Philippine Speculative Fiction, Volume 10

by Dean Francis Alfar

  “People never stay happy,” my mother said. “They always look for reasons not to be. When your father and I ruled in Apayao, the people were content with us. They made blood offerings once every moon, and in return, we kept their crops alive and their harvest bountiful. And then the white men came, with their songs and grand churches and festivals, and the people decided it might be better without us. So they revolted. They drove us out, anak.”

  She reached across the table and gripped my hand so tightly that blood began to drip from our palms, mixing in the afternoon light. I saw statues destroyed and scrolls burned, surrounded by many angry people. I saw families of danag screaming in fallow fields. I saw my mother running through the forest, her hair aflame. I saw my father pull her into the earth, away from the torches and the mobs. I saw her drinking from a carabao, and then a dog, and then a pig. I saw the first time she put on human garments: a dirty baro’t saya – the clothes of the enemy.

  “I tell you this now,” she said, “because you must know that our time has passed. Do not be dazzled by all this talk of change. Even if all the Spaniards left tomorrow, the people would not take us back. We must be happy with what we have: our little home, our fields, and all the small wonders we can still make.” She released my hand and ran hers across the mango, letting the blood stain its yellow skin. A tiny shoot broke out of the stem and bloomed into a white flower.

  “See?” she said. “This is our happiness. This is all we will ever need.”

  “But what if it didn’t happen that way?” I said. “What if it wasn’t the people, but the Spanish, who forced you out?”

  “What are you trying to say, anak?”

  “Nothing,” I said, and left it at that. I wasn’t sure what I’d meant to say. I was thinking of León, of Kawi’te and the woman in the red cloak. I wasn’t even sure what she’d meant with the blood.

  DUSK TURNED TO night. I locked myself in my room and practiced the trick my father had shown me in the fields. It required calm concentration around the temples. Too much blood, and the roots would thicken around my ears, rendering me deaf. Too little, and they would not spring at all. I sat on the floor of my room and thought only of listening to the world around me.

  There came a whisper from the woods, not far from the shore. “Miguel,” it echoed. “Miguel, can you hear me?” It was León’s voice, though I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined it.

  I stood and peered out the window, into the waiting dark beyond. Silence. I had to know for sure. I picked up my oil lamp, climbed out of my window, and crept through my field, careful to keep the light low. As I neared the woods, I felt the danag aspect pulse in my chest, and I knew for certain that he was there.

  “Miguel,” he said, leaning against a coconut palm, “I was wondering if I’d found the right place.” He was smoking a cigar, dressed in his full capitan municipal uniform.

  “I told you,” I said. “You have to listen to the trees. They have danag blood in them.”

  “I can’t do that when I’m so far from my own fields. The trees only speak to me in Batangas.”

  “Well,” I said, “you’re here now. Thank you for coming back.”

  He smiled. His throat gaped wide, and his secret tongue darted out, waiting to connect with mine. I let mine loose. They entwined in the darkness, making playful loops in the air before breaking the skins of our necks. “I missed you,” he said, and a flood of memories overwhelmed me: a torchlit gathering of rebels. Katipuneros. Bolos glinting in the night. A council called the Magdalo, and a pile of cedulas. Angry voices raised against Spain.

  “You’re with them?” I said, dumbfounded.

  “Yes. Remember when I told you of Hinirang? If we could be rid of the Spanish, perhaps the land will return to its former majesty. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

  “Is that why you’re here?”

  “I’m here for you,” he said, closing the gap between us. He released a memory of himself in bed with a woman, his thoughts turned in my direction. “I haven’t stopped thinking of you, since we met.”

  I was about to reciprocate, when his tongue retracted, back into the hollow of his throat. “Is there something wrong?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “It’s just that it’s almost midnight, and there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

  “Is it the woman?”

  “His name is Miong. One of my brothers in the Katipunan. He wants to see you, I think, to ask you to join the revolution.”

  WE TRAVELED UNDER the earth that night, the way danag can, arriving in Noveleta by midnight, where the Magdalo council held its capital. We crept out of a grove, dusted off our clothes, and walked past rows of sleeping men toward a large dark tent, where a Chinito man with short hair sat next to a torch, reading from a notebook.

  “Miong,” León said, slapping the man on the back. “This is Miguel, who I told you about.”

  Miong turned to look at me, and I recognized his face. It was Emilio Aguinaldo. I barely recognized him, dressed as he was in a plain camisa de chino and red pants. I’d seen him once, riding past the market on horseback. He seemed so much taller then, wearing his uniform, with the sword hanging from his side. “It’s an honor to meet you, Miguel,” he said, giving me a practiced smile and a handshake.

  “An honor, sir,” was all I could sputter.

  Emilio turned to León and gestured to a faraway tent. “Go help Baldomero with the bolos. I’d like to speak with young Miguel. Alone.”

  “Understood, sir. Go easy on him. He’s still a kid,” León said, ruffling my hair. “He doesn’t think on our level. I’ll see you soon, Miguel.”

  “See you soon,” I said, as León sauntered off, leaving me alone with Emilio.

  THERE WAS A table filled with maps and documents, surrounded by four squat stools. A cot was rolled up in one corner, and all around the inside of the tent were painted inscriptions of a language I didn’t recognize.

  “This isn’t español,” I said, running my fingers over the dark inscriptions. Brief snatches of conversation flashed in my mind, too quick to make sense of. “Is this blood?”

  “The sandugong alibata absorb any words spoken in this place,” he said, taking a seat. “It protects us from outside listeners. You understand the need for privacy.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Please, sit. No doubt you’ve heard of the revolution. To put it simply, we work with the Katipuneros in Manila to overthrow the Spanish oppressors.”

  “With all due respect, I don’t understand why you’re with them, sir. You are capitan municipal.” I remained standing, in deference to his position.

  “It is an empty seat,” he said, placing his elbows on the table, “one fabricated by the oppressor in order to placate us; a hollow embrace which allows them to suck the blood of the people. I understand you’re familiar with this kind of gesture.”

  “I am no common aswang, sir, if that’s what you mean.” I wasn’t sure if he was insulting me. In those close quarters, I sensed no aswang blood in him. He was just a man, while I was so much more.

  “I know,” he said. “My father told me of your kind. My family has a duty to all the old folk under our remit, up to a certain point. We strive to know our secret countrymen. You’ll agree that it’s for our mutual benefit.”

  “Of course, sir,” I said, and could hold back no longer. “But why am I here? Do you wish to draft me into your war?”

  “I’ll be honest with you, Miguel. There was a time when I thought it might be poetic to set you loose on the oppressor, but I’ve come to realize that the old folk are best left out of it. To involve your kind would risk escalating things to a level none of us are prepared for.” He took a deep breath. “This will be a revolution of men, though we cannot have it without arms.”

  “Arms, sir?”

  “Guns. The guardia civil are well-equipped, and we cannot meet them on their level without artillery. I was in Cavite Nuevo yesterday, at Fort San Felipe, meeting with the new gobernadorcillo.
I asked him for a hundred guns – ‘to help fight off the rebels,’ I said – but he refused. Furthermore, he seemed to imply that I was affiliated with the rebellion – which is, of course, true.” He paused for a moment, judging my reaction, which was impassive. “It seemed as though another capitan municipal had his ear. Certain rumors took root,” he finished, and waited for my response.

  My back stiffened, and I looked straight ahead, like a soldier before his general. “What would you have me do, sir?”

  “Tomorrow,” said Emilio, “my men and I will take the town center. I want you to keep your kind out of it, Miguel. Beyond the citizens of Kawit, I cannot ensure that. Will you do this one thing for your people?”

  I thought of my father and my mother. I thought of León. I thought of the debt we owed to the Aguinaldos. And finally, I said, “No, sir. I’ll do it for my family.”

  I FOUND LEÓN at the far end of the camp.

  “Well,” he said, “how did it go? Did he ask you to join up?”

  “He did, but I don’t think I will.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because – as much as I don’t trust the Spanish to rule – I don’t think we can fight them.”

  He looked disappointed.

  I gazed all around me, at the men sleeping under the open sky, waiting to go to war. And then I looked to León. “I’d like to go home now, please.”

  WE HELD EACH other as we flowed through rock and soil, reappearing in the wood which overlooked the bay, in the same spot where we’d left. “One last communion,” León said, breaking the journey’s silence, “before I leave, perhaps forever?”

  “Not here,” I said, taking his hand. I picked up my oil lamp where I’d left it, and guided León past the coconut palms, past the narra and balete, down a grassy slope and into my field. The mounds of earth thrummed in greeting, there in my place of power. I could see the shadow of my house, and hear the pigs grunting from where we stood. Soon, my parents would rise for almuesu and realize that I was gone, and then they would come out to look for me. I had to do it while there was still time.

  Before he could say another word, I seized Miguel by the shoulders and threw him to the ground. A giant root sprang from the soil and coiled itself around his throat, trapping his secret tongue. I knelt beside him and leaned in close to whisper, “What did they promise you?”

  “What are you doing?” he asked, confused.

  “What did they promise you?” I repeated.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Miguel. Come on. Let me go.” He struggled, trying to break free, but more twisting roots shot out of the earth, entangling him. He was so far from Batangas, where the fields held so much of his strength. Here, my blood was stronger.

  “I’ll ask you one last time, León, and then no more. What did they promise you?”

  Panic filled his eyes. He thrashed under weight of all my tendrils, but could not escape them. They wound themselves around his fingers, his waist, his arms, and his legs. The pineapples sprouted, their dagger-sharp leaves tearing at his clothes, digging into his skin, drawing blood.

  “They promised to make me a saint!” he shouted. “If you’d said yes to Miong, I would have told you! They’ll do the same for you, Miguel! We won’t have to hide anymore! We can join their family!”

  “You don’t know what the word means,” I said, under my breath.

  “We’ll be worshipped, like our parents were!” he shouted, desperate. “Don’t you want that, Miguel? Just imagine how it will be, with all that faith coursing through our veins! You’ll be a god again!”

  “I am a god!” I screamed, tightening my grip on his neck. “I’ll bow before no other.”

  “Don’t do this, Miguel,” he choked.

  “Don’t worry, León,” I said, letting my secret tongue snake toward him. “Remember what you said that night. Here, the grass is greener.”

  THE ONLY WAY to truly kill a danag is to have another danag drink him whole. This is how so many survived the Spanish years. Our deaths can only be by our own hands. Every drop of blood must be consumed, and with it, every memory. I saw León speaking to an insular in San Felipe Neri, whispering terrible things. I saw him arguing with the Magdala council, redirecting the plans of attack. I saw him meeting with Emilio at the party, relaying the coded signals of the Katipunero. In Santo Tomas, he spoke with a fat padri under the statue of the Archangel, sealing his fate forever.

  I searched through every memory for even a mention of Hinirang and the Dan’Ag of old, but came up empty. It was as if he had made it all up.

  MY PARENTS FOUND ME before dawn, weeping over a wilted corpse. “Pack your things,” I told them. “We can’t stay here. War is coming to Binakayan.”

  In the morning, we left for Batangas, to meet with the Malvars in Santo Tomas. Emilio Aguinaldo marched 400 men to the town hall of Kawit and claimed it in the name of the revolution. It would be another three bloody years before the Spanish were completely overthrown, and even then, the spirits did not go away.

  So much more has happened since. There is always so much more. A war with America. An alliance with America. A war with Japan. Another revolution, and then another; all these bloody happenings, moving from place to place, changing faces and names, until I can scarcely recall who I was yesterday. My memories have become a crimson labyrinth. Each time I enter, I am lost.

  IT IS DIFFICULT to remember, and it is difficult to forget. These days, there is no beach near my house in Kawit. The fields lie fallow. My roots are all tangled. I don’t know what happened to the old folk; I haven’t seen any since I returned. I can’t even recall how my parents disappeared.

  I write in a new language and try to make sense of things. At night, I go out to the fishery where the beach once was, and pay a young ombri to let me sit by the bay and listen. The water is a dark brown, almost black, and nothing at all like the emerald green I remember. The galleons have been replaced by freighter ships, which send gray clouds into the sky, blotting out the moon. The only animals I drink are peskaw. Their dreams are murky and numbing.

  Sometimes, I still see her: the woman in red, walking over the water. I call out and ask if she still remembers me. She never responds. I watch her crimson tears fall into the water, feel the glow of her sorrow in the salty gloom, and think to myself: perhaps it doesn’t mean anything at all. And then, for a brief, wordless moment, I am happy.

  Writer and artist Andrew Drilon was a recipient of the Neil Gaiman Philippine Graphic Fiction Award, a finalist for the Philippines’ Free Press Literary Award, and a cartoonist for The Philippine Star newspaper for six years. He is a regular contributor to the annual Philippine Speculative Fiction anthology series, and a proud founding member of the LitCritters writing group. His fiction has appeared in many publications, including The Apex Book of World SF 2, Bewildering Stories and Chalomot Be’aspamia. Andrew is currently at the Art Students League of New York, where he studies classical oil painting while drawing comic books.

  Eliza Victoria

  The Target

  HE WAS SUPPOSED to do the job with Solomon, an old hand, but Sol threw his back out, the stupid idiot, and now he was stuck with this twenty-year-old wearing dark purple lipstick and a glowing red glass eye patch, and who insisted on going by Alunsina, a name as real as his own name, she said, which meant it was completely fake.

  “You couldn’t choose a shorter alias?” he said. They had been waiting for the client in his anteroom for nearly half an hour. The room was bursting at the seams with flowers and indoor plants, as though the living room sprouted in the middle of a garden.

  “But it fits, doesn’t it?” she said. “I am the creator-goddess of Panay lore, and you are – oh, wait, Milo wasn’t even a Greek god, was he? He’s just an athlete. Never mind, then.”

  Milo hated her already.

  The Hover Guards seated them in two cream-and-gold armchairs, beneath a massive white chandelier made of bones. If the chandelier fell, it would have crushed them c
ompletely. Milo had been staring at it for a long time, trying to figure out whether or not that was an actual rib cage, humerus, femur, tibia. If the bones were human.

  “Have you seen anything like this?” Alunsina said, gesturing toward the chandelier.

  “Sedlec Ossuary,” Milo said.

  “What?”

  He shrugged. “Google it.”

  She sat back and smiled, her dark lipstick making her teeth look brighter and sharper. “Oh, come on. Don’t be like that. It’s just the one job. We should at least be civil with each other.”

  Milo didn’t reply. He mentally willed the client to hurry the fuck up.

  “Sol did warn me that you can be, ah, quiet,” Alunsina said. “That’s cool.”

  “Is that a real eye patch on your face,” Milo said, “or is that just a fashion statement?”

  “I was blinded in one eye,” she replied, looking around the room.

  Milo instantly felt like a jerk. “I’m sorry,” he said. “What happened?”

  She shrugged. “The Shadows happened.” She smiled, seeing that she’d gotten his attention. “I hear you were raised in the Outskirts. Is that true?”

  He sighed. “That’s just a rumor.”

  “Speaking of rumors,” Alunsina said, “have you heard of this man who served as one of the Mayor’s hired guns? He was employed in order to keep the police ranks – shall we say – pristine. So the police could uphold the law without getting their hands dirty in the process. Some good that did, huh?”

  Milo said nothing.

  “Later,” Alunsina continued, “this same man ran a criminal ring in the Shadows, with a bunch of retired cops. He did it to raise money quicker, in order to buy a unit inside the Towers. He swore that once he got his very own unit, he would retire from the life of crime. However, when he got in the Towers, he realized that in order to move up the floors, he needed more money. A lot more money. The quickest way to do that is through crime, so he continued running his ring inside the Towers. This time, though, he had to be more subtle in his ways. More refined. No more grab-and-stab. No more torture in broad daylight. He promised he’d do it only until he became legit. Until, say, he opened a bar or a restaurant inside one of the Towers?”