Page 53 of Dance of the Phoenix (Cloak of the Vampire #3)
Aileen
Fire surrounded me. Endless, furious fire that seemed to take over everything, creating a suffocating, yet smokeless, hell.
In this hell, I was somehow able to exist, formless and shapeless, as if I was part of that fire, only with a mind of my own and a sense of sight.
I had no idea how I got here. In fact, I couldn’t even remember anything. Who was I? What was my name? What was I? I had no answers to these very basic questions. I had a sense of self, but no idea what that self was.
So all I could do was float around in the fire and watch it flickering all around me.
Until I heard an odd sound, which told me I could also, in fact, hear.
I looked around, trying to find the source of that sound in the middle of the flames, and I saw something rippling in the fiery air.
Something that took on a form from the fire, growing into a shape that seemed to be like that of a bird.
A very large bird that could’ve passed for a chameleon, what with its colors mimicking those of the flames it was born from.
A pair of yellow orbs flashed in the fire-shaped head of the bird. They were eyes, I realized, as I felt those orbs staring at me. Eyes that flashed with contradictions: violent yet gentle, wise yet unassuming, warm yet impossibly cold.
The fire-bird’s beak parted, and a voice came out. It was a surprisingly human voice, only it was soft yet chillingly clear.
“Let us make a deal.”
A deal? I wondered, baffled. Wanting to ask what it was talking about, I tried to speak, but it seemed like I had no mouth, or even vocal cords.
Yet the fire-bird, whose name I suddenly recalled from the fog of my memories was Bennu, or rather, the Phoenix, seemed to read my shapeless mind. “You do not belong in this realm, Child of Kahil. You should return to the Realm of the Living.”
Its words stirred yet another memory. I was a Child of Kahil, a descendant of the Morrow Gods, daughter of a follower of the Morrow Faith. It was a knowledge deeper than that of my name. It was engraved in my very essence more than any other identity ever could be.
The Phoenix spoke again. “I’ll return your soul to your body in the Realm of the Living,” it said, “in exchange for you releasing me when the time comes.”
Release you? I thought, knowing it could hear me. From where?
“From here,” the Phoenix replied plainly.
Isn’t it your home, though? I wondered as I recalled another memory from the mud that was my mind.
It was of a story I’d read in a book called the Tefat.
A story of the birth of Bennu the Bird, later named the Phoenix by the Grandmaster, the creator of the world.
Bennu was a lost, aimless Spirit born in Esheer, the Realm of Fire.
It was meant to serve as Esheer’s guardian, never to leave this place.
But Bennu had found a way to escape when, eons after its birth, three human men somehow found themselves in Esheer.
So Bennu had struck a deal with the men: It would return them to Aderra, the Realm of the Living, where they came from, and in return, the men would summon Bennu and release it from the eternal hell of Esheer.
The three men were greedy, though. They wanted more out of Bennu.
They were drawn to its powers and demanded some be given to them.
After eons of being stuck alone in this hellish place, Bennu knew nothing about humans.
It had no concept of what greed was. Bennu, too naive for its age, believed their demands to be valid and agreed to their terms.
The three human brothers each got one of Bennu’s powers. Neser, the eldest, received its power of fire. Desher, the second eldest, received Bennu’s ability to manipulate ash. And the youngest, Ankharen, got Bennu’s power to control the flow of time.
Once the three brothers returned to Aderra, the Realm of the Living, they displayed their powers to the humans and were perceived as Gods. They gathered a following, created a faith with them as its central Gods, and believed themselves to be the most powerful beings on Earth.
So much so that they forgot about their promise to Bennu.
But while Bennu might’ve been naive, it wasn’t dumb. As it waited for the brothers’ summons that never arrived, it realized the humans wouldn’t keep their part of the bargain. So Bennu bided its time for the right moment, when it brought about the brothers’ demise.
So went the story of Bennu and the Morrow Gods.
And it seemed I was faced with the same opportunity as those Morrow Gods from the myth, if I were to believe the fiery bird before me was, indeed, Bennu, the mythological Phoenix.
I believed it, though. How could I not, being in this hellish place, with a fiery bird peering at me with bright yellow eyes?
You really like striking deals, I commented almost wryly as I considered its proposal. In the Tefat, I recalled, every story had some sort of moral to be learned. In the Morrow Gods’ story, it was how greed and broken promises could bring about one’s misfortunes.
If I were to go by that story, I would have to keep my end after getting out of here, no matter the cost.
“Deals are the only way for two parties to receive equal results,” the Phoenix now said, answering my nonquestion. “But unlike the story you know, I now have a way of making sure you keep your promise.”
I would’ve been disappointed if you didn’t learn your lesson, I couldn’t help but think.
After all, Bennu the Phoenix was one of the very few beings created by the Grandmaster itself.
It had the standing of a being beyond a god.
It always struck me as strange that such a being showed such naivety in the first place.
If that’s the case, I thought, then I would like to ask for another thing.
I could swear the Phoenix sighed before it said, “Ask away.”
Carefully choosing my words, I thought, When I return, I want to have the option to call upon you, releasing you from here, on my own terms. Even if you feel it’s not the right time yet.
The Phoenix didn’t speak for a while. It seemed my request took it by surprise, which made sense; I doubted anyone before wanted to voluntarily release the Phoenix for their own use.
The Morrow Gods had been afraid of the Phoenix, even though they went back on their promise.
So were other creatures whom the Phoenix had struck deals with throughout the stories in the Tefat.
I, too, was afraid of the Phoenix. But I’d also read the Tefat and knew exactly what the Phoenix was capable of. Rather than hoping the Phoenix would never appear, like those before me, I wanted to have the chance to perhaps use it.
And it would satisfy both the Phoenix and me.
It seemed the Phoenix came to the same conclusion, because I could swear its fiery beak stretched into a flame-filled smile. “I accept your request. And so the deal is made.”
Before I could say, or rather think, anything else, the fire consumed both the Phoenix and me, and my vision turned pitch black.