Fundamentalists

Like so much of the Iconoclast commune, the mighty windmills were terribly over-engineered and full of beauty.  Lithe and deft of hand, da-Aer waited atop the tower as the feathers were rotated to orthogonal by her solidly-constructed older brother, ra-Grewyn, and the great wingblades creaked to a stop.  She leaned out over the edge to inspect the brightly-painted sailcloth feathers of the three wings.  Three of the primaries on one wing had been torn by a particularly savage storm two days before but were only now finally dry enough to be repaired.

"I need another thirty-five degrees clockwise," she hollered down into the bowels of the tower.

Ra-Grewyn didn't bother calling back.  He lumbered from the large crank he had used to adjust the feathers' angle over to the massive central shaft.  Grunting, he threw his whole weight against one of the handles projecting out from it and strained.  With squealing protest, the mechanism overcame static friction and began to turn slowly as ra-Grewyn counted up the markings at his feet.

Up top, da-Aer ducked low as a gust of wind threatened to throw her off balance.  She hadn't tied herself to the tower anchor or a wing yet because that sort of thing was for sissies.  The blade she needed rotated to vertical and another strong gust let her instincts get the better of her bravery; she clipped the line trailing from her harness to one of the rungs.  Before she started scrambling out, she turned back and shouted, "Lock the shaft down, would you?  I don't much fancy tumbling to my death, you know?"


Mentally bracing herself, she grabbed the rungs on the leading edge of the wingblade and began climbing past the tertials and secondaries to the primary flight feathers.  Her safety line was clipped in every few feet, fear of the wind still strong in the back of her mind.  Da-Aer was no stranger to this sort of maintenance, however; she regularly volunteered to repair the windmills lined along the dike.  Feet shuffling surely along the wooden frame of a feather, she worked her way out towards the first tear.

At this distance the age and wear to the windmill was much more apparent than from the ground.  The paints and dyes used to color the canvas still shone brightly, but coarse thread crudely stitched through broad rents was everywhere.  Most of these patch jobs had been da-Aer's and she was proud of them.  It's not as though sewing was easy when done almost fifty meters in the air while gripping wobbling wooden frames with one's toes and trying not to be blown off by an errant breeze.  Despite the difficulty, she was on autopilot, her hands finding the spool of thread on her hip and hooked needles in her vest of their own accord and going to work on the material of the feather.

Her mind and attention drifted elsewhere.  She loved being sent to climb the windmills because they were the highest point in the commune's broad valley.  Looking out east, she could easily see over the dike towards the new shore.  The Iconoclasts had only been able to afford the cheapest parcels of land and had settled in an estuary.  At first, they had attempted to respect the land by living simply off what was there and minimizing their impact, but after the first year of near-starvation they had built the complex of windmills and the dike to lower the water levels, forming islands suitable for cultivation but leaving the estuary partially intact.  A small flock of shorebirds, the same species that this particular windmill had been decorated to mimic, settled in to feed as she watched.

The first feather fixed, she snipped the thread and clambered up to the next one.  She ducked underneath it to shift to the other side, looking inland.  Below, she could see the network of vines and planks between trees moored in the shallow waters betrayed the homes hidden in their canopies.  Cantilevered bridges spanned the shorter gaps and splashes of primary colors denoted the drawbridges and ramps ornately carved with depictions of local flora and fauna.  Beyond the settlement, the beginnings of the cathedral stood in the midst of a grove of gnarled and presumably ancient ophidin trees.  It had yet to progress beyond the barest framework, but the echoes of gigantic mollusk shells and flower heads could already be perceived.  The teachings of the prophets Ior and his successor, Delkun, were taken to an extreme here.

Da-Aer stepped up to the last feather and clipped in again.  In the hazy blue distance of the south, she could see the silhouettes of the mountains on the northern shore of Lerum Bay.  She imagined that she could make out the tiny theocratic nation of Crethim sitting on the flanks and peaks.  As an Iconoclast, it was difficult to understand Crethim and the apostate there as anything but self-serving and egomaniacal in their aspirations to become like the Scribe, but she understood the political power that they wielded.  There was a brief flicker of green light on one mountaintop, but it was gone so quickly the she wasn't sure anything had been there at all.

She finished and sat down on the feather, her braids stirring only slightly in the breeze.  From the ground below she heard a shout and craned her neck to see who it was.  By the looks of the unadorned turtle-shell cap and winged epaulets, it was one of the younger children she sometimes looked after and behind him a whole group of followers.  She started to wave down, grinning, when she found herself sliding off an increasingly angled feather.  Deep in the belly of the tower, ra-Grewyn had re-engaged the main shaft and was setting the machine back in motion.  At once, da-Aer recognized her brother's sense of humor at work and, because a struggle was completely futile, hung as limply as possible to the joy of the children laughing below.

Ra-Gerwyn emerged from the leaf-shaped door at the foot of the windmill.  He stood purposefully directly under the wingblades, arms outstretched, as his sister began her slow descent.  She realized the plan and at the last possible moment jerked to life, cutting her life line and falling into his arms.  He tossed her to the ground and she tumbled nimbly, popping up with a flourish and to the raucous applause of the youngsters.  She turned to playfully punch ra-Gerwyn in the shoulder and the two set off towards the town proper, entourage in tow.