Where the Wind Takes Us
(Book 13 of the Guardian of the Spirit Series)
Author: Uehashi Nahoko
Translator: Ainikki the Archivist
Orange light filtered in through the thin screen woven of rasal reeds that stood in front of the window. Sari awoke with a start, surprised that she’d slept until sunset. She was suffering from a terrible fever that caused her to lose all track of time.
Everyone’s already gone by now… I guess they didn’t want to wake me.
Sari felt a brief pang of loneliness, but then she heard the high-pitched call of a bird. There were people milling around outside the hut, speaking in low voices.
It wasn’t evening, then, but early morning. Sari had slept even longer than she’d thought.
Someone lifted the cloth curtain that served as a door and entered. They noticed that Sari was awake and signaled to the people outside.
Footsteps echoed louder as people moved closer. A few moments later, Sari’s rasal screen was moved away from the window; the harsh light of the morning sun coming in was blinding.
Sari didn’t rise from her bed. She shaded her eyes with her hand and gazed at the people working busily around her. The person who had come in to check on her was her daughter. Her face had been shadowed in gloom before, but now her sharp features were clearly visible.
“Mom…”
There was pain in her daughter’s eyes: the kind of pain that it was difficult to describe. Eona was no longer a child, but Sari still worried about her leaving.
“Is something wrong?” Sari asked.
Eona rubbed at her forehead as if to stave off a headache. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. We have other things to worry about, mom. Don’t you feel it? The direction of the wind has changed.”
Eona rubbed her cheek against Sari’s very gently. Her skin felt so cold.
“Be careful when you go,” Sari said quietly. “I’ll be waiting for you when you come back.”
She rubbed her cheek against her daughter’s. It was a typical greeting and parting gesture for them.
Eona spoke a traditional farewell. “As the river flows to the sea, as the wind blows through the leaves on the trees, so I shall return to you.” She pulled away, but paused to touch her mother’s hair, soft and affectionate. She took Sari’s hand and squeezed it gently.
Sari watched Eona leave, feeling once again that same pang of loneliness she’d felt when she’d awakened. She cursed the weakness and sickness of her body, which made it so difficult to rise and offer up words of thanks and prayer to bless her daughter’s journey.
Forcing herself up, Sari took a few hesitant steps outside her room and faced the people outside. In a thin voice, she said, “Sadan Taram! Wind musicians! Wanderers and exiles! Travelers of the wind, scions of the ancient Tol Asa people! Let us sing and dance, without hesitation or pause, of our people’s rage and grief, love and hatred, so they will never be forgotten.”
Four people--those chosen to begin the journey, including her daughter--called back to Sari. “Sadan Taram! Wanderers and exiles! Through a thousand gorges we have traveled, and we have climbed a thousand mountains, moving as the wind through the grass. Sadan Taram! Travelers of the wind!”
Sari heard a flute from somewhere in the crowd, playing a long, high-pitched note that rose into the sky. The flute was joined by the rhythmic beat of many small hand drums that shook the ground beneath her feet. All at once, the Sadan Taram began dancing in time to the beat, swirling around Sari in a riot of movement and color.
“Sadan Taram! Travelers of the wind! My friends, my family! Through a thousand gorges we have traveled, and we have climbed a thousand mountains, moving as the wind through the grass. Over rivers and mountains we have walked, through endless fields of rice and grain, all the way to the sea. We possess the power of the spirits, the radalo! Sadan Taram! Travelers of the wind! My friends, my family!”
Their camp was on a small island covered in tall rasal reeds. The dancing of the Sadan Taram startled the birds hiding the in reeds, making them scatter into the heavens. The four people chosen to travel away from the camp, including Eona, broke away from the dance and started walking away.
Sari did not dance. She returned to her bed so that she could lay back down. Before the travelers passed out of sight, Sari's younger brother, Gamal, caught her eye and gave her a reassuring nod. He was tall and bearded. She was glad that he was accompanying her daughter.
Gamal turned his back on Sari and the others and kept walking toward the sun.
Their island camp was on Loata Lake, which straddled the border between northern and southern Rota. The lake's water was warm and crystal clear, so it was a perfect place to stay for every season except winter. The lake was also an important one for trade, so the area was much traveled, with well-kept roads leading north and south.
The lake was familiar to the Sadan Taram. There were stories of their journeys to and from this place dating back to ancient times. Sari turned on her side and watched her daughter and two other women walking along the side of the lake with her brother as their guard. They were only four in number, but Sari felt as bereft as if all her people had left her behind.
Though she had said the words of parting with her daughter and her people, Sari couldn’t shake a deep sense of unease. She had prayed to protective radol guardian spirits to end her sickness, but her prayers had fallen on deaf ears. She hadn’t been chosen to accompany her family because she was sick. It was hard for her not to take that as an ill omen.
This land carried memories of a great war fought by the Talsh Empire. The Sadan Taram’s journey would allow them to discover the memories and secrets of that war, but Eona had never led an expedition before. That, too, troubled Sari. She could do nothing except hope that her daughter would be equal to the task, and that those who’d gone with her would serve her to the best of their abilities.
Sari looked out the window of the small hut, watching her daughter, brother and the other women walk along the side of the lake through the rasal reeds until they passed out of sight. Then she closed her eyes.
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