by Tamara Moss
‘We’re the only people in the village who’ve seen the malam rasha,’ Lintang said. ‘Maybe we can help.’
‘Your mother will gut me like a fish if I let you get hurt,’ Ramadel said.
He was a strong, broad-shouldered man, nearing the age when he would become an elder, and yet the thought of Mother was enough to make him nervous. Lintang didn’t blame him, really.
Lightning flashed, illuminating their view of the village and surrounding breezy forest. The market square was empty except for the barrels ready to be taken to the Winda.
‘Mother’s fish wraps will be somewhere in those barrels,’ Lintang said as the world went dark again. ‘Panna leaves protected us this afternoon. If we can find the fish wraps, we might be able to use them to keep the malam rasha away.’
Elder Wulan gripped Lintang’s arm. ‘I’m not letting you out of my sight. It’s not safe. For either of you,’ she added when Bayani opened his mouth.
Lintang realised they didn’t have to talk over the clicking anymore. It had grown quieter, as if the malam rasha were further away. Rather than relief, her chest tightened, and she swapped glances with Bayani. Maybe the change in volume was part of the mythie’s abilities. Maybe it was quieter the nearer it got, to put people off guard.
As if proving her theory, Ramadel sheathed his sword. ‘Sounds like it’s leaving.’
Lintang didn’t answer. She stared into the night, straining her eyes with the next flash of lightning, but she still couldn’t see anything.
‘We need those panna leaves,’ she said.
‘No,’ Elder Wulan said. ‘Ramadel and I aren’t leaving our post to get them.’
‘I’ll take a shift.’
Captain Shafira stepped out of the shadows. Ramadel drew his sword again.
‘Put that away, I’m not here to hurt you.’ She nodded towards the temple. ‘I’ll protect the children while you get the panna leaves.’
Ramadel stood his ground. ‘No.’
‘It’s best to go now. The night terror might come back.’ She lifted her eyebrows at his sword. ‘Besides, you can’t kill it with a blade, correct?’
He exhaled noisily and glowered at her.
She clapped her hands. ‘Chop, chop. And while you’re down there, get some fishing nets. We’ll need to keep it trapped until dawn.’
‘I’ll go,’ Elder Wulan said. ‘Stay here, Ramadel.’
Elder Wulan headed down the steps, and Lintang stole a glance at Captain Shafira. When she caught the captain’s eye, she tilted her head in a subtle request to follow her inside. They left Ramadel standing guard at the entrance. Bayani trailed in their wake.
Lintang waited until they were halfway across the temple before saying, ‘We’ll help you find the legs –’
‘I already have,’ Captain Shafira said, surveying their surroundings. ‘I fought a similar mythie that hid its legs beneath the tallest tree in the forest. The night terror did the same thing.’
Lintang gave Bayani a gloating grin. Captain Shafira didn’t need to know the village. She just had to know the mythie.
The captain walked along the side of the temple, checking the wooden torches and feeling the stone wall. ‘Problem is, the salt I used to cover the stump dissolved in the rain. Ash would only wash off, too. We have to come up with a different way to destroy it.’
‘What were you doing in the plantation earlier?’ Bayani said.
Captain Shafira started shifting the wooden benches. There didn’t seem to be any pattern to how she was placing them. ‘I was watching the children in the orchard to decide who to take with me when I heard the clicking. I recognised it and followed it to the plantation.’ She threw Lintang a glance. ‘I saw you fight that monster with nothing but a wooden sword and a shield of panna leaves. It was … extraordinary.’
The air left Lintang’s lungs. The Goddess had complimented her.
‘Thank you,’ she said, breathless.
‘That was one of her prouder moments,’ Bayani said, shooting a wicked look at Lintang. ‘It’s lucky you didn’t see her jump off the school roof to check if she could fly.’
Lintang elbowed him.
He elbowed her back playfully, then hesitated and said, ‘Captain Shafira, would it be possible for you to take me to Zaiben?’
Lintang stared at him. Zaiben again?
‘Sorry,’ Captain Shafira said. ‘You can’t be on board while I’m hunting sirens.’
Bayani looked away, hiding his expression.
‘What’s in Zaiben?’ Lintang said, but she already knew his answer.
‘Nothing,’ he muttered.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Captain Shafira glanced up from moving benches. ‘The clicking’s getting softer.’
‘Yes,’ Lintang said, tearing her gaze from her secretive best friend. ‘You should probably know –’
‘That the clicking is quieter the closer the malam rasha gets? It was the same with the other mythie.’
‘The Mythie Guidebook doesn’t say anything about that.’
‘The Mythie Guidebook isn’t exactly perfect.’ Captain Shafira unsheathed her sword. It shone not silver, but glittering black beneath the torchlight.
‘Wow,’ Lintang said, peering at it. ‘Where did you get that from?’
‘A volcano.’ Captain Shafira turned to the entrance. ‘I’m glad you’re capable of defending yourself, Lintang, because these types of mythies don’t like it when their prey gets away. If you escape, they’ll keep coming back until they’ve killed you.’
Lintang stared at her. ‘You mean, it’s hunting me?’ She glanced at Bayani, whose eyes went wide. ‘Hunting us?’
‘Of course,’ Captain Shafira said. ‘Why do you think I’m here?’
The Three Gods
Lintang sat on the stage, bouncing her leg so her heel hit the wood with a rhythmic thud thud thud. ‘We need to talk.’
Bayani wandered restlessly along the side of the temple. He stopped at a torch that had nearly burned out. Pelita flittered near his head. She’d come down from upstairs, probably annoyed at the presence of so many rowdy children in the priests’ quarters.
‘Just tell me what’s wrong, Bayani,’ Lintang said, watching him. ‘Let me help.’
He didn’t look at her. ‘You can’t.’
‘You don’t know that.’
He said nothing as thunder rumbled in the distance. The rain had eased, but it continued to drizzle and probably would all night.
The clicking was still quiet, and the smell of frangipani drenched the air. Both of them pretended not to notice. It was too scary to think about.
He climbed up to the stage and lay down, staring at the painted ceiling. ‘Why don’t you tell Pelita the story of the Gods?’
‘Don’t change the subject. Pelita doesn’t care about the Gods.’
He tucked his hands behind his head. ‘She might. They created her too, you know. Maybe she wants to hear about them. And …’ he hesitated ‘… to be honest, a story about Ytzuam will make me feel better right now.’
Lintang watched Pelita buzz around his head like an annoying blowfly. ‘Can she even understand us?’
‘Sure. She knows Vierse and Toli.’
‘Really? How come she never does what anyone says?’
‘She’s a troublemaker.’ He looked at her with a faint smile. ‘Kind of like someone else I know.’ When Lintang didn’t smile back, he said, ‘Will you tell the story? Please?’
His voice was small, and his eyes were sad. Lintang opened her mouth to demand he tell her what was wrong so she could just fix it already, but changed her mind at the crest of her breath and said instead, ‘High above, past the clouds, past the sun, there’s a world in the stars.’
Bayani’s tense expression eased. Pelita flew down by the broken platter and licked salt from the spilled peanuts as Lintang continued.
‘It’s called Ytzuam.’ She gestured to the painted ceiling. ‘It’s separated from our world by a single, t
hin curtain. There are three Gods who live there – Niti, Patiki and Mratzi.’ She waved her hand grandly to the eastern wall, to the mural of a man in a field. His face was covered by a straw hat, and in his cupped hands was a tiny, glowing star. ‘Niti’s job is to create star seeds. He leaves them in the fallow fields of Ytzuam, waiting to be planted.’ To the western wall, where a young woman holding a basket skipped through the same field. ‘Planting is Patiki’s job. When she plants a star seed in a field of Ytzuam, it creates life here in our world. As we grow, the seed inside us blooms into a mature star.’ To the southern wall, where Mratzi stood wrapped in her silver ribbons, holding a scythe. ‘Then when we die, Mratzi harvests our star and puts it in the sky, so that we may blaze for all time.’
Pelita was still licking peanuts, but she might have been listening because she’d looked at each of the walls as Lintang pointed them out.
‘I like Niti the best,’ Lintang said. ‘He seems nice in the stories. Patiki’s all right, I suppose, but she always looks so cheerful planting seeds in the pictures. No one should look that happy while they’re working. And Mratzi …’ She shuddered. ‘Mratzi scares me.’
She glanced over at Bayani and jolted when she saw the trail of a tear down his cheek. Before she could ask, a gust of wind whooshed through the entrance, guttering torch flames and billowing the hem of her sarong. She scrambled to her feet.
The malam rasha swooped into the temple, its sharp roots reaching forward, bringing the stench of rotten meat.
Bayani jumped up and dived towards the side of the stage. Lintang leaped for the benches but she was slow, and the malam rasha was fast. The mythie barrelled into her. She landed hard on the stone floor, winded. Pelita only just fluttered out of the way in time.
The malam rasha curled its lip and slashed at Lintang’s stomach. Its roots ripped into her sarong … and stopped.
The malam rasha tried again, clawing and tearing, until the front of Lintang’s sarong was in tatters. And yet not a single scratch made it onto her skin. Instead, the malam rasha kept coming across panna leaves, unravelled from their fish wraps and smeared onto Lintang’s chest and stomach with sauce from the dish. A spicy scent drifted up between them.
The malam rasha stared at Lintang, its eyes bulging with fury.
Eyes.
Lintang slammed her eyes shut as the malam rasha lunged to suck them out. She had almost forgotten to keep them closed …
Except now she couldn’t see.
Still fighting for breath, she scrabbled for something, anything, to protect herself. Her fingers settled on the scattered peanuts. She tossed them at the malam rasha. Its weight lifted from her immediately.
Boots clapped across the stone floor, and the breeze from the malam rasha’s wings disappeared.
‘It’s all right, Lintang, I’m here.’
Lintang waited until the sound of boots was much further away before daring to peek.
Captain Shafira sent blows towards the malam rasha with her sword so fiercely it was forced to retreat. The red kerchief that had been in her hair was now wrapped around her eyes, so her braids swung unrestrained. Being blind didn’t seem to slow her down. She didn’t even run into any of the wooden benches.
‘Lintang!’ Bayani crawled over to her with Pelita on his shoulder. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘No,’ Lintang said, fingering the strips of her sarong. ‘But Mother is going to sacrifice me to Nyasamdra for ruining this.’
‘Eire!’ Captain Shafira yelled.
The woman in purple who had pretended to be the captain sprinted into the temple with a fishing net. She threw it over the malam rasha. Captain Shafira ripped the kerchief off from around her eyes and grabbed the bottom of the net so she could yank the malam rasha to the stone floor. Eire stepped on one of its wings, pinning it. It squirmed and snarled. Its tree roots sliced through the net, but before it could escape, Captain Shafira brought her sword down and chopped off its arm. It released an ear-splitting shriek.
Bayani spun away.
Lintang frowned. ‘What’s the matter? Don’t tell me you want that monster to live. It almost killed us!’
There was another shriek as Captain Shafira sliced off the roots on its other arm. Bayani shuddered.
‘Stop being silly,’ Lintang said. ‘It’s just like when Camelia the woodcutter chops up a tree.’
Bayani rubbed his eyes with his thumb and fore finger. ‘Please tell them not to hurt it anymore.’
Lintang climbed to her feet and joined Captain Shafira.
‘Are you injured?’ Captain Shafira said, knotting the bottom of the net so the mythie couldn’t escape.
‘No,’ Lintang said.
‘Good.’ Captain Shafira stepped on the creature’s white dress to keep it on the ground. ‘How did you make it back off? I heard it recoil before I’d reached you.’
Lintang held the pieces of her slashed sarong in place as she stared down at the malam rasha. ‘I threw peanuts at it.’
‘Peanuts?’ Eire said, snorting.
‘Salted. I thought if you’re supposed to use salt to keep it from rejoining its legs, then it probably hates the stuff.’
She caught Captain Shafira quirk an eyebrow at Eire, who pressed her lips together and looked away.
‘That was imaginative,’ Captain Shafira said. She untied the kerchief that now hung loosely around her neck and wrapped it around her braids again. ‘But from what I hear, you’re the most imaginative person on the island.’
‘How did you fight so well with your eyes closed?’ Lintang said.
‘Practice.’
The malam rasha writhed, and Eire launched a kick at it. Lintang flinched. ‘If you don’t mind,’ she said, ‘Bayani asked that you don’t hurt it. Until sunrise, anyway.’
He was still sitting on the floor where she’d left him, his face turned away.
Captain Shafira shrugged. ‘If it suits you.’ To Eire, she added, ‘This is where Xiang’s sleeper darts would’ve come in handy.’ Then she directed a kick to the malam rasha’s wooden head, and it slumped, unmoving.
Lintang gasped. ‘Did you kill it?’
‘If it were that easy to kill a mythie, the world wouldn’t be in such a mess.’ Captain Shafira nudged it with her boot. ‘It’s just knocked out. Hopefully it’ll stay that way through the night. Ah.’
Her attention had fallen to the staircase, where Ramadel and Elder Wulan stared uncertainly into the room.
‘You’ve captured it?’ Elder Wulan said. Her attention fell to Lintang’s tattered sarong. ‘Are the children harmed?’
‘Both of them are fine,’ Captain Shafira said. She placed a hand on Lintang’s shoulder. ‘And I’ll be taking what I’ve earned, thank you.’
Lintang’s stomach swooped as violently as the malam rasha’s attack.
Elder Wulan turned to Ramadel. ‘Oh my,’ she said in their native tongue. ‘I believe Aanjay’s wrath will be equal to that of the Gods’.’
Her Most Precious Thing
‘You are not to take her. Not to take her!’
Mother clung to Lintang’s arm with both hands. Captain Shafira and Eire had tipped over their rowboat, which had been upside down to protect it from the storm, and were now dragging it to the water. The white sand of the beach was littered with branches and debris, but the lapping waves of the lagoon reflected bright blue sky.
Further out on the reef, Captain Shafira’s other rowboats headed smoothly to the Winda, carrying the supplies. Lintang hadn’t had a chance to see the crew members – they’d come before dawn to gather the barrels from the market square.
Almost the entire village had been on the steps of the temple at sunrise. Eire had dragged the malam rasha’s body into the light, and Lintang had stood with Captain Shafira as it burst into flame, leaving only a silhouette of ash and the broken fishing net. Everyone had witnessed it, and now they were forced to honour their deal. Lintang was to go with the pirate queen.
Lintang squashed down the excitement that
bubbled up at the thought. There was still a chance Mother would tie her up and send her to the mining community.
Mother didn’t release her grip. Lintang’s hand was starting to tingle from lack of blood. Father stood at her other side. Nimuel waited a short way behind them. The rest of the villagers had gathered on the bay too but kept their distance, except for Elder Wulan, who stood by Mother.
‘Please reconsider,’ Elder Wulan said to Captain Shafira. ‘She doesn’t have the skills to handle the world out there.’
‘Yes, yes!’ Mother said. ‘No skills! She cannot go!’
Lintang inhaled a breath of seaweedy air. Mother would find any excuse to stop her from escaping this boring old island.
‘She’ll be a guest, not a crew member,’ Captain Shafira said, setting her rowboat at the water’s edge. ‘She won’t need skills.’ She held out a hand to Lintang.
Mother burst into tears. Lintang’s face grew hot and she ducked her head. Her wild stories were nothing compared to the embarrassing way her mother was behaving now.
Why was Mother acting like this when she spent most of her time yelling? Why, if Lintang was such a terrible daughter, did she care if Lintang left at all?
She smoothed her best golden sarong and tried to pretend she couldn’t hear her mother’s sobs. She’d washed off the fish sauce and changed during the night. She wore her only pair of shoes, too. They were made of thin, woven reed and rubbed at her big toes. The sack with the rest of her clothing – her wooden sword tucked carefully among them – was in her other hand. Mother had refused to let her take her sword but Father, in an unexpected act of kindness, had secretly given it to Lintang while she was packing.
‘My aim is to have her home soon after Niti’s festival,’ Captain Shafira said, gracious considering the circumstances. ‘You have my word.’
‘Word of the pirate queen?’ Mother snapped through tears. ‘Forgive me, but I do not believe you.’
Eire tapped a finger against the fangs strung around her neck and glanced impatiently at the Winda. It waited past the reef, its black sails still rolled up. Talrosses soared above it, so high their large bodies were nothing but white dots in the sky.