Burning Tower (12 page)

A
n hour later, they could see a dark shape looming up out of the water, and gradually it became an island. As they got closer, the wind died out entirely, and they took the sails down. The dolphins pulled them closer, then dropped the ropes. The Oarmaster shouted, and they rowed into a horseshoe-shaped harbor. There were docks built out from the shore, rows of them. A half dozen ships as large or larger than
Angie Queen
were tied alongside the docks, and there was room for twice that many more.

They came alongside a dock, but the ship stood off from it a good ten feet as the sailors passed lines back and forth. Sandry and the women stood at the rail and looked in fascination at Avalon.

He saw a sandy beach, with children playing, some half-clad, some naked. Sea animals with dark fur and flippers frolicked with the children. Half-grown dolphins played in the waves just off the shore. Here and there, adult humans lounged in hammocks. Blond youths with deep tans and muscles that any Lords officer would be proud of brought the loungers tall colored drinks. Teenage boys and girls played at some kind of game with a large leather ball.

 

Behind the beach was a row of brightly colored shops mostly set as storefronts into buildings that looked like warehouses. There was a warehouse built onto one dock, and the gaudy building on the dock next to it was clearly a restaurant.

“It looks—magic,” Burning Tower said.

“It
is
magic,” Twisted Cloud said. “The most magical place I've ever perceived.”

“And, I've been told, the most expensive,” Sandry said. He pointed at the dock. All along it were small stalls selling art objects, hats, clothing. “Prices in gold and silver, not shells.”

Brightly painted shops crowded to left and right on the main street. Beyond those, and above them on the hills, were less gaudy structures: houses. They were charming in their differences, Sandry had thought as he watched them grow larger as the ship neared the docks. But they had certainly not been made by magic. The houses—even the oversize one that must be the hotel—showed all the crudity of human workmanship.

“I'd hoped to see one of the magic castles the wizards are always talking about,” Sandry said.

“Not here,” Twisted Cloud said. There was awe in her voice. “Thank you for sending me, Sandry. I never expected to see this place.”

Burning Tower clapped her hands. “Me either. The Condigeo captains come here, but I don't think I ever met anyone else who did. But it feels magic even if we don't see any. Why is that?”

“It's because you don't see anything big and magical,” Twisted Cloud said. “Other places, the wizards did their spectacular tricks and used up all the manna. Condigeo. There's a whole city under silt and mud where their harbor used to be. No one can get to it, not even the mers. Ran out of magic and just settled into the muck. I know of other cities with collapsed castles. But there are places south and east along the Golden Road that still have big magical palaces.”

“How?” Sandry asked.

Twisted Cloud shook her head. “I don't know. I've never been south or east of Condigeo. But there must be a supply, a way to renew the manna.” She grinned. “And this time I'm not holding information to trade. If I knew I'd tell you. You've earned anything I know just for bringing me here!”

“Look up there!” Burning Tower shouted.

Color flashed across the hills. A tremendous bowl was set below the highest hill. Colors played in the rock and spilled out like liquids along the hillside. The bowl looked as if it had been blown like a huge rainbow bubble, then trimmed off like the top of a soft-boiled egg. “Magic shaped that one,” Sandry said.

Twisted Cloud said, “That must be Meetpoint, where they hold the seminars. It's old.”

The sailors hauled on ropes and pulled them to the dock. The crew laid a gangplank, then barred the passengers from reaching it. They waited until another ship tied up to the other side of the dock and a dozen passengers stood at its rail.

Presently a man robed in purple strode aboard, escorted by Captain Saziff. Sandry couldn't help staring. He must have weighed four hundred pounds. He was not just tall, but billowy, a smooth curve of a man. Within his hood, his face was white rimmed in black, split by a wide, wide grin.

“Orca,” Twisted Cloud whispered.

Sandry nodded. Whale. Clearly those were not the colors of a human being, but of an orca.

He clapped thunderously, waited for silence, and said, “I'm Schoolmaster Wheereezz. If you're lookers or tellers, welcome to Avalon! We take most forms of money. The exchange is that gray building left of the last dock. If you're wizards of any kind, welcome also! We only impose one special rule,” the sage said. “Whatever you know of magic, don't use it here. If you've come to learn magic, well and good, but don't practice it. This island is a refuge for mer folk. Here we can be human, as long as the manna holds out. Magicians also reside here, particularly elderly ones who need rich background manna to survive.”

The captain called, “Be aboard at the third hour tomorrow. We leave when it suits My Lord Sandry, and if you miss the ship, you'll forfeit your fare and have to make a deal with some other captain less generous than me.” Then the passengers were allowed to spill ashore. They were joined by passengers from the other ship, where Wheereezz had repeated his speech.

When the crowd thinned, Twisted Cloud said, “Let's get to Meetpoint. I can't attend the seminars—I'm not an invited guest—but maybe Squirrel's there.”

“We should book rooms,” Sandry said.

“It's the same direction. Lord Sandry, these wizards tend to arrange their own housing. Squirrel's staying at one of the houses. The hotel's expensive. They'll have rooms. We can take our time.”

“Shops,” said Tower.

So they walked north toward the bowl. Tower tripped over a loose board. Sandry caught her hand, and they walked that way for the rest of the block. They passed along the warehouses, then along a line of shops.

Goods were arrayed facing the street, unguarded, stealable. Guarded by magic? Sandry wondered. Or was it only that a thief would have to escape the island? And there were no Lordkin guards at all. No one was armed. He could walk the street with a pretty girl wearing expensive jewelry and never worry.

A shop built into a huge conch shell sold kitchenware made of shells or decorated with shells, a thousand kinds of shells. Burning Tower bought two fragile-looking geegaws. Another sold household tools. “Wizardry supplies,” Twisted Cloud said of a shop that sold dolls and doll-making equipment. A produce market…expensive. A bakery. Fish…absolutely fresh, and cheap, prices in shells rather than metal. And another building: buckets hanging on the wall, a large bell in a tower, bored-looking men sitting at a table playing a game.

“Avalon Fire Station,” Sandry read.

“Oh!” Tower said. “Will you talk with them?”

“I don't know.”
How? Introduce myself as the fire chief from Tep's Town? I might learn something, but I might just make a fool of myself. Learning something could be important, but letting people know that the Lords Witness of Lordshills have fools for officials would be terrible.

A restaurant. Sandry's stomach rumbled approval, and the ladies agreed. There were plenty of tables, and the waitress led them through the large room to a deck outside. There was a good view of the harbor, but Tower sat across from Sandry, and he kept looking at her, ignoring the flashing water and cavorting dolphins and the bustle along the beach.

They ate deep-fried swordfish (cheap) and slivers of potato (expensive) under a hot sun. It was a good day not to think about Tep's Town, or terror birds, or Regapisk chained to an oar. A day to think about how good Burning Tower looked wolfing swordfish, then fresh oranges (expensive).

They walked on. Where the shops ran out, they turned uphill toward the bowl.

At the entrance they found a young man, robed, with his hood thrown back to free long blond hair. He looked them over dubiously. “Sigils?”

“We're looking for my daughter?” Twisted Cloud said with a question in her voice. “Clever Squirrel? She's attending.”

The man smiled. His teeth came to needle points; there looked to be too many. Either he filed them or he was a mer. “I know her. She wouldn't be interested in this. It's Hedjeraa talking about how to walk and talk and dress like they can really do magic.”

“Seriously? But where shall we look?”

“It's a big island. Let me try a find.” The youth looked at the palm of his outsize hand. “Right. Try uphill, up that path—see it?—then along the ridge. Tell her Borush sent you.”

 

They climbed.

Looking down into the bowl-shaped gathering place, Sandry saw that Hedjeraa had drawn a good crowd, fifty or sixty. Something above them had attracted their attention: he saw arms pointing up.

The path switchbacked as it rose. Before it reached the crest, it forked. “Curse Borush,” Twisted Cloud said. “Which way?”

Sandry said, “We have to find her before tomorrow. Shaman, could you find the house where's she's staying?”

“If that boy can do a find…well, I won't try it yet. They seem very picky about who does magic. Let's keep climbing, get a view. Left or right?”

“Right.”

They climbed. Below them, a score of wizards and apprentices were climbing too. That was Morth of Atlantis in the forefront, in the sober robes of a mage. He'd been more flamboyantly dressed when Sandry saw him last. Trailing the rest was a vast purple shape, Schoolmaster Wheereezz.

Twisted Cloud paused at the crest. “Let's see which way they go,” she said.

“Why? They're not—”

“I know my daughter.”

At the fork, the wizards straggled into the right branch. Reassured, Twisted Cloud set off again. Tower and Sandry followed. Wherever they were going, they were ahead of the wizards.

 

A young woman looked up, saw them, waved frantically from the bottom of a sheer drop.

They found switchbacks that led down. The Meetpoint gathering place was far below them. When she judged them in earshot, the young woman shouted. “Mother! Blazes! What are you doing here?”

“Clever Squirrel, meet Lord Sandry of the Burning City. We have a mutual problem.”

“Curse it, Mother, I'm here to learn! I've already got—oh, well, come on down. Hello, Lord Sandry, pleased to meet you. Aren't you the one Blazes—right. What do you think of this?”

They had reached the bottom of the cliff. Clever Squirrel waved up, and Sandry saw that a human face had been carved into the face of the cliff.

Burning Tower clapped her hands. “Oh, Squirrely, it's Father to the life!”

“It's a little crude yet. Let me—” Clever Squirrel picked up a slender tree branch. She waved the tip over the cliffside. Dust and pebbles flaked off and fell, accenting a lifted eyebrow.

A shrill voice cried, “Stop!” And then a dozen more bellowed down at them.

“What are you—”

“The rules!”

“Young woman, you've been told the price of wizardry here!”

“Stop that at once!” A lean old man with good lungs.

“Don't hurt her!” That last cry came from Morth of Atlantis. It was barely audible; he was trailing now, and fairly winded.

The wizards descended. There wasn't room for them all in the space below the cliff. They bunched, reluctant to approach. The women were behind Sandry. Sandry hadn't consciously prepared for battle, but this lot would reach the women only if they got past him.

Now came Schoolmaster Wheereezz, somehow keeping his balance on the narrow path while he forced his way around cliff-hugging lesser acolytes and wizards. Once clear, he pulled back his hood—revealing a smooth bald black-and-white head—and looked up at the cliffside, smiling widely. “Beautiful!” he said. “Clever Squirrel, this would be your work.”

Sandry followed his gaze. Though Squirrelly had dropped her wand, the face of Whandall Feathersnake was still changing, a fall of sand refining its rugged look. A mad delight looked out of the rocky face, an expression Sandry had not seen in Whandall Feathersnake last year.