Seirei no Moribito - Volume 1 - Chapter 3.7

CHAPTER VII: A DREAM OF CLOUDS 

After Torogai and Mon left, Balsa and the others went to the Aoyumi River and tried to decide whether Chagum had gone upstream or downstream. Mist no longer drifted along the river beach, which was growing dim in the twilight. 
“I thought you said that after it’s born, Nyunga Ro Im grows up in the sea. If that’s true, wouldn’t it make sense for Chagum to follow the river down to its mouth?” Balsa asked. 
Tanda started to nod when his eyes were caught by something on the dry, rocky riverbed. “Is that the remains of a campfire?” 
Balsa peered between the rocks and said impatiently, “Yes, but so what? Chagum couldn’t have lit it, so shouldn’t we be …” But he ignored her and ran over to it. Crouching down, he stared at it fixedly and showed no sign of budging. Balsa clicked her tongue in exasperation, glanced briefly at the Hunters, and then hurried over to him. “Tanda!” 
He looked up at her slowly. “Balsa, I know where he’s gone. He’s heading for Sahnan.” 
“Sahnan?” 
Tanda brushed the dirt from his knees and stood up. “The head of the Aoyumi River. ‘Sahnan’ means ‘water’s source’ in Yakoo. The Yakoo always draw water from Sahnan for the midsummer festival, so this fire was set by villagers traveling upstream to get it. See? They’ve thrown salt on the fire to purify it.” His gaze slowly sharpened, focusing on something no one else could see. “Fire! The midsummer festival! Damn!” 
The glare he fixed then on Balsa and the men behind her was so fierce he seemed like a different person. “What a fool I’ve been! Earth is stronger than water, fire is stronger than earth — it’s the most basic rule of magic weaving. Nyunga Ro Im is the Water Guardian, so its eggs are vulnerable to the earth spirit, Rarunga. And Rarunga’s weakness must therefore be fire! Damn! Torogai and I thought that the midsummer festival had been completely changed by the first Mikado. That blinded us to the truth. Why do you think they use torches in the midsummer festival? The way they swing them at the demon is a symbol of how they defeated Rarunga!” 
“Ah!” his three listeners exclaimed in unison. A vision of the drama reenacted throughout the land during the midsummer festival flashed through their minds: the wildly dancing water demon; the four men surrounding it, whirling their torches in the air; the hero portraying Mikado Torugaru, slaying the cornered demon with a final blow. 
“In the legend of Torugaru, the water demon is destroyed at a spring.” Tanda looked back at the forest where they had been attacked by Rarunga and pointed. “If Chagum intended to go to the river’s mouth, he would have gone that way when he came out of the forest. But Balsa, the path you took when you followed him leads this way.” His finger traced the route until it pointed straight upstream. “To the river’s source. Sahnan.” 
They strode off in the direction he indicated and kept moving even after the sun set and the river was enveloped in darkness. The moon, which was almost full, lit up the river so brightly that walking presented no difficulty for the travelers. Halfway through the night, however, they left the chilly river and went a short distance into the forest to light a fire and set up camp. Tanda insisted that if they were to be ready to fight, they needed to rest rather than to press recklessly onward; and despite their haste, they knew he was right. 
Balsa broke branches and fed them to the fire. Although it was summer, nights in the mountains were still cold. “We’re an odd bunch, aren’t we?” she remarked, looking at the men around the fire. Jin and Zen chewed their dried meat wordlessly. Both had once fought her for their lives, and she had expected them to feel some bitterness toward her, yet she could detect no animosity in their expressions. 
Jin swallowed his mouthful and looked at Tanda. “What are you? You look like you have Yakoo blood. Are you a magic weaver like that Torogai?” 
“I’m just an apprentice — a petty magic weaver. My name is Tanda. And, as I’m sure you already know, this intimidating spear-woman is Balsa.” 
“We never really introduced ourselves, did we? My name’s Jin, and this is Zen.” 
Tanda burst out laughing. “What? You mean your names are the numbers two and three?” 
Jin smiled wryly. “That’s because we’re Hunters at the moment. Those are the names we use for now.” He hesitated and then added, “If you hadn’t pushed me out of the way, I’d have been killed by Rarunga’s claws. I owe you my life.” 
Tanda looked taken aback, but then he nodded and said, “Don’t mention it. I didn’t even know it was you I was pushing.” 
Jin’s smile widened. “I’ll repay you someday,” he said. “But if you’re a magic weaver, does that mean you could see what that monster looked like?” 
Tanda’s face clouded. “Yes, I saw it, just for a second. It looked like a cross between a spider and a sea anemone — six legs, six giant claws on its back, a mouth filled with tentacles like whips. It was enormous, but it swam through the mud amazingly fast.” 
“How do you think it found Chagum?” Balsa asked. Jin and Zen were visibly startled to hear her say the prince’s name without his title, but she ignored them. “It definitely tracked him down and attacked him, but it didn’t notice when he got up in the trees and made his way to the river. Do you think it makes a difference if his feet are actually touching the ground?” 
“I bet that’s it. Rarunga is an earth spirit. From the way it moved, it’s probably pretty agile in soil or mud, but I think it would be difficult for it to travel over hard surfaces like rock. You said a mist covered the water after Chagum dived in the river, right? If the egg is in control of his body, then it’s probably using water to escape from Rarunga. But even if we use fire, Rarunga can hide in Nayugu. It would be easy if we could attack it in that other world, but not even we magic weavers can do that. I have no idea what will happen at the spring. I just know we have to find a way to protect Chagum….” 
“You told us that it has a mouth,” Balsa said, “so it will have to come here if it wants to eat him. We’ll just have to attack it when it shows itself.” 
“But there’s no guarantee of that. It could just grab him with its tentacles and vanish into Nayugu.” 
Their conversation continued late into the night. As Balsa, Jin, and Zen were all experts in combat and warfare, the ideas flew. They discussed the best ways to use fire and exploit it to their advantage. Finally their talk began to slow, and Tanda rubbed his face. The stubble on his chin made a rasping sound. “What an awful day! I’m so tired. You guys sure are tough. Do you mind if I go to bed?” 
Balsa smiled. “Go ahead. We’ll take turns sleeping. Tiredness can cost you your life.” She took the first watch, and the others lay down on the ground, wrapped up in sheets of oiled paper. They were instantly asleep. 
Although they had not been talking loudly, everything suddenly seemed very still. A breeze passed by, rustling the branches overhead. Through them, Balsa glimpsed the moon shining brightly in the indigo sky. Somewhere, its light must be shining on Chagum too. 
She wondered if he was lonely. She sighed and moved over to lean her back against a tree trunk. It was hard to believe that only eight months had passed since she met him last fall. Gently, she rubbed her face. Her hand felt cold. 

Once, a long time ago, she had loved her mother and her father, and she had loved Jiguro. Now those whom she had loved so deeply were gone. She looked over at Tanda’s sleeping form and recalled Chagum’s face — never tanned by the sun and still a little childlike. She heaved another deep sigh. 
 
Chagum had long since left the Aoyumi River, walking beside it through the dark woods. And yet he kept to the water, in the water, for in Nayugu, the place where he walked was still a river; one so broad that he could not see the opposite bank and so deep that he could not see the bottom. He moved in a dream, seeing the worlds of Sagu and Nayugu simultaneously, his feet automatically evading the stones and roots in Sagu while he watched the fish of Nayugu swim among the trees. The ground beneath his feet was transparent, and the water — a breathtaking clear blue — dropped down into a darkness no light could penetrate. 
He continued walking through this clear, silent landscape. Far to the right, the riverbank in Nayugu gradually came into view. Crystal waters lapped against the white shore, and blue-green waterweeds waved between the tree roots of Sagu. Suddenly, he noticed something floating toward him, weaving like a snake as it rose from the abyss at his feet. Its hair was like seaweed, its skin smooth and slippery, its eyes and mouth those of a fish … A voice poured from its mouth and, carried by the water, resounded in his mind. 
“Nyunga Ro Chaga, 
O Guardian of the Spirit. 
Not long now, not long. 
When the sun sets and rises again, 
then will it be time for the birthing.” 
The creature swam and swirled around him joyfully. Many more Yona Ro Gai gathered, rising from deep beneath him in all directions. They beat their webbed hands on the water’s surface, spraying drops that shimmered against the transparent ground of Sagu. 
“O egg embraced by Nyunga Ro Chaga! 
Become Nyunga Ro Im. 
Breathe clouds and make the sweet rain fall 
on this land and that other land.” 
They continued to circle around Chagum until the sun set and the river was wrapped in darkness. When the night deepened, he lay down on the thick ferns beneath a great tree. Lights rose like fireflies from the depths, drifting to the water’s surface, clustering together and suddenly scattering. He watched them dance, and before he knew it, he had fallen asleep. 
That night, his dreams merged with those of Nyunga Ro Im as the egg dozed, waiting to be born. This was Nyunga Ro Im’s only gift for the one in whom its egg resided: the dream of the cloud spirit, which none but its Guardian could ever hope to see. In the dream, Chagum was an enormous shellfish, larger than the palace in the capital, lying on his belly at the bottom of the great river. He watched the world from a hard shell that radiated seven colors of light. The earth’s energy seeped inside him, circulated warmly through his stomach, and filled his entire being. 
Myriad lives — all life on the peninsula — flowed like a shining, swirling river in and out of his dream. Strong lives, weak lives, from both Sagu and Nayugu: Some were fortunate, protected by many others, while some wandered into blind creeks, petered out, and vanished soon after they were born. His body nestled into this great flowing river. Ahhh. Like a great sigh, he exhaled the energy flowing inside him and let his mind ride that breath as it rushed to the surface, burst from the water, and climbed up, up to the heavens…. 
In the blue sky, his breath became a cloud, and he gazed from a dazzling height upon the clear blue river and the world through which it wound. The wind pushed against him, passing out the other side, and birds glided gently through him. He merged with clouds that drifted toward him from far away, smelled the scents of different lands, whirled and swelled…. Light was born within him, and with a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder, he became a drop of rain and fell once again to the bottom of the river. 
Sensing the pale blue dawn, Chagum awoke and knew that all was ready. The egg within his breast ached. It was time to be born. 
 
The morning sun shone through the green canopy covering the sky and cast a dappled light on the ferns and bamboo grass beneath. 
“Wait.” 
Balsa, who had been rushing ahead, stopped at the sound of Jin’s voice behind her. He was crouching down, staring at the ferns at the foot of a huge tree. “What is it?” 
Jin raised his head. “It looks like Tanda was right. Someone seems to have slept here. From the state of these ferns, whoever it was left about dawn.” 
Zen was standing beside him. He pointed to the ground and said quietly, “It was the prince. There’s no mistake. Look — a footprint.” 
Balsa pushed her way back through the underbrush and looked at the ground where he was pointing. The imprint of a small straw sandal was faintly visible, and the marks of two thin ropes across the sole stood out particularly clearly. She felt her heart constrict. “Yes, that’s Chagum’s footprint all right. I can see the marks from the straw ropes I added to keep him from slipping.” She stood up and looked at Tanda. “How far is it to the spring?” 
“About two hours at our pace.” 
“If he left at dawn, he’ll reach the spring at least half an hour ahead of us. If we add how long it will take to make torches, we don’t have a moment to spare.” Balsa looked at Jin and Zen and smiled challengingly. “Now’s your chance to prove what you’re worth.” 
The Hunters just grinned back.