At last, in the spring, when the snows melted, months after the annual devastation, would come the planters, armed with seedlings and the spores and knowledge to rebuild the hillside.
Cigne huddled under the rocks, shivering with each ice chunk that rebounded from the trees against the thin jacket that had been all she could grasp as she had fled. Each impact would leave a bruise, she knew. More bruises. As if a few more would matter now.
“Cigne! Bitch-woman! Down come! . . . Freeze until spring, bitch!”
In the lull between gusts, she could hear Aldoff’s bellow, as he stood at the base of the hillside.
Whhppp! Whhppp! Whhppp!
Another wave of ice missiles clipped smaller branches from the upper limbs of the spruce. The wind shrieks peaked momentarily, then dropped off.
“Hope you die! . . .”
Cigne shuddered between the rocks as she listened to Aldoff’s parting words.
She likely would die, lying on a hillside she scarcely had seen from her confinement in the but Aldoff had called a cottage, lying in the chill of the ten month winds. But go back to Aldoff and his rages?
Snap! Craaaaacckkkk!
A spruce uphill from her broke at the base, and she winced, waiting for the tree to fall into the narrow space between the boulders and crush her.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Trees were now falling like lightning around her, one after the other as the winds scythed the hillside with nearly the precision of the ancient lumberjacks.
Whhhppp! Whhp! Whhhppp! Whhhppp!
Without the taller trees to intercept the ice chunks, more of the smaller missiles and ricocheting fragments began to strike Cigne’s exposed back and left leg, the one Aldoff had kicked so hard she could not bend it to get under her.
She shivered continuously as the ice pelted her, as the wind whipped around her, and as the darkness swallowed her. Dragged her into the night she knew would be endless, the night she fought even as she wondered why. The chill seemed warmer, but as she drifted toward the darkness, she tried to move immobile muscles, tried to push away the seductive warmth of that darkness.
When she woke, half-surprised, Cigne could not feel her hands, nor her feet, but she was moving, being carried.
“NO!!!!” she croaked.
She jerked, trying to get out of his arms, for it had to be Aldoff, carrying her, carrying her back to . . .
“Gentle . . .”
At the sound of the voice, a light baritone, and because she could not move against the steellike arms that held her, she collapsed, half in shock and half in relief that her rescuer or captor was not her husband. She let the darkness reclaim her.
An unaccustomed warmth woke her the second time, that and the pain of having the bruises on her legs being touched.
She could smell a bitter, but faint, odor, the one she associated with the visiting medical teams from her childhood.
“Oooohh.”
“Tried not to hurt, but could be some infection here.”
Although she tried to sit up, Cigne found a firm but gentle hand on her shoulder, holding her down.
“Don’t move. Concussion.”
“Concussion?” The word meant nothing, and the subtle lilt in his voice told her that he was from somewhere else, certainly from no district she knew.
“Head bruise.”
After forcing herself to relax, Cigne waited until his hand left her shoulder. Then she shivered.
Without lifting her head, she shifted her eyes around to see where she might be. The eye movement alone left her head throbbing.
The muted roar of the wind and the warmth told her she was sheltered. The first savage onslaught of the ten month winds had passed. A steady yellow illumination meant a glow lamp, and a glow lamp meant her rescuer was no ordinary farmer or woodsman.
She hoped the man was her rescuer, and not something worse. With that thought, she shivered again.
She appreciated the warmth of the coverlet that he drew up to her chin, although she did not try to look at him, not with the pain behind her eyes.
“Relax . . . quiet . . . you need to sleep . . .”
“No. Aldoff. He will find me.” Her voice was no more than a raspy whisper.
“No one will find you. No one will take you.”
The chill certainty in his tone made her shiver, even as she slipped back into sleep, as she realized she had yet to see his face.
When she woke, for the third time since she had bolted from Aldoff, Cigne did not move, but slowly opened her eyes, waiting to see if the throbbing resumed within her skull.
The place where she lay was no longer lit by a glow lamp, but by the diffuse, grayish light of afternoon, of a ten month afternoon. She could still hear the background hum of the wind, as low as it ever got during the tenth month.
Slowly . . . slowly, she inched her head sideways, toward the strongest light. Overhead, she saw the vaulted ceiling, one composed of beams supporting fitted planks, all of golden wood. While she was not a crafter, she recognized the workmanship as the sort that only skilled crafters or the merchants who sold and traded their works could afford.
Her eyes focused on the strange oval window, framed carefully within golden wood as well.
Through the clear off-planet glass, she could see trees, not the brittle bud spruces, but firs with heavier and darker trunks and, between the dark spruces, heavy bare-limbed trees. She had heard of the trees that had leaves that shed like the scrub bushes, but had never seen any so large before.
Click.
Her head jerked toward the sound. She winced as a muted throbbing began behind her eyes.
The man who stood inside the heavy door he had just eased shut could not have been much taller than she was. Slender, wiry, with golden hair curled tightly against his skull, he studied her without stepping toward her, without moving a muscle.
“How do you feel?”
“Not good.” Her voice rasped over the two words.
“Thirsty”
“Yes.”
He turned toward a narrow alcove.
Cigne heard the sound of running water. Running water—she thought she had left that luxury when Aldoff had insisted they leave the Plains Commune for the woods beneath the mountain hills.
“Here.”
She had not heard him, nor seen him move, but he was kneeling next to her, offering a smooth cup.
Cold—that the water was. The chill eased the soreness in her throat, a soreness she had not felt before.
As close as he was, she could smell him. A scent of spice, a clean scent, so unlike Aldoff, and so different from the odor of sweat and dirt that had cloaked her farmer father and brothers.
Rather than dwell on his scent, she fixed her thoughts on the smoothness of the cup, with its simple yet elegant curves, and comfortable handle. A handle heavy without seeming so.
The glazed finish of the pottery held within it a web of fine lines, indicating it was hardly new.
Cigne had not realized how tightly she had gripped the cup until her fingers began to tremble.
“You can have more later . . .”
She surrendered the cup reluctantly and tried to keep from tens-ing her muscles as he eased her head onto a single thin pillow.
“Shouldn’t lift your head at all, but your eyes are clear.” He spoke softly, as though he were talking to himself, rather than to her.
With the pillow under her head, she took in the room more fully.
She lay on an elevated double width pallet, under a soft gray and red coverlet. On the far side of the large central room were two of the strange oval windows, wider than any she had seen-one opposite her. Before the other stood a desk. From the simple lines and the flow of the wood, Cigne saw it was the work of a master crafter, just like the rest of the woodwork she could see.
Even the grains of each plank in the wall between the twin off-planet windows seemed identical. Her mental efforts to compare the planks intensified the throbbing in her head
. Cigne closed her eyes, still listening.
She could feel the man moving away from her, although she could not hear footsteps. When she eased her eyes back open, he was setting the old cup upon the desk.
She shivered, despite the warmth of the coverlet. But she could feel her eyes getting heavier.
The dwelling remained silent except for the moaning of the ten month winds.
LXIII
THE WOMAN SAT on one side of the narrow drop table and picked up the empty cup one more time, studying the webwork of lines underneath the porcelain-smooth glaze. A simple cup, heavy, with a handle ample for a man, finished in a uniform off-gray. On one half was a golden diamond, faded. On the other was a stylized spruce tree, green and brown.
When she studied the two designs closely, she could see precise brush strokes, finely done under the heavy and clear glaze. Both the cup and the two designs were unique in small ways, almost in the feel of the cup and the sense of the designs. Both the object and its decoration had been produced by a skilled hand.
Cigne shook her head. The man who had rescued her from the ten month wind and storms, winds and storms which still were striking the surrounding hills periodically, had produced both house and cup. Or so he had said.
If he had, he was extraordinarily skilled. If he had not, he was rich, or a thief, or both.
Greg—that was the name he had offered. But she had refused to use it. So far she had avoided any form of address.
Click.
Cigne kept her eyes on the cup as he walked to the other side of the table.
“Feeling better?”
She nodded, but did not meet his eyes. The old legends had been dismissed by most, but she remembered to be wary about “the old man of the hills” with the demon-yellow eyes. Still, he had been nothing but gentle when easily he could have taken advantage of her.
He had not pressed when she had refused to discuss why she had been out in the storm or from whom or what she had fled.
In turn, she had not pressed him on how he could so easily dare the gusts that felled bigger men.
“Still don’t want to go back?” He waited for her answer.
This time, this time, she shook her head.
“What about Denv?”
“I have no money. No goods. No trade. Besides . . . a woman who cannot . . . without . . .” She stopped and looked up to see his reac-tion, but the smooth face with the near-elfin face remained impassive.
Finally, he spoke slowly.
“Forget money. Never a real barrier. Nor goods. You know enough.”
Her chin moved as if to nod, but she halted the movement almost before it started.
“Real problem elsewhere.”
She did not have to nod.
“No children?”
She looked down at the smooth inlays of the table, taking refuge in the abstract design of the dark and the light wood. Wondering how he had been able to set such intricate and curving strips of hardwood within the boundaries, and to match the repeating patterns so identically time after time.
“He blames you.”
Cigne could not trust her voice and continued to study the inlaid pattern of the table.
“Wondered about the bruises. Figures. Need population. Fewer children, but no recognition yet. Macho types. So far.”
His laugh, while gentle, was mirthless, and chilling, as if he understood something that no one else could possibly see.
Both his words and laugh had not been addressed to her, and she did not answer. Not that she had understood all that he had said, but the tone had been clear. He had not sounded pleased.
Cigne shivered.
Although “Greg” had not raised his voice around her, she could not forget how he had carried her through the winds that had staggered and stopped Aldoff, those winds that the strongest of the hill runners feared. She recalled the unyielding strength of his arms, a strength that made Aldoff seem childlike, and she reflected on his speed and the silent way he moved, so quickly he seemed not to cast a shadow.
“Money and a child—what a good widow needs . . . ,” he mused.
Cigne frowned, but looked up at the amused sound in his voice. He stood between the table and the nearer portal window.
As she glanced toward him, his eyes caught hers, and she was afraid to look away.
“Do you really want your heart’s desire, lady?”
Cigne looked down at the table, afraid to answer, afraid not to.
“Be careful with wishes, lady. Certain you will never return?”
“I am sure. I will never go back.”
“Suppose not. Not if you were willing to try the spout winds.” He turned halfway toward the oval transparency before his desk. “And the other makes sense. Especially if you could get to Denv. Not that it would be a problem.”
“Denv? Not a problem? It is kays and kays away.”
“No problem.”
He sat down in the strange leaning chair by his desk and pulled off the light black boots.
“Listen for a time, lady. Just listen.”
The lilt in his voice seemed more pronounced, and she looked toward him, but he was gazing into the window.
“Listen?” she asked.
“Just listen.” He turned back toward her, but she would not meet his eyes and stared at the dark spruces in the afternoon light.
“A long time ago, in a place like this, the people were dying, for each year they had less food, and each year there were fewer of them. The winter lasted into the summer and the summer was cold and short and filled with storms. And the summer storms were like the ten month storms, while the winter storms hurled boulders the size of houses and ripped gashes the size of canyons into the high plains.
“In this old time, a young man escaped from the cold and storms in a silver ship sent by the Great Old Empire That Was. And he went to the stars to learn what he could learn. He wished a great wish, and it was granted. And he came back to his place, and it was called Old Earth. And he broke the winter storms of the high plains. And he taught the people how to grow the grains and make the land bear fruit they could eat. But the storms elsewhere still raged, and the people in those places away from the high plains sickened and died, and the ten month storms raged through all the year but the short summer. And still the trees would not grow.
“The young man wished another great wish, and it was granted. But the price for the second wish was that he must leave his people forever. He climbed back to the stars, and in time he sent them the Rain of Life.
“The trees grew once more, and the people no longer sickened, and the summers returned. And the people were glad. In their gladness, they rejoiced, and as they rejoiced they forgot the young man and the two great wishes.
“As the great years of the centuries passed, the young man climbed back from the stars and returned to the place he had left. But it was not the same place. He was still young in body, but old in spirit. And his people were gone, and those who now tilled the soil and cut the trees turned away when they saw him. For they saw the stars in his eyes and were afraid.
“The women he had once loved had died and were dust, and those who saw him feared him and would have nothing to do with him—But his wishes were granted.”
Cigne shivered at the gentle voice telling the fable that she knew was not a fable. She said nothing, but looked back down at the inlaid pattern on the table, endlessly repeating itself.
“There is a danger in wishing great wishes.”
She lifted her head, though she did not look at him, and spoke. “There is danger in not wishing.”
This time he nodded. “True. All wishes have their prices, and the price we agree to pay is the lesser of the prices we pay. Are you certain you wish to pay such a price? For you will pay more dearly than the spoken word can tell.”
Holding back a shiver, she nodded.
“Then listen again.”
He stood and turned toward the window. A single note issued from his lips, lingeri
ng in the late afternoon gloom like a summer sunbeam trapped out of season.
A second note joined the first, both singing simultaneously, before being replaced by a second pair, then a third.
Though she had never heard of the songs of an old man who looked young, she listened. Though she feared the demon who might kill with gentleness, though she had never heard of the double melody, and its double price, she listened. And she heard, taking in each note and storing it in her heart, though she knew each would someday wound as deeply as a knife.
A tear welled up in one eye, then the other, as she began to cry. And still she listened, and heard the sadness, and the loneliness, and the loves left long since behind, but not forgotten.
His arms reached around her shoulders, warm around her, and the song continued, along with her tears. The tears become sobs, and the sobs subsided.
As the last note died away, his lips fell upon hers, and her lips rose to his. She let her body respond to his heat and his song, knowing that the child would be a daughter, her daughter, for whom she would pay any price. For whom she would have to pay any price.
And one tear, and one kiss—they were for the old man who looked young and never had been.
One tear and one kiss, and a single great wish.
LXIV
THE MAN GLANCED out the window, letting his eyes slide by the oval window that had once been the viewport of a ship even more ancient than he was.
His peripheral vision caught a movement, a dash of red, and his attention recentered on the scene outside. Outside, where the warmth of late spring slowly removed the last of the long winter snows. Out-side, where only a scattered handful of snowdrifts remained, and where the golden oaks were putting forth the first leaves of the new season.
The figure in red was a woman, wearing a clinging pair of leather pants and a thinnish leather jacket. The jacket was doubtless imported, reflected the blond-haired man with a quirk to his lips. No local dyes or fabrics glittered that brightly, and the emerging local ethic opposed the use of synthetics except where no alternatives existed.
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