The Islanders (3 page)

She later wrote a two-volume work called
Islands in the Dream: Undercurrents of life in the Archipelagian Neutral Zone
, based on her notes and sketches. Although this was intended for an academic audience, a shortened version which followed a few years later became a mainstream title which sold strongly year after year. It permanently established her reputation and provided her with a solid income for the remainder of her life.

By the time the book was selling well, Muy had moved to the island of Aay. She spent the first twelve months observing, measuring and recording the geophysical nature of the island, as she had in other places. Her discovery about Aay was that its unique position and subsea geography place it directly adjacent to the two main oceanic currents. It is these that create its characteristic microclimate.

Muy noted that to the north and west of the island flows the warm current known as the N
ORTH
F
AIAND
D
RIFT
, while to the south and east is the cold current called the S
OUTHERN
O
SCILLATING
S
TREAM
.

These two oceanic currents are both parts of the global ‘conveyor belt’. The Drift gains its warmth from a long circuitous passage through the tropical and subtropical regions of the Midway Sea. After passing the Aayian arc it separates into two channels, the smaller one continuing through the equatorial regions of the Midway Sea, but the larger and slower branch turning northwards and bringing a temperate climate to the southern areas of many countries on the northern continent.

The two channels are eventually reunited in a deepwater area of the Southern Midway Sea, the remainder of the warmth being released in a zone of intense storms. The current then becomes known as the Southern Oscillating Stream and passes through the icy oceans that surround Sudmaieure, where the salinity is much lower than average due to the amount of fresh water entering the sea from glacier calving.

Regaining salinity, the Stream moves slowly on towards the far side of the globe. It gradually sinks towards the deep ocean floor, passes far beneath the smaller of the two warm branches, then at last turns through a gyre and heads north towards the shallower stretches of the Archipelagian Midway Sea. It is still significantly cooler than the surrounding waters as it passes close against the Aayian arc of islands. Beyond Aay it turns east to meander through the main concentration of islands, tempering and cooling the more extreme aspects of the tropical latitudes, while starting to regain some heat for itself.

In this way, the island of Aay is uniquely impacted by two oceanic drifts, to the north and south, one warm, the other cool.

The currents were of course known to local people before Muy carried out her research – crude depictions of them appear on fishing charts that pre-date her birth by several centuries – but it was she who made the connection between the currents and the variety of winds that vent across the island all year round.

As well as the mild trade winds, moving in steadily from the north-east and south-east, Aay receives irregular winds from every quarter. Two major winds prevail, each brought in by the energy of the underlying ocean current: a rain-bearing breeze from the warm north-east, watering the land, enriching the forests and filling the lakes and rivers, and a cooler, fresher wind from the south-west, raising high the surf on the northern beaches, ripening the crops, sweeping protective cumulus from the skies and parching the summer streets and resorts.

When these winds meet, most often at night, violent and spectacular electric storms play around the summits of the central heights. Tornadoes cross the coastal plain at such times. But as well as these expectable winds there are many others, intermittent, surprising. Some arise from the hot flat islands to the north of Aay, others from the lagoons of the shallows to the south-east. One, bearing the heady scents of pines and resin, idles down from the northern mainland.

There is a föhn wind that prevails in the cooler months, sweeping from the summit of the mountains, through the high valleys and across the towns and river estuaries, bringing a seasonal island-wide lethargy and inanition. The suicide rate increases, people depart Aay to find other homes, tourists suddenly leave without explanation.

Less disruptive of everyday life, an equinoctial stream from the east precedes the autumnal gales, but seems not to be a part of them because it brings gritty air and a residue of fine sand to be left on the streets and roofs.

No one before Esphoven Muy had attempted to trace the sources of these winds, nor even take enough interest to try to find out which other islands they traversed, but she studied them and tried to distinguish one from the other. After a time she was able to make reasonably accurate forecasts of when they would arrive and the effect they would have on temperatures, rainfall, and so on.

The people who lived and worked on Aay began to depend on her forecasts. Other meteorologists, learning about her work, came to the island to meet Muy, to study with her, to seek her advice, to share ideas. That was how the Academy of the Four Winds was eventually set up, although for the first few years it was an institution that existed more in name than in bricks and mortar. It was informally based around Muy’s house in Aay Port, then later in temporary buildings on the edge of town. Today, the Academy is established in a magnificent campus close to the centre of the Port. Wind turbines, the first to be erected in the Archipelago, are scattered discreetly about Aay, generating enough electricity for everyone on the island.

Once the winds of Aay had been identified and named, the Academy moved on to collect data about other winds experienced all over the Archipelago. The Academy was soon funded by the meteorological forecasts it produced, and to this day holds major contracts with industrial corporations, farming cooperatives, drilling companies, vineyards, tourism and sports promoters, and hundreds of other institutions with a vested interest in the predicted arrival of winds, seasonal or otherwise. In addition, the Academy has a less transparent source of income, unadvertised but never denied, from the many military and naval bodies which use or traverse the Midway Sea.

However, weather forecasting was never Muy’s first interest. She charged the Academy with a purpose: the study of wind formation, of wind identification, of the social and mythological relevance of wind. The currents of air made up her universe.

The Academy is divided into several different faculties.

Astronomical and Mythological
– the names or actions of gods, of heroes and explorers, of gallant feats of bravery, of epic tasks performed, of blessings and beatitudes bestowed. Thus, for example: the bleak polar wind that sweeps through the steep and unexplored valleys of the Western Fastness of the Sudmaieure continent is known to the islanders in that offshore area as the C
ONLAATTEN
, named after Conlaatt, an ancient deity of the south whose breath was reputed to freeze victims to death. (In common with almost every wind in the Archipelago, the Conlaatten is known by other names in other contexts, and there are several patois names for it too.)

Natural World
– winds that are named after the effect, benign or otherwise, on plants, animals, birds, insects, etc. Thus: the L
ENFEN
, a breeze related to the island of Fellenstel, which every springtime carries young gossamer spiders to many different parts of the Archipelago. The W
OTON
is a wind that is said to hasten or ease the migratory passage of birds from south to north. Its companion or opposite wind, blowing a few months later, is called in the vernacular the N
OTOW
.

Anthropomorphism
– winds which are described as having human characteristics: gentleness, jealousy, mischief-making, anger, mirth, pain, love, revenge, etc. Many of these winds are identified from folklore, or the oral tradition, and exist under a maze of different patois names. Some are related to necromancy (below). One area of learning is called Subjective Anthropomorphism, which collects data on the influence of winds on the human psyche: the föhn wind that causes depression, the sea breeze that promotes optimism and feelings of wealth, the lovers’ waft, and so on.

Necromancy
– winds which by repute are the product of evil, of witches’ brew, of disastrous attempts to weave spells, of malign or failed attempts to make a deal with the devil. Notorious amongst these is a cold north-easterly hard blow occurring every five years or so in the Hetta Group of islands. Although this is conventionally sourced in the Faiandland mountains when there has been an unusual amount of snowfall, Hettans persist in believing that it is an accursed wind they call the G
OORNAK
. A woman being tortured on suspicion of witchery on the Hettan island of Goorn is said to have expired with a prolonged curse on her lips. Her dying gasp was a croak of hatred. It rose from her as an icy wind, froze to death every one of her persecutors, then swept northwards to the mountains of the mainland, where it is believed it lurks forever more. Even in the present day it is said that no one on Goorn will venture outdoors when the curse wind is blowing. The Academy has so far discovered and recorded more than one hundred different curse winds in the Archipelago. Naturally, most winds of this type are identified by islanders in the less developed regions of the Archipelago, and serious study of them involves detailed researches into folkloric matters. Many of the strangest and most evocative names for winds arise from necromantic sources: the C
OMBINER
, the P
OISONER
, the M
ANTRAP
, the G
ARGLER
, the A
BYSS
, and so on. These winds all have scientific names: for example, the Goornak is more correctly known as the F
AIANDLAND
B
ISE
.

Scientific Observation
– the study of storms, blizzards, smoke, gravitational influence, movement of sand or dust and the study of dunes, effects on oceanic currents, all as revealed by the passage of winds. Sandstorms are infrequent in the Archipelago, although they do occur in the Swirl. Unusually, the Swirl island group is close to the only part of Sudmaieure with a dry climate: the Qataari Peninsula. Winter blizzards sometimes affect the islands adjacent to the continental masses. Cross-faculty research can involve winds of other kinds. All over the Archipelago islanders welcome the summer wind known as the B
REATH OF
H
OPE
, which carries swarms of butterflies and ladybirds. Less welcome to the people of Paneron is the Stifler, a humid wind that brings the allergenic pollen of carp-weed bushes from nearby unpopulated islands.

Military History
– winds commemorated by their seeming intervention in times of war: the gale that dispersed one attacking fleet, the sudden expiry of a prevailing westerly that becalmed another, the heavenly wind that drove marauding ships on to a reef, the unpredicted storm that prevented an invasive beach landing. Many navigation charts depict prevailing wind direction by incorporating a stylized figure directing the wind. Most of these symbols are ancient naval or military images: a schooner breasting waves, an archer aiming his bow, a whaler with his harpoon, and so on. The work of tabulating this material and cross-referencing it to military records that are often still secret, or locked away in archives in the north, is as yet hardly begun.

Navigation
– every inhabited island or group of islands has created its own navigation charts of the seas, navigable passages, tidal surges, bays and shallows in its area. Each such chart or marine almanac contains information, often incorrect or distorted or based on guesswork, about the dominant winds in that region. However, these charts, almanacs and shipping logs also contain a wealth of vernacular first-hand accounts of great winds, sudden calms, bitter storms, as well as much documentary recording of the trade winds, the antitrades, the doldrums, the squalls, the headwinds.

Geography and Topography
– the effects of equatorial heat and the creation of localized storm winds, mountainous islands with cliffs and ravines, the horse latitudes, Coriolis, the cooling of the poles, the temperate weather systems of high and low pressures, differential sea temperatures, the effects of the gravitational impact of the sun and the moon.

Esphoven Muy did not live to see the expansion of the Academy, because although she lived to a great age she departed from Aay in unexplained circumstances and never returned.

She was in her thirty-seventh year when the artist Dryd Bathurst arrived on Aay and set up a studio in the artists’ quarter of Aay Port. At this time the Academy was still based around her own house. Town records show that Bathurst was resident on the island for less than a year, but during that period he created three of his most celebrated paintings.

Two of them are huge canvases. The first is what many people consider to be the masterwork of his early period:
The Raising of the Hopeless Dead
. This is an apocalyptic vision of a mountainous landscape – once you know that Bathurst was on Aay when he painted the picture, it becomes obvious that the terrible peaks are based on Aay’s central range. In the painting, the mountains are being torn apart by a violent electric storm, with cascades of water, rock and liquid mud flooding down the slopes to engulf a fleeing population.