Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [194]
“Huh?”
“I’m only standing up here because I didn’t want to get too close to the sula trees and their magic—it’s too thick, and troublesome to fight against. But with so many people on our side now…”
Wataru took a step toward the building. “What are you talking about? What are you going to do?”
“It takes focused willpower to break a magical barrier. I need to gather enough magic to cut down the forest and scatter every leaf to the four winds.”
“Mitsuru…”
“Sorry,” Mitsuru said with a grin, glancing at Wataru. “I’ve no idea where we will be blown to. That’s up to the wind. Curl up and cover your head as best you can. I’ll pray that you don’t get hurt too much.”
“What are you talking about?!”
“This.”
Mitsuru spread his arms and looked up toward the sky. Then he began to chant in a loud and clear voice:
“Great spirit of the winds, with your power filling all the heavens, I who walk the paths of magic summon you. In your benevolence, sweep away all the magic that binds us, send it to the very depths of the chaotic abyss. Aero lar stenigel…”
The gem on the end of Mitsuru’s staff shone brightly. A part of the night sky suddenly became brighter. The clouds split.
Then the wind came.
He’s calling the wind down from above the clouds.
That was the last coherent thought that passed through Wataru’s mind. The next instant, he was tossed like a rag doll to the ground. Finding nothing to grab on to, he hugged his knees and rolled until he bumped into the hospital building. There, he latched on to a standing column, and somehow managed to regain his feet.
He could barely comprehend what he saw next.
From out of the blackness of night, a great cyclone, shimmering with a faint silvery light, whirled into view. Its movement was slow and curving, almost graceful as it whipped from side to side.
It was nearing the ground. One by one, the vortex sucked up the believers. Wataru could see them flailing, and he knew they must be crying, shouting, and praying, but the roar of the winds swallowed them all. He also saw the guillotine snap in two and disappear into the center of the cyclone. The axeman and his axe were also sucked up into the swirling torrent—disappearing forever.
Wataru saw something like a discarded washcloth whipping through the sky. From its folds a hand emerged, then a foot. Finally, he saw a head. It was the robed man, his mouth caught in a soundless scream.
Wataru felt the column shift in his grip. It suddenly became nothing more than a pile of dried leaves. Dismantled by the wind, they scattered in all directions.
And then Wataru too was pulled up into the air.
Chapter 21
The Swamp of Grief
Wataru shot across the sky, wrapped in winds, flying so high it made his head spin.
He saw stars through a gap in the clouds below. But they were not stars; they were the lights of various towns. It was strangely quiet here in the eye of the cyclone. A constant, gentle updraft cradled him like a baby in its mother’s arms, ensuring he would not fall.
He descended gradually, at last breaking through the clouds. He had no way of knowing how far the storm had carried him—everything below was shrouded in darkness. He could see no signs of where he might be—no roofs of houses, or pastures, or mountain ridges. It seemed to him as though it wasn’t the cyclone that was descending, but rather that he was slowly moving toward the bottom of the funnel. It was like he was going down an elevator in the sky.
He touched ground. Released from the cyclone’s embrace, his right calf suddenly throbbed with pain, and he fell to the ground. The soil beneath him was wet, sodden, like a sea of mud.
He looked back around to see the silvery tail of the cyclone disappearing up through the clouds. The sky was still dark, and studded with stars.
Mitsuru had warned him that the cyclone wasn’t quite under his control. But the storm, ultimately, had been quite kind. Wherever he was now, it was certainly better than where he had been moments before. When he