Brothers of the Wind

by Tad Williams

  Unimpressed by what I was seeing of Nabban’s mortal healers, I was determined to find healers of my own race for my master, as Lady Ona had suggested. Even Hakatri agreed that with their connection to the Dreaming Sea and the Garden, the Tinukeda’ya might offer our best chance against the curse of dragon’s blood. But now, for the first time since the mistress of Ravensperch had shamed me on my first night in her home, I truly regretted not speaking my ancestors’ Vao tongue, because few of the local Niskies spoke anything but a mixture of Vao and the local mortal speech. This made my search almost maddeningly slow and full of misunderstandings, but I persevered, leaving Lord Hakatri’s side for hours each afternoon—hours that I begrudged, because I did not trust the rest of his retainers to tend him properly. Accompanied by one of my master’s Zida’ya guards, I went hunting through the markets and taverns and Sea Watcher guildhalls for anyone who might be able to help us.

  In the end, though I walked until my feet were sore and asked questions up and down the Nabban waterfront until my throat was hoarse, what I had been seeking came to us instead. We had been in Nabban for no short while—the Tortoise Moon and Rooster Moon had both passed—when a young male Niskie came to our inn.

  “I am Fen Hasha,” he told me. “I hear you and your master are looking for a true healer.”

  “And that is you?”

  He shook his head, grinning. “No. But my aunt is the greatest healer in all the South.”

  We Tinukeda’ya are sometimes called “changelings” in mockery, or even as an insult, but the name is not without reason, since it is our nature as a race to grow like the things that surround us. Those of us who live in far northern lands tend to become paler and better able to survive the cold. Those who live near the ocean, like the Niskie-folk, become more like sea creatures. It sounds strange but it is true. And those like me, born among the Zida’ya, have always looked more like those immortals than do the rest of our kind. But this Fen Hasha who came to our door had been born into Nabban’s Sea Watcher community, and he had all the telltale signs. His eyes were large and heavily lidded, his arms were long, and he had the telltale Niskie roughness of skin—I might even say scaliness—especially around his neck. I was not immediately ready to trust this stranger, though Fen Hasha assured me that his aunt, Fen Yona, was a healer of great renown who had cured many folk, rich and poor, mortal and otherwise. He did not ask for any payment in advance, which relieved some of my suspicions, and when I asked for the names of those who could vouch for his aunt’s skills, he gave me several, which also raised him in my eyes. Most of the false healers who had milled at our door would not even explain the details of what they would do for my master, cloaking their methods in secrecy, which is one of the chief weapons of all swindlers.

  Many of the people Fen Hasha named were trading captains who had been troubled by strange maladies caught in the southern islands—maladies of both body and spirit, the Niskie told me—but they were all at sea during that time of the year and could not be questioned. But a wealthy mortal woman spoke glowingly of Fen Yona’s skills and told me my master would not regret employing her.

  I think at any other time both my master and I would have wanted more proof of this healer’s abilities, but Hakatri had been suffering grievously again in the most recent days and seemed willing to try almost anything, so we hired a boat to take us to this Fen Yona’s home. The craft was not in the most reassuring condition, but Fen Hasha assured me its captain was a relative of his and was giving us a very good price, so the next morning we left Nabban and set out across the bay for Tapu, the tiny island where the healer lived.

  I shall not spend long describing the journey, or about meeting Fen Hasha’s aunt in her round hut near the shore, for reasons you will soon discover. The old Tinukeda’ya woman was pleasant enough, but she was vague about what she could actually do to heal my master. She first performed a ceremony that, as far as I could see, consisted mostly of spreading incense smoke as thickly as possible while members of her family played a tuneless sort of music on flutes and drums, then she pronounced that my master’s condition was unusual and could only be helped by someone she called “the Lady of the Star of the Sea,” which would require another short voyage by boat. Having come so far already, we agreed, and we soon found ourselves aboard a small craft braving the rough swells, this time by night.

  After perhaps two hours’ journey we reached a spot a long distance from shore. It looked no different to me than any other part of the open sea, but the healer Fen Yona bade the captain drop anchor, then once more she began to chant and disperse smoke from an incense burner, but this time she added loud prayers addressed to the Lady she had mentioned. I was beginning to doubt that anything at all would happen, and that we had spent our gold for nothing, but as she sang and waved her arms, I did finally notice a change in our surroundings.

  My master, who could barely sit upright, likely saw nothing but the odd dance that Fen Yona was doing, but I could make out a faint light beginning to glow in the water beside the boat. At first I thought it only the shining tide that is sometimes seen on the nighttime ocean, but it grew brighter and brighter until I could make it out quite clearly. It was not a formless cloud like a shining tide, but a single spot of glaring green light. The astonishing thing, though, was that the green glow came from deep beneath the ocean’s surface.

  When I announced this, Fen Yona increased the violence of her dancing and chanting, crying, “The Lady comes! The Star of the Sea is kindled!”

  My master did not take heed of any of this but swayed back and forth with the motion of the small boat, his eyes tightly shut, struggling with agonies the rest of us could only imagine. Then, as the woman’s song or prayer neared what sounded like some sort of loud peak, she stooped near my master to set down her incense burner and I saw something flash in her hand. I thought it was a knife, so I flung myself between the Niskie-woman and Hakatri. She was startled and complained angrily about my intrusion. I demanded to see what was in her curled fingers, still fearing some kind of murderous attack, though I could imagine no reason for it—our gold had been left safe on shore with my master’s Zida’ya guards. The healer’s nephew Fen Hasha tried to pull me away from her. I may have not the strength of my master’s folk, but I had trained with the young warriors of Asu’a, and now I was grappling with one of my own kind, protecting my master. As we struggled, I managed to get my foot behind Fen Hasha’s ankle and pushed him overboard. Instantly his aunt began shrieking that the kilpa would take him, that I must help him climb back onto the boat. At the time I thought she exaggerated, but I was told later that kilpa did swim around boats that dared the ocean by night and would sometimes even snatch an unwary sailor off the deck and into the sea.

  I refused to help the Niskie woman’s nephew until she showed me what was in her hand. She called to her Tinukeda’ya relative whose boat we had hired, but he was struggling with his oars, trying to turn the craft against the push of the waves and back toward floundering Fen Hasha. The woman finally spread her fingers to show me what was nestled in her palm—a shard of broken mirror. I understood everything then, and knew I dared not leave Hakatri’s side, so I stood over him and left the boat’s owner to drag Fen Hasha back onboard by himself.

  After much arguing and many threats, both mine and theirs, the Niskies at last carried us back to Tapu, which we reached as the first warm light of dawn was climbing into the eastern sky. We found another boat there and paid its owner to take us back to the Nabban mainland, since I no longer trusted Fen Hasha and his aunt or any of their numerous relatives. I was ashamed that our first visit to a Tinukeda’ya healer had turned out so woefully, but my master was overwhelmed with his own suffering and hardly noticed anything but the fact that he had not been healed.

  “They were frauds, my lord,” I told him when we were safely back on the mainland. “Cozeners, tricksters, whatever you like. The green light—the ‘star of the sea’ as the
Niskie-woman called it—must have been the sunken glow from the fabled Green Column, the Master Witness of Jhiná T’seneí, gone down beneath the ocean so long ago with the rest of the island city. We must have been floating just above the city’s ruins.”

  “No,” Hakatri said. “The city and its island sank far from where we were. But who knows? Perhaps Mezumiiru’s tides have rolled the pieces of the Witness a great distance along the sea floor. But you said it began to glow in the deeps only after we reached it, Pamon, as if she had summoned its light. If they were only tricksters, how could that be?”

  “She had a piece of a Witness hidden in her hand, my lord. I doubt she knew how to do anything more with it than to briefly wake the Green Column. But it would be a most effective way to fool mortals and those who are ignorant of history, would it not?”

  For a moment he sat silent. “It was not all false, though, Pamon. While we floated there, a new dream came to me—a very strong dream, like no other I have had. Whether they meant to rob us or not, something true was at work. It was much like what I have felt from the Pool of Three Depths in Asu’a and other Master Witnesses.”

  “All the more reason then, after what happened to you in Serpent’s Vale, that you should be kept away from those people and their foolish use of someone else’s power. Who can guess what the untutored meddling of a Niskie hedge-witch might have done to you if we had not stopped her?”

  “I am not certain we did stop her,” Hakatri said. “The dream that came to me on that boat was strong, so strong, and I still feel it. A figure stood before me—slender, pale, and distant. It spoke to me in a woman’s voice, saying ‘Come to me. I have a message for you.’ It was so strong and strange! It did not feel like any of the other dreams I have had since the worm’s blood burned me.” He lifted his hands to his face, as if to make certain he was still the same person. “I no longer know what to do, Pamon, what to believe.”

  Privily, I thought the pale female figure of his dream sounded like the Hikeda’ya queen, Utuk’ku, who was known to walk the Dream Road as easily as others might walk the Silver Way or the Snowfields Road, sending her spirit into dark places where even the wisest of the Zida’ya did not dare to go. Hearing Hakatri’s fascination with this vision, I was fearful it might lead us back to dark Nakkiga; but in the end, our travels turned out much differently than I had imagined.

  * * *

  • • •

  We returned with my master’s remaining guards and retainers to the inn on the Nabban waterfront so my master could decide what to do next. I discovered that in my absence a letter from Lady Ona had arrived for me, sent on from Asu’a, along with a letter to my master from his wife. I postponed reading Ona’s letter to take Lady Briseyu’s message to my master’s chamber.

  “My eyes ache and they will not fix on anything.” Hakatri had scarcely risen from his bed since our return. “Read it to me, Pamon.”

  I unfolded the delicate silken note, feeling as much an intruder as if I roamed through the lady’s chamber, grubbing among her belongings.

  My husband,

  I read out,

  I saw you yesterday in your favorite chair, drinking from a cup of black wine as you often do in the evenings. But it was not you, only your robe, draped over the cushion.

  I saw you again today in Thousand Leaves Hall, and even called out to you, but it was only a shadow that for a moment had your shape. When I spoke your name, many turned to look at me in pity.

  I seek for you often in sleep these nights, upon the Dream Road, but when I find you, you never turn your face toward me. When I speak to you, it is as though you stand in a high place, the wind fierce in your ears, and cannot hear me.

  You are a ghost, Hakatri, and I am a widow, our child an orphan. I feel like a lost pilgrim in a strange land, who kneels beside an ancient, ruined fane, praying to a departed spirit that cannot hear her . . .

  “Enough,” said my master, his voice full of wretchedness. “I cannot hear this now. Leave it until I may read it with my own eyes.” He turned his face toward the wall. I set the letter on the bench and carried away the parchment from Ravensperch, but my heart was sore for my master and his family.

  Dear Kes,

  my letter read,

  I hope this finds you in good health, and that your master Lord Hakatri has found some respite from his suffering. It has been a difficult time here.

  During the last moon, my dear Sholi fell ill with a terrible fever,

  As I saw those words my heart clutched in my chest—for a moment I could not even breathe. I hardly dared to read further, but after some moments I mustered my courage and continued.

  and I feared I would lose her. I am glad to say that she has passed through the worst of it now and appears to be on her way back to health, though she is still weak and remains in her bed. But she is eating again, and I can finally say that I feel confident she will recover. She asked me to send you her greetings and her good wishes, and I now do so. I was terrified, of course, not just for Sholi, so young and with so much life still before her, but for myself as well. As you know, I often do not see my husband from one day to the next, and—as I have no doubt made clear before—Ravensperch can be a lonely place. It is terribly selfish to say it, but I do not know what I would do without my beautiful Sholi’s company.

  I hope that when you and your master have returned from your long journey, we may hope to see you again. You were a breath of fresh and welcome air in a house that often seems stale with over-familiarity.

  * * *

  • • •

  Since I did not know when I would next have the chance, I wrote back to Ona that evening, hoping I could find a way to send the letter to her. I knew she would be most unhappy when she heard how our fellow Tinukeda’ya, the criminal Fen clan, had tried to cheat my master, so I related only the bare bones of that misadventure. I also sent my greetings and my sincere wishes for continued recovery to Lady Sholi and suggested that any further letters the ladies wrote to me should be sent to Asu’a, since I felt sure we would be returning there as soon as my master was fit to travel again.

  Foolish Kes! Or perhaps not so much foolish as unlucky. How was I to know that almost four seasons would roll past before we saw Asu’a’s bright towers again, before I once more stood upon the Tan’ja Stairs? How could anyone have guessed?

  As the moons spun slowly through the sky and the Season of Gathering turned to the Season of Withering, we continued to search the Southern lands for healers who might be able to help Lord Hakatri. It is a sign of how desperate we were, and how fierce my master’s suffering, that he spent so much time in the lands of mortals. I doubt any other member of his clan had ever traveled so much among them or came to know those short-lived folk so well. Some of the mortal scholars we consulted tried very hard to help us, but most seemed more interested by the chance to meet with a Zida’ya noble from the leading clan. In the end, we did learn a few things here and there, but I cannot say that the search was worth the effort, at least among the mortal philosophers of Nabban.

  My master’s Zida’ya folk scarcely sleep, but we Tinukeda’ya must, and it was exhausting for me to tumble into weary slumber at the end of each long day only to be awakened before an hour had passed by the sound of my master Hakatri’s moans and harsh breathing. It is perhaps surprising for me to say it—and it was far more confounding to me to feel it—but I was beginning to weary of living with my lord’s almost constant suffering. This, of course, made me feel like the worst sort of traitor. Hakatri had picked me out as a child and allowed me to take a place in his life that would normally have been reserved for a youth of his own race. He had made me his armiger, an honor never before given to one of my people. And he had always shown me a kindness that went beyond mere condescension. Once, before my father died, Lord Hakatri even dined in our house, praised our poor fare, and complimented my father on
raising such a good and helpful son. I am certain that my father must have been overwhelmed with pride to hear that, although it was not his nature to show much emotion, especially in the presence of our Zida’ya masters.

  If my father Pamon Sur had been one of the antique sort of Tinukeda’ya, his life devoted utterly to hard work and stolid silences, my mother Enla must have been a different kind. I scarcely remember her—the fatal fever took her when I was only a few summers old—but every memory I had, or tale I heard of her, spoke of someone who loved life in all its forms. She would come to the stables to nurse the sickly foals, even when my father told her they would not survive and she was wasting her time. Sometimes he was right, but just as often she would bring one back from the brink of death with her loving care.

  During my long, lonely evenings tending my master, and sometimes during sleepless nights, I thought about my childhood and the mother I had lost. One such night, as my master struggled with his foul dreams, a memory returned to me, as if a door had been opened to the past, and I suddenly recalled what my mother had said about the Dreaming Sea.

  That day I had been called a harsh name by one of the Zida’ya children when I tried to join in their play, and I was bitterly sad. My mother took me on her lap and told me, “Do not be ashamed, Kes, by being different than the others. Someday, at a moment you most need it, you will feel the Garden inside you—you will feel the heartbeat of the Dreaming Sea.” At the time, I now remembered, my childish imagination had pictured her words as very real, and I had envisioned a great and surging flood that would burst out of me, throbbing with the living essence of the great ocean (though I had never seen the Dreaming Sea, of course, nor any body of water except nearby Landfall Bay). As young as I was then, her words seemed more of a warning than a reassuring promise, and perhaps that is why I gave in so readily when my father later ordered me not to ask or speak about what she said.