Phoenix Destiny
#1 of Original Stories
All things must one day end, and that is as true for worlds as it is for humans, though the time scale is a bit different. But Alan Rhiannon is a true immortal, and cannot be killed. When his world ends, he is left alone on a dead planet. But all things must one day begin as well, and Alan is a Phoenix Child...
A slightly older (and slightly weirder) story about cycles of life and rebirth.
The battles had dragged on for longer than the lives of men. But all the humans, man, woman, and child, had fallen long before. Dwarf and elf too were gone, as were goblin and gnoll and all their kin. In the end even they, evil beings that they were, had come over to the defending side, and the last troll had gasped out its final breath with a dying hell-hound's neck grasped in its massive hands. But in the end even that was not enough to stop the advancing forces of annihilation.
It had been predicted, prophesied even, long millennia before, but still the defenders had hoped to somehow turn the tide, change the destined fate of their world. Even after the last mortal being perished, an ancient dragon, several-times grandson of the long-ago Dragon Queen Tara, the immortals fought on, hoping somehow to yet win. Tara had predicted her distant grandchild's fall when she herself had been fighting for the survival of her people. And though she succeeded, as she had foreseen, her distant descendant failed. For the Dragon Queen of olden days had, in the end, faced an opponent as mortal as she. But no mortal could hope to survive against the overwhelming force that Aretha now faced.
Now only the immortals remained. They had fought all along, and their efforts became almost desperate as one by one their lesser allies were destroyed. And then they too began to fall. Hopelessly outnumbered and worn down by the centuries-long struggle, they, gods though they were, could still be killed, and killed they were. It took thousands, tens of thousands of the flame-wreathed hell-spawn they battled to drag each god down, but there were countless millions of them, swarming from their strange home in a seemingly endless stream. A god might slay a hundred of them in one blow, but the enemies that remained never seemed to grow any fewer.
And then at last only one creature stood in opposition, a sole form, seeming almost kin to those he fought, for unlike the largely humanoid gods who had fallen before, this being walked on all fours, and flames surrounded him in a twisting halo of fury.
Alan Phoenixflare Rhiannon snarled his defiance as his last divine ally went down, literally torn into burning shreds. And then his orange flame was swallowed up in the red glow of his opponents, and he too fell, lying still in a spreading pool of gold-tinged blood that somehow flowed across the burning, barren ground, where it ought to have hissed and boiled in the intense heat.
The end of the world had begun with a seemingly tiny incident. A di-portal mage had been found dead, his corpse charred almost beyond recognition.
In the last golden age before the end came magic had become a science as much as an art, and had reached a level comparable to the high technology of other worlds. But where the inhabitants of Earth might set out to explore the stars, finding other worlds to learn about and eventually to colonize, the people of Aretha had no such option. Their world was a self-contained one, a system of sun and planets encased in a crystal globe, and their stars were merely bright lights set thereon.
So when their cities grew to fill their world it was to the di-portal mages they turned. Dimensional travel had been known for centuries, but in those last years it was studied and refined until it held few, if any, secrets. And so other worlds were found, explored, and cataloged. Hundreds of inhabitable realities, where the laws of physics and magic ran as they did in the Arethan home world, were colonized.
Other, stranger worlds were also discovered, but the dangers of visiting places too alien had long been recognized, and as the science of portal magic grew so did the laws governing it. Places where reality was drastically different could be studied, but never visited, and never, ever, should anything from such a reality be brought to Aretha.
It happened anyway, of course, but by and large things from wildly different realities couldn't survive long, and by and large the authorities kept such incidents contained. This incident, however, could not be so easily dealt with.
The police mage who first arrived on the scene instantly recognized the signs of an illicit di-portal, and the charred corpse, presumably that of the mage who had created it, gave her reason enough to believe that something dangerous had come through. But the portal itself had obviously closed behind whatever creature had entered Aretha, and so she, and those who followed on the scene, filled out their reports with no warning stronger that the notation that some kind of fire-based entity might be lose in the modest metropolitan area where the dead mage had lived.
What they had no way of knowing, what indeed was not even guessed at until much later, was that the hell-hound who had come through, and all of its kind, were natural portals to their home world. So long as only one stood upon the soil of Aretha any number of its fellows could follow the creature over at regular intervals. And follow it they did, their numbers growing slowly, but in a steady mathematical progression that spelled eventual doom.
But the final, telling blow was another effect of the hell-beasts presence. For in the moment when that first creature had come through that first portal, all of the portals had closed. Aretha was cut off. None of her colonies could come to aid their mother world.
The vanished portals were noticed immediately. The connection to the hell-things' presence took longer, but even when the people of Aretha realized what had happened they could do nothing.
The portals were gone and they could not be restored.
And that, truly, was all there was to tell. The hell-things could be killed, of course. It was difficult, but possible. In the early days, after Aretha realized it was at war, but before the destruction became too great, ordinary humans, fighting desperately for their lives and the lives of their loved ones, killed many of the creatures. But most hell-beings that fell took their slayers with them into the darkness of death, and all too soon it became clear that the races of Aretha could not afford to suffer such losses against the endlessly growing stream of their foes.
It was then that the gods entered the battle. They were little seen in the last ages of Aretha. Their mortal children performed miracles of magic, they needed little now from their gods, but the gods had neither forgotten them nor been forgotten by them. And so they entered the fray.
And so also Alan, the phoenix child, came out of his long isolation to fight for the people of Aretha. He had withdrawn to his ancient home into the far north, where even in those crowded days few lived. After countless centuries of watching short-lived beings age and die he had become nearly a hermit, but many of those who now fought and died were his distant kin, descendants of his brothers and sisters, however many generations removed, and so he came and fought.
He did not fear the fire of the hell-born creatures, for he was the son of a firecat, and a child of the Phoenix. Fire held no fears for him. A few of the gods also were utterly immune to flame, and soon he was fighting at their side, a small group who killed many thousands, even millions, of the invading force. Even gods, however, have limits, and where fire cannot harm, the hell-spawn had other weapons. Their claws and teeth and spines could be just as deadly.
And indeed some of those claws found Alan's throat only a few weeks into the war. He could not be harmed by flame, but tooth and claw could damage him as easily as any mortal, and so indeed he fell, and the creature that had killed him howled in triumph, its fellows joining it in an eerie chorus.
The roaming pack moved on to other prey. After a while the still form they had left behind began to burn. Flickering tongues of red and yellow flame, mixed here and there with white and even blue, licked over fur and feathers, burning without consuming, without even blackening the white and orange of Alan's pelt. The blaze grew until the form within could not be seen. And then it died, revealing Alan, whole and unhurt, standing on the scorched grass.
Alan was a true immortal, more so even than the gods of his world. Perhaps if his body fell where it could not burn, sunk beneath the sea or buried in ice, he might then die. But such had never happened, and now, in this fiery conflict, it seemed unlikely that such a fate would befall him.
Still, one invulnerable fighter was nothing against the millions upon millions of invading fire beasts. And so it came at last to that final end. Alan knew that his last gesture of defiance was ultimately futile, but he made it nonetheless. And though the fire-beasts tore him to pieces, when they passed on the phoenix flames still gathered.
Alan stared around him at the scorched world. He could see packs of the creatures, some of them vaguely dog-like but most unlike any creature native to this world, roaming in the distance. He could go and hunt them. No doubt he could kill many. But to what point? There were no others left to fight beside him. He had always felt alone in the world, ever since the centuries-gone day when his twin brother had died. But now he truly was alone. Every other living being had gone, from the humblest human child to the most powerful god.
And so he hid himself and waited, watching. The hell-beasts, not content to kill men and gods, now were hunting the remaining animals down. When those few pathetic creatures were gone they systematically burned the plants, tree, grass and flower, those that had not already been reduced to ash during the battles. More of them kept coming, until Alan feared he would be unable to stay hidden. He knew that he could return as often as he was killed, but he still preferred to avoid the unpleasantness and pain of it if he could.
The numbers of fire-beings continued to grow though there seemed no reason for them to come. There was literally nothing left. But now Alan saw new kinds, huge hovering things that spread lingering trails of fire behind them. He suspected that they were vulnerable, and so had been summoned only when all opposition was gone.
He didn't follow them down to the shore, but he saw the great clouds of steam rising, and he knew that they were boiling the oceans. Those massive trails of fire were no doubt lashing the ocean waves, killing the watery life that had been spared when all life on land had burned to ash.
And then they left. Not gradually, but all at once. Perhaps somewhere a hell-hound had reported that the last sea creature, the last tiny plankton or sea-born algae, had been destroyed. They had come with no explanation, destroyed for reasons only they would know, or perhaps for no reason at all. And they left just as inexplicably.
Alan stepped from hiding. He looked at the scorched, perfectly barren earth before him. There were tumbled ruins a mile or so off, the remains of a once-great city. He allowed himself the memory of what it had been like before the creatures came. And then he cast his mind further back, recalling a modest hamlet that had stood there long, long ago. Snowcap, they had called it then. So many memories stirred within him, each one now a lament for what was gone. So many centuries of life, good and bad, happy and less so, had passed before him. And now, nothing was left but dust and ashes. Alan lowered his head and cried, tears streaming freely down his feline face. They splashed onto the ground at his feet, puffs of dust rising where they fell.
And then other little dust puffs rose, one here and one there all around him. He felt the first heavy drop hit his head and looked up. The sky had been filled with clouds of steam for days, and what is steam but rain not yet fallen?
It fell now, those first few drops thickening into a torrent, turning the ashes into thick mud. Alan lifted his head, the rain matting feathers and fur. It washed the tears from his face, the hot, bitter salt of them mixing with the clean, cool rain.
Somehow, though it seemed impossible, there was hope in that rainfall. He knew, knew beyond any doubt, that there was no hope left. Nothing was left alive. Nothing at all. The world was now barren, and no aid could be hoped for from the colony worlds. The best mages in the world, before they died, had found that the portal closure was nearly permanent. Perhaps in a ten thousand years the portals would again open, but Alan knew how long such a span of time was, and he would no doubt have gone mad and thrown himself into the sea long before. And yet... and yet there was hope.
It was almost as if something was speaking to him. It spoke without words, and it told him that the world had not ended as finally as that. He spoke aloud, wondering if he was going mad already.
"No. How can there be hope? There's nothing left!"
There is, the wordless voice told him. You are left, and so am I. If the sense of somehow knowing could have been put into words it would have said; the two of us may yet be enough to re-build this world.
Alan decided that if he was going insane, he might as well just go, and so he answered, "How? I may be immortal, but I'm not a god."
The wordless voice informed him that he might not be a god yet, but he could become one.
"Become a god?"
He felt the affirmative answer. The presence that spoke to him had made the old gods, back in the beginning days. All has ended. So. Now it is time for beginnings again. Here, I will show you the way of it.
And suddenly it seemed as though Alan knew everything. He could remember when things had begun, what it had been like when he was young. But no, he realized he was remembering the life of the other. It all flowed through him, the history of the world. Every single moment was clear. Here was a being that truly knew the fall of every sparrow, for they all were a part of her. She had mourned every death, but she knew as none other that death was a part of life. Her mourning now was almost beyond bearing, but there was still hope there. Death was a part of life, even death like this.
And then he knew that he was not going mad after all. Aretha herself was speaking to him. He lowered his head, laying himself on the ground, on her body beneath him, humbled by the knowledge of who and what he conversed with, and the history of the world, in all its countless centuries, flowed before him.
At length the view of his mother planet's life faded, leaving him dazed. The rain had stopped, and he lay there, his fur damp, trying to collect himself. Aretha's voice soothed him, sending more knowledge gently, careful not to overwhelm the fragile mind of the phoenix child, who was, after all, not much more than a very old mortal. She was dying, the planet told him. Without the renewing cycle of life she could not live. She still had great power, but it would slowly ebb until none was left. The rest of her intentions slowly filled Alan's mind, and when he saw it all before him he hesitated only a moment before agreeing.
There was indeed hope. His world could live again. He remained where he lay, pressed against the earth of Aretha, his fur covered in mud made from the ashes of Aretha's life. He closed his eyes and emptied his mind, waiting.
It was almost imperceptible when it began. As slow as the growth of flowers in spring, as gentle as the melting of snow beneath the sun, but like snowmelt, it built soon into a raging flood of power. Alan was overcome with it, completely overwhelmed with life, green and growing and powerful. Everything went away but the power itself, filling him completely, leaving room for nothing else, not even for his own memories and sense of self.
Finally he came back to himself. Slowly he got to his feet, shaking himself off as if he could shake off the sudden strangeness like water from his fur. He still felt like the same person, and yet he didn't. Before he had been aware of his immortality, but otherwise he had felt no different from the ordinary mortals that surrounded him. But now... now he radiated life. He could feel the pulse of it within him, in every cell of his body. It was more even than his body could contain. It was pouring out of him, washing over the land.
Alan felt something brush against his paw and he looked down. Tiny shoots of grass were growing up all around his feet, and a perfect, pristine, white flower was opening its petals. He took a step forward, and the hollows where his paws had rested instantly filled with green. He began to walk, and the grass and flowers, and now even tiny seedling trees, sprouted up behind him. He broke into a run, the long, ground-eating lope of a firecat. Still the earth greened behind him, and he could see that the swath of life was widening, the influence of his new power still spreading. Aretha touched his mind again, telling him that his mere proximity would serve, even without the touch of his feet against her. And so he spread his wings as he ran, and soon he leapt into the air. He spiraled upward, and below him the green continued to spread.
He soared across the barren land. Soon he outpaced the effects of his newly given power, but when he glanced behind he could see the green following him, a widening track of grass and trees and who knew what else. It was exhilarating, intoxicating, amazing and indescribable to fly thus above the world, watching it be reborn behind him, knowing that he was a part of that rebirth. He felt the sense of hope again, and now he didn't deny it. Aretha would be created anew.
Aretha's power sustained him as he flew. The sun set, blood red in the west, but the moon was shining and the stars were bright and Alan felt no need to rest, despite the flow of power that steadily, almost eagerly, fell from him to the ground below.
He did not count the days. There were many of them, but the number didn't matter. It was all like one day, one long flight that ended finally where he had begun. But now the barren plain where he had cried over the end of the world was a forest. The trees towered over his head as he made his way to the spot where he had begun. The awesome flow of power from him had stopped. Its purpose was served, and this wood needed nothing else. The trees were giants, strong and tall, and the spot where he had stood when the power first reached him was now a sheltered glade where a huge oak tree towered over the others in the wood. He stood before the tree. In a sense he had created it, but it still awed him. There was a feeling of power and majesty hanging over the glade. Aretha's presence was strong here.
His own power was strong too. It felt like his now. The long flight had changed him in a way that uncounted centuries of life had not. He was a god now, and he knew it. And yet he was still Alan Phoenixflare Rhiannon, just as he had always been.
You have done well, said the voice of the planet. There is life again, and I am glad. My power no longer is fading. Yet I will still die if all is left as it stands now. The cycle of life cannot stand on plants alone. Other things, other lives, are needed.
"Yes," Alan said. He knew what must come next. He had seen that much of the planet's plan. Parts of it were still murky, only dimly understood, but he knew that his simple presence, powerful as he now was, would not be enough to make the animal life that must also be restored.
You do not have to do this, Aretha told him. It will be painful.
"I know," he said. "But there is no on else to do it. And I have always loved this world. I have always loved you. It must be done. I will do it."
And he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath in anticipation of what would come next. The great oak reached down a branch. The branch curled somehow, growing more rapidly than a tree ought, around Alan's neck. He felt it, and felt too as the branch formed into a shape that had as sharp of an edge as the hard wood could form, pressed up against his neck.
He held perfectly still. I'm sorry, the planet told him, and then the tree cut his throat.
He wasn't aware of what happened next, of course. Whenever he died the time between death and rebirth was a complete blank to him. But when he opened his eyes to find the flames fading around him, he caught a glimpse of a squirrel scurrying up the great oak, and a butterfly flitted away from him, caught in a beam of sunlight from above.
He noticed too that the ground around him was not scorched. Apparently the new power of life he held protected the living things he had created from harm when he was reborn by fire.
He felt Aretha's touch in his mind, thanking him. But the sorrow and regret was still there. The few lives he had created here would not be enough. The sacrifice must be repeated. He nodded.
"I will do it. I have promised. And I've died often enough in these last years."
He did not count the times and places where his gold-tinged immortal blood was spilled on the earth. Nor did he count the days it took. It was surely no longer than the long flight of greening. The planet again sustained him, but this was no easy flow of power. This was painful death and slow rebirth, over and over and over, until it seemed that he had no more life to give, no more blood to spill. But at last it ended, and yet again he found himself in the quiet glade. The sound of birdsong and the rustle of small creatures going about their lives broke the stillness now, but it was still peaceful. Alan lay down at the base of the great oak, his wings folded against his sides, and slept.
It was the first sleep he'd had since the departure of the destroyers. It was deep, and almost dreamless, though he awoke with a strange sense of communion, and felt that Aretha had still been speaking to him, teaching him and comforting him while he rested.
The not-quite-spoken thoughts that came into his mind then surprised him. If he had to put them into words, the planet had said, "Thank you." And "I love you."
Alan was surprised by the feelings that came from the world. That Aretha had an intelligence and life of its own he had long known, and now he knew that she was an immortal being not that much different in some ways than her lost mortal children. But the sense of love that the planet directed at him was not the love of a mother for her child. And in truth, though he had been born here and thought of Aretha as his home, he was not one of her children. The firecat blood of his mother, and the phoenix blood that added the gold to his veins, neither were native to this world. And he had walked other worlds himself. Indeed, it was perhaps possible for him to leave yet. He could go walking between the worlds. The way would be difficult, but he could do it. But though he might once again dwell among his own people, firecat and phoenix child, that place would never be home. This was home.
And now this world had become more, for the love that flowed into him was the love between mates. He and she had created new life together. In a strange sense they were parents. Yes, said Aretha. We are parents of this new creation, you and I. But the task is not finished yet. And then she showed him what more was needed, filling in the murky blanks in Alan's understanding.
Alan almost didn't believe what Aretha told him, but she affirmed again that yes, this was her plan. Was he still wiling?
"Willing yes. Uncertain, but willing. Honored and awed even. You are the first goddess, the mother earth, the eldest from the very beginning. I can't even begin to feel worthy of this honor."
I do not choose you simply because you are the last, the world told him, sensing the sudden sense of doubt that filled him. Were there others, be they gods or mortals or any other beings, I would still choose you. I know you. Though you are not of my children, you are still mine. I have worked towards you, calling your parents to me, that you might be here, with me. You are the fruit of a long labor, and the true mate I wished from the beginning. I have chosen.
"Then I will accept your choice," said Alan, still feeling that awe, but unable to doubt the things that Aretha had told him. He got to his feet again, stretching with forepaws extended. Then he set off through the green, living forest, strolling slowly. There was no need to hurry.
Indeed, he had all the time in the world. The new creation was not complete, but the cycle of life was there, and he felt it around him, the power of it sustaining him. He smiled to himself at the irony. He had somehow become a forest god. He should be a fire god, really. But then phoenixes always were associated with life and creation as much as with death and fire.
He took the time to catch and kill a young deer. He didn't truly need to eat, the very life-force of the world itself now sustained him, but the hunt was satisfying, and it felt good to have his stomach filled with hot, red meat again. And the hunt was part of the cycle of life too. He could feel it, sense it, the deer's life energy renewing the forest as it died. That energy was in him now, and would be in the many scavengers who would finish what he had left. What the creatures did not eat would nourish the ground, feeding the trees and grass and flowers. And when the scavengers died their energy would pass on as well. He had always known that. He had lived his whole life with a fine awareness of where he, as a predator, fit into the great circle, but now he felt it as never before.
The journey took him on into the deepening twilight. He stopped and drank at a little mossy stream as the stars began to come out overhead. The path he'd followed had tended gradually upward, but as the darkness deepened he began to climb above the forest. The trees here were different, pine and aspen replacing oak and maple. They were thinner too, with frequent meadows filled with sunflowers, their bright yellow dimmed to gray in the dark. The way became steeper, and now the wind was howling around him and only a few gnarled pines grew here and there among lichen-covered boulders.
Before him a patch of deeper darkness loomed, and he stepped slowly into the mouth of the cave. He moved only a few steps and was utterly enveloped in pitch darkness. For a moment he considered summoning his fire, but he sensed that now was not the time. And, he realized, there was no need. This cave was within the world herself, and Aretha knew the way to go. She led him through the dark, her power surrounding him, growing stronger the deeper he went. The cave twisted deep into the mountain's side. He walked for hours, passing countless branching tunnels, some huge enough for dragons, some so tiny that a human child could not have squeezed through them. He couldn't see them, but he sensed their presence.
Finally he came to a tiny chamber deep within the earth. It was warm there, and he could sense Aretha all around him, enfolding him within her. He curled up on the floor of the little cave, wrapping his wings around him. Aretha wrapped her power around him even as he folded his wings. Her power was within him too, not in a flood this time, but as a gentle caress. It touched him in ways he had never been touched before.
He had known love, but he had never mated. Ordinary mortals would have been destroyed in such a union, for the passion of a phoenix-child was fire, and only a firecat, or another of his own kind, could bear it. Phoenix children were rare, he knew them all and none would be mate to him. And he had never been able to bear the thought of mating with a short-lived, mortal firecat. Such a union would end only in grief. And truly, he had felt little need for such a mating. He grew lonely for companionship often, but he had little sexual desire. It simply was not a part of him. Or it had not been before. Now, though... now he felt something stirring, and a tiny flicker of flame twisted its way along his fur, though he had not willed it to do so.
He tensed, resisting it, holding back the flames. But then he relaxed again. The fire of his passion could do no harm to Aretha, however hot it might burn. Here, deep within her, he was near the places where her own blood of molten stone flowed. Even the full fury of phoenix-fire could not match that heat.
And that fury was rising now. Flames licked around him, growing brighter and brighter as the earth-power caressed him. Soon the cavern was a blazing inferno, completely filled with flames that burned intensely blue and white, and the sound of their burning was a roar that blended with the feline roar of Alan's passion.
The fires faded at last, and Alan lay still, spent, in the center of the chamber. Aretha's power caressed him gently, lovingly, as he closed his eyes and once again slept deeply.
When he awoke, he found the chamber lit with a dim glow. He looked around for the source of the illumination and it only took a moment to discover that a thing like a glowing pearl, milky white and round, sat near him on the floor of the cavern. He looked at it curiously, and heard Aretha tell him wordlessly; that is the beginning of what we have created, you and I. It came from you, and now it will lie here within me until it is ready.
"Oh," said Alan softly. He felt his ear tips reddening in a faint blush. Old and experienced he might be, but until this day he'd also been utterly celibate, and the thought of what he had just done, though very pleasant, was also vaguely embarrassing.
He flicked his ears a few times, chuckling to himself as the blush faded. Then he looked again at the faintly glowing pearl. "What will they be?" he asked softly.
They will be whatever they will be, said Aretha. They will be our children.