Waves in the Wind Read Online Free Page A

through the air and skittering across the ground. My cape did little good as the driving downpour ran off it in rivulets, and soon I was thoroughly drenched.
    I had begun my walk to the distant grassy mound with a leather bag and foul temper on my shoulder. The impossible task before me weighed heavily, though after a while the Master’s words began to come back and buoyed my spirits a bit.
    “To succeed,” he had told me, “you must maintain confidence in yourself, keep your mind clear and apply the knowledge we instilled in you.” And there was one thing more, a riddle of sorts with words so twisted that only the magical fairy folk could appreciate them. “You must create a fire that burns that which cannot burn.”
    Perhaps my trial was not impossible then. My reasoning continued, perhaps the rain itself was not the problem; perhaps it merely blinded my view of the solution.
    I slowed down my mind as I walked along and called upon what I knew of alchemy. The world was made of four primary elements; air, earth, water and fire. Of fire I knew the least, but I understood that any fire required air, fuel and heat. Water was a fire killer for it suppressed the air around the flame and cooled the fuel. I sloshed on amid an abundance of water.
    At last, I came to a tree-lined brook flowing full in the heavy rain. Beyond rose a grassy knoll that I knew for my destination. There was no help for it, so, disgusted, I waded the cold, thigh-deep water and began to cast about under the trees on the far bank for dry wood. I found nothing; even the partially rotten limbs that normally caught fire easily were saturated like a wet sponge.
    I continued on to the crest of the hill where my view was obscured by a heavy curtain of gray rain. The wet grass underfoot would do me no good. Nearby were only large stones, a small flock of sheep huddled together in the rain. Again I searched for dry fuel, moss or lichens beneath the rocks that might be protected from the storm. Nothing was there, nothing of use.
    I dropped my leather bag to the ground and plopped down beside it in defeat. Within the bag were an iron knife and piece of flint, useful for creating heat to start a fire…if I had dry fuel and could stop the torrential rain. A large clay pot contained magical herbs used in the sacred fire ceremony, now useless lacking a sacred fire. And of course there was no food, for it was dictated that the ceremony be a time of fasting…a silly thing it seemed now.
    A sheep bleated, and my tired, drooping eyes were drawn to the small flock. “…burn that which cannot burn.” Bah, as if I could burn a wet sheep. Yet, there was something tugging at my memory, something about the sheep. Sheep provided meat, milk, wool, lanolin…yes, of course, lanolin. Lanolin oil rendered from sheep’s wool—oil that burnt with a bright, hot flame!
    My mind went to work as I concentrated on the miserable beasts, and again past alchemy lectures proved helpful—“oil and water are enemies and will never come together.” My hopes surged—lanolin burned in the presence of water! But the wool was on the sheep and the lanolin in the wool…augh!
    I tugged the cape closer against the rain, my mind testing and rejecting idea after idea. After sitting for some time I jumped to my feet and roared aloud into the downpour at my own stupidity. It wasn’t my mind that brought an answer, it was my nose! The old cape clasped about me all day was freshly saturated with lanolin oil.
    It took time and work to complete the details, but I was there to conduct a sacred ceremony, not measure time. At last though a fire no larger than a sparrow burned within the clay pot beneath the protection of what remained of the cape after I had scraped the lanolin from it. The ritual must begin immediately, and I swallowed my boyish pride for having solved the Master’s riddle. The sputtering flame would be a fleeting thing, so I sat cross-legged beside my fire and chanted aloud the