The Wild Lands: Legend of the Wild Man (26 page)

He knows the fruit is not the same stock as
his home. They are all strange in the same way. He does not want to
trust them, but they fill his belly and he is stronger full than
hungry. He will not starve his body and drain his strength before
he confronts the Hidden in their Totem up above. Its unbelievable
height taunts him. More than anything he wants to scale it and
surprise the Hidden within, but he must wait for his full
strength.

He planned to come to them nearer the full
moon, when his strength was greatest, but instead he is deep in
their home at the moon's weakest time. Perhaps even a cycle ago, he
would have plunged ahead, and challenged the Totem, but either the
hermit's memory or his foul potion urges the hunter to learn as
much as he can before his battle.

Already he has learned much.

The Garden was not always a Garden. Here and
there, great slabs of stone rest, their surfaces as placid as
tranquil ponds. They are flat and smooth, made of a stone that Kao
has never seen. It looks as if it was poured and then made to
harden. Now and then one is broken by a tree's root, or covered by
vines, but they are very strong and resilient.

Stranger than the stones is what was once on
top of them. Hardly any of it remains, but something was here,
something
made
. It was not wood, but seemed to be made of
the same stuff that the prongs in his arm are made of, the same
material in the plants, the kingcrows and the prongelk. It mostly
comes in grays and silvers, like the veins of Father Mountain,
though sometimes its a brilliant white, like the tower.

But mostly all that is hidden. It is covered
in thick black moss that he can almost see grow before his eyes. It
sparkles like prongs. Never has Kao seen something like it in the
jungle, but here, it is life. The Garden must have been a grand
place before the moss, for the entire place seemed to be made of
the silver and white materials. Time and time again he finds piles
of the hungry black moss, rakes it aside to see beautifully
straight and sparkling sticks, like bones hidden inside some
insidious black beast. But the black moss always begins to grow. It
likes the white materials especially, the stuff unlike anything Kao
had seen in Father Mountain. The Black Moss is always hungry,
always growing, and the entire garden is filled with it.

There are other things too. Old things. Some
are made of rotted wood, some made of the veins of ore that run
through the mountains. The hermit preached that long ago people
knew how to work those ores into great things. Metals, he called
them. He told the truth. The Black Moss eats metal too, but its
favorite is the white stuff. The hermit never spoke of it, but Kao
is certain it is the secret of the Totem, the elk's prongs, and the
connection between them.

Five summers ago or five hundred, the entire
caldera must have been filled with things,
made
things. It
could have been a forest of them, but the Black Moss devoured them
all and turned them into itself. Desperate for knowledge, Kao
probes the moss with prong blade. The moss ignores it. He drops the
moss to the ground and it does nothing but rot. The soil is made of
the dead moss and little more. And the plants eat the soil and the
animals eat the plants. The prongs in Kao's arm were once the black
moss, which meant they had once belonged to this place. He was
growing more like the Hidden, and had no choice in the matter. It
was that, starvation, or cowardice.

The black moss does not touch the white
Totem. Those high up above survive what nothing else can. Kao can
almost taste their secret, it is so thick in the air, but it is
ethereal. He cannot grasp it.

Only a few other structures survive the Black
Moss. One is the big bowl, the arena. Another looks to be nothing
more than one of the enormous stone slabs, elevated high into the
air on stone legs thick as trees. But on the South side of the
Totem an enormous thing has been made. It has great stone trunks
that support a massive, intricately carved, round dome. There is
even a stone person, perched atop the enormous dome. Kao hungers
for the answers of the place. He can easily see the thing in the
dark. It almost glows. He lopes towards it but stops.

Something buzzes in the air. Bees!

Hungry for something besides fruit, Kao
follows the sound and comes across what looks like an old dead tree
trunk. As he approaches he realizes that its another of the moss
covered structures, though this one is larger and more intact than
most. It still looms above him, taller than most of the fruit trees
in the garden. Its base is thick, he cannot reach his arms around
it. The hive is inside it, like they'd be in a tree trunk in his
own jungle.

Kao sneaks up on the hive. Bees sleep at
night, if he's quick, he can steal honey as well as a comb of
grubs. Nothing is more delicious than the plump little larva coated
in the sweet sticky honey that feeds them. But the trunk is very
loud. Maybe here in the Garden, bees live by different rules.

Something loud flies past his head. He missed
it in the dark, but it sounded enormous, big as a bird. He freezes
and waits but nothing more passes him in the still night air. A few
more cautious steps. The sound is loud now, louder than any hive he
as ever seen, and at night! He scans the surface of the trunk and
sees his quarry, a wide hole where the bees come and go.

In a flash, he stabs his blade into the hole,
deftly slices around what feels like a honeycomb and pulls. It does
not budge. He feels the bees start to move against his arm, but no
stings yet. He grabs around blindly but something is holding the
honeycomb in place.

Pain shoots through his hand and he jerks it
out of the hole. There are two neat little puncture wounds on
either side of his finger, but no stinger. More confusing was the
bite felt like the shocks that accompany every bite of food, but
stronger, painful. Never in his life has he experienced something
like that sensation, yet in the Garden it is as common as
sunshine.

Once more he reaches his hand in. This time
he immediately feels the bees swarm all over him. They easily part
his thick fur and shock him a dozen times in an instant. Expecting
this, Kao yanks his arm out, this time the bees stay with him.

Only they're not bees. They're beetles.

A dozen beetles, each as big as a rat, crawl
over his arm, under his leather, separate his hair, and chomp down
on his flesh. Each bite discharges an arc of blue lightning from
the beetle's enormous jaws. He swats at the beetles with his free
hand, but they simply latch on to the new attacker. He snatches one
and squeezes it between his fingers, but its body does not break.
Instead the beetle jolts him with more lightning. He shakes and
they release. They are stronger than any in the jungle!

They scurry back into their home. His
mammalian prejudice kicks in and Kao snaps a blade from his
antlered helmet and hurls it at one of the beetles crawling on the
nest. The blade pins it neatly to the trunk. It struggles for a
moment, then sparks and it ceases to move. Kao smiles smugly to
himself. They are not that tough. Like anything, they can be
destroyed by a well aimed blade.

Like a bear, the stings make Kao more
determined, so he steps back, then runs forward and rams the tree
with the three prongs jutting from his arm. The stump, already
weakened by age and the black moss cracks easily. Thick gooey honey
oozes out. Kao rushes towards the sticky treat, but instantly
doubles back. Hundreds of the beetles swarm out at him. Each beetle
is as big as a sparrow, and packs shocking mandibles instead of a
suicidal sting. They are merciless.

The beetles surround him, each biting
multiple times. He can swat them off easily enough, but can't kill
any of them. He reaches up to crack prongs off the elk's skull but
the beetles shock his fingers. He cannot forge weapons.

Desperate, he grabs the beetles out of the
air, but their shells are too tough, he can't crack them. Kao
stumbles and falls. The beetles are already waiting for him on the
ground. His weight crushes a few but the rest sink their pinchers
in. The elk leather is no obstacle. He paws at them, desperate to
rid himself of the pain that surges through him, but it is no use.
There are too many. They overwhelm his senses. Every part of his
body screams in pain. In no time he is a ball on the ground. The
beetles will devour him alive. His muscles contract each time he's
stung. His body is not his to control.
Is this how lion and
prongelk feel with the Hidden in their minds?

He tries to pull himself away from the hive
but only his left arm responds, the one with the prongs. He pulls
it in front of his face and sees the three prongs glow blue. A
beetle crawls up one of the deadly blades and he rolls over and
stabs it. Arcs of lightning shoot from its body to his, but this
time they don't hurt. Instead he feels the opposite. His muscles
relax. He may live yet.

Kao heaves himself forward and gores three
more of the bugs with the prongs. Their lightning drains into him
and he can move his legs again. They are still stiff and painful,
but they are his. He staggers to his feet and grabs more beetles
out of the air. Soon he's a whirlwind. He grabs beetles in both
hands, then stabs them onto the prongs. Each jolt and his strength
grows. He can feel their life force and their killing power inside
of him.

In moments the swarm is on the defensive.
Instead of spreading out and around him it bunches together,
sparking arcs of lightning dance from one beetle the next. Kao
stomps into the cursed swarm. They quiver in an electric mass. The
prongs on his arm are full, so he grabs beetles by the fistful and
mounts each of them on one of the dozens of points jutting from his
bone helmet. Their black slimy blood drips down and congeals in his
thick fur as lightning crackles between the dead prongelk's horns,
a thunderstorm upon his head that rains black blood upon him.

Kao cracks a prong of his helmet and flings
it at the quivering swarm. The blade flies through the air with a
small clap of thunder, then collides and ignites the swarm in a
sphere of radiant blue energy.

He turns his attention back to the hive. He
rips the trunk apart easily, he is stronger now, strong as any full
moon has ever made him. The hunter is not surprised their hive is
made of the metals and white crystals that make everything in this
place. There are hundreds more of the beetles inside, though few of
these have the mandibles the warriors had. Even in the dark he can
tell that they sparkle like the prongs, like the moss, like
everything here. He leaves them alone. Knowledge is sweet, but the
animal in him knows honey is sweeter. The comb that resisted him
before snaps off easily under his energized muscles.

He has what he wanted.

Off Kao goes, lumbering like a bear, towards
the stone dome with a honeycomb in his hands. He tries it but can
taste little besides an electric tang in his mouth.

He plops down under a tree. The lightning in
the dead prongelk's bones discharges through his body. His stomach
twists in protest for a moment, then settles. The prongs in his arm
stop their sparking. His fur lays down. He had not even noticed it
was standing up.

He tries the honey again. It tastes better,
sweeter. The tang is gone. It is not as good as the honey from his
home. The comb is black, like everything else in this place, and
flecks of it are in the honey. But each hexagonal chamber is as big
as a bird's egg, and Kao is happy to find a handful of grubs still
maturing inside.

Everything is so big. The birds, the elk, the
monkeys, even the bugs. Each grub is a substantial morsel, and
their honeycomb nursery will keep them fresh for days. He happily
pops one into his mouth. The larva sparks and crackles on his
tongue as it forfeits its energy to the victor.

No more secrets. She snarls again.

I know I should have told you right away, but I
didn't even know that you'd understand! And then we started
talking... and you're so nice... I've never had a sister...

That softens the girl but she does not let it
show.

They caught one of your family... Baucis showed him
to the whole Spire but something went wrong, all the howluchins
went crazy.

Where is he?

I don't know, but I know who can find him.

She closes her eyes and they flick back and forth
under closed lids. A shrill pitch whines in her ears then her
vision blossoms with symbols and her ears fill with voices. There
are dozens of them, competing to be heard. She notices that
whenever a new voice speaks, one of the symbols in front of her
eyes blinks a different color. She reaches out to touch them but
grasps empty air. They're inside her head then, like the girl's
voice.

No more secrets.

When the girl speaks a symbol lights up.
Phoebe
.

Time loses all meaning for the hermit. He
should not have excited the monkeys. One of the Hidden, the true
Hidden, figured him out. The hermit thinks it was probably the
clever little man with his hairless veined head. After interrupting
the ritual, he has been confined to a small room, this one with
five solid walls, and only a single infuriatingly invisible one.
The hermit beats and pounds on it for as long he can, but it does
not move.

He sleeps and wakes, not from exhaustion but
boredom. He cannot see the moon or the sun, so time slips to
nothing. The room is always lit with the same harsh light.

He awakens and the little veined man is
standing at the entrance with a tray of food. They study each other
in silence. Then the little man puts the tray of food down and
slides the tray through the invisible wall. The hermit lunges
forward and the little man draws back. The hermit's arms reach
through the invisible door but his neck clangs against the wall and
sends jolts of pain through his body. He claws at his neck and
feels a searing hot ring hug him tightly. He pulls at it and it
shocks him again. He smells his own burnt hair fill the room. When
was the ring put there? Did he have it during the ritual? The
little man hides a smile. The hermit hurls the fruits at him, and
he retreats out of sight. The hermit is not the little man's
pet.