Walls of Wind and the Occasional Diamond Thief Boxed Set

by Jane Ann McLachlan

  The day we went to a farm... We only visited the farms once. Tyannis was interested, at least, which pleased me, until he stampeded the callans. “It wasn’t me,” he lisped, “It was the wind that did it!”

  While we were apologizing, Saft’ir stalked a laying farmborra, leaped on it and tried to kill it. Its desperate squawking alerted one of the gocks, which flew at Saft’ir. Tyannis roared to his rescue ahead of us, forgetting that his furless skin was less tough than Saft’ir’s. When we pulled them away, Tyannis emerged scratched, bleeding, and hiccuping in a cross between laughter and tears, while Yur’i gasped for air in my arms and Saft’ir struggled to return to the fray.

  Gant’i spoke roughly to Saft’ir, furious, seeing for perhaps the first time the recklessness, the impulsiveness in him, that was bound to bring harm to others. So like his parent. And yet, I wanted to laugh.

  I’d forgiven Saft’ir his suicide, mostly because of Gant’i, who shared more of my life than any other Ghen and Bria shared. I could accept the altruistic purpose behind Saft’ir’s suicide, but I distrusted such impulsiveness. It was too showy, and in a way, too easy. I’d learned, from Gant’i’s daily kindnesses, to see greater honor in smaller sacrifices.

  Gant’i took Saft’ir alone to a Ghen construction site. What use in taking Yur’i? He was too frail for such an occupation and the dust would hurt his laboring lungs. I kept Tyannis home with us, despite his objections; Gant’i would have trouble enough keeping Saft’ir from rushing into danger. I’d hoped Saft’ir would find it interesting—perhaps he needn’t be a hunter?—but I was disappointed in that.

  We took all three on other Ghen outings. Yur’i could not walk on the sloping ground near to the wall but Saft’ir, holding Gant’i’s finger, ran along it as though he owned it and Tyannis insisted, despite my reluctance, on racing with them.

  The forest, even in the daytime, frightened Yur’i. I thought at first it was my shiver of dread in the wind-blocking shadows of the ugappas that made him cling so tightly, his small heart pounding against mine. But Gant’i admitted that Yur’i had trembled thus on every visit.

  I ached for both of them. Here was Gant’i’s life, in the wild forests of Wind, and this was the life expected of all Ghen, including Yur’i.

  “Maybe later,” I signed gently, “when he’s older. He’s no coward, Gant’i. I’ve seen him endure pain and make no sound. I’ve seen fear in his eyes when he can’t breathe, and yet he only cries when he thinks Tyannis or Saft’ir are in danger. He has the heart of a warrior, Gant’i, never think otherwise.”

  Gant’i came to me and held me around his child, leaned his great head against mine and shuddered in the effort not to weep before the children. Yur’i reached out and touched his parent’s shoulder as if to console, or perhaps apologize.

  Tyannis and Saft’ir came to us then, twining between our legs. Feeling them, Gant’i straightened. Taking Yur’i from me, he held him in one arm and hoisted Saft’ir up onto the other while I lifted Tyannis. Gant’i reached to touch my hands and we danced together, a strange and joyous quintet, dipping and circling and laughing into each others’ faces, alone and together in the silent forests of Wind.

  I wanted us to dance this way forever.

  ***

  I didn’t wean the children in their second stillseason. When Gant’i questioned me, I argued, “They were born late, they should wean late.”

  But it was I who wasn’t ready. Saft’ir had stopped on his own, finding the meat Gant’i brought from the Ghen compound for him and Yur’i more filling, and Tyannis, running after him, had to be called back in order to nurse. Yur’i alone was content to cuddle in my arms, but it wasn’t the milk he needed, it was the holding.

  I could never hold him enough. Always he hung back, waiting for me to reach out for him, as though he thought himself undeserving. It hurt me, the look of acceptance in his eyes, expecting to be rejected. Something haunted him, and all my assurances couldn’t erase it. How could I let Gant’i take him away? He would believe I didn’t want him.

  “They’re old enough to be weaned,” Gant’i signed to me finally. “Tyannis begins Bria school soon. Saft’ir and Yur’i must come with me, it’s past time.”

  “No!” my hand slashed downward. “Yur’i isn’t ready. You know he isn’t. He’ll cry in the night when you are on the wall. He’ll stop breathing in the night, when you’re on the wall! I’ll wean him, but I won’t let him go into the Ghen compound.”

  “He’s my youngling.”

  “Then don’t risk his life!”

  “You want to raise my youngling here, among Bria?”

  The question made me pause, until the immediate concerns reclaimed me. “We’re only here for a day,” I signed, before I remembered how frustrating that Bria expression is to Ghen.

  “If he stays, I’ll never see him.” Gant’i looked at me, the question clear in his eyes. I wanted to answer it, to say: Mate with me again, I’ll have your second youngling... but I couldn’t, and how else could we live together?

  “Wait a little longer,” I signed at last.

  ***

  During the daytime Gant’i took Saft’ir and Yur’i to the Ghen compound to join the other two-year-olds learning to hunt and fight. Saft’ir ran ahead as though he were windborne but Yur’i dragged behind, miserable. One day Tyannis asked me why Yur’i couldn’t come with him to school and storytime.

  “Tyannis,” I scolded, “you know that’s impossible.”

  “But Yur’i hates fighting and hunting. Why must he do it?”

  “Because he’s Ghen,” I said in Bria.

  Tyannis looked surprised.

  When they had all gone off I began to sew into Tyannis’s lifedance some strips of fabric he’d recently chosen. There were already five narrow strips sewn onto the long rod from which his lifedance hung. I lifted a brown one and fitted it into place beside the others.

  “Is it the sand where Savannis draws at storytime?” I’d asked when he chose it, thinking of the brown my Matri had sewn into my lifedance when I began attending storytime.“No, it’s the training field, where Saft’ir fights,” he’d replied. “I go there after school and sit with Yur’i. It’s so exciting, Matri!” After a moment, he’d added, “But it makes Yur’i unhappy. Sometimes he has trouble breathing when he watches.”

  Why shouldn’t Yur’i go to school with Tyannis? Wasn’t he better suited to that than to Ghen training? I thought about it as I sewed the brown and beside it, the light gray Tyannis had chosen to represent Yur’i.

  “Gray? Why do you want gray in your lifedance?” I had asked Tyannis.“It’s Yur’i, Matri. And this,” he chose another, slightly darker gray, “is Saft’ir.”

  When we got home, he looked at my lifedance. “That’s you,” he said, pointing to the strip that was the color of my pelt. “And that looks like Tarris.” He touched the piece that represented my sibling.

  “You have a good eye,” I said, smiling, but I felt my heart contract as it always did when I thought of all that Tyannis missed by having no sibling. Tyannis’s attention was still on my lifedance. He was looking at the single strip of gray from my childhood, to represent Naft’ur, who quickened my seed before I was born.

  “Didn’t you have a Ghen womb-sibling, Matri?” he asked sadly, using the term he’d invented to refer to Saft’ir and Yur’i.

  “I... didn’t put him in. I didn’t really get to know him.”

  “I’m sorry, Matri,” he said, and blew into my face as though I needed comforting.

  I reached for the darker gray Tyannis had chosen for Saft’ir. About to fit it into place, I paused. Tyannis was not lacking a sibling—he had two. That was the way he saw it, even if he was the only one in all our divided city who saw it so. And he was about to lose them.

  I could prevent it by mating with Gant’i again, by offering to bear his second child.

  But I still had nightmares of my pregnancy. Sometimes the babies in my womb were all dead. Sometimes they were alive, sound
lessly screaming to be born, but I was unable to deliver them. Sometimes they were all Broghen, tearing their way out through my belly.

  I couldn’t go through it again.

  When Gant’i brought Saft’ir and Yur’i home for our evening meal together, Tyannis proudly showed them his lifedance.

  “There’s a lot of gray,” Saft’ir signed, rolling back his lips in a grin.

  “It’s too bad you aren’t... purple!” Tyannis replied, and the three of them giggled at the thought of a purple Saft’ir.

  They came out of the room they slept in, into the front room, where my lifedance hung.

  “There we are again.” Saft’ir pointed to the two strips of gray I’d decided to put into mine, also, after Tyannis chose them for his.

  “Matri doesn’t know his Ghen womb-sibling,” Tyannis signed to them solemnly.

  “He had to, they lived together,” Saft’ir responded. “Maybe he was another color?” They examined the strips of fabric from my childhood with interest.

  “Maybe he was invisible?” Yur’i sometimes came out with strange ideas. “Maybe that’s him?” He pointed to the empty space in my lifedance, to the ragged gray fibers left behind when I tore out the remnants of my first joining.

  “Time to sleep.” I waved them abruptly toward the back room.

  “We’re not invisible, are we, Matri?” Saft’ir signed. I thought of the fabric dyer, who had clearly not wanted to sell the gray pieces to me. Ocallis was the only other Bria I’d heard of whose lifedance included the child of his joined Ghen, and that was only added in memory, when Heckt’er died.

  I patted Saft’ir’s shoulder and reached over to stroke Yur’i’s cheek. “No, you’re both very real.”

  “Goodnight, Matri,” Yur’i signed, rolling his lips back a little.

  I boiled a pot of water and made tea for Gant’i and me. We sat between the open windows sipping it, quiet and comfortable in the earlyseason wind. In the next room I heard Tyannis stir and whisper something in his baby lisp without awaking. On his sleeping mat, Yur’i slept deeply; he hadn’t wakened breathless for awhile. Perhaps he was outgrowing the weakness in his lungs? Beside him, Saft’ir lay dreaming of childish hunts and unsuspecting farmborra.

  “Rennis,” Gant’i signed, “one could say I already have two younglings, Yur’i and Saft’ir. Why should I mate again? What if I only went to the Ghen compound during stillseason? Councilors are joined for life. Why not live together in the seasons that we can?”

  A gust of wind blew in and whirled about us, as cool and strong as the wind on Temple Hill. I turned and looked directly at it, but it kept blowing, blowing onto me.

  I rose from my seat, touching Gant’i’s hands. “Yes. Live with me here.”

  I drew him up beside me and slowly began to sway. We danced together, as we had danced among the trees. And as we danced he blew into my face, and I blew into his.

  Council Relations

  (Briarris)

  “The Broghen that attacked Mant’er has been found. It wasn’t one of ours.”

  Council Chair’s statement was followed by a nervous stillness among the Bria councilors. I felt a turmoil in my stomach, and for a moment I was nauseous. Had the fans stopped? No, I could feel their forced breeze, yet still I felt ill. Not one of ours? I looked at Igt’ur, sitting beside me in the small room where closed-Council met.

  In the eight years we’d been joined, I’d learned to recognize small indicators of his mood. He was sitting still, the muscles around his eyes drawn tight, his nostrils slightly flared. The rapidity of his breathing and the fingers of his left hand, claws slightly extended, drumming on the chair arm, gave him away. Chair Ghen’s statement, which Council Chair had just translated for the Bria in the room, had also caught him by surprise.

  Igt’ur and I had been admitted to closed-Council after we’d been on Council for six years. We were now among the senior councilors who met weekly in this small room adjacent to Council Chambers. Here, all the major decisions were made. Not that it came as a surprise. How could one not know, when five out of six times the senior councilors voted unanimously on a significant issue, and everyone knew closed-Council had met the day before? But no one objected. We’d all make closed-Council eventually. During our first six years we were gathering experience. Meanwhile, our ideas were listened to, even sometimes adopted.

  Igt’ur hadn’t lived with me since his youngling was weaned three years ago, but we were still considered joined; we shared a language and sat together on Council. Council Ghen knew they would mate only once. If Igt’ur had minded that, he would have refused to join with me. Only a child wastes time regretting a decision already made. The wind blows on and one must keep one’s footing.

  Chair Ghen was speaking again. I waited for Council Chair to translate.

  “The Broghen was white, as Mant’er claimed, underneath all the black river mud crusted on its scales and fur. Not fair, like Briarris, there, is—” I jumped a little at the mention of my name “—but all white, skin and scale and fur. Also it was undersized, no bigger than a large Ghen.”

  He paused. I heard the tremble in his voice. It frightened me as much as the news he offered.

  Igt’ur had arrived at my house only two removes ago, urging me to come with him at once to Council Chambers. I’d been astonished to see him, and even more shocked at the idea of a Council meeting being called during still-season. But when we arrived many of the senior councilors were already here. We’d waited, catching our breath, until everyone in closed-Council arrived.

  Chair Ghen spoke again. Then Gant’i rose and addressed the Ghen councilors. I stared at Igt’ur, wishing I could hear through his ears. At least Chair Ghen kept his comments short, allowing Ghen and Bria councilors to learn the news more or less together. When Gant’i sat down, Council Chair stepped forward.

  “The Broghen which attacked Saft’ir many years ago was also white, and not full-sized. Gant’i burned its remains before they could be seen by young Bria, and he confirms this. Moreover, a third was sighted by a hunting triad which just returned yesterday. It was on our side of the Symamt’h river.” He paused to steady his voice.

  I found myself still with fear. One white Broghen might be a natural, if unusual, occurrence. Not two, or worse, three. None of us Bria councilors had ever left our peninsula; many had not even visited the farms since childhood. The northern forest was enormous; the Symamt’h, with the grasslands and mountains beyond it, was no more than a story told by the Ghen, more distant to us even than the stars, which at least we could see. But something in the way he said, “our side of the Symamt’h” filled me with dread. I could see it had a similar effect on the others.

  “Char’an, who sails our boat to the southern lands, has been questioned. He doesn’t remember any white Broghen infants coming from our city.” Council Chair paused again. I was acutely aware of the tightly-shuttered windows on either side of us, the slow rotating fan which barely moved the hot, sluggish air, the heavy stillness outside, and the tense stillness inside.

  Drawing in a deep breath, Council Chair continued. “This suggests two possibilities. There may be some creature in the south, unknown to us, with which the Broghen we release are able to breed. We don’t know if that’s possible; we can’t be sure that it’s not.”

  Darillis, a year away from being Council Chair, slowly slid from his seat onto the floor, unconscious. It will be bad next year when he’s in charge, I thought, but at the same time I was glad of the interruption, and more than a little relieved that it hadn’t been me who caused it. A number of councilors were lowering their heads and taking deep breaths. The Ghen lifted Darillis onto the table, closer to the overhead fan, and his joined Ghen, Samm’ar, remained beside him, swishing his hands above Darillis’s face to create more air movement.

  Samm’ar and Igt’ur were about to carry Darillis to the infirmary when he regained consciousness. “Take me home,” he whispered faintly.

  We all had to wait while he was
being carried to his home before the meeting could continue. The prolonged break was both a relief and a torment. How could Darillis bear not to hear the rest? But he’d always been one to look sideways at the wind.

  It gave me time to think. Many had said that Mant’er was delusional, that he’d exaggerated the strangeness of the Broghen on his hunt. Given the state he was in, and the fact that he’d been attacked in the dark, their dismissal was understandable. But I’d believed him, mostly because Ocallis had; I just hadn’t considered what that might mean. I’d been too concerned with the idea of Ocallis joining with him again. Why couldn’t Ocallis be like Rennis, and simply let Mant’er live with him?

  Not that it was that simple. Anarris, representing Single-by-Choice, had brought a complaint against Rennis and Gant’i to me as Council Relations. When I refused to move it in Council, Anarris took it to Triannis.

  Triannis occupied the single Bria seat that Rennis left vacant when he moved back into his joined councilor’s seat, once again representing the year after mine. Triannis was a member of Single-by-Choice. Most of the young Bria who chose not to be joined were members, and Triannis had graduated top of his class in City Admin. He was actually, therefore, more qualified

  than the joined Bria who represented his year. But Triannis would never make Council Chair, or even closed-Council, without a joined Ghen, and he’d never act as Council Relations; his focus was too narrow. Like it or not, that task remained mine.

  Anarris and his group had stirred up the Bria in a number of the houses near Rennis’s, to complain against the living conditions between Rennis and Gant’i and their three younglings. They filled the public gallery the day Triannis brought forward his motion to disallow Gant’i to live with Rennis. But Rennis and Gant’i were legally joined for life, as all councilors are, and there is no law requiring a Ghen to live in the Ghen compound.