Chapter 10 — The Sorcerer And The Mother (6)

“Then, Brother — once you’ve gone inside, contact me at once.”
“…At once is too much. I’ll get in touch with you the day after tomorrow.”
“Lucas, you stupid bastard! Because of you I— I, you see—!”

Father Lucas bid Shin Hweein farewell with his usual gentle smile, the thoroughly drunken Sister Barbara slung across his back.

Right up until the man stepped out of the room, Hweein would have sworn the priest had been the heavier drinker of the two.
Who could have guessed it was the priest, and not the nun, who held the real taste for liquor.

“Surely you don’t intend to walk all the way to the cathedral like that?”
“I do, yes. It isn’t far, and a little night air may bring Sister Barbara back to her senses.”

Father Lucas normally recoiled from physical contact with any other woman, yet he carried Sister Barbara on his back without a flicker of unease.
Watching it, one couldn’t help but feel the bond between these two was anything but ordinary.

Come to think of it, the priest had once let slip something about Sister Barbara’s childhood.
Beyond any doubt, these two had known each other long before either of them ever became priest or nun…

“That reminds me, Father Lucas.”
“Yes, Brother.”

Shin Hweein checked once more.
Shin Myeongin had already left in the car the Shin House sent for her, and the Yun family, finished seeing everyone off, had gone back inside.

Only then did he ask, carefully.

“In the end, what was all that talk about Do Yumi becoming a nun?”
“Ah, it was a simple matter and I meant to explain later, but I never got around to it. Sister Do Yumi will be enrolled as an external affiliate of the Exorcist Sisterhood. After her baptism, she’ll be granted the status of an exorcist nun officially recognized by the Catholic Church.”
“So she is becoming a nun after all?”

Shin Hweein frowned, and Father Lucas let out a hearty laugh and shook his head.

“Haha, please don’t worry. There’s no need for Sister Do Yumi to make the trip out to the headquarters of the Exorcist Sisterhood in person, and frankly it’s no more than the issuing of an affiliate’s credential so she can operate alongside the cathedral. She won’t even be bound by the rule of the Sisterhood.”
“In that case… that is a relief.”
“To be honest, the Exorcist Sisterhood itself runs that way. It’s a body that takes on extraordinarily hard missions, after all. So long as one is devout, they’re rather lenient about everything else. I’ve even heard that romance is unrestricted. To drive out devils and spread the Lord’s will is itself the highest testimony of faith; there’s no need to prove one’s faith further by preserving one’s chastity.”

For all that, Sister Barbara didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in getting involved with any man.
So much so that even toward Father Lucas, the handsomest man Shin Hweein knew, all she ever did was snipe and bristle.

“Of course, if a sister wishes to marry, she has no choice but to leave the religious life. That’s why many do their work as exorcist nuns in their youth and return to lay life when they near retirement.”
“Is that so.”
“Ah, as you well know, our work is rather strenuous, isn’t it? Which means the active years aren’t very long. One can still marry at a pretty age! The Vatican itself rather likes to make a grand occasion of such weddings.”

For reasons Hweein couldn’t fathom, Father Lucas was earnestly extolling the virtues of being an exorcist nun to him.
It was as if, should anyone in Shin Hweein’s circle be hesitating to take the veil, the priest were strongly urging him to recommend it.

Who, then. Surely not Geum Moa?

“I’m— going to be an exorcist nun until you drop dead, Lucas—!”
“My, my. All right, Sister Barbara. I understand, so sleep peacefully now.”
“Call me Big Sis—.”
“…At any rate, this is what she’s like the moment she drinks.”

Even as Father Lucas’s lips formed a wry smile, the gaze he turned on Sister Barbara was nothing but warm.

Drunk as she was, Sister Barbara threw a tantrum at Father Lucas one moment, then the very next, when her headscarf threatened to slip out of place, deftly adjusted it back, drew in a heavy breath, and rested her head against his back.

Watching her, Shin Hweein suddenly realized something.

“She— could it be she became an exorcist nun in order to protect the priest?”

A relationship that stretched back to childhood.
Easy and unguarded with each other, yet showing no sign of a man-and-woman interest.

However devoted to religion either of them might be, with both of them so plainly a fine-looking young man and woman, it would take some particular reason for them not to be the least bit conscious of one another.
And unlike Father Lucas, Sister Barbara had nothing about her that resembled true faith, as though she had become a nun for some reason other than belief…

If that were so, then perhaps she had become an exorcist nun, from the very beginning, for Father Lucas’s sake.

…To protect her own blood, in other words.

“You’ve noticed, then. Well, there were a fair few hints, weren’t there?”
“What clinched it was just now. I caught it from the way she fussed over her hair so as not to let it show. …Her hair, too, it’s silver, isn’t it?”
“Sadly not. It’s a truly dazzling gold.”
“Hm?”

He had been certain the two of them shared the same hair color, and that even in her drunken state she’d been taking pains to hide it.
With his guess so completely off the mark, Shin Hweein was left in a daze, and the priest kindly explained.

“My hair was gold too, when I was little. People used to say that when she and I stood side by side, the pair of us looked like angels. She absolutely hated being treated as a matching set with me.”
“…I see.”
“But because of that incident, the one you also know about, Brother, I was the only one in the family whose hair was dyed silver. It was an uproar, no small one. It was very hard, and there were times I resented the Lord. But I… well, in the end, I came to sun-myeong.”

Sun-myeong.

The word meant obedience to a just command; used in a religious sense, it carried the meaning of accepting the will of God without resistance, a sense very close to the consummation of faith itself.
It was hardly a word a young man would speak lightly, but for Shin Hweein, who had a guess as to what the priest carried inside his body, the weight of it could be felt to the bone.

“For her, it seems, it didn’t come so easily. There were many incidents. There was a time my own head was shaved for me, and the opposite, when she shaved her own head. After she became an exorcist nun and was assigned beneath me, however, she has never once let her hair be seen.”
“A storm-and-stress phase.”
“She is still young, after all. Don’t you find it endearing?”

…Hm?

“Just now she called herself Big Sis.”
“No, I’m the elder. She’s three full years younger than me.”
“…”

Shin Hweein felt, in his bones, just how hard it was to gauge the age of young Westerners.
Honestly, if you put Father Lucas in a school uniform, Shin Hweein could see him passing for a student even now.

And to think she’s a full three years younger — yet she had the gall to insist I call her Big Sis.

Speechless, Shin Hweein was glaring at the sleeping Sister Barbara when the priest spoke to him in a confiding tone.

“How about it. Now that you’ve heard the story, don’t you feel a touch fonder of Sister Barbara?”
“Well, at least that pathological wariness of hers makes a bit more sense. She must be rather fond of her older brother.”
“So please, from now on, don’t be too cold with her. Treat her kindly. She bristles at you only because someone like you is unfamiliar to her, not because she hates you.”

Shin Hweein blinked once or twice, then replied.

“So what you’re saying is, by way of asking me to look out for your little sister, you’ve stood here on the street going on at length about your family circumstances?”
“Haha, well, we’re hardly strangers, are we? If she’s my little sister, then surely she’s family to you as well, Brother?”
“I truly do not understand what kind of relationship we are, in your mind…”

A short time later, Shin Hweein and Geum Moa passed safely into the wooded park where the Shin House’s family cemetery stood.

This mountain path, rising on the outskirts of the city, held the Ember-Blood Gate at its midpoint, and the family graves had been placed where they could spiritually guard that gate.
A fine spot for guarding the Ember-Blood Gate, yet put the other way, should any rampage ever break out here, every last tomb of the family would be wrecked along with it.
In a certain sense one could call it a final-stand formation, with no retreat behind.

“Aaah, honestly! I don’t know why more and more weird things keep cropping up around you, young master, I truly don’t!”
“Weird things?”

When he asked the reason for the sulking that had been going on for a while, Geum Moa stamped her foot with a look of deep indignation and shot back.

“That Yun House fellow, the priest, all of them! It’s as if they’ve been possessed by matchmakers, the way they keep trying to push women at you, young master!”
“Hm? …Was that what those were?”
“Of course they were!”

Grumbling on, her mouth never resting for a moment, Geum Moa nonetheless kept her hands busy, flinging sorceries in every direction.

Even to Shin Hweein’s eyes, and he prided himself on having learned a respectable amount of sorcery, he could make out nothing of what she was doing beyond the bare fact that she was slipping the sorceries through gaps in the Shin House’s barrier without being detected.

“The problem is that you’re far too capable, young master. Honestly. Not a hundredth, not a thousandth, not a ten-thousandth of your true power has yet been revealed, and they’re already making this much fuss. What am I supposed to do?”
“You exaggerate.”
“It isn’t exaggeration. Young master, how long has it been since your coming-of-age rite? How much have you grown in that time?”

The bright pouring moonlight seemed to be concentrating its beam upon them, as if to confirm their identities, and at a light wave of Geum Moa’s hand it scattered in all directions, opening several new paths.

Picking one of them, Geum Moa led Shin Hweein along.

Shin Hweein raised a hand to wave in greeting at the wild grasses swaying in the breeze, hesitating over whether or not to seize them, then lifted his head and answered her.

“Up until now, I’ve been lucky in many ways, and above all, I had the Indulgence, did I not?”
“As if just anyone could wield a thing on the order of the Indulgence. It’s an artifact that handles karma itself; only a genius like you, young master, could possibly manage it. I’ll wager that from here on your growth will only accelerate. Just regaining the power you once had would already make you strong, and now… the gift you’ve come into this time is nothing to scoff at either, is it?”
“Aye. The talent to perceive space, to construct formations, to lay barriers, the kind of talent any Barrier-Master would dream of… A talent far too good for the hands of that sort of fellow.”

But just as with Do Yuna’s unique sorcery when he acquired it, this remained no more than a foundational talent; he hadn’t been granted a finished ability.
And so, here on the very grounds where that talent might shine, Shin Hweein could do nothing.

“That you even know you can do nothing is already knowing a great deal, isn’t it? Before you came into the talent, you couldn’t even properly tell what sort of traps lay in wait on this mountain, could you?”
“That’s… yes, you’re right.”

When Geum Moa had had to say the words an exception to the Three-Year Pact just to bring him to this gravesite, Shin Hweein had not yet properly understood why.
But having come and seen, he understood.

There was nothing here that was not a trap, nothing that was not a sorcery.

The Shin House was devoting more strength than Shin Hweein had ever imagined to guarding the Ember-Blood Gate, and the family’s cemetery besides.

Moonlight, wild grasses, the wind on the air, the damp earth.
Every one of them watched and answered the situation of this mountain in real time, so that even Geum Moa, had she meant to cause a disturbance here, would not have broken through as easily as this.

“I had half a mind not to be surprised even if the head of the house were waiting at the grave for us.”
“Lt. General Yun was telling no lie, then. The atmosphere here is exquisite, truly.”
“At first you said you’d move on some day, when the Shin House was thoroughly distracted, didn’t you?”
“So I did.”

Shin Hweein nodded at her words.

What rose in his mind was the image of the Seo mother and son locked in their embrace.

“But after all, it seems I had to come today.”
“…Yes. Then there’s nothing to be done.”

As if she had read the feeling in his voice, Geum Moa answered in a far quieter tone, and presently her steps came to a halt.

“We’ve arrived.”
“…”

Just beside the place where he too would be buried when his father died, there stood the grave.

The headstone bore his mother’s name, and whether through regular tending or through sorcery, it was as it had always been: not a speck of dust on it, perfectly clean.

“Her Ladyship, it has been a long time.”

Bowing her head slightly toward the grave as though greeting someone living, Geum Moa set to work briskly.

She spread out a mat, set the table, and laid upon it the fruit and bread and other things she had brought.

“The fruit I understand, but why bread?”
“Her Ladyship was fond of it.”
“And this son didn’t even know that.”
“That’s because Her Ladyship would eat it in secret, lest you should happen to see, young master.”

In Shin Hweein’s childhood, anything made from flour had been the sort of thing one only got to taste in dreams.
And not flour-based foods alone.
Fatty meats, fried things, frozen treats, the many other sweet and salty foods…

He had tried to hide his cravings for such things, but it seemed his mother had known about them all.

A bitter smile gathered at the corners of his mouth.

She was no criminal — there was no need for her to eat them in hiding.

These days he could reinforce his stomach with spiritual power and manage to eat such things, but if he began venting his cravings that way, he felt he would start frittering away his spiritual power on more and more useless ends, so he had decided not even to entertain the thought.

Yet now, hearing that his mother had loved bread, he too was suddenly seized with a craving for it that was almost more than he could bear.
Perhaps it was because, in Do Yumi’s dream, he had eaten his fill of frozen treats, and the memory still lingered.

“If she loved it so, then I would like to try some as well.”
“Eat with me. There’s plenty of the other things to eat too.”
“Yes. Let’s.”

Shin Hweein removed his mask and tucked it into the front of his clothes, then entrusted his staff to Geum Moa.

He performed one full bow to his mother and was about to kneel again.

When, for some reason, his body refused to move as he wished.

It wasn’t that his body was weak.
It felt as though some pressure were being applied to him.

“…Mother, do you not wish to receive a second bow from me?”

Naturally, no answer came back from the grave.

But the pressure on his body did not lessen, so Shin Hweein let out a sigh and straightened from his knees.
At that, marvelously, the force that had been gripping him vanished.

“You were ever a person who disliked the thought of looking old, weren’t you. Of course you would. This son yields.”

Those who had possessed great sorcery-power in life would often, in the places they had dwelt or among the things they had used in daily life, leave behind something of their force or will in the form of a lingering thought.
The very reason the tomb had been placed close to the Ember-Blood Gate was so that the energies left in the ancestors’ remains could be used to suppress the Gate the more effectively.

So it was hardly strange that here, with his mother’s will still lingering, she would lay her stubborn refusal upon Shin Hweein.

“Young master, your face.”
“Ah.”

Even if it wasn’t the face of Shin Hae as printed on his identification, he had remembered to disguise his everyday true features as well.
And yet it seemed that, in the act of bowing to his mother, even that had come undone.

“How is it, seeing your son’s face after so long? Truth be told, a few of the shackles that have plagued me have fallen away, and I’m breathing a little easier these days.”
“What do you mean how is it. Her Ladyship, already the women are tormenting the young master, and I think I’m going to lose my mind. Please drive away those black-hearted women so they cannot loiter around the young master.”
“Hah. No matter how I look at it, you’d be first in that queue.”
“Tch.”

When Shin Hweein extended a hand toward Geum Moa, she shot him a glare but obediently produced, from inside her clothes, a tightly-sealed wine bottle and a cup.

He set the cup on the table, then undid the seal on the bottle and drew out the stopper, and a truly clear, sweet fragrance spread forth and wrapped around him.

“I may not know wine well, but I can tell at least that this is a fine wine.”
“It’s your birth-year wine, young master. You know the Purple Mist Wine brewed under the name of the Shin House, yes? This is the vintage from the year you were born.”
“…Purple Mist Wine. Yes.”

As one could tell from the name alone, purple-colored mist, this wine took its name from Purple Cloud, the shikigami that stood for the Shin House.
It was widely known, too, that Purple Cloud, having taken a fondness for the wine the Shin House brewed, had demanded that one bottle a year be set aside and offered to him.

“And so it is… it’s written here.”

Examining it closely, he found his birth-date inscribed on the lower portion of the bottle.

His father could be this attentive, and yet had, in spite of it all, treated him and his mother so.
The thought left Shin Hweein with more than one or two questions about the man…

For now, though, he resolved simply to receive the wine gratefully, and share a cup with his mother.

“Shall I pour for you?”
“No, I’m fine. My apologies.”
“It’s all right, you know? You and I can pick a day later on and drink it together, you know?”

When right to the end he gave her no opening to step in, Geum Moa grumbled, and at the sight of her, Shin Hweein smiled faintly, offered a cup first to his mother, then poured his own.

“Then… Mother. Thank you for bringing me into the world.”

After firmly reinforcing his stomach with spiritual power, just in case.

He turned his head slightly away from the tomb, and drained the cup in a single draught.

In that instant, Shin Hweein felt an energy poured down from the heavens pierce the crown of his head, pass through his heart, and burst at the level of his dantian.

Aah.

Eyes shut tight, he let a soft sigh escape him.

His lips had not yet been able to open.
He simply wished to feel, for even a little longer, the sensation of being one with the world.

It is as though I… have become nature itself.

His eyes opened wider.

His amplified senses drew up the spiritual power within him and stretched his awareness into regions it normally could not reach.

And there, drawing naturally into his sight, was his mother’s grave.

And… reaching out from it into the empty air, a thread.

“…Eh?”

The dazed sound had no sooner slipped out of him than everything returned to as it had been.

Thanks to drinking wine charged with such fine energy, his spiritual power had increased once again, but the sense of oneness with heaven and earth from a moment before was beyond any power of his to recover.

“What’s the matter, young master?”
“No, just now… from Mother’s grave.”

He started to say something, then closed his mouth.

Even to himself it sounded too absurd a claim to put into words.

Wondering whether he might reproduce that sensation by drinking more of the Purple Mist Wine, he raised the cup, and noticed all at once that there was a small slip of paper inside it.

“What in the world.”

In confusion he unfolded the slip, and found inside several lines of all-but-illegible sorcery-script.
Of it all, Shin Hweein could only barely make out the one word written at the very top: Sojy¹.

“My word. Could it be that Her Ladyship left behind a gift for the young master?”
“I wonder. She was hardly a person who enjoyed riddles…”

Letting out a sigh, he this time looked over at his mother’s cup.

There was no one who could have come and gone, and yet her cup was already cleanly emptied.