The Firebird Read online

  Guilt. Now there is something I’ve not examined for a long while, nor have I probed at this thorny, cold thing that lies across my souls, constricting it. We are absolved of guilt when we act in accordance with the Word, but now that the first niggles of doubt have crept in, my guilt has followed.

  I squeeze shut my eyes, and my chest is so tight I can hardly draw breath, but I cannot cry. Mustn’t. Instead I bite down hard on my knuckles until I can taste blood. Damn you, Ailas. And damn me.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The First Ordeal

  The Place is carved into the flanks of Mount Ferion, in successive, walled-off tiers that rise above the city. Yet as high as the structure climbs, its roots penetrate deeper. No one knows who built the chambers beneath the complex. They were here when the Word of Fennar was first uttered. Dozens of chambers are laid like eggs, layer upon layer, perfect spheres carved into the black rock, their walls polished to a gleaming, glass-like sheen. The chamber we use for Ordeals when we put the demon-tainted to The Trial, is the largest, and an adult man can cross its diameter in five strides. Unlike the others, it is half full of hard-packed sand, the better to drink up the blood and other bodily fluids. Thank goodness my days of replacing the soiled substrate are long past.

  A flickering oil lamp hanging from the centre of the ceiling provides the only source of light. The flame dances and licks about, though there is no discernible draft, and the shadows around us bulge and shiver with our every movement.

  Elder Susin is a twisted cadaver of a man, rumoured to have seen well over a hundred sodden Sunai seasons. His two assistants are equally ancient—Peris and Gabris—twins in possession of surprising strength as they drag the prisoner into the chamber. My place is at Elder Susin’s side, to fetch and carry, and run messages, should that be required. I must not open my mouth. I must watch. Obey.

  My lips are unaccountably dry despite the chamber’s moist closeness.

  Susin directs me to the censer where I place resinous cubes of meria incense on a disc of heated charcoal. Thin plumes of white smoke lift into the muggy air, and the smell will linger in my hair for days after.

  The prisoner, when he is brought in, is naked but for a grimy loincloth, and whatever has transpired between the occasion of his capture and his arrival in the chamber, has left bruises all over his skin. He does not look up, and when the twins drop him, he barely seems to have the strength to kneel before his interrogator when prompted to do so.

  Please don’t look up, I will at him. I’m too scared to know what I’ll see in his eyes.

  Three days have passed since my meeting with Elder Saitas, and I’ve plunged and soared between what the others whisper as the awesome honour of my task and my growing, deep-rooted horror of what I must be an accomplice to.

  Always the observer, never the participant.

  And yet my silence is as damning as the actions of those who mete out the Ordeals, is it not? I stand here, do what I’m ordered to, and I may as well be the one applying the burning irons, making incisions with the ritual blades.

  I should be glad this story is drawing to a close. Made craven by his demon taint that day, my brother sought his freedom rather than give himself up to save our parents. He deserves this Ordeal. It is his fault, after all. And I must bear witness, as difficult as that is, so that I can atone for my role in this tragedy. I failed him, failed my parents. Perhaps, if I tell myself this enough, it will become true.

  Obedience buys freedom and absolution.

  They should have listened to the Word of Fennar, yet they hardened their hearts, did not pursue the Four Adorations as they should have. As we were instructed by the allies teaching at our village school. Instead my brother opened his heart to a vyra-demon and the forbidden mysteries. I should be glad I have this opportunity to correct him.

  Yet why does what lies ahead of me feel so wrong, so awful?

  I haven’t been able to sleep deeply since his capture. My dreams are disturbed by the call of the ghost lemur, and when I lie awake, peering into the shifting shadows that play across my cell’s ceiling, the shrieks and ominous liquid warbles of the night-whistler taunt me. A bringer of bad omens, the bird is known to prefer the high ravines and eschew places where people dwell. I swear it is now calling within the confines of the Place.

  “Prisoner, you are aware why you face The Trial?” Elder Susin intones.

  The insurgent’s shoulders remain slumped, his head hanging and his locks dangling like dead snakes.

  Susin inclines his head to the twins, and one goes to the table, where he fetches a flask. Without ceremony, he upends the contents over the prisoner, who straightens with a shriek. The liquid steams off his skin and fills the chamber with the stench of burnt herbs.

  The response is a sure sign of possession. Not unexpected, but dismay tastes rank on my tongue.

  What? Had I thought that, miraculously, he’d have amended his ways over the years?

  Susin’s smile is positively ghoulish as he slings the Mantra of Confirmation off his tongue—“Harakam, marakam, harakam, marakam...”

  And we take up the counterpoint so that the overall cacophony jangles the nerves, bounces off the spherical chamber and rattles my bones.

  No one knows what the words mean; that’s not the point. It’s the assertion of our will over the accused, and the surety handed down to us by our Illuminant after months of meditation in his sanctuary.

  The prisoner thrashes, but the twins hold him upright, their chests rising and falling rapidly with the effort of keeping him off the ground. The chamber grows close, the walls pulsing, and dimly I wonder if there are other herbs in the incense, or if it is the effort of maintaining the chant that is sending me spiralling into an altered state. Sweat slicks our skin, and when I glance at Susin, his pupils are so dilated his eyes seem solid black, like some wild creature’s.

  The strangeness of our actions has departed; there is only the moment, each breath, each utterance of a syllable that strikes the prisoner as though with a physical blow. His cries are lost, his mouth gaping in an empty scream. Blood seeps in long fingers from his nose and ears—another sign that we are successfully hurting the demon that has taken up residence inside him.

  We will drive out this demon that calls itself the Firebird.

  Yet this will not be enough; this is only the beginning, as much as it pains me. The first Ordeal is a tribulation, an initial engagement to test the mettle of the spirit in question and to let it know that we too are relentless—we are powerful.

  It’s difficult telling how much time passes. My throat burns, my chest aches.

  Whenever the prisoner slumps, I am directed to fetch yet another flask from the table. I upend the contents on the prisoner, bathing him in the alchemical concoctions that turn to vapour as soon as they come into contact with his skin. Blisters form and break. Hair falls out in clumps, and yet when we pause, so that Susin can put the questions to him—Who are you, foul spirit? What is your true name?—a weird smile twists the prisoner’s lips.

  He catches my eye, and the secret amusement I fear I detect there strikes fear in my heart.

  Once, I fancy he whispers, “Your words can’t hurt me, traitors.”

  But we renew our mantra, and the entire process resumes until I wonder whether I will be the one who shatters, my bones fragmenting from the stress of this ordeal.

  Oh, how they’ll love it if I fail. The weakness of a woman, of this jumped-up Shiwen farmer’s daughter aspiring to surpass her betters.

  Only this firms my resolve, when I recall Ally Melnas’s jeering laughter as he recounts yet another of my shortcomings around the dinner table. The rest laugh and smile, and pretend I am not sitting there hearing every word that is spoken. Few women seek to join the fraternity, and I have long realised it is precisely for this reason—this brotherhood of woman-haters, secure in their station in life.

  This is your fault, I want to shout at Ailas. Instead I clench my hands, and though my voice cracks, I
continue adding my breath to the mantra.

  We began our grim work at dawn, but it is well past midday when we emerge from the chamber. Peris and Gabris drag the prisoner between them as if he is no more than a sack of old rags. Penitents scurry in after to clear away the waste, and I allow myself respite in which to be grateful that this particular task no longer falls to me.

  Instead I have to see to the prisoner—work I do not relish. Damn Elder Saitas, for he did not inform me of this, and Susin delivered the order with great relish, as if to taunt me. Either they hope I’ll betray myself by feeling pity for the prisoner or, perhaps they hope he’ll confide in me and provide them with more damning information about the insurgents. Neither prospect appeals to me, though I suspect it is more the latter than the former.

  Or, this is simply punishment, for not having been forthright about my origins when I initially dedicated myself to the Word of Fennar.

  Demon kin are housed in cells deep within the Place of Fennar—windowless subterranean chambers that are so small the accused barely has space to stand or lie straight. The rough stone weeps moisture and is slick with algae. And the stench. Oh, the stench.

  I gag, breathe through my mouth, and realise that here is yet another foul smell that will cling to me before the end of this all, a stain that I’ll never be able to scrub from my skin.

  The twins dump the insurgent then trudge further up the narrow passage and its stairs to the landing, where the air is less noisome. They are laughing about some unfortunate querent who angered one of the allies.

  Down here there is only the steady drip-drop of liquid, and the crystal set in a niche does little to dispel the gloom. The prisoner has been discarded in a heap, and I have been instructed to bathe him with a herbal tincture so that he might not sicken before the end of the Trial. His premature death would mean that the demon would be free to seek another host before we can cast it out and destroy it.

  We are alone down here; the other cells are empty.

  Briefly, I toy with the idea of simply sluicing the prisoner with the contents of the bucket. The liquid will run down the sloped floor and flow into the gutter to the drain at the far end, carrying away any impurities.

  Yet this act seems callous, especially in the light of all in which I’ve been complicit.

  Try as I might, I cannot unsee the truth that the prisoner is my brother. We were birthed from the same womb, nursed at the same breast. Even if he has become the infamous Firebird I’ve been taught to fear.

  If he dies before the Trial is completed, I might not be able to save his soul from the unholy entity that has taken up residence in his body.

  Murmuring the Invocation of Focus beneath my breath, I set to work. While the invocation shields my mind, I can touch him with impunity; the demon will not be able to affect me in any way.

  He groans as I sponge down his limbs, more hair coming away in my hands as I tilt his head so I can wipe away filth. Some of the skin sloughs off in sections, to reveal tender flesh beneath. Where the metal collar comes into contact with his flesh, it raises welts. This will keep any unnatural spirits in abeyance but it must hurt. Terribly.

  My words falter. This is my brother.

  My indrawn breath is sharp. “Why have you brought this down on us?” I ask him.

  His only response is a low moan, his lids twitching. His breath hitches but he doesn’t waken.

  Always he was the one who ran ahead. Like the time we snuck into the old ruins on Uncle Mikos’s farm. I hung back on the threshold, peering into the dust motes dancing on the sunbeams that didn’t quite push back the gloom. Ailas ventured in, calling back, “Don’t be such a ninny, Unia. It’s quite all right!”

  “The ceiling will fall! You’ll be crushed!”

  “The ceiling has stood for a generation. I’m sure it will last another. See!”

  He tapped at the beams with the bamboo stave he’d cut for himself, and dust rained down on him. I shrieked in absolute terror when the bats burst out, flittering their wings against my face.

  Ailas’s screams back then were absolute wonder and delight. He was not afraid of bats.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Unholy Portents

  Mount Ferion is smoking. The last time the mountain woke I was a small girl. We packed our things, and Papa said we must be ready to seek sanctuary with relatives in the city. Although there had not been a violent eruption in a decades, Papa took us to see the old lava flows that crusted the south slopes, where farmsteads and homes had been swallowed up by the inexorable flow of the mountain’s ire.

  Ailas said someone had angered the mountain gods, but Papa shushed him.

  “When we go to the city, you must not speak such nonsense,” he said.

  “Why?” My brother had worn out that word by the time he was six.

  “The Fennarin might hear of it and then we’ll be in trouble.”

  “I’m not scared of the Fennarin.”

  That was the only time I saw Papa raise his hand to my brother.

  After that, Ailas had not said another word on the matter, and we waited up the entire night, listening for when the Ferion officials came to ring the alarm bell. The mountain shuddered. A long crack fingered across the big room’s wall, but nothing more happened.

  For days, the sky had been dimmed by ash that fell in feather flakes and left a bitter taste on my tongue. And that had been that. For years.

  Now the mountain shudders and rumbles, and billows of thick grey smoke add to the general miasma in the air. The afternoon showers have, unaccountably, been withheld, and every breath I draw is syrupy with the faint taste of rotten eggs. Oh, for a break in this baking heat that saps the strength from my limbs.

  Allies maintain chambers on the middle terrace, which means I have a window, small as it is. I do not have an ocean view like the seniors, but from my cell I can nearly see Mount Ferion’s summit and the black smoke roils out, dirtying the twilight haze.

  Bleak exhaustion makes my limbs so heavy I can barely move and yet I cannot lie still on my pallet. Sleep I must, if I’m to face another day of the Trial, but every time I lie down, I see his face, his eyes searching mine and seeking recognition.

  Unia, why?

  He has undone me with those two words, and that fateful afternoon a decade ago plays itself over repeatedly the way a mummer’s dance turns along preordained steps. What if I’d not gone to destroy the shrine? Would the Fennarin have put me to death too? Most likely. Yet if they’ve been aware all along about my past, there is no way for me to know how the blade would have fallen back then. I imagine how it must be to have the lamp oil poured over my skin, the liquid trickling along limbs only to be followed by the bite and sizzle as the flame takes hold. How it devours. The pain that grows and grows before death offers a way out.

  My chest closes, and my breath wheezes on my lips. I rise, pace about the confines of my cell.

  Then I’m standing here, clutching the sill with white-knuckled hands and a splinter has dug into my right ring finger. With a curse I nibble at it to remove the foreign body then suck at the hurt digit until I can taste metal.

  A low rumble shudders, grinding rocks deep beneath the earth. The mountain can be angry for days, for weeks, it’s been said. Tomorrow it can blow its top and spew fire, and yet we persist to live on its flanks. The pagan stories tell of sacrifices to appease the gods, of blood spilled to quieten the earth. Of the miraculous Firebird that is born out of the cataclysm to offer people hope. We don’t engage in such barbaric practices anymore, and yet there’s a small part that wonders if such rites ever did any good other than gift us with the illusion that we have some modicum of agency when faced with nature’s wrath.

  Even these thoughts are poison, for the Word of Fennar teaches that it’s through discipline and study that we can tame the very elements, to elevate ourselves to the point where we master even the sky and the ocean.

  We don’t need some mythic Firebird, for we have the Word of Fennar to guide us.<
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  The mountain, however, doesn’t care how much knowledge we hoard.

  I stand by the window and breathe in the night, and the remains of my paltry dinner subside like a lump of cooling lead in my belly. The hours that come I must endure, ostensibly in quiet meditation, purified by our Invocations against the Unseen so that my will is tempered steel.

  All around me my fellow Fennarin are settling for the night. Murmured words underpin the occasional rumbles from the mountain. No alarm bells yet, but then we are far enough that the canals should do well to divert any flow. Or so it is hoped. No one has had to test them in many years.

  My brother lies broken, insensible far beneath the ground, and I put him there.

  He’s not your brother anymore.

  Yet I can still see him laughing, chasing me with glowbugs he wants to throw into my hair. My traitorous memories tumble end over end, segueing between the tears and the laughter until I’m doubled over from the nausea.

  The call of the night-whistler is out of place. No such birds should by any rights stray into the city, for there are not enough trees to hide this retiring creature. The sound takes me right back to the ravines of my childhood, of the thick-wooded gullies where the ghost lemurs cry. Me and Ailas sitting on a fallen tree, eating wild tala berries that stain our mouths crimson. Two liquid upsweeping notes query the star before descending in a bubbling laugh as though mocking us.

  In all the years that we ran wild in the foothills of Mount Ferion, we only ever saw the night-whistler once, sweeping away from us on its silent sickle-wings. Those large, unblinking black eyes hold an eternity of darkness.

  That last night, a decade ago, spent crouching in an abandoned shed while the insects and nightlife seethed around me. I had nowhere to run to, nowhere to go. What had I imagined would happen after the Fennarin came for my brother? That I could return to life as per usual with my parents on the farm? That we’d be happy? That my Mama would not sorrow for the loss of her only son? That my Papa would not mourn, that’d he’d be stoic? That I would not feel that hollow, aching loss gnaw at me during the dead hours of the night?