Young-hee and the Pullocho (30 page)

“Who else would I be?” she responded, a little annoyed.

“I'm Young-hee ...”

“Yes, the human child. I hope we won't have to re-state everything. Once is usually enough for me.”

“Uh, yes, of course,” said Young-hee, taken aback. She pulled the towel around her for warmth, then sneezed violently, twice.

“You're cold,” said Mirinae. She tossed another towel, walked to the wall, and pulled a metal bar. A thump. Deep rattling. Then, a prolonged hiss. A moment later, Young-hee felt the stone floor heating upbeneath her feet.

“
Ondol
heating,” said Young-hee. “Nice. But how?”

“Water power,” said Mirinae. “You need energy to get anything done, and my workshop has the best clepsydra in all the land. Come, see.” She turned up the hall's lanterns with a handle connected to a rope and pulleys, and motioned Young-hee to a massive cage of hard white bones. It churned rhythmically up and down. “It's a water pump made from the backbone of a dragon,” Mirinae said proudly. “Extremely hard to acquire, but they make the most powerful pumps. It powers not only my clepsydra, but also that armillary sphere, my astrolabe, orrery, and torquetum. And the lights and ondol floor heating. Very useful.” She pushed a small lever and the interconnected brass rings inscribed on the table started rotating and spinning in arcs.

“Wow, what is it?”

“It's an astrolabe—for charting the movement of the stars and the heavens. I have mapped all eighteen trigrams and the one hundred celestial systems. She pointed up at the largest machine, at the huge rings overhead that filled the hall with thick, iron arcs and massive metals gears. “That is my armillary sphere for more precise measurements of more distant bodies.”

“Wow,” Young-hee repeated, before sneezing a third time.

“Enough of my boasting,” said Mirinae. “Sit here on the floor's hottest spot. I'll make you some
naengmyeon
.”

“Cold noodles?” said Young-hee, finding the spot blessedly warm. “Thank you, but if you had any hot food …”

“
Pah
, don't you know anything?” said Mirinae, shuffling off to the kitchen. “Only the ignorant eat naengmyeon to cool down. You must wait until you are truly cold, then sit on the hottest spot on the ondol floor and eat them. It's a scientific fact.” She started cooking, paying little attention to her guests.

“What do you think?” Young-hee asked her friends.

“Tigers don't know much about machines and measurements,” said Tiger, stretching his massive body to full length to soak in the maximum heat.

“Knowledge is a disease,” scoffed Samjogo. “Wisdom, happiness, the important things in life don't exist in books or science.”

“Well, I think it's pretty cool,” said Young-hee, a little dejected by her friends' indifference.”

Mirinae brought a big bowl of the cold, buckwheat noodle soup in an icy broth for Young-hee and Samjogo. “I don't suppose a Tiger would like a bowl of noodles and vegetables?” she asked.

“Oh, I could eat a little.”

“Really? Fascinating,” muttered Mirinae, as fetched him a bowl, and a small one for herself. She barely picked at it as she waited for the others to finish.

“So, why do you live high on this hill, all by yourself?” asked Young-hee drinking the last of the broth.

“Science,” said Mirinae.

“Science?”

“Yes, this location has excellent
pung su
, with the ridge behind, the cliff in front, and a river below.”

“Ah, that kind of science.”

“
That kind of science
? Please, science is science—it doesn't have
kinds
. And, by the science of pung su, this location is ideal for learning, thinking and, most importantly, seeing. Being so high makes it easier to see both the heavens and the worlds under the heavens. I need to see them all to be accurate. And I need to be accurate to know … what I need to know.” After clearing their empty bowls, Mirinae sat with a plunk facing Young-hee. “Okay, you've traveled far to my little observatory, eaten, dried off, and rested. Your visit was important enough to stir signs in the stars and winds, so, now, tell me why you've come?”

“Well, the thing is,” Young-hee said, thinking about her words and then just blurting, “I need to find a pullocho.”

“A pullocho?”

“Yes, it's a kind of root, like ginseng.”

Mirinae rolled her eyes. “Yes, I know, but why would a simple girl like you want such a powerful magic?”

“It's for my brother,” said Young-hee, and repeated the whole dreadful story. “I was told it is in the shadow of a sandalwood tree in the ruins of the Sacred City. No one knows where that is, so they said I was to ask animal spirits. They didn't know either, so they sent me to you.”

“Fascinating.”

“But can you help me get my brother back?”

“Hmm… this isn't as easy as eating
juk
. It's more like plucking stars from the heavens.”

“Yes, but can you help?”

“Perhaps.”

“You know where the pullocho is? Or the Sacred City?”

“No.”

“No?” cried Young-hee, readying for crushing disappointment.

“The Sacred City is more a concept than an actual location, and it tends to move around.”

“
Jigyeowo
. But … you said you can help me.”

“I said ‘perhaps.' I do have one idea.” Mirinae stood and went to her workshop. She hunted through clocks and gears and strange devices before plucking out a small metal circle with a metal bar in the middle, attached to an angled plane. “It's a compass, of sorts, combined with a torquetum. But I have replaced the usual
chinam-chim
—the ‘south-facing needle'—with a device of my own making. A chi-
oon
-chim.”

“What's that?”

“‘
Oon'
… That's fate,” said Samjogo.

“Ah, so he's the brains of your group. Yes, fate, or fortune, or luck, depending on who's asking. My compass points toward your fate.”

“Or future?”

“Or luck. I've never been able to get it to work properly.”

“Oh.”

“You're not the only seeker of Namgoong Mirinae's help. And not even the first in search of a pullocho. Which is why I invented my chioonchim.”

“To help people find their destinies?”

“To help me make money. Science doesn't come cheap, and as you can see, my work burns through a lot of capital. So I thought a machine that could help spirits, demons, and other creatures on their many and various quests could be very profitable. Sadly, though, the chioonchim has a bit of a flaw. Instead of pointing to one's fate, it only pointed to the past.”

“That's not helpful,” agreed Young-hee.

“But couldn't you just turn it around?” interjected Samjogo.

“What?”

“Well, the whole point of a regular compass is, if you know north, you can figure out its opposite, south, and all the other directions. So if your chioonchim points to the past, shouldn't it also tell someone's future and present?”

“It doesn't exactly work like that,” said Mirinae. “There are more … planes involved. More dimensions. It's not a front-back, either-or problem. Spiritual space isn't the same as physical. It's not about where you are, but who you are. What you want and what you need.”

“Choice,” said Young-hee. “The problem is choice.”

“Choice?” repeated Mirinae.

“Strange Land's creatures don't really make choices. Who they are, what they do or want, it's all been written down for them already. It's all a reflection of the real world, of our stories. Your world
is
stories, mine writes them.”

“Fascinating theory,” said Mirinae. “A bit condescending, but fascinating. And just a theory. I suppose the only way to know is to put theory into practice.” Mirinae walked off, poking her chioonchim thoughtfully.

“Where you are going?”

“To the lookout platform to test your theory. Come on.” They followed Mirinae up the steep wooden steps that curled around the great chamber's inner wall. It was steeper than it looked and, without a banister, quite scary.

Up top, the workshop below shrank to messy details, except for the massive armillary sphere. The platform was nearly as full of mysterious equipment as the lower level. One table was full of lenses of different sizes and colors; others with tubes and charts and levers of all kinds. Large slats in the wooden roof and walls could slide open and closed with ropes and winches.

“This is an observatory?” asked Young-hee.

“The best in the land, yes,” said Mirinae, fiddling with the chioonchim. “I can see for many
li
in all directions. And with my
cheolligyeong
, I can see even further.”

“Ah, it
is
a telescope,” said Young-hee. The device was covered in star charts, although no Big Dipper or Orion or anything Young-hee recognized.

Samjogo picked up a large, red lens and held it to the light. “Careful, that's a fire pearl,” said Mirinae. “You don't want to know what I went through to get it, or the cost if you broke it.” Samjogo placed it back down quickly and very carefully.

Mirinae finished placing a spring inside the chioonchim and admired her handiwork. “Okay, I need something personal of yours,” she said. “The lodestone is made from
essentite
, a very emotionally sensitive mineral. When wrapped with something uniquely yours, it is imbued with your spirit and sensitive to your field.”

Standing with her hands in her pockets, Young-hee's fingers fell on something small and springy: one last hair band. She took it out and stretched it. “How about this?”

Mirinae examined the simple elastic like a jeweler with an uncut diamond. “Not bad. These are your hairs caught in there?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Let's give it a try then.” Mirinae slid the hair band over the thin lodestone and twisted it around twice to make it reasonably tight. “Okay, hold the chioonchim, and keep this plane level with the floor.”

Young-hee took the device awkwardly. The lodestone was certainly moving, spinning this way and that. Young-hee relaxed her arms and tried to stay still, to help the needle settle. The spinning slowed, swung in ever smaller arcs, until it came to rest—pointing right at Samjogo.

“Oh, you've
got
to be
kidding!
” Young-hee shouted, monumentally frustrated. She had appreciated Samjogo's help, but he was at least as annoying as he was interesting. And whatever their relationship, it was more like family than anything. It certainly wasn't her fate
or future.

Samjogo arched his eyebrows in surprise. “Well, now, that's … uh, well, that's something.”

Mirinae looked from the device to Young-hee, then to Samjogo, and back to Young-hee. “I don't know what's wrong.” Shrugging, she reclaimed the chioonchim and began fiddling again.

“Could I try?” said Samjogo suddenly.

“Eh? You?” said Mirinae.

“Yes, me. I've been traveling with Ms. Young-hee for several days now. She saved me when I was imprisoned, and since then I have fought for her more than once. The pullocho is her quest, but I feel it has, in a way, become mine too.”

“I thought you said you were some kind of bird thing. How can the chioonchim work for you?”

“I think Samjogo-the-three-legged-bird is more of an honorary title,” said Young-hee.

“Most definitely
not
,” snorted Samjogo.

“Well, Ungnyeo the Bear called him a bear-son,” said Young-hee. “Maybe he has some mud-world human blood.”

“Fine. But we'll need something of yours for the lodestone. Do you have a hairband, too?”

“No, I'm afraid not,” said Samjogo. “Oh, but how about …” He fished through the pockets of his
jeogori
, and pulled out—well, Young-hee wasn't sure what—the remains of a dead, mangy rat, or something just as dreadful.

“What is that?” she asked.

“It's a good-luck charm from a fairy. I've carried it as long as I can imagine. And if it has protected me this long, it must have powerful fairy magic. What do you think, Mirinae? Fascinating?”

“Definitely not,” Mirinae scoffed. “It's not alive, is it?”

“No, just a faded memory.”

“All right. By now, it should carry some of your essence, but I don't detect any fairy magic, whatever you were told. It's too big, though.” Mirinae found a knife, and cut a small piece, then replaced Young-hee's hairband with Samjogo's charm. Satisfied, she handed the chioonchim to Samjogo. “Okay, keep that plane level.”