Kong: King of Skull Island Read online

  The eyes burned from their wrinkled nests of flesh. “But he is Atu, is he not?”

  Ishara raised her chin. She had had the same argument with members of her own clan. “Atu marry Tagu now.”

  The Storyteller chuckled. “But Atu have never married Tagu royalty. Well, well, the world changes, or a tree would remain a seed forever.”

  Ishara was looking about her. The hut seemed part of the Wall itself, fully as ancient. “Who built this here?” she asked. “Why a house on the Wall?”

  “The makers were our ancestors. And the dwellers here were the keepers of the Wall, who watched and warned of any dangers. But then it became clear that the Wall would hold out all threats, that no watchers were needed, and so the hut was abandoned for many lifetimes, until I took a notion in my old head to live here. What do you think of the Wall?”

  The question surprised Ishara. “That’s like asking what I think about the sea. The Wall has always been here. It saves us from the beasts of the world, and we couldn’t live without it.”

  The Storyteller leaned close. In almost a whisper, she said, “And yet . . . ?”

  Ishara could not meet the challenge of her old eyes. She looked down at her own knees instead. “Sometimes,” she heard herself confessing, “I think the Wall cuts us off from the past. From knowing who we are. From our . . . ” she took a deep breath. “From our souls,” she whispered.

  The Storyteller abruptly stood, with a grace and energy that seemed too young for her. The Oji fluttered and croaked. “Come,” the old woman said.

  They went to the large triangular window opening to see a sky flying long, ragged pennants of straggling gray cloud, though blue was breaking through. Ishara sniffed. The air had the clean smell of rain, and from up here the metallic tang of blood could not be detected. The Storyteller stood looking out over the far edge of the Wall at the dark green jungle glistening with raindrops. Ishara stood just opposite her. On either side, like a perilous bridge, the Wall receded into the mist. No, not like a bridge, more like a dam holding back the green flood of the forest. Ishara stepped back.

  “Come and look,” said the Storyteller. With her head feeling as if it were spinning again, Ishara took timid steps back to the window to stand behind her. She was relieved when the Storyteller sat down. As if sensing this, the Storyteller motioned Ishara to sit beside her. The young girl nestled across the old woman’s lap as though she were a long lost grandmother and gazed out at the world. What unfurled before their eyes awed her: deep green trees growing in a canopy glistening and glazed with rain, and beyond that misty distances of pale purple mountains, brooded over by the rounded skull gazing balefully over all, nightmarish in the rain-hazy air. Ishara had seen the mountain before, from the lagoon, but never this clearly. Shapes wheeled in the sky around the bleak stone skull, pterosaurs soaring and dipping. The forest canopy faded away into dimness at the feet of the mountains, and off to the right lay a sliver of ocean, blue and streaked with silver. The storm lay on the far horizon there, dancing on legs of lightning.

  The Storyteller did not look around at her. “Is the world beyond the Wall so terrible?”

  Slowly, Ishara answered: “It is beautiful.”

  “But you fear it.”

  “Yes.”

  “When knowledge leaves, fear comes to take its place.” The Storyteller raised her staff and pointed with it. “There’s the course of the great river. You see the break winding through the trees?”

  As if a gigantic snake had crawled through the jungle, yes, Ishara saw a twisting, turning dark gap. Pearly mist rose in a cloud from one part of it far away. “I can see it. What’s that, like steam rising?”

  “There is a chasm. It leads from the mountains to the sea. There where you see the rising haze, the river tumbles down the chasm walls in a waterfall that sends the mist high into the air. But look closer to us, to the place where I point. Do you see the hill there, where the river winds out of sight behind it before coming back into view?”

  “Yes.”

  The Storyteller leaned on her staff. “That’s the Old City. Have you heard stories of it?”

  Ishara’s heart thumped. “I’ve heard that the people lived in a citadel on the far side of the Wall once. Bar-Atu says that the Tagu angered the gods by their arrogance when they built the city. That’s why the gods sent the beasts to punish us.”

  The Storyteller snorted. “Bar-Atu has more words than the sea has fish! He is from the Atu clan, whose leaders refused to acknowledge the one God of the Tagu! He does not believe in the gods he speaks of—he uses the fear of them to control his followers.” The Storyteller laughed. “My child, pay no attention to his lies. They are purely to serve his own ends. Our people did build a great city there, but we built in the midst of the beasts. They were always here, and no gods sent them as punishment. For age upon age our people knew how to control them. And we kept the dangerous beasts away and even walked among others with no fear.”

  “Magic,” Ishara said. “Evil magic, Bar-Atu says. That’s what we used to kill the creatures of the forest.”

  “We killed only what we needed, and it wasn’t magic,” the Storyteller said quietly.

  “But to hold back the predators—there must have been magic.”

  “Knowledge,” corrected the Storyteller. She sighed with a smile. “There were herbs that could be burned, sending up a smoke that repelled or tamed the beasts. We had a stronghold in the middle of the island, and from it we had underground paths that gave us safe passage throughout the land. Our ancestors made walls of memory, where the images of our history lived. And we had our helpers, the giants. They worked with us.”

  Ishara shook her head. “Children’s tales. If we could do those things, our people would never have retreated behind the Wall.”

  “Well, well, Storytellers tell stories,” the old woman said. “There’s an end to this children’s tale, of course, for stories have endings as well as beginnings. Do you want to know?”

  “Yes.”

  “You asked about the mist of the waterfall, and I told you. How the great rift came to be I don’t know. The earth split itself there, maybe in an earthquake before we even came to the island. Or perhaps it is a symbol for what happened to us, in the days when we lost the City. For as the chasm splits the island, so in time a chasm split the people. The Tagu and the Atu tore apart from each other. The Tagu searched for self-control, while the Atu tried to control everything but themselves. This contradiction could not last. The two sides broke into war. From that evil came many more. From that split of the heart, the Wall came to divide the island.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s a long story, and not one to tell while standing atop the Wall. But one day you shall have it whole, beginning, middle, and end. Or rather beginning, middle, and beginning, since one story gives birth to another. Maybe that will be a story for you to tell. Still, the City did end, and we now live behind the Wall.”

  Ishara stared out over the jungle at the hill. It looked like any other part of the forest canopy. No buildings, no trace of human works, showed on its rounded surface. “Then the City no longer exists at all.”

  “Yes, it does. In pieces.” The canny old face turned. “Storehouses were there, child, with the seeds of the herbs carefully kept. They may still be there, waiting. Waiting for a healer of the island to repair the great rift in our hearts. Who knows? Someday seeds may sprout. Change is the way of the world. Now it’s time you returned to the village. Everyone will be worried about you. And the answer is yes.”

  “The answer?” Ishara asked.

  “You were going to ask if you could return here to visit me.”

  And Ishara realized that she had been on the verge of asking exactly that.

  The stories wore on Vincent Denham. He dozed, he woke, he ate what soft foods the scowling Kara brought him, and he listened to the Storyteller’s voice until sleep claimed him again. Now he could not say whether he had been in this caver
n for days or weeks. He woke and found that, instead of the Storyteller, Kara sat on the stool, her knees drawn up, her chin propped on her hand, staring at him. “How do you feel?” Her voice was not friendly.

  “Better,” Vincent said. “I think I’m getting some of my strength back.”

  She spat. “If I had the choice, I would have let the lagoon monsters eat you!”

  Vincent struggled to sit up. “What do you have against me? What have I done to you?”

  “I’ve heard of men like you, men from the world.” Her voice gave the last word a poisonous twist, as if she were pronouncing an obscenity. “Before I was born, men like you came to the island. What did they bring my people? Death! Destruction! Now look at you, you come to study the island, to help us, you will say. But I know you, Vincent Denham. You come for selfish reasons! You care nothing for us!”

  Vincent felt hot blood rush to his face. “That’s a lie,” he said harshly. “And you—do you think your people are the only ones hurt? Because of them, because of your islanders, my family was broken! I lost my father! My life—my mother’s life—was ruined!”

  The effort exhausted him, and he fell back. Kara’s gaze mocked his weakness. Vincent drew deep, gasping breaths. How did she know just how to probe his frailty? He had always prided himself on his control, a man of science who kept his emotions in check, but now he felt a keen pang of despair at how easily she had provoked him into anger.

  “What is the trouble?” It was the sharp voice of the Storyteller.

  Kara rose from the stool and in a quick burst of her native language, pointing at Vincent, she made what he thought were accusations. The Storyteller listened with a stony face. Kara’s voice grew shrill, and she stamped her bare foot.

  The Storyteller’s face became stern, and she snapped, “I told you to speak in English when we are in his presence, Kara! We will give him our trust . . . and time.”

  “She’s lying,” Vincent croaked. “Whatever she’s telling you, she’s lying.”

  “We can’t trust him!” exploded Kara in English. “Can’t you see that? He will destroy us!”

  “You will give him time!” The Storyteller’s voice was like a lash. It made Kara gasp and fall quiet. The old woman continued calmly, “Vincent Denham does not know the whole story, Kara. Neither do you. You are gifted, but you are young. There are many lessons for you to learn. One is to be patient enough to wait. Another is to be humble enough to listen.”

  “I don’t have to—”

  “You do!” The Storyteller’s eyes flashed. “You want to be the savior of the island, do you? You think the two bloods that mix and flow in your veins alone make you fit? No! Not unless you learn! Not unless you are patient! Do you wish to unsay the vow you made to me?”

  Kara met her gaze for a few seconds, but then lowered her eyes. “I will not unsay it.”

  “Then sit beside the bed. Listen to me.”

  Vincent felt the old woman’s hand on his forehead. “Why does she hate me?” he muttered.

  The Storyteller didn’t answer. “Are you ready for more of the story?”

  Vincent nodded, though he secretly wondered what use all this was. What was worse, deep down inside he was afraid that Kara’s accusations just might be true, after all.

  “Ishara!” The King’s chief serving woman, Adila, embraced Ishara, then held her at arm’s length. Adila was a tall Tagu woman, not pretty but handsome, even as her years shaded toward old age. “We were worried about you.”

  “I was safe enough. Father?”

  “He’s been asking about you.”

  Ishara went into the King’s House, a round structure at the center of the village. Her father lay propped up in his bed. Illness had wasted him, hollowing his cheeks, but his eyes lit at the sight of her. “Daughter! They said you went to fight the slashers.”

  Ishara knelt by his side and took his hand. “I climbed the Wall, father. I was safe with the Storyteller.”

  “Safe enough,” her father said with a smile. “She’s the oldest of us, and if anyone knows how to survive, she does.” He lifted his free hand to stroke her hair. “But you shouldn’t lift spear and shield, daughter. That’s man’s work.”

  “Survival is everyone’s work,” Ishara said gently.

  From outside came the rhythmic sound of drums. “What’s that?” asked the king. Then, recognizing the pattern, he answered himself: “Bar-Atu is calling a feast.”

  “A feast of victory,” said Ishara.

  “You must be there,” her father said. “Until I am well enough to stand and speak for myself.”

  And so that evening, as the meat of the slaughtered dinosaurs sizzled on spits over a fire pit, Ishara sat cross-legged next to Kublai. They were on the raised stone platform at the end of the fire pit, along with the King’s advisors. Bar-Atu had gravely welcomed them, but now as he strode back and forth before them, addressing the villagers, it was as if he had forgotten all about them.

  “We have refused the sacrifice too long!” Bar-Atu was shouting. “And so the god sends his messengers of death through our very gate!”

  Kublai stirred uneasily beside Ishara. “Look at them,” he muttered. “Half the people are on his side now. Half of them believe this unholy monster, Gaw, is a powerful god that needs our blood dripping from its jaws.”

  Ishara stared out at the villagers. With their faces lit from below by the fire, they looked like a band of tormented souls, or like demons on the verge of revolt.

  Bar-Atu raised his arms. “Yet we have a chance! The god took only six of our men. And the god gave us ten slashers and a deathrunner to feast upon! How much more would the god prosper us if we gave to him of our own will! I call upon the god! I call upon Gaw!”

  And at least half of the villagers echoed back, “Gaw! Gaw!”

  Ishara shivered, despite the heat of the fire. Stories told of a time when a king predator —another “god”—stalked the island, a beast of unimaginable destructive power. But the Atu would appease him by giving him one of their own, and the god in turn protected them, allowing them to hunt and to kill in the jungle. Stories. Stories that she had no more believed than she had those of a time when a city flourished in the heart of the jungle, a city prospering amidst the creatures of the island. Now she was no longer sure what she believed.

  The drummers had picked up their pace, their instruments thrumming to accentuate Bar-Atu’s words. “The Atu know! The Atu remember! The Atu worship!”

  “The thing to do,” growled Kublai, “is to kill these creatures, not worship them. Give me a hundred spearmen, and I’ll tame the island! Why crawl when you can stand like a man?”

  “Hush,” said Ishara, noticing nervous eyes darting their way. The King’s advisors, all Tagu, were uneasy enough already, with this hotheaded young Atu sitting among them. And they knew that Bar-Atu’s followers were growing in influence and power.

  Now, like a man possessed by a spirit, Bar-Atu stood before the fire pit, a silhouette to Ishara. His arms were spread, his head thrown back in a kind of rigid ecstasy. “Gaw!” he shouted, and his followers repeated the word. “Gaw! Gaw!” Bar-Atu flung a handful of something into the fire, and the flames blazed a brilliant crimson for a second, sending up a billow of smoke.

  Ishara’s heart was beating fast, perhaps in sympathy with the drums. Part of her wanted to leap up and shout that Bar-Atu was wrong, that Kublai was equally wrong, that there was a third way. But that part was timid. The chant went on and on, throbbing in her head. A burning log in the fire pit collapsed, sending a flight of red sparks swirling up into the night sky.

  Bar-Atu was moving around the fire, stamping his feet, as if in a trance, and shrieking even more loudly as he called upon his god.

  And then, from somewhere, from everywhere, came the overpowering roar of a gigantic animal.

  And Bar-Atu turned, his skin glistening with sweat, his eyes gleaming in triumph. “The god answers!” he shouted. “Hear the god!”

  And then aga
in came that terrible, hungry roar.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  UNDERGROUND

  June 30, 1957

  Jack Driscoll ate a meager breakfast of C-rations, took a drink of water from his canteen, and lit a match. He needed no torch now.

  The walls began to glitter, as if glow worms were firing up here and there. Pale spots of green at first, then yellows and blues, and then whole patches of color—reds, oranges, spreading across both walls of the tunnel as if someone were spilling luminous paint. The process needed light to trigger it, but once the luminescence had begun, it spread for hundreds of yards and lasted for more than an hour.

  And it formed pictures.

  Driscoll shook out the match. “Who did this?” he asked himself.

  He learned that the tunnel walls were overgrown here with what looked like fungus, thin enough to scrape off with his fingernail. But something in the layer responded to light, generated its own glow and colors. The first patches had been just disorganized swirls of color. But as the patches grew denser, pictures emerged. Most of them were fogged, as if the shapes were watercolors that had been dampened. But some were sharp, almost three-dimensional images. And they told a fantastic story.

  Driscoll had walked past scenes of immense sea craft, teeming with people and animals, leaving behind some scene of destruction. He had seen these— Arks, maybe?—reach what had to be Skull Island, though the mountain was only a rounded dome with the indications of the skull less evident.

  The few sharp pictures gave way to long passages lit by shapeless glows, and Driscoll could not make much of them. But to think of the kind of knowledge that could produce this glowing, nearly living story— “Couldn’t have been the savages,” Driscoll told himself, and concentrated on threading his way through the endless passages.

  He stopped now and then, when the pictures were clearer, when a great beast of the island appeared in colors so sharp and bright it might have been put there yesterday. At times he noticed cruder pictures, as if the makers had found their skills slipping away.