Chapter 1
Hand
Yaya stared at the etching of a young man on a bamboo sheet. The sombre curve of his mouth and the forbidding brows shading his eyes emanated an aloofness made harsher by the dimness of the underground passage she walked through. A shiver crawled down Yaya's metallic body, rattling her innards of gears and wires.
“His name is Digan. He peddles taho in the northwestern area of the settlement,” explained the woman holding a torch and walking ahead of Yaya. The light from the torch glinted off of the woman's silver hair. Its strands shone like the copper threads that marked her as a civil servant on her sash. Luwan wasn't that old if one counted the years, but Yaya was familiar with the events that had so taken toll of Luwan's health that the woman appeared well past middle-aged.
Yaya pulled a lock of her own black, chin-length hair behind her ear to better see the writing beside Digan's image. As she and Luwan traversed the narrow hall, Yaya squinted at the known facts about this Digan. Showed up in Takatak three months earlier. No family, no friends. His hut was far enough from others that nobody saw him when he wasn't peddling.
“He's been around three months,” Yaya pointed out. “Isn't it unlikely an aswang can go that long without giving himself away?” Thick cobwebs formed nests in the corners of the wooden beams that held up the passage. A quiet, wriggly mouse darted from an aperture in one wall to the opposite. Beneath the scent of smoke was that of old wood and thick dust.
“His reclusiveness helps him. And as you will soon see,” Luwan glanced back at Yaya, a furrow between her brows. “Aswang are getting better at disguising themselves.”
They came upon a wooden gate lit by a torch. Two warriors guarded it, both wearing red turbans across their brows and short, curved swords by their hips. One of them nodded to Luwan and gave her a wavering smile. “Good to see you, Luwan. It's been a bit boring with just Parikit and me.”
But the tremor in his voice and the hunched posture of the warrior called Parikit hinted that they were not at all bored, not even at ease. The young warriors threw wary glances at the gate, and Yaya's legs suddenly felt like ship anchors at the thought of crossing through it.
Luwan remained calm and said, “I'm here to collect some documents.”
Yaya wasn't surprised to see warriors guarding a room with documents. There were plenty of rooms like that in the datu's compound. She just didn't know what kind of documents caused warriors to tremble.
Parikit unlocked the gate and swung the door open. He peered with a frown into the room beyond, then scrambled out of the way to allow Luwan and Yaya to enter.
Cool, stale air hit Yaya as she stepped beyond the gate. To either side of her was a row of three cells, each barred by thick, rusting slabs of metal. Her lenses adjusted to penetrate the grimy darkness of the cell to her left, her body like a tightly coiled spring all the while. But when the oily shadows slithered away, she found nothing in it except a pillow of dust and more spiderwebs. She shot a look at the cell to her right, but there was only an empty patch of hard-packed dirt. She settled down.
“Come along here, Yaya,” Luwan called. She had already crossed to the opposite side of the room, standing in front of a stack of wooden boxes. Each bore a splendid silver lock. Beside the boxes was a large table, scattered with thin bamboo sheets. As Yaya approached, she made out the contents of the papers. Most were maps of the islands, some were notes. Others were sketches of various wide-eyed people with serpentine tongues hanging from mouths framed by long, sharp teeth. No, not people, Yaya amended. Aswang.
“Hold this.” Luwan passed the torch to her. Yaya tore her gaze away from the table, but the images remained in her awareness. Even while Luwan unlocked several of the boxes and pulled bamboo sheets out of them, Yaya's mind traced the slimy, rubbery, forked tongue of the aswang in the sketches. When Luwan waved a bundle of sheets her way, Yaya floundered to tuck them into her arm before they fell to the floor. She shook herself and paid more attention.
Luwan locked every single box she had opened, then walked back towards the door. Yaya had just taken one step to follow when a swift, vast shadow lunged against the bars of the cell to her left. She flinched away as a black limb shot out between the bars, but she couldn't dodge its sharp claws in time. With a screech, they raked across her metal arm, and the torch fell out of her hand as screws tumbled to the floor and gears popped from her wrist.
Yaya scuttled away, the gears in her chest whirring so fast she half expected them to roll up her throat and drop from her mouth. Bright green light pulsed from the vertical aperture on the left side of her face. It contrasted against the orange glow from the torch, and both lights brought the shadowy figure into crisp focus.
The dark figure resolved into a hunched form, almost human but for the long arms that reached its calves. Its skin was covered with coarse hair, deep black like staring into an abyss. From its head glowed golden eyes, highlighting the vicious, wet fangs poking out of its mouth. Most disturbing of all was the mauve, rope-like appendage hanging between those fangs, so long its pronged tip trailed to the ground. Yaya pushed herself against the corner of the opposite wall, tingling at the thought that the tongue might whip out and grab hold of her.
With a violent shudder, the creature's arms retracted until the hands reached only its hips, the hunch on its back lowered, the fur thinned away. Standing in its place was an old woman, curly grey hair tied back in a bun, brown skin wrinkled and spotted with moles. She was short and stout and had she been out in the settlement, Yaya would have simply assumed her to be somebody's ordinary grandmother. She could hardly reconcile that this little old lady was the ghastly creature standing in that cell a moment ago.
The sound of buzzing wheels and clicking metal suffused the room as Yaya's mechanism doubled down to engrave the scene in her Ember Core. She was scrambling to make sense of what she just saw. Pressure mounted in her midriff, like her Ember Core might burn through her chest at any moment.
The old woman cackled. “Oh, how precious! I didn't know tin people get scared.”
Luwan, calm and unaffected, picked up the torch, the flame sputtering. “Let's go, Yaya. We don't need to waste our time with this fool. She's obviously failed the clarification ritual.” And must be headed for an execution soon.
It took a moment for Yaya to get her limbs to move, although her left hand had a good excuse. It dangled from her wrist, hanging by a thin wire, and the only motions she could force from it was a wiggle of her thumb. Though her chest remained heavy and there was a high-pitched whirring between her ears, she gathered the scattered sheets with her good hand and scampered after Luwan.
The warriors were quaking on the other side of the gate, no doubt having heard the commotion. Parikit's eyes bulged, while the young man who had greeted Luwan huddled behind him. Luwan gave them a brisk nod, which did little to reassure them. And Yaya, whose head sounded like a thousand buzzing bees, couldn't impart a friendly goodbye.
Luwan's gait was even and well-paced as they strolled down the passage. Yaya took firm, deliberate steps that mimicked the woman in front of her. “I'm sorry you had to experience that,” Luwan said, voice steady. “But I wanted you to see first-hand that this assignment won't be simple.”
“Who was that?” Yaya asked. The pulsing light from her face receded to a dull glow, and the noise from her insides quieted.
“Don't worry, she isn't a resident of Takatak.” Luwan glanced at her with a knowing look. The civil servant was more familiar than most of the difference it made whether an aswang was found inside Takatak or not. “She's a straggler along the trading paths. Five days ago, she attacked a mango trader on his way here to sell his goods. He's healing well, but nontheless, it's a good thing the datu's men found her.”
They ascended the stairs leading out of the underground lair. Most aswang attacked people outside of settlements, preferring to suckle on the blood of unprotected travellers at night. The stories of traders waking up weak and nauseous with puncture wounds on their backs, bellies, or hips had always chilled Yaya. Even grimmer still were the rare ones about those who didn't wake up at all, their bodies sucked dry of blood. The mango trader was a lucky one to have survived and have his attacker found and punished.
“Just five days ago? And now there's a new attack?” According to Luwan's report, a man in the northwestern area of Takatak had noticed two dot-like wounds on his side. He hadn't gone out of the settlement recently, so the suspicion fell on the neighbourhood's new taho-peddler. Yaya's grip tightened on the bundle of sheets. It was bad enough to have a possible aswang living here in Takatak; it was worse that it should come only days after another assault. The most recent local case reported before these two had been four years ago.
Yaya and Luwan emerged from the entrance to the lair. The brilliance of the afternoon sun blinded Yaya after the darkness below, and her lenses adjusted again. She stood in a field of deep green grass. To the south, a thin row of banana trees separated the nearest neighbourhood from the field. The air carried the sublte scent of bananas and pandan. Up here, the threat of an aswang seemed so distant.
Luwan pointed to the sheets in Yaya's hand, the wind ruffling the pages. “Those are all the successful aswang investigations we've conducted and gathered over the years. We recorded what the suspects were like, what lives they led, what traits made others suspicious, and if they turned out to be an aswang or not. I'm hoping they would be useful for you.”
Yaya smiled. “Thanks, Luwan. I'm sure I will learn a lot.”
“There are eighty-four cases there, spanning over a hundred years and three hundred islands of the archipelago.” Luwan's voice wasn't quite embarrassed, but it didn't hold her usual aplomb.
Yaya forced her smile to stay, despite her plummeting confidence. Only eighty-four cases across such a wide expanse of space and time. Viewed this way, this was a very sparse collection of data. “Thank you, anyway.”
They treaded through the flat, grassy plains back to the cluster of huts and structures to the west. Yaya loosened her grip on the pages enough to unroll them. She scanned the page on top and almost halted her steps. This case was from Takatak. A sketch of a long, multi-door hut took up the first half of the page. In front of the inn was a forlorn depiction of a man, a woman, and a little girl. Yaya didn't need to read the description of the case to know what it was about. She looked up and found Luwan eyeing the report with a blank expression.
“Um, I'm sorry,” Yaya said. It seemed disrespectful to read the report while the woman who had lived the event walked beside her. Especially because she knew that Luwan's aged appearance had less to do with the aswang who had terrorized her family's inn, and more to do with the fact that nobody in Takatak had allowed her to forget what happened. Although today was the first time Yaya became acquainted with Luwan, she knew how others referred to the woman. “Ah yes, the one from the aswang-inn,” or “A shame about Luwan's parents. At least she grew up to be an industrious woman.” No wonder she wore a perpetually sullen face.
Luwan fixed her grey hair into a neat bun. “I'm a civil servant now, and no matter what you've heard about me, little of my past hinders my work. Giving you this assignment is just another task.”
They were now approaching the first line of huts in Takatak's central neighbourhood. Between the huts, people paced up and down alleys, no doubt trying to finish the day's tasks before dinner time. Luwan paused her steps and laid a hand on Yaya's shoulder.
“Try not to let anyone know the details of your new assignment. We don't want Digan behaving differently in case he hears he's under investigation. If ever you get a strong hunch that he's an aswang, come to me right away. Otherwise, be mindful of your vote for him to undergo a clarification ritual. It's painful for humans and drains the power of our shamans.”
Yaya's hinges suddenly felt tight at the reminder of what was on the line. Even without the danger posed by an aswang or the consequences of a clarification ritual, she had plenty to lose. A Metalmade could only fail to earn their Safety and Danger credential so many times before all of their abilities were questioned. This was Yaya's third attempt. If she failed this assignment, even the four credentials she had already earned would be stripped from her, and she'd be forced to retake the tests for them again. She doubted she could earn them all in a month.
“Don't look so glum,” Luwan chided. They entered the maze of huts, and the harried steps and voices of the residents of Takatak grew louder. “I heard you did well in your last assignment. Believe me, everyone including Datu Lunti agrees that even though you failed, it was good you stumbled across that body.”
“Ah, thank you.” Yaya managed an awkward smile, shoving away the image of a hollowed-out Metalmade from her awareness. Stupid Ember Core. This was one instance Yaya wished that memories carved into a Metalmade's Core didn't stay there forever.
Luwan bid Yaya good luck, then parted ways with her. Yaya was eager to dive into the documents, but there was still the no small matter of her dangling, ruined hand. And it would be dark soon. There wasn't much she could do now even if she finished reading all of the sheets. Might as well head home and think about what she could relate to Binhi regarding this new assignment.
The last ray of sun fell behind the roof of a nearby hut. Yaya pushed through the throng of sweaty people, heading for Datu Lunti's servants' quarters where she stayed nightly with Binhi. A few people threw odd glances at her hand. The rice merchant named Kapsa, from whom the datu's cooks bought their grain, asked her what had happened to her arm. Yaya told him she fell down a set of stairs and that it was nothing to worry about. The matronly Himala, who wove pretty sleeping mats and had had a hopeless crush on Yaya's creator years ago, offered to pay a tinker to patch her up. Yaya thanked the woman, but told her she didn't want to trouble her so late in the day. She'd get help at home. Their concern warmed her and pushed to the edges of her mind the eeriness of her visit to the underground lair.
The warriors who guarded the perimeter of the datu's compound took one look at Yaya's hand and readied their spears. Their gaze shot to the area behind her, hunting for a pursuer. She promised them she was in no trouble and was not bringing one into the compound either.
Yaya clambered into the hut where she, Binhi, and twenty other servants lived. She pulled back the drapes covering the doorway to her room, and it was with some relief that she found the narrow space empty of people. Binhi and the three other girls who shared that room with her must still be dining in the compound's communal area. As Metalmades had no need to eat or drink, Yaya took the opportunity to stuff the sheets about aswang into her hemp pack, strewn near her sleeping mat. She wrote Binhi a short note, asking to meet her in the datu's workroom after dinner. Before venturing outside again, she put on a threadbare shawl, then tucked the torn hand into the folds so it wasn't swinging around and alarming folks.
The sun had set when Yaya stepped out of the servants' hut, and torches have been lit around the compound in regular intervals. A soft, warm wind blew in the scent of toasted rice and dried fish, which helped alleviate the crawling sensation that something might jump at her from the shadows. Yaya walked to Datu Lunti's home, a large and expansive structure made with sturdy, clean-cut timber. Some wings of the house were levelled higher so that their thatched roofs were nearly as tall as the tamarind trees that surrounded the area. Wide stairs led up to the entrance covered in ten panels of embroidered gold cloth and guarded by four warriors.
Yaya didn't enter through there. Instead, she rounded the structure and went by the servants' entrance through the gardens from the side. She passed a clump of bottle-gourd plants sagging with the weight of their fruits. She briefly imagined bludgeoning an aswang with one, but decided her own metal arm would be more effective. She was being so silly.
Hopping up the short ladder there, Yaya came to a corridor of split-bamboo walls, sparsely lit by beeswax candles. After traversing a few passages, Yaya stopped in front of a door guarded by a warrior whose long, lean face was familiar to her, but whose name she'd never heard. He raised an eyebrow at her presence.
“I'm waiting for my little sister. We'll likely need to use the workroom.”
He nodded. “I'll open it when she gets here.”
Yaya smiled and leaned against the opposite wall. Two years ago, the datu took Binhi under his custody after her father's death. Since Binhi's father happened to be Yaya's creator and designated trainer, she too had come along. Back then they were always on the verge of being kicked out from the compound by warriors who thought they'd snuck in. Binhi wasn't exactly a regular servant, after all. Instead, she rendered light maintenance to the datu's Metalmades in exchange for her upkeep. It was a generous arrangement that Yaya was grateful for. This way, Binhi's potential to follow in their father's footsteps wouldn't wither while Yaya earned her credentials. Now all the residents of the compound, from those in the datu's own home to the servants in the outlying huts, knew who Binhi was. And by that extension, who Yaya was.
It didn't take long for Binhi to come. Her short, slight form rounded the corridor, her long ponytail bobbing to her steps. Yaya couldn't see much of her expression. The candles' lights reflected off of her thick glass lenses. Their frame was pinned to her hairband today. Binhi usually found different ways of attaching the glasses to her face.
“Another patchwork?” Binhi asked, her voice thin in the long corridor. The guard opened the door to the workroom as she approached, and he lit a few candles inside.
Yaya chuckled. “A little more than that.”
The workroom was bordered by floor-to-ceiling shelves brimming with screws, nails, dowels, tacks and other components of all shapes and sizes. A neat line of racks occupied the farthest wall, full of boxes with hammers, drivers, pliers, scissors and other tools that lit up Binhi's eyes whenver she saw them. The tang of metal and the earthy smell of wood shavings hit them as they entered. Three large work tables squatted in the middle of the room. Unusued bamboo sheets sat on one of them, weighed down by a shapeless slab of stone. Sharp writing utensils littered the tops of the table, and some careless person forgot to clean up the ashes used to darken engravings on bamboo.
Yaya unrolled the shawl from her arms. Binhi's brows rose to the fringes on her forehead, but that was the only expression of shock she gave. Her gaze roved over the damage on Yaya's lower arm and wrist, then finally, to the hand swinging by a wire. She sighed.
“Three portions of peeled metal casing, four ripped wires, two missing bolts, two ruined tapped-holes, and who knows what else? Do you know how hard it will be to fix all these?” Binhi waved vaguely at Yaya's form, but Yaya only had to wait a moment before her little sister's display of annoyance evaporated. Binhi grinned. “Great! Finally, some real practice!”
After they settled by one of the tables, Binhi inspected the parts of the casing that had torn open. “I'll have to cut these away and patch up the holes with a thinner sheet. It won't look pretty, but it'll be fast work. What in the world happened to you anyway? Did you wrestle with a wild boar?”
“I would actually have preferred that.” Yaya winced. “This will sound strange, but I can't tell you how this happened. It's related to my new assignment and I was told to keep quiet about it.”
Binhi's eyes widened behind her lenses, which magnified them even more. “That's a strange requirement. But I suppose it's good that you already got a new task. Tell me this, at least.” She flashed a glance at the guard, but he was standing in the corridor once again, some distance from the doorway. Still, she lowered her voice. “Does it have something to do with Sarang? Are you in trouble too?”
“No, it has nothing to do with Sarang!” Yaya rushed to reassure her.
A series of peculiariaties had struck the datu's oldest Metalmade, not the least of which was his disappearance. For some time, nobody knew where Sarang had gone, until fifteen days ago when Yaya had come across him. Well, his body anyway. With its hacked insides and missing Ember Core, she could hardly believe it was the same tall and sturdy Sarang she saw around the compound. But his face had been the same, calm and stately, even with the total absence of light from the aperture on his cheek.
She blinked the image of the carcass away. Carcass. She'd never expected she would ever use that word for a Metalmade. Many were still reeling from the discovery, and Yaya knew that part of the consternation she'd witnessed from others over her hand was an echo of the discomfort left by Sarang's circumstances.
“Good,” Binhi declared. “You better not end up like him.”
“I promise I won't,” Yaya said. “Look, I'm not some high-status Metalmade like Sarang. I don't do any important work like memorizing trade routes and merchant schedules for a datu. There are many reasons someone might want Sarang out of the way, but I don't think they have anything to do with me.” The circles in which Sarang had walked were quite unpenetrable to Yaya, who was not trained enough to dabble in politics or commerce.
Whether her new assignment was safe, Yaya would only be able to estimate after reading the documents about previous aswang investigations. But as far as she knew, while the assignments for the Safety and Danger credential could be challenging, none were meant to destroy Metalmades. That would defeat the point.
In any case, Yaya didn't want Binhi distracted. “Don't worry about me, all right? The only thing you need to worry about is keeping your skills sharp so you'll be ready to start your apprenticeship once I earn my last credential. Moving to a new settlement and making new friends can be a lot to handle for a young girl.”
Binhi sent her an ironic smile as she unspooled a length of wire. “Young, huh? Technically, I'm nine years older than you.” It was an old joke between them. Although Binhi often referred to Yaya as her older sister, their father had only finished building Yaya three years ago. “Besides, I'm as focused as ever. I even learned something nifty today.” She reached into a pouch hanging by her waist and pulled out a rough, black rock.
“Is that an Ember Core?” Yaya said, an incredulous smile forming on her face. Ember Cores were formed from special rocks harvested from the dormant Nadapa Volcano. They were said to be blessed by Kalip, the god of metals. A slab of those rocks was what enabled Metalmades to wake, what separated them from simple machinery. They were also very expensive, difficult to extract, and under heavy regulation.
“Close enough. It's a knock-off, something that apprentices can practice on. Watch this.” Binhi pulled small dowels and gears from the same pouch. She assembled the metals into a contraption around the rock. A sharp needle hovered above its surface, glinting in the candles' light. Binhi stuck a key into the contraption and wound it up. When she let go, the small gears turned, and the needle traced out a pattern on the surface of the rock. The needle moved around the rock until the surface had taken on a new contour and the gears fell into a different position. The needle then started tracing out a different pattern.
“Whoa, that must be how my insides work!” Yaya marvelled.
Binhi laughed. “They're a lot more complicated than this. Prettier too, I bet. These knock-offs don't glow when you carve into them. But yes, in a way this is how Metalmades operate.” How they moved, how they sensed, how they learned, and how they lived. It was all a complex dance between metal and rock.
“The dayang has allowed you to learn about Ember Cores then?” Yaya asked. Datu Lunti's wife, Dayang Dikimi, oversaw all activities related to Metalmades, from their construction to their training. She also led the education of the youths in the noble households.
“No, not yet,” Binhi answered with a sigh. “One of the kids showed me after their lesson.”
Yaya nodded. Like the datu, Dayang Dikimi carried out her responsibilities with a just and tolerant hand, but she too was bound by her obligations. Even though the couple had been kind to Binhi, they could hardly afford to provide her with the same privileges as children of noble blood.
And Binhi shouldn't have to depend on their charity anyway. It was Yaya's duty as Binhi's only family left to ensure her future. Metalmades like Sarang may have been built to schedule and manage trade, or remember every single ingredient in thousands of recipes, or be an expert on the grammatical idiosyncracies of two hundred languages. But Yaya had not been built to be a means to an end. She was just a product of her father's love for smithing, just an enrichment to his family life. Usually she was warmed by the thought of simply being wanted for herself. After all, how many Metalmades could say the same? But sometimes she was ashamed that she could barely manage the little that was expected of her.
On the sash Yaya wore across her chest were four lines of embroidery that depicted the credentials she had already earned. And yet it was the absence of the final one that she felt most distinctly.
“Binhi, I'm going to spend the next several days and nights in the northwestern neighbourhood,” Yaya announced. Takatak was one of the largest settlements in their island, cradling over seven hundred permanent households and some three hundred itinerants. Yaya would need all the time she could dedicate to her new assignment, and trekking back and forth between northwest and central Takatak would eat up too much of it.
“For the secret assignment?” Binhi tucked away the knock-off Ember Core and the tools of the contraption. “Where are you going to stay?”
“Maybe Mayaw would let me stay at her hut. She moved there when she got married, remember? Look, this new assignment is...” Daunting, puzzling. “Unusual. But I think if I put in a lot of work, I will finally earn my Safety and Danger credential. Then I can be your legitimate guardian, and we can finally move to Sagabilang. You can learn as much as you want about Ember Cores from your new master then.”
Against all odds, a Metalmade smith from the larger settlement down the river had extended an offer of apprenticeship to Binhi. As an orphan with no other human relatives, the best future Binhi could hope for without such a benefactor was to be a servant to another Metalmade smith. A dismal outcome for someone who could be an expert smith herself. The elderly man, a friend of their father from years ago, had given Yaya and Binhi six months to get their affairs in order and relocate, or the offer would be given to some other deserving child. That had been five months ago.
Binhi waved her words away. “I know you'll work hard, because you always do. And something tells me you're really going to pass your assignment this time. Call it a smith's instinct.”
“Smiths have particular instincts?”
“Of course, like when two odd shapes look like they belong together, and they actually do. In this case, those two odd shapes happen to be you and your credential.”
“Are you calling me oddly shaped?” Yaya teased. “But thanks for your confidence, Binhi.”
The young girl went about the workroom, collecting new parts from the boxes. Yaya sat back on her chair and conjured to her mind the bamboo sheet with Digan's information on it. She reviewed it as shadows danced around the room with every flicker of the candles.
Yaya leaned against a hut across the alley from Digan. His face was not much better in person. He had a narrow, rounded forehead that people from the mid-islands would consider unfortunate. Up north here in Takatak, it wasn't a hideous feature. But his lips, which stayed somewhat downturned even while he talked, made him look as if he was permanently detecting a rank odour.
“Taho!” Digan called out as he walked down the alleys between the huts. “Sweet, fresh taho!” He had a deep, gargly voice, but the kind that carried well across the alleys, which was surprising. Yaya had imagined something raspy and growling.
Little children clinging on their mother's skirts approached Digan. They gripped tiny wooden cups or coconut shells, while their mothers counted metal beads from their pouches. The group gathered around Digan, and he lowered the twin buckets to the ground. From one, he scooped thin slivers of silken tofu, which he dumped into the cups and husks. The other held a divided container for the sago pearls and the thick palm-sugar syrup. Digan added both to the tofu.
He seemed detached. He never once smiled or offered a greeting, and he failed to look his customers in the eyes. When the mothers handed over their beads, Digan stared at their hands or bellies, but never their faces. That was noteworthy. Over a hundred aswang from the reports Yaya read had displayed a similar tendency. But then again, some humans did too.
Digan picked up the length of bamboo connecting the two buckets and placed it over his shoulders again. He continued down the alley, calling out, “Taho! Sweet, fresh taho!”
Yaya checked that her long sleeves fully covered her arms up to her wrists and that her hair scarf shadowed a good portion of her face. Only then did she pad down the alley. There were only a handful of Metalmades in all of Takatak, and Yaya hoped the decent coverings would at least make her less conspicuous. Fortunately, the northwestern neighbourhood was lively with crowds this morning. Farmers from the inland plains were trickling into Takatak to trade, and this was the closest neighbourhood to the rivulet. From here, the traders could make their way to the heart of the settlement and pay tribute to Datu Lunti. With plenty of new faces to greet, the local peddlers, cooks, weavers, and woodworkers were busy saying hello, trying to get the farmers to part with some of their goods before reaching the larger central market.
Up ahead where the crowd thinned, Digan paused his shouting and dashed into the slim space between two huts. Yaya perked up and looked for what spooked the taho-peddler. Most people in the vicinity wore a sash with a brown line that marked them as working-class residents of Takatak, a sash that Digan himself also wore. One person had the dark grey threads of an indentured servant. The only person of note was a katalonan, who didn't need the light blue threads on her sash to mark her as such. The loop around her neck bearing several crocodile teeth pendants already identified her as a shaman of power.
Yaya walked to the path between the two huts. Nobody else was in the passage except for Digan and some chickens strutting beneath the houses with an attitude that Binhi would call arrogant. Yaya hedged, unsure whether to pursue him, but he stopped several paces ahead of her. He released a heavy sigh and put down his buckets. Was he tired? Did he want a moment of respite?
Digan turned around and looked at her, and Yaya's hinges tightened. “It's tofu,” he said. “Humans eat it.” His talking voice lacked the punch that his loud calls possessed, but his attention on her still felt like a blow. She wasn't prepared for a conversation yet. Although she knew she would eventually have to speak with him, she had only planned to scout him this morning. But now that he'd noticed her and made it known that he did, it would be odd for her to shy away. Yaya forced her body to relax and took a few steps towards him.
Digan opened the tin buckets. “This is silken tofu. There are many types of tofu, and this one is smooth and soft. The small pearls there are sago. They're chewy and don't have much flavour. The syrup is sweet. You bring me a cup, I fill it up, and you pay me depending on the cup's size.”
Yaya blinked. Did he think she hadn't been trained enough to know what taho was and how to buy it?
Almost as if sensing her thoughts, his eyes travelled down to her sash, where the threads that signified her earned credentials had slipped from the cover of her hair scarf. There was yellow for her ability to recognize objects, maroon for performing arithmetic, black for basic reasoning, and green for understanding social mores. His eyes narrowed at that last one, his mouth drooping even more. “If you wanted to buy taho for a human relative, surely you could have flagged me down by the coconut seller.”
So Digan had detected her pursuit the moment she'd started it. But had he been able to do so because her attempt at disguise and stealth was ineffective, or because he possessed unusually acute senses? Aswang had heightened senses no humans could match. Then again, he could just be a really observant man.
Before Yaya could fully parse the possibilities, angry warbles came from the chickens behind them. The katalonan from the alley entered the passage between the huts. Digan snatched up the pole and hauled it over his shoulders. He rushed to the other end of the passage, his low ponytail thumping against his back, and he disappeared behind a different cluster of huts.
Yaya blinked. So it really was the katalonan that had bothered him. Huh.
The shaman approached, casting a curious glance at Digan's fleeing form for a moment, before looking kindly upon Yaya. “Are you lost, little friend? Do you need help getting back to your human relatives?”
“No, thank you. I can find my way.” Yaya returned the katalonan's smile and exited the alley.
Now why did Digan run away from the katalonan? Even if he were an aswang, shamans wouldn't be able to tell until the clarification ritual, which was an elaborate, days-long process that discerned what type of soul was embedded in a being, whether human or aswang. In fact, from Yaya's study, aswang tended to behave calmly around a katalonan to avoid ruining their disguise. Anxious fleeing had been a tell only in three previous cases.
Yaya shook her head. Perhaps Digan was simply someone who had quarrelled with this particular katalonan. Perhaps he'd sold her bad tofu. Perhaps she'd sold him bad medicine.
All right. So Digan was a decent peddler and had good observation skills. He was also distant with the other villagers and may even dislike some of them enough to avoid a chance meeting. None of those helped Yaya. She could almost say the same thing about Luwan; the civil servant was known to be reticent among her peers, even surly and cranky when things didn't meet her expectations. Yet there was no reason to suspect her of being an aswang.