Wheel of the Winds

by M J Engh

  “Don't worry,” the Captain said harshly. “You'll be blamed enough; there's no need to blame yourself besides, and wear out our ears with it.” For she still felt keenly the death of her two sailors, to say nothing of what might have happened to the rest of her crew by this time.

  The Warden seated himself ponderously in front of the Exile, looking down at him with a face like an approaching storm. “Let's have it all now,” he said.

  So the Exile, not without hesitation, and proddings by both Warden and Captain, and with some difficulty at times in finding words for what he meant, told his latest story. This was that he was indeed no exile (or not yet so, as he added darkly) but one of a troop of searchers sent out to learn of other worlds, their lands and waters, mountains and rivers, and most specially their airs and winds and storms. For this purpose (he went on, warming to his subject) his people had already set certain devices to watch this world from above, looking down through the clouds; which caused Lethgro to look up uneasily and Repnomar to squint her eyes and stare into the black sky. But the Exile said that these devices could not be seen from here, being on the other side of the clouds.

  “Then how can they see the world?” Lethgro asked reasonably.

  The Exile was hard put to answer this, and could only say that it was a different kind of seeing (to which the Captain readily agreed, saying that if Quicksilver People could see in darkness, there was no reason why outlandish devices might not look through clouds). And he went on to say that though these far-off devices could by no means tell everything about this world, yet they had revealed the likeliest cause of the changing seasons.

  “The seasons?” Lethgro repeated, and chuckled wryly; for it seemed to him a wry joke indeed if the Exile's folk had gone to such lengths for such a foolish purpose, fancying they had found an answer to a question that did not exist. “Such things have no causes. Rains follow Windrise, Streamrise follows Rains, Windfall follows Streamrise, and so back to Windrise again. As well look for the cause of the Mountains or the Soll.”

  But the Exile demurred shyly, saying that even mountains had causes, and that the Mountains themselves were the cause of the seasons, or part of it. For the dark side of the world, he said, was cold as well as dark ("We've already noticed that,” the Warden remarked), and when it was coldest, and the Mountains darkest (for the world tilted slightly back and forth, so that the edge of the light was not always in the same place), cold air spilled over the Mountains, and this was called Windrise. Here the Warden nodded gravely, and said it was true that the light was very dim in the Mountains at that season.

  Now Captain Repnomar, who lived by the winds, began to question the Exile keenly; but he excused himself, saying that there were many such questions that could not be answered from such a distant view. Therefore, he said, his people had sent a mission—himself and one companion—to set up devices that would measure wind and rain and heat and all such things and send word of them back to his own world, or more truly to a between-worlds ship, for his world was very far. But while they were looking for the likeliest place to set them up, they had fallen captive to the Quicksilver People, struck down by those same poisonous darts. And here the Exile was in much trouble, shaking his head and trying three or four times before he could get it out that it seemed this poison was more potent against his people than against other creatures; for though even the smallest beasts that the Quicksilvers hunted were only stunned by it or confused for a little time, his friend had died of the darts and his own memory had been washed so far down into the depths of his mind that only now were the last surges of it rising again to his knowledge.

  “By all you've told us,” said the Captain, “it's a long way from here to the Mountains. Or is this side of the world shorter than the other?” And when he said that it was not much shorter, though somewhat so, she asked him how he had come to where the Sollet loggers had found him.

  This, however, he seemed still unsure of, only saying that he must have traveled a long way with the Quicksilvers, and that they had traded him to another people in the Mountains, from whom he had escaped and made his way to the Sollet, not knowing then who he was nor what he was to do.

  It came out presently, however, that the message he had spoken of sending was no real message, and that he had merely meant to set up his devices and let them send their word concerning the weather; for indeed (or so he claimed) he had no means of sending other messages. And he asked the Warden very prettily to consider letting him do this much, which he could well have done without hindrance, if he had not come back to save them from the Quicksilvers.

  Now the Warden felt an itching at his throat, where the Quicksilver nooses had bruised it; but he kept his face stern, saying only, “I'll consider anything,” and began at once to question the Exile about the flying of the pods and about the kind of place he sought for setting up his devices.

  On these matters the Exile grew more voluble, telling them that it was very simple to fly the pods with his little box, steering only the great pod and letting the others trail behind on leash, and that the place he sought was simply any place in the open where the Quicksilver People were not likely to come. The setting up of the devices, he said, would not take long; and when that was done, the pods would be so lightened that they could well fly across what remained of the darkness, as the Captain hoped, and bring them at least to the Mountains, if not as far as Sollet Castle.

  To all this the Warden listened closely, but without much faith. It emerged also, as the Exile talked on, that the place was already found, for he had unloaded some of his devices at a likely spot not far from here, and needed only a little time to set them working.

  Now the Warden drew the Captain aside for consultation, saying softly, “He may be telling part of the truth—” ("I think he is,” said Repnomar) “but for sure he's not telling all. I'd as soon let him set fire to Rotl as send his messages.”

  The Captain had to agree that there was sense in this; but she held to it that they should fly the pods across the darkness, instead of turning back; claiming that even if they had to walk the last part of the way it would be easy going with the Exile's rations and torch and stove. “And surely it's better,” she said, “to steer for the Mountains and the Sollet than for the Dreeg and the Low Coast. Though if we got that far,” she added, and a speculative gleam kindled in her eyes, “I wouldn't mind sailing back across the Soll in one of those Low Coast ships.”

  The Warden looked at her with alarm. But the Captain added, “To tell you the truth, Lethgro, I see no hope of getting the Mouse off that rock without another ship and a mighty lot of towing.” And she began to speak of the virtues of Low Coast ships and of the questions that itched her concerning their rigging and handling.

  All this while Broz had been sleeping on the Exile's sheet, his old limbs stretched luxuriously in the warmth of the stove and his toes twitching from time to time in happy dreams. Now he woke with a yawn and began to sniff around the pods, and presently raised his leg to mark the big one.

  At this Repnomar laughed triumphantly and said that Broz had given his approval to journeying in the pods. And Lethgro slapped his hands against his knees and stood up from the rock where he sat, saying, “So be it!” For it seemed to him after all less hazardous to undertake that flight through desolation than to struggle with all the perils of the way they had come and on top of those the Low Coast pirates and their outlandish ships. “And if it comes to walking,” he added grimly, “we've done it before with less.” For the prospect of worse things had heartened him considerably toward the dark side of the world.

  Repnomar too had leaped up, her face alight, for her hand itched for this new tiller. But the Exile's face, when he heard of it, was troubled. Still, he neither struggled nor tried to escape, and the Warden was glad of this. They discussed very calmly the difficulties of traveling far in such cramped quarters, but there was little they could agree to do about it. For the Warden would not have the Exile ride alone in one of th
e smaller pods (as he offered to do), and the Captain would not have Broz ride there (as the Warden suggested); and though the Captain, who was slenderer than Lethgro, might have managed to fold herself snugly into the second largest pod, she did not want to steer the great pod from there. “For,” as she said, “if I run it onto a reef, I should be there to take the shock.”

  So in the end they did no more than move the last packets from the big pod into one of the others and then (a thing surprising at first sight but simple enough) change the shape of the big pod to fit them better. For all these vessels, as the Exile explained, were flexible and could be bent into different shapes by pressing them at certain spots (conveniently marked in yellow). The crows, much against their will, were tucked again into the pod where the Exile had first stowed them, and—when Broz had been persuaded that there was no harm in the changed shape—all the others crept back into the largest, and (Lethgro and the Exile swallowing their anxiety as best they could) the Captain turned a knob and pressed a button, and they rose jerkily and floated in midair.

  The Captain let out a whoop of triumph that was painful in that closed space; but immediately she bent herself to business, pressing the little box here and there very carefully, studying the lines and spots on its surface, which changed (so the Exile said) with the pod's movements. Closed in this windowless shell, they had no other means of knowing where they were or which way they were headed, unless by opening a hatch and shining a light out. This they would do, the Captain said, from time to time; but the Exile had convinced her that the pod would not fly well with a hatch open in its bow, and indeed she was eager to try steering a vessel with no glimpse of landmarks.

  At first they paused often, to open the hatch and check their surroundings. But as the Captain learned to read her box more swiftly and handle it more surely, they all settled themselves a little, like birds shaking their feathers before they sleep, and began to talk peacefully.

  “You'll have to admit, Lethgro,” the Captain said, “that this is easier traveling than limping along down there on frozen feet. A good deal faster, too.”

  “Cheerfully,” Lethgro answered. “As long as it lasts.” And was struck at once by a pang of remorse for uttering words of such dubious omen, so that he added quickly, “At this rate we'll see Sollet Castle again sooner than I ever dreamed.”

  Here the Exile let slip a small but melancholy sigh, and the Warden felt another pang, for it was no happy fate to which he was returning the Exile. But that small person essayed a smile, and remarked that by his calculations this speed and this course would bring them out of the darkness in less than fifty watches if they sailed on constantly, or more if they stopped to sleep on the ground.

  Lethgro reminded himself that the Exile had clearly lied about the flying ability of the pods (though which of his versions had been lie and which perhaps truth was not so clear) and that in all likelihood this last remark was made in hopes of getting the box into his own hands again while the Captain slept. But Repnomar required no cautioning on this point, for she shot a hard glance at the Exile before she answered, “There's no need to drop anchor except when we want to stretch our legs. Two of us can keep this craft flying forever.” And she began to show Lethgro how to read the box, pointing out the dot that told how high the pod floated above the ground, and how the various-colored lines and their movements showed the wind and their own speed and the slope of the land ahead. To all which Lethgro attended closely but with a frown that grew deeper and deeper, for he found himself poorly suited to this sort of navigation. And it was while the Captain was saying, “No, no, you get wind speed from the height of this line, and direction from the slant,” that they were all slammed against the front of the pod, that seemed slammed against them, and then pod and all settled downward with unpleasant scraping noises till in a minute's time they rested crumpled and gasping on what felt like solid ground.

  The Exile, who had been sitting with his back against the pod's forward end, took the worst of the blow, and for a little while they feared that his spine had been snapped, for it seemed he could do nothing but croak feebly and spread out his stubby fingers, his eyes goggled and his whole ugly face stark with the violence of that shock. But when they had found a hatch that could still be opened, and dragged themselves out and brought him out as gently as might be, he was soon able to speak and move his arms and then to sit up and stare at the wreck of his pods. Meanwhile the Captain had first made sure that Broz was unhurt, and loosed the crows (much upset and with feathers all awry) from their small pod, which had taken a rough tumbling but seemed not broken, and now was trying the levers and buttons of the little box; but though the great pod quivered slightly, it did not rise.

  “Well, Lethgro,” she said at last, “I owe you a dinner in Rotl.”

  18

  The Red Wind

  And I mean to claim it, Rep,” the Warden answered grimly. He stood with the torch in his hand, looking up at the cliff wall into which they had crashed at full tilt, but what he was calculating in his mind was speed and distance, both of which looked discouraging. On foot they would have no choice but to stop for sleep; and since the pods traveled many times faster than a walking pace, those fifty watches the Exile had mentioned must be multiplied by some unknown number, and he thought he would be waiting a long time for that dinner in Rotl. But he was past despair now, and meant simply to go on so long as they had means, were it only by crawling. And not seeing any reason for delay, he turned again to the Exile, asking him if he thought he could walk.

  This, when they had helped him up, the Exile managed in a painful hobble, and even observed deferentially that they were lucky the pods had been traveling so slow—a notion of slowness too outlandish to call for answer. At first he could not believe that his precious vessel was past flying, and insisted on opening hatches and creeping into and over it, tinkering with the little box and with certain devices lodged in the pod's walls, while the Warden stirred restlessly from foot to foot; but in the end he gave it up.

  Both Warden and Captain were much relieved to find that he could travel on his own feet (for it would have made slow going indeed to carry him) and still more when he told them there was a packet of medicines among his supplies, one of which was good to dull pain and so should make his walking easier. This the Captain found and gave him, and then began to question him about the other packets. “For,” she said, “we want to carry everything that will help to get us through, but nothing that's not needed.”

  But the Exile said there was no need to carry anything, for every one of the pods could fly by its own power, if only the little box had not suffered damage. And he showed the Captain how, by changing the setting of a knob, she could turn the box's force to one or another of the pods, or to all of them at once, making them swim in air like a school of fish in water, rising or turning all at the same instant and all the same way. This gave her much pleasure, especially as the largest remaining pod could carry either Broz or the Exile, if walking grew too wearisome for them. So it was with lighter hearts that they started off again, and the school of pods floated above them.

  The first use the Captain found for the size of that largest pod was to make a shipcrow of the Exile, and this she did even before they started. For their first problem was how to pass the cliff where they had shipwrecked, whether by climbing it straight forward or by trying to find a way around. This was something the crows themselves could not well tell them, being not strong enough to carry a light, and besides not trained for such a kind of scouting. “But,” the Captain told the Exile happily, “I can send you up in that pod, and left and right, with an open hatch and the torch to see by, and you can tell me how high the cliff stands, and how far it runs each way.”

  Now the Exile looked at her a little sickly, as one who faces a worse hazard than any he has passed; but he agreed cheerfully enough, saying only that with the Warden's permission he might contrive a means of signaling from the pod, and so lessen the chance of being smas
hed against the cliff, or some worse thing. And indeed there was sense in this, if he could do it; for Repnomar, staring blindly from below, could not well see where she was sending the pod. The Warden did not much like to let the Exile fiddle with his devices (not knowing what indeed he might contrive) and wished heartily that he himself would fit into that pod; but in the end, weighing one risk with another, he told him to get on with it.

  This the Exile eagerly did, opening a small device and poking into its entrails, explaining as he worked that this thing was meant to measure the heat of the air and send word of it; but by joining one part to another in its vitals, he could make it answer to the heat of his hand, so that when he touched it, it would send out its little word; and the Captain's box, when he had made another such adjustment in it, should hear that word and answer by lighting one of its dots, that was now dull and lifeless.

  “And what answer,” asked the Warden, in a voice that made the Exile cringe slightly, “will there be from that ship of your people?” But the Exile swore very earnestly that none of these devices could by themselves send a message so far, and that there was still another device—which he showed them, silent and motionless—that was meant to gather all their signals and send them out beyond the clouds, and he swore too that this device slept till certain things were done to it. And with this the Warden, biting the inside of his lips, was forced to content himself.