Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 82
Any former reluctance he'd had about revealing his
dreams was gone; Jordan now hoped May would be able to
remove them, the faster the better he satisfied her. He began
with the first dream, and she listened patiently as he described
Armiger's death and burial.
"You remember him writing his name in the mortar?
That was real, not an actual dream?" Jordan nodded; he felt he
could tell these visions from dreams.
"Strange. He's faked his own death. I wonder why."
"Tell me what they mean!"
"Okay." Lady May turned her heavy wooden chair
around to face the fire, and stuck out her boots. They listened
as something clittered by in the outside hall, and her hand
hovered near the protective gauze until it was gone. "In the
first dream, you say you saw a great battle, which the Winds
interrupted.
"If that was a true vision, he has been defeated here, just
as he has in space. Maybe Armiger only just received a
transmission telling him about the greater defeat off-world.
You see, a little while ago a battle was fought among the stars.
I was there. And I helped destroy a creature rather like the
Winds. A thing that went by no name, only a number: 3340."
Firelight caressed her features as she spoke. "This creature had
enslaved an entire world, a place called Hsing. There are other
worlds, Jordan. Other places than Ventus where men walk."
He shook his head. "Well, anyway, 3340 has been destroyed.
But some of his servants survive. One of these servants is
Armiger.
"Armiger was sent here six years ago by 3340, who
hoped to find a way to enslave the Winds, and thus take all of
Ventus as its own. And Armiger sent out his machines to try to
find the Achilles' heel--the secret vulnerability--of the Winds.