The Wild Lands: Legend of the Wild Man

by Joe Darris

Skup screamed 'stop' with all of his mental vigor, but the ape only tightened its grip. He was different from the Evanimals. He wasn't receptive to the Spire's signals.

  Six pairs of monkeys hands grabbed and beat at the ape, but they were ineffectual, useless. Skup could feel the pain, but the ape ignored it completely.

  DEATH!

  Skup felt the emotion as his own. He wanted to kill Baucis more than anything. The disgusting arrogant old ecologist thinks he can control the world. Everything must bow before the god that is Baucis. Nothing is sacred in his eyes, nothing is good enough. We're all animals to him, workhorses, slaves.

  Not unfamiliar thoughts...But they are not his own. He had never synchronized with a being this intelligent. The two minds grappled with their shared existence, each bled into the other, but conscious control seemed impossible.

  DEATH TO THE FALSE GOD!

  Skup hyperventilated, and rocketed his heart rate to dangerous levels. He risked disconnecting the synchronization but saw no other option. The ape was totally unresponsive, his conscious will is too strong. Skup had to try something lower than the mind, something below the subconscious in the ape's body.

  The ape clutched one hand to its chest, the other clawed Baucis as he collapsed. Baucis stumbled backwards and fell to the ground, hurt but alive. Then Skup felt his left arm go numb and his chest ignite in pain.

  The ape returned the heart attack.

  Chapter 29

  Sometimes we go places we fear, not because we want to but because we must. Sometimes we do things to people or for people for no reason that we can think of. We do them because part of us won't let us not do them. All we have is choice, and I ask you to make the hard choice now, the choice that might feel wrong but you know deep inside is right, only it is very hard, so hard it may kill you.

  The sun's warmth wakes him, though its gentle rays do not demand it. They say the opposite. Sleep, warm your bones like a lizard. Despite the sun's warm caress, Kao opens his eyes. Butterflies flit between flowers. Crickets chirp in the cool morning air.

  There is something he is supposed to do, something important. But the sun's rays are too pleasant, he reaches up and picks an apple. He bites through its tart skin into its tender flesh. A spark jolts his lips and he remembers. To his left, the rock dome waits for him, to his right, the Totem stands taller than anything on earth, taunting him like a hawk does a mouse. But all is well, Kao has time. He starts off towards the dome, pondering all that happened the night before.

  Not one to waste, Kao gathers up some of the fallen prongs from the duel he witnessed last night. Not witnessed, that is not right he thinks. I dueled an elk and...won? He had earned the prongelk's respect even though he had killed one of them. But he knows in his hunter's heart he did the right thing. He wouldn't have wanted his friends, the older or the younger to suffer. Thinking of them reminds him of what feels like a past life. He never thought he would make friends again, but maybe he did last night. He bundles their prongs (gifts? He wonders) into a pouch in his elk skin cloak. That done, he proceeds towards the stone dome.

  Never had prongelk done anything so bizarre. They adapted the power in the air into their rutting, and did it after dark so the Hidden won't see. Thinking back, he almost understands. The chief’s antlers were more impressive than any of the other's. He won every duel, so never had to sacrifice a prong to the ritual. He was the strongest, and his antlers showed this clearly. An undeniable Alpha male, obvious to their own kind as well as the Hidden. Kao's mind swims with questions: Who taught them? Do the Hidden know? Why be leader of the mindless?

  Kao does not understand entirely, he needs more information. Pieces are beginning to fit together in his mind, but so much is missing. He knows the Totem is key. Everything starts with it and its blue lightning. How do the animals use it? Where does the black moss come from? He needs to know more about this mysterious place. Hopefully the huge rock dome has answers.

  It stands before him now, the egg of a mountain, half buried in the earth. The thing was obviously made. Pillars hold up more rock than he has ever seen at once.

  Beautiful figures, almost like people from the tribe, are carved in stone and lay in the grass in front of the place. But they are smaller, mostly hairless, shrouded. The Hidden? They look so fragile, their hands are tiny, though still with five fingers. Many of them wear strange things and hold odd tools. Their power is not in their form, Kao knows, but in their mind.

  A shadow darkens his path. A kingcrow spins high above him, already doubling back.

  He curses. Legend says their eyes are a thousand times sharper than his during the day. He has been spotted. So he runs. He runs as fast as he can towards the stone dome. He knows not what lies inside, only that it will offer some barrier between him and the kingcrow.

  “C-Craw!” the bird's angry voice shatters the calm morning. It is gaining on the young hunter. Kao unties his hoard of prongs. He flings the blades over his shoulder. He cannot slow his pace to aim. The kingcrow lazily dodges each flying blade then resumes its perfect line of attack. Like a river, it can only be diverted momentarily, it will finds its path again. He hears the ruffle of its feathers change timbre as it swims through the air. He steals a glance and sees one eye glinting in the morning sun.

  “Damn you!” he yells.

  One-eye shrieks, returning the sentiment.

  He is close, but Kao will not make it to the dome. He must think of something. He pulls the honeycomb out. A few grubs still remain. He pops them out of their hexagonal chambers and gores them all on the prongs that jut from his arm. My prongs. They crackle as the grub's energy transfers to them.

  Kao stops and turns the prongs to the bird. The kingcrow's splays its talons. Good, they are the same rainbow black as his prongs.

  Kao braces himself for impact. He feels the energy in his arm grow restless as the kingcrow approaches. Right before contact, the lightning jumps the gap to the bird's talons. One-eye shrieks in pain and Kao runs.

  He had been running at a slant towards the dome, now he runs straight towards it. He is no longer in the bird's flight path. One-eye has no choice but to swing around for a second attack.

  Kao was not so naïve as to think One-eye would abandon his hunt. The sun is out, so unlike the lion he battled near the Totem, or the prongelk he dueled last night, this animal is controlled by the Hidden. Kao is not sure that even matters. One-eye probably hates him as much as anything in the Totem. He half-blinded him, sullied his nest, and killed some of his flock. He does not blame the bird, but he will not let One-eye him taste revenge.

  One-eye finally gains enough altitude to start another attack, but Kao is close to the dome now. He is going to make it. Once inside the bird will not have the benefit of long, unobstructed attacks. Either Kao will fill it full of blades in the small space or the bird will do the same to him.

  One-eye does not seem to like the idea of him escaping either and rattles its wings. Shards of antler rain down around Kao as he sprints for the dome. Most stick harmlessly in the earth, some bounce of his leather armor, and a few puncture through, and cut into him. Flesh wounds. Nothing more. He expected better from One-eye, something is off with the bird, not wrong, Kao would not say anything that spared his life is wrong, but something is different.

  The stone archway looms high now, though Kao's disappointed that One-eye does not pull up. He thought the bird might retreat and not risk going inside the place, but clearly it plans to enter with him.

  He bounds up precisely cut stone steps, past the columns and into the stone dome. His feet slip on the cold slick floor and he crashes to the ground. Prongs go everywhere, some from his helmet, mostly the ones he gathered the night before. He rolls over to see the kingcrow zoom just above him. Its wings are tucked into its body, yet its momentum carries it forward. It snatches desperately with its claws but Kao is too low. Had he not slipped, he would be dead.

  One-eye spreads it wings and soars up out of view. Kao bounds to his feet and runs i
nto the domed room. It is enormous, bigger than the hermit's cave. There are rings hugging its walls all the way to the top. Little walls stand at their edge, handholds, to stop people from falling, like his tribe had built on their steepest trails. They're carved intricately, like everything in the huge room.

  One-eye is already up at the top, spinning tiny circles as he comes down. His wingspan is a third of the room. He can hardly maneuver in the tight place. There are no openings save the low entryway they came through and three others, all leading down straight passageways longer than the first.

  Kao moves around the circular room in the opposite direction of One-eye's loops. He can reverse, the bird cannot. The fight is his. He scoops up prongs from the ground, picks out a straight one, takes aim, and lets loose. It flies true and pierces the tip of One-eye's wing. The bird shrieks, loses balance and careens into a stone wall, then lands on one of the ringed levels that hug the dome.

  Kao loses sight of the bird. He scans the hallways, not sure if One-eye will emerge from one of them. He reappears near where he crashed. He hops up on a handhold and crows loudly. Something is wrong with him. One-eye shakes his head back and forth, like there is water in his ear or a persistent mosquito. Not one to waste opportunity, Kao hurls another blade at him. This one hits him in the chest and he shrieks in pain. One-eye pumps his huge wings to take off, but as he pushes off, the handrail collapses under his force.

  He falls two levels, and Kao readies a blade to finish the bird off, but at the last instant he spreads his wings and with clumsy flaps slows his dissent. He rights himself and chases after Kao. His talons clack on the cold stone floor as he hops around the room, still shaking his head.

  Kao saw this once before, when he scared the bird witless, deep in his own lands. One-eye was scared and far from the Totem's power. It looked like the kingcrow battled the Hidden within, for the two's motives were different. Surely One-eye wants Kao's blood. The Hidden do not?

  Kao throws a blade at the kingcrow and it ducks, barely missing certain death. One-eye shrieks, and resumes his awkward approach. He shakes his head more violently. The bird is too blood-thirsty to think.

  One-eye passes in front of the opening they came through and hesitates, still shaking his head.

  Finally Kao understands.

  He runs at the bird, lowers his helmet, and raises his pronged arm, turning himself into a battering ram. One-eye shrieks and hops back, out of the dome and into the passageway. This does it, and One-eye stops shaking his head. Instead he pumps his wings once, releases a dull volley of prongs, and flies out of the door and up into the air.

  The Hidden did not want to battle in this place. Without their cunning, Kao would have killed the bird.

  There is something special about this room. Kao must solve its riddles before the Hidden come to destroy him. There is power here, but it is only stone, and stone crumbles.

  Chapter 30

  They'll destroy everything if you don't help.

  But why me?

  Because you can.

  The wind whips his hair around his head, his hands cling to the magnificent falcon's strong neck. The air smells like rain and earth. The air is cold, then it warms almost imperceptibly and they soar up and up. This is flying. The wind on his skin, the ground far below. The vultus lets out an appreciate cry. The two are flying as one, really flying. They're not sharing bodies, he doesn't have to fight for control. It's wonderful. The vultus cocks his head to look at him, its eyes sparkle with love and empathy. But something's wrong... That eye... something happened to that eye.

  The bird goes limp and plummets to earth. The thermal they're in does nothing to stop its dead weight. Feathers are everywhere. He can hardly see, but he knows how to fly, so he grabs the bird's wings in his hands, and tries to stretch them out and catch the air.

  They slow, barely. It feels like his arms will rip off, like his chest will split open like a watermelon.

  His chest hurts. His heart races. His left arm is numb. The bird is gone. He's falling. Alone. Losing all of his feathers to the biting wind.

  Skup woke up. He had this dream before, flying with his vultus then just falling. Somehow the two minds end up in the wrong body. But he never felt the chest pain before.

  His bed was drenched in sweat. The room was bright and smelled sanitary. His eyes stung as they adjusted.

  “Hey.”

  He'd know that voice anywhere.

  “Urea? You OK?”

  Urea laughed weakly. “You just had a heart attack and you're asking me if I'm OK?”

  “Heh... so you're OK?”

  “Yes. I'm fine.”

  “Good,” Skup said, and tried to nod. The motion was too much and he started to cough,

  “Take it easy.”

  “I had this crazy dream.”

  “The one where you ride your vultus?”

  Skup smiled. He had told her that dream a hundred times.

  “Yeah, but there was more. The Wild Man, or the one we have, the old one, the ape, was telling me all sorts of crazy things. But you were missing and I was really worried about you. Baucis wouldn't tell me anything. And the ape was saying it was all Baucis's fault and then I...” Skup trailed off, lost in memory.

  “Just a dream, right now, you should close your eyes and relax.”

  “But it seemed so real.”

  “You've been through a lot. Just rest OK?”

  Skup closed his eyes. Something wasn't right. Why was he in the medical ward? What had happened?

 

  Skup's eyes jerked open and looked at Urea. She sat calmly, holding his hand, her eyes staring serenely at him.

  “Shh...,” is all she said.

 

  “Did I...?”

 

  “You attacked Baucis?”

  “Something came over me.”

  “The Wild Man.”

  Urea nods, Urea shuddered.

  “What happens now?”

  “Elia found the other one.”

  “What? How?” Skup sat up in bed and immediately swooned. His VRC emitted a low calming frequency that pulsed through his body and his muscles went slack involuntarily. He laid back down.

  “She used your vultus.”

  Skup gagged. He felt violated, like she'd been in his head.

  Then Elia's voice was in Skup's mind, past his ears.

 

  Skup nodded. He'd piloted his vultus for years, and it still tested his control constantly. He had to trick it into thinking it was free. It was doubtful that a foreign and less experienced mind could pilot the bird with the same subtlety.

  “Let me guess, It didn't work?”

  Urea smiled, glad Skup was going along. It was risky to chime when they knew they were under surveillance. Even though he knew nothing of their system (so thought Urea, Skup knew otherwise) Baucis would figure it out if he saw that they weren't talking. Some information he'd expect to tell her brother to his face.

  “The Wild Man found a dead zone inside of the capital.”

  “A dead zone?”

  “The Spire's electromagnetic field doesn't work there. The stone and the shape of the place interfere with synchronization.

  “That's what you said...”

 

  “He's trapped in there now. Jacob's going to bring
the place down. Baucis gave me permission to help catch the beast.”

  “You don't know what you're doing. Tell Baucis to stop. We can't control them, they're too smart! Look what the old one's already done, if that one gets inside, we're all doomed. Its like Ntelo prophesied.”

  “You don't believe in all that stuff,” it wasn't a question.

  “But he's the Wild Man!”

 

  “You can't do this. If the Wild Man gets in here he'll bring down the Spire!”

  “One ape could never destroy the Spire,” she said icily. Skup realized her intentions, and knew her power.

  “No. Urea you don't know what you're doing.”

  But she was already gone, slinking down the hallway on silent feet.

  Chapter 31

  She had fought it as long as she could, but she relents, she has to. She'll give the monkey freedom when its all over, she tells herself, that's the only way to make it right.

  There's only one more thing we need, Zetis chimes, your user login.

  My what?

  He means your name. Phoebe’s soft eyes fall on her. What can we call you?

  What do you call my brother?

  The Wild Man,” she speaks.

  She thinks on it for long time, but she knew the answer all along, the hermit had whispered names to the youth long ago, she takes one of them for herself.

  Wyla, call me Wyla.

  Kao is not stupid. He is new to symbols, but has hunted since he was a babe. As soon as the kingcrow left, he began preparing. The Hidden will return. They will come with all they have and flush him out or crush him inside the structure.

  He will fight.

  There is much to learn inside of the ancient stone structure. There are all sorts of things the Hidden made. Pieces of wood made to sit in, soft floors like grass, but best of all there are beautiful paintings, dozens of them. They ring the dome on every level. Kao can smell their age at the top, older than the hermit. They get younger and younger as the spiral down and around the dome. They are filled with all sorts of people. They're all mostly hairless, only the tops of their heads and stripes above their eyes are furry. Some of the oldest pictures show men with hair around their mouths. How he knows they're men, he's not sure. But he feels a kinship with these people, they're so alike, more alike than they are different.