A Feast Unknown (22 page)

“What? A worm would kill a breaker of leopards?”

“I have killed many many leopards,” I said, flashing my fingers to indicate an immense number. “I have killed many of the great fighters of The Folk. I have killed many lions.”

He looked puzzled, and I knew that he did not know the word which the west coast Folk use. He had probably never seen or heard of a lion.

“I will kill you!” he screamed.

I decided to brandish my knife. When he saw it, he looked around for another stick to knock the knife out of my hand as he had done to the first owner.

I said, “Let us be friends, Leopard-Breaker.”

He screamed with all the air in his throat-sac, “Kill!”

And he charged.

I threw the knife. It should have gone in to the hilt in his paunch. He lowered his head, however, so swiftly that it protected his belly, though he did not do it on purpose, I’m sure. The knife struck the top of that thick-boned head, cut the scalp, and flew off. His head rammed into my belly, and his arms snapped together.

Not until I had thrown the knife had I become aware that my penis was bristling as much as my hair. Moreover, just as the knife left my hand, I became aware of an approaching orgasm. This disconcerted me and unbalanced my timing and coordination and slowed me. Otherwise, I would have sidestepped his arms.

He carried me up and backwards, as he ran swiftly forwards
with the intention of crashing me into a tree trunk. My arms were free, so I interlocked my fingers and brought the edges of both palms down close to my belly and on top of that crest. Though he grunted, he drove on. Again, I came down with my hands but in a slanting blow on the back of that muscle-slabbed, heavy-vertabraed neck. He grunted and slowed down, and I slammed him again on the neck. If he had been a human, he would have had a broken, or at least fractured, neck.

He dropped me and then fell on top of me. I shoved him off and twisted away, seeing at the same time, a foot away, the tree against which he had meant to break my back.

He regained his senses very quickly and kicked out behind him. My feet went from under me, and my right leg between the knee and ankle felt numbed, as if a zebra had kicked it. He rolled over and bounded to his feet. Instead of leaping at me, which he should have done with my leg half-paralyzed, he ran off to get a thick heavy piece of thornwood, which was close to the woman.

She lifted her legs as he bent over to pick up the club, and she kicked. Her heels caught him on the side of his jaw. If it had been a man’s jaw, it would have shattered. He dropped on his face without a sound.

Limping, I ran towards
shth-tb,
but he rose unsteadily and turned towards me. The woman, who had pulled herself along on her back with her heels—another indication of the strength in those long and beautifully shaped legs—kicked him in the ankle. This was done at the expense of a rope burn, because the rope around one ankle slid up her leg. It hurt her; her face twisted.

The male went down again. Roaring, though not as loudly as he had been, he again struggled to his feet. She smote him on
the side of his jaw once more with her two feet, and then, after he had fallen, she rammed a heel into his nose.

I had picked up the knife. I rolled him over on his back. Blood ran from his nose, and his eyes were crossed. His jaw hung askew as if it were broken.

“Kghd?”
I said.

He did not reply verbally. His big wrinkled hairy hand shot out and gripped the womans ankle. She gasped and tried to kick loose but could not break the grip. He sat up and dragged her toward him, breaking the rope. He kept his crossed eyes on— or toward—me. He had acted so swiftly that he had caught me unaware; I had broken my own rule for just a few seconds and now must pay. Rather, she must pay for my lack of caution in approaching him.

He could break her neck before I could get to her, and if I raised the knife to throw it, he would crack it.

Despite this, I threw the knife. I could do nothing else. He was going to kill her no matter what I did.

My hurling the knife made him loose his grip for a moment, because he had thought he had me buffaloed. She bent her neck down instead of trying to jerk away and bit his penis. He screamed with surprise and agony and threw his hands up in the air. My knife went into his solar plexus with a sound as of an axe hitting soft wood. His eyes uncrossed, rolled up, the lids closed, and he fell on his back. His hands clenched, unclenched, clenched, and then were still.

I had lost control then. I was on my knees, holding myself up with both hands, and jerking with the spasms of the orgasm. The grass was puddled with the gray fluid. Of all my kills since
this had started, this was the most intense ecstasy. It was as exquisite—and almost as tender and one-making—as when Clio and I loved.

I think it was because I had killed a great male of The Folk. I have always loved The Folk, but at the same time I have hated, deep down, the adult male. Too many of them caused me too much pain and terror when I was young. To me, killing one of them was a far greater feat than killing any number of human males. And there was the additional thrill (later, it was a deep sadness) of killing what was probably the last male of The Folk. I had paid them back fully and finally for the bullyings and horrors of my childhood.

29

The woman stared as if she could not believe what she had seen. I rose, pulled the knife from the belly, and wiped it on his hairy skin. The female still squatted at the other end of clearing with her infant. Ignoring the woman’s requests to cut the rope loose from her wrists, I walked to the female. She looked up with eyes black as the bottom of an open grave at night. The infant looked dead.

“I won’t harm you,” I said. “You may stay here and share my food, if you wish. I had to kill
shth-tb.
He forced me to.”

She said nothing. Slowly, painfully, she got to her feet, looked once at the corpse of her mate, turned, and was gone into the jungle. I did not go after her. There was nothing I could do for her. Moreover, I did not have time to spare.

I cut the woman’s ropes and helped her to her feet, since her arms and hands were in pain after the blood started circulating. She was at least six feet tall and very well formed. She had a fine haunch that curved out like an apple and looked almost as hard
when she tensed her gluteus maximum on feeling my hand. I withdrew it and stepped back She rubbed her wrists, said, “It hurts,” and looked speculatively at me. The bronze hair was below her shoulders, wavy, and looked remarkably unmussed-up. She had no makeup but managed to look beautiful without it. Her pubic hairs were unusually thick and two shades darker than the metallic head hair.

She saw me looking at her and smiled slightly. I did not know what the smile was supposed to mean.

“If you’re going to try to rape me,” she said, “I hope you’re not as inept as the last two. And let me rest first and eat something. I’m tired, sore, hungry, and shaken up. I’ve been abducted and mauled and chewed on and repeatedly splashed on the belly with the premature ejaculations of that demented creature. Or do you know whom I’m talking about?”

“He’s dead,” I said. “The ape killed him.”

She said, “Oh!” and then, “That’s no ape. It’s a subhuman if ever I saw one, and I haven’t, except in anthropology books. I didn’t know that these things really existed, I’d always thought they were native myths. But it certainly isn’t built for raping a female homo sapiens. Not that it tickled me so I felt like laughing.”

I had to admire her. Most women would have been hysterical, nor would I have blamed them.

“That monster—the human one—thought he was you, you know. So did I. You are he, aren’t you? Could we eat? There’s plenty of food in the tree-house. Canned,” she added with another smile. “That wild man had a year’s supply of everything.”

I said, “Be at ease. I have no intention of raping you. I couldn’t if I wanted to.”

“Every male I run into is ejaculating all over the place,” she said.

Then she said something that startled me. “It’s almost as big as Doc’s. And just about as useless, I’ll bet.”

She was very cool and very strange, though I suppose she must have thought me rather weird, too. I let her precede me to the house. She was a woman, but she had shown herself to be uncommonly dangerous. I did not want her behind me until I knew I could trust her.

The tree house was about fifty feet up and situated on a platform which ran entirely around the trunk and was supported by four huge branches radiating towards the cardinal points of the compass. It was built of bamboo and thatched with elephant’s ear leaves and grasses. It had three rooms. The ascent to it had to be made by stainless steel rungs which I had hammered into the trunk. Wooden rungs would have rotted in a year or two.

Trish Wilde (she had not introduced herself yet) got a fire going in the stone fireplace and wrapped herself in a blanket before it.

The house was a mess. The floors were littered with opened cans, scraps of food covered by insects, and even a pile of excrement in one corner. If the crazy man had been imitating me, he must have thought I had the sanitary habits of a slum dweller. One of the bamboo and grass couches looked as if it had been taking punishment. One leg was broken off and the bottom was sagging.

The woman said, “Oh, by the way, I’m Trish Wilde, and I was assistant botanist to Doctor Everfields, a world-famous botanist, and we were searching for exotic plants when I was
carried off. If the crazy man hadn’t surprised me so, I would have kicked his kneecap loose and then smashed his balls and that would have been that.

“Once he got me up here, he hammered at me until he broke the couch. He never did get his thing into me. He kept coming on my belly. But he almost bit my nipples off.”

“I can see that,” I said.

“He stank, and he had a big belly, and he slobbered all over me. I think he wanted to stick his cock in my mouth, but he knew I’d bite it off if he did.”

She was well educated but she talked like a wharf-dock whore. Certainly, she must moderate her talk in other situations. I did not know why she felt she could speak so uninhibitedly with me. Perhaps it was because she thought, and quite rightly, that my infrahuman rearing had left me without emotional reactions to the so-called “tabu” words.

“How tired are you?” I said.

“I have some energy left. Why?”

It was necessary to tell her part of my story if I were to get her to come with me voluntarily. I knew she was a member of the Nine’s organization, so I would not be revealing secrets. I told her what had happened since the dawn the Kenyans attacked, but I left out all reference to her cousin. I also made it appear that Noli had escaped from me but had sworn to go to England and take revenge on Clio.

“Have you had this year’s elixir?” I said.

“No,” she said. “I’m not due for the caverns until next month.”

Clio was also scheduled to go then. I did not tell her that. She would know that as soon as she saw Clio, who, presumably, had made the pilgrimage with her many times.

“I am leaving within the hour,” I said. “I’ll be traveling as swiftly as I can and sleeping little. If you want to come with me, you’re welcome. It is easy for a stranger to get lost in these mountains, and I would not like to see you try to go it alone. Nevertheless, if you can’t keep up with me, I will leave you behind.”

“I could use a good night’s sleep,” she said. “But I don’t want to wander around these mountains until I die or get picked up by some horny natives. I’ll go with you.”

I was glad that she said that, because I had made up my mind that she was coming with me no matter what she said. She could be a trade off if Caliban succeeded in getting hold of Clio.

We ate and drank and then made up a bundle for each. This consisted of a rainhat, poncho, blanket, a breakdown .22 rifle and cartridges, matches, and cans of food. Immediately after, we set off.

Despite our pace, which was rapid for the thick heavy growth of the rain forest, she had breath enough to chatter on and on. She told me of her childhood, her high school and college days, of meeting Doc, of the mysterious deaths of her father and her uncle. She had gone off with Doc and his five colleagues on several adventures. She owned a nation-wide chain of clothing shops and much property. She had a master’s degree in psychology but had returned to school, after many years, and gotten a Ph.D. in botany.