Dracula of the Apes 3

by G. Wells Taylor

  His tree-nest had come to mind—but why?

  Gazda’s crimson eyes burned inward and he shuddered at a mental picture of his lair. The jungle night was falling about the structure and the door stood open!

  Had he not closed it? Of course he had closed it, he always did—always.

  Then why the thought?

  Panting worriedly, Gazda scaled the nearest tree where at a height he cast about, nosing the west wind for any sign.

  Something foul had passed him. A stink! But was it Omag’s cadaverous stench—or the sickly smell of Bakwaniri?

  Gazda snarled into the breeze, snapping his fangs as a heavy scent grew stronger. Something pungent there—most definitely—both familiar and rare it was, and yet...

  The night ape leapt from the tree and caught the closest vine from which he swung to the next branch. One after the other after the next, a leap and swing and jump—ever picking up speed, Gazda raced through the high canopy as a blur.

  And when a space opened in the jungle before him, he did not pause. Gazda combined the upward flexing of the branch from which he leapt with the explosive power of his thighs to launch himself in a 70-foot arc that dropped him in the swaying trees on the opposite side.

  Thunder rumbled over the dense canopy. The dark sky flickered and rain crashed down against a million leaves. The deafening deluge obscured the jungle behind a wall of falling raindrops, and hid what was ahead and below from even Gazda’s remarkable eyes.

  So guided by the muted scents and instincts he charged into the gray...

  ...until he halted on a high branch at the northeast ridge that overlooked his clearing. Somewhere in the murk the tree-nest stood well-wrapped in leaves. From the tangled forest wall he glared into the open space, fury smoldering in eyes that strove to penetrate the deluge.

  To see his lair...

  Sniffing at the damp, a scent struck Gazda motionless. His rigid form hung paralyzed from the wet bark, but his full lips parted to pant his word for “smoke.” He could smell the black mist that followed the untamable flame of lightning strikes.

  The night ape growled and sought some sign of the hungry orange creatures, for surely their flickering forms would show through the gloom.

  Thunder crashed again, the rain slowed, and an eerie twilight haze fell glowing over the open grasses.

  Gazda gasped, for here he had worried that Omag or bone-faces might come to steal his lair, not thinking that flame could take it too!

  CHAPTER 7 – Fire and Smoke

  Smoke drifted out of the hollow tree trunk that pierced the roof—the black thing had been a puzzle since Gazda had first climbed up and peered beneath its angled covering.

  Now a plume of smoke floated out and was washed away by the rain.

  Gazda panted fearfully when he realized there was a light within his tree-nest! Yellow like the sun—like flame—it leaked through the mesh-covered window on the side.

  Fire had come, indeed, and now inhabited his lair.

  The night ape hooted worriedly, realizing suddenly that much of the foliage that had choked the windows had been taken away. But by whom and why?

  Fury clenched his pounding heart as the invading light flickered, as Gazda gathered his limbs beneath him—as his muscular form swelled in a threat display...

  ...as he prepared to jump...only to shrink in place for a shadow had moved behind the lighted mesh. A shape had shifted in there. A creature that mastered the fire.

  He had seen Harkon do thus to flickering flame, could it be her?

  At first fleeting glance, the silhouette had resembled the head and shoulders of a creature like himself. Far too small it was to be an ape like Baho, and yet it was too large for Harkon’s hairless head—and then the skin prickled along the night ape’s neck.

  Was it Fur-nose himself? How much did Gazda really know about him other than that he was an exceptional ape who was capable of wonders—a creature that had made the tree-nest, the skin-stones and other artifacts.

  Might the skeleton inside the lair have made itself into a living thing?

  The thought set Gazda’s hair on end; and yet, his fear could not quash his curiosity, nor negate his growing outrage.

  Who dared invade his lair? Was it one, or many?

  The King of the Apes bared his fangs in a defiant grin. Better for them if they be ghoulish things of Fur-nose’s making, for if the interlopers were of flesh and blood then their fate would be terrible.

  Gazda’s blackback heritage did much to raise his courage as he circled the clearing along the northern edge and crept west through the trees to where branches grew in toward his lair.

  The rain pounded down anew and scrubbed away the remnants of mud-skin that had darkened his limbs. When he found a sturdy ironwood branch that pointed at the tree-nest, he sprinted over the slick bark and flung himself like an arrow into the sky.

  As lightning flashed across the western clouds it turned Gazda’s shining skin to flame. Atop that hurtling vector the night ape restrained the roar that burned within his breast. His fighting spirit had been stoked to life by fearless action, but he would attack in silence and only release his bull-ape cry when the invaders were dead.

  The night ape hit the ground with a muffled thump where he arose to stand beside the trees that held his lair aloft, scowling at new wonders that were stacked beneath it.

  Were these things made by Fur-nose?

  Wooden boxes had been placed between the tangle of tree trunk supports, while others had been broken into pieces and the planks laid out in piles.

  He looked up to see the tree-nest door was closed. So he had...

  A bang came from overhead, and then a scrape and a scuffing sound.

  Gazda snarled up at the noises.

  Inside they were, and soon they would meet the master of the lair!

  But then another sound caught at his incredible ears and held his heartbeat quivering. Like birdsong, at first he thought it, and then some moment later he recognized not one, but several voices.

  Indeed, many invaders occupied his tree-nest and while the fury in him mounted, Gazda’s curiosity held his wrath at bay.

  Growling quietly and swaying in place, he pondered.

  Fur-nose was dead. There was no doubt...but were these his confederates?

  Other night apes of his tribe? Of Gazda’s tribe?

  And still there was Harkon. That thought came back to Gazda goaded by the pitch of the voice first overheard...like a bird it was. Harkon’s voice was higher also.

  The night ape coiled and leapt up onto the raised platform by the door where he slipped without sound onto the wet thatch covering the roof and stretched out upon the sodden fronds in the rain.

  His head hung close to the eaves where the falling raindrops glowed in the amber light from the window.

  He listened quietly, and smelled the air for answers.

  More voices from within came to him garbled, but they came with many thumps and taps as those who spoke inside there moved around.

  In Gazda’s lair! He growled, rage tightening his features, and the muscles swelling on his chest and arms.

  The night ape slid his head and shoulders to the roof’s edge and there he peered through the tight backlit lattice covering the window. Shadows shifted inside as his eyes adjusted to the eerie orange light that glared across his vision.

  Voices came still, some gruff, but others were sweet like the songs of birds.

  Floating flights these voices made that soared above the guttural growling of the apes, and for a moment Gazda’s senses flew with the trilling tones.

  Until a shadow moved and led his adapting eyes to something strange. All of the things within Gazda’s lair had been removed or shifted—and a fresh flush of outrage colored his face.

  For his bed had been set in a place across from the door, and new beds occupied the floor at its side.

  His breath caught when he saw that a new wall had been hung in place, or the other had been removed, for his
hunting trophies were nowhere to be seen!

  Before Gazda could register more than disbelief, something moved into his line of sight that caused his breath to catch and knocked his growing outrage from his mind.

  A female! There was no doubt. She was much like the night apes he’d seen in the skin-stones. She was shaped like Harkon. Tall and straight she stood, but more delicately was she formed.

  This was no huntress!

  And unlike Harkon’s shaved pate this female had long yellow hair that fell past her narrow shoulders to cover the upper part of her slim arms.

  But she had no legs!

  Gazda bit his lip, and craned his neck to give the female a sidelong glance. Seemingly, she slid about on a single broad white stem or leg that showed no knee or joint in locomotion.

  She was like a mushroom, or some other broad-stemmed plant! But how?

  Harkon had two long legs that despite their pleasant contour were strong of muscle and similar in function to Gazda’s own.

  He hooted his amazement before swinging his head up out of sight when the strange female’s bright blue eyes glanced toward the window at the sound.

  The night ape listened for alarm, and when none came he laid back on the roof where staring up into the rain he considered this puzzle.

  An ape—a female night ape and others had invaded Gazda’s lair. Fur-nose’s lair originally, and he wondered again if these were of Fur-nose’s tribe?

  And if that was true, could Gazda claim some kinship to the creatures?

  The yellow-haired female was similar to Harkon. Her face, neck and hands were hairless—though they were white like a night ape’s.

  But that could not explain the absence of legs! Unless, that was the natural condition of females of his tribe, and they were simply different from Harkon’s.

  Or was he seeing the results of some sickness or grave accident that had left them less than whole?

  Another fluting voice trilled below, so Gazda lowered his head by the latticed opening where he saw the first now joined by a second female. This one had brown hair, and the long tresses were folded over and over and piled atop her head.

  She was taller than the other, but had white skin also on hands and face.

  Mystified still, Gazda moved his own hand into the light from the window, and there compared the color of their skins.

  All were hairless and so pale!

  On this second female also, her upper torso stopped at the waist where a great stem grew down to the floor, but its layered coverings were different in color and texture than the other female’s.

  A garment then to hide the single stem? He wondered at this, shifting his eyes to the other female and back to the second—when down at the floor a movement caught Gazda’s eye. He had discerned the subtle shifting of her feet past the lowest edge of cloth.

  Of course it was a garment or covering for both her legs!

  The brown-haired female sang something then that was echoed back by a deeper voice on the far side of the new wall.

  It came as a gravelly barking noise, raspy and reminiscent of Baho’s tone.

  The males! Of course, and they had made the wall that lay before the night ape’s hunting trophies!

  Females would have mates, though Gazda could not imagine the reason for dividing the space inside his tree-nest. Males and females traveled and slept together in Gazda’s tribe.

  At the thought, his features hardened as he considered the outcome should these new males challenge him for she-apes in his tribe, or should Gazda challenge them for their smooth-skinned females.

  And he imagined the males to be like himself: ferocious, powerful and fleet of foot.

  But worthy challengers to the ape-king.

  A puzzling sound came from inside.

  A scratching noise reverberated, followed by a rhythmic thumping that started and quickly stopped, before a harsh grating sound climbed in pitch and volume. This rasped at Gazda’s sensitive ears and he covered them until other sweeter notes rose from the din.

  Varying by degrees, so soft and gentle these fleeting sounds floated up to him at first until the volume built, and the trilling rolled upward to towering heights and pitch—like tree frogs and like birds in the high canopy combined they sang high above him—while other somber tones were there beneath, groaning low and louder as a lion growls again and again, but in a measured beat.

  Caught within these divergent sounds, Gazda’s breath jerked in and out in heavy gasps—remarkably in rhythm with the lofty notes. Nodding his head in cadence with the sound and motion, Gazda watched the females come together and clasp arms...

  ...where they moved in concert with a rhythm couched deep within the complex sounds that filled the tree-nest. Hypnotically they swayed to the beat, as Gazda also swayed, before their high voices joined in to cycle upward and overpower the tonal cloud.

  Then clutching tight to each others waists they jumped and turned in place, chattering and whistling like birds as they twirled.

  But the varied cloud of high and low notes built up in pitch and speed and volume as they moved in a whirling blur.

  Until Gazda yanked his face away from the dazzling motion. He breathlessly clutched the thatch to keep from falling before the swinging tones drew him back to the dizzying sound and action.

  He held his face half turned from the window, for he could not watch the females full on without being drawn into their giddy spinning, or be overwhelmed by the throbbing sounds that pressed his fluttering heart, and pierced his memory.

  With vision blurring, Gazda moved with caution from the light and sound, sliding his trembling hands over the fronds to crawl nearer the tree-nest’s peak. There he crouched with his strong arms wrapped around his chest as the flying notes vibrated through the roof beneath him.

  Ever spinning upward it ran the high and low while the steady thump of the female feet crashed against his brain reminding him, reminding him of...

  ...a vast room of stone, of bold color, of moving shapes all twirling, spinning and pulsing to the sounds, the rhythms, as he watched—and light spilled down from twinkling blossoms of transparent stone. And the cloud of rhythmic noises flickered with the light.

  He was reminded of... He could see...

  A male voice barked and grated, and there followed a sudden zipping sound, and the noises ceased.

  The females chattered, and squeaked and giggled.

  But Gazda’s vision continued on the echo of those sounds, as he bared his gleaming fangs at the glowering sky. Tears mixed with the raindrops on his cheeks...

  ...as the rhythm sprang to life inside his mind again.

  There as in a waking dream, Gazda saw a thousand females whirling on their mushroom stems and in their embrace did night ape males go leaping. Twirling also, they spun and jumped...

  ...all dressed in the garments from the skin-stones. The night apes turned on a great flat rock beneath shining lights and with them the twittering notes did spin.

  A spasm wrenched Gazda’s body, pulling him from the sight, and there his eyes fell upon the black trees where shadows spilled from their sickly stumps like streams of night.

  Struck with terror, he leapt away and sprinted from the darkness to the jungle edge where he scrambled upward and pressed his back to slick gray bark.

  Rain scattered by the canopy fell as a mist and slid over his shaking limbs in silver drops.

  But the rhythmic cloud of sounds still followed, and when he shut his eyes the night apes turned and spun.

  In a great cavern they moved, and he watched.

  Gazda gagged and pressed his hands against his eyes to stop the tears that flooded out. What were these things? What was the noise? A curse of Fur-nose?

  But more images swam in his mind like those in dreams: more night apes with long knives straddling unknown beasts; tall structures of stone sprang up to be consumed by fire as the cloud of spangled notes turned and turned.

  It was a weapon!

  No! That was wr
ong. These sounds were something more. It was: “MUSIC!”

  The word rang loud in a language not of the apes, and Gazda beat upon his temples to shut it out, only for the word to return the louder, but cleaner somehow, and poignant. It bore a shade of joy that gnawed his lonely heart.

  Gazda whimpered and clawed at the bark to gain his footing on the branch.

  Music. Soft, like his mother’s fur. Yes. Yes. Mother.

  Crouched there on the bough, his thoughts ran back through memory to his mother’s arms and there he looked up into her eyes and pulled her silky sideburns.

  He was warm in her sad gaze...

  ...Gazda’s eyelids fluttered open, and he saw below him the black fog from the sickly trees had crossed the clearing to crawl the jungle depths.

  There was no forest floor. The world was silent.

  A churning column of smoky black grew up from this murk until the crimson eyes upon it blazed directly at him.

  Gazda cried out and leapt away, but the bark beneath his feet was wet...

  ...he fell into the clinging darkness.

  CHAPTER 8 – Savage Breast

  Gazda decided that he must have drifted off. It was rare for him to sleep at night, but there could be no other explanation.

  Or the fall had knocked him senseless—if he had fallen at all—which he was beginning to doubt, for he had awakened astraddle the branch with his back against the tree and he could not have climbed back up without remembering or waking.

  Below him, the black fog that had covered the jungle floor had faded with the rain.

  If it had ever been there at all. More likely he had dreamed that also, for how else could he explain the pillar of fog with burning eyes.

  The downpour had dwindled to the slow drip of raindrops from the foliage that crowded him, and the growing humidity had heated the night air. From his perch, he could see across the clearing to where gentle gray mists rolled and drifted by the tree-nest, though a darker fog still lingered close to the ground by the black and sickly grove where it clashed with a brighter haze that came through the forest from the great blue water.