Burning Tower (42 page)

“Then what?”

“Well. Ruser and I began stowing talismans nineteen years ago, and I've kept it up. There's a king's ransom in the hold, in charged turquoise, silver bars and filigree, jade, some gems. But the first thing we did…mmm. First an Atlantean sold us the sunken boat in return for a getaway. He wanted to leave Aztlan quick.”

“An Atlantean. Zeph?”

Flensevan looked wary. “What do you think?”

“I didn't think Zephans was any kind of great wizard,” Regapisk said. “But I never heard of anyone better at using tiny fizzings of manna.”

“That's what the best Atlanteans did. As to Zeph's powers, he never claimed to be more than a journeyman. But he could see the future well enough to know to get out of Atlantis. And out of Aztlan.”

“Mm-mmph,” Regapisk muttered. “And why was he in such a hurry to leave?”

“You're king's companion and you don't know?”

Regapisk kept his stern face. “Ah. So how did you get him out?”

“So we got him in a basket in a mask that wasn't his, and he took our secret with him. Then we built the shop over and around the boat. We bought some logs of depleted petrified wood and we sawed them into slats. We surrounded the cargo bay with slats. They're all tied together with cables, completely surrounding the cargo bay.” Flensevan was leading him around the pool. “
Then
we could put magically charged talismans in the cargo bay without the boat popping up out of the water. Dismounting the mast, that was a challenge too. I learned how to swim like a fish.”

He whacked a pulley mounted on the wall. “Here, you reel this in and the slats roll up inside the bay. Now the treasure's exposed and radiating manna. The old spells come alive. The boat pops up as far as the second story, and if the mast was up, you'd break it. You get up this ladder. Look straight up, do you see the ramp from the second story? Cross that and you're aboard, and so am I, because that's where I'm waiting.”

Flensevan looked straight into Regapisk's eyes. “Remember that we can only use it once, and it's treason.”

“Why do this? What were you expecting?”

“Ruser got away quick and easy, and if he won't tell you why, neither will I. But they watch me more closely now. What happened to my brother could happen to anyone. Now, Regapisk, I can't stand it anymore. Tell me how you got feathers.”

 

Regapisk returned to the palace in midafternoon, bringing Flensevan. “You should meet the king,” he told his partner.

They found a mob of officials waiting outside their building. The guards led them past.

A woman was trying to tell Arshur about kitchen supplies gone undelivered for a solid year. Arshur gestured her silent. “Lord Reg! The Emperor wants to see me, but only once a day. I saw him at noon. It's all bad news, and it's all months old. He…” Arshur hesitated, but the guards wouldn't know Tep's Town speech, would they? “…raved. He didn't want to hear any of it. Tomorrow I'll have three times as much to tell him. I've got two secretaries rotating duties. Who's this?”

“My partner Flensevan.” Flensevan's forehead was against the rug.

“Greetings, Flensevan. Welcome. Get up. Treat Regapisk nice, he's simple. Look, Reg, I can't get loose to meet Lord Sandry and the girls. Greet them and make them welcome.”

“Shall I bring them here?”

“Curse, I don't know. Let them lodge outside tonight. The Emperor may wish to welcome them outside. He may not.”

“Is he changeable, then?” Regapisk asked.

Arshur shrugged. “Lord Reg, I can make nothing of the man. He is one of the Great Ones, and they live as they will. Greet our friends tonight, and return here.”

“It's a long journey to the gates and back,” Regapisk said.

Arshur grinned. “And a short one to the wall, Lord Reg. Take what you need. Go to them this evening and see that they are made welcome. Return here tonight.”

“What shall I tell them?”

Arshur looked distracted. “Tell them—” He caught himself. “Tell them they will be invited inside, and they'll have suitable quarters in the city. If no one tells you different, I can find them a place in this palace; there are more rooms than I'll ever need. The Emperor has a huge ceremony planned, wedding, something else about my coronation, a big public holiday where he'll show himself to the people, but it's not for four days yet. It'll take that long to bring the beasts. As to when they meet the Almighty One, he didn't say. Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps another day.”

A
t dusk Regapisk rode through the streets of Aztlan. Stonewood logs ran to his left, separating two lanes of traffic. Flensevan's wide eyes and white-knuckled grip made it clear that the man had never ridden at the speed a king's chariot could make with all other traffic scattering to give it room.

Regapisk had hoped to meet Sandry's basket, but the streets of Aztlan were a puzzle. It was near dark when the great gates appeared before them.

The great gates were not gates in a wall. They stood alone, and if they could be closed, it wasn't obvious how that could be done. They seemed symbols only.

Regapisk asked, “What's to stop anyone from just driving around the gates?”

“Guards,” Flensevan said. “You don't come in without invitation, unless you want your heart cut out and set in the wall. A lot of business gets done outside anyway.”

“You're going to have to tell me about that wall.”

“North of the shop, under the Great Mesa. You will see it soon enough. But it is ill luck to speak of it.” The chariot lurched as it went through the gates, and Flensevan stopped talking.

There was a city outside the city: a few big blocky buildings, and several circular buildings of the type usually associated with religion—
kivas
. The wagons were impressive even to a man who had seen the Feathersnake caravans. Regapisk asked, “We're looking at considerable wealth, aren't we?”

“Oh, yes,” Flensevan said.

“The High Road is over there,” Regapisk said positively.

“Why, I believe so, but how do you know?” Flensevan braced as the chariot rounded a turn to go south.

“I see it as a bright line,” Regapisk said. “I'm surprised you can't see this; the power in it blazes even at dusk. And there it is.”

The guards at the High Road terminal saluted the king's chariot.

“I am king's companion,” Regapisk said.

“Yes, Lord, how may we serve you?”

“I seek the visitors who arrived today.”

“Certainly, Lord. In the Caravanserai.” The guard pointed. “They will lodge there for the night.”

The Caravanserai would have been a palace in any other city. It was built in a manner Regapisk already thought of as Aztlan public building style: a multistoried building nestled against the cliff face, with a broad, flat patio in front. Inside the city, many of the buildings were faced with tiers of seats for the public, but this one had nothing obscuring the patio's view of the High Road and the long stretch to the west, flatlands with mesas, lightning storms above high mountains to the northwest.

An elegantly dressed servant led Regapisk and Flensevan to a table on the broad patio. The table was set in a pit, with a bench around the pit's wall for seating. In the center of the table was a large, shallow, round bowl of red clay. It held a fire that at first looked like burning brush, but the brush blazed away without being consumed. The fire sparkled with magic, and what little smoke it emitted obediently avoided the eyes and noses of everyone around it.

“Visiting Ladies and Lords, the king's companion and his friend,” the servant announced.

Sandry stood and bowed. Regapisk thought his cousin was doing a good job of hiding a grin. “Hail,” Sandry said. “Please join us.”

“Yes, we have much to discuss,” Regapisk said. “This is Flensevan, my partner.”

“Welcome to Aztlan,” Flensevan said. “No doubt you will receive a more formal welcome tomorrow.” He lowered his voice. “As to discussions, in Aztlan it is well to be careful of what is said. The Emperor's servants are everywhere.”

 

The bench around the table was surprisingly comfortable. Conversation ran up and down the table with the wine.

The wine was from someplace far south, and it was old. It had to be. No caravan had come near Aztlan in nearly a year. Flensevan spoke rumors of treason by priests who served the nightmare birds. Yes, they were true. What, then, of the rain?

It evolved that the priests of Left-Handed Hummingbird had infiltrated deep into the Office of Rain. The Emperor and his servants would have to separate out those blameless among the apprentices. Weather might be dry in Aztlan until those became proficient in the work.

 

Now Flensevan was urging Regapisk to speak of his past. Reg couldn't lie in front of Sandry. “I am a Lord of Lordshills and Tep's Town, sent to explore. I have farmed,” he said, “and trained with weapons and fought terror birds. I know the sea. I can speak to mers, but I don't suppose there's call for that here.”

“Mers?” Flensevan asked, and Regapisk laughed and explained, aided by Sandry. The port at Tep's Town, the tales of Lordkin sent to sea for crimes. Flensevan listened, not quite believing.

“Then here's to my new partner,” Flensevan said presently, and drained his cup. A servant refilled it, but Flensevan set it down untasted. When the servant retired to his place along the wall, Flensevan said, carefully, “We are outside, but so are the Supreme One's servants. Wine loosens the tongue, and that can be dangerous.”

“Dangerous how?” Regapisk asked. “Dangerous to the king's companions?”

Flensevan smiled thinly. “You may know less of that than you believe,” he said.

“Does everyone fear the Emperor?” Burning Tower asked.

“Fear him or love him,” Flensevan said. “The wisest love him in fear.”

“What must we fear?” Clever Squirrel asked.

“You are a shaman. Have you had visions of a long wall?”

Squirrel frowned. “I have dreamed of a wall of stucco, and heard a sound,” she said. “But I don't know what it means.”

“What sound?” Burning Tower asked.

“Almost like rain. Or a thousand drums. Or a million butterfly wings—”

“A thousand hearts,” Flensevan said.

“Hearts?”

The jeweler said, “The Wall of Hearts lies under the Great Mesa. You will see it tomorrow, or when it pleases the Supreme One to invite you into the city. There are niches in it, bricked up. Each holds a heart. At least a thousand hearts have been placed there.”

“Hearts,” Sandry said with disbelief. “Hearts without bodies, but they still beat?”

Flensevan shrugged. “Your shaman hears them. And I assure you, Lord…Sandry? I assure you they were beating when they went in.”

“Whose hearts?” Burning Tower asked.

Flensevan shrugged. “Mostly enemies of the Emperor, of course. Those who blaspheme against the gods, those who oppose the will of the Supreme One, or the bureau chiefs. Thieves. And a few others, who are sent to the gods for the good of Aztlan.”

“What others?” Clever Squirrel asked. “And to what gods? I know no gods who wish for such gifts!”

“Not gifts,” Flensevan said. “Messengers. Doubtless those who know more of this will explain it all to you.” He shuddered and would say no more.

 

It was well past dark when Regapisk and Flensevan took their leave. Two soldiers carried torches to light their way. Like the cook fire at the table, the torches gave light but no smoke and were not consumed.

More servants with glowing torches led Burning Tower and the others to the large building and up winding stairs through corridors and small rooms. Tower was soon lost.

Their sleeping quarters were three spacious rooms with windows that looked out to the city gates and beyond into the canyon that held Aztlan.

All the beds were in one room.

“Aztlan has different notions of privacy than we,” Sandry said when the servants were gone. “I can move my bed.”

“No,” Squirrel said. “If they expect us all to sleep in one room, we should do that.”

“Three to a room,” Tower said. “Isn't three bad luck in their world?”

“And this may be an oversight, or it may be an insult,” Squirrel suggested. “Their ways are not our ways, and our only safety now lies in not offending them.”

“Squirrel, are you afraid?”

“Of offending them? Yes,” Clever Squirrel said. “There is power here. The manna is not as…as dense here as it was at Sunfall, but there is more than anywhere else I've been, and it is all under control. It is as if I could reach up and seize manna from the air because they have put it there for my use. And if that is so, they can take it away again. Tower, Sandry, this is a place of great magic, and I feel very small.”

“Coyote will protect you,” Burning Tower said.

“Perhaps.” She opened a bag and began to pour sand, building a crude stick figure that might have been anyone of any sex. It came alive. It spoke.

“Squirrel?”

“Greetings, Mountain Cat,” Squirrel said. “Mother said someone would be watching.”

“Yes, but talk fast.”

“I will. Tell Mother that I'll give as much warning as I can, but the wedding is at the convenience of the Emperor, and he hasn't told us when. Days, I think. From now on, I'll try to call in the mornings.”

“All right,” the figure said. “You know what it costs to keep this painting ready? Talismans are expensive!”

“I know,” Squirrel said. “Tell Whandall we'll bring wealth enough to replace them. Good night.” She swept the black sand into its bag without waiting for a reply.

 

In black moonless night, Clever Squirrel cried out, “It
is
an island!”

Sandry woke. “What?”

She was at the window. “Sorry. Lord Sandry, it's an island of magic in a sea of nothing, a big island with a blazing peak. Mesa Fajada? A burning tower. You don't see it?”

“No. Even when there was light, it was just a city in a desert…impressive enough, though.”

Clever Squirrel said, “It's not that kind of island, Sandry. Wait for daylight. You'll see a butte. To me it's ablaze with manna, with sparks of brighter magic flying around it.”

Sandry took the shaman very seriously, but he didn't always believe her every word. She'd been fooled once before.