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…Frankenstein’s monster speaks: the computer. But where are its words coming from? Is the wisdom on those cold lips our own, merely repeated at our request? Or is something else speaking? -A voice we have always dreamed of hearing?
- from
The manor house of Salt Inspector Castor lay across the top of the hill like a sleeping cat. Its ivied walls had never been attacked; the towers that rose behind them had softened their edges over the centuries, and become home to lichen and birds’ nests. Next to his parents, this place was the greatest constant in Jordan Mason’s life, and his second-earliest memory was of sitting under its walls, watching his father work.
On a limpid morning in early autumn, he found himself eight meters above a reflecting pool, balanced precariously on the edge of a scaffold and staring through a hole in the curtain wall, that hadn’t been there last week. Jordan traced a seam of mortar with his finger; it was dark and grainy, the same consistency as that used by an ancestor of his to repair the rectory after a lightning storm, two hundred years ago. If Tyler Mason was the last to have patched here, that meant this part of the wall was overdue for some work.
"It looks bad!" he shouted down to his men. Their faces were an arc of sunburnt ovals from this perspective. "But I think we’ve got enough for the job."
Jordan began to climb down to them. His heart was pounding, but not because of the height. Until a week ago, he had been the most junior member of the work gang. Any of the laborers could order him around, and they all did, often with curses and threats. That had all changed upon his seventeenth birthday. Jordan’s father was the hereditary master mason of the estate, his title extending even to the family name. Jordan had spent his youth helping his father work, and now he was in charge.
For the first four days, Father had hung about, watching his son critically, but not interfering. Today, for the first time, he had stayed home. Jordan was on his own. He wasn’t all together happy about that, because he hadn’t slept well. Nightmares had prowled his mind.
"The stones around the breach are loose. We’ll need to widen the hole before we can patch it. Ryman, Chester, move the scaffold over two meters and then haul a bag of tools up there. We’ll start removing the stones around the hole."
"Yes sir, oh of course, mighty sir," exclaimed Ryman sarcastically. A week ago the bald and sunburnt laborer had been happy to order Jordan around. Now the tables were turned, but Ryman kept making it clear that he didn’t approve. Jordan wasn’t quite sure what he’d do if Ryman balked at something. One more thing to worry about.
The other men variously grinned, grunted or spat. They didn’t care who gave them their orders. Jordan clambered back up the scaffold and started hammering at the mortar around the hole with a spike. It was flaky, as he’d suspected-but not flaky enough to account for the sudden outward collapse of stones on both sides of the wall. It was almost as if something had dug its way through here.
That raised dire possibilities. He flipped black hair back from his eyes and looked through the hole at the vista of treetops beyond. The mansion perched on the highest ground for miles around and butted right up against the forest. Jordan didn’t like to spend too much time on the forest-side of the walls, preferring jobs as far as possible inside the yards. The forest was the home of monsters, morphs and other lesser Winds.
The inspector who built this place had been hoping his proximity to the wilderness would win him favor with the Winds. He used to stand on the forest-ward wall, sipping coffee and staring out at the treetops, waiting for a sign. Jordan had stood in the same spot and imagined he was the inspector, but he was never able to imagine how you would have to think to not be scared by those green shadowed mazeways. That old man must not have had bad dreams.
Bad dreams… Jordan was reminded of the strange nightmare he’d had last night. It had begun with something creeping in thorugh his window, dark and shapeless. Then, as morning drifted in, he had seemed to awake in a far distant hilltop, at dawn, to witness the beginning of a battle between two armies, which was cut short by a horror that had fallen from the sky, and leapt from the ground itself. It had been so vivid…
He shook himself and returned his attention to the moment. The others arrived and now began setting up. Jordan had scraped away the top layer of mortar around the stones he wanted cleared. Now he swung back along the edge of the scaffold, to let the brawnier men do their work. Below him the reflecting pool imaged puffy clouds and the white crescent of a distant vagabond moon. Ten minutes ago the moon had been on the eastern horizon; now it was in the south, and quickly receding.
He looked out over the courtyard. Behind him, dark forest strangled the landscape all the way to the horizon. Before him, past the courtyard, a line of trees ran along the three hilltops that lay between his village and the manor. To the right, the countryside had been cultivated in squares and rectangles. He could see the trapezoid shape of the Teoves’s homestead, the long strip of Shandler’s, and many more, and if he squinted could imagine the dividing line which separated these farms from those of the Neighbor.
All of this was familiar, and ultimately uninteresting. What he really wanted to look at-up close-was sitting right in the center of the courtyard, with a half-circle of nervous horses staring at it. It was a steam car.
The carriage sat in front, separated by a card-shaped wooden wall from the onion-shaped copper boiler. A smokestack angled off behind the boiler. The tall, thin-spoked wheels made it necessary to board the carriage from the front, and the gilded doors there had been painted with miniatures showing maids and plowsmen frolicking in some idealized pastoral setting.
When the thing ran it belched smoke and hissed like some fantastical beast. Its owner, Controller General of Books Turcaret, referred to it as a machine, which seemed pretty strange. It didn't look like any machine Jordan had ever heard about or seen. After all, if you weren't putting logs under the boiler it just sat there. And last year, on Turcaret’s first visit, Jordan had watched the boiler being heated up. It had seemed to work just like any ordinary stove. Nothing mechal there; only when the driver began pulling levers was there any change.
"Uh oh, there he goes again," grunted Ryman. The other men laughed.
Jordan turned to find them all grinning at him. Willam, a scarred redhead in his thirties, laughed and reached to pull Jordan back from the edge of the platform. "Trying to figure out Master Turcaret’s steam car again, are we?"
"Winds save us from Inventors," said Ryman darkly. "We should destroy that abomination, for safety’s sake…And anyone who looks at it too much."
They all laughed. Jordan fumed, trying to think of a retort. Willam glanced at him, and shook his head. Jordan might have enyoyed a little verbal sparring before, when he was just one of the work gang. Now that he was leader, Willam was saying, he should no longer do that.
He took one more glance at the steam car. All the village kids had found excuses to be in the courtyard today; he could see boys he’d played with two weeks ago. He couldn’t even acknowledge them now. He was an adult, they were children. It was an unbreachable gulf.
Behind him Chester swore colorfully, as he always did when things went well. The men began heaving stones onto the rickety scaffold. Jordan grabbed an upright; for a moment he felt dizzy, and remembered last night’s dream-something about swirling leaves and dust kicking into the air under the wingbeats of ten thousand screaming birds.
A group of brightly dressed women swirled across the courtyard, giving the steam car a wide berth. His older sister was among them; she looked in Jordan’s direction, shading her eyes, then waved.
Emmy seemed in better spirits than earlier this morning. When Jordan arrived at the manor she was already there, having been in the kitchens since before dawn. "There you are!" she’d said as he entered the courtyard. Jordan had debated whether to tell her about his nightmare, but before he could decide, she bent close. "Jordan," she said in a whisper. "Help me out, okay?"
"What do you want?"
She looked around herself in a melodramatic way. "He’s here."
"He?"
"You know… the Controller General. See?" She stepped aside, revealing a view of the fountain, pool, and Turcaret’s steam car.
Jordan remembered Emmy crying at some point during Turcaret’s visit last summer. She had refused to say what made her cry, only that it had to do with the visiting Controller General. "I’ll be all right," she’d said. "He’ll go away soon, and I’ll be fine."
Jordan still wasn’t sure what that had been about. Turcaret was from a great family and also a government appointed official, and as father said constantly, the great families were better than common folk. He had assumed Emmy had done something to anger or upset Turcaret. Only recently had other possibilities occurred to him.
"Surely he won’t remember you after all this time," he said now.
"How can you be so stupid!" she snapped. "It’s just going to be worse!"
"Well, what are we going to do?" Turcaret was a powerful man. He could do what he liked.
"Why don’t you find some excuse to get me out of the kitchens? He comes by there, ogling all the girls."
Jordan looked up past the scaffold at the angle of the sun. He wiped a skeen of sweat from his forehead. It was going to be a hot day; that gave him an idea.
He put his hand on Willam’s shoulder. "I’m going to fetch us some water and bread," he said.
"Good idea," grunted Willam as he levered another stone out of the wall. "But don’t dawdle."
Jordan swung out and down, smiling. He would get Emmy out here for the morning, and keep his men happy with a bucket or two of well water in the face. It was a good solution.
He was halfway down when a scream ripped the air overhead. Jordan let go reflexively and fell the last several meters, landing in a puff of dust next to the reflecting pool.
Surprisingly, Willam was lying next to him. "How did you-?" Jordan started to say; but Willam was grimacing and clutching his calf. There was huge and swelling bruise there, and the angle of the leg looked wrong.
Everybody was shouting. Flipping on his back, Jordan found the rest of his men plummeting to the ground all around him.
"-Thing in the wall," somebody yelled. And someone else said, "It took Ryman!"
Jordan stood up. The scaffold was shaking. The men were scattering for the four corners of the courtyard now. "What is it?" Jordan shouted in panic.
Then he saw, where the men had been working, a bright silver hand reach out to grab one of the scaffold’s uprights. Another hand appeared, flailing blindly. Bright highlights of sunlight flashed off it.
"A stone mother," gasped Willam. "There’s a stone mother in the wall. That’s what made the hole."
Jordan swore. Stone mothers were rare, but he knew they weren’t supernatural, like the Winds. They were mechal life, like stove beetles.
"Ryman reached into a hole and the silver stuff covered him," said Willam. "He’ll smother."
The second hand found the upright and clutched it. Jordan caught a glimpse of Ryman’s head, a perfect mirrored sphere.
Jordan knew what was happening. "It’s trying to protect itself!" he shouted to the scattered men. "Ryman was sweating-it’s trying to seal off the water!"
They stood there dumbly.
Ryman would be dead in seconds if somebody didn’t do something. Jordan turned to look at the open doors of the manor, twenty meters away. Clouds floated passively in the rectangle of the reflecting pool.
Jordan decided. He reached down, splashed water from the pool over his head and shoulders, then started up the scaffold. He could hear shouting behind him; people were running out of the manor.
He pulled himself onto the planks next to Ryman. Jordan’s heart was hammering. Ryman’s head, arms, and upper torso were encased in a shimmering white liquid, like quicksilver. He was on his knees now, but his grip on the upright remained strong.
Ryman was stubborn and strong; Jordan knew he would never be able to break the man’s grip. So he reached out a dripping hand and laid it on the oval brightness of the man’s covered head.
With a hiss the liquid poured over Jordan’s fingers and up his arm. He yelled and tried to pull back, but now the rest of the white stuff beaded up and leapt at him.
He had time to see Ryman’s blue face emerge from beneath the cold liquid before it had swarmed up and over his own mouth, nose and eyes.
Jordan nearly lost his head; he flailed about blindly for a moment, feeling the coiling liquid metal trying to penetrate his ears and nostrils. Then his foot felt the edge of the platform.
He jumped. For a second there was nothing but darkness, free falling giddyness and the shudder of quicksilver against his eyelids. Then he hit a greater coldness, and soft clay.
Suddenly his mouth was full of water and his vision cleared, then clouded with muddy water. Jordan thrashed and sat up. He’d landed where he intended: in the reflecting pool. The silver stuff was fleeing off his body now. It formed a big flat oval on the water’s surface, and skittered back and forth between the edges of the pool. When he caromed back in his direction, Jordan jumped without thinking straight out of the pool.
He heard laughter-then applause. Turning, Jordan found the whole manor, apparently, standing in the courtyard, shouting and pointing at him. Among them as a woman he had not seen before. She must be travelling with Turcaret. She was slim and striking, with a wreath of black hair framing an oval face and piercing eyes.
When he looked at her, she nodded slowly and gravely, and turned to go back inside.
Weird. He glanced up at the scaffold; Ryman was sitting up, a hand at his throat, still breathing heavily. He caught Jordan’s eye, and raised a hand, nodding.
Then Chester and the others were around him, hoisting Jordan in the air. "Three cheers for the hero of the hour!" shouted Chester.
"Put me down, you oafs! Willam’s broke his leg."
They lowered him, and all rushed over to Willam, who grinned weakly up at Jordan. "Get him to the surgeon," said Jordan. "Then we’ll figure out what to do about the stone mother."
Emmy ran up, and hugged him. "That was very foolish! What was that thing?"
He shrugged sheepishly. "Stone mother. They live inside boulders and, and hills and such like. They’re mecha, not monsters. That one was just trying to protect itself."
"What was that silver stuff? It looked alive!"
"Dad told me about that one time. The mothers protect themselves with it. He said the stuff goes towards whatever’s wettest. He said he saw somebody get covered with it once; he died, but the stuff was still on him, so they got it off by dropping the body in a horse trough."
Emmy shuddered. "That was an awful chance. Don’t do anything like that again, hear?"
The excitement was over, and the rest of the crowd began to disperse. "Come, let’s get you cleaned up," she said, towing him in the direction of the kitchens.
As they were rounding the reflecting pool, Jordan heard the sudden thunder of hooves, saw the dust fountaining up from them. They were headed straight for him.
"Look out!" He whirled, pushing Emmy out of the way. She shrieked and fell in the pool.
The sound vanished; the dust blinked out of existence.
There were no horses. The courtyard was empty and still under the morning sun.
Several people had looked over at Jordan’s cry, and were laughing again.
"What-?"
"How could you!" A hot smack on his cheek turned him around again. Emmy’s dress was soaked, and now clung tightly to her hips and legs.
"I-I didn’t mean to-"
"Oh, sure. What am I going to do now?" she wailed.
"Really-I heard horses. I thought-"
"Come on." She grabbed his arm ran for the nearby stables. Inside she crossly wrung out her skirt in a stall, cursing Jordan all the while.
He shook his head, terribly confused. "I really am sorry, Emmy. I didn’t mean to do it. I really did hear horses. I swear."
"Your brain’s addled, that’s all."
"Well, maybe, I just…" He kicked the stall angrily. "Nothing’s going right today."
"Did you hit your head when you landed?" The idea seemed to still her anger. She stepped out of the stall, still wet but not scowling at him any more.
"No, I don’t think so, I just-" A bright flash of light in his eyes startled him. He caught a confused glimpse of sunlit grass and white clouds, where straw and wooden slats should be.
"Jordan?" His elbow hurt. Somehow, he was on the floor.
"Hey…" She knelt beside him, looking concerned. "Are you okay? You fell over."
"I did? It was that flash of light. I saw-" Now he wasn’t sure what he’d seen.
Emmy gently felt his skull for bruises. "Nothing hurts here, does it?."
"I didn’t hit myself, really." He brushed himself off and stood up.
"You looked really weird there for a second."
"I don’t know. It’s not anything." He felt scared suddenly, so to cover it, he said, "No, I was just joking. Come on, let’s check on Willam. Then we’d better get back to work."
"Okay," she said uncertainly.
Willam and Ryman were still with the surgeon, and nobody knew what to do about the stone mother, so Jordan told the rest of the men to take an early lunch. He went to the kitchens and found a stool near Emmy. They wiled away some time near the warmness of the hearth.
Jordan had just decided to round up his men and get back to work, when he suddenly felt a horse under him, and saw grasslands sweeping by. A thunderous sound, as of many mounted men, filled his ears. This time, he was lost for what seemed a long time.
His hand gripped the reins tightly, only it was not his hand, but the sunburned hand of a mature man.
In an eye-blink the vision was gone, and he stood again in the kitchen. He hadn’t fallen, and no one was looking at him. Jordan’s heart began to pound as if he’d run a kilometer.
He waved at Emmy urgently. She was talking to one of the bakers, and ignored him until he started to walk over. Then she quickly intercepted him and whispered, "What?" in that particular tone of voice she used lately when her interrupted her talking to young men.
"It happened again."
"What happened?"
"Like in the stables. And outside. I saw something." Her skeptical look told him to be careful what he said. "I-I do think I’m sick," he said.
Her look softened. "You look awful, actually. What’s wrong?"
"I keep seeing things. And hearing things."
"Voices? Like uncle Wilson?"
"No. Horses. Like in the dream I had last night."
"Dream? What are you talking about?
"The dream I had last night. I’m still having it."
"Tell me."
"Horses, and grasslands. There was a battle, and the Winds came. All last night, it was just like I was there. And it keeps happening today, too. I’m still seeing it."
Emmy shook her head. "You are sick. Come on, we’ll go see the surgeon."
"No, I don’t want to."
"Don’t be a baby."
"Okay, okay. But I can go on my own. You don’t have to come with me."
"All right," she said reluctantly. He felt her concerned gaze on him as he left.
The surgeon was busy with Willam’s broken leg. Jordan stood around for a few minutes outside his door, but the sound of screaming coming from inside made him feel worse and worse, until finally he had to leave. He sat in the courtyard, unsure whether to go back to work or go home. Something was wrong, and he had no idea what to do about it.
He couldn’t stay idle, though. If he went home, his father would treat him with contempt at dinner; Jordan always felt terribly guilty when he was sick, as if he was doing something bad.
He thought of the walk home, and that made him think of the forest. There was someone there who could help him-and maybe solve the problem of the stone mother too. It was a long walk, and he didn’t like to be in the forest alone, but just now he didn’t know what else to do. He stood up and left the manor, taking the path that led to the church, and the house of the priests.
The church lay several kilometers within the forest. Jordan relaxed as he walked, frightening as the forest was. Father Allegri would help him.
The path opened onto the church lands abruptly: Jordan came around a sharp bend where towering silver maple and oak trees closed in overhead, and there was the clearing, broad and level, skirted at its edges with low stone buildings where the ministers lived. In front of the church itself, a broad flagstone courtyard, unwalled, was kept bare and clean.
The priests’ house stood off to one side, under overhanging oaks. It was a stout stone building, two stories high, with its own stable. Jordan had been inside many times, since his father helped in its upkeep.
With relief he saw that Allegri was outside, seated on the porch with his feet up, a news sheet in his hands. It must be something important he was reading. The priests received regular news about the Winds from all over the country.
Allegri looked up at Jordan's shout and quickly walked to meet him. Now that he was here, Jordan ran the last part, and appeared on the porch huffing and puffing.
"Jordan!" Allegri laughed in surprise. "What brings you here?"
Jordan grimaced; he didn’t know where to start.
"Is something wrong? Shouldn’t you be at work?"
"N-no, nothing’s wrong," said Jordan. "We’re taking a break."
Allegri frowned. Jordan shrugged, suddenly unsure of himself. He pointed to the paper Allegri held. "What’s that?"
"Copy of a semaphore report. Just arrived." Allegri sent Jordan another piercing look, then sat, gesturing for Jordan to do the same. Jordan dropped on a bench nearby, feeling uncomfortable.
"It’s fascinating stuff," said Allegri. He waved the paper. "It’s about a battle that took place yesterday, between two very large forces, Ravenon and Seneschal."
Jordan looked up in interest. "Who won?"
"Well, there hangs the tale," said the minister. "It seems each side lined up, on the edges of a great field south of here, on the Ravenon border. They camped, and waited all night, and then in the morning they donned their armor, and took up their weapons, and marched against each other. Very deliberate. Very confident, both sides."
Jordan could picture it clearly; this sounded so similar to the nightmare he’d had last night. In his dream, the mounted horsemen had clashed in clouds of dust on the ends of the lines. Bracketed by the horror of dying men and screaming horses, stolid infantry marched up the center. In his dream, Jordan could tell from the angle of the sun that it was nine o'clock in the morning. He had stood on a hill above the battle, surrounded by flying pennants and impatient horses.
"What colors?" he asked.
Allegri raised an eyebrow. "Colors?"
"What were the colors of the pennants they were flying?"
"Well, if I recall correctly, Ravenon flies yellow pennants. Those are the royal colors, anyway. The enemy were the Senschals, so they’d be red," said Allegri. "Why?"
Jordan hesitated before speaking. To say this to Allegri would be to make it real. "Your semaphore… does it say that the Seneschals had these steam cannon hidden behind their infantry? Like fountains in a way, grey streams of gravel flying up and into the back ranks of the Ravenon footsoldiers."
"Yes." Allegri frowned. "How did you know? I just got this. We’re relaying it on to Castor’s place right now." He gestured to the far side of the clearing, where one of the brothers was yanking the pulleys on a tall semaphore tower.
"I dreamed this battle." There, he’d said it. Jordan looked down at his feet.
"Is this why you came to see me?" Allegri asked. "To tell me you’d dreamed today’s news?"
Jordan nodded.
The priest opened his mouth, closed it, and said, "Where were you in this… dream?"
"On a hillside. Surrounded by important people. I think I was an important person too. People kept looking at me, and I said things."
"What things?" Allegri prompted.
It wasn’t like remembering a dream. The more Jordan thought about it, the more like memory it became. "Orders," he said. "I was giving orders."
He closed his eyes, and recalled the scene. His own lines were wavering, and the infantry fell back even as his cavalry outflanked the Seneschals on the right. A group of his cavalry rode hard at the steam cannon, and cut down their operators, but some were lost in the last moments as the cannon were laboriously turned against them. Ravenon now had the Seneschal forces bent back like a bow, but their own lines were stretched thin. Jordan described this to Allegri.
Allegri shook his head, either in surprise or disbelief. "What happened then?" he asked. "The news just reached us-but it’s unclear. Unbelievable. What do you know about it?"
Jordan squinted. He didn’t want to remember this part; he could see bodies strewn across the grass below, some writhing, and in places where the line of battle had passed, women walked to and fro, cutting throats or administering first aid depending on the color of a helpless man’s uniform. Jordan saw one man play dead and then leap up and run down a woman who had approached him with her knife drawn. Three others converged on him and cut him down in turn.
In the dream Jordan had looked away then, and spoke. "We deployed a new weapon," said Jordan now.
"Describe it." Allegri’s hands twisted in the cloth of his robe. He sat hunched forward, eyes fixed on Jordan.
"We had the breeze to our advantage. My men set fire to some sort of long tubes filled with… sulphur, I think. They made a horrible reddish-yellow smoke." Jordan didn’t want to talk about it any more, but once he had started it was hard to stop. And Allegri was staring at him as if he could force the story out of him by willpower alone. "The smoke went over the Seneschals. They started to fall down, they choked on it. The lines broke. We had time to regroup, we got ready to charge."
"And then?"
Jordan swallowed. "And then the Winds came."
From the hillsides all around the battle scene, a cloud rose as the birds, the bugs, the burrowing animals and the snakes, all rose and marched into the valley. The grass itself began to twist and come to life, and the earth trembled as great silvery boulders wrenched themselves out and sprouted legs. The men and horses around Jordan milled in panic. He could see they were screaming, but their voices were drowned by a tumbling, roaring, and shrieking mass of life descending on the battle lines.
"It was the sulphur," he said quietly. "They smelled the sulphur and became angry at us. It was okay as long as we were cutting each other up. Beating each other to death. But the smoke…" Jordan relived a feeling of terrible helplessnness, as he watched both armies dissolve under a tumult of fur, feather and scale. Only a few stragglers and quick horsemen escaped. The steam cannon exploded with ringing bangs, and mist and sulphur clouds hung low for many minutes until, drifting away, they revealed an encampment of the dead. The animals slunk away into the hills, shaking the bloody fur of their backs as they passed the stunned witnesses.
"It’s okay, you’re safe," Allegri was saying. Jordan came to himself to find the priest at his side, arm around his shoulder. He realized he was shaking. "It wasn’t your fault."
"But I was the one on the hill. The one who gave the order!"
Allegri shook him gently. "What are you saying? That you got up in the middle of the night, grew some centimeters and an army, and commanded the battle yourself? It’s more likely that you’ve been using that fantastic imagination of yours," laughed the priest. "Maybe you heard something last night, from Castor or his men. After all, he might have the news from some other source. Did you maybe sit on near some conversation last night, that you maybe didn’t realize you were listening in on? Some word or phrase you caught, that came back to you as you were going to sleep?"
Jordan shook his head. "I went straight home." He wiped at his eyes.
Allegri stood up and started to pace. "The semaphore said there was a battle yesterday, near a town called Andorson. Everyone died, it said. We looked at that and didn’t understand it. Everyone died? But who won? What you’ve just said clears it up. It could be this was a true vision you had."
"A vision?"
The priest chewed on a fingernail, ignoring Jordan. "A vision, for the son of a mason. Won’t this upset the applecart. Do we tell Turcaret and Castor. No… no, that wouldn’t do at all."
Jordan stood up and grabbed Allegri’s arm. "What’s going on? What’s this about visions?"
Allegri scowled. He was more animated than Jordan had ever seen him. "You know some people can talk to the Winds. Turcaret claims the power; it runs in his family." Jordan nodded. The whole foundation of sensible government was men like Turcaret, who had a proven connection to the Winds, hence the authority to guide the hands of economics and bureaucracy. "The Winds often speak in visions," said Allegri. "Or dreams. But they rarely speak to someone of your class."
"What does that mean? Am I like Castor?" The thought was absurd; Castor was hereditary Salt Inspector for this province. His pedigree was ancient.
"I admit it’s unusual, but most of the great families got their start with somebody like yourself, you know." Allegri pointed towards the church. "Let’s talk in there."
"Why?" asked Jordan as he followed the rapidly walking priest.
Allegri shook his head, mumbling something. "It’s a shame," he said as Jordan caught up with him.
"What do you mean, a shame? This means our family could get a government post, doesn’t it?" Was that really the voice of some spirit that had entered his dreams last night? The idea was both exhilarating and terrifying. Jordan found himself laughing, a bit hysterically.
"Am I going to get my own manor house?" As he said it, he realized something: "But I don’t want that!"
As they entered the church, Allegri frowned at Jordan. "Good," he said. "I had higher hopes for you-you’ve always been inquisitive. A lot of the ideas you’ve spoken to me about are like ones from the very books Turcaret bans. I’d hoped you would show an interest in the priesthood. After all, it’s the one thing you could legally do besides being a mason."
They stood now in the pillared space of the church. Allegri gestured at the cross that hung between the tall windows at its far end.
"If Turcaret and his like had their way, this place would not exist," Allegri said, gesturing around.
"What do you mean?"
"Turcaret and his kind have power because they claim-
"Jordan, I hope you don’t become such a one. Whatever the Winds tell you, you can choose how to use the knowledge. But beware of becoming their tool, like the Controller and his men."
Jordan looked around at the quiet space, remembering many evenings he had spent here with Mother. Father did not attend church; he was not a believer. Only about half the people at Castor’s manor were. The rest adhered to one or another of the Wind cults.
"What should I do?" asked Jordan.
"I’ll consult by semaphore with the church fathers. Meanwhile, tell no one. If these visions disrupt your day, claim sickness. I’ll back you up. Hopefully we’ll get some guidance in a day or so."
Jordan brought up the subject of the stone mother. Allegri called one of the brothers over and they consulted, returning after a few minutes with some suggestions for handling the mechal beast. Jordan thanked Allegri, and they made their farewells.
He felt as if a great weight had been lifted off him as he walked back to the manor. Whatever was happening to him, he had put it in Allegri’s hands. The priests would know what to do.
The usual bustle of the hallways was muted today, out of deference to Turcaret, whom they needed to impress, if for no other reason than that Castor wanted not to seem too provincial to his rich visitor. The silent summer air weighed heavily in here, as outside, and when he had stopped puffing Jordan headed straight for the back stairs to the kitchen.
"She's quite a filly, eh?" That was Castor's voice, coming from behind the wood-inlaid door to the library. "Turn around for Turcaret, Emmy."
Jordan stopped walking. Emmy. He looked around, then put his ear against the door.
"A fine girl." Turcaret’s dry, sardonic voice. "But hard to appreciate in all that get-up."
"Emmy, you hide your beauty too much," said Castor. Jordan heard a faint whisper of motion as someone walked across the room. "Turn around."
An appreciative noise from Turcaret. "Clasp your hands behind your neck, girl."
"Sir?"
"It's all right, Emmy," said Castor. "Do as the Controller General says. Stand up straight."
Something about the tone of the voices made Jordan uncomfortable. He put his hand on the doorknob, hesitated, took it away. He had no excuse to be entering the library.
"Emmy, whatever happened to that dress you had last summer? The off-the-shoulder one? That was quite pretty."
"I-I outgrew it, sir."
"Do you still have it? Hmm. Why don't you wear it tomorrow, then?"
Emmy said something Jordan didn't catch. Dry laughter from the men. Then she gave a little shriek: "Oh!"
"Here comes the lady," said Turcaret suddenly.
"All right, Emmy. That will be all," said Castor in a distracted tone. "Remember what I told you about tomorrow."
Jordan heard the door on the far side of the library open. Castor started to speak, but he was cut off by a strong female voice Jordan had never heard before. "All right, gentlemen, what about our agreement?"
Another door, this one around the corner of the same hallway Jordan was in, opened and closed. He left off eavesdropping and ran around to find his sister leaning against the wall underneath a watchful portrait of one of Castor's ancestors.
"Emmy!" She looked up, then away. To his surprise, she turned and started to walk away without even acknowledging him.
"Hey! What are you doing?" He caught up to her. He felt a fluttering uneasiness in the pit of his stomach. "I talked to Allegri-everything’s all right. There’s nothing wrong with me."
Emmy rounded on him, grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him against the wall. "Where were you when I needed you?" she shouted. "Everything is
For just a second, he saw blue sky, clouds, heard the snorting of a horse. "Oh, stop," he murmured, squashing the palms of his hands against his eyes. "Just stop."
Jordan's mother ladled out a thick soup and revealed a spread of cheese, salad and fresh bread. She smiled around the supper table with proprietary kindness, while Jordan's father talked on about the stone mother and Jordan’s bravery.
"Ryman can’t say a bad word about the boy now. Ha! What a change. But the fact is, when it came to the moment, he panicked, and you didn’t."
"Thanks." Jordan found himself squirming. All this sudden fame was strange, and tiring on top of everything else that had happened today. Despite his exhaustion, he was afraid of going to sleep tonight. The nightmare might return.
He wanted to tell his family about Allegri’s idea that he’d been blessed by the Winds. He opened his mouth to speak, but a cold feeling deep in his stomach stopped him. Father kept printed broadsheets detailing the escapades of the inspectors and controllers; Jordan could see several tacked up by the door if turned his head. That was all Mother would allow as decoration, the rest being relegated to a chest on the porch. Father would would be thrilled and proud beyond description if he thought Jordan might be able to gain a government position. But it wasn’t what Jordan himself wanted.
He had always assumed he would follow in his father’s footsteps, and was content with that. Jordan’s highest ambition was to have a comfortable home, a family, and to be considered a solid member of the community. What more could a man ask for?
So he said nothing. It was desperately necessary that the peace of the supper table not be disturbed. His mother's careful preparations, her cleanliness and little touches such as the chrysanthemums in the center of the spread, were talismans, protective as was his father's way of hovering about all problems without alighting his attention on any, and smoothing all troubled waters with belittling wit.
His father had said something more. "Hmm? What?" He blinked around the table.
"Where’s your head?" His father's smile was puzzled, traced with a little sadness as it often was. "Have more potatoes, they're good for you," he said, but he looked like he wanted to say something else.
What he did add was, "I met a man today, a courier for the Ravenon forces named Chan. You know about the war they're having with the Seneschals?" Emmy nodded dutifully. Jordan sat up straight, his food forgotten.
"This fellow said there was a battle yesterday. On the border."
"Is the war coming here?" Emmy asked.
"No. I don’t know if the war is going to continue. It seems the Winds intervened in the battle. Stopped it.
"The Winds are mighty," said their father. "That's the lesson; though truth to tell, this fellow Chan seemed more amused by the tale than anything." He shook his head. "Some people…"
He turned his attention to Emmy. "Your brother did well today, didn’t he?" he asked.
"He did okay," she said in a monotone.
"Okay? Well, aren’t you proud?" She said nothing. "Well, how about you?" he asked. "Did you get to see our master’s guests? Did you meet Turcaret?"
Emmy glanced up; her eyes met Jordan's. He looked down, squirmed in his chair. "Yes," said Emmy.
"He's pretty grand, isn't he? I hear his house is twice the size of Castor's. Mind, that would be twice the work, I expect."
"I-I don't like Turcaret," blurted Emmy.
Their father reared back, raising his eyebrows. "What? That's a pretty definite opinion to have for somebody you've barely met, especially one of your superiors. What brought that on?"
Emmy didn't answer immediately, hunkering down over her meal. Finally she said, "He got Castor to make me wear my old dress tomorrow."
"What dress?" asked their mother.
"The canary one."
"But you've outgrown that dress, dear."
"I told them that."
There was a brief silence. Jordan felt a familiar tension, and the clamoring need to defuse it. He cast about for something
funny to say, but his father was faster. "You still have it? I thought you gave it to Jordan as a hand-me-down!"
Everybody laughed except Emmy. She looked a bit sick, actually, and Jordan's own laugh died in embarrassed silence.
"Well, after dinner we can try to let it out a bit," said mother.
Emmy looked at her aghast. Then she pushed away from the table and ran for the stairs.
"Emmy!" thundered their father, then more weakly, "come back."
They sat in silence for a few moments, then mother got up. "I'll talk to her," she said quietly, and padded up the stairs after Emmy.
Jordan and his father completed their meal in silence.
After dinner Jordan took a walk to the spot where he planned to build his own house. He was heartsick. He strolled the rutted, red tracks that joined the houses of the village, but it only took a few minutes to cover them all. He stopped to talk to a few people, family and friends who sat in the lazing sun and talked while their hands busied with spinning and mending. He was distracted, however, and soon resumed walking again. The Penners were fixing their roof, along with a mob of relatives. Jordan avoided them; they would just want his advice.
This village was his home, always and forever. Jordan enjoyed hearing tales of the outside world, and often dreamed of a life as an traveller. But outside the village waited the
forest.
The forest appeared in the fading daylight as a ragged swath of green-black across the eastern horizon, exhaling its hostility across the reach of fields and air to Jordan. The forest was a domain of the Winds, and of the morphs that served them. Unlike the morphs, the true Winds had no form, but only a monstrous passion sufficient to animate dead moss and clay. They drove the wall of trees forward like a tidal wave, slowed to imperceptibility by some low cunning, but just as unstoppable. The previous summer, Jacob Walker had gone to the back of his fields to cull some of the young birch trees that had invaded his fields. His son had seen the morphs take him, and the way Jordan heard it, the trees themselves had moved at the morphs' command. Walker's farm was abandoned now, saplings spiking up here and there in the field, the crops turned to woodsage and fireweed, poison ivy and thistle. The Walker family now lived in another village, and did odd jobs.
Some things could not be avoided, or confronted. There must have been a time, Jordan felt, when he was unaware of the pressure of the sky on him, of the eyes of conscious nature watching from the underbrush. He vaguely remembered running carelessly through the woods when he was very young. But he was swiftly educated out of that. Once, too, he had run and laughed in the corridors of the manor, but he knew now that however familiar Castor might be, he was something different than Jordan and his people, hence in his own way a force of nature like the Winds. To be obeyed, his anger sidestepped if possible, else accommodated. Jordan could not become that.
Better not to think about it. His pace had increased as his thoughts drifted back to the manor, and the visiting Lord. Jordan slowed his pace, consciously unclenched his fists. From here, at the edge of the village, he could see the roof of his parents’ house over those of the neighbors. Everything looked peaceful in the goldening glow of evening. He had come to a fence, past which a row of haystacks squatted, surfaces alive with attendant grasshoppers, wise blinking birds sitting on their peaks. He sat down on the stile, and propped his chin on his hands.
Across the road was a expanse of unruly brush, interspersed with trees. It was far from the forest. Jordan had decided when he was ten years old that he would build his house here. Although he had yet to buy the land, only just having begun to earn a wage, he felt the place was already his. Lately he had begun drawing up plans for the building. Father had laughed when he saw them. "That’s a bit optimistic, isn’t it?" he’d said. "Better start small."
Jordan had kept the plans as they were. His house would have a big workshop where he could do stonework. Why limit himself to repair work? People would need detailing for new buildings. He could do that. So he needed that extra space, regardless of what Father said.
Evening canted slowly over the village, lighting and deepening the roofs as planes and parallelograms of russet and amber. There came a time when there were shadows, and Jordan knew this was when he should go back. The hammering from the Penners' had stopped, and now only a few lazy laughs drifted in, mixed with the barking of dogs called on to herd the goats back home.
Jordan heard a sound behind him. It was only a blackbird taking off, but he realized it too late to stop a cold flush of adrenaline. He stood up, brushing dust off the backs of his pants, and glanced at the dark line of the forest. Yes, go back.
He did feel better now, his mind calmed of any bad thoughts. His father was sitting in the doorway of the cottage, whittling, as he did sometimes. Yawning, Jordan bade him good night; his father barely glanced up, only grunting acknowledgment. Jordan saw no sign of his mother or sister inside. He padded up to the attic and threw himself on his narrow bed.
As he drifted off, he saw and heard flashes reminiscent of his nightmare last night. Every one would jolt him awake again, a little pulse of fear setting him to roll over or hug the blankets tighter about himself. He imagined something creeping in through the little window and whispering in his ear. He was sure someone had touched his face while he slept last night, and that this had set the nightmares off. What if it had been a morph?
Jordan sat up, blinking in the total darkness. It had not been a Wind. It was a person, someone unfamiliar whom he had seen, sometime today. Turcaret? He couldn’t remember.
He had been so absorbed in battling memory that he hadn't noticed the sounds coming from downstairs. Now Jordan could plainly hear his father and his sister arguing, it sounded like in the back room.
"I won't go back there," she said.
"What are you saying?" said their father. "What will you do instead? There is nothing else, nowhere else to go. Don't be silly."
"I won't."
"Emmy."
"He's an evil man, and he makes Castor evil whenever he comes. They were… they were looking at me. I won't wear this."
"Castor commanded it. He's our employer, Emmy. We owe everything we have to him. How can you be so ungrateful? If it weren't for him, where would we be? Huddling in the forest with the windlorn."
"You'd let him… you would…" She was in tears.
Father's voice became softer, placating. "Emmy, nothing is going to happen. We have to trust Castor. We have no choice."
"It is! It is going to happen! And you won't see! None of you!"
"Emmy-" Jordan heard the door slam open, and quick footsteps recede into the night. He leaped out of bed, and went to the window. A slim form raced away from the house, in the direction of the black forest. Jordan's scalp prickled as Emmy vanished in the shadow of the great oaks.
His father had heard the boards above his head creak. "Go back to bed, Jordan!"
He remained standing. Downstairs, his father and mother spoke together quietly; he couldn't hear what they were saying.
Jordan fell back on the bed, his heart pounding. The murmured conversation continued. Why weren't they following her? He listened, a tightness building in his chest as his parents' inaction continued. After a few minutes he realized they were praying.
There were morphs in the forest, and maybe worse things. Jordan felt a sudden certainty that Emmy was going to stumble into its arms. She must be trying to get to the church, but the path was difficult even in daylight. At night, the forest was so dark you couldn't see a tree trunk centimeters from your face, and, he knew, every sound was magnified so the approach of a field mouse sounded like a bear was coming.
Emmy had never feared the woods. He should have told her what had happened to him today. Jordan put his hands to his eyes and squinted back tears. At that moment, he felt terribly, awfully helpless, and abandoned because she was abandoned. Their parents were doing nothing!
And neither was he. He went to the window again.
"Jordan." His father's voice filled him with sudden loathing. His father was afraid of the forest. He wouldn't follow Emmy because he was scared of the dark, and he was sure inaction would cure whatever was wrong.
Jordan sat on the bed, seething with hatred for his parents. The tightness in his chest was growing, though.
The tightness had him gasping. Finally, he admitted to himself that they would do nothing-not tonight, not tomorrow, or ever. Their desperate fear of any disturbance in their carefully ordered lives paralyzed them utterly-and it always had.
He hurriedly dressed, not caring how much noise he made, and thudded down the steps. Candles lit the kitchen, where his parents knelt on the gritty wooden floor. Both looked up as Jordan appeared.
His father opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He met Jordan's eye for only a moment, then looked down. His mother nervously fiddled with the bow of her night dress.
Some spell had lifted, and Jordan walked past them with no feeling of compulsion to stop, obey or even heed what they might say. He stepped into the cool August night, and turned toward the forest.
He took the lantern that always hung outside the door, fumbled for the matches that were stuffed in a crack nearby. Frowning, he lit the lantern as he walked. Behind him he heard a shout, but he ignored it. Somehow, the action of lighting the lantern, of picking the likely path his sister had taken, absorbed his attention and he felt no emotion as he walked. No emotion at all.
Once he was under the trees, the lantern seemed to create a miniature world for him. This little universe was made of leaf-outlines, upstanding lines of grass, and grey slabs of trunk, all stuck in the pitch of night. Without the light, he would be stuck here too. It was inconceivable that Emmy could go any distance in here; but he had to admit she knew the paths. He had once asked Allegri what he would do if he lost his light in here, and the priest had said, "It happens now and then. But the trees are cleared near the path, so if you look straight up, rather than ahead, and sweep your feet ahead of you as you walk, you can do it." It was like walking backward using a mirror. Emmy knew this.
But she could have fallen, could be lying two meters away, and he would never see her.
He opened his mouth to call her, heard a croak come out, and his own voice, circling around to his ears, somehow broke the dam of numbness that he had preserved as he left home.
"Emmy!" His shout was louder than he'd expected, and his voice cracked on it.
A few meters into the blackness he saw a small footprint in the mud; she had come this way. Emmy must be making for the church. She wouldn't go to the neighbors; they would just bring her back home. And she wouldn't go to the manor. The church was the only other refuge.
"Emmy!" He started to say,
He walked for a long time, calling out now and again. There was no answer, though once he heard a distant crashing in the brush which froze him silent for a long moment.
She couldn't possibly have gone this far! Had he missed her in the dark? Maybe she hadn't come this way at all, but just skirted the forest, and was even now back home, waiting for him with the others. That thought made Jordan's scalp prickle, as if he were the runaway… but that was silly.
The lamp was starting to gutter. "Shit." He was going to wind up huddling the night under some bush; in the pit of his stomach he knew he'd lost Emmy. And now he was alone in the forest.
He bent down, placing the butt of the lantern on his knee, and opened the glass to check the wick. There was probably enough oil to get a kilometer or so. It was more than that back to the village. The church was probably closer.
So he had to go on. Somehow he felt reassured by this. He stood up to continue.
A little star bobbed within the blackness ahead of him. He stared at it, biting his lip and remembering stories of spirit lights that led travellers off cliffs. But such lights were supposed to be green, or white, and to flicker and dodge about in swampy country. This light was amber, and swayed just as a lantern would if someone were walking with it.
He raised his own light and shouted, "Hallo!" The sound echoed flatly away.
The little light paused, then bobbed up and down. He started toward it, along the path. Maybe someone had found Emmy, and was returning with her. The thought sped him up; his heart was in his throat.
It was a lantern, and it was an ordinary person carrying it. But… Jordan had expected a man, a woodsman or even Allegri, but this was a woman stepping delicately over mossed logs and bent reeds. Not Emmy. And alone.
She raised her light again, and he recognized her. He had seen her at the doorway of the manor kitchen, asking for water. She must have accompanied Turcaret here in his steam wagon. When he'd seen her this morning she had been dressed in a long gown, but now she wore buckskin pants like a man, a dark shirt, and a cape thrown over her shoulders. She stood in stout muddied boots, too, and had some kind of belt around her hips, from which several leather pouches hung. Her glossy black hair was drawn tightly back, only one or two careless strands falling past her dark, arched brows. Her eyes gleamed in the lamplight.
"What a happy meeting," she said. Her voice was melodic, and strong; she seemed to taste each syllable as she spoke it, weighing how it might best be pitched. "What are you doing so far from town?"
"Looking for my sister. She… she came this way." He felt suspicious suddenly, wary of admitting Emmy's vulnerability. "Have you seen her?"
"No…" She tasted the word as if it had some special savor. "But then I have only just ventured onto this trail. Perhaps she went by earlier?"
"Not long ago." He heard himself groan faintly, knowing he must have missed Emmy somewhere in the dark. "Please," he said, "can you help me? I'm scared for her. I can't find her. She should have been… back there." He looked around at the curtains of black. "Maybe I missed her."
"All right." She came up to him, and her fingers lightly touched his shoulder as she walked past. He found himself turning as if she held him tightly. They began to pick their way back along the trail.
"I've seen you up at the mansion," she said. "You're the lad who outwitted the stone mother, aren't you?"
"Yes, ma'am. Jordan Mason."
"Yes." She was smiling now, as if delighted. "It's fortunate I met you just now, Jordan. It saves me a lot of time."
"Why?"
"I wanted to talk to some of Castor's people. On my own, you know?"
Jordan thought about it. She didn't trust Castor? "Is that why you were out at the church?"
"Yes." She shot him a dazzling smile. She was, he noticed, notably taller than he.
His lantern guttered and finally went out. "Shit," he said, shaking it. "Excuse me."
"You're not afraid of the dark, are you?" she asked, chiding.
"No, ma'am. I'm afraid of what's in it."
“I see.” He heard, rather than saw, her smile in the sound of the words.
The lady appeared to be thinking. She glanced about herself, then said firmly, “I heard voices a ways back. Was your sister going to meet someone?”
“No…” But what if she had met Allegri, or someone else coming from the priest’s house? “Where did you hear the voices?”
"This way." She held the lantern high, and walked back the way she’d come. He followed, hopeful that they would meet Emmy coming back from the priest’s house.
The lady paused at a fork in the path. The way to the priest’s was on the right, Jordan knew. The left way led deeper into the forest. She stepped onto the left-ward way.
“Wait!” He hurried forward. “She wouldn’t have gone this way. It doesn’t lead anywhere.”
“But one of the voices I heard was that of a girl,” said the lady, frowning. “And they came from down this way.” She stood hipshot, radiating impatience. “You are keeping me from my own errands, young man. I need not help you at all, you know.”
“Of course. I’m sorry.” He followed her onto the lesser of the two paths.
This way was half-overgrown; the lady seemed to have no trouble seeing the path ahead of them, but to Jordan every way quickly came to look the same. He glanced behind them, and saw only a thatchwork of tree trunks and ferns, framed in black.
“Are you sure this is where you heard the voices coming from?” he asked after a few minutes.
“Of course. Look, there’s a footprint.” She lowered the lamp for him to see. Jordan peered at the ground where she pointed, but he couldn’t see anything.
“I don’t see-“
“Are you questioning me?” said the lady. “You are keeping me from my duties. What will Castor and Turcaret say about my lateness?”
“You mustn’t tell them!”
“Well, then, stop dawdling.”
Jordan was silent for a while, but his heart was sinking. Could Emmy have run afoul of a bandit, or worse, a morph? Who else would be out in this blackness?
“What were you doing out here alone, ma’am?” he asked boldly. “Were you visiting the priests?”
“Yes, of course,” she replied promptly. They continued on over the uneven ground, until the thickets and trunks surrounded them tightly, and there was no longer any indication of a path underfoot.
The lady had one foot on a fallen log, about to step over it, when Jordan said, “Stop.”
“What?” She stepped up and balanced precariously on the mossy log.
“This is crazy. She can’t have come this way. Sound plays tricks in the forest. Maybe the sound came from somewhere else.”
“Maybe.” She sounded doubtful.
“We need to go back and get help,” he said. “I’ll roust my work gang. There’s no need for you to worry yourself, ma’am. You have your own business to attend to.”
“True.” She started to step down from the log, but slipped. Jordan saw the lantern fly in an arc, then complete darkness fell around them.
“Damn!” He heard the lady groping about for the lantern.
Jordan put his hands out and hesitantly edged in the direction of the sounds. The darkness was total. “Are you all right, ma’am?”
“I’m fine. But I can’t find the lantern.”
Now that he was completely drowned in darkness, Jordan realized Emmy could never have come this far. It was impossible to take two steps in any direction without encountering a wall of uncertainty more solid than any tree trunk.
"Hmmf. Well, that's that," said the lady. "I can’t find it. Give me your hand." He reached out tentatively, felt her warm fingers entwine his own.
"Come. This way."
“What are you doing?”
“We were headed uphill. I’m just going to go down. I’m sure we’ll find the path again.”
“Begging your pardon, but we should stay right here. You’re not supposed to keep walking if you’re lost in the-“
“We’re not lost!” Her voice expressed outraged anger. “And I am not going to miss my appointments tonight!”
“But-“
“Come.” She tugged, and though his every instinct was to remain still, Jordan followed so as not to lose contact. Slowly, they walked hand in hand over the uneven path.
Jordan was completely blind, and was sure he would blunder into a tree at any moment, but the lady’s pull was steady. Jordan fought within himself and craned his neck up, looking for small swaths of starlight overhead instead of straining to make out the logs and stones underfoot. He tried to feel his way. And she did seem to know where she was going, for she did not stumble at all.
It seemed so strange, placing his feet by faith, seeing only the occasional star, and feeling acutely the touch of this stranger's hand. It was at once intimate and solitary. He cleared his throat and said, "What's your name?"
"I am the lady Calandria May. Turcaret was my travelling companion, but I am not in his employ."
"Oh." So she might be Castor's equal; Jordan felt uncomfortable to be holding her hand. She was his superior, so she could take his, but he could never have touched her so first.
"Careful." She stepped him over another fallen log. He hadn't felt or heard her hit it, but then he was concentrating on staring up. He didn’t remember this log from a few minutes ago, and his footing was much rougher now. Round stones rolled under his shoes and long drooling fronds of grass wet his thighs. He smelled the metallic tang of moist earth, mixed with many green and fetid odors.
The strip of starlight was disappearing. He kicked himself for not looking up when he'd first come this way, to judge now where they were. They were not on the path. "We're not on the path," he said.
"Yes we are," she said in the same calm, even tone with which she had pronounced her name. Jordan stumbled over a root; her hand pulled him leftward, then back, and he felt tall brambles tug by. By instinct he had looked forward, and his free hand was out to ward him. When he looked up again, the stars were gone.
He craned his neck to try to see behind him-futile, naturally. His mouth was open to protest that they really were off the path, but her grip tightened, and she pulled him ahead with renewed speed. His warding hand brushed something slick-a tree trunk, he realized even as he snatched his hand back with a gasp.
"Steadily now, Jordan," she said.
"But-"
"Come now," she said. He heard gentle humor in her tone. "We are on the path. After all, we haven't hit any trees, have we?"
It really wasn’t his place to question a lady. Her hand was his only lifeline, she his only recourse here. But how could she see in the dark? Was she a Wind? The thought nearly made him break his contact. She sensed something, and gave a reassuring squeeze.
"How can you see in the dark?" he blurted.
"I am as human as you," she said.
How was he going to find Emmy now? “We should stop and wait here for morning,” he insisted.
She let go of his hand.
Jordan shouted in surprise.
The lady’s voice issued from very nearby. “You may wait here, if you’d like,” she said crossly. “I am going on back to the manor, and a warm fire and good companionship. You can sit here in the damp and stew in your own fears, or you can come with me. Which is it to be?”
Then silence. He couldn't hear her moving away, couldn't hear her breathing or moving at all. The silence stretched uncomfortably; Jordan could hear his own breath rasping, and the sounds of crickets, wind in the treetops. Nothing else. Had she left him?
"Please," he said.
Her fingers twined in those of his outstretched hand. Her touch, in the dark, made him remember last night, when a dark-haired woman had come to stand over him in his half-sleep, and laid her hand on his brow.
"Come," she said.
Dawn found them walking. Jordan was cold, and almost deliriously tired. For hours now, he had let the wet leaves slide over his face without raising his hand to fend them off. The Lady's hand remained clamped on his, and a strange passivity made him follow her. For the first part of the walk, she had spoken constantly and unhurriedly to him, her voice and the feel of her hand the only realities, until he seemed to lose touch with his body entirely. It seemed they were a pair of spirits, drifting through the underworld.
Morning in Memnonis, Jordan's country, began with the gradual realization of shapes in the dark of the forest. Jordan began to see outlines of tree branches if he looked up, although they seemed etched onto a medium as dark as themselves. And as more became visible, the cold of the night settled to its absolute bottom. In the distance, he heard first one, then another bird begin to sing. The sound made him realize that, for hours, all he had heard was the dumb crashing of his feet in the underbrush, and the slight breaths of the woman ahead of him. Now he could see her, caped back swaying slightly as she trod over the matted leaves and fern beds. She was very close to him, the hand that held his fallen to her side, his own held stiffly in front of him. His own fingers felt numb; hers were warm.
His self-awareness returned with the light. No sharp line divided his passivity from memory and decision, any more than day came like the lighting of a lamp. He simply became more aware of his situation as he became able to see around himself. He was far from home; his sister remained lost and in some peril he may well have not been able to save her from. It was partly to salve his own conscience that he had run after her, and he did feel better for having tried; but as he walked he was troubled by the inadequacy of his parents' response-and his own, for what had he planned to do when he found her?
Now, as color returned to leaf and branch around him, he considered what Emmy had done, and the decision it had forced on him. Whether she and he returned to their home again, they could never again be the daughter and son he had always imagined they were. He and Emmy stood apart from their parents now, and that meant they would have to stand together.
But they could only do that if he could find her. He and the lady Calandria May were now profoundly lost in the woods. Was Emmy going to creep back home after a cold night in the woods, finding him gone and no one to stand with against mother and father-and Castor and Turcaret? Jordan knew the consequences if a search party was called out, and if she was found alive and in good health: she would find the anger of the whole village aimed at her.
The first fingers of sunlight slanting through the treetops overhead told Jordan exactly which direction he and the lady were walking. They were going north-east.
“This is the wrong way,” he said. “I knew walking was a bad idea. Who knows how far we’ve gone?”
“This is the right way,” said the lady quietly. Her steps did not falter.
Jordan opened his mouth to object, then stopped himself. She knew they were going the wrong way. It had never been her intention to return to the manor. And somehow, she had mesmerized him into following her. The last few hours were a blur; and even has he realized this, he continued to follow her, step by step.
He stopped walking. “What did you do to me?”
She turned, her face serious. "I need your service, Jordan Mason. Last night, you were too wrapped up in your search to listen to what I had to say. Now, in the light of morning, perhaps we can talk like adults.”
Morning light provided Jordan his first good look at the lady. Her oval face was beautiful and strong: her dark brows and the lines around her mouth spoke authority, while her soft skin and the delicate bones of her jaw opposed them with an impression of fragility.
“I'll make a deal with you," she continued. He stood still, glaring at her. May crossed her arms and sighed. "Look, I can save your sister from Turcaret. All I have to do is send a message to one of my people. She'll be safe."
Cautiously, Jordan stepped closer. "Why would you do that?"
"In return for your coming with me. And if you don't, then I don't send the message, my man doesn't find her, and Turcaret does; and you'll still come with me!" She turned abruptly, brushing leaves from her cloak. She glowered over her shoulder at him. "Consider her my hostage." She walked away.
Jordan was sore and stiff, and emotionally battered. "Why are you doing this?" he mumbled, as he followed her. "Because you have information I need," she said. "Very important information."
"I don't," he protested weakly.
"Come come," she said, her voice no longer smooth but peremptory. "If I promise to protect your sister, will you promise to come with me?"
"How do I know you can protect her?"
"Astute." She pointed through the trees to a brighter area. "Clearing there. We'll camp and catch up on our sleep." She waved him ahead of her. "You know about the war between Ravenon and the Seneschals?"
He nodded. "I work for Ravenon," she said. "Right now I do, anyhow. I'm searching for a renegade from the Ravenon forces."
"But the battle," he protested. "They were all killed by the Winds."
"Not all of them. I'm not alone on this journey, Jordan, and Turcaret is in debt to my people. He'll do as I say, at least for such a small matter as your sister."
She was probably lying, but it might do him good to let her think he was gullible. Meanwhile, he stumbled through the brush to an area where young, white birch trees thrust up through the ruined stumps of a very old fire.
May looked up at the open sky. "Six o'clock," she said matter-of-factly. "Well, do we have a deal?"
"Yes," he said. He resolved to escape later, as she slept. She was not of Castors’ family. She had no real hold over him unless he decreed it.
"Good." She kicked at an old log, judging how decayed it was, and sat in the single ray of amber sunlight that made its way almost horizontally through their clearing. Little wisps of her black hair floated up, gleaming in the light. "You weren't well prepared when you left the house last night," she said. Jordan had nothing other than his clothes and the lantern that had banged against his hip for the last few hours. He looked down at himself emotionlessly, then around at the soft moss and wild flowers that had taken over the ground. The need to sleep was overpowering.
"Go ahead," she said. Reaching up, she unclipped her cloak and held it out to him. "It's still cold, cover yourself with that. I'm going to go send word about your sister."
He took the cloak. "What's to stop me running away while you’re away doing that? Are you going to tie me up?"
"I’ll send the message from here." Uncomprehending, Jordan knelt down, then let himself topple sideways onto a mat of vivid green moss and tiny, finely-etched ferns. He started to draw the cloak over himself, but was asleep before he finished the motion.
Calandria administered a sedative shot to the youth. Probably not necessary, judging by his condition, but she didn't want to take any chances.
She sat back, and let the exhaustion she'd walled off these last few hours wash through her. Finding Mason last night had been unbelievable luck. His disappearance, which she had been trying to arrange for days, would now be seen as misadventure, a family tragedy to be sure, but unlikely to be caused by foul play. Because search parties would be out in force by noon, however, she'd had to get him as far away from the village as possible, and chose the deepest uninhabited forest to hide them.
She would program herself for three hours' sleep. But first, she had to adhere to her part of the bargain. She had no idea if such a bargain would help with the boy, but it was worth trying; and he needn't know that, as soon as she learned the trouble his sister was in, Calandria had resolved to do what she could about it.
Closing her eyes, she activated her Link. "Axel," she subvocalized. Spots of color floated in front of her eyes, then coalesced into the word CALLING.
"Cal?" His voice sounded pure and strong in her head, as it had on the several occasions they'd talked last night. She had been in touch with Axel Chan from the moment she found Mason on the trail. If the youth had gotten away from her, Axel would have scooped him up.
"What's your status, Cal? I read you as ten kilometers northeast. Still have Mason?"
"Yes. But I have a job for you, to help cover our tracks."
"Go ahead."
She told him about her arrangement with Jordan. Axel grunted once or twice as she spoke, but made no other comment. "Think you can take care of her, Axel? Keeping her safe from yourself too, I might add."
"Cal!" He sounded hurt. "I like 'em experienced, you should know that. Yeah, she's safe, as soon as I find her. What about you?"
"I'm taking Maso east and then north. There's a manse located about twenty-five kilometers from here, we'll make for that first. Then west again. What say we rendezvous at the Boros manor in one week?"
"Unless you get Armiger's location first, right?"
"Exactly."
"Will do. I'll call you as soon as I get the girl."
"Good. Bye."
The connection went dead, but Calandria did not open her eyes. She accessed her skull computer, and told it to initiate a scan of the area. "Check for morphs," she told it.
Gradually, from left to right, a ghost landscape appeared behind her closed eyelids. The scan was registering all the evidence of the Winds in this vicinity; mostly, it showed lines like the ghosts of trees, and the pale undulating sheet of the ground. But here and there, bright oblongs and snake-shapes indicated the third of Ventus' divisions of life-the mecha, distinct from the ordinary flora and fauna.
The scan showed evidence of a morph about three kilometers south of her, but it was moving away. Still, that was a bit close for comfort. She hoped it hadn't heard her transmission to Axel.
She opened her eyes. The scan had shown a very small mechal life form nearly at her feet. She squatted and shuffled leaves aside until she spotted it, a nondescript bug form.
Watching it crawl brought a strange sense of betrayal to mind, as though the world around her were somehow fake. It wasn't-but of all the planets she had been to, Ventus was somehow the oddest. Maida had been a world of glaciers and frozen forests; Birghila was enwrapped in lava seas, with skies of flame; and Hsing's people lived on a strip of artificial land hovering in tidal stress thousands of kilometers above the planet itself. But Ventus seemed so like Earth; it lulled the visitor, so that when you ran into a morph, or a desal, or witnessed the serene passage of a vagabond moon or the buzz and smoke of mecha life forms devouring the bedrock, a kind of supernatural unease was awakened. She'd felt it when she first arrived, and watching that little bug, knowing the earth and air were full of nanotechnology as thickly as with life, made the prospect of lying down to sleep here unpleasant. The sooner she accomplished her purpose and left Ventus behind, the better she'd feel.
There was no indication that any of the nano around her was aware of her. It should have been; this was the greatest puzzle of Ventus, why the Winds did not acknowledge the presence of the humans who had created them. It seemed to have become a small hobby of Axel's to discover why, but Calandria was merely grateful she could pass unseen.
She checked once more to make sure the morph was really heading the other way. Then she lay down on the damp earth next to Jordan, and compelled herself to sleep.
Jordan awoke in another place, and his hands were on fire.
He was screaming. For a moment he thought he was in the sky again, because he was surrounded by flame-orange leaping sheets of it to all sides, a smouldering carpet underfoot, and blue licking tongues above his head. But he stumbled against a post, and the fires around him shook and long tears ripped through them. The flaming walls of the tent he was in began to collapse.
For some reason Jordan didn't feel the pain, though he saw flame licking up from his hands, the backs of which were black and bubbling. And he could hear himself scream, only it wasn't his voice. It was the worst sound he had ever heard.
The tent pole snapped, and the broken bottom half scraped up his side. He stumbled, flailing his arms wildly as, in a strange spiral fall, the heavy burning fabric of the tent came down on him. The impact, as if he were enfolded in an elemental's arms, brought him to his knees. He breathed smoke and could no longer scream. His throat spasmed.
From somewhere he heard voices shouting. Men. He was pulled to and fro violently, and he heard the ring of swords being unsheathed. Blows all about. And the arms and chest of the elemental branded him, burned away his hair, stripped his skin, pressed against his raw muscles in a hideous, intimate massage.
The cloth over his face was torn free. He tried to blink; could see with one eye; watched bright blades held by desperate men tear at the burning canvas. But although his mouth was open, he could not breathe.
Then he was free. He staggered to his feet, straining, arms lifted to grasp at the sky itself, as if he were trying to climb the air. Jordan heard a deep clicking breath escape from inside himself. He caught a glimpse of men standing in a semicircle, expressions of horror or grim calculation on their faces. They wore military jackets and turbaned metal caps; one or two held muskets. Behind them was a green field crowded with tents.
He heard a deep voice say, "He is dead."
He mouthed the words. Then he died.
Jordan struggled to awake. He reached blindly hoping to find the headboard of his bed; he felt cloth. That jolted his eyes open. Was he enshrouded in canvas? But no, it was a leaf-green cloak he pulled away from his face.
He arched his back with the effort to breathe. Rolling back, he blinked up at a ceiling of pale leaves, blue sky and white cloud beyond them. He heard himself gasping.
He tried to sit up, but it was as if someone very heavy were sitting on his chest; he struggled halfway up, and collapsed back, his arms out at his sides, hands up to grab the air. For a few seconds, he struggled to just breathe.
This wasn't the nightmare of fire and death, but it was no better. He wanted to be in his bed, awaking to an ordinary day. The curtain wall wasn’t patched yet, and what was the work gang going to think if he didn’t turn up for work? He desperately longed to be there, digging at the mortar.
When his breathing settled down, he concentrated on raising his right arm. It moved like a leaden object, hand flopping. He brought it across his chest, and vainly tried to roll over. What was wrong with him? His body had never betrayed him like this before.
His head fell to the side. A meter away, a woman slept on her side, hands folded in front of her as though in prayer. Seeing her, Jordan knew what was wrong-or at least why. The witch had paralyzed him so he wouldn't run away. She intended some evil for him, that was certain.
He moaned, and her eyelids twitched. Suddenly more afraid of being helpless with her awake, he held his breath. His vision began to grey after a few moments, and he started gasping again. She took no notice.
He was trapped, his choice either to be awake in a nightmare reality where his family was lost-or to be asleep and open his eyes in an inferno. He whimpered, and shut his eyes, and the very act of doing so propelled him into a dizzying spin that ended in unconsciousness.
Calandria awoke refreshed. She was on her side facing the boy, who was sprawled awkwardly as though he'd been fighting with her cloak. The sun was higher overhead and the morning was warming up nicely. She sat up, brushing leaves and bits of bark from her cheek, and smiled. The air was fresh and the sounds of the forest relaxing. Her job was going very well. Feeling lighthearted, she cleaned herself up, rolled the boy into a more comfortable position, and set about making a small fire. When that was going to her satisfaction, she rooted through her pouches, considering the rations situation. They would need more than the concentrated foods she had on her. Best reserve those for an emergency.
The Mason boy would be asleep for a while. Meantime, she would get them dinner.
First, she sat in full lotus, closed her eyes and scanned the vicinity. There were rabbits on the other side of the clearing. They were keeping an eye on her, and she would never be able to run them down. Luckily she wouldn't need to.
Fluidly, she moved from the lotus position into a crouch. From her belt she drew the pieces of a compound bow. She put it together quietly, strung it and reaching in another pocket, drew out one of a number of coiled threads. These had an arrowhead on one end and feathers on the other, but were limp as a string. She unrolled the one she'd selected and gave it a whipping yank. Immediately it snapped straight and stiff.
Armed now, Calandria crept very slowly over the log next to Mason, under the canopy of a young pine, and into a nest of rushes by a stagnant puddle where midges hovered. She could see the dome of ferns under which the rabbits were eating. They were invisible to normal sight, but by closing her eyes and scanning she could pick them up easily.
Eyes closed, she straightened slowly and drew the bow. A moment to aim, battling the urge to open her eyes, and then she let fly. A thin squeal sounded from across the clearing.
She walked over the uneven ground and flipped back the canopy of ferns. Her rabbit lay twitching, well impaled. She smiled, and broke down the bow while she waited for it to stop kicking.
"Transmission," said a voice in her head.
Calandria smiled. "Go ahead, Axel."
"Got her. She was hiding near a brook a few hundred meters inside the forest. Seems to have been one of those old kids' forts. Scan picked her up just in time-there's a morph hanging around here, and it had located her too. Now that I have her, what do I do?"
"Hire her."
"What?"
"Axel, she's compromised where she is. She may be in a position to embarrass Castor or Turcaret, which makes her vulnerable. She'll get no help from her family. Best to make her independent of them for a while. Designate her Ravenon's postmistress for this area. She can handle dispatches between the Ravenon couriers. She’s of age, and we see women handling positions like that all the time. It's a good chance for her, because it's a light job and won't last more than a year or two. Once the war's over, she'll be able to move right back into her community, because she'll have been there all along. Meanwhile, she's independent of her family, and Castor won't touch her because she's one of ours."
"Yeah. I see it. So you want I should brazenly walk into Castor's place and install her?"
"Why not? See if there's a house you can buy for her. And send a dispatch to Ravenon to open up a route here."
"They might not do that."
"Doesn't matter. It's appearances that count right now. We've got the cash, and the seals of authority, we might as well use them." She watched the rabbit kick one last time and go still. She reached down and picked it up by the arrow through its belly.
"Sounds pretty complicated, Cal."
She smiled. "Just curb your tongue and your appetites, Axel, and pretend you really do work for Ravenon. The indignant knight, discovering a cowering maiden in the dawn light. Make yourself legendary. Isn't that why you came on this expedition?"
He hmmphed. "You make it sound like a bad thing." She laughed. "What about your kid?" he added.
"Asleep. I'll see what I can get out of him today. Maybe knowing his sister's safe will make him more reasonable."
"Reasonable-" Axel bit back on whatever he was going to say. "Treat him gently, Cal." He broke the connection.
She dropped the rabbit by Jordan's feet and sat down on the log to contemplate him. He looked strong enough. Whatever did Axel mean?
Gently. She frowned down at the smooth skin of her hand, matched it against the mossy bark of the log. She was as gentle as water, she knew. It was only that today, and with regard to this youth, she was as purposeful as a river in flood.
She went to work skinning the rabbit.
Jordan awoke to the smell of cooking. The lady had prepared a stout meal for him. He avoided her eyes as he ate. She watched him expressionlessly for a while, then said, "You sister is safe."
He sat up, eyeing her suspiciously. "Tell me."
She explained that she had gone to a nearby road and intercepted a courier she knew was scheduled to pass. She'd told him of the girl's plight, and he went in search of her. Later, he'd sent another runner back with news she'd been found.
"How could all that happen in just a few hours?" he wondered sullenly.
"You needn't believe me. Axel said he found her in some kind of kid's fort, a hundred or so meters in the forest. Does that sound familiar?"
Jordan looked down. It did. He hadn't thought of the place in his own rush; the other kids had used it more than he, because of his fear of the forest. Emmy probably had more memories of it than he.
That meant he'd passed her almost immediately last night.
He ate silently for a while, his mind paralyzed in a catalog of "if-only's". Finally he said, "I want to see her."
"When we've finished with our job," she said.
"What job?" He felt a faint spark of hope; she hadn't suggested before that she was going to let him go at all.
"You have to help me find the man I'm after," she said. "Armiger. Do you know him?"
"No. Why would I?"
"He knows you." She leaned forward, squinting a bit as she appeared to examine him over the small campfire. "He visited you years ago, and left something of his behind. In there." She pointed at his forehead.
Jordan reared back, eyes wide. Was there some kind of thing in his head? He pictured a worm in an apple, and touched his temple with suddenly trembling fingers.
This had to have some connection with the visions. Was that thing their source? But if it had been there for years, he would have had visions for years, wouldn't he?
"You're crazy," Jordan said. "There's nothing in my head but me. Plus the headache you gave me!" he added.
She scowled, but he'd seen her do that before, and she hadn't beaten him then, so she probably wouldn't now. She stood up, stretching her slim arms over her head. "We'll figure this out later," she said. "Put out the fire, will you? We have some walking to do."
He sat obstinately for a few seconds, until she fell out of her stretch and snapped, "I can carry you if I have to. You'll be safe, and you'll see your sister again, but not until I'm done with you."
Reluctantly, he moved to obey-for now.
Jordan crashed through the trees, his heart pounding. There was no way he could run quietly in this brush. It didn’t matter anyway; he knew she was right behind him.
The first time he’d tried to escape, he had slipped away while Lady May was engaged in her toilet behind a bush. She had caught up with him half a kilometer away. That time, she had simply stood in front of him, and frowned fiercely, her hands on her hips. He had tried to laugh it off, and followed her for a while. It was obvious she was faster than he was, though, and he no longer believed there would be a moment when he she slept while he did not.
So, when he spotted a stout but dead branch right in his way, Jordan had reached up with his free hand and snapped it off. May did not look around.
He had tried to transcend his exhaustion, summoning what strength he could behind the blow that he landed on the back of her head. She fell, and he was free.
His legs were like jelly from walking all night over uneven ground, and now, only minutes after he struck her, he was only able to stagger from tree to tree, following no path but only trying to get away.
Suddenly his legs went out from under him and he was face down in the leaves. "Huff!" Lady May squatted on his back, and twisted his right arm painfully behind him.
She spat some word in a language he didn't recognize, then said "Nice try," in her slow measured way. Her voice was full of menace.
"Let me go, you witch!" he shouted into the dirt. "Either kill me or let me up, because I'm not going with you! Let me find Emmy! You took me away from her!"
He heard her muttering angrily in that strange language. She said, "You damn near broke my head, boy."
"Too bad I didn't!" He tried to struggle, but she had him completely pinned.
She sighed. "Okay, I guess I had it coming.” Without loosing her hold, she left his back in a crouch and rolled him over. Her free hand rubbed the grit away from his face; his wrist was still pinned at an awkward angle. If he moved to much, he was sure it would break.
She let go of Jordan's wrist. A trickle of blood down the center of her forehead lent her a fearsome aspect, as it seemed to point at her eyes, which were narrowed accusingly at Jordan.
“I have done you a great disservice, Jordan. I know that. But you must understand, it is a matter of life and death, for everyone we know, your family included. Your friends will call you a hero when we’re through. And I should only need you for a few days. Please trust me about your sister. Will you please wait a day or so, until I can give you proof that she is safe? All this running is doing neither of us any good.”
He thought about it. “I will wait for a day.”
She nodded wearily, rubbing her forehead, and winced. "Then get up. We only need to walk a little more today, I'm tired too. A rest will do us both good."
Soon she was smiling in her enigmatic way, asking him to name the various trees and birds they passed, and letting him pause for breath when he wanted. Her anger was swift and volatile, and though he had hurt her, she fell out of anger quickly. He expected the unforgiving smolder he had always seen in his parents, and had feared because he'd always felt each bad thing he did diminished their love for him permanently; this woman had flashed into fury, dragged him back to her invisible path, and then forgot her anger. He hated her for what she had done to him, but she seemed incapable of hating him, and this confused him. He decided to be insulted by it.
The countryside they passed through was deeply forested by black oaks that trailed moss, muffling the birdsong. The forest floor was bathed in a secretive green twilight, broken by dust motes sparkling in infrequent shafts of sunlight. The air was warm, but held the expectant fullness of late summer, as if Life were resting. They were far from the habitations of men.
When darkness fell Lady May decided to camp again. Jordan was worn out, and grateful for the respite. She made a quick fire and roasted some more rabbit, and he ate his and fell asleep immediately. His mind had been going all day, running up against walls of fact and memory, and it was mental exhaustion more than physical that put him under.
The last thing he was aware of was Lady May watching him with something like sympathy in her eyes as she languidly fed the fire.
They slit open his belly and dumped out his organs. He did not protest. His eyes remained fixed on the ceiling of the tent. Muttered voices all around; the sharp tang of incense; and outside, professional mourners wailed hypocritically.
The two men who were preparing his body were elderly, their long grey hair tied back with strands of hair from the corpses they'd worked on. They wore black velvet robes sewn with many pockets, and from these they produced a variety of vials filled with noisome chemicals. These they dripped on and into his body, and painted over his skin with brushes.
The ceiling was aplay with shadows of underworld spirits, from statues placed around the perimeter of the tent. The shadows elongated and bent, shortened and faded, as if the spirits were waging a war with some unseen enemy across the amber heaven of the canvas.
A metal handle clanked; the bucket containing his blood was taken out of the tent, to be burnt. One of the attendants bent over him, holding a mallet and a long spike with a T-shaped head. Placing the spike under his chin, the man hammered it up, nailing his tongue against his palate, piercing the palate and the nasal palate and imbedding the iron deep into his brain. The T held his slack jaw shut.
"Speak no more," said the attendant, and putting down the hammer he nodded to someone at the door of the tent.
Six men entered, looking solemn. Some stared at him; some looked everywhere else. They lifted the pallet he lay on and he passed out from under the sky of canvas, to the sky of night.
Diadem, the only moon of Ventus, was up and glittering like a tear. The rest of the sky was clear and splashed with stars, rank on rank, gauze on gauze of finest points of white. The river of the galaxy ran across the zenith. The human mourners fell silent, leaving only cricket sounds that seemed to come from the stars themselves.
The night air lessened the smell of burnt meat that had pervaded the tent.
Torches to the left, right, ahead and behind. Spirals of grey moved up to dissolve among the stars. Murmuring voices and the sound of shuffling footsteps, as he was carried out across the plain toward a dark hill.
The hillside rose steeply, blocking the stars. The torches lit a deep cut in its side, where a bare rock face had been smoothed, maybe centuries ago. Deep letters were carved over a slotted doorway uncovered by a huge stone slab. The slab had been tilted to the side, and now leaned heavily on a scaffold made from catapult parts. Rough soldiers sat on the scaffold, passing bottles back and forth. They watched impassively as he passed under them.
Another sky drew overhead, this one of yellow stone. The ceiling was centimeters away. The deeply pitted sandstone was painted in abstract clouds of grey and black by the passage of many torches. The smoke from those burning now swirled up and around him, settling into a layer of trembling heat.
Around a corner, and now he was being carried down a steep flight of steps. His bearers spoke back and forth as they lowered him carefully. Ten meters down, then twenty, into a region of dead air and penetrating cold where squat pillared halls led away to either side. His bearers moved more quickly now, and the torchlight flickered off an uneven ceiling and dark niches in the walls where objects, long or round, were piled.
He was lowered to the floor in front of a black opening, and unceremoniously slid in. The ceiling here was just above his nose. Bricks thudded down just behind his head. What little light there was disappeared, and of sound, only that of stones being mortared into position. After a few minutes, even that ceased.
There had been no name carved above the niche. So, after a while, he raised one hand, slid it across his opened chest, knuckles scraping the stone, and felt behind his head. There, in a band of moist mortar, he wrote the letters: ARMIGER.
Jordan sat up screaming. Calandria was at his side instantly, holding his shoulders while he shuddered.
"What is it? A dream?"
"Him, him again-I saw him-" He seemed not to know where he was.
"Saw who?"
"Armiger!"
Calandria lowered him back onto his bedroll, and when he closed his eyes and drifted off again, she smiled.
In the morning he awoke feeling sore and frustrated. He expected Lady May to raise the subject of his dream last night, but she didn't, as if daylight were not the proper time for such things. She did seem even more cheerful than she had yesterday, though. When Jordan awoke she had already hunted, for there were two pheasants near his head, which she indicated he should tie to his belt. She had also gathered several handfuls of mushrooms and some other roots he recognized as edible. At least they wouldn't starve any time soon.
"Come," was all she said, and they set out again.
He was content not to talk for most of the morning, but the warm sunlight and the shared exertion of the walk was bound to loosen his tongue eventually. She might have been counting on this. Even so, he cast about for a long time for a subject other than the dark vision he’d had last night, finally asking, "Why are we going this way?"
Lady May looked back, arching an eyebrow in apparent amusement. "It speaks," she said. "That was a question you should have asked yesterday, Mason."
He glared at the ground.
"We're avoiding the people who are searching for you. I had my man say he'd seen you going south, but even so they may search north. But not this far into the forest."
"Did Emmy hear that?" he asked sharply. "She thinks I ran away?"
"I don't know what he told her," she said. "He's a compassionate enough man, if a bit of a libertine. I'm sure he wouldn't hurt her by telling her that, if he thought he could trust her with the truth."
Jordan chewed on that. Just how much could Emmy be trusted with something like that? He had to admit he didn't know; she kept secrets pretty well, he thought, but what about the secret abduction of her brother? It made more sense to let her believe the lie everybody else had heard.
In which case she would believe he had abandoned her.
After a while he asked, "How can you know where we are? You say you aren't a morph, but you're not using a compass or anything. And you can see in the dark."
They were walking through an area of new growth now. Slender willows and white birch stood in startled lines all around, and the sun had full access to the ground. Very high in the sky, mountainous white clouds were piling up over one another.
Lady May squinted up at them. "Storm coming," she said.
"What are we going to do when it rains? We'll get soaked."
"Yes." She shrugged. "We should be under shelter in time."
"How do you know that?"
Lady May sighed. "It's rather difficult to explain," she said. "And I really didn't want to get into it yet. But you and I are going to have to make an agreement to work together, I mean really work together, and I'm going to tell you some things and you're going to tell me some. Understand?"
He nodded. He didn't want to talk about Armiger; even in daylight, he vividly remembered the embalming tent and the slot in the hillside, and the disturbing implication that he had been looking through the eyes of a corpse.
Calandria debated how much to tell the youth. There was no law as such against revealing galactic news to the isolated and backward people of this world. At worst, the various anthropological groups that studied Ventus would be furious at her for muddying their data.
There was little, however, that Jordan Mason could do with anything she might tell him about the wider world. He was a prisoner of this place, like all his countrymen. There was no prospect of rescue, or escape, for the people of Ventus; compassion dictated that she not even hint that Mason’s life could be other than it was.
She was going to have to tell him something, though. It might as well be the truth, as far as he was able to understand it.
They skirted the edge of an escarpment for a while. This path gave a great view of the endless, rolling forest, and of the towering thunderheads that were bearing down on them. Calandria sniffed at the air, feeling it change from dry and still to charged, anticipatory. There was no way they were going to get to the manse in time.
It was ironic, she thought. In idle time before landing she had stood at the window of her ship, the
She had wondered then if the original colonists had felt the way she did now. When they first beheld Ventus and knew that a chapter of their life was ending, and a new one beginning, had they felt the same unease? And the anticipation?
She had tried to picture what their imaginations brought to the pretty little islands that had caught her eye. Standing above this canvas, each must have painted it with his or her own colors, drawing the boundaries of new states and provinces. It would be irresistible, at a new world, to wonder what the forest looked like from underneath; how the rain smelled; what it would be like to sleep under the stars here.
At that time the skies weren't as empty as they now appeared. The Winds were still visible, like gossamer winged creatures dancing above the atmosphere. All frequencies were alive with their singing and recitative. They were almost as beautiful as the planet itself - as intended - and they took human shapes to communicate with the colony ships. This was expected; they had been designed that way.
The Winds sang, and danced in slow orbits in time to their singing. In those last moments before the nightmare began, the colonists' eyes must have beheld a perfect world, an exact embodiment of their dreams.
Thunder grumbled. It was so different when you were down here, she knew now. The invulnerability of space was a dream. Calandria found her steps quickening, not so much because of the coming rain, but because once again she was reminded that Ventus was not the natural environment it appeared to be.
They rounded another arc of escarpment, and there it was, right where the
Jordan was ignoring the view. In fact, he seemed to be sniffing at something. She raised an eyebrow, and cleared her throat. "What are you doing?"
"Death," he said. "Something’s dead. Can’t you smell it?"
Damn if he wasn’t right. She should have been more alert. Jordan had walked several steps off the deerpath, and now gingerly parted a spray of branches. "Lady May, look at this."
She looked over his shoulder. In a dark, branch-shaded hollow of loam and pine needles lay a giant bloated object. It looked like nothing so much as a big bag of mangy fur. At the top was a kind of flower of flesh, which, she realized uneasily, had teeth in it. As if…
"What is that?"
"Looks like it used to be a bear," whispered Jordan. Its mouth had folded back to become a kind of red-lipped flower atop the bag of flesh, and its eyes had receded into the skin. She looked in vain for signs of its four limbs; save for the vestigial head, it was little more than a sack of fur now.
A sack in which something was moving.
She stepped back. For once, Mason seemed unfazed. In fact, he looked back, caught her obvious distress, and grinned.
"A morph’s been here, maybe two, three days ago," said Jordan. "It found this bear, and it’s changed it. I don’t know what’s going to hatch out of it, but… looks like several things. Badgers maybe, or skunks? Whatever the morph thought there was a lack of in this part of the woods."
Of course. She’d been briefed on morphs, she knew what they were capable of. It was a very different thing to witness the result.
"They’ll come out full-grown," said Jordan as he backed away from the clearing.
Thunder crashed directly overhead. Calandria looked out over the escarpment in time to see a solid-looking wall of rain coming at them.
"Come on!" she shouted. "It's only a little farther."
Jordan looked at the rain and laughed. "Why hurry?" he asked. "We’ll be wet in two seconds."
He was right-in moments, her hair was plastered down on her head, and cold trickles ran down her back. Still, Calandria hurried them away from the disturbing thing that had once been a bear. They continued to skirt the top of the escarpment for a hundred meters, then came out near what might normally have been a good deer-path down the slope; it was a torrent of muddy water.
"What’s that?" Jordan pointed. Perhaps two kilometers away, warm lights shone through the shifting grey of the rain.
"Our destination. Come," she said, and stepped onto the downward path. Her feet went out from under her, and Calandria found herself plummeting down the hillside in a flood.
Jordan watched Calandria May get to her feet at the bottom of the hill. "I’m soaked!" she shrieked, laughing. It was the first time he’d heard her laugh in any genuine way.
She was a hundred meters below him, with no obvious way back up. He debated turning and running-but he had no idea where to go. Doubtless she’d be able to track him down, even if he got a half-hour’s head start. He sighed, and started picking his way down the hill.
About halfway down he took a long look at the lights burning in the distance, and felt a chill greater than the rain settle on him. He ran the last few meters a bit recklessly, but arrived next to May still on his feet.
"Don't you know that's a Wind manse?" he said, pointing at the distant lights. "If we go in there, we'll be killed!"
She had that serene, unconcerned look about her again. "No we won't. I have protection," she said. Ahead of them, tall stately red maples stood in even ranks. The underbrush was sparse, as if someone regularly cut it back.
Jordan shook his head. They jogged through tall wet grass and into the shelter of the trees. Calandria pointed to a brighter area ahead. "Clearing. I guess there's extensive grounds around this one."
She led him on. After a minute he said, "So you've been in other manses?"
"Yes. I have a way of getting in." She stopped and rooted around in one of her belt pouches. "This." She brought out a thick packet of some gauzy material, which she shook out into a square about two meters on a side. "We wear this over us, like we're playing Ghost."
She held it out to him and he touched it. The material was rather rough, and glittered like metal. It crackled a bit when it folded.
"Stand close." Reluctantly, Jordan did so. She pulled the sheet over both their heads. It was easy to see through, but a little awkward to walk with, as it tended to bell stiffly out. They had to take handfuls of the stuff and hold it close. "Put your arm around my waist," she directed him when it became apparent they were not walking in rhythm. Jordan did so with the reluctance of someone touching a snake.
He forgot his wariness when they came out from under the trees. His hand tightened around her and he gasped. Calandria stopped as well, and smiled.
The forest was cleared here in a perfect rectangle almost a kilometer long. They stood at one end of a green, clipped lawn dotted here and there with artfully twisted trees. Square pools of water trembled now under the onslaught of the rain; under clear skies they would be perfect mirrors. Softened by the haze of rain, made shadowless by the cloud, a great mansion rose up at the far end of the lawn. Its pillars and walls were pure white, the roofs of grey slate. The windows were tall and paned in glass, which lit up every few moments with reflected lightning. Behind some of the windows, warm amber light shone.
Jordan indicated the lit windows with his chin. "They're home. How can we get in when the Winds are home?"
"They're not home." She nodded sagely. "That's part of the secret. The Winds never visit these places. You have a lot to learn, Jordan."
"Everybody knows the Winds live here," he said sullenly.
"I know they don't. You may have a lot to learn, but you are going to learn it, never fear. Let's call this a good first lesson for you. This way." She stepped onto the lawn and led him along the edge. "Wouldn't want to be hit by lightning on the way in," she said.
There were no horses tethered at the front of the huge building. Though light glowed from its windows, Jordan could see no movement within. The marble steps leading up to the tall doors were well swept, but there were no servants visible. He hung back as May trotted up the steps; she took his arm and pulled him gently but inexorably after her.
He held his breath as she reached out to the door handle and turned it. She pushed the door open, letting a fan of golden light out into the blue-grey afternoon. "Come," she said, and stepped in.
He hesitated. Nothing happened; there was no sound from within. Reluctantly, he put his head around the doorjamb.
"I'm soaked!" Lady May yanked the water-gemmed sheet off and tossed it down. "Look at this." Her legs and backside were covered in mud.
Jordan stared past her uneasily. It was warm here, and dry. Light came from a great crystalline chandelier overhead. That meant there must be servants to tend the lights. They were bound to show up at any moment.
"Close the door please, Jordan." He eased in, closed the portal but kept his back to it.
This place was bigger than Castor's mansion. They stood in a bow fronted vestibule at least two stories tall. Two wide marble staircases curved up to either side. Ahead was an arch leading to darkness. There were tall wooden doors at the foot of both staircases. Everything looked clean and straight, but the style was ancient, as if he'd stepped into one of the etchings in his father's book of architectural mannerism.
He looked up past the chandelier. Gold arabesques over the windows. The ceiling was painted with some torrid mythological scene, framed at the edges by ornate gold guilloches.
Lady May followed his gaze. "Derivative," she said. "Venus restraining Mars."
Jordan had heard of neither of them. He looked down. They were both dripping on the polished marble floor. Suddenly horrified at how wet, muddy and disreputable he must look, he said, "We have to get out of here."
"Find the lavatory," she said.
"No, what are you saying? They'll catch us!" He fought a rising tide of hysteria, which clicked in his throat.
"Jordan," she said sharply. "There is no one here. No one to take notice of us, anyway, as long as we keep this with us." She held up the silvery gauze square. "It disrupts their sensors."
He shook his head. "The chandelier-"
"-needs no tending," she said. "And is tended by nobody. There are things here, and I suppose they're servants of the winds, but they're just mechal beings. You know mecha?"
He nodded guardedly. "Flora, fauna and mecha. Like the stone mother. But those are just beasts."
"And this is like a hive for some of them. It looks like a human house for reasons it would take hours to explain. It's not a Wind place; just a mecha house."
"Then why are people killed who try to enter?"
She sighed. "The same reason people are killed when they enter a bear's den. They protect their territory."
"Oh."
"Come on. Let's find the lavatory." She picked up the gauze, half wrapped it around herself, and walked dripping up the stairs. Jordan hurried after.
The halls upstairs were carpeted luxuriantly. Lady May indifferently trailed mud footsteps through the red pile. Jordan walked in her footsteps so as not to soil it even further. His heart was pounding.
Lady May found a huge marble-sheathed room full of fixtures and appliances somewhat familiar to Jordan, but more ornate and absurdly clean. As she entered light sprang up from hidden lamps near the ceiling. Jordan started and stepped back, but she ignored the indication that their presence was known, and went to a large black tub. "Aaah," she sighed, letting her cloak slide off her shoulders. "I need this." She began let water into the tub from somewhere.
"You've been here before," he accused.
"No. This is just a very familiar building plan." She began to unlace her shirt. "I am about to bathe," she said in her slow drawl. "We must both remain close to the sensor sheet, so do not leave the room; but I would appreciate it if you turned you back while I disrobe."
Embarrassed, Jordan turned around. "What you might do," she said, "is clean my clothes for me. I'll do the same for you while you bathe." A sodden bundle of cloth and leather hit the marble next to Jordan with a splat. "Just dump the cloth in that hopper there, and put the leather in the one beside it for dry-cleaning. The boots can go in there too. The mecha will clean them for us."
"Why would they do that?" he asked as he went to comply.
"The mecha keep this house for inhabitants just like us. They have ever since the beginning of the world. The manses were to be the estates of the first settlers here, as well as libraries and power centers. Their tenants never arrived-or at any rate, they didn't recognize them when they did arrive. So they wait. But they're more than happy to fulfil their household functions as long as they don't think we're intruders."
"And this cloth somehow fools them?"
"Yes. It's a machine." He heard her stepping into the water. "Aaah. Do you know machines?"
"Yes. Machines are a kind of mecha."
"Other way around, actually. Mecha is a kind of machine."
He puzzled over that, as he sat down cross-legged facing the still-open door. The hallway was dark; he heard the sound of rain tumbling against distant windows.
"When we've bathed and eaten, Jordan, I will explain to you why I had to take you away from your family, and just what your dreams about Armiger mean."
"You know why I'm having them?"
"I do. And I can end them. If you cooperate. That's why I came to you."
"But-" he started to say for the tenth time that he knew nothing that could help her, but a sound from the hallway stopped him. He scrabbled backward on hands and knees. "What was that?" he whispered.
Lady May was sitting up in the tub, one arm across her breasts. Steam wreathed her. "Probably some mechal thing. Cleaning the carpet, I'll bet. Here, come close and get under the sheet." She drew it up from the floor and draped an end over herself.
Jordan hurried to comply. They could hear a delicate clinking sound now, like wine glasses tapping one another, and then a long slow sliding sound, like a rough cloth being drawn across the ground. Jordan was terrified, and huddled next to the tub. Lady May sank back under the water, just her face showing. The gauze fell into the water and made a flat floor across it.
Something moved in the doorway; Jordan held his breath, eyes wide. He thought he caught a glimpse of golden rods rising and falling, of glass spheres cradling reflected lightning, and then the thing was past, tinkling on down the hall.
He let his breath out in a whoosh. Lady May sighed, and her wet hand rose to clutch his shoulder. "You're safe, Jordan, much safer than you realize. Safer than you were in that village, after you started dreaming."
"I don't believe you," he said.
"Your worst enemy is yourself," she said, and her hand sank back again.
They ate well in a dining hall of royal proportions. Jordan had spent the most luxurious half hour he could ever recall bathing in the marble tub. His clothes were now clean and dry, and Lady May had lit a fire here in the hall, in a large hearth with stone gargoyles on the mantelpiece. It looked as though no one had ever lit a fire there before. Warmth against their backs, they contemplated the rain-streaked darkness of the windows, and Lady May told him the names of some of the people on the painted ceiling.
"The stories those paintings tell are traditional stories, older than Ventus itself."
"How can a tradition be older than the world?" he asked.
"Mankind is older than this world," she said in her measured, confident voice. "The Winds made Ventus for us to use, but then they rejected us. Have you never heard that story?"
"Yeah," he said, looking down at his plate. "We made the Winds, the Winds betrayed us and trapped us. They teach us that at chapel lessons." His fingers traced the perfect circle of the china; he was here, and alive, in a place of the Winds. "It always seemed very remote from real life."
"You’re very lucky to be able to say that," she said. "Listen, when did you start to dream about Armiger?"
"A couple of days… a day before Emmy ran away, I think. Was it you who did that to me?"
Now it was her turn to pretend to examine her food. "Yes, but I had no idea it would be so traumatic for you. And it wasn't originally our plan to kidnap you this way. But let's go back a step or two. How do you think I was able to get you to dream about Armiger?"
"You said he put something in my head," he said. "But why should I believe that? I never felt it before. I think you put it there, that night."
"You believe what you want," she said with a smile. "Meanwhile, I'll tell you my version anyway. Armiger did put it there, probably six years ago, when he first arrived on this world." He looked over quickly. "Yes," she said, "Armiger is not from this world."
"What other world could there be?"
"We’ll get to that," she said. "Armiger came from another world. And when he came to Ventus, he made you and a number of other people into his spyglasses. He could see through your eyes, hear through your ears, all these years."
Jordan suddenly lost his appetite. He put a hand to his forehead, thinking of all the minor shames and crimes of his youth.
Lady May went on indifferently. "He didn't care about you, or what you did, of course. He was looking for something."
"What?"
She sat back, her mobile face squinched into a speculative look. "Not sure. But we think he came here to conquer the Winds."
Jordan shot her the kind of look he reserved for Willam’s less-successful jokes.
"Hmm. I guess it would sound crazy to you. Tell me, what specifically did you dream about Armiger?"
Any former reluctance he'd had about revealing his dreams was gone; Jordan now hoped May would be able to remove them, the faster the better he satisfied her. He began with the first dream, and she listened patiently as he described Armiger's death and burial.
"You remember him writing his name in the mortar? That was real, not an actual dream?" Jordan nodded; he felt he could tell these visions from dreams.
"Strange. He's faked his own death. I wonder why."
"Tell me what they mean!"
"Okay." Lady May turned her heavy wooden chair around to face the fire, and stuck out her boots. They listened as something clittered by in the outside hall, and her hand hovered near the protective gauze until it was gone. "In the first dream, you say you saw a great battle, which the Winds interrupted.
"If that was a true vision, he has been defeated here, just as he has in space. Maybe Armiger only just received a transmission telling him about the greater defeat off-world. You see, a little while ago a battle was fought among the stars. I was there. And I helped destroy a creature rather like the Winds. A thing that went by no name, only a number: 3340." Firelight caressed her features as she spoke. "This creature had enslaved an entire world, a place called Hsing. There are other worlds, Jordan. Other places than Ventus where men walk." He shook his head. "Well, anyway, 3340 has been destroyed. But some of his servants survive. One of these servants is Armiger.
"Armiger was sent here six years ago by 3340, who hoped to find a way to enslave the Winds, and thus take all of Ventus as its own. And Armiger sent out his machines to try to find the Achilles' heel-the secret vulnerability-of the Winds.
"I'm sure you know the Winds destroy all machines that are not of their own devising. They did this to Armiger's first probes. He tried hiding some probes in animals, but the morphs discovered them and took the probes out. But he had learned that the Winds do not change humans the way they do other life here. The morphs can kill, but they do not change people, do they? Only animals. So he realized he could hide his probes in people. And he did so. One of those people was you."
"I would remember," he protested.
"No, it was done in your sleep, using very small mecha. That's all the probe is, a mechal infection on your brain.
"You can't conquer the Winds," he said. "The idea is absurd. Armiger must not be very bright."
"Maybe, maybe not." She shrugged. "His master had enough power to spare to send him on a mission that had no guarantee of success. But what if he did find a way?"
She left the question hanging. Jordan stared at the fire, and tried to imagine the sovereign Winds bowing to another power, to the thing that had scratched its own name on the inside of its tomb.
"Armiger," Lady May said, "wanted to become god of this world. But he had a master, from whom all his power came. Armiger is only a spy, possibly an assassin. And he has learned that his master is now dead." She steepled her hands and glared into the fire. "So now what? Is he free to pursue the plan on his own? Your story suggests he's gone mad, but he may just be going to ground, dropping from sight, which would make sense if he suspected we were going to come after him."
Jordan blinked at her. This was too strange to question; he could not fit any of it into his understanding of the world.
Lady May seemed to sense his confusion. "The rest is simple," she said. "All 3340's agents are being hunted down and killed. Axel Chan and I have come to find Armiger, and destroy him. Destroy
"But he died."
"And you went on receiving from him after he died? He's not dead, although he might not realize it himself yet, if he has gone insane. When we came here, Axel and I could not discover Armiger, but we found you. And we found there was maybe a way to use you to find him. Our intention was to hire you away from your father, as an apprentice. I travelled with Turcaret for credibility's sake, to negotiate that with Castor. Castor would have none of it, though; maybe it was Turcaret poisoning his mind about your sister, he realized he couldn't shatter the whole family and chose Emmy. We were stuck until your sister ran into the woods. You see," she shot him a conspir