The Heart of the Phoenix (2 page)

“Hey, let go!” The bird snapped at the tentacle-like dreadlock restraining him, and a third knotted itself around its beak. It let out a muffled squawk as they yanked it down, and a moment later it was trapped in a wriggling, hairy cage.

Erasmus chuckled and sat down, then rubbed his pudgy face and yawned.

“Get your hairy appendages off of me,” the bird squawked. “Let me outa here!”

“Not until you’ve calmed down,” Erasmus said, and flopped onto his back again.

The bird pecked him on the top of the head. Erasmus bellowed in pain and the bird darted free of the unwinding dreadlocks.

“You set me to watch, you buffoon,” the bird squawked indignantly. “Don’t get angry with me for doing my job!”

“Bah!” Erasmus shouted in frustration and bent to retrieve his hat. While he brushed dust from the old felt, one of his longer dreadlocks slithered back over his shoulder and disappeared down the back of his coat. A moment later it reappeared waving a wand threateningly in the alarm bird’s direction. Erasmus stood again with a grunt, clutching the small of his back with one hand, holding his top hat out, open end up, with his other.

“Back in with ya,” he said. The dreadlock holding the wand emphasized the command with a sharp jab in the direction Erasmus wanted the bird to go. “In the hat!”

“Ingrate!” The miniature Plumed King glared at Erasmus and dropped obediently into the hat.

Erasmus settled the hat back on his head and stalked to the eastern wall of his adobe while his nest of living dreadlocks slid themselves back inside their spacious felt home and yanked it down snug against his ears. Stalking back to the center of the small room next to the table, he faced the ceiling, as if peering up through it. He closed the eyes behind his dark goggles and waited for the eye inside his head to open.

The eye inside his head received only dim images from the outside. His input was bad and inconsistent, split between a hundred creeping, crawling, and flying things. He saw the world through their eyes and felt it through their senses; the limited perspective of simple creatures.

Then a clearer image overlaid the jumble, his patch of desert from high above seen first through a single pair of eyes, then several. Within seconds he was seeing his home from every angle, high and low, and from every direction, through a multitude of eyes, a three-dimensional projection from the eyes and minds of every living thing in his range.

Some were on the ground, some airborne, all coming for him.

The thatch ceiling began to crackle, sifting dust down around Erasmus.

“Oh sh...”

The ceiling flew upward in chunks and strips, opening his dark little hideaway to a scorching desert sun and a dozen armed and armored fliers. They circled over him with crossbows wound and spears cocked back, ready to fly. Only one had a wand, the fat one with the red plumage. Facing only one magic user, Erasmus gave himself fair odds.

The south wall shattered behind him and he found a second wand pointed his way. Not a flier, a human, skinny, bald, every inch of bare skin tattooed.

“You’re surrounded, Erasmus. Nowhere to run, no way to escape.” It was the fat red one, the Cardinal. Erasmus was flattered the birds would send someone so important just for him. “We’d prefer to take you back with us alive and… undamaged.”

“That’s very reassuring,” Erasmus shouted, then ran to the strange metal box on his table and began to crank the handle on the side.

Laughter rained down on him. The skinny tattooed man turned a questioning look up to the Cardinal.

“What do you hope to accomplish?” The Cardinal shook with laughter and dropped several feet toward the ground before he remembered to flap his wings again.

“It’s quite amazing,” Erasmus shouted. He cranked harder, hoping the machine would in fact do what he’d designed it for. He’d never tested it. “Are you familiar with the physical laws of electromagnetism?”

“I don’t like this,” the tattooed man said. “Make him stop.”

More laughter rained down from winged soldiers above.

Erasmus smiled at them and nodded in agreement with their assessment of the situation.

It really was ridiculous.

The tattooed man moved his wand in the beginning of a spell. One of Erasmus’s animated dreadlocks drew his wand from beneath his tall hat and deflected the spell. It bounced upward and blasted one of the Cardinal’s soldiers out of the sky.

Work, you piece of junk
!

Erasmus felt the metal buttons on his long coat tug against their threads, then snap them. They flew off his jacket and scattered against the wall behind him.

“Enough of this nonsense,” the Cardinal shouted. “Take him!”

The machine under Erasmus’s hands began to hum, then to vibrate. The fliers dove down at him.

Erasmus stopped cranking, yanked the handle on the black metal box, and dove under the table with his arms over his head.

The diving avians stopped in mid-air as the electromagnetic pulse generated by his machine hit them and repelled the metal in their light armor. Metal spearheads snapped off wooden shafts and flew away, crossbows flew out of hands, and the Cardinal’s heavy neck-chain flew backward and began to choke him. The armored avians above shrieked and tumbled upward into the sky.

With a loud bang, the metal parts of Erasmus’s electromagnetic pulse generator shattered and embedded themselves in the mud brick walls.

The tattooed man screamed and clutched his leg as a hook of smoking metal tore into it. His wand dropped from his fist, and Erasmus summoned it to him under the table with a flick of his wand. Another of the strange little man’s dreadlocks snaked out from beneath his top hat to catch it, and Erasmus emerged from beneath his table armed with two wands and more confidence than he had diving beneath it.

Keeping his normal eyes closed, he scanned the skies again. His airborne attackers were regrouping. The men and creatures on the ground were picking themselves up and searching for their lost weapons. The Cardinal circled above, squawking at his troops.

“Stop him! Don’t let him get away!”

“Come and get me y’self,” Erasmus shouted, shaking a fist at the retreating red figure, then blasting a spear out of the air a moment before it would have pierced the top of his old hat.

His lively dreadlocks continued to work independently as he swept a candle, book, and stained cloth from the table in the center of his humble shack. Two of them operated wands while another caught a spear that missed his head by inches and twirled it in the air behind his back, blocking a second and third spear before they could make his day any worse.

Erasmus stood before the uncovered table, which was not a table at all but a door, old and splintered, set into a frame and elevated above the floor on four crooked legs. He dug through his pockets while his enemies closed in from all sides and above, cautious at first, then aggressively when he didn’t repeat his trick with the black box.

“Where is it?” Erasmus rifled through the many pockets of his long coat. Objects hit the ground at his feet as he turned out his pockets; a telescoping looking glass, a set of chattering teeth that began to march in circles around him, braying laughter as it walked, an old iPod, its screen blank, powered down, a red silk bowtie.

“Give up, Monk!” The tattooed man limped at the head of a small contingent of ground troops, humans and humanoids, mercenaries and desert scum. He bared his pointed teeth at Erasmus in a feral grin, dodged a spell that Erasmus sent his way with casual grace. The spell hit a wild looking human behind the tattooed man and sent him flying into a tight packed group behind them.

The tattooed man’s grin became a grimace as he advanced on his wounded leg. He produced another wand from a holster on his belt and fired at the distracted Monk.

Erasmus’s twirling spear splintered and flew in all directions. A moment later the first avian dropped through the shattered ceiling, and Erasmus was too slow to avoid it. It crashed into him, and they sprawled on the floor. The avian threw a fist, and Erasmus dodged it. He heard the birdman’s fist break against the brick floor. The avian’s moan of pain became a howl as Erasmus darted his head forward and bit his neck. It lashed out, its beak closing over one of Erasmus’s wands, and yanked it free of the living dreadlock’s grip.

A second avian landed next to them and clamped his long, clawed toes around Erasmus’s throat. A third landed, then a fourth, and he fired wildly at them before they seized his last wand.

A moment later they stood around him in a tight circle, avians, humans, and others. The Cardinal dove down and perched above them on one of the remaining shack walls.

“On second thought, I don’t think anyone will mind if we damage him a little.” The fat red avian clicked his beak and chuckled.

“Let him go,” the tattooed man said, and the others did, backing away to stand against the walls, giving their savage leader the room he required.

“Is this to be a physical contest?” Erasmus asked. “Because I should warn you that I’m…”

The tattooed man flourished his wand like a sword, then pointed it at Erasmus.

The chubby monk flew from the floor like a marionette under the control of an unskilled puppeteer and hung in the air, the tips of his toes scraping through the rubble.

“Feeling a little weak at the moment,” Erasmus finished.

Erasmus braced himself for an attack, but the tattooed man returned his wand to its holster and paced. He seemed to consider the little monk, looking him up and down, grinning and cracking his knuckles. He turned briefly to consider his audience, then spun, launching a foot up into Erasmus’s face.

The monk cried out in surprise and pain, spinning in place where he was suspended. The top of his tall hat brushed the floor and fell off. The miniature Plumed King took squawking flight, then vanished in a puff of smoke and drifting feathers. A tarnished doorknob rolled out of it, coming to rest under the table.

Laughter rang out above and below as Erasmus’s spin slowed and stopped with his toes brushing the floor again. His head sagged, his chin resting against his breastbone, blood dribbling from his mouth and nose. He sagged, semi-conscious for a moment, then shook his head and lifted his gaze to the tattooed man. His dark goggles had slipped down the bridge of his nose. One of his lively dreadlocks tugged at the adjustable strap that held them in place, loosening it.

“How did such a weak-bodied worm like this survive so long?” the tattooed man asked in heavily accented Dingo, an antiquated native dialect long ago appropriated from the southern region’s lawless nomad communities.

“If you really want to know that, you nomad scab, come a little closer and I’ll tell you,” Erasmus whispered, just loud enough for him to hear.

The tattooed man’s face cramped with anger, flushing bright red, and for a moment Erasmus saw his hand dip back toward his wand. Then he mastered his emotions, favored the monk with a hard grin, and stepped forward. He stopped, nearly nose to nose with the suspended monk, and glared directly into the black circular lenses of Erasmus’s goggles.

“Ya have something strong to say, island scum?”

The animated dreadlock working unobtrusively on the strap holding the dark goggles in place gave a yank, and they fell free, exposing the monk’s wide black eyes.

“Because I’m much smarter than you,” Erasmus said, and smiled so broadly that the corners of his mouth seemed to touch his ears.

All expression left the tattooed man’s face, all tension fell from his body, and his pupils swelled as he stared into Erasmus’s exposed eyes. The force holding Erasmus broke, and he thumped unsteadily to his feet.

The crowd of mercenaries and scum gathered behind the tattooed man regarded one another with confusion.

Above them the scattered avians drew closer together to see what was holding up their show.

“Don’t look into his eyes, you fool,” the Cardinal screamed above them, but too late.

“Be a good fellow and help me out, will you,” Erasmus said.

Without looking away, not even blinking, the tattooed man raised his wand and fired a volley into the group of fliers gathered above the shattered ceiling.

The avians squawked and scattered into the sky. Two fell, landing just out of sight behind one of the adobe’s intact walls. The Cardinal cursed, then took panicked flight as the tattooed man fired a second volley at him.

The foot soldiers attacked as one, rushing the tattooed man. They leapt at him, on him, trying to drag him down, disarm him, but they might as well have attacked a statue. He spun on the spot, wand firing and fist flying, and scattered them.

Free from his magical bonds and the unwanted attention of a dozen or more unfriendly intruders, Erasmus decided the time had come for his exit. He bent low, scooped up his hat, and then dropped it again in favor of the tarnished old doorknob.

“There you are!”

He dropped to his knees in search of his wand, and settled on the old iPod when he couldn’t find it.

He was rising again when he felt the point of a wand press into the small of his back, and heard the Cardinal’s voice behind him.

“My orders were to bring you back alive,” the Cardinal said, “but I’ll take a scolding for the pleasure of seeing you dead.”

Erasmus froze, doorknob in one hand, iPod in the other, and every dreadlock standing on end, as if raised in surrender.

“I think alive is a pretty good idea myself.”

“Don’t grovel, old friend.” A new and unexpected voice joined the conversation. A familiar voice, one Erasmus was mostly glad to hear. “It’s undignified.”

The Cardinal gave a surprised squawk, and the wand tip pressing into Erasmus’s back vanished. There was a thump, a thud, and a drift of bright red feathers falling down before the monk’s wide, black eyes.

“Ronan?” Erasmus spun to face the newcomer, and cheered at the sight.

“Point those things somewhere else,” Ronan barked. “I’d rather not lose what’s left of my mind today.”

Erasmus closed his eyes and wrestled the dark goggles back over them, tightened the strap that held them in place, then faced Ronan again with his wide, manic grin.