What The Fireleaves Danced

The Song continues anew. A new verse is sung. He sings without ceasing. He sings the Song of Sorrows without ceasing.

***

"Fire is the crucible upon which all things are born. Fire is power. Fire is what allowed sangkatauhan to conquer the world..."

- Inisaro de Moyora, 980th Year of Yavum's Slumber

The kubo blazed behind Manang and Dimalanta. Far behind them.

"Keep running, maharlika!" said the mangkukulam. "Else you be skewered by the tamawo!"

"I'm running as quick as I can, Manang," replied Dimalanta, in between heavy breaths. "Where in Sulad are they?"

"Adira took them."

"Adira—"

"Might be dead." And they plunged through the thicket of trees, a brush of foliage. Flames licked the green. Fire danced into the night sky.

It wasn't long before they heard the sounds of their padding feet snapping twigs and other forest detritus.

In Dimalanta's periphery, shadows danced amongst the trees.

Not again.

He tightened his grip on his dagger as he ran through the forest, jumping over large roots that rose up to his waist. He had none of his armor on – he was almost completely n.a.k.e.d save for the silken trousers over his loincloth, and the white shirt over his c.h.e.s.t.

It was Manang, the mangkukulam, who ran ahead of him. He could see some form of dark purple glow on her hands and feet as she strode across the forest, effortlessly moving over and under obstacles, as if the forest were changing itself to catch up with her movement. She had only a scant few debris leftover of that fireleaf mixture with which she used to command the flames.

A frigid lance shot through Dimalanta's spine and he shivered.

"Jump!"

Dimalanta looked up and saw what seemed to be some sort of ravine – the brown and green floor suddenly disappearing into the horizon, plunging into some abyss. Above it, the gargantuan trees made a huge canopy. A few vines lay in between the ravines, not in some orderly fashion but rather, in a chaotic disarray.

Manang didn't hesitate as she neared the plunge. In fact, she sped up, that dark witchglow burning in her feet. As she reached the crest of the plunge, she leapt, and a gust of wind blew Dimalanta's hair back, just as it seemingly lifted the mangkukulam into the air. Maharlika felt another lance of cold fear writhe through him, dancing about his soul, telling him that what he was seeing was wrong.

Dimalanta reached near the tip of the plunge and skidded to a stop. Heart hammering in his c.h.e.s.t, his lungs threatening to leap from his c.h.e.s.t, he looked down the plunge. It wasn't a terribly long drop, but a marshy ground awaited him below, and some sort of green mist rose from it. He looked up at the vines to see that Manang was not there.

"What are you doing!?" Dimalanta heard a disembodied voice resonate within his head. He stopped, looking about, hair rising on end. He turned and saw that little owl fluttering by the edge. It did not open its mouth to speak. "You'll get caught at any time! This is night! The maligno are afoot!"

Dimalanta cursed and swallowed.

Then the earth shook.

"Oh the gods and spirits damn it all!" Dimalanta spat.

"That's a potent curse there," said Manang.

Dimalanta rose to his feet and turned around, and saw a foot emerge out of the trail they ran down. It was a large foot, so large in fact that its length was about half Dima's height.

A humanoid hand grasped a tree trunk.

Like an old man trying to get out of his chair – a maligno emerged from the shadow of the deep forest.

Its face loomed and then materialized out of darkness, the color of brown mahogany, eyes twinkling and blazing star-white. Mouth in what looked like a perpetual pout. The other hand of the giant appeared, holding a wooden tube, with tobacco leaves falling out of one side.

"Fool!" Manang's voice echoed again. "Don't think you can stand against a kapre! You will be killed!"

Dimalanta took a step back, as the kapre took a step forward. Still hunched, it moved out of the trees, and into the small clearing right before the plunge. Right in front of the maharlika.

It rose to its full height – almost three heads taller than Dima (who himself was pretty tall already) and gazed down at the warrior and the witch.

"Run. Now!"

Dimalanta, in a fit of either stupidity or idiocy, said: "Who are you and why do you chase us?"

Manang's voice was like a screeching howl. "Fool! Idiot!"

"I am Tagbaw-o, and I am here to eat you."

"What are you doing?" said Manang.

Dimalanta turned to the owl and said, "I cannot make the jump. The best I can do is bide you enough time."

"Yes you can make the jump, you bumbling buffoon! The nearest vine is close!"

"My journey ends here, Manang."

"Are you feeling peaceful now? When you have accomplished nothing? Don't you still have your family to return to? The Tawong Lipod you must return to? A happy life in Mayakon? Do you not want any of those things?"

"I do."

"Then why are you giving up?"

"I attacked a tamawo. And the survivor…"

"The survivor was her, wasn't she?"

The kapre cut in. "I hunger. If you don't mind." The maligno turned around, grabbed a trunk of the tree, and then with some intense effort, pulled it out of the ground, roots and all. Granted, this tree was much smaller than the other, seemingly older ones.

The kapre turned around, and grunted a satisfied grunt, as it walked up to the two of them, one hand wrapped around the tree as if it were the shaft of a hammer, with the head being the green bramble of leaves.

"We will kill the survivor," she said. "And you will be free."

Dimalanta sighed. "I will take your word on that."

"Yes. Do not worry."

"Then how do you propose I escape my fate of being kapre food?"

Another flash of purple witchglow, and Manang was in her humanoid form once again, hunched over and old. She grabbed a knife from her belt and dug into the ground until a small pile of soil had been excavated. Then she grabbed that small pile and laid it on the end of the cliff. She used that same knife to carve a circle around the pile on the dirt as well.

This done, she chanted in an esoteric, curling language.

Dimalanta turned around and saw the kapre nearing. "Should I keep the kapre busy?" He shouted behind him. He was answered by a loud chorus of words that made the hairs on his body stand.

"I shall take that as confirmation."

He dove forward, into the barreling, stumbling giant's path. The kapre saw Dimalanta dart, and it swung its trunk in an awkward angle. One that completely missed Dimalanta as he dove forward and rolled in between the kapre's legs. As he did, he threw a wild slash at one of the kapre's ankles with his dagger. His blade bit its skin as if it were wooden bark.

Dimalanta rose to his feet and dashed away, putting some space between him and the kapre. He turned around and saw the kapre grunt and walk up to Manang.

By the anito. He ran. With all his might he ran and positioned his dagger so that it would fall down quickly in a fell swoop. He found vigor rushing through his veins, he saw strength pumping into his arms as the silver moonlight of the Moon glinted off of his blade. With a quick, jerking movement, the dagger was upon the kapre's thick hide… and glanced off.

But somehow, against the gloom of the night, Dima saw a trickle of blood from where he struck. The kapre roared and turned around, swinging its gigantic tree. The maharlika jumped back, tried his best to avoid the hurtling trunk, but to no avail. The trunk cracked against his right side, pain blossomed in immutable, indecipherable hues, and Dimalanta flew a good ten feet back. He hit the ground with a sickening thud.

"By the Apo and Anito!" he cursed once again as he put a hand on his side and winced, only to find that nothing was broken. "How…?"

The kapre roared once again. "Stay still!"

Dimalanta rose to his feet, wincing a bit at the throbbing pain on his side. He raised his knife, only to find that the blade had been chipped into two. "Damn it all." He threw the blade to one side.

The kapre lunged.

Dimalanta screamed in defiance as he ran towards the hulking beast as well.

As the kapre's tree swung to hit Dimalanta, he fell onto his knees and bent backwards, and he slid. The tree missed him by a hairline inch as he slid underneath the tree and past the kapre, the soft mud of the floor allowing him to slide a further and past the kapre's legs.

The kapre gave off a confused grunt as Dimalanta rose to his feet – he found his shins to have bled a bit – and ran over to the Manang just as she rose to her feet and turned. Just as she opened her mouth to say "It's rea—"

And then Dimalanta was off. In that split second he didn't think as the thundering steps of the kapre came back once again.

He grabbed the mangkukulam by the hip and stepped on the circle of soil she had made.

His stomach fluttered, and then the next moment Dimalanta found himself soaring through the sky, as if he had been flung in an angle forward, directly towards the vine.

"Let go of me, cretin!"

And Dimalanta did. He let go of her just as he opened both hands for the flailing vine and caught it. He grunted.

A flash of witchlight, and an owl circled around his head. Manang pecked him on the brow once, before flying over to the other side of the ravine.

Dimalanta inhaled, and then began rocking his body back, and forth, back and forth. Soon he gained enough momentum to jump and he rocketed forward and onto the next vine. The maharlika almost lost his grip; his hands burned.

Then he heard another roar. A roar that was echoed back by the fluttering of wings, the weird "eking" sound of some creature, and then another distant roar that more resembled the scream of a human woman.

Dimalanta looked up, saw there were two more vines before the other side. He rocked his body back and forth once again, gaining momentum more, and more, until he jumped…

…and a tree trunk sailed across the space in front of him, nicking him and sending him spinning in the air. He screamed in agony, in panic, in pain, and then flailed about with his hands until he gripped something that resembled vine. He gripped it hard. His hands burned. Dimalanta screamed through his teeth.

The vine swung. To his right, the tree crashed and exploded against the rocky face of the other cliff-side. The kapre roared again.

Dimalanta gripped the vines tight. He shut his eyes, never wanting to open them again. He wanted to be tired, but his body was not. His body fought, writhed with power, with energy. His soul felt like it wanted to go to Eternal Rest.

Then a sharp peck knocked him out of his reverie. Dimalanta looked up at Manang, who managed to give him the most condescending look even in her owl form. Dimalanta turned to where the kapre was, and saw that it was going around the clearing, seemingly looking for another thing to hurl.

The owl pecked him again, and then flew back to the other side.

Dimalanta sighed. He rocked the vine back and forth, swinging until he had a high enough apex to jump and reach the fourth vine. As he swung back and forth from the fourth vine, the thundering steps of the kapre quickened in pace. Dima stole a glance behind him, and saw the giant running up to the apex and then leaping across air, before grabbing one of the vines and swinging wildly. Up above, there was a croaking sound from the branches the vines were connected to.

Dimalanta cursed under his breath once again, swung back and forth, and then leapt over to the other side, barely managing to reach it. His body slammed against the side of the cliff, knocking the air from him, but he found that he had enough strength to haul himself up to level ground.

He caught his breath. Manang had returned to her humanoid form. "Quickly!' She said, and then she was off, back into the darkness of the woods.

Dimalanta sighed, and ran after her.

He was weaponless. Aimless.

He had to return to the kubo. He had to kill the survivor.

It seemed Manang knew where she was going, for soon enough, running from shadows flitting across the forestry, and eyes peeking at you in the gloom between the trees, the two of them found a spot wherein they heard the Voice of the Forest – that seemingly random chant of what seemed to be the voices of young children. The spot was also seemingly lit by starflies.

"We are safe here," said Manang, as she walked over and sat on the root.

Dimalanta watched the dancing of the starflies, and he decided to walk and stay in the midst of them, away from the light, and felt warm. Despite this, he said, "How could you be so sure?"

"The diwata are benevolent here. They will protect us from the maligno."

Dimalanta took one more second to watch the starflies, to hear the singing, the choruses, of the Voices of the Forest. "Very well." He lokoed around and then at the mangkukulam. She grinned at him that toothless grin, and then patted the side of the root she sat on. "Sit, Dimalanta. Rest is needed."

The pirate sighed. He walked over to the mangkukulam and sat against the stone-still branch root. He looked up at the large tree, with various vines falling down the side of it in a cascade, resembling the hair of some madman. Past that, the stars shown brightly, and the Third Moon – the Growing Moon – was in the chariot of the sky.

"Where are we headed?"

Mangkukulam sighed. "A bit deeper into forest, following down the river."

"Deeper in the forest of Kalilim…" Dimalanta sighed. "I am getting further from my goal."

"Do not fret, maharlika," she said, waving a hand. "The place we're going to is a barangay. I've been there, once or twice. Saved their lives once, actually, but then committed a minor atrocity and now I have been shunned from their community. I am their mangkukulam."

The maharlika nodded. "Unfortunate."

"I need not your pity, strong man. I've lived this way for the past hundred years."

"And have you discovered the elixir to immortality?"

The mangkukulam shrugged. "More or less."

Dimalanta squinted his eyes at that, and then shrugged. He decided to let that pass for now. They were surviving in the darkest woods at night. It was beyond him to start a fight here, especially against such creature that commands fire from fireleaves, as if she were some god.

The chanting and low singing of the Voice of the Forest did not cease. "Oh, come and look, Dimalanta."

The maharlika turned to look at what Manang was pointing at, and saw various small creatures with the visage similar to that of a doll. Except these dolls walked on four legs, as if they were apes, and their entire, nondescript and blank body was covered in the greenest of greens. In fact, they pulsed with it, as if the green were their blood.

"Diwata?"

Manang nodded. "Diwata of Protection. You see them?"

"I do."

"Then you are blessed. We are blessed. Not many diwata manifest in physical forms," Manang said as she watched more of those little critters walk into their sanctuary, jumping up on roots, climbing up the trunk of the tree – a balete, the Dima now realized – and stopping in front of them. Maharlika hadn't seen physical diwata before. Especially out at sea, where the diwata's physical forms could be reminiscent of various sea creatures they would regularly encounter. These ones were different from the usual flock, different from the forest animals. They were not eagles, nor hawks, nor owls, nor tigers, nor snakes. They were diwata, and they were looking up at him with the strangest of looks. With the strangest of visages. Their heads – despite not having eyes, nor sockets for them – all tilted to the side, questioning, wondering, asking.

A chill ran down Dima's spine.

"The barangay's name is Sunuga, and they're led by their stalwart Datu Bangisan, and their beautiful babaylan Sariya. You should do well to bathe in the stream before we leave for tomorrow."

"I shall remember that. They most likely have weapons, yes?"

Manang nodded. "Your spear is still with Adira. She—"

"Then we must return to her."

"You saw what the other tamawo did to her."

"Then we must return to the place where she hid them."

There was a pause. The little diwata of protection pranced around their small haven from the malign. Every once and a while, a chill would quicken Dima's heartbeat, and he would see a pair of eyes dart from the shadows between the trees, or he would hear wings flapping and making an awful, retching sound."

"You d.e.s.i.r.e to go to Biringan."

"If that is what it takes to get my spear back."

"Dimalanta. I understand that that spear is precious to you, but you cannot go into Biringan as if you were going into another raid."

"Help me, Manang," and Dimalanta turned, grabbing Manang's elderly, almost frail hands. The mangkukulam's shoulders slumped in defeat. "You know what that spear means to me. It is the promise of my life. I require it back. Surely you've gone to Biringan once before?"

Manang sighed. "I suppose,"—she pulled her hands away from Dima's—"but it was with Adira. I suppose we could somehow tell their King or Adira's teacher to give the weapons back all under the guise of Adira's belongings after death…"

"It sounds risky."

"You are wise."

"We must plan beforehand."

"We must."

"And after that – or before that, whichever comes first, really – I will kill the survivor, and be free."

"Free." The maharlika looked up at the starlit sky once more, grinning at the stars, tempting fate to challenge him, as the song of the diwata – the Voice of the Forest – lifted his spirits past that.

Soon, Melaya. Soon we shall be together, among the consorts of the gods. Please hold on.