Snow, Fire, Sword Page 3

  “Why is it so dark in here? Who blew out the lights?” Neither Adi nor Dewi said anything. Ayu groped around for the matches that were kept near the oil lamp and lit the wick. A golden glow flowered instantly behind the smoky glass. “That’s better. Oh, Father!”

  Bapar Wiriyanto was struggling up from the floor. He put a hand to his head. Dewi, with a thrill of fear, saw his hand was bleeding and scored with claw marks. Ayu saw it too. Her eyes widened. But she was a practical girl. “I’ll get bandages, water, disinfectant.” She went quickly out of the room.

  “It’s nothing,” said the dukun quietly. “Superficial cuts. If they really wanted to hurt me, they could have.”

  “But Father,” said Dewi, “I don’t understand. Why did they hurt you at all?”

  “It is nothing. Just frustration, impatience, maybe even fear.” He sighed. “Yes, the spirits, too, may feel these things. You must not think it is only we humans who may be afraid. There is great turmoil in the spirit world these days, Dewi and Adi, and fear of what is coming.”

  “Of the great battle,” Dewi whispered, and her father stiffened.

  “What did you say?”

  “Bupatihutan said there was a great battle coming,” said Dewi. “He said we had to go to Kotabunga and find—”

  “Bupatihutan told you?” interrupted her father. “You saw him?”

  Dewi nodded rather uneasily.

  “I see.” The dukun looked into his daughter’s eyes. Dewi shivered a little, for in her father’s eyes was not the expression of love and firmness and gentleness she was used to, but a deep, searching light. She could not look away. “Is this the first time you have seen Bupatihutan, my child?”

  She shook her head.

  There was a short silence; then Bapar Wiriyanto nodded. Slowly, he said, “I understand. How could I have been so blind?” He smiled and touched Dewi gently on the shoulder. “Did he tell you any more, my dear daughter?”

  His voice was full of love and pride, and it made Dewi’s heart swell. She said, “He said we must find Snow, Fire, Sword.”

  “Snow, Fire, Sword!” exclaimed her father, but he broke off as Ayu came back with a bowl of water, bandages, and disinfectant. Carefully, she dressed his wounded hand. She asked no questions. She was used to the strangeness of the business their father was in, the gift he wielded—and its dangers. When she had finished, she said, “Father, you should rest.”

  “Yes, my child,” he said absently. Ayu sighed and picked up the bowl. She knew her father would do just as he wanted. As she was about to leave the room, he said, “Ayu, will you please go and ask Anda Mangil if he is free to drive us three to Kotabunga today?” Anda Mangil lived two doors away from Dewi’s family. Most villagers did not have cars, only motorbikes and bicycles, so as the proud possessor of a stately old car, he was by way of being the official taxi driver in the village.

  “Very well, Father,” she said, and was gone.

  “The Harimauroh confirmed what I already suspected,” Bapar Wiriyanto went on, when Ayu had gone. “The hantumu have been operating all over Jayangan, kidnapping and killing people, and not randomly. Their targets are those wise in the old ways, those who are respected for their links to the spirit world: kris makers and puppet masters and dancers, dukuns and priests, teachers and mystics and musicians. The victims have been from all the corners of Jayangan, and from all the different faiths. As well, the hantumu have attacked and desecrated many sacred places—not out of mindless vandalism, but as part of a very deliberate plan. If the links with the spirits are broken, the people of Jayangan will be left all alone to face the enemy. It is a very dangerous enemy—the most dangerous of all, because it is a hidden one. The hantumu are only its most visible shock troops. Their aim is to spread terror throughout the land of Jayangan, so the people will be demoralized and the country fall more easily to the evil ambitions of their master. The hantumu would not be what they are without the hidden power behind them. We cannot defeat them until we defeat their master.”

  “But who is their master? Or what?” Dewi felt a cold finger inching down her spine.

  “The spirits do not know, Dewi. They cannot see him.”

  “But why? Why can’t they see him?”

  “The enemy’s tactics have already begun to bite. The link between our world and the spirit world has been weakened. And as more sacred places are attacked and those wise in the old ways are killed or disappear, the spirits’ power grows weaker too. They cannot see clearly. They know there is a dangerous enemy there, but they cannot make him reveal himself. That is why they are afraid.”

  Adi said, “Have they any idea what this thing—this power, this enemy—what exactly its plans are?”

  “To take over the human and the spirit worlds of Jayangan.” Adi and Dewi stared at him, their blood freezing in their veins. Dewi stammered, “B-but can’t the spirits stop…”

  Her father shook his head. “They cannot. In fact, some of the spirits would like to just block themselves off in the spirit world and leave humans to their fate. I persuaded them that would not be a good idea.” He touched his hand gingerly. “One or two did not take kindly to my words.

  “We must go to Kotabunga and persuade the Sultan to act, once and for all. I have no way of getting into the palace, for I am but a village dukun, but I have a friend in Kotabunga, Bapar Suyanto, a master musician, who is greatly respected at Court, and who will understand. We will go to him, and together we can go to the palace. He has a little guesthouse where I have often stayed. It will be safe there for all of us.”

  “Father,” Dewi said, “Father, what of Snow, Fire, Sword? Why did Bupatihutan say we must find it? What is it?”

  “I think that is all he knows,” said her father slowly. “The spirits cannot see fully; the enemy is too clever. Perhaps Bupatihutan can see that these things—Snow, Fire, Sword, whatever they may be in reality—are necessary to defeat this enemy. But he can see no further than that. The spirits are not infallible, but we must trust it is a clue. We should get to Kotabunga as quickly as possible.” A horn sounded outside. “And here, just on time, is dear Anda Mangil! Come, my children, let us depart.”

  He looked happy, Dewi thought, happier than she had seen him in a long time. Could it be that her dignified, courtly, calm father was actually looking forward to danger and adventure? It did not fit with her earlier notions of her father, but then, this day had hardly been ordinary, in any way.

  FIVE

  ANDA MANGIL’S CAR was big and comfortable, and though it was about thirty-five years old, it looked pristine, the dark-red paintwork buffed carefully, the silver radiator gleaming, even the tires blackened regularly with special polish. Inside was just as beautiful, with the wooden dashboard and old-fashioned radio, soft, dark-brown upholstery, and chocolate-colored carpet underfoot. But it was more than that—Anda Mangil had decorated the inside of the car with little pictures of Jayangan’s sacred places, cut from magazines and mounted in colorful plastic frames that had then carefully been glued to the walls. Colored foil wreaths and garlands had been positioned around each picture. A tiny silver-and-glass vial of sacred mountain-spring water hung from the rearview mirror, along with a bunch of artificial orchids. In the glove box Anda Mangil kept miniature copies of each of the three great holy books of Jayangan—the Mujisal Book of Light, the Nashranee Book of Love, and the Dharbudsu Book of Life—as protection against accidents. Anda Mangil himself was a Dharbudsu, but he said that it was a good thing to have all three books with you, as triple protection.

  Anda Mangil had had this car for as long as anyone could remember, and he loved it dearly. Indeed, it was a standing joke in the village that Anda Mangil was married to his car, that she was a most exacting wife and certainly did not leave him time or money enough to look for a real human wife. Anda Mangil did not mind the joke. He was a round, cheerful, simple man with a bouncy and hopeful nature, and he laughed as heartily as anyone at his obsession with the car.

  Dewi’s fath
er sat in the front with Anda Mangil, chatting equably about village affairs, and the weather, and crop prices, and other such ordinary things. Adi and Dewi sat in the back. Normally, Dewi would have enjoyed looking at the pictures of the sacred places, but today she had too many other things on her mind. Adi had looked curiously at them—and had exclaimed over the lovely little sacred books that Anda Mangil had reverently taken out of the glove box to show him—but now he was silent, staring out the window as the countryside slowly unrolled past them.

  Dewi suddenly felt sorry for him. At least she was in familiar territory, and she had her wise and brave father with her. Poor Adi was alone. She leaned over to him and whispered, “Have you ever been to Kotabunga before?”

  Adi shook his head. “It was to be my first visit. I was so excited. Kota Bau, the main city in our part of the country, is big but ugly, and smelly. But Kotabunga, home of the Sultans, is supposed to be so beautiful.”

  “And it is beautiful,” said Dewi. Her face clouded. “How I wish we were just going sightseeing there!”

  He nodded. They relapsed into heavy silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

  Anda Mangil shot them a glance in the rearview mirror, then leaned forward and clicked the radio on. The latest hit song, “Beloved,” was playing, and Anda Mangil softly sang along to its haunting melody of lost love. Everybody was crazy about that song in Jayangan that year; you heard it everywhere. It lightened the mood in the car; even Bapar Wiriyanto, no great lover of pop music, was smiling. Adi began to hum along with it, and Dewi listened with pleasure as she watched the parade of life outside the windows. Fields and villages lay on either side of the road. The day was well advanced, and people in big hats bent over their work in rice fields; a team of water buffaloes patiently pulled a plow. Cars and trucks and buses and motorbikes and bicycles filled the road like a great noisy river, and roadside stalls were doing a busy trade.

  The closer they got to Kotabunga, the busier it became, and soon, as they approached the city proper, horse-drawn carts and pedal-powered betchars, a kind of rickshaw, joined the throng. Anda Mangil, still humming under his breath, was kept busy dodging in and out of all this traffic. He obviously enjoyed it; his round, cheerful face was alight with glee as he cornered and smoothly wove in and out. He played the car horn as if it were a musical instrument at a dance, announcing a new step. Through the smart new suburbs, with their white mansions behind high walls topped with broken glass and rusty iron; through the busy market district, where traffic was slowed almost to a standstill; through the rows of tiny higgledy-piggledy houses of betchar and horse-cart drivers; past stalls and food carts and busy restaurants; dodging through streets lined with hotels and guesthouses full of foreigners from all the corners of not only Jayangan but the whole world; past the huge batik market; and finally into the gold and jewelry district, with its dozens of little shops.

  There, at last, was Bapar Suyanto’s guesthouse, sandwiched between two gold shops. Anda Mangil stopped the car and they got out.

  “I have decided to stay overnight at my cousin’s place, and only go back to Bumi Macan tomorrow,” said Anda Mangil, as Dewi’s father thanked him and paid him for the trip. “Would you like me to come back here tomorrow?”

  His eyes met Bapar Wiriyanto’s. The dukun nodded. “Thank you. That would be kind.”

  Anda Mangil smiled. “Very well. Enjoy yourselves.” He looked at Adi. “I think you’ll find Kotabunga exceeds all your expectations. But then, maybe I’m biased!” He laughed, and with a wave, he maneuvered the car back up the street. They stood for a moment, looking after him. Then Bapar Wiriyanto sighed. “How I wish the world were full of people like Anda Mangil, taking pleasure in all things in life. It would be a very much better world if that were so.”

  In front of Bapar Suyanto’s guesthouse was a little flower-filled courtyard, with cane chairs arranged invitingly around small round tables, and a fountain playing. Dewi noticed a woman sitting at one of the nearby tables, sipping a glass of iced tea. She was a foreigner, and one of the strangest-looking people Dewi had ever seen. She was tall and thin, with a long nose, blotchy red and white skin, and hair of such a bright red color that Dewi could not help staring. It was as red as flame, she thought, as unnaturally red as the tinsel garlands that decorated Dharbudsu temples on feast days. It stuck out in all directions, escaping the bright paisley scarf she had clumsily tied around her head. She was dressed in a very odd collection of clothes—loose yellow satin trousers under a yellow and red and pink embroidered tunic with long sleeves, a sequined waistcoat, a long black sleeveless coat, and a second scarf in various bright colors draped around her neck. No wonder she looked so hot and prickly! A collection of gaudy trinkets on silver chains hung down her thin, almost concave chest, and long bead and silver earrings hung to her shoulders. Around her ankles she wore thick silver chains, and her dirty feet, with long, incongruously red-painted toenails, were bare.

  The woman looked up, straight at Dewi. She smiled, a curiously intimate smile, but it was not this that froze Dewi to the spot. It was the woman’s gaze, which was like nothing she had ever seen before: She had large, light-brown, almost yellow, eyes, black-rimmed as a cat’s, and her pupils—her narrow, vertical pupils—shone red, red as flame. Or, at least, that was how it seemed to Dewi in that horrified instant. She blinked, and saw that she must have been mistaken, for the woman’s pupils were an ordinary black, and round.

  The woman smiled again and looked as if she were about to speak, but Dewi had had quite enough. She hurried away to her father and Adi, who were standing at the reception desk talking to the girl there. And what the girl had to say almost made Dewi forget about the odd stranger sitting there in her chair.

  “I am sorry,” said the young woman. “I am sorry,” she repeated, “but you have just missed Bapar Suyanto. He was called away to the palace on urgent business by the master of ceremonies, Lord Emas. Perhaps you could go there.”

  The dukun pulled at his lip. “Right. Thank you.” He turned to Adi and Dewi. “You two stay here. Miss,” he said, turning back to the receptionist, “please book us a large room. We will stay here tonight.”

  “Certainly, sir,” said the girl.

  The dukun fumbled in his pocket and brought out a roll of small banknotes, which he handed to Dewi. In an undertone, he said, “Go and buy something to eat from a stall. I will go in a betchar to the palace and return as quickly as I can. Do not go anywhere else, do you understand? And do not speak to anyone about what we are doing here. And”—here he dropped his voice even lower—“there is something else besides money in this bundle of notes, which I want you to keep on you at all times, do you understand? Don’t look at it right now. But keep it, hold it safe, and it will protect you. Do you promise me that, Dewi?”

  “Yes, Father,” said Dewi, taking the bundle of notes and putting it in her pocket. Unease gripped her. “Please, Father, you will be careful, won’t you?”

  “Of course, my dear child,” he said, gently touching her shoulder. “Don’t be afraid. Just remember what I told you.”

  Dewi wanted to ask him more questions, but the dukun smiled at them both and left swiftly, heading back out into the street.

  “Shall we go and find something to eat, then?” said Adi.

  “I am quite hungry,” admitted Dewi.

  “Young ones, listen.” The voice behind them made them jump. “Young ones, you must hear this.”

  It was the redheaded woman from the courtyard. Up close, she was overwhelming. Her voice was deep, deeper than any woman’s voice Dewi had ever heard before. She moved strangely, in a motion that was both gliding and jerky, as if she were trying to remember how to walk. Her hands were long, her fingers narrow, her nails curved and burnished to a high red sheen. Her hair swung under her scarf like a living thing, while the angry red heat blotches on her skin seemed to glow brighter with every word she spoke. She smiled in a way that was meant to be reassuring.

  “It was not that I, K
areen Amar, did mean to make you afeared.” Her accent was odd, as was the way she used Jayanganese. “I heard what was said. Yet such cannot be true. Lord Emas is away, so it could not be he who called Bapar Suyanto to the palace. It is I, Kareen Amar, who tells you this.”

  Adi and Dewi stared at her. The woman came closer to them, and as she did so, a strange smell caught at Dewi’s nostrils. It was a smell like…like…she couldn’t quite place it, but whatever it was, it made the hair rise up on the back of her neck.

  “It is I, Kareen Amar, who tells you this. Kareen Amar,” she repeated with an odd eagerness, searching their faces as if they ought to know who she was, and the significance of what she was saying. Seeing they had no idea who she was, she fumbled in the pocket of her jacket and brought out a grubby business card. “You look here. It says.”

  They glanced at the clumsily printed card. In big, wavy letters, it announced that this was “Kareen Amar, renowned singer and songwriter.”

  “You see?” said the woman eagerly. “You read?”

  “We read,” said Dewi uncomfortably, shooting a glance at Adi, who was just as disconcerted. Kareen Amar’s name meant nothing to them; they had never heard of her. Besides, she didn’t look like any singer Dewi or Adi had ever seen, but a freak, a madwoman.

  Kareen Amar was surveying their faces anxiously. “I know this, young ones. You must listen to me. Really listen. Lord Emas is away. He is not at the palace. Bapar Suyanto is not there either. Listen to Kareen Amar. Kareen Amar knows. This is so.”

  Dewi and Adi looked at each other. Then, with one accord, they rushed out of the reception area, through the outer courtyard, and into the street. They looked wildly up and down the street, then Adi gave a shout. “There, look, the betchar, just turning the corner!”

  Unmistakably, it was the dukun, sitting straight-backed in the elevated carriage of the vehicle, the betchar driver pedaling slowly behind him. Usually, betchar drivers were young, but strands of coarse gray hair escaped from under this one’s cap. His slow, almost clumsy gait as he pedaled along gave them hope they might catch up with him. “Bapar Wiriyanto! Bapar!” called Adi, and he ran down the street, Dewi close behind him.