The Anvil of the World

When he heard Mrs. Smith returning with Crucible and Pinion, he emerged from the bar. “How did it go?” he inquired.

Crucible and Pinion, who were staggering slightly, threw their fists into the air and gave warrior grunts of victory. Mrs. Smith held up her gold medal.

“A triumph,” she said quietly. She looked into Smith’s eyes. “Boys, I think you’d best go to bed.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Pinion thickly, and he and Crucible staggered away.

“Why don’t we go talk in the kitchen?” Mrs. Smith suggested. She started down the passageway, and Smith followed, carrying his drink.

In the kitchen, Mrs. Smith removed her medal and hung it above the stove. She considered it a moment before turning and drawing out a chair. She draped her gown’s train over one arm and sat down; and, with leisurely movements, took out and filled her smoking tube.

“A light, please, Smith,” she requested.

He lit a straw at the stove, digging in the banked coals, and held it out for her. She puffed until the amberleaf lit and sat back.

“Well?” she said.

“How would I get hold of a bloatfish liver, if I wanted one?” Smith asked her.

“Simple,” said Mrs. Smith. “You’d just walk down to the waterfront when the fishermen were sorting through their catches, before the fish-market dealers got there. You’d find a fisherman and ask if he had any nice live bloatfish. You might play the foolish old woman, a bit. And you’d listen very carefully when the fisherman told you how to filet the fish once you’d got it home, and thank him for his warning about the nasty liver. Then you’d carry the bloatfish home in a pail.

“And,” she went on composedly, “if there was a particularly wicked man asking for an early dinner … and if you knew he’d ruined a few innocent people in his time and even driven a couple of them to suicide … and if you knew a little girl was crying her eyes out because he’d threatened her with what amounts to a death sentence unless she slept with him, even though she’d just fallen in love with someone else… and moreover this wicked man wanted her to give him information that would betray certain other persons … Well, then, Smith, I expect something rather dreadful might find its way into the appetizer he’d ordered.

“Mind you, I admit to nothing,” she added. “But I have absolutely no regrets.”

Smith sat in silence a moment, turning his drink in his hands, watching the ice melt. “Information that would betray certain other persons,” he echoed. “He wasn’t sure about you yet, but if he’d scared Burnbright badly enough, he’d have had you; and you’ve got a restaurant and a reputation to lose. Much better prospect for blackmail.

“You sneaked up there in the dark and burned most of his notes, but someone—probably Burnbright—interrupted you before you finished. You had the feast to get on the table, and Burnbright to calm down, so you never got back in there to burn the rest of the papers before Pinion discovered the murder.”

Mrs. Smith exhaled smoke and watched him, silent. At last he said,

“Tell me how you got mixed up in the Spellmetal massacre.”

She sighed.

“Years ago,” she said, “I was working for the old Golden Chain caravan line. We got a party of passengers bound for the country up around Karkateen.

“It was the Sunborn and his followers. They’d just been thrown out of one town, so they’d chartered passage to another. But the Sunborn had already begun to talk of founding a city where all races would live together in perfect amity.

“When they left the caravan at Karkateen, I went with them.”

“Had you become a convert?” Smith asked. She shook her head, her eyes fixed on something distant, and she shrugged.

“I was just a bad girl out for a good time,” she said. “I didn’t believe the races could live together in peace. I didn’t believe one man could change the world. But the Sunborn asked me to come, and … if he’d asked me to jump from the top of a tower, I’d have done it. You never heard him speak, Smith, or you’d understand.

“He had the strangest gift for making one clean, no matter what he did in bed with one. He carried innocence with him like a cloak he could throw about your shoulders. With him, you felt as though you were forgiven for every wrong thing you’d ever done… and love became a sacrament, meant something far more than grappling for pleasure in the dark.

“Well. There were nearly thirty of us, of mixed races. Of the Children of the Sun there were a few boys and girls from well-to-do families. There was me; there were a couple of outcasts, half-breeds, and one girl who was blind; and there was a young man who always seemed uncomfortable with us, but he was the Sunborn’s kinsman, and so he followed him out of a sense of family duty. Ramack, his name was. The greenies were all a wild lot, nothing like the ones you meet here running shops. Gorgeous savages. Poets. Musicians.

“It was a mad life. It was wonderful, and stupid, and exhausting. We committed excesses you couldn’t begin to imagine. We starved, we wandered in the rain, we danced in our rags and picked flowers by the side of the highway. It was everything Festival is supposed to be, but with a soul, Smith!

“The Sunborn joined me to a Yendri man, and blessed our union in the name of racial harmony. I suppose I loved Hladderin well enough; greenies make reasonably good lovers, and he was drop-dead beautiful too. But I loved the Sunborn more.

“When Mogaron Spellmetal joined us, he suggested we all go live on his family’s land. Away we went, dancing and singing. I bore Hladderin a child … what can I say? He was a pretty baby. I was never the motherly type, but his father thought the world of him.

“He was just six months old the day House Spellmetal showed up with their army.”

“You don’t have to talk about this part, if it’s painful,” said Smith.

“I won’t talk about it. I still can’t… but during the fighting, a grenade blew out the back wall of the garden. And when it was over, I ran like mad through the break, and so did a lot of others. I looked back and saw Hladderin fall with one of those damned long black arrows through his throat. Right after him came Ramack carrying the blind girl, her name was Haisa, she’d been a special favorite of the Sunborn’s because he said she was a seeress. She was in labor at that very moment. Her baby picked that time of all times for its inauspicious birth!

“Ramack and Haisa got out alive, though. I waved to them, and Ramack spotted the ditch where I’d taken cover, and they joined me there. We managed to crawl away from the slaughter, and by nightfall we were safe. I don’t know what happened to the others.

“Haisa had her baby that night. It was a little girl.”

“Burnbright?” asked Smith. Mrs. Smith nodded.

“We hid in the wilderness for a couple of weeks, weeping and trying to think what to do. It was hard to get our brains engaged again, after all that long ecstatic time. Ramack decided at last that the best thing to do was to throw ourselves on the mercy of the authorities. We hadn’t heard yet about how Mogaron had died, you see, or his father’s blood oath, and since Ramack had never really been a believer in the Sun-born, he didn’t mind recanting. In the end he and Haisa went off to Karkateen and gave themselves up. You know what happened to them. At least the assassins missed the baby.”

“Why didn’t you go?” Smith asked.

“I wasn’t willing to recant,” Mrs. Smith replied. “And I had my child to think of. But what kind of life would he have had with me, under the circumstances, being the color he was? I’d heard the stories of the Green Witch, as we used to call her on the caravan routes. Our nasty little lord’s sainted Mother. Hladderin had told me she took in orphans.

“So I carried him up to the Greenlands, and I climbed that black mountain. I came to a fearful black gate where demons in plate armor leered at me. But a disciple in white robes came down, practically glowing with reflected holiness, and took the child off my hands and promised to keep him safe. And that was that.

“I went down the mountain and took sanctuary myself for a while, in the Abbey at Kemeldion. When the scandal had become old news, I changed my name to Smith and got a job cooking for your cousin’s caravan line. It was work I knew, and, besides, it seemed like a good idea to keep moving.

“I kept track of what the Karkateen authorities had done with Burnbright, which was the alias they had sensibly given her. When your cousin needed a runner to replace one that had quit, I suggested he pick one up in Mount Flame. By sheer good luck he got little Burnbright. I’ve looked out for her ever since, for her father’s sake.”

Loud in the sleeping house, they heard the sound of footsteps approaching. A moment later the kitchen door opened, and Lord Ermenwyr looked in. He was very pale.

“I wonder whether I might get something for indigestion?” he inquired. “But I see I’m interrupting serious talk.”

“Fairly serious,” Smith said.

“Yes, I thought you’d have to have a certain conversation sooner or later.” The lordling pulled out a stool and sat down at the table. “May I respectfully suggest that no one do anything rash? If by some silly chance somebody accidentally happened to, oh, I don’t know, commit a murder or something—which I’m sure would have been completely justified, whatever the circumstances—well, you wouldn’t believe the unsavory incidents my family has hushed up.”

“I’ll bet I would,” said Mrs. Smith. She got up and fetched a bottle of after-dinner bitters, and mixed a mineral-water cocktail, which she presented to Lord Ermenwyr. She sank heavily into her chair again. He lifted his glass to her.

“Consider this a gesture of trust in your excellent good sense,” he said, and drank it down. “Ah. Really, I’m very fond of you both, and I’m not about to let truth and justice prevail. We’ll sweep the odious Coppercut under the carpet somehow—”

More footsteps. The door swung open, and Burnbright and Willowspear stood there, holding hands. They were pale too. They looked scared.

“We—” said Burnbright.

“That is, we—” said Willowspear.

They fell silent, staring at the party around the table. Lord Ermenwyr’s mouth fell open. After a moment of attempted speech, he finally sputtered: “You? Damn you, Willowspear, I wanted a piece of that! Burnbright, my love, if you thought he was a jolly romp, wait until you’ve danced the three-legged stamp with me!”

“No,” said Burnbright, as Willowspear put his arm around her. “I’m in love with him. I—I don’t know how it happened. It just happened!”

“I don’t know how it happened,” Willowspear echoed. “It just happened. Like lightning dropping from the sky.”

“Like a big ship bearing down on you out of the fog,” said Burnbright,

“There was nothing we could do,” said Willowspear, seeming dazed. “I had my duty—and my vows—and I always thought that She was the only love I would ever need, but—”

“I never wanted to fall in love,” said Burnbright tearfully. “And then—the whole world changed.”

Mrs. Smith shook her head.

“And you both look perfectly miserable,” said Lord Ermenwyr smoothly. “But, my dears, you’re both getting all upset over nothing! You’re forgetting that it’s Festival. This is a momentary fever, an illusion, a dream! Tomorrow you’ll both be able to walk away from each other without regrets. And if not tomorrow, the next day, or soon after. Trust me, darlings. It’ll pass.”

“No,” said Willowspear, his voice shaking. “It will never pass. I won’t blaspheme against Love.” He looked at Mrs. Smith. “I had had a dream, lady. I was an infant hidden in a bush. Another child was laid beside me, tiny and lost. I knew she was an orphan, a child of misfortune, and I wanted to take her in my arms and protect her.

“When I woke, I went to the Compassionate One and begged Her for my dream’s meaning. She told me I must find my life where it began.”

Awkwardly he came to her, leading Burnbright by the hand, and knelt. “Lady, I mean to marry Teeba. Give me your blessing.”

He reached out his hand and touched her face. Mrs. Smith flinched; a tear ran down her cheek.

“Now you’ve done it,” she said hoarsely. “Now we’re both caught.” She reached up and took his hand.

“Marry?” cried Lord Ermenwyr. “Are you mad? Look at the pair of you! Look at the world you’ll have to live in! I can tell you something about mixed marriages, my friend! You’ve no idea how hard it is to be Mother and Daddy’s son.”

Willowspear ignored him. “I never would have troubled you,” he told Mrs. Smith. “But word came to us that there was a man like a jackal, seeking out anyone who had followed the Sunborn. I knew he would hunt down my mother.

“The Compassionate One bid me go with Her son to this city. I meant to warn you. But then, the man was slain … and I saw Teeba, and it was as though I had known her all my life.”

“That’s not her real name,” said Mrs. Smith. “Her name is Kalya.”

“Really?” Burnbright squeaked. “Oh, that’s wonderful! I’ve always hated Teeba!”

“Use the old name at your peril, child,” Mrs. Smith told her. “You’re not safe, even after all these years. And how do you think you’ll live?” She looked from one to the other of them in despair. “What do you imagine you’ll do, open a shop in Greenietown? You think you’ll be welcome even there, the pair of you?”

“I could still be a runner here,” said Burnbright. “And—” She looked at Smith in desperate appeal. “Wouldn’t it be a good idea if we had a house doctor? My friend Orecrash at the Hotel Sea-Air says all the really elegant places have a doctor on the premises, like at the spa. And rich people like to go to—to Yendri doctors, because they’re exotic and have all this mystic wisdom and like that. He could teach them meditation. Or something. Please?”

“We could try,” said Smith.

“Madness,” Lord Ermenwyr growled. “Sheer madness.”

“It isn’t either!” Burnbright rounded on him. “We won’t need anything else, if we have each other.”

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” said. Mrs. Smith sadly. “Either of you. You can’t imagine how hard it’ll be. But it can’t be helped now, can it? So you have my blessing. And I wish you luck; you’ll need it.”

“Nobody’s asking for my blessing,” complained Lord Ermenwyr. “Or even my permission.”

Willowspear stood and faced him. “My lord, your lady Mother—”

“I know, I know, this was all her doing. She knew perfectly well what would happen when she sent you down here,” said Lord Ermenwyr wearily. “Meddling in people’s lives to bring them love and joy and spiritual fulfillment, just as she’s always doing. Didn’t bother to tell me anything about it, of course, but why should she? I’m just miserable little Ermenwyr, the only living man in Salesh who hasn’t had sex this Festival.”

“That’s not true,” said Smith.

“Well, that’s a comfort, isn’t it? All right, Willowspear, you’re formally excused from my service. Go be a mystic holy man house doctor to a people who’d as soon stone you as look at you. You’ll have to register with the city authorities, you know, as a resident greenie, and take an oath not to poison their wells or defile their wives. You’ll come running back up the mountain the next time there’s a race riot—if you can run fast enough.”

“Anybody who tried to hurt him would have to kill me first!” said Burnbright, putting her arms around Willowspear and holding tight.

“I see,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “I suppose in that case there’s not the slightest chance you’d be willing to give me a quick tumble before the wedding? A little bit of Lord’s Right, you know, just so you can say you shopped around before you bought?”

“Dream on,” she retorted.

“Well, you’ll never know what you missed,” Lord Ermenwyr grumbled. “Oh, go to bed, both of you. I’m ready to puke from all the devotion in here.”

“My lord.” Willowspear bowed low. He turned to Mrs. Smith, took her hand, and kissed it. “Madam.”

“Go on,” she said.

He clasped hands once again with Burnbright, and they went out. Burnbright’s voice floated back, saying:

“…bed’s too narrow, but that’s all right; we can just move it out and sleep on the floor!”

“Smith, however shall they manage?” cried Mrs. Smith. “That child hasn’t got the brains the gods gave lettuce!”

“We’ll look after them, I guess,” said Smith. “And she’s sharper than you give her credit for.”

“She’s every inch the fool her father was,” said Mrs. Smith.

A silence followed her statement, until they once again heard the sound of footsteps approaching. Slightly unsteady footsteps.

The kitchen door opened, and Lord Eyrdway leaned in, grinning. His ruffled shirtfront was drenched in gore.

“I have to tell you, you’re missing a great party,” he informed his brother. “Did you know there was another corpse in your bathroom?”

Smith groaned and put his head in his hands.

“Eyrdway, they needed that body!” Lord Ermenwyr sprang to his feet.

“Oops.” Lord Eyrdway looked at Smith and Mrs. Smith. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry,” Lord Ermenwyr told them. “He’ll make it up to you. Won’t you, Variable Nincompoop?”

“Oh, drop dead again,” his brother replied. He looked at “Smith. “Seriously, though, is there anything I can do to help?”



Salesh in the aftermath of Festival is a quiet place.

Laughing Youth isn’t laughing as it shuffles along, wishing its golden sandals weren’t so bright. Don’t even ask about what Age is doing. It’s too gruesome.

City Warden Crossbrace had spent much of the last two days in a darkened alcove, so he found the sunlight painfully brilliant as he tottered up Front Street toward the Hotel Grandview. His uniform had the same wrinkles and creases it had had before he’d thrown it off, shortly after bidding Smith a good evening. His head felt curiously dented, and all in all he’d much rather have been home in bed. But a sense of duty drove him, as well as an awareness of the fact that corpses don’t keep forever and that the worse shape they were in when reported at last, the more questions would be asked.

Still, by the time he stepped through the Grandview’s street entrance, he was wondering how big around Copper-cut’s body was in relation to that nice capacious drainpipe, and how much of a bribe he might get out of Smith for suggesting that they just stuff the dead man down the pipe and forget he’d ever been there.

When his eyes had adjusted to the pleasant gloom of the lobby, he spotted Smith sitting at the desk, sipping from a mug of tea. He looked tired, but as though he felt better than Crossbrace.

“Morning, Crossbrace,” he said, in an offensively placid voice.

“Morning, Smith,” Crossbrace replied. “We may as well get down to business. What’ve you got for me?”

“Well, something surprising happened—” Smith began, just as Sharplin Coppercut strode into the lobby.

“You must be the City Warden,” he said. “Hello! I’m afraid I caused a fuss over nothing. Silly me, I forgot to tell anybody I occasionally go catatonic. I don’t know why it happens, but there you are. I was sitting in my lovely room enjoying the sunset and, bang! Next thing I know I’m waking up on a slab of ice in this good man’s storeroom. I was so embarrassed!”

Crossbrace blinked at him.

“You went catatonic?”

“Mm-hm.” Coppercut leaned back against the desk and folded his hands, with his thumbtips making jittery little circles around each other. He cocked a bright parrotlike eye at Crossbrace. “Crash, blank, I was gone.”

“But—” Even with the condition he was in, Crossbrace remained a Warden. “But in that case—why’d you write that note?”

“Note? What note?”

“That note you appeared to have been writing when you had your spell,” Smith said helpfully. “Remember that you’d sat down at the writing desk? It looked like you wrote Avenge My Murder.”

“Oh, that!” said Coppercut. “Well. I’m a writer, you know, and—I had this brilliant idea while I was eating, so I got up to write it down. It was—er—that I needed to get in touch with a friend of mine. Aven Gemymurd.”

“Of House Gemymurd in Mount Flame City?” Smith improvised.

“Yes! That’s it. They’re, er, not very well known. Secretive family. So it occurred to me they must have something to hide, you see?” Coppercut squinted his eyes, getting into his role. “So I thought I’d just visit my old friend Aven and see if I could dig up any dish on his family! Ha-ha.”

Crossbrace peered at him, still baffled.

“You look like you could use a cold drink, Crossbrace,” said Smith, setting down his tea mug and sliding out from behind the desk. “It’s nice and dark and cool in the bar.”

The hell with it, thought Crossbrace. “I’d like that,” he said. As he followed Smith to the bar, he addressed Copper-cut over his shoulder: “You know, sir, you might want to invest in one of those medical alert tattoos people get. It might save you from being tossed on a funeral pyre before your time.”

“Yes, I think I’ll do that,” said Coppercut, following them into the bar. “What a good idea! Because you know, Warden, that there are attempts on my life all the time, because I’m so widely hated, and anybody might make a mistake and think—”

“Coppercut?” A small scowling man appeared out of nowhere, twisting his mustaches. “You’re late for our interview. I was going to give you all kinds of trashy details about the life of my late father, remember?”

“Oh, that’s right!” exclaimed Coppercut, as the small man grabbed his elbow and steered him out of the bar. “How stupid of me—but I get like this, you know, when I’ve just waked up after a catatonic fit, very disorganized—nice meeting you, City Warden, sir!”



“So you got your Safety Certificate,” said Lord Ermenwyr with satisfaction, exhaling green smoke. “And the Variable Magnificent is safely on his way home.”

He was sitting with Smith and Mrs. Smith at their best terrace table, as they watched the first stars pinpricking out of the twilight. Like an earthbound echo, Crucible and Pinion moved from table to table lighting the lamps and oil heaters.

“I thought he couldn’t go home until he’d got enough money to pay back your lord father,” said Smith, dodging an elbow as Lord Ermenwyr’s bodyguards genuflected.

Lord Ermenwyr snickered.

“Much as he was looking forward to joining the Boys’ Own Street Corner Brigade, it doesn’t look as though it’ll be necessary. The late unlamented Mr. Coppercut carried his private accounts book with him, as it turns out. Had more gold socked away in the First Bank of Mount Flame than Freskin the Dictator! Eyrdway’s quite taken with pretending to be a famous scandalmonger. Plans to masquerade as Coppercut a bit longer.”

“Is that safe?” Mrs. Smith inquired. “Given the enemies Mr. Coppercut had?”

“Probably not,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “If he’s sensible, he’ll hit the bank first, pay back Daddy, then party the rest of the fortune away before anyone suspects he’s an imposter. That’s what I told him to do. Will he listen? Or will I run into him in some low bar in six months’ time, ragged and grotesquely daubed with cosmetics, vainly attempting to interest potential buyers? I can but hope.” He exhaled a cloud of smoke and smiled at it beatifically, as though he beheld a vision of fraternal degradation therein.

“You must have been horrible little children,” said Mrs. Smith, shaking her head.

“Utterly, dear Mrs. Smith.”

“Did your lord brother clean out your bathroom before he left?” Smith inquired cautiously.

“Of course he didn’t,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “He never cleans up any mess. That’s for law-abiding little shrimps like me, or so I was informed when I attempted to get him to at least take a sponge to the ring in the tub. I just smiled and offered him the contents of Mr. Coppercut’s traveling medicine chest. He was delighted, assuming it was full of recreational drugs. Since bothering to read labels is also only for law-abiding little shrimps, he’ll be unpleasantly surprised to learn that Mr. Coppercut suffered from chronic constipation.”

“So your bathroom…”

“Oh, don’t worry; I had the boys scrub down the walls. Only a medium could detect that anything unpleasant happened there now,” Lord Ermenwyr said.

“And the…”

“Got rid of them last night. We collected all the, er, odds and ends and crept down to your back area drain under cover of darkness. Dumped them in and pitched most of a barrel of Scourbrass’s Foaming Wonder in after them. Poof!” Lord Ermenwyr blew smoke to emphasize his point. “All gone, except for a couple of indignant shades, and I gave them directions to the closest resort in Paradise, with my profound apologies and a coupon for two free massages at the gym. But, Smith, I meant to ask you—where does that drain empty out?”

“Oh, not on the beach,” Smith assured him. “It goes straight into the sea.”

“You’re dumping sewage and caustic chemicals into the sea?” Lord Ermenwyr frowned.

“Everybody does,” said Smith.

“But… your people swim in that water. They catch fish in it.”

Smith shrugged. “The sea’s a big place. Maybe all the bad stuff sinks to the bottom? It’s never caused a problem for anybody.”

“And maybe you’re all being slowly poisoned, and you don’t realize it,” said Lord Ermenwyr. He looked panicked. “Nine Hells! I’ve been drinking oyster broth here!”

“Oh, it’s perfectly wholesome,” said Mrs. Smith.

“But don’t you see—” Lord Ermenwyr looked into their uncomprehending faces. He groaned. “No; no, you don’t. This is one of those cultural blind spots, isn’t it? Mother’s always on about this. She says you’ll all destroy yourselves one of these days with just this sort of heedlessness, and then Daddy says ‘Well, let them, and good riddance,’ and then they start to quarrel and everyone runs for cover. Look, you can’t just keep pouring poison into your ocean!”

“Well, where else can we put it?” Smith asked.

“Good question.” Lord Ermenwyr tapped ash from his smoking tube. “Hmm. I could ensorcel your sewage pipes so they dumped into another plane. Yes! Though, to do any real good, I’d need to put the same hocus on all the sewer pipes in town…”

“But then the sewage would just back up in somebody else’s plane,” Mrs. Smith pointed out.

“Unless I found a plane where the inhabitants liked sewage,” said Lord Ermenwyr, packing fresh weed into the tube and lighting it with a fireball. He puffed furiously, eyes narrowed in speculation. “This is going to take some planning.”

“I’m sure you’ll come up with something,” said Mrs. Smith. “I’d imagine your lady mother will be very proud of you.”

Lord Ermenwyr looked disconcerted at the idea.

Across the terrace, picking their way between the tables with some awkwardness because they seemed unable to let go of each other, came Willowspear and Burnbright.

“We need something,” said Burnbright.

“That is—with your permission, sir—” said Willowspear.

“What he wants to know is, there’s a dirt lot on the other side of the area where we keep the dustbins, and it’s got nothing but weeds on it now, so couldn’t we make a garden there?” said Burnbright. “To grow useful herbs and things? Him and me’d do all the work. I don’t know anything about gardening, but he does, so he’ll teach me, and that way we could have medicines without having to go to the shops in— in the quarter where Yendri live. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“I guess so,” said Smith.

“Ha! Just try it,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “The minute passersby spot a greenie planting exotic herbs here, there’ll be rampant rumors you’re growing poisons to kill off the good citizens of Salesh as part of a fiendish Yendri plot. You’ll get lynched.”

“No, we won’t!” said Burnbright. “You’re only saying that because I wouldn’t sleep with you, you nasty little man. If people come to Willowspear when they’re sick and his medicine makes them feel better, they won’t be afraid of him!”

“Of course they will, you delectable idiot. They’ll be intimidated by the idea that he has secret knowledge,” Lord Ermenwyr explained. “Evil mystic powers! Scary mumbo jumbo!”

“Not if they get used to him,” said Burnbright. Her eyes went wide with revelation. “That’s the whole problem, is that nobody ever really gets to know anybody else, but if they did, they’d see that other people aren’t so bad after all and a lot more like us than we thought and … and … sometimes everything you’ve been told your whole life is wrong!”

“You can’t change the world, child,” said Mrs. Smith.

“I’ll bet we can change some of it,” said Burnbright defiantly. “That bit with the weeds, anyway.”

“If we don’t try, how will anyone know whether it can be done?” said Willowspear to Mrs. Smith. She said nothing, watching as Burnbright gazed up at him in adoration.

“I’ll have Crucible get you some gardening tools,” said Smith.

“Thank you!” Burnbright threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

“You won’t regret it, sir,” Willowspear assured him, terribly earnest. He took Burnbright’s hand again.

They walked off together, into the fragrant twilight.

“A light, Mrs. Smith?” Lord Ermenwyr offered.

“Please.” She angled her smoking tube, and he caused a bright fireball to flash at its tip. Smith waved away multicolored smoke.

“The boy seems to have turned out well. I’m very much obliged to your lady mother,” Mrs. Smith told Lord Ermenwyr. He puffed and nodded, leaning back in his chair.

“You might have managed it yourself, you know, after all,” he replied. “You’ve practically raised Burnbright, wretched little guttersnipe that she is. Why?”

She gave him a hard level stare.

“Because it’s hard to let go of the past,” she said. “You keep hoping you can make the story turn out with a happier ending, even when you’ve learned better. If those two children can escape the doom in their blood, maybe all that death and agony wasn’t suffered for nothing. And…”

“And what?” Smith inquired.

Mrs. Smith set her hand on Smith’s. “She’s Kalyon Sunbolt’s daughter, Smith. If I had it to do all over again tomorrow, I’d die at his side. Gods don’t walk this earth very often, but one walked in him. I can’t explain it any better than that.”

She glanced across the terrace. Willowspear and Burnbright were poking around in the weeds behind the dustbin. The sound of their young voices floated back through the dusk as they made plans for their garden.


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THE PLANNED COMMUNITY OF TOMORROW!!!!

Leave your cares behind in the dark, crowded warrens of Mount Flame and breathe free in the delightful new seaside community of SMALLBRASS ESTATES. When completed, this sportsman’s paradise will enclose a hundred acres of prime coastal and riverfront property behind secure fortifications, creating a happily safeguarded living area for its fortunate citizens.

Spacious residential quarters situated conveniently near business and shopping arcades will enable our latter-day pioneers to enjoy all the blessings of an unspoiled rural paradise without giving up any of the civilized comforts to which they are accustomed. A fully armed militia is already in place to guarantee that forest denizens keep a respectful distance from this new beachhead of our race.

Wide skies! Glorious prospects! Abundant game! Clean water! All these are your birthright, and you may claim them at SMALLBRASS ESTATES!

Inquire at the Sign of the Three Hammers, Chain Avenue, Port Ward’b.


” ‘FOREST denizens,’ ” says an angry voice.

” ‘Beachhead of their race?’ ” says another.

“Their birthright!” says a third voice.

There is more muttered conversation in the darkness.

The stars wheel through the hours; the bright sun rises at last, and its slanting bars strike the wall where the real estate sign was pasted up only the day before. A city Night Warden, trudging home at last, stops and stares at the wall. From a crack in the pavement a green vine has sprouted and scaled the red stones with supernatural speed. It has thrust tendrils under the poster, spread and ripped and crumpled its fragments; and small green snails are crawling over what remains, greedily consuming the paper and its bright inks.



Smith looked broodingly through his guest ledger.

No question about it; bookings were down since the Month of the Sardine Runs. Business at the restaurant was better, but still less than what it had been formerly.

There were a lot of good reasons why, of course. Deliantiba and Blackrock were engaged in a civil war, which put something of a crimp in travel and trade along the coast; not many pleasure boats set out for vacation destinations when a warship was likely to attack first and sort out survivors later.

Also, the price of fish had skyrocketed lately, which drove up prices in the restaurants; and though it was common knowledge that there was no fish shortage, that it was all a plot by the fishermen to drive prices up, still the fish didn’t seem to have heard that and stayed out of their customary waters. And now the new trouble…

As if on cue, Crossbrace of the City Wardens walked into the lobby, accompanied by two of his lieutenants. He assumed a stiff formal stance and avoided Smith’s eyes as he said; “Citizen! In accordance with Salesh City Statute 1,135.75, all members of alien races are required to swear an oath of allegiance and obedience to Salesh City Law. They have within two days of notification to comply or file an appeal with the—”

“He already took the oath, Crossbrace, you know that—” began Smith in real annoyance. Crossbrace, still keeping his eyes averted, held up an admonitory finger.

“Ah! That was Salesh City Statute .63, you see?” he said in a normal tone of voice. “There’s a new oath they have to rake saying they won’t vandalize our property.”

“Oh.” Smith was still annoyed. “Well, did you have to bring an arrest squad with you?”

“It’s not an arrest squad,” Crossbrace protested, looking hurt. “We thought we’d give him an escort. In case there’s trouble. There has been trouble, you know.”

Smith knew, but he muttered to himself as he slid from behind the front desk and led the way out onto the hotel’s back terrace.

It was a nice place, a shaded garden with a dramatic view of the sea. Strange and gorgeous flowers bloomed in one area set apart by low stone balustrades. There six people stood with their faces turned to the sky, in various postures of rapture. They were all Children of the Sun. The seventh was not; and he was speaking to them, softly and encouragingly.

“…and think of your own mothers, or any woman who was ever kind to you: some part of Her was in their hearts. Focus your prayers on that ideal of love and reach out to Her—”

He noticed Smith and the wardens.

“—and She must hear you, and She will help you. Now, we’ll conclude for this afternoon; go home and continue the meditation exercise on Compassion.”

Willowspear walked quickly toward Smith, murmuring “What is it?” as his students moved like sleepers waking.

“You have to—”

“It’s my duty to inform you that—”

“What are the Wardens doing here?” demanded one of the students, shooting from Bliss to Righteous Indignation like a pistol bolt.

“You can’t harass our trevani!” cried another student, grabbing up a gardening tool, and Willowspear grimaced and held out his hands to them in a placatory gesture.

“Please! Consider the First Principle of Patience in the Face of Aggression!” he cried. Somebody muttered something about a Trowel in the Face of Oppression, but in the trembling moment of peace that followed Smith said quickly, “It’s just a new oath you have to take, saying you won’t commit any acts of vandalism. All right?”

“I’ll be glad to swear the oath,” said Willowspear at once.

“What in the Nine Hells is a trevani?” demanded one of the Wardens, scowling.

“Shut up,” Crossbrace told him.

“He’s teaching ‘em to worship the Green Witch,” said the other Warden.

“The Green Saint! He’s teaching us the Way of the Unwearied Mother, you unenlightened dog!” shouted another student.

“Not very successfully, either!” Willowspear cried, turning to face his students. “Put the shovel down, Mr. Carbon. Don’t shame me, please. Go to your homes and meditate on the First Principle.”

His students filed from the garden, glaring at the Wardens, who glared back, and Willowspear sighed and pressed his slender hands to his temples.

“Forgive them,” he said. “May I take the oath here, Mr. Crossbrace?”

“We have to escort you to the Temple of Law for it,” said Crossbrace, shifting from foot to foot. “Because of the trouble, see?”

“All right.”

“And a couple of mine will go with you, how about that?” said Smith. The porters Crucible and Pinion, who had been watching in silence from the lobby doorway, stepped forward and flexed their big arms.

“That’d be capital!” said Crossbrace, with a ghastly attempt at heartiness. “Let’s all go now and get it over with, eh?”

“Right,” growled Pinion.

Smith saw them off, then went into the restaurant’s kitchen. Mrs. Smith was pounding spices in a mortar, and Burnbright was peeling apples. She was perched on a tall stool, rather precariously given her present condition, and there were shadows of exhaustion under her eyes.

“So I said to him, ‘Eight crowns for that puny thing? At that price it had bloody well better to be able to jump up and grant three wishes—’ ” Mrs. Smith paused to tip ash from her smoking tube into the sink, and saw Smith. In the moment of silence that followed, Burnbright looked up, looked from one to the other of them, and began to cry.

“Oh, oh, what’s happened now?” she wailed.

“He’s had to go down to the Temple of Law again,” Smith told her. “He won’t be long, though.”

“But he hasn’t done anything!” Burnbright wept. “Why can’t they leave us alone?”

“It’s just the way life is sometimes, child,” said Mrs. Smith, mechanically going to a cabinet and fetching out a bottle of Calming Syrup. She poured a spoonful, slipped it into Burnbright’s mouth between sobs, and had a gulp straight from the bottle herself. Having done that, she renewed her efforts with the mortar so forcefully that a bit of clove went shooting up and killed a fly on the ceiling.

“One goes through these dismal patches, now and again,” she continued grimly. “War. Economic disaster. Bestial stupidity on the part of one’s fellow creatures. Impertinent little men charging eight crowns for a week-old sardine. One learns to endure with grace.” Another particularly violent whack with the mortar sent a peppercorn flying. It hit the bottle of Calming Syrup with a ping, ricocheted off and narrowly missed Smith’s nose before vanishing out the doorway into the darkness of the hotel bar.

“He’ll be all right,” said Smith, patting Burnbright’s shoulder. “You’ll see. Everyone in this street will vouch for him—and after all, he’s married to you! So it’s not as though he could be ordered to leave the city or anything.”

Burnbright thought about that a moment before her lip began to tremble afresh.

“You mean they could do that?” she said. “With our baby coming and all?”

“Of course they couldn’t, child,” said Mrs. Smith, looking daggers at Smith and reaching for the Calming Syrup again. “We just told you so. Besides, he’s my son, isn’t he? And it’s my little grandbaby’s future at stake, isn’t it? And I’d like to see the City Factor foolhardy enough to throw miscegenation in my face.”

I wouldn’t, thought Smith, and exited quietly.

He heard the bell in the lobby summoning him. Someone was hammering away at it imperiously. He swore under his breath, wondering what else could go wrong with his day, or his week, or his life…

“Here he is! Oh, dear, doesn’t he look cross?” said Lord Ermenwyr brightly. “Ow! What was that for?”

“Because you’re an unsympathetic little beast, Master,” Balnshik told him, and held out her hand. “Smith, darling! How have you been these last few months?”

Smith gulped. His brain ground to a halt, his senses shifted gears.

He knew she was an ageless, deathless, deadly thing; but there she stood in a white beaded gown that glittered like frost, with a stole of white fox furs, and she was elegant and desirable beyond reason.

Beside her stood Lord Ermenwyr, looking sleek and healthy for a change, loudly dressed in the latest fashion. How anyone could wear black and still be loudly dressed was a mystery to Smith. The lordling’s hat bore some of the responsibility: it was a high sugar-loaf copatain, cockaded with a plume that swept the lobby’s chandelier. Beyond him were Cutt, Crish, Stabb, and Strangel, heavily laden with luggage.

“Uh—I’ve been fine,” Smith replied.

“Well, you look like you’ve been through a wringer,” Lord Ermenwyr said. “Never mind! Now I’m here, all will be joy and merriment. Boys, take the trunks up to my customary suite and unpack.”

They instantly obeyed, shuffling up the stairs like a city block on the move. Lord Ermenwyr looked Smith up and down.

“Business has been off a bit, has it? I shouldn’t be at all surprised. But you needn’t worry about me, at least! I’m simply here to relax and have a lovely time in dear old Salesh-by-the-Sea. Go to the theaters with Nursie dearest, visit the baths, sample the latest prostitutes—”

There was a rending crash from somewhere upstairs.

“Oh, bugger,” said Lord Ermenwyr, glancing upward. “We forgot to give them a room key, didn’t we?”

“I think poor Smith needs a cool drink on the terrace,” said Balnshik, running one hand through his hair. “Let’s all go. Fetch a bottle from the bar, Master.”



He had to admit he felt better, sitting out at one of the tables while Balnshik poured the wine. All his other problems shrank in comparison to the prospect of a few weeks’ visit by demons, even if they were pleasantly civilized ones. And Balnshik’s physical attentions were pleasant indeed, though they stopped abruptly when Burnbright and Mrs. Smith joined them on the terrace. Instantly, the ladies formed a tight huddle and locked into a private conversation whose subject was exclusively pregnancy.

Lord Ermenwyr regarded them narrowly, shrugged, and lit his smoking tube with a fireball.

“Tsk; they won’t even notice us for the next three hours, now, Smith. I suppose we’ll have to sit here and find manly things to talk about. I detest sports of any kind, and your politics don’t even remotely interest me, and the weather isn’t really a gender-specific topic, is it? How about business? Yes, do tell me how your business is going.”

Smith told him. He listened thoughtfully, exhaling smoke from time to time.

“…And then there’s the trouble in, in the quarter where the Yendri businesses are,” Smith continued. “I can’t understand it; everyone’s always gotten along here, but now… they’re all resentful and we’re all on edge. The bathhouse keepers are up in arms, by all the gods! Rioting herbalists! I don’t know where it will end, but it certainly isn’t good for keeping hotel rooms occupied.”

“Oh, I’ll book the whole damn place for the summer, if that’ll help,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “That’s the least of your worries. You know what’s behind all this, of course.”

“No,” said Smith, with a familiar sense of impending doom. “What’s behind it?”

“This stupid man Smallbrass and his Planned Community, naturally,” Lord Ermenwyr replied. “Don’t tell me you haven’t seen the signs! Or perhaps you haven’t. They’re being defaced as soon as they go up.”

“Oh. That place being built down the coast?” Smith blinked. “What about it? The Yendri always complain when we build another city, but it’s not as though we were hurting anybody. We’ve got to have someplace to live, haven’t we?”

“I don’t know that the other races sharing the world with you would necessarily agree,” said Lord Ermenwyr delicately.

“Well, all right. But why should they be so especially bothered now?”

Lord Ermenwyr looked at Smith from a certain distance, all the clever nastiness gone from his face. It was far more disconcerting than his usual repertory of unpleasant expressions.

“Perhaps I ought to explain something—” he began, and then both he and Smith were on their feet and staring across the garden at the hotel. There was shouting coming from the lobby, followed by the shatter of glass. Burnbright gave a little shriek that dopplered away from them as they ran, along with Mrs. Smith’s cry of, “Stay here and keep down, for gods’ sake!”

Smith, though older and heavier, got there first, for halfway through the garden Balnshik materialized in front of Lord Ermenwyr and arrested his progress with her formidable bosom. He hit it and bounced back, slightly stunned, and so Smith was the one to catch Willowspear as he staggered out into the garden. The Yendri was bleeding from a cut above one eye.

“It’s all right,” he gasped. “They ran away. But the front window is smashed—”

They haven’t been here two hours, and I’m already down a door and a window, said an exasperated little voice in the back of Smith’s head. Out loud he said, “Damn ‘em anyway. Look, I’m sorry—”

“Oh, they weren’t your people,” Willowspear told him, pressing his palm to the cut to stop the bleeding. “They were Yendri, I’m afraid.”

“What in the Nine Hells did you do that for?” Lord Ermenwyr demanded of Balnshik. “I think I’ve got a rhinestone in my eye!”

“I’m under geas to protect you, Master,” she reminded him.

“Well, I’m supposed to protect anyone ever sworn to my service, and an oath is just as good as a geas any day—”

“Bloody greenies!” snarled Crucible, emerging from the lobby. “Are you all right, son?”

“Don’t call him a greenie!” cried Burnbright, who had finally struggled across the yard. “Oh, oh, he’s hurt!”

“Well, but he’s our greenie, and anyway it was the other damn greenies—”

“I’m fine,” Willowspear assured her, attempting to bow to Lord Ermenwyr. “It’s a scratch. My gracious lord, I trust you’re well? We were coming back up Front Street and we were accosted by three, er—”

“Members of the Yendri race,” supplied Smith helpfully.

“—who demanded to know what I was doing in the company of two, er—Children of the Sun, and wanted me to go with them to—I think it was to attend a protest meeting or something, and when I tried to explain—”

“They started chucking rocks at our heads,” said Pinion, dusting his hands as he stepped out to join them. “But halfway down the block the City Wardens caught sight of them and they took off, and the Wardens went after ‘em like a gree—like something really fast. You want us to board up the window, boss?”



Fifteen minutes later they were back at their places on the terrace, somewhat shaken but not much the worse for wear. Balnshik had deftly salved and bandaged Willowspear’s cut, and he sat with a drink in one hand. Burnbright perched in his lap, clinging to him. Mrs. Smith had been puffing so furiously on her jade tube that she was veiled in smoke, like a mountain obscured by mist.

“But you’d be safe up there, you young fool,” she was telling Willowspear. She turned in appeal to Lord Ermenwyr. “You’re his liege lord or something, aren’t you? Can’t you tell him to go, for his own good?”

“Alas, I released him from his vows,” said Lord Ermenwyr solemnly. “Far be it from me to tell him that considerations of duty outweighed the vague promptings of a vision quest. Bet you’re sorry now, eh? Ow,” he added, almost absentmindedly, as Balnshik boxed his ear. “Besides, if a boy won’t listen to his own dear mother, whomever else will he heed?”

“I can’t go back to the Greenlands,” said Willowspear. “I’ve planted a garden here. I have students. I have patients. My child will be born a citizen of this city. I’m doing no one any harm; why shouldn’t I be safe?”

Mrs. Smith groaned and vanished in a fogbank of fume.

“And how would my love travel, so heavy laden?” Willowspear continued, looking down at Burnbright. “You can’t have our baby in the wilderness; not a little city girl like you. You’d be so frightened, my heart.”

“I’d go anywhere you wanted, if we had to,” she said, knuckling away her tears. “I was born in the wilderness, wasn’t I? And I wouldn’t be scared of the Master of the Mountain or anybody.”

“He doesn’t really eat babies,” Lord Ermenwyr told her. “Very often, anyway. Ow.”

“And maybe everyone will come to their senses, and this whole thing will blow over when the weather turns cooler,” said Smith.

“Ah—not likely,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “Things are going to get rather nasty, I’m afraid.”

“That’s right; you were saying that when all hell broke loose.” Smith got up and opened another bottle. “If my business is going to be wrecked, I’d at least like to know why.”

Lord Ermenwyr shook his head. He tugged at his beard a moment, and said finally, “How much do you know about the Yendri faith?”

“I know they worship your mother,” said Smith.

“Not exactly,” said Lord Ermenwyr.

“Yes, we do,” said Willowspear.

Lord Ermenwyr squirmed slightly in his chair. “Well, you don’t think she’s a—a goddess or anything like that. She’s just a prophetess. Sort of.”

“She is the treva of the whole world, She is the living Truth, She is the Incarnation of divine Love in its active aspect,” said Willowspear with perfect assurance. “The Redeemer, the Breaker of Chains, the Subduer of Demons,”

“Amen,” said Balnshik, just a trace grudgingly.

“Yes, well, I suppose she is.” Lord Ermenwyr scowled. “All the Yendri pray to Mother, but she has someone she prays to in her turn, you know. You have to understand Yendri history. They used to be slaves.”

“The Time of Bondage,” sang Willowspear. “In the long-dark-sorrow in the Valley of Walls, in the black-filth-chains of the slave pens they prayed for a Deliverer! But till She came, there moved among the beaten-sorrowing-tearful the Comforter, the Star-Cloaked Man, the Lover of Widows.”

“Some sort of holy man anyway,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “Resistance leader, apparently. Foretold the coming of a Holy Child, then conveniently produced one. Daddy’s always had his private opinion on how that happened.”

Willowspear was shocked into speechlessness for a moment before stammering, “She miraculously appeared in the heart of a great payraja blossom! There were witnesses!”

“Yes, and I saw a man pull three handkerchiefs and a silver coin out of his own ear over on Anchor Street this very afternoon,” Lord Ermenwyr retorted. “Life’s full of miracles, but we all know perfectly well where babies come from. The point is, when she was three days old the Yendri rose in rebellion. The Star-Cloaked Man carried her before them, and she was their—”

“Their Shield, their Inspirer, that day in the wheatfield, that day by the river, when grim was the reckoning—”

“And evidently in all the uproar of overthrowing their masters, the Star-Cloaked Man cut his foot on a scythe or something, and the wound could never heal because he’d broken his vow of nonviolence to finally start the rebellion. So he limped for the rest of the big exodus out of the Valley of Walls, lugging Mother-as-a-baby the whole way.”

“And flowers sprang up in the blood where he walked,” said Willowspear.

“I remember hearing this story,” Mrs. Smith murmured. “Oh, what a long time ago … There was supposed to have been a miracle, with some butterflies.”

“Yes!” cried Willowspear. “The river rose at his bidding, the great-glassy-serpentbodied river, and for the earth’s children it cut the way, the road to liberation! And they left that place and lo, after them came the souls of the dead. They would not stay in chains, in the form of butterflies they came, whitewinged-transparent-singing, so many flower petals drifting on the wind, the broken-despaired-of-lost came too, and floated above their heads to the new country.”

“Which means they followed the annual migration path of some cabbage moths, I suppose. It added a mythic dimension to everything, to be sure, and eventually they got as far as where the river met the sea,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “The ‘sacred grove of Hlinjerith, where mist hung in the branches.’ Just exactly what happened next has always been a matter of some speculation in our family.”

“Everyone knows what happened,” said Willowspear, looking at his liege lord a bit sternly. “The Star-Cloaked Man, the Beloved Imperfect, was sore afflicted of his wound, and his strength was faded, and his heart was faint. His disciples wept. But She in Her mercy forgave his sin of wrath.”

“Oh, -nonsense, she can’t have been more than six months old—”

“She worked a miracle for his sake, and from the foam of the river his deliverance rose—”



“It is made of the crystal foam,

The White Ship,

See it rise, and from every line and spar

Bright water runs; the wild birds scream and sing

To see it rise on the glassy-smooth wave.

And it will bear us over

To where all shame is washed away

It will sail the new moon’s path

And it will bear us over

To the Beloved’s arms…”