The Windsingers

by Megan Lindholm

  'Nowhere on this plane, dolt! The Windsingers have sent for one of power, great power! I heard their call. Before her, my boxes will be more useless than cobwebs. She will see right through them. But their calling has showed me where they are. I must act now, or forsake all hope. I need hands. I lack them. I shall use yours in place of my own, seeing as how you were responsible for my loss. Do all exactly as I tell you. Put your left hand on my head, extend your right arm and hand vertically...'

  Ki remained motionless, frowning.

  'Make haste, woman!'

  'Tell me first what magic we work. Then I shall decide if I want a part in it.'

  'We summon a creature to make a way for us. I have located where they hold my parts. We shall go to reclaim them. Now, your left hand on my...'

  'I wonder if I wish to go with you? Shall I leave my wagon and team here, prey to the first wandering thief?'

  'I have already circled them with what power I can. Not enough to hold off a Windsinger, but more than enough to ward off the casual thief. Think you I slept as you did? Now, place your left... '

  'What sort of creature do we summon?'

  'One that moves between levels, a jointer of worlds. Must we waste time so? Can words describe colors to the born blind? Neither can they describe creatures your mind is not disciplined to see. Now please! Your left hand on my head!'

  'Please,' Ki whispered softly with sarcastic satisfaction. Slowly she moved to obey.

  'And your right hand aloft, perpendicular to the earth. Separate your fingers as widely as you can. Blank your mind if you are capable. I do not wish your thoughts to pollute the sending. Now!'

  Strange it was to let her hand rest on the soft dark hair of the wizard's head. It curled beneath her left hand, silky with warmth, a slight cushion between her hand and his smooth skull. She had a strange impulse to stroke it away from his eyes as she might pet a street child for some small favor. She resisted the impulse, but looking down into his grey eyes she felt he might have read the momentary urge. She strove to blank out her mind, only to become more and more conscious of Dresh's hair beneath her hand.

  'First questions, now flattery! Was ever a power at such a disadvantage? Enough of that! Now, reach your right hand straight over your head, touching the middle finger to the palm of your hand while keeping the other fingers stretched out straight.'

  Ki tried to comply, but the hand position was difficult. Her smallest finger leaned far back from the rest of her hand. She felt an immediate cramp across her knuckles.

  'Straighten those fingers!' Dresh barked. 'So!'

  One moment her hand nestled in his soft hair. The next it was encased in a grip of ice. Cold emanated from the top of his skull, to creep up inside her arm. A sluggishly moving icy jelly was being forced up through her bones. Her fingers went numb. The feeling in her arm was lost to her. Elbow and shoulder, gone. A web of icy tendrils crept like a living mantle across her shoulders, ventured up her raised right arm. Fear hammered inside her, and she decided to pull free, to escape this loathsome inner touching. But it was as if she heard of someone else's fear and desire to flee. Her body did not move. The terror raced hopelessly around within her own mind. She was Dresh's tool, her own will impotent. Cold slugs inched into the bones of her right hand, filled her fingers. She felt the fingers straighten into the correct alignment. Surely her tendons must tear themselves loose from the bones they gripped, but now, they relaxed, and seemed to recall an earlier limberness that Ki had never possessed. The sign was made.

  A needle of hot acid ripped up from Dresh's skull. It shrieked through Ki's body, traveling swiftly through her marrow. It tore across her shoulders and shot up her reaching arm in a spasm of agony beyond words or cries. She made no sound. Her mouth stretched wide and tortured, but was mute to her body's torment. The pain exploded from her reaching fingertips, to spray out in a four-fingered jet of agony across the night sky. Ki saw no sight, she heard no sound, but she sensed the signal sent through her. In some far realm there was a being that would answer such a call. Ki pictured a vulture suddenly looping and settling.

  'Rest now.' She knew it was Dresh, but could not tell if he spoke to her as if she simply heard him. A haze of pain and confusion scattered her thoughts. A strength not her own entered her body. She staggered forward three short steps. Then it forsook her, to let her tumble onto her bedding like a marionette whose strings are cut. Somewhere in Ki, someone was angry, was furious with Dresh. Someone would kill him, as soon as she could find her strength. But Ki was too weary to listen to her rant. She closed her eyes and sank into depths past sleep.

  FIVE

  Grielea paused on the threshold. Her black eyes narrowed as she measured the figure within the barren room, sensing the tension hidden beneath the graceful folds of the robe draping the womanly form. Guilt and secrets burdened her like snow on a tender sapling. A lesser creature would snap. But not Rebeke. Not she. Grielea backed up a silent step. She lowered her eyes to the floor and hissed respectfully.Slowly Rebeke's eyes floated up from the pale blue pyramid in her lap. She sighed as she set it on a small cushion that rested on the floor beside her.

  'What is it, apprentice?' Her voice was brisk, but she could not conceal all the weariness in it, nor the undercurrents of anxiety.

  'Windmistress Medie has arrived. She awaits your permission to enter.'

  'Show her in immediately, child. She should never have been kept waiting.'

  Grielea bobbed a nod and vanished from the door. Rebeke arose, nervously smoothing her long robes. She gave to the soft azure drapings an icy dignity. The small feminine face that peered from the centre of the high cowl was betrayed by the hooded brow that rose another two handspans above her eyes. But for the shrouded high skull, her figure was still remarkably Human. Her body, it seemed, remembered that earliest allegiance.

  'Enter, Windmistress, if it please you.' Grielea's voice was carefully neutral, her eyes cast down before this impressive being. Medie entered, darting her eyes in surprise around the bare room. Her cobalt robes swept the bare stone floor. Grielea remained in her servile posture in the door, but her sharp black eyes darted after the tall Windmistress and registered the hesitation in her stride.

  'Welcome, Windmistress Medie.' Rebeke chose the formal greeting. 'A blessed wind has brought you.'

  'It is ever a blessed wind that brings me to your presence.' Medie gave the stylized reply.

  Rebeke's eyes flicked at Grielea. 'Grielea, you may go. I would have you and Liset replace the watchers at the vigil; tell the two before you that they take their rest now. On your way, remind those at the watching pools to be vigilant. This is no ordinary being they watch for.'

  'Yes, Windmistress. So shall I do.'

  Grielea slipped away. Now Rebeke had no choice but to turn her eyes on her visitor. Medie was tall, much of it cowl. The darker edges of her scales mottled her thin brown features. The deeper blue of her robes announced her higher status. Rebeke's hands fluttered nervously. Taking refuge in ceremony, she advanced to give Medie the ritual kiss and words of welcoming.

  'May the winds come ever willing to your call, and the airs kiss you with the same affection I do now.'

  Medie returned the kiss perfunctorily. Rebeke retreated a step, uncertain. Medie ignored her as she turned slowly about, studying the austere room. Her eyes played over the stark black walls, the cold stone floor, then returned to seize Rebeke in their cold grip. She stretched her lightly scaled lips into a thin line. She made no pretense at ceremony or courtesy.

  'You have known for at least three days that Dresh was no longer in his residence at Dyal.' Medie spoke without preamble. 'Yet you forebore to act until the last possible moment. You summon me at the last, as an afterthought. If you had been successful at gathering the entire wizard, I wonder if you would have summoned me at all. You have stepped far beyond the bounds of your responsibility for watching him, Rebeke. And you have been clumsy about it. You know already what the High Council will say. That they exp
ected such of you all along; that you have never given us your full loyalty, but continue to be swayed by unfitting emotions from an unguided childhood. Rarely do the Windsingers admit a child past her fifteenth year. Yet you we took in. Now it seems you have failed us. Is this our repayment? Why did you do this? Do you seek the attentions of the High Council?'

  Rebeke turned a shade paler beneath her scales. Her blue and white eyes darted nervously about her chamber, but found nothing to rest on. She advanced a step toward Medie, then reconsidered it and stepped back.

  'I do not seek the attentions of the High Council, Medie. Too long has the High Council overlooked what I have done, and spoken only of what I have yet to do.' Rebeke's voice grew bolder as she spoke. 'I am aware of what they say of me. I know they prefer their temple bred ones to me. They think I am weak and uncertain, not to be trusted. Why else choose me, of all Windsingers, to be put as a guard to Dresh? They hope to nod as I betray my training. Yes, I have been slow in my efforts, and that may appear as clumsiness. It is, in truth, a respect for the power that is Dresh; and a knowledge of how his mind works. I have not been totally successful, I will admit. But even had I succeeded in gathering all his parts in one swoop, I still would have summoned you to share him with me. For have I not seen you, Medie, passed over for powers and honors, seen them bestowed instead on Windsingers younger and more tractable than you? Why is this so, Medie? Unless they fear us; unless the High Council dares not pass power to us for fear we shall wield it too well?'

  Rebeke paused and licked her dry lips. Her scaled lips needed no wetting; it was a Human reflex she had not yet lost. Medie had not spoken; but she had given no sign of shock at the traitorous words either. Perhaps she listened with sympathy in her heart, or perhaps she waited for Rebeke to betray herself further. No matter. This was no time for caution. If Medie would not make this move with Rebeke, then Rebeke would make it alone. Power was within her grasp. She held the hands and body of the wizard, even if the head was lacking. If only she had sent a wiser being to collect them for her; but who was there of intellect that she could trust? So she had sent the foolish winged beast to bring back the boxes, knowing he would forget the errand as soon as it was finished. So she did not have the head. She had the hands and body. Great power could be distilled from them, by one who knew the ways. And greater still was to be had if the head could be claimed as well. Medie could help her win the head. But if she would not... Rebeke licked her lips again.

  Medie remained silent, staring down at the relaxation pyramid. Rebeke's voice was softer, almost pleading.

  'Witness what I have done, Medie. Done when all the High Council could not, when they gave this task to me to watch me fail at it. Perhaps I have been careless, not to have seized the head with the other parts. But it was a difficult enough task to achieve what I have thus far, and beyond the skills of many. We both know Dresh well. He will not wait idly for us to come for the rest of him. Nor will he concede our possession of his body and hands. No, he will seek an opening, will expose himself with his own foolish riposte. Reduced as he is, he will fall into our hands like ripe fruit from a wind-stirred tree. We will have him, all of him, to drain of power. Then shall we summon the High Council? Shall we hand to them the prize we have won, and listen to them tell us that we should have delivered it sooner? Why, Medie? Why?'

  Medie did not smile. But the stiffness went from her body, making her taller, more graceful; her eyes looked afar and were full of the wind. Long moments drifted by before she spoke. A light breeze sprang up from nowhere and stirred her robes lovingly.

  'Once,' she began softly, in a distracted voice, 'once there was a young apprentice. We tested her. Set alone on the peak of a frozen mountain, she stood and sang. She sang first to lull the cold wind that lived there, to lay to rest its thousand icy tongues. She sang it to sleep, as no other had been able to do. Not content with that, she sang again, a calling song, to lure a breeze out of the far south. Long she sang, long beyond the patience or endurance of many to sing. But at last her wind came, warm still with the breath of flowers, to melt the snow from the mountaintop and send the waters down to where the peasants toiled in fields too dry to bear. I thought to myself then, her way is not the way of the High Council, and her power shall never be theirs.'

  Rebeke glowed. There was a tremble to her mouth and a bare sheen of wetness to her eyes. 'Long have I watched you, Medie, trying to feel if you would be my ally in this undertaking. Is it possible the vigil has been two-sided?'

  Medie smiled. 'I felt your eyes upon me. I have not been blind to how you have been treated. In the beginning of your singership over Dowl Valley, you labored long. You set your voice to tasks others deemed required too much effort for the results shown. You showered your peasants with the most favorable of weather, bringing them rain when their lands thirsted, spreading the pollen of their crops with the gentleness of summer's breath, holding at bay the storms that would have battered ripening grain. The hail clouds you sent fleeing from their horizons. The valley blossomed under your care.

  'But what was given to you as your share for this miracle? Less of a percentage than your predecessor, who, with her threats and gales, never wrung a third as much from the farmers. When you would have let your peasants keep a surplus as a reward for faithful toil, that their children might grow up to be strong tillers of the earth instead of wilting in their cradles, you were mocked. Mocked as a Tenderheart, a Peasantweeper, for your foresightedness. And Dowl Valley was taken from you and given to another.'

  Sparks of anger flared afresh in Rebeke's eyes. Then her shoulders slumped. Her hands trembled until she folded them together. 'I scarcely know how to reply to you, Medie. I thought that my toil and my reasons had gone unseen, misunderstood by all. To hear you speak is as if the door I have strained against had suddenly swung open at a touch.'

  Medie crossed the room to Rebeke, taking her hands in her long cool fingers. 'We shall act together, then. We shall only take what is ours by right of our toil and planning. We shall take up the reins of decision that have so often restrained us. Dresh shall be drained into us. Only then shall we let the High Council know of our success.'

  A brief cloud passed over Rebeke's face. Almost she looked away from Medie's piercing eyes. Then a new spirit seemed to straighten her body. She raised her chin. As she nodded, a glow of suppressed excitement lit her eyes.

  SIX

  Ki did not see the beast come. But even in her daze, she felt its presence as a rippling in the waters of her world. There was no brushing of wind, no sound, no smell. Rather it was as if the pressures of air and earth upon her body wavered for a moment. Sigurd was scraping at the earth with one hoof. She heard the regular thuds of his hoof as he dug a trough in the sod in a peculiar stubborn frenzy. Sigmund threw high his huge head, ears pricked and nostrils flaring.'Come Ki. To your feet now. Delay won't make things any easier. Come on, Ki.'

  The wizard's voice was low, comforting. She puzzled at the familiarity of the tone, then placed it. Thus must she sound to her team when she coaxed them into a particularly difficult river fording. But she found herself rising, nonetheless, to gather up the wizard's head on its mounting block of stone. She held it to her bosom as if it were a talisman against the unknown.

  'Ki!' the wizard stirred her gently. 'The beast is waiting, but it grows impatient. We must enter it.'

  'Where is it?' she murmured, confused. Her mind was misted, as it had been since Dresh had used her as a signal beacon. Dresh's chuckle was a dash of cold water over her, rousing her to the stranger reality she now moved in. She felt her mind clear slightly even as his words aroused her fighting spirit.

  ' The swallow, who was queen of the sky, is a drowning bird in the water, ' Dresh quoted maddeningly. 'What a fool I can be. Of course you can't see it. And I have not time to tune your mind to accept what your eyes could show you. I must be your perception. Hold tight to me.'

  Ki's peripheral vision began to dim. The greyness moved in rapidly, closing
out her sight until she was peering down a long tunnel at a spot of night. Then that, too, vanished. She was in a grey fog. Slowly her world began to open out again, strangely altered. The trees were taller, the grass higher. The horses loomed more massively huge than ever. With a jolt, it all snapped into perspective for her. She was viewing the world through Dresh's eyes, at her own chest level. Dresh chuckled at her dawning comprehension.

  'Now that you can see your world through my eyes, let me introduce you to one of my worlds. Behold!'

  Dresh blinked for Ki. The shared eyes opened to an unnight world. Yet the light of it did not illumine. The light of this world came not from moon or sun or star, but from the beings within it. Where Sigurd and Sigmund had been tethered, two great beings gave off a greenish-brown glow. Her own body, as Dresh turned their sight down on it, shimmered yellowly. 'And could you but see me, I would be an opalescent glow!' There was no modesty in Dresh's voice. And now, behold the beast!' he said invitingly, and the eyes swung to it. It was among the brownish mist of the trees. Ki walked toward it, through a dimly glowing brown sea of grasses.

  The beast was not white, but gave off a translucent light. She sensed its life, but could not recognize its body. It was visible to her only as a tunnel of clear light, or perhaps she could call it a tower, for it rose hollowly into the blackness away from the solid earth. When at last Ki stood at the base of the creature, she could peer up that tunnel. The clear light shone within it as well as without. Ki's logic winced.

  'Enter!' Dresh's voice goaded her impatiently.

  'Enter?' Did he expect her to step within the thing's maw, or nostril, or whatever other bodily opening it was that gaped before them?

  She didn't need to move. Dresh made a sound, like a word spoken by a mouthless creature. Ki felt her hair stir, and then they were rising, or perhaps falling...

  They traveled streaming through the brightly glowing belly of the beast. No wind stirred her clothing, but her hair waved about her face. She did not know if they moved, or if the creature moved around them; to consider either theory of motion made her vaguely queasy. Gradually Dresh's murmured words began to reach her mind.