Colin Cotterill - Thirty-Three Teeth

He followed close on the bare heels of the old man. They walked along a tunnel lit by scattering fireflies until they arrived at a small cavern, which was illuminated from above. Somehow, natural light filtered down through crevices in the rock, even though they must have been deep into the mountain.

The hollow was littered with scavenged refuse; cans and bottles, flotsam from the river, piles of rescued royal street signs, cloths of various hues and patterns, bleached animal bones, and piles of indescribable rubbish, all meticulously cleaned.

Tik scooped a half coconut on the end of a stick into a pool and handed the water to Siri, who took a sip. It was curiously effervescent, quite delicious as water went. It gave him a slight thrill and he decided not to drink too much of it. He hadn’t come looking for excitement.

Tik sat cross-legged on the floor and stared at his guest. He was a man who didn’t waste time creeping up on the point. “I feel you should be dead.”

Siri joined him on the ground. “How could you know?”

“How could I not? How could I miss the incredible force you drag behind you? A powerful shaman and a wild pack of angry spirits could hardly arrive in Luang Prabang without my knowing. Tell me. Begin with this morning.”

Siri related the events leading up to his death: the sound, the stupa closing around him, and the feeling of being dragged below the earth. He told him how he knew beyond a whisper of a doubt that he was dead. Tik gave an admiring chuckle.

“Ahh. They’re devious, the Phibob. Those from the south especially so. Yeh Ming has obviously made some powerful enemies over the past thousand years.”

In two hands he took up a large square tin with the words Huntly and Palmer Biscuits printed on the front and slowly began to circle it clockwise in front of him. Something inside seemed to be rolling around.

“Then you don’t think this is just revenge for my helping the soldiers cutting the forest in Khamuan?” Siri asked.

“Goodness me, no. Yeh Ming has been exorcising malevolent spirits for many centuries. He has a sizeable opposition in the spirit world.”

“And this morning was an attempt to get even?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”

The tin was rotating faster, and Tik muttered an incantation under his breath before turning it upside down on the earth floor. He pulled it away like a child hoping to see a completed sandcastle. Instead, Siri noticed a broken egg, some small bones, and a slither of animal entrails. Tik studied them.

“In a way, Yeh Ming is in his twilight era. Perhaps that’s why he’s chosen such an unimpressive host.”

“Thank you.”

“He has been dormant for a while, am I right?”

“Apart from the dreams, I didn’t know he existed until last year.”

“And recently, certain abilities have awoken in you?”

“Yes.”

“That is what has alerted the Phibob. You should never have taken him back to Khamuan. There were too many memories there, too much hostile spirit activity. The Phibob have the scent now. It’s like the wildcat who senses that the deer is wounded. They won’t settle until they have destroyed Yeh Ming’s final temple.”

“Where’s that?”

“Not where, who. You are the temple in which he has chosen to end his centuries.”

“Oh shit. Why?”

Tik looked up from the reading.

“What do you know of your father?”

“Not a damned thing.”

“Your birth father was Lao Heu, a renowned Hmong shaman and a direct descendent of Yeh Ming. Before you, he had hosted the soul. Between them, they put together a … how can I put it? Tbey put together a retirement plan, and you were it.”

Siri’s mind was spinning. After seventy-two years, he suddenly had a father and a history. He wasn’t sure he really wanted to know. Ignorance had served him well enough all those years.

“I don’t …”

“As soon as you were born, a ceremony was held to make Yeh Ming your guardian spirit. Naturally, that put you in a very dangerous situation. They sent you away from your home so you wouldn’t suspect you had a connection with the spirit world. Not knowing and not pursuing witchcraft was the insurance policy that kept you and Yeh Ming safe.

“The life of the soul is cyclical. If left to its own devices, it would never end. You would have carried it, then it would have passed on to another. But Yeh Ming had caused something unheard of in the world beyond. He had created an enemy of the Phibob that over the years became powerful in its own right.

“It was dangerous and needed to be destroyed. As it was created out of revenge for Yeh Ming, the only way to stop the Phibob was to end the reign of your guardian. It was hoped you would go through your life as a simple man, never calling on the great shaman to perform. It was hoped you would achieve a nonviolent death and allow Yeh Ming to crumble peacefully with his temple.”

“How do you know all this?”

“The details I see here in the bones and the entrails, but the story is already folklore.” “I’m a legend?”

“Don’t be conceited. It is Yeh Ming who is the legend.”

“How did I cheat death this morning?”

“Good fortune-or, more accurately, good karma. The Phibob cannot inflict direct harm. No one is physically struck down by an evil spirit. But they are able to get into your mind. There are many unexplained deaths, usually of men in their sleep without plausible cause. This is the mischief of the malevolent spirits.

“The Phibob can convince a sleeping person he has died. This morning they dragged your mind below the earth, confined you inside a stupa. It was so real, so convincing that your subconscious was certain you could no longer breathe. Once your mind has lost that battle, there is no point in your body continuing to function. It shuts down in defeat. Dastardly clever.”

“So, how …?”

Tik used a chicken bone to draw a line of yolk from the egg to the intestines.

“You had performed a selfless act earlier in the day.”

Siri thought back.

“The elephant?”

“Its soul wished to repay your kindness. The spirit of the elephant is a thing of marvel. The Lord Buddha said ‘Of all footprints, that of the elephant is supreme.”‘

“It kept me breathing?”

“It reminded you to start again. That and the golden Buddha beneath which you slept. I doubt the Elephant God could have saved you alone.”

“I was actually dead. I know it.”

“Welcome back. You appear to have a second sunrise.”

“What can I do to keep the Phibob from doing me in again?”

“That’s more complicated. To do their damage, they need a trigger. Is there something that symbolizes them to you?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“A black amulet. They used it to get to me. It was destroyed in Khamuan, then re-emerged in Vientiane, whole.”

“It certainly wasn’t the same one.”

“It was.”

“Oh, in your mind it may have been. But if you had asked someone else to describe what they saw, it would not have been a black amulet.”

Siri’s thoughts raced back to the day of the date, to Lah and to the gift. Was it possible she’d given him something else? Was the amulet in the box a mirage the Phibob had put there? He felt foolish.

“And you saw it again here?” Tik asked.

“I felt it. It was buried in the destroyed stupa. I didn’t actually see it, but I knew it was there.”

“Then that is the portal through which the Phibob can enter your soul.”

“What can I do?”

“At the source there is usually a reverse image. It could be a mantra or an object that negates the effects of the black amulet.”