From that day on, Chagum spent much of his time moping sullenly. He flared up angrily at the slightest thing, storming out of the cave and not returning until nightfall. Balsa and Tanda said nothing, just let him be.
One afternoon, Chagum came rambling back from gathering firewood with a few small sticks that barely passed for a bundle. Balsa was skinning a rabbit she had hung from a tree branch, and he noticed that the knife she was using was his dagger. Like a bent bamboo tree suddenly springing free, anger erupted inside him, a blind rage that not even he understood. He threw down the firewood, ran up to her, and tried to snatch the knife away. “Give that back! How dare you use my dagger without asking!”
Balsa grabbed his hand in hers, and with a flick of her wrist, sent him flying into the grass. He groaned and tried to rise, but she bent over him, pinning him down, her right hand on his neck and her knee on his chest. She held his gaze steadily. “It’s about time you stopped running away.” He clenched his teeth and inhaled shakily, his eyes brimming with tears. “You feel like crying, don’t you?” she said quietly. “Your heart is so heavy you can hardly bear it. You feel utterly helpless, yet at the same time, you’re filled with a rage that seems beyond your control. Am I right? But taking your anger out on others is not going to make you feel any better, because you aren’t that stupid. If you keep on like this, the uselessness of it will just build up inside you, making it even worse. So stop running and take a good look at yourself. Look at what is making you so angry.”
Chagum closed his eyes. Tears trickled slowly down his cheeks toward his ears. Hiccupping, he whispered, “Damn everything!”
Balsa let him go and stood up. He lay there, his arms crossed over his face. She returned to the rabbit and, when she had finished skinning it, washed the knife and began sharpening it. Chagum came up and stood behind her, staring absently at her hands. She spoke quietly, keeping her eyes on the knife. “If you sharpen a blade, it cuts better. This is a fact. If only all things in life were so logical.”
She turned the blade to the sun, and it flashed as the light caught the metal. “Sometimes a kind person who lived a good and peaceful life is killed by some good-for-nothing who spent his entire life sponging off his family. You won’t find any fairness in this world.” Chagum crouched down beside her. “When I was young, I used to get mad too, and take it out on Jiguro. Why did my father have to be killed? Why was I forced to keep moving from one place to the next, cold and hungry, when I hadn’t done anything to deserve it? Thinking about that always made me angry. But after a few years, I couldn’t even take my anger out on Jiguro anymore, because I realized he was even less fortunate than I was. All these terrible hardships had been forced on him just because he was my father’s friend. When I saw that, I thought there was no hope for me at all. Now my guilt for making Jiguro suffer was added to everything else.”
Chagum felt a pang in the pit of his stomach. Balsa had been paid to protect him; that was all. Yet he had behaved like a spoiled brat, venting his rage at her without a second thought, and she had let him, though she was not even his mother. Shame coursed through him, as cold as snow.
But Balsa turned toward him and smiled. “When I was sixteen, I told Jiguro that we should split up. I was old enough, I said, to protect myself. If my enemies should find and defeat me, then it was my fate to die. Jiguro had done enough. Let’s go back to being strangers, I told him. Live for yourself, I said.”
“And what did he say?” Chagum whispered.
“He told me that it was about time I stopped trying to keep accounts, weighing so much misfortune against so much happiness, or thinking about how in debt I was to him for something he had done. He said it was meaningless to try to settle accounts for days gone by, as if you were counting money. ‘I’m here,’ he said, ‘because I don’t actually mind living with you like this. That’s all. You see.’ ”
She wiped the dagger on a cloth and handed it to Chagum. “And now look at me. Despite his advice, I’ve been incredibly stupid. I’ve wasted a lot of time calculating the value of human life in the cash I’m paid as a bodyguard. No matter how many lives I saved, how could I ever feel free?” She put her hand on his shoulder. “But you know, right now I feel much better. Being your bodyguard has helped me understand for the first time how Jiguro felt.”
The weight of Balsa’s hand on his shoulder felt good. With a sigh of relief, Chagum slipped the dagger into his belt and breathed in deeply. He felt his lungs fill with the fresh and bracing fragrance of budding leaves.
Two months passed. The snow on the mountains disappeared; the trees turned a deeper green with each passing day, and the breeze blew gentle and fragrant. Balsa had braced herself for further changes in Chagum, but nothing seemed to happen. When Torogai reappeared, smelling of dusty earth, the egg was still the same. After listening to them recount their winter, Torogai snorted. “Of course it didn’t keep on changing! Do you think he could stand it if it did? Just you wait and see — I bet there’s another major change in a month or so. But you know what?” she said to him. “You don’t seem much like a prince anymore. In fact, you look just like an ordinary kid.”
Chagum glared at her, but then suddenly he noticed that her head was far lower than his. “Wait a minute!” he exclaimed. “Did you shrink?”
“Are you kidding? I’m not getting any smaller than this. You’ve grown, you idiot!”
Balsa looked at Chagum in surprise. “She’s right. You’ve grown a lot.”
“The new year has already passed, so you must be, what, twelve, Chagum?” Tanda asked. “That’s the stage when boys change the most.”
His words reminded Balsa of a day long ago. She had always looked on the little boy Tanda as her younger brother, but just after he turned twelve, he shot up suddenly, overtaking her height before she knew it. She remembered staring at him in surprise when he spoke with a man’s deep voice, knowing that something decisive had changed.
Not long after Torogai reappeared, she dragged Tanda off on another trip to meet the Juchi Ro Gai. But once again their journey was in vain. Even the creatures that lived in the mud of Nayugu seemed to fear Rarunga, for they would not speak of it at all. By the time they returned through Yashiro village, spring had passed, and the humming of the cicadas echoed through the fields and mountains, heralding the arrival of summer.
As they stepped out of the forest onto the riverbank, Tanda stopped, shocked by the sight that lay before them. By now, the fields, which had been planted months before, should have been filled with a waving sea of tender, green rice stalks. Instead, there was nothing but bare, cracked earth, which had turned a chalky brown. Only the small fields closest to the river were still filled with water, and these grew only a meager amount of rice. It was certainly not enough to feed the entire village.
“Look at that,” Tanda murmured.
Torogai gazed grimly at the fields. “If this continues, many will die when fall comes.”
A man was walking down from the terraced fields that spread up the steep slope. He waved when he caught sight of them and quickened his pace. It was Yuga, whose daughter Nina had told Tanda the story of Nyunga Ro Im.
“Torogai! Tanda! It’s been a long time.” He bowed his head in greeting and then glanced at the fields. His stubble-covered face darkened, and in his tightly pursed lips they could see the anxiety of someone keenly aware of impending disaster and yet helpless to avert it. “Terrible, isn’t it? It’s the same everywhere, they say. It hasn’t rained as much as a bug’s pee since spring. Just the sun beating down every day.” He hastily apologized to the sun god for complaining, then stood staring at the fields for a while, as if he had forgotten they were there.
Finally his gaze returned to Tanda. “This is what you meant when you were talking with Nina, wasn’t it? About the Nayugu cloud spirit inside my great-uncle. That story was true then, wasn’t it?”
Tanda nodded. Yuga grimaced. “Damnation!” he exclaimed. “I’ve never seen a drought like this before, n
ever! Even the elders have never seen anything like it. There’s a saying that the crops will grow as long as there’s sunshine, but there’s no hope for the rice crop this year. If the weather stays like this, we’ll even lose the rice in those fields over there.
“In the new year, word came from the Star Palace that we should prepare for a drought, so we quickly planted shiga and yassha. Even so, we’ll barely have enough. There’s no way we can buy rice or barley from the merchants, especially with the prices gone through the roof. Some merchants are even refusing to sell what they’ve kept stored away, since you can’t eat money.”
He sighed and looked at them. His eyes were bloodshot. “I don’t suppose you could make it rain for us with your magic weaving?” Tears welled in his eyes. “If this goes on any longer, my baby son won’t make it through the fall!”
Torogai looked at him, but all she could say was, “We’re doing the best we can.”
Summer was beginning by the time Shuga found the tale of Nyunga Ro Im engraved on the stone tablets of Nanai’s memoirs. As he read it aloud, tracing the letters in the stone with his finger, he could not keep his hand from shaking. This was it! The water spirit mentioned in the legend of the sacred ancestor and the founding of the country; the thing that the Yakoo magic weaver had referred to as “the egg.” This at last would give him the answers he sought.
But as he painstakingly read the story, stumbling over unfamiliar words, he discovered that the facts were very different from the legend he knew. When the “portent of dryness” that foretold a great drought appeared in the sky, Nanai himself had gone into the mountains to find the Yakoo, leaving the construction of the capital in the hands of a trusted few. There he met a young boy who bore an egg in his breast and a group of Yakoo who were guarding him. Just once every hundred years, the Yakoo told Nanai, humans were given the chance to aid the workings of the universe. This was a great blessing, they said. They taught him about the worlds of Sagu and Nayugu and how the egg of Nyunga Ro Im begins to grow when winter ends, causing changes in its host. Around the same time, the Egg Eater, Rarunga of Nayugu, starts to move, like a snake hunting birds’ eggs. Everything Shuga read confirmed the truth of the Yakoo story.
As he realized what a terrible mistake he and the Master Star Reader had made, he broke into a cold sweat. What month is it? he thought suddenly. He raised his eyes from the stone tablet and gazed up at the dark ceiling. When did he last eat? He had to remember! What had it been like outside? It’s already the month of the cicada’s song! There are less than twenty days left until midsummer. Is Rarunga already hunting the prince? It took him at least half a day to decipher a single stone tablet, sometimes a whole day. At this rate, it would take him ten more days to find out how Nanai and the Yakoo managed to destroy the Egg Eater and save the egg!
Calm down, he chided himself. The Master Star Reader has already sent the Hunters after the prince. Right now, the most important thing is to learn every fact I can.
And thus he immersed himself in deciphering the tablets, sparing no time for either food or sleep. Two days later he stumbled upon a crucial fact and raised his eyes from the tablet. Although his head ached as if it might break in two, he paused in thought and then climbed unsteadily up the ladder to the room above. The Master Star Reader was just returning to his room to sleep. He started back in surprise when he saw Shuga emerge from the trapdoor. “Shuga! What’s wrong? You look so pale!”
Shuga staggered and sank to the floor. Supporting him, the Master Star Reader bent his ear to his mouth to catch what he was saying. A light kindled in his eyes and he nodded eagerly. “Yes, of course. You did well, Shuga. I’ll send a message to the Hunters so they can get there first. This time it will all work out,” he reassured him, patting him gently on the back. “Reading the tablets is very important, but first you must rest. If you collapse, there will be no one left to uncover their secrets.”
Shuga raised his bloodshot eyes and pleaded, “Master Star Reader, we’re racing against time. Couldn’t you read them for me?”
The Master Star Reader thought for a moment but then shook his head. “Like you, I have no time. I’ve been so busy trying to save the life of the First Prince that I haven’t had any rest either. Tonight is the first time I’ve been permitted to sleep, and I must be by his side again tomorrow.”
Shuga nodded, so tired he felt faint. He could do no more.
“You can sleep here tonight. I’ll have some bedding put out for you. Go straight to bed. There’s no need to wait up for me.”
Although Shuga vaguely remembered him leaving the room, he immediately collapsed into a deep sleep.
The next change in Chagum occurred one hot, sticky morning five days after Torogai and Tanda returned from their trip.
This time when he complained of being tired, no one was deeply concerned — not even Chagum himself. It was as if a long-awaited day had finally arrived. He slept for only a few hours, and woke to find himself filled with a strange compulsion. “Something’s calling me,” he said. “It’s a bit like that feeling I used to have, the feeling of wanting to go home. I just know I have to go — as if I’m being called there.”
“Who’s calling you?” Balsa asked, but Chagum shook his head, perplexed.
“It’s hard to describe, but it doesn’t feel like a person. It’s more like being pulled by an invisible thread. And I feel like I’ve got to follow it.”
“Sounds just like the toburya in the Aoyumi River,” said Torogai. “The young fish swim out to sea, then climb back up the river again to lay their eggs. Nyunga Ro Im’s egg is being drawn toward what it needs in the same way. The knowledge must have been planted inside it from the very beginning, the same way birds know the route they must travel. Chagum, which way do you want to go?”
Without any hesitation, he pointed. Torogai frowned. “That’s odd. I thought it would be toward the sea, but it seems I was wrong. I guess there must be something you have to do before the egg goes there. Well, we have no choice but to do what it wants.”
They hurriedly cleaned up the cave and prepared to travel. Looking around the big empty room, barren now even of the ashes swept from the hearth, Chagum felt a cold loneliness. He looked up at Balsa, who had hoisted her bag onto her back. “Balsa?”
“What?”
“If the egg hatches safely and I’m no longer needed, do you think we could come back here again? Can I live with you and Tanda?”
Balsa was glad Tanda had gone outside. “Well, that’s certainly one possibility,” she answered noncommittally and pushed him gently toward the door. “Come on. It’s time to go.”
“All right.”
Chagum had grown so much sturdier since she had met him last autumn that there was really no comparison. He could now light a fire by himself, and thanks to their thorough training, he knew enough to survive on his own, even in the middle of the mountains.
As he followed the others along the mountain path, Chagum occasionally glimpsed strange sights. When he focused his attention on them, he could see Nayugu spreading out before him, superimposed on the solid world of Sagu. That other world was much more rugged than Sagu. Mountains towered black against the sky, mist climbing slowly toward their peaks. There were no roads that could be traversed by humans, and the land was devoid of any sign of people. As he walked along a cliff path looking down into a valley in Sagu, he saw it superimposed over a valley in Nayugu — one so deep and dark it appeared bottomless. Occasionally he sensed something squirming in the damp obscurity that concealed the valley floor. But what he saw of Nayugu was not always frightening. At times, its beauty moved him profoundly. Its water was as blue as lapis lazuli and so deep it seemed to go on forever. Its flowers bloomed in vivid colors, as if proud to be alive. The air was so clear and sweet it refreshed his spirit.
“Hey! Chagum! Watch where you’re going!” Balsa grabbed his arm and he started in surprise. Trying to avoid a large rock in Nayugu, he had almost stepped right off the cliff. He hastily st
opped looking at the other world.
That night as they sat around the fire, with green grass spread on top to smoke out the mosquitoes, Chagum related what he had seen. “You’re so lucky!” Tanda exclaimed. “What a fantastic opportunity. Not even the greatest magic weavers can see Nayugu so easily. I wish I could see it like you.”
“No kidding!” Torogai chimed in. “It’s totally wasted on a kid like him!”
“Chagum,” Balsa interrupted. “When you’re looking at Nayugu, can you see any sign of Rarunga, the Egg Eater?”
“No, none at all.”
Balsa looked at Tanda. “It’s almost midsummer, and Chagum has started to move. I expected Rarunga to appear almost immediately, but I don’t feel anything. Do you?”
“No. It’s almost worse than if we did.”
Torogai snorted. “Ha! Don’t be ridiculous. It’s going to turn up sooner or later even if you beg it not to. Just keep your eyes peeled. That goes for the kid too.”
She was right, but just because they saw no sign of the monster did not mean they could rest easy. Tanda and Balsa decided to take turns sleeping.
They continued walking west through the Misty Blue Mountains. On the fourth day, they came to the upper reaches of the Aoyumi River.
“The water is so low,” Balsa murmured. Judging by the watermarks on the boulders, it was only a third of its normal depth, and the exposed rocks, bleached white by the relentless sun, made her uneasy. As they walked on, they discussed the drought, but Chagum paid little heed to their voices. As soon as he saw the clear stream running through the damp, mossy stones, he had felt his heart begin to throb. The rushing water sent up a white spray where it crashed against the boulders, and the smell of water enveloped him. It’s this way. There’s no mistake. We’re almost there. For some reason, he felt his mouth fill with saliva.
Guardian of the Spirit Page 13
