By: Eolas Pellor

There was one cloud in the sky. Thin and wispy, it hurried south high overhead, borne on dry winds no one below could feel. Old lore, half forgotten, said such clouds foretold a weather change, so Gus watched it, though with little hope. If only someone could tell when it would rain.

That was fantasy, of course, like the wondrous stories the elders told when he was young – fields bursting with corn, green things spreading from horizon to horizon, clouds dropping sweet rain, and a land of bounty that grew enough to feed everyone in the village, and more. In the real world, yellow sand, sparse thorns, and clumps of bearded wheatgrass were all one might find on a journey of many days. Crops grew only as far as the village children could haul water from the deep well, but no further. No man could know if ever the rain might fall again.

His village of mudbrick huts disappeared behind a shimmer of heat and, when the wavering ceased, Gus saw the tall, thin form of Jacob, walking toward him, a long-bladed knife in his hand. Even if the watchmen thought they recognized someone’s silhouette, no one approached the village without the old guard coming to check. There was not much in their village, now – outsiders called it Pisspot for a reason – but marauders might yet take their women and children.

Long before, when the rains first failed, the village was plundered many times. Such raids continued for many years, until Pisspot and other small villages–  Stone, Skull and Edge – had banded together to track the brigands down. Surrounding the bands of desperate men, they ended them all: better to be safe than sorry.

The marauders were now just dry bones on the slopes of Bald Butte, but Gus knew that, in the watchtower, there was a musket aimed at him. It would not yet shoot – he was still too far away for even the village’s best shot to hit – but it would remain trained on him until Jacob signalled all-clear. When they were about 20 man-lengths apart, Jacob spoke.

“You’re back.” Jacob said no more, but eyed the heavy pack on Gus’s back, hungrily. The older man refrained from asking questions. It was considered poor form to ask the hunter about the hunt, too many times a hunter came back empty-handed.

“I caught the biggest pronghorn I’ve seen about three days west, smoked the meat as best I could, and brought this back,” Gus answered the unasked question, swinging the burden off his shoulders. “I cached the rest. I can go back, if I can find someone to help carry it.” Jacob grinned, clearly excited at the thought.

“Pronghorn is good eating,” Jacob observed. Gus nodded, opening a pouch and removing a morsel of dried meat to offer to Jacob. With a whine of excitement, the old man grabbed it and began to gum at it, hunger overcoming his caution. Gus understood; the villagers all knew the pinch of an empty belly, and sometimes they were starving. Tough, stringy, peccary meat was better tucker than the scant roots and tubers they grubbed from dry fields; antelope was an unexpected treat.

Jacob turned and waved to the watchtower. Gus heard the bell ring before Jacob finished making the gesture. Seven peals sounded – the sign that all was safe – and doors and windows opened as a wave of relief swept across the village. Somewhere, Anglea was waiting for him to return, Gus knew; he ached a little, anticipating her welcome.

Jacob savoured the dried meat, satisfying his few remaining teeth though making little progress. Gus noticed the drool was staining his shirt. People might keep body and soul together on what the villagers grew, but only barely. Before the sun set, the meat of the antelope would be stewed with roots in a rich gravy, and Pisspot would share the feast. There would be enough for all to eat their fill. Tomorrow they could eat too, and maybe a little dried meat would be left over to supply the next hunters who ventured into the waste. It was a good thing; greed had destroyed the world of the Ancient Ones, or so the elders taught.

“We caught a stranger,” Jacob said, his words garbled and indistinguishable around the bit of meat in his mouth.

“Who?” Gus asked. Jacob shrugged.

“Not from round here.” Gus swung the pack back up on his shoulder and set off toward the village as fast as he could, knowing this could be important. Jacob tagged along behind him, still chewing away.

Gus went to the big house near the center of the village where the Mare lived, giving the pack to some women on the way. The Mare – the title came from the Ancient Ones – was first of the elders, the leader of the village, wise and shrewd; none of the elders disputed her right to decide things, nor her decisions, once they were made.

Gus made his way inside. Shafts of light fell from the windows high up near the roof, and made the shadows where the Mare sat.

“A good hunt,” she said.

“Yes, Mare.”

“You are a better hunter than most, Gus,” she replied. “May the spirits reward you with a child.” Gus nodded. Angela had born two; already, but neither had lived past two years. The spirits had taken them back.

“I heard there is a stranger?” Gus asked. The Mare nodded.

“The young men caught him, a day’s journey eastward,” she replied. “He had metal.”  That was unusual, and Gus perked up his ears.

“What was it?” Gus asked.

“No one knew what it was, so I gave it to the smith,” she said. Gus thought this was wise. There was little good metal left, so whenever someone found scrap it was given to a smith, so new tools might be forged – knives, perhaps even a musket, if they were lucky. Tales said the Ancient Ones could make metal from rocks and stones, but such magic was long forgotten. Not even the smith knew it, and he knew more about the forging of metal than anyone Gus had met.

“And the stranger?”

“The young men could not understand his words,” the Mare answered. “I thought it best for you to speak to him, before deciding.” Gus nodded. Of all the people in the village, he had travelled farthest and learned the speech of many peoples. From Swirent in the east, to T’aber in the west Gus had journeyed, even into the north, following the wide valley, where once there had been a river – or so the elders said –  and southwards as far as the deep desert; he had seen the mountains and spoken with the mountain people.

“We put him in the dry well, having nowhere safer to keep him,” the Mare told Gus, so he left her to think her deep thoughts and walked back to the disused well, behind her house. Once there, Gus peered down at a man of his own age, though his skin was less tan, and he looked better fed. His clothes were strange, though, and looked to be woven, like the garments of the Ancient Ones.

Gus had seen those, sometimes, when the winds had stripped the soil from an old burial place, and the dry bones were exposed. But his were no rags taken from old graves; they were whole and with no more rents and tears than might be explained by the stranger being taken prisoner.

The man seemed confident, as if he knew secrets, and Gus saw no fear in his eyes. Most people in his place would have been terrified. Gus thought about that. It was unworldly.

“Who are you?” Gus asked, repeating the question the way the people spoke in T’aber, then again the way they spoke in Swirent. At last the stranger nodded understanding. When he answered Gus listened carefully. His speech was not quite like those who lived in Swirent; the sounds were more clipped and higher. It was hard to understand him.

“I’m a meteorologist,” the stranger said, then, as if he guessed the word was meaningless to Gus, as he added, “I tell what the weather will be.”

“It will be hot and dry,” Gus answered, looking at the cloudless sky. “Unless a sandstorm comes.” The man nodded, excitedly.

“Yes, but why is it hot and dry? It was not always like this. Once this place was fertile, full of corn and other things; the rains fell and the seasons changed. Now it is always hot and dry here; and where I come from it rains too much, and there are many floods.” Gus listened, trying to understand his words. Meteorologist must mean some sort of witch, he decided. Who else could foretell the future?

“Your spells make the rains fall?” Gus asked, to be sure.

“No, no! I collect data. I make forecasts. I calculate probabilities.” The more the stranger spoke, the less sense his words made.

“Tell me when the rains will fall again?” Gus asked. “It has not happened in months, years; we must haul water from the well to our fields. It does not fall from the sky.”

“I can’t tell you when,” the man said. Gus pondered if the witch had been bragging before, or if he lied now. If he knew the weather, then surely he should be able to say.

“I need more data: where the wind blows strongest and the land is hottest, then I can model the weather,” the man said. Gus listened to him rave a little longer,  then he went back to the Mare.

“What have you learned?” she asked.

“I think he is a witch of some kind, from some place east of Swirent.” The Mare thought about this.

“What kind of witch is he?” she asked.

“He says he can make the rain fall, if he wills,” Gus answered. “There is much rain where he lives.”

“It would be good if it rained,” the Mare said. Then she added, “When I was little, they said the people of Swirent spoke to the spirits, long ago. They would hold a stick and speak to it, and the voices of spirits would answer from a box.” Gus nodded; he had heard the tales of the Ancient ones, too.

“There were many witches in Swirent, they say,” he replied.

“Ask him to make it rain.”

“He will not.” Gus replied. “Perhaps he is angry because we laid hands on him, and put him in the well.”

“It’s a bad thing to anger a witch,” the Mare said. She thought in silence for a while. “If he will not make it rain for us, then maybe we should return him to the water spirits, to be safe.”

Gus thought for a moment. “Witches belong to the spirit world, of course,” he said. “If this man knows if it will rain, or not, the water spirits must tell him.”

“The water spirits make the water come into our wells. They might be pleased to welcome him back,”  the Mare said, wisely.

“If the stranger can make the water fall as rain from heaven, then if he was sent back to the water spirits, it might make the well flow for many years,” Gus agreed.

“Once they called this village Two-Wells,” the Mare said. “That was long ago, before the rains failed and fevers came; the dry well went dry long before I was born.”

“Maybe if the spirits are pleased, water will come back to the dry well,” Gus said. The Mare looked into his eyes; he could see she was thinking the same thing.

“It is a good thing we have meat for a feast,” the Mare said. “We will give some to the stranger, so he is content, and his belly is full. Then, in the morning, you and the other men can fill in the well, and send him back to the spirits.”

“Yes, Mare,” said Gus. He knew it was the sensible thing to do. He would have the boys gather rocks; and the young men pile of dirt near the well, so they would have everything at hand for the sacrifice. Tomorrow, they would use the rocks to stone the witch and knock him out, before they filled the dry well with dirt.

Under his breath, Gus repeated the strange word, “Meteorologist.”