Wheel of the Winds

by M J Engh

  Afterwards he was glad enough that his first fear had melted him past speech or movement, so that he only gurgled a cry that was lost in the wind's noise; for he thought at the first sight that some great thunderbolt was falling upon them, or some pouncing god. But before he had had time to show himself a coward, what had seemed at first a huge and blazing meteor resolved itself into a lighted globe or egg that trailed a litter of lesser globes, and he recognized the Exile's pods, flying sweetly as thistledown. And like thistledown they settled earthward and then balanced in air, hovering still out of reach above their heads. But it was from the great pod that the merciless wind blew, rushing down and out, so that a little pool of calm lay straight beneath it, while all around was blasted by the gale. It was when the pod's belly opened and a knotted rope snaked down from it, just to the right of the Captain, that he understood and bellowed his “Climb!” And seeing her otherwise occupied, and not liking to waste whatever time they had, he hobbled forward and grasped the rope. He was halfway up, climbing like a cripple because of his bonds, when he felt the sting of darts in his leg and haunch.

  As the Exile told him later, with much apology and concern, that should not have happened. The wind was to have kept away the Quicksilvers and blown away their darts and their nets. But there was no wind straight under the pod where the rope hung, and it was there that Repnomar had dropped her keeper, so that for a little while it was not clear to any of them whether anyone would win up that rope. Broz, however, had definite opinions on the matter; and though the wind was such that he had to crouch and crawl against it, he reached the Quicksilver before the Captain did, and to such effect that she had to drag him off. “Though I don't know why,” the Warden said, when he had heard all the story, “you didn't let him eat the little beast.” He himself had finished his climb hunched half through the pod's hatch, his teeth ground hard together and his eyes glazed, having held off the poison from his brain by sheer stubbornness and the will to climb that rope, and the Exile had dragged him the rest of the way in, with no little difficulty.

  But the Captain answered that the Quicksilver People were not beasts, and had done them little harm compared with what they might have done. “And besides,” she added, “we didn't have the time.” She had somehow worked Broz and herself up the rope by main force—not an easy chore, with her wrists still yoked to her ankles, and Broz's scrambling more a hindrance than a help—and the rope was drawn up and the hatch closed.

  Then there was an awkward time, for though the pod was large, their four bodies packed it (as the Captain remarked) like a cargo of salt fish stamped down and with the hatches nailed shut. Lethgro was so much dead meat for the present, and awkward to handle; while Broz, who did not well understand where they were, was half frantic to get out, and all of them cramped into almost as tight a tangle as they might have been in a Quicksilver net. But the Exile, crawling over and under and between, got their bonds cut at last; and the Captain, laughing and swearing by turns, persuaded Broz that this strange vessel was a friendly one, so that when Lethgro came to himself, they were under way, though not comfortable.

  If the Councils of Beng and Rotl had been able to see that vessel (so the Warden reflected) there would have been no more talk among them of the Exile being a god. Indeed it was all he could do to manage his peculiar craft, and he was full of apology for its clumsiness, regretting that he had not been able to contrive a better gangplank for them than that knotted rope, nor better quarters than this cramped cargo-hold. To which the Captain answered that she had climbed a rope before, though never before with her hands and feet tied together and a struggling dog between her elbows and her knees. “And it's light here, and it's warm,” she added, “which is more comfort than we've been used to lately.”

  “But the best comfort,” said Lethgro, “is that the walls are proof against poisoned darts.” And wondered, as soon as the words were out, whether that was true, for the walls of the pod were more like leather to the touch, supple and yielding, than like wood or stone.

  Crouched with knees to chins, and their backs and heads pressed against that flexible hide, they had made room enough for the Exile to manage his steering. This he did very awkwardly, in the Captain's opinion, and yet as well as could be hoped; for he steered blind in that closed pod, only now and then opening a hatch for a quick peek outside, and otherwise judging their position by the marks and lights on the sides of a little box no bigger than his fist. The feel of the flying pod was somewhat like the feel of a boat, bobbing and swaying slightly. But as the Exile explained it, these pods were not meant to carry either passengers or crew, being cargo vessels only and intended to be steered from the outside—not meant for fighting, either, so that his attack on the Quicksilver troop, like his navigation, was all makeshift. There was little he could do, he said, except shine light and blow air, which he had accordingly done. And when they asked him what had so dismayed the Quicksilvers just before the wind struck, he answered that it was another kind of light, the kind the Quicksilvers saw with their great eyes, and so bright and sudden that it dazzled them. This the Warden found too unlikely to believe at first. “But what could make more sense, Lethgro?” the Captain said. “It's clear they can see where all's dark to us, and clear too that they can't see what we call light. Why shouldn't there be another kind of light on this side of the world?” Explained this way, it seemed reasonable enough; and when the Exile tried to tell them that the Quicksilvers’ kind of light was also on the bright side of the world, being an invisible light that came from all warm things, they both refused to listen.

  While they talked, the Exile had been anxiously steering the pod (which he did by touching certain buttons and levers set into the sides of his little box). Suddenly there was a rude jolt that jostled them all together, and the pod sat motionless, swaying no longer. The Exile cleared his throat and apologized for the rough landing. Another thing, he explained, that the pods were not meant for was much traveling, and he hoped they had come far enough for safety. So with some difficulty they crawled out through a little hatch in the side (smaller than the bottom hatch through which they had climbed the rope) and found themselves snug in a hollow of the bare rock.

  Here they had good hopes of being untroubled by the Quicksilvers, who seemed to be people of the snowfields; and the sides of the hollow seemed high enough to shield them from the sight of any creatures that saw in darkness. The Exile brought out the stove with which he had warmed the pod (smaller and simpler than the one they had lost to the Quicksilvers, being only a little ball that gave out heat in all directions like a fire) and the torch with which he had kept it light, so that they stretched and eased themselves in great comfort, and ate very eagerly of the Exile's rations.

  Meanwhile the Exile opened one of the smaller pods (that lay all tumbled now around the big one) and brought out the two crows. For he said that as he was searching for a place to put his precious things (here the Captain started to interrupt and then thought better of it, preferring to hear first about her shipcrows) the crow with Repnomar's message had found him; and though he had not been able to read a word of it, he had guessed it meant trouble, and the crow had showed him which way to go.

  “We didn't know,” said the Captain, “whether you'd choose to come or not.” But at this the Exile appeared so hurt and sorry that the Warden felt constrained to take back the doubt, saying that they had only feared he would not get the message, and urging him to go on with his story.

  They had been easy enough to find, he said, with the torchbeam flashing this way and that, and he had followed above them (where the Quicksilvers never looked, so that he thought there were no flying things in this country) till he was well assured of their situation. By that time, too, he had found the other crow, still following the troop and feeding on the leavings of the hunt. He had landed his pods briefly at the site of the butchering, where the crows had come to him trustingly enough, and he had stowed them in the small pod to prevent losing them, and again follo
wed the Quicksilvers.

  Here the Exile fell to begging their pardon for having left them so long in that danger and discomfort, and for having found no more graceful means of rescue. But the Captain broke in on this, asking roughly, “What's this new place you're searching for?”

  The Exile seemed unsure how to answer this, perhaps from not knowing the right words, but more likely (so Lethgro thought) from trying to hide his purposes. But when they pressed him, he told them frankly that he had remembered what he was to do in this world, and that it behooved him to send a message to his own people.

  Now the Warden cursed himself heartily for having ever connived at the Exile's doings, considering that the nature of exiles is to trouble all around them till they can somehow win back to their own place. And considering also that they had gone far enough on this road, he stood up then and there, saying without ceremony, “You'll send no message while you're my prisoner.”

  17

  Of a Dinner in Rotl

  Broz was happy. That, so far as it went, pleased the Captain very well; but looked at in a different light, it was not all so good. “We've got to move on,” she told the Warden fretfully, “and Broz won't like it.”

  “Neither Broz nor I,” said the Warden, taking a last stitch in his boot, which had been in sad need of mending; “but it's high time to start. We have a long way to walk.”

  “Walk!” cried the Captain. “Wear out your own boots, Lethgro, if you choose—but I mean to fly.”

  They had slept in turns, the Exile laying himself down very meekly, on the Warden's instructions, between Broz and the Captain. Indeed he had made no resistance at all, though clearly he had been taken much aback by Lethgro's pronouncement (not having considered himself, it seemed, a prisoner to anyone). But, “The Sacred League of Beng and Rotl entrusted the warding of Sollet Castle to me,” said Lethgro, when the Exile undertook some timid argument, “and you were given me as a prisoner to hold for the decision of the Councils. Till they decide, I have no choice but to hold you. I'll help you every way I can,” he added more kindly, “but there are things I cannot do, and one of them is to stand by while you call down I don't know what outlandish nations from beyond the clouds.”

  To this the Exile answered not a word, only blinking his eyes and screwing up his mouth in some distress. Indeed there was little he could have done, unarmed as he was, for the Warden and the Captain (and for that matter Broz) were each more than a match for him if it came to fighting; and they keeping carefully between him and his pods, there was no road open to him but out into the darkness and the cold.

  The Warden, with some misgivings, had searched the Exile with his own hands, taking away his knife and one or two small items of dubious purpose; but he could not bring himself to bind him, having too keen a memory of his own bonds. Besides, he thought that the desolation of that unfriendly country was prison enough. “Only,” he told the Captain privately, “at all costs we'd best keep him away from the pods. There are too many outlandish things there that only he knows the use of.”

  To this the Captain assented very laconically. She had stood back from all this matter between the Warden and the Exile; for though in general she was not one to shy away from a quarrel, neither did she like to plunge into one before she knew which side to take. She had no doubt that Lethgro was within his rights; what puzzled her was deciding whether there was more to be gained or lost by letting the Exile do as he pleased. There were several questions she would have liked to ask him, but she kept silent, judging by the wary look of his eyes that there was little truth to be gotten from him at present. But this temporizing did not well suit the Captain's nature, and had made her touchy and apt to veer to unforeseen courses; and it was thus that she declared without premeditation that she would fly and not walk.

  Now, Lethgro (once he had made up his mind to act) had no doubt as to his course. Whatever the Councils of Beng and Rotl might inflict upon him could hardly be worse, he thought, than what the Exile might unleash with his message. It behooved them, therefore, to find their way back as promptly as possible to human countries and there make what peace they could. To the Warden, this clearly meant they would walk back in the direction they had come, taking what supplies seemed useful from the pods. He was not eager to meet the Quicksilver People and their ropes again, but, as he told Repnomar, “I think we know enough now to stay out of their way.” It was true he had no answer yet as to how they might win through all the hazards of the Dreeg and the Low Coast and the Soll; but he thought that once they were back in the light they could find a better road than they had come by. What he had seen of the dark side of the world had confirmed him more and more in the opinion that anything else was better, and he would have undertaken to face two Dreegs and two Low Coasts more willingly than go on into the untried dark in the blank hope of sometime coming out among the snow streams that fed his own Sollet.

  So that when the Captain announced so hotly that she meant to fly, he undertook to reason with her. “If you mean in a pod, Repnomar, as I suppose you do, you might as well give back his things to the Exile and tell him to take command. As soon as we're in that pod, we're at his mercy.”

  “I've captained a ship at least as long as you've been Warden of Sollet Castle,” said Repnomar, “and I watched him fly it with his little box. I may give us a rough ride at first, but I'll bet you a good dinner in Rotl that I get the hang of it before the first watch is half over. And if you're so afraid of the Exile, we can tie him up.”

  This was unjust, and stung the Warden sharply, so that he answered with some heat, “It's not him so much as you I'm afraid of, Rep. I don't doubt you can figure out part of it for yourself; but some things you'll surely have to take his word for, or risk worse shipwreck than any you've survived yet. And what's his word worth now—if it was ever worth anything? Whatever he tells us now may be a trick. And besides, where do you think you'll fly to?”

  “To Sollet Castle,” Repnomar answered, throwing her arms wide, for the notion of such a voyage had put her quickly into better temper. “Think of it, Lethgro! We'll come floating down from the Mountains like thistledown and land at Castle Wharf, and be rowed across the river in state to the Castle. Can't you picture the whole town running out to see us? And when they ask us where we've been, we'll say, ‘Around the world!’ And then on to Beng and Rotl, and the Councils will be so flabbergasted they'll confirm you as Warden again and likely give you anything else you ask for. And after that, I've still got the Mouse to get off that waterfall, and—”

  Here the Warden interrupted her. “Didn't you hear him say these pods weren't made for long journeys? Likely the thing would fall like a spent arrow and leave us on foot in the very middle of the dark half of the world.”

  But the Captain scoffed at this, saying, “First you're afraid to listen to the Exile, and then you're afraid not to listen to him. For that matter, it's only his word that this darkness covers half the world.”

  “And only his and yours,” Lethgro said body, “that the world is round. If you happen to be wrong—and I think you've been wrong once or twice in your life, Repnomar—we'll have to turn back from the edge sooner or later, if we don't fall over it in the dark.”

  The Exile had heard at least the latter part of this discussion, for he sat a few yards away, mending some clothes of his own and feeding tidbits to the crows, that sat at his feet. As the voices of the others rose, he kept his head modestly bent, tending very busily to his stitching. But now the Captain, tired of this pretense, swept her arm in his direction, saying loudly, “There he sits. Why not ask him what he means to do? It may be this message you're so afraid of is harmless after all.”

  This was the third time in as many minutes that Repnomar had called him afraid, and the Warden (having gotten his boot on his foot again) leaped up in great vexation. Still, he schooled himself to avoid a quarrel outright, saying only, “There's no gag in his mouth. He can speak when he chooses.” And on this cue the Exile began to apologize once
more for the trouble he had caused them both.

  But the Captain cut him off before he had well started, declaring that she was tired of hearing what harm he had done, and only cared to hear what harm he was going to do. “And mainly, what's this message, and what were you sent to do in this world?”

  Clearly the Exile was embarrassed by such direct questions, and squirmed like a child caught in some foolish prank. But under the Captain's hammering, he swallowed and gave her a straight look at last and said solemnly that he had been sent to this world to see the weather.

  “Weather!” Lethgro exploded; and the Captain, when she had made sure that this was indeed the word he meant, could not contain her laughter.

  “You see, Lethgro, what a momentous matter of state you have here! And I suppose,” she added to the Exile, “the message you want to send is how hard the wind blows?” And the Exile said yes.

  By this time the Warden had forgotten his anger and was looking at the Exile very piercingly, for it seemed to him that both Exile and Captain might have spoken truth. “Tell me this, Repnomar,” he said evenly; “if you were taking a navy into waters you'd never sailed before, wouldn't you want to know how hard the wind blew?”

  Now the Captain, who at that moment had been thinking eagerly of messages between worlds and voyages in flying pods, came about sharply, and she too looked hard at the Exile, who began to show signs of distress, knitting his crooked brows and squeezing his knotty fingers together. But he swore in a cracked voice that there was no navy preparing to fall upon them, nor any warlike intention among his people toward this world. And when the Warden inquired why then this monstrously secret mission, he said stoutly that the secrecy was a sign of his people's good will, not wishing to trouble or alarm any of the folk of this world, and he himself was to blame (though as it happened he could scarcely have helped it) for showing himself and so bringing disturbance to many and danger and death to some.