The Windsingers

by Megan Lindholm

  'I see, then.' Medie's voice reached across the room. 'We wait in the hopes of baiting him in. We do not wish to make him despair of regaining his body, for then he might choose to continue on his way and take another body elsewhere.'

  'Exactly.' Rebeke's voice was scarcely more than a whisper as she scanned the clear skies of the window world. Her finely scaled hands rested lightly on the wooden sill. 'I do not think I shall have to wait much longer.'

  'Did you leave word we were to be notified when his aura was felt on this plane?'

  'Of course.' Rebeke turned back, nodding briskly. 'But I have not told my apprentices whom we await. The portion of aura he casts now is so different from the whole that I do not think they will suspect. I have described it well enough for them to know it when they see it.'

  'You do not trust them enough to tell them what we have here?' Medie's long fingers drummed lightly on the box before her.

  Rebeke crossed the room to resume her seat. 'It is not a matter of trust, Medie. They are so very young, so very full of the idealism of the Windsingers. I judged it best not to distract them with too many possibilities, or with thoughts that might divide their loyalties. Choices and loyalties are alarmingly clear at their age. Some might misinterpret what we do, might see it as treachery. I saw no need to alarm them.'

  'Wise. If we succeed, they will be under our protection. And if we do not... well, I am neither so old nor so cynical that I would enjoy seeing their innocence pay for our daring. By keeping them free of knowledge of our undertaking, you have also kept them free of what some might call our guilt. Well done, sister.'

  A slightly awkward silence fell. After a time, Medie began to shift on her stool. 'I could wish for a more comfortable seat.'

  'And I. But the very discomfort of it promotes alertness. Shall we be sleeping on velvet cushions or drowsy with wine when Dresh makes his entrance? His power is not as great as he believes it, but he has a certain sly craft. I shall not make the mistake of underestimating him. Be patient, Medie. Afterwards, we shall recline, we shall eat and drink and talk together. For I think that there is much we could tell one another. What the High Council does not say to Rebeke's face, it may whisper to Medie. Am I wrong?'

  Medie gave her a small and bitter smile.

  EIGHT

  Vandien's first day of driving the team was a torture to try the patience of a Dene. He shortened his stride and slowed his pace until he felt like a shackled sacrificial beast, and still he was stepping on the heels of the team. They waddled along, blinking and squinting in the dusty street. Vandien had experimented with prodding them, only to find that whichever beast he prodded would immediately drop to its belly and sleep. The prod, he deduced, was a way of telling them to stop, without putting a limb in danger from their jaws.He ate a portion of his loaf as he dawdled along behind them, and tucked the rest under his elbow. He didn't relish the prospect of stretching it out over the walk to False Harbor, but had no alternatives. There had been times, he remembered, when he had eaten less and walked farther.

  Vandien idled along, musing on the dullness of the landscape. His trail wound through a series of hummocks and dales. Sheep droppings mucked the road before him. Wooly flocks passed him frequently. His skeel showed no interest in the sheep, but Vandien noticed that the flocks bunched and milled whenever the sheep caught the scent of his team. The cursing Human shepherds trotted and shouted, prodding their recalcitrant charges into order. The flocks gave him a wide berth as they surged past. One flock split as it approached him, scattering to dot the hillside. Vandien was relieved that the shepherds blamed their literally mutton-headed charges and not him. Flock after flock passed him and left him behind on their way to winter pasturage. Vandien plodded discouragedly through the fresh sheep manure.

  Evening found him topping a small rise. Frustration had exhausted him more than the walk. From the rise, he saw his road stretching before him like grey ribbon snipped and dropped over the land. Brushy hillocks hid it as it meandered among them. No trees nor shepherds' huts relieved the drabness. The colors of brush and grasses varied from dusty purple to dull green. Vandien sighed as his laggardly team toddled stolidly downhill, their snouty muzzles working.

  Suddenly a long grey tongue whipped from one's muzzle and was sucked back. The beast gave a squeal, and Vandien felt the rope snatched from his hands. The team scuttled off, their flat feet slapping, their low grey backs undulated as they poured down the trail like water spilled from a bucket. The braided leather rope trailed in the dirt behind them.

  Vandien raced after, dove on the reins, and caught them. He was dragged through manure and brush before the knotted end was ripped again from his hands. With a curse he scrabbled to his feet, wiping his welted hands down his tunic front as he ran. He slipped in sheep droppings; he sprang over spiny bushes. He paced the skeel, yelling every word for 'stop' in his not inconsiderable lingual experience. They paid him no heed.

  Furiously he berated himself for giving Web Shell the crystal so soon. He knew where skeel most enjoyed being scratched; he knew what algae to feed them for flux; he knew how to dose them for parasites ? but not how to stop a runaway team. The dreamy-eyed T'cherian had assured him that driving the team was easier done than explained.

  In the distance was a flowing stream and Vandien prayed it would block them. If there had ever been a bridge across it, it was gone now. Ruts in the trail showed that wagons and carts simply went through it, but surely his lizardly, dust-wallowing, sun-snoozing team would not. They would veer suddenly to one side or the other. With luck, he could cut them off.

  Like flounders settling into sea muck, the team flowed into the stream. Vandien saw the harness strain as the beasts struggled to spread themselves flat in the flowing water. The long snaky tails uncoiled and lashed angrily, slapping the water and scoring the hides of harnessmates. Water gouted up around them. A brown wave of silt churned up by sixteen flat feet tinged the water and fled downstream. The harness jerked and tangled as his beasts wallowed, each striving to get under the others, to be flattest in the stream mud. Individual skeel were not distinguishable in the welter of tails and snapping snouts. Scaly shoulders and hips shoved and strained for position.

  As abruptly as their activity had begun, it ceased. Each beast collapsed into the stream mud. All the snouts disappeared. The great staring eyes closed and the tails went lax, streaming with the current of the water. Vandien approached slowly, dread rising in his heart. They looked dead. Cautiously he picked up the braided rein and gave it a tug. There was no response.

  No air bubbles rose from the sunken snouts. No muscle squirmed. Vandien gave a jerk to the reins, but all he saw was the tug of his own effort. He thought of the prod he had dropped when the team had bolted. Perhaps a few whacks with that... but he dared not leave them. He waded into the stream and planted a stout kick on the rump nearest him. No result.

  Then began a miserable period of fruitless effort. Vandien soaked himself trying to pull the beasts from the stream. But no matter which tail or leg he gripped, he was powerless to move the whole. The four skeel had merged into one. All those great flat feet were anchored under mud and gravel. The low-slung bodies hugged the bed of the stream. Water flowed over all.

  Vandien was wet and cold when the sun went down. He stepped back to stare down at the sculptured skeel in the stream. It was hopeless. The best he could do was to wait them out. He had driven the beasts all day over dry roads; they must have some need for air. With many a backwards glance, he trudged up the hill to retrieve his prod and loaf. The skeel had still not stirred when he returned.

  Sitting down on the mossy bank, he set down his prod and drew his belt knife. Slowly he sawed off a portion of the loaf. It was dry stuff now, not chewy so much as crunchy. Then he walked well upstream, though not out of sight of his submerged team, and knelt to drink. Recognizing some flat green leaves that sprouted from the turf, he drew his knife again and grubbed up their root. He rubbed away the soil and washed the root b
undle; cleaned, it was a compressed mass of white grains. He had not eaten stink-lily's roots since he was a child. Even then, he had preferred them boiled to a mush; raw, they had no flavor, just a crisp starchiness. Food was food, he reminded himself glumly. At this rate of speed, his loaf would not last him to False Harbor.

  As he put the last bit of root in his mouth, he heard a sound like a pig breaking out of its wallow. It was a sloshing, sucking sound. Vandien hastily gathered his prod and loaf as the skeel began to stir.

  One was stretching its neck and taking in a lungful of air with a swooshing sound. Its tail was once more curled in a neat coil on its rump. Another began squealing and bubbling until it managed to disentangle its head from its harnessmate's legs. Humping and waddling, they came out of the stream, harness tangled and wet, mud and silt dropping from their low-slung bodies. The water had washed the dust from their flat grey backs. Their fine-scaled hides shone iridescently in the dim moonlight. They were plumper and looked contented now, as they wiggled their snaky bodies and worked their jaws with wet chopping sounds. Vandien watched as they attempted to sort themselves out in their harness. They scuttled along as they did it, and he realized belatedly that they were not going to settle. They were moving away from him across the grassy sward.

  With a cry he sprang after them, remembering this time that the prod was their command to halt. Poking first one and then another, he finally succeeded in getting all four skeel to drop to their bellies and lie motionless. He darted his hand in amongst them to snatch up the wet reins. One of the skeel began to stir. He gave it a firm poke. It settled again.

  Vandien stood over the docile beasts with his hands doubled into fists. Then he forced himself to be calm. He kept the prod under his arm in case any of the beasts should begin to stir, and began to try and straighten the harness. T'cheria did not use buckles. The whole thing was put together with knots. Vandien found them impossible to undo in the dim light, especially since their dunking had shrunk the knots into impenetrable little balls of leather. He contented himself with tugging the harness back into place. Generous use of the prod kept the skeel still.

  He had only one really bad moment. He found one skeel's tail was twined about the harness like a pea vine, instead of recoiled neatly on its rump. The full dark of night was upon them now. Vandien located the tip of the tail by feel. He pried it loose with finger pressure that brought a squeal from its owner. Vandien gave him a sharp prod and he settled again. The tail was as stiff as a woody vine as Vandien unwrapped it from the harness. No sooner had he gotten the tail free than it suddenly lashed out of his hands, its hard tip snapping across his upper arm. The tail sprang back into a neat coil on the skeel's rump.

  Vandien dropped the reins and the prod to grasp at his arm, which stung as if lashed by a whip. Tears sprang to his eyes. He rolled up the loose sleeve of his tunic and fingered the welt that stood up from his skin. It wasn't bleeding. Cold stream water would take some of the sting out of it. He stooped to pick up the prod and found that the team had scuttled off, silently.

  He glared about wildly, but saw nothing. He forced himself to take a deep breath, to stand still and silent. The deep mossy hillocks would not betray their passage, but... there! Vandien heard the rustle of one of the low bushes at the same instant that his eye caught the motion and the sudden sheen of an iridescent hide. He raced after them, but they crested a hillock before he did and he lost sight of them again. Pausing for breath on the rise, he caught the shape of their passage as they hurried over the deep moss. He screamed a curse and raced after them again.

  The slope favored him and his longer legs. The wheel animals got a boot and a prod that dropped them to their bellies; two more whacks and his front pair settled. Vandien snatched up the single rein and wrapped it twice about his wrist. The knotted end he gripped in his fist. He caught his breath, prodding any skeel that thought of moving. The chill of the autumn night, merciless as the dusty heat of the day, was settling on him. He was muddy, wet, tired, and his loaf had been dropped somewhere. The trail was lost behind them in the rise and fall of the land. Vandien longed to sleep, but he feared that in the morning he would have lost both the team and all sense of direction. The skeel were not sleepy. They were as frisky in the night as they had been sluggish in the day.

  This time when they stirred, he let them rise. Keeping his grip on the rein, he moved to the side of the team. They scuttled away from him. In this way he guided them, moving from side to side, spooking them along in the direction he wished them to travel. He had the knack of it by the time he spied the pale grey ribbon of the trail, silvery in the light of the moon. Vandien let his team flow over it. They scuttled along at a pace slightly faster than a trotting dog, while he wove along behind them, moving first to one side and then to the other. 'Like a dog herding sheep,' he commented grimly to himself. Seeing how well they moved, he gave up all thought of a night's sleep. Tomorrow when they wished to doze in the sun, he would join them.

  Several times that night he prodded them into docility while he caught his breath and took a short sip from his small water bag. He regretted his lost bread, but that could not be helped. At least he would get to False Harbor on time. He reknotted the water bag and rubbed slowly at the scar between his eyes. He tried to remember what he looked like without it. He had never been much of a man for mirrors, but he could remember how he had felt without it.

  It had used to be that folks saw his eyes first, and then his flashing smile. He had known the power of that charming smile; known it and used it. Now all eyes went directly to the scar, and lingered there while he talked. His smile had become a grimace that pulled his face awry. Some folk judged him too hastily by his scar. Some thought him a man easily beaten. Others judged him to have a dangerous and unforgiving temperament. His scar was like a piece of cheap glass, distorting what the world saw. Few saw his face any more; most saw only the slash that divided it.

  Ki was one of the few. She was the one who had seen him take that slash; for her sake, he had braved the talons. She had been aghast. She had pieced his face back together and bandaged the flesh in place. Never again had they been strangers. And up to now Vandien had never put barriers between them. But he had not told her what Srolan had offered. Had he misjudged her, to think she might misunderstand? What did he fear? That his desire to be rid of the scar would be confused for a regret in taking it? He did not regret that bond with Ki, nor would he hesitate to do it again. But... he could wish the sign of that bond was a less visible one.

  The skeel were beginning to stir again. Vandien was glad to turn his mind away from dark thoughts. The task of driving them on consumed his attention. By dawn, they were as anxious to sleep as he. He urged them away from the trail, to the shelter of some scrub willows. They settled in a tangled heap. Vandien knotted the rein about his wrist. Lying down, he stared up at the dawn sky. Sleep overtook him quickly and in his dreams diving blue Harpies were driven back by Srolan's black eyes.

  NINE

  Ki shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She was weary of standing still and silent, awaiting Dresh's next order. Her mind was torn between her boredom and her anxiety. Dresh's eyes, and perforce Ki's vision, were still fixed on the same spot of wall. She could find no special fascination with it. Whenever she tried to speak, he shushed her. Ki sighed loudly.'Curse you!' Dresh barked out angrily. 'How can I reach for a presence with you distracting me? You cannot be still; you let your mind run in small useless circles and then hold them up for my inspection! Cannot you keep your mind empty?'

  'I had not considered that our enforced companionship might grate on you as well, Master.' Ki's voice was salty.

  Dresh snorted. 'Well may you sneer at me as Master, you who have not learned even to be master of yourself. Enough of this. I cannot use my power while interpreting the sky for a mole. Let go of me, but stand still, if you would not get yourself into mischief.'

  'With great relief,' Ki rasped. With a solid clunk she deposited the wiz
ard's head upon Rebeke's table and folded her arms across her chest.

  She waited in darkness. Her total lack of perception puzzled her. Then a slow hot flush flooded her face as she realized her eyes were closed. So swiftly had she adapted to Dresh seeing for her! She opened her eyes to a foreign world. Ki had not stirred from her spot, and she did not now. But where Dresh's eyes had shown her a bed and hides, her own saw a palely glowing gelid mass, reminding her of a mushroom sagging into rot.

  In size and structure, the table bore a faint resemblance to Dresh's interpretation. But to Ki's eyes it was made of a glassy stone rather than wood. A fibrous tube stalked up from its center. Beside the tube was a place of nothingness, a cube of darkness. From its center glowed a spark of light almost too tiny to see, but so brilliant that her eyes watered as she looked upon it. In confusion she turned away.

  The opaque walls of the room rippled before her gaze, shifting pale colors like an opal in the sunlight. She moved her eyes to the floor to rest them from the sickening motion, only to discover that the floor beneath her feet heaved and wavered also. Yet she felt no sensation of movement. Her stomach protested this contradiction.

  She let her eyes roam the walls again, seeking any relief from their queasy rippling. She found it. There was a window. It alone in the walls was stationary. Its homely wooden frame was as comforting and familiar as a peasant's hut. Outside was daylight. Ki felt a shiver of worry. She had never had her time sense disturbed in such a fashion. Her body told her it was late night. But the day outside was bright and clear. A few chickens scratched in the dirt of a small dooryard. An open forest of paper birch and alder was held back from the dooryard by a flower bed planted with anemones, white and purple. A light breeze stirred the nodding flowers. Ki found herself stepping forward to catch the light caress of the wind on her face, to smell with relief the smell of earth and flowers. She could see the corner of a little kitchen garden. Pea vines climbed up crooked branch supports. The tensions eased out of her shoulders. She smiled at her own fears, and tried to remember where she had imagined herself to be. Dresh had made a great show of his magic, but from the look of the countryside, they weren't far from Bitters. Small wonder he had not allowed her to see this window with her eyes. He hadn't wanted her to know how easily she could walk away from his charade.