Akar entered soundlessly just before dawn, the rabbit clenched securely in his teeth. Purposely avoiding the man-child, he moved instead to the place where his mistress lay sleeping. He placed the kill in front of her, gently nudging her with his snout.
Startled from an uneasy sleep the girl bolted stiffly upright, choking back a scream. Seeing her friend she subsided, but too late to prevent a confrontation. Alerted by the sound Kalus had woken, and was in no mood for the treatment he was about to receive from the wolf.
'He's brought us a meal,' he said contentedly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The girl still hadn't seen the carcass. He pointed.
'Oh, take it away,' she said in disgust, repulsed by its sunken eyes and contorted expression. 'Take it away.' Coming closer Kalus started to reach for it, but was halted by the bared teeth and fierce snarling of the wolf.
'It seems he wants you to have it.' He paused a moment, thinking. 'Your friend has a short memory,' he said coldly, pretending to lose interest. 'When he was hungry I shared my meat with him.'
In the split second it took for Akar to look up at him, Kalus reached in and snatched up the carcass. The wolf started to go after him, but found the jagged point of Kalus' knife held threateningly between himself and the kill. As he backed away the two squared off, Kalus on one knee and the wolf standing. Akar began to circle, looking for an opening. But the man-child turned with him, keeping the point of the knife between himself and danger. The girl cried out in desperation.
'Stop it! Please, stop it!'
She had tried to understand the reasons for violence in the harsh world she now encountered, but to see her only two companions ready to tear each other apart over a blood-stained carcass, was more than she could bear. Bowing her head between clutching arms like a frightened child, she wept bitterly. But the tears brought no relief, only deeper anguish and despair.
Seeing her distress the two stopped circling. Akar went to try and comfort her, while Kalus moved indifferently to a protected corner to gut and skin the carcass. He would undoubtedly have been more sympathetic had he not been hurt several times already by giving in to similar emotions. He was far too angry now to think of anything but his own survival. Akar no longer tried to comfort his friend, who only kept pushing him away. Regaining her composure, she glared bitterly at both of them.
'Why do you have to BE like this? Why can't you just leave each other alone?'
Akar had not understood the words, but their meaning was clear enough. Putting away his pride, he stepped slowly and deliberately toward the man-child's unmoving form. Coming closer he drew a line in the dirt just in front of him, signaling his desire for a truce. If Kalus crossed the line with one of his own it would mean that the truce had been accepted, if only for the moment.
But Kalus did not answer with words and gestures of humbled acceptance. Moving his hands in simple patterns he knew the wolf would understand, he told him instead that he was angered to the point of violence by his ingratitude, reminding him that if it had not been for his own, selfless actions, neither he nor the girl would be alive at all. He then drew another line in the dirt, not across the mark Akar had made, but parallel to his own body instead, signifying dominance, and made it clear that the wolf could either accept the truce under these terms, or fight him to the death then and there.
Akar was curiously gratified by the man-child's response. In truth he had not forgotten his compassion, but wanted to be sure that he was worthy of trust. Goodness and compassion were one thing, courage in the face of danger quite another. To say that he had wholly staged the conflict as a test of the other's spirit would be incorrect; but once it developed into such he did not try to stop it. Akar had lived too long to give his allegiance easily or in haste. Crossing Kalus' line solemnly, he rolled over on top of his own, blurring it into obscurity.
Realizing what this meant Kalus relaxed, nodding gratefully. Though he knew the wolf had no intention of being dominated, he accepted the gesture nonetheless. His body weak from adrenalin's flow, he could not have backed up the threat if he wanted to. He did not. The truce was accepted. He reached out an open hand, letting his new-found ally learn its scent beyond the point of any doubt. The wolf then went back to the girl while Kalus returned to the task of skinning the rabbit, trying to keep his hands from shaking as he did so.
'You see,' he said, speaking as much to himself as to the girl.'Things are not always as they first appear. Your friend was onlytesting me. Now we are brothers, as we could not have been before.'She nodded halfheartedly, not at all sure she believed him.
'You won't fight anymore, will you? Please promise me you won't.'
'We will not fight.' He continued his work.
There was a pause in which neither spoke. Finally Kalus broke the deadlock with a question. He truly wished to know its answer, but also disliked the awkwardness that silence had placed between them.
'Sylviana. You speak as one who comes from far away. Are you then from the Island?'
'What island?'
'The Island of Ruins across the water.'
'No….. No, I don't think so.' She struggled now, trying to find the words to tell him that she came not only from a different place, but from a different time as well. It didn't matter. She wasn't going to have the chance. In their preoccupation with themselves the three had forgotten the Mantis. Awakened by the noise of their scuffle, it climbed toward the inadequate shelter even as they spoke.
It was Akar who sensed his presence first. Though he could not be certain of the scent, the wind being in the opposite quarter, the low, scratching sound of hooked claws searching for footholds was unmistakable. He did not try to run, nor even to alert the others, but went without hesitation to wait for the monarch at the entrance of the niche. He only hoped the Mantis would remember him.
'What is he doing?' asked the girl. At the same moment Kalus heard a loosened stone sent plummeting to the bottom of the canyon. Its dry echo sounded sharp and clear below.
'Sylviana, listen to me carefully.' He spoke firmly, moving closer. 'The mantis is coming toward us. Do not cry out—-he probably won't hurt us. But you must do everything I say without questions.'
'Go on,' she whispered intently, surprised by her own courage.
'When the Mantis appears at the entrance you must act helpless and afraid, but afraid of him and not of me. Also, do not try to speak. Akar will speak for us. Here, he draws closer. When you first see him, hold on to me tightly, as if shocked and startled. We must make him think you have never seen him, and had no knowledge this mountain was his. Now. Prepare yourself!'
When the Mantis' head finally did appear, leering in at them ominously, she found doing exactly as he told her infinitely easier than not doing it. She clung to him as if possessed, and the Mantis' first glimpse of them was exactly as Kalus had wanted it. Akar stood submissively to one side, allowing the Monarch an unobstructed view. After studying the three closely, he gestured for the wolf to follow him to the broad ledge outside the larger cave. Akar obeyed unquestioningly, snaking his way carefully down the sharp incline.
'What will he do now?' asked the girl, moving with Kalus to watch from the stone lip that ran like a low parapet just beyond the entrance of the niche.
'I do not know. He will want to know why we are here, but after that I cannot say. But I think if he was going to kill us he would have done it already.' The girl was quietly stunned by the calmness with which he said the words.
Once down on the ledge, the two communicated in a way known only to themselves: Akar through a series of short barks and body movements, the Mantis through subtle movements of his antennae, foreclaws and upper body. Kalus could only guess at their meaning. Roughly translated, this is what passed between them.
Skither (The Mantis)- Wolf. Was it you then that snuck from my cave like a thief in the night?
Akar- Yes, mighty one. I was trapped inside by the spider.
Skither- But why were you in the cave at all? Have you lost all respect for my sovereignty?
Akar- No, master. I was protecting the woman-child, to whom I owe my life. I do not understand her words, but she speaks of having woken from a long sleep, and finding herself in your lair. I tried to make her leave it many times, but she believes she is somehow protected there by gods I do not know. When I told her the cave was yours, she wished only to remain there until your return. She is deadly fearful of the world outside your domain.
Skither- Do not flatter me, wolf. I have not grown so old as to be feeble and weak of mind.
Akar- Forgive me.
Skither- Tell me, then. Does she speak of having come from the long silver box?
Akar- Yes, I believe it is so. What does this mean?
Skither- I'm not certain. Three moon-cycles past I was journeying far to the north and west among the mountains that grow there. At the base of one such peak I found a broad and unnatural tunnel that led deep into the earth. Searching it for spiders, I came across a chamber filled with many strange and beautiful things. I forgot all else for the wonder of it. But the thing I would most have for myself was the long silver box. Inside it was the body of a woman-child, your mistress it seems. She was fair of face and skin, and I grieved for her. I tried to touch her, but was stopped by a film which was there, and yet was not there (fiberglass). Breaking free the webs that held her (life-support tubes and wires), I brought her here to my cave, thinking she was dead.
But this passing is not important now. You and she are both welcome on my mountain. It is the man-beast I do not trust. His kind are treacherous and unpredictable, and they carry with them the fire that kills.
Akar- But he is not like them, Master. He is an outcast, like myself, and worthy of trust. To him also, and more deeply, I am indebted for my life.
Skither- It seems you owe your life many times, my friend. How is it that the brother of Shaezar has come to lead such a perilous existence?
Akar- … Shaezar is dead, killed by a rival while I was away. I could not serve in a pack whose unwanted leader had slain my true brother, so I set out to live on my own. The days have indeed been perilous, but I have vowed never to return.
Skither- This is evil news you bring me. Shaezar was a wise and noble leader. I grieve for him. It seems that many things have changed in my absence. (A pause). Very well, then. Send the man-beast down to me. I would have words with him.
Akar (sadly)- As you command it.
Moving to the northern and uppermost portion of the ledge, Akar looked up to the place where the others stood waiting. Barking sharply three times in succession, he summoned the man-child to come down.
'What is he saying?' asked the girl.
'The Mantis wishes to speak to me. I hope that is good. Wait for me here, I will return as soon as it is safe.'
Feeling terribly small and exposed Kalus began to descend, running quickly through his mind all the things he wanted to say, while trying to muster the courage to say them. Stepping weak-kneed out onto the ledge, he felt his heart pounding, and as he approached the Mantis' awesome form, felt both hope and despair arise with equal strength inside him. His mind raced. Had he read the moment correctly? Did he dare ask for refuge? How would they live if the Monarch refused him? The moment was upon him; there was no time to ponder.
Bowing low, he saluted the Mantis. Using modified arm and wrist movements he hoped the other would understand, he signaled the following words.
'Great Leader,' he began. 'I am called the Carnivore. Do you read the meaning of my hands?' The Mantis nodded.
'I am sorry for my presence on the mountain. As an outcast, I wished only to live in the safety of your shadow, but was pursued here by a Commodore, and forced to take refuge in the smaller cave above your own.' He pointed, adding after an intentional pause. 'It seems they have grown bold in your absence.' He looked up quickly, but the Mantis didn't flinch.
'Great King,' he continued, anxiety rising with each coming gesture. 'I am no longer one with my people, and live without a home. The same is true of the female you saw with me. I would have her as my own, but she is not yet able to protect herself in the wild….. There is something I would ask of you.' Still the Mantis did not move. There was no putting it off any longer. He would have to ask him now.
'I know why you have gone away,' he began nervously. 'And why you must leave again soon….. The mating of the spiders has reached its middle season, and will not end for many days to come. You and your god-friends have many battles yet to fight.'
'Why do you speak this lie?' signaled the Mantis angrily.'Where do the hill-people hear such a thing?'
'My people know nothing of this,' he answered, as calmly as he could. 'And I would never tell them. Your secret is known only to me, and I tell no one. I swear it.'
Skither remained motionless, puzzled by the presence of the strange and knowing child. Utterly intrigued, he searched the back of his mind for the meaning of their encounter.
'What is it then you would ask?'
'Since you are called again to the holy task, your lair will again be left unguarded. I would ask that you allow the three of us to remain here on the mountain, in the smaller cave above your own. Though each of us alone are small, together we could create the illusion that you had not left it.'
'But how, and for what reason do you do this?'
'My friends and I have only a short march of days before theCommodore must sleep, and many other predators follow the herds to theSouth. If you allow me, I could turn our shared need into sharedhelp.'
'Go on.'
'I have learned in my youth to make a sound like the flutter of your mighty wings. And Akar could descend daily to the grasslands in plain sight, as if your messenger to the wolf packs below.'
'How would you make this sound?' Skither was perplexed, and felt an odd sense of antiquity as he gazed upon the complex and far-reaching intelligence of one so young. And he had not failed to note the subtle differences of his appearance: the knowing eyes, the smoother, more refined features. SO UNLIKE HIS PEOPLE, he thought. AND THE GIRL. What could it mean? His thoughts were broken off as Kalus answered.
'The sound is made by stretching a skin between two trees, then soaking it with water and leaving it to dry in the sun. When it has tightened between them it is beaten rapidly with club-ended sticks, making a sound like the rhythm of your mighty wings.'
'But how will you use it here, where there are no trees? And why do you think that my enemies will believe it, when the sound comes from only one place?'
'It can be built on a frame,' he answered. 'And moved to different places along the ridge. That way the sound can be sent echoing down the canyon, and seem to come from many places at once.'
Skither looked down at him thoughtfully. His first instincts told him never to trust a man-beast. But these were difficult times. Yielding to the unspoken Tao he consulted the wind, to see what hidden message it might carry.
A cool breeze swirled about him; the valley grasses swayed with a golden, browning color on the plains below. He felt the seasons changing. But more than that he felt his world changing, yielding slowly to some new order in which he was to play no part. It was not the first time. The feeling had often puzzled (and frightened) him. There could be no denying the double reason for their meeting: the air was charged with it, the mind echo of deja-vu all around it. Searching deep within himself, he felt the autumn of his life full upon him. He felt the world he had known growing old. He felt his own weariness, and again the premonition of impending death….. But what did the Nameless ask of him now? And how would he answer the man-child?
'You have given me much to consider, small one. But this decision must be seasoned with time and careful thought. Now I must rest, as you should well know. Go again to the place where I found you. Do not leave it until I have summoned you with an answer. Do you understand my words?'
'Yes, Monarch. Your kindness will not soon be forgotten.' Feeling relieved but still pensive, Kalus started to leave. An upward thrust of the Mantis' foreclaw stopped him.
'Yes, master?'
'How many summers have you known?
'Twenty-one, master.'
'And in what season were you born?'
'In mid-winter. Why do you ask it?'
'Twenty winters ago I saw a sign in the heavens and marked it well. I saw the light of its second full moon surrounded by a misty halo which seemed to reach down towards the earth. Another, smaller halo erupted suddenly, and three stars passed through it as they fell from the sky, all in the same direction, and each within a breath of the other.' Now it was Kalus who did not understand.
'But how does this passing touch me?'
'I think that perhaps one day you will answer that question for me.'
The Mantis turned and retired to his lair. Kalus stood watching for a moment, then turned himself and retreated toward the shelter of the smaller cave: wondering. Akar had already passed that way before him.
The hours passed slowly. Using the wood Akar had brought him, Kalus built a small fire and they divided the cooked meat between them. Sylviana had protested slightly, but given in when informed that regardless of the Mantis' decision, there could be no more free meals of sebreum.
There was an air of restless tension in the small enclosure. For though being banished from the mountain did not mean certain death, it did mean a much harder and more treacherous life. Both Kalus and the wolf knew just how difficult living without a home could be; Sylviana could only imagine it.
Akar had not forgotten that he and the girl were already welcome to remain there, but he kept this knowledge to himself. His friend needed the companionship of her own kind, and he had made a pact of mutual protection, however tentative, with the man-child. And Akar was a creature of his word.
As morning yielded gradually first to early, then to late afternoon, the three had still seen or heard nothing of the mantis. Exhausted by his seasonal battle with the mating spiders, he lay unmoving and death-like in the larger cave below them, buried in the deep, recuperative sleep of an insect.
With time hanging heavy around them, Kalus and the girl were given the chance, denied them by the turbulence of previous days, to study each other more closely, and to ask, if they would, the unspoken questions that had been forming in their minds. Kalus had finished with the carcass by mid-day—-cutting and shaping the skin, sharpening the ribs against the rock to make bone needles—-but showed no sign of interest in talk, moving instead to look out from the entrance, apparently deep in thought. Sylviana watched him there in the sunlight, with the wolf sleeping peacefully beside her, as she gently stroked his fur.
For the most part she studied his primitive attire, crudely made, but not without a certain atavistic grace. His primary garment consisted of a large skin, possibly that of a buck, cut and worn like a sleeveless, thigh-length coat. Worn with the fur side in, it closed in a narrowing V across his chest, and was bound about the waist by a band of tied leather. Long slits at either hip allowed his legs their freedom of movement. Beneath one of these as he crouched could be seen a tanned and soft-beaten loincloth, tied off with a knot at the crest of the splayed and sinewy leg closest to her. His boots were made of some furrier hide, silver-black in color, and tightly bound to his calves by crisscrossing leather thongs. He also wore thongs about his neck and wrists, a sharpened clamshell hanging from the former, the strands dangling loose in the case of the latter. Decorative in appearance, they were in fact purely practical, serving many purposes as need arose. He also wore the buckskin pouch, along with a drinking skin from which he rationed water for the two of them, Akar being free to pursue it as he might. As for the man himself, his hair was light brown and wild; a short and irregular beard wrapped a face whose stern features implied a determination and experience beyond his years.
Nor had she failed to note the striking body beneath, endowed very probably with more supple and functional strength than any she had ever seen. More than once she felt her eyes trail across it—-the knotted arms and shoulders, the well shaped thighs and buttocks—-very much attracted.
But it was this same strength of mind and body, infinitely desirable in a tamer soul, that brought home so consistently her own helplessness against him. That he could overpower her at any time was obvious, that he had not yet tried to do so of little comfort. She wondered if perhaps the presence of the wolf alone protected her. And the hardest thing was that she did respect him. All his actions seemed to indicate a courageous and unselfish character. But his morals? She suspected (correctly) that he had none.
But in truth she need not have worried. The idea of rape was so foreign and unnatural to his existence that the thought never occurred to him. As was the way of his people, he intended first to feed and protect her, to establish his claim and earn her trust, and only then to take her, willingly, as his mate. And in his own mind at least, he had begun the process already. His desire and timid affection for her bound him to her more closely than she knew. At last he broke away from the entrance and came inside. The wolf stirred.
'It will be hard if he refuses us. Very hard.' He sat opposite her against a nook in the wall and once more destroyed all preconception. His face was worried and drawn, full of very human emotion. Again she felt the presentiment of inescapable reality: that here before her was true Man, stripped of all pretense, reduced to his simplest terms.
At length he looked up at her, and seemed anxious to communicate. Indeed, his eyes almost pleaded for some reassurance. She thought to herself, then offered a simple question.
'Kalus? What are the rest of your people like?' He shifted positions, drew one knee toward him, then answered.
'They are no longer my people. I am banished….. For what they are like, I don't know how to tell you. I can only say they are not much like me.'
'In what way?' Finally she had something.
'They act more and think less. I think they are closer to the true predators than I.'
'How do you mean?'
'Well. Let me think how to say it.' A pause. 'My name isKalus, which stands for Carnivore, or Great Hunter. My father made itfor me, hoping that such a name would give me strength. I am strong,Sylviana, but not, I think, in the way he wanted.'
'Go on.'
Again he struggled. 'I draw no pleasure from the hunt. I don't understand. To my people it is the proudest and most important thing they do. But to me it is often ugly, and I kill only to live. Also. . there are times when I do not want to be aggressive. Like now. If the Mantis would let us stay here, I would trade that safety for all the meaningless battles….. Perhaps I am just a coward and a fool.'
'No,' she said emphatically. 'You're not.' She had to restrain herself from going to him then and there. Why did his anguish move her so? 'Maybe you're just better than they are. You feel things they can't.'
'I do not feel better. I thank you for saying it, but I do not think it is so. Barabbas, my new father….. It is easy for me to speak with you and say I do not love the hunt. But he must feed and protect many others. Please believe me, that is not an easy thing.' She let it go at that, sensing an undercurrent of anger, or something, in his words.
Kalus was silent for a time, lost among his thoughts. But as the daylight began to fade, he too felt the need to know something more of his companion. Largest in his mind was the question of her origin, since it carried with it the one answer which truly mattered. Could she ever be his?
'Sylviana. You say you are not from the Island. How then did you come here? In all my years I have heard of no other tribe for many miles around, surely none so fair of face and skin, that wear such garments.' The girl looked down, and realized for the first time how odd her own clothes must seem to him: the gauze top, the worn and fading denim jeans. And her hair, somewhere between blond and brunette, with streaks of both. Silver earrings and bracelet. But these thoughts were as a passing shadow on her mind. How could she possibly tell him the truth of her existence? Somehow she had to try.
'This is so hard. A lot of it I don't know myself.' She looked across at him. 'Please be patient, and let me choose my words.'
'It's all right. I am patient.'
After several halting starts, she saw there was no other way but to tell him straight out. Let him understand or believe what he would.
'A long time ago, many hundreds of years I think, there were infinitely more people on earth. Our civilization had advance so far, that we could build or do almost anything. We lived in cities as high as this mountain, and many times as broad, all over the world.
'Unfortunately, one of the things we built the best were weapons, devices to….. Well, the argument was that they were to protect ourselves. But really, they had no other purpose than to kill. Some of the more primitive of these are in the Mantis' cave, though I have no idea how they got there.' It was useless.
'We destroyed ourselves, Kalus. I don't know how else to say it. I suppose there were reasons for the War, and in fairness I don't think either side wanted it. But it happened all the same. We launched weapons that could kill millions of people from thousands of miles away, and go on killing years after….. I don't know why I was left alive.' DON'T CRY. 'All my friends and family are dead. Everything I knew is gone.' Kalus answered softly.
'Is that what the voice in the mirror was trying to tell me?'
'I thought you had forgotten.'
'I do not forget, Sylviana. And I think of things more than you know. I am not one of the lesser animals. I am only different from you.'
'I'm sorry.' Again she hung her head.
'Don't be sorry for things that are not wrong. You have your sorrows and I have mine. Do not think of it now. There is only one more thing I must ask you.'
'What is it?'
'Why did you not die with the others? And living, how have you not grown old? Is your flesh so different from mine?'
'No, Kalus. It's very much the same.' She felt weak and tearful, but also a strange determination to see it through. An unusual emotion for her: direct rebellion against despair.
'My father was a scientist, a man of learning. Somehow he knew the war was coming. Maybe I should have known it, too, but try to understand. My friends and I had lived with the threat of nuclear destruction all our lives. It just didn't seem real…..
'My father used all the money he had saved since my mother died, to build a shelter in the Canadian Rockies. And he was involved with several of his colleagues, other scientists like himself, in cryogenic research: a way of putting people into a deep sleep, like hibernation. 'Just before the missiles starting falling….. My father took me up in his plane. We listened, horrified, to radio broadcasts of the destruction of the cities, and of the spreading fallout. He told me that he wanted to put me into a suspended state, which would keep me alive until….. Until what, I couldn't imagine.'
'My mind just couldn't accept what was happening. I was terrified, and told him I didn't want to leave him. But he said it was the only way. When we landed, he said that he was sorry. He had to drug me, I guess, because the next thing I knew I was in something like a casket with my father leaning over me, crying, and telling me he loved me.'
She broke down, turned against the stone wall, and wept. Kalus looked at her, and but for the iron discipline he had learned, the alternative to which was death, would have gone to her and comforted her as best he could. As it was he felt more stirred than at any time since his father's death, and quietly vowed that he would stay with her, and protect her until the end.
Sylviana recovered somewhat, looked back at him, and seeing the confused sympathy of his eyes, concluded.
'I woke in the Mantis' cave, with no idea where I was or how I came here. I've been alone for nearly three months. But for the Voice, and later, for Akar….. I nearly lost my mind with fear and loneliness.' She suddenly realized the wolf was no longer with them, and that full night was falling. She let her thoughts collapse.
Kalus could not hold himself back any longer. 'You're not alone anymore.'
Her eyes sought out his, but they were hidden among the deepening shadows of the nook. With only his limbs clearly visible, he looked like some phantom sage of the darkness, at once frightening and reassuring. 'But you must not feel it now. Feeling is for when the body is safe, and we are not. Now you should sleep….. I will guard you.'
She moved further into the cave and lay down. But though she tossed and turned for what seemed an eternity, sleep remained the distant dream of a child.
'Kalus?' No reply. She sat up and turned back toward him. 'You wouldn't hurt me, would you? Please say you'd never hurt me.'
'Of course I would not hurt you. Why do you think I stay?' He added after a time, sounding cold and irritable. 'Go to sleep and trouble me no more. I have much to think on.'
Now what had she done to upset him? Feeling more lost than ever, she swallowed hard and turned away. She lay down again, and perhaps an hour later, fell at last into exhausted slumber.
*
Long after the wolf had returned and lay sleeping beside her, Kalus remained wide awake, crouched at the edge of the shaft, listening. He studied the slow, deliberate breathing of the giant insect, trying to be certain. When he was as sure as he could be that the creature was still asleep, he began to descend.
He felt hollow as he went, partly from fear, and partly from the will-crushing desperation of the act now forced upon him. He was angry at having to be short with the girl, and once more felt bitterly abandoned and betrayed, though by whom he could not have said. And then came the voice that told him such an act was unnecessary—-that he risked all their lives for nothing—-the cruelest lie of all. No. He knew what must be done.
But always now his thoughts returned to fear; with every step the feeling grew. By the time he reached the floor of the Mantis' cave, terror had completely overtaken him. But still he went on. He HAD to have a weapon. The Mantis might banish them that very morning, and without it they were naked and helpless. And he knew that whatever prayers he might offer, to the God he did not know, no one could save him now but himself.
*
Later that night he returned, alive but nearly paralyzed with fear. Unable to overcome the emotion, he went to the girl. Touching her face with the back of his trembling hand, he woke her gently. He could no longer fight back the tears as she turned to face him.
'What is it?' she asked. 'What's wrong?' He tried to tell her what he was feeling, but it was all too much. Rising to a sit beside him, Sylviana took his face in her hands and tried to understand. Then she took his head tentatively to her shoulder, where he wept like a brutalized child. Feeling awkward, but very warm, she stroked his gnarled hair and rocked him slowly.
When morning came it found them still anxious and afraid, but infinitely closer than they had been only hours before.
The Mantis appeared at the entrance of his cave about an hour after sunrise. Kalus and the wolf had waited by the opening of the smaller enclosure, and knew without being told that he was ready with an answer.
Seeing them high above, Skither raised one foreclaw and summoned them to come down. As they drew closer he stepped out slowly toward the center of the ledge. He wanted to choose the right words.
He exchanged simple greetings with the wolf, nodding passively at Kalus. He addressed Akar first, and after several minutes the wolf nodded his understanding and moved to wait at a far corner of the ledge, without giving any indication what the answer had been. Turning his attention to Kalus, the Mantis signaled his words slowly and carefully.
'Son of the hill-tribe, I have made my decision. I have thought long on your words, and on other things you do not know. Understand, I have good reason to mistrust your kinsmen. But Akar tells me you are not like them, and I accept his judgment.' He stopped for a moment, genuinely moved by the man-child's countenance: the troubled face, exhausted by hope and fear alike.
'I have decided to let you stay, young one. But under the following conditions. You will remain in the smaller cave, using my own only at greatest need. Further, you must be prepared to leave it upon my return, twenty days, perhaps more. You may fool my enemies for a time, but it is unwise to think you could hold them off longer. I will circle the mountain twice, giving credence to your sound-making device. Beyond that you are on your own. I will give Akar the rest of my thoughts. He stands in my place while I am gone. Heed him well, I do not place my trust in him lightly….. Do you hear my words?'
'Yes, master. I am grateful.' He wanted badly to leave, but theMantis' knowing gaze would not release him.
'Is there nothing else you would say to me?'
Kalus' heart sank. He KNEW! Despair overtook him at the last.
'I—- I took from your cave a weapon. Please believe me, it was not for myself alone. If you had banished us from the mountain….. I have only this knife.' He threw it weakly to the ground.
Skither waited patiently, and at length Kalus looked up at him. Again he signaled slowly. 'Be at peace. I am not angry. You may keep the sword, and one other weapon of your choosing.' Kalus stared in disbelief.
'You please me, Kalus, though you do not know it. I see that you learned long ago the lesson of self-reliance. Now you must learn a harder lesson still: when to trust. What you did this night took great courage; you have not changed my mind against you. Only. Hear me, Kalus, I do not give my thoughts easily. Sometimes it is better to trust, even at the price of great pain….. Your heart will know. But do not carry the weight alone. It will crush you.
'That is all. Be at peace.' Kalus lifted the knife and moved away. But as he walked stiffly toward the steep but passable incline, he felt love for the Monarch swell his heart to bursting, and hard tears pushing at his eyes. As he climbed to rejoin the girl, Akar went with Skither into his cave to receive further instruction. Sylviana met her new friend on the parapet.
'What did he say?'
Kalus did not answer at once, but took her by the hand and led her to the one place in the enclosure where both could stand without stooping. Reaching it he embraced her, but did not cry. He backed away, then sat down to gather his thoughts.
'We can stay, until his return, at least.'
She knelt before him. 'What about the sword?'
'I was right. He did see me. But he is not angry, and he said thatI could keep it. He said I was very brave.'
'That's because you are.'
'No.' He looked across at her sternly. 'Sylviana. You must know, this is only a beginning. I am grateful for your compassion last night, and I am in your debt. But there is still much work to do, and much danger. There are so many ways that the Wild can beat us….. And we must be prepared to leave here in twenty days.'
'Yes. I know.' Her tone was lowered. 'But at least you're not alone.' She reached out and touched his beard with the back of her fingers. He moved the hand away, but without anger or secret pain. It was morning still.
'Sylviana, come here. This is something you must see.' She went out and stood beside him on the parapet. Skither was preparing to leave.
He stood solid with legs spread and hooked claws clinging, his abdomen expanding and contracting as he prepared for the single thrust that would send a massive burst of air through the small opening in his purposely dislocated jaw.
He let the final breath gather inside him. Then spreading his wings for balance, he exhaled in a quick and powerful motion. The result was a whistling sound so loud and shrill that it wounded the hearing even through covered ears. All the Valley seemed to hush in its aftermath, an echo of silence, as if all life for miles around had stopped its breath to listen. Indeed, thought the girl, even a creature that did not know the massive killer from which it emanated, would be sure to stay far clear of the place from which the sound had come. The Mantis rested for a short time, then repeated its territorial warning.
Akar returned out of the larger cave as Skither's breathing became normal once more. After several minutes he nodded imperceptibly to the wolf, then spread his wings and took off slowly. He circled the mountain twice, swooped low down the canyon as if in anger, then turned westward at the sandstone ridge and moved steadily out of sight. Sylviana stood watching Kalus, whose eyes gleamed with some fierce emotion that was beyond her experience, but not her ability to feel. He was silent, lost in some world of his past, then spoke.
'It will be a long time before the Commodore ventures so far from its hole, to steal the flesh of those yet living.'
With this he seemed to come back to himself. He turned to the girl, contented. 'There is much work to do.' He reached above and behind her on the rockface to the place where he had set the pelt to dry. 'Have you ever worked with leather or fur?'
'Yes, a little.'
'Good. Take my knife and see if you can cut four long strands from the skin, each about as wide as your smallest finger. They need not be straight; they are only for binding wooden poles. I go to the valley to fetch them. Do not leave here until I return.' He began to descend, remembered himself. 'The sword…..' He passed her and reentered their tiny island of space, emerged with the sword, unsheathed. Its well-preserved edges looked sharp in the sunlight.
'Be careful,' she said.
'I am always careful. Akar will come with me.' He took a lock of her hair in his fingers, and would have kissed her if he knew how. He whistled for the wolf and started down.
'Kalus?' He turned. 'Won't you need an ax to cut the wood?' He could not hide his smile in answering.
'I don't have to cut it. I steal it from the beaver.'
The two hunters met on the broader ledge and descended into the shadows of the gorge, leaving the girl with only the large rabbit pelt and Kalus' jagged knife, in truth not much improved from the museum relics she had studied as a child. She moved to a small, relatively smooth stretch of stone just inside the entrance, and laid out the fur upon it. She sat down and tried to work, but after several tentative starts had only succeeded in shredding one corner and cutting her finger on the knife. There seemed no safe way to grasp it, no soft or unsharpened place anywhere on it.
'Oh, this will never work.' She sat there on the stony ground, angry and frustrated, sucking her finger and cursing this backward, half-animal world.
But then an idea came to her. She tried to suppress it, but again the strange and uncharacteristic stubbornness crept over her. She moved to the dark fissure of the shaft and looked down, deliberating. After several minutes of internal bickering, she reached her legs out over the side, lowered herself to the first shelf, and began to descend.
*
Kalus and the wolf returned late in the afternoon. Sylviana had not been idle. As the man-child laid five straight and sturdy poles on the floor by his accustomed sleeping place, he found there waiting for him four long and curving strands, spiral cut from the skin to assure greatest length and thickness. The girl returned his questioning gaze, held up a long hunting knife it its leather sheath.
'If you can steal a sword, I can at least take a few things to make my life more bearable.'
He looked past her on the floor to see one of the furs from her former bed, folded over and half filled with treasures she thought to keep. He asked to see the knife. He withdrew it from its sheath and gazed at it admiringly, not at all upset. Instead he nodded his approval.
'You have done well. He said we could take one other weapon, and I see that you have chosen the best.' He gave it back to her. 'What are the other things? Will he miss them?'
'I don't think so. It's just a few books, some bowls, and a flask for carrying water. And this.' She pulled the fur closer, fished around inside it for a moment, drew out a small whet stone. 'It's for sharpening steel.'
Again he smiled. 'You have done very well. I will make a hunter of you yet.' She put out her arms to embrace the wolf, who pulled away, though gently. Akar went again to the entrance.
'How did it go with you?' she asked Kalus.
'Your friend is very clever, though his heart is not in it. He drew away the beavers while I took the poles. The female—-' He laughed. 'She was so angry. I think she would have killed me if she got the chance.'
'Killed you? A little two-foot long beaver?'
'Two feet?' he winced. 'Perhaps the beavers of your world are only that long, but I promise you, these were larger than any wolf.'
She studied him, disbelieving. A bizarre thought had just occurred to her. 'Are you telling the truth?'
'Why would I lie?'
She threw back the upper fold of the fur, searched among the books. She quickly found what she was looking for: PREHISTORIC EARTH, ESSAYS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. She checked the index, thumbed the yellowed and clumping pages.
Her mind fell back into itself. Sure enough, sketched there in relative detail against the background of a large den, was the figure of a great prehistoric beaver, '…..eight to twelve feet in length.' Recovering herself, she moved hastily to sit beside him.
'Do they look like this?'
'Yes, more or less.'
She flipped through the stiff, distending pages—-Mammals of the Pleistocene. She stopped at a pair of saber-toothed cats, lurking hungrily near a tar-pit. 'What about these?' Have you seen them?'
'Yes, but it is not a good likeness.'
Her mind raced so that she hardly heard him. Was it possible? Had life reverted to its primitive, violent stages before Man, evolution in reverse? Her scientific education told her no, it couldn't happen. But was anything impossible here? She doubted it. She turned the pages again, stopped at the illustration of a lesser species of cave-bear. Again she showed him the book.
'Yes, I have seen them, though they live mostly to the north and west. But it is not a good likeness.'
Exasperated: 'Why, Kalus? Why isn't it a good likeness?'
'Because the bear is standing—-in life a bear only stands when it is going to fight—-and still he is only a head taller than the tribesman. I tell you, the bears of the north are much larger.'
'Tribesman?' In her haste she had failed to note the two fur-clad Neanderthals which stalked it, spear in hand, from behind a group of rocks. The face of the nearer was hard and set, with swept-back cheekbones and heavy, prominent brow. Eyes animal, and yet not animal. The caption said something about, EARLY MAN IS BELIEVED TO HAVE SUCCESSFULLY HUNTED…..
'No. It can't be.' Her eyes went wide. 'Your people look like this?' This time he had no reservations.
'Yes.'
She sat there numb. The realization of the truth had quite overwhelmed her. Mindless, soulless animals returning to the form of their primitive ancestors were one thing. Men….. But it was more than even that. For the first time in her life she knew, really knew, that Man had once been caught in between, neither fully instinctive nor rational, animal nor human, left to cross the tenuous bridge alone, and for thousands of years. The intensity of their fear, and answering determination, must have been terrifying.
And at what point did he develop a clear mind, and immortal soul? She nearly wept at the thought: Man's immortal soul. As opposed to the mortal, unfeeling animals. What a sad and sorry farce. She looked first to Kalus, then at the wolf—-who stood regarding her from the entrance, feeling, but not understanding her pain. She turned again to Kalus. One last hope.
'But you don't look anything like that.'
'And I don't look like my people. It is the greatest mystery of my life, and the reason they mistrust me.' She rocked herself a little, beyond the point of tears. The man-child waited.
'What is wrong?'
She found she could not answer with words, though the thoughts had come easily enough: too easy, like vague fears taking shape and becoming familiar from the smokes of a half-remembered past. He seemed to sense this, or something like it, and to know that whatever it was she was feeling, he could not help her now. Not yet.
He continued his work, notching the poles with hard strokes from the side of his stone knife, as she moved bewilderedly back to her place. But often as he worked he would look over at her, stirred strangely by her dismay at simple truths he had long since been forced to accept. He thought of this, and it puzzled him. At length he said:
'I cannot always let myself feel things. I hope you understand that.Perhaps, you must feel them for me.'
She glimmered softly with marble eyes and said, 'Yes,' but her mind was far away. One phrase only kept echoing inside it, gathering deeper associations as it fell, like a leaf, into place.
Night came, and they slept.