The Wings of Dreams

days: the undulating land shimmering beneath the sun, parched patchworks of white rock and earth interrupted by great expanses of shrubbery and grasslands. Far in the distance she could make out the edge of a forest.
    She scanned her surroundings and didn’t recognize a thing. Not a human being. Not Kiwa’s abandoned wagon.
    What to do? Shushou thought as she clambered atop the big boulder. The apex formed a flat shelf of rock perched not very high above the savanna. From that vantage point, the wrecked wagon was nowhere in sight.
    The youma had somehow snagged her with its claws and carried her off to who knows where. One sleeve of her kimono jacket was torn all the way up to the shoulder. So the youma must have caught her by the sleeve and taken her along for the ride until it ripped free.
    She fell into the pit and tumbled down into the gap between the boulders and the earth. That was the only thing that made sense.
    “What a stroke of good luck—for the time being, anyway.”
    That stroke of good luck surely saved her, except that right now she had no idea where she was. Or where the rest of the Shouzan was—or rather, the servants left behind by those going on the Shouzan. Not to mention that she didn’t have any food or water. More reasons not to be so upbeat about the situation.
    She tore a strip of fabric from the ripped sleeve and tied it to the bush. With the pitted boulder so marked, she decided to do a little scouting around.
    “I couldn’t have gotten so lucky if that youma was still alive. It definitely must be dead.”
    She was additionally fortunate that every other youma so feared the monkey demon they’d think twice about wandering about these parts. She could put worries about youma out of her mind for now.
    Her shadow stretched out on the ground. She didn’t feel like she’d slept that long but evening must be approaching. After memorizing the shape of the boulder, she walked straight away from it. She still couldn’t see the wagon.
    Any further and the boulder would sink out of sight beneath a knoll. She kept going until it was barely visible and using that distance as her radius, traced a wide circle around it. The wagon remained out of view. She tried calling out and craning her ears for a response. There was no answer, nothing like a human voice.
    “I might be in more trouble than I thought.” She should go back to the road, if she had the foggiest idea where the road was. “Everybody always says when you get lost, you should stay right where you are.”
    The problem was whether anybody was searching for her in the first place. She’d been carried off by the youma. It’d be logical for them to conclude that she was dead, give up, and keep going. That’s what they’d been doing so far. Anybody who went missing was considered long gone by the time anybody noticed. Sticking around waiting for them to show up was the dumbest thing they could do.
    “I guess the only thing I can do is go as far as I can.”
    She examined the arm exposed by the torn sleeve. Though it hurt, she wasn’t bleeding anywhere. The flesh wasn’t torn. More evidence that the youma’s claws had snagged only the fabric of her kimono. The beast carried her for miles like that. It was hard to believe.
    If she could only get back on the road again she could surely catch up with the rest of the caravan.
    “There’s nothing left for me to do but try.”
    She nodded to herself. After making her way back to the big boulder, she piled up some rocks, stripped a branch from a nearby bush, and planted it in the rocks like a flag.
    “I should be able to keep this boulder in sight.”
    As long as she didn’t lose sight of it, the cavern would never be out of her grasp. The bottom of the cave was damp enough that if she dug down, she might hit water.
    Based on the position of the sun and the shape of the land, she started off in the direction that struck her vaguely as the most likely to yield results, counting her steps as she walked. With the boulder still in view, she heaped some rocks into another mound.
    She walked further, gathered more stones and built another mound. By leaving these markers along the way, she could make her way back to the boulder. The shadows grew longer. The sun was setting. She built her fourth mound, her fifth, and walked as far as she could keeping the last one in sight—
    And gave up. She must be headed in the wrong direction.
    She trudged back to the boulder. This time she headed