Volume 1: From Ashes and Ink
Chapter 6: The Inquisitor's Gaze
Part 1: A New Kind of Cold
The dawn did not break over Mactan; it was allowed to arrive. That was the first thing Luiso felt as he emerged from Anya's hut—the world had been put on permission. The air was thin, starved of its usual vibrant hum of insect life and whispering leaves. It was not a physical chill, but a spiritual one, as if the sunlight itself had been filtered through a sheet of ice, leaving the world pale and muted.
He found Anya already outside, her face drawn as she stared toward the Spanish camp. "You feel it too," she said, not a question.
"It's like the air before a typhoon," Luiso murmured, his child's voice rough with sleep but his mind already racing. "But instead of pressure, there's... absence."
On the ridge overlooking the Spanish camp, the coalition gathered, their forms tense against the sickly dawn. The new arrival, Inquisitor Salazar, was already at work. He moved through the Spanish lines not like a soldier or a priest, but like a surveyor. A scribe. His black robes drank the morning light, seeming to create pockets of deeper shadow wherever he stood.
"He does not walk the land," Kael rumbled, his powerful frame unnaturally still. The great Tikbalang's nostrils flared, tasting the air. "He... inventories it. Each step is a measurement. Each breath, a judgment."
Luiso watched, his historian's mind coldly analyzing the scene even as his magical senses recoiled. Salazar would pause, kneel with precise, economical movement, and press his palm to the earth. No grand gestures, no shouted prayers. A pulse of rigid, golden light would emanate from his hand, silent and surgical. Where it touched, the world didn't burn or die. It became mundane. The vibrant, almost fluorescent green of a spirit-touched fern faded to a dull, botanical textbook illustration. The rich, complex scent of damp earth and blooming magic-flowers was replaced by the sterile smell of dry dust and old parchment.
He's not conquering, Luiso realized, a knot of ice forming in his gut. He's proofreading reality and marking our world as an error. A footnote to be corrected.
"He feels... wrong," Kalak muttered, his hide twitching as if covered in invisible flies. He stamped a hoof, and the small patch of grass beneath it instantly withered, turning the color of ancient bone. "Mateo's light is a hammer, loud and stupid. This... this is a scalpel. It cuts the soul from things."
"He is the true threat," Kael agreed, his voice the gravest Luiso had ever heard it. "He does not seek to break our bodies, but the spirit of the land itself. He makes it forget its own name, its own song."
Luiso's eyes scanned their ranks, and the cold knot in his stomach tightened into a fist. The misty spring where Dayang usually manifested from the waters was empty, its surface unnaturally still. "Where is Dayang?"
Anya's expression was troubled, her fingers worrying the beads around her neck. "A messenger came at first light. A young Sirena, trembling so hard she could barely speak. She claimed Spanish patrol boats, mounted with strange, glowing charms that hurt to look upon, are circling the northern Sirena breeding grounds—the sacred coral caves where their eggs are nurtured. Dayang had to protect her people."
The timing was too perfect. The excuse, a masterstroke—targeting the most vulnerable, most sacred part of their ally's society. Luiso's mind, trained to see patterns in the dust of history, saw the opening move of a darker game. This is how empires work, he thought, the memory of Senator Alvaro's cold efficiency flashing in his mind. They don't just fight you; they force your friends to choose between you and their children. They make betrayal a logical calculation.
Part 2: The First Test of Wills
Salazar did not wait for them to adapt. His first test was a public, brutal demonstration, scheduled with the precision of a public execution.
He chose the Sunken Spring, a small, sacred grove where a gentle Diwata of ferns and freshwater dwelled. It was not a place of great power, but of deep peace—a vital thread in the local spiritual tapestry, a place where children were brought to hear their first whispers of the natural world.
Padre Mateo and a contingent of crossbowmen stood guard as Salazar approached the spring's heartstone, a moss-covered rock that pulsed with a soft, emerald light. He didn't acknowledge them. His entire focus was on the stone, and the shimmering, watery form of the Diwata that coalesced above it, its song a soft, bubbling melody of pure, uncomplicated life.
From their hidden vantage point, shrouded by Sari's glamour that made the very light bend around them, Luiso's coalition watched, a gallery of horrified spectators.
"He will try to banish it, to smash it to pieces," Kalak whispered, his powerful muscles coiling like springs, the scent of angry horse and hot earth rising from him.
"No," Luiso and Anya said in unison, their voices tight with a shared dread.
Salazar simply knelt. He placed one bare hand directly on the heartstone, and the moss beneath it turned gray and brittle. He began to pray. The sound was not the fiery rhetoric of Mateo; it was a monotone, relentless drone that grated against the ears and seemed to push against the fabric of reality itself. The golden light flowed from his hand, not in a wave, but in precise, creeping lines, like gilded ivy or the lines of a prison cell, crawling over the stone and into the Diwata's form.
The spirit's gentle song twisted into a shriek of psychic agony that tore at the minds of everyone watching. Its watery form thrashed, turning murky and thick, like polluted water. The clear spring water bubbled with thick, black mud that smelled of rot and forgotten places. The ferns at the water's edge curled inward, their vibrant green tips crumbling to black ash.
"He's not banishing it!" Anya gasped, her hand clutching at her chest as if feeling the Diwata's pain. "He's... rewriting its essence! Forcing it to obey his foreign scripture, to sing a hymn it was never meant to know!"
"We cannot just watch this violation!" Kalak snarled, the earth cracking beneath his hooves. "Let me charge! Let me break that stone and his skull together!"
"WAIT!" Luiso's command was a sharp crack, the voice of command that had been forged in fire and despair. His mind raced, analyzing the flow of magic with a scholar's detachment even as his heart hammered against his ribs. "His power is a structure. A theological circuit. Look—it flows from him, through the stone as a conduit, and into the spirit. It's rigid, logical. It can't handle chaos, the unpredictable."
He turned to Sari, his eyes alight with a desperate, half-formed plan. "Can you interrupt the flow? Not attack the light head-on, just... introduce a variable his magic can't process? Something wild, something stubborn, something that refuses to be categorized?"
Sari, her own luminous form dimmed by the violation happening before her, nodded, her face a mask of sorrow and resolve. She closed her eyes, her form flickering like a guttering candle. She reached into the earth not with force, but with a mother's tenderness, seeking not soldiers, but saboteurs. She found the dormant seeds of the paniking, a stubborn, thorny weed known for choking out cultivated plants, for thriving in disrupted soil. She didn't command them to grow; she whispered to them of the foreign poison in their soil, of the intruder who sought to impose order on their wildness.
For a moment, nothing. Then, the earth at the base of the heartstone bulged, heaving as if in revolt. A cluster of vicious, resilient weeds erupted, not with beautiful grace, but with angry, defiant speed. Their thorny roots dug deep, not seeking nourishment, but seeking to disrupt, to break, to physically shatter the connection between the stone and the land it was born from.
The golden latticework of light flickered violently, like a faulty candle. The lines wavered, their perfect geometry broken. The monotone prayer stuttered for a single, precious second, the drone cracking like flawed glass.
It was enough.
With a final, desperate surge of its own wild will, the Diwata shattered the incomplete binding. Its form, now tarnished and dim, a ghost of its former self, fled into the deep jungle like a wounded animal, its beautiful song silenced, perhaps forever.
Salazar stood. Slowly. Deliberately. He didn't look toward the escaping spirit. He didn't look angry or frustrated. He brushed a speck of grey moss from his robe, a fastidious gesture. Then he turned his head, and his gaze—cold, intelligent, and utterly focused—seemed to sweep directly over their hiding place, as if Sari's glamour was merely a minor inconvenience. A faint, almost academic smile touched his lips, the expression of a scientist who has just discovered a fascinating new variable in his experiment.
"They are learning," he said to Padre Mateo, his voice carrying with unnatural clarity across the distance, each word crisp and measured. "They understand the metaphysical nature of the conflict. This makes them more dangerous." He paused, and the smile widened a fraction. "And infinitely more useful."
Part 3: The Weight of Command
The pressure was a physical weight on the village, a pall that smothered laughter and made every conversation a hushed, fearful thing. Luiso found Lapu-Lapu not at the central fire where he held court, but alone on the black sand shore, staring at the Spanish ships as if he could sink them with the force of his will alone. He wasn't sharpening his kampilan; he was merely holding it, his knuckles white on the sharkskin grip, as if the sword were the only thing keeping him anchored to the earth, the last solid truth in a world turning to smoke.
"The silence is a lie," the Datu said, not turning, his voice a low growl that competed with the sigh of the waves. "It is the silence of a trap being set. The silence of a predator holding its breath. My warriors smell it. They are hunters, born and bred. They know when the jungle is too quiet, and it has never been this quiet."
"A hunter's greatest strength is patience," Luiso offered, the words feeling hollow, academic, even to him. He was parroting textbooks, not speaking the language of a world where blades were being sharpened and children were going hungry.
Lapu-Lapu finally turned. The fire in his eyes was banked, replaced by a weary, simmering frustration that Luiso had seen before in the faces of junior faculty watching their life's work be dismantled by administrative fiat. "You speak the truth, Little Sage. But patience is a full stomach and a confident heart. It is the luxury of the strong. My people's bellies are tight with fear. Their hearts are heavy with the silence of the spirits, with the feeling that the land itself is turning away from us. They need to see a fire, not just hear about the spark. They need a victory they can taste, not a strategy they can barely understand."
He's right, Luiso thought, the scholar in him chastised by the leader he was being forced to become. Morale is a tangible resource, as real as food or weapons. And ours is bleeding out onto this black sand.
That night, the war council was a storm of shadows and low growls, held in a different clearing, one that felt less safe than before. The air was thick with the scent of fear and anger.
"We need a victory," Luiso stated, cutting through the grim silence that had fallen. He stood before their rough map, drawn in the dirt. "Not a skirmish in the trees. A statement. We need to prove that their new 'sanctuary' is a lie, that their consecrated ground can be touched, that their god is not as all-powerful as they claim."
Kalak's ears swiveled forward, a spark of the old fire returning to his eyes. "Finally! Words I can understand! Let my hooves be the argument! Let their bones be the punctuation!"
"The supply cache," Luiso said, pointing to a spot just inside the creeping edge of the consecrated ground. "It's the heart of their operation now. Food, tools, replacement weapons, the wine their officers drink. It's their lifeline. We make it disappear in a way they cannot explain away as bad luck or jungle spirits."
"A bold strike," Kael rumbled, leaning over to analyze the map, his shadow falling over the entire gathering. "It strikes at their confidence. But it risks everything. We would be fighting on ground where their magic is strongest and ours is weakened."
"We need a distraction on the water," Luiso continued, his plan unfolding. "Something to pull their guards toward the shore, to create chaos and make them look the wrong way. Dayang's people could create a maelstrom, swamp their longboats, lure their sailors with songs—"
"The Sirena have refused," Lilim's voice slithered from the darkest corner of the clearing, devoid of its usual melodic undertone. She materialized from a pool of absolute blackness, her form seeming thinner, more strained, as if the very act of moving through Salazar's tainted air was costly. "My scouts ventured to the mouth of their deepest river-trench. They are not just withdrawn; they have erected barriers of singing kelp that twist the mind of any who approach. They will not speak to us, not even to me. They only repeat the same message: the Spanish have deployed 'holy nets' woven with prayers that can trap a Sirena's soul for eternity. They will not risk the eternal damnation of their people."
Kalak let out a bitter, mocking laugh that echoed like a cracking tree in the small clearing. "Of course! The fish-folk always find a reason to swim away when the hooks come out! First their precious breeding grounds, now magical nets that trap souls? What is next—a divine hurricane personally sent by their pale god to ruin their coral gardens? They are cowards, hiding behind excuses as transparent as their waters!"
Luiso felt the cold certainty solidify in his stomach, heavy as a stone. This wasn't just caution. This was a calculated withdrawal, a political maneuver. The first thread in the tapestry of their alliance was being pulled, and the whole picture was beginning to unravel. This is the pattern, he thought, the historian in him feeling a sickening sense of recognition. The same pattern that repeats in every history book, from the fall of Rome to the colonization of continents: the coalition that shatters under pressure, the ally that chooses the survival of their own over the survival of the whole. It's not evil. It's just... history.
"Then we adapt," Luiso said, his voice flat and final, cutting off Kalak's tirade. He met the eyes of each of his remaining allies—Kael's grim resolve, Lilim's shadowy anxiety, Sari's sorrowful light, Anya's weary wisdom. "We go without them. We are earth, forest, and shadow. That will have to be enough."
Part 4: The Unraveling
The plan was simple, elegant in its allocation of their remaining strengths. Under the cover of a moonless night choked with low-hanging clouds, they moved like ghosts through a jungle that seemed to be holding its breath. Lilim's Aswang would flow ahead, creating panic and the illusion of a major assault at the camp's eastern perimeter. In the chaos, Sari would work her subtle magic, not to grow, but to rot, to accelerate the decay of the very foundations of the supply tent, causing it to collapse in on itself silently. Then, Kael and Kalak would be the hammer, crashing through the disorganized guards to trample and scatter what remained.
But as they slipped through the oppressive darkness, Luiso felt it—a profound wrongness that went beyond normal pre-battle nerves. The jungle was not just quiet; it was catatonic. The usual background chorus of frogs and night insects was utterly absent. The air was thick and still, heavy with the cloying scent of ozone and sanctified incense, a smell that had no business this deep in the untamed wilderness.
"They know," Luiso whispered, his magical senses screaming a silent alarm that vibrated through his bones. "It's not a defense. It's an ambush. He's been waiting for this."
It was too late to call it off. A series of chilling, mindless shrieks echoed from the east as Lilim's corrupted kin began their diversion. But instead of the sounds of panic and rushing soldiers they expected, there was only a tense, prepared silence from the Spanish camp.
Then, Inquisitor Salazar did not emerge from a tent. He stepped out from the shadow of the church's half-built wall as if he had been a part of the architecture all along, a carved obsidian statue given life. He held a simple, wooden cross in one hand, but it glowed with the same deadening, golden light.
"Now!" Luiso cried, his voice tearing through the unnatural quiet.
Sari's power surged through the soil like a sudden, localized earthquake. The ground beneath the large supply tent instantly softened into a sucking bog. The wooden foundation posts groaned and splintered as they were consumed by centuries of rot in a handful of heartbeats. But Salazar was ready. He didn't counter the magic with a blast of opposing force; he edited it, as a scribe strikes out a error in a manuscript. A casual wave of his hand sent a sheet of golden light washing over the area. The vibrant, chaotic, natural process of decay simply… stopped. The wood didn't just stabilize; it became petrified, ancient and dead, as if it had been lying there for a thousand years, all life and history leached out of it.
Lilim's Aswang, flowing through the shadows toward the panicking guards, found their paths blocked. Soldiers stood firm, not with weapons raised, but holding up crosses and holy symbols that blazed not with light, but with a profound absence of darkness. It was a void that hurt the eyes and the soul to look upon, a negation of everything the night-creatures were. They were forced back with pained hisses, their forms fraying at the edges in the face of this absolute anathema.
Seeing the plan collapsing, Kael and Kalak burst from the treeline with the force of a landslide. They were a terrifying spectacle of raw, primal power, hooves thundering like war drums, massive forms ready to shatter the Spanish line and salvage something from the disaster.
Salazar didn't flinch. He didn't even look at them directly. He merely raised the hand holding the cross, palm outward. A wall of shimmering golden energy, like hardened amber, sprang up from the soil directly in the path of the charging Tikbalangs. It was not a shield of force; it was a barrier of pure dogma. When Kael and Kalak slammed into it, it was not a physical impact that threw them back. It was a spiritual one. Kalak roared in pure, undiluted agony, not from pain, but from a sudden, terrifying silence—the deep, fundamental connection to the land, the source of all his strength and identity, was severed the moment he touched the barrier. It was the agony of amputation, of being made small and alone in a single instant.
He's adapted to each of us specifically, Luiso realized, horror washing over him like a cold tide. He didn't just set a trap; he built a laboratory to test our weaknesses, and now he's applying the results. He's a tactician of the soul.
"FALL BACK!" Luiso screamed, his voice raw with a fear he hadn't felt since the fire. "IT'S A TRAP! DISENGAGE!"
The retreat was a chaotic, bloody scramble, a rout. A Spanish crossbow bolt shot from the darkness grazed Luiso's arm, the pain sharp, shocking, and deeply personal in his small body. It was the first real, physical injury he'd suffered in this new life, and it drove home the stakes with brutal clarity. He saw Kael, his own majestic form trembling, half-carrying a dazed and spiritually wounded Kalak away from the golden wall, their pride wounded deeper than their flesh could ever be.
As they vanished into the welcoming darkness of the jungle, abandoning the field completely, Inquisitor Salazar's voice followed them, calm and clear, a verdict delivered by a judge who had never doubted the outcome.
"You see?" his voice carried, devoid of triumph, filled only with absolute, unshakable certainty. "There is no shadow we cannot illuminate. No heresy we cannot correct. No truth but ours. This land, and all upon it, will be made pure."
And from a distant reef, far out in the moonlit bay, Luiso's sharp eyes, blurred with pain and failure, caught a final, salt-stung glimmer—a flash of opalescent scales reflecting the cold stars. Dayang, the Sirena Matriarch, was watching. She made no move to help, offered no song to confuse the Spanish, no wave to swamp their boats, no diversion to cover their retreat. She was a mere spectator to their ruin, a silent witness to the unmaking of their hopes.
The coalition regrouped in their hidden clearing, battered, bleeding, and shrouded in a silence more devastating than any defeat. The air was thick with the scent of blood, sweat, and despair. They had been outthought, outmaneuvered, and abandoned. They had thrown their best strike at the enemy, and he had not only stopped it, he had dissected it before their eyes.
Luiso clutched his bleeding arm, the physical pain a faint, distant echo of the deeper wound festering in his soul. The Inquisitor wasn't just studying their magic. He was studying them—their alliances, their loyalties, their breaking points. And Luiso now knew, with a sickening clarity that would haunt every one of his coming immortal years, that the true war had just begun—a war not just for the land, but for the very soul of its people, a war where trust was the first and most fragile casualty, and where history itself was the battleground.