Ryk has decided that this will be the last snippet of this book. Also, the eARC is currently available at http://www.baenebooks.com/p-2666-phoenix-in-shadow-earc.aspx
Phoenix In Shadow – Chapter 28
Chapter 28.
Miri stepped into her guestroom at the Reflect’s mansion and closed the door, leaning against it heavily. I’m shaking! Shaking like a terrified human!
Her current body was human, in a way… but in all the centuries she’d been in such bodies, she’d never had such a reaction. Miri held her arm up in front of her, watched the trembling of the delicate hand, the imprecision of its movements, with stunned fascination; it took twice as long as normal to set the wards and seals of privacy.
In a way, she could understand it. So many shocks, one after another. First, stepping into that cabin and seeing the true power of a god unleashed – through the constant oppressive interference of Moonshade Hollow which impeded even her kind – and the incredible, heart-wrenching beauty of that power and the Phoenix, tearing her own soul and the voluntarily offered souls of the others so she could patch together the shredded, dying spirits of two children, and beyond. Though Phoenix had not realized it, her power had flowed even beyond the two most wounded, touched upon Hamule and bound her wounded spirit just a touch, eased the pain and memories for all five.
Miri found a wondering smile on her face at the thought, then banished that expression with shock and panic.
It didn’t hurt. Why didn’t it hurt?
But that question hadn’t occurred to her right away. She had been uplifted, confident, and helped Phoenix to rise. It was agreed by all three – herself, Phoenix, and Tobimar – that the master itrichel had to be dealt with immediately, and that it had to be in the Reflect’s household.
And they’d been right; Nimelly, his Head of House, had been the host of the creature. Once she realized she was cornered, she had fled, with the three of them in close pursuit. Tobimar had outdistanced them for a few moments and brought the itrichel to bay…
And that was the second terrible shock.
Tobimar had faced the itrichel – Nimelly with a serene face, a transcendent look in his eyes, twin swords held parallel before him, and she knew that pose, that stance, remembered the terrible gray-eyed calm that had advanced through the armies of Kerlamion as though the demons were blades of grass before his vengeful hurricane, in the days after the Fall. That Art is not lost, and does that mean that … He… is returning?
She had stumbled, but somehow – though the terror was nigh-overwhelming – caught herself, regained control, only for yet another shock to overtake her.
For the itrichel had snarled, “How do you resist?” as her blade rang against Tobimar’s.
“Yield and you may learn. Fight and you will die,” Tobimar had said bluntly. “For my companions are here.”
Nimelly then leapt back, with an agility far beyond human, and came on guard, watching all three. She smiled. “But are they companions you can trust?” she had asked… and for a moment the narrowed eyes had flickered yellow-green, looking directly at Miri.
It knows what I am! It could betray everything!
She had launched herself into the air, even before her course of action was clear; by the time she reached the apex of the leap, she had known what she must do. The two companions must believe she was their ally and friend, which meant she must somehow save Nimelly – and absolutely, permanently silence the itrichel before it could reveal the truth.
She unleashed a Shardstorm, impaling Nimelly in multiple yet non-vital points with the glittering blue-ice fragments. The itrichel, realizing it was trapped, had abandoned the body, tried to flee, but in doing so gave Miri a clear opportunity, and the Hammer of Thunder obliterated every trace.
And even then there was no respite from the tension; for what if Nimelly remembered what the itrichel knew? She hadn’t… but there were also other itrichel out there by now, matured from the sithigorn and other young animals. If they knew the truth…
She sat down on the bed, trying to clear the confusion and panic and elation and fury, to get some kind of idea of what she actually felt, to make sense of it all. I cannot have felt joy at the Phoenix’ ritual. I cannot! That would mean…
She drove that thought out with sheer terror and denial. For if that was true, then somehow the thing she had resisted for millennia, that had been trying to eat away at her self for all the time they had been here, was finally overcoming her, now, just when complete victory was in her grasp. It wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. It was the persona she had adopted, that was all. “Miri” would of course be awed and overjoyed, fascinated even, by such a miracle. And miracle it was; not all the magic of Kaizatenzei could have saved those children, but the Phoenix of Myrionar had made it look easy – though as Miri had seen, it was certainly not.
In a sense, that was good; attention was entirely on the emissary of the God of Justice and Vengeance, and for once that meant that people downstairs weren’t all crowded around Miri, so she had been able to get away without drawing attention to herself. And she needed this time alone.
And there were people she needed to talk to. Oh, yes, immediately.
The golden scroll was instantly out of her pack and set up. Miri found herself bouncing her knee in nervousness as she waited for the other person to answer. Stop that! I must not show any such weakness in front of him.
But that was easier said than done. The problem was that she was feeling entirely too many things right now, some good, some bad, and some just confusing, and that made her twitchy and annoyed. Which wasn’t at all a good thing to be in conversation with Him.
Even as she drew a breath and tried to focus on calming herself, on dealing with the mission, the golden scroll darkened and cleared to show the ever-pleasant features of Viedraverion’s current form. “Emirinovas! Always a pleasure.”
She decided that his infuriating cheer needed to be dealt a bit of a blow, and that would also help cheer her up. “You treacherous little nyetakh.”
Instead of looking taken aback, the smile widened. “And as always I can rely on your unswerving politeness! What is it that –”
“The so-called ‘key’ is a Tor master!” she snapped, feeling again the chill and shock that had nearly overcome her.
“What?” The surprise on the face was genuine. A moment later, the smile returned, this one of chagrin. “Ah. Of course, I should have guessed, given his instructor.”
She felt the blood leave her face and dizziness assailed her. Curse this human body! “Are… no, you cannot be saying that He has returned, is instructing –”
“Oh, no, no, not him. I have not seen him, nor sign that he…” Viedraverion paused. “Or perhaps I have. I must think on this. But in your particular case, no. But that is little comfort, I think, because his instructor was Konstantin Khoros.”
“Khoros!” She spat the name out like a curse – which, indeed, it was. “And you did not see fit to warn us?”
The infuriating smile was back. “You asked for me to watch for certain things. I watched for them. I think you would still want your key even with this complication, yes?”
Calm. Calm. It was hard, much harder with the turbulent confused emotions within her, but she forced herself to clarity and some measure of calm. “Yes. Yes, we would. So… enough of that. However, there is the matter of his companion.”
“Oh?”
“She is the channel of a god!” Anew she saw the towering golden Sword-Balance, blazing up and through the cabin, rising above the trees, and felt again that strange chill and warmth, the power of a deity manifest in the girl who was sacrificing part of her own soul, as well as those of others, to save two children she had never before met. “A full channel, not some random priest! I have never felt such a thing, not even from the Stars and Sun!”
The blond-haired form leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Well, yes. You have dealt less with the gods and their powers than I, so you do not understand the difference. In the Stars and Sun of Terian, you have a vast power, yes, but they are, in the end analysis, merely containers for power, not the Light in the Darkness himself. That does not of course mean they are safe, as you well know, but they are not themselves the Will of the Deity made manifest.” He gazed into a distance she could not see. “Even if they were – say if Terian had been called forth to activate them – there would be a difference. Terian has immensely many shrines, temples, priests, worshippers – scattered across the entire continent, some even within your own valley. He is many places at once, always.
“Myrionar, however… has only the Phoenix. Oh, there is one priest, but even he looks to her as the example and symbol. You felt the power of a focused, even desperate god providing what it could to its one remaining champion, and that, I have no doubt, was a magnificent sight indeed to one of our perceptions.”
“Oh, it was magnificent!” She caught herself before she went any farther. This part I play is becoming too real. I must remember it is only a seeming, not an actuality… or it might become actuality. “But also dangerous.”
Viedraverion shrugged. “If you make too many mistakes, yes. She is a very formidable young woman. But you have the power, you have the allies, you have the advantages. I trust you will be able to handle her and your key.”
“As long as Khoros isn’t directly intervening.” She didn’t even want to think about that. Emirinovas was powerful, yes, but she knew that going up against a Spirit Mage of Khoros’ age and power would be a foregone conclusion, and not one in her favor.
“No, of that I can be sure. My… sources tell me that he has actually been seen serving as advisor to the new Sauran King as they prepare for the counterassault against our beloved father.”
That was something of a relief. But… “Does Father know?”
“I presume he does. He has his own spies.”
She studied him. “You don’t seem concerned. I thought you had an interest in this Phoenix.”
“I have an interest in how her journey ends – in victory or in failure. I won’t tell you cannot deal with her in any fashion that suits your needs.”
“Indeed?” He nodded. “Well… all right. Also, I did intercept your other visitor, Aran Condor, and sent him the other way around the Necklace. I’m arranging for sightings and rumors of the Phoenix along the way, so he’ll stick to the trail and never wonder about it all the way there.”
“Really? Well done, little sister. I commend you. Exactly as I would have asked.” He looked off to the side. “I must be going; other responsibilities call, and I believe we have… cleared up our misunderstanding?”
“Sufficiently. Farewell, Viedraverion.”
“And you, Emirinovas.”
She put the scroll away, checked the seals and wards again. Not that she expected anyone to try to spy on her – the Phoenix certainly would never even think of such a thing and she doubted Tobimar would either, and none of the others in Jenten’s Mill would dare – but only a fool trusts unreservedly.
Once she was sure that things were still secure, she removed the farcaller from her pouch and placed it on the table. “Lady Shae,” she said.
The image of Kalshae’s human form materialized almost instantly; she was in her own chambers, so there was no need to delay. “Miri. What is it?”
Now she had someone to really vent her tension on. “I would ask rather what is this?” She held up one of the itrichel corpses.
Kalshae blinked in startlement. “Where did you –”
“Jenten’s Mill. An infestation that came up out of the lake – how very surprising,” she let sarcasm fill the last words for a second or two before continuing, ” and then when the townsfolk stopped depredations on their young livestock the thing took over one of the townsfolk and started abducting children!”
“Well, that’s unfortunate, but –”
“Unfortunate? You fool, Kalshae! You and Wieran play with all these clever little inventions but you never see the way the game has to be played, and you have too little respect for the danger! They sent for help and found our key and his party – and naturally they came right away.”
Finally Kalshae was giving her undivided attention to Miri, and Miri began to feel – slightly – better. “Now it was bad enough that it was hurting the town; as long as we’re running a kingdom we need stability, not fear and uncertainty. But far worse was the fact that it was one of yours.”
“How do you –”
“How do I know? How do I know?” She leaned forward, glaring so fiercely that Kalshae actually stepped back a pace. “Because the Father-damned thing almost gave me away! The only thing that kept the whole situation from going straight to the Light was that the master itrichel got fancy and instead of just telling them what I was, hinted and looked at me in a way I couldn’t possibly mistake; I could tell it expected I would betray them at that point. I finished it instead.
“Fortunately,” she continued, overriding Kalshae’s attempt to speak, “they thought that it was simply planning on mind-controlling us – it couldn’t affect Tobimar – and that was why we wouldn’t be able to be trusted. And while they had wanted to capture it and question it about its other nest, they understood my need to act.”
“I see.” Kalshae gazed at her, then finally – unwillingly – bowed. “I… am sorry. It was thoughtless and incompetent of us to allow such a thing free, and I will make no such mistakes again.”
“See that you don’t. You may have more raw power than I do, Kalshae – although not as much as you think – but never forget that I planned this entire thing. You will not ruin it for me.”
“Understood, Miri. Understood.” Kalshae waited to see if Miri accepted her contrition, then, “Now… how many people were killed? The master-itrichel’s host, of course, but how many others?”
“None, actually. I was careful with the Shardstorm.”
“Wait, now. There is no way that you can cure a child ridden by an itrichel for longer than –”
“Oh, yes there is. If you happen to be the chosen representative of a god. Phoenix’ story is one hundred percent true; she was able to pull enough power from her god to heal all five children, including two with nearly full grown mindworms.”
Even as she said that, Miri regarded herself with confusion and disbelief. Tell Kalshae about the soul-tearing! About how Phoenix had to use her own soul and those of others to heal the children! That’s vital information! It tells us that Phoenix – and perhaps Tobimar and Hiriista! – will be weakened for some time! It also tells us about how far they will go to save others!
Tell her!
But somehow she found herself silent, adding no more details, and her face held so controlled that not a hint of additional information was shown on her face. Even as she let that moment pass, she felt that strangeness within her growing, as though the decision had strengthened it. With frozen panic she shoved that very awareness from her mind and focused on the woman before her.
“By the Throne! That’s … frightening,” Kalshae said slowly. “Especially doing it here, where even we cannot pull in more than a fraction of the power that is normally ours. But there is no suspicion of us?”
“None. Especially after our successful hunt. Though there are more itrichel out there to hunt, since not all the missing livestock from the first attacks have been found.”
“Still, if they have not conferred with the master itrichel, they will know nothing.”
“Let us hope so. But I will have to stay here and complete the hunt for all of the things to make sure. Do you understand how much time this will make me waste? If just one person hears the wrong thing and I’m not there to kill them or wipe their minds –”
“Yes, yes, I do understand. My apologies, again.” She tilted her head. “Wait a moment. You said that the master itrichel could not affect Tobimar Silverun. Why?”
Miri couldn’t restrain a nasty grin. “Because he is a Tor master.”
The reaction was everything she could have hoped for. Kalshae shrank back in horror, her foot ran against some object fallen to the floor, and she stumbled. “Impossible! They were eradicated from –”
“I saw him. Just as I remember seeing the Eternal King himself from the walls. I cannot mistake those moves, those stances. And Viedraverion tells me that our key was trained by Khoros.”
Kalshae vented an obscenity that momentarily darkened the crystal. “Are we against Khoros? If so, we must simply abandon this plan entirely.”
“I would not be so hasty… but no. Viedra says that the old mage is advising the Sauran King and will probably be on the front lines.”
“Bad for Father, good for us. All right. Will the key be continuing on tomorrow?”
“I think so. Perhaps the day after; the townspeople are very grateful. I will then catch up with them once the hunting of the other itrichel is finished.”
“I think you should stick with them as much as possible… just to make sure they don’t see or learn anything … dangerous.”
“I’ll do so as much as possible,” Miri said with a smile. Smile? Suddenly I feel so much… lighter! What in the world could be causing that?
“All right. I’ll go deal with Wieran over this… unauthorized release.”
“Better you than me. Good luck.”
“Thanks. I’ll need it.”
Miri put the crystal away and stood. It’s getting towards dinner time; Phoenix will be wondering where I am!
She set out from her room, a bounce in her step again.
She has got it bad.
How does her sister miss this? Do they not spend much time together or is she simply usually such a good actress that nothing shows.
Miri has had literally THOUSANDS of years to practice her acting. And she is a more skilled and subtle entity than Kalshae; Kalshae is not stupid, nor incapable — far from it — but she’s much more the “get a bigger hammer” sort of demon.
Emirinovas is in trouble. The Dissonance she had was bad enough, but much of it was converted to Discord and that is worse (at least from a demon point of view).
Sort of the other way around; she started as discord, went to dissonance, and is careering downhill towards Harmony at a terrifying pace.
I capitalized Dissonance and Discord because, in the sense I was using them, they are proper nouns. But perhaps you haven’t seen the RPG rule set that uses them that way.
I may have seen it but may not have played it. Are you thinking of In Nomine?
Yes. I haven’t played it myself, but I did read the rules (I can’t find them at the moment). As I see it, at the start of the chapter, Miri is having trouble thinking. IMS, this is close to what In Nomine called Dissonance. At the end of the chapter, she doesn’t have that trouble anymore, but it appears that her basic nature has been changed. That is Discord in the In Nomine rules.
I feel like it should be noted here that Miri is not entirely correct, too: our intrepid adventurers are aware that *something* is wrong with the lights and colors, and it is going to sound entirely too familiar to Phoenix after the experience with the false Justicars. I don’t remember off the top of my head how far they got in suspecting her, but… it’s not like she’s free of suspicion.
Well, yeah, but she has no way of knowing that.
I mean, they *could* have tells. It’s just that they haven’t confronted her, and she seems to think that good guys aren’t capable of being subtle, with the apparent possible exception of Khoros.
It’s not so much that she doesn’t think they can be subtle, it’s that she’s confident in her ability to fool them. And is missing Critical, Need-To-Know Information about what they know and guess.
Curious that the darkness in Moonshade Hollow also affects the demons’ powers. Is this darkness something entirely different in quality or type, or is it just different in quantity?
If you recall, the Wanderer mentioned this was an effect similar to one seen in Elyvias, another region of Zarathan. Magical suppression is not necessarily a dark effect.
Ah, it goes to intent, then! Correct? The intent of the magical suppression is key to it being good, neutral, or evil. Do we eventually get the backstory of who imposed the magical suppression and to what intent it was imposed?
No, the magical suppression is actually mostly just due to magical cataclysms which then mess with the local magical environment. There are certain things making it WORSE here, but in Elyvias there’s no intent in it; everyone finds magic of the “normal” sort harder to do.
Oooh! Could we actually be seeing the start of MIRI’s redemption? More likely, now that I think about it, is that this will motivate her to hesitate for just a moment too long at the critical juncture. Still hoping for good in Aran Condor, too, by the way.
Well, I’m known for generally positive plots, so such events are possible. But Miri’s committed pretty heavily (for thousands of years) and Aran’s got himself a sword from the King of All Hells. These won’t be easily dispensed with.
Hardly the start. The very first time she appears, back in Snippet Nine, she’s vigorously denying feeling regret over the deaths of some subordinates, it’s not that she liked them or anything, they were just useful. Or so she claims.
And then her conversation with her sister where she denied that she might be slipping.
Almost every scene she’s been in includes a broad hint that she’s at least potentially redeemable, survival is far from assured (see also: Redemption=Death). But she and Aram both are consistently shown to have better impulses that they overcome largely because they have a sense of duty toward their current faction (and in Miri’s case we haven’t actually seen her do anything at all that reasonably counts as Evil).
Miri might well refuse to switch sides if doing so means betraying the sister she recruited into this plan. Aram might well refuse to switch sides because he has a father figure to avenge, and he doesn’t really care that his father figure largely deserved death (this isn’t news to him, he knows Phoenix was justified even without knowing that Phoenix is actually Kyri Vantage).
But at the climax Our Heroes will be grossly outgunned if the badguys all pull together as a team, so it follows that they will not all pull together, someone will hesitate, or backstab, or switch sides. Possibly letting whatever they’re trying to control get loose.
And Miri and Aram are clearly voted “most likely to switch sides or hesitate”.
I think Master Wieran wins most likely to backstab his allies. Although that impression relies somewhat on the probably not canonical Annotated Evil Overlord List.
If I were writing it, I think Master Wieran would try to grab control of the McGuffin, this would let it get partially loose and kill or disable Kalshae, Miri kills Wieran and is revealed as a demon in the process while everyone else is busy with the McGuffin, Aram bursts in and….
I can go almost anywhere from that point, it depends on the plan for the next book. Anyone but Wieran could survive, anyone by Kyri could die. (I doubt that any of the three main protagonists would die, but that’s because I don’t think Ryk will kill them rather than because the story requires it, the story almost certainly needs Kyri to survive to the next book.)
Well, yeah, with the next book titled “Phoenix Ascendant” you kind of need Kyri around.
OTOH, her name *IS* Phoenix, which might imply that killing her doesn’t really solve your problems.
Ooooooooooooh…! So. Not. Nice. *scowl* Now I REALLY wish I could buy the e-ARC! So cruel… Lol. I’m “dying” to learn more! *crickets* Well *I* thought it was a funny pun. *more crickets* :-P
No, no, it was a killer!
Has Phoenix Justiciar Kyri ever visited the Old Phoenix Inn?
All the cool kids hang out there.
Cool kids? If they’re all Phoenixes it should be a hot place!
Shame the timing of the snippets wasn’t synchronized with publication. I’m really quite into this book now, but the first date I can buy even the EBook is a month and a half away, who knows what I’ll be into by then? (No I’m never going to pay extra money to buy an unedited EARC). If I can fall off the end of the snippets into buying the ebook it’s much more likely I’ll do so. Who finishes the ad campaign 7 weeks before the product launch?
I’ve always timed mine for eARC release or a little after.
To me it makes sense to time snippets for eARC sales, even though I’ve never paid for one.
The main income is still from physical book sales, and thus marketing should generally be concentrated on increasing those sales, but the snippets are marketing aimed specifically at the most reliable part of the core market. They’re not really going to produce that many extra physical book sales from snippets (especially snippets of a sequel) unless the snippets produce noticeable word of mouth, and for word of mouth you actually want a long lead time and slow buildup like you get from letting your core market get a sneak peek (such as the eARC).
And since the unit cost for the eARC is basically 0 (and overhead not much more), and most people who buy the eARC probably also buy at least one of the eBook and hardback, additional eARC sales have a disproportionate impact on profits even if they don’t produce word of mouth.
Except that I’m part of Eric’s core market, if anyone’s, and not Ryk’s. And you could still do all of that by starting and finishing the snippets 7 weeks later, but you could pick up more eBook or deadtree sales too. IMO, but each to their own.