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The discovery of Kenka was a result of luck that comes once in humanity’s lifetime of gambling on long odds. Breathable atmosphere, benign climate, enough resources to start the colony without waiting for future shipments – ecstatic, people got their claws in and started building a life. Some complaints, barely worth the word, about the constant wind were more of a knock on wood variety, lest some entity decide that Kenka was too perfect a gift and would be better used by someone else. Even those born in the still atmosphere of planetary domes secretly enjoyed the mischievous, unceasing caress of air.
The very ease of the many labours involved in building a colony from scratch prevented the settlers from speculative investigation. The scout party found the remains of a civilization: foundations of buildings, a few stretches of irrigation canals, dams that long ago sternly directed the flow, but now were as relaxed and permissive as grandparents enjoying the eve of their life. And of course, there was the strangely intact city in the desert, midway between the seashore and the mountains. The desert was buffeted by stronger than usual winds, Earth’s gentle sea and land breezes turned into roaring, hissing monsters. It was an interesting geographical and climatological anomaly which would definitely be studied in the undetermined future, as soon as the colony was thriving. Finding answers to the mysteries of the city, which was located far away from anything usable, was also delegated to that hazy vision of perfection. Still, adventurous folks came infrequently to poke at the enigma.
A hunched, gnarled vehicle, built to withstand the winds, pulled up to one of the city’s many entrances. That was another mystery, quite apart from the city’s purpose. Why, instead of the expected walls to protect the inhabitants, the street ends led straight into desert? As a result, the pavements were polished to a glassy sheen by the sand passing unimpeded. Knowing this, Tama and Jem brought their rollerblades. They timed their arrival to the lull at the change in the wind’s direction.
Jem entered the city first. The stocky buildings built out of the same bluish gray material were arranged in squares, separated by streets of roughly the same width. There the resemblance to the cities they knew ended. “Look, it’s like a seagull’s wing!” exclaimed Jem, pointing at a delicate protuberance on the corner of one of the houses. “No,” Tama laughed, “it’s a whale’s flipper! And this one… this one is a palm leaf!” “No, no,” Jem replied with a grin, rolling forward. “It’s a feather!” They were like children in a museum filled with wonders they didn’t know the meaning of yet, excited by the magnificence of discoveries waiting for them. They rolled, turning this way and that, until they ended at the edge of the city looking onto the flat sands and the mountains.
The first breath made them turn and skitter a few steps back. The wind, becoming stronger, pushed them along, and Tama gripped one of the handles that were seemingly at every corner. Just then, the spiraled petals of yet another protuberance gently grabbed a bewildered wind and turned it ninety degrees. Tama followed. “Jem! Jem! It’s like a maze! Or a puzzle!” It was even better than that, Tama thought. There was no end goal, no push to finish the game, nothing but following the twists and turns of the wind, grabbing this or that handle as a whim took her and shooting around the corner.
At some point they separated. Now and then they glimpsed each other across the streets or met at an intersection and went kitty-corner on their way. Tama felt as if she could waltz through the city forever, knowing only the weightless flight, only the random decisions to turn here or there, or roll to the end and be met with a laughing wind’s embrace and a push to get back into the game. Suddenly she collided with Jem. One of them grabbed a knob in the middle of the wall, and the house swallowed them. They rolled on the floor, hugging each other, breathless with laughter and wind, and the city woke up with a shudder of ecstasy. Lying in the dark room, Tama saw tentacled ghosts racing outside, uttering shrill cries, following the wind, meeting, separating and meeting again until pair after pair decided to stay together and lie in a room like theirs. Finding Jem’s lips in the dark was the most natural, the only thing to do. They lay together, semi-aware of the two great entities looking at them from above. The spring ritual was revived, and Goddess and her Consort reveled in the worship offered by their bodies.
They went home and didn’t tell anyone what had happened to them. Later that year they met another couple who looked at the sky with wonder and laughed with the wind, and the next spring the four of them returned to the city together. It happened again and again, the secret kept by a silent understanding, but the worship spread through their children and children’s children, and after several generations the majority made the spring pilgrimage to the city. The worship remained unnamed for many more years. And once it grew up in the safety of their hearts that were content to wait until the name was given to their faith, they celebrated it joyfully and openly, welcoming the spring winds of Kenka every year.