The Wild Lands: Legend of the Wild Man (18 page)

The two spin round and round, each hoping to
use the other's body to survive in a high stakes game of
roulette.

Love? I suppose love is a choice little one, but
guard yourself from it. Love is blind and fickle, though can be
found in the unlikeliest of places.

The little hominid slept peacefully on the
operating table. Her furry chest rose and fell softly in the
illuminating white light of the surgery ward. Her fur had been
cleaned and brushed. Someone had even retied her grass bracelet.
Dreams might have danced behind her closed eyes.

“She looks so peaceful, a little angel,”
Ntelo said, her voice serene. She was painted in tiny feathers and
wings and dressed in white habiliment that flowed like lazy mist on
a spring morning. Flecks of gold here and there shone like beads of
sunshine.

Baucis smiled and nodded. He had already
embraced the girl as his own.

“Demon-spawn sounds closer to the truth,”
Orus Luca said bluntly.

“Blasphemy,” Ntelo retorted coldly, her white
robe matched her icy tone just fine.

“Enough,” Baucis said tiredly. He already
regretted summoning the Council, but he knew if he didn't, he would
have faced serious sanctions. Not that any of them had any real
incites into the sleeping hominid.

“She's unhurt?” Mavis Talik asked. Leave it
to the psychologist to analyze an animal.

“She's recovering. Things were touch and go
for a while but we managed to stabilize her,” Nurse Pati said. She
was a round soft women, doting and motherly. She had a few wisps of
the telling black hair, and had worked as a nurse for both humans
and Evanimals her whole life. She had stayed despite Baucis's
protests.

“Marvelous work. I can't wait to tell the
Spire!” Rufus Aurelius could barely contain himself. It had been a
long time since truly good news.

“We must be patient, Master Aurelius. There's
still a lot of wild cards,” Nurse Pati said humbly.

“Don't be a fool! We have the beast, might as
well brag about it,” Luca snorted.

“The last thing she needs is attention, she
must heal before you all parade her before the Spire,” Mavis Talik
said, then to Pati, “I'm amazed at what you've done, especially
given the limited supply of painkillers.”

Pati glanced at Baucis for just a moment, but
it was long enough for Talik to notice.

“Oh no. Baucis, you didn't. Not without
telling us.”

“There was no choice, you know how few
painkillers we have, and those might've not worked on her species.
We had to use the technology we have.”

“You expect us to believe that for a second?
I'd bet you had your little minion slave drivers rough her up just
enough.”

Aurelius cleared his throat, “I'm afraid I
don't quite follow...”

“We had no choice. It was this or risk losing
her,” Ntelo said, her voice placid and cold. The voice of no
angel.

“You knew about this?” Talik voice was
barbed, “I expect this sort of evil from
him
, but from you
Priestess? Do you not preach morality?”

Ntelo glanced at Baucis.

Talik's blood boiled, her face flushed. “Oh
how naïve of me. Of course you're a puppet like the rest of them!
And I attend your services... like a
biselk
to
slaughter.”

“What is going on?” bellowed Luca.

Tennay took a step forward and gently rolled
the sleeping girl over. The back of her neck said it all. It was
shaved. Her pink skin was tender around fat stitches at the base of
her neck.

“You gave her a Chip? I've been asking for
one for months, and you give one to a monkey? Don't you have enough
monkeys?” Orus Luca mumbled dumbly.

“Its an
ape,
you buffoon, and thanks
to your own incompetence she may be the last one in existence,”
Baucis replied with unconcealed malice.

“With more VRCs I could have prevented all of
this!”

“I'm sure you would have done things
differently, but Baucis acted, rightly or wrongly, because that is
what we are all expected to do,” Tennay said diplomatically.
Surprised the silence held, he went on, “what we have now is a
decision to make. Do we waste what our ecologist has given us, or
do we go forward?”

“Removing the VRC would be very dangerous.
Its all we have to deaden her pain and run diagnostics,” Nurse Pati
added meekly.

“What do you propose we do?,” Talik asked, “I
know your goals Tennay, she's your ticket to the surface. You're
worse than the other two. At least they'll face all this while you
tinker away in the shadows.”

“The Spire's already lasted too long. Every
system needs parts, we can't even service the central conductor
from up here. If we don't find a way to the surface soon...”
Tennay's silence spoke louder than words.

“She's not an elk or a bird. She's a little
girl! Can't you see that? Don't any of you see that?”

“I do.”

The Council all spun to hear the little voice
that spoke up.

Phoebe stood quietly, her sparkling black
hair framed her heart shaped face. She glowed in the bright light
of the room and made Ntelo's gold and white body paint look opulent
compared to her simple beauty.

“She's scared, and misses her family, and
wants to go... swimming, I think.”

“Phoebe, hush!” Nurse Pati hissed, sounding
scared for the first time.

“Phoebe. You joined the Evanimal program
almost a year ago, correct? You wanted to help the animals?” Baucis
asked.

Phoebe nodded.

“Do you like doing that sweetheart? Is it
fun?” Ntelo asked.

“She has a gift. Last night she birthed a six
point on her own,” Nurse Pati blurted hastily, then added,
“Couldn’t have done it better myself.”

“Phoebe, how would you like to be this little
girl's friend?” Baucis asked, “if that's agreeable to the Council
of course.”

“That would be... acceptable,” Tennay said.
His mind was already somewhere else, deep in thought. Lucas nodded
in quick agreement with the engineer.

“Spire City will adore this! A real human
interest piece.”

“Splendid Aurelius, though perhaps we can
show some discretion until the two are a bit more... connected,”
Baucis's black eyes turned to the psychologist. The veins on his
head pulsed more rapidly, That just leaves you, Miss Talik.”

Mavis Talik thought a long time. She looked
from Phoebe, already called an angel by the Naturalists, to the
sleeping Wild Child branded a demon, then to the pack of wolves
standing between them, their mouths watering. Only Baucis
maintained a vestige of humanity as he watched Mavis think. Still,
she was certain his eyes flicked to her jugular more than once.

“I don't really see that I have a choice.
It's better than throwing her to you vipers,” calling them wolves
seemed too close to the truth, another self-fulfilling prophecy.
“It’s fine with me if it’s fine with Phoebe, but I want in on this.
I don't want to lose her to the fifth floor.”

“Of course, I was going to suggest that
myself,” Ntelo said, then to the little girl, “What do you think
sweetheart, do you want to help our new friend feel better?”

“Can I?” Phoebe looked from one councilor to
the next. All but Mavis Talik looked down at her with kind eyes and
big smiles.

“Then its settled. I'll set up the
synchronization so you two can figure out how to communicate.”

“Thanks Master Baucis,” Phoebe said
politely.

“You're more than welcome Phoebe. And
remember, Spire City will be counting on you.”

Part II

THE GARDEN

Are you afraid of anything?

She nods.

I am too, lots of things... What are you afraid
of?

She shrugs.

I'm afraid of the Spire breaking and falling and
being eaten by a vultus or a panthera or the Scourge... and The
Wild Man of course.

She looks away.

Are you afraid of this place?

She nods.

Don't be! I'll protect you, and there's nothing up
here like there is down there.

Her eyes fill with tears.

Everything is blue. Only a red stripe breaks
the endless ocean. It goes round and round.
The sun?
He
wonders, his head hurts, he cannot think. He drowns in blue before
he touches water.

With a magnificent splash, the fall ends. The
force knocks the air from his lungs. He is in warm water. It feels
so calm, so peaceful. He peers around the gloomy silent world.
Bubbles everywhere. A grass braid floats near him. It belongs to
someone he knows, someone he loves. His sister!

Kao struggles to right himself. Which way to
the surface? There is warm red light in both directions. The
kingcrow is suspended motionless beneath his feet. It is dead. It
must have landed before Kao. The water killed it, not him. He kicks
off its body, towards air. His lungs burn. The bird sinks deeper.
Through bubbles and feathers, fish nibble at the mangled carcass as
it sinks to glowing red depths. Kao thanks the crow for its death.
Another life the Hidden must pay for.

The count is getting high: his mother, the
chief, beautiful women and brave men, his people, the animals, they
even took the mad old hermit, but most of all, they will hurt for
his sister.

Kao breaches the surface of the river with a
gasp of air. The surface of the river is more like the streams of
his mountainous home, cold and choppy instead of the warm red
embrace of the deep. The rules of this place are different.

The hunter looks back at Father Mountain. A
trail of black feathers hangs in the air from the cliff to the spot
in water they splashed. The light filters through the feathers and
they sparkle every color. A tired rainbow, dark and sagging in the
middle. The sky's passing battle scar.

Kao swims to the far side of the river, away
from the mountain, away from his lands, towards the Hidden and
closer to their doom.

Bruised and battered, he pulls himself from
the water and collapses in the nearest clump of brush. He
sleeps.

When the sun kisses the horizon, he wakes.
Orange and red rays of light filter through the brush and warm his
sore body. He stretches silently and revives his muscles.

Hunter's eyes see far. The Totem dominates
the landscape. Even in the daytime, it crackles with lightning
strikes. Looking at it makes his stomach hurt. Something about its
stark lines and constant storm makes Kao sick. He looks away,
battling nausea. The pain is still there, dull and persistent. The
thought of scaling it is enough to make him dry heave.

But he cannot turn back, only forward, he
must. There are fruits! Trees and bushes, vines and vegetables. But
the likeness ends there. The plants grow in rows straight as the
horizon. They go on and on, rows upon rows, crisscrossed here and
there by straight stone paths. The plants rise from neat little
mounds of earth, each the same size as the last. Lifeless streams
trickle between them; they never want for thirst.

The plants themselves look different than
those of his homeland. Their leaves are dark, nearly black, and
iridescent, like prongelk antlers, kingcrow feathers, or his own
three prongs. The garden glows in shades of crystal in the evening
sun.

He sees nothing poisonous hiding among the
vegetative feast. Instead only fruits as far as he can see. Bright
red round fruits, long yellow ones, big fat striped ones that grow
from crawling vines. There are fruits of every shape and size,
lumpy, smooth, shiny, speckled, long and skinny, short and fat.
Some look like flowers, some like insects. Some of them Kao knows
very well, others are less common, a rare treat. All of them are
tinted like black crystals. Even the soil glows in the sun. The
land here is different. It has made the plants and the animals that
eat them different.

His stomach grumbles, a welcome change from
the knots the Totem twists into it. He grasps for his pouch but it
is lost to the depths of the churning river. He is very hungry. The
plants look alien, but he can smell them in the warm, humid air.
His mouth waters. He looks away in an effort to stifle his hunger
but juicy fruits hang everywhere but the sky itself. His stomach
growls louder. He cannot resist. He reaches a long arm out from the
bushes, snatches one of the red fruits, and vanishes into his
shelter.

He takes a bite. The fruit is sweet and
meaty, rich and tender. There is something strange though. It does
not taste quite like fruit from his home. He holds it in a sunbeam
and examines its red skin. It is dark and iridescent. The prongs in
his arm were nourished by the fruits like it, Kao is sure of it. It
smells fine though, tastes great, if not...alien. He brings it
close to his mouth. This time a blue spark jumps from the fruit to
his largest fang. It does not hurt, far from it. His stomach feels
better. He carefully sinks his teeth into the fruit. He can feel it
crackle with each bite, each little spark calms his stomach. When
the fruit is gone he grabs another, and another. He has not eaten
well for a long time.

Satiated, Kao turns his attention to the
garden. That is what it is, he thinks,
The Hidden
Garden.

He steps from the bushes and stands tall to
better survey the area. His stomach no longer twists so much and he
can see the garden for what it is, spectacular. It stretches
farther than he can see, all the way to the foothills of the
mountains far away. Truly, the Hidden must be many.

A prongbuck walks slowly across the horizon,
too far to smell. Even from this distance, it looks intimidating.
It is at least twice the size of the buck he killed. Its prongs are
very developed. They form a shield around its shoulders and back
and a deadly weapon in front of it. Kao's sharp eyes can make out
the ripple of the huge muscles that support its enormous set of
pronged antlers. He had been lucky to kill the smaller prongelk,
this one was truly invincible.