Windblowne (14 page)

Pain flared in his back. If the hunters …

Quickly, he scanned the sky.

He saw no hint of the ominous dark forms. But he was certain they would come. Two had said they could track the kite now.

Oliver held up his kite. “I’m going to stop Lord Gilbert,” he promised, hoping for a response. Was that a little nod? It was hard to tell. At any rate, he had to get off the crest. He hurried toward the base of the wall, one eye on the sky.

The closer he got, the more the wall towered over him, dispelling the faint hope that he had returned to his own Windblowne and the townspeople had simply decided to build a giant wall in his absence. Something on this scale would take many years to build. Obviously, the kite did not have the strength to guide him home. This
meant they were simply blundering from world to world. And there were many, many worlds, Lord Gilbert had said.…

Oliver shivered.

He wished he could get some use out of his great-uncle’s handvane, but it was still pointing in the wrong direction. The wrong direction was hard west, which was a little ridiculous considering there was no wind at all. He tried to give it a twirl, but it insisted on west. “Fine,” Oliver muttered. He removed it and dropped it into his pack.

At least his bleeding had stopped, and the blood seemed to be caking up on the back of his shirt quite nicely, so he didn’t have that uncomfortable wetness anymore.
There
, he thought, darkly cheered.
It’s not all bad
. Sure, his body ached with every step, but the headache that had plagued him in Lord Gilbert’s Windblowne was gone. He could listen to the winds again without fear.

Oliver hurried on. He arrived at the wall and was met with a blast of wind.

He staggered, then found his footing and straightened. Why was there wind here? His eyes roamed over the curve of the wall. Something about its shape must direct
whatever wind leaked in, accelerating it so that it ran around the edges in a powerful stream.

He looked up again, bracing himself, feeling dizzy. The wall seemed to lean over him, impossibly tall. The wind swept around, making an empty, hollow moan.

On top of the wall, something moved.

Oliver whipped his head toward the motion. For an instant, out of the corner of his eye, he thought he had seen someone with long hair, leaning over. If it had been there, it was gone.

“I’m imagining things again,” he whispered to the kite.

The kite offered no opinion.

He smacked his lips, noticing that his throat was parched. He recalled hearing once that blood loss makes you thirsty. The information hadn’t seemed relevant to his life at the time.

He felt something soft snaking around his wrist and yelped.

He slapped at his arm, thinking
Snake!
, then, feeling rather foolish, realized it was only the kite’s tail, which meant—

YANK!

His arm was nearly pulled from its socket—again—
and he found himself being swept upward, out of control, banging against the hard granite as he went. In ten painful seconds he found himself tumbling over the upper edge of the wall; then the pressure on his arm was released, and he was falling. Somehow he was able to turn his body and land semi-gracefully on top of the wall, rolling onto his back. He stared up at the blue sky.
Not bad
, he thought.
I’m getting the hang of that
.

He sat up and looked for his kite.

It lay a few feet away, flat on the stone, rippling faintly in the gentle breeze.

He crawled over to it. “Hey,” he said uncertainly. He gave it a poke but got no response besides the weary ripple. Whatever energy it had used to get him up the wall was completely exhausted. “Thank you,” Oliver whispered. He gathered the kite into his arms and looked around.

The wall curved majestically around the crest, dwindling away to tiny points in both directions. It was about ten feet thick. Everything was quiet, except for a soft hush of wind and a few distant chirps.
At least there are birds here
, Oliver thought. He could guess now why there were no birds on Lord Gilbert’s Windblowne. They had all fled from the hunters.

“Why would they build this wall?” he whispered. The kite lay limply in his hands, unresponsive. And why was he still whispering, he asked himself. Something about this Windblowne made him whisper.

Summoning his courage, he stood and crossed to the other side of the wall, half interested in and half frightened by what he might see.

Below him, spilling down to the distant foothills, was a perfectly normal Windblowne. There were all of the familiar treehouses of neighbors and shops and schoolmates. Tiny dots of townspeople were hurrying along Windswept Way. The light wind brought with it the sounds of a living town—the murmur of voices, the pealing of a water clock as it sounded the half hour, the knocking of hammers as they repaired damage from the winds. He could even see the Volitant Dragon. He smiled. Windblowne had never looked so good.

All seemed well in the town, other than the partly leafless oaks. The effects of Lord Gilbert’s machine were becoming more evident. Oliver could see through bare patches in many of the trees.

“Here’s the plan,” Oliver whispered to the kite. He stopped, then spoke in a normal voice. “Here’s the plan.
I’ll climb down, hurry into town, and find the mayor.” He thought of the mayor complaining about his mother’s sculptures. “No, the mayor is a fool. And the Watch is useless. I’ll find the great-uncle Gilbert from this world and warn him. Maybe he can help.” It was a hasty plan, but it would have to do.

There was also the matter of breakfast. The wind brought with it the smell of food cooking all over the mountain. Oliver felt as though he could eat an entire side of bacon and a few dozen eggs, all by himself. He leaned over the edge and looked down at the dizzying drop. Quickly deciding that he was not willing to jump off and hope the kite could carry him down safely, he began to hunt around for other means of descending. He saw nothing except a few oak branches, swaying gently just within reach.

Like anyone from Windblowne, a few days earlier he would never have considered climbing an oak. It was far too dangerous. But Oliver had done a lot of dangerous things in the past few days, and something as innocuous as descending an oak unaided didn’t seem that perilous any longer.

He removed his pack and fastened the kite to the
kite straps, then hurried along the lonely curve of wall until he found a sturdy branch poking over. He hopped on. The branch swayed under his weight as he wriggled his way to the trunk. Oliver was surprised to discover that tree climbing was rather fun, and not really that dangerous—although he wouldn’t want to be up there during the night winds. He climbed down through the wide-spreading branches. There was no sign of Windswept Way, but he knew that if he muddled down-slope he would come across it soon enough. With the wall blocking the route to his destination, he had no choice but to use the main road.

He crashed through the forest, wading through mounds of oak leaves.

He had not been crashing for long before he heard familiar, unpleasant voices. Voices that made him want to retreat into the trees. He braced himself. “I’ve got nothing to be scared of,” he whispered to the kite. “I’ve been through worse than this.”

He peeked out from behind the nearest oak. He saw a duplicate Marcus and a duplicate Alain and a few other nasty faces from school. They were shuffling along oddly, heads down, as though they had not noticed the beautiful
day. A few were looking up worriedly at the oaks. There was no duplicate Oliver among them—and why would there be? Oliver was never welcome among their counterparts in his own Windblowne. Looking up and down the Way, he saw a few other Windblownians, mostly adults, shuffling, oblivious to midsummer and to the fact that there ought to be a Festival going on.

But of course, there was no Festival here. Not with that wall.

Maybe this is a bad idea
, Oliver thought uneasily. But he had to brave the town sooner or later.

Steeling himself, he stepped onto the Way.

Oliver expected the usual laughs and ridicule. Instead, the group stared at him in surprise. “Hey!” Marcus said. “Who are you?”

The plan was not going well.

“Uh,” said Oliver, thinking fast. “I’m Oliver One—I mean, I’m Oliver.”

There was a collective gasp. “Don’t be a jerk,” Marcus snapped, balling one hand into a fist. Alain joined him, looking just as angry.

“That’s not funny,” said Alain. “Whoever you are, you’d better get off our mountain.”

Marcus and Alain closed in, fists up. Oliver backed away, congratulating himself on his brilliant strategy.

“Sorry,” he pleaded, waving his hands defensively, “I, uh …” He turned to run.

There was another collective gasp; then a voice from the back of the group squeaked, “A KITE!”

Oliver turned back in surprise. Marcus and Alain were retreating, and now it was their hands that were waving in defense.

That’s better
, thought Oliver. He slipped the kite from its straps and held it high. “Yes, it’s a kite!” he announced.

“Do you like it?” He whooshed the kite dramatically around his head.

The response was a satisfying scattering of his tormentors. One or two of them screamed. “We’re telling the Watch!” Marcus yelped, and ran.

Oliver watched as they disappeared down the Way.
That
, he thought,
was the weirdest thing yet
. He held up the kite for inspection. “How did you do that?” he asked. “You need to teach me that trick.” The kite seemed to shiver—or was it the wind?

Oliver chuckled at the thought of the others alerting the Watch. Was he supposed to be scared? He had faced
killer hunters and mad geniuses. The Watch was no threat to him. By the time those fat old men finished their ample breakfasts and puffed their way up the mountain, he would have had plenty of time to get to Great-uncle Gilbert’s treehouse on this world.

As for getting to the treehouse … He looked around. The Way had emptied. Oliver was not sure what was going on here, but clearly he stuck out in his flying clothes. There was no help for that, but he had to make his way around a bit more carefully. He’d have to abandon the Way, and stick to the forest, and—

“HALT!” a powerful voice shouted. “Halt in the name of the Windblowne Watch!”

Oliver whirled around.

A group of men were running up the Way—young, strong men. They reached him before he could recover from his shock. Oliver recognized them all. In his own Windblowne, each of them was a promising young flier, the kind of man who hoped to be a champion someday. But here they were dressed in the uniforms of the Watch.

The Watchmen circled him, keeping a wary distance.

“Listen!” Oliver said quickly. “I know what’s wrong with the oaks. I—”

One of the men was wearing captain’s colors. “Drop the kite!” he ordered.

“But—”

“Drop it!” shouted the captain. He stepped closer, a hand moving to his hip. Oliver saw that he was carrying a club.

Everything was silent but for wind caressing the oaks and, far off, a swallow’s sudden cry.

“Yes, sir,” said Oliver meekly. “Sorry,” he whispered to the kite as he set it carefully on the ground.

“Now step away!” the captain ordered, his muscles bulging authoritatively under his uniform. Unlike the rumpled uniforms of the Watch in Oliver’s Windblowne, these men’s outfits were crisp and pressed and fit perfectly.

Oliver thought they were being a little silly but felt it would be better not to tell them this. He stepped away from the kite.

The captain looked around at the other Watchmen. “Bear,” he said to the largest and strongest-looking. “Get the kite.”

“Uh, captain,” Bear said, “I’m not touching that thing.” Murmurs of agreement came from the other Watchmen.

The captain grimaced. “Right,” he said. “We’ll ask the mayor what to do. For now, go to the Goldspar Inn and get a blanket. Toss it over the kite and weigh it down with rocks. We’ll deal with it later.”

“Good idea, captain!” said Bear, obviously relieved. He ran down the Way.

The captain turned back to Oliver. “You!” he thundered. “You must be from the valley! You think this is some kind of joke?”

“No, sir,” Oliver squeaked, “I—”

“That’s what I thought!” the captain shouted. “Seize him!”

Oliver was seized. Powerful hands grabbed his arms.

“March him down to headquarters,” ordered the captain.

And down the mountain they marched. That is, the Watchmen marched. Oliver dangled. He was hoisted between two of the men and carried off, his feet kicking futilely. Soon they had passed around the first bend and left the kite entirely behind.

This wasn’t good at all
.

Oliver recovered his wits. He was a wind-traveling hero, and he wouldn’t be manhandled by a bunch of thugs. “Put me down!” he yelled.

The captain shook his head grimly.

“I said,” shouted Oliver, taking a deep breath, “put me down! I haven’t done anything!”

The captain rolled his eyes and nodded. The Watchmen released Oliver, and he tumbled to the ground.

“Men,” growled the captain, “if the prisoner makes one more sound, gag him.”

One of the Watchmen shoved him. “Keep moving!” the shover ordered.

Oliver craned his neck, spotting the Volitant Dragon,
built high in its oak, just like at home. But unlike at home, he didn’t see colorful banners flapping in the breeze or excited children with new handvanes running around its balconies. Instead, there were boarded-up windows, peeling paint, and doors hanging off their hinges. The wooden dragon was still swinging from its post, but it had been painted over, roughly, in peeling brown, and read, in crude letters:
CLOSED
.

A Watchman shoved him forward. “I said keep moving!”

Oliver twisted. “It’s the Eighth Day of the Second Moon!”

“You’re a smart one,” the Watchman sneered. “Where’s my gag?” the captain muttered, patting his pockets.

Oliver couldn’t help himself. “What happened to the Dragon? Why isn’t there any Festival?”