The Pure: Book Three of the Oz Chronicles (19 page)

“‘What is she saying?’ I asked.

“Lou squinted and then smiled. ‘You
don’t want to know.’

“‘Yeah, I think I do,’ I said.

“‘She thinks you’re cute.

“I almost gasped. ‘Oh... ewww...’ I
looked at Kavi. ‘No offense, but... ewww.’

“‘Relax,’ Lou said. ‘She’s not in love
with you. Cute can also mean stupid but in a harmless way. She says you have
always been her favorite.’

“‘What is that supposed to mean?’

“‘The apes,’ Lou said. ‘They’ve always
known about this. They have passed these stories down about this time, about
us, about the creyshaw, the Destroyers, the Keepers, the Storytellers. It is
apart of their folklore.’

“I shook my head. ‘That makes no sense
on so many levels. First of all, apes can’t talk... well, not in the real
world, the one where we come from.’

“‘Just because we can’t hear them
doesn’t mean they can’t talk,’ Lou said.

“‘Okay, then,’ I said. ‘You tell me how
they can know things that haven’t happened yet.’

“She smiled. ‘As soon as you explain to
me why there are guys running around with purple skin and spiders growing out
of their head, or how dead people eaten by bugs can get up and walk around or
why the sky is purple...’

“‘All right,’ I said holding up my hand.
‘That’s enough. I get it.’ I looked at Kavi. ‘Why am I her favorite?’

“‘I don’t know,’ Lou said. ‘I’ll ask.’
With that, Lou clumsily worked through a series of signs.

“Kavi smiled and effortlessly signed
back.

“Lou looked mildly stunned by Kavi’s
answer. She seemed almost too embarrassed to tell me. ‘She... She says it is
because of the way you love your son.’

“I stumbled back. ‘My son... she knows?’

“Lou nodded. ‘She says you keep him in
your heart and that is what makes you a great warrior. You have two hearts.’

“I dropped to a knee. The guilt was
consuming me. ‘I betrayed my son,’ I said quietly. ‘She’s wrong about me.’

“Lou cleared her throat. ‘Maybe the
magic little Bobby sees in you is your son.’

“My stomach rumbled and turned. I felt
as though I could vomit at any moment. ‘You’re not playing fair, you know.’

“‘I know.’

“I groan, mad because I don’t have a
choice. ‘All right. You win. I’ll take Bobby to his Keeper.’

“Lou smiled. ‘You’re doing the right
thing.’

“‘Yeah, yeah, whatever. So it’s me,
Bobby, and Kavi.’

“‘And Anuenue.’

“The colorful mandrill that had attacked
me earlier emerged from the trees behind Lou. It formed a comical grin and
bared it’s imposing teeth.’

“‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘Anuenue.’

***

“April begged to join Bobby and me, but
I convinced her that she would be safer with the others. We were headed into a
situation we didn’t know anything about. At least here, with the others, she
knew what was coming, and she had an army to back her up. The more I spoke with
her the more I wished I was staying, too.

“Anuenue lead our small caravan followed
by Kavi and little Bobby. I brought up the rear. As we headed deeper into the
woods, I must have looked over my shoulder a hundred times. I wondered if the
battle had started yet, if April was all right, if Lou had gotten back her
sword yet. The farther we got from them the more I felt I needed to be with
them.

“Little Bobby began to regale us with
his unique rendition of ‘I’ve Got Friends In Low Places.’ Anuenue howled in
protest after about the seventh straight verse. I sensed the baboon was about
to carry his frustration to a new level at any moment, so I decided I better
find a way to distract little Bobby and get him off the song.

“‘Yo, Bobby tell me about how you came
up with the Bashir.’

“‘Huh?’ Bobby said.

“‘The Bashir, how did you come up with
them?’

“‘I didn’t come up with the Bashir.’

“‘What?’

“‘No, that was Adwin,” Bobby said.

“I stopped and turned him by his
shoulder. ‘Wait a minute... Wait a minute... You’re not the Bashir
Storyteller.’

“He shook his head. ‘No, my friend is...
Adwin.’

“‘I don’t understand. Lou said you were
a Storyteller.’

“‘I am. I’m just not the Bashir
Storyteller. Adwin is and he’s in Délon City... in jail or something. I’m not
really sure what they do with us when they capture us.’

“By now Anuenue and Kavi figured out we
had stopped so they backtracked to join us. Anuenue barked and displayed his
huge fangs to try and intimidate us into moving. Kavi signed something of which
I couldn’t even begin to understand. They didn’t like the fact that we had
stopped. That much I understood.

“I stuck my hand out, palm down and
motioned for them stay calm. ‘We’ll go in a second.’ To Bobby, ‘If you’re not
the Bashir Storyteller, which Storyteller are you?’

“‘They are called Myrmidons,’ I heard a
voice say. A horse trotted out from behind a thicket of trees with a single
Délon on its back. His spider leg hair do was in tightly woven cornrows. His
deadeyes beamed from their purple sockets. Behind him I could see dozens more
Délons standing in neat military formation.

“I looked at Kavi. ‘I guess this is what
you were trying to tell me.’

“She nodded with a disgusted look on her
face.

“The Délon dismounted. ‘General Roy,’ he
said.

“I stepped in front of Bobby.

“‘These are my soldiers,’ he said
motioning to the men who were not so cleverly concealed. He sniffed the air.
‘And you are this Storytellers warrior, I presume.’

“I looked to Kavi for direction but she
had nothing to offer and considering my inability to read sign langue, no way
to communicate it to me.

“‘I am creyshaw,’ I said.

“General Roy smiled and the sight of it
sent pin pricks up my spine. ‘I see you’ve taken to the Silencer’s word. Fair
enough, creyshaw. You can handover the Storyteller now.’

“‘No,’ I said, although not very
convincingly.

“He rolled his dead eyes. ‘You creyshaws
are all the same. You really must do something about this obnoxious need to
display useless heroism. You’re friend Anuenue went to the trouble of setting
you up, you could at least be courteous enough to hand over the Storyteller and
come with us back to Délon City without incident.’

“I looked at the multi-colored baboon.
‘You little rat.’

“The large mandrill roared and leapt on
Bobby’s back. I grabbed the monkey by the scruff of its neck and flung it to
the ground. It tumbled head over ass and then regained it’s footing.

“‘Enough!’ General Roy shouted. He
signaled for one of his soldiers to step forward and said something to him that
I couldn’t hear. The Délon he called forward steps back behind the tree line
and re-emerges dragging a man dressed in silver armor by his arms. ‘You can
stop looking for your Keeper,’ General Roy said. ‘We’ve found him for you.’

“My knees began to shake. I was in way
over my head. I had no idea what to do. I turned to Bobby to try to give him
some words of comfort and was struck by the huge smile on his face. I suddenly
realized he had read this story before.

“‘Bobby,’ I said, ‘are we back on track.
Is this the way the story is supposed to go?’

“‘Almost,’ he said.

“‘Are you telling me there’s a way out
of this?’ I asked.

“He nodded.

“‘Help me out here, Bobby. What do I
do?’

“A strong wind blew through the trees.

“‘It’s getting cold,’ Bobby said hugging
himself.

“‘That’s the least of our worries right
now, Bobby,’ I said.

“He pointed to General Roy who somehow
looked less imposing. ‘They don’t like the cold.’

“‘Great, but how does that help us?’

“Thunder crashed overhead. A flash of
lighting shot through the sky.

“‘It’s going to start raining,’ Bobby
said.

“‘You know, Bobby, I really appreciate
these little weather reports, but if you want me to be totally honest they
aren’t really helping.’

“A rain drop hit my shoulder and then my
nose. The water was cold... almost ice cold. I wiped the droplet from nose and
rubbed it into my fingers. ‘Freezing rain,’ I said to no one in particular.

“A shriek came from General Roy’s
soldiers, followed by two more. General Roy mounted his horse, took one last
look at us, and vanished into the tree line just as a steady rain began to
fall.

“‘Délons don’t like the cold,’ Bobby
repeated.

“‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That was great
timing.’

“The man dressed in armor was still face
down where the Délon had dropped him. Kavi, Bobby, and I ran to him and turned
him over. He was alive but he didn’t speak. The armor helmet kept his face
hidden. I struggled to remove it and when I finally did, I wanted to put it
back on him as quickly as possible.

“The man in armor wasn’t a man at all.
His face was mostly teeth. His eyes and nose were barely visible. His
grayish-green skin was slimy and pitted.

“‘Wow,’ I said to Bobby. ‘You
Storytellers are twisted.’

“‘He’s a Myrmidon,’ he said.

“‘And is that Latin for ugly?’

“‘No,’ Bobby said. ‘It’s American.
Myrmidon’s are ant people. They lived a long time ago. Some kind of god made
them. Dr. Bashir told me about them. I thought they were neat.’

“‘So if this is your Keeper, where are
the monsters... Destroyers... whatever you call them?’

“‘They can’t come out until I’m
captured. Those are the rules. Right now they’re still people.’

“‘Will they look like this?’ I asked.

“‘Yeah, ‘cept they’ll have black armor
and they’ll be a bunch of them.’

“‘Do these people know they are the
Myrmidons?’

“Bobby shook his head. ‘I don’t think so
otherwise they would have never let me go.’

“‘Let you go?’

“‘Or tied me to the post so the lung
locusts could get me.’

“Time seemed to stop as I processed
Bobby’s last statement. Carl and his community were the Myrmidons. Or they will
be if the Destroyers get their hands on Bobby. I leaned in and studied the
Keeper. I was trying to determine how critical he was when he convulsed and
hacked up a thick glob of blood that struck me in the face. I jerked back. I
screamed and frantically wiped the slick substance from my cheek.

“‘He doesn’t look too good,’ Bobby said.

“With one eye closed to protect it from
the Myrmidon’s bloody discharge, I said, ‘We should get him out of the rain.’

“I draped his arm over my shoulder and
only then realized how large the Myrmidon actually was. I wouldn’t be able to
carry him very far. I dug my feet into the slippery mountainside and headed
back to the path that had brought us this far. I had forgotten about Anuenue,
and only thought about him when I wished there were more of us in our group. No
surprise, he had vacated the area without a trace. He was a hunted baboon. As
soon as the other apes got wind of his betrayal, they wouldn’t stop until they
found him, and when they found him, they wouldn’t leave much of him behind.

“‘Kavi,’ I said dragging the Keeper.
‘Find us a place to get out of the rain.’

“She extended her right index finger
with her palm down and her other fingers pointing towards her. She made a large
counterclockwise semi-circle around her left hand in the shape of a ‘C.’

“Frustrated, I said, ‘I don’t
understand.’

“She rolled her eyes and huffed.

“‘You lead. We’ll follow,’ I said
motioning with my head.

“She turned, quickly knuckle-walked to
the other side of the path, and zipped through the foliage.

“‘Slower!’ I shouted as I struggled to
drag the Myrmidon and keep pace with her. ‘Bobby, run up there and tell her
that I can’t keep up with her.’

“‘Okay,’ Bobby said and then bolted past
me. As soon as he was under the canopy of trees where Kavi had vanished, I lost
sight of him.

‘Bobby!’ I said breathing heavy. ‘Wait.
Stay where I can see you.’ He didn’t answer. I stood on the edge of the tree
line and shouted for Bobby and Kavi. I entered the darkness and almost
immediately lost my bearings. It was impossibly dark. I could barely see two
feet in front of me. I heard the ferns on the forest floor rustle and snap as I
ventured further in. The Myrmidon’s feet skidded and popped across the countless
exposed tree roots that made it difficult to take more than one cautious step
at a time. The ground dipped down and I stumbled into a churning creek. The bed
was made up of loose gravel and mud. I trudged on, cursing myself for letting
Bobby out of my sight. My knees began to shake and wobble. I couldn’t go on
much farther. I stopped to catch my breath. I was wet, scared, and exhausted. I
thought of dropping the Myrmidon and coming back for him when I found Kavi and
Bobby, but a mist had moved in and I knew with such poor visibility, I would
never be able to find the Keeper again. I heard the howl of a chimpanzee just
ahead. As I felt a wave of relief take over my body and give me a sudden burst
of energy, I realized that what I thought was a chimpanzee howl could have just
as well have been a mandrill howl. I put the thought out of my mind and stomped
forward.