The Wild Lands: Legend of the Wild Man (36 page)

For the first time he looks happy to see Kao.
His tremors have ceased. How could Kao have been so stupid? That
spark in his eye was the Hidden. The stench should have told Kao
everything. The spark could never have be from the energy stored in
the hermit's body, not if his body was having trouble digesting the
Hidden's food. The spark in the hermit's eye was the same as it was
for everyone but Kao, control. But Kao's lighting damaged their
stone. The hermit is free, for a moment.

Lightning ignites Kao's body. It hurts, it
burns, but no worse than the force from the tree did, or the
shimmering field when he charged it. The prongs in his arm burn red
hot, but he has adjusted to the electric crackle that sizzles
through his body. Then it increases. He sees lightning, hears
thunder in his ears, his muscles tense and he topples to the
ground.

The hermit rushes to him, almost catches his
dissent but is too old, too frail. At the last second he lets go of
Kao and the warrior bashes his head on the floor, hard. He fights
for consciousness but it is a losing battle. He has not tasted the
moon's pull in too long. The power he thought was his now owns
him.

The last thing he sees before the world
thunders black is the hermits eyes flash blue. The old one
straightens himself up and pulls away from the young hunter. Hidden
again

Make no mistake, mankind lives on borrowed time. All
that buys us more are the beasts Nature sees fit to place in the
Garden below. We have all tasted bitter doom... taste now sweet
hope, a flavor you'll soon know, for if Nature gives us allies for
tools, we may buy a place in this world yet.

Dreams slip through Kao's mind. He dreams
he's back in the river, clutching to the bird he fell with, but
then it morphs to a cat, then a serpent, all the while he's
stabbing and stabbing, but to no effect, the chimera is invincible.
Deeper and deeper he goes into the water. It fills his lungs and
tastes foreign and forbidden, a taste he has craved his entire
life. It burns his nostrils and his throat. Finally he rests on the
bottom and feels the thick mud squelch up around his feet. He
reaches out, done with his fight but not his life. His fingers find
a branch and he pulls as hard as he can. It yanks free, and becomes
his elk skull and leather shroud. He adorns it and finds he can
breath. It soaks up the water in the river and then he stands above
the chimera, now a fish, gasping for air. It's powerless out of its
element. He breathes a sigh of relief. The air tastes tangy, it
holds a charge.

Kao awakens. He is moving. Someone is
carrying him. There is a stabbing pain at the base of his skull. He
will not open his eyes. He fears the gods are already inside of his
mind, and does not want them to see a thing. Still, he is curious,
and cannot fight blind any better than they can, so he raises an
eyelid and peaks out at the world.

The hermit's arms hold him in a rough
embrace. He carries him like a child, one arm beneath his
shoulders, the other at the crook of his knees. The old man fights
for air. He should not be strong enough to carry such a heavy load,
but the Hidden are heartless, and care not for their slaves. The
old man trudges on, his body shudders each time he steps on his
lame leg, but his pain falls on deaf ears.

Kao leans up slightly to better see the long
white hallways he is carried through, but one of the gods must have
their spark inside of his mind as well, for as soon as he does
lightning courses through him and he goes limp. It always starts at
the back of his head. He knows there is a stone there, he only
hopes he can free it from his flesh.

The hermit trudges on. Kao is sure the old
man's legs burn. He can feel him tremble, but the Hidden inside
pushes him forward relentlessly. There is no rest.

Finally he turns into a small room. They
enter and a wall shimmers into place behind them. This room is
larger than the one he was held in, but still has the same 5 walls
like a honeycomb, the same sharp charge in the air. He drops the
hunter unceremoniously in the center of the room, then marches to
the edge and stands straight. Tears leak from a soul hidden behind
eyes sparkling blue.

The shimmering blue wall vanishes and 4
monkeys bound in. One carries shiny silver blades, the others long
silver-white strips that glisten like abalone. They are made of the
same stone as the tree itself, he can feel them hum and pulse with
the charge in the air.

The monkeys eyes are filled with abject
terror. Even behind the blue sparks, he can see their dilated
pupils and smell their fear. Despite their long contact with the
Hidden, they still fear him. This is good.

He smells more in the air. It smells of a
hunt, of brothers and cousins striking out to do what must be done.
Excitement, fear, desperation, nervousness. He fights the stone on
the back of his mind, fights the pain that surges every time he
moves and looks at the hermit. The old man nods ever so slightly.
Its his musk. He's been filling the hallways with it, charging the
air with another power at once more apparent and more invisible
than the Hidden's lightning. And the monkeys smell it.

The hermit jerks forward, then collapses to
the floor. For a moment he stands, the spark is gone and he looks
at Kao with wild determination, but then his body seizures and he
collapses. When he stands, there's more fluidity to his gait, his
motions are smoother, more practiced, but not totally his own. His
eyes sparkle blue, but not the same brilliant shimmer as before.
They'd more subtle, subdued, ready to flare up if needed. A battle
rages inside the hermit's head.

The old man's body strides forward. The being
behind his eyes works with the limp, but still carries the old
man's body like a toy instead of the sacred vessel for the man's
soul that it is. He stands over Kao, smirks. His scent is stronger
than ever. Can the gods really be blind to a sense so powerful? Kao
hopes. He has smelled nothing but himself, other animals and the
metallic twang that seems to be in everything.

“I am Baucis. A p-p-pleasure to m-m-meet
you,” the old man grunts. His voice sounds bizarre, too high
pitched and throaty. Its entirely forced and sounds strange between
stutters. “S-s-surprised? I was too. L-Language is more
p-p-primitive than I had realized.” The old man's body heaves and
shakes and Kao realizes he laughs. The monkeys chime in, their
voices as nervous and alien as the hermit's.

“I don't understand your guttural language, I
just th-th-think in mine, and thus speaks the puppet!”

Kao didn't know the last word, but he knows
the tone.

“Release him,” Kao growls.

“It only g-goes one way. I can f-fff-force my
mind into his but our technology,” he says the word with a flashy
smile, like he's teaching a child, as he gestures around the
hexagonal room, “doesn't allow his mind into mine.”

“Technology,” Kao says, testing the word. It
feels wrong in his mouth. Like it was put there by someone
else.

“You learned a w-word! The t-twins were right
about you. You have s-sssome intelligence.”

“Baucis, You will die,” Kao growls. Terror
flashes across the hermit's face and Kao knows the Hidden
understand. Terror is soon replaced with calculation.

“N-Not s-sssmart enough. Didn't anyone
t-teach you to-to t-talk properly to your elders?” he grins and
Kao's body shoots with pain.

The monkeys jump back as the prongs in his
arm flash electricity. One begins to hop and down. They are not
used to his tribe. Their pheromones, their look, their feel, their
presence. Its overwhelming.

“And your poor little b-b-boo-boo. But I
think it will end up b-being for the b-b-better. You p-poor
primitive apes don't have many conductives in your b-bodies, hence
the scars.” He twists the hermit's arm around to show Kao the long
scars than run along every bone in his body. “This b-body was a
little d-difficult to get a signal through, but I think those three
will w-work as w-w-wonderful antennae,” he says as he points to
Kao's prongs. “You have enjoyed the f-fffood in our garden I hope?
All filled with p-plenty of v-vitamins and minerals. Everything the
Spire needs to run.”

“Spire?” Kao says.

“This m-m-magnificent building you're in?
It's our pride and joy, and gives us everything we need.” As he
says it he takes one of the monkey's long white sticks and taps
each of Kao's prongs. Little sparks fly between the two. The rods
wick energy from him, draining his body of the accumulated charge
he built up. Kao focuses as much as he can not to discharge the
power he carries. Not yet. Though he is not sure if he has that
level of control of the power.

“Well, almost everything, you and your mate
came from elsewhere.”

Kao is confused, mate? But the Hidden took no
one but his sister. They cannot be
that
callous. Sick
realization dawns on him. They never had a real interest in him.
They wanted his sister all along. What good would one slave do
them, when they could have a whole tribe? But without a male to
serve as a father... It meant nothing to them that they were
related, or years apart in age. And this was just the beginning...
surely they would breed generations of workers from the incestuous
sin. Baucis has no respect for the earth and its relations.

Kao roars and lunges at the hermit. Every
piece of his body burns with pain, the stone in his brain screams
at him to stop, but he fights on. He has battled this energy for
nearly half a moon. Pain is but an inconvenience.

The monkeys lunge at Kao. He easily throws
off the first one. It flies across the room hooting in a wide arch.
Kao can feel the lightning in his brain increase, but there is more
to it than that. Its telling him what to do. More specifically his
body what to do. He can hear it say things simpler than words.
GROUND. Or something to that effect. His body wants to obey to
avoid the pain. Before his mind understands the game his body is
already trading pain for submission. But he is not his body. He
knows his essence, his mind, his soul even, reside somewhere else.
So he resists. The monkeys watch, frozen, neither them nor the
Hidden behind their eyes wish to challenge Kao.

“Subdue him!” the hermit yells, but the
monkeys are conflicted. The hermit's stench is already driving them
mad, they are close to throwing off their mind control, but they
cannot. Kao barely can. It is a struggle to lift his body from the
floor. His heart is going too fast, it is hard to breath.

With his last breath he fills his lungs and
roars. Loud and guttural, vicious and powerful. It is a challenge
to the monkeys. A dare to fight off their masters. He expects them
to run scared but they do not. Instead the hoot and holler back at
him. A show of brotherhood, of solidarity.

Except the one he threw off. That monkey
bounds across the room, seizes one of Kao's prongs, and snaps it
off.

Kao wishes it was that easy. The monkey has
to leverage it against his bone to break it. Muscles have grown
around the prong and they scream in protest. Kao has endured great
pain, a little more is but a little more. Finally the prong does
break.

Kao screams in pain, an impossible feat given
his lack of oxygen.

“Fool,” Baucis says with the hermit's ragged
voice, “did you really think you'd overpower us?”

The monkey yanks the broken prong out of
Kao's arm and climbs atop his back. Its little fingered feet grab
at Kao's black hair. He feels more pressure as it raises the prong
high, then drives it down into the back of his neck.

“Stop him!” Baucis orders, his false voice
cracks.

Too late. The monkey reaches into the back of
Kao's neck with its prehensile toes and tears the stone out of his
body. Immediately the pain stops. Kao can think again. He leaps to
his feet, and the monkey jumps clear.

“Catch them you idiots!” the hermit bellows.
His voice quivers. He is losing control. The other three monkeys
opt to chase their former ally around the room. None make a move
for Kao, but the smaller target is not easy prey.

The free monkey is a hundred times more agile
than the enslaved. He does flips and cartwheels, scales walls and
lands behind his pursuers. The others try to keep up. Kao watches
the whole spectacle from the center of the room. One comes close,
and he reaches out and snatches it. He deftly bashes the chip on
the back of its brain and this monkey, perhaps anticipating its
freedom immediately starts tearing around the room. Now the tables
have turned. The free monkeys, with their increased agility and
intense motivation scramble after the others. Kao turns to the
hermit.

“Y-You are f-foolish, ape. You th-think I
w-w-would come in here without a plan? Observe.” he points to the
two monkeys with the stones still in. Their eyes go wide with
terror, then glow bright blue and they crumples to the floor. The
other monkeys stop chasing and scratch their heads. One tries to
shake them awake. Kao understands. Baucis killed them.

He growls and steps towards the hermit.

“Your b-body is your own. But is thhh-this
one so l-lucky?” Electricity surges through the hermit's body. He
falls to his knees but cackles the entire time. “Do you think this
h-hurts?” he says, then writhes in pain. “S-Sometimes I can't
r-really tell. Here's what we're going t-to do...”

Before he can continue one of the monkeys
leaps through the air and kicks the hermit squarely in the back of
the head. The one that freed Kao grabs his hand. He hoots excitedly
and points towards the open door. The hermit will have to survive a
bit longer. Kao squeezes the little monkey's hand and runs.

The Scourge will come for us as soon as the Spire
fails- this Nature has made clear to me. The Wild Man is another
story. Cursed with an intellect, we can try to win him over, but
what use is argument when faced with righteousness?