Pilgrim, p.13
Pilgrim, page 13
The day was starting to warm up, the occasional bird passing overhead, the sounds and smells of the village coming to him as they grew closer. There was dust in the air from a few of the carts and the abundance of people passing through the main thoroughfare. A few people waved at the carpenter, Khamdo politely passing all of them until he saw Elder Sonders.
“I was meaning to go around and introduce you to people,” said the Elder, who was with another man that dressed in a similar fashion, a copper badge telling Danzen that he was some kind of government official. “Are you working on the monastery?” he asked the former assassin as he tapped his cane against the ground. “Because if so, you have found the perfect man for the job.”
“He did my family a great service,” the carpenter started to say, bowing his head a little.
“Did he, now? And what favor was that?”
Khamdo clued Elder Sonders in on what Danzen had done. Of course, he didn’t know all the details, like the fact that Danzen had killed a daidarabotchi, a yokai giant.
But it was better this way.
If word got out that a giant slayer had shown up to town, it would bring unwanted scrutiny, the kind of scrutiny Danzen hoped to avoid.
He would continue to keep what he had to do to accomplish his tasks secret, Danzen preferring anonymity, especially with how quickly legends traveled.
While he was now used to people calling him Pilgrim, part of him didn’t like the name because of the questions it raised.
Who was this Pilgrim? Why had he just shown up? Could he really do something about a meddling yokai?
All were questions he hoped to avoid.
“He’s quite the man,” the Elder said, beaming a smile over to Danzen. “And I’m glad he’s decided to call our little neck of the world home. Let me know when the monastery is finished. I’d love to come up there and take a look. Perhaps we could have it…”
“No celebration,” Danzen said.
“I see. Well, I suppose we can talk about that later,” said Elder Sonders, returning to his guest. “Now… Where were we?”
Once they were gone, Danzen and the carpenter passed the general store run by Mansukh, his teenage daughter out front.
“Hey, Khamdo,” she said as she stacked bags of grain.
She looked up to the two of them, the sun revealing the freckles across the bridge of her nose, adding a glimmer to the strips of blonde in her hair.
“Yeni,” Khamdo said with a wave.
Yeni blushed as soon as her eyes locked on Danzen’s.
They turned the corner before she could say anything else, and made their way to the back of the district, where the homes were located.
“I have to drop the donkey off first,” Khamdo explained to Danzen. “Sarnai doesn’t like me dragging him all around town.”
They reached the well-cared-for home, the carpenter’s wife almost sensing that her husband was home.
She came to the door with baby Leegan.
“Pilgrim,” she said, a look of surprise painting across her face. “I thought you two would still be working on the monastery.”
“We decided to call it a day. There are some other things he needs to do in the village,” her husband said, not going into detail.
As he dealt with the donkey, Sarnai brought her baby over to Danzen.
“See?” She gingerly turned the baby around to show him her back. “The spots are all gone.”
“Quick.”
“Yes, Dalan sure knows his stuff. He may be a hermit, and I know there are some people around here who think hermits just live off others’ misfortunes, that their cure is often worse than the disease. But not Dalan. I just wish he’d move closer to the village. He’s getting older, you know.”
“Are you going on about Dalan again?” Khamdo asked his wife as he returned to Danzen.
“I just worry about him out there. He must be over seventy-five. And to imagine him living in a cave all by himself… Who knows what’s out there? He won’t talk about it, but I know he has seen some things. There are plenty of people that would put him up here in the village. We would have enough space if we built out the left side of the house.”
“We’re not building on the house this year,” Khamdo said. “We’ve already discussed this.”
The baby started to cry, Sarnai turning her attention to her. “I think she’s hungry,” she said as she made her way back into the house.
“She’s not the only one,” said her husband.
“Ha! I figured you would be hungry,” Sarnai said, looking at him with loving eyes. “What about you, Pilgrim?”
“I’m fine.”
“Nonsense. Whatever you have to do can wait. The two of you need to eat. I still have some of the meat from earlier.”
“Really, it’s fine,” Danzen started to say.
But he could tell by the way that the aproned woman was looking at him that no wasn’t going to be an answer.
“It will only take a minute,” Khamdo said under his breath. “She’s the fastest cook in the valley, and I’m one of the fastest eaters.”
****
After their meal, Khamdo and Danzen bid farewell to Sarnai and moved to a rather large home, easily three times the size of the carpenter’s place. There were items scattered out front, the place in need of a new paint job, a weary look about the home that Danzen sensed came coupled with raising three wild boys.
“Well, this is it,” Khamdo said, scratching the back of his head as he looked up at the place.
His belly was a bit distended now, the carpenter having stuffed himself at the behest of his wife. He had yawned a few times on the way over, the man clearly ready to enjoy an afternoon nap.
Danzen had his hood over his head now, just in case Nayaga happened to be watching the place from some unknown location. His hand was never far from the hilt of his famed blade. The former assassin knew that if Nayaga struck, and his arrow didn’t kill him, he wouldn’t have long to act.
“The sooner we get inside, the better,” Danzen said, which were the first words he’d spoken since leaving Khamdo’s home.
The carpenter nodded, sensing his urgency. The two made their way up the steps that led to the front door, swords crafted out of wood, fake shields, and a slew of other toys tossed about the front porch.
Khamdo knocked, and it wasn’t long before they heard a pair of feet coming in their direction.
A young boy opened the door. The boy had slick black hair and an upturned nose, a curious look on his face as he took in the two men.
“Ban, I need to speak to your mother,” said Khamdo.
The shirtless boy nodded, leaving the door wide open as he took off running.
Khamdo and Danzen stepped into the house, staying in the foyer.
Eventually, a woman in an apron came out of a side room, her hair a mess, her cheeks a bit flushed.
“Maral,” said Khamdo, nodding at her.
Something about Maral told Danzen that she was younger than she looked, the woman with prematurely gray hair and an elegant long neck and wide hips, crow’s feet taking shape over her cheeks as she smiled impatiently at them.
“Yes?” She heard some noise upstairs and looked up, waiting for the sound to settle before yelling, “Erdene, you leave your brother alone. Toli, get down here now!”
“Ma, I want to go out,” said Ban, her youngest, who was now at her side and tugging at her apron.
“You’ve already been out for the day. Go back to the kitchen, and do what I told you to do.”
“But…”
Another boy came running down the stairs, this one a bit pudgy, his short brown hair a mess behind his ears.
“It’s Erdene’s fault,” he started to tell his mother.
“I don’t care whose fault it was, Toli. Go with Ban to the kitchen and finish cleaning up. He knows what to do.” The boy started to complain but she cut him off, pointing to another room. Finally, she turned back to the two men. “Yes, Khamdo? How can I help you?”
It was then that the woman realized who Danzen was.
She had never met him before, but by now word had gotten out that there was a stranger in town, Maral confirming this with a one-word acknowledgment. “Pilgrim.”
“I’m here to make an introduction, and then I’ll be on my way out,” said Khamdo.
She looked at him skeptically for a moment. “An introduction?”
“I believe that your family may be in danger,” Danzen said, coming right out with it.
It was a new thing for him, being so forthright. And while he hadn’t given enough thought to the attention it would bring him, he also didn’t want to see a family in the village murdered.
“In danger?”
“I’ll be taking my leave, then. See you tomorrow, Pilgrim,” Khamdo told Danzen as he stepped out.
There was a crash in the kitchen. Maral quickly exited the foyer, yelled at her sons, and returned.
“Sorry. They are terrors right now. In a few years, they will all be older, and then they can help Temur with some of the jobs he picks up around town. But right now…” She sighed miserably. “Boys. I had to have three boys and no girls.” The woman shook her head. “Anyway, what were you saying about danger?”
“Do you have a chicken?”
Maral was quiet for a moment as she considered how she should respond. When she couldn’t come up with an answer, she went for another question. “Why are you asking me that?”
“I overheard some men talking about a family with three boys and a chicken. Khamdo said that this was probably a reference to your family. I think you and your boys, your husband as well, may be in danger and…”
Another crash from the kitchen. “Dammit, Ban, Toli, do not make me come in there!”
“Sorry, Ma!” one of the boys called out, Danzen recognizing the voice as Ban’s.
“Come with me.”
Maral led Danzen to a back room of the rather large home, one that was meant for storage. As he entered the space, Danzen’s eyes fell upon a white chicken in an old metal cage, several rolled carpets pressed up to the wall behind it. The chicken walked around in circles, pecking at the ground.
“That’s it,” she said.
“This is the chicken?”
She nodded.
“And why would three men want this chicken?”
“You want to know why?” she asked as she walked over to the cage.
The chicken paid no attention to her until Maral knocked on the top of the cage. A loud, clapping sound ricocheted across the room. It was followed by an absolutely enormous fireball, one which Danzen barely managed to dodge.
He withdrew his blade immediately, just about to fling it at the chicken when Maral yelled for him to stop.
Breathing heavily now, Danzen slowly placed the blade in its scabbard, looking at the fire on the ground and noticing that it wasn’t giving off any heat.
“It’s not real,” she told him, her eyes twitching now she took him in. “Please don’t…”
“My sword is up,” Danzen assured her. “It was an instinct.”
“Look.” Maral stepped through the flame and turned around, performing this motion again. “See? No harm.”
“It spits a fake flame?” Danzen asked.
“It’s a yokai. I don’t know what kind it is, but it can breathe fire, and when it flaps its wings it makes a noise that sounds like thunder right over your home. I hate the damn thing.”
The chicken started clucking again. “You heard me,” she said as she kicked her foot at its cage.
Maral placed her hands over her ears again, ignoring the flame that fired from the chicken’s beak as it released its loud squawk.
“How did you come across this thing?” Danzen asked.
“Me? No way. My boys did. They went with their father to Chutham and they found it wandering on the outskirts of the village. Their dad had his back to them at the moment, Sunyata knows why, and here comes Erdene with a fire-breathing chicken tucked under his arm. You said that you thought someone, or some people, were looking for this chicken. Well, they can have it. Where should I put the damned thing? I’d love to set it outside, but I don’t want anyone else in the neighborhood to see it. Only a few people know.”
“I don’t know if it would be that easy,” he told her.
“What would anyone want with this stupid chicken anyway?” Maral asked as it started clucking again, the chicken back to picking at the straw on the bottom of its cage.
“Does it lay eggs?” Danzen asked.
She shot him a funny look. “Actually, it does. But there’s nothing remarkable about these eggs.”
“Maybe the owner had plans to breed.”
“More of these chickens in Genshin Valley? Please, no. It’s only because of my dear husband that I haven’t cut its head off myself and cooked it up.” She heard noises in the other room again, Maral shaking her head. “I’ll tell you what, what if you stayed for dinner? You can sleep in our guestroom tonight. If someone really is coming…” She glanced down at the sword.
“Maybe that is the best way forward.”
“Then it is settled. If you think it’s best, let’s do it.”
Danzen wanted to get out of the business of killing, which had been one of the reasons he had traveled so far away in the first place. But he knew who at least one of these men were, and what they were capable of.
Even if the woman’s husband was a relatively decent fighter, the man wouldn’t be able to take all three of them, especially Nayaga with his sharpshooting ability and the training he’d received from the Brotherhood.
“Wonderful. You can stay, have some dinner, and we’ll see what happens tonight. Just tell me what you want us to do. I’ll talk to my husband; he’ll listen to me. It shouldn’t be long until Temur comes home. But like I said, just tell me what you want us to do.”
“Come again?”
“Would you like us to leave or something? Listen to me, I’ve only just met you. But I trust Khamdo, and I know he wouldn’t introduce us if you didn’t mean well. So what I’m asking is if you want to stay here tonight, or go somewhere else.”
“I am concerned that they may be watching the house, and if they are, these men have already seen two people enter, and only one person leave. Maybe it’s best if you stay here, but in a more secure space.”
“We have a basement that has beds in it for when we have family over. We can stay there.”
Danzen considered this option. “Yes, that would be better, safer.”
“I want this chicken out of here tomorrow. I don’t care what happens to it. If you want it, take it. Otherwise, I’m turning it into soup. You hear that?” Maral said, tapping her finger on the chicken’s cage.
Another fireball caused Danzen’s heart to jump in his chest, only settling after he remembered that it was all an illusion.
“We can deal with that tomorrow,” he finally told her. “In the meantime, I’ll try to see if I can figure out more about this creature.” He slipped his hand into a satchel and retrieved the field diary. “I have another request.”
“Yes?”
“I need some fabric, and some thread.”
****
Danzen sat in a parlor as he waited for dinner, the door shut in an attempt to keep out the children’s ruckus.
They really were a handful, Maral constantly chasing after them or yelling at them, trying to get them to help her prepare the meal.
The former assassin sat in silence for a spell, thinking about his own upbringing, how he’d never had the opportunity to act so rambunctiously. At the Diyu Brotherhood, the younger orphans were taught from an early age how to clean and take care of their quarters. They would get assigned duties, and they would be judged upon how well they performed.
Those who took care of their tasks in a professional and timely manner would receive more food. Those who didn’t would receive less food, and lashes.
Danzen’s thoughts filtered away when he heard Maral blow her fuse, suddenly growing emotional to the point that she was sobbing.
The boys stopped misbehaving at that point, the three comforting their mother.
This gave Danzen the peace and quiet he needed to finally start flipping through the field diary.
There were sketches on a few of the pieces, and since he had apparently captured it the Abbot had scribbled out a rough portrait of the creature Danzen had killed earlier.
“Amanojaku,” he whispered to himself as he read the description.
Amanojaku are evil yokai known for their power of provoking wickedness in the heart of humans. They have been in the Valley and the Panchen Mountains to the east since before recorded history. They often have red faces, black hair, and a single horn on their head.
They have the power to turn into mist, which is the only way to capture one. Normal weapons will not work against amanojaku because the yokai are able to heal rapidly.
Danzen paused, wondering if he had actually killed the creature. Then he remembered decapitating it, watching its body burn.
Astra was no ordinary weapon; the blade was rumored to have been forged in Sunyata, passed down by a Soul Divinator and treated as a family heirloom for many generations.
A former military commander who had gone rogue had thrown it at him when Danzen tried to collect his mark.
Aside from it being one of the sharpest blades Danzen had ever encountered, Astra was known as a boomerang sword. And as it had left Danzen’s shoulder to return to its owner, he had managed to catch it by the hilt.
The blade dragged him for a moment, Danzen’s blood painting a line across a wooden floor, his demons summoned.
Danzen ended up fighting all of them off with Astra, one of the few times he was actually able to control what happened after he got cut, Danzen preventing it from spreading.
The general he had been hired to kill died of a heart attack once he saw the demons that Danzen unleashed.
Along with a hefty reward, Danzen had also kept the blade, and it had been by his side ever since.
There was a little noise from the other room of the house now, but nothing like the pandemonium from earlier, the boys clearly helping their mother now.
