The Burning City

by Jerry Pournelle

  Morth solemnly shook his head. “No, Lord, I cannot.”

  “But you do know what the spell is.”

  “Yes, Lord, I know,” Morth said. “And frankly I am concerned that a hedge wizard from Condigeo would know about—about that spell. I am also surprised that you would employ powerful magic you do not understand.”

  “Oh, we know what it does,” Qirinty said. “It uses up the power in magic, the manna. Gods can’t live where there’s no manna.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Lord Chanthor said. “Did you know, Samorty?”

  Lord Samorty shook his head. “All I bargained for was a way to let the cooks work inside. Does that mean the fountains aren’t magic?”

  “Just good plumbing, Samorty,” Lord Qirinty said. “But there is magic in running water—I suppose that’s why our Sage looks better now. He found some manna in the fountains.”

  “Astute, Lord. But very little, I fear.” He chuckled mirthlessly. “I do not believe you need pay to renew the spell this year.”

  “Is that why the wizards can’t bring rain?” Samorty demanded. “No manna?”

  “Yes,” Morth said. “The manna is dying all over the world, but especially here in Tep’s Town. The void you have created here isn’t helping.”

  “Where can we find more manna?” Chanthor asked.

  “The water comes from the mountains,” Qirinty said. “Look there, if we can find the way.”

  “There are maps,” Chanthor said. “I recall my father telling me of an expedition to the mountains. They brought back manna—”

  “Gold. Wild manna. Unpredictable,” Samorty said. “Some of the effects were damned odd.”

  “Yes, Samorty, and anyway, they got all they could find,” Chanthor said. “We wouldn’t do better. But there was water. Can we get water from the mountains?”

  “We can’t. Maybe nobody can.”

  “We did once.”

  “Yes, Jerreff, and long ago the kinless were warriors,” Chanthor said.

  “Do you believe that?” Samorty asked.

  “Oh, it’s true,” Jerreff said.

  “My Lords, we are neglecting our guest,” Samorty said. He turned to Morth. The wizard was quietly sipping tea. He looked less ill than when he had come to the table.

  “Sage, if we don’t have water, there’ll be a Burning, sure as anything. How can we stop it?” Qirinty asked. “Can you bring more water?”

  Morth shook his head. He spoke solemnly. “No, my Lords. There is not enough manna to bring rain. As for the gold in the mountains, you don’t want it.”

  “Isn’t it magic?”

  “Wild magic. I’ve heard some very funny stories about gold’s effect on men and magicians, but in any case, I would not survive the rigors of the trip.”

  “There are other mountains,” Jerreff said. “The Barbar Mountains remain. Too far to go by land, but we could take ship.”

  Morth smiled thinly. “I fear I must decline that as well,” he said.

  “The ice. Can you bring more ice?” Qirinty demanded. “We will pay well. Very well, won’t we, Samorty?”

  “We would pay to have the reservoirs filled again, yes,” Samorty said. “You would not find us ungenerous.”

  “Alas, as I told you then, I could do that only once. Loan me a charioteer and I could fill your reservoirs, but I do not believe you would care for salt water.”

  “Salt water?” Samorty demanded. “What would we want with reservoirs full of salt water?”

  “I can’t imagine,” Morth said. “But it is the only kind I control just at the moment.” His smile was thin and there was a tiny edge to his voice. “It would be difficult but not impossible to drown the city and even parts of the Lordshills, but the water would be sea water.”

  “Are you threatening to do that?” Samorty demanded.

  “Oh no, Lord. I have worked for many years to prevent that,” Morth said. Mother’s Mother’s humor sometimes matched this old man’s: they laughed at things nobody else understood. “But do not be deceived, it could happen. For example, if you were to use in Tep’s Town the spell that that idiot Condigeano used here, you might well find the sea walking across the city. May I have some more tea?”

  “Certainly, but it is a long way back, Sage, and I perceive you are not comfortable here,” Samorty said. “With your permission I will arrange transportation with our horses, and an escort of guards.”

  “Your generosity is appreciated,” Morth said.

  Morth. “He’s too old,” Whandall murmured.

  The girl asked, “Too old for what?”

  “He’s not who I thought.” Too old to be the Morth who killed my father and put my uncle to flight. But wasn’t that also Morth of drowned Atlantis? Mother’s Mother had told another tale. “The wizard who wouldn’t bless a ship?”

  “Yes, that’s him,” Shanda said.

  Samorty clapped his hands for a servant. “Have the cooks prepare a traveler’s meal for the wizard. We will need a team and wagon from the stables, and two guardsmen to accompany Morth of Atlantis to the city.”

  “At once, Lord,” the servant said.

  “He will see to your needs, Sage,” Samorty said. “It has been our honor.”

  “My thanks, Lords.” Morth followed the servant out. He leaned heavily on his staff as he walked. They watched in silence until he was gone.

  This powerless wizard couldn’t be the Morth who had killed Pothefit. Was it a common name in Atlantis?

  “Well, he wasn’t any use,” Chanthor said.

  “Perhaps. I want to think about what he didn’t say,” Jerreff said.

  “What I learned is that he can’t get us any water. So what do we do now?” Samorty demanded.

  “The usual. Give out more. Increase the Mother’s Day presents,” Chanthor said.

  Whandall’s ears twitched. More Mother’s Day presents was good news for the Placehold, for Serpent’s Walk, for everyone! But Lord Qirinty said, “The warehouses are getting empty. We need rain!”

  “There’s a ship due with some sea dragon bones,” Chanthor said. “Magic to make rain, if Morth is as good as he says he is.”

  “It won’t happen,” Jerreff said, “and you know it. Do you remember the last time you bought dragon bones? Ebony box, lined with velvet, wrapped in silk, and nothing but rocks inside.”

  “Well, yes, but that merchant is crab dung now,” Chanthor said, “and I keep my hemp gum in that box. This time the promise comes from a more reputable ship captain.”

  “He’ll have a good excuse for not having any dragon bones in stock,” Jerreff said. “Chanthor, Morth wasn’t revealing secrets; he was speaking common magicians’ gossip. Magic fades everywhere, but here…. Why would anyone send objects of power here? What can we pay compared to the Incas? Or Torov? Even Condigeo could pay more than we can!”

  “All true,” Qirinty said. “Which brings us to the question, why does Morth of Atlantis stay here? We all saw him move a mountain of ice!”

  “Forget Morth. He has no power,” Samorty said.

  “It is a puzzle worth contemplation, even so,” Jerreff said. “Here he is weak. He would be more powerful in a land better blessed with magic. An Atlantis wizard could command respect anywhere.”

  “They’re rare, all right,” Lady Rawanda said. “And there won’t be any more.”

  A ripple of response ran around the table. Horror brushed its hand along Whandall’s hair. Tellers even in Tep’s Town spoke of the sinking of Atlantis.

  Chanthor said, “Ship captains are still telling stories about the waves. Wiped out whole cities. Do you suppose that’s what Morth is talking about? Salt water. Can he raise big waves? That might be useful, if anyone attacked us from the sea.”

  “Who’d attack us?” Qirinty asked.

  “We’ve been raided a few times,” Chanthor said. “The last one was interesting, wasn’t it, Samorty?”

  Lord Samorty nodded. “Nine dead, though.”

  “Nine dead, we sold
six more to Condigeo, and we got a ship out of it,” Chanthor said.

  “Oh, what happened?” Rawanda asked.

  “Ship’s captain ran out of luck,” Chanthor said. “Lost his cargo; talked the crew into raiding in our harbor for their pay. Water Devils saw them coming. Happened to be my watch. I took Waterman and his ready squad down. All over in an hour. As Samorty said, nine dead, four of them Water Devils. No Lordsmen hurt, and we made a pretty good profit selling the survivors even after we paid off the Water Devils.”

  “What about the captain?” Jerreff asked.

  “He owes us,” Samorty said. “I let him recruit crew from unemployed kinless. Seems to be working well. The kinless bring money back for their relatives to spend here, and we have a merchant ship—not that I’ve thought of any use for it. It can’t bring us rain.”

  “We’re due for rain, though,” Chanthor said.

  “If Yangin-Atep doesn’t chase it away,” Qirinty’s wife said.

  “There’s no predicting that,” Qirinty said. “But, you know, I think he’s less powerful when it rains. Fire god, after all: why not?”

  Yangin-Atep. The Lords knew of Yangin-Atep. And they had fires indoors. Yangin-Atep never permitted fires indoors. And they’d hosted Morth of Atlantis, who had killed Pothefit, but he seemed too frail to defend himself at all.

  They talked so fast, and it was all hard to remember, but that was part of a Lordkin’s training. Whandall listened.

  “We need a small Burning,” Jerreff said. “If we stop the Burnings altogether, the lookers won’t come here anymore, and we’ll all die of boredom. A little Burning, just enough to get it out of their system.”

  “You’re a cynic, Jerreff,” Samorty said.

  “No, just practical.”

  “If we don’t get some rain soon, there’ll be more kinless wanting to move out of the city and into our town,” Chanthor said sourly.

  “Can’t blame them. But we have no place to put them,” Qirinty said. “No jobs, either. I’ve got more servants and gardeners than I need, and without water there won’t be enough crops to feed the people we have, Samorty.”

  “Tell me the last time you didn’t see a real problem coming,” Rawanda said.

  Qirinty shrugged and produced a dagger from thin air. “Someone has to worry about the future.”

  “And you do it well. Just as Jerreff worries about the past. I’m grateful to you both.” Samorty stood. “Now, I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me. I’m on watch tonight.” He raised his voice. “Antanio, bring my armor, please.”

  “Yes, Lord,” someone called from the house. A moment later two men came out struggling under a load. They dressed Samorty in a bronze back-and-breastplate. They hung a sword longer than two Lordkin knives on a strap over one shoulder and handed him a helmet.

  “Is the watch ready?” Samorty asked.

  “Yes, Lord; they’re waiting at the gate.”

  “Armor all polished?”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  “Fine.” To his guests, he said, “Enjoy yourselves. If there’s anything you need, just ask. Rawanda, I’ll be late tonight. I have a double watch.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” the lady said.

  “She’s not sorry,” Shanda whispered. “She doesn’t even like him.”

  “Do you?” Whandall asked.

  “Samorty’s not so bad,” Shanda said. “He was very nice to my mother after my father was killed in the Burning.”

  There was so much to learn! The Lords who controlled Mother’s Day knew supplies were running out. They needed water. Whandall had never thought about water before. There were the wells, and sometimes rivers, and the fountain at Peacegiven Square, and sometimes those were nearly dry. Water was important, but Whandall didn’t know anyone who could control water.

  But this wizard had brought water once, and he was welcome here now. Because he was a wizard, or because he brought water? And how did you become a Lord in the first place?

  “Was your father a Lord, Shanda?”

  “Yes. Lord Horthomew. He was a politician and an officer of the watch, like Samorty.”

  “How was he killed?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  CHAPTER

  5

  When it was light, he waited outside Shanda’s door. It seemed like a long time until she came out, but the sun was still very low in the east. He fidgeted, and finally said, “I have to piss, and I don’t know where, and—”

  She giggled. “I told you—the room is at the far end of the hall under the stairs. Didn’t I tell you?”

  He didn’t remember. Certainly he hadn’t understood. He thanked her and ran toward the stairs.

  “Lock the door when you’re inside,” she whisper-called.

  The room below the stairs had windows too high up to look out, and a door with a latch. Inside a stream washed into a basin at his chest level, then spilled over into a trough on the floor. It was all clean, and nothing smelled. When he came out, there was a man waiting outside the door. He had the round ears of a kinless, and he looked like the man who had brought Samorty’s armor. He didn’t say anything to Whandall as he went inside.

  They ate in the kitchen. Serana fussed over them and didn’t seem surprised to find Whandall was still there.

  “We’re going to play in the big park,” Shanda told Serana. “Will you tell Miss Batty for me?”

  Serana made disapproving sounds. “I’ll tell Miss Bertrana you called her that.” She didn’t sound like she meant it. “You’ll need a lunch. I’ll fix up something. You be back by suppertime.”

  They went to the courtyard where the clothes were drying, and Whandall selected a length of rope. He went to the tree branch and threw the rope over it and tied knots in the rope. With the rope there, he felt safer, because he thought that once he was over the wall no one could catch him in the chaparral. Not without magic.

  The Lords did magic. Everyone said so. Lord Qirinty made cups dance and pulled a dagger from thin air, but it was Lord Qirinty who had wished they could do real magic. But the stove was magic. It all made Whandall’s head hurt. Learning things was not the same as understanding them…

  He started to climb the rope. When he got on the branch, he saw Shanda was climbing up. She wasn’t good at climbing.

  “Help me up,” she said.

  He reached down and took her hand and pulled her up to the branch. Then he looked around. One of the men with shovels had seen them climb up, but he only went back to work.

  “Can I get back in this way?” she asked.

  “You’re not going out.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Shanda, the chaparral is dangerous. You’ll get hurt and your stepfather will kill me.”

  “I won’t get hurt if you show me what to do.”

  “No.” He crawled along the tree limb until he was over the wall. She came right behind him. “No,” he said again, but he knew it was no use. “Go back and pull the rope to the outside of the wall.”

  Just near the wall the plants seemed weak and almost lifeless, but farther away they grew thicker. In a mile they’d be luxurious. Two miles farther were the first of the redwoods. “Those are wonderful,” he told her. “Wait till you see them close.”

  But she wasn’t avoiding the plants. He stopped her. He showed her lord’s-kiss and nettles and thorn bushes, and three kinds of touch-me. “Three leaves,” he said. “Three leaves and white berries, and it doesn’t just sit there. Watch.” He saw a stick on the ground and examined it carefully before he picked it up. Then he rubbed his hands on one end and held it by the other end, moving it closer and closer to a large vine. At a hand’s distance, the vine moved just enough to brush the stick.

  Whandall showed her an oily smear on the stick. “You wouldn’t want to touch that.”

  “Would it kill you?”

  “No, it just makes you swell up in bumps. The vine can kill you. Things it touches only hurt you.”

  She still
wanted to move too fast. He showed her some of the scars the plants had left on him when he was with the foresters. He made her follow just in his footsteps, and whenever she wanted to look at something, he stopped.

  There wasn’t the ghost of a chance they would reach the redwoods today.

  At noon they stopped and ate lunch, then started back. Whandall took his time, pointing out plants even if she’d seen them before. He’d forgotten often enough, and Kreeg had had to remind him…

  She held a branch at the broken end. Glossy red-and-green leaves grew at the tip. “What would happen if I rub that stick on my stepmother’s chair?”

  “Not the stick, the leaves. Shanda, really?”

  She nodded, grinning.

  “Well, she won’t die. She’ll itch and scratch.”

  “It’s magic?” Shanda asked. “If it’s magic it won’t work at all inside the walls. That’s what my stepfather says.”

  That would explain the cook fires, Whandall thought. But not Qirinty’s dancing cups.

  “I’m going to try it,” she said.

  He stood under the rope as she climbed it, in case she fell. She waved from the top and was gone.

  It had been a glorious day.

  He was out of the chaparral before the light of sunset died, but the night was turning misty. When Whandall reached the hilltops, he could see fog curling in from where the harbor had been. He watched it for a time, humped above the land. Then he heard shouts. Had someone seen him? Water Devils, perhaps someone worse. He couldn’t see anyone, but he ran into the fog, running as hard as he could until he was exhausted.

  Fog was all around him as he caught the stench of the Black Pit. The Pit itself was not to be seen. What he saw was dark shadows racing toward him.

  He ran back the way he had come, but he was too tired to run far. When his breath ran out he trailed to a stop.

  He hadn’t heard a sound.

  He’d seen… what had he seen? Dogs or wolves, but huge. But nothing chased him now. He had to get past the Pit to get home, and someone had chased him up the hill. A band was more dangerous than shadows.