“How did you know I’m here?” he blurted out.
Sri Kemboja looked puzzled. “This mountain is named after you. Gunung Sri Bujang.”
“Oh, right,” said Sri Bujang. What would a sage do? he found himself wondering for an absurd moment.
He pulled himself together. Whatever he did was what a sage would do. Also, a sage would be gracious but detached. He would not greet his sister with the usual platitudes: comments on whether she had lost or gained weight, or questions about their relatives’ health. A sage would not care to know if anyone was missing him, or if they regretted how they had treated him back then.
“How can I help you?” he said.
He was pleased with the dignified sound of this, but Sri Kemboja’s expression was stony. She looked exactly like their father had the last time Sri Bujang had seen him, when they had quarreled and Sri Bujang had left home for good.
“It’s not me who needs help,” she said. “You have to come home, Kakanda.”
For years Sri Bujang had dreamed of receiving this appeal. It was not sagelike to feel vindicated, but nevertheless, Sri Bujang felt a little flutter of satisfaction below his rib cage.
“I told Ayahanda and Bonda already,” he said. “This is my life now. The sage of Gunung Sri Bujang cannot simply go off like that. I have responsibilities. This mountain is a keramat; people come on pilgrimage to see me. I’m the number two attraction in this area on TripAdvisor, you know, second only to a very famous nasi lemak stall!”
“Ayahanda is dying,” said Sri Kemboja. “Are you coming or not?”
Sri Bujang trailed after his sister as they descended toward the sea, hunching under the storm raised by their passage.
He was being magnanimous, he told himself. One couldn’t pick fights with one’s dying father. He would go and see his family, and then he would return to his work. He was not being feeble.
The plains had altered since he had last come down from the mountain. Humans had left their mark everywhere, with typical lack of consideration.
“They think this is their grandfather’s land, is it?” Sri Bujang grumbled. It wasn’t so bad for the gods and hantu, who had other dimensions to occupy; besides, small human-made altars dotted the earth, stocked with incense and offerings for tutelary spirits. But the humans had left little room for other corporeal species. “They should think of the other animals, not just themselves.”
“Ah, humans are like that,” said Sri Kemboja.
As they threaded their way around the various buildings, roads, and other human rubbish that littered the landscape, Sri Bujang began to develop an ache behind his sealed third eye. He paused at the shore, looking back. He could see the peak of his mountain in the distance, covered with virgin forest—a sanctuary from human thoughtlessness and familial encroachments alike.
“Come on,” said his sister impatiently. “At the rate you’re loitering, this whole seaside development will wash away in the rain.”
Sri Bujang found himself opening his mouth to snap, “So what?” He shut it before the words could escape, shocked at himself. The retort belonged to Sri Bujang before the mountain—the unenlightened young naga who had retreated precisely so he could transcend such pettiness.
“I was allowing a moment for reflection,” he said, with dignity.
Sri Kemboja’s answering snort did not improve his mood. He followed her into the sea, resentment brewing in his chest.
He cheered up as they approached his father’s kingdom. By the gates stood the proud figures of the white crocodiles who had guarded the kingdom since it was founded. Sri Bujang had always been a favorite of the captain of the King’s Guard. Pak Laminah had trained him in the military arts. Sri Bujang would have recognized his profile anywhere.
“Pak Laminah!” he cried gladly. The crocodile looked around.
It was not Pak Laminah. She had the same snout and the same green eyes, but she was a stranger.
“Ah, Your Highness is back!” she said to Sri Kemboja. She gave Sri Bujang a wary glance.
“Captain, can you spare a messenger to the istana?” said Sri Kemboja. “Tell them the princess has returned with the raja muda.”
When they had passed through the gates, Sri Kemboja said, “Pak Laminah is dead. Captain Hartini is his great-great-great-grandniece.” She seemed bemused that Sri Bujang hadn’t already known this.
Of course, he should have known Pak Laminah would no longer be living. It had been a long time since he had left home.
But the incident lent a nightmare quality to Sri Bujang’s procession through the kingdom. He felt like a mother who, having left her eggs safely buried, returns to find the sand scattered, her children devoured in the shell. This was no homecoming, but an arrival at a strange place—a place he did not know, that held uncertain welcome for him.
At the istana they were led into the audience chamber. It was empty, save for two dugong handmaidens and a faded heap on an ornate golden couch. For a split second Sri Bujang took this for an old bolster, limp and bulgy from too much use. It was only when Sri Kemboja went up to greet it that he realized what he saw.
The Naga King of the South China Sea, He Who Is as the Dust of the Almighty, Sri Daik lay coiled on the golden couch. His sides rose and fell irregularly. His scales were dull, as though he were molting. When he opened his eyes, there was no spark of recognition in them.
All resentment fled. Sri Bujang said, appalled, “Ayahanda!”
He was immediately conscious of a wave of cold disapproval from Sri Kemboja at his failure of tact.
“You look better today, Ayahanda,” she said. “Look, here’s Kakanda.”
Sri Bujang touched his snout to his father’s foreleg in a salam. Sri Daik said nothing at first, and Sri Bujang remembered that they had parted in extreme acrimony. In this very room Sri Daik had called him anak derhaka: ill-taught, unmannerly, and irresponsible; a traitor to God, his father, and his king. Sri Bujang for his part had said nothing, repeating a mantra in his head: I am going to seek liberation. I am going to seek liberation.
In a way, it was the same thing as asking himself: What would a sage do?
It was not what a good son would have done. Sri Bujang had departed in peace, making no apology, taking with him as little as he had ever given his parents.
He had not spoken to his father since. He winced now, bracing himself for rejection, dismissal, storms.
“The raja muda has come?” said Sri Daik finally. “Good, good. Have you seen Bonda?”
It was the voice that pierced Sri Bujang like a spear in his flank. Sri Daik was venerable—he had inhabited the South China Sea ever since there had been a South China Sea—but he had never before sounded old. Sri Bujang shook his head, speechless.
“You must go and greet her,” said
