“Anyway, this new leader’s name was Janan. He was strong and had plans to lead his people not just beyond their current problem—always getting slaughtered by the various creatures living around their small territory—but into a greater way of living: never dying. He saw how phoenixes rose from their own ashes, and was jealous. So he took dozens of his best warriors, and they went hunting a phoenix to discover the method of its immortality.
“They caught one and demanded answers, but the phoenix couldn’t tell them.” My voice broke. “So they hurt it and demanded again, but still the phoenix told them nothing. As they tortured the phoenix, its blood began leaking onto them, changing them. They didn’t realize it, though.”
Stef and Whit stared at their hands, and Sam had his eyes closed, as though seeing everything in his head. Sylph songs quieted.
“Soon, other phoenixes arrived to save their comrade. They were furious, but they didn’t kill the attackers. If a phoenix takes a life, it would cost their cycle of birth and death. Instead, to punish the attackers, they conjured tower prisons in the most dangerous places in the world, like jungles or deserts or over immense volcanoes. Inside the towers, the attackers wouldn’t starve or die of thirst. They’d get what they wanted—immortality—and they’d be alone for the rest of their eternal lives. Because the phoenixes separated all the attackers so they couldn’t conspire again.
“The towers were empty. They had no doors. Only a special key could affect the stone.” I glanced at Sam, who pulled the temple key from his pocket. It glittered in the faint light of lanterns.
“That’s the key?” Whit asked.
I nodded.
“How did we get it?”
I turned back to my notebook. “Meuric stole it. He was there when Janan and the others attacked the phoenix, and when the phoenixes took everyone away. But he didn’t take part in the attack himself; he hung back in the forest, hidden. When he returned to everyone else, he told them only that Janan and the warriors had been captured and imprisoned by phoenixes—not what they’d done to deserve it. He sent a party to steal the key, and they brought back not only the key, but a pile of books, as well.”
“These?” Whit asked, touching the leather spine of the book nearest him, and I imagined he was wondering if he’d been the one to grab the books. Maybe he and Orrin had decided together to take the books. The beginnings of their library, later locked away for five thousand years.
“Those books,” I confirmed. “Many people were lost in the attempt to steal the key, but when the survivors brought it back to Meuric, they had what they needed to free Janan. They went after him, and found an enormous wall circling a seemingly infinitely high tower.
“But inside the tower, Janan had been learning about the magic leeched from the phoenix, and he realized there was a way to achieve immortality after all. Like Meuric, he didn’t tell everyone the truth about what he and his warriors had done. He said only that he’d learned the secret to immortality, and the phoenixes had grown jealous and locked him away for it.
“He wasn’t going to let the phoenixes stop him from becoming immortal. Now that he understood how it could be achieved, he’d do anything to get it. He would begin with himself, and when that worked, he swore he would do the same for everyone else. In the meantime, he would reincarnate everyone, exchanging their souls with new souls. Everyone would perpetually reincarnate; no one else would be born because he could only reincarnate you.”
Sam jerked his head up and stared at me. Stef shot me a warning look. But before anyone could ask, I pressed on.
“Janan said the key to the phoenixes’ immortality was a death of their own making. After everyone was secured in chains, tied to him forever, he took the knife he’d used to harm the phoenix, still with its golden blood on the blade, and plunged it into his own chest. He shed his mortal form and became part of the tower, which was already half-alive with phoenix magic. And everyone inside the tower was bound to Janan.
“They reappeared outside the prison wall as adults, with no memory of what had just happened. Only Meuric remembered. He was meant to encourage people to worship Janan and prepare for Janan’s return. When they went inside the prison wall again, there were houses everywhere. The prison had been transformed into a city.”
Whit frowned. “But I thought there was a big fight over who would live in the city. . . .”
I nodded. “There might have been. I imagine everything was chaotic and strange then. The book doesn’t go into detail about that.”
“What happened to the others?” Sam asked. “The people Janan took to find the phoenix.”
I glanced at Cris, at the other sylph hovering around the cave with us. Several of them moaned and curled in on themselves.
“No.” Whit shook his head. “That’s not possible. Because Cris—”