Burning Tower (40 page)

T
he station's visitors lined the crater's rim to watch the Emperor's messengers appear.

Regapisk clutched his cloak around him. His arm itched. Ruser the Jeweler eyed him suspiciously. “You fought alongside us,” Regapisk said to Ruser. “Everything's changed. The Emperor might invite you in.”

“No.”

Regapisk waited. Ruser was troubled. There was a story here…

“No. Even if he did, I wouldn't dare. I have had enough of Aztlan to last my life. I will send you with signs and sigils that will prove you to be my partner.”

Ruser took a small stonewood box from an inner pocket. He opened it. “Here. Hold this.” Ruser held out a small crude statue a fingerlength tall. It was dressed in a small silver loincloth. Crude as it was, the statue was clearly of a naked male.

“Hold that. Think about women. Think about the last time you had a woman. Think about the most exciting woman you ever had.”

“Why?”

“Just do it. Are you aroused yet?”

“Yes, curse you. She was a mer.”

“Good. Now take that silver off it and put the statue in this box.” He gave Regapisk the stonewood box. “Don't open that box until you're with Flensevan in a place with manna. Anywhere in Aztlan will have enough.”

“And then what?”

“Flensevan will know what to do. It won't work except the first time you open the box. Remember that.”

“All right.”

“So. Ask Flensevan about the boat. We are wealthy, you and I,” the jeweler said. “As is Flensevan, if he wishes to be, which I doubt. With what I can take to Crescent City, we have enough to rebuild our business, even to rescue Zephans Mishagnos from his salt farm. Return when you can.”

“What's keeping you out of Aztlan? I go with Arshur—he's demanded it—but I can meet you at the gate. As king's companion. Or even with an invitation from the king.”

Ruser shook his head. “They come,” he said. He pointed to a rapidly growing dot on the high road. “They come.”

Four officials rode in a woven basket that flew just above the High Road along the line of petrified logs. They left the basket at the end of the road, still afloat above the last log. They climbed to the rim through windrows of dead terror birds and dead men. It didn't shake their dignity.

Regapisk had to depend on rumor for the rest.

They didn't give names. Tall, narrow-headed, lean, and bony, they seemed to consider themselves as interchangeable, even though they were garbed very differently. “Road Runner, Jaguar, Bighorn Sheep,” Fur Slipper whispered, “by their headdresses. I don't know the bareheaded one. Maybe he was supposed to be Left-Handed Hummingbird.”

They interviewed Arshur where he reclined in the infirmary. It took over an hour. Regapisk watched with mixed emotions. The old warrior had actually become a king. Was he still under Regapisk's protection? Could a king ruin himself by not knowing how to use cutlery? Regapisk wondered if he was only jealous.

Barehead and Jaguar spoke to Hazel Sky in the infirmary. She was too exhausted to tell them much. Then Captain Sareg took them into the main building, and only rumor followed.

Rumor came in bits and droplets:

The Office of Rain had numbered nine. All of them were priests of Left-Handed Hummingbird. When the terror birds attacked, the Office of Rain had been found empty but for scattered robes, and those were weirdly changed.

At least half a dozen priests had fled out onto the plain. They must have been sure they could control the birds, and they must have been wrong. Birds tore them apart.

“Jaravisk didn't run. He was Thundercloud's chief apprentice. We've got him downstairs,” Manroot told them at the noon meal. Manroot was an imperial of no great rank. “The messengers want to interview him, and I'll be on duty.”

At the evening meal they all found themselves facing Jaravisk, the imperial messengers, and Hazel Sky. “We have seen great changes,” Hazel announced. “It is best we come to terms with them. Jaravisk, tell us what you told the messengers.”

Jaravisk didn't bear marks of torture, but he wobbled as he walked. Perhaps he'd been chewing coca leaves. Below coca's induced calm, he seemed scared out of his wits. He didn't speak until the bare-headed messenger showed him something pinched between two fingers. Then he blurted, “Left-Handed Hummingbird is no longer a terror bird. The god of war has become a h-h-hummingbird.”

The hall rang with amazed laughter.

“A hummingbird,” Jaravisk repeated. He seemed ready to cry. “The feathers of my cloak changed. I was casting
ilb'al
to learn more—”

“For our visitors,” Hazel suggested.

“What?
Ilb'al,
the red seeds of the flute tree, what we use for seeing.” Jaravisk blinked about him. “Seeing other times and places. Captain Sareg found me, but I learned a little first. Our god of war is cast out of power for ages to come, ten thousand years or more. I couldn't learn my own fate, but what I have to tell the Emperor—please, Jaguar, please, Voice of All Gods, don't bring me to the Emperor. Kill me now.”

“Tell them about trade.”

“What if I laugh at the Emperor? The Emperor's cloak, symbol of his might, that must have changed too. He'll be wearing a cloak covered with little teeny feathers.” Jaravisk's high-pitched giggle ended in a hiccup. “Trade? I followed Thundercloud's orders and I obeyed my god. What do I know of trade? We sent the birds to attack people and horses on the roads that link the western cities. The god watched and guided them. Now it's over. We'll use up our magic or sell it away, and one day our folk will be gone and our city will be blowing dust and roofless ruins to be picked over by lookers. I have seen it in the pattern of red seeds.”

A
large canopy covered the reception area and courtyard outside the gates to the crater. Where the canopy ended, rain beat down on the High Road. The basket floated above the High Road, bright against shadow, just caught by the rising sun shining in bright skies to the east. The basket was wet, but the rain ended a few hundred feet away. The ground around the gates and down into the crater was frothy pink, but much of the blood had already washed away.

A day and a half had passed since the battle, and Arshur was only now setting off to meet the Emperor. Arshur the Wanderer, now Arshur the King, walked under an umbrella held by a soldier. Another imperial spearman held a large umbrella to cover the other three in the king's party. Two more soldiers followed behind. Arshur was slow to climb into the great floating basket, and so were his companions.

They were all wounded, the three who boarded the great basket with the Emperor's Jaguar-headed emissary. Arshur was marked with bloody gouges. The birds had scored him again and again while he twisted, turned, danced, so that claws and beak tips almost missed. The merchant Regapisk, Sandry's cousin who had once been a Lord and thought himself Lord again, was walking a little crooked, looking uncomfortable and favoring his right arm. Hazel Sky was unmarked save by a strange torpor.

Imperial guards brought them blankets and cloaks and saw to their comfort. When all four had settled themselves in their finery, Jaguar gestured. The basket slid away, slowly at first, but faster with every breath.

 

Burning Tower watched them go, but she was also watching Squirrel work with her meticulous, somewhat exaggerated portraits of colored sand.

The sand grains rippled. Twisted Cloud's portrait smiled. “Daughter! Happy birthday. Are you well?”

“Mother! I've defeated a god!”

Sand rippled; the smile became an
O
. “Anyone we know?”

“
Long
story, which I will be pleased to tell
at length
.” Rain pounded on the leather awnings above the sand paintings. “Have you got Whandall and Willow?”

Two more paintings stirred. Willow's said, “Squirrel, what have you gotten yourself into?”

“It's all over, Aunt Willow. Mother, do you know of Left-Handed Hummingbird?”

“Barely. God of big flightless birds?”

“Not anymore! We trapped it—we trapped the bird that was its avatar in a bathhouse devoid of manna. I thought I'd mythed it. But a hummingbird got in from the garden—fated, I guess—and the god took that form. It's a hummingbird!”

“What if it switches back?”

“No, it'll be that way for ten thousand years and more! Visions are easy here, Mother.”

Willow's image asked, “Are you hurt?”

“I'm the only one who isn't! Sprained every tendon in my body, but that's nothing. Tower's that way too, really limping. Arshur's got scars on his scars. We had to leave Hazel Sky—the governor here, and a wizard—had to leave her in the bathhouse to keep her isolated while we worked healing spells on her. She spent the whole battle blasting back spells from that damn traitor Thundercloud until she fainted. And Regapisk—” Squirrel giggled.

“Who's Regapisk?”

“Sandry's cousin. I shouldn't laugh. He really fought a battle! Killed a dozen terror birds, moved a magic statuette to where it could do some good—that's how we mythed the god!—and then he went up against Thundercloud with just a sword, poor bastard. Hahahaha!”

Whandall Feathersnake's image was gaudy. It asked, “Brave or stupid?”

“Brave! Without him, Sandry would have run out of time. And Thundercloud hit him hahahaha! Hit him with a spell, and it ran from his sword right down his arm and torso and both legs and out his sandals, and hahahaha!” Her arm waved in circles while she tried to find her voice. “Left a trail of little green and red feathers winding up his arm and down his chest and both legs, and that's all I've seen.”

Whandall and Willow were looking at each other.

Squirrel prattled on. “And we fought thousands of terror birds, but they're mostly dead, and the rest fled. We're making unearthly quantities of soup—can you hear the pelting of the rain? It's to get us water for the pots as well as to wash the blood away. And we'll send home feathers for hundreds of cloaks. There's an empire three hundred leagues east of you, an empire of trade, and we've brought their new king!”

Whandall Feathersnake's image spoke. “May we speak to our daughter?” At New Castle, an image must have moved. “Burning Tower, are you well?”

“Yes, cursed near exhausted, Father, but very well! Spike and I fought birds and a god and won. Sandry—”

“Spike?”

“My bonehead.” Perhaps they saw her face fall. These sand portraits exaggerated any emotion. “The Emperor will take him, and I'll miss him. Father, Mother, I want to marry Lord Sandry of the Burning City.”

“Hello, Sandry. Will you have my daughter?”

“With all my heart.”

“I remember your courage, Sandry. You've mythed your second god now, haven't you? A dangerous habit.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Our accustomed dowry would be a wagon and a team. Is that acceptable, or are you planning to settle somewhere? We can deal. A house?”

“Who could scorn a Feathersnake wagon?” Sandry asked.

“Will the Lords accept a girl of her ancestry?” Willow asked.

“They have said they will,” Sandry said. “And that is another reason for a wagon and team. I know your people will accept me.”

“Good.” Whandall's image stirred. “A trade empire. New trade.”

“Yes, sir,” Sandry said. He hesitated. “Father found.”

Whandall's image smiled.

Tower said, “Locusts arrived from Aztlan while we were setting up the sand paintings. We have an invitation from the Emperor.”

“How big is this empire?”

Sandry: “Ten thousand citizens and a bigger number of slaves, but that's a wild guess. There are questions they just don't answer. We haven't seen anything but the outposts. They're impressive.”

“They have magic,” Burning Tower said excitedly. “Squirrel says more manna than she has ever seen.”

“I feel that,” Twisted Cloud said.

“A trade empire of magic,” Whandall Feathersnake said. “It makes me wish for youth, for time to explore.”

“Morth of Atlantis knows how to bestow youth,” Tower said. “Father, you could come this far. But few are allowed to go farther.”

“And you?” Whandall asked.

“We've been invited into Aztlan itself,” Sandry said carefully. “The core city. A signal honor. Tower and I have been invited to marry there, the Emperor officiating.”

Whandall absorbed that. “I'd thought you'd marry right away. How long must we wait?”

“Another five cursed days. I sense that the Emperor's suggestion is law.”

Tower said, a bit woodenly, “The Emperor accepts our gift of paired bison and a bonehead. And Sandry's stallions. That was in the message.”

“Did you offer?”

“No.”

Whandall's image asked, “You're to give him Spike?”

“Hand him over personally.”

Neither Whandall nor Willow remarked on their daughter's continuing proximity to a one-horn. Whandall asked, “Giving up two bison, can you still pull all the wagons?”

“Yes, but Wagonmaster Ern isn't happy. Those are our spares! Now, only a few of us are invited to Aztlan, so Ern will go back with a fortune in talismans, and some of those are ours.”

“Do you trust your trading partners?” Whandall asked. “With a fortune they will carry without you?”

“Father, they are afraid of the Emperor, and they have good reason to want to be in Sandry's good graces. Feathersnake's goods are safe here.”

“Good.”

“They'll be happy to see those goods in Crescent City, and beyond. Sandry says they need rain arrows in Tep's Town! You know about Green Stone?
He
went back—”

“Called us from Three Pines. He's on his way home.”

“Oh, good!”

“I was pleased to learn of the new route to Crescent City,” Whandall said. “That will require new wagon trains, new crews. Now I must think of this Aztlan as well. Do we need it? Sandry, Blazes, you have all done very well. You trust your partners, but can you not return with your wagons? We can hold the wedding this instant, while the manna is strong. Willow?”

“Indeed I am ready, if our daughter and our new son are willing.”

“I would with all my heart, Father found,” Sandry said. “But we are in the midst of the Emperor's power. No one dares offend him. They whisper of terrible things he has done in his joy. No one wishes to think of his wrath.”

“I never heard you show fear,” Whandall said. “Even riding against a god!”

“I fear this Emperor more than I ever did the angry god,” Clever Squirrel said. “Even Coyote respects this Emperor.”

There was a pause. “I wish you could just cut and run,” Whandall said. “But I agree it would not be wise. Are you dealing with him, or just some flunkies?”

Sandry said, “I don't know. Doesn't matter. We're facing serious power.”

“Right. Who's going?”

“We have brought them a king. Do you remember a looker named Arshur? Traveled with—”

“With Tras the teller.
Him?
But he always said he would be a king.”

“And he will. They are very serious about this,” Burning Tower said. “Their soldiers risked their lives for him.”

“So how will you go?”

“They've taken Arshur the King directly on the High Road,” Tower said. “We must travel another way, but they haven't told us how we will go.”

The colors in the sand began to fade.

“Their manna is failing,” Squirrel said. “The manna here will never fail, but it takes manna at both ends to work these pictures. Say your good-byes.”

 

At lunchtime they were joined by Captain Sareg. “Rejoice,” he said. “You are summoned to Aztlan, and you will take the High Road.”

“What of our companions?”

“They are free to return to Crescent City and beyond,” Sareg said. “I suggest they take all your property.”

“My chariot and weapons?” Sandry said.

Sareg frowned. “We had thought you might offer those to the Supreme One.”

Sandry recognized the command in that suggestion. “Of course. But for my return?”

Sareg smiled. “You have the favor of the Supreme One. If you need weapons or an escort, you will have them, and he will provide transportation to any place in the known world.”

 

The rest of the day was spent organizing. The wagon train would return to Crescent City, with Younglord Whane as military commander. “With Mouse Warrior dead, you will be in command of everything,” Sandry told him. “But I doubt you have much to fear. The villages along the road were peaceful before; they will be more so now that they know the Emperor's aware of their problems.”

“What about your chariot? Your bow?” Whane asked.

“They will be sent along with my horses.” Sandry clapped Whane on the shoulder. “You are in command, Acting Lord Whane. Act like it, and try not to daydream when you are on duty.”

“But as commander—”

“You will always be on duty. Yes. Remember that.”
And that sounds pompous,
Sandry thought,
and Whane knows it, but I had to say it.

And one final expedition to be organized: a caravan to carry the visitors' gifts to the Emperor. These fit easily into an imperial wagon, all but the animals. Spike and two stallions must go, and two buffalo pulling the wagon. Sareg and two emissaries, No Face and Bighorned Sheep, would go with them.

“And a virgin,” Tower said. “Someone has to lead Spike.”

In due course Sareg introduced her to a fourteen-yearold apprentice baker, and Tower introduced the awestruck girl to Spike. She left them together in the kraal. Her heart was breaking.