Burning Tower (36 page)

Thundercloud took a bow from the wall and strung it with an effort. Sandry suppressed a grin. It was only a simple bow, and it couldn't be that difficult. But it was ornately carved.

Thundercloud took the bow and the rain arrow outside. “I will do this myself,” he told Ern.

“We are honored,” Ern said. Thundercloud nodded agreement.

He nocked the arrow and sent it upward, almost straight up, chanting as it rose. Tiny sparkles of lightning followed it up. It rose until it was nearly out of sight, then fell, still trailing brilliant sparks, to just short of where Ern had placed his wagons.

Upslope from the wagons, it began to rain. A junior clerk rushed down the hill to retrieve the arrow. Soggy and dripping now, he brought it back to the first clerk, who examined it and added notations to the document. They went back inside out of the rain.

“We recharge arrows using these.” Thundercloud showed them a line of thumb-size frames of silver. “I won't demonstrate. I don't want to get wet.”

T
here was a line of sweatbaths not far from the Office of Rain, but the servant girl led Burning Tower, Fur Slipper, and Clever Squirrel past those to a smaller area fenced with maguey. Inside the enclosure was a rose garden. Hummingbirds were everywhere. One frantically tried to drive the others away, but there were far too many roses for one bird to defend.

Like the other baths, this one was placed at the crater's rim. Mats placed outside, for relaxing after the sweatbath, would have a wonderful view. The building was made of petrified logs aglitter with garnet and other semiprecious stones.

Hazel Sky, no longer in robes of office but dressed in a simple gown, joined them. Burning Tower was afraid to speak to her, but Fur Slipper greeted her by name and introduced them to her.

There was no sign of the imperious Great Mistress. Now she was friendly.

“Welcome,” she said. “We have many baths here at Sunfall, but this one is reserved for the enlightened and their guests.”

Burning Tower frowned, and Clever Squirrel suppressed a laugh. “My sister is not favored,” Squirrel said. “But she is certainly my guest.”

Clever Squirrel examined the stonewood walls and looked questioningly at Hazel Sky.

Hazel nodded agreement. “All depleted,” she said. “A place where those burdened with magical talent can relax.”

Burning Tower looked puzzled. Fur Slipper explained, “There's no manna left in these logs. This building would make a dandy insulator if you wanted to avoid a curse. It's also a shield from visions. Hazel, did you use the magic in the logs to heat the thing? Easier than getting wood, until it ran out.”

“Likely,” Hazel Sky said. “But that was long before I came.”

The way inside led to a smaller room where they removed their clothes and hung them on pegs. They turned left to another small room, right to yet another, then left into the bathhouse itself. Each room had a stonewood door.

Clever Squirrel smiled at Burning Tower's look of puzzlement. “As Hazel said. This is a place of refuge from magic. Manna flows in straight lines. By turning those corners, we have escaped all the cares of the world.” Squirrel lay on a bench and sighed. “I think I have never been to a place like this,” she said. “Not even Tep's Town before Yangin-Atep went mythical was so devoid of manna. So
clean
.”

“You were there when the god was…” Hazel searched for a word. “Retired?”

“No.”

Hazel took another bench and sprawled out contented. “Your friend has no talent at all?” she asked.

“None,” Tower said. She thought it would be impolite to add that her family had never needed any. “I saw Morth of Atlantis after he sent the god mythical, but I wasn't there when it happened. No one was, except Morth and my father.”

Heat filled the room. The source was hot rocks along one wall, and a small brazier held a wood fire far too small to have heated all the rocks. Tower moved around restlessly as the talented ones—
enlightened,
she thought, and sniffed—relaxed on benches with contented smiles.

The brazier sat in a small fireplace. The stone floor had no soot or any other indication that a fire had ever burned there. Tower could feel a mild breeze going up the chimney, which was just big enough that she could have scrambled up it. No light came down it.

Clever Squirrel was watching her with a lazy grin.

“All right,” Tower said. “That fire isn't big enough to heat this place! And those stones are hot!”

“Of course they're hot,” Hazel Sky said. “The servants heat them and bring them in for us. The brazier is for scents and powders, not heat.” Hazel laughed. “Do you think we use fire to heat rocks here? With wood so precious and manna so cheap?”

“Ah,” Clever Squirrel said. “So you use magic to heat the stones.”

“Of course. The Supreme One has commanded that guests be treated properly. How could we heat stones enough for all your wagon train to enjoy a bath if we did not use manna? It would take everyone here working full time to bring in enough wood!”

 

There were eight sweat lodges heated, but to Sandry the sweatbath sounded like an exercise in discomfort. He gave orders that the bath kettles be heated at the wagon train. That too would be done with magically heated stones. Wood was precious.

Then he turned to Ern with a frown. “There are no walls here. No protection for the wagons,” Sandry said.

Ern shrugged. “Nor need.”

“We saw birds not a league from here,” Sandry reminded him. “We saw the rooster that has tracked us since Crescent City. Why is there no need to protect ourselves from the birds?”

Ern laughed. “We are in the Emperor's stronghold! The priesthood is here, in a place of great manna! Protection stones ring the crater and this town as well. This is the safest place I know, safe against any enemy.” He paused. “Any enemy save the Emperor, and there's nothing we could do if he decided to rob us.”

Quintana would say that we could sell our lives at a price to teach him to leave others alone,
Sandry thought. “We saw half a dozen birds, more than we have seen for days,” Sandry said. “How long would it take for them to kill us in our beds? Circle the wagons and put up the barriers.”

Ern glanced at him nervously. “Would you insult our hosts and their protection?”

“If we needed the protection of those soldiers, we'd be in real trouble,” Sandry said.

“The Emperor's might rests on far stronger shoulders than those soldiers'.” Ern shrugged. “But as you will. I confess I remain troubled by the visions of our enlightened ones. But Sandry, if they ask why we camp behind barriers, I will say it is your outlandish customs, and I have no choice because your backers own this wagon train!”

Sandry shrugged and signaled to Mouse Warrior. “Circle the wagons.”

The diminutive fighter grinned.

“You expected this?” Sandry asked.

Mouse Warrior grinned again. “I have won a bet with the Lordkin.”

 

Sweatbaths didn't appeal to Sandry; he wanted a bath.

A water bath required hot stones, and many had been needed for the sweatbaths. While he waited for more stones to be heated, Sandry walked the garden with a few of the soldiers who tended it. He saw edible plants, beans and corn, fruits and nuts. There were great gaudy flowers and plants he didn't recognize.

One entire garden patch was devoted to maguey, with plants grouped by age. Some were blooming. Some had tried to bloom and now had a large hollow where the central stalk had been. Those were filling with pulque.

They pointed out the garden where the Great Mistress entertained her guests. Sandry saw roses. Hummingbirds swarmed, zealously guarding their territories among the blossoms.

Another garden held fruit trees, including some Sandry had never seen before. He tried new fruits. The center of the garden was a pond; he washed his face there, nosed by big gaudy fish.

Then Sandry persuaded Captain Sareg to escort him up into the tower.

The view was awesome.

The sun was setting behind a glory of orange clouds. North, a scattering of flightless terror birds dipped in and out of flying cloud shadows. One—gaudier than the others, ablaze with rainbow colors when the sunlight struck it, the bird they'd been calling the rooster—gave over displaying his plumage and burst into speed, chasing something small until it ran afoul of one of the hens.

East ran the Emperor's Road, broad and amazingly straight, never deviating as it crossed hills and dips.

South, the crater itself was an incredible artifact, a bowl big enough to feed all the gods who had ever lived. Far enough below to exercise Sandry's fear of heights were the cook fire for dinner and the plumes of steam from the sweatbaths.

T
he banquet tables were large slabs of wood held up by stonewood trestles. A feast was laid out, and the room was filled, nearly everyone from the imperial offices and the wagon trains. Servant girls rushed about.

Burning Tower had ceased noticing the rich smell of men who had not bathed in many moons, but she noticed its absence at dinner. She herself felt clean and fresh. There was only water to drink, but a wonderful variety of food. It was as if the company grew drunk on the feast, and on fresh viewpoints.

Sandry was dressed in silk. He had found someone to smooth the wrinkles, and Tower thought him the handsomest man in the room. He stood tall and spoke freely. His Aztlan wasn't polished, but he didn't seem to care. Polite but proud, and she was proud of him.

The soldiers laughed at Sandry's caution in setting up the wagon fortress, but they didn't seem offended. None had ever seen the sea. They kept after Sandry to tell them more of the Great Ocean, and waves, and mer people.

Whatever story Sandry told, Arshur had another. Arshur was a natural storyteller, though imperial soldiers twitched at his tales of banditry.

“You have been many places,” Captain Sareg said. “So, Arshur the Wanderer, why have you come here?”

“I have come to be king. I am destined to be king,” Arshur said simply.

The room grew quiet. Captain Sareg beamed. “Destined to be king! This is wonderful news. I will tell the Emperor before I sleep tonight,” he said.

Clever Squirrel asked, “How?”

“We have our ways,” the captain said.

Sandry watched all this without understanding. It was clear that they didn't see Arshur as a threat. Instead, they believed him….

Fur Slipper developed an interest in Thundercloud. The burly rainmaker told her, “We folk worship a number of gods. My mother named me for a storm, and I followed my name to my fate. But I am a priest of Left-Handed Hummingbird in addition to heading the Office of Rain.”

Ern said, “We could have used your help at Crescent City,” a phrasing Sandry considered nicely diplomatic.

“Dry, was it?”

“No, I meant your terror birds have blocked off all trade,” Ern said, “for over a year, until Sandry and his warriors came to rescue us. You could have driven away the birds.”

Captain Sareg said, “That explains why all the wagons stopped coming. The Office of Gifts has been most puzzled. We're most glad you've arrived.”

“So you will tell the Emperor that the birds are attacking the wagon trains?” Sandry asked.

“I will certainly report that,” Captain Sareg said. “My superiors will be interested. And of course the Office of Gifts will demand a full report. I will send a clerk to call on you in the morning; you can give him all the details.”

“But you won't report that to the Emperor tonight?”

“No, of course not. That is news for the officials, not for the Supreme One.”

But,
Sandry thought,
you will report that Arshur has come to be a king.

“The birds attack wagon trains all the way to Condigeo,” Sandry said. Sareg looked blank. “Far to the west of Crescent City, all the way to the Great Sea.”

Sareg nodded. “So you fought from the ocean to Crescent City?”

“Yes.” He looked to Thundercloud. “I wondered if you would forbid us to kill terror birds,” Sandry said cautiously.

“Oh, no,” Thundercloud said. “It isn't birds we worship; it's the essence, the god, the symbol of the Emperor's might. Gods don't take much note of individual worshippers, you know. If the birds have become a nuisance, feel free to discourage them.”

The rest of the company didn't even seem particularly interested in the conversation. Captain Sareg said, “My officer and I had to kill a terror bird once. It got into the crater and attacked our stocks. I was only a foot soldier then. Two men can generally kill one, or drive it off, but that was scary.”

Regapisk shouted from far down the long table. “Ever been attacked by a dozen?”

“What? No. They stay apart.”

“Not anymore. They've been ganging up,” Regapisk continued. “Lord Sandry had to kill two hundred at Crescent City!”

The imperials seemed politely dubious, and Thundercloud actually laughed out loud. Otherwise Regapisk couldn't have pulled a reluctant Sandry into telling stories. Terror birds attacked in strength? And Sandry knew how to fight back? Crescent City soldiers were growing angry. They knew what they'd seen! Sandry had taught them his techniques, and they'd used them on the way here, cursed right!

Fur Slipper and Thundercloud began discussing magic, cautiously, not eager to reveal secrets. Clever Squirrel got involved. They were a buzz of conversation against a background of men discussing war, until Thundercloud exclaimed, “You were at the Folded Hands Conference?”

“How did you hear about that, this far east?”

“Oh, Red Rock was invited. He's our high priest in Aztlan, and the Emperor needed him; he couldn't go. But Clever Squirrel, do I understand right? Threescore wizards gathered at Avalon to find ways to restrict the use of magic?”

“Yes, to conserve what's left in these days of dwindling manna.”

“I see. Then tell me this, shaman: why are you supporting a trade in talismans, in charged turquoise and petrified wood?”

“Why…I never thought of that.”

“You encourage waste. The days of the great gaudy floating castles are over. Gods are going mythical for lack of manna. What will happen if we keep sending what little we have all over the world? Wizards will live as if there were no end to wealth, until it's all gone in a day.”

“Well, but talismans aren't
free,
” Squirrel said. “We learn to conserve magic just to save wealth. Some of us become very good at it. Meanwhile there are civilizations that would die without the trade.”

Fur Slipper found the argument very amusing. “What would you do, Thundercloud? Shut down the trade in talismans? Magic drives the trade routes. Nothing else would be traded either, you know, not even ideas. Every culture would grow in isolation, turn inward, grow mad.”

“And no one would bring gifts to the Emperor,” Ern added softly.