by David Klass
“Colonel Aranha.”
“Colonel Piranha?” he repeats. “Speak up. I’m a little hard of hearing.”
“The Dark Lord. I don’t know what his name is, but I’m sure you know who I mean. He’s part man, part spider.”
The effect on the wizard is immediate. The laughter is gone. The merry twinkle vanishes from his eyes and is replaced by iron determination. “So he’s here? Have you seen him? But of course you have. No, you don’t have to explain anything. I can get it all from her.”
Eko freezes. Her head jerks up and her eyes roll into her head. I can tell he’s doing some kind of telepathic suction job, downloading all he needs to know. Then Eko’s head snaps back down, and she’s as good as new.
“Sheesh,” the wizard says, “what a mess! There’s no time to lose. Where’s that guy who woke me up? You can never find a good shaman when you need one.”
He calls something out to the old shaman, who is still hiding behind the stone statue. Apparently they like the same jokes, because the shaman goes from being terrified to laughing uproariously in about three seconds flat.
Next Kidah speaks to the old woman. She grins and answers back almost flirtatiously, and he purses his lips and then nods his understanding. “She’s staying,” he informs Eko and me. “She says she wants to die here. I told the old gal it looks to me like she still has a lot of dancing left in her, but I understand her choice.”
Finally he says a few words to the warriors, who immediately turn and start leading him through the trees toward the raft.
“Come,” he tells us, and for a guy who’s just awakened from a deep coma, he’s covering ground pretty fast. “Hurry. Every minute is precious.”
“Where exactly are we going?” I ask, struggling to keep up.
“To raise an army,” Kidah says as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. “We must smite the forces of darkness. The spirit of the forest will lead us into battle. And, oh yeah, I also need some lunch.”
79
The Mysterious Kidah turns out to be an amiable traveling companion. As we paddle back to the village, he cracks jokes with the monkeys that swing overhead and croons songs to the birds that serenade our boat.
He doesn’t wave a wand and conjure ham sandwiches for lunch or pull an outboard motor out of a hat. But I notice that the current of the river slows. It flowed quickly toward the chasm on the first leg of our journey, but as we head home the current diminishes till the river is perfectly still, allowing us to paddle easily upstream.
I ask Kidah about my father. “He’s a good friend of mine,” the wizard says. “And I’ve known your mother since she was a little girl. What do you want to know?”
Confronted with this potential treasure trove of information about my parents, only one question comes to mind. “I’m their only son, right?”
“Yes. Their only child. They both love you deeply.”
I hear my voice sharpen and swell a little louder. “Then how could they send me away?”
“There was no choice,” Kidah says simply.
“There must have been a choice,” I protest. “There are always alternatives. You just have to find them.”
“Who told you that nonsense?” Kidah asks.
“A mother and a father don’t give up their child,” I respond, and anger rings in my voice. “That’s a given.” Eko listens from the bow of the canoe, but she doesn’t interrupt. “They don’t pop him in a time machine and send him back to be raised by strangers and live a lie.”
“It was your destiny and you have to find a way to accept it,” Kidah tells me gently.
“Then my destiny sucks.”
“Of course it sucks,” he agrees. “Destiny almost always sucks. You can let the weight crush you, or you can accept it. But whatever you do, quit whining about your parents. No boy ever got a better pair.”
He sets his paddle down and a big grin spreads across his face. “And now I may finally get that hot meal.” We come around a bend and I see all the kids and adults of the village waiting on the bank. A roar goes up from them at the sight of us, and Kidah waves and shouts back.
Kidah doesn’t do any wizardly tricks to win their trust or put them in awe. He just hops out of the canoe and greets the tribe members one by one, hugging them and mussing the hair of the kids and pointing to his belly as if to ask when the welcoming feast will start.
I can tell that Eko is dreading another banquet of grubs en papillote, and I’m not exactly looking forward to it either. Luckily, the tribe goes all out for Kidah, and grubs are just one of the menu options available. There is also roast peccary and wild fowl and a dozen varieties of fresh fruit, none of which I’ve ever seen before.
Kidah has a remarkable appetite for such a small man, and his table manners are not exactly polished. “I feel like I haven’t had a decent meal in a thousand years!” he laughs, tearing into a huge peccary haunch and wiping the grease off his cheek with the back of his hand. Then, to the delight of the kids, he lets loose a prodigious belch.
After the feast the shaman and the warriors recount the expedition to revive Kidah in songs and dances. I can’t understand the words, but I can follow the narrative as our expedition descends into the chasm, sails on the flimsy raft, and survives the friagem. The shaman does a wicked impersonation of Kidah slowly waking up from his sleep and looking around with bleary, stupefied eyes.
When the shaman finishes, to much laughter, the kids all point to Kidah. The wizard walks to the center of the clearing, enjoying his moment in the spotlight. First he sings. It’s a slow tune, beautiful and very sad, and I sense it’s a song about loss. I’m not sure whether it’s a dirge for a dying world or a ballad about a lost young love, but by the time he finishes, several of the old men and women have tears running down their cheeks.
Then Kidah dances out a story that involves different rain forest animals. He does an obnoxious howler monkey, and a peeved peccary, charging around the circle of kids with his index fingers out as tusks. The kids scream and dart out of the way.
Kidah’s dance ends with a battle between an eagle and a tarantula. His tarantula is fearsome, and reminds me quite a bit of Colonel Aranha, but his eagle is noble and overpowering. It bites the head off the thrashing tarantula to end the dance, and I find myself hoping that this kids’ show is also a divination of things to come.
Kidah closes his act with magic tricks. None of them are what you might expect from the great sorcerer of the next millennium. He does some sleight of hand that the kids love. Finally he asks a boy to come forward.
This boy was bitten on the calf by a poisonous snake years ago. With the help of the shaman’s nature cures the child survived, but his leg never recovered. I’ve watched him at play, gamely running after the other kids, dragging his useless limb. Now Kidah waves him over, and the boy hesitantly hobbles out to the center of the clearing.
Kidah does a sleight-of-hand trick to relax him, pulling a grub out of his ear. Then he makes the boy lie flat on the ground and waves his hand. The boy slowly levitates as the onlookers gasp. Kidah reaches out and touches the boy’s right leg with his hand. There’s a flash of blinding light, as if someone’s snapped a picture.
The boy falls to the ground. His parents rush to him, but he waves them away. He gets to his feet, and looks down as if sensing something odd. He takes a few small, experimental steps. A cry of pure joy breaks from his lips. He begins running in a circle, still emitting the happy scream. Then he starts hopping on his right leg, like a drunken rabbit, and all his playmates hop along with him, shrieking with shared ebullience.
The kids hop away in a deliriously happy kangaroo conga line, and the elders thank Kidah with words and many embraces. I watch the boy’s mother walk up, trembling with the emotion of what she’s just witnessed, and thank the old wizard with just her eyes. Kidah bows back to her and then mimes that it’s time for sleep.
They lead him to a hammock, and one by one the tribesmen go to sleep around him. I tell Eko that I’m not
tired and she should turn in. She heads for the hut, and I walk down to the river and sit on a large stone.
There’s a full moon out, and through the crack of trees above the river I can see its rough surface clearly. I wonder if P.J. is staring up at the same pale craters from some rain forest hiding spot, and if we’ll find her as we march on the colonel and his minions.
It seems incredible that this little old man thinks he has a chance to bring down the mighty Colonel Aranha and his well-armed and deeply entrenched forces. A few hours ago I wouldn’t have given the wrinkled wizard a snowball’s chance in the Amazon. But when that boy started walking and then running, I felt something bounding up inside me as well.
Perhaps it was hope that this could all somehow turn out okay.
High above me the moon seems to wink, as if advising me to keep faith.
“Easy for you to say,” I mutter back out loud. And then I realize that I’m not alone.
The Mysterious Kidah has stolen out of the hut and has joined me at the water’s edge.
80
Were you talking to yourself?“Kidah asks me.
“No, I was speaking to the moon.”
“I see,” he says, looking baffled. “Well, I don’t want to intrude on that conversation. But if you and the moon are finished, I’d love a little company.”
I shrug and slide over, and he sits down on the rock next to me. For a while we’re both quiet, watching the bright chain of moonlight on the black river.
“Can’t sleep?” I finally ask him.
“I had enough sleep over the past couple of months,” he says.
“I guess so. You were really out.”
“The strange thing was that I was conscious the whole time, but I couldn’t speak or move. They tied my mind in a pretty good knot.”
“Yeah.” I nod. “They did the same thing to Gisco.”
The wizard reacts. “You know Gisco?”
“He came back with Eko. I’ve spent a lot of time with him. How do you know him?”
“I knew his grandfather,” Kidah answers with a chuckle. “What a rascal! We once meditated together, and while I was in a deep trance he ate my lunch and took off.”
I have to grin at this.
“Is Gisco like his grandpa?” Kidah asks.
“Worse,” I say. And then I fall silent again, thinking about what the colonel did to Gisco, and wondering if the poor pooch will ever get his mind unknotted.
Kidah is silent also. The night wind picks up and shuffles the leaves like playing cards. A bat flaps out of the night shadows and lands on the wizard’s wrist. He strokes the bat’s head the way one would pet a kitten, and then flicks his hand upward and the night creature takes wing. “What about you, Jack?” Kidah asks, and I take note that he’s using my preferred name. “Why can’t you sleep?”
“Just … thinking.”
“Warriors need to sleep before a battle,” he advises me.
“I’m hardly a warrior. Is a battle really coming?”
“Definitely,” he says.
“But the colonel has a whole army regiment at his disposal. I’ve seen them. Thousands of soldiers. Heavy artillery. Helicopters. Gunships.”
“I have no doubt that he’s prepared to vigorously defend himself,” Kidah replies, with obvious respect for his foe.
“Yes, he is,” I tell him. “Where are we going to get our army?”
He nods toward the hut of sleeping tribesmen. “I thought some of those warriors might join us.”
I shrug. “A dozen small men with blowguns.”
“Men are men. And others will join us. We should go to sleep now.” But the wizard doesn’t stand up. He’s watching me carefully. “Unless you want to talk a bit. It’s a nice night. Perhaps you want to ask me something?”
“No, that’s okay, sir.”
He unexpectedly reaches out and puts a leathery arm over my shoulder. “Try calling me uncle. You know, Jack, I was a very close friend of your father. And whatever my limitations, I’m sure I give better answers than the moon.”
I mull it over for a few seconds. “Okay, Uncle.”
“That’s better.”
“What’s my mom like? You said you’ve known her since she was a little girl.”
Kidah nods, closes his eyes, and rocks back and forth. “Yes, I’ve known Mira since she was a young orphan. She entered the priesthood, and the Caretakers became her cause, her education, and her family, just as they did for your friend Eko. I remember first seeing her as a girl of seven or eight, dressed in the white robes of a novitiate. Even then she stood out. Not just for her beauty. She was such a serious child. And she had the most angelic voice.”
“I think I’ve heard her sing,” I tell him in a whisper. “It was in the Andes, when we were trapped. She saved us. Sometimes, in moments of great danger, I get the feeling that she and my dad are looking out for me.”
“A thousand years is a formidable barrier, but love often finds a way,” Kidah says. “I’ll be honest with you, Jair, I mean Jack. Mira never recovered from having to part with you. Perhaps you can understand how an orphan, denied her own family when she was a child, would find it especially hard to give up her baby.”
I remember the excruciating sadness of the song I heard high up in the Andes, and nod slowly. “Where is she now? What’s happened to my mom?”
“When your father was captured by the Dark Army, she took over the resistance. She’s fought very bravely, but it hasn’t gone well.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“You’re her last best hope.”
“No,” I say, “I did my job and found you. Now you’re the man with the plan.”
“We’ll do it together,” Kidah says. “But we’d better get some shut-eye first.” He stands. “Coming?”
I hesitate and then take his hand. “Okay, Uncle.”
81
We leave at dawn, and a dozen warriors of the tribe go with us. They’ve aware that by venturing beyond their borders they will be revealing their existence and inviting trouble. Kidah has explained to them that the entire rain forest is threatened, and told them why he’s risking his life now to try to stop the damage.
We hike through the forest to the river where Eko and I first encountered the tribesmen. There we find the remains of our dugout, destroyed by rocks and set on fire for good measure. The warriors expertly begin assembling small bark canoes, and soon have six of them ready to go.
The shaman decides not to go with us—he explains that he must stay behind and care for his people. He says an emotional farewell to Kidah, and the two men embrace. Watching the great wizard of the future and the medicine man of the People of the Forest standing next to each other, you would find it easy to mistake them for brothers.
When we push off and head downriver, the old shaman stands alone on the bank and follows us with his eyes till the leafy canopy descends between us and hides him from view.
We’re soon in the vast flooded forest. It took Eko and me days to paddle through it, but we’re following a different route out. Kidah rides in the lead canoe, picking his way carefully. He seems to navigate by instinct, and is never at a loss over which branch of the maze to take. “How does he know where he’s going?” I ask Eko.
She shrugs. “The same way he healed that boy’s leg. Magic.”
“I don’t believe in magic,” I tell her. “I believe in medicine and global positioning devices.”
“At a certain point,” Eko responds, “sorcery and science become one. Kidah was our top scientist. He used mathematics and physics to design powerful weapons, like Archimedes three thousand years earlier. Then he left the People of Dann to live alone on a mountaintop, cultivating the secrets of mind over matter that I started to teach you on the Outer Banks. You learned to bend lines of sand, but he can make boulders fly through the air. Over time, his scientific studies and his psychic gifts merged, and he became” —she pauses—“what he is today.”
“And what is that?” I
ask, studying the little man in the canoe in front of us as he paddles tirelessly forward.
“Unique,” she says.
“Let’s just hope he’s up to the task,” I mutter, remembering the candirú pool. “I have a feeling that losing a battle to Colonel Aranha is no fun at all.”
We’re cheered along on our journey by an ever-changing menagerie of birds, beasts, and fish. They dip low overhead, watch us from fern-curtained banks, and swim lazy circles around our canoes. It’s fun to be the center of rain forest attention, although sometimes it’s also a bit perilous. A manatee, slow-moving as a garbage scow, gets so close that he nearly overturns our canoe.
Kidah’s new route soon pays dividends. We leave the flooded forest in the early afternoon, and enter a fast-flowing river system. An hour later, the warriors who are accompanying us start to look nervous. I watch how they urgently whisper back and forth from one canoe to the other, sometimes using words and other times relying on anxious-sounding birdcalls.
“They must be freaking out at being so far from home,” I speculate to Eko.
“No, that’s not what’s spooking them,” she says. “We’ve moved into an inhabited area. They’ve picked up the scents and sounds of another tribe.”
Kidah soon slows his canoe till it’s barely moving and drifts toward a bank. The rest of us follow his example.
The leaves part as we get close, and we see several dozen men in war paint standing with weapons raised.
The old wizard motions that we should all stay still. Then he dives over the side and swims to shore. He walks up the bank dripping wet, smiling and shaking water out of his white hair. They surround him, and he explains the situation to them in their own language. I don’t know how he got this gift of tongues, but it works miracles in gaining the trust of skeptical warriors with spears.
This tribe has heard rumors for generations of the People of the Forest. We are welcomed with great respect, and soon seated in their ceremonial clearing enjoying a big feast. Eko and I get a lot of attention for our height and exotic looks, but Kidah remains the star of the show.