Snow, Fire, Sword Read online

  Snow, Fire, Sword

  By Sophie Masson

  It’s one thing to see such heroism

  Through the simplifying haze of the years,

  Another to perform it at the time

  Amid darkness and confusion and tears.

  PETER KOCAN

  Contents

  Epigraph

  Map

  One

  HOW TIRING THIS journey was! Why did they have to…

  Two

  DAWN WAS ALWAYS a busy time. Up quickly from her…

  Three

  “YOU WILL BE late for school. What were you—” Ayu…

  Four

  ADI ATE RAVENOUSLY and went off to bed in the…

  Five

  ANDA MANGIL’S CAR was big and comfortable, and though it…

  Six

  MINUTES PASSED. All was quiet and dark and peaceful. Adi’s…

  Seven

  ANDA MANGIL WAS parked not in the street in front…

  Eight

  THE GREAT CARVED stone towers and spires and stupas of…

  Nine

  DEWI HAD SEEN the sea only in pictures, and even…

  Ten

  ADI AND ANDA Mangil were almost at the mouth of…

  Eleven

  “I DON’T LIKE THE look of that sea,” said Husam…

  Twelve

  THE MOUNTAIN OF Gunungbatu was actually a bleak, stony hill…

  Thirteen

  DEWI AND HUSAM AL-DIN had hoped they might catch up…

  Fourteen

  ADI FELT A LOT better after his wash. The washhouse…

  Fifteen

  RATUPOHON LED THE way past the polluted pool and the…

  Sixteen

  THIS IS HOW Paradise must look, thought Adi as he…

  Seventeen

  HOURS PASSED. Blind, dumb, helpless on the back of the…

  Eighteen

  ADI SLEPT LIKE a baby that night. No dreams or…

  Nineteen

  FOR A MOMENT, after the afreet had vanished, Dewi and…

  Twenty

  ADI HAD NEVER been in the palace before, though he…

  Twenty-One

  DEWI AND HUSAM hurried down the tunnel. The light got…

  Twenty-Two

  THE SULTAN AND the Prince listened in silence to Adi’s…

  Twenty-Three

  IT WAS NOT an easy scramble to the top of…

  Twenty-Four

  ADI RACED BACK through the corridors and courtyards to the…

  Twenty-Five

  DEWI AND HUSAM rode on through the afternoon. The bike…

  Twenty-Six

  HEART IN MOUTH, Adi clattered down the dark spiral staircase…

  Twenty-Seven

  ADI SLOWLY CAME to, with an aching head, a swollen…

  Twenty-Eight

  “IT IS NOT over yet,” said the Sultan, a while…

  Glossary

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Map

  ONE

  HOW TIRING THIS journey was! Why did they have to walk, rather than go by car or bus? Why go around the long way rather than use the main roads? Why, oh why, spend uncomfortable nights sleeping in forests and ditches instead of comfortable guesthouses? Grumbling to himself, Adi trudged along the muddy dirt track behind his master. Before they’d left, he’d been so excited at the prospect of his first visit to Kotabunga, the great capital city of Jayangan. It was more than excitement at the prospect of seeing the city, seat of the Sultan of Jayangan. It was also because this was a great moment in Adi’s life.

  After two years in Empu Wesiagi’s workshop, working at all kinds of tasks, Adi had been allowed to help his master create an important new kris, from beginning to almost the end: carefully shaping and tempering the curved skystone blade, decorating the metal and leather scabbard with delicate tracework. Only right at the end did Empu Wesiagi take over, for that was the time when the sacred, magic formulae were said over the weapon to dedicate its spirit to its new owner, who was to be none other than the Sultan himself!

  Adi’s joy at this honor had been tempered by the kris-smith’s strange insistence that he not tell anyone where they were going. If he must tell his family something, he should tell them they were going over the sea to Balian Besakih, to consult with a kris-smith over there. Adi could not understand this deceit but he trusted his master so did as he was told. After all, Empu Wesiagi had given him the coveted apprenticeship in his workshop, and had over the last couple of years proven to be a good and kind master. Yes, Empu Wesiagi must have his reasons.

  As he must have his reasons for choosing to go to Kotabunga by these winding and out-of-the-way paths. It didn’t help, though, when you felt tired and dirty and uncomfortable, when the road seemed to stretch interminably in front of—

  “Stop!” Empu Wesiagi’s voice jolted Adi out of his rebellious thoughts. “Adi, can you hear anything?”

  Adi stared at his master, who had stopped stock-still in the middle of the path. The old man’s face was pinched and drawn. He looked unwell, thought Adi, dismayed.

  “Hear anything, sir?” he said carefully. There was nothing of note to be heard, just the usual sounds of the countryside—the breeze swishing in the paddy fields to either side of the road, the shushing sound of wind in the forest beyond, bird calls, distant engine noises. He looked around. Night was beginning to fall, shadows were creeping in over the fields, it would soon be time to stop and—In the next instant, Adi got the shock of his life, for his beloved master sprang on him with such ferocity that he fell over backward onto the muddy road. Before he had time to react, Empu Wesiagi pulled him with extraordinary force deep into the paddy. “Stay here!” he ordered. Dazed, baffled, Adi tried to scramble to his feet. With a swift movement, the kris maker unsheathed the kris—the beautiful new weapon that was a gift to the Sultan—and pointed it threateningly at his apprentice, who fell back. “Stay here. Don’t even try to argue. Whatever you see, whatever you hear, whatever happens, don’t move, or you will die.”

  Adi could well believe it. His master’s eyes shone with a red light; the kris’s beautifully made, sinuous, wickedly sharp blade was pointed right at Adi’s throat.

  “Do you understand me, Adi?”

  Adi swallowed. He nodded. Empu Wesiagi’s eyes narrowed. He reached into his clothes and took out two lengths of rope and a large handkerchief. “I have to do this, Adi. You cannot follow me.” Kneeling down, he swiftly tied Adi’s hands together, and then his feet. But before he could gag the boy with the cloth, Adi suddenly found his voice. “Master, why are you doing this? What have I done wrong?”

  “Forgive me,” said Empu Wesiagi, tying the gag around Adi’s mouth. “It is for your own safety. The hantumu must not know you are with me.”

  The engine noise was getting louder. No, not one engine, but several motorbike engines. An ordinary sound—so why did the hair rise on the back of Adi’s head, why did his spine feel like ice? He could not speak, but he could still think, and in his mind, two words spoken by the kris maker echoed. The hantumu. He shot a look at his master. Was the great Empu Wesiagi in league with the hantumu?

  Empu Wesiagi whispered, “Adi, there is no time. But do not forget this. I brought you with me because you are the very best apprentice I have ever had. And that is why I cannot afford to let the hantumu know you are with me, Adi. You must get to Kotabunga.”

  Adi closed his eyes. His heart pounded, his bound hands were clammy. He was in a dream. A nightmare. None of this was happening. When he opened his eyes again, his master had vanished. He heard the swishing sounds the paddy grass made as the old kris maker ran swiftly back to the road. The m
otorbike engines got louder and louder. Sweat ran down his face, trickled down his neck, soaked his clothes. Images filled his mind, images cobbled together from overheard stories. The hantumu. Dark forces, figures of whispered legend, of bad dreams, and yet now roaming the land once more. The hantumu were eyeless, some said; they dressed all in black and were mounted on black motorbikes, huge swords by their sides. They were assassins, but no one knew where they came from, why they did what they did—murders, kidnappings, the torching of houses, of sacred places. So many things like that had happened in Jayangan in the last few years. No one had been able to catch them, for they always vanished as mysteriously as they had come.

  The noise of their engines was so loud now, Adi knew they must be only a short distance away; they must be nearly at the spot where he and his master…Then, suddenly, Empu Wesiagi shouted, “I am here, you scum. Here, if you can take me! Ah, you thought I would be afraid!”

  The motorbikes revved, then were quiet. A cold voice that sent shivers down Adi’s spine answered, “It is nothing to us if you are afraid or not, old man. You come to our master alive or you come to him dead—that is of little importance.”

  Adi’s heart swelled. His master was most definitely not a traitor.

  “You won’t take me easily, scum of the devil!” Empu Wesiagi’s voice rang out, then a clash of steel. Adi could imagine the old man standing on guard, surrounded by the evil hantumu. He could imagine him whirling around, attacking them with the new kris he’d made. Empu Wesiagi was a good fighter as well as a good smith. He would not give up easily.

  The battle raged for longer than one would have thought possible knowing that an old man, though strong and broad and big and wily, was gravely outnumbered by evil assassins armed to the teeth. Clash of steel, shouts, screams, bloodcurdling shrieks filled the air for quite some minutes. Bound, gagged, Adi raged against his helplessness, wishing with all his heart he could break his bonds and go and help his master, no matter what he had said. But the rope was tied tightly, the gag too. There was nothing he could do but listen helplessly. His eyes filled with angry tears. Finally came the sound of a motorbike starting up, and another, and another, and another. Four of them. There had been four of them. Adi could hear nothing now except the roar of the machines. An icy hand gripped his heart. Was his master dead, or wounded? Would they come looking for him? No, they did not know he was here. His master had sacrificed himself so they would not know.

  The engines rose to a crescendo, then began to fade. Night had fallen. There was no moon. Adi could see nothing. The paddy grass closed in around him, prison and refuge. He had to do as Empu Wesiagi wanted and get to Kotabunga. Yet he was bound and gagged. His master had taken the kris; he could not even cut his bonds. How could he get away?

  TWO

  DAWN WAS ALWAYS a busy time. Up quickly from her sleeping mat, splashing a little water on her face, brushing and plaiting her long hair, rushing to get all her chores done before she would have to hurry to school, Dewi had no idea that this day her life would change forever.

  Her older sister, Ayu, and older brothers, Wisnu and Jafar, were up, too, but not her father, Bapar Wiriyanto, who had had a late consultation the night before. Ayu, who since their mother’s death some years earlier had looked after her siblings, was cooking breakfast, and the fragrant smell of rice and chicken stock filled the little kitchen. She barely glanced up as Dewi went out, and why should she? Dewi did the same thing every morning. She needed no supervision. She could have done it in her sleep.

  Outside, the air was still cool. It would not stay that way for long. Soon, the sun would climb into the sky and the day would really begin—a long, hot, hot day, with perhaps a short shower in the evening to cool things down again.

  Dewi walked slowly, swinging a little covered plastic bucket in one hand. Without her mind being aware of it, her bare feet followed the path through the family compound toward the paddy field. She walked along thinking of the exams she’d have to take at school in just two months’ time. She was not worried about them, for she was a good student and found the work quite easy. But the exams were partly to ready you for the next stage of school, and for the job you might do later. Her teacher thought she should try to become a teacher herself. Dewi had no interest in that, though she was too polite to say so. She had had a dream ever since she was a little girl, but a dream she spoke of to no one. It was of someday becoming a dukun like her father. Girls rarely became dukuns, for it was felt the work was too dangerous. Father had not yet said which of his children was to follow him in his work, and Dewi had never dared to broach the subject with him.

  Dewi sighed. Her father, Bapar Wiriyanto, was one of the most important men in the village of Bumi Macan and beyond. His power as a dukun was well known. People traveled quite long distances to visit him and ask for his help. He could cure ills and heal wounds, but most of all, he could see hidden things in the spirit world.

  As a young boy, already with a certain gift of his own, Wiriyanto had been taken in by the Harimauroh, the tiger-people of the forest, who sometimes appeared in the forms of tigers and sometimes of people. When he had emerged from the forest, his talents had vastly deepened and improved. He still talked and walked regularly with the tiger-people, leaving his body to enter into the spirit-tiger realm. He had a spirit guide, a very powerful tiger-man who went by the name of Bupatihutan and who was his medium when he went into a trance-journey. Dewi had seen Bupatihutan once or twice, when her father had gone into a trance. This, too, she had spoken of to no one.

  She reached the paddy field and walked into a row, picking snails up and placing them in her bucket. They were for the ducks, who loved them and grew fat on them. She had to take care not to crush their shells; the ducks did not like them dead. The snails plopped in with a soft sound. They moved in and around and over each other; Dewi had to put the cover on the bucket, because otherwise they would slide out. She squelched through the wet ground, picking and dropping, her fingers sure and quick; she would soon have enough snails to fill her bucket. She would take them back, feed the ducks, change into her school uniform, have breakfast, wash the dishes, and be ready for Jafar to take her on the back of his motorbike to the little school in the next village. Her morning was ordered, precise. She knew everything that was going to happen in it. It did not worry her, on the whole. Only sometimes, sometimes, she was a little restless, wondering what it might be like to live another way. But she did not talk about that to anyone, either.

  She reached the end of the row and turned into the next. The great green stalks of rice rose above her head. In the distance she could hear all the noises of the compound and the village: roosters crowing, the heavy tread of water buffaloes being readied for work, the busy shuffle of insects in the swaying grasses, the sputter of a motorbike engine, the odd shout from someone. She could smell flowers, and stagnant water, and spices, and grass, and smoke from cooking fires.

  All at once, a strange unease gripped her. She stopped and looked up, toward the line of forest beyond the village. The forest had always drawn her, and yet she was afraid of it too. In it lived the tiger-people and other spirits, good and bad; in trances, her father’s soul wandered there, on his quest for knowledge and healing. It was known, though rarely talked about, that in the center of the forest was the village of the tiger-people. Anyone who went too close to it would be torn to pieces, unless they happened to be someone like Bapar Wiriyanto. And even a great dukun such as he went in only on the Harimauroh’s express invitation.

  But the forest was just as quiet and peaceful as the paddy field. Dewi frowned a little and shrugged. There was nothing happening; all was as usual. She bent down to pick up one last snail. And almost screamed and dropped the bucket, for there, gleaming through the rice stalks, was a pair of eyes. A pair of large, dark eyes, set under a shock of silky hair, in a round, muddy, tear-stained face that was filled with fear and shock and a huge weariness.

  A part of Dewi’s mind hammered at her: go
, go, run away! Run for help, this is not something you want to know about! But another part of her—the part that wanted adventure, that sought out mystery, that was not afraid—pushed back the rice stalks and got a good look at the face.

  “You’re gagged!” she said, surprised. Her eyes widened again as she saw his hands and feet. “And bound! Who did this? Who are you?” He was a couple of years older than her, she thought—sixteen, maybe? Whatever, she had lost her fear altogether. “Was it thieves?”

  Above the gag, the bright dark eyes flashed. Dewi understood their expression, and flushed. “Sorry.” She bent down to untie the gag.

  “Thanks. My bonds, please, will you…” The boy’s voice was hoarse. And it had an accent: the accent of the people of Jatimur, in the east of Jayangan. He was far from home.

  Dewi reached inside her sarong and took out the little pocketknife she carried everywhere with her. You often had to cut string and such on a farm. She bent down at the boy’s feet and sawed through the rope. He wriggled his feet. “Ow. Pins and needles.” He held out his bound hands. “Please, will you cut these, too?”

  As she worked, she took in more details of him. He was slight and small, rather thin, dressed in a blue T-shirt, jeans, and battered sneakers. A tiny silver heart hung on a chain around his neck, marking him as a Nashranee, a member of one of the minority religions of the island.

  “Thank you,” said the youth, rubbing at his wrists as the rope fell away. “Oh. Ow.” He touched the red welts on his skin gingerly. “It hurts.”