THE VIRGIN OF CHEJU

By Hélène Lecuyer
helene-lec@ifrance.com



The Virgin of Cheju is my second Korean tale, but it's a stand-alone story. I wrote a third Korean tale and I'm planning on a fourth one. What else? It's a love story, and it involves an old guy...

Four months ago, I posted a story in French "La vierge de Cheju". Some suggested that I translated it into English. Et voila!

First of all, I would like to thanks Vi Moreau for her help. She gave a lot of her time to straighten this translation out. If it sounds good, it's thanks to her. What still sounds funny will be because of me!

Thanks also to Judith Hill who read the story and gave good advice so that the translation could be improved further.

LEGAL STUFF: Not mine. No money.

Comments? I beg for it!! Especially since this was double-work: writing then translating. If you like it, please tell me so I'll know the effort was worth it. And don't worry, Vi and Judith took care of my English, it should be much better than usual!

THE VIRGIN OF CHEJU - KOREAN TALE II

ABOARD THE SPARROWHAWK - OFF THE SOUTHERN SHORE OF CHEJU ISLAND - 1653

The storm raged along the shores of Cheju. But for the Dutch crew of the merchant ship held fast in the grip of the fierce storm, these shores were unknown and unnamed. A first typhoon had veered the heavy vessel off its course, and as the sailors, restless figures standing out against the sombre sky, battled ever higher waves and an ever more violent wind, the shore got dangerously close.

The ship's doctor paused to take in the scene, noting the seemingly disorganised, uncoordinated ballet of the men struggling with sails, ropes and buckets to keep the ship afloat. The sky darkened even more; the captain's shouts could no longer be heard. Suddenly, the mast broke and collapsed across the deck, taking with it a sailor whose screams were soon lost in the ocean's depths.

There was very little time left. The doctor went down to his cabin, gathered the few items he would need to give first aid to the survivors, then re-emerged on deck to wait for the inevitable collision. As the hull smashed itself on the rocks, he thought he saw in their crags, for the briefest instant, the form of a dragon. Water immediately engulfed the ship which, dragged down by the weight of its cargo, sank quickly towards oblivion.



BEACH ON THE SOUTHERN COAST OF CHEJU - 1657

The young woman faced the horizon. The last lights from the setting sun disappearing behind the cliff cast golden beams onto the surface of the sea and stretched her shadow all the way to the nearest waves dying on the sand.

She held her child close against her breast. She breathed in the smell of his hair, of the folds of his neck, the bittersweet mixture of milk and salt spray. The wind was blowing, whipping the mother's hair against the cheeks of the child, tickling him, making him giggle. She sheltered him from the cool of the evening, encircling him with her arms. Her gaze upon lands too far to be visible, she whispered her story into his ear, and the story of the man she had loved..



SOUTHERN SHORE OF CHEJU - 1653

The sun had risen upon the spectacle of desolation. The sea had disgorged the vessel's remains onto the shore: planks, ropes, shreds of sails. A few sailors walked up and down the beach, looking for their companions, dragging ashore the bodies of those who had not survived the terrible storm. The body of the doctor lay lifeless on the rocks. He was on his stomach, his head in a puddle, patches of dried blood visible through his torn clothes. Captain Hamel came close and turned the body onto his back. "Doctor Verspieren. Such bad luck," he said to the sailor with him. "He was needed to take care of the survivors. Let's leave him for the time being. He's safe here, for all the good it will do him."

The two men moved away, looking for survivors. As the first rays of the sun caressed the doctor's forehead, he drew in a deep breath and coughed, spitting out the seawater filling his lungs. <Of all the ways to awaken, reviving from drowning has to be the worst,> thought Methos as he was seized by a long and painful coughing fit. Grimacing, he sat up carefully and looked around him. Had anybody witnessed his death? Watching the two faraway figures of the captain and the sailor go in the opposite direction, it was very likely. He would move out of sight for a while and decide his next course of action.

"Here we are, gentlemen, we are 34 left. We will start by burying our dead. I will read the service as is fitting. Unfortunately our chaplain has not survived, God rest his soul. We will wait for a few days. Maybe the natives will have noticed the shipwreck. If nobody comes. Well, we will walk inland. My estimate is that we are not far from Japan. We may even have been tossed onto the shores of this mysterious Hermit Kingdom some merchants have spoken about on their return from the Far East."

Hidden within earshot of the Captain, Methos was still considering his options : rejoin the crew, and endure their incredulity, their suspicion or even downright hostile questioning - the reactions of his "contemporaries" to the "supernatural" sometimes proving dangerous - or go it alone, a choice that would preserve his secret but would lessen his chances of getting back to Europe... Well! He had all the time in the world, a change of air would do him good, and he reflected that if he had arrived on the shores of the Hermit Kingdom, as he believed, it would be interesting to see the changes a few centuries had brought to a civilisation that had fascinated him during his last visit. He turned his back on his ex-companions and, noiselessly, walked away under the cover of the thick bushes overgrowing the cliff.



CHEJU - IN THE FOOTHILLS OF MOUNT HALLA

The young girl walked towards the village. Dressed in sparkling white, she stood out among her female companions who wore coarse, ochre-colored robes. But she was doing her share of work by carrying a basket of oranges balanced on her head. She stumbled on a rock, losing her balance, and the contents of her basket spilled all over the roadway . Her voice full of laugher, she called out to her friends and bent over to pick up the fruit. As she extended her arm to pick up an orange that had rolled to the foot of a low stone wall, she looked up. Her eyes went round with surprise as they met those of Methos. Crouching in the bushes, he placed his forefinger across his lips in the universal gesture of a request for silence. Their gazes locked; for the space of a second everything seemed to stop around them. The buzz of insects, the herbs softly swaying in the breeze, the voices of the small departing troop. The young girl dropped her eyes.

Finally, she stood to leave. slowly at first. Then, raising her hand to her basket to balance it, she began to run. Methos, strangely moved, sighed as he watched her go. He picked up the forgotten orange, leaned up against the wall and removed the thick peel. Slipping the first segment between his lips, he crushed it with his tongue against his palate. The sour juice that filled his mouth felt like a kiss.

Methos had been wandering for three days across a plateau reminiscent of Scotland. Green and wooded mountains, swelling softly one after another, open pastures where small Mongol-like horses were grazing, a changing sky, where the wind more often than not challenged the humidity. It was summer ; as soon as the sun rose, the heat would become oppressive. The fields were enclosed by low walls, piles of rocks which looked as if someone had assembled them on purpose could be seen at times at a bend in the narrow road. The sounds of birdsong and the chirping of insects intermingled.

Methos, careful not to be seen as he walked, had stayed away from the villages, also with their surrounding stone walls, which were usually guarded at the entrance by a couple of stone statues, characters bigger than life with benign smiles, their hands crossed on their stomach, their heads topped by a round hat. He had quenched his thirst from the many water sources and had fed on fruit, roots and the small game he had been able to catch..

The sound of a large approaching troop had led him to hide in the tall bushes by the side of the road. From this vantage point he had watched the 34 survivors of the Sparrowhawk pass by, heavily guarded. The Dutch sailors were tethered one to another but did not seem mistreated. The soldiers accompanying them did not look hostile, just dutiful. Methos, standing perfectly still, waited for the sound of their last steps to vanish in the horizon before rising again. He pondered the fate of his comrades, glad that he would not share it, whatever it might be. He believed he had made the right decision. For him, surviving had always been and would always be a solitary affair.

The young girl had come to the stream to fetch water. Putting down her pitcher, she had pulled up her white dress, walking into the stream and standing in the middle of the current, feeling the water caress her feet and ankles. Her eyes closed, she seemed to be in communion with the elements around her.

The sun enveloped her in a bright aura. Methos could have sworn she was a nymph come down from Mount Olympus to enchant mortals. despite knowing there were no gods or goddesses on Mount Olympus, as he was older than those myths, and he was in fact a part of them.

The young girl picked up her pitcher and returned to the village, leaving droplets in her wake, droplets that Methos, his throat suddenly dry, longed to catch with his tongue. Who was she? Why was she dressed differently from the others? Why was she shown more respect than her female companions of her own age? His mind filled with questions, Methos walked back to the cave hidden in the gorge where he had found refuge.

For two weeks, Methos had watched the inhabitants of the village. Why had he chosen this particular village? He had to admit to himself, his meeting with the 'Young Girl with the Oranges', as he called her, had been the main factor in his decision to stop his quest here.

He had watched the girls as they tended their fields, as they bathed in the stream, as they rested in the shade of a tree, all of them clothed with the same coarse ochre-colored fabric, except for the young girl in white. He had listened to them talking, trying to link their dialect to one he knew. He recognised some Mongol words and others mixed with a Korean patois whose meaning he was sometimes able to decipher... He had now ascertained the rural and peaceful state of mind of the villagers, taking note of their isolation, as they did not receive any outside visitors. He still had to plan how to make his presence known, so that he could join their little community without having to share the misfortune of his latest companions. Maybe his medical knowledge would be an asset.

The child should not have been there. He was clinging to the bushes, attempting to climb the wall of the gorge. His foot slipped, sending a rock rolling. The branch broke under his weight and the child fell.

Methos was catching his supper in a river brimming with fish. On hearing the approaching footsteps, he had hidden in the bushes. Now he came out of his hiding place and approached the unconscious child. The boy had been lucky; only his leg was broken. He'd have many bruises but his pulse was strong and stable. As for the head. the open wound had bled and a lump the size of an egg was forming rapidly. However, Methos was confident that the skull was undamaged. As for any internal damages, there was nothing to do but wait. Methos picked up the still-unconscious child in his arms and carried him to the cave.

"Shinson saram eyo! Shinson saram eyo!"

"He's bringing Pa Suk-bin back!"

Methos could not understand the words the villagers were saying as he crossed the gate to enter the village, cradling the child in his arms. Their meaning was obvious, however: the fear of him, of his appearance, a giant with pale skin and a prominent nose, and the relief at the reappearance of the lost child. A woman with tears running down her face, obviously the mother, was rushing towards him. Ignoring her fear of the stranger, she had come close and was touching the limbs and hair of her son. Everyone, man, woman, child, stopped in his or her activities and gathered closely around him, observing Methos as he walked with the child. Eventually, they all quieted down.

Methos strode straight towards the one who looked to be the chief of this clan. He laid the child at the chieftain's feet, bowed deeply and, slowly, began to walk backwards. "Shinson saram ka an kaeyo!" The chief's loud, imperious tone stopped Methos in his tracks. "Kamsa hamnida. Thank you for bringing back my son."

Three months had passed since Methos' spectacular entry into the village. He was still the cause of astonishment, but commanded more and more respect and less and less fear. Many villagers had come to his cavern, which was now known to everyone, to consult him for twisted ankles, badly healing wounds, stomach aches. If he was not sure that his treatments had been responsible for the improvement of his patients' condition, at least none of them seemed to have suffered from his care . The worst that could happen to a healer, as he knew first hand, was to see one of his patients die. Faith in his talent could just as quickly turn into hostility towards the man who had brought bad spirits with him.

He progressed quickly in learning the local language ; the hundreds of dialects he had spoken in the past helped him. He knew he was on the island of Cheju, or "far province", the former kingdom of Tambulla, conquered by the kingdom of Kyoro more than seven centuries before, then settled by the Mongols for almost one hundred years. Here, as in the peninsula, Confucianism and Buddhism prevailed, but the first one was softened by the big part played by the women in the local markets, and the second one by the strong presence of the shamanist cult and its hundreds of local divinities.

Fall had come. The foothills of Mount Halla had turned into a huge blaze as the forests were tinted in reds and golds. The young girl with the oranges had now a name, Yonnais, but Methos felt a mystery surrounding her, a secret the villagers were not yet ready to unveil.

Yonnais was leaning against the wall of her parents' house. Like every house on the island, it was a low, doorless stone structure, with a thatched roof ballasted with stones to withstand the assaults of the wind. It was said that Cheju was the island with three items in abundance: stones, wind and women, and the lack of two: robbers and doors. Methos could vouch for the stones and the wind as he wandered over the tablelands of this volcanic island. As for the women. It seemed he could only see Yonnais, singing in a clear voice, hers hands demurely gathered on lap, her head slightly tipped to the side as she watched her young brother play. Their eyes met. Yonnais missed a note before looking away. He would have sworn she was as moved as he had been.

Methos was bathing in the stream. The icy water took his breath away. He lay on his back and, as an exercise in self-discipline, forced his muscles to relax in spite of the bite of the cold. His hair, mid-shoulder length, floated around him ; he stared far into the sky above him, his legs and arms open.

The sound of approaching footsteps made him turn his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he recognised the hem of Yonnais' white dress. He did not move. The footsteps stopped. He could feel the eyes of the young woman burning into him. He waited. The silence grew heavier, the sky bluer, the sounds sharper, accompanied by the rustling of leaves, the chirping of a bird, a twig breaking under the weight of an animal. He waited, feeling tension rise in him.

But the footsteps turned away and Yonnais left.

Methos became suddenly aware of the shivering spreading throughout his body. He stood up, his limbs numb, disappointed. but disappointed for what reason? What could he expect from a young virgin from Cheju? And what right had he to take her?

Yonnais lay dreaming. She dreamed of the pale Shinson, of his eyes, their color like deep-wood ferns, of his hands, so slender as they cared for the villagers. She dreamed of his mouth so expressive to her, so different from the round and impassive faces of her fellow countrymen. She dreamed of him as she had seen him while he bathed in the stream. Had he known she had watched him? She dreamed of him and she felt an emptiness, an emptiness for which she had no name, which she could not allow to be named. Her destiny was not at his side. Her duty lay elsewhere, deep in the lava cave of Manjaggul, with their serpent-god. Her virginity would be consecrated to it come the next solstice.

The first snowfall would soon come to Mount Halla. Villagers were busy preparing for winter. The crops had been stored inside, the cattle had been brought back from the pastures to the shelter of the meadow. The women were drying meat and fish, marinating the vegetables that would allow them to endure the coldest months without starving.

Tension was building inside the village; it was palpable, perceptible. Methos could swear that some festival was on the way, a festival from which he would be kept apart. He resolved to ask the chieftain. "What's going on, Pa Ch'ong? What is the ceremony the whole village is preparing for?"

Pa Ch'ong considered the foreigner for a while, a foreigner whom he had never had reason to doubt, who had a thousand times shown his trustworthiness. "We are preparing our sacrifice to the serpent-god. He shields us from illness and bad crops."

"Whom are you going to sacrifice?" Whom, and not what, for Methos felt, with a terrible certainty, that he already knew the answer.

"Yonnais has been chosen."

Methos would not have thought it possible for his throat to constrict even more. Yonnais, his Yonnais ! He had never touched her, yet he felt she belonged with him. His voice as neutral as possible, he asked for the details of the ceremony, the time and place, the rites of the sacrifice. And while Pa Ch'ong was giving him the requested answers, he felt himself swallowed in an endless vortex, which took him to the very bottom, to a world where only pain had a place. Hundred of times he had witnessed -in more ancient times even performed absurd sacrifices to deities who had always proved non-existent in the end, but never had he felt the horror flooding him as it did today. No! Not her! Not this time!

Methos remembered: The cherry trees blossoms scented the air of the Pongdok-sa temple. Priests and worshipers chanted the songs meant to guide the little virgin on her way to heaven. The mother, devastated with grief, wailed with long, harsh moans. Methos, unmoved, watched the scene. The child was thrown alive in the molten metal. Her last cry was, "Emi! Emi!"

How many times in the past had he watched, let the show go on? Women, men, children, as many useless and cruel acts, devoid of sense, or full of self-interest. But this time, for Yonnais, he would interfere.

The young girl had come to the stream to fetch water. Putting down her pitcher, she had pulled up her white dress, walking into the stream and standing in the middle of the current, feeling the water caressing her feet and ankles. Her eyes closed, she seemed to be in communion with the elements around her. The sun enveloped her in a bright aura.

Hidden in a bush, Methos observed her somberly. Silently, he approached her from behind and slipped his arm around her body, not brutally but firmly so that she could not get away. At the same time, he put his hand on her mouth to prevent her from calling out. She struggled for a short while, but ceased when she heard him speak her name. He strode away, carrying his precious burden as fast as he could, far from the murderous village.

She had asked him, "Why did you do that, Methos? Aren't you afraid that, my virginity taken, dishonored before my own people, I would be killed for failing in my duty?"

"One way or another, you would have died. It was a chance I had to take. And, to make love to you, even once." He had entangled his fingers in her ebony hair and, tilting her head back, he had kissed her.

Yonnais touched the wall of the cave and cried.

~~~~~~~~~~

Since it was a virgin the blood-thirsty serpent-god wanted, it could not be Yonnais, not anymore. The young girl slept, covered by the fur blanket, almost child-like in her peaceful sleep. By her feet, rolled into a ball, was the white dress that he now hated, that he had torn, that he did not ever want her to wear again.

"Where is Yonnais?" The chieftain's voice rose, fierce.

"She is with me," Methos' voice was calmer but as resolute and maybe more dangerous, realised Pa Ch'ong. Standing before him was not the healer who had shared his life with them for months but a warrior who had vanquished and would again vanquish numerous enemies.

"Give her back to us, Foreigner, she is not for you. She has always been intended to appease the serpent-god."

"Your god won't want her; she is no longer pure." With these words, Methos threw onto the ground the soiled white dress, as a symbol of innocence lost. The eyes of the villagers went round at the sight of this sacrilege. What would their Chieftain do? Pa Ch'ong paled visibly. The sacrifice was compromised, bringing the survival of the village into question. Bad crops, famines and mysterious epidemics would surely be their lot.

"I will fight the serpent," offered Methos. "I have supernatural powers that will allow me to defeat it." And, truth be told, what fate could he fear from a visit to the caves of Manjaggul?

"We accept your proposal, Foreigner," decreed the Chieftain. "If you defeat our god, you and Yonnais will be banished. She shall never come back to this land where she has no more father or mother, no family. If you lose this fight, then Yonnais will perish with you as we will offer her to the serpent-god as in expiation."

"Agreed," Methos nodded. It was another fight he did not intend to lose.

"You are so strong, so courageous, Verspieren!"

"Methos," he corrected her. "My name is Methos, not Vespieren."

Not understanding, she repeated, "Not Verspieren - Methos?"

"Yes, Methos. It's my name, I want you to call me by that name." He didn't say anything more. For the time being, he kept his secret but he wants no other lies between them. When would he reveal the truth - would he ever reveal it? He was not sure. He didn't want his woman mistaking him for a god, and he suspected such could be Yonnais' reaction.

He had loved so many women, but he had revealed everything to very few. It was not from lack of trust. It was just habit after many centuries of dissembling, hiding, vanishing - the best way to survive that he knew.

~~~~~~~~~~

At daybreak, Methos went into the lava caves of Manjuggul. The cave extended into the bowels of the earth, the villagers had said. He examined the cave, which was actually a kind of long tube, tall enough for him to easily stand. It was damp and cool. It was not possible to assess the length of the cave, so black and thick was the night a few meters only from the surface. Methos, holding his sword in one hand and his torch in the other, started inside. The ground was uneven but rather flat, the flame of his torch projected phantasmagoric shadows on the walls surrounding him, the silence was absolute but for the sound of the falling droplets formed by the humidity. All his senses were on alert as Methos advanced. He doubted he would find a god or even a serpent in this geological curiosity, but he wondered where the bones of the young girls who had been thrown to feed a mythical beast every year since the beginning of time had disappeared to. His heartbeat echoed in his ears; he felt the moistness on the palms of his hands.

An indistinct feeling of unease took hold of him. "Know your enemy. Avoid him." He was going against every principle he had.

Methos kept going for what seemed like an eternity, but for what was probably the time necessary to walk 700 or 800 meters. The tube formed a bend, and around this bend, Methos saw the light of a flame. "Look here, our serpent-god has mastered fire."

He now knew that he indeed had an enemy and that the enemy was human, not animal. Methos paused and put out his torch. <No need to warn the inhabitant of these premises about my presence.> He wiped his palms on his clothes, waited for a while for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, then, guided by the still faint glimmers of the fire ahead, he resumed his path.

After a few dozen meters, he felt the familiar sensation which some associated with pain and which heralded the presence of another one of his race. <So much for the unobtrusive arrival.> He shifted the hold on his sword and planted his feet firmly on the ground as he let calmness spread through him. An outsider would have believed him perfectly relaxed but for the weapon he was holding in front of him, ready to attack or to defend. But his eyes gave him away : they were reflecting death. And it was not his own.

~~~~~~~~~~

Almost five months after the shipwreck, after their captivity in the prison of Song-up, the 34 Dutch sailors, by order of King Yi, boarded the vessel that would bring them to Seoul. They had not been mistreated, but they had had no opportunity to escape either. A sailor sighed. He would most likely never see the tulips blossom again.

~~~~~~~~~~

Yonnais was hiding in the narrow opening that marked the entrance of Methos' cave, where he had left her. "Do not move from here whatever happens! You have enough to eat and drink until my return. Wait for me two days and two nights. Then, if I have not come back, go, go away from your village and never go back. Swear it."

"But I don't wish to live without you Methos . If you are not here for me, what do I care for a sacrifice, that, in any case."

"Swear it," Methos interrupted her. "Swear it, or I will worry for you and I need to have my mind free for confronting your god."

"I swear it, Methos," whispered Yonnais.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Pressing against the wall to merge with the darkness, Methos crept forward until he could make out the scene near the hearth. The giant, as he was, indeed, the tallest man Methos had ever seen, was sitting near the fireplace, completely naked. His morbidly pale body was covered with tatoos representing dozens of intertwined snakes. He swayed while chanting in a foreign and strange language. He seemed totally oblivious of the presence of another Immortal. Facing him, neatly arranged on the ground, the bones of a body. The man ceased his chant, grasped a tibia and seemed to converse with it. Methos swept the rest of the camp with his eyes. The tube of lava had widened, forming a room almost 20 meters wide and high.

In a corner, piled against a wall, hundreds, thousands of bones. Unwillingly, Methos shuddered. Who was this Immortal? What did he do with the young girls sacrificed to him? The man raised his head and Methos held back a cry of surprise. The creature only had one eye. A cyclops? Did these legendary creatures exist, far from the shores of Mediterranean, that had witnessed the birth of their myth? More likely a malformation from birth, Methos corrected himself, calling to his rescue the skepticism he had developed from having known so many civilisations, religions, superstitions. The skepticism that had allowed him to keep his head clear and to survive another day.

Methos examined once more the den of the Immortal, aided by the light of the flames. He did not see a sword, axe, or any instrument that would efficiently sever a head from the shoulders to which it was attached. But what intrigued him most was the behaviour of the giant, who did not seem to feel Methos' proximity. A trap? The impressive number of skeletons implied that this Immortal had haunted this cave for centuries. Methos could only guess at the giant's experience. The unnamed Immortal suddenly put his hand directly into the flames to rearrange the burning brands. His face did not betray pain, his arm tension or his hand haste. Was he deprived of the capacity to feel pain? That would explain his apparent indifference to the headache that had most likely surged with Methos' arrival.

Methos observed the man further. A giant, with arms and legs wide as a tree trunk, a man insensitive to pain, an Immortal whose age and experience he did not know. An adversary he would certainly not have chosen and who could prove difficult. Methos silently retreated to think of a plan.

~~~~~~~~~~

Yonnais waited. It had been almost a day since Methos' departure. To what god could she pray for his safe return? Had she not offended them all by refusing herself to the serpent-god? She felt suddenly cold in spite of her thick clothing. She went back inside the cave to the hearth.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Methos had retraced his steps to the lava tube entrance. He found a branch, tried its weight in his hand to feel its density and its balance. Then he carved it into the shape of a stake. Then he picked up another branch, and another, repeating his actions until he had five stakes in his possession. He slipped four into his belt, seized one in his hand, holding his sword with his other hand and, without torch this time, he went back inside the lava tube.

He progressed quickly ; he moved in complete silence. He paused when the tube formed a bend. He pressed against the wall and moved slowly towards the flames, until he could feel the presence of his enemy, until he could make out the features of his enemy's face. The immortal had not moved; he was still swaying near the hearth with the rhythm of his chant. Methos seized the stake with his right hand, preparing to throw it. "Hey!" he called out.

Surprised, the immortal raised his head. Methos threw the stake, impaling the single eye looking at him.

The stake had reached its mark. The Immortal did not double over with pain, he did not scream, he only raised his hand to his now-blinded eye. Methos did not stop to pounder on this confirmation of the absence of pain in the giant. He rushed towards him and, with a gesture made unerring and sure thanks to millennia of practice, he cut off the Immortal's head. It had not been a glorious fight, thought Methos. For that matter, it had not even been a fight but rather an execution. However, efficiency counted more than style, the end result more than honor. Life more than death.

Methos awaited the shock of the quickening, praying for the cave to be solid enough not to turn into a prison for the victorious Immortal. The quickening lashed him head-on. It seemed to ricochet on the walls of the cave, bursting noisily the huge mound of bones, bones that flew in every direction, breaking neatly, exploding into dust, a shower of skulls, teeth, ribs, tibias that fell down, bounced, knocking, hurting the arms, legs, trunk, the face of the victor. Methos could feel the cave entering into him, long, so long, stretching for kilometers, unknown words echoing in his head, the vision of virgins turned into meals making him bend and retch endlessly as the last remnants of the quickening left his body to disappear into the depths of the lava tube.

When everything was finished, he still did not move, trying to absorb everything he had lived for the space of a moment, the eternal repetition of a ritual, the monstrous existence of a cannibal Immortal who had been mistaken for a god and who could not even remember the light of day. He picked up the head by the hair and, staggering, he moved towards the exit, towards light, towards life. Towards Yonnais.

~~~~~~~~~~

Methos handed the head to Pa Ch'ong as proof of his success. The chieftain considered with mixed surprise and fear the god to whom he had sacrificed so many lives. Methos left, holding the still-bloody sword in his hand. He felt sick with this disturbing quickening that had invaded his whole body. Death was still present in his eyes, causing the villagers to step away from him in fear. He was unaware of his surroundings, and marched like an automaton as the bile continued to rise in his throat. He had at other times hurt, raped, tortured and killed others of his kind. There was irony in the fact that his memory was now haunted by the only truly unspeakable act he had never committed.

Methos walked on the tableland towards the valley where he had left Yonnais. The air of one of the last days of fall was cold and crisp, the world reduced to three colors : the pure blue of the sky, the grey of the volcanic rocks scattered on the ground, the green of the pastures already abandoned by the cattle. A magpie resting by the side of the path let out a loud shriek as he passed. With each step he took, Methos felt the weight on him alleviate, his nausea abate, the monstrous remembrances burying themselves in the depths of his mind. He thought of Yonnais, of her smile, of her round face, of her slender limbs, of her hair with its glint of blue, of the fragile joints of her ankles, of her breasts so small and so perfect. He was imagining the months, the years they would spend together. Loving a mortal was always so ephemeral, and so sweet and poignant for it.

As Methos walked, his mind was turned towards his dreams of happiness. He did not immediately see the troops of the Cheju province's governor, the same ones who had escorted the crew of the Sparrowhawk to their fate. When he saw them it was too late, there were too many of them, they were too well-armed, they were too close. He did not resist; it was futile as he knew it. Knowing it was unavoidable, he let them take him to the prison in Song-up. He thought of Yonnais, of the love which would stop there, in the Andok valley where he had left her, where he would not be able to go back. Ever. Or soon enough.



BEACH ON THE SOUTHERN COAST OF CHEJU - 1657

The young woman faced the horizon. The last lights from the setting sun disappearing behind the cliff cast golden beams onto the surface of the sea and stretched her shadow all the way to the nearest waves dying on the sand. She held her child close against her breast. She could breathe in the smell of his hair, of the folds of his neck, the bittersweet mixture of milk and salt spray. The wind was blowing, whipping the mother's hair against the cheeks of the child, tickling him, making him giggle.

She sheltered him from the cool of the evening, encircling him with her arms. Her gaze upon lands too far to be visible, she whispered her story into his ear, and the story of Methos whom she had loved for the duration of a summer and a fall, for the length of a night, before fate and the king's soldiers took him away from her.

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