I Will Weep in Your Stead
“Wh-where do you think you're going!”
“What's gotten into you all of a sudden!”
“Stop him! Hurry, someone stop him!”
The Youth Association President and the other men threw themselves at Kim Jae-sik, because he had been trying to walk out of the village community hall.
“Let go of me! I said let go!”
“The shaman told us to stay inside!”
“It's dangerous out there!”
“If anything happened to you, what would become of us!”
Kim Jae-sik knew all of that. And still, a frightening, dreadful, bone-deep chill had seized him, and he could not make himself sit still a moment longer.
“There's something I have to check!”
Shaking off the villagers, he ran for the door of the hall and flung it open as though kicking it off its hinges — and the roar of driving rain and thunder came surging in upon them.
“Aaah!”
Several people recoiled, stumbling backward, while Kim Jae-sik stepped a single foot beyond the threshold.
Ssss. Hissssss.
Snakes were moving through the village. There were so many of them that it seemed impossible — and yet there was nothing threatening in the way they slid along.
They might have been searching for their leader, or like lost children looking for their parents.
KRRRUMBLE—BOOM!
As thunder shook the very heavens, Kim Jae-sik stepped one more foot outside, and the pouring rain crashed down over him.
“Haah, haah.”
Drenched through in an instant, he twisted his lips.
No one stood before the community hall. What should have been there was gone.
I see. So this is how it happens.
Looking out over the empty village and the deserted ground around the hall, Kim Jae-sik curled the corners of his mouth in bitter understanding.
Because nowhere he looked could he find any sign of Lee Nak-yul.
Glub.
The breath Kang Hyeong-seok exhaled turned to bubbles and rose to the surface. His waterproof lantern threw its light across the murky water, and leaning on that light, he pressed steadily onward.
“Phwaah!”
Where the ceiling of the cave hung close to the water, he lifted his head — and caught sight of insects writhing across it.
Thud.
Planting his palm on the one stretch free of them, he shoved his body deeper into the cave.
The reek of fish, a stale mustiness, the chill of the air.
RRRUMBLE!
Thunder rolled in as far as the cave and shook its depths.
Splash, splash.
It was as if everything were speaking to him. Don't go.
And still Kang Hyeong-seok pushed deeper into the dark.
The great serpent had promised the scholar.
Why, of all things, did the tale of the Chiaksan magpie — the one he had once shared with Kim Jae-sik — rise to his mind now?
That if the bell rang three times before midnight, it would spare his life.
To save the man, the swallow had flown for the bell pavilion. And Kang Hyeong-seok thought that the narrowing shape of this cave looked very much like a bell.
...I see.
I was the swallow.
The swallow that had to fly to the bell tower to save a man's life from the serpent — and the magpie, and the pheasant, too.
KWA-RRRUMBLE!
As thunder crashed down once more, Kang Hyeong-seok smiled bitterly.
The debt of gratitude? It was true that the food and the lodging had been good. But that was no debt worth staking his life on.
KWA-RRRRUMBLE!
And yet he walked on toward the end of the cave — because in the end, he was the only one who could.
If the Imoogi's han went unresolved, the calamity would never stop. People and livestock alike would all die.
Whoosh!
Raising the lantern before him, he found a vast open space — and a vile stench stabbed at his nose.
He had arrived. At the place the Imoogi had spoken of. At the reason there had been no choice but to seal it with the geumjul.
Shhh-waak!
Climbing out of the lake, he shook with cold, arms and legs trembling. His breath froze white, and his soaked clothes drained the warmth from his body.
Kang Hyeong-seok stripped off his shirt, clamped the lantern between his teeth, and went into the inner cave with the shaman bells in one hand and the Sinjangkal in the other.
And he saw.
So this... was your han...
Enormous bones. Shattered eggshells. The answer written in their shapes was achingly clear — the bones of serpents even larger than the great snake itself, and eggs elongated like a serpent's.
The Imoogi had lost her family. Her children, her mate, her parents — all of it, lost here.
Clack.
Setting the lantern upright so its light would spread as far as it could, he closed his eyes. Then he began to shake the shaman bells.
“Hurry now! Hurry!”
The villagers were thrown into confusion as Kim Jae-sik came rushing back into the community hall.
“We have to cover the windows first! Quickly!”
He was barking orders that made no sense, with no beginning and no end.
“Why on earth would we cover perfectly good windows?”
The Youth Association President pressed him urgently, and Kim Jae-sik answered fast, his face tight with anxiety.
“I'll explain later — right now, cover the windows! Whatever happens, don't look outside!”
There was no explanation, but the naked desperation in his voice did the persuading for him. Flustered as he was, the Youth Association President nodded and waved the younger men into motion.
“Let's just do as the gentleman says! Grab whatever you can find!”
“W-will newspaper do?”
“Anything! As long as it covers the glass!”
Kim Jae-sik all but tore a newspaper out of an old man's hands. It must have been spread beneath a seasoning jar in the kitchen — round soy-sauce stains bloomed across it, and a musty smell rose off the pages. But this was no time to be particular.
Chwaak!
He pressed the paper over a window, and it slid limply off. Kim Jae-sik faltered — and one of the old men hurried back with a basin of water and soaked the sheet through. Only then did it cling to the glass.
Splat! Chwaak, chwaak!
Sealing the windows one after another, Kim Jae-sik bellowed across the hall.
“Toilet paper! Bring me the toilet paper if you have to! We're running out of newspaper!”
Why in the world?
Bewildered as he was, the Youth Association President still hauled armfuls of toilet rolls out of the restroom, and Kim Jae-sik soaked them and pressed them against the panes, his lips set in a hard line.
I have to cover them. No one can be allowed to look outside.
If his guess was right — if it happened the way he expected—
In the legend, the great serpent took the form of a woman.
That woman was Lee Nak-yul. Lee Nak-yul was the Imoogi.
If Kang Hyeong-seok succeeded in resolving the Imoogi's han, her ascension would follow. And the people must not witness it.
That, and that alone, was the only way this calamity could end.
Splat, splat.
Standing before the bones and the broken shells, his feet dripping, Kang Hyeong-seok raised the shaman bells before his face as though in prayer.
Wararararang!
As the bells rang out, the stench that had filled the cave began, little by little, to fade — though the heaviness pressing on the air would not lift so easily.
"To the enlightenment of the new heavenly law of the celestial world, I offer homage with all my body and mind."
The Dragon King Prayer was chanted for the sake of the Imoogi who had failed to become a dragon.
"To the enlightenment of the lofty, boundless wisdom of the Seven Origin Star Lords of the Trayastrimsa Heaven, I offer homage with all my body and mind."
Please — let the han of the one who lost her family grow light.
"To the heavenly deities who abide in every place, upholding and protecting Great Brahma and Lord Sakra, I offer homage with all my body and mind."
O heavenly deities — I implore you with everything I have.
"That I may ever keep body and mind pure, cast off all worldly torment, and seek my true self—"
Take pity on the Imoogi, swallowed whole by resentment.
"I summon the Great Dragon King, who governs the waters of the Saha world, that right enlightenment may be attained."
Let her lay her han down. Cradle her close, that a thousand years of devotion may not come to nothing. Open her eyes.
"With single heart I bow and receive your word. With single heart I bow and receive your word. With single heart I bow and receive your word."
Comfort the grieving Imoogi. Let her commit no greater sin.
Flash! KWA-RRRRRRUMBLE!
Thunder boomed through the cave, shaking it to its roots. Water droplets rained from the ceiling, chased by the frantic flutter of bats.
And then small footsteps and the reek of snakes began, steadily, to draw closer.
He didn't need to turn around to know who it was.
“...Why have you come?”
“...”
The figure standing behind him made no answer. Even so, Kang Hyeong-seok went on in a low, calm voice.
“Now I know what your han is.”
And I know what I must do. And I know who you are.
“At first, I took you for a mudang.”
But you were not. Not a mudang — not even human.
“I failed to see you for what you were, and I never knew how vast a han you carried right before my eyes.”
Kang Hyeong-seok slowly turned his head back, and looked upon Lee Nak-yul, standing there in perfect stillness — without a single drop of water on her.
“You were the Imoogi.”
In North Chungcheong and the southern provinces, the Imoogi was called yulmogi. The nak of nakjil — to fall — joined to the yul of yulmogi.
From her very name, Lee Nak-yul had been crying out what she was: an Imoogi cast down from the sky. As if begging someone — anyone — to recognize her.
“Did you come to harm me? Or did you come to see the family the geumjul kept from you?”
A sorrowful smile spread across Lee Nak-yul's lips.
“Mudang.”
“Yes.”
“What did you see here?”
She spoke with the same strange cadence as the Imoogi he had faced on the mountain, and watching her, Kang Hyeong-seok answered with weight.
“I saw your sorrow.”
So much showed itself to his eyes; so much pressed in upon his heart. Because he was a mudang, he could see it — centuries past, Lee Nak-yul clasping the shattered eggs and the butchered bodies of her kin, wailing. Even her grief reached him vividly, as though it were his own.
“You wept for the family the villagers took from you.”
Lee Nak-yul's lips pressed tightly shut. Then, with great effort, she nodded.
Watching her, unable to force out a word, Kang Hyeong-seok went on.
“You were the Imoogi that fell.”
A very long time ago, one of the villagers had looked up at the Imoogi climbing toward the heavens and called it a snake. Because of that, she failed to become a dragon and plummeted back to the earth. A thousand years of cultivation, come to nothing.
And even then, Lee Nak-yul had not hated humans.
“You tried to console yourself with love instead of hatred. You tried to build yourself a family — and humans trampled it underfoot.”
Lee Nak-yul's shoulders trembled.
“That han is what made you what you are.”
Tears she could no longer hold back spilled down her cheeks.
“After so long a time, you earned the right to become a dragon once more — and yet you chose vengeance.”
Her jaw quivered, and a grinding sound slipped through her teeth, as though they might shatter to pieces.
“...And still, even now, you are waiting for someone to stop you.”
The spirit had descended into her — and because of that, he could see it: the truth buried deep, deep beneath the enormity of Lee Nak-yul's resentment.
“If it had been what you wanted, you could have destroyed every last villager from the very beginning. The only reason you didn't is that you hoped someone would understand you.”
Understanding. That was what Lee Nak-yul had truly longed for all along. The desire was so plain, so close he could almost hold it in his hand, that Kang Hyeong-seok could not bring himself to condemn her.
“I will weep in your place.”
Lee Nak-yul looked at him through her thick, streaming tears.
Tears were running down Kang Hyeong-seok's face as well, just as they ran down hers.
That one sentence seeped into the heart of the Imoogi, who carried so many wounds.