by Larry Niven
“Well, yes,” Burning Tower said, looking at the blowing sand.
“Not just dry,” Squirrel said. “I can’t feel Coyote. I can’t feel anything—it’s like being blind. There’s no manna. Something terrible happened here.”
“When?” Sandry asked. “Ambush?”
“More like a war of gods, long ago,” Squirrel said, “and all the manna eaten, all the gods gone myth. I’ll ask Coyote when I can. But I’m no help to you as long as we’re in this place.”
The road stretched on. They could see green on the other side of the deadlands, and everyone hurried. Even the bison seemed eager to get past that dead place.
The next day, a calf was born. Bison calves born on the trail were a burden, and most were not permitted to live, but this one was a spotted bull, and Green Stone shouted his thanks to the heavens.
“It’s good luck, a sign of fortune,” Burning Tower told Sandry. “Look at the herd; we don’t have a spotted bull. In two years, we will have.”
Sandry nodded as if he understood, but Tower thought he was pretending. In an hour, the calf was on his feet, and he trotted along after his mother. The wagon train moved eastward.
Chapter Eight
Aboard
the Angie Queen
DAY 27: TAKING ON DRINKING WATER
With all her oarsmen rowing for all they were worth, the Angie Queen made anchor before noon. The oarsmen rested and joked and slept while boats put ashore with empty water barrels. Some passengers went ashore to find their land legs and visit the springs and the little village that had grown up there.
The Oarmaster came at sunset for Regapisk.
Tras had set out dinner in the cabin. The old teller looked feeble tonight, and he didn’t get up. He asked Regapisk, “Are you willing to talk to passengers? Tomorrow night?”
“Sure!” Regapisk said.
“I buy my passage aboard ships like this,” Tras said, “and I tell stories and pass the hat. This time was a mistake, maybe. The trip’s too long. Passengers don’t want to run out of money, and all my stories start to sound alike after a while. We’re at anchor now, and they’re ready for something different. Even if it’s one of the oarsmen.”
“I’d love to talk to the passengers,” Regapisk said. It wasn’t just a break in the routine—it was a chance to catch the attention of someone who might buy him free.
“You’ll have to stop stalling,” Tras Preetror said bluntly.
“Stalling?”
“It’s been driving me crazy. I know how to draw out a story,” Tras said. “I also know not to do it too much. I don’t stall. I can lose an audience that way.”
“I haven’t been stalling. I’ve been building suspense,” Regapisk protested.
“You can see the marks want to hear an ending, right? Finish the story. Tell them where it all went. And that means you’ve got their attention, right? So they’ll keep listening as long as you don’t finish. But a good teller always has another story behind that one, so he doesn’t need to stall, and if someone else wants to talk, that’s good. Nobody will listen to you twice if you hog the podium. I’m a teller, Regapisk. Only a teller would put up with your stalling, and it’s only because you actually know things. You buying this?”
“I’m listening.”
“Good. Do more of that. Now, tell me the tale of Sandry and the mirror. I want to see what you leave out.”
DAY 28: AT ANCHOR, THE NAIL
There was fresh gopher meat at dinner in the main salon. Regapisk was summoned afterward, but Arshur had saved him a bit.
Tras introduced him. He told the tale of the mer’s daughter, then Sandry and the mirror. Then he and Tras talked while the passengers listened. Tras asked questions that led Regapisk into stories he’d already told, and back into Regapisk’s past. Regapisk told of fighting the brush fire, the tale of how he’d ended up an oarsman. Tras broke in from time to time. He knew a little more about fighting fire in other cities, and details of Lords’ jurisprudence. The way it came out, Regapisk had let the fire spread. Regapisk held his temper. This was a new sensation for Regapisk: the audience was listening.
Chapter Nine
Aboard
the Angie Queen
DAY 41:
NORTHBOUND, SHORE IN SIGHT TO
BOTH SIDES; CALM WATER, NO WIND
“There was a ship that went down just outside the harbor, and its cargo was all barrels of wine. You listening, Ghost? The mers all got roaring drunk. They danced on the beach and played pushing games on the sea. Pushing games, that’s two mermen trying to push each other off balance. The girls don’t do that. Come dawn—”
Maybe the Ghost was listening; his mad eyes never left Regapisk’s. Fethiwong certainly listened, and laughed or winced in the right places.
“Lord Reg.” The voice behind him was the Oarmaster. Regapisk flinched, then turned.
The Oarmaster leaned on the rail of his lofty podium. “If I’d known you could tell such tales, I’d have put you on a closer bench.”
Regapisk considered a biting answer, but he said, “I can speak up, Oarmaster.”
“Much obliged. Meanwhile, the wind is dying. Oars up!”
Regapisk rowed and wondered why he hadn’t been summoned.
It might be Tras had got everything he wanted. Not only had he heard every story Regapisk had been able to give him, he had entertained the ship’s company too—and taken the fees.
Regapisk’s dread was that he had run out of stories, or else that they sounded too much alike, or were too long, or too whiny. He had really hoped to find something Tras needed to know more about. Armor and arms, maybe, or the uses of Lord Samorty’s map, or some way a teller could get into Lordshills without getting beaten half dead and sold for an oarsman. Something!
Regapisk was barely aware of rowing. His arms and shoulders and belly were like boulders now. If his legs matched, he’d have thought himself the equal of Arshur. Rowing was automatic. Just a glimpse of water through the oarlock was enough to warn him where to dip the oar to avoid waves and eddies.
Here was a new thought: money. Regapisk had never been trained to conserve money. What he needed, and much of what he took a whim for, had come from his family until recently. His elders moved wealth around in big masses, but he took no part in that. All children are poor. Now his inheritance was next bread and a cloak and a chance to wash out the wastes beneath his bench. Nothing to conserve or lose.
But a teller on a ship must arrive in port with something to buy his next meal and a room. Maybe not even a room, if he knew of someplace to bed down. He’d asked Tras to buy him free because Tras was richer than an oarsman. Maybe he wasn’t rich enough?
In the last rays of sunset, the captain made anchor and the men shipped oars. Regapisk slipped easily into sleep, then jerked awake when the whip draped itself across his back. The Oarmaster liked doing that. It showed his skill.
“Teller wants you,” he said. He followed close behind as Regapisk climbed the ladders, and he asked, “What happened to those mers?”
What? Oh. “Not much. They were the town’s whole fishing industry. What could the mayor do? He got them to clean up some of the mess and the damage, but hey, most mers are like Lordkin. They turned it into games and then drifted back to the beach. Mers can’t stick with anything.” Regapisk suddenly wondered: Is that why they like me? Because I think like them? But there wasn’t anyone to ask.
“I wanted to give you time to think up more stories, or remember them, or see new ways to tell them. I know I need that sometimes. And I was sick, Regapisk.”
“Sick how?”
“My guts back up on me. I’m old.” Tras said, “There’s another thing. I’m out of money for bribes.”
His heart sank. “So buying me free isn’t an option?”
“Oh, we could talk about it.”
“That could be depressing.”
“I’ve got some money. I’d have my ship’s fare back maybe five times over, except some of that
went to the Oarmaster. But I don’t have the price of an indentured man! So I need to know, have you hidden out anything?”
“What?”
“Did you hide any silver, gold, jewels?”
“How?”
“Well, I don’t know, Lord Reg. Some people swallow gems or small coins, and get it back later—”
“That’s disgusting.”
“I’ve got some jewels sewn into this coat, if a thief lets me keep the coat. I know of a woman who bound up jewels in her hair, and another—anyway, what I’m getting at is this: if we pool our money, I could buy you loose. You’d be my servant for a while, but hey, you could learn to tell stories, and it beats rowing.”
Regapisk’s heart felt like lead. “And all it takes is anything I might have hid on my person?”
Tras shrugged.
It was a scam. Tras had taken his stories, and now he wanted…imaginary loot. Regapisk laughed. “A Lordsman hit me on the head, and when I woke up, I had just this loincloth, a cloak, and tomorrow morning’s bread. And this ripped earlobe where I had an earring.”
“Mph.” Tras closed his eyes. His voice was weak, feeble. “There’s another thing. Arshur.”
Arshur didn’t react. He was out of earshot, half asleep. Regapisk said, “Arshur?”
“Somebody needs to take care of Arshur. He’s been hit on the head too often, or maybe he grew up that way, but he needs someone to bail him out every so often, or just tell him no. I’m a twisted old man, Lord Reg. I can free you both when we get to Crescent City. Will you stick with him?”
“Gods, Tras, I’ll still be at the oars.”
“I’ll make an offer,” Tras said. “If the Oarmaster says you’re worthless, maybe the captain will sell you cheap. Will you take care of Arshur?”
“He won’t say that. I’m better at rowing than at anything I ever tried, unless it’s telling stories.”
“You haven’t answered me.”
Regapisk looked at the barbarian giant. Was that the price of getting free of this ship? Certainly saying so was easy enough. “Yes, I’ll take care of him.”
“Good. I won’t summon you again, Regapisk. I want to save the money. Tell me a story.”
“Do you know about Lord Samorty’s map? Hah! I thought not. It used to be magical….”
Chapter Ten
Aboard
the Angie Queen
DAY 50:
SMOKE TO STARBOARD MIGHT BE A
TOWN
It dawned on Regapisk that posing as a Lordkin chief was a bad idea. Wherever he went, he’d be thought a gatherer. He told Fethiwong the tale of Sandry and the mirror, loud enough that the Oarmaster could listen. Maybe he’d be believed, maybe not.
And he told of Tras the teller, proud of the truths he could ferret out the hidden places he’d penetrated, who overreached himself at the Lordshills gate. People need their secrets. A tale that comes as a lie is at least the property of the teller; the truth is not.
Lord Regapisk was a dead man; but Lord Reg the oarsman was learning. Tras had taught him to listen. He’d taught himself to tell the stories he heard. Regapisk the storyteller lay still in the future. Some day he’d be loose from these chains.
DAY 61: RUMOR—CRESCENT TOWN IS
NEAR; WIND BLOWS NORTH; SHORE TO
THE EAST.
The Oarmaster unchained him at sunset. Regapisk went without asking questions.
As on previous evenings, Arshur let him in. Tras, seated at his desk, didn’t even look up. The Oarmaster went away.
“I thought you weren’t going to summon me again,” Regapisk said to Tras Preetror.
“He’s dead,” Arshur said.
Somehow it wasn’t a surprise. Maybe it was the way Tras sat, hunched over, all bones. Regapisk whispered, “He die that way?”
“Yeah, at his desk, making those chicken footprints and little cartoons that’re supposed to tell him how to tell a story.”
Regapisk stepped around to look. Tras Preetror’s writing was readable, but it didn’t say enough about anything. It was just notes, not stories, and the pictograms weren’t in any style Regapisk knew.
“You haven’t told anyone? The Captain?”
“Way I see it,” Arshur said, “I don’t want to turn over what he’s got. The captain or the mate, they’d just take it and say it’s for his heirs. Even if he’s got heirs, I don’t know who they are or how to get to them. There’s not enough to be worth a search.”
Regapisk found a dark amusement in the situation. “You can’t dump him overboard. If they don’t see him when the Angie Queen docks, they’ll want to know you didn’t hit him on the head.”
Arshur mulled that. He said, “Let’s jump ship. Can you swim?”
“Sure. You too?” It was an unusual skill.
“Yeah.”
“Be better if we could steal a boat.”
“Too noisy. Here, get into these.” Clothing. Tras Preetror’s would have been too small by half. Old Arshur’s were loose around the belly but fit him otherwise. These weren’t a Lord’s clothing, but they weren’t cheap, and they had a style. Regapisk suddenly felt much better. He tied soft boots around his neck, knowing they’d be too big.
“What else? We can’t carry too much,” he said.
“He hasn’t got much. Here, take this stuff.” Gold coins. A jeweled box. Regapisk didn’t see what Arshur had packed in a rolled blanket. Something lighter and more valuable, like…“Jewels,” Regapisk remembered aloud. “Sewn in his shirt.”
“I took them. Go!”
Arshur dove in silently. Regapisk lost his balance and raised a mighty splash.
The water was startlingly warm. They might drown, but they wouldn’t freeze first. They trod water beneath the swell of the hull until they were sure nobody had heard. Then—the land west was a waterless wilderness. They struck east.
He’d worried that gold coins would weigh him down, but the water was buoyant. It tasted brackish, salty. The shore was a long way off, a shadow along the horizon. They aimed for the nearest point of land. It didn’t come closer for a long time. Regapisk was worn out, and Arshur barely had breath to mock him, before they heard the splash of waves.
But Arshur wasn’t making for shore. And the water that had seemed startlingly warm was getting colder.
Regapisk didn’t have breath to shout. He followed. The chill had his teeth chattering…but a pale hairball was afloat in the nightbound ocean. A minute of staring allowed Regapisk to make out a man’s white hair and beard and a big crooked nose peeping through.
Arshur called cheerily, “Out for a swim?”
“Quiet,” the man croaked.
Arshur’s voice went soft. “Why?”
“You can stand here,” the man said in passable Condigeano.
Regapisk’s toes found bottom. Now his head and shoulders were out of the water. All his tired muscles cried in relief. Arshur asked again, “Who’s listening?”
“That’s my farm,” the man said, waving toward shore. “And those are bandits. We’ll have to wait for them to go away.”
“How many?” Arshur asked.
“There were four. One gave up already. They think I’ve got money, so the rest are still searching. I don’t know why that rumor doesn’t die. If I had money, I’d buy talismans and get myself young again!”
“We’ll take care of it,” Arshur said.
“Hold up a minute.”
Arshur started walking toward shore and was afloat again.
“Curse. That other one went for help,” the old man called. “Can’t you see them? That makes six. You better wait with me.”
“I’m tired of waiting. I’m cold,” Arshur said.
“They went for friends who can swim,” the old man said. “Boys, I’m glad you showed up.”
Arshur was halfway to shore. He shouted, “Come on, Lord Reg. I hope you can fight!”
“Sure,” said Regapisk. He noted that the old man hadn’t come with them. He noted that the two men wading
toward him had swords, and he and Arshur didn’t. But the rest were hanging back. These must be the ones who could swim.
The waves were a handsbreadth tall. The water was armpit deep. The bandits hesitated; but Arshur didn’t, and the bandits weren’t inclined to back away. Regapisk tried to stay just behind and left of Arshur, as he’d been trained. He’d wrapped a shirt around his left fist. His right gripped Tras’s tiny eating knife. Maybe he could grab a blade and get in a punch.
Arshur laughed.
One of the bandits stumbled behind a wave. There was a gentle sound like a ship knocking against a dock. Then Arshur had a sword and was splashing toward the remaining swimmer. The bandit lunged away from him, whining, found shallower ground, and turned to fight, waving his sword like a child. Arshur killed him, dipped below the water, came up with the man’s sword, and tossed it to Regapisk.
Regapisk remembered his training…and what he remembered was being knocked down, disarmed, bruised, beaten. Years of that. The Lords trained all their boys to fight, but Regapisk hadn’t been very good at it. He was good at jeering. He called, “Gentlemen! The owner wants to know your business here!”
The bandits shouted obscenities Regapisk had never heard. Arshur seemed familiar with them: he laughed and bellowed back. The four were standing in an arc on the beach, holding Arshur at the focus. Then one cursed and ran at them, sword held high, like a total idiot.
That was the most awesome part of that whole night. Regapisk knew how good a swordsman he wasn’t, but these fought like six-year-olds. The unfamiliar sword felt light as a feather in his hand. He cut at extremities, notching a wrist, above a kneecap, tip of a thumb, then running a man through when he bellowed and charged. The living man he’d left in the ocean crawled out and ran at his back. Regapisk whipped around in an elegant circle and beheaded him and was back in guard before the remaining two could move.
Arshur had killed one, but now he seemed to be just playing around.
The two men dropped to their knees and threw away their swords.