A Wind From the South

by Diane Duane

  “You’ll be my guest in Kussnacht,” Gessler said, putting his gauntlet back on. “For so long as it takes to make sure I’m safe from your second bolt, or any other. Your life will be hostage to these people’s behavior.” He glanced around at Walter Furst, and Werner Stauffacher, and Theo.

  “And you might last a while,” Gessler added, smiling at Tel. “Though we’ve never been able to do anything about the damp in Kussnacht, especially in the cells. It’s those walls dug in under the lakeshore: the water always leaks through. But a man can last a long time down there, if he’s strong enough.”

  Gessler reined his horse about. “Come on,” he said to his men, “bring him along. If we leave now, we can be up the lake in time for dinner.”

  “Wili!” Tel’s wife cried.

  “It’s all right, Edi,” Tel said, loudly, as the soldiers marched him off toward the lakeshore. “The boy’s safe. Now God will help me.”

  That one, or maybe another, Mariarta thought fiercely.

  Gessler and his people marched away toward the lake, the soldiers in the rearguard looking most nervous. The marketplace did not clear: it seemed to be getting fuller of people by the moment, gathering around Walter Furst and Hedwig and Tel’s child, the sounds of leftover triumph being supplanted by a growing growl of rage. Theo, next to Mariarta, was looking as distressed as she had seen him in a long time.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Mariarta said. “Theo, something’s got to be done.” She was getting an idea....

  “Damn right it does,” Theo muttered. “If these people don’t quiet down before tomorrow, everything’s going to go off prematurely, we’ll be lost—”

  “You take care of that. Theo, I have to lie down and be left alone for a while. Where can I go?”

  “Walter’s would be best. Mati, what are you thinking of?”

  “What I went for,” Mariarta said, angry, and delighted. “What I came back with. The power to do something. Come on!”

  Together they made their way hurriedly to Walter Furst’s house. Mariarta put her head into the kitchen as they passed and said, “Lida, how are things?”

  “What? Oh, hello, Mati,” said the daughter of the house, serene and unsurprised as always. “Did you find what you went for?”

  “Yes, and I’m going to use it. I’ll be in the back bedroom—don’t let anyone up there, will you?”

  Lida glanced, smiling, at the crossbow that stood by the kitchen table, and nodded Mariarta and Theo up the stairs.

  Mariarta told Theo the bare bones of what had happened to her in the mountains. Then, “Theo,” she said, sitting on the edge of the goosefeather bed in the tiny upstairs bedroom, “what was it Walter said? ‘He’s quite a rower?’”

  “Gugliem? Yes indeed. You saw the arms on the man— What are you thinking of?”

  “Tell Lida,” Mariarta said, “if she’s got any wash on the line, she’d better bring it in. Go on, Theo, go help Walter calm people.”

  Theo nodded, went out and shut the door.

  Mariarta lay back on the bed. She had been trembling with anger and anticipation for a while; now, as she shut her eyes, it got worse. Now, Glinargiun, she thought. I see the sting in the tail of this bargain. The little things—goading weather that already wants to do something into doing it, killing a wind that’s blowing already, or nudging it here and there—they’re easier than they were. But I know no more about the great workings than I did before. The lightning, the storm out of a clear sky....

  With her eyes closed it was as if they sat in the white marble house in the undermountain country, Diun lounging on the couch across from her, in her black and moon-silver, idly fingering her wine-cup, the moonbow leaned against the arm of the couch. Around her left wrist, a sizzling bracelet, the thin, coiled lightning of the bowstring, still curled. Mariarta saw the like around her own left wrist, the restless burning flicker of it making the muscles of the hand twitch. So? Diun said.

  “So I must give myself into your hands for this working, if it’s to be done—for I don’t know how to do it. I need the föhn.”

  The goddess smiled and stretched. There’s a knack to it, she said. The air must be stirred in the right direction, and other details attended to. She stood, looking sidewise at Mariarta as she did. Odd, though, Diun said, how much politer you are today than a few days ago.

  “Our bargain—” Mariarta said, frowning at her.

  Diun Glinargiun laughed, and picked up the bow. She leaned on the bowstock, bent it backwards: so that Mariarta saw what few mortals have seen and lived, that curve bent gracefully double, and the ragged edge, like a nocked silver razor, now terribly on the outside of the curve, looking like something that, if dropped, might slice open the night. Diun undid the string from around her wrist—or some of it: it seemed to stretch in her hands, and leapt to the lower end of the bowstock, coiled about it—then stretched up to do the same with the upper end. Diun lifted it, looking satisfied. Come, let’s see how things stand.

  She went to the silver door, opened it. Mariarta stood beside her, saw full day outside, and a view she recognized. “Why, that’s the other side of the Lucomagno pass, surely—” The road ran in bright sunshine from their feet, where they stood between the two great gate-peaks of the pass, to the small towns of the Ticino country on the southern side of the mountains, and a veil of golden mist lay over the distant, rough-edged horizon that was the northern foothills of Talia.

  It will be easier for you to work with a place you’ve seen, I think, Diun said. But this is going to take some doing: look at this weather, there’s not a cloud in it! When did you want the föhn, and where?

  “In the lake north of where we were,” Mariarta said. “And right now.”

  Diun laughed, but it wasn’t scornful. Sister-daughter, I’m a goddess, not the One! Even were I in my ancient power, I couldn’t just tell the wind to ‘blow’ and have it blow. There’s more to it than that. Diun scowled at the sunshine. This is going to take a few minutes. And a wind takes time to travel. From here....

  She stood silent, then said, We could pull it over from the north side, but that will take too long. A storm on this side will be quicker. Fortunately there’s cooler air by the sea; we’ll call it to us and start the movement—

  Abruptly everything changed. Mariarta tried to look around, only to find she had nothing to look around with; and what she was seeing was not something that eyes would have helped her see, for it was the air itself. She seemed to be in it, part of it. Strange it was to perceive the solid earth as misty and indistinct, and the air around her as a liquid, shading between translucence and opacity, flowing with unnameable color. Mariarta herself was a flow, but tight and self-contained compared to the lazy movement of the air around her, curling through itself in slow domes or bubbles like the shapes of fair-weather clouds.

  Yes, said the bright flow near her, self-contained like Mariarta’s self in this mode, but with a dangerous-looking edge of light to its swirls and motions. That’s what you see when you look at a cloud: the air shapes it, bubbling up as the sun and the ground warm it. But now it’s cold we need. Over there—

  Lying low off on the eastern horizon, Mariarta saw a mass of darkly luminous color, more like a lake than a flow. It’s not very cold, this far north, but it will serve our purposes. Call it!

  Mariarta scarcely knew how to begin, but she drew herself up, or pulled her flow together, imperiously; she was mistress of winds, they were hers to command; come!

  There was sluggish movement, a sloshing in that distant, viscous puddle. I can do better than that, Mariarta thought, annoyed, drawing herself together again. COME HERE!

  The sloshing got more emphatic. Slowly she could see it starting to creep toward them. Mariarta was about to call it again, more forcefully, when the other bright flow reached out, laughing, edged with flickers like lightning, and stopped her. Don’t! Diun said. That air’s heavier than this—push too hard and you won’t be able to stop it! It’ll be here shortly,
and you’ve other business. You must get on top of this warm air and push it down—

  Mariarta began to work her way to the top of the lighter-colored flows in which she and Diun seemed to swim. Not too high— Diun said. Mariarta began trying to push the warm flows down: but it was like jumping on a feather bed—it went down in one spot, billowed up in another.

  No! Diun said, laughing again. All at once. Define a large flat area and push everywhere at once—

  Mariarta did that. It was more difficult than calling the “heavy” air from by the sea. Strange to think of air being heavy, Mariarta thought, as she held it down, held it—

  Here it comes, Diun Glinarguin said, sounding pleased. Don’t lose it now! Hold it down—

  Creeping on over them, like a tide of dark honey, the cold air came. Now, said Diun, indicating the southern side of the mountains, tip the edge of the zone you’re holding up, just a little, toward them. Not too much—!

  Mariarta did as she was told, straining now, for the warm air wanted to go all in the same direction in a rush. Be still, she told it; do as you’re bid! It did, but barely: as Diun had warned her, the air had its own ideas. All the same, Mariarta held it, held it—

  Now! Diun cried. Let it go!

  Mariarta released her control. The warm bright air shouldered up into the cold air, which was trying to sink through it, like water. Sudden swirls of color, light and dark, broke out all over the masses of air as they mingled; and something terrible and wonderful started to happen, a tingling and burning all through Mariarta’s self, like the prickling of the bowstring on her wrist: a feeling that some great power was about to discharge itself. Mariarta looked at the flow of light and color that was Diun, in this mode, and saw her substance all sparked through with the same anticipatory power, a deadly light, but delightful to see.

  Yes, Diun said, sounding dry through her enjoyment: now you know why the gods are so fond of throwing thunderbolts around. Look: it’s starting!

  The masses of churning color were swirling in a great eddy now, that dangerous light flickering all through, as the eddy spun like a top, wobbling, and its wobbling took it closer and closer to the mountains. That’s what we want, Diun said, looking at the storm with a practiced eye. There goes the rain—

  Mariarta looked, but saw nothing. That curdling at the bottom, the goddess said. Only one thing to do now. Push the whole business toward the mountains. Push hard!

  Mariarta drew herself together as she had before and ordered the storm forward. It ignored her. Annoyed, she did as Diun had shown her before, chose a whole wide area to press against, and set herself against it as if she were trying to push one of Walter Furst’s beerkegs out the kitchen door. As always, the mass got stuck, resisted her—then abruptly gave, so that Mariarta “fell” forward—

  Heaven around us, Diun said, sounding impressed, that should do it! Quick, before it gets away—put it on, wear it—

  Mariarta saw the Diun-flow veil herself in the flickering, roiling mass of the storm, now lumbering toward the southern side of the mountains as a draft-horse lumbers, slowly at first, but gaining unstoppable speed. Mariarta did the same, pulling the flows of the storm around her like a cloak. Now, for the first time, she could feel the storm as if she had a body: the wind howling, pushing at her back, whipping her loosened hair about her. Not far from her, edged in sizzling blue-white light, she caught sight of a cloud-veiled form, a young woman, and heard Diun’s wild laughter as the wind rose and charged up the southern slope of the mountain chain—

  Mariarta laughed too with exhilaration as they rode the screaming air up the face of the mountains, pausing for only a breath at the crests. Then she whooped like someone watching a cattle-fight as they and the wind together poured down the far side, rushing down at speeds she had never dreamed of. The wind around them, bizarrely, began to get hotter as they went further north, sliding down the mountains, gaining speed. The air started to prickle and chafe: but this didn’t decrease the exhilaration, only added an edge to it, a feeling of righteous wrath—and this was so close to what Mariarta had been feeling a while ago that she fell into the storm’s sudden rage wholeheartedly. Not far from her through the roil of cloud and the raging air she could glimpse Diun, roped about with lightning, and hear her laughter, not merely wild now, but malicious—the mother of the tschalareras indeed, who would rip off thatch, shatter the forests, fan any spark into a blaze. But in her present mood Mariarta agreed completely. Death to the cruel ones, destruction to the oppressors; let them have the storm they’ve called down on themselves! Skyfire and the windblast, death and vengeance!

  The world was visible again, now. Mariarta could see the mountain snows melt and shift under the breath of the föhn-wind, saw the avalanches thunder in their wake; and she laughed recklessly to see them, Diun’s laughter mirroring her own—or was it the other way around? They rode the wind low over Andermatt, blasting half its northern bannwald flat in their passing and uprooting the oldest trees at the Bazgand ridge-crest; they poured through the Schöllenen gorges until the Reuss rose and thrashed in its steep banks like a bullcalf having the first nose-ring put in, and boulders crashed from the Bruggwald and just missed the Bridge; they plunged past Göschenen, Wassen, Amsteg, Silenen, Erstfeld, a week’s journey in twenty minutes’ time. And in a mass of black cloud, lightning lashing from it, the rain and the hail hammering everything in their wake, they plunged between Attinghausen peak and the Eggbergen heights above Altdorf, out onto the Lake of Uri.

  Mariarta looked down from the storm in absolute satisfaction to see the water actually go concave beneath them with the force of the wind, leaping about in huge shocked waves that shook their white crests and plunged in all directions. Diun was still laughing at the heart of the storm, and Mariarta shouted at her, How do you stop it?

  Stop the wind once started? You know how. But Diun was laughing on a different note, as if Mariarta might find it more work than she expected.

  I don’t mean that! I mean, how do we get off the crest of the storm and hold still? There’s business I need to watch here.

  Silly one, just stop yourself and tell it to go on without you. Diun shot her a look fringed with lightnings. Myself, I think I will go on ahead. Your concerns here aren’t mine.

  But— Too late: that nest of skyfire had shot on ahead of Mariarta like a meteor, and as for her, the idea of stopping had stopped her. She hung in the thunderclouds while the screaming wind poured past, and the water beneath her was only dimly visible through a fog of spray whipped off the wavecrests. The Uri Lake hunched itself up in waves like hills, black and deadly-looking under the lead-black sky. They couldn’t have come far in this short time— But who knew which way this wind might have blown them? Mariarta paced through the clouds, anxious, peering downward through the wind and spray.

  There, under the livid sky, half concealed between one wave and the next, she saw the boat. It must have looked proud at the Altdorf pier—a big sixteen-oar boat, clinker-built, with Gessler’s arms let into either side of its prows: tall-masted, with a gaily striped sail. At least, it must have looked so until the wind hit it. Now its mast was snapped, and the sail lay in tatters in the gunwales, a sodden mass. Two men were huddled by the sail, and a man in the stern stared desperately into the murk for any sight of shore, while nine others fought with the oars. What had happened to the other oarsmen, after the first onslaught of wind had hit them, Mariarta could guess. For the rest, a man sat amidships with his cloak huddled about him, clutching onto his head a hat with a bedraggled peacock’s feather in it. The remaining man, halfway between the steersman and the man in the hat, was in chains.

  On sight of him, Mariarta stepped lower in the storm, not more than twenty or thirty feet above their heads, and did one thing first. She grabbed a fistful of wind and backhanded the hat with the peacock feather off Gessler’s head and into the side of a passing wave, so that he could watch the wave gulp it down, with intent. Then she leaned closer.

  Mariarta di
dn’t need the wind to hear thought in this mode: she was the wind, and could hear thought for herself. The boat was full of terror, except for one island of alert calm: Tel. Nothing could shake him—he knew some providence was looking after him. Mariarta smiled grimly, bent lower through the cloud.

  There, she said to the storm. A wave leapt and smashed two of the oars against the side of the boat. Splinters flew. Gessler ducked, clutching the top of his balding head now instead of a hat. The two poor soldiers who had been rowing collapsed into the gunwales, and another wave, eager, yanked the helm-lever out of the steersman’s hands, throwing him right past Tel and practically at Gessler’s feet.

  Poor landsmen, Mariarta thought, but without any pity—it was like the Austriacs to send people out who were unfit for their work. She watched with approval as the steersman grabbed Gessler by the sleeve and shouted, “Sir, we’re too close to the shore, we’re going to smash onto the rocks if something isn’t done! We can’t handle this weather. But that man can—” He jerked his head at Tel. “We all know how he got away last time. If he saved that man, he can save us—!”

  You at least are going to live, Mariarta thought with utmost satisfaction. She bent closer, picked another oar, one lying loose in its locks near Gessler, and threw a wave at it that broke it so close to the handle, Gessler had to jump back so the flying shards would miss him. “For God’s sake, sir,” the steersman yelled, “give order to unfasten him so he can help us! He knows these waters!”

  Gessler nodded, his jaws clenched.

  The steersman bent over Tel with the keys, unlocked the fetters on his wrists and ankles. “Right,” Mariarta heard Tel shout, “row, all row! If we can get past this spur of rock we’re heading for—”

  A couple of the poor boatmen screamed, and one hid his face, seeing through the spray the mountain of black wet rock that loomed before them. “Shut up,” Tel bellowed, “it’ll be quieter on the north side of that, just row!”