The Hollow World: (Pangea, Book 1)

by Michael Beckum

  All during our conversation Zash had continued propelling the skiff with long, powerful strokes toward his home island. I admired the skill with which he handled his crude and awkward craft, particularly after I’d made such a mess of it during my escape. But now he stopped rowing, stared deeply into my eyes, searching into my soul for truth and honesty.

  “How can you say that with such confidence?” he eventually asked me. “The Grigori have ruled this world harshly and cruelly since before my great, great grandfather was small. And yet, I believe you when you say you will kill them. What makes you so certain?”

  “Because I’m smarter than they are,” I said, confidently. “And they think I’m just another stupid human. They seriously underestimate me.”

  Zash kept staring at me, but slowly a smile spread over his lips, and infused his eyes with mirth.

  “No one is as smart as the Grigori,” he said, finally, continuing to stroke toward the island. “But I would be glad for you to prove me wrong.”

  * * *

  THE ISLAND

  * * *

  WE FINALLY REACHED SHORE, a pretty, broad and level beach rimmed with thick leafed tropical foliage and tall, heavy palms. The canoe scraped its bottom on the sand, Zash leaped out and I followed him. Together we dragged the skiff far up into the bushes that grew beyond the strand and sparse sward at the shore, lifted Nala’s lifeless body from inside and lay it gently on the grass. Then we overturned the canoe, and covered it carefully with palm fronds and leaves.

  “We must hide our canoes,” explained Zash, “better than I apparently did on the mainland.”

  I smiled, and he did, too.

  “People steal them,” he said. “Especially the Chutanga of Luana. They’re a lazy bunch of fools who won’t even put out the energy to make their own.” He nodded toward an island farther out to sea, so far away it seemed more of a blur than an actual landmass, hanging in the distant sky.

  The upward curve of the surface of Pangea was constantly revealing the impossible to my surprised eyes. To see land and water curving up in the distance above the horizon as though it stood on edge before melting into the distant sky, to feel that seas and mountains were suspended directly above my head required such a complete reversal of perception that it sometimes made me light-headed.

  We then returned to Nala, and I looked at her lifeless face, once again overcome with stabs of guilt.

  “What type of death ritual do her people observe?” Zash asked.

  “I have no idea,” I said. “I barely knew her.”

  “Well, most Pangeans believe in placing their dead in trees.”

  “My people bury theirs in the ground.”

  Zash looked at me strangely.

  “That is very weird, Brandon,” he said. “I’m beginning to believe you are from outside Pangea. Don’t demons come and take the flesh of your dead down into the Um Hecha when you put your dead in the ground?”

  “What’s the Um Hecha?”

  “Is that a joke? The sea of fire. Did you really not know?”

  “We call it ‘Hell’ where I’m from. And no, as far as I know no one really goes to—to Um Hecha. Mostly they’re eaten by worms, I think.”

  He again stared at me, aghast.

  “And you prefer this to being eaten by birds?” he wondered.

  “Do the dead really care?”

  He thought about it, and shrugged, laughing. “I never asked.”

  Together we lifted Nala into a nearby tall tree as high as we could manage, and laid her carefully along a thick branch. Zash took some leather straps from a pouch attached to his loincloth and tied her securely to the limb. I kept looking at her face, dirty with dried blood, hair matted, and was overwhelmed by sadness. I should have been faster realizing the Angara was behind us. I should have this, I should have that. I was burdened with a sense of failure, and terrified that Nova had already suffered a similar fate all alone out there in this crazy dangerous world; that the dot on the tiny tracking device’s screen wasn’t even her.

  “Should I say something?” I asked Zash.

  “Say what?” he asked. “She’s dead. She can’t hear you.”

  “Not to her, to…” I looked at him, then up at the sky. I shook my head. “Never mind.”

  “If a god cared, they’d have protected her,” he said, sagely.

  We both dropped to the ground and he began to move across to where we’d left his canoe. I kept staring up at Nala.

  “And now… the birds just come and… you know?”

  “Or sometimes wild animals. But we put her high enough to deter most of those.”

  “What difference does it make, wild animals or birds?”

  Zash gave me another of those ‘are you serious’ looks and shook his head involuntarily, as if shivering, as if he suddenly realized he was talking to someone who couldn’t really be here.

  “The birds and the fliers take the body up to the paradise beyond the sun,” he said, patiently, as if speaking to a small child. “Wild animals just eat it.”

  Now it was my turn to look at him as if questioning that he was serious. Sometimes the people of Pangea could be so wise, and sometimes they could be so… not.

  Apparently done talking, Zash motioned me to follow him, and plunged into the jungle, stepping through the overgrowth and into a narrow but well-defined trail. I took a last look at Nala before him, and very quickly nearly lost my guide along a path that seemed to wind all over hell and back.

  It would run on, plain and clear and well defined, then suddenly end in a tangle of twisted jungle. Just stop. Most trails like this are made by animals, and then widened by man through extensive use, but these seemed not to have been accidentally formed by anyone or anything, as if made intentionally by the Chutanga as a way of confusing intruders.

  As I watched carefully, Zash—facing the end of a trail—would turn directly back in his tracks for a short distance, spring into a tree, climb up and through it to the other side of the blockage, drop onto a fallen log, leap over a low bush and suddenly he was once more back on a clear and distinct trail, motioning for me to follow. We’d then go on for another short distance only to turn immediately back around and retrace our steps. After a mile or so this new pathway ended as suddenly and mysteriously as the previous one had. Then he would repeat the leaping, swinging and dropping business until he found the next section of our hidden road.

  I couldn’t help but admire the genius of whatever ancient Chutanga had figured out this screwball idea to throw enemies off the track. The process would at least delay, but more likely prevent them entirely from following a Chutanga to their home and loved ones. I’m sure there was a trick to finding each next path, but Zash wasn’t telling, and I couldn’t figure it out.

  I suppose it might seem like a painfully slow way to get home, but the irony of Pangea is that there’s nothing but time, and yet never enough, Nala’s recent death being a rather painful example of the latter.

  After proceeding through the jungle for what must have been at least five miles or more we suddenly emerged into a large clearing filled with the gardens, fields, homes and buildings of Zash’s village.

  Thick based trees had been chopped down fifteen or twenty feet above the ground, and spherical houses of woven twigs, and mud-packed bark had been built on their high, flat surfaces. Each ball-like apartment was topped by one kind of carven image or another, which Zash explained to me was a kind of ‘coat-of-arms’ for the family housed within.

  Horizontal slits, six inches high, and two or three feet wide, allowed in light and ventilation. The entrance to each home was through a small opening in the base of the tree and once inside you worked your way up to the rooms above through the hollow trunks by way of crude, rope and bamboo ladders. The houses varied in size from a single studio apartment, to several rooms. The largest I entered was divided into two floors.

  All around the village, between it and the jungle, lay beautifully cultivated fields where the Chutan
ga raised whatever food they required to supplement their occasional hunting—fruits, vegetables, grains. Several villagers and most of the children were working in those gardens as we crossed through them, heading toward a small bridge laid across a narrow river that would take us into the community center.

  Most of the kids cheered at the sight of Zash and a few ran over to give him a hug as he passed, but to me they gave only wary stares and nervous scowls. As we landed on the other side of the bridge several men walked out to meet us, smiling as they recognized my companion, but eyeing me as warily as the children had. One made a kind of waving salute to Zash, and the two touched the points of their spears, then tapped the weapons to the ground between them.

  Greetings and introductions aside, Zash conducted me to a large house in the center of the community—his—and after making sure I was comfortable offered me food and wine. There I met his wife, a sweet copper brown girl named Suri who was as naked as he, holding a sleeping baby in her arms. Zash kissed them both, playfully licked the nipples of his wife’s full breasts, then told her how I’d saved his life. She looked momentarily horrified at the thought of almost losing her husband, and turned to me with something very close to love in her eyes. From that moment on she treated me like royalty, even allowing me to hold the tiny bundle of joy that her father assured me would one day rule all of Pangea.

  As I held the baby, Zash’s wife pressed her husband back onto some animal hide pillows, and settled herself onto his growing erection, slowly inserting him into her, eyes closing briefly with pleasure, sighing out a whisper of joy. I’d still not quite gotten used to this with Pangeans, but given my firsthand experience at how quickly life could end in this world, I certainly understood it.

  “Perhaps you would like to meet Zash’s sister?” his beautiful wife asked me as she rocked back and forth on the delighted Zash. “She is very pretty, and would not mind that you are small.”

  I nearly choked on my meal, glancing between my legs.

  “She means your height,” Zash said, laughing. “I’m sure you could manage to satisfy her enough to keep her. You’re spear is not exactly tiny, though you’re not as big as a Chutanga man.”

  I smiled in response, and shook my head.

  “I’m afraid I’m taken,” I told Suri gently. “In fact, once I’ve finished eating I intend to go right back out and find my… my mate.”

  “You should rest awhile, first,” Zash said, kindly. “You look terrible.”

  I laughed. “Thanks for the compliment. But I’ll be fine. Once I’ve finish your wife’s brilliant food I’ll have my strength back and be good to go.”

  They both looked doubtful. Even the baby looked doubtful.

  “I will,” I said, laughing. “I’ll be fine.”

  “HOW LONG WAS I asleep?” I asked.

  Suri’s brows crinkled.

  “How… long?” she asked, plainly confused by my use of a measurement of length to describe a concept of ‘time’ that meant nothing to her. “You did not grow while you slept.”

  “I meant… no. I was trying to ask… never mind.”

  I stood and stretched, feeling some of the aches and pains of the last few… I don’t know… ‘days’ of athletic activity. After a few pops and cracks that felt better than they sounded, I scanned around the little apartment for my GPS device.

  “Are you looking for this?” Suri asked, holding out the little box.

  “Yes,” I said, taking it. “Thanks.”

  “It was making sounds. Is it supposed to do that?”

  “I have no idea. It’s a Grigori device and it didn’t come with instructions.”

  As she watched, I held the thing close to my face and adjusted knobs. The lone red dot I’d seen before was gone, and there were only three motionless blue dots. Where had the red dot gone? Where was Nova? Was her dot under one of theirs? Had they captured her already? Or worse, killed her?

  “I have to go,” I told Suri. “Tell Zash …”

  “No,” she said, gently, but firmly. “Zash wanted to see you before you go. He said it was important that he tell you something about your friend.”

  “Which friend? Nova?”

  She shrugged.

  “Milton?”

  She shrugged again and gestured for me to sit down. But I was too nervous to stay still, so I excused myself, promising not to leave the village, went down the inner stairs that had been carved out of the tree stump, and left the hut, heading out into the common area of the town square in search of Zash.

  Several of the copper brown Chutanga were there, a few chatting and laughing, while another drew water from a community well, and another carefully carved a block of wood into a small sculpture, or talisman of some kind. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at me with that same edgy wariness as before, though when I nodded and smiled, they returned the gesture. I suppose word had gotten around about who I was, and what I’d done for Zash.

  I wandered a bit with no specific direction in mind passing huts both empty and full, watching small children run and play, absorbing the daily life of the island tribe. I was just becoming concerned about getting lost, and considered turning around when I came out into a second small clearing on the back-side of the main circle of houses.

  Zash was there, arguing with someone, likely the community leader or chief by his age and dress. As I stepped closer the argument became more heated, and Zash looked as if he were going to spit blood, he became so enraged. In the middle of yelling he noticed me, and held up a hand for me to keep my distance. The king—or whoever he was—turned his eyes my way and stared with an intensity that told me I had something to do with this particular disagreement. As they fought, snippets of words floated over to me.

  “I don’t care… not of our tribe!” from the king, then from Zash, “…horror… no one should… we must!”

  The chief argued something about the good of his tribe, and others not being his concern when Zash stepped back, and for a moment I feared might step forward again and strike the older man. Instead he vibrated as if struggling with that very thought, until he turned and walked straight toward me. He didn’t ask me to, but I assumed I was supposed to follow him.

  “You all right?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, flatly, then after we’d gotten far enough from the tribal leaders to not be heard, Zash stopped—checked to make sure we weren’t followed—then stared at me with a nervous intensity. He was struggling with whether or not to tell me something, and I waited out the decision.

  “Come with me,” he said simply, then headed straight out of the village as I hurried to keep up with his much longer legs.

  * * *

  TEMPLE OF HORROR

  * * *

  WHEN WE’D GOTTEN SAFELY into the forest he spoke in short bursts without turning to look at me.

  “When you tried to save that Angara, Brandon the Mack, you impressed me. You’d done it at the expense of potentially losing the silver device that could take you to your mate. You’d done it without concern for your own life. You’d done it just after having saved my life.”

  “Well, I’m glad you were so impressed by my stupidity.”

  Zash laughed.

  “No,” he said. “With your compassion. It did not make you weak. You fought the Indovu Um bravely. But you saw life with an understanding that we are all united… all essentially the same, in spite of our differences.” He stopped and turned to face me with a smile. “That impressed me.”

  “Why?” I asked, sincerely. “It’s hardly a smart way to look at the world. Especially this world. I could have died… could have lost that device, and Nova. That thought haunts me.”

  “And you reached for the Angara anyway. Because you saw his fear—his ‘humanity’. I like that, Brandon the Mack, because I myself feel the same way, that the only way to truly make our lives better in this world is to see our similarities over our differences,” he turned to continue on his path, “to unite against our common
enemies—the beasts, the dinosaurs—the Grigori.”

  “Is that what your argument was about back there?”

  “In essence, yes. We have a pact with the Grigori—we leave them alone and they do the same for us. We trade, we exchange goods and necessities, and we also allow the Grigori to come here to perform a private ritual—a ritual that even the Angara are not aware of. I don’t understand it, or know what it’s for, or why it’s done, but I do know that it sickens me. It sickens many of the Chutanga.”

  “Do you expect me to stop it, somehow?”

  “No, but you need to know of it, because it concerns your friend and his unborn child, I think. Or it will.”

  “They eat babies during this ritual?”

  “I can’t begin to explain. I… you have to see.”

  “You’re confusing me, Zash.”

  “Welcome to the tribe,” he said simply.

  “Where are we going?”

  We stepped into a large clearing and he just pointed.

  Before us sat a large, beetle-shaped building with a rounded roof that had several large openings in the top. Grigori were fluttering low, and dropping through these openings, disappearing inside the building. There were no doors or windows visible anywhere else on the structure other than those, except a single, ground-level entrance that was apparently for slaves, a line of which I saw were being brought in by other Chutanga. I almost hadn’t seen any of that because the height of the grasses and plants surrounding the bottom of the building rose to almost neck level.

  Zash and I had hunkered low in that cover, and watched as the last of the heads and shoulders of several slaves were escorted into the building.

  “This is my shame,” Zash said. “I have never helped herd slaves as these off-Islanders are doing, but I have also done nothing to stop it.”

  “Stop what?” I asked.