The Burning City

by Jerry Pournelle

  The day grew hot. Shirts came off early. At noon Whitey let them stop to drink. By then Whandall knew he was an old man beyond his strength. He had never climbed like this. Everyone else was making his decisions for him… had been for years, without his realizing it… and he was just beginning to resent it.

  When Whitey and Green Stone went on, Whandall made himself follow. He was at the edge of making his son trade burdens with him… but now the way became easier.

  They’d found reserves of strength, Whandall thought, but it rapidly became ridiculous. They’d been climbing toward a scary, near vertical bare rock slope. The tilt seemed less now; it had flattened out. But the horizon eastward was tilted up like a dandy Lord’s hat! It looked like anything loose should be sliding west toward the sea.

  Green Stone said nothing of this. He must have thought he was going mad. Whitey watched them both with that Puma grin.

  Whandall bellowed, “Mooorth!”

  He just glimpsed a man-shaped streak zigzagging at amazing speed among tall stands of lordblades, near naked and all knobs, red braids flying. “Whandall Placehold!” Glimpsed and already here. “You came!”

  Whandall looked him over. Morth wore only a sun-bleached and ragged kilt, and the bird now settling on his shoulder. He was tanned near black. His feet were bare and callused hard. The Morth of twenty years ago had dressed better but was otherwise little changed. Lean, with stringy muscles and prominent ribs; high cheekbones; long, curly red hair washed and braided. He was grinning and panting like a dog… and even so, he did not seem mad.

  Whandall said, “Right. You know Whitey. Green Stone, this is Morth of Atlantis. Morth, my second son. Willow’s second son.”

  The wizard gripped the boy’s hand. “Green Stone, I’m very pleased you could come! May I see your palm?”

  The boy looked at his father, got a nod, and let Morth turn his hand palm upward in the sunlight. Morth said, “I haven’t done this since… Early marriage. Children branch off soon, here. Twins. Both girls.” The wizard pointed with a fingernail that needed tending. “No, don’t squint, you can’t see your own future. More children down the line, I think, but your path gets fuzzy…” Morth looked up with satisfaction in his eyes. “Come. I live on the peak.”

  “Can you fly us?”

  “Whandall, those days are long gone mythical! But I wove a spell for easier climbing so the Lion’s people can visit me.”

  He babbled as they climbed. “The way I left you and the children, I’m embarrassed. Of course gold fever had my mind, and I still had to lead the water elemental away from you—”

  “We saw that.”

  “—just kept going into the mountains. There’s manna untouched by any wizard, but there’s also wild magic, virgin gold. I have no idea how long I was out of my mind. I wound up on some tremendous height in the Vedasiras Range, with no gold around me, just a magical place with a view of half the world. Like this place, really, but even farther from any decent hunting. By the time I had my senses back—why do they always say that?—I was sensing everything, no path blocked within my mind, no way to concentrate on any one thing, like eating or bathing, digging a jakes, raising a shelter, tending a wound. Scatterminded. That was what had me so crazy.

  “Where was I? I was stuck on a mountaintop, sane but starving and tanned like Sheban leather. Only my own spells were keeping me alive. I found meat and firewood downslope and spent some time building my strength back. Built a talisman to get me through, then set out north for Great Hawk Bay.”

  “Rordray told us.”

  “I thought I’d lost the sprite. All that wild gold should have had it totally confused. I was careless. When that wave humped itself, I just went up the nearest mountain as quick as I could. I’ve been stuck here ever since.”

  They put their shirts back on. It had grown cold. Morth didn’t notice.

  The mountain’s peak was a fantastic lacework of stone castle. Indefensible, was Whandall’s first thought. Any Lordkin tribe could have pulled it down with their hands. What’s holding it up?

  He looked in vain for supporting beams. There was no wood to be seen anywhere. It was as if rock had melted and flowed into place. There were no corners, no straight lines. Rooms and chambers and corridors spilled over and under and between each other like the insides of a careless knifefighter, rising up into a bulb of clear glass, a wonderful wizard’s crow’s nest.

  Morth led them in.

  In a roomy ground-floor chamber the rock walls humped into chairs around a fire. Four people, four chairs, and a high ridge for a bird to perch. Dark rocks were burning in the fireplace.

  Whitecap Mountain set out both talisman boxes. He didn’t open them. The Attic’s provisions were for Morth alone. But Morth had prepared a meal for four, a stew of mountain goat, herbs, and roots. Whandall realized that he was ravenous; he saw the look in Green Stone’s eye and waved him on.

  When they had slaked their hunger a bit, the wizard said, “You came at my asking. I can pay that debt now, in refined gold.” He waved at the fireplace. “Take what you like.”

  Had Morth been using wild magic? But the gold he was pointing at had drained out of the fireplace and formed a flat pool before it froze. Whitey and Green Stone wiggled it loose, used an edge of rock to break it in roughly equal halves, and slid it into packs.

  “Energy wants to be heat,” Morth said. “The simplest thing you can do with any kind of manna is help it to become heat. I can burn gold ore without its hurting me, and the expended gold just flows out.”

  Whandall nodded. Uh huh.

  The wizard pointed to Whandall’s crotch. “What is that?” Morth caught himself. “Secret?”

  “Supposed to be. I’m not surprised you’d see it.” Whandall eased a flat metal flask out from just above his groin. “What does it look like to you?”

  “A dead spot. I can show you how to see the blind spot in your eye, but this is a bit more obvious. Nothing else looks like cold iron.”

  Whandall held it up without opening it. “Coarse gold right out of a riverbed. You wouldn’t remember when I threw gold at ensorcelled ponies? But—” Whandall waved away Morth’s attempt at an old apology. “But it broke the spell. So I carry raw gold, just in case, and it did save me once.”

  “That must be an interesting tale,” Morth said, “but I want to hear a different one. Whandall, tell me about the last time you did violence.”

  Whandall looked at him. “Violence?”

  “We last saw each other twenty-one years ago. I don’t quite remember, but I think I tried to take a girl you wanted. I think you tried to kill me,” Morth said.

  “No. Not tried. I thought I might have to.”

  “Now I hear tales of a wagonmaster whose sign is a feathered serpent. He keeps his oaths and enforces honesty with a knife of spelled bronze. Whandall, I have to know what you are.”

  “The last time I did violence.”

  “Was that it?”

  They were all waiting. Whandall said, “No, it was the last time I saw Tras Preetror. Do you remember him?”

  “The teller.”

  “Six years ago. I was up on the house with my sons, fixing the roof. A servant came to tell me I had a visitor.

  “It was Tras Preetror and a big man in part Lordsman armor who stood behind him and didn’t say anything. They’d got past the guards. Willow was serving him tea. I got her aside and she wanted me to explain what he was doing here.”

  “Hospitality,” Morth said.

  “He hadn’t asked for food and fire and shelter from the night,” Whandall said. “I made sure of that. He’d just barged in, invited himself as if he belonged there.

  “I had tea with them. He told us his tale. He’s a good teller, Morth, you remember. He’d taken ship up to Great Hawk Bay to get tales from the mers at Rordray’s Attic. I’d heard of this place from the caravans, but Tras told us a lot more.

  “He’d heard rumors from the Puma wagons about a new head man in the caravans. He t
racked the tales of a snake tattoo, east and south. Morth, I have to know that a traveler can reach me if my wagons have cheated him. The caravan tribes guided Tras straight to my house.

  “Now he’s waiting for my story, right? I showed him my cold iron case, and opened it, and blew a bit of gold dust on him and his man. I didn’t see any result, Morth, but I hate your damn lurking spell and I thought he might have used it on my gate guard.

  “‘Raw gold,’ I told him. ‘It distorts magic spells.’”

  Morth barked a laugh.

  “‘And it saved my life once,’ and I told him just enough of the fight with Armadillo Wagon to hook him. ‘Come with me, if you like, I’ll show you where the bodies are buried.’ And I stood up and led him out, still talking. ‘Tras, every time I think I’ve given up violence, something pops up.’ That got him moving, and his man jumped up and went ahead of us.

  “He didn’t seem to speak the local tongue. I switched to Condigeo. Tras’s man didn’t know that either, but hey, I hadn’t practiced in a while. I was just finishing the Tale of the Suitors when we reached the graveyard.

  “‘We bury all our dead here,’ I said, and I took them among the graves.

  “The Armadillo wagon ghosts came out to play. They couldn’t touch us, of course, but they tried to attack me. Tras was used to ghosts. He forgot that his Lordsman guard wouldn’t be. The guard was shivering and whimpering and trying to back through a boulder. Tras tried to interview one of the ghosts. I drifted behind three trees growing together, went between them and up, and hid myself.

  “I talked through the treetops. ‘Tras, there’s something I should tell you, because you’ll have to translate for me.’

  “‘Where are you?’

  “‘Behind you, Tras, always behind you. We know how to lurk. Tras, do you remember starting a riot? I tried to shut you up—’

  “‘No, Whandall Feathersnake, you can’t blame me for that!’ And he laughed.

  “His man had his nerve back. Tras spoke to him and he began circling around. He had me placed pretty quick. He pulled more armor from his pack, shin guards and stuff. Morth, I think there must have been some kind of turnover in Tep’s Town. There’s too much armor floating around in the great wide world. The gatherers from Armadillo Tribe had armor too.

  “I said, ‘Let’s test your memory again. You know how Lord Pelzed’s men left me. Do you remember?’

  “‘That’s not my fault either!’

  “‘Tras, you will be in the same condition when I leave here. If you tell your man to protect you now, there won’t be any living man to carry you away. I’ll bury you here in the graveyard. If you tell him to step aside, he can take you someplace to heal.’”

  Morth asked, “Did you think he’d do it?”

  Whandall shrugged. “I gave him the chance. I don’t know what he told his guard. When I dropped from the tree, the guard moved on me. I thought I’d have to kill him. He took some cuts and some bruises, and then he backed away protecting himself, and then he ran. Tras was gone.

  “I tracked Tras down to the crypt and, well. I kept my promise. Then I slapped him awake and gave him some water, and I told him that if his man didn’t come back for him by sunset of the next day, well. But if he did, there were stories I didn’t want to hear. ‘If I ever hear anyone describe how my household is arranged, or what kind of tea I serve, if I hear about a flask of gold sand’ “—Whandall rapped his groin—” ‘I will know who they heard it from.’ I told him I travel everywhere, from Condigeo to Great Hawk Bay—I was lying, of course. I told him people are entitled to privacy, and some will kill for it. I’m not sure he heard any of that, Morth. I was raving. That diseased looker invaded my house. Nobody but the Armadillo Clan ever did that. Ask their ghosts.”

  Morth was silent.

  “Tras wasn’t hurt any worse than Samorty’s men hurt me, but of course he’s older. I don’t know if he healed. He was gone at the next day’s sunset.”

  And to hell with what Morth thought of him. Coming here wasn’t Whandall’s idea.

  The night had turned cold, fire or no. They wore the cloaks Whitey had insisted they carry. Morth donned an impressive robe.

  Whitecap Mountain broke the silence. “I know why the town of Fair Chance came to be deserted.”

  “That’s a good story, but a partial truth,” Morth said. “I sense a tribal secret at its heart. You won’t tell that. As for me, my tale hasn’t happened yet. My tale is that I must destroy the water sprite that wants my life. Living here is driving me mad.”

  “Go inland,” Whitey said as if he was tired of repeating it.

  “When I came here I was running from a wave. I climbed, thinking that water could not flow up so steep a slope. Water doesn’t have to! A wave isn’t a moving block of water, it’s a pattern moving through water. The sprite can flow like a wave. It came to me through the ground water. It lives below me. When I go down to the spring, I go fast. I’ll show you tomorrow, if you like.”

  Green Stone asked, “Is that safe?”

  “Oh, you can watch from above. Get a view of the immediate danger. Whandall, what I want from you and your caravan is transport. Take me inland, out of its reach. Take me to the Hemp Road.”

  “You’d settle there?” Willow would love that!

  “Oh, no,” Morth said. “I’m going to finish this. I’m going to kill the water sprite. I think I have to return to the Burning City to do that.”

  Whandall said, “You’re been trapped on a mountain for twenty years. This thing has hunted you for more than forty, and now you’ve decided to kill it. Is that about the size of it?”

  Morth grinned in the yellow light of burning gold. “I can’t tell you all of it.”

  “Morth, you can’t even tell me part of it. You can’t even get off this mountain!”

  “That I might manage. I’d have to outrun the elemental. Water’s natural path is downhill. I might run myself to death. But with transport to carry me farther, I might make it.”

  “And then you might just think you’d done all a man could do!”

  “Once upon a time I thought I could rob Yangin-Atep’s life. Steal the fire god’s manna.”

  Nobody but Whandall laughed. The others had barely heard of Yangin-Atep; they couldn’t know his power. Whandall asked, “What stopped you?”

  “I saw less evidence of the god every decade. Yangin-Atep must be almost mythical by now, and I could never find where his life is centered. But the hope kept me there much longer than I should have stayed.”

  Whandall knew he was staring. “Why didn’t you ask? Yangin-Atep lives in the cook fires!”

  And he knew Carver’s look: appalled and amused. Whandall had never learned to hoard information.

  Morth paled. “In the fires. I’m a fool. I never asked the thieves!”

  They were still arguing when it became impossible not to sleep. Whandall didn’t remember whether he saw flowing rock, but the stone chairs were all stone couches in the morning.

  CHAPTER

  55

  Morth stopped at a shallow rain-etched dip in the rock, damp at the bottom, to pick up a bucket. Then he led them to the edge of an abrupt drop. He pointed down along a bare rock face.

  “See the streak where the rock changes color? That’s overflow from the spring.”

  Whitey said, “Right.”

  Morth dropped over the edge.

  Whandall could have caught his robe—would have, were he a child or a friend. But Morth wasn’t falling. He was running down the mountain’s side, weaving through the rubble. Once Whandall would not have believed what he saw. Morth dropped as fast as a falling man, zigzagging toward the gleam of water that marked the spring. He ran past it, dragging the bucket, and was already moving uphill, laughing like a maniac.

  Water splashed up after him. Morth led it, still faster than a man, but he had been moving faster yesterday.

  The men threw themselves backward as the wave came over the crest. Morth ran across the dip, em
ptying his bucket halfway, then turned and gestured. The wave crashed into the dip.

  Morth was panting hard as they came up, but he was laughing too. Water half filled the dip. It lay almost still, rippling as if in a strong wind.

  Whitey asked, “Wouldn’t you love to be watching, first time he tried that?”

  “I take it you can’t trap it?” Whandall asked Morth.

  “No, and enchanting the spring doesn’t trap it either. A water elemental is a fundamental thing, and exceedingly slippery.”

  “All right. If this works, you’ll owe Puma Tribe and my family too. Puma you can pay in refined gold,” Whandall said. “Right, Whitey?”

  Whitey nodded. “But ask Lilac. We change any oaths by mutual agreement only.”

  “My family might ask other things,” Whandall said. “Tattoos, for instance. If we can get you as far as Road’s End, the New Castle will ask three boons.”

  “I don’t believe I can duplicate that tattoo.”

  Green Stone’s disappointment didn’t show at all. The boy was a natural trader. Whandall said. “We’ll think of something. You pay in magic. Three tasks.”

  “I offered one.”

  “Did I accept? It got pretty sleepy last night.”

  Morth looked into Whandall’s grin and decided not to make that claim. He said, “One when I’m free of the mountain. One at Road’s End. One when the sprite is myth.”

  “Morth, you have no reason to think you can myth out a water elemental!”

  Morth said nothing.

  It’s two wishes, then. “Done. It’s… midmorning? And the sprite wouldn’t stop us from going down? Whitey?”

  “It stops Morth. Only trouble I ever had,” the Puma said, “I tried to stop at the spring for a drink. Wagonmaster, I still think you should have taken gold. Wizard, we’ll be down before nightfall. The wagon will move at first light, north to the trail and then east. We don’t stop.”

  “If I don’t get down alive, the talisman box is yours, and the provisions in it. I renewed the spell. I’ll enchant this one too before I go down.”