The Windsingers (9 page)

'And unlegged as well!' snorted Dresh. A teapot and your Vanilly would be at least as useful as your rapier. What do you imagine, that we shall sweep into a room of Windsingers, rapier chopping, to reclaim my body over their fallen and bloody ones? What a child! Do I look like the sort of savage that would kill? The only weapon you shall find any use to you here is already on your arm. My head. So be silent, and let me think what we should do next.'

'A rapier does not chop,' she corrected him tersely, feeling more than ever like a fool. Dresh's bland assumption of his superiority rasped every inch of her proud spirit. Worst of all, given the circumstances, he was correct. Ki longed to thump his head down on Rebeke's table and leave him beside that lavender flask. Let his scornful words and irritating ways get him out of that! She savored the image before letting logic cool her anger. She needed Dresh to return to her own world. That she was bound to him by her written sign was another tie, and the opportunity to spite the Windsingers at their own game was an added fillip. Make free with her cargo, would they? Her grudge against the Windsingers was longer than her memory, fading back into her father's unspoken hatred of them and a dim feeling that in some way they had contributed to her unremembered mother's early death. Always before, Ki had suppressed her anger and scrupulously avoided them. Perhaps Vandien was right after all; perhaps the time had come to return their stings and insults. Fate seemed determined to lead her in that direction. So Ki expelled her breath in a harsh rush through her nostrils and awaited the wizard's desire.

'Rebeke cautioned us not to touch the boxes?'

The lisping voice was half-questioning and half-amazed at Grielea's audacity in disobeying the Windmistress's wishes. Grielea's eyes flew open, and she glared at Liset in irritation.

Liset retracted her pale eyes from the dark sparks of Grielea's. The spidery T'cherian body hunched and quivered beneath the white robe. Grielea wrinkled her scaled nose in disdain at Liset's disapproval. Liset's mandibles twitched.

'To achieve the full rank of Windsinger, Grielea, we must practice the strictest obedience and self-restraint. To rule others, we must first learn to rule ourselves.' Even the clattery lisp of a T'cherian accent could not disguise the piety in Liset's words.

'Tend to your box. I shall tend to mine!'

Liset's mandibles clacked in astonishment. She settled her face abruptly. She wished her transformation to Windsinger would proceed more rapidly. Always the sounds and ingrained movements of her T'cherian body shamed her. If only her shell would begin to scale! No doubt that was why Grielea dared to speak to her so rudely. She had no right. Liset knew they were of the same rank of initiation. She had heard the rumors about Grielea. She had been sent to Rebeke as a last resort. Rebeke was well known to be the strictest and most demanding of the Windmistresses. And Grielea was notoriously headstrong; she had spent a full two turns in this grade already! Liset groomed her cowl smooth, and turned back to the large square box before her. So let Grielea play with her box. It would have its consequences. Liset intended to fulfill her instructions meticulously. Not for her the chilling cell and cold gruel reserved for the disobedient.

Grielea gave a thin smile of satisfaction as Liset's eye stalks swung away from her. She bent again over the box on the low table before her. Her fingers danced over the stones. Nothing. She paused, and then her hands moved again. Another pause. Another combination.

There was no betraying click of latch. The box sighed silently under Grielea's hands. She glanced over her shoulder. Liset's robed carapace was toward her. The stiffness of the crouched figure with its squat cowl showed Liset's resolution not to participate in Grielea's misbehavior. Grielea smiled mockingly at her back. She turned back to her treasure.

Silently the box slid up from its base. Grielea set the top of the box in her lap. She leaned over her prize. Her fingers nimbly unwound a long linen wrapping.

The base was a block of white stone, veined with black and red. From it, rooted at the wrists, two hands grew as gracefully as calla lilies. They clasped each other peacefully, as if awaiting a coffin flower. But a warm flush of life glowed under the olive skin of the hands. They were waiting for their master. On one of the long tapering fingers was a ring. To some it would have seemed a plain, cheap ring of black metal. But to Grielea it fairly shouted the identity of the owner. She stiffened. Was that a light step? She bunched the wrapping back over the hands. She smiled a lynx smile as she eased the top of the box back into place. A brush of her fingers over the stones reset their lock. So he was the stakes they played for... Her grey-scaled brow knotted slightly as she added that to her cache of carefully gleaned facts.

'You may leave off your vigil now. Retire to your chambers for a rest period. We shall be taking your posts for you.'

Liset jumped at the sudden voice behind her. But Grielea slowly raised her chin and lowered her eyes. She smiled submissively. 'Yes, Windmistress,' she simpered, and 'Yes, Windmistress,' Liset echoed her. Liset and Grielea hastened from the room, their white robes swirling against the floor. But only one went to her chamber to rest.

Medie moved into the room slowly. There was no disguising the look of admiration she gave the two enamelled boxes. The smaller casket rested on a small table before a stool. The larger box was on the floor. The room was better furnished than Rebeke's sitting room. Here were hides of rare beasts and birds scattered about to relieve bare feet from the coldness of the highly polished floor. The walls were graced with sky windows, artfully designed living pictures of many parts of the worlds. But the only seats available were the hard wooden stools that Liset and Grielea had just vacated. Medie gave one a glance of distaste. Idly she trailed a long finger across the top of the larger enamel box.

'How best were this done?'

Rebeke paused, then settled herself upon Grielea's stool. She spoke slowly. 'The boxes will take skill to open, and patience. Dresh will know that their solving is but a matter of time. He will, I think, hasten here, hoping against hope to recover his body. We could, of course, open his boxes and drain his powers now. But the doing of it might spook the quarry, in a manner of speaking.'

'You believe he will come here, will try to retrieve them himself?'

'I do.' Rebeke spoke with quiet assurance.

'And who would know better what he would do?' Medie dropped the words casually, but they fell into a suddenly silent room.

'Do you rebuke me with my past?' Rebeke queried softly.

'No. Not rebuke. I merely wonder at it, as many have before me. You must have known why the High Council chose you for this guardianship. A make or break test of your loyalty. Given a final choice, which will Rebeke take: the Windsingers, or Dresh?'

'And Rebeke chooses Rebeke.' A tiny chill breeze rose to whisk past their ankles.

'With no regrets?' prodded Medie. There was no acid in her voice, only an elder sister's interest. In her brown and white eyes there was only concern.

'Regrets were done with long ago, Medie. Let us use a metaphor. Suppose you had a pet dog that went wild. You would let it go, in fondness, allowing it to choose the life it preferred. But suppose it became vicious, and menaced the flocks of your neighbors. Would not you feel responsible for the situation? Would you not remedy it yourself?'

'Dresh is no more to you now than a stray cur?'

'It was only a metaphor,' Rebeke replied with some asperity. She rose and drifted over to a sky picture. In a wooded dell, white anemones had pushed up from the deep mosses. Tall spruce sheltered them from the wide blue skies above. Rebeke breathed deep of their fragrance, standing close to the sky window to receive it. The air of the image felt cool and fresh, recently washed by rains.

'I see, then.' Medie's voice reached across the room. 'We wait in the hopes of baiting him in. We do not wish to make him despair of regaining his body, for then he might choose to continue on his way and take another body elsewhere.'

'Exactly.' Rebeke's voice was scarcely more than a whisper as she scanned the clear skies of the window world. Her finely scaled hands rested lightly on the wooden sill. 'I do not think I shall have to wait much longer.'

'Did you leave word we were to be notified when his aura was felt on this plane?'

'Of course.' Rebeke turned back, nodding briskly. 'But I have not told my apprentices whom we await. The portion of aura he casts now is so different from the whole that I do not think they will suspect. I have described it well enough for them to know it when they see it.'

'You do not trust them enough to tell them what we have here?' Medie's long fingers drummed lightly on the box before her.

Rebeke crossed the room to resume her seat. 'It is not a matter of trust, Medie. They are so very young, so very full of the idealism of the Windsingers. I judged it best not to distract them with too many possibilities, or with thoughts that might divide their loyalties. Choices and loyalties are alarmingly clear at their age. Some might misinterpret what we do, might see it as treachery. I saw no need to alarm them.'

'Wise. If we succeed, they will be under our protection. And if we do not... well, I am neither so old nor so cynical that I would enjoy seeing their innocence pay for our daring. By keeping them free of knowledge of our undertaking, you have also kept them free of what some might call our guilt. Well done, sister.'

A slightly awkward silence fell. After a time, Medie began to shift on her stool. 'I could wish for a more comfortable seat.'

'And I. But the very discomfort of it promotes alertness. Shall we be sleeping on velvet cushions or drowsy with wine when Dresh makes his entrance? His power is not as great as he believes it, but he has a certain sly craft. I shall not make the mistake of underestimating him. Be patient, Medie. Afterwards, we shall recline, we shall eat and drink and talk together. For I think that there is much we could tell one another. What the High Council does not say to Rebeke's face, it may whisper to Medie. Am I wrong?'

Medie gave her a small and bitter smile.

He ate a portion of his loaf as he dawdled along behind them, and tucked the rest under his elbow. He didn't relish the prospect of stretching it out over the walk to False Harbor, but had no alternatives. There had been times, he remembered, when he had eaten less and walked farther.

Vandien idled along, musing on the dullness of the landscape. His trail wound through a series of hummocks and dales. Sheep droppings mucked the road before him. Wooly flocks passed him frequently. His skeel showed no interest in the sheep, but Vandien noticed that the flocks bunched and milled whenever the sheep caught the scent of his team. The cursing Human shepherds trotted and shouted, prodding their recalcitrant charges into order. The flocks gave him a wide berth as they surged past. One flock split as it approached him, scattering to dot the hillside. Vandien was relieved that the shepherds blamed their literally mutton-headed charges and not him. Flock after flock passed him and left him behind on their way to winter pasturage. Vandien plodded discouragedly through the fresh sheep manure.

Evening found him topping a small rise. Frustration had exhausted him more than the walk. From the rise, he saw his road stretching before him like grey ribbon snipped and dropped over the land. Brushy hillocks hid it as it meandered among them. No trees nor shepherds' huts relieved the drabness. The colors of brush and grasses varied from dusty purple to dull green. Vandien sighed as his laggardly team toddled stolidly downhill, their snouty muzzles working.

Suddenly a long grey tongue whipped from one's muzzle and was sucked back. The beast gave a squeal, and Vandien felt the rope snatched from his hands. The team scuttled off, their flat feet slapping, their low grey backs undulated as they poured down the trail like water spilled from a bucket. The braided leather rope trailed in the dirt behind them.

Vandien raced after, dove on the reins, and caught them. He was dragged through manure and brush before the knotted end was ripped again from his hands. With a curse he scrabbled to his feet, wiping his welted hands down his tunic front as he ran. He slipped in sheep droppings; he sprang over spiny bushes. He paced the skeel, yelling every word for 'stop' in his not inconsiderable lingual experience. They paid him no heed.

Furiously he berated himself for giving Web Shell the crystal so soon. He knew where skeel most enjoyed being scratched; he knew what algae to feed them for flux; he knew how to dose them for parasites ? but not how to stop a runaway team. The dreamy-eyed T'cherian had assured him that driving the team was easier done than explained.

In the distance was a flowing stream and Vandien prayed it would block them. If there had ever been a bridge across it, it was gone now. Ruts in the trail showed that wagons and carts simply went through it, but surely his lizardly, dust-wallowing, sun-snoozing team would not. They would veer suddenly to one side or the other. With luck, he could cut them off.

Like flounders settling into sea muck, the team flowed into the stream. Vandien saw the harness strain as the beasts struggled to spread themselves flat in the flowing water. The long snaky tails uncoiled and lashed angrily, slapping the water and scoring the hides of harnessmates. Water gouted up around them. A brown wave of silt churned up by sixteen flat feet tinged the water and fled downstream. The harness jerked and tangled as his beasts wallowed, each striving to get under the others, to be flattest in the stream mud. Individual skeel were not distinguishable in the welter of tails and snapping snouts. Scaly shoulders and hips shoved and strained for position.

As abruptly as their activity had begun, it ceased. Each beast collapsed into the stream mud. All the snouts disappeared. The great staring eyes closed and the tails went lax, streaming with the current of the water. Vandien approached slowly, dread rising in his heart. They looked dead. Cautiously he picked up the braided rein and gave it a tug. There was no response.

No air bubbles rose from the sunken snouts. No muscle squirmed. Vandien gave a jerk to the reins, but all he saw was the tug of his own effort. He thought of the prod he had dropped when the team had bolted. Perhaps a few whacks with that... but he dared not leave them. He waded into the stream and planted a stout kick on the rump nearest him. No result.

Then began a miserable period of fruitless effort. Vandien soaked himself trying to pull the beasts from the stream. But no matter which tail or leg he gripped, he was powerless to move the whole. The four skeel had merged into one. All those great flat feet were anchored under mud and gravel. The low-slung bodies hugged the bed of the stream. Water flowed over all.

Vandien was wet and cold when the sun went down. He stepped back to stare down at the sculptured skeel in the stream. It was hopeless. The best he could do was to wait them out. He had driven the beasts all day over dry roads; they must have some need for air. With many a backwards glance, he trudged up the hill to retrieve his prod and loaf. The skeel had still not stirred when he returned.

Sitting down on the mossy bank, he set down his prod and drew his belt knife. Slowly he sawed off a portion of the loaf. It was dry stuff now, not chewy so much as crunchy. Then he walked well upstream, though not out of sight of his submerged team, and knelt to drink. Recognizing some flat green leaves that sprouted from the turf, he drew his knife again and grubbed up their root. He rubbed away the soil and washed the root bundle; cleaned, it was a compressed mass of white grains. He had not eaten stink-lily's roots since he was a child. Even then, he had preferred them boiled to a mush; raw, they had no flavor, just a crisp starchiness. Food was food, he reminded himself glumly. At this rate of speed, his loaf would not last him to False Harbor.

As he put the last bit of root in his mouth, he heard a sound like a pig breaking out of its wallow. It was a sloshing, sucking sound. Vandien hastily gathered his prod and loaf as the skeel began to stir.

One was stretching its neck and taking in a lungful of air with a swooshing sound. Its tail was once more curled in a neat coil on its rump. Another began squealing and bubbling until it managed to disentangle its head from its harnessmate's legs. Humping and waddling, they came out of the stream, harness tangled and wet, mud and silt dropping from their low-slung bodies. The water had washed the dust from their flat grey backs. Their fine-scaled hides shone iridescently in the dim moonlight. They were plumper and looked contented now, as they wiggled their snaky bodies and worked their jaws with wet chopping sounds. Vandien watched as they attempted to sort themselves out in their harness. They scuttled along as they did it, and he realized belatedly that they were not going to settle. They were moving away from him across the grassy sward.

With a cry he sprang after them, remembering this time that the prod was their command to halt. Poking first one and then another, he finally succeeded in getting all four skeel to drop to their bellies and lie motionless. He darted his hand in amongst them to snatch up the wet reins. One of the skeel began to stir. He gave it a firm poke. It settled again.

Vandien stood over the docile beasts with his hands doubled into fists. Then he forced himself to be calm. He kept the prod under his arm in case any of the beasts should begin to stir, and began to try and straighten the harness. T'cheria did not use buckles. The whole thing was put together with knots. Vandien found them impossible to undo in the dim light, especially since their dunking had shrunk the knots into impenetrable little balls of leather. He contented himself with tugging the harness back into place. Generous use of the prod kept the skeel still.

He had only one really bad moment. He found one skeel's tail was twined about the harness like a pea vine, instead of recoiled neatly on its rump. The full dark of night was upon them now. Vandien located the tip of the tail by feel. He pried it loose with finger pressure that brought a squeal from its owner. Vandien gave him a sharp prod and he settled again. The tail was as stiff as a woody vine as Vandien unwrapped it from the harness. No sooner had he gotten the tail free than it suddenly lashed out of his hands, its hard tip snapping across his upper arm. The tail sprang back into a neat coil on the skeel's rump.

Vandien dropped the reins and the prod to grasp at his arm, which stung as if lashed by a whip. Tears sprang to his eyes. He rolled up the loose sleeve of his tunic and fingered the welt that stood up from his skin. It wasn't bleeding. Cold stream water would take some of the sting out of it. He stooped to pick up the prod and found that the team had scuttled off, silently.

He glared about wildly, but saw nothing. He forced himself to take a deep breath, to stand still and silent. The deep mossy hillocks would not betray their passage, but... there! Vandien heard the rustle of one of the low bushes at the same instant that his eye caught the motion and the sudden sheen of an iridescent hide. He raced after them, but they crested a hillock before he did and he lost sight of them again. Pausing for breath on the rise, he caught the shape of their passage as they hurried over the deep moss. He screamed a curse and raced after them again.

The slope favored him and his longer legs. The wheel animals got a boot and a prod that dropped them to their bellies; two more whacks and his front pair settled. Vandien snatched up the single rein and wrapped it twice about his wrist. The knotted end he gripped in his fist. He caught his breath, prodding any skeel that thought of moving. The chill of the autumn night, merciless as the dusty heat of the day, was settling on him. He was muddy, wet, tired, and his loaf had been dropped somewhere. The trail was lost behind them in the rise and fall of the land. Vandien longed to sleep, but he feared that in the morning he would have lost both the team and all sense of direction. The skeel were not sleepy. They were as frisky in the night as they had been sluggish in the day.

This time when they stirred, he let them rise. Keeping his grip on the rein, he moved to the side of the team. They scuttled away from him. In this way he guided them, moving from side to side, spooking them along in the direction he wished them to travel. He had the knack of it by the time he spied the pale grey ribbon of the trail, silvery in the light of the moon. Vandien let his team flow over it. They scuttled along at a pace slightly faster than a trotting dog, while he wove along behind them, moving first to one side and then to the other. 'Like a dog herding sheep,' he commented grimly to himself. Seeing how well they moved, he gave up all thought of a night's sleep. Tomorrow when they wished to doze in the sun, he would join them.

Several times that night he prodded them into docility while he caught his breath and took a short sip from his small water bag. He regretted his lost bread, but that could not be helped. At least he would get to False Harbor on time. He reknotted the water bag and rubbed slowly at the scar between his eyes. He tried to remember what he looked like without it. He had never been much of a man for mirrors, but he could remember how he had felt without it.

It had used to be that folks saw his eyes first, and then his flashing smile. He had known the power of that charming smile; known it and used it. Now all eyes went directly to the scar, and lingered there while he talked. His smile had become a grimace that pulled his face awry. Some folk judged him too hastily by his scar. Some thought him a man easily beaten. Others judged him to have a dangerous and unforgiving temperament. His scar was like a piece of cheap glass, distorting what the world saw. Few saw his face any more; most saw only the slash that divided it.

Ki was one of the few. She was the one who had seen him take that slash; for her sake, he had braved the talons. She had been aghast. She had pieced his face back together and bandaged the flesh in place. Never again had they been strangers. And up to now Vandien had never put barriers between them. But he had not told her what Srolan had offered. Had he misjudged her, to think she might misunderstand? What did he fear? That his desire to be rid of the scar would be confused for a regret in taking it? He did not regret that bond with Ki, nor would he hesitate to do it again. But... he could wish the sign of that bond was a less visible one.

The skeel were beginning to stir again. Vandien was glad to turn his mind away from dark thoughts. The task of driving them on consumed his attention. By dawn, they were as anxious to sleep as he. He urged them away from the trail, to the shelter of some scrub willows. They settled in a tangled heap. Vandien knotted the rein about his wrist. Lying down, he stared up at the dawn sky. Sleep overtook him quickly and in his dreams diving blue Harpies were driven back by Srolan's black eyes.