Darktouch dashed panting till she found the old corridors with the old panging scents that signed her dead childhood to her mind—

  Father! Father!

  He recoiled from her. To ward off the darkness that still must cling to ha, afta the long touching of the lonely wind.

  She thought: (We should not sign to each other at all, not until eight sleeps have passed. I am untouchable….)

  Father!

  She touched sweat, a bloodvessel pulsing between his thumb and forefinga, the hand trying to be firm.

  Then, strong and compassionate: Has the darkness driven you mad, daughter? Will you go to die now, to join with Windbringer in eternity?

  She felt him become very still. His hand had become dead. Whether from astonishment or repugnance she could not tell. Was he steeling himself to reject her, so that he would feel no pain when they cast her into the Dark Country?

  I have a new name now, she signed softly. 1 am Dark-touch.

  His fingers rasped her skin. This is a cruel jest!

  No, Windstriker. Her signing had switched to the formal mode and she no longer called him father. She did not wish to pain him by reminding him of a relationship which he must perhaps repudiate….

  Windstriker, I have dreamed a dream. In the dream was a truth that even Stonewise doesn’t know. There is a thing undark, that lives behind the wind.

  Darktouch—he scrawled the unfamiliar name slowly. But she felt a wary exultation, that he had recognized her right to bear the name, no matter how strange. She was proud of her father, breaker of tradition, no matter what.

  Touch, Windstriker. At the edge of the reach of my eyes, I touched the dark and there was the shadow of an undark. There is a new Great Mystery, maybe greater than Windbringer himself. There’s power in my eyes, Wind-striker! And a purpose, too. Maybe a power we could all have or all have had once. I have to keep my eyes, Wind-striker! Perhaps I will have to lead our people towards the undark. Perhaps there must be a changing of the way things are….

  I don’t understand, signed Windstriker.

  A pause.

  Then with a strong motion he clasped her to him, almost crushed her, and she felt his sweat all warm against her, and still he was dark to the touch, immeasurably dark, and then he signed against her, cradling her still, Darkness has driven you mad, you poor child.

  No! No! She touched him with her eyes then. She touched the holes where the eyes had been torn, touched the old scars. And she imagined she saw tears, wrenched from the old sockets, like a baby’s… . (He loves me,) she thought. (I can still get through to him.) She broke free from him and backed slowly away, still keeping her hands clasped in his.

  Then she wriggled them loose, bent over, touched the floor with her eyes, picked up a small flat stone.

  She pressed it into his hands.

  I want you, she signed, to walk away from me in a dark direction, calling no windshapes with your feet. I want you to throw the stone….

  Puzzled, he went.

  With her eyes she touched the hard rock, her ears caught the zing of the windshape slicing the airstream—

  She reached out and caught the stone.

  I have caught it With my ears and eyes alone. She signed the words to him slowly so that he would know precisely what she meant, the words that seemed to make no sense.

  You’re my daughter, he signed at last. The words rasped harshly; they had been wrung from him. I must accept this thing, because my own hands have felt it. I must believe that my own offspring—is something not quite human!

  You must see now, Windstriker, you must protect me! She had thrown all caution aside and was touching him all over now, his hands, his sweat-drenched chest where her eyes touched tufts of curly hair. We’re linked by birth and death, not fust by scent and loyalty! Remember your Touch-sister, my mother, who died for what she was!

  He signed nothing for a long time. Then: It seems that I am to be the first that you will lead beyond darkness.

  But his saying was dark to the touch.

  She waited for him to go on.

  You have done a terrible thing, he signed, to remind me of your mother. Remember that for her sake I have vowed to die in the arms of the wind….

  Darktouch embraced her father. She felt sadness shake him, and felt pride in him, that he had expressed emotion and not hidden under a mask of traditions. (Yes,) she thought: (Windstriker knows who he is….)

  You’ll protect my eyes?

  I’ll do the only thing I can, he signed resolutely. Once they find you gone from the ledge, they will assume that you have failed the test of the lonely wind. Then they will send you to the dark country. So you must come with me now.

  Father, where?

  He stiffened. The signing came slowly: Another great hunt is beginning. I will take you with me in my airboat. You’ve broken so many traditions already, maybe your eyes can come in useful. Maybe you will touch the Wind-bringer before even our sensors can.

  Darktouch signed, And then they will assume Fm lost, by the time the expedition returns, and then we can slip away to another village, perhaps, begin anew—

  I have made my vow to the Windbringer, her father

  signed coldly. As you have found the way you must follow, whatever the cost, so also I. You and I are alike in this . . . more alike, at times, than I would have wished, strange daughter … it seems that your path leads to banishment, to strange new perceptions. Perhaps they are hallucinations, perhaps something real and important. 1 have a path too— and it leads only to one thing: to the arms of Windbringer, to the fragrance of eternity.

  Then Darktouch shook his hands away from hers, so that she was isolated from him, in her own private darkness. (Why can’t I be a girlchild again? Why can’t I be a girl-before-Naming?) she thought.

  She dried her tears with her long hair, knowing that it was no longer proper to behave like a young girl who did not know who she was. For she had a name now, and a proud father who bore his name meaningfully, so that it was no mere arbitrary twiddle of fingernail upon palm. …

  She wanted to reach out to him. She wanted him to touch her and stroke her cheek and call her his Tickle. But she had no right to inflict her childish tears upon him. He had dedicated himself to the wind, and had become more important than any new-Named girl’s private anguish. He was almost already a whisper of wind, an arm of the tempest.

  Stonewise had said: The wind touches everything, but the love of the wind is like fire, like acid, consuming everything but the soul.

  She flicked her head around, maintaining the touch through her eyes. Without feeling him, she knew—

  Windstriker had bent over, squatted by the wall, felt for the stud that opened the stone larder .. . and taken out four or five sheets of dried meat, two round loaves of bread fresh from the materializing room. Then he reached for the larder spigot and filled two nippleflasks with water that was mixed with essence of Windbringer fragrance. Without signing to her he handed her the food. Then he placed her hand on his so she could feel what he was doing. She shook him off. He signed, dejectedly, Whatever. If you claim to perceive without touching.

  He wrapped up half the food in a kerchief of woven Windbringer hide; she copied his movements. He motioned her to follow him, his hand just grazing hers. His emotions were dark now. She knew they were focused on the hunt. The hunt was everything now. The rhythms of children’s fingerchants pounded in her mind … she knew that to interfere would break his concentration, shatter the power inside him. The power to face the big darkness, alone, in a precarious airboat, isolated from all the others, navigating by the windtouch and the patterns of fragrances . •.

  Come.

  He had pressed a stud. She felt a vibrating against her feet. She cast her eyes down and touched an opening. And a shadow of undark, a vague reflection of the thing she had touched in her dreaming.

  Put one foot in front of the other. Slowly. He signed without any emotion. She might have been any apprentice hunter, fresh from the dreamseeking…

  The thought of Touch-sibling crossed her mind. (He must still be out there. Waiting for what could only be half a dream.) She imagined the big wind on him, tormenting him, and knew he did not have the strength to rebuff it alone….

  (But I must be what I am,) she told herself fiercely. She etched the words again and again on her arms, and they stung long after her nails had ceased their raking.

  In the dim undark her eyes touched steps.

  Her father’s body had already shortened, and he stepped into the descending passageway. She followed dumbly. The way was quite new to her.

  The steps steepened, then ended. Her hand skimmed the passage walls. Smooth, unearthly smooth. Stealing the warmth from her fingertips. They were metal, then, not man-made, not hollowed from rock as man-made corridors were; these walls had been there since the world began. Her hand flinched away. But the chill stung them still, and she knew it for a chill of the heart. This passageway was sacred, and for the touch of hunters only, and a girl with her eyes intact should not, could not—it was violation of the worst kind—

  Her mind touched the wind that waited at the end of the passageway.

  Darktouch, quick! Urgent fingers dancing bony on her.

  The corridor, still no more than manhigh, widened. Every fifty paces or so there were globes of the muted undark, and they threw circles of undark onto the blackness. It was strange and regular, too regular to be human. So she knew this was the work of the first Windbringer.

  As they crossed the pools of undark, Darktouch found her eye-touching clearer than ever. Her father stood out as a mass of many textures, coiling and uncoiling, and cut by knife-sharp shadows.

  (Why are these pools built into the old passageways, destined for permanence?) she thought. Then she thought: (Perhaps the early people needed them. Perhaps they shared my secret sense. Perhaps it is a lost talent….)

  A room. No undark here.

  In mid-room the floor gave way to a nothingness. Something was moored there, to a stake, with a thick rope. She felt the coils, tough, skin-chafing. Her ears touched a whisper of a wind. …

  We are on the edge of the wind, Darktouch, Windstriker signed. This is the private mooring room of … your mother and me, Darktouch. She who was given to the wind. It is my love for you, strange daughter, that brings you here, breaking all propriety.

  Our airskiff floats here, over the void, he went on. When we unmoor it, the gates will open and we will be in utter darkness, save for the wind’s big arms. Are you afraid? Shall I leave you here, have you take your chances?

  Timidly she signed, I am afraid. But 1 will go.

  He touched her mechanically, masking his emotions. When we push off, he signed, the wind will hit you, hard. But perhaps you’ll learn to love it, I mean the big loneliness.

  He cradled her in his arms and lifted her onto the air-skiff. A wind brushed her; she felt it bob up and down, buoyed by the heavy air.

  He put his hand on hers and placed it on a flat panel. It was soft, leather-skinned. When she skimmed it she felt sharp blips. The other ships, he signed. Remember their signs, their patterns. There—he guided her hand—those are the underfleet. They will sweep underneath us always, weaving the patterns of force. They have no stuncannon, but their positions, perfectly synchronized, generate a forceshield into which the Windbringer will fall stunned.

  We, daughter, and the other stunhunters … are the ones who will bring him down.

  Blip. Blip. They pricked her palms, the little pulses that were airskiffs. She cast her eyes around her to see what they could touch. The glint of metal there was in the vague

  undark; airskiffs, the passagewalls, the angels, all were of the old things that came with the creation.

  He signed that she should stash their food in a little panel under the floor, which was a metal frame covered with hide. She learned how the wings were raised and lowered.

  These—he pushed her hand against cold metal, sharp-edged against the wings—are propellers. Don’t touch them once we are in flight. You’ll lose your hand. Then you’ll be silent forever.

  She sat, retracted into herself, and it was very cold.

  And now, before we go, he signed… .

  As she felt with her hand, he drew out a flask from the floor panel. Of course, the scent dousing. Without the delicate, directional scents of the various skiff-types wafting in the wind, many of the hunters would lose direction.

  Windstriker unstoppered the flask. Heavy fumes. Nausea. If you must vomit, do so now!

  She retched over the side. Her throat felt raw. Nothing came.

  She remembered her lessons now, and breathed in deeply, remembering the smell. The pungent, acrid scent penetrated her, made her guts miserable—and then she smelt another odor through it: a sweet after fragrance. Windstriker began to sprinkle the boat with it, splashing the liquid over everything, over their hands, too; there was grease in it, and something else, lighter than that—several immiscible fluids. He pressed a stud and sent the odor wafting outward, away from them.

  For the sake of Windbringer—her father scratched the words hard against her palms, both hands in mirror fashion, almost drawing blood—this is the smell of a stunhunter.

  1 know, Father. I’ve taken the lessons. I know I may only have my nose to guide me, if the skiffs data panel should fail.

  Now Pm setting the homing device, he signed.

  (Fm still his Tickle, his little daughter,) Darktouch thought impatiently. But with a twinge of love for him. .. .

  Darktouch knew, of course, from the models in the teaching room that every child fingered and handled with such longing, how an airskiff worked. She knew there was a steering mechanism, propellers operated by a strange force called electricity, for which power boxes were delivered in the places where the food materialized. That the wings could be retracted, angled, halved, extended in whatever way necessary for the fleet to maintain its position. That the skiff had a thinker inside it that was set for home, and could be set for other directions, so that it could fly without a flier, if its owner were killed….

  She wasn’t prepared for its smallness. Its precariousness. Why, she could stretch out her arms and she was touching either side of it.

  Her father showed her where the safety belts were. Then he turned around to warm the engine and to feel the gauges for fuel and power. Fuel was another thing that came by the miracle of Windbringer’s bounty. Then he cut the engine on and Darktouch felt the floor tremble, a soft purring like a mother’s touch….

  Windstriker—

  Afraid?

  No. It’s just that … well I've been selfish, haven't I? And foolish, too. I didn9t think about you at all when I ran away to you. I've just realized—I've doomed us both, havent I?

  No matter. We'll find another village. But his touch felt clammy and false.

  Then he touched her all over and signed, You’re not properly covered, girl!

  It was true. Her crotch-shield had been lost in the panic. Well, daughter, cover yourself! he signed gruffly, throwing her a rag. This is serious, sacred work we’re doing, bringing the Windbringer home. If you die, do you want to meet him naked?

  I've brought about your downfall! she signed hysterically. Then, hesitantly, she signed, Father, Father.

  No matter.

  (That was how much he respected the bond of birth and death,) Darktouch thought wonderingly. (He could sign no matter when at best they would be driven out, become pariahs in another village, not knowing the signs they used, learning a new language, gathering food instead of hunting … or at worst, the Dark Country. To meet the angels in the flesh.)

  She wanted to tell him how much , she loved him. The feeling welled up in her but she could signal nothing. She was about to mention some mindless triviality, to cover up her emotions, when—

  The gate flipped open!

  All at once the wind caught them like a toy and darkness enveloped her, and they were flung into the howling of the windshapes, into the ghosts that flapped against them with signs of anguish—

  The wind pinned her down. A shape of terror escaped her throat, a hoarse breathing exploded from her mouth, her eyes touched nothing, her ears touched a thousand screamshapes echobounding crashing around her—

  Windstriker caught her in his arms, pried her from the flooring, made sure her belt was secure. Now her head protruded above the skiffwall and she felt her hair stream behind her…

  From a distance, the wind carried the smell of the other stunhunters and she could pick out their positions. She could almost have scratched the formation on the floor beneath her. At this distance the smell was sweet Only the strange, almost cloying after fragrance came wafting towards her, not the pungent concentrate.

  After a while the wind abated a little. Or she became used to it. Darkness was everywhere. They sliced through the darkness smoothly, like a knife through water. There was an exaltation now. As though the wind were burning all feeling from her, leaving only the movement itself, the arc of flight After a time her body fell into tune with the humming vibration of the skiff’s engine. She and the skiff were one giant instrument, one fingerchant, one rhythm.

  Now she understood why both of her parents had to become hunters. How could anyone stay home and gather food, when they could fly in the wind like this?

  (I’ll never fear the dark again,) she thought fiercely.

  There was no undark to awaken her eyes; only the howling windshapes rang in her ears. They plowed through wind that seemed to know no ending.

  SEVEN

  THE SHADOW FALLS FOREVER

  Kelver was a celebrity—for four or five days at least The village buzzed for that long with the news of the tachyon bubbles and with speculation about what the new Inquestor would do. But since no one had seen an Inquestor, and nothing changed in the village …

  There were more pressing problems. A pride of al’ksigarkar had been seen, skirting the Cold River. And meat was vanishing from the nutrient tanks faster than it could be recloned. They would not reach their quota for the week, and the tenth day of the week, the shoveling day, was approaching. And then something else happened—