by Larry Niven
The children cried, "Say it! Say it! 'I am Seshmarls!' "
By its shape, by its flight, it was a crow. Magic must have changed its colors. It could hardly be covered in paint and still fly! It turned its head to study Whandall, first with one eye, then the other.
It said, "Help me, Whandall Seshmarl! My hope lies in your shadow."
Whandall whispered, "Morth?"
The wizard's voice said, "Come to Rordray's Attic and Morth of Atlantis will make you rich!"
"I am rich," Whandall said.
The bird didn't have an answer for that. "I am Seshmarl's," it said. This lime Whandall heard the possessive. The children gurgled in delight.
"What else does it say?" Whandall asked them.
"Anything we want it to!" Larkfeathers shouted. "And it knows us by name! I can tell it to carry messages, to my sisters or to Glacier Water's Daughter Two, and it does, in my voice!"
"Where does it sleep?"
"Here, mostly, but Aunt Willow lets it in the house if it wants to come in. It's ever so nice a bird, Uncle Whandall."
It would have to be, Whandall thought. He turned back to the bird. "Morth of Atlantis?"
"Help me, Whandall Seshmarl! My hope lies in your shadow."
"Help how?"
"Come to Rordray's Attic."
"Why should I?"
"Morth of Atlantis will give you wealth and adventure."
"How?"
"Help me, Whandall Seshmarl! My hope lies in your shadow. Come to Rordray's Attic."
Green Stone laughed. "Not very smart."
"It's a bird."
"I meant the wizard who sent it," Stone said. "Offering you wealth and adventure! You're almost as rich as Chief Farthest Land, and you've had more adventure than a man can stand!"
"I suppose," Whandall said. He'd said it himself often enough. He looked back to the bird. "When?"
"Another messenger comes," the bird said. "Wait."
The kinless didn't like to display their wealth. The wonderful dresses Whandall had bought her Willow had at first worn only for him; then only when playing hostess inside her own house. What wealth showed was in the private areas of the house.
Willow met him at the door. She led him through toward the back, the bird on his shoulder; Willow draped softly along his other side.
She'd set up a roost in the bedroom. She must consider the bird immensely valuable. And they both knew what would happen next, but in front of the bird? He said, "You know it can talk."
"Just what someone teaches it. Oh. Seshmarls, should we cover its ears? Love, do birds have ears?"
"Willow, I think you'd better hear this." To the bird he said, enunciating, "Why should I?"
The- bird croaked, "Morth of Atlantis-" "Morth!" Willow exclaimed.
"-will give you wealth and adventure. Help me, Whandall Seshmarl-" Willow moved the roosting post out into the hall and they returned to the bedroom. A sense of priorities could be a valuable thing.
During the next few winter weeks their discussions formed a pattern.
Morth wanted to enter their lives again. Morth was not to be trusted! His wealth wasn't needed! As for Whandall leaving the New Castle, "Do you remember the last time you went with the caravan?"
"We nearly lost the New Castle," Whandall admitted. "I nearly lost you."
"Well, then."
During those first six years a legend had spread up and down the Hemp Road, of a grinning giant who wore a tattoo that flared with light when he killed. Then Whandall Feathersnake had retired. Three years later he'd led the summer caravan south. He returned to find invaders in the New Castle. A new tale joined the old, but Willow had extorted a promise.
Now he said, "Well then, they died. The story's all along the route. The farther you follow it back toward Tep's Town, the bigger the numbers get. Whandall Feathersnake was gone three years, seven, ten. Snuck back in as a beggar, covering this with mud," Whandall slapped his tattooed cheek, "depending on who's talking, or even shaved the skin off, leaving a hideous scar. Killed twenty, thirty, forty suitors who wanted to claim his wife and land-"
Nobody would dare try me now, he didn't say, but Willow heard the words between the words. She changed the subject. "I never liked it, you know. Sending you in that direction after I was pregnant. Back toward Tep's Town."
"Oh, that. No, love, I promised. But Rordray's Attic is on the coast, due west of us. Puma Tribe sends wagons every few years."
They'd told him of Rordray's Attic. It was a mythical place inhabited by shape changers, unreachable save by magic, the food touched with glamour unequaled anywhere. That food was mostly fish, it seemed, and Whandall had not been much tempted.
Later, as the caravan route was extended, he met a few who had seen the place. Then a pair of Puma who had spent a few days there and been served from Rordray's kitchen. Sometimes another wagon's primary heir rode with Puma. They didn't go to make themselves rich. Despite the difficulties of crossing two ranges of jagged hills, it was a training exercise, a lark, an adventure.
Now Whandall said, "I'd add a wagon to their train and take just Green Stone. Bring back fish, spelled or just dried. I never liked fish myself, but some do. Take....mm ... rope, everyone wants rope-"
"Dear-"
"Maybe Carver's feet are itching too."
"Whandall!"
"Yes, my most difficult gathering."
"I? Do purses leap out to claim you the way I did? But you do remember Morth. Ready to make me immortal, his for eternity, like it or not? Crazy as a bat Morth? Running up Mount Joy with a fat frothy wave struggling uphill behind him?"
Whandall soothed her. "Two bats."
"But you got us away from him. Now let's keep it that way!"
"Yes, dear." Wagons couldn't move in the winter anyway.
Chapter 51
Two flaps and a space between made up the Placehold's front door. A man going in or out would not take all the Placehold's warm air with him. They didn't build that way in the Valley of Smokes because it never got that cold ... and because too fine a house made too fine a gathering.
On a fine, clear, cold morning, Whandall stood in the double door and looked past the outer flap.
It looked like you could start now, take the wagons and run.
From the gate floated the voices of Saber Tooth and Green Stone. Whandall heard "Tattoo..." and tried to ignore the rest.
"Morth! Gave Father ... us too!" That was Stone.
"Not us. You, if you like." Saber Tooth.
Whandall sipped from a dipper of orange juice. The air was clear and cold; the animals were not quite awake. Sound carried amazingly well.
"What if Morth..."
"... wizard wants something. Know that. Pay with a tattoo?"
"Mother won't let him go."
Whandall grinned.
Willow spoke at his ear. "Our sons are misinformed. Whandall Feather-snake doesn't obey worth a curse."
Whandall didn't trust his voice. She'd startled him badly.
"Why does Stone want that tattoo so much?" Willow wondered.
He cleared his throat and said, "It's not just the tattoo. Stone would be my second in command on that trek. He could talk to a wizard. See the ocean. Taste food Saber Tooth has only heard about. At the end he'd have something his brother doesn't. Saber Tooth, now, lie thinks he doesn't want a tattoo, but he knows he'll be riding toward the Firewoods with the caravan come spring, and nowhere near the ocean, wherever his brother might be."
"I wish he'd give it a rest. Talk to him?"
"And say what?"
"The only thing that ever scared Morth was water! And now he claims to be at a seaside inn? It's some kind of trap! Seshmarls!"
The bird was on her shoulder. "I am Seshmarl's," it responded.
"I finally remembered. Seshmarl is the name you used to lie to Morth! Morth of Atlantis! "
"Help me, Whandall Seshmarl! My hope lies in your shadow," the bird croaked. "Come to Rordray's Attic and Morth of Atlantis will ma
ke you rich!"
"He's afraid," Willow said.
"Sounds like it." Whandall sipped at his orange juice.
"Afraid of what?"
"It's hard not to wonder."
Wagons couldn't move in the spring mud, either. Two ranges of hills stood between New Castle and the sea, but the plain between was flat and well watered. Life was giving birth to life all up and down the Hemp Road. The tribes worked on the wagons and waited.
The Lion's messenger was a small man with an odd look to his jaw. He came alone, making his way downhill wearing nothing but a backpack. When the Placehold's men had come to meet him he had dressed in a breechcloth and a shorthaired yellow hide.
"You're Puma Tribe, aren't you?" Green Stone asked him.
"That's right."
"Well, Puma's got five wagons in repair at Road's End. This's the New Castle. That higher hill south, that's Chief Farthest Land."
"New Castle, right. I'm to see Whandall Feathersnake," the stranger said. "Got a contract for him, and you ain't him."
"You're hard to fool. I'm his second son."
"You're not wearing his tattoo. I talked to the guy that gave it to him."
"Wait here at the gate," Stone said, and ran for the house.
The pack bore thick straps intricately knotted about his shoulders. It would be difficult to remove, Whandall thought, if you only had paws to work with. The tattoos on his cheeks-"Puma?"
The man grinned at the ambiguity. "Yes and yes."
The tribal names had been more than names once. From time to time a shape changer turned up. Saucer Clouds, Twisted Cloud's first son, was claimed to he a werebison. Wolf Tribe had thrown up a werewolf; they were watching him grow with some unease.
"That'd explain why you travel alone... ?"
"Why and how. Name's Whitecap Mountain, and I'm here to offer a contract."
"With... ?
"Rordray, called the Lion. He's a were too-they all are at the Attic, but they're seaweres, they're mers. Can you read?"
"No."
"Rordray sends refined gold." Whitecap Mountain reached into his pack.
"Hold up," Whandall said. "My wife should hear this." And others should not! Whandall led him down the path and through the main double door.
Willow greeted him and served hot lemon water. She was punctilious if not, perhaps, cordial.
Whitecap Mountain generally traveled with Puma wagons, he said, but this trip he'd been sent for Whandall Feathersnake. The refined gold in his pack was a flat sheet with the letters of a message pounded into it. "Yours. More on arrival; depends on what you bring. Shall I read it to you? Rordray wants a noonmarch of rope. Two sides of bison, smoked. Mammoth if you can get it anywhere near fresh. Black pepper, sage, basil, rosemary, and thyme. Wood for construction. He'll send back fish raw or cooked. Rordray's the best cook known to men, weres, or gods. Also, he has sea salt, and the mers sometimes bring him treasure from lost ships."
"Sea salt," Willow mused. "We're nearly out." She caught herself. "But-"
Whandall nodded, grinned slightly. Salt was rare enough on the Hemp Road, and the salt found in dry lakes didn't have the proper savor. Something was missing that was found in sea salt, according to Twisted Cloud. Without it your throat could swell up, or your children could grow up stupid or twisted.
It sounded like two wagons' worth of goods. Better take four, Whandall thought. Rordray was paying enough, and Whandall didn't know the traveling conditions. Two of his own traveling with two of Puma's should be safe enough. Pay them whatever it takes, /fhe was going at all. He looked at Willow, but she wasn't sending any kind of signal.
So he negotiated. "But fish, now, what if I can't sell it? Not a lot of us eat fish, and those that do, they say they like it fresh."
"Absolutely fresh and spelled to stay that way," the Puma said.
"You've got a wizard?" Innocent smile, think Seshmarl, but cups rattled on Willow's tray.
The Puma said, "I only saw him once. He never comes down the mountain."
Green Stone made a nuisance of himself during dinner. The children had been hearing about Morth of Atlantis since they were little. Stone wanted to know everything. The Puma obliged.
"I went up with the talisman box filled with Rordray's cooking, and brought the box back down next morning with the spell renewed. I never slept at all that night. That wizard, he really wants to talk. And he's got stories! I can't figure why he stays up there."
Whandall only nodded. If Morth hadn't told him about the water sprite, the tale wasn't Whandall's to give away.
They took Whitecap Mountain to their guesthouse and settled him in. When they moved to the bedroom, Whandall expected to talk all night.
"Now we know," he said. "That poor looker. The water thing has him trapped on a mountain, all alone. He told me once how lonely it was to be the last Atlantis wizard in Tep's Town."
"Why would he think you can help?"
"Had a vision? Magic. No point trying to guess that."
"You wouldn't miss Hawk In Flight's wedding?" The household was gearing up to marry their eldest daughter to the second son of Farthest Land: a major coup.
Whandall said, "That's in spring. We could leave right after. The ocean, it's only a third as far as the Firewoods ..." at the other end of the Hemp Road.
Willow nodded.
Whandall said, "Daughters and sons are different problems. I think Night Horse will ask for Twisted Tree. Do we accept?"
"We'd best. She's ready."
"She's young."
"This isn't Tep's Town. Girls aren't afraid to be girls where people can see them. They grow up faster this way."
Whandall had never quite believed in this form of cause and effect. He said, "Sons are easier. Saber Tooth will be wagonmaster. Green Stone is shaping up nicely. Twisted Tree is a little young-"
"You had a point?"
"Yes, dear. Fourteen Miller and Ropewalker boys, ten of 'em nephews. We may get more. Half of 'em work the Feathersnake wagons. Half of them are married already. The Ropewalk is only so big. So is the Hemp Road, love, though that's not so easy to see. There won't be work for everyone by ... by the time we're fifty."
"They'll find lives. We raised them right." Willow looked at him coolly. "Or are you thinking of taking over some of Puma turf?"
"No! That's not the right answer, but I think I should look at extending
the caravan route. Travel with Puma for guides. Sec another route. See if I could tell them how to do it better. It might give me ideas for cooperation."
"I suppose I'll have to let you go," Willow said. "Stone won't let me rest until I say yes."
"No, love, you don't have to put up with that. It would be very easy for me to say that this tattoo-look at me?-this tattoo is mine, and no other soul shall wear it. I could make that stick. Do you ... you like it on me, right? You're used to it?"
She stroked his cheek as if smoothing feathers. He had to shave often or his beard would cover the tattoo. He said, "Because maybe Morth could take it off."
"No!"
"But maybe you just hate the thought of seeing it on Stone?"
"It's more like he's growing up too fast. I know that's silly. Men wear tattoos. But if he comes back with a tattoo that good, he'd better be bringing one for Saber Tooth, or there'll be trouble."
"Point taken."
"I asked Twisted Cloud about this."
"You did? What did she say?"
Willow's eyes unfocused as she tried to remember exactly. She said, " 'In the old drowned tower your people will find what they need of sustenance.' So she says you're going."
"Yes, dear."
Chapter 52
Whandall had heard of ancient highways built by magic to serve ancient empires in other lands. The Hemp Road was a wilderness compared to those; but it was a highway compared to the route to Great Hawk Bay.
It was hard work going uphill, harder going down, with everyone hanging back holding ropes to keep the wagons from plunging to
their doom. The ground was rough in the valleys. They lost wheels.
The bird spent most of its days in flight and returned to the wagons at night.
Whandall had been a young man when last he guided a team of bison. He swung back into caravan routine with surprising ease. His Puma guide, Lilac, was a good driver and bison tender. There was work to be done, but in between you could be lazy as a Lordkin.
Along the Hemp Road they told stories of places where a simple summoning spell would bring all the game you wanted, meat every night. Partridges, rabbits, deer, they came when summoned, and old men remembered those times, or said they did.
Lilac sang in the evening dusk. Three rabbits came and sat on their haunches, waiting patiently for her to wring their necks. One short scream as the rabbit understood...
The track led through high grass, past stands of scrub oak trees. The air hung heavy in the mornings, heavy dew and swirling mists.
"No rain here," Lilac said. "The dew is all. Good for garlic and thistle, not much else."
From time to time they encountered a flock of crows. Seshmarls wheeled up to them, squawking in crow language, and they would fly away in terror. Sometimes the bird chased them, hut he always returned to Whandall's arm in the evening.
On the Hemp Road even a lazy Lordkin had to watch for gatherers from other bands: for bandits. On this route, bandits couldn't survive. There weren't enough wagon trains to support them. Towns were few, little more than hunting camps. Farming and hunting communities could survive ... and if a badly guarded caravan passed, why, farmers might gather some opportune treasure. One must still keep watch.
No one had ever heard of him here. The Feathersnake sign guarded his wagons on the Hemp Road, but not here.
On the tenth day he saw a restlessly stirring black mass ahead of the caravan.
He tried to guess what he was seeing.
He was driving. The bird Seshmarls perched beside his ear, gripping the edge of the roof above the driver's bench. From time to time it took wing to hunt. They were both enjoying themselves, and Whandall didn't want company. But after a time, reasoning that anything he couldn't identify might be dangerous, he called down into the covered wagon bed.