Pilgrim 2, p.44
Pilgrim 2, page 44
“I could eat.”
“I could eat as well. Let’s eat.”
Shedrup left, and Danzen soon joined him in the hermit’s cave, where they both got a helping of the meal that Jelmay and Dalan had concocted.
The night ended with strange noises in the mountains, sounds that Danzen had never heard before. He slept near the entrance to the cave, Shedrup fully outside and sleeping in a meditative posture.
Danzen didn’t know where he would stand with the man in the end, but at least they had peace for now. What mattered most was the villagers and thwarting his brother’s trickery.
Any other disputes could wait.
****
Danzen was bending his echo the next morning when movement near the waterfall below caught his attention. He spotted a yokai, a beast of a creature hunched over and drinking from the water.
It was gone before he could properly identify it.
Once all was settled, he would get back in the habit of learning more about the yokai world and writing down the new ones he had discovered in his field diary.
He shook his head. Strange thoughts had come to him as he was bending his echo, his eyes closed, everything around him rimmed in color.
Danzen saw himself waging a war through a cloud of gore. He saw assassins he had fought in the past wearing masks, the world ignited in red, demons rising out of Diyu.
He recalled in that moment the dream he’d had not so long ago, one that involved rebuilding Sunyata. How would someone like him restore heaven? Where would he even begin? Moreover, was it even a possibility?
His thoughts were interrupted by Jelmay, who stepped out of the cave to complain that Usagi was snoring.
“I don’t know why the stupid rabbit even came along,” the bakeneko said as he crossed his arms over his chest. He yawned, and looked down at the waterfall. “You wouldn’t want to catch me a fish, would you?”
Danzen glanced back up to the cave to see that most everyone was asleep aside from Shedrup, who was seated in a meditative position.
The two hadn’t spoken since the conversation last night, but Danzen felt as if they had come to at least a temporary truce. What mattered now was getting the villagers. That was the most important thing.
“Sure,” Danzen said as he sheathed his blade. He leaped off the edge of the cliff and landed beside the waterfall below.
“Look at you and your fancy jumping skills,” Jelmay said as he climbed down, the bakeneko using his claws for additional support.
By the time Jelmay reached Danzen, he was already holding a fish on the end of his blade. The fish, which had pale pink scales and blue around its face, flopped for a moment and died.
“Perfect, and don’t worry, I’ll keep this between you and me. Everyone else is going to get mushrooms and herbs for breakfast, but not me,” he said as he licked his lips.
Jelmay approached Danzen’s blade as if it hadn’t slain countless people. He waited for the fish to quit flopping, and once it did, he pulled it off the blade and bit into it.
“It’s a delicacy, you know, raw fish,” he said as he chomped down on the fish’s flesh. “I heard it’s good for you too.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Danzen told him.
Jelmay shrugged. “You’ve still got a lot of living left to do. Speaking of which, once all this is over, we're going to head back west, right?”
“Why would we do that?”
“It gets hot around here during summer, and if we’re smart, we’ll head up toward Odval and camp out in a cabin in the mountains there. I’m sure Kudzu would come with us. She’s never going to leave your side, you know that, right?”
Danzen didn’t respond.
“But it’s nice to have a companion, believe me.”
“You don’t have a companion,” Danzen told him.
“Excuse me? I have two companions, thank you very much,” the bakeneko said as he bit into the fish again. He swallowed his bite and continued. “So I’m not so alone. You know what it’s like, to be alone. You get to a point where you are your own best friend and everything you say is clever, that or you find yourself in this strange place where you blame others for your loneliness. But it’s always a choice. Even a hermit is making a choice to be alone. The problem with… You know, maybe I shouldn’t go on. Who cares what an old bakeneko has to say anyway?” Jelmay took another bite of his fish. “Good fish.”
Danzen remembered the two years he’d spent alone, sometimes going a month or longer without human interaction.
What Jelmay had said was right, Danzen had become the only person who could keep himself company. He wasn’t the type to really talk to himself, but he did think a lot during that time, his memories becoming increasingly vibrant, especially on certain nights.
And now he couldn’t help but wish he had spent that time bending his echo. All he would have had to do was visit a shrine. If he had done so, he would have been much more prepared now, which was something Danzen couldn’t shake as he mentally prepared for what he was going to face once he encountered his brother.
Jelmay finished the fish and tossed what was left back into the water.
“Let’s wake the others and get on with it. We should reach the tavern this afternoon and then it’s straight to hell for our little group,” Jelmay said as he wiped his mouth with his arm. “I never thought I would make a trip to Diyu, I mean, not before I was ready, yet here we are.”
They returned to the cave to find the others preparing for the day. Once everyone was ready, they set off toward the tavern, Jelmay proudly leading the way.
“Stick with me,” he told the group, “but let’s go at a leisurely pace. There’s no sense in rushing. We’ll get there, we’ll pay the tax at the door, we’ll get fed, and then we’ll see about dealing with the soul collectors.”
“There is a faster way,” Shedrup said.
“Yeah? And there’s a slower way,” Jelmay told the man. “There’s always a faster way, have you not realized that yet in all your meditative insight? Just because it’s faster doesn’t mean it’s the best way to go.”
“You sure seem confident of yourself this morning,” Kudzu said as she caught up to him, Jelmay actually walking a bit faster than the others for once.
“Like I was telling Pilgrim earlier, it’s not often that you are taking a one-way trip to hell.”
“It isn’t a one-way trip,” Usagi said. As he had been yesterday, the jade rabbit was in Danzen’s satchel, which Jelmay currently wore crossed over his chest. “We are getting out of Diyu, mark my words.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Jelmay said. “I’m not too worried, personally. If I had to spend the rest of eternity with all of you, I’m fine with that.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“Did I say everyone? I didn’t mean you. I’d just eat you,” he told Usagi.
“This is no laughing matter,” said Eva Yin, who walked next to Danzen, the woman’s robes making it seem as if she were gliding. She wore impractical clothing, and looked out of place next to the former assassin, who wore the armor he had received from Kunta back in Arsi.
“I’m just trying to be a realist here,” Jelmay said.
“We won’t be staying in Diyu for long,” Abbot Monpo told them, the man walking briskly next to Kudzu and holding his staff with the remnant on its end. “Let’s worry about getting there in one piece.”
“You seem so confident about this.”
“I am confident in our collective power, yes,” Abbot Monpo told the bakeneko.
“The problem remains: we are putting our faith in a demon to uphold his end of the bargain, a bargain that we don’t actually know the full details to. He simply told you to meet him there,” Shedrup said. “He said nothing about leaving.”
“Yet you are still all here,” said Danzen, tired of this conversation. They’d had the same conversation last night after their meal. He hadn’t said anything then; now seemed like a good time to speak on the subject. “If anyone wants to go back, you can head this way,” he said, motioning toward the path they were loosely following. “You will eventually reach Dalan’s hermitage. He can then guide you back to the main road. Otherwise, we are all in this together.”
Kudzu looked at Danzen, surprised to hear him speak in such a way. “I am sure that our group, with all our collective skills, will be able to figure this out. We know our way in, and if I’ve learned anything in the past…”
“If you can fight your way in, you can fight your way out?” Jelmay said. “Is that what you were going to say, Pilgrim? Because if not, I’m coining that phrase.”
“More or less,” Danzen said.
Jelmay turned and looked at everyone behind him, a smile taking shape on his whiskered face, his head framed by the ominous red of Diyu on the horizon. “You heard the assassin. Leave now, or forever hold your peace. We’re all going to hell eventually, whether we like it or not.”
.Chapter Three.
The intensity of the red sky of Diyu bloomed as they grew closer, Danzen once again feeling a pull in his chest toward the place. It was in his blood. As much as he wanted to deny who he was, the fact that he felt the energy within him proved otherwise.
As he walked at the back of the group with Shedrup, Danzen listened to Jelmay and Usagi bicker, Kudzu occasionally chiming in. There was the potential that they would draw attention to their group, and they had faced off against a yokai in the same area before, once they entered into a long cavern. But their sheer numbers would make any halfway intelligent yokai wary of attacking them.
Neither Abbot Monpo nor Eva Yin seemed to mind their commotion, which did little to relax Danzen’s guard. His former training kept taking over, his eyes scanning the landscape around them, tracing up the mountains to their snowy peaks and back down, looking for signs of movement, of life, of someone tracking them. He remembered Soko saying something to him about being watched, and he wondered now if his brother had been observing him all this time.
This thought only sparked an anger within him; it meant that Nomtoi attacked him in the village simply because he knew how much it mattered to him.
It still amazed Danzen that so many people he met in the Valley had agreed to join him on his quest to rescue the villagers. Each had their own reasoning, but even if the speculation had stopped as to how they would get out of hell once all this was over, the feelings were still there.
It was like an invisible mist hovering over the group.
They entered into a dark cavern, water dripping from the jagged rocks above, the slight scent of sulfur in the air. Danzen noticed Eva Yin stop and wait for him to catch up to her. As he did, she looped her hand through his arm, and slowly lowered it so that they now held hands.
“I can’t see in the dark,” was all she said.
Her hand felt much frailer than it should have. He noticed that the texture of her skin didn’t match her appearance, Danzen now able to feel the veins on the outer edge of her hand.
Unlike when Kudzu or Jelmay morphed, Eva Yin hadn’t actually changed the physical structure of her body, only augmenting how others perceived her. In touching her, it became unmistakably clear: Danzen was holding the hand of a woman that was almost a hundred years old.
Usagi’s voice echoed through the cavern. “Walk in a straight line, Jelmay. You’re going to make me vomit.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Don’t forget you’re riding in Pilgrim’s favorite satchel. He’ll kill you if you vomit inside of it. I have it on good authority.”
“I’m not worried about the former assassin, and you should be more worried about me pulling some strings in the Asura Forest and having some of my friends visit you than you should be this satchel.”
“Ugh, I don’t know why you showed up,” Jelmay said, Kudzu chuckling.
“You two are a match made in Sunyata,” the white fox said as she moved ahead.
Danzen smiled at this comment and subsequently tuned them out.
He continued to hold Eva’s hand as they navigated the deep cavern, Danzen with his eyes shut, simply observing everything through their outlines. Kudzu had a slight aura from bending her echo, her aura paling in comparison to Abbot Monpo’s and Shedrup’s bodies, which were practically glowing.
Danzen hoped his echo would look like theirs one day. After he finished this excursion, regardless of where he went next, he would pour his focus into bending his echo. Just catching a glimpse of what he was capable of doing back at the Floating Lantern Festival would be worth the effort. To not have to worry about getting cut, to be able to put himself fully into a battle if it was necessary—these were just a few advantages of what he hoped to do through cultivation.
Light began to seep into the cave, signaling an exit.
They had been walking in the dark for a good amount of time by this point, Danzen’s eyes having to adjust to the brightness upon their exit. The cavern was suddenly bathed in the red gloom of Diyu. Eva let go of Danzen’s hand.
They continued onward, the day noticeably hotter now, Danzen not sure if this had to do with their proximity to Diyu, or simply the fact that summer was approaching. He kept his eyes pinned on the horizon and eventually spotted the Tavern at the Edge of the World perched near a cliff as it had been the last time they visited.
“We’re going to need to feed the door something,” Jelmay said.
“I have something,” said Shedrup, who had also been there before and knew the ropes.
“Pfft. I wish I’d kept a few of those nozuchi teeth. They sure came in handy.”
Usagi laughed bitterly at this comment. “You nearly turned those two fools into snakes with those teeth. You call that handy?”
“It was an honest mistake, what don’t you understand about that?”
“Perhaps I should have asked before we journeyed all this way: do those two men happen to be two of the men who were taken by your brother?” Usagi asked Danzen.
“They were.”
Usagi laughed bitterly. “Those two keep finding themselves on the wrong side of the sword, a fool’s luck.”
“They’re good people,” Jelmay said, “especially Khamdo’s wife. What a cook!”
“We are not having this conversation again,” Kudzu said, referring to Jelmay’s proposal that he take Khamdo’s place if they were unable to retrieve the carpenter.
“Keep an eye on the border,” Abbot Monpo said, which were the first words he had spoken in a while.
He motioned his Sunyata staff toward the barrier of Diyu, Danzen now hearing the cries of the demons. At first it was hard to decipher, but the more he looked at it, the more he saw a wall that was practically a mirage.
Danzen had the notion to approach it; he knew that he would be let in considering his blood, while his companions would not. Perhaps that was how it should be all along, Danzen not risking anyone’s life but his own.
Then he remembered what Kudzu had told him when he tried to abandon her in Arsi in pursuit of Soko. He didn’t think she had it in her to physically kill him, but he knew better than to cross her.
Rather than lead the group, Danzen kept to the back with Shedrup, who had a dark look on his face, as if he were reliving something himself. They came to the large black door of the tavern, which didn’t have a handle. A white stone face was set in the center of the door, pupil-less, its jaw moving left and right as it spoke.
“Payment is necessary to enter the tavern,” said the face in a solemn voice.
“Looks like we may have another problem,” Jelmay said.
“There’s no problem; I will handle this.” Shedrup stuck his hand into the inside pocket of his robes and returned with a small bead.
“No, not about that,” said Jelmay. “Usagi can hide, but Kudzu…”
“My form, that’s right,” she said, hesitating.
“She needs to go in as a human?” Eva Yin asked.
“That’s right, and I definitely didn’t bring any spare robes.” Jelmay began to morph into his nondescript form, a male with blonde hair and devilish eyes. The head jutting out of the door spoke again, reminding them that payment was necessary.
“In that case, I believe I can spare something,” Eva Yin told the group. She had a bag with her that matched her clothing so well that Danzen hadn’t paid much attention to it. Eva opened the bag and produced a nightgown. She then removed one of the turquoise scarves around her neck.
“This will have to do,” Kudzu said as she took the items from her with her mouth. Kudzu circled to the far side of the tavern, the group waiting for her to change and return.
As they waited, Danzen looked up at the outer walls of the tavern, recalling how they had stayed on one of the floors above, and the terrible cries and howls they had heard below.
“Just be sure not to say much while you’re in there,” Jelmay told Usagi. “You’ll spook everyone. People here hate rabbits.”
“Spook everyone? Look who we are traveling with. And you are worried about me?”
Kudzu approached again now in Eva’s nightgown, the turquoise scarf wrapped around her neck. The nightgown smoothed over the contours of her form, Kudzu at once embarrassed once everyone turned to her.
“Well?” she asked as she crossed her arms over her chest. “What are we waiting for?”
****
After Jelmay spoke with the bartender, whose face was obscured by a hood, they were led to what Danzen felt was the exact same table they’d sat at the last time they visited. Something was different about the space though, the inside smaller than Danzen remembered it being.
Even though they hadn’t had a chance to order, the bartender served them frothy flagons of ale, Danzen hyper aware of the spiritual activity around him.
Sometimes he could see the souls that would be collected later that night, sometimes he couldn’t. They appeared and disappeared freely, some wailing, but most beginning to enjoy themselves, feeling as if they had come to some grand party in the afterlife.
It was cruel, really, disrupting people’s perceptions of death in the way that the tavern did. In a way, it was a metaphor for life itself. Show up, enjoy the party, but eventually the soul collector comes…
