The Phoenix

Saedra cheerfully hummed to herself as she flipped through the racks of brilliant masque attire. Tonight, she would sparkle. Tonight, she would see Kirwin once again and they would dance the night away together.
Blue fish, green flora, and all sorts of shapes and sizes of garb flitted by…then her eye found it, the one she was searching for: the Phoenix. It was bright scarlet, trimmed with gold. With it was a headdress of spectacular feathers also of crimson and gold. It gleamed in the sunlight that wafted in through the open window.
She shuffled up to the counter. The owners of the costume shop, a family of three, sat behind a beaded curtain behind the counter: a mother and father helping their little girl with her homework. Mrs. Rathon, the mother, watched her and came out to Saedra, smiling.
“That’s a good one,” she grinned. “Let’s just see if it fits you. It’s for tonight, isn’t it? A bit late to be finding your outfit--I hear it’s going to be an event of some spectacle.”
“We’ve been busy at the city wall,” Saedra explained. “This attacker comes every night, and every night they get past us. In the morning, there’s always one child missing in someone’s household and a mother who is weeping. Living so close to the watchtower, I’ve had to host the reinforcements of the village guard--I only see Kirwin during rushed mealtimes before he has to return to duty.”
“What about tonight?” Mrs. Rathon asked. “Who is guarding the village tonight?”
“There’s a volunteer guard,” Saedra replied. “They celebrated Creation Day last night and will take over the regular guard’s duties tonight. That leaves Kirwin and I free to stay as late as we want out at the masque tonight. Are you and Mr. Rathon coming?”
“Yes, and so is Laita. It’s her first masque ever, and we’re very proud of her,” Mrs. Rathon said as she beamed at her daughter and took Saedra back to the dressing room.
As each piece was carefully fitted onto her, Saedra felt the oddest feeling come over her. It was as though courage and strength were in the laces; she felt as though she could go out and do anything. Also, it seemed almost as though the pieces wanted to be worn by her, and seemed to practically jump onto her body.
Saedra commented, “They seem to fit me better than my own skin.”
Mrs. Rathon merely smiled and said, “Good fit, good fit.”
When she was at last dressed, Saedra looked in the mirror and was very pleased with what she saw. She fished into her purse for the gold for the rental fee, but Mrs. Rathon refused to take it.
“Why?” asked Saedra, confused. It wasn’t the first time she’d rented from the Rathon Costume Shop, and they’d always charged her exactly the same amount as before.
“I want you to keep an eye on Laita,” Mrs. Rathon explained, taking from under the counter a short but elegant golden sword. “This goes with the costume. Use it well tonight.”
Saedra stammered her thanks.
“Do you know the identity of the attacker, by the way?”
“No,” Saedra sighed. “No one can identify them, for they wear black and always attack at night. It has been a month of hell, save for Kirwin.”
Mrs. Rathon suddenly looked grave. “Then keep an extra eye on my daughter tonight, and keep the sword at your side at all times.”
Confused, Saedra bowed out of the shop, for she did, after all, only have a few hours to prepare for the coming masque.


Fully clad as the Phoenix, Saedra sipped her goblet gratefully as she surveyed the hall, looking for Kirwin and Laita, maybe Laita’s parents as well. The hall was massive and beautiful, decorated to reflect the beauties of nature. Trees of bronze lined the outer edges of the hall, and flowers beamed from every surface. The crowning glory of the hall was a large glass tank of water on the far end of the hall from which spilled glass waterfalls surrounded by natural rocks.
Over by one of the small pools formed by these, she spotted Laita happily peering in to look at the bright fish that had been found to be put there. Saedra then spotted the girl’s parents nearby, talking to Kirwin, magnificently clad as a gold lion.
He broke off his conversation with the Rathons as Saedra swiftly crossed the room and threw herself in his arms. “How I’ve missed you, my love!” she whispered.
He stroked her scarlet feathers. “We are together at least now.”
“But you were there when the Warrior attacked last night--”
“We are safe now,” he reassured her. “Let us dance, while we can dance, and speak nothing of the Warrior until morning.”
Oh, they danced, the Phoenix and the Lion! Laita, dressed as a butterfly laughed happily and her parents, dressed as two sparrows, felt reassured by the peace of the place, though Mrs. Rathon’s smiles were forced and her laughter was chilly. As for Saedra and Kirwin, they were in a world together, a world where it was just them and God, a world they refused to let the dawn kill.
As the violin tuned for the fifth or sixth dance, however, a cold descended over the dancers as the double doors of the hall swung open and in strode a tall, menacing, black-clad figure who held a sword half as tall as a man with spikes like daggers all about it.
This apparition cleared its throat and proclaimed, “I am she, the Warrior in Black; why was I not invited? Or are you all such deceivers of yourselves that you do not see me inside of you already?”
The members of the guard present, including Kirwin, instantly recognized the Warrior and rushed towards her, weapons brandished. Eyeing the men who swarmed towards her, bent on her capture, she laughed a high, blood-curdling laugh. “I see I have some suitors who wish to dance.”
With one swing of her mighty sword, they all fled save for Kirwin, who was struck to the ground, luckily having only his shield pierced. Saedra feared for him as he lay there, but her attention was soon occupied with a more terrible sight as she stood, horrified, as the Warrior glided towards Laita, sword ready to strike.
“No!” Saedra cried, feeling a rush of anger and courage swell within her as she brandished her golden sword. “Harm not the innocent!”
They were eye-to-eye; Saedra could feel the Warrior’s cold breath on her face as she guffawed. “You challenge me, Phoenix? How long are they innocent before they are as I am? Not long! If you fight for her, if you fight for them, you fight me!”
The Warrior drew up her monstrous sword and brought it down upon Saedra’s short gold one. It shuddered under the weight of the great spiked sword, but it did not give way. She rolled out of the way and tried to get at the Warrior’s side, but the Warrior blocked perfectly.
So the battle raged on. Saedra knew she could only last so long as she heard the crowd gasp at the fight; she could hear the little girl crying. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Kirwin, conscious, but staring at her with a face as pale as death.
With a mighty swing the Warrior shattered the beautiful glass tank, and water flooded the hall. People screamed and fled wherever they could go, climbing the ornamental trees and leaving the hall. The same bright fish Laita had admired earlier that evening swam aimlessly, no longer having a tank.
The Warrior cried with glee, “I kill, but I do not bring death! I bring Hell, but Hell in life!”
Wading through the waist-deep water, Saedra was scarred and bloody, exhausted by the endless clashing of metal. The Warrior, on the other hand, looked almost completely unaffected by any of it.
Saedra’s sword clattered to the ground as it fell. “All right!” she cried, having realized she was fighting something beyond her ability to win. “You may strike me, Evil One, as hard as you like, as many times as you like as long as you harm me only and leave these people alone for the rest of eternity!”
“Very well,” the Warrior shouted with glee, “as it’s you I’ve wanted all along!”
Shock and blinding, shuddering pain coursed throughout Saedra’s entire body as the sword ran through and out her body. Not once, not twice, but three times the Warrior struck. “Every day this shall be!” she proclaimed, and left as suddenly as she had come.
Saedra, blinded with pain, fell backwards into the water, no longer caring if she drowned. She let the water fill her nostrils…she’d saved Laita, Kirwin, and those she loved…she didn’t need anything more than that. That was worth dying for, even on Creation Day.
She was vaguely aware of the Rathons pulling her out and carrying her to their shop where they laid her down on a hastily-cleared table. They tended her wounds gratefully, telling her how glad they were that she had saved their daughter. Saedra merely nodded her appreciation as her vision blacked out into oblivion.

The next morning, Saedra opened her eyes to see Laita sitting in a chair next to the table on which Saedra lay, eating breakfast. She offered some to Saedra, who was too puzzled to speak.
Why was she alive? As she remembered the ordeal of the night before, she felt her front and back. Shouldn’t there be gaping wounds from where the sword had pierced her? Was Kirwin alive?
Mrs. Rathon came in, smiling weakly. “I’m glad to see you awake and well. That was quite a stir last night.” Saedra opened her mouth to speak, but Mrs. Rathon silenced her. “Thank you so much for protecting Laita last night.”
“But why am I alive?”
“The Phoenix, my dear, the Phoenix!” Mrs. Rathon cried, wringing her hands. “It rises from the ashes. See how the fabric has repaired itself already? The Warrior knew this, and wanted to take the costume from me, for I could not wear it. In her anger, she attacked the children of the village, hoping my sympathy would get me to give it to her. I could only give it to someone else. I knew from the moment you put it on that it would protect you, and she would not be able to take it from you. She wants it above all else, so she’ll torture you to the ends of the earth to get it, but you must not surrender it, no matter what.”
“But she--the Warrior--she can’t harm anyone else, right?”
“Not now that the Phoenix has a wearer. When she was attacking before, she could only kill one person a day, but if she had it, she could wipe out all life. That is why it is so important that you do not give it to her.”
Saedra sighed in relief and ate a few bites of breakfast, though the Warrior’s words rang through her head. “This shall be your daily torture…” she recalled out loud.
Mrs. Rathon winced. “It’s true,” she said sadly. “I’m afraid that last night’s ordeal didn’t end there. She will find you every day, no matter how far you travel, for just as she promised not to harm anyone but you, so did you promise to let her strike you as many times as she wished.”
A chill went down Saedra’s spine, then another thought crossed her mind. “Kirwin! Is he all right? Can I see him?”
“He is fine,’ Mrs. Rathon put up her hand. “I made him go home and get some rest after he carried you here last night. He was merely temporarily knocked out, but I wanted to make sure the injury didn’t last. He’s probably still asleep.”
“Oh, good,” Saedra murmured as she finished her breakfast.
“You can stay here with us as long as we still own this place.”
“Thank you; your family has been very kind to me.”
Saedra closed her eyes slowly and fell asleep again, dreaming of dancing once more with Kirwin. Would she ever dance with him again? Would he actually want to be with her after all of this?
She awoke to the awful sound of high, cruel, cold laughter. “Missed me?” the Warrior cackled as she strode into the shop.
Saedra gasped in pain; all of a sudden, her previous wounds seared with a burning hot fire. She heard a familiar voice, a voice she loved shout, “Leave her alone!”
“Do you challenge me, weakling?”
Saedra recognized the voice instantly. “No, Kirwin--don’t! Her quarrel is with me!” Saedra rose up and drew her sword. It gleamed ever brighter in the glare of the costume shop. “If you strike him, you’ll no longer be able to strike me!”
The Warrior narrowed her eyes maliciously. “If you strike me, I can kill him.”
“Very well,” Saedra said, throwing down her sword with a great sigh. “Do it, and be done!”
The Warrior gladly delivered one, two, three blows as before, with more pain than those of the previous night. She sank to the ground and collapsed as Kirwin, shaking, picked her up and laid her back on the table. He was pale, and his eyes were wide. “Saedra--” words seemed to fail him. “Every day?”
She nodded, closing her eyes. It hurt to look at him, for surely he would not want to be around her now that the Warrior would come every day. “You may leave me, if you wish--I am sorry for bringing such sorrow into your life.”
He did not leave, though. He simply shook his head and asked, “Why? Why do you do this?”
“For you,” Saedra wept softly, her voice barely louder than a whisper. “For you and everyone else I love.”
He was astonished. Mrs. Rathon quietly dismissed herself, as did Laita. Kirwin stood silent for a moment, as if trying to decide what to say. He took a small box out of his soldier’s jacket and looked at it for a moment. “I was going to give this to you last night at midnight, but at the moment you were starting to drown.”
“You can give it back to the jeweler if you wish.”
“Never,” he said, “unless that’s a ‘no’ you’re giving me. If you’ll take me, I’ll have you. If you won’t take me, the world will be blacker than the Warrior’s garb because I love you.”
“Say that again!” Saedra’s eyes snapped open, feeling a sudden surge of life come back.
“I love you.”
A smile broke out on Saedra’s bloody face, a smile of relief as he bent down and kissed her. As they broke apart, she whispered, “Now I don’t feel the pain anymore.”