Fire: Tales of Elemental Spirits (9 page)

ʺBut I don't think he can have known about me, or he'd have arranged it differently. I've got this hereditary disease. My mother died when she was forty-eight, and one of my sisters when she was fifty-three. None of us who've had it has ever lived beyond sixty, that we know of. So Sonny's kept me going thirty years beyond my time. He can do that. There's no record in the scrolls of any of the growing-older priests having died before the cycle was up, and it was a hundred and twenty years then, remember. That's a tremendous age at any time. A lot of Egyptian mummies have been carbon dated, and their average age at death was thirty-one.ʺ

ʺTaken it out of 'im, it 'as, an' then some, doin' it for Welly. An' the summers, they aren't nowhere near 'ot enough for 'im, not comparing to Egypt, and flyin' out an' 'ome spring an' fall, that's takin' it out of 'im too. 'E gets old, same as anyone else, each time round, on'y 'e's found this way o' stayin' immortal. But like I say, it's goin' to be touch an' go for 'im this time, an' touch an' go for Welly, an' that means touch' an' go for me. Don't care to think what'll happen if I get to be unborn 'thout Sonny bein' around to sort things out.ʺ

ʺIn a few years' time, Ellie, I'm going to be almost completely helpless, and Dave's going to be five, going on four, and Sonny's going to be trying to survive our English winters on sun-lamps and log fires. In Egypt there were always other priests who helped our predecessors survive those difficult years. Now we are alone.ʺ

ʺAnd you want me to help.ʺ

ʺWe are asking you to join the Priesthood of the Temple of the Phoenix until the cycle of the death and rebirth of our god is fulfilled.ʺ

ʺAll right. Can you wait till I've finished school? I don't think my dad will want me go to university, not if he has to pay for it.ʺ

ʺI think we can do better than that. I've already talked to his lordship. When you've finished school, he'll take you on as assistant forester on the estate, with special responsibility for the wood. I'll introduce you to some of my forestry friends—I still keep up with them by e-mail. You'll have the diaries, and once we've gone, there'll be no need for you to keep the wood secret. You'll have an absolutely unique resource to bargain with. Any university that runs a forestry course will be thrilled to have you.ʺ

ʺI don't need any of that. Really I don't. I . . . I'd do it whatever it cost me.ʺ

ʺMebbe you would, too, but Sonny aren't goin' to let you. 'E'll look after you, 'cos of 'e pays 'is debts. Not a lot o' gods you can say that of.ʺ

At long last Ellie drowsed off into sleep. Her last conscious thought was
I wish I'd been at their wedding. It must have been wonderful. Perhaps Sonny will send me a dream.

He did.

A cold night, almost clear. The moon already set. A swath of brilliant stars overhead, and another to the east above a horizon of low hills, visible through a gap in the trees. A large hand torch illuminates part of the clearing, in its beam a pyramidal pile of logs with a flattened top. A light ladder rests against the pile, and an elaborately patterned cloth is draped over its top.

The person holding the hand torch turns. Now the beam illuminates an object something between a hospital stretcher-trolley and a high-tech wheel-chair. Propped on it, swathed in shawls and piled with rugs, lies a very old woman with a bundle on her lap. The torch is settled on the foot of the bed, so that it once more illuminates the pile. Its bearer moves up beside the bundle, opens it and holds its contents to the old woman's face, as if for her to kiss, and moves into the light of the torch. Now it can be seen that she is a young woman, heavily wrapped against the cold, but the baby she is carrying is stark naked, though apparently almost newborn. Carefully she climbs the ladder, kisses the baby, places it in the centre of the cloth and folds the four corners over it. The underside of the cloth is brilliant with jewels that flash with all the colours of fire in the torch-light. She descends and returns to the trolley, bringing the ladder with her.

Now she folds back some of the bedclothes from a mound near the foot of the bed. The mound stirs, stands, and reveals itself as a large bird. It shakes itself, spreads its wings, and flies heavily to the top of the pile, where it nestles down onto the cloth that wraps the baby, like a hen brooding its chicks. In the torch-light its plumage seems to glow dull orange, and when the torch is switched off continues to do so.

Steadily the glow increases until it illuminates the whole clearing. Both women are weeping, but the older one is smiling too. The younger one reaches in under the blankets to hold her hand.

Just as the glow becomes too bright to look at, the whole pile bursts into flame. The young woman lets out a long sigh of relief.

ʺMade it,ʺ she says quietly. ʺAll three of you made it. I was afraid he wouldn't be strong enough.ʺ

ʺYes,ʺ whispers the old woman. ʺHe was strong enough. And in a few years I will be too. Strong enough to go and live with him in Egypt where he belongs.

ʺSomewhere tonight, Ellie, a child has been born. I think it will be a boy this time. I don't know where, but it doesn't matter. Perhaps we'll meet him in Egypt, or perhaps you'll find him here and bring him to us. For you will come and visit us. Often.ʺ

The pile burns fiercely. The flames that roar up from its summit completely hide what has happened to bird and child. A strange reek fills the clearing, like incense with several elements left out, both sweet and peppery, mingling with the ordinary odours of burning. Myrrh.

The two watchers wait in silence. They wait almost without stirring through the small hours of the night while fire slowly settles into itself and star after star rises steadily above the eastern hills. At one point the young woman bends to connect a fresh set of batteries to the cables that are keeping the bed warm. Apart from that, neither stirs or speaks. Once again, after a centuries-long hiatus, the priests of the Phoenix watch the night through in stillness and in silence.

By the time the stars are beginning to disappear into the paling sky above the eastern hills, the fire has become a smooth mound of embers with, cupped into its summit, a rounded object bigger than a man's head, glittering with fiery jewels set into a glowing orange background, darker than the embers of the fire. The egg of the Phoenix.

The older woman begins to speak. The younger bends to listen to her whisper.

ʺEllie, my dear, this is something that hundreds of thousands of people of many different faiths, for century after century, have passionately believed in, longed for and prayed for. And now we two are going to see it with our living eyes. We will see our god reborn.ʺ

Ellie smiles at her and turns to watch for the moment of sunrise through the gap she cut last week with her chain-saw.

Only we'll never be able to tell anyone,
she thinks.

ROBIN MCKINLEY

 

M
iri had been the sort of child who believed that every pony with a star on its forehead had been born a unicorn and had agreed to give up its horn to become a pony and bring happiness into some child's life.

ʺAfter Tamari, I don't see how you kept that one up,ʺ her mother said. Tamari was an exquisitely beautiful half-Welsh pony, dark dappled brown, with four white socks and a perfect four-pointed white star on his forehead. He also had the temperament of a back-alley mugger. ʺDo you remember the time Tamari cornered that poor little sap Trudy behind the manure pile and you had to rescue her?ʺ

ʺOr the time Jojo jumped out of the paddock
next
to Tamari because a single fence between them wasn't enough?ʺ added her father helpfully.

ʺLovely form too. Nobody knew Jojo had it in her. We started entering her in hunter classes after that,ʺ her mother said.

Miri smiled faintly. ʺSome unicorns mind more than others, after the change.ʺ

Her brother Mal guffawed. ʺDon't forget Peggy.ʺ

Peggy had been one of their mother's reclamation projects. ʺJane, I really think—ʺ Miri's father had begun, as they watched the poor bony thing totter down the ramp of the horse trailer. They were used to her coming home from the horse-rescue with a new four-legged adventure, but this one looked beyond what food and love could rehabilitate. ʺShe came up and put her nose under my arm,ʺ Jane said defensively. ʺWhat was I going to do?ʺ Peggy had become a stalwart of the lesson program and the weekend trail rides, and while most of her welts and weals healed without trace, there was a peculiarly matched pair of marks behind her shoulders that Miri said were wing scars, and named her Pegasus.

It was an old family routine, trotted out for old friends and relatives rarely seen; after the friends or relatives had exclaimed over how grown-up the children had become since they'd last seen them, her father told the unicorn story and her mother brought up Tamari, and if the visitors were still enjoying themselves, Mal said, ʺDon't forget Peggy.ʺ

There were lots of animal stories in their family. Her father's fish tanks were scattered all over the downstairs (and terrariums full of invisible chameleons and tree frogs upstairs); her brother had an African grey parrot who said things like, ʺAre you
sure
you locked the stables?ʺ and ʺHave you cleaned the tack yet?ʺ with deadly accuracy; and her mother usually had two or three (or four or five) cats underfoot in the house (the tanks and terrariums all had cat-proof lids; the African grey had a permanent ʺmake my dayʺ look in her eye) as well as several generations of mousers patrolling the barns.

And then there were the horses. Jane ran a riding stable. She gave lessons on her own horses and boarded other people's. Tamari had been a boarder. When Jane had finally told his very nice owner that he had to go, the owner had sighed and said, ʺHe's been here almost a year. That's almost twice as long as he's ever been anywhere else. I was beginning to hope . . . oh, well.ʺ Tamari was a show pony; his manners were always as perfect as his looks at shows, and he had the trophies and ribbons to prove it. It was only when he was home again that he turned into something out of a bad creature feature.

Miri wanted a dog. When she'd been very young and they had first moved to the then-derelict farm, there had been a man who came several weekends in a row with what seemed to Miri, at six, to be at least forty terriers—ferocious ratters, who had dealt implacably with the resident population. Twelve years later the man was still coming occasionally (her mother refused to put down poison, and there are always rats around a barn), although he had less hair than he'd had and more waistline, and the number of terriers had dwindled to three. Miri had been fascinated from the first by the gallant, indomitable little dogs, even though she couldn't bear to watch them at their grisly business for long. And the boarders often had dogs; her mother occasionally permitted barn privileges for these on a case by case basis—and on the understanding that any dog caught misbehaving was instantly banned.

Miri's favorite was a border collie named Fay. Fay's owner Nora had once told Fay to lie down at some little distance from where she was hosing her horse off, so she wouldn't hose Fay too. But the hose and tap were at the edge of the driveway, and Fay was lying in the middle of it. Miri and her mother were coming back from a show with two tired, eager-to-be-home horses in the trailer when her mother had to stop because Fay was lying in the way. Her mother tried a gentle toot on the horn. Fay raised her head long enough to direct a withering glare in their direction, and then laid her head back on her paws.

Her mother laughed. ʺWell, that put us in our place. Go tell Nora to call her dratted dog, will you please? She's got that radio turned up so loud she can't hear us.ʺ