[Sir Gaviel]
I spent the afternoon telling Lila what happened in the months she was not with me. In return she told me how she persuaded the Anagolay to help us help his tribe. I cannot imagine how it must feel like for him, considering his superstitions suddenly threatening him to take action.
"Is Denai and Tato still alive?"
"Maybe."
Lila nibbles on the rice cake she is holding, eyes far out the window. I take one of Anagolay's wine jars, pouring myself a cup.
"You are quieter than usual." I observe.
"I skipped the time."
Thinking I misheard, I clarify, "What?"
"The three months, I skipped it."
She looks at me wild. "For me, I was escaping Sebelicia the other night and yesterday I was in Gakaloai with Tato and Denai. I just met a tribal Chief Gaviel, I – I did. But it's been three months? Months! What! Haha. It's happened before too."
Her barrage of words stun me. And she is not finish.
"It's probably why I fainted and had a fever… because I am still grounded on this world, time can't be transgressed – No, wait. Time. Time! Yes! The first time I saw Anagolay and when I saw you at the tunnels, that was almost at the same moment at the same day, which means…"
Lila chews her lower lip. "Which means I can't predict where in the timeline I would show up. Or in whose point of view."
She burrows her face at her hands with a groan, leaving me feeling like wood. More questions than my life could sum up run amok inside my head.
The Anagolay enters then. He sees Lila and comments, "Of course, you made her cry."
Seeing my expression, he halts.
"What?"
"She said…" I swallow. "She said she skipped the three months."
"What?" He snorts. "You are both mad. She, oh–" his jaw drops open when he realized we are not pulling his leg.
"Well, you are a Mystic," Anagolay reasons out after a while. Lila flinches out of her hands to gawk at him.
"I do not know what you are upset about. You are supposed to have that… that THING. You can do whatever you want to do."
Lila abruptly stands but does not say a word. Her shoulders tight, hands coiled. Lila's lips are pursed and her eyes are cast down. She is clearly upset.
The Anagolay crosses his arms and lean on the door saying, "Anyway, we need to go. This place is hot with people trying to find you – us."
"First, I need to tell you something about the prophecy." She breathed. At her words, my insides roil.
/You were horrified the last time I told you./
Lila faces me showing reluctance. And the same fear.
"What prophecy?" he inquires. "The one about Cirrhinus?"
She nods at him.
"Everybody thinks it is coming true. What, with your taunting and showing up all over the place? No one can refute that. Rumors spread like wildfire, kid."
"That's not what I mean," she says. Lila paces back and forth, waving her hands as she explains.
"I thought about it over and over in my head. Maybe some of its meaning is metaphorical. Maybe we are thinking about it the wrong way… The thing about prophecies… People always end up fulfilling the destiny they are trying to get away from. When Cirrhinus committed a genocide he sealed his defeat, his reign and serve it in a silver platter."
"Are you saying it is predestined?"
"Not exactly. But I think the three of us do not believe in coincidences."
"That depends…"
We glare at him making him shrug, nonchalant. Lila bites the fingernail of her thumb before staring at the Anagolay then to me.
"Okay, here's the crazy part. I told Royu that we or the Eng't Urh are also called as travelers. There's a line in the prophecy that speaks of a certain traveler. Unknown and who sought akin he had lost."
"You know, we are speaking the same language but I do not understand a word you are saying."
"So, the prophecy foretold an Eng't Urh," I surmise.
"Not just an Eng't Urh." She slows her pacing. "An Eng't Urh who lost someone, a relative…"
"That is oddly specific," Anagolay points out.
Something of her past that she said to me before resurfaces at the front of my thoughts. I hold my breath bracing to hear her next words.
"I think it means me."
A choking sound comes out from the Anagolay's throat as I exhale. My body is swept cold then hot and cold again.
"What herbs have you been smoking out lately?" Anagolay tries to jest. "I mean that is just… that is mad… impossible… hmm."
Lila said her father left, she never said he died. "Your father?" I manage to say. She smothers a frown, nodding.
"I was trying to find him before..." she falters, not meeting my gaze.
Anagolay sits on the bed, hands covering his mouth as if withholding his sanity. No one dares to speak for a moment. I am once again struck by how our own lives are not in our control. Lila might be an Eng't Urh. She can read minds and have abilities beyond ordinary man but she is just as confused as we are.
"I think he's here. In your world."
"You think a lot of things." The Anagolay says, earning him another glare. "You have a father?"
"Yes, Royu I have a father and a family."
"That is one ugly picture in my head."
I send him a warning look. He pleads, "Think about it, does an aswang* have a tiyanak* for a child?"
Lila smashes her fists down the table. "No! What is wrong with you?"
I need the patience not to choke him to death. Right about now.
She sighs. "I'm not sure, okay? I might be overthinking this. It might not even mean me or an Eng't Urh."
"Really? You know somebody else who is called traveler and looking for a missing relative?"
"Enough," I order. They shut their jaws hard. I take a breath. "Thank you for informing us Lai. Is there any more you wish to tell us?"
She shakes her head.
"Now, what?" Anagolay asks.
"The more pressing question is, what does that make us?"
Anagolay and I lock eyes. Both of us are connected to an Eng't Urh, the same one that might just be implied in a prophecy.
"Why me?" He throws his hands in the air.
My gaze snaps at the door. My body moves before my mind could think. The door slams hard and a man enters with a sword. Not two steps in, I bury a machete in his torso. There are two others on his rear. Their blink tells me they are not expecting someone of my skin, height and built.
The Anagolay stabs one easily as I sidestep and finish the last. Shutting the door, I face him kneeling on a local.
"Bounty hunters," he says. "More are coming."
"Were you followed?"
"I did not even leave the tavern," Anagolay says. After that we are scampering for our things. He belts his arsenal. Lila fastens her cloak and I grab my own satchel, put on a kerchief and cloak.
"How did they know to find you here?" she asks.
The Anagolay smirks at me. "Erasmus fitted both our profiles, eh?"
"Height, the age. Close enough to your physicality." I say, wiping my sword on the dead man's clothing.
We egress on a window in the hallway, finding ourselves in a back alley and another bounty hunter standing guard. Anagolay snaps his neck as swiftly as if he is nothing but a branch of wood.
"We cannot be seen together."
"I know. You will ruin my reputation," he smirks.
"Take this." I hand him a leather pouch containing gold minted coins. The Anagolay nods once.
"Let us not disappoint Cirrhinus," he jeers. "I will see you in four days."
With that he strides to the road, cavalier like a common folk who is just heading for market. We head on the opposite street. Turning the corner, we are accosted by a thin crowd of merchants, buyers, all sorts of class and ilk. The way slopes down in stairs and Lila and I trudge up to the main road.
"Sir, silk, very fine…"
"Bags, leather sandals!"
"Bulad! Bulad mo dira!"
I slip away from the dried fish vendor just as Lila escapes a candle seller. I veer right to a narrow alley, take two lefts and finally a right again shaking whoever is on our tail.
As we take a curve, a man following us turns up on the opposite end. I push Lila back, stepping for another path when she grabs my hand and remains still.
"Lai, what–"
Her eyes focus on the bounty hunter. "Trust me on this."
/I – Alright./
We watch the man as he comes near us. I did not move from where I stand, clogging the small alley. He strides quickly at our direction. When he steps to me, he went through me.
"What the he–"
Instead of barreling on my body, he passed through me. Literally. Like I was nothing. I felt nothing.
I stare at our hands interlocked. At Lila's unreadable face. A woman walks by with a child. Neither of them regarded us as they pass through us.
My jaw drops.
A frisson of disquiet moves me to press a hand on my head, on my face, on my chest, feeling solid as I look and yet. I reach for her face, knowing I could touch her and I can.
"This is what it means to be indiscernible."
I blink. She leads me through a wall, entering a home. A woman is on a rocking chair, sewing a man's shoe as two children run around a table. We pass straight through another dwelling then another, seeing the carefree lives of families and individuals not knowing we are right there, hearing conversations that is supposed to be private.
This is what it means to be indiscernible?
No.
This is what an Eng't Urh is.
I fear for a lot of reasons. I fear for the consequences of my actions, I get frightened every time I am at war, at my sword on a victim – none of it could have been compared to the gooseflesh horror, making my bones tremble from head to foot.
"You're afraid of me," Lila whispers.
Looking sideways, I see the burden she carries accompanied by a scare as great as my own. She is afraid of herself. Of what she can do. Only now do I notice her hand shaking.
"Yes, I am terrified of you."
She jolts. I continue, "This must be hard."
I glance about. We ended up on a tavern. On a bar, an unguarded face of a man is in front of us while he eats, believing he is alone. The man beside him trying to steal his purse. A barkeep keeps passing us by, taking orders.
"Suddenly knowing what you can do and the responsibility of it, unbidden."
Lila lowers her head, shifting her weight. I stoop to look her in the eyes but she refuses to meet my gaze.
"When you first met me, I was certain you were afraid of me." Her eyes finally turn to mine.
"I tried to kill you. Then you chatted and chatted. I did not know how to stop you. You said you trust me. You helped me, and you must be out of your mind for befriending someone like me…
"I was so alone. Just as suddenly I was not. You are on my side."
I smile at her. "I am afraid. Lai, I am merely human. I am at a loss. You are-"
"Terrifying?"
"Incredible." I say. "Also, yes. Terrifying." Her lips twitch in the corner.
"I may not be able to comprehend any of this nor take away the burden you carry but it would be my pleasure to share even a tiny bit of the load with you. Like you said, that is what friends do, right?"
She bursts with melodious chuckle filling my chest with warmth. It did not go past my notice the tear she rubs away with the back of her hand.
"Hey, don't go sentimental on me now Captain." As she is about to say more, blood trickles from her nose.
"Are you alright?"
Wiping her nose and steering me towards the door, Lila says, "Oh yeah. I can't keep us invisible for more than a few minutes. Huh. It actually worked."
I stumble for a second. "You mean you did not know if it was ACTUALLY going to work?"
Lila brushes me off. "Where do you plan to escape?"
I lead her to an alley grate before she lets go of my hand. And that I believe means we are again visible.
With a groan, the grate gives way to the sewers and she enter first. I drop next.
The sewers are up my height, I have to crouch a little to walk. Oily black water with the most pungent odor of decay like garlic with horse dung reaches my ankles. There was not much light but we manage.
"Are we going to the tunnels?"
"Yes."
We stayed under for a quarter of an hour. I navigate our way, pulling the maps from my memory. I brought us in the exact position we need.
"Wait, wait, wait…" she says. "You're saying that you know all of the paths, all of the openings on the tunnels, from memory?"
As an answer to her question, I step towards the wall. Without light, I feel for the individual stones, finding the ninth from the top. Another nine towards the left. After a grueling push of stone against stone, a slit expose just enough for a person to slither sideways. Inside, smelling damp and sedentary, darkness surrounds us that I cannot see my own hand.
"No way…"
Entering, I grope on the wall displacing dust and spiderwebs until I found the torch on a metal clamp. I light it up.
"You are not the only one with surprises." I wink at her.
"No way," she insists but feeble.
In this part of the tunnel, over our head the top narrows in a sharp angle and the width is only a man's shoulder. I lead her on the path right away.
"This is unbelievable. And, what, these tunnels run underneath…?"
"Everywhere in Freobel. Extensive. Like a root system branching from the main ones under Kuraka Leonne."
"What?" She yells, her voice bouncing back, she seems to have asked many times. "And - and you know it from memory? Not a map?"
"It is a most valuable information. Too dangerous to be written." I reason. "Therefore, there is no existing map."
"Fair enough," she says. "So, if there is no map... you were taught. How did you learn it? Whom did you learn it from?"
She is prying. I give no response.
"It's your source, right? Who's the source you were talking about?"
We weave to a bend. "Those questions have different answers and I cannot answer them all. Watch your step." The ground abruptly goes two flights down, getting deeper.
Lila quieted.
After several turns, the tunnel had widened and we are walking side by side. I decided to speak.
"There is a way we can know more about the prophecy."
She snaps, alert. "What? How?"
"Well, Bessilus city has the largest library and it holds a vast array of knowledge including the royal family's collection of books and scrolls. We could read up about your kind."
"Yeah, that's great."
"We need to read the belated king Ecshumelius's books of Gjid," I tell myself but Lila hears me.
"King who?"
"Ecshumelius. He is Cirrhinus' great, great, granduncle," I explain. "As a young man he was fascinated by the seven tribes and their ways. He decided to send his best scholars and scribes to survey and record about their lifestyle, language, beliefs.
"After years of tireless efforts, he still cannot get his hands on three tribes. The tribes residing on the other side of Kuraka Leonne. No matter how many scholars he sends, none came back. Nary hair nor bones were ever seen."
"What happened?"
"Nobody knows."
"Is that why Aeonnites are afraid to cross the mountain?"
"Part of it."
Lila tilts her head in question. I stop her, holding the torch over the path. It drops into a chasm but our way is a ledge on our right.
"Careful," I warn.
As we reach the other end, we have to jump to another ledge four feet across us. I give the torch to Lila and leap the distance. I land then she throws the torch, jumping after me.
"And then?" she asks as we start walking again.
"King Ecshumelius was murdered later in his bed. Nobody took him seriously because he would rather live with the locals than rule them. It was then discovered in his possession, parchments handsewn into a book that gives accounts of the three tribes. But only half was translated.
"One of which was about the tribe of Waon. Cannibals. Hunters of human flesh. Warriors so fearsome they could decapitate men with one strike."
Lila shivers. "But why do we have to read that book?"
"I am more interested in what their lore can tell us. Their myths of old. I heard there is a fool's guide to the Mystics' world written in there too."
We have come in a fork, three holes opening to different paths, one a dead end and the other a trap.
"We can rest here." Lila sits with me.
"I thought about it. Nobody knows Freobel better than the aborigines who were here long before others."
"So, the tribes' stories. You mentioned before in the tale they walked among Mystics."
"According to what I have read, yes," I tell her. "The myths are rooted deep to other tribes than most and the three tribes are believed to be the oldest. Their tales could be more than that…"
"It could be real accounts, witnesses accounts, is that what you're saying?"
I nod.
"And you think it is written in the book of King Ecshu….lius?"
"Yes."
"And knowing about my kind could tell us more about the prophecy?"
"Perhaps," I say. "Scholars have tried to interpret it for years. The only thing obvious about it is the fall of Cirrhinus. Now we have a lead."
She regards me in a certain manner of hers, thoughtful and solemn. "Interesting," she says.
"It is."
"I mean you."
I scowl a bit, wondering why she thinks that of me.
"You are far more educated than any soldier…" she answers. "You really are hiding a lot of things."
"Did Anagolay told you about nine years ago?"
"No. But at Sebelicia, he unknowingly spilled his memories when he realized it was you that helped him escape."
"I see." I say. "That night, one of the many nights, I was sneaking to the citadel's library."
"Oh."
"I have been sneaking there for years just to read something decent and study other than to fight." Lila twists in place, facing me fully. I add, "Soldiers are not afforded knowledge as the scholars or scribes. Our skills are far more valuable honed than our minds."
She snorts. "I'm glad you didn't agree."
I shrug.
"So, I have decided. The source, who is it?"
I find myself reluctant as I stare into her depthless orbs. I would have never admitted anything to any soul, much less think of my source yet every time I look at her, she makes me want to confide in her. To just drop my guard. To unburden. As easily as she would have to me. But I am not only keeping my own secrets tucked away. I am keeping hers.
Aware of my inner musings, Lila gives me a small smile. "It's okay. You don't have to tell me now–"
"My sister."
I said it. Out loud, I said it.
"What?"
"My informant," I pause. "Is my sister."
She gawps. "I thought she's dead."
"I never said she died."
I have never seen realization transformed a face as hers did. "She's in Bessilus. In the citadel."
"Her secret was never mine to tell."
She gasps. Speechless for a while.
"You have a sister. That's why you don't want to leave." Lila puts a hand on her forehead.
"I wanted to." I say, faintly as if it would break. "I could not leave her alone."
"Is she safe?"
"Safety is a myth. At the moment, nobody is trying to kill her." Lila inhales deep, gathering her calm.
Softly as a touch of a feather, she asks, "What's her name?"
"Kamya," I hazard to say. After years of keeping it buried, I hear a smile in my voice at the mention of her name.
"Like the flower?"
"Like the flower." She reflects my smile.
"You siblings must have a death wish."
That reaps a small laugh from me. "Come on, this way."