Brother
Whistling One
Old Ruin
Stick for Stirring
Cave with Echo
Cathedral
Dark Green
Sir
The Descant
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
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 fohn 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
