The Heart of the Phoenix (11 page)

“Erick the Addled,” Erasmus said with a curt snort of laughter.

Bowen nodded. “He was quite mad... tried to learn all of his father’s magic and scrambled his brains.”

“And the Phoenix?” Ellen seemed ready to get back on topic.

“There is plenty of historical evidence that the Phoenix lived,” Bowen said. “Enough to convince most historians anyway.”

“I saw a temple to her once,” Erasmus said. “Up in the northern arc.”

“A temple,” Penny repeated, trying to decide if their legs were being pulled.

Erasmus gave a sharp nod. “I was traveling with a company of merchants and we camped near it, fled the next morning just ahead of a band of berserkers who decided to let us go and burn the temple to the ground.”

“Ooookay,” Katie said.

“And her last reliable sighting was at a border dispute between two towns on the edge of the Dead Lands,” Bowen continued, as if there had been no interruption. “Just before the Blood Prince deposed his brother.”

“So the Phoenix is...
was
real,” Penny said, arriving at the point she thought they were trying to make.

“Yes,” Erasmus and Bowen said together.

“And Ronan’s theory,” Bowen said, “is that this is the grove from the story I’ve just told you. This is where the Blood Prince killed her.”

“And that,” Erasmus said, pointing back over his shoulder with his cane at the old, twisted ash tree, “was her rod from the Tree of Life.”

Penny was about to ask what the Tree of Life was supposed to be, then decided she’d just Google it. Fascinating as it all was, she was an eye blink from passing out.

“Ronan thinks she’s still here,” Katie said, also apparently more than ready to arrive at the point of the night’s lesson.

“Don’t you?” Bowen raised his eyebrows in a burlesque display.

Penny thought about the strange lady she’d met when they made the circle, the woman sheathed in flame, and thought the others were remembering her too.

Penny believed.

Ellen, who had been silent for the past few minutes, began to snore gently from her seat near the dying fire.

They decided to call it a night, or early morning as it was, and meet the next night at midnight. Penny returned, desperate for a few hours of restful, and hopefully dreamless, sleep, but awoke late the next morning feeling as though she hadn’t slept at all.

* * *

The Gallic Wars and the Land of the Midnight Sun

Rome’s war against the Gallic tribes and the consolidation of Gallic lands led to an uprising among the subjugated Gauls under their leader, Ambiorix, and the later rebellion by Vercingetorix, chief of the Arverni tribe. The final battle of the insurrection took place in the besieged city of Alesia, where Vercingetorix chose to stand his ground and fight rather than flee. Though there were a number of lesser uprisings, this marked the end of the Gallic Wars.

During this war a number of Gallic tribes simply vanished, assumed destroyed or assimilated into other tribes. Many of these tribes had taken the opportunity to flee while the main Roman force was engaged in Alesia fighting Vercingetorix. They gathered on the island of Britannia with members of the Druid priesthood to prepare for their escape to a land where the Romans could not follow. While still awaiting the arrival of the final lost tribes, the gathered Gauls fought a final battle against Roman soldiers at a site now called Stonehenge.

Stonehenge was one of several Worldgates, gateways to a place of magic where the Druids traveled and gathered power and knowledge, the Land of the Midnight Sun, so named for the bright ring of light that decorated its night sky in place of a moon. In the final battle led by the Gallic hero, Fuilrix, the Gallic warriors defended the site while the Druids opened a gateway large enough for the gathered Gauls to escape through. Fuilrix remained behind and fought until all but him had escaped, and when he was the last, fought his way through to the portal before it closed. He arrived on the other side badly injured, covered from head to toes in the blood of his enemies.

When the doorway closed behind him, Stonehenge fractured and the Worldgate closed forever.

Fuilrix was made chief of the consolidated Gallic tribe, and later, king of the new land of Galatania on the continent they named Gallia. The descendants of Fuilrix continued to rule through the centuries, and Fuilrix himself attained an almost mythical stature. It was claimed that his fiery red hair was once dark, and turned red by the blood of his enemies as he fought his way through the Roman army, slaughtering them by the hundreds. He was called the Great Red King in legend, and his descendants almost all have the same fiery red hair. Because of Fuilrix and his royal descendants, red hair is considered a sign of nobility, privilege, and all redheads in the new land enjoy an elevated status.

The House of Fuilrix still exists, and his descendants still rule the Land of the Midnight Sun. Other humans have come to their world over the centuries, assimilated into the mostly peaceful culture, and influenced it in subtle ways. The social structure remains similar to the ancient Gallic and Druidic cultures, but not identical. Technological progress in Galatania is centuries behind the world they abandoned to the Romans, electricity is unstable and dangerous, but steam power is now in wide use since its introduction. On the few occasions where modern electronics have been brought to Galatania through one of the still existing gateways, it either does not work properly, or fails catastrophically.

Galatania is a feudal republic, ruled by a king or queen chosen from the House of Fuilrix, but governed on a larger scale by representatives chosen from the people. For the first 1,500 years, Galatania existed in peace with itself and the natives of the new Earth. After a royal coup by the Prince Tarvus, known as the Blood Prince, against his father, King Lenus, Galatania became ever more aggressive and grasping, warring against once friendly native cultures and tribes. With the assistance of the near mythical figure known as the Phoenix, an immortal woman of great power and wisdom, the deposed King Lenus reclaimed his throne and Tarvus was banished. For many years the reinstated king, and then his son, Artaius, ruled in peace, but Tarvus returned and killed Artaius. With no natural heir to accept the throne, and no one willing to challenge the last direct descendant of Fuilrix, Tarvus became the Blood King. His reign was short but violent, and left Galatania weakened. The trust between Galatania and its neighbors has never been fully restored.

The original Gaulish language, which was similar to Latin, has evolved through the centuries and is now almost entirely Latinate. Continued contact with the old Earth has required the rulers of Galatania to adapt, and English has become a second language. The House of Fuilrix speaks Galatanian and modern English, and the power structure that supports the House of Fuilrix has adopted English in order to protect state secrets from the masses.

Its many secrets include a number of portals, and potential portals, back to the old Earth. The House of Fuilrix has spent hundreds of years destroying those that could be destroyed, and possessing the others. The last of them, and the most problematic, connects Galatania’s capital city, ancestral home of the House of Fuilrix, with a small town on Old Earth called Dogwood. For many decades the House of Fuilrix has tried without success to acquire ownership of the land where the portal, Aurora Hollow, exists. Aurora Hollow is the final uncontrolled portal, and the royal family considers it an unacceptable threat to their secrecy from the world they fled 2,000 years before.

* * *

“Land of the Midnight Sun,” Katie said, her curiosity piqued. “What is a Midnight Sun?”

“I’m not certain,” Erasmus said. “No one on my world knows what it is, but I believe it is what your astronomers call a black hole.”

“Now you’ve done it,” Bowen said. “You’ve stumbled onto one of his pet subjects.”

Erasmus bypassed his usual grumpiness and smiled widely.

“My
theory
is that the first major divergence between your world and mine was the formation of a second sun in our solar system.”

Katie nodded as if this made perfect sense.

“Most solar systems are binary,” she said, happy for an excuse to discuss one of her favorite subjects. “Ours is kind of an oddball.”

“Indeed,” Erasmus said, almost bouncing in place in his enthusiasm. “Some of your astronomers think there’s a massive, undiscovered gas giant even bigger than Jupiter, a Planet X that might have become a second sun, but didn’t.”

“That’s a pretty fringe theory,” Katie said.

Erasmus ignored her and plowed on.

“Whether it didn’t acquire enough mass, or lacked some other essential spark, it’s there, but too far away from the sun to reflect any of its light.”

Penny yawned.

Erasmus ignored her as well.

“In my solar system, there are no Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto, and no sign of the rocky debris in your Kuiper Belt.” He rubbed his hands together and grinned so widely Penny thought the top of his head might fall right off. “I believe my Planet X did become a star, and one massive enough to consume all of the matter that would have become your outer planets. It became so huge in fact, that it collapsed in on itself to become a black hole. The bright ring we see in our night sky is its accretion disk, the light that it’s pulling into itself.”

“Like Saturn’s rings, but made of light?” Ellen ventured, then seemed surprised when Erasmus responded with a sharp nod.

“Exactly.”

Anxious to steer the conversation back into the land of the comprehensible, Penny cleared her throat and addressed Bowen.

“Is that the book that got you in trouble?”

“It is,” Bowen said. “It was the legend of the Death of the Phoenix that angered them more than the histories.”

“It’s a punishable offence in Galatania to openly discuss the Phoenix,” Erasmus said. “The Reds don’t like having their noses rubbed in it.”

“Punishable?” Katie sounded equal parts curious and skeptical. “Punishable by what?”

“Fines and imprisonment usually,” Bowen said. “But they took special exception to my crime.”

“He didn’t just talk about it,” Erasmus clarified. “He used their own press, a one of a kind tool in our world, and printed hundreds of copies of the taboo subject, then distributed them far and wide.”

“I was lucky to not be executed,” Bowen said.

“That’s a little harsh,” Ellen said.

“It was treason,” Erasmus said and shrugged. “Your government still executes people for treason.”

“Just for writing a book?” Zoe seemed to think they might be having their legs pulled.

“Ideas can be dangerous things,” Bowen said. “And the right book can be a weapon.”

“And speaking of books,” Erasmus said, “I’d like a look at the book you keep hidden here. Ronan told me a little about it, but I’d like to see it for myself.”

Penny had no more than to think about him, and Rocky was at her side. He removed the key from around his neck and dropped it into her open palm, then scrambled up the old ash tree to the split in the trunk. The old tree bore the scars of a long ago lighting strike, including a burned out hollow in the trunk’s split large enough to conceal the small chest that held their book, a sentient text called
The Secrets of the Phoenix Girls
.

It had been a while since the girls had taken the time to use the book, which revealed new pages and spells whenever they mastered the previous pages. They had decided to wait until Zoe was back for good before resuming their lessons so she wouldn’t fall behind them, and Ronan had very reluctantly agreed, but now they were all behind.

Penny had the book out and opened moments later, turning to the final printed page, the spell that had allowed them to make their bicycles airborne. Not too long after learning that spell Ellen had joined, and while they waited for her to catch up all hell had broken loose. Zoe had gone off to live on the road with her trucker parents soon after, and
The Secrets of the Phoenix Girls
had remained locked up.

“Hand it over,” Erasmus said. He snapped his fingers when Penny hesitated and shouted, “Now, girl!”

Penny placed the open book in his hand, and it reacted instantly. The book slammed itself closed, catching his thumb between its covers. Erasmus shouted in surprise and pain, and fell backward off his stool. He was up the next instant, his forest of living dreadlocks attempting to pull the covers apart and release him. One of them pulled a wand from the back of his long coat and pointed it at the cover, but before he could use it, the book shot a small blue fork of lightning and stunned the offending appendage. The wand flew from its grasp and it stood straight up from his head.

The girls rushed forward to help him, but the book released his thumb and landed quiescent in the dirt.

“Well that answers that question,” Erasmus said, and stuck his squashed thumb in his mouth.

Bowen stood red-faced by the door, choking down laughter before he could speak. “Ronan did warn you.”

“I had no idea it would do that.” Katie retrieved the book and carried it swiftly away from Erasmus. “What did you want it for?”

“I wanted to see what would happen.” Erasmus patted down the still jittering dreadlock. “I can’t teach from it, but I can still help you practice, and I’ll have lessons of my own for you starting tomorrow night.”

“Does that mean the history lessons are finished?” Zoe sounded hopeful, and Penny knew how she felt. They would have been more interesting in daylight, with seven or eight hours of sleep to prop her up. If she was expected to stay up until the small hours she needed something a little more exciting.

“Not entirely,” Bowen said. “But you’re through the bulk of it.”

“That was stuff you needed to know, and it’s more information than your predecessors had,” Erasmus said, taking up his seat in the stool again. “Now you have some serious catching up to do with your practical work.”

“Tomorrow night?” Katie said. “I need sleep.”

Ellen yawned.

Penny nodded.