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torendheavenandearth · 5 years ago

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2.8

“This is the first Commandment of BATALA - Violence against violence.”

▼

Ang Nilapastangan will not live. She knows this already as truth. She is like a star rising, a comet paradox. Upon burning red wings she ascends to face the angel horde. With her bare fists she dispatches the guardian anghel, who are shackled to their superiors by chains infused with the light of Idiot God.

She knows she might die here, despite being the Swordbreaker.

Despite having faced God Himself.

She knows because while the Karanduun may be powerful, they are still single people.

And so she ascends, cutting a blazing path through that cloud of white marble anghel, until she arrives at the doors of the cathedral, which has been plucked out of the ground and made to fly through sacred-blasphemous miracles. The anghel swarm her from every side but now she has no intention of holding back. She becomes an avatar of violence, unflinching and unwavering. Her Gahum pulses from her in invisible tsunami waves, blasting back with invisible force the angels too stupid to assault her.

She is Karanduun, and she will not die on her knees, she will not die on her feet: she will die above them all, exalted by the sky.

The anghel she slams and breaks and shatters and crushes and slashes are from every echelon, every class of the Koro Esfero. Marble goblinoid angels, stunted and broken, beautifully sculpted ones that look human but with ceramic skin (a detail betrayed by the seams between the platings). Some of them attack her with weapons made of pure light, or with their razor sharp feathers, or with bullets gleaming gold, polished by holy oil.

Every single one, Ang Nilapastangan parries or dodges. She is become violence, and she will not be stopped.

As she fends them off, the huge double doors of the flying cathedral opens a crack, and out walks a man--no he is taller than a man. The seams in his skin showcase his true nature. He wears a prue white rayadillo. When he appears, he performs the sign of the Triangle across his chest.

And then, he walks over to the edge of the cathedral and raises his hand.

“Ang Nilapastangan! Qayin!” shouts out Kapitan Briogo, and Ang Nilapastangan bursts like a dying star. She turns to Kapitan Briogo and, upon six burning wings (a broken seraph), she dives toward him.

He squints his eyes and raises a hand to either catch or shield himself--it doesn’t matter to Ang Nilapastangan, as she slams into him and brings him up to the sky.

Up there, she avoids the white beams of light made to disintegrate her easily. She hurls Kapitan Briogo to the sky. “I should have killed you long ago.”

Kapitan Briogo turns around and strikes his chest. It shatters, and his ceramic skin falls apart, giving way to his burning angelic form. He becomes a man of blue lightning-flame. “You should have,” says Kapitan Briogo. He unsheathes his sabre and summons seven thousand more from his flame. Then, with another movement, sends them flying towards Ang Nilapastangan.

Ang Nilapastangan shoots up, quick enough to avoid all the blades before they even fly toward where she was. She catches Kapitan Briogo by the neck and slams her fist into his face. The impact sends crimson shockwaves that disturb the forest.

She strikes again, sending him flying even further up. She shoots up again, and she is above him, and she kicks down. Her countenance has become Bathala Inaginid, as she sends the anghel Kapitan hurling toward the ground.

Dust billows into titanic clouds.

Ang Nilapastangan summons pastel power around her fist, and then rushes down. Straight, straight down.

Her fist slams against the earth, sending the spear of Bathala Inaginid straight through the land, splitting it in half. Before she can move, Kapitan Briogo is there, blade cutting twice.

Ang Nilapastangan avoids the first cut. The second cut embeds onto her chest.

She surges forward but then her fist only meets a phantasm of that lightning-flame. His bleeding blue sabre is behind her, now, and going straight through her stomach.

Ang Nilapastangan scowls. She has been skewered before, this is nothing to her. She lets her Gahum blaze, lets the crimson of her soul envelop the wounds. She will parry it impossibly, as if it has never pierced her. She turns and slams her elbow against Kapitan Briogo, and he is flung back through twenty trees, destroying them in a single mighty thew.

She turns around and the hole in the middle of her shirt burns through her. It doesn’t matter. Blood spills from her mouth. It doesn’t matter. Her clothes have fallen apart a long time ago, replaced by a regalia of god-flame. It doesn’t matter.

Ang Nilapastangan moves forward, riding upon flames like a demon blacksmith billow-pumping into a furnace. She lets her purely crimson flame engulf her hand, her third eye, her entire countenance.

“BATHALA INAGINID! Answer the prayer of your slave!” she yells. “My fist invokes thee and my heart is thy harbinger!” Ang Nilapastangan’s feet have turned into blades of crimson flame. No, now they are less like flame and more like spouts or tongues of pure crimson soulstuff, eradicating all matter it comes across. Without even looking at them, she parries away bullets and cannonballs and ballista javelins from the cathedrals and backup from above.

“Through my soul I revoke and accept BATALA’S First Commandment!” Ang Nilapastangan is like a blazing bird of prey, a bonfire sarimanok descending upon their quarry. Her fist has turned into the screaming maw of INAGINID, and she descends followed by a parade of a million fists: “「THE GATOS PARADE OF A THOUSAND THOUSAND FISTS」!” and the words inscribe themselves upon the very air in burning symbols.

But Kapitan Briogo is up on his feet, a being of blue lightning flame, controlled and redirecting, static upon the earth. Thunderclouds form in the next instant, and a lightning bolt slams against his hand, which he catches and turns into an impossible spear.

As if in answer, Kapitan Briogo bellows out with a voice like rolling thunder: “In the name of DYOSVETA, GOD the Father! And YEZU, GOD the Son--” he pulls his hand back, lightning fulminating furiously, barely contained. It turns into a javelin of thunderstorms, wrath of Jupiter. “--AND SHINSEINA YUREI, GOD the Holiest Spirit: forgive me for the penance I must break! I atone with the blood of my enemy! 「HEAVEN’S SPEAR IMPALES LUCIFER」!”

Briogo, The Fulminating Lightning-Seraph, hurls the lightning javelin, which has grown in size as the thunderstorm infuses it. Ang Nilapastangan, once Qayin, now the Crimson Bodhisattva Biraddali, throws her world-energy fist, and the parade descends like a shower of meteor-haymakers.

They clash. A parade of fists slamming relentlessly against the fulmination. The lightning continues to grow in size, getting thicker, dragon-clouds wisping around the plasmic lance. The clash sends tendrils of existence-erasing brush-strokes, killing anghel, destroying the flying glass-ships and crippling whatever blasphemancies has caused the cathedral to soar through the air like an airship. The glass-horses melt away underneath the seats of their masters, whose skins blister and wither away in the presence of Gahum meeting Gahum.

Ang Nilapastangan and Kapitan Briogo’s faces are both nonchalant masks of observance. When Ang Nilapastangan uses her Gahum to slam herself to the ground, and then streak straight up to Briogo in the span of half-a-blink, the seraph captain has already seen her coming, has raised both hands to stop her.

But her fist is the fist of INAGINID. She slams once and Briogo catches it, but a second fist of pure crimson and violent Gahum slams against that, and it melts away Briogo’s body.

The second fist slams against his chest. There, Ang Nilapastangan finds Kapitan Briogo’s clockwork heart. Without another word, she pulls it out.

Kapitan Briogo does not fall to his feet. He simply watches as Ang Nilapastangan crushes the clockwork heart, and the razor spark that is the fulmination of Briogo dissipates.

The burning Jupiter spear envelops the million fist parade, melting it away, piercing through the clouds, the sky, the firmament, and singes away a portion of heaven.

Ang Nilapastangan falls to her knees as Kapitan Briogo falls backwards, melting away like wax thrown into water. All around her is a smoking crater, devoid of color, turned ashen gray.

Ang Nilapastangan’s chest constricts. She can’t breathe. Too much of her power is used. Her Ginhawa falters, her connection with Hiyang deteriorates. She tries to get up, up to her feet, but she falls to one side. Like a useless damsel, she lies, prone.

The Cathedral looms over her. She sees the shadow, at first, and then the statues, and then the countless legions of anghel that buzz around it like flies around shit. Ang Nilapastangan finds it somewhere in her--perhaps it was the umalagad, the ancestor spirits--but she manages to push herself up to her feet.

She looks up. It’s not over.

A being walks out from the cathedral doors. When a pack of anghel offer to carry Him, He waves a hand away and they kneel. He is swathed in robes dyed red from His own blood. Upon His head is a crown of flowers, with thorns evergrowing so they are perpetually digging deeper into His skull. He cannot see; the blood masks His eyes.

He walks with a cross, which He uses like a walking cane. When He embeds it onto the ground, He does it as if it’s a sword.

“Qayin,” He speaks, and His voice echoes in glorious sorrow.

“Yehoshowah,” Ang Nilapastangan says, and she is powerful enough to say His mortal name. “And here I thought you were out in the Neverending Ocean, conquering your newest universe.”

“I am omnipresent,” says Yehoshowah. “I know no bounds.”

Bullshit, says Ang Nilapastangan, but she knows that she cannot throw her moxie around here. “So You have come.”

“Of course,” says Yehoshowah, and His voice is accompanied by the weeping of the penitents, crying from His roses. “You know I take it personally. Especially to those that have offended The Father.”

Ang Nilapastangan frowns. “What, daddy issues?” It does not pass her mind that they are communicating potentially a hundred of feet from each other, yet are doing it clearly, with no wind nor earth to buffer their voices.

“You know why I’ve come,” says Yehoshowah. “I’m afraid I have to cut the preamble.”

Ang Nilapastangan is still burning.

“The Karanduun, you sung heroes. You worthless yesterday heroes yet somehow worthy of epics.” Yehoshowah scoffs. “You are a paradox that must be extinguished. You must be annihilated. You are blasphemers, devil-interfacers, threatening the innocent people with false hope..”

“We’re inevitable, Yehoshowah, YEZU. You cannot stop us.”

“As long as your power is not enough, you will fall away. You have failed once, against The Father, who took advantage of your hesitation. As long as your power is not enough, as long as you do not know the true meaning of attaining heaven, of making God bleed, then you will fail.”

“I’ve attained the true meaning,” says Ang Nilapastangan. “However I have attained it too late.”

“God’s hand waits for none,” says Yehoshowah, examining his bloodied and blackened fingers, where triangle shaped holes ever-bleed. “Do you wish any more words before I bring you into the embrace of ultimate penance?”

“You will be torn asunder,” says Ang Nilapastangan. “You will be bled by our hands.”

“Our? No matter how many you are, if you do not have the power, you will not succeed. Climb the ladder. Kill whom you need to. Divinity through Bloodshed, Transcendence through Murder. Decapitate the weak and feed upon their brain matter. Become God, and only then will you learn our burden.”

“Pathetic,” says Ang Nilapastangan.

“Fool. You lowlifes are such idiotic, uneducated rabble.” With a nonchalant roll of His eyes, Yehoshowah snaps his fingers and utters ”「Stigmata」.” Three black nails erupt from the ground.

They intersect across Ang Nilapastangan’s heart. Three gigantic nails skewering her, perverting her into a shape inhuman.

No blood pours, she has not been bled. But her Gahum falters.

She doesn’t cry out in pain. She doesn’t resist. It will be worthless to, anyway. This is the consequences of what she’s done. This is the consequence of not doing what she thought she was supposed to do in the beginning. The consequence in believing too much in one’s own power.

“SIDAPA,” says Qayin, and she stares up into the sky. “I’m tired. Take care of Angela.”

Karanduun live on forever, however.

▼

Angela wakes up with tears in her eyes and a pain in her chest, as if something has been ripped from her the night before and she only notices it now.

She’s lying down on something wooden. She feels it moving, vibrating. When she opens her eyes, she’s greeted by the weirdly beautiful view of kabalyero trees bending over her, revealing their crimson flowers.

“Awake?” It’s Jaime. His voice is gruff, scratched. “Good.”

Angela pushes herself up to a sitting position. She finds that they’re on the back of an open wagon, pulled by a… centaur woman?

The woman’s upper half turns around. There are little horns on her brow. “Ah, your cute little friend has awoken! Good. I was afraid if she didn’t we would have to take her to a healer!”

Jaime manages a slight smile and nods, seemingly appreciatively.

While Angela’s chest hurts, she knows that it’s an emotional problem. (Or perhaps it was spiritual?) “I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.” Her throat is terribly parched, and she subconsciously looks around for some kind of water.

Jaime raises his canteen. Angela accepts it with thanks and drinks from the canteen. “Where are we? Where’s the barangay? Where’s Nila?”

Jaime looks to the horizon behind her. Angela manages to move around enough to look at what he’s looking at.

A violent clash of colors hangs suspended in the air, as if a sky deity painted brush strokes across the sky. “What’s that?”

“Residues of Gahum Emanation,” says Jaime. “She fought with someone powerful.”

“Nila?” asks the centaur woman.

Jaime sighs and shakes his head. “I’m sorry, manang, but I can’t tell you.”

“Ah, no no, it’s okay. I get you.” And she went back to pulling the wagon.

“Is she…” drawls Angela as she looks at the horse-woman. “A centaur, or something?”

“Anggitay,” says Jaime. “That’s what they’re called here.”

“Huh. All right.” Angela turns back to the Gahum display. “You think Nila survived?”

Jaime doesn’t respond. The silence of the wind cuts through them.

“I can only hope, I guess,” continues Angela. She shrugs and says, “Well, she’s Nila. I’m pretty sure she can handle herself.”

Jaime nods at that. “That’s a good look at it, and yes, I agree. Ang-- Nila should be able to take care of herself. She is powerful, after all.” There’s another silence. “Unless.”

“Unless what?” asks Angela.

“Unless she meets someone more powerful than her.” But then he shrugs. “Let’s not think about that for now.”

Angela lets out a ragged breath and nods. “Right. Where are we heading right now?” She pulls her legs in and sits on the other side of the wagon. Jaime is missing a shirt, and is only wearing balloon pants. Gauzes wrap around his upper body. “Are you okay?”

Jaime nods. “Just a few scrapes. Don’t worry about it.”

“You saved me, then?”

Jaime looks ahead, to where the anggitay is walking down.

“Thanks, I guess.” Angela scrunches up her nose. “Anyway, where are we headed?”

“The City of San Isidro,” says Jaime, still looking ahead. “The Jewel Port. Big place. Nexus of trade.”

“And what are we going to do there?”

Jaime shrugs. “Look for a reason to keep living, I guess.”

Angela watches Jaime for a bit, and then turns back to the fantastic mandala of colors that the Gahum generated. Somehow, Angela can spot the crimson brush strokes of Ang Nilapastangan’s Usbong. Angela hoped that she’s okay, that she’s still fighting, or that she’s running towards them right now, having neutralized the threat.

She wishes, and continues to wish. Angela could use a wish granted right now. Any kind of miracle. For the first time in a long time, Angela clasps her hands together and prays. Jaime prods her forehead.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Praying. You know, maybe some benevolent God is still watching over me and can get me some help.”

“God is dead. BATALA is dead,” says Jaime. “The only God that will hear you will be the Holy Trinity, and they’re not the people you want hearing your prayer.”

Angela rolls her eyes. She looks away, but then utters a prayer anyway.

“Please send me help, Lord Jesus. Please, I need any kind of help right now. Please keep watching over me and protecting me, and please protect Mama back at home.” She does the sign of the cross and seals the prayer with an Amen.

Jaime’s jaw is clenched; Angel can feel the nervousness emanating from him. “I hope that doesn’t bring us any trouble.”

Angela looks away and at the colored sky again. It’s slowly falling together to create some kind of rainbow. Somehow, after squinting hard enough, Angela can see Ang Nilapastangan--or at least, something that looks like Ang Nilapastangan’s body--ascending that rainbow up to the sky.

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#to rend heaven and earth #web serial #web novel #fantasy #filipino #outbreak #2.8

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torendheavenandearth · 5 years ago

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2.7

“‘When we put the fear of God into our children, we do so out of love. Remember: fear is love, and love is fear! How else will we be able to control the populace? The natural state of man is to hate, and to bring fear is to induce love. That is the way of things, correct?’ spoke the Arkserapin Diplomat to the court of celestial diwata.

‘No,’ replied BATALA, and with a finger smote the Burning One with a flick of Their finger.’”

- From The Teachings of Dead BATALA

▼

Back in the commune, Babaylan Salinas looks up at the stars just as a lance of crimson light pierces the night sky. She gasps in a breath. The rest of the people that are there sitting around the bonfire look up as well. They all see it.

“Is that--?” Angela begins.

“That is Ang Nilapastangan,” mutters Adlay. “She’s released her burning fire… her Usbong has reached its utmost peak.”

Angela whips around to look at him. “And that means what?”

“She is fighting for her life,” says Adlay.

Babaylan Salinas shakes her head. “No, that is not yet Ang Nilapastangan’s full strength. That is only partway. However…”

“What?”

Babaylan Salinas’ eyebrows furrow. “The reason why the Karanduun may be sung of but thought to be legendary beings is because…”

The tikbalang, Damian, nods. “It’s because they die. Not many people that reach and obtain that sobriquet of Karanduun get to keep it for long. The Empire hunts them down and extinguishes them. They have an entire monastic order for it: the Inquest.”

Angela’s eyes widen. “Shit, the anghel!”

“Exactly,” says Damian. “They’ll be coming, any time now.”

“We have to save Ang Nilapastangan then!”

“We cannot,” says Babaylan Salinas. “If Ang Nilapastangan is pushed to use this much of her strength then it is safe to assume that we, as lowly Gahum beings, cannot match what she is inflicting violence against.”

Angela, frowning, runs up to her Donnie and they take off, in the direction of the plaza of the barangay. “Angela!” they scream behind her, but she doesn’t take heed. She has to help Ang Nilapastangan, or else she’ll have no one to turn to in this lonely, broken world.

In truth, she knew that deep in her heart she’d rather die than be lonely here.

Under the veil of night, she rides Donnie. However, as she comes closer to the entrance of the barangay, she can see the large winged feather-ships and stained-glass horses of the Anghel coming in from the road that they used to reach this barangay.

▼

Ang Nilapastangan’s grip falters. The Birhen takes advantage of the lull--she surges forward, her face splitting into that spider-centipede form again and stabbing at Ang Nilapastangan’s face. She curses as the blades break her skin, ripping at her face. She burns brightly once, and the blades wither away, melted by sorcerous radiation.

The Birhen screams in agony, wings pointing at Ang Nilapastangan. She hurls them forward, like webbed spears against Ang Nilapastangan.

Ang Nilapastangan’s eyes are blank, now.

She doesn’t even look at the wings.

Looking straight on, she cracks and then shatters and then rips the wings apart from the Birhen’s back. “Please!” The Birhen pleads as she writhes, half-Lulu and half-serpent centipede.

Ang Nilapastangan presses her forehead with a single middle finger. When she pulls it away, her third eye splits open, a pastel gray eye floating within a blood red sea.

“I will fucking kill you!” The Birhen screams in Lulu’s voice.

Ang Nilapastangan walks over to the writhing head of Lulu and steps on it. “Make God Bleed, Birhen,” mutters Ang Nilapastangan, before she pulls her head back--she pushes away the frantic hands and centipede feet clawing her way to her face, trying to move it away--and then flings it down at the Birhen.

A crimson spear of power surges from Ang Nilapastangan’s third eye, going straight through the Birhen’s/Lulu’s face, burning her and splitting her apart, erasing her face from existence.

The room around Ang Nilapastangan dissipates. She falls. She’s plummeting. A red comet streaking across the night sky.

▼

Angela sees it. She leaps from Donnie onto the barricade. She clambers up but then stops as she sees the mass of corpses suddenly drop, inanimate. Robbed now of their flesh-seeking thirst. “What the--?”

She hears the thundering of glass hooves now. Cursing, Angela vaults over the makeshift barricade and rushes across the clearing. Despite her fears, none of the corpses suddenly reach up and grab her ankle like a zombie movie. She breathes as a sigh of relief as she reaches the open doors of the cathedral, where a huge mass of frozen corpses lay.

It doesn’t smell like corpses, fortunately. It smells like sampaguitas. The stench one apparently smells if an ancestor is somewhere nearby.

The fragrant smell of sampaguitas is good: Angela manages to push through the mound of corpses and fall over to the other side, falling into the open doors of the chapel. She grunts in pain as she falls to the floor, and her sounds echo.

She looks up and sees Jaime, strung up and bound to a wall by viscera and intestine and tendons and ligaments. There is a man in a priest’s frock that is kissing him.

“Hey!” Angela leaps to her feet. The man is bleeding.

She looks around for something to stab the man with, and finds a bloodied kris. She grabs it and then plunges it into the priest’s back. She’s always wanted to do that to some creepy priests, and this felt proper.

The priest doesn’t react as the kris stays on his back. Angela stumbles back, hitting the altar. The priest-man turns around, grinning, black blood falling from his lip. “It is done,” he says. “Finally, rest.”

“What the fuck?”

The man looks at her one last time. “Everything went perfectly.” And then he fell. He fell forward, his face slamming against the altar.

Angela looks away. She looks up at Jaime, who is stirring. She can see his veins throbbing with black fluid instead of actual blood. “What the hell. What the fuck. Putangina what thet hell.” She pulls the kris from the man’s back and uses it to cut Jaime’s fleshy bindings.

As she cuts the last one, Jaime falls onto her. He’s not light, but she manages to catch him and lay him down safely onto the floor.

She’s breathing quickly. The night is eerily silent, now.

“Jaime. Hey, Jaime.” She shakes his face, but he doesn’t respond.

When she looks up, Ang Nilapastangan is there, entering after blasting the corpses away. She looks like a crimson angel now, her horns have turned into a blazing halo, her hair has turned into seraph wings. She is a Burning One, and Angela has to force herself to remember that this is Nila, someone she can look at safely.

“Where’s Jaime?” she asks, and her voice echoes with power.

“Here! Nila! Here! What’s… what’s up with you?” Angela pauses and looks her up and down. Ang Nilapastangan ignores her completely and walks straight up to Jaime. She puts two fingers in his mouth and opens his lips wide.

Angela blinks. Although, she does see the black veins lining the sides of his mouth… “What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s ingested the Itim-na-Sisiw,” says Ang Nilapastangan, effortlessly carrying hiM. “It’s not going to be pretty.”

“Why? What does that mean?”

“I’ll explain later. I can’t believe you followed me all the way here.”

Angela blinked. “You were shining! Like a beacon!”

Ang Nilapastangan sighs and nods. “I know. Come on, quick. You brought your horse with you, right?”

Angela’s eyebrows are furrowed, but she nods. “Yeah. Why?”

“Come then, we need to get Jaime to your horse.” The two of them make their way through the corpse-ridden plaza. They don’t bother climbing over the barricade: Ang Nilapastangan simply flicks her finger and air displaces and the barricade is torn in two.

Ang Nilapastangan doesn’t even let go of the incapacitated Jaime while doing it. When she’s done, she walks over to Donnie, who is struggling against the bindings that Angela put on him due to what Ang Nilapastangan did.

“Sorry, Donnie,” says Ang Nilapastangan. Angela raises an eyebrow, somewhat surprised that Ang Nilapastangan remembers his name.

Ang Nilapastangan walks over to him and puts Jaime over his back, and then shushes him with a few strokes of his mane. With that done, Ang Nilapastangan turns to Angela.

Angela blinks. She’s looking up at Ang Nilapastangan, and she sees two weird things: Ang Nilapastangan crying blood and the glass-silk ships that float across the night sky. Beings with flaming wings encircle it, mosquitos buzzing around a carcass.

“Nila?”

Ang Nilapastangan opens her mouth to say something, but nothing comes up. She swallows. Angela tries to wipe a tear away. “Are you okay?”

“Angela,” she says. “I’m sorry.” Her voice hitches. “I won’t be able to help you.”

Angela blinks. She doesn’t realize she’s crying too. Suddenly she feels the burning sensation in her eyes. “What? What are you talking about.”

“I have to stop them,” says Ang Nilapastangan. “If I don’t, the commune will die. Everyone will die. They’ll keep looking for me. It’s going to be impossible to hide me now. One slip was all they needed.”

“Nila… what--?” Angela’s voice hitches now. She doesn’t get why she’s so emotional. She doesn’t get why nobody ever explains things to her, why this always happens. What the hell is even happening? Why are there fucking glasspunk ships flying towards them then and there?

“Jaime will know the answers to your questions,” says Ang Nilapastangan. “Trust in him. And… help him. Go to the commune and travel northwest from here. There’s a city north of here. You’ll be safe there, for a while.”

“Nila, are you--?”

“Always remember, Angela,” her voice hitches again. “Always remember that you have to look to others for strength. There is no such thing as getting all the power.”

“What?”

“You can’t solve all your problems alone.”

“Nila, stop. You’re being so fucking melodramatic. Come on, you said it yourself! We can fix it together. We can hide away or something.”

“This is my atonement,” Ang Nilapastangan says. “The Sword that I broke uses its jagged edge to rip me apart. Now go.” She picks Angela up and puts her upon Donnie. With another swipe of the finger, she cuts the rope that bound Donnie, and the horse gallops, riding off in the direction of the commune.

“Nila!”

“Trust in me, Angela! I’m a Karanduun.” She breathes. “I’m the Swordbreaker.” Can she bear to lie to Angela for the last time? Is she strong enough to afford her the comforting hope of untruth? Is she strong enough for the burden? “I’ll see you when I can!”

It’s not a complete lie. It’s not a complete truth either. Perhaps this is the best compromise.

Ang Nilapastangan crouches, and then with an exhalation, she takes to the skies.

▼

Angela rides back to the commune with Jaime on the back of her horse. She rides quickly, moving faster and faster, until they are like the wind. For a moment, she wonders just how she got so good at riding horses so quickly, but that thought is quickly extinguished when two duwende wielding clockwork weapons and with the mark of the inverted triangle upon their foreheads burst from the earth, grabbing Donnie’s legs.

Angela is thrown off from her horse and she slams to the earth.

“Ah, fuck. What now?”Angela pushes herself to her feet. Mercifully, Jaime was thrown right beside her. She goes to him and tries to carry him, but he’s both taller and heavier than her. The two duwende are upon her, clockwork weapons gleaming.

Angela leaps back to avoid them, but one of the spears pierces through her right stomach. The pain is intense. Angela falls to the ground.

“Shit.” She falls to her side as the duwende rush over to her.

She’s bleeding. She’s bleeding out.

Behind the duwende, a young and strikingly beautiful young woman falls to the earth. Her features strike Angela as painfully East Asian. She’s wearing a sleeveless shirt made of tight abaca weave, and leather pants.

Blades burst out from the seams between her arms.

Far behind her, like the moon following the sea, is a large cathedral sailing through the sky.

Angela decides, then, that maybe that’s it. That’s the end of her road. Time for her to say goodbye. She’s kinda relieved. She doesn’t have to suffer in this world anymore. She doesn’t have to learn how to survive against weird demon angels and shit anymore. All she has to do is give up and she’ll have rest.

But what about her mother? What about her little brother? What about Ang Nilapastangan, who promised to train her?

As if looking for an answer, she opens her eyes. Through the blood, she sees…

--is that Jaime?--

He rises, spider-wolf legs erupt from his back, and he’s upon the two duwende, large bearcat maw ripping them apart. The japanese-looking woman frowns at him and leaps up to combat the demonic Jaime, but Jaime fights back. Savagery guided by the moon. His hair is pure white.

What the hell?

He manages to strike a fearsome blow upon the woman’s cheek, sending her skidding back on her feet. Then, as she’s recovering from the blow, Jaime turns around and grabs Angela with his large, demonic claws and they bound like shadows into the trees.

Angela sees through the pain, the Japanese-looking woman, who is simply watching them as they vanish into the trees.

▼

Save her, no matter the cost. That’s what rushed through Jaime’s head as he embraced the power of the Itim-na-Sisiw.

It hurt, at first. Of course, all things hurt at first, don’t they? His heart burned. He is sent back into interdimensional void. Rabid magenta seeps through his pores, clutching his heart and then replacing it with the Itim-na-Sisiw. There is no more escape from his destiny.

Beast runs through the jungle. Binturong leaps from branches. Spider weaves web. Bat weaves through trees and crystal towers.

When Jaime awakens, he is reborn. The Binturong Spider-Bat, he now calls himself, and he is Asuwang. He is a demon shapeshifter, and he launches against the duwende.

When he dueled with the woman, he knew there was no winning. She deflected his attacks like she was swatting flies. The one good clean hit was a stroke of luck, nothing more. If he had messed up, it would’ve been the end of them.

Now they rush through the trees, and soon, soon, now, they are flying across the river, and landing upon the commune.

Jaime cannot speak. Adlay and Damian and the Babaylan look at him in fear. Why are they looking at him like that? He shakes his head, offers Angela’s bleeding body--a dog giving his fresh catch.

Adlay has a spear out, rising and striking. Jaime parries it with a spider leg. Stop, I don’t want to hurt you, dammit! But they can’t hear him. In his demon form, humanity is lost.

Damian’s burning blade is upon his tail. He has a tail? It cuts deep, and it hurts, but Jaime knows it won’t do any lasting damage. Already he can feel the gash suturing on its own.

Jaime’s gaze turns to Babaylan Salinas. He realizes then has six pairs of eyes, and he can see almost everywhere except for a spot on the back of his tail. With his wide gaze he looks to Babaylan Salinas.

Babaylan Salinas can see hearts. She would know.

But Babaylan Salinas has nothing but fear in her eyes. She shakes her eyes and kneels down. She’s muttering; she’s praying.

Babaylan Salinas doesn’t see him.

Adlay’s spear cuts deep into Jaime’s chitin chest, and Jaime howls in agony. Damian is hauling Angela away. Someone please heal her-- but the words do not come out. It is not for him to say. Not anymore.

Babaylan Salinas takes Angela and they retreat into her hut. More of the commune people leap out into the fray, wielding bolos and pana, all of them aimed at Jaime.

▼

Jaime doesn’t want to fight back. Kill me, he thinks. It’s what I deserve. BUT I MUST LIVE. The other voice is Jaime’s but a part of his that he has never heard before. The other voice is survival. ME, ABOVE ALL ELSE.

No, thinks Jaime. He’s fighting himself. No, they must save her. I can be killed.

YOU CANNOT BE KILLED. YOU ARE IMMORTAL.

No.

YOU WILL SUCCUMB TO THE FURY, EVENTUALLY.

I won’t.

But Jaime is young, and Jaime is incapable of measuring his own strength. How can he possibly know who he is, now?

Spear meets chitin and an arrow smashes against his eye. Fury grows stronger, unebbing waves against a bamboo dam.

Damian brings out a baril and shoots at his spider leg, blasting it off. The bamboo dam shatters.

What happens next, only the other voice knows. The will of the Itim-na-Sisiw. The curdling blood-red nature of demons. There is blood, and there are screams. The next thing Jaime knows, he is in the Babaylan’s house. The babaylan is split into three parts, still-beating. On his lap is Angela, who has been healed and administered herbal poultices.

Jaime is back to his human form. Naked. Crying. He brings Angela closer and drenches her shoulder in his tears.

He hears the tolling bells of the cathedral. He rises, finds some pantalones to put on, picks Angela up, and then rushes out of the commune. North, due north. That is the only safe place. North, to the city of San Isidro.

Maybe there he’ll find out what he is, how to fix it, and how to survive.

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#karanduun #to rend heaven and earth #outbreak #2.7

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torendheavenandearth · 5 years ago

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next update friday!

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torendheavenandearth · 5 years ago

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2.6

“‘Great Guro,’ asked the Student to Munsad Buralakaw, Civilization Diwata. ‘Pray tell, and let the ancestors hear: for what purpose do we suffer? For what purpose do we let our fellow men take advantage of us?’

‘Violence for violence’s sake,’ replied Munsad Buralakaw. ‘Man is the only soul capable of it. To inflict evil because they want evil. To inflict good because they want good. Higher concepts become swords, ideals become blades. Man is both divine and infernal, God between the fingertips of Good and Evil, neutrality compromised. For this reason, suffering cannot end.’

‘So, Great Guro, do you say that suffering cannot be removed?’

‘To remove suffering is to remove Man.’

‘Then why must Man persist, if all things are to suffer? Would it not be a greater good to simply end suffering by ending man?’

‘Nay, hangal,’ said Munsad Buralakaw. ‘Persist to ease the suffering of others. Because to remove Man is to remove goodness and joy and hope and love.’” - From The Lost Teachings of the Forgotten Diwata.

▼

Upon that bloody throne, they kissed, short and sweet. “Quick! Before more Guwardya Sibil arrive,” said Lulu, breathlessly. They rushed into the busted open door but--

--Lulu was gone. It was only Qayin, again. It always ends with just me, she thought to herself.

Qayin didn’t even go into the door. She was there again, in that door frame, in that liminal space between within and without. The doors bring me to places… thinks Ang Nilapastangan. Do I dare…?

She was already halfway in. If she were to back out now, then it would be a horrible waste of life, now wouldn’t it?

With a breath, Qayin stepped through, and she was there.

She was there at the end of all things.

Again.

▼

She didn’t think she could do it. She didn’t think she could do it all over again, but there she was.

It’s not fair, Ang Nilapastangan said to herself, her words echoing into white void. She’d come to terms with this. She’d accepted this part of her. She’d accepted that this had happened, that all of this was in the past, it was part of who she was, it was part of her name, it was part of the broken sword that formed her soul.

Why then, was she still so scared? Why then was she still so unsure? Why, then, was she still so angry? Why was she still filled with regret?

Remember what happened here, Qayin, Ang Nilapastangan spoke to her past, but her past does not listen, for the past is not the present and never will be. Always ever-fading memories, stuck in that twilight dream of never-happened and must-have-happened.

Qayin stepped forward. She was in the middle of a sea. A sea that reflected only white sky. And there, in front of her, was God.

Demonyong Bakulaw was in his Dimunyu form. He had revealed to them that he was not simply a demon or a sitan, but he was a Dimunyu, one of the original satan-kings that sided with SANLIBUTAN in his rebellion against his grandfather, MAYKAPAL, the BATALA. In his Dimunyu form, his corpus melted away and vomited a burning serpent-gorilla, with seven-hundred and seven hands, wielding weapons half the length of the sky. His face was that of a gorilla’s but he sported a mane like a lion and whiskers of a dragon. With his sky-rending weapons he faced off against God, this God being DYOSVETA, God the Father.

He was not winning, but his bravado was enough. “I’ve faced off against the Creator!” Demonyong Bakulaw roared. “I am YAWANG BAKULAW DAOTAN, and you will fall by my rebellion!”

In that liminal space, that non-existent yet everpresent space of sea-sky, the demon ape faced off against God the Father. DYOSVETA’s countenance was that of a true demon sky god: a great humanoid lion, with skin of marble clouds, and lightning running down the length of his body. His wings numbered in infinities, and his face was a sculpted marble bearded figure in a perpetual scowl. He had a crown of fire and light, which had been impossibly frozen into a perfect shape, one that resembled a king’s crown and or a sword impaled upon his head.

He wore an armor of angels, and his sword was demonkind melted together in an ever-wailing mass, and was called ATONEMENT. His shield was the sternums of men sewn together, with their still-beating hearts turned into embellishments, turned into roses, and it was called MERCY.

“I come unto you with a form you may decipher with your misunderstanding eyes,” said DYOSVETA. “Now kneel before the Sky.”

Lulu was spent. Her single golden-agimat arm was falling apart, the burning red lights running up its length fading in glow. Her eyepatch had been cut, revealing her missing eye. Qayin knelt next to her, holding her by her shoulders. “Lulu! We have to go!”

“No, Qayin! Remember what we said!” She grasped Qayin’s hand, which was wielding the Soul Eater. “Use it. Use my Gahum.”

Qayin knew what that meant, and she shook her head. “No. Lulu, I can’t.”

“You can. You have to. Become the winner of the Hagdanan, Yinnie. Please.”

Qayin opened her mouth to say something, but her throat tightened up, and she couldn’t choke the words out of her mouth. She was crying, and her tears were blood. “I can’t.” When she said it, it was weak, fractured, broken. Non-words.

“You can,” said Lulu, and her conviction was true.

Demonyong Bakulaw skidded onto his knees and caught the fierce sword strike of DYOSVETA with his arms. His soulstuff, his Kalag, was failing, dissipating, but his scowl never left. “Never let your anger for God fade,” he would always say.

“Lulu--”

Lulu reached up and kissed Qayin wholly in her mouth. A full kiss. A desperate kiss. A final kiss.

And then, as she did so many times before, she guided Qayin’s hand. “I love you,” said Lulu, and they both wept crimson.

Qayin, only with the help of Lulu's own hand, impaled the tamawo woman's chest. “I love you,” replied Qayin, but she couldn’t say the words, so she only mouthed them. Lulu crumbled with her fingers trailing Qayin’s cheeks, trying to wipe away her tears one last time.

Lulu failed, of course, and her hand simply fell to the side. She fell limp.

But in her death, the Soul Eater grew more powerful. The Soul Eater was, in truth, a simple sword. It had the shape of a kampilan, with the difference being the eye that grew at the pommel, held in place by the Bakunawa jaw that was kept open. It also had veins running up the length of its blade, as if it were alive, but it was not.

The blade felt heavy in Qayin’s hands as she rose to her feet, staring at the now dead Lulu. Who thought her final resting place would be here, in the end of all things?

Qayin turned around and readied to face God, DYOSVETA, the Father.

When she turned around, DYOSVETA’s face was there, and his sword was ready. Demonyong Bakulaw was dead, nothing but a lump of meat and Kalag upon the sea-sky. DYOSVETA swung his sword, but Qayin parried it away in the heat of battle. She could only see red. She broke DYOSVETA’s ATONEMENT.

She became the Swordbreaker. And with that, Qayin raised her blade and brought it down.

God was Cut.

But without another word, DYOSVETA summoned BLASPHEMER, spear made up of coagulated darkness and the sound of weeping rebellious angels being tortured for eternity. In a space quicker than an instant, the BLASPHEMER was through Qayin’s skull.

“Hesitation leads to death,” spoke DYOSVETA, and Qayin was BLASPHEMED, again and again, until she was thrown out of the End of All Things and left to die upon the wet ground of a random barangay in the middle of the Archipelago.

Her head was punctured, riddled by god-holes, and for her heresy she was laid down onto the muddy ground, never to reach the heights that she did. She failed her friends. She failed Bakulaw. She failed Lulu. She failed herself. She thought she was ready, she thought that surely, this time, she would be able to deal some kind of blow against the Tyrant of Crimson Sky, but no. She failed, she died, and she was going to lie down there, upon the mud ground, as the rain began to patter.

A man and his wife walked up to her and carried her into their house. They were talking, Qayin knew, but she didn’t know what they were saying. Her memory was hazy, her hearing blurred and unfocused.

All she remembered was that, as they were mending the wounds that they could--and called for a mananambal to heal the rest (the God-driven spikes into her head, the hatred of god lashed across her back)--they asked for her name, and she responded: “Ang Nilapastangan.”

Apparently, her story had already begun spreading from there. From the people that saw her--watched her--literally descend from heaven like a hated lightning bolt. When it got out that her name was Ang Nilapastangan, she was cemented upon the fabric of the universe. She became one of the Karanduun, one of the few that the masses and the oppressed and the countryside would tell stories about in their darkest nights.

“Swordbreaker,” they whispered, and deviled-spirits carried their words to the next town, to the next barangay, to Biringan, to the villages and hamlets of the Empire. “The Blasphemed: Ang Nilapastangan. She Who Broke God’s Sword.”

▼

Like a gasp, Ang Nilapastangan is hurled back into the hallway. The blue figure is closer now. Just a door away. A room away. The Pistang Gatusan nga Gabi’i to her left is ending. The greatest of the spirits, the Philippine dragons: crocodiles that swim in the clouds as if the sky was a river, are already making their way through the parade. The crocodiles are always the last, and these giant ones burn with the colors of the four primary elements: of fire, water, earth, and air. The Ninuno of the World.

Ang Nilapastangan turns back to the blue figure, and it’s in front of her. A gaping maw, jaw ripped open, mouth revealing not a throat but another face within it. The face of a smiling woman, eyes blackened with ash poured into her sockets. Blood drips from her lips. “Qayin?” Her tongue seems to savor the word, the secret name of Ang Nilapastangan.

“Yawa,” says Ang Nilapastangan. “Leave me now. I have made my peace with who I was, who I am. You have no power over me.”

The blue figure’s sprouts spider legs, tipped with razor sharp blades and each one with a long proboscis tongue extending from invisible compartments. Her wings sprout from behind her, webbed with blackness. “What makes you think I am Yawa?” and the woman laughed.

Ang Nilapastangan’s eyes narrow, just for an instant, and then she smirks. “Ah, you must forgive me. Sometimes I forget my own stupidity. If you wanted my Gahum, Asuwang, then perhaps you should’ve just asked.”

“Hm?”

“Here.” And Ang Nilapastangan raises her hand, filling it with contained pastel power. The technique she learned from Lulu.

I will never use blades again, thinks Ang Nilapastangan. Like Lulu, I will rend heaven and earth with my own two hands.

With a single punch, she punches the Asuwang away, sending her flurrying back through the endless hallway that they are in. Pastel light streaks from her fist and paints the walls white. The Asuwang, however, lands on the ground and then skitters onto its spider-blade legs.

Ang Nilapastangan raises an eyebrow.

The Asuwang flings itself forward, bladelegs ready to cut, but Ang Nilapastangan steps into the lunge--some of the blades cut into her skin--and grabs the Asuwang’s body, which is now shaped more or less like a serpent-centipede. Ang Nilapastangan whirls around, dragging the Asuwang’s head across the pastel painted wall, and then flings her out of the window.

Ang Nilapastangan’s Gahum ignites as she flings her, and the glass windows shatters as the Asuwang’s body slams against it. The Asuwang flies across forestry, over to where the Pistang Gatos nga Gabi’i is happening.

Ang Nilapastangan turns around and kicks a door down. A normal room. She kicks another one down and there! A staircase. She runs down it, stopping for nothing. It’s a long staircase, much longer than it had any logic being, and she knows that this is not the city hall but the illusionary labyrinth of a madman demon.

As Ang Nilapastangan steps on a step halfway down, the Asuwang explodes into the scene and slams against the staircase and begins scuttling down the steps. Below, a pile of corpses writhing and eating each other grows, rises, and stops Ang Nilapastangan from reaching the ground.

Ang Nilapastangan leaps, bringing her fist up and performing that pastel technique again, this time infused with her most violent Gahum.

In the air, she throws her fist down.

Her Gahum tears through the staircase, obliterating it completely, and the pastel power slams against the pile of corpses, flattening them and sending them flying against the walls. Ang Nilapastangan uses this opportunity to use the midair amalanhig to buffet her fall down to the ground.

Ang Nilapastangan throws the battered amalanhig away from her and stands.

The Asuwang slams down to the ground behind her.

Before Ang Nilapastangan is an opening that led to the open doors of the lobby. There she ses that past the doors of the lobby there’s nothing but more hallway.

“Foolish girl!” screams the Asuwang, and Ang Nilapastangan tilts her head back in both exhaustion and boredom. “You think you can get out? This entire town hall has been given to me by Padre Sangalang to become my fantasy! My reality! You cannot escape for as long as my nightmare-proboscis seeps into your soul!”

Ang Nilapastangan turns. Her punch made a makeshift circular arena for them: flanked and walled off by the mass of writhing corpses and body parts. There, before her, blade-legs clinking against the stone floor, is the Asuwang woman, seemingly in her fully manifested diyablo form: a serpentine centipede, although the little legs are little blades, useless for moving. Eight spider legs, two of them for piercing, all of them made of demon-swords. Her face is, in truth, a shield-mask that hides her true face within her maw. A veil of hair, beautiful and silky, flutters about her as if she’s underwater, and her eleven wings sprout from behind her. The wings seem to be grafted on, since they grow and overwhelm her left side like a tumor.

“Face me, Karanduun!” shrieks the woman. “I am Kinalimutang Birhen ng Walang Hanggang Kasakiman, the Fantasy Arachne Demon, and you will know my name as I eat yours!” She surges forward, four spider blade-legs acting like hydraulic presses. In the next instant she is in the air above Ang Nilapastangan.

Ang Nilapastangan, all this time, has been keeping her Gahum in check. If she didn’t, they’d find her. She’d be a bonfire in the middle of the forest, with night-demons watching all about.

But if she wants to get out of this alive, she has to bring out her Gahum. This is potentially a powerful asuwang, perhaps a Gabunan, an elder, but she isn’t sure. If she holds back, she can die, and with her death will be the beginning of the end.

She takes the attack head on, choosing to let her Gahum burn. Her soul a furnace, she catches Birhen’s lunge and digs her heels to the ground. She is driven back a good few feet from the force of impact, but she manages to catch the attack. Ang Nilapastangan slams the Birhen down to the ground, making sure her faceshield cracks against the stone. The Birhen shrieks, and swings wildly with her spider blade-legs, and Ang Nilapastangan has to leap back to avoid the swings.

Not wild swings, Ang Nilapastangan understands. Those are calculated swings, trying to lop her head and feet off.

With the pressure off of the Birhen, she rises to her feet and, using her wings, takes to the air. Ang Nilapastangan smirks: no way can she be that aerodynamic with that body.

Of course, that thought is immediately broken when the Birhen begins gliding around like a dragon in water, swooping down and cutting with her bladelegs. Ang Nilapastangan is caught by one. It cuts through her skin like a hot knife upon clay. She curses and evades the rest of the attacks.

“For a Karanduun, you are not living up to your reputation!” shrieks the Birhen, flying into a graceful spiral in the air and then turning to face her, coiling her serpent-centipede body.

But, Ang Nilapastangan notices, her mask-shield is cracked, and she smirks.

She leaps up just as the Birhen strikes forward, like lightning. Ang Nilapastangan catches the two blade-legs pointed at her like spears, lifts her feet, and then slams them up against the Birhen’s mask shield.

The Birhen screams. The crack spiderwebs, but it does not shatter. Not yet.

The Birhen flails around, flinging Ang Nilapastangan against the wall. She flips and then slams feet first against it. The corpses beneath her writhe, are crushed by some aftershock.

“You cannot kill me, fool!” yells the Birhen, spiralling in the air again and then launching black javelins at Ang Nilapastangan. Ang Nilapastangan turns to one side and then sprints. The black javelins impale the wall in her wake. Ang Nilapastangan’s every stride is burning crimson as she moves diagonally across the wall, moving to a spot higher than the Birhen.

A black javelin bites at Ang Nilapastangan’s ankle, but it’s negated by a sudden flash of bright red light. No beats missed: Ang Nilapastangan launches herself off the wall, turning into a red lightning bolt heading straight for the Birhen. The Birhen, apparently, sees it coming: she twists her entire body around to avoid the lunge, catches Ang Nilapastangan’s body with her serpent-centipede body, and then flings her down to the ground.

Ang Nilapastangan isn’t going to lie: She felt that one.

She pushes herself off of the ground, just as four javelins impale her hands and feet, pinning her to the ground. Ang Nilapastangan winces, and blood runs down her wounds. She shakes her head and flexes her muscles once, and the javelins shatter.

She pushes herself up again, but as she does, another javelin is sent through her back. Blood splashes up, red blossoming. Ang Nilapastangan doesn’t let herself fall to the ground. She keeps her body off the ground.

And then a great force sends the black javelin down even more, opening her wounds. The Birhen has turned into a modest devotee, a woman with a conservative skirt and with a tapis over that, with a butterfly-sleeved blouse, and a panuelo on her head. Her eyes and hair glow azure, even as her face is a placid mask.

She’s standing on top of the black javelin, driving it deeper.

“Oh, you’re disappointing,” she says, in an infruriatingly patronizing tone.

Ang Nilapastangan bursts.

Inhibitors released. She has to. She knows that if she doesn’t, her sheer luck isn’t going to be enough to save her. She has to bring back the things she’s learned, the skills she’s hidden away deep in the recesses of her soul when she inhibited her Gahum.

But not the weapons that she’s accumulated. Never the weapons.

Karanduun are known to be prone to great shows of brilliance, their faces and skin burning like the sun, their veins like magma. Their hair is like the sky. It was the highest form of visual expression: becoming nature.

Ang Nilapastangan becomes Ang Nilapastangan, the Swordbreaker, the Crimson Bodhisattva Biraddali. Her hair turns into wings, her horns shatter and form into a halo of power. Her eyes burn bright magenta, and her skin turns into the sun-fire hot skin of a demon, liquid steel.

With another flex of her body, she blows the Birhen away. The Birhen slams against the wall.

The javelin is gone now. Ang Nilapastangan is standing now. She tilts her head back and stares at the Birhen.

The Birhen, eyes wide, takes to the air and then shapeshifts back into her serpent-centipede form, her body contracting and then unfolding like cloth thrown to the wind.

Before she can finish her transformation, Ang Nilapastangan is there, above her, fist sent straight down. “Sinagsibat!” Ang Nilapastangan announces, as her fist burns violently with the pastel brush strokes, melting together to create a white-red spear of energy, which she launches straight through the still-shapeshifting Birhen.

The spear-fist sears through some of the newly formed legs of the unfolding cloth. When the Birhen completes her shapeshifting, she has lost 3 of her legs, and 3 of her wings.

She screams. She attacks without abandon now: the Birhen assaults Ang Nilapastangan with her blade-legs. “Spider Rips the Web!”

Ang Nilapastangan parries every attack without a single cut. She catches the last blade leg, turns in the air, and then flings the Birhen straight to the ground. The ground shatters, the debris turns into strands of illusory matter.

It’s breaking apart, Ang Nilapastangan thinks. She knows the truth about this place, however. Some kind of illusory labyrinth, formed by powerful Asuwang sorcery. In the back of her mind, Ang Nilapastangan congratulates the Birhen for putting up such a convincing fever dream. That would mean that the Birhen is truly an adept Asuwang, with many years upon her back.

Unfortunately, it’s time for it to end.

She bends Gahum and impossibly pushes against air, sending her streaking straight down into the earth where the Birhen has fallen. Her fist slams against the Birhen’s now exposed head-tongue, sending a shockwave rattling bones.

Debris and dust kick up as if someone had dropped a cannonball into water. When the dust clears, Ang Nilapastangan is gripping the Birhen’s neck. A vise grip, one that no being in Sansinukob can remove.

However when the dust clears, Ang Nilapastangan sees that it’s not the Birhen she’s strangling with a single, Gahum-burning hand, but Lulu. Her tears are blood, her face that immaculate white again. Her single eye blinking red.

“Q-Qayin…” her breath is ragged. She’s dying again. She’s dying again.

She’s dying again.

Ang Nilapastangan’s grip faltered.

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#karanduun #torendheavenandearth #outbreak #2.6 #writing #webnovel

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torendheavenandearth · 5 years ago

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2.5

“Hearken and heed, the Great Guro who is a Greater Studyante once asked: ‘Enlighten me, great BATALA, though Thou be dead: why must I follow beliefs, if all beliefs are broken?

The great BATALA stands in Their Paradise Garden, with nothing but flower and bamboo and forever-living rivers rushing through canals. With every step, a new universe is born. With tranquility like the sigh of moss-covered rocks at the base of a mountain, They responded: ‘hangal, thou be a fool if thou dost not think all things broken.’

‘Then must we accept our brokenness, and rely on broken truths?’

‘Hangal, thou be a fool if thou dost think there is such a thing as truths.’

‘Then must we all follow the Red Secret of Science? Is there an ending to all things?’

‘Some Lies are greater than others, but in the end they are all lies. Hangal, hearken unto my words, and let them escape thy grasp so that it may becomest thy nature: believe upon what thou must if you believe it to be true, but let not the shard of they faith cut others, and let it be a stepping stone to harmonial enlightenment. One with others, others now one, kapwa.”

- From Ang Mga Turo ni Patay na BATALA (Teachings of Dead BATALA).

▼

Ang Nilapastangan doesn’t know what overcame her, but she knows that if she passed this opportunity up, she would regret it.

And so she runs.

She doesn’t even get on her horse--she used a bit of her Gahum, just enough to make the soles of her feet sizzle against the land. Specifically to the center of the Barangay, where she thinks whatever being that has brought the plague upon the barangay has taken refuge.

In just a matter of minutes she is outside of the barricade. She sees a few pieces of splintered wood lying on the ground. New. The barricade’s been tampered with.

She climbs up the barricade and sees just as a shadow carrying the body of Jaime enters into the broken doors of the church. The shadow does not look behind it, nor does it close the door.

The plaza is swarmed by amalanhig. The pile of corpses that were there just this afternoon are gone.

Ang Nilapastangan swallows her Gahum, and then proceeds to become one with all once again. Indiscernible, infinitely unattainable. She climbs down the other side. Past the threshold, she controls her breathing. Around the plaza there seem to be bahay na bato with their doors open, uninhabited.

She enters the bahay na bato. No creatures here. No amalanhig. No corpses unblessed. She walks up to the second floor. She makes no sound. Sound is for those that disturb the peace of silence. Ang Nilapastangan, at present, is silence.

She makes her way to one of the capiz shell windows, slides it open, and then leaps onto the roof of another bahay na bato. Thankfully these are made of sturdy wood and stone, easy for her to run across on. Using this vantage point, she flies across the night, a wraith in the midst of corpses. As she gets nearer, she scales down the side of one bahay na bato and falls onto the stone floor. She runs to the corner and peeks.

She’s now in a position where the cathedral is close, just a quick sprint away. However, three amalanhig shambles in between. One of them holds no weapon. One other wields a pitchfork, and another swings a bolo around haphazardly. The bolo bites into the one that has no weapon, but it feels no pain.

Ang Nilapastangan knows that all these creatures feed on life. They’ve become disturbed in death, and all they could ever want is to feed upon life once again to return the favor: disturb life. If they get so much as a scent or a flicker of that flame of life within their vicinity, they will go feral. Their revenge knows no bounds.

Well, it’s either revenge or orders. Ang Nilapastangan is slowly coming to terms with the realization that they might be ordered.

“Poor ones,” says Ang Nilapastangan. She brings a hand up to her mouth, and then breathes just the tiniest spark of Gahum. Within Gahum, there is life. It is, in a single breath, spiritual power and the jovial dance of living flames.

Ang Nilapastangan flings the spark of Gahum to one of the bahay na bato, and then snaps her fingers. She knows the umalagad--the ancestor spirits--will be pleased with her show.

The Gahum bursts. A firework of white flame. All of the amalanhig present there turn, and then immediately run. They run quick, the unimpeded approach of death.

Ang Nilapatangan launches off into a sprint the second most of the amalanhig are banging against the doors and the walls of the bahay na bato, literally climbing on top of each other to get to the spark of Gahum within. Ang Nilapastangan, on the other hand, goes through the broken gates of the church and immediately into that place of worship.

As soon as she’s in, she pulls the doors closed.

There’s silence.

Dust. She hears dust fall softly upon the ground. An arhythmic catharsis.

And then--

“Well hello, Karanduun.”

Ang Nilapastangan turns around. There, upon the altar where the triangufixed body of YEHOSHOAH, the mortal name of YEZU, is supposed to be, is instead the body of Jaime. He’s been removed of his garments. Naked, he hangs from fleshy tendrils that bind his wrists and ankles to the wall.

He is framed by a grotesque sculpture of flesh.

“Greetings.”

From behind the altar appears a shadow. The shadow melts away, revealing a tall man with unruly silver hair. His eyes are pure black, as if dipped into ink. His smile betrays canines too long to be human. He wears a priest’s frock.

And then Ang Nilapastangan can feel it. The Crimson Gahum. The Itim-na-Sisiw. “Asuwang.”

It emenates like the stench of rot from the corpse of dead animals. At least, that’s what it feels like. It certainly has no smell. It’s overpowering, almost overbearing. Ang Nilapastangan can feel her skin prickling, and can feel her hair standing on end.

Why am I getting scared? she asks. A first for her. She’s never scared. No dread has ever crept up on her in fifty years. Nothing scares her anymore.

And then that’s when she realizes: she’s hiding her Gahum. Suppressing it through Hiyang breathing techniques. Perhaps that’s why she feels the intense pressure and dread exuded by this particular Asuwang.

“How do you know what I am?” asks Ang Nilapastangan.

“No ordinary mortal can get through that horde.”

“No?”

“Either that, or you’re some kind of wizard, or have some kind of potent agimat. And you don’t look like you have either of those.”

He doesn’t know about Hiyang.

“What are you doing here? Are you the priest?”

“Was.”

Ang Nilapastangan takes a step closer. “Why have you done this to the barangay? Were you their priest?” Somehow, Ang Nilapastangan finds the threads and ties them together. If he was their priest then that would mean…

“No questions, Karanduun,” says the asuwang, and the amalanhig are grabbing her by her arms and pulling her out of the church. “Bring her to the town hall.”

Ang Nilapastangan struggles, but these amalanhig have slammed their flesh against each other until they have become a veritable golem of walking flesh, a carcass, the ultimate abomination against god.

They’re quick, like the speed of death, sometimes unflinchingly instant. Death has no constant speed, after all. It is swiftness. It is haste. It is slowness. It is the inevitable glacier.

They catch her off guard, while she is focusing upon Hiyang to suppress her Gahum. They’re too many. They haul her out of the church and to the plaza, a grotesque blob of flesh encapsulating her, eclipsing her, swallowing her whole. She can’t breathe. What is the power of that asuwang, that it could outsmart her all the while?

“You were never that smart.”

When Ang Nilapastangan hears those words, she is on her knees, and the mass of flesh has vomited her onto the lobby of a town hall. She opens her eyes and looks up; before her is a hallway, unilluminated.

“No.”

She rises to her feet, turns around, and slams against the door. It won’t budge.

She releases her oneness with Hiyang. Her Gahum flares, like a sudden bonfire in the middle of winter night. Her fist is wrapped in demon conflagration. “Let me out!”

This was a mistake. She never should have come here. She should’ve waited instead of thinking she could’ve stopped the entire menace by herself.

No, what are you thinking, Ang Nilapastangan? You are one of the most powerful beings on the Multiverse. The winner of the Hagdanan. Don’t fuck around. Break out. Break out.

“Come, Qayin. It’s time to rest. Join me in Maka. Please. Eternal glory is nothing without you.”

Qayin? Who’s Qayin? I’ve sealed that name out. That name exists no longer. Who is Qayin? A shadow of a shadow of a hollow shell. A porcelain manikin that dances to no-rhythm melodies.

“Shut up.” Ang Nilapastangan says, and her voice cracks. Her Gahum flares. Her crimson becomes blinding white. “Shut up!”

“Qayin. Listen to me.”

It’s Lulu. It’s Lulu. It’s Lulu.

“Silence!” she screams to no one but herself. “Sibatsinag!” She screams the words into existence, baybayin burns itself into the air, and she throws her fist against the door. A shaft of light rams through the door, shattering it and erasing it straight from reality.

Without looking behind her, she runs through the door…

...only to loop back into a hallway. Dimly lit. There is a window to her left, and then doors to her right. There is a figure. Blue. Hanging suspended in the air on the other side of the room. It doesn’t move.

In her periphery, Ang Nilapastangan can see the parade. Like humans, the invisible spirit societies that live within everything have their own fiestas. This time they are celebrating their own: one with parade floats wherein powerful bathala wave at their diwata consorts and subjects. Gigantic dragon-saint faces, busts of revered ancestor bodhisattvas, gods that have been turned into saints. They’re all made from natural materials: from stone, from ironwood, from broken glass, from sand, from dreams, from wishes unfilfilled, from prayers.

To her left they dance in an arrhythmically cold beat, in the middle of giant tropical trees, set upon the backdrop of an immense volcano. They light up the night with their devil-saint parade. Ang Pistang Gatusan nga Gabii. The Festival of a Hundred Nights.

The blue figure doesn’t move. It tells her: choose a door.

The blue figure doesn’t move. It tells her: you have until the Festival ends.

Ang Nilapastangan’s tears are blood. She enters into one door.

▼

Qayin stepped out of the door and onto her rooftop home. Six weeks she had stayed here. And for that six weeks, she’d gotten used to the fresh cold wind yet hot sun, and the terrible smell, and the corpses thrown onto canals, and the demons that fly about the sky.

Qayin herself was a simple girl. Dark hair that fell to the top of her back. Messy bangs. Large bags under her eyes. Brown eyes. Brown skin. A black cloth shirt that had a hood that had floral designs that extended past the shirt’s hem, which she stole from the corpse of a dying tawong lipod. A simple skirt. Rubber slippers.

It was a cold night. There was a single roof over two beds. Not even beds, there were only simple banig with a pillow. A coffee table stood pressed against the bamboo railings of the rooftop. If one were not careful, you could easily just topple over and onto the stone streets below.

The night was illuminated not by stars above but by lights below. These lights, which are powered by the still-fulminating corpse of the dead lightning BATALA, have a red tinge to them. Of course they do. What is the color of blood?

Sitting upon a bamboo bench, inscribing upon a bamboo scroll with a stele, was Demonyong Bakulaw. He wore balloon pants and wooden tsinelas, but nothing above that. His form was that of a large, green-furred gorilla, with horns and spikes growing from his forehead and down the length of his back, like broken glass inserted onto his back.

He looked up from his writing. “Ah, you’ve returned.”

Qayin nodded, walking over to the coffee table and placing the abaca bag onto it. She pulled out the stuff that she bought: preserved already cooked chicken, cheap coffee in bamboo canisters, a bag of dried mangoes, and a large canteen of water.

“I really don’t mean to make you into a personal food-buyer but you’ll understand that I am quite busy,” said Bakulaw, picking up the preserved, already cooked chicken by a single hand. He exhaled, and his hand began to blaze a green flame, heating the chicken to perfect eating temperatures.

Qayin was already grabbing the porcelain plates by the dish rack as he did that, and she put it down onto the coffee table. The wind blew harder, which Bakulaw liked a lot.

He placed the chicken down onto the porcelain plates, cutting it in half with just his hands.

“It’s okay,” replied Qayin, shrugging. She sat down on her pillow and began eating with Bakulaw. She’d been doing this for a lot of nights now, and she knew how comfortable Bakulaw was with silence during meals. And so, they were silent, looking out to the other, taller buildings that flanked theirs. Great once-gods now killed, angels buried into the earth with their wings jutting out to the skies like one final plea to the god that had abandoned them once they had been created, great crystal towers erected by now lost engkanto sorcery, great trees that have grown gray due to the death of the diwata that lived within them.

A graveyard. They lived in a graveyard.

Biringan, the City of Cities, they said. What an utter joke.

Eventually they finished eating. Bones left. Qayin enjoyed a good seasoned chicken. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten a real meal before. Living with Bakulaw, she hadn’t had a home cooked meal in forever. She didn’t blame Bakulaw though, of course. Bakulaw was the only one that took her up when she arrived in this world, bloody, bleeding, and bruised, like a sacrifice in front of a balete tree.

“Bakulaw,” asked Qayin, removing a stray strand of hair from her face. “Why do you think I was chosen?” She had been wondering this question ever since the beginning of her arrival. Why her? She was no fighter. She was a nobody. She was nothing. She was just a simple farm girl who lived on a tidally locked planet.

“The Hagdanan is both indiscriminate and all-discriminatory. Dead BATALA exists everywhere, child.”

“I know but…” Qayin sighed. She was vulnerable again. She hid her knees underneath her soft cloth hoodie. “Why?”

“You want to go home, child?” asked Bakulaw, folding the bamboo scroll and setting his stele down. He pushed himself from his bench and stretched. “You wish to escape the Hagdanan?”

It was small and faint, because she didn’t want Bakulaw to see, but Qayin nodded.

Bakulaw walked over to the bamboo railings and put both of his hands on top. “Easier wished than done. The Hagdanan doesn’t care for the people it picks. It doesn’t choose anyone. It rolls the dice and plucks you. You were simply unlucky.”

“And I have to deal with it?”

Bakulaw bowed his head low. “Unfortunately.”

Qayin rose to her feet and pulled out a coffee can. She walked up next to Bakulaw and handed it to him. “Thank you.”

“Is there no way to simply… forfeit?” She stared up at the gigantic inverted triangle-shaped obelisk, impossible standing upon its narrow tip.

“Die,” stated Bakulaw. “It’s either you win or you die. If you forfeit… you will be hounded by the other 150. They need you dead for them to win.”

“So technically speaking, I can just do nothing, try to live a good life here, until I inevitably die?” She shrugged and sipped on her coffee can. “How different is that from simply just living?”

“It will very often be a violent death,” said Bakulaw. “And your life will be in vain.”

“You don’t get to tell me that,” replied Qayin.

“Aye, so try telling it to yourself.”

Qayin scowled.

“Now go and throw these down the trash shoot,” said Bakulaw. “Then we continue your training. You’re a great fighter, Qayin, and powerful. You have a shot at winning the Hagdanan. And if you do, we can rid this multiverse and create a better one.”

Qayin ruminated upon those words as she threw the coffee cans into their trash bag and approached the door.

She entered the door.

▼

And then Qayin stepped out. This time she was on a different rooftop. She stepped out onto the rooftop head of a huge Maria statue, sculpted into a perpetual prayer, 300 feet into the air. There are no lights on the head. This Maria statue was said to have been a powerful weapon that has since been decommissioned and frozen into uselessness.

This Maria statue watched as the rest of Biringan went about their day. Unlike most of the other statues, this Maria statue was erected before the war, as a supplication and offering to the Flower of Heaven. But that was a long time ago, a time now mostly unforgotten. Indeed, time has marched on so far that even the season before the War was seen as ancient history.

However, the Maria statue did get damaged during the war. One of its seven arms was missing, making it look incomplete and blasphemous. A replacement arm was in construction at the time Qayin and Lulu were atop the Maria statue. Her crown of flowers had also been drenched red with BATALA’s blood, but they couldn’t really do anything about that could they?

When you kill the creator you must live with your sins.

Now upon that marble white statue, stained red by the blood of the slain Blasphemed Creator, Qayin found herself staring at Lulu, who was staring up at the night. The moon, glowing silver-blue. Her hair was immaculately blonde, her skin paler than day. Qayin walked up to her, carrying a leaf bag that had two coffee cans once again.

Ang Nilapastangan can’t help but smile at her and her friends’ love for coffee.

What? That was weird. Qayin shook the stray thought from her mind and it dissipated like cotton-candy silk. “Hey,” Qayin said, and she was smiling widely.

Lulu turned to her. She had no philtrum, and her eyes were purely black, no sclera. Her ears, which poked through her blonde hair, were knife-sharp as well, and her teeth sharp, like a shark’s. “Ooh! Coffee? For me?”

“Shut up, you ordered me to buy this for you.”

The both of them laughed. Qayin’s smile never left her lips. She popped open the bamboo can and began drinking. They leaned against the railings, which actually were the thorns of the flowers that crowned the Maria.

Qayin stole a glance from Lulu. She introduced herself to her before as “Luluwa”. She was a tamawo, she explained. They used to be the nobles of the engkanto people, those that lived in the towers, and she had pointed at the great crystal spires that dotted most of the center of the city. Lulu found her beauty to be ethereal, almost inhuman. Well, she wasn’t human, but even so. Here beauty was strange, truly exotic, not the exociticism of the Empire. The true otherworldliness. Conventional attractiveness doesn’t--cannot--apply to her. She is a nonhuman being who knew her power.

Below them was a festival of incandescence. Blues blending with reds to produce disgusting purples. Yellows slicing through greens. No natural colors, these come from the kuryente-powered generators. Those god-corpse-suckers.

“You ever wanted to go back to a quiet life?” asked Lulu.

Qayin nodded almost immediately. “More than anything. That’s all I want. I just want to go home, forget all this madness, this craziness.” She breathed in, looking up at the blue moon. It’s better for the eyes. They don’t assault her irises with unethical burning luminescence. “But I have a feeling this won’t end up good for me.”

Lulu turned to her, smiling a sad smile. Her pale lips almost made it hard to see, save for the line. She sidled up next to Qayin and placed a hand around her. “Hey, Yinnie,” Lulu said. “It’s going to be all right, okay? I’m with you. Remember our promise, okay?”

Qayin managed a smile. The smile carried with it relief, and her heart felt less heavy. She’d been here for almost two years now. She grew up out of her teenhood here. She’d become a true adult here, and more. She was forced to become a survivor. Her entire life was stolen from her, just because of some uncaring, unfeeling god.

“God is dead, Qayin,” Bakulaw had said to her in the beginning. “Now God rules over us.” She somewhat understood the meaning of that now.

“Thanks, Lulu,” she said. “So much has been taken from me.”

“Hey. That’s why we’re taking a breather here, right?” Lulu smiled. “Let’s get some of that lost time back through the silences between our blades.”

Qayin turned and looked at Lulu, whose face was terribly close to hers. “Thank you, Lulu.”

Lulu shook her head. “The strength is in you, remember that.”

Lulu was another member of the 150 that must climb the Hagdanan. She wondered if that meant she had to kill her in the end.

Bakulaw had disagreed. “I’ve read the rules,” he’d said, and Qayin had gone off on a tangent as to how he read the rules, as if this was some kind of board game. “The Hagdanan requires the strength of all the 150 to kill God. Usually, killing each other is the best way to obtain the others’ Gahum. Thus, in this bloodlust ridden world, this is often interpreted to mean that we must kill each other to gain the power of the chosen 150, and then use the Gahum gathered as strength to defeat God.”

Qayin held on to the conclusion they came upon afterwards: “What if you don’t need to kill the chosen 150, but rather, get their help?”

In the past year, Lulu and Qayin had already killed two other of the contestants, and and thus they each have a Gahum of another contestant within them. They promised to split the contestants equally amongst them, and then together they would kill God.

“If that’s truly the goal of the Hagdanan, then let’s achieve it,” Qayin had said, with only a little resolve and conviction behind it. But Lulu had cheered so loudly that Qayin couldn’t help but smile and gain just a bit more motivation.

Lulu was taller than Qayin, so she hugs her from behind, with her head atop Qayin’s. They stood silently like that, a conjoined shadow upon the multicolored bonfire. They promised each other promises they would forget. They laughed in jokes that lost humor within context. They lived as paradoxes, darkness against light, swords against evil. Who were they, this angel-devil pair? Who were they to purpose in their heart to kill God, Thrice-Tyrant?

As if an answer to the questions of the All-Seeing Eye, the rhythm of heavy boots resounded from past the door behind them. Lulu pushed herself off of Qayin and asked: “Did you tip off the fucking Guwardya Sibil again?”

Qayin swallowed. “I didn’t think they noticed.”

“Stop!” A leather boot blast through the door that had been fitted into a makeshift hole into the sculpted marble hair bun of the Maria. “Guwardya Sibil, get on the ground!”

“You know the Guwardya Sibil, Qayin,” Lulu said as she turned around and raised her fists. Behind her, the Guwardya Sibil had already gotten into position, attempting to flank them on all sides. Bolos raised, those with bows and arrows readied. Some that have rifles have knelt and aimed at them. They all wore the same rayadillo and leather pantalones getup, with the leather boots. Their squad leader wore a tricorn hat. “They always notice if you’re not rich.”

Lulu turned around with her, and when she did, a kampilan was in her hands. It was large, and the image of a relatively small girl wielding a large blade was iconic enough to be imprinted upon the minds of many.

“Do not resist!”

“To live is to resist!” yelled out Lulu as she flashed forward, fists already burning with pastel force. In the next instant she was in the fray, fist slamming against the cheek of the one kneeling and with a rifle trained upon them. The pastel power caged within her fist flurried out, extending into pastel white tendrils of power. Her Gahum.

The bullets and arrows flew toward Qayin as Lulu fended off the bolomen that jumped on her. Qayin breathed a silent prayer to the Umalagad, the ancestor spirits, asking for their favor. Then, she moved with grace, and with a quick practiced kata movement deflected the arrows and bullets, rerouting them to the ground or the sky.

Then, Qayin leapt forward as well, cutting and slashing heads off of the Guwardya Sibil, until she and Lulu had painted a throne of blood.

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#karanduun #to rend heaven and earth #webnovel #writing #outbreak #2.5

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torendheavenandearth · 5 years ago

Text

2.4

“In the end of all things, there will be light, like a pinprick thou canst not see. But the darkness will be too familiar, and you will wish you never left the Shadow of God’s Wing. Then you will learn the truth of martyrdom, the hell of guilt, the inferno of penitence. Then you shall learn the Eight Cardinal Sin, both a Virtue and a Vice: Regret.”

- Mga Kanta sa Pangatlong Libro (Songs from the Third Book)

▼

Back in Barangay Laurel, a statuesque angel-being looks over the buried body of the crimson anghel. Dante, he knew him as. With a single whiff, he can smell the burning flame of Gahum.

He is in white military rayadillo uniform, black gloves, and high boots. His sabre hangs on one side, lazy. On the other side hangs a firecaster: a firearm that has a mini-spirit house sculpted onto its back, where a diwata of fire is enslaved.

A group of men and women in similar suits, albeit without a firecaster and only bolos for weapons, are bustling around the area. Some of them are acting as a human barricade to stop the townsfolk from interfering with the investigation. Others are going around collecting evidence, picking them up with gloved hands, and putting them in sanitizied pouches, mostly flesh tissue left over as well as spiritual residue from the dead anghel. Some of them are going up to the man with the firecaster.

“Kapitan Briogo, we’ve scoured the area. No other people nor corpses were found.”

Kapitan Briogo’s face is a mask of sculpted stone. It is shaped in the visage of the perfect white man: an aquiline nose, full lips, high cheekbones, eyes made of azure lapis lazuli. His hair is not hair but a twining of wires and clockwork. When he moves his head to look at the reporter, the machinery within him whirrs.

His wings are connected together by interlocking plates and clockwork. Clinging to his elbows are pistons. Rivets moving through imperfect seams along his perfect white-gold carapace betray complex machinations underneath.

“Go around for another round. Make sure no stone is unturned.” The Kapitan’s voice is a hollow monotone filtered through a mesh.

The one that spoke with him--a young tao--salutes once and moves away to relay the order. He turns again to the corpse. Slowly, the little light encapsulated within their little clockwork heart seeps back to heaven, to Pugad Langit.

“Kapitan,” another voice, this time also as mechanical as his. This one has the body of a young mortal boy, although he is blindfolded, and from his wrists and ankles hang broken chains. Despite having the countenance of a young handsome boy with golden hair, the seams running through his arms betray his true form.. “Do you have any conclusions? I can think of one.”

The Kapitan speaks. “There are times when a razor must cut through smoke and find the fire. What does this Gahum smell like, Antonio?”

“Brimstone.”

“This Gahum belongs to someone who is powerful. Someone we have felt before.”

“The winner of the Hagdanan,” says the young man.

“Correct, Antonio. The Winner of the Hagdanan. The Swordbreaker. Ang Nilapastangan.” He stares at the body of Dante, the killed anghel. “We ride, soon. We must.”

“To where?” asks Antonio.

“We follow the road.”

▼

Ang Nilapastangan clambers over the barrier, and so does Angela. Wooden chairs almost hit her due to the barrier basically falling apart. “I told you to go home. It’s not safe here.”

“I feel safer when I’m with you!” exclaims Angela as she pulls herself up and onto the top of the barricade.

Past the barricade is a strange sight.

There is the plaza, usually a site for lively recreation and jubilant mingling, now reduced into a greyed out silence pit. A fine sheet of ash has covered the area, draining the color out of the place.

In the middle of the plaza is that small park area with a statue in the middle. The statue in the middle is supposedly a statue of Yezu, raising his gun and proclaiming victory to the heavens, wearing nothing but a padded coat, pants, high boots and a trench coat.

Corpses pile up by the base of the area. Unmoving. Untwitching. Deader than dead.

“What the fuck?”

Angela’s gaze looks further and past the plaza she sees the town hall and the church. The church’s double doors are destroyed: one is lost and the other hangs by a single hinge. It's too dark for Angela to see what’s inside. Other than that, it's a simple stone church with a few carvings onto the doorway made of stone and with that inverted triangle at the top, where crosses from churches back at Angela’s universe would be.

Although now looking at carvings, they have been defaced, one way or another. Their faces shattered, hands and feet missing.

The town hall doesn’t look any better. Its walls have been dilapitated, covered in the sheet of ash. A dark cloud passes over it. Not literally, but Angela can’t help but feel dread claw from the bottom of her stomach as she looks. As if the town hall is about to open its eyes and stare back at her.

“D-Do you see anything?”

Ang Nilapastangan shakes her head. “No. Her Gahum is in there, somewhere. Deep in there. But I can’t pinpoint where.”

“Shit.”

“Let’s go back to the commune first and have a plan before we do anything rash.”

“Yeah, good idea.”

▼

They get on their horses and trot out. It's not twilight yet. Jaime and the others are nowhere to be found.

“Looks like we’re going back before they do,” says Angela. They’ve done a few stops to pick up some extra supplies--clothes, salt, sacks of rice--so that they have something good to bring back at least.

They gallop across the field going back to the commune and then they slow to a trot as they reach the flanked path. As they trot along, Ang Nilapastangan says, “We should get out of here, soon.”

Angela raises an eyebrow. “Why? What’s the problem?”

“It’s not going to be long until they find us here. And this is the closest barangay to Laurel. We should get going by tomorrow at least.”

“All right,” says Angela. “If you say so.” Now at the bottom of her gut, she wants to go back and find the albularyo so that they can get out as early as possible. Yet, at the same time, she can’t help but feel bad about the people still here, surviving in the commune. Will they ever get out?

“You can help them get rid of the amalanhig, right?” asks Angela.

Ang Nilapastangan shrugs. “If my guess is correct, the anghel or whoever the Trinity makes follow us can take care of whatever problem they have. What we need to do is find the albularyo. Got that?”

Angela nods. They reach and cross the stream.

Babaylan Salinas greets them as they enter into the commune. “Ah, o great and mighty Ang Nilapastangan!”

Angela sees Ang Nilapastangan manage a small smile. She shakes her head and says, “Please, lola, simply Nila is fine. I don’t seek to be treated as a great hero.”

Babaylan Salinas stares at her for a few moments, before smiling herself and nodding. “The others are surely still on their way back. Please, take a moment to rest and recuperate.”

Ang Nilapastangan nods. “Wait, uh, lola, can I ask you a few questions before that? Regarding the barangay.”

The Babaylan dips her head in a slight, reverent nod. “Yes, please. Would you like to have it over coffee and bananacue?”

Angela usually eats bananacue every afternoon, made by her mom. But now, her mother is gone. Well, no, technically it’s she who’s gone, not her mother. But what does that mean for her?

Sitting there, on a nice textile fabric on the floor, eating out of a porcelain plate a few nice bananacues and some really strong coffee, she’s suddenly transported home. Back to where she’s supposed to belong. Sitting on her plastic chair in front of their wooden table, where bananas and apples would be lying. Leftovers from last night’s dinner would be kept in an ice cream tub.

Tears well up in her eyes, bleeding sadness.

“Anak,” says Babaylan Salinas. “What’s wrong? You are…” Angela glimpses up and looks at Babaylan Salinas, and the Babaylan peers into her eyes. Through the veil of her tears, the Babaylan sees something that makes her frown.

“You are lost.”

Angela wipes away her tears. Ang Nilapastangan watches her for a bit, before she coughs and says, “Let her deal with it. Babaylan, I seek answers to a few questions.”

The Babaylan gives Angela one last sad glance, before nodding and turning to Ang Nilapastangan. “Yes, I will try to answer to the best of my ability.”

“The barangay, it has been like that for how long now?”

“Since… Unangaraw.”

“Today is Pangatlongaraw, so that means it’s been that way for 2 days?”

The babaylan nods.

“Very well. Was there anything strange going on before the day it happened?”

The Babaylan shakes her head. “I was a busy one, doing many healings during that time. It was an Unangaraw, so I thought nothing of it. I guess that should’ve been the first evidence that something wasn’t right.”

Ang Nilapastangan nods. “Amalanhig are usually brought about by either the residue of yawa souls… or aswang witchery. You, being the babaylan, would know if there was a yawa in the vicinity, would you not?”

The babaylan nods. “There weren’t any during that time,” she replise. “Nothing out of the ordinary. However, when I consulted with the Diwata, they answered nothing. It was strange, for sure.

“And then, when it happened, it did so quickly. Like a wink lost in the crowd. That night, most of the barangay had been turned into amalanhig. Mostly those that lived in solitary homes were able to get out in time.”

“So you are implying that it was indeed the work of an asuwang?”

The babaylan nods, without hesitation. “We barricaded the plaza because we think that’s where the asuwang might be, but we’re not so sure.”

“A simple barricade will not stop an asuwang,” says Ang Nilapastangan.

“I know. The barricade had the secondary purpose of keeping in the corpses.”

“Then we should do something. Tonight, I will try to get in and see if there is asuwang within the vicinity. The earlier the better,” says Ang Nilapastangan. “If we manage to end the asuwang, the amalanhig menace will be gone as well.”

“But… that would mean--”

“The means to bring a soul back to life is gone with the Karanduun of old,” says Ang Nilapastangan, solemn.

There’s a choking silence that follows. Darkness glows. Candlelight flickers. Angela wipes away the last of her unfounded tears, eyes wide, still unknowing why she’s crying.

“It might be the albularyo,” mutters Ang Nilapastangan.

Babaylan Salinas nods. “She was certainly acting strange before the happening, but I cannot in good conscience think she has done… that.”

“You’re right. There’s nothing in it for Gumamela. Either she’s had something to do with it, or she’s in there, somewhere, doing something.”

“What do you plan to do?” asks Babaylan Salinas.

Ang Nilapastangan sighs. “I’m going to face whatever is in there. Tonight. If I don’t find the albularyo, taking care of what has caused the amalanhig menace will definitely be a help. I need to know if Gumamela has been taken by whatever is in there or if she’s still alive.”

Angela’s eyes widen. She rubs away her tears. “Then I’m--”

Adlay’s voice cut through Angela’s protests: “Jaime! Jaime is missing!”

Ang Nilapastangan is already on her feet, rushing forward and out of the door. The babaylan is raising her hand to stop her, but Ang Nilapastangan is unimpeded. Angela blinks, wondering why she is so quick to respond to that news. Is Jaime somewhat important to her? Or is it something else?

She leaps from the door and over to Adlay in a single bound. “What? What happened to Jaime?”

“O, O great Ang Nilapastangan!” says Adlay, shuddering. “Jaime has been taken captive by the great devourer!”

“What? Take it slow. What happened?” Against the bonfire light, Ang Nilapastangan’s face is a shadowy mask.

“It-It was like a dark shadow!” shouts out the tikbalang, Damian, getting off of his horse. Angela sees this, and stifles a chuckle at the absurdity.

“It plucked Jaime out from the darkness when he got too close to the barricade!”

“Shit. I know what it’s trying to do,” says Ang Nilapastangan. She runs over to Stella, her horse, and is off, galloping back presumably into the barangay. She doesn’t stop. It’s as if her spirit is guiding her.

Angela watches her ride off, and then she’s running toward her own horse as well.

“Hoy, where do you think you’re going?” asks Adlay.

“Going after her.”

Damian grabs her by her bicep. “I’m sorry, girl, but you will not be rushing headfirst into danger. We have to protect our own.”

Our own? Angela stops. She turns and looks up at Damian. “I can’t leave Ang Nilapastangan alone.”

“I know,” says Damian, patting her head. “But she can handle that better alone than with you. Think of it: she’d rather not have you there to protect. She wouldn’t want something bad to happen to you. I’m sure of it.” There’s a pained wistfulness in Damian’s voice. It breaks Angela.

Realization creeps up to Angela, and she releases her tension. “What if she dies?”

Adlay, from behind them, shouts out: “Hah! Her? Die? Ang Nilapastangan faced GOD and lived! We don’t have to worry about her!”

Angela releases her fists. She balled them up while trying to get to Ang Nilapastangan. “You’re right.” Her shoulders drop.

“Ang Nilapastangan will be fine. She is sung. She will be known. She will save Jaime.”

“Babaylan Salinas, why did you not simply call upon help from other barangay? Or from the Kingdom? Ang Nilapastangan told me there was a kingdom that ruled over you.”

Damian turns around and shakes his head. Adlay sighs and scratches his head.

The Babaylan gingerly picks her way down to the ground. She walks over to the bonfire and lets out a sigh. The wind rustles her bramble hair. “Iha, we have tried,” says Babaylan Salinas. “We have tried. But do you think… do you think the Kingdom listens?”

Angela swallows.

“Us being off dead is better for them. They can build more estates upon the graves of our people. We went to Biringan, the capital of the Kingdom, a long time ago. We tried fighting for higher wages, for better treatment, for we were being killed because we are trying to protect the farmlands that are ours.

“But no. They did not listen. They will never listen. The Kingdom does not care for us. None will care for us but each other.”

Angela breathes. She lowers her hands. She realizes she’s raised them. “I’m sorry. Has it always been this way?”

The bark-skinned spirit medium simply nods.

Damian stares at the path that Ang Nilapastangan has left behind. He chuckles. “You can’t really stop someone that is resigned to death, huh?”

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#to rend heaven and earth #karanduun #webnovel #2.4 #outbreak

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torendheavenandearth · 5 years ago

Text

2.3

“There comes a time when thou must take up responsibility. Thine responsiblity is a broken sword, a battered shield, a melted helmet. This responsibility shalt shield thee all they days against all unworthy opponents, upon those that should challenge your ideals and will. Verily: only those with sharper beliefs will cut thee. Therefore, sharpen the blade of thy truth, repair the shield of thy faith, and reforge the helmet of thy passion, for only through those canst thou survive in this hollowed dream, this fantasy regurgitated from the mind of the All-Loving Christ, which thou didst make weep.” - From Ang Mga Kanta (The Psalms) from the book Ang Pangatlong Bibliya (The Blasphemous Third Bible of Heresies).

▼

Angela is awakened by the crows of roosters: an all too familiar waking call. She opens her eyes and almost jumps out of bed to prepare for school, until she remembers that she’s in another world, in another universe, which has demons and monsters and angels that want to kill you.

She sighs. Hoping it was a dream was wishful thinking, she mutters. Angela writhes about in her bed and rubs her eyes. Eventually she pushes herself up to sit, just as Ang Nilapastangan walks in with a simple cloth wrapped around her.

Angela blinks at first, and then looks away, abashed. She can’t help but notice all the tattoos and scars that line her body, like intricate latticework or a net of tree-roots keeping her together.

Ang Nilapastangan doesn’t miss a beat, though. She continues and grabs a few of the clothes that have been folded and stacked neatly on a nearby table and changes behind a few bamboo panels.

Angela sighs. She could use a bath. She rises and looks around, and sees the drying cloth for bathing. Large enough for her, but then again she isn’t exactly tall to begin with.

She goes out and sees that there are other men and women already going about whatever they were supposed to do for the day. Some struck out with bows and arrows at the ready, seemingly going out to hunt. Others were also readying weapons, although they brought with them large rattan bags.

Angela sees Jaime. “Good morning.”

Without looking at her, Jaime says: “You should get out to the river if you want to bathe. There’s a section further east that has a bunch of boulders that you can safely hide behind.”

Angela sighs and nods. “Thanks.” She curses that she doesn’t have any shampoo or soap. She’ll only be able to rinse. Then again, it is a luxury she can’t afford right now.

“Where are you going?” asks Angela, walking up to Jaime.

“Another expedition,” says Jaime. “Another resource run. Looking for survivors, maybe, and then grabbing as much leftover stuff as we can. There’s some fresh bread in the panaderya there.”

“Angela, go wash yourself, quick.” It’s Ang Nilapastangan, her voice booming from behind. “Jaime, how long before your team leaves?”

Jaime shrugs. “Tito Adlay is still prepping, so we have some time. Why?”

“Good. Angela and I need to get into the barangay. I’m looking for an Albularyo.”

Jaime raises an eyebrow.

“She’s the only one I can trust with spiritual excisions,” says Ang Nilapastangan. She puts a hand on her hip and raises an eyebrow. “Is there a problem?” Angela notices that Ang Nilapastangan is now wearing a simple baro that slightly reveals her midriff, making it look like she’s wearing some kind of traditional crop top, and then balloon pants. Angela wanted the balloon pants. Instead she’s stuck with some more saya.

“No,” Jaime says, crossing his arms. He’s tall, taller than Ang Nilapastangan, so he’s looking down at her. “It’s just dangerous and… the albularyo lives in the forest past the barangay. It’s going to be risky.”

“We’ll manage.”

Jaime nods. “I’ll point you in the right direction. We’ll wait for you.” And with that, Jaime turns and walks to the rest of his team.

Angela sighs. She reaches up and touches her horns. “Right. These.”

“Go get washed up.”

▼

Angela manages to wash herself in the privacy of two boulders blocking the view. While she was washing she kept looking behind her to see if some kind of monster would pop out, like a horror movie, but nothing ever did. In the tranquility of the scene, with the river rushing through the thick stone, it was almost calming. Behind her rose the edifice that was the mountain--the name of which she wasn’t sure of yet--while she was washing. The trees were swaying in the temperate breeze. That moment of peace… she cherished.

It didn’t last long, unfortunately.

As she washed, she noticed that she still wore the anting-anting that Makabintang had given her. She sighed. Poor Makabintang. She quite literally barely knew him.

Now she’s washed up and fresh, wearing a long baro that reaches her thighs and a saya underneath that. She’d been given some nice wooden tsinelas, wooden sandals, that she could use to walk more or less safely over earthen ground.

She walks out of the house and over to where Ang Nilapastangan and Jaime and the rest are waiting. “Do you have a spare bolo we can borrow?” asks Ang Nilapastangan.

Adlay grins. “Why? I thought you were the Swordbreaker?”

Ang Nilapastangan nods. “I am. Now do you have one? It’s no worry if you don’t.”

Damian rolls his eyes at Adlay, neighs. “Yes, we do, po ma’am. Although we only have one po. Our apologies.”

‘“It’s okay. It’s mostly for Angela.”

Jaime looks over Ang Nilapastangan’s shoulder as Angela approaches. “You know how to fight with a bolo?”

Angela shrugs. “Not really. I have some practice but I doubt it’s applicable.”

Damian gives a spare bolo to Ang Nilapastangan. “Thank you,” she says, and then turns and gives it to Angela. “Since we don’t have the weapon Makabintang gave you anymore, you’ll have to make do with this for now. I’ll teach you some practical techniques before we get into true violence.”

Angela takes the bolo and ties it to her waist. “Got it. So, we’re getting the bug taken off of me?”

“Hopefully, with albularyo’s help. That branding will be a huge problem.”

“Let’s go,” says Adlay, after finishing strapping a last piece of equipment to himself. The three of them all are fully equipped. Damian is wearing a piece of kalabaw-hide armor over a chain shirt, and wields a bow and arrow. Jaime is wearing a simple shirt and pants getup but has a kalasag and a bangkaw on both hands. Adlay is bringing a luthang, a kind of musket, along with a kalasag of his own, and is wearing kalabaw-hide armor, although he wears a threaded abaca undershirt instead of a chain shirt.

“Wait, one last thing,” says Ang Nilapastangan. She asks for cotton-padded armor, which they apparently have. Angela sees that it is slightly bulky when Damian brings it out, but it is made of beautiful and colorful fabric. Ang Nilapastangan tells her to wear it over her anting-anting so that she is protected from most harm. She agrees, and puts it on. It’s a bit stifling, and she wonders if she was expecting it to be hotter, but it actually isn’t that bad. She puts up with it, lets it protect her.

“All right,” says Adlay. “Let’s ride.”

▼

They all get on their horses and ride away. Jaime and Adlay share a single horse, Damian follows with a smaller horse, and Angela and Ang Nilapastangan follow Jaime and Adlay back into the barangay. On both sides, Angela sees, now in clear daylight, that the fields have been ravaged and the rice left unharvested. She frowns at it. She wonders if there are any amalanhig that would have the humor of ambushing them right then and there.

As they near the barangay, from this entry point, Angela notices how abnormal the barangay actually looks. It’s too quiet, it’s too… dead. She knows how towns should look, even in places like these. There’s no bustle of people, no mooing or anything. Probably the most jarring thing is how no roosters are crowing. An impoosibility.

What’s even weirder to Angela is how it doesn’t look like it’s been ravaged or anything. It just looks like it’s… dead. Or has been sleeping for a really long time. Nothing is coming out of it, and a prickling sense of dread spider-climbs up Angela’s spine as she thinks what really has happened in the barangay. What strange sorcery has risen from the cursed earth of the town?

Thankfully, there are none. They ride into the barangay more or less safey. “We have all day to gain resources,” says Adlay, turning to Ang Nilapastangan as they slow the pace of the horses to a trot. “We’ve already assigned roles. You can go and do whatever you need to do, po. If you can bring back any useful thing that can still be used, that would be greatly useful.”

Ang Nilapastangan nods. She turns to Jaime. “Tell us where the albularyo is.”

Jaime nods. He brings the horse to a canter, and both Angela and Ang Nilapastangan follow after him. In the morning sun rays, Angela finds shadows cast upon the houses, both those that are bamboo-stilt as well as those that are bahay-na-bato. She sees shadows where there is none. She sees eyes peeking out from the gaps between doors left unclosed. She sees whispers whistling through the wind chimes that hang from some of the houses. She sees children playing under bamboo stilt houses, where the carcasses of dead pigs and chicken rot.

Jaime stops them when they come across a corpse in the middle of the road. It is unmoving, bent in unnatural angles, and stands like a black blot in the sun-bleached earth.

Ang Nilapastangan raises an eyebrow. She lifts her finger. “No,” says Jaime. “Stay back.”

“What’s he going to do?” asks Angela, but none of them answer. Jaime brings out a matchstick and lights it against one of the bamboo ladders, and then tosses the lit match to the corpse. It catches fire and it doesn’t do anything. It simply lays there, burning. A horrible stench wafts from it.

“Come on,” says Jaime, and canters his horse quickly around it so that their horses don’t have to linger and be scared. It works, for the most part. Their horses flail about when they have to come near it.

Eventually they canter out into an area that opens up again into the road. Nothing but trees on this side, however. Jaime points up the path. “Follow the path, and you’ll find a simple house. That’s where the albularyo stays.”

Ang Nilapastangan nods and thanks him. Jaime tells them to stay safe in the name of the Ninuno, and Ang Nilapastangan returns the greeting, grateful. They don’t tarry: they ride up the road and follow it.

Here, birds don’t chirp. It is an eerie silence--as if to say a silent song is the only fitting dirge for a world such as this. The wind rustles against the leaves of the trees, sending them swirling to the ground, but even that has a sad melody.

They encounter almost no further problems in the road, and Angela was half-expecting it, due to all the excitement that has happened so far. “So, Nila,” says Angela as their horses canter up the road. The silence is choking, and Angela feels too stifled. “You’re going to teach me a martial art?”

Ang Nilapastangan nods.

“Then, what kind of martial art is it? Is it like the one you’ve been doing? Dropkicks and names that appear in the air?”

Ang Nilapastangan shakes her head. “I’ll be teaching you a simple style, one that is not too hard to master but will surely help you survive whatever tribulation or trouble you’ll have to face ahead. It’s a well-rounded style, giving you ample defense and strong offense, built to adapt to any situation, whether you have a weapon or not.”

‘“What’s it called?”

“Skirmishing Kalis,” says Ang Nilapastangan. “Sometimes also known as the Skirmish-Armor Style. It’s the bedrock for many other styles. If you ever decide to learn other Martial Arts, perhaps one of the more complex ones, then Skirmishing Kalis will give you good fundamentals.”

“Huh. Thanks, Nila.” They move on a few more moments without noise, and Angela decides to fill it in again, mostly to ignore her from the growing devil-anxiety in the back of her neck. “So, you’re a Karanduun, huh? Whatever that means?”

“I’m sure Jaime has told you.” She canters a good few feet ahead of her, so Angela is unable to see her face.

“Well, yeah. Why didn’t you tell me, though?”

“There was no need to.”

“Seems like you’ve had quite an exciting life.”

Ang Nilapastangan doesn’t answer.

Angela looks for other subjects to fill the void in, but as she finds one--”why did she change her looks to a demonic visage?”--Ang Nilapastangan looks up and sees, upon a small hill surrounded by a quaint little garden of flowers and other herbs, a simple house. It’s a bamboo stilt house as well, with seemingly two large annexes, making it look like an L.

“I suppose that is the house,” says Ang Nilapastangan, and Angela can smell the hint of relief in her voice. Angela smiles at that.

“It looks like the barangay,” says Angela as they slow their horses to a trot and get off right at the base of a hill. They tie their horses to some trees. “Dead.”

“Well,” Ang Nilapastangan stares at it for a bit more. “Let’s hope not.” They trudge up the path and up to the bamboo ladder, leading to a small elevated porch. Vexingly, one thing they both notice are the corpses that lie around the area, some of them stacked on top of each other, others simply laying there, fresh and strewn. More amalanhig? wonders Angela.

Ang Nilapastangan knocks on the bamboo door.

No answer, at first.

Eyebrows furrowed, Angela looks up at Ang Nilapastangan, but she doesn’t look back. After a few seconds pass, Ang Nilapastangan knocks again. When she gets another silent response, she raises her voice.

“Hello? Is anyone in there, po?”

No answer. Angela finds it funny now, seeing Ang Nilapastangan saying “po”. She’s like a superhero, she didn’t need to say that. But Angela appreciated the politeness.

No response again, though. “We just have a few questions we need to ask, and then we’ll be off and well. We’re sorry for intruding po!”

There’s a shuffle within the house. Angela feels it--the floor of the porch is the same floor as the insides of the house, after all. After a few seconds, the door opens, just a creak, and then a voice. “What is it you need?” No head, no mouth, no person. Just a voice.

Angela was expecting an older sounding woman. She’s heard tales of albularyo back at home, even if she’s lived most of her life in the Metro. Men and women with knowledge of medicinal herbs, powerful spiritual healers that could heal some sicknesses that even doctors could not handle. Exorcizer of demons other times, and usually also good at sorcery, or whatever sorcery meant in their respective probinsyas. They were revered and depended on in communities that didn’t have clinics or healthcare, because the Philippine Government doesn’t really care for the wellbeing of its people.

So here, hearing a young girl talking is kind of jarring when Angela’s been conditioned most of her life to expect some kind of lanky old man or heaving, creaking old woman.

It seems like Ang Nilapastangan has the same thoughts, because the first thing she says is: “Hello there. Is your, ah, mother home?”

The peeking eyes pause for a bit, and then she closes the door and says. “I’m sorry, my mother is not at home right now.”

Angela looks up at Ang Nilapastangan, who crosses her arms across her chest. “Where is she? I was told that the albularyo would be here.”

“I am the albularyo,” says the little girl.

Ang Nilapastangan raises an eyebrow. “Well, okay. Great albularyo, will you tell us where your mother has gone?”

There’s another silence before she speaks again. “She’s gone into the barangay, to look for the Aswang that caused the outbreak of maranhig.”

Angela’s eyes widen and she looks up at Ang Nilapastangan. The wind turns colder. “When did she leave?”

“Just two nights ago,” the girl replies. “She’ll be back.”

Ang Nilapastangan nods. “I don’t doubt that, at least. What’s your name?”

“Samanta,” says the girl, and nothing more.

Ang Nilapastangan sighs and says, “All right then, Samanta. We’ll go into the barangay and if we can help your mother. Stay here until then, okay?”

There’s a short silence on the other side. Samata says: “Hey, if you have any albularyo services you need help with, I can probably do it. If you need it soon, at least.”

Ang Nilapastangan turns to Angela, raising an eyebrow. “Can you do a spiritual excision?”

There’s a short silence, before she says. “It will be better if you get my mother for that. I can try, but I haven’t attempted yet.”

“Then it’s best we go get your mother. We can’t afford to mess up the excision for this one.”

She’s greeted back by silence. Ang Nilapastangan simply nods. “We’ll retrun to you when we have your mother. Be safe, okay?”

“I am,” she says. Angela turns around again and looks at the corpses strewn about, haphazardly, as if some invisible god started stacking them on top of each other and gave up halfway through.

“All right then.” Ang Nilapastangan turns around and gestures for Angela and her to ride back home.

▼

“It seems she’s been fending them off on her own for a while now,” says Ang Nilapastangan as they near the entry back into the barangay. “She must have some sort of skill to manage that, at least. Or great knowledge.”

“I dunno, she sounded like one of my classmates or something.”

Ang Nilapastangan turns to her and raises an eyebrow. “And that means?”

“Like, she’s a high schooler, then.” Angela bit her tongue. “Okay you have to remember that I’m pretty stupid so what I just said is also pretty stupid.”

“I know.”

Angela frowns and pouts, but she doesn’t say anything more.

They ride into the town. The tropical sun bears down upon them, even as a cold wind refreshes them. Thankfully the cloth of their clothings is light and thin, made for climes such as this. “Now where could that albularyo have gone off to?”

“You knew her?” asks Angela.

Ang Nilapastangan nods. “Albularyo Gumamela, her name was,” she says. “She used to help me back when I was just settling in after the Hagdanan. She would treat my wounds, heal me, and offer protection. She would grant me wards that would throw off the dogs that would seek after me. She would teach me how to perfect Hiyang, Oneness with Nature. She was a great teacher, one that stuck by me through thick and thin.”

“She must mean a lot to you.”

Ang Nilapastangan nods. “She and Makabintang are the only two people I can trust. Well, were.”

Angela bites the inside of her cheek. “We’ll find her, trust me.”

Ang Nilapastangan nods. As they enter into the barangay, she gets off at a junction. To their left is a road that continues on to the plaza, but standing from here Angela can see that they’ve piled on furniture and wood to somewhat barricade the plaza off. “Huh.”

“I can see it,” Ang Nilapastangan says. “The’re blocking off the plaza.”

“Why?”

“The source, whatever it is, might be coming from there. Or there might be a large number of corpses there and they barricaded it off so that they won’t get out every night. It’s a nice thought.”

“Why don’t the amalanhig invade other barangay?” asks Angela as Ang Nilapastangan walks over to the middle of the dirt road.

“The amalanhig cannot go too far from who summoned them, if they were summoned.”

“If?”

Ang Nilapastangan nods. “Naturally born amalanhig can come up as well, but they’re rare, and usually only happens due to residue of dark sorceries or dark passions.” She sits down on her knees in the middle of the road and puts both hands on the ground.

“What… are you doing?”

Ang Nilapastangan closes her eyes, and hums a soft tune. As she does, Angela can’t help but feel like looking through Ang Nilapastangan, as if she’s vanishing, even though she knows that she’s right there.

Angela shuts up and lets Ang Nilapastangan do whatever it is she’s doing. When she exhales, there’s a subtle, silent recognition. Recognition of what? Angela isn’t quite sure.

“I can still feel her Gahum,” says Ang Nilapastangan, still in that position. “She’s somewhere here. But it’s fuzzy. Her Gahum is being blocked by something else. By some strange sorcery.”

“Gahum?” asks Angela, tilting her head to one side in confusion. “God, all these terms.”

“Gahum. You’ve probably heard us use it before already. It’s the spiritual power that emanates from within every souled being. Everything has Gahum, but mostly only mortals and immortals such as diwata and bathala have Gahum that burns through our skin. The color of our soul.” As she says that, her fingertips sizzle with a bright, searing crimson.

“That’s your Gahum?” Angela knows now, that all those displays of power when Ang Nilapastangan was enveloped in that burning crimson light, is due to her using her Gahum. Her spiritual power shining through.

Ang Nilapastangan. “The light burning through is Usbong. If it gets strong enough, strange things happen. But we shouldn’t talk about that yet.”

The travel, Angela notices, has taken them most of the day. It’s afternoon now. She’s hungry. “We should get back,” says Angela. “I’m hungry.”

Ang Nilapastangan smirks. “Take the horse and go back. I’m going to try and see what’s ove the barricade.”

Angela rubs her face. “You’re fucking crazy.”

Ang Nilapastangan doesn’t respond. She stands up, lets the burning of her Usbong fade away, and she ties her horse to a nearby bamboo post. She turns around to walk away, stops, and then goes into the house that the post she tied her horse to supported. She finds no corpse in there, and then goes out.

“I’ll be quick. Before twilight hits so that the amalanhig don’t get to Stella.”

“Stella?”

Ang Nilapastangan nods, gesturing to the horse. With that, she takes off, walking down the dirt road towards the barricade.

Angela sighs, rubbing her eyes. Somehow, she feels safer if she’s with Ang Nilapastangan. Especially knowing now that she’s some kind of superhero here.

So, with that in mind, she ties her horse next to Stella and says, “Stay here and keep quiet, okay? Uh… Donnie?”

The horse, now Donnie, neighs. She pets him once, before turning and running after Ang Nilapastangan.

Table of Contents.

#karanduun #outbreak #2.3

2 notes · View notes

torendheavenandearth · 5 years ago

Text

2.2

▼

“The King of Mouse-Deers, Lakan Shri-Pilandok, visited an unseemly town one day. There he met with San Pedro, Saint of Workers and Institutions. Shri-Pilandok greeted the Saint, and the Saint greeted him back. Shri-Pilandok was covered in tattoos and only wore a bahag, for tattoos were the only covering needed for him, while San Pedro wore a white priest's frock, and was wrapped in overflowing garments.

‘Greetings!’ Lakan Shri-Pilandok said, raising a hand. ‘There seems to be a problem in your town!’

San Pedro looked at him strangely, furrowing his eyebrows. ‘I do not understand? Our town is perfectly fine!’

And that was when Lakan Shri-Pilandok slit San Pedro’s throat. As he gurgled golden ichor, Shri-Pilandok said: ‘Look at your manufactured angels! Look at your mechanistic God! Is this how you wish to live?!’

And the people drove Lakan Shri-Pilandok away, calling him a demon, and they looked for another saint to install, for they knew not of a world where they weren’t told what to do.” - From the Travails of Panginoong Binabathala Hinimagsikang Rajah Lakan Shri-Pilandok of the Unconquered Isles.

▼

“Nila!” Angela rises to her feet and then stops, a mix of awkward unfamiliarity and her own tiredness working against her.

Ang Nilapastangan is still drenched in blood as she nears the crew. “I have to look for some new clothes,” she says. “These ones are soiled.”

Angela turns and looks at her four companions. Most of them have paused mid-eating, staring with eyes wide, mouth agape, as if they had just witnessed the second coming of God.

“Is it truly you…?” whispers the Babaylan, a slow whistling tune accompanying her shaking voice.

Ang Nilapastangan stretches. “Yes. Ang Nilapastangan. But please, call me Nila.”

“Nila,” Angela says, turning back to Ang Nilapastangan. “Why the hell do they know you?”

The babaylan begins sputtering out words: “Ang Nilapastangan, the Blasphemed One! She is one of the being sung and spoken tales of. She has a stage play based on the tragedy of her life. We sing the Ballad of Ang Nilapastangan during times of great mourning, during the death of a great leader, or when someone’s spouse has been killed in horrible combat.”

Angela blinks, unsure what to make out of that spiel. She turns to Ang Nilapastangan and mouths: “Ha?”

Ang Nilapastangan sighs. She goes over to the babaylan and bows by the waist. “Iginagalang na bai, I thank you for your respect. Know that it goes a long way.”

Angela looks over to Jaime, Adlay, and Damian. Jaime is saying something along the lines of “I told you!” To Adlay and Damian, while the other two are still stuck in that gawking phase. Angela turns to Ang Nilapastangan, now just a tad more suspicious as to who she truly is.

I guess she did say she won the Hagdanan, Angela thinks to herself. But does that really mean… anything? Angela ponders about her knowledge, and how she doesn’t really know anything.

“If it does not trouble you, I don’t mean to leverage my reputation, but I will pay for a new change of clothes. We have been chased away from our town, you see. We are in need of some accommodations.”

The babaylan nods and gets on her knees. “O-Of course, o great Karanduun! Anything you ask, no payment required.”

“Oho, let’s not do that, bai,” says Ang Nilapastangan as she helps the babaylan from her knees. “No, but I insist. I’ll give you guys the money when I can. In the meantime, perhaps a place to sleep for the night?”

“Ah, yes, of course Miss Karanduun,” says Adlay. “We have a guest house that you can use!”

Ang Nilapastangan nods and then turns to Angela. “Come on, let’s get some rest.”

“Ang Nilapastangan?” It’s Jaime, standing up. “The amalanhig?”

Ang Nilapastangan nods once.

Damian leaps to his feet as well. “Then that means we’re safe for the night!”

Ang Nilapastangan raises an eyebrow.

“Ah, yes,” the Babaylan speaks again. “You see, almost every night, the amalanhig from the barangay attack our little commune. Thankfully most of them are blocked away by the rushing river, so we are safe for now, but we have to kill them else they pile up.”

Angela feels a chill run down her spine. “So you have to kill these… amalanhig?”

Babaylan Salinas nods. “Unfortunately.”

“And since they’re amalanhig from your barangay…” voices out Ang Nilapastangan.

Angela looks up to the Babaylan, and then at Ang Nilapastangan. Ang Nilapastangan nods. “All right, well for now let’s get some rest, Angela. Change clothes and then eat some dinner.”

Without another word, Adlay leads Ang Nilapastangan and Angela to the guest house they have up. It’s a simple bamboo stilt house, with a small annex for cooking and the restroom. “I didn’t think you’d have a guest house, seeing as you’re doing all you can to survive.”

“Ah,” Adlay rubs his neck. “That’s… because this used to be a scavenger’s house. He… never came back from one of our runs.”

Ang Nilapastangan is silent again. She walks into the home. Angela turns to Adlay and says, “Condolences.”

“Thank you,” says Adlay, before closing the bamboo door and leaving the two of them together.

Angela stares at the door for a bit before turning around. Ang Nilapastangan is there, kneeling on the bamboo floor, placing the larawan of Inaginid upon the soft cloth she laid beforehand. She then puts both hands on the floor of the house and bows.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Asking permission from the owners,” says Ang Nilapastangan, muttering a few more words and then standing up straight. “A simple acknowledgment. Just a small piece of acknowledgment is usually all anyone ever needs.”

“Even if you haven’t met them before?”

“Death appreciates life,” says Ang Nilapastangan shrugging. She puts the Inaginid likha on top of one of the tables and then makes for one of the banig. “I’m going to get some rest.”

Angela walks up to her. “Wait, no. First of all, I still want to finish my dinner, so I’m going back out there.”

“All right then,” she says as she removes her baro shirt and puts it to the side. She’s wearing a simple brassier underneath. “I’m not gonna stop you.”

Angela swallows something down. “R-Right, but wait. Tell me: why do those people know you? They act like you’re some kinda celebrity? Some kinda superhero?”

“Go and ask them while you finish your food.” She then removes her skirt and then slips underneath the blanket of the banig.

Angela is frowning, and she doesn’t know why. She decides to go out and shut the door behind her instead.

There Jaime is alone, cleaning up the dishes to be washed. As he’s doing so, his eye sees Angela. He rises up and smirks. What a dark smirk. “There’s some food left if you want it.”

Angela manages a smile. She climbs down and walks over to him. “Thanks. That’s really kind.”

“That’s the little things we can always afford to give,” says Jaime, although he’s not looking in her direction.

Angela sits down and works to finish the steamed rice and tuyo on her plate. As she does, she takes the initiative as Jaime is working. “ Jaime, if you don’t mind me asking, can you tell me why you guys reacted that way upon seeing Nila?”

Jaime is bending over to pick up a glass when she speaks the question. He straightens up, eyebrows furrowed. “To have no knowledge of Ang Nilapastangan--at least outside of Biringan--one would usually have to be from another country or continent, or, I don’t know, universe.”

Angela nods. “I am.”

Jaime turns to her, raising one nonchalant eyebrow.

“I’m from the Philippines, which doesn’t exist here, apparently.”

Jaime nods. “That explains a few things then. Well, let me indulge you: Ang Nilapastangan is known as what is called as a Karanduun here.”

Angela nods, and she makes a mental note to ask him why he took the news of her being from another universe so easily.

“A Karanduun is basically a hero. A real hero: one that people talk about, sing about, make stories about, make plays about. A folk hero. An epic hero.”

“A superhero,” mutters Angela.

“To become a Karanduun, one usually must have lived a long life that is worth telling. A life worth singing about. Ang Nilapastangan is well known for her Weeping Tragedy, and she has the Pamagat of Swordbreaker.”

“Pamagat?” That means title in Filipino, thinks Angela.

“Hm… think of it as a sobriquet. It’s what that Karanduun is most well known for.”

“Swordbreaker…” Angela swallows down some more rice and tuyo. “What, did she break swords?”

“Yes. Well, it was said that she broke the Sword of DYOSVETA, the Father.”

“Who?”

“DYOSVETA,” he says. “One of the Holy Trinity Triumvirate, the Father. GOD The Father. It’s… complicated. I’m not the best to teach it. I’ve never had a close connection with the Trinitarian religion.”

Angela simply nods and gestures for Jaime to continue.

“She broke the Sword of God. The Sword in her pamagat ‘Swordbreaker’ became a term for horrible tragedies that have made her bleed. She now breaks those that have hurt her. At least, that’s what most stories say.”

“So…” Angela finishes up her food. She’s surprised at how fast it vanishes. She’s ignored how hungry she really is. “You’re telling me that Nila is some kind of superhero in this… world, and almost everyone knows about it? Why didn’t she tell me? And why does everyone in Barangay Laurel ignore her if she’s that popular?”

Jaime gathers up Angela’s empty porcelain plate. “I’ll have to wash these by the river. Come with me.”

Angela glimpses at the house that they’re staying in, where Ang Nilapastangan is resting. She just breathes and then nods. “Yeah, all right.”

Angela follows Jaime over to the river that they crossed earlier that night. The horses have been securely tied to one of the bamboo poles of one of the houses. “Don’t worry, we have some spare leftovers we can give to the horses,” says Jaime. Angela mutters a thanks.

Jaime squats by the bank of the river and begins washing off the leftover food scraps from the plates with a rough cloth.

“So,” says Jaime, as he washes the dishes. “You see, what Ang Nilapastangan looks like right now? That’s not what she looks like.”

“What?”

“At least, that’s not what the stories say she looks like. According to those, she looks like an immaculate pale-skinned woman with perfectly cut black hair, and with a corona that looks like the crescent moon behind her head. She’s said to have a mole on her chin, perfectly full lips, slender eyes that shine brightest indigo. She was said to have six gems upon her brow, and she walks around with a walking stick. Apparently, she’s supposed to have six wings, which drape around her like robes.”

“That’s… not what Nila looks like at all.”

“Exactly. Also,she is also supposed to be predominantly blue, so her glowing crimson power also threw me off. But now that I know, I know. I guess she’s hiding.”

“Yeah,” says Angela. She is. But she doesn’t say that out loud. “So there’s a bunch of presumptions already when it comes to Nila, huh?”

Jaime nods. “I guess that’s why Barangay Laurel didn’t recognize her. Hell, it’s probably why we didn’t recognize her either, when we went over there. We used to trade with Laurel, you see. But then the amalanhig came and trade was cut.”

“That makes sense, I guess, though cruel,” Angela sits down a few feet away from Jaime. “You’re not sad about it?”

Jaime raises an eyebrow.

“About your barangay? Being overrun?”

Jaime shrugs. “The time for grieving is past me.”

Silence. Nature sings--a chorus of rustling leaves, muttering wind, and babbling river.

“Is there… no way to bring them back?” asks Angela eventually, staring at the stars. She’s in awe for a brief second, seeing all the different colors and the myriad stars that speck the night sky here, as if God poked holes in the sky.

“No,” says Jaime, taking a moment to pause and stretch his back, as he has been squatting and bent over while cleaning the dishes. “They’re dead. The bite of the amalanhig simply turned them into amalanhig.”

Angela bites her lip. “How about your family? You had a family, right?”

Jaime nods. “But not blood, no. The barangay is family. All of them, part of the interconnected veins of blood that made up an entire body.”

Angela is staring down at the rushing river, her mind wandering back to her family. They aren’t perfect, not in the least, but they try their best. Is this the same feeling? The same feeling that you’ll never see your family again?

She brushes the thought from her mind. She’s going to find a way out.

“Well, hopefully if Nila is the person you’re saying she really is, then we’ll be able to liberate your barangay from whatever’s happening.”

Jaime smiles. “Giving their tired old bones rest, yes.”

▼

Eventually they finish up, with Angela and Jaime appreciating each other’s silence. Jaime tells Angela to go to sleep first, and Angela agrees. She bids him goodnight, and she retreats to her house.

There, Ang Nilapastangan is facing the door, staring at it. “Flirting?”

Angela blinks, and then shakes her head. “No. Learning.”

Ang Nilapastangan turns in her bed and stares up at the ceiling. “What?”

“About Karanduun,” replies Angela, walking over to the middle of the room and then immediately spacing out.

“Karanduun?” Thankfully, Ang Nilapastangan’s voice zaps her back to the present. She nods.

“Yeah. Sorry, is there like, a sink here or anything? Can’t I brush my teeth, wash my face?”

“Those are luxuries we can’t afford right now,” says Ang Nilapastangan, turning away now.

Angela sighs. “But we do have a change of clothes, right?”

“Mm.”

“All right then. I guess I’ll just… shower tomorrow?”

Ang Nilapastangan doesn’t answer.

Angela simply sighs. She lies down on the banig that is a few feet away from her. The wind is cold, and the air is fresh, despite the dead village a few kilometers away.

“Nila?”

No answer.

“Will I ever get back to my home?”

There is a long period of silence, with the dread of an answer becoming white noise, mixing with the soft babble of the river.

Just when Angela is about to give up, about to turn over in her banig, close her eyes, and force herself to sleep through the tears, Ang Nilapastangan says: “If you win the Hagdanan, perhaps. I’ll help you.”

And with that, silence overtakes them.

Table of Contents

#outbreak #karanduun #to rend heaven and earth #2.2 #webnovel #fiction #filipino #myth

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torendheavenandearth · 5 years ago

Text

2.1

“Here is a story that stretches back before God’s Creation, back when the people had no names for themselves. Back when they were not exploited. Back when they were not part of the Empire.

During this time of heroes and gods, there was a great mountain, and upon the mountain a great house. This house was the house of the Binturong Datu, who gave obeisance to his crocodile ancestors.

One day, while on his daily walks down the river that ends in a great lake at the base of the mountain, he spoke with his crocodile ancestors. “Ninuno,” he said. “May kakailanganin pa ba akong aralin bago niyo akong ituring na pinakamarunong na nilalang sa buong Sansinukob? [Ancestors, is there anything else I need to study before you can name me the wisest being in all of Sansinukob?]

All the crocodiles nodded, grateful and impressed. “Alamin mo ang unang bagay na nalaman namin noong sumakabilang buhay kami.” [Know the first thing we learned when we died.]

“Ano iyon, mga ninuno? Ito ba ay ‘Masmahalaga ang paglakbay sa pinatutunguan?’” [What is it, ancestors? Is it “The journey is more important than the destination?”]

The crocodiles shook their head.

“Ano iyon, mga ninuno? Ito ba ay ‘Kayabangan bago sakuna?’” [What is it, ancestors? Is it “Pride before disaster?]

The crocodiles shook their head.

The Binturong Datu, annoyed and impatient, threw the coconut he was eating against a tree. “Ano ito, mga ninuno? Sabihin niyo nalang sa akin upang malaman ko kung paano abutin ang langit at gibain ang Himpapawid!” [What is this, ancestors? Just tell it to me so I may know how to reach heaven and split the firmament!]

At that, the crocodile ancestors looked at each other and shook their heads. “Bakit mo naman nais iyon?” [And why do you want that?]

“Ewan ko. Kailangan bang malaman? Kailangan bang may pakana o motibo?” [I don’t know. Does one need to know? Does there need to be a plan or motive?]

The crocodile ancestors ate the Binturong Datu whole. “Hindi maaring hangal ang apo natin. Halina’t wasakin natin ang Kalangitan.” [We will not accept a fool for a descendant. Come and let us destroy Heaven.]

▼

The afternoon is turning into twilight. Angela can make out the crimson sun slowly drifting below the horizon. She doesn’t think there’s anything to worry about though, since they’re nearing the barangay, where they can be safe from whatever terrors the night bestows.

Ť̅̌ͭ̋h͉̦ͦͩ̈́̏̍ͧe̮̼ͨ̍̿ ̹͇ͤͨ̽̿͐ͪ͐s̬̣̞̙͑͌ͪk̘͓̄̈ͨͭ͐y̻̽ͧ̈̒̓̐̏ ̰̮̲͓̳͉̥̋i̔ͨ̐͋̒s̲ ͍̗̪̲̃͌l̞͚̥̞̙̲͐ͨ̀̾e̠̻̼̽ͫ̎a̯ͯ̒ͦ̐̓̅ͫd̤̝ͬ͊͐̈ě͐ͯn͚̬͎̏ͤͯ̉͋ ̩͙͚͛̋g̘̃̉̾ͦ͆̾r͖͎͓͇͓å͍̺y͗ ̣̪̯̠͍̺̠ͫ̓a̓̒͐̚s͈̳̯͙̑ ̫̲̰͚͉ͪ͛̍͊̃t̰̝̙̩̖͉̋̃ͪ̾̓̐ͭh̯̾e̤̟̰͙̼͒̍̽̆y̲͈̝̼̘̩ ͐ͦb̖̻͍̩̼̳̒e͇ͅg̩͉̜͔̝̯̮̐ͫi̙̳̗͑͛n͇̯͍͓̦̩̹ ̗̞͔͊a̤̦̙͕͔̬̰͑̿̌͐g̻͖̻͍͚̰ͥͫ̏â͔̺̹̘͙i̮̬̯͎̅̓͐ͦ͋̋n͇̪̞̩̐ͅ.̗͕̳̩͕̹͈ͩ͌ͫ̒̍̚

“I’m sorry about Makabintang,” says Angela. Somehow, she feels like it’s her fault, and her words ring hollow even to her. She feels like she could’ve saved Makabintang if only she knew how to fight the kimera. If only she knew how to use that damned bolo.

Ang Nilapastangan shakes her head. “Makabintang can rest now.” Her voice hitches at “rest”, and Angela decides to change the conversation. Perhaps they can talk about Makabintang later.

“How did you manage to escape the anghel?” asks Angela, as they descend down the hill crest and ride, now on a trot, down the bend.

“I beat them,” she replies without looking back at her.

Angela blinks. “Just like that? You beat them?”

Ang Nilapastangan shrugs. “I didn’t win the Hagdanan by sitting on my ass.”

“Damn. Then why don’t you just beat every anghel that comes our way? You won’t need to go in hiding or whatever you’re doing right now.”

“There are some anghel out there that will be able to kill me. So I prefer not to go loud, so to speak. That way I don’t endanger you either.”

There's silence as they curve around the bend and walk into the barangay proper.

The air is still, suddenly.

The road before them is eerily symmetrical. It’s inviting them.

Angela opens her mouth to say something back, but the strange air chokes her throat, and the strange sight puzzles her mind.

Things are not what they seem. That’s the first thought that pops into Angela’s mind as she and Ang Nilapastangan ride into town. It’s similar enough to Laurel: near the borders of the house one sees bamboo houses on stilts with cogon grass or nipa. The dirt road beneath them is well-trodden, but Angela sees no people walking about, doing their daily chores or routines.

That’s what’s so strange. There are no people here whatsoever.

A sense of dread pierces through Angela. She tries to shake it off. “Hey, Nila. Are you sure we’re where we’re supposed to be?”

Ang Nilapastangan only nods.

As they ride through the outskirts of the barangay, Angela’s nose perks up as she begins to smell the iconic fragrance of sampaguita flowers.

“Nila,” Angela calls out. “Do you smell that?” She looks around her.

Ang Nilapastangan nods. “Sampaguita.”

It’s getting dark. Twilight beckons to them. Night’s siren call. There is no moon tonight. Who will watch them?

E͓͔͓ͯ̊̎ͩͣy̬͔͎̳͒́ͭ͆̍ẹ̪̖̖͒̆̄ͨ̀ͥs͓͎͂ͮ̌ͅ ̖̥̊̈ͩ̍̔̏̑e̳͐͌v̺͍̪̪͆e̳͎̻̝͕r̪͛͊̊y̻̘̘̣͍̥ͭ̌͛͆̌w̎̓̃̾h͙̙ͩ̂̏ͣ̐ͫe͈̥̮̠͍̩̭̒͐̓ř͔̳̰͓̾ͧ̂̇͗̈ͅͅe̼̯͒ͦ̄͐̔.̦̲̦̫̦̞͂̎ͅ

“My lola always told me that if I smelled sampaguita whenever there is none, then it’s one of my ancestors or dead relatives coming to check up on me,” Angela notes.

“Your lola is right, technically,” Ang Nilapastangan replies.

One of the houses swings open, and a farmer walks out, wielding a pitchfork. He walks down the bamboo ladder that connects the front porch of the bamboo stilt house to the ground, and then shambles toward Ang Nilapastangan and Angela.

Angela yelps, and her horse recoils in response.

Ang Nilapastangan leaps from her horse and sends a single fist straight down into his head.

The man’s head caves in. Pieces of flesh and gray matter stick to Ang Nilapastangan’s fist, which she shakes off and then cleans away with a canteen of water.

Angela gets off the horse and walks up to the man. Somehow, the horse has calmed down. “What the hell… What is he?”

“Amalanhig,” replies Ang Nilapastangan.

Upon closer inspection, Angela can make out the stranger features of the man: his hair is all grown out, his body is blackened, as if burned, and his skin is cold to the touch. His teeth have fallen out, parts of his body don’t seem to move, frozen in place.

“He’s like… a corpse,” Angela replies.

She touches the amalanhig’s body, and it

leaps up and grabs Angela’s neck and bites down but

Ang Nilapastangan kicks the amalanhig off before his teeth sink in. He slams against the wall of the bamboo house, and he stays there, unmoving. Finally. For now at least.

Ang Nilapastangan washes away anything that was in contact with the amalanhig with water from the canteen. “Be careful. A person killed due to the bite of an amalanhig will turn into one.”

“What the fuck?” Angela’s eyes are wide, darting about, always looking around her. “What the hell? So they’re like zombies?” She rolls her eyes and mutters: “Great, there’s zombies here too.”

Ang Nilapastangan tells Angela to get back on the horse, and she does. Ang Nilapastangan mounts her own horse, and then they trot forward. The horses, for the most part, don’t seem to be afraid of the amalanhig. Ang Nilapastangan confirms Angela’s thoughts: it’s something she’s doing, somehow.

“Let’s look around more. I want to confirm if my suspicions are true.”

Angela gulps. She nods and follows Ang Nilapastangan as they trot deeper into the barangay, chancing upon abandoned vendor stalls, rotting fish and meat, some horse carcasses lying on their side. Even the ground feels like it had been blackened, and the houses covered by a fine sheet of ash.

“What the hell…” mutters Angela. She shivers. “Hey, Ang Nilapastangan, you feel like something’s watching us?”

As she speaks that out loud, a shadow darts across the road in front of them. It's moving faster than an amalanhig. Ang Nilapastangan doesn’t look back: she surges forward with her horse and chases after the shadow. Angela, panicking, tries to follow, but she’s not confident at galloping in such an enclosed space, and only manages to keep Ang Nilapastangan in her sights, without getting near her.

Ang Nilapastangan chases the shadow across two alleys and two roads, eventually catching up to it as it ends up in an alleyway that had been barricaded with barrels and wagon carts. She leaps from her horse and then lands directly on the shadow, teeth bared like a dog to its prey. She flips the shadow around only to reveal…

...a boy, breathing quickly, eyes narrowed. He’s lean and muscular, wearing a loose salakot and a simple baro and balloon pants. “Shit. Get off me.”

Ang Nilapastangan pushes the boy up to his feet. “Get up, boy. Answer my questions: what is wrong with this town? Why are there amalanhig?”

Angela catches up with Ang Nilapastangan just as she begins to interrogate the boy. “Amalanhig, didn’t you see? The barangay’s dead.”

“What?”

And at that question, more amalanhig shamble out of their homes, walking down their wooden walls or out of large double doors of their bahay-na-bato. They wear the clothes they died in, farmers with hoes and pitchforks, women in frayed blouses, merchants in rotting fish smelling doublets.

“Nila! Incoming!” The moment they sense life in Angela and Ang Nilapastangan, they begin their slow shamble towards them.

A chill runs down Angela’s spine. “Nila!” She refuses to get off of her horse.

“What are you doing here? Is there somewhere safe?”

“Outside. Survivors.” He’s wincing.

“Survivors?”

“Nila!”

“Come on then.” He tells the boy to get on the horse with her, and without anything else to say, he agrees and nods. She notices then that the boy is holding on to an abaca backpack, which seems to be filled with spoons, plates, clothing, cloth, salted food, and other such things needed for survival or daily living.

“Follow the road going south from here,” says the boy, and Ang Nilapastangan nods and follows.

“Angela! South!” And with that, they’re galloping down the dirt road, running quicker and quicker until they burst out of the collection of houses and out into the rice fields down south. Nothing is planted. Nothing will be harvested.

As they’re galloping, Angela, who is lagging behind considerably although she quickens the pace once they’re out of town, looks over her shoulder. There she sees that the amalanhig are running, now a group of them, amounting to at least 10.

Angela’s heart slams against her chest in a rhythmless beat. Her hands start shaking, and she has to force her hands to clamp down upon the reins of her horse so that she isn’t thrown off. “Nila!” Angela shouts, and her voice sounds frantic, almost mad. “They’re running after us!”

“They’ll chase us all the way to the commune,” mutters the boy.

Ang Nilapastangan curses under her breath. “Here boy, you know how to ride a horse?”

“Yes.”

“Grab the reins.” And then she launches herself into the air. The boy, thankfully, is quick. His hands are grabbing onto the reins of the horse even as Ang Nilapastangan arcs backward and then lands on one of the rushing amalanhig.

“Nila!” Angela calls back.

“Go! I’ll handle them. Follow the boy!”

Ang Nilapastangan turns and snaps one of the heads of the amalanhig out. She then proceeds to quickly beat down the rest of them, each one requiring only one, two hits to split in two and shatter their skulls with her knife hand.

Angela follows quickly after the boy. The boy turns the horse into a sudden opening in the trees, and Angela narrowly misses the entry point. They rush through a bamboo and narra tree flanked road, looking like some kind of portal into another world.

Eventually, the boy slows his horse down to a trot, and so does Angela. They arrive at a clearing that is across a river, right beside a smaller mountain. Not Mount San Roque, that’s for sure, but one to the south of it. There’s a cave that Angela can see that is signified by a single balete tree growing atop its mouth.

Across the river, in the middle of a clearing, is a small settlement. Around twenty houses in all, all of them wooden upon bamboo stilts. In the middle of the clearing is a small bonfire. Milling about are farmers and workers and other barangay folk.

“Here we are,” says the boy as Angela rides up next to him. “Saklawan.”

“This is where you retreated to?”

The boy nods. “Come on, the river is shallow.”

“I assume the river is here to stop the zombies…?”

“Yes. The amalanhig hate the rushing river, no matter how shallow. Whatever dark sorcery is holding them together dissipates.”

The boy brings the horse forward to a trot, and Angela follows suit. “I’m Jaime, by the way. Jaime Magbantay.”

“Ah, right. Angela.” Angela thinks for a second how this is probably the most normal person she’s met so far. “Angela de Jesus.” From this angle, Angela can see through his loose baro, and she sees that her chest is covered in tattoos, in the style of the Pintados.

“Ah, putakte, Jaime! Good thing you’re safe!” A man approaches them, wearing a kind of cloth that wraps around his waist, making him look like he’s wearing a skirt. Over his shoulders and biceps are tattoos, designed in that same evergrowing pattern of the Pintados people back in Ancient Visayas. Another man approaches them as well as they arrive. That man is a tall and lanky man, two heads taller than the other older man, and with the head of a horse. His legs and arms don’t seem proportionate to the rest of his body.

Jaime gets off when they’ve safely crossed. The night is dark now, but thankfully the bonfire and the myriad torches that stay at a safe distance from the wooden houses illuminate the night. Seeing Jaime now, his build is lean, but he has muscles undernath a thin layer of fat. He’s tall, around at least the upper echelons of five feet, and his hair is of darkest night. His eyes are the darkest shade of brown as well.

“Welcome, young one,” says the man with the tattooed body.

“Angela,” says Jaime as he’s heading over to the bonfire.

The tattooed man nods. “Thank you for bringing my pamangkin to safety. I’m glad you weren’t chased by Amalanhig along the way.” Pamangkin means niece or nephew. Angela gets down from the horse, and the horse-headed man helps her.

“I am Adlay,” says the tattooed man. “And this is Damian, our last panday. We serve as scavengers for the barangay. Tell me, how did you come across our barangay? It is unfortunate that you have come at a… less than good time.”

Angela blinks and nods. She wants to stretch, but finds it awkward in front of the men. “Um, Nila brought us here. We were supposed to be three but, it’s just the two of us now. She says she knows of an albularyo that can fix uh…” she gestures to her horns. “This.”

“Nila?” asks the tikbalang.

Angela nods. “Oh, ah, Ang Nilapastangan, she calls her self. Nila’s like a shortened nickname.”

The tattooed man, Adlay, blinks and then he laughs. “Ang Nilapastangan? Are you sure, young lady?”

Angela raises an eyebrow and then nods slowly. “Yes…? Nila. Why, is Ang Nilapastangan a common name here?”

Adlay and Damian glance at each other and then laugh. “All right. Come on then, we still have some leftover food.”

“I managed to grab some tuyo,” says Jaime, which is greeted with hoots and cheers from Adlay and Damian. They walk into the gathering of houses. Jaime looks over his shoulder and says: “Come on, Angela.”

Angela wonders if she should, and then after reminiscing about today’s events, she realizes that her hands and feet are heavy, and her head hurts. It’s like the fatigue suddenly draped itself over her like a heavy curtain.

She pulls herself to the bonfire in the middle of the commune. There they give her a small cup of rice and some tuyo served on a porcelain plate. “Eat up, you’re going to need it.”

Angela blinks. She manages to sit down beside Jaime, Adlay, and Damian, who are all eating with her. They eat with their hands, one hand used to pick up the food and the other hand used to hold up the plate. When Damian is sitting or squatting down, his legs go higher than his head.

As they eat, the ones who live here take their times to look at Angela, wondering who she is. She thinks then that maybe they’re not used to newcomers to their gatherings, since they’re a relatively small commune. Angela then thinks that it’s probably because of her horns.

“Jaime,” Angela whispers, after swallowing some rice and tuyo. “Don’t you think I’m weird?”

“Because of the horns?” Jaime shakes his head. “We’ve had plenty of kabarangay who had horns like that. We treated them all the same.”

“Ah.”

Angela goes back to eating in peace.

Then, an elderly woman comes down from one of the houses, wearing the simple clothes of a devotee. She’s hunched over and draped in colorful textile patterns, but she is not flesh and blood. No, her skin is bark, her eyes dewdrops, and her hair brambles of purple flowers. She smiles at Angela as she comes closer. “Welcome, lost one. I am Babaylan Salinas. What brings you here? Have you seen the trouble inflicted upon our quaint little barangay?”

Angela nods. “What happened? Why is it filled with zom--amalanhig?”

“We ourselves are not so sure either.” She sighs and then squats. Staring at the fire, Babaylan Salinas says: “It happened all too quickly. One Unangaraw night, an amalanhig killed one of their housemates. That began the infestation. Most people die from amalanhig bites, and so when they are bitten and die quickly afterwards, they turn into amalanhig themselves. It is not hard to imagine that it spread quickly. Thankfully a lot of us escaped. Our priest has been killed, however, and our cabeza-de-barangay is either an amalanhig himself, or somehow still within the barangay hall in the middle of the barangay.”

Angela makes a mental note to ask Ang Nilapastangan what Unangaraw is.

“There’s still some people alive in there?”

“We can never know for sure,” says the babaylan.

“We hope that sometimes we’d see people alive,” says Adlay. “However, when I saw the both of you… I thought you were some new breed of monster. I’m sorry, I was just thrown off by the horns.”

Angela shrugs. “It’s all right. I mean, Ang Nilapastangan has horns as well.”

Babaylan Salinas blinks.

Adlay laughs. “Ha! This Angela newcomer girl sure does have a great sense of humor.”

“It’s true,” states Jaime. “The lady Angela is with is Ang Nilapastangan. To save us, she leapt off of the horse and beat off the chasing amalanhig.”

“Are you for real?” asks Damian. “You really expect us to believe that? Ang Nilapastangan, Swordbreaker, Karanduun?”

“That’s right.” Ang Nilapastangan’s voice echoes from behind Angela. Angela turns around and sees her there, covered in sampaguita smelling blood, somewhat wet from crossing the river. “Why’s that so hard to believe?”

#karanduun #outbreak #2.1 #webnovel #writing #filipino myth

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torendheavenandearth · 5 years ago

Text

1.7

“At the end of thy road, one must remember the golden rule: all things in moderation, and find the balance in all things. There, in minute perfection, you will find God, and you will find him wanting.” -- From the Discourse of the Tambay Swordsman and the Alcoholic Witch.

▼

Makabintang nears the crossroads. “Hey kid,” says Makabintang, peering behind him. He sees Angela is out, sleeping sideways against the kalesa seat. That’s bound to cause some neck pain.

Makabintang moves the kalesa to the right edge of the road and stops the horses, which have been running for almost two hours. There’s a small clearing here, a little embrace from the trees. Here the soft patter of the stream punctures the silence. The sound of the wind slipping through the bamboo causes a song of sadness to ring out from the forest.

Makabintang climbs up and flicks Angela’s face. Angela snorts as she’s pulled back into the waking world. “Ah punyeta. What--?”

“We’re taking a short stop here. You can rest up here. Get down and stretch.” Makabintang then grabs a glass canteen from behind her and walks off to the stream.

Angela watches Makabintang disappear into the greenery. She tries to move, but is greeted by an orchestra of pain. Her neck is sore, her feet sear with red hot spiky agony, her hands feel raw, and her knees have been scraped. Wincing, she gingerly makes her way down from the kalesa and winces as she hits the ground. Her feet are raw: she’s not wearing clogs or any kind of shoes. She makes her way over to the center of the small clearing where there’s a small campfire used by those before. The charcoal has been doused, but it hasn’t been cleared or replaced. They’re going to have to clean off the charcoal and get some new firewood.

A couple of men riding along on horses happen by the clearing. Angela notices that they’re taking the right path at the crossroads. One of the men, wearing a large salakot and barong tagalog, stares longingly at Angela, and Angela looks away, trying her best to act as if she can’t see them. She briefly wonders if she should just go back to her own kalesa and hide.

The two men stop their horses. One of them--the one wearing a navy blue uniform, has an arquebus hanging from behind his back, and a sabre hanging from his waist--gestures with his head, and the salakot-wearing man nods and slides down from his saddle.

The approaching man is wearing a large cloak that wraps around him, but underneath that he’s wearing large balooning pants, leather shoes, and a fancy striped barong tagalog. His hair looks groomed, and so is his moustache.

Angela squints at them. She sits at one of the logs-turned-benches.

“Hello, binibini,” says the man, as he nears her. He takes off his salakot. “What is a precious young girl like you doing out here, in the middle of the path?”

Angela breathes out, slightly irritated. She didn’t think she’d get these kinds of people in another world still. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to talk with strangers?”

“Then let’s change the situation then,” says the man, smiling. “My name is Don Jose Iago de Lacandola. And you are?”

Angela cringes. “I’m 17. Go away.”

“Age is but a number,” says Don Jose Iago de Lacandola. Angela cringes. He examines Angela thoroughly. “It is better if you are not to stay here, in the middle of nowhere. You seem like you have gone through a rough patch. I can take you to my hacienda, which is just over Mount San Roque. I can care for you like a king would care for his princess.”

Angela blinks. She thinks that this can be a good chance to get some good life out of this miserable predicament she’s found herself in. “Are you some kind of… noble?”

Don Jose nods. “I am a principales, part of the principalia of the Kingdom of Perlesensya. Perhaps that will make my offer more enticing. I will care for you all your life.”

Angela squints at Don Jose again. “Why?”

Don Jose manages a small smile. A shy smile. He looks up at the sky and says, “Well, it is not everyday that a Don such as myself would be graced by God the fortune of seeing an exceedingly beautiful maiden sitting out here in the forests. I must protect all beautiful ladies that I come across but…” he looks down on Angela again. “...never have I seen a woman so beautiful as you.”

“But…” Angela reaches up to her horns.

“Oh, do not worry about that. We can surely hire a surgeon and a healer to surgically remove it from you. We’ve done it before.”

“You’ve… surgically removed horns from people? Why?”

“No horns are allowed in the Hacienda proper, you see,” says Don Jose. “And it’s commonly seen as unnoble within Biringan, the City of Cities. It's just for politeness and so that you can fit in better. Admittedly, that is the only blemish I see in your perfection.”

Angela cringes again. The prospect of having the horns surgically removed is something she’s keenly interested in, but a mote of doubt lingers within her heart.

“There’s a catch to this, isn’t there?”

Don Jose shrugs. “Of course, it would be in my best interest to wed you. Perhaps we can live together in my hacienda, and you can be the loving wife that welcomes me back from military expeditions and other such things! You will have a grand life.”

Angela pouts and thinks. Her forehead creases. She doesn’t quite know what to answer. Not yet, anyway.

“Come on, girl. Do you not want to be treated like a principales?”

“I do,” Angela says, looking up. “But… I don’t think I can.”

“Oh, lovely maiden, moon of my life, why?”

Angela shrugs. “There’s… something I have to do first. There are people that are counting on me, I think. I’m not sure. But I don’t think I can do whatever I have to do if I went with you. Sorry.” And also going off gallivanting with a creepy older man is out of the question, fuckin’ creep.

Don Jose stops and stares at Angela for a bit. Eventually he sighs and shrugs. He produces a piece of rectangular paper from his pocket and gives it to her. “This is a paper signed by me. If you ever come to the hacienda--Hacienda Lacandola it is called--then show this to the gatekeeper. They shall let you in, and perhaps we can talk at length and help you come to a conclusion.”

Angela snorts. “Sure.” She takes the card.

“God bless you,” says Don Jose, before walking back to the horse and then shrugging. His shoulders have fallen. The principales gets on his horse and the two of them begin making their way up the mountain. The man that looks like a soldier looks over his shoulder and stares at her as they disappear into a curve.

“Weirdos,” says Angela. She thinks of throwing the paper away, but then decides against it. Perhaps it can help in the future. She looks around her and finds that the baro’t saya she’s wearing has no pockets in them. Exasperated, Angela sighs. Of course they don’t.

She gets up and walks over to the kalesa and slips the piece of paper into the sheath of the bolo that Makabintang gave her. She stares at her own reflection through the slightly dulled blade of the bolo. There’s still some dirt on her face, from when she fell. Her eyes are red. Is she losing sleep? Her glasses are miraculously still intact. When will they get broken? What will she do if they do? She’s practically blind without them. How will she be able to survive?

The bolo could be a good start, she thinks. Maybe get some training in them and be like a samurai or one of those old Filipino action movies or old Filipino komiks by Francisco Coching. She can manage it, she thinks. She’s always had before.

“I’ll get Makabintang to train me,” she mutters. What is seemingly apparent to Angela is that in this universe, fighting is to be expected at one point or another. At least, for a person like her. So it only makes sense for her to get up and grab some kind of combat training. If not, she’s going to get turned to bloody mush on the ground, and she doesn’t have any plans of dying just yet.

I still need to go home.

She brings the bolo over to the log she sat on and pondered. She wonders how life is, back at home, back in horrible Metro Manila, with the shitty transportation system and the even shittier government. That distant wish for home hit her like a truck. Sure, it was hell, but at least that place didn’t have, like, huge demons and angels and explosions and supernatural kung fu or whatever. If this is heaven, then she’d rather be cozy back home in hell.

She sighs. She wonders how Kristina is doing. One of her best friends. She was supposed to go and have a study date with her the next day, eating and drinking at their favorite cafe along Aurora Avenue. A hidden gem. But no. She was abducted by human-trafficking angels instead. Angela wonders if she will ever get back home. She decides that if she ever does go back home, she will.

In fact, she decides that she’ll do all of this, survive and get strong and hop around with Ang Nilapastangan and Makabintang, just to find a way to get back home. Her mother is waiting. Her little brother is waiting. They are all waiting for her to get back home.

“Oyoy, what was that commotion a while back?” Makabintang’s voice floats out of the trees. Angela looks up and sees him walking out, with three canteens full of water, which he carries with a makeshift flat plane of wood that he found out within the forest. He goes over to the horses and gives them something to drink.

“Some principales,” Angela replies. “Can I ask you a favor, Makabintang?”

“A principales? Did he say his name?”

“Don Jose something something Lacandola.”

Makabintang pauses. He turns to stare at Angela and his eyes go wide. “Lacandola? Are you absolutely sure?”

“Oh what, is he like, super important or something? Is that it?”

“Yes! Yes he is! Lacandola is one of the royal houses of the Kaharian!”

“What?”

“There’s not a lot of them, really. Only nine left: Sulayman, Lacandola, Ache, Colambu, Tupas, Paiburong, Sikatuna, Cabungsuan, and Namwaran.” Strangely enough, Angela recognizes some of those names. Names that she’s seen her friends have, or mentioned in old historical texts. Another weird note that imprints itself onto her mind.

“And this is important to me… how?” asks Angela.

“You shoulda taken the offer and took me with you!” Says Makabintang. “We’ll be rich and living large!”

“I doubt they’d allow a duwende to live in with them, though,” says Angela. “Don Jose already said that he’d have my horns surgically removed.”

“Yeesh,” says Makabintang, and then waves his hand dismissively “But whatever, you’re probably right. Come on, let’s get back on the road.”

Angela opens her mouth to ask something more, but a low guttural bellow resonates from somewhere else, freezing her words in her throat. She and Makabintang stare at each other, eyes completely wide, bodies frozen.

And then the kimera leaps out from within the shadows between the trees.

There’s a moment of absolute fear blossoming from the well at the bottom of Angela’s soul. She leaps to her feet, brings out her bolo, and faces down the kimera even as it leaps through the air and pins her to the ground.

“Makabintang! Help!” She screams, and the fear in her voice is like the shattering of glass. Makabintang rises and brandishes his own bolo. He sinks into the earth and then erupts from a mound to the left of the kimera, sending him cannonballing straight into the kimera’s side, bolo first. The bolo sinks, the kimera screams.

It flails about, sending Makabintang flying from it. This time, it doesn’t underestimate Makabintang. It leaps toward him as he slams against a tree, grabs him mid-bounce, and then slams him against the tree once again.

And then with a single, savage movement, rips Makabintang’s head from his body with its kimera dog mouth.

“Makabintang!”

▼

Ang Nilapastangan is faster than horses.

Upon her bellowing strides of smoke and flame--a neat little trick she’d picked up when traveling with a tigbalan--she crosses the length traveled by the kalesa in half the time. Despite the dewy morning, the road is not damp enough to let wheel tracks be embedded upon it, but that’s okay. Ang Nilapastangan told Makabintang where to go. She knows where they’re headed.

She just hopes she’s not too late. She just hopes she catches up before they go past the crossroads. But Makabintang knows that. Makabintang is a wise duwende, and he’d know to stop by at the crossroads to wait for her.

That is, assuming nothing worse follows after them. The kimera… she can’t brush the thought of the kimera from her mind. It wasn’t there when she looked around. Last time she remembered, halimaw don’t just disappear when they die. It’s popular to use the materials harvested from hunting them for equipment and items.

So where did it go?

Ang Nilapastangan bellows-pumping stride eventually reaches its peak, and she reaches the crossroads at almost a quarter of the time a horse-drawn carriage like the kalesa would. When she gets there, however, the kimera’s maw rips Makabintang’s head from his body.

Ang Nilapastangan’s fury is silent, and the world has told her that she must be silent. She blurs forward. Now right beside the kimera, and thrusts her hand--which is in a knife-hand position--straight through the kimera’s chest. She then inserts her other hand through that same hole, and then rips the kimera in two, vertically.

Chunks of meat and blood scatter across the clearing. Angela scrambles away from the blood and meat, bolo still in hand. Her eyes are wide, her breathing rapid. She feels like she’s going to puke, but she can’t look away from the fantastic gore caused by Ang Nilapastangan.

Ang Nilapastangan hurls both parts of the kimera into two different parts of the forest. Throwing it so strongly that it sends waves of air rushing out. She throws it seemingly so that the two parts of the kimera are as far from each other as possible.

She looks down upon the headless corpse of Makabintang, ripped and savaged. The blood of beings like Makabintang don’t seem to be red like human blood. Their blood is one that is yellow-ish, like the sap of trees, nearing gold.

Ang Nilapastangan scowls. Angela stares at Ang Nilapastangan.

▼

Ang Nilapastangan digs up a grave for what’s left of Makabintang’s body with her bare hands. She is silent, and when Angela looks over at her, her face is blank. Not in that blank kind of way when someone’s loved one dies and you don’t know how to react. Her face is exactly like her face the first time she saw her. As if the death of Makabintang, the only person that she seems to speak with, doesn’t faze her.

Ang Nilapastangan makes an effort to make the grave like a mound, like that of his house. And then, at the top of the mound, she places a single sampaguita flower that she finds nearby.

With that done, she gets on both knees and then bows. Her hands are clasped together, as if in prayer. Angela wonders if she should follow in what she’s doing. Even just to pay some kind of respect to the weird duwende that helped her. But, she feels too awkward, and decides not to.

Eventually, Ang Nilapastangan finishes the procession. She doesn’t do any kind of sign of the cross or anything. She simply lifts her head and then rises to her feet. She turns around and says: “I’m filthy.”

Angela blinks. “Um. Yeah. You’re covered in guts and blood.”

“We can’t afford to bathe yet,” she says, with an almost… complaining tone? Angela can’t help but tilt her head in slight confusion.

Angela also notices that as she’s talking, her burning crimson feet and hands are slowly subsiding. Her black and red eyes are dissipating. She closes her eyes and she breathes out. When she opens her eyes again, her eyes are normal. They’re no longer black and red, but a beautiful white and ash gray.. She, more or less, has the visage of a human.

Save, of course, for the horns.

“Come on. Barangay San Justo is a bit more travel.” She walks over to the kalesa and unlatches the horses from the wagon. She then reaches into the wagon and brings out a pair of saddles. Fraying at the edges, but working more or less. “Ah, the horse carer remembered my request. Good.”

Angela walks up to Ang Nilapastangan. “We’re not going to ride the kalesa?”

Ang Nilapastangan shakes her head. “We’re going to ride the horse instead. Do you know how to ride one?”

▼

Angela and Ang Nilapastangan ride down the path. They’ve gone down the westward road. “The east road leads up to a mountain trail that leads to Barangay Sampotsi. There you will find Hacienda Lacandola,” Ang Nilapastangan said. Angela told Ang Nilapastangan about the encounter she’s had with Don Jose, but Ang Nilapastangan doesn’t reply or respond to it.

Now, upon the trail, there is a slight awkwardness. The only time Ang Nilapastangan has talked to her is to teach her the ropes of riding a horse. She’s ridden one before when she went to Tagaytay and Baguio, but riding one on her own without the guide of some kind of caretaker is a new experience. Surprisingly, she got the hang of it rather quickly, and soon the two of them are on a canter. Ang Nilapastangan took the horse with the black coat, while Angela chose to ride upon one with a chestnut brown coat.

The path is mostly quiet, save for the soft sound of the wind wafting across the trees. The rustlign of branches, the whistle of small zephyrs. The temperature is not too bad. Humid, of course, but the sun is not shining directly at them so the heat is bareable. Angela realizes how much she prefers the temperate, humid climate of the more tropical countries than the more extreme degrees of other countries. She’s glad that they have that climate here, and much cooler than in Metro Manila too, since this place is presumably not choked by pollution and microwaved by climate change.

Their canter is brisk, but not to slow. Its a perfect pace for Angela to ponder upon the things she sees as she travels across the path. The broken twigs on the ground, the kabalyero trees that seem to be more popular here, sending the red petals of their flowers cascading down to the soil. The random snake coiling about a trunk, or flying lizard leaping from one treetop to another. A squirrel scurrying down a tree. Numerous birds flying above.

A soft wind sends fallen dead leaves flurrying into a small tornado, instilling into them once again, a semblance of life.

However it's not the kind of abounding, almost choking, multitude of animals Angela thought she would encounter. It’s strangely serene. The animals here seem to be alone: Angela can’t help but wonder why she only sees one squirrel, and one flying lizard, and one flock of birds. At this point, she’s expecting to be assaulted by an onslaught of mosquitoes and flies, but none come. Maybe one, and it isn’t even a mosquito.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Angela blinks. She looks up at Ang Nilapastangan. The path ahead is long. There’s a patch of the road further down that is shadowed by a canopy of tree branches. “Yeah.”

“It used to be even better,” says Ang Nilapastangan.

Angela waits for Ang Nilapastangan to explain further, but she never does.

After a bit of cantering, Angela speaks, “I’m sorry about Makabintang.”

“Don’t be,” she replies. “You had nothing to do with it. And Makabintang would’ve been honored to go out that way.”

“Wasn’t he your friend?”

“He was. He was the only friend I had and the only one that didn’t freak out when I said that I was the winner of the Hagdanan and that I came to that village to hide away from Biringan. He was a good friend. But he was going to die, I think, one way or another. It always happens.” The wistful tone is almost cliche to Angela.

“You were hiding?”

Ang Nilapastangan nods. “It’s the only way for them not to kill me, or use me.”

“Use you?”

Angela doesn’t get a response to that either.

With a sigh, Angela continues with, “If only I knew how to fight.”

“Don’t worry about the ‘ifs’,” says Ang Nilapastangan. “It’s done now. Move on. That’s what’s important. That’s how you break chains.”

Another silence. Angela decides not to engage anymore with Ang Nilapastangan. Maybe she’s still grieving, and just doesn’t want to show it to Angela so that she doesn’t break her tough-girl demeanor? Either way, Angela loses the will to converse. She looks around her again, and nothign much happens. Not a lot of animals come out. For a world that is the center of the multiverse, she thinks that it should have a lot more colorful animals. Not just a single squirrel and a snake. And some birds.

They ride for a few more hours, passing through numerous canopied sections of the road: the parts where the branches of the trees embrace overhead, as if to provide shelter and shade. The sun doesn’t shine down directly at you within the canopy, and the wind is chilly. As they canter along, her mind begins trailing, looking for more distractions. She wishes she can have her phone right now, numb her mind against her Twitter feed or chat with some friends. But then she remembers that those friends are universes away.

Eventually, to pick up the pace, Ang Nilapastangan tells Angela to gallop and follow her. Angela nods, prodding the horse forward and then balancing herself on her knees. Ang Nilapastangan taught her this just a few moments ago. She remembers what she’s taught: use her knees to steady herself, don’t pull on the reins, lean forward. And she does.

The horse goes forward, and it runs quick and true. It seems as though it’s doing its best to accommodate for Angela’s inexperience. Even though her gallop isn’t as fast as Ang Nilapastangan’s, it's enough that Ang Nilapastangan is always in view.

▼

After a few more hours of riding--which was painful for Angela, having to look around all the time--Angela finds that the road they’re sat upon crests up to the top of a hill. When they reach it, Ang Nilapastangan stops the horse, and so does Angela.

There, from the hilltop, they see Barangay San Justo. A quaint little town with the same wooden houses mixed with stone houses, and with a church in the middle. It is surrounded, of course, by dense trees, some of them breaching the gaps of the town and growing between houses and roads. There is a small wall on both the north and south sides of the barangay, made of earth and wood.

The hilltop road bends down into the southern exit.

The barangay, strangely enough for the middle of the day, is quiet.

“We will look for the albularyo here,” says Ang Nilapastangan. “And then afterwards, I will help you.”

Angela blinks, looking up at Ang Nilapastangan. “Help me?”

“Get stronger and win the Hagdanan. It’s the only way, if you wish to be free.”

Next Arc.

Return to the Table of Contents.

#karanduun #writing #novel #webnovel #filipino #myth #mythology #folklore #arc 1

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