The Burning City

by Jerry Pournelle

  And Whandall asked, “Now?”

  “Yes, O eager one—” Whandall was halfway down the stairs. All the fine loot would be gone! Wanshig shouted down at him. “Wait! Where are the rest of us?”

  Whandall stopped himself with an effort. There was a surging in his blood and a heat in his loins. Both were familiar, but they had never been this strong. The Whandall who once sat on Mother’s Mother’s lap and listened to stories of a better time watched the rest of himself losing control and whispered its disapproval.

  “Where are they?” Wanshig demanded. “Resalet, Shastern, the other men? The boys?”

  “Gathering!”

  “Whandall, I thought Resalet would wait!” Wanshig clambered down after him. “He’s gone. All the men are gone.”

  “Shig, they’re just out gathering and partying with everyone else.”

  “Resalet has been talking about Morth of Atlantis,” Wanshig said. He looked up the stairs to see Elriss staring down at him.

  “Come back,” Elriss said.

  “I think they went to Morth’s shop,” Wanshig said. With an effort he turned away from Elriss and followed Whandall outside. “I think they went as soon as the fires started.”

  “What would he want there?” Whandall demanded.

  “Powders. Hemp,” Wanshig said.

  “Resalet hates that stuff!”

  Wanshig laughed.

  “Resalet’s afraid of Morth,” Whandall said. “What about ‘Never remember a killing after the Burning?’”

  They were back in the street. Where the granary had been, the new restaurant was burning: a hard-luck site. Eastward, a shouting match over who had first claim to an ornate desk was about to turn violent, while someone disappeared with the matching chair.

  Wanshig looked back to the Placehold. “Who’ll watch the women?” he demanded. “Someone has to stay.” He looked at Whandall and saw almost uncontrolled eagerness. “And I know, I know, it won’t be you, little brother.”

  A kinless hurried past pulling a cart. “Help me!” the kinless shouted. A dozen youths, Serpent’s Walk, Flower Market, Bull Pizzle all mixed together, ran after him, shouting and laughing. The cart overturned almost at Wanshig’s feet, and the kinless merchant ran on unencumbered. Rings with red stones spilled out of the wreckage and Wanshig scooped up several. He handed one to Whandall.

  “Ours!” a Bull Pizzle shouted, but he was laughing. He saw Whandall’s elaborate tattoo, looked up to the walls to see the Serpent’s Walk signs, and eyed Whandall nervously. No one moved for a moment. Then the Bull Pizzle laughed again and dove into the mob at the cart. They tore the cart apart and left in a bunch, carrying dresses and trousers and a coil of rope.

  There was smoke to the west. Wanshig turned that way, hurrying. “Whandall, you’ve been spying on Morth. Is there anything our fathers should know about him? Anything that might hurt them?”

  That was why he’d gone to Morth, wasn’t it? Months ago. Whandall thought he remembered other reasons. Morth was nearly a friend. But those memories conflicted with the fire in his veins. Whandall said, “He told me about the spell that killed Pothefit. He won’t use that again. But you don’t exactly ask a magician, ‘Please tell me what you use to stop Lordkin from taking things.’”

  “Then what exactly do you ask him?”

  “I watch. I listen. Shig, some things he just picks up and sells. Other things he waves his hands or mutters under his breath. Some of those, it’s never the same twice, so maybe he’s bluffing. I can’t tell you what to take.” He stopped, remembering. “Shig, I don’t think Morth will be there at all.”

  “He lives at the shop.”

  “He’ll be afraid. He didn’t mean to hurt Pothefit!”

  They were jogging now, moving wide around gatherers staggering under loads of valuables or trash. Whandall stopped suddenly.

  Men his own age were gathering a kinless woman. It looked like fun. More: he knew her, Dream-Lotus Innkeep of the western edge, four years his elder and very lovely. He’d never quite worked up the nerve to approach her, to learn if she would have the love of a young Lordkin, and now he need not ask.

  Wanshig tried to pull him away. Whandall resisted. “Come on, Shig—”

  “No. Elriss would kill me.” He looked into Whandall’s face and gave up. “I’ll go on ahead. Maybe I can get them to hold up.” His grip closed like a vise on Whandall’s arm. “You follow me, yes? You don’t stop again.”

  “Yes, Shig, yes.”

  CHAPTER

  23

  He was ready to follow Shig. Pulling his clothing on, checking his own belongings, trading jokes with the others, happy—when he saw that the man now on top of Dream-Lotus was strangling her!

  Before the sight had quite registered, Whandall’s knife was out and moving in a downward arc. Neatly, precisely, he sliced the man’s left ear off.

  The man bellowed. His rutting urge had his lower body in thrall, but his head and shoulders tried to turn, tried to reach his belt and knife.

  The man who held Dream-Lotus’s wrists had only begun to react. Horrified at the strangling, or horrified at Whandall’s meddling: no way to tell. Someone else bellowed and snatched at him. Whandall rolled across the strangler’s back, notched his other ear, then ran, slashing backhand at his nose and unexpectedly nicking the tip and upper lip. The strangler let go of Dream-Lotus’s throat and stood up. Dream-Lotus sucked air in a whistling shriek while Whandall ran.

  He’d once heard a man say that strangling a woman would make her react, that it was a greater kick. He’d thought that was disgusting; he thought so now.

  There were too many following him to stop and make a stand. Skill was no use here. Run! The strangler himself was in the lead, legs pumping hard, barefoot to the hips. Big guy, and scarred, under a tattooed orchid.

  But the knife, so quick! Maybe he could have talked? Persuaded the man to… what? Nobody plays at sweet reason during a Burning.

  Through here! Rigmaster’s ropewalk was a long building with no windows but plenty of hemp in storage. It had started to burn. Maybe the strangler would step on a live coal. Whandall caught a lungful of smoke, realized his mistake, and swerved away, rightward around the pall of pale smoke, then hard left. Someone ran out of the building, a kinless carrying a bundle. He saw Whandall, screamed, and ran hard, still carrying what looked like carved wooden blocks. They’d have burned, but what were they? If Whandall weren’t running for his life he’d have found out—

  When Yangin-Atep possessed a man, was this what he felt? It didn’t feel divine. For that moment he’d felt so wonderful, he’d been so grateful to Dream-Lotus. Then someone was hurting her, and the chance to rescue her was all he could have desired. It felt very natural to cut the strangler, and not at all divine.

  Feet pounding hard, Whandall completed his arc around the cloud of hemp smoke. The strangler was a trace of shadow, and yes! he was cutting across, through the rope factory itself! There were other shadows in there: the strangler’s friends.

  Maybe they’d all chase Whandall and let Dream-Lotus go. Maybe the strangler would outrun the rest, use all his strength catching up, to die under Whandall’s knife. Would Dream-Lotus be pleased, grateful for such a gift?

  Maybe not. They were squeamish, the kinless, and after all, Whandall too had raped her.

  Behind Whandall the strangler ran out of the burning structure, choking and half blinded and reeling with the effects of hemp smoke. He slowed, hearing the laughter that followed him. He looked down, realized his nakedness, and began to laugh despite the blood that flowed from nose and ears. Those behind him staggered about in a giggling fit. They collapsed in laughter as more of the hemp smoke blew past them.

  Whandall slowed too, to laugh and gesture, then ran on. Which way was Morth of Atlantis?

  As the danger faded, Whandall remembered his thirst. Water was what he would be gathering if he dared stop. What would Resalet expect to find in Morth’s shop, of all places? Wanshig must be wrong!


  But Whandall kept running, because he knew in his gut that Wanshig was right.

  As he ran, his mind caught up.

  The scarf! Resalet thought he could gather a tattoo from Morth of Atlantis!

  Tras Preetror was interviewing a handful of gatherers in Silda’s Handmeals. The gatherers were preening, proud that their lives would be made legend in lands they’d never see. That son of a dog had helped to spread the Burning beyond its reasonable bounds. If Whandall could catch Tras alone—

  You don’t stop again. Whandall didn’t stop. His head was clearing.

  He should be nearing Morth’s shop.

  Morth’s defenses might have preserved him—but might also be used up by now. Random looters wouldn’t know what was safe to take. He hoped his brothers and uncles had waited. He should have come sooner.

  Some landmarks were missing: the belfry, the Houses of Teaching. The tallest structures must have made the best torches.

  That glare of light and heat to his left: Wood’s lumberyard? Lordkin had piled beams into a tent shape to burn better. Just beyond it—

  Morth’s shop?

  Matters were not as he expected. Buildings around the site were burned, charred, but the shop of Morth of Atlantis was a flat circle of gray ash. Whandall felt a fist closing in his chest. Nothing had survived.

  Those were bones… skulls. Five skulls.

  Maybe Morth was among them. Maybe Whandall’s family was avenged.

  Maybe Morth had bent the god’s exuberant rage to his own will, to punish looters.

  Whandall wouldn’t know until he reached home. He couldn’t make himself hurry. He couldn’t go straight home: the strangler’s Flower Market street-brothers hadn’t had time to forget Whandall’s face.

  He saw a whooping Lordkin drop a howling dog into a well to die. That struck him as stupid, but there were four Lordkin and they were big. He left them alone. He found clumps of kinless holding off jeering Lordkin with makeshift weapons, and he left them alone too. In the back of his mind he could see himself and his kin, and in truth, the whole thing was beginning to look stupid.

  Others might have thought so. Whandall saw more of caution than of Yangin-Atep’s manic joy. The Burning was ending, though coals still burned.

  The family cook pot had been stolen from the courtyard. The men hadn’t come home.

  They never came home. Even Wanshig had disappeared. Whandall at fifteen was the oldest man in the Placehold.

  CHAPTER

  24

  The men were gone—and Mother’s Mother never showed surprise. She’d lived in a world of her own for years. She came back to reality long enough to organize the household. The women took her orders, perhaps because they were terrified.

  She took time to hold Whandall as she might have held a small child. “You’re the oldest now,” she said. “Keep the Placehold! I’ve always been proud of you. You saved your brothers before; now you have to do it again. Keep the Placehold!”

  It was as if she had waited half her life for this. Now, tasks done, she slipped away, back to some pleasant place that no one else could see.

  Elriss was pregnant. She wept for Wanshig and stayed in the women’s rooms. Mother was more practical. In the first light of the morning after the burning she found Whandall.

  “I have to leave.”

  “Why?” he asked. They had never been very close. With a new baby every year she had little time for him even though too many died. He’d spent more time with Mother’s Mother. “Will you be back?”

  “I’ll come back if I can,” Mother said. “Elriss will take care of the youngest. You and Shastern can take care of yourselves. Whandall, there’s no food and no water.”

  “We need you to get food from the Lords,” Whandall said.

  “Elriss and Wess and Mother—three’s enough. The Lords won’t give any more than three can gather,” Mother said. She lifted her carpet bag. “I’ll be back if I can come back.”

  “But where will you be?”

  She didn’t answer. Whandall watched her go down the stairs. There she joined two other Placehold women, women who had both left babies in the Placehold’s care. He watched them make their wary way out into the street, out into the Burning, and wondered if he’d ever see Mother again.

  Three hours after first light Shastern and five younger boys came in pulling a cart. Each had an armful of stuff, clothing, enough rope to trade for a big cook pot if they could find someone who’d trade. There was a small cook pot in the cart. There was food amid the junk, but some of it was spoiled and the rest would have to be eaten in a hurry.

  They traded whooping memories of the Burning. One by one they turned serious when they saw there were no men. The younger boys gathered around Whandall in the big room on the second floor. Girls came out to join them. They all stared at Whandall Placehold.

  Shastern demanded, “Where are the men?”

  “Gone,” Whandall said. He didn’t tell them what he suspected, that all including Wanshig had been blasted by Morth of Atlantis. Was there anything he could have done? If he’d stayed with Wanshig, would all the men have lived?

  “But they’ll be back,” Shastern said. “They’re just…” He saw Whandall’s face. “What do we do?” Shastern asked. “When the word gets out, there’ll be men come to gather the Placehold!”

  “What do we eat?” Rubyflower asked. Her ten-year-old eyes were as big as dinner plates.

  “How much food do we have?” Whandall asked.

  Rubyflower shook her head. “I don’t know. A week before Mother’s Day we usually have more in the pantry than we have now.”

  “And it’s two weeks to Mother’s Day,” Whandall mused. “Have you heard anything about Mother’s Day? Will the Lords come? Will they bring the gifts?”

  No one knew.

  Whandall sent Ilthern to find out. “Don’t talk,” Whandall said. “Just listen. See what they’re saying in Peacegiven Square. Listen to the Lordsmen and their clerks. Maybe they’ll say something.”

  “It won’t matter,” Rubyflower said. “If they had Mother’s Day tomorrow, we’d never get the cart back from Peacegiven Square! Someone would gather everything!”

  The little girl was right, Whandall thought. Only four men in the Placehold carried knives; only two wore tattoos. Placehold itself might be defended by barricading the stairs. It wouldn’t burn; the Burning was already fading. “Bring up rocks,” Whandall told Rubyflower. “Get the other girls. Boys too. Ecohar, you go with them. Bring up rocks.”

  “Here?”

  “Here and on the roof. Try not to look frantic.”

  “And what do we eat, Whandall?” Shastern asked quietly when the smaller children were gone for rocks. “Rubyflower’s right—we’ll never get a cart home.”

  “Whandall will think of something.” Wess spoke from behind him, possession and pride in her voice.

  Vinspel had been killed in a knife fight, ten days back. They’d had to tell Wess. No man would tell her, or tell any woman, that Vinspel had been fighting for another woman. The other Placehold women liked Wess too, but they would talk.

  And now Whandall could only think that no man could keep her from him.

  She was the oldest girl in the room. Mother’s Mother was leader of the Placehold, but she was somewhere else inside her mind. Mother had been the real leader, usually, when she didn’t have flasks and powders. But now she was gone. If Wanshig came back, Elriss would be leader. Now—

  Now, Whandall’s woman would have the job, honors and duties alike. It came to Whandall that he didn’t really know what that meant. He knew that Mother’s Mother, then Mother, had kept the keys to the pantry. Neither seemed to cook or sew or clean. Others did that. But without someone to make it happen, they didn’t.

  Two children began to wail. Wess grabbed the oldest, a six-year-old, and shook him. “Quiet. Let Whandall think,” she said. “Go with Rubyflower and get some rocks. All of you, shoosh! Get rocks we can throw from the roof. Not you, Rai
mer. Get some water for the roof garden. Not drinking water; dirty water will do fine. Come on, all of you—let’s get to work.”

  Whandall nodded. “Rocks. Good,” he said. “Shastern, you help Wess. Find some way to barricade the stairway too. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Where are you going?” Shastern asked.

  “Pelzed.”

  He’d have to tell Pelzed how helpless the Placehold was. That would be dangerous, but Pelzed would find out anyway. Better to tell him straight off. Pelzed—Lord Pelzed—owed Whandall a favor. Would he remember? Would he care? But it was the only place Whandall could go.

  Pelzed had led a band toward Lord’s Town. Whandall couldn’t follow there. He’d wait at Pelzed’s roofless house.

  But Pelzed was back.

  Three of Pelzed’s women were going through a stack of gatherings.

  Pelzed shouted when he saw Whandall. “Whandall! Come have some tea!”

  Whandall approached warily. He waved to indicate the loot. “From Lord’s Town? Lord.”

  Pelzed grinned. “Not exactly,” he said. “Sit down.”

  “Yes, Lord Pelzed.”

  “Heard you’d had some trouble,” Pelzed said. “Wanshig’s gone? Some of the other men.”

  “Yes, Lord. Lord, you once said you owed me a favor. We need help, Lord.”

  Pelzed poured tea and pushed the cup over to Whandall. “Tell me.”

  “All the men are gone, Lord,” Whandall said. “There’s only me and the younger boys. The women will try to find men, but…”

  Pelzed nodded. There was no expression in his eyes at all as he sat lost in thought. Finally he said, “Are you asking for my protection?”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  “Why not ask the Lordsmen?”

  “Lord, there are lines a hundred people long in front of every clerk in Peacegiven Square,” Whandall said. “And what good would it do? Men come to gather the Placehold. We send for the Lordsmen, and maybe they come and maybe not, but they won’t come in time to do us any good. We have our own Lord here. Why go to the Lords of Lordshills?”