Cloak of the Two Winds

by Jack Massa

  "If I may ask, I am curious about the old man you met outside and then welcomed into your house. I sensed power in him."

  "Yes." Glyssa placed the kettle back on the fire. "He is a wise one. He sensed danger in the witch's things. That is why we held a meeting."

  "Ah. I observed your formal discussion. I wished I knew your language so I could have understood what you were saying."

  Staring dully at the fire, Glyssa shook her head. "Nothing came of it. We decided to sail on to Fleevanport as planned."

  "That is regrettable," Kizier sighed.

  Glyssa lifted a shoulder and let it drop.

  "You are a curious people," Kizier remarked, "if I may say so without impertinence. Among Tathians and Larthangans, you are known as bloodthirsty savages, with no trace of gentleness or mercy ..."

  Glyssa smiled wanly. "Such a reputation is useful for pirates."

  "So," Kizier said. "But you are also said to be untutored primitives, barely touched by civilization. Yet I've not found you so. I've been greatly surprised at how well you speak Low Tathian, for instance. This would not only permit you to communicate with many people of the Three Nations, but it gives you a grasp of civilized modes of thought."

  "My mates and I speak it better than some," Glyssa said. "When we trade at Fleevanport or one of the other Tathian colonies, we stay as long as our money holds out. We drink the mead, listen to the minstrel songs and the discourses of wandering scholars. We admire the Tathians and seek to learn their ways. Many young Iruks do likewise, but not all."

  Glyssa had risen and was pouring more oil into the fireplace. "Of our klarn, only Karrol has a strong distrust of the Tathians. And even she has a taste for their mead."

  Kizier stared thoughtfully into the brightening fire. "The traditional ways of your people are almost unknown in the Three Nations. This group you call the klarn, for instance. It seems to be more than just the crew of your boat. You share the same house as well?"

  Glyssa sat down again, hugging her knees. "Yes, a klarn shares all things in common. This lodge house came from my mother's family. It was built by my uncle and his kinsmen. The boat came from Lonn and Draven's family."

  "They are brothers?"

  "Cousins, I think the Tathians would say. They share the same grandmother."

  "Ah. So the klarn becomes a sort of second family?"

  "Oh, it is much more than that. The klarn has its own spirit, which we all contribute to, and draw from. Iruks believe that all creatures have something to protect them and make them strong. Yulugg have their size, volrooms their tusks, fire turtles their shells and flame, lamnoccs their great herds. The Skeddans and other folk of these parts have animal totems. We Iruks have the klarn."

  "Remarkable. And is the number always six—three women and three men?"

  Glyssa poured water from the kettle into her tea cup. "Sometime five, sometimes as many as eight. Even more, if there are fledgling hunters in the group."

  "And the fact that women and men sail together…How can I ask this delicately? Do you…What are your customs for mating?"

  Glyssa frowned at the bostull a moment, then laughed. "Oh, no. There is no…coupling when a hunt is on. That is forbidden. All of that energy is given to the klarn, do you see? But once a hunt is over and the klarn is put to rest, then we are free to choose lovers, within or outside of the group."

  "I see. And what happens if a woman comes to be with child?"

  "That seldom happens to hunters. But when it does, the woman must lay down her spear, until the child is born and weaned. After that, she may choose to raise the child, or leave it with the village women and take up her spear again."

  "The village women?"

  "Yes. Some women do not become hunters. They live in the village with the old ones and children. They raise the children and do other kinds of work. They also are free to sleep with men of their choosing, or with other women."

  "Indeed?" Kizier sounded amazed. "I must say, your customs around mating and childrearing seem…unstructured."

  "Not really. Children always belong to the mothers. Sometimes the fathers help raise them, but more often it is the mother's brothers and male kinsmen. Among the Tathians, women and children always belong to a man. They think our customs strange; we think their ways silly."

  "So," Kizier said. "And is there no possessiveness or jealousy?"

  Glyssa shrugged. "Sometimes two warriors will fight over a woman, but rarely. More often the woman chooses the one she desires. Tomorrow, when the weather clears, we will take some of the oil and brandy to the village, and give it to our mothers. My mother, and Draven's, and Brinda and Karrol's are all still alive. While there, the men will probably find a girl who invites them to sleep with her. Or perhaps I will invite Lonn or Draven to sleep with me. I have love for them both. Draven brings me much laughter and joy. Lonn is more solemn, but his heart is deep and full of feeling."

  "And do they also sleep with Brinda and Karrol?"

  "No. Brinda keeps mostly to herself. Karrol is lusty, but she prefers women to men. Anyway, she would not sleep with one of her klarn. She believes it unwise."

  "Most remarkable," Kizier said. "I know of other cultures with women warriors of course but, to my knowledge, your Iruk customs are unique."

  "We need many hunters to feed our people," Glyssa said, thoughtfully swirling the tea cup. "Of course, some women are better suited to hunting than others. Karrol and Brinda for instance are very tough and strong. I am less so. Someday I expect I will become a wife, perhaps to Draven or Lonn. I think they both would like to have me." She smiled fondly at the thought. "But that is for later. For now, I enjoy the thrill of hunting, and sharing warmth with all of my klarnmates, and that is good, while I am young."

  "I do not believe any traveler from the Three Nations has recorded the ways of your people. I only wish I had a scribe with me, to write it all down."

  Glyssa looked at him, puzzled. "Why would you want that?"

  As Kizier started to answer, the voice of the wind grew louder. It rose to a high-pitched scream, and Glyssa heard a sharp, ripping sound.

  She jumped, snatched up a spear and faced the entrance. The door flap was split apart. A gust of snow blew in past the waving pieces—and something else, a wheeling thing of yellow light.

  Glyssa stared, fascinated as the spinning light swooped toward her on the roaring wind. Amid the light she saw bulging eyes and tiny teeth working up and down. She tried to cry out, but something choked the sound in her throat.

  "Glyssa! Run!" Kizier shouted at the top of his meager voice.

  Before she could turn away the wheel of light touched her forehead and sank within. Glyssa had an odd sensation of waking up to find herself there, numb and staring. The spear slipped from her fingers and dropped to the floor.

  "Glyssa, come back to us," Kizier cried. "Glyssa!"

  But Glyssa had turned and was walking. Her body moved without her volition. Another will had taken control, that of the bulging eyes and tiny bright teeth.

  A devil has taken me, Glyssa thought.

  She could feel the devil's nature, old and evil, full of knowledge, empty of pity. Inwardly she trembled, yet saw her step was purposeful and steady. She wanted to call out, to scream so her mates would come. But her lips would not move nor her throat make a sound.

  She walked to where the witch's treasure lay and opened the large sea chest.

  "Glyssa. Glyssa! Help her!" Both windbringers now were calling.

  Glyssa swung her head toward them, and a force bolted out of her brain. A wall of yellow light flashed across the dome to the two windbringers, shocking them into rigid quiet. Now both stood still in their buckets, eyes and mouths shut.

  Glyssa's attention returned to the sea chest. She lifted up the witch's black and silver cloak and put it on.

  As her body turned from the wall she strained wildly with her mind and succeeded in thrusting the devil away. A storm of yellow sparks flashed before her face, and she glimp
sed the devil's eyes and teeth again. Then long claws seemed to slither down into her heart. Glyssa cringed at the pain, nearly blacking out.

  She was only half-conscious as she moved across the dome. She parted the ivory spears where the klarn spirit lay at rest and stepped through the torn door flap. The shocking cold of the snow squall wakened her. But the claws twisted in her chest, quelling with agony her first impulse to resist. The devil was growing stronger, more perfect in its control.

  Terrified, Glyssa watched herself bound and leap down the slope toward the dojuk and the glistening sea-ice. She cut the mooring lines with her knife. Then she put her shoulder to the bow and turned the boat, pointing it out to sea. This normally required the strength of three or four, yet Glyssa accomplished it. Perhaps she was dreaming; she hoped it was so.

  She climbed on board, loosed the heavy kegs and rolled them over the side. Her knife cut the knots securing the sail, and then she bent her back and raised the yard. As the sail climbed the mast it bowed with the furious wind, pushing the dojuk a bit on the snow.

  When Glyssa had secured the halyard and the sheets she stood beside the tiller, bracing her back against the stern. Prompted by the devil's will, she raised both arms and pointed at the sail.

  The sleeves of the witch's cloak glimmered with some unguessable power. Glyssa's arms shuddered as a great wind roared into being. The wind filled the sail and the dojuk lurched under her feet. The wind shattered the frozen waves near shore as it pushed the dojuk, tilting madly, out to sea.

  Four

  When Lonn woke the wind was quiet. The stove was cold and above it, where the chimney pipe jutted through the ceiling of the small dome, daylight shone in a blue crescent.

  Karrol was standing between the two bed platforms, wrapping a bed fur over her shoulders. "Glyssa never called us to take her place." She picked up her sword and headed for the crawl-tunnel.

  "She probably talked all night with the windbringer," Draven said. Still he rose, took his own sword and followed Karrol, not bothering with a fur.

  Lonn stared at the ceiling, trying to recall if he had dreamed. All he could remember was a disturbing sense of confusion and worry.

  Then Karrol and Draven were shouting in alarm, saying that Glyssa was gone, that the dojuk had been stolen.

  Lonn, Eben, and Brinda clambered out of bed and grabbed their weapons. As they hurried through the low tunnel Lonn could hear Karrol outside, screaming Glyssa's name.

  Draven knelt by the hearth, trying to rouse the windbringers from trance. The witch's treasure, and all else in the chamber, seemed untouched—except for the door flap, which was split down the middle. Lonn ran to the entrance and looked outside.

  Sunlight reflected blindingly on the new snowfall. Shading his eyes and squinting, Lonn spotted Karrol halfway down the slope, wading bare-legged through the knee-high drifts. She was still shouting Glyssa's name. Farther down, where the dojuk had been moored, six or seven rounded lumps lay partly covered by snow—the kegs of oil and brandy, abandoned. Beyond that—Lonn stretched his neck and stared in bewilderment—it appeared the dojuk had left a track, a shallow trench running out to sea.

  "It looks like the snow was cleared, midway through the storm, to let the dojuk sail," Eben said. "Perhaps this witch really does command the winds."

  Lonn crossed the dome on wobbly legs, Eben a step behind. Brinda had poured fresh oil in the hearth and was trying to strike a spark. Draven still knelt with the windbringers, a hand in either pail, churning furiously to get the slush off the roots.

  "Azzible! Kizier! Azzible!" he yelled. "I've never known bostulls so hard to rouse."

  Brinda got the fire started, flames sputtering across the oil. Suddenly Kizier opened his eye. Round and startled, it swept over the Iruks and past them across the dome.

  "What happened?" Lonn asked. "Where's Glyssa?"

  "Did the witch take her?" Eben demanded.

  "No, not Amlina…Some other." In a soft, quavering voice Kizier told them all he had seen and sensed last night: the ripping of the entry flap, the wheel of light spinning across the chamber and entering Glyssa, seizing control of her, making her a thrall, an instrument of its will.

  "We tried to call you, Azzible and I both. But the one who'd taken Glyssa smote us, driving us into deep trance. I do not know who it was. A powerful deepshaper, that is certain."

  By now Azzible had also come out of trance. Lonn and Draven questioned him, but he only confirmed what Kizier had already said.

  "It makes no sense!" Eben exclaimed. "Why take Glyssa and our boat and leave everything else?"

  "Your boat is missing also," Kizier murmured, gazing past them toward the chests and basket belonging to the witch. "I think I know the answer, though I pray to the Seven Immortals of Larthang that I am wrong. Have you verified that all of Amlina's possessions are still here?"

  The mates looked at one another. "No," Lonn said.

  The bostull's stalk nodded, a peculiarly human gesture. "I suspect you'll find the black and silver cloak is gone. It alone of all her things is worth such effort."

  Brinda and Draven went to search for the cloak.

  "Why is it worth so much effort?" Lonn demanded.

  Kizier paused, watching as Draven and Brinda rifled through the witch's possessions.

  "Why is it worth so much effort?" Lonn shouted impatiently.

  "The cloak is not here," Brinda announced.

  "Just so," Kizier muttered sadly. "The worst has happened, so you may as well know the truth. That cloak is the Cloak of the Two Winds, one of the great treasures of Larthang. It was fashioned by Eglemarde herself on the day she wove the Two Winds into the pattern of the world. Its threads contain the binding energy of that ensorcellment. The Cloak has the power to summon the witch winds."

  "Then that would explain the trench," Eben said. "And how the dojuk could be sailed through a squall."

  Karrol stomped into the lodge house, brushing snow from her bare legs. She staggered to the rear of the dome and started collecting her garments.

  "There was only one set of tracks and they led straight to the dojuk," she panted. "Glyssa must have been bewitched ... Why are you all standing around?"

  It took a moment before Lonn answered. "We're trying to figure out what happened. And what to do about it."

  Karrol slid on her trousers. "What happened is Glyssa was taken! What we must do is go after her. She’ll be easy enough to follow. The dojuk left a track wider than the outriggers, and all of it has frozen hard."

  "How can we follow without a boat?" Eben demanded.

  "On skates," Karrol said. "We'll have to go on skates."

  "Ridiculous," Draven said. "We'd never catch the dojuk on skates. We're already hours behind."

  "All the more reason to hurry!" Karrol flung a shirt at him. "Get dressed."

  Draven caught the shirt and held it, looking dumbly at the others.

  "Whatever we decide, we'll need to be dressed," Brinda said, and went to put on her clothes.

  "We're going on skates," Karrol insisted.

  "That's crazy." Lonn still stood by the fire. "We'll all freeze, or drown when the meltwind blows."

  "What other choice do we have?" Karrol yelled. "Abandon Glyssa? Is that what you want?"

  "Of course not. But there has to be another way."

  "What?" Karrol shouted, tugging on a boot. "What other way, Lonn?"

  The mates all looked at him, the klarn leader, hoping he had an answer. Lonn felt a terrible gulf open inside of him. He shook his head. "I don't know."

  "No. You don't!" Karrol cried. "Your crazy dream brought us this trouble, but no guidance to help us out of it. Did you have other dreams that warned this might happen? Well, if you did, you forgot about them!"

  Lonn clenched his fists, suppressing a flash of rage. He wanted to strike Karrol, so hurt was he by what she'd said. Yet her words were true, and he could hardly blame her, in her grief, for speaking them.

  Scanning the faces of his mat
es, Lonn saw the same grief reflected on each. Their klarn was broken, and with it their spirit and confidence. For a mate to be killed in a hunt or battle would be bad enough. But those were known hazards, and the ghost of the lost mate would still travel with the klarn. But for a mate to be lost, torn away by some unknown fate—and for that one to be Glyssa, beloved by all of them—this was a pain beyond bearing. There was only one remedy: the klarn must be made whole again, whatever the risks.

  "Karrol is right," he said. "We'll have to go on skates." He went to gather his clothing. After a moment, Draven and Eben followed.

  "The dojuk may not have gone far," Brinda said as they dressed. "There's a chance we can catch it on skates."

  "I think we should search the island first," Draven suggested. "There might be a dojuk laid in that we could borrow. Or steal."

  But they all knew this was unlikely. It was yulugg season and any serviceable boat would likely be at sea.

  "There's no time," Karrol answered, placing her knife and sword in their scabbards. "Every moment we waste lessens our chance of finding Glyssa."

  The mates exchanged looks of painful uncertainty.

  "It might be worth searching the island first," Lonn allowed.

  "Fine." Karrol picked up a quiver of spears and turned her back on them. "You do what you like. I'm going now."

  "Wait!" Eben shouted as Karrol stalked across the dome. "We have to act together. Karrol—you're breaking the klarn!"

  "It's broken already. I'm trying to make it whole." Karrol pushed through the torn entry flap and was gone.

  Eben jumped up, enraged, but Brinda, fully dressed now, grabbed him around the waist. "Wait. I'll go with her, Eben. The rest of you can search the island first, then come after us."

  "We should stay together," Eben declared, still struggling to pull free.

  "That's impossible now," Brinda said. "Karrol won't wait. Besides, if we split up we can both cover the island and start after the dojuk at once."