by Joe Darris
Skup wasn't one to hide his feelings. He regularly challenged Baucis in defense of his methods and openly derided the Naturalist services, something akin to treason if it wasn't for his undisputed rule of the vultus flock. But on the subject of the Wild Man, he remained silent. Urea understood. She had never truly believed the prophecies either, yet here he was: the Wild Man, just like High Priestess Ntelo had always said.
Urea was only two floors away now, and though she couldn't see whatever Zetis was seeing through the digiscope, she could see the app he was running. Applications required less processing power than raw footage, and Zetis had managed to find a way to share them over the same channels they chimed with. If the Council knew, they'd all be in deep trouble. But what could they really do? No one could synchronize with the Evanimals like Urea and her team. Sanctioning them was an empty threat, so she hoped
The map filled her vision, superimposed faintly over the hallway she ran through. It showed the Spire, The Garden, the surrounding mountains and plains. There was a fat red X deep in the mountainous jungles West of the vast gardens the Evanimals tended. Urea pulled up all of the information they had on the area.
The mountain range provided Spire City with most of its water. The negative polarity of the Spire created a low pressure zone that provided regular rain showers for the garden, but it was nothing compared to the jutting chunks of the earth's crust that served as a wall against weather itself.
The mountains held water captive, nothing that came from the west came through directly, instead water came down as rain and snow in the forested mountains, then dribbled down into the Garden. There were dozens of creeks and tributaries that all began in the mountains and eventually culminated in the two rivers that irrigated the Garden and made its border. They once had names, before the Scourge, when things were still made, the surface still tangible. People had long forgotten or abandoned them.
The rivers were called the North and the South. The Spire would have burned without them long ago.
Spire City was a giant conductor for the both electricity that coursed through the magnetosphere and the heat from beneath the earth's crust. It provided all the energy the citizenry could ever hope to use. When it was built, it had been estimated that nineteen more of the structures could have electrified every cubic inch of air on the planet and powered the industries of the earth in perpetuity. Currently it had less ambitious goals and no projects to sell, so the citizenry only used its electromagnetic field to power what they used: Virtual Reality Chips for human and Evanimal alike, the waste processors, the taunting casino games, the lights, the heat, the force field that kept the Scourge out and the Citizens safe, all the doors and elevators, the mainframe that all their VRCs could sync with, and the constant lightning storm.
The Spire did all of this and asked for little more than a drink of water. Running a twentieth of a planet's magnetosphere through an enormous superconductor caused an amount of heat best expressed in volcanic terms. The North and the South carried all that energy away, over rapids and underground, beyond the horizon and beyond concern.
Knowing that the Wild Man, for she had no other name for him, was in the mountains that fueled Spire City's existence made her want to scream. How long had he been there? Were there more like him? Did he know of the Spire? How could he not? A thousand more questions raced through her brain as the stationary red X on the map taunted her.
Urea burst on to the giant hexagonal roof of Spire City. The roof was a sprawling garden, originally designed as the world's highest pool and spa, but had long since been converted into more food space. It was ringed in both types of telescopes. Most of the citizens used the old analog devices, with their thick lenses or rounded mirrors, but those with VRCs were able to get a feed directly from the digiscopes. She raced towards the western end of the Spire.
Skup waved her over.
“It's bad Urea. I sent Jacob to get Baucis but he hasn't chimed me about it. I can't believe the old man’s hiding out with fresh beasties down on the surface.”
“Beasts?” Urea asked, holding the plural sound on her tongue, "there's more than one?”
Skup gestured towards the digiscope. Urea put a finger on it, careful not to jostle its position. Its digital image filled her vision completely. The digiscopes were a tribute to the Golden age of technology. They totally overrode the eye's signals to the brain with a touch, giving the viewer perfect, high definition, magnified vision. They were equipped with high energy infrared lasers that evaporated any clouds in their lines of vision. The constant thunderstorm that clung to the Spire didn't interfere with them in the least. Using one was like looking through clear and empty space.
Far off, between the peaks of two mountains and through a thick forest, Urea saw what had terrified the other two: fire. Not a wild fire, or cooking fire, but a an enormous bonfire. She could make out tree trunks burning white hot in its core. Whoever built it, for it was surely built, had a great understanding of man's most ancient tool, and did not fear it in the least. She watched its flames, taller than her, crackle and pop in the night, and then her heart truly stopped.
One by one, as if in some sort of a trance, figure after figure danced and leapt between the fire and the digiscope. There were dozens of them. She couldn't make out their features, but their form was unmistakable. They were wild people, a whole tribe of them, each powerful enough to kill a biselk or maim a vultus.
Her whole life had been spent in the beautiful casino turned metropolis that rested atop a needle pointed into the clouds. She felt closer to the stars up above than to the giant blue green sphere that stretched to rounded horizons on all sides of the city. Now she was confronted with a being who had a reversed perception of the world. She hoped they didn't feel like the Naturalists, like the Spire was a giant proboscis, sucking power from Earth's system of energy.
The most frightening Naturalist tales had always been stories of the Wild Man, man's long lost cousin. He was a savage brute who was as at home in the jungles as humans were in their cities. He ate nothing but meat, and was the king of all the other animals. Like all children's stories, his powers grew with age. Supposedly he could change shape, hunted in the black of night, got powers from the moon and could scare any animal that smelled him. But there had always been only one Wild Man, not dozens. And he certainly didn't hunt with fire and a knife.
She let go of the digiscope and tried to ground herself. “What do we do?”
Zetis and Skup answered in unison, “We have a plan.”
Chapter 8
How can I know these things? When you are older young one, you will learn of our secrets, if you are brave and foolish enough to trust one sly as me.
The young hunter heaves himself over the edge of the cliff. He inhales deeply and smells the fire that guided his climb. The trek up the mountain trail was a difficult one. Oftentimes the trail had eroded to nothing and the hunter had to scale sheer rock face. The skull and skin the chief had insisted he wore made it harder. He is grateful the moon is still nearly full. Time has only scratched a sliver from its face.
As he climbed he wondered more than once how the old hermit could make a trek he struggles with. Maybe that was why the hermit only came down on full moons to share his fables: the moon gave him the strength he needed for the climb. Either that or it took him the wax to climb down and wain to climb back up!
The hunter catche
s his breath and looks around the cave. He has never been up here, few have. He sees the fire with a clay pot above it, perhaps fifty paces in. The light extends back as far, before fading into blackness. The walls and most of the ceiling are covered in scribbles made of ash and paint that the hunter's mind see as animals, even though none are really here.
“Symbols,” the hermit calls them, “pictures of symbols.”
There are animals of every sort, legendary members of the tribe, and odd lines and circles that the hunter doesn't recognize as the planets that they are. As he stares at the pictures he remembers the stories the hermit tells so well. The pictures almost tell them better than the old man. Stories of the deadly animals that lived outside the mountains, the swarms of insects, two headed wolves, and the one about the hermit's father, who had discovered a glowing stone like the hunter now carries. All of these paintings look ancient. Some have been touched up where soot had dirtied them but most looked as old as the cave itself. The light from the fire makes the paintings dance in and out of the eye sockets of the hunter’s elk skull. They come to life before his eyes.
There is information too. He sees progressions of prongelk that grow larger with more gnarled prongs in each picture. There are paintings of kingcrows with ever larger wings, and blacker beaks. Their armament is carefully detailed and their size shown relative to a tribesmen.
There are other animals, from distant lands in hermit's stories. They don't look so old. The story of their growth ends in fresh, unpainted cave walls. The work is not finished. It may never finish.
“Do you like them?” a voice as old and worn as soft leather asks.
The hermit has a funny way of talking, almost like the birds of the tribe. He always begins his stories the same: He uses his body to act them out but as he goes he chatters away with sounds, putting more of them together than anyone in the tribe. Most of the tribe understand him, but few answer in more than one sound. The young hunter is no different.
He grunts his approval.
“They're stories.”
The young hunter nods, he knows stories, but he does not know how to make sounds like the hermit. The old man knows this. He shuffles over to the hunter, leaning heavily on his walking stick. Each movement of his gnarled knees looks painful. He reaches up and caresses the hunter's prongbuck skull, then the prongs that jut from his arm. He nods, then shuffles deeper into the cave, a flip of his wrist and the hunter follows.
The hermit stops next to a painting of a tall tribesmen. He taps the figure, points at the hunter, then shuffles over towards the fire.
The figure stands above a huge dead snake. The hunter remembers no story or legend that involves a snake but one. The only tale he can think of is the one of his father. When the young hunter's sister had just been born, ten summers ago, an enormous black snake had plagued the tribe. It came from the planes, the story said, where the animals were bigger and their meat forbidden. It ate three young and an elder and no one knew how to stop it. It was huge, closer in size to a tree than a tribesman, and anyone who tried to battle it was eaten or poisoned to death.
The young hunter's father, fearing for his mate and his young, caught the snake's trail, wounded it, then followed it until dawn. He knew that scaled beasts get their energy from the sun and guessed the snake would hold some strength in reserve as long as it could. He had been right, and when he saw the sun's first rays he sneaked up on the snake and slit its throat. The snake was so still after the night of darkness it didn't fight back until it felt his father's knife. Summoning up reserves of energy, it had struck his father, poisoning him. A moon of snake meat was his father’s parting gift.
The hermit returns with a charred stick, and very carefully draws a larger figure next to his father, then three barbs out of the left arm, then a few jagged horns that float above the figure's head. The hunter instantly knows the hermit is adding to the legends, and that the prongs will never leave his arm. Before he can add more to his picture, the hunter removes the skull and pulls out the glowing stone.
The hermit's eyes go wide. He shrieks, grabs the stone and throws it to the ground. It bounces with a dull plunk and rolls a ways. The hermit picks up a large rock and hurls it on the stone. Even the force of this doesn't destroy the stone, it only extends the already present crack, and the red light fades into nothing.
The hermit hurries to the cave's mouth and peers up into the sky. A bolt of lightning cracks in the hot night air. For a moment the hermit is illuminated. His back is straighter, he stands taller. He doesn't lean on his cane so much. Then another lightning bolt and he is next to the hunter.
“That was from a strange beast?” the hermit asks.
The young hunter nods.
“Death will fall upon the tribe.”
The hunter leaps up and rushes to the cave mouth. He peers out, his muscles tense and ready to protect his people. He hears only insects and sees only the stars, unblemished by clouds to the horizon. The glow of the great bonfire filters through the trees.
He turns to the hermit. The mysterious old man sits next to the fire and stirs the big clay pot. He takes two cups and measures out large servings for him and his guest. He puts one in the young hunter's hands and places one at his own feet. The hunter sniffs the tincture. It smells awful, of mushrooms and decay, of rotten flowers and elk shit. He turns to the hermit who smiles broadly and nods encouragement.
“Drink, drink!” is all the old man says.
He takes a deep breath, then opens his mouth and pours the hermit's hot drink down his throat. It tastes worse than it smells, like digested vegetables mixed with mud. He shuts his eyes but not before he counts the skeletons of three frogs and a lizard pass over his tongue. He feels countless insect legs, spiny plants, and thick chunks of mushrooms go down his throat. It takes more willpower not to vomit than it did to kill the prongbuck.
The hermit cackles at his revulsion, then drinks his cup, grimaces with disgust, and spits into the fire. The flames crackle purple and startle the hunter. The hunter tries to push himself up but finds his arms weigh more than he remembers.
“Now young one...” the hermit begins, his pupils wide despite the bright flames, “tell me your story.”
At first the young hunter's world only spins. Words are not his gift, he prefers strength and stealth. The potion makes his stomach churn violently, but after a moment it settles and he feels different.
His vision is better, more acute. The light cast from the flames dances and flickers in a chaotic pattern that he can somehow feel and predict. He notices the floor of the cave is alive with insects. Spiders, ants, and beetles all scurry to and fro. His eyes see with clarity only experienced on his most exhilarating hunts.
Magic, he hopes. It is not poison, unless the old man finally lost his mind. He tries to focus on the hermit but the fire is too bright, the hermit is only a glow of gray fur in the cave.
“More...” the hermit dips the two cups in the pot and fills them again. This time the hermit drinks first. He howls loudly when he finishes his cup, then glares a challenge at the young one. The hunter drinks his more slowly. This time the flavor is not as bad. He looks at the hermit again, thankful to see his hairy body surrounded by a halo of dancing light.
“Your story!” he yells excitedly. The old man's pupils grow wider by the second.
The hunter opens his mouth to speak but vomits. He tries to stand but his legs will not support him and he crashes to the floor. He rolls over, dazed, and looks at the ceiling of the cave. It undulates up and down while the edges of his vision flicker with colors he does not know. His world spins as he searches for the hermit. He is not sure if he will beg for help or make the old man beg for mercy. He slowly stands, and this time manages to stay on two feet. He sees the hermit nowhere, instead only bizarre visions.
The cave paintings are alive. His ancestors hunt prongelk on the walls. The graceful pictures throw spears no thicker than lines at elk that launch themselves from the walls to the ceiling
. Sometimes his ancestors chase off a lion or run from one. Troops of monkeys swing through trees and his father battles the serpent for time eternal. The hunter spins round and round. All of the pictures speak to him at once. There are things in them that he did not see before.
“Symbols” he hears in the hermit's voice, but knows not if the old man or a memory spoke.
There is one story here. One grand story made of all the pictures in the cave and the stories the hermit tells. It is the story of how the elk got their prongs, of why the lion's claws grown so long, of why kingcrows are so vicious. It is the story of his brave people, their secret home in the deep jungle, and the forbidden plains. The hermit has been telling it for years, and its importance strikes the hunter like a blow to the head.
It is the story of the Hidden, and he hears it now half in the hermit's voice--both fresh and from a hundred nights around the fire--and half in dazzling pictures that dance before his eyes.
“Our people have always been here.”
The cave extends deeper and deeper, firelight illuminates older and older paintings. They grow less polished with age. In the farthest depths of the cave there are only hand prints and the crudest of figures.
“We come from the earth below our feet, like the monkeys, the birds, the fish and the insects, even the plants and mushrooms. We started simply and of clay, but made by Chaos, we are always hungry.”
A shimmering tendril of clay reaches from the depths of the earth into the light. Then another grows beside it. It is like watching crystals grow, only faster, dirtier. As they squelch up from the depths of the cave they sprout nubby limbs to suck the essence of the other. Soon they harden their edges to protect themselves, and in barely a moment they go through legs and tentacles, teeth and armor, and finally wings. One pool of clay turns into a butterfly and the other a lizard to chase it, and they fly and scuttle into a mural on the wall that has every animal the young hunter has ever seen.