The Promised One (17 page)

She looked back to the forest. The nearest trees were
too far away to use to bridge the gap – even if the animals could gnaw one to the ground. She felt her mouth beginning to dry with fear but then, to her immense relief, Queenie spoke.

‘Nothing, O Promised One, shall put your life at risk while you are in my care. Rest here awhile and all shall be well.’
And with that she disappeared with some of her troop back into the forest while the remainder foraged for a while and brought her food. The panther sprang gracefully back and looked back into the jungle as if uncertain as to what the monkeys were up to.

Within an hour the troop reappeared and sat looking expectantly towards the undergrowth. Lucy noticed that they all stayed close to her, even though she was alongside the panther, and wondered what on earth was about to appear from the forest. Soon a large, black,
diamond-shaped
head appeared through the ferns to be followed by a seemingly endless body that eventually slid clear of the bushes and moved effortlessly towards Lucy, its
greenish-brown
skin shining with large black spots in the brilliant sunshine. Lucy knew that the great stranglekin must be an anaconda, for she had read about these creatures in her book about jaguars and other denizens of the Amazon. The
giant water boa grew to a greater size than any other snake on earth and the creature now gliding towards her must have been one of the largest of its kind. It was over ten metres long and its girth at its maximum thickness was almost a metre – the size of a good-sized barrel. This was an animal that could swallow whole a calf or a cayman. As Lucy gazed in awe at the monster, a second, almost as large, emerged from the bushes and slid alongside its companion. The larger of the two spoke to Lucy. The anaconda’s voice was not quite like any animal voice that Lucy had heard before. It was clearly reptilian and in that respect reminded her of the alligators, but it was in some subtle way more refined and its long, drawling delivery somehow reflected the immense, sinuous length of the creature itself.

‘Welcome, O Promised One. We are honoured to help you bridge a gap.’
The snake glided effortlessly over the chasm to the other side, then turned and came back until the thickest part of its body lay across the gap. The second snake moved in beside the first, head to tail, so that their bodies lay together like two giant cables; it would have been impossible to slide a piece of paper between them, so snugly did they fit together. The queen monkey leapt on to one of the snakes and a second monkey on to the other.
The queen turned to Lucy:

‘Walk behind us and hold our tails, Promised One. All will be well.’
Lucy climbed on to the living bridge. The skin of the snakes was smoother than she had expected, and dry; not in the slightest bit slippery. She could feel the immense muscular power holding the two bodies together and knew that there was no chance whatsoever that she could fall between them into that dreadful abyss. She was over the bridge in a few seconds, the marmoset as always on her shoulder, followed shortly by the coati who scampered across in an instant. One or two of the bolder monkeys also used the snake bridge but most simply leapt over the gap, preferring to stay as far as possible from the great serpents which could swallow them whole for breakfast. Soon the party was back in thick forest once again with Lucy on the back of yet another tapir. She was growing to love these gentle animals and their hoofed feet seemed magically to find the easiest and safest way through the tangled undergrowth.

In the late afternoon there was great excitement as the vanguard of monkeys who had been constantly scouting ahead under the guidance of the harpy eagle returned to report that they had reached the Valley of the Mighty Ones. Lucy was agog to know what the Mighty Ones could be. She knew that the great mammals of Africa were not to be found in the Amazon, and what on earth could be mightier than the tapirs, jaguars, caymans and anacondas she had already seen?

After dismounting she followed the queen monkey who
suddenly stopped and prevented Lucy moving forward. Peeping over the animal’s shoulder she realized the reason why. They were standing on the edge of an immense cliff and she could see across a vast valley to a sharp, high ridge on the other side. The monkey prevented her from looking at what lay below as the edge was crumbly and Lucy saw that some loose stones dislodged by the queen’s paws disappeared soundlessly over the edge. The monkey turned and spoke.

‘There is a great precipice, O Promised One. My kin have gone in both directions to find a path down. The Brilliant One now sinks below the earth so we should stay here for the sunsleep and enter the valley tomorrow.’

Lucy lay in the nest of leaves the monkeys prepared for her as usual, and fell asleep almost immediately, worn out by the long and eventful journey.

I
n the morning Lucy woke in her nest, high above the valley, to find that both the scouting parties of monkeys had returned. They chattered to the queen who turned to Lucy.

‘There is no passage down, O Promised One, but there is a place where the precipice is not so high. That is where we shall go.’

Lucy remounted her trusty tapir and they trekked westwards with the morning sun behind them for twenty minutes. Then they went downhill a little way and came to a rocky outcrop clear of trees. The monkey led Lucy near to the rim of the crater and she gazed in wonder at the spectacle before her.

‘The arboribane says the thunderquill is here in the Valley of the Mighty Ones,’
she told Lucy.
‘It is as well, for the Valley of the Ancients lies far yonder, beyond those hills –’
she pointed to the horizon,
‘– and it would have taken us many more sunsleeps to reach it.’
She stopped and suddenly pointed down into the valley.
‘Here are the Mighty Ones below us.’
She pointed to the crater valley and Lucy gasped. In the distance on the plain below she could see the black shape of a creature as big as the tree it was stripping. It was so far away that it was
difficult to estimate its true size, but from where Lucy stood she guessed it must be as big as an elephant.

‘What is it?’
she said, realising the instant she had asked the question that there was no logical answer, for it was a creature she did not know and the monkey would only have her own name for it.

‘It is one of the Mighty Ones,’
said the queen simply.
‘Its kin are to be found nowhere except in this place and none of my kin nor any of the forest creatures knows of a time when they did not exist here.’
She paused and turned to Lucy.
‘But now we need your help, O Promised One. Nothing except a crawlipod or a fledgiquill can descend to the valley floor and that is where the three Tailless Ones are living. Even the mighty wings of the soariquills have not the strength to bear you down. We know that the Tailless Ones can think of things that we cannot and we hope you can find a way down.’
Lucy peeped down from the rocks. The place the monkeys had found was indeed the lowest point on the rim of the visible crater, but it was still a sheer drop of thirty metres – about a hundred feet – to the plain below.

Lucy sat down and thought hard. What they needed was rope and the nearest rope was hundreds of miles away – but was it? In a flash she thought of the thousands of lianas they had pushed their way through and swung on during their journey. They hung like cables from the tallest trees and looked immensely strong.

‘I have an idea,’
she said to the queen,
‘but it will take much work by your kin and others.’

‘Your wish is our command!’
was the immediate reply.

Soon sharp teeth were gnawing through six of the longest and strongest lianas that Lucy could find in the adjacent forest. A party of monkeys was gathering straight sticks and saplings and another group was finding supple reeds, strong grasses and the petioles of palms to act as ties.

Lucy tied a harness around the tapir so it could drag the severed lianas from the forest to the rocky plateau above the crater rim. Under Lucy’s instruction the first two lianas were laid side by side like a miniature railway line separated by the width of a ladder rung. Another two were laid at the ends of the first with sufficient overlap to be tied securely, and the final two were added in the same way, bringing the total length to almost three liana lengths. The sticks and saplings were broken or bitten into ladder rungs and Lucy then showed the monkeys how to tie them to the lianas. She checked every knot herself and by mid-afternoon they had constructed an immense flexible rope ladder. Two more lianas were obtained and the ends of these were tied securely with loops around the base of the nearest trees. The other ends were tied to the top of the rope ladder which the tapir then pulled to the edge of the cliff as Lucy and the monkeys fed the bottom end steadily over. When the entire ladder had been lowered the monkeys surged forward and swarmed down – they reached the crater floor in less than a minute – the first of their kind to have entered the crater alive since time immemorial.

Just as Lucy was plucking up the courage to start her own descent a dark shape appeared from above the trees
and swooped down to the rocks. It was the harpy eagle. Lucy saw a little piece of bloodstained monkey fur stuck to one of his talons and felt slightly sick. She knew that life in the jungle consisted of a constant cycle of ‘eat and be eaten’, but it was upsetting to think that this beautiful eagle had just devoured a cousin of one of her new friends.

‘The great soariquills have just departed,’
said the harpy in his fearful grating voice.
‘They said that the Mighty Ones have destroyed the thunderquill in the crater, but that the Tailless Ones are safe; they sit near a fire which the arborikin will find. The air moves in curious ways near this crater, not as it does in the forest. It is best if I remain up here lest I injure my wing against the rocks.’

‘I understand,’
said Lucy; she could feel the unusual turbulence tugging at her clothes and hair.
‘You have brought us safely to this place and I would not have you hurt. I have, however, one more favour to ask of you before we depart.’

‘Ask, O Promised One!’

‘Can I speak to the great soariquills?’
asked Lucy.

‘I fear not,’
replied the eagle,
‘for they now already fly high, near the Brilliant One where I cannot reach them.’

Lucy looked up, her hand above her eyes: there were the tiny circling dots. She had never tried to project her voice thoughts such a distance but there was no physical obstruction and she thought it worth a try. She watched the condors and concentrated intensely on projecting her thought beam directly at them.

‘Can you hear me, O masters of the sky? Please come to me if you can.’
She listened intently but there was no reply.
Disappointed, she tried once more and then turned her attention to the task of her descent into the valley. Suddenly the queen monkey tugged at her shorts.

‘Look. They come!’
she said. Lucy looked and sure enough the birds seemed nearer. As she watched they grew larger and within a few minutes two of the great condors were gliding on to her rock. Their wingspan was almost three metres – exceeding that of any bird but the albatross – and looking at their great bodies Lucy wondered how anything of such bulk could fly with such consummate grace high above the earth. Their plumage was black with a ruff of white at the base of their long naked necks. Their heads and necks were blood red.

‘You called us, O Promised One, and we are here,’
said the larger of the two. Lucy glanced at its great hooked beak and gave a mental shudder; but she pulled herself together – without the help of these creatures and their incredible eyesight she would never have found the people below, one of whom she was certain was her father.

‘I am deeply in your debt,’
said Lucy.
‘I know you flew many leagues from the mountains in the west to assist me and I wanted to thank you. You must now return to your kin.’

‘We have found rising air here such as we feel in our own mountains,’
said the condor,
‘but we knew not of the existence of the place until we came to you. Our kin may return, for we see food below such as we have never seen before. Fare thee well.’
The birds then ran towards the cliff, their wings making a swishing noise like satin curtains, and launched themselves into space. Once in the air they became transformed from
clumsy land creatures into masters of flight, and as they picked up a rising thermal from the valley they began to rise in ever-widening circles. Lucy watched, fascinated, until once again they were but specks in the sky and then she lost them as they flew west into the rays of the afternoon sun.

The panther spoke. She had been lying quietly in the shade at the edge of the forest, unable to help in the construction of the rope ladder.

‘It is time for you to go, O Promised One, for the Brilliant One already begins to fall to his sleep; the raspihops are falling silent and the croakihops begin their songs of the night. I cannot come, but I will be here with Katy Coati to protect you and greet you once again when you return with the Paterpromise.’
Lucy thanked her for all she had done and then turned her attention to the challenge that now awaited her.

She was not particularly afraid of heights but the prospect of descending that terrible precipice on the makeshift ladder was a daunting one. She had constructed a strong reed harness to go round her chest, like a baby’s seat harness but with a loop sticking up above each of her shoulders. She indicated to the queen that two monkeys might follow her down, holding on to these loops in case she lost her foothold.

Lucy then stepped to the edge. The monkeys had been playing incessantly on the ladder while she had been speaking to the condors, running up and down, sometimes running down headfirst, even jumping over one another and catching the ladder further down. Lucy
envied their fearless agility. She turned so that she faced the ladder and the cliff to go down and as she moved down she felt a soft scratching as the tails of the spider monkeys above her came down past her ears and wound around her shoulder loops. Greatly reassured by this additional support she climbed steadily down the ladder, the monkeys babbling excitedly above and below.

About halfway down her arms and shoulder began to ache and she realized she was gripping too fiercely with her hands instead of letting her feet take all her weight. She gradually relaxed and moved more easily and efficiently, and only once did she partly lose her footing. As she did so she felt the tail of the spider monkey on that side instantly tense and steady her and she soon resumed her steady progress.

When she had started her descent Michelle, her little marmoset, had jumped off her shoulder and scampered down the ladder ahead of her; now, the instant she set foot on solid ground, she leapt back up on to her shoulder again.

The queen monkey was sniffing the air for smoke.

‘The fire is back along the cliff,’
she said, and set off towards it. After a while the monkeys started the excited chattering that Lucy had now come to recognize as an indication that something of interest was afoot, and soon the queen came to her.

‘The Tailless Ones are ahead,’
she said,
‘but they are surrounded by the greatfangs. Look! One approaches us.’
Lucy looked ahead and at first could see nothing among the scrub and bushes but soon she made out the shape of an enormous feline sauntering majestically towards them.

The monkeys grouped closely around Lucy and the marmoset disappeared into the pocket of her shorts. One or two monkeys scampered back to the ladder and waited cautiously to see what would happen.

The enormous, sabre-like yellow fangs of the smilodon glistened in the evening sunlight and Lucy gulped in apprehension and wondered what kind of big cat this was. She had seen
pictures of sabre-tooths but didn’t realise that any still existed. She then remembered the Mighty Ones she had seen and the thought struck her for the first time that this crater must be an area of specialized ecology with unusual animals in it. Close on that idea came the horrifying thought that these creatures in their isolated world might never have heard of the Promised One. If that was the case they all had a serious problem and one that would be apparent in the next few seconds. Gathering her nerve she stopped and looked straight at the approaching beast.

‘Greetings, O magnificent cat with fangs of ivory. I come in peace with my companions.’
The great cat paused for what seemed like an age to Lucy and her trembling companions, but was in reality just a few seconds. Then, to Lucy’s indescribable relief he replied, in a majestic and sonorous voice:

‘So there is indeed a Promised One. We have heard tell of such a one through many ages but we knew not that She would ever grace this place with Her presence. What is your desire, O Great One?’

‘I seek my father and his companions,’
replied Lucy,
‘for I believe that they are here in this place. I hope that I, my kin and all these animal companions can pass freely through your domain without danger or hindrance.’

‘It shall be as thou command,’
replied the cat. Lucy felt she detected a distinct note of disappointment in his voice.

‘Thy kin sit yonder by the tongues that burn.’

He turned his head and Lucy then saw, through a gap in the bushes, the smouldering fire and beyond it her father, bearded and tanned almost beyond recognition.

‘Daddy!’ she shouted, and rushed through the bushes, ran round the fire and flung her arms around him. Then she burst into tears and he held her tight, saying nothing as all the accumulated stress of their months of separation poured out of her. When, eventually, she calmed down, the questions poured out of him in a torrent.

‘What on earth are you doing here? How did you find me? How did you get into the crater? And how, in heaven’s name, did you get past the sabre-tooths?’

Lucy laughed through her tears of joy and said:

‘There’s a lot to tell you, Dad, but first you need to see something!’ She turned to look out from the fire then, suddenly remembering her manners, looked at Helen and Julian. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m Lucy and this is my dad.’ She clung to her father. Helen smiled.

‘We’d just about worked that one out,’ she said, ‘and like your dad we can’t understand how you possibly got here.’ Lucy left her father and started to walk out beyond the fire. ‘Watch!’ she said.

‘Stop!’ said Helen, moving forward and grabbing Lucy’s arm. ‘I know that somehow you came here safely but you were unbelievably lucky. There are dangerous animals out there.’

Lucy laughed and was about to call the sabre-tooth when she suddenly remembered that she should guard her secret from these strangers. She paused, uncertain as to what to do next. Her father looked at her and, even though he did not understand what had happened, his father’s instinct told him why Lucy was hesitating.