The Burning City

by Jerry Pournelle

  White Lightning was peering into a white-hot coal fire through the slits in a soaked leather mask. Stone and Whandall closed the door flap and waited, standing well clear. White Lightning pulled a gob of glowing glass out of the fire on the end of a long tube. He blew into the tube to make a globe, stretched it, twisted it. Now he had two lobes joined by a narrow neck. Lightning set it gently in a box of black powder and rolled the powder over it. Then he picked up the black double bottle with wooden paddles and danced it into an oven that was cooler, darker than the fire he’d been using, and closed the door on it.

  “Dexterous,” Whandall said. “You look good.”

  Lightning turned without surprise. “I never felt better in my life. Hello, Whandall Feathersnake. Ah—”

  “Green Stone is now a married man.”

  “Boy, you all grow faster than I can catch up. Feathersnake, what’s your need?”

  “Lamps. Twenty, if you’ll give us the quantity discount.”

  Lightning doffed his mask. His face was chalk white, but there weren’t any sores, and his eyes looked good. “You need them before fall?”

  “No.”

  “Then, sure, take eight for seven.”

  “Oh, all right, make twenty-four. What are you making now?” Whandall saw Lightning hesitate. “Don’t tell me secrets—”

  “He didn’t say so. One bottle, but it has to be perfect. Glass glazed with iron. Wizards! But he’s a great medicine man.” Lightning stretched on tiptoe. “Every joint doesn’t hurt! I can see again too!”

  “He wants a black bottle?”

  “Come see it after I’ve fired it. I’ll get two this way. He can take his choice.”

  Rocks burned in a circle of rocks. Morth of Atlantis sat with his back to a small fire so that he could face Twisted Cloud. The medicine woman sat so far back that her face was in darkness. It looked awkward. Stone and Whandall joined Morth, backs to the fire.

  Whandall asked, “Gold?”

  “Right,” Twisted Cloud said. “For years they’ve been paying me in river gold. Time comes when wild magic is needed; it’s good to have, I suppose, but what can I do with it otherwise? Finally comes a man who can refine it for me.”

  “A pleasure,” Morth said.

  Whandall couldn’t exactly ask after Coyote’s daughter. When he had the chance he asked Twisted Cloud, “How’s the wagon holding up?”

  “That was Mountain Cat’s work, wasn’t it? Eight years, and we’ve only had that one broken axle, and twice a wheel. It’s Clever Squirrel’s first time out alone, but she’ll be fine too. She’s been running the wagon since she was fifteen,” her mother said. “I just go along for the ride.

  “It’s her wagon. Her dowry, given by Whandall,” Twisted Cloud said to Morth, “though she’s Coyote’s daughter. Feathersnake, I don’t think she’ll marry.”

  “Oh, she’ll find her man,” Green Stone said. Coyote’s daughter was his weird half-sister; his tone was proprietary. “She’s just—exploring. He’ll have to be someone who doesn’t listen to unicorns. He’ll need courage, too.”

  Morth asked, “Wagonmaster, have you settled on a wish?”

  “Not yet. Where can I find you when I do?”

  Morth glanced at the shaman. “I’ll be in the guesthouse while I take care of some business here. Then back to the Stone Needles. Plenty of manna there. I’ll take things for the Hermit, make myself welcome.”

  “Fascinating place, it sounds like,” Twisted Cloud said. “Maybe I’ll visit.”

  “You’ll love the Hermit.”

  Twisted Cloud laughed. “But he’s very accommodating, you say.”

  “I’ll wait there for spring,” Morth said. “Travel with the caravan, leave them at the Firewoods, go on into Tep’s Town. I’d like it if you came, Whandall.”

  Whandall shook his head. “I promised Willow, long ago. Promised myself too.”

  “Weren’t you telling me,” Morth asked, “that you want to extend the trade route? Find more customers, peddle more exotica, hire everybody’s children…?”

  “I’m looking around, that’s true. But my children are able, Morth. We raise them that way. They’ll find another path, or make one.” Whandall didn’t look at Green Stone, but the boy was listening.

  Morth said, “Puma holds the path to Rordray’s Attic. No room for you. But the Lords in Tep’s Town, what’ve they got that’s worth having?”

  Whandall held his arms straight out. The left was shorter than the right and a little crooked. “I’m not wanted in the Lordshills,” he said, “and they did this to prove it.”

  “That was then. You’ll go back as a looker—”

  “I’ve heard this tale before.”

  “More than a looker. You have a reputation. After twenty years and more of ships carrying tellers, the tales are bound to have reached the ears of Lords and kinless too.”

  “Kinless won’t deal with a Lordkin!”

  “Then again, do Lordkin have anything worth trading?”

  “Well, yes, if you’ll allow that some kinless is carrying it for us, but you still can’t think that Wolverines or Owl Beaks or Water Devils will deal with a man from Serpent’s Walk!” Whandall didn’t speak of the deaths in his own family, the ruin that had dogged Morth. Morth knew those dangers. Whandall couldn’t yet believe the wizard was serious. “I’d be crazy to go back. You too. Get away from that—” He gestured behind him at the fire of gold ore. “Get your head right. Think it over then.”

  “Are you enjoying your return to domesticity?”

  “Very much.”

  “All the same, didn’t you leave debts behind you in Tep’s Town?”

  “Nothing I could ever pay,” Whandall said.

  Green Stone spoke for the first time. “What’s it like?”

  Morth spoke of running a shop among kinless and Lordkin. Somehow Whandall found himself telling of how he’d played with the ghosts in the Black Pit. Then Morth again…. Whandall’s family knew his tales of Tep’s Town, and had heard Willow’s tales too, but Morth was speaking secrets he’d never known.

  It was late before they slept.

  CHAPTER

  61

  The next day Mountain Cat and three more repairmen were all at work on Puma wagons. Whandall and Green Stone watched for a bit, talked to them a bit. Then they worked on the Feathersnake wagons. They left both wagons on blocks, each with missing wheels.

  Whandall had bought three new wheels to replace the old, not because they were ruined, but to show Green Stone how to dismount and then mount a wheel. Green Stone had to know this stuff!

  But they’d mount the wheels tomorrow. If the mad wizard took it into his head to run for Tep’s Town tonight, he would not ride a Feathersnake wagon.

  It was rare that Whandall Feathersnake remembered Tep’s Town. What would his brothers say, watching him make repairs ahead of a band of kinless so he wouldn’t have to pay them as much?

  Enough of the day was left for hunting. Hunting was better while the wagons were gone from Road’s End. They bagged a deer and some onions and brought it all back to become the evening’s dinner. Twisted Cloud and her boys and Rutting Deer set potatoes, corn, and bell peppers to roasting too.

  Dinner would be late. It took time to roast a deer. They told stories of Tep’s Town while they waited.

  “Lookers blame the fire god,” Morth said. “Kinless blame the gatherers, and a natural human lust for what others have. I believe the curse on Tep’s Town is a pattern of habits, rather than the baneful presence of a moribund fire god.”

  Green Stone asked, “What do you do to break patterns?” When nobody had an answer, he asked, “What does it look like? Lordkin all stand around waiting for someone to set a fire?”

  “Come and see,” Morth said to him. Then to Whandall, “Was there treasure you couldn’t carry away with you? Enemies who couldn’t touch a caravan master? If there ever was a chance to set things right in Tep’s Town, this is your best chance. You’d go with a wizard. You
’ll carry refined gold.”

  This was beginning to make Whandall uncomfortable.

  “I’ll invest some gold with you myself,” Twisted Cloud said. “I like the trade possibilities.”

  “I bet you do, Coyote’s woman.” Her attitude had Coyote’s touch! Any risks would belong to Morth and Feathersnake, but new trade routes would be shared by Bison Clan and every wagon served by the Road’s End shaman. Whandall asked, “Gold refines itself in Tep’s Town, doesn’t it, Morth?”

  “Yes—”

  “The wild magic leaks away? And your wizardry won’t work either. Whatever you have in mind, try to remember that. Dinner’s starting to smell wonderful, Cloud—”

  When Rutting Deer and the boys went to retrieve the food, some glowing lizard thing leaped at them out of the burning rocks.

  Whandall Feathersnake got his blade between them and the threat. Something like a Gila monster stood up four feet high and screamed at him, and as it came at him Whandall wondered if he’d finally bitten off more than he could chew. But it tried to eat his knife, and died.

  “I never saw a thing!” Rutting Deer cried. “Oh, curse—” A quarter of deer lay in the dirt.

  “Something changed by the gold. A lizard, maybe,” Twisted Cloud said. “Deer, it’s not your fault.”

  Whandall thought of work to be done tomorrow. If he went to bed now he could rise early.

  Whandall woke before dawn. Green Stone was not in his blanket. Voices from Twisted Cloud’s dying fire—wood, for the gold had run out—suggested that they’d been talking all night.

  For White Lightning it would be near bedtime.

  He was still up. With pride he showed off a black glass bottle. Another firing had glazed it. There were rainbow highlights in the black finish. He’d made a glazed glass stopper in the same fashion.

  “So, and this one is second best?”

  White Lightning laughed. “Yes, second best for Morth! He chose the other one. Why, are you thinking of buying it?”

  “Never crossed my mind.”

  The smith settled for a bit of gold half the size of his thumb.

  By examining this thing, Whandall might learn Morth’s purpose. What was Morth hiding from Whandall? The only certainty was that this bottle was intended for magical use.

  Glass in a cold iron glaze. What would Morth perceive? To a wizard this would be a hole, a blank spot. Hide it under gold—even refined gold—and a wizard would see only gold.

  Morth and Green Stone were packing one of the Puma wagons.

  “I thought you were staying longer,” Whandall said.

  “I had a notion,” Morth said. “It might be worthless. Fare you well, Whandall Placehold. When you decide what you want, I’ll be in the Stone Needles, growing strong again.”

  “Time we went home too. Green Stone, come.”

  The sky darkened as they traveled. Cloud drew itself across the sky, but there was no smell of rain. The wind made a strange crying sound.

  Green Stone understood first. He didn’t warn Whandall. He casually traded away his place on the driver’s bench and crawled under the roof to sleep.

  White dung began to rain down.

  There was no way to hurry bison. Whandall could hear muffled laughter from under the wagon cover. The wagon, bison, and driver were covered in white when the bison plodded through the New Castle gate in a sunset sky dense with passenger pigeons.

  Everywhere outside of the Burning City, elders remembered when evening’s dinner could be summoned. Where civilization grew dense, surviving animals learned to avoid people. Some learned to fight back. In these days of dwindling magic, seeking meat became an adventure. Meals were often vegetarian at the New Castle. But twice a year, birds would overfly the land….

  There was nobody to greet Whandall’s return. Men, women, children were all over the landscape, all swinging slings, sowing a hail of rocks and reaping birds. Green Stone and Whandall arrived in time to share the plucking.

  The evening was spent stripping feathers and roasting and eating pigeons. Everyone gorged. They all reached bed very late.

  Late breakfast was cold roasted pigeons. Whandall and Willow spoke of mundane matters.

  Green Stone had been days away from his new bride. No need to disturb them. As for the wedding, plans had firmed up; most of the arguing had stopped. With the caravan away, not much could be done to prepare. If only Hawk In Flight would stop blurting out new ideas!

  Morth would be no bother until next spring. “He’ll be on a mountain,” Whandall said. “If we can pick a wish…”

  “Something?”

  “Mm?”

  Willow said, “You were talking and you just trailed off.”

  “I can find him ‘when I decide what I want,’ Morth said. Maybe he meant the wish he owes us. Maybe he still thinks I’ll come with him.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  She looked so worried that Whandall laughed. “He’s off to fight a water elemental on my home turf, but that’s okay, he’s got a plan, only he can’t tell me because the fire god won’t like it!”

  “So you won’t—”

  “But if I’m willing to make the effort, I could be standing right next to him when it all happens!”

  “—won’t go.”

  “Dear one, I will not go. A Lordkin’s promise. Now, what shall we wish for? Something a magician can reasonably be expected to accomplish? Nothing outrageous.”

  “We have most of a year—”

  “I don’t think so. There was something in his voice. Willow, he won’t wait. He’s thought of something. Maybe Stone knows.”

  “Why would he tell Green Stone?”

  “Well, we generally ate with Morth and Twisted Cloud, and told stories.”

  “We’ll catch him at dinner,” Willow said. “And now, Lordkin, will you go to encourage the kinless at their work?”

  “In my dreams,” Whandall said. He went out naked. It was appropriate for the work, and the weather was warm.

  Where passenger pigeons had passed, every human hand was needed to clean the droppings from every human artifact. Women worked inside, men outside. Whandall Feathersnake in his youth had learned to climb. He spent the day scraping roofs alongside those few who didn’t fear heights.

  The New Castle men and boys spent day’s end in the pond, trying to get each other clean.

  But Green Stone wasn’t there.

  CHAPTER

  62

  The household was in an uproar again. Whandall’s impatience died when he saw his wife’s face, and Lilac’s.

  “I almost followed him alone,” Lilac said. “We have bison and another wagon, why not? But I don’t know enough. He tried to tell me it was for the children! I called him an idiot, and he packed and left. Father-found, what happened at Road’s End?”

  “For the children? What for the children?”

  “He’s off to see the wizard! Morth of Atlantis is going to the Burning City, and Green Stone will go with him!”

  “Whandall,” Willow demanded, “what happened at Road’s End?”

  “Ah.”

  He must sound like he’d been punched in the gut, the way they looked at him. And now the hard part was admitting his mistake.

  “Green Stone was with me the whole time. Morth wants me to go with him back to Tep’s Town. Didn’t I leave anything there? Unfinished business, family, debts, grudges, buried treasure, live enemies? Some crying need for what a trader’s wagon can carry? He can’t tell me why he needs me. Can’t tell me any of his plans. I am to take some wagons into Tep’s Town and find a way to get rich, and Morth is to come along. Right.

  “Willow, I’ve been an idiot. He was talking to Green Stone!”

  Lilac said, “We’ll get him back!”

  “He’s a grown man, you know.” He was still speaking to Willow. “If I force him to stay, he’s a kinless.”

  “What could Morth have offered him?”

  Think! “At Road’s End he learned enough to firm up
his plans. Then he tried to get me involved…. Stay here. I want to show you something.”

  He needed a lantern by now.

  The droppings-covered roof had been stripped off the wagon and was soaking. There was no trapdoor in the wagon’s floor, but with the wagon empty, the boards would slide out. Whandall set aside the bags of gold in the hidden well to reach the glazed black bottle and stopper, then brought it inside.

  “Cold iron,” he said. “It must be for holding something magical. The one Morth took is just like it.”

  They looked at it, and him.

  “He went to Road’s End. He needed a glassblower. I have no idea why he wants it. All right, let’s just guess that Morth also wants me. Thirty years ago he saw lines in my hand. He looked at Stone’s hand too—”

  Lilac’s hard hand closed on his wrist. “What did he see?”

  “Early marriage, twin girls, then nothing. A blur.”

  Her grip tightened. “Twins? But why would Stone’s future fuzz out? Is that death?”

  “No! No, Daughter-found. A wizard can’t see a lifeline that’s tangled up with his. Curse! He really is going… or else he’s going to handle raw gold. That can screw up a prediction too.”

  You have less magical talent than anyone I ever met, Morth had told Whandall. Could that be why the wizard wanted him?

  “All right. Morth has my son. Is that because I might go along to protect him?”

  “Dear, you have to,” Willow said.

  “Haven’t I heard that song sung with different words?”

  “Whandall Feathersnake!”

  “I know. Curse Morth!”

  “Why are we standing here? We have to catch him!”

  “Wait now, Lilac. It’s too dark to load a wagon and take off. Did any kind of dinner get made?”

  “We roasted another batch of pigeons,” Willow said. “Last night.”

  “‘Course you did. So we can’t leave until morning, Lilac, and that puts Stone a day ahead of us, but that doesn’t matter, because Stone’s on foot. He’ll catch Morth. Morth is two days ahead in a wagon drawn by bison. You don’t expect to run after them? Well, bison move at only one speed. We’d still be two days behind when our wagon gets to the Stone Needles.”