by AA Lee
“Yes, Datu,” the girls quickly answered.
After breakfast, Kisig walked to the meeting hall. Outside, people gathered in a circle. They had been doing the ceremonies for weeks to appease the spirits and pray for rain, but it looked as though the spirits were deaf to their pleas. Sometimes, Kisig doubted the spirits even existed, and if they did, he resented them for their cruelty. But he didn’t give up because, if it rained, it could save them from going to war.
The high priestess had said that it was possible for ordinary people to communicate with the spirits with the priestesses’ help. Kisig hadn’t once glimpsed a spirit. If he could communicate with them, he would have a lot to say and ask.
“Datu! You’re just in time. We need to finish the ceremony early because the contenders needed me there today.”
“Thanks for your effort, High Priestess. I’m ready.”
“All right, take your seat.” She turned toward his attendants. “Help me cover him with charcoal, quickly because it’s getting hot.”
The girls hurriedly painted his body with the charcoal. The high priestess worked on his face, careful to not get charcoal in his eyes. She then picked up a cup of white freshwater-seashell powder to draw circles around his eyes.
“I think you’ll get your money back by the end of this week. Our warriors really need more food.”
“What makes you say that, Datu?”
“Your girl will be eliminated. I’m sure she won’t be able to attend today’s training.”
“The slave is the least of your concern. She can handle herself. What you should focus on is how to connect with the spirits.”
Kisig’s lips pressed into a thin line. The high priestess was always direct with him. Her bluntness made him focus, though, and for that, he liked her. “Perhaps you can do a better job of connecting me to them, or why don’t you just talk to them yourself? You can see them. You just have to tell me what they want. Why should I talk to them?”
The high priestess only sighed in response.
Kisig’s attendants finished covering his body with charcoal as he watched the crowd thicken. He spotted officials observing him. The high priestess had said that painting his body black would enable the spirits to focus on his eyes rather than his mortal being, thus making the connection easier. Kisig had participated in thanksgiving ceremonies after every harvests, but this ceremony would be his first attempt to speak with the spirits directly.
“All right, Datu. Let’s start.” The high priestess handed him a knife.
Ganda opened a cage and grabbed a white rooster by the leg. Kisig slit the rooster’s throat and dripped the blood over the fire that had been prepared before he’d arrived.
“Pamatii kami mga, espiritu.” The high priestess’s voice rose and fell in the opening of her song.
Kisig didn’t understand her, but he assumed she was summoning the spirits.
“Yari kami nagapanawag sa inyo,” the high priestess continued. She pounded her staff on the ground, matching the rhythm of her song. The high priestess motioned for Kisig to kneel in front of the fire.
He closed his eyes and tried to focus only on the high priestess’s voice. His knees hurt, and his skin itched from the charcoal. It felt like he’d been kneeling for an eternity when he heard flapping. It sounded like a big bird. His heart thumped. Could it be the spirits? Do they have wings?
When he opened his eyes, the high priestess had stopped singing. The rooster that he’d thought dead flapped its wings, desperate to escape, and the priestesses ran after it, drawing laughter from the crowd.
Chapter 15
Tala
Tala pressed her fingers to her aching temple when she woke. The headache didn’t go away even after she massaged her forehead. She sat up to get water because her throat felt so dry, but the nausea overtook her, and all she could do was put her hands against the floor.
She couldn’t remember how she’d reached the hut. The last thing she remembered was Malaya pouring more coconut wine into her cup after she danced with the village datu and Nimfa desperately trying to stop her from drinking. She felt bile rising up in her throat. Before she could reach the door, she sprayed vomit across the floor. It seemed like she threw up forever. Her eyes watered. The smell was suffocating so she summoned her strength to walk to where the water was stored. She held the wall for support like a baby just learning to walk.
The water made her forget the taste of her own vomit, but the dizziness seemed to signal that she would throw up again. She sat for a while, trying to stay as steady as she could to fight the dizziness.
“Yuck!” Malaya spat on the ground, pinched her nose, and walked away.
“Sorry.” Tala’s voice was so weak, she wasn’t sure Malaya had heard her.
“Oh! You missed the magic lesson this morning.” Malaya turned to face her but maintained a good distance to avoid the smell of Tala’s vomit. “We were told to pick an object and taught how to direct our magic into it, just like how Priestess Hiwaga turned her handkerchief into a rabbit. Of course, you wouldn’t know how to do it because you were too busy sleeping. I heard your excuse doesn’t qualify you for a remedial lesson. So I guess I’ll be saying goodbye to you by the end of the week.”
Tala wanted to be angry, but she understood that it wasn’t entirely Malaya’s fault. She had been foolish enough to fall into Malaya’s trap, and more importantly, she didn’t have the energy to argue or the strength to fight the girl. Tala stayed in the hut the whole day. She was too hungover to do anything. She couldn’t even think straight to blame herself for her doom.
Tala forced herself to join the other contenders the following morning. She added coconut wine to her mental list of toxic drinks and vowed never to drink it again. She still felt drained and weak, but she couldn’t miss another day. Fortunately, the elimination round was seven days after the first challenge. There was no rule about missed days, so Tala was sure she could stay until the elimination.
Nobody asked her why she’d been absent the day before except Malaya, who purposely raised her voice whenever she talked to Tala about it. She noticed, though, that she was the only one who arrived at the shrine empty-handed. The girls held various things. Some had handkerchiefs, some had wands, others had staffs. Before the high priestess arrived, Tala went out to find something she could use. She remembered Malaya telling her that they needed things to send their magic into.
She found nothing to use outside the shrine. She couldn’t remove the thatching from the huts because the priestesses would get mad at her. She saw wood nearby but didn’t have a knife to cut off a piece. She went to the place where they’d had their feast, hoping she would find a stick to use as her wand. Panic bubbled within her as she found only ashes and burnt firewood. She circled the remains of the bonfire round and round, looking for anything she could use.
“Ouch!” she cried as her foot bumped into a pointy object. She thought it would have drawn blood, but when she bent down, she saw that the iron head of the spear was too dull and rusty to penetrate her skin.
The spear will do, she thought. She grabbed it and limped back to the shrine.
“Oh! Here comes our hunter girl! Where are you hunting?” As expected, Malaya was the one who spoke. Holding her head high, Tala threw a murderous look at Malaya. The girls laughed, and others called her “slave,” but she tried her best not to give them attention.
The high priestess raised her hand for silence when she entered the shrine, reducing the laughter and mockery to whispers. Tala picked the farthest seat from Malaya, but the girls next to her moved away like she had a contagious disease.
“Contenders, magic isn’t free or limitless.” The high priestess slowly walked to the front of the shrine. She stopped in front of the candles, her back still facing the contenders. “Now, who can tell me the meaning of what I just said?” The high priestess turned to look at the raised hands. She pointed at Diyosa, who immediately stood and bowed.
“I can give an example to m
ake the meaning clear.” Diyosa stood straight, her smooth hair cascading down her back undisturbed, like it was frozen in time. “I believe magic isn’t limitless because, just like what we experienced yesterday, we need time to recuperate after using it. It’s not like a river that flows all the time.”
The high priestess nodded in agreement.
“Also, it isn’t free because you must give something back. It’s about balance. When we asked the magic to make the objects ours, we… um, we should use them for good things.”
Tala itched to know if Diyosa was right.
The high priestess paced back and forth. “Well, the first part was correct.”
Malaya stood without being acknowledged. Tala expected the high priestess to ignore her or perhaps force her to sit back down, but she only nodded.
“It’s not free because it takes something from you. It takes your strength. See, I can fight for hours without getting tired, but when I use magic, I get tired very easily.”
Tala wondered at how eloquently Malaya presented herself. She’d thought the girl was simply whiny and spoiled.
“Good! The word you need to remember is ‘take.’ It isn’t optional for you to give back. That’s why you need to be careful when you use your magic or take new powers, because sometimes, you don’t know what it will take from you as payment.”
Bright-eyed, Malaya looked at the rest of the contenders and smiled from ear to ear. She clapped with such force that Tala jerked back in surprise.
“Okay, now let’s form four circles. Ten in each circle. Don’t make it hard for me to choose which circle you belong to. Let’s start counting off from one to four.”
Tala and Nimfa belonged to circle one. Unfortunately, so did Malaya.
“Hi! We’re on the same team.” Malaya smiled like she’d just met Tala for the first time.
“Quiet!” the high priestess shouted. “First, let’s do a short exercise like we did yesterday. Concentrate…” The old woman closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. “And direct your magic to your object.”
Tala closed her eyes, breathed in deeply, and imagined the spear moving. When she opened her eyes, the spear was still on the ground. She saw her groupmate’s objects move and dance. Some changed appearance. A girl sitting opposite her turned her handkerchief into a rabbit. It almost looked real save for its dead-looking eyes. It wasn’t far from Priestess Hiwaga’s trick.
Luntian turned her wand into a bird. She was a girl who went to a lot of effort to look pretty. She had applied a white powder on her face, but it was carefully done so it looked like her natural skin. Her lips, on the other hand, were clearly colored with atsuete seeds. Tala knew it because Mistress Bituin had liked to use the seeds for food coloring.
Malaya’s wand turned into a snake. It was almost perfect, but it lay straight like a stick. Nimfa, on the other hand, did not turn her wand into something else. It just spun in the air like she was holding it.
“Now, get a partner within your circle.” The high priestess’s loud voice surprised the contenders, and their objects abruptly returned to their original forms.
They looked at each other, trying to find their partners. Malaya stared at Tala and flashed her a wicked smile. Nimfa already had a partner, so Tala accepted Malaya because she didn’t really have a choice. Her heart sank as she looked at the other girls, who were talking to and smiling with their partners. She had only hatred for hers.
This is nothing new, she tried to console herself.
“You’ll help each other get better at using your tools. After that, you’ll fight with each other. It’ll help you with the group challenges later on. You’ll stay in the same group until the next trial. This practice will have no impact on your scores.” The high priestess slowly walked around them, looking at their objects. “Okay, you may start.”
“What are you going to do with your spear?” Malaya asked, raising her eyebrows.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Are you an idiot? We’re supposed to direct our magic through our objects.”
“Shut up!” Tala snapped. She was surprised at her own raised voice. “I just can’t think of anything to do with it now.”
“Do you know we can’t change our chosen objects?”
“It doesn’t matter. Go ahead and practice with yours. I’ll tell you if you’re doing great or not.”
“I’ll tell you,” Malaya parroted then laughed. “How can you tell? You don’t even know how to direct your magic into that spear.”
“Just do it! I’ll do mine after yours.”
Malaya glared at her, obviously surprised that Tala was fighting back. Malaya didn’t close her eyes, but she turned serious as she held her wand. The girl took a few deep breaths before the wand turned into a snake again. It wasn’t as straight as the time before. She’d added a little more detail to it, making it look like a real snake. “I’ll hold it there. Now, go ahead and change your spear. Let’s fight after you change yours.”
Tala tried to concentrate, but she didn’t know what to change the spear into. She had less than a week left if she failed to use magic. A week seemed like such a short time to train. Her mind raced as to how she could make her magic work. Am I even gifted?
“Hurry, you idiot. Don’t you know it’s hard to maintain the form of my snake?”
“Wait, I’m still thinking.” She thought of a lion, but it was too big and overkill compared to Malaya’s thumb-sized snake. She wanted a dog, but she wasn’t sure a dog would win.
“Come on, Slave Girl. Faster!”
Fury overcame her. She’d had enough of Malaya’s horrible behavior. With one swift movement, she brought her spear down and crushed the snake’s head. “I won.”
“Are you dumb? Why did you do that?” Tears fell down Malaya’s red cheeks as she picked up her broken wand. “My snake… my wand.” The girl in front of Tala turned into a pitiful young child, and the annoying, mean Malaya was gone.
“I’m sorry.” Tala was torn between comforting her and leaving her to cry.
“What happened?” Priestess Hiwaga walked toward them.
Other contenders stared at them.
“She… she just smashed it. It’s unfair!” Malaya sniffed.
“You chose to make a snake out of your wand. A snake is an animal. It could be killed with a spear,” the high priestess said in a low voice.
Tala hadn’t noticed the high priestess because her head was bowed low again.
“But she didn’t change her spear into anything.”
“As far as I know, we were only instructed to direct our magic into the objects, like Priestess Mayumi and Priestess Hiwaga did,” Nimfa said, drawing looks from other contenders. “We weren’t told to change them. Priestess Mayumi didn’t change her wand. She used it to make things pretty. How do we know Tala didn’t use her magic to make the spear stronger to crush your snake?”
Tala could hear Malaya sobbing louder, as if complaining about the unfairness of the situation.
“Nimfa is partly correct.” The high priestess looked at Tala with expressionless eyes. “However, I knew you failed to direct your magic into your spear. You used sheer force to defeat your partner. That’s allowed in the practice because, perhaps, you can develop your skill in doing so. However, you will be eliminated in the second trial if you still fail to direct magic into it.”
“I understand, High Priestess.” Tala met the old woman’s gaze.
“Now, stop crying, Contender Malaya. There’s no place here for weak girls.”
Malaya sniffed a few times then stopped crying like she never had been in the first place.
Chapter 16
Kisig
“I hope you’ll kill the chicken properly this time, Datu. I don’t want another chicken to interrupt our ceremony.” The high priestess smiled, not with malice, but like a grandmother teasing her grandson as she painted his face with charcoal.
Kisig’s face flushed. “That’s just… fine. I think I did not properly slit the
chicken’s throat last time. I will surely cut its head clean off this time.”
“Here we go. Your face is done. All you have to do now is slit the chicken’s throat.”
“Yes, yes. It’s not like I’m doing this for the first time.”
“Just making sure that you won’t let the chicken get away this time. You know, it’s hard to find a completely white chicken.” A smile still painted the high priestess’s face.
Kisig held the chicken’s head while Ganda held its legs and wings in place. In one swift movement, he cut the chicken’s head off. Blood burst down onto the flames. The fire consumed the blood hungrily. He held the chicken over the fire until the blood slowed into short drips. When the high priestess started singing, he knelt and closed his eyes in front of the fire.
This time, he not only focused on the high priestess’s voice, he also spoke a prayer in his mind. He pleaded to be granted entry. Hands clasped, he begged to be heard, not only for himself but for the people who were hungry, for the slaves whose lives were on the brink of death, and for those who would die if they started a war. Then he felt an odd sensation. His head spun. It spun faster and faster, as if he had drunk a whole container of coconut wine.
The movement stopped abruptly. His eyes opened involuntarily. Before him was his mother, who looked the same as he’d last seen her when he was eight. He reached out to touch her, but his hand went through her like she was nothing but air.
“You’ve come at last. Oh, look at how big you’ve grown!”
“Mother, I need help.”
“I cannot interfere with the living.”
“But many will die. The officials are forcing me to attack Daa. I cannot let our people or their people die, but we need food.”
“Food is given by the soil and the rivers and the seas.”
“But I was instructed to talk to you. The high priestess said—”
“I have already told her we cannot help. She is wasting time. If we interfere with the living, the balance between life and the underworld will be in danger, and the boundary will collapse. But I will let you know one thing that will give you a fighting chance. It’s a sin that I will be punished for, but you’re my son, and I will gladly take it.”