The Wild Lands: Legend of the Wild Man (19 page)

The enormous male slowly trudges across the
field, moving the ground in front of him with his antlers. Kao has
never seen an elk do anything like it before. Sometimes they'd
clean their antlers in the dirt, but never in such a deliberate
way.
He digs?

He looks back at the nearest stream trickling
through the Garden. Hunger had blinded him to what is obvious now.
A prong stands lodged in the mud. He bends down and pulls it out,
happy to have a weapon again, and notices that the banks of the
stream are scarred and scratched.
Elk dig these
.

Sharp eyes scan the Garden for movement.
Monkeys dot the landscape gathering fruit. They work in groups, one
picking the ripest fruits and the other carrying them back to an
enormous pile of food.
Are they the Hidden?
Are they
masters of the Elk?

A shadow darkens the sky and without thinking
Kao is hidden in the brush again, instinct is still his master. A
kingcrow flies low, towards the monkeys' pile of fruit. Kao expects
them to run but instead four of them each grab a corner of an
enormous net that lay hidden underneath the pile of fruit. They tie
a rope between the corners, the kingcrow snatches it and scoops the
haul of food into the hair. More food than Kao's people would eat
in a month.
How many are the Hidden
? The bird pumps its
wings and raises skyward, Kao notes it has two eyes.
They have
more than one
.

As he watches it fly higher he remembers the
Hermit's same ascent to the Totem.
Will they eat him too? No...
more likely he'll be down here, another worker. But my
sister?

He glances back to the river, his home. It
would be so easy to just leave, forget all about his lost tribe and
start fresh. He'd miss his sister and the hermit, but surely they
were dead already. If not their bodies, then their souls. What
could he do against the Hidden? What can stand against elk and crow
or rise up against their Totem? Kao has no weapons, only his hands
and a growing wit. His eyes follow the stream back to the river,
homeward. Something glistens in the afternoon sun. A bright
reminder of who he is. He walks to it, then lifts it up to the sun.
Some prongs are missing from the fall, but leather cloak and skull
helmet still have more than he could ever use. A glance at the
Totem and he realizes the foolishness of such a thought. He will
destroy the Hidden with weapons they fashioned for him.

A sound and he wraps himself in the leather
cloak and vanishes back into bushes. A harem of does prance across
the field towards the immense buck. They too are huge. The largest
one is bigger than the buck he killed. They carefully walk through
the garden, avoiding most of the plants, nibbling here and there at
things that grow close to the earth. There are lots of them, more
than live in his lands on the other side of the mountains. Kao
wonders if they are trespassers in the garden, and the male its
defender.

Kao wishes the hermit was here. The mad old
man could explain everything.
Only now
I
can
understand.

The prongbuck bellows and the harem hurry
past him. The monkeys look up from their chores then follow the
elk. The Garden empties, all move away from the Totem.

Kao steps from the brush and looks ahead to
their destination. They move towards something bigger than any
boulder with lines too harsh to be natural. Two kingcrows circle
high above it. Approach it he must, for what could be more
important to the Hidden than food?

It's okay... don't cry, I'm sorry.

The girl fights her tears and in a moment they're
gone.

Do you have a dad?

The girl looks down, shakes her head, no.

Me neither, none of the pilots do...

Pilots? The girl asks with here eyes.

If you're born with dark hair, Baucis adopts you.
He's kind of like our dad... he teaches us, takes care of of us,
makes sure we're safe. He's your dad now too...

Baucis stood on the stage of the ballroom
next to the hidden ape. In less than an hour, he'd reveal it to the
Spire and all would change. The shrouded box and its contents
already radiated an air of mystery and intrigue.

On the Media Baron's insistence, Baucis had
traded in his silver habiliment for a sleek, crisp, white one. This
one did more than hug his form and help regulate his body
temperature. It was rigid and stood slightly off his body with help
from the Spire's field. He looked muscular, a human trait long
neglected in a world without labor. He wished he would have taken
Ntelo's advice sooner. Style had its advantages. All clothing was
made from the same recycled fibers.
Might as well look
stunning
. Not normally one to be carried by the whims of style,
Baucis was glad he had succumbed.

Tonight, the Spire would celebrate him. The
Council would be at the gala of course, along with all of their
best aides and assistants, hundreds more would watch through the
Virtual Reality Chips embedded in their brains, and thousands would
hear it narrated. Spire City would hang on every word. Rufus
Aurelius had dared the Spire to miss the event. He promised it
would be the grandest Naturalist ceremony in history.

With good reason, Baucis thought. Skup had
delivered, not one, but two apes. Male and a female no less. Fresh
instruments to play, more voices for his symphony of life. Baucis
had been losing faith in the
vultus
flock, but now, for
once, was pleasantly surprised to be wrong. He had given too much
attention to Urea. He thought she and the
panthera
would
prove to be the ultimate pair, but no. Skup had shown the ecologist
his worth, and a world of unrealized potential. When Skup lost the
battle against the ape, Baucis hastily decided to finally phase out
the
vultus
flock. The birds were dangerous, expensive, and
worst of all, unpopular. The Naturalists didn't like to see a
biselk
get torn apart by a
vultus
. It did not matter
that the birds culled the herd by removing sick, elderly or
genetically inferior members. People didn't like the idea of
carrion eaters. They failed to recognize all they did and continued
to do for the Spire. People whined about the
vultus
vomit
and that the birds urinated on their own feet, puerile
squeamishness. Few realized that the urine was all that sanitized
their talons. Without it, no food could be carried into Spire City
and the Scourge would have invaded long ago. Preconceptions would
change now that Skup and his
vultus
had delivered the
ape.

Blame lied with himself and High Priestess
Ntelo too, Baucis knew this. The Naturalist religion was a powerful
tool, but it was nothing if not contradictory. The whole spectacle
championed Nature through precise technological control. The
fundamentalists were the only ones who really made sense, and they
had to be ostracized. They embraced Nature, and cursed their home
as a prison. Wasn't the alternative being eaten by wolves? Baucis
detested them, but he admired their zeal.

The worst were the mindless droves that
today's service was designed for: people that complained about
brutal
vultus
attacks then applauded Urea's
panthera
hunts. They were won over by messy explanations of nature: the
dance of predator and prey fuels evolution, humanity’s role is to
restore balance, Nature put humanity in the Spire. All
contradictions. They failed to realize that without the Evanimal
program only a fraction of them would be alive. Shouldn't survival
trump ideology?

Baucis had done more for mega fauna in fifty
years than Nature had done in centuries. Tonight the Spire would
thank him for it.

Maybe all his critics would be proven right
in a way. If the newly captured ape proved to be as versatile as
Baucis expected, using a Virtual Control Chip on any other Evanimal
would prove to be inefficient. The apes were the ace up his sleeve.
Too bad there weren't more of them, but time and the healthy female
could remedy that...

The apes would solve all their problems, and
the first one had literally fallen from a tree into his life.
Baucis had never anticipated anything so fortuitous. He had only
sought to do what his predecessors had done: gain a bit more power,
leverage a bit more control. He had never thought that he might
actually attain what all the Spire dreamed of, the surface. And to
imagine their return could come from a wild animal! Hopefully the
Naturalists would see his viewpoint. These animals were a boon,
gifts, and with them humanity had an opportunity to change its
future.

That was what brought them all here tonight.
Upon seeing the apes for himself, Rufus insisted in having a grand
celebration for all to see. The Media Baron was ecstatic when Ntelo
dePious humbly suggested the unveiling be part of a Naturalist
ceremony. It had been a wonderful performance, Baucis had been
touched despite devising her charade himself. Today would be even
grander,
the greatest Naturalist ceremony in history
.

Both apes could not be be kept secret,
especially with their uncanny fit to the prophecy of the Wild Man.
So Baucis would bluff a weak hand with the old ape, and wait to see
what came down the river before he was forced to show the girl. The
Spire had to be fed.

Her eyes sting with tears but she does not cry.

Don't you want a dad?

She looks at the girl, hard and strong.

Who will take care of you?

She thinks of her tall, strong brother, tough as any
hunter, tough as a lion.

Your brother?

Her jaw drops. She said nothing but the girl
understood!

I bet you miss him.

She nods.

Don't worry... he's coming...

Kao knew not what he expected, but it is not
this.

The stone bowl is not carved but
built
of stacked rocks with edges straighter than any he had ever seen.
Each is larger than he can possibly move, made of red rock not
found nearby. How the thing came to be strains his blossoming mind
against its already fragile limits. Part of him still believed the
Totem had simply been discovered, or carved away from an even
taller mountain, but confronted with this, he admits a power he did
not wish to face exists.

He followed the prongelk here silently, not
once did they turn to watch their pursuer, despite the wind
disfavoring him. Kao is not surprised. Scent seems a talent beyond
the Hidden, a small victory for the hunter.

Once he arrived at the red stone bowl, he
dared not follow the prongelk inside
.
The buck entered
through a narrow passageway that nearly clipped his enormous
antlers. The harem and the monkeys that traveled with them went
around the side until they were eclipsed from view.

Kao waited until the Garden was drained of
every animal in it. He did not wait long. The animals were restless
to be inside the brick structure, and before the sun had moved a
hands-width across the sky, The Garden was still.

Kao was ready to leave his hiding place among
the fruits and vegetables and steal forward when a black lion big
as an elk emerged from the Garden. At first Kao though of the
mushroom potion he had taken, for surely the beast could not be
real. It was more akin to a shadow than an animal. It melted into
its surroundings and was silent as sunset. He blinked and rubbed
his eyes but the vision persisted. The lion had paws big as Kao's
chest, claws longer and more wicked than any prong on his skull. He
was not surprised that its fur sparkled rainbow shades of black as
it rippled over its supple muscles. All things in the garden have
that color, as if the Hidden have painted their landscape with the
Totem. It vanished from the sunlight into the same tunnel as the
prongbuck.
Those two are special
.

Sensing the time was right, Kao darted
forward and leapt upon the wall, his prongelk leathers streaming
behind him. He made short work of the ascent, the crack between the
bricks were easy for his strong fingers to bite, and now he perches
at the top of the red brick mound and peers down into its scooped
out middle. His madness threatens his balance as he teeters over
the red stone pile, built by hands stronger than his people's. He
looks to the half moon, setting on the horizon and wonders for the
first time in his life if it waxes or wains.

For before him is the strangest thing ever
witnessed, stranger than the Totem, stranger than the kingcrow's
hidden prongs or any of the Hermit's tales. The hunter sits high on
the edge of the bowl, behind rows and rows of stone seats. Monkeys,
maybe twenty hands worth, and half as many prongelk crowd close to
the sandy field. Because of his elevation, Kao can see over their
heads to the stage. The prongbuck, the big one, grunts
appreciatively to the crowd of beasts. They hoot and holler in
reply, delirious with excitement. His antlers sparkle in the midday
sun, his muscles tense and release as he rears up and kicks the
air. Kao would not fight this beast for any prize. Compared to him,
the skull he wears is a child's toy. The prongs that jut from his
arm could do little more than graze the buck's flank. This prongelk
is invulnerable, with horns that scratch the heavens and antlers
that wrap around its back in deadly rows of anarchic spikes. Kao
doubts his entire tribe could kill the brute, if they did, they'd
eat for months, have enough prongs for years and leathers for every
elder in the tribe.

His heart leaps out to the bitter memories of
his tribe. Even amongst the excitement below, he misses them. To
think what his sister would say about such a story. She would be
too clever to believe him outright, but too intelligent to dismiss
it entirely. How he misses her and his mother, with her soft hair
and strong voice. For the first time he doubts he can rescue the
Hermit and avenge his people, not if this monster of an elk is
their defender.