The Windsingers (25 page)

A glancing blow swept the side of her head. She staggered from the impact and nearly lost her breath, but not her grip on the rope. She tried not to wonder what was in this blackness with her. Flesh-eating fish, perhaps? She couldn't change that. She pulled hard at the line, hoping to feel an answering tug, but it remained taut. It could be snagged on something below. She did not believe Vandien could be holding it so tight; not after being under so long. She could not see him, she could not call him. If Vandien had chosen to come down this way, it was the last choice he had ever made. Ki's eyes stung with salt water. She backed up a step.

Again she felt a turbulence, and something brushed her shoulder. But there was less energy to the movement now. As it passed, she felt the rasp of cloth on her cheek. Ki grabbed.

She lost the steps, but not the rope. She would not loose her grip from that. The leg she seized gave a feeble kick and was still. A hand brushed her hood and caught in the cloth there. In the darkness she trapped the leg between her chest and arm and again gripped the rope with both hands. The leg was limp against her, but the hand held on. Stay with me, she thought desperately as air tried to press out of her lips. Hang on. She fumbled her way back up the rope.

She felt his weight on her back, and then a hand caught at her burden as she emerged from the water Janie had an awkward grasp on his shoulder and was heaving ineffectually at his limp weight. Ki caught him at the hips and tumbled him up onto the raft, nearly upsetting the lantern and putting the top of the raft awash. Water streamed from him. Breath burst out of him with a spray of water. He snorted and choked feebly, without even enough energy to drive the water from his mouth. Janie was paralyzed. Ki glared at her, but Janie was unaware of it. She stared at Vandien as if at an unfamiliar fish. Ki reached up and grabbed one of Vandien's shoulders, to roll him to face her. She could find no words to speak, nor breath to say them. She drew gasp after gasp deep into her own lungs. Vandien sputtered again, and coughed, this time with more energy. One eyelid slid open. He regarded Ki miserably.

'I nearly drowned down there.' His calm voice barely reached Ki. He would have used the same tone to complain about a badly rutted road.

'I noticed that,' she heard herself reply conversationally.

Vandien's lips sneered up and she thought he would choke again. But after a couple of gasps, he began to laugh. He tried to sit up, but could not. His laughter was broken by coughing. Ki found herself grinning as she gripped his shoulders by the baggy smock. Janie stared at both of them, not comprehending that survival was the most basic joke of all. When he could no longer laugh, he lay motionless on the raft, still smiling and coughing intermittently. Ki glanced up at the solemn-faced young woman. 'Let's get out of here,' she suggested. She put her weight against the raft, pushing it toward the portal.

'We can't!'Janie's voice went raw and high.

Ki's glance shot to the portal, but there was still enough space to push through it. The raft might scrape on the tapering sides of the arch, and Janie would have to duck low. But they'd make it.

'We haven't finished!' Janie's cry was outraged. 'We can't go yet. We haven't found the chest of the Windsingers.' Ki received these words with a cold look. She continued to lean against the raft, moving it along. Janie turned on Vandien. 'If we leave now, teamster, you haven't succeeded. You haven't earned your fee and you've lost your team. Think on that, Vandien! No team! No money! And you'll wear that scar to the end of your days. Forever!'

'He would in any case.' Ki kept her voice low, but it carried through the wind. 'Why not offer an impossible reward for an impossible task? Maybe next Temple Ebb it will be a mountain of gold.'

'It's not impossible! It's not!'Janie grabbed at Vandien, shaking him. He was powerless to resist her. Her shaking flopped him about like a rag doll. 'Srolan would never offer the impossible. And the chest is here! It is! My grandfather saw it. He held it in his own hands.'

'Leave him alone!' Ki roared. Her green eyes flashed as with a back-handed blow she struck Janie's hands away from her friend. 'Isn't half-drowning him enough to please you? Do you have to keep on tormenting him with offers of what can't be? Not finished here? You came damn near to finishing him anywhere!'

Even in the dim lantern light, Ki could see the rush of blood to Janie's face. Her eyes distended, her hands became claws. Ki did not flinch, but she tightened her muscles in preparation for the attack she was sure would come. But only hard words pelted against her, screamed out in a voice shriller than the wind. 'You know what it is, Vandien? She doesn't want that scar lifted from your face. It marks you as hers. She knows that while you wear it, she need fear no rival, for no other woman would look at you. She came out here to stop you!'

Sickness swept Ki. Vandien reared his body up between them, dragging himself to a crouch. His black hair hung dripping on his forehead. The yellow lamplight made his skin sallow. His scar was a brand and his mouth a puckered slash. He turned accusing eyes on Ki. For one rending instant, Ki supposed that he believed Janie's accusation. 'Can't leave my team!' he gasped out. He shook his head, scattering drops of salt water into the wind. 'Got to get those skeel out, Ki! Four of them, and that's four more than I can afford.'

'Skeel?' Ki was incredulous. 'You brought a team of skeel out in salt water?'

'Why not?' Vandien was visibly recovering. He held himself between Janie and Ki, using his body to block the tensions that hummed between them. 'They seemed to like fresh water well enough.'

Ki laughed. She roared with laughter, and began again to push the raft toward the temple portal. Vandien coughed and stared at her. Janie was silent and sullen. A slow puzzled smile began to dawn over his face. 'Tell!' he demanded. 'What in hell is so damn funny?'

'Skeel!' Ki choked out the word. 'In fresh water they soak up moisture reserves. Makes them frisky, and gives them a lot of stamina. But in salt water...' Ki dissolved in helpless laughter. Vandien leaned forward, his dark face on a level with her own. He kept trying to smooth out his face and be solemn, but a smile kept tugging at the corners of his mouth. 'In salt water,' Ki gasped out at last, 'they go into rut. They go as deep as they can, twine together in a knot and mate. For hours! Days, sometimes! They don't stop until they're all mutually fertilized. Then they'll come up and head for the open sea.' Another bubble of laughter from her. 'Don't worry about them, Vandien. We'll come back for them at the next low tide. They'll be fine until then. In fact, they'll enjoy themselves immensely. Most teams seldom get a chance to mate.'

Vandien grinned feebly and swung his legs off the raft. 'I don't need help,' Ki protested, but he only nodded toward the portal. An incoming wave lifted Ki off her feet and for an instant filled the portal. As the waves gushed out again, the water sucked at the raft. Vandien and Ki braced to keep from being dragged into the swirling water.

'Jump off, Janie!' Vandien called. 'We're all going to get wet going through that portal.'

Janie didn't move. Her head came up, eyes narrowed. 'I'm not leaving. And you aren't taking my raft, nor my lantern. You may not have the courage to see this through, but I do. I won't leave until I have the Windsingers' chest.'

'Or until you die?' Vandien asked.

'Or that.' Janie spoke in a lull of wind, and her voice was flat.

'Leave her,' Ki suggested. Her stubbornness seemed the whim of a spoiled child, and Ki had no intention of indulging it.

'Wait,' Vandien interceded, but Ki pointed at the portal. The lintel disappeared at the height of each wave. As the water receded, only a sliver of door showed.

'Time and tide wait on no one, Vandien. It's a long cold swim back to shore. I don't think you'd make it. Our only hope is to get out of here before the water gets deeper.'

Vandien nodded at Ki, and made a gesture that hushed her. He turned to Janie. 'We're going now, Janie. There's no hope of finding the chest now. The water's too deep and it's too dark. So you'll stay and die, and your legend will die with you. The village will remember your family as drunks and liars, and you as a fool. There's your little sister, of course, but she can grow up sweeping out the ashes of Helti's fires. She'll survive. Many children grow up on less. And each Temple Ebb to come will mean a little less. Teamster will become a meaningless title. Ebb will be when the jugglers come to entertain, and a Windsinger graciously performs for your village. That might be a good thing. Maybe it's time to end this ridiculous custom. The village would be wiser to forget the past and go on to other things. Your dying might be a very good thing.'

Halfway through this speech, her face had crumpled, but Vandien pressed inexorably on. The veneer of womanhood cracked; the child's eyes welled angry tears that mingled with the salt spray on her face. Without a sound she swung off the raft and clung to the edge beside them. Ki took breath for a sarcastic remark, but Vandien's look stopped her.

'Let's go,' he said, his deep voice cutting under the wind to reach them. They braced for a moment against the incoming wave. As the wave retreated and swirling water sucked at the raft, they pushed off. The raft was caught up like a bobbing cork. Their treading feet found no purchase. The raft sought the portal of the temple and wedged in it. The arched top of the portal was not wide enough for the raft to fit through it. 'Put some weight on it!' Vandien yelled, hoping to sink it down to where it could pass. But it was too late. A fresh wave surged into the temple and they clung to the raft as it was pushed away from the door. They whirled, their feet no longer finding bottom. The wind shrieked with laughter.

'It's too late.' Janie's voice was soft and hopeless. The portal was no longer visible. The water sloshed and rose within the temple, but the hole it entered by was covered. As if in sympathy with their hopes, the lantern flared once and went dark. Ki felt sick. 'Too far to swim. Too cold,' she whispered. The others couldn't hear her. But they already knew.

Vandien dragged himself back onto the raft. Ki did not blame him. She had not been out here as long as he had, nor had she been half-drowned. But her strength was draining, and Vandien must be at the dregs of his.

The black sky flecked with stars taunted them. Frills of froth were white within the temple, but little else showed. Ki clung to the water-slick logs of the raft. She could feel Janie beside her. Neither kicked anymore. They would save their strength until they had cause to struggle.

'What are you doing?' Ki asked as Vandien hunched in the center of the raft. Vibrations traveled through the logs, but before he answered, the raft went suddenly to pieces.

'Grab the log!' she heard Vandien scream, and then she went under. She came up sputtering in cold darkness. Luck bumped the log against her shoulder and panic helped her clutch it. 'Vandien! Janie!' she yelled. The dark pressed down on her. 'Here!' came a voice from the end of the log. The log jarred as Janie came up beside her. A flung rope slapped Ki in the face. She managed to catch it before it trailed off into the water.

'We should be able to force a single log down and through the portal!' Vandien yelled. 'If we keep roped together, we should make it back to shore.'

'If we can find the portal!' Janie yelled back. Ki silently agreed. Her ducking had confused her, and the whirling water had finished the job. She was not even sure which wall the door was in. 'Just follow!' Vandien shouted. He said no more, but began to push against the log. Ki tried to kick in the same direction. For a moment Janie just trailed in the water beside her; then Ki felt her begin to kick.

The water eddied and swirled. Ki couldn't see where they were. The wind held them back, howling with laughter. She could no longer separate the sound of the wind from the voice of the Windsinger. Both were full of cold mockery' and power. Abruptly the log jarred against a wall.

'I can feel the door with my foot!' Vandien shouted. Ki could feel his movement but could not tell what he was doing. 'I've got the rope knotted to the log,' he shouted. 'I'm going to dive down and through the door, and take an end of the rope with me. When you feel me pull, force the end of the log down, and I'll try to pull it through. But keep an end of the rope with you. When the log is through, dive and follow. Keep a grip on the rope.'

Ki nodded idiotically, then stopped when she realized no one could see her. 'Be careful!' she called.

'He's gone,' Janie said. The two women clung to the log in the swirling water. Ki strained every sense, trying to feel some tug that would be Vandien's, and not just the push of the sea. Long moments burned away, and she felt nothing. 'He must be through by now,' she yelled to Janie. The jerk came like the tug of a fish on a line. The end of the log bobbed. Together Janie and Ki moved to put weight on it, to push it down below the surface until they felt it jogged away from their grip.

Vandien fought the shivering that tried to convulse his body. One could not shiver and swim. He tried to forget the pangs from his face that numbed his nose and burned between his eyes. He braced his feet against the outer wall of the temple and heaved on the line. He felt first the buoyancy of the log, and then the scraping as it edged through the portal. He went under again as it came bobbing suddenly free, bursting up from the water nearly under him. He swam up and clung to it, waiting for the women to swim through.

Janie came up quickly and Ki followed. They clung gasping to the log, feeling the unimpeded strength of the wind outside the temple walls. At least the waves favored them now. The tide was racing in over the flats. It helped them push their log toward shore. Vandien forced his head up and began to kick feebly. No one had the strength to speak, but he felt the efforts of the others as they joined in. Far away the few lights of the village shone like yellow stars. He wondered if any of them thought of Janie and him, out in the water and wind. What did they hope for? That both would drown, and put an end to the troublesome girl? Did any besides Srolan hope he'd return with the chest? Just as well that they didn't. Fewer would be disappointed.