Burning Tower (46 page)

B
urning Tower was surrounded by priests and girls and attendants, but she felt alone. Butterflies in my stomach, she thought. This is the day. She forced herself to stand still.

She stood on the platform at the top of Mesa Fajada and watched as the Emperor, far below on the piazza, showed himself to his people and proclaimed the new king. Arshur appeared in a cloud of smoke, and then rode his chariot around the piazza.

There was Sandry. She was too high above him to see his face, but his armor twinkled. Everyone was watching Arshur, but Tower kept her gaze on Sandry as he mounted the dais to stand alone with the Emperor. She frowned and turned to Buffalo Woman. “Why Sandry? Why isn't anyone else with the Supreme One?”

“Who can know the ways of the great?” Buffalo Woman asked. She was older than Burning Tower's mother, and said to be very wise. Burning Tower hadn't seen evidence of her wisdom. But she was kind, and the only friend Burning Tower had up here on this high platform among all these strangers.

They were in full view of the huge crowd in the piazza. “Will we look enormous, the way the Supreme One did when he welcomed us from up here?” Tower asked.

“I think so,” Buffalo Woman said. “We haven't done a wedding from here in a long time. The last time was one of the Emperor's sons when I was much younger, and yes, they used the vision then.” Buffalo Woman sniffed. “You are being very highly honored.”

“Yes, I know that,” Tower said. And why? But there was no point in asking; she'd only be told not to question her luck. And they'd be huge! She was aware of every flaw, the tiny blemish on her left cheek, the fading bruise from the combat at Sunfall. There were bruises on her thighs too, but no one would see those. No one but Sandry, and that much later….

Everything seemed ready. Tower was dressed in thin white silks, so thin and so light that any breeze lifted her sleeves and cloak like wings. She'd admired herself in the mirrors at the palace. She'd never been so beautiful.

She had been awakened before the sun rose, and in the dark they had come to the Great Plaza. It was just dawn when, under the watchful eyes of Buffalo Woman and her apprentices, Burning Tower had bridled Spike, choking as she realized that she would see him only one more time. Then he would be a present to the Emperor. And after tonight, he would hate her.

It was early morning when they ascended Mesa Fajada in those flying baskets. Now the sun was high, but not yet noon. It was hot up here, despite the wind that blew through the canyon and billowed her white silks.

The platform circled the mesa. It was wide and high, as high as she had ever been in her life. It was large enough to have rooms, each room walled in screens of flowers. They were shaded by another flower screen above them. Everything smelled of blossoms and sage. Music welled up from the piazza. Now it was triumphant.

She couldn't see Sandry any longer. He was lost in shadows with the Emperor as Arshur rode around the piazza. It was very bright down there, and she looked away.

Here on the platform, just out of the sun, there was a table, a great wooden slab, on short legs so that the top was at knee height. Bags of sand were lined up around it. Her parents would be here through sand paintings. But where was Clever Squirrel? She hadn't come back to the palace at all, last night or this morning, and neither had Coyote's priest. They'd left together, and it was obvious what they'd been doing, but Tower was worried. Where were they? But when she asked, she only got knowing smiles.

There was more cheering down on the piazza. Arshur had ridden around the Great Plaza and was stopped in front of the Emperor's dais. A priest knelt to offer him something, a drink, then a sword. A cage opened, and a bird charged out.

Tower held her breath. The bird was much bigger than Arshur. But the fight didn't take long, and then the bird was headless, running around the piazza menacing everyone with the great blades that tipped its wings until grooms wrapped its legs with ropes and dragged it away, wings still beating.

And the crowd was cheering wildly again, and she couldn't see Sandry and the Emperor any longer.

“Soon,” Buffalo Woman said. “They come now.”

 

Clever Squirrel giggled.

She was riding in one of the floating baskets. Coyote's priest rode with her, and he wore a dreamy, tranquil smile. He'd had as much of that stuff as she had, but he must be used to it.

The basket rose high. She vaguely remembered being brought to the base of Mesa Fajada in a chariot, held up by Coyote's priest and two of his tattooed assistants.

In the basket ahead, she could make out Sandry, High Captain Sareg, and the priests of Prairie Dog and Mammoth in their elaborate formal masks. It was accompanied by a basket of four guards.

Those two baskets rose together, and above those were three baskets all together. One held Arshur the king with his attendants: Sandry's cousin Regapisk and the Aztlan jeweler dressed in his finest, and a burly young guard or servant. The king's basket was flanked by two others, each with four guards. And in the basket above that, the Emperor, blazing with magic, with an older man dressed in kilts, and, greatly favored, the Great Mistress Hazel Sky. Beside Hazel was Jaguar's priest in a towering headdress. The great mask turned down to her for an instant, and Squirrel felt the oppressive mass of tradition settle on her.

“Great Mistress,” Clever Squirrel giggled. “Does it mean what I think it means?”

Coyote's priest snorted. “There was a time when Hazel Sky shared the Supreme One's couch. Then she was sent to govern his most important possession. Now she returns after a glorious victory and the discovery of treason.” He shrugged. “A bright woman, a woman of power. Who is to say where she spent last night? We know where we were!”

Squirrel laughed loud, so loud that others in the rising baskets turned toward her. “Too right.” The memories were warm and delicious.
Not overrated at all,
she thought.
I'll have to tell Blazes. Not overrated at all.

Baskets traced shadows against the Mesa Fajada. The blazing forenoon sun turned it into a burning tower. Could this be why the Emperor had commanded this wedding be here? Squirrel tried to recall the details of Burning Tower's naming vision. Her mother had dreamed of those great Burnings in Tep's Town in the days before Morth of Atlantis drove Yangin-Atep mythical. And Sandry had assisted Morth in that; did the Emperor know?

Sandry was guarded, and there were two baskets of guards for King Arshur. The Emperor had none at all. “Who is the man with the Supreme One?” she asked.

“Doentivar. The Grandson of the Sun.”

“The heir?”

Coyote's priest looked around warily. “Perhaps. If the Supreme One continues to choose him. You and I are not concerned with such matters, and it is best not even to think of them.”

Why?
Squirrel wondered. The giggle bubbled up.

A voice whispered in her head. Coyote? An old memory?
“For there to be an heir someone must die. Some detest such thoughts.”

Even the gods?

“Especially the gods. Gods have gone myth. The Supreme One is no god, but there are gods who are wary of him.”

Squirrel's head was whirling, and the higher they rose, the dizzier she became. Up here everything glowed with manna. Power glared from the valley below, from the cheers of the people—she became aware of the music and the shouting and waves of euphoria from ten thousand and more below.

She could see out onto the piazza now. The crowds in their seats, processions of masked and costumed priests coming from the
kivas
. Sandry's chariot standing near a pen where a young girl dressed in bright flowers stood with her arm around the neck of a bridled white one-horn. Spike, stamping in impatience. Another pen held a live terror bird.

There had been death below, and the manna of sudden death mixed with the excitement of the crowd. Near the kraal a crew was dragging what looked like green rags off through a gate. It trailed blood.

“The king's conquest?” she asked.

Coyote nodded. “I thought it best you stay below.”

He's too polite to remind me just how drunk I am,
she thought,
or too embarrassed.

Coyote handed her a flask. She sniffed warily. Pulque was wonderful stuff, but she'd had enough. This was water, and she drank eagerly before realizing that it too was suffused with manna, nearly as intoxicating as pulque. She still felt the ecstasy of the pulque, hours later, with a glow of sex and magic in her, and a knowledge that must have been in Coyote's priest's mind: something wonderful was going to happen today, even beyond the marriage of Sandry to Burning Tower. All would be put right. If only she could remember what she'd dreamed.

L
ord Regapisk, king's companion, held the side of the basket and hoped that Arshur wouldn't make any more sudden gestures. His last wild swing had almost swept Flensevan's son Egret out of the basket.

They were rising up the side of Mesa Fajada, the Emperor ahead, Sandry himself behind. It would be Sandry's wedding, and as his cousin's only countryman, Regapisk would have a prominent part, but he was more—he was king's companion. Of course he and Flensevan and Egret weren't supposed to be in this basket. They were major dignitaries, but there were dozens who outranked them. But Arshur had seen them in their seats in the piazza after the ceremonies and sent the King's Guards to make way for them to follow him, and when they reached the baskets, Arshur had let them assist him into the basket and pulled them in with him. No one disputed the king's whim.

Flensevan and his son were bursting with pride, but there was fear beneath that. Everyone in Aztlan felt that way: joy, pride, fear. Regapisk looked down from the rapidly rising basket to see the old wall. The Wall of Hearts, where anyone might be taken at the whim of the scarred Emperor.

Doentivar, Grandson of the Sun in his place beside his father: straight back, blank face, no emotion visible. He'd be the wariest of all.

Lord Chief Witness Quintana might sell you to sea or send you to the crabs for a mistake, but not just for a whim.

The baskets rose higher. Mesa Fajada blazed. The whole valley below blazed with manna. There were bright threads in the river below, silver streaks that wound out past the gates and beyond the Aztlan valley into the far west. Above them the sky was clear and dazzling blue.

The basket halted, and guards drew it onto a wide platform built right around the mesa. The basket was almost steady, but still it hovered a finger's breadth above the wood. Regapisk and Egret leaped out to assist the king, leaving Flensevan to dismount on his own.

Flowers everywhere. The walls were flowers. And songs and music welled up from the piazza.
They do things right here,
Regapisk thought, remembering shows and circuses the Lords had put on for Lordkin and kinless. The Emperor was rich and spent money and manna, more than the Lords of Lordshills had ever had to spend on anything. And the day was just beginning…

The Emperor had gone first. He was standing at the edge of the platform now, and the crowd was going wild.

And there was Sandry, just catching sight of Burning Tower in her white silk robes. She was beautiful, no question about that, and Regapisk felt a twinge of envy despite last night's attentions from Annalun and one of her young ladies trying to hide her joy at being with Regapisk rather than Arshur.

Guards ushered them off the landing area as other baskets arrived. Regapisk noticed how many of the Emperor's guards there were, even up here. They stood in fours, in identical kilts and shoulder capes, carrying identical clubs embedded with chips of obsidian. They were there to protect the king's companion and partners as much as for the rest of these worthies, but Regapisk remembered the Lordsmen at the docks in Tep's Town. Those had not liked Younglord Regapisk one bit, even before his fall from grace. He grinned at a knot of soldiers, but there was no response at all.

The part of the platform that faced the Great Plaza far below shone with an unnatural light. The Emperor stood there. Guards gestured Arshur and Regapisk into the light, and when the king was illuminated, the crowd cheered wildly. The light was dazzling, and Reg felt strange. Arshur bowed, then he and the Emperor backed away into the shadows, leaving Regapisk for a moment alone in the bright light. A lesser priest gestured urgently for Regapisk to move back, and when he did, a guard was there. The priest was masked, but there was no mistaking the guard's unfriendliness.

The priest was watching the Emperor. When no sign came, he gestured the guard away. “Do not again spoil the Supreme One's exit,” the priest hissed, and then Regapisk remembered how the Emperor's image had grown enormous on the first day they saw him.

Tower and Sandry were standing together now. She looked radiant. Sandry looked terrified.

Clever Squirrel was led in from the landing platform. Two of Coyote's apprentices were holding her up, and Regapisk thought she needed the help. There was a low table with bags of sand just out of the lighted area of the platform, and she bent over it.

Coyote's priest took her hand. “Not yet,” he said. “You would not wish the bride's parents to see what comes next.”

Burning Tower had overheard. “What? What comes next?” she asked.

“Think happy thoughts,” Coyote's priest said.

Four of the guards dragged out Thundercloud.

The Terror Bird's priest had been stripped of all his finery. He wore a white loincloth. He was not fighting the guards, but he was not drugged. His eyes fixed on Sandry, Tower, Flensevan, Hazel Sky. No help there, and his eyes kept moving.

In the lighted area, there was a big slab of rock veined like wood. The Many Names Priest came forward. “People of Aztlan! You have heard of the high treason of the former priest of Left-Handed Hummingbird. You have heard of the transformation of this god! The gods show their favor to the Supreme One! See now the fate of the priest who defied the Sun!”

It happened fast. The Emperor strode forward and spread his arms. His four guards laid Thundercloud on the slab and tethered his wrists and ankles.

The maskless Many Names Priest came forward, accompanied by Coyote's priest and another in the robes and mask of Jaguar, and a fourth with the thin bill and bright colors of a hummingbird. Thundercloud's whimpering stopped; he stared at that one in fathomless horror.

The hummingbird priest struck Thundercloud's chest with an obsidian dagger. Blood spurted everywhere. The Emperor himself reached into the chest cavity and drew out the still-beating heart. He held it high, then placed it into a small, floating basket. The basket vanished over the side of the platform, then Thundercloud's body, still twitching, was rolled off the platform to fall fifty manheights to the dry ground at the wall far below.

The crowd below had stood in silence. When the body hit the ground, they cheered. “Live a million years, Son of the Sun!”