Burning Tower

by Larry Niven

  “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.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The King of Aztlan

  With the sun setting behind them, the king and his entourage skimmed through a city that was all squares and circles. The line of logs stopped at the edge of a great winding river. The basket skimmed across the water, brown roiling water with bright ripples and streaks of power. The basket was flying free…not falling…lifting toward a tremendous butte.

  The flight had lasted all day. Regapisk, indisputably Lord, had endured, trying not to know how easily death could take him. Lord Regapisk was no coward, but none of his training had prepared him for this. He was flying at unnerving speed, a tall man’s height above the ground, in a wickerwork basket! If he didn’t want wind blasting in his eyes, he could look through the weave, squinting a little, to see land he might one day have to traverse on foot, if his fortunes continued their accustomed wild swings.

  Hazel Sky watched him in amusement. Arshur barely noticed him. Jaguar…who could tell what the shaman was thinking behind the slits in his mask? He pointed at the butte and said, “Temple Mesa Fajada. Our major rites are performed on the peak. You’ll compete to be king there.”

  Arshur said, “Compete?”

  “You’ll kill a terror bird before you go up. It’s one of the rites. Don’t worry, Majesty, the bird will be drugged.”

  “Drugged? I forbid it! Am I to cower before a bird?”

  For now Regapisk was the king’s companion.

  And the king was having a wonderful time! Arshur stood up and braced himself as the basket rose up the wall of stone toward the rim of the butte. Four baskets already in flight converged on them as escorts. Each carried an armored guard.

  The king’s basket paused two thirds of the way up the butte. Here an arc of ledge sprouted from the vertical stone, and on it, a single round building, a kiva. A bare-headed man in a kilt watched them set down.

  Odd to be seeing it that way, Regapisk thought, when the ledge was actually thick with people. Warriors on alert: four. Cooks tending an arc of hot stone and big haunches of broiling meat: also four. Four women bracketed a heap of clothing in wildly brilliant colors. One man in a mask…a mask of the god Coyote. With a tail, a splendid tail that waved like a part of the man. And beyond him, one ageless man in a wonderfully embroidered kilt.

  Arshur was first out; he helped Hazel Sky down. Regapisk rolled over the side, hampered by his cramping legs. Jaguar’s priest emerged last. He and Hazel flattened their foreheads against the stone floor as the man in the kilt strolled up. Regapisk prudently did the same.

  The man’s belly looked like knotted cables: it bore deep old scars. His face was ageless—certainly not young, but there were none of the wrinkles of age.

  “Get up. You are Arshur?” He spoke slowly, spitting his consonants. Regapisk had no trouble understanding his Aztlan speech. “It’s good to have a king again!”

  “I was to translate,” said Coyote’s priest. He was lanky and blond, with a long waist and short legs and a sharply pointed nose: a little like a coyote, mask or no. He’d taken his mask off to eat, but the tail remained. Regapisk still didn’t know if it was real or a magical bit of costume. It waved from time to time. “We didn’t know you would both speak as we do,” Coyote said. “How did that come about, King’s Companion?”

  “Call me Regapisk. There was an old man, a refugee from Aztlan. People don’t leave Aztlan by choice, do they?”

  “Why would they, Regapisk? Wait until you see Aztlan in daylight.” He was smiling, though the tail swished angrily. “Tell more about this man.”

  “Not much to know,” Regapisk said. And why is Coyote interested in old Zeph? Is it Coyote the god or Coyote’s priest, loyal servant of the Emperor, who wants to know? Best to find out before I say much more, Regapisk thought.

  The king and the Emperor were talking. Arshur wasn’t showing any kind of diffidence, and both men were enjoying themselves hugely. Regapisk wasn’t the world’s greatest diplomat, but even he knew better than to interrupt them. Meanwhile the four women were stripping Regapisk of his travel-worn clothing and draping him in finespun, marvelously decorated kilts and robes. They exclaimed at the feathers along his arm and down his legs.

  “We saved Zeph from the sea. He taught both of us,” Reg said. “He knew a little wizardry, and he taught me that too, and something about raising crops.”

  “Only a little wizardry?”

  Reggy shrugged. “More than I’ll ever know, but it didn’t do him a lot of good.”

  “Did he know Atlantean magic?”

  Regapisk snorted. “I know little of Atlantean magic, but I do know Atlantis was powerful. Zeph was an old man living on vegetables. Tell me, is there a story to go with the Emperor’s scars?”

  “There must be, but none knows it. Some great secret is there. We know only that the Emperor has ruled for nearly a thousand years.”

  Regapisk carefully didn’t smile. “Do the kings live that long too?”

  “No, only the Emperor.” Coyote’s priest picked up an ear of corn. Regapisk took one and gnawed it, imitating the shaman’s technique.

  He asked, “Is it easy to become king here?”

  Coyote looked to be swallowing a laugh. That was irritating. “Not so difficult,” he said. “Some cannot avoid it.”

  “Then why were you so long without?”

  “In his third year of rule, the old king choked to death on a chicken bone,” Coyote said. “Nobody had any idea what to do about that. We don’t like to choose a king from ourselves, so we waited for a stranger. No stranger came.”

  “Nothing else came either?”

  “Hah! Nothing. We knew bad luck would come from the lack of a king, but we never guessed our own priests would revolt! It was the cursed birds, wasn’t it? Blocking off the trade routes.”

  “Until Sandry broke the siege.”

  “Not Arshur?”

  “King Arshur is a mighty warrior, but Lord Sandry is a thinker and fighter. He found a way to kill two hundred birds at Crescent City. We k
illed more than a thousand at the crater, and we couldn’t have done it without my cousin. Coyote, how could you not know that you were cut off from the world?”

  “This is the world. Even so, we knew,” Coyote’s priest said. “But without a king, there was nobody to tell the Emperor.”

  “I don’t understand,” Regapisk said, but Coyote’s priest only smiled and went on eating. Baskets rose from below bearing more food, and the women served them exotic dishes, describing what Regapisk found unfamiliar.

  Regapisk said, “I know Coyote’s daughter.”

  “Is she really?”

  “Oh, yes. The story’s famous,” Regapisk said, and he told how Whandall Feathersnake, possessed by Coyote, had loved Twisted Cloud, the shaman’s daughter. “Their child is Clever Squirrel, and she’ll be coming here with Sandry.”

  “I’m eager to meet them both, and Burning Tower too. Is she a mighty fighter?”

  “Riding her unicorn, she is mighty enough.”

  “I yearn to meet her. And Coyote’s daughter. Is she a beauty?”

  “Many would say so,” Regapisk said. “But not many think of her in that way.”

  Coyote’s priest grinned knowingly.

  “Even the one-horns fear her wrath,” Regapisk said.

  The grin widened. “Now tell me more of Sandry,” Coyote’s priest said. “And I will tell you how we will cure you. Or try to cure you. You have been afflicted by the curse of a transformed god who has no love for you. A cure will not be easy. But first, tell me more of Sandry. Do you admire him?”

  Their quarters were at the base of the canyon walls: a rectangular house with a kiva and several rooms.

  Arshur had asked for four virgins to serve them that night. “I wanted seven. Lucky number in Atlantis. Then I thought—”

  “Not so young anymore?”

  “I thought: everything comes in fours here.”

  Three of the girls were young, a bit thrilled, a bit scared. The fourth was a woman in her thirties: an instructor. She wasn’t expecting to be chosen, and none of them were expecting to be seduced.

  The older woman’s name was Annalun, and she was the daughter of a king. She sat with Regapisk and poured wine over ice for both of them as she watched her charges tease Arshur.