Burning Tower (22 page)

R
egapisk had been eighteen days at his bench. He was well caught up on sleep. Tras hadn't sent for him—or else the Oarmaster refused. They'd been rowing steadily for the full eighteen days.

But tomorrow some of them would rest. Some would row the little boats. Springs of fresh water were to be found at the southern tip of the Forefinger, the Nail. If he could get some sleep in the afternoon, the Oarmaster might let him see the teller.

He raised the subject when the Oarmaster came for him.

Laughter. “Naw, what gave you that idea? That teller, tonight he wants you. He tips good. He can have you whenever he says. This last week or two, he didn't. Did you say something he didn't like, Lord Reg?”

“I was polite.”

“Uh-huh.”

 

“We were trying to get Halfania drunk,” said Regapisk. “I think she was keeping up with us, but you know, she works in a saloon, she's used to being around wine. That idiot Sej started chasing her around the dining table and while I was trying to talk sense into him, she just ran. So we were alone in the saloon. So I decided to tend bar—”

Tras laughed.

Arshur said, “I've done that. Got my arm broke for it, and my tailbone when they threw me out. That hurts. Takes forever before you can sit again.”

“I was just trying to help out. I tried to collect for the drinks, but nobody took me seriously. When the wine tender came back…yeah, he broke some heads.”

“Collect in advance, if that ever happens again,” said Tras. “And keep a big friend with you.”

“Yeah. Your turn.”

Tras told of a teller who didn't know when to shut up, and another who wanted money not to tell a secret, both fools who came to bad ends. Regapisk told of the Year of Two Burnings and Aunt Shanda's dragon bone jar. Tras didn't know about that. He spent half the evening asking for details.

Regapisk found himself remembering things he'd tried to forget, events he'd never linked as cause and effect, telling far more than he had ever wanted known. “The problem is, Tras, I never got any responsibility. I don't
think
like a Lord. People I work with like me, but they don't work
for
me. I thought working with Lordkin would be perfect, but I couldn't get them to
do
anything.”

“Nobody else can either.”

“Sandry can.”

“Tell me about Sandry.”

“He's younger than me, but they put him in charge of the Fire Brigade.”

“Why did they do that?”

“He's First Lady Shanda's nephew, that's why.”

Tras sucked his teeth. “That the only reason?”

“Well, he was lucky. He's always been lucky. Like when we raced through the kitchen that time, Sandry hung back until Hassic was chasing the rest of us and just walked through. He won the race, and he never ran!”

“And said something nice to Hassic on the way,” Tras said.

“Yeah. Okay, I see that. So it wasn't just luck.”

“Your friend Sandry is in charge of the Lordsmen with that wagon train,” Tras said. “You may see him in Crescent City. That's the Inland Sea harbor we're going to.”

“Sandry? And he was in Condigeo when the
Angie Queen
was there?”

“Sure, he owns part of this ship's cargo. Or the Lords do. Qu'yuma—do you know him?”

“He's Lady Shanda's husband.”

“You said she's First Lady,” Tras said. “But Qu'yuma is only an envoy. He's not First Lord or whatever you call him.”

“Lord Chief Witness,” Regapisk said. “Qu'yuma is Lord Chief Witness Quintana's nephew. He doesn't have any living children. His wife is dead, so Qu'yuma is his heir, and that makes Lady Shanda Lord Quintana's official hostess.”

Tras laughed. “And that's simple to you, is it? And Sandry is her nephew?”

“Sure, that's why they keep promoting him.” Regapisk paused, and said reluctantly, “I guess he's done all the jobs they give him. But he's lucky!”

“Luck helps,” Tras said. “Sometimes a lot. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between luck and magic.”

“Magic? Luck is magic? Magic doesn't work, not usually.”

Tras nodded. “Where you grew up, there was a fire god sucking up all the manna. Of course magic didn't work very well.”

“We tried bringing in manna! Lady Shanda bought dragon bones, and we ended up with two Burnings in one year.” Regapisk gave a sudden smile. “We were never very lucky with magic.”

“Good phrase.”

Regapisk grinned wider.

 

When Regapisk recognized the Oarmaster's footsteps approaching, he said, “Tras, I want to persuade you to buy me loose.”

“I don't have any reason to do that,” Tras Preetror said.

“I know, Tras. I'll try to give you one,” Regapisk said. Then the Oarmaster was at the door.

T
hey saw the dark hills from a long way off. First Mouse Warrior called from his perch atop the lead wagon. At the next rise, they all saw them: barren, drifting sands, blowing spiral towers of dust. They lost sight of the deadlands after they crossed the ridge and went down into a valley, but when they climbed the ridge on the other side, they were closer. Brown sand, blowing in complex patterns. Hills of sand that shifted even as they watched.

There were no farmlands here, just low scrub. The plants faded out as they approached the sands.

Clever Squirrel shivered.

“Cold?” Sandry asked. It was a very warm day.

“Not the way you'd be cold,” Squirrel said. “This is a desert.”

“Well, yes,” Burning Tower said, looking at the blowing sand.

“Not just dry,” Squirrel said. “I can't feel Coyote. I can't feel anything—it's like being blind. There's no manna. Something terrible happened here.”

“When?” Sandry asked. “Ambush?”

“More like a war of gods, long ago,” Squirrel said, “and all the manna eaten, all the gods gone myth. I'll ask Coyote when I can. But I'm no help to you as long as we're in this place.”

The road stretched on. They could see green on the other side of the deadlands, and everyone hurried. Even the bison seemed eager to get past that dead place.

The next day, a calf was born. Bison calves born on the trail were a burden, and most were not permitted to live, but this one was a spotted bull, and Green Stone shouted his thanks to the heavens.

“It's good luck, a sign of fortune,” Burning Tower told Sandry. “Look at the herd; we don't have a spotted bull. In two years, we will have.”

Sandry nodded as if he understood, but Tower thought he was pretending. In an hour, the calf was on his feet, and he trotted along after his mother. The wagon train moved eastward.

W
ith all her oarsmen rowing for all they were worth, the
Angie Queen
made anchor before noon. The oarsmen rested and joked and slept while boats put ashore with empty water barrels. Some passengers went ashore to find their land legs and visit the springs and the little village that had grown up there.

The Oarmaster came at sunset for Regapisk.

Tras had set out dinner in the cabin. The old teller looked feeble tonight, and he didn't get up. He asked Regapisk, “Are you willing to talk to passengers? Tomorrow night?”

“Sure!” Regapisk said.

“I buy my passage aboard ships like this,” Tras said, “and I tell stories and pass the hat. This time was a mistake, maybe. The trip's too long. Passengers don't want to run out of money, and all my stories start to sound alike after a while. We're at anchor now, and they're ready for something different. Even if it's one of the oarsmen.”

“I'd love to talk to the passengers,” Regapisk said. It wasn't just a break in the routine—it was a chance to catch the attention of someone who might buy him free.

“You'll have to stop stalling,” Tras Preetror said bluntly.

“Stalling?”

“It's been driving me crazy. I know how to draw out a story,” Tras said. “I also know not to do it too much. I don't stall. I can lose an audience that way.”

“I haven't been stalling. I've been building suspense,” Regapisk protested.

“You can see the marks want to hear an ending, right? Finish the story. Tell them where it all went. And that means you've got their attention, right? So they'll keep listening as long as you don't finish. But a good teller always has another story behind that one, so he doesn't need to stall, and if someone else wants to talk, that's
good.
Nobody will listen to you twice if you hog the podium. I'm a teller, Regapisk. Only a teller would put up with your stalling, and it's only because you actually know things. You buying this?”

“I'm listening.”

“Good. Do more of that. Now, tell me the tale of Sandry and the mirror. I want to see what you leave out.”

DAY 28: AT ANCHOR, THE NAIL

There was fresh gopher meat at dinner in the main salon. Regapisk was summoned afterward, but Arshur had saved him a bit.

Tras introduced him. He told the tale of the mer's daughter, then Sandry and the mirror. Then he and Tras talked while the passengers listened. Tras asked questions that led Regapisk into stories he'd already told, and back into Regapisk's past. Regapisk told of fighting the brush fire, the tale of how he'd ended up an oarsman. Tras broke in from time to time. He knew a little more about fighting fire in other cities, and details of Lords' jurisprudence. The way it came out, Regapisk had let the fire spread. Regapisk held his temper. This was a new sensation for Regapisk: the audience was listening.

“T
here was a ship that went down just outside the harbor, and its cargo was all barrels of wine. You listening, Ghost? The mers all got roaring drunk. They danced on the beach and played pushing games on the sea. Pushing games, that's two mermen trying to push each other off balance. The girls don't do that. Come dawn—”

Maybe the Ghost was listening; his mad eyes never left Regapisk's. Fethiwong certainly listened, and laughed or winced in the right places.

“Lord Reg.” The voice behind him was the Oarmaster. Regapisk flinched, then turned.

The Oarmaster leaned on the rail of his lofty podium. “If I'd known you could tell such tales, I'd have put you on a closer bench.”

Regapisk considered a biting answer, but he said, “I can speak up, Oarmaster.”

“Much obliged. Meanwhile, the wind is dying. Oars up!”

Regapisk rowed and wondered why he hadn't been summoned.

It might be Tras had got everything he wanted. Not only had he heard every story Regapisk had been able to give him, he had entertained the ship's company too—and taken the fees.

Regapisk's dread was that he had run out of stories, or else that they sounded too much alike, or were too long, or too whiny. He had really hoped to find something Tras needed to know more about. Armor and arms, maybe, or the uses of Lord Samorty's map, or some way a teller could get into Lordshills without getting beaten half dead and sold for an oarsman. Something!

Regapisk was barely aware of rowing. His arms and shoulders and belly were like boulders now. If his legs matched, he'd have thought himself the equal of Arshur. Rowing was automatic. Just a glimpse of water through the oarlock was enough to warn him where to dip the oar to avoid waves and eddies.

Here was a new thought: money. Regapisk had never been trained to conserve money. What he needed, and much of what he took a whim for, had come from his family until recently. His elders moved wealth around in big masses, but he took no part in that. All children are poor. Now his inheritance was next bread and a cloak and a chance to wash out the wastes beneath his bench. Nothing to conserve or lose.

But a teller on a ship must arrive in port with something to buy his next meal and a room. Maybe not even a room, if he knew of someplace to bed down. He'd asked Tras to buy him free because Tras was richer than an oarsman. Maybe he wasn't rich enough?

In the last rays of sunset, the captain made anchor and the men shipped oars. Regapisk slipped easily into sleep, then jerked awake when the whip draped itself across his back. The Oarmaster liked doing that. It showed his skill.

“Teller wants you,” he said. He followed close behind as Regapisk climbed the ladders, and he asked, “What happened to those mers?”

What? Oh.
“Not much. They were the town's whole fishing industry. What could the mayor do? He got them to clean up some of the mess and the damage, but hey, most mers are like Lordkin. They turned it into games and then drifted back to the beach. Mers can't stick with anything.” Regapisk suddenly wondered:
Is that why they like me? Because I think like them?
But there wasn't anyone to ask.

 

“I wanted to give you time to think up more stories, or remember them, or see new ways to tell them. I know
I
need that sometimes. And I was sick, Regapisk.”

“Sick how?”

“My guts back up on me. I'm old.” Tras said, “There's another thing. I'm out of money for bribes.”

His heart sank. “So buying me free isn't an option?”

“Oh, we could talk about it.”

“That could be depressing.”

“I've got
some
money. I'd have my ship's fare back maybe five times over, except some of that went to the Oarmaster. But I don't have the price of an indentured man! So I need to know, have you hidden out anything?”

“What?”

“Did you hide any silver, gold, jewels?”

“How?”

“Well, I don't know, Lord Reg. Some people swallow gems or small coins, and get it back later—”

“That's disgusting.”

“I've got some jewels sewn into this coat, if a thief lets me keep the coat. I know of a woman who bound up jewels in her hair, and another—anyway, what I'm getting at is this: if we pool our money, I could buy you loose. You'd be my servant for a while, but hey, you could learn to tell stories, and it beats rowing.”

Regapisk's heart felt like lead. “And all it takes is anything I might have hid on my person?”

Tras shrugged.

It was a scam. Tras had taken his stories, and now he wanted…imaginary loot. Regapisk laughed. “A Lordsman hit me on the head, and when I woke up, I had just this loincloth, a cloak, and tomorrow morning's bread. And this ripped earlobe where I had an earring.”

“Mph.” Tras closed his eyes. His voice was weak, feeble. “There's another thing. Arshur.”

Arshur didn't react. He was out of earshot, half asleep. Regapisk said, “Arshur?”

“Somebody needs to take care of Arshur. He's been hit on the head too often, or maybe he grew up that way, but he needs someone to bail him out every so often, or just tell him
no.
I'm a twisted old man, Lord Reg. I can free you both when we get to Crescent City. Will you stick with him?”

“Gods, Tras, I'll still be at the oars.”

“I'll make an offer,” Tras said. “If the Oarmaster says you're worthless, maybe the captain will sell you cheap. Will you take care of Arshur?”

“He won't say that. I'm better at rowing than at anything I ever tried, unless it's telling stories.”

“You haven't answered me.”

Regapisk looked at the barbarian giant. Was that the price of getting free of this ship? Certainly saying so was easy enough. “Yes, I'll take care of him.”

“Good. I won't summon you again, Regapisk. I want to save the money. Tell me a story.”

“Do you know about Lord Samorty's map? Hah! I thought not. It used to be magical….”