The Burning City

by Jerry Pournelle

  But they’d climbed to the top of the world, and here was a small neat garden and a fireplace and an animal skin shelter set on poles. Stew was simmering. Whandall was suddenly ravenous.

  Morth lay by the fire. He looked dead.

  The Stone Needles Man pulled the stew off the coals. “Don’t try to eat yet. Burn yourself.”

  “Morth?” Whandall knelt by the wizard. Morth was snoring. Whandall shook him. It was too much like shaking a corpse.

  “What happened to him?”

  “Got curious. You got a bowl? Cup? Good.” He took Whandall’s cup and scooped stew into it. Whandall blew to cool it. Tasted.

  “Good!” Meat, carrots, corn, bell pepper, something else.

  “Sage and parsley, this time. It’s always the same except for the spices. I have to grow the parsley. The rest is all around us.” And the old man chuckled.

  “Feels like I’ve known you forever,” Whandall said. “I was trying to remember your name.”

  “Born Cath—no, Catlony. Barbarians called me Cathalon. Later I called myself Tumbleweed. Just kept rolling along, following the manna. Wound up here. Call me Hermit.”

  “I was Whandall Placehold, and Seshmarl. Now Whandall Feathersnake. What happened to Morth?”

  At the sound of his name, Morth rolled out of his sleep. “Hungry!” he said. He scooped a bowl of Hermit’s stew. Whandall tried to talk to him, but Morth paid no attention.

  Hermit said, “Came up here this morning. We talked. He’s a braggart.”

  “He’s got a lot to brag about.”

  “You know, I may be the safest man in the world. The oldest love spell in the world is parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. I grow the parsley and the rest of it covers the whole mountain. You’re inside a love spell.”

  Whandall looked around him in surprise. “Great view too!”

  “I never learned to talk to people. Reason I kept moving. Never liked anyone I met. They never liked me. Anyone who can reach me up here, he’s welcome.”

  “I’m lucky you didn’t send me back down for your lunch,” Whandall said. “I’d have gone.”

  The old man’s face twisted. “Idiot. You’d starve on the way! And be climbing in the dark!”

  “Hah. You’re inside a love spell too!”

  The Hermit stared, horror widening his eyes. Whandall laughed affectionately. He asked again, “What happened to Morth?”

  “Hungry!” said Morth. “Burm my mouf. Curf!” He went on eating.

  “Morth of Atlantis wanted manna,” the Hermit said. “And food. I did eat his lunch, so I started some stew. But he wanted manna, so I said, ‘Climb one of the fingers and touch the tip. Get yourself a real dose.’”

  “Fingers?”

  Hermit waved at a stone pillar twelve feet tall. “Morth heaved himself up to the top of that. When he floated down I could perceive the manna blazing up in him. He said, ‘Yes! There’s a god in there. Under. Feel a little sleepy.’ And he curled up and stayed that way till now.”

  “Fingers? What’s going on?” Suspicion… wouldn’t come.

  “Giant with ten thousand fingers. I’ve tried to feel its thoughts, but I can’t. Too self-centered. I was that way when I came up here, and it’s been so long. If I lost touch with the manna hereabouts, I’d dry up like an Egyptian corpse.”

  “But there’s a god under the ground?”

  “Feathersnake, did a god touch you? There’s a trace in your aura.”

  “Yangin-Atep and Coyote both.”

  “So another touch wouldn’t kill you.”

  A giant under the ground?

  Suspicion would have made sense, but the Stone Needles Man wouldn’t let him hurt himself, would he? He couldn’t believe it. Whandall climbed the stone finger and laid the palm of his hand on top.

  The land was in a coma of starvation.

  Once these expanses of narcotic white weed had lured dragons out of the sky, down to the ridges where they could feed. Then stone fingers closed on them and they were lost. The bones of dragons remained, ossified stone ribs.

  But dragons were gone now. Ten thousand huge fingers poked from the ground, questing for prey gone mythical. Flesh alone was not enough to feed a near god. Mammoths were big enough and had magic too, but they ate the dragon nip and avoided the fingers. A mammoth’s long nose was perfect for that.

  The Giant had been dying for ages, in a sleep as deep as death.

  “Sleepy,” Whandall said, stumbling back to the fire. “Hungry,” as a whiff of stew reached him. He scooped more stew from the pot, working around Morth’s hand, barely aware that they were both burning themselves. He ate and then slept.

  “I remember when dragon nip grew taller,” Hermit said. It was morning, and he wasn’t likely to be interrupted. Morth and Whandall were eating. “Thousand years ago. I think it learned to grow shorter than what dragons could pull up. Plants do fight back, you know.”

  The pot was clean. Whandall licked his bowl. He wondered if he was being rude, but the Hermit was amazingly rude, and so what?

  Morth asked, “What did you tell them, down there?”

  “Nothing,” Whandall said.

  “They’ll be going crazy. I’d better send a message.”

  The rainbow-colored crow came at his call. It settled on his shoulder, listened to a whispered message, then winged away.

  Morth said, “We should be going too.” He didn’t stand up.

  Hermit picked up a hollowed-out ram’s horn. He asked, “Want to ride down?”

  “Ride?”

  The Hermit blew into the horn. Morth and Whandall winced away from a blast of sound, the sound of Behemoth screaming. Faintly an echo rose from below. No, wait, that wasn’t…

  From behind a granite mass too small to hide him, Behemoth stepped into view, and reached. Whandall threw himself flat beneath nostrils big enough to swallow a wagon. “I believe I’ll walk—”

  “Yes, indeed,” Morth babbled, “but thank you very much—”

  “Come visit any time,” Hermit said. “People do visit. They never hurt me or rob me. It’s getting rid of them, that’s the trick. They taught me to be rude.”

  “They did not,” Morth said immediately.

  The Hermit snickered. “Well. No, but I get tired. The cursed language changes every few years and I have to learn to talk all over again. I do get lonely, though. Come again.”

  The wagon was in sight, and Green Stone was closer yet and climbing. Morth said, “It wasn’t just different customs. He’s crazy.”

  Whandall smiled. “Likable, though. He keeps giving things away. Anyone who comes here for the spices will have to climb, I think, and be glad he did.”

  Then Green Stone, gasping too hard to speak, was nonetheless demanding where they’d been for two days and nights.

  Three bison-drawn wagons were in view, way off down the road.

  When Whandall’s wagon reached the flats, they were closer yet. His own bison were glad to stop and graze while they waited. Whitey loped off west to make contact.

  Feathersnake’s other wagon and two Puma wagons pulled up around sunset. Carver told him, “We were worried. A talking bird isn’t a message we could verify.”

  “Did bandits give you any trouble?”

  “No. This last village, there wasn’t anyone in it. You didn’t—”

  “I never touched them! They just ran away. Must have thought you’d bring Behemoth down on them.”

  CHAPTER

  59

  The two Puma wagons rolled past the New Castle’s gate. The Feathersnake wagons stopped. Green Stone helped Lilac down. Whandall waved Morth back before Morth could join them.

  Where was everyone? “We sent the cursed bird,” he said.

  “We’ll take care of it,” Green Stone said. “Go on, Father.”

  “Tell Willow that I have brought Morth of Atlantis and will take him to Road’s End. He will not be coming in.”

  “Right.”

  Whandall set his own wagon movin
g and looked behind to see Carver’s wagon following. They had left considerable cargo in Green Stone’s care. He didn’t intend to pay storage and tax on all of this!

  Every wagon fit to roll was gone from Road’s End. The two Puma wagons were on their sides, stripped of their covers and their wheels. Puma guarded stacks of cargo. Carver went searching for the repair crew. Chief Farthest Land’s men had to be found to open the warehouses—

  “I could do that,” Morth said.

  “Better if they don’t know it. Hello, that’s…” Whandall called, “Twisted Cloud!”

  “Whandall Feathersnake!” Twisted Cloud made her way toward them, but she was limping. Two boys ran ahead of her. “You’re back in good time!”

  “Yes, but why aren’t you with the caravan?”

  “I broke an ankle. Patch of mud wasn’t dry yet. It’s almost healed, but I couldn’t stand at all when the caravan rolled. I had to send Clever Squirrel.” Her daughter, Coyote’s daughter. Whandall’s daughter, some would say. An obligation if Twisted Cloud cared to make it one, but she never had, beyond the wagon Whandall had bought for her daughter. “The wagon’s hers, and she’s old enough now.”

  “She was born old enough. Twisted Cloud, this is Morth of Atlantis, of whom you’ve heard tales. You’re both wizards—”

  “Yes, I can see the glow,” Twisted Cloud said.

  “And you, there’s a familiarity. Like Whandall. A god has been in you?”

  She blushed. “Well… yes.”

  The boys watched and listened with interest. Boys would not be introduced until they discovered their names… as Green Stone found malachite in a cave, or as his father’s tales of the Black Pit shaped Saber Tooth’s dreams.

  “Did you come to join the caravan?” Twisted Cloud asked.

  Morth said, “Yes, to reach the Burning City.”

  Whandall said, “I fear Morth has been sniffing raw gold—”

  “Whandall, I can’t tell you more! Your mind is open to too many gods, and the gods of fire and trickery all seem to be related.”

  Twisted Cloud said, “But the wagons are all gone!”

  Whandall said, “Yes. Morth, they left when we did, as soon as the Hemp Road became passable. You’ll be here until spring. That gives you most of a year to come to your senses!”

  “And then the caravan goes only as far as the Firewoods,” Twisted Cloud said.

  “Curse,” Morth said. “I’d lose all the power I gained on the mountain.”

  Whandall noticed that the band around the Puma wagons had grown. “I need to do some business,” he said.

  “I’ll scrape up a meal for us,” Twisted Cloud offered.

  “Here, I brought back some spices.”

  Chief Farthest Land’s men made meticulous records as Whandall stored his gatherings. They took a percentage of the estimated value. It was worth it to most traders, and to Whandall too, up to a point. The New Castle was the only hold in these parts that could be called safer than the Chief’s safehouse.

  Then again, like the Spotted Coyotes, or the Toronexti in Tep’s Town, Chief Farthest Land insisted.

  No doubt the Chief knew—very likely his clerks knew—that not everything Whandall brought home came this far. He had never made a point of it, and Whandall didn’t abuse the privilege.

  Whandall completed arrangements for repairs on his own wagons. Puma had arrived first; their wagons would be repaired first. Give them Morth’s preserving box full of Whandall’s spices to carry to Great Hawk Bay. They’d be back before the autumn rains.

  He returned to Twisted Cloud’s fire and a rosemary-flavored bison stew.

  Morth’s youth, restored in the Stone Needles, had gone to hale middle age. Twisted Cloud had put on some weight since their encounter with Coyote, and birthed six children too, four still alive. Still a good-looking woman, she had a round face made for laughter.

  “The tribes just don’t get it,” she chortled. “They think I should have seen it coming and walked around the mud patch!”

  “It’s like looking at the tip of your own nose,” Morth agreed. “Your own future is all blurred. I saw the great wave from the sinking of Atlantis and missed the sinking itself!”

  “Got clear, though.”

  “Lucky. Fated. Whandall told you? But there are things he couldn’t have known….”

  There were three guesthouses at Road’s End: low pits with tents over them. Rutting Deer and Mountain Cat ran these and lived in one. In the absence of her wagon, Twisted Cloud was using one. Her boys had moved Morth’s baggage into the third while he took care of some business matters.

  Now the wizards were verbally dancing around each other, each trying to learn what the other knew, hoarding secrets for later trade. Whandall tried to follow their talk, feeling more and more left out. Presently he went off to his travel nest to sleep.

  CHAPTER

  60

  Without a wagon and team it was only a four-hour walk home. Whandall and Carver didn’t hurry. Evening fell, and a long twilight. It might be the last peace they saw in some time.

  The pile of goods was gone from the New Castle’s gate. They parted there. Carver went on to the Ropewalk. Whandall went in.

  The New Castle was a household disrupted by sudden marriage. Willow had put Green Stone and Lilac in the guesthouse. Stone’s room wasn’t enough to house two, and the noise… well, newlyweds were expected to be noisy. It was hours before Whandall and Willow could retire.

  The bird had returned to Willow. “He’s a good messenger,” she said, “but next time, you speak the messages. I still flinch from Morth’s voice.”

  “I will. And we have a wish coming.” Whandall grinned in the dark. “Yes, we have a wizard’s boon. There were two, but I used one. You awake?”

  “Tell it.”

  He launched into his story. “Morth blessed Lilac and Green Stone’s marriage,” he concluded. “Now we’ve reached Road’s End, so he owes us a second wish. He’ll find someone to take him to Tep’s Town. He’ll die there, I think. We should collect before he goes south, but that won’t be before spring.”

  “What shall we wish for?”

  “Something for Saber Tooth? If he was affianced I wouldn’t even hesitate, but we’ve got a married daughter now. We can give the wish to Hawk In Flight, or her firstborn. Too bad we’ll never get our third wish.”

  “Our lives are perfect?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just asking.” Willow stirred in his arms. “I thought of asking Morth to leave our family alone forever.”

  “That’s easy magic.”

  “A waste. Some gift for our children’s children? Ask him if he can do that.”

  Hawk In Flight had never been happier than when planning her own marriage. Now, seven weeks a wife, she entered the field as an expert. She and Willow began planning a formal wedding for Lilac and Green Stone when the caravan returned.

  The celebrants were seen only at mealtimes.

  Whandall kept himself occupied.

  The bison had been well kept, but they needed exercise. The men who worked the New Castle had complaints they could not bring to Willow. He must hear them out and make judgments. Two must be married. Two needed a shaman’s attention (and six thought they did). A woman must be put on the road. Her man went with her, and now they’d need a new blacksmith.

  Whandall went up to the graveyard by day to pull weeds and tend flowers. Willow visited the hives nearby. Whandall didn’t go with her. Willow must keep treaty with the queen bees; they didn’t deal well with men.

  “But you didn’t get stung?”

  “No,” said Willow. She showed him bees still exploring her hands.

  “Well, rumor says the Tep’s Town bees are above First Pines this year. They mate with local queens, and then all the worker bees grow little poison daggers. Twisted Cloud calls them killer bees.”

  He went to the graveyard again at midnight to keep his peace with the dead, lest they grow restless. It was always freshly su
rprising, how the dead accumulated over a man’s lifetime. Old friends; two children; no other family, and that was rare.

  Whandall talked to them, reminiscing, while they hovered around him. It was hard to tell their thoughts from his own.

  The twisted ghosts from Armadillo Wagon had raged at him for years after that business at the Ropewalk. Tonight they were not to be seen. Ghosts did fade… or perhaps the fools had tired of his jeering.

  Three days of that, and then Lilac joined her prospective mother and sister. The servantwomen were drawn into that circle. The servantmen and Green Stone showed the same sense of abandonment that Whandall could feel nibbling at his own composure.

  “The magic goes away,” he told Green Stone. They were where the women couldn’t hear. “It’s the great secret of the age.”

  Green Stone said, “The honeymoon, we tell each other it fades. Father, it happened too soon.”

  “Maybe you started early? I’m not asking,” Whandall said, “only musing.”

  Green Stone was silent.

  “Hey, this place will survive without us. I should supervise repair of the wagons. Three days. Want to come along?” He could exercise the bison too. Hitch all six to one wagon.

  The Puma wagons were upright again, looking almost new and ready to go. There were no bison about, nor Puma tribesmen either. They would be out finding fresh bison to catch and tame.

  Two of the repair crew were about. He’d expected to find more. They tried to rag him about hitching six bison to one wagon. Whandall made up a story about a troll sometimes seen on the road. The troll was willing to bargain, a bison for two men. This time they’d missed him. Might meet him coming back.

  Whandall spent several hours inspecting his wagons and arranging repairs, taking it as an opportunity to teach Green Stone.

  Then he and Green Stone made their way toward White Lightning’s workshop. Lightning wouldn’t be awake in daylight, but it was near sunset and the days were getting long.

  Most boys found their own names, but White Lightning had been named for the lightning blast that left his pregnant mother blind and deaf for nearly a year. The baby she bore had skin as white as snow. He was a good glassworker, strong and skilled, but he couldn’t travel. The sun would burn him badly.