Phoenix Overture

10

FAYDEN FORCED ME to throw rocks with him first thing the next morning.

“This isn’t hard.” He scooped up a few palm-sized stones. “Slip the loop around your fourth finger; hold the other end between your forefinger and thumb. Wind back and throw, releasing the loose end of the cord.”

He demonstrated, swinging the sling back and around so it made a figure eight in the air. He released. The rock whizzed through the air and struck a fallen sign a few dozen paces away. A loud whap echoed where the stone hit a line of faded numbers.

“Just like that.”

I heaved a sigh and attempted to follow his instructions. The loop went over my finger easily enough, and I grasped the other end as he showed me. But the jagged rock he gave me kept falling from the leather pouch before I ever managed to get it moving.

“It’s broken.” My rock clattered to the ground.

“Hold on to the rock through the pouch.” He showed me. “Drop it as you’re winding back. Let gravity help your momentum.”

“Okay.” Dubiousness colored my voice, but I did as he said. The rock stayed in place as I swung it back and up and around, just like I’d seen Fayden do—

Sharp pain crackled up my left shoulder. Swearing, I dropped everything and clutched my shoulder. “That hurt!”

Fayden laughed and shook his head. “That’s pathetic. You have to release the stone or of course it will swing back and hit you.”

“You’re the worst brother,” I muttered, gathering up my supplies.

“You know I’m the best.” Fayden jerked his head toward the sign he’d used as a target earlier. “Try again. Aim for the sign. It’s big enough, even you should be able to hit it.”

“Don’t be so sure.” I fitted the sling onto my hand again, loaded the rock as he’d shown me, and swung back and around. This time, I released the cord between my finger and thumb, and the stone whistled through the air—somewhere far to my left.

Fayden grinned. “Well. That’s closer to the target than your shoulder. Try again. Step into it this time.”

As dawn bled across the sky, I practiced hurling rock after rock. My arm grew sore, but after several dozen tries, I finally managed to land a stone sort of near the sign. It clanged against the enormous metal pole that had once held the numbered sign high above the road.

“Well done!” Fayden clapped my back, making me stagger forward. He wore a wide grin. “Soon you’ll be out hunting for supper with me.”

I doubted that. Not if they wanted to actually catch supper. But I smiled, too, because I was improving.

“Once more.” He glanced over his shoulder at the caravan where everyone was waking and beginning to prepare for departure. “Then we’ll grab some breakfast.”

“Okay.” Rock waiting in the sling pouch, I sucked in a deep breath, let it drop back and around. I stepped forward and released, and a whine sounded from air cutting across the ridges.

The rock smacked against the sign, a small thunderclap echoing around the caravan. A number five fell to the ground.

I laughed and threw my hands into the air. The sling cord dangled in my face. Fayden was laughing, too.

“Now,” he said, “you may practice your music. We’ll work on this more when we stop tonight.”

Buoyed by his praise and pride, I helped with breakfast and soon the caravan was on the move.

We trundled past decaying wooden shacks, fallen metal towers, and miles and miles of half-buried black wires. Earthquakes and storms during the Cataclysm had claimed so much of the previous civilization. Was there anyone else out there? Other children of the survivors?

Or were we all alone in the world?

After my morning duties were taken care of, I climbed onto the roof of the wagon with my flute. I knew only the basics of the instrument—how to blow across the hole, where to put my fingers, and to keep my posture straight to achieve a better sound—but I hadn’t had the opportunity to learn much more.

Now, I pinned my music book open with a pair of rocks, studied the fingering charts, and began with simple scales. One octave. Two. I learned how to adjust my mouth and throat to the pitch, where to turn the flute in or out to stay in tune, and how to make my breath last as long as possible.

Stef popped his head out from inside the wagon and rested his elbows on the roof. “Didn’t you just start learning that?”

My sling arm ached as I lowered the flute. “I know. I have a lot of work to do.”

He rolled his eyes. “No, I mean, you’re really good at it already. It’s a little scary.”

I inspected the flute, how the silver shone in the hot sunlight. “I wouldn’t say really good, but I guess . . . it just makes sense to me. Music just makes sense. Like you understand machines and”—I waved a hand—“stuff I don’t.”

Stef nodded. “Well, play a song.”

“Songs have words.” But I turned a few pages in the music book and found something that looked simple enough. I studied it for a few minutes, silently finding the notes on my flute before I risked playing it aloud. On the tops of the neighboring wagons, people peered over curiously. More people than there usually were.

Stef followed my glances. “You can do this,” he muttered. “You’ve played for Fay and me a million times. Just forget they’re there.”

“Then I was playing an instrument I had more experience with.”

“Only one way to get experience with this one.” Stef winked and pulled himself the rest of the way onto the roof. When he was reclining against the edge, he motioned toward the flute. “If you please.”

Annoyed and grateful to him at once, I lifted my flute.

A long, silver sound poured across the landscape as I began to play. Knots of worry and uncertainty untangled in my heart, and the whole world faded until all I could hear was the flute’s piercing voice, the bass of wheels rumbling over the crumbling road, and the percussion of Stef thumping his palm on the wagon roof.

Music lifted and carried me. It wasn’t great; I could hear all the imperfections and the limitations imposed by my own lack of skill—but I’d practice. I’d practice for the rest of my life if it meant I could feel like this.

When I finished, people atop the neighboring wagons clapped. “Play it again!” someone called, and I felt my face pull into an awe-filled grin.

People did like music. And maybe now, more than ever, they needed it.

I wasn’t so useless after all.

The caravan moved slowly. We traveled alongside the range of immense mountains for over a month before we reached an enormous, fast-moving river, and were forced to trust ancient, pre-Cataclysm bridges to allow us safe passage. It took three days for the entire group to cross, made more miserable because of a sudden rainstorm.

The weather stayed humid and hot for days, and the looming mountains in the west seemed like an impenetrable wall, but sometimes I spotted ruined roads winding around the sharp curves. Night came earlier and earlier as the weeks turned into months and the weather cooled. Autumn browned the trees and land, and it seemed our lives had always been this: rising early, preparing the wagon, gathering fresh water and food before the call to push off.

Our days had always been bartering with others—with Stef fixing wagons, Fayden running errands for anyone who could pay with food, and me standing atop the wagon in constant search of danger. Sunlight baked my shoulders and arms, faded my black hair to brown, and made my eyes water every time we neared a river or lake; the reflection of sunlight on water made it hard to see.

Dust was the worst. It crept into everything, especially my clothes. My skin itched from the moment I awoke to the second I finally fell to sleep. Nothing helped.

Several times, I spotted crumbling cities, most smaller than the one we’d left. One thing they all had in common, however, was the slow creeping of nature, trees and brush and grass steadily destroying what humans had built centuries ago. It was a constant reminder that nothing was permanent, least of all us.

We were all temporary.

I lost track of days.

There’d been several more attacks after that first one, most too far ahead of this end of the caravan for us to have time to help; the centaurs—it was usually centaurs—had too few numbers to engage us in a battle that lasted longer than a half hour. But we heard about the skirmishes, the small raids and attempts to creep in during the night. Security around the caravan grew tighter as the months passed us by.

Then, quite suddenly, the world grew cold, and the caravan shifted, moving not alongside the mountains, but aiming through them. The caravan fore curved ahead of us, moving up and over crumbling roads. And high above them, the mountaintops turned bare and white.

I had no clue how Meuric knew where to go, but he must have, because every day we set out with a purpose. Though here at the end of the line, our purpose was mostly keeping up with the rest of the travelers. And not freezing to death.

The cold snaked into everything, like a living force. My throat and eyes ached from the frigid, dry air, and when I took off the cloth protecting my mouth and nose from dust, I could see my breath misting before me.

“Do you think Janan is worth all this?” I asked Fayden as the wagons rumbled through the mountains. The road here was treacherous and narrow—too narrow for him to ride his horse next to us. Below, Stef cursed at whatever he was building. Some kind of defensive device.

“All this what? Ages of travel?” Fayden sat opposite me, his voice not quite lost beneath the wind and grumble of our passage. Other voices echoed above and around us.

I nodded. “Yes. That. But also the Community burning. Abandoning the old city, and the plague victims quarantined inside.” A blast of frigid wind sent us both shivering, and I wrapped my arms around my middle. I already wore almost all the clothes I owned—plus new wool items we’d traded for—but even so, I’d never been so cold in my life. “Being here, too. In this place.” I gestured around, toward the mountains rising all around us. With so much strength and height, it seemed they were holding up the sky. “This place is alien. We don’t belong here. It’s so cold and different. Do any of us even know how to survive here?”

Fayden shrugged and pulled his jacket tighter over his shoulders. Like everyone else, he wore a cloth over his nose and mouth, and a knitted hat drawn down to his eyebrows. Only his eyes were uncovered, and they were narrowed against the stinging cold.

It was hard to believe we’d ever been warm, or longed for a day of cooler weather.

“We’ve lost even more people to plague and sickness on this journey.” I slumped and massaged my temples. “This place is going to kill us. If not the attacks, it’ll be because we all froze to death.”

My brother glanced downward. “I know.” We’d both helped bury some of the bodies.

“And everything Meuric does just seems so suspicious.” I peered north, but I couldn’t see the beginnings of the caravan around the winding mountain road. “I keep seeing riders around his wagon.”

“He is our acting leader. He has a lot of people to order around.”

I shook my head. “Sometimes they leave the caravan altogether, and I never see them again.”

“You’re not always watching for them, are you? Maybe you don’t see their return. Or maybe they die.”

“But why? Where are they going? What are they doing?” I tugged off my hat and ran my fingers through my dust-stiff hair. “What could be killing them?”

“More centaurs? I don’t know.” Fayden braced himself against the roof and repositioned himself. “He swears we’ll be there soon, though.”

“Where?” I gazed north, but all I could see were endless mountains dusted white with snow. Golden sunlight caught the knifelike ridges, making heavy shadows contrast the glow. “Where are we going?”

“To rescue Janan.”

And I still couldn’t understand why.

Why all of us? What had Janan been doing in the first place? Maybe there was a good reason for everything, but we hadn’t been told enough. We’d been expected to follow. And those who hadn’t had been punished.

Killed.

Meuric was acting so harshly in Janan’s name. Was that how Janan had ruled, and we’d just never noticed? How did we know that we were doing the right thing by following?

I couldn’t be sure anymore. I didn’t know what was right. Or if it even mattered.

We were all going to die one day anyway.

The wagon followed a long curve around the mountain and I saw it: our destination.

How I knew, I couldn’t say, but something deep within my soul shifted and I had no doubts.

“Look,” I breathed. Mist fell from my lips.

Fayden stood and followed my gaze.

In the distance, a white column pierced the sky. From so far away, it looked reed thin and frighteningly lonely in the gold and red and russet foliage, but it must have been so, so strong. I couldn’t find the top of it, even though the sky was clear and blue. It was like a beam of light shot into the sky, infinite and unearthly. It sang to me, calling me closer. For the first time since we’d left the old city, something like music stirred inside of me.

“It must be enormous,” said Fayden. “To be visible from this distance.”

Before and behind us, wagons rolled to a stop as everyone climbed onto the roofs to stare.

A white wall ran around the soaring tower, surrounded by a thick forest, all vibrant with coming winter. I’d never seen such an array of autumn shades by the old city, but here the trees shone copper in the sunlight. Everything down there looked so perfect and still, like a painting.

Mist or steam floated near the wall, a ghostly sight that made me shiver. Just as I was about to ask where the vapor came from, water shot into the sky, shattering the stillness. I imagined the eruption of water was loud, but from this distance, it was all silent.

“What is this place?” Fayden whispered.

“This is it,” came the voices from ahead. “This is where Janan is being held.”

I stared at the white tower, struggling against the tide of awe that washed through me. What had captured Janan? What had imprisoned him in that? Janan must have done something truly terrible to earn this fate.

Slowly, the wagons wound down the old road. Mountains rose like jagged teeth around us.

From this high point of the road, I could see the first wagons reaching a forested plateau. They headed toward the white wall, which looked immense even from so far away. The wagons looked so tiny underneath its shadow.

“I can’t believe we’re finally here,” said Fayden. “What do you think will happen?”

What made him think I had any idea? But I just shook my head and called Stef up to look, and the three of us stood atop the wagon together, watching our future grow ever nearer as we descended the mountain.

It took all day for the last of the wagons to reach the plateau, and purple dusk crept over the sky as the sun vanished beneath the high mountain peaks. The roads here had been worn away long ago—if there ever had been roads here—and the forest made navigating in the wagons difficult.

Wolves howled in the distance, and birds squawked at our passage. Though it was cold and everyone was exhausted, we pushed through the woods, trampling undergrowth. Everything was flattened by the time my wagon reached it.

Only a full, heavy moon illuminated the landscape; it was too closed in for torches. Scouts and guards vanished in and out of the woods, calling instructions and locations. In spite of the unfamiliar surroundings, everyone seemed in good cheer. We’d arrived.

And above everything, the white tower rose, a pale shadow on the sky, visible only because of the moonlight.

“Everyone thinks that’s where he’s being kept,” said Fayden.

“Everyone?” I rolled my eyes. As if he’d had a chance to poll the entire Community and ask what they thought about the tower. But it seemed likely; it was the only structure here. It didn’t appear old enough to be pre-Cataclysm, and if the enemy Meuric kept talking about was as powerful as he’d said, no doubt they could have constructed this tower . . . this prison.

The wagons ahead of us began to slow as the Council’s warriors waved them into spaces. “Here! Put your wagon here!”

In a wide field near the shining lake I’d seen from the mountains, the warriors organized everyone into ranks. Everyone had a tiny amount of land to spread out for the night, to put out their tents or sleeping pallets.

Stef climbed off the wagon and vanished inside to help his aunts. “Want to see if we can find someone who knows what’s going on?” I asked, stripping off the cloth covering half my face. “It’ll be a little while before supper is ready.”

“Sure.” Fayden poked his head into the wagon to let Stef and his aunts know where we were going, and then we headed deeper into the camp.

Everywhere people bustled back and forth, gossiping and pointing at the tower rising in the distance.

“What do you think is in there?” a man asked.

“What built it is a better question.” His wife stared upward, mouth dropped open. “Was it already here when they trapped Janan inside of it? Or did they build it specifically for him?” She shook her head. “It’s incredible.”

They were good questions—and I couldn’t even guess the answers.

“There are holes that shoot water out of them,” said another person as we passed.

“The ground is really thin in some places. I could feel the hollowness when I stepped. We should make sure no one puts their wagons there.”

Lively talk filled the camp like music. Fayden, who seemed to know everyone, waved and grinned at people, promising we’d join them for a meal soon. “This is my brother, Dossam,” he said a few times. “You probably heard his music on the way here.”

“That was you?” replied one woman as she pressed her palm to her chest. “The best parts of my day were when you played.”

A few others hugged me in response to Fayden’s introduction, and I felt it, the thing I had wanted all along: for a few people, my music had become real and valuable and important. To these people, my music had been useful—and might always have been, if I hadn’t hidden it out of fear that someone might take it away.

In spite of the cool wind whipping around wagons and trees, the air grew warmer as people built fires and pulled out pots to cook in. Others worked by the lake, catching fish and hauling water to trade.

The music of voices and life flowed about the camp, tempting me into a smile. I hadn’t wanted to come on this quest to find a leader I didn’t care about, but for the first time, I was glad I was here—and not just because I was relieved not to have been killed back at the old Community.

The mountains all around were strong and sheltering, casting the sensation of safety over the plateau. The woods, while cold and unfamiliar, seemed peaceful enough, and they were beautiful.

This was an area I could learn to love, even with the strange wall and tower rising just to the north.

Besides, I had my brother and best friend with me. As long as I had them, I had everything I needed.

At last, a voice filled with authority sounded, and I dragged Fayden to where Meuric stood atop his wagon—a much grander affair than ours.

“The scouts have informed me of archways in the white wall. In the morning, we will enter the structure and set Janan free!”

People cheered.

“He’s not wasting any time,” I muttered to Fayden.

He chuckled. “Would you, if your favorite person were in there, perhaps unjustly?”

If it were Fayden or Stef? “No. I’d do anything to save them.”

We lingered for a little while before turning toward to the outskirts of camp. We made it only a few paces.

That was when we heard the noise.

Though the sky was clear, with the moon shining brightly and the stars scattered like sparks across the blackness, thunder cracked the night.