The Wall of Storms, page 52
“I will not sail on such a boat,” said Captain Thumo firmly. “I like my ships solidly in the water, thank you kindly.”
Luan Zya laughed. “It’s just a thought. Well, as much as you disapprove of my lust for extremes, my flight did result in valuable information. I believe I have found the cause of failure by all other explorers to the far north.”
“Oh?”
“Riding on a kite like this allows you to see quite far. During the early days of this expedition, remember how I spoke to you of the way the Islands appeared as mere indistinct tan patches set against a blue background from such heights? Mountains, valleys, waves, the spouts of whales and crubens—none of these details were visible. All that was left were large patterns, trends that could not be seen from up close.
“When I lived among the people of Tan Adü, I learned that the ocean was not a featureless expanse, but a tapestry woven with intricate patterns visible only to those whose hearts were still and whose minds had been primed for generations to appreciate its rhythms. The Adüans had detailed maps of the currents that flowed across the ocean, both on the surface and below it, like gilt strands in plain cloth. The currents reflected the forces of nature, of underwater valleys and volcanoes, of winds and rivers, of austral typhoons and boreal storms—their sacred shell-and-twine maps formed the foundation of the detailed maps of underwater volcano ranges that I eventually created.
“What I saw from my cocoon in the sky today reminded me of those maps. The ocean in the north was a pale blue canvas upon which were inscribed a masterpiece of complex patterns: long, flowing arcs like the tentacles of the octopus; intricate curlicues like the swirl of the nautilus; bold, thick strokes of starburst passion that demonstrated the brush painter’s skill and soul. The canvas was tinctured in deep aquamarine and pastel periwinkle, purplish black and salt-pale white—it was a painting the likes of which I had never seen, an abstract seascape drawn by the gods.
“And far in the north, almost at the edge of my vision, was a wall of white. It was like seeing the spray and foam at the top of a line of waves headed for the shore, but at that scale, the spray must have been as high as mountains. Entranced, I stared at that distant wall, and it eventually resolved into individual whorls—dancing, circling, jostling against each other, it was a dance of typhoons, a parade of hurricanes, a celebration of cyclones. And, as the wall was at the limit of my vision, I could not see beyond it.”
“What does that mean?” asked Captain Thumo. “A wall of storms? Were you perhaps seeing the ramparts of the Palace of Tazu?”
Luan Zya shook his head and smiled weakly. “I do not know, Thumo, but I suspect that previous expeditions were . . . stopped by that wall.”
The captain drew in a sharp intake of breath. “What you really meant to say is that without the benefit of your far sight, those expeditions would have come upon the looming wall of storms with little warning, and the ships would have been torn to shreds. We must stop sailing any farther. This is the edge of the world, beyond which we are not meant to go.”
“No!” Luan Zya’s eyes had taken on a fervent ardor that had been absent from them for years. It was the same look as when he had plotted for the fall of the Xana Empire, for the death of Mapidéré, a look of madness and passion that frightened and also compelled Captain Thumo. “We are to sail into and through it. I must find out what is beyond!”
“But that means certain death!”
“Do you not desire to push beyond your fears to see just how far you can go?” Luan Zya’s voice was gentle but tinged with a trace of disappointment.
Captain Thumo shook his head. “I’ll not demand the crew to undertake such a mission, not even for you, Master Zya. Sailors understand that death dealt by the unpredictable hand of the sea is a part of our profession, but now that we know the nature of danger, to court it deliberately is folly.”
Luan Zya closed his eyes and nodded. “All right, but let’s at least sail closer so we can confirm my guess. If you wish to return once we’ve glimpsed the wall of storms, I won’t object.”
The sails fluttered in the light breeze. Above them, a bright sun gleamed.
Every pair of eyes on the three ships was focused straight ahead; no one said a word.
From west to east, a towering wall of water and roiling clouds blocked the horizon. Made up of powerful cyclones and sinuous twisters dancing, jostling, battling each other like spinning sword dancers, the wall was the very image of primordial chaos devoid of light save for spider cracks of lightning flashing from time to time through the murk. The unceasing rumbling of thunder made the ocean quake, shaking the very deck on which they stood.
“We are gazing upon the very face of Kiji, bringer of lightning, and Tazu, master of typhoons,” said Captain Thumo. He placed his hands piously on his chest and prayed.
“Only in the ancient sagas of the Ano did I read of such a thing,” said Luan Zya, his voice full of awe. “And I had always dismissed the tale of the journey though the Wall of Storms as an allegorical myth. No matter how much we think we know or have seen, the world is still full of wonders undreamed of by mankind.”
All stared at the incredible display of the raw power of nature in dread silence.
Eventually, Thumo broke the silence. “This is as far as I will go, Master Zya. You’ve seen what you came to see. This is a barrier placed by the gods, beyond which none may pass.”
Luan Zya nodded. “Let me go up in my kite. It would be a shame to come so close to the faces of the gods without a kiss.”
“You are mad!”
“I might be. But let me have this pleasure.”
“The kite may pull Lutho’s Luck into the storms.”
“The wind here is still manageable. If you sail south some distance before launching the kite, you should have plenty of room to maneuver in safety. Should you feel you’re unable to overcome the kite’s pull, you may cut the cable before endangering the ship.”
“But what about you?”
“Just as you cannot ask the crew to undertake a journey that you believe will mean certain death, I cannot return from this marvel without having tried to investigate it.”
And so the kite was sent aloft with the dangling cocoon after the ships had sailed some miles south. Soon, the kite was so high in the sky that it disappeared from view. The cable extended up and to the north, bringing Luan Zya closer and closer to the wall of storms.
The force pulling on the cable grew stronger. Lutho’s Luck’s southern progress slowed, and then gradually stopped. It began to drift back to the north. Once again, the wall of roiling water and clouds loomed before the flotilla.
The cable shuddered and the winch groaned; the kite had been caught in the storm. Sailors aboard all the ships watched the vibrating line with equal measures of fascination and terror.
There was still no ring that came whistling down the cable, indicating Luan Zya’s wish to return.
Captain Thumo was a dutiful man. Though he gritted his teeth and glanced at the taut cable and the distant flashes of lightning with dread, he gave an order that was passed to Stone Turtle and Proud Kunikin with flag signals.
The other two ships sailed closer and grappling hooks were tossed across the decks. Soon, the three ships were lashed together in a column, and the oarsmen aboard all three ships leaned into their labor with all their strength.
Like three fish hooked on a single line, the vessels strained against the pull of the kite, trying to hold their position.
Fweeeeet!
The shrill whistle sounded like celestial music to Captain Thumo’s ears. The ring swooped down the line from the slate-gray sky and struck the central drum of the winch with a loud clang. He was about to give the order to start winching the kite back down when the deck lurched beneath his feet and surprised shouting erupted on all three ships.
Captain Thumo looked up and saw that the cable, which had been taut until then, had slackened and was drifting down from the sky. The sudden disappearance of the force that the three ships had been straining against had caused the vessels to careen forward, out of control, with prow bumping into stern, and oars becoming snarled. Thankfully, the damage was slight, and it didn’t take long before the sailors disentangled the ships from each other. Thumo rushed over to the now-useless drum and picked up the signaling ring. There was a fluttering silk ribbon attached to it.
I can’t come so far without taking a final step. Be safe.
Captain Thumo cursed. He stared at the wall of storms, where each gyrating column of water and air was as tall as a mountain and as thick as a city.
Nothing could survive that.
Thumo closed his eyes in mourning. Though he did not know his famous patron well, he had come to respect and love the gentle old man during this brief voyage. There was a quality of grace to his every word, his every motion, that marked him as a man who did not belong merely to the mortal plane, but was in communion with the divine. He dared to do what none other dared, and even the manner of his death brought him closer to the gods.
With a desolate heart, the captain shook his head and gave the order to trim the sails for the voyage home.
But there was no cheer of joy from the sailors; instead, moans of terror and incoherent screams greeted the captain’s ears.
“What’s the matter?” Thumo shouted. “Master Luan Zya has released us from his mission. We are headed home!”
The sailors pointed behind him, their eyes mirrors of fright and dismay.
Thumo turned to look in the direction they were pointing in and froze.
One of the cyclones in the wall of storms had separated from the rest like a dancer moving away from the pack. Dwarfing even the Tazu whirlpool if the maelstrom were lifted into the air, it headed straight for the ship, a sinuous, gyrating, predatory monster that intended to devour all in its path.
A wall of water as high as the tallest tower in the palace in Pan rose before the cyclone and rushed at the boat like baying hounds before a hunter, a great wave that made tsunamis appear as mere ripples in a pond.
Thumo shouted for his crew to man the sails and the oars, but he already knew that they were doomed.
Luan Zya braced himself against the walls of the cocoon. Cutting himself loose had not been an impulsive decision, but one that he had planned ever since Captain Thumo had stated that he was unwilling to risk the lives of his crew for the unknown. In a way, Luan had been relieved by the refusal—he didn’t want to be responsible for the deaths of others in the pursuit of a goal whose attainment he desired with every fiber of his being but for which he could offer no rational explanation.
That is perhaps also why I have not wanted any post of authority under Kuni, he thought. And why I sought to flee the capital when the emperor asked me to help him continue a revolution with his unexpected, secret choice of an heir.
He had always played the role of adviser, someone whose legacy was tied to the decisions made by others. He would strategize and scheme, but when the moment came to order men to die for his visions, he lacked the necessary conviction of purpose and the willingness to accept the consequences of his decisions.
Better to soar through the sky on a kite, alone. That had always been the role he was more comfortable with. Whatever he decided, the only life he was responsible for was his own.
He peered through the thick glass portholes and gripped the handholds tightly. He was surrounded by magnificent, roiling clouds that formed the spinning walls of the typhoons, each the size of an island, one merging into the next. The howl of the winds and the roar of thunder filled the interior of the cocoon as though he were inside a set of drums being played by the gods.
Ropes connected to pulleys and rigging fed into the cocoon, and by pulling on them he could change the angle and tension in the wings of the kite and direct its flight to some degree. As streaks of water collected over the portholes and blurred his vision, he experienced the illusion that he wasn’t in the sky, but undersea, and the cocoon was a one-man submersible diving through a strange, fantastic ocean.
As he glided into the clouds lit up by flashing lightning bolts, he felt an exhilaration that he had last experienced on that long-ago day when he had dived from the Er-Mé Mountains toward the procession of the tyrant Mapidéré, certain that he was going to die but also certain that he was going to spend the last moments of his life in incandescence.
He would be the first man to fly through a typhoon laced with lightning, the first man to try to pierce the Wall of Storms that blocked the path to the legendary land of the immortals to the north.
Laughing, ululating wildly as though he was again that young man driven by passion and purpose, he pulled hard on the wings of the kite and dove into the heart of the stormy wall.
Then the rumbling of thunder shook the entire cocoon and made his teeth clatter; there was a bright flash that seemed to blot out the entire world; his skin tingled as though it had a separate life; and the last thought he had was: So being struck by lightning feels a bit like being lit on fire.
He woke up. He did not know where he was: in the land of the living or on the farther shore of the River-on-Which-Nothing-Floats.
He could feel the bruises all over himself, but no bones seemed to have been broken. The pain was like a dull knife that poked at the cobwebs in his mind.
I’m not dead.
He felt himself being gently lifted up and then set down, as though the storm clouds had acquired mass and become thick and sluggish.
The thunderous rumbling continued outside. A dark blue light filled the interior of the cocoon.
Am I still flying?
A bright orange shape with black stripes glided across the porthole above him. He marveled at how slow this bird flew—as slow as his thoughts.
What a marvelous bird to fly through such a storm! Is this its native habitat?
He was feeling very light-headed.
The last time he had felt like this was when he had run out of air after the kite ascended to previously unattained heights. He had put the feeling down to fatigue, to simple exhaustion, but now he understood that it was a sign that the cocoon was running out of breathable air.
He hadn’t equipped the cocoon with an air balloon this time because he wasn’t flying for height. Why was he running out of air?
A yellow shape with blue stripes glided across the porthole.
Another bird?
No, the wings are too small.
It’s swimming, not flying.
A fish.
Water. I’m under water.
The thoughts wriggled into his mind with great difficulty, struggling against the dizziness and confusion that filled his brain like the thick mud at the bottom of lotus ponds.
I must get out.
His frantic fingers finally found the latch to the cocoon’s door, squeezed around the handle, and pulled.
The shock of the water flooding in caused him to gasp before he remembered to hold his breath. The cocoon, which was designed to float, had been pushed under the surface by the weight of the wreckage of the kite. He kicked away from it, struggling to find the surface. All around him, stiffened silk pressed down on him. He had to swim away from the cocoon and get around the wings to reach the surface, the air.
His lungs were on fire, and his arms and legs felt weak and heavy. He was too far away from the edge of the kite. He was never going to make it.
He stopped struggling. The heavy robe, worn for warmth, had taken on water and was dragging him down toward the bottom of the ocean.
It would have been nice to see new lands before I die, but every journey has an end.
We come from the Flow, and to the Flow we shall return.
He was about to close his eyes and open his mouth to gulp down the cold water that would end his life when something stirred next to his heart like a struggling animal. Curious, with the last glimmer of consciousness, he released the unknown object from the folds of his robe.
A book emerged. Its pages fluttering like the wings of a bird in slow motion, like the undulating skirt-fin of a cuttlefish, the book swam for the surface, leaving trails of dissolving ink behind it. In the murky underwater light, the pale pages seemed to glow with golden letters.
It was Gitré Üthu, the magic book that had been given him by Lutho, the god who had changed and saved his life more than once.
Luan Zya reached for the book and grabbed onto its spine with the last of his strength; he felt himself being dragged toward the surface.
With a loud splash, he broke through the water. He clung to the frame of the floating kite and gulped air hungrily, much as decades ago he had emerged onto the shores of Tan Adü from his wrecked raft. In the distance, he could see the Wall of Storms, whose constituent typhoons and cyclones still connected the sky with the sea.
But the part of the sea he was in was perfectly calm. The frame of the downed kite creaked as the gentle swells lifted it and set it back down, as though rocking a baby to sleep. He was bathed in bright sunlight, and a warm breeze caressed his face.
A rainbow appeared in the eastern sky, the right end disappearing into the gyrating storms. Realization slowly dawned on him that the Wall of Storms was to his south.
He had somehow traversed it in his kite.
Shivering with pangs of joy, relief, and terror, he heaved the soaked Gitré Üthu out of the water onto the rolling surface of the kite to dry. All the notes he had taken in it over the years had been washed away by the water, and the blank pages seemed both a cleansing of the past, with its intrigues and betrayals, and a promise of the future, terra incognita.
A golden line of text appeared on the still-wet page: You are on your own.
And a moment later, another line: That’s a good thing.
“Thank you, Teacher,” croaked Luan Zya. And then he laughed.
Luan Zya drifted over the endless ocean on his makeshift raft, fabricated out of salvaged parts from the giant kite. He lashed the bamboo poles in the frame together to provide a base and then built a tent over it with pieces of silk to shelter himself from the sun and the rain. He fashioned a crude sail and mast out of more bamboo and silk, but the strong current that gripped the raft meant that he had only very limited control over the path of his craft. The cocoon, still attached to the kite, drifted alongside the raft like a buoy.
