Chapter 86 — The Realm Where the Dead Dwell
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
Shen Mu sat beneath the lantern, the jade pendant at his chest shedding a faint glow, still straining to float up, to fly off toward some far place. "Is this the Land of No Sorrow?
And if it is not, then where in the world is the Land of No Sorrow?
" The little boat drifted leisurely, and yet it did not go slowly; once aboard, Shen Mu had noticed that the skeletons paid them no heed at all, as though they could not see them. One mountain of skulls after another returned to normal, the skeletons seeming to lapse back into death, into a deep and utter stillness.
Shen Mu shook his head; the whole journey had been beyond all reason, things he would never once have dared imagine had come to pass, each one stranger than the last.
The demons in the dark, the underworld officers in the village by the river, the world within the gray mist, and now the little boat they rode and the skeleton boatman beneath his straw cape — all of it was so inconceivable, and yet it had all happened. And the world within the darkness of the Wasteland was not so simple as the Village Head had supposed.
The Village Head had taken it that a Dark Realm existed; now it seemed that a Dark Realm alone could not explain all they had seen and suffered. The Dark Realm might exist — and there might be more than the Dark Realm; perhaps other worlds dwelt within that darkness as well. "Village Head, who was that passenger who gave us the Fengdu coins?
" Shen Mu glanced back at the boatman and asked softly. "An old acquaintance. " The Village Head's face was calm.
"It has been a long time since I saw him, and I have heard no word of him.
I thought he was dead; I never looked for him to be alive. Those of us from that age who can still be living are all extraordinary men.
" Shen Mu was lost in wistful imagining: the Village Head's age must have been one that threw up champions in crowds, an age brilliant as a sky full of stars, and it must have begotten many a figure who shook heaven and earth, dazzling as the Village Head himself.
Only it was lamentable how time hurries a man into age; even one unmatched in his prime was, in his late years, bowed and frail, with little life left in him. "I never thought he would still be so restless, so fond of running about. How he came to run all the way here this time, I cannot guess.
" The Village Head smiled. "He is craftier than I am, and he has seen more of the mysteries. In truth I envy him — he lives freely, more lightly than I do.
Shen'er, you may well meet him. That fellow has no fixed dwelling; he loves to rush off wherever there is a bustle.
His name is Ling Jing.
He has a black mole under his left eye, and his right hand is missing a ring finger — I cut it off. " "Village Head, where will this boat carry us? " Shen Mu looked about them. They were already far from the entrance to that strange world, and the way they had come was no longer to be made out; drifting on like this, there was no telling where they would drift to.
And who was to say whether this place was even the Wasteland?
It might even be a world where the Wasteland was not. The Village Head frowned slightly.
It was Shen Mu's jade pendant that had drawn them here; he had lived in the Wasteland for so many years, and this was the first time he had met with anything so bizarre, come to any place so bizarre.
But since Shen Mu's jade pendant had brought them here, it must in all likelihood have some bearing on where the pendant came from.