“The way, the way… The way to safety, to warmth and comfort, to clean water and lush green fields…”

“You’ll not buy me that cheap,” he retorted. “Think you that I would be out here in this miserable place for lack of such things? I am the richest thief in Husaquahr! All those things were not enough!”

“To safety, to safety,,… Where neither man nor god will find you…”

He drew himself up straight in the saddle, pride dispelling his weariness of body and spirit. “I am the greatest thief in the history of Husaquahr!” he retorted in a regal tone. “I fear neither man nor god, having stolen from both, and never caught!” That was not quite true, he knew, but if one spit into the wind, better it blow back praise than cold spittle.

“A quest, a quest…He is under a geas and embarked upon a quest… ”

“No geas, not for such as I,” he told the wind. “I quest as I steal, not for others, but for my own pleasure and interests.”

“We can lead you there, lead you there… ” the wind asserted. “The wind goes everywhere and sees all things… The wind can find who or what you seek…”

“Persistent, nagging spirit! You are not even powerful enough to know in advance that I am on a quest, let alone for what it is that I seek! I, who have stolen the sacred jewels from the navels of gods themselves and plucked the rings from demons’ noses, will not be taken in by the likes of you! Now, be gone or be silent!”

“Who can silence the wind?” the wind mocked. “Who can banish it when it wants to caress? The wind which grinds the very rock to dust, which gives strength and power to fire or blows it out as only the wind chooses, who stirs the water and cools it and uses it to batter the shore? Who are you to command the wind?” it mocked in its screaming, eerie voice.

“Well, someone commands you” he responded. “You speak as a cat but you obey like a dog. Whose big-mouthed puppy are you?”