Just as the Magpie Did
Murmur, murmur, murmur.
The village hall was so packed with people that the once-spacious room felt cramped.
Whirrrr!
No matter how hard the air conditioner ran at full blast, the humid air had dug in and refused to leave, and the village chief wiped away the sweat streaming down his face as he signaled the crowd to stay seated and keep quiet.
"Come on now, everyone — quiet down, please."
"What's he even called us here for?"
"I've got a load of laundry going. I need to get back and hang it out."
"Aigoo, that can wait, can't it?"
The chief shot Kang Hyeong-seok a look that begged for help.
So Kang Hyeong-seok stepped over to the chief's side and addressed the people gathered in the hall.
"I asked you all to come because I have a favor to ask."
His words worked far better than the chief's ever had. The people who had been bustling about moments before all fell silent at once, their attention fixing on him — and the chief could not quite hide his disappointment.
"I would like to ask you to remain here until the sun rises tomorrow."
"Why?"
A young man sitting off to one side frowned, making no effort to hide his displeasure.
He was a police officer, off duty for the day.
"You keep ordering the villagers around — do this, don't do that. Why exactly should we listen to you?"
Kang Hyeong-seok looked at the officer in his plain clothes and exhaled through his nose. Then, meeting the man's gaze head-on, he spoke.
"Then go home."
"I'm sorry?"
"Sit still, is it? The 'Master Shaman' is speaking right now, and you say what?"
"Be reasonable, will you? All of this is superstition — a pointless stunt."
The officer curled his lip at Kang Hyeong-seok, eyes full of contempt.
And right at that moment—
"Don't stir up the others. All I'm saying is, if you're going to leave, then leave alone."
Kang Hyeong-seok spoke to the officer in a voice with no music in it, only weight.
"I do only what I can do. You're free to go — as long as you alone shoulder the responsibility for it."
There was such conviction in that voice that even the officer flinched, but he did not stop.
"Acting like you're somebody special. What exactly is it you can do?"
"Why, you—!"
The old man beside him smacked the officer's arm, once, twice — but the man didn't so much as stir.
"I'm going to the cave."
"What?"
Kang Hyeong-seok drew one long, deep breath.
"I'm going into the cave to face what the Imoogi spoke of."
At that, Lee Nak-yul, seated beside Kim Jae-sik, watched Kang Hyeong-seok with eyes that showed his thoughts multiplying. Several of the elders reacted much the same way.
The cave where entry was forbidden. A cave so dangerous that a Geumjul — a sacred taboo rope — had been strung across its mouth.
"Now you're talking about Imoogi? It's just a cave. A plain old cave. Nothing more to it, I'm telling you."
"Hey, you rotten bastard!"
The officer's words had barely ended before one of the elders shot to his feet and roared.
"Do you even know what kind of cave that is! If you're so damned clever, go see for yourself, you son of a bitch!"
"Ooh, well said, well said — and look at him now, carrying on like a thundering brute in front of every elder in the room!"
The elders shrieked and showered him with curses, and the officer could only stand there flustered, unable to get a word out.
"Wh-what the—"
"Shut your mouth! Unless you're the one planning to go into that cave!"
"Wh-whose boy is that? Honestly!"
"Even a tiger wouldn't bite a bastard like that!"
"Apologize! You bastard!"
The officer turned his eyes to the window.
Rain was coming down in torrents, and the typhoon had drawn dangerously close to the peninsula. Even for him, entering a cave on a day like this would be no small thing.
"Everyone, please calm down."
One sentence, and Kang Hyeong-seok quieted the elders. Then he turned to the officer.
"I know you don't believe in me."
The officer said nothing, only watched him, and Kang Hyeong-seok moved his gaze from the man to the others in the hall.
"I know you find this uncomfortable as well. Even so — just until tomorrow morning, please stay here. So that nothing goes wrong that doesn't have to."
Just then the Youth Association President let out a heavy sigh and bowed his head. Somehow, the weight of it all struck him with unusual force.
"The rest will be in the hands of the Youth Association President, the village chief, the professor, and Mr. Nak-yul."
They were the ones who knew the shape of what was to come.
Sending them each a look that asked for their help, Kang Hyeong-seok checked the time on his wristwatch.
The sun would be going down soon. The night the Imoogi had spoken of was coming.
He bowed once, deeply, to the villagers, then crossed the hall.
With every step he took, the heads of the villagers turned toward him, one after another, as if drawn along.
"Mr. Nak-yul."
"Yes."
"Truly — I leave it in your hands."
It was Lee Nak-yul who would be guarding the village hall. He gave a solemn nod, and Kang Hyeong-seok took the bag the Youth Association President held out and slung it over his shoulder.
Inside were not only his ritual implements. The Youth Association President had packed a lantern in for him as well.
With one more bow of thanks to the Youth Association President and to Kim Jae-sik, Kang Hyeong-seok stepped out of the village hall.
Outside, the darkness had settled in completely.
Clack.
Behind him, he heard the door of the village hall close. The light that had glowed inside, the murmur of the crowd — all of it receded, and all that lay ahead was the village buried beneath black clouds and the driving sheets of rain.
Now, he was alone.
Quietly, Kang Hyeong-seok set his steps toward the cave — toward the task that was his alone to do.
So he came to the cave at the village's edge, set the bag down, and pulled the zipper open. Lantern into a pocket, the Mudang Bang-ul in his left hand, the Sinjangkal drawn bare from its sheath in his right, he approached the Geumjul.
Ssssshh.
In a darkness that had swallowed even the moonlight behind the storm clouds, the Sinjangkal honed its edge with an uncanny, sacred force.
Snap.
The aged Geumjul, meeting the Sinjangkal's edge, parted without the slightest resistance.
And Kang Hyeong-seok entered the cave.
The boundary between the cave and the world outside was a single slender cord. And yet, standing within it, he felt as though he had crossed into another world entirely. Everything had changed.
The smell...
It was not the smell of the sea. Nor that peculiar must of a cave. There was no damp stuffiness, no briny tang, no deathly reek of the dead pressing in. Instead there rolled over him a faint rot, and a chill that seemed to cool the soul itself.
Shaaaaaa! Shaaaaaa!
From the shore, the sound of the waves came rolling in as though to sweep him off his feet. The sea at his back lay sunken in night, nothing but black in every direction.
"...Let's go."
Though there was not a soul to hear him, Kang Hyeong-seok murmured it all the same, and began to walk, slowly, into the endless dark of the cave. The Mudang Bang-ul gave a small, rattling chime.
Shaaaaaaa!
Watching the rain fall as if to judge the world with water, Kim Jae-sik shivered almost imperceptibly. Kang Hyeong-seok had gone to the cave. By now, he would be making his way inside.
"Do you think... the Master Shaman will be all right?"
The Youth Association President, who had asked Kim Jae-sik the very question he most wanted answered himself, wore a clouded expression.
"I'm sure he will be."
It was all Kim Jae-sik could say, and he smiled bitterly. The eyes of the people packed into the village hall turned toward him — dozens of them, all shadowed with the same dread — and he resolved to plant some measure of comfort in their hearts, whatever it took.
"If you look at the old tales of our country, you'll find quite a few patterns that repeat."
As though to soothe their anxiety, Kim Jae-sik went on in a slow, gentle murmur — the tone of a grandfather telling old stories to his grandchildren.
"Whenever something strange began to happen to a village, or to a person, a passing monk or scholar — or a shaman — would come along and set it right."
That shaman was Kang Hyeong-seok. The shaman who would wash away the calamity blanketing this village was Kang Hyeong-seok.
"And those stories share one thing in common — they nearly always end happily. So Kang Hyeong-seok, and this village with him, will come through safely."
"Ahh."
The Youth Association President laughed like a man sighing in relief, but the others could not. Would it truly end well? That foreboding still hung sharp and clear in their eyes.
"Do you know the story of the magpie of Chiaksan?"
And so, on reflex, Kim Jae-sik reached for a story still lodged in the back of his mind — and regretted it at once. It was the last story suited to this moment.
"Ah — yes. I know it."
The Youth Association President answered without thinking, missing the cue entirely, and now a current of conversation had been set that could not easily be cut.
"In that story, you see, it isn't the scholar who resolves the matter."
Even so, the story ends happily — that, at least, Kim Jae-sik had fully meant to say.
But Hong Gyeong-soo's words from before began to surface, slow and cold. And with them, the shape of the Chiaksan magpie tale assembled itself in his head.
"...Oh no."
Why hadn't he seen it before?
The serpent had tried to harm the scholar. The magpie had tried to save him.
He was on his feet before he knew it, staring out at the pouring rain with a stricken face.
The serpent was the Imoogi. The scholar was the villagers. And the magpie — the magpie was Kang Hyeong-seok.
Just as the magpie had once flown to the temple bell pavilion to save a man from the serpent's jaws, so Kang Hyeong-seok had gone into the depths of the cave.
Step. Step.
The cave was vast and deep. Countless gazes fixed on Kang Hyeong-seok as he walked with the lantern held before him — and not one of them belonged to a person, or to a lingering soul.
Sssss... A long, nameless creature slid past beneath his feet. Bats dangled in clusters from the ceiling, and sea earwigs clung to the walls. It was these creatures — after tens, perhaps hundreds, of years — who were watching Kang Hyeong-seok, the strange being who had entered their cave for the first time in living memory.
Ching!
The Mudang Bang-ul rang out as if to show him the way. Kang Hyeong-seok looked toward it and drew a long breath through his nose.
Water.
The Imoogi had told him there was a lake atop the mountain where it dwelled. He had never laid eyes on it, but that lake must have been much like the one before him now — a pool so vast it might have been a lake, barring his way like a great wall.
Whoosh, whoosh. He swept the lantern's beam around the chamber, but everywhere the light fell, he found only dead ends. To go any deeper, he would have to go through the water.
That's the innermost point.
At the far tip of the cave lake, where the water met the low-hanging ceiling, lay a narrow space. The end of the cave was somewhere beyond it.
Splash.
Kang Hyeong-seok began to wade out into the lake. It was a turbid pool that had gone ages without a single ray of light, its deepest reaches festered with the rotting bodies of animals and insects. And so, in a way, this cave lake resembled the Anmokji Reservoir.
Splash, splash, splash.
It was exactly as it had been entering Anmokji — nothing about it was different. There was work to be done, and so there was no hesitation.
As he walked deeper, Kang Hyeong-seok felt the water climbing steadily up his body — an environment where a single misstep could cost him his very life. And what of it?
Walking along the bottom toward the cave's end, he at last began to swim.