Where the Wind Takes Us
(Book 13 of the Guardian of the Spirit Series)
Author: Uehashi Nahoko
Translator: Ainikki the Archivist
Epilogue - Where the Wind Takes Us
A strong wind blew through the
rasal reeds lining the lake, making the walls of Sari’s hut shake. Even huddled up inside with the screens woven of more
rasal reeds covering the windows, the air was frigid and made the
fire in the hearth waver.
Gamal was roasting fish over the
fire. The smell roused Sari to wakefulness. She sat up and
stretched. “Do you hear that?” she asked.
Gamal’s thick eyebrows drew together. “Do you think they’re coming back?” He smiled a little, scratching at his beard.
The wind carried the sound of bells
and drums to Sari’s hut.
“I want to get up,” Sari said. “Help me.”
Gamal came to Sari’s bedside and took her arm to support her as she stood up. She
wrapped a woven blanket around her shoulders and shivered. A few
moments later, the thick door woven of several layers of rasal reeds
opened, and Eona passed through it.
“Mom!”
Eona tore off her coat and shoved
it at Kii, who was coming in the door behind her. Eona hugged her
tightly for a moment, and Sari laughed. She could feel the water
harp tucked safe and sound against Eona’s chest.
Eona’s hair and face were cold from the wind outside. “Maybe we should have stayed in Oki for the night and tried arriving
tomorrow. It’s so cold! But I couldn’t wait to be home,” she said.
Sari and Eona hugged for a long
time, then broke apart, smiling at one another. Sari rubbed her cheek against her daughter's in greeting. “Welcome home,” she said quietly.
“I’m glad to be here.”
Eona shivered. She moved a little
closer to the fire, then said, “Mom, we have so much to talk about. It was a remarkable journey. I
don’t even know where to start.”
The corner of Sari’s mouth quirked upward. “I heard a few things from Gamal. He said that Balsa showed up and
protected you at the Herb Market. But let’s have supper and get you all warmed up first. After that, we can
talk as long as we like.”
Kii and Sansa were also in the hut,
unpacking. Then nodded gratefully at Sari. The hut, formerly quiet
except for the sound of the wind, was now noisy and a little
crowded. After dinner, Eona told Sari about everything that had
happened to them.
Sari waxed nostalgic about her own
journey to Rakul Province so many years before. So Jiguro is dead, then,
she thought. That was hard to believe. He’d always seemed so strong. Eona was the daughter who had been born
less than a year after that summer night. She wondered if Balsa
knew. If Balsa had known all along.
“I’d like to talk to Balsa,” Sari said. “Did she come?”
“No,” Sansa said. “She parted with us a while back, headed home to New Yogo.”
“I hope she doesn’t get caught in a blizzard,” Sari said. “It’s a terrible time of year to travel.”
“That’s one reason we hurried home ourselves,” Sansa said, rubbing her chilblained hands together.
Kii laughed. “I’m sure Balsa’s eager to get home to her husband’s warm arms.”
The fire crackled, spreading
warmth, as the winter wind tried and failed to blow the walls of the
hut down. Eona stared off into the distance lost in memory, and
resumed the story of her journey.
***
The door to Tanda’s hut was half-buried by drifting snow. Someone was trying to force
it open. Tanda peeled himself away from the warmth of the fire,
motivated to help, and made it to the door just as Balsa slipped
inside and shut it behind her, panting.
“You climbed all the way up here in
a blizzard?” Tanda asked, alarmed.
“It’s not a blizzard. Just a little
blowing snow, is all.” Balsa stomped snow off her boots. Everything
she owned was wet through, including her spear and coat. She
stripped her coat off, shivering, and hung it up to dry.
The scent of wild mushroom stew
reached Balsa’s nostrils. She inhaled deeply, savoring the warmth in
the air along with the smell of food. There were other familiar
scents in the hut that soothed her: drying herbs, the sweet smoke
from the firewood, the sharp cold of a gust of wind. This was what
home smelled like.
“I was sure you’d spend the winter
in Rota,” Tanda said.
“I might have if the weather hadn’t
cooperated. But the first snow hadn’t fallen yet when I crossed the
border. I made good time.”
Balsa extended her cold-red hands
over the fire set in the floor. Torogai was away from the hut; it
was her custom to visit a hot spring at the end of autumn until the
worst of the winter cold abated, since the hot water helped her
aging joints. Tanda usually spent most winters alone, treating the
injuries of the hunters in the mountains who chased after boar and
other game. Most often, the hunters paid him in meat.
“The last hunter I treated was
lucky. I got a whole boar out of him. We have plenty to eat tonight,
so help yourself.”
Tanda ladled some of the stew
bubbling over the fire into a bowl and passed it to Balsa. There was
seasoned boar meat in it, so soft and juicy that it melted in her
mouth. The fattiness of the meat brought out more flavor in the wild
mushrooms. The stew was hot enough to warm her all the way through
in moments.
Tanda ladled out his own bowl of
stew, then picked it up and took a seat next to Balsa. “I was
cleaning the inside of the roof a few days ago and missing you. When
I climbed down and was looking for a broom, I found this.” He
reached out and rolled a stick across the floor.
Balsa recognized it: the stick was
one of the first practice spears that Jiguro had made for her. There
was no spearhead and it was quite thin, but it was almost as tall as
her normal spear. She remembered a time when she’d thought it was
the heaviest thing in the whole world.
The surface of the practice spear
was nicked and gouged in many places. Jiguro had never allowed her
or Tanda to smooth them out. Jiguro called them the spear’s wounds,
and seemed to think that it was important for the spear to keep
them.
Balsa reached out to touch the
practice spear with her greasy hands, forgetting to wipe them until
she noticed the shiny impressions that her fingertips left on the
wood. “This was a good weapon,” Balsa said. “It still is.”
Balsa thought about her early life
with Jiguro--fleeing Kanbal, getting her first practice spear,
getting this practice spear. When she was ten, Jiguro had given her the spear
she carried now, with a real point, and that was when she’d really
started learning to defend herself. To defend others.
“I haven’t thought about this
practice spear in so long,” Balsa muttered. “How many years has it
been? I guess it doesn’t matter.”
Tanda raised an eyebrow.
Balsa smiled at him. “Don’t mind
me; I’m just in a mood. Thinking about how long it’s been since
Jiguro died.”
Tanda nodded sadly. “I’m not sure
measuring an event like that in terms of time is right. We should
measure in moments, one flowing into the other. That way, Jiguro is
still alive, in a way. He shared so many moments with you, and as
long as you remember, you’ll have them.”
Moments. Suddenly, Balsa remembered the Sadan Taram walking through a
golden field in their bright clothes, instruments in hand.
“I was thinking,” Balsa said,
setting her practice spear aside, “that we should go to Rota next
year, when the snow melts.”
“Go to Rota again so soon?
Why?”
“There’s going to be a festival to
the goddess Hanma in Rakul Province.”
“What’s the festival about?”
“You’d like it. Men and women from
different clans meet and mingle together during the day. If they
like one another, they can decide to get married at night. Romantic,
isn’t it?”
Tanda didn’t seem too enthused
about the idea. Balsa allowed herself a moment to enjoy his
confusion. She hadn’t seen that face in so long. Then, finally, she
told Tanda about her latest journey with the Sadan Taram.
Balsa was grateful to be inside,
comfortable and warm with Tanda: the story she had to tell was a
long one. As she spoke, the love song Jiguro had sung echoed in the
back of her mind, as if carried by the winter wind.
The cold wind blows
over the Yusa Mountains
under the moon.
I go to the peak,
spear in hand,
step by step.
The world is hidden in white,
swept away by an avalanche.
I go to the peak,
spear in hand,
step by step,
with the season's last flower
held over my heart.
THE END
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