OUTPOURING: Typhoon Yolanda Relief Anthology

by Dean Francis Alfar

  Grief and rage churned inside her. Shai-Lysse pressed her hands to her temples, struggling to hold back the urgent need to scream and lash out. Kanono’s fingertips touched her chin, making her look up at him.

  “There are many ways to spoil the pirates’ hunting, lady.” Kakono grinned, showing teeth sharp and jagged like a shark’s. “Leave it to us.”

  Shai-Lysse smiled, but her heart wasn’t in it. Kakono and his fellows plunged back into the surf, leaving her alone with her storm of frustration. She harnessed the fury of her emotions and put it to use, making little figures from bits of driftwood, using shells for boat hulls and stretching seaweed canvas across miniature masts. Water could do so much damage aboard ship, even just a little water in the right places. A hole in the hull of the powder room, salt water corrosion in the workings of pistols and cannons, a leak in the barrels of fresh water... Shai-Lysse hummed little songs while she worked, matching her rhythm to the rhythm of the waves outside, sending the damage she did out to the real pirate ships.

  The pirates’ drunken revels grew quieter as liquor and fatigue took their toll. Soon only ragged snores disturbed the night. The first notes of a captivating song floated to Shai-Lysse on the night breeze. She crept out of the cave to see four women of the sea folk sitting on the larger rocks jutting up out of the water farther offshore. The women were beautiful as only the sea folk could be, their eyes like mother of pearl, their hair like rivers of pure silver, their skin soft and pearlescent and endlessly desirable. They sang, combing out their long silver hair with combs made from scallop shells.

  Gruff voices, cursing, and the sound of staggering footsteps told Shai-Lysse the pirates had awakened to the wonder before them. More and more pirates called out to the beauties on the rocks, laughing and shouting lewd invitations. A few of the pirates tried to swim out to the singers. Too drunk to realize a riptide had captured them, at least four pirates drowned before anyone took notice of their struggles. That grim satisfaction wasn’t enough to improve her mood. Mister Windbag himself had to answer for his own part in killing her kin. Shai-Lysse called the dolphins to take her back to her own cave.

  #

  The sun was a hand’s-width above the eastern horizon when the cannons started booming. Shai-Lysse sat beside a circle of dark water in the darkest corner of her cave. She cut her finger on the sharp edge of an oyster shell, then squeezed her finger to make the blood run. She dipped that finger in the dark water and swirled it round and round, singing under her breath. The darkness blazed gold. Shapes moved across the golden light, dimming as they came into focus.

  The three pirate ships fought two merchant tri-masters, the Stargazer and the Seahorse. The Stargazer’s mainsail was shot to tatters, but its masts stood tall and its crew raced up and down the rigging, doing their best with the sails still whole. The Seahorse blasted the pirates again and again with both cannon and deck guns. The faces of the sailors aboard the Seahorse showed terrible concentration mixed with wild delight. By now every sailor in the islands knew about the pirates and hoped to take part in slaughtering them.

  Too much drinking, not enough sleep, and a night spent enchanted by the sea folk had blunted the pirates’ keen edge. All of Mister Windbag’s power couldn’t make up for sloppy seamanship. The pirates moved too slowly. One ship got caught between the Seahorse and the Stargazer for a double broadside. From the merchant ships a great shout of triumph went up. Shai-Lysse smiled around the cut finger she nursed.

  To a man the pirates looked furious, confused, and fearful. Mister Windbag might be doing just what he’d done before, but that wasn’t nearly enough to move the pirate ships now. While the sea folk women had dazzled the drunken pirates with their songs and their beauty, Kakono and his friends had been hard at work bringing up all manner of heavy wreckage from the sea floor and shackling it to the hulls of the pirate ships. Only a good careening with blacksmith’s tools could strip the hulls and keels of all the dead weight that now dragged at the pirate ships.

  The pirates ran out their guns at the Seahorse. Three guns exploded, blasting holes in the hulls, killing pirates, flinging deadly splinters everywhere. Any sailor knew the trouble salt water corrosion could cause, but the pirates would never dream a month’s worth of damage could be done in a single night.

  There, in the stern of the largest pirate ship, stood Mister Windbag with pirates surrounding him. They had him backed up against the rail. Pistols, swords, and daggers poked and prodded Mister Windbag. Shai-Lysse smiled a thin, cold smile. It was plain to see the pirates blamed Mister Windbag for not giving them an easy victory. As they closed in, Mister Windbag wrapped one arm around the rail and thrust two fingers in his mouth to blow a piercing whistle.

  Chaotic winds struck the pirate ship’s sails. Booms swung back and forth, sweeping pirates overboard. Yards fell, crashing down on the pirates beneath them. The frenzy amid the upper portions of the masts flung the pirates there into the sea. The sails themselves billowed and twisted until the heavy canvas split, tearing itself to tatters. The pirate officers barked orders, trying to restore some kind of order as they sent the pirates running to save their rigging and their lives. Their distraction gave Mister Windbag a chance to fling himself over the side.

  Shai-Lysse sat back, watching the water darken again to its usual clouded murk. The nightmares she’d sent Mister Windbag had come true after all. He had fallen into the sea. With blood in the water already, the sharks would be circling. Big winds wouldn’t stop them. They’d tear him apart.

  #

  Tea sat brewing. Fish chowder made with herbs bubbled in the pot over the fire. Shai-Lysse busied herself weaving a broad, deep bag from the thin cord the island fisherman used to make their smaller nets. She’d send her sister everything needed for blessing the little boats that would have carried the bodies of her nephews out to sea. Now they would stand as shrines where the family could grieve and remember. Thinking of her sister’s grief, Shai-Lysse’s own tears fell.

  Too bad Mister Windbag had come to the islands as a pirate. Air and Water weren’t the best friends even in easy times, but Shai-Lysse might have offered Mister Windbag a cup of tea and a shady place to rest. Maybe he would have told her stories about where he came from, his city in the clouds. She shook her head against such silly daydreams. She’d done her duty. The man was dead.

  The bag’s carrying strap was halfway complete when several bodies splashed in the waters outside her cave. Kakono came first. He said nothing, just took her hand and bowed over it, pressing it to his forehead. Two more men followed him, bringing a body with them.

  “Pokku! Baby brother!” Shai-Lysse threw her weaving aside and scrambled over to him. His dark brown skin was cold. His broad chest didn’t rise and fall. Shai-Lysse threw her head back and wailed. “Why? Why?”

  “He is kin to you, lady,” Kakono said. “We found him when we found the wind-talker.”

  Before Shai-Lysse could speak, another pair of sea folk males arrived dragging Mister Windbag up the sandy slope. One eye was swollen shut, the skin darkening around it. His lower lip was split. Blood leaked from his mouth. When she saw the slight rise and fall of his chest, she let out a shriek of rage.

  “Get that bottom feeder out of my house!”

  Mister Windbag groaned, coughed up a few mouthfuls of sea water, then sat up and looked around him.

  “Wind-talker!” Kakono took him by the shoulder and shook him. “Help the Guardian. Make peace so that all may live.”

  Sudden mad hope flooded Shai-Lysse. “Can you do anything for my brother?”

  Mister Windbag sneered. “I hardly think—”

  Shai-Lysse lunged forward. She grabbed him by the soggy rags of his fancy shirt and slapped him across the face. “Do it! Or I swear by all the Powers I will rip out your heart and eat it!”

  “And we will devour the rest!” Kakono and the four other males bared their sharp teeth.

  Mister Windbag glanced from Shai-Lysse to the four sea folk and back again,
then crawled across the stony floor to where Pokku lay. He tilted Pokku’s head back, opened his mouth, and pinched his nose shut. Mister Windbag chanted a string of complicated sounds, sucked in a deep breath, then bent to blow that breath down Pokku’s throat. Pokku’s chest rose, then fell. Mister Windbag chanted again, blew again. With the third chant-and-blow, Pokku’s eyelids fluttered. He started hacking up sea water. Shai-Lysse turned Pokku on his side to let the water run out. Pokku’s color came back, the same rich brown as her skin, burnt by the sun, weathered by his life on the sea. He opened his eyes.

  “Heya, sistah. Been a long time I ain’t seen you.”

  Shai-Lysse bent to kiss his forehead. “You just come on over here and rest a while, baby brother. Damn near turned my hair white, scaring me like that.”

  “No fun for me neither, sistah.”

  Pokku stretched out on Shai-Lysse’s own bed made from fine-woven fishing nets laid over a deep bed of sea grass. She covered him with warm woolen blankets and poured him a cup of tea. Once he was settled comfortably, Shai-Lysse turned to Kakono.

  “I don’t know what to say. ‘Thank you’ isn’t nearly enough.”

  “We did nothing but bring his body to you, lady,” Kakono said. “The wind-talker brought back his life.”

  “Fair is fair. You did that, and I thank you.” Shaking with the effort, Shai-Lysse forced herself to look Mister Windbag in the eye. “You still owe me for the other life you took.”

  Mister Windbag scowled. His mouth opened. Before he could speak, Kakono moved between them.

  “Chance brought Air and Water together as enemies. It is within your power to take that chance and turn it into luck, not just for yourselves but for this part of the world.” He turned his black pearl eyes on Shai-Lysse. “You say the wind-talker owes you a life, lady. So be it. Hear now how the wind-talker shall fulfill his obligation to us, who spared his life when we could have easily destroyed him.”

  Shai-Lysse bowed her head.

  “A child,” Kakono said. “A child of Air and Water, an alliance of flesh and spirit and power, strong enough to hold off Fire should Fire ever attempt to take over these islands again.”

  Shai-Lysse gasped. “You mean...you want me and Mister Windbag to...” A hot blush stung her cheeks. She couldn’t even say it.

  Kakono smiled. “You suit each other well, in temper, in power, in spirit. Your children will be beautiful. You, lady, will be the one who added the Power of Air to the strength of your Guardian line.”

  Shai-Lysse had no idea what to say to that. “Well, May-ess-tro Guy-tan-o? How does this idea sit with you?”

  He looked like he couldn’t believe he’d heard right. “I’m afraid you have the advantage of me, madame. You know my name, but I have yet to learn yours.”

  “Shai-Lysse.”

  “Shai... Lysse...” Mister Windbag lingered over each part. “How lovely.” He looked at her, really looked at her this time, not like a master talking down to a servant but like a man looking at a woman. “You are a formidable opponent, lady. Do you think we might ever be friends?”

  Could she really be happy with this man, this wind-talker, when just yesterday she was dead set on killing him? He’d brought Pokku back, and he could be friendly enough when he felt like it....

  Kakono laid his hand on Shai-Lysse’s shoulder. “Lady, think of this not as a price we demand, but a gift we offer to you.”

  Shai-Lysse covered Kakono’s hand with her own. “You’re a good friend, Kakono. I couldn’t ask for better.”

  “We could say the same of you, lady.” He turned a stern look on Mister Windbag, but his smile still danced in his eyes. “Treat her well, wind-talker. We will be watching.”

  The Nameless Ones

  By Gabriela Lee

  Troy leans against a makeshift shelter, cobbled together from pieces of damp plywood and sheets of corrugated metal. He wraps a thin jacket around his thin shoulders, shivering at the inadequate heat it provides. The shelter faces one side, against the stronger winds, and the slanted roof is supported by twin beams of wood. Another flash of lightning illuminates the face of his partner, Aubrey. She is curled up on the ground, her dark hair twisted in an untidy bun at the nape of her neck, her grimy cheek pillowed on her equally grimy hands. She is also bundled up in a flak jacket and a bulletproof vest, hanging over her thin frame like a turtle shell, and wrapped altogether in a silver blanket that makes her resemble a giant burrito. They’ve both been awake for sixteen hours, and this is the first time they’re getting a reprieve. He’s volunteered to take first watch.

  He is almost tempted to call HQ, to abort the mission. He thinks about other rainy nights, about other places where he thinks could double for this godforsaken hole. He flexes his fingers, curses the ache in his wrists. Carpal tunnel. He attempts to catalogue his emotions in an effort to stave off sleep. He’s tired, that’s for sure—he’d barely recovered from the last mission before he was asked to take this one as well. An easy one, said Agent Jimenez. Just a routine pick-up.

  He’s also hungry. Their last meal before heading out was lukewarm lugaw and something that resembled fried tokwa but he was quite sure was just another science experiment from R&D. That was yesterday. Sure, they were able to get a plastic cup of taho sometime in the morning, but that was it. His stomach rumbled desperately. What he wouldn’t give for a styrofoam cup of instant noodles and the strongest black coffee on the planet.

  He’s also cold. Water is trickling down the back of his neck, soaking his shirt and dripping down his shoulders and back. The jacket isn’t helping, and their umbrella had been discarded long ago, a victim of a particularly strong gust of wind. It wasn’t raining when they left yesterday, and he thought the wind-resistant outfit that Support had provided them was just an affectation, and decided to head out in his usual jeans-shirt-jacket outfit. Now he wished he’d listened to them. (He keeps on forgetting that there are weather-watchers in Support, and that they were probably sniggering at him now for being too stubborn.)

  He feels his phone vibrate against his leg, and fishes it out. The plastic casing is slick with water, but thanks to certain enhancements, the machine is pretty much indestructible. He punches in the code and slides the screen lock. He grimaces as he looks at the message. It’s his girlfriend, Elsa.

  Wru n?

  He scrolls back to the previous messages: 34 in total, not to mention 17 phone calls, none of which he ever answered. The boss was pretty clear about separating work and personal life, and Elsa was most definitely part of his personal life.

  Me bnababae k noh?

  He sighs. Her jealous streak was showing up again. He didn’t mind it so much; sometimes, he enjoyed being the object of her undivided attention. But he’d told her once (twice, too many times) that sometimes he had to work late hours, and perhaps she’d be better off knowing that he was safe (not likely) and sound (again, chances were slim) and that he’d call her when he got home. Unfortunately, Elsa was not the type to listen.

  He stares at the glowing screen of his phone and instead pulls up the alternative account with a few flicks of his thumb across the glass. He types out a short stat report and sends it off to his boss, hoping that they’d get the implied message that he and his partner were stranded somewhere in the city, cold and tired and hungry, and could they please abort the mission now? It’s not like they could find the damn weapon in the dark anyway.

  His phone chirps. He opens the new message. It’s terse and to the point: Situation crit at base. Deploying a team to Banahaw immediately. Isolated cause of rain. Continue w/ mission.

  “Troy?” Aubrey’s voice is soft in the almost-darkness, swallowed up by the dull roar of the rain.

  He turns to stare at his partner. She is struggling out of the silver-foil blanket, the crackle and crunch of the material almost inaudible. He’s tired of listening to the rain. Whoever said that it was relaxing should be made to stand in the middle of a typhoon in Manila. See if that was relaxing. “I’m okay,” h
e says.

  He folds his lanky frame inwards and sits down on the ground, feeling the uneven soil and pebbles dig into the already damp and uncomfortable seat of his jeans. Still, this is better than standing up. He sits with his knees tucked against his chest and his forearms balanced on top, wrists dangling loosely. The shelter leans back and forth, threatening to fall against the onslaught of the rain. Aubrey sighs, and sits beside him. She is drier, thanks to her gear and the blanket. There are streaks of dirt against the moon-pale curve of her cheek. Her eyes are dark and luminous as she stares fiercely ahead.

  In her hands is a small black device, like a supermarket price scanner, save that it glowed green instead of red, and instead of reading price tags and bar codes, it scanned for signs of otherwordly energy signatures. Troy is hesitant to call it magic, the word itself conjuring up images of wizards and wand-waving and bubbling cauldrons. But he knows that there are things that do not belong to this world—that there are beings out there who could manipulate the world to their own image and liking—and creatures that should be hidden or given sanctuary at all costs. He breathes out, his heartbeat still steady. The rain pounds relentlessly against their tissue-thin shelter. His phone pulses in his pocket, a phone call that he refuses to answer.

  Aubrey sweeps the area in front of them: an open sewage tunnel somewhere in one of the myriad construction areas that sprouted up around the edges of Balintawak, more wilderness than city. The hole gapes like the maw of some ancient bayawak, the giant crocodile that swallowed the moon and attempted to eat the sun. Abandoned by the construction workers when the rain started, the area in front of the sewage tunnel is littered with shovels and yellow construction hats, bright plastic beacons in the shadows. Shallow pools of brackish water surrounded them. Littered remains of shattered concrete bricks were piled in front of the tunnel. Rising around them were hastily dug slopes of rust-red soil, ringed with shoddy wood-and-steel structures meant for raising and lowering workers into the pit. Troy silently identifies each possible cause of trouble: that upended trowel in the corner; that pile of glass swept aside, the shards pointing upwards; the bag of debris stacked carelessly just beside the tunnel entrance, the slippery ground. He is not looking forward to entering the tunnel. (He hopes they do not have to enter the damn tunnel.)