Mute-Walkers

Overview

No voice is heard from the Mute-Walkers of the Silent Gale, the hurricane that makes no sound: they have none and need none. They hold the zone sacred as the place where the world's noise is stripped away and only the truth of motion remains, and they call themselves observers of the unseen.

Appearance

A Mute-Walker is tall and elongated, wiry as a whip, built to lean into a wind that would flatten anyone else. Its skin is burnished smooth by the blast, polished like old leather or river stone, in browns and greys. Its eyes are large and dark, made for reading movement. Its throat is sealed, without vocal cords, a smooth column with no voice-box to bob.

It moves with a fluid, ghostly grace, low to the ground in the gusts and upright in the lulls, and makes no sound at all, as nothing does in the Gale. It speaks with its hands and its whole body, a quick sign language, and by stamping and pressing on the ground so that another Mute-Walker feels the words through its feet.

Habitat and Range

They live in the open country the Gale scores with its blast, in the lee of rocks and among the flattened grass, in small bands. When the transient Gale passes on, they seem to go with it; they are found wherever it strikes.

Behaviour and Temperament

They are eerily quiet, patient, and observant, and value stillness, watching, and listening with the body. They think outsiders deaf in another sense, unable to perceive the world without leaning on sound. They are not hostile. They help caught travellers by signs and touch, and sometimes guide them to shelter, and they take some of the Screaming, visitors driven mad by the silence, into their bands; some of those become Mute-Walkers in time.

Abilities

They feed on the wind's motion, and are immune to the disorientation of silence. They feel through the ground what others would hear, and can tell a gust coming, or a Wind-Ghost, by the trembling underfoot. They are untouched by the failure of spoken things in the Gale, since they never speak.

Life Cycle

Some Mute-Walkers were born to the Gale, it is thought; others were visitors whose voices failed for good. They live long, wind-worn lives.

Uses and Dangers

They are the best guides in the Gale, and the only ones. Those who go in on purpose, to lose pursuers or to sit in silence, seek them out. They are harmless.

Lore and Belief

Hill folk who live where a Gale strikes say the Mute-Walkers walk the storm to keep it quiet, and they leave out a cup of water for them after a soundless storm. Some believe a Mute-Walker can take a person's voice, which they cannot; the Gale can.

Where It Appears

• The Silent Gale
• the Writers' Guide chapter The Resonant Zones and its glossary