The Windsingers (17 page)

'Most of the others had given it up that year, and gone back to shore. But I stayed, and I wasn't alone, for Paul stayed with me. The village no longer speaks of Paul, does it? Paul, who was their darling, as I am their dastard. He was my friend, when all the others used my name as a curse. No matter how often I was drunk, Paul was there, sober, to see me safely home. If my catch was poor, he shared his with me. Let any man speak ill of me, and Paul would speak out on my behalf. He was all a man should ever be, and my one true friend. None could help but love him, man and maid alike. No one doubted that he would do great things. No one was surprised that he stayed in the temple on the black night of that Temple Ebb.

'Water was up around our hips, but we didn't care. We went to work on some of the bigger blocks, ones a single man couldn't lift. Together we'd toppled them over and looked underneath. We were in the southwest corner of the temple. We had moved a number of stones, not being too careful where we put them. Just getting them out of our way, to see what was under them, and not finding much more than crabs and sand. In the very corner was one big brute of a stone. Even together, we couldn't budge it. But we were stubborn. Paul waded back to shore, through that howling tempest the Windsinger was brewing. He went to the tavern and asked for help. But no one would come. It's cold, they whined. It's wet and the tide will soon turn. Stay with us, Paul, and drink. Duce will come in soon enough. But Paul had honor. He wouldn't stay to drink or warm himself. Back he came to me, with an old broken oar. We stuck it under the stone, and he lifted, and we heaved, and up she rose. Neither of us could take our hands away from the oar, for the stone would've dropped again. So I just sneaked a foot under there, and scooped out whatever I could reach. Mostly sand, and then my foot caught on a thing that dragged. Slowly it came out, and all the time we pressed down on that oar. Little by little, I scraped it alone. Out it came. We both stared. We knew that we had it.

'We'd found the Windsingers' chest. Ever so careful, we eased that rock down. Paul just stood holding the oar, staring down at it through the water. But I knew the tide was turning, and we had no time to waste. I took my breath and stooped down and got my hands on it. Cold! So cold it burned my hands, but I was a fine youth, a fine strapping youth, and I didn't let it go. Paul crouched beside me, and took his end. Together we strained. I felt my knuckles cracking, and heard the creaking of his shoulders. We brought it up, our lungs nearly bursting with the effort. How little Windsinger children had ever lifted it, I'll never know. It took all the strength in both our bodies to raise it. Maybe its time under the sea had soaked it full and swelled it heavy. But we had it. We had it! I looked to Paul, and he was grinning like a skull. Let's get it to shore, he said, and I nodded. Then it happened. We heard the bell toll. Know where that bell is, Carly? Know why no one's ever seen it, but the whole village has heard tell of it? Because it's down there in the Windsingers' cellar, that's why! That cellar never caved in, it just filled up with water. That's where the bell hangs, and the right tide can ring it. We heard it bong, to shake the very earth under our feet. We knew the tide was turning. Time to go, and fast. Paul took a step, and I started to follow. Then he gave a yell and stopped still. He jerks about, looking scared, and right away I can tell it's his foot. We ease the chest down beside him. His foot was jammed deep between some of the stones we had shifted. He couldn't get out. Well, I can't hold that chest and pry him loose. I can't carry the chest alone. And even if I could, it's too late. The tide had turned. Before I could be back for him, he'd be under. I was a proud man, Carly, and not one to let a friend down. I put the chest from my mind.

'I took the oar up and went to work. But most of those stones we'd moved, we'd moved together. I could fee there were three I'd have to shift if we were to get him out. Paul could help me with it. Take the chest, Duce, he told me. I can't carry it alone, I told him. Besides, you're just trying to get out of your share of the work. We both laughed, and he knew I wouldn't leave him to die. I moved one stone, though I left skin on that oar to do it. I started on the second one. I pushed on that oar, feeling the pains of trying too hard, things popping loose in my shoulders and back. But there's Paul and the chest at stake. It has to be! So, I close my eyes, see, and push with my death strength. And the second stone moved. Paul could see what it done to me. Don't, Duce!' he tells me. Back to shore with you! Come back for the chest at the next low tide. You can get it then, now that you know where it is. Not with your corpse in the way, I told him. He knew I wouldn't leave him. We had a bit of pride, back then. I got the oar under the stone, though I can see that the pain of me shoving on that stone is nigh to killing Paul. He doesn't say, but I guess that his foot is being crushed. Don't faint! I told him, and that makes him laugh the laugh that men use when they fear to cry. The tide is still coming in, getting deeper every minute, and the damned Windsinger still howling up the wind. The water was lapping around our chests, sucking the heat from our bodies and the strength from our legs. Only a little bit of the chest is still above water, but I knew where it was. I planned to get it later. I put my weight on the oar, and Paul screamed. A terrible scream. All the others have long gone back to the village. It was getting darker, the water is getting deeper, but they're all in the tavern, drinking deep, waiting to make jokes of us when we come in, the last fools, cold and wet. But I remember thinking, Can't they hear his scream? Can a man make a sound like that, and not be heard? But no one heard but me. It took the heart out of me. Every time I put my weight to that oar, Paul screamed. Yet I knew I had to lift it that way, it's the only way there was. He'd turned grey, only fear of drowning kept him from fainting with the pain. I promised him, Paul, this will be the last heave. I'll either free you, or give you my knife. He nodded and tried to smile. The waves are rising.

'I took the oar in both my hands, and my soul cried out to the villagers taken by the sea. Help me! I beg of them, and I pushed. The stone moved. Paul dropped down in the water, but I caught him up. The tide was coming in faster, and all this time the Windsinger on the hill is stirring the waves with wind. I know I'll have to fight the wind, too, once I'm outside the walls of the temple. Paul was heavy in my arms, and hardly awake. The chest! he said, and Friends first! I told him. I knew it was too late for the chest. I couldn't even see it anymore. The sea had taken it back.

'I got Paul back to shore, though we were both more drowned than dry. Not a one of the damn villagers ever came to look for us. We lay on the beach, too tired and hurt to drag ourselves up to the houses. By morning, when they found us, Paul's leg was swollen to the knee, and he was gone in a fever. He never woke up to say my story was true. The others were too ashamed to believe me. Easier on them to tell one another that my drinking and carelessness had put an end to my best friend and the likeliest man in the village. So they didn't have to admit what cowardly weaklings they all were. If only one of them had stayed, we would have had the chest that night, and Paul too. But no one did, and Paul died and the sea took the chest. I rowed out at low tide days later and looked down through the water, but it was gone. The sea had hidden it again. Though I searched the temple at every Temple Ebb until my youth gave out, I never laid hands nor eyes on it again. But it's there, Carly, and some day someone will bring it up. Some day it will be proved that this old man wasn't a liar. Shame as it is to bring in a teamster every year to do our duty for us, well, perhaps it's better that an outsider do it rather than one of these damn weakling cowards that lost us the chest and left Paul to die.

'That's how he told it to my mother, and that's how she told it to me.'

The contrast in Janie's voice jerked Vandien back to the present. During the telling, she seemed to speak with an old man's quavering voice. He knew as well as he had ever known anything that Janie had not made up this story. Neither had her mother, he guessed, for the cadence of the words, the turning of the accent put him in mind of the old songs they had sung last night. Whoever had first spoken those words had said them just as naturally as he would sing one of those archaically phrased songs. The only question left was, had the old man lied? Vandien didn't think so.

'And that's why you stay in False Harbor.' Vandien said it quietly, but Janie flushed. Her eyes raged as if he had accused her of child-stealing.

'I stay in False Harbor because it is my home. I stay here because I choose to. It's a life I know.'

'And that's why you stay, no matter how badly they treat you. It has nothing to do with waiting for your grandfather's story to be proved true? There is not some part of you that cherishes his ancient anger, that wants the others to be proved faithless? You have no dreams of being vindicated, of having them come to you to apologize for their blindness and ill treatment of you? You have no visions of a moment of glory when you stand before them with the chest and cast off the stigma they have put upon you?'

Vandien had watched her face as he spoke. There was a poignancy in the way it shifted from sulky child to angered woman, and back again. She calmed her features and her voice was impassive as she observed, 'There is more than one kind of scar, teamster. Shall you shame me because I would like mine lifted from my life?'

Vandien nibbled at the lower edges of his mustache. He wanted to choose words that she would hear, not ones that would drive her further into anger and stubbornness. 'My scar is on my face, Janie. On my skin, and between me and the world as I meet it. But the scar you speak of is felt upon your life because it is in the hearts of the others. Do you think they will be glad to cast off their contempt for you, the granddaughter of a drunken liar, and take up instead contempt for themselves, the descendants of cowards and weaklings? Janie, I don't know fishing or boats. But I know Humans. If you think my finding that chest will justify your life and change how the village regards you, you're wrong.'

Janie stood at her oars, staring past him at the horizon. Her mouth was set. Suddenly, one of her arms tightened, and pushed hard on the oar. With great driving sweeps she turned the dory back toward shore. Vandien slid back onto the deck in the bow of the dory. He looked up at her, studying her face unabashedly as she ignored him.

'I have my scar,' Vandien mused aloud. 'And you have yours. But what is Srolan's stake in this?'

A bitter smile twisted Janie's lips. 'She says it's because she remembers the old ways. She should. She's been around long enough. Gossip is that if she can ever lay hands on that chest, there's a way she can become young again. Really young, not just her tricks and fancies.'

'Cattiness ill becomes you, Janie.'

'Her reasons ill become her. They are not worthy of her, for she is a better woman than that. Only in this is she a fool, to be tempted by the impossible.'

'Aren't we all?'

She shot him a wicked glare. 'You mind to your duties, teamster. I'll mind to mine.'

Then, startlingly, the keel of the dory scraped sand under Vandien. Janie shipped her oars. She grudgingly let him help her drag the dory up onto the beach. 'Best get a good meal,' she advised him stonily before she left. And a bit of rest. I'd follow the tide out, if I were you.'

'How old is Srolan, Janie?'

With a snort of disgust, Janie turned and strode off.

'What is it?' she mumbled. How long had it been since she last slept? She hovered on the edge of sleep, seeing only because Dresh kept his eyes open and fed her the images; her own eyes had sagged shut long ago.

'Wake up, fool!'

'What is it?' she repeated. She picked up the head and put it on her lap again. Tension emanated from him, Ki felt a trembling in her fingertips that was not her own nervousness.

'My hands. I feel a coolness on them, a touch of power. Someone has opened my box.'

She shifted Dresh's head against her arm. The weight of it pulled at her weary shoulder muscles. Their eyes were fixed on the wall, but Dresh saw more than Ki did.

'It's the end of the game, isn't it?' Ki whispered.

'Not quite. We're too close to give up now. Only one of them watches over me; of that I am sure. We must act now.'

'What are we going to do?' Ki got to her feet, Dresh riding heavily on her arm.

'I don't know. We shall have to act as our impulses dictate. Out the door and into the hall, Ki.'

She eased open the door of the Windsinger's cell and poked her head cautiously out. Then she drew it in with a sigh, and projected Dresh's head into the hall instead. She took in an empty vista. Awkwardly she rotated the head on its block to scan the other direction. Safe as well. She clutched the head to her body again and hurried out and down the hall.

They had gone no more than a handful of paces when Ki heard the rustle of robes and the patter and slap of bare feet.

'Someone approaches!' Dresh hissed.

Her shoulder jarred against a door that shockingly offered no resistance, and she found herself clutching the wizard's head as she skidded and fought for balance. The closing door clipped her hip as it swung shut silently behind her. Her thrust had carried her into the center of a room. The sole occupant, her dark eyes wide in shock, shot to her feet, a small ovoid of blue stone clutched between her pale hands.

As Ki regained her footing, the Windsinger crouched to set the ovoid carefully on the floor behind her. Then she rose to full height, her cowled and knobby skull towering over Ki. Ki did not wait for Dresh to react. She dropped his head and flung herself at the white-robed figure.

Ki's tanned hands closed on the scaled wrists, but to Ki's eyes, deprived now of Dresh's sight, she wrestled with a pale tower. From the tower's peak shot a fall of blazing fire. The shimmering walls of the room spun around her, but she did not loosen her grip. A Windsinger seized was as a snake pinned: more deadly to free than to hold. They struggled in silence. Red sparks darted from two dark holes in the tower, stinging against Ki's face.

Hands that can hold a plunging team in check; shoulders that have spent a lifetime loading freight and bundles; these do not tire easily, especially while enmeshed in the web of fear. Ignoring the sparks tingling against her cheeks, Ki jerked forward and sharply down. The tower collapsed, to less than Ki's height, and Ki flung herself upon it. They crashed together to the heaving floor. The struggle was suddenly over.

Ki froze. The pale tower was a warm and lumpy mass beneath her elbows and knees. She did not release her grip on the wrists. Even the lack of sparks from the now pinkish eye places did not reassure her.

'Dresh!' Ki called hoarsely. Only now did she think of the abrupt way she had dropped him. She cast anxious eyes about the chamber. The wavering translucent walls mocked her. Would the block of stone that the head was rooted to shatter under such an impact? If the back of his head struck first, would he be unconscious, perhaps worse? She could find no trace of him.

Systematically, she began at what she guessed had been the door, a more pronounced ripple in the surface of the quavering walls. She lowered her eyes and fought the vertigo that assailed her, sweeping her eyes in slow passes over the palpitating floor. Even when she finally spotted the cube of darkness and its ever lingering spark, she found it strangely difficult to keep his location fixed in her mind.

He was, she guessed, a handful of paces away. It was so difficult to tell. She gazed at him hopelessly and fought down a wave of panic. She could not reach Dresh unless she released her prisoner. But she would not know until she reached Dresh if it were safe to release the Windsinger. The body beneath her was still and limp and as terrifying as ever.

'Dresh!' Ki ventured again. Was that a muttered reply? Gradually she eased her weight off the body beneath hers. One of her hands strained to encompass two of what Ki fervently hoped were wrists. Feeling both foolish and frightened, she began to extend her body in the direction of Dresh's cube. She tried not to imagine what her disadvantage would be if her captive began to stir while she herself was stretched full length upon the nauseatingly shimmering floor.

But even the full length of her body did not reach Dresh. She could not decide how far away he really was. She gave a tug at the Windsinger, sliding her across the floor. She reached again, but found no Dresh. Four times she tugged her unconscious captive along, before a questing fingertip brushed against Dresh's head. His world snapped into place around her.

'You look ridiculous,' Dresh pointed out. Ki stared at herself ruefully. A tiny trickle of blood was making its way down from the left corner of her mouth. From this disconcerting angle of perception, she deduced that Dresh's head was resting on its side.

'I trust you are not harmed?' she inquired apologetically.

'Less than one might expect, given the circumstances. Ki, let go of her. Can't you see she's unconscious?'

'No, I can't. One can never trust a Windsinger,' she replied, her voice going hard. But she released her grip. To her chagrin, she saw that her victim would scarce have reached her shoulder, were it not for the loathsome cowl. Dresh read her thoughts.

'What you saw with your own eyes was, in this case, more accurate. She glows with a more powerful aura than I would expect of one of her rank. Even more strange is the restraint I read upon her. As if she were at all times pretending to be less than she is. It is a phenomenon I have never before encountered in a Windsinger. Yes, as you say, one can never trust them. Do they send you the rains out of love and mercy, or only so they may tax you the more?'

'Save your mind-wrestling for the tavern crowd, Dresh. Let us be more practical now. What are we to do with her? When she awakes, she will surely rouse the whole hive of Windsingers.'

Dresh clicked his tongue. 'The answer is clear, Ki. She shall not awake. We shall slip her out through the walls.'

Ki had crawled the rest of the way to Dresh. She watched herself loom larger as she came nearer to the wizard. Now, in her odd half-blinded way, she watched her hands grope for his head. It was the one thing his eyes could not focus on for her. Gently she felt out the shape of his head. She used both hands to put the head and block of stone upright. Transferring him to her lap, she brushed the hair from his forehead. She ran light fingers over his face, trying to tell by touch if he had been injured in the fall. She fingered the beginnings of a lump just back of his hairline.

'Stop that! I was stunned, but only for a moment. If I needed your ministrations, I would tell you so. We may not dally now. We must dispose of this Windsinger before she awakes.'

'You must, perhaps. Not I. I cannot do such a thing; not in so cold-blooded a fashion, anyway. Were we still struggling in the heat of terror, I could kill her. But to push her out into that emptiness we jumped...' Ki shrugged, then shook her head. 'I cannot.'

'This is foolishness! We would not kill her. We would only... pause her life. Eventually she might be found to resume it. Consider her as a viper found nesting among the blankets on your bed.'

'Then I should lift it up, blankets and all, to shake it out in the woods.'

'Fool that you are, I believe you would. And it would bite you another day for your mercy. Come, then, let us bind her, if that is the best you can do.'

But as Ki lifted Dresh and rose, the Windsinger on the floor stirred. Ki's vision of her narrowed as Dresh squinted at the revealed face in surprise.

'I have seen this Windsinger before,' he mumbled, half to himself. 'But she was not robed as an apprentice then. Ki! Help me find the blue egg she was holding when we came in.'

Nervously Ki rotated her body so that Dresh could scan the floor of the chamber. Could not he see that the Windsinger was struggling to rise? Her own impulse was to fell her again, or at least to flee.

Ki pounced, but not on the Windsinger. Once more Dresh had pre-empted her physical command of her body. She had caught up the blue thing in her hand before she was aware of seeing it. From Dresh's mouth came a hoarse caw of triumph.

'No meditation orb this! I thought the blue too deep a shade! Now, little bird, what does a white-robed apprentice have to do with a speaking egg? What information could you possess so vital that a Windmistress would trust you with one of these pretties?'

Ki held the egg up for the captive's inspection. It was about the size of an apple, but smoothly egg-shaped. It shone transparent blue, but for a single white spark frozen in its center. It reminded her of nothing so much as Dresh's head as she saw it on this plane. The texture of it made her uneasy. It was heavy for its size. Despite its crystal shine, it felt leathery in her hand, rough and raspy against her skin.

Dresh's eyes snapped away from the egg, to clash with the dark ones of the Windsinger on the floor. She was sitting up now, one hand gingerly smoothing the white cowl over her high brow. She lowered her hand shakily, opened her lips as if to speak, and then firmly shut her mouth. Anger flashed in her eyes.

'Come. I've seen you before. You were in the company of Shiela, of the High Council, and your robes were as blue as morning sea. What is your name, little breezemaker?'

The woman on the floor glared at Dresh. Then, like the moon breaking free of cloud cover, she dropped the anger from her face. When she spoke, her voice was a low musical alto. It held no emotion.

'Do you think, Dresh, that I would be so foolish as to gift you with the power of my name?'

'Um. She wants to spar, doesn't she, Ki? I do not think we shall learn anything from her that we have not already guessed. Such as, that Rebeke has no idea of your true rank among Windsingers. That explains the cloak of restraint you hide behind. And consider her silence, Ki. Not a sound from her when we burst in, nor during your amusing little wrestling match. I think she would rather face strangers alone than have anyone come upon her with the egg in her hands. What we have here, Ki, is a scorpion in the adder's nest; a spy among her own kind.'

The Windsingers expression did not change. She resmoothed her cowl again and tugged the sleeves of her robe to even them. She did not smile as her eyes came up to meet theirs.

Dresh's eyes clinched with hers. 'You might get away with killing Ki. But it would take some explaining, to both your mistresses, if my aura abruptly winked out. Nor do I think Rebeke would be the one you would tear most. Whoever awaits your word through the egg would be the most awesome in her wrath. So put aside the poisoned needle you just drew from your sleeve. It cannot help you.'

The Windsingers dark eyes were catlike in their unwinking stare. The needle made a sweet ringing against the floor. Slowly the Windsinger rose.

Ki felt her courage ebbing out through the pit of her stomach. Her mind tried to add up the levels of danger facing her. First the Windsingers, whose realm they were in; secondly from this spy among the Windsingers; thirdly from whomever this creature spied for. And even if she could safely avoid them all and reclaim Dresh's part, even if she could safely regain her own world and pick up her life strings, was not Dresh himself a danger to reckon with?

'Steady, Ki,' muttered Dresh, as if sensing her forebodings. 'We have been gifted with a weapon deadlier than any rapier hand has ever held. For the time being, at least, I think that our interests are in line with this traitor's.'

'You are proposing an alliance?' The Windsinger stated it coldly. Her fine dark brows arched up to her cowl.

'I am. You aid me in locating and regaining my boxes. In return, I shall not betray you to Rebeke.'

'My gain is too small.'

'As you please. We know that I cannot remain undetected on this plane for long. Surely Rebeke has posted watchers for my aura. They will pick me out, they will come searching. They will find me here, with you, in your room. They will find the egg of speaking. It will be my end, and Ki's. But our final request shall be to hear you explain your way out of it. You are a spy to Rebeke, and an embarrassment to... the High Council, perhaps?'

'My patron is a powerful one. Rebeke will not dare to harm me, no matter what my transgressions.'

Ki felt Dresh shake his head, and heard the clicking of his tongue. 'You have not been here long, if you know no more of Rebeke's temper than that. She will rend you first, and then wonder if it was politic. Even when Rebeke was a Human, her temper was savage. Windsinging, I imagine, will have refined its edge.'

Was it uneasiness or mere restlessness that caused the woman to shift her feet? Ki wondered. Dresh was quiet, letting the silence grow huge in the room. Ki resisted the impulse to fidget. A memory floated to the surface of her mind. Ki snared it. Thus had she used to stand, in bored and useless anxiety, while her father haggled over horses. Her interest in the matter was vital, her power in the exchange null.