Guardian of Heaven and Earth
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New Yogo
Part 4 - The Flood
Chapter 5 - Thread of the Golden Spider
In the heart of the Misty Blue Mountains, there was an enormous tree that very few people had ever stood below. It was in a very inaccessible place. Its roots were deep; it had stood in this spot for many thousands of years.
Yogese magic weavers called this tree the Lord of the Misty Blue Mountains. It had thousands of branches, and the moss growing on its trunk was green and thick. Many mice, insects and birds made their home here. The Lord of the Misty Blue Mountains was like a forest unto itself.
A deep river flowed near the tree. Torogai swam there naked, spinning in circles. Pitted fruit and bird bones floated around her in the water. Torogai had spent five days here, living like a beast in the mountain forest. She dwelt near the Lord of the Misty Blue Mountains and drank of the water that touched its roots in order to absorb some of the great power of its spirit. Her master Norugai had taught her that she must drink only the water in order to absorb its energy in a pure state, but Torogai had eaten birds and fruit from the tree as well. Unlike her master, she needed more than water to sustain her life.
The Thread of the Golden Spider was very challenging for a magic weaver. That was why Norugai had kept it secret for so long. Torogai would need every scrap of strength to perform it successfully. Torogai felt like her old master ’ s eyes were upon her as she made her preparations.
Norugai had been an incredible magic weaver, but the energies she ’ d manipulated had finally exhausted her strength. She had died as a husk of herself, internal energies completely spent.
Torogai wasn ’ t afraid that the same thing would happen to her, though it seemed likely. Her one regret was that she might not be able to see Tanda, her favorite apprentice, ever again.
Torogai knew that Tanda was still alive somewhere. If he had died, his spirit would have visited her before passing into the next world. He was so kind and good to people--and he ’ d gone to war in his younger brother ’ s place.
Tanda wasn ’ t as serious about learning and using magic weaving as Shuga, but magic weaving had always been an integral part of his life.
Come back, my stupid apprentice. I haven ’ t taught you everything I know yet.
Torogai sighed. She would have to live through using the Thread of the Golden Spider if she was ever going to teach Tanda anything again.
After that, Torogai slept for most of the next three days. She passed that time spinning dreams of golden webs in the darkness of her mind.
The magic weaver Gashugai made sweet gruel in a pot over a fire. She added fruit and honey, then stirred it. She passed a serving of the gruel to a girl sitting next to her.
Gashugai had encountered this girl in a nearby village. When she ’ d told her parents she would need to borrow the girl for a few days, they had given her a sour expression. They needed her help with the rice planting; no hands could be spared. Gashugai had convinced them by telling them about the coming disaster, which their daughter could foresee. She had also saved the family ’ s eldest daughter from a deadly disease some years before.
Their youngest daughter was now twelve years old, and though her life was hard like the rest of her family ’ s, her parents were still happy not to have lost a child. They had permitted Gashugai to take their daughter to Mount Kochi and the river there. They had traveled through the forested mountains. Gashugai had started teaching the girl how to weave to pass the time. The girl liked weaving much better than doing field work. Traveling through the mountains at night was cold and lonely, but she never complained.
This morning was warm. Gashugai ladled some gruel into a bowl and ate it. The gruel was very sweet and warmed her all the way through.
Suddenly, the girl started shaking.
“ What ’ s wrong? ” Gashugai asked.
The girl turned to face her, but Gashugai got the sense that she was looking past her at something completely different. The bowl of gruel fell from the girl ’ s lap; she got on her knees on the ground.
“ Shaking! ” she cried out. “ The world is shaking! ”
Gashugai couldn ’ t feel anything. The fire where it burned was steady, and the ground was solid beneath his feet. The girl ducked and held herself on the ground, terrified.
“ It ’ s shaking! There ’ s a wave! It ’ s coming and it will swallow me up! ” She closed her eyes. “ I ’ m scared! ”
Gashugai wrapped her arms around the girl. “ Is Nayugu shaking? ” she asked.
The girl was drenched in cold sweat. She nodded. “ Everything is shaking, ” she said. “ It ’ s like...it ’ s like a pulse. ”
She was trembling all over. Gashugai finally started to feel something strange. The wind felt odd, like there was a storm blowing in from far away. But everything around her was completely still. The snow on the peaks of the mountains was still clear and white: it hadn ’ t melted yet.
“ What should we do? ” Gashugai muttered. “ Is this the beginning of the flood? ”
Should she send a sho yai--a white bird--to Torogai and tell her what was happening? Or would it be better to wait for a surer sign?
Then the snow on top of the mountains turned to mist and smoke, all at once. Gashugai sucked in a breath. “ The snow is melting, ” she said. “ It ’ s time. ”
Gashugai began chanting the words to form a sho yai. A white thread sprouted from her forehead and shaped itself into the form of a bird.
The snow was rapidly disappearing from the mountains. Everything was melting at an accelerated rate. Gashugai propelled her soul toward the Lord of the Misty Blue Mountains as fast as it would go.
Torogai was sleeping naked under the tree. Insects crawled all over her skin. There was a bird flying above her head. The beady little eyes of a squirrel fixed on Torogai; its tail swished.
The bird was bright white, trailing more light behind it. More joined it: two from the north, three from the east, and two from the west. She could hear Gashugai speaking.
“ The snow on Mount Kochi has melted. The river is starting to overflow. Nayugu is suffering a violent earthquake. The child with me who can see it is terrified. ”
“ The snow on Mount Okocha is gone! ” Orumugai ’ s voice sounded panicked. "The river ’ s current is violent and the water is rising rapidly. ”
“ I get it, ” Torogai said, sitting up. “ It ’ s time to put my soul to work. She hadn ’ t projected her soul yet, but she was already in terrible pain. Preparing to perform the Thread of the Golden Spider was a taxing process. She took an enormous gulp of the water from the river near the Lord of the Misty Blue Mountains and closed her eyes as the whole world started shaking around her. She felt Orumugai ’ s fear, and Gashugai ’ s, and her own swirling around inside her.
I need all my power now...
This was the hardest thing Torogai had ever done. She returned to sleep and had a dream.
In Torogai ’ s dream, she was a spider: an enormous spider that spun endless ells of golden thread. The thread attached to the living beings around her, sticky. Torogai kept spinning more thread, and more, expanding her golden net.
Torogai kept spinning thread until exhaustion, strengthening and thickening her net until it was like a sheer sheet of golden cloth.
Spread, my golden net. Spread, and spread farther...
The spirits caught in her net were enfolded in her power. The net glimmered with a bright spiritual light. Torogai felt her own energy being consumed as the golden light gently covered her. Her spider body grew monstrously in size. She heard her own voice in her ears, shouting: "Become birds of light! Fly, fly, fly to the villages!"
The golden thread of the net broke loose from Torogai and the spirits and shot as fast and straight as arrows toward the trees. The threads flew off in all directions; for a moment, it looked like another net was forming in the sky. The trees glowed gold when the thread touched them, just like the animal spirits. Over the mountains and up to the clouds, the thread of the golden spider extended everywhere.
When the threads finally stopped spreading out, they each transformed into a white bird that flew away.
Torogai experienced terrible pain as all the thread contained inside her spider form was expelled from her body. Her attention was fractured between all of the scenes that she'd sent out messages to: she could hear and see everything, although it was hard to concentrate on any one scene for very long. It was all Torogai could do not to scream as pieces of herself scattered all over New Yogo.
Gradually, Torogai's pain eased. She was able to take in more of her own surroundings and what was happening with the white messenger birds. The first thing she saw was a mountain stream near to overflowing with mud churning on its banks.
Hurry, hurry! She sent more birds to the villages nearest the river, since the people nearby didn't have much time to evacuate. Send word to the people washing clothes in the river, children playing, farmers digging ditches for irrigation, fishermen...
When the thread of the golden spider came into contact with the people nearest the river, Torogai screamed, " Run! Run! A flood is coming! Get out of the water and escape to higher ground!"
The people that heard her message fled as fast as they could toward their villages. Villagers gaped in astonishment at the pure white, magical birds that had come to warn them of danger. The golden threads spun by Torogai started disintegrating after all of the messages were sent. She was exhausted, but she kept spinning thread, as much as she could: her work wasn't done yet. She still had to warn the capital.
The fan shape of Kosenkyo spread out across her vision. She saw a tent erected in the foothills near the Imperial Palace and sent a thread there. The thread stuck to Shuga's forehead so that he heard Torogai's message to run.
Torogai wanted to keep warning more people, but she was at her limit. She couldn't send her soul flying any further. She allowed her spirit to drift back toward her body. If she remained in spirit form for much longer, her life could be in danger.
Torogai returned slowly to her senses. She couldn't see anything. She was on her back in mud in the darkness, taking shallow, panting breaths. With her last strength, she faced the tree called the Lord of the Misty Blue Mountains and licked its trunk. The sticky sap on the trunk melted down her throat, making her feel a bit steadier. She hadn't realized how close to death she'd actually been until this moment.
Before she drifted off to sleep again, Torogai envisioned the faces of her two apprentices. She smiled, then surrendered to the darkness surrounding her. She slept without waking for a long time.
Illustration: The Thread of the Golden Spider
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