Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [221]
“Luckily, one only grazed me,” Meena added.
“Anyway, when we regained consciousness, you were gone. Oh, Meena cried something fierce,” Kee Keema said, chuckling.
“Don’t exaggerate,” Meena snapped.
“Hrm? It’s the truth.”
“I was just worried.”
“It’s okay, I was worried too,” Wataru said with a smile.
“We ended up getting lost in the sula woods. I think it was on account of the trees, but no matter how far we walked, we always seemed to end up in the same place. And weirder still, whenever we caught a glimpse of the hospital we’d try to make for it but couldn’t seem to get any closer.”
“That forest was bad news,” said Meena, frowning. “I got so dizzy, I was seeing two Kee Keemas, and believe me, one is enough!” Meena chuckled, but her mirth didn’t last long. “And there was that sound, like singing…”
“I remember looking at Meena and seeing her face go all twisty, like this!” Kee Keema said, taking his hands and squashing his face like a pancake. Wataru laughed out loud, but inside, he shivered, remembering what the man who fired arrows on them had said.
—Toss the other two. They’ll never be able to survive the woods.
“We were in a bit of a fix, no two ways about it. If we’d stayed out there, that sula forest would have gotten the better of us both. I figure we would have walked ourselves to death.”
Yet while they walked, stumbling through the magic woods, a great cyclone had suddenly appeared, and changed their situation considerably.
“That cyclone swept up the entire forest down to the last tree. I thought it was heaven come to punish that evil place. I didn’t care to get blown away with those trees, though, so I dug us a hole and we hid.” Kee Keema flourished his long-clawed hands with pride. “Before we knew it, the trees were all bent over or gone entirely, the leaves were scattered, and the mist was gone from the starry sky. With all the trees cleared out, we could see the hospital quite clearly—except it didn’t look anything like it looked before. Where that big block of a building had stood was only an old ruin.”
The cyclone, of course, had been Mitsuru’s work. The illusion of the hospital had been the work of the cultists.
“Meena and I rushed to the hospital, but everything was a wreck, and there were wounded folk everywhere. When they saw us, some of them tried to run—like they were scared something fierce. I caught one of them, though, a fellow wearing an awfully fine-looking robe.”
“You should’ve seen it,” said Meena, smiling, “Kee Keema snatched him up by his collar, like a baby kitkin!”
She continued: “‘Who are you?’ he asked the man. ‘Were you the ones who fired poison arrows on us? Where did you take that boy?’”
The man had told him everything, which is how they learned Wataru had been inside the hospital. They also learned that the cultists there were radical followers of the Old God.
“When I asked him what had happened to the boy, he told me that the cyclone had picked you up and tossed you into the air—and as far as he knew, you’d never come back down.”
The two had gone back to Sakawa to enlist the aid of the other waterkin in their search for Wataru. “I wasn’t sure how we’d find you,” said Kee Keema, “but I knew you’d turn up eventually. After all, you’re a Traveler under the protection of the Goddess herself. I figured no wind storm would do you in that easy.”
“Your friend must be quite the sorcerer, Wataru,” Meena said, her tail twitching. “To conjure a cyclone like that—that’s wind magic of the highest degree. None but the greatest of mages can wield such power.”
“What can I tell you? He’s a Traveler,” Kee Keema said proudly. “Strength and courage just like our boy here.” Wataru smiled, but the memory of a particular incident flashed across his mind, and his smile froze.
He hadn’t told them what happened in the Swamp of Grief. How was he supposed to tell them? I killed someone. No, I killed two people. And the stone-baby pointed at me and called me a killer without blood or tears,