THE OTHER WIND
Ursula K. LeGuin
CHAPTER ONE
MENDING THE GREEN PITCHER
Sails long and white as swan’s wings carried the ship Farflyer through summer air down the bay from the Armed Cliffs toward Gont Port. She glided into the still water landward of the jetty, so sure and graceful a creature of the wind that a couple of townsmen fishing off the old quay cheered her in, waving to the crewmen and the one passenger standing in the prow.
He was a thin man with a thin pack and an old black cloak, probably a sorcerer or small tradesman, nobody important. The two fishermen watched the bustle on the dock and the ship’s deck as she made ready to unload her cargo, and only glanced at the passenger with a bit of curiosity when as he left the ship one of the sailors made a gesture behind his back, thumb and first and last finger of the left hand all pointed at him: May you never come back!
He hesitated on the pier, shouldered his pack, and set off into the streets of Gont Port. They were busy streets, and he got at once into the Fish Market, abrawl with hawkers and hagglers, paving stones glittering with fish scales and brine. If he had a way, he soon lost it among the carts and stalls and crowds and the cold stares of dead fish.
A tall old woman turned from the stall where she had been insulting the freshness of the herring and the veracity of the fishwife. Seeing her glaring at him, the stranger said unwisely, “Would you have the kindness to tell me the way I should go for Re Albi?”
“Why, go drown yourself in pig slop for a start,” said the tall woman and strode off, leaving the stranger wilted and dismayed. But the fishwife, seeing a chance to seize the high moral ground, blared out, “Re Albi is it? Re Albi you want, man? Speak up then! The Old Mage’s house, that would be what you’d want at Re Albi. Yes it would. So you go out by the corner there, and up Elvers Lane
there, see, till you reach the tower…”
Once he was out of the market, broad streets led him uphill and past the massive watchtower to a town gate. Two stone dragons large as life guarded it, teeth the length of his forearm, stone eyes glaring blindly out over the town and the bay. A lounging guard told him just turn left at the top of the road and he’d be in Re Albi. “And keep on through the village for the Old Mage’s house,” the guard said.
So he went trudging up the road, which was pretty steep, looking up as he went to the steeper slopes and far peak of Gont Mountain that overhung its island like a cloud.
It was a long road and a hot day. He soon had his black cloak off and went on bareheaded in his shirtsleeves, but he had not thought to find water or buy food in the town, or had been too shy to, maybe, for he was not a man familiar with cities or at ease with strangers.
After several long miles he caught up to a cart which he had seen far up the dusty way for a long time as a dark blot in a white blot of dust. It creaked and streaked along at the pace of a pair of small oxen that looked as old, wrinkled, and unhopeful as tortoises. He greeted the carter, who resembled the oxen. The carter said nothing, but blinked.
“Might there be a spring of water up the road?” the stranger asked.
The carter slowly shook his head. After a long time he said, “No.” A while later he said, “There ain’t.”
They all plodded along. Discouraged, the stranger found it hard to go any faster than the oxen, about a mile an hour, maybe.
He became aware that the carter was wordlessly reaching something out to him: a big clay jug wrapped round with wicker.
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