by Joe Darris
Skup nodded in agreement, but looked perplexed. No more secrets, he told himself, no matter how terrifying sharing them could be.
Terror, true terror showed in Skup's eyes. He said nothing more. Urea had learned a lot this day, she had come to understand more than she realized she'd ever really wanted to, but learning that the ape in the cage wasn't the Wild Man wasn't news to her... The Wild Man didn't have gray hair or walk with a hunched back.
The Wild Man was watching their every move, she knew that in her bones. He was biding his time, like a coiled serpent basking in the sun, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Chapter 24
The storm was an accident! Her words came out between gasps and fat tears.
She'd confessed it all and the girl said nothing.
I'm sorry! If I had known she'd ask Skup... I wouldn't have... Urea's not like that! I'm so sorry! This is all my fault... If I was stronger... like Urea... Her voice cracks and she collapses into a pile, sobbing.
My mother is dead. My people are dead. My brother thinks I am dead.
She knows this is not true, her brother almost saved her from a kingcrow... she had regained consciousness in time to feel his weight tugging on her arm then watched him tumble back to earth. He comes for her, she but she wants to hurt the girl, not scare her. She is succeeding.
He's coming for you... he killed some of Skup's flock when he captured the other one.
The other one?
The girl nods weakly.
No more secrets! She snarls.
The pilots think he's in the Garden, studying us, getting stronger. They say he'll tear down the Spire to get you.
Kao rises after sunset. The Garden is dark and quiet. The crescent moon won't rise until a few hours before sunrise, but he receives little power from it. There is no reason to wait. Instead he uses the darkness of the night. The Hidden drive their puppets in the day, nothing moves at night. The Garden is his to explore. Kao's bout with the lion taught him of the Hidden's power of lightning, and that it could be shared or even stolen. He, a hunter of the mountain tribe, was able to stop its incessant lightning bolts, if only for a moment. This is important he knows. Still, he cannot risk climbing the Totem until the full moon. There is too much power in it. So he will explore, and see what secrets he can sift from this place.
It is too dangerous to stay still. So Kao napped throughout the day, waking and moving often. The animals would smell him if he stayed in one place, or at least notice the fruits missing. For Kao is hungry, and the fruits fill his belly and satisfy him. The more he eats of them, the less he notices the flavor he tasted in the first bite. He still feels the little sparks, they excite his tongue, each bite tastes fresh and live.
He knows the fruit is not the same stock as his home. They are all strange in the same way. He does not want to trust them, but they fill his belly and he is stronger full than hungry. He will not starve his body and drain his strength before he confronts the Hidden in their Totem up above. Its unbelievable height taunts him. More than anything he wants to scale it and surprise the Hidden within, but he must wait for his full strength.
He planned to come to them nearer the full moon, when his strength was greatest, but instead he is deep in their home at the moon's weakest time. Perhaps even a cycle ago, he would have plunged ahead, and challenged the Totem, but either the hermit's memory or his foul potion urges the hunter to learn as much as he can before his battle.
Already he has learned much.
The Garden was not always a Garden. Here and there, great slabs of stone rest, their surfaces as placid as tranquil ponds. They are flat and smooth, made of a stone that Kao has never seen. It looks as if it was poured and then made to harden. Now and then one is broken by a tree's root, or covered by vines, but they are very strong and resilient.
Stranger than the stones is what was once on top of them. Hardly any of it remains, but something was here, something made. It was not wood, but seemed to be made of the same stuff that the prongs in his arm are made of, the same material in the plants, the kingcrows and the prongelk. It mostly comes in grays and silvers, like the veins of Father Mountain, though sometimes its a brilliant white, like the tower.
But mostly all that is hidden. It is covered in thick black moss that he can almost see grow before his eyes. It sparkles like prongs. Never has Kao seen something like it in the jungle, but here, it is life. The Garden must have been a grand place before the moss, for the entire place seemed to be made of the silver and white materials. Time and time again he finds piles of the hungry black moss, rakes it aside to see beautifully straight and sparkling sticks, like bones hidden inside some insidious black beast. But the black moss always begins to grow. It likes the white materials especially, the stuff unlike anything Kao had seen in Father Mountain. The Black Moss is always hungry, always growing, and the entire garden is filled with it.
There are other things too. Old things. Some are made of rotted wood, some made of the veins of ore that run through the mountains. The hermit preached that long ago people knew how to work those ores into great things. Metals, he called them. He told the truth. The Black Moss eats metal too, but its favorite is the white stuff. The hermit never spoke of it, but Kao is certain it is the secret of the Totem, the elk's prongs, and the connection between them.
Five summers ago or five hundred, the entire caldera must have been filled with things, made things. It could have been a forest of them, but the Black Moss devoured them all and turned them into itself. Desperate for knowledge, Kao probes the moss with prong blade. The moss ignores it. He drops the moss to the ground and it does nothing but rot. The soil is made of the dead moss and little more. And the plants eat the soil and the animals eat the plants. The prongs in Kao's arm were once the black moss, which meant they had once belonged to this place. He was growing more like the Hidden, and had no choice in the matter. It was that, starvation, or cowardice.
The black moss does not touch the white Totem. Those high up above survive what nothing else can. Kao can almost taste their secret, it is so thick in the air, but it is ethereal. He cannot grasp it.
Only a few other structures survive the Black Moss. One is the big bowl, the arena. Another looks to be nothing more than one of the enormous stone slabs, elevated high into the air on stone legs thick as trees. But on the South side of the Totem an enormous thing has been made. It has great stone trunks that support a massive, intricately carved, round dome. There is even a stone person, perched atop the enormous dome. Kao hungers for the answers of the place. He can easily see the thing in the dark. It almost glows. He lopes towards it but stops.
Something buzzes in the air. Bees!
Hungry for something besides fruit, Kao follows the sound and comes across what looks like an old dead tree trunk. As he approaches he realizes that its another of the moss covered structures, though this one is larger and more intact than most. It still looms above him, taller than most of the fruit trees in the garden. Its base is thick, he cannot reach his arms around it. The hive is inside it, like they'd be in a tree trunk in his own jungle.
Kao sneaks up on the hive. Bees sleep at night, if he's quick, he can steal honey as well as a comb of grubs. Nothing is more delicious than the plump little larva coated in the sweet sticky honey that feeds them. But the trunk is very loud. Maybe here in the Garden, bees live by different rules.
Something loud flies past his head. He missed it in the dark, but it sounded enormous, big as a bird. He freezes and waits but nothing more passes him in the still night air. A few more cautious steps. The sound is loud now, louder than any hive he as ever seen, and at night! He scans the surface of the trunk and sees his quarry, a wide hole where the bees come and go.
In
a flash, he stabs his blade into the hole, deftly slices around what feels like a honeycomb and pulls. It does not budge. He feels the bees start to move against his arm, but no stings yet. He grabs around blindly but something is holding the honeycomb in place.
Pain shoots through his hand and he jerks it out of the hole. There are two neat little puncture wounds on either side of his finger, but no stinger. More confusing was the bite felt like the shocks that accompany every bite of food, but stronger, painful. Never in his life has he experienced something like that sensation, yet in the Garden it is as common as sunshine.
Once more he reaches his hand in. This time he immediately feels the bees swarm all over him. They easily part his thick fur and shock him a dozen times in an instant. Expecting this, Kao yanks his arm out, this time the bees stay with him.
Only they're not bees. They're beetles.
A dozen beetles, each as big as a rat, crawl over his arm, under his leather, separate his hair, and chomp down on his flesh. Each bite discharges an arc of blue lightning from the beetle's enormous jaws. He swats at the beetles with his free hand, but they simply latch on to the new attacker. He snatches one and squeezes it between his fingers, but its body does not break. Instead the beetle jolts him with more lightning. He shakes and they release. They are stronger than any in the jungle!
They scurry back into their home. His mammalian prejudice kicks in and Kao snaps a blade from his antlered helmet and hurls it at one of the beetles crawling on the nest. The blade pins it neatly to the trunk. It struggles for a moment, then sparks and it ceases to move. Kao smiles smugly to himself. They are not that tough. Like anything, they can be destroyed by a well aimed blade.
Like a bear, the stings make Kao more determined, so he steps back, then runs forward and rams the tree with the three prongs jutting from his arm. The stump, already weakened by age and the black moss cracks easily. Thick gooey honey oozes out. Kao rushes towards the sticky treat, but instantly doubles back. Hundreds of the beetles swarm out at him. Each beetle is as big as a sparrow, and packs shocking mandibles instead of a suicidal sting. They are merciless.
The beetles surround him, each biting multiple times. He can swat them off easily enough, but can't kill any of them. He reaches up to crack prongs off the elk's skull but the beetles shock his fingers. He cannot forge weapons.
Desperate, he grabs the beetles out of the air, but their shells are too tough, he can't crack them. Kao stumbles and falls. The beetles are already waiting for him on the ground. His weight crushes a few but the rest sink their pinchers in. The elk leather is no obstacle. He paws at them, desperate to rid himself of the pain that surges through him, but it is no use. There are too many. They overwhelm his senses. Every part of his body screams in pain. In no time he is a ball on the ground. The beetles will devour him alive. His muscles contract each time he's stung. His body is not his to control. Is this how lion and prongelk feel with the Hidden in their minds?
He tries to pull himself away from the hive but only his left arm responds, the one with the prongs. He pulls it in front of his face and sees the three prongs glow blue. A beetle crawls up one of the deadly blades and he rolls over and stabs it. Arcs of lightning shoot from its body to his, but this time they don't hurt. Instead he feels the opposite. His muscles relax. He may live yet.
Kao heaves himself forward and gores three more of the bugs with the prongs. Their lightning drains into him and he can move his legs again. They are still stiff and painful, but they are his. He staggers to his feet and grabs more beetles out of the air. Soon he's a whirlwind. He grabs beetles in both hands, then stabs them onto the prongs. Each jolt and his strength grows. He can feel their life force and their killing power inside of him.
In moments the swarm is on the defensive. Instead of spreading out and around him it bunches together, sparking arcs of lightning dance from one beetle the next. Kao stomps into the cursed swarm. They quiver in an electric mass. The prongs on his arm are full, so he grabs beetles by the fistful and mounts each of them on one of the dozens of points jutting from his bone helmet. Their black slimy blood drips down and congeals in his thick fur as lightning crackles between the dead prongelk's horns, a thunderstorm upon his head that rains black blood upon him.
Kao cracks a prong of his helmet and flings it at the quivering swarm. The blade flies through the air with a small clap of thunder, then collides and ignites the swarm in a sphere of radiant blue energy.
He turns his attention back to the hive. He rips the trunk apart easily, he is stronger now, strong as any full moon has ever made him. The hunter is not surprised their hive is made of the metals and white crystals that make everything in this place. There are hundreds more of the beetles inside, though few of these have the mandibles the warriors had. Even in the dark he can tell that they sparkle like the prongs, like the moss, like everything here. He leaves them alone. Knowledge is sweet, but the animal in him knows honey is sweeter. The comb that resisted him before snaps off easily under his energized muscles.
He has what he wanted.
Off Kao goes, lumbering like a bear, towards the stone dome with a honeycomb in his hands. He tries it but can taste little besides an electric tang in his mouth.
He plops down under a tree. The lightning in the dead prongelk's bones discharges through his body. His stomach twists in protest for a moment, then settles. The prongs in his arm stop their sparking. His fur lays down. He had not even noticed it was standing up.
He tries the honey again. It tastes better, sweeter. The tang is gone. It is not as good as the honey from his home. The comb is black, like everything else in this place, and flecks of it are in the honey. But each hexagonal chamber is as big as a bird's egg, and Kao is happy to find a handful of grubs still maturing inside.
Everything is so big. The birds, the elk, the monkeys, even the bugs. Each grub is a substantial morsel, and their honeycomb nursery will keep them fresh for days. He happily pops one into his mouth. The larva sparks and crackles on his tongue as it forfeits its energy to the victor.
Chapter 25
No more secrets. She snarls again.
I know I should have told you right away, but I didn't even know that you'd understand! And then we started talking... and you're so nice... I've never had a sister...
That softens the girl but she does not let it show.
They caught one of your family... Baucis showed him to the whole Spire but something went wrong, all the howluchins went crazy.
Where is he?
I don't know, but I know who can find him.
She closes her eyes and they flick back and forth under closed lids. A shrill pitch whines in her ears then her vision blossoms with symbols and her ears fill with voices. There are dozens of them, competing to be heard. She notices that whenever a new voice speaks, one of the symbols in front of her eyes blinks a different color. She reaches out to touch them but grasps empty air. They're inside her head then, like the girl's voice.
No more secrets.
When the girl speaks a symbol lights up. Phoebe.
Time loses all meaning for the hermit. He should not have excited the monkeys. One of the Hidden, the true Hidden, figured him out. The hermit thinks it was probably the clever little man with his hairless veined head. After interrupting the ritual, he has been confined to a small room, this one with five solid walls, and only a single infuriatingly invisible one. The hermit beats and pounds on it for as long he can, but it does not move.
He sleeps and wakes, not from exhaustion but boredom. He cannot see the moon or the sun, so time slips to nothing. The room is always lit with the same harsh light.
He awakens and the little veined man is standing at the entrance with a tray of food. They study each other in silence. Then the little man puts the tray of food down and slides the tray through the invisible wall. The hermit lunges forward and the little man draws back. The hermit's arms reach through the invisible door but his neck clangs against the wall and sends jolts of pain t
hrough his body. He claws at his neck and feels a searing hot ring hug him tightly. He pulls at it and it shocks him again. He smells his own burnt hair fill the room. When was the ring put there? Did he have it during the ritual? The little man hides a smile. The hermit hurls the fruits at him, and he retreats out of sight. The hermit is not the little man's pet.
The old tribesman waits a long time, but the disgusting veined man does not return. Finally, his stomach pleading, he investigates the food. There is a good amount of fruit, even a small amount of elk meat. The veined little man gave him meat to prove their strength and mastery of the world beneath them.
He nibbles one of the fruits. It has lines of black running through its flesh. It tastes wretched and he spits it out. He tries the elk meat but it has the same vile flavor. Cursed food from a cursed land. The hermit eats none of it.
Light burns with the same intensity so he knows not if its been hours or days. Time crawls. Each time he awakens his room is cleaned and fresh fruit greets him. This infuriates him to no end. How does the veined man do this? Even in their home, the Sky people are hidden.
More than the sun, the hermit craves the moonlight. He can feel its gentle pull, and knows its not more than a crescent in the sky, but something obscures its energies. There is something in the air that makes his hair stand up and his stomach tighten. The hermit longs to dance and run in the moon's silver light. Only Kao can free him.
