The Wild Lands: Legend of the Wild Man (24 page)

He would show no fear. The sky people think
themselves powerful, and the hermit does not want to bolster the
childlike monsters' confidence at all. The young hunter would
surely try to gain the upper hand somehow, but how could he? The
hermit is trapped in a cage he cannot even see.

Escape is impossible. The hermit cannot
leave, so he focuses on what enters the cage. Their musk is
overwhelming. It smells like the home of one injured too greatly to
heal and has chosen the slow death. That is the only smell they
emit, a mix of lameness, stale sweat, and worry. They smell nothing
of dirt, or of grass. He cannot tell their last meal or what they
do for work. They smell lifeless, like their bodies do not interact
with the earth at all.

He can smell the monkeys much easier. The
monkeys reek of too ripe fruit and of dirt, but their essence is
out of balance. They too stink of nervousness and fear. The stories
of the sky people say they know how to control the world around
them, but it appears they have forgotten how to control themselves.
They can control the animals' emotions no better than their
own.

His tribe knows much of animals emotions.
Fear is one of the greatest weapons. Animals cannot think if too
scared.

The hermit inhales deeply, sniffing for their
pheromones, tasting their emotional state. He smells stale sweat
and nervousness, but no terror. They smell like a young one did
when initiated into manhood, fearful, but not for their lives,
fearful of their social standing, maybe of losing face.
Do they
know terror, or have they forgotten that too?

The hermit channels the hunter in himself.
The hunter in him screams to beat the cage, to break free and kill
any that stand in his way. But he cannot break the cage. The sky
people control the world around them, and that will not change. It
is the world within that they have forgotten. The animal essence
within him screams
escape! Make fear! Anarchy
!

One of the monkeys passes and glances at him.
The hermit grunts and the monkey holds his gaze. In its eyes he
sees a glimmer of excitement hidden away. But after a moment its
body jerks onward, pulled by the sky people's invisible power. If
only the animals can remember, but their minds are dulled.
They
must feel again!

The hermit does not have the raw presence of
Kao but they are kin, and the old man knows how to communicate with
musk and pheromones. The hermit ignites his own musk to match his
emotions, same as the young hunter would.

The hermit growls as he paces. His essence is
anger. He is mad at being a captive, at something else controlling
him. His body churns up a chemical mixture equivalent to his
feelings.

Freedom, my brothers
he radiates. He
knows not the word slavery.

Step, step, step, the hermit paces. Every
time his foot touches the ground he is furious that it is not the
earth, that the ground is hard and not soft dirt and grass between
his toes. His anger grows. He envisions it as a cloud that seeps
out of the cage and into the room. Soon he can taste his own
malcontent.

Step, step, step. Rage permeates the air. He
watches in his mind's eye, his strongest muscle, as the musky toxin
fills the room. Tendrils of stink reach into the sky people's
fleshy noses. It envelopes them.

The sky people still twitter to each other,
undisturbed, oblivious. Some wrinkle their noses, confused by a
long abandoned and atrophied sense. They are not so pathetic as the
hermit assumed, those that smell him do point in his direction.
They know the musk comes from him, but they do not follow its
message. They show nothing past discomfort. The hermit does not
mind.

He is after their prisoners: the monkeys
dressed in their silly clothes. Now he waits for one of the monkeys
to approach. He hopes its mind will put freedom, injustice and
escape over the Hidden master within.

The veined man ignores the aromas that hang
heavy in the room. He is so close, the hermit thinks that if he can
sense the musk at all, he would change his demeanor somewhat, but
he doesn't. Instead he talks, beaming and smiling like a fool.

He has no smell left in him
,
but
his mind is quick.
The veins on the man's head pulse faster
with his excitement. The man's brain is impressive, but at the cost
of his body. The hermit pities the little man, for he must dwell
entirely in his mind. His body is weak and flabby, his senses dull.
The hermit is probably the weakest member of his now dead tribe but
he could still descend the cliff from his cave or catch fish in a
brook. This man can do neither, nor will he ever even try. The
hermit has seen nothing of this sky home, but he has also seen it
all.
If this is their grandest place, their ceremonial chamber,
then they deserve pity
. They all must long to escape, for this
home is a prison. There are no plants, no animals except the ones
whose minds they had stolen. It is a barren place, a desert without
even the sun to warm their bones. The veined one is wise to use his
mind at the cost of his body, well, wiser. The rest, those watching
and listening smell complacent and too sure of themselves to
recognize their own frustration and boredom.

But he cannot give them pity, for they would
rather work the hermit's body than their own. That is unjust and
they will not have it. Instead he will give the bittersweet prize
of freedom: freedom from control, freedom from their cage in the
sky, freedom from their position as gods of the earth.

A monkey approaches. It came from the back of
the room, a dish in its hands laden with foods and drinks. The
hermit stops pacing and stares at the monkey. He focuses his mind
on the monkey, asks it to smell his discontent and understand. He
implores it to look into his eyes.

It must understand the slavery its own
complacency creates.

The monkey's nose twitches as it nears him.
It looks back and forth, sensing the air. It closes its eyes and
stops for a moment. The hermit knows The Hidden's magic courses
through its mind, urging it to walk forward. But with every breath,
he sees their hold weaken.

The room goes dark. Gasps from the crowd.
Then the lights are back on in an instant.

Murmurs erupt.

None of them notice the the monkey's body
start to tremble. The hermit notices. The boss with the veined head
notices and mumbles something under his breath. The twin children
who sit next to him are on their feet and out of the room.

The monkey bares its teeth. A low whine comes
from its throat. It is close now, only a few paces away, caught
between the sky people's control and the hermit's pleas of anarchy.
Finally the veined little man stops talking and stares at the
monkey. The silence is thick, the monkey has trouble walking
through it.

The lights go out again. This time the crowd
erupts. No one but the hermit hears the clatter of a tray as it
crashes to the ground. Again the lights are back in an instant.

The monkey's scratches is head, and asks
hooting questions. The hermit nods, his eyes merry and
encouraging.

“Go!” he says, in a tongue not far from the
monkey's, “Escape!”

The monkey reaches towards one of the tables,
covered in food and drink, and cautiously knocks over a cup. Liquid
pours from it to the floor. The monkey is awed. He pulls back his
hand, and knocks everything from the table to the floor.

Before the clatter has subsided the monkey
screams with joy, leaps towards the hermit and beats at the
invisible cage that holds him. It flips backwards then bounds
around the room. It tears off its clothes and bounds into the crowd
of people.

They scatter like fat flightless birds. The
monkey doesn't chase them though, he is too preoccupied with
running laps around the room. He runs halfway up a wall and surveys
the room as he clings to a seemingly barren surface. Another monkey
stands watching, a low whine comes from her throat.

The first monkey leaps from the wall and
knocks over the other in one magnificent bound. Her tray clatters
to the floor. The wild monkey holds the other down with his weight,
tears of her clothes, grabs her head and pounds it against the
floor.

THUNK! The monkey thrashes and tries to
escape but has none of the raw aggression of her attacker. Again
and again the monkey smashes the other's head to the floor.

THUNK, THUNK, THUNK!

Each strike reverberates throughout the room.
It looks as though the first intends to spill the other's brains.
Finally the female yowls and breaks her pathetic silence. At this,
the first monkey leaps away from her, jumping and hooting
excitedly. The beaten monkey, rather than attacking the first
stands up in bewildered awe. She immediately races around the room
even faster than the first. She lands on sky people's shoulders and
bounds off. They tumble to floor from her transferred momentum. She
tears at their clothes and snatches at the drinks they hold.
Anything she touches she destroys. The first monkey follows
gleefully in her wake, hooting encouragement.

The hermit jumps up and down in his cage,
howling along with the monkeys. The sky people are defenseless
against them! The other monkeys cower in the back of the room.

Except for one. One monkey with a patch of
white fur on her forehead marches towards the two
troublemakers.

They stop tearing around them room and
inflate their chests. In tandem, they let out an ear piercing
shriek. It grows louder and louder and the hermit feels it dig deep
into his skull. The sky people all cover their ears and run for the
exits. Some of them crash to the floor, unable to right themselves
while the sound assault batters their inner ears. The hermit stands
as long he can, but he too falls to ground.

Whitepatch is unaffected. She stomps towards
the other two like an angry mother.

The female stops howling and attacks.
Whitepatch parries each strike easily. With a quick turn she kicks
the monkey in the chest and she flies across the room, crashes into
a pile, and does not stir.

She picks up a bowl and hurls it at the male,
the instigator. He dodges, and in that moment Whitepatch is on him.
Her motions are fluid, sublime and savage. A spurt of red blood and
the fight is over. She looks at the hermit and bares her teeth.
Blood drips from her fangs.

The hermit sits down. He knows when he has
been beaten, yet he counts this as a victory. He never hoped to
escape. He just wanted the sky People to learn terror. They scurry
around the room now, tears streaming, mewling like soft headed
newborns.

Whitepatch does not take her eyes off of him.
She studies him like an insect. She sniffs at the air but the
hermit sees no recognition in her eyes. Does she know what secret
power he used against her kin? (for it is obvious Whitepatch was
controlled by the twin girl who ran from the room) Or will his
trick work a second time?

The Hidden of legend do exist,
there are true masters among the race of sky people
. The
hermit hopes to discover their secrets before they steal his.

Do you know any secrets?

She shakes her head.

I didn't until I met you.

She furrows her eyebrows, confused.

They told me to keep you a secret. From everyone I
guess... but I guess it’s not a secret to you...

The girl shakes her head and smiles.

They way we're talking is a secret. Zetis only
taught the pilots how to talk like this, I guess that means you're
a pilot too.

Zetis?

He's really smart... but I haven't seen him since
the storm...

The storm?

She slaps her hand over her mouth though she hadn't
used it.

What storm? Even in their heads, her voice is a
menacing growl.

Urea and Skup marched down the hallway
towards Baucis's offices. The fifth floor was his. The
amplification chambers made up only a small part of the entire
floor plan. What had once been a labyrinth of distractions now held
all that fed the Spire. Most of the rooms were sealed behind opaque
force fields, but a few were open and filled with Evanimal
Skeletons. In just a few generations, Baucis had accomplished much.
The skeletons grew larger, blacker and more crystalline. Compared
to the older and simpler off-white bones, the black as coal
skeletons that sparkled like diamonds were beautiful sculptures,
odes to human ingenuity and natural adaptability.

But tonight the siblings did not appreciate
the lesson in artificial selection laid out around them. Baucis had
summoned them. They both knew it was about the disastrous evening.
He said only that he held them accountable. Skup was furious, he
hadn't been synchronized with any of the
howluchin
s, yet he
knew the Master Ecologist would pin much of the night's mishaps on
him. Urea felt entirely responsible. Her team lost control, and she
had actually killed an Evanimal in front of a crowd of terrified
people. The Spire was used to watching her
panthera
or
Skup's
vultus
hunt an elk through their implanted Virtual
Reality Chips, but never had anyone seen death with their own
eyes.

They spoke privately, as to not be overheard
by Baucis's long ears.

said Urea, her voice
trembling.

out of control, it might have started hurting people>

Skup said
unenthusiastically.

lot more than kill a Howler...> Skup replied more viciously than
he intended.

Unsavory memories filled the silence.

After a moment Urea spoke up. it's different. Baucis doesn't like the Naturalists to see violence
like that. Its confusing to them>