Wheel of the Winds

by M J Engh

  But while the Warden stewed in this uncertainty, the Exile, as trying to clinch his argument, remarked that they had no need to follow him, since his cause was not theirs. At that, Lethgro slapped his hand on his knee, startling Broz awake, and rose up in considerable heat; for it came flooding home to him that the Exile's cause (whatever it might be) was indeed theirs, since this whole mad voyage had no other origin. “You'll tell the Captain,” he said, taking the Exile hard by the shoulder, “all that you think and plan and know. And if you fly from this cliff, you'll take us with you. It was for you we sailed out of Beng harbor into nowhere; and you won't desert us now!”

  Once they had come to it indeed, the Exile put aside his coyness and explained to them very eagerly how a sail could carry a rider through the air as well as a ship along the water. For, as Repnomar said at once, “All you need to do is add up and down to your port and starboard and head and stem.” Or, as Lethgro put it, “It's easier to sink.” He felt more alone now, while the three of them talked and worked busily together, than ever before on this voyage; for the Captain and the Exile were like two strangers in a foreign place who suddenly find that they speak the same language, and the Warden (whose word before now had carried weight even in the Council of Beng) saw himself reduced to asking always “Why?” like a dull student, and doing what he was told without understanding.

  The problem here, as the Exile strove to explain, was the contrary of what it had been at Sollet Castle. There, he had launched himself downwind on a powerful gale, and the danger was that he had had no more control of his course than the Mouse caught in the current of the Dreeg. Here there was a headwind, which was good for flying, but the strands of the wind were muddled and tangled, and its force half broken, by the wild air around the waterfall. The steadiest part of this wind was the downdraft that swept along the surface of the falls into the smash and tumble of broken water below; and that was sheer and sure destruction. But as if to make amends for that (or, thought Lethgro, as if to tempt them into destruction's reach) there was a contrary updraft that rose from the river a little way downstream and blew upward and backward toward the falls. Now and then (for they spent much time now at the precipice, watching the birds) they would see a chough plunge down the face of the falling water, into the very welter of the spray, and through the spray, showing muted crimson in the white haze, sailing then with spread wings just above the rush of the river, till it rose suddenly without a wingbeat and drifted backward, and then tumbled in the air, and with a few quick flaps came to land again on the island, so that the Exile's plan and hope was to catch that breeze and ride it upward till they met the headwind blowing from the lower reaches of the Dreeg, and then steer away from the falls for the bank downstream, as a ship sails close to a contrary wind. For he said that the wind, pushing and lifting, would save them from falling into the Dreeg; and because they would be facing it, not drifting with it, they could steer with their sails, as a ship close hauled to the wind steers better than running before the fairest breeze in the world.

  This was well enough, and the Mouse's spare sails would do better service than the bedclothes of Sollet Castle; but it was clear to any eye that a few at most could take that road. The Exile weighed no more than a child, yet plainly he himself, for all his experience, had no certainty of reaching that distant bank. For all the others, certainty would be even further off, they being heavier and not skilled in such a means of traveling. “And besides,” said the Captain, “there's the Mouse. As things stand now, we can't get her off; and I won't leave her without a crew.”

  “Who do you expect to steal her, Rep?” said Lethgro. But the Captain answered impatiently, “The river may rise, or the river may fall. There may be storms. A ship without a crew is no more than a piece of expensive driftwood. And I won't have all my sails cut up, either.”

  The fact was that she had seen the looks of the crew and heard their talk, and knew that not more than one or two of them would willingly step off the edge of a precipice above a frothing river, and those few only if they were dared or shamed into it. So that, while what she said was true, there was more truth beyond, and she was glad enough to have sound reasons not to risk her sailors’ lives against their wills and in so chancy a business.

  Thus almost without argument it was settled that the Exile, the Warden, and the Captain would undertake this thing, while all the crew would stay with the Mouse. And the Captain named the head of the second watch, who was called Anscrop, to command both crew and ship in her absence. But when she said that Broz must come with them, the Exile was unhappy and answered at first that a frightened dog would struggle in the harness and spoil all; but when he saw that the Captain was set on this, he gave up arguing and went to work with a will, measuring and hefting Broz (whom he could scarcely lift) and tying for him a harness of padded rope.

  Now that these things were decided, all (except Broz) were easier in their minds. The crew began at once to dig out rock for their house-building, using wedges and mallets to crack it along its seams and growing merry over this unusual manner of construction; while the others began to cut and stitch (for the Captain said that none should touch a sail whose life was not to depend on it). And even as they cut and stitched, they watched the birds, for they had laid out their sail loft at the edge of the cliff. Now the Exile and the Captain, following with their eyes the plunging and the rising of the choughs, began to speak of a pattern in the winds; and the Warden was constrained to believe them, though, so far as he saw, it was a pattern of chaos.

  “Don't look so glum, Lethgro,” said the Captain. “It's a matter of picking our time, that's all. You want the breeze to be coming up just when you're coming down. That and jumping far enough to miss the downdraft.” To which the Exile added some words about eddies and flow.

  “And Broz, I suppose,” said Lethgro, “is a good judge of flow and eddies, and knows how to jump past the downdraft with half a topsail fastened to his back.” Broz, indeed, was in such a state by now that he hardly ate of the fish the sailors gave him, and lay for hours gnawing at his paws in his distress. But the Captain maintained that he would fly as well as any of them, saying she would launch him into the air with her own hands before she jumped, and tow his sail with a rope tied to her own harness. “And you needn't worry, Lethgro,” she added with a laugh. “We may not be able to dance in the air like these choughs, but we can plod along like crows.” For no one had ever called shipcrows graceful in flight.

  In fact, for all his grumbling, Lethgro was glad enough to have work in hand, and the time coming on when this thing would be finished, one way or another. What that other way might be, he saw no need to dwell on. The Warden of Sollet Castle had taken his stand, and he would not sidle away from the consequences.

  It was the Exile who now seemed to hesitate before this leap. He was forever making trial of the air, tossing leaves and branches and weighted scraps of sailcloth over the cliff and watching them till they fell—some swiftly, some slow—into the boiling mist and were snatched downstream. Lethgro did not find this a cheering sight; but the Exile held to it that one advantage they had here, compared to his flight from Sollet Castle, was the chance to try the air before they leaped into it, and he meant to make the most of that chance, shaping their sails as these tests taught him. As for his toys falling into the river (which without exception they did), he held that this was only because they had no one to guide their flight, as a derelict ship will founder for lack of sailors to trim its sails and turn its helm. But when, finding they had cloth to spare for it, he stitched a trial sail almost as wide as the one he meant for himself, and weighted it with a log as long as he and half as heavy, and watched it splash into the Dreeg not a hundred yards downstream, he grew very quiet and said no more about the utility of tests.

  Now they had finished their sails and were studying how to control them; and the Exile again put aside his silence and had much to say about this, telling them how to turn, how to rise, how to stall as a ship'
s sail stalls when it faces too hard into the wind, and all by pulling the ropes of their harnesses this way and that and by swaying their bodies in the air. But all this, as he never ceased to remind them, hung on their first leap taking them far enough out from the cliff to catch the updraft.

  “Well, the worst that can happen,” said Repnomar, cutting him off in the midst of one of these reminders, “is that we have to swim for it. So we might as well get under way.” Certainly this was not the worst that could happen, as the thunder of the water on the rocks told them with every heartbeat; and to swim for that far bank, with that mass of sail dragging at your back, was a task for a god, and not every god at that. But as they all knew these things, there was no need to mention them. So Lethgro nodded, and the Exile, and they came up from the hold where they had been talking, and shouted their good-byes to Anscrop and the others, and rowed ashore from the Mouse one last time, taking each a crow with them and Broz at their knees, and walked through the booming of the waterfall to the precipice's edge. And all the crew trooped after them with sober faces.

  Now they tucked their crows into their shirts and fitted themselves into their harnesses, and Repnomar with some difficulty got his harness fastened onto Broz, and they stood at the edge of the cliff, all the others watching the Exile, and he watching the bright birds; for he was to give the signal. Repnomar had gathered Broz in her arms, and stood with her toes over the brink, ready to fling him as far out as she could. He was trembling like a taut rope in a high wind, and the Captain's face was all lined with trouble, but her hands were steady on him.

  Along the face of the waterfall, and past the mist and spume of its crashing, the choughs sank and rose and drifted like flying flowers; and the Exile watched motionless. It sat hard with the Captain at that moment not to make her own judgement of the wind; but she kept her eyes firm on the Exile, knowing that in this matter of flying he outwent her as far as she did him on board a ship. Lethgro leaned forward, to harden himself against the deep emptiness below him and the riot of water at the bottom. Then the Exile flung his arm up wildly, and with the same motion sprang. Repnomar heaved Broz and his sail with a great sweep of her arms, so that she staggered for a moment at the cliff's edge, and lost time in regaining her footing before she could leap herself. Lethgro had jumped as the Exile's arm went up, so that he did not see her, and he got a kind of benefit from this, for the panic he felt as he hurtled through the air was little for himself and more for Repnomar. He had time to think that if he struck the water feet first he might not be stunned by the shock of it, and there would be some hope of getting loose from his harness before it dragged him under forever; and then his sail caught the wind.

  He was not falling now; but floating, though indeed floating downward swiftly enough, and he hung in the ropes of his harness like a baby in a swing. At once he pulled a rope and tried to tilt his body as the Exile had taught them, to guide his flight toward the left bank. But it was too soon, for his sail had not yet steadied and filled, and all he managed was to spill what air he had caught, so that in an instant he was falling again like a stone. This time he set his teeth and pulled carefully on the rope that should bring the sail back into the wind; and again it caught, and he took a great breath of thankfulness as his harness dug into his shoulders. Now he waited (though it was pain of heart to wait, for the river seemed to be rushing up to meet and drown him) till he thought the sail must be well steadied, and began his turn; and the sail followed his bidding, and carried him slanting downward toward the left bank. His leap had brought him so far from the cliff that the others (if they were in the air at all) were behind him, and his sail cut off all sight of them; and the roar of the waterfall killed all other sound and all sense of hearing, so that he floated in loneliness.

  For the Captain, after the first stomach-clenching moment, it was as if the world opened all around her like a broad reach of calm water, and she felt she had been born to fly. Broz's sail was close ahead on her left and likely to be run down by her (for the old dog's struggles, though they had not yet capsized the sail, had slowed it); but she pulled her harness ropes and slid smoothly past, and shortly felt the tug as she took Broz and his sail in tow. She could see Lethgro's sail ahead of her, and the Exile's, farthest from the bank and soaring high, so that she laughed for pleasure. Now, if the wind from downstream held steady....

  Lethgro was close to the bank when the wind failed him, but still far enough to very readily drown, and as the sail collapsed above him he struggled in mid-fall to free himself from the harness; for in that instant he knew very surely that he would rather trust to his own limbs in the water than to that dead wing in the air. He was half loose from it when he struck, but it came down on his head and all around him, muffling him in its heavy folds, so that perhaps nothing saved him then but his weight and the speed with which he hit the water; for he went down like a flung stone, while the sail floated for a little on the churned surface; and underwater, as the current tugged him along, he tore free from the last ropes and struck out downstream, and so came up gasping for his life but clear of the sail.

  Now, half turning in the water, he saw a strange sight; for Repnomar was flying like a gull that sails and swoops behind a ship, and Broz and his smaller sail were close beside her. In that quick view Lethgro did not see the Exile; but he did not look long, being hard pressed with his own concerns, and some hundred yards downstream he came to shore at last, and lay for a time with his legs still in the water, not finding strength just then to drag them farther. Indeed he was so weary from that struggle with the Dreeg that when he heard the Captain's voice hailing him fiercely, he thought at first he was asleep and dreaming. But when she cried out again, “Help me, Lethgro!” (not as in fear but as in great indignation) it came to him that he was awake and that they were past the waterfall, for he heard her clearly; and then the meaning of her words reached his mind, and he scrambled somehow upright and turned to find what help he was needed for.

  Repnomar knelt on the bank upstream from him, busy, it seemed, with her sail, and only looking up to yell at him again and wave him toward her. So the Warden broke into a plodding run, for he was sodden and heavy with river water. But she finished her business and came at a faster run and dragging a length of rope to meet him halfway, and Broz from the tumble of sailcloth set up a yelping and howling of pure fright that was like a child crying.

  “Hold the rope,” the Captain said shortly, though she was even then tying one end of it to the back of her belt. And while Lethgro was getting the rope into his hands, she kicked off her shoes and dived into the Dreeg.

  He saw then what he was to do, and what the Captain was doing. Downstream of them—almost even with where he had come ashore—a sail was caught on a rock or on some drowned tree. It might have been his own sail, except for a dark bobbing thing that hung at its edge like a fishnet's float. The Warden twisted the end of the rope around his hands and held hard.

  Repnomar was a strong swimmer, and for all the rush of the current and the drag of the rope she seemed likely to reach that snagged sailwreck before the river swept her past. Reach it, at least, if the length of her tether allowed. She had cut loose the longest rope from her sail, and tied a shorter one to it for more length, but together they were not quite enough. Lethgro eased his way downstream to keep even with her; but though this gave her the full benefit of what rope there was, it could not make it longer, so that he had no choice (unless he was to let her go or pull her up short, and neither of these things he was willing to do) but to slide and stumble down the bank into water knee-deep at the first step and waist-deep by the third, and there dig in his feet and lean against the current while Repnomar, her knife in her hand, fought the sail and the tugging water and the Exile's dead weight.

  Then there was the matter of landing them, like two great fish on a single hook, Repnomar gripping the Exile hard and letting herself ride with the current while the Warden struggled hastily up the bank again (not to be jerked off his feet in
the water and so all three lost together), and then leading them in with the rope, Repnomar swimming now with slow backstrokes. But as soon as they were come into the shallows, and Lethgro had run downstream to help drag the Exile up the bank, Repnomar staggered to her feet and headed back toward the waterfall at a stumbling run. And when Lethgro shouted out to know where she was going, she answered over her shoulder, “Broz!” and went on, leaving him to find out whether it was a live man or a corpse that they had pulled from the Dreeg.

  9

  Of the Definition of Land and Water

  They camped on the river shore, near the spot where the Exile had been hauled out, for no better reason than that they were too tired to go farther. Lethgro had spent a weary time squeezing water out of the Exile's lungs; and though he had never been overly disturbed by the general run of omens, he had taken it hard when the first thing he found was a great lump on the Exile's chest, and that lump the Exile's crow, dead and drowned inside his shirt. Lethgro's own crow had somehow disappeared, and—cast back in his mind as he would—he could not remember when or how. Still he worked on drearily, with that dead thing beside him and what seemed another dead thing under his hands, till at last the Exile began to twitch and gasp. Then Lethgro sat back on his haunches and watched the blubbery breath come and go, and the ashy face (that had been like some horrible fish seined up from Soll bottom) begin to take on something of human color again. He himself was not a much more cheerful sight, still sodden as he was and smeared with mud and weeds from scrambling on the bank, disheveled too and pale with weariness, so that the Exile, when his eyes opened upon this apparition squatting at his side, started violently and lost his breath again for a moment. And the Warden, who was well pleased not to have the disposing of his remains to face, laughed and clapped him on the arm, saying, “I think neither of us will be thirsty for river water for a while.” And the Exile smiled feebly.