Wheel of the Winds

by M J Engh

  Figures were swarming on the island's rocky tip, beside the Mouse's anchorage. They seemed to be waving their arms, jumping up and down, and giving other signs of excitement; but any sounds they might be making were lost, for now the voice of the waterfall made itself heard, a throaty rumble full of threat for those who had heard it before.

  In the boats, they were straining hard; but the weight and drag of the cables, that now trailed almost their whole length in the water, held them back. Repnomar had had floats tied here and there along the cables, and this somewhat eased the burden on the boats. Nevertheless, they were heeled far over by the pull; and presently Lethgro, unable to bear the sight longer, sent out the last boat (for the pirates had only the one) to row hastily along between the cables and lift them as much as possible. This meant that most of the sailors were in the three boats and in no little danger of being swept over the waterfall. Now Lethgro gave orders to drop anchor and to stand by at the capstan, ready to haul in the Blue Crow's cable; and Brask, at his signal, did the same on her own ship.

  It was a good thing that Repnomar had started the boats so early; otherwise (as everyone agreed later) they would never have reached the island. As it was, the pirates’ boat barely managed to make land far down the island's side, and the sailors in the third boat only saved themselves by a firm grip on one of the cables. But the Captain's own boat reached the point of the island, just as she had planned it; and when she sprang ashore, such a shout went up from the Mouse's crew that they heard it on the ships through the rumbling of the cataract. Presently both cables were made fast to the Mouse's bow, and the third boat's crew worked their vessel back to the Blue Crow, hand over hand along her cable, for they were needed at the capstan.

  Then came the haul. The Mouse, which had been pointing downstream, had to be headed around into the current, pivoting on her stern anchor. When that was done, the anchor was raised, and on all three ships all hands began to heave. The capstans went round swiftly enough at first, but when the Mouse came well into the current, the strain threatened to be too much for the gear. The pirate ship (which was lighter than the Crow) began to drag its anchors, and Brask was kept busy throwing grapples to catch at trees or solid rock on shore. This she did with her own hand, for all her crew that were not on the Mouse were busy at the capstan. Luckily she had a powerful arm and a sure eye, and enough of her grapples held so that the dragging slowed and stopped.

  Lethgro, meanwhile, saw with a sinking heart that the Crow's capstan could not much longer take the strain; for the pawls that held it from moving backward, and thus unwinding all the cable they had laboriously wound up, were cracking one by one. So with the Exile's help (for he was one-armed, and all the sailors were straining at the spikes of the capstan) he rigged a spare winch to take a little of the stress. And although, as Repnomar later explained to him, this could not have helped much, it helped enough; for the capstan held.

  But the Mouse was far from a dead weight. Captain Repnomar on her part made such good use of rudder, oars, and jibsail that in the end the cables needed only to hold the ship from being swept over the falls while she worked it shoreward, not to pull it upstream against the current, and from time to time she could even let out a little of the cable they had already hauled in, so as to ease their way. This brought them once so close to the edge of the cataract that all other sound was lost in its roaring, and two sailors swore later that from the deck they could see down the face of the falls; while Lethgro watched stricken, and threw his weight so hard against the handle of the winch that it broke. But at last the Mouse's anchor caught and held in the shallows under the bank, and sailors swarmed ashore with ropes to make fast to anything possible, so that, as the Captain said, “If the Mouse goes over, half the bank goes with her.”

  Now there was celebration beside the Dreeg. The Mouse's crew declared noisily that they had never doubted the Captain would return and bring them off (though by and by Anscrop and some of the others began to speak regretfully of the gardens and cottages they had left on the island). They were all in good health, though somewhat hard of hearing, and had prospered so well on the island that at least two of them were now pregnant. They reported proudly that during their year in the wilderness they had hauled the Mouse out for cleaning and repair, so that now all was in the best condition; and they apologized for Repnomar's message crow, which, finding itself on board the Mouse after so long a time and such a perilous and unseemly journey, had flatly refused to leave again, and was even now preening its feathers in its own nest box beside the Captain's cabin. And though the Captain was usually rather stern with her crows, she forgave this fault readily, saying that she felt much the same herself and did not mean to be soon parted from the Mouse. Indeed she was in a mood of jubilation that worried Lethgro, saying openly that if there had been time to wait for Windrise, she could have sailed the Mouse off without the need for cables. And they built fires, and danced, and made merry all the remainder of that watch. “For,” as the Captain pointed out, “after this we begin the hard part.”

  The next step of their plan (which no one else embraced as wholeheartedly as the Captain) was certainly not easy; for it was to haul out the ships, carry them past the waterfall of the Dreeg, and set them afloat again. Even the Exile was doubtful whether this would save time, considering the labor that would be needed. But the Captain told him that humans could work as fast as gods when put to it, and promised they would waste no time. And she herself left the celebration to scout out the riverbank with Broz. Lethgro went with them; for, he said, for once Brask could watch the Exile.

  Afterwards, when they were sailing comfortably down the river, they agreed—at least Lethgro, Repnomar, and the Exile agreed—that it had been well worth the labor. Certainly it had saved them many watches of traveling time; for the whole operation had been performed in two watches of dogged and sometimes frantic effort: one to prepare the trail for the ships and haul them out of the water, and the other to drag them down the slope. There had been vigorous discussion on some points. They had ended by leaving the Blue Crow anchored above the falls, with a skeleton crew that included the pregnant sailors, for all agreed that the journey to come would not be a good time to give birth.

  All was not well, however. Lethgro's arm was no better, and neither was Brask's temper. The Exile was doubly anxious, first from his haste to find his message device and second because he had lost his midges. This, indeed, had happened somewhere upstream; but he had not spoken of it before—not wishing, he said, to add trouble to trouble when the Captain, the Warden, and Captain Brask were all suffering from wounds. To such remarks Repnomar answered, with a grimace of laughter, that she did not think the news of a few midges mislaid would have much increased her pain.

  But Lethgro listened more soberly, for the Exile explained that if by chance the midges (which, it seemed, had eaten their way through the cloth he had used to cover their box) found their way to the opposite bank of the Dreeg, they might there begin to make desert of a new country that had heretofore been safe from them, with results unforeseeable. On the one hand, it might be of no consequence—indeed, there might have been midges on the far bank from time immemorial; or the midges might die out quickly in the new land; or at least they might be no worse than on the left bank, where it seemed the land was accustomed to heal itself, and no doubt the midges were a necessary part in the life of many creatures there. On the other hand, in a country not inured to them they might wreak unheard-of havoc, wiping out some breeds of creatures altogether, changing the very weather by their depredations, and sweeping along the coast till they reached human habitations. Lethgro shuddered at this, and sternly asked the Exile why, if he had such fears, he had brought the eggs on board in the first place. To this he had no good answer, saying only that he had wanted to know, and had thought he could keep them secure. And seeing that his words had troubled Lethgro, he tried to cheer him again, saying that the likelihood of these ill things happening was very scant. Then too, if he
did not send his message in time, the worst the midges could do might go unnoticed in the greater troubles that were coming upon the world. Lethgro did not take much comfort from this.

  But he had other worries besides midges and devils from beyond the clouds. “I don't know about you, Repnomar,” he observed in a private conversation, “but I'd prefer not to have my throat cut.”

  “Brask is no fool,” Repnomar answered. “If it were only me and the Mouse, she might think of cutting throats. But she knows you're on a mission for the Council of Rotl. She has everything to gain by sticking with us—good pay and a pardon from the Council. And if she did decide to pull out, what's to stop her from just turning back?”

  “You're the one who claims she would have done that above the waterfall if she were going to do it,” Lethgro said morosely. “And I wish you hadn't talked about sailing up-Dreeg, Repnomar. She may imagine she could really do it.”

  “I don't doubt she could,” Repnomar answered, with no sign of repentance. “But the wind's not strong enough yet. And the farther she goes with us, the longer the way back. I think she'll stick to her bargain—at least till the going gets rougher.”

  Lethgro blinked his eyes dubiously. “She's surlier watch by watch, Rep. I wouldn't bet much on her not turning, and I'd bet even less on her not thinking it safer to finish us off before she turned. Besides, she'd want the Mouse, and the Blue Crow, and any booty she could find on them. In spite of the lies we've told her, I suspect she suspects that we're carrying all our money.” (Which indeed they were).

  To this the Captain could only answer, “We keep good watch on the Mouse. And we have all the swords we need.”

  But if Brask meant to turn her ship upstream (whether with or without the Mouse) she would have to do it soon, for they were coming to that Reed Soll where they must leave their ships and take to the land. Brask had been warned of this, and had agreed to a journey that was to be half on land and in the dark; but it appeared now that she had not really believed what they told her. For as they came among the reeds and the light began to fade, she called for a conference on board her own vessel; and when Repnomar would not agree to this, shouting from the Mouse's stern that any business they had could be conducted in boats between the ships, or by calling from one to the other ("for your lungs are as good as mine, Brask") or by crows, Brask lost her temper altogether, demanding with indignation what they were taking her into.

  To which Repnomar answered loudly, “If you can't stand this, Brask, you'd better leave now—because it's going to get worse.”

  This conversation, conducted between the stern of the Mouse and the bow of the pirate ship as they plowed through the reeds, and in the hearing of both crews, struck Lethgro as dangerous, and he tried to draw Repnomar aside for a few prudent words in private. The Captain, however, was not to be bullied on her own ship, and she stood her ground, shouting out to Brask, “If you want to turn around now, turn!—and you'll get half the pay you bargained for, as soon as we get back to Rotl. But if you want it all, you'll have to stay the course!”

  “I'm not leaving my ship in a swamp!” Brask thundered.

  “Then turn around now! Or you can carry your ship on your backs while you climb the mountains, and try how it sails on ice rivers.” Here the Captain cupped her hands around her mouth to make her shout carry more clearly. “We went the whole way, Brask! But maybe you're not good enough.”

  Now there were sounds of dissatisfaction from the pirates, while those of the Blue Crow's crew who were on the pirate ship looked at each other uneasily; and Brask roared, “We'll show you what we can do!” and stalked away from the rail.

  “Now you've done it, Repnomar!” Lethgro said. “She won't be satisfied till she sees you dead in your blood.”

  “Then she'll wait a long time for satisfaction,” Repnomar said cheerfully. “But you're wrong, Lethgro. We're better friends now than we've ever been before. Not,” she added, with a laugh, “that we've ever been friends.”

  Under oars, the ships plowed their way smoothly through the reeds, with a sound like sickles cutting through grass; and though it was tedious rowing, and the oars were hung with broken reeds like the coarse green hair of some god, it was easier than Repnomar had expected. For from the masthead she could see those channels that her crows had not been able to find, their first time through this country. “And no wonder,” she said to herself; for the channels showed not as clear water but as winding stripes of a lighter green. Here the reeds were softer and slighter, leaning with the flow of the water and every breath of the air. At the bow of the Mouse, a sailor with a long pole kept prodding for bottom.

  “And how will we keep from getting mired in the muck, Repnomar?” Lethgro asked gloomily.

  “We walked on those reeds, remember,” the Captain answered. “I think we can slide a ship on them.”

  Lethgro, who remembered all too well what it had been like to walk on and among those reeds, sighed deeply. But when, a few hours later, the sailor with the sounding pole shouted out that they were into the mud, and their path of pale reeds narrowed to an end, the Captain at once sent out a boat to beat down the stiffer reeds ahead, bending them sideways across the Mouse's course, and called for Brask to do the same. But before the pirates’ boat had come up, Repnomar herself had leaped from the Mouse's bow ("to show the crew how easy it was,” she explained afterward) and thrashed her way forward to stand chest-deep beside the boat, to the astonishment of its crew. Here she waved her arm and shouted, calling sailors by name to follow her; then pulled out her knife and stooped into the water.

  And it was thus that they managed the business, bending all the nearby reeds flat across the path of the ships and cutting or breaking armfuls from farther away to lay on top of these. Over this smooth and springy cushion they dragged and shoved both ships; and, as the Captain said, “They had a rougher road around the waterfall.” To which Brask replied, panting heavily, that at least it had been downhill there.

  But when at last both ships lay canted on the spongy ground beyond the reedbeds, in that unwholesome dimness below the mountain peaks that stood like fangs against the dark, the Captain ordered two full watches of rest and sleep and preparation, and even the Exile did not object to this delay. “I don't want anybody beginning the trek already worn out,” Repnomar said. And Brask stood with her arms akimbo, looking up at those teeth of light, and said nothing.

  27

  Of the Truthfulness of Exiles

  It was a very different business this time. With two full ship's crews and half another, all warmly clad and loaded with supplies, it was, in Repnomar's words, “like coasting downwind on an easy reach.” Probably, however, only she and Lethgro and the Exile and Broz appreciated the ease of it, for to the others it seemed hard work indeed. The Mouse's sailors, who had weathered a full year in the wilderness, and were besides overjoyed to have come off so neatly from the waterfall and very pleased with their Captain, were merry enough, in spite of the dark and the cold and the hard climbing; for they thought that if Captain Repnomar had been this way before, it was a safe course for them to follow. But apprehension weighed heavier on the others with every step they took into the darkness. When they looked back from the peaks and saw the far clouds red where their journeying had sunk the light behind them, there were many who called it the evilest omen they had ever seen.

  But they went on, and in due time came upon the ice river and the snowfields beyond. Here the Captain led them with a torch, one of the long-burning sort soaked in sheep's tallow, which in this darkness gave a light of surprising brilliance, though it did not reach far. Once they had got the hang of walking in snow they made good time, for no one was willing to be left behind in that swallowing darkness. Brask proved herself useful, too, in rousing the laggards, convincing them that they were not so tired as they had thought; for she explained with vigor that all who were weary could put down the packs they carried, but that no one without a pack would eat.

  They were on the l
ookout now for any sign of Quicksilver People. Lethgro's hope was that the Quicksilvers, seeing them so numerous and well equipped, would leave them alone and let them pass unmolested to where the Exile had stowed his gear. Brask and Repnomar had quarreled about the matter of weapons, Brask saying that she would not let her people walk defenseless into the dark, and Repnomar that swords were defense enough, for she wanted to confiscate all bows and arrows and the light javelins that some of the pirates carried. But Lethgro had pointed out that since both arrows and javelins were useless in the dark, it mattered very little whether they carried them or not; and the pirates kept their weapons.

  “What I'm afraid of, Lethgro,” the Captain confided, as they strode together at the head of the column, “is that some fool will hear a noise and try a shot at it, and we'll be in a battle before we can blink. Don't forget the Quicksilvers can see in this country, and we can't.”

  “I don't forget that, nor their poisoned darts either,” Lethgro said. “I only hope they're prudent enough to keep their distance. They can't be used to dealing with such a troop as this.”

  “Broz can help us,” Repnomar said, stooping in her step to pat the old dog's head. “He may have lost an eye, but his nose is as good as ever. If he smells Quicksilver, he'll let us know.”