The Wild Lands: Legend of the Wild Man (32 page)

In seconds a shower of sparks rains down from
his three spikes. He can feel the energy tensing his muscles,
pumping his blood, he can taste it, smell it. He charges the lion
with energized resolve.

She is out of his way and Kao's motion
carries him forward. A paw the size of his head pats him between
his shoulder blades and the discharge throws him forward. He
stumbles, falls, and spins over, slashing at the air. But the lion
is not on him. She lets him right himself and draw his blade before
she attacks again.

She pounces, Kao has never seen that much
weight go into the air, but he has time to move. She cannot
readjust while airborne. Kao runs laterally, knowing her motion
can't transfer this direction easily. As if she planned his
motions, the lion immediately lunges again and is in front of him.
Before he can draw a blade a huge paw swipes and knocks him to the
ground.

Kao rights himself and feels his body for
wounds. None. Twice now, the lion could have extended her claws and
gored him. Twice she could have won this bout. He is no match for
her. But instead her claws remain sheathed. She still growls that
low pitch. The timbre of it makes Kao think she is not toying with
him like all cats do with too-weak prey, she does something else.
She takes this seriously, yet hesitates to kill him.

He attacks again, but this time she is beyond
ready for him. As he charges he can see her slitted eyes count his
paces. She uncoils-- Kao had failed to realize her lithe black body
was held tight--and she is on him. Both paws squarely on his chest,
Kao can hardly breath. He struggles and squirms, jabbing wildly
with his blade but the Panther holds herself in safety. He roars at
her, feels the sparks crackle from his teeth to her whiskers, but
she flinches not once.

Instead, she blinks and her eyes are
different. They are still the slitted cat eyes he dueled against
but they are deeper. They are forlorn and filled with necessity. He
looks into the Hidden soul. The girl behind the Panther's eyes
shakes her head very slowly.

“No,” the order is clear. But no what? No
move? No fight? No live? Kao thrashes once more, his prehensile
toes manage to find the cats tail and he yanks it hard. The lion
yowls and he uses the moment to break free of her weight.

He scans the land around him. The sun is set,
red light still glows atop the mountains to the west. The moon is
already high in the sky, the top growing darker as it enters the
clouds the Totem always has swirling around it. From the North he
sees the elks and monkeys approach. Two kingcrows circle overhead,
ready to finish the job. He is outnumbered, outmatched.

Still, he is a hunter, his instincts scream
to go down fighting.
Kill them all! Curse the plan!
The lion
reads him, sits back on her haunches, extends one razor sharp claw,
as black and long as any prongblade. She points to the animals on
the horizons, closing in on their prey, then to Kao, and slowly
draws the one claw across her neck, across her jugular vein. The
motion disarms the hunter.

Why does the lion spare him? She could have
killed him three times over.

Kao hears howls echo across the plains and
knows the monkeys are close, much closer than the elk. They snuck
up and used the lumbering herbivores as a distraction. Are they all
communicating? Are the Hidden's voices as hidden as their
bodies?

Then the lion is on him again. Her weight
keeps him pinned. Unprepared for her attack he dropped his blade
and is now weaponless against her. She does not slaughter him
though. Instead, he watches upside down as she nods to a monkey.
She is much closer than the rest. She could not have been at the
dome. She must have been waiting for them here. She hops over
gracefully, gently puts its fingers around Kao's neck, Kao
struggles but sees a grass bracelet on the monkey's wrist and
understands.

His sister is dead. His people are gone. The
Hidden have taken all from him but his life. Now even that is
theirs.

The monkey bellows inches from his ear, the
world spins. The cat's orange slitted eyes remain, all else dizzies
out of existence. He loses the moon, the Garden, and forgets the
Totem, his sister and the hermit. The young hunter is no more.

Part III

THE SPIRE

Nature and her Warrior will never understand us. We
are above them...evolved faster than Nature intended. Pray she
never rises to this height.

Elk. Lion. Crow.

Dreams and thoughts swirl through his mind
like eddies in a stream. He remembers the father that died when he
was young, the chief, his friends: the older and the younger. He
remembers his mother and his little sister most of all. He
remembers his little sister as a giggling muddy mess of a girl. Too
inquisitive to heed caution, always eager to try
everything
.
The hermit speaks to him in flashes, but the words are muddied and
unclear. In a moment of clarity he wonders if he will lose his
ability to perceive the world as symbols, if the language he never
asked for will leave him in the same state of delirium that it
came, but the idea passes in a flurry of symbols.

Elk, lion, crow.

Elk, lion, crow, monkey, man.

Not the animals but the ideas of the animals.
The symbols remain, clinging to his cerebellum like moss bites at
stone. Again and again the first symbol he learned, the symbol for
himself, his own strong body with three prongs jutting from his
left arm flashes in his mind's eye. Even in his dreams, he feels
the prongs' ache. The burn waxes and wains, but never leaves, an
inescapable reminder to his ethereal mind of his material body.

Is he dead?

No.

The pain would be much less or much
greater.

Elk, lion, crow, monkey, man.

They all migrate through his mind in cycles
both regular and unpredictable. His blade, made of the same
powerful bone as the antlers sticking from his arm, as the lion's
claws, the kingcrow's feathers, the fruits, the insects, and
everything else that comes from the Hidden garden flickers with
blue crackling energy. Storm clouds crack with lightning and rain
and rain and rain.

Where is the pattern?
What
matters?

His forest, the prongelk, the flock of bright
twittery birds that flitted and fluttered through his people's
home. His People.

My people?

Something bad. The last solid memory he has
is the rotten taste of the shaman's foul mushroom potion as its
gritty texture slides down his throat. Then the walls come to life
and reality buckles. When will the shamanic trance end? He longs to
see his mother and her daughter, to play children's games with
them. They are not with him now. All that is are pools of blackness
and bright painted shapes that strut and dance across his
vision.

Something is different. The paintings jumped
across cave walls before, not blackness.

Where am I?
He wonders, angry at his
brain for using symbols instead of just feeling
.
His mind
nags him:

My people
?

Another symbol fills his vision. Anymore and
his head will pop. It is a man, almost, though its simpler and has
none of the etched out details, encircled by a line. The little man
inside the circle fills his vision, shining bright light. What does
this one mean? Jagged lightning blasts from the circle and in a fit
he remembers.

A storm.

The little man's purpose is clear. The
lightning hides behind clouds.

Elk, lion, crow, monkey, and
men
.

His mind, finally comprehending but not
wanting to, forces him awake and he groans mournfully to all those
he lost.

Home is gone. He is in a cage higher than the
mountains. He should be rescuing his sister and the wisest man he
has ever met but he has failed.

The hunter is caged in a room white with
harsh light, surrounded on all sides, above and below by some sort
of stone. Its hard and cold and hums faintly like the prongs
jutting from his arm. He beats the ground. Nothing. He punches the
walls. Nothing. He feels for his knife. It is gone. Only one way is
open. Dim light pours into the room, burning a silhouette into his
unadjusted eyes.

A man stands in the light, short enough to be
a child, yet Kao knows the man is full grown. He is old, and bald.
Wrinkles cover his face and veins like fat caterpillars run down
his skull. His stomach is a fat paunch, his posture is heavy. He
smells tired and weak, ready for the long rest, but he will never
embrace it, not this one. He thinks himself wise but is really only
scheming and dangerous. This is the man in the circle. The man who
made the lightning, master of elk, lion, crow, monkey and...

The Hidden
.

With a growl Kao is on his feet, snarling at
the little pudgy man. The air shimmers a faint blue between the
two, and Kao understands he is trapped. The little man is confident
and smug, but the Hunter will show no fear, only rage, only the
pain that burns inside him.

The little man makes high pitched noises in
the front of his mouth. It is gibberish to the Hunter, but he knows
the little man speaks. One word stands out among the mess:

“Baucis.” Kao understands this is the man's
symbol, his name.

“Kao!” the hunter roars and the little man
recoils. This is good. Baucis catches himself and steps forward
again. Neither wants to show fear. But Kao knows fear well, if the
little man does not want to show it, he will.

The hunter roars a war-cry. Not the sound to
frighten elk but to intimidate a hungry lion. A roar that says you
have taken too much, and will take no more. A roar that says one of
us may die, but the other will remember. He sees fear in the little
man's eyes and thinks he smells urine. Good signs.

But Baucis does not retreat. Instead he sizes
up the caged hunter. He is looks for weakness, fear, or false
courage. He will find none of it.

Kao beats his chest, the walls, the floor. He
feels the stone around him tremble, but Baucis only bears stubby
pointed teeth.

The Hidden smile?
He muses. The
thought repulses him.

Kao swings a fist at the little man, cage be
damned, and his arm connects with an unseen force that knocks him
backward and sets his bones buzzing. His fingers feel raw, like
they've been burned by something hotter than fire. His knuckles
release wisps of acrid hair flavored smoke into the air. Baucis
laughs, but he should not have. He failed to notice two things.

The first is obvious. The smoke drifts both
towards Kao and Baucis. It passes through the barrier without so
much as an extra whirl. A being as powerful as a god does not worry
about something like air. But Kao knows the power of air. Its
invisible, intangible, a carrier of secrets and messages older than
symbols. He hides his grin. The Hidden will fall from a breeze.

There is no way Baucis could have perceived
the second detail, so the hunter will share it with him. Fear is a
powerful tool, and if the little man does not want to show it, then
it is more powerful still. When Kao's fist connected with the
invisible barrier, the barrier flickered. It grew bright then dim,
matched his strength then faded back, like the surface of water.
Surely Baucis noticed this, but he did not perceive the hum that
went up Kao's arm, through his shoulders and into his jutting
prongs. The same as the power that filled his bones with lightning,
only subtler, less explosive. The same power made the most fearsome
beast he has ever battled flee with its tail between its legs. The
pudgy little man is no match.

Kao swings his left fist and feels his prongs
glow when his knuckles connects with the shimmering blue barrier.
Again and again he pummels the shimmering shield. Baucis smiles,
proud of his shiny blue wall. After a few blows, Kao feels the
first twinges of hot pain sear through his flesh. His prongs burn
intensely inside his arm as the force spreads through his
bones.

It hurts more here. They are shielded by the
blue energy from the pull of the round moon.

After a few more blows, sparks rain from his
prongs. The childish smirk falls from the Baucis's face and he
looks weary and frightened. The veins that run along his pale bald
head start to pulse. He knows fear. Kao beats and bangs the
invisible wall, but the foolish little man does not flee.

Lightning crackles and pops between the three
jutting prongs. His arms are tired, his fists burn. The blue
lightning takes as much power as it gives but Baucis does not know
this. He is terrified. Entranced by the three prongs' waterfall of
sparks, he is hypnotized, like a rat caught in the gaze of a snake.
The blue lightning burns hotter than embers inside of Kao, but he
does not relent. Instead he roars and throws all of his weight into
the shimmering blue field. It pops loudly and throws him back
against the far wall of his cage with all of the force he put into
it.

Then, another instant later, all goes black,
and he wonders if the lightning blinded him. But no. His eyes
adjust and he sees Baucis fumble in the darkness, his movements as
clumsy from the dark as from fear.

Kao lunges at Baucis, shocked that victory
could come so easy, but the light clicks on and races back to full
brightness. Kao collides with the blue barrier and is flung against
the far wall. His head bangs against the wall, and his mind loses
the battle against his exhausted body. The power is too much and he
slips unconscious.

Baucis sighs with relief. The hunter can
smell his fear, it is thick in the air. His feeble body strains
just to show it, and the effort exhausts him. The hunter passes out
and lets the little man have his victory. The full moon still
approaches, and Baucis learned nothing but terror.