Chapter 11: Without a Trace

Chapter 11: Without a Trace

That night they decided to turn in early at the inn.

“We’ll lodge here tonight, and at daybreak we’ll start with the homes of the missing. Clues, as a rule, remain in the place where a person vanished.”

Hyeonheo glanced once toward the tavern door and went up the stairs first, and A-yeong followed close behind, never letting go of Pung’s sleeve. Pung trailed after the two of them, turning back several times, but the man wrapped in dark crimson energy had already disappeared into the dark.

The room at the inn was cramped and damp. Cold wind seeped through the old paper screens, and from beyond the wall came the sound of the owner barring one door and window after another. With each bar dropping, the whole inn seemed to turn into one great wooden chest.

Hyeonheo said he would take the outer of the two rooms and sent Pung and A-yeong into the inner one, and when Pung asked why, he tugged at the door handle twice and answered evenly.

“In this village people vanish at night, do they not. There is no loss in being careful.”

“But I have the ring, and…”

“It is because of that ring that you must be more careful.”

At the low, settled words Pung could press no further. The ring had protected Pung, but when and in what manner that power would burst out was still unknown. If someone broke in while they slept, it might bring down a whole inn, and inside were people with no guilt at all.

A-yeong sat perched on the bed, stealing glances out the window, and when a dog barked in the distance, A-yeong’s shoulders twitched, then fiddled with a shoelace as though nothing had happened.

“If you’re scared, sleep on the inside.”

At Pung’s words A-yeong’s head came up at once.

“Who said I’m scared? I’m keeping you company in case you get frightened.”

“Back at the tavern you were the one who said you were scared first.”

“That was… the mood was just a bit much.”

A-yeong pouted but slipped quietly away from the window, and Pung, holding back a laugh, stuffed clothing into the gaps in the paper screens. Thinking of how many such nights the families of the missing had endured, the heart that had lightened for a moment sank again at once.

Even after the lamp went out, Pung could not sleep for a long while. Behind closed eyes rose the cool gaze of the young man met at the tavern, and trailing after it flickered dark crimson demonic energy whose end could not be measured. Apart from Hyeonheo, this was the first opponent who seemed to be looking back the deeper Pung peered with eyes that see meridians.

Stranger still was that the man had noticed Pung’s gaze. Not a word about seeing energy had been spoken aloud, yet brushing past, he had given a warning that was exact. Whether his senses were simply keen, or whether he possessed some other art Pung did not know, there was no telling.

‘He called it advice.’

Had he truly meant harm, he would have drawn his blade right there in the tavern, and yet his voice and his eyes were far too cold to be taken as goodwill. Pung retraced the man’s actions again and again, and, finding no answer, tossed and turned.

“Danpung.”

A-yeong’s voice came from the bed across the room.

“Mm?”

“You’re not asleep, are you?”

“I’m about to be.”

A silence passed. A-yeong had pulled the quilt up under the chin and was looking toward Pung in the dark.

“If we go around those houses tomorrow… do you think we can find the people who disappeared?”

“We have to.”

“That’s not what I mean. Do you think they’re really alive?”

Pung could not answer readily. More than ten people had vanished with no scream and no bloodstain. If killing had been the only aim, there would have been no reason to carry them off while wiping away every trace, or so it seemed, but that alone was no guarantee that they lived.

“We don’t know yet. So let’s look for them believing they’re alive.”

Instead of answering, A-yeong gave a small nod under the quilt, and before long came the sound of even breathing, but Pung listened for stirrings outside the window until midnight drew near. The village was quiet as the dead, and each time the window paper trembled in the wind, it sounded like someone scratching at the pane with fingernails.

When the night had deepened, a faint sound came from behind the inn.

A soft scuff.

Pung sat up at once. The golden ring on the finger lay quiet, but an unfamiliar energy brushed faintly across the surface of the silver ring. Stepping down from the bed, Pung paused before opening the door. The wish to go and see alone came first, but Hyeonheo’s warning from the tavern rose up right after it.

It could be bait.

Pung shook A-yeong’s shoulder lightly awake, then put a finger to the lips and pointed at the room across the way. A-yeong blinked eyes still heavy with sleep a time or two, but at the sight of Pung’s hardened face, rose without a sound.

Before Pung could even knock carefully on the door, the one opposite opened, and Hyeonheo stood there with his outer robe already on, his eyes too clear to belong to a man just woken from sleep.

“There was a stirring in the back yard. The silver ring reacted for a moment, too.”

Hyeonheo led the two of them straight down the stairs. Deadening their footsteps so as not to wake the innkeeper, the three stopped beside the back door, and through the crack came only the faint sound of dry grass brushing together.

“A-yeong, guard the stairs. If another stirring comes from inside the inn, give two bird calls.”

“Yes.”

“Danpung, stay behind me, and if the ring moves again, say so at once. The chase comes after that.”

At Pung’s nod Hyeonheo pushed the bar back just a little, and in that very moment a roof tile clacked overhead, and a single black shadow vaulted over the wall opposite. It was too fast to make out a face, let alone the hem of a garment, but when meridian sight was raised, a thin residue spread faintly beyond the dark.

It was not dark crimson.

Pung reflexively put strength into one foot, then stopped. There might be another lying in wait for the back yard, and A-yeong was alone at the stairs. Above all, the silver ring had already gone quiet.

“The reaction has cut off.”

At that, Hyeonheo turned back from the wall he had been making for.

“Would it be hard to follow?”

“Yes. It seems he concealed even his energy.”

Hyeonheo gazed beyond the wall for a moment, then walked to one side of the yard. On a half-rotted bundle of straw lay a single small pebble, and as his hand went to pick it up, Pung hurriedly blocked it.

“You mustn’t touch it.”

To Pung’s eyes, a murky yellow energy clung in a thin film between the stone’s surface and the straw. Withdrawing his hand, Hyeonheo asked,

“Poison?”

“Very faint. There’s more of it on the straw than on the stone.”

Hyeonheo drew a scrap of cloth from his sleeve and wrapped the stone as he lifted it. Then, examining the ground around the straw, he found where someone had trodden on the dry earth, but the front and back of the footprints had been deliberately scuffed away, so it was hard to tell from which direction they had come.

“This is no one who moved carelessly.”

Hyeonheo tucked the cloth-wrapped stone into his robe and locked the back door again. There was no particular expression on his face, but the hand that checked the bar moved slower and more thoroughly than usual.

A-yeong, who had been guarding the stairs, let out a short breath when the two returned.

“I was going to be angry about being woken, but this time you did well.”

“You’re the one who told me to wake you.”

“Don’t forget it from now on either. If you go out alone as you please, I’ll be the first to hit you.”

Whispering low, A-yeong even raised a fist, and Hyeonheo looked at the two of them in turn before lowering his voice.

“There is a strong chance that fellow came tonight to look us over. There is also the trick of drawing the eye outside while another slips into the inn, so for what remains of the night, none of us three is to move apart.”

Pung nodded, recalling the shadow that had vanished beyond the wall. Whoever this was had been moving since the very first day the three arrived in Nohachon, and the residue of poison left behind was nothing at all like dark crimson demonic energy. At least two kinds of power were tangled together in this village’s darkness.

Only when the light of dawn spread across the paper screens did Pung close their eyes for a while.

When the day had fully broken, the three gathered at one side of the inn’s dining hall and went over the night before once more. Hyeonheo explained that the poison on the straw was not strong enough to kill a person, but that anyone who had carelessly smelled it or touched it with a hand might have had their body stiffen for a time.

“It seems less that they meant to harm us than that they were testing us.”

At A-yeong’s words Hyeonheo stroked down his beard.

“That is likely. He would have wanted to see whether we could recognize poison, and whether we would give chase at the sight of a shadow.”

Pung looked down at the silver ring on the finger.

“Was the ring’s brief reaction because of the poison?”

“We do not know yet. First we must learn whether it pointed to the poison on the stone, or reacted to the one who handles poison. Still, the fact that the reaction vanished may mean that fellow knows how to hide even the breath of poison.”

Hyeonheo rose from his seat and signalled to the two of them with his eyes.

“Guessing can wait until we return. First let us go to the house where someone vanished most recently.”

Outside the inn, Nohachon had no life in it even by daylight. Shut doors and empty alleys went on and on, and the villagers they met here and there quickened their steps at the sight of three strangers. Even an old man sitting beneath the eaves turned his head away before Hyeonheo could offer a greeting, and the traders had laid out their wares yet called to no customers.

Hyeonheo went from house to house of the missing, speaking to the families left behind, but most would not open their doors, and even after making out an old man’s face through the crack, they only repeated that they knew nothing. In a village where people vanished night after night, one could hardly ask them to trust outsiders, so the three turned back without pressing their questions.

Only at the third house did a middle-aged man open the door. His eyes were red and bloodshot, as though he had not slept for days, and when Hyeonheo told him they had come to find the missing, his hand tightened on the doorpost.

“My son is gone.”

In the room the man showed them, a spread-out quilt and a pair of worn shoes remained. The window was latched from the inside, and there was no mark of breaking on the door. Unable to take his eyes from the empty bed, the man went on in a cracked voice.

“He ate with me until evening. He said he was worn out, so I told him to sleep first. But when I opened the door in the morning, only the quilt was left. I heard no scream, and no dog barked.”

“Was there an illness he suffered from, or a grudge?”

“Nothing of the sort. At heavy work he was better than most, and he hadn’t the temper to quarrel with anyone.”

While Hyeonheo examined the room, Pung too drew up meridian sight. Faint traces were tangled among old dust and the scent of a person, but no energy remained that could be called the abductor’s for certain. It was too clean, as if someone had deliberately swept it away.

The circumstances at the other houses were much the same. All had disappeared in the night, with no screams and no sounds of struggle, and doors and windows locked from within. What those left behind could show them was an empty bed, a pair of shoes set aside, and a rice bowl that had lost its owner.

At one house, an old woman with a bent back held her small grandchild’s shoes against her chest. She neither let the three into the room nor poured out a long account. She only stroked the worn, frayed shoes and repeated the same words.

“That child is full of fears. A child who couldn’t even go to the outhouse alone would never have walked out on their own two feet.”

A-yeong crouched down before the old woman, lips parting a few times, but in the end said nothing, and even after leaving the house kept looking back for a while, and as they came out of the alley caught hold of Pung’s sleeve.

“We have to find them.”

Pung looked at the set line of A-yeong’s mouth and nodded.

“Yes. Without fail.”

Those words were a promise to A-yeong and at the same time a vow made to oneself, for Pung knew what it was to lose someone precious and be able to do nothing. With the small shoes in the old woman’s arms refusing to fade from sight, the resolve hardened: whoever had done this would be made to pay.

It was past midday when the three reached the house where someone had vanished most recently. The owner was a young herb gatherer who lived alone, and he had been gone only three days. A man said to be a distant relative was keeping the house now, and after hearing Hyeonheo out he reluctantly opened the room.

Pung stopped short on stepping inside.

Here was the energy they had not found anywhere else. Along the corner of the room where the sunlight never reached and along the head of the bed, a murky, faintly fishy yellow residue drifted like fine threads. It was so thin that without concentrating meridian sight it would have gone unnoticed, but it was the same light as the one seen on the straw the night before.

“Elder.”

At Pung’s call Hyeonheo came over at once.

“A murky yellow energy remains. It’s thickest at the head of the bed. It’s the same as what I saw on the stone and the straw last night.”

Brows drawn together, Hyeonheo examined the place Pung pointed out. Setting one knee to the floor, he drew a silver needle from his sleeve and carefully scraped at the earthen ground. A moment later, when the needle’s tip turned ash-gray, he covered it with cloth and took it up.

“Poison.”

“A poison that kills?”

“No. In such an amount, it was more likely used to put mind and body to sleep together than to end a life. This must be why there were no screams and no struggles.”

Pung shifted their gaze along the murky yellow residue running between the bed and the door. Had the poisoned man been carried out on someone’s back or over a shoulder, the trace should have been thicker, yet the moment it crossed the threshold the energy broke off abruptly. The abductor was not only skilled in the use of poison but also knew how to conceal his own traces.

“Are there many who use a poison like this?”

Hyeonheo did not answer Pung’s question at once. Folding the cloth around the silver needle over several times and tucking it into his robe, he brushed the back of his hand once across his tightly closed lips.

“A blend that leaves almost no smell and no colour, yet puts a person so deeply to sleep, is not common. And if he went so far as to erase even the residue of energy, then he is surely one who has properly mastered the art of poison.”

“Is there some place you know of?”

At A-yeong’s question, Hyeonheo checked the open window and then the door in turn. There were no marks of handling on the window bars, and no sign on the inside of the door handle that it had been forced.

“There was an eminent orthodox sect house wiped out twenty years ago. One of the Seven Great Clans, which made its name with sword, poison, and hidden weapons: the Dokgo Clan.”

At the word “orthodox,” Pung blinked. The dark crimson demonic energy of the man seen at the tavern yesterday had plainly belonged to the Demonic Cult, and the poison found now resembled the methods of an eminent orthodox house. The road that had seemed to need only one side pursued was splitting in two before their eyes.

“Then does that mean a survivor of the Dokgo Clan took the people away?”

“It must not be concluded yet.”

Hyeonheo’s answer was firm. Pressing his palm against the robe that held the discoloured silver needle to make sure of it, he went on.

“Methods can be stolen, and poisons can be traded. Nor must we throw away the possibility that someone has borrowed the name of an annihilated house. Still, it would be hard to believe that the one who made this poison has no connection at all to its remnants or its old disciples.”

Pung looked around the room again. The residue visible to meridian sight said nothing, and gave no word of whether it was orthodox or demonic. A power that harms people did not change according to which sect’s name it bore; in the end it seemed to rest on who had used it, and for what.

“Could the man of the Demonic Cult we saw yesterday have any connection to this poison?”

“That too must be confirmed. Let us begin by matching the time the cult member appeared here against the time the disappearances began.”

Hyeonheo spoke calmly, but before leaving the room he stopped at the threshold and looked back. The wrinkled corners of his eyes narrowed deeply, and the two hands gathered behind his back did not come apart for some time.

When they asked the owner’s relative further about the missing herb gatherer’s movements, an unexpected story came out. Three days before he vanished, he had been delighted, saying he had found work at the market that paid well. He had not said what the work was, but it seemed to be hauling medicinal herbs to an estate on the northern mountain slope.

“Do you know who owns the estate?”

At Hyeonheo’s question the man shook his head at once.

“I don’t. People hereabouts simply call it the northern estate. I’ve only heard that high walls run around it and warriors guard it. Few would have gone near.”

At the word “northern,” Pung looked down at the silver ring without meaning to. It gave off no light now, but when the watcher who had left the poisoned needle fled that other time, the ring had pointed north as well. The same direction kept overlapping too often to be brushed aside as coincidence.

When the three came out of the house, the sun was already tilting west. As the roofs cast long shadows, the people in the street began hurrying to shut their doors as though by agreement, market stalls were snatched up in haste, and the sound of bars dropping ran down every alley.

Pung looked toward the north of the village. Beyond the low roofs a dark blue ridge lay stretched out long, and somewhere beneath it an estate ringed by high walls lay hidden. The one who had scouted the inn last night, the murky yellow poison, the young master of the Demonic Cult: every scattered trace seemed to lead into that darkness.

Just then the silver ring trembled very faintly.

This time Pung did not hesitate.

“Elder, A-yeong. The ring is reacting to the north.”

Hyeonheo at once checked the northern alley and the direction of the inn in turn.

“We move before the reaction fades. Danpung will read the way, A-yeong will watch behind. I will block any stirring between the two of you. Whoever feels anything amiss, do not chase alone; tell us at once.”

The moment the three began to move abreast, a single dark crimson hem swept soundlessly past the far end of the northern alley.

Nohachon’s second night was already moving in that man’s wake.