A garment then to hide the single stem? He wondered at this, shifting his eyes to the other female and back to the second—when down at the floor a movement caught Gazda’s eye. He had discerned the subtle shifting of her feet past the lowest edge of cloth.
Of course it was a garment or covering for both her legs!
The brown-haired female sang something then that was echoed back by a deeper voice on the far side of the new wall.
It came as a gravelly barking noise, raspy and reminiscent of Baho’s tone.
The males! Of course, and they had made the wall that lay before the night ape’s hunting trophies!
Females would have mates, though Gazda could not imagine the reason for dividing the space inside his tree-nest. Males and females traveled and slept together in Gazda’s tribe.
At the thought, his features hardened as he considered the outcome should these new males challenge him for she-apes in his tribe, or should Gazda challenge them for their smooth-skinned females.
And he imagined the males to be like himself: ferocious, powerful and fleet of foot.
But worthy challengers to the ape-king.
A puzzling sound came from inside.
A scratching noise reverberated, followed by a rhythmic thumping that started and quickly stopped, before a harsh grating sound climbed in pitch and volume. This rasped at Gazda’s sensitive ears and he covered them until other sweeter notes rose from the din.
Varying by degrees, so soft and gentle these fleeting sounds floated up to him at first until the volume built, and the trilling rolled upward to towering heights and pitch—like tree frogs and like birds in the high canopy combined they sang high above him—while other somber tones were there beneath, groaning low and louder as a lion growls again and again, but in a measured beat.
Caught within these divergent sounds, Gazda’s breath jerked in and out in heavy gasps—remarkably in rhythm with the lofty notes. Nodding his head in cadence with the sound and motion, Gazda watched the females come together and clasp arms...
...where they moved in concert with a rhythm couched deep within the complex sounds that filled the tree-nest. Hypnotically they swayed to the beat, as Gazda also swayed, before their high voices joined in to cycle upward and overpower the tonal cloud.
Then clutching tight to each others waists they jumped and turned in place, chattering and whistling like birds as they twirled.
But the varied cloud of high and low notes built up in pitch and speed and volume as they moved in a whirling blur.
Until Gazda yanked his face away from the dazzling motion. He breathlessly clutched the thatch to keep from falling before the swinging tones drew him back to the dizzying sound and action.
He held his face half turned from the window, for he could not watch the females full on without being drawn into their giddy spinning, or be overwhelmed by the throbbing sounds that pressed his fluttering heart, and pierced his memory.
With vision blurring, Gazda moved with caution from the light and sound, sliding his trembling hands over the fronds to crawl nearer the tree-nest’s peak. There he crouched with his strong arms wrapped around his chest as the flying notes vibrated through the roof beneath him.
Ever spinning upward it ran the high and low while the steady thump of the female feet crashed against his brain reminding him, reminding him of...
...a vast room of stone, of bold color, of moving shapes all twirling, spinning and pulsing to the sounds, the rhythms, as he watched—and light spilled down from twinkling blossoms of transparent stone. And the cloud of rhythmic noises flickered with the light.
He was reminded of... He could see...
A male voice barked and grated, and there followed a sudden zipping sound, and the noises ceased.
The females chattered, and squeaked and giggled.
But Gazda’s vision continued on the echo of those sounds, as he bared his gleaming fangs at the glowering sky. Tears mixed with the raindrops on his cheeks...
...as the rhythm sprang to life inside his mind again.
There as in a waking dream, Gazda saw a thousand females whirling on their mushroom stems and in their embrace did night ape males go leaping. Twirling also, they spun and jumped...
...all dressed in the garments from the skin-stones. The night apes turned on a great flat rock beneath shining lights and with them the twittering notes did spin.
A spasm wrenched Gazda’s body, pulling him from the sight, and there his eyes fell upon the black trees where shadows spilled from their sickly stumps like streams of night.
Struck with terror, he leapt away and sprinted from the darkness to the jungle edge where he scrambled upward and pressed his back to slick gray bark.
Rain scattered by the canopy fell as a mist and slid over his shaking limbs in silver drops.
But the rhythmic cloud of sounds still followed, and when he shut his eyes the night apes turned and spun.
In a great cavern they moved, and he watched.
Gazda gagged and pressed his hands against his eyes to stop the tears that flooded out. What were these things? What was the noise? A curse of Fur-nose?
But more images swam in his mind like those in dreams: more night apes with long knives straddling unknown beasts; tall structures of stone sprang up to be consumed by fire as the cloud of spangled notes turned and turned.
It was a weapon!
No! That was wrong. These sounds were something more. It was: “MUSIC!”
The word rang loud in a language not of the apes, and Gazda beat upon his temples to shut it out, only for the word to return the louder, but cleaner somehow, and poignant. It bore a shade of joy that gnawed his lonely heart.
Gazda whimpered and clawed at the bark to gain his footing on the branch.
Music. Soft, like his mother’s fur. Yes. Yes. Mother.
Crouched there on the bough, his thoughts ran back through memory to his mother’s arms and there
