THE BURNING
CITY
Larry Niven
TALES OF KNOWN SPACE
THE INTEGRAL TREES
WORLD OF PTAVVS
RINGWORLD
PROTECTOR
THE SMOKE RING
N-SPACE
PLAYGROUNDS OF THE MIND
CRASHLANDER
FLATLANDER
THE RINGWORLD THRONE
DESTINY’S ROAD
RAINBOW MARS
Jerry Pournelle
JANISSARIES
HIGH JUSTICE
KING DAVID’S SPACESHIP
EXILES TO GLORY
RED HEROIN
PRINCE OF MERCENARIES
FALKENBERG’S LEGION
STARSWARM
Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
INFERNO
OATH OF FEALTY
THE MOTE IN GOD’S EYE
LUCIFER’S HAMMER
FOOTFALL
THE GRIPPING HAND
THE BURNING CITY
Larry Niven & Steven Barnes
DREAM PARK
THE BARSOOM PROJECT
THE CALIFORNIA VOODOO GAME
DESCENT OF ANANSI
ACHILLES’ CHOICE
SATURN’S RACE
Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle & Steven Barnes
LEGACY OF HEOROT
BEOWULF’S CHILDREN
Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle & Michael Flynn
FALLEN ANGELS
Jerry Pournelle & Roland Green
TRAN
Jerry Pournelle & S. M. Stirling
GO TELL THE SPARTANS
PRINCE OF SPARTA
Jerry Pournelle & Charles Sheffield
HIGHER EDUCATION
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Copyright © 2000 by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN 978-1-4165-7508-5
eISBN-13: 978-1-43912-018-7
First Pocket Books hardcover printing March 2000 10 98765 4 321
POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.
Maps by Paul Pugliese
Printed in the U.S.A.
For Roberta and Marilyn
Editor’s Acknowledgment
The editor would like to thank Larry Niven
and Jerry Pournelle for that rarest of all novels,
one with something to say.
“It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that
butchers them or destiny that feeds them to
the dogs. It’s us. Only us.”
From Watchmen by Alan Moore
CAST
Gods
YANGIN-ATEP (TEP, FIREBRINGER)
ZOOSH
COYOTE
BEHEMOTH
LOKI
PROMETHEUS
Lordkin
Placehold
WHANDALL PLACEHOLD (Seshmarl)
POTHEFIT: Whandall’s father
SHASTERN: Whandall’s younger brother
SHIG: Whandall’s younger brother
MOTHER’S MOTHER: Dargramnet
WANSHIG: Whandall’s older half brother
WESS: a girl about Whandall’s age
LENORBA
VINSPEL
ILYESSA: Whandall’s sister
THOMER
TOTTO
TRIG: Whandall’s brother
ELRISS
RUBYFLOWER
ILTHERN
SHARLATTA
FREETHSPAT
Serpent’s Walk
LORD PELZED
GERAVIM
TUMBANTON
TRAZALAC
STANT CORLES
DUDDIGRACT
RENWILDS
COSCARTIN
SHEALOS
THE FORIGAFT BROTHERS
KRAEMAR
ROUPEND
CHAPOKA
MIRACOS
HARTANBATH
Other Bands
BANSH
ILTHER
ALFERTH
TARNISOS
ILSERN: a tough, athletic woman
CHIEF WULLTID
IDREEPUCT
FALCONS: called Dirty Birds by most but not to their faces
STAXIR
Kinless
KREEG MILLER
RIGMASTER
WILLOW ROPEWALKER
CARVER ROPEWALKER
CARTER ROPEWALKER
HAMMER MILLER
IRIS MILLER
HYACINTH MILLER
OPAL MILLER
DREAM-LOTUS INNKEEP
Lords
LORD CHIEF WITNESS SAMORTY
LORD CHANTHOR
LORD QIRINTY: a lord fascinated by magic
LADY RAWANDA: first lady of lordshills
LORD JERREFF
SHANDA
RABBLIE (LORD RABILARD)
LORD QUINTANA: later becomes Lord Chief Witness
MORTH OF ATLANTIS
LORD QUIRINTHAL THE FIRST
ROWENA
LADY SIRESEE
Their Servants
SERANA: a cook; later, chief cook
ANTANIO
BERTRANA (MISS BATTY): governess
PEACEVOICE WATERMAN
Turf
PLACEHOLD
SERPENT’S WALK
PEACEGIVEN SQUARE
BULL PIZZLE
FALCON LAIR: generally called Dirty Bird
THE WEDGE: the meadow at the top of Deerpiss River
CONDIGEO
LORD’S TOWN
THE LORDSHILLS
WOLVERINES
TEP’S TOWN (VALLEY OF SMOKES, BURNING CITY)
WATER DEVILS
SANVIN STREET: winds over the low hills that separate Serpent’s Walk from the harbor
THE BLACK PIT
ATLANTIS
BARBAR MOUNTAINS
TOROV
MAZE WALKERS
EASTERN ARC
GOOD HAND HARBOR
OWL BEAK
MARKET ROUND
SERPENT STREET
COLDWATER
DARK MAN’S CUP STREET
DEAD TOWN
THE TORONEXTI
LION’S ATTIC
STRAIGHT STREET
ANGLE STREET
Lookers
TRAS PREETROR
ARSHUR THE MAGNIFICENT
Seamen
JACK RIGENLORD
ETIARP
MANOCANE
SABRIOLOY
Water Devils
LATTAR
Beyond Tep’s Town
Turf
FIREWOODS TOWN
WALUU PORT
THE HEMP ROAD
MOUNT JOY
PARADISE VALLEY
STONE NEEDLES
GORMAN
GOLDEN VALLEY
LAST PINES
MARSYL TOWN
ORANGETOWN
COYOTE’S DEN
GREAT HAWK BAY
Clan Members and Others
SPOTTED COYOTES
RORDRAY
BLACK KETTLE (KETTLE BELLY)
NUMBER THREE
NUMBER FOUR
HAJ FISHHAWK
RUBY FISHHAWK
ORANGE BLOSSOM
BISON CLAN
MIRIME
LONESOME CROW
GREATHAND: the blacksmith
HICKAMORE
FAWN
MOUNTAIN CAT
STARFALL
RUTTING DEER
TWISTED CLOUD
STAG RAMPANT
Book Two
Turf
ROAD’S END
DEAD SEAL FLATS
GRANITE KNOB
LONG AVENUE
NORTH QUARTER
NEW CASTLE
HIGH PINES
GREAT VALLEY
RORDRAY’S ATTIC
MOUNT CARLEM
WARBLER FLATS
DRYLANDS
FARTHEST LAND
STONE NEEDLES
MINTERL
CASTLE MINTERL
HIP HIGH SPRING
VEDASIRAS RANGE
FAIR CHANCE
THE ESTATES
CARLEM MARCLE
NEO WRASELN
QUAKING ASPEN
THE SPRINGS
Travelers
WHANDALL FEATHERSNAKE
GREEN STONE
LARKFEATHERS
SABER TOOTH
CHIEF FARTHEST LAND
HAWK IN FLIGHT
WOLF TRIBE
MOUNTAIN CAT
SESHMARLS THE BIRD
TERROR BIRDS
LILAC
WHITECAP MOUNTAIN
PUMA TRIBE
PASSENGER PIGEON
THONE
KING TRANIMEL
GLINDA
DREAM OF FLYING
WHITE LIGHTNING
STONE NEEDLES MAN (CATLONY, TUMBLEWEED, HERMIT)
HIDDEN SPICE
CLEVER SQUIRREL (SQUIRRELLY)
LURK (NOTHING WAS SEEN)
STARFALL ROPEWALKER
FIGHTING CAT FISHHAWK
BURNING TOWER
INSOLENT LIZARD
FALLEN WOLF
Returning
HALF HAND
EGON FORIGAFT
MASTER PEACEVOICE WATERMAN
LORD CHIEF WITNESS QUINTANA
WITNESS CLERK SANDRY
ADZ WEAVER
FUBGIRE
RONI
HEROUL
FIREGIFT
SILLY RABBITS
SADESP
LEATHERSMITH MILLER (SMITTY)
SAPPHIRE CARPENTER
SWABOTT
REBLAY OF SILLY RABBITS
HEJAK
LAGDRET
PREFACE
There was fire on Earth before the fire god came. There has always been fire. What Yangin-Atep gave to humankind was madness. Yangin-Atep’s children will play with fire even after they burn their fingers.
It was only Yangin-Atep’s joke, then and for unmeasured time after. But a greater god called down the great cold, and Yangin-Atep’s joke came into its own. In the icy north people could not survive unless the fire god favored one of their number.
Cautious men and women never burned themselves twice; but their people died of the cold. Someone must tend the fire during the terrible winters. Twelve thousand years before the birth of Christ, when most of the gods had gone mythical and magic was fading from the world, Yangin-Atep’s gift remained.
BOOK ONE
WHANDALL PLACEHOLD
PART ONE
Childhood
CHAPTER
1
They burned the city when Whandall Placehold was two years old, and again when he was seven.
At seven he saw and understood more. The women waited with the children in the courtyard through a day and a night and another day. The day sky was black and red. The night sky glowed red and orange, dazzling and strange. Across the street a granary burned like a huge torch. Strangers trying to fight the fire made shadow pictures.
The Placehold men came home with what they’d gathered: shells, clothing, cookware, furniture, jewelry, magical items, a cauldron that would heat up by itself. The excitement was infectious. Men and women paired off and fought over the pairings.
And Pothefit went out again with Resalet, but only Resalet came back.
Afterward Whandall went with the other boys to watch the loggers cutting redwoods for the rebuilding.
The forest cupped Tep’s Town like a hand. There were stories, but nobody could tell Whandall what was beyond the forest where redwoods were pillars big enough to support the sky, big enough to replace a dozen houses. The great trees stood well apart, each guarding its turf. Lesser vegetation gathered around the base of each redwood like a malevolent army.
The army had many weapons. Some plants bristled with daggers; some had burrs to anchor seeds in hair or flesh; some secreted poison; some would whip a child across the face with their branches.
Loggers carried axes, and long poles with blades at the ends. Leather armor and wooden masks made them hard to recognize as men. With the poles they could reach out and under to cut the roots of the spiked or poisoned lesser plants and push them aside, until one tall redwood was left defenseless.
Then they bowed to it.
Then they chopped at the base until, in tremendous majesty and with a sound like the end of the world, it fell.
They never seemed to notice that they were being watched from cover by a swarm of children. The forest had dangers for city children, but being caught was not one of them. If you were caught spying in town you would be lucky to escape without broken bones. It was safer to spy on the loggers.
One morning Bansh and Ilther brushed a vine.
Bansh began scratching, and then Ilther; then thousands of bumps sprouted over Ilther’s arm, and almost suddenly it was bigger than his leg. Bansh’s hand and the ear he’d scratched were swelling like nightmares, and Ilther was on the ground, swelling everywhere and fighting hard to breathe.
Shastern wailed and ran before Whandall could catch him. He brushed past leaves like a bouquet of blades and was several paces beyond before he slowed, stopped, and turned to look at Whandall. What should I do now? His leathers were cut to ribbons across his chest and left arm, the blood spilling scarlet through the slashes.
The forest was not impenetrable. There were thorns and poison plants, but also open spaces. Stick with those, you could get through… it looked like you could get through without touching anything… almost. And the children were doing that, scattering, finding their own paths out.
But Whandall caught the screaming Shastern by his bloody wrist and towed him toward the loggers, because Shastern was his younger brother, because the loggers were close, because somebody would help a screaming child.
The woodsmen saw them—saw them and turned away. But one dropped his ax and jogged toward the child in zigzag fashion, avoiding… what? Armory plants, a wildflower bed—
Shastern went quiet under the woodsman’s intense gaze. The woodsman pulled the leather armor away and wrapped Shastern’s wounds in strips of clean cloth, pulling it tight. Whandall was trying to tell him about the other children.
The woodsman looked up. “Who are you, boy?”
“I’m Whandall of Serpent’s Walk.” Nobody gave his family name.
“I’m Kreeg Miller. How many—”
Whandall barely hesitated. “Two tens of us.”
“Have they all got”—he patted Shastern’s armor—“leathers?”
“Some.”
Kreeg picked up cloth, a leather bottle, some other things. Now one of the others was shouting angrily while trying not to look at the children. “Kreeg, what do you want with those candlestubs? We’ve got work to do!” Kreeg ignored him and followed the path as Whandall pointed it out.
There were hurt children, widely scattered. Kreeg dealt with them. Whandall didn’t understand, until a long time later, why other loggers wouldn’t help.
Whandall took Shastern home through Dirty Birds to avoid Bull Pizzles. In Dirty Birds a pair of adolescent Lordkin would not let them pass.
Whandall showed them three gaudy white blossoms bound up in a scrap of cloth. Careful not to touch them himself, he gave one to each of the boys and put the third away.
The boys sniffed the womanflowers’ deep fragrance. “Way nice. What else have you got?”
“Nothing, Falcon brother.” Dirty Birds liked to be called Falcons, so you did that. “Now go and wash your hands and face. Wash hard or you’ll swell up like melons. We have to go.”
The Falcons affected to be amused, but they went off toward the fountain. Whandall and Shastern ran through Dirty Birds into Serpent’s Walk. Marks and signs showed when you passed from another district to Serpent’s Walk, but Whandall would have known Serpent’s Walk without them. There weren’t as many trash piles, and burned-out houses were rebuilt faster.
The Placehold stood alone in its block, three stories of gray stone. Two older boys played with knives just outside the door. Inside, Uncle Totto lay asleep in the corridor where you had to step over him to get in. Whandall tried to creep past him.
“Huh? Whandall, my lad. What’s going on here?” He looked at Shastern, saw bloody bandages, and shook his head. “Bad business. What’s going on?”
“Shastern needs help!”
“I see that. What happened?”
Whandall tried to get past, but it was no use. Uncle Totto wanted to hear the whole story, and Shastern had been bleeding too long. Whandall started screaming. Totto raised his fist. Whandall pulled his brother upstairs. A sister was washing vegetables for dinner, and she shouted too. Women came yelling. Totto cursed and retreated.
Mother wasn’t home that night. Mother’s Mother—Dargramnet, if you were speaking to strangers—sent Wanshig to tell Bansh’s family. She put Shastern in Mother’s room and sat with him until he fell asleep. Then she came into the big second-floor Placehold room and sat in her big chair. Often that room was full of Placehold men, usually playful, but sometimes they shouted and fought. Children learned to hide in the smaller rooms, cling to women’s skirts, or find errands to do. Tonight Dargramnet asked the men to help with the injured children, and they all left so that she was alone with Whandall. She held Whandall in her lap.