by Larry Niven
Ern glanced at him nervously. “Would you insult our hosts and their protection?”
“If we needed the protection of those soldiers, we’d be in real trouble,” Sandry said.
“The Emperor’s might rests on far stronger shoulders than those soldiers’.” Ern shrugged. “But as you will. I confess I remain troubled by the visions of our enlightened ones. But Sandry, if they ask why we camp behind barriers, I will say it is your outlandish customs, and I have no choice because your backers own this wagon train!”
Sandry shrugged and signaled to Mouse Warrior. “Circle the wagons.”
The diminutive fighter grinned.
“You expected this?” Sandry asked.
Mouse Warrior grinned again. “I have won a bet with the Lordkin.”
Sweatbaths didn’t appeal to Sandry; he wanted a bath.
A water bath required hot stones, and many had been needed for the sweatbaths. While he waited for more stones to be heated, Sandry walked the garden with a few of the soldiers who tended it. He saw edible plants, beans and corn, fruits and nuts. There were great gaudy flowers and plants he didn’t recognize.
One entire garden patch was devoted to maguey, with plants grouped by age. Some were blooming. Some had tried to bloom and now had a large hollow where the central stalk had been. Those were filling with pulque.
They pointed out the garden where the Great Mistress entertained her guests. Sandry saw roses. Hummingbirds swarmed, zealously guarding their territories among the blossoms.
Another garden held fruit trees, including some Sandry had never seen before. He tried new fruits. The center of the garden was a pond; he washed his face there, nosed by big gaudy fish.
Then Sandry persuaded Captain Sareg to escort him up into the tower.
The view was awesome.
The sun was setting behind a glory of orange clouds. North, a scattering of flightless terror birds dipped in and out of flying cloud shadows. One—gaudier than the others, ablaze with rainbow colors when the sunlight struck it, the bird they’d been calling the rooster—gave over displaying his plumage and burst into speed, chasing something small until it ran afoul of one of the hens.
East ran the Emperor’s Road, broad and amazingly straight, never deviating as it crossed hills and dips.
South, the crater itself was an incredible artifact, a bowl big enough to feed all the gods who had ever lived. Far enough below to exercise Sandry’s fear of heights were the cook fire for dinner and the plumes of steam from the sweatbaths.
Chapter Eight
Feast
The banquet tables were large slabs of wood held up by stonewood trestles. A feast was laid out, and the room was filled, nearly everyone from the imperial offices and the wagon trains. Servant girls rushed about.
Burning Tower had ceased noticing the rich smell of men who had not bathed in many moons, but she noticed its absence at dinner. She herself felt clean and fresh. There was only water to drink, but a wonderful variety of food. It was as if the company grew drunk on the feast, and on fresh viewpoints.
Sandry was dressed in silk. He had found someone to smooth the wrinkles, and Tower thought him the handsomest man in the room. He stood tall and spoke freely. His Aztlan wasn’t polished, but he didn’t seem to care. Polite but proud, and she was proud of him.
The soldiers laughed at Sandry’s caution in setting up the wagon fortress, but they didn’t seem offended. None had ever seen the sea. They kept after Sandry to tell them more of the Great Ocean, and waves, and mer people.
Whatever story Sandry told, Arshur had another. Arshur was a natural storyteller, though imperial soldiers twitched at his tales of banditry.
“You have been many places,” Captain Sareg said. “So, Arshur the Wanderer, why have you come here?”
“I have come to be king. I am destined to be king,” Arshur said simply.
The room grew quiet. Captain Sareg beamed. “Destined to be king! This is wonderful news. I will tell the Emperor before I sleep tonight,” he said.
Clever Squirrel asked, “How?”
“We have our ways,” the captain said.
Sandry watched all this without understanding. It was clear that they didn’t see Arshur as a threat. Instead, they believed him….
Fur Slipper developed an interest in Thundercloud. The burly rainmaker told her, “We folk worship a number of gods. My mother named me for a storm, and I followed my name to my fate. But I am a priest of Left-Handed Hummingbird in addition to heading the Office of Rain.”
Ern said, “We could have used your help at Crescent City,” a phrasing Sandry considered nicely diplomatic.
“Dry, was it?”
“No, I meant your terror birds have blocked off all trade,” Ern said, “for over a year, until Sandry and his warriors came to rescue us. You could have driven away the birds.”
Captain Sareg said, “That explains why all the wagons stopped coming. The Office of Gifts has been most puzzled. We’re most glad you’ve arrived.”
“So you will tell the Emperor that the birds are attacking the wagon trains?” Sandry asked.
“I will certainly report that,” Captain Sareg said. “My superiors will be interested. And of course the Office of Gifts will demand a full report. I will send a clerk to call on you in the morning; you can give him all the details.”
“But you won’t report that to the Emperor tonight?”
“No, of course not. That is news for the officials, not for the Supreme One.”
But, Sandry thought, you will report that Arshur has come to be a king.
“The birds attack wagon trains all the way to Condigeo,” Sandry said. Sareg looked blank. “Far to the west of Crescent City, all the way to the Great Sea.”
Sareg nodded. “So you fought from the ocean to Crescent City?”
“Yes.” He looked to Thundercloud. “I wondered if you would forbid us to kill terror birds,” Sandry said cautiously.
“Oh, no,” Thundercloud said. “It isn’t birds we worship; it’s the essence, the god, the symbol of the Emperor’s might. Gods don’t take much note of individual worshippers, you know. If the birds have become a nuisance, feel free to discourage them.”
The rest of the company didn’t even seem particularly interested in the conversation. Captain Sareg said, “My officer and I had to kill a terror bird once. It got into the crater and attacked our stocks. I was only a foot soldier then. Two men can generally kill one, or drive it off, but that was scary.”
Regapisk shouted from far down the long table. “Ever been attacked by a dozen?”
“What? No. They stay apart.”
“Not anymore. They’ve been ganging up,” Regapisk continued. “Lord Sandry had to kill two hundred at Crescent City!”
The imperials seemed politely dubious, and Thundercloud actually laughed out loud. Otherwise Regapisk couldn’t have pulled a reluctant Sandry into telling stories. Terror birds attacked in strength? And Sandry knew how to fight back? Crescent City soldiers were growing angry. They knew what they’d seen! Sandry had taught them his techniques, and they’d used them on the way here, cursed right!
Fur Slipper and Thundercloud began discussing magic, cautiously, not eager to reveal secrets. Clever Squirrel got involved. They were a buzz of conversation against a background of men discussing war, until Thundercloud exclaimed, “You were at the Folded Hands Conference?”
“How did you hear about that, this far east?”
“Oh, Red Rock was invited. He’s our high priest in Aztlan, and the Emperor needed him; he couldn’t go. But Clever Squirrel, do I understand right? Threescore wizards gathered at Avalon to find ways to restrict the use of magic?”
“Yes, to conserve what’s left in these days of dwindling manna.”
“I see. Then tell me this, shaman: why are you supporting a trade in talismans, in charged turquoise and petrified wood?”
“Why…I never thought of that.”
“You encourage waste. The days of the
great gaudy floating castles are over. Gods are going mythical for lack of manna. What will happen if we keep sending what little we have all over the world? Wizards will live as if there were no end to wealth, until it’s all gone in a day.”
“Well, but talismans aren’t free,” Squirrel said. “We learn to conserve magic just to save wealth. Some of us become very good at it. Meanwhile there are civilizations that would die without the trade.”
Fur Slipper found the argument very amusing. “What would you do, Thundercloud? Shut down the trade in talismans? Magic drives the trade routes. Nothing else would be traded either, you know, not even ideas. Every culture would grow in isolation, turn inward, grow mad.”
“And no one would bring gifts to the Emperor,” Ern added softly.
Chapter Nine
Nightmare
Burning Tower watched the full moon from her window. Theirs was a tower room on the rim. The same full moon illuminated a ring of wagons deep in the crater, and the barren land around.
Squirrel was fast asleep.
Tower saw something coming down the High Road, something like a streamer of mist a-sparkle in the moonlight. Where the row of petrified logs ended, the mist moved up the crater rim and in, purposeful, seeking the guardhouse.
“Locusts,” she told herself.
Crescent City sometimes used locusts for exploration or to carry messages. She’d heard of such practice from other tribes. It couldn’t be more difficult, could it, than persuading ants to keep to their places?
Tower lay down and was presently oblivious.
Squirrel dreamed.
She knew it was a dream by its clarity, the glare of color and the sharp edges. Manna was strong in the crater.
She stood on a butte, a great spur of rock above a vast flat plain. A manlike shape stood on the ground far below, stood so tall that his vast mismatched face was level with her eyes. Dressed in a feathered robe, he was divided down the middle: one side a living, laughing, well-muscled man; the other a skull, fingers of bone, white ribs showing through decaying feathers.
“The world is endangered,” he said. “Clever Squirrel, you must join us.”
“Who are you, then?”
“We are the conservators. Human beings are natural magic users. There is magic in our very being. With no trace of magic left, who knows what our descendants would be like? They would be no longer human. We must save the magic for generations to follow.”
The intruder was seeing into her mind by a little bit; she was seeing into his.
She asked, “Thundercloud, do you send terror birds to kill for you?” and knew at once that it was not only Thundercloud. She sensed a pair of adversaries, Thundercloud and a more powerful personality, his mentor. She perceived his name: Vucub-Caquix, Seven Macaws.
“We do,” the composite said. Both were speaking the truth as they saw it. “We must, to block the flow of trade. Tell me how you kill the nightmare birds.”
It was pulled from her, what little she knew. Sandry fought without magic, in ways Squirrel didn’t understand, with chariots, atlatls, the many-layered bow, a stone bird gathered from the enemy, and by making patterns with armed men. She sensed her adversary’s disappointment.
“Do you rule the god, or does he rule you?” she wondered, and she knew. Both. The god’s own purpose was to evade its fate. Trade must be stopped because traders were coming to destroy Left-Handed Hummingbird.
She’d learned enough. Now she tried to wake up.
Her adversary said, “Sandry fights the nightmare birds. Who else has learned from him?”
All he had trained, his own Younglords, the Condigeo marines, the Crescent City soldiers, Arshur the wanderer. She gave them all to the half-skull giant, and knew that all must die. She whimpered.
“Sleep,” said her adversary, and velvet blackness took her. She woke in midafternoon, in the midst of battle.
Chapter Ten
The Battle Begins
Starting at first light, the merchants began charging their cargos of silver-and-turquoise talismans. Clever Squirrel was still asleep. She would be sorry she’d missed seeing this, Tower thought.
Actually the process looked simple. Ruser’s own collection was typical. Carved turquoise objects, figures and faces of gods known and obscure, were worked into cages of silver. The silver frame was there to charge the blue stone. The stone would hold magic until a spell released it. It had to be dismounted from the silver before it left the crater, or the manna would leak away. Then the charged talismans were put into boxes of magic-depleted stonewood.
So Regapisk and Arshur took loads of Ruser’s talismans into the bottom of the crater and strung them on lines. They’d be left there all day. Ruser supervised. Secklers the Lordkin helped. He seemed to enjoy the work. The others watched him pretty closely. Tower opened her hope chest and removed the birthname talisman the ladies of Condigeo had given her. The central charm was removed and wrapped in silver wire, and Burning Tower herself carried it to the crater. After a moment’s thought, she climbed the central pole that held up the wires the other talismans were strung on, and put her charm at the very top. No one would gather it there unless they could climb like Burning Tower, or fly.
Captain Sareg came down to watch. He beamed when he spotted Arshur. Tower heard him; the whole circle of wagons was meant to. “Arshur the Wanderer! You are to be king!”
“What you say?”
“A reply from the Emperor arrived last night. The Emperor has accepted you as king. We’re all very glad: we’ve been without a king for most of a year. You’ll be taken by the High Road to Aztlan as soon as transport arrives.”
“High Road…when? How shall I dress? Act? May I take companions?”
“Soon, I would think. Dress? Your servants will dress you when you arrive. Act as you’ve always acted, it’s worked for you so far. Some of your companions have been invited to the city, but they’ll come by their own path. My congratulations, Majesty.” And he bowed.
So it came about that the entire wagon train was busy at hanging jewelry. Sandry and his minions were guarding the jewelry against gatherers, but there didn’t seem to be any of those. The imperials were spending their time watching them, even the man on the guard tower. Nobody was seeing what was outside the crater, except Arshur, who abandoned the lines he’d been stringing and went scampering up the walls of the crater to watch for what was due to arrive on the High Road.
Around midmorning, he began shouting.
Then the man on the guard tower was shouting too. He was using some military jargon. Burning Tower couldn’t understand him, but she saw soldiers scampering up the crater slope. She climbed laboriously uphill to look.
Terror birds surrounded the crater, close up against the rim, just outside the ring of ugly stone statues that surrounded the crater. They were widely separated and behaving like flightless birds, but they wouldn’t find much prey this close to civilization. The gaudy one, the rooster, had placed himself farther back.
Behind her, Mouse Warrior ran among the wagons crying, “Hey, Harpy!”
Sandry heard the shouts from the guard tower. “Birds! Terror birds! Alarm! Call the wizards!” the soldier was shouting.
Birds. Alarm! Call the wizards. How many birds?
“Call the wizards!” the guard repeated. Someone on the ground heard, and took up the shout. “Close the gates!” someone else called.
Sandry looked at those gates with contempt. They wouldn’t keep out determined terror birds. Neither would the low walls and broken maguey fences. Enough birds and—
“Terror birds!” the tower guard shouted again.
“How many?” Captain Sareg shouted from below the tower.
“Hundreds!”
Hundreds would be more than enough to overwhelm the imperial soldiers and the wagon train as well. That many birds could be stopped only by magic.
“Wizards! Call the wizards!” Captain Sareg was shouting.
The birds came to the crater rim. T
hey lined up along its lip, held in check for the moment by the stacks of stonewood heads with their glowing eyes. Foolish, Sandry thought. If they rushed us now, we wouldn’t have a chance. “Younglord Whane!”
“Sir!”
“Get everyone you can into armor; turn out with weapons. We’ll make a stand on the road down from the rim.”
“Sir.” Whane ran off, afraid but under control. And the birds gathered at the rim, more and more of them.
“What are they waiting for?” Arshur demanded. “A fair fight?”
“It almost looks that way,” Sandry said. “Or some way through that ring of statues.” The eyes of the guard statues were burning fiercely now, making lines of light wherever dust blew past. The birds would not cross that line, but more gathered behind it.
“The light’s dimming, I think,” Younglord Whane said conversationally. “When it’s gone, will they come through?”
Sandry looked around for Clever Squirrel. No sign of her. Sareg had summoned his own wizards, but not Squirrel. Burning Tower was rushing up toward the rim. Sandry went to her.
“Where is Clever Squirrel?”
“Asleep,” she said.
“Wake her. Run!”
She ran. Sandry smiled to himself, watching her. If they lived through this…“Fur Slipper?”
“Down in the pit. I’ve sent for her.” Ern had put on thick buckskins and brought his spears. “What are those things waiting for?”
“I don’t know, but the longer they wait, the better I like it,” Sandry said. “I want my armor. Gather everyone you can. Arshur, you and Whane get some kind of battle line set up while I get my stuff.”
“I’ll get it!” Wagonmaster Ern’s boy looked eager. “I know where you keep everything! Let me get it.”
“Go,” Sandry said.
“Now what?” Arshur said. “Look.”
A half dozen of the imperial soldiers were running down the hill to them, with Captain Sareg puffing behind them. “Majesty,” Sareg shouted. “We are come to defend you.” The other soldiers laughed nervously.