Windmaster
Softly, as if an echo from the faraway mountains, he could hear the sound of a happy flute, trilling a song of freedom and remembered joy. Soft the song, but distinct. She was close to him, at last.
Michel swung his pack from his shoulder, his fingers fumbling inside for his flute. Surely, he could reach her now. He breathed in deeply, calming the unsteady beating of his heart. Even so, his hands shook as he brought the instrument to his lips.
There was no shaking in the music that followed, however. The notes rose, light as bird song, rising above the heavy oppression of a still and humid day. Enticing, entreating, it sang of loneliness, of endless searching. The notes recalled a magic once known, a wonder once tasted, memories so brilliant that the world around lost color. Then, the song reverberated in prayer, that the magic not be lost forever, that color once again enter a lackluster existence.
The trees around him rustled with a hint of breeze. The song became more coaxing, more seductive. There was so much at stake.
Leaves were shaken from the trees as the wind circled him faster, blowing about his brown hair. Still, he played.
The wind rose higher, whistling faster and faster about him, whipping his cloak tightly about him, pulling at the wind in his lungs. But it could not stop the music. Above the fierce keening of the wind, there was always the song, the song of searching, of longing, of need. The need was his and the wind could not take it away.
It could only bring him what he needed.
And she was there, her silver sandals silent on the dry grass, her white garments tugged and billowed by the wind, her hair floating like a halo around her head. She was there.
His flute dropped, forgotten, to the ground from nerveless fingers. He stepped forward, hesitated, then found her caught up in his arms as his lips pressed feverish kisses over her face. He buried his face in her windblown hair and sobbed. So long, he had searched for so long.
She made no sound, but her body shook. Michel found tears on his neck and pulled her face up to look at eyes drowned in tears. "Oh no, Venetia," he begged, catching her tears with his thumbs. "No tears. I knew you had to find me, even though I traveled for months. If you did not come, it was because you did not understand, but, if you could hear me, you would know. And you'd find me."
She nodded, but her eyes held disbelief that he could mean what he said, what his flute had sung, but not that she could find him. The wind always knew where to go.
"Venetia," he whispered. "Do you think I dream of Renée? Not since I heard a song that held me, have I thought of her. I could dream of nothing since I looked into your eyes and saw what I had never seen before, since I touched you and knew what it was to feel. There is no room in my dreams for anyone but you."
Her eyes searched his, but his were steady, unclouded. She could not doubt he was sincere. She swallowed and took his hand up. She brought it briefly to her lips, pressing it gently against her cheek, before she pulled it to her bulging stomach, hidden in the folds of cotton cloth. She let him feel his child.
His eyes widened and he searched her face intensely as she had searched his. "Ours." It should have been a question, but it was a statement that found its way to his lips. "You carry our child."
He pressed his mouth to hers fiercely, burying his fingers deep into her silver hair. Her mouth and her hands were as eager as his, her fingers finding their way inside his tunic to press themselves against a pounding heart. And when he pulled her to the grass, she did not hesitate.
The light was dwindling when they slept at last, but she wakened quickly, before the first star had appeared. He loved her! She had not dreamed that he could, but it was on his face, in his eyes, and unmistakable in his song. No one had ever noticed her, and, yet, this man had found something in a silent outcast such that he had traveled in search of her.
She slid from his somnolent grasp and pulled on her clothes. Somewhere, she must find something that could make clear the words she could not say, the fullness in her heart that came only from him. With one last glance, she leapt upon the wind, not knowing for what she searched, but confident that she would find it. The wind always knew where to go.
Minutes later, the wind rested at a field of reeds, bleached silver in the moonlight. She didn't understand. The breeze whispered forth and the reeds responded with a soft keening.
She could build pipes, something that would duplicate the wind's songs so she could tell him, in music, what was denied her in words. A small silver knife, collected from her sandal, and she was ready to work, accompanied by the music of the evening breeze.
There was no breeze to wake Michel, but he was pulled to consciousness by the emptiness of his arms. He smiled and looked about him, expecting her hidden in the nearby trees. The smile faded. He could feel no wind, so she could not be there.
Inside his chest, his heart hesitated. There was an empty ache within that throbbed through him with sickening strength. He could not have lost her again. Not again.
He grabbed for his things with frantic haste. The moonlight found the sparkle of his silvered flute, and he took it instantly to his lips. Desperate was the song that floated above the trees. She would hear him. She would have to. The wind would bring her, pull her back to him. And he would not let her go again. And he played.
His feet stumbled on the path, but the song never wavered. The road he walked was a hundred miles, but he would play over every mile until he found her, until the wind found him. The wind would hear him and the wind always knew where to go.
But others can hear, others who do not care for love or dreaming. There are men who live only for the magic of gold, who do not care how this gold is won. And they heard him.
The moon hid behind a cloud as he stumbled again. Even then, the song would not have faltered but for the hand that swept the flute ungently from his fingers.
Rough fists crunched into his face, while other hands wrenched his pack from his back. Gold spilled onto the roadway and was gathered by up greedy fingers. The flute disappeared in someone's pack, coveted for its silver.
"No," Michel begged through swollen lips. "Leave me only the flute. The rest means nothing, take it. But I cannot call her without the flute. Please! I beg you!"
"A man who'd part with so much gold must have more to cheer him! Come now, boys, it seems there is more to be had." The moon pulled clear of the clouds to show Michel four advancing shadows, one carrying the glitter of a pitted knife. Michel saw it raised above him.
"VENETIA!"
Nearly twenty miles away, Venetia turned her face, the finished pipes in her hand. Her heart thumped fiercely, and the ground disappeared beneath her feet as she responded to an unheard cry. She flew past the place where they had coupled, had rested. Where was he?
The wind was unerring in direction. Venetia landed on a lonely stretch of road. She saw about her the torn remnants of a minstrel's bag, of a shredded cape. And him, face-down in the dust. Her throat tightened with unbearable pain. She could not breathe if he did not live.
She fell upon her knees and rolled him over with gentle hands. Tears stung her eyes as she saw the swollen jaw, the crushed nose. She touched a finger to his discolored cheek and knew from the touch that the wind had flown from his lungs and would never return. She knew that he was dead and that he died with her name on his lips.
She threw her head back, her mouth open to scream out her torment, but she could make no sound, no whisper to mourn her loss. Her hand reached for her silver knife, and stopped. Someone depended on her life even more than she had depended on his, someone who carried his blood as well as hers.
Instead, the pipes found a way to her lips. Low was the mournful song of the bereaved, sharp was the music of pain, and vibrant was the song of desolation, of irredeemable loss. "Michel!" the pipes sobbed in tortured tones.
And the wind heard, her friend from her earliest lonely days. When no one could hear her, the wind would know her heart and give her freedom from the pr
ison of her silence. It had brought her to her loved one, had shown her how to reach him with the magic of music through light voice of the flute, and had taken her back to her lover when she could stand solitude no longer. And it heard her now.
"Michel!" it sang back at her, twisting around the pair with frenetic speed. And as she played, it flew faster, pulling itself into a twister that lifted not only her up, but her lover as well, and carried them back to where they had been that afternoon.
Gently, Michel's body was laid on the twisting grass before leaves and rushes coated the body. For a moment, Venetia floated above him, looking a last time at what had been her life, her pipes still singing the song of mourning.
She looked away at last, and the song changed to one of rage. The wind replied with a renewed fury, calling forth lightning from the nearby clouds. "Forward," called the pipes. "There is work yet to be done this night."
And the twister moved forward, unerringly. The wind always knew where to go.
She saw four men huddled about a campfire lift their heads as the furious screeching of the oncoming wind. One was swept up into the whirlwind only to be crushed against a tree. Another was dragged into the fire and left to burn, screaming, until the fire closed his throat. Yet another had his knife wrenched from his fingers by the screaming wind only to have it buried in his chest a second later.
The last rolled away from the vengeful wind, stumbling to his feet in his haste to escape. How do you escape the wind? Short was his scream as the lightning found a victim.
Venetia set foot among the remains, silent again. She stared at the charred remains of one footpad. What was there to remember Michel? She saw it in the moon's last beams: his flute. She tied the flute to the end of her pipes and brought the silver to her lips.
As the music flowed through the flute, the wind began to play counterpoint to her song through the reeds. Hanging at the belt beneath her breasts was the last flute, the flute that she had first used to sing to Michel. That was for the child of Michel. His flute would become more.
And the roadway, a memorial . . .
They say that the Northern road is more than one hundred miles long, lined with trees and hiding places for the wicked to take the unwary. No soldiers patrol this road. No governors work to protect the travelers. Even so, no one is molested. Every man, every maiden, every babe can walk its length without fear, without danger.
Once, it was rife with footpads and thieves, but word spread quickly to find other hunting grounds for their crimes. Each criminal that accosted the defenseless would disappear only to be found anon, dead in the most hideous of fashions.
Some hid in caves or buried themselves in shelters. Some fled with remarkable speed. It didn't matter.
They could never run fast enough or hide well enough.
The wind always knew where to go.
Conjuring Dreams or Learning to Write by Writing Page 19