Those two were the keys.
Lawrence looked up.
Next to the waterfall, like a shadow of the forest, he saw Holo’s great form. She hesitated at the unexpected developments below.
Their eyes met; Lawrence nodded.
Holo leapt up atop the waterfall.
And howled.
The very air shook, the branches of the trees swayed, the surface of the water rippled.
Fran had told the landlord to see for himself what the truth was.
But the sight of Holo at the top of the falls, teeth bared as she bore up the moon and howled a long, long howl, was a sight both divinely awesome and monstrously terrifying.
Even Fran was rendered speechless.
Would the outcome be good or ill? Holo herself had been dubious and unwilling to emerge. But Lawrence had faith and convinced her that things would go well.
And here was the evidence. Her howl echoed across the landscape like a vast bell struck by a mallet.
Fran stiffened, and in the midst of all that, she murmured something.
“…It’s coming.”
Just as the howl subsided—
All Lawrence could hear were the breaths taken by the men, each frozen in place by Holo’s gaze as she looked down imperiously at them all.
And then it reached their ears—the low, low rumble. The distant sound of an advancing army. The sound of heaven’s footsteps.
Most lost their nerve and began to look around desperately.
The sound soon subsided.
And then nothing happened, and there was silence.
Someone pointed up at the waterfall. “H-hey, the monster, it’s gone!”
“Did we really see anything…?” another murmured.
Lawrence knew they had, and Holo had not hidden herself to try to make them think otherwise. She had just perfectly guessed what Lawrence and Fran would do.
One of the soldiers called out. “The waterfall!”
With those words, the water of the fall slowed to a trickle. And then, an instant later, the trickle disappeared into a great wave.
The wave surged, swallowing everything in its path, then crashed into the rock at the tip of the waterfall that divided its flow in half, spraying into the night sky as though to wash the moon itself clean.
What happened next was impossible to explain to anyone.
The divided force of the wave caused great twin sprays of droplets to jump into the air, glittering whitely.
And it was so cold.
The spray turned to ice, illuminated by the moonlight.
The great volume of water falling into the splash pool made a peculiar sound, like the beating of great wings.
Blown by the wind, the frozen spray flew into the sky.
This was the legend of the angel.
“…Miss Fran!” Lawrence could not help but call out her name, holding her as she fell to her knees. Her face was peaceful, but her eyes were fixed elsewhere—somewhere far, far away.
Fran slowly reached her hand out and spoke one word. “Beautiful…”
Those of the men who saw their own ugliness threw down their weapons and fled. Others fell to their knees, ashamed at their own faithlessness.
And the only one among them with true conviction turned her face to the sky, reaching for the beauty there.
The angel ascended to the heavens.
Droplets of ice glittered in the hem of the moonlight.
EPILOGUE
“And then what happened?!”
Hugues’s large body pressed in close, and Lawrence shrunk back in spite of himself. He pushed the man back with his hand, which made the art seller seem to come to his senses.
Hugues sat back down in his chair, and fidgeting with his clothes, he repeated the question. “So, then what happened?”
“And then the village accepted the legend of the angel as true and most definitely came to believe in Katerina’s sainthood. So that was that. However…” Lawrence sipped the mulled wine he had been offered before continuing. “…Neither the villagers nor the landlord can very well claim they saw both an angel and a monster, so they’ve decided to pretend to the rest of the world as though the whole thing never happened.”
“Ah, I see…I see.” Hugues leaned back in his chair like a boy listening to an adventure tale. He looked up at the ceiling and closed his eyes. Heaving a heavy sigh, he seemed finally at ease.
“You seemed calmer when we actually returned,” teased Lawrence, which Hugues opened his eyes at and laughed.
“You go into a trance when things turn serious like that, after all. Still, so that’s how it all happened…When you brought her back here, I couldn’t help but wonder what had wounded Miss Fran so grievously.”
In point of fact, in Taussig the hunters and mountain men had put forth an all-out effort to tend to Fran’s wounds. The reason they had returned before she was fully healed was that the villagers would not stop fussing over her. Holo, who so hated being worshipped as a god, was delighted to discover someone who loathed attention as much as she did.
It had been three days since they had taken Fran and put the village of Taussig behind them. They had arrived in Kerube the previous night and had all immediately made for their beds—save Lawrence, who Hugues dragged downstairs to explain the events in Taussig.
“But what was behind the angel legend after all?”
Lawrence popped a piece of honeyed fruit into his mouth before answering. “An avalanche.”
“An avalanche?” Hugues repeated, stunned.
“That’s right. A huge volume of snow from the mountainside slid into the lake, making a gigantic wave that crashed into the waterfall. The sound of the heavenly army’s march was actually the sound of rushing snow.”
“S-so then, what about the beast’s howl?”
On this point, Lawrence himself was not entirely certain. But of all the possibilities, he chose the most likely one. “That was how it sounded after bouncing off of the lake. An echo, you see. This time it came from the sound of the men fighting. I’m sure sometime in the distant past there was some similar disturbance that caused it.”
Of course, the climax had been Holo’s voice, he added.
It made an amusingly good story, though—the sound of a battle calling down an angel. Going by Fran’s guess, it might have originally been the sound of a strong wind echoing off the mountain that first caused the avalanche.
Yet given his way, Lawrence liked the first story better.
“The world certainly is full of wonders.”
“That’s certain enough,” said Lawrence with a rueful grin, and Hugues’s shoulders shook with mirth.
“Still, if everything’s settled now, perhaps I ought to visit Taussig myself sometime. Though I doubt I’ll be as brave or bold as Miss Holo,” Hugues joked.
Just then, there was a knock at the door.
The question of who it would be at this late hour was soon answered.
Hugues stood from his chair with a chastened grin and walked over to the door.
Unlike the wilderness where you could sleep where you liked and make noise where you liked, within the town walls there were rules regarding the hours when candles could be kept burning. With buildings raised so close to one another, a stray flame left burning in one could easily set another alight.
It seemed the town guard had noticed the light coming from the candle on the table.
“Well, then, I’ll take my leave,” said Lawrence to Hugues’s back as he stood up. If he waited for Hugues to return, he had the distinct impression that they would simply move to another room where he would be pressed for more stories, so he decided to make his retreat while he could.
He took his cup of mulled wine with him and climbed the stairs.
The steps creaked under his weight, and he followed the handrail to their room.
From the entrance, it looked like a small and rather poor building, but farther inside it became clear that it was a perfectly respectable four-story trading
company.
Normally in trading companies, the higher in the building you were, the lower your status, so Lawrence and his companions being housed on the second floor was proof of Hugues’s respect for them.
Making his way to the room where Holo and Col were sleeping, Lawrence noticed a sliver of light leaking into the hallway.
It was standard for burglars to enter from the second floor.
Lawrence peeked into the half-open door and saw that it was Fran’s room.
“Yes?” His peek was immediately noticed.
She was human but well used to traveling alone and a world apart from a mere town girl.
“I saw the light and thought there might be a burglar.”
Fran was sitting in her bed. A smile played about the corners of her eyes. “They say when caught, a burglar will always claim to have been trying to catch another burglar.”
It was the sort of story that was swapped over drinks, but considering what they had just been through, it seemed appropriate.
“It’s cold.”
“You should soothe fresh wounds with cold and old ones with heat.”
It seemed a rough method but probably an effective one. Lawrence preferred not to need the knowledge in the first place, if possible.
Chaplain—Fran had that title.
“I had always thought to end my travels once I saw the angel.”
Blue moonlight streamed in through the open window, and her body itself seemed about ready to turn into light motes and disappear.
She was luridly wrapped in bandages around her middle and over her shoulder, and the fever she had borne in Taussig had broken. And yet not once had Fran appeared even slightly weak.
Had she been unable to manage at least this much, she never would have been employed as a chaplain, responsible for the faith and morale of an entire troop.
“By travels, you mean…?” Lawrence asked.
Fran chuckled slightly. Perhaps it was a bit embarrassing for her. “I was a girl obsessed, I realize now.”
She had planned to die.
The bloodstained scriptures and the letters pressed between the pages.
Fran’s determination to find the legend of the angel could also have been called an obsession.
If those with claws and fangs are the first to die, then she truly might have been the very vanguard. And it was precisely that quality that had finally led her to the angel. But what she had thought at the end of her journey, Lawrence did not know. He did not know, but her face was beautifully peaceful now.
“We still haven’t gotten that map from you,” Lawrence prodded, which Fran turned away at, pouting.
The line of her chin in the moonlight shone like a sharpened knife. “More than once I’ve seen merchants venture out onto the battlefield in their efforts to be repaid.”
“So are you saying I’ll have to pass through the gates of heaven to get it?”
Fran closed her eyes, catlike. As Lawrence approached the bed, she opened them and fixed their dark pupils on him.
“Unfortunately, the scriptures say it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a merchant to reach heaven,” Lawrence said.
He reached across her and gently closed the window. Her face had looked slightly pained in the moonlight that shone through the open space.
“I’m afraid the same is true for me. I couldn’t pass through the gates.”
“So how about it, then? Helping others is a good way to atone for sins.”
Fran smiled and then sunk slowly deeper into the covers.
It was probably still fairly painful for her to move, and she held up a hand to stop Lawrence from helping.
“If I let a merchant help me, who knows how many maps I’ll end up having to draw.” Her mischievous smile reminded him of a certain someone.
But then the supine Fran reached her right hand out. The same hand that had reached for the angel that appeared at the top of the falls.
“Payment for one,” said Fran. She had probably picked up such affectations in her time with the mercenary troop.
Lawrence did not mind it. “I’ll pay that.” He took her hand and held it firmly.
If she had been a simple town girl, this was where he would have gone to kiss it. But Fran had no need for such things.
“God’s protection be with you.”
Having received such a meaningful blessing, Lawrence released her hand and tipped an invisible hat.
Fran nodded and slowly closed her eyes.
But as Lawrence turned to quietly leave the room, she spoke to him.
“Back then…”
“Hmm?”
“Back then, on the falls…”
Lawrence turned around. “On the falls?” he prompted, still smiling.
Knowing Fran, she would have noticed his mask. But she offered nothing more. “Never mind,” she said, adding, “I suppose it was my imagination.”
“Good night.”
He left the room, and there was Holo.
Lawrence pretended not to notice her and went to the next room. She followed him in.
He closed the door, and the moon was the only light there at the beginning of the quiet night.
AFTERWORD
It has been a while. I’m Isuna Hasekura, and this is volume 12. I suppose it’s obvious to say, but volume 12 means that this is the twelfth time I’ve written an afterword. It doesn’t feel that way at all, though…
I have to admit I’m sort of impressed with myself for coming up with the plot for this volume. This may be because back when I was trying to write volume 2, I had my head in my hands, certain that there wasn’t anything else to write about.
Apparently they say you have to read a hundred books to write a single volume. For Spice and Wolf , I drew on forty or fifty. The rest are…let’s just say they’re off set by Holo’s ears and tail.
It’s only been three months since the last volume, so not much has changed in my life, but I did visit Okinawa for nine days during the writing of volume 12. It was a writing trip I took with a fellow author friend. I was worried that nine days trapped in a small room would make things tense during the bottom half of the trip, but things were surprisingly peaceful. I credit the Awamori liquor and Ishigaki beef.
We’d get up in the morning, have breakfast, write, have lunch, write, nap, go swimming at the beach in front of the hotel, have dinner, write, and sleep. Th at was pretty much the routine. At one point we rented a car and drove to a beach farther away. At said beach, there were many people who just load up their car with a futon, a tent, and a dog and travel around Japan. I had no idea there was such a culture in Japan. Riding around on a motorcycle with a guitar strapped to your back— even light novel characters are a little better behaved than that.
We felt like we didn’t want to lose to these guys, so we made plans to go to Paris next time or maybe some country in the south.
But if possible, I think I’d like to go in a state of cleanliness—having finished my work.
Now then, by the time this volume comes out, the second season of the anime should be reaching its peak, I think. I’ll be enjoying that as I make preparations to write the next volume.
We shall meet again!
Perhaps in the autumn?
Isuna Hasekura
Spice and Wolf, Vol. 12 Page 16