MAHARLIKA and the Cursed Descendants of the Orient

A Spellbind Cavern

“Hey! You okay?”

My eyelids fold open then reveal a cloudy vision. My hand travels to my head and gently squeezes the aching part resulting for my lower and upper teeth to press each other. I let my beaten body lie on a sandy ground a little longer until my vision becomes quite clearer. Two distinct orbs are directed in my eyes, blue and grey. A soft and warm thing runs through my forehead down to my hair.

“Liyab,” says the voice.

“Who…are you?”

I push my palms against the gritty texture underneath but fail to carry my weight. Before flumping down, I’m caught by something I can’t explain.

“It’s alright. Don’t push yourself too hard,” says the voice.

I heard this voice before I just don’t recall when or where. My ears try to identify it but exhaustion roughly conquers all of my senses. Though I can’t barely move, my heart is at ease. The voice that’s accompanying me makes me feel safe.

“Where have you been?” the voice laughs. “You look like a mess.”

I touch and hold the soft and warm thing that keeps rubbing my head. “Mother?” I whisper.

“Geez, you’re too big and too old to become my son.”

I force to open my eyelids once more, a pair of eyes are staring at me – a blue and a grey.

‘Blue and grey!?’

“Tala?”

“Finally!” she says.

When realization strikes me, I let go of her hand and push my weight up and this time, I successfully manage to sit down. My head is spinning, so is my stomach causing sticky liquid to spew out of my mouth.

“Hey.” Her hand kneads my back. She then cleans my arms, my hands and every part of me where the colorless bile adheres with a cloth that she rips from her pants.

“Thank you,” I mutter. “Why are you here?”

“I was kidn*pped. When I wake up, I found myself in here, alone. Then I saw you. I thought you’re dead,” Tala says.

“You’re kidn*pped? By whom?”

“The castle guards,” she answers, lowering her chin.

“Why would they do that?”

“That’s something I wanna find out,” she sighs. “I hope Dama de Noche is okay.”

“Instead of worrying about her, worry about yourself.”

She chuckles, placing her fist in front of her mouth. “You really hate her do you?”

“Hn.”

“You just misunderstood each other, trust me,” she says, winking her eye while patting my shoulder. “Speaking of which, how did you get in here?”

I tilt my head down and embrace my knees close to my chest. “I fell in a trap.” I briefly pause and take a deep breath. “Let’s quit this conversation, we gotta move.”

Tala grabs my arm for support when I lose my footing while standing up. My legs are wobbling every step I take and she acts as my anchor to move forward, my arm wraps around her shoulders as she mimics my pacing while carrying some of my weight.

“It won’t take long. I’ll recover soon.”

“Sure you will,” she responds.

Reaching further ahead, we are welcomed by sparkling sheets of solidified water drips and tapered columns that are either rising from the floor or hanging from the ceiling. Dribbles of water droplets flowing on the scenic walls are consistent and simultaneous.

I almost sprain my neck and jaw in astonishment. Gradually removing my arm from Tala’s shoulders, we both take a little space apart then pivot around in a deliberate and relaxed pace while oohs and aahs break free from our mouths.

All at once, strips of blue, green and violet hues swish around us. I try to touch them but they are impalpable that my hand just passes through them. Surprising me even more is their ability to lift us. My eyes glisten, the same way the cavern is, as I feel a massive outpouring of excitement in me.

These hues gently drop us in front of a steamy lagoon. Then they dance in the air in a spiral motion for a good amount of time before smothering themselves to the ceiling, wall and floor giving the cavern a much vibrant look. Tala and I vie on which has the better and the wider smile.

The steam from the lagoon disperses and flaunts an incredible blue opaque water. I move closer, already anticipating something magical to come out of it. When Tala attempts to submerge her fingers on it, its serenity is disrupted. Bubbles and foams appear on its surface as its burbling sound echoes.

“Am I not allowed to touch it? I didn’t do anything yet,” Tala says.

“Look!” I point my finger to the lagoon.

The bubbles and foams disappear and dreamy white light takes over then transforms into a three-dimensional moving images.

“What is that?” Tala asks.

I shrug without taking off my sight from it.

An image of a man with grey mid-length hair is first shown. His grey mustache covers almost half of his face and his beard extends down on his bare chest. His white flowy cape draws my attention to his well-sculpted torso. On his right hand, a wand – gold, silver and bronze are twisted like a knot which has the same height as him.

Tala and I take a step back when the man waves his wand and alters everything that surrounds him. Below him is a seemingly boundless sea, around him are pristine terrains and above him is a dull sky.

“I’ll entrust you the sea,” he says, pointing out to a scaly man with a well-sculpted body like him.

“And you,” he then turns his gaze to a couple who’s embracing each other. “I endow you the agriculture and good harvest.”

After assigning delegates to do specific tasks, everything suddenly goes fast. All I understand is these incorporeal beings live peacefully and harmoniously amongst humans. The waters offer lavish seafoods and the lands produce bountiful crops and herbs in which they share and consume.

In a turn of event, the man falls sick. “Summon my successors,” he says, sitting weakly on his gilded and jeweled throne.

Entering the scene are a woman and a man, both have eyes glowing with radiance. Just like the others, their beauty is beyond perfection but unlike the others, their bodies seem earthly.

“Father,” says the man with tattoos all over his arms and chest. “What is it that you wish to speak to me and my sister?”

“Before I leave this world, let me know your hearts’ desires and I’ll gift them to you.”

Without blinking an eye, the man responds. “I demand for the sky to be mine.”

The woman walks closer then stomps her foot. “Give me the sky and I’ll foster it.”

They then glare at each other, the lights in their eyes are too fierce to look at but I can sense the hatred that’s building up between them. The dying old man isn’t able to choose between his son and daughter until his last breath is suppressed.

“I am older and the son, I should take over the sky,” says the man. His hair drifts with the wind as he clutches his fists.

The woman flips her extremely long hair over her tattooed shoulders then swings her arm and fist as an objection to her brother’s rationality. “That doesn’t make me less of a contender!”

While the man draws his daggers with jagged blades on both their edges, the woman takes out her spear with diagonal blade on top and a thick and long chain attached at its bottom.

The two begins to exchange ferocious blows. Their skills in combat is something I’ve never seen before, I bet that even Gasol can’t match their strengths…well, she’s not even close. Their speed is way too fast for the naked eyes to comprehend. With every clang of the sword, hiss of the spear, thud of their bodies and groan from their mouths, come a severe destruction of everything that surrounds them, everything their father created.

Though still in one piece, both of them are savagely injured. Their weapons are chipped or broken and with one final viscous strike, blood smears in the air. The woman is kneeling down while covering her bleeding left eye with her shaking hand.

The man walks closer to his sister and hunkers down to get a better look of her face. The man bites his lower lip and looks away, then punches the fragmented ground with his fist. His next action brings shock to me, he hugs his sister and she hugs him back.

“Forgive me. How greedy I had become to hurt you like this?” asks the man.

“It’s alright. You didn’t kill me anyways," the woman says after breaking their embrace. “So, it’s decided. You won.”

The man shakes his head from side to side and caresses his sister’s cheek with his thumb. “No. We’ll equally rule the sky. This is how it is supposed to be.”

The woman weakly smiles, still covering her left eye as blood continues to stream down from it. “Now that I lost an eye? I am incapable to brighten up the dull sky.”

“Let us share our duties. I’ll flood half of the day with warm vivid light with my eyes and you bathe the remaining half of it with cool dim light with one eye,” the man says.

A smile once again crosses the woman’s face and this time, it’s wider and gleeful.

And from that day on, the brother rules by day and the sister rules by night. Everything goes back to what it was before, except the sky – it has now a sun and a moon.

The three-dimensional moving images vanish, the dreamy light retracts and the steam cloaks the lagoon once again. The blue, green and purple hues that are masking the walls are slowly fading. The gentle puffs of air from Tala and I and the dribbles of water droplets are perfectly rhythmical with one another.

“Aaahhh!” Tala screams.

“Tala! What’s wrong?!”

I run to her aid. She presses her palm against her grey eye. “It suddenly hurts.”

“Do you know why?”

“Don’t worry. It has been like this, but the last time it happened was years ago."

Holding her wrist, I gently remove her hand from her eye and lift her face to meet my gaze. Her grey eye is as clear and exquisite as a crystal. As I stare at it, certain images flash one after another.

“What did I just see?”

“Huh? What do you mean?” she asks.

The inner corners of my eyebrows raise. “Bloodshed, unfamiliar weapons and devastation.” I swallow a small lump of air in my throat before continuing. “The siblings that the lagoon just showed to us are watching over all of it.”

“You lost me,” she says.

“But…” I quickly take off my hands from her face then turn around and scratch the back of my neck when I realize that our faces are awfully close to the point that I could already feel her breath on my skin. “Sorry about that.”

“You’re fine. Oh! I forgot to give this to you earlier” she says, extending her hand that’s holding the hilt of my broken folding pocketknife.

Taking it from her hand, I then put it in my pocket. “Thanks.”

Tala puts both her hands on her back and treads near the lagoon. “Are you familiar with the story that we just saw?”

“At first, no. But when it showed the sun and the moon, I kinda have an inkling.”

She lets out a long heavy sigh. “Those siblings are Apolaki, the god of the sun and Mayari, the goddess of the moon.” She turns around to face me. “Funny enough, my mother used to tell me this story when I was a toddler. Their story is inspiring don’t you think?”

I respond with a smirk.

“Why? Don’t you agree? I mean, sure they were greedy once but they overcame it and valued their relationship more than their powers."

I rest my hands on my hips. “Mayari lost, Apolaki should be the one and only successor of Bathala.”

She wrinkles her eyes and straightens her shoulders. “Good thing, Apolaki is considerate.”

“Naïve, I would say,” I respond with a slight irritation in my voice.

“Well, if the brother didn’t do it, the sister will emotionally suffer."

Her reasoning ruffles me and my annoyance is whisked up. “And his action makes his descendants suffer beyond you could ever imagine!”

Tala’s mouth partly opens, her forearms are raised with her palms facing my direction. I squeeze my eyes close then swipe my bangs to the back of my head though they still drape down on my forehead.

“I’m sorry if I said something that upsets you,” Tala says.

“Forget it.” My voice is a bit calmer now. “Let’s just find our way out.”

Without looking at her, I walk ahead with heavy footsteps as I try to loosen the stress in my chest.

There is a deafening silence for a long time when Tala finally breaks it. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“About Apolaki’s descendants that you mentioned…uhm…do you believe they really exist?”

Her question causes my feet to refrain from moving. “What made you think they don’t?”

“That’s what the elders say, that their existence is nothing but a folklore.”

Her words are like cymbals that are banging my ears but I'm able to maintain my composure this time. “Let me reverse your question instead. Do you believe that Mayari’s descendants exist?”

In a split second, she answers with confidence. “Of course!”

“Hn. I knew you’d say that.”

“The kingdom’s leaders and high ranking officials are proof of that,” she answers.

I roll my eyes but she doesn’t see it coz my back is still on her. The topic of our conversation changes as we move along. Tala keeps on bragging about her childhood experiences but my interest is more focused in getting out of the cave and finding Sinag and Gasol.

We stop when two silhouettes are walking from the direction opposite to us. When they reach the part of the cave where the ceiling holes illuminate the area, my shoulders relax a bit. Two people, a man and a woman.

Tala bends her waist forward with one hand rest on her waist and the other on her chin. “They look familiar to me.”

They seem old people because of the white strands on the roots of their hair, they dress like how the elders dress, their necks and hands have wrinkles though their faces are smooth.

“Welcome to our home,” the man says.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“What kind of question is that?” the woman replies. They walk towards us. “I’m Pilar and this is my husband, Pedro. We are what you came here for.”