A Wind in the Night

by Barb Hendee

  And then Brot’ân’duivé took out the smooth message stone and thrust it out.

  Osha stared in horror between the stone and the listener. Worse, the sacred one swung its head toward him. It watched him as if those large unblinking eyes could see every flaw or failing within him. It took a step.

  “This is its choice,” Brot’ân’duivé said. “Climb on.”

  Still caught in disbelief at what was being asked of him, Osha fixated on the words its choice. Swallowing hard, he took the stone. Averting his eyes, he stepped in carefully at the sacred one’s side and reached up.

  When his fingers closed on the mane down the back of the listener’s broad neck, he grew sick inside and faltered.

  This was sacrilege.

  Somehow Osha pulled himself up and swung his leg over; he snatched his hands away from touching the clhuassas.

  Brot’ân’duivé stepped closer. “In silence and in shadow.”

  Osha would neither look at the greimasg’äh nor repeat the oath of his caste. The clhuassas lunged without warning, and Osha was forced to grab its neck. It raced off through the trees too quickly, and Brot’ân’duivé was gone from his sight.

  The few days and nights that followed became a blur.

  By what Osha could estimate, from where he left the greimasg’äh, the listener had to carry him roughly seventy-five or eighty leagues. He did not know how far it could travel in one day or night, especially in the densest parts of the forest. His mind and heart were both so shaken and sickened on the first day that he did not even pay attention to the distance covered. He barely noticed tree branches rushing past his head as he held on and allowed himself to be carried eastward.

  By evening, hunger and thirst and exhaustion began to take their toll, and those awakened the part of him that had curled up inside. He did not know how he could—should—properly address the one who carried him.

  Finally desperation drove him to whisper, “Stop . . . please.”

  The sacred one slowed to a halt and remained motionless.

  Osha slid to the ground, and his legs gave way beneath him. He had never ridden any animal, let alone another true being. As he crumpled on the ground, the silver-gray clhuassas stepped farther into the brush and swung its head from one side to the other . . . until its great head came fully around, and those huge crystal-blue eyes pierced him.

  The sacred one exhaled slowly, snorted at him, and stomped one hoof.

  Osha struggled to his feet, but his legs still shook as he stumbled closer.

  There beyond the clhuassas was a vine low to the ground and filled with ripe bisselberries, purple and plump. He dropped to his knees and began to eat, taking advantage of both the food and its moisture. He ate them, bitter skins and all, but, halfway through gorging himself, he froze and stared at the berries in his stained hands.

  Osha heard the clhuassas breathing behind him. When he slowly looked up, he then shriveled inside under the sacred one’s gaze. It had carried him—him, not even a full anmaglâhk now that he had lost his teacher, his jeóin. And here he was stuffing himself in front of it.

  How shameful!

  Osha averted his gaze as he slowly raised his cupped hands. When he felt its muzzle, as large as either of his hands, touch his fingertips, he shuddered. And then he felt its tongue drag over his hands and the berries. When he dared to look up, all he could do was stare.

  It would be one moment he could never forget, for when the clhuassas halted and lifted its head to look at him, he lowered his hands to find he still held three bisselberries. And the listener snorted at him again.

  How long had it taken him to understand?

  Even when he ate those berries, somewhat slick with saliva, he was still uncertain. Each time he gathered more and offered them up, the sacred one left three behind for him. Finally it turned away and stood silent for a moment, and when it looked his way, it closed its eyes and hung its head in stillness.

  Osha did not know what to do at first. He merely settled where he was. Later, not realizing he had fallen asleep, he woke with a start at hearing—feeling—thunder in the ground beneath him.

  The sacred one stood waiting.

  This was how the following days and nights passed, with Osha clinging to the back of the clhuassas, their journey broken only by intermittent stops for rest in which the sacred one found them food or a stream from which to drink. At some time over one following night, when dawn came, Osha could feel that his guardian was growing weary.

  Nothing he did or said convinced it to slow or halt for longer rests. Even when he grew bold enough to plead and beg, it pressed onward. As they drew nearer to the coast, and the trees and brush grew sparser, water became more difficult to find.

  One morning, after sleeping only part of a night, Osha woke up so thirsty that his mouth was too dry to speak. The clhuassas stood waiting and watching him. When he climbed onto its back, to his surprise, it turned north and bolted. Osha knew they needed to be heading southeast.

  “Stop!” he tried to say through cracked lips, but it did not listen.

  Not longer after, it halted. When Osha looked down, his gaze met the sight of a trickling creek. In relief he dropped to the ground and drank his fill. This time he did not flinch at thunder in the ground when the clhuassas stepped in beside him to do the same.

  No water had ever tasted so good, and no moment of his life had ever been so serene. Though it did not relieve his grief in losing his teacher, his shame for abandoning Leanâlhâm and Gleannéohkân’thva, or his suspicions concerning the greimasg’äh . . .

  That moment of silence beside a sacred one, with only the soft sound of trickling water, would be remembered. This was the way the world should have been and was not.

  When they resumed their journey, the sacred one turned southeast again. After a hard and long run, it stopped past nightfall. Osha slid off, knowing now that food and water would be close by. He found a patch of odd wild berries, all red as blood and covered in tiny seeds, he had never seen before. These were far sweeter than the skins of bisselberries.

  They shared another meal, and Osha curled up beneath the bare trunk of a tall and spindling pine. He never got to close his eyes, let alone sleep, before the clhuassas walked over and lowered its head, and he could feel its breath on his face.

  Osha did not know what to do this time. He had never asked for this journey, but a being sacred to his people had seen him safely this far, never leaving him to struggle onward on his own.

  “My thanks,” he whispered.

  Osha froze stiff as the sacred one pressed its soft, gray nose against his forehead. A feeling of peace swept through him, like that moment by the creek, and he fell asleep without even realizing, until . . .

  When he opened his eyes again, he was alone in the dawn.

  It took a few moments for him to realize the listener was nowhere in sight. He scrambled up and looked around, uncertain of where he was. The sound of crashing waves reached his ears, and he stepped off over a rise toward that distant roar. Not long after, he spotted the edge of the thin woods and looked down toward a coastal settlement.

  Small boats lined the few narrow docks, and two ships floated in a tiny bay formed by twin streams running into the sea. As he looked upon the settlement, all of the remaining sensation from his last night with the sacred one vanished.

  Osha headed down the gradual slope to find passage farther south. . . .

  • • •

  Wynn didn’t even realize she’d stopped breathing until Osha went silent and looked down again from where he sat beside her. She took a sudden breath, and any question of what had happened next caught in her throat. All she could think of was that Fay-descended creature that had . . .

  “The greimasg’äh, and I . . . and you,” Osha whispered, “are the only ones I know of who have ever been so close to one of them.”
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  At first Wynn wasn’t certain what he meant.

  One time in his land, when Leesil had needed to find his mother, Chap had gone off into the wild on his own. Wynn had snuck out after him, even though the an’Cróan forest would quickly confuse her—or anyone not an’Cróan. She was almost instantly lost, but Chap had found her and so had a pack of wild majay-hì, which had included Chap’s future mate, Lily.

  The only way Wynn had been able to keep up with the racing pack in Chap’s search for Leesil’s mother was . . .

  “You and I,” Osha added, “are the only ones I know who have ever been gifted with their aid, in carrying us.”

  Yes, in Chap’s racing search with the pack, a listener had carried her.

  Osha hung his head. Whatever tense harshness had shown in his long features since she had first seen him in Calm Seatt appeared to fade.

  For just a moment Wynn saw the Osha of past, better days. And though to be Anmaglâhk was all that he had ever wanted, it was his innocent wonder that made him so much better than any of them in her eyes.

  “But it left you . . . before you even reached your destination,” she said too quickly.

  Osha looked over at her, and some brief confusion passed across his face.

  “No . . .” he stammered, as if baffled. “It made certain I would hear the waves upon waking.”

  Wynn wanted to curse herself, and not only for having stalled him now that he was talking. The Osha of old vanished before her eyes, replaced by that harsher, hardened one. It hurt her to see that.

  “But you found passage?” she asked, trying to urge him onward.

  “Of course,” he whispered, looking away. “I was Anmaglâhk. My people would do anything to serve them.”

  For an instant Wynn hung upon those two words—I was rather than I am—and then Osha’s suddenly cold voice pulled her onward. . . .

  • • •

  Osha had no trouble gaining free passage on a small, single-masted fishing vessel. That was best, for it had no destination for passengers or cargo that would be delayed in serving his need. The following day, when he boarded, the boat’s master and her small crew were more than happy to assist an anmaglâhk. He did his best to smile, and he was more than grateful in his manners, though what he had asked of them was not by his choice.

  That first day, sailing south down the eastern coast, heading beyond his people’s territories, was when he began to truly contemplate the stone inside the pocket of his forest gray cloak.

  What unknown reasons did the Chein’âs—the Burning Ones—have for summoning him, of all the Anmaglâhk, a second time?

  He could not find an answer.

  Worse, over the next two days, now that he no longer clung to the back of the clhuassas, he had too much time to think. He dwelled upon the faces of Leanâlhâm and Gleannéohkân’thva locked in grief with no help or comfort. But on the third day he began watching the shoreline, as Brot’ân’duivé had given him clear instructions regarding what to look for.

  When the beach came into view and he saw a distant mountain’s peak line up with that place, his chest began to ache. He found it hard to even breathe as he left the bow to approach the ship’s master. He was given what meager supplies he asked for without hesitation from the crew.

  Osha felt all the more unworthy in that he was here only because a greimasg’äh had broken a sacred oath. And yet the summons could not be refused, or sacred ties to the Chein’âs might be damaged—and Osha would not be responsible for that. If the Chein’âs called to him, he would answer.

  So he stepped down into the lowered skiff and allowed himself to be rowed to the shore. Once he was alone again, he turned inland toward the peaks.

  He could still hear Brot’ân’duivé’s voice driving through his mind like a knife.

  The last time he had made this journey, he had been blindfolded while following an elder member of the caste, but he knew it had taken three days. Now he walked with his eyes open as he headed straight toward a mountain in the distance . . . until he saw another, closer one with a broken top.

  There were streams along the way, providing both freshwater and fish. He tried not to think beyond his daily needs. He did take the time to find a stout branch, and, using supplies taken from the fishing vessel, he fashioned himself a torch. He knew it would be needed.

  It was late the third day when he located the chute. Its bottom end was partially hidden by an overhang. He would have never noticed it without knowing exactly what he was looking for.

  He remembered having climbed it while blindfolded, and how he had nearly slipped on the loose, rocky debris in its bottom. After one last hesitation, Osha entered the chute and climbed upward until he reached the mouth of a tunnel . . . where he stopped and lingered.

  It was a while longer before he knelt to strike flint against a stiletto to light his torch. He forced one foot in front of the other, inside and downward, until echoes of his steps were all he heard rolling along the dark and rough stone walls. He traveled deeper underground as the tunnel turned this way and that, until he began to feel slightly dizzy and the air grew uncomfortably warm.

  The walls were craggy, but the floor smoothed out, and then suddenly he stepped from the tunnel into a cavern. His eyes instantly locked on the space’s only prominent feature.

  A large oval of shimmering metal, taller than himself, was embedded in the far wall.

  Taking shallow breaths in the heated air, he crossed to it. Raising the torch in his left hand, he ran his gaze downward over the metal. His eyes followed the barely visible razor-straight seam. The oval appeared to be split down the center into two halves, but he saw no handle or way to open them. Orange-yellow torchlight glimmered on their perfect, polished surfaces, a bleached silver tone too light for steel.

  The portal was made of the same material as his tools and weapons of an anmaglâhk.

  Osha stared at it as he thought back to when Brot’ân’duivé had forced him into this journey.

  Once in the cavern, you will know what to do. And when you reach the portal of the Burning Ones’ white metal—

  Osha had cut off the greimasg’äh and not allowed him to finish. Here and now there was no need, for this was not his first glimpse of the doors. The first time he had come here, he had been allowed to remove his blindfold once he stood in this stone chamber. The path here was kept a secret, but all Anmaglâhk were trusted enough to bear witness to what came next.

  Osha reached up his left sleeve with his right hand and pulled a stiletto from its hidden sheath. Reaching out, he touched the blade’s matching metal to that of the portal.

  The portal split down its hair-thin line as it began to open. . . .

  • • •

  “Wynn, are you out here?”

  Osha fell silent, looking up as Wynn jumped slightly at Nikolas’s call. She barely saw Osha drop his head, and then he called out before she could.

  “We here.”

  Frustration washed through Wynn, and then anger, as she watched Osha’s expression close up. It had taken so long to find the right moment to get him to tell her the missing gaps in his past . . . to tell her what had changed him so much.

  Nikolas came walking over.

  His hair wasn’t combed, and he had dark circles under his eyes.

  Still angry with him for interrupting, she felt suddenly guilty. At least he was out of his cabin.

  “I knocked on your door, but no one answered,” Nikolas said. “I couldn’t lie there in that bunk any longer, and I . . . I was hungry. Maybe that’s good, as I haven’t felt that since . . .”

  Wynn knew the rest: since the letter from his father had arrived. She tried to smile, to hide any resentment at the interruption.

  “It is a good sign,” she confirmed as she rose, though Osha hadn’t moved. “I have a friend who can’t keep any food down wh
ile on a ship.”

  Wynn held one hand down to Osha. It took another moment before he looked up—at her hand and not her. After a few blinks he rose, though he didn’t take her hand. And she looked once more to Nikolas.

  “Chane is resting, but we’ll get Shade and head down to the galley and find some breakfast.”

  With a quick nod, Nikolas headed off for the door in the aftcastle wall, but when Osha took a step to follow, Wynn touched his arm. Stoic and silent, he looked down at her.

  “Later,” she whispered, “and . . . thank you.”

  She forced her hand into his and pulled him along.

  Chapter Six

  By the middle of the same day that Wayfarer had convinced her companions to allow her to take some kind of action, she and Chap stepped out of the harbormaster’s office and looked all around the port of Soráno. She was thankful that, before doing a blind search, Chap had insisted they stop at the office to check on new arrivals. To Wayfarer’s great surprise, they now had more of a plan than she had anticipated.

  Since Magiere’s earlier morning visit to the harbormaster, two ships had arrived, both heading south for il’Dha’ab Najuum. One was a private Numan trader out of Drist called the Falcon. The other was a Suman cargo vessel with a strange name she could barely pronounce, the Djinn, arrived from the south to exchange standard goods and then return to the Suman Empire.

  “Should we try the Numan vessel first?” she asked softly, gripping the end of a rope.

  The rope’s other end was looped around Chap’s neck, and again Wayfarer almost apologized for all of the indignities that had been forced upon him.

  Not long ago, at his insistence, she had finally begun calling him by that name. The idea of forcing a name on any creature, let alone a sacred one, had been—was—abhorrent. But she did wish to follow his guidance, and he wished to be called by that name. At the moment, however, he hardly looked like a sacred majay-hì.

  Then again, she did not look like herself, either.