Beasts of the Tropics (4)
A crowd of onlookers had gathered along the path leading to the business site. Not that I could blame them—this remote fiefdom rarely saw foreigners, let alone ones with skin tones so different from the locals. My subordinates and I might well have been the first.
Innocent smiles and pure curiosity followed us in their gazes. Then came the smell I hated: cigarette smoke. Clusters of kids, maybe five or six years old, stood by the roadside peeking at us, each with a filterless cigarette dangling from their lips. The humid breeze carried the sharp scent right to my nose, laced with flecks of clove aroma. It was Indonesia's infamous kretek clove cigarettes, notorious for overwhelming foreign brands in tar, nicotine, and other toxins.
This wasn't some unique sight limited to this isolated domain. This was a country where a toddler barely past two had once made headlines for smoking two packs a day.
The Sultana smoked too. Clutching a stubby pipe, she greeted me with a smile in the living room of her wooden mansion topped with red tiles.
“Sudah lama. Saya harap anda bisa datang.”
The woman attending the Sultana translated her words into archaic, formal English.
“It's been a long time. I have been awaiting your arrival.”
I pressed my palms together in front of my face and gave a slight nodding bow in reply.
“Circumstances delayed me slightly. I beg your indulgence, Sultana Doktolan Da Haja Chandra Kirana Parkrudin.”
Krut translated my words. In truth, no interpreter was needed. Chandra Kirana was fluent in English. Yet she insisted on one, deeming it undignified for someone of her station to speak it directly—or even react to it without mediation. Using Krut was thus a sign of respect for her.
One of my subordinates handed a prepared gift to the Sultana's attendant. Inside the box was Song dynasty porcelain.
The Sultana smiled again—that standard, ever-present expression of the locals. Her words came through the interpreter once more.
“It gladdens me to see you unchanged after so long. Sit, pray do. The journey must have wearied you and your men. I have ordered a feast prepared in your honor.”
Here, even spoiled food must be offered to guests, and guests showed respect by at least pretending to eat for the host's face. Thus, the Sultana's feast was lavish beyond measure. Adorned head to toe in gold per the traditions of her lost kingdom, she barely touched the food herself, content to puff on her pipe and watch my crew and me eat.
Her pipe was top-grade: a subtle red sheen, lustrous polish, and beautiful grain patterns. Made from Brazilian rosewood, an endangered species whose trade was outright illegal.
I endured the irritating smoke and ate dutifully. Then the Sultana, oblivious to my mood, exhaled a puff and lobbed an even more grating question.
“Tell me, have you married yet?”
“......Not yet.”
“Oh dear.”
A faint shadow crossed Chandra Kirana's smile for the first time.
“Why ever not? Last we met, did you not promise to make an effort?”
“I've tried, in my own way. But things have kept me too busy for opportunities.”
The self-proclaimed Sultana—ever the meddlesome elder—tilted her head side to side with a troubled smile. The floral ornaments on her golden crown swayed like they'd caught the wind.
“No, no. This won't do. I cannot but harbor deep concern that a longtime friend like you remains unwed. One who fails to find a mate even in later years has not truly become a full person. No matter how pressing one's duties, people come before work—not the other way around, surely?”
“......”
“Thus, you must redouble your efforts. I say this only to help make you a proper human being. Heed my words not as nagging, nor dismiss them idly.”
“......I'll keep that in mind.”
The culture here treated the unmarried as oddballs—or worse, somehow defective. Infuriating meddling, utterly absurd. But it came from not seeing me as a total outsider. That closeness benefited business, so weighing the gains, I could stomach the secondhand smoke and trivial scolding.
“And yet, no opportunities at all? How strange.”
With that, the Sultana cast a languid glance at Suyeon.
“I recall seeing that girl last time too. Surely one you keep close and value highly—competent, no doubt, with little hidden between you. Your stations differ from mine and mine, so a superior and subordinate joining is hardly improper. Fate often arrives unnoticed. Might you not have overlooked a fine match right at hand while chasing phantoms elsewhere?”
I set down my utensils, pinched my temple, and replied.
“She and I aren't in that kind of relationship, Sultana.”
“How frustrating. What man and woman start that way? Effort is required—effort. You let chances slip, wasting that handsome face. If my son had your manly looks, he'd have suitors swarming by now......”
“......”
Somehow Kyung-tae found this hilarious, stifling laughs across the table. Suyeon, the subject, had stopped eating and sat with her eyes slightly averted, unmoving. Her vitals remained as steady and unreadable as ever.
The golden busybody sighed—not quite a sigh—and continued with a smile that seemed about to vanish.
“Man and woman uniting is divine providence, without which the species could not persist—thus its natural imperative. Yet since Western decadence spread talk of personal freedom and liberation from old ways, more couples fail to commit, and streets fill with women without morals (Wanita tuna susila/prostitutes). Ah, how lamentable. How tragic the loss of tradition and communal bonds to cultural invasion. And still, today's corrupt youth ignore elders urging them to cherish the old ways, lost in selfish individualism—”
Her rambling went on far too long. The sudden mention of her son earlier suggested some pent-up grudge. Probably her modern-minded boy preaching “personal freedom” and giving her grief.
Kids are a hassle too, huh. Blood ties weren't all upside.
The attendant's forehead glistened with sweat as she diligently translated the archaic native tongue into equally archaic foreign speech. No small feat—and at that pace.
The crime boss's lament on the times halted only when her pipe needed refilling. True to form for one who called her carefully tended pipe an “old friend,” the Sultana did it herself. As she packed fine-shredded tobacco into the bowl and lit it, I smoothly shifted to business.
“I sent someone ahead with a request. What are your thoughts on it?”
She puffed deeply to build the ember, exhaled a long plume, and nodded softly.
“My will aligns with yours.”
That one formal phrase. I'd crossed from Guangzhou to this Sumatran backwater just to hear it in person.
Anyone deeming it a hassle couldn't collaborate long-term with a premodern relic of noble blood.
The Sultana continued.
“I say this because it's you, but what a gift of a proposal. Transferring transoceanic submarine construction tech just for lending land and protection? You truly seek no further price?”
“It's fine.”
“Surely acquiring that tech cost you dearly?”
“I said it's fine. If there's change left over, keep it for other matters.”
Big profits would motivate hiding and guarding the construction site better. Prioritizing sub profits over the London push was shortsighted folly.
Silent for a beat, the Sultana abruptly changed tack.
“Did you notice on the way? Near the main gate of the masjid (mosque) ahead stands a jati tree (teak tree) where a spirit has nested of late.”
“I saw it. The only awakened tree in the village.”
“As expected. Other spirit-touched trees were felled after appeasement rites for the villagers' safety. But not that jati. It was planted by decree of an ancient sultan in the kingdom's heyday—one of the few remnants left.”
“I see. But why mention it?”
“Hear more. That mighty tree was the first in these parts to show miracles. At first, just gathering water and mist. Folks marveled as spilled water defied gravity to soak the roots and climb the trunk. Without word from elsewhere, or the imam and my teachings, many would have knelt crying 'God's miracle.'”
Primitive magic manifestations drew partly from the lifeform's innate bent. Many abilities popped up unrelated, but convergence on that bent was even more common. Water and light were plants' innate directions; binding existing water beat conjuring absent light. Thus, water affinity was the most common plant power.
Not that it rivals the Giant's incantation in refinement.
Not all plants got the same incantation. Think magical convergent evolution: varied paths to similar results. The stature of the Giant's soul was underwritten by eons endured. Even a grand magus like me felt humble before a million years' weight.
In the quiet, the tobacco crackled as it burned.
“Then, two or three months back, while inspecting the site, an elder came running in a panic. Said fire suddenly bloomed on the trunk, then vanished in a blink.”
The Sultana exhaled swirling smoke, reminiscing.
“I arrived too late for the flames but found charred grubs writhing in agony at the spot, dying.”
“Grubs?”
“A kind of larva. They bore into jati until winged adulthood, munching leaves or sucking sap. If trees could choose, they'd hate these pests.”
Pest control, then. Fire was an indirect light source. Not the ideal spectrum for plants, perhaps.
Leaning forward slightly, the Sultana emphasized.
“It burned pests it hated. With newfound power.”
“Seems so.”
“Wetting itself with water, then using fire on vermin... The precision astonished, but more so: one life wielding two utterly different miracles. I'd heard no such cases till then.”
“It's more common now, though still rare in absolute numbers.”
“Indeed. After the masjid jati gained fire, our logging elephants started wielding invisible force—lifting or rolling logs without trunk or foot. Similar tales emerged elsewhere around then. Thus, I dared hope for one possibility.”
“What possibility?”
“That even those already awakened might open their eyes to new powers.”