The Karma Ends in Fire
CLANG! CLANG!
The iron plate was being forced open with a frightful racket. The ones behind it were rushing so badly that, again and again, they fumbled it before it could swing properly wide and sent it crashing down.
Kang Hyeong-seok turned, and with sweat-damp hands wrapped his grip around the Sinjangkal.
Then he lifted his gaze to the Buddha statue and forced the words out through a throat gone dry. "Your sin is great."
The statue's hands began to move. One rose to the height of its shoulder; the other settled near its hip. The fingers of the raised hand stretched straight and even toward the sky, while the lowered hand turned its palm outward to the world.
The mudras of a Buddha—abhaya, the sign of fearlessness, and varada, the granting of wishes.
Even now, the thing was aping the Buddha.
"Now I know what you are—and the grievance that made you."
One step. Hyeong-seok came a pace closer, his eyes on the statue, crowded with far too many emotions at once.
"You have taken far too many lives, and you meant to repeat the sins of your past."
The air shivered with something uncanny, as though the statue were sneering at him.
Even so, Hyeong-seok did not waver. He ground the words out from a voice pressed deep into his chest. "Jeon Jeong-un—let this karma end, here and now."
Wararang! Hyeong-seok advanced on the statue, chanting the sacred words.
"Vajra of the beginning, threefold skillful means,
diamond triumphant, half-moon wind-wheel—"
At the slow, droning cadence of the scripture, the statue's mudras gave the faintest tremble. Behind him, Shin Yo-sep kept watch with a face taut with anxiety—and the statue, silent, went on watching him in return. There was no telling when the mudang would come crashing in.
"Hurry! Faster!"
"Sever the nine quarters; let the crimson light of the south blaze—
call out the dark of ignorance, call out the spirits of the soil,
and command all that dwell in heaven, in the air, beneath the earth,
all who fashion hindrance and woe—"
Where Shin Yo-sep strained with impatience, Hyeong-seok poured himself into the chant with perfect calm. His will to bend the profane to its knees rode out upon the ring of the bells.
Warararang.
The deaths tied to this statue were not few. Hyeong-seok thought back to the dead he had seen on the mountain—their resentment, hundreds of souls' worth of it, vivid as if etched into his corneas. Even at him, a stranger with no ties to any of them, that smoldering fury had come pouring out.
Chewing over every last trace of it, Hyeong-seok carried the demon-subduing mantra onward.
"Cast off terror and wickedness, surrender the rebellious heart,
and within the Buddha's law, let faith take root—"
KRRRUNK—!
The sound of the iron plate swinging wide came racing down the corridor. The mudang's shriek followed hard on its heels, and then came the pounding of footsteps, sprinting flat-out toward this place. With them rushed the open air, laced with the smell of the mountain.
Warararang.
"Shield this ground of the rite, watch over the master of the rite,
and bring low all that defies—"
Hyeong-seok shook the shaman bells, then turned his head from the statue. Shin Yo-sep stood frozen in his anxiety, and yet his face, too, said that he felt it—something.
"You—"
"AAAAAGH!"
The mudang's scream swallowed the rest of what he had to say.
Hyeong-seok looked back, his face a wild tangle of emotions with no order to them at all.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
The running footsteps did not belong to one person alone. The mudang and at least two of her faithful were bearing down on them—but Hyeong-seok's eyes were fixed on what was behind them.
Everything is ready now.
The moment had come. The evil god's source had been brought to light; its true form, laid bare. And it was not only people who would be entering this corridor.
Warararang!
The mudang had opened the iron plate—and because of it, the dead could come through as well. The dead Hyeong-seok had seen on the mountain. The dead who still carried a fury with nowhere left to go. Now, at last, their rage could turn upon the mudang and the statue: the remnants of the Baekbaekgyo and the Baekdogyo, the ones who had put them in the ground.
"Uweeeeaargh!"
He could see her coming—both arms thrust out before her like a demon's claws, shrieking pure malice as she ran. Burly men were hard on her heels, but Hyeong-seok did not so much as shift his weight.
Warararang!
He shook the bells with fierce urgency, as if guiding the dead by the hand. Shin Yo-sep felt it a heartbeat later and threw his back against the wall on pure instinct—and the mudang, her face drained bone-white, stopped dead in her tracks.
Then she looked behind her.
"Ah—aaah—ah!"
By the time she understood, it was already far too late.
Gazing past her, to the far end of the corridor, Hyeong-seok tilted the Sinjangkal back and forth as he opened his mouth.
"O come, oh come! Come, come to us!"
Those who wronged you are here. Come quickly—release the han you carry, and pass on to heaven in peace.
"Sit enthroned three thousand leagues away, stand gazing out over ninety thousand more;
accept every offering laid before you, and come, oh come!"
The mudang shot Hyeong-seok a look brimming with venom—then her eyes found the statue standing there, and the breath died in her throat with an audible catch. The men behind her froze solid at the grotesque figure of it, and Shin Yo-sep, eyes closed, traced the sign of the cross without a word. He could already see it: the painting of hell about to unfold before them.
"By the roadside you emerge, drifting light as down from south of the river—
flutter, flutter, past far Seochok you glide,
over six hundred leagues of Naejang, straining through eight hundred leagues of Dokchil—"
"AAAAAARGH!"
The mudang hurled herself at him with a scream like tearing cloth, but when Hyeong-seok wrenched his caught arm free, she went sprawling helplessly across the floor.
"Le-Leader!"
"You—you bas—!"
It was the very moment the men lunged for Hyeong-seok.
Wooooooom!
The corridor itself began to moan, deep and vast. And in the eyes of the mudang and of Hyeong-seok—both gifted with the Yeongan—the dead began to appear: spirits near-feral as any evil ghost, surging in until they packed the narrow corridor wall to wall.
"Hah—hagh! Heuuugh!"
Her face turning a sickly blue, the mudang flailed her hands at the corridor. "D-don't come! Don't come, you wretches! Do you have any idea where this is!"
The dead passed the men by. Then, baring a fury banked up over nearly a hundred years, they fell upon the statue that had killed them—ravenous, all at once. It was a scene beyond all bearing.
"AAAAARGH! Uweeeeee! AAAAAGH!"
As though her body had caught fire, the mudang thrashed her arms and legs, rolling across the floor. The statue, for its part, did not so much as twitch. It was something that could be called a god; no mere wandering spirit could breach it.
Sreung.
And so Hyeong-seok advanced on the statue, Sinjangkal in hand. He passed the mudang by, and drove the blade into its chest.
KRAK!
"Nooooo!"
The mudang had barely finished shrieking it, voice splitting in two, at Hyeong-seok's back—when the dead came pouring through the wound the Sinjangkal had opened, flooding into the statue's interior. And a heartbeat later, a small ember was born in the wound.
Fwoosh! Fwaarrr!
Shin Yo-sep—and the men who had followed the mudang no less—stared at the fire blossoming from the statue, faces that refused to believe their own eyes. Flames blooming out of a wound in a Buddha's chest: it felt surreal, as if something had come surging up from hell itself. But the fire was real. It lit the corridor around them, and it threw shadows.
Fwaarrr! Fwoosh!
The flames swelled and swelled and began to swallow the statue whole, as though it were nothing but a stack of dried kindling. Fire climbed its chest, and the ornaments that had glittered so splendidly vanished beneath black soot.
"Kreaaaargh!"
The men looked down at the mudang, faces brimming with terror. The woman whose powers had seemed divine was writhing now as if she were the one aflame. To watch her was like watching someone flayed alive, all the way down to the soul.
"Hah—hagh. U—uaaaargh!"
One of the men began to back away, and the other scrambled after him just as fast. Abandoned by her own faithful, the mudang rolled on the floor, slapping and sweeping at her body with her palms, over and over. As if she were trying to smother a fire no one else could see.
Fwaarrr! Fwaaarrrr!
The statue burned faster and faster. The blaze that had begun inside reached its head at last and poured out through its mouth, its nose, its eyes.
Fwaaarrrr!
Watching the statue shed black smoke from every inch of its body, Shin Yo-sep let out a low groan and turned to Hyeong-seok. Is it over now? That was the question in his eyes.
A nod. Hyeong-seok answered with his eyes still on the statue—and gave the answer aloud as well. "Doesn't look like even the Jade Emperor will be getting a visit from this one."
Fire stands for many things.
Fwaarrr!
Like the flames lighting this dark corridor at this very moment, fire has meant exorcism and purification, East and West alike. And it has meant hell, too.
Fwaarrr—crack, crackle!
Black smoke burst from the line where neck met head; the head tipped, then went rolling to the floor.
"AAAAAAAAGH!"
As if screaming in the statue's stead, the mudang let loose a harrowing wail. She was a mudang bound to her god—one who had helped bring the evil god into being, and who had dreamed of raising the Baekdogyo from the dead. Tormented now by the very souls she had helped slaughter, she was beyond even Hyeong-seok's power to save.
Fwaaaaarrrr! Crackle.
Hyeong-seok watched the statue begin to collapse in on itself—then turned away. Shin Yo-sep gave a groan, looked back once at the mudang and the burning statue, and fell in behind him.
"AAARGH! Khk—kheurrgh!"
Listening to the mudang's breathing tear itself apart, Shin Yo-sep opened his mouth, his heart a tangle of grief and pity.
"Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle."
Fwoosh! Fwaarrr!
The statue's wavering firelight lit their backs, and the long shadows it cast stretched toward the mouth of the corridor, as if pointing the way they were meant to go.
"Be our refuge from the wickedness and snares of the devil.
O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God,
cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits
who roam through the world seeking the ruin of souls—"
Shin Yo-sep watched Hyeong-seok's back—the man walking ahead with the Sinjangkal and the shaman bells in his grip. Something he never could have managed alone. And yet it did not feel as though this would be the last of it.
His fist tightened. Shin Yo-sep pressed his lips into a hard line, eyes never leaving that back.
Please—let this prayer reach him, too.
Yearning with everything he had, he brought the prayer to its close in a low voice that seemed to resonate from somewhere deeper than his chest.
Duuung—umm!
The drumstick stopped.
The musicians watched Lee Geum-kyeong and Shin Jeong-ah, hardly daring even to breathe. They stood before the shrine hall, where a chill night wind came drifting in.
Haah—haah—haah. Lee Geum-kyeong reached out to the girl gathered in her arms, gently wiping away the cold sweat that slicked her skin, then turned her head and called for Cheong-geum to bring water.
Only once Cheong-geum had hurried over with a bowl did the stillness break. Gulp, gulp, gulp. In the hushed front courtyard, the sound of Shin Jeong-ah drinking rang out with startling loudness.
Wiping her sweat once more, Lee Geum-kyeong spoke as though each word had to be squeezed out through a thread of a voice. "You did well. Truly—you've been through so much."
Shin Jeong-ah had managed something far greater than anyone had dared expect. So great that the pig they'd kept on standby for the daesal-gut, the great rite of exorcism, no longer had any use at all.
She knew better than anyone how hard the girl had fought. Lee Geum-kyeong drew her into a fierce, unhesitating embrace. So much sweat had soaked out of her that Geum-kyeong's own clothes went damp against her chest—but that was nothing worth minding.
"Is it... is it over?"
"Yes, yes. It's all over now."
Shin Jeong-ah laughed the way one sobs. Beside them, Cheong-geum broke into much the same smile, and as Lee Geum-kyeong, too, looked on with unmistakable pride, Shin Jeong-ah let her grievances spill out in a voice brimming with them.
"I never knew it could hurt this much... you never said a word about thiiis."
Her face looked so honestly aggrieved that Lee Geum-kyeong gathered her into her arms and patted her back, slow and steady.
"I'm sorry. Truly, I am sorry. I fell short of you."
There was something uncanny about the pair—a grandmother and her granddaughter, almost exactly—and Cheong-geum watched them with a sheepish smile. Already she was thinking that once the patting was done, she would tell the girl it was fine now. She could go right ahead and light that cigarette.