Tanda saw Chagum racing toward him, the claws suddenly rearing up behind. Yet his mind was distracted by a shrill cry — a flock of birds flying toward them. “Kaw-oh! Kaw-oh!” A light flashed on in his brain. Nahji … The nahji! The warding charm made of nahji bones at the edge of the village; the midsummer festival song; the nahji that flew faster than the devil…. Suddenly he knew exactly what they must do. “Chagum!” he yelled, running toward him. “The nahji! The nahji! Throw the egg up into the air!”
Tentacles sped whining toward Chagum. One almost touched him, but Balsa, behind him, grabbed it and wrestled it to the ground. Yet another whipped toward him. Jin and Zen ran to his aid, but they could not stop it from latching onto Chagum’s right arm, yanking it with sudden and dreadful force. With a sickening sound, a sharp pain shot through his right shoulder; it had been dislocated.
The tentacle arched backward, pulling Chagum up into the air, and its tip slithered toward the egg in his hand. The fine hairs of the tip fanned open to reveal a sucker. Screaming, Chagum tried desperately to grasp the egg with his left hand, but with his right arm held high by the tentacle, he could only dangle limply from his injured shoulder. Just as he was about to give up, a large hand reached up beside him and snatched the egg from him. Looking at its owner, Chagum forgot his pain and his face brightened. “Tanda!”
Tanda threw the egg into the heavens as if loosing an arrow from its bow. One bird separated from the flock of nahji flying south across the Misty Blue Mountains. Through a blur of tears, Chagum watched it dart downward, glide smoothly toward the egg, and grasp it, still glowing, in its beak. Swiftly it sped across the sky and vanished from sight. The egg had finally escaped Rarunga’s clutches.
It had disappeared so quickly, however, that Rarunga could not follow its scent, and its attention focused on Chagum, who still smelled strongly of the egg. Tanda grabbed him with his right arm and pressed the flaming torch in his left hand against the tentacle that gripped him. With a bloodcurdling scream, the monster released its hold, but instantly, other tentacles swarmed toward Chagum, clinging to him like leeches to their prey. The torch flew out of Tanda’s grasp, and he and Chagum were swept up into the air.
“Chagum! Tanda!” Balsa stabbed at the four tentacles that held them. Her spear moved with such ferocious speed that it was almost invisible. Jin and Zen jumped inside the ring of claws, using their torches to protect her as the circle tightened. Fluid oozed from the holes Balsa had gouged in the tentacles, and Rarunga writhed in agony: Fire was anathema to a creature accustomed to living in the cold, dark mud.
Balsa felt the ground buck and heave beneath her. Suddenly, the enormous, slimy body of the monster emerged from the earth, spraying clods of dirt. Balsa, Jin, and Zen were thrown back off their feet. The creature’s giant mouth gaped inside the circle of claws crowning the body, and the tentacles shoved their captives relentlessly toward it.
Yelling, Jin and Zen threw their torches at its mouth, but the tentacles surrounding the opening knocked them aside. Tanda’s leg was already inside Rarunga’s mouth. Balsa ran over and picked up the torch he had dropped. With the torch in her right hand and her spear in her left, she leapt into the air and threw her spear with all her might. Using the momentum of that swing, she immediately sent the torch flying after it.
The torch followed the path of the spear perfectly. The tentacles knocked the spear aside, leaving a brief opening for the torch. It sailed past Tanda’s leg and with a horrible, sizzling sound lodged itself firmly in the monster’s mouth. With a wordless scream, Rarunga threw its captives high into the air and vanished. Chagum and Tanda slammed into the ground with a sickening thud, and then there was silence.
With a sound like a sigh, the stream resumed its quiet burbling. Balsa ran to Chagum where he lay on the riverbank and lifted him up. His face was deathly pale and covered in a sheen of sweat. His eyelids fluttered. Dazed, he opened them and looked up at her, his eyes unfocused. “My … arm … hurts.”
Balsa breathed a deep sigh of relief and cradled his head in her arms.
On midsummer’s day, they camped a little way from the spring. Tanda fixed Chagum’s dislocated shoulder, immobilizing it in a makeshift sling, then rubbed a strong-smelling ointment on his side, where he had bruised it when Rarunga flung him onto the riverbank.
“I outdid myself, didn’t I?” Balsa said with a laugh as Tanda treated the cut on her back.
Tanda snorted. “We all did.”
They heard Jin’s voice and looked up to see the Hunters returning with two plump pheasants and several dormice for their meal. Noticing that Chagum was awake, Jin and Zen knelt before him, trembling, their heads bowed low. “Your Highness!” They could not look him in the eye.
Chagum frowned. “I’m no longer a prince,” he muttered. “So there’s no need to treat me like one.” I wish that I could ask them what my father’s orders were, he thought suddenly. Did he really tell them to kill me? But this thought was gradually replaced by the feeling that it did not matter anymore. He was deeply tired, not only in body but in his very soul.
The birds the Hunters caught had been tossed casually on the ground. His glance fell upon their lifeless carcasses, and a shudder ran through him. Tanda, who was holding his wrist to take his pulse, followed his gaze. “To eat or be eaten, to escape or be taken,” he whispered and then looked at Chagum. “A matter of utmost importance to the one concerned, yet it happens all the time and we don’t even notice.”
Chagum’s eyes filled with tears. Balsa wrapped her arm around his shoulder and whispered, “I’m so glad you survived. I’m so glad we made it in time.”
Her words filled his heart with a warmth that spread to every corner of his body. I didn’t “survive,” he thought. You saved me. This realization hit him forcefully. Even he, who had known firsthand the egg’s desire to live, had found it hard to sacrifice himself to save it. Yet these people had willingly confronted terror for his sake. As a prince, he had taken it for granted that he should be protected, but now he knew how precious this protection was. He wrapped his good arm around Balsa’s neck and hugged her tightly.
“Thank you,” he said. He could find no other words to say. He looked at Tanda, then at the Hunters, and said again, “Thank you.” At that moment, the tension that had gripped him for the last eight months finally melted away. It’s over, he thought.
Neither he nor Balsa could know that another fate was quietly but surely approaching.
The next morning, they slept to their heart’s content and only put out the fire and set off on their journey once the sun had fully risen. To their surprise, they were met a little before noon by a troop of soldiers climbing up the mountain path. Torogai walked in front, and her face brightened at the sight of Balsa and her companions.
Jin and Zen hurried over to Mon, who led the soldiers, and told him what had happened the previous day. For a brief moment, Mon’s face was suffused with deep joy, but at the sight of Chagum approaching, he prostrated himself on the ground. With a clanking of armor, the other soldiers followed suit. Mon, who had shed his role as head of the Hunters and resumed his role as a member of the palace guard, addressed Chagum with downcast eyes.
“I beg your leave to express our joy that we have found you safe and well,” he said formally. “How profound is our gratitude that you have saved the water god and thereby delivered our country from drought. It is a great honor to witness the return of our sacred founder, Torugaru. The tale of your glorious heroism will be told for generations to come, Your Highness, Crown Prince.”
Chagum’s eyes widened in shock at the title. Balsa, Tanda, Jin, and Zen also looked at Mon in startled surprise.
“Did you address me as the Crown Prince?” Chagum automatically slipped into the commanding tones of royalty.
“Yes, Your Highness. I am afraid that I am the bearer of sad tidings. The night before last, your illustrious brother, the Crown Prince Sagum, passed away from illness. The Mikado has officially declared the Se
cond Prince, Chagum, to be the next Crown Prince and heir to the throne. While, to our great regret, we were unable to protect you previously, we stand ready now to accompany Your Highness to the palace.”
Chagum felt a profound sorrow rise from deep in his heart. It was not grief at his brother’s death; they had been raised separately, and the few times they met, Sagum had treated him with disdain. Chagum had never thought of him as anything but a stranger. But with his death, a new destiny fastened itself around him like a cloak of steel, tightening inexorably. Thoughts and feelings raced through his mind. I can see my mother … This means that someday I will be the Mikado. But for some reason everything seemed cold and distant. His strongest, most immediate emotion was unbearable sadness.
He looked up at Balsa. She was gazing straight at him. To the soldiers’ shock, the Crown Prince suddenly threw his arms around this grimy, bloodstained stranger and burst into tears, wailing as though his heart would break. “I don’t want to go! I don’t want to be the stupid Crown Prince! I want to stay with you and Tanda forever!” He hugged her fiercely. Balsa stood motionless, weeping soundlessly, tears streaking one after the other down her cheeks. Then, unable to restrain herself any longer, she suddenly scooped him up in her arms, hugged him tightly, and buried her face in his shoulder. She stood this way for a few moments, then slowly lowered him to the ground.
“Will you run away with me then, Chagum?” she said huskily. The soldiers tensed, and she laughed. “How about it? Shall I show them what I can do?”
Chagum looked up at her, hiccupping. He knew what she was trying to say. He stepped back from her slowly and looked at Tanda, then at Torogai. Knowing what Chagum must be going through, Tanda’s face twisted sadly; it was such a cruel fate for a boy of only twelve to confront. But no one could help him. Tanda clenched his fists tightly.
Chagum closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, trying to suppress his hiccups. The fragrance of the trees filled him, fresh and invigorating. He no longer smelled of shigu salua. No matter how hard he tried, he would never again see Nayugu. The egg of Nyunga Ro Im was gone…. He knew inside that a certain period of his life had ended. Through no desire of his own, he had become the Moribito, the Guardian of the Spirit; and so too he would now be made Crown Prince. He was furious with whatever it was that was moving him against his will, yet at the same time, he felt a strange clarity. It was similar to the feeling he had experienced in the wide, cool world of Nayugu, a feeling that would remain in his heart for the rest of his life.
He raised his eyes and, still hiccupping slightly, looked at Balsa. “It’s all right,” he said. “Save that for some other child.” Then he grinned mischievously and added, “Maybe it will be yours and Tanda’s.”
Balsa and Tanda started in surprise. Torogai threw her head back and laughed heartily. “Well done, lad! Well done! You’re brilliant. That’s the way to tell them.” When she had her laughter under control again, she added, “You’re more mature than any of these adults here, that’s for sure.”
Her words made him very happy.
They continued down the mountain, following the Aoyumi River to the capital. Compared to their previous journey, it was a very peaceful trip, but their hearts were heavy. They camped twice on their way to the capital, and Chagum told Mon he wished to share his campfire with Balsa and her companions. He would permit only Jin, Zen, and Mon to join them. Mon bowed his head in assent.
Conversation around the campfire centered on Nyunga Ro Im and Rarunga. “Do you think that the nahji has already carried the egg to the sea?” Chagum asked.
Tanda nodded. “Yes. The nahji’s wings are strong. There’s a Yakoo song that goes like this.” He sang,
“In a single day, the nahji flies
from the Misty Blue Mountains to the sea.
Would that I had the wings of the nahji.”
“Tanda,” Chagum exclaimed. “You have a good voice!”
“Don’t be silly,” Tanda said gruffly, blushing. If Chagum realized it was a love song, he would be bound to tease him again, and Tanda had had quite enough of that. But Chagum did not appear to notice.
“So the egg must be at the bottom of the sea by now,” he continued. “I wonder when Nyunga Ro Im will hatch.”
“I don’t know,” Balsa said, “but it better start producing clouds soon or this year’s harvest will be a disaster. After all the trouble it caused us, it better do a good job as Nyunga Ro Im.” Everyone nodded fervently.
“Do you think that Rarunga lives for hundreds of years?” Chagum asked. “And does it only eat Nyunga Ro Im’s eggs?”
Torogai, who was lying on her side, her head pillowed on her arm, snorted. “Not likely. How could it survive if that’s all it ate? It must live on something else instead. Those eggs are probably a special treat that it gets once a century. Still, I don’t know for sure — I never even found out how Nyunga Ro Im got that egg inside you. Who knows? Maybe the Nyunga Ro Im that lays its eggs every hundred years in Sagu only exists on this peninsula, and there are other Nyunga Ro Im that protect their eggs in different ways in other parts of the world.”
Chagum’s expression suddenly grew serious. He looked at Torogai and said, “I think I know why Nyunga Ro Im picked me.”
Torogai sat up abruptly. “Really?”
“Well, I can’t say for certain. But while the egg was guiding me to the spring, I had a dream — a very strange dream. I think I must have seen what the soul of Nyunga Ro Im was dreaming.” Searching for words, he haltingly described the river of life that he had felt flowing through him. “Maybe Nyunga Ro Im chose me because it saw that I was protected by so many other lives. It must have felt that my life was the strongest, one that would protect the egg and give it the best chance of surviving…. But I don’t know how it laid the egg inside me.”
Torogai pondered this for a while and then nodded. “I see. Hmm. You might be right. Previous Guardians must have been in similar positions or had similar strength. You know, we Yakoo believe that children of eleven or twelve have the strongest life force. The souls of children under seven are not yet firmly rooted in this world, and so they die easily. And at the age of fourteen or fifteen, people’s bodies are preparing to give birth to the next generation, and their energy is channeled into that. Maybe Nyunga Ro Im’s egg is planted by the rain or something, but regardless of how it does it, the spirit picks a child with a strong life force to guard it. Of course, this is just a guess.” She sighed, threw herself onto her back, and stretched out her arms and legs. “Oh, dear. I’ve lived seventy years and there’s still so much I don’t know about this world! Drat! The heavens and earth turn so slowly, as if they didn’t care. Hey, you there, you good-for-nothing apprentice! You’d better give up the idea of being a magic weaver. Nothing could be more frustrating!”
Tanda smiled wryly. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It will take me at least another fifty years to come to that realization. I’ll stick with it a little longer.”
Mon and Jin exchanged glances. They had never dreamed that they would one day be sitting around a campfire with people like this. Just as Torogai and her companions lived in their own world, so Jin and Mon were bound to a world that would not let them go, one to which they would return as soon as they entered the capital tomorrow.
Balsa nudged Chagum and pointed upward. The night sky, so high it seemed it would swallow them, was spangled with stars that looked like silver grains of sand. Until a moment ago, it had been clear, but now a wisp of cloud scudded across it, slender and delicate as a breath on a snowy morning.
At evening on the following day, they reached Yamakage Bridge, which only the royal family and their retainers could cross. Balsa and her companions stopped at the foot of the bridge and watched an ox-drawn carriage pull up in front of Chagum. He turned and looked back at Balsa.
“Balsa,” he said, “Call me Chagum. Say ‘Farewell, Chagum.’ ”
Balsa smiled faintly. “Farewell, Chagum,” she said.
He cl
enched his teeth. “Thank you. And good-bye. Balsa, Tanda, Master Torogai … Thank you.”
Then he turned abruptly and bent his head to climb into the carriage. It rolled forward, the sound of its wheels echoing in the valley below. The summer sun flashed on its fittings as it slowly disappeared into the golden light of sunset.
The drops fell incessantly, like fine threads of silver trailing from the heavy, low-lying clouds. Cloaked in a straw cape and hat, Balsa strode through the rain, carrying her spear bundled in oiled paper. She intended to cross the Misty Blue Mountains before autumn and enter the kingdom of Kanbal.
She thought back to her conversation with Tanda after they had parted from Chagum, and the expression on his face when she told him that she planned to set off for Kanbal immediately. “I need a little time,” she said then, groping for words. “Time to think. I’ve avoided this for many years, but now I’m ready to go back. I want to find Jiguro’s friends and family to tell them what happened, what kind of life he lived.” She gazed at the other side of the bridge where Chagum had disappeared. “I think that after meeting Chagum and serving as his bodyguard, I can finally understand how Jiguro felt. That’s why, you see.”
She turned her gaze back to Tanda. He was smiling faintly. “I’m glad to hear it. Off you go then, to Kanbal. But don’t go wielding that spear of yours over there. There may be better men than me in Kanbal, but I doubt there are any who will sew up your wounds for free.”
Balsa laughed out loud. And so they had parted.
As she listened to the patter of the rain on the leaves above her head, she felt the aching void of Chagum’s absence at her side. They had not even spent a year together, yet she had so many memories of him…. As she walked, she recalled, one by one, all the things that had happened since she had leapt into the Aoyumi River and dragged his body to shore.
Guardian of the Spirit Page 17