The Windsingers

by Megan Lindholm

  He clambered over the fallen stone to follow the line as it snaked between two standing pillars. He took another step and found himself in water to his chin. The line still led down. Vandien slid his booted foot forward and found emptiness. His toe slid across a straight edge of stone. The answer came to him. He was standing on the first downward step of a stairwell. He backed up, staring down at the black water before him. The beasts had scuttled down those submerged stairs and taken the line with them. He pulled at the rope and felt an answering tug. At least they were alive. He could imagine them huddling their bodies down flat, digging those splay feet in for purchase. Four beasts that could pull down that standing stone weren't going to be budged by his pulling on a line. He'd lost them.

  Janie sloshed up to him. The waves alternately cloaked and revealed her breasts beneath her sodden smock. Vandien became suddenly aware that the water was higher than it had been. The tide had turned and was advancing on them. It would be easy to be trapped here. The Windsinger's voice stirred the tide to new energies. Every wave that came in the temple's door surged higher than the previous one. Once the door was covered, they would grow exhausted long before the waters rose above the black walls. They'd drown like rats in a pit. The urgency in the story Janie had told came home to him. Leave or die. That had been their choice then.

  He looked at Janie's lantern raft. If he abandoned his team, they could cling to it. It was no more than a few driftwood logs hastily lashed together, but they could hold onto it and survive. He pictured the rising water carrying them up slowly, until they could float free over the temple's walls. And probably be driven out to the sea, still clinging to it, to drown there. Scarcely an improvement over drowning in the temple.

  'There was nothing under it!' Janie was shouting in his ear. 'We'll have to try another one. Back up the team. My knot's trapped under the stone, but with some slack I may be able to work it loose. Otherwise, we'll have to cut the line.'

  He stared at her silently. Laugher welled up in him, but found no voice. The wind drove salt water between his lips and into his mouth. All things were lost to him; his chance for his face, for the gold, to earn Srolan's respect, to ease Janie's woes, even the ugly team he had borrowed. He had lost it all, and this child did not even comprehend that. Janie took his silence for assent. She turned from him, still towing her raft, and struggled along the fallen stone. She stooped by the rope, and then shook her head. 'Back them up. I need some slack.'

  'They went down stairs.' Vandien spoke low, but somehow the words carried to her.

  'They couldn't. We covered it up years ago!'Janie was incredulous. 'I was a little girl, then, but I heard about it. They covered it up because someone fell in it and nearly drowned, during a Temple Ebb. Everyone was so busy watching the teamster, no one saw the danger until it was almost too late.'

  'Well, it's not covered now. And my team's down there.'

  Janie sloshed over to stare down at the water in front of him. 'I guess this gives you an easy out,' she said with sudden bitterness. 'There's never been a teamster yet that put his heart into this. Why should you be different? Keep your scar, damn you! Go back to the inn, laugh and drink! Damn you, damn you, damn you!' Her voice rose in shrillness and vehemence, cutting through the wind to beat against him.

  Gripping the rope loosely in his hand, he took a deep breath and a step down. Water lapped his chin. He steeled himself, and stepped down again. His eyes were useless now. His body wanted to float back up to the surface, but he kept his grip on the rope. He'd see how far down these steps went, if nothing else. He reached his other hand down and gripped the rope to pull himself deeper. His feet lost their contact on the stairs. He trod water and felt his feet scrape and glance off the stairs. His lungs were beginning to swell within his chest. He resolved to try one more step. He reached his free hand, got a good grip, and hauled himself deeper.

  The surge of the team jerked Vandien deeper before it snapped the rope free of his grip. Salt water stung the abraded skin of his water-softened hand. It took a moment before he realized the rope was gone. His tuggings had spooked the team. He'd have to find the rope and start again, but first some air. His bursting lungs prompted him to kick strongly, reaching up for the air. With two strokes his outstretched hands met smooth stone. He scrabbled along it in the dark, hoping his sense of direction was good. The opening of the stairwell had to be nearly overhead, unless the team had jerked him farther than he thought. Unless. A bubble escaped his mouth.

  NINETEEN

  At the bottom of the hill, Ki took off the wheel brake. She was amazed it had held. She let the team stand for a short time; their sides worked in and out with their breathing. Sigmund dropped his head down nearly to his knees; Sigurd's heavy mane was streaming out in a grey sheaf. Ki's own hair was twisted into a braid and trapped inside her hood. She leaned off the seat to look back up the cliff road they had come down in the roaring wind. The wind still felt as if it might blow her wagon over, but at least now it would not bounce down a cliff face if it fell. The Windsingers voice was a pure thread of sound in the wind's rough weaving.She squinted her eyes against the wind's lash and picked up the reins. Two heavy slaps were required before the horses grudgingly began to move. The team was finished, and Ki nearly so. But she must get to the lights of False Harbor and find them a shelter for the night. The team needed a dry stable out of the wind, and she needed a warm bath and a hot meal. Much as she disliked inns, she'd be glad to find one tonight.

  She pushed on. The wind was a living thing with a rapacious appetite, a beast out to destroy anything that moved against its will. It snatched at her clothing, and snapped and fluttered the horses' manes and tails. Ki clenched her jaw against it. She had known there would be a sung wind here this night. After her recent dealings with Windsingers, she feared them more and respected them less. The winds were only extensions of their own fickle moods, subject to all the vagaries of pride and the distractions of personal power struggles. They would rip this little village off its foundations and fling it into the sea with no more thought than she gave to driving her team over an anthill. Somewhere tonight, Vandien was opposing the will of the Windsingers, daring the full brunt of their power. She cursed herself again. She should have talked him out of this. She should have offered to let him use the team, and then come to False Harbor too late. But she had told him it was all a joke, a charade. This wind was no charade.

  Ki could not forget the bait that had drawn him here. To lift the scar from his face! An impossible thing, an offer only a fool would believe. But Vandien wasn't a fool; he was only a man trapped into a fool's act by a hidden hunger: to have his own face back.

  She tried to remember what he had looked like before he was scarred. The image was vague. She had a blurred memory of the night he had appeared in her camp, attempting to steal her horses; he had been so starved and weak that she had easily wrestled him to the ground. She remembered thinking he was handsome in a ragged way, but she had felt little attraction to him. She hadn't wanted any man then, hadn't had any love left to give after the Harpies had taken the lives of her beloved husband and children and then come after her own. She had agreed with reluctance to let Vandien ride with her team out of the mountain wilderness near the Pass of the Sisters. When the Harpies finally caught up to her, it was Vandien, not Ki, who fell before those gruesome claws; Vandien who carried the physical scars of that battle. She had never really seen what it had done to him; not until now. It had taken Dresh to throw it into her face.

  She had been more than insensitive. She had been callous. She had felt guilty about the pain it gave him on cold days. She had regretted it being there, so visible a reminder of that battle. But it had not mattered to her. It had not affected her feelings for him, had never made her see him as anything less than Vandien. The scar that divided his face was no more to her than a splash of mud upon his cloak, or a rent in his leggings. It was a minor detail, subtracting nothing from the man. But how had it seemed to him? Ki saw it now
, in her mind's eyes; a jagged rent down his face, always paler or redder than the rest of his face. She thought of the innkeepers and hostlers who casually called him Scar, in the same way they called her Teamster. More than once she had noticed children peering up at him wide-eyed, curious, but too shy to ask about the strange mark down his face. He was still as quick spirited as he had been when she first met him, but had his humor always had such dark edges? She had no way of knowing. That Vandien had scarred his face for her was bad enough. That his life should be scarred as well was unbearable.

  Ki found the inn more by the sounds and lights than by the sign swinging in the wind. Snatches of song and rags of laughter carried through the wind's roar. She turned her team into the alley. The inn broke the worst of the wind from them. The sudden cessation of its constant roar was like awakening from sleep. Ki's cheeks stung from the wind's caresses. She found her lantern and managed to kindle it.

  The stiff leather and heavy buckles resisted her chilled fingers, but the harness finally dropped away from the team. Behind the inn was a building, more shed than stable. A lone cow turned rebuking brown eyes on her as she opened the door to admit her team and the windstorm. She hung her lantern from the hook and turned her team loose in the shed. It was not intended for such massive beasts. There were no stalls, but there was plenty of hay heaped in a loft. She shook some down for them, left them loose in the shed and made her way back to the inn.

  The sounds ebbed as she stepped within. Ki thought at first it was the result of the blast of wind that came in with her, but as eyes scanned her and turned away, conversation resumed. 'Not the teamster yet,' she heard a woman remark. 'You'll have to give him credit for making an honest try, Berni, even if he isn't much to look at.' The chance words squeezed Ki's heart. Not much to look at. A slow anger nibbled at her as she pushed her way through to the fire. The worst of this, she thought, was that it made her think too much.

  Her relationship with Vandien had been a thing that had happened, a pleasure accepted as casually as clean water and fair weather. The give and take of it had been natural, the cares and restrictions of it balanced by the camaraderie and the sharing. That was all gone now. She asked herself now what that relationship had cost Vandien, and she looked at the debts of it. Even the finest jewelry will have a flaw, if one looks at it closely enough. Once she had found every nick and scratch in their partnership, would she ever easily enjoy it again?

  This had to be the innmaster, pushing up to her through the crowd. He looked down on Ki from his height, and she stared up at him. The black hair on his arms matched that raked scantily over his head. Grey-blue eyes were frankly puzzled by her.

  'We didn't expect strangers this night. Few come to our town during Temple Ebb Wind. What can I bring you?'

  Ki found a smile and plastered it on her face. 'Anything hot to drink you may have, Innmaster. I've already taken the liberty of putting my team in your cow shed, to get them out of this storm. Hope you don't mind that. I actually came seeking a friend of mine, with whom I was to meet here. Vandien?'

  The Innmaster raised his eyebrows. 'Vandien. That'd be our teamster - about so tall, with a scar down the middle of his face, right?'

  Helti saw the woman's face spasm as if with sudden pain. 'Yes. Is he about?'

  Helti smiled. 'He should soon be. No one lasts long in a storm like this. Killian surprised us all. To think that a little slip of a Windsinger like her could bring up a storm like this. We haven't seen an Ebb Wind like this, for, oh, must be close to five Temple Ebbs. Such a merry, friendly little thing, so close to Human you might forget what she was. And then she sings up a storm like this. Surprised us all, but the teamster most of all, I'll wager.'

  'I'll wager,' Ki agreed grimly. 'Where will I find him, then?'

  'In the Windsingers' sunken temple, but you've no need to go out in this wind. Nor wish to, either, I suppose. The tide has turned. Water will be rising, and they'll be headed in by now. You needn't worry about him forgetting the dangers of the tide. He'll be more than ready to come in by now, and Janie is with him. Whatever else Janie is, she's fisherfolk, and she won't forget a tide. She knows how it rips in over the flats when it comes. I'd be surprised if they weren't already wading back by now. It'll take them a while, in this wind. Sit a bit, and have a hot mug of spiced wine, and wait them out. There's rare fine food from the kitchen this night, hearty as well as the sweets. If you're the teamster's friend, I'll put your bill with his, and you'll both owe naught tomorrow. Damme if he hasn't surprised us all with his spunk. It's little enough he's asked from us. We'll be kind to his friend, if he won't let us be generous with him. Sit down, now.' The innmaster smelled of his own spiced wine. His generosity to himself was making him generous with his words and his goods.

  Ki rubbed her face wearily. The warmth from the fire was finally beginning to reach her. Her clothes felt steamy against her skin. She could just stay here and wait for him. She did not need to go back out in that windstorm. To do so would be a meaningless gesture. But she felt like making gestures tonight. Vandien might not find it so meaningless.

  'I'll take the spiced wine, Innmaster. But then I think I'll go out to meet Vandien.'

  'Well, if you're so insistent, I suppose you'll have your way.'

  'I suppose I will,' Ki agreed.

  The heated wine warmed her hands, and then her whole body. Helti's directions were simple. The others were too caught up in their own holiday to pay much attention to the stranger. Ki pushed the door open against the wind, and stumbled down the narrow streets, buffeted by the storm. Her boots discovered every rut and pothole. She wished in vain for a lantern that would stay lit in this storm.

  The unfamiliar road stretched into the darkness. She could hear the boom and crash of waves eager to reclaim the beach. The wind whistled past her and the Windsinger sang on. The beach came into view, white frilled waves dashing up the dark sands and falling back in a lace of foam. Rising fast. Ki walked out to the incoming edge and stood.

  'Vandien!' she called loudly. The wind blew her voice landward. She strained her eyes until she saw the dark hulk of the Windsingers' temple. 'Vandien!' she shouted again.

  She put one boot in the water. A wave grabbed her foot threateningly, and slid a cold hand up her calf. Sand slid away from under her. So damn cold and so damn wet. And so damn stubborn!' she yelled at Vandien, wherever in hell he was. Angrily she sloshed out toward the temple, struggling through rising water. Past her knees it rose, coldly familiar, up to her hips, and then waist high, and still she was wading. The shape of the temple resolved itself into jagged walls against the sky. The water crept up her ribs. Every wave she met threatened to lift her off her feet. The wind dashed sea water into her face. Her hood streamed water in a trickle down her cheek and down the back of her neck. 'Vandien!' she screamed, expecting no answer.

  'Vandien!'

  It was either an echo or someone mocking her from within the temple. Ki was not positive she had heard it; perhaps it was only a trick of the wind through the ruins. She pushed on, half swimming through each incoming wave. The crumpled wall of the temple loomed above her, and she caught a sudden promise of light from within; only a glimpse, but it showed her the portal of the temple. Unfortunately, the bottom seemed to drop deeper between her and that portal. She set her teeth and plunged through the water. Her clothes dragged at her; she should have left her boots on shore. But she was within the temple at least. She tried to tread water and get her bearings, but her boots suddenly rasped against a floor. Thank the moon the temple was higher within than without. She could stand again, though the suck and push of water through the portal sought to sweep her balance from her. The light she had glimpsed was gone.

  Again she heard a voice. 'Vandien!'

  A dim flash of light broke from beyond two standing pillars. 'Vandien!' Ki echoed, plunging toward the light.

  A sodden child hunched shivering on a makeshift raft. A lantern was burning out beside her. Her colorless hair was slicke
d to her skull, and her clothes ran water. She turned a startled face on Ki at her call. A look almost of anger, or jealousy, crossed her face. She squared her shoulders at Ki, revealing the thrust of young breasts against her smock. Ki wondered at her presence here, but had no time to worry about it.

  'Where is he?' she demanded, advancing through the whirling water.

  'Who are you?' countered the woman on the raft.

  'Ki. Where is Vandien?'

  Janie glared at her. 'He went down there.' She managed to make her shout sullen.

  Ki's eyes followed where she pointed. Dark water met her gaze. Fear squeezed her, colder than the sea around her. Anger surged up in her for this woman who pointed so coldly at the water and said Vandien was down there. She wanted to throttle her and make her scream out when, why, and what in hell he was doing down there, but she had no time. The cold water mocked her, sucking at her limbs as she tried to hurry over to where the girl had pointed. When one of her boots suddenly met only water, Ki rocked back, shivering. Janie quailed before her look.

  'He followed the rope down! His team went down there!' Janie suddenly volunteered. Her eyes denied any guilt.

  'His team?' It made no sense, but sense didn't matter. He had been down there too long. Ki groped along the fallen stone, following the rope. It was tight to her touch. He must still be at the end of it. With a shudder of horror and fear, she drew in a shaking breath and stepped down into black water.

  Coldness pressed inside her ears, tried to sneak up her nose. She stared blankly into the watery darkness. She forced herself down another step. It changed nothing. Gripping the rope with both hands, she took a third step down.