Philippine Speculative Fiction Volume 1

by Dean Francis Alfar

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Alone.”

  At first I thought to dissuade him, but there was an intensity in his eyes that took me aback. Clay wished to get something off his mind, and I was not about to prevent him from doing so.

  I turned towards Annyn. “If you need anything,” I said, “then you are welcome to make requests of any one of us.”

  She smiled. “Thank you, sir knight.”

  IT WAS GELARUS who jostled me awake the next morning.

  “Clay!” the commander almost shouted at me. “Have you seen him?”

  “No,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know!” Gelarus said. “Clay’s gone. His armor, his sword, his pack! All gone!”

  I scrambled into my armor and stepped into the circle where the campfire had been the previous evening. Mantu was already there, a look of stoic expression upon his face. Danaan remained asleep on his litter, with Annyn still watching over him as a mother did to her child.

  “Have you searched everywhere?” Gelarus asked Mantu. The Southerner nodded.

  Maybe he just went to get more firewood,” I told Gelarus. I was startled when the commander then shoved me against the nearest tree.

  “Think, man!” Gelarus roared in my face. “His equipment is gone, and his traveling pack is nowhere to be found. Clay’s gone, Ishar! He’s deserted us!”

  I breathed slowly. Clay didn’t strike me as the sort who would desert. None of us did, and in fact, I thought it was probably why we were together in the first place.

  “Last night,” Gelarus said, making it sound more like a question than anything else. “Last night, did Clay do anything... strange?”

  “No, sir,” I said, trying to remember. “He went about the way he usually does. But he had a talk with Annyn just after the evening meal.”

  Gelarus remained silent for a few minutes, as though lost in thought. Then he turned, nodded to Mantu, and began walking towards the old woman.

  Annyn looked as though she had been expecting him. “Sir knight,” she bowed, acknowledging his presence.

  “Where’s Clay?” Gelarus asked.

  Annyn looked at him carefully. “He understood,” she said.

  I could see the confusion play across the commander’s face. “He understood what?” Gelarus asked.

  “The young man understood where we were, Sir Gelarus. He understood everything that he was.”

  Gelarus slowly lowered himself to the ground. He opened his mouth to give the old woman a proper retort, but then appeared to think better of it.

  “Yes, sir knight?” Annyn asked.

  Gelarus shook his head. “Clay’s gone,” he finally said.

  “I am aware,” Annyn replied.

  “How’s Danaan?”

  “Better,” Annyn said. “Much better.”

  Gelarus gave her a suspicious look. “But he hasn’t awoken yet,” he said.

  “One does not have to awaken to recover,” she answered.

  Gelarus stared at her then, and he continued staring for the longest time, searching for something — anything — in the lines of her face.

  Even after we resigned ourselves to Clay’s desertion, Gelarus still watched her. He watched her for a long, long time.

  MILES LATER, WE had mostly forgotten about Clay. Gelarus walked in silence, cautiously watching the path before him. Mantu followed some distance back, still carrying Danaan’s litter. Annyn followed the tall Southerner, and I trailed behind her, carefully watching our backs.

  The landscape rasped under our feet. The mountain passes twisted and turned, forcing us up steep passageways and down dangerous slopes. Strangely, Annyn seemed to take everything in stride.

  Gelarus checked his maps sometime that afternoon. “No more than three days at the most,” he guessed. “Three days, and then we can get Danaan the help he needs.”

  “But that is not why you walk this path, is it?” Annyn asked suddenly.

  We turned to look at her. “What?” Gelarus asked.

  Annyn knelt beside Danaan. “You did not leave Rivalic for the sake of this fallen one,” she said.

  Gelarus frowned at her. “No, we did not,” he admitted.

  “Then why do you make this journey, sir knight, when your battle is clearly farther to the east?”

  Gelarus glared at her, and in that look were his questions about how she dealt with the Harazen, what happened to Clay, and why Danaan had remained so quiet. Annyn looked back at him, an old woman in a tattered blue cloak and wispy white hair.

  “Keep moving,” Gelarus said, ignoring Annyn’s question.

  Mantu was as stoic as always. I looked back at the old woman, but she apparently chose not to press the matter further.

  “SOMETHING IS WRONG,” Gelarus said that night, as we clustered around the campfire once more.

  “Clay didn’t trust her,” I said.

  “Yes,” Gelarus replied, “Clay didn’t trust her.”

  We remained silent, sitting across each other in the faded light.

  “I need to bring Annyn her meal,” I remembered.

  “Take Mantu with you,” Gelarus said.

  “Why?”

  “Because Danaan hasn’t spoken for three whole days,” he said. “Before we met the old woman, he spent whole hours raving at things he couldn’t see. Now he sleeps all the time.”

  “But... that’s good,” I said, trying to rationalize the issue. “We can’t doubt that Danaan looks a lot better than he did before.”

  “Just think about it, Ishar,” Gelarus said, sternly. “She claims to be able to ease his pain.”

  “Yes,” I said, unsure at what he was getting at.

  “But none of us has seen her do anything. She uses no herbs, or poultices. She uses no magic, or at least none that that any of us has seen.”

  I stood, pondering the commander’s words. “I’ll talk to her,” I told him.

  Even with Mantu behind me, however, I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Three days’ worth of travel, and we obviously didn’t know Annyn – we didn’t know her one bit. I thought about Clay, and I thought that perhaps he was right when he first said that he didn’t trust her.

  Annyn sat beside Danaan as she did every night, one hand on his forehead and a look of serenity about both their faces.

  “How is Danaan?” I asked, standing beside her.

  “He dreams,” Annyn answered softly.

  I gave her an amused look, albeit one that was more anxious than I intended. “What does he dream of?” I asked.

  Annyn fixed her clear blue eyes at me. “He dreams of beyond, Ishar,” she said. “Do you?”

  I stepped back, unnerved, and almost bumped into Mantu. The tall man produced long shadows against the firelight.

  “Southerner,” Annyn said.

  Mantu nodded. “Danaan is well?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Annyn said. “He is well.”

  Mantu nodded, as though understanding her perfectly.

  “You worry for him,” Annyn said. “A strange gesture for a man who is not even of the same race.”

  I glanced at Mantu. The man was as stoic as always, betraying nothing to the ancient woman who sat before him.

  “That is why you carry him, is it not?” Annyn asked.

  Mantu did not respond at first, but after a moment I could see him nod.

  “You are no knight of Morhengaard, Southerner,” Annyn said, “but you have an honor that is quite your own.”

  Mantu did not respond, and I chose to leave the crone and the Southerner at that point. Perhaps there was something I was not meant to hear about their conversation.

  Then again, I wondered just what Mantu knew about all this.

  GELARUS STRUCK me in the face, and I awoke almost immediately. “Get up!” he shouted. “Get up!”

  “Wait!” I shouted in response, holding up both hands. Gelarus struck them anyway, sending me reeling back.

  “Danaan’s gone!” Gel
arus shouted once again, and those words hit me harder than any of his blows.

  “What?” I asked, not believing him.

  “DANAAN’S GONE!”

  The commander half-dragged me across the camp, stopping only when we reached the space where Danaan once was. I saw that even the litter — the makeshift stretcher that we cobbled out of wood and straw — was missing. In its place, Annyn and Mantu sat waiting for us.

  Gelarus let go of my shirt, dropping me to the ground. I stood, dazed with the realization that another of us was missing.

  Gelarus glared at Annyn. Silence pervaded the clearing for a good five minutes.

  “Where’s Danaan?” Gelarus finally asked.

  Annyn did not answer. She only looked up at Gelarus with clear blue eyes.

  “WHERE’S DANAAN?”

  More silence.

  Gelarus lunged at her, raw fear giving him speed. Mantu merely raised one muscled arm and knocked the commander back into the rocks and dirt.

  I helped Gelarus up. The commander glared accusingly at the mercenary, who now stood over the old woman like some towering guardian.

  “Danaan has moved on,” Annyn said, in a normal tone of voice.

  “Where? The man could not even walk!” Gelarus shouted.

  “He understood, even as he slept,” Annyn said.

  “No more riddles!” Gelarus shouted. “Who are you, old one, and why do you plague us like this?”

  “I am Annyn,” Annyn said, and her white hair floated in the morning breeze.

  “Then who are you, Annyn?” I asked.

  She placed one bony hand on Mantu’s arm, just as she always did when we were walking. “Mantu does not belong here,” she said. “He is a mercenary, a Southerner, among a company of knights.”

  “Mantu has our trust,” Gelarus said, his voice even. “But even he must explain his actions this very morning, just as you do yours.”

  “Mantu only has to explain his actions in the days since you left the battle in the Rivalic foothills,” Annyn said. “You would not always trust a Southerner, but the Southerner would trust you.”

  “More riddles,” Gelarus spat.

  “No,” Annyn said simply. “Answers.”

  Mantu moved slightly, as though calling attention to himself. “Mantu carry Danaan,” he said.

  “Yes,” I answered, not sure of what he was saying.

  “Danaan good man,” Mantu said, looking at both Gelarus and I. “Danaan save Mantu’s life.”

  I stared incredulously at him. Gelarus stared at me, not quite understanding yet.

  “Mantu owed Danaan a life-debt,” Annyn said, looking into the Southerner’s stoic expression. “Your fallen comrade performed an honorable act during battle, one that took his life at the cost of preserving another’s.”

  Gelarus stared at Mantu. The tall man shrugged, his shoulders giving no indication of the weight he had borne every day, for every league we had traveled.

  Mantu’s word, if anything, was as good as his honor.

  “Now Danaan has moved on,” Annyn told Mantu, “and your debt has been paid.”

  Mantu shifted, looking straight at her.

  “Do you understand now?” Annyn asked the Southerner.

  Mantu nodded, still and silent as always.

  Then his form began to fade away. Mantu disappeared from the feet upwards, like ashes in a strong wind, as though he never was and never would be again.

  Mantu regarded us solemnly as we stared back at him. Gelarus’s mouth was open in sudden, paralytic shock.

  The last thing to disappear was Mantu’s face, and he wore his normal expression to the end — just as stoic as we had always known him.

  GELARUS WALKED BESIDE her as though she were a venomous snake. The sand and the gravel were rough underneath our metal greaves.

  We walked on, ignoring the trees and the rocks and the path, staring into an endless sea of dirt and gray. Morhengaard was near, but somehow the idea gave no comfort to any of us.

  When the sun was high in the sky, we stopped for a quick meal before moving on. None of us said a word.

  It was only when we had navigated most of the rocky passages that Gelarus finally spoke. I did not know if he spoke to break the tension, or merely to assure himself once again, but I was glad for the sound of his voice.

  “We make good progress,” Gelarus said.

  “How much longer?” I asked.

  “Perhaps one more day,” he answered, “perhaps less. We make better time, now that... now that...” Gelarus trailed off.

  “Now that the wounded no longer slow us down,” Annyn finished.

  Gelarus slunk back into silence.

  We passed a great cluster of rocks, perhaps undisturbed since the dawn of time. As we did, I glanced at Annyn’s ancient and withered form, and once more I wondered just how old she was.

  “You have not answered my question yet, sir knight,” she finally said, at a point when the sun hung low in the sky.

  Gelarus looked at her with a weary expression. He was unclear, I think, on how to deal with the old woman, and that was likely why he finally decided to answer her.

  “We joined together in Rivalic,” he said, “part of a four-hundred-strong force from Morhengaard. We took up our positions there, only to find thousands of Harazen swarming us from their mountain country. I have led men to battle on many occasions, but my heart turned me away from this war.”

  “And why is that?” Annyn asked.

  “It was not honorable,” Gelarus said. “Our four kingdoms merely wished to humble the Harazen, whose emissaries had shamed us in a few merchant deals some years ago.”

  “Commander,” I said.

  Gelarus waved me away. “On the morning of battle,” he continued, “I looked into the faces of my knights and saw that most of them did not deserve to be there. One was less than fifteen turnings in age, taken from a family that had already lost two sons to combat. One had a young wife and three children who worried for his return.”

  “So you ran?” Annyn asked.

  “No,” Gelarus shook his head. “I did not run. I spurred them on to battle as any noble commander would do, all for the glory of the four kingdoms.”

  “And you died,” Annyn said, “surrounded by the ghosts of the men you led to their deaths, and by the guilt that you suffered for such blind loyalty.”

  Gelarus was silent for a moment. “The fault was mine, and mine alone.”

  “You died there, Sir Gelarus, along with the rest of your men. Four hundred... and four more.”

  “Yes,” Gelarus said, his expression softening. “I died.”

  There, with the gravel whispering under his feet, the commander’s form began fading into the colors of the gathering twilight.

  “MORHENGAARD,” I SAID, staring down into the valley.

  Morhengaard, the Elder City, stood below us. It was as glorious as the stories told, with towers and buildings and gardens and slated roofs that reached into the sky. I looked upon it with a sense of peace and home, and it favored us with its benevolent and enlightened gaze.

  “Home,” I whispered. Annyn hovered at the edge of my vision, watching as I took in the wondrous sight.

  “Do you understand now, Ishar?” she asked. “You have come all this way, after all.”

  “No,” I said, without even glancing at her. “I do not yet understand.”

  For the first time in the days I had known her, Annyn laughed a surprised little laugh. It was dry and ancient, much as she was.

  “Home,” I repeated, savoring the word.

  “Clay understood,” Annyn said. “Danaan understood. Mantu understood. And in the end, even Gelarus understood.”

  “Am I the only one who does not understand?” I asked her.

  She paused at first. “What do you think, Ishar?” she asked. “What was the last thing on your mind as you lay dying there, on the foothills of Rivalic?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Ishar?” she asked.
/>
  “Morhengaard,” I finally said. “I thought of Morhengaard.”

  “Your home.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I thought of home.”

  And I understood.

  Even in the soft breeze, I could feel my body unraveling. It felt... right, as though it was something natural. Something determined.

  I turned towards the old woman, in the face of the rising wind that now swept about my form and blew it away like… ashes.

  “What of you, Annyn?” I asked. “When shall you understand?”

  “I understand many, and I understand most,” she said, smiling gently. “But I do not yet understand all.”

  I paused, letting soft light flicker across what remained of my face.

  “Will we meet again, Annyn?” I asked mere moments before I vanished.

  “Perhaps, sir knight,” she said. “Perhaps.”

  K. MANDIGMA

  THE CATALOGUE OF THE DAMNED

  K. Mandigma is 25 years old and works in Makati City as a researcher. A self-confessed bibliophile, Mandigma professes to be more of a reader than a writer, experiencing confused literary ambitions.

  “The Catalogue of the Damned”, a story deliciously difficult to categorize, marks Mandigma’s first publication.

  LAST NIGHT, WE talked about nightmares.

  Mine always begin with a precise temporal premonition: It’s going to rain. Not the rain of a summer thunderstorm, or that of a morbidly delineated typhoon, but the rain of high monsoon, when the sky is dull gray and the earth smells like overripe fruit and dog droppings. Nothing rides on the wind but a single blossom from my grandmother’s ylang-ylang tree and the soft lazy gasps of death pretending to be an afternoon siesta. I find myself standing underneath the ylang-ylang tree, watching that small beautiful blossom float past, then I look up at the sky and I know it is about to rain and I should go back inside the house. Dirt encrusts my slippers as I approach the back door. I open it and enter, leaving my slippers on the mat. The house is empty and silent. I think I smell something burning. I tell myself it must be my grandmother’s old coal-fired iron, so I go up the stairs, clutching the banister, my eyes fixed on a small altarpiece my Protestant grandfather had built into the alcove at the head of the stairway. Saint Joseph, my grandmother’s favorite saint, stares back at me while he balances a sleepy Infant Jesus on the crook of his arm. I tread quietly lest I step on an unstable wooden plank and I wake Jesus from his siesta.