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.
No comments:
Post a Comment