“Understood.” Tashishi shrugged as if it were nothing.
The commotion of the last ten-odd seconds vanished with astonishing speed. The so-called emperor must truly have arrived. Da-on lowered his head, his legs shaking. His thoughts wouldn’t settle in the suddenness of it all.
“Hold on, he said.” Tashishi had already stabbed him in the back once, but with no one else to trust, Da-on had to bet on him. Even now, doubting his own ears, Da-on hung his head like a loser among the crowd. He felt cornered like a criminal though he had done nothing wrong. Sweat dampened his palms.
Silence fell over the hall; only anxious breathing echoed. It seemed he wasn’t the only one sweating here.
Creak — a door opened at the hall’s innermost end. A tiny sound, but everyone gathered must have heard it. Thud, thud. Heavy, slow footsteps echoed through the whole hall. The footsteps sounded like a war drum. His heart pounded with each of the emperor’s steps, bruising his ribs from inside. Da-on chewed his lip and crumpled the veil in his hands. Then, at some point, the footsteps stopped short.
“……”
Cold sweat rolled down his spine. Da-on squeezed his eyes shut, letting out a ragged breath. His dizzy mind went blank in an instant. With his head down he couldn’t make out the situation. The footsteps had stopped, but no other sound came.
Not daring even to lift his head, Da-on only rolled his eyes — when a thunderous greeting erupted all at once.
“We greet our lord beneath the sun!”
Everyone cried out as one, as if rehearsed. Some signal Da-on didn’t know must have passed. At the ringing cry, Da-on clutched the veil nearly to tearing. He felt the thin cloth give way and tear in his hand.
“You’ve all been well?”
After the thunderous greeting, the emperor spoke. His arrogant-sounding voice was slow and heavy like his footsteps. The moment he heard it, Da-on’s fingers twitched. A sense of déjà vu. What? It sounded so familiar…
“Let’s see. Many new faces this year.” The emperor paused, then continued. “…And one who won’t show his face.”
“Fuck, that’s me?” Da-on sucked in a breath and trembled. It was obviously him. Who else would keep their head buried with the emperor here? He hadn’t thought these flashy clothes would let him go unnoticed, but being singled out made his heart drop. Eyes drilled into the back of his bowed head. Feeling the prickling stares, Da-on exhaled deeply. No backing out now.
Da-on calmed his racing heart and slowly lifted his head. He had been hunched so long the blood rushed to his face, turning it red. Holding his spinning head, he looked toward the hall’s center, where the emperor stood.
And in that moment, Da-on had no choice but to recognize the source of that déjà vu.
“……!”
Burning red eyes gazed at him unwaveringly. For a moment he fancied the pupils truly flickered like flames. Atar. Da-on’s lips moved on their own, forming the name of the man — no, the emperor.
Atar, reading Da-on’s lips, grinned. His wide grin held both cruelty and mischief.
Why was he here? “He must just look like him,” he thought first. It made no sense. The man who had climbed a spire to show him the view was the same as the tyrant of the ghost stories? People could be two-faced, but this was multiple personalities.
But betraying Da-on’s hope, Atar laid a hand on his own solar plexus. He lowered his hand slowly, reenacting what he had done at the spire — as if to drive the point home: “I did this to you yesterday. Remember?” At Atar’s smirk, Da-on’s hope crumbled.
Unlike Da-on’s seat, the emperor’s throne was high and imposing. The difference in height forced Da-on to crane his neck upward. Atar looking down, Da-on looking up. That difference of gaze laid bare their positions.
After staring at Da-on a long while, as if gauging his reaction, Atar turned his gaze away.
“No need to delay further. I’m most eager to see what tributes will please me this year.” Everyone bustled at once. Each delegation checked over their prepared tributes. The gathered delegations all thought the same thing: “He’ll just reject most of the tributes with that bored face — eager, right.”
Atar raised a hand and silenced the busy hall. Rubbing his thumb and forefinger of the raised hand, he said, “This time I’ll receive the tributes a little differently.” The rubbing finger straightened and pointed directly at Da-on. “Aruna Principality. I’ve heard you’ve prepared a very special gift.”
“Yes!” The moment Atar finished, the Aruna delegation sprang up. As if rehearsed, they lifted the high-piled tributes all at once.
“Uh—” Flustered, Da-on shrank back. Then Tashishi seized his wrist and dragged him. Forced to his feet, Da-on was dragged before the emperor. Da-on shook off Tashishi’s hand in fright, but he was already standing in the middle of the hall.
“Is this really happening? No — this is real?” In this absurd trafficking scene, Da-on felt dizzy. The one thing keeping him from bolting was the memory of Atar’s rather gentle face yesterday. For having spent only a day together, Da-on’s trust in Atar ran deep. Atar now looked like a completely different person from yesterday, but first impressions didn’t fade so easily.
Da-on looked up at Atar desperately. Atar, who had been staring holes into him just moments ago, now wouldn’t meet his eyes. Faced with Atar’s stubbornly closed mouth, Tashishi stepped forward.
“We greet our lord beneath the sun.” Tashishi knelt and bowed before the emperor. Atar nodded curtly in acknowledgment. Tashishi rose naturally and began describing the tribute.
“These are dried filefish, caught in Aruna’s southern seas. Prepared with a technique used only in Aruna, dried fifteen times…”
“Enough.” As Tashishi rambled on, Atar’s face grew visibly bored. Atar waved a hand, cutting him off. “The preamble is long. I assume you know why I called on you first.”
“Of course.” Tashishi smiled confidently and shoved Da-on’s back. The dazed Da-on snapped alert.
“W-wait a moment?!” Shoved forward, Da-on went white. He lifted his head like a drowning man looking for rescue, and Atar’s heavy gaze was waiting for him. Tashishi spoke, pushing Da-on forward.
“Your Majesty, the gift of the goddess I told you of!”
“Oh? He looks like an ordinary human.” Atar raised an eyebrow with apparent interest at Tashishi’s cry.
“Gift of the goddess” was absurd enough, but Atar — acting as if he had never seen Da-on before — was even more ridiculous. Hadn’t they chatted until sunset yesterday? Atar was playing the stranger again, after just sending a signal only Da-on would understand.
A gift of the goddess, of all things. The shocking tribute made the hall murmur. Offering people as gifts was common. But no one dared invoke the goddess’s name so carelessly. One wrong word and your head rolled for blasphemy.
“This man walked straight up to us out of the death desert — the Corax Hills, the most barren of them all! Even with our narrow experience, we knew at once he was no ordinary man! No ‘ordinary human’ could cross that place alive!” Tashishi cried out in an exaggerated, theatrical tone.
“I, Tashishi, prayed every day for a year, resolved to present a gift that would satisfy His Majesty this year! The goddess Anais heard this humble man’s prayers, and prepared a gift for His Majesty, the sun of the empire!” At Tashishi’s claims, Da-on’s jaw dropped. No wonder he hadn’t asked Da-on a thing — he was writing his own fiction.
Da-on looked up at Atar desperately, shaking his head hard. His forearm was grabbed painfully hard. It was Tashishi.
“…So we gave this man the name ‘Corax’ and resolved to present him to Your Majesty. No — ‘present’ is the wrong word. He was always yours to begin with; we trust Your Majesty will take him in.”
Atar’s eyes narrowed. He tapped his throne with his fingers. “Crossing the hills barehanded is quite the mystery. But words are just words. Anyone can spin such a tale.”
“We will also present to Your Majesty the belongings Corax brought when he appeared in this world.” As if he had predicted even that doubt, Tashishi played his next card. Da-on clutched his head, looking back and forth between them in confusion.
“C-Corax is me right now, right?” “We even introduced ourselves!” He clearly remembered telling his name, but Tashishi had apparently never cared what Da-on’s name was.
“Your Majesty. The items Corax brought from the divine realm.”
“What—!” Two members knelt before Atar bearing a luxurious offering tray. Da-on blanched at the sight of what lay on the tray. His padded jacket and belongings lay there, every last one. They had taken him in planning this all along. No wonder they had never returned the jacket.
Atar rose from his seat and descended a few steps himself. Several members sucked in a breath at the emperor examining tribute in person. Atar picked through the tray, took a black wallet, and returned to his seat. He turned the wallet over in his hands and spoke.
“What’s this inside? Looks like currency.”
“Ah, me? Yes. It is…” Atar pulled out the one-thousand-won bills — there were only a couple — and asked. Not realizing the question was for him, Da-on nodded a beat late. Atar held a bill to the light and murmured in admiration.
“Oh? Quite intricate.”
The emperor didn’t stop at the bills. A cheap exam-pass amulet, a café business card full of stamps, a resident registration card shining like new — Atar rummaged through the wallet for a long while. After staring at the ID photo, Atar beckoned to Da-on.
“Me?” Da-on asked stupidly, pointing at himself. Atar answered with a frown instead.
Yikes. Da-on stepped forward hesitantly, reading the mood. Eyes flew at him from all sides as he approached the emperor. The throne stood high, overlooking the hall. He had to climb half a flight of stairs. Da-on broke out in cold sweat, already the center of attention.
“Mountains upon mountains…” The marble stairs were so smooth they might have been glass. He wouldn’t have known it was marble if not for the occasional gray line. Da-on placed each foot carefully so as not to slip. His knees creaked; one careless moment and he’d make an ugly fool of himself.
Atar’s eyes narrowed as he watched. Da-on moved awkwardly, like a man in ill-fitting clothes. Atar’s lips curved faintly.
Just as Da-on reached the last step, his body was yanked forward.
“Ah!” Atar, tired of Da-on’s dragging reluctance, had reached out. His knees buckled and his shin slammed into the stair’s edge. He grimaced at the dull pain.
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