Windblowne (5 page)

This was too much for Oliver. First it was his parents, who were barely aware the Festival existed and certainly weren’t going to do anything to help Oliver prepare for it. Now his great-uncle, who had once been a Festival champion and who owned the most splendid workshop and kites in all of Windblowne and thus in all the world, wasn’t going to help him either. Oliver had opened his mouth to tell Great-uncle Gilbert exactly what he thought of his entire, useless family when he was interrupted by a thumping noise coming from behind the kite racks.

Great-uncle Gilbert spun about, ran to the racks, and threw his back against them. “Shhh!” he hissed over his shoulder. “Not now!”

Oliver gaped. “Who do you have in there?” he said accusingly.

“What are you talking about?” cried Great-uncle Gilbert. “I don’t hear any thumping! Don’t be preposterous!”

He turned his head to one side. “Stop that! Stop that right now!” he hissed again. “I’ll let you out in a minute. I was just getting rid of him!” The steady
thump thump thump
continued without pause.

“No, you weren’t!” snapped Oliver.

“Yes, I was!” shouted Great-uncle Gilbert, and Oliver found himself propelled out of the workshop, his great-uncle’s hands gripping his shoulders. He was pushed through the living room and out the front door. Oliver staggered as his great-uncle released him at the top of the steps. He turned. Great-uncle Gilbert was blocking the doorway, breathing heavily. The steady thumping could still be heard behind him.

“Well,” his great-uncle said quickly, “that was a lovely visit, thank you. We shouldn’t do it again anytime soon. And you must avoid the crest at all costs. That’s how
he
came through, and it would be a dangerous thing indeed for
you
to run into
him
. Regards to your parents.” And with that, he slammed the door. Oliver heard running footsteps fading away.

Oliver sagged against the door. His final hopes had rested in someone who turned out to be a complete lunatic. Lunacy must run in the family. His mother was
headed that way too, and Oliver supposed he would be next.

He turned wearily and plodded down the steps. Now what? Oliver looked at the abandoned clock, ticking remorselessly away in the cluttered yard.

The day had become cold and gray while he was indoors, and chill winds blew over him as he trudged off. He pulled his jacket closer. The winds made eerie sounds as they threaded through the oaks, bringing with them that scent of decay from the strange, sick oak, as well as the rattling patter of its dead leaves. Oliver was filled with foreboding. The giant oaks were waving their branches as the winds came through, and it looked to Oliver as though they were waving helplessly.

Oliver shook it off. He didn’t intend to go crazy like the rest of his family. Not yet anyway. He was determined to enter the Festival somehow and show them all.

He turned down the hidden path toward Windswept Way, toward home. He walked quickly. He did not like the sound of the winds in the oaks, wailing and mournful. Oliver’s walk turned into a jog, and then he found himself running for the shelter and warmth of home, chased by the cry of the winds.

That night, Oliver quivered in bed, wide-eyed and sleepless
. Outside, the winds howled. The treehouse creaked and groaned. Oliver thought the winds sounded angry enough to rip the treehouse from the tree’s embrace and send it spinning away. Oliver longed to run across the hall and place his hands on the trunk to reassure himself of its solidity and strength, but he didn’t dare leave his bed.

He could not fathom how his parents slept through this unusually powerful windstorm, but they seemed completely undisturbed. Oliver’s heart pounded and his mind raced. He was covered in sweat, his sheets twisted into knots.

I’m going to light a candle
, he thought. He threw the covers aside.
I’m going to light every candle I can find
.

But then

BAM

something crashed against the treehouse so close to him that the wall shook and Oliver nearly screamed. He pulled the covers back over his head. And then a sound came again,

tap tap tap

like a person rapping on the shutter. He lifted his head cautiously from beneath the blankets. That had really sounded like

tap tap tap

someone knocking to get in. But no one could possibly be out at night, sitting on an oak branch, rapping on the window next to Oliver’s bed. He waited for several seconds.

TAP TAP TAP

Oliver rolled over and yanked the curtains aside. Moonslight flashed on something flickering among the lashing branches.
No
, he thought,
it can’t be.…

He pulled up the window.

The winds invaded with a roar and nearly threw him from his bed. He clung to the windowsill as Great-uncle Gilbert’s kite, the simple long-tailed crimson kite, came crashing in, slamming into walls and bouncing off the
floor and ceiling. It thrashed uncontrollably as Oliver struggled to close the window. Then the winds slackened briefly, the kite flew over Oliver’s head and out into the night, and the window slammed home.

Oliver fell back on his bed in astonishment. Somehow, improbably, the winds had gotten hold of the hidden kite. It was a colossal piece of luck. Now he possessed something his great-uncle wanted. Or he would possess it, anyway, as soon as he chased down the wayward kite.

This is a really stupid idea
, said a little voice in the back of Oliver’s head. But Oliver had ignored that voice before, and he was going to ignore it now. He fished his rugged flier’s outfit from under the bed, dressed quickly, and raced from the room.

Using the front door was out of the question. With the winds hammering at the walls, opening the door would invite disaster. Oliver went straight to the emergency wind hatch in the tiny room off the kitchen. He lifted the trapdoor and put one foot on the first rung of the ladder.

Below him the ladder descended through the protected wind shaft and then along the trunk into battering darkness. He wavered. The odds of catching the kite were terribly low, and the odds of breaking a leg were
terribly high. Should he really do this? The plan was sheer madness.
Runs in the family
, thought Oliver. Flattening himself against the trunk, he descended swiftly and dropped into the open winds.

He braced himself against the turbulence, his back to his solid home oak. The world was wild around him. Everything not rooted firmly in the ground had been lifted and thrown. The scream of the winds as they tore through the oaks was deafening, as though the night had life and was warning him back. Trembling, Oliver recalled childhood tales of wicked boys and girls who had been carried off by the winds, never to be seen again.

But I must have the kite
, thought Oliver.
I’ll catch it and come straight home. And I’m not going anywhere near the crest
.

He staggered away from the oak. The moment he abandoned the oak’s solidity he became disoriented, all sense of direction lost in the churning night. The winds came up from behind and pushed him forward, and he fought back, peering about for the kite. At first he feared that it might have been blown too far away to catch, but then he spied a crimson blur.

The kite was flitting among a line of oaks. None of them were oaks that Oliver recognized. For a confused
instant, he felt as though he had stepped into another world. Seven trees stood before him, looming in the dark; seven anguished silhouettes, broken and tortured. Then the winds shifted, the shadows changed, and Oliver realized he was not looking at seven oaks racked in pain but seven sculptures lining Windswept Way—his mother’s art.

His map restored, he ran, stumbling as the winds lashed him. His exposed face stung as twigs and leaves became missiles in the driving winds. He could barely keep the kite in sight, with all of the weird and distracting shadows changing each moment. He saw that it had moved upward on the Way. He gave chase, but the kite bobbed just out of reach, flying tantalizingly close and then darting away just as Oliver closed his fingers.

Suddenly the kite ducked sideways, into the forest. They had come to the secret path, and the kite had flown between the sentinels as though it knew the way. In fact, the kite had been flying in an oddly deliberate fashion all along.

With a crash, Oliver went headlong into the brush.

The kite reached the turn to Great-uncle Gilbert’s treehouse and slipped off the path. Oliver slipped after it.

Then light exploded through the oaks, a brilliant split-second flash that lit the forest in stark relief.

Oliver was momentarily blinded. When he opened his eyes again, the kite had disappeared.

He ran through the trees, moonslight spilling across his path, until he reached the clearing.

He arrived in the midst of a battle.

The seconds that followed were entirely confusing. Oliver saw Great-uncle Gilbert flying two of the bladed fighting kites, one in each hand, with astonishing skill. The kites were cutting tight circles on their short tow-lines. The old man was fending off three other kites, dark, speed-blurred shapes. But who was flying those kites? Oliver couldn’t see anyone else in the clearing.

“Great-uncle Gilbert!” Oliver shouted.

Great-uncle Gilbert glanced over. “Oliver!” he cried. “No!”

The distraction was all the dark kites needed. Two of them dove in, and Great-uncle Gilbert’s fighting kites disappeared in snapping spars and shreds of silk. The third attacked Great-uncle Gilbert directly, hooking onto his robe. Oliver whirled around. Where were the fliers?

A shout of pain came from the treehouse. Then someone, a boy, burst through the front door and pounded down the wooden steps.

The other boy was dressed in a flier’s outfit, exactly like Oliver’s. His arms were full of folded kites.

“Go!” cried the boy.

There was another dazzling flash.

Oliver’s vision spun and wavered, and it seemed as though he were seeing double. Two treehouses, two of every oak. He looked at the other boy. He was seeing double there, too. When he looked the boy in the face, he could have sworn that the face he saw was his own.

Two dark kites flew to the boy, hooking onto his gloves.

There was another blinding flash, and for a minute Oliver staggered about the clearing, groping, completely blind.

When his vision recovered, the clearing was empty. He saw no sign of Great-uncle Gilbert or any of the kites, or the other boy.

He looked toward the treehouse.

The front door was wide open, dim light spilling from within. Every few seconds something blew from inside—candlesticks, papers, odd bits of furniture—filling the air with swirling debris.

From within the treehouse there came a tremendous crash.

Oliver raced up the steps
.

Inside, the treehouse was in shambles. The winds had reduced everything to pure chaos. Oliver pushed against the door and shoved it closed. He looked around the living room. His great-uncle’s supplies had been knocked over, bits of the fighting kites had been smashed around, and the wall once covered with battle plans now had only a few scraps remaining. One of the barricaded windows had been bashed open. There were several long, deep slashes in the fallen board, as though a powerful animal had raked its claws across it. Somehow, an oil lamp tucked in one corner had survived, its weak flame casting a weirdly flickering glow. Oliver hurriedly retrieved it.

“Great-uncle Gilbert!” Oliver cried. “Hullo!”

A terrific ruckus came from the workshop. Oliver ran toward the sound, nearly tripping on an overturned stool, and burst into the room.

“Great-uncle …,” Oliver began, but the words died away. He set the lamp aside. His great-uncle was not here, and neither were most of his kites. The shelves were empty, the workbenches cleared—even the kite racks stood open and bare. Only two kites remained—the crimson kite, which was being madly chased around the workshop, and the ravenous black kite-eater, which was doing the chasing.

Oliver leapt. He fell upon the kite-eater and pinned it to the floor. Pain shot through his hand as the kite-eater caught him in its jaws. Oliver cried out and pulled; the kite-eater heaved and struggled. He looked desperately for a weapon. Nearby, on the floor, he spotted a book. Not just any book but a heavy, familiar, boring book. Just the book, in fact, to trap a kite-eater. Oliver grabbed for it with one hand, hauled it over with a tremendous grunt, and rolled aside, pulling it onto the kite-eater as he went.

He had finally found a use for one of his father’s massive tomes. It made the perfect restraint for an aggressive kite. Oliver crawled backward, panting from the unexpected
wrestling match. At first he feared that even this book would not be enough to hold down the kite-eater, but no matter how much it twisted and fought and snapped its jaws, it could not escape the sheer weight of
The Social and Cultural History of the Lower Warfeld Valley in Late Mid-Age Macherino
. Oliver knew the feeling well.

The crimson kite collapsed onto a workbench, seemingly exhausted, its sails heaving.

“Great-uncle Gilbert!” shouted Oliver.

He quickly searched the rest of the treehouse. There was no sign of his great-uncle.

He stopped in the living room, looking at what was left of the strange maps and overturned barrels. The crimson kite had recovered and was swooping in agitated circles around and around the room. Oliver looked out the bashed-in window into the windblown night. Feeling useless, he picked up the fallen board and shoved it back into place.

grrrrrr

He heard a noise, like a faint grinding, almost as though something were … chewing.

Oliver ran back into the workshop.

The kite-eater was still pinned under the enormous
book, or rather, part of the book. It had already managed to chew through some of it. Bits of torn paper surrounded the abused book and the kite-eater, which snapped its jaws savagely when Oliver entered.

“Oh no you don’t!” said Oliver sharply. Setting down the lamp, he ran to the shelf of his father’s books and reached up for the next one. As he hauled it down, he noticed the title—
The Mountain Before Windblowne
—just before the book slipped from his grasp and crashed to the floor, narrowly missing his foot.