FicWad

Bunsoy was gone when I woke up. I rubbed my eyes and glanced up at the patch of gray sky peeking through the tree tops. It was barely dawn. The spot where he lay was already cold. He must have woken up hours ago. Sighing, I cleared the remains of the fire and ate breakfast, relieved to find that he hadn't pilfered the rest of my food during the night. Wondering if I would ever see the strange tikbalang again, I set off through the forest.

The hours passed, but instead of growing lighter as the day progressed, the forest remained gray and cold. The mists deepened and I shivered, wondering if a cloud had wrapped around the mountain, but the forest soon grew murkier, and I was forced to light my lamp just to be able to see three feet in front of me. The shadows shifted behind the trees, and a low, hissing noise kept following me. My steps slowed and I began to stumble. Finally, I stopped, trembling with fear and staring into the gloom, listening to the strange whispering sounds. They were watching me, their eyes tracking my every movement, and my flesh tried to crawl away from the malevolence of their gazes.

The whole place felt familiar. This was where I'd gotten lost as a child. I'd snuck out of the house to follow my father and brother and somehow wound up in the territory of the maligno. This was where I'd met Skyblade for the first time. Skyblade! Once again, his name trembled on the tip of my tongue. Summon him! a voice urged inside me. He rescued you from the /maligno once. He can do it again. Summon him!/

No, I answered fiercely. I'm not a child anymore, needing Skyblade to rescue me all the time. I can do this. I racked my brain for information about the maligno/. They were spirits who had somehow lost their homes and were forever seeking a new place. They were drawn to negative emotions--fear, anger, guilt, shame, selfishness--and especially loved to prey upon humans. My sister used to scare me into behaving by promising to leave me for the /maligno/, because everyone knew that /maligno turned humans into stone.

Well, if they were attracted to fear, they weren't going to get it from me. "I'm not afraid of you!" I called out loudly. Gathering the tattered bits of my courage together, I raised the lamp and tried to keep my hand from shaking too badly. "D-don't mess with me," I quavered. "I'm a powerful /babaylan/. My magic can drive you all away."

The whispering grew louder, as if the shadows were laughing at me. Their mockery sent a flash of anger through me. How dare these stupid spirits make fun of me? They sounded just like the rest of the town, snickering at me behind their hands. I gritted my teeth. I'll show them I'm not a useless baby. I'll show them all.

Too late, I'd forgotten that the maligno were also drawn to anger. I stepped forward, and as if they had been waiting for my signal, the shadows rushed toward me in a twisting, hissing gale of gray and black. Everywhere they touched my flesh grew cold and numb. The lamp fell from my hands, and my legs grew rooted to the ground. With every icy contact, memories surged up from the deepest recesses of my mind. I was forced to relive every moment of humiliation, pain and disappointment in my past. The first time Habagat beat me for bothering him. The first time my sister told me I was too stupid and weak to become a priestess like her. My father lying dead at my feet, blood soaking his back. The hurtful comparisons to my sister and Marikit. The humiliation of my first bleeding. The sound of the townsfolks' laughter and derision as I walked off the stage with Consuelo in tow. Every time I'd been forgotten or ignored or laughed at for believing I was worth more than they said I was. The maligno ransacked my mind and flung my darkest fears and insecurities about, and I couldn't do anything to stop them. My arms fell at my sides; the stiffness had turned the very act of breathing into grinding torture. I was being turned into stone right where I stood.

Then an odd memory flashed from out of nowhere: Of me, standing on one side of a lake and gazing at the other me sitting on the opposite shore, ablaze in silver and blue light and surrounded by glowing gold threads. His thought goes ever with you, Chosen One, the pixie had said. Skyblade. My beautiful, beloved dragon. He was always with me, and all I had to do was reach out to him to find my strength.

The maligno had overlooked something essential. Every memory of sorrow they dredged up brought with it an accompanying memory of joy. I recalled every moment I had with Skyblade. In the face of all the darkness inside me, I remembered a pair of warm golden eyes watching me, strong arms wrapping around me, and lips that could kiss me all the way to the stars and back. No matter what, Skyblade loved me. The knowledge of his true name, which I fought desperately to keep hidden from the /maligno/, was proof of that.

"It's even rarer for a human to be sensitive enough to detect the subtle shifts in energies, let alone have the power to match that of her partner in a joining," he'd said to me once.

Something in my mind seemed to click.

"She has so much power within her," Consuelo had said. "Why does she keep it all locked away?"

"For all her talent Sinag can be as stubborn as she is foolish, and she has always been envious of the power within you." Even Tia Isabel was speaking in my head now.

Power. They all believed I had power. And I did, didn't I? I felt it when Skyblade kissed me. But how could that be? Only priestesses could use magic, and I ought to know, since I'd grown up with one. But...wasn't I a priestess, too? I'd drunk the wine, performed the rite in the Diwata's shrine. And I had my own magic.

I can do this.

My breath had become increasingly shallower, and I was losing my sense of hearing. Soon I would be blind, and my breathing would stop altogether. But I drew inward and found my core, blazing blue-white and silver, just waiting for me to call it forth. I embraced it joyfully. This was the real Amihan, the one only Skyblade had been able to touch. For the second time in my life, I had found my power and I didn't intend to lose it again.

Heat surged upward, as sharp as the wine I'd drunk in the cave. Blue-white light flowed through me, and like an old shell the stiffness broke apart and fell away. Life surged back into my limbs, and I opened my eyes and was stunned to find myself glowing with a silvery-blue aura. The maligno drew back at this unexpected turn of events, but in a roar of fury massed together and flew at me, intending to bury me once and for all.

Instead of cowering, I raised my hands in front of me, cupping my palms together, and drew upon my power. The silvery-blue aura gathered thickly in the air between my hands, forming a swirling starburst of blue-white flame that shot out tendrils of light in every direction. The maligno closest to me were rent apart by ribbons of light. The others fell back and quickly dispersed, leaving me alone in the forest, bathed in a pool of early afternoon sunlight.

Feeling drained, I collapsed on my knees and let the strange aura around me dissipate. I stared down at my hands in shock. Sweet Lady, I did it. I really did it. I gasped and laughed at the realization of my newfound power. Everything I'd been taught to believe about myself had just been proven wrong, and I was having trouble trying to take it in all at once. A thought occurred to me, and I frantically took stock of my belongings. Luckily, the cloth sack had survived unscathed, but the lamp had fallen against the rock and the glass had shattered. The fuel container was still intact, though. I could still use it if I were careful.

"Amihan didn't tell me."

I looked up to find Bunsoy's long, black face peering at me over the top of the rocky incline I'd been trying to scale. "Tell you what?" I asked wearily.

"That she's a great and powerful priestess."

"That she's a what?" I narrowed my eyes at him. "Have you been hanging around up there all this time? You could have at least tried to help me."

The tikbalang's eyes went wide. "But Amihan didn't need my help. She drove the maligno away just like that. I've never seen that kind of power in a mortal before."

"It's news to me, too," I muttered as I gathered my belongings and stood up. "I don't know how to control it. I wasn't trained to be a priestess."

"Then Amihan will learn by experience," Bunsoy declared, reaching down to take hold of my hands and pull me up. "But never mind that. I found something interesting."

I followed the broad, hairy back to a spot in the forest some distance away where some oddly formed trees stood clustered together. Looking closely, I realized that the strange tree trunks were actually large gray chunks of stone leaning against the trees, each one carved into the vague shape of a human. I gasped, recognizing the faces. They were members of the delegation! I counted seven in all--five women and two men--plus several other stone statues I could not recognize. Probably the other victims of the maligno over the years. My brother and sister, however, were nowhere to be found.

I wandered from statue to statue, touching the cold, lifeless rock, before turning to my companion. "Bunsoy, how do I turn them back to normal?"

The tikbalang was sitting on the ground with his head buried in my sack, digging out what looked to be my lunch. "Hey!" I yelled, and he snorted in alarm.

"I'm sooo hungry," he whined. "A great and powerful priestess like Amihan doesn't need me to break spells for her."

I stared at him, caught between wanting to throttle him and wanting to laugh. I ended up choosing the latter. "All right, you can eat! But you're going to have to help me forage for food later. Right now, I need to figure out--" My gaze fell on the bamboo cask, and I recalled why the pixie had wanted me to bring the wine. "Oh, that's right!"

I grabbed the cask and unstopped it, then poured a little of the wine on the nearest statue. At first nothing happened, then the stony crust began to smoke and melt away, revealing first a human head, then the neck, then the arms and the rest of the body. Freed of the stone that was holding her up, the unconscious woman toppled to the ground, but I was relieved to see her chest slowly rise and fall with her breathing.

I ran around pouring wine over the statues, and soon a small crowd of humans lay slumbering on the ground. I approached one to see if I could wake her up, but the woman suddenly began to glow pale violet before dissolving into a flock of purple butterflies that fluttered into the sky. I jumped back in dismay, but all the other humans were also turning into butterflies and flying away. "What's happening?" I cried, trying to catch the enchanted insects. "Why are they disappearing?"

"They're going back to the human herd," Bunsoy said calmly, before chomping down on one of my pan de sal.

"Oh?" I looked up. Sure enough, the butterflies were drifting in the direction of the town. "Well, at least they're going back home."

"But not the great and powerful priestess," the tikbalang said, and ended up munching on air when I snatched the last pan de sal out of his hand.

I waved the roll at him then took a bite. "That's right," I declared sassily around a mouthful of roll. "The great and powerful priestess still has a job to do."

Laughing, I shouldered my back and the bamboo cask and started back on the trail, followed by a grumbling /tikbalang/.