OUTPOURING: Typhoon Yolanda Relief Anthology Page 13

  I stumble forward but regain my footing. I turn to face him, adjusting my grip on the cool hilt of our sword, to better deploy kalimadran’s Ibon at Ulan. I glide forward, my arms stretched outward like wings, intending to sacrifice my shield hand for a chance to deal a fast, fatal blow to his neck.

  He swats my hand away, twists his beshadowed weapon against the tip of our sword, then swings it to the side, with enough momentum that would have disarmed me if I were not bonded to the blade. “It is a pity I cannot kill you. Yet, anyway.” He blocks another of my slashes. “Man and woman: that is what the story requires. But I made a mistake with the woman I brought with me—” He kicks the back of my knees, then uses the pommel of his sword to strike my shoulders, making me fall to the floor— “she was so very fragile. The tyanaks got her, the sentimental fool. But you—you will do.” He kicks me in the stomach. “What are you doing down there? Stand up. I will be very disappointed if that was all you can do.” He kicks me again.

  I groan, then roll to my side to avoid another kick. I nearly scream when I grind against the slash on my back. I struggle to my knees still holding on to our sword, and heave, and speak, “You are dead.”

  Lakan Buaya laughs. “Idiotic Walker. But I forgive you, for you are obviously uneducated. In hell, there is only yesterday and today. There is no tomorrow; there is no time; there is no aging. I have waited—”

  “No, it is you who do not understand.” I stand up. I show him the intricate side of our sword, inert and cold. “Our sword—my sword—it is a relic; the Great Flame in it hungers for blood. It does not burn me.”

  The gray-skinned Majarlikan stares at me.

  “You cannot break the enchantments for you are not alive. It needs blood—both in your interpretation and in his.” I glance at the still body of Lakan Halawod. “But both of you are dead.”

  Lakan Buaya roars. He comes at me with his shadow sword but this time, I am patient. Butil at Manok is not a technique for the excitable and brash. At the last moment, I take a diagonal step forward, then shift my grip. I pull our sword up then thrust it forcefully backward. I step back; back again, even as Lakan Buaya crumbles; back some more, until I feel him hit the wall. I twist our sword.

  In silence, Lakan Buaya disassembles into dry, gray ash.

  “Piray.”

  I look at the bloodshot eyes of Lakan Halawod, who is trying to crawl toward me.

  I THOUGHT THE Majarlikan wanted healing, or perhaps to say his last words, maybe even just companionship in his twilight hours. I am no healer, but I could have tried, with my limited knowledge, to keep him alive. I could have listened, because listening is what I am good at. I could have even stayed with him and lied to him, if my presence and my lies could have provided a measure of comfort.

  But Lakan Halawod wanted none of these. Instead, he wanted me to learn the words. He said Lakan Buaya was right. Man and woman, of the appropriate blood. He said our sword would need to drink his. He said we had to finish it. He said I should take his place; that I should leave with Oran; he said the name of his ship that I should call, because it could travel the waters of hell and could bring us home; he said that I should—

  I did not understand the other things he said. He swallowed his words, whispered some, coughed and paused in between syllables. I did not tell him about the wound on my back that pulsed and bled; he, perhaps distracted by his own mortality, did not notice my pain.

  Soon, our sword was immersed in his pool of blood. And then, I said a string of strange words, awkwardly, to my hearing. And then Lakan Halawod repeated the enchantment.

  And then, it began to rain. And then, Lakan Halawod died.

  THE RAIN DOES not abate. The relentless downpour falls through the holes in the ceiling, flooding the transformed chamber. Every time there is a flash of lightning that provides illumination, I expect to see shadows—or monsters, or beasts, or fallen companions out to haunt me—but every time, I am proven to be alone, with nothing but our sword as company.

  Lakan Halawod is beside me, dead and silent. If I had more strength, I would kick him. Where is Oran? Where is this god who will save us from the invaders’ pantheon? Where is this being that will make the sacrifice of our lives worth it?

  But I do not have the strength, and he cannot answer anyway.

  I am about to attempt to swim away when the storm dramatically intensifies. Lightning streaks above me, thunder rumbles like an overextended earthquake. For several heartbeats, the world feels like it is crashing into itself, as an avalanche of rain and stone hammers against the ceiling, causing a portion of it to crumble.

  I am still afraid. I am still so very afraid of dying that I crawl backward, against a wall, huddling, trying to make myself small, as if by doing so I will be safe. I see one large slab of the ceiling fall onto Lakan Halawod. I close my eyes, put my hand on our sword’s hilt, and wait.

  Everything is suddenly quiet and still.

  I open my eyes. A being stands in front of me: a woman, and yet everything inside me screams that she is not just any ordinary woman.

  She is Oran, and she is staring at me.

  Oran is over eight feet tall—much taller than most humans, perhaps just as tall as kapres or tikbalangs, smaller than a higante—her bearing immense. She carries herself with an assurance that the land will yield to her will, and seeing her as she is, it is difficult to think that the land will do otherwise. Gold and silver and black tattoos gleam against her dark skin; they seem to swirl and twist and writhe like slow-moving hurricanes. Lightning scintillates across her chest, wrapping around her legs and arms, forming a crooked crown on her head. The lightning is often white; sometimes it sparks red.

  She forces me to meet her gaze. In her eyes I see torrential winds, a violent deluge, a dark coldness that seeps into the bones. I feel like I am drowning as I look at her, but she does not let me turn away.

  And then, she speaks. This is what she says:

  I AM ORAN.

  I am a god that you and your people have chained, forced to bless actions that are not my will. I am a god that you and your people have decided to free. I am the rain that gives water to your crops. And I am the torrent that murders.

  I have heard your stories. I have been imprisoned, but I still see; I have been held captive, but I still hear. I know the lies that have been spread about me and my kind. I know why you have come.

  Within the rules of pantheons, it is my right to seek revenge. Within the rules of pantheons, it is my right to give a blessing. And so I shall. And so I shall.

  My curse is this: the lands of the fifteen kingdoms will experience storm and flood, and upon my will, whenever your people displease me again, a great cleansing will occur.

  My blessing is this: I will help you, foolish descendants of traitors. I will fight in the war of pantheons. And I will be victorious against the Pale Ones.

  And to you, Walker, Keeper, with your paltry artifact of Flame, I declare this: your line will be blessed with lightning in their blood. Your descendants will be heroes without need of such playthings. And they will all die, just as you have, with a wound on their backs, with their feet wet, always, in a storm.

  The first great cleansing begins now.

  I WANTED TO speak the arguments, so carefully crafted by the loremasters, but I had no voice. I wasn’t able even to just lift our sword as a token resistance. I could only watch as Oran walked away, farther into the corridors, until the sounds of her thunderous footsteps faded.

  The rain starts again in earnest soon after her leave-taking. The waters in the chamber begin to rise at an alarming rate. I stand up, lean against the wall, slice my palms, inscribing my story into our blade.

  I send most of my thoughts in Salita, because that was what the women before me had done, but I tell portions of it in pidgin, because that is how I remember Lakan Halawod, Karpyo, Makisig and M’kiling, Sua and Puting Bato, Tangkad.

  By the time I am done, the water is just above my waist.

  The
greatest tragedy of this entire endeavor is not my death. It is that, for all my efforts to inscribe my story in blood, our sword will probably never find its way to my daughter.

  It is an artifact of the Great Flame but its power is not what matters. What matters is the legacy. What matters is the ability of the women of today and tomorrow to commune with the women of yesterday. What matters is the legion of stories held in trust, for descendants of the first of us who bore it.

  My daughter will never know the weight of our sword’s hilt against her palm. She will never feel our voices when she runs her fingers on the wood. She will never learn how to differentiate the heat from the blood of companions, from the blood of enemies, from the blood of monsters. Her palms will never blister.

  The water level rises up to my chest. I lift my sword, hand-high. I blink away tears. When my vision clears, I see something swimming at me.

  At first I think it is Lakan Halawod, floating, or a monster, drawn into the stone palace by the rush of waters. But then I recognize a moving arm, and then I see the edge of a face. And then, I see Makisig, standing right in front of me.

  “Where is he?”

  I shake my head, in disbelief. “We left you—”

  “My monkey’s dead. M’ki is with me. That’s all you need to know.” He wipes his face with an impatient hand. “Where’s Oran?”

  “Oran left— She—”

  “‘She’? A woman? Now, that’s interesting.”

  “She went that way but not before she cursed us. And blessed us. She called upon a great cleansing.” The words just tumble past my lips, barely coherent, and I wonder where I am getting the strength to even speak. “Only two can leave. Lakan Halawod’s ship is called Hinilawod.”

  “He’s dead then. Fuck. Oh, well.” Makisig turns to swim away. “I’ll be back for you. But first, I have to butt-fuck a bitch of a rain god.”

  “No! Makisig, wait!” I reach out and touch his arm under the water. Makisig looks back at me, an eyebrow raised. “This sword. Please, give this sword to my daughter.”

  “Pi, you are not dead. You can give it to her yourself –”

  I close my eyes. “Makisig, I am dying. It is just a matter of time.” I open my eyes. “Kill me, now. Free me.”

  Makisig takes a deep breath and then explodes with a string of expletives. “Fine. Why I get stuck with the ‘kill-me-please’ requests, I don’t know. Why can’t women just say ‘fuck me, Makisig’, or ‘touch me there, Makisig’, or even ‘again, Makisig’—”

  It happens so quickly that I am still listening to Makisig’s litany of complaints, when I realize that I am already impaled against the wall. The floodwaters obscure the blade that Makisig used to stab me. I think it is a dagger. I think I am finally dying.

  As my hand releases our sword, I say a final prayer to whoever is listening. This is what I say.

  The Wish Head

  By Jeffrey Ford

  Stan Lowell was awake at 6:10 on that Saturday morning near the end of September when the phone rang. He’d been up half the night, sitting at his desk, nursing the phantom pain in his ivory foot. Lately, he’d gotten into the habit of taking morphine pills. When he’d started in mid-summer, one would do the trick, but he’d graduated to three as the cooler weather came on. Dr. de Vries never would have approved. Luckily, the amputation site flared up only once a week, no more, no less. Always some time after midnight. Which midnight it would be, though, was ever the question. The drug never eased the infernal ache, somehow separate from his body but no less agonizing. He sat through each episode in a stupor, listening to the ticking of the grandfather clock and the wind in the oak outside the study window.

  On the third ring of the phone, he looked up and realized the pain had fled, as it usually did, at the first sign of daylight. Only on overcast mornings did it linger past breakfast. Stan scrabbled out of the chair, shook his head, and rubbed his face. He hobbled across the study and lifted the receiver.

  “Lowell,” he said.

  “Coroner,” said a quiet voice on the other end of the line.

  “Detective Groot?” said Stan.

  “Death never sleeps.”

  “Where?”

  “You know where Hek’s Creek runs along the west side of the Polson place?”

  “The fishing spot,” said Stan.

  “Yeah,” said Groot. “Bring the camera. I’m heading back out there now.”

  “I’ll meet you there.”

  Stan dressed in the only suit he had, a brown one, which he kept cleaned and pressed for official county business. He had a hat that matched it pretty well, which he hardly ever wore, and a mustard-colored tie held in place by a gold clip in the shape of a honeybee. Last, he put on the circular glasses, which did nothing for his vision but did, as his late former boss doctor de Vries had predicted, in conjunction with the suit, convince the citizens of Midian county of Stan’s “relative intelligence.” By the time he slipped sock and shoe over the ivory foot, which had the scrimshawed image of a devil beneath the heel, his left calf muscle had unclenched and the stiffness had worked itself out. He grabbed his bag and the camera and, no longer hobbling, but moving almost gracefully, left his house. Out on the porch, he felt the cold and stared out at the giant white clouds above the yellowing tree tops. For a moment, he forgot where he was going.

  He drove through the center of Midian proper. In addition to it, there were two other towns, Hekston and Verruk, that comprised the county and thus his jurisdiction. Situated along the Susquehanna River, north of Chenango, it was the smallest county in the state of New York, and existed only due to the factories of Madrigal’s Loom, “manufacturers of fine woven products,” and some ingenious gerrymandering on the part of politicians. Each of the three towns had a main street, a factory, and a few neighborhoods. Midian, slightly larger than its brethren, had the hospital, a movie theater, and the county library. Factory towns nestled amid farmland and sugar maple forest.

  Leaving town, Stan passed the first of Madrigal’s red-brick monstrosities, its smoke stack jutting into the blue sky. He thought of the three factories as hives, one in each town, abuzz with electric weaving. De Vries had told him that old man Madrigal had been the father of Midian County. “At times the place bears a striking resemblance to the jackass,” he’d said. Whatever shortcomings William Madrigal might have had, though, without his commerce, it was clear enough to all that the 20th century would never have taken hold in that locale. Thanks to Madrigal’s tenacity, the modern age had sunk its roots and slowly spread like the forest. Now, even in the midst of the Depression of the 1930’s, Madrigal’s sons kept it all going through a combination of cuts in work force, hours, and wages. In addition to their sheer determination, they counted on those roots to keep the whole enterprise from sliding away down the river.

  With the banks of the Susquehanna in view, Stan took a left and headed up a steep road canopied by orange leaves. Halfway to the top of the hill, the pavement ended and the road turned to dirt track. Off to his right, through breaks in the trees, he caught glimpses of the sparkling flow. At the top of the hill, a meadow was fenced by a stone wall, which, he’d once been told, dated back to the 1700s. He spotted Groot’s black Model B and a Midian squad car pulled over to the side of the track. He parked behind them and grabbed his bag, strapped the camera around his neck.

  The meadow grass was loaded with dew and a light haze drifted just above the ground, although the sky was clear and bright. He noticed red leaves on the stand of trees that hid the creek, and realized winter was closer than he’d thought. Up ahead, a short, bald man, stocky, in a long black coat, the hem of which trailed in the wet grass, took four steps into the meadow, stopped, flashed a silver lighter, and lit a cigarette. His face was as wide as Edward G. Robinson’s, his lips turned down at the corners.

  “Morning,” said Groot as Stan approached.

  “What have we got, detective?”

  “A floater,” he said and took a drag. “But, ah...” Gro
ot looked off to the west. “There’s something different about this one.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve got to see it for yourself,” he said and turned back, smiling.

  As always, Stan was disconcerted by the dark round birthmark at the center of the detective’s forehead, often mistaking it for a fly. Whenever Stan glanced at it, he had a sense Groot was watching him.

  They walked in among the trees and due north to the creek.

  “The waterline’s been way up since the flood in July,” said Groot. “Two kids come fishing this morning early and found the body. They ran back to town and their parents took them to the station. Loaf is watching it so it doesn’t head down stream any further. We left it in the water for you.”

  “Officer Lougher?” said Stan. “Midian’s finest?”

  Groot smiled, shrugged, and flicked his smoke away onto the fallen leaves. The water came into sight and Stan was surprised to see how much it had risen. They stepped into a clearing along the bank and Officer Lougher turned and tipped his cap to Stan.

  “You’ll want to be seeing this,” said the cop and waved for the coroner to step closer to where the willows hung over a natural pool. It was a legendary fishing spot, a centuries-old depression where the water was trapped and turned slowly before rejoining the swifts of Hek’s Creek.

  As Stan drew near, he saw something pale, slowly turning in the calm green eddy. The surface was littered with willow leaves, here and there a yellow one from a maple, and amidst this debris of autumn floated a young woman, face-up, naked, her long black hair fanned about her head. Her arms lolled peacefully at her sides, her legs slightly open, dandelion seed in the black tangle of pubic hair, her breasts peaked above the waterline. Stan noticed no obvious signs of corruption in the flesh, but the open eyes still glistened; the startled gaze of the recently drowned.