Philippine Speculative Fiction 9

by Andrew Drilon

  Hustino was gone for seven days; when he was returned, he was barely alive.

  We did our best to medicate him, but though Cristan distilled the healing essences of herbs; though Maren revived his heart numerous times with sparked coils; though I added mechanical joints and replaced broken bone with sturdy metal, there was not much improvement in Hustino’s condition. We were scientists, not doctors, and the sum of our brilliance could not equal the healing arts practiced by the faithful. And if there were lore in the neighboring powers that could have helped in Hustino’s recuperation, those doors were closed to us as well.

  In the end, all we could do was stand vigil.

  How I wished Hustino could have spoken; how I re-imagined those times to be filled with tender goodbyes or sunset-tinged rememberings instead of mournful quietude. But Hustino was unable to express anything in words, and his fingers were too irreparably broken to express his horrors in music. Whatever the Gobernador-General had the guardia sibil do to him, it was, in many ways, worse than immediate death. It was as if Hustino had gone through the antithesis of an alma parpadear where, instead of being united into a greater thought and a grander dream, he was instead disassembled and methodically dismantled, until his heart was just a cluster of malfunctioning valves, his mind a maze of shadows and nightmares, and his soul a tattered assembly of memories. Near the end of his days, Hustino became increasingly silent, worryingly still, as if his core had drifted into a vacuum where no sound could exist, terribly alone, terribly beyond our reach.

  When he died, Cristan, Maren and I began to plan.

  THE FIRST PART of the scheme was all about me, because I needed both their expertise, because I was unsure as to how to go about it, because for all my self-surgeries, I had never attempted to change any vital organs with artificial ones and was thus less confident of my recovery rate.

  The second part was Cristan, partly because he was impatient, and partly because his was the easiest to execute. Poison required only the most basic alchemy. The real challenge was in being able to outwit the doctors of faith, for once symptoms started to show, it would just be a simple exercise of their arts to heal themselves.

  Instead of crafting fast-acting venom, as other deviants had done in the past with varying degrees of success, Cristan chose to go slow. The quintaesencia of lead tasted sweet, or so Cristan told us. It was only detectable when it was too late, when the metal had rooted itself deeply into the bones, when the abdominal pains had already gone past excruciating, when the dementia had taken hold.

  And so it was that during the celebration of Eostre, Cristan delivered several boxes of fragrant rice cakes to the good doctors as an offering to the Arquitecto Sagrado.

  Then, he waited.

  We were not fools enough to believe that we would not be caught, for certainly if we were geniuses in our fields, there must be corresponding intellects of the same degree working as guardias or as doctors or as detectives. But Cristan had wanted to see if his mad plan would work; he wanted to revel in the chaos it would cause. And so it was not until three weeks later, just hours before the detectives had solved the mystery of the dancing demented doctors, that he took his own life using the most traditional of poisons: arsenic.

  As a parting gift, Cristan created a sumptuous feast for the detectives who would barge into his casa to arrest him. Survivors would later inadequately describe the majesty of the assembled towers, made of spun sugar, marzipan and confectioner’s paste, generously gilded with silver and gold and lead and powdered wine; they would use ill-fitting words to articulate the tantalizing scents of the ornately plated cakes and tarts and pies, mysteriously still warm as if Cristan had just taken them out of the ovens moments before they arrived; they would ineptly recount their despair at taking one bite, then another, and another, unable to stop, unable to deny the orgasmic glory that came with tasting each perfectly crafted gastronomical delight.

  Only those of the weakest constitutions died; many survived the ordeal, only to be haunted by a craving Cristan alone could satisfy.

  The detectives were persuaded, with the help of a carefully crafted letter echoing the sentiment of heretics, that radical thought served as motivation for Cristan’s crimes. Thus, the Cucinero Peligroso, as Cristan would later be called, enjoyed the reputation of being a deviant in the eyes of the colonia and a martyr among revolutionaries.

  THE THIRD PART of the plan was Maren.

  Her challenge was to be able to gather the embajadors in one area, when the resulting economic bullying had forced these officials to be at odds with not only the colonia, but each other. To accomplish this nearly impossible feat, she took her small galleon to the road.

  At first, only a few of our peers, mostly catedraticos who thought kindly of her and her flirtatious smiles, came and listened. But as her invention took flight, as more people saw the flow of currents inside Maren’s metallic beast, as more of the citizenry began to experience firsthand how it was to ride a ship without steam, more important members of society began to take notice.

  It was during the monsoon season that she was finally able to attract the attention of the embajadors, who all came en masse because of their fear of being outdone by the other. By then, Maren had mastered the art of presentation, adding exciting flourishes and embellishments to what should have been a simple, scientific lecture. The most awaited moment of her demonstration had ceased to be the galleon de cielo itself, but rather Maren, beautifully attired with long flowing hair, entering a metal cage which was then subsequently charged with large volts of lightning from her coiled constructions.

  “Esteemed guests, see how the bolts arc outside this metal compartment but leave me, inside it, unharmed? Earlier, I showed you how a small amount of current was sufficient to fry an egg. Yet here I am, perfectly well, and conversing with the distinguished gentlemen and beauteous ladies with nary a burn,” Maren would say, as she manipulated her inventions from within. “This is why, despite the metal casings of my galleon, despite the massive amounts of current it will need, it can and will carry its passengers safely to their destinations. It will be different matter, however, if my device was not used. Why, it is more dangerous than any known weapons la Madre Patria has been able to develop.” At this point, Maren would extend a hand to her captivated audience. “Now please, come closer, see for yourselves how harmless it is.”

  I was not at her last presentation, but I have often imagined how silly the embajadors must have looked as they approached the lightning cage; how their eyes must have widened with greed being so close to something so powerful; how exquisite Maren’s smile must have been as she switched off the mechanism that controlled the electrical charges; how chaotically beautiful everyone must have appeared, limned in metal-tinged blue, stripped of their artifice and their false etiquette and their elegant veneers, unable to flee, unable to find respite, unable to go beyond the reach of arcing volts and coruscating electricity and instead, were redeemed, and at the same time, reduced through Maren’s act to being a mere component of an all-consuming force.

  The detectives concluded, not convincingly, that it was an accident; an unfortunate accident that took the lives of the ambassadors of Tsina, Hindustan, Inglatera and Mejico, their babel of translators, and the promising machinist who would go down in history as Senora el Relampago, the Lightning Lady.

  I AM THE LAST bolt to slide in place, the last piece on the puzzle of revenge. It took me months to recover; a year to rebuild my reputation as a dancer of note; a couple more pass before I finally piqued the interest of my target.

  My challenge is to murder the acting sovereign of the colonia. The Gobernador-General is protected by guardia sibil, some of who have their own augmented limbs, to enable a more effective defense. The key is to do something no one has done before, to truly rebel against the laws of fisica, to fly higher, move faster, so that I may be able to penetrate the wall of men and women that surround the Gobernador. To do that, I need power.

  The copper-s
pringed heart was my idea, but I needed Maren to build the mechanism that would operate it, and I needed Cristan to distill me the medication I would need to survive the transplant. We knew there was a possibility it would not work; we knew I could die for, just as with Hustino, we were merely mimicking the healing arts.

  But my body proved once again its resilience. It accepted the change and became stronger for it. And if cerulean pulsing lines often appear under my skin, and if I hear the whirring sound of turbines instead of the steady thrum of a heartbeat, and if I see phantoms of my dead lovers conversing, laughing, asking me to come with them, all of these combined is still a small price to pay for what, in turn, I am able to do.

  I see Cristan and Maren and Hustino take their imaginary seats among the selected guests invited to the Gobernador-General’s soiree. The audience is small, even accounting for the guardia sibil, the stage they allotted me, large. In my starting position on the raised platform, the endless opportunity of space beckons to me, calling to me to fill its emptiness with the caress of my arms, the harsh flicks of my feet. I delve deep within myself to stay still. Only when the melancholy music begins do I move.

  I drag one leg, then the other, in time with the subtle base, tapping my foot lightly on the wood, letting the exhausted sadness of my movements flavor the ambient energy. At the unexpected melodic crescendo, I execute a sharp roto trasero then proceed to a slow slide, as if the harsh interruption never happened.

  I am lost, I tell the audience as I interrupt the sway of my hips with a jump and twist in midair. I am broken, I say as I harshly stop the gentle flutter of my arms with a drop on the floor. And I repeat this again, and again, with broken salidas, and disrupted ochos, and a sudden stop to a languorous pirouette.

  When the music fades I begin to turn.

  The 360 degree rotations of girasoles encadenados require balance and concentration, but it is my copper-springed heart and not my mind that holds me steady. I am reliving the last years again, temporarily immune to friction and gravity and the failings of mechanical joints and mortal limbs, free to dwell on images of Hustino, laughing as he explained the alma parpadear, and Cristan as he served his decadent flavorful masterpieces, and Maren, as she navigated the winds in her marvelous, powerful galleon. With each completed revolution, with each spin that defies the laws of fisica with its almost infinite source of angular momentum, I feel the stress inside me building, growing, increasing to the point of sublime pain, until the images themselves cease to be illusions, but take on weight and mass and volume (and texture and scent and sound) so that I am surrounded by the Cuadro Amorso, turning to the music of a thousand precious memories, even as a miniscule part of my artificial heart loses its place, leaving a dynamo to course its power without a circuit, intensifying the pain a hundredfold and momentarily blinding me, until finally, eventually, inevitably I stumble to a halt.

  And my chest explodes.

  My last image is of my heart, impossibly slow to my eyes, traveling a straight line toward the Gobernador-General, to its unavoidable end.

  Cedric Tan

  The Woodsman

  Leon Cedric C. Tan graduated from Ateneo de Manila University in 2013. Most recently, he was a fellow of the 13th IYAS National Writers’ Workshop. His works have been published in The Philippines Free Press, Philippines Graphic, and Ateneo Heights.

  He currently hops back and forth between Manila and Clark.

  The Woodsman is dedicated to the ones who share his space.

  BRAM SQUINTED, AND not just because of the sunlight—beads of sweat were also running down from his forehead, into his eyes, threatening to obscure his vision. After a whole day of trekking through the woods, he had finally emerged from the dark leafy canopies, only to find himself in the frigid embrace of open mountain air. The cold made every breath feel like swallowing broken glass. Bram took a moment to readjust the position of the young woman’s body he carried on his back, then gritted his teeth and soldiered on.

  He was the village’s resident giant; shoulders like an ox’s, and legs built just as steadily from years of woodcutting. Where he had size, however, he lacked nimbleness. A few steps up, as he tried to find a solid foothold on the steep incline, the earth crumbled under his oversized boot and he slipped, falling flat on his face and tasting dirt. The girl he was carrying fell awkwardly beside him, limp as a doll.

  Fool. The voices stirred in his head, mocking. Fool, fool, fool.

  After shaking himself, Bram pushed himself off the ground, ignoring the dirt clinging to his sweaty face. He looked over at Marike—even with her dress caked with mud, and her long hair tumbling out of its braids, she was still quite pretty. Bram picked her up in his arms and continued walking.

  The sun was at its highest when the house came into view. There it was—a simple cottage, lonely atop the mountain, built of wood and mortar and roofed with dry thatch. It was to this house that the least traversed mountain paths led.

  They said that the witch looked different to every villager who dared lay their eyes upon her. Old Man Wob claimed that she looked just like his long-dead wife. The idiotic stable boy Harrow swore that she had the scales of a snake covering half of her face. Other people said different things, and Bram wasn’t certain which form would present itself to him as he stumbled towards the cottage and banged his fist upon the door. He had only knocked twice before it swung open.

  “Come in,” a voice sung from inside, sweet as Bram’s favourite nectar.

  Holding Marike’s body close to him, Bram stepped into the blackness within, ducking his head under the door frame. The moment he was inside, a gust blew from behind him, slamming the door shut.

  Fool, the voices taunted again, but he dared not turn back, dared not to let the whimper of fear escape his lips.

  Bram waited breathlessly as his eyes slowly adjusted to the dim interior of the house. His eyes were aided by a fire that suddenly burst to life in a hearth at the far corner.

  She stood before him, not three steps away, and Bram thought that she might be the loveliest woman he’d ever seen, with flawless skin, eyes like glinting steel and crow-black hair. He dwarfed her in size. He felt utterly afraid, unnerved by her beauty.

  “What can I do for you, giant?” the witch asked, her honeyed voice tugging at Bram’s heart in a way no melody could.

  Tell her.

  “I, umm, I need your help.” His voice, though a deep rumble, came out in the usual stammer.

  “Of course.”

  “This girl.” Bram held up the limp body of Marike. Firelight and shadows pranced about her still face.

  “A dead girl,” the witch said, sparing Marike just a glance.

  “Yes, she’s, umm, dead. But can you make her a-alive, again, p-please?”

  The witch’s cold eyes twinkled. “Do you love this corpse?”

  “Umm. Can you do it?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps, I can.” The witch grinned, and at the sight of that knowing smile Bram felt a stab of regret at having brought Marike to this woman. But he pushed it away. She can’t hurt her if she’s already dead. She can’t, she can’t.

  “Dear giant, what are you willing to do for this girl?”

  “A-anything.”

  The witch’s grin widened, and there were the voices again, louder than the blood pounding in his ears, telling him, fool, fool, fool!

  BRAM ALREADY LOOKED like a full grown man when he was just eight years old, if full grown men had mismatched eyes and mouths dumbly hung open half the time. By the time he was thirteen, all the men in the village–butchers, farmers, everyone–had to look up at him. His parents loved him well enough, but not even they could help him learn to read or write. Stefan and the other children said it was because his body was so big, that’s why there was nothing left for his head.

  They called him Bram the Big Fool. Sometimes just Bram the Fool, and when they were feeling particularly lazy about it, they just called him Dunghead.

  Finding a living for Bram was a coll
ective effort on the part of the villagers. Working in the stables was out of the question, and the smith never let him near his workshop either. Finally, the elders put him to work cutting trees in the woods–handling the axe and collecting lumber was the only task he could put his sizable self to. No other job suited him half as well.

  So thought Bram as he swung the witch’s axe and the pine fell with a noisy crash. A flock of birds in the nearby tree fluttered away, twittering in irritation. The witch’s instructions were simple enough:

  “Collect some wood,” she told him. “Take this axe of mine, and cut some wood.”

  “Umm, how much wood?” he asked.

  “When it is enough, I will say.”

  And so he swung. There seemed to be something wrong with the axe the witch had lent him: though it had an elegantly carved handle and a lustrous steel blade, it was extraordinarily heavier than it looked. He struggled at handling it, even with his muscular, well-practiced arms. The axe’s weight slowed down his progress, turned every other chop into a tedious affair. It didn’t help that he hadn’t eaten yet, either.

  But, he told himself, he wasn’t going to eat until the witch fixed Marike up, fixed her good.

  ONE DAY, BRAM was walking through the village by a path fringing the woods, carrying a heavy load of timber on his shoulders for the elders’ hearths. Stefan suddenly appeared before him, dirty and sweaty as usual, but wearing an innocent smile. He had his hands behind his back.

  “Hello Bram!”

  “He… umm… hello, Stefan,” he replied, stopping in his tracks.

  “Do you like eggs, Bram?” Stefan asked.

  He did. “Y-yes. My mama, she makes them for, umm, for breakfast. I like eggs.”

  Stefan was pleased with the answer. “Good! Here you go!” And he tossed the egg he had been holding behind his back at Bram’s face. Before he knew it, ten other boys, all friends of Stefan’s, had jumped out from their hiding places and begun hurling eggs at Bram, never missing with a target so large and unmoving. The yolk and eggshells splattered across his face and his chest, making his clothes sticky.