Chapter 2
Eyes
A little after midnight, Yaya pulled away the thin blanket covering herself and rose from her sleeping pallet. Aswang tended to roam during the night, hunting easy prey. She didn't expect she would serendipitously catch Digan in the act, but checking to see if he was even at his own home at this time would be a good place to start.
Her friend, Mayaw, had kindly agreed to host her for several days in the neighbourhood. Mayaw and her husband had set up a small resting space for Yaya in the corner of the main room. The couple were sleeping now, and she didn't want to wake them for her midnight excursion. Perhaps it would be all right if she left without saying anything, granted she return before they woke. Still, she didn't want to repay their kindness by treating their home like some kind of come-and-go lodge, so she found a scrap of bamboo sheet from her hemp pack. Mayaw didn't know how to read, and Yaya wasn't sure if her husband did, so instead of writing a note, she sketched what hopefully passed as a simplified figure of a Metalmade and, beside it, the wavy embroidery pattern for the Safety and Danger credential. That should let them know she was working on her assignment.
The air outside was fresh and cool and carried the scent of the nearby rivulet. Although there was no single torch lit here — unlike in the central neighbourhood where some torches were kept alive all night — moonlight blanketed the vicinity in a soft, white glow. The stars were all out as well, giving Yaya no trouble navigating the alleys of the neighbourhood. Once she became Binhi's legal guardian, she should take Binhi out more often at night. No doubt the young girl would use her 'smith instincts' to find patterns in the stars.
Yaya wound her way towards the outskirts of the neighbourhood where Digan's hut was. Along the way she passed an orator entertaining a group of late-night drinkers with a hushed tale. Stories at midnight were usually spooky, which meant they were usually about aswang. Such gatherings were both bold and ironic, considering the grave aswang attack four years ago. Three drunkards ventured out of Takatak and were feasted on by a hoard of aswang. At least five, people said, judging from the different looks of the punctures found on the bodies. The drunkards were discovered lifeless out by the swamps, and their assailants were never found.
Cricket chirps grew louder as the huts became sparser on either side of Yaya. Somewhere far off came the hoots of an owl. Some people said that aswang made ticking noises like a bird's beak tapping on wood. But nobody knew for sure, and none of the documents that Yaya had read mentioned anything about warning noises. As it was, the only animal that aswang were associated with were the Black Birds, although according to Yaya's father, who had taught her the different birds that dotted Takatak, the Black Birds weren't really birds. They didn't eat worms or grains. They didn't fly. The only reason they were called birds was because they looked like one. But they were more like parasites for the aswang, living in the bellies of these shadowy creatures. In return for giving aswang their shapeshifting abilities and other unusual skills, the Birds fed upon the miasma of human death released whenever aswang sipped the blood of their victims.
Digan's hut was indeed quite some distance away from the last house that could be considered part of the neighbourhood. No other home was in sight on the plains when Yaya stumbled upon it. And she knew it was Digan's place, because his peddling buckets were displayed on the back porch among other kitchenware. The structure was not much to look at. The rattan panels were slanted, the thatched roof saggy, and the wooden legs were crooked on the ground. If Yaya had not yet learned to identify objects, she might have assumed it to be some sort of giant, hairy bug with a limp.
Would she find Digan there sleeping? Or would it be empty?
Yaya had oiled her hinges very well earlier that night, and there was a worn path through the grass that led to the hut. She snuck her way to the bug-like home. The hut was so tiny it could only have a single room inside. Its floor was not too high, and she could reach the window by standing on some scattered boulders near the walls.
The room inside was dark and bare. A low wooden table sat beneath the window, and on it was a clay jar and an empty winnower. The bamboo slats that made up the floor were thin and crooked, forming large gaps between themselves. A cot was set against the opposite wall, empty aside from a rumpled blanket.
Digan was not here.
Yaya stepped off the boulder, her gears turning faster. If Digan were an aswang and he were feeding now, surely someone would wake up with punctures on their body. She should visit the healing hut tomorrow and check if anyone had come in with such a condition. Hopefully the victim would notice right away and decide to seek medical attention. In one of the reports she'd read, a very careful aswang had managed to dine on a lonesome old man for five months before getting caught. The old man, already riddled with pox scars, had been too senile to notice anything amiss earlier.
But Yaya was getting ahead of herself. Digan could be still be human. Perhaps he was washing in the rivulet. Or drinking. The report that Luwan had given said he didn't have any friends, but perhaps he found one recently. Maybe a sweetheart. Even with a face like that, he didn't seem entirely hopeless.
Yaya turned, ready to head back to Mayaw's house, when a movement caught the edge of her vision. A figure flattened itself among the grass, but the grass here was sparse and short, and he was still visible behind the strands. Knowing that he'd been seen, the man stood up. Digan.
Yaya's face pulsed brightly for a moment. She fidgeted with her shawl and forced herself to smile. She would have been a little more unnerved if he hadn't tried to hide and failed. That she'd caught him too made it feel like they were on more equal footing.
“Why are you here?” he asked slowly as he approached her. His steps were wary, and he leaned away from her as if he was getting ready to bolt. “Why are you following me?”
“I'm not,” she lied. “I didn't know you lived here. I have a loose screw on my wrist and I was wondering if someone from this hut could help me.” One part of that wasn't a lie, at least. There was a screw on her wrist that came loose from time to time. Binhi said it would be so until she replaced the casing of her hand entirely.
Yaya scanned Digan's appearance, focusing on his down-curved mouth, his blunt chin, and the wrinkled front of his tunic. No sign of blood.
Digan's prominent brows drew together. “You went all the way out here, alone, just for that?” He waved around. The crickets got louder as if to prove his point.
“I was coming back from the rivulet.” Coming from the opposite direction would support her lie that she didn't know this was Digan's hut. She wouldn't have seen his porch from that angle. “A traveller asked me to accompany her there to catch a night boat. And I felt quite sorry for her, since nobody else wanted to venture out so far at midnight. So I agreed.”
Yaya hoped that Digan would pick up on the implication that he himself was venturing quite far at midnight, but he didn't explain himself. His mouth remained drooped in obvious suspicion. But she couldn't tell if it was because he had something to hide and didn't like someone snooping about, or because normal people found it odd to have Metalmades appearing out of nowhere by their huts in the middle of the night. She supposed the latter could also be unsettling.
“I'm sorry,” she said, hoping to ease the tension and leave on reasonable terms. The last thing she wanted was for him to get so aggravated with her, he'd end up running away every time she was around. She always seemed to be getting off on the wrong foot whenever they talked. Better cut this one short and come up with a different strategy later. “I know it must be strange, and you're not at all obligated to help me. I'll find someone else.”
She ducked her head and walked past him, catching the smell of grass and the night air and some hint of a sickly-sweet scent that she couldn't quite identify then and there.
“Wait,” Digan said. He hesitated, then he rolled his eyes, and his shoulders slumped as if somehow defeated. “It's fine, I can fix your screw.” He waved to his hut and walked towards the ladder at the front.
Now it was Yaya's turn to hesitate. Aswang couldn't feed upon a Metalmade, but her hand proved well enough that they could still cause damage. And even if Digan wasn't an aswang, he could still be some sketchy human being hoping to dismantle her in the same way Sarang had suffered.
She really didn't think this interaction through, did she? This must be why she kept failing the assignments for her Safety and Danger credential.
“I'm sorry I was rude,” Digan said, his voice softer than before. He leaned against the railing of the landing, his broad shoulders hunched up to his ears as if he was embarrassed. The frown had eased from his face. “I don't mind helping, if you're still willing to accept it.”
Oh, well now that he'd apologized too, she would only look unreasonable if she declined. He'd probably grow suspicious again. There was nothing for it then. This was the right opening Yaya needed for a deeper conversation, and she'd be silly to pass it up. If danger cropped up, she'd have to trust that she'd find a way to get out of it.
Yaya climbed up the ladder, washed her feet at the landing with water from a clay jug there, and entered the hut. Digan gave a vague gesture towards the floor, so she sat down. He rummaged through a shelf near the door, equally crooked as everything else in the hut, then he settled near her with a tool in his hand. He lifted her hand up and inspected the wrist in the moonlight streaming in from the window. He poked at the loose screw, which rattled a bit.
“This bothers you a lot?” he asked, eyes narrowed, but more out of curiosity than suspicion, it seemed. Yaya nodded. His eyes roved over her then, taking in the dark slit in her face, the interlocking components on her neck, and the patches of lighter metal on the parts of her hand that the aswang had torn. “Are you a regular Metalmade?”
The question caught Yaya off-guard. If Digan was referring to special features, then yes, she was quite regular compared to someone like Datu Lunti's Hamok, who had diamond braces lining the casing of her limbs. But if Digan meant whether she'd been built for the usual purpose — mercantilism, politics, combat — then that was an entirely different answer.
“You're the first Metalmade I've seen up close,” Digan elaborated. It made sense. Since only nobility and wealthy merchants could afford to have Metalmades, Yaya supposed Digan was unlikely to rub shoulders with one. “Are you all built with this type of joint, for example?” He pointed the tool at her wrist.
“Ah, I suppose so. There's a single template for all of us, but some may be customized for better dexterity or durability.” Now, are you a regular human? But Yaya could hardly ask that.
“A single template. Interesting.” Digan finally tightened the screw. “I understand you don't have your Safety and Danger credential yet, but you have earned Social Mores. I'm surprised you're snooping around strangers' huts just for your screw.”
“You're right,” Yaya replied. “And I didn't mean to snoop. I knocked and nobody answered, so I peeked to see if anyone even lived here.”
Digan finally took the hint, heaving another weary sigh. “I was gathering pandan leaves for my syrup, if you must know. I'm about to start preparing for the day.”
“This early?” It was only halfway between midnight and sunrise.
“Oh yes, taho takes a lot of work to make.”
Yaya didn't know what reason she'd been expecting, but this was surprisingly mundane. But could she really blame a taho-peddler for needing to make taho?
Digan gazed at her again, this time in a quiet, contemplative way. He stared for some time that were he a Metalmade, Yaya would have assumed he was experiencing a particularly intense processing moment. Finally, he asked, “Do you want to see how to make taho?”
Yaya's brows rose. “You'd let me watch?”
Digan stood up and stretched. “Why not? My taho is dirt basic. If anyone wants to start making taho, they would pretty much have to make it exactly as how I do it now.”
Why would a reclusive taho-peddler ask a Metalmade he barely knew if she would like to watch him make food? An aswang surely wouldn't risk spending more time with a stranger, not if they could help it. A human, on the other hand, had plenty of reasons why they would seek companionship. Especially someone lonesome like Digan. Was he just a human trying to make friends?
A vision of indigo embroidery sparkling on her sash bloomed in Yaya's mind. Hard anticipation pressed against her Ember Core. She was already here, and she already got a conversation going. It wasn't a bad thing that she was ahead of where she'd planned to be. “All right,” she replied.
The corners of Digan's lips lifted until he had a semblance of a smile on his face. “Great!” His voice held more enthusiasm than his attempt at a grin. Something told Yaya he didn't have a lot of practice smiling. “My name is Digan, by the way.”
“My name is Yaya.”
Once the silken tofu and its toppings were ready, Yaya joined Digan in his morning rounds in the neighbourhood. Even before a slice of the sun peeked over the horizon, many people were already awake. Taho made for a hearty breakfast, and the two of them weren't alone before long.
“Are you sure you want to join me?” Digan asked. “We'll only finish around noon. Your family might be waiting for you at home.”
“It's fine. My only relative lives with Datu Lunti,” Yaya said. There was no point lying about her family situation. Digan could run into Mayaw or her husband or anyone who'd been to central Takatak and was familiar with Yaya. So she explained Binhi's arrangement with the datu to him.
Digan's brows shot almost to his hairline. “That's...” he searched for a word as he adjusted the bamboo pole across his shoulders. “Fortunate,” was what he settled for.
That was a common reaction from those who hadn't known her creator. Not just anyone could be invited into the datu's household, not even just to serve. Yaya added, “My father actually helped build Wikain, the datu's translator. Datu Lunti was quite fond of his skills.”
Digan whistled appreciatively. “I had no idea.”
Yaya braced herself for the next question people usually asked. If their father had been so talented, why did he leave Binhi with next to nothing? Although her father had earned sufficiently for himself, his late wife, and their daughter, he'd spent most of the money dealing with a chronic illness. He'd splurged the last of his savings on building Yaya when he'd been certain he wouldn't last much longer. Yaya didn't know how to feel about it. The year she had spent with him was a warm, lovely one, but it didn't compare to the ten years Binhi had shared with him. It had been harder to see Binhi grieve than to grieve their father herself. Sometimes she wondered whether her father should have spent the money on medicine after all.
But Digan didn't ask more about her family. “Who's training you now if your father's gone? I imagine it's not Binhi.”
“Dear no, that would be illegal.” Yaya chuckled, grateful to focus once again on her current task. Normally, Metalmades were trained by the adults in the family who owned them, specifically by the ones whose skills the Metalmades must learn and perfect in themselves. Having no prescribed skillset, Yaya had learned the basic skills from her father, as well as an assortment of housekeeping chores that she was rather proud of for the sole reason that other Metalmades didn't know how to do them. “Civil servants give me assignments to hone my skills. If I do a good enough job, I earn my credential.”
A division of the datu's lower-ranked servants managed small-scale initiatives within the settlement, like rebuilding shoddy homes, settling petty disputes, or training an orphaned Metalmade. Yaya actually found it curious that she was given an aswang-related assignment, as those usually involved higher-ranked servants and expert spies. However, Luwan told her most of them were busy dealing with Sarang's case.
Digan led her down a wide alley lined with vendors setting up wares in front of their homes for the day. Amid the rice-cake sellers arranging leaf-wrapped parcels on their carts and thick-armed women piling herbs and spices on tables, Yaya spotted the stall of the coconut-seller where she began following Digan the previous day. Just like before, Digan called out, “Taho! Sweet, fresh taho!”
A few of the vendors paused and came towards him with cups and bowls. One even had a large jug. Digan settled his buckets to the ground and fulfilled the orders one by one. Like yesterday, he didn't bother meeting the gazes of his customers, but instead of keeping his eyes lowered to their midriffs or arms, he looked at Yaya and continued their conversation.
“How many Metalmades does Datu Lunti have right now?” he asked in the backdrop of the small-talk surrounding them.
“Four of them, though they're building a new one soon.”
“Why don't they just copy the Ember Core of the trained Metalmades to yours?”
Yaya's gears whirled in an attempt to make sense of what Digan said. But though she knew what the words meant, she couldn't decipher the idea he was trying to convey. “What do you mean, 'copy'?”
Digan handed back the large jug after filling it up, and he exchanged beads with the man who'd brought it. “I understand that the Ember Core is engraved with grooves that represent your knowledge, isn't it? Well, why can't a Metalmade smith just copy parts of the grooves of one Ember Core to another? That would save a lot of time training new Metalmades.”
Yaya didn't know whether to snort or laugh. The idea was absurd. “How would smiths — or anyone for that matter — know which grooves correspond to which knowledge? What you're saying is akin to a healer opening up someone's skull and trying to reform their brain after some other person's. Where would you even start? No, it's impossible.”
The customers had dispersed by this time, and Digan was in the process of lifting up his buckets. But he had a faraway look in his eyes, an intense concentration that had him paused in an awkward squatting position. Finally, he stood straight and placed the pole over one strong shoulder. “So nobody knows how to match the knowledge to the grooves?”
“What, you think the knowledge is written Taktuk? Like an orator's notes for their next story?” Yaya grinned at Digan's confused frown. “No, they look like squiggles. They can't be read or mapped to symbols or anything of the sort. Besides, manually carving something into an Ember Core is very tricky. Once a groove is made there, it can't be undone. That's why Metalmades never forget anything.”
“What?” Digan's eyes widened. Apparently he didn't know this very fundamental fact about Metalmades either. Yaya wasn't sure if that made him more likely to be an aswang or not. Aswang may be solitary creatures, but they were also careful to know about the affairs within the human world if it helped them avoid capture. But then again, even if Metalmades had been around for a hundred years, they were also rare enough that perhaps aswang didn't bother with them.
“We remember everything,” Yaya repeated. “That's really why we're so useful, you see. Don't you know the very first Metalmade was created to record a datu's political dealings perfectly? It's so he wouldn't accidentally trap himself in a loophole.”
“Really...” Digan muttered.
Just then, a man dressed in a loincloth and a sash over his shoulders came towards them. Clasped in his intricately tattooed hands was a large clay bowl. He gave Digan a bright grin, greeted him in Merang, the most common port language, and thrust the bowl out.
“I'm sorry, I don't speak Merang. Do you want it filled to the top?” Digan gestured at the rim of the bowl.
The man replied in broken Taktuk, the regional language spoken in Takatak and the neighbouring settlements. “Bit less. Like—” he said a word in Merang and wiggled the fingers on one of his hands.
“He wants it almost to the top, but a finger's width from the rim,” Yaya said. “And he also mentioned at the beginning he didn't want sago pearls.” The man beamed at her. She went on to translate the price after Digan had given the man the amount of taho he wanted.
“You don't know Merang?” Yaya asked as they resumed their walk.
“I only know Taktuk.”
“Really? Most people know a handful of languages. Even the farmers from inland who come here to trade know at least two. Sometimes three.” Yaya's father had known seven, and even then, he'd despaired he knew so few. Such was the nature of life in an archipelago. Pockets of languages bloomed across islands, nourished within their aquatic borders. But those same waters often acted as bridges as much as walls, and languages travelled wherever people went.
Digan managed to shrug even with the weight of the buckets. “I grew up in a tiny village outside of Takatak. Not much opportunity to learn languages there.”
Yaya sucked in a quiet breath. Unlike his lack of knowledge about Metalmades, his lack of language skills was extremely telling. With their inability to fool humans for too long, aswang relegated themselves to prowling at the edges of villages, moving from one to the next to evade suspicion. They were even smart enough to haunt different trade routes, keeping up with the ebb and flow of travellers. Aswang were practically nomadic. Indeed, every aswang in the doucments Luwan had given her had known at least four languages, Merang being a common one.
Perhaps Digan was the first aswang to know only one language. He was at a severe disadvantage if that was the case, but there was a first time for everything.
Or maybe he was human.
In the afternoon, Yaya headed for the healing hut, spurred by the conflicting facts she was coming to know about Digan. There were a handful of healing houses scattered across Takatak, and the one in the northwestern neighbourhood was one of the larger ones. Being so close to the rivulet, this one received many travellers in addition to the regular residents.
Yaya spotted the roof of the healing hut while she was still two alleys away. It was as tall as some of the lodges that rented out rooms to travellers. In fact, it had been one itself twenty-five years ago. The healing hut was once the aswang-inn, as people had come to call the inn that Luwan's family had owned. After the incident, only the katalonan were brave enough to repurpose the location.
Only in the official report did Yaya learn that the aswang who had been discovered in the inn had been a young one. In terms of human years, it would have been four or five years old. The common lore repeated around Takatak never mentioned that, only that the inn owners had known about the aswang and had turned a blind eye to it. When the aswang had first been detected, Luwan's family had pretended they didn't know it lived in the rafters of their inn, suckling the blood of some of their boarders. But Sarang, a newly-built Metalmade then, had remembered seeing Luwan's father conversing multiple times with a little boy who'd turned out to be the aswang in its human form. Luwan's parents and other relatives were fined a hefty sum that plunged them into indentured servitude, then sold off to a different settlement. Only Luwan had escaped the punishment, as she had only been ten years old.
Yaya lined up in the queue in front of the healing hut. Ahead of her were a handful of people, some of whom were nursing injured arms or legs, while others had sleepy little toddlers balanced on their hips. The queue moved quickly, and soon enough, she was climbing up the ladder to the landing. After washing her feet, she entered the large structure. The main room had four rows of sleeping pallets, several of which were empty. Some katalonan were busy attending to the people settled on the floor, while apprentices directed incoming and outgoing patients from rooms beyond. A young, fresh-faced woman stood by the entrance. She stared into the middle distance, eyes unseeing. Still, her brows rose when Yaya stepped in front of her.
“Are you fetching a healer for a relative?” she asked in a soft voice.
A shaman had once explained to Yaya that being near a Metalmade felt like an abrupt numbness in the midst of a warm breeze. Well-trained shamans sensed the press of souls surrounding them, but as Metalmades had no soul, the absence of the pressure felt quite peculiar.
“Ah, no. I'm here to inquire about a recent patient.”
The young woman was about to shake her head, when Yaya took out a folded bamboo sheet signed by Luwan. Katalonan kept patient information confidential for the most part, but Luwan had suspected Yaya might need access to them. Yaya slipped the sheet into the katalonan's hand. The young woman brushed the tips of her fingers across the etchings on the sheet, then waved for another shaman. This time, a plump, pretty woman half a head shorter than Yaya walked towards them. The wavy hair about her shoulders framed a necklace with a single dangling crocodile tooth. She read the sheet from the younger one, then smiled at Yaya and gestured at the doorway. “Let's talk outside,” she said.
They exited the hut, and the woman led her to the back of the structure where a quaint garden of jasmines was growing. The pungent, saccharine fragrance tickled something at the back of Yaya's awareness, but just when she was about to connect it with a memory, the shaman began, “Which patient are you curious about?”
Yaya shook her head to focus on the conversation. “I was wondering if anyone came by this morning with wounds from an aswang attack.”
The shaman gasped. “No, there wasn't. Do you suspect someone was assaulted? So soon after the mango trader?” Worried lines creased her forehead.
No attacks from last night. Yaya found it didn't tell her much. There could still have been one, it just hadn't been reported yet. Then the shaman's response really sank in. “Wait, did you say a mango trader?”
“Yes, that happened several days ago. Although if you're curious about him, there's not much I can tell.”
“Wasn't there a more recent attack? Not on a trader, but on a resident here in this neighbourhood.”
The shaman squinted in thought. “Hm, no. At least, if there had been, they didn't report it to this healing house.”
Did the man go straight to the civil servants, then? To Luwan? Yaya understood that some people might be embarrassed to reveal their condition, in case people avoided them and their homes — or worse, their businesses.
“Is that all you're curious about?”
“Uh, actually, there's something else.” Yaya looked around in the jasmine garden. These were funerary jasmines, the kind that people used as an offering or decoration in graveyards. And it was the smell that Yaya had detected from Digan last night, she was certain of it. “Did a young man come by late last night to ask for some flowers here?”
The shaman touched the white, powdery petal of a nearby jasmine. “No, we didn't have any visitors past sunset. There were a few requests for the flowers but they were earlier in the day by a group of women.”
Yaya thanked the katalonan and excused herself. She didn't realize her Ember Core had been pulsing brightly until a child pointed up at her and asked his mother why the “tin woman had a green sun in her head.” Yaya wrapped her sash around her head to shade much of the light. Now that she was more aware of her body, she found her gears wheezing like Binhi trying to breathe through a nose clogged by a cold. She had hoped that coming to the healing hut would elucidate some things for her, but she somehow ended up with more questions than she started with.
That night, and the next three nights, Yaya took vigilance up on a moringa tree far off in the fields to watch Digan. There was nowhere else to hide among the short grass. But up on the tree, she could camouflage herself with faded brown skirts and a striped tunic in leafy shades.
One of the best things about having a sister that had access to a workshop with scraps of material was that Yaya could sometimes receive nifty gadgets from her. Like the field lenses that allowed her to watch Digan from a distance. Binhi had deviced these so she could watch the noble kids have their lessons in the courtyard while she was in the servant's hut. After a single day, she declared them useless, as they didn't let her hear what the lessons were about. She had given the lenses to Yaya in case they helped her in her assignments, and for the first time, they actually did.
Digan had just returned from whatever nightly excursion he busied himself with, which Yaya no longer felt had anything to do with pandan leaves. He'd taken different routes every time, twice heading southeast to bisect the neighbourhood at a certain spot, once heading north to the rivulet, and tonight he'd gone even more west. That likely meant he wasn't stealing into the healing hut's garden to make off with a buoquet of flowers. But wherever he had gone the first night they had encountered each other, Yaya was sure there had been funerary jasmines around. What need would Digan have to visit a burial site? He surely didn't have relatives buried here in Takatak. Could aswang find potential victims there? Probably not, unless they were feeding on corpses long dead, like some of the ghouls in the tales of alternate worlds that orators were so fond of telling.
Yaya gripped the short bamboo tube that encased the field lenses. Through it, she found Digan on his knees, observing the shabby space beneath his hut. When he stood up, he circled his hut twice, looking around him. He even took a stick and patted the nearby grass. Yaya suspected he was now wary of being watched at night, thanks to their chance meeting four nights prior.
She lowered the tube and leaned against the tree trunk. If only she could follow him further to wherever he went. But it was impossible to trail him directly from his hut without being noticed. And she didn't know which direction he'd choose at any given night so that she could intercept him along the way.
Yaya had to be smarter than this. There were twenty-three days left before she and Binhi have to present themselves to the master smith in Sagabilang. It took seven days to travel there on fine weather. Even if she submitted a report to Luwan tomorrow, a clarification ritual would still take five days to complete. She didn't even know if there was a katalonan who was prepared to perform it right away. Yaya would still be cutting it close.
It was unlikely she would ever get concrete evidence that Digan was an aswang or otherwise. But all she really needed was a strong enough reason to vote for or against a clarification ritual. If Digan truly was feeding on somebody at night, there might be another way to infer it.
Yaya waited until the sun rose before making her way back to the northwestern neighbourhood. Digan had already left to begin his day's peddling some time ago, and she found him serving taho to an elderly woman with no teeth. She scanned his form while she approached, hoping to find an illuminating clue, anything at all, that would make her work easier for the day. But there was nothing out of the norm for him. As usual, his gaze seemed more comfortable resting on his customer's arms or belly.
He greeted her with a smile. “Hello, Yaya!” Strange that he didn't have any problems meeting her eyes. And he seemed more genial with her too, suggesting he could be personable when he wanted to be. The old woman blinked owlishly at Digan's smile, something she had probably never seen.
“Would you mind some company again today?” Yaya asked. This time, she planned to be with him the entire day, attending closely.
“Not at all,” he replied, picking up his pole after the old woman climbed back to her hut. “You're pretty good company.”
“Thank you, though you don't seem to have anyone to compare me to,” she teased, trying to set a light tone for the day. She trailed along beside him on the alley.
Digan eyed her sideways, one brow raised. “How would you know that? Been keeping an eye on me lately?”
“Oh, my friend Mayaw told me you keep to yourself. She lives in these parts with her husband and knows most of the people around here.”
Digan slowed when a young boy approached him with a coconut shell in one outstretched hand, and he put down his buckets again. “Well, Mayaw better stop eyeing other men if she doesn't want her husband to be jealous.”
“Jealous? Over you?” Mayaw's husband had a well-proportioned face, lush and curly hair, and an easy smile that could stop a baby from bawling. Binhi rated him an eight on whatever handsomeness scale that girl used. With a good-natured nudge at Digan's arm, Yaya whispered, “I don't think he has anything to worry about.”
Digan paused in the midst of scooping tofu into the coconut shell. He sent her a shocked look, then burst into laughter. The young boy startled and took a step back, but Digan only finished serving him the taho and continued to chuckle lightly as he accepted payment.
They strolled around the neighbourhood like they did three days ago. Following the direction of the conversation she'd set, Yaya asked a few questions about his family and his life in his previous village. But Digan was tight-lipped about it, and after a couple back-and-forth teasings, she was forced to talk about other things lest his mood soured. She resorted instead to orchestrating a few telling incidents.
Yaya spotted a katalonan down an alley, conveniently surrounded by a few children, and she started towards them. Digan made an abrupt turn down an intersection instead. “Let's go this way. There's a large family a short walk from here who always buys from me.”
Considering that this katalonan was different from the one four days before, a hunch began to solidify in Yaya. She allowed herself to follow Digan to the large family he wanted to serve, but shortly therafter, she surreptitiously guided him to the healing house.
“Do you hear that?” Digan paused before they could close in on the healing hut, with its queue of ill and injured folks. “It's a river-porter's bell! Visitors are coming in from the rivulet. Come on, let's go see if they want some taho.”
Yaya acquiesced, a grimness settling on her. Digan's avoidance still couldn't prove that he was an aswang, but humans were less likely to behave like he did.
She and Digan trekked to the northernmost tip of the neighbourhood where temporary lodging housed travellers coming in from the rivulet. Indeed, they found several river-porters helping the newest arrivals — small-scale cotton merchants it seemed, based on the embroidery on their sashes and the samples they carried in large woven bags.
Yaya was flabbergasted. “I didn't hear any bells from where we were.” She had assumed he was bluffing to get away.
“I'm always prepared for porter bells,” Digan replied with a nonchalant shrug. “I can always count on travellers to spare some beads for a refreshing cup of taho.”
Yaya looked away, hoping the brightness of the sun would dampen the glow of her Ember Core. Digan had revealed something else about himself in his apparent haste to flee from the shamans. He possessed an extremely sensitive sense of hearing, outside the bounds of what was possible for humans. She had kept track of the distance they'd walked. It was too far to hear those bells.
“Did you see the young boy who asked me for taho this morning?” Digan asked. The sun was setting now. The silken tofu and sago pearls and sugar syrup had long been swept clean from Digan's tin buckets. He and Yaya had spent the afternoon lounging on the plains on the eastern boundary of the neighbourhood. A nearby copse provided shade, but now that the rays of the sun weren't as violent, they sat beneath the open sky, observing the clouds.
“Which one? There were many.”
“Ah, so you saw them.” Digan leaned back against the grassy ground, the blades bending beneath his body. “I heard that some Metalmades couldn't see children.”
Yaya had been trying to wheedle information from Digan the entire day, so she recognized that he was trying to do the same thing with her now. She had told him she stayed at the datu's compound, that she had a sister who worked there. It hadn't gone past her at all that he was somehow piqued by Metalmades, and that perhaps that was why he was so accommodating of her presence.
“You're thinking of Sarang,” Yaya explained. Telling him about Sarang couldn't hurt. Everyone else knew what had occurred. “It was only him who had that... odd condition. Trust me, all the other Metalmades can see children just fine. And it was only about a month ago that the condition came about. He wasn't always that way.” Sarang had been a witness to the young aswang from Luwan's inn, after all.
“How did it happen, then?” Digan asked.
“Nobody knows. He came home after an errand one day and ignored all of the servant boys in the compound. The girls were fine, strange enough. He noticed Binhi when she came to oil his hinges. Datu Lunti took him outside the compound, and Sarang bumped into young boys, unable to see them or hear them or acknowledge their presence at all. Dayang Dikimi decided to have him checked out. She suspected there was something wrong with his lenses, something that stopped him perceiving those children.”
“Did they find out what it was?”
Yaya crossed her arms, warding off a chill that came more from inside than the tepid twilight breeze. “No, he disappeared. Then when I found him, he wasn't in any state to be inspected anymore.”
Digan frowned and placed his hands behind his head. “Sounds like an intriguing story.”
Yaya sighed. It may be intriguing from the outside, but experiencing it was entirely different. She quite regretted getting tangled up in the whole thing. “In my previous assignment, I was told to assess a plot of land outside the settlement, where Datu Lunti plans to establish a new trade route with a smaller village south of us.” They had been curious which parts they could clear; or if there were any poisonous plants or snakes or omen birds; or if there were sources of fresh water or fruit-bearing plants that travellers could access. The assignment hadn't been difficult, not compared to this one at least.
“I went over the area three times. Other than a swampy spot with a few overly friendly crocodiles, the land was good. I gave my approval of it and even added several smart recommendations on how to deal with the swamp.” Yaya had been proud that she had thought to add those in her report. In the end, they had led to her failure.
“A team went out to verify my report,” she continued. “They were impressed enough with my suggestion to build a fence around the swamp, so they investigated if it was possible. While poking about at the edge of the swamp, they found Sarang's body. His casing and his gears were already rusting from the moisture of the swamp. His wires were shredded and his Ember Core was missing.” For what it was worth, the civil servants acknowledged that nobody could have foreseen it. But they could hardly have granted Yaya her Safety and Danger credential, not when the area was actually a site of criminal activity.
Something about what Yaya had just said clicked with a memory from a few days ago. Ember Core. She had been explaining to Digan what Ember Cores were, what they could do. And what they couldn't. Yaya leaned forward. What if the fault hadn't been with Sarang's lenses?
Digan whistled, breaking and scattering Yaya's ideas before they were fully formed. “That's too bad. I bet your genius of a sister could have figured out what went awry with him.”
The mention of Binhi consolidated her thoughts into a different image: that of her and Binhi riding an eastbound boat to Sagabilang in a matter of days. The image was so crisp that Yaya could almost feel her body wavering as if swayed by gentle waves. What happened to Sarang was unfortunate, but it wasn't her concern anymore. Her father didn't build her using his medicine money so she could worry about some other Metalmade. Let the datu and the dayang and all the other nobility figure out what happened with Sarang.
And the only way to turn that image into reality was to finish her assignment with the man in front of her. At this point, the insight that she would gain by midnight was all she was waiting for, but she still had to spend her time wisely until then. She had tried prying information about his past, she had monitored his behaviour at present, perhaps she could try poking at his future.
“Why are you so curious about Metalmades anyway? Planning to be a smith one day?”
Digan barked a laugh, a throaty one, but he sobered quickly. A wistfulness came over his eyes, which were so dark and deep that they reflected the purple clouds crawling in the sky. “I can't be a taho-peddler forever.”
“No? It's a decent job.” Yaya shrugged. “What do you want to do then?”
The longing from his eyes vanished, and Yaya knew that the moment of candor had passed. “Haven't thought much about it yet,” was all he said. An itchy silence blanketed them, the kind that induced people to say something silly or abruptly leave.
Anxious that he'd want to go home, she fetched a pouch filled with small shells hanging from her waist. She didn't have the wooden boat-shaped apparatus that was typically used in a game of sunka, but properly marked spots on the ground should suffice.
“All right, let's play a round or two and I'll recommend some exciting possibilities for you,” she said, showing him her shells.
In the end, they played a lot more than two rounds. But although Yaya had thrown in suggestions from the drabbest occupations to the most exotic, all Digan did was equivocate. Her disappointment was tempered by the time well spent, however. The sky was dark as coal when they decided to wrap up the game. She forced herself to keep up multiple threads of conversation while they walked back to his hut, milking as much time with him as possible. When there was simply nothing else for her to do but bid him farewell, it was truly well into the night. Several orators narrated haunting tales for a handful of rapt audiences as she trekked back to Mayaw's house.
At dawn the next morning, she gathered her things and returned to central Takatak.
“I vote for a clarification ritual for the following reasons: the subject has great fear of the katalonan, evading them at every opportunity I have witnessed; the subject goes for a mysterious errand every night between midnight and halfway to dawn; the subject has inhuman senses, displaying the ability to hear river-porter bells all the way from the healing hut; and similar to 139 other aswang from previous cases, the subject finds the limbs and bellies of humans more interesting to look at than their faces.”
Yaya paused, then carved onto the bamboo sheet the last and most incriminating piece of evidence she had.
“In addition, I have never witnessed the subject eat or drink, despite spending a full day with him from sunrise to midnight.”
Digan really must be feeding during those hours away at midnight. What other explanation could there be? Even the humans who fasted took sips of water from time to time.
Yaya placed the writing implement away and rolled up the bamboo sheet. But the movement stressed her left wrist, and the loose screw popped out. Unbidden came the memory of Digan tightening it on the night he had caught her snooping, of the way his broad shoulders hunched over her arm, of his dark, searching eyes when he'd wondered if she was a typical Metalmade. Yaya imagined his arms lengthening until his hands could reach his calves, imagined his rich brown skin sprouting shadow-black fur and his eyes glowing like the heart of a fire.
A sinking feeling washed over her, as if all her interior mechanisms were dropping to the ground. Once she submitted this report, it was unlikely that she would continue to see him, no matter how the results turned out. If he was an aswang, he would be captured and executed, unless he escaped first. If he was human, not only would Yaya fail her test, but she could hardly continue to befriend him while withholding the true reason for their meeting. And if she told him, he would understandably not want anything to do with her. Humans found it demeaning and shameful to be thought of as an aswang, especially after undergoing a painful trial to prove otherwise.
Yaya hadn't even known that she was invested in the outcome for any reason other than to pass her assignment. But Digan had been pleasant company. If personality alone could determine if somebody were an aswang, well... Reserved though he was, she had met several humans who behaved worse than him. If he turned out to be an aswang after all, he had really mastered the art of pretending.
Yaya shoved her reservations away. Carved into her Ember Core were the realities that days were passing by, that she still only had four credentials embroidered on her sash, that there were too many reasons why Digan couldn't possibly be a human being. And to a Metalmade, what was on their Ember Core was of far more importance than what wasn't on it.
Days passed after Yaya submitted her vote to Luwan. She hadn't heard back from the civil servant yet. Perhaps other observers still needed to cast their vote; there were usually a handful of spies to ensure that the clarification ritual was necessary. Yaya didn't see anyone else scuttling after Digan, but then again, she had mostly been focused on him.
One day, in a bout of restlessness, Yaya risked visiting the northwestern neighbourhood to see if Digan was still there. She didn't catch a glimpse of him, and a short conversation with someone revealed that the taho-peddler had been absent for some days. Curious, Yaya stopped by the outskirts of the neighbourhood to check if Digan's possessions remained. If they were there, it was highly likely he'd been taken for a clarification ritual already. If not, then he'd fled.
To Yaya's utter puzzlement, not only were Digan's things not there, his entire hut had also disappeared. She circled the plains multiple times, then reviewed the memories in her Ember Core. This was the correct place. The moringa tree she'd sat in for three straight nights was to her left, some distance away. There were holes in the ground where the four posts of the hut once stood. Just no hut.
Yaya turned right back around, the gears in her chest spinning wildly. The underground cells then, that's where she'd check. She didn't quite know if she hoped to find Digan there or not, but one thing was certain amidst all this confusion: she didn't want this assignment to have been for nothing.
It was late evening by the time she approached central Takatak. Yaya breezed past the sleek, well-crafted residences in the neighbourhood of some of the wealthiest merchants and artisans in the settlement. She entered the passage that connected this neighbourhood to the central market, east of which was the field where the underground lair was located. The passage was lined with coconut and banana trees. Calamondin shrubs sprouted between the thick trunks, their small round fruits emitting a tangy scent. The hibiscus flowers that usually gave a splash of red and orange in the long, narrow space lost their vibrance in the growing dark. Most folks were having dinner now and the passage was devoid of the usual comings and goings of merchants and lively customers. Yaya's steps were muted on the packed earth, and so were the steps behind her.
She turned around. Several paces away was a lean figure sporting a black scarf across the bottom half of his face. He had short-cropped hair, a middling height, and a stone bat hanging from his hip. Strange, since most people carried around daggers. Yaya slowed, unsure what to make of him. She edged closer to the row of shrubberies to her right, hoping the stranger would pass her and be on his way.
But even from afar, she noticed the man following her movements. His steps lengthened, heading straight towards her.
“What do you want—?” Yaya cut herself short when the man pulled the bat from his belt. The image of Sarang's hollowed-out shell flashed through her mind, and with a sudden burst of fear and energy, she entered the tree garden in a sprint. A whoosh and the distinct thud of stone against wood emanated behind her.
Yaya bounded over gnarled roots and low shrubs, and swatted away branches of the shorter trees. Her lenses were slow to adjust and she couldn't see anything clearly within the shadowed space. The sound of pounding steps trailed after her. She had no idea who this person was or what he wanted, but that bat looked awfully like it could cave in her face, and she was not going to end up like Sarang. She had promised Binhi she wouldn't.
Yaya burst out of the tree garden and found roofed platforms looming ahead of her in the dark. She made it to the feasting grounds: a place where the villagers congregated for large feasts hosted by the datu. During a feast, the platforms would be filled with rows of tables covered in banana leaves and piled high with food. The platforms had no walls, just railings made of woven bamboo punctuated by thick columns that held up the thatched roof.
Hurrying inside one of them, Yaya crouched behind a table covered with hemp to keep the dust away. She clenched her eyes shut, took a deep breath, and willed her rotating gears to slow. No footsteps echoed around her. She opened her eyes and watched for any shifts in the mingling of shadows and moonlight by the railing. Nothing. Did she manage to lose her pursuer?
Something flitted against the top of Yaya's hair. She brushed it off, annoyed with the stubborn mosquitoes that somehow assumed she could be of any use to them. But Yaya's hand came away wet and sticky. The air caught in the wirings of her throat, and her gaze snapped to the ceiling of the platform. Light from her Ember Core throbbed madly out of her head and it was in that vivid, green glow that she found the man from earlier hanging effortlessly on the beams of the roof. The arms that kept him suspended were elongated and furry, and so were the legs that held him perched on one of the beams. His toenails were huge and pointed like the claws of a tiger Yaya had once seen an artisan paint. The bat he'd swung at her was back by his hip, dangling from a rope. The scarf that had covered the man's face now lay loose around his neck, pushed aside by the trailing, slimy tongue drooping from his mouth. The forked end of it wagged right in front of Yaya's face.
For a moment, she remained rooted at her spot, mechanism locked in place by the onslaught of conflicting thoughts. He can't drink from me, was one; but he can still smash me to bits, was another.
The aswang leapt from the roof, and that spurred Yaya to action. She pushed away the table beside her and rolled across the bamboo slats, which vibrated upon the aswang's landing. She hurried to her feet, about to bolt out of the platform, but was snatched back by the tongue that encircled her right arm. Yaya turned just in time as the bat sped towards her head. She parried it away with her remaining free hand. But that wrist, which had never quite recovered from the attack of the aswang in the lair, was no match for the impact. Her hand shot off from its socket, fully popped from the hinges.
Yaya's assailant grunted, the bat coming at her in another fierce swing. She strained away, bracing herself for the strike. Suddenly, another figure whipped over the railing of the platform and toppled her attacker to the ground. The aswang's tongue slipped from her arm. Wariness and relief battled in her as the two wrestled on the bamboo floor, one lithe and intense, the other broad and brutal. One aswang, the other a man—
No. Not a man. The intruder shuddered, limbs shaking with what seemed like uncontrollable rage. Though it wasn't fury that coursed through him, but a dark transformation. Within a few blinks of Yaya's eyes, in his place loomed a long-limbed hairy shadow.
A furious growl pierced the air, followed by a crunching noise and a pained yell. The bat connected with the intruder in desperation, and he rolled off, slumping against the rail. Yaya's assailant lay convulsing on the bamboo floor. Blood pooled beneath him, trickling into the gaps between the slats. His neck was in worse tatters than her left wrist. A moment later, he stilled.
The other aswang shifted back to its human form, and like a discarded rag doll with a bloody mouth, there lay Digan.
A heaviness pressed all around Yaya. Pushed by curiosity and horror alike, she tiptoed to where he reclined. He stared back at her with twinkling eyes. His tunic was ripped, and her gaze was drawn to his chest. The bat had caved it in.
Yet instead of blood and seeping innards, Yaya found cracks around the dent. A dent whose shape and size would not have been possible for flesh and bone. Cracks that glowed an eerie violet.
A whine emanated from it, like metal twisting. A portion of the cracked chest fell away. Yaya could hardly make sense of what she saw.
Inside Digan, surrounded by silver fibre and greasy gears, was half an Ember Core. It was shaped like a bowl, beating with a purple light instead of the customary green. Perched in the middle of it was an uncanny little bird, black as the darkest of nights.
Yaya blinked, hardly able to utter her next words. “What are you?”
“I'm like you,” Digan replied, no pain colouring his voice. “I'm a Metalmade.”