by Larry Niven
Lord Regapisk, king’s companion, held the side of the basket and hoped that Arshur wouldn’t make any more sudden gestures. His last wild swing had almost swept Flensevan’s son Egret out of the basket.
They were rising up the side of Mesa Fajada, the Emperor ahead, Sandry himself behind. It would be Sandry’s wedding, and as his cousin’s only countryman, Regapisk would have a prominent part, but he was more—he was king’s companion. Of course he and Flensevan and Egret weren’t supposed to be in this basket. They were major dignitaries, but there were dozens who outranked them. But Arshur had seen them in their seats in the piazza after the ceremonies and sent the King’s Guards to make way for them to follow him, and when they reached the baskets, Arshur had let them assist him into the basket and pulled them in with him. No one disputed the king’s whim.
Flensevan and his son were bursting with pride, but there was fear beneath that. Everyone in Aztlan felt that way: joy, pride, fear. Regapisk looked down from the rapidly rising basket to see the old wall. The Wall of Hearts, where anyone might be taken at the whim of the scarred Emperor.
Doentivar, Grandson of the Sun in his place beside his father: straight back, blank face, no emotion visible. He’d be the wariest of all.
Lord Chief Witness Quintana might sell you to sea or send you to the crabs for a mistake, but not just for a whim.
The baskets rose higher. Mesa Fajada blazed. The whole valley below blazed with manna. There were bright threads in the river below, silver streaks that wound out past the gates and beyond the Aztlan valley into the far west. Above them the sky was clear and dazzling blue.
The basket halted, and guards drew it onto a wide platform built right around the mesa. The basket was almost steady, but still it hovered a finger’s breadth above the wood. Regapisk and Egret leaped out to assist the king, leaving Flensevan to dismount on his own.
Flowers everywhere. The walls were flowers. And songs and music welled up from the piazza. They do things right here, Regapisk thought, remembering shows and circuses the Lords had put on for Lordkin and kinless. The Emperor was rich and spent money and manna, more than the Lords of Lordshills had ever had to spend on anything. And the day was just beginning…
The Emperor had gone first. He was standing at the edge of the platform now, and the crowd was going wild.
And there was Sandry, just catching sight of Burning Tower in her white silk robes. She was beautiful, no question about that, and Regapisk felt a twinge of envy despite last night’s attentions from Annalun and one of her young ladies trying to hide her joy at being with Regapisk rather than Arshur.
Guards ushered them off the landing area as other baskets arrived. Regapisk noticed how many of the Emperor’s guards there were, even up here. They stood in fours, in identical kilts and shoulder capes, carrying identical clubs embedded with chips of obsidian. They were there to protect the king’s companion and partners as much as for the rest of these worthies, but Regapisk remembered the Lordsmen at the docks in Tep’s Town. Those had not liked Younglord Regapisk one bit, even before his fall from grace. He grinned at a knot of soldiers, but there was no response at all.
The part of the platform that faced the Great Plaza far below shone with an unnatural light. The Emperor stood there. Guards gestured Arshur and Regapisk into the light, and when the king was illuminated, the crowd cheered wildly. The light was dazzling, and Reg felt strange. Arshur bowed, then he and the Emperor backed away into the shadows, leaving Regapisk for a moment alone in the bright light. A lesser priest gestured urgently for Regapisk to move back, and when he did, a guard was there. The priest was masked, but there was no mistaking the guard’s unfriendliness.
The priest was watching the Emperor. When no sign came, he gestured the guard away. “Do not again spoil the Supreme One’s exit,” the priest hissed, and then Regapisk remembered how the Emperor’s image had grown enormous on the first day they saw him.
Tower and Sandry were standing together now. She looked radiant. Sandry looked terrified.
Clever Squirrel was led in from the landing platform. Two of Coyote’s apprentices were holding her up, and Regapisk thought she needed the help. There was a low table with bags of sand just out of the lighted area of the platform, and she bent over it.
Coyote’s priest took her hand. “Not yet,” he said. “You would not wish the bride’s parents to see what comes next.”
Burning Tower had overheard. “What? What comes next?” she asked.
“Think happy thoughts,” Coyote’s priest said.
Four of the guards dragged out Thundercloud.
The Terror Bird’s priest had been stripped of all his finery. He wore a white loincloth. He was not fighting the guards, but he was not drugged. His eyes fixed on Sandry, Tower, Flensevan, Hazel Sky. No help there, and his eyes kept moving.
In the lighted area, there was a big slab of rock veined like wood. The Many Names Priest came forward. “People of Aztlan! You have heard of the high treason of the former priest of Left-Handed Hummingbird. You have heard of the transformation of this god! The gods show their favor to the Supreme One! See now the fate of the priest who defied the Sun!”
It happened fast. The Emperor strode forward and spread his arms. His four guards laid Thundercloud on the slab and tethered his wrists and ankles.
The maskless Many Names Priest came forward, accompanied by Coyote’s priest and another in the robes and mask of Jaguar, and a fourth with the thin bill and bright colors of a hummingbird. Thundercloud’s whimpering stopped; he stared at that one in fathomless horror.
The hummingbird priest struck Thundercloud’s chest with an obsidian dagger. Blood spurted everywhere. The Emperor himself reached into the chest cavity and drew out the still-beating heart. He held it high, then placed it into a small, floating basket. The basket vanished over the side of the platform, then Thundercloud’s body, still twitching, was rolled off the platform to fall fifty manheights to the dry ground at the wall far below.
The crowd below had stood in silence. When the body hit the ground, they cheered. “Live a million years, Son of the Sun!”
Chapter Twenty-five
Sand Paintings
“Now,” Coyote’s priest said. Clever Squirrel felt his hands gently guiding her to the low table. His voice was urgent as he said, “The Supreme One is ready.”
The death of Thundercloud felt like a nightmare; she wasn’t sure how much was real. She poured sand with unsteady hands.
The image didn’t look much like Willow. It was all angles and arcs, distortions and shiftings, and the colors were off: she’d misjudged the bags of sand. She touched the sand with her fingertips, moving the patterns.
It wasn’t coming out right. The image wouldn’t come alive. She tried again. Whandall Feathersnake’s picture emerged like Willow’s, like a face slashed in straight lines, ear and eyes and nose jumbled almost at random, a style that wouldn’t be seen again for fourteen thousand years. She heard a laugh quickly suppressed.
She poured fresh sand into the distorted image of Whandall Feathersnake. Lavender sand trickled up the figure’s forearm, upper arm and shoulder, and splashed across his face. Then red, yellow, green, a shape growing clearer, shaping itself: the gaudy image of Whandall’s Atlantean tattoo, a great feathered serpent that wound from his eye down his arm. The serpent’s eye was coincident with Whandall’s, and as she added detail, Whandall’s eyes opened. Then Willow’s opened too.
“Hail!” Whandall said. “Great One, we see only the image of Coyote.”
The Emperor nodded with understanding. “Bid them welcome,” he said.
Coyote’s priest spoke in imperial tones. “Welcome to Aztlan, Willow and Whandall. The House of Feathersnake is known even here, and the Supreme One bids me tell you that you need only appear at the gates to be welcomed into the city.
“And today we have tasks of great joy. The Supreme One himself has consented to marry the lovely daughter of your house of Feathersnake, Burning Tower, sister
of the daughter of Coyote, and Lord Sandry of Lordshills, Fire Commander and Great Officer of the City of Yangin-Atep! Rejoice, people of Road’s End and New Castle. Rejoice, people of Aztlan!”
Chapter Twenty-six
The Day of
the Sun Dagger
Regapisk stood in the shadows, well out of the blazing light at the center of the platform. Over on the rock wall of the mesa itself, a sliver of sunlight approached the shadowed center of a spiral carved into the rock. The Sun Dagger, one of the priests had explained at dinner last night. Today that dagger would touch the center of the spiral, making this a day of great fortune. Jaguar’s priest had explained their great fortune to Sandry and Burning Tower. “It is the Day of the Sun Dagger in the Year of Jaguar.”
“People of Aztlan, witness the bounty of your Emperor,” Jaguar’s priest proclaimed.
“People of Aztlan, the gods are pleased!” The maskless priest bowed to the Emperor, then to the sun.
“Coyote is well pleased.”
“Blessings on this union of an heiress of the Bison Tribe!” Buffalo Woman shouted. “I bear witness: this morning Burning Tower placed a golden bridle on the great stallion one-horn, according to the customs of her tribe.”
One by one, all the priests of all the gods blessed the marriage.
“Hail to a great warrior prince,” Arshur the king shouted. A priest knelt to Arshur and handed him a bronze goblet. It wasn’t large. The king drained it in a gulp, handed it to the priest to be refilled, then handed it to Sandry.
Regapisk smiled thinly. Sandry had no choice but to drain that cup, and when it was given to Tower, she did the same. He glanced at Clever Squirrel, who was trying to stay awake at the sand-painting table, and wondered if they’d get Tower that drunk today. No one seemed to be offering him anything to drink. There wasn’t even food up here. The feast would be down below, in the kivas, he supposed.
The Emperor said something, and there was a laugh from Whandall Feathersnake’s image. Arshur roared with delight.
Then there were contracts, read to Whandall and Willow, signed by Burning Tower and Sandry, witnessed by Regapisk and Clever Squirrel. Squirrel’s signing was a crooked squiggle that would never have been accepted by even a junior Witness Clerk. Regapisk was going to mention that, but Sandry gave him a hard look. This could be corrected another time. Sandry looked as if he wanted to scream, Get on with it! Regapisk gave him a look of sympathy, but Sandry wasn’t watching.
Then Whandall and Willow Feathersnake spoke of the joys and hopes they held for their youngest daughter. Youngest, Regapisk thought. Are they making it clear that she is not the heiress? Lords thought that way. Lordkin never thought of such things at all. He didn’t know the ways of kinless.
And none of it mattered. Sandry is rich; they’re both rich. Wagonloads of charged talismans would be a good way toward Crescent City now, and Green Stone was already on the Hemp Road. Sandry and Tower would never want anything.
I’m rich too, Regapisk thought.
When Whandall’s image spoke glowingly of the wagon and team that was Burning Tower’s dower gift, Sandry smiled. Regapisk nodded. It was clear that Whandall Feathersnake was more Bison Tribe than Lordkin now.
“Squirrel, dear, did your mother give you something for the wedding?” Willow asked.
Clever Squirrel blinked in the sunlight, frowned, and dug into the pouch at her waist. She took out a roll of willow leaves. “Yes, Willow.”
“I gave it to your mother when she left with Burning Tower, in anticipation of a wedding I both hoped for and feared. Give it to the couple now. It is the tears of a mother, shed for her wedding.”
Squirrel held herself in an iron grip, clearly determined not to spoil this moment. Somehow she got across the platform to Burning Tower to deliver Willow’s gift. Tower burst into tears. She held the willow leaves until Sandry gently took them from her and put them inside his breastplate.
As Burning Tower took her place in the glaring sunlight of the platform, the walls of flowers on both sides turned to mirrors. She could see herself, gossamer white silks floating in the bright sun. I’m really pretty, she thought.
Her world changed, like a dream. She was enormous, standing on the great piazza below and looking down at the people of Aztlan in their seats, but she was here on this platform, standing beside the man she loved. I do love him. I do. And around her were the priests and Clever Squirrel and that strange cousin of Sandry’s—my cousin now—and in front of her was the Emperor, the Son of the Sun. He looked like a twisted god. To one side was Arshur the king, on a golden throne, looking like a great king. They were all there on the temple platform with her, but they were not in her waking dream. That she shared only with Sandry and the Emperor.
The crowd gasped as her image grew. She could feel herself getting closer to them even though she hadn’t moved from the heights of the Temple Mesa. She stood with Sandry and the Emperor, towering above the crowd.
And they were all looking at her. She felt ten thousand and more eyes on her. The mirrors showed what they saw. The silks billowed. I’ll never look this good again.
Sandry took her hand. She guided his hand to his breastplate. Mother’s tears. I never knew, Tower thought.
Music swelled from below. Voices now, choruses in languages she didn’t quite know, the languages of the gods. We’ve been blessed by all the gods. Witnessed and signed, the Lords say. There has never been a marriage more witnessed than this!
“The Dagger of the Sun!” a priest behind her was shouting. “The Sun Dagger! It is time, it is time!”
The crowd cheered again.
The Emperor stood before her.
“Sandry, Fire Chief of Lordshills and the City of Yangin-Atep, Lord Witness of Lordshills, warrior and advisor to King Arshur, guest of Aztlan, will you have this woman, Burning Tower of the House of Feathersnake and the Bison Tribe, as your wife, according to the laws and customs of the Lords Witness?”
“I will!”
“Lord Regapisk, companion of King Arshur, companion and countryman of Lord Sandry, do you witness this marriage and swear to bear witness to all who shall ask it of you?”
“I shall!”
“Burning Tower of the House of Feathersnake, you stand before the people of Aztlan. Do you choose this man Sandry of Lordshills to marry, according to the laws and customs of the Bison Tribe?”
“I do!”
A gentle wind came up from nowhere, and from the walls of flowers came butterflies of every color. They settled on Tower’s gossamer sleeves and cape and veils, until she was a swirl of living color.
Sandry! His face beamed. He’d never looked at her this way before. Had any man ever looked at a woman that way? Love, astonishment. And the Emperor smiled. Burning Tower felt her heart would burst.
“Burning Tower of the House of Feathersnake, you now know the favor of the Emperor and gods of Aztlan, of all the tribes of gods! At this moment you may choose anything you desire. Is it your wish that you be married to this man, Lord Sandry?”
Far below she heard a familiar nicker. Spike. He could see her. Everyone in Aztlan could see her. And soon she’d have to give Spike to the Emperor, and after tonight, he would have nothing to do with her. Her friend and protector.
And Sandry looked afraid! He was really scared!
And this was cruel. “Son of the Sun, it is my greatest wish to be married to Sandry,” Tower said.
“So be it,” the Emperor intoned. “So be it known to all, in the presence of the gods, in the presence of the people of Aztlan, in the presence of your father and your mother, throughout our domains and throughout the world, you are now married. Join forever, Sandry and Burning Tower.”
The music swelled and filled her heart, as Sandry gathered her to him, gently, fearful of crushing butterflies. Butterflies swirled about them, and the people of Aztlan, ten thousand and more, cheered.
Chapter Twenty-seven
King Sandry
Sandry stood with Burni
ng Tower. His vision blurred as they seemed to grow enormous yet stayed in place.
In Lordshills, this would all be over. In Lordshills, the contracts were all that mattered, disposition of land and houses and wealth and servants, what the heirs would have and what would be forfeit if the couple separated, what would pass to sons and what to daughters. When that was settled, all was settled. But Lordshills was a city without gods and magic, and this was a far different world.
Buffalo Woman spoke: Burning Tower had bridled the bonehead. Yesss. That was Sandry’s triumph too, and it had been hard! A year with this girl, a year of wanting her. Now that was over. Thank you, gods! And that too was a strange thought. The Lords believed that the gods existed for others, but they had never had much importance in Tep’s Town.
Tower seemed recovered from the shock and horror of the execution. Sandry frowned. She had hated that, but they’d made her watch. Why today? But Buffalo Woman had said this was an important day, the day the Dagger of the Sun pierced the center of that spiral. Another of the customs of people who had gods, and would such things come to Lordshills now that Yangin-Atep was myth?
Then she grew more beautiful than he had ever seen her, as the butterflies covered her. Her face shone.
“Burning Tower of the House of Feathersnake, you now know the favor of the Emperor and gods of Aztlan, of all the tribes of gods! At this moment you may choose anything you desire. Is it your wish that you be married to this man, Lord Sandry?”
He held his breath. In the silence, he heard the nicker of the one-horn and suppressed a grin of triumph over that rival. But the silence stretched on, and fear clutched his heart. Burning Tower looked at him, lovely and wonderful, and said nothing. That moment stretched forever.
Then she spoke, and the Emperor proclaimed the marriage, and he held her close as the butterflies swirled around them, and the world was wonderful.