The Phoenix Endangered by James Mallory

looking surprised. Harrier always said he hated to think, and back in Armethalieh he’d always done his best to give the impression that he wasn’t very bright. But Tiercel had always known better: Harrier wasn’t stupid. He was deliberate and methodical. Where Tiercel’s mind skipped ahead, arriving at conclusions by intuition and instinct, Harrier’s worked its way slowly and carefully toward a solution, weighing and judging each element of a problem carefully before he spoke. It had made Harrier’s teachers think he didn’t know his lessons and call him slow, and over the years, Tiercel knew that Harrier had started to believe them. It wasn’t surprising that Harrier had reached the conclusion he had, merely that he’d been willing to say so.
    “No,” Ancaladar answered. “I do not say that the Children of Men cannot do magic, but that magic has its own purpose, which does not always align itself with the needs and desires of those whose lives are brief, and therefore, those whose lives are filled with magic, and those whose lives are not, will rarely have a great deal to say to one another.”
    “But the Wildmages keep the Balance,” Harrier said, and now he just sounded puzzled.
    “Indeed,” Ancaladar answered. “And Men—andElves—are only a part of the Balance. Some Wildmages weave spells and pay Prices to set into motion events which their grandchildren will not see come to pass. I will set you a riddle, Harrier Gillain: does the weed thank the gardener?”
    “That’s not a riddle,” Tiercel said instantly. “Of course not.” No gardener wanted weeds in his garden: Tiercel’s own mother uprooted them ruthlessly from their tiny back garden whenever they appeared.
    But Harrier was looking thoughtful, and not as if he liked the idea of being either the gardener—or the weed.
    At least Ancaladar’s cryptic lecture had gotten Kareta to stop bothering Harrier for a while. She went wandering off on some mysterious business of her own and let them eat supper in peace. After dinner, Tiercel insisted on helping Harrier clean up. Most evenings he was so exhausted from practicing that he just rolled immediately into his blankets and fell asleep, but not tonight.
    So tonight Harrier didn’t need to carry a lantern with him to light his way down to the stream to wash up. Tiercel gestured, and a ball of glowing cerulean Coldfire appeared over their heads.
    “I’m still not used to that,” Harrier sighed.
    “You—” Tiercel said, and stopped. You can do it too, now. It’s a Wildmage spell. In Karahelanderialigor he’d learned that the High Magick had been created out of the Wild Magic during the Great War in order to fight the Endarkened, because the Endarkened could taint and subvert the Wildmages but not—or not as easily—the High Mages (who had originally been—at least until the war was over—called War Mages). The two magicks combined could slay the Endarkened.
    Harrier shrugged irritably and said nothing.
    With two pair of hands instead of one, the task went quickly. Neither boy was a stranger to hard work, though, back in Armethalieh, Tiercel was (technically) “ Lord” Tiercel, a member of the minor Nobility, and Harrier was the son of the Portmaster (and so, in down-to-earth terms,from a family just as well-off and far more important). Because of the boys’ friendship, and because of their fathers’ professional relationship (Tiercel’s father was the Chief Clerk to High Magistrate Vaunnel, the ruler of the City), the two families had been close since Tiercel and Harrier were children, in no small part because the families had shared a similar ethos: that rank, wealth, and privilege should not keep any of their children from learning the value of hard work or the satisfaction of being able to do things for themselves. Tiercel’s father had told him over and over that true power came not from commanding people, but from leading them: that leadership grew out of respect, and