Read Online Reap the Wild Wind by Julie E Czerneda - Free Book Online
Authors: Julie E Czerneda
Tags: Science-Fiction
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question. Reasonable. Why did it feel . . .
About to put the pot in its cupboard, she hesitated.
... perilous. That’s how it felt. Not one of her inner warnings this time, but as if she stood too near the side of a bridge and stared down at the Lay, about to lose her balance.
Her mother had brought five panes, each white woven panel framed in strips of pod wood. She’d only needed one. Now, feeling foolish but determined, Aryl picked two from the stack and held them out at arm’s length. Slowly, she moved them up and down, imitating a flitter.
She didn’t rise from the floor, but the growing draft caught her finished pane and sent it skittering along the tabletop.
Aryl pumped her arms faster, putting real muscle into it. Glow strands swung back and forth, spilling shadows over the floor.
The curtains along the far wall lifted from their bottoms, curving inward toward her until the nearest billowed and snapped like a dresel wing. Aryl stared at it, her arms stopped at shoulder height. The fabric settled. All was normal again.
Her shoulders complained, but Aryl paid no attention. She didn’t need force, she realized in awe. She had that, so long as the M’hir blew. “All I need are wings,” she breathed.
To go where? whispered something at the back of her mind.
She paid no attention to that either.
* * *
Aryl filled the remaining panes with drawings of something quite different from the mysterious device. She did her best to recall the dresel’s wing, how a single strip of material unfurled and filled with wind to lift the pod, how the pod had dangled below. The shape of a wastryl’s wings filled two more panes on both sides, requiring her thinnest splinter so the ink wouldn’t soak through. She found she remembered how the wings curved differently if the creature maintained height or was diving after a pod. Beside each drawing Aryl added lines to remind her of the wastryl’s speed and direction, muttering under her breath as she overlaid those with more vague recollections of the M’hir itself. Thick lines for fast and powerful movement; thinner when slow.
If she knew the marks the Tikitik used, she could put words, here, safe from prying minds. But only those on Council were given that knowledge, to maintain clan records of greater import than the flight of what was, after all, a harvest pest.
She shook her head and concentrated. The glows outside sent slanted beams of light across the ceiling. Truenight was close.
The last pane she filled while absently chewing a strip of dried dresel. She’d regained an appetite, if no interest in finding a proper meal. She toyed with fantastic designs. Wings made of baskets, of rastis fronds, of panes tied together, of wood and rope. She inked a pod dangling beneath each, a pod which, in her mind, wasn’t a pod at all.
“Aryl. Aryl Sarc.”
At the summons from outside a window, Aryl grabbed her panes, leaving the one of the device on the table. “Coming!” she called, rushing in the opposite direction.
Where to hide them? Her room was hopelessly tidy, trunks and mats secured in this season when rastis might bend without warning. She dumped the panes on her bed and tried to lift the mattress, but it had been fastened through the base to the floor. Gathering her drawings again, she ran to Costa’s room, pushing through its curtain.
“Aryl!”
Only her cousin, Seru Parth, could instill one word with that much drama. “You want me dressed, don’t you?” Aryl protested over her shoulder.
Here were hiding places beyond count, so long as moisture didn’t wash away her ink. Avoiding tables draped with greenery, Aryl rearranged a row of unused pots near a back wall panel, then tucked her panes in the space behind. It wasn’t perfect, but in a room full of distractions it would do.
Distractions such as the heavy scent of flowers, and overripe fruit, and the drying black goo Costa valued so highly for his plants that he’d regularly risked
About to put the pot in its cupboard, she hesitated.
... perilous. That’s how it felt. Not one of her inner warnings this time, but as if she stood too near the side of a bridge and stared down at the Lay, about to lose her balance.
Her mother had brought five panes, each white woven panel framed in strips of pod wood. She’d only needed one. Now, feeling foolish but determined, Aryl picked two from the stack and held them out at arm’s length. Slowly, she moved them up and down, imitating a flitter.
She didn’t rise from the floor, but the growing draft caught her finished pane and sent it skittering along the tabletop.
Aryl pumped her arms faster, putting real muscle into it. Glow strands swung back and forth, spilling shadows over the floor.
The curtains along the far wall lifted from their bottoms, curving inward toward her until the nearest billowed and snapped like a dresel wing. Aryl stared at it, her arms stopped at shoulder height. The fabric settled. All was normal again.
Her shoulders complained, but Aryl paid no attention. She didn’t need force, she realized in awe. She had that, so long as the M’hir blew. “All I need are wings,” she breathed.
To go where? whispered something at the back of her mind.
She paid no attention to that either.
* * *
Aryl filled the remaining panes with drawings of something quite different from the mysterious device. She did her best to recall the dresel’s wing, how a single strip of material unfurled and filled with wind to lift the pod, how the pod had dangled below. The shape of a wastryl’s wings filled two more panes on both sides, requiring her thinnest splinter so the ink wouldn’t soak through. She found she remembered how the wings curved differently if the creature maintained height or was diving after a pod. Beside each drawing Aryl added lines to remind her of the wastryl’s speed and direction, muttering under her breath as she overlaid those with more vague recollections of the M’hir itself. Thick lines for fast and powerful movement; thinner when slow.
If she knew the marks the Tikitik used, she could put words, here, safe from prying minds. But only those on Council were given that knowledge, to maintain clan records of greater import than the flight of what was, after all, a harvest pest.
She shook her head and concentrated. The glows outside sent slanted beams of light across the ceiling. Truenight was close.
The last pane she filled while absently chewing a strip of dried dresel. She’d regained an appetite, if no interest in finding a proper meal. She toyed with fantastic designs. Wings made of baskets, of rastis fronds, of panes tied together, of wood and rope. She inked a pod dangling beneath each, a pod which, in her mind, wasn’t a pod at all.
“Aryl. Aryl Sarc.”
At the summons from outside a window, Aryl grabbed her panes, leaving the one of the device on the table. “Coming!” she called, rushing in the opposite direction.
Where to hide them? Her room was hopelessly tidy, trunks and mats secured in this season when rastis might bend without warning. She dumped the panes on her bed and tried to lift the mattress, but it had been fastened through the base to the floor. Gathering her drawings again, she ran to Costa’s room, pushing through its curtain.
“Aryl!”
Only her cousin, Seru Parth, could instill one word with that much drama. “You want me dressed, don’t you?” Aryl protested over her shoulder.
Here were hiding places beyond count, so long as moisture didn’t wash away her ink. Avoiding tables draped with greenery, Aryl rearranged a row of unused pots near a back wall panel, then tucked her panes in the space behind. It wasn’t perfect, but in a room full of distractions it would do.
Distractions such as the heavy scent of flowers, and overripe fruit, and the drying black goo Costa valued so highly for his plants that he’d regularly risked
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