The Windsingers

by Megan Lindholm

  'Do you know why they want this so badly? It is this. They have no lack of this powder of Windsinger, for the race was multitudinous, and their burial places, though hidden in inaccessible places, are said to be many. But few of the bodies are intact, and none of them are as perfect as this one. That they need. For, while the powder starts the transmutation, the brain must guide it. The would-be Windsinger must focus her mind on the shape her body is to become, to guide it through the change. The closer she can approach the true shape of a Windsinger, the more power she will wield. But when their temple sank, the last true body sank with it. That quake was not the act of the Windsingers, as you believe, but the very vengeance of the Moon herself, angered that the Windsingers would take to themselves the powers she had trusted to that ancient race only. For many generations of Windsingers now, there has been no guiding image for the younger singers to grow by. They've had to pattern themselves on the older Windsingers, straying even farther from the true form. Their power is slowly dwindling because of it. This corpse would have let them recapture it. But it has fallen to me.' Dresh put his full attention on Rebeke. He leaned close to her without touching her. 'To me, Rebeke. Did you hope to match me? You were close, when you snatched my body. But you let me go! And when I dangled my puppets before you, you had eyes only for them. You watched a scarred fool and a Romni teamster dance, while their master walked up behind you. It's funny, isn't it? You see the humor, I'm sure. Smile for me, sweet one.'

  Dresh's brows knit lightly in concentration. A smile crawled onto Rebeke's face and squirmed there, mocking the revulsion in her eyes. A gasp of awe rippled through the fisherfolk and then a sprinkling of cruel laughter.

  Heads turned to the opening door. Janie was framed in it, the blackness of night her backdrop. The thin light of the candles touched her confused visage, outlined the sleepy face of little Sasha who stood bundled before her. 'No!' she moaned at the helplessness in Rebeke's eyes.

  'Traitors!' someone cried. The crowd surged forward.

  'Run!' roared Vandien, pushing a bench into the crowd nearest him.

  The glowing brown runes seared Ki's smearing foot. She jerked in its grip, her body twisting and snapping out of control. Blurred images scaled her brain: Vandien going down under a wave of villagers, Sasha's mouth red in a scream, Dresh's eyes wide as he spun on her, Rebeke's hands finally moving, her fingers weaving in the air before her.

  'Ki.'

  She opened her eyes, wondering when she had closed them. Her face itched where her cheek pressed against woven wool. Vandien looked down on her. A dark shining stream rilled from a split at the edge of his scar. When he spoke her name, she saw blood on his teeth.

  Realizing her head was pillowed in his lap brought her to her senses. She sat up slowly with his help and stared around the inn.

  The fisherfolk were herded to one end of the room. Those on the fringes of the group were trying to squirm into the middle. They pressed back against the wall. Helti lay in the center of the room groaning softly. Someone's feet thrust out from under a table. 'Sasha?' asked Ki, and Vandien pointed.

  The child was looking up wonderingly into Rebeke's face, watching the lipless mouth that smiled down on her. The blue windrune hung glowing in the air, singeing Ki's eyes when she looked too close to it. Dresh looked smaller as he stood by the door with his hands folded between his shoulder blades. Rebeke had left him the movement of his eyes, and they darted frantically about the room, seeking an ally. No one met his eyes.

  'Is she all right?' Rebeke asked.

  'Are you?' Vandien passed on the question. Ki realized they spoke of her, and managed a nod.

  'Good,' said Rebeke. 'We must be on our way now. There will be a storm after I leave. All would do well to stay within these walls. I'm sure you will have much to chat about. If boats are damaged, you must remember you brought it upon yourselves. It will be a wind such as has not been seen before. When it passes, not a block of our temple will be left standing for you to sniff and pillage. It should have been done long ago, but always we cherished the hope that this could be recovered. Now that we have it, there is no longer a reason to leave any sign of the temple.'

  Ki stared at Rebeke as she spoke. Her features had melted and merged. Her patrician nose was now no more than a smooth swelling in the center of her face. Her fine-lipped mouth had spread across her cheeks. And there was a fluidity about her hand movements that reminded Ki of the sinuous flexings of a skeel's tail.

  'It's true then!' Ki cried out. 'Janie, you must not. Think of Sasha!'

  'She does think of Sasha. Sasha will be loved and cherished as never before. They will go with me.' Rebeke answered for them. 'True? As true as a rumor and a scrap of gossip when they are woven together by guesses and filtered through the mouth of a fool. To make you understand the truth would take longer than I have. Such secrets are not for Humans anyway. We will be going.' Rebeke stepped toward the door and paused. She looked again at Ki and Vandien over the white image in her arms. 'It occurs to me that I do you no favor in leaving you here. Leave now, if you wish, and the storm will not begin until your wagon reaches the top of the cliff road.'

  Vandien glanced at the huddle of villagers. 'Let's go,' he suggested, hauling Ki to her feet.

  'Wait!' Ki begged, hanging to his shoulder as she got her balance again. 'Rebeke! What will be done with Dresh?'

  'You make me think less of you, Ki, that you even ask. But I will answer, for the courtesies that are owed between us. I will put him in a place where he will be stopped. Not killed, for I refuse his blood. I think you know where he will be. His life will pause, and the pause will stretch forever.'

  Vertigo swept Ki as she remembered the airless emptiness of the void. 'Leave him!' she begged, surprising even herself. At the outrage in Rebeke's eyes, she groped for her reasons. 'He is, at least, still Human.'

  Rebeke ran her eyes over the folk in the tavern. 'And this is something to be proud of?' she asked contemptuously. 'Ki, you don't know what you ask. He has started down a path that will twist him. He may keep the shape of his body, but he will be no more Human than I am. Little folk like you will feel the pressure of his heel more often than those whose skills equal his own. Will you inflict this on your own folk?'

  Ki looked at Vandien and forced out the words. 'I have a selfish reason. It is said that he could lift the scar from my friend's face.'

  'A lie,' Rebeke stated flatly. 'He claims more power than he has.' A curious smile crossed her immense mouth. 'I must deny you what you ask, Ki. But I shall remember the voiding of the earthrune.'

  'So shall I,' Ki said stubbornly. 'Twice I have gifted you with revenge that left your hands unbloodied.'

  'I remember that, also,' Rebeke replied coldly. 'I still refuse what you ask. Go now, Romni teamster, without another word, before I forget that I have said I will hold the winds back until your wagon is clear of them. Trust a Romni to try to barter with a Windsinger. Was there ever such a mulish folk? Take with you, not my favor, but not my ill will either. Go now, knowing that I remember what is between us. But do not speak.'

  'We're going!' Vandien interjected, giving Ki a warning glance and a shake of her arm. He could not resist adding, 'Farewell, good fisherfolk. I trust this Temple Ebb you have been entertained, even if I cannot juggle.'

  He stooped and seized the hind legs of one of the blissful skeel. With an exasperated sigh, Ki grabbed the front legs and they lugged it out the door to her wagon. Already the winds outside were beginning to toss, and they loaded the skeel hurriedly. As they carried out the last skeel, Sasha spoke.

  'Good-bye, Ki!' she called boldly. She looked up into the foreign visage of Rebeke and then back to Ki. 'Even when I am a Windsinger, and strange to your eyes, you will know me by my Romni scarf! I will remember you!'

  'By the Moon!' gasped Ki as the child happily flapped the scarf at her in farewell.

  'Try not to think of the implications,' Vandien suggested as they loaded the skeel into the wagon.

&nb
sp; 'Go!' commanded Rebeke from the doorway, and the team started before Ki and Vandien were even seated.

  'I am sorry he must keep the scar,' Janie said dreamily as the wagon was obscured by the night. 'He was kind to us.'

  Rebeke lifted her hand and the wind rose another notch. Her blue robes swirled around her. The lipless smile she gave Janie rippled her cheeks into folds. 'Perhaps it is a shame.' She looked up the cliff road. Her eyes were indulgent as she turned back to Janie. 'Let him be patient for a year or so,' she suggested. 'Let him be surprised at how well his body heals itself.'

  'Thank you,' Janie whispered.

  'Come, Dresh,' Rebeke commanded. She seemed not to have heard Janie's thanks. The wizard came on stiff-kneed legs, an unmouthed scream bulging his cheeks. The wind slammed the inn door behind them.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The gusting wind pushed against the high panels of the wagon. It rocked gently. Ki lay awake, listening to the small creakings of the cuddy. A grey wash of dawn light filtered in the cracked shutter. She struggled to sit up in the welter of blankets and sleeping furs, and leaning precariously over the edge of the sleeping platform, peered out the little window. The big grey horses stood with their rumps to the wind that streamed their heavy tails and manes. They grazed peacefully in the windstorm, cropping the sweet grass of the rolling hillside.'It's morning,' Ki said, nestling back into the blankets.

  'So what?' grumbled Vandien.

  'We've not a coin between us, and a wagonload of pregnant skeel.'

  'Will any of that change by noon?' Vandien asked.

  'No.' Ki surrendered to the comfort of the bed and her own aching muscles. Vandien's body was warm against hers. An idea slowly grew in her mind.

  'Your scar,' she began lazily. 'You really wish I couldn't see it?'

  'Ki,' Vandien groaned in protest. 'Let it be. I was a fool. Let us pretend to forget it. Can we go on as if we had never been to Temple Ebb?'

  'No.' Ki trailed a slow finger down his chest. 'For I know a way to make you forget it. A way I can't see it.'

  Vandien sank into a sulky silence at the levity in her tone. A moment later he oofed the air out of his lungs as Ki's body landed squarely atop his. He found himself nose to nose with her. He blinked, but couldn't focus his eyes at such close range. A single green eye appeared to peer down into his.

  'When we are like this,' Ki said conversationally, 'I cannot see your scar.'

  Wind whispered under her wagon, filling the long silence.

  'Scar?' Vandien wondered aloud.

  The wind rocked the wagon.