Chapter 2: Isla del Fuego
I was in my early twenties, in the crossroads of my life; silently sobbing, flipping and clicking the top lid of my vintage Zippo lighter, muttering like a fool in the moonlight when a cold hand tapped on my head, and I looked up. He was back! He's huge: almost ten feet, I think. He's more or less translucent: I could see the avocado tree behind him, dimmed but still visible. His shoulder length hair is unkempt and had bits of bark and small leaves in it; his eyes bulged; his carnivorous teeth white and massive, made for foraging. He's the stuff of all my nightmares given flesh. His hairy arms and legs had intricate armored plates-- reminiscent of medieval armor, of woven titanium alloy peppered with rubies, agate, diamonds and black opals set in a complex amalgam that mirrors and reflect images from behind him which made him almost invisible at certain angles, an ingeniously designed camouflage. He is naked from the waist up. On his right hand he held a huge bejeweled itak. He took a step closer, and as he did he tucked his itak behind a leg as if he was embarrassed by it. He opened his mouth to speak, but decided not to; his breath smelled of leaf mold and the underneath of a rotting log. As he came closer, he became more and more solid; more and more real, and the world around us became a flat two-dimensional painting and began to fade into gray.
“Paano ka nakarating dito?”
He pointed to the vacant lot beside our house. I didn’t see anything that could pass for a ride, and so I asked:
“Ano ba dapat ang tinitignan ko?”
He motioned to me to take a closer look. He then led me over the fence. He was agile and fast for his size; he practically skimmed and floated over the fence and I had to double time to keep up. He pointed to a spot where I could discern a shape but it too was translucent.
He said it was an airship; and, like the bands on his arms and legs, a woven mesh of titanium encrusted with black opals, rubies and diamonds; it works the same way, he said, it reflects and bounces off the images behind it to make it practically invisible. It’s similar to a hot air balloon, he said, but the bag-- made of some kind of transparent organic membrane to contain the hot air, could be tucked and folded to serve as a canopy to a cocoon of titanium, gold and jewels when not in use. He said it was quite safe and comfortable and he and those before him had used such a contraption for centuries to move around the archipelago.
He said he used to have a house but times had changed and it had been difficult; humans have built houses everywhere and there are now fewer places to go where there are no humans. He said the airship is now his home, too. He camps out on roofs of churches and on treetops where he is relatively safe from human intrusion.
"... pero paano mo natuntun kung nasaan ako?"
He pointed at a hair on his upper arm, it was longer than the other hairs on his body. He told me to move around him; I saw that the singular hair pointed to me wherever I go. It was getting weirder by the minute.
"..pero bakit ka naman napadpad dito?"
Again he started to open his mouth, but hesitated to speak, he seemed to be forming words in his mind and somehow was not able to. He came across as diffident; almost like an awkward socially inept child. But, from folklore I've heard when I was a boy his ilk are notorious pranksters who would play tricks on unwary or disrespectful humans; leading humans astray and make them take the long route to where they want to go. If the human is wearing jewelries, they take some of it too. They were originally craftsmen of note; goldsmiths, and were likewise known for their fascination with jewels. But, they were never known for violence; and indeed I've never heard of an anecdote that they've harmed any human. I have asked him before about the pranks they play on humans and I remember he told me that they were not only for fun but for protection, too; humans have long hunted them for their mane of sharp spines. Humans believed that it brought them luck; a gambling amulet.
He told me that they used to congregate on the night of the March Equinox on Mount Bandilaan on an island in the Visayas which Captain Esteban Rodriguez of the Miguel "El Adelantado" Lopez Legaspi expedition called Isla del Fuego when his party first sighted it in 1565 because the island gave off an eerie glow. He told me that the Spaniards later attributed the glow to the great swarms of kulisap that harbored in the numerous Molave trees on the island, little did the Spaniards know that it was one of their gatherings that they stumbled on. The island, he added, is now known as Siquijor. He said: Siquijor island is a special place for them and they have gathered there for eons. The island actually lies at the center of the Philippines and is a portal of some kind to other worlds. It was through this portal that they have come to our world. Their race is of another dimension from where they have fled and escaped from persecution. But the portal had since closed and they couldn’t go back. They’ve been trapped in our world for centuries.
In their world they live fiercely independent and solitary lives totally dedicated to metallurgy and the craft of devising intricate mechanical contraptions and the study of the lost science of alchemy. They are also the keepers of arcane texts. Through the centuries they have learned to adapt in our world and have even forged an alliance with some of the early human settlers on the island with whom they have shared some of their ancient technology and wisdom.
In those gatherings, he said, they would summon all the kulisap on the island to the mountaintop where they would build a huge campfire, there they would gather to tell stories and dance in the moonlight. He told me that they held a contest as to who among them could first balance a chicken egg on its point; the only day in the year, he claimed, that such a feat could be achieved. It was also the night they synchronize their clocks and navigational instruments for they dabble in astronomy, too.
But humans soon found out. One day, while they lay exhausted after a night of dancing near their camp fire, a human crept up and pulled out one of three sharp spines from the mane of one of them. This man soon won the sweepstakes twice in a row. The man became a well known high stakes gambler and the newspapers heralded his exploits. The spine became worn down after years of handling, but it still brought luck. Then one night the man lost it all, including the talisman, in a single hand of cards. There were several versions of the story: some say the man was beaten in his own game by a creature who sought him out to get back what was rightfully theirs; while some say the man's luck simply ran out, that the talisman had lost its power. Whatever really happened, the man never recovered from his loss. Not long after, the man died without a centavo to his name.
Through the decades that followed, he said that their numbers dwindled; especially after that well publicized incident since the humans who hunted them exponentially multiplied. It seems that their kind would soon die after even a single spine was pulled out from their mane. But, even then while they live long lives they eventually become way worn after two centuries or so and they too die as humans do. He was the last, he said.
... itutuloy
