Cruise of Wonder

by Daju Lee

  "Huh?" Mapi sniffed at Jinho. "Why should I find them?"

  "There's Daham, the Strong Sailor. He told us about this place by his letter." Said Hyun, not deterred by Mapi's fierce eyes.

  "Daham this, Daham that… I am really tired of it. Stop talking about him." Mapi stood up, the food slowing him down. "It's your choice. Whether you live peacefully within my realm, or you will find trouble. Choose one." As if tired, he called a servant and walked towards his room. "Decide by tomorrow. I am giving you a choice, because I have mercy on you guys."

  "What if we say, we'll go find them?" Asked Jinho, stopping him.

  Turning around, he glared at Jinho. "You're not gonna listen to me? Such a shame. Well, that means, I will have to put you somewhere… somewhere deep in this castle. As I alone hold the keys, you'd better lose the hope of someone finding and saving you."

  Laughing creepily, Mapi opened the door and disappeared from view. As Mapi left, the servants guided Jinho's party into the reception room. Checking there was no one around them, Juna remarked on what Hyun had said.

  "I don't want to do that! This place is dangerous enough… I mean we are challenging an even more brutal Mapi. Just thinking of that makes me…" Juna shivered her body, not being able to finish the sentence.

  Hyun pondered. "If it's a deep place within this castle, it must be a prison. This prison must be where Daham is being kept. So, if tomorrow, we say we don't follow Mapi's word, we will be imprisoned and can easily find him."

  "It sounds like a good idea but the problem is the key of the jail." Before Mapi left the throne room, Jinho saw the keys that he talked about on his waist. A weighty bunch of keys were hanging tightly on his leather belt.

  "We only have tonight. It is said, there is no other way to open the jails on this island, even for a Strong Sailor. Without the key, you can't get in or out of it. Furthermore, the Strong powers don't work inside the jails. Therefore, we need to find the key tonight." Said Hyun, seriously.

  "Why are you always ignoring me? I said, I don't want to! It doesn't do any harm if we move slowly without annoying Mapi."

  "Well then, Juna. You can go and obey Mapi, whilst Hyun and I will do what as we have planned." Jinho concluded, after a short consideration of her idea.

  "Are you back to your normal self again? I really don't like anything about you." Juna turned her back in anger. Juna knew they would leave without thinking of her, so she saved her words. She was scared to be left alone anywhere in this place, and could not take risk - even if she was unsure of Mr. Kim actually being there. To her, Jinho's actions felt like ignorance, not courage. Jinho was indeed still an inflexible and ignorant kid.

  Oblivious to Juna's thoughts, Jinho began whispering with Hyun.

  "After midnight, Mapi is gonna fall asleep. He doesn't easily wake up. The problem is the next morning after we have stolen the key. He is a sensitive person, and will definitely notice that the key has disappeared. Unless we only take out the key to the jails and replace it with another." Hyun informed.

  "Then, let's find a key of similar weight and exchange it." Jinho started to search for stuff, looking around. Looking around, and thinking, he suddenly took out the paulownia box from the inner pocket of his jacket. The box, with his father's notebook in it, had a brass key outside of it inside the lock. "What about this?" Taking the key out, Jinho showed it to Hyun.

  Hyun smiled, examining the key. "I guess, this would do."

  ~

  Where Jinho and Hyun were asked to stay was a guest room at the end of the aisle. The room was cleaner than the outside in general. Although there were darkened stains on the wall, which made it creepy, the white sheet on the bed was comparably clean.

  The time passed nervously. Jinho was counting the time in the room, where the lamp was turned off. Eventually the full moon outside the window was towards the south. It was nearly midnight.

  "Should we move on now?"

  Standing against the window, Jinho asked Hyun in a low voice. Hyun nodded his head without words. He could not make any loud noises as soldiers were standing guard.

  Jinho and Hyun slowly threw the rope made from the bed sheet out of the window. Mapi's room was on the floor below. They knew from there they would have to pass three rooms on to get to his chamber.

  With small and light movements, Hyun crawled down the wall. Though young, he moved nimbly as if trained. Jinho repressed his nervousness and followed the way Hyun went in the first place. With the heavier weight, the rope was loosened slightly but he safely landed beside Hyun. Although there were plenty of royal guards holding torches in the castle yard, no one found the two standing in the darkness. Hyun moved first to the left, stepping on the protruding stones.

  Then the soldiers began to shoot fire-tipped arrows, training in the yard. Suddenly the floor was lit up and Jinho and Hyun were out of the shadows. They felt a stiffening feeling overcome them. Luckily, the fire arrows disappeared quickly over the yard. A sigh of relief followed automatically.

  Mapi's chamber was not far away. The window of the new king's bedroom was already open and Hyun peeked inside, pushing aside the curtains. The royal guards did not watch over the inside of the bedroom. As Hyun had suggested, Mapi was sleeping, as if dead to the world. He had kicked his blanket onto the floor, and was snoring loudly, lying slumped on the bed. The sound of snoring was so loud that even sounds of them dropping things or making mistakes in the chamber would not be heard by the guards outside. They slowly climbed inside without making any sound.

  The collection of keys attached to Mapi's belt could be seen vaguely, and were lit slightly by the moonlight.

  "There." Hyun pointed out with his finger.

  As the enormous Mapi tried to turn in his sleep, Jinho, thinking quickly, guided him to turn in the other direction, so as to leave the keys exposed.

  "But which one is it?" Jinho said softly, standing in front of the bunch of keys.

  In the round iron key-ring, the indistinguishable keys were hung, one after another. Even so, he could not take the whole bunch as Mapi will notice that immediately the next day.

  "I do not know which one is the right key."

  They had no more time to waste. Even if Mapi slept deeply, the more time they spent finding the key, the higher the chances that they were discovered.

  "Let me do it."

  As Hyun switched places with Jinho and started to look for the bunch of keys, Mapi's breathing became silent. As if he felt something unconsciously, he stopped snoring and quickly moved his eyes inside the closed eyelids. The two held their breath and lowered their body under the bed. After a while, Mapi fell asleep again, as if nothing had happened. Hyun cautiously rose up from under the bed and drew the keys to his nose one by one.

  "This is… um… the smell of horse dung." He started to smell each key in turn. "And this... This is the smell of wheat…Yuck; this is the smell of gunpowder."

  Hyun quickly took another key and smelled it and tilted his head.

  "Why?" Jinho mouthed the words as he didn't dare make any sounds.

  It was a smell that cannot be described, a mix of disgusting body odour and the smell of soil. After smelling all the other keys, Hyun pointed out the unidentifiable key.

  "I think, this is it." Hyun whispered to Jinho.

  Jinho, without any doubts, took out the key that Hyun selected, and replaced it with the key from the wooden box.

  Arriving back at the guest room, Jinho could not easily fall asleep, his heart still pounding with adrenaline. After struggling to sleep for the whole night, he could at last see the darkness outside the window slowly yielding up its place to the dawn. Thinking that he might able to find his father, his mind could not be easily settled.

  "King Mapi is calling you. Please get up."

  When the royal guards called Jinho, it was just after the sunrise. Their manners were polite, like yesterday, but the tone of their words was somehow coercive.

  Mapi was sitting on his throne and seemed much
less irate after the deep sleep. Jinho first checked Mapi's waist. He was wearing the bundle of keys as ever. It fortunately seemed that he had not noticed anything. Soon, Juna arrived, following after the royal guards. As they all had gathered, twitching his hands in nervous excitement, Mapi asked:

  "Now tell me, what is your decision?" He waited for an answer, wide-eyed and attentive as if excited to know that he held all the power.

  "Hyun and I are gonna find the lost sailors." Jinho replied without hesitation.

  "What?" Mapi couldn't believe what he had just heard. "This is the kingdom I acquired, and even if I promise you, that I will show my generosity and let you live under my reign without hardship?" "Even if so." This time, Hyun said in an imposing manner. Mapi's dumbfounded face gradually became distorted by anger.

  Studying Mapi's face, Juna shook her hands and opposed strongly. "I am not. I am gonna stay here."

  "You scoundrel! I pitied you considering our old friendship and this is what I am given?" Mapi shouted, not being able to suppress his anger.

  "Imprison all of them in jail right now!"

  No sooner did the king say it than the royal guards grabbed Hyun and Jinho by the arms. Juna was caught along with them.

  "Keep aside! Damn you guys! I'll be watching you!" Becoming rough, Mapi took it out on a guard near him and pushed him over, huffing and going back to sit on his throne.

  ~

  "What are we gonna do now?" Now frightened, Juna asked, with a slight tone of bitterness.

  "It's gonna be alright, don't worry." Jinho turned his head to soothe her, which did not help Juna. Her face was pale from the thought of having to remain in a prison indefinitely.

  The royal guards escorted the three, descending the endless narrow and dark basement staircase. Even when Juna sprained her ankle and fell down, they did not stop and dragged her forcefully to her feet.

  There was no way of knowing how deep they had gone down. The dark spiral staircase caused dizziness and as it was becoming severe, a place lit up by the warm glow of torchlight appeared. There were two savage looking muscular soldiers standing and blocking the entrance. The two looked to be prison wardens, and watched the group coming down the staircase.

  "Who are they this time?"

  Instead of answering, the royal guards ordered, throwing the three in front of the wardens.

  "Make sure you keep a special eye on these ones."

  "How are the other prisoners?"

  "They're doing ok. No problems. By the way, what is going on outside? We have an itch to fight in the war."

  "Stop thinking about yourselves and focus on guarding the prisoners. They were barely captured from the last war. Several of those prisoners are very valuable to us. So keep an eye on them."

  After shaking the steel-barred cell and checking its durability, the royal guards disappeared.

  "Those guys... They think they're so special!"

  A warden with a diagonal scar around his eye, shouted waving his arm, as the royal guards left. As if he tried to take it out on Jinho, he harshly woke him up.

  "Who are these weird people?"

  The other warden, twitched. He opened the steel-barred door of the jail and kicked Jinho's hip into it.

  Gentle but Powerful

  The ill-smelling jail was dark and damp. Pushed inside the jail, Jinho tripped on something and fell. Hyun and Juna coming afterwards stumbled over Jinho and fell over.

  "Ouch!' The sound of a loud scream was heard.

  "I am sorry." It was a person that they had fallen on.

  "Damn it all, watch out your step."

  Though muttering, he had no strength in his voice.

  As they slowly became accustomed to the darkness, they started to see the inside of the jail. Most prisoners were sitting down, and it looked like a narrow cell with little space for movement. The nasty odour smelled anything but human and it came more strongly from the injured prisoners. They lethargically cast a glance at Jinho and then closed their eyes again.

  A warden opened the steel door and cast a basket of bread into the jail. As the prisoners flocked to the basket, the scarred warden gave them a kick and shouted.

  "Eat slowly, you pigs!"

  Not caring about the guard's words, they quarrelled with each other for the food. Those who were weak or sick were pushed aside, and they were unable to approach the food bucket. Meanwhile, Jinho checked the prisoner's faces searching for his father.

  "Daham!"

  It was then, that Hyun shouted at a prisoner in a corner of the jail. He was an old man, squatting weakly. Jinho and Juna came out of the crowd and followed Hyun.

  "Daham, I am Hyun, a sailor of the Mari."

  The white-haired old man slowly raised his head to Hyun's word. Too weak to demonstrate his pleasure, he barely managed to move his lips.

  "Are you alright?" Hyun asked, worriedly. Without even the strength to talk, Daham slightly nodded his head.

  "Daham, cheer up. Now we can get back to the Mari." As if it had cheered him up, he feebly smiled.

  "This is Jinho and this is Juna. Our passengers." As Hyun introduced the two to Daham, Jinho asked carefully:

  "Do you possibly know of a passenger named Changook Kim? He was said to have disappeared at the same period of time as you."

  Only then did Daham look at Jinho and Juna. Pondering for a moment, he nodded his head. Jinho continued his questioning: "Then have you seen him somewhere else?"

  This time Daham drably waved his hand. He seemed confident in his expression.

  "First, Jinho." Hyun called to him.

  Jinho knew what the now nervous looking Hyun was trying to say but his body did not easily move. A slight disappointment aroused as he could not find his father among all these prisoners.

  "People have settled down again."

  The raucous jostling in the jail was over as there was no food left. It was the right time to carry out the plan.

  "Do something!" Juna whispered, getting impatient.

  "Alright."

  Since he found out that his father was not here, they now needed to escape from the prison with Daham. Putting aside his disappointment, Jinho nodded his head towards Hyun. As they had agreed with each other, they help up Daham and stepped towards the steel-barred door.

  After the prisoner's meal, the wardens started their dinner that similarly consisted of just two pieces of bread and water.

  "The soldiers on the surface must be having a feast by now." Jinho said to Hyun in a loud voice.

  "Since the new king arrived for whom they were waiting so long, they must be celebrating it."

  Hyun joined in with him. Hearing their conversation, the scarred warden put down the bread he was just about to bite into.

  "It's terrible. After the new king, they only have bread for the wardens." Jinho talked in a barely audible, low voice.

  "What did you just say? A new king appeared?" The warden approached Jinho and raised his eyebrows.

  "Didn't you know? The new king, Mapi, led the war to a glorious victory."

  "Is that true?"

  Jinho calmly responded to the warden's reaction:

  "Of course it is, and what's more the booty of this war was so grandiose that every soldier was due to have a great feast to celebrate with the new king."

  To his word, the scarred warden chewed on his lips in silence.

  "We were victorious, and the soldiers are having a feast? With the new king…Excluding us?" Another warden who was listening to them said with agitation.

  "Be quiet! How dare you, the royal guards?"

  Scratching his scar, the warden pushed his colleague aside and walked toward the stairs.

  "Come with me!"

  The other warden, now alone, angrily followed, heavily stomping on the staircase. When the sounds of their footsteps were not heard anymore from the darkness, Jinho took out the key from his pocket. As he carefully placed the key into the lock and turned it, the door of the jail slid gently open, with a clicking s
ound. Jinho dragged Daham on his back and went outside. As Hyun came out of the jail lastly, one of the prisoners shouted.

  "The door has been opened!"

  Hearing it, the prisoners flocked towards the door. With the sounds of people falling with a thud and eagerly wrestling each other for the door, Jinho's heart sank.

  "They're gonna find out that we escaped!"

  Hyun made a worried look. Every last of them came outside, pushing the group aside, and ran towards the stairs. Jinho was at a loss of what to do, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  "As time's running out, we'd better hurry."

  Jinho joined the freed prisoners and followed them up the stairs. Apart from a few prisoners who stopped halfway up the stairs due to their lack of energy, they kept ascending the long staircase without pause. They climbed the stairs quickly with energy, as if rejuvenated magically by the promise of freedom.

  It was hard for him, since he had Daham on his back. Despite this, Jinho kept pace with them. Soon, the door leading to the castle grounds would be found. He was worried about the former prisoners walking ahead, but they could not stop or go back. This was a situation they had to face.

  The light started to filter in from the tip of the winding staircase. The escapists were cautiously moving up the steps, feeling nervous. They got to the door eventually and it was Jinho's turn to walk through it.

  "Please help me." Jinho prayed, trembling out of nervousness.

  Coming out to a dazzling, bright area all of a sudden, he could not see anything, but hear people moving.

  "I already knew you would try to do this."

  An angry voice harshly resonated. It was Mapi. Those who followed after Jinho were mercilessly detained by the soldiers waiting for them and were dragged elsewhere. Mapi was standing in front of Jinho holding a long sword.

  "How dare you betray me?"

  He raised the shiny sword high, threatening to dismember them. At that moment, Daham, still carried by Jinho, lifted his head and looked at Mapi. As their eyes met, Mapi dithered for a moment. He slowly put down his sword.