Beneath Ceaseless Skies #25 Read online

  “Phoenix,” he commands. A surge of power runs through me. I am smaller now, but this jar cannot contain me. I am the size of the earth, I am the potential of all things bound into one, and just when it seems my heart cannot swell any larger—

  The Alchemist reaches in with his tongs, quick as lightning. He yanks off one of my feathers, and I see that it is burning, like he holds not a feather but a flame. He plunges it into the mercury bath beside the jar and it sizzles, releasing noxious smoke.

  And then the fire, my fire, seen at first only as an abstract in the feather that he held—it reaches me. I wish for lips anew, with which to scream and beg and plead. For a creature of wood, there is no worse fate than fire. My life, my hopes, my dreams, are all consumed in pain.

  After a life of being told to forget, I now know what it is like to be forgotten.

  I will myself to remember, even as I feel myself turn to ash. I will remember this feeling. I will remember all of them.

  I realize that I am alive, really, truly, alive—just as I realize that I am dying.

  * * *

  My jar shakes, opens, and I am released from it.

  “Bring the girl here,” the Alchemist commands, taking up his mortar and pestle again. The larger jar is set upon the empty hearth. I know that I wanted to remember things. What were they, and why?

  “Bring the girl here,” the Alchemist repeats. He looks up to stare at me. “And, last night—forget.”

  The intention to follow his command flutters in my chest, only—I do not feel half so bound to him as I once was. And instead of the urge to forget, my will to remember redoubles. Memories, not dreams, but what I think are memories, rush back to me. Searing pain, but before that—life. I was alive. I think I am alive, still.

  I walk across his desk and see a small yellow feather. I know what happened was real—the feather proves it. The Prince’s price can be paid and we will grow fat on its commission, and then—but this feather is small. I walk past it as though I did not see it, off on the Alchemist’s mission. But I know that it is not what the prince wants—he wants big feathers, from a larger bird, and there is only one reason why we have had these little girls with us for so long.

  The doorways of my mind open up and everything that I was told to forget wells forward. The times when they were trapped, half of bird, half of flesh, cawing his defeat until the Alchemist threw them, whole, into the furnace. The times that progress was made, only to have them fight so hard they broke the jars, because they’d been made of stronger stuff, not half-starved like my Maria. The times that they’d died before any of the transformations occurred, coughing out their lungs from fumes, or swelling, green and bloated, from ill-mixed acids.

  All of their deaths return to me, everything I’ve ever done or didn’t do, every decision by action or inaction I have made, landing like a flock of birds inside my mind.

  I am alive now. Memories are my price.

  * * *

  “Alrun,” Maria says, after I wake her. She clutches at her stomach and shakes her head. “Alrun, I’m so tired. I don’t feel well today.”

  I ignore this and grab Maria’s nearest hand with my remaining good one, and try to draw her up from her bed. Snow is piled high outside, I can see icicles hanging from the roof, and yet—I have to get her away from here.

  I cannot stand to have him pluck her sweet fingers away, one by one, to burn her over and over.

  “Alrun—is he asleep? I stayed up all last night, after I ate dried pork and cheese. And now I’ve got a stomach ache. He’ll beat me for sure, but if I return the key, maybe he won’t realize it for a day or two.”

  He’s not asleep. He’s grinding powders in the next room to transform you into a phoenix. He’s going to make you burn. I shake my head, in answer and dismay.

  “Can you return the key for me? Maybe then he won’t be so mad. He’s never mad at you.”

  I hold up my hand that should have no fingers, just a stumped palm, as evidence of his anger. But I see that now that my fingers are returned to me and only my thumb is gone. I flex them in amazement. Maria, however, has no will to count. She takes my gesture as a sign of the effort I cannot make. “I could tie it to your back, perhaps?”

  I can see it in her face now, so clearly. How and why had I missed it before? Her cheeks are pale, her eyes sunken in, and the line between the bruises he’s given her and the ones she’s gained from lack of food—even I who am so recently born can see the death in her. I would tear my heart out and offer it to her, were it meat enough to save her life. But—now I know. There is a way.

  I take the key from her and loop it about my shoulder, tucking it beneath my arm. And then I gesture for her to follow.

  * * *

  The Alchemist picks her up and folds her into the jar. It is a tight fit—had he not starved her for so long, I do not think she would have made it. She lifts a hand in protest and fear sparks inside her eyes before she sees me. I put my finger to where lips would be if I had them, and silently she nods.

  He calls out their names, one by one. Crow, Swan, Peacock, Pelican.

  It is different with her than it was with me. She’s flesh through and through. She has lips.

  She cries. She screams.

  The Alchemist waits for a moment. This might be the only time I’ve ever seen him afraid.

  “Phoenix,” he commands, and she changes. Plumage bursts from her like an opening flower, yellow feathers streaking out and down. Her strength is returned to her—she screams now not with pain, but with power. The world is hers to set alight. The Alchemist takes up his tongs.

  I run forward, unshouldering the metal pantry key, and hit it against the glass as hard as I can. She bites at him with her beak from inside the jar.

  “Homunculus! Stop it!”

  I strike and strike and strike again. He swats at me, knocking me back, and she still fights, until the jar teeters, tips, and falls with a crash of glass. Where the broken glass touches her it melts away, rolling off of her like tears. She streaks upwards in flight, through the rafters. Her fire catches on timbers and wood begins to split. Sparks shower down, landing atop papers. Years of research turns to ash, and smoke fills the room.

  She is free. As am I. I run beneath the door and to the rat-hole, leaving the burning cabin behind.

  * * *

  I think I know where I will find her. It takes me a long time to walk there on my own. I am light enough to walk atop even the freshest snow, but it is almost dawn when the distance is covered. And she is there, my Maria, in the clearing, just as I knew she would be.

  She lies on dry earth now, scorched from where she fell, like a comet to the ground. Beneath her shift she is whole and plump, like ripe fruit, and she sleeps.

  I walk up to her face and touch along the line of her full lips, and she smiles in her dreams before waking.

  “Alrun—are we free?”

  I nod. I think we are. She picks me up. “I feel much better now. What happened?” She looks down at herself and then around. The early snow is melting. We can walk to the main road and wait for a rider to pass. I’ve been there. I know where to go.

  “I wish I knew what happened,” she says, cradling me. “I wish you could tell me.”

  I shake my head. Even if I had lips, I would not utter a word.

  * * *

  I think the Alchemist lived. I think some days he tries to call me back to him still, because I can feel his will flutter in my chest. But there’s a different feeling there now as well—my own volition.

  So I serve another master now. I serve my Maria, by choice.

  And she never asks me to forget.

  Copyright © 2009 Erin Cashier

  Comment on this Story in the BCS Forums

  Erin Cashier is a nurse at a burn ward in the Bay Area. She attended Clarion West in 2007, and her story “Cruciger” is in Writers of the Future XXIV. Her story “Near the Flame” is forthcoming in Shimmer Magazine, and she is the author of “Hangman” i
n Beneath Ceaseless Skies #10.

  http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/

  THE PUZZLE BOX

  by Chris Tissell

  I must begin by saying that as a young man I had no knowledge of what true happiness is. My conviction that I had lost it was all the more ignorant because I could not describe to you what, exactly, I had lost. Happiness has that strange quality: though one cannot explain its nature, one knows when one does not have it.

  I quickly came to blame my brother Orech for the longing in my soul. He was my twin and my elder, if only by mere minutes. Thus, though we were the same in nearly every way, he was Father’s heir and I was nothing at all.

  Yet this knowledge was not enough for Orech. Even as children he had to best me at everything. In our lessons with the Royal Magus he would answer first. When we danced the Water Dance he would pout or rage or give excuses when I made a successful strike. And he became fond of reminding me of all the ways in which I would serve him once he became king. It was a day I came to dread.

  So, after weeks of fretting, when the summons came for the King’s sons to attend him in his bedchamber one Winter night, a coldness gripped me that had little to do with the weather.

  Orech was already kneeling at Father’s bed when I pushed opened the great oaken doors. The Royal Magus was there too, standing still as stone in the shadows at the head of the bed. He could do nothing more; his knowledge had run out.

  Father lay on a feather-soft bed, covered only by the barest silken sheet that did not hide how gaunt he had become except for the awful bulging at his knees and ankles. His hands rested carefully, unmoving at his sides, each knuckle so red and angry with gout that seeing them made me wring my own hands together.

  His breath quickened. Some joint had moved imperceptibly and his eyes fluttered open, watery with pain. But they cleared in a moment, and I knew the keen mind I had always known was still behind them.

  “My sons....” The King’s voice was thin as parchment and trembled. “Has your sister come?”

  Orech, as elder, made answer.

  “No, Father. Ashi and Tariq left the isles immediately upon receiving your summons, but were waylaid by a storm and are still two days from port.”

  “Then Orech, you must tell her farewell from me. For tonight I rise to be with my fathers in a land of gardens and water. Ah! I see it even now.”

  “No, Father, you will have many years....” Orech reached for Father’s hand before I could stop him. At that barest touch the King sucked in a breath, and his eyes watered anew, spilling down deep channels he had carved with many years of easy laughter.

  Orech snatched back his hand. I gave him what I hoped was a withering look, knowing it was the last time I could do so.

  “Do not be afraid, Orech,” said the King. “You are of age now. I think that I have taught you well, and you will be a good King. This is your inheritance, whether you wish it or not.”

  At these words I searched my brother’s face from the corner of my eye, looking for any hint of pleasure so that I might hate him. To my relief (and disappointment), I found none.

  “Jarech?” The King’s voice could barely be heard now.

  “Yes, Father,” said I.

  “You have been a good and true second son.”

  “Thank you, Father.” I hoped no bitterness had crept into my voice. Second, always second. Even in the womb Orech had made himself first.

  “So to you, Jarech,” said the King, “I give my most precious treasure.”

  The Magus stirred. Reaching into one of the many folds of his long robes he produced a rectangular shadow that glittered in the dim light. He handed it to me silently and resumed standing exactly as he had before. He might not have moved at all.

  It was a wooden box, hardly larger than my hand, polished and slick with time. I turned it over on my palm and traced its edges. It felt very old. Curls and sweeps of inlaid gold glinted in the dark like the language of ancients. There were bumps and latches and holes that my fingers found. Some depressed. Some twisted. Others switched and clicked with the delicious sound of a key in a forbidden lock. Somehow it seemed to me that I was holding something of greater worth than I ever had in my life before.

  “This is your inheritance, my son. I received it from your sister’s husband, Tariq, but it is old beyond any alive today. It was created, I think, by the first Magi long ago. Guard it well, for it holds a great secret. If you discover it, you will find true happiness.”

  “Thank you, Father,” I said, and meant it. I felt a sudden urge to roll under the bed to the furthest corner, curl up, and examine this new treasure as I might have done years ago. I looked over to share my excitement with Orech, but he was staring fixedly at the box, with a blank expression that I did not like at all. I set my teeth, and put the box carefully away under my belt. Orech’s eyes followed it. Jealousy? Could it be that Orech would be King and still that would not satisfy him?

  “Come closer, my sons.”

  We obeyed, bowing awkwardly over our father so that we could hear the last of his voice.

  “May you have good seasons and water always. I command you to love each other and to be just to the people over whom you shall rule. Remember, I will watch over you. Farewell.”

  Have you ever been speaking with a friend only to turn and realize that they had already left the room? That is how it felt when Father left. Already I missed him.

  * * *

  The days that followed passed in an unreal rush. Not only was Father gone, but Orech was whisked away by the Magus and nobles to be prepared for kingship and I hardly saw him at all. I realized that for all our quarrels, I wished my brother and I could be as we once were: forever at play in the palace grounds. But all had changed. Play was for boys, and we were that no longer.

  Often I would pass the Pillar Hall or father’s old War Room and see Orech there pacing, or pouring over maps, or conversing with influential men. Each time I saw him he seemed stranger than before. He wore new clothes now, silk reds and golds. He stood straighter and furrowed his eyebrows. Sometimes he would see me peeking through the door and smile a small smile. But it wasn’t a conspiring smile as he had often given in our childhood. It was a fatherly smile and I resented him for it. What’s more, his passing gaze would see me only a moment before sliding down to the puzzle box that I now carried on a leather strap at my waist. I liked this even less.

  As for the box, I spent many hours with it alone in my chambers. At night, when the desert air would finally cool, I would sit on my balcony overlooking the gardens that banked the Ahrkim. Far below, lanterns danced between the trees and snatches of song would float up from the nobles’ parties. Here I sat alone for hours, turning the dials and latches and tracing the golden filigree. What wonderful secret did this box contain? Wealth? Wisdom? Sometimes I even let my mind foolishly wander to the old stories of djinn who granted their master’s every wish.

  But this was passing fancy and did nothing to ward off the growing shadow in my mind: the shadow of my future. Sooner or later Orech would remember me, and then I would be sent off to the wars, destined to die gloriously in battle. Or, more likely, he would send some other favored warrior and leave me to my chambers to grow old and die, unremembered, a footnote in some Magus’s history. The world seemed to have forgotten me.

  Or I should say, all forgot me except the palace master of the Water Dance.

  Know your circumstances is the first rule of the dance. I think perhaps my old leather-skinned master saw that I knew mine a little too well, because he appeared in my doorway one day to announce that our lessons would be doubled now that I was heir to the throne.

  To one such lesson I arrived late (having been trying again, uselessly, to solve the puzzle box), and my master took the opportunity to teach me the importance of promptness. Twice as long as usual I was made to hang upside down from the ceiling holds. When I wore the bells, it seemed his hearing had sharpened ten-fold and I could barely take a step before his staff w
ould lash out to crack my side. And when we danced, my daggers simply could not move fast enough. I found myself slain many times over.

  By the end I was so weary and bruised I thought I might truly die. But I could see that my master was watching me with a kind of poorly concealed pride, and this made my fears stand at bay for a time. It was a feeling I have since learned can be called happiness, though I did not know it then.

  As reward he made strong tea and invited me to sit with him on the dancing room balcony. The sun had set, now only the thinnest red-gold line at the end of the western desert. The sculptors creating Father’s statue in the Pillar Hall had finally stopped their incessant banging, and the king’s gondola creaked as it made its eternal circuit from the palace roof to the docks and back. My master told stories of war while I tried to cheat the puzzle box with the point of my dagger.

  My heart was at peace then until an urgent rap came at the door.

  “Forgive me, masters,” said a harried slave, “The King requests the presence of Prince Jarech in the Pillar Hall.”

  “At this hour?” I said. This was strange. Orech and I had spoken no more than a few words since our father’s death, and the queer look on my master’s face gave me further pause.

  I stood to follow, but my master stopped me with a touch.

  “Know your circumstances, prince Jarech,” he said.

  Weary as I was, it was hard to know anything at all. But upon entering the Pillar Hall I knew that something was amiss. The sky was dark in the high windows, and the only light came from the smoldering braziers at the base of each statued king who stood between the pillars. Father’s statue was still hardly more than a vaguely man-shaped lump of marble. His blank face and the demon-red light of the coals made gooseflesh on my arms.

  Orech sat on the throne, bored, reading some tome as I approached. I wondered again why he would meet me here rather than in his chambers. Perhaps only to remind me that he was king, and I was his lesser. At the sound of my steps he looked up and smiled his newfound fatherly smile, gesturing to the lower counselor’s chair at his left.