Wheel of the Winds

by M J Engh

  It was on one of these outcrops above the ice river that they lay now, gazing back over their trail and rubbing their cold limbs. The Warden, when he had breathed a little, set about his fire-making. “And this will be the last,” he said warningly, “till we find more fuel—unless you want me to burn my bow and arrows, or the moss we've stuffed into our clothes.”

  “Well, we won't need fire for cooking,” said the Captain, “for there's nothing to cook.” And they both fell silent and looked pointedly at the Exile.

  Now the Exile cleared his throat with some embarrassment, and suggested that while the others rested here, out of the wind, he should go on into the shadows beyond and find his precious things, which doubtless were close at hand. But at this the Warden heaved himself stiffly to his feet, declaring that he would go with the Exile if there was any going; and the Captain stretched out a long arm to bar their path and said that there was no need to go anywhere till they were warmed and rested, and then they would all go together. “And you might as well tell us first,” she added, looking fiercely at the Exile, “what it is you have to hide.”

  The Exile protested this vehemently, insisting that he hid nothing, and twisting up his ugly face in such contortions of earnestness and dismay that in the end they could not help laughing at him and turning the line of talk elsewhere.

  But when they had rested and warmed themselves, and their fire had burnt out to the last wisp of moss, the Warden rose again and put the rope into the Exile's hand, saying, “You first,” and they roped themselves and started in line toward the farther darkness.

  This was not such hard going as they had feared, for the river of ice they had followed seemed to be the outpouring of a lake of ice, that spilled between two peaks close by the ledge where they had rested. So for the most part they traveled by walking, not climbing, and were glad of this; for they all were more than a little weak and stiff and privately in dread of falls, and not eager to hoist Broz's weight at the end of a rope. The light still lay pleasantly upon their backs as they passed between the shoulders of the two peaks; but now the Exile turned them a little to the right, into the shadow of one of those pinnacles, where the way ran gently downward, the snow here so well crusted that they walked as if on solid ground, but overlaid with newer snow that blew in sudden gusts around them. But the Captain said that the wind was falling, and they took some comfort in this.

  Certainly the Exile went now as if he knew his road, and hurrying their pace in spite of his short legs. Yet the Warden followed with no great hope in his heart, and still less faith; for he thought it likelier that the Exile was planning some sudden escape than that they were coming at last to those unknown treasures that seemed always to vanish from before them, so that he was not well prepared when the Exile stopped short and scooped with his hands into a mound of drifted snow that showed as a paleness in the dark, and then straightened sharply and turned to them, saying almost sheepishly that here were his precious things.

  Precious they might be to him, but it was hard to know what good they were to any other. What the snow had hidden was a string of great shells or pods, like bird's eggs or the covering of certain seeds, the smallest of them as big as Broz, and one so large that three or four people might have crawled into it if it had been empty. “And I hope that some of that,” said Lethgro, as the Exile pulled one packet after another from an opening in this pod, “is the food and drink you promised us.”

  “Let him be, Lethgro,” the Captain said sharply. “I don't doubt he's as hungry as you are.” And in fact she had forgotten her own hunger in her eagerness to uncover these new things. Lethgro was by no means certain that so small a person as the Exile could hold a hunger to match his own; but he schooled himself to patience for a time, and even helped the Exile bring out his ungainly and misshapen treasures (not one of which resembled any useful or comely object known to the Warden) and set them on the ice. The Exile seemed to be in haste now, moving nervously and muttering to himself as he unpacked this litter of strange objects; and when, to the startlement of the others, he struck a light that brightened all the scene like the dazzle they had passed through in mid-Soll, they saw that his face was drawn with some anxiety.

  Now the Captain was much excited, exclaiming that with this light of the Exile's they could cross the whole dark side of the world and see what they were crossing. But the Exile, making no answer to this, fingered his torch so that the light narrowed into a single beam, and set it to shine only on his unpacking. It seemed to Lethgro, too, that he took care to set it where the bulk of the pods would hide it from any eyes there might have been (supposing such a thing to be possible) in the darkness beyond the peaks. He was just beginning to ask what this meant—for he found it disquieting to consider—when the Exile brought out a new packet with some flourish, declaring that it held food.

  Then for some time they were busy with happier matters, though indeed it was a strange sort of victuals, such as would never have been called food (so the Warden reflected) in Sollet Castle. “But it's no worse than stewed slugs and moss,” the Captain said judiciously, when she had chewed down three or four mouthfuls; and the Exile seemed to be in bliss for the time, his eyes glazed over with a look of fond satisfaction each time he swallowed. But as soon as he was a little strengthened by the joy of eating, he popped up eagerly to open another of his packets, unfolding it into a many-legged device that seemed to do nothing and yet must have contained a blazing fire in its belly, for a great swell of heat went out from it, warming their hands and faces and melting the snow a yard around. But as with the torch, so with this curious stove; the Exile twirled certain of its legs or spines, and the heat ceased to beat on the snow and ice, and only poured upward, spreading a little, so that they could warm themselves over it. And it gave no light at all.

  Now they began to talk of moving to a spot sheltered from blowing snow, where the Exile promised to show them all his things, and there discuss what to do next. But the warmth and the food began to act on them like some sleepy drug, and when the Exile unfolded what seemed at first to be a handkerchief but opened into a sheet that could have covered the broadest bed in Sollet Castle, and laid it out on the ice, saying it would do for a place to rest, they all stretched themselves on it and agreed that this was as good a camp as they needed (for indeed they had been hard pressed). And without more discussion they settled to sleep, the Exile taking the first turn to stay on guard, for he said he had work to do.

  The sheet of stuff they lay on, thin as it was, kept out the cold of the ice, and the Exile fiddled at his stove till its heat fell full upon them; so that there was nothing to trouble their ease except the fitful wind scattering snowflakes on them from time to time, that melted at once and wet their faces and clothes. They slept where they lay, like fallen logs, unmoving for a long while. And indeed they might have slept longer if the Exile's notion of comfort had not been so extreme, for in time the heat from his stove set the Captain to tossing restlessly, and she woke with a start, demanding in irritation why she had not been roused to take her turn on guard. But she got no answer, for the Warden still slept, and the Exile and all his pods were gone.

  14

  Quicksilver

  At least he doesn't mean for us to starve,” Lethgro observed somewhat wistfully. The truth was that he did not find it easy to harden himself against the Exile, despite all the disappointments and troubles he had brought them, and looked still for reasons to think kindly of him.

  The Captain snorted. “I grant you he's not a devil,” she said, and wrenched another mouthful from the square of stuff she was gnawing at. “He left us food, he left us the sheet, he left us the stove, and he left us the light. But you can't deny that he left us; and the question is, why?” She chewed thoughtfully for a minute, and added, “For that matter, how?”

  “He's flown before,” said the Warden. “Maybe he found a way to fly again.”

  For the curious thing was that the Exile, in all that sweep of snow around them,
had left no track. “He might have gone back the way we came, and trodden in our footprints,” said the Warden, shining the Exile's torch along that trail, “but he couldn't have carried those pods on his shoulders.”

  Indeed the mystery would have been far less without the pods to account for. Lethgro, who had rolled one of the larger ones half over to help the Exile get at the next, knew that they were heavy. And even if the Exile had contrived to drag or roll them, they would have left a track like a beaten road through the snow.

  “And there's no wind,” said the Captain. For the wind had fallen, and fallen utterly; and in the pale silence a nightmare sense came over her that in this country Windfall was like death (whereas in all reasonable countries it was only like a sleep, stirred always with little movements and breaths). And she thought that those who trusted in one or another god had this advantage, that they knew always where to address their complaints.

  But she sprang up and began to scan the heights and slopes around them, looking for a spot from which the Exile might have flown, pods and all. “And who knows,” she said, “what sort of sails he might have unpacked? If he has a stove that burns without fuel, why not a sail that flies without wind?”

  Lethgro sighed, and turned up his collar. He was not cold yet, but he expected to be. “Come on, Rep,” he said. “It's time we were going.”

  Repnomar looked at him in some surprise. “Which way do you think he's gone?”

  “Straight up, for all I know,” said the Warden. “What difference does it make? He's found what he came for, and we have the wherewithal now to make our way home again—if we don't sit here till we've wasted it all. Besides,” he added brusquely, seeing her about to object, “there may be others than we that can see a light in the dark.” And he told her what he had thought of the Exile's shielding of the torch.

  This (he later reflected) he should have known better than to do. The Captain took it as a strong argument for following the Exile (supposing they could decide which way he had gone). For, as she said, the Exile had stood by them stoutly on more occasions than one; and if he was going now to face his enemies—"or, it may be, monsters,” she added—he was likely to need help.

  “If he wanted help he could have asked for it,” the Warden said hotly; for he felt the time had come to take a stand against the Captain's foolishness. “And I think, Repnomar, it's not so much the Exile's safety that tempts you into the dark, as your own wild curiosity. You'd risk all our lives for a sight of some outlandish nation of ice people.” And Broz whined softly, as if this talk made him uneasy.

  This was striking close to home, and the Captain immediately changed her tack. “If you see a road hereabouts without a risk on it, point it out to me, Lethgro. And what's wrong with learning something new? There may be more harm in not knowing what's out there.” (Here she gestured roundly at the dark.) “For who can say what trouble's brewing there, that may blow all the way to the Coast? And if you talk of going home, remember that you're in no good standing with the League, and your best hope of keeping your head on your shoulders is to bring the Exile back with you.”

  Lethgro bit his lip (being in the shadows where Repnomar could not see his face), for there was something in what she said. “Whatever trouble's out there,” he said, “remember that he chose to meet it alone. Also he has his precious things now—” ("Unless it was somebody else that carried them off,” put in Repnomar), “—and we've seen a little of what they can do. But all your arguments sink on one rock, Repnomar, and there it is!” And this time it was the Warden who waved his arm at the surrounding darkness. “It's true we have food for a time, such as it is, and light and heat; but if there's any truth at all in what the Exile's told us, to say nothing of what we've seen with our own eyes (or rather haven't seen), there's half a world out there of darkness and desolation. If we travel to the end of our provisions and are still in the dark, it's too late then to decide on turning back.”

  “You're right,” Repnomar said promptly, somewhat to the Warden's surprise; and she sat down on the sheet beside Broz and began spreading out the food the Exile had left them. And when the Warden asked what she was doing, she answered, “Counting our rations. We'll save half of this, and a little more, to get us back to the light if need be; and we can safely go on till we finish the rest of it.”

  Now, “safely” was not the word the Warden would have chosen; but after a minute he sat down beside her, taking the stove in his hands and working with the legs and spines of it. “For,” he said, “we'll need to know how to use this thing.” And the Captain smiled in satisfaction.

  This stove the Warden found not difficult to control, within certain limits. By thrusting in or pulling out the legs of one side or another (all of which stayed strangely cool, however hot the stove) he could send the heat in any direction, and by twisting those legs he could make that heat greater or less. But it worried him that he could not, with all his pushing and pulling and twisting, find a way to put out the fire altogether. “And whatever fuel it burns,” he said glumly, and rubbing his hand in the snow (for he had burned it), “it can't last forever.”

  “Well, turn it as low as you can,” said the Captain (for she had concluded that this twisting of stove legs was like setting the wick of a lamp). “It will keep us warm as we travel.” She had packed up the rations and folded the sheet, laying it over Broz's back and fastening it around him with her belt, so that it made a kind of coat for him. The stove was a more awkward thing to carry, but the Warden contrived to sling it from one shoulder with his own belt, and with bow and quiver on the other he stood ready to travel. “And which way, Rep?” he asked morosely. “Shall we close our eyes and spin around to choose a path, the way children do in their games?”

  But she answered, “What are shipcrows for?” And she sent the crows up into the darkness, signaling to them with the torch to show them what they were to look for. At first they were for turning back to the snow peaks, where there was most light, and Repnomar was hard put to explain her meaning to them. Yet she did so very patiently, saying to Lethgro, “He wouldn't be such a fool as to leave us this torch if he didn't have another one for himself.

  “And if they don't see anything,” she added after a time, and looking fiercely at the Warden, whom she fancied to be showing signs of restlessness, “we're no worse off than we were before.”

  To this the Warden objected, saying that if the Exile and his torch were beyond the crows’ finding, it was not likely that anyone without wings would do better. “And it would be blind foolishness, Rep, to start off into the dark at random.”

  “You were ready to do it a little while ago,” said the Captain. “It's late in the game to lose your nerve, Lethgro.”

  This made the Warden snort with indignation, for he had not struggled through the perils of half a world to be taunted for cowardice, and he was tired of holding his temper and his tongue. “And it's a little early for you to be losing your head,” he answered. “If your idea of the torch makes sense at all—and I think it does—let's not throw it away before it's had fair trial. He needed sleep as much as we did—or more, it may be, having those pods to deal with. Chances are he's asleep now; and if we start out in the wrong direction (and any direction is likely to be the wrong one), we'll be that much farther behind. Wait a few hours, and try the crows again.” And he unslung the stove and set about making himself comfortable.

  This was good advice, as the Captain could not deny; but it vexed her to sit idle. Also she still had hope that the crows would return with news of a light, and told the Warden curtly that he had better be ready to pack up the stove again at short notice. But when presently the crows came in cheerless and newsless, she stood up impatiently, saying that she and Broz would do a little hunting while the Warden sat and burned fuel. To this the Warden made no objection, but offered his bow and arrows, which she refused. For, as she said, she was no archer; “and the truth is, Lethgro, and we both know it, that any game there may be in this country is
as likely to find you here in camp as I am to find it out there.” And with these inauspicious words she wandered off into the dark, and Broz at her heels, leaving the Warden and the crows to their own devices.

  Lethgro watched her go uneasily. Since that wild flight from the cliff of the Dreeg, their little party had never been separated till now, and he felt himself sadly alone, for the crows were poor company enough. “Though better than none,” he said aloud, with a sudden shiver, and one of the crows answered him with a disconsolate squawk. He was not so foolish as to think that Captain Repnomar would lose her way in the dark; still, he would have been better satisfied if she had taken a light with her.

  As it turned out, he had more cause than he knew to worry. But it was some time before he learned that, and the first news was passably good; for very shortly the Captain and Broz came back, without game indeed but in much excitement. “There are beasts out there,” the Captain declared, “for Broz smelled them and I heard them; and that means this country isn't such a wasteland as it looks. There's food to be had!”