White Wind Rising

by Dan Davis

  He looked over to Writer who had gone to help Keeper and Burp. Keeper had his arms around Burp’s neck and Burp had laid his scaly head on Keeper’s shoulder. Archer helped Weaver over to the others.

  They all sat or knelt on the ground near the fallen oak.

  ‘Archer,’ Writer said, her voice sounding strange. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She was looking at him funny, too. Like she felt sorry for him, or embarrassed.

  ‘About what, the spell not working? Don’t worry about that,’ Archer said. ‘It all worked out in the end.’

  ‘The spell did work,’ Writer said. ‘It was a spell to call the wolves to our aid.’ She shook her head. ‘I was talking about your ear.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Archer said. His ear hurt. It hurt worse than anything. So much it was making him feel sick and the pain was getting worse all the time. ‘Is it bad?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s gone,’ said Writer. ‘Archer, your whole ear has gone.’

  It’s Not You That Does It

  ‘Oh,’ Archer said. ‘That’s disappointing.’

  His vision went like water and his head floated like a leaf on the river. He sat down with a bump.

  Archer felt sick. First his right eye smashed closed and now his left ear was gone. He was losing his face piece by piece.. Archer was exhausted.

  The others were pale, tired and frightened. Poor Keeper and Weaver had been battered by Pym. They both looked unsteady.

  They were all fighters. They had not given up. Now he knew that they all had incredible abilities and could do things that should not be possible. Yet for some reason they were looking to him for guidance. They were waiting for him to speak and to take charge. He did not want to. He was more injured than they were and he just wanted to be a boy again and for someone to tell him what to do. He wanted to see his mother and father.

  The wind gusted from the south and he caught the smell of wood smoke from the fires of the homes down in the Vale.

  He forced himself back to his feet.

  ‘We’re all alive,’ he said to them. They looked at him, their faces blank and pale. ‘We’re all tired and hungry and hurting. But we’re so close to home. So close. Just a little way further, through the trees, over the hills and down into the Vale.’

  Writer and Weaver nodded. They all knew that.

  ‘So let’s just get on with it now, shall we?’ Archer said and he stepped over to Keeper and Burp and knelt down in front of them. ‘Are you able to walk?’

  Keeper nodded and Archer helped him up and they leaned on each other. Writer put her arm round Weaver, who was still dazed.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ Archer said.

  They walked together through the forest for some time without speaking. Archer was overwhelmed. His whole world was the throbbing of his ear – or rather the bloody and tattered wound that used to be his ear – and simply lifting up one foot and placing it in front of the other. Every step sent a jolt of pain deep into his head.

  His foot caught on a root and he watched with interest as the muddy, leafy earth came rushing up to smack him in the face.

  He rolled over onto his back. The others stood over him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I fell.’

  ‘We must rest,’ said Writer, herself looking pale and blue with cold. ‘Regain our strength. Regenerate.’

  ‘We are almost back in the Vale,’ Archer said as the others helped him back to his feet. ‘We have to get there soon or we will not get there at all.’ He leant on Keeper, who felt solid and warm.

  ‘We will not get there at all if we are so exhausted that we are falling over, will we,’ Writer said. ‘So we shall take a short rest to get our breath back. We still have enough daylight left to do that and get home, I believe?’

  Archer glanced up to see the height of the sun through the low clouds. He nodded.

  ‘Can I make a fire, please, Writer?’ said Keeper.

  ‘I thought we were out of cabbages?’ Weaver said.

  ‘I have my flint and knife so I can make sparks to make a fire without Burp,’ Keeper patted Burp’s head. ‘Sorry, Burp.’

  Together they collected the driest firewood they could while Keeper stomped out a fire pit and built them up a campfire. Archer watched Keeper shave some birch bark flakes with his knife to use as kindling then scraped his knife down his fire flint. A shower of sparks fell into the little nest of bark shavings he had made, which started to smoke. Keeper picked up the smoking bark nest and blew on it. Flames flickered out and Keeper, grinning, placed it carefully into his pile of sticks. In moments they had a roaring, crackling fire. The feel of the heat and the light made Archer feel much better immediately.

  ‘This was a good idea,’ he said to Writer.

  ‘It really was,’ said Keeper, holding his hands right over the flames, as he liked to do. ‘I wish I could have some fire with me all the time, just sort of in my pocket.’

  Archer smiled. ‘My dad always says if you know how to make a fire then you do carry one around with you,’ Archer tapped his head on the uninjured side. ‘In here.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Keeper said, his faint smile growing on his face. ‘Brilliant.’

  Archer wanted to talk to the others about what had happened but they all looked so filthy and exhausted that he did not want to add to anyone’s burdens. And yet he had to know if what he had seen, what he had felt when they had fought Pym was real. That it had really happened.

  ‘You really love fire,’ Archer said. ‘Don’t you, Keeper.’ Keeper nodded, glanced down at Burp and his smile fell from his face. Archer could tell he was thinking about Pym. Archer wanted to ask how he had made the fire bend but he did not want to upset his new friend.

  Writer must have understood what he was getting at. She turned to Keeper. ‘You know when you were saying yesterday about how fire is your friend and it never burns you or anything?’ Keeper looked down at the fire and nodded. ‘Well, I feel I have a somewhat familiar relationship with water,’ she said. ‘And I wonder if this was one of the reasons that the Alchemist kept us in the Tower.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Weaver said, glancing up.

  The fire crackled and smoked below them. Keeper placed a couple more branches on the fire.

  ‘You know,’ said Writer. ‘How Keeper can control fire, in some fashion. I believe that I may be able to do something similar with water. It is not something that I have done more than once or twice and never on purpose so I never mentioned it before. However, I saw what Keeper did with curving that fire. And I saw what happened with the earth rising up. And so thought perhaps I should say to you all that with me it is water.’

  Archer rubbed his swollen eye and then put a hand over his ruined ear. ‘I think I can control air.’

  ‘Air?’ Weaver said. ‘But that’s like nothing.’ She waved her hand in the air before them. ‘Air is just like nothing.’

  ‘Well it felt like something in that storm with all that wind blowing our balloon, didn’t it?’ Archer said, feeling angry. ‘And wind is just air in motion.’

  ‘But if you are friends with the wind,’ Keeper said. ‘Then when we were in the balloon and getting blown over the forest, why didn’t you blow us back into the Vale?’

  ‘I did stop the wind blowing us away from the beech tree,’ Archer said. ‘I mean, I think I did.’

  Weaver laughed. ‘Of course you did,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you make the wind blow right now, then?’ She crossed her arms.

  Archer hesitated. ‘I don’t know how,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you make the ground rise up like you did with Pym?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Weaver said and crossed her arms. She had mud caked halfway to the elbows from where she had thrust her hands deep into the earth. That must have been how she made the ground throw Pym off his feet. Clearly she did not want to admit what she had done. He did not know why she was denying it.

  ‘Well, Keeper can show us how to control fire at least,’ Archer said. ‘Can’t you Keeper?’

  Keeper
shrugged. ‘You can’t just do it whenever you want,’ he said. ‘It’s only when you really need to. Like if you’re going to get hurt or something. And then it just happens. It’s not you that does it, it does it all by itself.’

  ‘I think that you’re right,’ said Archer. ‘But I saw you make the fire come out of Burp and then you sort of arced the fire in the air toward Pym, didn’t you? Surely you did that on purpose?’

  ‘Well,’ Keeper said. ‘I suppose it was a bit different. I knew what the fire had to do to come out of Burp and go through the air. And I just made it do it. I don’t have the foggiest idea how I did it.’ He shrugged. ‘Or how to do it again.’

  That was the same thing that had happened with Archer and the feeling of the white wind, he realised. It had come with his anger, he realised, when he had been facing Pym. And it had come with fear when he was in the balloon and in the tree. When it had come, he had known what had to be done, and the white wind had made it happen. When he tried to do it on purpose, without the rush of anger or fear, he had failed.

  Writer stared, amazed, at Keeper. ‘How long have you known this about yourself?’ she said. ‘About your ability to control fire?’

  ‘Oh, my whole life,’ said Keeper, rubbing his hands together over the smoking flames. ‘My grandma can do it a little bit, too, and she told me all about it. And my grandpa said his sister could take a candle flame and make it dance all over her hand. But not as much as I can do it. When I was a little baby, apparently, when no one was around a candle fell into my crib and set fire to the straw in the mattress. But when they rushed into save me they found me surrounded by a ring of fire all round my crib with me in the middle, giggling and playing with the fire.’

  ‘I am quite astonished,’ Writer said, her blue eyes flashing in the firelight. She had gone as still as a deep pond in winter. ‘Your story, Keeper, is remarkably similar to a tale my mother and father are fond of relating to me. The grounds of our house back onto a slow bend of the Sweetwater. One day, when I was very little I went swimming alone, despite being warned to stay away from the river. I always loved being in the water so much. I just leapt in but this time I got my foot wrapped in some weeds at the bottom and I could not get up to the surface.’

  ‘Don’t go swimming in the river.’ Weaver shook her head. ‘Not ever.’

  ‘I was struggling to break the hold, straining to get my face above the surface and I certainly would have drowned,’ she smiled. ‘Only, the river itself somehow dropped lower, right around me down to the riverbed. That was how they found me, sitting on the riverbed crying with the river rushing all around me on either side. My parents waded through to tear the weeds about my ankle and carry me off. As soon as I was out of there, the water rushed back in and flowed as normal. They always said it was the Alchemist’s magic that saved me. But I know now that it was not the Alchemist but some form of magic inside myself that saved me.’

  ‘So you’re just like me,’ said Keeper, smiling. ‘You and Archer, too. That’s brilliant.’

  Archer knew it was true. Fear brought the abilities out for all of them, fear and anger.

  ‘I believe that this is related to some of the things that the Alchemist was doing,’ Writer said. ‘Perhaps that was why we were being kept there. He wanted you, Keeper, because you can control fire. And you can control the winds, Archer.’

  Weaver snorted in derision. ‘So they both say.’

  ‘What about you, Weaver?’ said Archer, sighing. ‘We saw you throw up the earth under Pym’s feet, we all saw it.’

  ‘No I never,’ she said. ‘Because that kind of thing is impossible.’

  ‘Don’t admit it, then,’ Writer said, her voice ice cold. ‘Because admitting it or not does not change the facts of the matter.’

  ‘You were always going on about missing the mud and the dirt and stuff,’ said Archer to Weaver. ‘You know you feel about earth like Keeper does with fire. Why won’t you admit it?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Weaver quietly and without any conviction.

  ‘Of course you must be earth, Weaver,’ said Writer, her voice flowing more gently. ‘This all makes sense to me now.’

  ‘I’m glad it makes sense to someone,’ said Keeper.

  ‘The Alchemist did this to us, I am sure of it.’ Writer looked at each of them. ‘It was he who made us.’

  Writer’s House

  ‘Made us?’ Archer said, not understanding. ‘I was not made. I have a mother and father and I was born.’

  ‘Yes, of course. That was not quite what I meant.’ Writer scratched her nose. ‘Do you recall that when the Alchemist caught us escaping and we—’

  ‘When you basketed him,’ said Keeper.

  ‘Yes,’ said Writer. ‘Precisely. Well, do you recall when he asked me about his plans and about us specifically? I said I did not know and he said he was disappointed. Then he said he was going to throw us back in prison?’

  ‘How could we forget?’ Weaver said.

  ‘Well, I believe I now have the answer,’ Writer said. ‘It’s just as the Alchemist said back there. When you breed sheep, you can chose certain specific sheep to be the ones that breed. You want larger sheep in the years to come, you chose the largest sheep. You want ones who shed most wool, you chose those. Over many generations of sheep you can change them a great deal.’

  ‘You know even more about sheep than I do,’ said Archer.

  ‘It was all in his books and scrolls, Archer. I have never been near a sheep in my life. I believe the Alchemist was doing the same thing with us. With all of the people of the Vale. For some of our families he chose what he wanted to be passed on. With each passing generation be strengthened, concentrated. With Keeper’s it was fire, as evidenced by his grandparents on both sides having limited abilities in that area. With my family, it must have been control of water. And the same with yours. It was all in his records only I did not have the wit to see what he was doing until now. It should have been obvious, really.’

  ‘But how could he do that?’ Archer said. ‘We’re not sheep.’

  ‘We are to him,’ Writer said. ‘Trust me, he does not care for any individual person in the Vale. I do not know how his methods worked. Only that his charts and family trees show very clear that in fact that is what he was doing to us.’

  Archer did not know what to think.

  ‘And so that is why he has always kept the people of the Vale locked away from the rest of the world,’ Writer said. ‘It was to protect the blood lines.’

  ‘No, wait,’ Archer said. ‘He said he had to stop that madman Cromwell. I knew I had heard that name before when Pym said that is the man who runs this England place. The man who has locked up all the alchemists in a Tower in that village called London.’ The memory came rushing back. ‘He said that only together, us and him, could we stop that madman Cromwell. That’s what he wanted us for.’

  Writer stopped, surprised. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘I wonder what he meant by that?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter now anyway, does it,’ Weaver said. ‘Because he’s done for and we’re free so he can shove his stupid plans up his chimney.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Archer. Still, he wanted to know. He could see that Writer felt the same way. Keeper on the other hand looked happy feeling the warmth and Archer thought that was probably a good attitude.

  They all stared into the fire. The flames danced and flickered but it was dying down now. The sun was getting lower and they were running out of time to get home before dark. Archer wanted a little while longer by the fire to rest and warm right through.

  ‘Come on, we have rested enough,’ said Archer, sighing. ‘Let’s get down into the Vale.’

  They trudged onward. The rain came back. The relentless drizzle soaked them to the skin.

  Archer was foot sore and half-asleep by the time they got to the edge of the low hills to look down into the Vale.

  The sun was dim. The sheets of drizzle parted and there it was. A wonderful sig
ht. They stood for a moment on a small rise and took it all in.

  The harvest had been completed while Archer was away. Most of the fields, for as far as they could see, were covered in stubble where the crops had been cut and dotted with haystacks. Others were fallow or growing winter greens. There were orchards here and there, though no doubt the apples and pears would all be harvested too. His stomach growled at the thought of a juicy apple.

  ‘Come on. Let’s go down to Writer’s house first,’ Archer said, looking at her. ‘Straytford is closest.’ He pointed south

  ‘You do not have to all come,’ Writer said to them. ‘I am sure you all want to go right home to your own families.’

  ‘We’ll all stay together,’ Keeper said. ‘Right everyone?’ Archer nodded. Weaver shrugged.

  They set off down the hill, heading for the road running along the southern bank of the Sweetwater.

  ‘You must be excited to get home,’ Archer said to Writer. ‘What’s your family like?’

  ‘Perfectly normal,’ said Writer. ‘I have no siblings. Mother and father make and sell cider, you have probably drunk it. It’s called Straytford Scrump.’

  Archer had not heard of it but then they made their own cider on his family farm. Weaver and Keeper shrugged too.

  ‘Oh, well, it is very popular,’ Writer said. ‘And my parents taught me how to read and write because I had to keep the books for us. That means I track the sales and add up all of our costs.’

  ‘So you’re rich?’ Weaver said, glaring up at Writer with her bright green eyes. ‘All the same, you Low Vale lot.’

  ‘I would not say we were rich,’ Writer said. ‘But we do very well.’

  ‘I knew it,’ Weaver said, shaking her head.

  They did not see many people on the road. A few distant folk walking, too far to hail or wave to. They passed only a single man. A farmer that none of them recognised pushing his handcart along in the opposite direction, his cart piled high with straw.

  ‘Good evening to you,’ Archer said.

  His eyes were wide with terror, his mouth gaping, at the sight of Burp.