by Larry Niven
“Seriously? But where shall we look?”
“It’s a big island. Let me try a find.” The youth looked at the palm of his outsize hand. “Right. Try uphill, up that path—see it?—then along the ridge. Tell her Borush sent you.”
They climbed.
Looking down into the bowl-shaped gathering place, Sandry saw that Hedjeraa had drawn a good crowd, fifty or sixty. Something above them had attracted their attention: he saw arms pointing up.
The path switchbacked as it rose. Before it reached the crest, it forked. “Curse Borush,” Twisted Cloud said. “Which way?”
Sandry said, “We have to find her before tomorrow. Shaman, could you find the house where’s she’s staying?”
“If that boy can do a find…well, I won’t try it yet. They seem very picky about who does magic. Let’s keep climbing, get a view. Left or right?”
“Right.”
They climbed. Below them, a score of wizards and apprentices were climbing too. That was Morth of Atlantis in the forefront, in the sober robes of a mage. He’d been more flamboyantly dressed when Sandry saw him last. Trailing the rest was a vast purple shape, Schoolmaster Wheereezz.
Twisted Cloud paused at the crest. “Let’s see which way they go,” she said.
“Why? They’re not—”
“I know my daughter.”
At the fork, the wizards straggled into the right branch. Reassured, Twisted Cloud set off again. Tower and Sandry followed. Wherever they were going, they were ahead of the wizards.
A young woman looked up, saw them, waved frantically from the bottom of a sheer drop.
They found switchbacks that led down. The Meetpoint gathering place was far below them. When she judged them in earshot, the young woman shouted. “Mother! Blazes! What are you doing here?”
“Clever Squirrel, meet Lord Sandry of the Burning City. We have a mutual problem.”
“Curse it, Mother, I’m here to learn! I’ve already got—oh, well, come on down. Hello, Lord Sandry, pleased to meet you. Aren’t you the one Blazes—right. What do you think of this?”
They had reached the bottom of the cliff. Clever Squirrel waved up, and Sandry saw that a human face had been carved into the face of the cliff.
Burning Tower clapped her hands. “Oh, Squirrely, it’s Father to the life!”
“It’s a little crude yet. Let me—” Clever Squirrel picked up a slender tree branch. She waved the tip over the cliffside. Dust and pebbles flaked off and fell, accenting a lifted eyebrow.
A shrill voice cried, “Stop!” And then a dozen more bellowed down at them.
“What are you—”
“The rules!”
“Young woman, you’ve been told the price of wizardry here!”
“Stop that at once!” A lean old man with good lungs.
“Don’t hurt her!” That last cry came from Morth of Atlantis. It was barely audible; he was trailing now, and fairly winded.
The wizards descended. There wasn’t room for them all in the space below the cliff. They bunched, reluctant to approach. The women were behind Sandry. Sandry hadn’t consciously prepared for battle, but this lot would reach the women only if they got past him.
Now came Schoolmaster Wheereezz, somehow keeping his balance on the narrow path while he forced his way around cliff-hugging lesser acolytes and wizards. Once clear, he pulled back his hood—revealing a smooth bald black-and-white head—and looked up at the cliffside, smiling widely. “Beautiful!” he said. “Clever Squirrel, this would be your work.”
Sandry followed his gaze. Though Squirrelly had dropped her wand, the face of Whandall Feathersnake was still changing, a fall of sand refining its rugged look. A mad delight looked out of the rocky face, an expression Sandry had not seen in Whandall Feathersnake last year.
“We’re told that the god Coyote is your father,” Wheereezz said. “Is this Coyote? And is he improving his portrait?”
“Yes, Sage,” Squirrel said.
“And,” Wheereezz roared, “have you any idea how much power your magic has used?”
“Yes, Sage—”
“Let’s find out.” Wheereezz clambered up the slope toward the vast face. Sandry distinctly saw the eyes in the portrait move. The big man stood just beneath, his robes billowing in the wind.
“This girl is under my protection!” wheezed Morth of Atlantis. He was still edging his way down.
There was a flash of color: the eyes of the god blazed and pinpoints of light played across the robes of the accusing wizard. Sandry thought he heard a laugh.
“Although she may not need it.” Morth spoke quietly, but they all heard him.
“Not much gone,” Wheereezz said. “Not much power gone at all.”
“That’s silly—forgive me, but it’s not plausible,” the lean old man exclaimed. He moved away from the dots of light, but they followed him. He frowned. “Even gods must obey the rules here! This cursed cliff has been ready to fall on Meetpoint for a generation already. Now she’s used up most of the manna in it!”
“If she had, I’d be rolling downhill in fishy form,” Wheereezz said, “and no god would be able to function here at all.” He grinned up at Coyote, then laughed. “Go ahead, Conal. Test it.”
Conal’s jaw set hard. His hands wove a complicated series of passes. Pale rainbow fire spurted from between his fingers, in a spell that had been powerful enough to blind enemy armies a mere hundred years ago.
Conal glared at the apprentices around him. If any were thinking that they now had permission to try a few spells, that stopped them. “The magic’s as strong as it ever was,” the Sage Conal said, biting down on his words. “She’s used almost nothing. Girl, how did you do it?”
In a small, frightened voice, Clever Squirrel said, “But there’s no great magic here. Rock wants to fall. The cliff is already crumbly, can’t you tell? I just tell it where to crumble. You don’t have to be a mighty wizard if you’re making things do what they want to do anyway. Rock sculpture is easy. We in Bison Tribe use it to mark a trail.”
Conal was aghast. “Can all caravan shamans do this?”
“Anyone can mark a crumbly rock, sure, or tell a tree to write a sigil with its branches. Main Man is a better artist than me, but he can’t work this large.”
“Very well,” Wheereezz said. “Can you prepare a lecture on your style of magic? We have a slot open day after tomorrow—”
Before she could answer, Sandry said, “No. I’m sorry, really, but we need Clever Squirrel in Tep’s Town as soon as possible.”
Rage ran across Squirrel’s features, and Sandry suddenly perceived the young woman’s power. “Who do you think you are, Lord Sandry of the Burning City? Remember where you are!”
Burning Tower spoke up. “Squirrel, it’s true. You’re needed. We came all this way to get you.”
“I might have a solution,” said Schoolmaster Wheereezz.
Chapter Twelve
Clever Squirrel
Squirrel chattered as they made their way back down the hill. “Morth was already gone when I got to Carlem Marcle. I stayed at Rordray’s Attic for a night while I waited for a ship to Blackhawk Bay and Avalon. I sent Seshmarls to Whandall with messages. No point trying to get you a message in the Burning City!”
“No,” Tower said.
The bird Seshmarls was a magically endowed crow. Magic still ran thin in Tep’s Town.
“But the idea was to meet the caravan in Condigeo, two weeks from now! Blazes, I’ve never seen Condigeo! And the wizards here have invited me to lecture!”
“Well, that worked out,” Twisted Cloud said.
“Oh, yes. They’ll get a better look at roadside shaman technique if you do the talking. You’ve been at it a lot longer, Mother. And they’ll have to give you a sigil and let you attend the other lectures. It all works out very nicely for you. How will you get home?”
“With Morth.”
“Uh-huh. Watch out for raw gold! But I’m missing classes, and Blazes, you neve
r saw Condigeo either. Wouldn’t you jump at the chance?”
Burning Tower shrugged. “Someday.”
“But what’s this all about?”
Sandry didn’t seem ready to speak, so Burning Tower said, “Terror birds.”
“What about them? They’re trouble, but you don’t see them often.”
“We do now.”
“Where?”
“They attacked us just before we got to Tep’s Town. And before that. You went west, we went south,” Tower said, “along the Hemp Road. We were past Last Pines when three birds attacked us.”
“Three?”
“Three, then four, then five. We’d reached the Firewoods by then. You know, it’s lucky we had the practice. We were just through the Firewoods when twelve hit us. We circled for defense and held them off. Some of the birds charged off down the road into Tep’s Town. Sandry killed them all but one, and caged that one.”
“They killed more than thirty people,” Sandry said. “They’re bigger than horses and better armed than most Lordkin. We killed six and captured one alive, Lordkin Firemen and Waterman’s tax squad and my boys all working together. The Bisons got the rest. A couple of our wizards—” He stopped for a moment. Tower too had seen Squirrel’s momentary grimace. “Such as they are,” Sandry said carefully, “they looked the bird over and couldn’t find what’s made them enemies. Twisted Cloud looked—”
“I can’t either,” Cloud said.
“The birds are a threat to Bison Tribe and Tep’s Town both. Now, you know that birds that big won’t hunt together. They’d never get enough to eat,” said Sandry. “It has to be magic, doesn’t it? They’re sent. And if expert wizards can’t find a wizard’s tracks in this matter, then he must be very good at his job, yes? So the thing is, we want you to look this bird over quick, before it dies or escapes on us. We want the best, and that seems to be you.”
The inn was on a hill overlooking the harbor. There were a dozen and more rooms, all different. One was a cave. Another was built on a platform at the top of a tower. Three stood side by side off a patio with a view of the harbor. Sandry booked all three. “I’ll take this one,” he said, pointing to the smallest. It was decorated with red lace and red hearts, and its usual purpose was obvious. Tower blushed slightly as Clever Squirrel suppressed a grin.
Dinner was served on the patio. Morth eagerly accepted an invitation to join them. Sandry sat next to Twisted Cloud, across from Burning Tower. He kept looking at her, and seeing that the others were watching him look at her, and feeling the warmth come to his face at the realization. All his life he had been taught to hide his emotions, from the Lordkin especially, but from the servants and kinless and the soldiers too. Lords didn’t have private lives.
But they knew love. Even Aunt Shanda, formidable Aunt Shanda, was in love with her husband. His father had loved his mother, and when he died, part of her had died. We can love….
Before dinner, there were tall drinks, mildly alcoholic, with a trace of hemp.
“Nothing strong, nothing to overwhelm the food.” The proprietor was a thin blond man of indeterminate age. His staff called him Wolf. Sandry wondered if he was a were. “This I learned from Rordray himself; it is the drink served in his Attic,” Wolf said.
“So it is,” Morth agreed.
“You are familiar with Rordray’s Attic!” The proprietor jumped up and down. “I only met him once; I went to Carlem Marcle just to meet him. He was most gracious as a host.”
“And a bit stingy about sharing recipes?” Morth prompted.
“Yes, yes, of course, but I stayed three days and I tasted many of his plainer dishes. I was interested in the most plain because I thought I would learn them more easily. On the third day, Rordray himself joined me at table. ‘Learn to know what you like,’ he said. ‘If you like it and you have good taste, your customers will like it also.’ It was good advice, and now this is all I have left of the cuisine of Rordray’s Attic. But I think you will like what I have.”
“Then I will let you choose my dinner,” Sandry said. “With thanks.”
The others agreed, and Wolf scuttled away happily.
“It’s pleasant here,” Clever Squirrel said.
“Oh, yes,” Tower agreed. “I’d like to stay a long time.” She looked at Sandry when she said it.
Sandry laughed. “I can keep the ship over another night, but not longer. How would we get back?”
“Ride the mers,” Clever Squirrel said.
“You can’t mean that!” Tower laughed. “It would be cold and wet!”
“But what a ride,” Squirrel said.
“There are boats to rent, and mers to hire,” Morth said. “Cheaper than the ships humans use, actually. And faster.”
“How did the mers get to be fish? Or dolphins?” Sandry asked.
Morth of Atlantis shook a head of red hair and laughed.
“Funny? I suppose so,” Sandry said. “You’re looking well, Morth. Much younger than the last time I saw you.” The last time Sandry had seen Morth, the wizard looked to be a hundred years old, and dying of it, hair falling out in patches. Of course he had just done battle with a god and a water elemental and used the one to defeat the other….
“And older than the last time Twisted Cloud saw me,” Morth said. “I have more manna available in Carlem Marcle than they will allow me here.” He shrugged. “So I age a bit here. It’s worth it for what I learn.”
“They’re vicious about manna rationing here,” Twisted Cloud said.
“Yes, well, they have to be,” Morth said. “There’s a small source here on the island. Hot springs. And some comes in currents in the sea. Enough to sustain the mers so long as they are very careful.”
“All this so they can turn into fish!” Tower said.
“No, no,” Morth said. He sipped his drink. “Refreshing indeed. Burning Tower, you have it backward. The mers are dolphins and orcas and swordfish who can turn into human beings. Not the other way around. Without manna they would be animals, not human.”
“So that’s what Wheereezz meant up on the hill,” Tower said.
Morth nodded. “Clever of you to have noticed. Yes, precisely.”
“How do they enforce this?” Sandry said.
Morth laughed. “You grew up in a land without magic, Lord Sandry, so you have never had to face a wizard in his wrath. I assure you, your sword will do you little good against real magic in a land where there is manna.”
“His sword is cold iron,” Burning Tower observed.
“Yes, yes, that will help,” Morth said. “But he is not made of iron.”
“I hope not!”
Clever Squirrel laughed. “Well, well. Have you two come to an understanding, then?”
There was an awkward silence.
“No words have been spoken,” Tower said finally.
“Perhaps none need to be,” Twisted Cloud said. “You’re awfully quiet, Lord Sandry.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Your mother likes Burning Tower,” Twisted Cloud said. “I saw that she did. So did you.”
“And she told me to be determined,” Tower said. “And I will be.”
Sandry looked down at the table.
“Lord Sandry is not entirely his own master,” Morth observed. “I lived among these people since before Sandry was born. Their ways are not the ways of any other people I know.” Morth shrugged. “But I can say this. The magic is coming back to Lordshills and Tep’s Town, and that will change everything. Your old ways are doomed, Sandry.”
“And if we don’t manage to deal with those terror birds, so are ours,” Twisted Cloud said. “Squirrel, you have to go back in the morning and look at that bird. It’s not just for the Lords Witness of Tep’s Town. If we don’t do something about those birds, there won’t be any more wagons on the Golden Road.”
Chapter Thirteen
Oarsmen and
Oarmaster
The twilight was long and the sunset glorious. A magical place
indeed, Sandry thought. He felt Burning Tower near him even after it became too dark to see. Determined, he thought. She said she will be determined! And so will I be. If her people won’t accept me, and mine won’t accept her, the world is a lot bigger than I thought. We only have to be determined.
He paused, startled at his own thoughts. I have decided, he thought. I want to marry this girl. Will she accept? She said she would be determined….
The sky was clear and black and full of stars, the way it sometimes was when the Devil Winds blew hard across Tep’s Town. Morth and the girls had names for some of the stars. “And there’s the Bear,” Burning Tower said. She stood next to Sandry to point to a group of stars. “That’s his tail.” She moved closer so that he felt her warmth next to him. Her hand found his.
“Bears don’t have tails,” Clever Squirrel said. “But still we call that the Bear. Morth?”
“We called it the Bear in Atlantis.” Morth shrugged. “There’s probably a story that goes with that, but I don’t know it.”
A trail of fire streaked across the sky to vanish behind the island. “Close,” Sandry said. He didn’t let go of Tower’s hand but used his left hand to point.
Morth laughed. “A hundred leagues, I would wager,” he said. “But I shouldn’t laugh. I once thought as you do, that falling stars were close. We went looking for them on the plains in Atlantis. Found some, too, always much farther away then we thought. There’s high manna in a falling star, even a small one. The king took half, and the guild took half of what was left, but even so, it was worth finding one. I once had a duel with a chap who thought he could claim a big one even though I reached it first….”
“Did you win?” Clever Squirrel asked.
They sat at the table and Sandry reluctantly let her go.
“I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t,” Morth said. “The loser went to the minemasters.”
“Wizard slaves?” Twisted Cloud asked. “How?”
“There is always wizard work in the mines,” Morth said. “Keeping the shafts open. And losing a duel loses a lot of power.”