Wheel of the Winds

by M J Engh

  But when the crow came down at last and the Captain read its message, it was all good news (granting that it was good for them to travel onward). The Dreeg ran clear for as far as the Warden and the Exile had gone, and they would build a fire and wait where a leaning tree slanted over the water from a high rock on the left bank. They said nothing of monsters. So the Captain, swearing violently and saying that they had wasted two hours and were four hands short when they needed every finger, gave order for the portage to begin. And with much labor and the use of rollers they heaved and dragged the Mouse along the path they had cleared, past the rocks and the foam and the roaring, and the smooth ledges where the water poured shining but only thumb-deep, and all the while the crows circled around them in angry spirals, uttering cries of outrage.

  Now they rested for a little; but as soon as the Captain herself had got back most of her breath and could stand without swaying, they went to work on the business of easing the Mouse back into the water, and checking for leaks, and getting under way again. And one of the kedge anchors with which they were working the ship off from the bank caught fast in a crevice of the rocky bottom and had to be abandoned, and this too looked like an omen to some. But the Captain, hearing the word, gave them such a tongue-lashing that it was some time before any dared mention omens again on board the Mouse.

  They knew where their scouts were waiting even before they saw the landmark, for a tall feather of smoke rose from the left bank. Repnomar drew her breath through her teeth in a slow whistle, and said clearly, “Monsters,” which made some of the sailors frown and blink their eyes. But she was right, for before the Mouse had well dropped anchor the Warden and the Exile were wading out to meet her, looking back over their shoulders as they came. “And if you'd waited on shore till we lost way,” the Captain told them, when they had been hauled on board and were drying themselves in the cabin, “you'd have been less likely to be run down and plowed under. Stopping a ship under way isn't like stopping one of your plodding sheep-carts.”

  “Well, you didn't run us down and plow us under,” the Warden answered shortly, rubbing his legs with a towel while Broz sniffed at them.

  “And if you've seen beasts,” said Repnomar (for she would not say “monsters” to their face and thus encourage them in their fears), “why didn't you send word by the crow?”

  But the Warden said with dignity, “Could you have come faster if we had?” And when she had granted that they could not, he added with still more dignity, “The shorter the message it carries, the faster a crow flies.”

  It had been a different sort of beast this time, and perhaps a worse sort. They had not been long out of sight of the rapids when the Exile first glimpsed something in the branches of a tree, and since then they had seldom been alone. For a long time they had not known if it was a single beast following them, or more than one, but at last they had seen two at once, and after that three and even four. Sometimes the creatures ran on the ground, but more often they were in the trees. Very silent they were, the size of a half-grown child or of the Exile. The only sound that came from them was the ripping sound of claws as they sprang up a tree trunk (much like a forest dog, though faster and higher). But when the Warden threatened them with his pike and shouted, they would draw back their lips from their fangs in noiseless snarls, and crouch and clutch in the branches, never giving back and always creeping closer again when he turned.

  Once they had picked their landmark, and scouted farther till they judged their time had run out, and loosed the crow and turned back to the landmark to wait for the Mouse, they heard a screeching ahead of them that made the Exile drop his pike for an instant and scramble to pick it up again in great haste, and a piglike creature like the one the Warden had shot farther upstream came crashing through the underbrush, with a furious thing clutched onto its back, clawing its sides and crunching its thick neck in its jaws, till a little way past them the pig went down in its blood, and the beast began to worry and mouth it and dig out its entrails. So they hurried on a little, and stopped to light torches from the coals in their jar, and with these back to the landmark, where they built a good fire. They were both weary, but they agreed that neither should sleep, for the tree beasts seemed not much troubled by fires; and though for a time they saw none, and heard from downstream what sounded like several of the beasts fighting over the pig (a devilish racket enough), soon the movements in the trees began again, and little by little the beasts closed in around them.

  Sleek-furred and long-armed and patterned with leafy spots, they moved like shadows in the forest, and now they began to utter soft endless cries, a sort of horrible crooning, and now one would drop to the ground and run forward a little way, and another flash up to the very top of a towering tree and leap to the next; so that the Warden and the Exile were starting and staring this way and that, backed against their fire and aiming their weapons uncertainly. But the Mouse had come. “And very welcome,” the Warden said heartily.

  So they voyaged on, all of them a little cheered—the Warden and the Exile because they no longer had that unwholesome crooning in their ears, the Captain and crew because they were learning to handle their ship between banks. “And every river,” the Captain said again, “runs sooner or later into the Soll.”

  By now the crows had resigned themselves to this strange manner of travel, and taken to their old ways of flying around the masthead, an omen which the sailors found still more heartening. But in this they were too sanguine, though indeed the crows soon showed themselves useful; for two of them, ranging ahead and high aloft, suddenly turned back with such an outburst of squawking that Repnomar, who was not then at the tiller, shouted to turn inshore and hold the drag anchor ready, and sent a lookout scrambling up the mast. But this time the Mouse was solidly in midstream, far from both banks and well in the grip of the current, so that she was swept helplessly along.

  They heard it before they saw it—a low thunder that was like a pounding within the skull—and what they saw from the Mouse's deck appeared to be simply the edge of the world, for the river and its banks came to an end, and nothing showed beyond. Only a little wooded island rose in the middle of the river, at the very verge of that emptiness, and blocked the view there. But the lookout cried out “Reef!” which was the likeliest thing that came to his mind; and the Exile, in great excitement, exclaimed that they must make fast to something, either shore or bottom, or else be carried over the edge and smashed to pieces. And at that the Captain, wasting no time in talk, had all anchors dropped, and was tying a line to a pike when one of them, dragging on the rocky bottom, caught fast enough to stop the Mouse dead, so that the ship jerked, and swung, and throbbed. And though within a few moments that strained anchor cable broke, by then the warden had hurled the pike into the nearest land, which was the island before them, a great throw and a lucky one, for it stuck firm; and by gathering in that line and trimming the sail and throwing kedge anchors they were able to work their way into the easier water above the tail of the island (for the current split above it and swept past on both sides).

  By this time the crash of the falling water was so loud in their ears that they talked more in signs than in words, and none of the crew dared look to see how close they floated to utter destruction, thinking it better to die in hope than to know and despair. They had lost all but one of their anchors in that short voyage on the lip of nothing, so that now three or four sailors must leap into the water with mooring lines and carry them ashore, swimming and wading, where they moored the Mouse securely, bow and stern, to the stoutest trees their lines could reach.

  All the sleepers had been waked by this hubbub, and now some took turns climbing the mast to see over the world's edge, if they could, and all the others went ashore, bracing themselves cautiously by the mooring lines, to see it from whatever vantage the island offered. Lethgro and the Exile were among these, and in a little while they were lying on their bellies at the rocky head of the island, peering straight down. For the island
perched on the very lip of a great cliff, and on both sides the broad waters of the Dreeg plunged a thousand feet and shattered into spray.

  8

  Crows and Choughs

  There are times,” Repnomar said sternly, “when you're caught between a squall and a reef; but those are not the times, Lethgro, to sit down and put your head in a sack.”

  This was unjust, in Lethgro's opinion. It was true that he had been sitting, first on one shore of the island and then the other; but so far from putting his head in a sack, he had been measuring with his eye the distance to each river bank, and calculating the possibility of reaching it with an arrow and a light line. And having come back to the Mouse in great gloom (for the calculations were not good) and wet to the waist from wading in the shallows, he was not pleased with this sort of greeting.

  They could talk well enough under hatches, where the noise of the waterfall was muffled. This was almost the only spot that Broz could bear at all, for he was in grave agitation, trembling and snuffling and whining, and no more able to rest than if he had been adrift on a floating log that spun under his feet. He lay now half leaning against Repnomar's ankles for a few minutes at a time, and then rose and went to Lethgro, and lay there, and again to Repnomar, and sometimes to the Exile, for in his trouble he had made friends with all who might give him any comfort.

  The Warden, too, felt inclined to cherish what comfort there was, and not to quarrel; so that all he answered to the Captain was, “It's too far to either bank for getting a line across.”

  Repnomar chewed on this for a little and then said, “If worse comes to worst, we can lower somebody down the cliff with a line and a float.”

  “To somehow come out of that cauldron down there still breathing, and then swim across the current?” Lethgro said skeptically. “That will be a long line, Repnomar, and a strong swimmer. And then, I suppose, to climb back up the cliff by land, dragging that mile of line and never getting it hung on the wrong side of a tree or a rock, and pull us all off with it.”

  But the Captain said shortly, “When you think of a better plan, tell me about it,” and Lethgro fell silent.

  Here the Exile, as trying to cheer them, reported that he had been over the island with an eye toward provisions, and that there was no need for them to go hungry. For there were many birds, of different sizes, and many of them nesting; and there were bushes that bore nuts, and succulent herbs which he did not doubt they could grow more of if they chose to make a garden; and with fish from the river, he supposed they could live on the island forever. But at that word, Repnomar gave him so grim a look that he cleared his throat, and began to stroke Broz busily, and said no more.

  But Broz, hoping perhaps that things were better outside than he remembered, went whining to the hatchway; and with one accord they all went silently on deck, and from there ashore in the ship's boat. Broz, like one half frantic, began to dig under a fallen log (for the island was well wooded, though the trees were small) and the others went slowly, and each one walking a little apart, to the cliff's edge.

  There were birds indeed—birds in the trees, quick and busy but all silent, as not choosing to try their voices against the voice of the Dreeg, and water birds that soared and plunged and scooped lightly at the water, catching fish as they were swept over the edge of the falls; and at the very margin, a flock of red-feathered birds, bright and fresh in the mist of the cataract, that seemed to find their sport there, for they strutted at the cliff's edge like acrobats before a turn, and then peered over and suddenly plunged as if they had never known the use of wings, and a moment later would rise and tumble in the air, playing with the crazy drafts and breezes that boiled along the waterfall's face. If you leaned over the edge—or, better, lay flat and hung your head over it—you could see that these bright tumbling creatures nested in the crevices of the cliff, where the island thrust its rocky head between curtains of water; so that their very fledglings, when they were ready to fly, must at the first trial ride those wild airs upward to a safe landing, or else fall to destruction in the churning water and blind mist below.

  Here, in the very roar and tumult of the falls, there was no hope of talk; and each of the three, like the two or three sailors who already lay or stood there, was as if alone in a desert place. Captain Repnomar, watching the birds, thought to herself that they were like the choughs that nested and sported on the cliffs of the Coast between Beng and Rotl; and she felt with a terrible pang that anything would be better than to have come so far and go no farther. Warden Lethgro, seeing how those same birds plunged and soared, sailing sometimes far out across the river and wafted sometimes high above the falls, felt his own heart plunge like a dropped stone, and turned his eyes cautiously to view the Exile. Indeed the Exile lay very quiet at the cliff's edge, but his ugly face was all intent and his eyes bright as wet stones.

  Now Broz came through the woods with a little beast like a rat in his jaws, and Repnomar made much of him and followed him back to the log where he had dug it out. In a little while the Exile, looking up, caught the Warden's eye on him, and at once put on a different face. But the Warden came and squatted beside him and began tossing leaves out from the cliff's edge, where some of them caught an updraft and flew and fluttered for a long time, but more were swept headlong into the mist by the downdraft of the falling water; so that the Exile smiled sheepishly enough, and they both rose and went back together to seek the quiet of the Mouse's hold for conversation. On the way they fell in with the Captain, who was blinking her eyes sadly, and Broz, who seemed to have lost his head, for he was barking at nothing.

  When they were all under hatches again, Broz barked a few times more and then lay down at Repnomar's feet and went to sleep. “Poor dog,” said Repnomar, not using his name so as not to rouse him. “He can't hear himself bark out there, and that's enough to drive him crazy. We've got to find a way off this rock.”

  Lethgro looked hard at the Exile, but the Exile smiled blandly and said nothing. And the Captain added, “I thought for a little that if all else failed, we might be able to dig down and tunnel under the river bed. But it's all rock, with a little dirt spread on top like caulking.”

  It saddened Lethgro to hear Repnomar talk of such a scheme, which was wild even for her. She must be, he thought, nearly as desperate as Broz. And he looked again at the Exile.

  But the Exile began to defend the island, saying that its thin skin of soil was enough to feed them well, if they made good use of it, and that with the stone they could build thick-walled houses to shut out the noise, and that with the strong wind from downstream he had no doubt that so skilled a captain as Repnomar would find a way to reach the bank.

  To all this the Captain listened impatiently. Indeed she sat still only for fear of waking Broz, for she thought he needed whatever ease he could find. But when the Exile began to praise her ship-handling she could bear it no longer, for flattery angered her as much as insult, and she doubted whether the Exile knew enough of ship-handling to praise it rightly. So she leaped up, only taking care not to strike Broz with her foot, and went on deck to find some useful work for the crew and to think about ways of leaving this island.

  “Well, Exile,” said the Warden, when she had gone, “do you think you can do it?” And when the Exile would have turned to him an innocent face, as not knowing what he meant, he added, “If you can fly from Sollet Castle, why not from the top of a waterfall?” So that the Exile had to confess that this had been in his thoughts when he looked over the cliff. But the winds, he said, had been much better at Sollet Castle, and the flight much less dangerous.

  “Then why are you so keen for it?” the Warden asked sternly.

  The Exile protested that he was not keen for it at all, and would be content to live on the island and help build the stone houses and plant the garden. But Lethgro kept at it patiently, and got it out of him at last that he believed the Dreeg led to a place he knew, and that all his hope and endeavor was to come there. As for his lack of cando
r, he said (and maintained it sturdily) that he did not want to lead others into danger, and it would be truly better for them to stay on the island and hope for stronger winds from downstream; but for himself, he would push on by whatever means came to his hand.

  Now the Warden found himself in two minds at least. On the one hand, he doubted that even Repnomar could work miracles with the wind; and if their only hope of ever leaving the island was to spread wings and fly, then they had best use the skills of the Exile, who alone knew the art of it. But again, even the Exile hesitated before this flight, and to Lethgro's eyes it seemed as sure a road to destruction as sailing against the current on the precipice's lip. Also, it was harder and harder for him to see the good of going forward. So far, all their journeying had brought them always from one peril to a worse; and if they were coming to the Exile's country, what welcome could they expect there? Since they had kept him prisoner and yet saved him from arrest, they were certain to be in trouble with both his friends and his enemies. And if they could build houses proof against the thunder of the falls, the Warden thought he could live out what years remained to him as comfortably on this island as in some beast-besieged clearing in a barbarous forest somewhere downstream. But then again, not all were of his disposition, and he had no doubt that Repnomar would rather die in a crazy plunge from that tumultuous height than resign herself to keeping a garden on this rocky clod.