by Joe Darris
A bolt of lightning large enough to hear above the dull rumble cracks in the sky. The energy difference assaults him as the air recharges in the bolt's wake. A brief wave of nausea passes quickly. Kao adapts to this environment.
The Totem is close now, within a hundred paces. Kao's strides extend. He readies his legs for his climb up.
At this distance the Totem doubles in size, then doubles again as Kao halves each distance. It had loomed large on the landscape but up close it is overwhelming. Wider in girth than the hermit's cave, taller than the mountain Kao fell from, the Totem's size is of inarguable godlike proportions.
Close enough to see its surface, the Totem has bark like a tree, but it sparks and crackles with blue lightning. Energy flows down the strips of bark and into the earth like fast flowing water. He remembers the warm glowing depths of the river, the hot red light like a sun below the glacial river. The Hidden's knife stabs the sky as well as the earth. Blood from one poisons the other.
Faster he runs, then springs high in the air. Weightless he soars, gravity will do no more than anchor him to the Totem. At the top of his leap, each hand grips the bark. It is hot as coals, but Kao holds on. His fur stands up, his teeth rattle, his ears ring and he sees spots. No matter, he will climb. But when Kao's feet touch the Totem it throws him from it like a blade from his own hand. He careens through the air and crashes into a patch of large green and black striped fruits. A couple of them rupture and spill their juicy red-pink flesh upon the black earth.
Kao rubs his head and licks the fruit from his fingers. The three prongs stuck in his arm throw hot sparks into the dark night. He feels them as a heat inside his muscles, but they hurt far less than they should. Another mystery.
Why did the hermit have to go and get caught? If not for the old man's capture the two could have spent their days learning this place's secrets as they ate its delicious bounty. But no, Kao knows he still would have rushed ahead for his sister. Her scent haunts him, berries, clay, the babbling creek. He must scale the Totem.
Shaken, but not hurt, Kao looks to the sky but cannot see the top of the Totem. No blemishes upon it, no branches jut from it, only bolts of lightning that dance with the structure, daring him to challenge it, taunting him with the impossibility of the task. He cannot climb the scalding surface through a lightning storm. He must think of another way.
As the ringing in his ears subsides another sound alerts the hunter within him.
The lion hurdles towards him. That enormous predator he witnessed kill a beast thrice her size snuck up on the hunter. He reaches for his prongelk leather but it is not near. It must have been thrown loose when he was blasted from the Totem. So he is weaponless, armorless, and good as dead. He balls up, at the very least he will defend his jugular from the predator, if only for a moment. The three prongs throw blue sparks to the sky, they rain back upon him, each hot and bright in the starless night.
The black lion leaps at Kao and adrenaline slows his world. The cat's fur raises up, starting nearest its front claws and going steadily down its entire body as contact approaches.
A hair from impact and a bolt of lightning shoots from Kao's prongs to the cat's sparkling obsidian claws and triggers an explosion.
The cat flies backwards from the force of the blast. The force of the lion and the static discharge flattens him against the earth.
The lion crashes in another grove of fruit, only a few paces away. Its lithe black body vanishes into the night. Its huntress yowl comes from nowhere and everywhere. A threat, a promise. Death.
Kao is on his feet, but the cat has not yet attacked. She is bigger than he is, near his own tremendous height and stretched out longer than he dares imagine. Kao has no chance of survival, but he has blades, and his hands are strong. He will free the lion from its slavery if it frees him from mortality. But still it does not attack. It exercises caution. It is wary. Would the Hidden fear their own power?
Kao readies his blade and plunges into the dark. She hisses and swipes at him, betraying her location. The two circle each other. Kao feints with his short blade, but the cat keeps its distance. It is very cautious, scared even. It does not want to be thrown back again. But the prongs in his arm no longer throw sparks, Kao knows that the power, whatever it was, has left him.
The Hidden do not realize this?
Surely they would. The Totem must be their source of power. If he understands that he no longer holds its power inside him then surely they do as well. Yet the lion fears him... She is free of the Hidden! So they bask in the sun and leave the night to more...primal forces. The last words are not his own yet he thinks them just the same.
Kao rushes the huntress, and again she swipes at him but keeps her distance. She is afraid of something she does not understand. The lion may be a mask for the Hidden, but now, it is unworn.
“Go away!” he yells, summoning his reserves of strength and bravery, “Don't die today.” He knows it can't understand his words, he barely understands them, but it surely can sense their meaning. She hisses in reply.
Despite his fear Kao tries to radiate calming energy. The animal is afraid of him, it recognizes him as a rival. He does not have to fight it and risk both their lives. She is noble and beautiful. Her black fur sparkles iridescently; her mane is full and healthy. When she faces him the mane hides her entire body, so all he sees are two slitted orange discs that hover in the night. Kao has never been so close to a lion before, never has he experienced their deadly beauty. As they circle each other beneath the Totem and its cursed lighting, her muscles flex and ripple beneath her black fur. Her teeth glow in the flashes of light; they feel as big and ominous as the opening to the hermit's cave on that fateful night when he lost everything he held dear.
The lion is beautiful, sinuous and seductive. The young hunter wants her death little more than his own. He does not blame her. This is her territory if only at night. He is an intruder. He should leave, but cannot.
She wants to drive him away, yet is scared. Most of all she wants to live, and like Kao, doubts that either will allow the other to live if they battle. But if they keep circling, eventually the lion will be possessed to attack, either by the Hidden or her own sense of order. If she does she will realize Kao no longer commands the force he did, and he will be outmatched, and he will die.
What would the mad old hermit do? Surely not fight the lion, she was a walking set of blades, if he managed to stab her even once he would be lacerated.
No, he must think.
He had hunted the magnificent prongelk with fear, driven off the kingcrow with fear, the same force must work here.
The lion feared the Totem and its power, so that is what he will use.
Kao rushes the lion a final time, as before, she moves back, swipes and hisses. But this time Kao does not turn to face her to protect his backside. Instead he runs back to the Totem. Seeing her prey's unexposed flank triggers something stronger than fear in the predator and after him she comes. Her padded feet silently echo his own footsteps.
She gains on him, his two legs are no match for her four. Each of her massive strides are as long as three of his. She will be upon him in an instant.
Kao jumps up the Totem again, but this time he spins his body in mid air so his feet touch the trunk first. The same charge flows into his body and shoots sparks out of the prongs in his flesh. His hair stands on end as he grips the bark of the Totem with his strong, balanced toes. He turns to face the avalanche of teeth and claws. Her jaws are wide, eager to kill the only monkey that ever bothered to challenge her.
Ever a careful judge of motion, Kao starts to jump off the Totem and a whisper later slaps the surface with his left hand. Just as before, an explosive force launches him, but this time, he is ready. He kicks off and rockets towards the lion. She yowls and tries to stop by digging her front paws into the earth, but her momentum carries her forward. Kao faces his pronged shoulder to her. Lightning crackles from the prongs to the huntress. Again, both are thrown
back. This time Kao notices the lightning at the top of the Totem ceases for a moment as he careens through the air. It has time to strike four times before he lands.
The lion has fought many adversaries, but none with powers like these. By the time Kao is back on the earth and on his feet, the lion is a black shadow vanished into the night.
Kao breathes a sigh of relief. His muscles ache, his fingers burn from touching the Totem, but he is alive. The prongs jutting from his arm crackle and glow. They burn hot in his arm and he wonders if he will ever stop feeling their hurt.
Chapter 22
What's your home like?
She shrugs.
That's not fair. You know lots about mine. Just tell me one thing.
She inhales deeply and smiles.
Ew! It smells? Only animals do that. She giggles.
The girl glares at her crossly.
Escape is hopeless. The hermit is trapped in a cage. It looks soft but is not. He can hear through the cage, but the Hidden's tongue confuses him. The smells are stranger: food, sweat and nerves. Strangest of all he smells monkeys. Six of them mixed among the Hidden.
The hermit watches blurry forms. They are small, smaller than him. Cats would eat the little things without hesitation. They smell weak. Is this a trick?
The cage flies away. Hundreds of beady eyes stare at the hermit. More people than he's ever seen, all draped in strange leathers. They are just people. Little, hairless people. Monkeys carry food in bowls. They are afraid.
The hermit howls and leaps at the crowd of tiny people, but he is stopped. He springs forward and pounds on nothing with his fists, rams it with his body, kicks, spits, but nothing works. He still is in the cage.
As he beats at the invisible cage the beings stare at him with mute apprehension. They never leap back or shriek. They only laugh or twitter nervously. But he can smell their fear. The monkeys can smell their fear. It is thick in the room, like the air before a storm. He does not think the Hidden is a fair name. They are only people.
The pasty beings stop talking to each other as one speaks, louder than the rest. The hermit can almost grasp his words. He grabs for his mushroom potion, but his bag is gone. A taste would betray the Hidden language. This one says much though, even without words.
He is shorter than most, hairless, and has thick veins running across his skull that pulse as he speaks. They are revolting to the hermit. He wears a white leather with fake muscles. The hermit wonders if the crowd is so stupid as to believe them real. He can smell they are fake. He can also smell that this one is smarter than the rest. He doesn't reek of fear and nerves but of pride. This one captured the hermit, he is sure of it.
He will teach him about pride.
As the veined one drones on, the hermit studies the cave. The kingcrow that stole him flew high into the air but he sees no sun or clouds. There is no life of any kind, except the people and the monkeys. He is alone with these sky people in their home.
The monkeys puzzle him. They hold their bodies awkwardly like they cannot relax. They look unnatural teetering on two legs and carrying food, but their movements are smooth, practiced.
The sky people hide behind them even in their home.
Are these really the Hidden of legend? He imagined powerful beings, creatures capable of subduing all of Nature. These are too small and fearful. All the stories told that those of the plains were powerful beings who understood the planet better than the hermit's own people. Could a flood and a name curse them to this?
The hermit does not believe in curses, only words. The name could have caused their weakness. Words have power, but the hermit did not know they had this much. Even in their home, the Hidden cower. Like animals, they fear being seen.
They are fascinated with him. They have never seen something like him before. How could the Hidden know nothing of his tribe's existence? The two tribes shared the earth for a long time. The hermit's people remembered this, could the Hidden have forgotten? These people hardly seem fit to bear his tribe's ancient name any longer. The Hidden meant those of power, those who knew how not to be seen. The hermit's tribe knows more of stealth and secrecy than these clumsy beings. Sky people is the only thing he can call them. Not a name but a description. If they can stand up to the old man maybe he will think differently.
The hermit turns to the little man, and sees something different in his eyes. The veined man is very interested in the hermit. He studies him as he speaks. The others are baffled by the hermit, but this one is pleased. He must be an elder, a keeper of power. The others respect him, probably obey him. No one will defend the hermit against this man.
Escape. He must escape.
It is hard to think here. Everything is alien. There are too many hard lines and surfaces. The hermit misses Kao.
That young hunter always seemed to have some idea of what to do. He was stubborn, brash, and valued blades and his own musk entirely too much, but he was fearless. The hermit wonders what he would do.
He would show no fear. The sky people think themselves powerful, and the hermit does not want to bolster the childlike monsters' confidence at all. The young hunter would surely try to gain the upper hand somehow, but how could he? The hermit is trapped in a cage he cannot even see.
Escape is impossible. The hermit cannot leave, so he focuses on what enters the cage. Their musk is overwhelming. It smells like the home of one injured too greatly to heal and has chosen the slow death. That is the only smell they emit, a mix of lameness, stale sweat, and worry. They smell nothing of dirt, or of grass. He cannot tell their last meal or what they do for work. They smell lifeless, like their bodies do not interact with the earth at all.
He can smell the monkeys much easier. The monkeys reek of too ripe fruit and of dirt, but their essence is out of balance. They too stink of nervousness and fear. The stories of the sky people say they know how to control the world around them, but it appears they have forgotten how to control themselves. They can control the animals' emotions no better than their own.
His tribe knows much of animals emotions. Fear is one of the greatest weapons. Animals cannot think if too scared.
The hermit inhales deeply, sniffing for their pheromones, tasting their emotional state. He smells stale sweat and nervousness, but no terror. They smell like a young one did when initiated into manhood, fearful, but not for their lives, fearful of their social standing, maybe of losing face. Do they know terror, or have they forgotten that too?
The hermit channels the hunter in himself. The hunter in him screams to beat the cage, to break free and kill any that stand in his way. But he cannot break the cage. The sky people control the world around them, and that will not change. It is the world within that they have forgotten. The animal essence within him screams escape! Make fear! Anarchy!
One of the monkeys passes and glances at him. The hermit grunts and the monkey holds his gaze. In its eyes he sees a glimmer of excitement hidden away. But after a moment its body jerks onward, pulled by the sky people's invisible power. If only the animals can remember, but their minds are dulled. They must feel again!
The hermit does not have the raw presence of Kao but they are kin, and the old man knows how to communicate with musk and pheromones. The hermit ignites his own musk to match his emotions, same as the young hunter would.
The hermit growls as he paces. His essence is anger. He is mad at being a captive, at something else controlling him. His body churns up a chemical mixture equivalent to his feelings.
Freedom, my brothers he radiates. He knows not the word slavery.
Step, step, step, the hermit paces. Every time his foot touches the ground he is furious that it is not the earth, that the ground is hard and not soft dirt and grass between his toes. His anger grows. He envisions it as a cloud that seeps out of the cage and into the room. Soon he can taste his own malcontent.
Step, step, step. Rage permeates the air. He watches in his mind's eye, his strongest muscle, as the musky toxin fills the room. Te
ndrils of stink reach into the sky people's fleshy noses. It envelopes them.
The sky people still twitter to each other, undisturbed, oblivious. Some wrinkle their noses, confused by a long abandoned and atrophied sense. They are not so pathetic as the hermit assumed, those that smell him do point in his direction. They know the musk comes from him, but they do not follow its message. They show nothing past discomfort. The hermit does not mind.
He is after their prisoners: the monkeys dressed in their silly clothes. Now he waits for one of the monkeys to approach. He hopes its mind will put freedom, injustice and escape over the Hidden master within.
The veined man ignores the aromas that hang heavy in the room. He is so close, the hermit thinks that if he can sense the musk at all, he would change his demeanor somewhat, but he doesn't. Instead he talks, beaming and smiling like a fool.
He has no smell left in him, but his mind is quick. The veins on the man's head pulse faster with his excitement. The man's brain is impressive, but at the cost of his body. The hermit pities the little man, for he must dwell entirely in his mind. His body is weak and flabby, his senses dull. The hermit is probably the weakest member of his now dead tribe but he could still descend the cliff from his cave or catch fish in a brook. This man can do neither, nor will he ever even try. The hermit has seen nothing of this sky home, but he has also seen it all. If this is their grandest place, their ceremonial chamber, then they deserve pity. They all must long to escape, for this home is a prison. There are no plants, no animals except the ones whose minds they had stolen. It is a barren place, a desert without even the sun to warm their bones. The veined one is wise to use his mind at the cost of his body, well, wiser. The rest, those watching and listening smell complacent and too sure of themselves to recognize their own frustration and boredom.
