The Index -|-

The water trickled happily as it was guided by the stones, sticks, and other debris that made up the stream bed. Golden light filtered by spotty, white clouds glinted off the water in a warm and pleasant way. It felt like a fresh beginning of the hotening on the tundra. A faint cry of the birds echoed off the multi-colored walls of the canyon and mixed with the distant, joyous laughing of cave-children at play.

Kpleeb heard footsteps, and turned to see his mam approaching slowly. She smiled at him and tousled his hair for a moment before walking to his right down the edge of the bubbling river. She would likely be fetching a fish for dinner. On the canyon lip where the other side of the river cut into the rock, Wup rolled a roundish stone on by. Wup waved and continued out of sight just as Pfftul sat down next to Kpleeb.

“Where have you been?”

Kpleeb leaned back onto his big, hairy palms and turned his head. “I have been right here, Pfftul.” He had been there in the canyon. [Have I not?]

“Kpleeb, you left when Kenthid banished you, but she really does not have the power to do that. You should have just returned in a sun-cycle. We would have let you come back.”

His memory expanded, and he vaguely remembered walking the tundra alone with his thoughts for some time. “I did leave. Am I not back?”

Pfftul did not answer immediately. Instead picked up a smooth river stone and threw it in a high arc. The stone plunked into the water. Then he stood slowly and followed the same path as Kpleeb’s mam. “Maybe someday,” Pfftul said as he walked away.

Kpleeb was watching Pfftul’s brown, hairy back recede when he heard a growing buzz. It was dull, and it registered with a tension in his skull more than it did within his ears. He looked around and did not see anything that might make a noise, but the pressure continued expanding. Finally, his ears popped slightly as equilibrium was reached. The buzzing faded, but he heard a hissing that remained in the background.

After a moment, he felt a sting at the back of his neck. He slapped with his hand and caught nothing. There was a fluttering sound as he turned and saw a blue, long-winged insect fly away upstream to his left. The water gurgled merrily, and as Kpleeb turned back to enjoying his day, he felt tired. In a moment he was resting on his side gazing at the water. Just before he fell asleep, he noticed a clear, thin liquid on his palm. [What’s tha…?]

Kpleeb awoke in the center of the cave. He was lying on his back with his arms outstretched, and beneath him, the floor radiated its very slight warmth. He raised his palm to block out the light from the sun and sat up. He raised his head and saw that the stone in the center of the room was gone. For a moment, he was angered by the loss, but he realized that the stone had proven useless.

[Except… I did prove that there is something protecting the sun.]

He lowered his head and noticed an ache on his neck. [Again?] He carefully touched the back of his neck and felt a bump there that hurt slightly when he pressed it. He pulled away his hand and noticed that the tips of his first two fingers were coated with a transparent and filmy liquid.

[I need a drink.] Kpleeb stood and walked to the outcropping. “Water,” he said. After drinking he dipped his hands in the cool water and splashed some of it over his face. It seemed to him that every few days he woke up to some new surprise, some literal pain in the neck, or some new taunt from his captors. Be they gods or cavemen with a magic stronger than he had ever seen, they kept him in this cave with no exit and nothing to do but dream of his past and plot his escape.

[That will be their mistake.]

Kpleeb straightened and looked around. “Why do you keep me here? What possible interest could you have in me?” He began pacing. “But of course, you will not answer. No, you will hide behind your magic and speak only to take what I know.” Disgusted, he smirked with a newfound confidence. “You do not know it yet, but I will be your downfall.”

He waved his hand over his shoulder in an annoyed dismissal as he turned toward the wall where the day-marks were made. He put his finger on the wall above the first of his day-marks.

“I want an indentation here.”

The wall complied quickly, and there was a dent where he places his finger.

“Now I want a line here,” he said as he drew his finger in a line down the wall over the second of his day-marks.

The wall complied a little less quickly.

He repeated the process with varying sizes of lines until he had his four groups of eight-day marks complete.

[Yes, the wall needs more time to make a bigger change.]

Kpleeb finished his lines and smile with satisfaction. [Four plus five, and no more picking at this scab for blood or using gray flub. There has to be a way to use this for escape.]

He decided to experiment. “I want an arm, thin but tall from the floor,” he said. He stuck out his arm at chest height. “This high.” He watched as a stone rod rose from the floor. It was as thick as his arm and perfectly straight up. It grew until it reached the height he had asked for and them stopped. The end of the rod was rounded.

Kpleeb pushed on the rod’s side and it did not budge. He pressed harder and there was no movement at all. It did not bend or break, even when he put all of his weight on it.

“Now, make two more like it, right here, here, and there.” He gestured at the spots near the first rod, and the new rods grew at the same speed, starting with the first location he had pointed to. [Interesting. I wonder…]

“Now make two, smaller rods here and only as high as my knee,” he said as he squatted and placed two fingers side by side only a hand-width apart on the floor. The two thin rods grew, but one grew completely before the other began.

“Now make a flat stone about this big,” he raised his arms in a circle, “here, on top of these three arms. A table top grew out of the top of the first rod and slowly expanded two reach and meld with the other two rods. He clambered up onto the top of the flat stone and jumped up and down a few times. [It is incredibly sturdy.]

Kpleeb hopped down from the stone table and kicked at one of the small rods that protruded upward. His foot stung where it connected, but the rod snapped off and rolled away to rest in the center hollow of the cave floor. When he picked it up it felt normal in his hand, smooth with a textured surface and not very heavy. The rod was about as thick as two of his fingers. [This would make an amazing wildebeest whacking stick.] He paused to remember Kenthid and the other cave-people back home.

For many handfuls of moments, Kpleeb walked in circles. He followed the cave wall and felt the heft of his stick and twirled it around in his hands. He shifted it between hands quickly and drug it against the wall or the floor with a scraping sound. His mind raced in a way he had never experienced, and a large number of new ideas manifested themselves in his brain.

After some time, Kpleeb stopped and knelt at the edge of the cave. He tried to gouge the wall with the stick. Both the surface of the wall and the point of the stick were affected equally. He felt that he could make his day marks with the stick, but it was easier and just as effective to tell the wall to change. He began to rub the stick against the floor, and eventually, the stick had a point that would be suitable for a spear.

[Now, if only there were animals to hunt.]

He whipped the stick around and jabbed the air a number of times and then chuckled at himself. He had never been the best hunter, but any cave-man had to have the basic skills or be laughed out of the village. Still, this was the first hand-held object (other than his food) that he had encountered in his four-plus-five days inside the cave, and he enjoyed the feel of it in his hand. Kpleeb pondered the options that the responsive stone gave him.

[I can make an eating tool… Which would be nice since those worms are so gooey. But… I could also ask for new food. That would be good… Not to get distracted. Maybe I can make a better weapon, but surely the gods would recognize it and be wary, unless…. Unless I can make it seem like it is not a weapon. This will require more thought. What about hiding?]

Kpleeb looked around the cave. There had never been any place to hide. The gods could talk in the center of the room, and he could not see them. Certainly, they could see through the stone somehow. [This is worth a test.] He pointed with his knuckle at a spot near the wall about midway between the two outcroppings.

“Make a hollow there,” he said clearly. “Big enough to sleep in.” [The hollow will be big, so it will take some time.] “And make a cave wall from the edge of the hollow to the ceiling.” He gestured with his knuckles. [A small cave inside a bigger cave, and maybe they cannot see through two walls]. Kpleeb did not wait to see if there would be a response. Instead, he returned to the stone table top and held up his smallest finger.

“Make a stick as high as my hand and as thick as this finger.”

Nothing happened on the table at all. It was as if it did not hear him. Kpleeb waited for much time. Slowly the wall of the small cave grew in increments. He fought his frustration and then dozed and daydreamed about Ilsa, a cave-girl back home in the canyon. He ate the steaming hot worms that appeared in the outcropping, and drank the tepid water. Eventually he fell asleep.

When he awoke, he sat up and saw that a stick grew directly out of the table top. He stood and shuffled to the table. The stick was very close to what he wanted. [Can it judge based on the finger I held up?] He paused to consider how to test this theory. After a moment he held one hand cupped and then put the thumb and finger on his other hand inside the cup and spread them apart from each other.

“Now, make a flat part this wide on the end. and only a little taller than it is right now.” He released his fingers and then dropped his hands to watch. The stick grew in length and expanded its size on one lateral dimension. There it was, just how he asked. It was a scoop stick made of stone instead of wood. It was more flat but similar to what he had used back home in the caves on the river. Even though he had hidden his fingers from sight, and it knew the distance anyway. [This will warrant further inspection.]

[But why did it wait?] He looked over to where he had commanded the small cave. In that spot was a large stone that reached from the floor to the cave ceiling. He examined it from all sides and saw no evidence that it was anything but a stone.

“Make a hole here,” he said pointing with his knuckles at the stone. Slowly a hole grew and as the depth of the cavity expanded, it bored through to the cave that was the other side.

[Ah, I said to make a cave wall, but did not say to leave a hole for entry.]

He could fix that. “Stop,” Kpleeb commanded. “This hole is big enough.” He bent and looked inside. It would do nicely. He slithered into the hole and commanded it to close behind him. When it closed the light from the sun was shut off completely, and he could not see anything. To resolve this, he put his finger on the wall.

“Make a small hole here.”

With a tiny hole, Kpleeb could faintly see the inside of the cave, but the tiny hole looked directly at the food outcropping. He put his finger on the small cave wall nearest the big cave wall.

“Make a small hole here.”

The hole formed and immediately outside he could see the side of the larger cave.

“Close this hole,” he said pointing at the previous small hole.

Kpleeb looked at the one remaining hole. [I cannot let light in without also letting the gods peer into the smaller cave as well. Their invisible eyes could be looking in right now even, and how would I know?] He jabbed his finger through the small hold quickly, but the light went out and he could not feel any eyeballs on the other side. He used the sharp end of the stick to prod through the hole, but the effect was the same. He could not be inside the small cave and prevent them from looking unless the cave was sealed.

[But… wait.] Kpleeb left the small cave through a hole he commanded. He bent and pointed at the wall that was toward the outside wall of the larger cave.

“Make the hollow bigger here.”

He straightened and quickly commanded the smaller cave to be sealed. When it closed, he walked to the stone table and pushed at the side of the eating utensil with his hand until the stone broke.

“Outcropping,” he said with confidence, “I am hungry. Give me more worms.”

The Index -|-

It was dark when Kpleeb awoke, and he could not understand why he woke apart from his normal time. He raised his head, and looked around. The moon was barely visible in its most dim state on the ceiling above, but the sun had not yet begun to glow. He could sense no debilitating fear in the way he had sometimes when he woke as a cave-child. After a few moments he determined that there was nothing amiss. He put his head back down onto the meat of his bicep and prepared to sleep.

“One more gulicuiip will achieve level two,” said a silvery voice.

Kpleeb sat up and looked around him. He felt the hair on his neck standing. [Am I dreaming?] The voice had been quiet enough, but not very distant. He stood. The cave was dark, and he could not see the wall furthest away from him. He stretched out his hand and touched the wall to be certain that he was not dreaming. His fingers rubbed on the rough stone, and he could feel the variations in texture and grit that was characteristic of the stone. It certainly felt very real.

He began to walk slowly along the cave wall. [Just a quick circuit to take a look. I must have been dreaming just as I woke up.]

He had heard voices before, but this one was a little different, and for once, it did not appear to address him directly. Kpleeb did not know what to make of it. He stopped as he reached the defecation pit. The wall protrusion remained there, and the pit was dark without the sun’s light. He turned his head and could not see the food outcropping.

Suddenly he felt disgusted with himself for feeling the urge to check everything. [There is no point in walking the wall. There is nothing in this cave except me and these two outcroppings.] He turned and stalked back to the food outcropping for some water.

He had taken only three steps when he tripped and felt stinging pain on his right shin. He stumbled to the floor clutching his leg. It was dim, but he saw a shape there in front of him. He groaned loudly, and reached out his hand. The shape was a stone about the height of his knee.

“Urrgh, now you decide to appear,” he said under his breath. He patted the stone and got to his feet wish an exaggerated sigh. At least I know it is listening, he thought as he limped back to the food outcropping.

Kpleeb sat and thought about the voice. It had been different than the other. It had not spoken to him, and it had not spoken during the sun-time. [It had to be a dream.] There was no way that he could imagine it was anything but a dream so he went to sleep.

His morning rise was slower than usual, but after trying to sleep longer he eventually rolled over and looked at the increasingly strong rays from the sun.

[Urgh. Need to avoid moon-time walks.]

He sat up slowly. The stone he had requested was prominent in the center of the cave. Along its upper edge there was a blood stain that matched the scab on his shin. He stood and took some water before going to take a closer look. The stone was above his knee height, but below his loincloth band. It must have still been growing when he carelessly walked into it. He watched it as he walked in a circle.

It seemed to him that it was still growing. He sat on the stone and waited. In a moment or two he felt a slight lift as the stone grew again. Amazing!

“What do you wish for?”

Kpleeb stood quickly. It was the same odd voice that had spoken before, but not the breathy voice from his dream. His anger pulsed as he thought about the gods and their machinations… but he immediately remembered his fit of cave-child anger and paused to collect his thoughts before answering. [I must control myself around these gods and not give them the satisfaction of my frustration.]

He spoke moments later, when he was ready. “I want friend. Cave-friend,” he said simply and from his heart.

He was actually very lonely, though he tried not to dwell on it, but he also thought that two would be more likely to escape than one. He waited, though not impatiently this time. Kpleeb had already determined that the gods would not answer. They seemed to excel at requesting information but never delivering it.

He sat back down on the stone and felt it twitch under him. It was fascinating to him that he had requested this stone, and that it grew from the cave floor. It grew for him, and though he could not quite put his finger on how, he felt that this was his ticket to freedom… or at least a way to stick a hairy knuckle in the eye of these manipulative gods.

[I am alone. I have been alone since I came to this cave.] He looked at the wall. [Four plus four markings. Many days to be alone.] Memories of the caves and his friends and family filled his head. [Will I ever see them again? What do these gods want?] His thoughts circled like lazy crows above a caribou carcass on the tundra. [What if they mean to keep me here forever?]

After some time lost in thought, Kpleeb realized the stone has stopped growing. His feet dangled over the side and he could only touch the floor with his outstretched toes. He looked up and saw that the sun was still bright though it was certainly past the middle of the sun-cycle.

He pushed off the stone and walked to the outcropping. He drank a little and then looked back at the stone. [What better time than now?]

Kpleeb took three quick steps and hopped onto the stone. He landed with a knee and hairy foot firmly planted on the top surface. During the many sun-cycles that he had lived here he had searched the whole cave except for two places. Now that he had seen the inside of the defecation pit, the only place left was…

He stood smiling and held his left hand up to block the sunlight. He reached his right hand out touch the cave ceiling several arm’s length from the sun. The ceiling curved up in an arc toward the light, and his hand followed, slowly. He soon reached almost directly above him, but the ceiling kept going. There was a tingling in his fingers, and he felt that he was near to the final, unknown space in the cave. He stood on his tiptoes.

–ZAP! -A bolt of energy extended in an instant from the space above to strike his hand. The force of the shock threw Kpleeb’s body to the cave floor.

Where he lay unconscious.

The Index -|-

Many moments had passed, but not so much as much as half a sun-cycle since Kpleeb had thought of a way to see inside the defecation pit inside the cave. A hunch had formed inside his small -but growing- caveman brain.

The water in the outcropping filled at his command, and the stone hollow had formed a hole to let the water drain away. The stone outcropping itself had moved upward on the wall. He had not seen that happen, but he had mentioned the need for it, and it had happened. He asked the sun to move and shine its light into the defecation pit, but the sun did not move.

Kpleeb did not consider himself to be a particularly educated or intelligent caveman, but after some thought, it seemed presumptuous to ask the sun to move itself. He had considered that maybe it was arrogance on his part and decided to instead ask for something that had already been proven possible. If the outcropping could be raised, and the stone could open to release water, then surely the wall could be changed in some way.

After making a new demand of the cave, he waited for the change. He was more patient this time. He felt like fool for screaming at the cave and jumping around like a crazed tundra hare. His fists and feet ached where he had scuffed them on the rough stone, and Kpleeb did not want to lose his temper like that again.

He had not been prone to anger in the past. Even the time the other cavemen had held him down while Pfftul squeezed an enormous, black toad until it drizzled piss on his head. Even then he only kicked Pfftul and called him a skir-walker. Afterward they had made up as friends usually do. Kpleeb washed his head in the flowing river and then dunked Pfftul’s head when he bent to drink. As was his way, Pfftul had been cheerfully apologetic after Kpleeb clapped him on the back and laughed at his drenched head. It was the way of friends.

Kpleeb shook his head to clear his thoughts. He enjoyed reminiscing about his friends, but it renewed the dull ache that clutched at his chest. He found that too much time spent with these thoughts made him melancholy. He stood and walked to the wall where he had made sun-cycle markings. He would need to renew the older markings now as they had been partially washed away by the mist that sometimes formed at night, but he had still not found a suitable marking tool.

He counted them one by one. …4, 5, 6, 7… 8. When Pfftul had bragged about his eight-sided stones, Kpleeb had reminded him that he could not count past six. Pfftul had been generous and told him that after six came seven, and then eight. Kpleeb remembered thinking that a number so high would be practically useless to him, but now he was grateful, and had begun to see the value in Pfftul’s expert knowledge.

The marks he had placed were not-so-straight lines in groups of eight because he did not know which number came after eight. Once he had reached seven marks, he completed the group with an eighth mark made from his blood. The darkness of his blood seemed to stain the stone in a more permanent way, and set each group apart. He now had a perpetual sore on his arm that he picked at when he needed to make a new blood mark, but he did not want to use blood every day in fear that it would run out and he would enter the pit of the damned.

He now had four complete groups of eight, and three marks in a new group. Kpleeb knew that there were some days in the beginning that were lost, and he knew of no way to mark days he could not count.

[It is not a perfect system. Four plus three,] he reminded himself in an attempt to remember the count. He would make a new marking later when it was time for his food to appear.

When Kpleeb turned from his markings to get a drink of water, he noticed that the wall above the defecation pit had changed. There was a bulge above the pit that looked a little like the stone had melted. With excitement he hurried to take a closer look. The face was more or less flat as he had requested, and it was glossy, but it was small. Where the sun’s light bounced off the flat area there, it shone on the floor a few steps from the pit.

[Yes, it responded!] It had not been an immediate response, but Kpleeb would not be picky about how quickly his hunch was confirmed.

He held his hand in the reflected light, and walked around the pit to view it from different angles. The light was dim and cloudy, but it might work if he could convince the flat part of the wall to change properly. He held his hand near the plane and looked at the sun several times.

“Angle more flat toward cave floor,” he muttered quietly, “but only little.” It might take several attempts. He spoke louder. “Cave,” he said addressing the room. “Angle more like the floor, but only some.” He pointed at the protrusion with his knuckles.

Kpleeb stood back and waited for a handful of moments. He expected nothing to happen, and he was not disappointed.

[It will be as I request.]

After a drink, he sat back against the wall near the food outcropping and watched.

[Maybe the cave needs time to change.]

Kpleeb lost track of time in the quiet cave. He watched and waited for moment after moment. He watched the sun, but it did not dim enough to herald the evening meal. After some time, he noticed that the angle of the protrusion had shifted. He stood up and walked to it. It had changed, but he had not seen it happen. He remained rooted and nearby. After another moment he saw the smallest twitch as it shifted again.

Ahh, he thought, it moves very slowly and with moments of waiting in between. He watched the wall and the light that was reflected from it. The light very slowly crawled over the floor and up the side of the outcropping where the pit opening was formed. It settled inside the opening.

Kpleeb excitedly bent and looked into the defecation pit. The pit itself started a little bigger than two of his hands, and it expanded slightly in diameter as it grew in depth. It was at least two of his arm lengths deep, maybe more. The shaft of light was off-center, but he could now see the green and glossy bottom of the pit. He moistened his mouth for a moment and then released a thick drop of spittle above the pit. The spittle hit the bottom without affecting the surface, but in a few moments, the spittle was gone.

In another few moments the sun dimmed and Kpleeb had nothing else to throw into the pit except for his loincloth. He trotted to the food outcropping to get his meal, and while he was eating, he considered the disappearance. The spittle was clear and small. He could not tell if it has disappeared or somehow sunk into the surface. As a test, he broke a food worm in two and dropped half into the pit. Even though the sun was dimming, he could see that the surface indented when the worm struck, and in just a few moments the worm had sunk into the green.

Kpleeb smiled to himself. [This is like a stone sinking into the waters of the river. This green water is thicker, but it takes away what is dropped.]

He finished eating the worms and set about with the next part of his plan.

“I want different food tomorrow,” he said. “Tired of worms. Make new food hard.” He clunked his hairy knuckles on the wall to demonstrate.

He drank and then washed his hands with water from the outcropping. “Open hole.” He drank again slowly with satisfaction. For once in a very long time, he felt as if he was listened to.

Kpleeb walked to the center of the room and pointed with his knuckle at the floor. “Make big rock here.” He held his hand near the rope that held his loincloth to his waist. “This high.”

He nodded to himself. [The cave obeys, and I will use this to escape.]