The Phoenix Endangered by James Mallory Read Free Book Online Page A

through the city, moving off into the distance in groups of two and four. In the Isvai, the Nalzindar hunted alone. In this strange land, it was as well for every Isvaieni to have assistance close at hand. Shaiara walked beside Ciniran, with Kamar a few steps behind them. Shaiara and Ciniran were age-mates, and they had done everything together from the time each had taken her first hesitant steps upon the twilight sands, sharing small triumphs and quiet sorrow in the way of their people. Ciniran had been bold where Shaiara had been quiet, and before their first hunt, when it had become clear that Shaiara was to be Darak’s only child, there had been talk that Ciniran should be named his heir, or hercousin Hauca. That was the first time Bisochim had come to the tents of the Nalzindar, and said to them: Wait. The Wild Magic will make all things clear in time.
    Only a few years later, Darak had laid his body upon the sand, and Shaiara had neither expected comfort nor received it. Now Ciniran’s mother, Katuil, had chosen to relinquish her life upon the journey here, and Ciniran, too, accepted that with the impassive response that Shaiara expected. Katuil had died as she had wished to, as Darak had died, as all Nalzindar hoped to die: at a place and time of her own choosing.
    But life between Sand and Star was demanding, and it did not encourage hope, for to hope was to live in a place that was not of the here and the now, and the children of the Isvai must live in the world upon which they set the soles of their feet, neither in the dreams of the past nor the shadows of the future. Yet the wise hunter searched not only the ground before his boots, but the horizon as far as his gaze could reach, and now that—so it seemed—they were to live, Shaiara’s mind was busy with the future, and not just tomorrow and next season, but such future as the leader of the tribe must think on. If the Nalzindar were to survive, there must be husbands and wives for them; Ciniran was of an age to marry now, and Shaiara already knew that there was no man of the Nalzindar who pleased her, nor was Ciniran a one for women, nor yet to live alone all her days. For one not born to the Nalzindar to come to their ways was a delicate matter, yet in every generation, at the Gathering of the tribes, a handful of men and women made that choice. Some left again, in a moonturn or a season or at the next Gathering. Some became as much Nalzindar as if they had been born within their tents. But now that Bisochim had driven the rest of the Isvaieni down the path to madness with the goad of smooth words, who would there be for any of them?
    At least she need not worry for herself. The Nalzindar did not require the leadership of the tribe to pass to a child of her body. Nor did it even need to remain in Darak’s lineif another were more competent: in each generation, leadership of the Nalzindar went to the one best suited to rule, not the one born to it, though often those two things marched together. In any event, the child who would lead the Nalzindar in the next generation was known early, by his or her ways, and taken into the chief’s tent to learn all those things that could only be learned by watching the leader of the Nalzindar lead the people. Shaiara’s heir might not yet have been born, or still lie in swaddling clothes, or just be learning to walk. She did not need to concern herself with the matter of finding and choosing a mate. She did not think one existed for her anywhere between Sand and Star.
    And that , she told herself with a small inward smile, is so much the least of all your problems that you could number them all until the days grew long and short again and not reach that one!
    When the sun had moved two handspans more across the sky, a thing Shaiara had not imagined to be possible—in this whole moonturn of unimaginable events—occurred. Israf and Ardban, who had so far been content to pad along at her side, suddenly raised their