"What about the water thing? Melted?"
"No. The damned elemental is waiting offshore. I can't ever go near water. But I spent the Lords' money long ago, and I can't pull that stunt again."
"Are you afraid of the Burning?"
"Oh, no. I'll sense when Yangin-Atep rises. I can see that much. There will be one, maybe two small Burnings, then a big one," Morth said. "Then I'll get out. I never want to see that again."
Whandall wondered if Morth wasn't whistling through Dead Town. Not Seshmarl's problem. He said, "The Toronexti-the tax guards-will take almost everything you own."
"Perhaps they won't see it all," Morth said.
"Were you here last time?" When my father died!
"Yes." The alien face turned haggard. "I could have been killed. There was nothing, nothing to tell me that Yangin-Atep was awake, not even after I saw smoke and fire pluming up. I went home to keep my house from burning. That night I went back to the shop. Stupid. Thieves-gatherers-had already stripped it bare. I was looking around and planning how to rebuild when more gatherers came in and saw me."
His mouth was very dry. Whandall asked, "What happened?"
"I used a calming spell."
"What?"
Belligerent and guilty, Morth said, "It's simple magic, so simple it even works here. It takes the anger out of a man, and puts out fires too. I've used it before. It isn't as if I wanted to hurt them. I threw a calming spell at the big one when he came at me with that knife. He went down like u handful of sticks. The others screamed and ran away."
"Dead?"
"Dead and cold! I pulled him outside and left him. A barbarian pulling
a dead man by the ankles and nobody paid any attention! Seshmarl, does Yangin-Atep really possess people?"
"I think so." Shouldn't a wizard know?
"That thug was all anger, all fire. Yangin-Atep must have had him, and when I sucked the anger out of him, I think his life came with it." Morth looked up. "The Burning. What did you see?"
"I was only seven."
"Did you feel Yangin-Atep? I've sometimes wondered what that's like."
"No. Maybe next time."
Four kinless came in then. Whandall sensed their unease and left.
And maybe Yangin-Atep heard Morth's insults, sluggishly, in his coma.
Part Three
The Burnings
Chapter 22
For three years rain had been sparse. Even the trees with their deep roots showed the dryness. The reservoirs went dry. Some said that the fountains in the Lordshills were still running, others said they weren't, and no one really knew.
A few kinless purchased rain. Weather wizards were rarely successful, hut some sold the names of their clients: kinless who had money to throw away. There were beatings and robberies, leaving less to be spent on weather wizards.
The Deerpiss became a trickle, then dried up. Wells went dry. The Lords sent out a decree that water must be used only for drinking and washing. The kinless agreed, and demanded even stricter rationing. Lord-kin didn't listen to such stuff. They used water to cool themselves and their homes, until even drinking water was a trickle, and there would be none to douse fires. It was a dry season, without water, and that might have been what wakened the fire god, twelve days after Morth belittled him.
Whandall alone wasn't big enough to get water when bigger men were thirsty. That morning Wanshig and Whandall escorted the women and younger children across the central city to a working well. Resalet stayed in with a hangover. The other Placehold men were not to be found.
Elriss was new. She stayed at the periphery, helping to keep the older women in place and moving. Wanshig hovered close to her. He'd brought Elriss home twenty days past, and she had his heart and mind.
Mother's Mother hadn't been outside the walls in many years. Whandall heard her muttering at everything she saw. The dirt. Bud manners among the Lordkin. Sullen faces among the kinless.
At least thirty kinless were using the well. At the sight of the approaching Lordkin family, they drifted away in little clumps.
The bucket brought up a scant mouthful.
The kinless had taken it all! And that alone might have started the Burning. But Whandall, waiting for his turn to scoop up a handful of water for Mother's Mother, smelled smoke on the windless air. Too early for a cook fire ...
"Stay together," Wanshig snapped. "Get the women and children home."
The Burning had begun.
They had to go out of their way several times.
Fire was just catching in the message-service offices. Kinless were trying to get the horses out. Others were fighting the fire with wet blankets. The kinless fire wagon had just come when half a dozen Lordkin waded into the kinless with curses and long knives. Firefighters fell bleeding. Others ran. One Lordkin sat on a kinless man's head and beat on his chest with a rock. Another came over and kicked the kinless man and laughed.
Mother's Mother was leaning on Mother, gasping. "Monsters! We never killed! We only burned; we never killed!" Mother and Whandall led her rapidly away from the scene.
Whandall looked at Wanshig and didn't ask, Is it true or is she crazy?
"Maybe men didn't tell women everything. Even then," Wanshig said quietly.
It was peaceful on Angle Street, where the land humped a bit to hide the smoke southward. Faces turned curiously toward a crowd of women with only two men for escort, and Wanshig whispered, "Relax. Stroll. Just another dull morning, okay?"
And Whandall tried to feel that. Take it easy, nod at Mother's Mother's ranting and hope nobody hears. Elriss looks like she needs any strong man's help, but Mother's taking care of that, easing her back where she doesn't show.
Tras Preetror the teller hailed him. "Whandall! What are you doing? Don't you know what's happening?"
Wave at Tras Preetror, smile, walk toward him. "Hello, Tras." Breezy, a little bewildered: "What are you talking about?"
Tras made no effort to hide his delight. "Oh. Guarding the women, good idea. But why aren't"-he waved about him, voice rising-"they doing something? Isn't the Bur-"
Whandall slammed a quick punch at Preetror's heart. Shut off his breath! Tras was expecting it; he dodged and turned, sloughed the blow, backed out of reach. "Isn't the Burning supposed to happen all at once? Do you feel Yangin-Atep? Do you feel the rage?"
A teller's task isn't to keep the peace. All these years Whandall had known Tras Preetror without ever quite grasping that truth.
Too late now. Angle Street had heard his message. Lordkin were disappearing into shops. Kinless were fleeing, converging into a pack. Tras joined them, bubbling with news.
Wanshig had Whandall's arm. "Move out, Whandall. Through there. You lead; I'll trail. Elriss, follow Whandall."
Another street. Pelzed passed with nine Serpent's Walk men. "Whandall! Wanshig!" Pelzed shouted. "We're going to Lord's Town! Come with us."
Whandall waved to indicate the women.
Astonishingly, Pelzed nodded calmly, as if he understood the need. "We can't wait," he said, and gestured his Serpent's Walk warriors toward Sanvin Street. "You'll miss the best." Then they were gone, and the smell of smoke was thicker yet.
Three cross-streets later: the Burning had arrived before them. A handful of lookers confronted a pudgy Lordkin in his forties. Did he need help?