The Wild Lands: Legend of the Wild Man (23 page)

A bolt of lightning large enough to hear
above the dull rumble cracks in the sky. The energy difference
assaults him as the air recharges in the bolt's wake. A brief wave
of nausea passes quickly. Kao adapts to this environment.

The Totem is close now, within a hundred
paces. Kao's strides extend. He readies his legs for his climb
up.

At this distance the Totem doubles in size,
then doubles again as Kao halves each distance. It had loomed large
on the landscape but up close it is overwhelming. Wider in girth
than the hermit's cave, taller than the mountain Kao fell from, the
Totem's size is of inarguable godlike proportions.

Close enough to see its surface, the Totem
has bark like a tree, but it sparks and crackles with blue
lightning. Energy flows down the strips of bark and into the earth
like fast flowing water. He remembers the warm glowing depths of
the river, the hot red light like a sun below the glacial river.
The Hidden's knife stabs the sky as well as the earth. Blood from
one poisons the other.

Faster he runs, then springs high in the air.
Weightless he soars, gravity will do no more than anchor him to the
Totem. At the top of his leap, each hand grips the bark. It is hot
as coals, but Kao holds on. His fur stands up, his teeth rattle,
his ears ring and he sees spots. No matter, he will climb. But when
Kao's feet touch the Totem it throws him from it like a blade from
his own hand. He careens through the air and crashes into a patch
of large green and black striped fruits. A couple of them rupture
and spill their juicy red-pink flesh upon the black earth.

Kao rubs his head and licks the fruit from
his fingers. The three prongs stuck in his arm throw hot sparks
into the dark night. He feels them as a heat inside his muscles,
but they hurt far less than they should. Another mystery.

Why did the hermit have to go and get caught?
If not for the old man's capture the two could have spent their
days learning this place's secrets as they ate its delicious
bounty. But no, Kao knows he still would have rushed ahead for his
sister. Her scent haunts him, berries, clay, the babbling creek. He
must scale the Totem.

Shaken, but not hurt, Kao looks to the sky
but cannot see the top of the Totem. No blemishes upon it, no
branches jut from it, only bolts of lightning that dance with the
structure, daring him to challenge it, taunting him with the
impossibility of the task. He cannot climb the scalding surface
through a lightning storm. He must think of another way.

As the ringing in his ears subsides another
sound alerts the hunter within him.

The lion hurdles towards him. That enormous
predator he witnessed kill a beast thrice her size snuck up on the
hunter. He reaches for his prongelk leather but it is not near. It
must have been thrown loose when he was blasted from the Totem. So
he is weaponless, armorless, and good as dead. He balls up, at the
very least he will defend his jugular from the predator, if only
for a moment. The three prongs throw blue sparks to the sky, they
rain back upon him, each hot and bright in the starless night.

The black lion leaps at Kao and adrenaline
slows his world. The cat's fur raises up, starting nearest its
front claws and going steadily down its entire body as contact
approaches.

A hair from impact and a bolt of lightning
shoots from Kao's prongs to the cat's sparkling obsidian claws and
triggers an explosion.

The cat flies backwards from the force of the
blast. The force of the lion and the static discharge flattens him
against the earth.

The lion crashes in another grove of fruit,
only a few paces away. Its lithe black body vanishes into the
night. Its huntress yowl comes from nowhere and everywhere. A
threat, a promise. Death.

Kao is on his feet, but the cat has not yet
attacked. She is bigger than he is, near his own tremendous height
and stretched out longer than he dares imagine. Kao has no chance
of survival, but he has blades, and his hands are strong. He will
free the lion from its slavery if it frees him from mortality. But
still it does not attack. It exercises caution. It is wary. Would
the Hidden fear their own power?

Kao readies his blade and plunges into the
dark. She hisses and swipes at him, betraying her location. The two
circle each other. Kao feints with his short blade, but the cat
keeps its distance. It is very cautious, scared even. It does not
want to be thrown back again. But the prongs in his arm no longer
throw sparks, Kao knows that the power, whatever it was, has left
him.

The Hidden do not realize this?

Surely they would. The Totem
must
be
their source of power. If he understands that he no longer holds
its power inside him then surely they do as well. Yet the lion
fears him...
She is free of the Hidden
!
So they bask in
the sun and leave the night to more...primal forces.
The last
words are not his own yet he thinks them just the same.

Kao rushes the huntress, and again she swipes
at him but keeps her distance. She is afraid of something she does
not understand. The lion may be a mask for the Hidden, but now, it
is unworn.

“Go away!” he yells, summoning his reserves
of strength and bravery, “Don't die today.” He knows it can't
understand his words, he barely understands them, but it surely can
sense their meaning. She hisses in reply.

Despite his fear Kao tries to radiate calming
energy. The animal is afraid of him, it recognizes him as a rival.
He does not have to fight it and risk both their lives. She is
noble and beautiful. Her black fur sparkles iridescently; her mane
is full and healthy. When she faces him the mane hides her entire
body, so all he sees are two slitted orange discs that hover in the
night. Kao has never been so close to a lion before, never has he
experienced their deadly beauty. As they circle each other beneath
the Totem and its cursed lighting, her muscles flex and ripple
beneath her black fur. Her teeth glow in the flashes of light; they
feel as big and ominous as the opening to the hermit's cave on that
fateful night when he lost everything he held dear.

The lion is beautiful, sinuous and seductive.
The young hunter wants her death little more than his own. He does
not blame her. This is her territory if only at night. He is an
intruder. He should leave, but cannot.

She wants to drive him away, yet is scared.
Most of all she wants to live, and like Kao, doubts that either
will allow the other to live if they battle. But if they keep
circling, eventually the lion will be possessed to attack, either
by the Hidden or her own sense of order. If she does she will
realize Kao no longer commands the force he did, and he will be
outmatched, and he will die.

What would the mad old hermit do? Surely not
fight the lion, she was a walking set of blades, if he managed to
stab her even once he would be lacerated.

No, he must think.

He had hunted the magnificent prongelk with
fear, driven off the kingcrow with fear, the same force must work
here.

The lion feared the Totem and its power, so
that is what he will use.

Kao rushes the lion a final time, as before,
she moves back, swipes and hisses. But this time Kao does not turn
to face her to protect his backside. Instead he runs back to the
Totem. Seeing her prey's unexposed flank triggers something
stronger than fear in the predator and after him she comes. Her
padded feet silently echo his own footsteps.

She gains on him, his two legs are no match
for her four. Each of her massive strides are as long as three of
his. She will be upon him in an instant.

Kao jumps up the Totem again, but this time
he spins his body in mid air so his feet touch the trunk first. The
same charge flows into his body and shoots sparks out of the prongs
in his flesh. His hair stands on end as he grips the bark of the
Totem with his strong, balanced toes. He turns to face the
avalanche of teeth and claws. Her jaws are wide, eager to kill the
only monkey that ever bothered to challenge her.

Ever a careful judge of motion, Kao starts to
jump off the Totem and a whisper later slaps the surface with his
left hand. Just as before, an explosive force launches him, but
this time, he is ready. He kicks off and rockets towards the lion.
She yowls and tries to stop by digging her front paws into the
earth, but her momentum carries her forward. Kao faces his pronged
shoulder to her. Lightning crackles from the prongs to the
huntress. Again, both are thrown back. This time Kao notices the
lightning at the top of the Totem ceases for a moment as he careens
through the air. It has time to strike four times before he
lands.

The lion has fought many adversaries, but
none with powers like these. By the time Kao is back on the earth
and on his feet, the lion is a black shadow vanished into the
night.

Kao breathes a sigh of relief. His muscles
ache, his fingers burn from touching the Totem, but he is alive.
The prongs jutting from his arm crackle and glow. They burn hot in
his arm and he wonders if he will ever stop feeling their hurt.

What's your home like?

She shrugs.

That's not fair. You know lots about mine. Just tell
me one thing.

She inhales deeply and smiles.

Ew! It smells? Only animals do that. She
giggles.

The girl glares at her crossly.

Escape is hopeless. The hermit is trapped in
a cage. It looks soft but is not. He can hear through the cage, but
the Hidden's tongue confuses him. The smells are stranger: food,
sweat and nerves. Strangest of all he smells monkeys. Six of them
mixed among the Hidden.

The hermit watches blurry forms. They are
small, smaller than him. Cats would eat the little things without
hesitation. They smell weak. Is this a trick?

The cage flies away. Hundreds of beady eyes
stare at the hermit. More people than he's ever seen, all draped in
strange leathers. They are just people. Little, hairless people.
Monkeys carry food in bowls. They are afraid.

The hermit howls and leaps at the crowd of
tiny people, but he is stopped. He springs forward and pounds on
nothing with his fists, rams it with his body, kicks, spits, but
nothing works. He still is in the cage.

As he beats at the invisible cage the beings
stare at him with mute apprehension. They never leap back or
shriek. They only laugh or twitter nervously. But he can smell
their fear. The monkeys can smell their fear. It is thick in the
room, like the air before a storm. He does not think the Hidden is
a fair name.
They are only people.

The pasty beings stop talking to each other
as one speaks, louder than the rest. The hermit can almost grasp
his words. He grabs for his mushroom potion, but his bag is gone. A
taste would betray the Hidden language. This one says much though,
even without words.

He is shorter than most, hairless, and has
thick veins running across his skull that pulse as he speaks. They
are revolting to the hermit. He wears a white leather with fake
muscles. The hermit wonders if the crowd is so stupid as to believe
them real. He can smell they are fake. He can also smell that this
one is smarter than the rest. He doesn't reek of fear and nerves
but of pride. This one captured the hermit, he is sure of it.

He will teach him about pride.

As the veined one drones on, the hermit
studies the cave. The kingcrow that stole him flew high into the
air but he sees no sun or clouds. There is no life of any kind,
except the people and the monkeys. He is alone with these sky
people in their home.

The monkeys puzzle him. They hold their
bodies awkwardly like they cannot relax. They look unnatural
teetering on two legs and carrying food, but their movements are
smooth, practiced.

The sky people hide behind them even in their
home.

Are these really the Hidden of legend?
He imagined powerful beings, creatures capable of subduing all of
Nature. These are too small and fearful. All the stories told that
those of the plains were powerful beings who understood the planet
better than the hermit's own people.
Could a flood and a name
curse them to this?

The hermit does not believe in curses, only
words. The name could have caused their weakness. Words have power,
but the hermit did not know they had this much. Even in their home,
the Hidden cower. Like animals, they fear being seen.

They are fascinated with him. They have never
seen something like him before. How could the Hidden know nothing
of his tribe's existence? The two tribes shared the earth for a
long time. The hermit's people remembered this, could the Hidden
have forgotten? These people hardly seem fit to bear his tribe's
ancient name any longer. The Hidden meant those of power, those who
knew how not to be seen. The hermit's tribe knows more of stealth
and secrecy than these clumsy beings. Sky people is the only thing
he can call them. Not a name but a description. If they can stand
up to the old man maybe he will think differently.

The hermit turns to the little man, and sees
something different in his eyes. The veined man is very interested
in the hermit. He studies him as he speaks. The others are baffled
by the hermit, but this one is pleased. He must be an elder, a
keeper of power. The others respect him, probably obey him. No one
will defend the hermit against this man.

Escape. He must escape.

It is hard to think here. Everything is
alien. There are too many hard lines and surfaces. The hermit
misses Kao.

That young hunter always seemed to have some
idea of what to do. He was stubborn, brash, and valued blades and
his own musk entirely too much, but he was fearless. The hermit
wonders what he would do.