Burning Tower

by Larry Niven

  Clusters of baskets rushed down on them from Aztlan. They were still too far away and too high for Sandry to make out faces, but he saw the flash of scarlet capes. The King’s Guard. His guards, but they weren’t going to be taking orders from him. He stooped to loosen the lashings on his bundle of weapons and took out his bow, caressing it for a moment before stringing it.

  The baskets ahead of them, downriver, seemed to cluster together and hang high above the river.

  “See if your sister can move yet,” he said. While Tower went below, Sandry stepped aft to talk with Egret, who was manipulating the boat’s right-hand steering oar. Both steering oars had large blades, big enough to catch a wind. Their tips dipped into the water below. Little Rainbow was moving at the speed of the current, and the oar tips and keel left almost no wake.

  Sandry pointed out the baskets. There were only five in the downstream cluster. The upstream baskets trailed away like a comet tail: at least a dozen, maybe more coming. Both clusters were nearing fast. Both were staying above the river. Was there magic in river water, to hold baskets aloft?

  Flensevan scrambled out of the hatch. “What now? Curses! Who are they?”

  “Too far to tell about those,” Sandry said, pointing to the downstream cluster. “But that’s the King’s Guard up-river.”

  “We’re finished,” Flensevan said.

  Sandry ignored him.

  Regapisk came on deck carrying an atlatl and a handful of spears. He looked his cousin over. Sandry was wearing the same ornamental armor he’d worn for his marriage. Reg asked, “Flensevan, did you pack anything like armor aboard?”

  “No. Am I a warrior? The Emperor doesn’t favor armed merchants. I had a few weapons for fighting off thieves.”

  “I feel naked…. All right, cousin, those behind will be the Emperor’s, but who’s chasing us from in front?”

  “Sunfall Crater is that way,” Sandry said.

  Tower did her best. Clever Squirrel would walk, but she wouldn’t climb. Tower and Regapisk had to lift her through the hatch. They settled her on a blanket, and Tower sat next to her.

  Then Tower talked to her as if she could hear. Perhaps she was only organizing her own thoughts.

  “Those upstream, they’re the King’s Guards. They may want the rest of us dead, but they want the king back. Downstream, those could be more guards, if locusts flew fast enough, or if the Emperor sent sand paintings, or…Squirrel, is there any way he could have sent messages to Sunfall Crater?”

  Squirrel shook her head in wide slow arcs. “Flute tree seeds. Ilb’al.”

  Tower patted her shoulder. “I’m glad you’re with us, sister. All right, they read the future and saw us coming, saw something coming. They could be more of the Emperor’s people, or—”

  The downstream flock of flying baskets had almost reached them. They were small, carrying two men each. Like Tep’s Town chariots, she thought. Tower saw a man stand up in the nearest basket, swing a cloth sling around his head, and let go of one end. Motes drifted.

  “Duck!” she yelled. She rolled her half sister into the hatch and followed her down. She heard thumping on deck.

  “—or they could be the last of Terror Bird’s priests throwing rocks at us from the sky. Come on, let’s get back up there. You’re our only magical defense.”

  Of those still on deck, Sandry was the only one wearing armor. That bothered him. Tower, Squirrel, Egret, and Regapisk looked very vulnerable.

  More stuff was falling. Not rocks—arrows.

  Clever Squirrel stood up. She waved her arms and shouted. High above the boat, arrows exploded into a network of lightning.

  Then three upstream baskets confronted the five downstream baskets. Arrows crossed. Lightning flared among the upstream baskets: the King’s Guards. Two fell burning.

  Squirrel closed her fists in Tower’s wonderful wedding dress. Butterflies swarmed. “Get me something magical!”

  Regapisk used his atlatl. The spear flew farther than imagination and ticked the nearest of the Terror Bird baskets. An arrow flew in response.

  Tower went below.

  The arrow struck the ship’s bow in a flare of lightning and a flurry of rain.

  The next few of the guards’ baskets held back, clustering, unwilling to be ganged up on. One of them—was that Hazel Sky?—waved at a flurry of arrows. They exploded in lightning, short of their targets.

  Tower came back up carrying an armful of jewelry. “I hope this is—”

  Squirrel took it, a lapful of gems. “I was taught,” she said, “can’t remember. Wait. Yes.” She spoke another language, being abnormally precise with her pronunciation.

  “Better. Ow,” she said. Her diction was clearer. She chanted again. With each phrase, her voice was clearer. “Ow! There was magic in that stuff, that pulque, but Morth’s spell unwrites the blessing. So much for divine madness. But it’s still pulque! Ow, my head.” She looked up into a maze of flying baskets and asked, “Who’s with us?”

  “None of them, really, but some want to kill us and some just want to take us back and kill Sandry in four years. What can you do?”

  “Not kill him. Send him to the gods,” Squirrel said. “I remember now.” She shuddered.

  The guards’ baskets were still holding back, gathering into a wall. Then all five Terror Bird baskets dropped toward the boat.

  Regapisk hurled a spear with his atlatl. It pierced one of the baskets. One of a pair of priests jerked and yelled. Regapisk hurled again, and the other priest took a spear through the jaw. He fell. The basket fell more slowly.

  Sandry selected one of the black rain arrows, nocked it, and sent it into the basket. Nothing happened.

  “The cost!” Flensevan wailed. “Do you know what those arrows are worth?”

  “I expected rain and lightning!” Sandry shouted.

  “Next time,” Squirrel said. “Tell me before you launch it.” She was still lurching drunkenly, but she stood. She chanted; her arms moved in complex curves. Tower couldn’t feel a thing, and nothing much seemed to be happening. Wait, now, another of the baskets was off course, curving down.

  Falling.

  “I can unwrite the spell that keeps a basket aloft,” Squirrel said with some satisfaction. The basket and its two priests struck the shore.

  Regapisk’s target basket thumped hard into the deck. A single priest tumbled out with a spear jutting up into his abdomen. Pink Rabbit popped up from belowdecks to push him overboard, into the raging water.

  The remaining three of Left-Handed Hummingbird’s baskets veered away, and then the King’s Guards’ baskets were among them. They were fighting with blades and spears. Sandry watched critically; Tower watched in awe.

  “This thing’s myth,” Squirrel said, and dropped a glorious sapphire pectoral. “What have we got with any magic in it?” She swayed and sat down. “Maybe they’ll all kill each other.”

  “Maybe we can outrun them,” Regapisk said. He was joking, but the boat was flying through roaring white spume, between rock walls that reached to the sky.

  Sandry stared ahead. The current was moving fast now, much faster than a chariot, and Little Rainbow skimmed over the water even more swiftly. Egret was frantically trying to steer, but it didn’t look as if he was doing any good. The boat went where it wanted to go.

  “Squirrel! Can you talk to the boat?” Burning Tower asked.

  “Uh. I don’t think so.” She looked ahead and pointed unsteadily.

  There were canyons ahead. Narrower than the valley of Aztlan, but much higher, spectacular colors to the walls, jagged spires of rock, monstrous shapes everywhere. Little Rainbow dashed down the stream into that maze of rock.

  The priests of Left-Handed Hummingbird were falling. Three baskets, six priests, and none of them turned to run. They fought and died in the air, and fell into raging waters.

  The baskets of the King’s Guard flew lower and came near. Hazel Sky pulled alongside the boat, a pace or two higher than the deck. “Majesty,”
she said, “you must return.”

  “Hail, Hazel Sky. I thought Sareg would be among you.”

  “Sareg fell to a traitor priest, defending you as he should. I will mourn him.”

  Sandry nodded. “A good man.”

  “I have avenged him,” Hazel Sky said. “We may not harm you, Majesty, but we don’t have to. We only have to rescue you after this boat sinks. Look, the keel is already in the water, and the rudder too, and you go into waters beyond your skills.”

  Sandry peered far over the boat’s rim. He could see that she was right. “Squirrel, can you do anything about this?”

  “Curse. No.”

  Hazel asked, “How would you know how to renew the spell that lifts a boat of Atlantis? You’re none of you Atlanteans. Your treasure trove won’t help you float. You will sink. Can you swim? We’ll pull you from the water before you can drown, Majesty. Then we’ll rescue your bride and her sister and your companion, if there’s time for that and the river allows. We will do all we can.”

  Sandry said, “Great Mistress, I can’t sell my rescuer and his sons to the wall.”

  “Majesty, nothing can save them. Atlantean boat! They helped the wizard Zephans escape the Emperor’s decree. They’ve been doomed for years, even if we didn’t know precisely where that doom would fall.”

  Squirrel asked, “Hazel, can you swim?” She began to chant.

  “Stop.” Hazel raised her bow and started to nock an arrow. She stopped when she found herself facing Sandry’s bow. Squirrel continued to chant.

  “We need only wait,” Hazel said, and then her basket plunged her into the water. She swam toward shore through a gathering current.

  The river had widened. Perhaps they had reached the Rainbow River itself. The water had grown rough. It was affecting the boat, throwing it this way and that.

  “Let me take the tiller,” Regapisk said to Egret.

  “I’m fine,” the burly jeweler said. “You do good with that atlatl.”

  “Give me the tiller or we’ll be in the water. You can’t see where the magic flows,” Regapisk said.

  Sandry called, “Give it up, Regapisk—” A wave against the hull set him lurching.

  Squirrel got to her feet. “Let me! He’s right—” Another wave dropped her sprawling. “We’ve got to follow the manna currents!”

  “But—”

  “Bet on me, Cousin.” Regapisk took the tiller, and Egret let him. Regapisk swung it hard over. The boat heeled and, a moment later, lifted.

  The baskets followed them downstream. One came close. They recognized Coyote’s mask. Squirrel began to chant. They heard a plaintive wail, but Squirrel chanted it down into the river. When it touched down, she spoke under her breath, but Sandry heard her. “Good luck. Farewell, my love.”

  “Flensevan,” Sandry asked, “What did Zephans do to get himself in such trouble?”

  “Foreigner. Wizard. Spent too much time near the wall.” Flensevan pitched his voice so that his sons couldn’t hear. “I always thought he must have figured out which niche was the Emperor’s heart. I never asked.”

  Rabbit and Egret ran up a sail. Sandry wondered if a wrong wind could put them on land, but the boat seemed to want to stay above water.

  It ran low. This wasn’t all bad: it put the keel and rudder in the water, and then the boat steered much better. Regapisk squinted forward as if he could see things others could not. Arshur had always been sure that Regapisk was improving a tale. Sandry just couldn’t tell.

  The last baskets hung back, out of range even of Sandry’s bow. He grinned and selected a black rain arrow. “Squirrel!”

  “Right here,” she said unsteadily. “Good plan.” She began to chant in the language of the gods. “Now, Lord Sandry.”

  He fired the arrow upstream. It trailed lightning, then a full storm. Rain fell behind them and the last baskets vanished in the storm.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Wedding Night

  The last baskets were gone. The river was wild, but Little Rainbow stayed just above the water.

  There, a bright ribbon of manna in a rash of rocks and white water. Reg steered into it. The boat lifted high above the water, and now he could barely steer. The boat drifted toward a dark patch, and Reg threw the tiller hard over to avoid the rocks, never mind the manna current. Too low, too low. If they broke a cursed window, they’d flood and sink.

  “Harder than it looks, isn’t it?” Egret said cheerfully.

  “You’ll never know,” Regapisk said. “Egret, can you get me some water? Sandry, I can do without you watching me quite so closely. You can see the boat’s still afloat.”

  “He’s doing as well as Egret. We’re still up,” said Burning Tower. “And missing rocks is a good thing.”

  Sandry said, “And we’re missing our wedding night.”

  Regapisk pointed with his nose, to the hatch that led into the boat. “Go below. Send the rest of them up here, and it’s all yours. We can have the deck.”

  Sandry looked at Tower. She blushed. “I am as impatient as you, my husband, but you may be needed here. Squirrelly, can’t they find new spells to lift those baskets?”

  “They can,” Clever Squirrel said unsteadily.

  “It grows dark,” Flensevan said.

  “I can see the manna and steer to it,” Regapisk shouted. “But I don’t know how to see rocks at night!”

  “Deep water,” Squirrel said. “Make the water deep enough and the rocks won’t matter.”

  “How?” Burning Tower said. A look of amazement came to her face. “Oh! Make storms!”

  “And that’s the way to stop the baskets,” Sandry shouted. “Get me storm arrows!”

  “The cost,” Flensevan moaned. “But yes, it must be. Pink Rabbit, bring arrows.”

  Sandry nocked an arrow and aimed high above the stern of the ship. “Ready.”

  Clever Squirrel stood beside him. She sang a wild song that suggested storms and lightning in its very rhythms, and as it reached its climax she gestured. Now!

  Sandry released the arrow. It flew straight and true, high above the river, then suddenly flashed jagged blue-white. Storm clouds grew in the wake of the arrow. Before it was out of sight, Sandry had nocked another arrow, and Squirrel began her song.

  Arrow after arrow flew upriver. Lightning danced.

  “Listen!” Regapisk shouted.

  A rumbling sound, growing louder. Sandry stared upriver. Something white flashed in the black clouds, something white and low on the water.

  “Water stampede!” Burning Tower shouted. “Stampede!”

  Sandry almost laughed. Stampede. Animals did that. Not water. But there was a roaring wall of water coming down the river toward them! “Reggy! Look behind you!”

  “Can’t,” Regapisk shouted.

  Sandry felt the stern of the boat rise. It lifted higher and higher, and he was looking down the boat at a steep angle toward the water ahead of them. Rocks!

  Somehow they missed the rocks. Little Rainbow’s bow lifted. The boat wasn’t level, but it wasn’t diving down the wave straight toward the bottom any longer. The roaring waves crashed around them.

  Regapisk shouted in triumph. “It’s working!”

  Something was working. They were riding that wave, moving faster than Sandry had ever moved in his life. No, he thought, not quite. “As fast as the High Road!” Sandry shouted.

  “We’re faster, I think,” Regapisk said. He was staring ahead into the river, paying no attention to anything but the water just ahead, making tiny movements of the steering oar. Little Rainbow skimmed just above the crest of that rushing flood. Regapisk shouted again.

  Burning Tower huddled against Sandry in the pitch dark. Canyon walls loomed above them. She couldn’t see the walls, only that there were no stars on either side. Blackness, except for a river of stars directly overhead. The water beside them seemed almost calm, but she knew that was an illusion, that they were racing down the stream at the speed of the flood.


  Wedding night, she thought. It wasn’t anything like her dreams. But when other wives told the tales of their wedding nights, she’d win.

  Little Rainbow raced onward.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  The Heart of

  the Earth

  Dawn came slowly, light from behind without direct sun. It shone high on the walls that rose above them while they were still in darkness. The sounds of rushing water echoed from the canyon walls. Gradually the light filtered downward as the sun rose.

  They were deep in the Earth. Painted walls rose on either side, dark at the bottom near the river, brightly lit above and ahead where the invisible sun fell on them. Up high there were colors, wild colors, jumbled together, here in patches, there in stripes. Odd shapes, pillars of rock with boulders on their tops. Arches. Burning Tower stared in disbelief. Colors everywhere. As the light grew brighter and came lower into the canyon she could see the river ahead. They were just above the water to either side, but if she looked ahead they were, two, no, three manlengths above the river! The water ahead was strewn with boulders, but the flood they rode was higher than any of the rocks, and they stayed just above the top of the wild waves.

  There was color everywhere. Patches of color, blotches, stripes. The canyon walls looked layered as if a mad cook had been making an enormous cake. There were other shapes, arches and mounds and hoops and heaps, all in different colors. She had never seen anything more beautiful.

  Land on either side rushed past. She had no way to know how fast they were going. Faster than Spike could carry her. As fast as the High Road, perhaps faster. The dawn light was tricky.

  Then she gasped and pointed.

  “The walls are getting higher!” she shouted. She pointed ahead. “Higher! Or else we’re going deeper. The earth, it’s swallowing us! Sandry, wake up—look!”

  Sandry stirred. They had slept fitfully on the deck. Sandry had passed a loop of rope through a deck fitting and around them so they couldn’t be shaken off when, sometimes, Regapisk sent the boat through wild turns and gyrations. Once Tower had wakened from fitful sleep to see Sandry watching over her. He must have fallen asleep finally. Now he was waking.