The Lost Island (23 page)

T
HE JUNGLE WAS
alive with life: a green, steaming, roaring hothouse full of insects, lizards, and invisible animals all contributing their chirps, croaks, tweets, rasps, and drumming to the general din. Gideon had been following the Cyclops through the jungle for several hours now. The morning after they’d exchanged names, the Cyclops had left the cave—after a halting “conversation” with Amiko—with an ambiguous gesture to Gideon that seemed to be an invitation to follow. The creature was apparently involved in a search of some kind, and Gideon hoped beyond all hope it was a hunt for the elusive lotus. But so far the Cyclops, despite a most diligent search, had found nothing.

Once again, Gideon was powerfully impressed with just how beautiful and unique the island was. The sheer variety of life on the island-top was staggering—the massive clusters of blooming flowers, orchids cascading down like brilliant waterfalls, the giant ferns, the ancient tree trunks covered with moss, the hanging vines and mysterious, shadowy understory. And everywhere he looked came the sounds of life and the rustle and flash of hidden creatures, along with an incredible variety of butterflies and brightly colored lizards.

It was also hazardous. The top of the island, which appeared flat from afar, was in reality a collapsed volcanic cone, the ground riddled with pits, sinkholes, and extinct fumaroles carpeted over with vegetation so thick it obscured the openings and fissures, turning every step into a potential trap. While Gideon was no botanist, he was amazed by the bizarre and exotic plants he saw: giant pitcher plants full of water; an orchid with enormous purple blossoms that smelled like rotting meat; vines that formed impassable nets; gigantic tree roots that looked like melting cheese.

But nothing that could be the lotus.

Gideon followed the Cyclops along ever-smaller trails through the forest. It was hard to believe such an ungainly creature could move so gracefully, with such silence and stillness. It made its way along almost invisible trails without rustling so much as a leaf. Gideon, half its size, blundered along, pushing through branches, tripping on roots, and generally struggling to keep up.

The previous evening—the episode with the lighter, the introduction of the name Polyphemus—had changed everything. While the creature hadn’t exactly become friendly, it finally offered them their freedom, rolling away the stone and indicating with gestures that they were free to go. Or stay, as they wished. They had decided to stay for another night, and then move camp the following morning.

After supper, Amiko had tried to learn more from the Cyclops about the history of his people on the island. It was long and frustrating, with many misunderstandings and false starts, and it indicated to Gideon that, despite their common hominid ancestry, there was still a great gulf between them in terms of comprehension and intelligence. Amiko had gleaned—or thought she had gleaned—that Polyphemus was an ancestor who seemed to be revered, about whom there seemed to be numerous stories. The Cyclops did not himself have a name, it seemed, or at least not one he chose to reveal. He was very old, but just how old was hard to determine. With many gestures indicating the passage of days and seasons, Amiko had estimated his age at centuries at least. While Gideon found that hard to swallow, the creature certainly looked ancient, scarred, and—above all—weary. He had the air of having seen and suffered much. Amiko had not been able to find out any information about other Cyclopes on the island. On that subject, he seemed sadly silent.

It was getting close to noon, with the jungle turning into a steaming green oven, but the Cyclops had still found nothing. The speed with which the beast moved through the forest, combined with the heat, was gradually wearing out Gideon, who was still weak from his injuries.

All of a sudden the creature halted. Dropping to its knees, it began sniffing around with its big, flat nose in a most comical manner, gently probing the ground with the tip of its spear as if to release some kind of scent. Slowly, the Cyclops moved off the trail into the incredibly dense understory, and Gideon followed gingerly, also on his hands and knees, as it was the only possible way to proceed. But the Cyclops moved faster than he could, disappearing into the thicket, and Gideon in a panic hurried to follow.

“Wait!” he called, knowing well that the Cyclops not only didn’t understand him, but couldn’t care less. He tried to stand, got tangled in the understory, dropped to his knees again, and pushed forward, listening for the creature’s movements. As he moved along, a shower of ants fell on him from the leaves above, disturbed by his passage, and he felt them crawling down his shirt and into his hair, biting him and releasing a smell of formic acid.

“Son of a
bitch
!” He crawled forward, slapping and cursing. Just as he was thinking he had lost the Cyclops, he broke through a wall of vegetation to find the creature in a small opening, on his hands and knees, digging furiously with the wooden end of his spear.

A few moments later a black, root-like thing was exposed. With a start, Gideon realized it wasn’t actually a root at all—it remained unattached to any sort of plant—but an underground fungus of some kind, perhaps something not unlike a truffle. It even released a powerful, truffle-like scent: a combination of dirty socks, earth, and a cinnamon-like spice.

It was the smell of the lotus.

With a reverence and care that astonished Gideon, the Cyclops carefully brushed away the dirt and lifted the fungus out of the hole. He removed a piece of leather from his sack and spread it on the ground, laid the lotus on top, and proceeded to clean it more thoroughly with twigs and leaves. Then he carefully wrapped it in the leather and tucked it in his bag.

He turned his face to Gideon and stared, then made a gesture with his hand that Gideon didn’t understand.

“Good work,” said Gideon, giving him a thumbs-up and a smile. As usual, the creature didn’t seem to understand him, either. But then, it seemed to Gideon the creature gave a fleeting grimace—was it a smile?—and tied the sack back around his waist. The creature turned away and proceeded back through the forest, Gideon struggling once again to keep up. Soon they were back on the trail and, in twenty minutes, had returned to the cave, by byways so obscure, with twistings and turnings so confusing, that Gideon could never have retraced it.

Amiko was there, tending the fire. The Cyclops sat down at the fire, removed the sack, and opened it.

Gideon caught Amiko’s eye.

“A lotus?” she asked, her voice hushed.

Gideon nodded. “He dug it up. It’s not a plant—there’s no aboveground growth. I think it’s some kind of fungus.”

“This is incredible,” she said in a low voice. “All we need is to get it.”

They watched as the Cyclops carefully unwrapped the root-like thing, the smell of it drifting through the room. With a glittering obsidian blade, the Cyclops carefully began slicing the lotus into long slivers, releasing more of its powerful scent.

“What is he doing?” Amiko asked.

“No idea.”

“I hope he isn’t going to eat it.”

But that was exactly what the Cyclops started to do, first toasting the slivers on a hot, flat rock by the fire and then eating them with his fingers while they watched. His actions had a reverential air to them, and for a while he made a strange humming noise that might have been some sort of chant or prayer. When all was gone, he retired to his sleeping area—a patch of soft sand in one corner—and curled up.

Amiko darted out and swept up the remaining peelings and strings, wrapping them in a piece of plastic and packing them in a container in her drysack.

She came back and sat next to Gideon, speaking in a low voice. “You realize this is it.” Her eyes glowed. “We’ve found the last piece of the puzzle. And just consider what we’ve found! An extraordinary healing plant.
And
a living Cyclops—with ties to the historical Odysseus. This is going to change the world. And
we
did it.”

Gideon said nothing. For a while, certain thoughts had been growing in his mind. They were not good thoughts.

“What’s wrong?” said Amiko.

He shook his head. “We haven’t thought this through.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you think is going to happen to the Cyclops when we report back to civilization?”

Amiko stared at him. “Well, it’s an incredible discovery: an ancient hominid-like creature, perhaps a cousin to the Neanderthal, an honest-to-God living Cyclops.”

“
Living
is the operative word. You didn’t answer my question: what’s going to happen to
him
?”

“I…I’d imagine some kind of wildlife sanctuary would be established here, you know, with visitors carefully controlled.”

Gideon shook his head. “With a powerful, lifesaving, miraculous, trillion-dollar drug hidden on this island?”

“The lotus would be cultivated elsewhere.”

“First, it’s an underground fungus, like a truffle. Despite the fact that truffles cost thousands of dollars, no one’s ever been able to cultivate one. Second, it took the Cyclops six hours of searching to find that one lotus, using all his knowledge and powerful sense of smell.
Six hours
. There can’t be many left. And now we know he
eats
the root. He’s one of the Lotus Eaters himself! Maybe that’s why he’s so incredibly old. He’s dependent on it. His whole existence, his very life, depends on this island remaining exactly as it is. But will it? Once this knowledge gets out? I hardly think so.”

Amiko fell silent, and finally said: “I hadn’t considered all that.”

“Lastly, this island would appear to be Nicaraguan national territory. So as soon as we report this, it’s out of our hands. The Nicaraguans will be in control. God only knows what they’ll do.”

Amiko glanced over at the sleeping creature. Gideon followed her gaze. It lay on the sand, curled up, its hairy sides rising and falling in rhythm to its breathing, its big horny toes with their broken nails twitching, looking for all the world like a dog having a dream. His single eye was covered by a large wrinkled lid. There was a certain strange “otherness,” for want of a better word, about the Cyclops. He seemed to show kindness, in his way—but at the same time he could be violent and unreadable. He was sort of human—sort of an animal.

“I’m growing fond of the old brute,” Amiko said.

“And I think he might be, ah, developing feelings for you.”

“Don’t even joke about that.”

“I’m not joking. He won’t give me the time of day. He only took me lotus hunting because you pretty much harangued him into doing it. You’re the only one he responds to. And I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

“I don’t believe it. This isn’t
King Kong
.”

Gideon took her hand. “Anyway, we’ve got a much bigger problem. We can’t just walk out of here and tell people what we’ve found. Because if we do, all hell will break loose—and then that Cyclops is lost. Look at him. He may look fearsome, he may look strong—but, in reality, he’s totally vulnerable.”

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING,
the Cyclops went out at dawn and returned with a baby armadillo. He roasted it upside down over the fire and then, with his flint knife, carved out the meat as expertly as a surgeon and silently shared the pieces. Gideon noticed that he saved the biggest, juiciest piece for Amiko.

Gideon watched him eat. He wasn’t exactly fastidious, shoving the dripping pieces of meat into his mouth with greasy fingers, chewing noisily with his huge rack of yellow teeth, stripping the bones with much grunting and sucking and then spitting them out. But there was something, Gideon thought, about the sharing out of food that was uniquely human. This strange, ugly creature was, on a certain level, human like him—not just an intelligent ape. He felt a responsibility for him, a sense even of affection. This creature had no idea what kind of world was out there, or what would happen to him if that world ever learned of his existence—but he had known enough to be agitated and fearful of their arrival.

Amiko, too, was silent and troubled. They consumed the armadillo without conversation. When it was over, the creature rose and, with a rumbling sound, gestured brusquely for them to come with him. This time the gesture was not ambiguous.

They followed him out of the cave and into the early-morning light. He proceeded down one of the main trails on the island, again moving with amazing silence and speed. Gideon kept up more easily now—the ribs were almost completely mended, thanks to the marvelous healing powers of the lotus. The trail branched several times and then, abruptly, they found themselves on the edge of the cliffs, staring out to sea. The morning sun was still low in the sky, laying a dazzling path of light across the water. The Cyclops barely paused before disappearing over the edge.

Gideon peered over and saw that there was, in fact, an almost invisible trail of sorts plunging down through a fissure in the rock. The Cyclops was moving swiftly and surely down the trail, so steep it was almost a staircase of lava. Gideon scrambled to follow, with Amiko behind. He descended quickly, trying to ignore the dizzying heights.

The faint trail wound down among pillars of lava, caves, overhangs, and steep rockfalls. It appeared to be a very old path, much worn with use, the edges of lava rock polished smooth by the passage of many feet. After they had descended perhaps two hundred nearly vertical feet, the trail made a hairpin turn, followed a tight horizontal ravine, and then entered an unobtrusive opening in the rock.

Very quickly the passageway opened into a large tunnel, evidently an old lava tube, heading into the heart of the island. The floor was of solid rock, the central portion worn and gleaming, again as if polished by the passage of countless feet. Gideon glanced at Amiko but said nothing.

As the light from the entrance became dim, the passageway opened up into a large, domed cavern, with a roof a hundred feet above their heads. The Cyclops halted. At the far end of the cavern stood a crude stone door, made from lava rocks fitted and stacked, with a shaped block forming the lintel. A mysterious, pale light spilled from beyond the door. Now the Cyclops shuffled forward on his large feet, moving slowly and with what felt to Gideon like a certain hesitation—or perhaps reverence—toward the entrance.

They stepped through the door, entering a cavern even bigger than the last. Gideon stopped in astonishment. Behind him, he heard Amiko gasp out loud. The walls of the cavern were encrusted with crystals—clusters and sprays of milky white, some four to five feet long. A spear of sunlight streamed in from a distant hole in the ceiling above them, striking a crystal array on one wall, which refracted it, spreading a soft, ethereal light throughout the cavern. The floor was covered with pure white sand. On the far wall, the lava had been polished smooth and was decorated with many designs, like petroglyphs—animals, spirals, suns, moons, and geometric people.

Gideon glanced at Amiko and saw the astonishment in his eyes reflected in her own. Neither spoke; the cathedral-like atmosphere and the hushed movements of the Cyclops seemed to call for silence.

The Cyclops continued walking through the cavern, past the crystals, toward the wall of petroglyphs. There were other drawings here, and with a start Gideon recognized a picture of a ship with a sail and what looked like rows of oarsmen.

“That,” whispered Amiko, “is a Greek pentekonter. The ship of Odysseus.”

With a grunt of annoyance the Cyclops hurried them along toward where the cavern closed in to a narrow yet tall passageway. As they left the brightness of the crystal cavern behind, the full dimension of what they were seeing in the dimness beyond slowly began to take shape. The high walls were honeycombed with niches, shelves, and small openings. From every dark nook came the faint gleam of white—the white of bones. It was a catacomb, Gideon realized: a vast necropolis carved into the lava, on which rested massive skeletons—skeletons of Cyclopes. From where they were standing, they could see dozens, if not hundreds, in the walls all around them and in the corridor ahead, stretching into full darkness.

The Cyclops moved forward, much more cautiously. As they penetrated deeper into the catacombs, darkness closed in, but the Cyclops kept on. At one point Amiko stumbled in the dark and the Cyclops, with a soft noise, took her hand and led her along. Gideon realized the large, single eye was indeed some sort of adaptation to darkness, as the creature could evidently see far better in the darkness than they could. They followed the sounds of his movement.

Then he stopped. Gideon could hear him breathing. And suddenly there was a
click
and the Cyclops stood there, lighter flicked on. The wavering flame cast a dim yellow glow all about. Now they were literally surrounded with shelves and holes full of bones, a vast city of the dead, but the Cyclops was standing in front of one niche in particular. This one was different from the rest. It was larger, the opening framed with carefully shaped blocks of stone. Inside were laid large crystals, apparently offerings to the remains within. As Gideon peered in, he saw that behind the crystals were laid out various grave goods—flint knives, spears, and a much-corroded bronze helmet.

An ancient Greek helmet.

The Cyclops spoke. His voice was rough, guttural, but nevertheless reverential, and it boomed through the dark spaces of the cave. Gideon jumped.

The Cyclops spoke again, repeating the word.

Gideon recognized the word from before:
Polyphemus
. Could this be his tomb?

The Cyclops reached into the tomb and grasped the slab lid of an ancient, stone container sitting near the skeleton. He slid the lid off and reached in, removed a handful of dried lotus, and showed it to Gideon, who stared down at the wrinkled store of brown fungi. Once again, he had the impression that the lotus was more rare and precious than gold.

Then the tall form slid the lid back on, and turned away. They silently followed him out of the catacombs of the Cyclopes.