The Name of the Wind

“I think it’s nice,” my mother said, walking around from the back of the wagon. “Gives us the chance for something hot,” she gave my father a significant look, “to eat. It gets frustrating making do with whatever you can grab at the end of the day A body wants more.”

My father’s mood seemed to temper considerably. “There is that,” he said.

“Sweet?” my mother called to me. “Do you think you could find me some wild sage?”

“I don’t know if it grows around here,” I said with the proper amount of uncertainty in my voice.

“No harm in looking,” she said sensibly. She looked at my father from the corner of her eye. “If you can find enough, bring back an armload. We’ll dry it for later.”

Typically, whether or not I found what I was looking for didn’t matter very much.

It was my habit to wander away from the troupe in the evenings. I usually had some sort of errand to run while my parents set up for dinner. But it was just an excuse for us to get away from each other. Privacy is hard to come by on the road, and they needed it as much as I did. So if it took me an hour to gather an armload of firewood they didn’t mind. And if they hadn’t started dinner by the time I came back, well, that was only fair, wasn’t it?

I hope they spent those last few hours well. I hope they didn’t waste them on mindless tasks: kindling the evening fire and cutting vegetables for dinner. I hope they sang together, as they so often did. I hope they retired to our wagon and spent time in each other’s arms. I hope they lay near each other afterward and spoke softly of small things. I hope they were together, busy with loving each other, until the end came.

It is a small hope, and pointless really. They are just as dead either way.

Still, I hope.

Let us pass over the time I spent alone in the woods that evening, playing games that children invent to amuse themselves. The last carefree hours of my life. The last moments of my childhood.

Let us pass over my return to the camp just as the sun was beginning to set. The sight of bodies strewn about like broken dolls. The smell of blood and burning hair. How I wandered aimlessly about, too disoriented for proper panic, numb with shock and dread.

I would pass over the whole of that evening, in fact. I would spare you the burden of any of it if one piece were not necessary to the story. It is vital. It is the hinge upon which the story pivots like an opening door. In some ways, this is where the story begins. So let’s have done with it.

Scattered patches of smoke hung in the still evening air. It was quiet, as if everyone in the troupe was listening for something. As if they were all holding their breath. An idle wind tussled the leaves in the trees and wafted a patch of smoke like a low cloud toward me. I stepped out of the forest and through the smoke, heading into the camp.

I left the cloud of smoke and rubbed some of the sting from my eyes. As I looked around I saw Trip’s tent lying half collapsed and smoldering in his fire. The treated canvas burned fitfully, and the acrid grey smoke hung close to the ground in the quiet evening air.

I saw Teren’s body lying by his wagon, his sword broken in his hand. The green and grey he normally wore was wet and red with blood. One of his legs was twisted unnaturally and the splintered bone showing through the skin was very, very white.

I stood, unable to look away from Teren, the grey shirt, the red blood, the white bone. I stared as if it were a diagram in a book I was trying to understand. My body grew numb. I felt as if I was trying to think through syrup.

Some small rational part of me realized I was in deep shock. It repeated the fact to me again and again. I used all Ben’s training to ignore it. I did not want to think about what I saw. I did not want to know what had happened here. I did not want to know what any of this meant.

After I don’t know how long, a wisp of smoke broke my line of vision. I sat down next to the nearest fire in a daze. It was Shandi’s fire, and a small pot hung simmering, boiling potatoes, strangely familiar among the chaos.

I focused on the kettle. Something normal. I used a stick to poke at the contents and saw that they were finished cooking. Normal. I lifted the kettle from the fire and set it on the ground next to Shandi’s body. Her clothes hung in tatters about her. I tried to brush her hair away from her face and my hand came back sticky with blood. The firelight reflected in her flat, empty eyes.

I stood and looked about aimlessly. Trip’s tent was entirely aflame by now, and Shandi’s wagon was standing with one wheel in Marion’s campfire. Аll the flames were tinged with blue, making the scene dreamlike and surreal.