Peter Lerangis - The Select and The Orphan

I could not disagree. But Father was dead set, and so we trudged after him. Around us, the chattering grew louder. I began seeing jeering grins, wide eyes. A hard brown nut hurtled through the air. Ring-tailed monkeys, fossas, and lemurs—all began swinging from limbs, throwing nuts, rocks, feces. There were thirty or forty of them.

I felt something hit the back of my head and I jumped. I saw it fall to the ground: Grendel’s scrimshaw necklace. Above us, the one-eyed monkey beat his chest, screaming.

“He is returning it,” Musa said in Malay, his voice trembling. “He knows what happened to Grendel.”

The leather strap was frayed and wet with monkey saliva. Nonetheless, I tied it around my neck, to honor our fallen comrade. I felt pity for his awful fate, but fear for our own. What manner of beast had killed him—and what if it came for us?

Ahead of us, Father seemed oblivious. He knelt by a rock formation, tearing vines from its surface. “Come!” he called. “Help me, Burt!”

My fingers shook as I helped him, but soon I became lost in the wonder of our discovery. It was a pile of ancient stone tablets—dozens!—etched with intricately carved images and symbols. Winged beasts with bodies like a lion. Giant warthoglike things. Flying monkeys. A complex round design that resembled a labyrinth. The etched symbols were tiny and impossibly neat, like hieroglyphics.

Father looked ecstatic. “This is it, Burt. All my life I’ve hoped these existed, and here they are! Look at these runes—influenced by ancient Egyptian … exhibiting elements of Asian pictographs and flourishes like a crude prototype of—”

“Altaic and Cyrillic script …” I said.

“We will camp here,” he said, taking a pencil and pad from his pack.

“Here, Father?” I said, unable to control my astonishment.

“I must make copies before we continue,” he replied. “Later you can help me decode these, Burt.”

As I translated, Musa glowered in astonishment. “He expects us to go all the way up the mountain—and he wastes time with old rocks?”

I did not want to be caught in Musa’s fury. I knew that trying to change Father’s mind would be useless. But worse yet, my headache had begun to flare with renewed fury. It wasn’t just caused by the monkey chatter and Musa’s temper. No—like the distant hum of bees, the strange music had begun again. The music no one else seemed to hear: It pulsed with the jungle noises. Lights flashed behind my closed eyelids. I sat, hobbled by the pain.

Alarmed, Musa called for Father.

“Be right there,” Father replied, hunched over the tablets.

“Father, I don’t feel well …” It hurt to speak. My voice sounded high-pitched and feeble. Musa looked at me with concern.

Father mumbled something about taking a drink of water. I tried to answer him. I tried to get his attention away from his archaeology. But the music was growing louder, drowning out the monkeys, drowning out everything. Tendrils of sound pierced my brain like roots through soil.

I tried to stand up. I opened my mouth to cry out.

The last image I saw was the outstretched arms of Musa, trying to catch me as I passed out.

I gasped and awoke from a horrific nightmare. In it, I was in a place much like this cursed island, chased by all manner of beasts—giant, slavering warthogs; flying raptors.

It was a relief to see Father’s face.

Musa was building a fire at the edge of a clearing. He seemed withdrawn, angry. The sun had begun its descent into evening. The monkeys had quieted, but the music persisted in my head, as it had through my nightmare.

I struggled to sit up, my head still pounding. A thick blanket had been placed below me. I noticed that Father had piled the tablets around himself. His notebook was now filled with jottings, which he had clearly been working on while I was unconscious. He glanced at me distractedly and smiled, then looked back.

I was not expecting that. But something he’d said was stuck in my mind.

This is it, Burt. All my life I’ve hoped these existed.

It occurred to me, in a wave of revulsion, that this place had been our goal all along. We had reached the X on Father’s map. And it was indeed a “most unimaginable hell.”

Wenders the genius. Wenders the Great Discoverer. Wenders who stopped at nothing to get the great artifact.

“Is this why we are here?” I blurted out.

“Pardon?” Father said, momentarily distracted from his work.

“We rushed into a voyage without proper preparation, equipment, or personnel,” I barreled on. “We sacrificed an entire ship’s crew. Is this the price for your archaeology?”

Musa came closer, curious.

“There is a reason for this,” Father said. “A good one. You will have to trust me, Burt.”

“Trust you?” I said. “After you led us to a place your own map warned you away from? I sit here, ill with tropical fever. I don’t want to die on this island! Why couldn’t you have left me at home?”

Father turned away. When he faced me again, his eyes were rimmed with tears. “It’s not tropical fever, Burt.”

I braced my back against a tree. This was not the reaction I had expected. “Then tell me, what is it?”

“Something else,” Father replied. “It matters not, Burt. I do not want to stir fear—”

“I am already afraid!” I protested. “You raised me to be honest, Father. Can I no longer expect the same from you?”

Father replied in a halting voice, barely audible. “You have a rare disease, described in ancient texts. Those who suffer it bear an unmistakable physical marking on the back of the head. No one has survived past a very young age.”

“Is there no medicine?” I asked, my voice dry with shock.

“There is no cure for this, Burt,” Father said. “Except that which is in the texts. And as you know, there is a fine line between history and myth. The texts speak of an ancient healing power on a sacred island. Several of them corroborate the same location. And that location matches the place on the map.”

I shook my head, hoping that this was some bizarre dream. Hoping that I could shake away the monkeys and the deadly green-acid-blood creatures and the infernal music … “A sacred island? Ancient healing power? This is not science,” I said. “These are stories, Father. When I was a child you taught me the difference!”

“Power traveling through wires, glass bulbs that transmit light, conversations carried across continents—these were once stories, too,” Father replied. “The first requirement for any scientist, Burt, is an open mind.”

I wanted to protest. I wanted to translate for Musa. To have him share my outrage and confusion. But Father took me by the shoulders and gently laid me down on the blanket. “You must sleep to regain your strength. Musa and I will protect you through the night. I will explain more in the morning, and we will continue.”

I knew I could not slumber. I had to know more. I had to translate for Musa, who was tending the fire and trying to look unconcerned with our conversation.

But then my head touched the blanket, and I was fast asleep.

I woke several hours later, with a start.

Had I heard something?

I sat up. My head was no longer pounding. My body, drenched in sweat, felt cool. The illness had broken.