“Just think, Davina, of the enormity of this discovery!
“Of the remarkable ontogeny of this planet’s species!
“Of the coexistence and proximity of the seminal hybrid species and the differentiated species they spawned.
“In my world, it would be like seeing paleolithic hunter-gatherers roaming the backyards of modern suburbanites.
“Think of the intercourse between the differentiated species who were adapted to compete in the surface world and the chimera species who were not.
“In my world, it would be like unarmed invaders encroaching on the territory of weaponized warriors.
“Just think, Davina, of the possibilities this raises. The preconceptions it dashes. The questions it begs!
“Did the ledge-builders encounter humanoid species that evolved in parallel on the surface of the planet?
“Did the collision of these species erupt into a clash of civilizations?
“Were the ledge-builders vanquished?
“Did the victors seal the ledge-builders’ caves with these large boulders?
“I suspect the answers to these and other mysteries lie buried beneath these boulders. Let us see if there is a way to reveal them. Or at least ascend to the roof of the great valley. To the surface world beyond these boulders.”
There is a key to reopening the blocked tunnel, and the light-filled water trickling down the largest boulders holds it.
Since it is the only moving thing, Noah’s attention is drawn to it. And to its source near the cave’s ceiling above their heads. Raising the torch, he sees an open passage yawning between the ceiling and the top of the largest boulder.
A passage wide enough to crawl through!
As if by magic, the dark shadow at the top of the boulder is chased away by the light that spreads like a white stain through the falling water. It is the light of two suns. Heralding the dawn of a new day and beckoning the couple to its promise of escape and freedom.
“Help lift me to where my outstretched hands can find purchase at the summit of this great stone,” Noah urges his mate. “If the opening above is indeed passable, I will reach back and pull you up as well. It appears to be our only way out of this tunnel.”
It seems no time at all before both are squeezing through the passage above and dropping back down on the tunnel’s opposite side. There, they find more of the broad, finely crafted steps leading upward toward a new light.
While they brought the crystalline torch with them, there is no need of the light-source here.
The entire tunnel is bathed in bright sunlight pouring in from its open mouth just a few feet away.
Emerging onto the roof of the valley, the couple find themselves standing alone on a plain that borders its rim. It is a narrow ribbon of open land running from the valley’s margin to an expanse of the grasslands that separate the scarlet rift valley from the emerald forests of the equator.
Turning back to the mouth of the cave, Noah closely inspects the exposed staircase while expostulating:
“These were the steps used by the ledge-builders, at least by the most robust among them, to reach the bountiful hunting grounds of the surface world.
“I imagine this world was teeming with life, and the effort they took to build the stairs was small enough price to pay for the rich harvest the hunters transported to their cave-dwellings.
“I also imagine the intercourse between the ledge-builders and this outer world went on for generations.
“I believe it was some cataclysmic event in the distant geologic past that interrupted their visits to the surface world. An earthquake would explain the implosion of large boulders blocking this tunnel, and I would venture any tunnels leading from other ledge-lipped caves were similarly plugged by the same cataclysm.
“I would even wager that the sealing of the caves sealed the fate of the ledge-dwellers as well.
“It is likely they found easy prey in the surface world. Else why build permanent steps to get there?
“And it is likely they became dependent on that world to feed themselves. And when they no longer could reach the surface, they simply starved to the end of their race.
“The pictograph portraying their divinity offering food likely symbolizes its scarcity toward the end.
“It is a grim tale, I know, but it accounts for all we have seen.”
The tale is even more grim than Noah imagines.
And the final chapter is written not in the slow onset of famine but
in a sudden onslaught of blood!
Tectonic stirrings of the earth along the Great Rift Valley opened narrow vents along its base, creating spillage of rivers and streams coursing next to the valley walls. So much spillage it brought severe drought before the vents sealed themselves and the waters were restored to their previous level.
For the falcon-head creatures, it was a period of scarcity and want. But not starvation. Many of the animals on their menu were themselves drought-hardy and survived in sufficient numbers to provide at least a subsistence-level diet.
Still, the shortage of prey forced the hunters to look for other hunting grounds. Most scattered to unexplored regions of the valley. And found nothing.
But one struck out into the tunnel behind the cave, a way that was once narrow but had become wide and open during the tectonic event.
And that is where he made the fatal discovery.
At the far end of the enlarged tunnel, the upheaval had opened a portal where none had been before. A gateway to the roof of the world!
The falcon-head creatures were quick to exploit the opening. They built steps as hunting parties ventured into the wide plains at the surface.
But their hunting tactics and crude stone missiles were not equal to the challenge of the differentiated species whose struggle in that different world hardened their survival skills.
Still, the hunters did manage to overwhelm some of the smallest, burrowing animals and bring food back to the rest. And they even managed to fend off the gigantic carnivores whose territory they crossed. With a hail of stones and hasty retreat.
What the hunters did not bargain for was the great cave bear’s astounding olfactory acuity. And its willingness to leave its own territory on the spoor of tempting prey.
The end came in the dark of night. When nearly all the falcon-head creatures were asleep in the cave.
The mammoth bear found easy passage through the wide tunnel and, despite its bulk, made its whisper-soft way to the sleeping figures. In mere moments, the defenseless creatures were ripped to shreds by the six-inch long claws of the ferocious beast.
It was the end of their race.
As if shocked by the violence it witnessed in the bowels of the cave, the earth shuddered and narrowed the tunnel. Crushing the life out of the retreating species-killer. While sealing its far end with a slide of huge boulders.
The few hunters that remained on the roof of the valley could not get past the boulders and were forced to remain on the surface. Where they survived. Breaking apart into small bands. Wandering across the unfamiliar surface of the moon like Ice Age hunter-gatherers.
Over time, the most successful of the creatures differentiated into hominid species. While their bird-like cousins were selected out by the keener competition of the creatures of the surface world.
That is a part of the story Noah is not able to read as he and his mate leave the Great Rift Valley behind in the quest toward their future.
Taking Davina by the hand, Noah turns their steps toward the broad grasslands ahead.
Relieved to be across the rift valley and free of the lost world of the ledge-builders.
Chapter 48. Village of the Damned
Greld is angry.
The skinny, fretful child who waits upon her has disturbed her fitful sleep and, were it not for the message she brings, would receive another thrashing.
Not this time, Greld decides. It is the word her little spy brings that kindles her ire.
T
he other females of the tribe are gathering in the council ring.
Greld’s anger at this affront to tribal tradition contorts the misshapen features of her unlovely face. Smashed into horrid disfigurement by beatings from her mate. Her glowering eyes are mere specks sunken into a visage closely resembling the desiccated husk of a once-pulpy fruit. All ridges and folds that quiver when she speaks.
It has been many sleeps since Gruk disappeared with all the strong males of the tribe. It has been as many sleeps since Greld suffered the last savage beating at his hands. But while absence may make others’ hearts grow fonder, his long absence has not improved his mate’s disposition.
Hers is a baleful nature deeply rooted in the barbarous traditions and practices of her kind. It is their delight in depraved torment that distinguishes the females of the tribe from the males as definitively as their ability to bear young.
If Gruk and his fellow brutes are as beasts in the field, Greld and her sisters are as fiends from the pit. For theirs is a nature made more malevolent by the frequent beatings administered by their mates.
While the males lash out in unrestrained but indifferent fury, the females pour malice-aforethought and deliberate torment into every thought and act. And it is the females, not the males, who have honed the raw edge of their cruelty on the slaves they have abused for generations beyond remembrance.
Maidens in the arts of fiendish depravity, Greld and her sisters are true daughters of Hecate.
A malediction.
An affliction.
A racking scourge upon all living things that fall within their cruel grasp.
It was the great tragedy of the faultless survivors of their long-dead civilization that the spawn of the world’s great polluters fell upon them and placed them in eternal thrall to their brutal, fiendish descendants. As successive generations sank deeper and deeper into barbarism and depravity, they adopted ever more sadistic, abusive maltreatment of the slaves.
Chief among their basest practices is the slaughter and cannibalism of slave infants.
Those who display birth defects or who appear insufficiently robust are immediately put to the dagger and carved into portions. Their flesh feasted on by the ravenous members of the tribe. For these infants, the end is at least mercifully swift.
The greater suffering awaits those slave infants who survive.
The management of the slaves is left to the female members of the tribe. Each of whom strives to outdo her sisters in rapacity and cruelty. So thorough are they that they have depleted the number of slaves with each new generation.
Thus it is that slave-help is now the province of Greld alone. For she alone possesses the tribe’s last slave.
And thus it is that she has to face down a growingly resentful group of the tribe’s females.
They are gathered in the tribe’s council ring, a circle of rough but level boulders suitable for seating. It is where the males make important decisions for the tribe, and this is the first time females have dared enter it. The grievance must be momentous for the other females to enter it now, Greld realizes, and her suspicions are immediately aroused by the brazenness of their challenge.
“You must share your slave!” demands one. “Who decreed that it is to be yours alone?”
“Shut your face, you witch!” Greld fires back.
“Gruk is master here, and it is his slave as well. Do you dare demand the property of Gruk as your own? Do you dare defy Gruk?
“Besides”, she adds, pointing to the frail, wispy-thin young girl cowering before her, “this slave is too weak to be of any use very much longer. So, you are starting a fight for nothing.”
As if to confirm her argument, the slight girl collapses before the assembled females. Falling to the ground dead from years of cruel abuse.
Greld’s gaze holds no empathy or shock. She is surprised only that it has taken this long for the child to succumb to her torment.
Then there occurs something Greld did not expect.
As the emaciated form strikes the ground, the earth shakes violently. Emitting a shrill, piercing sound like the tympanic crash of cymbals clashing in crescendo to close a movement.
The shaking rocks every member of the assembled group, as they crouch lower to keep from falling. While the village dogs’ tails slink down between their legs as if cowering from passing death.
Only Greld appears unfazed by the brief quake.
Scooping up the child’s body, Greld rushes from the council chamber and lays the small form on the flat communal stone used for sectioning the fish captured by the males to feed the tribe. The other females follow her expectantly, joining the growing number of protruding-ribbed dogs gathering for what they know will come.
Drawing her stone dagger, Greld surveys the lifeless form of the tribe’s last slave with the practiced, appraising eye of a slaughterhouse butcher.
Gone is the sneering, challenging tone she used to rebuff the other females’ demand.
Gone is the brusque, threatening demeanor she assailed them with in the council ring.
“You want to share the slave?” Greld shouts. “So you shall, sisters!”
With that, she deftly carves what little flesh remains on the warm skeletal form and, setting aside the choicer cuts for herself, hands out the smaller meaty portions to the other females. As they parade, one-by-one, past the communal stone for their shares. When all the flesh has been meted out, she sweeps the bloody bones to the ground for the gathering curs to feast upon.
Emboldened by the taste of warm flesh, Greld leads the other females back into the council ring, motioning each to a sitting-stone.
“Gruk is gone”, she begins, “and he has taken every strong male in the tribe. They hunt for fresh slaves, sisters, and that is good.
“However, we are left now with no slaves and with only the weakest males. They cannot do the work of slaves. They cannot provide food. They are useless!
“The stronger males have been gone too long. Gruk may be dead. If we do nothing, we shall die as well.
“Sisters, it is time for us to act!
“The males have made our decisions for as long as anyone can remember. And where has that gotten us?
“Slaveless!
“Starving!
“Abandoned!
“Their disappearance may be a blessing, sisters. It is our time now and, with only the weakest males left, none can stop us!
“I, Greld, decree that we shall make decisions for the tribe until Gruk returns. As his mate, I shall be first among you. But all of you shall be equal.
“It is the weak males who shall have no place in our councils.
“It is we, the females, who shall rule!”
The last vibration of Greld’s call to arms is barely a dying echo when the females erupt in cheers.
In one bold stroke, she has transformed the tribe into a matriarchy in which her voice, and hers alone, will reign supreme.
Little does she suspect how brief that reign will be!
As the tribe’s females prepare to depart the council ring, the earth quakes so abruptly and so violently they are thrown to the ground. Even Greld cannot maintain her purchase on the large boulder at the center of the ring.
It is when the shaking stops that they all cry out in a unison of terrified screams.
As they rise to their feet, the circle of stones is trapped in the center of a widening chasm that strands the females where they stand. High, angry, flames erupt from the chasm on all sides, licking the air into an inferno of heat and fire.
While the females scream, the flames appear to be ascending all about them. But that is not what is happening.
No, it is not the wall of flame that is rising; it is the ground they stand upon that is sinking. They are trapped in a deepening cauldron of fire.
Caught in the very middle of the council ring, Greld is farthest from the scorching heat of the flames. Yet, she soon feels its unbearable sting.
It is when she looks over at her
sisters nearest the ring’s periphery that the final scream rises in Greld’s parched throat. Escaping as a dry croak. For as she watches, skin and flesh begin melting off the bones of her incinerating sisters.
In a final moment of clarity, Greld comprehends the fate that now claims her.
The world breathes a fateful sigh of relief as the circle of earth plunges into its molten underbelly. As Hecate recalls her own.
The tribe’s nearby males soon follow the females to perdition, as the earth swallows the entire village and erases this evil stain from its face.
The angry shaking of the earth when the last slave perished was a cry and a warning.
A pre-quake that foretold the end of this accursed village of brutes and fiends.
Chapter 49. The High Plateau
The suns are not yet high in the sky when the couple reach the verge of the high swards of grass.
Great clumps of the stuff rub up against one another. Creating impenetrable stretches of thickly matted vegetation.
But there are many dark shadows signifying breaks in the wall of interlocking grass. These shadows lance across the sward. All pointing in the direction Noah is resolved to take.
Entering the nearest narrow passage, the couple cast wary eyes on every shadow dappling the clumped grasses in the noonday light of two suns.
The air is still and dry along this grass-lined path, and hunger and thirst soon overtake them. There is no moisture along the arid trail, and Noah wonders where they might find it. That is when the welcome sound of running water calls out to him. From some hidden source beyond the veil of grass lining one side of the path.
Approaching a patch of shadow in that direction, the couple gently pull aside the concealing filaments of grass and strike out between the matted clumps in the direction of the inviting sound. Each time they push their way through adjoining clumps, the grass springs back. Erasing all traces of their passage.
Since every clump is identical to every other, they are soon adrift in the trackless sea of grass.
But this realization will come later. After they have completed their immediate and urgent quest for water.
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