Silver in Eillen 9: Thou Winter Wind
“Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
thou art not so unkind
as man's ingratitude;"
- Shakespeare’s As You Like It
<- 8) Desires of the Moment ~0~ 10) Sweet Adversity ->
In cities - not large towns, such as the capitol of Renua, but real, overcrowded, overpopulated, slightly-less-than-sanitary cities, such as Eillen - it was easy to find magicians. They clustered around those centers of power and wealth like cockroaches around a crumb. Some specialized in one thing or another, still others claimed to be useful for any purpose, and yet more were simply cunning fakes. The sheer variety would have been a problem for most, since magicians were a secretive lot and relied on no guilds, no oaths, and none of the formal organization of any other trade. But there were ways for one magician to recognize another, and though no one knew for sure all of their fellows, one magician knew another who knew another… and so rumors spread.
Rumors that, after several days, lead Venturos down to the docks, in the downriver portion of the city. Sailors lived there, as did street urchins and pickpockets and yelling fishwives, but Venturos wove his way through all of them with a singleness of purpose which made people get out of his way without taking any special note of him - just another hurried and busy traveler. Pickpockets and footpads sized him up, but were unable to decide whether he was rich or poor, young or old, a good target or not worth the trouble, before he had swept past them and their opportunity was lost.
The peeling plaster of the building before him was similar to the peeling plaster of the building next to it. Venturos knew that it was the right place, however, not by any arcane sign, but because, painted next to the door, was an inscription that read “Windkeeper.”
He had come to the right place.
Venturos knocked on the door, and received no response, so he turned the knob and slipped inside.
The lair within contained the usual clutter, most of it for show. Bottles and jars lined the shelves and a rickety desk, as did a series of colored, knotted ropes. Some said that a windkeeper could summon a favorable wind with them, or calm storms. Others believed that they were merely a focus to keep the power of the winds in check. Still others dismissed the thought as mere superstition. That didn’t stop merchants from erring on the side of caution, however, and hiring alleged Windkeepers anyway. And for a Windkeeper with a good reputation, the business was profitable, so long as the ship or fleet that they sailed in returned home in one piece. Less lucky Windkeepers sank down through the fathoms with the ship that they were contracted to protect.
This particular Windkeeper had obviously fallen on hard times, as had House Argentum which had once employed him. His reputation had been ruined with it, for no one wished to hire a Windkeeper who was the sole survivor of a shipwreck, as it was obvious that he had failed in his last contract.
“Who’s there?”
An old voice, and thin - not entirely what Venturos was expecting. He turned around.
The Windkeeper was visibly old, one liver-spotted hand clutching at the banister of an extremely steep stairway that Venturos could only assume lead to his chambers above the shop. His hair had passed beyond silver to white, and his eyes were as watery as his voice.
“A colleague,” Venturos replied. If the white haired man understood the full import of that word, so much the better. If he misunderstood… no harm done, in the long run.
“Come to gloat, have you?” the cracked voice seized on the idea like a dog with a bone, “Come to mock the great Florio, Master of the Winds, Eh? I’m not some doddering old fool - not yet! Go elsewhere for your amusement, you young upstart!” Within a few steps, he was brandishing a knobbled cane at Venturos and as menacing as his years and stature could make him.
Venturos quickly sidestepped the cane.
“I’ve actually come to ask a few questions,” he said, in a voice of such flat calm that the elderly windkeeper paused momentarily.
“Come to steal my secrets, have you?” His eyes were suspicious, but the cane was lowered to the floor.
“Nothing of the sort.” Though Venturos would pay for them if he had to. “You would, naturally, not have to answer any question which you objected to. However, as I am not a windkeeper, I doubt your personal secrets of the trade would do me any good.” He paused for a moment, scanning the old man’s face for signs of agreement. “In fact, I am far more interested in the sort of ships you have worked on, the destinations you have sailed to, and who you have worked for.”
The old man looked at Venturos for a long moment.
“You mean, you want to hear about the ships I let sink,” he said.
“I’m sure that it wasn’t -”
“Bah. Whenever a storm brews up and a ship goes down, they blame the Windkeeper. Never mind that conditions at sea can change in a heartbeat, and any Windkeeper worth his salt knows that you can’t control the winds, just coax them into the right direction. As if reefs and rocks and sailors who can’t tie down the sails quick enough don’t do their part towards sinking a ship. Or captains too stubborn to follow their windkeeper’s advice.”
“There are a good many fools in this world,” Venturos agreed.
The Windkeeper, however, was too sharp for that. “Oh yes, a great many,” he replied in his crackling voice, “And I’m certain that you know all about them. What are you, a wandering juggler? An illusionist who gets up on stage and distracts a crowd while his apprentice cuts their purses? A quack doctor who mutters cryptic phrases over a jar of powdered sheep’s hooves and convinces peasants that he’s created a magic cure, Eh?” The old man was clearly enjoying needling him.
“A scholar.” Venturos’ clipped reply could mean anything, and the Windkeeper knew it.
“A scholar, Eh?” he asked with a sudden grin, revealing that he was missing his eyeteeth, “Well, I suppose I could spare a few moments of my time for a scholar,” he mused, “I somehow don’t think that anyone else is going to come in today. Sit down, boy.”
It had been several years since anyone had called Venturos ‘boy,’ but he sat anyway on the nearest chair as the old Windkeeper made his wobbling way through a pile of mystic paraphernalia and eventually reached the far side of his desk.
“Now, what was it that you wanted to know? I can’t tell you everything, mind - next thing I know you’d be setting up shop as a Windkeeper yourself.”
“House Argentus,” Venturos replied. “I understand that you have worked for them for quite some time.”
The Windkeeper snorted. “Had worked for them. But they’ve no use for a Windkeeper who let their ships sink, even if they had a ship left to their names. Over the years I’ve sailed on every ship they’ve sent out to sea, in fair weather and foul, and not a one of them so much as sprung a leak if the captain was wise enough to heed my advice. But what do they care about that? Forty years of service is nothing compared to a sunken ship.”
“I had heard that there were seven ships.”
“And one windkeeper between them,” the old man replied sharply, “Perhaps seven of us could have calmed that storm. But it was all I could do to save some from my own ship, the ungrateful wretches.”
Tactfully, Venturos decided not to comment.
“In any case, I was able to outrun the storm on a different wind, sailing east as it headed south. But it wasn’t a natural storm - it turned around against the prevailing wind and followed us in. Broke us up on the rocks, and mere miles from the river Aern too. Wrong winds for that time of year - probably some incompetent untied all his knots at once, or pushed a storm out our way because he couldn’t deal with it himself.”
Venturos was quiet for a moment. “I’d like you to tell me the whole story,” he said, “from the beginning.”