Then Driscoll heard the cries of creatures on the surface.
The tunnel had seemed so safe that he had holstered his pistol. He drew it again.
Skull Island
Date Unknown
“For the luvva Mike!”
Vincent swallowed the last of his dinner and scowled at the Oji. “Back where I come from, there are birds called parrots that mimic people fairly well. But not like this thing. Sometimes I get the feeling he’s really talking to you.”
“You say that as if it were impossible,” the Storyteller told him calmly. “There are some creatures that don’t understand, and there are some creatures that—may.”
Vincent looked at the woman quizzically, then asked, “Where did it—”
“Oji,” she corrected.
“Where did Oji pick up that saying of my father’s?”
“Many, many years ago.”
“Then my father—”
“The last time Oji heard your father speak those words was after he had captured what he came to find,” the old woman said. “Ojis can live for a century or more. Their memories are long. They bring the words of the dead from the past, though they speak them without real understanding.”
Vincent swallowed his disappointment. He handed his empty wooden plate to the Storyteller. In a voice made gruff by emotion, he asked, “Where’s Kara? I haven’t seen her today.”
“She has other things to do. She will be here soon. Anyway, as you say, she doesn’t like you.” The Storyteller set the empty plate aside. “Very good. You ate all the fruit. Perhaps tomorrow we will give you a little broth, then the next day meat.”
“What did you mean when you said that Kara has two bloods in her veins?”
The Storyteller sighed. “She does. One day she will be the guide for our people. And our people will follow her, for she has the blood of the Atu and the Tagu in her. But on what path will she lead them?”
“I shouldn’t have argued with her,” Vincent said. “She knows how to make me angry. If I’d had strength, I might have—”
“Hurt her? Yes. But you did not. She feels the injuries done to our people over many years, Vincent Denham. Fear and anger do not lead to good judgment.”
“But she’s been—” Vincent broke off as the Storyteller raised a silencing hand.
“Here you are,” the old woman said as Kara emerged from the darkness, carrying two earthenware jars. She glared at Vincent, as if she had been listening.
“I have brought what you asked,” Kara said shortly.
“Medicines,” the Storyteller said. “Good. Put them down and sit.”
Kara did, but her accusatory gaze again swept over Vincent. He thought, She would kill me without a single regret.
Oji flapped to clamber onto the Storyteller’s shoulder, and the old woman settled back on her stool. “Do you want more of the story now?”
Vincent said, “Yes. You were speaking of the two sides in the war, the Tagu and the Atu. What happened to them?”
“In their arrogance, the Atu took control of the Citadel and the rest of the island. They acted without regard to what their actions could bring, as though they were gods themselves. Rather than go along with them, the Tagu chose to return to the safety behind the Wall,” the Storyteller replied. “And with their remaining skills and knowledge, they strengthened and enlarged the Wall. For generations, they followed two different paths. The Tagu survived by not reaching beyond their grasp. As for the Atu, they gradually became base, deranged, drunk with power and killing. Many behaved more like animals than human beings. They unnecessarily killed the creatures of the island, and even killed their own. In all the years of indulgence, their attention to their own defenses grew lax. They took for granted the hard-won standoff with the dangerous creatures of the island, and the deathrunners grew in slyness and number.”
“What are the deathrunners?” Vincent asked. He knew they were some kind of dinosaur, but the old woman’s descriptions made them sound like nothing he had ever studied.
“The masters of the slashers,” she said patiently. “Never many in number, always dominating the lesser creatures, the deathrunners are different from the other beasts of the island. They have more cunning. They observe their prey and learn from them. They were even thought to understand some of our words and use them against us.”
“No reptile could do that!” protested Vincent.
“So you say,” answered the Storyteller with a knowing stare. “But the tales of my ancestors say differently.”
If that is true, Vincent thought to himself, they must have been some super race that evolved over millions of years—
Still trying to come to grips with such a reality, he asked, “What was their prey?”
“Us,” responded the Storyteller with a faraway look.
Vincent shivered, unsettled by the implications of what he was hearing. But he settled back to listen to her tale, recited in a voice that rose and fell like a slow song of memory.
There arose amongst the deathrunners a breed of enormous size, power, and intelligence. Under the orchestrated attacks of the deathrunners by this new threat, the proud Atu culture finally collapsed. The relatively few survivors fled to the only place on the island that offered safety: the Wall. Unable to save themselves, they begged the Tagu for help, and this was granted.
But these seemingly pitiful stragglers brought with them a hidden contagion: the last followers of Seth-Atu. Seth-Atu had formed a cult called the Shaitan, which glorified the worst manifestations of Atu thinking and were instrumental in the eventual downfall of the Atu culture. These Shaitan followers hid like sheep among the others. They were the ancestors of Bar-Atu.
Gradually the Shatain of the Atu undermined the well-ordered faith and practices of the Tagu, ensnaring more and more of the islanders in their web of deceit. In time the Tagu forgot most of their hard-won knowledge. As knowledge slipped away, so did their confidence. Their vision became clouded, they grasped at the straws of the Shaitan fanatics, and unwittingly most Tagu became enslaved as their traditional faith was replaced by a cult of fear. At last, only the Storytellers were left to remember the old ways.
Skull Island
The Past
In the days after the slasher attack on the village, the mood shifted. At the gathering that night, the islanders completely surrendered to that fear and turned to Bar-Atu for help. They had fallen into his trap. They agreed to offer the first human sacrifice to Bar-Atu’s god, Gaw. Preparations began. . .
The next morning, early, Kublai had come to awaken Ishara. They had walked beside the sea. “This will never end with one sacrifice,” Kublai said grimly. “There’ll be more. And all of them will be drawn from your people, the Tagu, until only the Atu are left, or those who will join the Atu.”
“There may be another way,” Ishara said, touching his arm. She spoke to him of the Citadel she had glimpsed from atop the Wall, past the mountain with the skull’s face. “The Storyteller says the old people had ways of controlling the island beasts, and that perhaps the seeds are still there. If we could find them—”
“We could keep the slashers and the other animals away, and no longer live in fear behind the Wall.” Kublai finished. “And there would be no need for sacrifice.”
“I know the way,” Ishara told him. “But first, take this,” and she handed him a small pouch that gave out a pungent aroma.
“What is it?”
“The Storyteller gave me one for each of us. She said to roll the pouch in our hands first to crush what’s inside and then rub the pouch on our arms and legs—anywhere we have skin exposed. She instructed us to tie them to our waist and warned to never let them leave our side while we are beyond the Wall.”
Kublai sniffed the mouth of the leather pouch, wrinkling his nose. “Are these some of the herbs she spoke of?”
“Yes, but these are ancient and there are very few left. There are different kinds for different needs and after all these years she hopes
they are still effective.”
“So you already knew I would follow you?” taunted Kublai. And then he smiled at her. “King’s daughter,” he said with gentle mockery and affection mingled. “I know better than to argue with you. And I guess listening to the old Storyteller can do no harm. But I go for my own reasons as well. There are weapons of old my people used that will be more effective than your Storyteller’s plants. Come. There’s one way into the jungle other than the Gate.”
They picked up spears and shields and slipped away to the lagoon. The Wall marched straight across the peninsula, ending at sheer cliffs on both sides, too vertical for the beasts of the islands to climb. But on one side a ledge, awash with the sea at high tide, was just wide enough for two humans to pass. Kublai led the way, with Ishara coming close behind him. They faced the volcanic stone, hugging it, finding handholds in the pits and crevices. At one point they were directly beneath the Wall, and Ishara could look straight up at its edge, built to the lip of the cliff. It towered upward to the sky, to the broad top where she had stood. It cut all across the island here, curving against the jungle.
Then they were past, and Kublai again led as they climbed up the cliff, finding footholds and handholds in the stone at first, then grasping roots and creepers that spilled over the top. At last they stood high above the rolling sea. “This way,” Ishara said, and now she led the way.
They once had to climb a tree when a young carnivorous dinosaur came stalking by, tracking some plant-eater. It did not notice them. They reached the sluggish stream that widened here and there into sinuous lakes. The longnecks occasionally emerged from the forest and ventured into the water here, dinosaurs whose heads rose above the trees as they called to each other with reverberating honks. But they were plant eaters and paid no attention to the humans who skirted their domain, following the course of the river.
The sun sank and vanished, and Kublai and Ishara climbed another tree. Kublai fashioned a sleeping platform from branches bound with creepers. “A hunter’s stand,” he said proudly. “My people made these in the old times.”
That night Ishara slept in his arms, glad for the warmth of his body and for the reassuring steady rhythm of his breathing. With the dawn they set off again. Their pace was steady, even though at times they had to hide when a crashing in the trees told them one of the island beasts must be near. Whether by luck or by the power of the herbs in their pouches, none bothered them. A second night they spent in a hunter’s stand built by Kublai, and on the third day they began to near the base of Skull Mountain itself.
The sun was well past its zenith and Kublai and Ishara had covered a great distance when they came over a rise of ground and halted, gasping.
Before them lay a deep cleft. Perhaps it was a place where the earth had partly collapsed during an earthquake. It was many paces across, and it cut into the stone like the place left from the blow of a giant’s axe.
A stench of decay roiled out, and the air hummed with the sound of scavenger insects. Bones lay scattered, most bare, others with clots of rotten flesh clinging to them. Multi-legged creatures as long as Ishara’s forearms crawled over the bones, attacking the putrid meat. Raising her eyes from the carnage, Ishara found herself staring at the grin of Skull Mountain. The gorge of death was cut into one of the ridges that led to the base of that grim landmark.
“Gaw’s lair,” whispered Kublai. “It has to be. Look.” Ishara saw, nearly hidden behind a craggy overhang, the mouth of a deep, gaping cave. Giant, three-toed tracks came and went in all directions. Criss-crossing them were the odd, two-toed tracks of the deathrunners and slashers, whose third toe left no impression because it was hooked into a horrible claw that was raised above the ground. Kublai knew that with a powerful kick, a deathrunner could use such a claw to rip a man in two.
“Let’s get away from here,” Ishara said, fighting the impulse to retch at the carnal stench.
They left the lair behind and crossed the stony ridge. “There,” Ishara said, pointing, as they reached the summit of the next ridge. Not far away the hill she had seen from the Wall rose from the jungle. Looking back, she could see the Wall now, a dark bastion that showed clearly above the green jungle.
Another hour brought them to the hill. With the midday sun glaring down, they passed first a ruin of great, fashioned stones that no one man could lift. The structure was overgrown with tendrils and creepers. A standing stone, as tall as a tree, supported a basin of some kind. Not far from it a similar edifice had been cast down, the basin shattered. The place was quiet in the sweltering heat. “This can’t be the Citadel,” Kublai said doubtfully.
“No. It’s too small.” Ishara realized that from the Wall, the distance had been deceptive. The green hills of the Citadel lay far away. This, at most, had been an outpost in the ancient days.
A few buildings still stood, though Ishara did not at first recognize them, even when standing next to them. They blended in almost perfectly with the stone outcrops and the vegetation. The streets had long since become avenues of thick growth. Roots had thrown stone down from stone, spilling walls and spoiling enclosures. Here and there, though, empty doorways could be seen, or hollow windows.
Ishara and Kublai crept in and out of these. Little was left. The few intact rooms had no furniture, no sign of human habitation. Hours passed, and they found nothing.
“We’ll stay here for the night,” Kublai decided in one building. They had found a stairway to a second floor, and there a room was free of debris, the stone floor soft with dust but in one piece. And no predatory footprints showed in the dust.
Four tall, oddly shaped windows looked out from the round room. Ishara went to the nearest and looked out, trying to imagine what this place must have been when it was a home of her ancestors. What sort of people had raised it, lived in it, worked in it? And what wonders had they done, and where had they hidden the secrets?
She caught her breath. Something was moving on the outskirts, something large and dark, far darker than a dinosaur. “Kublai!” she called as loudly as she dared.
He was at her side in a second. “What?”
“Something there. See?”
They stared through the opening. Whatever was moving was half hidden by trees and brush. It seemed to be following the line of the wall that had run around the structure they were in before time had overthrown its stones.
Ishara grasped Kublai’s arm. The shadowy thing was coming to a clearing. It moved slowly into the afternoon sunlight.
“A kong!” Kublai exclaimed. “I thought they were all dead! My people say they all died generations ago!”
The creature was humanlike but gigantic, well more than twice the height of a tall man. Covered with graying fur, it stooped at the shoulders but for the most part seemed to walk upright. It—no, she, Ishara saw, a female—lifted her head and sniffed the air. She had an air of dominance, as if she feared nothing that could find her, and to Ishara she seemed at home here. Her whole demeanor was that of a guardian visiting a place she knew and stood ready to protect. Then, apparently satisfied that no threat was nearby, the kong gave a surprisingly soft, chirruping call.
And again Ishara gasped as a second animal, an adolescent male, followed the first into the clearing. The older one nudged the younger. The younger stood to its full height and looked around. For a moment, its eyes were turned toward Ishara, and she almost believed the creature had seen her.
No. In the strange vegetation-choked window, and from that distance, that was impossible. The kong’s gaze swept on.
Ishara shivered. For that one instant, the moment when she had stared into the young one’s eyes, she had felt an uncanny wave of sympathy. The young kong’s eyes were filled with curiosity, a deep melancholy, and with something else.
Intelligence.
Ishara could only call what she had seen intelligence.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SKULL ISLAND
The Past
“Look!” Kublai pointed to a
ridge beyond the trees.
At first Ishara didn’t know what she saw there. It was dark, huge, and . . . moving. Then the shape stood, and she felt the breath catch hard in her throat. It was a third kong, an enormous one. “A male!” she said.
“Must be the father,” Kublai replied. “I thought all the kongs of Skull Mountain were dead. They used to live there ages ago. That’s what Bar-Atu has told us—”
The female kong was rooting in the underbrush, the younger one taking something she offered and eating it. Ishara couldn’t tell from this distance whether the mother was finding insects or some kind of fruit. Her skin tingled as she took in the scene. This was something she had viewed only in the old sculptures and carvings still to be found around the village, jutting from odd places or half-buried. She had also seen an unusual picture in the Storyteller’s hut, one that the Storyteller said came from the days of the ancient islanders. But no representation could give her a true sense of these creatures’ size. The mother was as tall as a fiber palm, almost as tall as three men standing one on the other’s shoulders. Nearly the same height as its mother, the younger kong already was broader at the shoulders with the beginnings of massive arm and back muscles shifting beneath its fur. Both of them walked upright, though on occasion they leaned forward on their long, powerful arms.
As for the distant male, Ishara could only guess. But it had to be head and shoulders again as tall as the female. Its long arms were the size of large tree trunks. But it was the confidence with which it moved that so impressed Ishara. There was something about these creatures that she could not fully understand. Ishara wondered how her ancestors could have tamed these gigantic—
A shriek ripped from the female kong, cutting Ishara’s thoughts short. Instinctively, both Ishara and Kublai lowered themselves, staring out the ruined window but trying to hide at the same time. The brush thrashed in the distance. The young kong scrambled toward its mother’s voice, the dark hair on its shoulders bristling. It hooted in concern or alarm. The mother backed as quietly as she could into a stand of tall ferns. On the distant ridge, the huge male kong had dropped from sight.
Kong: King of Skull Island Page 6