Wind From the Abyss

Author:Janet Morris [Morris, Janet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Adult, Science Fiction
ISBN: 0553112503
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 1978-03-01T07:00:00+00:00

V: Draw to Crux

I stood beside the Keening Rock of Fai-Teraer Moyhe. The wind, cold and wailing, blew inland off the gray Embrodming Sea. It flogged me with salt spray. I had confined my hair in a thick braid, safed the braid under the cloak Khys had lent me. Beneath it I wore only the rumpled silk. My feet were bare, upon the sea-slicked sand. At my left was the Keening Rock, ten times the height of a man; a pierced monolith. Seven holes are there in that spire, each singular. The northern winds long ago conceived it their instrument. And over that instrument have they gained mastery, I thought, standing there in the sullen midday, with the Embrodming pulsing bass to the wailing of the gale. Loud it was, and eerie, with high-octave tones that demanded and received sympathetic resonance from my very bones. Behind me, inland, amid the ragged coastal rocks, began the eastern wilderness of which none are empowered to speak. And yet, I stood here. Khys had bade me await him by the Keening Rock while he meted out judgment to those who incurred his wrath.

It had been, of course, Khys’s barrier against which the Oniar-M had crashed. I squinted into the gray-green boiling sky, as if from here I could see it, where it encircled Silistra’s solar system; a sphere of restraint through which no mechanical craft could hope to pass, but by Khys’s expressed will. He had, when it pleased him, allowed the M-class Aggressive entry into the space he had taken out of common holding. There would be no more such ships. I turned and looked at it, canted slightly upon the beach, sunk a third of its length in the sand. It was a sinuous craft, like a friysou’s wing. A damaged wing it was, all its golden plumage ripped away but pinfeathers, and they sticking out from gray pimpled skin at unlikely angles. I had seen such a ship with her great sails wrapped tight about her like a Parsent forereader, the gold glinting in the desert sun. At Frullo jer, I had seen such a craft, when I had been tiaskchan of Nemar. Long ago.

I sighed. There would be no more ships. Khys had told me. Those now upon Silistra he would give a set’s grace, that they might take live cargo. He wanted no more off-worlders upon the land. The Oniar-M, before me, would not be leaving. It could no longer perform its functions. All of its machines were dead within it. The dharen had, perhaps at the very moment my mind touched his as he leaned upon M’tras’ table, transported us here. It was an awesome demonstration of his power, that I had not even felt it occur. I should have known, when he took the band from my throat, but I had not. He had hested the ship, contents included, to the eastern wilderness of which none are empowered to speak.

I was glad to be again upon the land.

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