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Wang Yeo moved around the room, lighting candles until the hall shimmered. For the millionth time, he pondered the strengths and weaknesses of his own magic. In a single second, he could snuff out every candle in the room. Yet, he had to use this long wooden match to light them all one by one. Sunny could snap her delicate fingers and they would burst bright into flame, all at once, and Kim Shin needed no candles; could make light from nothing, making the room glow as a meadow in sunshine.
This was the time they all met again, at the turn of a season. It was his turn to host, on this, the darkest, longest night of the year. Every solstice and equinox was sure to bring together the four small gods: the bringer of life, the curator of death, the light bearer, and the darkness of the soul. Each had their duties in this world; each needed the other. Yeo dreaded and dreamed of this day, each season, to meet them again, to bask in the life of the light ones and to have his sister in darkness stand with him in silent solidarity. To lose them, again and again, to another season.
As he stood contemplating the candle flame before him, the match burned down to his fingers, and Yeo dropped it, cursing, stomping on the little flame with his foot, never thinking to use his magic to extinguish it. Annoyed, he spun the ashes on the floor into a little whirlwind and deposited them into the trash can.
They wouldn't arrive for several hours yet. He looked at the table, spread with delicacies that they all loved; greens and sweet fruits for himself, thinly sliced beef and piquant sauces for Shin, crunchy snacks for Sunny, and hot coals under a grill for Eun Tak's favorite bulgogi, with bowls of meat nearby.
Yeo never could touch meat. Shin used to tease him about that - the death magic user not wanting to feed on death - but that was a long time ago, before their tentative friendship. Eun Tak never teased him; she always brought him his favorite fruits and never embarrassed him by apologizing for eating meat in front of him. Nor did Sunny tease him, but she never said much. Just her inscrutable looks and sighs that Yeo found both frustrating and delightful.
He left the room as it was - full of light and good food and anticipation of companionship - and went into the courtyard. He didn't need a doorway to travel like Shin did, but he didn't want to snuff out the candles he'd taken so much time to light. Pots full of nettles covered the courtyard. He could feel their life energy. Often, he wondered at the lot he'd drawn in this universe, where he should feel life so keenly and have only the power to snuff it out.
He made frivolous use of his magic only on rare occasions, and even taking the life of a nettle hurt him. Was it punishment for some terrible sin, to live so long and feel so much, to deliver lost souls through the dark paths with unerring direction but have his own path lost to him? To be bound in eternal orbit with the three others, season after season? He wondered if the others felt so lonely and so lost in their own solitary realms, both dreading and dreaming the turning of the seasons that brought them all into conjunction with one another, again and again.
Yeo wanted to walk the streets of Seoul for a while, feel the heartbeats around him, the passion and the sorrow and the petty jealousies and deep rages. The living, the human, felt so much. Yeo wondered, was I human once? Will I ever be human again? Could I ever... live? Live outside this never-ending circle, in a normal life, with love and hate and fear and anger and passion? A flicker, and the three nettles nearest him crumpled into dust, and he was in the midst of the city.
Snow fell, and a bitter cold wind blew his long black duster around his ankles. Yeo barely felt the cold. Shop windows glowed, some decorated for Christmas. People flitted in and out of shops and coffee houses and restaurants; friends shared food in tents here and there. Everyone talking, hurrying. He spied some ghosts hanging around one food tent, but they streamed away before he could cross the street to collect them. Never mind, they all came to him in the end, looking for their path. Or they found Eun Tak, and she led them to him.
Like Yeo himself, Eun Tak could make nothing of light, but she carried inside her self a deep and dazzling darkness full of wonder and yearning. It attracted the ghosts. They swarmed to her like bees to a hive. Of all the three others, he saw Eun Tak the most, because she often led lost souls to him. Of all the three others, she was the most like him, but the least in power. He worried for her. She was fading faster than the rest of them.
Someone bumped his shoulder, pushing him off the pavement. The man apologized hastily and was gone, but Yeo's skin burned from that slight contact. He hoped the man didn't suffer any ill effects from that brush with death magic. It couldn't be helped. It was part of him and couldn't be turned off. It was why he rarely walked among people anymore.
They hardly seemed to need him anymore - fewer lost souls each year, and when they met, Shin and Sunny spoke of feeling less needed, too. This thriving city, this world spiraling down into darkness - they either didn't need the magic of light and dark any longer, or they didn't know they needed it. Or they had forgotten balance. The world out of balance, faltering in the eternal dance, humans losing connection with their planet and with each other. Gods could only do so much, and then, only act within the limitations of the magic they had been given. By whom? Another, greater god? Who never spoke, who never reasoned why guardianship of this world had been given - forced upon - three beings in their own way weak and faltering?
Regretting getting caught up in reverie once again, Yeo shook his head. He looked around him and spied a street stall, lit up in colorful strings of lights. A woman in a red dress stared at him, and he felt his heart skip a beat, not from her beauty but from a sense of foreboding. Unable to help himself, he took two steps toward her, then found himself in front of her.
"You are looking for a gift?" she asked. "Or more than one, perhaps?"
Yeo shook his head.
"Very well," she said, not taking her eyes from him.
He looked at the shelves and the glass case in front of her. Tarot decks and charms and fortune sticks and other such things. Nothing that held his interest. He started to leave.
"Wait," she said. Lifting a deck of cards onto the counter between them, she laid out four cards face down. "These could be meant for you. Look and see."
Yeo almost turned to go, but after staring into her eyes, as deep as a field of stars, he simply nodded again.
She turned the first card. He gave it a cursory glance, figuring her for a common fortune teller, but did a double-take when a few small details on the card struck him. Three figures danced on a mountain peak in silhouette, naked under the face of a sun, with sharp, spiky rays. The sun had Shin's face, and the three figures were one male and two females.
"The dawn after the longest night," said the sorceress. For now, Yeo could feel her power pulsing alongside her life force. He wondered if she knew who he was, or if she merely sensed something more (or less) than human in him. "The sun holds truth, reveals truth. He can illuminate your path."
She turned the other card. This time, Yeo looked closely as soon as it was turned. Eun Tak's face stared out at him. She sat, clothed in starry robes, against a velvet darkness. In one up-turned palm, she held a skull; in the other, a flame. Above her head, a faceless sun. "The High Priestess," said the sorceress, "may draw aside the curtain. But you must wait with patience."
"I have been waiting my whole existence," Yeo replied. She inclined her head in acknowledgement and turned the next card.
It was Sunny, reclined on a divan, sparkling golden robes flowing to her feet, as if she were garbed in the sun itself. Leaves and vines and flowers flowed from her head instead of hair Behind her, three maple trees: one blazed with leaves as green as in high summer; one flaming with red leaves, and one bare and covered with snow. "The Empress is bountiful and gives with an open heart," said the sorceress. "She restores balance; she will give you strength."
"Turn the last card," Yeo said. A cold wind brushed his cheek and snow caught on his lashes. The awning above the stall rattled.
The sorceress tapped the card with a long nail, never taking her eyes off of Yeo, then turned it over gently. He already knew what the card would be.
Death, wearing Yeo's face, wearing his long leather duster. A dull sun shone over a doorway standing in the middle of a bleak field, the door just barely opened, as if in the act of opening. A maple leaf, frozen in its flight on an errant gust of wind, whisked by death, toward the opening door. Above the door, a weak yellow flame. "Death has the power of both endings and new beginnings," said the sorceress.
"I've only ever seen endings," said Yeo. The sorceress inclined her head, acknowledging without agreeing.
The wind suddenly howled down the city street, and snow stung his eyes and his face. He threw his arm up to ward it off, and just as suddenly, the wind settled. When he opened his eyes, the street stall was gone, and in a dusting of snow on the ground lay four cards: The Sun, The High Priestess, The Empress, and Death. He picked them up. Unwilling to take any life to see him home, he began the long, cold trudge back to his dwelling. The streets seemed darker. Perhaps the sorceress had held him in some thrall while time sped around him. He hoped he wasn't late to greet his guests.
They were waiting for him. Kim Shin, tall and regal. "We thought you stood us up, reaper," but his voice was tired and spiritless. Sunny merely looked at him with a little mysterious smile, her eyes feverishly bright. Eun Tak grinned and said heartily, "Annyeonghaseyo!" She looked thin and pale. He opened the door and let them in.
In the bright candle light, they greeted each other, and Eun Tak clapped her hands for joy over the charcoal brazier. Sunny took one of the crunchy snacks. Shin smacked Yeo on the back affectionately, and Yeo gave him a hang-dog look in return, which seemed to cheer Shin a little.
"What kept you?" Shin asked, while the women exchanged their greetings and little gifts.
"I met a sorceress," Yeo said.
"On purpose?"
"Why do you ask these ridiculous kinds of questions?"
"Because my questions delight you so."
Yeo laid out the cards on a nearby table. The two women drew near as well. Sunny touched the card with her face. Eun Tak stared for a moment, then turned to Yeo and asked, "What are these cards? Did you have them made?"
"He met a sorceress," Shin said. Eun Tak shivered.
"It is the longest, darkest night," Yeo said. "An ending, and a beginning."
Sunny took his hand. "Is it that time, then?" she asked. "We are all so tired."
"I always wonder," Eun Tak mused, "who we will be, and how we will find each other again, and whether we will get it right this time."
Shin's hands settled on Yeo's shoulders. Life flowed from Shin into Yeo. Bright Sunny to his right; dark Eun Tak to his left, holding his hands. They had been gods together, guardians, seasons, magicians, finders, soul chasers, life after life after life after life, undying, searching, finding everything but themselves. Maybe this time. This time, Yeo prayed. This time.
Shin's hands moved from Yeo's shoulders to his waist, then wrapped around him, holding him close, his breath in Yeo's ear, lips on his neck, death giving way to life, light and dark swirling around the four of them, and memory poured in, and they cried out together, remembering, reliving, regretting, reviving, forgiving.
The doorway opened, and the story began again, perhaps this time with a clearer, more balanced path to absolution.