Mourning Dawn

They say that when a phoenix dies, it burns to ashes and is reborn anew. With that in mind, we must assert that there is, at any given time, at least one phoenix on the planet at any given time.

So… where is it? Why have I never seen one before?

Dagny paused to think a little longer, letting the ink of her pen bleed a little on her lower lip. It wasn’t necessary to lick the pen or anything, she just thought it made her look smarter when she wrote. As a result, she had accumulated an impressive collection of blue spots on her lips by the time she’d finished that last thought. She shook herself out of her hazy thoughts when she saw her brother finally make a move on the chess board. He’d been planning a move for six minutes now, and had finally removed his hand from his knight, permanently sealing that turn forever.

Dad punished him immediately with a counterattack, striking a now-undefended pawn with his queen. “Seems like a silly move to make, after all that time,” he chided. Even if he knew he was losing, Dad loved taunting his opponent. He’s otherwise quite civilized, Dagny thought, but competition seemed to bring out the fire in him. And he says I have an inner fire.

Dagny turned to see Mort’s face. He hadn’t given anything away until Dad had removed his pawn from the board, replacing it with his queen. He was much older than me, in his early 20s, but he had a world-weary look on his face that often had him and I confused for father and daughter when we’d accompany each other to the store. He was greying early. I hoped he didn’t mind.

For his part, Mort did not take a further six minutes to make his move. The knight he’d previously moved was taken to another square. It was forking a rook and the king. “Check,” he said, with no ceremony. He simply folded his arms, looked Dad in the eye, and let him stew in that for a moment.

It was a good move; Dad knew he only had one option, since the knight was clear of any attack. He had to move his king out of the way. He was going to be up the pawn he’d just taken, but down one of his strongest pieces. He bit his lip, and focused on the board. This is going to take a while, Dagny surmised. She reviewed her journal entry.

Dagny had just returned from a trip to central Mexico with her mother. They were on an adventure, Mom had told her. And it was; her mother was an archaeologist, and the things they found left by Aztec civilizations hundreds of years ago would be burned in Dagny’s young memory for the rest of her life. She loved the temples they explored, loved learning what little she understood about her mother’s admittedly high-pitched excitement when pointing at things she studied in school and finally got to see. Mort and her father were less interested in these kinds of things, but Dagny shared her mother’s passion for history.

So much did she love the exploration, that she had wandered off on more than one occasion, lost in translation. She was no expert, but she did notice an ideographic detail that felt overlooked by other archaeologists. She’d scribbled it in her journal, intending to ask her mother about it; but, she was afraid she would appear foolish, so she kept it to herself.

This was because Dagny had been born with a birthmark in the distinct shape of a phoenix on her left cheek. It was the first thing anybody noticed about her. When she was old enough to recognize herself in a mirror, she saw it and became transfixed. The doctors had told her mother at her birth that it was an angel’s kiss, that it would go away after a few years. But it had stuck to her at age eight, and it was red and distinct as ever. Of course, children at school tried to tease her about it; but she was unruffled, and the teasing stopped. Dagny was certain of something. She had no idea what it was she was certain about, but she knew she had something to do with a phoenix.

The obsession had led to her doing all kinds of research about it, leaning into Greek and Egyptian mythology. She found numerous sentences and rumors that hinted about their whereabouts, but even her archaeologist mother soon tired of the stranglehold this pursuit had on Dagny, and had stopped listening to her theories long ago. “There was a gentleman who thought the pyramids in Egypt were landing pads built by aliens, sweetheart,” Mom had told her. “He’s got no credibility any longer. You don’t want to end up like him, do you?”

Imagine Dagny’s surprise when she discovered Aztec ideographs depicting the rebirth of a long-tailed bird of fire. Unfortunately, she would have to research it on her own. Mom wasn’t going to be much help this time. 

Dagny refocused her gaze when her father conceded to the only viable play, and moved his king out of the way. He cringed when the knight captured his rook, but he took the knight back with another piece.

At first, Dagny thought this was a mistake; Dad had left his king in the open, completely undefended. Mort must have seen the same thing she did, since he jumped on the opportunity to move a bishop across the board and placed the king in check once more. “Check,” he said, echoing everyone’s thoughts. 

Dad took a full look at the board and said simply, “Well, I see no other way out of this,” and used his queen to capture the bishop. 

Dagny saw Mort lose the game before he’d made the next move.

The bishop had been guarded by Mort’s other knight, and he took the queen right away. He was going to be up a rook as well as a queen, and all Dad had to show for it were three pieces of much less value; under many circumstances, Mort would be too far ahead for Dad to ever catch up. What he’d neglected to realize is that the knight he had was guarding a key square that it was no longer in control of. It was mate in five.

Dagny watched the scene play out, to Mort’s dread at each step. He saw it coming, but was defenseless to it; he’d seen the counterattack far too late, and he could only watch in chagrin as Dad mercilessly positioned his two knights and a bishop to trap the enemy king, and delivering the coup d'etat with a lowly pawn. “Checkmate,” he told his son. “Suck it, bitch,” he added, which Dagny felt was unnecessary. 

Delighted, Dagny gave a loud clap. A queen sacrifice, while down material, and it ended up being the winning move. Dad knew how to put on a show. She closed her journal, setting it on the arm of the love seat she was sunk into, and hopped up. She was promised she could play the winner.

. . .

Hunting the whereabouts of the phoenix, while her primary goal in life, was not a very lucrative career. Fortunately, there was good money in chess tournaments, and Dagny Brisdottir had found herself crowned Grandmaster on her seventeenth birthday. She was, of course, absolutely ecstatic; yes, the title was pretty cool, but it came with enough prize money to finish the funding on her expedition back to Mexico. She endured press conferences and polite interviews with smiles and nods, but her mind was already elsewhere. Her friends, who were going to be her allies on her new adventure, were surely watching the streams and were already packing their bags. They’d finally raised enough money.

When she returned to her hotel room, she immediately began throwing her things together. She messaged Alicia, who was the brains of the operation, to let her know to buy the tickets. The crew of five would all meet up at the airport in Oaxaca, find a guide, and travel to the temple that Dagny had found the message in. Everyone was on board.

She’d managed to find kindred spirits online, who all had varying reasons for this expedition. Alicia believed she saw the phoenix in her dreams every night. Trevor was full of superstitions, many of which Dagny couldn’t find herself aligning with. Trevor believes literally everything he comes across, Dagny remembered thinking to herself when they’d known each other long enough to get comfortable chatting. But he was a smart cookie, and considered himself a masterful tracker. The last two were twins, Jason and Jacob. Jason was a masterful puzzle solver, and she had no doubt his skills would be incredibly useful on a journey that might involve intrigue and mystery. His hook was logical in nature; when Dagny shared with him what she found in the temple a decade ago, he wanted to know what a figure from Greek and/or Egyptian mythology was doing in Central America. Jacob, for his part, fancied Alicia. A lot. Jason would never permit separation from Jacob, and so they came as a pair. It was not unpleasant; Jacob had a secure job, contributed a lot of money to the expedition, and he was good with words. Dagny felt they had a real team going on.

But things never go as planned. They had met up in Oaxaca, found a guide for the temple Dagny had picked out, and set off. And as soon as they’d gotten to where she left off as a child, they were captured by several large men with guns.

Dagny did not know their affiliation. But they were large, and they had guns. What they said, went.

Interrogation did not go as planned. Gabriel was upset by this; typically, if a group of white explorers were shaken down, they quickly relented a lot of money and they could be allowed to safely escape into the wilderness, where they would be half-heartedly chased down and shot at so they could tell their grandchildren a story or two. That “lot of money” was the important part to Gabriel, but these tourists had none. They kept insisting they were archaeologists, explorers, seeking a fairy tale he knew nothing about in his home country. Fortunately, a quick review of their identifications revealed a celebrity in their midst, and he thought using her as leverage was the right way to go. He’d wished he had thought of it sooner, rather than waiting three days and several unnecessary beatings. Ransoms were so much simpler.

Gabriel walked to the makeshift prison he was keeping the five tourists in with several bottles of water. He nodded to the guard, who opened the door. He strutted inside, and threw the bottles on the ground. The five scrambled for a bottle each, and drank gluttonously. They’d had none since they were captured.

His eyes wandered to the young woman with the scarlet birthmark on her left cheek. “So, Ms Dagny Brisdottir. I understand you have some fame in your country, no?” he asked, as soon as she finished the bottle.

She looked startled. “Fame? Me? Why?”

“Appears you have been out of contact for several days from your family, and they worry over you. Won some tournament in some game, and now are gone. Celebrity suddenly disappears, articles say.”

The familiar forlorn look in her eyes professed itself again. “Please, I’m not worth anything! You have everything we own! Let us go!”

He shook his head, tutting with his tongue. “I think a nice video of your pleading will be sufficient for a ransom, don’t you?”

“Wait. I can give you something more valuable than you can get from her,” the one named Jacob told him. “That laptop you got from Jason? I’ll give you the password. He knows the location of a secret treasure in the temple you found us in.”

The other tourists shot looks at him.

“I see no other way out of this,” he said, assuring them.

Gabriel was unfazed. He’d heard such promises before. “Prove it, kid,” he said, and beckoned the guard to return with the laptop. He did, in a hurry. “Give us the password.”

Jacob took the keyboard and entered in a lengthy password. Gabriel figured him for the face of the group, but he needed more practice. Gabriel could read him like a book. “Now, show me what’s more valuable than Grandmaster Dagny’s life, hmm?” he demanded. 

Jacob pulled up the research on the temple they’d done so far. It was lengthy, and wordy, and had no summary that he could discern. “So what?” he asked, impatiently.

“The thing we’re after is worth more than your weight in pesos,” Jacob said. “It’s in that temple.”

Gabriel had exhausted his supply of care for this phoenix talk. He retrieved his pistol and shot Alicia point-blank. “Anything more to add, lover-boy?”

Jacob sank. He had no more to say.

“I thought not.” He shot Trevor then, in case the first one didn’t sink in. “We’ll talk again later.”

Dagny, Jacob and Jason were led, shackled, to the familiar temple. Their lead captor, Gabriel, appeared to have something on his mind. He threw his backpack on the ground.

“Show me what you found, Ms Dagny,” he told them.

She had been given her journal back. She referenced it, and then guided them to where she was as a child. “It’s here, somewhere,” she said hesitantly. Eventually, she found the markings she saw as a child. “Here. Can you read more of it? I can only translate so much,” she lied. They had tried telling the truth, but two died for it.

Gabriel read it aloud, and translated. “Fire eagle rests forever in twilight,” he said. “There’s nothing else. Just a ruby embedded.”

“Search the room,” Jason told them. “Unchain us, we can help look for more clues. You guys have guns anyway.”

Gabriel nodded to a guard, and they were released from shackles. It was a wide room, and flashlights were pointed at the adjacent walls by the other guards.

“Start with the top, right here,” Jason said. “Tell me what this says, start to finish. I know it’s a clue to the chamber.”

While a guard was translating for him, Jason had solved the last part of the puzzle. He tapped out instructions to Jacob in their secret twin language, reminiscent of Morse code but something only twins could share. Jacob understood right away. While the guards were fixated on their translations, he stole a flashlight from the bag Gabriel abandoned and shone it directly into the ruby.

The sound of a slab of stone descending alerted everyone in the room, and flashlights all centered on the source. It was between Dagny and Jacob, who were staring in awe at the solved puzzle. 

“Go!” Jason shouted, as he tackled one of the guards before he could aim his weapon.

Dagny was stunned, but Jacob pushed her through the opening. Before he was riddled by the other guards, he smashed the ruby with the hilt of the flashlight, rendering it incapable of receiving light, sunlight or otherwise, any longer. 

Jason faced a similar fate, shot in the head by the guard he had tackled. He was unfortunate enough to witness his brother’s demise first, but they had long ago agreed that they would die together.

Dagny found herself in the secret chamber of the phoenix, undiscovered by archaeologists before her. She was overwhelmed by the display, simple as it was: there sat an unadorned egg atop an altar, without any ceremony. She turned back, to see the stone slab closed behind her. She’d heard the cacophony of weapon fire before it closed; she knew her friends were dead.

She approached the egg, the culmination of her life’s goal. It had to be the one, come to Central America for a reason she did not know. She recognized the problem immediately; a fire would snuff out in here immediately. There was no oxygen flow. This was no problem; a fresh supply was given when the stone slab had opened. She grabbed a nearby pair of stones and began to spark them against the nesting.

A fire rose, after several minutes. It engulfed the egg; she was under siege, but the phoenix could at least live again.

The runes on the altar told a different story. She read them in the light and translated, understanding dawning on her slowly. The phoenix had come here from far away, in search of family, and nested at the end of its life.

A life which required a sacrifice to be renewed.

The phoenix could not be reborn without a human life, she realized.

A sacrifice that it had chosen to rebuke, because it came to love every person it met.

Loud banging came from behind Dagny, reminding her that her life was already in danger from her captors. It appeared they had grenades, and the stone was showing cracks. They were coming for her, and they would find her egg. She returned her gaze to the nest, which was still aflame. She noticed then a knife, laid delicately before the altar. It was easy to miss; it was unadorned and not the primary substance of this room. 

Her gaze went from ideographs, to egg, to stone slab. She touched her left cheek, knowing what she was to do before her hand had touched the knife.

“I see no other way out of this.”

Dagny took the knife to her heart, and fell upon the flames.

. . .

Jason and Jacob woke up some time later, wounds healed. No explanations were given, and they were unable to breach the stone slab. The foes lay dead, and they were free to go.

Only a solitary meteor skyward bound gave them a clue.