The Madman took his turn in the line at the village well. Like all the rest he held a bucket which he hoped to fill. Everyone in line still nursed the fear that the ancient well would fail. When it did, the town would die. Each man hoped for rain and begged the question: “When comes the wind?”

The Madman felt the final hint of moving air the day the Singer left—the day the sun moved closer and the breezes stopped. Half-truths had festered in the lifeless air, for most believed The Lie which taught the Singer had died that shrouded night the timbers tumbled to the ground.

Rumors raged. Doubt was universal for the scholars agreed that no one could live through the cursed ordeal of the machine, much less its fall from ancient battlements.

There were some who said the drought that fell upon the world was the vengeance of the mountain gods angered at the cruelty of “holy men” who murdered only when they wore the sacred garb of priests. Some said it thundered twice each day at the precise and awful moment that they broke his hands. Yet it never thundered on the plains—only in the highlands.

The sun kept shorter nights and walked a slower arch across the cloudless skies. The dry earth cracked its wrinkled, powdered crust. The well rope grew dry further down its braided coil, and the water-bearers fell at midday under shaded eaves.

III

What do you have, young prophet bold?

Some new, wide dream of scope?

Written by fire in the snowy cold

On silver plates of hope?

I found him under a tree grown old

And hanged with a doctrine rope.

Some said he thought the tree was young.

On the first day of the month of Krios an old woman came from the mountains and, bent above her gnarled stick, she made her way from door to door. She sang in feeble syllables the song the Grand Musician once had sung before official executioners. She bore a weathered scroll beneath her tattered sleeve and sang her tuneless, toneless, tasteless dirge.

She was deaf but quite devoted, committed to the creed she sang aloud but had not heard in years.

They asked her if the wind blew in the mountains. She could not hear, but the musty odor made it clear no breeze had blown on her. Her scroll had not been ruffled by the mountain wind nor moistened by the rain. The dust upon the ragged roll had not been stirred to rise or settle back again.

While she stood in line before the well, she died. She did not fall. She only stared in death as she had stared in life. And no one seemed to know the instant of her passing. The village sexton found her hard to bury. Her passing seemed a little matter. No one mourned.

The first of Krios passed. And on the second of the month the Madman prayed again, “Earthmaker, Father of the Singer, send us now the ancient wind of promise.” He knew the wind he craved would bring the rain.