Then a powerful monster, living below in the darkness, became resentful as he heard, day on day, the joy in the hall, the ringing of the harp and clear song of the poet, the telling of the beginnings of all, how the Almighty created the world, formed the bright fields and water all around and reveled in setting the lamps of the sun and the moon to light our radiant world, and bejeweled the earth with trees and leaves, quickened with life every living creature and nation. So men lived in delight and celebrated their blessings. Until the monster stirred, a demon, an evil spirit, a grim fiend named Grendel. March-stepper, dweller in marsh and fen. Miserable creature, he lived among monsters, placed in bitter exile like all the race of Cain, whom God crushed, separated, and drove away from men as vengeance for the killing of Abel.
—Beowulf
The Iwi—and Ilene was still not entirely certain that the term was appropriate—were not done with show and tell, according to Jia. But the important woman had agreed to give them a few moments before the tour moved on.
This is all okay with you? Ilene signed. You’re comfortable with her?
Jia nodded, smiling. I’m fine, she said. I’m happy. These are my people.
I know, Ilene said, I’m happy for you. Saying it, she realized that although she wanted that to be true, she actually felt… sad. Which was all wrong, and totally her problem. She would get past that. She had to.
She doesn’t mean us any harm, Jia continued. She wants me to do something, though. I’m not sure what it is.
Okay, Ilene said, trying not to communicate her own uncertainty. She had decided to trust Jia. So far there was no reason to rethink that. In fact, Jia was the only one of them who had a chance of figuring out what was going on here.
Who is she? she asked, gesturing at the important woman.
She’s the queen, Jia replied. Then she frowned. It’s not the perfect word. She’s their leader. They consider her the wisest, the most knowledgeable but she’s not like—off with their heads! Or anything like that. They all agree she should be queen, but they also believe she was meant to be, if that makes sense.
Sort of, she said.
The Skull Island Iwi had a word that she had translated as queen, too, but the Iwi term didn’t match up well with the English. For one thing, it was gender neutral. For another, “queens” were not born to their positions. They were generally people—and very often women—who had proven themselves to be worthy of their position. It sounded like the same was true down here. Given the deference showed her by the other Iwi, “queen” would probably do as a convenient way of referring to her.
Does she have a name? she asked Jia.
I think they don’t like to say her name, Jia replied.
Ilene nodded. That was possible. If a name hadn’t been offered, it would probably be impolite to ask. So “queen” it was.
What did she see when you first touched hands? she asked. Before that, they were guarding us with spears. After they weren’t.
She saw me, Jia said. My childhood on Skull Island. Me and Kong. Me and you. She knows you’re my mother, now. She said it was important.
Which part?
That I’m from the Iwi above. From Skull Island.
Why?
Jia shrugged. It has something to do with the thing they want me to do. She paused. I think they were expecting me.
Expecting you? Did they say that?
No. But I feel it. Don’t know how, or why.
While she and Jia talked, the Iwi queen appeared to be conferring with other Iwi in their silent language.
“What’s going on?” Trapper asked, softly.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “Jia thinks they want her to do something. But they have something else they want to show us first.”
“Hopefully not their sacrificial altar,” Bernie said.
“The Iwi don’t sacrifice people,” Ilene said.
“That you know of.”
The queen had finished her conference and was now beckoning them to come forward.
She says to come with them, Jia said.
“Oh boy,” Ilene mouthed. She felt clenched inside. What did these people want with her daughter? If they understood she was her mother, why hadn’t they told her? She should be involved with this.
But maybe because she was her mother, and they knew she would say no.
She nodded at the queen, hoping that this next round of show-and-tell would involve a little more telling.
The queen led them through a narrow stone passage, wider at the bottom than the top. It reminded Ilene of passages inside some Egyptian pyramids, built to withstand the immense pressure of the heavy stone construction techniques they employed. Here, though, the passages were tunneled through living rock, so the choice was probably stylistic rather than pragmatic. Was Bernie right? Were they inside the prototype of the multitude of pyramids built by ancient surface civilizations?
The stone here didn’t glow; the Iwi carried torches to light the way.
Eventually they reached a room that looked familiar, although at first she couldn’t parse out why. It was Trapper who got there first.
“It’s like the floor where we found the water-guide,” he said. “The one with the image of Mothra.”
He was right. It wasn’t exactly the same, but there was a carved circular pattern in the center of the room and a series of trenches radiating out from it. The inconstant light from the torches suggested carvings on the walls, but she couldn’t tell what they represented.
Two of the older women lifted what looked like ceremonial urns and tipped them over a pillar in the very center of the pattern. A glowing blue fluid poured from an urn and began filling up what was not a solid column, but rather another hollow vessel. As it filled and overflowed, it trickled down to flow through the lines etched in the floor, issuing toward square receptacles around the circumference of the room. As this happened, a steady blue light rose to replace that of the torches.
“Oh, wow,” Bernie said.
“This whole room is covered in Iwi script,” Ilene realized, stepping further in. She knelt to feel the writing on the floor, carved to be read either by sight or touch.
This, she knew well. Whatever the origin and status of their spoken language, Skull Island elders had faithfully maintained their written language, which was largely ideographic, with the symbols representing concepts rather than sounds like the English alphabet. The script here was so close to that of the surface Iwi, it was no trouble to translate.
“It says that Hollow Earth once lived in harmony with the surface world,” she read aloud. “There was a balance. The Titans were the guardians of nature, and the Great Apes became the protectors of humanity.”
The script on the floor continued on the wall behind her. There, the story became darker.
“But a great evil threatened the peace,” she read. “A powerful and ruthless ape, desperate to conquer the surface world, corrupted his tribe and led them into war against the one they called ‘The Monster Who Ate A Star.’”
“Godzilla,” Trapper said.
She nodded. “There’s more. The war with the apes nearly destroyed Godzilla, but after a great battle, he imprisoned the apes in a fiery realm of Hollow Earth. Their false king remains obsessed with reaching the surface. The Iwi call him the Skar King…”
She moved to a bas relief of an ape-like figure. His arms were much longer than his legs, proportionally lengthier than Kong’s arms. The image made her think of an orangutan.
It made her think of something else, too. The image recorded on the camera Trapper had found.
“That’s the bugger who destroyed the outpost,” Trapper said.
Suko had lost hope of escaping Stranger. Part of him didn’t want to. Stranger had given him food. No one gave him food. Not even Gnarled Finger, who protected him when he was younger, kept the others from beating him to death, wiped his wounds when they did hit him. Even Gnarled Finger never gave him food until he was himself full and nearly asleep. Even then, Suko had to steal whatever scraps were left. It was the way of the caves. Those who were too frail or injured to fight for food and not clever enough to steal it starved. It was what they deserved, for being weak or stupid or both.
The Skar King did not like weakness. Nobody did.
But Stranger wasn’t weak. He wasn’t frail. He was strong, very strong, and he had given Suko food.
So he began to think he should not take Stranger home to the Living Caves. Because the Skar King would not like him. The Skar King would hurt him, and then he would hurt Suko. Suko did not want to be hurt. But to his surprise, he realized he also did not want Stranger to be hurt.
But Stranger was too smart. Suko had tried to trick him. Now he could only do what Stranger wanted, and hope the Skar King would be less angry rather than more. Maybe he could just hide. Maybe no one would know he had led Stranger here. It seemed like less of a risk than to hope he would be rewarded.
* * *
They reached a moving long water. It was shallow, clear and cool. Kong didn’t think anything big enough to threaten him could hide in it. He signaled to Child that they should rest for a moment. The smaller ape nodded and looked at Kong as if asking permission. Kong nodded, Child bent to the water and brought handfuls of it to his mouth. After a moment he paused, cupped some water, and brought it hesitantly to Kong.
There wasn’t much water there, and Kong wasn’t very thirsty, but he bent and lapped the little bit of liquid from Child’s hands. Then the two of them sat for a moment.
After a moment, Kong turned to Child. He tapped himself on the chest with his knuckles.
Kong, he said, and made Jia’s sign. The sound for Kong wasn’t the same as what Jia and the little ones made. Ape sounds were different. But for Kong, the sound was his name. He had shared it with little ones before, but never with another ape. Because he had never met another ape.
Child didn’t seem to understand, so Kong repeated the sound and then the gesture. Then he extended his knuckles toward Child. Your name is what? he meant.
Child blinked, and then he nodded. The smaller ape pointed to himself and made two short sounds close together. Su Ko.
Kong repeated the sounds, pointing at Child. Child nodded. Suko. Then he pointed at Kong.
Kong, he said. He didn’t say it like the little ones did. He said it like an ape. It was the first time Kong had ever heard it like that, like he said it.
Suko.
Kong rose, patting Suko on the shoulder. Then he gestured in the direction Suko had been leading him.
The smaller ape paused. He looked up at Kong and grimaced. But then he nodded, and began once more leading the way. But he seemed reluctant. He didn’t go as quickly as before. The further they went, the more Suko seemed to hesitate. Kong encouraged him by growling and motioning with his axe.
The air started to smell funny. As if stone was burning. He knew the scent; in the cave where he had first found his axe there had been burning stone and melted stone that flowed like water. He remembered it had been very hot, though, hotter than the hottest water. That had been a place where some apes like him once lived. Perhaps his kind liked the burning rock. He was not sure why; he preferred the aroma of jungle, swamp, and grassland. The smells that signified food, water, and comfort. Not heat and drought and dust.
Soon he saw the source of the scent. A long water had dug a canyon, cutting the plain in half. On his side was grass and trees and animals. On the other was burnt rock and liquid rock, flowing like streams into that side of the canyon. Black clouds rose from the ground and gathered in the sky. White mist hung in the air above the chasm.
A skeleton bridged the two sides.
Whatever the animal had been, it was very large. The bone of its head alone was bigger than Kong. It was on his side of the ravine. Its spine and ribs hung together and spanned the gorge.
Suko hopped onto the head bone and started across it, gesturing for Kong to come. Waiting for him.
Kong approached the head bone. It was long and low; two long teeth from the top jaw anchored it in the ground. The holes where its eyes should be were small caves. Reluctantly, he followed Suko, who was now out on the spine. When Kong stepped on the skeleton, it began to sway. Below him, the long water boiled from the liquid rock falling into it, sending up white plumes of hot fog.
He paused. Was this another of Suko’s tricks? To make him fall? Would the bones fail to support his weight?
But Suko was not all the way across. He was waiting for Kong. If the bones broke, the smaller ape would fall too. Suko was clever; he knew that. Kong might even survive the fall. Suko would not.
Suko was tricky, but Kong did not think he was willing to die to hurt Kong.
So he walked on across the bridge of trembling bone, through the hot fog. It did not break, and a few beats of his huge heart later they were on the other side, amidst the heat and now-ubiquitous stench of burning earth. It tickled him inside of his face, sharp and unpleasant. He did not like this place. But when Suko continued on, Kong followed.
How long they traveled through the mist, Kong did not know. Too long. But eventually they reached another cave opening, and Suko led him through it. Kong hoped it would be cooler inside, as caves often were, but it was not. The burning-stone odor was even stronger within.
The cave went on and on. Light-crystals illuminated the way, although not as bright as the ones in the wider Hollow Earth. But there was almost nothing living here—nothing to eat. To drink? A few pools of steaming water, no more. He liked his cave, where he would be dry if it rained and his things could be kept safe. But his cave had fresh air, a place to look outside. Here, he felt buried. What sort of place was this? The kind of place a skullcrawler might nest. Why would his kind choose to live here?
He was going to find out.
Deeper they went, and Suko seemed to become both more eager and more trepidatious. Kong began to hear things in the distance. Barks, shouts and grunts that sounded familiar. Yet somehow, he did not like the sound of them. They sounded like his kind, but they were bad sounds, somehow. Calls of anger, coercion, pain.
Suko bounded up onto a ridge. Beyond, the cavern opened into a much larger cave, with sharp rocks sticking up from the floor and hanging from the ceiling. The red light of burning stone made everything look covered in blood.
Suko got to the top of the ridge and stopped. He made a plaintive sound.
Kong came up, and now he saw.
They were there. Apes. Not one or two or a hand of fingers or even two hands of fingers, but more, many more. More than he had ever imagined. On Skull Island there had been no other apes, but there had been skeletons. But not this many. This looked like a living-nest of the little ones. But these were not little ones. These were Great Apes, like Kong. He marveled at how different they looked. Some were bigger than others; their fur came in many different shades. Some looked young; others were bent, with patchy fur shot through with white hair. Were these old? He had never seen an old ape.
They were all like Kong, but also all different. The way Jia looked different from her mother, and the two of them different from other little ones.
My home, he thought. My family. Could it be?
But something didn’t feel right to Kong. None of it felt right.
What were these apes doing? They were picking up big rocks, moving them from one place to another. He couldn’t tell why. Maybe they were making something? But they didn’t look like they wanted to move rocks. They looked tired and sullen. Other apes were not moving rocks; they barked and threatened the ones moving the rocks. He noticed these had red stripes, like the ones that had attacked him. Were there two kinds of apes? Those that did things they didn’t want to do, and those that made them do it?
He didn’t like this. But he had to know more. He started down with Suko.
The bones of another huge beast lay in the cavern, but he saw something else, too. Three ape heads with no bodies. They were stuck on poles, and they were not alive. One of them didn’t even have skin or fur; only bone remained. The other two were rotting. He was reminded of when he would tear the head off a predator and show it to the others, to frighten them. But who were these ape heads meant to frighten?
But the way Suko looked at them, he knew. They were meant to frighten the other apes. To let them know that their heads could be taken off and put on sticks.
Who would do that? The red-stripes? But who told the red-stripes what to do? He didn’t see anything but other apes, but there had to be something. Something that made prey of apes. That made apes live like this.
There had been an enemy. Godzilla, and other creatures like them. Creatures he controlled. Was one of them here, hidden in some cave Kong could not see? Some monster that hurt his family like this?
If so, he would find them and kill them.
So thinking, he started down from the ridge. He thought they would see him, that the red-stripes would challenge him. As he got closer, some of the ones moving rocks did see him. But they didn’t do anything. Then he realized why.
They thought he was one of them.
The thought stopped him in his tracks for a moment. He had met many things in his life. Some were smaller, some his size, a few even bigger. He had never met anything that didn’t give him a second look, didn’t consider him as either a predator or prey. Not sure what to think, he moved further into the apes.
The smell of them was sour. They reeked of fear and pain.
Ahead of him, one of the apes dropped a stone. He was a little smaller than Kong. All of them were. This one didn’t have much fur and he looked like hands that had been in the water too long, but everywhere. Another ape shouted at him, a threat-attack, then slapped him in the head and knocked him down. Then he kicked him. The fallen ape lay there, hurt and submissive.
It was too much. Kong stepped forward and Suko, who had been in a meek, frightened pose since they arrived in this place, suddenly darted forward and grabbed Kong’s hand. Trying to stop him.
Kong shook him off. He slammed his axe to the ground and reached his hand down to the fallen ape. The wrinkled ape looked at him. Kong saw fear there, and disbelief. But after a few breaths he took Kong’s hand. He helped him to his feet.
The other apes had noticed him now. One of them ran up and began howling in his face, making threatening gestures. He was too close, too loud, and Kong was already out of patience. He closed his fist and clubbed the ape in the face, knocking him to the floor. Then he beat his chest and roared.
He was Kong. Who dared yell at him? He didn’t care what they were.
They all stared at him. He glared back in challenge. None of them moved.
Except one, above, who ran and began chattering to two apes standing in front of an opening to another cave. One of them knocked him down, but the red-stripe pointed to Kong and kept making noise. The other apes turned to look back in the cave—and then stood aside.
Another ape came out. His fur was dark red, and he had very long arms and very short legs. He walked on all fours, but when he came to the ledge looking down on them he drew himself up and straightened his legs. He stood almost like a little one, except his arms reached almost to the ground. He wore chains of bones draped from one shoulder to his other side.
Suko was trying to fold into himself, to disappear. Kong had seen him scared before. Not this scared.
The red ape howled. He slapped one of the apes near him, who in turn kicked another. He stared down at Kong.
Then he put his hands down on the stone and swung out, jumping from the ledge and landing where Kong stood.
All the other apes hooted in fear and submission. They backed up and knelt down, laying one arm on the ground and bowing their heads. The red ape hand-walked up to Kong, aggressive, angry. He circled Kong. Kong didn’t flinch. The others were clearly afraid of the red ape. Kong was not. He was shorter, more lightly built. Mostly a pair of arms stuck on a skinny ape. What was there to be afraid of?
So Kong waited to see what Red Ape would do.
Red Ape stared at him. At his mouth. He reached up and pushed a finger into Kong’s lip, so he could see the new tooth. He touched it.
Then Red Ape made a sound, a sort of bark. But it almost sounded like what the little ones did when they thought something was funny.
Another ape started doing it too, and then another, until they were all making the noise. What was it Jia had called it? Laughing.
Kong glared back and snorted.
Red Ape stopped his noisemaking and looked past Kong. He was looking at Suko. And he looked angry. He suddenly dashed forward—he was quick for his size. He towered over Suko and screamed at him. Suko cowered.
He was angry, Kong realized. Angry that Suko had brought Kong here.
He was about to do something when another ape intervened. It was an old one, or at least Kong thought so. Wrinkled, losing hair. The old ape grabbed Suko and pulled him away from Red Ape.
Red Ape turned on that ape then. He pushed up to him; the other ape looked frightened, but he stood his ground.
Red Ape glared at him. He howled at him again. Then he turned and began walking away on all fours. But he didn’t go far. Instead he kicked back with both feet, hitting Suko’s protector in the chest, knocking him back into one of the streams of melted rock. The ape screamed in pain, his fur bursting into flames as he sank and died. Suko screamed too. He looked as if it had been him thrown into the burning rock.
Then Red Ape turned back to Kong. His weird blue eyes turned toward Kong’s axe, where he had buried it in the ground. He snarled and lurched forward, reaching for it.
Kong slapped his hand away and pulled the weapon from the ground himself.
The other apes began backing up, clearing out of the way.
The Red Ape roared a challenge. Kong roared back.
The Red Ape pulled at the bones he was wearing, uncoiling them into a lengthy strand. It looked like the skeleton of a very long snake, which the Red Ape now whirled around like a vine. A heavy, sharp vine. He slapped it on the ground and the stone surface shattered, sending up a spray of rock shards.
The other apes had stopped backing up, and now they began pounding the floor with their fists.
Red Ape lashed the bone-whip at him. Kong ducked, but he noticed the end of the whip was sharp and blue and glowing like the blade of his axe. He overbalanced and fell, scrambling back up as the bones curled out toward him again. This time he caught the end of the weapon, just above the blue tip. He yanked, trying to pull Red Ape over, but his opponent planted his feet and pulled back. The sharp bones cut into Kong’s hand; the pain was so unexpected that he let go. The cuts in his palm welled with blood.
He charged Red Ape, swinging his axe, but once again, the other showed he was quick, nimbly dancing aside as the blue blade cut the air where he had been. Kong was quick, too—he swung again, but the Red Ape ducked. Kong brought a thunderous third cut straight down toward the enemy’s head. This time the Red Ape didn’t move.
He didn’t need to. He blocked the axe swing with his bone-whip. Surprisingly, Kong’s blade did not cut through. Kong bore down, forcing the foe to his knees. Red Ape shifted the whip, turning the blade and forcing it into the floor, then dodged and leaped around behind him as Kong was dislodging the blade from the stone. The bones lashed out once more, this time cutting him across the chest. Enraged, Kong lunged forward, raking a big swing at the other Titan’s head, but once again, his enemy wasn’t there. Red Ape’s duck turned into a backward flip, and he kicked Kong under the chin, sending him sprawling onto the hard floor. As he recovered his feet, the whip lashed out again, wrapping around the arm that held his axe. Red Ape jerked, and as the bones cut into his arm, the axe came out of Kong’s hand and went clattering away. Then Red Ape somersaulted toward him and flipped over his head, looping the bone-whip around his neck. Now he was behind Kong, and he shoved a foot into his back and began pulling, hard, to try and either choke him or saw through his neck. Kong managed to catch the bones with both hands, keeping them from tightening enough to do either, but Red Ape was strong.
Not strong enough. Ignoring the pain from the sharp bones, Kong forced his hands between his neck and the whip. Pulled, leaned forward, and used the bones to throw the Red Ape over his head, hurtling him to the floor in front of him.
Rock shattered and sprayed at the impact. Kong wasted no time; he grabbed Red Ape again, picked him up, and threw him back down onto his face. Red Ape rolled back up, but Kong could see he was hurt. Other apes behind him started forward to help him, but Red Ape gestured for them to stop. He stood back, not continuing the attack. Some of the other apes began pounding the floor again. This time Kong thought it might be for him. He pounded his chest and roared his dominance. Red Ape was fast and tricky. Surprising. But Kong understood him now. If the fight resumed, he would kill the other Titan.
Red Ape knew that. But he didn’t look beaten. He wasn’t submissive. Instead, he took the sharp, glowing tip of his weapon and pointed it.
Not at Kong, but behind him, at a curtain of falling liquid rock. Kong turned to see. Three of the apes were pushing a huge boulder aside. The boulder had bone chains fastened to it, maybe so it could be pulled back to where they were pushing it from. As it slowly rolled forward, it began blocking the flow of the burning stone, just as it would block the flow of falling water. The rock now ran to either side of the boulder.
He distinctly heard Suko shriek in alarm, and other apes echoed the call. Whatever was happening, they were afraid of it.
The parting fall of rock revealed a cave. From the cave, blue eyes peered at him, set very far apart. A shape moved, too dark to see. And although the cavern was stifling hot, and he was facing burning stone, he felt a cold wind. A very cold wind.
The thing in the cave emerged. Four chains held it by a ring on its neck. Each of its massive four feet were also ringed and chained. But it could move forward, and did, coming out of its cage, growling with rage.
Kong had never seen one of these. It was a little like Godzilla, covered in bumps and scales. Spines that looked like blue rock grew from its head and ran along its back. But it stood on four thick legs, not two. It had no arms. Its stubby face ended in a beak, although the gaping mouth also showed teeth. It was thick and wide.
And it was very big. Bigger than Red Ape. Bigger than Kong. Bigger than Godzilla. Bigger than any living thing Kong had ever seen.
And it was angry. Now at the limits of its chains, it glared at Red Ape like it wanted to kill him. But Red Ape didn’t look worried. He held up the glowing blue tip of his weapon and pointed it at the four-legged Titan. Then he pointed it at Kong. A command.
The animal screamed, writhed, shook its head and stumbled to the ground. The blue crystals on its skull and back began to glow more brightly. They looked like the tip of Red Ape’s weapon, just as Kong’s axe looked like the scales of Godzilla. The air grew even colder. For an instant, Kong’s gaze met that of the huge beast, and he felt its—her—pain. The cold Titan was in agony. He hesitated, wondering if he could help her somehow. But her spines were glowing even more brightly as she climbed back to her feet.
When Godzilla’s spine glowed like, that, it meant—
Kong dodged and rolled, just as a blue blast shot from the thing’s mouth and pierced the air where he’d been. It was near enough that he could tell it wasn’t lightning or fire, or whatever Godzilla breathed.
It was like the coldest wind he’d ever felt.
The roll brought him to his axe; he grabbed it and pulled it up in front of him as the Titan exhaled again, blocking the blue light with his weapon, just as he had blocked Godzilla’s breath in their battle.
It worked. For a heartbeat. But then he felt the chill run up the axe into his hand and arm. They quickly went numb, and they and the axe were coated in ice. Once again he lost his grip on the weapon. Howling in pain and anger, he used his other fist to shatter the frozen water encasing his arm.
The creature’s spikes began to glow again.
Through all the noise of apes shouting and beating the floor, through the pounding in his ears, Kong heard a high, clear call. He looked for it, and saw Suko, far up the side of the slope, pointing to an opening, gesturing for him to come. To come now.
Kong did not run from fights he thought he could win. He did not run from fights he thought he couldn’t win. But he knew he would not win this, not now. And if he didn’t? He had seen how these apes treated one another. He had a sense of Red Ape. They would kill him, and then they would kill Suko for helping him.
As the freezing blast came again, he bounded up the slope, feeling the chill follow behind him. Suko darted through the hole. As Kong felt the fur began to freeze on his back, he hurled himself through. He turned to look back, and saw the entire opening was plugged with water-become-stone.
Ahead, Suko was still chattering at him, asking him to follow. He probably should. There were no other ways out of that place. Red Ape did not seem like one to let an enemy leave the fight.
Where his arm wasn’t numb, it had begun to ache. He growled, low in his belly. There would be another fight.
He followed Suko, and together they left the Home of the Apes.