Read Online The Phoenix Unchained by James Mallory - Free Book Online

they weren’t. There must be something wrong.
    When Tiercel turned around in response to his shout of greeting Harrier got the biggest shock of his life. He’d suggested, that day in the shed on the docks, that Tiercel was just having one of the usual early spring fevers. If this was a sample of it, maybe his father should consider closing the Port, because Tiercel looked . . . ill. His eyes were sunken, and had deep shadows under them, as if he hadn’t slept well for sennights. If he hadn’t been sick before, he was now. Even Harrier could see that.
    “What is wrong with you?” he blurted out.
    “You didn’t believe me the last time I told you,” Tiercel said.
    Oh. Still thinking about magic, then. If he’d sounded smug, or proud, or anything to indicate that this High Magick he thoughthe had was a wonderful secret that set him above everyone else, Harrier wouldn’t have believed him now, or even listened. But Tiercel just sounded tired and more than a little confused.
    “Tell me again.”
    The two boys sat on a stone bench in the corner of the Quadrangle, and Tiercel told Harrier everything that had happened to him in the past moonturn.
    “And everybody—my Tutor, my Preceptor, the Healer—says they’re just dreams. And that they’ll go away by themselves.”
    “But you don’t think so,” Harrier guessed shrewdly.
    “Oh, Light, Har, I hope they go away! But if you’d had even one of them, you’d know they aren’t just dreams. Somehow they’re true—a kind of truth, anyway. And what if . . . they were supposed to warn somebody of something, and I got the warning instead? Like a message delivered to the wrong house?”
    “It doesn’t seem really efficient,” Harrier said consideringly. “If there’s a problem, wouldn’t it make more sense to have something happen in a Light-shrine? Or send a vision to all the Light Priests at once?”
    “I don’t know,” Tiercel said. He sounded very depressed.
    “Well, okay. So what are we going to do about it? You can’t spend the rest of your life not eating or sleeping. Your parents are going to notice, soon, if they haven’t already.”
    “Oh, they’ve noticed. Mama has a whole row of bottles from the Healer that she doses me with,” Tiercel said dolefully. “Some of them help. Just not very well, or for very long.”
    “Well, you can’t keep taking that stuff. It turns your teeth funny colors. So? We’re going to do something, right?”
    “You want to help?” Tiercel asked doubtfully.
    “Tyr, have I ever let you go off on an adventure by yourself since you learned to walk? Doesn’t matter what it is this time. I’m in. And it seems to me that if you got yourself into all this trouble with magic, you’re going to need a Mage to get you out of it.”
    “You mean a Wildmage?” Tiercel said doubtfully.
    Harrier snorted rudely. “Of course a Wildmage! It’s not like we’re going to turn over a rock and find one of your nonexistent High Mages under it, is it?”
    “But . . . where are we going to find one?” Tiercel asked.
    Harrier shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess we go look until we find one. We could start in Sentarshadeen. There was one there once, wasn’t there?”
    “I guess,” Tiercel said dubiously. “But that was when I was a baby, and for all I know, he made a special trip to the Temple there. I don’t know much about Wildmages, but I do know that they don’t stay in one place for long.”
    “Well, we can go and look, can’t we?” Harrier said reasonably. “School will be over in a fortnight for both of us. Why don’t you see if your family will let you go on a hiking trip with me? Fresh air and exercise; I bet the Healers will say it’s just what you need. We’ll tell them we’re going to Sentarshadeen—and we will be, so you won’t even be lying. I’m sure my Da will let me go away. Sort of a farewell trip, you know, because, well, we won’t see much of each other after this summer. I’ll make all the