The Windsingers

by Megan Lindholm

  'No doubt.' Vandien's words were for Helti, but his eyes locked with the Windsinger's. What parents had given their daughter such eyes? How had they felt when they lost her to the Windsingers? Or had she, like so many other little girls, gone out to play one day and simply never returned? Did she even remember them? And then the large grey eyes dropped him a wink, so girlishly flirtatious that his blood ran cold.

  He climbed the stairs slowly. Down below, he heard Helti bellowing for someone named Janie to fetch him a bath. The stairs led up to a hallway, dimly lit by windows at either end. The stairwell was not railed. Vandien resolved not to drink too much this night. Of the six doors facing onto the hall, two were closed. He made a hasty inspection of the other four and chose the largest and airiest bedroom. The window shutters had been latched open and a fresh breeze off the sea flavored the chilled room.

  It was a well-furnished room by an inn's standards. The stout wooden tub, long and deep, had been designed for someone larger than Vandien. A wooden stand, plain but graceful, supported a basin and ewer. The wooden bedstead boasted a straw-stuffed mattress with two thick coverlets and a folded woolen blanket at the foot of it. There was even a trunk, if he had needed a place for his possessions. Two worn hides graced the floor, one by the bed and another by the tub. A wooden stool completed the room's furnishings.

  Vandien sank gratefully onto the bed. For a moment he let his shoulders slump in defeat, then he straightened, knuckled his eyes, and pushed his hair back from his face. There was a knock at his door. Before he could answer, it was shouldered open. Janie was obviously the older sister of the child cleaning tables; the resemblance was unmistakable. She carried two heavy buckets of steaming water. The serving boy behind her was similarly laden, and two rough towels were slung over his shoulder.

  'Your bath, teamster,' the boy announced, dumping his water into the tub.

  'I doubt he thought it was soup,' giggled Janie. She rolled her eyes at Vandien, and shrugged at the boy's stupidity. Her young breasts heaved alarmingly. Vandien couldn't decide if she were flirting with him or the serving boy.

  The boy ignored her, setting the towels on the stool and clumping out of the room. Janie glanced about casually, pulled a handful of herbs from her apron pocket, and tossed them into the water. As she bent over the tub to stir them in, she watched Vandien from the corner of her eye. He sat silent, waiting. Then she straightened, slowly drying her hand and arm on her apron.

  'Is there anything else, teamster?'

  'Nothing. This is much finer than I expected. Thank you.'

  'You know, you've but to ask for whatever comes into your head. Nothing is refused to the Temple Ebb Teamster. So don't be shy.'

  'I won't,' Vandien responded gravely.

  'Well then.' Janie gave a short sigh as she inspected the room again. 'I'll go then. Enjoy your bath.'

  'I will. Thank you.'

  She sauntered to the door and gave Vandien a bright smile before she shut it behind her.

  Vandien sighed and bent down to pull off his boots. Maybe he should ask for a new pair; these had certainly seen better days. He stripped his tunic off over his head and let it fall to the floor. His romp in the creek and days of dusty travel were recorded on it. He kicked his road-weary trousers onto the same heap.

  The water was too hot, but as he eased into it he felt the weariness lifting away from him with the dirt. He raised a dipperful of water and let it stream over his head. Leaning back, he sank into the tub until the water lapped against his unshaven chin. He lolled his head back on the tub's rim and closed his eyes.

  'I've forgotten my buckets!'

  Vandien wondered why he wasn't surprised. When he opened his eyes, Janie stood in the door.

  'I only came to get my buckets,' she repeated, and defiance mingled with a taunt in her voice.

  'I'm glad you came back, actually,' Vandien conceded.

  'There is something you could do for me.'

  'Is there?' Janie's eyes were wide.

  'When you take your buckets, would you take my tunic and trousers as well? They need washing. In fact. . .' Vandien hesitated. 'If you could also find some new things of the same size, I'd be very grateful.'

  'Yes, teamster.' Janie's voice was suddenly subdued. She scooped up her buckets and slung his dirty clothes over one arm. Vandien winced at the slamming of his door. Well, it couldn't be helped. He wondered if he had ever been as young as Janie. Slowly he let his body slide deeper into the hot water. He had not realized how cold he was until the heat of the water began to chase away the deepest chills. He lolled his head back and relaxed.

  The door was eased open. Vandien did not turn. This was beginning to be wearing.

  'Wouldn't the teamster like his back washed, perhaps?'

  'Janie, my back has been in the same place for as long as I can remember. I think I can find it to wash it. Do this for me instead: go walk on the beach, pick up all the pretty shells you can find and put them in a box. Someday, when you are as old as I am now, and feel twice that age, look in the box and remember when you were a little girl who couldn't wait to grow up. Now scoot!' Vandien turned with a slosh of water to point at the door.

  But it was Srolan who stood with her back pressed against it, a grin of mischief on her face. Her black eyes sparkled. 'You've more about you than shows, teamster Vandien. Even at this moment.'

  Vandien sank back into the tub, embarrassed and feeling more flustered by Srolan's presence than by young Janie's.

  'I must sound a pompous fool to you. I won't try to explain.'

  'You needn't. I saw her face as she left... There is a certain kind of woman - she may be any age - who isn't certain of herself, who won't risk being rejected by a handsome man. But when she sees a man with a disfigured face or a withered arm, she says to herself, Surely no one besides myself can see past the scar to the worth behind it. Surely he will be flattered by my attention, and I will be giving him a gift he seldom receives. So, she offers, and expects you to be amazed and grateful that any would find you attractive. Am I wrong?'

  She wasn't, and that hurt. But Vandien only said, 'Srolan, I am in no mood to speak of scars just now. If I had realized the teamster's ablutions were a public ceremony, I would have had the tub brought down to the common room. Would you mind?' He jerked his head toward the door.

  'Yes, I would. And so should you. This will be the only private chance I'll have to talk to you; the common room is ever full of ears. My own home is never free of neighbors seeking a cure for a toothache, a plaster for a sore belly, an oil for a pulled shoulder. So we must set aside privacy and meet here.'

  'Why? How will you explain when Janie finds another excuse to pop in here? She'll be back soon, with clean clothes for me.'

  'Knowing Janie, she could find an excuse faster than that. She's a resourceful little snip. This inn will be a more restful place when she finally finds someone to oblige her. But, to answer your question, she won't pop in because she saw me come in as she was going down the stairs. She'll be afraid to open the door now for fear of what Granny might be doing with the stranger. But enough of this. Stop worrying about your flesh, and listen to what I have to say.'

  Vandien waited for her to continue. He watched as she roamed the room smoothing the coverlet on the bed, shaking and refolding the towels, and finally perching on the foot of the bed. She pushed back her black hair and gave her head a shake to set it free down her back. Her gesture was as young as Janie's, and not so contrived. When she turned to face Vandien, her years had hidden themselves. The lines in her face and her bony knuckles lied, her eyes asserted. Vandien's attention was riveted to her.

  'You think me a foul old woman, perhaps, to deceive you so about your task?'

  He had, but no longer did. 'Well...'

  'But I did not deceive you. Every word I told you is true. There is a Windsinger secret in that temple, and if you bring it up, you shall have six tallies, and the scar lifted from your face.'

  'One's as likely as th
e other,' Vandien muttered. Helti had made him feel ashamed for being so gullible. Now, with a word and a smile, Srolan made his doubts seem a weakness.

  'Damn Helti!' Srolan blazed. 'Damn the fool, and that pet Windsinger they have sent us. His words take the heart out of our teamster. What man can win when he expects defeat? It is the same every year. After Helti has been at the teamsters, they do not even look for the chest. They splash about with their beasts for a few hours in a storm, and then back to the inn they come, for a drink and a hot meal and a willing bed partner. They've changed a worthy quest into a fool's show. Cannot you see the slyness of the Windsingers in this? Vandien, do you think it was always this way? It was not.

  'When I was a babe, Temple Ebb united our village. There was no need to hire a teamster. Every able-bodied adult in the village was out in the shallow waters of low tide, trying to bring up that chest. Back then, the storms of the Windsingers lashed us all, but could not dissuade us. Now they call the chest a myth, because for a fool's life no one has seen it. They disbelieve the stories of their fathers. Yet there are folk in this town descended from those who have touched the chest. The same ones that told us it's too heavy for a man's hands. Only a team could haul it up, they said, for there're stones that must be moved, as well as a heavy chest to haul.

  'And so we began the hiring of teamsters every year. But love for wealth is not spur enough for a man when the Windsingers storm is upon him. No hired teamster will bring up that chest for coin alone. The teamster would need a reason more compelling than that. For years, I tried to tell them that, but they wouldn't listen. They don't know how a sung storm chills the heart and leaches away resolve. They've never battled the Windsinger's storm. So this year I did it myself. I found a teamster and gave him a reason to keep his heart hot. I found you.'

  Srolan's eyes were piercing. Vandien, who had so often unleashed the compelling charm of his own dark eyes, fell victim. Srolan's cause became his; her resolved fired him.

  'Why have they lost the spirit that moves you?' Vandien wondered.

  'They do not remember; some do not even know!' Srolan cried. 'What do you suppose made the earth shake and fall? It was the blasphemy of the Windsingers that sent our village beneath the waves! So I heard from my own grandmother!' She fell silent, too outraged to go on. The heaving of her breast testified to her emotion. Vandien stared at her.

  So old she was, and so young. Her words had added sparks to her eyes, brought the color to her cheeks until the withered skin flushed with youth. Damn, he liked her! It was as instinctive as breathing. He knew her. She was sound, a friend to be trusted as if he had known her for years.

  But.

  His common sense nagged him in Ki's voice. The woman was either senile or crazy. Her story was full of holes. Revenge for her long-drowned ancestors? He should listen to Helti, and get through this with as little scraping as possible. Did Srolan think him a gullible simpleton? Or did she believe he was as crazy as herself?

  'Your bath water must be getting cold.'

  Vandien started, suddenly realizing how long the silence had lasted. He shifted in the water. If Ki were here, she would call him a fool. She would tell him not to get involved in other folk's quarrels. She would tell him not to be impulsive. But Ki wasn't here.

  'Is there a chest?' he suddenly demanded.

  'Yes.' Her answer was simple, ringing with truth.

  'And can it be retrieved from there?'

  'Where Human hands place a thing, other Human hands can remove it.'

  Only one question was left. It nearly choked him. And can you pay me six tallies, and truly lift the scar from my face?'

  Srolan rose. She gave him a smile that she had saved since she was born, just for him. It held the promise of all promises. 'If you do your part, man, do you think I will do less than mine?'

  'But how?'

  She knew he wasn't asking about the money. She smiled at him silently. Rising, she took a towel from the stool and tossed it to him. He watched the door close softly behind her.

  Vandien rose from the lukewarm water, stretched, and swathed himself in the towel. His fingers were wrinkled into ridges. All his lax body could dream of was sleep.

  The door opened.

  'These were outside your door.' Srolan stepped in. On the foot of his bed she placed a clean brown fisherman's smock and trousers. She stepped out again. Vandien was not given time to speak.

  He fell into the bed, not even bothering to dry himself or call thanks after her. The coverlet was stuffed with down, warm airy stuff, light as sunshine on his body. The door opened.

  'And, Vandien?'

  'Does no one knock?' he muttered wearily.

  'No one. It would do her no harm if you let Janie know you thought her pretty and sweet. A kind word or two from you might make her feel her own self-worth, and keep her from throwing herself at the next stray traveler that happens along. And there are things she could tell you, if she had a mind to.'

  Srolan began to withdraw. Vandien sat up.

  'Wait!' When she paused, her head thrust into the room, he asked, 'Is there anything else? Is there any other reason why anyone else is going to barge in here?'

  Srolan smiled at him. 'There's only one last thing; I'll say. Close the window shutter before you take a cough. No, stay where you are, I'll do it for you.'

  With quick steps she crossed the room to lower the shutter with a thud and latch it against the gusting wind. Vandien was plunged into restful darkness.

  'Thanks,' he murmured, shouldering himself deeper into the bed.

  'My hopes are riding on you, teamster,' she spoke into the darkness.

  He had not heard her come near, but he felt the sudden press of lips upon his forehead, warm as a lover's and as impersonal as a goddess's. It was a strange caress, outside all forms of courtesy Vandien knew. Yet it did not startle him. All the things tight inside him, all worries, all doubts, all the tiny muscles of his face and scalp, loosened. Sleep was softer and warmer than the down coverlet, and bottomless. He never heard Srolan leave.

  ELEVEN

  Like an opalescent grindstone, there winked into view a place. It wheeled impossibly huge before Ki. It eased toward her ponderously. In some long forgotten reach of her brain, an instinct stirred. Ki's left arm and hand freed themselves of Dresh's head. She watched idly as her hand crabbed out toward the distant glittering wheel.She did not swim, nor crawl, nor perform any act of locomotion. The wheel was two body lengths away from the tips of her fingers. It was a lifetime away. It was on the far side of the glittering points of light. It was not a place at all, only a bright mural on the far wall of the sky. A placid sleepiness wrapped her. Always she had been here. She recalled an ancient dream of reaching; she did not remember what she reached for, nor why. There remained in her only a remote spark of purpose that bade her left hand continue its scrabbling, finger-waggling crawl. It was fitting that she do so. That movement was a part of this light-sprinkled darkness, was one with her eternal arching flight. Ki dreamed a dozen lives away.

  Contact! Her fingers brushed the shining opal wall. The tips of her fingers wiggled into a warm, yielding surface. Her hand sank into it. A sudden tingling seized it, an awakening from numbness. Like a drowning swimmer whose face breaks the surface of the water, Ki fought. The glittering wall yielded to her fingers, but provided no handhold for her to pull her body along. Rather she was drawn in, sucked up. Her face touched the warm surface and broke through. Life scintillated in her veins. Her skin sang with it. The sudden wash of sensation engulfed her and drained her. She sank in a heap.

  'Up!'

  Ki was given no time for thought or recovery as Dresh drove her body to its feet. She hurried along a shimmering corridor lined with identical closed doors. The head's eyes flickered back and forth, scanning each door as they passed; grey wall, grey door, grey wall, grey door. Her vision was tied to Dresh's once more. His darting glimpses were making her sick. She was giddy with the flashing images, too young to her rebor
n life. She staggered along, confused and disoriented.

  He jerked her to a halt before a door, no different from any of the others. 'In here!' he barked, activating her body before she could comply voluntarily. The door swung open to her touch and closed silently behind her.

  Ki found herself in a small austere room. As her breathing steadied, so did her vision. The room was almost a cell, devoid of furniture but for a low bedstead with blankets folded across the foot of it. She sank wearily onto it, placing the head gently at her side. She rubbed her aching shoulders, trying to comprehend such things as time and physical spaces. Blindly, she fingered a smarting semi-circle of indentations in the flesh of her arm. Teethmarks. Dresh picked up her thought.

  'I was forced to hold on any way I could. You very nearly dropped me, you know. But,' grudging admiration came into his voice, 'for one who claimed no skill at leaping, it was a prodigious feat. It is typical of Rebeke to gamble her life on her superior skill. And yet we matched her.'

  'I cannot do it again. You must not ask it of me.'

  'So say all women after they have birthed their first child. Yet when the need comes upon them again, they find the strength. So shall you, Ki, for you must. But do not think about that right now. Worrying will only weaken you.'

  She snorted derisively. 'Do you think I'm not worrying now? We seem to have leaped right to the center of their hive.'

  'Quarters for the novices, if I am not mistaken. With safe corridors for those not yet adept enough to trust their daily lives to leaping. It is not quite where I had hoped to find us, yet it is closer to where we must be. My body is not far from us now. The closer we get to it, the more I may draw upon the powers of it.'

  'Let's get this over with.' Ki picked up the head and settled it firmly into the crook of her left arm. A strand of dark hair fell across her eyes. She brushed at her forehead but it didn't move. She sighed, and brushed Dresh's black hair back from their shared eyes. The wizard let go a short chuckle.