Notes.
As promised, here I am, emerging from my one month break to bring you, on a silver platter (or almost, let's say a platter, because my budget is tragically limited), the fourth and last arc of the Gwishins, namely "The Peacock with a Hundred Eyes". This one will be the longest of the whole story (count at least forty chapters to be safe), and also the richest, in the sense that it is centered on the exploration, the discovery of a new territory, the resolution of most of the questions raised during the previous arcs and the plots-twists, as well as the conclusion of this story. As a reminder, there will be two endings to this story, which you will be able to choose according to your preference.
The writing of this arc may also be very impacted (and I'm very sorry in advance) by my thesis, which I'm also currently finishing (who said burn-out?), and by my research activities, which are resuming with the end of the lockdown. As a precaution, I am therefore extending the time between chapters to between four and five days, or more if I encounter major difficulties. The chapters will also be longer, which explains the change in the deadline. I think I can manage to finish it by September, at the latest November-December 2021.
As you will see, this arc is starting...how can I put it? Pretty strong. It will be the darkest and most violent of them all. In terms of inspiration, it is based as usual on many targeted references (Lord of the Rings, Stephen King, Black Swan, Gone Girl, Swan Lake, Giselle, Hannibal, Death Stranding...), but focuses more particularly on one specific inspiration: the GRIS video game.
Quick aside, it's one of the most beautiful games I've ever seen (seriously, if you want to satisfy your eyes, type on Google "GRIS game map" and enjoy, you won't regret it), incidentally my favorite, and I have extracted from it all the definitive architecture of the Lonely Lake City as well as the landscapes of the "Moors" you'll discover later on. Other games also served as a reference point for me, such as Death Stranding, Abzu or Journey.
The location of the Lonely Lake City was also inspired by several famous lakes, including Lake Como, Lake Maggiore, Lake Samil in Korea, the city of Lugano in Switzerland, and the lakes of Aiguebelette and Leman in France. It is possible that my love for lakes has crept into this story. The name of the lake, "Lonely Lake" was inspired by a song of the band The Midnight, called "Lonely City".
To end this - long - introduction, I hope with all my heart that this last arc will live up to your expectations, and I wish you a wonderful read, while thanking you immensely for continuing to follow this story!
Soundtrack (for the entire chapter):
Black Widow (The Crown OST, by Martin Philips)
CHAPTER LXXIV
"It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. […] It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things."
(Lemony Snicket, "A Series Of Unfortunate Events")
a. Medusa's fate
There were only three steps. These dusty wooden planks, already worn out by the footsteps that had hammered them, heavy with reluctance, regret, fear, were lined up one after the other, or rather one on top of the other, and seemed at first sight frighteningly easy to climb, inasmuch as nothing seemed simpler than to put a foot on one, then the second, in order to reach the large platform made of the same material, except that it was longer and wider.
This improvised stage, quickly built and wobbling at the slightest movement, faced one of the outer courtyards of the Changdeok Royal Palace, and more specifically the one in front of the building reserved for the officials' quarters, where the king held his meetings with the ministers, and where the reports from the various ministries were written. Dong Soo had been there on several occasions, to transmit some exceptional reports from the Royal Investigation Bureau, but also earlier in his youth, when he was still fully in the monarch's favor and was free to move around the palace as he pleased, if only for some anecdotal restrictions.
By the time of his exile, he had lost this privilege, and his travels were then confined to the locations that his function required him to visit and to be near by. As the two soldiers who had been his jailers until now forced him forward, and up the three steps, while making sure he did not try to run away or suffer a nervous fit that would have caused him to faint or his legs to weaken, Dong Soo remembered that he and Woon had once argued in one of the small offices inside the same building that surrounded the courtyard regarding Crown Prince Sado.
It was a summer day, and he could almost feel the sweat that caused his blue uniform to stick to his skin while the space where he had wanted to isolate himself, disdaining Cho-Rip's compassion or the looks Woon gave him, was abominably hot. The weather since then had clearly changed, as well as the circumstances. To begin with, Woon was absent, since Dong Soo had killed him in the meantime, or he had chosen to let himself die on his sword (it was never your fault). And it was cold now, (oh) so terribly cold.
He was wearing the clothing of all those who had come and would come after him on this platform, kneeling on the creaking boards, enduring their harshness, waiting. The jacket and pants were, appropriately, the colors of the dead, though the shade was less icy and pure than the gwishins' hair or the garments they had worn during the siege of Hanyang three weeks before. Dong Soo's clothes were turning yellow. He suspected they had been used before, for when they had been brought to him the night before, a sour smell accompanied them, the nature of which he had recognized almost immediately, having absorbed it since his childhood.
The rusty aroma of blood, especially old blood, having clung to surfaces and fabrics, knew just as well how to moisten the floors of memory, and every time he breathed it in, Dong Soo again felt as if he were bathed in it, as if his face, hands, neck, chest, and arms, were once again drenched in it (I don't know what happened). He had never seen so much blood since, nor had he had so much on his hands, even with the gwishins.
It was probably just an impression. Time had made some memories more diffuse, but it had accentuated the details in others.
He had rarely carried out executions in person, and the torture had paradoxically always seemed to him more meticulous, for they were more focused on the fire and the burning than on open wounds. As for the other blood, that of the living, he had not been given another opportunity to spill it since the coup. Besides, even the coup had not achieved the magnitude of that day.
Maybe this time it will, he thought, as he put his foot on the last step, then on the surface of the platform. A winter breeze was creeping under the fabric of his jacket. It was made of a thick cotton, but that alone was unlikely to repel the cold and prevent it from biting. Dong Soo shivered, frozen by the breeze, the bite of which reminded him of the skin of the dead, and of (Woon).
Oh, better not to think of Woon now. He had gorged himself on them in his cage, and none of his memories had soothed him. No one offered him a coat. None of the men standing there had the task of doing him that favor. Besides, in a few moments, the cold would no longer be a problem, and that for good.
The wood sagged smoothly under his jipsin-shod feet, and the straw straps cruelly constricted his skin. He was brought to the center of the platform, as the protocol demanded, and once immobilized, the pressure of the soldiers' hands on his shoulders became heavier, urging him to kneel down. He raised his head for just a moment. Strands of hair were escaping from his bun, somewhat hindering his vision without totally diminishing it.
The king had come to attend the event, as some kind of exceptional favor granted to a former advisor, bodyguard, and friend. It was because of these last three elements that the thing had been delayed for so long. The sovereign had taken a seat under a series of columns forming a passage between two buildings, and their shadows were cast on his face, preventing Dong Soo from discerning his expression.
He suspected, in any case, that Jeongjo's royal face would show little outspoken compassion for him: since the death of his father, Prince Sado, and following his ascension to the throne, Yeongjo's successor had developed the stoicism inherent in the duties of a monarch, and no longer displayed the slightest emotion in such circumstances. He had seen too many men go up on that platform, and more since the appearance of the gwishins, to be moved anymore.
He was surrounded by a small escort of royal guards, motionless and severe in their uniforms, placed near him and all around the outer courtyard, a mere precaution in case Dong Soo attempted an impromptu escape. There were also a few bureaucrats looking down, whose position required them to be present, as well as a physician, and finally Sa-Mo. No more people had been authorized to come and watch the scene.
Such spectacles had become private and carefully concealed from the public eye, or, when not, limited to a few specific individuals, after the king had judged the popular mood to be too unstable to subject it to displays all the more likely to reinforce its aggressiveness against the government. No more pomp and ceremony characterized these sessions: with the years, they had instead taken on a shameful and invisible aspect, especially in the case of individuals placed high in the spheres of power.
A few years ago, both attributes were associated with these events when they were public. The former minister of war had borne the cost of this phenomenon. Dong Soo had not seen him among the crowd of gwishins he had accompanied to Incheon. A bird flew silently across the sky, cutting a cloud in half with a whisper (Dong Soo-yah).
Dong Soo had seen a few of these scenes himself, from afar, without feeling much empathy (Hong Dae Ju's smile). After having time to reflect in his cell at the royal prison, he had realized that he felt no more for his own cause. His only real and sincere concern was for his relatives. Sa-Mo, of course, was one of them, and Dong Soo could barely look at his distraught face, at the trembling of his chin as the sobs rose in his throat, and at how his eyes were crinkling to hold back tears.
When the king's horsemen had arrested them both on the beach at Incheon, he had firmly believed that Dong Soo's former services to the sovereign would guarantee him complete immunity, as on previous occasions. It will be exile: you're too precious, the king knows it, he had told him, on the way back, while other living were following them anxiously, surrounded by the soldiers who had gathered them after the departure of the gwishins and the collapse of the waters erected towards the sky, the sight of which had drawn from them exclamations of fright mingled with admiration.
Of those who had returned with them, only a miserable handful remained. Sa-Mo had confirmed it to him during one of his visits.
"He executed them one by one, even the women," he had reported to Dong Soo in front of the bars of his prison, and he was talking while looking at the ground. "Most of them had only sheltered gwishins in their homes, like you. I don't understand his decision. The Yeogogedams were always peaceful, and no action was ever taken against him by the group. Their only purpose was to protect the gwishins, and to allow them to move around safely."
Dong Soo had noted that Sa-Mo no longer said "his majesty" or "the king." He referred to him as "he". The pronoun was a distance, a scission.
According to him, he was not the only one to be surprised and alarmed by the radical decisions taken by the king concerning the living who had come to the aid of the gwishins, and more generally by his disregard for the non-aggression pact negotiated by the gwishin-kings and queens before their departure for the Island of the Dead.
Although no violent rebellion had been identified among the living allies of the gwishins, and while their activities were primarily focused on the peaceful, profitable, and safe integration of the dead into society, Jeongjo had rejected the promises of protection and forgiveness and had undertaken to imprison them, putting them on trial, and then executing them just as quickly. He was urged on by the ministers of both factions, Norons and Sorons, who had taken the measure of the number of gwishins and their potential for destruction, and seemed to want to leave nothing to chance.
Dong Soo had anticipated the penalties. As they were heading for Hanyang, chaperoned by the royal cavalry, he had made Sa-Mo swear to claim his innocence, and had agreed with him on a version of events that cleared him, Seung-Min, and Yun-Seo as much as possible, although her involvement was too great to really put her out of danger. Dong Soo had made sure the stories were consistent, forcing Sa-Mo to repeat the arguments several times as they were walking to the capital. Sa-Mo had protested loudly, had ranted that nothing would happen, that exile was assured.
He almost cried, and finally begged that the blame should be placed on him too. Dong Soo had turned himself off, and refused all his proposals.
"Someone has to be there just in case to protect Yun-seo and Yoo-Jin and take them away from here if the king decides otherwise," he had said curtly, looking away from the pain of the one who had been and remained his de facto father, if not by blood (where is father). "I think it's best to be careful."
Sa-Mo had begun to sob as they walked through the gates of Hanyang.
"Oh son," he said with pain. "You can't ask me that. You can't."
But Dong Soo had done so, had insisted, had become angry, had gone so far as to threaten Sa-Mo that he would be responsible if his wife and son were to be hunted down. It had taken a long time, but he had finally accepted the strategy once cornered by Dong Soo, with a tearful reluctance (but you will be exiled you're safe the king trusts you you were his bodyguard), and he had deployed it to perfection throughout the trials that had followed.
Ironically, his broken heart and a few tears played in his favor, and were considered by the institutions as a proof of his innocence and a manifestation of the pain caused by Dong Soo's immoral choices.
He was now completely assured of Seung-Min's safety, whom the investigations had treated as a victimized accomplice, having been heinously blackmailed by his captain to prevent him from reporting to the authorities the truth about the status of his two additional residents. He had thus enabled the officers in charge of his case to make him a puppet master, controlling both his brigade soldier and Sa-Mo, whom he had forced to accommodate his parents and those of his childhood friend.
The reports, once the identity and background of Woon were known, never failed to mention his despicable traitorous status on several occasions. The entire responsibility had fallen upon Dong Soo, through testimonies he had checked mainly through Sa-Mo. It had been the only solution.
Charged after a few days with treason against the crown, rebellion and conspiracy, he had initially been forced into exile, as Sa-Mo had predicted, and had almost not believed the sentence when he heard it. In a way, he had been wise to have some perspective. Later, the day before his release, a soldier had come to his cell as he was just getting used to the idea and was recalling the name of the region where he, his wife and son were being sent, while trying to predict the level of misery they would face.
"I have come to inform you that your sentence has been modified as a result of His Majesty's decision."
"I'm no longer exiled?" Dong Soo had questioned him, feeling his heart beating very fast, too fast, and like something behind his back, lurking, licking its lips.
(Dong Soo-yah)
"No. By order of the king, you are now sentenced to death. The date of your execution has not yet been set, but it should take place soon. His Majesty has deemed your grievances too serious and your military experience too dangerous to allow you to live freely in exile."
Strangely, such a verdict had seemed much more real and logical to him than the previous one. He had spent the rest of the night imagining how and when, experimenting in his mind the blade or the rope, and then how Woon would react, if he were to find out. It was there, in the background, ready to leap. Dong Soo had held the idea tightly by the scruff of the neck since his imprisonment, but its release was irredeemable.
Yun-seo and Yoo-Jin had been designated as willing accomplices, and given the same punishment. Several times, staring at the wall in front of his cell, and remembering the time he had spent in prison after retrieving (stealing) Woon's corpse and burying it under the willow tree, he admitted that the situation looked like a bad joke. Undoubtedly, the Baeks had a fondness for decapitation.
One of the soldiers was reciting the charges. Dong Soo guessed that Sa-Mo's distress was becoming more and more apparent. A sniffle echoed in the courtyard, covering the soldier's voice for a moment, and he paused to cast a harsh glance in Sa-Mo's direction. Dong Soo had resented himself for leaving him like that, alone, like the first time with his father. His intention had never been to cause him any trouble. The fact was that no other option had been available.
All the alternatives he had considered on the way back to Hanyang, and even before that, when he decided to follow the procession of the dead into the city and imagined the worst-case scenario, did not end the way he had hoped at the time, with the non-execution of more of his family members. Keeping Sa-Mo free and alive had been his priority, for both tactical and personal reasons.
If Sa-Mo lived, he would be able to ensure the safety of the others, first by his testimony, and then by arranging the escape of Yun-Seo and Yoo-Jin. Once the thing was done, he would have to hide them, take them far away, out of reach of the king and his justice.
"I'm sorry, Sa-Mo," he had said to him the day before, when Sa-Mo had come to see him for the last time.
"Your poor father," he had lamented. "And now you..."
Sa-Mo had cried. Dong Soo had been reminded once again how terrible it was to see someone you really loved, and whom you did not wish any harm, sobbing this way. Sa-Mo's farewell had been very dignified, almost silent. He had gripped Dong Soo's hand between the bars.
Jang-Mi had been unable to come. She was still too fragile after returning from her trip to the province and the Hong family. According to Sa-Mo, she had nightmares every night, and her cheerfulness seemed to have been sucked away by what she had seen there. Knowing how much his death would add to his aunt's pain, Dong Soo had been seized with another bout of guilt and remorse.
The soldier's litany was over, and the executioner began his slow, throbbing dance. The sword was sharpened. He had been assured that he would feel nothing, that the man was skilled and careful. Another gift from the king, he had been told, and rarely had a gift seemed so terrible. Dong Soo was cold. His back had been a constant source of pain since he had returned from Incheon, after seeing Woon's silhouette disappear between the waves of the western sea.
He had received no news since then, except for the fact that war had been declared, and that both the gwishins and the living were preparing their forces. There had been rumors that military battalions had tried to break through the cloak of mist that enveloped the Island of the Dead, but had never succeeded, and had never returned. The troops of soldiers from the country had been ordered to concentrate on the west coast.
The king was ready for war, determined not to compromise, despite proposals from the gwishin leaders, suggestions of meetings between the minister of war and a gwishin queen whose title oscillated between the Diplomat or the Strategist, that had been turned down one after the other by Jeongjo.
The waters split in two gave way to another tide, that of the fields, of the molten copper sun, and of Woon's body, drowned in blood. The hinges of the cage broke. Dong Soo allowed himself to be swallowed up, because the time had come. The tide was made up of the same questions that had come and gone since he had learned of the king's decision, like waves teeming with pestilential seaweed.
They asked if Woon would know. Who would tell him. What he would say. They wanted to know what his expression would be at that moment, begged to see his face, his dark eyes, to look inside his skull, to read his mind, to tear out the emotions from him. Woon's death had left him like a bird with a wounded wing, amputated, mutilated of all his will, unable to leave the ground.
He wished he could transform himself, transfer his consciousness into a crow, and fly to the Island of the Dead, land near Woon, to try to understand and witness what he would feel when he would hear the news, if it would be the same thing that Dong Soo had endured from the very instant he had felt Woon become cold and rigid, even more than before.
Dong Soo regretted not asking him about what he had felt when he was dying (before letting himself die). Probably not the same. Panic, maybe. Pain, surely. Possibly peace. He had never been quite sure. He had thought his face looked serene when they had taken him away, but assumed it was probably a view of his then flickering mind.
What was it like? He asked the emptiness, the silence, all that Woon had been for years until the gwishins, Woon-ah, my love, my torment, what was it like, tell me, don't leave me alone with this, tell me, tell me.
But there was no answer, because Woon was not there.
During the decade following Woon's death, Dong Soo had withdrawn into an intimate, gradual destruction. The seasons had changed since his fight with Woon at the royal palace, and the comforting softness of the cocoon of his legs pressed against Dong Soo's hips, his eyes in chasms and storm clouds, his soothing affirmations (it wasn't your fault), his hands against his belly, and with them the roles.
Dong Soo had become the traitor. And the stage, the scaffold, was going to inflict the same fate on him as his sword had on Woon, too long ago. Woon had chosen to die by his own hand, if his decision could be called a choice, just as the hunted animal decides, at the last moment, to look its hunter in the eye. But by doing so, Woon had kept them together, while separating them forever, a paradox that had filled hundreds, thousands of soju cups.
The executioner's blade was not Woon's. It was cold and impersonal, distant, unloving, and Woon-
(was not there)
(but when he finds out he)
Dong Soo thought, very quickly, his head full of Woon and his own collapse when he had held him in his arms, bloody, inert, thinking with the brutality of the sudden, late realization "oh, I don't want to die, please, I mustn't, I mustn't die, I promised him it would be him".
A breath of air grazed his neck.
Too late.
b. The White Widow
They received the news two days late, almost by chance. The announcement occurred in the morning. In the great oval hall of the palace of the Lonely Lake City, a monumental building the size of which had seemed appropriate for the reception and accommodation of the kings and queens of the gwishins, Hui-Seon was at that time examining the maps of Joseon with her fellow brothers and sisters who had been judged qualified to command troops and, consequently, to lead the conquest of the living territory.
The project had been decided by a general vote among the population of the dead gathered on the island, which according to Jae-Ji exceeded one million individuals, including children and the elderly, and had been finalized less than a week after their installation in the city. It was meant to guarantee their safety for good, forcibly rallying new supporters to their cause while reducing the military strength of the threatening country, man by man, mile by mile.
If the gwishins killed as soldiers of the living during the fighting and then awakened by the dead refused to join them, the Dead Whisper option remained. It had been noticed during their exile north of Joseon that its effects, when mobilized by the gwishins-kings and queens, extended to their own people as well, and its capacities had increased significantly since their arrival on the island.
The kings and queens retained the privilege of using it, and could command the gwishins they had personally brought back. Hui-Seon remembered for a brief moment the appreciative stupor she had felt when she had used it in her first rises, watching the gwishins kneel before her and obey her in everything (my command).
Without going so far as to use it blindly and unreasonably, she had resorted to the Whisper intensively over the past few months to refine her mastery of it, which had been relatively weak during the siege of Hanyang. All of her brothers and sisters who ruled over the dead were subjected to the same training. For the second time, Jae-Ji was supervising the operations. Hui-Seon was satisfied with her own progress and felt she had attained sufficient skill to use the Whisper for its best purposes.
But of all of them, Yeo Woon had undeniably increased his control of the skill the fastest. His quick progression had even surprised Jae-Ji, and had most certainly worried her, for Hui-Seon had seen her frown several times, squinting at the ease with which the one she'd referred to as the "Why" was able to bend the other dead to his will. Hui Seon now knew the old shaman well enough to know how to interpret her behaviors, and had been able to identify the source of her discomfort.
Hitherto, the gwishin-kings and queens had distinguished themselves by relatively remarkable abilities, by virtue of which most of the dead suspected that they had been chosen to lead them (though the observation shook on its foundations for a variety of reasons, not least of which was the presence of the great historical, royal and military as well as scholastic figures who now formed their ranks).
But Hui-Seon had always thought that these were inherent to them, like her own determination, Jae-Ji's disillusioned mysticism, the Historian's mastery of words, the Shark's military and especially naval ingenuity, the Herbalist's knowledge of plants, or their Diplomat Gyu-Ri's ability to handle words so well and maneuver conversations in the direction she wished to see them go.
Hui-Seon had not considered for a moment the possibility that the talents of the gwishin-kings and queens might have originated in abilities specific to their newfound status as resurrected, such as the Whisper. In a short time, Yeo Woon had nevertheless gone through all the stages of its use to become the most skilled in the matter.
But things had gone too fast for Hui-Seon's taste not to inspire her some alarms. And if Jae-Ji herself was puzzled by this development, there were stronger reasons to be cautious. It has to mean something, she had told her, before returning to her small individual house in the streets of the City, because she was the only one who had refused to stay in the palace ("too much empty space for my taste", she had complained, while observing the high ceilings, the columns, the carvings, the majesty of the place).
The old shaman, despite private sessions with Yeo Woon, recurrent immersions in his memories as she had done with the other gwishins, new incomprehensible rituals involving too much blood not to be disturbing, and a privileged understanding, so far unequalled, of the mechanisms at work since the first wave of resurrection, found herself unable to interpret why the Whisper had so easily become Yeo Woon's stronghold.
Hui-Seon was standing in the immense, oppressive and sumptuous corridor that was one of the most frequented galleries of the palace. Among other rooms, it led to the oval hall, but also to the antechambers that had been assigned to the management of the different institutions forming the government of the Gwishins, within which there were daily fluctuations due to the density of the work to be done and the elements to be treated.
From her spot, she could see the kings and queens finishing to prepare the plan of invasion of the northern beaches of Joseon, and checking with one another the number of troops, the weapons they possessed, the stretch of land to be conquered and the possibilities of alternatives or of retreat in case of disadvantageous situation. There were five of them, and Hui-Seon was not included. She had no military experience, so it had been decided that she would be more effective in the City, carrying on the business of government, communicating the progress of the invasion to the people, and handling any crisis that might arise.
Around the table were the Sword and the Shield, who had been given joint command of two detachments scheduled to land at Nampo. Also present was the Shark, a tiny, bald man with a long scar across one eye. He looked dissatisfied all the time, but had absolute authority over the island's naval forces, after recounting his exploits as a former pirate leader who had ruled almost the entire eastern sea.
Like the buildings already standing, the intact food supplies, the immobile but functional objects of the Lonely Lake City, the gwishins had discovered after their settlement a terrifying armada of ships in perfect condition in the city's harbor. It was an improbable structure built downstream from the lake, where the great main river of the island, which flowed through it from both sides before entering the Lonely Lake from the north, came out thinned by the advancing mountains in order to continue on its way to the western sea.
The boats seemed to have been waiting there for centuries, unused, immaculate, built by others before them and never having crossed the waves. After the exploration of the island by the Builder, the Herbalist and the Smile, based on the sketches drawn by the late Cartographer, other ships had been discovered along the coast. These vessels, long, massive, armed, had turned out to be warships. No one was living in them, nor in the City.
It was frighteningly empty upon their arrival, but all its structures had already been erected. The city was built around the pleasant surface of a beautiful and vast lake, almost perfectly circular in shape, surrounded by high mountains, sometimes with voluptuous slopes, tenderly rounded and green, and sometimes with steeper reliefs, where the grey and dry rock took precedence over the greenery, and created steep bluffs.
Because of its size, the lake contained many small islands, each one housing several buildings. On the largest of these stood the royal palace, nestled in a lush foliage. The city was silent and uninhabited when they had entered through the high white gates, led by Jae-Ji. But it was furnished with palaces, temples, houses, workshops, armories, barracks and gardens.
The buildings were colossal, larger and more imposing than anything Hui-Seon had ever known, made of curves, spikes, domes, and mostly unusual materials, translucent and delicate as well as solid and impenetrable. The halls were vast, the streets immense.
The city was opulent, but cold and lifeless. The houses had several floors, and thus were able to gather many families. The interiors were all comfortably, modernly, almost luxuriously furnished, without the slightest explanation. The city circled the entire lake from its western tip to its eastern edge, where the port was located. Transportation to the islands occurred aboard very pale wooden boats, which had been discovered with the other ships in the harbor. Many gwishins had taken a liking to cruising on the calm waters of the Lonely Lake.
The City was home to barely a third of their numbers without restraint, and was large enough, with a conglomeration of close dwellings, to accommodate more of their own. In addition, small villages, in a state of preservation equivalent to that of the City, were scattered along the coast. The Builder used them as landmarks for the construction of his watchtowers, and had his garrisons stationed there.
Hui-Seon stood back to let the carriers of a deer carcass walk by. Despite its atypical architecture, the island was in every way similar to Joseon in terms of vegetation and wildlife. The animal species included deer, wild boar, marine and migratory birds, and fish known both in fresh and salt water. There were also hedgehogs and weasels, squirrels and rats, field mice and bats. Snakes had even been discovered in some caves.
The vegetation was perfectly ordinary, and therefore reassuring. The vast canopies of camphor trees bordered those of pines, oaks and mountain ash. During his exploration, the Herbalist had also identified common specimens of beech, some maple, fir, bamboo and cherry trees. A known variety of herbs, flowers and shrubs completed the picture.
The characteristics of the territory of the island are not without evoking the great forest complexes of the south and center of Joseon, the old man had written, then still in incursion in the said territory, and probably not ready to return so much he seemed to enjoy his new function, far from the people and close to the plants. He had mentioned, however, a predominance of willows, most of them planted along the waterways and dipping their branches into them, as well as a particular kind of birch trees with entirely white trunks, arranged according to patterns that had hardly seemed totally natural to him and which seemed to have been used as materials for the construction of the boats.
In addition, he had nevertheless noted the presence of a small grouping of floral species completely unknown to him.
Yeo Woon's mother was at Hui-Seon's side. Like the former mistress of the Spring house, she was watching her son in the oval room. He too had adopted the white robes of his peers, and was conversing with the other kings and queens, pointing to the maps, shaking his head when he disagreed, or nodding briefly otherwise.
The Builder had exceptionally returned from his mission of establishing the watchtowers to provide technical support and his own experience for confirmation of the invasion plan. They had all turned to him first for guidance, for none of them had ever really ruled a kingdom. Their respective authorities had been exercised under very limited conditions, in entertainment houses, assassins' guilds, with troops of soldiers, sea robbers, literati or scholars.
"What people want are rules and landmarks," Daejoyeong informed them, as he was happily decimating the remains of a boar that had been their meal. "My word, that's how things have always been! It's not that difficult, you know, to control a kingdom! You need to know how to move from chaos to order, to guide the people towards discipline."
He made big gestures while speaking, used a language devoid of the embellishments that Hui-Seon had heard at court, spoke in a strong voice to his entire audience, and spat his arguments between two voracious mouthfuls.
"Founding a kingdom means going from 'nothing' to 'everything'. That's what I did, that's what my predecessors did, and that's what my successors did too! And the recipe has always worked very well! I say, let's go for the easy way out. All of you are young people, awfully new to politics. If we get into big discussions, the people will eventually get worried, then irritated, and then they will ask for our heads. Let's take the example of the government of the living for our own, and establish it as soon as possible!"
The proposal had been debated.
"To adopt the same institutions as in Joseon? Is there not also a possibility of creating anxiety among the people?" The Historian had wondered. "The fact is that we have not lived during the same periods, and the structures have undergone significant changes since the time of the Three Kingdoms."
A lively discussion arose, which Daejoyeong finally mastered, with a lot of laughter that had left them confused for a while.
"You really don't know anything at all, do you?" He had mocked them without malice, in a slightly tender tone. "You poor sweet little things, cloistered in your miniature experiences! In truth, it's almost cruel. None of you know how to govern a kingdom. I think I'm beginning to understand why I was included among you."
Hui-Seon became impatient.
"Teach us things we don't know, will you?"
"Peace, my dear! I'm getting there. The first resurrection took place fourteen years ago, and the last one was about two years ago. Which means that all the gwishins on this island have risen under the Joseon government, with its ruler Jeongjo, its state council of ham-fisted cowards, its six worthless ministries, and its eight main but mostly decorative offices. I'm not even counting the Sungkyunkwan Academy. The people of the dead have been forced to adopt this model. I'm not saying we should go for the exact same one, no! Simply to be inspired by it. You want to have trust and security? Take my advice. That's what I'm saying."
Thus they had proceeded, after a quick vote, motivated by impatience and uncertainty towards other more obscure or complex schemes.
At the top of their government, the gwishin kings and queens made major decisions, validated them, discussed them in a small council, and then in a second stage with the Assembly of the Dead, where sat gwishin from the population who had already served during previous governments or had made a career in politics, and who had helped during their entrenchment north of Joseon.
In addition to their direct executive functions, the kings and queens were attached to a number of cabinets, similar to ministries, which dealt with specific areas. Seven had been established, breaking with Chinese tradition.
Along with the Diplomat, the Smile, a former concubine of a king with unusual listening skills and a rare ability to be appreciated by anyone, and the Debt, a shrewd farmer who had once enabled the people of his village and the surrounding towns to increase their income through his extraordinarily clever investment suggestions, Hui-Seon was in charge of the People's Cabinet. Her duties included government speeches and communications to the rest of the Gwishins' population, collecting opinions, managing internal crises and grievances.
She also served in the Justice Cabinet, which included Yeo Woon, Jae-Ji, the Historian, and the Shield, who had served in the Royal Bureau of Investigation while alive. Four other cabinets formed the government: the Resources, the Defense, the Instruction and the Foreign Relations. They had at least three gwishin kings and queens in charge, but their fellow leaders always had a hand in their affairs, just as a precaution.
The magnitude of the problems raised by the establishment of an administration and more generally of an entire society was beyond them, and it was not uncommon for them to slip briefly into one or another cabinet to offer their knowledge and opinions.
Finally, the last cabinet, called simply the cabinet of the Gwishins, headed primarily by Jae-Ji, dealt with matters relating to the origin of resurrections, the different abilities of the dead, their diet, the new rituals instituted during their exile in northern Joseon, and the Eyes. All of them were annexed to it.
Yeo Woon's mother, So-Ha, leaned toward Hui-Seon.
"Maybe I should go tell him myself," she suggested in a low voice, with obvious concern.
"Certainly not. Whoever tells him will immediately be the object of his resentment, unspoken no doubt, knowing him, but no less tenacious. Better that he should hate me. You're his mother. He will need your comfort, and it must not be tainted by anger."
From the mainland, the gwishins had few ways to get news. Most of their living allies were in jeopardy because of Jeongjo's non-compliance with the pact, and soon their concerns had been the risk of imprisonment and punishment. Trying to contact the living was not an easy task, but above all a dangerous one. Many of the dead did not want to try to contact their relatives or acquaintances for fear that they would be arrested and found to be accomplices.
Any possibility of transmitting messages to the continent was singularly prevented by the breaking of the pact between gwishins and the living, perpetrated by the monarch. They did not know whom to trust, and hardly dared to do so, at the cost of harming their loved ones. As a consequence, missives and letters were put aside for safer strategies.
The first solution, thought up during a meeting of the Council of Kings and Queens, had been to send spies. However, this last possibility had been quickly abandoned, due to the complete whitening of the gwishins' hair, the difficulties to camouflage such an attribute, but also the repressive measures used by the living to distinguish them. The other, initiated by the Diplomat, had been to try to start talks with King Jeongjo and his government, through meetings on neutral ground between the Diplomat and a representative of the living, to discuss the stakes of the war in preparation, to negotiate, to find a more peaceful form of agreement.
It was during the diplomat's first meeting with the Joseon ambassador that the information had been revealed. The meeting had taken place on Muui Island: its size, too small to allow large troops to be deployed on it, had been considered ideal for establishing dialogue between the two territories after the breach of the non-aggression pact and the confirmation of the declaration of war.
King Jeongjo had never before accepted their proposals for talks. Consequently, caution had been the order of the day. The Diplomat had left on one of the new warships led by the Shark, accompanied by a battalion of soldiers who had remained on board during the confrontation. She had also brought with her the Smile, who was second only to Yeo Woon in mastery of the Dead Whisper. To the astonishment of her peers, the Diplomat was at the bottom of the list.
From the meeting, they had only hoped for an opening of dialogue, and dared not wish for more. But the ambassador, who had also come aboard a military ship, had quickly made it clear that any negotiation was out of the question, and that the Island of the Dead and its people were now considered rebel separatists, enemies of the kingdom of Joseon. The Diplomat was unable to reply or to propose alternative solutions.
She had refused to use the Whisper for this first meeting, both because of her lack of control and because she had wanted to know the true extent of the plans of the living towards the gwishins, in order to adapt their strategy. Any possibility of peace had been rejected. Instead, the ambassador had left her with a list, containing all the names of their living allies whose execution had been ordered by the sovereign.
The document contained more than fifty names. Hui-Seon, who had been the first to see it when she came to meet the Diplomat on her return, had discovered Baek Dong Soo's name among them.
Taking action, she had requested from the Diplomat not to release the list outside of those in her escort who had read it, and Hui-Seon herself.
"We need to handle the matter carefully," she had pointed out. "Some of our colleagues' relatives may be on the list. The pain of their loss will be immeasurable. As for the people, revealing such a document too hastily would risk creating a wave of resentment that would be unfavorable to us given the precariousness of our current government. The trick is well played on the part of the living. There is enough here to cause a split between us and the others. Better to wait a little, and to talk gradually with the other kings and queens on the subject."
She let a whole day pass before she decided to tell Yeo Woon. During this time, she had spoken with Jae-Ji, who had supported her approach and had expressed, like her, fears about revealing the death of her companion to one of their own.
"We must expect the most brutal of reactions," the old shaman had informed her. "It would be unwise for us to underestimate such things out of pride."
In secrecy, she told him that she had seen Baek Dong Soo in almost all of Yeo Woon's memories, and had felt his presence in the deepest recesses of his consciousness.
"You don't need to tell me what I already know," Hui-Seon replied, recalling how Yeo Woon had twisted her wrist in his desire to see his (lover) friend, how he had put his hand under Baek Dong Soo's arm during their walks in the gardens of the Spring House, how he had sometimes touched the scar on his chest, or how he had refused to talk to her whenever Hui-Seon had mentioned Baek Dong Soo and their relationship. "I already had a few tastes of it."
She had later received Yeo Woon's mother and her student, Mago, to warn them and prepare them for the state their son and teacher might fall into in the coming days. The kid, initially distraught, had inquired about one name in particular on the list, that of a soldier who had helped them and who belonged to the anti-gwishin brigade that Baek Dong Soo was leading at the time.
Once her main fears were allayed by the fact that Hui-Seon had not seen the name in question on the document, she had regained a more composed attitude, but the worry had remained in her eyes, along with genuine sorrow.
"He's going to be devastated," she predicted gloomily. "He loved him very much."
"I'm more than aware of that, I assure you," Hui-Seon replied (you wanted him to be your lover).
Lastly, she had brought in Chun, Yeo Woon's former mentor and predecessor as head of the assassins' guild, who held one of the general positions in the army of the dead. She had gleaned some additional information from him in order to best anticipate Yeo Woon's reaction, but had not revealed Baek Dong Soo's death to him. He would find out eventually anyway. She preferred to avoid any leaks until then.
Yeo So-Ha insisted on accompanying her at the time of the announcement, with the wish to be able to diminish, as much as she could, the pain of her son. The father was absent. Given the bitterness that persisted between him, his son, and his former wife, Hui-Seon had thought it more prudent not to summon him. She was also not sure whether he would have come. Since Baek Dong Soo's mother was also among the gwishins, Yeo So-Ha had informed Hui-Seon that she herself would take care of delivering the news to her, so that Yeo Woon could grieve without any constraints.
Up close, Hui-Seon could see the resemblance to her son, the same lips, the same hollowed cheeks, and above all the same deep, dark eyes.
"I'd rather be honest with you," she said, scrutinizing Yeo Woon from afar while he was busy with the other gwishins-kings and queens. "I'm afraid there is a very serious probability that the news will be fatal for him, to put it bluntly."
Yeo Woon's mother looked at her with fear.
"Is it that bad?"
"I'm afraid so. You know of course that he was very attached to him since childhood, as I'm sure he told you. My suppositions, as well as my observations of his time living in my entertainment house, lead me to believe that this attachment went beyond a fraternal friendship, although the latter most certainly existed in parallel. His past master told me how he behaved during a major breakup after he betrayed and left Baek Dong Soo. According to him, he oscillated between deep despondency and extreme agitation, punctuated by self-destructive behaviors. He refused to eat and to treat a major wound inflicted on him by Baek Dong Soo, thus voluntarily putting his life in danger. He did not want to see anyone."
She hesitated to reveal the rest of what Chun had told her, and only added the remainder of his statements after calculating that Yeo Woon's mother would probably witness it at some point.
"The man considered he had become dangerous, and it seems to me that coming from him, such accusations should not be taken lightly."
She thus relayed the old guild leader's allegations to his successor's mother. Chun had presumably visited Yeo Woon several times during this period, and after a few days of severe apathy that had infuriated his mentor, he had turned unusually aggressive, even for an assassin. He wasn't just angry or unhappy, Chun had observed, I think he was losing his mind.
One night he had discovered him in the hallway leading to his own apartments, with a knife in his hand, and looking awfully absent-minded. He had walked him back to his room, with infinite caution. Although Yeo Woon had let him do so, he had not once taken his eyes off him during the walk. His stare had been so intense that Chun instinctively had put two men in front of his door, to hold him back in case he tried to leave.
As she spoke, Hui-Seon saw Yeo So-Ha's face tense and contort, probably more out of dread than out of purely maternal worry.
After hearing the account, she looked at her son with a much more alert and apprehensive gaze. Hui-Seon thought the glance opportune. As Jae-Ji had pointed out, the last thing they needed was to underestimate situations. It had already happened with the king of the living, and making the same mistake with their own kind was not in their best interest.
"I'm going," she announced, throwing her head and shoulders back, feeling the weight of the white cloth of her garment on her body. "Don't come until I give you a sign."
Yeo So-Ha nodded her head in agreement. Hui-Seon felt her eyes following her as she entered the oval room and walked toward Yeo Woon, who was still immersed in the preparations for the invasion of northern Joseon.
"Not this one," he was saying firmly to his peers. "We won't be able to land enough troops there. Baekryeong Island is more suitable. The cliffs there are high, and the Changsan Cape and the Ryongyon Peninsula are clearly visible to the naked eye."
Baekryeong Island, Hui- Seon repeated inwardly, appreciating only moderately the striking irony of the name mentioned.
"In that case, we'll be forced to use the bay leading to the land and Taetan," the Shark replied. "The majority of the territory in this region is mountainous in nature. The relief will be too great to land safely. We will be forced to reach the shore, leaving us potentially at the mercy of the army of the living."
"I maintain that a preliminary reconnaissance would be to our advantage," the Sword argued. "If we send a few men quietly to scout, we could determine which beach would be most suitable for rallying the mainland, and perhaps even consider splitting the ships into several troops if reports indicate a sufficient variety of locations."
"There is another risk of being identified by the living," the Shield observed.
"This is the North," the woman insisted. "You saw it in Nampo as well as I did. Their defenses are ridiculously basic, and the watchtowers and fortifications are far less developed than in the south. Moreover, the living expect us more in the surroundings of Incheon. They will have privileged the protection of the populated coasts."
Hui-Seon, sensing the contemplative silence that had developed among her colleagues as a result of the Sword's remark, interrupted their exchange and approached Yeo Woon.
"May I have a word with you? In private."
He gave her a wary look for which she did not blame him. Pulling him into a quiet corner of the oval room, away from the kings and queens, their military advisors and war strategies, but making sure they remained visible in case Yeo Woon's reaction turned out to be more violent than expected, Hui-Seon adopted her most compassionate tone possible, and declared:
"We received some bad news. I won't hide the fact that I hesitated a lot to tell you, but after thinking it over, I think it's best for you to find out this way."
His eyebrows furrowed. Hui-Seon congratulated herself once again for targeting a public rather than a private approach: she suspected that Yeo Woon would contain his emotions in front of others, as he was used to doing, and that any outbursts would be more or less kept under control, until he went to his apartments and closed the doors to the world.
The more time passed, the more tenuous the differences between the status of head of an assassins' guild and mistress of an entertainment house seemed to her. In both cases, composure, impassivity, control were expected. Only when they were fully isolated were they free to indulge in any sentimentality.
"There is no good way to say it," she continued. "The news reached us the day before. The king had executed many of the gwishin's living allies as a warning. Baek Dong Soo was among them. I'm so sorry, darling."
She had expected everything, or almost. She had imagined his face breaking down, black tears, screams, a broken silence, fainting, incomprehension. Like the others, she had anticipated a hurricane, because it was safer to start with the worst than the best. But of all this, there was absolutely nothing.
When Yeo Woon didn't answer, she thought for a moment he was too shocked and hurt to say a word, which made her feel slightly more secure.
"I suspect there is little we can do to comfort you, and of course you have every right to withdraw temporarily from your duties as gwishin-king in order to grieve. But if there is anything you need during this time, know that we will do our best to provide it."
Yeo Woon's face barely moved.
"Fine," he said.
And that was all. No collapse, no destruction, no trembling lips, no sudden grief or signs of intolerable suffering. Upon hearing of the death of his lifelong companion, and potential lover, Yeo Woon offered Hui-Seon no more than two words.
She knew he was not very talkative and relatively unexpressive, but she found herself irrevocably disconcerted by the austerity of his reaction, which neither she nor the others had really considered. The prospect of a storm of pain followed by violence had certainly worried her, but she realized that she found Yeo Woon's stoic attitude even more terrifying (he's going to explode eventually he's just holding it in let him escape give him a way out).
"If you wish to go up to your apartments, nobody will hold it against you," she underlined, while pressing gently his shoulder with her hand, seeking almost involuntarily to cause a more lively reaction. "I can have you bring brains if you feel the need of it."
(brains make us happy)
Yeo Woon glanced at the large round table around which their colleagues were gathered. Then he shook his head slightly and answered simply:
"No. I have things to do here."
(something is wrong something is very very very wrong)
"I'm sure the others can do without you for the rest of the day," Hui- Seon objected with calculated gentleness. "It's a big loss you've just suffered. Your absence would be more than understandable."
Yeo Woon looked at her without blinking. Hui-Seon immediately thought about what Chun had said to her, and tried not to betray her own disbelief.
"Is that all?" he inquired, almost imperiously.
She almost asked him if everything was all right, before realizing how deeply vain the question was.
Of course he's not okay, she scolded herself. But she admitted once again that his reaction was not what she had expected, and that she had the impression of swimming in totally unknown territory, in a kind of quicksand that would have preferred to wait rather than drown her immediately.
"Well, yes," she answered, opting for the same prudent nonchalance. "If there is anything you want to alleviate your pain, let me know. I promise I'll do what I can to get it for you."
She hoped for a backlash, a delayed outburst. But Yeo Woon only responded with a cold nod, and he turned his back on her to return to the Joseon invasion. Hui-Seon stood for a moment, unsure of what to do, hesitating to force his hand.
He'll collapse eventually, he has to, it was Baek Dong Soo, she thought to reassure herself. The question was when, and more importantly how. It seemed more alarming to her to ignore that fact than to face Yeo Woon's immediate pain.
She finally left the room, shaking her head at Yeo Woon's mother's eager expression. The latter looked just as confused as Hui-Seon had a few moments before. Before passing the doors, she turned around. Yeo Woon had resumed his place between the other kings and queens, unperturbed, and was looking at the Joseon maps spread out before his eyes.
As she was about to turn back, Hui-Seon noticed something that turned her apprehensions into a darker, more unsettling suspicion.
The corners of Yeo Woon's lips had lifted. It looked like he was smiling.