At the bottom of the hill, Ki took off the wheel brake. She was amazed it had held. She let the team stand for a short time; their sides worked in and out with their breathing. Sigmund dropped his head down nearly to his knees; Sigurd’s heavy mane was streaming out in a grey sheaf. Ki’s own hair was twisted into a braid and trapped inside her hood. She leaned off the seat to look back up the cliff road they had come down in the roaring wind. The wind still felt as if it might blow her wagon over, but at least now it would not bounce down a cliff face if it fell. The Windsinger’s voice was a pure thread of sound in the wind’s rough weaving.
She squinted her eyes against the wind’s lash and picked up the reins. Two heavy slaps were required before the horses grudgingly began to move. The team was finished, and Ki nearly so. But she must get to the lights of False Harbor and find them a shelter for the night. The team needed a dry stable out of the wind, and she needed a warm bath and a hot meal. Much as she disliked inns, she’d be glad to find one tonight.
She pushed on. The wind was a living thing with a rapacious appetite, a beast out to destroy anything that moved against its will. It snatched at her clothing, and snapped and fluttered the horses’ manes and tails. Ki clenched her jaw against it. She had known there would be a sung wind here this night. After her recent dealings with Windsingers, she feared them more and respected them less. The winds were only extensions of their own fickle moods, subject to all the vagaries of pride and the distractions of personal power struggles. They would rip this little village off its foundations and fling it into the sea with no more thought than she gave to driving her team over an anthill. Somewhere tonight, Vandien was opposing the will of the Windsingers, daring the full brunt of their power. She cursed herself again. She should have talked him out of this. She should have offered to let him use the team, and then come to False Harbor too late. But she had told him it was all a joke, a charade. This wind was no charade.
Ki could not forget the bait that had drawn him here. To lift the scar from his face! An impossible thing, an offer only a fool would believe. But Vandien wasn’t a fool; he was only a man trapped into a fool’s act by a hidden hunger: to have his own face back.
She tried to remember what he had looked like before he was scarred. The image was vague. She had a blurred memory of the night he had appeared in her camp, attempting to steal her horses; he had been so starved and weak that she had easily wrestled him to the ground. She remembered thinking he was handsome in a ragged way, but she had felt little attraction to him. She hadn’t wanted any man then, hadn’t had any love left to give after the Harpies had taken the lives of her beloved husband and children and then come after her own. She had agreed with reluctance to let Vandien ride with her team out of the mountain wilderness near the Pass of the Sisters. When the Harpies finally caught up to her, it was Vandien, not Ki, who fell before those gruesome claws; Vandien who carried the physical scars of that battle. She had never really seen what it had done to him; not until now. It had taken Dresh to throw it into her face.
She had been more than insensitive. She had been callous. She had felt guilty about the pain it gave him on cold days. She had regretted it being there, so visible a reminder of that battle. But it had not mattered to her. It had not affected her feelings for him, had never made her see him as anything less than Vandien. The scar that divided his face was no more to her than a splash of mud upon his cloak, or a rent in his leggings. It was a minor detail, subtracting nothing from the man. But how had it seemed to him? Ki saw it now, in her mind’s eyes; a jagged rent down his face, always paler or redder than the rest of his face. She thought of the innkeepers and hostlers who casually called him Scar, in the same way they called her Teamster. More than once she had noticed children peering up at him wide-eyed, curious, but too shy to ask about the strange mark down his face. He was still as quick spirited as he had been when she first met him, but had his humor always had such dark edges? She had no way of knowing. That Vandien had scarred his face for her was bad enough. That his life should be scarred as well was unbearable.
Ki found the inn more by the sounds and lights than by the sign swinging in the wind. Snatches of song and rags of laughter carried through the wind’s roar. She turned her team into the alley. The inn broke the worst of the wind from them. The sudden cessation of its constant roar was like awakening from sleep. Ki’s cheeks stung from the wind’s caresses. She found her lantern and managed to kindle it.
The stiff leather and heavy buckles resisted her chilled fingers, but the harness finally dropped away from the team. Behind the inn was a building, more shed than stable. A lone cow turned rebuking brown eyes on her as she opened the door to admit her team and the windstorm. She hung her lantern from the hook and turned her team loose in the shed. It was not intended for such massive beasts. There were no stalls, but there was plenty of hay heaped in a loft. She shook some down for them, left them loose in the shed and made her way back to the inn.
The sounds ebbed as she stepped within. Ki thought at first it was the result of the blast of wind that came in with her, but as eyes scanned her and turned away, conversation resumed. ‘Not the teamster yet,’ she heard a woman remark. ‘You’ll have to give him credit for making an honest try, Berni, even if he isn’t much to look at.’ The chance words squeezed Ki’s heart. Not much to look at. A slow anger nibbled at her as she pushed her way through to the fire. The worst of this, she thought, was that it made her think too much.
Her relationship with Vandien had been a thing that had happened, a pleasure accepted as casually as clean water and fair weather. The give and take of it had been natural, the cares and restrictions of it balanced by the camaraderie and the sharing. That was all gone now. She asked herself now what that relationship had cost Vandien, and she looked at the debts of it. Even the finest jewelry will have a flaw, if one looks at it closely enough. Once she had found every nick and scratch in their partnership, would she ever easily enjoy it again?
This had to be the innmaster, pushing up to her through the crowd. He looked down on Ki from his height, and she stared up at him. The black hair on his arms matched that raked scantily over his head. Grey-blue eyes were frankly puzzled by her.
‘We didn’t expect strangers this night. Few come to our town during Temple Ebb Wind. What can I bring you?’
Ki found a smile and plastered it on her face. ‘Anything hot to drink you may have, Innmaster. I’ve already taken the liberty of putting my team in your cow shed, to get them out of this storm. Hope you don’t mind that. I actually came seeking a friend of mine, with whom I was to meet here. Vandien?’
The Innmaster raised his eyebrows. ‘Vandien. That’d be our teamster – about so tall, with a scar down the middle of his face, right?’
Helti saw the woman’s face spasm as if with sudden pain. ‘Yes. Is he about?’
Helti smiled. ‘He should soon be. No one lasts long in a storm like this. Killian surprised us all. To think that a little slip of a Windsinger like her could bring up a storm like this. We haven’t seen an Ebb Wind like this, for, oh, must be close to five Temple Ebbs. Such a merry, friendly little thing, so close to Human you might forget what she was. And then she sings up a storm like this. Surprised us all, but the teamster most of all, I’ll wager.’
‘I’ll wager,’ Ki agreed grimly. ‘Where will I find him, then?’
‘In the Windsingers’ sunken temple, but you’ve no need to go out in this wind. Nor wish to, either, I suppose. The tide has turned. Water will be rising, and they’ll be headed in by now. You needn’t worry about him forgetting the dangers of the tide. He’ll be more than ready to come in by now, and Janie is with him. Whatever else Janie is, she’s fisherfolk, and she won’t forget a tide. She knows how it rips in over the flats when it comes. I’d be surprised if they weren’t already wading back by now. It’ll take them a while, in this wind. Sit a bit, and have a hot mug of spiced wine, and wait them out. There’s rare fine food from the kitchen this night, hearty as well as the sweets. If you’re the teamster’s friend, I’ll put your bill with his, and you’ll both owe naught tomorrow. Damme if he hasn’t surprised us all with his spunk. It’s little enough he’s asked from us. We’ll be kind to his friend, if he won’t let us be generous with him. Sit down, now.’ The innmaster smelled of his own spiced wine. His generosity to himself was making him generous with his words and his goods.
Ki rubbed her face wearily. The warmth from the fire was finally beginning to reach her. Her clothes felt steamy against her skin. She could just stay here and wait for him. She did not need to go back out in that windstorm. To do so would be a meaningless gesture. But she felt like making gestures tonight. Vandien might not find it so meaningless.
‘I’ll take the spiced wine, Innmaster. But then I think I’ll go out to meet Vandien.’
‘Well, if you’re so insistent, I suppose you’ll have your way.’
‘I suppose I will,’ Ki agreed.
The heated wine warmed her hands, and then her whole body. Helti’s directions were simple. The others were too caught up in their own holiday to pay much attention to the stranger. Ki pushed the door open against the wind, and stumbled down the narrow streets, buffeted by the storm. Her boots discovered every rut and pothole. She wished in vain for a lantern that would stay lit in this storm.
The unfamiliar road stretched into the darkness. She could hear the boom and crash of waves eager to reclaim the beach. The wind whistled past her and the Windsinger sang on. The beach came into view, white frilled waves dashing up the dark sands and falling back in a lace of foam. Rising fast. Ki walked out to the incoming edge and stood.
‘Vandien!’ she called loudly. The wind blew her voice landward. She strained her eyes until she saw the dark hulk of the Windsingers’ temple. ‘Vandien!’ she shouted again.
She put one boot in the water. A wave grabbed her foot threateningly, and slid a cold hand up her calf. Sand slid away from under her. So damn cold and so damn wet. ‘And so damn stubborn!’ she yelled at Vandien, wherever in hell he was. Angrily she sloshed out toward the temple, struggling through rising water. Past her knees it rose, coldly familiar, up to her hips, and then waist high, and still she was wading. The shape of the temple resolved itself into jagged walls against the sky. The water crept up her ribs. Every wave she met threatened to lift her off her feet. The wind dashed sea water into her face. Her hood streamed water in a trickle down her cheek and down the back of her neck. ‘Vandien!’ she screamed, expecting no answer.
‘Vandien!’
It was either an echo or someone mocking her from within the temple. Ki was not positive she had heard it; perhaps it was only a trick of the wind through the ruins. She pushed on, half swimming through each incoming wave. The crumpled wall of the temple loomed above her, and she caught a sudden promise of light from within; only a glimpse, but it showed her the portal of the temple. Unfortunately, the bottom seemed to drop deeper between her and that portal. She set her teeth and plunged through the water. Her clothes dragged at her; she should have left her boots on shore. But she was within the temple at least. She tried to tread water and get her bearings, but her boots suddenly rasped against a floor. Thank the moon the temple was higher within than without. She could stand again, though the suck and push of water through the portal sought to sweep her balance from her. The light she had glimpsed was gone.
Again she heard a voice. ‘Vandien!’
A dim flash of light broke from beyond two standing pillars. ‘Vandien!’ Ki echoed, plunging toward the light.
A sodden child hunched shivering on a makeshift raft. A lantern was burning out beside her. Her colorless hair was slicked to her skull, and her clothes ran water. She turned a startled face on Ki at her call. A look almost of anger, or jealousy, crossed her face. She squared her shoulders at Ki, revealing the thrust of young breasts against her smock. Ki wondered at her presence here, but had no time to worry about it.
‘Where is he?’ she demanded, advancing through the whirling water.
‘Who are you?’ countered the woman on the raft.
‘Ki. Where is Vandien?’
Janie glared at her. ‘He went down there.’ She managed to make her shout sullen.
Ki’s eyes followed where she pointed. Dark water met her gaze. Fear squeezed her, colder than the sea around her. Anger surged up in her for this woman who pointed so coldly at the water and said Vandien was down there. She wanted to throttle her and make her scream out when, why, and what in hell he was doing down there, but she had no time. The cold water mocked her, sucking at her limbs as she tried to hurry over to where the girl had pointed. When one of her boots suddenly met only water, Ki rocked back, shivering. Janie quailed before her look.
‘He followed the rope down! His team went down there!’ Janie suddenly volunteered. Her eyes denied any guilt.
‘His team?’ It made no sense, but sense didn’t matter. He had been down there too long. Ki groped along the fallen stone, following the rope. It was tight to her touch. He must still be at the end of it. With a shudder of horror and fear, she drew in a shaking breath and stepped down into black water.
Coldness pressed inside her ears, tried to sneak up her nose. She stared blankly into the watery darkness. She forced herself down another step. It changed nothing. Gripping the rope with both hands, she took a third step down.
A glancing blow swept the side of her head. She staggered from the impact and nearly lost her breath, but not her grip on the rope. She tried not to wonder what was in this blackness with her. Flesh-eating fish, perhaps? She couldn’t change that. She pulled hard at the line, hoping to feel an answering tug, but it remained taut. It could be snagged on something below. She did not believe Vandien could be holding it so tight; not after being under so long. She could not see him, she could not call him. If Vandien had chosen to come down this way, it was the last choice he had ever made. Ki’s eyes stung with salt water. She backed up a step.
Again she felt a turbulence, and something brushed her shoulder. But there was less energy to the movement now. As it passed, she felt the rasp of cloth on her cheek. Ki grabbed.
She lost the steps, but not the rope. She would not loose her grip from that. The leg she seized gave a feeble kick and was still. A hand brushed her hood and caught in the cloth there. In the darkness she trapped the leg between her chest and arm and again gripped the rope with both hands. The leg was limp against her, but the hand held on. Stay with me, she thought desperately as air tried to press out of her lips. Hang on. She fumbled her way back up the rope.
She felt his weight on her back, and then a hand caught at her burden as she emerged from the water. Janie had an awkward grasp on his shoulder and was heaving ineffectually at his limp weight. Ki caught him at the hips and tumbled him up onto the raft, nearly upsetting the lantern and putting the top of the raft awash. Water streamed from him. Breath burst out of him with a spray of water. He snorted and choked feebly, without even enough energy to drive the water from his mouth. Janie was paralyzed. Ki glared at her, but Janie was unaware of it. She stared at Vandien as if at an unfamiliar fish. Ki reached up and grabbed one of Vandien’s shoulders, to roll him to face her. She could find no words to speak, nor breath to say them. She drew gasp after gasp deep into her own lungs. Vandien sputtered again, and coughed, this time with more energy. One eyelid slid open. He regarded Ki miserably.
‘I nearly drowned down there.’ His calm voice barely reached Ki. He would have used the same tone to complain about a badly rutted road.
‘I noticed that,’ she heard herself reply conversationally.
Vandien’s lips sneered up and she thought he would choke again. But after a couple of gasps, he began to laugh. He tried to sit up, but could not. His laughter was broken by coughing. Ki found herself grinning as she gripped his shoulders by the baggy smock. Janie stared at both of them, not comprehending that survival was the most basic joke of all. When he could no longer laugh, he lay motionless on the raft, still smiling and coughing intermittently. Ki glanced up at the solemn-faced young woman. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she suggested. She put her weight against the raft, pushing it toward the portal.
‘We can’t!’ Janie’s voice went raw and high.
Ki’s glance shot to the portal, but there was still enough space to push through it. The raft might scrape on the tapering sides of the arch, and Janie would have to duck low. But they’d make it.
‘We haven’t finished!’ Janie’s cry was outraged. ‘We can’t go yet. We haven’t found the chest of the Windsingers.’ Ki received these words with a cold look. She continued to lean against the raft, moving it along. Janie turned on Vandien. ‘If we leave now, teamster, you haven’t succeeded. You haven’t earned your fee and you’ve lost your team. Think on that, Vandien! No team! No money! And you’ll wear that scar to the end of your days. Forever!’
‘He would in any case.’ Ki kept her voice low, but it carried through the wind. ‘Why not offer an impossible reward for an impossible task? Maybe next Temple Ebb it will be a mountain of gold.’
‘It’s not impossible! It’s not!’ Janie grabbed at Vandien, shaking him. He was powerless to resist her. Her shaking flopped him about like a rag doll. ‘Srolan would never offer the impossible. And the chest is here! It is! My grandfather saw it. He held it in his own hands.’
‘Leave him alone!’ Ki roared. Her green eyes flashed as with a back-handed blow she struck Janie’s hands away from her friend. ‘Isn’t half-drowning him enough to please you? Do you have to keep on tormenting him with offers of what can’t be? Not finished here? You came damn near to finishing him anywhere!’
Even in the dim lantern light, Ki could see the rush of blood to Janie’s face. Her eyes distended, her hands became claws. Ki did not flinch, but she tightened her muscles in preparation for the attack she was sure would come. But only hard words pelted against her, screamed out in a voice shriller than the wind. ‘You know what it is, Vandien? She doesn’t want that scar lifted from your face. It marks you as hers. She knows that while you wear it, she need fear no rival, for no other woman would look at you. She came out here to stop you!’
Sickness swept Ki. Vandien reared his body up between them, dragging himself to a crouch. His black hair hung dripping on his forehead. The yellow lamplight made his skin sallow. His scar was a brand and his mouth a puckered slash. He turned accusing eyes on Ki. For one rending instant, Ki supposed that he believed Janie’s accusation. ‘Can’t leave my team!’ he gasped out. He shook his head, scattering drops of salt water into the wind. ‘Got to get those skeel out, Ki! Four of them, and that’s four more than I can afford.’
‘Skeel?’ Ki was incredulous. ‘You brought a team of skeel out in salt water?’
‘Why not?’ Vandien was visibly recovering. He held himself between Janie and Ki, using his body to block the tensions that hummed between them. ‘They seemed to like fresh water well enough.’
Ki laughed. She roared with laughter, and began again to push the raft toward the temple portal. Vandien coughed and stared at her. Janie was silent and sullen. A slow puzzled smile began to dawn over his face. ‘Tell!’ he demanded. ‘What in hell is so damn funny?’
‘Skeel!’ Ki choked out the word. ‘In fresh water they soak up moisture reserves. Makes them frisky, and gives them a lot of stamina. But in salt water …’ Ki dissolved in helpless laughter. Vandien leaned forward, his dark face on a level with her own. He kept trying to smooth out his face and be solemn, but a smile kept tugging at the corners of his mouth. ‘In salt water,’ Ki gasped out at last, ‘they go into rut. They go as deep as they can, twine together in a knot and mate. For hours! Days, sometimes! They don’t stop until they’re all mutually fertilized. Then they’ll come up and head for the open sea.’ Another bubble of laughter from her. ‘Don’t worry about them, Vandien. We’ll come back for them at the next low tide. They’ll be fine until then. In fact, they’ll enjoy themselves immensely. Most teams seldom get a chance to mate.’
Vandien grinned feebly and swung his legs off the raft. ‘I don’t need help,’ Ki protested, but he only nodded toward the portal. An incoming wave lifted Ki off her feet and for an instant filled the portal. As the waves gushed out again, the water sucked at the raft. Vandien and Ki braced to keep from being dragged into the swirling water.
‘Jump off, Janie!’ Vandien called. ‘We’re all going to get wet going through that portal.’
Janie didn’t move. Her head came up, eyes narrowed. ‘I’m not leaving. And you aren’t taking my raft, nor my lantern. You may not have the courage to see this through, but I do. I won’t leave until I have the Windsingers’ chest.’
‘Or until you die?’ Vandien asked.
‘Or that.’ Janie spoke in a lull of wind, and her voice was flat.
‘Leave her,’ Ki suggested. Her stubbornness seemed the whim of a spoiled child, and Ki had no intention of indulging it.
‘Wait,’ Vandien interceded, but Ki pointed at the portal. The lintel disappeared at the height of each wave. As the water receded, only a sliver of door showed.
‘Time and tide wait on no one, Vandien. It’s a long cold swim back to shore. I don’t think you’d make it. Our only hope is to get out of here before the water gets deeper.’
Vandien nodded at Ki, and made a gesture that hushed her. He turned to Janie. ‘We’re going now, Janie. There’s no hope of finding the chest now. The water’s too deep and it’s too dark. So you’ll stay and die, and your legend will die with you. The village will remember your family as drunks and liars, and you as a fool. There’s your little sister, of course, but she can grow up sweeping out the ashes of Helti’s fires. She’ll survive. Many children grow up on less. And each Temple Ebb to come will mean a little less. Teamster will become a meaningless title. Ebb will be when the jugglers come to entertain, and a Windsinger graciously performs for your village. That might be a good thing. Maybe it’s time to end this ridiculous custom. The village would be wiser to forget the past and go on to other things. Your dying might be a very good thing.’
Halfway through this speech, her face had crumpled, but Vandien pressed inexorably on. The veneer of womanhood cracked; the child’s eyes welled angry tears that mingled with the salt spray on her face. Without a sound she swung off the raft and clung to the edge beside them. Ki took breath for a sarcastic remark, but Vandien’s look stopped her.
‘Let’s go,’ he said, his deep voice cutting under the wind to reach them. They braced for a moment against the incoming wave. As the wave retreated and swirling water sucked at the raft, they pushed off. The raft was caught up like a bobbing cork. Their treading feet found no purchase. The raft sought the portal of the temple and wedged in it. The arched top of the portal was not wide enough for the raft to fit through it. ‘Put some weight on it!’ Vandien yelled, hoping to sink it down to where it could pass. But it was too late. A fresh wave surged into the temple and they clung to the raft as it was pushed away from the door. They whirled, their feet no longer finding bottom. The wind shrieked with laughter.
‘It’s too late.’ Janie’s voice was soft and hopeless. The portal was no longer visible. The water sloshed and rose within the temple, but the hole it entered by was covered. As if in sympathy with their hopes, the lantern flared once and went dark. Ki felt sick. ‘Too far to swim. Too cold,’ she whispered. The others couldn’t hear her. But they already knew.
Vandien dragged himself back onto the raft. Ki did not blame him. She had not been out here as long as he had, nor had she been half-drowned. But her strength was draining, and Vandien must be at the dregs of his.
The black sky flecked with stars taunted them. Frills of froth were white within the temple, but little else showed. Ki clung to the water-slick logs of the raft. She could feel Janie beside her. Neither kicked anymore. They would save their strength until they had cause to struggle.
‘What are you doing?’ Ki asked as Vandien hunched in the center of the raft. Vibrations traveled through the logs, but before he answered, the raft went suddenly to pieces.
‘Grab the log!’ she heard Vandien scream, and then she went under. She came up sputtering in cold darkness. Luck bumped the log against her shoulder and panic helped her clutch it. ‘Vandien! Janie!’ she yelled. The dark pressed down on her. ‘Here!’ came a voice from the end of the log. The log jarred as Janie came up beside her. A flung rope slapped Ki in the face. She managed to catch it before it trailed off into the water.
‘We should be able to force a single log down and through the portal!’ Vandien yelled. ‘If we keep roped together, we should make it back to shore.’
‘If we can find the portal!’ Janie yelled back. Ki silently agreed. Her ducking had confused her, and the whirling water had finished the job. She was not even sure which wall the door was in. ‘Just follow!’ Vandien shouted. He said no more, but began to push against the log. Ki tried to kick in the same direction. For a moment Janie just trailed in the water beside her; then Ki felt her begin to kick.
The water eddied and swirled. Ki couldn’t see where they were. The wind held them back, howling with laughter. She could no longer separate the sound of the wind from the voice of the Windsinger. Both were full of cold mockery and power. Abruptly the log jarred against a wall.
‘I can feel the door with my foot!’ Vandien shouted. Ki could feel his movement but could not tell what he was doing. ‘I’ve got the rope knotted to the log,’ he shouted. ‘I’m going to dive down and through the door, and take an end of the rope with me. When you feel me pull, force the end of the log down, and I’ll try to pull it through. But keep an end of the rope with you. When the log is through, dive and follow. Keep a grip on the rope.’
Ki nodded idiotically, then stopped when she realized no one could see her. ‘Be careful!’ she called.
‘He’s gone,’ Janie said. The two women clung to the log in the swirling water. Ki strained every sense, trying to feel some tug that would be Vandien’s, and not just the push of the sea. Long moments burned away, and she felt nothing. ‘He must be through by now,’ she yelled to Janie. The jerk came like the tug of a fish on a line. The end of the log bobbed. Together Janie and Ki moved to put weight on it, to push it down below the surface until they felt it jogged away from their grip.
Vandien fought the shivering that tried to convulse his body. One could not shiver and swim. He tried to forget the pangs from his face that numbed his nose and burned between his eyes. He braced his feet against the outer wall of the temple and heaved on the line. He felt first the buoyancy of the log, and then the scraping as it edged through the portal. He went under again as it came bobbing suddenly free, bursting up from the water nearly under him. He swam up and clung to it, waiting for the women to swim through.
Janie came up quickly and Ki followed. They clung gasping to the log, feeling the unimpeded strength of the wind outside the temple walls. At least the waves favored them now. The tide was racing in over the flats. It helped them push their log toward shore. Vandien forced his head up and began to kick feebly. No one had the strength to speak, but he felt the efforts of the others as they joined in. Far away the few lights of the village shone like yellow stars. He wondered if any of them thought of Janie and him, out in the water and wind. What did they hope for? That both would drown, and put an end to the troublesome girl? Did any besides Srolan hope he’d return with the chest? Just as well that they didn’t. Fewer would be disappointed.
There was a muffled cry from Ki, and then Vandien’s feet also scraped bottom. A few more kicks and they were able to plant their feet securely. Janie alone made no glad sound. ‘Your sister will be glad to see you alive!’ Vandien tried to cheer her.
‘Helti will have sent her off to bed hours ago,’ she replied dully.
They staggered up on shore. Vandien sank down, gathering strength. But the wind continued to howl mercilessly; it could not forgive them for having escaped the sea. The chill of their garments soaked into their bones. Vandien felt the weight of the water and hanging wool as he arose. Ki came up beside him, fitting comfortably under his arm. He laughed softly at the solid touch of her against him. They had come through alive again. He reached for Janie in a hug, but she shrugged him away. Dark emotions radiated from her. She would have nothing from them, not even the human comfort of companionship. She staggered to her feet and limped away from them. He and Ki were able to keep her in sight until she turned into the door of a dark cottage, smaller than most in the village. The wooden door thumped behind her.
‘Vandien?’ Ki began softly, but ‘It would take more than an evening to explain,’ he said. Ki let it drop.
The wind was less in the town among the houses. The darkness still pressed upon them and the slinking cold peeled the warmth of their bodies away. Another cold welled up inside Vandien, rising to fill him. Janie was gone now; he and Ki were two, as they had been so often before. But there was a difference. Janie’s wild words in the ruined temple came and fluttered darkly between them. Ki knew why he had risked all for this ridiculous quest. He was not sure how he felt about his own actions, but he could think of a dozen reactions Ki could have to them. None of them were appealing.
‘How’s your face?’ she asked, suddenly but softly.
‘Ugly,’ he replied, telling her in that word things he had never said before. They did not speak the rest of the way to the inn, but her arm slipped about his waist and held him firmly.
Ki dragged the inn door open against the push of the wind. It slammed it shut again behind them. Sudden warmth and silence greeted them. Fisherfolk sprawled on benches and stools. Half-drained mugs rested on tables before them. Platters held scraps and crusts and crumbs in untidy heaps. Helti was warming his broad backside at his own hearth. He found his tongue. ‘So you made it back alive!’ His words were friendly if drunken.
‘Aye. And Janie, too.’ Vandien dropped his words into the silence, speaking more to Collie with his muted harp than to anyone else. Perhaps Collie nodded slightly, or maybe he was only resisting drowsiness.
‘Well, Janie would. It would take more than a Windsinger and a storm to dampen that one. She’d be a fine woman, if her deeds matched her tongue.’
Vandien bit his lips to keep back a sour reply. It would do no good. The mumble of conversation was rising again. Most of the drinkers were too far gone in their cups to be much interested in his return. But Berni called loudly for a drink, ‘For the teamster and his friend.’ ‘And tell us the tale of your night!’ called another from a far table. A young fisherman by the fire seconded the request. Fisherfolk cleared a bench for them. Vandien sat gratefully. He reached and caught Ki’s wrist, pulled her down with a tug to sit beside him. He felt her uneasiness. Left to herself, she would go to her wagon, or straight to his room above. Inns and strangers never appealed to her. Tonight that was truer than ever.
When they sat, their wet clothes streamed water onto the benches and floor. The fisherfolk paid it no heed. Ki shivered and drew closer to Vandien, as much for the comfort of his presence as for warmth. He pushed his curls back from his face and summoned up a grin. It sent ripples of pain through his scar, but he nailed it in place. Helti placed hot mugs of brew before them.
‘Well, you’ve paid me well with your hospitality and your songs. I haven’t brought the chest of the Windsingers back to you. The least I can do is give you the tale of how I failed. Right, Ki?’ He jogged her elbow.
‘Right!’ she echoed, with a venomous smile for him. He’d best keep it short, he knew. Ki was full of words for him. The longer she honed them, the sharper they’d be. She reached for her mug and drank deep. Vandien reached up to his throat. Long habit made him lift his story-string from around his neck and loop it over his fingers. It did not matter that these folk could not understand the symbols he would weave as he spoke; he could no more tell a story without weaving it on his string than Ki could look at a horse and not guess its price. He looked down at his hands, at the twisting his fingers had put in the string, and frowned. It hung there, the crooked web that stood for scar, maim, disfigure, ruin. A snap of his fingers made the string back to a loop again. He reached and took a long swallow from his mug. It stung his nostrils and warmed the length of his gullet.
‘Come on, teamster!’ someone called, and Vandien sent a smile around the room. So they thought he kept silent to tease them to attention. Let them.
‘How shall I start?’ he asked them rhetorically. He glanced at Ki, who held her mug aloft for a refill. ‘Let me ask you this. Did you folk know what an amorous beast a skeel is? Did you know of the hidden stairwell in the temple of the Windsingers? Have you ever marked how the kneeling Windsinger over the fallen altar watches one with a tear at the corner of her eye? How her hands seem to rise and fall with the waves that kiss them?’
He had them. With a few questions, Vandien had them in silence, hanging on his tale, as if the temple he spoke of was not at their doorsteps, but a mystic place a legend away. Ki listened to him, and watched his flying fingers as he wove for them a tale full of omens and misfortune, spiced here and there with knowing laughter. Vandien made himself the fool, the teamster who came not knowing of the trickiness of the task. To Janie he gave the role of courageous village girl who saves the foolish teamster at the last possible moment. Ki listened silently as he gave every fact the twist it needed to tickle the villagers’ vanity most. He painted them in their best colors, a doughty folk who braved the treacherous seas that bewildered and awed a simple teamster like himself. Even Ki found herself smiling at his words as he described how his own team had nearly dragged him to his death. And if he gave Janie the credit for pulling him back from the water’s grip, Ki did not begrudge it. She knew what he was trying to do, and knew that he could not succeed at it. The village would not see Janie as a plucky young woman, no matter how Vandien turned the story. He might temporarily soften their feelings for her, but he could not change how they thought of her.
‘And so here I am, alive but wet!’ he was winding it up. ‘And if I haven’t a stack of gold coins to show for it, at least I’ve the experience. I’ll never hear a man tell me what an easy life fishingfolk have without knowing he’s never braved the sea. And that’s a good bit of knowledge to have, worth as much to a man as a purse full of coin.’ With a grin, Vandien snapped his string back into a loop. He settled it over his head again, and drained his cooling mug.
‘Another drink!’ called Berni, but Vandien shook his head.
‘We’re for bed,’ he replied, rising slowly from the table.
‘Let the woman stay!’ A guttural voice called from a back table. ‘She shouldn’t have to climb in beside you until the light’s out, teamster!’
That got a general laugh. Ki narrowed her green eyes, and parted her lips to speak, but Vandien caught hold of her shoulder and gave it a squeeze that silenced her. With a knowing smile, he turned the taunt, saying, ‘Not Ki. She’s a wise one, and knows that handsome is as handsome does.’
‘I’ll wager the fisherwomen know the same,’ Ki added tartly. ‘For I see that you drink alone, fisherman!’
The laughter was turned upon the man at the back table now. The sound of it followed them to the base of the stairs that loomed before them. It took an inordinate amount of time to climb them. Vandien’s pace and steadiness were no better than that of the revelers in the room below. Ki slipped a hand under his arm. She found him trembling with weariness and cold, but he pulled away from her support. They reached the landing at the head of the stairs. Vandien turned and gave her a smile that rippled his scar but did not reach his eyes.
They stood like strangers in the semi-darkness on the landing. All the words that Ki had prepared since Dresh had told her how Vandien had been baited here were suddenly ashes on her tongue. She thought of the days and miles they had traveled together, the times when it seemed that Vandien knew the thoughts of her head before she voiced them. She had found comfort in their long silences. She had thought that Vandien shared that comfort. In those long evenings when they had ridden in silence but for the sounds of the horses’ hooves meeting the road, when Ki had been watching the fir trees turn from green to purple against a darkening sky, what had been in his mind? When they swayed together on the hard seat, their shoulders jogging companionably against one another to the rhythm of the greys’ pace, had his thoughts turned to his marred face and wondered why it had to be? A cold winter memory came to her. She had wakened in the darkness of the cuddy, jarred from sleep by a dream whose ending she could not abide. When she opened her eyes, the moon was shining in the small window. Her pale light touched the objects in the cuddy without giving detail to any of them. Vandien had rolled away from her and was sleeping on his back. The moon silvered the skin of his face, making him look like a very old carving of yellowed ivory. The proud jut of his jaw and the straight line of his nose were sharply delineated, but his eye hollows were filled with blackness. His still features were an empty-eyed mask, a mocking cold thing put into her bed to remind her of her loneliness. Her half of the bed seemed chilled and empty, but she could not bring herself to move closer to his warmth. For if that warmth were not there, if his profile were only an icy sham, a monstrous cheat of some sourceless magic … she had shivered then as she shivered now, with more than cold, with the child’s sudden fear that the things she knew best she knew not at all. As she had shuddered in her bed that night, he had stirred, turning his face to her, and silently pulling her into his warmth and man-smell, holding her close and making the world real again. She had never wondered, then, at his wakefulness. But now she did. What dark thoughts had he followed as he lay on his back in the cold moonlight staring at the cuddy ceiling?
She watched him walk away from her. His shoulders sagged. The short darkened hallway closed in on him, folding him away from her in its depths. Ki felt the sudden sting of tears, so long foreign to her eyes. She straightened her body and took a deep breath. I am just tired, she told herself, and I am letting my emotions run like unbroken yearlings. Vandien kicked open a door. Yellow lamplight flooded out in a folded rectangle on the floor and opposite wall. Ki hastened to follow him, but he was standing in the doorway, not entering the room.
‘I’ve failed you, Srolan.’ His words were slow and deep, sounding drunken. Ki moved up to peer past his shoulder.
A woman was sitting on the bed. The imprint of her body was on the blankets and pillows. Emotions swirled up in Ki, anger, surprise, jealousy, and then subsided as she realized the age of the woman. Her night-black hair was smoothed back from her face to hang in waves down her back, her jet eyes shone, but her mouth was framed in lines. Crow’s feet bracketed her eyes. The papery skin of her cheeks had fallen, abandoning the proud bones of her face. Ki could see the beauty she had been, but youth had fled that face, leaving only the shadow of its memory and its proud lines.
Ki glanced at Vandien. He stood in the doorway, brow furrowed, staring as if he did not trust his eyes. The woman’s gaze fell before his. ‘So you see me. Just an old woman now. It’s a hard glamor to maintain. And it grows harder with each passing year, especially before eyes as discerning as yours. You tempted me as I have not been tempted in years, Vandien. You love and hate and hope with such abandon, with such a plenitude of emotion. I could feel you burning to achieve my goals for me. You were like a hawk on my fist; I could have flown you at the sun, and you would have gone. You should be grateful to me, woman.’ Srolan was addressing Ki now. ‘I could have had him, you know, body and soul. I could have made him burn for me in any way I pleased. But didn’t. I’ve that much honor left to me. As you say, you’ve failed me, and there is no reason to deceive you any longer. Is Janie all right?’
‘She’s alive, if that’s what you mean. She is scarcely “all right,” nor do I think she ever will be. Tonight she spilled every last bit of courage she held. I do not know what she will use to face the village folk after this. Bitterness may have to suffice.’
‘Well. She has plenty and to spare of that. As do you, teamster. Do not think too hardly of me, for I am not as cold as I seem. Only old and disappointed and weary. You made an effort, teamster. That’s more than has been done for many years.’
‘But not enough. You will keep your gold, and I’ll keep my scar.’
‘Yes. But take my good will with you when you go. That’s not a bad thing to carry off with you.’
‘And all it cost me was four skeel and a near drowning.’
‘I’ve heard of worse bargains. It isn’t as if this were done solely for amusement, Vandien. Do you think you are the only one disappointed this night? It is beyond your imagination to guess what I have lost this night. I believed you could do it, Vandien. I looked into you. You are a man whose feelings drive him to do the impossible. So I hired you. So I opened the door on my caged dreams … and now I see them, feet up in the straw. I am too old to try again. And I have so many regrets. If only I had found you years ago; if only they had left young Killian to sing the wind, instead of bringing in that Windmistress; if only I were young enough to have one more chance.’
Srolan rose slowly to go, an old woman lifting her tired bones. Her body moved with the rasp of her breathing. Vandien stepped aside from the door. But Ki didn’t move. Windmistress. Her lips formed the word, but she could not utter it. Rebeke? Who else? Her antagonizing of the Windsingers had led to Vandien’s defeat. She had drawn their attention to herself and her friend.
‘How much?’ Ki demanded suddenly. Vandien and Srolan were startled back to awareness of her. Ki didn’t step out of the door. Her sopping hood hung down her back. Lank brown hair framed her narrow face. ‘How much?’ she repeated, more insistently. A note of anger crept into her question.
‘How much … what?’ Srolan stood puzzled, seeking to leave, but blocked by Ki.
‘How much to lift his scar … if you can do it.’
‘That’s not a thing bought with coin.’
‘Damn you, that’s not an answer! You can’t do it, even if he brought you the whole damn temple! Admit it!’
Srolan stared at Ki. Ki knew her measure was being taken by those dark eyes. A chill power flowed behind them, but Ki was too angry to be wary.
‘She’s right, Vandien. I couldn’t lift the scar But if I had the chest, there is one who would be persuaded to lift your scar for a single peek inside the box. I would have carried out my side of the bargain, if you had yours. But you didn’t.’
‘That wasn’t the only possible bargain in the world. Who is this one who can lift the scar from a man’s face?’ Ki was not screaming. Screaming would have been pleasanter than the cold hoarseness of her voice.
Srolan looked at her with knowing eyes, and the corners of her withered mouth turned up in mockery of a smile. ‘Do you really need to ask that of me, Ki?’
Ki could find no words to answer. She felt shamed by Srolan’s appraising eyes, but could not imagine what Srolan knew, or thought she knew, about Ki. No deed in Ki’s past could be as loathsome as her tone implied. But Ki found herself drawing aside to let Srolan pass. A chill wind seemed to follow her, that set Ki to shivering until her teeth chattered in her head. She clenched her jaws against it. She looked down the hall, but Srolan was already gone. She turned back to Vandien.
He stood in the middle of the room stripping efficiently and dropping his sodden clothes into the bathtub. Ki came into the room, drawing the door shut behind her. She watched him undress. His feet were wrinkled and red with their long immersion. As he drew his wet smock off over his head, his neck bent in a graceful curve, the arch bared to show the small dark shape of a hawk printed on his nape. The woolen smock slapped into the tub on top of the rest of his clothes. He stood rubbing his face. Putting one hand on each side of his face, he pushed firmly. His scar went narrower, no longer dragging at his eye. But when his hands dropped away, his face fell again into its marred configuration. He was surprised to find Ki watching him.
‘It hurts all the time, doesn’t it?’ she asked gently.
‘No.’ He denied it flatly. ‘Only when it’s cold. The rest of the time it’s just a stiffness, a place of no feeling. It doesn’t really trouble me all that much, Ki. It was just a chance to be rid of it, and have a pouch full of coin into the bargain. Anyone would have jumped at it.’
‘Certainly. Even I, if anyone had bothered to tell me what the stakes were.’
He looked acutely uncomfortable. Vandien turned away from her and went to the bed, to climb in under the covers.
‘Vandien.’ Ki groped for words. ‘I never stopped to think what a burden that scar must be to you. But now that I know …’ Ki floundered. ‘Let’s go to Srolan in the morning. Let’s find out who can lift your scar, and go see …’
‘Just like taking a kettle to the tinker. “Here, fellow, patch this up, and I’ll give you a coin for your time.” Ki, dammit, it’s my face. I’ll not have you paying to have it repaired. Must we dredge all this up and talk about it now? I’m tired and cold.’
‘So am I.’ Ki sank down onto the stool and began to work her boots off her feet. For a time, the silence held. The boots dropped to the floor and she rose to pull her hood and tunic off. Her voice came muffled and bleak through the fold of damp cloth. ‘As I put the scar there, why should I not help to remove it?’
‘Must this damn thing come between me and every other person in my life?’ Vandien demanded petulantly. ‘I’d prefer you continue to ignore it, Ki. You didn’t put the scar on my face. A Harpy did that. You had no say in it. You never called to me for help. Up to that moment, you didn’t even welcome my company.’
‘You offered me a bargain, once,’ Ki recalled. She had freed her hair from the braid and was combing her fingers through it. ‘You offered no debts between us, nothing given, unless it was given freely. As I offer this now. What harm can it do to spend a few days upon this, to see exactly what can be done?’
‘The same kind of harm that is being done right now!’
‘Harm.’ Ki gave a choked laugh. ‘That’s what I am best at. You might have succeeded, if they had not brought in a Windmistress to sing. Did not Srolan say that?’
‘I have no idea what she meant.’ Vandien shouldered himself deeper into the bed.
‘I’m afraid that I do. You have not asked what errand kept me away from False Harbor.’
‘You don’t need to give me excuses.’
‘Not usually,’ Ki said gravely. ‘But I suspect I brought the Windsingers down on you. Did I tell you in Dyal not to risk their enmity? I should have advised myself. I did more than earn their anger. I owe my life to one Rebeke, Windmistress. She kept me alive; but I doubt if she has any fondness for me. Or for my friend.’
Vandien propped himself up on an elbow. His dark eyes bored into hers. With an effort, he lightened the mood. ‘It sounds like a tale worth the telling, but one that deserves a night fire under high stars. Let it wait awhile, Ki. And remember, there is no changing what is done. Even if there had been no Windsinger, I doubt if I could have found that chest. The night was too dark and the water too deep. Besides,’ he tried for a smile, ‘I can’t let you steal the only morsel Srolan threw to my vanity. Let me believe the Windsinger Killian knew herself no match for me, and called in reinforcements.’
Vandien flopped back to stare at the ceiling. Ki bent to blow out the lamp. In the chill darkness she found the bed and crawled into it. She rested beside him, their bodies not quite touching. She could not see in the blackness of the shuttered room. Uncertainly she reached out to put her hand on his chest. She felt the hair bend softly beneath her fingers, felt the chill of the sea on his body still. He made no sound, and she grew bold enough to huddle closer, fitting her body to his. She eased her head onto his shoulder, until she felt the softly bristling stubble on his chin tickle against her forehead. ‘Did you believe Janie …’ she began cautiously, but could not go on.
Vandien shifted. His hand moved to tousle her hair. It rested on her head, lightly pressing her to his chest. When he spoke, his weary voice hummed by her ear, with a shade of his old humor in it.
‘What Janie said out there in the temple? That you would like to see me stay scarred? As soon as she said it, I knew it would gnaw on you. It’s just the type of insidious suggestion you can’t abide.’ He fell silent.
Ki waited. Vandien sighed out a deep breath. He bent his head and she felt the brush of his moustache as he kissed her lightly on the forehead. His body relaxed as sleep took him.
‘I asked if you believed her!’ she reminded him in an exasperated voice. She punctuated her reminder with a light jab in his ribs.
He jumped and chuckled infuriatingly. Ki knew he had baited her into repeating her question. A little of the day’s tension went out of her. If he could still laugh and tease, then their companionship could survive this day’s folly.
‘It bothers you that much, does it? It is like this. Every person hides inside her some small bit of ugliness. Perhaps it makes Janie feel she is not so wicked and selfish if she can imagine you are no better than she. Did you notice Collie, the mute harper?’
Ki nodded against his chest. Their bodies were beginning to warm the bed. She liked the way his chest thrummed against her ear when he spoke.
‘Janie likes him better mute. Had he a voice, other than his harp, he might mock her as the other men in the village do. Then she would have to sneer at him and reject him as she does the others. But while he is voiceless, she can care for him, in the depths of her blighted little soul, and rest assured that other women will not find him too attractive. I doubt if she has put her feeling into words, even to herself. But some part of her knows, and her guilt stings a little less if she imagines you share a little sentiment for me.’
‘Oh.’ Ki rolled over and arranged herself so that she could lean on her elbows, and look down into Vandien’s face. She could see little but her eyes weren’t needed. She lightly trailed her fingertips over his face. The lines in his forehead smoothed away under her touch. She fluffed the damp curls away from his face and cautiously ran a finger down the stiffness of his scar. A light touch told her that his eyes were closed. She stroked his face. ‘Does it ease the pain when I touch you like this?’
Vandien sighed and gently pushed her hands away. ‘It eases the physical pain of the scar. But every time you touch it, it is a reminder to me that it is here. Ki. We have asked very little of one another. But now I ask. Let this thing go. Between us, let us not speak of it, or touch it, or let it matter. I’ve made a fine fool of myself these past few days. I’ve not a coin to show for it, and I’ve a team sunken in that temple. Help me get the team out and return them to their owner, and then let’s find a haul for your wagon that will pay us a few coin and work me hard. As for the rest of my folly here … will you let me forget it? To only you my scar has made no difference. Yet it is you who I wish could look at me and not see it.’
His body had gone tense against her. As close as she was to him, she felt she could not warm him. She moved to cradle his body against hers. She wondered if he even felt her touch. She whispered, ‘Between us, there is never a need beyond asking. Go to sleep, Van, for there’s a cold wet task before us tomorrow.’
‘Vandien. My name is Vandien.’
‘Vandien,’ she amended softly.
He was silent after that, and Ki lay still against him. She wished for sleep, but it was a long time coming.