by Joe Darris
Down they swoop towards the biselk. Skup won't be able to face the flock with these interruptions in the the synchronization. The biselk need to stop attacking.
They swoop low and graze a biselk with talons bigger than Skup's forearm. The herbivore bucks its antlers instinctively, but he pumps his wings and avoids the danger, though already the bird's wings crackle with electricity like thunder birds of legend. He swoops low again, and this time manages to scratch up one of the biselk's backs pretty good. The biselk stops its attack, pain overriding even the electricity in its body, but the run is not exactly a success. With direct contact a massive charge of electricity transfers from the biselk to the vultus. Suddenly the vultus mind is right alongside his. They are sharing the body, Skup is not in control.
He feels the hidden shards of antler and bone in his wing polarize. They start to rattle and shake any time he goes near one of the biselk. He feels the vultus ask him WHAT NOW? Nothing more than that, the question is universal, beyond words. The shards are interfering with their flight. They were Skup's idea, so they are Skup's problem. He pumps The vultus wings hard to shed the disturbance and watches in amazement as the shards rocket towards the biselk, fast as lightning. Skup targeted only one biselk, but instead the intense electromagnetism from every member of the herd draws the shards like gravity pulls the moon. Each shard finds a target with a small blast of lighting, a crack of thunder, and the biselk bleat bloody murder into the night.
Though not every shard finds an elk. The Spire sucks a few of them in. Most of them clatter away harmlessly, but one of them sticks. A tiny foot long thorn on a tree that punches a hole in the earth and sky. Already it glows white hot. Urea will have to remove it.
With each shard that leaves he feels the vultus's presence lessen in his own mind, and the synchronization again becomes one sided. The bird was amplifying the signal from his VRC. Interesting, if not dangerous. He hopes that without the prongs the vultus won't be able to challenge his mind for dominance, but every feather and bone of the bird's body is made of the same conductive material. Skup's not eager to test his hypothesis. He goes a little higher, looking for his twin.
He spots her. Flip after flip, the panthera goes under and above biselk. He sees almost nothing of the lithe black cat, just flinches of pain from the biselk and spurts of blood. She targets the ones already hit by his broad aerial attack, those already looking around for an attacker. The panthera tricks them into fighting each other. The biselk, too jacked on power too think in such terms, attack the nearest thing they see when they feel pain.
In moments, the herd is incapacitated, their antlers sending long tendrils of smoke into the moonlit night. Between him, barely visible to the bird's weak night vision, red tendrils glow, radiating out from the Spire, roots of the coming inferno. Skup thinks DOWN, and the vultus obliges.
Skup takes over and forces the bird higher. He glances back and sees the vultus on his tail. It's the big one. He knew this battle was coming. He banks left and circles the Spire, the big one follows. Closer and closer he spirals, rising all the time, a tight little spiral around the Spire. As he does he can feel the charge building. Now that the biselk are mostly incapacitated, the Spire once again emits regular power.
Skup takes a gamble. He flies in close, drags his talons across the surface of the Spire, and feels the last of his hidden antler shards charge. Again, the King's mind burgeons beside his own as the electric charge amplifies the bird's VRC. He lets it build and build, hoping the King understands how much they need each other. They're going to need all the juice they can get.
The big one flies in close behind him. He glances and sees the rest of the birds down below, circling, waiting for a victor. He thanks Elia a hundred times. He can see her slender vultus fly laps around the others. The rebellion started with this one Skup thinks either to himself or the King. Let's fix this.
Closer and closer he gets to the city at the top of the tower. That hexagonal bulge perched atop the Spire, shrouded in vapor no longer. Skup banks out, and the big one follows. He's lighter than the other, and he easily outpaces the weighty bird. Then they're above the Spire, high above. He stops pumping his wings, slows down, turns, and shakes the rest of the shards loose of his wings.
They rocket down, towards Spire City and through his pursuer. Many of them miss and fly straight for the Spire, for the vultus has a small charge compared to the electromagnetic pull the enormous biselk batteries had, but in the hailstorm of organic blades, many blow messy chunks of flesh and feathers out of the bird. Still, the big one pursues. Battered and weak, he knows only death will end rebellion. Skup lets the King do as he wills.
The mighty vultus ruler dive bombs, closes in, and finally gores the bird with its talons just before they crash into the field.
He digs his talons into the other, one in his torso, the other his neck, and lands atop him. Skup immediately realizes his mistake. The field is sturdy of course, without the biselk attacks it's as strong as ever. However it immediately charges the vultus' skeleton with more electricity than the pair have ever experienced. The one below is shocked and burned to death, but the King is spared the worst of it. He gets just enough energy to rocket his consciousness above and beyond Skup's.
Suddenly Skup is the puppet. He opens his eyes, his human eyes, but can still feel his body jerk and move with the bird's. First his feet scratch at the floor of his amplification room, then he bites at the floor, tearing muscles and veins that exist in another place. He dry heaves. He closes his eyes and sees the King's vision as the acrid bile melts through the bird's featherless face, then its skull, and finally sizzles in the Spire's field. Skup hears gentle singing. He thinks himself mad until he sees through the Spire's electromagnetic field. The Naturalist congregation kneels on the top floor. Their voices carry, though Skup knows not if his ears hear them, or the King's. He hears no more as the King takes to the air and pumps higher and higher, dragging Skup along for the ride.
The kingcrows. Victory!
It wretches again on the corpse of its rival.
He hears Elia, thank Nature, but cannot do a thing to stop the bird. Instead the flock hears their victor's triumph, sees his celebration and mimic him, like they've been taught to do their entire life.
A storm of bile falls upon the Spire as the congregation sings for salvation.
Chapter 42
Nature built man, she did, she did,
Man then built the Spire, he hid, and hid
Though she sent the Scourge, forgive him she just might,
One Day she'll send the Wild Man, he will make things right.
Screams echo from the bottom of the stairwell and Kao feels guilt for each one. Many of the monkeys caught up to him and and the female that lead him upward, but many more are down below, at the beginning of the steps. As soon as the first few caught up to Kao he was forced to stop. The monkeys were ruthless bullies, and though Kao could not blame them, he would not witness their assaults either. They monkeys would tear at the Hidden's clothes, scream in their faces, punch them, bite them, and any other violent perversion that came to their freed minds. Kao felt their emotions just, but now was not the time. The Hidden cowered and cried and did nothing to defend themselves as their world disintegrated. Kao barked at them to come on and they obliged, but he could do nothing for the monkeys far below, outsid
e of his vision. Instead he climbs, and follows the female monkey's urgent hoots.
Each level Kao and his crew of monkeys climb is filled with more and more of the pitiful Hidden. Most of them cringe and cower when they approach. Kao and his crew are not popular, but they are known. Some people try to follow but get pulled back by others. Some grovel on their knees. A few scream angrily, most just sob in pathetic puddles of fear.
Kao knows not what to think of it. It is clear to him that they know him, or his symbol. They should fear the monkeys if anything, they enslaved them, worse, not even their minds were given freedom, but they pay them little mind. Instead thousands of eyes focus on the shrouded figure as he chases the monkey higher and higher. People grasp at his prongelk cloak, but no one clings. They touch him, like a child would an apparition. They question their reality, a natural response given one of their gods runs among them.
Each level, each step, makes the dull ache in his arm grow. They approach the source of the energy. The prong and two stumps in his arm tell him this. Kao readies himself, he only hopes the moon is high above to fuel his battle. He knows not what awaits him. They come to the top of the stairs, a heavy door. They burst through it.
This level is different, much different. There's a large central room with door after door for walls. Hidden pace back and forth. These ones are different, more like Urea than Baucis. They are all young, their features smooth, their faces afraid but intrepid. Most shocking though, is their hair. Its nothing like the thick coat that covers the hunter, most of them have little more than black fuzz coming from their head, but its a stark difference to the hordes of people in the steps, hairless as reptiles. Some of the boys even have hair on their chins.
They look at him with interest, as equals, or closer to it than the rest of people did. Some of them stand up to see him better, the tallest comes well past his waist, though not as tall as Urea did.
Warriors. These are their best, their fighters. They are so young. Kao was a fierce hunter in his tribe, but there were many skilled elders to learn from. He sees no elders in this room.
He walks in slowly. No one makes a move to stop him. He sees them and knows from where these hunters draw their courage. Next to each other, in adjacent rooms, Urea and her brother dance their animals. This is what they do. The girl is her panthera, the boy the vultus he battled. Only their bodies are distinguishable from their other identities. The girl flips and lashes out with claws Kao has tasted. The boy soars the heavens in a room as large as Kao's cage. They are their animals, one and the same. Kao can see the animals are them as well. Their minds blend, their bodies become indistinguishable, two vessels that house the same intertwined mind.
“Damn it!” another yells in their foreign tongue as he stomps out of a room that edges the central area. “I can't sync. I get this far,” he paws the ground with a foot, “then nothing,” the boy shrugs and Kao understands. This is their temple, their place of power. This is from where they control the world.
No one says a word to the boy who spoke “What?” he asks sheepishly. Someone nods towards the seven foot, horned, half ape, half prongelk standing in their midst. “Oh god!” he yells and hurries towards one of the rooms.
Kao is there in half the steps. He grabs the little warrior by the shoulder and lifts him high into the air with one hand. The monkeys go wild. They had waited at the door, still fearful of those they knew controlled them, but once Kao touches the boy they stream into the room, an angry swarm of claws and teeth. Kao understands. If these are the masters of the animals, they are far from innocent. He smirks to himself as they berate those that truly deserve retribution. The female that led him all this way attacks no one, instead she pulls at his leg, begging him to stop.
The tone of her grunts, the subtlety of her movements whispers something to Kao. She is so very familiar. But the troop is right, one of these masters needs to know fear. Kao lifts him higher, the monkey pulls at his leg more intensely. He looks down at her, confused why she would want to stop him from those so clearly enslaving her own kind. He looks into her eyes and is shocked to see the electric blue of a Hidden mind.
He had not noticed it before, he assumed when he flung her across the room, it had been broken, but it is in her eyes. Why would the little monkey help him? If she was still controlled by the Hidden, why bring him here to their place of power? Even with the electric blue spark, he trusts those eyes, they brim with intelligence. They undoubtedly show the Hidden's power, but there is more to them. They possess none of the powerlessness Kao grew accustomed to seeing in the animals in the Garden.
Entranced in the mystery of the little monkey Kao jumps when another pair of hands grab at his waist. He drops the black haired master to floor, and whirls around to see his sister standing before him.
She looks up with the same look as the monkey does, her arms pull him the same way but from the other side. Her eyes well with tears and Kao scoops her up into his arms. The room falls away with its master and monkeys. Kao forgets about the Spire, the Garden, Baucis and even the hermit for that moment. His sister buries her head in his thick coat and he sheds tears as he feels his shoulder grow wet with hers. He holds her for an eternity. I am not not alone anymore. My sister is alive. All is well. I have done what I came to do. We can go home. He hugs and coos to her, hums melodies their mother sung that he did not know he remembered. He squeezes her until she squeaks and finally he looks into her eyes again. She is safe, and healthy, and her smile is bigger than he remembers.
He doesn't jump when more hands lay upon his thick black fur. They mean no harm. They touch him with the same awe as those in the halls, but none of the fear. They look up to him, they idolize him, yet he deserves none of this. They saved his sister, and he has destroyed their city.
All Kao can do is stroke his sister’s hair. It’s blacker than it was when she was stolen, no doubt from the fruits of the Garden. He runs his hand through her hair, feeling for scars, scrapes, bumps and bruises. He feels only one. The back of her neck bulges just slightly, he pushes her hair apart and sees the dull glow of a Hidden stone beneath her skin.
The stone she used to guide the monkey that led him to her.
He squeezes her once more, as tight as he can until she squeaks again and he loosens his grip. He puts her down then looks to the Hidden around him. He bares his teeth. She is safe, but corrupted, they will pay. But his sister grabs one of their hands.
“It's OK,” she says in his own tongue. He is not in the least bit surprised. Symbols and words are all he knows. He expects the same of all around him.
“This is Phoebe,” she says, he knows the first two words but the third is strange, like Urea's name, a different tongue. “She's my friend.”
Kao forces a smile to hide his tears, and touches the little one on her shoulder. She barely comes to his waist.
“Phoebe,” he says, then in his own language, “thank you.”
High sick laughter echoes from the back of the room.
“A family reunited! How wonderful.”
Kao spins to see Baucis hidden behind one of the shimmering walls.
One of Kao's arms shoots out from his cloak fast as lightning and grabs one of the little warriors by the throat. He lifts him high in the air, and tightens his grasp. The person's face turns red, then blue, then purple.
“Release him,” Kao the hunter says.
Baucis only laughs, then grins at Kao as every person in the room clutches their heads and fall to the floor. Only Urea and Skup in their isolated chambers don't feel the pain. Even Kao's sister grabs her head. She's tough though, and still manages to translate.
Kao roars then rushes the wall. He bangs on it with his fist, already feeling energy pump through his body, but Baucis only chuckles, and runs in place.
Then Kao's sister screams. He whips around to see the hermit scoop her up with a cackle, bolt from the room and run upstairs, to the last level of their terrible Spire.
Chapter 43
Beho
ld, the Wild Man and his daughter, mankind's salvation! Lead us Wild Man, lead us to salvation!
Kao bursts from the door but stops, his feet tread on soft grass. He has felt nothing like it in the Spire. He tastes the air; there is life up here in abundance.
He opens his eyes and his senses are assaulted. There are so many people. As many as he saw in all of the Spire, more than he has a word for. All watch him from their knees with awe. There is a path between them, some still face the front, bowed in submission. Baucis took the hermit's body and my sister that way.
Once Kao accepts their presence he can focus on the landscape around him. The top level of the Spire, the home of the Hidden--carved of their bizarre stone that contaminates every apple, lung, muscle or bone that it comes into contact with it--is different than the rest. The hunter, with his knowledge of nature, its rhythms and cycles and little else thinks of it as the canopy of their tree home, and indeed there is accuracy to that. It is the greenest level of their stone tree. Trees heavy with fruit grow up here, a plethora of grasses sprout up between groupings of meaty fruiting bodies and tender vegetables. The hunter sees no insects though, nor can he hear them over the gentle din of the people.
The canopy of the Hidden's Totem is both alien and familiar. It is the most like his own home, there are trees to climb and grass to sleep upon, but that also makes it the most intimidating, the trickiest, like a dream that feels too much like life to know the difference. Just past the shimmering blue wall a scant few clouds swirl in twisters and cyclones as lightning cracks silently, closer than he would have thought possible one moon ago. He can see far from up here, the entire Garden, the wreckage of the dome he battled in, the arena. His heart quickens as he sees trickles of lava flowing from the ring of mountains that round the Spire. Another of the hermit's stories proven true. Mountains bleed.
