The Burning City

by Jerry Pournelle

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” The man raised his knife. “Lord.”

  “You’re a sneak and a spy.”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  “Will you spy for us?”

  Whandall hesitated. “Of course he will, Lord,” Shastern said.

  “Take him out, Shastern. Wait with him.”

  Shastern led him through a door into a room with no other doors and only a small dark window that let in a little moonlight. He waited until they were closed in before letting go of Whandall’s arm.

  “This is dangerous, isn’t it?” Whandall asked.

  Shastern nodded.

  “So what’s going to happen?”

  “They’ll let you in. Maybe.”

  “If they don’t?”

  Shastern shook his head. “They will. Lord Pelzed doesn’t want a blood feud with the Placehold family.”

  Blood feuds meant blood. “Is he really a Lord—”

  “He is here,” Shastern said. “And don’t forget it.”

  When they brought him back in, the room was dark except for a few candles near Pelzed’s chair. Shastern whispered, “I knew they’d let you in. Now whatever happens, don’t cry. It’s going to hurt.”

  They made him kneel in front of Pelzed again. Two men took turns asking him questions and hitting him.

  “We are your father and your mother,” Pelzed said.

  Someone hit him.

  “Who is your father?” a voice asked from behind.

  “You are—”

  Someone hit him harder.

  “Serpent’s Walk,” Whandall guessed.

  “Who is your mother?”

  “Serpent’s Walk.”

  “Who is your Lord?”

  “Pelzed…. Argh. Lord Pelzed. Aagh! Serpent’s Walk?”

  “Who is Lord of Serpent’s Walk?”

  “Lord Pelzed.”

  It went on a long time. Usually they didn’t hit him if he guessed the right answer, but sometimes they hit him anyway. “To make sure you remember,” they said.

  Finally that was over. “You can’t fight,” Pelzed said. “So you won’t be a full member. But we’ll take care of you. Give him the mark.”

  They stretched his left hand out and tattooed a small serpent on the web of his thumb. He held his arm rigid against the pain. Then everyone said nice things about him.

  After that it was easier. Whandall was safe outside the house as long as he was in territory friendly to Serpent’s Walk. Wanshig warned him not to carry a knife until he knew how to fight. It would be taken as a challenge.

  He didn’t know the rules. But one could keep silent, watch, and learn.

  Here he remembered a line of black skeletons of buildings. The charred remains had come down and been carried away. Whandall and others watched from cover, from the basement of a house that hadn’t been replaced yet. Kinless were at work raising redwood beams into skeletons of new buildings. Four new stores stood already, sharing common walls.

  You knew the kinless by their skin tone, or their rounder ears and pointed noses, but that was chancy; a boy could make mistakes. Better to judge by clothing or by name.

  Kinless were not allowed to wear Lordkin’s hair styles or vivid colors. On formal occasions the kinless men wore a noose as token of their servitude. They were named for things or for skills, and they spoke their family names, where a Lordkin never would.

  There were unspoken rules for gathering. There were times when you could ask a kinless for food or money. A man and woman together might accept that. Others would not. Kinless men working to replace blackened ruins with new buildings did not look with favor on Lordkin men or boys. Lordkin at their gatherings must be wary of the kinless who kept shops or sold from carts. The kinless had no rights, but the Lords had rights to what the kinless made.

  The kinless did the work. They made clothing, grew food, made and used tools, transported it all. They made rope for export. They harvested rope fibers from the hemp that grew in vacant lots and anywhere near the sluggish streams that served as storm drains and sewers alike. They built. They saw to it that streets were repaired, that water flowed, that garbage reached the dumps. They took the blame if things went wrong. Only the kinless paid taxes, and taxes were whatever a Lordkin wanted, unless a Lord said otherwise. But you had to learn what you could take. The kinless only had so much to give, Mother’s Mother said.

  Suddenly it was all so obvious, so embarrassing. Loggers were kinless! Of course they wouldn’t help a Lordkin child. The loggers thought Kreeg Miller was strange, as the Placehold thought Whandall was strange, each to be found in the other’s company.

  Whandall had been letting a kinless teach him! He had carried water for them, working like a kinless!

  Whandall stopped visiting the forest.

  The Serpent’s Walk men spent their time in the streets. So did the boys of the Placehold, but their fathers and uncles spent most of their time at home.

  Why?

  Whandall went to old Resalet. One could ask.

  Resalet listened and nodded, then summoned all the boys and led them outside. He pointed to the house, the old stone three-story house with its enclosed courtyard. He explained that it had been built by kinless for themselves, two hundred years ago. Lordkin had taken it from them.

  It was a roomy dwelling desired by many. The kinless no longer built houses to last centuries. Why should they, when a Lordkin family would claim it? Other Lordkin had claimed this place repeatedly, until it fell to the Placehold family. It would change hands again unless the men kept guard.

  The boys found the lecture irritating, and they let Whandall know that afterward.

  Mother never had time for him. There was always a new baby, new men to see and bring home, new places to go, never time for the older boys. Men hung out together. They chewed hemp and made plans or went off at night, but they never wanted boys around them, and most of the boys were afraid of the men. With reason.

  Whandall saw his city without understanding. The other boys hardly realized there was anything to understand and didn’t care to know more. It was safe to ask Mother’s Mother, but her answers were strange.

  “Everything has changed. When I was a girl the kinless didn’t hate us. They were happy to do the work. Gathering was easy. They gave us things.”

  “Why?”

  “We served Yangin-Atep. Tep woke often and protected us.”

  “But didn’t the kinless hate the Burnings?”

  “Yes, but it was different then,” Mother’s Mother said. “It was arranged. A house or building nobody could use, or a bridge ready to fall down. We’d bring things to burn. Kinless, Lordkin, everyone would bring something for Yangin-Atep. Mathoms, we called them. The Lords came, too, with their wizards. Now it’s all different, and I don’t understand it at all.”

  One could keep silence, watch, and learn.

  Barbarians were the odd ones. Their skins were of many shades, their noses of many shapes; even their eye color varied. They sounded odd, when they could talk at all.

  Some belonged in the city, wherever they had come from. They traded, taught, doctored, cooked, or sold to kinless and Lordkin alike. They were to be treated as kinless who didn’t understand the rules. Their speech could generally be understood. They might travel with guards of their own race or give tribute to Lordkin to protect their shops. A few had the protection of Lords. You could tell that by the symbols displayed outside their shops and homes.

  Most barbarians avoided places where violence had fallen. But lookers sought those places out. The violence of the Burning lured them across the sea to Tep’s Town.

  Boys who gave up the forest had taken to spying on lookers instead. Whandall would do as they did: watch the watchers. But they were far ahead of him at that game, and Whandall had some catching up to do.

  Watch, listen. From under a walk, from behind a wall. Lookers took refuge in the parts of the city where kinless lived, or in the harbor areas where the Lor
ds ruled. Lordkin children could sometimes get in those places. Lookers spoke in rapid gibberish that some of the older boys claimed to understand.

  At first they looked merely strange. Later Whandall saw how many kinds of lookers there were. You could judge by their skins or their features or their clothing. These pale ones were Torovan, from the east. These others were from the south, from Condigeo. These with noses like an eagle’s beak came from farther yet: Atlantean refugees. Each spoke his own tongue, and each mangled the Lordkin speech in a different fashion. And others, from places Whandall had never heard of.

  Serpent’s Walk watched, and met afterward in the shells of burned buildings. They asked themselves and each other, What does this one have that would be worth gathering? But Whandall sometimes wondered, Does that one come from a more interesting place than here? or more exciting? or better ruled? or seeking a ruler?

  CHAPTER

  3

  When he was eleven years old, Whandall asked Wanshig, “Where can I find a Lord?”

  “You know where Pelzed lives—”

  “A real Lord.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” Wanshig said, but he grinned. “Do you remember when those people came to the park? And made speeches? Last fall.”

  “Sure. You gathered some money in the crowd and bought meat for dinner.”

  “That was a Lord. I forgot his name.”

  “Which one? There were a lot of people—”

  “Guards, mostly. And lookers, and storytellers. The one that stood on the wagon and talked about the new aqueduct they’re building.”

  “Oh.”

  “The Lords live on the other side of the valley, in the Lordshills mostly. It’s a long way. You can’t go there.”

  “Do they have a band?”

  “Sort of. They have guards, big Lordsmen. And there’s a wall.”

  “I’d like to see one. Up close.”

  “Sometimes Lords go to the docks. But you don’t want to go there alone,” Wanshig said.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s Water Devils territory. The Lords say anyone can go there, and the Devils have to put up with that, but they don’t like it. If they catch you alone with no one to come back and tell what happened, they may throw you in the harbor.”

  “But Water Devils don’t go into the Lordshills, do they?”

  “I don’t know. Never needed to find out.”

  How do you know what you need to find out until you know it? Whandall wondered, but he didn’t say anything. “Is there a safe way to the harbor?”

  Wanshig nodded. “Stay on Sanvin Street until you get past those hills.” He pointed northwest. “After that there aren’t any bands until you get to the harbor. Didn’t used to be. Now, who knows?”

  The forest had fingers: hilltop ridges covered with touch-me and lord-kin’s-kiss that ran from the sea back into the great trees with their deadly guards. There were canyons and gaps through the hills, but they were filled with more poisonous plants that grew back faster than anyone could cut them. Only the hills above the harbor were cleared. Lords lived up there. When the winds blew hard so that the day was clear, Whandall could see their big houses. The adults called them palaces.

  Whandall pointed toward the Lordshills. “Does anyone gather there during a Burning?”

  Wanshig squinted. “Where? On Sanvin Street?”

  “No, up there. The palaces.”

  “That’s where the Lords live. You can’t gather from Lords!”

  “Why not?”

  “Yangin-Atep,” Wanshig said. “Yangin-Atep protects them. People who go up there to gather just don’t come back. Whandall, they’re Lords. We’re Lordkin. You just don’t. There’s no Burning up there either. Yangin-Atep takes care of them.”

  At dawn he snatched half a loaf from the Placehold kitchen and ate it as he ran. The energy boiling in him was half eagerness, half fear. When it faded, he walked. He had a long way to go.

  Sanvin Street wound over the low hills that separated Tep’s Town from the harbor. At first there were burned-out shells of houses, with some of the lots gone back to thorns and worse. The plants gradually closed in on the old road. When he reached the top of the hills, all was thorns and chaparral and touch-me, just sparse enough to permit passage. It was nearly dark when he reached a crest of a ridge. There were lights ahead, the distance enough that he didn’t want to walk farther. He used the dying twilight to find a way into the chaparral.

  He spent the night in chaparral, guarded by the malevolent plants he knew how to avoid. It was better than trying to find a safe place among people he didn’t know.

  The morning sun was bright, but there was a thin haze on the ground. Sanvin Street led down the ridge, then up across another. It took him half an hour to get to the top of the second ridge. When he reached it, he could see a highlight sun glare, the harbor, off ahead and to the left.

  He had reached the top. He knew of no band who ruled here, and that was ominous enough. He crouched below the chaparral until he was sure no eyes were about.

  He stood on a barren ridge, but the other side of the hill was—different. Sanvin Street led down the hills. Partway down, it divided into two parallel streets with olive trees growing in the grassy center strip, and to each side of the divided street there were houses, wood as well as stone.

  He was watching from the chaparral when a wagon came up from the harbor. He had plenty of time to move, but close to the road the chaparral was too sparse to hide him, and farther in were the thorns. He stood in the sparse brush and watched the wagon come up the hill. As it passed him the kinless driver and his companion exchanged glances with Whandall and drove on. They seemed curious rather than angry, as if Whandall were no threat at all.

  Couldn’t they guess that he might bring fathers or older brothers?

  He went back to the road and started down the hill, openly now, past the houses. He guessed this was Lord’s Town, where Mother’s Mother used to go when she was a girl.

  Each set of houses was banded around a small square, and in the center of each square was a small stone cairn above a stone water basin, like Peacegiven Square but smaller. Water trickled down the cairn into the basin, and women, Lordkin and kinless alike, came to dip water into stone and clay jars. Down toward the harbor was a larger square, with a larger pool, and a grove of olive trees. Instead of houses, there were shops around the square. Kinless merchants sat in front of shops full of goods openly displayed, free for the gathering, it seemed. In the olive grove people sat in the shade at tables and talked or did mysterious things with small rock markers on the tables. Shells—and even bits of gold and silver—changed hands.

  Were these Lords? They looked like no one he had ever seen. They were better dressed than the kinless of Serpent’s Walk, better dressed than most Lordkin, but few had weapons. One armed man sat at a table honing a big Lordkin knife. No one seemed to notice him; then a merchant spoke to him. Whandall didn’t hear what was said, but the merchant seemed friendly, and the armed Lordkin grinned. Whandall watched as a girl brought a tray of cups to a table. She looked like a Lordkin.

  No one paid him any attention as he walked past. They would glance at him and look away, even if he stared at them. He wasn’t dressed like they were, and that began to bother him. Back of the houses, he could sometimes see clothes hanging on lines, but gathering those might be riskier than remaining as he was, and how could he know that he was wearing them right?

  He went on to the bottom of the hills, nearer yet to the Lords’ domain. Soon there was black, barren land in the distance to his right, with a gleam of water and a stench of magic. It had to be magic; it was no natural smell. Breathing through his mouth seemed to help.

  The place drew him like any mystery.

  Whandall knew the Black Pit by repute. Scant and scrawny alien scrub grew along the edges of black water a quarter of a mile on a side, and nobody lived there at all. He’d heard tales of shadowy monsters here. All he saw were pools that gleamed
like water, darker than any water he’d ever seen.

  A palisade fence surrounded the Pit, more a message than a barrier. A graveled wagon road led into it through a gate that Whandall was sure he could open. The fence was regular, flawless, too fine even for kinless work. Kinless working under the eyes of Lords might make such a thing.

  Such offensive perfection made it a target. Whandall wondered why Lordkin hadn’t torn it down. And why did Lords want people kept away? He saw no monsters, but he sensed a malevolent power here.

  The distant harbor drew him more powerfully yet. He saw a ship topped by a forest of masts. That was escape, that was the way to better places, if he could learn of a way past the Water Devils.

  Ahead and to the right was a wall taller than any man. Houses two and three stories tall showed above the wall. Palaces! They were larger than he’d dreamed.

  The street went past an open gate where two armed men stood guarding a barrier pole. They looked strange. Their clothing was good but drab and they were dressed nearly alike. They wore daggers with polished handles. Helmets hid their ears. Spears with dark shafts and gleaming bronze spearheads hung on brackets near where they stood. Were they armed kinless? But they might be Lordkin.

  A wagon came up from the harbor and went to the gate. The horses seemed different, taller and more slender than the ponies he saw in Tep’s Town. When it reached the gate, the guards spoke to the driver, then lifted the barrier to let the wagon in. Whandall couldn’t hear what they said to each other.

  If the guards were kinless, they wouldn’t try to stop a Lordkin. Would they? He couldn’t tell what they were. They acted relaxed. One drank from a stone jar and passed it to the other. They watched Whandall without much curiosity.

  The gate was near a corner of the wall. Whandall became worried when he saw the guards were looking at him. There was a path that led along the wall and around the corner out of sight of the guards, and he went along that, shuffling as boys do. The guards stopped watching him when he turned away from the gate, and soon he was out of sight around the corner.

  The wall was too high to climb. The path wasn’t much used, and Whandall had to be careful to avoid the weeds and thorns. He followed the path until it led between the wall and a big tree.