Unknown
While I was struggling to dam up the flood of disbelief and exasperation threatening to spill out of me, the shaman called Jo Man-hee was chattering away in high spirits.
"First, let me tell you what shamanism is! It means hosting a god within your body and borrowing that god's power! Therefore! The most important thing is, how great a god you host within yourself! That, and that alone, determines a shaman's power!"
Jo Man-hee fluttered his flamboyant sleeves and recited his spiel with the smooth fluency of flowing water.
"Hence, the first spirit descent is the most important of all! Simply follow my instructions and show proper devotion, and I shall introduce you to a truly great god! Of course, a great god's descent ritual does require a fair number of offerings, but the results are guaranteed in proportion! Receive the descent well, and everything will prosper! Fortune will rain from the heavens! Follow me, a Grand Shaman, and—"
"Excuse me."
"What—your teacher is speaking, and you dare to interrupt! Clearly the first lesson must be etique—"
"I'm not receiving a spirit descent. I don't intend to become a shaman. I want to learn 'shamanism' as one of the arts of the Gwoeryeoknansin."
"Ah…… ahh, of course. A half-measure. Yes."
The man's manner of speech was truly a sight to behold.
I had grown accustomed enough to living as a human that I could extend even a fraud like this some courtesy, but calling him teacher was something I would never do, not even at the point of death.
'No matter how I look at this, he is not a real shaman.'
Still, out of consideration for Princess Onseol, who had introduced him, I held my tongue for now—though I had already resolved never to summon him again after today.
"Ahem, ahem. Then first, I shall read Her Highness the Crown Princess's fortune from her saju."
"Pardon? My saju?"
"One must know what the future holds before one can properly learn shamanism. Now then, write your birth date and hour here, if you please."
By this point I was mildly curious what exactly this man was playing at, so I wrote down "Seruhwa's" date of birth for him.
Jo Man-hee shook a brimming container wildly over the paper bearing the saju, then scattered its contents with an elaborate flourish of his wrist.
Red beans.
He studied the beans strewn across the saju paper, then assumed an expression of studied solemnity and popped a few into his mouth.
Is he seriously trying to divine the future with those?
'Should I just flip this table over and not bother waiting until the end?'
I was contemplating it in earnest when Jo Man-hee let out an enormous wail.
"Aiigo, whatever shall we do! This is disaster, disaster!"
"……"
"Aiigooo, a true calamity, Your Highness! Might I ask—have you not collapsed at some point recently? From what I see, you have dipped a foot in Samdocheon itself and returned! Hmm, hmm, at least ten days ago, I'd say?"
"……"
"Let me see, let me see…… the north! You collapsed in the north. And…… bamboo! Have you not also shed blood in a place thick with bamboo? Am I not right?"
"……"
"This is the depth of a Grand Shaman's sight—when I read a saju, even these things appear! And so, as I see it, Her Highness the Crown Princess's saju is brim-fu—urk—full of misfortune!"
"……"
Does this man think I'm an idiot?
The Crown Princess had lain unconscious for ten days after collapsing—there was no way a man arriving as her shamanic guest couldn't know that. Word had already spread that I had collapsed in the Gyebang, north of the Eastern Palace.
My ambush in the bamboo grove? The Waneon faction led by the Left State Councilor and Prince Waneon had been swept up and strung from the lampposts in the public square on charges of attempted assassination of the Crown Princess—knowing nothing about that incident would have taken more effort than knowing it.
As for the location being a bamboo forest, that too would come out with the barest inquiry. It wasn't exactly classified information.
And her future being full of misfortune?
True, actually. But no matter how I looked at it, this man wasn't saying it because he knew any of it.
'He seems the type to tell anyone who sits down that misfortune has befallen them. Which means the next step of the con is obviously……'
"This is no time to fuss over shamanism lessons! You must hold a ritual at once and shake off this calamity—or else! Your parents will fall ill! You will lose the love of the Crown Prince! And you will never see children of your own!"
Called it.
And now comes the part where he names his price, doesn't it?
"The misfortune is so great that the ritual must be conducted on a grand scale. It will be costly, I won't lie—but Her Highness's very future hangs in the balance!"
'Wow. Not a single deviation from my predictions. Not one.'
A textbook charlatan.
I once overheard Baridegi—the Shaman Ancestor Goddess of the Netherworld, mother of all shamans and goddess of consolation who guides the dead—venting her grievances to my father.
'She said that more and more frauds were calling themselves shamans and bleeding mortals dry, and it galled her to no end.'
People who housed strange stray spirits or杂 gods in their bodies—or who had no guardian god at all—passing themselves off as shamans, cheating humans out of their money and ruining their lives.
'She was even begging for a dedicated corner of hell to be set aside for exactly such frauds……'
By the look of it, if this man ever crossed into the afterlife, he'd be sent straight there.
'The power I can sense from him amounts to barely a handful, and even that is of unknown origin. I can't even tell whether its source is heavenly, netherworldly, or something else entirely…… hm?'
As I probed the surrounding energies, my attention drifted past the rambling Jo Man-hee to the girl behind him, the one he called his spirit daughter.
'That's an aura from the celestial realm. And from the feel of it, a god of considerably high rank.'
Why would a girl like that be sitting under a fraud like this?
The girl, head bowed deep, looked to be about sixteen or seventeen.
Looking closer, it wasn't just her clothes that were worn—there were bruises on the nape of her neck and around her wrists.
'Somehow, it feels like this child has had a hard lot in life too……'
"Her Highness the Crown Princess! Are you listening? I'm telling you, the ritual must be held as soon as possible!"
the fraud shrilled.
I considered simply flipping the table and throwing him out on the spot, but the girl behind him kept nagging at my conscience, so I changed tactics.
"What exactly is a gut?"
"You— you don't even know what a gut is? This is why you barba— ahem, ahem, ahem! Now then, what is a gut, you ask! It is a rite offered to the gods, in which sacrifices are presented and dances are danced while prayers are made—"
"Isn't that the same thing as an ancestral rite? I don't see the difference."
"Ah, yes! Quite right, it is a rite much like the offerings a shaman makes!"
"Then is there a reason I'd need to entrust a rite to a shaman specifically? What's different about it? Couldn't I simply perform the offering myself?"
"Aiigo, but there is a difference! A great difference! A shaman's gut is far, far more effective. Which is why the cost is conside—"
"More effective than a regular rite, you say? What kind of effect? In what way, by what means? Please explain in detail."
"Weh…… well, you see……"
"Oh, and something I've wondered about for a while—curse-masters use talismans too, don't they? How does a shaman's talisman differ from a curse-master's?"
"A-a curse-master's talismans and a shaman's, you say?"
"Yes. I'd like to know the difference. And there's also the flying of blades…… I've heard curse-masters can fling blades as well. How does that differ from what shamans do?"
"Uh, uh……"
"The Gwoeryeoknansin…… the Daos of the Bizarre, the Might of Warriors, the Hexcraft of the Ruinous, the Spiritcraft of Ghosts. I've heard that Daoists wield daosul, that warriors wield yongryeok, and that curse-masters wield yoryeok. All three are powers built by honing one's own craft through one's own effort."
"P-pardon? Suddenly……"
"By contrast, a shaman's shinryeok is said to be the only power among them borrowed from another. So how exactly does it differ from the other Gwoeryeoknansin arts? A curse-master's yoryeok, I hear, is accumulated by capturing yokai and draining their power—which, strictly speaking, is also someone else's power, isn't it? Why is a shaman's shinryeok considered different?"
"Th-that is……"
"And hmm, shamanism is ultimately a matter of borrowing another's power to work power—so is it even possible to grow stronger beyond that? If the power belongs to someone else, isn't your ceiling fixed? Can a shaman become stronger by honing shamanism the way the other disciplines do? What kind of art is shamanism, exactly? Is it a method of enlarging the vessel that receives shinryeok? Or a method of handling borrowed shinryeok more skillfully?"
"……"
I poured out, without restraint, every question I had carried with me since the day I resolved to learn shamanism and draw upon the divine power of my original body.
Just as I'd expected, the fraud couldn't answer a single one properly. His eyes were spinning in circles.
"……Cr-Cricket. Cricket!"
At the fraud's sudden shout, the girl in the corner answered.
"Yes, spirit-father."
"Y-you there, answer Her Highness the Crown Princess in my stead. These are matters too fundamental for me to be teaching at this stage, ahem."
Having called the girl to sit before me, the fraud coughed ceremonially, rose from his seat, and slunk quietly out of the Jaebang.
'He bolted.'
It had been clear at a glance that he knew nothing and had no real power to speak of—that he could do nothing but swindle. So a man like that, dragging around a girl connected to a high-ranking god as his "spirit daughter," had struck me as suspicious, and I had pressed him.
'And sure enough, he dumped it all on her and fled. She was doing all the real work all along. That grand title of his, whatever it was—didn't he earn it on this child's back?'
Clicking my tongue inwardly, I studied the girl bowing her head before me.
'By the way—surely "Cricket" isn't her actual name?'
As if she had heard my thoughts, the girl spoke with her head still bowed, in a level, unadorned voice.
Unyeonhwaso. I greet Her Highness the Crown Princess. I am called Baek Tam-sol. ……You may call me Cricket, if you prefer."
An unusual name—it seemed she was written with the character Sol (蟀), for cricket. Though being called "Cricket" apparently didn't please her much either. It had the feel of a name she'd simply resigned herself to.
Having finished her greeting, the girl lifted her head. And at the face revealed between her long bangs, I was caught slightly off guard.
'A scar…… a burn?'
A knotted mark covered the girl's face entirely, from her forehead down the bridge of her nose.
It looked like an old, long-settled scar. So that's why she kept her head bowed all this time.
'She must have suffered so much.'
I found myself thinking of the salve I had once made for the Crown Prince's cheek, rendered from the oil of the divine beast, the Bulgasari. Applied faithfully, it seemed like something that could fade away entirely.
'It would be unseemly to use the Eight-Jewel Command now…… but if we should meet again.'
If this meeting was not the end—if it continued on and became something more.
'Could we become bound by fate?'