Pilgrim, p.25
Pilgrim, page 25
Once he found an arc of light cutting through the foliage, Danzen retrieved his field diary, and started thumbing through the pages. Sure enough, he found an entry on gaki, as well as a sketch of one of the creatures.
Gaki are reincarnated spirits that have taken the form of a small humanoid creature. They have distended bulging bellies, and terrifyingly sharp teeth. These demonic yokai are eternally hungry and thirsty, but because of their curse, they are unable to satiate their cravings. The food that they do consume bursts into flames within their bodies, scorching their insides. They are tormented, and they will kill and eat anything. Some are smarter than others and have devised weapons to trap their prey, even though they are unable to satiate their hunger by eating them.
Danzen closed the field manual. “Are there many of these?”
“It depends on where you are in the forest. In our current location? Yes, there are many little groups of them. I’m surprised that these ones banded together. Generally, they stick in smaller groups of two, maybe three. Oftentimes, they fight against one another to the point that most other yokai in the forest don’t have to deal with them.”
“Good to know,” said Danzen.
“Come. I can smell the flowers now. We’re close.”
****
The stench hit Danzen Ravja about fifteen minutes later, one that reminded him of carrion, a scent he was all too familiar with.
They came to a hidden gulley that weaved through the woods, trees reaching over its rocky ledges. Danzen spotted the blue flowers, which grew in the shadows of large roots, the petals shaped like honeycombs and soft and spongy to the touch.
He began collecting the flowers, breathing out of his mouth as he placed them in the bag that he had made in the cave last night. He gathered more than he needed, the crude sack full by the time he finished, his fingers sticky.
Danzen moved to the trickle of water crawling through the gulley and cleaned his fingers.
He was just standing when Kudzu started to growl, the fox turning just as a trio of gaki came out of the woods, these ones holding clubs and snarling.
They were bigger than the others, but they still looked about the same, incredibly ugly, distended bellies and thin arms and legs, crooked teeth and scars crossing running down their cheeks. The first one hit the ground just as soon as Danzen’s sword passed through its body, his blade returning.
Rather than engage him, one of them took a step back and made a barking noise after cupping his hands around his mouth.
“They’re calling more,” said Kudzu. “We should hurry. There’s no point in trying to kill them all. They will just keep coming.”
Danzen nodded and the fox took off. He followed close behind her, moving swiftly and avoiding rocks the pair of gaki chucked at them. He heard more movement in the forest, his heart starting to beat faster as more joined in on the attack.
While he knew he could eliminate their entire species, he was worried about a stray rock drawing blood, and what he would have to do to contain a demon outbreak in the Asura Forest, considering their proximity to Diyu.
Danzen knew of another way to travel, and he didn’t hesitate to take this route as he quickly caught up to Kudzu.
“I need to hold you,” he told the fox.
“What?” she asked.
Rather than answer, Danzen scooped her up, and launched himself into the air, breaking out of the canopy of the trees. He landed on a stray branch and shot forward, making a frantic beeline toward the mountains.
Kudzu scrambled so her front legs were now on his shoulders and she was looking back, the fox scanning the forest below them after she stabilized herself.
“Sorry,” Danzen said as he dropped back into the woods and reached a branch, which he sprung off again, careful not to lose the bag of flowers flung over his shoulder, his satchel, his sword, or the fox.
He still had to be careful when moving in this way, especially when he dropped back down into the trees, Danzen constantly aware of stray limbs and branches.
He traveled like this for a solid forty-five minutes, running along the canopy of the Asura Forest. He startled a good number of birds, who took to the air as soon as he passed them, squawking to one another, Kudzu finding this humorous.
As Danzen saw the pond where they had stayed last night, he began to lower, eventually making it to the ground at the edge of the forest.
He set Kudzu down, who shook out her tail.
“That was something,” she said, peering back up at him. She smirked. “I’ve never flown before. It’s not as bad as I imagined it would be, but next time, give me a little more warning.”
“Fair enough. Let’s keep moving,” he said, his gaze now fixed on the mountains. “You know the way better than I.”
“That I do.”
The two pressed deeper into the mountains, Danzen once again keeping up with the fox.
Kudzu paused when she came to a shrub that was growing out of the side of a stone, Danzen’s eyes registering that the bush was covered in red berries.
“Eat these,” she said. “You haven’t eaten anything today.”
“I’ll be fine,” he told her.
“No, just in case you need energy later,” she said. “These berries are very good for you; they will give you energy. Give me some too.”
Rather than protest, Danzen started picking the berries from the shrub, noticing that they were tangy and sweet. They reminded him of a hard candy they had back in the west that he hadn’t seen here in the Genshin Valley.
“Eat as many as you can,” she told him. “They’ll regrow at night.”
Danzen gathered a handful of berries and placed them on the concave surface of a rock, where Kudzu was able to eat them. He ate more, and then the two of them found a small waterfall to drink from.
They continued onward, deeper into the Panchen Mountains, eventually making their way down the same muddy slope they’d climbed the previous day, the trip down much easier than the trip up.
It wasn’t much longer before the smell of the giants reached Danzen’s nostrils, the fetid scent even more overpowering than the flowers, which he had grown used to smelling.
“We don’t have to stick around for him to cure the child’s stomach sickness, do we?”
“I hope to Sunyata we don’t,” Kudzu said.
They came to the large gap in the rocks where the giants stayed, Dalan ecstatic to see them once they dropped down.
“My boy…” said the biggest giant, gritting his teeth as he stared the former assassin down. The female giant was behind him, hissing and glaring at Danzen and Kudzu.
“I told you, I’m going to cure your boy! Look, my friend is here. This is what he needs,” the old hermit said as he came forward, gesturing toward Danzen. The hermit hobbled over to them. “Thank you,” he said, offering Kudzu a thin grin. “It has been hell here. I’m hungry too. All they have to eat around here is raw meat that they’ve let dry in the sun. I’m so sick of eating dried meat tainted by the stench of giants.”
“How long will the cure take?” Danzen asked as he handed in the bag full of flowers.
“I just need to mix this with what I’ve already made,” he said, guiding Danzen over to a stone where he’d set up a pestle and mortar. “After the boy eats it, he should feel sudden relief. Of course, it will come back, which is why I’m going to make them more. Three days,” he said, loud enough for the largest giant to hear him. “Three days, your boy better.”
“Three days, better?” the towering man asked, a grim look on his face.
“Three days, medicine every day,” said Dalan as he ground the ingredients he had prepared into a paste. “Every day. Three days better.”
“Every day,” the giant grunted. “Better?”
“Yes, better.”
The hermit added a little water and took it over to the boy. Kudzu and Danzen watched as he slapped the boy’s cheek until he opened his mouth, allowing Dalan to pour the medicine in.
He made more of the medicine, and from what Danzen could tell, it looked like much more than the giants actually needed. Because they didn’t have any way to store it, Dalan scooped mud from the ground and mixed it with the medicine, forming several clay-like pills.
“Three days,” Dalan told the giant again. “Three days better.”
The largest daidarabotchi nodded and waved him away.
“You see that?” Dalan asked as he walked toward the exit, Kudzu and Danzen following him. The hermit still had a few of the flowers left in the bag that Danzen had sewn together. “I come all the way out here to cure his kid and that’s the thanks that I get. A wave. No, kidnapping and a wave. Giants. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t hate them as much as I do. But it’s kind of hard not to.”
“There are reasons some yokai are despised across the valley. But we can discuss those reasons later. We should be able to reach your cave by night,” Kudzu said, the fox still speaking out of her mouth and trying not to breathe through her nostrils.
“Good. And I suppose you’ll be staying,” he said, looking to Danzen.
“I can get home on my own.”
The hermit snorted. “Nonsense. You’ll stay, and we’ll catch some fish or something and have a feast. I really need a feast. I need a bath too. But that can happen in the waterfall near my cave, and don’t worry, you don’t need to help me in that affair. I can’t thank you enough. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do for you…”
Danzen shook his head.
“There must be something.”
“I didn’t come here for payment.”
“Then I owe you one,” said the hermit as they moved to a mountain pass that Danzen had noticed before, the older hermit surprisingly agile.
They reached his cave in record time, the sun just starting to set.
Danzen caught seven plump fish with his sword, the hermit instructing him to season them as he bathed in the waterfall below.
While Danzen prepared the fish, Kudzu gathered wild onions, which she brought just as he was about to fry the fish up.
“This is going to be wonderful,” said Dalan once he returned and took over the cooking duties.
And so it was, the three of them eating to their hearts’ content.
Clean and not surprisingly tired, the hermit lay down early, Danzen making his own bedding out of the robes he’d left in the cave. The fire now crackling, he joined Kudzu, the two sitting at the mouth of the hermitage and looking out over the mountains, silent for a spell.
“I appreciate you coming to help me,” she said after the two of them watched a shooting star pass.
“It was an interesting trip.” Danzen used his pointer finger to pick a sliver of fish from his teeth. “A smelly, but interesting trip.”
“And if there’s ever anything you need, I’m available to help you. In fact, I’m going to show you something,” Kudzu told him.
“Yeah?”
“I want to show you how to call me. If you ever need me, face the direction the wind is blowing and hum my name.”
“Hum your name?”
“It will sound something like this. Mmmuuuddzuuuu…” She made the sound again. “I know it is a little odd, but I will hear it no matter where you are in the valley, and I will come to you.”
“I’ll remember that,” Danzen told her as the two watched the stars twinkle above.
“Mmmuuuddzuuuu…” she said again.
“Have you ever heard of something called the Blade of Darkness?” he asked her at some point, recalling the glaive that the former stableman named Pancha had given him.
“I haven’t.”
“Recently, one of the villagers gave me a weapon with an indentation in its hilt. He claims the missing gemstone allows someone to control shadows.”
“And why would I know about this stone?”
“He says that the gemstone can be found somewhere in the Asura Forest, that his father had it hidden there. I don’t know if it’s true or not.”
“Do you believe it to be true?”
Danzen considered how the weapon felt in his hands, almost as if it were missing something. “Yes. I believe it is missing a component.”
“I’ll ask around. If I hear anything about it, I’ll let you know. Don’t forget how to call me. You may need my help some day,” the fox said, smiling at him. “And I may need yours.”
Part Seven
.Chapter One.
Spring officially arrived over the next two weeks, bringing with it warmer nights and longer days. Many of the trees in Genshin Valley started to produce leaves, others holding off, waiting for a final cold snap. The days were livelier with birdsong, and Danzen noticed more creatures scurrying about on his trips to town than he had seen in the previous month.
Danzen was running low on funds.
The former assassin had yet to find someone needing help with a yokai; he had even gone as far as telling Zorya the barmaid that he would pay her a cut of whatever he received if she brought him a proposition.
Khamdo continued to work on the monastery, but his trips up the hill were less frequent now, most of the labor finished. The other things that needed to be done, like the piping that would keep the place warm when winter came around again, would require more kip.
The days that Khamdo didn’t come saw Danzen keeping active, the former assassin training in the foothills beyond his monastery. This included deadlifting rocks, some practice to get used to the weight of his Blade of Darkness, and using his agility to move from boulder to boulder.
He only did this when it was dry, Danzen not wanting to slip and potentially draw blood.
He caught fish, and found more stashes of berries on a shrub growing out of the faces of one of the rocks. Basan continued to produce eggs, which Danzen gladly ate, sometimes mixing the yolks with grain to cook a crude pancake or making simple grain balls.
Life was going well, but Danzen did not forget, not for one moment, where he was from and who may potentially be looking for him.
Even the slightest sound caused him to pause, his hand going to the hilt of his blade. Always ready. Even if he knew he was being paranoid, Danzen preferred paranoia over complacency.
He thought about calling Kudzu a few times just to have someone to talk to, someone to go over his field diary with, to see if the information was correct.
But he never did reach out to the white fox as time passed.
Danzen fell into a spiral where he isolated himself even more, not visiting town for several days straight, Khamdo not visiting during this time as well because of a construction project in the First District.
But he needed to be social, and he needed money.
And so it was on one sunny morning that Danzen decided to make his way to the Third District, and possibly Chutham from there to look for work.
It was time to reintegrate with society a little.
He left his Blade of Darkness behind, locked up in his room as he took the long and not-so-winding road to the village.
As he walked, a pair of boys he didn’t recognize came out of one of the fields, carrying with them a basket of carrots that looked like they needed more time in the ground. They looked to him, the surprise on their faces quickly morphing to fear as the two realized he had caught them stealing.
Rather than say anything, Danzen simply moved on, not one to get involved, and honestly not knowing what he would say if he did.
His first stop once he reached the village was Suja Raksi Hall, where he had a bowl of stew, which he knew was a luxury that would end soon if he couldn’t find work.
“Anything?” Danzen asked Zorya as she came to his table.
“I haven’t heard anything, Pilgrim,” she said as she wiped her hands on the front of her apron. “Sorry. I’ll keep asking around. There’s bound to be something sooner or later. Anyway, the usual?”
He nodded.
“Ale?”
He shook his head.
As he waited for the stew, Danzen thought about visiting Elder Sonders' home and perusing his library, specifically his two-volume set on yokai. He had done this once over the past couple weeks and found it enjoyable. Shedrup was still locked in the basement and recovering, the Elder telling him that his nephew had broken out one night and got drunk, which meant he had to start the recovery process once again.
His stew eventually came, a few juicy ribs sticking out of the surface of the soup, the liquid boiling. Danzen let it cool, and after Zorya brought him a couple slices of bread, he quickly ate and paid for his meal.
He left, and as he stepped out of the tavern, he saw Yeni pacing back and forth in the streets, the teenager with her arms crossed over her chest. Yeni was the teenage daughter of Mansukh, the widower who ran the Third District’s general store where he normally got supplies.
The youth had taken a liking to Danzen, always moving over to him when he came to the shop and trying to flirt, which Danzen found a bit ironic.
If the teenage girl had an inkling of the things that he had done, she would have turned the other way and never looked back. But that was the beauty in escaping it all, in taking on this persona, in becoming Pilgrim.
It was a form of anonymity.
The brunette with streaks of blonde in her hair looked up at Danzen. She ran to him, Danzen’s instinctive reaction being to place his hand on the hilt of his weapon, just in case it was a trick of some sort.
“Hey,” Yeni said, sliding to a stop in front of the former assassin, the youth too inexperienced to notice that he was prepared to draw his weapon.
“Hi.”
“Well?”
Danzen looked at her curiously, trying to interpret what she wanted. “Yes?”
“Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m looking so sad?”
Danzen tilted his head as he took in the girl, who was still growing into her body, her arms and legs a bit long, a spattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, her eyes big and doe-like.
“Well, Pilgrim?”
“Why are you sad?” Danzen asked in a stilted way, not certain as to why he was playing along.
