Where the Wind Takes Us
Summers were short and hot in Rakul Province, and the winters were long and cold. The soil was rocky and not good for farming crops. The wheat fields were all comprised of hardy, wild grains that took root in the dry soil. Most farmers made a living by ranching sheep and long-furred cows called shiku.
Spring had returned to Nayugu, marking the end of the war, and while Rakul Province was among the poorest in Rota, Nayug’s spring was having some positive effects. Summer had been longer for the past few years, and cattle were more fertile. It wasn’t enough to ease the people’s burden completely, but it did help a little. Without the added boost from Nayugu’s spring, it was likely that the food shortages caused by the war with Talsh would have led to mass starvation in the province.
Balsa walked through the golden fields with the Sadan Taram. The Sadan Taram never rode horses, so their progress had been relatively slow. There was no convincing them to take on horses, however. For the Sadan Taram, the journey wasn’t worth the effort unless they could feel the earth beneath their feet.
Kii was walking out front. Her colorful clothes fluttered in the gentle wind. The bells sewn to her sash jingled with every step. Sansa walked behind her, and Balsa walked behind them both, positioning herself to protect all of her charges.
The leader, Eona, never stayed in one place for long. Sometimes she walked out front, sometimes behind, and sometimes in the middle of the group, as the whim took her. She was restless like a child, and at times it was hard to believe that she was nineteen. She didn’t talk as much as the others. Sometimes Balsa caught her eye and she smiled, but they rarely had any reason to speak to each other.
Kii and Sansa liked to pass the time by talking and singing. Balsa noticed that they walked much faster that way than when they were silent.
As they all walked through the tall grass together, Eona put herself at Balsa’s side and asked tentatively, “I’ve noticed that you practice with your spear every morning. Do you ever take a rest day?”
“Why would I? Would resting make me stronger?”
Eona smiled. “Certainly you’re strong enough by now.”
“I’m the one who decides that,” Balsa said. “Maintaining strength, suppleness and form is dependent on daily practice. I’ve seen you playing that water harp you’ve got every day, and I’ve never seen you skip a day, either.”
“I practice my harp every day, but I never practice with the true water harp. That’s far too precious. I thought you knew.” Eona shifted her instrument case. It mussed her shirt a little, so she paused to straighten her collar, then showed Balsa a glimpse of richly embroidered fabric that rested beneath her shirt. A slight bulge over her stomach was wrapped up in that cloth.
“The real water harp is here,” Eona said. “I carry it with me always, to protect it.”
Balsa’s eyes widened from surprise. “It’s so tiny. I didn’t expect that.”
“The instrument doesn’t have to be large,” Eona said. “It houses a wind spirit. If it looked like any ordinary harp, it would be in danger from theft or breakage, like you saw in the market. Keeping it small is another way to protect it.” She looked up at Balsa. “I haven’t played it because I still consider it to be my mother’s. I’ve watched her play it before, and she always said we’d travel together someday.”
“I take it that you can’t just play it like a normal instrument,” Balsa said thoughtfully. “Your people are known for laying restless spirits to rest.”
Eona nodded. “The water harp can be played on Kemiru Hill, the Valley of the Forest King, and at Yasu Ratol ceremonies where we lead spirits to their rest. Otherwise, it cannot be played.”
“I suppose I can guess where we’re going, then,” Balsa said. The Valley of the Forest King was in Rakul Province.
Eona nodded again, but she appeared somewhat displeased.
Balsa remembered Sari conducting a ceremony for the dead when she was sixteen.
In this ceremony, we cleanse these spirits of the suffering, pain and rage they experienced in life. There is no other way to soothe their all-consuming emotions. Balsa remembered Sari’s explanation of the Yasu Radol ceremony with a little frown. At the time, Balsa had understood the spirits well. She still did. There were some experiences she would never forget, and she wouldn’t be surprised if she took those memories to her grave.
“I’d like to see you play sometime,” Balsa said to Eona.
Eona beamed in response and nodded.
Balsa and the Sadan Taram kept walking through the grass. The road started gaining more definition again. Instead of bare dirt, crushed stone ground under Balsa’s boots. A little further on, they came to a large cairn made of mossy stones all piled together.
Suddenly, Kii stopped still and tapped her drum. “Rashal!” she whispered to the others. Rashal were wind spirits. “Do you see them? They are heroes of the Tahsa people—Toran, Yagal, and Nora. They’re just there, mounted on their horses.” She pointed to the sky.
Eona and the other Sadan Taram moved in between the large stone mounds dotting the grassy plain. Eona jumped for the one that Kii had called Toran, somersaulting through the air and laughing. Then she, Kii and Sansa started singing together.
“Toran, Yagal, Nora! Return your long-lost memories to the earth, and find your place in the heavens!”
The song was brief, but it echoed on the plain. The grass moved violently as if it were being disturbed by an animal, but within a few moments, the grass quieted. The place around the cairns were deserted. People had raised them up to commemorate the dead, but they were considered haunted now, and most people avoided them. This field was a battlefield once, and the Sadan Taram could still sense the many lives that had lost their lives violently here. The people of Rakul Province had largely forgotten the battle, but still felt a terrifying aura radiating from the cairns.
Long ago, when Rota was still called Rotarbal, the shape of the land had been different and many different clans had lived here. It was widely believed that the very first Rotan clans came over the mountains from Kanbal in the north.
Even longer ago—even before the age of Sada Talhamaya, a woman possessed by a bloodthirsty and tyrannical god that united the Tal people and Rota’s clans—the Tahsa people lived in Rakul Province, herding sheep and cows and growing grain. They lived peacefully with their neighbors and lived off the land, mostly keeping to themselves. There was no intermarriage between the Tahsa and the fledgling Rotan clans at all until one year when the two peoples decided to hold a shared festival. The festival was held in honor of Hanma, a star goddess.
Hanma was said to be the bride of the God of the Heavens. From spring until fall, she lived on the earth, blessing it with her kindness and warmth so that the plants would grow. But in winter, when demons and monsters attacked the land, she returned to her husband in the sky for protection, only returning when the danger was past.
The constellations in the sky changed in winter. One of these constellations formed of long straight lines of stars moved closer and closer as the end of the year drew near, so the Tahsa people called it Hanma’s Ladder. At the end of harvest season, when the Hanma’s Ladder was clearly visible, it was the Tahsa people’s custom to hold a festival in Hanma’s honor to thank her for her bounty.
To the Rotans, this was a new custom, but a welcome one. It put them on better terms with the Tahsa people. On the night of Hanma’s Festival, men and women from the Rotan clans and the Tahsa people were permitted to meet, fall in love and marry.
It’s hard to fall in love in a day, even for the young. But a few marriages happened this way. Before long, people started noticing that unions between a Rotan and a Tahsa person often resulted in children with great talent for music or dancing.
Children aren’t known for respecting the boundaries of their parents, especially when they are young. Their parents’ peoples remained separate, but the children traveled between them, sharing their musical gifts with both their Rotan families and their Tahsa families. Over time, these children and their offspring founded their own tribe, the Tol Asa, which formed the basis for the Sadan Taram people.
The great Rotan general Danah changed relations between the Tahsa people and the Rotan clans forever. Danah managed to unite seven Rotan clans under his banner; he was known as a military genius and was particularly skilled at leading cavalry forces. As he brought more and more Rotan clans under his banner, Danah started being called a king. Some clans accepted this new title, while others resisted it.
The Tahsa people refused to consider Danah a king and were not subject to his rule. An all-out war between Danah and the Tahsa people would be unprofitable for both sides, so Danah launched a guerilla campaign, sending soldiers in small groups to harry and weaken the Tahsa people.
The war that followed was long and drawn-out. The Tahsa people were few in number compared to Danah’s forces, but their heroes were valiant. Long years passed before the last Tahsa champion suffered defeat. When the war was all but lost, Sada Talhamaya was born: a young woman who unwittingly accepted the power of an insane god. Sada Talhamaya completed Danah’s work, wiping out most of the Tahsa people and uniting the Rotan clans. In this way, Sada Talhamaya founded the nation state of Rotarbal.
Danah’s grandson Roka survived Sada Talhamaya’s purge and met with the leaders of the Tahsa people to propose peace so that they could work against their common enemy. Marriage between the Tahsa people and Rotans were still rare, so Danah proposed equal terms in society and marriage. Pure-blooded Rotans that married the Tahsa would be given an additional rank of honor in their stratified society, and their Tahsa spouse would be conferred the same rank. Pure-blooded Rotans were called Kasal Ah Rota, and the new rank was called Yugi Ah Rota. To Roka, the most important thing was to unite against the threat that Sada Talhamaya presented to both the Tahsa people and the Rotan clans.
The Tahsa people were few and tired of war, blood and mud. They accepted the proposal of an alliance in the hope that it would reduce the number of deaths on their side. But that was not to be. Sada Talhamaya was possessed by an angry, bloodthirsty god that killed everyone who got in her way. For a hundred years, the Tahsa and the Rotan clans clung to life, staying in hiding to avoid being purged in Sada Talhamaya’s reign of terror.
When Sada Talhamaya grew old and weakened, the young Rotan lord Kiran killed her and took her place as the ruler of Rotarbal. Unlike Danah, Kiran unified the Rotan clans using diplomacy instead of military might or threats, and by the end of his reign, he was considered a king, and his nation was renamed Rota.
Kiran’s reign wasn’t completely peaceful. Unrest among the Tahsa people, the Tal, and some lesser clans resulted in minor civil wars that worsened under Kiran’s successor. The pure-blooded Rotan supremacists seized power and persecuted all the other clans and peoples living in Rota. The terms of Roka’s ancient alliance with the Tahsa people were suppressed and forgotten. The Tal people fled to their forests and the Tahsa people lived in self-imposed exile in the north, so eventually, the supremacists had no one left to fight, and the fires of war died to ashes.
Technically, the Tahsa were still considered an independent people within Rota, but their leaders had taken an oath to the King of Rota. Not an oath of service, but an oath that they would never raise arms against him or the Rotan clans.
It took hundreds of years, but the Tahsa people were gradually assimilated into the other Rotan clans. Now, there were no pure-blooded Tahsa people left.
During the time of Rotarbal, when the Rotan clans and the Tahsa people were still at war, the Tol Asa people found it impossible to pick a side. They were descended from both and valued both. They could not possibly support any war that tore their families apart.
Tol Asa children were not in a position to be bystanders. Most of them were raised by their mother’s family, so they chose to side with their caregivers over their father’s family if their parents weren’t both from the Tol Asa tribe. The Tol Asa tribe shrank as mixed-race children were snatched up by their Tahsa or Rotan mothers.
In the end, what remained of the Tol Asa tribe retreated to a lonely settlement on the banks of a large freshwater lake. As the Rotans and the Tahsa people continued to kill one another, the Tol Asa sang songs of grief, becoming wanderers. They traveled the world, singing their dirges in times of war and peace, never ceasing. They did this to remind people of the horrors of war, and to purify lands tainted by battles and endless death. The restless spirits of the dead roamed battlefields long after their time, and only the Sadan Taram could give those spirits some measure of peace. The Sadan Taram believed that these restless spirits, when put to rest, transformed into clouds and wind, becoming the guardian spirits of their people.
By identifying spirits lost to warfare, the Sadan Taram gained some part of their memories, including their names. They preserved this information carefully so that it wouldn’t be forgotten. When a cairn like the one Balsa, Sansa, Kii and Eona were facing was completely covered in moss from the top to the base, the Sadan Taram considered the spirit within to be at peace. The song they’d just sung was meant to hasten that process, so that the cairn could return to the earth. Only when that happened would the land be blessed.
Once the Sadan Taram purified a spirit and gained it as a guardian, it traveled with them, just like the wind and clouds, speaking through their songs and tinkling bells. They weren’t limited to traveling in Rota; when the Sadan Taram were more numerous, they’d made several excursions to foreign nations as well. There was a battlefield right over the Rota Mountains in New Yogo where many Tahsa people had died. The battlefield was considered unlucky by the people who lived nearby, even though they didn’t know why. The borders of nations had shifted over the centuries, and old wars were long forgotten. The Sadan Taram were called to battlefields where their ancestors had died, no matter where those battlefields were.
The New Yogoese saw the Sadan Taram as nothing but simple entertainers. Most Rotans thought of them that way, too. Though the Sadan Taram were profoundly touched by memories of war, they were not called by spirits of those who were not their ancestors. When the Sadan Taram first started making their journeys in the aftermath of terrible wars, they were welcomed by all as mourners for the dead who sang songs in their memory. But after enough time passed and the wars were forgotten, people started seeing the Sadan Taram as more of a nuisance, or as singers who fixated on stale old stories.
Because of their association with death, the Sadan Taram were sometimes asked to hold funerals for the recently deceased. Sometimes they were called on to dance and sing to celebrate the birth of a child in the hopes that the celebration would protect the child from misfortune.
The Sadan Taram preserved the memory of the Tahsa people as that people started to fade. Now that they were almost entirely gone, the Sadan Taram were among the only remaining representatives of that race. That legacy carried a certain sense of pride with it, along with pain and sorrow.
Every half a year or so, the Sadan Taram would send out a small group to visit old battlefields and check on the spirts in their care. It would take a long time to visit every single battlefield, so different groups were assigned to distinct routes to the east and west of their small mountain village. There was only one battlefield that the Sadan Taram visited every single year without fail.
That battlefield was in Rakul Province and was marked by the grave of an ancient Tahsa people lord that had once ruled the Aru domain. His grave was in the Valley of the Forest King. There was a legend among the Sadan Taram that the Tahsa people lord’s spirit had granted them the water harp. As thanks, the Sadan Taram visited the Valley of the Forest King every year, performing a ceremony to help ease the passing of the Tahsa lord’s spirit. Eventually, it would transform into a guardian spirit for their people.
As Balsa had guessed, Eona and the other Sadan Taram were headed for the Valley of the Forest King. The sun moved across the sky as they traveled. Around sunset, Balsa found a small cave for them to shelter in for the night.
“They day after tomorrow, we’ll be able to take hot baths and sleep under clean, warm blankets,” Sansa said as the unpacked their supplies. “Kii’s bedroll isn’t as thick as the rest of ours… what do you think, Kii? Should we run so that we get there faster? Are you still looking for a bedwarmer?”
Kii grinned, then shrugged at Sansa’s gentle teasing. The Sadan Taram didn't marry. They took lovers on occasion, and any children that were born were raised by their community. Kii had taken a lover at a nearby village, though she had no children yet.
"I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants to run. Isn't that right?" Kii said to Eona with a slight smile.
Eona blushed. She, too, had a lover in a different village. Sansa and Kii kept teasing her about him as they prepared dinner inside the cave. They dug a small pit and lined it with stones so the fire wouldn't spread out. Setting a fire among the stones took awhile, but by the time the sun was down, the fire was crackling merrily.
Balsa didn't help make dinner. She sat on a stone, watching the mouth of the cave with her spear clasped firmly in hand. There was a bow at her feet, and arrows sitting next to her on the stone so that they wouldn't get wet on the cave floor. Wet arrows couldn't be used as fire arrows. She listened to the Sadan Taram's idle chatter half-heartedly, focusing most of her attention on looking for wolf tracks outside the cave. She hadn’t seen any signs of a wolf population in the area during the day, but it never hurt to be too cautious.
When she’d traveled with Jiguro in the past, bandits were always a greater threat than wolves to the caravans that they guarded. However, packs of wolves were more common in the forests of northern Rota. She wasn’t as familiar with this area as she was the more common trade routes, so she was trying to be alert to what might be unfamiliar dangers. She hadn’t made a wolf trap in ages. As she searched the ground for signs of disturbance, she recalled the words of the old Rotan trapper who’d taught her how to make them.
“When a cowherd reaches the age of ten or so, he starts sharing wolf-watching shifts with the others. Ah, I’ll never forget it--those cold winter nights spent under the blanket in the freezing winter wind, waiting for the wolves to come.” The old trapper had a kindly voice and a twangy accent. “I remember sharing the duty with my brother and cousins. The sheep always panicked when they came in close in the darkness. That was how we knew they were there. It was impossible to see them until they were right up on us.
“A wolf’s eyes in the dark shine like fire. Their breath steams into mist. The sheep scream… and it was so cold…”
The memory of the trapper’s story was unusually vivid. She didn’t know why. She’d killed actual wolves before, but the trapper’s story of facing down wolves as a child was more immediate to her. She could remember every word he’d said.
After the fire was built, the Sadan Taram hung a large metal pot over it, mixing together greens they’d gathered along with dried beans, meat, and spices. Balsa’s mouth watered.
Kii and Eona added flour to the stew to thicken it, then piled the food onto wooden plates. It was a simple meal made of what they could gather and carry, but simplicity wasn’t bad. Because they were usually traveling, the Sadan Taram boasted an impressive knowledge of edible plants in Rota. Balsa set aside her spear and ate. The stars shone like liquid silver in the night sky.
After they ate, Kii buried the fire and handed around sakko, a small fruit around the size of a walnut, for dessert. Sansa made a sweet-smelling tea, and the women sat around the fire pit, stirring the ashes and speaking of old times. Kii stroked the leather top of her drum as if it were the cheek of a beloved child. When she finished eating, she measured out a beat and tapped the drum lightly, keeping time with her foot. Ta-rah-rah-rah. Ta-rah-rah-rah.
Kii hummed a tune, then began to sing.
’Love me,’ whispered the little sparrow.
‘May your love lift me, like the wind.’
The sparrow chirps in my ear, too loud,
desiring love.
Balsa listened, but not very attentively. She got a sudden sick sensation in her gut and realized that she could smell blood. When she’d first met these women, she had been covered in blood: her hair, her skin, her clothes. The wound in her right thigh hurt whenever she took a step.
Balsa wasn’t wounded now, but she was remembering the aftermath of the terrible battle she suffered with Jiguro. She’d taken an arrow in her thigh, and her recovery had been long and painful. She’d never forgotten the pain. She’d been covered in blood then, too, and Jiguro had used hide glue to force the wound closed. That glue smelled absolutely terrible.
All at once, Balsa’s old memories overtook her in a wave.
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