“Don’t you worry, unusual one. You will not miss your companions when all of us are in the trees.”
Digger looked up through the empty squares. The bamboo stalks had been lashed together with what appeared to be strips of animal hide. Beyond the cage ceiling was darkness, save for the occasional star, fleetingly visible through the tree canopy. A cascading branch swept the top of the cage, and the leaves sounded startled by the intrusion. Then another branch got wedged between the intersecting bamboo stalks and was torn from its tree.
Digger felt the coolness coming from the earth below but couldn’t see the ground, apart from some rocks. And while sticking a leg out of a square was possible, squeezing both legs through was not.
“Who . . . did you see out there? Was there . . . a girl?”
“So, so, so. Not one, not three. Not only girls. Not three boys either.”
Digger again tried to make sense of what the Kappa was saying. Did it see two girls and two boys? Were Corliss and Pam captured too? With Yukiko and a Grudgings boy? He shifted his weight so that his back was flat against the cage wall. The Kappa’s injury had once more forced the creature into a slumped position in the opposite corner. It was no longer covering its head, but was pressing its hand against its wound.
“Other skin-men do not understand our words. In the shellyard—in the rock face—you heard and understood me. Only you, special one. The other Kappas believed you came to destroy or to take the Kappa shells. But no, I do not think that. You came to save the Kappas, did you not?”
“I’m here to find out what happened to my father.”
“Father?” Now the Kappa looked puzzled.
“My father was here searching for you—um, your kind. Years ago. He might have gotten lost. Or something in these woods might have made him lost.” Digger couldn’t believe he was communicating with a creature few people knew existed. The Kappa seemed harmless, but Digger still feared it—a fear he was pushing deep down inside himself.
“I know nothing about your father.” Slithis, offended, narrowed its eyes at Digger. “The Kappas did not take any skin-man into the forest. When skin-men come, we hide. They cannot find us. Except for one.”
“One? Was that three years ago?”
“No. I remember no one coming then. But a fortnight ago, a man did come. He was a shadow-shifter, with burnt hands, and a snarling beast of a dog—a Barghest. He brought the Kappa clan the mirror, along with a warning.” The Kappa winced as pangs of pain coursed through its body.
A man with a dog, Digger thought. The same person who gave the jewel to Inari-san. Yukiko was right; it couldn’t have been Baldric Grudgings. Big Bee wouldn’t give a treasure to the Kappas too, only to try stealing it back from them later.
“Who was that man?”
The Kappa lifted his hand to examine its wound. “He came to our sacred shellyard. Oh, so sad, so sad . . . Our shrine to the ancestors a mess. The skin-men do not respect our kind . . . Knocking down the armor-backs of our ancients.”
In the faint light, Digger could see smudges of blood on the bamboo floor. A purplish smear also marked the bamboo stalk the Kappa had been leaning against. Slithis had lost a lot of blood. But if Digger was to help the creature, he had to be careful. For all he knew, the Kappas and the giants were allies working together. After all, why wouldn’t the hunted take care of their own, regardless of what species they belonged to?
“Are you going to hurt me?”
“No, Slithis would not hurt you, special one.” The Kappa let out another croaky laugh. “Please do not make Slithis hoot, hoot. The laughter hurts Slithis.” The Kappa again lifted its hand to check its wound.
Digger reached into his rucksack and pulled out a yellow T-shirt with “I LOVE WESTWOOD” in red lettering on the front. He held it out for the Kappa. “Here, use this to cover your wound. Go on, please take it. Have you never seen a shirt before?”
The Kappa, hesitant at first, leaned forward and took the shirt in its hand.
Digger rubbed his chin and cheeks. His mouth felt so weird. It wasn’t used to making such words. How was he able to talk to this creature?
“Slithis was not expecting such kindness. I do not know how to thank you, special one.” The Kappa folded the shirt and pressed it against its side to stanch the bleeding.
“Is it bad—where the boy hurt you?”
“It is not good . . . But not as troubling as Slithis’s head.”
Digger remembered the Kappa description in his father’s book. They must need water on their heads to breathe on land. And if that was true, then Slithis’s situation was worse than Digger had thought.
He searched his rucksack for his canteen but it was gone. Without water, he’d have to holler out at those giants for some, even though the thought of making them angry terrified him.
“How long before you’ll need water?” Digger asked.
“Oh, I will be fine for a while, special one. Hours maybe.”
Digger noticed the Kappa’s head was beginning to droop, and its shoulders were sagging beneath its shell. He didn’t want the creature to fall asleep, as he might need its help when the giants put down the cage. And so Digger kept talking . . .
“Why did you give me the mirror?”
Slithis coughed and sputtered. Digger watched its forked tongue slide out between its teeth, wetting the edges of its beaklike mouth. “The shadow-shifter, with the Barghest . . . Did he not send you to fetch the treasure? Do you not know what instructions he gave the Kappa clan?”
The cage tilted as the giants began trudging down a steep slope.
“What do you mean? Instructions? Why would I want your mirror?”
The cage lurched forward, stopped, and then continued onward, tottering several times.
Digger had to wrap his arms around a stalk of bamboo so he wouldn’t slip across the cage floor and into the Kappa’s corner. And there was that dreadful smell again. Of rotten eggs, thickening in the night air. It burned his nostrils.
“Not our mirror. Hers.” The Kappa shook its head with bleak eyes. “We were warned not to give it to any skin-man, just one . . . The one who speaks Kappanese—the shadow-shifter told us. We were warned: only to the boy.” Slithis raised its eyes to meet Digger’s. “But Digger . . .”
It knows my name. Digger didn’t remember anyone calling out his name in the cavern. How could the Kappa possibly know who he was?
The cage suddenly tilted sharply, and Digger found himself looking almost straight down at the Kappa. He held on tight. The cage jerked, then tipped sideways in such a way that felt like one of the giants had slipped. After more lurches, more stumbles, more leaves rasping against the bamboo, the giants’ path flattened and the cage leveled out. Now mixed in with the egg reek was the soothing scent of chilled sand. There was also the sound of small waves gently lapping at a shoreline. A giant muttered something. The other grunted back. And the cage was lowered onto a beach. After that, the giants trudged back into the woods.
“What now?” Digger stood and rubbed his neck.
“Slithis does not know any more than the Digger about what will happen.” The Kappa tucked itself partway under its shell, then shut its eyes. “Not long now . . . a new day will break. Not anything we can do—but wait.”
Chapter 21—Winged Giants of Lake Usori
The waves whitened Lake Usori’s shoreline with frothy streaks. Digger remembered the lake’s shape. On the map it was like a dented blue heart, at the foot of Mount Osore.
Now, in the early morning light, the lake’s surface was hidden beneath the milky vapor which rose from the water. And in the breeze, these clouds of gas carried the nose-stinging stench of sulfur.
Digger reached down through the cage floor and grasped a handful of cool white sand. Raising his hand, he watched the sand stream out from between his fingers, onto his pants and boot heel.
The Kappa’s eyes were shut. Except for its webbed feet, scrunched-up face, and part of its head, it had tucked itself under
its shell. Since Digger couldn’t see the shirt he’d given the creature, he couldn’t tell how much blood had soaked into it. But Slithis’s cheeks were now a sickly dull green, and the Kappa was so still. Its breathing seemed ready to stop completely at any moment.
If they hadn’t been so high up on the beach, by the trees, Digger might have been able to stretch out his arms, cup his hands together, and scoop up some water for Slithis’s head.
Then again, the lake fed the river, so the water there was quite possibly poisonous too. Or worse, the lake was the source of the toxin.
As the sun came up, Digger could make out more of his surroundings. This must be the northern edge of Lake Usori, he thought. If it was, then the giants had set down the cage near Mount Osore, although he couldn’t see the mountain through the towering trees.
And those trees. They were unlike any he’d ever seen—massive and as tall as ten buses piled front to back. Way, way up, their thick, leafy branches blocked all view of the sky.
Apart from a piece of driftwood, and the bones of what might have once been a seagull, the beach was spotless. The only evidence that the giants had been there were trails of faded footprints in the sand, ending where the beach met the forest floor.
The cage had a door, or rather one whole side could be flipped open. If he was strong enough, he could pull out the two pegs—as big as his legs—securing that door.
He could yell. But who would hear?
At least the water hadn’t poisoned him to death. At least his clothes had dried during the night. But he was hungry, and very thirsty. If he and the Kappa didn’t get water soon, they’d be done for.
But the giants didn’t carry us all the way here just to let us die on a beach, Digger told himself. Did they?
The answer came straightaway.
“Slithis. Wake up. Slithis?”
The Kappa’s eyelids fluttered rapidly and then lingered, half open. Groggily, Slithis peered up at the trees. “They have not taken us up yet?”
This was the first time Digger had seen any giants clearly. There were two, way up in the trees, and they were up to something. In their hands were ropes, or vines? One giant was fastening a vine rope to each side of a square of joined logs. And this platform was soon dangling like a swing for an elephant, far above the cage. The other giant stood on a plump branch with the opposite end of the rope. He looped it around what appeared to be a gargantuan pulley, which was fixed to a tree.
“What are they doing?”
“Slithis cannot see well today. But guesses they will come to collect us.”
“Collect us?” Digger didn’t like the sound of that. “What do they want from us?”
“Not from us, skin-man. I am of no value to them. No, no, no . . . They are not coming for Slithis. No, no, no. No place to go but up, up, up. The village in the trees, awaiting Slithis’s death.”
Digger’s heart jumped. The Kappa absolutely could not die in this cage. And surely if the giants let one of them die, the other’s life would mean just as little to them.
Branches trembled high up in the trees. The pair of giants had begun their descent, one clutching a vine rope, his foot in a loop, and the other using his broad black wings to glide down in a spiral. As they drew nearer, Digger saw that the larger of the two was holding a second rope, and every time he pulled it, the platform was lowered.
There was nowhere Digger could run. Even if he could squeeze out of the cage, the giants would catch him. He sat cross-legged and as small as he could, while the Kappa slipped back into unconsciousness.
The giants’ wings—crow black with tinges of red—puffed out from behind their boulder-sized shoulders. Their leather armor hung down over their arms and bodies and all the way to their ankles, concealed only where crimson sashes wrapped around their waists. Ornaments and strings of various beads and colorful feathers swung from their necks. Digger could see most of their clawed feet in the wood-soled sandals they wore. And both carried daggers on their hips.
At first they didn’t seem at all interested in the cage below. They were focused on the platform swaying overhead, and only briefly did they make sideways glances downward. But then, as they came closer, Digger saw their fierce eyes scrutinizing him. Like yellow marbles, those beady birdlike eyes bulged under wild eyebrows, which spread from pointy ear to pointy ear as dark conjoined arches. Their slick black hair had been tied into tight topknots at the back of their heads. Their rounded chins and cheeks were ruddy red, making the giants appear enraged, or terribly annoyed.
And their noses! Even if Digger could escape and hide, those long snouts would sniff him out. All he could do was hope the giants wouldn’t harm him.
It’s a lift, Digger realized. They’re here for the cage—to take it with them. As terrifying as that was, it also provided some comfort. If the giants were planning to eat him, they wouldn’t be doing it here on the beach. Since they were going to take him up into the trees, he had time.
“Well, have a look-see here,” said the bigger giant. He seemed angrier and more menacing than his partner. “They are just where the Shugenja told us they’d be.”
“Where?” the other asked. Digger could tell right away that the smaller giant was slightly screwy—he was scouring the area without so much as even glancing at the cage.
“Here.”
“Who?”
“They.”
“Ah, indeed. I see what you mean, Kenja.”
“I should hope so, since they are RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU.”
“More to the left, I’d say—not the right. But undeniably, they are in front. You’re right there, unless, of course, you meant you are right and I am wrong.”
“I didn’t mean I was right. Nor was I suggesting you were wrong. I was merely pointing out that the creatures which the Shugenja brought us are right here, precisely where we were told they would be.”
“Yes, but—and I mean no offense—you weren’t pointing at all. If you had pointed, then we would not be having this conversation, am I right?”
“I said pointing out not pointing at.” The angry one was redder than before.
“Right.”
“Right.”
“Write?”
“Enough! Sōjōbō wants these creatures in the trees—lickety-split.”
“Awful. Disturbing. How violent.” the screwy one said, bringing his fingers to his lower lip in distress.
“In the trees, up there, you fool. Not IN the trees. Not yet, anyway . . . Now help me get this cage on the lift.”
Digger didn’t know what to think. These giant forest-dwellers had been given some orders, but what were they? And how was it possible for him to understand what they were saying?
“Yes, well, um, sorry,” the screwy one said, “but I don’t entirely see the point.”
“Oh, not back to pointing again, Kenza, are we?”
“No, no, I dare not, Kenja. I simply wanted to make a point: the boy and amphibian are heavy. Why lift them both . . . at this point?”
The giants looked down at the Kappa, its eyes still shut. Digger could see its shell rising and falling, but almost not at all. Slithis was alive, he knew, but the giant with the angrier eyebrows declared: “The frogman is dead.”
“Good point,” remarked the other. “That’s exactly what I was getting at.”
“Let’s open the door. You hold down the boy so he doesn’t get away. I’ll pluck out the amphibian. We’ll discard the critter in the lake. With any luck, it’ll find the river and float back to its lair.”
Through a gap in the bamboo roof Digger shouted at the mean giant, “He’s not dead.” What? Digger was stunned. How did I just say that?
But the more important question was: What would these giants do after he’d yelled at them? They didn’t seem furious, though; instead they were utterly astonished. They stood like statues, both gaping down at him.
“The boy speaks of not being dead,” Kenza muttered.
In spite of how creepy it felt to be
caged up with a Kappa, Digger wanted Slithis to wake up and say something. After all, these giant beasts and little critters must have crossed paths before. The Kappa might be able to get them out of this situation, or at least get them some water. Plus, without help, Slithis was going to die, and soon. The Kappa was extremely weak. If the giants dropped it in that toxic water, leaving it for dead, it would sink to the bottom and that’s where it would stay, too exhausted to swim out on its own.
“Will the boy speak for us again?” the screwy one asked. He took a step toward the cage.
Fear still burned in Digger’s chest. He gulped. Dryness. He was trapped. An enormous face and soaring nose threateningly close. All he could do was stand and look the giant dead in the eyes. “Water,” he said softly, though it came out not as “Wa” and “ter” but as something else—as “Mi-a-zoo-wah.” These sounds sputtered off his tongue, not from deep in his throat, like when he spoke to the Kappa, but from around his lips. “Water,” he pleaded again in their language, “for the Kappa, and for me.”
“The boy does! He does! He can speak to Tengus. He speaks Tenguish.” In disbelief and glee, the screwy one smacked his meaty hands together and clapped and clapped and clapped.
Kenja, though, wasn’t the least bit amused. His face now twisted up with suspicion, he stepped forward, bent over, and said, “Count to ten for us, and water you shall have.”
This irritated Digger. He’d been told to count to ten—for his survival! What was he, a caged bird expected to squawk for these Tengus?
On the other hand, what else could he do? His eyes, lungs, stomach, and skin all felt dry. He was scared his teeth might crack without water. He imagined himself shriveling up, like a grape to a raisin. And so he took a deep breath and started counting to ten, each number, “Iichawa . . . Ne’ashian . . . Sabodar . . .” bursting out his mouth for the first time ever.
Digger Doyle's Real Book of Monsters Page 13
