Chapter 1: The Bottomless Abyss

Chapter 1: The Bottomless Abyss

Pung climbed the mountain path at almost a run, mist curling around his ankles. Whenever the old herb basket bounced against his back, the hand hoe at his waist swung and rattled. Dawn dew seeped through his straw sandals, chilling his toes.

He had to dig up three roots of purple cloud herb before the sun reached its zenith.

The words Hwang-u had sighed yesterday as he closed the herb shop’s ledger kept echoing in his ears.

“If we don’t get any purple cloud herb by tomorrow, I won’t be able to make Old Granny Donggu’s medicine. Even the apothecaries in town have run out….”

Granny Donggu had been burning with fever for three days. When Pung was little and went hungry, she was the one who would quietly press a rice ball into his hands. Her son had brought the money for her medicine, but money was useless without the herbs. Hwang-u had said that if another day passed without purple cloud herb, the fever might spread to her lungs.

The moment Pung heard that, he remembered the purple leaves he had seen on the mountain yesterday. They were far above his usual route, on a northern slope where even the village hunters would not venture in late autumn.

“Pung!”

Hwang-u, sweeping at the edge of the village, spotted him and raised a hand. Pung slowed, straightening his back for no reason except to hide how breathless he was.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry at this hour?”

“The mountain. I spotted some herbs yesterday.”

Pung answered with a smile. Hwang-u’s gaze passed over the basket and hoe, lingered on his worn, fraying straw sandals, then slowly turned toward the northern ridge.

“Where did you see them?”

“Just a little farther up from where I usually go.”

“Just a little?”

Hwang-u planted the broom upright and narrowed his eyes. Caught in his lie, Pung scratched the tip of his nose.

“…A couple of ridges?”

“The northern slope, then.”

Pung shut his mouth. Hwang-u clicked his tongue as though he had expected as much and set the broom down.

“The rain a few days ago loosened the soil up there. Wild animals have been coming down often, too. If you’re thinking of purple cloud herb, forget it. I’ll try putting together a prescription with something else.”

“Will something else bring Granny’s fever down?”

Hwang-u could not answer at once. No fire had yet been lit beneath the medicine pot on the shop’s threshold, but Pung felt as though the bitter smell of herbs already hung in his nose. The image of Granny’s lips, cracked from coughing through the night, overlapped with the warm rice balls she used to hand him as a child.

“You said so yourself. Three roots of purple cloud herb would be enough.”

“For the medicine, yes. But they aren’t worth your life.”

Hwang-u went inside and returned with a piece of oiled cloth and a small bamboo flask. For all his talk of staying away, he took care as he spread the cloth over Pung’s basket and checked the flask’s stopper.

“There’s water in here. Take it. If you haven’t found any before the sun reaches the top of that tree, come straight down. And don’t set foot beyond the northern cliff. If your mother were alive, she’d give me a good walloping first.”

Pung lowered his eyes for a moment as he took the flask. Even now, any mention of his mother seemed to leave a hollow in the middle of his chest. Her last winter—holding her hand as it grew cold, unable to buy her even one more dose of medicine—remained as clear as ever, no matter how many years passed.

He forced a broad smile.

“I’ll protect your back. I’ll be home before lunch, I promise.”

“You little rascal. Worry about your own back.”

Hwang-u straightened Pung’s crooked basket strap. His callused hand touched the boy’s shoulder, then fell away before it could linger.

“Come back alive. I don’t care if you’re empty-handed.”

Instead of answering, Pung nodded hard.

The path over the first two ridges was familiar. Thin sunlight filtered between the pines, and the damp earth smelled of mushrooms that had sprouted overnight. Whenever Pung spotted slenderleaf herb or young licorice growing in a crack between rocks, he stopped. Even if he failed to find purple cloud herb, he could not return with an empty basket. He gently worked the soil aside with the tip of his hoe, careful not to damage the fine roots.

At the third ridge, the trail began to fade. The hunters’ marks on the bark ended there, and unfamiliar tracks crisscrossed the soil churned up by wild boars. Pung crouched to examine their depth. There were no claw marks, and each print was a little larger than a human palm.

Not a bear.

Just as he was about to take comfort in that, a dry branch snapped in the distant undergrowth. Pung held his breath, clutching the hoe. Something seemed to move through the mist, but however long he waited, no further sound came.

Should he turn back?

Down below, Hwang-u would be sorting herbs. Granny Donggu would be struggling through the morning, panting hot breaths. Pung took the little cloth pouch his mother had left him from inside his clothes and rubbed it between his fingers. It was too worn to hold anything now, but he always carried it when he went up the mountain.

“I’ll look just a little longer. Then I’ll go.”

Muttering without knowing whom he was speaking to, Pung left the faint trail and turned toward the northern slope.

The higher he climbed, the steeper it grew. Yesterday, he had only spotted the purple leaves from below before the setting sun forced him home. Now that he was actually searching, one similar-looking rock and tree followed another without end. He tied scraps of cloth to branches to mark the way back as he searched the slope. Purple cloud herb grew in the shade of rocks where cold air flowed, and silvery hairs tipped its leaves. As he recalled the details Hwang-u had taught him, a faint patch of purple caught his eye in a hollow beneath the cliff.

“Found it.”

Pung scrambled down the slope, almost flat on his stomach. Soil kept slipping beneath his feet, but by grasping a pine root and keeping low, he just managed to hold his footing. There was more than one cluster of purple leaves. Five or six purple cloud herbs grew together in the shade of the rock.

A smile spread across his face.

“There’ll be some left over after Granny’s medicine.”

First, he pressed his hand into the soil around the edge. It was soft and waterlogged, but rock supported the ground immediately around the herbs. Rather than drive his hoe deep, he dug a circle around the outermost fine roots. When the first root came free intact, he wrapped it in the oiled cloth and put it in his basket. He lifted the second with its surrounding soil to avoid damaging the stem.

He was digging up the third when it happened.

A patter of falling earth.

Clods dropped from above, and Pung instinctively hunched down. A few pebbles struck his shoulder and tumbled past him. Looking up, he saw that the roots of the pine farther up the slope were half exposed. The entire mountainside seemed to be sliding very slowly downward.

Hwang-u’s warning came back to him.

He had to leave. Now.

Pung looked at the purple cloud herb he was digging up. Half its root was still buried. If he pulled it out by force, the fine roots—the most potent part—would snap. If he left it, he would not have the three roots he needed.

He bit his lip and went back to work.

“Just this one. I’ll dig up this one and go.”

His hands moved faster, but he was careful not to use too much force. He cleared the earth, removed the stones caught among the roots, and slipped his fingers beneath them. At last the whole plant came free, and Pung gathered it to him as though cradling it against his chest.

At that very moment, the ground beneath his feet sank an inch.

Pung shoved the herb into his basket and reached for the pine root. His fingertips barely caught it, but wet earth slipped beneath his palm. The deep rumble of the collapsing slope shuddered through his belly.

His body was swept downward.

“Aaah!”

Pung drove his hoe into the earth. Its blade caught in a crevice between solid rocks, barely stopping his fall, but the basket tugging at his waist slipped free and rolled away. The herbs he had worked so hard to gather scattered over the wet soil.

“No!”

One purple cloud herb slid past him and caught in the brush below. Holding the hoe handle with one hand, he stretched toward it. His fingertips hovered just short of the stem. A little farther down, and he could reach it.

Pung checked where the hoe was lodged and slowly shifted his knees. Even if the soil kept sliding, he thought he could climb back up as long as the hoe held. The instant his fingers closed around the herb, the handle snapped with a sharp crack.

The world tipped sideways.

Pung rolled over and over down the slope. His left shoulder struck a rock, sending a searing pain through it. A branch raked a long scratch across his cheek. The harder he reached out to stop himself, the more dirt and gravel drove beneath his nails.

By the time he managed to catch hold of a sapling, he could barely breathe. His left arm would hardly lift, but his right hand still clutched the purple cloud herb. With a trembling arm, he tucked it inside his clothes.

“I’m alive….”

His relief did not last. When he looked up, he realized he was already beyond the cliff Hwang-u had warned him not to cross. The slope back up was blocked by the mass of earth that had just collapsed. Below him stretched a forest where mist pooled black among the trees.

Then a glimmer of red flashed in the undergrowth.

Still holding the tree, Pung narrowed his eyes. A single flower the size of his palm bloomed in a dark cleft between rocks. A golden line ran through the middle of its red petals, making it seem to hold a gentle light even where no sunlight reached.

He had never seen such an herb before. Even young Pung could tell it was no ordinary flower.

But he had no desire to go closer. His greed had just cost him an injured shoulder and his way home. He looked away from the flower and searched for somewhere safe to descend.

Rustle, rustle.

The flower stirred, though there was no wind. Its bloom lifted and slowly inclined toward him. Gooseflesh prickled along his back.

“Did you… just move?”

Instead of answering, its golden stamens brightened faintly. Slender lines appeared on the ground where the light fell. They might have been traces left by spreading roots, or writing someone had carved into the stone.

Pung tried to back away, but his heel caught on a rock. As he braced a hand against the ground to keep from falling, a round stone slab clicked down beneath his palm.

A deep rumble rose.

The mountain groaned.

The lines around the flower flared gold all at once, tracing a great circle beneath Pung’s feet. He tried to leap clear, but pain in his left shoulder threw him off balance. The ground split, and his right foot plunged into the crack.

“Wait—wait!”

He clawed at the ground until his nails broke, but the widening fissure would not let him go. The last clump of grass he caught tore free by its roots, and his body was sucked into a pitch-black hole.

Wind tore at his ears. He flailed his arms and legs, searching for a wall, but his hands caught nothing. When he looked up, the circle of sky was already shrinking into the distance. Falling earth and stone sealed the entrance, swallowing the last of the light.

Utter darkness.

There was no sign of an end to his fall. With every heartbeat, his left shoulder throbbed as though it were being torn apart. He tasted blood. One thought came to him with terrible clarity: if he hit the bottom like this, there would not even be bones left.

Uncle Hwang-u.

He remembered the voice telling him to come back alive, even empty-handed, and clutched the purple cloud herb inside his clothes. It was meant for Granny. He felt foolish for holding on to it even at the brink of death, yet he could not make his fingers open.

Suddenly, a cold smell surged up from the darkness below.

Water.

Pung drew a breath and tried to bring his body upright. The next instant, the impact drove through him from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Icy water flooded his mouth and nose, and his injured shoulder screamed with pain.

He could not tell which way was up. The more he struggled, the more water he swallowed. He thrashed his right arm wildly and felt a broken tree root brush his fingertips. Kicking in the direction it was floating, he finally broke the surface.

“Hah!”

Pung coughed and spat water. For a while, all he could do was gasp. Then he pulled himself through the water with his right arm until he reached a rocky ledge. The torn skin of his palms kept slipping, but after several failed attempts, he dragged himself out.

He lay facedown on the cold stone, shaking for a long time. He could not move his left shoulder, and his right ankle had swollen badly. Somewhere in the darkness, water dripped at steady intervals. There was no other sound.

“Well… I’m alive.”

He tried to laugh, but his voice cracked like a sob.

Pung felt inside his clothes. The purple cloud herb’s stem was snapped and its leaves crushed. He did not know whether it could still be used for medicine. All that desperate grasping had earned him one ruined herb and a battered body. If Hwang-u found out, he really might give him a walloping.

The trouble was, Pung had no way back to the man who could give him one.

He felt along the edge of the pool and stood. Even as his eyes adjusted, the darkness scarcely changed. But across the water, he could make out a very faint red light drifting toward him.

It was the flower he had seen on the mountain.

Without so much as a damaged leaf, it floated across the water and stopped before a stone passage barely wide enough for one person. The walls were strangely smooth. Running his hand over them, Pung even felt grooves cut at regular intervals.

This was no natural cave.

He searched around the entire pool for a way back. The hole he had fallen through was impossibly high above, and there were no other openings. The passage where the red flower had stopped was his only choice.

“If you’re the one who dropped me down here, you’d better show me the way out.”

Grumbling at the flower, Pung limped forward with a hand against the wall. Each step on his injured ankle hurt so much that his vision went white, but he could not stop. Standing still let the cold creep into his bones. Worse, for some time now, he had been hearing something cutting through the water in the pool behind him.

When he quickened his pace, the sound followed.

The narrow passage went on for a long time before it finally ended. The space ahead abruptly widened into an enormous cavern. Blue stones embedded here and there in the ceiling and walls gave off a dim light like stars. Pung rubbed his eyes and looked toward the center of the cavern.

A neatly folded set of clothes lay there.

In front of it rested two rings, one gold and one silver, along with a book the size of his palm. Someone had clearly been here, yet there was no sign of anyone in the cavern. Not even dust had settled on the clothes. It looked as though their owner had merely stepped away for a moment.

“Hello?”

His voice returned in layers of echoes.

No answer.

He examined the floor but found no tracks leading toward the clothes or away from them. It was as though someone had sat down there, then vanished into thin air, leaving only their clothes behind.

Rather than touch anything rashly, Pung checked his surroundings first. He could see no passage out, and the stone walls formed an unbroken expanse. All the while, the sound of something moving through water drew closer behind him.

There was no time left to choose.

Pung picked up the book. Neat writing covered the faded first page.

Here I leave the source of the power I once possessed. Whatever you desire, it shall be within your reach. Should you wish it, you may look down upon all the world. Yet my wish was to gain everything and, rather than command the world, become freer than any other soul.

“He went underground to become free?”

Unable to make any sense of it, Pung turned the page.

Place the gold ring on the index finger of your left hand, and the silver ring on the index finger of your right.

There was more beneath it in smaller writing, but the ink had blurred beyond recognition, perhaps because he had touched the page with wet hands. Pung looked from the rings to the passage he had come through. Something scraped against stone inside the narrow corridor, then let out a low, rough breath, as though sniffing the air.

He seized one of the rings.

Both gold and silver looked valuable enough to keep him fed for the rest of his life, if only he could sell them. But right now, getting out alive mattered more than money. If the words about the source of power were true, perhaps he could defeat that monster or open a way through the blocked walls.

Pung slipped the gold ring onto his left index finger.

Nothing happened.

At the mouth of the passage, wet scales flashed in the blue light. A head as thick as a person’s waist slowly pushed into the cavern, its forked tongue licking the darkness.

Pung caught his breath and pushed the silver ring onto his right index finger.

The instant both rings settled into place, dazzling light exploded from the gold one.

His body turned rigid as stone. He could neither flee nor scream. Power surged from his fingertips and raced through his bones, wrenching his shoulder and spine without mercy. It felt as though broken bones were being forced back into place and thorns embedded in his flesh were being pulled out one by one.

Unable even to open his mouth, Pung collapsed. At the edge of his fading vision, he saw the scaled monster coil and spring.

At that moment, light burst from the silver ring and drove deep into his body.

Just before the monster’s fangs reached Pung’s throat, a roar shook the cavern, and a blinding flash swallowed everything.