The Burning City

The bird settled on Morth's arm. "Reminds me," Green Stone said. "Keep the bird with you tomorrow, Morth. He attracts too much attention ... oh, that'll do," as the bird on Morth's forearm turned glossy black.

Chapter 66

They crossed the valley at dawn. A lone black crow wheeled above them. They saw no children. They filled some bottles with water. Water going up, gold coming down. They pa

And he felt the pressure of a lurk's eyes.

They kept climbing. Whandall looked about him, taking it all in, letting his mind find patterns. He didn't look for a face among weeds. That was not how you spotted a lurk.

The bird wheeled above them... and suddenly blazed with colors.

Vegetation was low and sparse, leaving little cover to hide a man. Flooding had left whole river bottoms sprawled across this slope; then years of rain had washed away the lightest particles of silt, leaving what was heaviest; and that must have happened over and over. Gold was everywhere.

Following the firebird's path, Whandall began collecting nuggets. Green Stone couldn't perceive gold until they'd been at it awhile, but then he caught the knack.

Seshmarls flapped uphill in a wide spiral. He was black again. Was he seeking the mad magic in gold, or just his di

Now Whandall had no thought for watching eyes, nor for anything hut gold. When their hell pouches were lull they emptied the gold into their packs. By sunset every muscle was screaming. Their empty bellies cried for food.

A half-moon gave them little light. It was good they'd brought water, but that was gone now. Unable to see to collect more gold, they began sifting the gold sand into bottles in the dark.

By moonset most of the bottles were full. There was no gold left in the packs, and no light at all.

Green Stone hefted his pack. "That's heavy!"

"Put it down. We can't walk in the dark."

"It'll still be heavy tomorrow. I'm cold, hungry. Father, what are we doing here?"

"Gold fever. We should have been on our way hours ago. Now we'll be here the night." With their gold sealed in cold iron, Whandall was having second thoughts. He thought his sanity had returned.

Green Stone said, "I wish Morth were here. He'd summon something to eat."

"Gold drives Morth crazy! We don't dare build a cook fire anyway."

"Well, we got his gold for him."

"Why does Morth want it?"

"I'm not supposed to tell."

"Not Morth's plans, no, but do you have a plan? Or did you come just to ride Behemoth?"

"Maybe I can find my fortune in Tep's Town, or earn it. Maybe it's my blood calling to me."

"Let me tell you about your blood," Whandall Feathersnake said, "and about Morth."

And they talked.

Whandall had first seen Morth of Atlantis from Lord Samorty's balcony, when he was learning how to lurk... .

One night during the trek to find Morth, Green Stone had crawled into Lilac's blanket and gotten himself a long and heated lecture involving one-horns, rumor, custom, and the rights of parents. Lilac was still ticked at his father for suggesting otherwise. So was Green Stone....

Whandall's father had died robbing Morth of Atlantis. The Placehold men had died because...

When the gold fever really did ease off, hours later, Whandall tried to remember the long mad night of laughter and horror. How much of this had he actually said? Things he'd never confessed.

But he had told his son how the Placehold men died while Whandall

stayed to gather a kinless woman and mutilate the man who tried to strangle her. Told him about ruling the Placehold until Mother came home with Freethspat. How Mother's lover made him a murderer. How Whandall made Freethspat carry garbage ... like a kinless ... and why that was fu

Green Stone was snoring gently.

Whandall wriggled around until his back was to his son's, head to foot, separated by backpacks stuffed with bottles. Dozing, he suddenly remembered a sense of being watched.

He swept an arm wide around, just above the packs. His hand smacked hard into a thin forearm, and closed. The arm tried to pull away. He followed through on the sweep, reached across, letting go to avoid a possible knife thrust, and had the other hand with a knife in it. Then Green Stone was twisting the intruder's head.

"Don't kill him," Whandall said quickly. The struggling shape went rigid.

Whandall took the intruder's knife. "Let me speak first," he said. "You're a very good lurk. We'll speak more on this. We need this gold for ourselves, but I can offer you something you'll never refuse. But I'm just not sure I want you yet. Let him speak, Stone."

A boy of twelve or thirteen cried out in anger and terror. "Who have you killed? "

"What?"

"You're Whandall Feather snake!"

"Your face," Green Stone told his father. "It's glowing."

"That's wrong. I haven't killed anyone in six years!"

"Must be the raw gold," said Green Stone.

"Yes. I don't kill lightly, boy. What's your name?"

Silence.

"Make one up. Never mind; we'll call you Lurk. Are you a bandit?" He didn't say bandit's son. Give the boy his dignity.

The boy said, "Yes. Do you need all of those bottles?"

"If the wizard would just talk to me, I might have an intelligent answer. Green Stone?"

"Father, Morth doesn't know how many he needs."

"Stay with us, Lurk," Whandall said. "I'm going to let go. In the morning we'll talk. If we don't need you, I'll send you home with the smallest of these bottles and a tale to make you famous. But if we need you, you'll ride Behemoth with us. I'm letting go now."

He let go.

The boy went to his belly and backed away. Whandall had expected that: he could have caught him. The boy hacked under a stand of thorns and was gone.

Again Whandall and his son stretched out head to foot and hack to hack. Green Stone said, "He heard everything."

"Yes."

"I'm not sure what you said. I must have dreamed some of that. Gold fever. Did you ever tell Mother any of that?"

"No! You don't either, right?"

"Right. Why do you want Lurk?"

Whandall wondered if the bandit boy was still out there. "I've been thinking. If ever we hope to trade in Tep's Town, we have to do something about the Toronexti. ..."

By late afternoon they had carried those fearsomely heavy packs up to Morth and Behemoth. They slept the rest of the day and most of the night.

Then up and off at first light, down to the river and up the far hill before Seshmarls' colors flared. Gold madness had them again. They'd have carried more gold, and saved a smidgen of weight, by piling gold sand loose in their packs. Whandall convinced Green Stone that it would drive them mad: they would try to carry a mountain's weight of gold, and it would kill them.

Again darkness caught them, and again they filled bottles by moonlight.

The moon sank. They curled back to back with the gold between them.

From the darkness, from beyond a knife's reach, came the voice of Lurk. "I think you lie about riding Behemoth."

"As you like," Whandall said.

"He's not so big as all that," Lurk said, "but he could crush a man with his foot, or his nose."