The Windsingers (11 page)

The black stone walls blinked out. Again she saw the boundaries of the chamber as shifting opaque curtains. A ripple passed over them, like a wave disturbing the surface of a tide pool. Ki watched it flow past. Another took its place, rippling past. She watched it flow. For a dizzying moment, she pictured herself as inside a piece of fluted glassware that slowly rotated around her. Another ripple passed. She resisted the temptation to stretch out her hand and see if she could feel the disturbance of the wall's surface. Another ripple approached. When it was directly in front of her, Dresh's command to exit struck her. It came as no spoken word or shared thought, but as a physical compulsion to leap, mental spurs applied to her body. Ki leapt.

They passed through the wall as if through a veil of warm water. Shimmering points of light appeared like dew sparkling on the quill tips of an angry porcupine. Ki gasped in terror, but no breath entered or left her lungs. She felt she hung frozen in darkness. The wizard's head was a lifeless stone in her arms. The points of light plucked at her eyes, each one demanding to be focused on, only to retreat into distance when Ki tried to seize it with her eyes. Her hair stirred about her face in an unfelt breeze.

She fell, she flew, she sank like a stone. Then, with a silent click, she stopped. There was no thought, no breath, no tickling of consciousness nor fear. It was deeper than peace and easier than death. But Ki did not wonder at it. Ki did nothing at all, and did not even know it.

His mouth was dry and full of dust. He felt like his spine was gradually pounding its way up through his brain. Soon it would emerge from the top of his skull. He gritted his teeth against it.

The night winds had smelled of the sea. As Vandien crested the final hill, he saw why. The downward path was steep before him, and gullied by rains; the gentle hillocks and dales of yesterday had vanished in the night. Bony grey boulders pushed out of the earth's flesh and a few wind-twisted trees dared to poke up their gaunt branches. The trail he followed now had been laboriously cut down and across the face of a cliff. Below him, Vandien could see the flat green and small houses of the village of False Harbor. Beyond it was the sea.

No fishing vessels moored at anchor by this village. The black beaches were empty. Through the water, Vandien could see the wave-rubbled shapes of houses and sheds that had gone down into the sea in the same great quake that had split the cliff and taken down the Windsingers' temple. Their stone foundations remained, green with seaweed and dotted with barnacles. The temple itself would be farther out, closest to where the bottom suddenly dropped away and the water darkened to blue-black. Only the lowest of low tides would bare the temple, although the old village foundations might be exposed a dozen times a year. Only one tide in several years would leave the temple bared for plucking. Tomorrow would bring him that tide.

How long ago had the mountain settled into the sea? Srolan said the older folk claimed it had happened in a single day. But not one spoke of it from their own life experience. It was a tale they had heard from their grandparents; how the earth had sickened and heaved in the sullen afternoon, and mountain, village and temple had been claimed by the sea. Only the folk out fishing had survived. They returned to rebuild their village on the rise of land that had been the top of the cliff and was now just above high tide line. Gone was the harbor that had sheltered their boats, leaving a shallow bay studded with rocks and snags. They renamed their village False Harbor. They fished in the old village now, in flat-bottomed scows, catching crab and eel, squagis and octopus, where once chickens had scratched and menders had crouched by nets stretched in the sun.

One of the skeel dropped and went limp. Vandien sprang forward and pinched its tail. It roused with a squeal that made the whole team scuttle for a handful of paces. The village itself seemed quiet, though small craft worked in the shallows. As he trotted along behind his team, Vandien smoothed his dark unruly hair. With his free hand he beat the worst of the trail dust from his jerkin and trousers. He hoped he did not look as hungry as he felt.

A painted sign was swinging in the ocean breeze, and Vandien headed toward it. The sign depicted a fish leaping over a mountain. He assumed it marked the inn; it was the only two-story structure in the village. White-washed plaster had dropped away to expose patches of mortared stone. A lone horse was tethered in front of the place. Two mules were hobbled in the side alley. Taking this hint, Vandien herded his charges into the alley. Gratefully they dropped to their bellies and began their wheezing snores. He knew they would remain somnolent during daylight unless he roused them. He knotted the rein about the hitching rail anyway. With a groan, he bent over, stretching his back out. He straightened up to find a tall man assessing him.

The sea had left its marks on him. His eyes were between blue and grey. They looked through Vandien, as if the man had scanned so many horizons that he could no longer look at things close to him. Large weathered hands stuck out of the rolled-back sleeves of his coarse smock. Knotted wrists joined muscular forearms. One smallest finger was missing. He stood like a man who does not trust one of his legs. Thinning hair was raked back from his face. A fisherman spat out by the sea, Vandien guessed, and turned to innkeeping when he could no longer stand his watch.

'By the scar down your face, you'd be our Temple Ebb teamster.' The tall man dropped the words as if they were coins he were loath to part with.

Vandien didn't wince. He was accustomed to being identified by his scar. 'I am. And you'd be the innkeeper?'

'Aye. And the festival master, this year the third time. They'll be hanging the Temple Ebb banners, as soon as they get back with the day's catch. You're to room and board at the inn. There's a nice room above, waiting for you, and a meal when you call for it.'

'And a bath?' Vandien asked.

'If you want it.' The man scowled as if Vandien were pressing an advantage. 'Festival teamster gets most of what he asks for before Temple Ebb, and, if he puts on a good show, a nice send-off afterwards. Though,' he added, looking Vandien up and down, 'the fellow we had last year may have spoiled us. Dressed all in leather and chains, he did, with a team of six of the tallest mules I've ever seen. Smart, too. The mules did counting tricks before the tide time. The teamster could bend iron bars with his bare hands. Village kept him here for three days after Temple Ebb had passed. He even knew a bawdy song or two we hadn't heard before. We'd never seen anything to match those mules of his. The inn did more business in that week than in an ordinary month.' He paused, frowning at Vandien. 'You don't do sleight of hand, or somesuch, do you?'

Ki had warned him. A dozen snide remarks rose to Vandien's lips. He swallowed them all. 'No. I didn't realize it was a requirement of the job. I thought your village wanted to hire a team and man to remove something from a sunken temple.'

The tall man ignored the edge in Vandien's voice.

'You call this a team?' The man's voice was frankly skeptical.

'I do.' Vandien answered smoothly. He reached down to stroke the scaly shoulder of the skeel nearest him. It responded by surging against its harness. Wet chopping noises came from its toothless muzzle. Vandien gave silent thanks that the creatures were nearly blind in daylight. 'He's all affection, that one,' he observed fondly as he lightly rapped his prod on its snout. The skeel withdrew its head with a sinuous bending of its spotted neck.

'We've always had them use horses, or mules, in the past. Sort of a tradition, you know.' Doubt was evident in the innmaster's voice. He scratched at silvery stubble on his chin.

'Do you want a yearly tradition kept, or do you want a chest yanked out of an undersea hiding place?' Vandien asked quietly. 'When I touched hands on this agreement, there was no mention of the species I must use in the team, no questions about whether I could juggle eggs or make a scarf disappear. I thought I was being hired to perform a task, not to reenact past failures. Of course, it's entirely up to you.'

'Now wait!' The tall man held up his large hands in appeal. 'It's not that I don't like skeel. I hear T'cheria use them regularly, plowing and hauling. But I never understood why hauling beasts would have such short legs.'

Vandien looked down on his team. 'Better leverage,' he extemporized tersely. His own doubts nibbled at him. The tallest of the four came no higher than Vandien's hip, but Web Shell had lisped earnestly of their strength and stamina. What Vandien still could not stomach was the horrible flexings of the skeel. They were like sharks, all muscle and bend wrapped in thick hide. The one slash he had received from a tail made him wonder what their internal structure was. Could anything with bones be that flexible? But this was no time to indulge his own squeamishness. He gave a careless shrug. 'So they are built close to the ground. That's not a fault. You can sink a wagon to its hubs in mud, and these four can still pop it out. When they get their tails braced and their feet dug in and start humping, it takes a big load to resist their pull. Look at the size of those feet! They won't get mired down in muck the way horses' hooves do. No, those big flappers just spread their weight out and give them more purchase for the pull.'

'Aren't you afraid to take them out in the water?' the old man pressed. 'You know, sometimes the tide doesn't leave the temple dry. You may be wading a bit.'

'They're a well-trained team,' Vandien responded vaguely. He would cross that bridge when he came to it.

The tall man stared at him, weighing his words. Then he hunkered down beside the team and stared at them wordlessly. Vandien felt conspicuously tall, standing over the crouched man and the flat skeel. He resisted the urge to crouch down beside them all. He leaned on the rail and waited. He hoped he would not have to wait long. His stomach was a shrunken sack tied to the end of his gullet.

'The woman I dealt with,' Vandien asked suddenly. 'Srolan. Is she about?'

'In the inn,' the innmaster replied. He rose abruptly, and extended a large hand to Vandien.

'I am Helti.'

'Vandien.' They touched hands. Vandien had to look up into the taller man's face. He met his gaze solemnly. When the big man's face cracked in a grin, Vandien responded to it.

'You've a bold tongue and a strong spine, even if you're not stacked much higher than a youth. Come in and eat and rest. There'll be folk that want to meet you. I expect Srolan will want another chance for words with you. And you'll want to meet the Windsinger who will be singing against you.'

Vandien closed his mouth as soon as he realized it was open. The big man laughed. 'I figured she wouldn't have mentioned that to you, if she made a big sound over the chest and all. Srolan likes to pretend it's the old days, us against the Windsingers and all. She's old, and you mustn't... but you look empty, man, and as if you could find a use for a bed. Come on.'

Vandien trailed Helti, trying to still his whirling mind. He had an uneasy feeling that too soon he would understand all, and that little of it would be pleasing.

The inn boasted a railed porch, and a wooden door after the Human style. Two large rectangular windows admitted daylight through their milky panes. The wooden floor was scarred and old, made from salvaged ship planks. Wooden trestle tables and benches stood about, with guttered candles stumped in pools of their own wax. A great fireplace at one end of the room gaped, black and cold. A young boy stooped before it, shoveling the ash into a bucket. This was a clean place, by Human standards. A wide door led into the clank and steam of a kitchen. An unrailed staircase ascended to a darker upper floor.

'Sit,' said the innmaster, with a friendly clap on Vandien's shoulder that dropped him onto the indicated bench. 'I'll be back soon enough with food and talk.'

It was good to rest on Human-sized furniture. Vandien looked around, and was struck that the whole room was scaled exclusively to Human usage. He had heard of isolated communities populated by only one sentient species, but this was the first one he had witnessed. The inn was largely deserted at this hour, except for the boy cleaning the hearth. A sulky little miss glared at Vandien as if it were his fault that she had been sent out with a bucket and a rag to oil the table planks.

And that was all. No sign of Srolan, unless... Vandien craned and leaned to get a glimpse of a small table set in the shadow of the staircase. Someone in robes sat there, but she was taller than he remembered Srolan. He had nearly thought of an excuse to rise and get a better look at her when Helti came back, bearing a tray.

'Cook's choice!' Helti announced as he unburdened himself with a clank.

The meal was predictable. Fish cakes seasoned with seaweed, a thick chowder (no doubt containing whatever had been netted last night) and a tankard of bitter ale. Vandien set it out before himself, as Helti produced small fresh-baked loaves wrapped in a clean cloth. The smell of the food made Vandien giddy. Helti must have read his face, for he gave a ringing laugh.

'You eat, I'll talk,' he offered, and Vandien needed no further invitation. Steam from the hot fish cakes scalded his uncaring fingers. The crusty brown crust broke open to flaky white fish inside. Vandien took a bite to keep his jaws busy while he stirred up the dregs of the chowder to let it cool. Cubes of cara root swirled past keeping company with shucked limpets, mussels, and less identifiable shapes. His spoon clacked against shells in the bottom of the bowl.

'Srolan.' Helti shook his head. 'She's probably gone upstairs. Won't stay in the same room with the likes of her,' and he tossed his head at the robed figure at the shadowed table. 'I shouldn't have let Srolan go out this year. It's a youngster's job, the walking of roads until a fit teamster's found. But she insisted, and I was not the man to say no to her... She's a granny to half the village, and aunty to the rest. Who's to tell her she mayn't go? So off she went, and though I knew she saw Temple Ebb differently from the rest of us, I didn't think she'd mislead you. She's old. Even older than you might guess. I hope you won't be holding a grief against her?'

Vandien swallowed. He took a breath, feeling the food in his belly beginning to warm him. Slowly he broke one of the warm loaves, smelling the homey smell as it rose from the bread. 'Tell me why I should be grieved, and then I'll be able to decide.'

Helti looked uncomfortable. His eyes reminded Vandien of fish darting about in a tide pool, seeking escape. 'Temple Ebb, you see, has been... since I was a boy, it's been a time of merriment, a time for sweet cakes and the best of fall's harvest from Bitters' farmers. The fisherfolk forget for a time how bitter cold it's going to be, fishing all winter. It's a time for forgetting the realities of work, to lose yourself in a spectacle, whether it's a counting mule or doves from a cup. The big finish is to watch someone else get as wet and work as hard as we expect to do all winter.' Helti paused and Vandien nodded, chewing. He watched the big man shift awkwardly on the bench. But he left the speaking to Helti as he took a welcome draft of the cold ale.