SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

It might have been the next day, or the next year, or a single restful blink of blistering, sand-scarred eyelids, but then they were there.

The djinn and the boy stood all alone in the sands. There was only sand, and wind, all around. And the spire.

At first it was only a pillar of rock. But as they approached, they saw it was massive; several leagues in diameter and many, many more in length. It stretched upwards into the blue, so high the djinn was sure the tips must rake the sky and extend even to the black void beyond.

It was not sandstone, or limestone or marble or any other rock or mineral either had ever seen. It was a uniform brown and red, sprouting irregular handholds that jutted out from it randomly. There were steps, too, smooth and carved right into the stones, spiraling all the way round.

They made camp by the foot of the spire, and ate the food the alchemist had been kind enough to provide them with. The djinn kept looking up at the spire. He hadn’t even enhanced the lodestone yet. He hadn’t even made a weapon of it yet!

He took it out and held it before the flames. If he shaped a blade, it would be very thin. It might even snap. But a spear would work. It would give him more reach, too.

He shaped the metal with whispered words and a gentle touch, and it bowed to his magic and flowed like water. For the shaft of the spear, he used a branch he snapped out of the air. The finished product was seven feet in length, and the spearhead sharp enough to shave with. Yet it still needed enhancing. But how? How did you kill the sun? He had a twig with a rock at the end. It needed power, something mighty and invincible. How would he put out an everburning flame?

And then it hit him. And he laughed.

The answer was all around him.

• • • •

He didn’t sleep, but sat with an excitement he couldn’t contain. Finally he decided it was time and woke the boy. “I’ll be back soon,” he told him. It was still dark when he started to climb the steps of the spire, and it was still dark when he reached the top. Round and round, ever upwards. His hand clenched and unclenched around the shaft of his spear.

The top of the spire was a plateau, much smaller than the base, but large enough to hold the entire oasis town. If there had been clouds, it would have towered over them, but even then there was sky above, a deeper, cleaner blue than he had ever seen. Even the air was thin, and he breathed deeply as if with exhaustion.

A young man was sitting on the edge, dangling his bare feet in the air. He wore a pristine white robe that left his arms and one shoulder bare, and had copper hair that stood up from his skull in sharp peaks. He was handsome and had a gold jeweled collar around his neck, set with rubies that flashed like fire and amber stones. When he turned slowly to view his visitor, the djinn saw his eyes were pure gold, with splashes of red that moved and seethed like lava. Phoenix.

“You have come a long way,” it said. Its voice was rich and beautiful.

“I have come with a purpose,” the djinn replied. “I have come here for the secret you keep.”

“I keep no secrets.”

“I want the secret of life and death.”

The phoenix’s eyes grew softer somewhat. It almost whispered, “I am sorry. But I cannot give you that. I don’t have it, it doesn’t exist. There is no Philosopher’s Stone, no Elixir of Life, no quintessence, no Master Work, no object of divinity. I can see it in your eyes, you want it for your wife. She is gone, djinn, and what is gone cannot be reclaimed.”

The phoenix sighed deeply, and looked out over the horizon again. “How did you find me?” it asked.

“I found an ifreet in a forgotten tomb who told me of you.”

“Truly? An ifreet? That is a wonder; I had though them long dead. And now you say one lives? What has become of him?”

“He is gone now, I freed him. The enchantment was the only thing keeping him alive.”

“That is sad news. But I am glad he is at peace. What did he tell you of me?”

“He told me you were one of us.”

The phoenix nodded. “Aye. I was an ifreet once, long and long ago. I was young, and foolish. I wanted to see all there was to see. I…I made mistakes that I should not have. There was a contraption I designed, that would take me elsewhere. And it worked, oh, it worked.

“I found myself floating in the void, with the forges of life and death all around me. I saw the stars as they were made, and planets larger than anything I had ever known spin around each other like dancers. I saw beautiful things and wonders and miracles, and in my haste and folly, I fell into the sun.

“You cannot imagine what it was like. The fire, the heat was incredible. It—it changed me. When I awoke, I was back on land, somehow, and I was no longer an ifreet. I was this; some new being that carried the waters of the sun in his veins.

“I learned quickly how to use my powers, and found that I was still mortal. Yet, when I died, I was reborn. I was a bird the first time, I think, with wings of fire. That was how man first came to know me. In the eons that followed, I have had many forms. I’ve died scores of times and been reborn in so many ways. Every time there was someone new, someone who sought to tell a story about me. That is why I am known my so many names and faces. The bennu, the phoenix, Zhu Que, I can’t even remember them all.”

“I want the secret you keep. I want the secret of life and death.”

“I do not have any such secret.”

The djinn held out the spear. “You are the secret. You are an immortal. I will cut out your heart and use it.”

There was no change in the phoenix’s posture, save a slight tightening around his eyes, and a dangerous tone to its voice when it said, “Take care, djinn,” smooth and soft as woven silk. “For I am still fire; I will tolerate no falsehoods here, not in my eyrie. Speak them, and I will burn your tongue to ash.”

The djinn readied his arm. “This spear,” he said, “is made from a fallen star.”

“You cannot kill me with simple steel, be it from this world or any other.”

“And if this is not simple steel? If it this is from the massive star that fell so long ago and rose a cloud of ash to blanket the sun? When the land was cold, so cold and barren. This spear contains within it that selfsame power, from the endless nights when you were weak and dying. You almost did die, didn’t you? Without the sun, without its fire to sustain you, you are merely a bird.”

The phoenix shrieked in anger, a thin birdlike keel that drove rocks to pebbles below far them. The djinn’s ears stung and he was momentarily deaf. The phoenix was standing now and facing him, its lips moving, but the djinn heard nothing.

There was a flash of heat, and suddenly his hearing returned. Flames roared in his ears and he closed his eyes against the brightness. As he blinked black spots from his eyes he saw the phoenix transformed, now a tall waterbird with reed thin legs and dark feathers, every feather of its wings equal to the weight of a human soul. But its eyes did not change. With another wail, it launched itself at him.

The djinn sidestepped, dodging its razor talons, and swung his spear. It should have cut, but the bennu had feathers like iron. He pulled back and jabbed at the bird’s soft underbelly, just as it rose into the air and grabbed his spear with its claws. Cursing, the djinn pulled it free and rolled out of the way.

Time was lost to him, and seconds seemed to slow as the world faded to a single moment of flashing steel, sweat, and blood. He fought with all the skill he possessed, using magic and spearplay together, yet the fight dragged on. And as he fought, it slowly dawned on him that he could not feel the sun on his back. It should have risen, but it seemed as if the heat was coming from in front of him.