by Larry Niven
"That was scary. But Lordsman armor doesn't cover everything. I got a chopping block between him and me, thinking I'd jab at his ankles. But he pushed it over and ran after the others.
"I got outside, carefully, not wanting to be ambushed. They were running into the Ropewalk, the two Armadillo Wagon men carrying the third, and the armored man walking backward after them. I started to wonder who of the Ropewalker family was in there, but the only thing to do about that was run in and look.
"Rordray, my wife's family doesn't let me in there. I saw it once, when it was new and near empty. It looked no different from a barn.
"Years had passed since then. The place stank of hot tar. The Ropewalk was stacked to near the ceiling with spools of rope, each about as big as a man. The Ropewalkers stack them on end so they won't roll. The aisle ran down the center. Back of it, at least five Armadillo men were getting themselves out of the way. Somebody yelled like a Lordkin on wine. It was Carter Ropewalker. He was lying down and wriggling. I guessed he was tied up.
"But mostly, three men in Lordsman armor were facing me in that pose they use with the shields locked edge to edge. I saw that once during a fair in Tep's Town. Nothing can get through that.
"Rordray, I sure couldn't fight them. I could outrun them, even moving backward, but they had Carter. What I did was climb the bales of rope and hop to the back of the building. The Armadillo men were still just staying clear. The armored men ran toward me, got close, and lockstepped their shields again. That gave me time to cut Carter loose and send him up the spools. He got a rope anchored in the smoke hole to the roof. He was pretty battered and not climbing very fast. I waited until he was through, then climbed up after him.
"Then I sprinkled my gold sand down into the Ropewalk.
"I kept a hand on Carter to keep him from looking into the smoke hole. We could have gone down the outside then if Passenger Pigeon hadn't been below us with a long knife. Left-handed, though. He yelled up and threatened to burn down the Ropewalk if we didn't surrender. I told him he should move the rope-weaving device out first. That's the actual Rope-walk, the most valuable single thing at the New Castle.
"We got some of the story out of him while we all circled around and waited for developments.
"The way Pigeon tells it, this all happened because three Lordsmen
look ship to escape the Lords in Tep's Town. Pigeon didn't know why. They took their armor with them. They offered to protect Armadillo Wagon on the Hemp Road, but Pigeon told them about a Lordkin gone missing, so they attacked the New Castle instead.
"Armadillo Wagon wouldn't have done this to anyone but a Lordkin. But, see, I'd been married nine years. Now I was going off. Lordkin don't come back! Everyone knows it. So Passenger Pigeon and his tribe set forth to marry the abandoned widow. Willow Feathersnake wasn't going anywhere until she agreed. There were the children for hostages. Pigeon told us he never threatened them. Later, Willow told me he did.
"By and by Carter and I decided that nobody was coming out of the Ropewalk. I went over the roof fast and slid down the other side and was in fighting stance before Pigeon could come around. He ran for the Rope-walk doors. They were closed. Carter and I blocked his path, but we let him pull a door open and look in.
"He backed away gobbling like a turkey."
Rordray's family were nodding. Mers were sophisticates in magic. And Whandall's family knew the tale, but horror looked out of Lilac's eyes.
"They were all strangled," Whandall said. "Pulled into shapes no sane man ever thought of. Nobody but Pigeon left to tell the tale. He sits at the south gate of Hip High Spring and warns you about hemp, even if you don't ask. Hemp is like that, you know? It wants to soothe you to sleep and lose you in dreams and then strangle you. And hemp rope on wild magic is a thing of nightmares."
Nobody seemed to want to top that story. It was full dark by now. The remaining fishers went up to the roof, and Whandall heard splashing. Then Estrayle led them down to their rooms.
The room was clean, the bed a bit damp. Still, it was luxury. He could not fall asleep at first, and could not think why.
Presently he realized that they didn't turn off the ocean at night. The shh, sss of the waves went on forever... and presently carried him away.
Chapter 54
They left for Morth's mountain after two days of feasting. Whandall was inspired. "People come to Road's End tired and ready to be pampered. They want fish from Rordray's Attic. They just don't know it yet! If we can bring this to Road's End, we have goods to trade."
"Find Morth," Rordray said.
They took one of the wagons. Green Stone had to come, that became clear, so Whandall made him drive. Whitey couldn't drive because the bison didn't trust him. Lilac-Whandall wasn't sure why they were taking Lilac. He and Green Stone had decided sometime last night. Someone had to guard the wagon while the others were climbing. Why Lilac?
Willow would have his head.
Or not. Lilac might be just the girl-woman-for Green Stone. A link to Puma Tribe could solve some problems for the family, and the trade to Great Hawk Bay would never be vast, but it could be lucrative.
They hadn't brought a one-horn, but every woman knew she would confront one eventually.
They rode for four days, taking their time, hunting, letting the bison graze where they would, before the ground grew too rough to go nearer. Whitey spent an extra day leading them around the mountain to the shallower eastern slope. They stopped where bison could still forage.
Mount Carlem stood above them all that night, intimidating.
They started at dawn, leaving Lilac in charge of the wagon. They climbed in shirts, kilts, and packs. When I he bird settled on Whandall's pack, Whandall chased him away. The bird rose with an angry squawk, found an updraft, and kept rising out of sight.
Green Stone carried a flat box of cold iron, a rectangle with the corners cut off, Hat enough to ride a strong man's back. This one was empty and not yet ensorcelled. Whandall had the heavier talisman box loaded with provisions from the Attic kitchen. They left the heavy fishing net on the wagon. If Morth somehow needed that to get down, someone would have to go back for it.
The packs held water, blankets, and clothes. Why so many clothes? Because Whitey insisted.
The day grew hot. Shirts came off early. At noon Whitey let them stop to drink. By then Whandall knew he was an old man beyond his strength. He had never climbed like this. Everyone else was making his decisions for him... had been for years, without his realizing it... and he was just beginning to resent it.
When Whitey and Green Stone went on, Whandall made himself follow. He was at the edge of making his son trade burdens with him . .. but now the way became easier.
They'd found reserves of strength, Whandall thought, but it rapidly became ridiculous. They'd been climbing toward a scary, near vertical bare rock slope. The tilt seemed less now; it had flattened out. But the horizon eastward was tilted up like a dandy Lord's hat! It looked like anything loose should be sliding west toward the sea.
Green Stone said nothing of this. He must have thought he was going mad. Whitey watched them both with that Puma grin.
Whandall bellowed, "Mooorth!"
He just glimpsed a man-shaped streak zigzagging at amazing speed among tall stands of lordblades, near naked and all knobs, red braids flying, "Whandall Placehold!" Glimpsed and already here. "You came!"
Whandall looked him over. Morth wore only a sun-bleached and ragged kilt, and the bird now settling on his shoulder. He was tanned near black. His feet were bare and callused hard. The Morth of twenty years ago had dressed better but was otherwise little changed. Lean, with stringy muscles and prominent ribs; high cheekbones; long, curly red hair washed and braided. He was grinning and panting like a dog ....nd even so, he did not seem mad.
Whandall said, "Right. You know Whitey. Green Stone, this is Morth of Atlantis. Morth, my second son. Willow's second son."
The wizard gripped the boy's hand. "Green Stone, I'm
very pleased you could come! May I see your palm?"
The boy looked at his father, got a nod, and let Morth turn his hand palm upward in the sunlight. Morth said, "I haven't done this since... Early marriage. Children branch off soon, here. Twins. Both girls." The wizard pointed with a fingernail that needed tending. "No, don't squint, you can't see your own future. More children down the line, I think, but your path gets fuzzy..." Morth looked up with satisfaction in his eyes. "Come. I live on the peak."
"Can you fly us?"
"Whandall, those days are long gone mythical! But I wove a spell for easier climbing so the Lion's people can visit me."
He babbled as they climbed. "The way I left you and the children, I'm embarrassed. Of course gold fever had my mind, and I still had to lead the water elemental away from you-"
"We saw that."
"-just kept going into the mountains. There's manna untouched by any wizard, but there's also wild magic, virgin gold. I have no idea how long I was out of my mind. I wound up on some tremendous height in the Vedasiras Range, with no gold around me, just a magical place with a view of half the world. Like this place, really, but even farther from any decent hunting. By the time I had my senses back-why do they always say that?- I was sensing everything, no path blocked within my mind, no way to concentrate on any one thing, like eating or bathing, digging a jakes, raising a shelter, tending a wound. Scatterminded. That was what had me so crazy.
"Where was I? I was stuck on a mountaintop; sane but starving and tanned like Sheban leather. Only my own spells were keeping me alive. I found meat and firewood down slope and spent some time building my strength back. Built a talisman to get me through, then set out north for Great Hawk Bay."
"Rordray told us."
"I thought I'd lost the sprite. All that wild gold should have had it totally confused. I was careless. When that wave humped itself, I just went up the nearest mountain as quick as I could. I've been stuck here ever since."
They put their shirts back on. It had grown cold. Morth didn't notice.
The mountain's peak was a fantastic lacework of stone castle. Indefensible, was Whandall's first thought. Any Lordkin tribe could have pulled it down with their hands. What's holding it up?
He looked in vain for supporting beams. There was no wood to be seen anywhere. It was as if rock had melted and flowed into place. There were no corners, no straight lines. Rooms and chambers and corridors spilled over and under and between each other like the insides of a careless knifefighter, rising up into a bulb of clear glass, a wonderful wizard's crow's nest.
Morth led them in.
In a roomy ground-floor chamber the rock walls humped into chairs around a fire. Four people, four chairs, and a high ridge for a bird to perch. Dark rocks were burning in the fireplace.
Whitecap Mountain set out both talisman boxes. He didn't open them. The Attic's provisions were for Morth alone. But Morth had prepared a meal for four, a slew of mountain goat, herbs, and roots. Whandall realized that he was ravenous; he saw the look in Green Stone's eye and waved him on.
When they had slaked their hunger a bit, the wizard said, "You came at my asking. I can pay that debt now, in refined gold." He waved at the fireplace. "Take what you like."
Had Morth been using wild magic? But the gold he was pointing at had drained out of the fireplace and formed a flat pool before it froze. Whitey and Green Stone wiggled it loose, used an edge of rock to break it in roughly equal halves, and slid it into packs.
"Energy wants to be heat," Morth said. "The simplest thing you can do
with any kind of manna is help it to become heat. I can burn gold ore with
out its hurting me, and the expended gold just flows out."
Whandall nodded. Uh huh.
The wizard pointed to Whandall's crotch. "What is that?" Morth caught himself. "Secret?"
"Supposed to be. I'm not surprised you'd see it." Whandall eased a flat metal flask out from just above his groin. "What does it look like to you?"
"A dead spot. I can show you how to see the blind spot in your eye, but this is a bit more obvious. Nothing else looks like cold iron."
Whandall held it up without opening it. "Coarse gold right out of a riverbed. You wouldn't remember when I threw gold at ensorcelled ponies? But-" Whandall waved away Morth's attempt at an old apology. "But it broke the spell. So I carry raw gold, just in case, and it did save me once."
"That must be an interesting tale," Morth said, "but I want to hear a different one. Whandall, tell me about the last time you did violence."
Whandall looked at him. "Violence?"
"We last saw each other twenty-one years ago. I don't quite remember, but I think I tried to take a girl you wanted. I think you tried to kill me," Morth said.
"No. Not tried. I thought I might have to."
"Now I hear tales of a wagonmaster whose sign is a feathered serpent. He keeps his oaths and enforces honesty with a knife of spelled bronze. Whandall, I have to know what you are."
"The last time I did violence."
"Was that it?"
They were all waiting. Whandall said, "No, it was the last time I saw Tras Preetror. Do you remember him?"
"The teller."
"Six years ago. I was up on the house with my sons, fixing the roof. A servant came to tell me I had a visitor.
"It was Tras Preetror and a big man in part Lordsman armor who stood behind him and didn't say anything. They'd got past the guards. Willow was serving him tea. I got her aside and she wanted me to explain what he was doing here."
"Hospitality," Morth said.
"He hadn't asked for food and fire and shelter from the night," Whandall said. "I made sure of that. He'd just barged in, invited himself as if he belonged there.
"I had tea with them. He told us his tale. He's a good teller, Morth, you remember. He'd taken ship up to Great Hawk Bay to get tales from the mers at Rordray's Attic. I'd heard of this place from the caravans, but Tras told us a lot more.
"He'd heard rumors from the Puma wagons about a new head man in the caravans. He tracked the tales of a snake tattoo, east and south. Morth, I have to know that a traveler can reach me if my wagons have cheated him. The caravan tribes guided Tras straight to my house.
"Now he's waiting for my story, right? I showed him my cold iron case, and opened it, and blew a bit of gold dust on him and his man. I didn't see any result, Morth, but I hate your damn lurking spell and I thought he might have used it on my gate guard.
" 'Raw gold,' I told him. 'It distorts magic spells.' "
Morth barked a laugh.
" 'And it saved my life once,' and I told him just enough of the fight with Armadillo Wagon to hook him. 'Come with me, if you like, I'll show you where the bodies are buried.' And I stood up and led him out, still talking. 'Tras, every time I think I've given up violence, something pops up.' That got him moving, and his man jumped up and went ahead of us.
"He didn't seem to speak the local tongue. I switched to Condigeo. Tras's man didn't know that either, but hey, I hadn't practiced in a while. I was just finishing the Tale of the Suitors when we reached the graveyard.
" 'We bury all our dead here,' I said, and I took them among the graves.
"The Armadillo wagon ghosts came out to play. They couldn't touch us, of course, but they tried to attack me. Tras was used to ghosts. He forgot that his Lordsman guard wouldn't be. The guard was shivering and whimpering and trying to back through a boulder. Tras tried to interview one of the ghosts. I drifted behind three trees growing together, went between them and up, and hid myself.
"I talked through the treetops. 'Tras, there's something I should tell you, because you'll have to translate for me.'
" 'Where are you?'
" 'Behind you, 'I'ras, always behind you. We know how lo lurk. Tras, do you remember starting a riot? I tried to shut you up-'
" 'No, Whandall Feathersnake, you can't blame me for that!' And he laughed.
"His man had his nerve back. Tras spok
e to him and he began circling around. He had me placed pretty quick. He pulled more armor from his pack, shin guards and stuff. Morth, I think there must have been some kind of turnover in Tep's Town. There's too much armor floating around in the great wide world. The gatherers from Armadillo Tribe had armor too.
"I said, 'Let's test your memory again. You know how Lord Pelzed's men left me. Do you remember?'
" 'That's not my fault either!'
" 'Tras, you will be in the same condition when I leave here. If you tell your man to protect you now, there won't be any living man to carry you away. I'll bury you here in the graveyard. If you tell him to step aside, he can take you someplace to heal.' "
Morth asked, "Did you think he'd do it?"
Whandall shrugged. "I gave him the chance. I don't know what he told his guard. When I dropped from the tree, the guard moved on me. I thought I'd have to kill him. He took some cuts and some bruises, and then he backed away protecting himself, and then he ran. Tras was gone.
"I tracked Tras down to the crypt and, well. I kept my promise. Then I slapped him awake and gave him some water, and I told him that if his man didn't come back for him by sunset of the next day, well. But if he did, there were stories I didn't want to hear. 'If I ever hear anyone describe how my household is arranged, or what kind of tea I serve, if I hear about a flask of gold sand' "-Whandall rapped his groin-" 'I will know who they heard it from.' I told him I travel everywhere, from Condigeo to Great Hawk Bay-I was lying, of course. I told him people are entitled to privacy, and some will kill for it. I'm not sure he heard any of that, Morth. I was raving. That diseased looker invaded my house. Nobody but the Armadillo Clan ever did that. Ask their ghosts."
Morth was silent.
"Tras wasn't hurt any worse than Samorty's men hurt me, but of course he's older. I don't know if he healed. He was gone at the next day's sunset."
And to hell with what Morth thought of him. Coming here wasn't Whandall's idea.