Wheel of the Winds

by M J Engh

  “It will be a long time,” said the Warden, “before we have use for their eyes again.” He was thinking that Broz, for what game he had roused, might as well have carried a load of fuel and food; but he thought also that there was no point in quarreling now; and indeed no way of saying that the Captain had been wrong, for if Broz had caught so much as a rabbit it would have been a great thing for all of them.

  Now one of the crows, as if knowing that it stood in strange danger, snuggled itself close against the Exile, so that presently he took it up and stowed it inside his shirt, saying that thus they could warm each other. Certainly there was need of what warmth they might find, and their fire too little to do more than ease their cold hands and feet for a time. In the end they slept huddled in its ashes—humans, Exile, dog, and crows together—the Captain taking the first turn on guard with Broz across her legs.

  There was not much talk among them when at last they stretched themselves and gathered their gear and set out, glad to be under way again, and munching the raw marshbulbs as they walked; for it was clear enough that what hope they had lay all in pushing onward. None of them had slept long or well, what with the darkness and the cold, and they were thirsty now and hungry and sadly chilled; but as they walked they grew warmer and thereby cheerier. The Captain, who had started out with her teeth clenched tight, finding it almost more than she could do to bend her stiff and swollen knee, rejoiced in the walking that limbered it, and pressed the pace, faster and still faster.

  What they sought now was water. Food, as the Captain remarked, they could do without for many watches, if need were. “And keep your greedy eyes off my crows,” she added, though it was too dark for looking, and though she herself had eyed them hungrily enough at the campfire.

  So they went listening, their ears pricked for sounds of running water, but all they heard was their own laboring breath and the rush of the wind and the thump and clatter of their shoes and the clicking of Broz's claws on the stones. Now and again one would quickly stoop and feel for dampness, but what they felt now was frost. How long they could have kept this pace they never knew; they had held it perhaps for an hour when a cry from the Captain stopped them short.

  “What now, Rep?” the Warden panted (for the way had been uphill and the pace brisker than he liked).

  “Not a wall this time, Lethgro,” she said drily. “But it's for you to answer, not me. Come put your hand on this. Is it a mountain?”

  11

  Climbing

  It was some hours after they began the ascent before they had leisure to talk again, except for certain desperate shouts in the dark. It was not a matter of climbing so much as of scrambling; for what Repnomar had struck upon this time was a steep slope not of solid ground or stone but of loose rubble, like a pile of chips at the edge of a lumber yard. Scouting left and right along it, they found no change, nor feeling as high as they could reach. The Warden lit a sheaf of reeds and handed it up to Repnomar on his shoulders; but even with this they could see no top to the pile, and the wind soon put out their torch. The Captain would have sent the crows up to find what lay above; but they did not well understand this task and had no liking for it, and only flapped complainingly about in the dark.

  “Well,” said the Warden, staring up into the darkness, “we've known all along that if we want to reach the peaks, we must climb sooner or later.”

  After some trial and much discussion, they agreed that the safest way was to climb side by side (though with considerable space between them) and not roped; for any move on that rubble heap was apt to start a cascade of stones downward, so that none wished to climb behind another; and where there was no sure hold, one climber who slipped could drag down all on the rope. Still, as the Exile observed cheerfully, they faced a much lesser danger here than at the cliff of the Dreeg, for here the fall was not sheer but only a rough slide to the bottom, so that whoever fell could hope to scramble up again. To which Lethgro added sourly, “Depending on which bones are broken.”

  For Broz it was a different matter. He could scramble well enough, “but perhaps not on this steep a slope,” said Repnomar. (For Broz, being a plains dog, was not of the climbing breed.) “And I'll take no chances of losing him.” So Broz once more was knotted into a harness, which he bore patiently enough, and the other end of the rope fastened around the Captain's waist, for she would have no one else charged with Broz's safety.

  Meanwhile the Exile had offered to carry the Warden's bundle of fuel; and when the Warden assured him that there was no need of this, he had urged his offer so eagerly that at last the Warden realized that he wanted the bundle to cover his back with. Indeed the Exile, though he did not complain, clearly suffered much from the cold; and when, in passing the fuel, their fingers touched, Lethgro found that the Exile's hands were wrapped in scraps of cloth. “Torn from his shirt tail, most likely,” the Warden thought; but he said nothing, not knowing any comfort to offer, and only helped arrange the fuel to cover the Exile's back as thoroughly as might be.

  So at last they began to climb, not knowing what lay above, nor whether they would ever scramble high enough to find out. The rocks gave little purchase to hand or foot; for if you gripped too hard, you dislodged the very stone you gripped at and your weight came suddenly upon another, that was all too apt to give way and roll beneath it, so that (unless sheer luck or desperate skill preserved you) you were likely to find yourself scrambling on the face of a rolling avalanche. Within the first half hour of climbing they had each taken at least one such a devil's slide, though luckily no bones were broken. The Warden was no longer troubled by the cold, being hot with a kind of anger, against the stones or the dark or perhaps his own helplessness. For it was a pitiful thing to be sprawled like a blind lizard on this gravel heap, every inch upward won by a weary groping struggle and likely to be undone in a moment, and the Warden of Sollet Castle was unaccustomed to such indignity. Nevertheless he clambered on without complaint, and took his slides with as good grace as might be, burying his face in his shoulder to save his eyes and teeth, for the stones were mostly as big as a fist and far harder, and some of them bigger than Lethgro's head.

  Presently the Exile called out from somewhere above that he had found water, forgetting in his excitement the right names of things, for indeed what he had found was ice. This they all had to deal with soon enough, and found it both good and bad. They were glad to ease their thirst, sucking at the ice-crusted rocks they crawled over or breaking off bits of ice and popping them into their mouths like dainties at a banquet; also the going was easier, in a way, the stones being held together by the ice and less likely to shift and tumble. But it was slippery going, harder than ever to find purchase on, and the ice wet their stiff fingers and panting faces, making them colder yet. Also the wind streamed down their backs like an icy river, fluttering their clothes and scattering bits of their fuel. They went ever more carefully; for the higher they climbed the less they liked the notion of an avalanche that might sweep them to the very bottom, gathering stones all the way.

  It was on the ice that Repnomar first paused to give Broz a rest. The old dog had climbed gallantly so far, but it was a hard thing for him, and he whined and wheezed as he went, and trembled hard. The Captain had managed to keep him close to her most often, helping him along with one hand when she could; but there were times when he slid to the end of his rope, yelping with dismay. Twice he had pulled her down with him; and once she had been the first to slip, and dragged him after her. Now, finding her feet steadier than heretofore on two ice-glued rocks, she worked Broz up to her and braced him against the slope with her arm and shoulder, so that at last he could ease the trembling of his taut limbs and take some warmth from her, and she from him.

  That was their first rest. Five more times they rested, on icy stones or dry, and all the while the crows—who, by all reason, had least to complain of—fretted wretchedly around them, flying now up and now down, clawing and pecking at their shoulders, trying to ride their back
s, and in every way troubling and hindering them; for shipcrows could make nothing of this climb in blindness, and did not like to find their Captain and her companions thus spraddling on the side of a rubble pile.

  So that they all were ready to curse crows forever, when suddenly one that had flown upward began to call steadily from above, and the Captain said, drawing a great breath through her teeth, “It's found the top.” At once the other crow left off pestering the Exile and flew upward, and a moment later joined the first in glad and strident chorus.

  They crawled now still more cautiously, each one feeling that at all costs they must not now lose what they had so painfully won, and it seemed a long age before the Warden called out that he had come to the end of the loose stones. His voice was somewhat strained.

  Indeed he had not the heart to tell the others what he had found, thinking that they would learn soon enough. For the loose stones ended at the foot of a sheer wall of angled columns.

  12

  Things Seen in Darkness

  One thing's certain,” the Captain said; “there's no hope found where there's no hope looked for.”

  They had leveled a narrow space at the top of the heap, working carefully first with their feet, then with their hands, so that after a time they were able to sit with their backs against the cliff face and their legs outstretched down the slope. Here the wind left them alone, except for an occasional gust; but they could hear it whining and howling above them. This was the first real rest, for any of them except Broz, since the climb began, and even this was uneasy enough, perched as they were on the topmost edge of that unsteady pile. It was hard sitting, too, and devilishly lumpy, but it was so welcome to them that there were tears of pleasure in the Warden's eyes, though little enough pleasure in his mind.

  They sat side by side, the Exile in the middle and Broz lying across their thighs, so as to have the most good from each other. The voices of the crows still came querulously down to them. “And it's not far,” Repnomar persisted. “I still think I could reach it from your shoulders, Lethgro.”

  “We've tried that,” said the Warden, and repressed a shudder. Indeed it had been an uncertain few minutes, himself pressed hard against the cliff and trying to balance while the Exile helped Repnomar to scramble up him, and feeling the stones shift now and again under his feet. “And after all you didn't reach it,” he added.

  “No,” the Captain said reflectively. “But we could pile the stones higher—”

  “Not without glue,” the Warden interrupted.

  “—Or search along the cliff till we find a better place,” she went on, and Lethgro nodded in the dark, for he thought that this was what they must do indeed, little as he liked the idea.

  “And besides,” Repnomar added without warning, and stirring so that Broz jerked uneasily on her legs, “the rock's not smooth. These columns have crevices between them, and it's a safe bet they have cracks across them, too. All you ever need to climb straight up is a fingerhold and a toehold. Are we going to sit here till we freeze, or are we going to try it?” And she moved as if to stand up again, discomfiting Broz and rousing the Exile to protest that they should lay their plan before they acted on it.

  Yet it seemed clear that the Captain was right, as they all shortly agreed. For unless the rubble heap they perched upon had cracked and fallen stone by stone from the cliffs above, how had it come to be? And if all these had cracked loose, it was only sensible to suppose that more were in the way of cracking, and the fabric of that cliff above them must be webbed with fissures.

  So when they had talked enough, and picked a few bites of food out of their pockets, and cold and hunger were goading them to movement, with some trouble the Warden lit a fire on the stones beside him, and made a torch of reeds and mosses, and fixed that to the end of his bow. But although he raised it as far as his arm could reach, and they all stretched and craned, peering upward by that uncertain light, they could not see surely where the cliff top was that the crows had found. “If it is the top,” said Lethgro; “for it might be only a ledge.” But the Captain would not have her crows doubted, saying that though this dark country was strange to them, they still knew a harbor from a sandbar.

  The crows themselves were much excited by the torchlight, and flew around the Warden's contrivance with loud cries, so that he swore at them ungraciously, forgetting his usual patience. In the end, laying aside the torch, he bound moss to an arrowhead and set it afire and shot it upward, kneeling on the teetering rocks with his elbow braced against the cliff and shooting almost straight up along its face, so that they all hunched their heads a little between their shoulders in fear of the arrow's return. But it sprang upward, scattering its sparks through the blackness, and disappeared from their sight. Lethgro groaned, and reached for another arrow, for he thought that the wind or the speed of its own flight had put out the fire; but before he had finished binding moss to the second arrowhead, Repnomar cried out that she saw light above them. Indeed the flames, that had been almost snuffed out, now burned up again brightly, and they saw the glow of them where the arrow had landed above their heads. Lethgro rose to his feet carefully.

  “Well, Rep, we'd have had to pile stones pretty high before you could have reached it from my shoulders,” he said.

  But Repnomar answered in excitement, “It's no more than a mast's height. If we can't climb that, Lethgro, we should have stayed in Beng harbor!”

  Warden Lethgro made no answer to this, though he very heartily believed that they should have stayed in Beng harbor, but silently stowed his arrow, and his bow, and his fuel (on the Exile's back), and made ready to climb. By now the little light above them had burned out, leaving the darkness blacker than before. But now they knew how far they had to go, and were ready for it, and without more talk they began to feel along the rock wall for holds.

  These they were some time in finding. There were cracks indeed across the stone columns, but few wide enough or deep enough to put a fingertip into, still less the toe of a boot. What served to start them up at last was only the staggered line of the cliff face, some columns standing farther out and some set back into the body of the cliff; so that, bracing his feet and hands against two that stood out a little way and within close reach of each other, the Exile was able to work his way up between them to a good foothold where one of the columns was broken off short, just beyond Lethgro's reach.

  “Can you feel the top?” Repnomar shouted up to him. And when he answered no, she was all for calling him down and taking his place herself. But the Exile, painstakingly groping along the rock face, found another foothold, sideways and a little upward from the first, and above that such good handholds that he was able to climb straight up, till a chunk of rock broke loose in his grasp and he came near falling, a thing that shook them all badly. For the broken rock and the sound of his scrabbling and gasping came down through the dark to the others, and they spread their arms in hopes to catch him as he fell. But he managed to stop himself, taking only some scrapes and bruises; and after resting for a time (if it could be called rest, clutched insecurely to those tiny crevices in that sheer wall of rock) he began to climb again. And no more than a few minutes later they heard the jubilation of the crows, and then the Exile's shout that he was on the top.

  It was simple enough after that for the Exile to let down the rope and, first, to haul up Broz, grunting and yelping (for this seemed to him the worst journey of all he had made yet), and then to play up Repnomar, she half-climbing and half-leaning on the rope, and the two of them together to play up Lethgro in the same manner, who was the heaviest of the lot.

  Now they rested, building a little fire to warm themselves, swallowing their last scraps of food, and talking cheerfully as they searched for fuel, while Broz frolicked about their legs; for in spite of darkness and cold and hunger they were all inclined to celebrate after winning up that cliff. But they found neither fuel nor food, and in a little they put out what was left of the fire, to save what fuel they might
, and their talk died away into silence. A strange silence it seemed, for there was nothing in it but silence itself and the wind and their own breathing. To the Captain, who these long years past had never been out of the sound of Soll water, and seldom out of earshot of her Mouse and her crew, it was as if a great blankness had swallowed up the foundations of the world, and nothing remained on which to stand or float. And the Warden was in little better case, for his ears strained always to catch some rustle of life, the murmur of leaves or the whisper and gurgle of running water, plash of fish or call of birds, stir of creatures in the woods and grasses, or the tread and voices of his people about the castle, crackle of fires and creak of floors; and it was a grief to him to hear the beating of blood in his own ears.

  Now Broz nuzzled against the Captain, and his stomach rumbled emptily. Whereupon she sprang up, saying that now they had climbed the mountain (for she did not see fit to mention the lit peaks that still stood high above them) they were in no danger unless they determined to sit still and starve. “And we can make good time now,” she said, “till we come to water, and better time after that.” Lethgro, who knew more of mountains, sighed deeply; but he said nothing, not liking to lessen any hope there was among them, and they started off again at a brisk pace, rubbing their hands together against the cold.