‘Whoa! Hold steady!’ Vandien’s voice was a thin echo breaking over the incoming waves. Ki relayed the command to her team, backing it up with a steady pull on the reins. The greys halted. They shifted their big hooves miserably. They had no desire to pull at a rope in the dark of night. Sigurd stamped, and then tested his weight gently against his collar. ‘Hold!’ Ki reminded him, and took a better grip on her reins.
She turned to stare at the dark heaving blanket of sea. Her eyes could not pierce the night. The voices of Vandien and Janie reached her like the thin anxious cries of seabirds. At least there was no Windsinger singing this night. For that she was grateful.
‘Pull!’ Vandien’s call whispered across the water.
‘Get up!’ Ki told the team. The trailing rope slowly went tight as the greys moved up the sands. Ki glanced back and saw the taut line rising up out of the waves, to hang dripping. She listened anxiously for Vandien’s call for her to halt. It didn’t come. The greys plodded on, the rope singing higher with every step they took. Ki felt a hitch in their pulling, and suddenly the rope was just tight, not strained as it had been. At the same instant, a wave of dizziness swept over Ki.
She stumbled over nothing. The sand shifted slightly under her feet. Her team swayed suddenly before her with snorts of disquiet. A vibration rattled the sand and pebbles; a rising of sound from the sea itself speckled the dark surface of the water with its throbbing. Again she lost her footing and staggered to regain it.
The silence was like a giant drawing breath. Then again there came the subsonic thrumming that mottled the surface of the water as if the waves were being pelted with hail. The greys snorted and tossed their heads, snatching more rein through Ki’s startled hands. They stepped up their pace in spite of her efforts to hold them in. ‘Vandien? Janie?’ she called. She heard a murmur of voices from the village, welling up questioningly. The vibration stilled for an instant; Ki felt steadier upon her legs. She drew a breath to call to Vandien again, but his yell came first.
‘The Bell!’ His Human voice was blasphemy after that inhuman knelling. As if in confirmation, the deep throbbing voice spoke again, simmering through the sand and waves to pulse in the night air. The sound chilled Ki. But the silence that followed it was even more daunting.
Ki’s eyes flickered from the team to the rope to the sea and back to her team. They would load those skeel tonight and be on their way, even if she had to drive up that cliff in the darkness. Her mind traced again the convoluted path that had brought Vandien here. She winced as she thought of her own involuntary part in it. Damn Dresh and all of his wizardly ilk! He had tossed Vandien into this foul mess with no more thought than if he were discarding the outer leaves of a cabbage. But time and distance would heal all things; had not they done so before?
‘Whoa! Hold up!’ Vandien’s voice came stronger to her. Ki pulled in her team and waited. Her flesh was warm but she shivered. The Windsingers’ bell, no legend, but a rare event. Ki wondered what trick of the tide had made it ring. She could hear Vandien and Janie discussing something in muffled voices. She heard faint splashing and felt the rope vibrate with small tuggings. ‘Pull!’ came Vandien’s command. Ki started her team. She felt the difference instantly. They no longer towed something through the water. What they dragged now was scraping bottom, for the rope throbbed and hopped beside her as the team pulled.
The team left the peak of the beach behind them and began to trudge through the sedgy grasses of a salt marsh flat. The mud smelled foul and the big hooves made plopping noises in the wet ground. Ki considered moving the team back to take a fresh bite on the rope, but decided instead to pull on, keeping the line tight. Skeel had a reputation for making the most of a slack line.
‘Hold! We’ve got them!’
Ki gave a sigh of relief, but the tension in her didn’t ease. The tolling of that sunken bell had chilled her soul. The Windsingers had reached down and tapped her, reminding her they knew her name. She turned her team and headed them back to the beach. Time enough to coil up the rope later. Just what in hell would she do with so much rope? Sell it in the next town?
From ahead, Ki heard wild yells. She halted the team and stood in the darkness, straining all her senses. Had it been Vandien’s voice? And now, that voice, it must be Janie? Her fear changed to puzzlement as she heard a wave of mingled laughter. She started the team again, scowling as she followed their plodding steps. What in hell was so funny? She could understand Vandien’s relief at recovering his team, but this sounded like hilarity.
‘Ki!’ Vandien bounded up right under the noses of the horses. Sigurd stamped, and then snapped at Vandien while Sigmund looked disapprovingly down on him. His clothes streamed water. Drops were flung from his outstretched arms. He seized her in a soggy hug, jouncing her about excitedly; it was all she could do to hold the team steady. ‘The skeel have got the chest, the Windsingers’ chest! Janie saw it! When we hauled them up on the beach, they were all tangled up in one big knot, big as a foundered cow. Tails wrapped here, snouts buried there, legs tangled about until it might be three animals or six! We stared at them wondering how to pry them apart. Then Janie saw it. There’s a corner, just a corner, poking out from the middle of them. It must have been beside them when they decided to mate. It’s trapped among their bodies, held by legs and tails and snouts! But it’s the box and no mistake. Just as Janie said it would be. We can see the edge of the belt that binds it shut. It shines like gold, with no trace of tarnish, and each strand of it looks as fine as baby’s hair, but to the touch is cold hard metal. Come on! Come!’
He pranced and danced about her, finally seizing her arm and dragging at her. ‘I can’t leave my team here,’ she protested, but Vandien boldly grabbed Sigmund’s reins below the bit and dragged the big horse into a trot. Ki hurried along beside them, sharing her team’s baffled amazement.
‘We’ll hitch up the team and load the skeel on the wagon,’ he decided as they ran. ‘We’ll take that tangle of skeel into the village and by the Moon! We’ll roll it right into the inn! Let Janie have her triumph, and for me there will be coins and a new face!’ He laughed wildly, breathlessly. His dark eyes caught and flashed the starlight at Ki as he let his thoughts race. ‘These fine beasts of yours shall have all the grain they can stuff down! When we return the skeel to Bitters, there’s a stall in the marketplace that had a cloak just the color of your eyes that we must have! Yes, and a rapier and scabbard for I am determined that you shall have your own, if only to keep my own skills sharp! And we shall eat … oh, everything, except fish! And presents for Sasha! We must find things for Sasha, bright and foolish robes, and a dozen tinkling bracelets and …’
Ki listened as Vandien spent his coins a dozen times over, in ways ever more extravagant. She smiled to hear him, but could not find belief in herself. It was too good a thing to have happened. She did not trust it yet.
But there was the corner of the chest, protruding from the tangle of skeel. Ki stared at it, not daring to touch the cold black metal. The skeel themselves were a sight. The long whiplike tails twined about the outside of them, binding them together like a climbing vine. Their eyes were lidded in ecstasy. Legs wrapped over legs, and snouts tucked neatly in. The wad of animals was as close to an orb as their squat bodies would allow. Most surprising of all was the rosy glow that suffused their formerly dull and mottled skin.
The greys grudgingly submitted to being harnessed to the wagon. Ki coiled up the ridiculous lengths of rope while Vandien and Janie, with much laughter, rolled the ball of skeel to the back of Ki’s wagon. Loading them demanded a group effort. More than once the wad of skeel slipped from their grasp to thump again on the ground. It disturbed them not at all. By the time the bundle of beasts bumped over the edge and into the wagon, Ki was as weak with laughter and silliness as the other two.
They broke camp quickly, loading gear anywhere. Vandien kicked the fire apart and scooped sand over it. The night was broken only by the lantern on the wagon seat. There was a moment when all voices were stilled and the waves spoke. To Ki they whispered secrets and warnings. She felt her light mood slipping away, but ‘To the inn!’ roared Vandien and the greys moved to his command. Ki peered ahead, trying to guide them around large chunks of driftwood and stone.
‘Finally. Finally.’ Janie whispered softly on the seat beside her. ‘They will have to see that I am right. The chest will say it all, prove it all. Things will change.’
‘I’ve an idea,’ Ki ventured, not knowing what inspired her. ‘Let’s not go to the inn. Let’s pick up Sasha and keep on going. We’ll return the skeel, and sell the chest for whatever it brings in Bitters. Then let’s look ahead, not back, and go.’
‘Are you mad?’ Vandien asked incredulously. ‘Why under the Moon do that? There is gold coin to be had for this, even if you have no thought for my face.’
‘Shall I slip away in the night, let them after make mock of my name? Shall I let them think I have slunk away in shame?’
‘It was only an idea,’ Ki mollified them. She fell silent, wishing they’d agreed. With every step the team took them closer to the tavern, to the confrontation Janie lusted for and the payment Vandien believed in. But peering ahead, Ki saw only the blackness that outlined the yellow windows of the village. Just as darkness swallowed the town, melancholy swallowed Ki.
The inn sign swung in the sea breeze like a hangman’s noose. The hubbub inside the tavern leaked out. Ki decided that the tolling of the bell had roused the village and driven the folk from their beds to the inn for companionship and drink.
‘Announce us, Ki!’ Vandien laughed as he jumped lightly from the wagon. ‘Janie and I will roll it in.’
Ki set her wheel brake. Janie and Vandien giggled insanely as Ki heard their thumping efforts to roll out the skeel. Envy twinged as she knotted her team’s reins to a hitching post. The euphoria eluded her. With a grunt and a thump, the wad of skeel hit the ground. Vandien and Janie wrestled them along, bundling them up the boardwalk. Ki pulled the heavy door open.
Light and sound spilled into the street.
‘Stand clear!’ Ki called out in a commanding voice. All within the tavern fell silent. Eyes turned toward the door.
‘You’re letting in the night wind!’ Helti protested, and then gaped in amazement as the ball of skeel wedged in his doorway. Vandien put his shoulder to it, and with a shout they were through, the skeel rolling a half turn before they halted. Fisherfolk were rising, to gape at the tangle.
‘What in hell is that?’ demanded a voice, and others echoed him.
‘Are they doing what I think they’re doing?’ Berni asked in mild amusement.
‘Not on my clean tavern floor!’ Helti roared in outrage. ‘Get them out of here! Damn inlander’s trick; nothing but barnyard humor! I don’t want my place stunk up with musk and rut! Get them out of here, teamster. Now!’
‘Be silent!’ Srolan’s voice carried and ruled. Her dark eyes went from Vandien’s grinning face to Janie’s shining one. Slowly her back straightened. When she threw back her head and shook her hair loose, her laughter rang out like bells. ‘Don’t you see?’ she asked her folk. ‘You heard the bell and ran here for courage. Can’t you see why it rang? Look?’ She circled the ball of skeel. Her hand trembled over the protruding corner of the chest. ‘The Windsingers’ chest! They’ve brought it up to us!’
‘It is just as my grandfather said it would be!’ Srolan fell back as Janie advanced to place a proud hand on the chest. Her eyes were not shy as they swept over them all to linger on Collie by the fire.
Ki braced herself. The silence in the tavern brooded like the hills before a thunderstorm. Some cast their eyes down to their mugs. Helti stood drying his hands over and over on the sack tied below his belly. The man that had traded rude remarks with Ki on Temple Ebb night stared stonily at the skeel. The hood he wore threw his features into shadow, but Ki bristled under his scrutiny. ‘Temple Ebb has come and gone,’ he said in a guttural voice. He raised his mug and drank, dismissing them.
‘That’s so,’ said Helti stoutly.
‘You bet that’s so!’ One old fisherman rose slowly. He moved to warm himself at the fire, awarding the skeel less than a glance. ‘Janie, what do you want to be stirring up this kind of trouble for?’
Janie’s mouth sagged open. Her eyes went round, not comprehending. Her brows knit as she struggled to find words. But Ki understood. The village didn’t want to change, didn’t want to lose its festival in success, to pay gold to a stranger, least of all to admit the truth to Janie’s story. They wouldn’t. It was that simple. It did not matter what evidence they gave the village. They wouldn’t accept it.
The greybeard by the fire looked up from warming his hands. ‘Teamster, you knew the agreement. Gold was to be paid for that chest, if ’twas brought up during Temple Ebb. To have done it on that night, in that storm, well, that would have made it a mighty feat, worthy of gold and honors. What you’ve given us here is no hero’s task, but only a good bit of salvage work, such as any of us might do. A hard job, and no belittling it, but not a wonder. You can’t expect us to part with gold for that.’
Ki swallowed as she saw Vandien’s eyes go cold. Only a small portion of her noticed the outrage on Srolan’s face.
‘Cowardly misers!’ Srolan lashed out at them. ‘Beasts and fools, all of you! It’s the chest he has! The chest! And you will turn him away, as if he were selling rags in the street! Have you no memories, no pride? Would it choke you to admit that Janie’s grandfather spoke truth? Was a one of you even there? All the village council can think of is the coin they must part with to be honorable men! You shame me! I wish there were other folk I could call my own! I will not be judged with you. Vandien! Know this! My part of the bargain shall be kept!’
‘And what part of the bargain was that, Srolan?’ It was the gravel-voiced man at the corner table. ‘The village council has told you, they will not pay gold for a deed done late.’
Ki’s eyes flickered from face to face. Vandien stared at Srolan in an agonized suspense. Longing blotted out doubt, letting the child peer out of the man’s eyes. Ki’s heart leapt out to him in compassion, for in her own heart was a knowing. That which he ached for was not to be.
Janie no longer stroked the chest, nor stood straight and proud. Her arms clutched one another. Her face was pinched and her body was shrinking in on itself. A different sort of child peered from her eyes.
Srolan snatched her gaze from Vandien’s face, to stare in consternation at the cloaked man in the corner. For the first time, Ki marked that no other fisherfolk shared his table.
‘Well you know that I don’t speak of gold!’ Srolan rasped out. ‘What is this treachery, Dresh?’
‘Ah, well.’ Slowly Dresh pushed the hood back, letting the lamplight finger his foxy features. He gave a little sigh and a mocking shrug of resignation. ‘I have never yet been able to trust to the discretion of a woman’s tongue. But must we be so public, Srolan? Surely our little arrangements were between you and me.’
‘It appears I have a stake in it as well,’ Vandien growled.
‘You would have. If the chest were brought up on Temple Ebb, and if I had first access to the contents, then I was to perform two minor favors for Srolan. Do you think she frets over your scar, teamster? The vigor of youth is not enough to content her. She hungers for a youthful body as well. But I do not honor agreements tardily carried out. If you don’t believe me, ask Ki.’
Srolan’s eyes flashed to Ki in confusion. Ki glared at them both. Memories burst in her mind like fresh wounds. She suddenly perceived the whole tapestry Dresh had woven. Wizards and Windsingers were creatures cut of the same fabric, stuffed with the same vile weeds! ‘It is true, Srolan,’ Ki said. ‘I have never yet been able to trust the honor of a wizard’s word. Yet my mind cannot stoop to the depths of their deceit, cannot roll in the same gutter to follow their devious plans. Was this your little amusement, Dresh, to arrange this play for us? How well you wrote the parts, and how finely you assigned them! It has been better than any Temple Ebb pageant these folk have ever seen. It matters little to you that the tragedy doesn’t end with the falling of a curtain. Nor do you see fit to pay your actors. From the first, we have all danced to your tune, but Vandien and I have trod it best of all.’
‘Does it end with a soliloquy?’ Dresh asked drily.
‘It does,’ Ki snarled. Her glance swept the room. Fisherfolk gaped like stranded carp. Ki saw no empathy, no regrets. She and Dresh were a spectacle to them, a last treat of Temple Ebb, the unexpected entertainment. Srolan alone had sustained a loss among them. She had aged in these last few moments. When she croaked out, ‘Dresh, please!’ even the music was gone from her voice.
‘My friends,’ Ki said slowly. ‘My first idea was the best. Let’s roll our skeel out of here. Janie, run to fetch Sasha. The Romni know the truth of it: There’s always another buyer, down the road apiece.’
Ki stepped up and put her shoulder to the skeel. Dresh stood up so suddenly he nearly overturned the table.
‘Hold!’ he cried as he strode toward her. He shouldered Berni out of the way like a transfixed sheep. Boldly he put a hand on the opposite side of the skeel. Ki felt the resistance. ‘Hold up, teamster. Take your skeel, please. But not the Windsingers’ chest, for it does not belong to you.’
‘And you would claim it as yours, wizard?’ Vandien’s words were politely questioning. But in his eyes there was a threat, and in his stance and face a promise. Dresh’s eyes met his. Dresh didn’t flinch, but Ki saw a sudden revising of opinion. For the first time she realized how much of a size the two men were. Dresh would have been the handsomer of the two, even if Vandien had not been scarred. But there was a slinkiness to his beauty that put people on their guards, and a coldness to his eyes that ruined his face more than any scar. If Vandien were the hawk, Dresh was the intricately patterned poisonous snake. He was coiled to strike.
‘Vandien!’ Ki whispered, cautioning. But Vandien was beyond caution. Dresh had twisted the man’s hopes, until they had broken off short. He smiled, and Ki’s belly curled up at the sight. ‘There are customs, wizard. Salvaged goods belong to the one who brings them up. Me.’
‘You are mistaken, teamster,’ Dresh said smoothly. He glanced about at the village folk, warming them with his smile, including them in this debate. ‘It was the village that knew of the chest. It was the village that set you after it.’ Dresh paused to fit a wedge. ‘Srolan does deserve their thanks for hiring you. Perhaps I could help the village make her a reward.’ Fanatic hope kindled again in Srolan’s eyes. Dresh smiled at his success. ‘The chest belongs to the village, I think. If I hired a teamster to bring my goods from here to there, and the teamster is late, does that mean the teamster may keep the goods? I think not.’ Again his smile swept the room, but he let it rest over long on Ki.
‘That is so,’ Helti agreed cautiously, and here and there heads nodded hesitantly. Even Srolan looked at Vandien with her heart in her eyes and begged, ‘Leave it here for me. It is my final chance.’
‘The chest cannot be taken from the village!’ Dresh decreed. ‘It belongs to the village! If they had not told you of it, you would never have recovered it. Who told you where to look, and what to look for? The village folk alone knew that. On that basis, it must belong to them.’
‘To me, then!’ Janie’s voice began as a shriek and ended in a whisper. Dresh’s eyes snapped to her face in shock. ‘By your own reasoning, wizard! It is mine! I alone knew where it was, I alone knew what to look for! And I helped bring it up! Mine, wizard, and you will kill me before you touch it!’
There was no rationality in Janie’s eyes. She advanced fearlessly on Dresh, and he retreated. In madness there is power and Janie wielded it. Her hands settled on the chest’s corner, a priestess blessing relics.
‘Janie. Now, Janie, calm yourself. Listen to me …’
‘Shut up!’ Janie screamed savagely, and Srolan fell silent before her wrath.
Srolan turned anxious eyes on Vandien. ‘Do something,’ she pleaded. ‘Make her see reason.’
‘Do what?’ Vandien demanded. ‘It seems to me that Janie is correct. I’ve no wish to take the chest from her.’
‘It’s mine!’ Janie asserted again. She glared at Dresh who had ventured forward a step.
‘I’ve no wish to kill you,’ Dresh said reasonably.
‘Then don’t,’ Vandien growled.
‘She leaves me no other course!’ the wizard flared. His fingers waggled in agitation until he clenched them into fists.
Vandien grinned. ‘Be ready with the team, Ki. Janie, shall we load it?’
But the eyes she turned on him didn’t know him. ‘It’s mine!’ she warned him.
‘She’s broken,’ Ki said in a hushed voice. ‘They’ve finally broken her.’
‘It is mine!’ she screamed in an inhuman voice.
She was echoed by an inhuman roaring. Cold swept through the inn borne on a wind that snatched their breaths and snuffed not only candles but the fire on the hearth. The fear-stricken cries of the fisherfolk were drowned in its immense vibration. It was a blinding, numbing wind that paralyzed all Ki’s senses. A heavy wooden table skidding across the floor struck her on the hip. She found herself on hands and knees in cold darkness. Other people blundered blindly around her. A foot trod heavily on her hand and a knee struck her in the ribs. She scrambled away in the confusion, but could find no safety. The roaring wind ceased, but the darkness remained. Confused cries filled the room.
‘Vandien!’ Ki cried out. An answering shout came from across the room. In darkness she blundered toward him, only to trip on an overturned bench.
‘It is mine!’ shrieked a voice scarcely recognizable as Janie’s.
‘It is mine,’ responded another voice. The resonance of that voice nullified all other sounds. There were a few more scufflings, then silence. Ki brushed the hair from her eyes and rose silently. In the darkness, yellow flame blossomed. Two slender well-formed hands cupped it. They transplanted the fire to a candle on one of the few tables that remained standing. The tall figure straightened. The flame on the candle struggled and tugged at the wick, trying to illuminate the darkness. A hushed expectancy grew. Then another yellow flame bloomed within those tapered fingers. The inn gasped as the fingers snapped it away. The ball of fire arched through the air, to land on the hearth and burst into a roaring blaze. ‘Make light from that,’ the voice commanded, and those few who had found candles crept forward to kindle them.
The inn was a shambles. Tables and benches were overturned. Broken crockery grated underfoot, while the sour smell of spilled ale mingled with the fishy odor of slopped chowder. As Ki’s eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness, she saw folk huddled like frightened sheep. Their eyes darted about furtively, seeking someone to blame. A hand squeezed Ki’s shoulder and Vandien stood beside her. ‘Look at Janie!’ he whispered.
The other villagers had retreated from the skeel. Of Dresh there was no sign. Janie alone stood protectively by the wad of animals. One hand rested possessively on the chest as she glared at the one who sought to take her treasure. Defiance and despair had driven out caution. Her shoulders were squared as she defied the blue-robed Windsinger.
‘Rebeke,’ Ki breathed in dread, and Vandien replied, ‘I thought so.’
Rebeke ignored them. The dancing firelight struck a sheen from her finely scaled face. Her hands were innocent of weapons as they hung peacefully at her sides. She needed no threats; her face radiated her power. She scanned the room once, eyes lingering a moment on Ki. But she found no opposition. Folk turned their eyes away, or crouched with bowed heads. Even Srolan winced away like a kicked cur. Slowly Rebeke turned her gaze back to Janie. She did not break the silence, and no one else dared. Long she stared at the womanchild with eyes that reached and touched and probed. A little of the tension went out of Janie’s stance, but still she repeated, ‘It is mine.’
Rebeke smiled as a mother might smile on her curious child. ‘Yes. I can see that. But it is also mine.’
‘No!’ The defiant shout shook the room and trembled on the air. Villagers cowered, expecting retribution. Rebeke waited until the echoes had ceased. No trace of anger marred the serenity of her browless face.
‘Killian spoke of you. For you must be Janie.’
Janie hesitated, then tossed a grudging nod.
‘Do you believe I will take the chest from you?’ Rebeke asked her.
Janie’s eyes flickered over the assembled villagers. She found no support. Her eyes locked with Vandien’s, but she looked hastily away. He had offered her the only taste of friendship she’d had. She wouldn’t draw him into this.
‘She …’ Vandien began.
‘Silence!’ Rebeke said calmly. Rebeke made no gesture, but Ki felt the impact as Vandien reeled against her from the unseen blow. No other saw it.
‘You say the chest is yours,’ Janie said as Rebeke continued to gaze at her questioningly.
‘And yours. I said it was yours as well. Having said that, do you think I will take it from you? I have come for the chest,’ Rebeke spoke to the villagers now. ‘But I have also come for Janie and Sasha. Run and fetch your sister, Janie.’
‘By the Hawk!’ Vandien swore, but his voice rose no louder than a croaked whisper. Janie stared at Rebeke and did not move.
‘Didn’t you hear me, Janie?’ Rebeke repeated, smiling more gently. ‘I’ve come to take you and Sasha away. You don’t belong here. Any fool can see that, and I am far from being a fool. Your own spirit knows it. The chest called to you because of it. And only one of your spirit and determination could have dragged it up. Because you are a Windsinger, Janie. You were never born to drag up smelly fish from cold water, to bend your back to the wind as you sliced the wet meat from their bones. You were born to find power and wield it. You were never meant to be part of this village. It is beneath you. You knew it from the time you were a small child. And the village knew it as well. Am I right?’
Janie’s eyes were riveted to Rebeke’s smiling face. She teetered on the edge, for Rebeke called to her hungry heart. The only one who might have wished to call her back was voiceless.
‘Why hesitate? What holds you here, sister?’
The simple kinship offered overbalanced the scales. ‘I must fetch Sasha,’ Janie began hesitantly.
‘Didn’t I just say so?’ Rebeke’s laughter was warm as a summer wind. ‘Hurry, for we have far to go this night. Take no time to pack, just bring the child. All else we have prepared for you.’
‘Prepared …’ Janie’s voice trailed off in awe. The implied welcome warmed her cheeks. Life flowed in her eyes, bringing animation into her face. ‘You will wait for me?’ she asked fearfully.
‘Hurry!’ Rebeke chided her with a smile. Ki looked at Janie’s glowing face. She was the peasant child in the tale, who finds herself the true daughter of a queen. A smile bowed her mouth as she looked down on them crouching in the dark before her mentor. Her eyes paused on Collie, but the silence that had prevented him from mocking her now prevented him from asking her to stay. ‘Hurry!’ Rebeke warned her again, and Janie broke free of Collie’s eyes with a laugh.
‘Janie! Go with us, and be Human!’ Vandien croaked. The slamming door answered him.
Rebeke turned rebuking eyes on him. She considered him, and how he and Ki stood together, apart from the villagers. ‘I did not think to find you here, Ki,’ she remarked. ‘But the Romni are renowned as a thickheaded folk. Perhaps that means that when you learn to respect Windsingers, you will learn it in such a way that you will never forget it.’ Her cold eyes appraised Vandien. Ki shuddered. Then Rebeke smiled. ‘You stand as friends stand. That man would defy me, would take from me not only the chest, but Janie as well. Does he know that you owe me, Ki? Didn’t Killian hint to him that you traveled under my shadow, and only by my tolerance? But as he runs with Romni, perhaps he is as stubborn as one. I chose to let her live, Vandien. Murder is distasteful to me, but I had other options. Still, I chose to let her return to you. By that choosing, some would say I betrayed my own interests. I don’t think so. But I angered some that could be mollified by this chest. I could use the chest as justification for letting Ki live. However … some other Windmistresses might see it as negligence on my part if Ki went on living and we had nothing to show for it. They might even try to remedy that.’
‘Vandien does not share my debts!’ Ki cried out in anger. ‘Ask of me what you will for my life, but don’t …’
‘You have nothing I want.’ Rebeke stated it flatly. ‘And he is not really in a position to bargain. As I have said, murder is distasteful to me. Vandien may either say, “We made a trade, the Windsinger and I,” or he may resist me when I take the chest, and die.’
Vandien gave a harsh laugh that drew all eyes to him. ‘Take it!’ he croaked. ‘Take it and be welcome to it. As the village will not pay me for it, why shouldn’t you have it? But not as barter for Ki’s life; neither of us would want to live under that burden. Consider it this way; I return the chest to the original owners, as would any honest man.’
‘Asking no reward?’ Rebeke marveled drily.
Vandien afforded her a courteous nod.
‘Then I shall remove your team from my property.’
Rebeke circled the tangle of skeel slowly, frowning as she examined them. To the villagers she paid no more attention than she would to a flock of curious birds. After her third circuit of the skeel, she stepped back from them, massaging her narrow hands. She stared for a moment, then flicked her fingers at the chest. A cracking sparked momentarily from her fingertips. Instantly the chest glowed, moving through a dull red to blinding white in the space of two heartbeats, and as quickly fading back to its dull black. The skeel didn’t even twitch.
‘I don’t like to be harsh,’ Rebeke muttered in consternation. She folded her hands together and extended them in front of her. Her thumbs were stiffened, pointing straight at the chest. The crackling lasted longer, and three times the chest pulsed white. Rebeke lowered her hands and stared wordlessly at the motionless skeel still entwined around the chest. She gave Vandien an apologetic glance and began to raise her hands again. But the skeel began to loosen. Like melted wax they slid bonelessly down, to puddle around the chest. The blinking of a wide eye showed they were still alive, but they lay in postures skeel had never assumed before. One whiplike tongue flicked lazily out and leisurely slid back in. Yet they looked not stunned, but satiated.
Ki’s eyes moved up the black chest. With heart-squeezing shock, she saw the widening cracks in it. Even Rebeke’s hands were clutched tightly in front of her breast. Her finely scaled lips were pinched shut. One villager cried aloud and many turned aside their faces. But Ki could not resist the awful temptation of knowing what so much had been risked for. Slowly the black pieces fell away from one another, like a flower shedding its petals.
The thing within was white, a dead white without shine or shading. It stood no taller than Sasha, but it creaked of age. And Evil, Ki thought to herself, but no, not evil, but a wisdom so far beyond Human reach that it could not seem good. Its high knobbed forehead domed above a scaled face that was noseless and lipless. Its mouth stretched as far as the hinge of its jaw. The thin sexless body crouched with its knees drawn up to its ribby chest. Folded arms rested atop the knees, almost Human, but owning too many joints, and most of them bending the wrong way. Its eyes were open, round and white. An indescribable flowing, neither bone nor hair, cascaded whitely down its back.
‘What is it?’ Helti demanded sickly.
Ki knew, with a jolt of recognition.
‘It’s a Windsinger!’ shrieked Dresh. He leaped up from his crouch by a table near the door. Pushing back his hood, he let a cube of brown chalk drop from his hand. ‘And the thrice-damned thing is mine!’
‘Dresh!’ Rebeke mouthed the words, but no sound came. She did not move. A brownish glow came from the earthrune carefully chalked on the floor. Dread rose in Ki as she knew that Rebeke could not move, had fallen to Dresh’s power. Ki remembered how he had bent her will. Sickness rose in her as she imagined how he would twist Rebeke. Ki had been but a casual entertainment for him. The spurs of retaliation would goad him on with Rebeke. Always Ki had dreaded and despised Windsingers. Those feelings weren’t gone. She feared Rebeke and shuddered at how Janie had been seduced away from her own Humanity. But sympathy squirmed within her, overturning old loyalties. Vandien shot her a questioning look as she eased away from him. Her sideways movement was lost in the stir of folk edging forward in fascination to stare at the revealed image.
‘Look at it!’ Dresh gloated. He stepped past Rebeke to put greedy hands on it. Rebeke cringed as if his questing fingers violated her personally. ‘You see what hasn’t been seen on this world for so many generations that it is now a legend; a true Windsinger. This is not some transformed Human or T’cheria or Dene, but a Windsinger hatched and grown. Not a statue of one! This is what they did with their dead, folding them neatly and tucking them away in chests. No temple, that building, but a mausoleum unbelievably old.’
The village folk dangled on his words, mesmerized by what he said. Ki slipped slowly through the crowd.
Dresh smiled at his audience. ‘See how she flinches at my words! This is what the Windsingers wouldn’t have you know; that they are shams, chameleons who have taken the shapes and powers of an older race. Control of the winds was never given to them; they seized it! And how? By a process as gruesome and twisted as themselves. This body can be ground to a powder, and ingested through nostril and mouth. Then the changes begin. Imagine the small girls, stolen from their homes, who are fed a secret measure of this filth with their food. Once the transmutation has begun, there is no stopping it. The children never have a choice!’
No tears flowed on Rebeke’s face, but it was twisted in agony. Her eyes denied what Dresh was saying, but her lips were silent. Dresh smiled at her pain.
‘Do you know why they want this so badly? It is this. They have no lack of this powder of Windsinger, for the race was multitudinous, and their burial places, though hidden in inaccessible places, are said to be many. But few of the bodies are intact, and none of them are as perfect as this one. That they need. For, while the powder starts the transmutation, the brain must guide it. The would-be Windsinger must focus her mind on the shape her body is to become, to guide it through the change. The closer she can approach the true shape of a Windsinger, the more power she will wield. But when their temple sank, the last true body sank with it. That quake was not the act of the Windsingers, as you believe, but the very vengeance of the Moon herself, angered that the Windsingers would take to themselves the powers she had trusted to that ancient race only. For many generations of Windsingers now, there has been no guiding image for the younger singers to grow by. They’ve had to pattern themselves on the older Windsingers, straying even farther from the true form. Their power is slowly dwindling because of it. This corpse would have let them recapture it. But it has fallen to me.’ Dresh put his full attention on Rebeke. He leaned close to her without touching her. ‘To me, Rebeke. Did you hope to match me? You were close, when you snatched my body. But you let me go! And when I dangled my puppets before you, you had eyes only for them. You watched a scarred fool and a Romni teamster dance, while their master walked up behind you. It’s funny, isn’t it? You see the humor, I’m sure. Smile for me, sweet one.’
Dresh’s brows knit lightly in concentration. A smile crawled onto Rebeke’s face and squirmed there, mocking the revulsion in her eyes. A gasp of awe rippled through the fisherfolk and then a sprinkling of cruel laughter.
Heads turned to the opening door. Janie was framed in it, the blackness of night her backdrop. The thin light of the candles touched her confused visage, outlined the sleepy face of little Sasha who stood bundled before her. ‘No!’ she moaned at the helplessness in Rebeke’s eyes.
‘Traitors!’ someone cried. The crowd surged forward.
‘Run!’ roared Vandien, pushing a bench into the crowd nearest him.
The glowing brown runes seared Ki’s smearing foot. She jerked in its grip, her body twisting and snapping out of control. Blurred images scaled her brain: Vandien going down under a wave of villagers, Sasha’s mouth red in a scream, Dresh’s eyes wide as he spun on her, Rebeke’s hands finally moving, her fingers weaving in the air before her.
‘Ki.’
She opened her eyes, wondering when she had closed them. Her face itched where her cheek pressed against woven wool. Vandien looked down on her. A dark shining stream rilled from a split at the edge of his scar. When he spoke her name, she saw blood on his teeth.
Realizing her head was pillowed in his lap brought her to her senses. She sat up slowly with his help and stared around the inn.
The fisherfolk were herded to one end of the room. Those on the fringes of the group were trying to squirm into the middle. They pressed back against the wall. Helti lay in the center of the room groaning softly. Someone’s feet thrust out from under a table. ‘Sasha?’ asked Ki, and Vandien pointed.
The child was looking up wonderingly into Rebeke’s face, watching the lipless mouth that smiled down on her. The blue windrune hung glowing in the air, singeing Ki’s eyes when she looked too close to it. Dresh looked smaller as he stood by the door with his hands folded between his shoulder blades. Rebeke had left him the movement of his eyes, and they darted frantically about the room, seeking an ally. No one met his eyes.
‘Is she all right?’ Rebeke asked.
‘Are you?’ Vandien passed on the question. Ki realized they spoke of her, and managed a nod.
‘Good,’ said Rebeke. ‘We must be on our way now. There will be a storm after I leave. All would do well to stay within these walls. I’m sure you will have much to chat about. If boats are damaged, you must remember you brought it upon yourselves. It will be a wind such as has not been seen before. When it passes, not a block of our temple will be left standing for you to sniff and pillage. It should have been done long ago, but always we cherished the hope that this could be recovered. Now that we have it, there is no longer a reason to leave any sign of the temple.’
Ki stared at Rebeke as she spoke. Her features had melted and merged. Her patrician nose was now no more than a smooth swelling in the center of her face. Her fine-lipped mouth had spread across her cheeks. And there was a fluidity about her hand movements that reminded Ki of the sinuous flexings of a skeel’s tail.
‘It’s true then!’ Ki cried out. ‘Janie, you must not. Think of Sasha!’
‘She does think of Sasha. Sasha will be loved and cherished as never before. They will go with me.’ Rebeke answered for them. ‘True? As true as a rumor and a scrap of gossip when they are woven together by guesses and filtered through the mouth of a fool. To make you understand the truth would take longer than I have. Such secrets are not for Humans anyway. We will be going.’ Rebeke stepped toward the door and paused. She looked again at Ki and Vandien over the white image in her arms. ‘It occurs to me that I do you no favor in leaving you here. Leave now, if you wish, and the storm will not begin until your wagon reaches the top of the cliff road.’
Vandien glanced at the huddle of villagers. ‘Let’s go,’ he suggested, hauling Ki to her feet.
‘Wait!’ Ki begged, hanging to his shoulder as she got her balance again. ‘Rebeke! What will be done with Dresh?’
‘You make me think less of you, Ki, that you even ask. But I will answer, for the courtesies that are owed between us. I will put him in a place where he will be stopped. Not killed, for I refuse his blood. I think you know where he will be. His life will pause, and the pause will stretch forever.’
Vertigo swept Ki as she remembered the airless emptiness of the void. ‘Leave him!’ she begged, surprising even herself. At the outrage in Rebeke’s eyes, she groped for her reasons. ‘He is, at least, still Human.’
Rebeke ran her eyes over the folk in the tavern. ‘And this is something to be proud of?’ she asked contemptuously. ‘Ki, you don’t know what you ask. He has started down a path that will twist him. He may keep the shape of his body, but he will be no more Human than I am. Little folk like you will feel the pressure of his heel more often than those whose skills equal his own. Will you inflict this on your own folk?’
Ki looked at Vandien and forced out the words. ‘I have a selfish reason. It is said that he could lift the scar from my friend’s face.’
‘A lie,’ Rebeke stated flatly. ‘He claims more power than he has.’ A curious smile crossed her immense mouth. ‘I must deny you what you ask, Ki. But I shall remember the voiding of the earthrune.’
‘So shall I,’ Ki said stubbornly. ‘Twice I have gifted you with revenge that left your hands unbloodied.’
‘I remember that, also,’ Rebeke replied coldly. ‘I still refuse what you ask. Go now, Romni teamster, without another word, before I forget that I have said I will hold the winds back until your wagon is clear of them. Trust a Romni to try to barter with a Windsinger. Was there ever such a mulish folk? Take with you, not my favor, but not my ill will either. Go now, knowing that I remember what is between us. But do not speak.’
‘We’re going!’ Vandien interjected, giving Ki a warning glance and a shake of her arm. He could not resist adding, ‘Farewell, good fisherfolk. I trust this Temple Ebb you have been entertained, even if I cannot juggle.’
He stooped and seized the hind legs of one of the blissful skeel. With an exasperated sigh, Ki grabbed the front legs and they lugged it out the door to her wagon. Already the winds outside were beginning to toss, and they loaded the skeel hurriedly. As they carried out the last skeel, Sasha spoke.
‘Good-bye, Ki!’ she called boldly. She looked up into the foreign visage of Rebeke and then back to Ki. ‘Even when I am a Windsinger, and strange to your eyes, you will know me by my Romni scarf! I will remember you!’
‘By the Moon!’ gasped Ki as the child happily flapped the scarf at her in farewell.
‘Try not to think of the implications,’ Vandien suggested as they loaded the skeel into the wagon.
‘Go!’ commanded Rebeke from the doorway, and the team started before Ki and Vandien were even seated.
‘I am sorry he must keep the scar,’ Janie said dreamily as the wagon was obscured by the night. ‘He was kind to us.’
Rebeke lifted her hand and the wind rose another notch. Her blue robes swirled around her. The lipless smile she gave Janie rippled her cheeks into folds. ‘Perhaps it is a shame.’ She looked up the cliff road. Her eyes were indulgent as she turned back to Janie. ‘Let him be patient for a year or so,’ she suggested. ‘Let him be surprised at how well his body heals itself.’
‘Thank you,’ Janie whispered.
‘Come, Dresh,’ Rebeke commanded. She seemed not to have heard Janie’s thanks. The wizard came on stiff-kneed legs, an unmouthed scream bulging his cheeks. The wind slammed the inn door behind them.