by Kit Peel
“It wouldn’t have been her doing the choosing. No, if it is Mugasa, the earth has brought her back in the form she most disliked,” said Denali.
“To punish her?”
“Or to help her. There is sense to this, but it would be a dangerous path.”
“I will go to the valley and see her for myself.”
“No, Foehn. If Sh’en Shiekar has tracked her down, he’ll be watching for any threat to her.”
“Then what? We can’t leave her alone, hoping that the earth spirit, or even Sh’en Shiekar himself, will be unable to return her to power.”
“We have no control over Sh’en Shiekar, but the earth spirit can be stopped, though not by you.”
The wolf pack had almost reached the two spirits. Their leader padded forward. Denali crouched down, caressing the wolf’s ears.
When he finished talking, the wolf sprang away, calling to the others. Denali watched the pack return the way they had come. Foehn slipped her hand in his.
Dipping a finger in the purple paste, Thwaite drew a symbol in the snow. Wyn felt a shiver run through her when she saw what he had made.
☯
“You recognize the symbol, don’t you?” said Thwaite.
“What is it?” whispered Wyn.
“Yin and yang, the mark of the two dragons. The dark swirl represents the fire dragon, and the white is the ice dragon. The two are soulmates, born in each other’s arms. The dots represent their hearts. The white dot is Sh’en Shiekar’s heart, which he has given to you. The dark dot is your heart, which he now holds. He is your equal, your eternal other.”
As he spoke, Wyn heard a faint roar of wind, calling over and over. Mugasa. Now that she recognized the voice, Wyn realized that she had heard it all her life, whispering in and out of her dreams, searching for her. It was the voice that she’d always pushed away, often waking with a start in her bed at Mrs. March’s house, then at Highdale, alone in the stillness of the night.
She bent down to the yin-yang symbol, tracing over it with a finger.
“His heart in mine. And mine in his,” she whispered.
“He’ll be out there, somewhere in the world,” said Thwaite. “Can you sense him?”
As much as she felt a great longing to search for the owner of the voice, a part of Wyn resisted looking for him. She was torn between the two emotions, before, finally, she shut her eyes and whispered his name, “Sh’en Shiekar.”
Everything was speed and light and sky. Her thoughts rushed over snowbound towns, glinting in the afternoon sun, through clouds hurried along by stiff winds. Wyn saw a huge man with dark hair that fell to his shoulders, and a stern-faced woman at his side. They were striding through a frozen wood. Then she was rising up high above the storm clouds and she saw Tawhir staring downwards at the man and the woman. As she watched him, Wyn saw Tawhir look up, searching this way and that. Was something coming through the clouds? Was he looking towards her?
Wyn tore her thoughts away, opening her eyes and replying to Thwaite, “No, I can’t.”
“You’re sure?”
It was just the boy her thoughts turned to, not a dragon, and she hated herself for it.
“I said I was.”
The earth spirit was shaking his head.
“No, I don’t believe it. The love between the dragons is legendary. For thousands of years the world has changed, but at the center of things was always you and he; always together, as you were from the first. Though you have been reborn, you are still Mugasa. You must still be able to sense him.”
“I CAN’T! I WON’T!” Wyn yelled, and for a split second there was a change in her voice. A wildness, the roar of wind. Gold light glowed in the trees around her. They trembled. The earth spirit was rocked back. He fastened one great hand on the closest tree trunk, the other reaching for Pip, who pressed herself to his legs.
The anger left Wyn’s body, leaving her suddenly exhausted. She reached out to Pip, but the collie stayed close to Thwaite, watching her from the corner of an eye.
“There is another story told of your death,” said the earth spirit, stroking Pip’s head. “One that tells of a terrible rift between you and Sh’en Shiekar. It is said that you fought over what was happening to the world. While he refused to take action against humans, you hated the destruction they were causing and had secretly begun backing the rebel spirits. Not long afterwards you died.”
“Was it him? Did he kill me?”
“This story is only a rumor. No one knows if it’s true.”
“But you believe it, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t,” said Thwaite, but Wyn saw the tension in his face.
Just then, Pip gave a low growl and the earth spirit glanced up. He held a finger to his lips and stepped close to Wyn, his eyes gleaming momentarily.
John and his father were coming slowly towards them, staring up into the branches of every tree they passed.
“There’s no buds coming that I can see,” said David Ramsgill. “And what about these bees? Where are they?”
“They were here. You saw the photos,” insisted John. His father frowned at him.
“That I did.”
“They were coming out from under an ash.”
“The tree was probably rotten and the bees made their hive in its trunk.”
“The tree was fine. It’s around here somewhere. I just can’t …” As John scanned the wood, he looked straight at Wyn. She was sure he would see her, and for a brief moment his gaze paused, before moving on.
“I can’t stop the quarrying for the sake of some bees. Even if they’ve survived up until now, they won’t for much longer.”
“You just don’t care, do you?”
“I’ve got fifteen men relying on me for work. Most of them have got families. I’ve got to think of them.”
“There’s more to life than money.”
“John, don’t be so naive.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. There’s precious little work around here. What do you think will happen if my business goes under? We might be all right for a while, but many of my men won’t be able to stay in the dale. They’ll have to head for the cities and fight for whatever scraps are there. And I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”
“There must be some other way.”
David Ramsgill suddenly tilted his head in Wyn and Thwaite’s direction, frowning, his eyes flicking between them and the purple stain on the snow.
“I wish there was, but there’s not,” he said, starting to walk towards them. “If it’s not me quarrying Skrikes Wood, it’ll be someone else. Better it’s done locally, to benefit local people.”
He stopped just a few paces away, so close that the puffs of condensation from his breath blew around Wyn. Just then, one of the earth spirit’s blackbirds swooped out of the trees, passing so close to his face that David Ramsgill stepped back in surprise. The bird landed on the branch of an oak, close to John, and began chattering.
With a last, hard look in Wyn’s direction David Ramsgill turned back to his son.
“We’d best be getting home.”
“I want to keep looking.”
“There’s nothing to see. Come on, John.”
David Ramsgill began making his way downhill through the wood. Wyn saw the boy’s shoulders fall. He put his hands in his pockets and followed his father. The iron gate clanged. Wyn watched father and son walking along the road to Bewerley.
“How did they not see us?” said Wyn.
“I had them thinking that we were a tree stump. It wasn’t easy, mind. That one’s got the gift.”
“John?”
“In time, perhaps. It often passes from parent to child. For now it’s his father who has the gift, though he doesn’t use it.”
“David Ramsgill?” said Wyn, astonished. “
But if that’s true, you could tell him about the wood, you could make him stop the quarrying.”
“He’s closed his heart to the earth. Only when his heart opens will his eyes follow suit.”
“What if his heart doesn’t open? You’ll stand by and watch Skrikes Wood be destroyed?”
“There are rules that govern my kind; rules that I can’t break, however much I might want to. All I can do is try to open the hearts of humans through the beauty of the territories we protect.”
“Even now?” said Wyn, taking in the snowbound landscape, the deep smell of decay in the wood.
“I’ll keep my faith in the earth and in the opening of hearts,” said Thwaite. “Summer isn’t over yet.”
All of a sudden Wyn’s stomach lurched and Tawhir landed with a thump beside her. The wind fell silent. What snow was still in the air drifted down, clinging to the wind spirit’s dark clothes.
“What did that boy want?” demanded Tawhir.
Was he jealous? The idea that he was pleased Wyn.
“None of your business,” she replied, suppressing a smile at his evident annoyance. “So where have you been?”
“We have unwelcome visitors, not far from here. An ice spirit and a fire spirit to the west and an earth spirit to the east; one who can move the land with his mind alone.”
Thwaite’s face tightened.
“Describe him.”
“Brown skin, long hair to his shoulders, stronger than any earther I’ve ever seen.”
“Denali,” muttered Thwaite. “The greatest earth spirit of the Americas.”
“That was my guess,” said Tawhir.
Wyn recalled the enormous man she’d seen in her mind’s eye, in the frozen wood.
“Do you think he’s joined the rebel spirits?” said Thwaite.
“Has he joined them or is he leading them? We’ll know soon enough. He’s heading in this direction.”
“Towards Nidderdale?”
“Wyn can stop him.”
“She’s not ready.”
“What have you been doing with her all day? Hugging trees? Letting her hang out with her boyfriend? Wake up, earther! Summer ends tomorrow night and Denali may be here sooner than that. We need Mugasa back. If you can’t help Wyn, I will. It’s time she learned about wind.”
Tawhir’s gray eyes fixed on Wyn, making her feel as uncomfortable as she’d ever felt around him.
“In your past life you were the greatest of all flyers. It is said that you could cross the world in under an hour and silence hurricanes with a single thought. What do you say, Wyn. Will you let me show you what you’ve forgotten?”
Tawhir held out his hand to her, and though all of Wyn’s instincts rose up in her, warning her to refuse him, she imagined the boy racing into the sky above the dale and had a fierce longing to be flying with him.
“All right. I’ll do it,” she said.
17
—
“There are three groups of winds you must learn to control,” said Tawhir, his long hair streaming behind him. They had climbed to the top of Skrikes Wood and onto an outcrop that was known in the dale as Eagle Rock. Minute by minute, the winds had picked up, lifting snow from the treetops and casting it over the dale
“The weakest are the low, local winds,” continued Tawhir, “hardly more than gusts and breezes that skim fields and brush through woods. Above them are the middle winds, capricious and changeable, dominating most of the sky. The last group are the high winds, known as the dragon winds; great torrents of air that flow across the uppermost reaches of the atmosphere. They are strongest of all winds and the hardest to control. A handful of wind spirits have some sway over them, but only the dragons can truly dominate them.”
Beside Tawhir, Thwaite stood with his axe at the ready, glancing in all directions.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, boy. Bringing Wyn out here, in the open, when Denali and who knows who else are coming …”
“Is a risk we have to take. Summer ends tomorrow and I can’t teach her about wind in your hole under the wood. So you keep watching and let me do the teaching.”
There was an authority to Tawhir now that Wyn had only seen glimpses of before. All of his irreverence and flippancy had gone. Somehow she knew that this was the true Tawhir that she was seeing, and it made him more familiar to her than ever.
“Wyn, are you listening?”
“Three kinds of winds. Got it!”
“Then show me. Call out to the winds all around us and silence them.”
Wyn glanced around at the enormity of her task; at the trees bent under the whip of the gale. She was being buffeted where she stood, snow stinging her bare legs and face. Her heart was pounding wildly, both in warning and in excitement. How many times in her childhood had she rushed outside in storms and whirled around, imagining herself bending the storm to her will. Had she had this power all along? She flung up her hands to the sky, calling out in a clear, strong voice to the winds, telling them to become calm.
They blew on, oblivious to her.
“What do you think you’re doing?” interjected Tawhir.
“What you told me.”
“I told you to silence the winds! This isn’t earth you’re dealing with, or water. Winds only understand strength. Dominate them, force them to obey your will.”
Wyn was filled with an overwhelming desire to force the boy off the rock. If he saw her anger, he ignored it, instead moving directly behind her and stretching an arm next to her cheek, so she could see where he was pointing.
“You see them? Four low winds and, higher up, two middle winds,” he said, his voice loud in her ear as he jabbed his finger at different parts of the sky.
Doing her best not to be distracted by his closeness, Wyn concentrated on the storm. At first it was chaos to her. It sounded like all the birds of the cavern calling and chattering together, their voices a cacophony of dawn chorus. But slowly, with the utmost effort, the different shrieks and howls of the winds became clear to Wyn. There were half a dozen winds jumbled up in the sky — two middle winds, competing with each other to see who could blow hardest, and four low winds, racing excitedly about like spring hares, jostling each other up and down the sides of the dale and boxing at the walls and the woods.
“Yes,” said Tawhir in her ear, “you have them now. Take the middle winds first.”
Not wanting to be told what to do, Wyn reached her thought out to the low winds, commanding them to grow quiet. She felt them check a little, becoming aware of her, before scampering away with howls of defiance. Wyn grew angry. As she did, she felt her will strengthen. Now the low winds did take note of her, forced to abandon their wild play. They came unwillingly, fighting to be rid of her command, and it took all of Wyn’s stubbornness and anger to make them obey her. Reluctantly they became still, obeying her will even as they were fighting it.
Now Wyn reached upwards, where the two stronger winds raced through the sky, wilder than ever, herding clouds that cast shadows over the dale. And Wyn now knew why Tawhir had told her to take them first; the middle winds were aware of her presence and were going to do their utmost to evade her.
“You’re losing them,” said Tawhir.
Even though he had stopped pointing, he was still pressed close to her, his breath on her cheek. Did some emotion pass between them? Or was it the wind that made him seem to rock a little on his feet?
He stepped away from her.
“The winds, Mugasa.”
There was a coldness to his voice that rekindled Wyn’s anger. She threw her will at the middle winds, but as she did, she lost her grip on the low winds and they sprang back to boisterous life. She brought them back under control and tried again with their more powerful siblings, but for all her efforts, every time she began to get a grip on the middle winds, the low winds escaped. Soon she was gaspin
g for breath at the effort.
“What are you playing at, Mugasa?” shouted Tawhir at her side. “You used to rule the winds!”
“I’m trying!”
“Try harder!”
Wyn snapped her furious stare away from the boy and returned it to the sky. The two middle winds had raced way up, hiding in the clouds. With every last drop of her strong nature, Wyn went after them. She ordered the first wind to be silent. And at once the storm in the dale lessened dramatically. From the corner of her eye, she saw Thwaite and Tawhir’s tense, upturned faces.
Now there was just the final middle wind left and it had no intention of being caught; bucking and twisting so her mind couldn’t get a grip on it. The further from her the wind raced, the harder it was for Wyn to pursue it. And all the time the other winds she had calmed struggled to be free of her. Finally, with the last drop of her strength, Wyn seized the middle wind and brought it under control.
The dale was momentarily quiet. The snow that had been whipped up from the trees drifted down.
Then all six winds were fighting her at once and in their onslaught a lesser wind slipped from her grip, racing away over the river, leaving the alders rocking in its wake. Sensing weakness, all the other winds redoubled their efforts to break free.
“Hold them, Mugasa,” said Tawhir.
She was trying, but already she felt her strength failing. Both middle winds were battering against her will. The strain was making her dizzy. She was losing them.
“Hold them!” yelled Tawhir.
Even as he was shouting at her, it was already too late. The five winds burst free from Wyn’s will. The brief calm that had filled Nidderdale was lost in the renewed fury of their voices.
Her head spinning, Wyn dropped to her knees.
“Call them back,” said Tawhir, catching Wyn’s arm. She shook herself free, but he held her again in an iron grip.
“I can’t,” she gasped.
“Let go of her,” said Thwaite, towering over Tawhir, but as he reached for the boy, one of the middle winds came hurtling down from the sky, skimming over the rock. The earth spirit was lifted off his feet and thrown into a snowdrift on the edge of Skrikes Wood. Wyn tried to go after him, but Tawhir held her back.
