The Islanders Read Online Free

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