The surrounding trees upon the hill’s crown were relatively sparse. Many years ago Samuel had been on a hill similar to this one. It had been his first hunting excursion with the Papuan savages who had long ago captured him and killed his companions—savages he now considered to be friends.
Today, though, Samuel had not come here to hunt.
“I estimate the village to be nearly three miles distant,” he said, not necessarily to the mbolop nor to anyone in particular. During eighty years living with the tribe, he had developed a habit of speaking aloud when he was alone.
He opened the pack. Inside were twelve pouches, each of them made from the skin of a bandicoot, and each of them containing a lump of clay slightly smaller than his fist. He pulled forth one of the pouches. He held it upside down until the lump of clay fell out onto the ground before him. He then pulled forth a second pouch and dropped a nearly identical lump of clay next to the first. This was followed by a third lump, and then a fourth. Eight lumps still remained in the pack, contained within their own skin pouches.
Samuel had discreetly collected the lumps over a period of three months, carefully storing them in his hut. Each was contained within a pouch so the lumps would not touch, as his purpose would be ill-served were they to be mixed together before this particular day. He had pinched off the lumps, one at a time, from a much larger source, a mass of clay over two feet in diameter. The Papuan villagers called the clay Lamotelokhai, which meant the end of the world. Eighty years before, Samuel had briefly believed the clay might have been a portal to God. Since then, however, he had seen that it was something even more astounding.
Samuel studied the four lumps before him. A pinch from any one of them could be used to perform seemingly impossible tasks. If he wished to cause an object to dissolve into soil, he would need only to apply the clay to the object. If he or a companion were injured, applying the clay would heal the wounds—even if the wounds would otherwise have been fatal. If he wished to cook a meal or fire-harden a spear tip, he could apply the clay to the wood before burning it, resulting in a smokeless fire that would not reveal his location.
Unique tasks requiring more specific instructions, however, could only be performed by the larger source of the clay, the Lamotelokhai. Or so Samuel had previously believed. Recently, however, an idea had been circling about in his mind. What if it were possible to combine bits of the clay into a mass smaller than the Lamotelokhai but large enough to carry out complex tasks? If this were possible, the benefits would be numerous beyond imagining.
The question was this: how large would the mass need to be?
He looked again at the sparse hilltop trees. “Am I alone?” he shouted, and then again in the language of the villagers. “Nu bai-khokhüm?” There was no response, although he sensed the mbolop watching him from above. Returning his attention to the lumps of clay, he shifted his position on the ground and straightened his back, attempting to drive away his misgivings.
“Let no man deceive himself,” he muttered. “Let him become a fool, that he may become wise.” He then pushed the four lumps together and molded them into one.
He plucked a river stone from the pack and placed it next to the clay. Then, he placed his hands on the clay and closed his eyes to create a clear vision of his request. He stirred up a well-rehearsed series of thoughts, running them through his mind in a specific order: a vision of the river stone becoming smaller and taking on a golden color; a silent explanation that the rock had turned to gold, the heaviest of metals; a vision of a gold nugget tipping a scale, outweighing a stone on the opposite end.
Samuel opened his eyes, pinched off some of the clay, and smeared it upon the stone. He then sat back and waited.
Nothing happened.
He pulled four more skin pouches from the pack, removed lumps of clay from them, and pressed the lumps into the larger mass. He placed his hands on the clay, repeated the series of thoughts, and smeared another pinch of clay on the stone.
Again, nothing.
“God blind me! Have I embarked upon another fruitless path of inquiry?”
He pulled the last four skin pouches from the pack, extracted the clay lumps from each of them, and pressed them into the mass, resulting in a lump that was now as large as his head. If this didn’t work, he would have to conclude the experiment was a failure, as it was impractical to gather more. He placed his hands on the clay and repeated the sequence of thoughts. After anointing the stone, he sat back and watched, softly singing an old song from his childhood to calm himself.
“A-hunting we will go, a-hunting we will go, we’ll catch a giraffe and make him laugh, and then we’ll let him go.”
The stone shifted. Or did it? Perhaps it was just his imagination.
“A-hunting we will go, we’ll catch a bear and cut his hair, and then…”
The stone shifted again. This time it continued changing. It was becoming smaller. Its edges seemed to soften, and its surface turned to shimmering golden yellow. Samuel held his fingers above it to be sure it wasn’t hot, and then he picked it up. The bottom of it had conformed to the twigs and soil, as if it had melted and cooled, although no debris was stuck to its surface. Its weight indicated that indeed it was gold. He looked more closely. It was imperfect, with speckles of minerals showing on its surface. This was peculiar. He had made this same request of the Lamotelokhai many times, always resulting in perfect, pure gold specimens. Nonetheless, the results were encouraging.
He proceeded to the second experiment he had prepared. He placed his hands upon the lump of clay, closed his eyes, and conjured another sequence of thoughts. In his mind’s vision, the gold specimen transformed its shape. First it elongated and formed a head, thorax, and abdomen. Then two broad wings sprouted from each side of the thorax, gradually spreading wider until the entire object was an intricate gold sculpture of a butterfly. He opened his eyes and smeared a pinch of clay onto the impure gold.
He waited, softly humming the old song.
The gold began to change. It narrowed in two places, forming the three insect body regions. Then, however, the sculpting process went astray. Instead of delicate wings blossoming from each side, tendrils of speckled gold spewed forth into shapeless extensions. The insect body curled up and writhed, as if it were a malformed creature in great pain. Samuel watched, mesmerized, as the object’s shape continued shifting. For a moment the gold resembled a giraffe, and then a bear, and then it even resembled the face of his beloved Lindsey, whom he had left behind in London and who had no doubt grown old and passed away years before. When he saw this, he glanced away, unwilling to be tormented by the sight. When he returned his gaze to the gold, the transformations had stopped, leaving an amorphous mass that bore no resemblance to a butterfly. He touched it with his finger, half expecting it to change again, but it was cold and solid.
“Most… extraordinary,” he said. He turned to the lump of clay. “You seem to understand my requests but are hardly capable of granting them. Of what use are you? I shall have to endeavor to discover what you can and cannot do.”
He got up and began searching the area for a beetle or other large insect, which he would need for his next experiment. After sifting through leaf litter on the forest floor for some minutes, a slight movement in a low bush caught his attention. He approached the bush and soon was eye-to-eye with a slender arboreal lizard perhaps two feet in total length. Its yellow-spotted black body sharply contrasted with a brilliant blue tail.
Samuel sighed and shook his head. This was yet another new species of the genus Monitor. He would have a most impressive collection of specimens, had his life not taken such a calamitous turn of fate.
He slowly inched his way closer and then thrust his hand out in a blur and snatched the lizard. He inspected the struggling creature, holding it out so that its lashing tail could not whip his face.
“If you are indeed new to science,” he said to the lizard, “then I have the honor of naming you.” He used his free hand to subd
ue the tail. “Monitor cerulean seems to fit you well, as your tail is as blue as the evening sky. Let us see what we can do to make the name even more fitting, shall we?” He then carried the lizard back to the lump of clay and sat upon the ground.
He placed his free hand on the clay, closed his eyes, and formed a mental vision of the lizard. Then, he imagined the blue pigment of the creature’s tail spreading forward, transforming the scaly skin on the rest of the body from black and yellow to the same brilliant cerulean hue. He opened his eyes and smeared a pinch of clay onto the lizard’s back. By this time the creature had stopped struggling, so he released it, keeping his hand ready above it in case it tried to run. The lizard tilted its head but remained where it was.
Samuel waited.
Soon his mental vision began materializing. Beginning at the base of the lizard’s tail, bead-like black scales faded to gray and then became blue. This alteration progressed until its entire body and head were blue with yellow spots.
As the yellow spots began changing to blue, the lizard abruptly wrenched its head to the side. Its mouth snapped open and emitted a menacing hiss. Samuel pulled his hand back, thinking the lizard was about to lunge at him. Instead of attacking, however, the creature spasmed and tumbled onto its side, its legs kicking desperately, as if gripped by seizure. Suddenly its body split in two, spewing forth blood and entrails.
Samuel rose to his feet. “What in God’s—” He stopped short. The two halves of the lizard were now moving—transforming. Torn skin rolled up into itself and fell away from each portion of the carcass. The elongated rolls of skin then began crawling away, moving on their own like macabre grubs. Exposed organs detached themselves from the lizard’s body. Some of them began oozing away, while others sprouted rudimentary legs and began crawling.
Horrified, Samuel realized he was stumbling backwards.
The lizard’s tail broke free from the body and thrashed about. Its haphazard movements became more coordinated and deliberate, until finally it slithered away like a snake. The head portion of the body was still floundering about, going through its own revolting transformation. As it rolled on the ground, its jaws snapped shut on some dry leaves and small plants, which then began changing, eventually assimilating into the creature’s head. The unholy beast then began snapping up every living and once-living object within its reach, as if it had discovered a new life-sustaining food source. Each thing it clamped upon became part of its abhorrent and growing mass.
Samuel could hardly look away from this disturbing sight, but suddenly his attention was drawn again to the snake-like tail, which had slithered and spiraled its way up a sapling tree and was now at the height of his chest. The thing was tightening around the sapling like a snake constricting its prey. Carefully keeping his distance from the creature’s voracious head, Samuel stepped closer to the sapling to observe. But then he stepped back again when the trunk softened where the tail was gripping it, the entire tree folding and collapsing toward him. The autonomous tail then somehow melded into the folded joint of the sapling’s trunk and was gone.
And then the entire tree began to move.
“God save me,” Samuel uttered.
The tree continued changing its shape as it slowly writhed about. Samuel backed away, but he tripped and fell over something. Sprawled on his back, his feet and knees rested atop a hulking mass that only moments before had been the head of a small lizard. The thing was now the size of Samuel’s body, although its form was unrecognizable. No longer resembling the lizard it once was, it had grown body parts of many different creatures, all of them squirming and fighting as if they desired to escape from the horrifying conglomeration to which they were bound.
As Samuel tried to comprehend what he was seeing, a creature’s head materialized from the mass and clamped its jaws onto his bare calf. The head was the size of a small dog’s, but it appeared to be reptilian, with round yellow eyes and vertical pupils. Samuel kicked it with his free foot, tearing its teeth loose from his flesh. He rolled out of its reach and then sat up, pressing his hand against his bleeding leg.
The multifarious masses continued to squirm and grow before his eyes, including several smaller blobs that had originated from the lizard’s entrails and hind legs. With every passing moment they grew larger as they engulfed leaf litter, soil, and living plants. The reptilian head that had bitten Samuel gaped and screeched as it fought to free itself from the jumbled body parts of a dozen or more different creatures, all of them squirming in the same frantic manner.
Several sharp cracks drew Samuel’s attention upward. He rolled to the side just in time to avoid being killed by the trunk of a large falling tree. Smaller limbs on the now horizontal tree folded where they joined the main trunk and then broke off. The limbs began bending and cracking on their own accord, taking on new shapes. One of them emitted a dry, twittering shriek, unlike any sound Samuel had heard before.
He stared at the scene before him, too shocked to run or to try to stop the accelerating process. Suddenly he was aware of a curious sensation in his bitten leg. He looked down. The wound was changing. His skin was peeling back, exposing red muscle and pale fat. The underlying tissues were moving about, transmuting into something else. For a brief moment a three-toed claw emerged from the wound and grasped at the air before sinking back into his calf muscle. Another bulge formed, and a pair of eyelids parted. A rust-colored eye stared back at him.
Samuel tried to cry out in despair and crawl away from the transforming flesh, but he could not escape his own body. He curled up on his side and pummeled his leg with his fist, desperately hoping to stop the monstrous transformation by beating it to a pulp.
In his panicked frenzy, his flailing arm struck something beside him. It was the mbolop, the tree kangaroo. Samuel’s inadvertent blow sent it tumbling, but it quickly righted itself and sat up on its haunches. The creature scratched at its belly. It then ripped open its own skin, plunged one paw deep into its abdomen, and extracted a bloody lump of flesh, which it held out as an offering.
Samuel stared at the mbolop, then looked down at his leg. The wriggling, transfiguring wound was steadily growing larger. It had expanded down to his foot. One of his toes was now six inches long and was thrashing about, looking much like a lizard’s tail. His entire body would soon be transmogrified.
He snatched the lump from the mbolop’s paw and shoved it into his mouth.
In his desire for haste, Samuel ran directly through a patch of yalün, or stinging nettles. The unnatural transformation of his leg had stopped, but the wound was still wide open, and the nettles pricked and lacerated his raw flesh, injecting their astringent sap. The pain nearly caused him to collapse, but dread and remorse pushed him onward.
He continued fighting his way through dense jungle for nearly two hours. At last, exhausted and bleeding, he arrived at the village. He made his way straight to where the Lamotelokhai was concealed. Soon he stood at the base of an enormous, buttressed tree. Wasting no time, he extracted a thin rope with evenly spaced loops—a rope ladder—that had been tucked away in the crevices of the tree’s bark. He began climbing toward the hut, which was over a hundred feet above the ground. His leg was now nearly healed, and soon he ascended directly through a hole in the hut’s floor and stepped away from the ladder.
To his surprise, three Papuan natives were there in the hut. One of them stepped away from the others and blocked Samuel’s path. He was about Samuel’s height, but he had dark skin and wore no clothing other than a sheath made from a gourd, fitted tightly over his sexual organs. A band of white paint, made from palm oil and the crushed shells of river clams, extended from one ear to the other like a mask. Green lorikeet feathers protruded in random directions from his frizzly hair. His name was Sinanie, and Samuel had lived with him and his fellow tribesmen since 1868.
Sinanie appraised the scratches and filth covering most of Samuel’s body, a deep frown forming on his face. He said, “Samuel, ge sumo abül lép-telo (you have the s
mell of a man who is afraid).”
Samuel was still trying to catch his breath. “Sinanie, nu khof-e-kha lamoda-Lamotelokhai tekhén-mo (I must touch the Lamotelokhai).”
Sinanie furrowed his brow. He did not step aside.
There was no time to explain. Samuel walked around Sinanie and kneeled down before a low table. Upon the table was the Lamotelokhai, a shapeless lump of clay approximately the size and mass of a man’s body. This was where Samuel had gotten the smaller lumps of clay he had secretly combined on the remote hill. And the Lamotelokhai was the reason Samuel had remained in this forest for eighty years. Without waiting to see if the natives intended to stop him, he placed his hands on the clay. He formed words in his mind without speaking them, although his lips moved slightly to facilitate the process.
“I must confess, I have again done something foolish and am in desperate need of your assistance.”
Chapter Two
Quentin Darnell stared at a brown water stain on the ceiling above the bed. He had been awakened at 4:30 by a loud call to prayer from the mosque across the street. The calling hadn’t stopped, so there was no going back to sleep. Finally, he turned on his phone to check the clock—6:00 am. He had to do something—anything—to pass the time. Their flight to the inland village of Navera wasn’t for another three hours. Lindsey was still sleeping, so he quietly got out of bed, slipped into his rumpled t-shirt and khaki trousers, and shoved on his hiking shoes. He plucked a thin, 4-inch bone from the nightstand and put it in his pocket. It was from a male raccoon, a bone called the baculum, also known as the penis bone. He liked to think it brought him good luck—his only superstitious habit. This one was a replacement, as he had lost the original eight months ago in a plane crash.
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