Burning Tower Read Online Free PDF Page B

had been up about two hours, and there was activity on the square. Kinless sweepers. A kinless artisan and his son were tinkering with the central fountain and muttering either curses or invocations when the flow didn’t increase. A clothing shop next door was opening under the protection of a Lordkin guard.
    â€œThe Lordkin don’t gather here now,” Chalker said. “Like the old days. Maybe better, some ways.”
    Sandry automatically translated gather into steal. “Tell me about the old days.”
    â€œWell, there’s old days and really old days,” Chalker said. “Old days is before that year when they had two Burnings and the whole square and a lot more burned down.”
    Sandry nodded. He’d been about ten when that happened, and he’d heard the story often. The Lords had bought dragon bones in a cold iron box. Manna to power rain spells, Aunt Shanda said. And when they opened the box here in Peacegiven Square, the Lordkin went mad. A dozen were possessed of Yangin-Atep, and a dozen more thought they were or pretended to be. Fire and madness everywhere, and when it was done, Peacegiven Square and everything around it was ashes and soot, wooden aqueducts burned, nothing left. It wasn’t safe around here after that. Guardsmen patrolled in threes, foursomes even.
    â€œâ€™Fore that, there was stores here, and the Registry Office was twice the size of the new one,” Chalker said. “Heard you were going to expand that?”
    Sandry nodded. “You hear more than I do.” Which was true. Peacevoice Hall rang with rumors, and the senior troop leaders always knew what was going on, more than the Lords and Younglords who were their officers. Everyone knew that.
    â€œMaybe,” Chalker admitted. “Hear tell they’ll start just after the caravan comes. If it comes.”
    â€œIf it comes?”
    â€œLate, isn’t it, sir? I believe that Feathersnake Wagonmaster said they’d be back before the Devil Winds came.”
    True enough, Sandry thought. But they’ll come! She said they would. “How is it better now?”
    â€œLess fighting,” Chalker said. “’Fore we had that Two Burnings year, there was more disputes over who controlled what. Nothing really settled. After everything burned down, nobody cared, of course, but before that, this was valuable territory, and every Lordkin wanted to gather here. Took a lot of guarding to make it safe.” Chalker looked around the Square. “Now, that Wanshig chap has things under control. Nobody gathers here, and the kinless can get on with their work.”
    A wagon came across the square. A kinless trash collector. But the two kinless ponies pulling it were larger than Sandry remembered. “Are those things growing?” he asked.
    Chalker nodded. “Yes, sir. They tell me it’s the magic coming back.”
    â€œYou say that with a straight face.”
    â€œWell, sir, we both know magic works,” Chalker said. “Sometimes.”
    â€œDangerous, though,” Sandry mused. Dangerous enough that for a long time, there wasn’t any magic in Lordshills. The Lords had paid wizards to cast some kind of spell that used it up, or so Aunt Shanda said. But they hadn’t done that for years.
    Magic never came back. It was a basic truth known to wizards and common folk alike: when magic is used up, it’s gone. But magic was coming back to Lordshills. The pond fish were showing wild colors, and Lord Quintana’s big table map now updated itself: it showed tiny changes to match the tides and the water in the rivers, smudges of soot to mark the smoke of fires.
    Where was it coming from? Dust blown from other lands? Rain? Certain objects could be made to carry manna; there was a growing trade in such talismans. Maybe new manna rode the fumes that bubbled up from the Black Pit. Anyone who saw the tar pits would know they held magic, evil magic. The pits