He doesn’t wonder who they are, how long they’ve been here, or even what their purpose is. But when they begin attending his needs, he permits them. Their touch on his body, scrubbing away blood and filth, is comfortable.
They’ve known me all along, he decides. Though he cannot clearly recall when he first saw them, he knows they’ve served him for as long as he can remember, which for a god, is eternal.
For weeks, they tend to his wounds, feed him well, ease his chaotic thoughts with bitter drinks, and satiate his urges with their bodies. He’s lost in an abyss of base pleasure, where time has no meaning and life lacks any kind of substance. Visions come and go. Faces. Voices. The past, present, and future. Omniscient and omnipresent, he is and always has been.
Days repeat.
He soars over the jungle as vast cities beyond the trees burn to ash.
There are moments of clarity. The flavor of a new food. A great feast with bonfires and chanting. A woman writhing atop him, her sounding more like an animal than him.
But they are just moments, lacking any sense of context, time, or emotion beyond pleasure.
And then, it ends.
In the rain.
He stands atop his temple, beneath a torrent, the cool water dulling the day’s heat. An old woman kneels before him, cowering in fear, holding a baby tapir by its hind legs. A maze of black lines covers her body, melting in the rainwater.
“You are Jebubo,” he says. They’re the first words he has spoken in…how long has it been?
The woman nods. “I seek your aid.”
“I do not deliver aid,” Mapinguari says. The words come from his mouth, but they do not feel like his. Whispers from the dark come and go. The voices of young women. His caretakers. They speak to him. Remind him of who he is. Eternity is a long time to remember one’s purpose. They help him with that, their chants reinforcing what he’s always known. “I deliver vengeance.”
“At times,” the woman says, her fear ebbing, “they are the same.”
“Who would you have me kill?” he asks, as though reading from a script.
“Quecha of the Guaruamo.” The name is followed by a warm spray of blood from the tapir’s slit neck. The small animal bucks and squeals until more of its blood covers Mapinguari than flows through its veins.
The woman drops the carcass at his feet and a hunger awakens.
“Quecha of the Guaruamo,” she repeats, backing away. He watches her slink over the top step and then descend from view.
He doesn’t need to know what the man has done to earn the woman’s ire. He doesn’t care.
The man’s life has been paid for in blood, and no longer belongs to him. All that he is and ever was now belongs to Mapinguari.
He remembers being told these words over and over, but cannot recall who spoke them beyond the pleasure the speaker brought him.
The mindless calm he’s experienced slides away with the rain, leaving him with a building rage, an insatiable hunger, and a single name: Quecha of the Guaruamo.
He howls into the sky, his voice billowing into a clap of thunder that shakes the whole world. Scaled arms stretch up toward the raging sky, lightning arcing above him. This is his power, the beast awakening.
The scent of blood draws his eyes downward to the still-twitching body.
He sets upon it with ravenous, uncontained savagery. Six sets of eyes watch from the temple entrance, concealed in darkness, protected from the rain and Mapinguari’s wrath. They have directed his path, and now set him free to follow it, wherever it takes him.
“Mapinguari,” one of them says.
He glares into the shadows. A pair of hands extends into the muted light of a rainy day, wielding a weapon that is both formidable and familiar. He’s had no need for it, and can’t remember using it before, but it is his. He takes the blade, slides it into his belt—one of two items he has retained, the other being a satchel. The bag has remained over his shoulder, and unopened, during his long stay. He doesn’t know why it’s important, but he allows it to cling to him day and night. When the women attend to his body, massaging, pleasuring, grooming, or painting, they must work around it.
The women slide back into the temple’s dark and dry interior, whispering their chants, fueling his rage and determination.
Mapinguari descends on the tapir’s body, shaking it in his jaws, reducing it to pieces and consuming the most tender of its insides. He scurries down the temple’s stairs and runs across the field on all fours, heading for the jungle leading south. He has no clear memory of how to reach the Guaruamo tribe, but instinct guides him through the hills to the south, and into the low, flat basin.
The journey is arduous and fraught with dangers. River crossings, stalking predators, and stinging insects are a constant threat. He handles them all with fearless resolve. The creatures that do not flee, become food. The itching of insect bites maintains the bright burning ire he feels for Quecha of the Guaruamo.
After many weeks, thirst drives him to the smooth waters of a lazy river. He searches for signs of danger, but finds none. Still, he waits. Impatient as he is to fulfill his mission, Mapinguari is no fool. He lingers on a branch, fifteen feet above the water’s edge, waiting at a game trail’s delta. A capybara approaches, but not from the trail. It comes from the river, alone and unconcerned. The large rodent rests by the shoreline, its eyes closed, confident that it is safe.
If a predator were lying in wait, this is when it would strike.
But nothing rises from the depths, slides through the water, or pounces from the brush.
The capybara is alone.
Well, not exactly.
Mapinguari drops from the tree, rolling to absorb the impact. Machete already drawn, he swings hard at the end of his roll, severing the capybara’s spine. Allowing the creature to bleed out, he steps to the water’s edge, intent on claiming a drink before he sets upon the carcass.
Despite sharing the capybara’s confidence that he is alone, he creeps up to the water, machete ready. The water is still. The opposite shore is quiet. Low to the ground and lit in the setting sun’s orange light, he turns his gaze to the water and comes face-to-face with a beast.
Three crazed eyes stare up at him, the largest of them in the center. Snarling teeth threaten to tear him apart. All of this is surrounded by a wild billowing of hair that flows with the water…or is it the wind?
With a roar, he swings the machete down, carving both water and beast in two. When no blood flows, he assaults the water with a series of blows, screaming with each strike. The battle rages for several minutes.
Exhausted, Mapinguari stops the attack. His chest heaves with each breath as he looks down, expecting to find his enemy floating as bits of gore. Instead, he finds the monster similarly exhausted, catching its breath…underwater.
What is this? he wonders, reaching down to the water. His fingers slip through the river—and the monster.
Mapinguari stares at the image, watching it solidify as the water settles. The creature matches his movement, staring back. And in the water, he also sees trees and sky.
A smile spreads as Mapinguari realizes the truth.
He is the monster.
A laugh bubbles up and bursts into the jungle.
“Mapinguari,” he whispers to himself, pleased by the sight of himself. He stands tall, gazing at his body, his scales, and the wide, sharp-toothed mouth on his belly.
Then he rends the capybara and feasts.
The following day, he encounters a man whose forehead is painted red. The man shakes in fear as he bows.
“Quecha of the Guaruamo.”
The man points without hesitation. The directions aren’t very specific, but they don’t need to be. Mapinguari finds another man thirty feet away, eyes wide, lips trembling. Despite being armed with a bow and arrow, the young warrior turns and runs.
With a howl, Mapinguari pursues his prey.
It is his last memory before finding himself seated beside a puddle of
gore, his rage satiated, his sense of duty fulfilled. The journey home to Queshupa takes weeks, and is not without its challenges, but Mapinguari enjoys every moment. The struggle. The fight for survival. The power he wields over the life and death of all the rainforest’s creatures.
Upon returning to his temple, his wounds are treated, his body restored, and his mind numbed by the pleasures of the six.
Time loses all meaning until, once again, he is summoned to the temple’s entrance by the promise of spilled blood. This time, when he steps into the sapling light of a new day, he is greeted by not just one tribal woman, but several dozen men and women representing the basin’s three remaining tribes. A smile creeps onto his face as he realizes his subjects aren’t requesting a simple killing, but a war.
44
Bathed in the blood of many sacrifices and empowered by a night of tribal drums, hard drink, and feasting, Mapinguari ventures into the steaming basin. The men he has been sent to kill are called Guagin—the nameless. All he really knows is that they are men with strange clothing accompanied by large, growling monsters. They arrived several weeks previous, laying waste to the southernmost edge of Arawanti territory. Orchards were destroyed. Valuable food lost. And what affects the Arawanti’s food production affects all the tribes.
Warriors were sent and turned back by loud weapons, the kind only encountered once before, by a man they also refer to as nameless. Mapinguari is certain he’s heard the story of that man before, but the details have drifted away with time.
His path, as always, is challenging, but manageable. He kills, eats, travels, and thinks only of the Guagin. But he is not alone. Several times along his journey, Mapinguari encounters members of the three tribes. They offer him food, water, and places to rest.
He’s never seen the people like this before.
They are frightened, but not of him. The terror of the jungle has become a beacon of hope. The attentive care from others beyond the six both revolts and pleases him. Fear-driven worship buoys him, but adoration…is intoxicating.
He wonders if he’s ever felt it before, but cannot recall.
Two days journey from where the Guagin were last encountered, he closes his eyes, listening to the gentle singing of an old woman and her daughter. They met him along a game path armed with fire, meat, fruit, and drink. The elder said the meal would be his last and was prepared to give him strength.
What it did was make him sleepy and content.
The women continue their musical chant, voices flowing like the wind, like the river. He can feel the Amazon moving through him, carried by their words. Their delicate voices sing the history of the many tribes that once were and their slow demise to a creeping invader. Smoke and ash, bone and blood. When the Guagin come to the forest, entire tribes disappear.
But not Mapinguari. The beast endures. He has driven the Guagin away before. He will do so again.
Mapinguari smiles. That is his destiny. His purpose. Vengeance brings him pleasure, but defeating another legend of the jungle, one that harms those who bend their knees and heads to him, will bring him glory.
Placated by song and drink, slumber pulls him into the darkness.
He dreams of blood.
Of screams.
Of a face, pale like a ghost, smiling at him. He reaches for outstretched hands, but falls short as darkness claims the spirit.
He wakes from the dream feeling raw frustration, but the smell of acrid smoke disperses his thoughts.
Tendrils of gray snake through the jungle, trapped beneath the canopy. The familiar scent of burning wood comingles with something else. It’s both foreign and familiar. Memories flicker, but fail to surface. The scent leaves him feeling confused, which in turn, fuels his growing rage.
His kingdom is being defiled.
This is my jungle, he thinks. My people.
All those who think otherwise… He hooks his fingers and blacks out for a moment. When his vision returns, the foliage around him has been ravaged, the soil beneath him raked. The creatures hiding in the branches high above have gone silent save for the occasional cough.
Blood and soil cling to his fingertips. The stinging focuses him.
Rage, instinct, and knowledge find a comfortable place to coexist. While he wants nothing more than to charge into the unknown and tear it to pieces, Mapinguari is more than that. His enemy is not a lone man or woman, it is an entire tribe, and while it goes against his baser instincts, his task calls for a strategy.
He returns his hands to the earth, clearing out a hole. Then he squats over it and relieves himself. The scent of his urine is pungent, containing traces of the previous night’s meal and potent drink.
Memories flicker again as he mixes the thin mud and coats his body, becoming a shadow. Feelings from a time long ago surface with a smile. Someone taught him this. He cannot remember who, but he is filled with a sense of longing, a moment of despair, and then a rekindled rage.
He slips into the jungle, moving low to the ground on all fours, where the air is still fresh. After just a few miles, he pauses at the sound of voices. Men. Several of them. The Guagin have made quick progress.
A tapir emerges from the jungle, eyes wide, limbs jittery with fright. Mapinguari pauses and relaxes his stance. He motions for the animal to pass, and it does. The tapir’s obedience stokes the flames burning inside him.
All of this is mine, he thinks. The land, the people, and all the creatures.
Defying his building rage, he scales the tallest tree he can find. Its powerful, twisting limbs carry him through the smog, toward the sunlit sky above.
He emerges from the canopy, coughing and lightheaded. Head and shoulders above the trees, he finds a world he never knew existed. Though it looks solid enough to walk on, he knows the layer of leaves would never hold his weight. But it does support several troops of monkeys and brightly feathered birds who have fled the smoke, which seeps through several gaps, towering into the sky.
As otherworldly as the view is, it doesn’t hold his attention. To the south, the jungle just ends. It’s been erased from the world.
A buzzing fills the air, like a colossal insect. Mapinguari flinches, looking for danger, but there is nothing in the trees, and nothing below. Despite the noise’s volume, the source isn’t nearby.
A tree at the jungle’s new edge shudders.
Birds take flight.
The monkeys taking shelter in the broad branches shriek. Some leap into neighboring trees. Some stumble and fall from view. When the tree topples, a lone mother, clutching her baby, falls with it, her eyes locked onto Mapinguari’s, as if asking why he is allowing this to happen.
Then the mother, and a large segment of the canopy, are gone. A billowing of dust and smoke takes the tree’s place as it crashes to the ground. Voices rise up, some victorious, others giving orders. He doesn’t understand the language, hearing only threats.
They’re here to take the jungle.
To take what’s mine.
To destroy all that I have.
They won’t take it…take her…my kingdom.
Mapinguari shakes his head, smothering confusion. He lowers himself beneath the green ceiling and leaps through the branches. Cloaked in shadow, moving in silence, he closes the distance. He can’t see the Guagin yet, but they’re loud enough to send even the bravest jungle denizen running.
All but one.
A slice of yellow locks Mapinguari in place. There are flowers and birds in the jungle, whose colors match the luminous sun-like hue, but none so large. Black smoke coughs in front of the swatch of color, breaking his trance.
Buzzing cuts through the jungle again. The grating sound sends tendrils of tension out through his back. Wood splinters and another tree falls, shaking the ground. Men shout again, and more buzzing fills the air.
Mapinguari heads for the light left by the fallen tree, stopping high in the branches.
A hundred feet below, the Guagin toil over the fallen trees. Bright red headdres
ses shade their faces, but they are men. The way they speak, and move, with two arms and legs, is unmistakable, even if their clothing is strange…and yet familiar. Has he seen these men before, during his ancient life, and forgotten them?
A lone man wielding a squealing sword cleaves the tree’s branches away with the same ease Mapinguari’s machete trims fat from an animal. It is a powerful weapon being used to kill trees.
Why would they do this? he wonders, surveying the rest of the scene.
A large patch of jungle is missing. It is just gone. The smoldering remains of branches stretch to the horizon. The Guagin are a blight, eating the jungle itself.
He counts twenty men and more beyond. A burst of smoke and a deep growl draws his eyes back to the bright yellow thing. It’s a beast of some kind, lacking legs, but still powerful enough to drag the fallen tree away.
I will wait, he decides. When night falls, their heads will follow.
“Seshanguami,” he whispers. The sleep-killer. Someone called him that once. Someone who is now dead. If Mapinguari cared about what people thought of him, it might change his plans, but his only concern is that every one of these men offers their blood to the earth they have defiled.
Only then will my kingdom be whole.
Only then will I deserve the praise of my people.
The buzz fills the air again, even louder than before. A vibration cuts through the air, making his limbs feel strange.
He searches for biting ants, but the branches are empty.
Far below, Mapinguari sees one of the Guagin, roaring blade in hand, carving into the trunk of his perch.
Frothing with anger, he lunges down through the branches. This man will be the first to fall, night or not.
The tree quakes with a loud pop. The jolt loosens Mapinguari’s grip, but he catches himself on the next branch down. As the ancient trunk twists in its death throes, he works his way through the ever-shifting path of branches, racing the tree toward the ground.
Alter Page 24
