The Burning City (30 page)

The clerk turned to Shastern. “Do you dispute this, Shastern of Serpent's Walk?”

Shastern mumbled something. The clerk frowned, and Whandall went over to his brother. He could see that Shastern's mouth was swollen, and there were bruises showing through his tattoos.

Shastern saw Whandall and tried to smile. “Greetings, big brother,” was what he tried to say, but only Whandall understood it. “Lost a tooth.”

“Did Water Devils do this?”

“No.” Shastern tried to move his head. “Shif'sh crew,” he managed to say. “Devils sen' me home. Not their fault.”

Whandall turned to Pelzed. “He doesn't dispute it, Lord.”

Pelzed nodded. “Serpent's Walk is satisfied. Return my thanks to Samorty of Lordshills.”

The clerk smiled wryly. “Witness, all parties are satisfied,” he said.

The Witness spoke without rising. “Read the proclamation.”

The clerk took a parchment from under his robe. “Proclamation. To all those who hear this, take heed, for it is the law.

“Many shipmasters are unfamiliar with the customs of the Lordkin of Tep's Town. This has resulted in unfortunate incidents causing disrespect and injury to Lordkin. Therefore, for the protection of the Lordkin, henceforth all Lordkin who wish to approach any ship in the harbor of Tep's Town must first obtain permission from the Lordsmen officer of the harbor watch. We regret the necessity of this ruling, but it must be strictly enforced. By order of Samorty, Chief Witness of Tep's Town and Lordshills Territories.”

The clerk turned to the Witness. “The proclamation has been read. We will read it again each hour this day and the next.”

The Witness nodded.

The clerk turned back to Pelzed. “Pelzed of Serpent's Walk, you have heard the proclamation of the Lords. Take heed. Your kinsman Shastern of Serpent's Walk has been returned to you. The wagon has been hired for the day and is at your disposal. Witness, our fees were paid in advance, and there is no more business to be done.”

Shastern healed fast. One tooth was gone, and his sisters fed him soup for a week while the swelling in his jaw subsided, but no bones were broken. At dinner Shastern told everyone he'd tried to gather from a harbor tavern, met a crewman and went aboard, and was beaten when the other crewmen saw him.

But he spoke with Whandall on the roof, alone. “I thought if Shig could go to sea, so could I,” Shastern said. “But they wouldn't let me on the ship
at all. The whole crew beat me. I kept saying I knew they didn't want gatherers, that I'd never gather, I didn't come to gather, I just wanted to go to sea, and they kept kicking me. If the Lordsman hadn't come, they would have killed me, I think.”

Shastern fingered his tattoo. “Whandall, Pelzed of Serpent's Walk is a name with power. They don't call him Lord, but the Lordsman knew his tattoo. There was some kind of meeting with the Devils chief and the Lordsmen, and then they sent for a Lord.”

“Samorty?”

“Yes, they called him that.”

Whandall nodded. “He goes on watch himself. What did they meet about?”

“About me,” Shastern said. “I just wanted to get home. I was dripping blood, and I needed a drink. When the Lord saw me, he got angry. ‘Clean him up,' he said. His voice was real low and mean. ‘Are you blind? Don't you see that tattoo?' So they got me a basin of saltwater and another of fresh, and a cup of wine. Good wine. Then they went in another room, but the big Lordsman wouldn't let me go. He got me another cup of wine, but he went with me when I had to piss.”

“Deciding what to do with you,” Whandall said. “I'm guessing, but it's like them. They cleaned you up so if they let you go, you'd tell about that. Then they decided whether to let you go or feed you to the crabs.” Whandall put his hand on his brother's shoulder.

“Maybe,” Shastern said. “They were nice enough when they came out. Made the ship captain apologize. He gave me a bag of shells and two silvers.” Shastern held out a coin stamped with a hummingbird. “Then the Lord said, real slow and careful, that he regretted it but Lordkin had to stay away from the ships, and they'd draw up a proclamation. That was when he said nice things about Pelzed and Serpent's Walk, like he didn't want Pelzed mad.

“But we can't ever go to sea.”

Whandall nodded and looked out over the Valley of Smokes.

He was twenty before the Burning came again. And this time
everyone
was ready.

Hartanbath was more bison than man. In the Serpent Street region of Tep's Town—Flower Market, Bull Pizzle, Serpent's Walk, and several lesser bands—he was the man a fighter must defeat.

His missing ear-and-a-half contributed to Whandall's own reputation. Whandall could never have hurt him if Hartanbath hadn't been powerfully distracted. Hartanbath seemed to have learned
that
lesson. He was never seen fornicating in public again, with or without a woman's consent.

Whandall did not want a rematch. Few did. Hartanbath didn't lose.

At seventeen Whandall had taken to driving Alferth's wine wagons. Two years later he was present when Alferth held a street-corner drinking party.

A half-naked, dark-skinned, heavily armed looker ambled up and took a flask of wine with each hand.

Hartanbath objected.

The looker mocked Hartanbath's ears.

The looker was younger. Hartanbath was an inch taller and a stone heavier. Both could hit like logging axes. But Hartanbath ran out of strength first, sat down, and covered his head until the looker was satisfied.

Then the looker finished the wine and consented to tell stories.

He was Arshur the Magnificent. Some tremendous mountain range east of the Valley of Smokes had birthed his people. To the child Arshur, all
was vertical, and all vertical faces were slippery with snow and ice. Arshur could climb any wall, enter any building, bypass any trap a householder might set for a thief (as if kinless would dare!).

There were cities where a thief might be imprisoned, others where he might be hanged, and cities where no thief could escape the King's magicians. Arshur had gathered fortunes in these places and others. He had fought monsters and magicians with his good sword—a huge clumsy mass of spelled bronze, thrice the size of a decent knife. A seer had predicted that he would one day be a King. When Arshur explained what a king was, the laughter angered him.

“So tell us,
Majesty
,” Shastern asked, “what brings your magnificence to Tep's Town?”

Arshur's face clouded only a moment. Then he downed the last of the flask and struck a pose. “I spent my last gold coin on a party,” he said. “This was up the coast, to the north and west, Great Hawk Bay they call it. They do have hawks, but mostly they have merfolk.”

“Merfolk?” One of the younger onlookers was willing to admit ignorance.

“Werepeople,” Arshur said. “You hear of
werewolves?
These are sea creatures. No? Shape changers. People who become animals.”

“Old tales,” Alferth said. “Not told much anymore. Are you saying they're
real?”

Arshur nodded vigorously. “Real, yes. You would not doubt my word?”

No one did, of course.

Arshur said. “Bear men are the worst. Not as much sense as a wolf, and when they want to—” He made motions with his hips.

“Rut,” someone shouted.

“Rut, yes. When they want to rut they rut anything. Anybody. They're big and hard to kill, so when they want to rut, most people get rutted. Sea people are easier to deal with. They like people. Especially the girls.
Great
rutting. And the merfolk at Great Hawk Bay set the best table in the universe. There's a restaurant in the harbor, an island with a bridge to it. Rordray, that's his name—Rordray owns the place. Sometimes cooks himself but usually leaves that to others. He built the place to look like the top of a castle because that's the way his last one looked, somewhere else where the sun rises out of the sea.”

The sun rises out of the sea.
Wanshig had
seen
that.

“You spent all your money, Your Magnificence,” Shastern prompted. It wasn't obvious to anyone but Whandall that Shastern was set to run if Arshur came after him.

Arshur laughed instead. “It's sad being in a place of magic with no money. Rordray didn't need me! Neither did anyone else. If you steal—”

“Gather.”

“—gather, they have magic to catch you. Besides, I like the people at
Great Hawk. I could steal—sure, I can steal from anyone—but they'd know who did it! Then Rordray said he'd pay me for hemp and sage leaves, and the best comes from a place he calls the Valley of Smokes. That's here.”

Whandall asked, “Don't they have hemp and sage other places?”

The barbarian looked at Whandall. “Other places they grow too strong. Something to do with magic. Wizards can change the taste, but Rordray says they never get it as good as grows here naturally.”

“Hemp tea,” Alferth said. “I've been told that before—that you get good hemp tea here.”

“You sure do,” Arshur said. “Wish I had a cup. Storytelling is thirsty work.”

“Later,” someone shouted. “How'd you get here?”

“Took ship,” Arshur said. “Fought off pirates, big canoes of them at the cape. They turned and ran after they saw what I did to the first canoe! More pirates out of Point Doom—fought them off too. So when we got here I figured I had some drinks coming. Only thing was, I hadn't been paid yet, and the tavernkeeper wouldn't give me any credit.”

“Tavernkeeper?” someone asked.

“Boy, don't you know anything?” Arshur demanded. “But you know, I see how you wouldn't. No taverns here! Just down at the docks. It's a place where they sell hemp tea, ale, wine sometimes. Tables and benches. Good roaring fire at night, only not here; here, the fire's always outside.

“Anyway, I was drinking good ale in peace when the owner demanded his money. He called the watch when I couldn't pay. By the time I explained to them, they'd beaten me upside of the head. The ship captain gave my pay to the tavernkeeper for damages and sailed on before I woke up! So here I am. I'll ship out one day, but I thought I'd see the country.”

“How do you like Tep's Town?” Alferth asked.

“Not so good. No magic. Not that I know much magic, but a little magic makes life slide by a little smoother. And the women! Down there by the harbor there's a nice town—Lord's Town, they call it. They sure didn't want me there! Anyplace I'd go, they'd send for the watch. Chased me right out of town, they did. So I get here, and the women all run away when I try to talk to them! One of them pulled a knife on me! On
me!
I wasn't going to hurt her. They tell me you can rut anytime you want to here, whether the women want to or not, but I sure didn't find it that way.”

“Burning,” Shastern said. “That's during a Burning. You just missed it.”

“Arse of Zoosh! I never have any luck. When do you do it again? Next year? Maybe I'll stay a year.”

“Maybe in a year,” Alferth said. “And maybe longer.”

“It'll be longer,” Hartanbath said. Tenderly he touched his remaining
shred of ear, notched by Whandall and now torn by Arshur. “Maybe a lot longer. Seems like more years between Burnings than when I was a kid.”

Alferth climbed unsteadily onto the wagon and stood on the seat. He swayed just a bit as he shouted to the crowd. “What say? Is Arshur a Lordkin?”

“Yeah, who says I'm not?” Arshur demanded.

There were shouts. “Not me!” “Lordkin he is!” “Hell, I don't care.” “Hey, this could be fun!”

Arshur was treated as a Lordkin from that day. Hartanbath disappeared for a season—healing?—then came back to pound the first fool who referred to his loss. He and Arshur were seen drinking together….

It was an endless, pointless dance; but you had to keep track of who was on top. Arshur fitted into Lordkin society. For a few months he stole what he willed and carried his loot about, until he realized what older children knew almost by instinct: that a kinless might as well tend and carry property until a Lordkin needed it.

And one day Arshur got in a fight with the town guard.

His companions chose not to involve themselves. “They just kept hitting him and hitting him with those sticks,” Idreepuct told them later, with secondhand pride. “He never gave up. They had to knock him out; they never made him give up.”

Idreepuct was speaking in an intersection of alleys, to people already angry. Voices thick with rage demanded, “What was he
doing
to make them do
that?”
and, “Are the Lords
crazy
, to give them those
sticks?”

Doing? It seemed almost irrelevant, but the tellers kept asking, and Idreepuct presently confessed. Ilsern—a tough, athletic woman who had never admired a man until Arshur came—had heard somehow of Alferth's secret wine wagons. Of course she told Arshur and Idreepuct.