Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 765
use naked force without justification is now to reveal your
desire for power too clearly. The people will need to have
other words with which to combat these ambitious preachers.
Being the philosopher to give them their new weapons would
seem to be a worthy enough ambition for me."
She sighed. "But I will not commit pen to paper yet. I
may never be able to. How could I advise people about how to
live, when I don’t yet know what it means to merely be a
woman, like any other?"
She gestured dismissively. "Help me move this table."
When they had it placed to her satisfaction (by the
window) Galas walked to a trunk she’d just had brought in and
took out two copper goblets and a bottle of cheap wine that one
of the monks had been caught hoarding. She drew two chairs
over to the table, and sat at one.
"Come, sit with me for a while," she said as she poured.
"And let’s gossip to each other about the affairs of men and
Winds--and forget gods and philosophers."
Armiger laughed, and took the offered wine.
Snow was falling like some herald of mystery on the day
Jordan finally reached his home. White were the distant hills,
and white the sky into which their outlines faded. The forest,
strong and brooding in summer, was now a delicate thatch of
bare trunks, brown and empty. The air was still, clear and
fresh; Jordan’s face was teased by settling flakes. For hours
now the world had seemed very far away, like a half-recovered
memory. If he chose to listen with all his senses, he could hear
the mecha in the snowflakes singing their questions and
speculations--am I a feather? --am I air?--and in deeper and
broader distances, the faint chorus-voices of the Winds who
worked to heal the wounds they had inflicted on Ventus in their