Have you ever heard an ape attempt percussion with just their voices and by punching things? The night following Cloudbringer’s ascension to Elderhood began with a rhythmic thumping that caused the earth of the forest floor to shiver. As it turns out, the chest of something thirty feet tall, and almost half as wide, makes a pretty good drum; the thundering apes had dug a huge fire pit surrounded by stones and had filled it with wood - though I had no idea where they had obtained dry wood in a rainforest – before setting it alight with the sunset. When the drumming started, I thought we were being attacked, but I quickly learned my mistake when I caught the rhythm. Every now and again, one of the apes would smash a fist into the earth to emphasise a moment in the music, and the vibrations would make the flames dance as the firewood shook and shifted.
As the fire waved back and forth in the failing light, the singing started; I say singing, but they were not really built for singing, so instead what emerged from the group was a kind of beat-boxing, full of bass and long, vibrating moans. It was primal, and made my heart thud in my chest; it made me want to dance and spin about the fire, and that in itself was a remarkably novel experience for me. Cad, the self-proclaimed life of the party, did not hesitate and within moments he was up, skipping about the huge fire from foot to foot as a gaggle of ape children hooted and followed him, hopping and spinning in time with the music.
I caught sight of Rainmaker and Cloudbringer passing out soft looking fruit of some unknown variety, and as much as it surprised me to see the normally very fruit-centric Elder giving them away, what surprised me more was the smell when he handed me one. The fruit smelled sweet and rich, but most of all like it contained enough alcohol to strip the bark off a tree. It made me edge away from the fire nervously, somehow afraid the fumes might catch on fire. Cad, of course had no such compunction, and was in fact breathing his intoxicating breath into the fire, to the delight of the children following him.
I turned to look for Darina, thinking to find her glaring about in disapproval, but instead I found her a short distance away dancing with Riffa, her own fruit missing a large chunk and her face flushed and grinning. Riffa was somewhat more restrained, but she was nevertheless dancing along, adding her own song to the mix, in the deep tones I had heard the giants sing back at the citadel.
“In wise advising, you should celebrate, Hunter. It is not often such a wonder occurs, and it is even rarer to witness it, and to know them. You may live for another thousand years and never see another Elder, or Apex, come into being. Enjoy yourself, the crisis is over, at least for the moment.”
Reff, my wise friend, who was more than twice my height and age, stood behind me, one of the pungent fruits held in each hand, large bites missing from both. He eyes were very slightly glassy, and his lips kept trying to twist into a grin as he swayed with the music.
He was right, we had defeated the Risen Throne, saved a child, and possibly a lot of lives at the hands of its parent. My next quest had a looong timer, and while that could mean many things, right then, in that moment, it meant I was as free as I had ever been, in this life or any other. With a warm grin, I brought the deep red fruit to my mouth and took a huge bite, juices running down my chin only to evaporate before reaching my neck. The fruit tasted like a cross between a pineapple and an apricot, and the juice seemed to fizz on my tongue as I swallowed; almost instantly, I felt myself relax and the world became just a touch less defined.
“Reff, my friend, anybody ever tell you that you’re a wise bastard?”
“With confused questioning, my parents were married, Hunter. What does this have to do with wisdom?”
“I don’t mean it literally, Reff. It’s a... never mind. Maybe it doesn’t carry over. I just meant... you’re wise. That’s all.”
“With confused acceptance, I see. Thank you?”
“You’re welcome! Now, let’s go dance with the girls before Darina turns into something weird.”
My single bite of the fermented fruit may have had slightly more of an effect on me than I had realised, at the time.
*
***
*
Waking slowly to the feel of raindrops falling lightly on my face, I stretched with a smile on my face before sitting up. I could see the fire pit a short distance away, filled with nothing but ash, and dozens of apes passed out around it.
Thankful again for my Lesser Regeneration – and its ability to prevent hangovers – I stood up and looked around, trying to spot my friends. The night got very hazy, very quickly after that first bite, and while it did not seem like I had moved far, I was missing my shirt and outer robe; luckily, I seemed to have retained my pants.
“Ha! I remember that! I always wondered if- Puny! You’re awake! Well done!”
I heard a few groans around me at the remarkably loud yelling of Rainmaker as he waved from a short distance away. Cloudbringer lounged next to him, sipping from a gourd of some kind.
Not seeing any of my companions in my immediate vicinity, I climbed to my feet and made my way over to the two Elders.
“Morning Rainmaker, Cloudbringer. Hell of a party last night... I think.”
“Ha, yeah, we smashed it. Your friend, the almost-not-puny one, with the excellent breath – I like him. I’m going to ask him to stay.”
“Boss, the only reason you want him to stay is so he can get people drunk without wasting fruit.”
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“So? That’s a perfectly fine reason.”
“There’s a whole jungle to go at, Boss. Lack of fruit really isn’t an issue.”
“You’ve only been an Elder for less than a day, B-Cloudbringer. Trust me, eventually you’ll see the wisdom in conserving fruit for me.”
“... Yes, Boss.”
Before his ascension, Borr had always sounded kind of put-upon when accepting Rainmakers rather focused demands, but I realised then that it was all a show; there was something thankful in his tone, that spoke of some kind of comfort at their relationship having the same dynamic that it could have had for potentially millennia. It was a strange thing, to think of relationships lasting for that long. Thinking back to Earth, I had difficulty picturing any of the friendships I had been on the periphery of lasting for thousands of years, and given the rise of immortality, it was probably something they would have needed to learn to deal with. That I would need to learn to deal with.
“I hope my friendships are half as strong as yours is, you’re kind of an inspiration.”
“Ha! Of course, I am! Who would dare not be inspired by me? Nobody wants to get smashed.”
“Actually, where I come from, getting drunk is sometimes called, ‘getting smashed’. So, in a sense, everyone got smashed last night.”
“Smash is the best, it can be used for so many things! Like fruit.”
“You can even smash fruit, and make a smoothie. Or freeze it and make sorbet.”
“... Is this like the Puny Collato you mentioned before?”
“Uh, a bit? A Smoothie is when you take a bunch of fruits and puree – or smash – them until they’re a liquid, and then drink it.”
“Why not just eat the fruit? It seems like just eating the fruit, but with an extra step?”
“You... have a point, I guess. It’s more convenient, and tastes good? Anyway, a sorbet is when you take a fruit and smash the insides, and then freeze it.”
“Ugh, why would you freeze fruit? That just makes them harder to eat, and it would ruin the taste. It would just taste like ice. It was good to accept the superiorness of smashing things, but I don’t think it works for fruit. It’s not your fault, Puny, you’re just not as smart as me.”
I chose not to contradict Rainmaker, not least because as much as I liked him, I was never entirely sure how close he was to smashing me; intelligent he may be, and powerful certainly, but he was not human, and I found it difficult to assess his motivations... beyond fruit and friendship. Nodding in agreement instead, I caught Cloudbringer grinning at the two of us, his still-long fangs a stark contrast to his expression. The new Elder seemed much less dour than he had appeared before his transition, though I was beginning to think that more a symptom of the limitations of his body, in terms of conveying tones, than anything about the way he actual viewed the world. Walker had said that when a beast became an Elder, they gained a soul whereas they had none before; I hoped this was an addition to the being that had existed before, and not a replacement. It was not my place to cast judgement on the rules by which reality functioned, but it seemed like a shitty thing to do, to just replace a living, thinking creature. Oh well, it was not likely that I would be able to gain an answer, unless I ever met the gods of my new home, or whoever created the whole system, assuming there was such a being or group.
“Have you two seen my companions, by the way?”
“They went off to spar sometime after their third fruit, over that way.” Cloudbringer replied to my query, one long arm pointing beyond the fire pit.
“Thanks. Oh, and before I forget,” and while my friends were absent, “have you ever heard of somebody called Anan Al’monhad?”
I was not expecting much – to that point, nobody I had asked had shown any real knowledge of the man described by my quest. As such, the reaction from the two Elders surprised me; almost as one, the they sat up straight, glancing at each other, frowns writ-large across their faces.
“I remember my mother mentioning something about that name. She sounded like it made me want to smash things.”
“My mother mentioned it too, and there was definitely some lingering fear, as if speaking about an old threat.”
“That’s what I said.”
Excited to finally have a clue, I took a step towards them, l my avid gaze flicking between them.
“What did they say? Is it a person, a human? A beast, or Elder?”
“It was just a thing she said, ‘Eat your fruit or Anan Al’monhad will come and take you.’”
“Won’t be taking me!”
Having made the declaration, Rainmaker lifted a long blue fruit and stuffed it into his mouth, giving me a shrewd, pointed look. I stood blinking for a moment, trying to decide whether Rainmaker – one of the most powerful beings in the world – obsessed so much over fruit because of a boogie man his mother had used when he was a boy, or whether he was just joking. I was not sure which I preferred, so I simply moved on.
“Are... are they here? Can I speak to them?” I did not know how life-span worked for the thundering apes; a person basically stopped ageing altogether upon reaching the Pinnacle stage, and even before then, each stage slowed the process dramatically. I myself, even if I never advanced again, would likely live for the better part of a thousand years, though I had yet to really internalise that fact.
“Both of our mothers, and our fathers, have long since truly Ascended.”
“There are none left from that generation, Puny. We are the youngest born to them, and that was before the Wild Bounty, when the Sha Forest could barely sustain a dozen of us. Before we were strong enough to chase off dragons.”
That was the longest, most complex sentence I had ever heard from the white-furred Elder, and it lacked his usual, affected persona; buried in the thunderous voice, I heard sorrow and rage. I also recognised the name he had used, Wild Bounty.
“Wild Bounty, as in, the Apex?”
“Yes. When we were still young, most of what is now the Sha Forest was bare earth, burnt and blackened. But one day, the Wild Bounty came, and she told the forest to grow, and it did. She told the plants to live and now they do. Burn the forest clean to the earth again, it’s back within days. Food and shelter for all.”
This time it was Cloudbringer who spoke, his voice almost reverent as he spoke of the person I understood to be the oldest living Apex, beside the Multiplicitous Self. From what he said, the Apex was the reason the Sha Forest was so resistant to having order forced upon it, and I wondered if she had done the same thing to the Everwood, given the apparent impossibility of constructing roads through it.
“Uh, the Apexes are holding a meeting soon, at the Blacksand Citadel. I’m sure the Apex of the Wild Bounty will be there, if you’d like to meet her?”
“No. Our place is here.”
I had not expected the Elder’s reply to be so final, or abrupt, but Cloudbringer’s follow-up clarified things for me, but what he had said in perspective.
“Rainmaker is right, our place is here, protecting our people, and the forest. Plants grow back from dragon-fire, but apes do not.”
“Well, I’ll tell her you said, ‘hi’?”
“Please offer our most sincere gratitude; we have not seen her since, but we owe her much.”
Nodding and agreeing to pass along the message, I walked away to look for my friends, mind churning over the implications of what had been said; their mothers telling the story, and mentioning the Apex had put something of a limiter on a time, but it was ‘only’ in the last three thousand years, though thinking about it, that had been the minimum age Sidona had mentioned.
I was around the fire and well into the trees when I realised, I could have just asked the two how long ago it had been.