Burning Tower (50 page)

“I
think we made it!” Regapisk shouted. He was holding the stout tiller attached to the left-hand steering oar, but there didn't seem to be much work involved. The river ran swift and deep here, no rapids and few turns, and the boat drifted above it, the keel and steering oars just in the water. Regapisk gestured, and Flensevan took his place at the steering oar. “Dinner,” Regapisk said. “I brought food.”

Sandry realized that he was hungry. They hadn't eaten since an early breakfast. “Good.”

He stood with Burning Tower, looking back through the Aztlan canyon. In the late afternoon sun, Mesa Fajada blazed against a clear blue sky. There were yellow buttons at its top. He watched them grow larger.

“Baskets,” he said regretfully.

She pulled away. “Oh my gods,” she said, but she was looking toward the bow.

Clusters of baskets rushed down on them from Aztlan. They were still too far away and too high for Sandry to make out faces, but he saw the flash of scarlet capes. The King's Guard. His guards, but they weren't going to be taking orders from him. He stooped to loosen the lashings on his bundle of weapons and took out his bow, caressing it for a moment before stringing it.

The baskets ahead of them, downriver, seemed to cluster together and hang high above the river.

“See if your sister can move yet,” he said. While Tower went below, Sandry stepped aft to talk with Egret, who was manipulating the boat's right-hand steering oar. Both steering oars had large blades, big enough to catch a wind. Their tips dipped into the water below.
Little Rainbow
was moving at the speed of the current, and the oar tips and keel left almost no wake.

 

Sandry pointed out the baskets. There were only five in the downstream cluster. The upstream baskets trailed away like a comet tail: at least a dozen, maybe more coming. Both clusters were nearing fast. Both were staying above the river. Was there magic in river water, to hold baskets aloft?

Flensevan scrambled out of the hatch. “What now? Curses! Who are they?”

“Too far to tell about those,” Sandry said, pointing to the downstream cluster. “But that's the King's Guard up-river.”

“We're finished,” Flensevan said.

Sandry ignored him.

Regapisk came on deck carrying an atlatl and a handful of spears. He looked his cousin over. Sandry was wearing the same ornamental armor he'd worn for his marriage. Reg asked, “Flensevan, did you pack anything like armor aboard?”

“No. Am I a warrior? The Emperor doesn't favor armed merchants. I had a few weapons for fighting off thieves.”

“I feel naked…. All right, cousin, those behind will be the Emperor's, but who's chasing us from in front?”

“Sunfall Crater is that way,” Sandry said.

 

Tower did her best. Clever Squirrel would walk, but she wouldn't climb. Tower and Regapisk had to lift her through the hatch. They settled her on a blanket, and Tower sat next to her.

Then Tower talked to her as if she could hear. Perhaps she was only organizing her own thoughts.

“Those upstream, they're the King's Guards. They may want the rest of us dead, but they want the king back. Downstream, those could be more guards, if locusts flew fast enough, or if the Emperor sent sand paintings, or…Squirrel, is there any way he could have sent messages to Sunfall Crater?”

Squirrel shook her head in wide slow arcs. “Flute tree seeds.
Ilb'al
.”

Tower patted her shoulder. “I'm glad you're with us, sister. All right, they read the future and saw us coming, saw
something
coming. They could be more of the Emperor's people, or—”

The downstream flock of flying baskets had almost reached them. They were small, carrying two men each. Like Tep's Town chariots, she thought. Tower saw a man stand up in the nearest basket, swing a cloth sling around his head, and let go of one end. Motes drifted.

“Duck!” she yelled. She rolled her half sister into the hatch and followed her down. She heard thumping on deck.

“—or they could be the last of Terror Bird's priests throwing rocks at us from the sky. Come on, let's get back up there. You're our only magical defense.”

 

Of those still on deck, Sandry was the only one wearing armor. That bothered him. Tower, Squirrel, Egret, and Regapisk looked very vulnerable.

More stuff was falling. Not rocks—arrows.

Clever Squirrel stood up. She waved her arms and shouted. High above the boat, arrows exploded into a network of lightning.

Then three upstream baskets confronted the five downstream baskets. Arrows crossed. Lightning flared among the upstream baskets: the King's Guards. Two fell burning.

Squirrel closed her fists in Tower's wonderful wedding dress. Butterflies swarmed. “Get me something magical!”

Regapisk used his atlatl. The spear flew farther than imagination and ticked the nearest of the Terror Bird baskets. An arrow flew in response.

Tower went below.

The arrow struck the ship's bow in a flare of lightning and a flurry of rain.

The next few of the guards' baskets held back, clustering, unwilling to be ganged up on. One of them—was that Hazel Sky?—waved at a flurry of arrows. They exploded in lightning, short of their targets.

Tower came back up carrying an armful of jewelry. “I hope this is—”

Squirrel took it, a lapful of gems. “I was taught,” she said, “can't remember. Wait. Yes.” She spoke another language, being abnormally precise with her pronunciation.

“Better. Ow,” she said. Her diction was clearer. She chanted again. With each phrase, her voice was clearer. “Ow! There was magic in that stuff, that pulque, but Morth's spell unwrites the blessing. So much for divine madness. But it's still pulque! Ow, my head.” She looked up into a maze of flying baskets and asked, “Who's with us?”

“None of them, really, but some want to kill us and some just want to take us back and kill Sandry in four years. What can you do?”

“Not kill him. Send him to the gods,” Squirrel said. “I remember now.” She shuddered.

The guards' baskets were still holding back, gathering into a wall. Then all five Terror Bird baskets dropped toward the boat.

Regapisk hurled a spear with his atlatl. It pierced one of the baskets. One of a pair of priests jerked and yelled. Regapisk hurled again, and the other priest took a spear through the jaw. He fell. The basket fell more slowly.

Sandry selected one of the black rain arrows, nocked it, and sent it into the basket. Nothing happened.

“The cost!” Flensevan wailed. “Do you know what those arrows are worth?”

“I expected rain and lightning!” Sandry shouted.

“Next time,” Squirrel said. “Tell me before you launch it.” She was still lurching drunkenly, but she stood. She chanted; her arms moved in complex curves. Tower couldn't feel a thing, and nothing much seemed to be happening. Wait, now, another of the baskets was off course, curving down.

Falling.

“I can unwrite the spell that keeps a basket aloft,” Squirrel said with some satisfaction. The basket and its two priests struck the shore.

Regapisk's target basket thumped hard into the deck. A single priest tumbled out with a spear jutting up into his abdomen. Pink Rabbit popped up from belowdecks to push him overboard, into the raging water.

The remaining three of Left-Handed Hummingbird's baskets veered away, and then the King's Guards' baskets were among them. They were fighting with blades and spears. Sandry watched critically; Tower watched in awe.

“This thing's myth,” Squirrel said, and dropped a glorious sapphire pectoral. “What have we got with any magic in it?” She swayed and sat down. “Maybe they'll all kill each other.”

“Maybe we can outrun them,” Regapisk said. He was joking, but the boat was flying through roaring white spume, between rock walls that reached to the sky.

Sandry stared ahead. The current was moving fast now, much faster than a chariot, and
Little Rainbow
skimmed over the water even more swiftly. Egret was frantically trying to steer, but it didn't look as if he was doing any good. The boat went where it wanted to go.

“Squirrel! Can you talk to the boat?” Burning Tower asked.

“Uh. I don't think so.” She looked ahead and pointed unsteadily.

There were canyons ahead. Narrower than the valley of Aztlan, but much higher, spectacular colors to the walls, jagged spires of rock, monstrous shapes everywhere.
Little Rainbow
dashed down the stream into that maze of rock.

 

The priests of Left-Handed Hummingbird were falling. Three baskets, six priests, and none of them turned to run. They fought and died in the air, and fell into raging waters.

The baskets of the King's Guard flew lower and came near. Hazel Sky pulled alongside the boat, a pace or two higher than the deck. “Majesty,” she said, “you must return.”

“Hail, Hazel Sky. I thought Sareg would be among you.”

“Sareg fell to a traitor priest, defending you as he should. I will mourn him.”

Sandry nodded. “A good man.”

“I have avenged him,” Hazel Sky said. “We may not harm you, Majesty, but we don't have to. We only have to rescue you after this boat sinks. Look, the keel is already in the water, and the rudder too, and you go into waters beyond your skills.”

Sandry peered far over the boat's rim. He could see that she was right. “Squirrel, can you do anything about this?”

“Curse. No.”

Hazel asked, “How would you know how to renew the spell that lifts a boat of Atlantis? You're none of you Atlanteans. Your treasure trove won't help you float. You will sink. Can you swim? We'll pull you from the water before you can drown, Majesty. Then we'll rescue your bride and her sister and your companion, if there's time for that and the river allows. We will do all we can.”

Sandry said, “Great Mistress, I can't sell my rescuer and his sons to the wall.”

“Majesty, nothing can save them. Atlantean boat! They helped the wizard Zephans escape the Emperor's decree. They've been doomed for years, even if we didn't know precisely where that doom would fall.”

Squirrel asked, “Hazel, can you swim?” She began to chant.

“Stop.” Hazel raised her bow and started to nock an arrow. She stopped when she found herself facing Sandry's bow. Squirrel continued to chant.

“We need only wait,” Hazel said, and then her basket plunged her into the water. She swam toward shore through a gathering current.

 

The river had widened. Perhaps they had reached the Rainbow River itself. The water had grown rough. It was affecting the boat, throwing it this way and that.

“Let me take the tiller,” Regapisk said to Egret.

“I'm fine,” the burly jeweler said. “You do good with that atlatl.”

“Give me the tiller or we'll be in the water. You can't see where the magic flows,” Regapisk said.

Sandry called, “Give it up, Regapisk—” A wave against the hull set him lurching.

Squirrel got to her feet. “Let me! He's right—” Another wave dropped her sprawling. “We've got to follow the manna currents!”

“But—”

“Bet on me, Cousin.” Regapisk took the tiller, and Egret let him. Regapisk swung it hard over. The boat heeled and, a moment later, lifted.

 

The baskets followed them downstream. One came close. They recognized Coyote's mask. Squirrel began to chant. They heard a plaintive wail, but Squirrel chanted it down into the river. When it touched down, she spoke under her breath, but Sandry heard her. “Good luck. Farewell, my love.”

“Flensevan,” Sandry asked, “What did Zephans do to get himself in such trouble?”

“Foreigner. Wizard. Spent too much time near the wall.” Flensevan pitched his voice so that his sons couldn't hear. “I always thought he must have figured out which niche was the Emperor's heart. I never asked.”

Rabbit and Egret ran up a sail. Sandry wondered if a wrong wind could put them on land, but the boat seemed to want to stay above water.

It ran low. This wasn't all bad: it put the keel and rudder in the water, and then the boat steered much better. Regapisk squinted forward as if he could see things others could not. Arshur had always been sure that Regapisk was improving a tale. Sandry just couldn't tell.

The last baskets hung back, out of range even of Sandry's bow. He grinned and selected a black rain arrow. “Squirrel!”

“Right here,” she said unsteadily. “Good plan.” She began to chant in the language of the gods. “Now, Lord Sandry.”

He fired the arrow upstream. It trailed lightning, then a full storm. Rain fell behind them and the last baskets vanished in the storm.