The Burning City

by Jerry Pournelle

“And we all took our lumps, Quintana and the Toronexti and me, and let it go. But, you know, strong as they were supposed to be, they shouldn’t let go so easily. I should have known. But I kept my Toronexti guards, and paid them high out of what I was getting, and when that wave of gatherers came out of Tep’s Town, they ran. They let that mob into the vineyards and the vats. Some of ’em were in the mob! Quintana had a price on my head for a year, and he never spoke to me again. Sure I’d like to kill the Toronexti, but you can’t fight Lords.”

  “Lords protect Toronexti? Which Toronexti?”

  “All. Whandall, everyone knows that. They collect for the Lords. Well, maybe you don’t know it,” Alferth conceded. “But everyone who ever tried to make anything of himself knows it. If you nose around their territory, the Lords take a big interest in you.”

  “Toronexti have a territory? Is this something everyone knows too? We only knew—”

  Alferth held out his empty cup. Whandall clapped and waited for Burning Tower to fill the cup again. He said, “We only knew about the Deerpiss and the gatehouse. We never knew where they lived.”

  Alferth said, “They don’t talk. But I knew they had a territory. They must. They hide their faces. The leathers they always wear, that must hide a band mark. There had to be a way to hurt them. What else could I think about while I hid? I asked around, and I thought. Then the search got hotter and I had to stop looking. I had to leave Serpent’s Walk. I live on the beach at Sea Cliffs, and nobody knows anything there.”

  “That sounds—”

  “But before they shut me down, I learned some. Foot of Granite Knob. That’s theirs.”

  “Them? Alferth, no. The Wolverines don’t live near the Deerpiss.”

  “I’d bet my patch of dry sand on it, against the rest of this stew.”

  Not a heavy bet. Whandall thought back. He’d never been on Wolverine turf. Children were told to avoid it. It was over toward the forest, backed up against a chaparral-covered granite hill, not isolated but easily defended, near two hours’ walk from the Deerpiss. No one ever went there uninvited, and there weren’t many invitations.

  You saw Wolverines raiding, but rarely, and in big packs. Funny, nobody ever wondered… nobody but a merchant would ever wonder how bands that big could gather enough to share. Like they did it just to fight, just for practice….

  Wolverine territory. “You’re pretty near guessing,” Whandall said.

  “Whandall, do you remember those crazies who could read? At your party they got too much of your powder—”

  “Got into a graveyard. Heads full of ghosts. Pelzed traded them to the Wolverines for a wagonload of oranges. That used to itch at me. How did he get anyone to take them at all?”

  A slow grin, four teeth in it. Alferth asked, “Why would Wolverines want readers too crazy to remember secrets?”

  “Forigaft.”

  “Right.”

  The brothers Forigaft. Egon was the youngest, sold to the Wolverines and now clerk to the Toronexti! I owe you, Alferth. “Have an orange? Show your belly some variety.”

  “Yeah!”

  “Does my brother live in Pelzed’s old house?” Whandall asked.

  “He let Pelzed’s women keep it,” Alferth said. “Lord Wanshig lives in that big stone place you come from. I think his lady Wess didn’t want to move.”

  Wess. Whandall felt a twinge in his loins. Wess was alive. She’d be the first lady of the Placehold. Alferth wouldn’t know about that.

  They talked until well after dark. When Alferth left, Whandall noticed that four young Lordkin were waiting under a torch. He merged with them; they doused the torch and all merged into the shadows.

  Then one of the shadows became Lurk.

  Lurk glided in almost supernatural silence, but slowly, sideways and twisted over. One arm was swollen into a red pillow streaked with purple. Whandall knew those marks. He didn’t touch them. He set him down on a burlap sheet and sent for Morth.

  Morth looked ancient, worse than Alferth. He came leaning heavily on Sandry’s arm. The wizard examined Nothing Was Seen without touching the boy. He muttered words in a language none of them knew. They watched, fearing to interrupt.

  Morth snarled, “I sold ointments for plant poisons for near thirty years! Now I’ll have to make more on the spot! Clerk Sandry, I need any breed of belladonna. Tomato, bell pepper, potato, chilis—”

  Sandry was slow to react… as if he weren’t used to taking orders. Then, “At once, Sage.”

  They could hear him speaking rapidly to someone outside. Morth moved them out of the nest. Under the awning outside he tended a firepot, set water to boiling, added chipped dried roots and some leaves from the forest, soaked a clean shirt. “Wash yourself, if you can stay awake. What were you doing in the chaparral, boy?”

  Lurk looked to Whandall. Speak in front of the wizard? Whandall said, “Go ahead.”

  “Whandall set me to watch the tax men.” Lurk’s voice was slurred. “A wagon came out of those low woods, a tiny wagon with a tiny pony driving it. I tried to follow it home. They went straight into the woods. There was just a trace of path. I know that wagon was wider than I am, and it got through, but it wasn’t trying to hide too.” He scrubbed his arm, tenderly. “When my arm swelled up I was deep in the woods and getting dizzy. Here, something scratched me here too before I could get out.” Three puffy parallel lines along his hip. “I swear it reached out.”

  “Wash that too, idiot!” the wizard snarled. “Get your clothes off We’ll have to bury them.”

  Whandall said, “They reach. You remember what I told you going through the forest? It’s the same stuff. It wants to kill you. You were smart not to go in very far.”

  “Lucky, too,” Lurk said. “But I lost them.” He sounded disgusted.

  Sandry was back with a double handful of bell peppers. Morth went to work.

  “They were carrying a big pile of stuff, that stack Morth was looking at in their gatehouse,” Lurk said. “They loaded it in that wagon, and maybe ten of them went with it, like it was the most valuable thing they had.”

  “What did they do with it?” Whandall asked.

  “Don’t know. I told you. Got away.” Lurk’s voice was fading fast.

  “What do you think they were doing, Clerk Sandry?” Whandall asked.

  Sandry’s face was a mask to match Whandall’s trading face. “No idea, sir. None at all.”

  “I see.” Whandall turned back to Lurk and said, softly, “Maybe I found them at the other end.”

  Lurk looked less puzzled than dizzy. But Whandall was making maps in his head. Do it on parchment later, check it out….

  No one had ever walked it, really, but it must be near two hours from Alferth’s grape fields down the Deerpiss and across to Wolverine turf… by the streets. Those streets curved around a knob of hill covered with chaparral thickening to dwarf forest. But as the crow flies—

  How could he have seen Staxir’s armor and Kreeg Miller’s leathers and never made the connection? They go into the woods. Kinless woodsmen can do that, and so can I. The Toronexti have to, to move what they take!

  “Which way did they go?” Whandall asked. “Show me on a map.” He called for lamps and parchment.

  While they waited, Morth wrapped paste-covered cloths around puffy red blotches on Nothing Was Seen’s arm and lower belly. “And drink this.”

  Lurk sipped. He protested, “Man, that’s coffee!”

  “Sorry. If I had honey… oh, just drink it.”

  “I will send for honey,” Sandry said.

  And we were speaking Condigeo, which Sandry hasn’t admitted knowing, Whandall thought. “Thank you.”

  With Stone and Morth and Sandry at his elbows, Whandall drew maps of Tep’s Town. Whandall gave his attention to Wolverine turf and the Deerpiss, and the streets that curved around a peninsula of forest. Through the forest was much shorter, but slower too if a man didn’t want to die horribly.

  But Morth was concentrating his efforts f
rom the Black Pit west toward the sea, sketching in detail on a path that evaded the Lordshills, otherwise following the lowlands.

  When Sandry refused to help them work on Lord’s Town, Morth protested. “These have to be accurate. I’ll need them later. And at least twenty of your Lordkin, Whandall—”

  “I tire of your hints. Maps won’t help,” Whandall said. “Morth, no Lordkin knows maps.” He turned to the kinless boy huddled at the outer edge of the band. “Adz Weaver, do you understand maps?”

  “No, sir; I never saw anything like that,” the young kinless said. “But I’ve been watching; I think I have the idea. You’re making a picture of where we are?”

  Whandall was startled. “Yes! Come here; help us mark this.”

  They watched Adz draw detail into kinless territory.

  And it was all filling in nicely. “If he can learn that quickly, so can others,” Morth said.

  Whandall nodded. If kinless could learn, Lordkin could learn. Lordkin were smarter than kinless. He said, “Nothing Was Seen.”

  Lurk stood with difficulty. He leaned on his arms above the map. “Is this the big stone gatehouse that blocks the way to the forest? They went along here, up the Deerpiss. About here they went off the road and uphill, and I last saw them here, bush getting thick—”

  Whandall grinned. “Good.”

  “Good? I lost them!”

  “Up and across!” Whandall’s fingertip ran through the mapped forest to the suburb of Granite Knob.

  “I’ll go see.”

  “Wait for dawn.”

  “No,” Lurk said.

  Stone would have stopped him, but Whandall shook his head. It would be a matter of pride with Lurk. Let him go…. “Not into the forest, understand? I only want to know where they come out.”

  Lurk nodded, then faded.

  They worked on maps all night.

  CHAPTER

  74

  Master Peacevoice Waterman and two men came to Whandall’s wagon when the sun was an hour high. “Message, sir!” Waterman said. “Lady Shanda wishes to see you, here, at the sixth hour today, sir.”

  Shanda. “Who is Lady Shanda, Master Peacevoice?”

  Waterman’s expression changed only slightly. “First lady of Lord’s Town, sir.”

  “She’s married to Quintana?” Whandall asked.

  Waterman was shocked. “No sir. She is married to Lord Quintana’s nephew, and Lord Quintana being a widower, she is the official hostess for his household, sir.” His voice held reproach, as if Whandall should know better.

  “You like her, don’t you, Master Peacevoice?”

  “Everybody likes Lady Shanda, sir. That right, Corporal Driver?”

  “Yes, Master Peacevoice.”

  Interesting. Sixth hour. Five hours from now. She must be partway here already. “Please send word to Lady Shanda that we will be delighted to have her join us at the sixth hour,” Whandall said. A conventional phrase, but he found that he meant it. Shanda.

  They set up the market before noon. A tightrope, high the way Burning Tower liked it. Hammer Miller and a kinless boy stood under to catch. Neither Lordkin nor Lord would do that in Tep’s Town, and for the moment it was better if Whandall Feathersnake kept his dignity, even if he didn’t like it.

  Nothing went wrong. Burning Tower’s act was flawless. And Clerk Sandry stood, mouth open, watching her in fascination as she wheeled and spiraled halfway down the pole, then deftly climbed, feet on the pole, back up it again.

  “Smitten,” Whandall heard Green Stone say behind him. “With my sister.”

  “And well he might,” Whandall said softly.

  “With Blazes? But all right, she’s good on that rope.”

  “That wasn’t the entire reason I had in mind,” Whandall said.

  It was only after Burning Tower finished her act and went to the changing tent that Sandry went to negotiate for another wagonload of hay and another of water for the bison. As Whandall had guessed, no one in Tep’s Town would have dreamed that animals could eat so much.

  Or make so much waste for the kinless to clean up…

  Shanda arrived in a small wagon drawn by four Lord’s horses. A teenage girl rode with her. Two chariots, one in front and one behind, clattered along with her. Each chariot held an armored man. If they were trying to convince him that Shanda was important, they succeeded.

  He knew she was younger than he was, but she looked Whandall’s age. He would not have recognized her. The self-assurance he remembered was there, but the little girl had become regal, desirable, attractive rather than beautiful, but extremely so. She wore a short skirt of thin wool, belt with ornate silver buckle, a brooch with blue and amber stones. Her hair was coiled atop her head, and although she must have been traveling all day in a wagon, she looked cool and fresh.

  The girl with Shanda carried a large pine cone. Shanda smiled faintly. “What’s it like outside?” she asked.

  It took Whandall a moment to remember. “Don’t they let you go outside yet?” he asked.

  She laughed. “You do remember.” She pointed to the pine cone. “And keep your promises too.”

  “Is that really the same one?”

  “No, of course not,” she said. “This is my daughter, Roni. Roni, greet Whandall Placehold Feathersnake, merchant prince and a very old friend of your mother’s.”

  Whandall bowed. “And this is Green Stone, my son, and Burning Tower, my daughter. I think the girls will be about the same age. Will you come in, Lady Shanda? We have tea.” He led her into the inner nest.

  Shanda marveled. “You have done well. Two mirrors! And I’d love to know the secret of how you get wood to shine like that.” She stared admiringly at the carpets. “You have done well indeed, Whandall Feathersnake.”

  “Thank you, Lady. And have things been well for you?”

  “Not as well as we would like,” Shanda said, serious for a moment before her smile returned. “But well enough.”

  “Did you ever finish the new aqueduct?”

  Her smile faded again. “Not yet. We keep hoping.”

  “Peacegiven Square,” Whandall said. “I was shocked.”

  She nodded, waited until Burning Tower poured tea, sipped, and nodded again. “Thank you. Whandall, it shocked us all, that second Burning.”

  “What happened?”

  “Lord Chanthor always hoped to buy dragon bones,” Shanda said.

  “I remember. We were hiding on Shanda’s balcony,” Whandall said to his son. Green Stone and Burning Tower knew the story, but Roni looked at her mother. “Some captain sold Chanthor rocks in a fancy box. He had the man killed.”

  “Yes. And another promised but couldn’t deliver, but he didn’t take any money. Chanthor kept trying. One day it came. Dragon bones! In an iron box. Terribly, terribly expensive.

  “We really couldn’t afford them, but, well, we planned to do so much for the people!” Shanda said. “Make rain in just the right places to clear out the waterways, wash all the filth out to sea. Repair buildings. Heal the sick. Finish the aqueduct! It would have been worth what we paid.” She was talking as much to Green Stone as to Whandall. Maybe it was the ears? Green Stone could absolve her, speaking for the kinless? Forgive her for the crushing weight of taxes to buy this disaster.

  Resalet had opened a cold iron box….

  “Back there, at that building, the Witnesses had an office.” Shanda pointed through the doorway to where no building stood. Dark ground, charred. “Lord Chanthor brought the box there to be registered. Then they set up by the fountain for the ceremony,” she waved at the fountain, blackened and split by heat and near waterless, “with our wizard. We tried to find Morth of Atlantis. He’d gone like smoke in a Burning. Years later we were told he left with you, Whandall! So we hired the wizard from the ship that brought the dragon bones, and on the fountain he opened it…” She fell silent.

  “And the last thing his eyes ever saw?”

  She stared.

  “Yangin-Atep to
ok the magic,” Whandall prompted.

  Shanda’s daughter Roni jumped. “Yes!” she said. “He’s right, isn’t he, Mother? We were home waiting. Mother was so excited, all the good we could do, and she was watching for dark storm clouds, for rain, and suddenly black smoke was pouring up everywhere. Burning,” Roni said. “We’d just had a Burning!”

  “It was horrible, Whandall,” Shanda whispered. “They burned so much! The square, the new ropewalk we’d paid so much to build after we lost the Ropewalker family! To you, they told me! You took the Ropewalkers out of Tep’s Town. I don’t think I ever quite forgave you for that.”

  “I didn’t know who they were when we started through the forest,” Whandall said. “Or what Ropewalkers do. But, Shanda, I’d have freed those children anyway.”

  “What? Yes. Yes, of course,” Shanda said, and blushed violently. “Whandall, I almost went outside. My stepfather thought of marrying me to a Condigeo merchant prince, and I’d have lived in Condigeo. But he didn’t—maybe the man lost his nerve—and then I met Qu’yuma.” Her voice and expression changed and for a moment Whandall envied Qu’yuma.

  Green Stone asked, “Yangin-Atep took the dragon bone manna to himself. Like with new gold?”

  “And came violently awake,” said his father. “And possessed whoever he could.”

  “And the city has never been the same,” Roni said.

  He thought, Really? He remembered better than that.

  Shanda brightened. “But now you’re here! You can help.”

  “How?” Whandall asked.

  “Trade. We can use more trade,” Shanda said.

  “It’s hard for wagons to compete with the sea captains,” Whandall said.

  Roni started to say something, looked to her mother, and kept silence. Whandall let the silence stretch on. It was painful, but he was Whandall Feathersnake, and his son was watching. Better to win the bargain and then be generous than to let anyone think he could be cozened.

  “There aren’t so many ships, now,” Shanda said, trying to keep it light. She sipped weak hemp tea. “They came for the rope, of course,” and the words were escaping, slipping free. “It was all that brought them. Father explained it to me. When the Ropewalk disappeared, we had to import another system, and that evil captain screwed us against a wall—sorry. Sorry. But he took every coin we could find, and then the Ropewalk was gone in the two Burnings! Ships still come for tar, but now the harbor is silting up,” she said. “It’s hard to get in, and worse, we don’t have as much to trade as we used to. There’s only the little Ropewalk now, so there’s not much rope for the ships.”