“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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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.
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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.