THE SKY HAS CLEARED and the early stars have come out when I reach our temple, which sits high on four thick stone legs, like table legs. Hannu created the temple to be open to the air at its base, as if she knew she’d someday have a son who feared tight places. The temple stairs twist around the eastern stone leg and enter the temple at the first story. I begin to climb. Ursag’s library takes up the entire fifth story.
I’m halfway to the door at the top of the stairs when Puru appears three steps above me.
He may know what needs to be done better than Ursag. I say, “Kezi—”
“I . . . will . . . go . . . to her.”
“Why? Wait!” The sight of him will frighten her. But Puru has vanished. Although I jump on my swift wind, I can never catch up, because Puru’s travel is instantaneous. As I skim off Enshi Rock, I look down to see her. There she is, on the stream bank, still alone. Puru must have gone somewhere else first. Perhaps I can reach her before he does.
My swift wind carries me into a thundercloud, as it has many times. I’ll be beyond the cloud in a moment. But the cloud changes into a swarm of bees. How could it?
Although I flail my arms, the bees stay with me, buzzing and stinging. I’ve been stung before, but not like this. I close my eyes to protect my eyeballs. My wind carries the bees with me. I summon my whisking wind, but it can’t whisk them free.
My skin burns, tightens, presses in on me. I am as squeezed and swollen as a blister. I scream. My howling wind joins in, the yowl streaming behind me but not drowning out the furious bees.
The buzzing and stinging stop. I squint down at myself between bloated eyelids. My throat is raw from screaming. The bees are growing, flattening, changing—
Into spiders! Hundreds of spiders! I swipe at them, but they cling. My whisking wind fails again. The spiders are spinning thick webs across me. My voice is silenced as threads cross my mouth.
In my terror, I lose command of my swift wind. I’m spiraling I don’t know where.