by Joe Darris
“Chaos made the animals to sculpt each other.”
A million generations of each animal birth and die before his eyes. Each generation hardly changes, but over millenniums there are vast differences. Fish chase fish, and as one grows faster and stronger, the other does as well. Spiders do the same with insects, and wolves with elk.
“But we...are different.”
The tribesmen chase elk, birds, rabbits, fish, insects, and everything else. But they are different, for while every animal changes its body, his people make different tools of stone, weave fibers into rope and nets, or hunt with signals and trickery.
“Sometimes Chaos himself intervenes, using our home as a weapon against life.”
Rain pours, floods fields and washes the painted animals into layers of skeletal smears on the floor of the cave. Some rise up and continue their eternal struggle, growing tougher than they had before. A volcano erupts underneath this new batch of creatures. It kills most, freezes some in ash and rock. Again a few emerge and resume the dance of hunger.
“Some of us saw the beauty of Chaos’s sculpture, and we rejoiced.”
A tribesman nibbles a mushroom growing from the earth, then looks at all that surrounds him. He sings, then shares the treat with others and the hunter's ancestors sing to him from the past. Others paint the walls they themselves are painted on. Still others, overwhelmed and in awe, simply sit and stare at the magnificent moving mural. But a few, the young hunter’s horned likeness among them, continue to leap and howl among the animals. They sculpt the beasts as they had done for time eternal. They run and sleep with the animals. They grow stronger and more fearsome as the beasts do.
“We still celebrate the hunt and our hunters. It is our grandest mark on the sculpture of life.” The hunter thinks of his mother and sister, dancing joyfully around the fire that afternoon. Their smiles wide with pride as they dance close to their favorite hunter.
Lightning crashes through both the paintings and his memory. Wind and rain smear the image of his sister into nothingness. His stomach lurches and he vomits yet again.
“However not all were happy to continue to live in his sculpture.”
A solitary outline emerges. He is different from the tribe’s soft textured edges that come in browns, blacks and reds. He is white and hard, a painful contrast. The stark one runs from thunderstorms, hides from beasts, his eyes always wide with fear. One of the tribesmen approach him but he hurls stones at him as he runs. Terrified, he draws his own hard lines around him, blocking himself from the storms and beasts. Inside his block he builds tools more complex than anything the hunter knows. He stands above his box and launches weapons that burn all but his own barren square. Tribesmen hide from the desolation. They step back into the thick jungles and forests that remain.
“I think they are made by Chaos as well, for the mighty force is present in all, but they claim a different sculptor, a creator from the heavens, Ordor.”
A red light floats high above the earth. The stark figure kneels before it. Others like him sprout in his square. They cower together in fear. Then the first draws thorns upon his head and the rest kneel, then chant. They exalt the man as the red orb in the sky above them. They curse the earth below their feet and the dangerous animals it births.
“They fear being sculpted by Chaos’s rules of eat and be eaten, and instead hide behind walls of Ordor.”
The lone figure, now wearing a golden helmet, barks orders and his tribe scratch out more blocks to hide inside of, slowly at first, but as their numbers increase they grow bold, and soon their rigid walls cover much of the cave in perfectly parallel and perpendicular rows.
“They escaped the hungry dance of Chaos, for a time.”
Some of the stark ones toil under the red orb to grow their own plants. They water them with their hands instead of letting the rain fall. Other figures capture beasts and put them in boxes of their own. At first the beasts fight the cages fiercely, bending lines and breaking others. But the stark ones build walls, and more walls. Eventually the beasts tire, and cut off from the hungry dance of Kans, they grow lazy and multiply, like the people of the boxes.
“Ordor is powerful, and makes their leaders craftier than any of our tribe. The others honor their leaders as Ordor herself.”
The squares take on new dimensions and race higher and higher towards the ceiling of the cave. They are beautiful, made of shapes and lines, but they are all rigid, inflexible. They begin to glow, then smaller shapes emerge from them. They fly and dart between the huge structures.
“Chaos tries to teach them his power, but Ordor is powerful.”
Waves crash against the blocks. Earthquakes shake some to the ground. Wind rips up plants, tears at stone. Some crumble, they are built anew. They replant their gardens in neat rows, rebuild their buildings and paths with parallel lines.
“They learned to fear Chaos, for once he hid inside their tools.”
One of the blocks explodes in a huge mushroom shaped cloud, fire spreads out from it in an ever increasing ring, few of the white figures escaped, even fewer of the animals.
“But they could not come back to Chaos, Ordor has been their master for too long, and the fear was too great.”
The figures build bigger and better tools that build their blocks back faster than before. In an instant, there were more of them than there ever had been before.
“Chaos' attack, or accident, for they are one and the same, finally pushed them off the earth.”
A tidal wave tall as mountains boils up out of the depths of the cave. They all knew the story of this wave. Their hidden home, high in the mountains, was all that saved them from the sea's hunger.
Only those in the tip of the tallest tower survive. Their flying boats crash. They try to scramble back down to the surface, but they are too far up. Before they can reach the ground the few animals on the earth resume their chaotic dance of hunger, and soon, the earth is back to its state before the figures ever imposed their god Ordor upon it.
“I do not know how, but Ordor still saves some, high above, in the skies.”
The tallest tower slowly fills with the stark figures. They grow puny and pale without the sun. A garden grows beneath the tower, nearly as ordered as the blocks they once worshiped. Bolts of lightning drive away creatures brave enough to eat from the garden. But the animals, always reacting, soon grow smart and stealthy enough to avoid the powerful but imprecise lightning bolts.
“They enforce their law from above, but the hungry denizens of Chaos were breaking their rules. So, Ordor was put in the beasts themselves.”
Dozens of red orbs rain down from the tower and into the beasts. The beasts march and defend the garden, pulled by strings tied to figures high above.
“For a long time the two tribes were balanced, but no longer...”
The hunter’s own pronged image kills a prongbuck while one of the stark figures pilot it from far away. Herds of prongelk scatter. Then he battles the kingcrow as well, again one of Ordor's worshipers fights bravely against him, and loses.
Memories of the battles race through his head. The odd jerks of the prongbuck's head, the tenacity of the kingcrow and the inner turmoil it faced when it fled. It all seems to be a pattern. Those animals had behaved differently. They acted not for hunger or survival but to try to end him, a warrior of Chaos.
Snapped back to reality the hunter finds himself staring deep into the hermit's eyes.
“You are Kao, the spirit the men of Ordor have always feared and fought against. You will restore balance, for they seek to tip the scales against us!”
“Why?” he manages to ask. The words feel heavy and stick in his mouth like sap.
“They think their tribe is superior, and will not rest until every inch of the planet is ordered. And the simplest way to enforce order over the beings of Chaos, is death.”
A thunderclap booms and the nauseous hunter looks out the cave opening to see dark storm clouds racing towards the valley. Wind
howls through the entrance of the cave. Lighting strikes the valley again and again. He watches in horror as winds whip round and round, and pulls a massive spiral of clouds into the valley. He thinks dumbly that twisters were only kid’s stories. The winds grow faster, and he vomits again as a tree whips past the entrance of the cave.
“Stop the vision!” he yells to the hermit, but the hermit only shakes his head.
“The forces of Ordor are upon us... there is nothing we can do.”
He howls louder than the storm itself as he watches water and wind demolish his home. The clouds themselves seem intent on destroying his people and he curses them. He tried to step out and climb down the cliff face, but his stomach reels as the walls wriggle. The potion is still strong in his system. Undeterred, he grasps the stone, and starts out into the storm.
“Stop!” the hermit yells, “They want your death. Don’t give it to them!”
Blinded by rage and deafened by the wind, Kao descends the rock face.
Chapter 9
You doubt like your brother...that is wise. But they are real child, I promise you that. Even if you don't believe me, it would be folly to stand against the beasts, for while the Hidden make plans, an animal's only ambition is meat.
Baucis paced back and forth in the hidden room with the card table, its haunted game players and garish chandelier. He paused now and then to study a painting of an ancient skyscraper. His long fingers danced on the ancient paint like spiders on cobwebs. In the warm yellow light of the chandelier his skin appeared waxen. His black eyes burned like sunken flames on waning wicks.
The Council remained silent as the Ecologist deliberated. Skup and Urea had arrived last. Baucis told them to stand, and had said nothing else. The room was tense. Eyes flicked from the twins to Baucis.
The twins stood easily a foot taller than Baucis. They both had strong posture, but there were subtleties between them. Skup kept his head high, eyes open, alert and ever-watchful, the falcon high in its roost. His long black hair was swept straight back and kept pristine, until it flared slightly at the tips when it caught a draft. Urea stood with supine shoulders and a supple neck. Her muscles never locked like Skup’s did, they kept twisting and flexing, ever prowling. Her black hair was kept short and framed her face perfectly. Her fair skin against the deep black made her look lithe and graceful.
That two so strong could look so afraid invigorated Baucis.
As it should be, animals wary of their master.
Desperate to break the silence, Skup spoke first, “We did what we had to.”
Speaking was a mistake. Baucis whirled around, his eyes possessed.
“You had to bury the ape? Bury him?”
“Sir, there were dozens of them, they represented an enormous threat. Just one caused so much damage,” Urea said meekly.
“What do you remember discussing at our last meeting?”
“You said-“
Skup glanced sidelong at his sister, then back to Baucis’s black eyes. She never chimed in front of Baucis. The Council knew nothing about it, but it seemed risky.
He leaned back in his chair, long bangs as black as the twins’, playing an invisible game on his VRC, as usual.
Zetis only smiled in reply.
Baucis continued, oblivious to their communication, “We were discussing an organism strong enough to cull an elk herd, an organism that already has the fine muscle skills needed to operate tools, and a body that behooves synchronization. In other words, what we've all been waiting for.”
Urea did her best to hide a smile. Skup scowled.
“But Baucis, perhaps its best that they took care of it. What was I supposed to tell my congregation? There would be a panic if that... thing... was discovered.” The High Priestess's voice was smooth and sweet, her tongue delicate with the words. She was dressed in a habiliment of soft earthen colors, browns, greens, and oranges. Her skin was adorned with golden leaves to match.
“Snake eyes there'd be a panic. You would tell your congregation whatever I tell you to tell them, and they'll swallow it like they do everything else. Besides, does anyone in here really think that a thunderstorm killed that thing? Skup, you're a moron, but a gifted vultus pilot, if that thing could beat you do you really think a little rain would kill it?”
“With all due respect sir, you should have seen that storm. A high pressure zone was moving in, and with just a few bolts of lightning I started a tornado that ripped that valley to shreds. There was enough rain to turn the top of the mountain into a mudslide.” Zetis said as he perked up in his chair.
Baucis turned on him, eyes aflame. “With all due respect, young Zetis, you carried out unsanctioned actions without your superior's knowledge. If I had one of that ape's knives I'd carve out your VRC here and now.”
Zetis glanced at Skup who grinned maliciously as he mimed stabbing slitting Zetis’s throat.
“Zetis is my apprentice, I'll discipline him,” Orus Luca replied.
“Why does someone as incompetent as him have any access weather control?” Baucis snarled.
Skup flicked his own long hair back, much longer than the aspirant programmer's. Zetis guffawed. Baucis was not amused.
“Since you doubt your master’s discipline, I’ll take it upon myself to punish you. I trust that’s acceptable?”
Orus Luca opened his mouth to speak but Baucis stopped him up with a wave of his hand. Luca nodded quickly and wisely closed his moth and returned his plump hands to his round belly.
“We always need help at the reclamation level,” Tennay said. No one had seen the engineer slip into the room. He stood in the doorway for a moment then silently sank into a chair.
“That will suffice,” Baucis replied icily.
“But Master Baucis, we couldn't contact you. If we had waited until morning we could have lost their location. We had to do something. You said you feared losing the animal-”
“And where is the animal Urea? Can you present me his body? Perhaps a small piece so I can be assured of his death? None of you have any proof of anything. Shadows danced in front of a fire so you took off the top of a mountain? I expect this from these two imbeciles Urea, but from you I expect much more.”
“You must think of the repercussions of your actions,” Tennay said coolly.
“We were thinking of the repercussions of inaction, sir,” Urea said to Tennay, then turned to Baucis, her voice pleading, “you said you were afraid, you've never been afraid of anything! What were we supposed to do?
“My fear of this beast compelled you to do this? I am concerned, perhaps, but I do not fear this...this ape-man!” he thundered.
“Well a lot of people do!” said Skup angrily. His intensity silenced the room. “Ntelo's practically programmed the whole city to be afraid of a Wild Man just like this guy. The storm seemed like the only way to preserve our way of life from that thing and his family! We had to do it! We've all heard High Priestess Ntelo say thousands of times what would happen if the elk run loose in the Garden. The elk! This thing killed one without us even seeing him. We had to protect ourselves.”
“You failed to mention your own pathetic defeat.”
Skup turned beet re
d.
Skup bit his tongue, but managed to remain silent.
Baucis continued, “We know nothing of these ape-men, why must we protect ourselves from them?”
“Isn't that why we have Hunters?” Urea asked. Baucis stopped pacing, caught off guard by her dissension. “If not the Wild Man, what are we protecting ourselves from?”
Baucis hesitated, “I find it interesting that fear causes irrationality in humans as it does Evanimals. We need fear nothing, dear. We're all-powerful.”
“We’re not even as powerful as our ancestors. The Scourge proved that, and we're only living off their dregs,” Tennay said.
Baucis scowled. He couldn’t silence the old engineer as easily as he could the complacent Orus Luca.
“The ape-man will be interpreted as a challenge to our power,” Ntelo added.
“That ape-man is only an animal. An animal we could have used for my program, but can't since it is either dead or gone. He and his kind would have been our greatest tool...”
“But the Garden works perfectly, why risk unbalancing the natural order?”
“Nature is imbalance, and the risks are negligible, we need not fear him or anything else...” the Master Ecologist trailed off into thought. He stared at a skyscraper. A smattering of office lights shone out from the building. The idea of people working late for something larger than their selves, frozen in paint for eternity, appealed to Baucis.
“There are better things than fresh fruit and meat.” Everyone turned to the soft-spoken engineer. Tennay's eyes lit up as he looked around the room. “With the Wild Man's hands we could make machines instead of playing with the scraps of our ancestors. We could return to the surface and rule as Nature intended.”
Chapter 10
The Hidden were as close to the earth's masters as any ever were, but no one rules forever. Lord Chaos brought forth a mighty storm, and The Hidden were no more... some survived, but as a shadow of all that was.