Walls of Wind and the Occasional Diamond Thief Boxed Set Page 9
It came again the next night. I sensed its baleful presence at the edge of our campfire, waiting for sleep to disarm me.
“There’s something there,” I said, willing now to strip my youngling of his confidence in me, if fear might save him.
“I’ve felt it,” he said. “I’ve tried to become it, but it’s not... I can’t think like it.”
A shiver of madness blew through me as his words confirmed my fears, but I also felt a thrill of pride. Under the shadow of death, Heckt’er still thought like a hunter. In the presence of demons, my youngling could not be made prey. And then I was more afraid than ever, because he fed my Pride even as I fought to subdue it.
“You can’t think like the thing that pursues us,” I said, bitterly. Heckt’er was not proud. Heckt’er had let the other youths go before him, had let them find the signs of harrunt’h, that they might learn what he already knew. Heckt’er used his skill to help his people.
I dared not sleep that night. The thing that prowled at the edge of our fire’s light did not sleep either, but my watch held it at bay. In the daytime we traveled, pushing ourselves almost beyond endurance. Four days from home. Three nights away from safety.
We stumbled on until the gathering dark obscured our way and then I panicked, afraid my unwillingness to stop had made us wait too long to find enough firewood for a full night’s fire. I slashed at living limbs with my knife, unwilling to let Heckt’er move out of my sight to gather dead branches on the ground. I needed a bright fire, but even a smoky one would do. Another hunting party might see it. We were almost near enough to meet with one and I was ready to accept any help that came to us.
It wasn’t Ghen we saw that night, drawn to our fire. At first I thought the two eyes were embers, glowing through the smoke. Then they moved closer and I saw its body, pale in the darkness. The exact shape was obscured by wisps of smoke but it massed no more than I. That threw me off; that and my sleep-deprived deliriums, for I was half expecting to see myself, or some nightmare figure, the specter of my Pride. I suppose that, too, was pride, to think that only I could defeat myself.
Beside me, Heckt’er whispered softly, “Broghen.”
Too small, I thought, too pale. But I recognized the crazed look in its eyes, the hideous deformity, the mix of fur and scales, the gaping jaw and vicious rows of teeth. It should have been taller but it was still fearsome, broader and more powerful than I, even at the same height. I felt, for an instant, limp with relief that I was not insane, then Heckt’er said, more firmly, “Broghen.”
His voice broke the fire’s spell and the monster lunged for him. I threw myself between them and felt its claws rake down my side sending lines of fire across my ribs and tearing my left leg open to the bone.
I fired sideways and knew the shot was poor but the Broghen howled and reared back. Heckt’er fired over me but he was inexperienced and only grazed the brute. It turned and fled into the woods. I reloaded and fired into the path of its retreat but it was too far away. I could hear in the distance the sound of slapping branches as it escaped. Worse, I had used the last of my ammunition. All we had left was a single shot in Cann’an’s firearm, and our knives.
Heckt’er bound my leg and cut me a strong stick to lean upon and we traveled hard. At least I knew now why we had found only Ghen-like footprints. If it had been full-sized I might have guessed, for even half-obliterated as the prints had been, I would have seen they were too large to be ours.
Every step drove pain through the length of my leg and every breath spread fire across my ribs. By afternoon I was feverish and the dressing on my leg was soaked with new blood, yet we hurried on. We had no respite but home.
At dusk we stopped. Heckt’er built a fire and watched while I slept until dark. When he wakened me, I sat against the wide trunk of a large ugappa with the firearm in one hand and my knife in the other. He fed the fire higher and placed several large pieces of wood where I could reach them easily, then I ordered him up into the ugappa to sleep wedged in its branches. Broghen cannot climb, but neither could I with my wounded leg. At first Heckt’er refused to leave me, but I insisted. He would be safe there even if I failed him.
Perhaps I dozed. Perhaps I was delirious with fever. But deep in the night I was abruptly awake and I was not alone.
I couldn’t see it. It was beyond the light of the fire, waiting in the night, circling me, trying to gauge the extent of my weakness. I tensed, sweating in the cool wind, straining for the hushed sound of a footfall, the faint expel of breath, the barest movement of leaves.
To the left—behind me, but the ugappa shielded my back—to the right—pause—behind me again—pause. My hands gripped tightly the handles of my knife and firearm, my heart pounded and my leg throbbed in unison, but I was aware only of the threatening, soft sounds just beyond the perimeter of my sight. I dared not shoot blind.
To the right of me again. Pause.
There was a rustle in the tree overhead, very slight. I could tell by the weight that it was only a mongarr’h, maybe two. I didn’t worry. Heckt’er would be a match for two mongarr’hs. It was the Broghen I must keep him safe from.
Why didn’t it move? Had it circled around behind me again? I turned back to the left and in that moment it rushed from the shadows on my right.
As though in slow motion I swung my firearm, its muzzle drawing a large semi-circle in time, too much time, between the beast’s spring and my aim. A single moment of unreadiness and I was its prey.
It was almost upon me when a small form dropped from the branches overhead. The blade of his knife reflected a gleam from the fire and I heard a snarl of surprise as the knife sank home. The Broghen pulled short its spring and reached for the fierce young hunter clinging to its back.
“No!” I screamed.
But already it had torn loose Heckt’er’s hold and even with Heckt’er’s knife buried to the hilt in its neck it pulled him around and sank its vicious fangs into his throat, bearing him down under it as it fell. I lurched over, afraid to shoot in case I hit Heckt’er.
The Broghen was already dying as I clawed it aside frantically, but I fired my last shot into it, then dropped to my knees beside Heckt’er.
“Don’t be a great hunter,” I cried as I gathered his still form into my arms. “Be only my living child!”
***
I couldn’t burn Heckt’er’s body. I carried him, as I had when he was a babe and I first took him into the woods. For a day and a night I walked, carrying my youngling home.
When my leg gave I rested on my knees, bent over his body, till I could rise again. I dropped the first canteen when it was empty, and then the second. When I fell at last and knew I could rise no more, I made a fire. I burned the green wood of the cappa I fell beside.
Heckt’er’s body was cold as I lay beside him, as cold as the forest shadows, as cold as the wind that would never wake him again. They found me that way, delirious, almost dead, beside the body of my child.
***
I will no longer hunt but I teach every youth who comes to me to be a fine hunter, better than I.
I teach them that there are four large predators on Wind: the cold-blooded liapt’h that swims in the wetlands, the fierce courrant’h that prowls in the mountains, the raging Broghen that hungers to the south, and the hunter who feeds his pride instead of his people.
Council Relations
(Briarris)
I went with Ocallis to visit Mant’er after they’d carried him home. We entered the front door of the infirmary, a one-story building constructed, like Council Hall, around an inner courtyard. It was less imposing because it lacked the extra height, but was in fact as long and twice as wide, so that the courtyard was a square rather than a rectangle.
The external verandah was fully enclosed. Its many wide windows were framed by wooden shutters which could close as tightly as a house in still-season, to allow the Bria healers access to their patients’ rooms. Illness and accidents do not wait on seasons.
Many of the doors along this front hall were open, indicating that the room was occupied. The rooms were small, housing a single patient, and windowless, since they backed on three sides onto other patients’ rooms. Despite the open doors, which faced the wide windows of the verandah, and the fans that turned year-round, the place had a heavy, breathless feel to it that nauseated me.
We were directed through to the inner verandah which, being on the Ghen side of the infirmary, was open to the wind. Mant’er’s room was on the far side of the courtyard. At Council Hall the courtyard was planted with grasses and flowers, with single ugappas here and there to add height and trios of cappa bushes in each corner; a lovely place to walk in. This was the first time I’d seen the infirmary’s courtyard and I was shocked to behold a shadowy forest of ugappas and cappas. I’d seen their tops above the building, of course, but had had no idea how densely wooded it was.
I was about to suggest we take the long way around, by the verandah, when Ocallis, anxious to see Mant’er, struck out into the trees. Reminding myself that we were still in the heart of the city, that there could be nothing other than birds and perhaps a few harmless sadu’hs among these dark trees, I followed him.
My heart was still panting from the oppressive courtyard when I stumbled into Mant’er’s room behind Ocallis. Wind’s breath, he was a mess: cut and bruised and blistered from dehydration, his left leg wound round with dressing from groin to foot, and raised to ease the swelling.
His eyes were open but he didn’t notice us. He was looking at his hands, opening and closing them with a kind of desperate disbelief at finding them empty. It reminded me of an incident in my childhood when I’d been admiring my parent’s favorite glass ornament and unintentionally dropped it. The suddenness with which it shattered beyond retrieval stunned me. Mant’er looked that way, now.
Ocallis sat on the floor beside his mat and signed to him something that temporarily lifted his despair, judging from the brief lightening of his countenance. I squatted beside Ocallis, dumb with pity. I had to stop myself from looking at Mant’er’s hands when he began opening and closing them again.
Before he rose to leave, Ocallis blew into Mant’er’s face. I looked aside, shocked and embarrassed, and rose quickly to leave. Ocallis soon followed. He stepped briskly out of the room, across the verandah and down into the trees—where he fell against me weeping. I held him there in the shadows where no one could see us until my arms ached and he had no more tears to shed but shuddered dry-eyed against my dampened fur. Then I helped him home and onto his sleeping ledge.
As I turned to go, he said, “I’m going to have Mant’er’s second youngling.”
I stopped and stared at him. He sat with his legs hanging over the side of his ledge, weary with sorrow. Finally I managed to stammer, “But you already have your children.”
“I can still carry his.”
“Ocallis,” I said, trying to hide my agitation, “You can’t have more younglings. Let him mate someone else. Someone who would have Bria children also, to justify the horror of birthing a Broghen.”
“He wouldn’t. You saw how he is. Even if Chair Ghen ordered him, he wouldn’t go to Festival Hall.”
“You can’t replace Heckt’er,” I said, as gently as I could.
“I’m not trying to replace Heckt’er. I’m trying to save Mant’er.”
Wind’s breath, Ocallis loved him! Loved a Ghen, was going to put himself through unbelievable horror for two years for him. They were no longer joined, it was time Ocallis let go.
“Ocallis, he is Ghen.” My parent’s words came back to me. “Ghen leave, Ocallis. That’s the way it is. Ghen leave us.”
He turned to me with a fury I’d never seen on his face. “What does it matter if he sleeps in my house or in the compound? He hasn’t left! He lives in my city, he guards the wall for me. Ghen don’t leave us, Briarris. They’re part of our lives. Forever.” He slumped, exhausted from his outburst. “I need to sleep,” he said, dismissing me.
***
The day after Heckt’er’s funeral, Anarris asked to speak to me. When he wouldn’t be put off I agreed to see him in one of the meeting rooms reserved for councilors. This one was small, with only a single table and three or four chairs.
“May the wind give you sight,” I said, not rising from my chair. Anarris paused mid-stride, then continued into the room. I didn’t ordinarily speak so formally, but I was emotionally drained and had agreed to this meeting only at his insistence.
“Wind in your face.” Anarris’s curt half-statement of the appropriate response let me know that he wouldn’t be put off by my formality. “I’m here because the Bria with Single-by-Choice are afraid there’s going to be pressure put on them to mate.”
“Parents want to be grandparents,” I said wearily. “I can’t stop that.”
“I’m referring to the Ghen fiasco.”
“The Ghen fiasco?” I spoke quietly: a bad sign, if he’d heeded it.
“Getting so many of themselves killed on a foolish hunt. They choose a life of danger, then act as though we owe them something when it backfires.”
“Strange how they persist in wanting to eat every day.”
“They don’t have to hunt to eat. They choose to be flesh-eaters.”
“There aren’t enough milk callans and laying fowl to feed both the Ghen and the Bria.” But my argument was half-hearted; however much I sympathized with Mant’er’s suffering, eating flesh repelled me as much as it did any Bria.
“Let them cut down some of the forest for more farmland.”
He really had no idea how the Ghen felt about their forest. Not that he would care. I looked at him coolly. This had gone far enough.
“Eleven Ghen died, and one is in the infirmary. He had to be carried to attend the funeral of his youngling.”
“I consider them Lost-by-Choice.”
His words revolted me, but they caught my attention. Had I been too immersed in my sibling’s sorrow to recognize the building mood of the Bria? I’d never been overly sympathetic to Ghen who died on a hunting trip before. Rare as it was, it had seemed a sort of rough justice on flesh-eaters. Was the antipathy between Ghen and Bria becoming so strong that even the death of youths meant little to us? For the first time, I was afraid for my city. Fear made me harsh.
“You wanted something of me?” The coldness in my voice brought him up short. Good. Let him remember that I was not the one who ought to watch my tongue.
“I’m not here for myself,” he muttered sulkily. I touched my breath perfunctorily.
“We thought, an announcement from Council. Something to the effect that...” he paused and I waited to hear how he would phrase it. “...that sad as this incident is, Bria shouldn’t feel obligated to act against their beliefs.”
“Maybe they should reconsider their obligations.”
“Shouldn’t be pressured to do so.”
He was young and arrogant and foolish, but he was trying to work with me. And I was Council Relations. If I couldn’t maintain the tenuous link I had formed between Council and him and his followers, they would blow free, and only the wind knew what measures they might resort to. For a moment I envied him his short-sightedness, his single-eyed view of our City. How clearly the eye can see from only one perspective.
Wait till he heard what Ocallis proposed to do!
I controlled my expression, hiding the dread that thought sent through me. Instead, I sighed, deliberately letting him hear the wind that bound us all.
“I can work with that,” I told him.
He left without thanking me. I was just as glad; it wasn’t a welcomed task, however necessary.
Sacrifices
(Rennis)
I am climbing Temple Hill at the southeast edge of the city. There is such lassitude in my muscles that I’m panting with the effort of merely moving forward. The air is almost motionless—I feel tiny puffs of heat that die out as they reach me. I struggle against nausea and dizziness.
If I can make it to the top before the breeze stops altogether, I will be able to rest in the Temple winds.
Huge slabs of rock placed about the top of the hill stretch up into the sky just ahead of me. Within them are large, rotating blades that send stiff cross-currents all over Temple Hill. From deep in the heart of the hill comes the quiet hum of the pumps which maintain the year-round movement of those fans.
The effect is inexpressible: mesmerizing and inspiring. Wherever one stands on Temple Hill, one feels oneself to be at the very center of Wind, the focus point on which all winds converge. Pious Bria come here to pray and meditate, to remind ourselves that the Creator Wind has entrusted us to be the heart of Wind.
A Bria child is climbing beside me. I know him to be my youngling, although I have none as yet, in reality.
“Look, we’re almost there,” he pipes in his child’s voice. I lift my head, but my eye is closed and I cannot open it. In my dream I do not wonder where his sibling is; I am concerned only about my eye.
“Open your eye, Matri,” he says, puzzled
.“I can’t.” I force a small laugh, hiding my alarm. “It’s very silly, sweetbreath. I’m not hurt, I just can’t open my eye.”
I’ve reassured him too well; he scrambles ahead, leaving me. I call out to him but perhaps he doesn’t hear. The muscles of my throat are weakening as the air becomes more and more still. I must reach the top and feel the Creator’s breath blowing into me.
The fur on my head ruffles slightly. My ears twitch; I’m almost there. With the last of my strength I stumble upwards, three, four, six steps, until I can feel the wind around me. I suck it into my lungs with a sob of relief.
The wind in the direction of my closed eye sputters and stops. I turn, gasping for breath, and the breeze from that direction also dies.
“Stop it! Stop it, Matri!” the child’s voice cries, only now he is a Ghen child. What is a Ghen child doing on Temple Hill? Why does he call me ‘Matri’? How is it that I even understand him? I know I should stand still, but I can’t help turning, gasping in the effort to draw the motionless air into my lungs. Every fan my blind eye turns toward sputters to a stop until the very Temple of the Wind is as lifeless as stillseason..