Memories of Ash (The Sunbolt Chronicles Book 2) (12 page)

My question seems to please the phoenix. He eyes me brightly. “Humans have a strange sense of honor. The bodies were left behind for those brave enough to venture in and bury them. Everything else was drained of its essence to power the spells cast by the mages who once lived here.”

I wrap my arms over my chest. “This wasn’t always a desert.”

“No. Deserts seem to develop primarily due to human stupidity,” the phoenix says with an edge of contempt. “In this case, the connection is direct.” He shrugs his wings. “I am more concerned with what you have done.”

Trespassing on the Burnt Lands? I wouldn’t have chosen to if I’d known what awaited me. “That portal should have been destroyed,” I say testily. “I had no idea it would bring me out here.”

“Yet I am glad it did.”

Surely I heard wrong
.
“You’re
glad?
”

“Tell me, what did you do to the spell-beast that trapped you in the building?”

I hesitate.

“And how did you find the magic to slow the pack that hunted you?”

I consider the phoenix, his fire-and-night plumage. He helped me. I would not have made it out without him. So, as simply as I can, I tell him how I unraveled one creature’s magic and used the part of it that I absorbed to attack the others. After all, there’s no reason to tell him I’m not officially a mage.

The phoenix listens without interrupting, nor does he speak when I am finished. Instead, he studies me in silence and then, just as I am beginning to feel unnerved by his regard, he hops down from the bench and paces away to gaze across the canyon toward the Burnt Lands. “Where do you go from here?”

“Fidanya.”

He nods. “To report the mage’s death. And then?”

I bite my lip. There’s no way I can make such a report without implicating myself. The phoenix hasn’t realized I’m not a traditionally trained student, that I have something to hide. He certainly has no idea I intend to help my unofficial mentor, regardless of what the Council decrees for her. He might not actually care — I have no way of knowing what his relationship is to the Council — but there’s no need to tell him any of that.

“There’s something else I must do there,” I admit.

“There is work that must be done here,” the phoenix says, so softly I wonder if he speaks to himself. I hope he does. I have no interest in going anywhere near the Burnt Lands again. But then he turns back to me. “It is time to try again to …
unravel
the spells that plague these lands.”

“Try again?” I echo.

“It has been attempted before, but never with any success. You,” he fixes his bright gaze on me, “
you
have succeeded. So I must ask you to return.”

I shake my head. “I’m not going back in there.”

“Someone must. A mage such as you, who can break apart the spells that drain the magic from the land and pour it into such creatures as you have seen.”

I squint at him, as if that will bring his words into greater focus. “I wondered how the spell-creatures could survive without magic. You mean that they’re the reason there
is
no magic?”

“Not precisely.” He tilts his head back, studying the barrier from where he stands. “There are spells that stretch across the sky, that root through the earth, spells that have been contained by the boundaries set around the Burnt Lands. Those spells gather the natural magic of all they touch — the sunlight and moonlight falling through them, the wind blowing past — and channel it to the spells that are connected to them. And so, the spell-creatures remain, even after four hundred years.”

“Why would anyone make such a thing?”

The bird shrugs his wings as if this were a mystery he has long since given up pondering. “You are human. Perhaps you can understand it.”

I look away. The answers are simple, in their way: greed, rage, perhaps even vengeance. I don’t know enough of the mages who destroyed the lands at my back to know what passions ruled them, but I don’t doubt they are the same passions that govern humans today. They had wanted to destroy their enemies, to assure that they would never rise again. They succeeded.

I gesture weakly behind me. “The magefire above the bridge — how does it keep burning? And how were the barriers you mentioned set up?”

“The barriers took decades to build,” the phoenix says. “And they do not block the flow of magic, though the mages who built them tried hard to achieve that. In the end, it was all they could do to contain what had been made. As for the magefire, it was one of the few successful adaptions they made to the spells of the Burnt Lands, channeling some of the magic gathered by the draining spells into the fire rather than the spell-beasts.”

“If they did that much, surely they could have—”

“Three of them died in the making of that spell,” the phoenix says quietly, cutting me off. “Only now that the spells have begun to … fray does it seem possible that another attempt should be made.”

“Perhaps,” I allow. “But not by me. I’m not even a full mage.”

“You are mage enough.”

I have the distinct feeling he doesn’t care a whit for human designations of power or rank. “I have things I must do, someone I—” I clear my throat, try again. “I need to make sure a friend is well.”

That earns me his full attention. “A friend in Fidanya?”

I nod.

“You said the mage you traveled with was not your master. You have one?”

“I— yes.”

The phoenix and I contemplate each other.

I should have mentioned my supposed mistress at once, argued against being able to help him on the basis of my obligations to study. I should be naming her now, explaining all of that. But—

“Would your master return here with you?”

“No,” I say. “I doubt it. But I must go to Fidanya.”

I owe the phoenix a debt, a life debt. By rights, he can demand I stay here and set to work on the curses that hold the Burnt Lands in their thrall, and I would comply, at least for a time. I ought to — I know I should. But I owe Stormwind something greater than a debt, and I have no idea how she is, if she’s well or in danger, free or imprisoned. Until I’ve done what I can to aid her, neither my heart nor my conscience will let me rest.

The phoenix’s feathers glimmer and spark as he considers me, my words, all the things I haven’t said. “Of course you must go,” he says finally. He dips his head, his beak searching through the feathers at his breast.

When he lifts his head he holds a single iridescent gold feather in his beak. I reach out, cupping my hands beneath it as he lets it drop. It is burnished gold, the very edges shimmering with all the colors of the sunset.

“I will fetch the desert dwellers who roam these lands to guide you to your destination.”

I nod.

“When you are done with what you must do, burn that feather and I will come.”

I hold my breath to keep from speaking, from arguing. A life debt is a heavy thing. I owe him at least an attempt at what he asks.

“And if you are in need,” the phoenix continues, “I will help you.”

He opens wide his wings and takes to the air, the heavy beat of his wings sounding in my ears, the brush of warm air across my face raising gooseflesh on my arms.

The feather shivers against my palms, as if I hold the rest of my life in my hands, a delicate and fragile thing.

It’s late afternoon before the phoenix’s aid reaches me. I’ve spent the intervening couple of hours resting, and have just finished a light meal of bread and cheese when I catch sight of a dark shape moving over the ridge of the hills that line the valley before me. The shape gradually resolves into the loping form of a camel carrying a rider garbed in black.

I push myself to my feet, assessing how injured I am. The same points of pain remind me of their presence: hip, thigh, ribs. But they’re bruises, and not as deep as they might have been. I’ll keep.

The rider’s camel gains the valley and continues toward me at speed, slowing only as it reaches the broken road leading to the bridge. This close, it’s clear the rider is a woman: her
thobe
is loose and swaying, heavily embroidered with cross-stitched bands of red and yellow above the bottom hem — interlocking diamonds and triangles that are repeated along the edge of her head scarf and on the front of the bodice. The sides of her
thobe
are open to the hips, and the woman wears loose pants beneath.

Within another minute, the camel has crossed the remaining distance and the rider pulls it to a stop. Setting her foot in the curve of her camel’s neck, she swings down, turning to me with a smile. “
Ahlan wa sahlan.
”

It is the greeting of a host to their guest. Though I cannot remember having heard it before, I recognize it, and it stirs something deep within the ashes of my memories.
Family and plain
, she has said, one of the most generous of desert welcomes, treating a guest as if they were returning to both family and an abundant and spacious land.

“I thank you.” My words sound strange to me, my tongue tripping over their form. It is far easier to understand her words than to construct my own. How well had I known my father’s language? And how much will come back to me now?

The woman steps forward, reaching out her hands to clasp mine. Her face is somewhat stern, but that may simply be this moment. She has large, expressive eyes, dark as the deepest wood, and bright with pleasure. “I am Huda bint Ahmer of the Bani Saqr. My sister and I are camped an hour’s ride north of here. You would bring us great honor if you joined us — we can discuss where your travels will take you, and how we might aid you.”

I dip my head. “It would be my honor.” And then, belatedly, “I am Hikaru.”

If she thinks it strange that I give no family name, no tribe, she makes no indication of it, saying simply, “We are honored.”

She has her camel sit down, then straps on my pack and helps me up before climbing up to sit in front of me herself. Huda clicks her tongue and the camel lurches to its feet. I grab hold of her waist as we pitch forward and back, half-certain I’m going to slide off. Huda waits patiently until the camel stands still and I drop my hands.

Thankfully, camels walk more smoothly than they stand. Our mount adeptly makes its way through a scattering of rough stones and around the dusky green branches of thorn bushes. We leave the valley with its forgotten road to the bridge, crossing over low hills and continuing on. There are no visible paths, no stars but the sun in the sky, yet Huda knows precisely where she is going.

I spend the hour’s ride mulling over my questions, trying to find the right words in a language I don’t consciously recall. I need to get to Fidanya as fast as I can. The more I consider the theft of Stormwind’s mirror, the mages that converged on her valley, and the closing of the portal in Sonapur, the less I can make myself believe she could possibly be well. Add to that the easy violence of the mage who followed me here, and I’m completely certain Stormwind has either been falsely convicted and imprisoned, or is in imminent danger of such violence herself.

To cross the desert to Fidanya safely and quickly
,
I’ll need Huda’s help. While she’s already intimated her willingness, I suspect my requests will be easier to discuss when we’re facing each other and I can make gestures and point at things.

Soon enough, we reach the wide valley where Huda and her sister have made their camp. A herd of nearly sixty goats move in knots across the valley, grazing on the finest of desert grass that grows here, or munching on the tough leaves of the hardy desert bushes. Two more camels wander among the goats, and past them hunches a small black structure — a tent?

“Ya Huda!” a voice calls. A girl races across the sands toward us, her
thobe
hiked up to her knees, her legs flashing brown beneath.

Huda laughs and waves to her sister.

“Sumeyya is still a little young,” she explains.

“You brought a guest!” Sumeyya hollers as she nears us.

“Yes, my sister. Shall we welcome her to our camp?”

“Oh!” Sumeyya plows to a stop, face tilted up to stare at me: large brown eyes, a small nose, thin lips currently opened in surprise. “Please! Be welcome!
Ahlan wa sahlan!
”

“I thank you,” I say, and I can’t help the smile spreading across my face. She must be no more than ten years old, possibly younger. She nearly jigs with excitement, biting her lip and looking toward Huda imploringly.

Huda gives a faint shake of her head. “Go ahead and wake the fire for us, and we will eat together.”

Sumeyya dashes off, and Huda urges the camel forward again. Their campsite consists of a small tent constructed of short poles and black cloth, the hard packed dirt beneath covered by a woven blanket. A small campfire set within a rectangle of stones burns before the tent. Sumeyya squats before it, setting a pot of milk against the stones to warm.

The camel lowers itself to the ground in the same unnerving way as it stood, a steeply tilting rocking back and forth I fear will send me tumbling down. Only when I stop clinging to her does Huda hop down and turn to help me dismount.

By the time I’m safely off the creature, Sumeyya has set out a platter heaped with separate mounds of goat cheese and dates, accompanied by a thick, hearty bread.