The Hunt (15 page)

As I make my way to that side wal, it happens again. That second refl ected beam is in turn refl ected: now there are three sunbeams bouncing around the room. The third beam is weak and momentary. It grows brighter for about ten seconds, then fades. As THE HUNT 107

it does, I hurry to the spot it is shining at, a faint dot of ilumination on the spine of a book. I walk over and hook out the book. Feel its leathery feel in my hand, smooth and worn. I carry it to the fi rst beam of sunlight, the second beam itself now fading away. I hold the book to the light, fl ip it around to the front cover.

The Heper Hunt,
it reads.

Many moons ago, the heper population— which in eras past, according to unsubstantiated theories, once, unfathomably, dominated the land— fel to dangerously low numbers. By Palatial Order 56, hepers were rounded up and farmed on the newly built Heper Institute of Refi ned Research and Discovery. To ap-pease a disgruntled populace, citizens in good standing were randomly chosen to participate in the annual Heper Hunt. It was a resounding success.

The fi rst sign of corruption was seen in the decreasing number of hepers at the annual Hunt. Typicaly ranging between twenty and twenty- fi ve hepers, that number soon dwindled down to about fi fteen. Eventualy, only ten hepers were released, then only seven; fi fteen. Eventualy, only ten hepers were released, then only seven; fi naly, on a night few have forgotten, the Palace released a statement: There were no more hepers in captivity at the Heper Institute.

And yet. Hushed rumors of secret hunting expeditions per-sisted: clandestine meetings at the Heper Institute for high-ranking Palace offi cials; convoys of carriages arriving there in the last hours of dusk; odd wails heard coming from across the Vast.

Rumors circulated and grew that corruption reached “al the way to the top.”

But then, after a few years, even those rumors ceased.

108 ANDREW FUKUDA

On the eleventh day of the sixth month of the fourth year of the 18th Ruler, it was announced that hepers had become extinct.

The journal cover is made of charcoal lambskin mottled with minuscule grooves. It is smooth and broken in, looped by twin twines.

The pages inside, with mercury- gilt edges, crinkle and differentiate easily when I turn them. Thousands of pages of handwritten notes, the penmanship clean and assured. But there’s nothing original in these pages. And, notwithstanding the title on the cover, hardly any material about the Heper Hunt. Only a brief history of the Hunt material about the Heper Hunt. Only a brief history of the Hunt scrawled on the fi rst couple of pages, then the matter is dropped, like an impulsive manuscript quickly jettisoned. The remainder of the journal is hand- copied and regurgitated material copied from the thousands of textbooks in the library. Long lists of genealogies; ancient poems; wel- known fables. Even detailed diagrams that must have taken days to copy, meticulously duplicated.

The Scientist. Clearly, he’s the author of this journal. But why he spent thousands of hours needlessly fi ling its pages is a mystery. I remember what others said about him: his mental instability, his mysterious disappearance.

And then there’s the beam of light, dimmer now with the approaching dusk. Why had he gone to such lengths to create that beam— and the two others— to point to the journal? The journal was meant to be found, that’s obvious, but by whom and why are not so obvious.

I’m shutting the journal closed when I notice a blank white page smack bang in the middle of the journal. What an odd omission.

The hundreds of pages before and after this page are fi led from top to bottom; yet this page, back and front, has been left blank.

Not a dot of ink. Its whiteness is almost a shout. The last sentence on the preceding page isn’t even complete— it’s cut off midway and then THE HUNT 109

continues on the page after this blank sheet, picking up exactly where it left off. I tap the spine of the book, pondering, confused.

Like the refl ected beams of light that pointed me to this book, the very blankness of this page seems to be purposefuly directing my attention here. But as much as I examine it, I can’t make heads or tails of it.

I fl op down, tired. The room is suffocating; I grasp around my neck, feel the scrim of sweat and dirt under my jawline. I don’t even need to lift my arm to smel the odor exuding off me like a dog in heat.

It wil be my escort who’l make the discovery. When he comes to summon me after dusk, he’l smel my odor fl owing out through the cracks along the door frame. He’l sprint around, look inside through the windows, the shutters having already been retracted.

He’l see me stil sitting in this chair, sulen and tired, my chest rising and faling, breathing hard, eyes wide because I wil, though resigned, stil be very afraid. He wil see the emotion pouring off me in waves. And then he’l understand. He wil not cal for the others.

He wil want me for himself. He wil leap through the glass windows— so frail in the face of his desire, like thin ice before a blowtorch— and even before the shattered shards have reached the ground, he wil be upon me. And then he wil have me, devouring me with fangs and nails in just a few—

And then, just like that, I realize something.

The blinding whiteness of the outside feels like acid dropped on my eyebals. I let the light leak in a little at a time, until I can see without blinking, then without squinting.

It is hours before dusk, when the sun has just begun its descent.

The sun isn’t going quietly: bleeding red into the sky, it infuses the 110 ANDREW FUKUDA

plains with an orange- and- purple hue. Without the Dome to cover the heper vilage, the mud huts look exposed and inconsequential in the plains, like rat droppings. Soon the light sensors wil detect the arrival of night and the glass wals wil arc out of the ground, form a perfect dome, and protect the hepers from the world outside. I must hurry.

There’s a glimmer in front of the mud huts, like a hundred diamonds twinkling in the twilight. The pond. It’s been staring me right in the face the whole time, while thirst ravaged and odor oozed off my body. How could I have been so blind? Al the water I could possibly want, for drinking and washing, within easy access. The only danger would be the hepers, of course, who might not take kindly to my intrusion. They’l be confused, of course, on the arrival of a stranger somehow able to withstand sun rays. But I know how to handle them. Bare my fangs, snap my rays. But I know how to handle them. Bare my fangs, snap my neck side to side, click my bones; I’m a master at impersonation.

They’l likely scatter to the four winds.

Suddenly upbeat, I plow on toward the heper vilage. Gradualy, the mud huts begin to take shape, growing in size and detail. Then I see the hepers, a group of stick fi gures moving slowly around the pond, stopping, moving, stopping. The sight of them both excites and unnerves me. There are fi ve of them. They haven’t noticed me yet, nor would they have: nobody has ever approached them during the day.

When I am about a hundred yards away, they see me. One of them, crouching by the pond, shoots straight up, his arm jacking forward like a switchblade sprung out, pointing at me. The others turn quickly, heads pivoting toward me. Their reaction is instant: they turn and fl ee, bolting inside mud huts. I see windows shuttered closed, doors slammed shut. Within a few scant moments, they’ve THE HUNT 111

al vacated the pond, leaving upturned pots and pails around the pond in their wake. Just what I was hoping for.

Nothing stirs. Not an opened shutter or a cracked door. I break into a trot, my dried- out bones dangling in my body, snapping with every jarring step. My gaze, fi xed on the pond, thirstily draws water out with the bucket of my eyes. I am getting closer, fifty yards out.

A door to one of the mud huts opens.

A female,
that
female heper, steps out. A look of rage on its face, but fear, too. It grips a spear in its right hand. Hanging off its hip is a simple fl at slab of dark hide leather, almost like a wide belt.

A deadly row of daggers lies strapped in taut against the leather, their blades strangely curved at the hilt.

I raise my hands with wide- open palms. I’m not sure how much it comprehends, so I use simple words. “No hurt! No hurt!” I shout, but what ekes out instead are hoarse, indecipherable sounds. I try to push the words out again, but I can’t gather enough saliva in my mouth to lubricate my throat.

The setting sun, directly behind me, douses the heper vilage with color, like bright easel paint dripping onto drab leather shoes.

My shadow extends long and preternaturaly thin before me, a long, gnarled fi nger reaching out to that girl heper. I’m nothing but a silhouette to it. No; I’m more. I’m the enemy, the predator, the hunter: that’s why the other hepers fl ed. But I’m also something else: a mystery. A confounding contradiction, because although I am in the sunlight, I am not disintegrating. And that is why the female heper has not fl ed but stands in front of me, puzzled, curious.

But not for long. With a primal scream, it strides toward me, its body at a slant, one arm extended backward. It fl ings its arm forward in a violent blur.

112 ANDREW FUKUDA

It takes a moment before I realize what’s going on. And by then it’s too late. I hear a whistling sound as the spear cuts through air, can even see the wooden length vibrating slightly from side to side as the spear slices toward me. Right at me. In the end, I’m just lucky.

I don’t move to avoid the spear— there’s no time— and it whizzes through the space between my head and left shoulder. I hear
and
feel the
whoosh
by my left ear.

And then the heper is reaching down to its dagger strap; in less than a second, it’s unstrapped a dagger and is instantaneously fl inging it with a rapid sidearm motion. The dagger shoots out of its hand, fl ashing in the sunlight. But way off.
Way
off. Like a mile off

— the dagger sails harmlessly away.

Figures,
I think.
These hepers are nothing more than—

But then the gleaming dagger begins to curve back toward me, its trajectory that of a boomerang, blinking wickedly fast in the light.

As if winking with mischief. And before I know it, it’s coming
right
at me. I dive to my right, hit the ground. The dagger
swoosh
es at me. I dive to my right, hit the ground. The dagger
swoosh
es past my head, giving off the harmonic overtone of a singing bowl. I land ungracefuly, get the air knocked out of me. The ground is hard, despite the layer of sand and grit.

This heper girl— it knows what it’s doing. This is not just for show.

It realy means to maim me, if not kil me.

I leap up, hands raised high, palms opened emphaticaly. It is already reaching down toward the strap, where three more daggers lie taut against the leather. Like hunting hounds puling restlessly on a leash. In the blink of an eye, the heper has unstrapped a dagger and is already drawing back its arm. To unleash the next throw.

It wil not miss this time.

“Stop! Please!” I yel, and for the fi rst time, the words come out clearly. It pauses midthrow.

I waste little time. I start walking toward the heper again, pul-THE

HUNT 113

ing off my shirt as I do. It needs to see my skin, the sun on the skin, see that I present no danger. I toss the shirt to the side. I’m close enough to see its eyes folow the shirt, then shoot back at me.

It is squinting; I stop in my tracks. I’ve never seen anyone squint.

It is so . . .
expressive
. The eclipsed half closing of the eyelids, the wrinkles coming off the corners of the eyes like a delta, the brows contracted together, even the mouth frozen in a snarl of confusion.

It is a strange expression, it is a lovely expression. It puls its arm back again, the dagger glinting in the sun.

“Wait!” I shout with a craggy croak. It halts, its fi ngers whiten-ing as they grip the blade tighter. I undo the buttons of my pants, take them off. My socks, my shoes, everything off. Just my briefs left on.

I stand like that before it, then slowly move forward.

“Water,” I say, gesturing at the pond. “Water.” I make a cup motion with my hand.

It moves its eyes up and down my body, unsure and suspicious, emotions sweeping off its face, naked and primal.

Eyes fi xed on each other, I walk past, giving it a wide arc, and head to the pond. It’s more like a swimming pool, the way it is rimmed with a metalic border, perfectly circular. Before I know it, I’m on my knees, my cupped hands pushing through the plane of water. The water, when it fl ows down my throat, is heaven’s wet cool on hel’s coaled fi re. My hands spring back into the water, ready to cup more into my mouth; and then I’m done with formalities. I plunge my head into the water, gulping down the formalities. I plunge my head into the water, gulping down the blissful sweet cool wetness, the water reaching up to my ears.

I come up for air. The heper hasn’t moved, but its confusion is carved even deeper into its face. But it’s no longer dangerous. Not right now. I throw my whole head back into the pond, my dry, coarse hair gulping up water like straws. The pores on the back of 114 ANDREW FUKUDA

my neck fl inch at fi rst contact, then they open up, delighting in the cool aquatic contact.