Toward the End
"Repel them!"
Crown Prince Yunhwi's guards threw themselves bodily against the wretched things, staking their very lives on holding the line. Yet no matter how many times the foul creatures were struck down, they rose again, and the guards were battered until they were little more than tattered wreckage.
Blood vessels burst, clothes shredded to rags, wounds opened across every inch of their bodies — still, they refused to give up.
"Grrrgh…!"
Myeong-do clamped his hand around one of the creature's wrists and advanced a single step at a time. The guards carved a path through the chaos, following his lead. Etched across his face as he cut through the pandemonium was something close to desperation.
At last, the moment the creature's back hit the wall, he pressed its wrist against one of the lanterns hanging there and held it to the flame.
The Five Blessings String knotted around the creature's wrist blazed up in glory.
A turtle resting in a field of white flowers, a water lily caught between its jaws. A tiger seated faithfully at its side. And above them all, a yellow butterfly flitted to and fro. Every stitch of it had been embroidered by a mother's desperate heart — a heart that ached to hand her child all the beautiful things in the world — and now it went up in fire. The moment the white cord crumbled to ash and scattered down in a fine shower,
"Aaagh!"
Yunhwi's blade dealt Grand Prince Seonghwi a mortal wound. The instant he collapsed, the wretched things drained of all strength and crumpled to the floor at once.
Myeong-do hurriedly drew a talisman from his breast, then another, scattering them into the air with frantic hands. Yellow paper swirled across the chamber.
Like the lanterns the two of them had watched together that night, the talismans briefly embroidered the sky.
"Press them to the faces of the wretched ones!"
The guards and Yunhwi snatched up the talismans and did as he commanded. The creatures, which had been writhing moments before, gradually fell still. The turmoil in the palace subsided, and everyone stood panting, their eyes frantically searching Yunhwi for injuries.
"Your Highness…!"
"I am well. You have all endured much."
But Myeong-do could not linger with them. He gathered up the charred remains of the Five Blessings String into his palm and clenched his fist around it as if to grind it to nothing.
Then he made his way to the throne.
"Your Majesty."
Dropping to one knee and bowing his head low, he addressed the King.
"I must go to Baek-yeongji."
Seoryeong rose in his mind once more. She had none of this — no host of comrades at her side. How terrified she must be, walking alone to face Yeomga. Tears welled in Myeong-do's eyes all over again.
"…It is not yet finished, then?"
"No, Your Majesty. It is not."
The King gave a firm, unhesitating nod.
"Then take your troops, and go protect her."
Myeong-do raised his eyes. For a moment, the gaze of a King determined to shield his kingdom and the gaze of an officer determined to shield Seoryeong met and held.
Before long, a company of soldiers emerged from the palace gates, kicking up a haze of pale dust. Hooves pounded the earth without pause, driving ever forward. On the back of Myeong-do's hand, where he gripped the reins as though he would never let them go, veins stood out in sharp relief.
The frayed end of the Five Blessings String, bound tenderly at his wrist, fluttered in the wind.
Hold on, please. Keep our promise, please. Stay alive to the very end, please.
Myeong-do was riding for Seoryeong now. Just as he had sworn he would.
Seoryeong never once released the restraint bracelet — not until the very moment she reached Baek-yeongji.
Myeong-do might not yet have entered the palace. Even if he had, he might not yet have finished cutting down the undying wretches. And so she kept the bracelet on, guarding him for as long as she could.
Because the instant she removed it, Yeomga would sense everything.
With trembling fingers, Seoryeong fumbled through her clothes. All that met her hand was a single talisman. She had handed every last one she carried over to Myeong-do — every one but this.
Her promise to him, that she would not die. It had been a lie.
The moment she surrendered all her talismans to Myeong-do, Seoryeong had made peace with her own death. Even if it cost her everything, she had wanted him to live that much longer.
It was a life she had resolved to throw away long, long ago. There was nothing to begrudge it.
And so she had only to return to nothing, together with Yeomga, just like this.
Seoryeong tucked the talisman back inside her clothes. Her heart, cradling it, beat hot and fierce against her ribs.
"Hoo…."
A wooden signboard reading Baek-yeongji stood at the mouth of the village. Seoryeong took it in with her eyes and dragged in a shaky breath.
Where the Five Blessings String had vanished from her wrist, there now hung the restraint bracelet Jeong-an had made for her with her own hands.
Clack. Clack. Each time Seoryeong's fingers brushed it, the wooden beads knocked softly against one another. It sounded, somehow, exactly like the wooden fish Jeong-an used to strike in prayer.
She rested her bracelet-clad hand over her heart for a moment. The pounding beneath her palm came through, steady and relentless.
"Whew…."
She drew another deep, shuddering breath. Beyond the guardian totem planted at the village entrance, the sun was sinking low.
Just as it had in the moment she first met Myeong-do, the burning red of dusk spilled across one side of Seoryeong's face.
When a dark shadow fell across the bridge of her nose, she hesitated no longer.
Too-do-doook—
The restraint snapped, and the wooden beads scattered one by one to the ground.
That was when it began.
Hee-hee-hek! Hee-hee-heee-hek! — the shrill laughter of children; BANG! — a gong struck with savage force; skitter-skitter — the scuttle of a cockroach; the drone of a funeral dirge sung in mockery — when will you come, oh when; ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling — the ringing of bells; tuk-tuk-tuk — a janggu drum beaten in fevered impatience; shaaaaa — bamboo leaves rattling against the wind. Every one of those sounds rose together into a single hideous chorus.
"Ugh…."
The divine power crashed over her all at once, and Seoryeong's breath caught in her throat. CRACK! Lightning split a cloudless sky.
She could feel it now — the true depth of the divine power Yeomga possessed. It was heavy enough to crush her flat where she stood, and only then did it become real to her: she really was about to stake her life on this.
She was afraid. She missed Myeong-do. She bit down hard on the soft inside of her cheek, but even that could not stop the tears from welling.
Still, Seoryeong took one step forward. Then another. And another….
Gritting her teeth, she walked on.
Toward the place where Yeomga waited.
Toward the end.
"Eh? Eh-eh?"
Red blotches were blooming across the bodies of the people brushing past Seoryeong. The work of the plague ghosts.
The spirits clung to human backs, perched upon shoulders, tickled and teased — and spread their pestilence as they went.
Yeomga's curse was only just beginning.
Those marked with red spots became living signposts, guiding Seoryeong like messengers delivering an invitation. Turn right at the fork, walk on until the next turning, then left again, then deeper still into the heart of the village….
"Aaagh! Mother!"
"It hurts, it huuurts…!"
"Mother! Father!"
Screams erupted on every side. Those who could not bear the sudden agony clawed madly at their own skin as they staggered out into the streets.
If hell exists anywhere, it must be here. The thought crossed Seoryeong's mind as she slipped past them.
At last, the outermost edge. In a shadowed corner of Baek-yeongji, a bamboo barrier rose up, as if it had been waiting to receive her. Seoryeong lifted her hand to the rotten golden rope strung across it.
Ring—. The little bell hanging from the rope swayed gently, like a household welcoming a long-awaited guest.
And beyond it stood Yeomga.
Yeomga fixed a Hahoe mask over her face, then swept one hand through the air. At her gesture, the wretched things — talismans plastered over their faces — began to move their arms in unison.
Boom-boom-boom-boom.
Boom-boom-boom-boom.
Over a drum sheathed in thick hide, a gaunt, skeletal hand flew busily back and forth. A low, cavernous sound rolled through the space. The skin stretched over that drum looked strangely smooth and soft. Like the skin of an infant.
Whiiiii—.
A razor-sharp shriek, like something cleaving the wind itself, rose from the end of a flute. A wretched thing with a gaping, grotesquely split mouth pressed breath after breath into its instrument, mimicking human respiration. The flute wailed like the screams of the dead.
Giiiiing—.
As a gong was smashed with a violent swing of the arm, Yeomga stretched out her opposite hand.
The hem of her robe, which had seemed only a lightless black, caught the moonlight and shimmered a faint, spectral purple. Upon a straw mat scorched with burn marks in patch after patch, Yeomga slipped off her shoes.
"Mmmhm…."
Welcoming the wind against her skin like a pleasure, Yeomga began to dance. From the instruments clutched in the wretched things' hands, a bleak and mournful music spilled forth. The ritual had begun.
"Cheonji-goji — I proclaim it to Heaven and Earth: Jang-u-jinroe — long rains shall pour and thunder shall roll — Pung-in-yeolbu — and blades of wind shall split bare flesh…."
Announcing her purpose to the heavens, crying it out to the earth — Yeomga's voice, summoning endless rain and rolling thunder, trembled with pure delight.
Each time she whirled, the gossamer ends of her sleeves billowed on the wind.
"Jae-in-simpan — the guilty judged! Bokja-yeokbeol — the blessed punished all the same! Bound together, the lot of them left to writhe — tell me, what joy could be sweeter than this!"
Arms flung wide to either side, Yeomga raised them straight up toward the sky. Her whole body shuddered with rapture.
"Tal-dong-su-jeung-no — I steal the child's years and hand them to the aged! Ah, how boundless is this wretched suffering—!"
With one hand, Yeomga unfurled a scroll of curse-script written in her own blood. The densely inked characters ran down a sheet nearly as tall as she was.
With her other hand, she drew out a talisman. She chanted, and it caught fire.
At last it burns. The world — this godforsaken world that never once made room for Yeomga — is going up in flames.
Acrid smoke curled up from the curse-script. For a long moment, she held the trailing end of the scroll and simply gazed at it.
As though summoning the past.
Then she stepped straight up onto the blade positioned to her left.
Barefoot upon the razor edge of the great blade, Yeomga began leaping and bouncing without so much as a breath's pause.
She could hide her emotions no longer. She was so deliriously happy that giggles spilled out of her, one after another. Her voice, shrill with wild abandon, pitched up toward a shriek.
"Bok-geon-gon — overturn Heaven and Earth!"
Yeomga, who had kept her feelings sealed away for so long, was grinning so openly behind her mask that it seemed to glow. Bare-skinned, weaving across a blade of cold blue steel, she was beyond all reason.
"Gyeong-san-hae — topple mountains and seas!"
Something that was no longer human at all.
"Nan-eum-yang — confound Yin and Yang!"
Before anyone realized it, every palm watching that scene had gone slick with cold sweat. Please, please let Seoryeong come. They prayed and they prayed, and just as despair began to close its jaws — just as they became certain that Yeomga would fling her maw wide and swallow the kingdom whole —
"Sil-hon-baek — scatter the soul!"
At long last, salvation arrived.
"YEOMGA!"
It was Seoryeong.