The Burning City Read Free Page A

the berries.”
    â€œMagic?”
    â€œRight. And they’re poison. They want their seeds in your belly when you die, for fertilizer.”
    One wet morning after a lightning storm, loggers saw smoke reaching into the sky.
    â€œIs that the city?” Whandall asked.
    â€œNo, that’s part of the forest. Over by Wolverine territory. It’ll go out,” Kreeg assured the boy. “They always do. You find black patches here and there, big as a city block.”
    â€œThe fire wakes Yangin-Atep,” the boy surmised. “Then Yangin-Atep takes the fire for himself? So it goes out…” But instead of confirming, Kreeg only smiled indulgently. Whandall heard snickering.
    The other loggers didn’t believe, but… “Kreeg, don’t you believe in Yangin-Atep either?”
    â€œNot really,” Kreeg said. “Some magic works, out here in the woods, but in town? Gods and magic, you hear a lot about them, but you see damn little.”
    â€œA magician killed Pothefit!”
    Kreeg Miller shrugged.
    Whandall was near tears. Pothefit had vanished during the Burning, just ten weeks ago. Pothefit was his father! But you didn’t say that outside the family. Whandall cast about for better arguments. “You
bow
to the redwood before you cut it. I’ve seen you. Isn’t that magic?”
    â€œYeah, well… why take chances? Why do the morningstars and laurel whips and touch-me and creepy-julia all protect the redwoods?”
    â€œLike house guards,” Whandall said, remembering that there were always men and boys on guard at Placehold.
    â€œMaybe. Like the plants made some kind of bargain,” Kreeg said, and laughed.
    Mother’s Mother had told him. Yangin-Atep led Whandall’s ancestors to the Lords, and the Lords had led Whandall’s ancestors through the forest to the Valley of Smokes where they defeated the kinless and built Tep’s Town. Redwood seeds and firewands didn’t sprout unless fire had passed through. Surely these woods belonged to the fire god!
    But Kreeg Miller just couldn’t see it.
    They worked half the morning, hacking at the base of a vast redwood, ignoring the smoke that still rose northeast of them. Whandall carried water to them from a nearby stream. The other loggers were almost used to him now. They called him Candlestub.
    When the sun was overhead, they broke for lunch.
    Kreeg Miller had taken to sharing lunch with him. Whandall had managed to gather some cheese from the Placehold kitchen. Kreeg had a smoked rabbit from yesterday.
    Whandall asked, “How many trees does it take to build the city back?”
    Two loggers overheard and laughed. “They never burn the whole city,” Kreeg told him. “Nobody could live through that, Whandall. Twenty orthirty stores and houses, a few blocks solid and some other places scattered, then they break off.”
    The Placehold men said that they’d burned down the whole city, and all of the children believed them.
    A logger said, “We’ll cut another tree after this one. We wouldn’t need all four if Lord Qirinty didn’t want a wing on his palace. Boy, do you remember your first Burning?”
    â€œSome. I was only two years old.” Whandall cast back in his mind. “The men were acting funny. They’d lash out if any children got too close. They yelled a lot, and the women yelled back. The women tried to keep the men away from us.
    â€œThen one afternoon it all got very scary and confusing. There was shouting and whooping and heat and smoke and light. The women all huddled with us on the second floor. There were smells—not just smoke, but stuff that made you gag, like an alchemist’s shop. The men came in with things they’d gathered. Blankets, furniture, heaps of shells, stacks of cups and plates, odd things to eat.
    â€œAnd afterward everyone seemed to calm down.” Whandall’s voice trailed off. The other