He just kept walking.
The kalabaw lumbered along behind him. That was it. They stepped over dirt, gravel, mud didn't matter what covered the ground or how much the rain changed things. He didn't count his steps, didn't track the days, didn't look for the sun or the stars. All that mattered was the road under his feet.
The cart creaked, the wheels turned, everything else slid past.
He remembered the man with the rotten arm, the hand wrapped in oilcloth and stored with the others. There was a collection. He never understood why he kept them, just that he did. The pieces never rotted or smelled. They just stayed as they were, and he'd stopped wondering about it.
The road curved, grass stretched taller, dried up cogon now, whispering when the wind brushed through. He listened.
A river ahead. He heard it before he smelled it, water rushing over rocks, deep spots slow, shallow spots quick. He stopped and let the kalabaw drink. He sat on a rock and chewed dried fish.
Life in the forest cicadas buzzing, frogs croaking, hidden things moving under leaves. He just listened, waited.
This was his life: walk, wait, listen.
Eventually the road led him to more sounds chickens clucking, kids shouting, women pounding rice. A village.
He paused by the outskirts and waited.
Footsteps drew closer. An old man, slow, steady.
"You're the merchant," the old man said.
"I'm a merchant."
"The one who takes things."
"Yes."
Silence stretched. Then the old man said, "We don't need you here. Go on."
So he did.
The cart kept its rhythm. The kalabaw kept its pace. The road went on.
He thought about the old man's voice the way fear cuts it smaller, each word careful, almost held back. He'd heard that tone more times than he could count.
He walked.
The grass faded to rice paddies. Farmers stopped, he felt their silence, their eyes on him, their whispered prayers. Sometimes he heard the slap of hands crossed over hearts.
But he just walked, didn't stop, didn't talk.
A crossroads.
He paused to decide which way. That's when he picked up on running quick, stumbling steps, desperate breathing. A woman, young. Two men behind her, heavier, closing the distance.
He waited.
She burst out onto the road, nearly ran into him, gasped for air.
"Please," she said, almost choking, "help me."
He said nothing.
The men slid from the trees. Both stopped.
"Move aside, blind man," one growled. "This's not your business."
Luki tilted his head and listened. Her breathing was frantic, theirs cocky armed, blades shifting.
"She came to me," Luki said. "That makes it my business."
The men laughed.
"You're alone, blind. What're you gonna do?"
Luki just stood there.
One tried to grab him reached out, missed. Luki's hand found the man's wrist, twisted, something snapped.
The guy screamed.
His partner charged in, footsteps heavy, breath bursting. Luki sidestepped, stuck out his foot, sent him sprawling.
He backed up and waited.
The first man cradled his wrist, desperate, the other slowly picked himself up. They hesitated, did the math, then bolted.
Luki listened to them vanish, then turned toward the woman. She was still there, her breath slowly steadying.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"You should leave. They'll come back."
She stayed. He sensed her indecision, her weighing options.
"You're the merchant. The one who sells things."
He waited.
"I need something."
Her name was Elena.
She talked; he listened. Married to a farmer. Had a little girl, two. Her husband was wasting away, couldn't eat, lay dying. Healers were stumped.
The men had worked for a trader. That trader gave medicine that made the husband worse. She confronted him, he offered another price her body. She refused. He sent the men.
He'd heard variations of this story too many times.
"I can help your husband," he told her.
Her breath caught. "Really?"
"Yes. But there's a price."
"I have no money."
"I don't take money."
"What do you take?"
"Something that's yours. A finger, an eye, years of your life."
He picked up her fear in the way she breathed thinking about her hands, her face, her future.
"My husband"
"He'll die without me. You're here, not me."
Silence. "What would you take?"
He considered her. Young, mother, her daughter needed her. A missing finger would mark her, complicate work, draw eyes, raise questions.
But that's always the price.
"Left ring finger," he said.
He could hear her looking at her hand the finger with her wedding band.
"That's my "
"Yes."
Long pause. Wind through the grass, kalabaw shifting, wild bird calling somewhere.
"If I do this," she said, "he lives?"
"He lives. The sickness leaves him. He'll be weak for awhile, then he'll recover."
She drew a breath, held out her hand.
"Do it."
He cut.
Blade found the joint, clean, no wasted motion. Finger came free.
She screamed, sharp and quick, then bit her lip till it bled. He pressed powder into the wound. It stopped bleeding.
She stood shaking, staring at her hand, at the space where her finger used to be, at her wedding band now wrapped in cloth in his palm.
He handed her a jar.
"One spoon in water each morning for seven days. Day eight, he'll be hungry."
She held it close.
"He'll live?"
"He'll live."
He felt her eyes on him, covering his blind face, his empty sleeve, the stillness in his body.
"Why?" she whispered.
He gave no answer.
She walked away. He listened to her steps disappearing into the trees, back to her husband.
He wrapped the finger, stored it.
Then he sat by the cart and waited.
The sun shifted, the air moved, but he just sat.
He thought about her voice cracking when she said her daughter's name, her hand trembling when she stretched it out.
He thought back to Lola Pilar, years ago. She had told him: The price is real. He'll cut it himself. And you'll never get it back.
He hadn't understood then. Now he did.
He kept sitting, kept waiting.
The kalabaw waited nearby, patient as ever.
Time drifted not in days or hours but in thoughts, memories, the space between breaths. He didn't measure it.
He remembered the fire. His mother's hand slipping away. The men who threw him in. Waking up blind on the beach.
He remembered Lola Pilar and her gentle hands. Her stories. There was a man who travels the islands blind like you. He carries a cart drawn by a kalabaw. Inside are things that can save you, change you, make you stronger.
He hadn't believed her. Now he did.
The wind shifted, scents changed woodsmoke, cooking, the sea somewhere far off. He'd been heading for the mountains but the sea kept catching up, always did.
He reached into the cart, touched jars, bundles, wrapped pieces the bits people had paid with. They felt warm almost alive, almost part of someone still.
He didn't get it. He'd given up trying.
Some things just… are.
Footsteps.
Running again. Elena. He knew her pattern weight, tempo, breath.
She stopped close, panting.
"He woke up," she said. "Asked for food. First time in months."
He nodded.
She came nearer, something clinking in her hand a pouch.
"I brought money. It's not much"
"I don't take money."
"I know. But I wanted" she stopped. "I wanted to thank you."
He said nothing.
She stood there. "The trader. The one who hurt me. He's dead."
He waited.
"Found dead. Throat cut. Nobody knows who."
Her voice sounded flat not joy, not grief, just empty.
"Was it you?"
"No."
She nodded. He felt her trying to puzzle it out.
"Go home," he said. "Your husband needs you. Your daughter does, too."
She turned, paused.
"Will I see you again?"
"Probably not."
Quiet. "Good luck, merchant."
He listened to her footsteps fade.
He sat awhile longer not thinking about her, just thinking. About how people came to him broken and left missing something. Sometimes they returned not to buy but to thank him, curse him, or ask questions he couldn't answer.
He didn't know if he was saving them or ruining them. Maybe both. Maybe that's the point.
The kalabaw shifted, ready to move.
He stood, returned to the road.
They passed rice fields, more villages, skipped bridges creaking under the cart. He smelled pigs, burning charcoal, heard kids playing, women arguing, men laughing over tuba in the heat.
He moved through all of it untouched, unseen, unknown.
That's how he liked it.
That's how it had to be.
On the road again, the kalabaw's steady pace, the cart's creak behind him. He thought about the woman's finger wrapped in cloth, stored with the others. About the trader with his throat cut. About fate, coincidence, and whether it made any difference.
He had no answers. He never did.
But the road stayed, always there, and he followed.
Sun warmed his face, cooled, warmed again. The ground switched packed dirt, loose gravel, mud. He adjusted without thinking, his body leading, his mind drifting.
He pictured Lola Pilar's face. He'd never truly seen it, but carried the memory the softness, the smile, the lines around her mouth. The way she talked about the sea.
She loved the sea its changes, its gifts and losses, its secrets.
He was walking away from the sea now, toward mountains, but the wind brought the salt sometimes. Maybe that meant something. Maybe not.
He stopped listening to his thoughts, focused on the road.
It brought him to a river crossing wide, shallow. He heard water spread over rocks, a different sound than before. This river was young, quick, restless.
He tested the way with his staff, found the rocks, led the kalabaw across. Water shocked his legs; the kalabaw seemed unfazed.
On the far bank, he rested. The kalabaw drank. He listened.
Something was off.
The forest here felt quieter less birds, less insects, less rustling. He listened closer.
Then heard it.
Breathing. Not close, not far. Steady, patient, watching.
He kept still, just listened.
The breathing belonged to something big, something that knew how to wait. Not hunting he'd sense the hunger. Just watching.
They both waited. Then he stood, turned to the cart, walked on.
The breathing didn't follow.
More road. More walking.
He crossed a mountain pass wind howling, rocks cold even in sunlight. The kalabaw trudged, kept going, patient as always. Luki listened to its breathing checked for stress.
That night, they stopped in a cave small, empty. He made a fire. Didn't need it, but figured the kalabaw deserved it.
He sat with his back to stone, listened to night.
Crickets. Wind. Something moving far off.
He thought about Elena again. Her husband, the medicine, the missing finger. He wondered if her daughter would ask about it, if she'd know the truth.
He wondered if any of it mattered.
Probably not.
He slept.
Days blurred. He felt them in sore muscles, dwindling food, restocked at villages he passed without stopping.
He met people each one needing something.
A farmer wanted rain for his dying crops. Luki said, "I don't sell rain." The farmer cursed and walked away.
A young man wanted to be strong, wanted to beat the rival who stole his girl. Luki named a price a finger. The guy thought about it, then left. Later, Luki heard him crying in the trees.
An old woman wanted more years, scared of death. Luki told her, "I can't sell years. Only take them." She didn't get it, left angry.
He kept walking.
The path wound toward mountains, away from the sea, away from villages, to high places where air thinned and cold slipped in. The kalabaw slowed, but kept moving.
He thought about the watcher by the river. Hadn't heard it again, but sometimes sensed it a shadow in his awareness, always watching.
He didn't care what it wanted. It would come or wouldn't. That's how this worked.
The road split three ways. One climbed the mountain, one trailed to the lowlands, one vanished into dense forest, so thick he felt how dark it was tno birds, no wind, just silence.
He listened.
Mountain path clean, safe. Lowland familiar, easy. Forest wrong. Silence that waited.
He started for the mountains.
From the forest, behind him a breath. That same breathing.
He stopped, didn't turn.
"Come out," he said.
Silence.
Then footsteps slow, heavy, careful.
The thing from the forest didn't sound human too heavy, too deliberate. It stopped at the edge and watched.
Luki faced it.
"You've been following me."
Pause. Then a rough voice, stone grinding: "Watching. Not following."
"Why?"
"Because you're interesting, merchant. You carry things you shouldn't. You take pieces and they don't rot." Another pause. "Because you're like us."
Luki waited.
"I'm not like anything."
The thing laughed a sound like bones snapping.
"You're blind but you see. Alone but not lonely. You carry death, and it doesn't kill you." It stepped closer. Luki felt its size, its heat, its age. "You're touched by something old, merchant. Something that doesn't belong here."
"I don't know what you mean."
"You do. The tooth. The Dakit tooth in your box. Where did you get it?"
Luki's hand touched the small wooden box under his coat. The tooth inside felt warm warmer than usual.
"A dying Engkanto gave it to me. Years ago."
The thing nodded, weight shifting.
"That tooth belongs to the first agreement. The oldest pact between humans and spirits. With it, you walk between worlds and don't die." It paused. "You didn't know."
"I know nothing."
"You know more than you think. You'll learn." The thing turned and returned to the forest. "We'll meet again, merchant. When you're ready."
"Ready for what?"
But it was gone, swallowed by the forest's silence.
Luki lingered awhile, listening to nothing.
Then he picked the mountain path and started walking.