The Phoenix Unchained (10 page)

WHEN he reached the mules—there were two riding mules, and one to hold their gear—Harrier took the bag with Tiercel’s clothing and added it to the collection of packs already there. “I don’t see why we have to leave in the middle of the night,” Tiercel grumbled.

“Middle of the night? First Dawn Bells rang four chimes ago,” Harrier answered in mock-outrage.

“And decent people don’t get up for another bell and a half.”

“Well, then, I guess neither of us is particularly decent,” Harrier answered with a grin. “Well,” he said, shrugging. “Come on.”

They walked off, leading the mules.

THE Delfier Gates that had once permitted—or denied—access to Armethalieh still endured after over two millennia, but of course the walls that they’d once hung from were long since gone. They now stood, a single shining slab of time-worn bronze, in the center of Council Square, with a plaque beneath them that said they’d once marked the boundary of Armethalieh. On the left of the Square, Tiercel could see the Law Courts and the Magistrate’s Palace—new buildings, only a few centuries old—and in the distance, off to the right, he could just glimpse the towers of the University.

Just as he passed the Gates, Tiercel felt a sudden strange sensation. As if he were about to be sick, or as if the sun had suddenly gotten much too bright. He staggered, abruptly dizzy, and stared around himself suspiciously.

“Tyr?”

“I’m all right.” Had something just happened? He looked back at the band of paler stone in the cobbles. All he’d done was step over the old boundary of the City Walls. That couldn’t mean anything, could it? But suddenly, looking back down the long avenue that led through the heart of the City, Tiercel had the sudden horrible feeling that this was the last time he was ever going to see any of these things. That he was leaving Armethalieh, not just for a moonturn, but forever.

“Are you
sure
you’re all right?” Harrier asked suspiciously.

“I haven’t been getting much sleep lately.” He walked on, and after a few more steps he started to feel a little better. Not completely better, though.

EVEN at this hour there was a lot of traffic on the streets of the District—mostly farm carts and delivery vehicles, since the eastern way out of the city led to the Delfier Highway—but the mules were steady and placid, and took no interest in any of the traffic around them. By the time Second Dawn Bells was ringing through the air, they’d reached a small garden park in the New City, and thought it was probably time to try riding for a change.

Though neither of them was an expert rider, Harrier had spent enough time around the dock-mules used for loading and unloading cargo to be well aware of their habits, and Tiercel had gotten the same riding lessons that all the other boys of his age and social class had gotten. And their rented mounts were both steady and gentle. If they weren’t exactly the fiery steeds that legendary adventurers setting off on a quest ought to have, then they were at least unlikely to dump their novice riders into the nearest ditch.

A bell of riding brought them to the edge of the City. For the last several chimes they’d seen fewer and fewer houses at all, and those they had seen were surrounded by large gardens, for no one in
Armethalieh had ever ceased to venerate the moment when the world had suddenly turned bright and green again. If they remembered nothing else of their history—they remembered that, and even the poorest home in Armethalieh had its pot of flowers at the family Light-shrine.

Beyond the last of the houses—and the thick white marker stone, which marked the official boundary of the City—Tiercel could see the rolling fields of the vast farmlands that surrounded Armethalieh. Once, centuries ago, this whole area had been forest and small isolated villages. But that was back in the Time of Mages, when Armethalieh had been a walled city considerably smaller than its present size.

They kept to the edge of the road, staying well out of the way of the freight wagons that took up most of the center of the road. Early morning was the time of heaviest traffic, with the carts from the farms heading into the City for the morning markets, and the freight wagons heading off the docks by the North Road, which joined the Delfier Highway just outside the City. Even this late in the day—it was already Midmorning Bells—traffic was still heavy.

“Is it going to be like this all the way to Sentarshadeen?” Tiercel asked Harrier, after they had to ride completely off the road so that two large vehicles—one freight wagon, one farm cart—could pass each other without injury.

Harrier looked contemplative, and Tiercel reminded himself that Harrier didn’t have any more experience with the Delfier Highway than he did. “Pretty much, I’d say,” Harrier decided, after thinking it over. “But once we get past the farms, there should be less traffic.” He pulled out a map and consulted it. “According to this, there’s something called the Old War Road that splits off the main road once we ride a bell or so farther on from here. It parallels the Delfier Highway, but it looks like the wagons don’t use it. Why don’t we take that instead?”

Tiercel grinned in relief. He’d just as soon not spend the entire trip to Sentarshadeen dodging wagons.

“Sounds good.”

“And maybe you can tell me what it is—if you don’t make the explanation too long.”

“Deal.”

BY the time they reached the turn-off for the Old War Road, Tiercel had managed to remember what little he’d read about the Old War Road in his recent reading, and since it was about battles, Harrier was willing to listen to it. It was also time to stop for lunch—or at least a snack, since they’d gotten up very early that morning.

Here the road out of Armethalieh became the Delfier Highway, broad and well-marked, heading straight east. The trees were well cut back on both sides of the road, and the mile-markers clearly indicated distance. The Old War Road was not nearly as clearly marked. It was far narrower, and the trees grew right up to its edge. It was obviously a well-traveled road, as its broad surface was free of any sort of vegetation, but it was obviously only meant for horses and foot traffic. And from the map that Harrier had brought, it didn’t run nearly as straight as the Delfier Highway, which Tiercel thought was odd in something called a War Road. If you were going to war, wouldn’t you want to get there as fast as possible?

At the edge of the forest—it was actually what remained of the ancient Delfier Forest, Tiercel knew from his reading—cattle and foraging deer had reduced the grass to a parklike shortness, and there was a pump-well with a watering trough and some tethering posts. They stopped there and gave the mules a chance to drink before tying them up, and then spread out a blanket from their gear and got out one of the hampers of food.

“Mama says we can ask the landlords at the inns to sell us cold lunches for the road,” Harrier explained, setting the provisions out on the colorful Centaur-woven blanket. “That way we won’t have to find an inn to stop at for lunch if we don’t want to. So. You were saying that this is an old Elven road?”

“According to the books I’ve been reading, it runs all the way from Ondoladeshiron to Armethalieh. North of Sentarshadeen, the War Road passes by Fort Halacira and Kellen’s Bridge. Maybe we can ride up and see them if everything works out. Kellen’s supposed to have built that bridge himself, you know. By magic.”

“You sound like a guidebook,” Harrier said good-naturedly. “And I don’t believe anybody ever built a bridge by magic. Kellen Knight-Mage was a Wildmage, and Wildmages don’t do that. But I’d like to see Fort Halacira. Say, if it’s a fort, do you think there was ever a battle there?”

“I don’t know. But since I’m going to study Ancient History at University, maybe I can find out and tell you.”

“You’re
still
going to study Ancient History?” Harrier asked in disbelief.
After all this?
his expression said plainly.

“Why not?” Tiercel said stubbornly. “It’s not as if I’m going to be studying magic. Although . . . that’s what they used to teach there,” he added teasingly.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Really.”

“You can’t
teach
magic. When a Wildmage gets his—or her—Three Books, that’s it. They just
have
their magic.”

“And I keep telling you, that’s not how the High Magick worked. It was like Maths, or, or, or training to be a Ship’s Pilot. You studied for years. At the Mage College. Which was where Armethalieh University is now. And only Mages went there. To study magic.”

“Well,
you
didn’t study for years. So how come you were able to cast that spell?” Harrier demanded to know.

“Well, you see—”

But Tiercel’s explanation—not that he expected to be allowed to get all the way through it before Harrier interrupted him—was cut short by a sudden commotion in the forest.

A troop of Fauns—Fauns rarely traveled alone—came tumbling out of the forest. It was hard to say how many there were. Five? Eight? They were constantly in motion, their child-sized bodies—human to the waist, though with long caprid ears and small curling horns, and entirely goatlike below—caroming off one another with the exuberance of a tumble of puppies.

Fauns were one of the races of Otherfolk who had elected to remain in the west when most of the Bright Folk had gone off with the Elves. Not that Fauns were particularly bright—in any sense of the word. Cheerful and good-natured, yes. But scatterbrained was the kindest word that could describe them. Those who were feeling less kind called them “thievish” and “destructive”—but having no possessions of their own, so far as anyone had ever discovered, it was hard to expect them to care very much about the possessions of others. In fact, even after having lived in close proximity to the Fauns for so long, no one knew very much about them. No one was even really sure how long—or where—they lived. They just seemed to show up anywhere there was food and drink and music—if anyone had ever seen a Faun village, they’d never mentioned it.

“Saw you—”

“—heading for the forest—”

“—down the old road—”

“—nobody takes the old road—”

“—not for a long time—”

“—some people do—”

“—not many people—”

“—but some—”

“—and you have food—”

“—tasty food—”

“—
lots
of food—”

The Fauns gathered in a group at the edge of the blanket and regarded the contents of the hamper hopefully. Tiercel looked at Harrier and shrugged. They’d barely started on their meal, and the Fauns would certainly eat it all, but neither boy would starve for missing a meal. He picked up a loaf of bread and tossed it to the Fauns, who grabbed it and divided it eagerly, stuffing it into their mouths with absolutely no regard for table manners. Now that they were holding fairly still, it was possible to count them. There were six of them.

“Here. You can have some more if you like.”

As Tiercel had been pretty sure they would, the Fauns took that as an invitation not only to have
some
food, but
all
of it. They clambered onto the blankets—swarming over Tiercel and Harrier as if they were both just part of the landscape—and fell upon the food as if they’d been starving for sennights, though every single one of them looked plump and sleek. Cheese, sausages, bread, fruit, and even an entire pot of jam vanished within less than half a chime.