Burning Tower

by Larry Niven

  Flensevan was lying on a blanket on the other side of the deck. He woke at Tower’s shout and looked ahead. “I know of this place,” he said. “Zeph told me of a cut to the heart of the world about halfway to Aztlan from Crescent City.”

  “Halfway?” Sandry said wonderingly. “Halfway in a night?”

  “An afternoon and a night,” Flensevan said.

  “But how far?” Sandry said. “We were moons crossing that wasteland! Now we have come halfway back?”

  Tower looked back to see Regapisk still standing at one steering oar. He seemed barely able to stand, and he steered by muttering directions to Egret. “Right a little. Follow that riplet.” Regapisk’s voice was infinitely weary. “Straight now.” He shook his head like a man afraid of sleep.

  “How long can he last?” Tower asked Sandry.

  “Not much longer, I’d say. Better find your sister,” Sandry said, “my love.”

  She tried to smile. “What a night,” she said, “my love.”

  By noon the walls were shrinking. The river twisted and turned now. Clever Squirrel and Regapisk took turns directing Flensevan’s sons, who acted as steersmen. Sandry strained to see any signs in the water, but there was nothing: whatever Squirrel and Regapisk saw, he could not.

  “I can’t see it either,” Burning Tower said. She moved closer.

  “I thought Reggy was making it all up,” Sandry said.

  The sky overhead was clear. They had left the storm far behind them, and Sandry could see no trace of it.

  They were still riding the wave, but it was tamer now, no longer the wild storm-driven stampede. Some of the wave had passed them, so that when he looked ahead, it was down a long slope of water. Far ahead he could see rocks, but the flood engulfed them long before Little Rainbow was in any danger. Behind them the slope of water continued upward.

  “Left a little,” Regapisk said. “Sandry, I’m getting hungry.”

  “I’m starving,” Burning Tower said. “Didn’t we bring any food?”

  Flensevan’s head appeared from the hatch amidships. “No time. I’ve been looking for anything we stashed. Nothing. We had some bread, but it dissolved.”

  “Dissolved,” Sandry said. “There’s water down there?”

  Flensevan laughed. “One of the windows got smashed by a rock.”

  “So what’s keeping us up?” Sandry demanded.

  “It’s an Atlantean boat.” Flensevan’s voice took on a tone of infinite patience. “Manna keeps it up. Water magic. Only we don’t have enough of it.”

  Regapisk laughed bitterly. “We have chests and chests of magic. Enough talismans to keep us all young for all our lives! And the only thing that keeps us afloat is me, and I’m hungry.”

  “Reggy—” Sandry said.

  Clever Squirrel looked like a pile of rags at Reggy’s feet. She stirred. “He’s right, Sandry. We have manna, but it’s the wrong kind, and none of us knows how to weave Atlantean magic to renew the floating spell on Little Rainbow.”

  “So—”

  “So the only ones here who can see the streaks of manna in the water are Lord Reg and I, and he sees them better than me. And the boat knows how to use water magic to stay above the water.”

  “But not to steer to it,” Burning Tower said.

  Regapisk looked surprised. “No. I don’t know why, but no.”

  Clever Squirrel grinned. “Ships that sail themselves don’t need wizards.”

  “Reggy’s no wizard,” Sandry insisted.

  “Started too late,” Squirrel said. “If he’d had proper training when he was young, he’d have learned.”

  “I told them,” Regapisk said. “Right just a little, Rabbit. I told them I shouldn’t be in that school getting beat up in weapons practice. And I never did like iron weapons even after I learned to fight. And I learned to talk to the mers. I could have been a wizard!”

  “You’re wizard enough for us right now,” Burning Tower said. “Thank you, Cousin.”

  Regapisk tried to grin.

  Egret, the stronger of Flensevan’s two sons, had been crouched in the bow with a fishing spear. He shouted in triumph and pulled out a trout the size of his leg. He threw it onto the deck and drew his knife.

  By the time Sandry reached the foredeck, Egret had filleted the trout. “It tried to talk to me. You don’t think it could really have granted me two wishes, do you? But I was hungry!” He held up the boneless fillets. “I guess we’ll have to eat him raw.”

  “No.” Clever Squirrel looked horrified. “I may not be able to use the manna on the boat, but I sure know how to cook fish!” She looked down at the fish. Its eyes were open but dimming. “Why didn’t you wish for bison steaks?”

  Evening came. The canyon walls were gone, replaced by steep banks not much higher than the wave they rode. The water behind them was higher still, rising upward as far as Sandry could see.

  He pointed upriver. “The storms must still be filling the river.”

  Clever Squirrel nodded. “How many storm arrows did we use?”

  “I lost count,” Sandry said. “A dozen, maybe.”

  “Enough,” Squirrel said. “As long as the water is higher behind us, we’ll move fast, and it’s sure deep enough to cover the rocks.”

  “Could Reggy have become a wizard?”

  She shrugged. “I never heard of anyone with real talent who couldn’t learn enough magic to be useful,” she said. “Of course, sometimes that’s not very much. Some big wagon trains will have two or three wizard assistants to do routine spells. They never learn much more, but it’s a living. No telling how good Regapisk might have been.”

  No telling? Sandry thought. Regapisk won’t see it that way. He’ll know—

  “Getting dark,” Squirrel said. “I’d better get some sleep so I can keep Reggy going.”

  “You mean take over finding the manna streams?” Burning Tower asked.

  “No, little sister. Little married sister. Reggy really is better at seeing water manna than I am. Do you Lords have Atlanteans in your ancestry?”

  “I doubt it,” Sandry said. “The Memory Guildmaster has stories about times before we met the Lordkin, but they don’t lead to Atlantis.”

  “Well, Atlanteans can find manna when no one else can, and Reggy has a natural talent for seeing dim manna traces. He’s sure better than me. I’m always scared when I pilot this boat.”

  “Scared? You?” Sandry was incredulous.

  “Scared. Me. So what I do, I use the manna in a talisman to keep Reggy awake and inspired, and I talk to him, and he steers the ship. It works.” Squirrel went back to the steersman deck.

  “And you have to sleep,” Burning Tower said. “So you can steer.” She nestled against him. “Will this ever be over?”

  “You mean, will we ever be alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Soon, I think.”

  “South! We’re going south,” Clever Squirrel shouted from back on the steering deck. “The river turned—look at the stars!”

  Sandry looked up. It was quite dark now, and the skies were clear. There were no canyons to block the view, and the sky overhead was filled with stars, with only a faint glow of red to mark where the sun had vanished. The stars were thousands of points of varying brightness in the black, except for a mighty river of stars that cut the night sky in half.

  Burning Tower was pointing. “There’s the Bear, and the Snake. The Snake’s Eye is north.” She pointed upriver. “So we’ve turned south; we were going west, right into the sunset.”

  “South.”

  “Sandry, when we went to Aztlan, we went much farther east than north!”

  “Oh.” He shook his head in wonder. “I’m not used to traveling this fast.”

  “None of us are,” Burning Tower said.

  The night closed around them. “Hard right,” Regapisk called. “Hold. Okay, left, straight down the river.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Beached

  Burning Tower sl
ept fitfully. When it was Sandry’s turn to steer, Burning Tower stood next to him, sharing the warmth of his cloak. Her white wedding dress was soiled and torn in places, and she knew she looked awful, but there were no other clothes on the boat. For now she wore everything she owned, and there wasn’t even a comb to pull the knots out of her hair. With no mirror, she couldn’t see how awful she looked, but she could imagine.

  She fingered the hard object in a leather pouch at her waist. A small stonewood box with a silver stud for a latch. At least I have this, she thought. He’ll love me no matter what I look like. Do I need it?

  I can still ride Spike. The thought came unbidden and returned whenever she made the effort to banish it. With it came memories. The wild ride across the plains outside Crescent City, herds of terror birds following, Sandry’s men depending on her and her alone to lead the birds away from their chariots before their horses tired.

  Spike didn’t get tired!

  And the battle at Sunfall, Spike rearing above his enemies, her war hammer smashing birds and rebel priests alike. She’d never been more alive. Warrior princess. Who had called her that? Sareg, the guard captain. Warrior princess. She liked that idea.

  Now she was a queen, in Aztlan. What did they do with queens after the king went to the gods? She shuddered.

  She’d had no choices in Aztlan. She could have refused to marry, but if she’d avoided marrying Sandry, she would still be prey to someone. Coyote, the Emperor, one of his sons. Spike would go to the Emperor and she would lose him forever no matter what she did. They told her that the accomplished Lady Annalun could harness the one-horns, but Tower had noticed that while Spike didn’t shy away from Annalun, he didn’t like her either. No. They wouldn’t have let her keep Spike in Aztlan. She could be queen or something else, but never a warrior princess. She had no choices there….

  “Right! Hard right!” Regapisk called and interrupted her thoughts, part dream, part reverie.

  Sandry hauled left on the steering oar. She had been standing so close to him that she nearly fell.

  “Sorry, my love,” Sandry said.

  Casually, she thought. She knew she was being unfair. Sandry couldn’t be more attentive, usually, and he had to steer the ship, and he resented taking orders from his cousin. And soon, really soon, they would be alone together.

  She looked down at the ruins of her dress. The butterflies were long gone. She had never been more beautiful. But that was then, in Aztlan. Now the dress was torn and her hair matted, and her hands and feet were dirty despite washing in river water.

  Would he want her, now that she wore rags and looked like grim death? She fingered the box she’d been given in Condigeo. He’ll want me all right. But would he if I didn’t have this?

  The sky brightened to the east. When the sun rose, they were moving swiftly down a broad river, the crest of their wave almost to the banks. The deck was above the banks; they could see across the plains to either side. The river was a bright ribbon of green through the brown lands.

  “There!” Clever Squirrel was jumping up and down. “There! The city! Crescent City ahead!”

  The river broadened, and they moved more slowly. Now there were settlements to each side, the familiar hogans that the people of Crescent City built: male, female, young and elder.

  “The willow grove,” Sandry said. “We went there to gather willow bark, about ten thousand years ago.” More than a dozen workers were stripping bark from the trees. They stopped their labors and stared as the ship went past. “It was deserted when we went there before.”

  “No birds,” Squirrel said.

  “That’s for sure. The birds haven’t come back,” Sandry said. “Houses along here now, no walls.”

  “And no manna,” Regapisk said.

  He spoke calmly, and for a moment, no one reacted. Then Squirrel looked over the side, ahead and behind them. “Curse! They’re drawing all the manna!”

  The ship settled deeper into the water.

  “Will it float?” Sandry asked.

  Flensevan laughed. “It never would have floated, and it sure won’t with the windows knocked out. The hold’s full of water. Of course it won’t float.”

  Regapisk stared ahead. “Right. Steer right. Just a little more. There. Steady on—”

  “We’ll hit the bank!” Burning Tower shouted.

  “I sure hope we make it that far,” Regapisk said. They were headed almost straight across the stream now, moving downriver with the flood but angling toward the bank, going as fast as the water flowed. “Hope the bottom’s strong!” Regapisk shouted.

  “It’s ironwood, it’s strong,” Flensevan said. “Hold on!”

  “Left! Turn left, hard left!” Regapisk shouted. “Work the rudder! Row with the rudder oar!”

  The boat turned downriver, still angled toward the bank. The bow touched ground, carved its way into the muddy river bank. When the boat slowed, it allowed more water to catch up with them. The water behind them was higher and pushed them further inland. They were over what had been dry land, now flooded with the remnants of the rushing storm water.

  “Which way?” Sandry shouted.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Regapisk said simply.

  The manna was gone. Little Rainbow settled onto a greasewood bush and hung there, heeling over slightly to rest on the nearly flat bottom. Water rushed past on both sides, then on the left side only, then receded. The storm waters passed, and Little Rainbow was at rest in what had been dry plains land only minutes before. Furious prairie dogs popped out of holes and shook off water. The river was twenty muddy paces away.

  “Welcome to Crescent City,” Regapisk said.

  Sandry asked, “Flensevan, are we stable?”

  “Looks like.”

  Squirrel put a hand on Regapisk’s feathered arm. “You can sleep.”

  “Sleep?” Regapisk tasted the thought. “I’m going to fall over now.” She helped him recline on the deck…and he was gone.

  “Wedding nights are exhausting,” Sandry said. Burning Tower hugged him, then giggled. Nobody else even noticed.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Partners

  Sandry climbed to the top of the boat rail and stared south. “Looks like about an hour’s walk to the city.”

  “Closer if you have a boat,” Egret said.

  “One that floats,” Pink Rabbit agreed.

  “But we don’t. I’ll walk,” Sandry said.

  “We don’t dare leave this unguarded,” Flensevan said.

  “You stay here. I’ll be back. Find me something to trade. Or some money.”

  “Find Zeph.” Regapisk raised himself on one elbow. “Take a good talisman and find Zeph. He’ll need a good one to get here, but if anyone can float Little Rainbow, it will be Zephans.”

  Sandry shrugged. “I don’t know how to find him.”

  “I do,” Regapisk said. He tried to get up. “I suppose it can’t wait.”

  “It can wait long enough for you to get some rest,” Sandry said. “I’ll hike into town and buy a wagon. Or hire one. Get some sleep, Reggy. Flensevan, find me some trade goods. Tower, you up to walking?”

  “Not in these shoes,” she said. She looked down at the shreds of her wedding dress. “Or these rags, for that matter.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Clever Squirrel said. “Tower, I can buy you some clothes.”

  “Find Jade Coin,” Regapisk said. “Ruser won’t be back yet, but Jade Coin is a partner.”

  “Another partner?” Flensevan demanded. “How many share our wealth?”

  “Just four, now that Arshur is dead,” Regapisk said. “Jade Coin is a money changer. You, me, Jade Coin, and your brother. We all have shares in Ern’s wagon train too.”

  “If the wagon train escapes the Emperor’s wrath,” Flensevan said.

  Regapisk laughed heartily despite his weariness.

  “The Emperor is amusing?” Flensevan demanded.

  “No, but who will tell him the wagon train is escaping?
” Regapisk said. “King Sandry?”

  “I had not thought this through,” Flensevan said. “I have been in terror all the day, but you are right, there is no king! There is no one to tell the Supreme One that things did not go well in the river battle, and there will be no one to tell him of the escaping wagon train! We are safe for years to come!” He turned to Sandry and gave him a sweeping bow. “Majesty!”

  Sandry grinned.

  Flensevan became serious. “And there is Zeph,” he said. “He’ll get a share of Little Rainbow and anything in her.”

  Now Regapisk looked stern. “I never offered him any shares.”

  “This is his boat,” Flensevan reminded him.

  “Well, it’s all right,” Regapisk said. “I liked him. Didn’t like the salt farm much.”

  “What about us?” Burning Tower demanded.

  Flensevan looked sly.

  “We never drew up agreements, but Squirrel has a right to the shaman’s shares,” Tower insisted. “And Sandry was the guard commander. He fought too. He gets shares.”

  Clever Squirrel was chuckling. “I doubt that the rules of the Bison Tribe on the Hemp Road apply here on the road to Aztlan.”

  “Fair is fair,” Burning Tower said. “Tell you what, Flensevan: you choose a champion to fight Sandry, and a wizard to duel Squirrel, and we can settle the matter right now.”

  Flensevan leaned forward to stare at her. “You are not serious.”

  “Well, I might be.”

  “We should charge you for passage,” Egret said. “King Sandry, Queen Burning Tower.”

  “We don’t even know what’s left,” Flensevan said. “Whatever it is, it’s all we have. We can never go back. I lived well in Aztlan.”

  “So did everyone,” Egret said.

  “Everyone whose heart didn’t go into the wall,” Clever Squirrel said. “Are we going to argue until the next storm?”

  “We are Feathersnake,” Burning Tower said. “Squirrel, my husband, and I. Feathersnake always makes things right.”