A voice came up to his desk. “I am sorry, but they would not be dissuaded –”
He did not look up. “It doesn’t matter who comes, Isagani,” he answered.
Shadows darkened the paper, figures of men. He sighed. He was getting used to such assemblages.
“Dr. Basilio delos Santos.”
He raised his head, took his eyes away from his drawings, and stared at the assembled white men. Americans, from their accent. He knew their aim, the aim of the English, the French, the Tsino of the mainland, and the Nihon as well. Now that Spain had lost control, others sought to claim his country and his people. It was not as if Spain had given up trying to reclaim it.
His heart ached, as the clockwork starter pulsed, slower than it should.
One of the pale-skinned men spoke in Spanish. “We hear that you are the best engineer in this country –”
He shook his head. “I am not an engineer.”
“But you made the automata, is this correct?”
He cleared his throat. He hated the term, foreign and strange. Like the people before him. “They are mandirigma. They are not for sale.”
EK Gonzales, in a strange life, has written one-act plays, articles, fan website content, fan fiction, reviews, and short stories. She was the first copy editor for a popular anime magazine. She independently releases the web/ebook series Tales of the Activated. Her previous publications have been in Philippine Speculative Fiction volume 4, Philippine Genre Stories, Ruin and Resolve, and Horror: Filipino Fiction for Young Adults. She was a fellow of the inaugural (2015) Ateneo AILAP Writing Lab for the young adult novel. She is currently an online advocate for local komiks.
Kenneth Yu
For Sale: Big-Ass Sword
Talipapa, at Iba Pa!
THE ONLINE MARKETPLACE – and More – of the Philippines
talipapaatbp.com.ph
ITEM: Big-Ass Sword
price: P2,000,000.00 (minimum bid)
contact number: 0988-724-27XX
private message: Click here to send seller a message.
date posted: 1 day ago (February 27, 2016)
condition: Used
location: Pampanga, Philippines
ad ID: 45678254
category: Antiques
seller: WhiteStar55
member location: Pampanga
registered: February 27, 2016
last login: 1 day ago
description:
PLEASE READ BEFORE asking questions!!! Don’t waste your time, and more importantly, don’t waste mine. Texts or emails with questions that can be answered by this admittedly long but very detailed description will be ignored, because this would mean that you were too lazy to read, and I won’t ever deal with you because I don’t like people who are too lazy to read.
Item for sale is a large, vintage, antique Filipino sword. As is, where is. One-of-a-kind. Guaranteed authentic, real, tunay-na-tunay. I was told by my lolo that this weapon is at least 600 years old (but no papers, haha, sorry. Kayo na ang magpacarbon-date kung gusto niyo).
In very, very, very, very good condition. Not very shiny, and lots of scratches from heavy use (Some of the scratches are actually writing of some kind), but not a bit of rust. Matalas pa! Blade stays sharp, no matter what. My lolo said he thought of sharpening it before, but the blade cut through the whetstone on the first pass. Grabe, nahiwa pa yung bato.
Second-hand. Maybe third-hand, or even fourth. Possibly even more. 600-plus-years-old, remember?
Fixed price, no haggling, open to swapping (more on that later), low-ballers will not be entertained. Direct buyers, no agents.
Meet-ups only, as in if you want to buy it, you agree to my price, and I’ll tell you where and how to come and meet me here in my house in Pampanga, because I’m not carrying this heavy, four-and-a-half-foot long hunk of steel farther than I have to from where it is now.
Yes, I have a car, but I’m not going to drive the sword to you, and I’m not hiring a vehicle either, because I might get arrested for transporting a deadly weapon. (Still sharp, remember? And Crame doesn't give out licenses to carry for stuff like this.) And delivery by courier or mail is out of the question. Did I say it was heavy? I think it weighs about 8 to 10 lbs. Can you imagine how much they would charge for freight?
You want it? You meet me, you pay for it. I give it to you, you own it. Then you transport it. The risk is yours.
important background on the item:
I WAS TEN years old when, during one of our many talks, my lolo first told me about this sword. He said it was called a kampilan, one of so many that were used for so many years, by so many warriors, in so many battles and wars all over the land.
But he also told me that this was the biggest, baddest kampilan ever made. You can view the attached pictures to see what it looks like, but bear with me, ’cause I want to describe this sword. It really looks badder in real life than in pictures. That’s my fault, ’cause I only have a cheap cell phone with a lousy camera, so I hope my words do the sword justice.
Its hilt is made of the purest, darkest, and hardest narra. Carved into the hilt’s pommel is the face of a mean-looking reptile, with sharp teeth and a long tongue. I’m not sure, but it could be real dried blood on the teeth and tongue. Two milky pearls inlaid into the wood actually glow in the dark, and represent the reptile’s eyes. The handle is rough and jagged, like real reptile scales, and it’s neatly wrapped in rattan, to give the wielder a solid grip. The cross guard ends in elaborately carved, upturned claws.
As I’ve mentioned, the blade is four-and-a-half-feet long, and ends in a jagged, serrated spikelet that looks like it was part of the inside of a crocodile’s mouth. It’s colored a dull gray, with dark splotches that are either natural imperfections in the steel’s texture, or watermarks from when it was forged, that stayed permanently on the metal’s surface. Or again, maybe they’re just marks of dried blood.
Scratched lightly onto both sides of the body of the blade are distinct lines, patterns, and curls that look very much like writing, but from the varying differences in the styles of the characters, there’s got to be more than one language written on the kampilan. Some of it is in recognizable baybayin, the ancient language of the country, but there’s not enough of it to make out enough of a coherent message, at least not to me, my lolo, or my father. It’s going to take a scholar to sort this out, and he’s going to need many hours, and none of us in the family are true scholars (We’re all pretty much self-taught).
The scabbard is made of the same wood as the hilt, and is itself also elaborately carved and designed, and reinforced for strength with bands of bronze.
This kampilan would be right at home in a museum. I can imagine it on display behind glass for all to see, with printed notes on the side describing what it is. But I’m not looking to sell this to a museum, and even if I did, I’m sure the sword wouldn’t stay put for long. No, I’m looking to sell this to someone who will use it. Yes, that’s right: use it. To understand why, you’ll have to exert some more effort and continue reading. You’ll have to know why it was made.
This kampilan has many origin stories, Lolo told me. He knows many of them, but not all.
“The complete tales are written down in a set of books that tell all about the kampilan. Those books are somewhere in the house.” He laughed when he said that, because Lolo, my father, me, and most likely all my ancestors are not the best at keeping things organized in the house, where generations of the family have been living for many years. So when he said that they're ‘somewhere in the house’, they could be anywhere. It’s a pretty big house. Lolo said he ‘chanced’ upon a book or three, and ‘scanned’ through them briefly, which was why he knew some of the origin stories.
Lolo said those books contain everything about the sword, from all its origin stories, to all the battles, wars, conflicts, and all the other tales and what-have-you that it has ever been involved in. Every owner the sword has ever had is listed in those books, and all
their stories, as well as every name those owners gave it, at least for those who bothered naming it.
Lolo doesn't know who wrote those books, or who is still writing them, but he assures me there is – that there will always be – a complete set, under our roof. “They’re probably not all kept together, either,” he cackled.
Plus, we’ve got thousands more books about other stuff stacked all over the place, so frankly, I wouldn’t even know where to start, if I wanted to find even just one of the books that tell about this kampilan.
Anyway, Lolo narrated some of these origin stories to me. Here are a few that I remember:
the gift from the sky gods
ONE STORY GOES that this blade was forged from a falling star that crashed one night, centuries ago, on what today is Mount Banahaw, at a time when the men of this land struggled mightily for survival, against evil elementals and powerful spirits.
Many of the men, animals, enchanted creatures, and other beings that saw the crash were scared at what they witnessed, and thought that a major disaster was upon them. Only a noble warrior, the tallest, biggest, and strongest from the nearby community, was fearless enough to scale the mountain to investigate the crash.
The warrior arrived when the moon was at its apex, climbing all the way to the crash site, a clearing just a few hundred feet below the peak, where he found a smoking, sizzling crater.
He carefully clambered down the side, slipping and sliding on loose soil and scree. As he made his way, he could see a white glow, as he approached the crater’s base, but just before he reached it, the earth rumbled, and a swirling wind blew, and the shadowy form of an evil earth elemental formed in front of him, clearly blocking his path and preventing him from going farther.
The elemental told the warrior that the glowing object was a gift from the sky gods, to help men protect the land for themselves. The gift would also defend men against evil, and inspire and unite them to be good and selfless, and make a bad-ass leader out of whoever was wielding it, who would then get things done right for everyone.
The elemental, of course, wanted himself and his own kind to have control of the land and the men who lived in it, so he could not let the warrior have the object, and would kill him before letting him take another step.
Needless to say, the noble warrior realized that he was now fighting for the hope of the land, so he didn’t back down, but drew his own kampilan, and took on the elemental with everything he had. They fought for many hours, each inflicting deep wounds on each other, until, at last, at the crack of dawn, the warrior slashed down on the elemental’s shoulder with his sword, slicing his enemy’s arm off but snapping the blade of his kampilan also, in the process. He grappled his enemy, wrapping his arms around his enemy's neck and breaking it, winning the battle as well as the prize.
The tired and wounded warrior took the still-glowing hunk of metal, and found himself immediately healed. He carried it down the mountain and back to his home, where he requested a friendly duwende to forge it into a new kampilan, which he then used to defend his people, unite them with other communities, and become the bad-ass leader who got things done right for everyone. When he finally died, the warrior’s spirit became fused with the sword, making it even badder than it already was, and so the sword entered the annals of legend.
a piece of divinity
THE SECOND STORY I remember from Lolo is that, during a particularly bad time for this land, when there were a lot of small skirmishes between different groups, when the men of this land were not yet united and did not yet consider the possible truth that we were all brothers, a massive drought struck. It dried up all the crops, all the streams, lakes, and rivers. The earth cracked in many places, and many men, enchanted beings, and animals died. Hope dwindled, and many believed that the end of everything was near.
The reason for the drought was that an evil fire-creature living underground had grown into massive size and power, and was radiating too much heat, causing the drought. The smoke from his heat burst forth from the mountaintops for days and weeks and months, and the intense heat dried up all the lakes and rivers. Many brave men went beneath the earth to fight and try to subdue the evil fire-creature, but none of them returned, and the mountaintops continued to spew their smoke without ceasing.
A goddess of the seas around the islands took pity on the people of the land. With her voice like the wind, she called to a brave young man, who heard her and listened.
He set out to sea in a small boat, and once he was out in the deepest of waters, the goddess rose up out of the depths, sliced off a piece of her smallest fingernail, and gave it to him, saying, “Use this to save your land and set it back on the right path.”
The young man took the piece of her fingernail, which was, of course, the kampilan. He returned to the shore and, with the kampilan, went underground and slew the fire-creature. The drought ended, the mountaintops spewed no more smoke, the rains returned, and the land was saved and the people brought together by their shared troubles and redemption.
forged by the giants
THE THIRD STORY I know is that, during the last days of the giants, who were bigger, stronger, and larger than any kapre, a great friendship was born between one of the gentle higantes and a young boy.
Unfortunately, the higante knew that the time for him and his brethren in the world was coming to an end, and they were going to temporarily leave it, because men had turned away from all that was good and had chosen instead to do evil to each other and to the land. They had decided to lie down in what today are now the Visayan seas, to take the long sleep, and to wake up only when men would turn away from evil.
But this higante, before joining his brethren, saw hope in his friend, in whom he believed the spark of man’s goodness still lived. He thought that if even just one person in the world still carried a pure heart and spirit, then he deserved their help to set things right.
So this higante went deep into the earth, and forged from true-steel in the earth’s bowels, and in the earth’s natural fires, this kampilan. He then gave the sword to the boy as a gift, to help him and anyone else who was worthy to wield it, until such time that all people of these lands are good once again.
Then the higantes would awake and rejoin them in life.
ARE YOU STILL reading? Good, good. If you’ve made it this far, especially through all that folklorish origin story stuff, then that’s a good sign.
Look, I never said that these origin stories were the best. They’re not the only ones. There’s more where they came from. And if you think about it, they aren’t that bad, but they’re classic tropes straight out of local mythology. In fact, if you’re well-read, you can find bits and pieces of these stories in other cultures’ mythologies as well.
And I must admit, my lolo and I, we drank a lot when we talked. We also laughed a bit at and made fun of some of the more outlandish tales (but that wasn’t very often, ahem). We could finish off liters and liters of liquor between us (It’s a family gift), so I can’t be sure that he got all his details right, and I can't be sure I paid complete attention myself, and there were lots of trips to the bathroom, so all these stories and the stuff in them, this could just be me and him making things up and changing the original tales, with a lot of help from alcohol. What this has taught me is that some of the best, most inventive, and most entertaining stories can be, ahem, assisted by alcohol.
If you notice, all the origin stories – and that includes the ones I haven’t written down that I still remember – say that this kampilan shows up as a last, desperate measure whenever things aren’t going right with the land, and that in the hands of the right person, or people, it will bring enough folk together, to turn things back in the right direction for everyone again. But you have to remember that this is a sword. It’s a weapon. It’s meant for violence, and that means it shows up only when the use of force ultimately becomes necessary to turn things around.
What’s more: the sword will always find a way.
>
What do I mean by that? Well, my lolo and my father woke up one morning, and boom, the sword was in the sala, on the table, as if it was waiting to be served breakfast. They knew what it was right away (It's our family's job to know), and why it showed up, and so they debated with each other as to who would be the one to get the sword going on its way. Of course, I chose that moment to trundle down the stairs, yawning and wiping the sleep from my eyes. My lolo and my father gave each other a look, and the task was mine.
I grumbled about this extra work for a bit, thought about it for a week, and then thought, “Hey! What better way for my generation to get this sword where it should be than through the internet? I know what I’ll do! I'll sell it online!”
And that’s why it’s here for sale on talipapaatbp.
Have you started wondering why I can keep on writing about the sword on the site? You know that there are word limits for item descriptions, right?
Like I said, the sword will find a way. In fact, not only am I able to keep on writing about the sword, but the picture and description won’t show up for everyone surfing the site. Only a selection of people will be able to see it, ‘randomly chosen’, haha. And only a selection of that selection will click on it, and only a selection of that selection of that selection will read through to the very end.
I’d like to think of that last one as my own personal filter; as I said, I don’t like those who are too lazy to read. It’s only those who make it to the very end who will have a chance to get the sword. Of those who leave the page or click on another tab, thinking they’ll finish reading later, they’ll find this link missing afterward, gone, no way to get it back, 404’d for good. ‘Once it’s on the internet, it’s forever’ doesn’t apply here.
Philippine Speculative Fiction, Volume 10 Page 16
