The Phoenix Unchained by James Mallory Page A

with sayings,” he said, after a moment. “Like the ones Socorro the storyteller ends his stories with on feast days.” He closed the Book again.
    “Then the Gods have made their judgment. These Books have been sent to you. They have chosen you to keep the Balance. You must read them, and learn from them, and hold their wisdom in your heart. Your mother will be pleased.”
    Bisochim stared down at the Three Books in his hands. He was a Wildmage, now, even though he didn’t feel any different than he had when he had gone out with the flocks before dawn. He turned his father’s words over in his head.
    “Are you, Father? Are you pleased?”
    “Son of my heart, it is a great destiny to keep the Balance. Some men yearn to be so chosen, thinking of the glory it may bring them. But the tales tell us it is the hardest life the desert can send. I take great pride that the Gods think you are worthy of it. But for a child of my body, I would wish an easier future between Sand and Stars.”
    Bisochim bowed his head. His father had never been one to praise lavishly or lightly. “Thank you, Father. I shall always try to be worthy. And I shall never seek glory.”
    “If you were one to do so, the Books would never have found you. Now go and wash yourself. It is time to eat.”

    THOUGH he was now a Wildmage, little in Bisochim’s life changed immediately. His days were still spent herding goats and sheep. But in the evenings, when once he had played shamat and gan with his brothers and sisters, now he studied the Three Books. Soon the magic came to him, and the tribe flourished.
    He could not Heal Nedjed—though he tried. No spell of Healing could restore what was gone forever, merely encourage thatwhich was damaged to heal quickly and well, and the wound-fever that had settled in his father’s leg after the lion’s attack had forced the tribe’s Healers to cut most of the leg away. But he was able to ease much of his father’s pain, just as he eased the hurts of all who came to him, for all the Adanate were eager to lend Power to his spells, and the Mageprices he was called upon to pay were light, and easily discharged. But the more Bisochim delved into the deep mysteries of the Wild Magic over the years, the more he became convinced that there was something . . . out-of-Balance in the world.
    The Wild Magic held all things within its grasp. Life and Death. Dark and Light. All in a perfect balance, just like the life of the desert itself. And something wasn’t right. He knew he had to find out what it was. The time had come for him to leave.
    His people had been expecting the day to come for a long time, for the Wildmages did not belong to any one tribe alone. They went where they were called, across the whole of the Madiran—and even beyond, if that were their fate. Some were called out of the Isvai to live in the cities at the edge of the Madiran. These things went as Sand and Stars willed.
    When he went, Bisochim took a proper share of the tribe’s wealth, enough to keep him alive in the desert, for that was only proper, and he had earned it by his magic. Waterskins, bedroll, the weapons of a Master Huntsman—for Bisochim had achieved this childhood ambition over the years—he would take all these things away with him when he left the tent of his mother for the last time, but these things had been his for many years, as had been his falcon and his ikulas hounds. His share of the tribe’s wealth lay in the animal he would ride away upon: a fine riding shotor , the hardy, swift, long-necked beast, more enduring than a horse, that could go days without water and traverse the burning sands of the Isvai in speed and comfort.
    The second thing he had earned by his magic, Bisochim donned for the first time upon the day he left; the blue robes of aWildmage of the Madiran, so that every desert-dweller would see him and know him for what he was at once. Their blue was as bright as the desert sky at morning, before the sun