Burning Tower (37 page)

B
urning Tower watched the full moon from her window. Theirs was a tower room on the rim. The same full moon illuminated a ring of wagons deep in the crater, and the barren land around.

Squirrel was fast asleep.

Tower saw something coming down the High Road, something like a streamer of mist a-sparkle in the moonlight. Where the row of petrified logs ended, the mist moved up the crater rim and in, purposeful, seeking the guardhouse.

“Locusts,” she told herself.

Crescent City sometimes used locusts for exploration or to carry messages. She'd heard of such practice from other tribes. It couldn't be more difficult, could it, than persuading ants to keep to their places?

Tower lay down and was presently oblivious.

 

Squirrel dreamed.

She knew it was a dream by its clarity, the glare of color and the sharp edges. Manna was strong in the crater.

She stood on a butte, a great spur of rock above a vast flat plain. A manlike shape stood on the ground far below, stood so tall that his vast mismatched face was level with her eyes. Dressed in a feathered robe, he was divided down the middle: one side a living, laughing, well-muscled man; the other a skull, fingers of bone, white ribs showing through decaying feathers.

“The world is endangered,” he said. “Clever Squirrel, you must join us.”

“Who are you, then?”

“We are the conservators. Human beings are natural magic users. There is magic in our very being. With no trace of magic left, who knows what our descendants would be like? They would be no longer human. We must save the magic for generations to follow.”

The intruder was seeing into her mind by a little bit; she was seeing into his.

She asked, “Thundercloud, do you send terror birds to kill for you?” and knew at once that it was not only Thundercloud. She sensed a pair of adversaries, Thundercloud and a more powerful personality, his mentor. She perceived his name: Vucub-Caquix, Seven Macaws.

“We do,” the composite said. Both were speaking the truth as they saw it. “We must, to block the flow of trade. Tell me how you kill the nightmare birds.”

It was pulled from her, what little she knew. Sandry fought without magic, in ways Squirrel didn't understand, with chariots, atlatls, the many-layered bow, a stone bird gathered from the enemy, and by making patterns with armed men. She sensed her adversary's disappointment.

“Do you rule the god, or does he rule you?” she wondered, and she knew. Both. The god's own purpose was to evade its fate. Trade must be stopped because traders were coming to destroy Left-Handed Hummingbird.

She'd learned enough. Now she tried to wake up.

Her adversary said, “Sandry fights the nightmare birds. Who else has learned from him?”

All he had trained, his own Younglords, the Condigeo marines, the Crescent City soldiers, Arshur the wanderer. She gave them all to the half-skull giant, and knew that all must die. She whimpered.

“Sleep,” said her adversary, and velvet blackness took her. She woke in midafternoon, in the midst of battle.

S
tarting at first light, the merchants began charging their cargos of silver-and-turquoise talismans. Clever Squirrel was still asleep. She would be sorry she'd missed seeing this, Tower thought.

Actually the process looked simple. Ruser's own collection was typical. Carved turquoise objects, figures and faces of gods known and obscure, were worked into cages of silver. The silver frame was there to charge the blue stone. The stone would hold magic until a spell released it. It had to be dismounted from the silver before it left the crater, or the manna would leak away. Then the charged talismans were put into boxes of magic-depleted stonewood.

So Regapisk and Arshur took loads of Ruser's talismans into the bottom of the crater and strung them on lines. They'd be left there all day. Ruser supervised. Secklers the Lordkin helped. He seemed to enjoy the work. The others watched him pretty closely. Tower opened her hope chest and removed the birthname talisman the ladies of Condigeo had given her. The central charm was removed and wrapped in silver wire, and Burning Tower herself carried it to the crater. After a moment's thought, she climbed the central pole that held up the wires the other talismans were strung on, and put her charm at the very top. No one would gather it there unless they could climb like Burning Tower, or fly.

 

Captain Sareg came down to watch. He beamed when he spotted Arshur. Tower heard him; the whole circle of wagons was meant to. “Arshur the Wanderer! You are to be king!”

“What you say?”

“A reply from the Emperor arrived last night. The Emperor has accepted you as king. We're all very glad: we've been without a king for most of a year. You'll be taken by the High Road to Aztlan as soon as transport arrives.”

“High Road…when? How shall I dress? Act? May I take companions?”

“Soon, I would think. Dress? Your servants will dress you when you arrive. Act as you've always acted, it's worked for you so far. Some of your companions have been invited to the city, but they'll come by their own path. My congratulations, Majesty.” And he bowed.

So it came about that the entire wagon train was busy at hanging jewelry. Sandry and his minions were guarding the jewelry against gatherers, but there didn't seem to be any of those. The imperials were spending their time watching them, even the man on the guard tower. Nobody was seeing what was outside the crater, except Arshur, who abandoned the lines he'd been stringing and went scampering up the walls of the crater to watch for what was due to arrive on the High Road.

Around midmorning, he began shouting.

Then the man on the guard tower was shouting too. He was using some military jargon. Burning Tower couldn't understand him, but she saw soldiers scampering up the crater slope. She climbed laboriously uphill to look.

Terror birds surrounded the crater, close up against the rim, just outside the ring of ugly stone statues that surrounded the crater. They were widely separated and behaving like flightless birds, but they wouldn't find much prey this close to civilization. The gaudy one, the rooster, had placed himself farther back.

Behind her, Mouse Warrior ran among the wagons crying, “Hey, Harpy!”

 

Sandry heard the shouts from the guard tower. “Birds! Terror birds! Alarm! Call the wizards!” the soldier was shouting.

Birds. Alarm! Call the wizards. How many birds?

“Call the wizards!” the guard repeated. Someone on the ground heard, and took up the shout. “Close the gates!” someone else called.

Sandry looked at those gates with contempt. They wouldn't keep out determined terror birds. Neither would the low walls and broken maguey fences. Enough birds and—

“Terror birds!” the tower guard shouted again.

“How many?” Captain Sareg shouted from below the tower.

“Hundreds!”

Hundreds would be more than enough to overwhelm the imperial soldiers and the wagon train as well. That many birds could be stopped only by magic.

“Wizards! Call the wizards!” Captain Sareg was shouting.

The birds came to the crater rim. They lined up along its lip, held in check for the moment by the stacks of stonewood heads with their glowing eyes.
Foolish,
Sandry thought.
If they rushed us now, we wouldn't have a chance.
“Younglord Whane!”

“Sir!”

“Get everyone you can into armor; turn out with weapons. We'll make a stand on the road down from the rim.”

“Sir.” Whane ran off, afraid but under control. And the birds gathered at the rim, more and more of them.

“What are they waiting for?” Arshur demanded. “A fair fight?”

“It almost looks that way,” Sandry said. “Or some way through that ring of statues.” The eyes of the guard statues were burning fiercely now, making lines of light wherever dust blew past. The birds would not cross that line, but more gathered behind it.

“The light's dimming, I think,” Younglord Whane said conversationally. “When it's gone, will they come through?”

Sandry looked around for Clever Squirrel. No sign of her. Sareg had summoned his own wizards, but not Squirrel. Burning Tower was rushing up toward the rim. Sandry went to her.

“Where is Clever Squirrel?”

“Asleep,” she said.

“Wake her. Run!”

She ran. Sandry smiled to himself, watching her. If they lived through this…“Fur Slipper?”

“Down in the pit. I've sent for her.” Ern had put on thick buckskins and brought his spears. “What are those things waiting for?”

“I don't know, but the longer they wait, the better I like it,” Sandry said. “I want my armor. Gather everyone you can. Arshur, you and Whane get some kind of battle line set up while I get my stuff.”

“I'll get it!” Wagonmaster Ern's boy looked eager. “I know where you keep everything! Let me get it.”

“Go,” Sandry said.

“Now what?” Arshur said. “Look.”

A half dozen of the imperial soldiers were running down the hill to them, with Captain Sareg puffing behind them. “Majesty,” Sareg shouted. “We are come to defend you.” The other soldiers laughed nervously.

“Defend me?” Arshur demanded. He whirled his great sword and laughed. “Defend me or stand behind me?”

“If you die, we die,” Sareg said quietly. “I'd rather be killed by a bird than impaled by the Supreme One.”

“Know how to fight those things?” Arshur demanded.

“No, Majesty.”

“Magic? Wizards?” Sandry asked.

“The Great Mistress is trying to ready them,” Sareg said. “She keeps the Ring of Protection strong, but she says something, or someone, is fighting her.”

“An enemy wizard?” Ern demanded.

Sareg shrugged helplessly.

“Can the Great Mistress blast those things?” Arshur demanded.

“No, no—that kind of magic belongs to Thundercloud,” Sareg said. “And no one can find Master Thundercloud. Most of his apprentices are missing too. So are many of the rain arrows, and all his robes of office.”

“What does that mean?” Arshur demanded.

“I don't know, Majesty.”

“Betrayed,” Arshur said positively.

“So what will the Great Mistress do?” Sandry demanded.

“She's casting the spells she knows,” Sareg said. “Sleep and calm and fear and nightmares. And she sings songs to the Protection Stones.”

“Is that what's holding those things back?” Sandry asked.

Sareg shook his head. “I don't know. I'm not a wizard.”

“I think the eyes are getting dimmer,” Younglord Whane said.

 

Squirrel's sleep was so deep that Burning Tower feared for her health. She didn't stir when Tower patted her cheeks, or rubbed her hands, or pulled her hair. Tower lifted her by her ankles and dipped her head in a basin of water.

Squirrel stirred. Her eyes vacant, she whispered something under her breath. Then, “You're strong,” she said.

“You're little. What's the matter with you?”

“Nothing now. That crazy wizard put me under a spell of sleep.” Squirrel still seemed dazed. “Tower, I went to Avalon to get a spell from Morth. I ever tell you how my grandfather died?”

“Father did.”

“He walked into a gold field with Mother and Whandall. Wild magic all around him. All the old failed spells he'd made in the past started coming true. If he'd known how to unravel a spell, Grandfather could have saved himself. I asked Morth how to do that. I expect he'll want a heavy price some day—”

“Good, good. Now what do we do about the birds?”

“What birds?”