Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 755
45
"The Winds say she’s alive, Axel." Marya touched his
shoulder. "You’ll just have to accept that she doesn’t want to
contact us."
He shook his head. "I just wish I knew."
They stood on the ramp of a military transport that was
grounded outside the ruins of Rhiene. Above them the oncegreen
escarpment was smothered in grey mud, and where a city
had once been now there were only the jagged stumps of
buildings. The lake had moved in to claim much of the lower
valley. Long lines of refugees stood waiting for medical
assistance and food; military doctors from the fleet moved up
and down the line, supplemented by morphs. Rhiene had been
the first city the swans visited their wrath upon when they
began to attack Mediation. Luckily it was also the last.
Jordan Mason had told the two factions of the Winds,
Mediation and Thalience, that their world would be destroyed
by the Archipelagic fleet if they did not reconcile. Axel didn’t
understand all the details--he knew pure thalience was a mode
of thought alien to humanity, and that Mediation had been the
bridge Jordan used to finally permit the swans and the other
greatest Winds to communicate with humanity. In the long
minutes while Jordan, Armiger and the Desert Voice had
huddled silently on the mountainside, the Winds had met,
reached some treaty, then opened communications directly to