The Chromatic Chord

Wind-Madness

The madness of the voice-carrying winds, in which a listener can no longer tell their own thoughts from the voices of the dead, is moved by them, and may be spoken through; and its kin, the madness of too much sound and of none.

Overview

Wind-Madness is the danger of the Whispering Winds, valleys where the wind carries the voices of centuries and never stops speaking. People go to hear what no book holds, or to hear one voice again. Those who stay too long come home unable to tell which thoughts are theirs, saying things in voices that are not, and listening, always, for the wind. It is a madness of hearing, and its cure begins with quiet.

Cause

The wind of the zone is full of voices of the dead and the lost, and they do not stop. A mind among them soon cannot separate its own thought from theirs. Some voices push: a voice of hatred can make a murderer, one of love a fool. The wind scatters memory, so that a listener's own past comes apart. A strong enough voice can possess a traveller and speak through them. Kindred harms come from other zones of sound: the clashing drone of the Soul Anchor, which brings hallucination and paranoia; the absolute silence of the Silent Gale, which drives visitors mad from the other side; and the Melody-Beasts of the Muse's Studio, whose music can bring a madness that cannot stop hearing.

Who It Strikes

Listeners who linger: scholars after lost tongues and lost knowledge, seekers of prophecy, and above all the bereaved, who come for one voice and, finding it, stay. The Wind-Listeners are immune, and lead out those who listen too long when they can.

Signs and Course

At the zone the listener begins to answer the wind aloud, to repeat what it says, and to forget what they came for. Their own voice drops away and others' take its place.

Home again, they hear the wind in every draught and stop mid-sentence to listen. They speak in turns of phrase that are not theirs, quarrel with people who are not there, and sometimes act on a voice's urging, kindly or terribly. Parts of their own past are missing or belong to someone else. A possessed sufferer has spells in which another speaks through them, in another voice and sometimes another tongue, and comes out of them blank.

Contagion

The madness is not caught by ordinary contact. A voice that speaks through a sufferer frightens a household, and some say it can jump; nobody has shown it.

Treatment and Its Limits

Quiet first: a shuttered room, wool in the ears, no singing, and few visitors. A steady, familiar voice reading or talking of ordinary things helps the sufferer find their own. Kin tell the true past to fill the scattered parts. A voice that has taken hold can be driven out by Exorcism, which drives out possessing traces, at a cost to the caster and with no promise against a voice the sufferer goes on inviting. Calming workings ease the agitation for an hour, not the cause. A tune taken from a Melody-Beast can be quieted only by a stronger, steadier tune.

Mortality

Wind-Madness seldom kills its sufferer outright. Deaths come from what a voice urges, from wandering back to the wind, and from the Lost Voices, whose bodies the zone takes and whose voices it keeps. Survivors may keep a borrowed voice, gaps in memory, or a lifelong habit of listening.

Lore and Belief

Mountain folk believe a Wind-Listener can hear every word ever said in the valley and will tell it for a price; it hears, but does not speak. Many hold that a sufferer has carried a dead person home, and address the dead by name to coax them out. Musicians who have been to the Muse's Studio say a tune heard there stays in the head for life.

Treasure-seekers who go up the valleys to hear the dead tell where they buried their hoards come down mad more often than rich, and the valley folk sell them rope and bread on the way up and bury them on the way down.

In the Medieval Era

Wind-Madness is met in the mountain country near the Whispering Winds, where people go up to hear the dead and families nurse those who come down wrong. Shrine-keepers and priests treat the possessed; folk healers keep the rest quiet and fed. Beyond the mountains it is mostly a tale, and a sufferer is taken for an ordinary madman.

Where It Appears

See Also