Known Afterlife (The Provider Trilogy, Volume One) (17 page)

With the speed of a summer storm, darkness swept across his father's face, shrouding his wooly beard, normally a soft frame for his ever-present smile, with furtive
expression. "Eighty six rejoined the Provider to start anew before our journey was complete. The giaker was the first to claim many of us but was far from the worst beast to stalk us," he recalled, shoulders hunched defensively as he scanned the branch's shadowed wilderness. His father never looked more brave or vulnerable in that moment.

The Deeds recorded the adventures of both Maseriah's discovery of the kuwani and that of the first settlers' ensuing journey. Steffor had accessed Somaht for the images ma
ny times over which had strengthened his admiration of his parents, Maseriah, friends and family alike. His young mind could still not comprehend how and why his parents did what they did but the concept of a place choosing his parents did not feel so silly anymore.

In classic form, his father was taking the long stem to answer his question. Normally, by the time he got there, Steffor had learned something but often forgot the original question that got them on the path to begin with. He was determined to s
tay on track this time. Something deep inside told him he was on the cusp of enlightenment.

"A week after leaving the Trunk and climbing up Constunkeen's thick jungle floor
, we had traveled less than two miles for the effort. With another ten miles of steady climbing through the congested vegetation before reaching the bough's level plains above, we soon learned how legend, and the rare images recorded by the Deeds, gave little justice to the six legged giaker."

"Masters of stealth, a breed of animal derive
d equally from mammal and reptile, the giaker can lay in hiding for days without moving a hair. Every bend in our trail, every grove of innocent appearing bushes, inviting moss patch or tangled vine tunnel was a threat for a giaker attack. Maseriah ferreted out most, bravely charging into any telltale sign of their wicked traps. He had become proficient in both identifying their liars and dispatching of the creature with powerful punches of the Source, stunning the beast and launching them far away in the same motion."

"But the giaker had survived before the record of time for a reason. For the dozens of attacks Maseriah thwarted, twenty-seven managed to slip his detection. Twenty-seven died by the giaker's viper fast strike, viscous razor sharp teeth and ho
oked claws. Too many had to witness a friend or loved one vanish in a blink, the splatter of blood on the surrounding foliage and frantic sounds of struggle as the beast dragged their victims through the underbrush the last to see or hear of them."

"It too
k us over a month to clear the jungle. By that time, we were a tight knit group committed to a common cause and determined to go forward. At first, our spirits rose once we cleared the jungle and gazed upon the vast prairie below. We had faced our fears and survived. Soon we would be feasting on the kuwani and building our new home. Or so we thought. Maseriah was quick to temper our optimisms, reminding us we had yet to face the prairie bough's most feared denizen, the zapture."

"Traveling alone the first t
ime, well camouflaged by his Guardian garments, armed with powers of both speed and defense, Maseriah managed to avoid the creature with relative ease. Reminded of our limited skills when it came to both, the open prairie for as far as the eye could see in every direction quickly sobered our excitement."

In recent months, Steffor finally mustered the courage to access images of the zapture and his dreams had been plagued with the creature since. With no natural predators, the zapture thrived on the prairie
bough. Adult treledant, staple prey of the zapture, were known to kill hatchings when stumbling onto a nest or trample adults caught in a stampede but the giant omnivore killed out of self-preservation, not for food. The bulk of information about the nocturnal zapture stored in the Mysticnet archives came from ultraviolet images recorded by Guardians. These sanitized, but nonetheless gruesome images normally depicted a pride of the bipedal, winged beasts ripping apart and fighting over the barely distinguished body of a treledant or giant sloth.

Steffor tensed up thinking about the zapture. He wanted to turn away, as if the creature were right in front of him, and ask his father to stop, to the point of lying about losing interest. Instead, spellbound by the
moment, having gone too far to turn back now, he grabbed his father's hand and braced for the worst yet to come.

"Traveling by day and hiding as best we could by night, twenty two days passed without incident. Our trek was almost halfway complete and desp
ite our vigilant paranoia, we had started to become enchanted by the prairie's open sky, lush moss land and diverse animal life."

"Many times we passed within shifting distance of the enormous treledant herds. Every camp was infested with fury little kos
ts by nights end. We soon lost track of all the rare birds we saw, heard of but rarely seen in the city. But not once had we seen the zapture. We had all heard their blood curdling, high-pitched squawk late in the evening far off in the distant evening air and more than once discovered the remnants of their latest kill. Still, the bough was so massive, teaming with abundant, natural prey, we started to believe, thinking to ourselves or whispering to those closest, 'maybe we can make it without ever seeing one'."

"What none of us considered was difficultly and danger associated with killing an adult treledant, even for a large pride of zapture. We learned this lesson the day we got our first up close look at zapture. Actually, it was three. The smell of their
rotting flesh hit us a half a mile before we saw them. They lay in the middle of the trail we had been following created by one of the many treledant herds. Covered with thick scales, the bodies remained, for the most part, intact. But flesh and organs had been mashed so violently that portions of their bones penetrated the bough's smooth bark."

"Upright, squat legs were fitted with oversized talons that looked more suited for grabbing and tearing prey then for walking. Three arms projected from the creatu
re's muscular torso, the two double-jointed appendages protruding from the sides were long, double-edged claws ending with a sharp point while the third, growing from its chest, appeared to be a shorter but more maneuverable version of its legs. Sprouting from taut back sinew were leathery wings spanning over thirty feet."

"Being completely incongruous with the rest of the body, it was the zapture's head we found most disturbing. Supported by a long neck, a gaping maw large enough to swallow a man whole, ho
using row after row of fist size teeth, made up the better part of the massive, cone shaped skull; beady eyes set close to the broad mouth on each side before tapering off to a pointed crest of bone. Lifting the mangled skull for closer inspection, its lightness was startling compared to its size. We would soon experience firsthand its lethal legerity."

"After that, it was not difficult for any of us to imagine how man, while not a staple part their diet, would be a welcome abatement for the zapture. Once a
gain, remaining undetected became our primary objective. Another five days would pass without incident. Up to that point, Maseriah managed to scout out ideal campsites to conceal our presence: a stand of tall ferns, a grove of lichens or berry bushes sufficed. But on the sixth day after our discovery of the mangled zaptures, our luck had run out."

"As the sun began to set, we stood surrounded by fields of knee high moss as far as the eye could see in every direction. Maseriah had gone off ahead in one last,
desperate attempt to find shelter. As dusk arrived, the zapture's squawk haunted the air. Materializing from thin air, breathing as if he had sprinted for the last hour, Maseriah ordered us to follow.

"Exhausted, famished and scared, we finally reached our campsite for the night, the east side of an elevated knot pond. The plentiful knot ponds and lakes of the prairie typically have a rounded edge no higher than a couple of feet. The one we chose for o
ur camp that night was a good seven feet high with a tapered rim protruding outward another three to four feet. Not ideal shelter but at least it provided some type of defense from aerial attack."

Feeling the need for the Guardian's presence, Steffor search
ed for Maseriah's comforting figure but the canopy above and below and the trail in every direction all came up empty. It was then that he remembered their Guardian had left earlier to assist Teilken back to the village after he sustained a head injury from a high fall.

Steffor's fear abated slightly as the canopy above cleared and revealed the branch's end, a shifted stairway leading up and to the west, leading to the bough' forked end and the outskirts of Maseriah village.

Created by his father and several other original settlers over a century ago, the stairway was a living testament to the hardships the people of Maseriah overcame. Steffor stepped onto the first step and, as he always did, read the passage from the Deeds etched on every step, the verse epitomizing the life of a harvest Shifter:
The Citizen who wakes before the sun and labors after it sleeps, truly knows the heart of the Provider.

Pursued by its shadow moving up the steps before them, the freight car trudged ahead on haulage vines running
parallel to the stairway. Looking upwards, Steffor followed the length of Constunkeen's colossal underside toward the west, where he knew the bough eventually grew into the Trunk. A myriad of images pulled from the Mysticnet showed him so and though he had never traveled the vast prairie bough to see firsthand, he had no problem in believing in its existence.

Conversely, as his eyes traveled along the prairie bough's endless stretch of underbelly, its girth obscuring a third of the night sky, his young mind
refused to believe the zapture existed, lurking this very night in search of prey. He understood all of the Provider's creatures served a purpose but the zapture's was a mystery his young mind could not comprehend.

A few steps into the ascent, comforting
lights emanating from the village shined over the staircase horizon to break the darkness above. Close to the top, Maseriah's chiseled form, seen and welcomed by all, descended toward them, the shepherd on his way to see his flock safely home. Soothed by the site of his hero, Steffor found the courage to listen to the final moments of his father's tale.

"Choosing to stay under the confines of the lip versus any of us lying in the open, we were forced to spread out in a line along the pond's edge. Due to the
edge's curve, you could only see a dozen or so of the others to the left or right of you. Your mother and I, having recently done our tour of duty at the front and rear, were stationed somewhere toward the middle. Before conceding to exhaustion, I watched Maseriah form a perimeter of sela gourds.
It is in the Provider's hands now
was my last thought before succumbing to a restless sleep."

"Your mother's scream ripped me from my dreamless slumber. Immediately turning to her, I was aghast to see blood splatt
ered across her face and torso. Looking above and over my shoulder, the terror in her eyes froze my will to turn around. Driblets of warm liquid sprayed my tunic as the repulsive crunch of bone and flesh emanated from directly above me. Compelled by something beyond mind and body, I turned and followed her gaze in time to witness the legs of Guinther disappear down the creatures gaping orifice. The zapture stood erect and turned its head to the heavens as intermittent spasms began to convulse down the long neck."

"The engorged body of our companion stretched the neck's skin into a transparent membrane as the meal was forced down the deformed throat. Instincts screamed to run while we had the chance but I stood in place, hypnotized by the waking nightmare. Th
e sudden jerk of Guinther's arm in a last, futile attempt to survive—the impenetrable membrane stretched so thin one could make out his braided birth bracelet—finally broke the spell and allowed the mind to tell the body to flee."

"Fighting the urge to eva
cuate bowels and vomit at the same time, I managed to stand up, pulling your mother along with me, and began to stumble away from the pond's edge toward the surrounding open fields. We had not moved much past the lip when the screams of others began to fill the night. Screams of terror, screams for Maseriah, screams of disbelief, the scene unfolding was beyond our imaginations."

"A dense cloud cover had moved in while we slept and if not for the sela gourds, the grisly scene would have remained hidden to th
e night. Adjusting to minimal light, my head swiveled in all directions in search of our Guardian. Maseriah was seen nowhere among the dozens of dark zapture figures surrounding our pathetic camp. The world we knew had become an abomination of what we thought to be true. Panic rose anew, as we stood frozen at the spectacle before us; a hideous forest composed of freakish necks bulging with the struggling outline of our friends and loved ones."

"The din of agonizing shrieks and tableau of erect beasts striki
ng ghastly poses of ingestion was abruptly overpowered by a lurid sound. None who survived that dreadful night will ever forget that sound; a sensation akin to, but far from accurate depiction of, standing at or near the point of impact of two hardwood branches crashing at supersonic velocity. As I turned in search of the source, my eyes fell back upon the zapture we had just fled."