God’s Child Chapters 6-10
Chapter 6
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Their three opinions were unanimous: catch the pigaigul. More precisely, Gudorn and Lu were willing. Chirico simply did not object.
“I need to prepare,” Gudorn said. Glaring at them both, he continued, “don’t pester me with questions. Just listen to me and do as you’re told.” That last part was aimed at Lu.
“I will!” Lu said aloud, and Chirico nodded lightly.
Gudorn first hurried to process the seven kabu that had been caught. He carefully peeled the skin, split the bodies, removed the internal organs, and sorted the meat into smaller pieces. He explained the meaning of the work in a timely manner, despite the fact that he said, “don’t pester me with questions.” He knew it would make Lu’s work smoother.
“We’ll need this on the river. I’m making the stomachs into a bladder.”
“Bladder?” Lu parroted back, but stopped the question there. They would find out sooner or later.
Gudorn’s explanation ended there. After the kabu were processed, peat was obtained from a nearby bog and used to make brick-like blocks. They were laid out on a raft of driftwood to dry efficiently in the sun.
The next step was to make fishing lines by twisting willow fibers. It was a laborious task.
“How much will we make?” Lu asked. Gudorn opened his hands and said, “one hundred” and then corrected himself. “Two hundred.”
The meticulous, monotonous process continued for six days. Gudorn nodded his head in satisfaction as he gazed at the swirling mounds of rope.
“Next.”
He retrieved a piece of wood that had been left near his paorun. It appeared to be just driftwood at first glance, but it was actually the keel of a canoe.
“I’ll have to make a few more.”
More driftwood was added to complete the keel for a canoe large enough for three people. The canoe was covered with kabu skin and took the shape of a boat.
“We’ll have to get some iron.”
The canoe was loaded with four or five days’ worth of provisions, and the three set out upriver.
“We’ll have to get some iron? What’s iron?” Lu quietly asked Chirico, who shook his head.
The canoe trip also served as a training exercise. The flow of the river was monotonous, and both Lu and Chirico quickly became accustomed to steering the small boat. The river was so large that they could not see the other side, but the water ebbed and flowed with precision. Taking advantage of the high tide, the boat’s speed increased significantly.
At noon, the surface of the river was only a dull brown. Though the sun did not set, the surface was lit by slanted sunlight in the morning and evening, undulating heavily with a golden color.
Three afternoons later, the object they were looking for appeared on the right bank of the river. It was a stranded ship that had run aground. It was about 30 meters long, with its bow facing downstream and its starboard side immersed in the current. When they pulled up to it in the canoe, they found that it was a military ship. Had it once patrolled this great river?
“It’s definitely a hunk of iron,” Chirico whispered to Lu.
The three men boarded the ship, Gudorn in the lead. When they reached the deck, they could see from the numerous bullet holes, large and small, that the end of this ship had been a terrible one.
Gudorn’s instructions were to find the necessary iron. They needed two pieces of iron material: a thick wire for the hooks used to catch a pigaigul, and a harpoon head for the killing blow. Gudorn gathered some other iron materials whose purpose was unknown, inspected them, and nodded.
“Let’s go back,” he said briefly and hurried them to the canoe.
The boat moved fast with the current. They would return to the campsite in two days.
“Were you on that thing?” Chirico asked Gudorn.
“Yes.” Gudorn nodded with no particular expression on his face. “I was a sailor.” He said that he had spent most of his twenties on a boat. “It was a civilian ship.” It seemed that he has traveled all over this world and thought about it often. “Green lizards, white beaches, blue serpents…” Gudorn looked away. “Then…the army came.”
They were getting closer to home. Gudorn had been born further inland, but was raised in this far northern land where the sun never set in summer and never rose in winter.
“I was glad to be alone in the middle of nowhere.”
His military service consisted of patrolling the coastal areas of this great river and its outlet. One day, the war situation changed and his ship was attacked. He was the only survivor.
“I was alone.”
He mourned his comrades in arms, but it was painful for him to stay with the ship. But even now, he had no desire to leave this place.
“Why not go back to where you were born?”
“I’m fine here.”
The conversation ended there, and the next day the three returned to the camp.
Gudorn’s arrangements were smooth. In a corner of the campsite, an improvised blast furnace was skillfully built with the unused iron and rocks they had brought back. The blocks of dried peat were set on fire. A bellows made of kabu leather sacks made a sound like the snorting of a sea animal, and air was pumped into the furnace.
The wire and iron pieces fed into the furnace quickly turned red, then were taken out and hammered into shape. Lu, holding his breath, let out a sigh of admiration. Once he knew what was going on, he could anticipate the result.
Steam rose violently as the hot metal was plunged into a water trough that had been prepared. It was pulled slowly out, its dark brown body sharpened with a hideous purpose. The other piece had a spindle-shaped body filled with a ferocious killing intent. The act was repeated until three huge hooks and two harpoon heads were completed. Their function did not require brilliance, but Lu lovingly brightened them with rough sand and a file.
The general preparations were complete. But Gudorn was cautious about the execution. He insisted on training for the operation, not only for himself and Lu, but also for Chirico. That extended to details of the food and equipment they brought along on the canoe. They rehearsed the first step of the action, from launching the canoe, baiting the pigaigul, the timing for changing the watch, to hunting down and retrieving the prey. How long would the operation continue, and where would it end?
“It’s better to be more careful about where you go than where you end up.”
In the repeated rehearsals, some things were added. For example, when prey was hooked, fishing line was to be released in time with the prey’s escape. They had prepared 200 fathoms of fishing line, but were dealing with a rare, big fish. Would that be enough?
The original plan was to attach a floating bladder made from the Kabu stomachs to the end of the fishing line. But if it was pulled it into the water and it came off, everything would go up in smoke. In order to keep track of the prey, even if the bladder came off, the fishing line needed to be longer. However, the amount that could be put on the canoe was already at its limit.
Chirico had an idea. “Let’s use parachute cloth.”
The fibers of parachute cloth were strong and had no bulk.
“Good idea.” It was immediately put into action.
“This will work well.” At Gudorn’s suggestion, they used some of the cloth to make a small sail. They also considered using Chirico’s gun to finish off the pigaigul. One swipe of the fish’s tail would smash the canoe, and the lives of the three men would be instantly swallowed by the cold water. However, Gudorn shook his head. “That’s no good.” He said firmly, “It’s not possible.” That’s not what it meant to challenge the pigaigul. Even if it was against God’s will…
The day had come to row the canoe out onto the big river. They had done enough training. The canoe had a small mast and an auxiliary float on the port side.
“Let’s get the pigaigul.”
“Yes!” Lu shouted and Chirico nodded lightly.
The canoe first headed upriver, taking advantage of the rising tide and tailwind. They went upstream for two days and did a “pokkan” in the middle of the river. Due to the available ropes, they had only one rod. At the end of the rope, they set three pieces of Kabu meat weighing about 10 kilograms. All three had hooks attached.
“All that’s left now is to wait.”
Gudorn lowered the sails and let the boat drift with the current of the river. All they could hear was the sound of the water slapping against the side. Every once in a while, a small fish would jump on the surface of the water. Birds circled above, but did not come down.
At the end of the first day, the rod hadn’t budged. “What about the rod?” Chirico asked.
“Just leave it.”
“When do we eat pigaigul?” Lu asked frankly,
“I don’t know, we’ll just leave it the way it is.”
Chirico tied the fishing line around his left hand. “I’ll stay awake,” he said. “Lu and Gudorn, get some sleep,” he said.
“Things will change later,” Gudorn said as he laid down in the boat.
“Lu, you should sleep too.”
“Yes.”
Lu followed Gudorn’s lead. Soon after, two sleepy voices, one big and one small, could be heard.
(This might be the first time…) Chirico thought.
I used to wake up in clouds of smoke and flashes of light. Breathing, sleeping, and eating were all part of battle. I didn’t even know what I was fighting for or why. We fired and were fired at without even thinking about such questions, and then the war suddenly came to an end.
(But it didn’t end there.)
Woodo, Kummen, Sunsa, Quent, and more…nowhere in my memories was there such peace and tranquility.
(I’ve never seen anything like this before…)
Chirico was in a melting pot of black water, black earth, and black clouds in the far northern summer when the sun never set. He continued to stare at the distant horizon.
Chapter 7
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“What’s happening?”
Chirico turned around to see Gudorn sitting up. Lu was still asleep.
“Nothing.” That was the only answer Chirico could give, since nothing had happened.
“Very well.”
Chirico untied the fishing line that was wrapped around his left hand and handed it to Gudorn. Once he handed over the rope, there was nothing he could do. But he wasn’t sleepy, either. He just laid down without saying a word.
The big river was flowing slowly. When Gudorn took over, nothing happened. They took turns twice during the night.
Eventually, the black horizon in the distance turned reddish, then golden yellow, and the short night began to fall. As soon as dawn broke, it did so with remarkable speed. Before they knew it, the morning was over. The rope remained wrapped around Chirico’s left hand, unchanged. Not a peep from the water.
Finally Lu woke up. “I’ll take over.” But nothing happened on Lu’s watch, either.
At noon, they took turns eating. The meal was dried kabu meat.
“Doesn’t the pigaigul eat?” Lu asked.
“I’d tell you, but I don’t know when,” Gudorn replied with a straight face.
Nothing happened for the rest of the day, but the sun descended and the evening got heavier. Chirico was holding the rope.
“What?” He felt something tugging lightly at it. He took it in both hands. He definitely felt something.
(What should I do?)
Chirico had never fished before. But he could surely feel something on the rope, like a rustle.
Seeing this, Gudorn asked, “What is it?”
“I feel something.”
Gudorn gently picked at the end of Chirico’s rope.
“Spanlu.”
“Spanlu?”
“Nothing to worry about.”
Eventually, the rustling at the end of the rope subsided. They felt nothing again. That was the end of the day. The night came, when the sun never set. A pair of stars appeared on either side of the night sky that had not yet darkened, but they still insisted on shining.
“It’s Abita and Miru.” Gudorn told Lu the story of stars everywhere in the universe.
The next morning Gudorn pulled up the rope.
“Look.”
The topmost chunk of meat had been eaten away, leaving the hook exposed around it.
“Spanlu ate it.”
Gudorn removed the uneaten chunks of meat from the hooks and replaced them all with fresh ones. He tossed the old meat into the river before returning the bait to the water.
“There’s more than just spanlu in this river,” he said, perhaps meaning that the meat would not be wasted.
At noon on that day, they passed the shore where they had set sail. Several river dolphins circled around the canoe as if they wanted to play, jumping from time to time.
Lu looked up and exclaimed, “Big!”
“Pigaigul is much bigger!” Gudorn’s voice was somewhat proud.
Beyond the gently flowing river, black clouds could be seen rising.
“Rain is coming.”
Gudorn’s prophecy soon came true. A raindrop that could have filled the circle between a thumb and forefinger dropped in, big enough to create a puddle in the bottom of the canoe.
“That–!!” Lu’s shout echoed, and he pointed at three clearly visible rainbows, like a bridge over the great river.
“What is that?”
“Rainbows.”
“Rainbows…beautiful!” It was Lu’s first rainbow.
“Let’s go over there!”
Lu took up the oar.
“What about the pigaigul?”
“We’ll catch it.”
“We can’t pull up the rope. We’ll just have to go with the flow.”
“I understand.” Lu agreed as he saw that the current was heading downstream toward the rainbows. But as the canoe approached, they faded and disappeared.
“The rainbow…is gone. When we got closer, it was gone.”
“That’s what rainbows do.”
“Why?”
“They’re cautious.”
“Why?”
“That’s how they are.”
“Why?”
Lu’s question was repeated many times, but no answer came back from either of them other than, “That’s the way it is.” And so the day ended.
The next morning, the canoe returned to its starting point with sails and oars.
“Are we going to start all over again?”
“That’s right.”
Once back at their home base, the three of them slept soundly. Then they selected the meat they would use as bait. They chose three types: fatty, lean, and offal.
Where should they be placed as bait? How would they be hooked? Would they even work? Could we just let the current take the canoe wherever it would go?
“Next time we’ll take this, too.” Gudorn pulled a leather bag from the pantry. “This is good…”
Gudorn opened the bag, which was tightly closed. A strange smell pervaded the area. He inserted a piece of dried meat into the leather bag and scooped out the contents, a dark brown sludge. He put it in his mouth and bit into the dried meat, munching and chewing,
“Yum!” he exclaimed with satisfaction. The strange thing was a kind of fermented food. Kabu meat and organs had been marinated in a special fungus and allowed to ferment. Perhaps it was a survival strategy to consume vitamins and minerals in this far northern land.
Gudorn held out the leather bag to Chirico. “Eat this and you won’t get sick. It’s Akvic. Try it.”
Chirico scooped it up with a piece of dried meat and put it in his mouth without hesitation. A shocking smell hit his nose, but as he bit into it, something that could be described as a nourishing taste gradually began permeating the tip of his tongue.
“So?” Gudorn asked, waiting for him to chew and swallow.
“It’s good.”
“That’s what I’m talking about.” Gudorn’s words made Chirico think Gudorn might have known he was in the Red Shoulder unit.
“Lu, try it.”
Gudorn held the leather bag out for Lu. Lu glanced at Chirico. When Chirico nodded, he grabbed the dried meat, scooped up the contents of the leather bag, and brought it to his mouth in one gulp.
“Do you like it?”
“It smells, but it’s good.”
Gudorn laughed loudly at that. “It’ll get better once you get used to it,” he said as he divided the Akvic into small portions for carrying.
The next day, at high tide, the three set out upriver again. When they came to the turnaround point, they lowered the sails and raised the oars.
“This time!” Gudorn exclaimed as he looked at the others and threw in the line. Seven days had passed since they had decided to catch the pigaigul. Still no pigaigul had been caught.
(Why are we fishing for pigaigul?) Chirico was thinking.
It was because Gudorn started talking about it when he saw Lu catching kabu.
(Why, Gudorn? Why did you bring this up?)
Chirico hadn’t objected to it, either.
(Did you really want to catch pigaigul?)
No, he just thought catching a pigaigul wasn’t a bad idea.
(Why didn’t he think it was a bad idea?)
Chirico didn’t think deeply about it, but Gudorn certainly had.
(Why did Gudorn think that?)
Chirico’s thoughts repeated themselves like the rising and falling of the river itself, without change.
(Did Gudorn want to catch a pigaigul, too? Did he want to do this someday? Has he ever done it in the past? He couldn’t do it alone, so was he motivated by the presence of Lu and me?)
Over the past three days, Chirico had learned that there were an endless number of different creatures lurking in this great river. They raised and lowered the hooks, and re-baited them. Each time, they learned more. It was only the pigaigul of which they had seen no sign. But none of them ever said anything about quitting.
(Gudorn would never quit) Chirico thought. But, (Lu hasn’t said anything either?) That was strange.
When it was Lu’s turn to hold the rope, he kept his eye on the rope and the water. When someone else took his place, he asked both Gudorn and Chirico, “What is this? What is that?” In the past three days, there had been two more rainstorms and two more rainbows. But already, Lu was no longer saying, “Let’s go over there.” He knew it would disappear eventually.
Another few days passed. There was still room for dried meat and Akvic. Eventually, it dawned on Chirico…Gudorn didn’t put it into words, but he knew that what they were doing was special. “Catching a pigaigul” was something special. So what did it mean to not be special? Not being special meant that you just got up in the morning, ate, and did whatever you needed or felt like doing, without thinking about anything special. Then time would pass naturally.
Then what would be special? It would be deciding, “I’m going to do this.” And once you made that decision, you wouldn’t be able to stop so easily.
Chapter 8
See the original post here
“I’ve been thinking…” Chirico began. “I think we’re missing something.”
Gudorn understood what Chirico was trying to say. “Maybe it’s not enough.”
“Not enough what?” Lu’s question was not answered. “Something’s wrong…the pigaigul won’t take the bait. Doesn’t he like it? Didn’t he notice it? Isn’t he hungry?” None of thm had a reasonable answer.
Another day of waiting passed. The evening came with heavy skies. The sun did not fully set, but the twinkling of a few stars announced the coming of night. It slowly darkened.
“Hmm!” Chirico, who was on rope duty, twisted around and looked back. Lu was scooping up brownish sludge from a leather bag with a piece of dried meat. “That’s it!”
“It smells, but it’s good!” Lu replied as he bit into it.
“Akvic.” Gudorn nodded in agreement as Chirico’s voice roused him from the bottom of the boat. Chirico hurried to pull up the hook.
“Maybe it’s worth a try.”
“Possibly,” Gudorn agreed. He threw the old bait from the salvaged hooks into the river and covered a new hunk of meat with as much Akvic as he could find.
“That smell…”
“Yum!”
Chirico dropped the line back into the water and the three of them stared at it with great anticipation. The effect was immediate. One after another, the fishing line kept taking hits. Each time, they asked Gudorn, “What was that?” Each time, Gudorn shook his head.
“It’s not a pigaigul,” he said.
Lu couldn’t wait to see how many hits they would get.
“Let’s raise it,” Lu urged again and again, but Gudorn kept shaking his head. The three of them imagined the shadows of fish, large and small, swarming around the bait. And a huge shadow looming behind the fish. Then the shadow would open its mouth and swallow all the bait, along with the school of fish…
And then…finally, the time had come for imagination to become reality. Lu was holding the line. He enjoyed the continuous tingling on his fingertips as he sang, “Smelly, but good. Good, but smelly. Smelly is good. Good, but smelly.”
Then came a thud.
The next moment, the fishing line popped off Lu’s finger and began to spin into the water, scraping the side of the boat.
“Waaah!”
Gudorn held him back. “Don’t touch it. You’ll get hurt.”
“Aren’t we going to grab it?” Lu asked as they watched the rope disappear into the water.
“No, not yet…”
With a third of the rope left, he saw that the rope was slowing down and urged Lu to jump on it.
“Now.”
Lu jumped on the rope, and his body was pulled sharply to the port side as he grabbed it. Just as he was about to be pulled into the water, Chirico held him in place.
“Loosen the rope!”
The rope was burning Lu’s palm. Chirico held Lu with his left hand and grabbed the rope with his right hand. The rope, which was still being pulled, suddenly came to a halt. Behind them was Gudorn, who was holding the end of the rope.
“Pigaigul?” Lu asked as he pushed both feet against the edge of the boat. Chirico looked back at Gudorn.
“Maybe,” he said, testing the tension of the rope.
All three of them felt the weight of the monster in their palms. The rope, which had been stopped by the three of them, was being stretched between the monster and the boat. The boat slowly began to move, pulled by a force different from the current.
“It’s pulling the boat. Amazing!” Lu’s eyes widened. After a few days of living on board, he realized how much effort it took to move the boat. He looked at the taut rope. “The speed is increasing!”
“Let it out,” Gudorn said cautiously.
The three of them slowly unspooled what was left of the rope. If they cut it, this would be over. The rope slackened just as it was nearing its end. The loosening came suddenly. They felt no response at al.
“Pull it in!” The three of them pulled together, feeling the fear that the rope could break at any moment. After they had taken as much back as they could, they suddenly felt a pull that yanked them forward. It was in the opposite direction.
The three of them continued to hold the rope taut, narrowly avoiding capsizing. The tugs, which were scraping the edge of the boat, scorched their palms.
“He’s not giving up!” Gudorn’s words were right. There was no mercy in the tugging.
Chirico urged Gudorn to make a decision. “There’s nothing left!”
“Don’t try to stop it. You’ll be killed!” The bladder tied to the end of the rope was yanked into the river and started to be pulled away. It was tied to a string of unraveled parachute cloth.
“This is what we want.” The string was reeling out without showing any sign of ending.
“All right.” Gudorn grabbed an oar. Chirico and Lu followed suit. Nothing was visible on the dimly lit surface of the river, but they were connected to the underwater monster by a thin but strong string.
“Now we’re in a race,” Chirico said.
“That’s right,” Gudorn answered.
The pulling stopped a few minutes later. The boat continued forward, eventually catching up with the floating bladder.
“This is where the endurance contest begins.” Gudorn kept the boat moving, following the bladder.
The monster swam upriver for a full day and night. At dawn it changed direction and began its descent toward the mouth of the river. It did not stop swimming even at noon.
“We can’t afford to get caught in the middle,” Gudorn remarked.
“I guess so,” Chirico agreed, “But pigaigul is the master of the river, isn’t he?”
“Maybe so, but…” Gudorn knew everything about land, though. “The rats and mice in this land are voracious, but they don’t like fish.” He laughed.
“Why?” Lu asked.
“Fish smell awful,” he responded quickly.
“They taste good, but they smell.”
“Hahahaha, that’s right. Let’s try and surprise it this time.”
For the first time in a long time, laughter returned to the ship. The bladder they had been tracking came to a halt and began to move upstream.
“It’s changing direction.”
After a short chase, Gudorn checked the sun overhead and said, “Time to start. Instead of pulling the bladder, let’s see it pull a boat.”
Gudorn paddled the boat up to the bladder and hauled it up. He ran them through the procedure: one of the three would hold the rope while the other two rested to conserve their strength. When the beast got tired and floated up, the three of them would finish it off in one fell swoop.
“I understand,” Lu said. “Chirico and Gudorn, get some sleep. I’ll take first watch.”
They could feel his enthusiasm.
“We’ll leave it to you,” Chirico said. “I’ll take the second watch.”
“I’ll take the third.”
The two older men immediately laid down on the bottom of the boat. In times like this, there was nothing better than an impromptu rest. It would help the team in the end. Chirico spotted a sliver of wandering clouds out of the corner of his eye before closing it. The whiteness remained in his closed eyes.
Lu focused his full attention on his palms. He kept his eyes on the rope that stretched from the surface of the river to his hands, determined not to allow any slack.
(I’m going to catch it!)
Despite spending several days in the cramped boat, he did not feel the slightest bit tired. His senses were sharpened and his body was full of energy.
(I won’t let it get away.)
There was a monster at the other end of this string. It was connected to a pigaigul, which could take down a kabu in one gulp. The string was pulled with a creaking sound. Lu knowingly let the rope out a little. If he got impatient and applied more pressure than necessary, the rope might break.
(And that’s the last we’ll see of it.)
Lu knew this all too well from his experience of the past few days.
(But don’t let it go slack, either.)
If they loosened it, they were allowing the monster to rest. Lu did not feel sorry for the monster they were chasing. It would eventually reveal itself to them. With all his might, Lu would drive a harpoon into its huge body, which could swallow a kabu whole. Just imagining that image got his blood boiling.
(I’m not going to let him get away, I’m not going to let him get away!)
The rope in his hand began to slip. He wrapped it around both his hands. It was heavy! Lu put both feet against the edge of the boat and held on. The intense friction scraped his skin, but he thought, “Don’t cut it!”
A spray of blood soaked the side of the boat.
“Unnnng!”
Lu pulled desperately on the rope and it stopped running. He gripped the rope with one hand and opened his palm to check the depth of the wound. As he looked at the wound, he suddenly felt as if the pigaigul was asking his name.
“Lu,” he answered after a pause. “I was also called ‘child’…but I prefer Lu,” he added.
Chapter 9
See the original post here
Lu twisted the rope around his back and passed it through his side, avoiding the wound in his palm. Then he muttered, “I’ll give you a name too.” After thinking about it, he said, “Pig. It’s Pig. You’re Pig from now on.” He said this out loud, imagining it being conveyed to Pig through the rope.
(Pig, I can’t wait to meet you.)
Lu hadn’t called out to anyone but Chirico and Gudorn since he came here. There were urgun, grantsua, and kabu, but they did not have names. The first being other than Chirico and Gudorn to have a name was Pig.
(Pig, show yourself soon!)
Lu put his heart into it and used his own weight to pull on the rope. It didn’t budge. Pig was still in the river. Lu wondered where he was going, and what he wanted to do. Pig continued to swim with the boat in tow.
Chirico tapped on Lu’s shoulder. “I’ll take over. How’s it going?”
Lu answered with a shake of his head.
“Pig is still the same.”
“Pig?”
“Yes.” Lu handed Chirico the rope. “I gave him a name. He seems to like it.”
Chirico nodded. “I see,” was all he said. He put the rope around his left elbow and grasped it with his right palm.
“Pig…” Lu was about to say something. “I’ll take care of Pig. Go to sleep,” Chirico said, and turned his back on Lu.
During Chirico’s watch, nothing changed. Soon Gudorn said, “Let’s change” and took over. More time passed without further change.
“How’s Pig?” Lu’s voice came from behind him.
“Pig?” Gudorn asked, turning around.
“Yes. How’s Pig?”
Gudorn shook his head and handed over the rope. “This guy…Pig…is incredibly strong.
Lu agreed and put the rope behind his back. The watch changed from Lu to Chirico, then Chirico to Gudorn, and back to Lu. No one could remember how many times the rope had changed hands. The sky was heavy and the sun was descending in the west.
“It stopped!” Lu shouted. “Pig has stopped!”
Indeed, the boat had stopped, as if anchored in the middle of the great river. In other words, Pig the pigaigul had stopped at the bottom of the river.
“It’s about to begin.”
“What is he doing?”
“I guess he’s resting.”
“Well, then…”
“We can’t let him.” Gudorn motioned for them to take the oars.
“Are we going to pull the rope this time?”
“No, we’ll let the river do the work.”
Gudorn’s instructions were simply for each of them to hold out an oar vertically in the water. The oars were subjected to the pressure of the river current, which was transmitted to the rope.
“This way, he won’t be able to relax.”
The second round of the race had begun. But this round was not in Pig’s favor. The pressure on the ropes wouldn’t last forever, but it was still a waiting game. While waiting, they slowly took up the rope. The angle of the rope between Pig and the boat became sharper and sharper, which would only make it more difficult for Pig.
Soon, the light grew wider on the horizon that could not be called a horizon. Another day was dawning.
Lu tried to read the meaning of the tremors in the rope. “Pig is saying something.”
“He’s complaining.”
“Is he suffering?”
“Yes, he’s in pain.”
“Suffering.” Lu ruminated on the word. “Pig is suffering.” Lu gasped as he said it, as if suffering the same pain.
Gudorn looked into Lu’s face. “Do you want to let him go?”
Lu shook his head vigorously. “I want to see Pig!” he exclaimed, pulling the rope as hard as he could. As if in response, the rope was subjected to a tremendous force. The angle of the rope became shallower and shallower.
“It’s rising!” Gudorn shouted, and at the same time the surface of the river exploded, less than 50 meters away. A huge round object broke the tip of the spray and rose as if to punch through the sky.
“Pig!!”
Its body was exposed about five meters above the surface of the water, and its tail was underwater.
“Grab the rope!” Gudorn said, and the three men jumped on the rope. “Keep him up!”
The giant body fell sideways and hit the river surface, then immediately started to dive. The rope ran, scraping the palms of the three men.
“Don’t let him get away!” Gudorn instructed.
“Pig–!!” Lu cried out and hung on with both feet planted on the port side. Neither Gudorn nor Chirico loosened their grip. As if their intentions were understood, the far end of the rope began to rise.
“Come out!”
As soon as they thought that, it broke the surface of the water at an angle. It began to run along the surface of the river, its huge body undulating. The impact was so strong that the hull spun in its wake.
“Hang on!” Gudorn instructed. Neither Lu nor Chirico released the pressure. The ship barely escaped capsizing, and blood sprayed from their palms.
Then came the third round of the contest. Pig towed the boat, jumped, and dove, but could no longer sustain either.
“It’s almost time,” Gudorn said.
“Almost?” Lu parroted in return.
“It’s almost settled.”
“Settled? It will be settled.” Lu looked back at Chirico.
Chirico’s instincts, honed in the thick of battle, read Pig’s mind. “That’s what our opponent Pig thinks, too.”
Days before, the three of them had decided to catch the pigaigul. He had been the reigning king of this river for 300 years. He would have thought that no one would dare to stand against him. But he was caught off guard.
The thin but strong rope that connected him with his opponents connected one life to another. One of them had even given him a name. His name was Pig. He said, “Pig.” For some reason, he liked the name. The voice of the person who called out to him was young. There were two more people on the boat, but it didn’t matter. He was the king on this river. The past few days had not been dull, but he was tiring of it. Like the others, he wanted to settle this.
“If you fall into the water, that will be the end,” Gudorn told them. The water in this great northern river was cold. If they fell in, their body temperature would be assimilated into the river and they would die in only a few minutes.
“This battle is nearly won!” Gudorn’s ambition was showing. “Don’t let up!”
All three clutched their respective prey. At the same time, Pig seemed to have caught on, and changed his swimming style.
“Pig is circling the boat!”
“He wants to catch us!”
“Pig is motivated!”
If that huge body rammed into them, the small boat would be smashed to pieces, and there was nothing they could do about it.
“Come on, Pig!” Lu shouted with his harpoon at the ready.
As if that were a signal, a black mass resembling a small mountain began to rush toward the boat. The distance was only a hundred meters. The width of Pig’s head was at least twice that of the boat.
“Get them ready!” Gudorn shouted, and the tips of the three harpoons were focused on the head of the rushing Pig.
“Whoah!”
Pig leaped, and his huge body passed over the heads of the three people as they screamed silently. Their small mast was broken off.
“It dodged the harpoons!?”
Over Pig’s long lifetime, he may have remembered his battles with humans.
“He knows how to fight!” Gudorn shouted.
Pig narrowed his circle, looking for an opening.
“It’s coming back!”
The tips of the harpoons were aligned as it charged again. But, Lu’s shout of “It’s diving!” was drowned out by the sound of Pig scraping the bottom of the boat. A section was breached, and water seeped in.
“If that happens again, we’ll be killed!”
As Chirico predicted, Pig began another charge.
“Protect the boat!” The three men thrust their harpoons into the water. Pig saw their intention, and slipped through just below the tips.
“What will he do next?” Gudorn wondered.
“He dove again!”
Pig disappeared. He wasn’t pulling on the rope, so he was still close by.
“From below!” Chirico jumped at the oars.
Gudorn peeked over the side of the boat, his face just above the water.
“Oh, no!” he exclaimed.
Chirico pushed the oar as hard as he could. The bow turned 90 degrees. A black, pillar-like object burst up just off the bow and disappeared into the water with a heavy splash.
“What–?” Chirico asked, letting go of the oar.
A piece of rope was swinging in Lu’s hand. “I cut the rope,” he said.
“Did you let him escape?”
“Pig doesn’t run away”
“Yes,” both Gudorn and Chirico agreed. “That’s right.”
Lu did not want to leave Pig with the burden of losing, no matter how this battle was resolved.
“Now we’re really in for it,” Gudorn said.
“Pig agrees.”
Lu reasserted his grip on the harpoon.
Chapter 10
See the original post here
It had come down to the wire. All three of them thought so. The back-and-forth battle continued with both sides attacking and defending. The Arctic sun was directly overhead. And then…
“What is that!?” Chirico pointed to the far side of the big river. Gudorn squinted.
“Rain!” The horizon of the great river was swelling up. “Rain is coming so hard we won’t be able to see a thing!”
The hull strained from repeated Pig attacks, and water spurted constantly from the bottom of the ship.
“Not good.” Chirico looked at the approaching thunderclouds.
“We can’t last through that,” Gudorn said.
“What’s going to happen?” Lu asked.
“The rain from above and the flooding from below will sink the ship,” Chirico replied.
The conundrum would literally rain down on top of Pig’s attack.
“It’s coming!” Gudorn warned.
Pig’s charge was visible. The three men aligned the tips of their harpoons. The charging black mass sank in front of them. They could feel the pressure in their palms and arms as Pig scraped past. At the same time, an impact struck from under the boat. Pig knew that even if he was slightly injured, it would not be fatal.
The flooding was steadily increasing. If a torrential downpour hit from above, the game would be over. A sharp light flashed through the approaching black clouds and a loud noise shook the air.
“Thunder!”
More fear ran through Chirico’s mind. Lightning could strike on both flat ground and the surface of the water, but in either case the probability that it would strike a protusion was just slightly higher. In this big river…
(We are the protrusion.)
In the midst of the battle with Pig, they could be hit by lightning. As soon as he had that thought, the first drop of the rainstorm hit like a stone.
(The ship will sink!)
The situation was desperate. Would the ship sink? Or would Pig charge them? Or would they be struck by lightning?
“Lu, give it to me!” Chirico snatched the harpoon from Lu’s hand.
“What are you doing⁉?”
He didn’t answer, but instead inverted Lu’s harpoon and tied it to his own. Through the cascading rain that obscured his vision, he heard Gudorn’s voice.
“It’s coming!”
Chirico stood on the edge of the boat with his harpoon, which now had spears at both ends. At the same time, there was a flash of lightning and a roar at close range! The silhouette of Chirico holding his harpoon stood out clearly in the downpour.
Pig’s charge gouged the bottom of the ship. Chirico’s arm released the harpoon toward the passing Pig under the water. It felt true. The tip of the harpoon disappeared underwater, then rose up again through the surface. The harpoon was embedded deep into Pig’s back, near the head, standing upright. Pig and the harpoon disappeared into the thick curtain of rain. A moment passed, then the whole area was filled with white.
The three rose from the waterlogged bottom of the boat. The rain, thunder, and black clouds had moved away. They scooped water out of the boat for a while in silence.
“Where’s Pig?” Lu eventually asked out of the blue.
There was no answer from either Gudorn or Chirico.
“Let’s go back,” Gudorn said,
“Agreed,” Chirico answered.
The three men set to work repairing the badly damaged boat. They mended the bottom, tightened a loose keel, and rebuilt the mast.
In between, Gudorn asked, “Didn’t you think you were going to fall?”
“It would have turned out the same whether I fell or not.”
“Ha ha ha, that’s true.”
Even if he had, they would have been blown off the boat by Pig, or sunk to the bottom by the torrential rain and flooding, or been struck by lightning.
“But still…” Gudorn swallowed his words. But his heart was full of thoughts.
(We could have done it!)
If only lightning had struck a little earlier…
(Chirico would have fallen.)
Chirico, standing on top of the boat, was the most prominent object in the area at that moment. Furthermore, there was no doubt that the harpoon that pierced Pig was like a lightning rod, attracting strikes. If Pig hadn’t been so far from the boat, it would have been hit by electric shocks. Lightning also travels on the surface of the water.
The boat was near the mouth of the river, so the return trip would take two or three days.
On the way back, Lu asked, “Is Pig dead?”
“I don’t know…”
Further on, Lu muttered, “I wonder what happened to Pig…” But he wasn’t looking for an answer.
At noon on the third day, the three returned to the place where they had launched the boat.
“What shall we do with it?” Chirico asked.
“It doesn’t look good,” Gudorn said, and suggested that they dismantle it.
Lu helped by peeling the skin off the hull from the keel.
“Hmm?” Chirico looked up. He thought he heard a strange, artificial sound that did not fit in this land. Then, it appeared.
“The army!” As Gudorn pointed it out, an aircraft showed its markings, circled, and then left.
Chirico slipped off the leather cloth that covered his orange pilot’s suit. “It was Gilgameth.”
The three of them carried lumber, skins, rope, and other items that had been in the boat back to camp. Chirico listened carefully and looked at the far horizon from time to time, but sensed nothing unusual,
Upon their return to camp, the three gathered at Gudorn’s paorun. It was the first peaceful meal they’d had in a long time.
Lu let out an unintentional sound as he bit into a piece of fresh meat they had taken out of permafrost storage. “Good! Pig liked Akvic.”
Gudorn nodded in satisfaction. “You’re hooked on it.”
The three of them reminisced about the past few days. The great river, the rain, the rainbows, the spanlu, the pale stars…and Pig.
“I wonder what happened to Pig…”
Gudorn replied to Lu’s murmur. “Pig was the master of the river…and now he’s turned into the river. He’s become the river”
“Become the river? What do you mean?”
When Gudorn didn’t answer, Lu directed the question at Chirico.
“What does it mean to become a river?”
Chirico answered, “Well… I don’t know how to say it…” He searched for words. “Pig was originally part of the river, but it became the river itself.”
“The river itself…then Pig is the king of the river after all.”
The two nodded in agreement with Lu’s conclusion. The three of them fell into a deep, dreamless sleep that night.
Autumn arrived in the far north. The season of harvest everywhere. Even in the desolate land where nothing but lichen and bushes could be seen, nature’s bounty came.
“Sweet!” Lu’s eyes lit up as he popped a purple berry into his mouth.
“You like it?”
“Yes. So sweet!”
Sweetness was precious in this northern land.
“Eat as much as you can.”
Gudorn suddenly nudged Lu back.
“Watch out for grantsua,” he said.
“Is there a grantsua?”
Chirico, following behind Lu, stopped in his tracks.
“Grantsua can also be startled,” Gudorn said with a laugh. Sometimes they were so engrossed in eating that they didn’t even notice something approaching. The grantsua were basically omnivores, and their diet changed with the seasons. “They’re not so scary now. They just get in the way.”
Gudorn gathered the purple gems into a basket he had brought with him. Lu and Chirico helped. Lu’s mouth was stained purple.
“Kabu!”
A herd of Kabu passed over the hills in the distance. But this time, Lu did not automatically say, “Let’s catch it!”
Night had returned to the sky. Night was glorious in the far north.
“Aurora borealis.”
“Aurora?”
Its light poured down from the sky, sometimes like a heavy curtain, at other times like a noblewoman’s gown, curling in the wind.
“It’s beautiful!” Lu’s silhouette, looking up at the sky, had the suppleness of a fawn. He had taken on the shape of a boy.
“Is that…” Gudorn finally spoke up with the question he has been keeping in the bottom of his heart for a long time. “Is that…your home?”
Chirico shook his head silently. “We’re just ordinary men.”
It had been almost two months since they had met Gudorn.
“You are no ordinary men.” Gudorn pointed toward his chest. “When we met, he was much smaller.”
Lu’s growth was not only physical. His intelligence and sensitivity were also extraordinary.
“He is not normal.”
Gudorn’s words made Chirico realize that they would soon part.
To Be Continued