Chapter 11, "The One Who Was Chosen By The Gods"

Again, this is a first draft and I haven't fully gone over it after writing. Let me know what confuses you, what isn't clear, what takes you out of the story. 

Also please tell me the good things I did, too! Thanks!

Chapter 11. The One Who Was Chosen By The Gods

I smelled incense.
            Then I saw the old man who was leaning over me and everything made sense.
            But no, this was wrong. Things weren’t supposed to make sense. Nothing else did, so why should...?
            The old man left my blurry vision, though the incense did not leave my quite stimulated nose. Then, as a matter of course, a bald eagle on roller skates with miniature headphones on its head skated into the tent I was lying in. It rolled around me once then promptly exited the tent, sounding out a loud SCRAWK.
            I breathed in the incense again.

Hallucinations are wonderful things, aren’t they?

I heard someone call to someone else outside the tent. My vision started focusing, and I blinked at my surroundings. The tent was in the shape of a teepee. The smell came from some stone-carved bowls on the dirt floor next to me where incense and other spices were burning. A lantern hung above me; I was unable to tell if it was fire or electric. I tried sitting up from the mat I was lying on and succeeded, but then I remembered my head and touched the back of it gingerly. (Ginger may have been one of those other spices in the air, come to think of it.)

It hurt. So I lay back down.

Did everything still make sense, then? Now that I was conscious, aware, rational?

The old man ducked back into the tent, and stared into my glistening, awakening eyes as I turned my head to him.

“It’s you!” he said with a heavy accent, so heavy that it was very heavy. “It’s you! You have come for us! You have come at last!”

From the accent and the man’s brown skin tone I knew immediately who I was to him. It hadn’t actually happened to me in any of my adventures, at least not yet, so it was long overdue. I closed my eyes, frustrated that I had been so correct before. Correct in my prediction for a possible subplot of this story. Correct about the slavish workers of Golbez Industries. Correct about what that meant for me and my time on this island.

I frowned and I sighed, and then I let out a groan as I lowered myself down again.

But then another man came bustling into the tent, this one much younger and with lighter skin. He pushed the old man roughly out of the way, replacing him at my side and getting way too close to my face. The old man cried out weakly as he fell over.

“Monsieur! Monsieur!” said the new man, with no trace of an accent, sounding quite American even though he spoke French words. Though he wore only leather rags for clothes, he was decked in shiny jewelry, necklaces, bracelets and rings. He obnoxiously took my hand and pressed his lips against it. “Monsieur, you have come! You have come to save us, have you not? To liberate my people? My oppressed people? Oh, forgive me, High Monsieur. But we need you! Our poor, suffering people need you!”

I still hadn’t said a word. I considered not saying anything, pretending I was deaf or that I spoke another language, or maybe fake another fit of lost consciousness. I really didn’t want to be involved in this. It just felt so...obvious.

Even seeing the pleading in his eyes, the sadness etched into the contours of his face, and the poor old man still struggling to right himself...

I sighed again, and gave the younger man a look that said I was not amused.

“I am not amused,” I said, keeping parallel with my expression. One had to do this to achieve honesty and harmony within oneself. “And I am not...oh well, damb it all, I just gave myself away. Who are you, what do you need, all that stuff. Give it to me fast. Then I’ll consider taking the case. You’d better be damb convincing.”

“I am Djetta, spokesperson for my tribe, the Cardaccians,” he said, voice still clear of any accent at all. “We have been oppressed for many years. My people work for Golbez Industries. We have no chance of freedom. They are brutal, BRUTAL to my people. They are forced to work for very little pay.”

”Yes, I heard you had some strict labor laws here,” I said dryly. “Now tell me, Djetta, why aren’t you working with them at the facility right now?”

“I...” said Djetta, drawing back with gold chains dangling loosely around his neck. “I...I am their leader. Not their mayor, that’s Golbez himself, but...”

“My son speaks for all of us,” said the old man, now kneeling at my other side. His accent was such that every consonant was given the same speed as a vowel. He rolled through words quickly. Also, he had on the same kind of rags Djetta had on, but these were wool and he had no jewelry whatsoever. “And so his family stays here at our village while the rest go out to work.”

“Uh huh...” I said, still quite skeptical of it all.

“We work 27 hours a day, five days a week!” the younger said, raising his gold-banded arms up.

“Wow, that’s a lot,” I said. “Only 33 hours of sleep a week, huh?”

“If only that were the case, my friend. In fact, we even get less than that. But you are here to free us, no? You, the destined hero!”

“It seems like you’re pretty free already.”

“Not me!” said Djetta. “My people!”

“And just how did you people get to be enslaved?” I asked. “Seeing as how they have such capable and compassionate leadership?”

“Oh, it was such a violent and turbulent time!” he said, shuddering. “Who would want to remember something like that?”

“I would,” I said simply. “I’m curious as to who let your people be so subjugated. Laws come from somewhere. Who agreed to them? Who signed their name on the dotted line, hm?”

“Uh...eh...Monsieur, Highest of All, you should meet my family! Then you will understand. Then you will see.”

Couldn’t hurt. Not more than my head, anyway. Man, I’ve gotta start getting hit there less.

I was able to raise myself to my feet successfully, but then I had to duck all the way down again to get out of the tent. These people were much shorter than I was. I followed Djetta into their village proper, which was nothing but a huge gathering of tents all pitched on rough, rocky terrain and various open kitchen areas, a white sandy path weaving in and out of tents and leading to the kitchens. Jack could see that the nearest of these kitchens was complete with hand-drawn well, faucet, sink, mini-fridges, ovens both clay and modern, and one large bonfire in the middle. Empty tents, empty village, but not empty kitchens. Women populated the kitchens, all working together apparently to make the food for the menfolk when they came back from slave labor. Only one woman worked in the nearest kitchen, standing at an electric stove stirring a big teflon pot full of soup or stew of some kind.

“Madje, Madje! My sweet, darling wife,” Djetta said, approaching her with open arms.

She just snorted a “Hmph!” at him and went back to her work. From the brief glimpse I got of her face, her eyes stood out the most. I mean that literally. They were halfway out of her head, not monstrously but intimidating all the same. One would not want to be faced with a wide-eyed Mama Madje.

Djetta turned around a little sheepishly and said, “Well, you can see how lovely she is. Look at her, working so hard!”

“Yes, she is,” I said. “The only one doing so.”

She was of a healthful size and could probably beat up Djetta, should she ever need to. Not to say that she was muscular, but it really seemed that her very presence, her very shadow, could body slam her husband into submission.

Then again, the little weasel probably was used to submitting to boss figures. I again eyed his jewelry. My eyes noticeably traveled over the gold necklace, the jade bracelets, the not one, not two, not even three, but four ruby rings on his fingers, and then back up to his eyes.

“You said your people were paid very little. What are they paid?”

“They are paid in food,” he said, looking away from me anxiously. “They bring it back with them at the end of the day.”

“And do they get those shiny things too?” I asked, pointing with my head.

Djetta burst into very dry tears. “We all need it!” he cried. “We all need the shiny. The treasures of our people that rightfully belong to us. And it is so rare that we are given it! And now you’ve come, to alleviate the suffering and depravity of my people! You, the Splotched One!”

Hold on, what---

“Huh?” I stared at him, nonplussed.

“Or the Painted One, depending on translation,” he said, drying his non-existent tears. “It is you, is it not? The One Who Was Chosen By The Gods! Come to free us from the tyrannical Labor Laws!”

Um. Hm. The One Who Was Chosen By The Gods, so important that even articles were capitalized in the title. It sounded ridiculous. But also, in a way...true.

“What is that, some kind of made-up prophecy?” I said, feeling very unsettled.

“The prophecy of the Hero! The One Who Was Chosen By The Gods!”

“We don’t need a hero,” said Madje from the stove. “We just need my husband to be a real man.”

“Hush, sweet darling, my poor, suffering wife.”

“Oh, isn’t he a slimeball of a human being, my husband?” Madje said with eyes so disgusted don’t no one want to cross.

But again, it was kind of...true. I was indeed chosen by the gods

            “What did you mean, the splotched one?”
            “That was part of the prophecy! And look at your shirt!”
            I looked down and remembered the sting of the red paintball as it hit my chest. Splotched, painted, I suppose so. Odd kind of prophecy. And yet...Vanasmas had called it being “marked.” And had done it for his own purposes. Totally separate from these people, the Cardaccians.
            “Is there a prophecy?” I asked Madje. Djetta wasn’t exactly a reliable source.
            She paused in her cooking, raising her head to look into the distance.
            “Yeah, there is,” she finally conceded. “If that’s what you wanna call it. But there are a lot of other ‘prophecies’ that are just hashinstash, barboyle, all made up, none of those damn things ever came true. This was a lucky one.”
            Still, it fit. It was something the gods would do, wasn’t it? Use this stupid little cog, this mechanic, to goad me into doing whatever they wanted. So...whatever religion it was that they cared to practice here was...true. In a way.

And I was The One Who Was Chosen By The Gods.

“Where’s my gun?” I said, suddenly missing it and feeling for it along my belt.

The old man, presumably Djetta’s father, went back into the tent and came back out, presenting it to me.

“I hope the water didn’t destroy it permanently,” he said.

I took it in hand and examined it for any damage. “Oh, Wrench is waterproof, by default,” I said.

Then I remembered.

“Annie!” I exclaimed, slapping my forehead. “When you picked me up---I assume that’s what you did, right? You found me by the river, saw the red splotch, took me here? Okay yes, you’re nodding, good. When you picked me up, did you see anyone else around? A woman, close to my age, brown hair...”

“Nobody like that, man,” said Djetta. “I did see a figure on the other side with long dark hair, though. But she didn’t need our help. When she saw us she yelped and ran into the trees. But we will help you in whatever you need! And we hope you will help us in the same way.”

He left off with an expectant, hopeful smile, clearly trying to gain my good favor. He didn’t know it was an impossible task. If I did it at all, it would be for someone else besides Djetta. Madje, maybe.

Then again, they did take care of me after that...slip? Fall? I didn’t remember it very well. Whatever it was that incapacitated me after the waterfall. And the whole liberation thing wasn’t exactly a negative cause...

But then Djetta overdid it, apparently not confident at seeing my “I am thinking about it” expression and confusing it for my “I am not amused” look.

“Please, Monsieur Hero,” he said, hands wringing. “Please save us from those horrible Labor Laws.”

That did it. He reminded me of the cause of the cause he was trying to cause me to work for. I stepped in close, and my eyes got mean.

“Listen, guy,” I said in a low hiss, standing over him with my finger pointed at his chest. “You sold out your people for...what? Gold? Rubies? Sapphires?”

            “No, no sapphires,” he said, shrinking beneath my gaze.
            “Rubies then. And gold.”
            “And gold, yes.” His voice was no more than a whimper.
            “So it’s your job to free them. Not mine. I’ll throw some red paint on you, if that’s what will get you to do your duty. The plight of your people is your burden. Not mine.”

I heard a quiet “Amen” from the stove. (At last I got one of those.)

“Now,” I said, stepping back. “I, as the prophesied Splotched One, request your assistance in finding my friend.”

“Of course, Monsieur Hero,” said Djetta. “Of course.” Then he turned to the closest tents and clapped twice. “Spyder! Come here! Come here, boy!”

The eagle from what I thought had been a hallucination appeared again, skating down the pathway from the tents, pushing to and fro on his skates, listening to some interesting beats on the headphones.

“So wait,” I said, looking from person to person. “This thing’s real?”

“Spyder is our animal companion! Our anipanion, I like to say!” said Djetta, delighted at his little word. “We don’t know where he came from, though we suspect something from Dr. Aperture’s lab. But either way he likes being with us!”

“Where did he learn to skate?”

“From my sons. They’re off somewhere, playing in the jungle, probably wrestling with panther cubs or chasing rattlesnakes or something.”

“And the headphones?”

“He came with them.We think he understands English because of them.”

“He can speak English?”

“No, but he can understand. And he knows his name! What a good Spyder he is. But you have to spell it right. None of this ‘spider’ business.”

“Why stay here? Why doesn’t he fly away?”

“We’ve never seen him fly before. Sometimes he spreads out his wings when he’s going really fast, to brake, you see. But he might not know how. Or else he just doesn’t want to.”

“He doesn’t exactly have a bright and shining role model around.”

“If he doesn’t need to fly, he shouldn’t be pressured into it! He’s happy just skating around, doing tricks once in a while, and listening to whatever music is somehow pumped into those headphones.”

Spyder rolled down an incline and jumped over a rock, opening his wings slightly and spinning completely around before landing. Then he spread his wings wide to slow down and skidded to a stop before Djetta’s feet.

“Spyder, you need to help our hero here rescue a girl,” Djetta said, bending over to talk to the eagle face to beak. “Can you do that for us?”

“Scraw!” said Spyder, and he skated over to my feet.

I scratched my head. “Well, huh!” I said. “Let’s go then, Spyder.”

---

We found Annie pretty easily. It took an hour, but not much effort. Just patience.
            You might say I’m not much of a man of patience, and you’d be right. In fact, for the last couple of days you could say my patience has been wearing thin, or that it’s been burning like a match soaked in alcohol, or exploding while I walk away from it in slow motion. And you’d probably be right. But at this point, I’ve gotten pretty damb numb to it all.
            Spyder was an amiable companion. Didn’t know how to fly, probably just based on the example of Djetta, but he had eagle eyes and could understand me. At first I marveled at this ability, then I marveled at his skating ability. He really was quite talented. He could even roll across rocky ground. When traveling over the wet rocks around the waterfall and river, he tricked the kind of stunts I used to do as a stuntman. As a bird he was a superb jumper, and he was able to leap from rock to rock until he reached a high, curved, concave boulder, then drew in his wings as he glided down and then at the crest of the curve he launched and, wings open, did a 720-degree spin before landing on a long sharp rock that he grinded on for several feet before springing off, spreading its glorious wings, and gliding across the river.
            We went searching through the trees on other side of the river, where Djetta had claimed to see the figure with darker hair who had “yelped.” Half of this rang true to me; the latter half specifically. If anyone on this island could yelp, it would be Annie.
            The second half didn’t worry me so much. Annie’s hair, while not black like Paula’s was still dark. Dark enough, anyway. And in that jungle, so thick, dark, and foreboding, not to mention dark? Easy enough to mistake something you see.
            Of course, I also thought of Paula. But only subconsciously.
            Spyder, meanwhile, was a fine fellow, an amiable companion as I said. I don’t know if we’ll be friends for very long, considering he’s a bird and can’t speak English. Also, if one were to edit out the skates and speed up his movement in some computer program, it would look like he was waddling, exactly like a duck, and I am philosophically opposed to ducks in general (though in real life they’re quite cute). Anyway, in our search I often praised him for his excellent skating abilities, but he ignored me, probably preferring that I would not speak so condescendingly to him. I can appreciate that.

Once, I called him “Spider” and he skidded to a stop in his skates, turned his white-feathered head to an angle, and looked at me a long time. Those eagle eyes penetrated me, pierced me, and almost made me afraid (except I’m not afraid of anything). He didn’t look away, and so I couldn’t either, until I apologized and pronounced his name correctly. After hearing it in his little headphones, he immediately pushed off, accelerated, and hopped over a log. He disappeared from my sight, and about thirty seconds later I heard a very confused, feminine rendition of “What the---?”

And that, obviously, is when we found her. Nothing had happened to her except that she was scared out of her mind about being alone in the jungle, surrounded by vicious beasts and disgusting insects and no warm place to take a bath that wouldn’t also get you a billion mosquito bites or perhaps give you some kind of sickness (or, if you’re lucky, give you the cure to some sickness that could make you rich and famous). But you know, the thing about fear is who even cares about it? I don’t, and I don’t think anyone else should, either. Hence one of the reasons I don’t really understand other people, and especially people like Annie. And especially when she saw me, ran to me, and jumped into my arms. (It was either accept that or let myself be tackled. Of course I let her down as soon as I could, grumbling something or other and probably scowling, and then telling her gruffly that it was time to go back to the Cardaccians.

            “Cardaccians? That sounds Latin,” she said.
            “Whatever it is, it’s completely lost its nobility.”
            And so I told her about them and all that, and then she got very angry.
            “We were told they have labor laws here!” she said indignantly. Then, “...Oh.”
            “Yep,” I said.
            And we got back to the river, crossed it on some protruding stones, didn’t slip or fall, failed to be injured in any way, and got back to the Cardaccians camp, now three instead of two. Then we became two again as Spyder left the party to go listen to some more beats as he flipped and tricked around and through the tents.
            When we re-entered the presence of Djetta and Madje and Djetta’s wise old father whose name we never learned, Annie had instant compassion on them, due to Djetta’s second performance that day. He was about to take her by the hand and lead her around but I stopped them and informed them that I, as The One Who Was Chosen By The Gods, would be making policy now.
            “And now I want to hear your whole story, Djetta. The story of the Cardaccians.”
            “The One Who Was Chosen By The Gods?” mumbled a puzzled Annie.
            “The whole story, High Monsieur?”
            “Yeah. Sell it to me.”
            “It was a dark and stormy night. My people, my ancient people, were called the Indies. I do not know why. Now to be called an Indie is a great honor, for it means you belong to that people who sailed here very long ago, possessing an ancient treasure, the ancient Shiny. This is our great secret, O Splotched One. Our ancient Shiny secret!”
            “An ancient Shiny secret, huh?” I said, rubbing my stubbly chin. (Not ever having to shave is one of the best parts of being a Hero.)
            “Yes, monsieur. It is what we lack, it is what has enslaved us to this day. My people need the Shiny, and it has been lost to them since that horrible, horrible shipwreck. And that terrible, terrible tidal wave. It spilled us here, by the shore, but it took our Shiny elsewhere! We think perhaps to the bottom of the sea. It was a dreadful tragedy that some of us never fully recovered from.”
            “You weren’t even alive when that happened, my dear husband!” Madje barked from the kitchen area where she was kneading some bread.
            “And that just shows how deeply it has affected my people! The loss of our Shiny was like a poison in my ancestors’ loins. And now I am infected, and my poor wife and sons, too. And all my people! That is what we truly work for. I was fated to be the wearer of the Shiny that we do get as payment. And it is how we know the treasure was not lost entirely. Someone in Golbez Industries knows where it is, and is using it for their own gains! To enslave us!”
            “Wait a second there, champ,” I said. “I’m lost.”
            “So are we. So is our dear, precious, ancient Shiny.”
            “What’s Shiny?” Annie asked.
            Djetta and I both paused to look at her. After a moment’s silence we turned back to each other.
            “So...” I said. “In some freak natural disaster or whatever, the ship your people are on crashes on this island and washes the treasure inside it to some secret, impossible hidden spot on this island, though you thought, before Golbez Industries hired you, or enslaved you, or whatever the hell your story is, the treasure had been lost in the ocean somewhere. Yes?”
            “More or less,” Djetta said. “But there is more. That moment was a great tragedy for our people, not just because of the lost Shiny, but because our people were ripped apart. Ripped into two! A number of our people seceded from us, and left to go find their own spot of land on the island. They lived nearby but apart from us in peace for a time. And then, in the height of one of our many famines, they did something terrible, unforgivable. Something impossible to get over.”
            “What did they do?” Annie said.
            Again both Djetta and I stopped and looked at her.
            “What?” she said. “Why is it so wrong if I speak?”
            “I will tell you what they did, Painted One: they stole a cantaloupe.”
            Another moment of silence punctuated his revelation.
            “A cantaloupe,” I said. “A cantaloupe.”
            “It was our only one! And they have been our rivals, our enemies, ever since, weaving a long history of thievery and dastardly cunning. We have not seen each other for several months, but the tension is still running high among our people. To this day we do not speak their name, so hated and feared it is. If you so desire, Painted One, I will say it. But just one time.”
            I nodded once. “I’d like to hear it.”
            “The name is...Johnson.”
            “Johnson? Is that what you said?”
            He just stared back.

And a memory clicked in my brain.

            Johnson.
            “They live on the other side of the island. They send out hunting parties that roam the island. They live independent of Golbez Industries.”

“Sounds like they know how to take care of themselves,” I said. Nobody noticed the irony in my voice.

“And they have recently threatened us, monsieur! Threatened to destroy me---I mean, my people. They demand tribute, and we have nothing to offer them. Which---say, there is something you can do for us, O Painted One. Instead of working to free us from Golbez’s Shiny fist, could you be our envoy to them? Take a message of peace and brotherhood? Then maybe our peoples can unite again, and revenge our fallen and fatigued against Golbez and his corruption!”

I rubbed my chin again, contemplating. It was very much in my interest to investigate the name of Johnson. And it might lead to freeing the Cardaccians, too, and in a bit of an unconventional way. It sounded good to me. I had just one request.

“Djetta, do you know the train schedule here?”

“It just came through recently, monsieur. The next one won’t come through the jungle for three more days. But what does that have to do with---”

            “I will be your envoy. But you need to tell me how I can get on that train when it comes back. You need to help me get off this island. I think that train is my only hope. Help me.”
            “I do not know exactly how, but I can have some of my people who work with the trains at the facility help you when the time comes. Will that be satisfactory, my lord?”
            I set my jaw and stared confidently into the jungle depths. “Yeah. It should be.”

            “I do feel the need to tell you, monsieur, one more thing. About the treasure. Legend says it can only be found with a sacred, geographical positioning device: a map, or something just as extraordinary. We have searched, monsieur, and the enemy tribe has too. But no one has ever been successful. Even you, as The One Chosen By The Gods, might not be able to find it.”
            It was right then that three things in my mind fell into alignment like a spine in a chiropractor’s hands.
            One: Golbez told me not to tell Vanasmas about the gold, because he might “get jealous.”
            Two: Golbez had mentioned coming to this island with a map and little else, besides his wife, colleagues, and millions of dollars. But it seemed the map was the most important, because it led to a treasure, a treasure he did not want anyone else to know about and was worried that someone would find it because the map had been stolen.
            Three: Vanasmas wanted a map. Therefore, he obviously already knew about the treasure, and wanted it for himself. So it was easy to see that Vanasmas, who had undoubtedly poisoned my father with the bourbon, was essentially scamming him.
            Just for treasure? What a boring motivation. I hoped there was something more to it.
            Although with that name “Johnson” it seemed he was secretly or not-so-secretly allied with the Cardaccians’ rival tribe. Perhaps he was an agent of theirs, and was working to get back the treasure for them. But...
            But he needed a map first. A map that was formerly in the possession of Eli Noyce. Vanasmas, somehow knowing what had happened on that seaplane, had concluded that I had it, that I knew where it was.
            And suddenly, he was right. I knew exactly where that map was.
            It would have been a great moment for an act break, but I remembered a question that had not been answered in Djetta’s story.

“So why do you speak some French?”

            Djetta shrugged. “Only the gods may know, monsieur.”
            I’d have to ask them about that at some point. And now I think it’s their turn. Adieu.