Walls of Wind and the Occasional Diamond Thief Boxed Set

by Jane Ann McLachlan

  ***

  I awoke from my dream drenched in sweat, sobbing for air even though the strong midseason wind blew in upon me through my open window. For a few moments I feared that my eye was still sealed shut but then I saw a scattering of stars outside my window and realized it was only the dark of night that blinded me.

  Despite the cool wind coming through my window, I was still gripped by the desolate feeling that the Wind had withdrawn from me. Even in stillseason, I had never known such a sense of abandonment. I reminded myself that the Creator is not merely the wind, real or artificial. I know the Trinity of Life, which we all learn from childhood: Wind the Creator, Wind the world we live on, and wind the movement of air which is His breath. They are separate and yet they are all one. And in my dream, they had all deserted me. My feeling of personal loss was intense. It was almost a relief to hear Saft’ir’s even breathing from his sleeping mat across the room.

  ***

  I remembered that dream now, nearly a year later, as I approached the Ghen funeral dais. Perhaps it’s as wrong for me to participate in a Ghen religious service as I had believed the presence of the Ghen child on Temple Hill to be? But Wind has already abandoned me; what more have I to fear?

  The Ghen funeral dais was a large, wooden structure built along the side of the northernmost wall of the city. It was large enough to hold six to eight Ghen and Bria and was dyed blood-red, the symbol of death and of life.

  Although I knew the bright yellow-red was made from a blend of ruberries and the centers of yellowhead flowers, it was so similar to blood color I had to force myself to climb up the three steps onto it, half expecting it to be wet and sticky under my feet. Holding my arms still at my sides, I mounted it without a word.

  They positioned me behind Saft’ir’s urn, between Council Chair and Chair Ghen. Savannis, the Voice of Wind, who teaches religious history to our children and gives us spiritual advice, stood beside Council Chair. On the other side of Chair Ghen stood the Ghen spiritual advisor, Mick’al.

  I agreed to attend Saft’ir’s funeral only at my parent’s insistence. I stared rigidly above the heads of the huge crowd of Ghen and Bria gathered around the dais, waiting for the ceremony to be over.

  Mick’al spoke first. The muscles in my face tightened as I imagined him referring to the Creator as the “Hunter”, as I’ve heard they do. Mick’al was probably glorifying Saft’ir’s death as a “noble sacrifice”.

  Because Saft’ir chose to die upon the wall—by his own hand, his heart torn on his own knife—because he waited out his watch then died, they call Saft’ir a hero.

  Hero! A coward and a suicide and a murderer! Saft’ir’s sacrifice! Saft’ir’s revenge, more accurately.

  The positions I took on Council infuriated him. I saw it in his measuring eyes, in his cool silences the morning after Council when he’d read Chair Ghen’s translations. He presumed too much. I wanted to tell him so, to reach an understanding, but we didn’t have enough language between us yet. The fact that we had joined, that he had stirred to life my infant seeds and I’d accepted his seed into my womb, the fact that we shared a house and would continue to do so for three more years—what right did any of this give him over my opinions? Or, for that matter, give me over his?

  He had a right to expect courtesy, and so did I. I had a right to expect harmony of life-style, and so did he. He had a right to expect me to guard my health for the sake of all our infants. And so did I have that same right of him! Over my mind he had no claim at all—yet he persisted.

  Naturally he disliked my issues. I am, after all, as committed to removing Ghen from Council as Briarris is. My reasons were different, however. I didn’t dislike Ghen; I merely served the Creator. Having placed Bria upon Wind to civilize it, He surely intended that Bria should guide that civilization. Ghen barely believe in the Creator, having turned their urge to worship Him into an adoration of the hunt. How could our city be the monument to the Creator that it was meant to be, if it was even partly ruled by those who held such false beliefs?

  Mick’al’s harsh Ghen voice, raised to carry across the listening crowd, grated in my ears. I flattened them against my head, knowing that my parent would later scold me for rudeness. My hands unconsciously cradled my swelling abdomen as Mick’al’s voice reminded me of the day I heard of Saft’ir’s death.

  ***

  It was the morning after Briarris and I won our motion, a Council seat for unjoined Bria. I rose at dawn and left my house. I walked through the city warm in my pleasure over our accomplishment, only turning back when I was sure that Saft’ir had had time to return from the wall, to eat his breakfast reading Chair Ghen’s summary of Council as he always did; had had time to gnash his teeth and scowl in my absence, then get to bed to sleep away the exhaustion of night watch.

  Returning from my walk, I was surprised to see motion through my front window. Opening the door I saw my parent, Maaris, with Naft’ur, the Ghen who was joined with him when I was born. I was even more surprised to see Chair Ghen and Council Chair waiting with them. Maaris had boiled a pot of water at my cookwall. He dropped dried ruberry leaves into it, waiting silently as they steeped.

  Surely they weren’t here to discuss my Council decision? The motion had already passed. I wondered where Saft’ir was, suspecting that he was behind this. Such silly thoughts annoying me.

  At my parent’s urging we sat around the table, wordlessly watching as he set steaming mugs of tea before us. The five of us filled every chair. Council Chair told me then. Even as I listened, I looked about for Saft’ir, unable to comprehend that he was dead. I felt a distant regret as for a friend whom I had known briefly, and then a thrill of revulsion at the news that he had died by his own hand; followed by guilt, as though my vote the night before to increase Bria seats on Council had somehow precipitated his violent death, although he couldn’t have known of the motion before his watch had ended. Still I felt guilty that somehow my very opinions had done him harm.

  Then I saw my parent’s eye drop briefly to my abdomen and quickly turn away and I remembered the precious lives quickening within me, waiting for future mating to mature and bring them forth.

  “My babies,” I whispered, falling backward against the chair. I caught the edge of the table to steady myself, my other hand resting over my abdomen. Feeling its swelling roundness, my hysteria grew.

  “My babies!”

  Naft’ur reached for me but I pushed him away, rising and screaming now, “My babies! Breath of Wind, my babies!”

  I struggled even against Maaris as he tried to comfort me. His sobs, his anguished cries, “Rennis, Rennis!” his arms attempting to hold me, only ignited me further and I howled, over and over, “My babies! My babies! He has murdered my babies!”

  ***

  Upon the dais, I closed my eye.

  Feeling Council Chair’s hand grasp my arm, I straightened quickly and reopened my eye, inadvertently catching expressions of pity on the faces at the front of the crowd. I shifted my gaze to Savannis, who had stepped forward to speak.

  “Death and birth are the same,” he said. “They are a window, which is in itself nothing; a space cut out of something larger, through which the Creator’s breath blows both ways. In our homes we, like Him, build parallel openings, for who can trap the wind? It will not enter without an exit. So life and death are both openings, through which Wind blows us into brief existence here, then back to Him again.”

  The hot endseason wind moved sluggishly around us, igniting the scorn within me. Savannis’s losses were metaphoric; mine were real.

  Savannis had come to speak to me the day after Saft’ir died. I had expected him to see Saft’ir’s suicide as I did—a betrayal of his parental obligation in the very middle of procreation. When he spoke instead of “the will of Wind,” I ordered him out of my house. As he left, he said he hoped I might come to understand some day.

  “Understand! Understand a murderer? May the Wind give me Broghen before I understand Saft’
ir!”

  The very thought of it, as I stood upon the dais, made me ill with rage. That and the sight of every Ghen in the city standing at attention as Chair Ghen delivered the final eulogy. When he finished, Council Chair stepped forward.

  It was hard to watch the sorrowing attention of the Ghen to Chair Ghen’s unintelligible words, but it was worse to hear his praise of Saft’ir translated by Council Chair into my own language, the musical, lilting language of the Bria. I felt betrayed to see so many Bria weeping, and when I saw my parent was among them, I had to grit my teeth to keep from screaming out my rage.

  Anger gave me strength. I rode my anger, rode it like a tempest in fear and trembling even while I lashed it higher; because, beneath the fury of my transport, grief waited for me. Such an agony of grief, waiting to entangle me and hold me still, as still as the dying infants within me, condemned by Saft’ir’s death.

  I had gone to the funeral house where Saft’ir’s body lay waiting to be cremated. I was afraid of the Bria and Ghen I would meet there, afraid of the pity in their eyes, sharp enough to pierce my brittle anger. But I had to see his body, had to see and hold in my mind the physical image of our children’s killer. I went, keeping my eye downcast, leaning on my parent—despite my anger, I could barely walk unsupported.

  The door was open. Saft’ir lay stretched out on a long, low table in the center of the front room. Behind the table, the inside door, which led to the crematorium in the back, was closed. I stared down at his body. His left eye was swollen and bruised. I’d been told that a courrant’h had attacked him. The portion of the wall he guarded still bore the marks of its claws where it had tried to climb into our city before he killed it.

  I could see the wounds he had sustained, vicious-looking bites and lacerations, but they need not have been fatal. I almost wished I could believe they were, looking at him so still and lost, even though it would have robbed me of my anger. But no, there was the cut, red and raw across his chest, where he had plunged his own dagger deep and ripped downward, not only through his own heart, no, through four!

  I felt the three fetuses trapped within me twist as I looked at it, as I reached out with my finger and touched it, cold, repelling. I brought my finger to my mouth to taste death and it was even colder against my lips, so cold it burned. As cold as the ache within my womb.

  He hadn’t been mortally wounded. He did not need to die. Ah, but he understood the power of the martyr, and he was right. No more motions were being made to evict Ghen from Council now. He had defeated me. Was that worth our children’s lives?

  I was silent at his funeral, as I had promised my parent. Only for a moment did I let down my anger. Not for sorrow, no, for a fierce joy when Saft’ir’s ashes were thrown to ride the wind into the forest beyond the wall he guarded. It seemed to me, as I watched them scatter on the air, not an honor as the Ghen believed, but a disposal.

  Then the Ghen in solemn unison raised their arms over their heads, claws fully retracted, and turned their backs to the wall to signify that even in death, Saft’ir’s spirit guarded the wall so vigilantly that they may expose themselves defenseless behind it.

  I walked to the steps and down from the dais, as though I believed the ceremony had ended, avoiding the ritual bow to the warrior’s kin. Let Saft’ir’s parent accept it. I was no kin of Saft’ir’s and his child, dying within me, surely owed him no duty. I made my way through the crowd to Maaris, who helped me home without comment. Good. Silence was all I asked of anyone.

  In silence I moved about my house and in silence I made my way to Council when I was stronger. I accepted the unjoined Bria seat I’d fought for, and for which I had lost so much.

  In silence I voted. In silence I climbed Temple Hill, longing for answers, until the Wind’s silence drove me away. For this, too, I blamed Saft’ir; it was he who weighted my prayers with such bitterness they could no longer ascend to the Creator Wind.

  I moved slowly, my body bent over my abdomen as though protecting an open wound. My legs, too heavy to lift, shuffled along the ground, my ears drooped against my head, unresponsive to the sounds of the living around me. Was it just a week ago that I hurried down this same street buoyed up by the thought of all that I intended to accomplish, the years of my life blowing ahead of me like a joyous breeze? Now only the dust of the road rose to meet me, the ground pulled at me with every footfall, and my life loomed ahead as tedious, as repellant, as stillseason. I carried my unborn babies heavy within me. I would carry them in my womb until they died. Everything else was irrelevant.

  ***

  Approaching my house only two weeks after the funeral, I noticed two figures inside: heavy, solid shapes. Their silver-gray scales caught the setting sun as it fell through the window, reflecting flashes of light as they moved. Had they been still, I might not have noticed them. Already I was close enough to make out the glint of their long, sharp teeth as they spoke.

  I drew back quickly. My hands fluttered involuntarily in fear and denial as their presence invoked the morning Saft’ir died. Then my rage rose up again. For the sake of my babies, I hated Saft’ir and for the sake of Saft’ir, I hated all Ghen.

  “Get out!” I screamed, throwing open my door. “Get out of my house!” My words were Bria, but the meaning was clear. They stood transfixed. I glared at them, panting like one maddened. Maaris hurried over. “Rennis, they came to help,” he said, “listen to them.”

  I shook his hand from my arm, still pointing to the open door. I didn’t speak, afraid I might weep with anger, and it be mistaken for weakness.

  “Rennis!” Maaris cried louder, “for the sake of your unborn children, listen to them!”

  I almost struck him, for all that he was my matri. I might have, if I’d known how. Instead I fell to the floor, hating the frailty in me, hating the strength in Naft’ur as he rushed to my side. The other one hesitated, awkward, afraid to touch me.

  I won’t break, I thought. I’m not as fragile as you assume by this weakness in my legs. For two weeks I’ve carried death inside me. How could you, with your living bodies, harm me? The thought braced me. I allowed Naft’ur to help me to a chair while Maaris closed the door.

  “This is Gant’i,” Maaris said, seeing that I was looking at the Ghen beside Naft’ur. I recognized him then, Saft’ir’s friend. I’d seen him when I joined with Saft’ir. At first I thought he was going to take my hand, until Saft’ir stepped ahead of him and reached for me.

  Gant’i was looking at me intently, as though his gaze could draw understanding from me, or offer it. I turned coldly away.

  Maaris and Naft’ur signed rapidly together, something I hadn’t seen since his child was weaned and he left us to return to the Ghen compound. While they signed, I thought over Maaris’s words: “...for the sake of your unborn children...”

  Ghen understand childbirth; they assist at every labor. Was it possible they knew a way to bring my infants to maturity and birth? I felt the cruel beginnings of hope weaken me. My parent cleared his throat and I looked up.

  “Rennis, the Ghen have been talking,” he began. “Saft’ir is a great hero to them...” He hesitated, and well he might. I flattened my ears and widened my eye to show my scorn.

  “They feel it would be a great loss if Saft’ir’s child and yours, also, were not given life. Gant’i has offered—Rennis, consider this carefully, before you decide—Gant’i is offering to take Saft’ir’s place. To join with you. Chair Ghen has agreed to it. But Naft’ur says to warn you there may be risks, to you, and to the babies...”

  I stared at her, the stirring hope bitter in my breast, but all I could say was, “Isn’t Gant’i joined already?” I’d never heard of a Ghen who didn’t join as soon as he reached adulthood.

  “No. Naft’ur says the Bria he wished to join with chose another, and he was permitted to wait before choosing again. It was his decision to offer to help you.” Maaris paused. “He seems to be a Ghen of much understanding.”

  Don’t push me, Matri,
I thought. But, may Wind forgive me, I was already considering it. Until I remembered: “What of his own seed?”

  Maaris conferred with Naft’ur, who spoke to Gant’i. I watched Gant’i closely. This time it was I, trying to fathom him. Was he another Saft’ir? The very thought was surprising; weren’t they all the same? But I wanted to hope. I wanted to break free of the anger that was suffocating me, even while it kept me from despair.

  Naft’ur signed to Maaris, who turned to me. “Gant’i says to thank you for your concern, and to tell you there are things that can be done... potions, I think, to help his child-to-be mature more quickly. You’d have to mate again midseason, so that Gant’i can mate with you three times, even though you are ready for second mating. It’s also possible to delay third mating a little but you would be uncomfortable. Even with all that, there are no guaranties. His infant may still die. But it’s very likely he’d survive, and the three you carry as well.”

  At that moment my anger, sitting like ice inside me, shattered. I wept as I have never wept before or since. I wept for my unborn children and Saft’ir’s, and for Gant’i’s unsuspecting child-to-be. I wept for the sacrifice of innocents and the silence of Wind, and for myself, that I must make a choice between one child and three. I wept to think that I could even consider going from Saft’ir, who had sacrificed his child, to Gant’i, who was willing to sacrifice his. And finally I wept because I feared that I would do it, because life was no more than a series of sacrifices and in the end I’d accept any terms that would give my own younglings life. Creator of Wind, forgive me. Forgive us all.

  I didn’t notice when the two Ghen left. I wept for several removes, while Maaris sat beside me. He didn’t speak or touch me, for which I was grateful. He wouldn’t lessen my grief with platitudes and did not try to hold me from it. He let me cry. When I was done, he set out bowls of stew, and bread, and fresh, hot tea on the table, and we took what nourishment we could.