, where
were
all the other Elves when they weren’t here? As far as he knew, Blackrowan Farm was the only settlement for miles around. He knew it would be rude to ask the question even if he could figure out how to phrase it, though. Maybe Ancaladar could tell him later. At least the food was good and plentiful. He hadn’t had a meal yet in the Elven Lands that wasn’t, even if some of the dishes were a little strange.

He wanted to know what Tiercel had been doing all morning, but even though he was right there beside him at the table, Harrier couldn’t exactly ask him a question—not at a table full of Elves—and Tiercel really wasn’t picking up any of the indirectly phrased hints Harrier was dropping, so after two or three tries, he gave up. He’d get it out of Tiercel later. And nobody was dawdling over the meal anyway, any more than they would have been around the Gillain table at midday back home. There was always work to do.

After the meal, Harrier helped take down and store away the tables again, and by the time he was done with that, Siralcar came to get him to tell him the baskets were ready for the wagon. They hitched one of the farm’s plowhorses to it to bring it out of the shed where there was better light to work by—no sense in interrupting Nethiel and Dulion’s
vacation—and Siralcar and two more craftworkers began the exacting task of fitting the six large baskets to the wagon’s sides. Harrier was interested to see that no nailing or drilling was necessary, merely the removal of a few plugs in the wood that could easily be hammered back into place again later once the baskets were removed. It was as if the wagon had been designed to have hampers attached to the outsides. And for all he knew, it had been: it was an Elven-made wagon, after all, and Harrier already knew how efficient the Elves were.

Each of the baskets was large and sturdy, bound with leather straps, and could be buckled closed. And—just as Siralcar had said—was fully lined in durable oilcloth, making it entirely waterproof.

“It’s too bad you don’t trade with us any more,” Harrier said wistfully, examining one of the baskets. “You make so many useful things. I’m sure we could use them. But I suppose we don’t have anything you’d want in exchange.”