by Larry Niven
“My name is Zephans Mishagnos,” the old man told them, “and I’m a wizard of sorts. This is not a good place to be a wizard, but not a good place to leave either.”
They were in a pointy-topped one-room hut, crowded close around a fire in the center. Regapisk had stopped shivering. He said, “Even at night, this is odd for a farm. Where do you get fresh water?”
“You swam through it.”
“That’s salt.”
“Yes. I’ll show you tomorrow. You want to help me run this farm? It’s coming on toward harvest, such as it is. We’ll eat like kings, at least.” He looked at them. “You’re big men, but we’ll have more than enough.”
Chapter Eleven
The Salt Farm
For the first few days, they’d had to make the old man repeat everything. He didn’t speak much Condigeano. Now Regapisk was learning his language; Arshur already knew a little. It was Aztlani, Zeph said.
“I was already an old man when word of the Warlock’s Wheel spread here from Asia. That makes me a hundred and sixty or seventy years old,” Zeph told them. “There’s no manna hereabouts. Not even in Crescent City, barring a market in shielded talismans. If I tried to walk out of here, I’d turn to dust.”
Regapisk and Arshur continued picking squashes and fruit in the twilight. The watermelons were big. Lord Reg was surprised at how light they were. He asked, “Where’s Crescent City?”
The parrot on the old man’s shoulder screeched, “Where’s Crescent City?”
Zeph jumped. Zeph’s deafness seemed to come and go. The parrot helped. Zeph said, “Oh, northwest along the shore by ten leagues or so. That’s by canoe. Further by road, you have to go north a ways to get past the delta. I got here forty years ago, running from Aztlani soldiers, in a wagon I stole from a farmer. Full of seeds, it was. I had this talisman too. They gave up on me when I got into the badlands. I never was good at taking a hint. I used up the manna in the talisman, and that left me as a farmer. Look…”
The irrigation trough ran downhill from a pond that fed the crops. Regapisk hadn’t seen how Zeph kept the pond filled. The old man scooped water from the trough in cupped hands. He offered it to Regapisk.
Regapisk sipped. It was fresh. Regapisk dipped up more in his own hands, sipped and spat. “Salt,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“You tell me.”
“You’re turning brackish water to fresh. It’s the only way you could farm this land. How?”
“There’s currents of manna in the sea,” said Zeph. “You can see ’em if you’ve got good eyes. The currents are piss-poor here, but there’s enough to make fresh water and get it up here to the reservoir.”
The old man gestured down at the shore. Waves humped a little higher. Waves ran uphill along the main irrigation channel and stopped halfway to the field.
“Curse,” Zeph said without much emphasis. “Can you see the manna, how it streamed in and then out a little too quick for me?”
“No,” said Arshur.
“Just sun-glitter,” said Regapisk.
“Well, there’s manna in sun-glitter,” Zeph said, “but cast your eye north along the strand. See, where it’s just a bit brighter?”
The water of the Inland Sea was mostly brown. A thread of brightness ran through it. “Yeah…”
“Now, south, there’s a pool of it going into the waves, where it’s no use to me. Farther out, the main rivulet—”
“Yeah.”
“Right, then. Shall I summon it?”
“It’s nowhere near the channel,” Regapisk said.
Arshur bellowed, “Hah! You are the match of Tras himself!”
“No, really—”
“But you can fight. ‘Lord Reg,’ they said, but not like they meant it. I wasn’t sure. But Tras could make a man believe anything!”
But Regapisk was sure he could see something. If he wasn’t trying to look, they were there: bright lines in the water, dim patches here and there, and bright current lines. The water was mud colored everywhere, and it flashed with momentary sunlit reflections, but in places there was a pervasive tinge…. “Down the middle, there’s nothing,” he said.
“Down the middle, there’s nothing!” the bird shouted.
“Yes, that is where the Rainbow River runs in. The Rainbow carries some manna, but not much, and it gets used up at Crescent City. People pray in temples and courtrooms and do business in tearooms—you know how it is. Everybody’s a little bit magician. They use up the manna. See where the current is moving past the channel now? See if you can bring it up.”
“What do I do, wave at it?”
“Like this. Can you feel what I’m doing?”
“Nothing. Wait, it’s getting brighter.”
“Getting brighter!”
“Not your arms. Your whole body…mph. Just ’cause you can see it doesn’t mean you’ve got the talent.”
But the water was pulsing up the channel in little waves, flowing into the pond that fed cabbages, yams, squashes, and a maize patch. Zeph was tangled in the lines of brightness, though he was here and they were way out there….
They didn’t eat like kings. Meat was short. When stoop labor got to be too much, Arshur and Regapisk went hunting for prairie dogs and turkeys and such.
Kings would have better manners than Arshur, Regapisk thought. The old swordsman watched Regapisk using silverware improvised from two sticks, and laughed. “Lord Reg!”
“You should be learning this. Weren’t you bragging that you were going to be a king?”
“I am. That old sorceress said so, and the young Feathersnake shaman, she said so too!”
“Kings don’t eat with their fingers.”
Arshur shrugged, but he began to study the way Reg used his implements. The next day, he made his own.
Chapter Twelve
The Salt Sea
There was food and language instructions done with magic and a safe place to sleep, all three in the common room in an arc around the fire. They wore clothing they’d taken off bandits, the dead, and the two they’d set naked on the road to run for their lives.
The house was a cone with a northward-facing entrance. Zeph taught them to enter to the right, depart from the left. The parrot lived outside. Zeph’s people did everything in fours, when they could. Indoors, the hogan itself was one of the four.
Life was good. From time to time, farm wagons came down the road. Regapisk learned to sell produce. What they grew was always bigger and looked better than what the farmers had in their wagons.
The old man had some stories to tell. “The Warlock’s Wheel was the great discovery of that age. Manna, the power that makes magic—it doesn’t grow back once it’s used up. The Wheel was a way to use it up fast, leave a sorcerer with no defenses. I can’t even draw a Wheel. The drawing would suck me dry and leave me dust.”
“You could leave here if you could buy a talisman.”
“Yes, a powerful one.”
“Where would you go?”
“Aztlan,” Zeph said promptly. “Manna flows there. It’s in the air, in the river, everywhere. I’d take these crops to Aztlan, and then I’d stay awhile. In Aztlan they pay through the nose for fresh produce. Nothing grows around there. There’s nothing but the talismans and the trade routes. Arshur, how bad do you want to be a king?”
“Who do I have to kill?”
“Well, there’s that. You might have to fight.”
Arshur laughed.
“And nobody’s king in Aztlan very long. On the other hand, there’s more or less interesting places to be a king, and Aztlan is the most interesting of all. We can talk about it in the morning if you like.
“The berries will be ripe in a week. We’ll want to take what we’ve got to Crescent City to sell. You’ll see some Aztlani folk there.” Old Zeph looked hard at his laborers. “Be careful then, boys. They’re wizards, and they’re not always nice people.”
Chapter Thirteen
Lordsman Bane
After the deadlands, the road seemed endless. Hills and valleys, small streams, plenty of fodder in abandoned farmlands where patches of wheat and oats grew unattended. The hills were chaparral. There was plenty of forage along the road, a sign that few wagon trains had been here. Even with the new spotted calf slowing his mother, the wagon train made good time through the chaparral and low grass.
Bandits skulked in the dry brush, but none approached the well-armed wagon train. Every few days there was a terror bird or two. None attacked.
One bird followed at a distance. It never got close enough to kill, and when chariots were sent after it, the bird ran off into wild country where horses couldn’t follow. This would be a rough place for an ambush, and Sandry got little sleep.
A month and more past the deadlands, the road climbed steeply. There was a small river far below as they made their way along a road that became little more than a ledge wide enough for two wagons. On their right, it sloped upward too steeply for wagons, although Sandry could just scramble up it on foot. To their left wasn’t quite a cliff, but no bison-drawn wagon would ever get down it. The road led steeply upward.
For most of the route, the hillsides were too steep and rocky for horses or chariots off the road. Sandry sent Secklers and Trebaty up among the rocks to scout. “Below doesn’t bother me,” he told the two Lordkin, “but I worry about bandits up there, ready to roll boulders down on us. If anyone lives up there, they’ve seen us coming all morning.”
“I never saw bandits here,” Spotted Lizard said. “And this is a big wagon train, with all these soldiers.”
“Never hurts to know what’s ahead,” Secklers said.
An odd thing for a Lordkin to say, Sandry thought. But they aren’t stupid. “If you see anything, signal. Don’t try to fight on your own. I need you tomorrow and the next day, not just this morning.”
Secklers grinned. “Sure. I bought a ring for my woman—I don’t need some bandit woman to get it. Let’s go, Treb.”
They were gone half an hour when the boy Nothing Was Seen—Lurk—came to Sandry. One of the Lordsmen troopers followed behind the boy, obviously not happy to be there. Sandry searched for the name. Bane, he called himself. An unusual name. Bane spoke in the dialect used by the Lords of Lordshills, without an accent. That was unusual too.
“We need to see you, Lord Sandry,” Lurk said. “And Burning Tower as well.”
“What’s this?” Sandry asked, but he waved for Burning Tower to join them. They walked together, a few paces from the wagon train, where no one would overhear. “What?” Sandry demanded.
“I caught Lordsman Bane spying on Burning Tower,” Lurk said. “Two nights ago.”
“And you waited until now to tell us?” Sandry said. “In any case, it’s a matter for Peacevoice Fullerman, not me.”
“Maybe not,” Lurk said. “Listen to his story first.”
Sandry inspected Lordsman Bane. “How long have you been a Lordsman?”
“Four years, My Lord. Since I was twenty-three.”
“Where are you from?”
“The records say from Houseman’s Coast.”
“You don’t sound like it.” Sandry noted the copper armbands Bane wore, two on his left arm, one on his right. “Good record, I see. One major and one minor decoration in only four years. All right, trooper, why were you spying on the lady? You weren’t likely to see anything.”
“Wasn’t trying to—nothing like that, sir. Just wanted to see how she lives. How wagon people live.”
“Hmmm. Thinking of joining a wagon train when your hitch is over?”
“Thought of it, sir, but I probably won’t. I belong in Lord’s Town. I grew up in Lordshills.”
Sandry frowned. “You didn’t get a name like that in Lordshills.”
“No, sir. My given name was Firegift. I went to sea when I was sixteen. Sailed up and down the coast. Then I settled in Houseman’s Town for a year, and decided to go home. When I came back to join the Lordsmen, I brought a new name with me.”
“Does Peacevoice Fullerman know you grew up in Lordshills?”
“No, sir. Not officially, anyway.”
“And the officer who let you join up?”
“Don’t know what he knew, sir. He was your father, sir.”
Sandry walked on in silence for a while. It would be easy enough to check the story with Chalker, but there wasn’t any reason to doubt it. “So, Nothing Was Seen, why did you wait this long to tell us?”
“Wanted to wait until the Lordkin wouldn’t hear,” Lurk said.
“You’re kinless, then, Bane?” But of course he had to be kinless, even if he didn’t look it. That would be why the record showed him coming from outside Tep’s Town. Kinless were never recruited directly into the Lordsmen ranks. The Lordkin wouldn’t stand for it. Kinless were slaves, bound to Lords or Lordkin, depending on where they lived, defeated enemies who wore the noose to show their servile status….
“My mother was kinless. My father was a Lordkin of Serpent’s Walk. I was conceived during a Burning, My Lord. That’s why the name. There’s lots of kinless in Tep’s Town named Firegift. Mother was lucky. She found work in Lordshills, in Lord Jerreff’s household. You might remember me. When you were about eight, you went on a picnic with Lord Jerreff’s boy. I carried the baskets. You wanted to know how baskets were made, and I tried to tell you. I was named Firegift then.”
“Maybe I do remember,” Sandry said. Half kinless, half Lordkin, officially kinless—but a dangerous combination. There had been more than one attempted kinless revolt led by a kinless with a Lordkin father. Usually halvers lived in Tep’s Town and were a problem only for the Lordkin. Male halvers who managed to be born in the Lords’ territories were generally encouraged to go seek work in other cities. Not many came back.
“But it doesn’t explain why you were spying on Burning Tower.”
“And what does it matter if he was?” Tower demanded. “I don’t mind if people watch me when I’m outside my nest. And he wasn’t inside—I’d have known that!”
“He wasn’t inside,” Nothing Was Seen said.
“All right—he wasn’t inside,” Sandry said. “And the lady doesn’t mind, so I see no reason to disturb Peacevoice Fullerman, but I still don’t see why you’re interested in Burning Tower, other than the obvious reason that she’s the prettiest girl in the world.”
“Why thank you,” Tower said. They both laughed.
“I think you’re my sister,” Bane said.
“W-what?”
“My mother recognized your father last year when the wagon train came in. She made me take her down to Peacegiven Square, and she knew him. Whandall. Told me she hadn’t, that it wasn’t him, and made me swear I’d never tell anyone, but I think she did, the way she acted. She died last winter. Never was very healthy. And maybe you’re my sister, and maybe you aren’t, but I wanted to see, that’s all.”
“So what do you want?” Sandry said.
“Sir? I don’t want anything. I haven’t asked for anything. I just wanted to know. I wouldn’t have told Lurk, only he threatened to tell Peacevoice Fullerman I was spying, and I didn’t want that. And I’m sorry I bothered you, and now I want to get back to my duties.”
“You like being a Lordsman?”
“Sir. Yes, sir. My mother’s kinfolk threw her out. My father’s people don’t admit I exist. I was a pretty good sailor, but I don’t like the sea, and I never fit in at House-man’s. I fit in just fine at Lord’s Town. Got a nice kinless wife, apprentice cook; we’re looking to have kids.”
And his children would be free to live in Lord’s Town or leave Tep’s Town altogether, as they chose. “Carry on, trooper,” Sandry said. “I won’t talk to Fullerman about this. You don’t talk to the Lordkin.”
“Sir. Yes, sir.”
“Just a moment,” Burning Tower said. “What was your mother’s name?”
“She called herself Lottie in Lordshills, ma’am. I never knew her kinless name.”
“Or any of her kin?”
“No, ma’am. Will that be all?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
They walked along in silence for a while. Lurk discreetly vanished.
“Conceived during a Burning,” Tower said. “His mother was raped, in other words. By my father!”
“If it was him,” Sandry said. “It was the Lordkin way. Twenty-eight years ago, your father would have been what, fifteen? It was the Lordkin way.”
“But Mother could still harness the one-horns when they were married,” Tower said. “She’s proud of that, and so is Father. And they met during a Burning.”
“Your father isn’t like most Lordkin,” Sandry said. “From what I have seen, Whandall Feathersnake isn’t like anyone but himself. I’m a little nervous about meeting him again, you know.”
She giggled. “You! Scared of Father?” She lost the giggle and walked along in silence for a while. “Maybe he was different when he was fifteen.”
“Well, he probably was,” Sandry said, remembering. “Boys that age have some, uh, well…have trouble controlling themselves.”
“Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Well, I notice you can’t get near the one-horn mares.”
“Uh…”
“Who was she? Not all of them, just the first.”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes.”
They walked on for a few steps. “A kinless girl. One of the cook’s daughters. We were both sixteen,” Sandry said. “And I don’t like to talk about it.”
“What happened to her?”
“Zemmy? She’s married to one of Rasatti’s gardeners. Has two kids now, neither mine. She got a big wedding present from my mother.”
“Does your mother know?”
“I don’t think so. She gives wedding presents to all the servant children.”
“I bet she knows. What would have happened if one of the children was yours?”
He made himself look at her.
