by Joe Darris
There are rooms and rooms to explore, but Kao does not have the time. The black moss did not get in this place, and Kao must learn why. In the Garden, the black mass eats all but rock. What is different? Why does wood survive here? He thinks of the dome as he first saw it, perched high on a hill. The moss runs downstream. He carefully examines the rotunda, and sees some of the Black Moss. It is growing in tiny stripes wherever One-eye scratched at the stone ground.
Did it come from the kingcrow? Was it venom like a snake makes, or collected and used, like a frog that eats ants for their poison? Kao cannot be sure.
But all that will have to wait. They come.
A thousand deadly prongs march up the hill, churning up pristine grounds, leaving nothing in their path. Hooves black as coal kick holes in the earth. Plants are crushed. The earth is tilled. On their backs dozens of monkeys ride into battle. The piercing shrieks of kingcrows ring in the air.
An army comes for one man.
The prongbucks gather speed as they come up the hill. The whole place rumbles now. Kao knew it would not take long to destroy the stone dome, but it will take less time than he thought.
A dull thud and dust falls from the ceiling. Then another, on the opposite side of the dome. The howls and yips of monkeys dare Kao to stay inside or come out. Another thud and another. Soon paintings fall from the walls. Stones fall from the roof, growing ever larger.
Kao does not have much time. He runs down a flight of steps that connect the high ringed rows to each other. Out an opening he sees the army: a dozen elk and twice that in monkeys. A moon ago he would have stood no chance, especially so close a new moon. But there is something different new Kao's mushroom addled brain: a plan.
He hurls a prong at the elk. It slices through the air, a black razor faster than gravity. It sticks in one of the prong elk and the great brute bellows. It shakes its head back and forth and Kao knows he found its mark. The Hidden's control slips on this one. But already, monkeys are scurrying up the outer walls of the place, coming for him.
He throws another couple prongs at the elk. Another finds its mark, and a second elk begins to rebel against its orders, but the rest lodge in flesh, the elk continue their assault.
Now the monkeys know exactly where he is. They climb towards his opening with maddening speed. He retreats, hoping they will hesitate to enter, but they do not. The Hidden understand the great sphere holds the real magic of this place. They are unconcerned with the rest of it.
The monkeys pour through the opening like ants. They leap for the things hanging from the ceiling but Kao anticipated this. Each one they attempt to hang from falls to the floor, knocking the wind from the vandal. The rest slide uneasily on the slick floor. Prongs fly from Kao's hands but the monkeys are quick. Besides, they don't turn their backs to him. He wants to do nothing but free them from their bondage. His people don't eat monkey. He does not want to kill the monkeys, they are but a tail away from brothers.
But he does not pause. He has to keep them off guard. Back to the dome, already the monkeys are readying their dizzying yell. The scream at him but he is ready and drops to the floor. The crippling energy blasts past him at the speed of sound, reflects around the domed room and comes back, a disorienting and ugly screech. The monkeys cover their ears while Kao doubles back towards them. He knew he would have to do it, which only makes it more painful. He grabs one of the monkeys, and quickly slices the stone out of its mind. Already tasting freedom it struggles in his arms. Unable to free it, he puts the elk skull on its head, ties it, then wraps the cloak around the monkey. He ducks into the domed room.
He bends down low and looks in the monkey’s eyes. It is terrified. He asks what he needs of it. Hopes it understands that sacrifice is the only way for Kao and its brothers to be free. But he does not speak its language, only the garbled mushroom tongue of the hermit.
Something burns his skin. He smells flesh and burnt hair and sees white bile cut a neat circle into his hand. He looks up. Cracks are already forming in the ceiling. kingcrow vomit drips through. He did not think the Hidden would be so eager to destroy this place. He has to leave. Now.
The hunter scoops up the monkey and drops to the ground floor right as a crown of horns cracks through the wall. Sunlight and warm breaths of outside air stream in. He pushes the cloaked monkey to the center of the room and ducks into one of the side halls.
The head of an elk bursts through but the monkey stands there. Maybe it does understand all that he asked. Another monkey hoots excitedly, they've got him.
The stone roof groans. No longer perfectly geometric, it cannot support itself. Fissures ripple up and down the walls, then a singular crack rings out, and the roof comes down. An avalanche of polished marble rains down.
Before the dust has settled prongelk are kicking through the stones, looking for their horned prey. They all saw him get crushed by the stone roof. They will be at it for hours. The hermit would be proud. The hunter is more than instinctual survivor, he has premeditated one of his kills. Maybe pride is not what the hermit would feel at all, for Kao feels only sick resolution in his gut as he goes forward with his plan that demanded blood sacrifice.
The hunter rolls out a window and sees two elk still struggling against the Hidden's magic stones. He goes wide behind them, and leaps upon the larger elk's back. It bucks up as he plunges his blade into its neck.
He pops out the stone with a satisfying squelch and the elk's front hooves crash back into the earth.
It pauses for a moment. Tranquility in a sea of chaos. The prongbuck looks to the sky. The moon is but a crescent, yet Kao knows the buck can feel its energy as strong as he can.
A monkey hoots from the cracked line that was the dome. He grabs hold of the buck's antlers, and digs in with his feet and yells, “Go!” an emotion that transcends language, race, or species. The elk goes.
It thunders down the hill before any of the others notice. They are still all kicking through the rubble, looking for the monkey's body he had to sacrifice. Another life the Hidden owe.
There is still so much Kao does not understand. What is the black moss? He thinks he understands where it comes from. He has seen the animals in the plains, their antlers and flesh have long strengthened him, making his fur darker, his blades stronger. Yet he never saw any as large or so full of the stuff as those in the Hidden Garden. The Hidden have much to do with the black moss, of that, he is certain.
If the hungry, ever-devouring moss is their curse, then the stones and the Totem are their blessing. The two are part of the same spell, Kao is certain. The Hidden never took their animals from the Garden because it was too far from the Totem. Same as losing the stone, animals are free of the Hidden control if they can only get clear of the Totem. Kao can feel its energy after his time in the Garden. It does not have the same subtle ebbs and flows of the moon. It is blunt, always pouring its power into the air. Even when the Hidden slumber, the animals consume the feast of energy. Kao can feel it grow stronger and stronger as he and his elk near it.
Its energy is real, observable. When he came to their Garden it felt like a punch in the gut, but now, after days he feels it like the prongelk do. It empowers him, he uses its energy as his own. What is different? The food. Every bite of black-tinged food he had taken in the Garden sparked and charged his body. He had built up an immunity, like the frogs did with ant poison. But this was far more than poison.
As he and the prongelk near the Totem he feels its power in his bones. The buck's crown of horns glow. Sparks of lighting crack from the buck to his own prongs. The closer he gets, the more he feels the Totem's power. He has no idea how to scale it, but has nowhere else to go. The Hidden found him, and he doubts they will abandon their search at dark, not when he is this close, so he goes forward with his plan, doubting the hermit's approval more by the minute.
The Hidden would not be so bad if they would just stay in their cloud, but instead they expand. Why else would they have destroyed the Kao's people? The
y saw competition, and ordered its end. Kao does not resent their lifestyle, or what they are, only what they did, and what they take.
The young hunter thinks that they put too much work into growing food. His people tend plants too, but not so much. They did not take control of the rain, the weather, the animals themselves. The hermit had long told a tale of a time when the wild people had tried to grow their own food. They had been successful, and multiplied, until there were many of them. But then a drought blighted the land, and the whole tribe starved. There were too many of them to feed from the jungle's bounty. Many had died. Since then, the hermit had said, the people understood that it was best to live off what could survive, and not grow too much food, for it only led to too many people. In this way, the tribe had not gone hungry for many seasons, since before the hermit's time.
Kao ponders this until he is knocked from the elk like the top of a mountain is blown from a volcano.
The elk swerves to avoid whatever knocked its rider clear and crashes into the Totem. A sphere of energy larger than any Kao saw at the midnight prongbuck ritual illuminates the elk as it flees into the growing darkness. Lightning flashes high above, thunder follows in a moment, a violent tear in the dim calm of the evening.
Kao faces the usurper. The black lion growls at him, the pitch at the bottom edge of his hearing.
He bares his teeth and draws his blade. His last one. No more can be pulled from the buck's skull buried beneath a mountain of rubble. He rubs the blade against the spikes sticking from his arm. They glow with lightning, this close to the Totem, everything is full of power.
The lion bares her teeth, and sparks crackle in her mane. She growls a warning, a challenge. But she speaks not of death. There is more to her growl. Kao can almost make it out but he has no experience with jungle cats like he does with birds or prongelk.
Kao darts forward, his prong blade flicks towards the lion's neck, but she's gone long before his blade touches so much as a whisker. She pulls back and springs over him, coiling then uncoiling her muscles in one motion. She has none of the sluggishness the elk have. Every inch of her is muscle. Though she does not attack.
Kao runs towards his goal. He is not ready to climb the Totem yet, not with a deadly killer at his back. Instead he grabs the white hot tower with one hand and feels its energy course through him.
In seconds a shower of sparks rains down from his three spikes. He can feel the energy tensing his muscles, pumping his blood, he can taste it, smell it. He charges the lion with energized resolve.
She is out of his way and Kao's motion carries him forward. A paw the size of his head pats him between his shoulder blades and the discharge throws him forward. He stumbles, falls, and spins over, slashing at the air. But the lion is not on him. She lets him right himself and draw his blade before she attacks again.
She pounces, Kao has never seen that much weight go into the air, but he has time to move. She cannot readjust while airborne. Kao runs laterally, knowing her motion can't transfer this direction easily. As if she planned his motions, the lion immediately lunges again and is in front of him. Before he can draw a blade a huge paw swipes and knocks him to the ground.
Kao rights himself and feels his body for wounds. None. Twice now, the lion could have extended her claws and gored him. Twice she could have won this bout. He is no match for her. But instead her claws remain sheathed. She still growls that low pitch. The timbre of it makes Kao think she is not toying with him like all cats do with too-weak prey, she does something else. She takes this seriously, yet hesitates to kill him.
He attacks again, but this time she is beyond ready for him. As he charges he can see her slitted eyes count his paces. She uncoils-- Kao had failed to realize her lithe black body was held tight--and she is on him. Both paws squarely on his chest, Kao can hardly breath. He struggles and squirms, jabbing wildly with his blade but the Panther holds herself in safety. He roars at her, feels the sparks crackle from his teeth to her whiskers, but she flinches not once.
Instead, she blinks and her eyes are different. They are still the slitted cat eyes he dueled against but they are deeper. They are forlorn and filled with necessity. He looks into the Hidden soul. The girl behind the Panther's eyes shakes her head very slowly.
“No,” the order is clear. But no what? No move? No fight? No live? Kao thrashes once more, his prehensile toes manage to find the cats tail and he yanks it hard. The lion yowls and he uses the moment to break free of her weight.
He scans the land around him. The sun is set, red light still glows atop the mountains to the west. The moon is already high in the sky, the top growing darker as it enters the clouds the Totem always has swirling around it. From the North he sees the elks and monkeys approach. Two kingcrows circle overhead, ready to finish the job. He is outnumbered, outmatched.
Still, he is a hunter, his instincts scream to go down fighting. Kill them all! Curse the plan! The lion reads him, sits back on her haunches, extends one razor sharp claw, as black and long as any prongblade. She points to the animals on the horizons, closing in on their prey, then to Kao, and slowly draws the one claw across her neck, across her jugular vein. The motion disarms the hunter.
Why does the lion spare him? She could have killed him three times over.
Kao hears howls echo across the plains and knows the monkeys are close, much closer than the elk. They snuck up and used the lumbering herbivores as a distraction. Are they all communicating? Are the Hidden's voices as hidden as their bodies?
Then the lion is on him again. Her weight keeps him pinned. Unprepared for her attack he dropped his blade and is now weaponless against her. She does not slaughter him though. Instead, he watches upside down as she nods to a monkey. She is much closer than the rest. She could not have been at the dome. She must have been waiting for them here. She hops over gracefully, gently puts its fingers around Kao's neck, Kao struggles but sees a grass bracelet on the monkey's wrist and understands.
His sister is dead. His people are gone. The Hidden have taken all from him but his life. Now even that is theirs.
The monkey bellows inches from his ear, the world spins. The cat's orange slitted eyes remain, all else dizzies out of existence. He loses the moon, the Garden, and forgets the Totem, his sister and the hermit. The young hunter is no more.
Part III
THE SPIRE
Chapter 32
Nature and her Warrior will never understand us. We are above them...evolved faster than Nature intended. Pray she never rises to this height.
Elk. Lion. Crow.
Dreams and thoughts swirl through his mind like eddies in a stream. He remembers the father that died when he was young, the chief, his friends: the older and the younger. He remembers his mother and his little sister most of all. He remembers his little sister as a giggling muddy mess of a girl. Too inquisitive to heed caution, always eager to try everything. The hermit speaks to him in flashes, but the words are muddied and unclear. In a moment of clarity he wonders if he will lose his ability to perceive the world as symbols, if the language he never asked for will leave him in the same state of delirium that it came, but the idea passes in a flurry of symbols.
Elk, lion, crow.
Elk, lion, crow, monkey, man.
Not the animals but the ideas of the animals. The symbols remain, clinging to his cerebellum like moss bites at stone. Again and again the first symbol he learned, the symbol for himself, his own strong body with three prongs jutting from his left arm flashes in his mind's eye. Even in his dreams, he feels the prongs' ache. The burn waxes and wains, but never leaves, an inescapable reminder to his ethereal mind of his material body.
Is he dead?
No.
The pain would be much less or much greater.
Elk, lion, crow, monkey, man.
They all migrate through his mind in cycles both regular and unpredictable. His blade, made of the same powerful bone as the antlers sticking from his arm, as the lion's claws, the kingcrow's
feathers, the fruits, the insects, and everything else that comes from the Hidden garden flickers with blue crackling energy. Storm clouds crack with lightning and rain and rain and rain.
Where is the pattern? What matters?
His forest, the prongelk, the flock of bright twittery birds that flitted and fluttered through his people's home. His People.
My people?
Something bad. The last solid memory he has is the rotten taste of the shaman's foul mushroom potion as its gritty texture slides down his throat. Then the walls come to life and reality buckles. When will the shamanic trance end? He longs to see his mother and her daughter, to play children's games with them. They are not with him now. All that is are pools of blackness and bright painted shapes that strut and dance across his vision.
Something is different. The paintings jumped across cave walls before, not blackness.
Where am I? He wonders, angry at his brain for using symbols instead of just feeling. His mind nags him:
My people?
Another symbol fills his vision. Anymore and his head will pop. It is a man, almost, though its simpler and has none of the etched out details, encircled by a line. The little man inside the circle fills his vision, shining bright light. What does this one mean? Jagged lightning blasts from the circle and in a fit he remembers.
A storm.
The little man's purpose is clear. The lightning hides behind clouds.
Elk, lion, crow, monkey, and men.
