The Serpent and the Crown Read online

  Jorobai caught a glimpse of something he thought was a big monkey walking along the forest floor. Gondaro sprinted forward and stalked it from behind the trees and bushes. Jorobai followed, and when he saw the child he knew it was not a monkey, but a little boy. His heart leapt and he called out to the child, “Hello, boy!”

  The child turned around and saw Gondaro’s eyes staring at him from a very short distance away. He screamed, leaped into the air, turned around and ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction.

  Gondaro immediately followed, and was right on his tail. Jorobai ran behind them, shouting “Gondaro, don’t hurt him!” They crashed through the brush, turning this way and that. He lost his sense of direction. The boy was fast, and Gondaro stayed right on his heels, with Jorobai lagging behind. The child stumbled on an outstretched root and fell on his face. He turned over and Gondaro was on top of him, with his paws pressing down on the boy’s shoulders. The boy arched his head back and screamed at the top of his lungs. Jorobai caught up and pulled Gondaro off of the boy. The boy leaped up and ran away again, but Jorobai held Gondaro there and wouldn’t let him up.

  A moment passed, and Jorobai felt a vine wrapping around his ankle. He reached for his knife and hacked away at the vine. Gondaro jumped up and continued running after the boy.

  “Gondaro, stop!” Jorobai cried as he got to his feet and sprinted after him.

  Then he heard the sound of men shouting threats. Gondaro came sprinting back towards Jorobai. He ran past him and hid behind him. Jorobai looked up and there were five men dressed in loincloths with spears pointed at him. They threw a net over him, tightening all around him and another over Gondaro. Two of the men carried Jorobai with a spear extended between them, resting on their shoulders. The net hung from the spear between them and he was curled up in a tight ball with his face looking down at the ants crawling over leaves beneath him. The men dangled the net lower and Jorobai was bitten on his face several times and his face stung and burned. He wanted to reach up and scratch it with all his might. He looked over to see Gondaro suffering the same fate. He reached for his knife but it was gone. He bounced along as the men carried him off into the jungle. His sense of direction was thoroughly scrambled but he had a feeling they were headed in the opposite direction from the beach.

  After a long and cramped march, they came upon a small village. About 50 simply dressed men, women and children gathered around the new curiosity that the hunters had brought back. Jorobai and Gondaro struggled to break free from the nets. The villagers all turned to watch an older man approach. His head and back were adorned with feathers. They were the same blue feathers of the bird Jorobai had watched Gondaro chase so many times, but never catch.

  One of the hunters handed Jankaro’s knife to their chief. He looked down at the knife and grasped it in his hand. Then he walked over to Jorobai. He knelt down and calmly spoke a phrase that Jorobai did not understand as he cut the net away.

  The hunters stood close to Jorobai, calmly watching with their spears held upright. He stood and faced the chief, who gently grasped the blade of the knife and offered the handle end of it to Jorobai. “We didn’t mean the boy any harm,” said Jorobai as he tucked the knife in his belt.

  The chief pointed at Gondaro, and gestured at Jorobai to cut away the net. Everyone watched intently as Gondaro squirmed in his net. The hunters encircled him with their spears at the ready. Jorobai knelt down next to him as the hunters brandished their spears. He grabbed Gondaro by the scruff to stop him from squirming.

  “Leave that kid alone,” He told him. “These people might help us find Jankaro.”

  He got the impression his Ashtari companion had heard him, but he still seemed so fierce and wild in the face of this new threat. The chief repeated his gestures commanding Jorobai to cut the net. The hunters’ spears were inches from their necks. Gondaro growled as Jorobai cut a slit in the net.

  Gondaro thrashed about and freed himself. He stood up and rotated all around, sizing up all the hunters. Then he planted all four feet, arched his head back, and let out a booming and ferocious growl, sending his blue stripe standing upright and amplifying its bright blue color. Some of the people gasped in awe, and a baby started to cry. One of the blue birds was startled from its nearby perch and flew overhead. An arrow went flying up from somewhere in the crowd, struck the bird through the heart, and it collapsed at Gondaro’s feet. The hunters leaned in but he beat them to it and snatched the blue bird in his jaws.

  He ate the bird while everyone watched, sending blue feathers flying everywhere as he ripped it apart. Blood trickled down his chin as he occasionally stopped to glare at the hunters. They backed away from him, clutching their spears. All of the villagers backed away, and the children hid behind their mothers. Gondaro seemed content as if it was serendipitous to find these new friends who helped him get the meal that he had been longing for.

  Jorobai couldn’t understand a word of their language, but the chief appeared to welcome him with gestures. He led him to the far end of the village and offered him a seat on a wood bench in front of his hut. He introduced his wife and five children, and they spoke words of greeting to Jorobai. He nodded to acknowledge them. The chief pointed to himself and said, “Juitao.”

  Jorobai introduced himself and Gondaro, who rested nearby after his hastily devoured meal. Juitao’s wife brought him a bundle of cooked meat with vegetables and herbs wrapped in a large leaf. Jorobai was hungry and it smelled good. The chief bade him to eat and he wondered if it was the same meal that Gondaro had eaten so greedily just moments before. It was the most delicious meal he had eaten since his wife died. Juitao waited patiently for his guest to be appeased, relaxing and chatting with his family.

  One of the children was the one that Gondaro had chased. Juitao made a gesture to his son, sweeping his hand over in Gondaro’s direction. The boy approached the young Ashtari slowly. Gondaro lay there and watched him approach. The boy reached out his hand, and Gondaro batted it lazily with his paw. The boy ran back to his mother’s side while his siblings laughed at him. Juitao made a joke and they all laughed together. Jorobai finished his meal and noticed that Juitao’s hospitality had put him at ease. He wondered if this man could help him find Jankaro.

  Juitao pointed to himself and again said “Juitao.” He waved his arms all around himself, indicating the village and said “Fayaya.” He pointed to Jorobai and said “Jorobai.” Then he made sounds and hand gestures to imitate the waves of the sea.

  “I am Jorobai. I come from Olaya. I came here on a boat sailing on the sea.” He spoke slowly and complemented his words with hand gestures.

  “Olaya Fayaya,” Juitao smiled and laughed at the rhyming and his family laughed too. Jorobai tried to crack a smile.

  “I’m looking for my son. Have you seen him? He is like you,” he pointed at one of Juitao’s sons, “like you are to your son, I am to my son.” He pointed to Juitao, then to his son, then to himself, then to an empty space on the floor to illustrate his meaning. He put his hands up in the air and made gestures to show his meaning that his son was missing and he was searching for him. He looked at them to see if they had any indication of where Jankaro could be, but all they did was look at him with amusement and curiosity.

  Jorobai waited for a moment but they all just stared at him. Juitao looked enthralled and his attention was fixed on Jorobai. “It was just a normal day, but that night my son did not come home.” Jorobai spoke slowly and made every effort to share his story with hand gestures, facial expressions and tonal inflections. “We tracked him but we don’t know what happened to him. He disappeared. We think he met a creature like this, but much bigger.” He pointed at Gondaro, made grand sweeping gestures with his arms and growling sounds. The family gasped in disbelief, and other members of the tribe drew closer, congregating around to hear his story.

  “He fell into a cave. We tracked him until his trail disappeared. All
we could find was this knife.” He held up the knife for a moment for all of them to see. Some of the spearmen tensed for a moment, then relaxed to hear the rest of Jorobai’s story. He told them about how he went to see Ishikaya for help.

  “Ishikaya Fayaya,” Juitao quipped, and everyone laughed.

  Jorobai told them about the Amoza and his stomach dropped as he looked around to see that the bottle was no longer with him. He looked up Juitao and his eyes showed his concern.

  “Ghijo,” Juitao called to the biggest of his hunters, whose neck was adorned with a necklace made from the talons of the blue birds. Juitao held out his hand with a beckoning command. Ghijo produced the bottle of Amoza and handed it to Juitao. Juitao in turn handed it to Jorobai. Jorobai took the bottle of Amoza and made gestures to warn against anyone drinking it.

  He told them all about his visit to Farilal, how he took a boat out to sea, fought off carnivorous sharks and sea serpents, lost his brother, and ended up drifting on a canoe alone. The people hung on every word and gesture, enraptured by his story.

  When he got to the part about the vines, Juitao interjected. He seemed to be saying emphatically that the vines could not reach them within the borders of the village. “Jugon Drogon,” he proclaimed.

  “Jugon Drogon,” the villagers echoed back.

  Juitao gestured and pointed and seemed to be asking about where Gondaro came from. Jorobai swallowed hard and related the tale to gasps of amazement and disbelief. Juitao raised his eyebrow and looked down at the bottle of Amoza, seeming to admire the work of its maker.

  “Ishikaya?” he asked.

  “Amoza. Made by Ishikaya, infused with my blood and the blood of a jaguar,” said Jorobai.

  Jorobai befriended Juitao and his people. They fed him delicious foods, taught him their language, and offered him the shelter of an unfinished hut without walls. He shared some of the words of his own. Gondaro roamed the jungle around the village and collaborated with the hunters so he could pounce on the blue birds with his own paws. Jorobai’s health was improving, he felt robust and vibrant, and he eventually stopped dreaming about being attacked by the vines every night. In spite of the long awaited and welcomed dose of comfort, something nagged at him. He enjoyed conversing with the villagers but the conversations seemed to die whenever he brought up the subject of his quest to find his son. No one offered any clues, and no one shared his urgency about the matter.

  Gondaro grew to the size of a large jaguar, and hunted with increasing ferocity. Jorobai marveled at how he and the people there had come to trust a creature that could rip a person apart with a sudden leap from the shadows.

  He wondered what Gondaro would have done had he and the hunters not intervened when he chased the little boy. Would he have killed him and eaten him? Or was he simply feeling curious and playful? Jorobai shuddered when he remembered tracking Jankaro’s disappearance and found tracks suggesting he had encountered a full grown version of Gondaro.

  He recalled the old tales his grandfather told him about the days the Ashtari roamed the jungle and clashed with humans. They were so feared that they were believed to have been long since hunted into extinction by the different tribes of the jungle. He felt the history with the beast pulsating in his blood. Gondaro looked at him like a father most of the time, but he was maturing fast, and didn’t need any more paternal guidance to survive and thrive on the island. Sometimes he seemed possessed by his hunting instincts. Jorobai thought about what might happen if Gondaro stumbled upon Jankaro. He gripped his knife and tried to stay close, but he rarely succeeded. Gondaro roamed far and wide, and Jorobai knew he must have seen the whole island.

  But Jorobai kept on searching because he wanted to see for himself. Gondaro didn’t know what to look for and could easily mistake Jankaro for just another member of Juitao’s tribe. So Jorobai searched on, calling out Jankaro’s name. At night he returned to the hospitality of Juitao and his family’s delicious meals.

  Jorobai was so nourished by their food that all his muscles grew larger than ever, and he developed a rounded belly for the first time in his life. But Gondaro’s growth was shocking. He could stand on all fours and look Jorobai directly in the eyes. He was twice the size of any man, including Juitao, the biggest man in the village.

  “He is getting very big,” said Juitao as he greeted Jorobai one day. “I don’t know if my men can handle him. We must bind him to your hut at night for safety.” Jorobai saw Juitao’s resolve and his stomach knotted up. He turned to Gondaro. The Ashtari didn’t seem to like the idea either.

  Jorobai only had a few more areas of the island to search amidst the deeper valleys and steeper climbs. Then the search would be complete. He couldn’t leave it to Gondaro or Juitao. He had to know for himself. His plan was to finish searching the island on foot, then build a boat and sail further out to sea. He was comfortable and felt safe in Fayaya, but he knew he couldn’t stay for any longer than was needed. If he couldn’t find Jankaro there, he would need to sail on. He had it all planned out in his mind but was caught off guard by the confrontation.

  Ten hunters stood ready with their spears and bows. Gondaro sized them up with a fire of indignation burning in his brow. Juitao handed Jorobai the thick rope, woven from the same creeping vines. Although it lay there motionless in his hands, brown and limp, it still put a bad taste in his mouth. Gondaro let out a low rumble and paced. The hunters gripped their spears tight. Gondaro knew he was the biggest and the fastest, and he knew what he could do to them. But it was him against the whole tribe, and he knew what they could do to him. Jorobai took a step forward. “It will only be for a few days my friend. Then we will sleep at the beach again.”

  Gondaro stopped pacing and he looked into the sky. His eyes rolled back up inside his head, and his eyelashes fluttered, revealing only the whites beneath. He stood still and vulnerable, in a trance state, but only for a heartbeat, and his eyes rolled back into focus. He arched his head back and let out a resounding roar, blasting Jorobai with his breath. He kicked up dust at the villagers as he turned and bolted into the jungle. Jorobai ran after him, calling out in vain as Gondaro left him behind.

  The plants slapped Jorobai and scraped his legs but he kept running up and down the rolling hills of the island. For hours he pressed on with all his strength, and found new reserves of energy from all the food he had been eating. He came over a hill and caught a glimpse of Gondaro far ahead, about to descend into a steep valley that Jorobai had not yet explored. He was moving slower now that he had distanced himself from the threat.

  Jorobai came over the hill and looked down into the mass of trees below. He slowly crept down the steep hillside. He had to rest for a moment and a vine wrapped around his leg. He cursed, pulled out his knife, hacked the vine away, and continued his descent. Exhausted with the effort, he slid down in some steep areas, controlling his descent by catching himself on trees. He continued downward until he came upon a steep drop that was manageable for an Ashtari, but would break the legs of a man.

  He stopped to think, but a vine started to wrap around his ankle. He looked down below and sized up the drop. It still didn’t look good. He looked up and saw that it would be a slow climb to get all the way out. He watched the vine wrap around his leg, creeping higher and higher. Another vine wrapped around his other ankle, but he drew his knife and hacked it away. Then he hacked off the first vine. He pulled it from his leg, tied one end of it around a branch, and used it for a rope to lower down over the small cliff and into the creek below. He splashed down into the water when he dropped the last few inches. He looked around for Gondaro, but there was no trace of him. The water flowed down to the sea eventually, so he figured he could find him on the beach.

  The jungle sang all around him. The insects chanted, the birds sang, and small creatures darted about. As he walked he noticed an increasing number of huge bees flying around. He pressed on and listened. Up ahead he heard some commoti
on and he picked up his pace. He heard Gondaro roaring and struggling. When he came around a bend, he saw Gondaro fighting with the bees and roaring when he got stung. As Jorobai got closer, he saw vines wrapped around Gondaro’s legs. He was so preoccupied with the bees that he didn’t notice the vines. These vines were particularly thick, and fast. Soon they were all over his body, pulling at his limbs and dragging him away. Jorobai charged in with a war cry. In a moment he was on them, hacking away with his knife. Gondaro struggled and roared, but was bound by the vines. The bees stung both of them multiple times. Jorobai could hardly breathe through the crowd of bees, Gondaro’s flailing and the vines flying everywhere.

  Jorobai’s flesh swelled around the bee stings. His fingers swelled and he fumbled his knife when a bee crashed into his forehead and stung him right between the eyes. He closed his eyes and tried to swat the bee. When he tried to open them, they were swollen shut. He panicked and staggered away from Gondaro. He felt around for his knife as the bees stung his back and Gondaro’s roars faded into the distance.

  Jorobai’s joints ached as he crawled into the shallow water to escape from the bees. His ears swelled shut and he heard nothing but the fading sound of the buzzing swarm. His throat swelled shut and he could barely breathe. His hand reached for a stone as the venom overwhelmed his body and his lungs cried out for air.

  His consciousness was fading when he heard someone call his name. “Jorobai!” Juitao’s hunters wrapped him in their net and hung it across their shoulders with a spear just like before, and carried him away.

  Light replaced the darkness as he floated up into the clear blue sky, headed for the sun, with his tears raining down on the island below him, splashing the vines that had tormented him. He heard his wife singing a sweet song as he drifted up. A big blue bird came into view and it grabbed him in its talons. He felt like a wounded rat, held tight and hanging limp, as it carried him through the sky. He looked down to see Fayaya bustling with activity, and the bird laid him down in his hut in the center of the village.