Young-hee and the Pullocho (31 page)

But before she finished that sentence, the lodestone swung back and forth so violently that they all started. “I hope it's not …,” began Samjogo.

“Quiet!” Mirinae barked. “Don't disturb the search.”

The lodestone swung left and quivered, then right, then spun furiously—and then, just as suddenly, came to a full halt, pointing into the distance. Mirinae held her finger up to her lips, ordering silence. She opened the wooden slat in front of the needle, adjusted the chioonchim, angled the plane up and down, then carefully rotated a dial surrounding the lodestone needle. “Uh-huh,” she said, followed by “Hmm” and “Fascinating.” She spun around, fumbled through a table of scrolls, picked one, and read the indecipherable scratchings. “So that's that, then,” she said.

“Wha- What is it?” said Young-hee.

“I think I know where your pullocho is, dear,” said Mirinae. She pointed to a star low in the sky, in a break in the clouds. “That way.”

“What way?”

“Come, I'll show you,” said Mirinae, hurrying downstairs, with everyone anxiously following. She found what she sought in stacks of scrolls, brushed aside the clutter, and unrolled a map. “There,” she said, jabbing it with her finger.

Young-hee found no meaning in the purple-green squiggles, almost-but-not-quite Chinese characters in circles and jagged blue lines. The ornate wind rose in the corner featured animals in each direction instead of the words north, south, east, west. It looked more like a map of ideas than actual locations.

“That is your pullocho,” Mirinae said. “This line is the ridge we are on. This blue line is the Hungry River. And this is where the Sacred City should be.”

“And the big green shape between the river and the city?”

“That's the Great Forest. You'll want to go around it. It's a long journey, but the Great Forest is, well …”

“Great?” offered Young-hee. “Very, very big?”

“Cheeky,” said Mirinae, not amused. “The Great Forest is very large, but also very peculiar. No path or quest can penetrate it. And it is full of dangers.”

“She speaks truly,” said Tiger. “It is the home of the Forest Fairies and their unfathomable spirits. Even I know that no one enters the Great Forest. Or, more precisely, no one leaves.”

“So we go around instead?” asked Young-hee.

“Yes, although that could take a very long time,” said Mirinae. “Going over the forest might be easier. Can any of you fly? No? So, around it is. Crossing the Hungry River will be tough, too, especially as it is swollen from the rains. But once over it, you can circle the forest in, oh, ten days or so?”

“Ten days?!”

“Or so.”

“And then all the time I'll need to get back. Assuming we even find a pullocho there.”

“I'm with you, no matter how far the journey,” said Tiger.

“Mirinae's machine and my heart say the pullocho is there,” said Samjogo. “You can trust both.”

But I don't trust either
, thought Young-hee. Of course the chioonchim directed her right into the Great Forest, undoubtedly the one that Grandma Dol and Boonae warned her about. And Samjogo—well, he was brave, well-meaning, and fought well, but far from trustworthy. But what other choice was there? “Okay, let's get some sleep, and start in the morning,” said Youngee, without much conviction.

Mirinae took blankets from a chest, and they all bedded down on the floor. The warmth of the ondol floor soothed the constant rattle of worries in Young-hee's mind.

“Young-hee?” said Mirinae, “you need to sleep the other way. If your feet face that direction while you sleep, your soul might walk away.” Lacking energy to argue, Young-hee turned round and Mirinae seemed satisfied. “It's science.”

✴ ✴ ✴

Dawn came quickly, and when the bright sunlight awakened Young-hee, she felt barely rested. Her grogginess was made all the worse by Samjogo's excessive keenness as he bragged of lucky dreams.

Mirinae descended her great staircase. She had been using the clear skies to re-check last night's observations and, unwilling to give up the original map, had sketched a copy for Young-hee. She wished Young-hee well on her journey and pronounced the weather a good omen. “Science.”

But all at once the sunlight was blotted out and Mirinae's house grew dark and—
boom!
With a huge explosion, fragments of wood and stone rained from above, followed by Mirinae's precious gadgets tumbling from the overhead platform. Only the great iron armillary sphere protected them being hurt by the downpouring shrapnel.

Shielding her eyes, Young-hee looked up to see dark storm clouds beyond a newly formed hole in the roof. In the hole stood a bizarre demon. Its head was like a mutant ox, bald save for two wild patches of hair around his ears and unkempt whiskers on his chin. Each foot held a great hammer, and his right hand gripped a long sword, ridged like a bread knife. Cymbals with long ribbons hung off his waist. His two great leathery wings beat against the sky. It was Nwaegongdo, the Storm Lord.

“Give me the girl!” he roared. “Or I will take her!”

“Oh crap,” said Young-hee.

“
My house!
” shouted Mirinae. “What have you done to
my house?!
”

Nwaegongdo's lightning strike had filled the air with smell of ozone and charred wood. A brass ring from an astrolabe fell to the floor beside Young-hee, along with a hail of gears, glass, and other bits of gadgets. The whole observation platform moaned, shuddered ominously, and threatened collapse.

Samjogo swung his hyeopdo to deflect debris hurtling at Young-hee's head. “Go, take cover,” he said, pushing her under a row of benches as he brandished the weapon. Tiger danced about avoiding falling objects, his feline skittishness rapidly turning to big-cat anger. Mirinae, sheltered along a wall, continued wailing at the demon.

The Storm Lord's beating wings swirled wind and rain through the broken hall as he slowly descended onto a huge iron ring, just overhead. He wielded his serrated sword with menace and thumped the wall with hammers. Tiger growled as he prowled underneath. “Move, little kitty,” the Storm Lord warned. “My mistress wants the bear daughter, not you. Don't make me clip your tail.”

“Oh, hush, you ugly, empty breeze,” laughed Samjogo, stepping forward. “I've farted angrier winds than you.”

“And who in the heavens are you? Besides a soon-to-be stain on my hammer?”

“Your threats mean nothing, but not knowing who I am—now, that hurts. I am Samjogo, the three-legged crow, and one of the mightiest creatures under the heavens.”

Nwaegongdo's forehead wrinkled. “A samjogo? Not like any I've seen.”

“
The
Samjogo, thank you very much,” Samjogo corrected.

“Well,
the
samjogo,” scoffed the Storm Lord, “I'd like to introduce
the
hammer.” With swift violence, Nwaegongdo swung his bludgeon, using his feet as dexterously as hands. Samjogo barely dodged the heavy weapon, which smashed through tables and instruments, sending debris in all directions, then shook the whole stone house as it landed on the floor.

The Storm Lord next swung his sword, chopping a table in half. Then his other foot swung the second club, destroying more of Mirinae's precious devices. Parrying, Samjogo swung his hyeopdo at the Storm Lord's neck, but the demon easily knocked it aside. He raised his blade and charged again, but this time Tiger dove to head off the attack, swerving in that impossible, coiling feline way—he twisted once, then doubled back in the same motion, clamping his jaws hard around the Storm Lord's thick wrist. With each bellow of the demon's pain, wind and rain whipped harder. Seizing the chance, Samjogo swung his hyeopdo at the Storm Lord's body.

But the moment didn't last. Nwaegongdo deflected Samjogo's blow with his cymbal. Then he hammered the ground so hard the stone floor split and cracked, breaking Tiger's grip. Flapping his wings, he rose out of reach, readying his next attack. In a flash of orange, Tiger bounded up the wobbly stairs, light as a housecat. Leaping off the stairs, he pounced onto the Storm Lord, teeth aimed at the demon's throat. Tumbling backwards, Nwaegongdo wrapped his immense wings around Tiger and, rolling with the attack, swung his hammer. The blow flung Tiger through two stairs, shattering them. But having twisted his body in the air, Tiger had righted himself before landing in a mess of scrolls, breaking a table, and rolling to the floor, stunned but alive. Wincing, Young-hee hoped he would be okay. Good fighters though they were, Tiger and Samjogo were no match for such a powerful demon.

“This is ridiculous,” snapped Mirinae, bolting from her hiding place. She ran past her dragon-bone clypsedra and started rooting in a particularly messy corner.

With boastful and angry cries, Nwaegongdo reached behind his back and pulled out a great drum and one of his hammers. The air crackled as he readied to summon a lightning bolt—and, just then, Young-hee realized that nearly every machine of Mirinae's was made of metal, including the giant iron rings of the huge armillary sphere for mapping the heavens. Electricity plus metal sounded like a formula for a very bad outcome. “
Everyone, get down!
” she shouted.

The Storm Lord hammered his drum with a joyful solemnity, and a huge bolt of lightning shot out with a blinding flash and deafening clap. But in the enclosed hall, full of conductive materials, the electricity went wild. It bounced and ricocheted everywhere, filling the chamber with a vast web of errant forking zips of electricity. It would have been beautiful, had it not been so deadly. Young-hee screamed.

Luckily, the giant armillary sphere absorbed most of the strike, sending much of it back at Nwaegongdo. He crashed to the stone floor, stunned and smoking slightly. Samjogo recovered quickly, dashed at him, and swung his hyeopdo in a big arc. Nwaegongdo rolled away, but Samjogo's blade ripped into his large wing. The demon shouted something Young-hee was sure were demonic swear words.

The rush of battle gave way to a spontaneous lull. Then, with an unceremonious waddle, Mirinae pulled a square wooden cart from the messy corner. Behind its two big wheels were rows of tubes in a five-by-ten grid, each tube with four sharp points sticking out. Young-hee's eyes widened. It looked like an ancient weapon she had seen once while on a class trip to a museum—a
hwacha
, a “fire cart” that shot hundreds of explosives and flaming arrows at a time. And Mirinae was lighting it. “This is
my
house,” she repeated, more pissed off than ever.

At first the sparks popped and crackled so lightly it was almost comical. But as the burning fuse jumped from tube to tube, the hwacha lit up like holiday fireworks. All at once, the sparks gave way to a roar of rockets, as hundreds of arrows caught fire and blasted out. The first salvo, right into the Storm Lord's chest, drove him back. The next volley blasted the demon with an explosive fury of flaming arrows.

It was a brutal barrage, but not only for Nwaegongdo. Burning slivers of wood and roasting wreckage bounced off the walls and rained down. Samjogo heaved and shoved Tiger to the side of the room, away from the worst of the shrapnel. Young-hee pulled her legs under the bench, becoming as small as possible. The hail of burning debris seemed interminable, and the noise so overwhelming that Young-hee couldn't think straight at first. Then, the hall fell largely quiet—save for the crackle of burning wood and irregular thump of falling rubble.

“That did it,” said Mirinae, sounding satisfied.

“Yes, I think he's gone,” said Samjogo, emerging from a wreckage-strewn corner.

Mirinae, uninterested in gloating, rummaged through her stacks. “Science,” she said. “Don't get too happy, though. The Storm Lord is made of sterner stuff than that.”

Tiger was smoldering slightly from hot ashes that had dropped on him. He had new stripes burned into his fur. Young-hee looked for water and blankets. “You think Nwaegongdo survived?” she asked.

“Probably,” said Mirinae, still poking around. “But hopefully, not very well. Still, I recommend moving with some haste.”