A Phoenix and Her Wizard

A Phoenix and Her Wizard

         Khalid heaved a weary sigh as he gripped the back of the wooden chair. His legs trembled. "Almost done, Stasiya. Almost there."

         Nastasiya lifted her all-but-naked head and whistled. Her nest sat upon a stone platform at the foot of Khalid's cot.

         "I'll make it. I'm hurrying." He stood stooped as he balanced a faggot of twigs and small branches from a cinnamon bush upon the back of his shoulders. With determination, he slid a foot away from the chair toward the cot. When his finger tips no longer reached the chair's back-frame, old Khalid's knees buckled and down he fell. "Oh!"

         Nastasiya squawked, then sighed a slow wheezing whistle which resembled a moan.

         "Sorry, Stasiya. I'm hurrying. I'm hurrying."

         He rose to his hands and knees and crawled on the rough floor boards toward his cot pulling the bundle along beside him. When he finally reached his goal, he knelt beside the straw stuffed mattress nestled within a wooden slab box frame. With the same diligence he practiced preparing for complex spells, he spread the cinnamon branches and twigs evenly over a faded brown woolen and much patched blanket. Khalid licked a swollen dry tongue over cracked, feverish lips as he placed the last stick onto his nest. He slumped with fatigue and breathed such a deep sigh as someone who is gathering all his remaining strength in order to take a step into an unknown abyss. His once brilliant crimson, azure, and gold robes hung on his wasted frame in gray and dingy tatters. He closed his eyes, took in a slow deep breath and gripped the opposite frame of his bed with a white knuckled grip. He grunted with the effort required to pull his bony frame onto the freshly made nest. Once on the bed he opened his eyes and panted as he continued to grip the edges of the bed frame with dry bony hands. Once the dizziness passed, he forced himself to relax despite the fact that the cinnamon branches poked and bruised his flesh.

         The wizard and the phoenix looked at each other in silent victory. Both were finally in position. She trilled and cocked her head.

         "No, I'm not weary, ol' girl; but I am quite weak. And you?"

         She sighed a faint whistle as she rested her beak on the edge of her cinnamon branch nest.

         "Now, what an awful thing to say." Khalid looked like a grinning corpse as he smiled at his companion and guide. "You don't look much like you, either."

         What remained of Nastasiya's feathers was nothing more than quills. No colorful glory remained to hide gray, parchment-like flesh stretched over a bony frame. She resembled an avian porcupine as she ruffled herself with painful dignity. Every second of her nearly one-hundred and fifty years showed in her gaunt face and emaciated body. Gray, scaly patches blemished her light-orange beak. She tried to stand within her nest but only managed to lean to one side with the help of an out-stretched rawboned wing. She whistled and chirped as she settled into a more comfortable position.

         "Yes, Ol' Girl, I know. You'd think we would have been more prepared, even if this is our first time." A tear slid over Khalid's temple and pooled into his ear giving the room a sea shell kind of echo. He'd spent the majority of his adult life hunting down old tomes to study the cycles of the phoenix, yet he wasn't ready for this day. He knew intellectually what was supposed to happen, yet reassurance evaded him. In all his searching he found nothing about what happens when a wizard's familiar is a phoenix. Theoretically, he should rise from his ashes. They had prepared for this event...well not really. There was a huge chance that Nastasiya wouldn't rise again due to her relationship with him.

         He looked at his friend and smiled. "Well, ol' girl here's to seeing you on the rise."

         Nastasiya stretched out her neck and released a forlorn whistle. Khalid gasped, his eyes widened and bulged, then he screamed and began to writhe upon his cot. Within a matter of seconds both bird and wizard burst into flame. They burned in a violet hot blaze for several minutes. The intense heat of their fires charred floor boards and blackened the stone wall next to the bed and nest. Their bodies and both nests of cinnamon branches disintegrated into ash. The small sleeping room filled with a thick sweetish smoke that smothered the flames and retarded the spread of the fire to the rest of the cottage. All that was left were two piles of ash--one about six foot long and narrow with the other nearly a three foot in diameter circle.

         The outside winter wind moaned like a tormented shade. Temperatures inside the cottage dropped to freezing. The smoke dissipated up the cold chimney, through small fissures between the roof thatch and around the crumbled caulking of the windows and doors. An oily layer of soot covered everything and the sweet hint of burnt cinnamon perfumed the air within the sleeping chamber.

         After several hours, heavy quilted silence blanketed the room. Even the wind had stilled outside. Faint scratches and squeaks erupted within the vicinity of the round pile of ash on the stone dais. The silty-black powder rose and roiled as coalescing life moved beneath the surface. A crimson feathered wing pushed out of the cold ash, then another one. Long azure tail feathers lifted then tipped downward cantilevering the rise of an azure back, neck, and head of a bird. Her eyes glowed golden. She shook and fluffed herself. Her puffed golden breast gave her a full round appearance. With grace, Nastasiya stood on strong legs and stepped out of the ashen remains.

         She trilled a soft cooing song and strutted around the charred room. She hopped and flapped her wings, careful not to disturb the long narrow pile of ash. The joy of life exhilarated her song into shrill trills. After a short time of preoccupation, Nastasiya walked toward the head of Khalid's remains. She whistled a puzzled trill and waited for several minutes. Nothing happened. Sad coos followed as she craned her neck over the ash. She remained careful not to disturb the fine, black powder.

         She hung her head over what once was Khalid. Her body slumped with the weight of gravity. He wasn't rising from his ashes. She stretched out her neck and whistled a woeful cry as tears fell from her eyes. She lowered her head just inches over the ash and stood that way for nearly an hour before hunger and thirst, the basics of survival, overpowered her grief and forced her out of the sleeping chamber.

         She headed toward the pantry where apples and grains were stored. Shaking herself and fluffing her feathers for warmth, she realized she would need to leave the cottage and migrate to a warmer latitude after eating.

         Nastasiya made short work of the knotted cord securing the pantry door. Soon she stood over a tart juicy apple. As she ate, the pupils of her eyes dilated and contracted.

         "Ah, there you are."

         Nastasiya screamed and flapped her wings. The partially eaten apple rolled across the floor and her wings slapped a young man in the face as she rose and veered away.

         Khalid brought his arms up to protect his eyes and backed away. "Hey! Nastasiya. It's me. Don't you remember me?"

         She skidded upon the dining table and looked at the teenager standing near the pantry. She fluffed her feathers creating the illusion she was larger and trilled a short tentative whistle.

         "Yes, I'm alive." He patted his brilliantly colored robes as he looked at himself. "I seem to be about the age I was when we first met. We must be bound to return to the physical ages when our lives became entwined by the casting of the Find Familiar incantation." He pushed the sleeves of his robes up over his forearms and frowned. "I suppose I'll eventually grow back into my clothes."

         Nastasiya squawked and shifted her weight from one foot to another.

         Khalid shook his head then bent down and picked up the apple. "Yes, I'm your Khalid. It's fortunate we both didn't arise as infants. How could we have survived without someone here to act as a guardian." He set the apple on the table at Nastasiya's feet.

         She arched her neck then shivered and fluffed her feathers.

         "You're right. It's damn cold in here." He rubbed his hands together as he walked to the wood pile by the pot bellied stove. Khalid stoked the stove, then with a wave of his hand, magically ignited a fire.

         Nastasiya cooed and waddled to the edge of the table. He grinned and walked over to her. "Apologies accepted. I didn't know you thought I'd died for good." He picked up the apple and held it level with her beak. "I'm sorry I gave you such a scare."

         She took a bite of apple. When she'd mashed the fruit up enough she swallowed. Before taking another bite, she looked directly at Khalid and chirped, trilled and squawked in quick succession.

         "You think so? Your tears have healed me on other occasions and it makes sense that your tears would be necessary to revive me from the ashes. I'm only human, after all. I must add this information to my accounts so another in our same situation will be better informed." He spoke in the same monotone he always used when lecturing as he set the apple on the table. He walked toward his desk just inside the sleeping chamber where he found a leather bound tome, a used quill and a half-filled ink bottle.

         She chirped then bent down and took another bite.

         Khalid smiled and nodded. "Of course you are right. There is plenty of time for record keeping. He walked back to the table and reached over and scratched Nastasiya's head near her ear-holes. Her skin was young and pink under the feathers.

         She cooed and then trilled a question.

         "No, I don't regret our bond, though regret seemed to feed the fire's intensity earlier. Did you feel that too?"

         Nastasiya fluffed up her golden breast feathers as she answered with a trilled coo.

         "You too? That wasn't mentioned in any of the histories. Do you think it is possible to live a life without regret?"

         She took another bite as Khalid lifted and turned the apple for her. He stood in silence and watched her eat. His thoughts returned to the vivid memories that seemed to fuel the recent fires. He swallowed several times to clear a lump of failure from his throat as Nastasiya lifted a foot and took the apple core from him. She chirped a command and tilted her head to look him in the eye.

         "Yes, I suppose so. That does seem to be something we need to clear up. He turned and stepped toward the pantry. "But right this moment, I am famished." Khalid turned toward the table with a loaf of bread in one hand and a round cheese with a wedge cut from it in the other. "I will concede; at this very moment, I'm glad we will live another century before we have to burn again."

         Nastasiya flapped her wings and squawked before returning to the remainder of her first course.

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