Presently the Malaki woke up, and when he looked at his toes, he found that his brass toe-rings were gone.
"The Moglung has been here!" he cried in a frenzy. "Why didn't you waken me, as I told you?" Then he seized his sharp-bladed kampilan, and slew the Bia. Maddened by grief and rage, he dashed to the door and made one leap to the ground, screaming, "All the people in the world shall fall by my sword!"
On his war-shield he rode, and flew with the wind until he came to the horizon. Here lived the Malaki Lindig Ramut ka Langit. [82] And when the two malaki met, they began to fight; and the seven brothers of the Malaki Lindig that live at the edge of the sky, likewise came out to fight. But when the battle had gone on but a little time, all the eight malaki of the horizon fell down dead. Then the angry Malaki who had slain the Bia and the eight young men went looking for more people to kill; and when he had shed the blood of many, he became a buso with only one eye in his forehead, for the buso with one eye are the worst buso of all. Everybody that he met he slew.
After some time, he reached the house of the great priest called "Pandita," and the Pandita checked him, saying, "Stop a minute, and let me ask you first what has happened to make you like this."
Then the Buso-man replied sadly, "I used to have a wife named Moglung, who was the best of all the bia; but when I went looking for the Malaki Tuangun, that other Bia made me dizzy, and gave me betel, and combed my hair. Then she was my wife for a little while. But I have killed her, and become a buso, and I want to kill all the people in the world."
"You had better lie down on my mat here, and go to sleep," advised the Pandita. While the Buso slept, the Pandita rubbed his joints with betel-nut; and when he woke up, he was a malaki again.
Then the Pandita talked to him, and said, "Only a few days ago, the Moglung passed here on her way to her brother's home in heaven. She went by a bad road, for she would have to mount the steep rock-terraces. If you follow, you will come first to the Terraces of the Wind (Tarasu'ban ka Kara'mag [83]), then you reach the Terraces of Eight-fold Darkness (Walu Lapit Dukilum [84]), and then the Terraces of the Rain (Tarasuban k'Udan [85]).
Eagerly the Malaki set out on his journey, with his kabir [86] on his back, and his betel-nut and buyo-leaf [87] in the kabir. He had not travelled far, before he came to a steep ascent of rock-terraces,—the Terraces of the Wind, that had eight million steps. The Malaki knew not how to climb up the rocky structure that rose sheer before him, and so he sat down at the foot of the ascent, and took his kabir off his back to get out some betel-nut. After he had begun to chew his betel, he began to think, and he pondered for eight days how he could accomplish his hard journey. On the ninth day he began to jump up the steps of the terraces, one by one. On each step he chewed betel, and then jumped again; and at the close of the ninth day he had reached the top of the eight million steps, and was off, riding on his shield.
Next he reached the sharp-edged rocks called the "Terraces of Needles" (Tarasuban ka Simat), that had also eight million steps. Again he considered for eight days how he could mount them. Then on the ninth day he sprang from terrace to terrace, as before, chewing betel-nut on each terrace, and left the Tarasuban ka Simat, riding on his shield. Then he arrived at the Terraces of Sheet-Lightning (Tarasuban ka Dilam-dilam); and he took his kabir off his back, and prepared a betel-nut, chewed it, and meditated for eight days. On the ninth day he jumped from step to step of the eight million terraces, and went riding off on his war-shield. When he reached the Terraces of Forked-Lightning (Tarasuban ka Kirum), he surmounted them on the ninth day, like the others.
But now he came to a series of cuestas named "Dulama Bolo Kampilan," [88] because one side of each was an abrupt cliff with the sharp edge of a kampilan; and the other side sloped gradually downward, like a blunt-working bolo. How to cross these rocks, of which there were eight million, the Malaki did not know; so he stopped and took off his kabir, cut up his betel-nut, and thought for eight days. Then on the ninth day he began to leap over the rocks, and he kept on leaping for eight days, each day jumping over one million of the cuestas. On the sixteenth day he was off, riding on his shield. Then he reached the Terraces of the Thunder (Tarasuban ka Kilat), which he mounted, springing from one terrace to the next, as before, after he had meditated for eight days. Leaving these behind him on the ninth day, he travelled on to the Mountains of Bamboo (Pabungan Kawayanan), covered with bamboo whose leaves were all sharp steel. These mountains he could cross without the eight days' thought, because their sides sloped gently. From the uplands he could see a broad sweep of meadow beyond, where the grass glistened like gold. And when he had descended, and walked across the meadow, he had to pass through eight million groves of cocoanut-trees, where the fruit grew at the height of a man's waist, and every cocoanut had the shape of a bell (korung-korung). Then he reached a forest of betel-nut, where again the nuts could be plucked without the trouble of climbing, for the clusters grew at the height of a man's waist. Beyond, came the meadows with white grass, and plants whose leaves were all of the rare old embroidered cloth called tambayang. [89] He then found himself at the foot-hills of a range of eight million mountains, rising from the heart of the meadows, and, when he had climbed to their summit, he stood before a fine big house.