The Islanders

Aay ISLAND OF WINDS

AAY is the largest of an arc of volcanic islands formed by the undersea Great Southern Ridge, close to the point where it crosses the Equator. It is known throughout the Dream Archipelago by the patois version of its name, ISLAND OF WINDS.

It lies a few degrees north of the Equator, at the furthest extremity of the arc. Aay’s interior is dominated by three volcanic peaks, all presently dormant, as well as a series of lower foothills. The soil is extremely fertile. The island is heavily forested and there are still areas of the interior on the southern and western sides which are as yet unexplored. Two main rivers flow from the uplands towards the east, the Aayre and the Pleuve, which irrigate the coastal plain on that side of the island. A wide variety of crops and livestock are farmed. The principal town on the island is called Aay Port, and is in a sheltered position on the eastern side. Because of the island’s great beauty and attractive physical features, tourists visit Aay all year round — to the west and south Aay has a vast shallow lagoon enclosed by reefs, and on the northern side, open to the sea, several of the beaches receive high surf. The tropical climate is pleasantly moderated by trade winds.

For all its tourist attractions, Aay is properly renowned as the location of the ACADEMY OF THE FOUR WINDS, which was set up two and a half centuries ago by the artist-philosopher ESPHOVEN MUY.

As a young woman, Muy was an enthusiastic traveller. She moved extensively around the Archipelago, sailing in small boats between many of the islands which lie between the horse latitudes and the doldrums, sketching and photographing what she saw and keeping a detailed journal. Her motives at first were wholly recreational or artistic, but as she travelled more she began making connections that were part inspirational, part delineative and interpretative, part social or anthropological, part mythological. For a while she made recordings of folk narratives and songs, and she kept detailed notes about the various different island patois in use.

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 NORTH FAIAND DRIFT, while to the south and east is the cold current called the SOUTHERN OSCILLATING STREAM.

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 CONLAATTEN, 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 LENFEN, a breeze related to the island of Fellenstel, which every springtime carries young gossamer spiders to many different parts of the Archipelago. The WOTON 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 NOTOW.

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 GOORNAK. 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 COMBINER, the POISONER, the MANTRAP, the GARGLER, the ABYSS, and so on. These winds all have scientific names: for example, the Goornak is more correctly known as the FAIANDLAND BISE.

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 BREATH OF HOPE, 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.

The second painting is no less epic and is held by some critics to be the greater of the two. Final Hour of the Relief Ship depicts a storm at sea: a sailing vessel is foundering amid gigantic waves, her sails torn into ribbons and two of her masts broken. A huge sea-serpent is apparently about to consume the passengers and crew leaping from the decks into the sea. Both of these major works are in the permanent collection of the Covenant Maritime Gallery, on the island of Muriseay.

The third painting from Bathurst’s Aay period was a portrait of Esphoven Muy herself, and its whereabouts is unknown to this day.

Although the original painting was never exhibited on Aay, colour reproductions based on Bathurst’s own print of it are familiar. It is on a significantly smaller scale than the massive oil paintings which were Bathurst’s usual stock in trade. The painting of Muy was executed in tempera, the subtle colours employed to render her as a stunningly attractive woman, her light clothes in suggestive disarray while a mocking wind teases at her hair. Her smile, and the expression in her eyes, leaves little doubt in the mind of the viewer about what her relationship with the painter must have been. The painting, called E. M. The Singer of Airs, is unique in Bathurst’s body of work: no other picture of his is so intimate, so sensual, so revealing of his love and passion.

Esphoven Muy is believed to have left Aay at around the same time as Bathurst moved on. She was popularly assumed to have followed him, and that her absence would therefore be short-lived.

Even as early as this in Bathurst’s career, he was renowned not just for his fickle attachments to islands, but also to women. Work at the Academy continued but for the first two or three years after Muy departed the Academy seemed to lose a sense of direction. It was later reorganized when senior members of the academic body created a new managing foundation, and the Academy in its modern form started to take shape.

Muy herself, though, was never seen again on Aay and she had no further contact with the Academy.

She died some fifty years later. Her body was discovered in the tiny cottage in which she had been living, in a remote part of the island of Piqay. The people who lived near her had known her by another name, but when the authorities cleared her house they found many papers and books, and these identified her. She had kept a journal for all the years she lived on Piqay, and although most of the material has never been published the journals themselves are now kept in a closed case within the Academy Library, on Aay.

From the sole published section of her journal, which describes a period of roughly a year in length, a decade after she had arrived on Piqay, and from other papers which were found in the house and are available for inspection in the Academy, as well as certain artefacts discovered in the grounds of her house, it has become possible to gain a glimpse of the life she led in her self-imposed seclusion.

The journal describes her decision to plant trees on the hillside behind her home. For much of the year she writes about she is concentrating on this. Not every kind of tree was suitable to be grown in the Piqay soil, and she chose the hillside site because it was exposed to the wind, and this further restricted her choice of trees. However, the planting went on throughout the period of the journal, and quite clearly for some time afterwards. There is now a whole arboretum, mostly mature, on the Piqay headland where she lived. It has become a protected zone administered by the Piqay Seigniory on behalf of the Academy of the Four Winds.

Muy believed that each different species of tree responded to the pressure of wind in a unique way: the density and grain of the bark, the number of branches and the spread of them, the shape of the leaves on deciduous trees, the resonant qualities of the timber itself, the time of year that buds would appear or leaves would fall, the fineness and length of needles on evergreens, even the kinds of wildlife that might be attracted to inhabit the trees with their nests. All these would have an influence on the way the wind was received and responded to by the tree, and Muy believed she could identify many trees solely from the soughing they made.

She described the sound of a cypress as similar to the mild harmonies of a harp, a tall pine in full finery of needle as an ecstatic clarinet solo, an apple tree in blossom as a frivolous dance of clashing cymbals, an oak as a baritone voice, a narrow poplar bending to a gale as a coloratura.

The yard at the rear of her cottage was also put to use in the strong winds that flew across her headland. She hung one side of the yard with wind-chimes: wooden, glass, crystal, plastic, metal. They were rarely silent. More scientifically, Muy erected a number of wind measurement instruments. Five masts of different heights stood at the upper end of the yard, each bearing different types of anemometers and wind-pressure gauges. She analysed the results on data logging equipment in a specially built cabin, together with the readings from rainfall, humidity and temperature gauges. A tall lightning protector stood above everything.

Although this laboratory has since been dismantled, visitors may experience something of its unique concentration on the winds, because a reconstruction of it is in the Academy Museum in Aay Port. Normal opening hours apply.

Towards the end of the published section of the journals, Muy recorded a declaration that she wished to become a native Piqayean. According to the tradition of the island she said that she intended never to leave it again. She abided by that intent until the end.

In the light of her scientific discoveries the role played by Dryd Bathurst in this long final sequence of Esphoven Muy’s life is now trivial. However, it seems that Muy did fall victim to an enigma of the heart. Although Dryd Bathurst never worked or set up a studio on Piqay, it is known that he arrived there not long after leaving Aay, and left again soon after. No one was believed to be accompanying him at the time, but the dates roughly coincide with Muy’s arrival on the island.

The standard biography of the artist, The Epic Canvas of Dryd Bathurst by Chaster Kammeston, lists an astonishing number of women with whom the artist is known or believed to have had affairs. Esphoven Muy’s name is among them, but Kammeston does not go into details.

Although Muy lived and worked on Piqay for much of her life, it is with Aay that she will always be firmly associated.

A springtime breeze that Muy often noticed during the years she was living and working on Aay, now bears her name. The VENTO MUYO is a light, warm zephyr, scented with the fragrance of the wild flowers that grow on the shallow cliffs to the south of Aay Port.

Aay is regularly served by inter-island ferries, but there is no direct link with the mainland. Standards of cuisine and visitor accommodation throughout the island are reportedly excellent. Seafood is a speciality. Daily guided tours of the Academy are available. Visitors require a visa and all normal inoculations — check with your personal physician before travelling. There are liberal shelterate laws, but property is expensive. Visitors should avoid the weeks of late spring as the föhn wind is most likely to be active then.

Currency: Archipelagian simoleon; Muriseayan thaler.