by Jim Beard
Dante saw that Krastos had dug out a section of wall fifteen feet wide and ten high. It was all the same dull gray-white. Except where it wasn’t. Except where there were words painted on it in blocky black letters. Dante did not dare speak. Not at first. He turned slowly, looking at the cleared section of wall. At the letters. At the words they formed, running left to right. Dangerous words. Terrifying.
Most of the others at the construction site would not understand what this meant, or what horrors they implied, but Dante knew. Every senior initiate in the sacred order of the Guardians of the Scroll would be able to read those words and understand what they meant. That understanding, and any actions that might be taken as a consequence, were a heavy responsibility. It’s why apes like Seneca, Pliny, Abraham, and even Zaius himself had sworn oaths to die rather than let this kind of evil endure or spread. Seeing it here, on this side of Boundary Run, right at the spot where the shrine was to be built, felt like a dagger in his heart. He stared at the words and felt the dagger turn.
Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base New Orleans
Dante snaked out a hand and caught Krastos by the elbow, pulling him close to whisper in the old engineer’s ear. “Did anyone else see this?”
“No,” said Krastos, moving up to stand very close. “I made them all wait on the far side of the excavation because they can’t read it from there.”
“Good.”
Krastos rested the point of his spade against the concrete pad. “I can bring tent poles and sheeting if you want, and build a screen.”
Dante nodded. He felt faint and sick and had to brace his feet to keep from swaying. Here? Of all places, here?
Krastos cut a nervous look at the cleric. “What does it mean?”
Dante licked his thin lips.
“It means that God is testing us,” said Dante in a cold little whisper. “It means that God is watching us.”
“I…”
Dante turned to him. “Erect the screen. Do it yourself. No one else is to see this. And send for Captain Maximus. Do it now.”
Krastos nodded, took his spade and trudged away. Once he was alone, Dante placed both of his hands against the wall beneath the words.
“The one and only God is watching us very closely,” he murmured.
* * *
Dante saw him arrive.
Captain Maximus was very hard to miss. He was not the biggest silverback Dante had ever met, but he was easily the broadest, with massive shoulders, arms that were packed with muscle, and a brutish face that even scared horses. An old human male had once died from sheer fright when Maximus roared at him. That had been on a market day and everyone in Big Rock laughed about it for weeks. Except the chimpanzees, of course, who managed to find something wrong with anything any ape did who wasn’t part of their cabal of snobs.
The big captain did not bother with the ladder but instead dropped from the edge of the foundation wall, landed on all fours, punched the ground once as if to teach it its place, then straightened and strode over to meet the cleric. He wore a black leather tunic but no cap. Studded gauntlets were buckled around his forearms, and he had a pistol and dagger on his broad belt. As he approached, Maximus looked slowly around, surveying the site. He nodded as if satisfied that it was empty. Far above, the clouds had thickened to cover the sky and a false night was already falling. Lanterns cast the whole scene in shades of flickering orange and midnight black.
“Dante,” said the gorilla, his voice a deep rumble.
“Captain,” replied Dante. They nodded to each other. They were not exactly close friends, but their politics and religious views coincided on every important point, and that made them allies.
The gorilla glanced at the screens. “Krastos found something?”
“Yes.”
“What is it? A fault in the foundation? Are we going to lose this site?”
“We may lose the site,” said Dante, “or we may not. You tell me.”
Dante turned and gestured to the screens. Maximus frowned for a moment, then slapped aside the edge of a curtain and stepped inside. After a moment Dante followed, and he nearly bumped into the captain, who had stopped in his tracks and stood staring at the wall. Although literacy was lowest among gorillas, no one could rise to the rank of captain without being able to read and write. Maximus was well read and shrewd.
Maximus read the words and then wheeled on Dante. “What heresy is this?”
“Again, you tell me,” said Dante.
Maximus walked over to the wall, touching it in much the same way Dante had done. He traced several of the letters and then stopped, but left his thick fingers there. “How is this here?” he asked. “How is it on this side of Boundary Run?”
Dante said nothing.
“The Run is the outside edge of the Forbidden Zone,” continued the gorilla. “There isn’t supposed to be anything like this here.”
Dante said nothing.
“We were told,” insisted Maximus. “It’s written in all of the books that no evil has set foot in this part of the world.”
“And yet,” said Dante quietly.
Maximus turned quickly and there were dangerous lights in his black eyes. His voice, though, was calm. “And yet,” he agreed.
They were silent for a long time, but much was said in the looks they exchanged. Dante followed the big ape’s eyes as he worked it through. Maximus flicked his eyes toward the screens, beyond which was the excavation for the shrine, and beyond that the small village of tents for the workers. Maximus shifted his gaze toward Big Rock, and then another shift in the direction where, many hundreds of miles from there, was the sprawling metropolis of Ape City.
Then the gorilla’s eyes shifted to two items that stood leaning against the wall: a sledgehammer and a pickaxe. Without saying a word, the gorilla began unbuttoning his leather vest. He handed it to Dante, then took the handle of the pickaxe, hefted its weight in his hands, set himself and swung with all of his considerable strength. The cold steel point of the pick bit deep into the concrete between the words “Naval” and “Air.” Chips of stone flew.
Dante, smiling, stepped aside and watched with great interest as the captain attacked the wall. The grunt of the big ape, the whistle of the tool as it whipped through the air, and the heavy tink of impact were the only sounds in the world.
* * *
It took Maximus nearly two hours to smash the wall.
He never once stopped, never paused, and instead worked like a machine, his huge muscles bunching and flexing beneath the rubbery hide and dense black hair. Fissures whipsawed out from the impact points as concrete chipped away to reveal cinderblocks. Once he was at that level, the destruction became easier as the lighter composite building blocks crumbled beneath the savage impacts. A cloud of white dust hung in the air around the ape, gradually coating him so that he looked like a ghost from a midnight horror tale. Like the ghost of “Hector and the Five Demon Men” that was told to children to make them eat their greens.
Then Maximus tossed the pickaxe aside, chest heaving, and snatched up the sledgehammer. He gave Dante a strange and almost manic look and then attacked the edges of the hole, breaking out spikes of rock the way he would knock out an enemy’s teeth in combat. Even though this was only stone, there was a joyful brutality about it that Dante admired. A true soldier of the faith.
Finally, Dante said, “That is enough, Captain.”
The big ape swung the sledge a last time, assessed the damage, and let the tool drop with a ringing clang. The hole was now ten feet high and seven wide. Dust swirled into it and vanished into deep shadows. The gorilla had chopped out all of the letters, though, so that lines of destruction spread out like wings from the hole.
The captain and the cleric moved to the very edge of the hole. The air from inside was cold and surprisingly dry, as if tightly sealed from the moisture of the rich dirt around it. Dante doubted any rain had even seeped inside; there was no smell of mold or rot.
“Who k
nows about this?” asked Maximus.
“Who knows that we found something?” said Dante. “Everyone in camp. But if you’re asking about what was written on the wall, then it’s the two of us and Krastos, and he knows when to hold his tongue. He’s a good ape, and his loyalties are to the church.”
“This will get out, though.”
“Only if we’re sloppy,” said Dante. “Only if we’re foolish.”
Maximus cut a look at him. “Surely, Cato will find out. His spies are everywhere, and I’m not just talking about the chimpanzees. There are orangutans on his payroll and maybe even some of my lads.”
Dante nodded. “Sad, but all too true. Trust is hard to come by in these troubled times.”
“And Cato is smart, damn him,” growled Maximus. “He’ll know something is happening out here. If he comes out here for an inspection…”
“This is church ground,” Dante reminded him. “Even the mayor has to get permission from the council first, and that’s a bureaucratic process that can take an alarming amount of time… if managed correctly. No, Cato won’t find out about anything specific right away. We may have as much as a week or two before—”
Maximus laughed. “Two weeks? Ha! I bet he already knows something is going on out here. All it takes is for one ape to come in here while we’re sleeping…”
He trailed off, leaving the obvious unsaid.
Dante nodded. “Then we need guards. You say that you can’t trust all of your people, but surely there are some who are reliable. Can you pick four or, better yet, six to stand watch?”
Maximus thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “My sister’s husband would walk through hellfire for me, I know that. And his brother. And there are the three river gorilla brothers. You know the ones. They were offered prison or the army, and they’ve been with me for years now. And they’re no friends of Cato and the chimpanzee courts. They’ll do, and maybe one other.” He nodded again. “Yes, I think they’re all trustworthy. And tough, too. They know that you’re my friend, so they think you’re the right hand of the Lawgiver.”
“Useful,” said Dante.
They studied the darkness.
“Mayor Cato could jail us for even breaking down this wall,” said the gorilla.
“A bit late to point that out,” said Dante.
“My point is that we may be playing into his hands,” said Maximus. “We gorillas are strong and you orangutans are devious, but here in Big Rock the chimpanzees outnumber us six to one. Weak as they are, there are enough of them to force us to turn this site over to them. And they have the legal right to demand it. Cato wants all of this land to expand the farms—farms that are almost entirely owned by his lot. Most of the gorillas have moved out of here because there’s no one to fight, no way for a decent ape to make his mark on the world. By the Lawgiver, there are ten gorilla families who are already planting beans. Beans, for all that’s holy.” He gave Dante a curt nod. “You wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t somehow convinced the church elders that this was a good spot to build a shrine. You think Cato doesn’t resent you for that? And he knows where my loyalties lie, so he lumps us all in together.”
“And your point?”
“My point is that we’re already playing a dangerous game, Dante. Not only can Cato arrest both of us, but he’ll snatch all of this land. Then anyone who was ever close to us—those who aren’t breaking rocks along with us—will be planting beans and banana trees all throughout this region. There won’t be a shrine.”
Dante considered. “If he becomes aware of what we’ve found.”
“We don’t even know what we’ve found.”
“Don’t we?” asked Dante. “Besides… had these lands been left to Cato and his farmers, they would have found this place in time. And where would we all be?”
“We’d be standing on the same cracked tree limb ready to fall.”
“Would we, captain?” Dante slowly shook his head. “I rather think not. Because Mayor Cato would not react to this place as we are reacting—with reasoned thought and self-control. He would abandon this entire region, even at the expense of his people’s financial welfare. He would run screaming like a monkey.”
“Or he’d go inside and see what he could use to really overthrow us. Cato is ambitious, Dante. If he had real power—not just numbers, but something more—do you think gorillas or orangutans would have any of the freedoms we currently have? Not a chance of that. The chimpanzees would love to turn us into slaves no better than humans.”
Dante shook his head. “Maybe. And although Cato is smart, I think you overestimate him as much as he overestimates himself. He has numbers, yes, and he certainly has ambitions, but would he go so far as that? I don’t know.”
“I do. And as much as it causes me physical pain to say it, I fear the little bastard. You should, too. You think the church would remain in power if the chimpanzees took control? They’re closet atheists, all of them.”
Dante shrugged. It was a topic often discussed among his fellow orangutans, but he’d never before heard a gorilla say it.
“Cato is dangerous,” Maximus said flatly. “And he will find out about this place, mark me on that.”
“Perhaps he will, but not as quickly as you believe,” soothed Dante. “Cato thinks he has the best spy network in town, but believe me when I tell you this, Captain Maximus, no one has a better network than the church. No one ever has, and no one ever will.”
The gorilla snorted and slapped the edge of the wall hard enough to knock a big chunk of concrete and cinderblock down. “How can they not know? We can’t just bury this and pretend it doesn’t exist. The whole camp knows that something is here.”
“Yes, they do,” said Dante, “but that is all they know.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning, that we’ve found something of great importance on a site that has been sanctified and consecrated. Surely, anything found in so holy a place must be of great spiritual importance.”
The gorilla looked at him. “And you think they’ll buy that?”
Dante held up a hand the way clerics often did when quoting the scriptures. “‘And when the savages had set his field alight with yellow flames and pursued the pilgrim, Josiah and his wife and their children out into the wastelands. They beheld a thing like unto a tower of flame that spoke in the voice of the Lawgiver, and the Lawgiver said to them, ‘Take heart and do not fear, for I have planted the seeds of your salvation in the very ground.’”
“Oh, very nice,” said Maximus with a harsh laugh. “That’s a quote about finding potatoes to feed them on their flight from the edge of the Forbidden Zone to the valleys near Ape City. How does that…?”
The gorilla’s voice trailed off and a look of understanding came slowly into his eyes. The big ape turned and looked back once more to the wall of screens and then nodded. “Ah,” he said.
“Ah,” agreed Dante. He gave Maximus a long and calculating appraisal. “Many people underestimate gorillas.”
Maximus smiled. “And you?”
“There are wise apes and fools of every stripe, my friend. I’ve learned long ago not to judge but rather to observe and evaluate. And though we have never had an explicit conversation on the subject, it’s my belief that we are of a mind when it comes to what makes the territories beyond Boundary Run ‘forbidden.’”
Maximus grunted.
“Just as I believe we are both adult enough to understand why it’s forbidden,” continued Dante, “and why it needs to remain forbidden. The nature of what makes it forbidden does, by extension, make this place forbidden as well.”
“Yes,” agreed the captain.
Dante bent and picked up a lantern. “Once we step inside, we are breaking the laws of our own faith.”
The gorilla straightened. “Maybe. But aren’t all things done in the service of the Lawgiver, and to protect his people, sanctified as necessary?”
“Cato would not agree.”
Maximus sho
wed his white teeth in a killer’s grin. “No. I don’t suppose he would.”
Together, they stepped into the darkness.
* * *
The place was massive, cold, dark. Alien.
But familiar, too, at least to Dante. He had never been in a place like this before, but the tales told by the older members of the Guardians of the Scrolls had carried him there. Those stories had lifted him and brought him across the borders of the Forbidden Zone, into strange tunnels and through doorways, down flights of dusty stairs, into chambers built by hands that did not belong to any of the great apes.
The very fact of their existence, the undeniable truth of what it all meant, was the very reason the Guardians had been formed in the first place. It was the truth that held their brotherhood together and had shaped their resolve over many hundreds of years. It was a truth they rarely spoke aloud, even among themselves, even when they were behind their own strong, locked doors. It was a truth they did not dare share with the chimpanzees, and only in the rarest of cases with the most trusted of the gorillas.
It was a truth that should have shaken their faith to its core and made a liar of the Lawgiver. And yet…
It did not.
In very real point of fact, the knowledge that human hands had built those places became the strongest possible reinforcement of their faith. There was no doubt at all about the unrelenting savagery of humankind. There was no doubt that they had been warlike, destructive and, worst of all, self-destructive. They had built weapons that were designed to kill their own kind in staggering numbers. They had built appalling machines that could lay waste to vast tracts of land and poison the soil so that nothing would ever grow again. They had darkened their skies and turned the very weather against their own. Even the wisest of the Guardians could not understand why. How could a species that, despite popular belief, had been capable of advanced thought not have the compassion to provide for their own children by handing over a safer, cleaner, and less dangerous world?
