Kong: King of Skull Island

by Strickland, Brad

  When nothing attacked, Driscoll groped for his torch and found it, still warm. He lit it and stood near the center of the stone basin.

  At one time it must have been a sizable room, perhaps the foundation for a round tower. The opening above him showed more stone arcs, all broken, like the ribs of a gigantic skeleton. Judging from the inward slope of the walls, Driscoll estimated that the place had once been at least forty feet deeper. How many millennia had it taken for the upper structure to crumble and for the foundation to fill with forty feet of leaves?

  The walkway to the far tunnel opening looked scalable. Driscoll made his way toward it, felt something snag his toe, and stooped to clear away what he thought was a twig.

  It was a human skull.

  To the left of it was a hand, held together by a mummified covering of flesh. The two parts protruded from the leaf mould like a dead man digging upward from his grave. Kneeling, Driscoll scraped away more and more layers of the leaves. He found three different bodies, as far as he could judge. And he found ivory buttons and metal belt buckles. There was also an ugly, rusted bulldog of a pistol, its grip long gone. Driscoll was no expert, but the pistol, which bore the almost unreadable name “Eley,” looked to be of nineteenth century vintage.

  But one thing was clear. Driscoll had found the remains of more Europeans.

  “I wonder how many they murdered,” he thought aloud. “Savages.”

  The sky overhead was growing pale with dawn. That told him which direction was east, and that, in turn, told him that the Wall lay in the same line he had been traveling. His compass readings had been on the money. Maybe he was even within sight of the Wall, he thought. It was worth a look.

  He scrambled up the eroded walkway, found hand and toeholds, and, with his rifle slung on his shoulder, he pulled himself up to the verge of the pit. “Getting too old for this,” he panted. But he hauled himself out into the open and stood upright.

  The stars had vanished in the pale pre-dawn sky. Insects rioted all around, a good sign. They would have been silent if something large were moving nearby. Driscoll selected a likely tree and began to climb it, pulling his way from branch to branch, pausing to rest every few minutes. The sun broke over the rim of the world, and the sky overhead turned to pinks and blues.

  At last, on a stout limb that was almost as high as he could climb, Driscoll stood and looked around him. Skull Mountain, off in the distance, part of its dome ruddy with the rising sun, part in deep purple shadow yet. A glint of the ocean. And, yes, not as far away as he had thought, the Wall, a dark, sinister barrier glimpsed above the tree canopy. Overland, maybe four or five hours march. Underground—well, who could tell?

  Driscoll descended, dropped to the earth, dusted his hands. Could he risk the march through the jungle? Maybe the big creatures were scarcer close to the village. Or maybe they liked to stay close to a source of food.

  He felt a tingling on the back of his neck, the hairs rising in that primitive reflex of growing fear. But why?

  Then he heard the silence.

  The insects were quiet.

  And something, he felt sure, something between him and the tunnel entrance, was watching him with hungry eyes.

  Skull Island

  The Past

  Kublai led the men around the point and into the lagoon near the village. Ishara watched the sleeks until the great boat glided to a halt, the men dropping a curiously shaped thing to hold it in place—an anchor, she later learned it was called. The shore filled as the islanders flocked down to see this strange new thing, crying out in surprise and alarm.

  Then Kublai, Ishara, Magwich, and six of the strangers climbed into the smaller boats and rowed ashore. The people of the island saw Kublai, and though they fell back, they did not flee. Kublai was first to step out amid the murmuring crowd, and he called to the people, telling them not to be afraid. He told them the strange pale men were friends. Still the crowd jostled and the islanders pointed at the newcomers, asking questions, exclaiming in their excitement.

  Bar-Atu stood silent as the procession filed toward the king’s house, watching them with hooded eyes. Then he stepped forward, barring their way. “You!” he shouted at Kublai. “Where have you been? Who are these strangers? Explain yourself!”

  Kublai drew himself up. “I have been beyond the Wall,” he said sternly. “Though I owe no explanations to you. I am a hunter, Bar-Atu! I am a prince of the island!”

  “The king has been fretful and worried!” Bar-Atu shot back. “How dare you take his daughter into danger?”

  Kublai’s anger ran high. “Who says Ishara was in danger, as long as she was with me? I go where I wish, Bar-Atu, and do as I wish. I ask no one’s permission!”

  His air of command was unmistakable. Ishara saw Magwich glance at Kublai with a smile and a nod. The man might not understand the words that Kublai spoke, but clearly he gathered that Kublai was a leader, not someone to be ordered around. Magwich took a step closer to the young man.

  Kublai said, “As for the strangers, they came here over the sea in a great boat, and they need our help. I have sworn to give it to them. Will you say I cannot?”

  Bar-Atu glared, but with the people of the island clustered near, many of them shouting agreement with Kublai, the priest did not press his point. He stepped aside, with no hint of graciousness, and the procession passed him by, the strangers chattering among themselves in their own language.

  All of the other villagers came out to see these creatures, as peculiar to them as anything on the far side of the Wall. Attendants brought Ishara’s father from his house, and sitting on a carved wooden throne, he received the men gravely. With difficulty, through sign language and with Ishara’s help, they told him of their plight, and On-Tagu agreed to consider the situation. Meanwhile, he ordered the villagers to feed the visitors. He rose and walked back into his dwelling unassisted, but when Ishara tried to follow, one of Bar-Atu’s servants moved to block her way. Bar-Atu instead went inside to consult with the king.

  The strangers appeared to enjoy the food the islanders brought to them. Ishara and Kublai stood a little apart and watched the festivities. “They have great power,” he said admiringly. “Perhaps they have been sent to save the island.”

  Ishara felt troubled without exactly knowing why. She noticed that as Larana, one of her cousins, bent to offer the men fruit, one of the sailors grabbed at her. The younger one, the one Magwich called Charlie, leaped up and struck the man’s arm away. The other sailor turned on him with a snarl.

  Then Magwich spoke sharply in the strangers’ tongue, and the sailor relaxed, laughed, and bowed to the frightened Larana with exaggerated courtesy.

  He laughed, as if to say it was only a joke. But none of the islanders joined him in his laughter.

  When the feast ended, On-Tagu sent Bar-Atu with his decision: The villagers would help the strangers. And so over two months a fleet of canoes assisted as the strangers built log huts on a knoll above the beach, then emptied their vessel of everything it carried. Crates, boxes, strange constructions of metal and wood, they carried ashore and stored in the huts, keeping men on guard the whole time. There were many, many more of the pale strangers than Ishara had believed, but Magwich took care to see that they did not mingle too much with the islanders. The young one called Charlie, though, spent much time with Kublai and Ishara, learning more and more of the island speech and teaching them some words of English.

  Charlie learned their language rapidly and as work progressed, he explained what had to be done. The men had to patch the ship’s leaks and mend something called “ribs” and “knees,” although Ishara could not imagine what these might be in a boat. It would take time, Charlie explained, much time. Weeks, or even months.

  But during those calm weeks, worries seemed pointless. When the time came to haul the ship ashore, the islanders made a game of it, each canoe taking a line from the huge vessel. They towed the helpless craft behind them. Kublai’s eyes shone. “Like hunters b
ringing down the greatest of the beasts,” he said to Ishara. “See what we can do!”

  It took well over two days of towing and hauling before the big ship was safely beached. Through Charlie, Magwich explained that the men would sleep in tents near the beach, to watch over the ship and to be handy for the work that had to be done.

  That began after one day of rest. Wood was a problem, because the man who seemed responsible for cutting the timbers did not care for any that grew close to the shore. Parties went out along the peninsula to look for more. Charlie, who was younger than the others and evidently not of much use to them, spent his time with Ishara and Kublai.

  Kublai was not much interested in the strange English tongue, but Ishara found it enchanting. Charlie seemed to enjoy teaching her how to pronounce the odd words. Kublai had not the patience for the lessons, and soon he deserted them to join the working party and learn more about the ship and about the weapons that spoke with a voice of thunder. Every evening Ishara and Kublai spoke of what they had done during the day. When three more weeks had passed, with little more done on the repair work to the ship than the cutting and hauling of some trees, Kublai said sadly, “On-Tagu’s illness is worse. He can no longer sit at all.”

  “Yes,” agreed Ishara softly.

  “Tonight is the ceremony of the full moon,” Kublai continued. “Bar-Atu plans to speak of something. He has been asking me about what we saw beyond the Wall, and he has been talking with Magwich and the others of their weapons. I don’t know what he’s planning, but with the king so ill—I am worried.”

  The sailors always seemed happy to take time off from their labors, and the prospect of a feast cheered them up amazingly. That evening, everyone on the island assembled on the hillside between the shore and the village. The sailors kept apart, a small group of nearly a hundred among the thousands of islanders. Kublai and Ishara sat together near the strangers, so their view of Bar-Atu was from a distance. His voice rang out strongly enough for all to hear, though, and behind her, Ishara could hear Charlie translating the speech into English for their captain.

  With torchlight gleaming on his face and chest, Bar-Atu first talked of the coming of the strangers, and then of the beasts of the island. “Gaw strides the forest as a god!”he cried. “But On-Tagu says he is not a god. Very well. Since the Tagu of old boasted that they controlled all the animals of the island, let On-Tagu show us! We thought the kongs were dead and departed, but now we hear that one or more still live. If On-Tagu believes Gaw is not a god, let him capture a kong! Let him train the kong, as his ancestors did! Let the kong slay Gaw, if Gaw is not a god! But will On-Tagu do this?”

  Ishara put her hand on Kublai’s arm. Her father was so ill that he could not stir from his bed. “What is he doing?” she asked.

  She felt Kublai’s arm trembling beneath her touch. Suddenly, he jumped to his feet. “Bar-Atu!” he shouted, pushing forward.

  The crowd parted for him. Bar-Atu, standing on a platform between two torches, waited grimly. Kublai reached the platform and leaped easily up onto it. “You ask the impossible!” Kublai said, pointing toward the king’s house. “On-Tagu has the illness and weakness of age on him. But your idea is good. I have the blood of the Tagu and of the Atu both in my veins. Since the King is too ill for the task, I tell you all this: I will do it myself! I will capture the kong!”

  A cheer rose from the people, and behind Ishara, Charlie tried to translate all that had happened. Ishara bit her lip. In the firelight, Kublai stood tall and proud—too proud for his own good, she thought. “The Tagu wouldn’t do this,” she said fiercely.

  “What?” Charlie asked. She had not realized she had spoken so loudly.

  In her despair, she said, “Kublai thinks he could lead our people if he can get their respect. He wants power for himself. But Tagu would avoid killing.”

  Magwich came and sat beside her, in the place Kublai had been. In English, he said, “Sometimes it’s a question of killing or being killed. The animals on the island— they’re monsters.”

  “I don’t understand that word.”

  “Not natural,” Magwich said, his voice kind. “Thirsty for blood. It isn’t right that you and your people are kept to this end of the island. You should rule the whole of it, not be walled off here like prisoners. Your young man is brave. Accept him for what he is.”

  Ishara understood much of it. She looked beyond the platform, beyond the village, at the Wall—and saw a dim light there. Troubled, she rose and skirted around the crowd. The small doorway to the stair up to the Storyteller’s hut was unguarded, and she slipped inside and climbed up.

  The Storyteller sat cross-legged outside her house. “You are troubled,” she murmured as soon as Ishara reached her.

  “I have seen the kong,” Ishara told her. “Now Kublai says he will capture one. But the young one is hurt, and I don’t know if it could stand against Gaw even if it were full grown.”

  A wind came from inland, bringing with it a sulfurous smell, the breath of the hot springs and geysers on the shoulders of Skull Mountain. It was a warm wind, but still Ishara trembled. “Is it possible?” she asked the Storyteller.

  For a long time, the old woman did not reply. At last she said, “I don’t think so. The Tagu trained the kongs ages ago. They protected the kongs, and the kongs protected the people. But the secrets have been long lost. And lore says that even when they were known, the methods were dangerous to use.”

  “Bar-Atu does not protest. Why would he want a kong in the village? The Tagu were the ones who tamed them!”

  “Bar-Atu has his own reasons,” the Storyteller said. “I think he does not believe Kublai can succeed. If Kublai fails, then his power is diminished. If he captures the kong, then Bar-Atu will claim his gods are behind the capture. It is a dangerous game.”

  “Kublai could lose his life,” Ishara said.

  “He could lose more than that,” the Storyteller murmured.

  The hunt for the kong would not be undertaken soon. Kublai spent many days gathering and training a party of hunters. He spoke less and less to Ishara, and Ishara found herself often in the company of Charlie. Her English improved, along with his grasp of the island language.

  Magwich was everywhere during those weeks. He visited On-Tagu with medicines that did no great good, though they brought no harm to the old man. He supervised the work on the ship, and he spent hours talking to Bar-Atu. Ishara could not help liking the man, who had a deep laugh and a ready smile. He was old enough to be her father, and he treated her with a kind of indulgent amusement that a father would show a clever daughter.

  One day Magwich had his men fire their weapons for Bar-Atu and Kublai. Ishara covered her ears and winced at the explosions. The blocks of wood that were the targets fell over, splinters flying from them. The stinging smoke drifted in a cloud that made her cough.

  “We could help in your hunt,” Magwich told Kublai, and the young man’s eyes shone.

  “You must not harm the kong!” Ishara cried out.

  Magwich looked at her with evident surprise. His strong face had been darkened by work in the sun. She shivered as she realized that one reason she thought of him as fatherly was that he resembled her father—as he used to be, when Ishara was a child. “I don’t mean to use the guns against kong, Ishara. But past the Wall are other things that our weapons can discourage.” He clapped a hand on Kublai’s shoulder. “Your young man is brave—brave as any I’ve seen—and I like him. You wouldn’t want him hurt.”

  “No,” Ishara agreed.

  “Then my men will be glad to protect him. We owe you something for helping us with the ship. This is little enough reward.” His smile was reassuring.

  But behind him, Bar-Atu was holding one of the rifles, listening as Charlie explained how it worked. Bar-Atu’s eyes were those of a hungry man who spies a meal.

  Another few days, and then on a morning that Bar-Atu had announced as propitious for success, the hunting party assembled in the space befo
re the Wall. Fifteen young men of the island were chosen for their strength and skill. The ship supplied another fifteen men, each armed with a rifle and a pistol. Kublai was the leader of the party, and he named Magwich as his lieutenant. “If I die, follow him as you would me,” he told the islanders.

  Magwich, beside him, raised his voice. In English, he said, “Shipmates, on this voyage we take orders from Kublai here. You do what he tells you. And if I run into something that eats me, why, you follow Kublai and don’t worry about seeing to my funeral. But I expect we’ll be bringing home some meat for tonight!”

  Then, to Ishara’s surprise, he repeated the speech in the island tongue, flawlessly though with an outlandish accent. Charlie must have been teaching him, too. The entire party cheered.

  Ishara was able to speak to Kublai only once, just before Bar-Atu’s followers opened the Gate. “Don’t do this,” she pled softly.

  “I have to,” he told her. To Bar-Atu, he called, “See that Ishara stays here!”

  All that day Ishara waited for news, but none came. She visited her father, who now slept for most of the time, and held his hand for hours. With the coming of night, she climbed to the Storyteller’s hut atop the Wall. She slept there, and at daybreak the next morning she stood looking out into the forest. “Kublai will not return just because you wish him to,” the Storyteller said kindly.

  At noon, Ishara heard gunfire, faint and distant, a rattling volley. Then nothing more.

  Until the late afternoon. With the red sun low, Ishara heard a crashing in the forest, not far from the Gate. She called the Storyteller to her side, and they stared downward. “There!” Ishara said, pointing.

  The Storyteller gasped and took her hand. “It really is a kong!” she said.

  Behind the kong came a mixed line of Europeans and islanders. The islanders kept pikes at the ready, and from time to time a sailor fired a gun into the air. The kong, still limping, flinched away from the strange explosions and came nearer and near to the Wall.