PodCastle

* Author : J.T. Greathouse
* Narrator : Carlo Matos
* Host : Summer Fletcher
* Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh
*
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Originally published in Deep Magic.


Rated PG-13.
An Empty Cup
by J.T. Greathouse
1
Eshi the Boy
As for every child of the Islands, when Eshi was born a zephyr descended from the Upper Air to alight on his shoulder. Grandmother Sul burned precious driftwood, inhaled its cinnamon scent, and begged the zephyr to give her grandson the gifts of a healer. There were never enough healers on Eastwind Island, and healers were well regarded and well positioned in life. Eshi’s father, a less ambitious and more realistic man, burned driftwood of his own, but asked only that his son’s zephyr grant a talent for fishing or for hunting, or even for whipping the wind. Practical talents, but more common. Talents the community could use.
Eshi’s mother, too, burned driftwood. Her prayer was the simplest. She asked only for her son’s happiness, and that his zephyr would give him a talent to match his soul.
If not for that prayer, perhaps Eshi would have lived an easier life.


Eshi was tall, with dark hair and long limbs. A quick boy, and strong. Not the quickest or the strongest on Eastwind Island, but quick enough and strong enough that everyone said he would have a good future. He played the games that small boys play to learn how to be men. Throwing games and chasing games and fishing games. He was good at all of them. Not the best, but good enough that people began to wonder what his talent would be when he came of age.
Other children were better swimmers, or quicker on their feet, or more skilled with their bows and arrows. Everyone knew what their talents would be. Even before a child came of age, his or her zephyr began to shape them. Tora, a girl a few years older than Eshi, had always been an excellent swimmer. No one was surprised when her zephyr gave her the talent of Diving Breath. In the first year after her coming of age she had gathered more pearls than anyone else and could reach the oysters that hid in the deep channel of the bay.
Eshi’s father said time and again how proud he was of his son’s promise at swimming, running, fishing, and hunting. Surely, he thought, Eshi’s zephyr would give a talent for one of these things. He speculated with the other men of the village, and some placed wagers.
Solla, the greatest hunter in the village whose zephyr sent her arrows fast and true, wagered a necklace of boar’s teeth that he would be granted the talent of Archer’s Wind, as she had been. Eshi’s father met her wager and bet a knife he had made from obsidian that Eshi would have the gift of Seawind’s Whip. The last man with that talent had been Old Yano, who for years had been too ill to guide the deep-hulled sailboat to neighboring islands. The Upper Air would send a new Seawind’s Whip soon, everyone was sure. The Upper Air always sent what the island needed.
For that same reason Grandmother Sul said—though she did not wager; she was too old for such silliness—that Eshi would be a healer, as she had prayed. His gift would be Rotkilling Breath, or the Soothing Voice, she said. Eastwind Island had wanted for a healer of its own for a generation. When someone took ill with a sickness that Grandmother Sul and the other old women’s herbs and potio...