What had surprised the night ape was the strange power in these marks that could only be realized when he moved his face well away from the page. Then the tiny shapes organized themselves to look like black and white plants or trees that looked real, but were flat and bland to the taste and smell.
Phantom plants were formed that disintegrated back into dots and lines when Gazda moved his eyes closer to the marks.
The night ape found similar things in other skin-stones that showed creatures made from the black marks—strange beasts he had never seen in the jungle—shadowy animals that also came apart into dots and lines when he moved his face closer, before disappearing altogether when he closed the skin-stone covering.
Gazda later found larger sheets of the skin folded many layers thick at the bottom of the box, and again were ghostly creatures made by the small dots and lines on the brittle, yellow material.
But among these were unsettling shapes that it took Gazda some time to recognize, and frightened him when he did. For there were creatures made of dots and lines, but he was certain that they were tiny night apes draped in heavy garments like those he’d found of Fur-nose’s.
Groups of night apes like himself were there on the skin, upright on their hind legs as Gazda, Harkon and the bone-faces could stand—and one thing was plain, many of them had fur upon their faces growing all around their noses!
These night apes in the black marks appeared to be standing in open canyons of light and dark stone surrounded by tall cliffs on all sides. There was no jungle to be seen and no ape like Goro or Gazda’s mother.
Night apes they were, made of dots and lines, gathered in a canyon of light and dark rocks. All of them were upright, and displaying—preparing to challenge. Was a new king to be chosen?
He did not understand the tiny night apes in the canyon, or recognize what landmarks lay around it, but the things he saw on the skin-stones left Gazda with an eerie feeling. A memory whispered in his mind and caused a sinking sense that the black shapes were not strangers to him.
The marks and lines tugged at his brain in ways that left him nauseous, and made him dream of the canyon in which the night apes gathered.
There was one such day when he came awake from dreams of these night apes and fire. No sooner had Gazda laid his head upon the bed to sleep, than he found himself leaving the tree-nest and walking across the clearing to where the dark grove of trees spread up the slope and pushed against the jungle.
So many years had passed, and Gazda had yet explore the unusual growth of sickly trees, an oversight he never managed to correct. He remembered too well the eerie black fog that leaked from its roots, and the presence he’d once sensed among the shadows.
And these things were there with him in the dream as he’d approached the grove; the dull mist wafting up around his ankles as feral eyes watched him from between the bloated trunks.
Then he saw a stone wall had been built behind the forest, and at its foot a canyon had opened in which many night apes clambered and screamed. There was a roar high atop the wall, and looking up he cried out with the others as fire rained down in burning streams...
Gazda lay upon the bed listening to his racing heart and he might have fallen back to sleep had a sound not come suddenly from just outside his lair—then the entire structure trembled, and dust drifted down from the ceiling.
He quickly pulled his long knife before creeping toward the door where he listened for a moment to something just outside.
Breath racing in and out...a creature panting in distress and pain.
With long knife ready, Gazda pulled the door aside and slid his head past the frame to see...
Kagoon!
The lowering sun’s rays burnished his old friend’s face—but he was gravely injured! The bull ape had dragged himself up onto the raised platform and now lay with his enormous shoulders against the wall. The planks beneath him were stained with blood.
“Kagoon!” Gazda rushed out to him, eyes searching the clearing and the jungle eaves for enemies that had done this.
“Goro...” Kagoon blurted, with breaking voice, “...days ago...” The wounded blackback shrugged his torn shoulders, then drooling blood guessed, “Two days—Omag...”
Hooting worriedly, Gazda lowered himself over his friend sniffing at the many deep fang marks and bruises on his neck, chest and shoulders—and licking at the dripping mounds.
Decay...Gazda could smell decay in the flesh...
“Ulok...at the Two Trees,” Kagoon moaned. “Omag and the old queens supported it and blackbacks also.” His voice rattled.
Gazda slid a strong arm behind the giant shoulders to cradle his friend’s massive head. Cooing softly as Eeda had done for her son, Gazda brushed at the torn sideburns that hung in gory tangles to either side of the bull ape’s broken jaw.
Kagoon half-smiled at this, but his happy panting turned into a coughing-fit. Afterward, he had barely the strength to shudder as he gazed into Gazda’s eyes. The night ape’s strong fingers stroked his forehead.
“Omag did this...” the blackback said haltingly, gasping, almost drowning in a wave of pain before pushing along with his tale.
“It was that cane of his,” Kagoon sighed. “Like your shining fang, Gazda. None of us knew its true power...”
And as his friend spoke, Gazda was amazed to feel the story brush against his fingertips before it took shape inside his mind.
CHAPTER 31 – The Cripple’s Cane
Goro’s tribe had been feeding north of Fur-nose’s lair and east of the Grooming Rock. It was many miles inland from the coast and blackback scouts had reported finding many ripe bananas growing
