Wheel of the Winds

by M J Engh

  The second turn

  Windfall was a short season. And Windfall ended with Windrise, when once more the Sollet Mountains’ tilted out of daylight into darkness, and this world ranged farthest from the sun that its peoples had never seen. Cold air would pour over the barrier of the mountains, and people of the light side (you could not call it bright) would smile at each other and say, “The winds are rising.” The winds of the year; it was a graceful phrase, as so much else in this world was graceful—and most of all, its swift, strong, generous, stubborn peoples.

  Windfall was a short season; it would be over soon. And when the winds rose on the Sollet, they would be rising also on the Dreeg. Not so strong nor so steady, nor with such an abrupt onset; for when Sollet Mountains were darkest, the nameless mountains beyond the Dreeg were most nearly light, and there was no sudden spilling of the cold air dammed behind them. But that air was at its coldest—aphelion was the chilliest season everywhere on this chill and temperate world—and the mountains of that limb were lower. Currents of darkside air would begin to flow through the low passes into the relative warmth of the marsh country, and the ponderous wheel of air would roll again.

  And soon it would be too late. That was the thought that would drive you, rousing you out of sleep or mixing your sleep with sad and ugly dreams, so that again and again you lifted the mats that hid you and lay watching the banks creep by, willing the boat to go faster. It would be too late—how soon? You could not know. It might be too late already. It might be there had never been a chance.

  24

  Decisions of the Council of Rotl

  The Council of Beng, as usual, was in less than full agreement with the Council of Rotl. The question was raised, as it often was, whether the benefits of the League were truly greater than the disadvantages, certain councilors protesting that the will of Rotl must not be allowed to outweigh the good of Beng. But the consensus, as always, was that prosperity depended on doing what had brought prosperity heretofore, and that to break the League after so many years would risk irritating the gods of Rotl and all the Coast beyond. Besides, in this particular instance Rotl was very reluctantly agreeing to follow the suggestion of Beng, so that some might claim (for once) that the shoe was on the other foot.

  But others retorted that Rotl's reluctance was only another sign of Rotl's pride, seeing that ex-Warden Lethgro happened to be a native of Rotl.

  In truth the Council of Rotl had been most unwilling to believe that Lethgro had so far betrayed their trust as to abet the flight and escape of that sinister Exile from a land unknown. Long after the evidence was clear before them, several councilors maintained he had been a victim of that Captain Repnomar whose impiety was notorious up and down the Coast. But at last they had been brought to sign the decree of outlawry, only insisting that a larger reward be offered for Lethgro alive than for his head, and adjoining a proclamation that invited him to give himself up and implied a hope of pardon. Naturally there were no such concessions for Repnomar, who enjoyed the protection of no god and had assaulted the representative of a Council.

  Something that weighed with both Councils, and pushed the Council of Rotl to issue its tardy decree at last, was that the past year's weather had been decidedly poor. Windrise had been early and fierce; the Rains had been longer than usual; Streamrise had been disastrous, with such heavy snowmelt in the Mountains that there had been flooding all along the Sollet and the web of canals that spread out from the river on each side through the Lower Sollet country; and Windfall, far from bringing relief, had brought drought to the steaming fields. Elderly folk claimed that it was the worst year since the Great Floods they remembered from ninety years ago, which had required much anxious negotiation with the gods and extensive rebuilding of the canal system, whence the League had had its beginnings. It seemed clear that the gods were displeased again; and the likeliest cause was the escape of the Exile, with the clear assistance of Captain Repnomar and the probable connivance of ex-Warden Lethgro.

  Now that Windrise was once more approaching, most people agreed that the weather had returned to normal. And the new Warden of Sollet Castle, a person of gravity and with excellent contacts among the Sollet shippers, reported good progress toward a revised agreement on the ever-vexed question of log tolls.

  So that all in all, this year promised to be better than last. But there was annoyance here and there along the Coast, among people who had been accustomed to do business with Captain Repnomar of the Mouse (who, they said, must be a skillful captain indeed to have succeeded so long without the help of any god). And there was regret in Rotl and along the Middle and Upper Sollet, for Warden Lethgro had been well liked and well respected, while the new warden was respected at most.

  It was generally supposed in all these places, except by those who knew Repnomar, that Captain, Warden, and Exile alike were long since drowned in the Soll. No one between the Soll and the Mountains (with the exception of three or four people at Sollet Castle) would have expected to find them floating down the Sollet in a high-boarded dinghy with a load of nuts and treenails.

  There was little likelihood of anyone recognizing Lethgro, shaggy and weatherbeaten as he was now, and dressed in the rough garments of a Sollet drifter. Repnomar's transformation was not so striking, for a ship's captain is weatherbeaten enough in the first place, and on the Lower Sollet there was more chance of encountering folk who knew her. Therefore she wore a scarf that muffled most of her face, and lay low whenever they found themselves in heavy traffic. Broz, who was as well known as the Captain, had had his tail dipped in black dye, hiding the white tip, and so was free to show himself. But there was no disguising the Exile, who must therefore lie hidden under the mats that covered the cargo, bedded among the nuts and pegs.

  They tied up, when they could, under the banks of islands and sandbars to give themselves (and especially the Exile) a little relief, for they could not risk landing elsewhere—least of all near the canal mouths, where there was always much business, with Sollet ships anchored close inshore and unloading their goods into canal boats that would carry them left and right through the flat countryside. The crows fared worst of all, being stowed inside a basket and never released. Lethgro had suggested leaving the crows behind, as a hindrance and a hazard (for he feared they might draw attention by their squawking) but the Captain had answered shortly, “I may have to sail somebody else's ship, but I'll have my own crows to work with.”

  For what they planned was to hire a ship in either Beng or Rotl and take to the Soll again. Warden Lethgro, by virtue of his office, had been a wealthy man; and it proved lucky for him now in more ways than one that he had been a good master to his household, for not only did some of them bring clothes and other needful things to the fugitives and contrive to find them a boat, but one of his former guards, on Lethgro's own instructions, found and brought to him the secret money-box to which he still carried the key.

  They had debated deeply in the woods. Perhaps, Lethgro thought later, he would have argued differently if he had known the full text of the Council of Rotl's decree. But, believing that they were all condemned without appeal, it was easy for the three of them to agree that their only hope was to keep themselves secret till they could get beyond the reach of the Councils. They might have turned back upstream and sought safety among the loggers and woodworkers of the Upper Sollet; but Lethgro held that the power of the League ran too strong even there. As he put it, “We were wise enough not to show ourselves there before, and we'd be utter fools to do it now.”

  Here the Exile had begun to speak with all the stunted eloquence he could command, begging them, since they were outlawed by their own people, to help him with his mission. For he said that if he could find his gear and send his message, he would ask for help for them too.

  “Help?” Lethgro retorted. “Not long ago you were trying to scare us with this ship of yours and all the harm your people would do unless you kept them away. And now you want us to believe that they can help
us?”

  The Exile answered yes, that was what he wanted them to believe, explaining that the harm would come if his people arrived without knowing his whereabouts and set off to search for him; and that no such danger was likely if he was able to talk to them first in his own voice.

  Here the Captain asked if his people could help her take the Mouse off the waterfall of the Dreeg; and when he said yes, her mind was made up. And Lethgro, who a few seasons past would have turned away in horror from such a proposition, nodded his head brusquely and said that this time they would know what supplies to take on their journey.

  First they had talked of going back the way they had come, up the Sollet and over the Mountains. But the Castle sentry they had first seen, who brought them news and food and what else she could, told them that the new Warden had sent armed parties upriver to search for them, offering rewards through all the villages and logging camps; and then there would be the White People to deal with. Besides, the Exile's devices lay scattered in the snow where they had fallen (if they had not been picked up by Whites or other savages); and he now told them that it would be much easier to find the gear he had left in a safe place in the country of the Quicksilvers. For, as he confessed with some embarrassment, he had already performed a good part of his mission, leaving devices ready to send word of such matters as wind and snow, and a speaking device with them; when he first flew away from the others in his pods. The Captain was pleased at this, saying they had better follow the route they had taken the first time, and visit the Mouse on their way. Indeed she grew very cheerful, for, as she said, “If we can't get the Mouse off, this time around, we may at least find a way to bring off the crew, and we can use their help for the rest of the journey.”

  Thus it was that before many watches had passed they were drifting down the Sollet in a dinghy, like many another crew of small traders carrying enough forest products to pay their way back with a load of cloth or leather goods. Such people Lethgro hailed affably, exchanging small talk while the Captain slept under mats or sculled with an oar in the bows, her scarf around her face. This was how he heard the details of the Council of Rotl's decree, and learned that there might be a pardon waiting for him, at least in Rotl. But he did not see how he could save his own head except at the expense of Repnomar's and the Exile's, unless he was to hide himself till they were safely gone; and neither of these prospects suited him. For if there must be talking to these people from beyond the clouds, he did not mean to leave it to the Exile and Repnomar alone.

  Next to being recognized, the worst hazard on this voyage was being run down by the great Sollet ships and lografts. It was for this reason that small boats like the dinghy generally stuck dose to shore (except at certain bends, where the current could trap a boat between a ship's side and the bank). For this reason, too—among others—the many-oared patrol ships of the League moved here and there through the river traffic, warning captains and log drivers and sometimes assessing fines for unsafe navigation. These vessels, of course, they did their best to stay well clear of.

  It was strange to Lethgro to be seeing the Lower Sollet from this level rather than from the deck of a great ship, with farms and pasturelands sweeping by on either side like the pictures in a book; and hardly less strange to Repnomar, who had not been upriver from Beng for years and had all but forgotten the world of the Sollet. The result of this was that she enjoyed her voyage mightily, and said with a laugh that if she had known there was so much to see on this side of the Soll, she might never have been tempted to cross to the other. At which Lethgro laughed more heavily and said it was late in the game for prudence.

  But it was a short voyage. Windfall was perhaps the best traveling season for small rivercraft, for the current was at its swiftest and the light breezes strong enough for their little sails. So the dinghy clipped along at a rate that pleased them all.

  But when the wooden towers of Beng came in sight, with their carved and painted balconies looking over the water, Lethgro's heart smote against his ribs, for here they must risk their lives more openly by trying to buy or hire a ship under the noses of the Council of Beng. He waked Repnomar, and she sat up and gazed very soberly at the city. “Better me than you, Lethgro,” she said.

  “They'll know you on the waterfront,” Lethgro objected.

  “And they'll know you anywhere,” Repnomar answered. “You can pass on the Sollet, Lethgro, but not face to face in a town where you've been famous for years. And yes, they'll know me on the waterfront; they'll known I'm not a public enemy, whatever the Councils say, and they'll do business with me. Besides, I know ships, and I know sailors.”

  This was a point worth making, for a ship would be of little use to them without a crew to sail it. “And no matter how many lies we tell them,” as the Captain said, “they'll find out soon enough that they're set to cross the Soll, not just cruise down the Coast; and that means we'd better pick them well. A mutinous crew's worse than none.”

  So at last Lethgro agreed to stay in the dinghy with the Exile while the Captain looked for a ship and crew, she having vowed not to approach any skipper whose friendship she was not sure of. They tied up before they reached the main city, above the basin on whose broad beaches Sollet ships were being broken up and sold for timber. Here there were only market gardens and a few houses and boats, and the inlet where they moored was sluggish and grown with weeds both on the banks and in the water, so that it was not very noticeable from the river or the basin. The Captain preferred to go the rest of the way on foot, for they were not likely to find any other mooring so inconspicuous between here and the outer harbor itself, and the dinghy in the harbor would be a slow minnow in a pool full of sharks if trouble arose. There was some difficulty when she left the boat, for Broz was not accustomed to be left behind, and the Captain had to speak to him severely before he would consent to stay. It went to her heart to do so; but even with her scarf and his dyed tail, she feared that the two of them together would be too familiar a sight in the streets of Beng.

  So Broz, Lethgro, and the Exile settled themselves uneasily to wait; and this they did, to their great discomfort, for several hours. They had made no agreement on what to do if Repnomar did not come back; for, as she had said, “You'll do what you think best, and I'll do what I have to do, and there's no telling how it will come out. Just take care of Broz.” Lethgro would have felt better if she had not added that last remark. And worse still was that, already on the path, she had turned back with a grimace, saying, “No, Take care of yourself,” and turned again, striding away at a great pace. Time and again since then, Lethgro had stood up, grasping one of the swords with which his people at the castle had supplied them, and more than once he had stepped out onto the path. But he could not get past the obstacle of the Exile.

  The Exile did nothing, except now and again to look out despondently from under his mats. But the weight of him was heavy on Lethgro's mind—him, and his pods, and his devices, and his people lurking beyond the clouds. If those were not dealt with, it might make little difference what became of a coastal ship's captain and the former Warden of Sollet Castle. So he would sit down again in the dinghy and turn back one of the mats and question the Exile.

  Thus the Exile told him, in interrupted segments, of another world (in many ways not too different, he said, from this one) which his people had visited. They had set up their devices, and they had traveled about the world, observing its weather and many other things of interest, and trying not to trouble the folk they met. But the people of that world had much admired their powers and their gear, the pods with which they flew through the air and the boxes with which they threw voices and pictures around the world, their evident wealth and ease and many other things. And like a stain spreading suddenly on wet cloth, trouble had spread from the Exile's people. They had meant no harm, but they had overthrown the gods of that world. Some folk had taken them for gods in their own right, though they had not wanted that honor. Others had concluded that if those who w
ere not gods could be so powerful, then gods were useless, and their teachers had lied to them; which made them disorderly and discontented. Yet others had proclaimed new gods of their own, or new versions of old gods, declaring that these would make their worshippers as rich and powerful as the Exile's people and destroy all those who would not follow them. And there were some who cared little for gods but cared much for those powers and devices, so that all the countries of that world were soon in turmoil. And the Exile's people, wishing to help, had gone about teaching and giving gifts and freeing those folk from many afflictions and perils that had long troubled them. But these good things were overshadowed by bad; for, while some folk prospered as none had ever prospered till then, others were reduced to a degree of misery heretofore unknown. And new afflictions arose, and governments were overturned, and decency confounded, and new decencies imposed by force, and the world so dirtied by the making and using of devices that beasts and plants and people sickened, and the weather itself (which was what the Exile's people had come to learn about in the first place) was altered, and grew worse.

  It was such troubles that the Exile feared for this world. Lethgro, who had expected perils of another sort, was puzzled at first what to make of these; but they stuck in his mind, and the weight of them grew heavier and heavier, tying him down like stout cables to the dinghy. Though he was a prudent man by nature, prudence before now had never stopped him from going to the aid of a friend. But if he took Broz and went in search of Repnomar, it was all too likely that none of them would return, and that the Exile would never be able to send his message, and that his people would come looking for him. The consequences of that, in Lethgro's opinion, would be still more disastrous than the Exile feared; for (despite what the Exile said) they were likely to come in anger, and he did not relish the thought of what weapons such people might have. So he stayed with the dinghy in the inlet, grimly resolving that if Repnomar did not return soon, he would raise the sail and head for Rotl, there to try his own luck at hiring whatever ship he could get. But as he was vainly trying to reckon how many hours she had been gone, Repnomar herself came striding along the path at a great rate. Broz ran to meet her, with Lethgro not far behind, and the Exile peeped anxiously from under the mats.