by Rama Nugraha
Erry, who had been looking at Datan unsurely, plunged the mopping stick to the bucket of soapy water. She did no longer arrange her fragrant silver hair like corn kernels. She let her hair flowed untied, dusty. Erry looked pale with yellowish skin. She made an impression that she was too sick or too tired to take care of herself. Erry approached Datan and gave him a tight hug, crying in his arms as she let out her longing and loss.
Erry’s eyes… Datan felt helpless seeing her spotted eyes.
“I’ve missed you, Datan,” she said longingly, though she chuckled a little. “Finally, you come home.”
Datan welcomed Erry’s hug. He chuckled a little as well when his eyes got watery. He had missed Erry as much as he missed Aunt Fira. He exhaled slowly and heavily, wanting to burst out all of the burdens he carried to the girl whom he thought as her own sister. Datan wanted to tell her everything, to talk to her all night long. But he knew he could not do it now.
Erry let him go. “Wait. Why are you so red? What happened?” she asked suspiciously.
“This is a side effect of a medication. Don’t worry, this is just temporary, Er.”
“Medication.”
“An Anag attacked me with his fire breath.”
Uncle Joe barked a laugh. “I’ve been wanting to ask you about that since earlier,” he said in between his laugh. “Your skin looked like a raw steak.”
Datan chuckled. He felt that perhaps the situation was not as terrifying as he thought.
Erry sighed, did not find it funny, nor did Aunt Fira who had been glaring at Datan. Aunt Fira’s mind must have been flooded with the worst assumptions. They went silent for a moment.
“No one knows what’s happening,” Erry finally talked gloomily.
“Everyone just got sick, they hallucinated and went insane!” Uncle Joe added. “And my lover… oh, she even gave me roasted rat because in her eyes it was chicken. Damn it! Someone hated Thar Guflar and we had to pay for it!”
“Or a group of people, Uncle. Have you started hallucinating?”
“No. Don’t talk like that, Er.”
“No, Uncle. But we have to tie ourselves when we start hallucinating. The worst thing beyond our understanding might happen.”
“I know. You don’t have to remind me about that.”
“I’m sure Datan is real here because we can see him altogether.”
Datan was bewildered. He shook his head to shove away the thought that was entering his head. “Water… water…” he panted, suddenly remembering the time Guma gave him a glass of water which tasted like a waste, even when it tasted great for Sami and Guma. “Does the water smell bad?”
Uncle Joe sat on the sofa, which was covered by a piece of fabric while groaning hoarsely. “It’s the usual. The water in Tormera has always been fresh and delicious,” he said. Uncle Joe looked exhausted and his face was drenched in sweat. He looked older. He was not wearing his leather vest. He only had a rumpled rough cotton clothing on him. He took a bad handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood oozing from his nose.
“An Urgut came looking for your father,” he said. “You met him? I don’t like his demeanor. So hard to guess. He’s also real because all three of us saw him.”
“Yeah,” Datan replied. “He’s not from around here. Casta came from Bavarat. He is Father’s old friend.”
“A man from afar, huh…”
“Your father,” Aunt Fira spoke, sounded miserable. She did not think about water nor Tormera, nor the guest nor herself. She was thinking of Father. “He disappeared.”
Datan was taken aback, it felt like his heart had just stopped beating. Suddenly all the sound disappear. Datan felt the hair in his body rose seeing Aunt Fira’s face. He knew that it was the time. Erry took steps backward, away from them.
“Your father…” Aunt Fira wiped his cheek while taking a deep breath. “Do you know where he is? He disappeared just like that. The key of the house was hidden under a pot. We found this house empty. There was no note or anything. I don’t even remember the last time I saw him.” She held the side of his head. She closed his eyes. “For Unum, it felt like one year had passed.”
“Indeed,” Uncle Joe added. “We’ve stayed here for three days, Datan. Erry and I, we accompanied Fira. She refuses to come home.”
Datan felt that his knees were breaking apart. He turned away and his gaze was shifted to many directions. There was a slight regret for seeing his aunt today. How did he explain all of this? It would be idiotic to tell the truth. “Why don’t you accompany Uncle Baram in your house, Aunty?” he asked. “He’s sick, isn’t he? I’m worried about him.”
“That heartless man knew I am here. He’s alright! Just a little crazy,” Aunt Fira stated. She frowned, starting to find Datan’s gesture and demeanor suspicious. After all, she raised him ever since he was a baby. “Don’t try to distract me, Datan,” she warned. “Oh, now I know why you’re here. You’re hiding something, aren’t you?”
Sometimes Datan felt that Aunt Fira loved Father more than his own husband. Datan looked at her, feeling the muscles in his face tightened. “No, Aunty,” he lied.
“Are you lying?”
He could not. Datan’s eyes looked elsewhere. They were sweeping the floor. “Why would I lie?” he asked.
“You know I can tell when you’re lying,” her voice was a cold as ice and as sharp as a butcher knife. “I raised you to be an honest man, Datan. Your honesty is like a glass, for once it breaks, it will never return to one piece again. So, don’t you dare to even try to lie to me. Not for something like this.”
Datan felt his throat dried. Aunt Fira had always been able to intimidate him, piercing his heart with a sharp glare and she could smell the lie Datan tell. His heartbeat went haywire. His eyes looked at anywhere but Aunt Fira’s eyes, instead, his eyes scanned the tired wrinkly face of the woman who now looked really old. She had an awful eye bags under her spotted eyes.
Datan tried to think fast about what to say.
“Something happened, right?” Aunt Fira demanded, wiping and inhaling the black blood that oozed from her nose all of sudden. “Datan! I’m talking to you! Look at me! Answer me!”
“Fira—“
Aunt Fira glared at him angrily, her face was as hard as bronze ingot. “Shut it, Joe!” she scolded. “This boy is hiding something from me. I can tell. Something I don’t like!” she glared back at Datan. Her face was red. “You know where your father is, don’t you? Where is he? What happened?”
Uncle Joe clacked his tongue tiredly. He stood up to approach Aunt Fira, pulling her away from Datan. “Fira, hey, come on, calm down,” he cooed with forced patience. “Datan had just got home. Let him breathe.”
Aunt Fira slapped Uncle Joe’s hand from his arm, glaring at him wrathfully. “Don’t you dare to touch me when I’m talking to my son, Joe,” she hissed like she was about to spurt venom from her mouth. Her eyes soon were back to glare at Datan, demanding an answer.
That was Aunt Fira’s scariest form which always made Datan weak in the knees. When he was a child, he used to curl up in the corner, sobbing. Now? He wanted to bolt out of the house. Her eyes were swollen, dread was visible in her eyes like she was seeing a terrifying hallucination around her.
“It’s alright, Uncle,” Datan uttered, feeling like his vocal cord was squished. I am an idiot. “I… I will tell you everything if that would help you feel better, Aunty.”
Aunt Fira reached out for Datan’s muscled arm, gripping it with her small fingers. Her eyes were bugging out in horror, she was in a raging state. Her lips and jaw trembled. “You better,” she said sternly as tears escaped her eye socket. “Tell me the truth!”
“… Father went out with one of my friends.”
Silence. Each second felt like one full burning days. Datan thought he made it.
But the slap delivered by Aunt Fira told him otherwise. “Kidnapped, you mean?” her voice was nearly nonexistent.
Datan was startled with masked expression
, feeling the burning sensation in his cheek and his heart. He could not believe Aunt Fira slapped him. Her rage was beyond him now. Datan nodded like a child whose head was made of stone. Aunt Fira paled like a corpse, her heart was torn as if it was just chewed by a wolf. Uncle Joe glared, looked horrified. Erry went still, feeling the same pain as she gripped the mopping stick tighter.
Datan felt hot all of sudden, his chest felt like he was suffocating.
“You made a mistake,” Aunt Fira guessed dreadfully. “Your skin was burnt and…”
“Yes,” Datan’s voice was hoarse. “When my first mission—“
Uncle Joe balled his fist, he frowned deeply. “So you are the Royan that was all over the newspaper? The Royan who slaughtered the residents of Ubaga Jahral’s house in Fardas?” he accused. There were disappointment and a tint of hope that he was wrong in his voice. His ears moved as he spoke, though it was not funny anymore.
Datan felt his heart stop beating. It hurt. “No, Uncle. Of course not!” he refused, almost shouting. “I’m not the one slaughtering them—“
Aunt Fira raised her hand, slapping Datan again.
Uncle Joe clutched the rail of a chair, holding back pain. Erry covered her mouth with both of his hand. Her spotted grey eyes glistened with tears.
Aunt Fira slapped him again.
Her cries exploded. “I don’t want to hear it!” she screamed.
Datan stilled, his eyes were widened in fear.
“I’ve told you!” she roared, her voice bleed with wrath and pain. “I HAVE BEEN TELLING YOU NO FOR SO LONG, DATAN!”
Aunt Fira hit Datan uncontrollably with her trembling weak hand. Her skin was tightened to hold back tears. Her eyes looked miserable. Datan could not move even a little, he felt like he was impaled by burning iron again and again. It was painful. Uncle Joe had to hold Aunt Fira to stop her. Erry was crying too, unable to move from her place.
“Enough, Fira. That’s enough,” Uncle Joe tried to calm her down. He let her go to guided her to sit on a chair. “That’s enough. You humiliate him.”
Aunt Fira was panting. She glared at Datan like a tortured being. “Let him be humiliated! In my eyes, you are a part of them, a villain! I’ve forbidden you!” she went on, tears pooled her eyes. She was in immense distress. “You’re not a boy anymore, Datan. You’re an adult. Everything you do will have consequences for yourself and people around you! But what was your answer?
“You always say that you just follow your heart! You always feel that you are fated to be a Royan! A great thief! A murderer! Someone who lived by leeching on other people! What kind of fate is that?
“For Unum, Datan! Your life is a disaster! YOUR FATE IS WRONG!”
It felt like he was hit by a carriage then fell from a cliff and impaled by corals. Datan looked like a dead man, his heart was cut then drowned in boiling salt water. He inhaled air difficultly like his lungs were filled with water. He trembled, unable to move an inch of his body.
My fate was wrong?
Uncle Joe and Erry turned white. Erry’s legs wobbled.
“Before she died, your mother told me to take care of you. Keila wanted you to be a good man, to be a man who helps people. Not to be idiots like them!” Aunt Fira attacked him again with her remaining energy. “Your father and I tried! I tried to fulfill that promise! But you?! All you think about is yourself! You are ignorant and selfish!”
For a moment, there was only the sound of heaving breath.
It was until Aunt Fira went still. Her eyes were empty and her mouth could no longer say anything. She looked like she was about to lose consciousness. Her hand gripped the Hin necklace tightly. Uncle Joe wiped the blood dripping from her nostril with his handkerchief, while Erry brought her a glass of water, muttering shooting words at her.
Uncle Joe watched over Datan like blood had just been drained from his body. “Go,” he told him, he sounded sorry and worried. “Do what you have to do, Datan. Take your father home, and we’ll be waiting for you here.”
Datan could not think or say anything anymore. His feeling was crushed. Even so, he remembered one thing. “No. You are all coming with me,” he said heavily. “We’re leaving Tormera today.”
Chapter 31
The Reunion in Wanageeska
Datan could not believe Aunt Fira actually said what she said. That Datan’s fate was wrong. That his passion to be a Royan was nothing but a mistake. Then, what did Datan live for?
Datan felt miserable. He felt as though he had just been accused of murder. Aunt Fira should not judge him right away. Although it was true that Father was kidnapped because of him, though it was actually because of Nymeria, there was more to it. Sami’s mistake could not completely be disregarded. It was because Sami did not properly do his job that Datan encountered Nymeria, which led that woman to ruin his life to this point.
They starred at the blue of the ocean under the reddish light from the orange sky in the back of Seekar. The rustling of ocean wind blew Irirana’s hair, making it brushed against her face.
“Don’t worry. Casta will take care of them. He’ll bring them to his most trusted people,” she said. “He may take them to Multa. That nation has some of the greatest healers in Bavarat—like Bandu in Natuna.”
Datan sighed. “I’ve caused trouble again,” he said.
“Don’t say that.”
“Can they even be healed?
“The healers will do their best, Datan.”
“Tannu couldn’t be healed.”
Irirana was taken aback for a moment. “Because it was too late for him,” she said sadly. “Let’s just hope for the best. I believe the healers could find an answer to this problem.”
“Did Casta say anything?”
“The Middle Land of Bavarat was hit by the same plague,” Irirana explained. “The situation was slightly worse. But it was a story for another time since it will only burden you more.”
Datan did not say anything, completely understood her. For a moment they went quiet, staring at the beauty of the vast ocean. Irirana looked at Datan hesitantly, though curiously as well.
“About Nymeria,” she mumbled slowly. “Did she show you any new vision lately? Aside from the one about your father?”
Datan felt his blood sizzled in his head, boiling.
◆◆◆
Two weeks had passed.
Datan got even more anxious because they had not arrived in Wanageeska on time until Seekar entered green water with a wild current. The sound of the wave hitting the board was loud. Seekar was shaken by the current, thunder rumbled in the sky and the surface of the water moved as though there was giant creature swum madly in the bottom of the sea. The people on the boat wobbled to the deck and Datan saw a magnificent sight he had never seen before.
There was massive hunting in the sea.
A large Phinisi ship was in a struggle against a large creature who wriggled madly in panic. The creature resembled a snake with a ferocious face. It was around twenty meters in height and had a bluish black scale like a bronze armor. It had spikes like a saw on its back.
Yellow-faced fellas cheered on the ship. They jumped to the water, holding deadly sharp spears, diving into the deep of the ocean, attacking their prey to kill them. No sign of fear was seen from them. Then, followed by a mournful snarl, the water was tainted by red liquid resembling spilled oil.
It colored one big part of the water surface.
Pobos exhaled in awe from behind the lens of a wooden telescope as Kanas, who leaned into a sail, commented on Phinisi that almost got pulled into the sea. In the bow, Irirana smiled excitedly with bright face listening to Edgar talking about the mighty people of Falla. While Datan was fussing around, warning them to sail away from the hunting area.
“We cannot be this close to them! The tiny Seekar could be destroyed if it is hit by a creature of that size!” Datan yelled, every now and then he looked at the sea and winced.
“Calm down, Datan,” Kanas said. “The Hunig won’t
come here. For Unum, Hunig was not like Ranggala. They only look terrifying, but they are actually—“
Something soft but solid crashed against the hull of Seekar, shaking the deck, making everyone wide-eyed and hastily held on to something. There was one skipjack tuna passed by then, swimming so fast that it did not pay attention to its direction.
Datan groaned. “Pan! I told you!” he exclaimed, annoyed.
Edgar realized something. He hurried up to the bridge of the ship, climbing the stair and entering the cabin to direct the ship’s movement through the steering wheel which was locked to maintain a steady speed. On a sturdy large nail, Kiar woke up startled, looking around confusedly.
“There’s a massive migration, Captain!” Pobos added in a yell. He ran hurriedly, feeling the breeze in hitting his face. He was fast to decide what to do. He pulled a bunch of ropes and move the direction of the sail so that Seekar could move faster. “Turn it ninety degrees to the left!”
Datan shivers seeing the ocean. Kanas was wrong. It was not just one fish. There was a school of large fish swam vigorously against the current as they were chased by several Hunig with a black scale which moved agilely, splitting the sea. Altogether they ate the smaller fish, roaring happily in the midst of their meat and blood party. Meanwhile, the skipjack tunas who survived swam to the surface, hopping around from the water, as if they were frustrated, looking for a way to fly so that they could survive.
Datan stepped away from the sides. “Hold on tight, everyone!” he yelled.
There was another crash, and this time it came repeatedly. Those fish were frightened that they could not see Seekar in front of them. Green-scaled skipjack tunas were known to lose the sense of direction when they were panicking and scared. This was because of their yellow eyes which had a really bad vision and were easily impaired when they were under pressure.