The Stone Pit

Page Created: 10/11/11. Last Updated: 10/21/11.

He could not tell time, but he knew he had lain in the cell for many days. The pains of the capturing had almost left him. The blows of spears and clubs, the cuts of the ropes they had used to bind, the skin bruised futilely against the walls of the cell, they had healed. Only the wings still hurt, with the dull, bitter ache of limbs that will never heal truly. If he survived the prison, he knew he would never fly again. Not that he would die; his race were not frail bird-creatures, to perish swiftly should they lose their wings. He would live, though life would be less sweet. He would miss the pleasures of the skies, of seeing the ground as a map spread out beneath him, of watching the ground-dwelling beasts--friend, foe and dinner alike--becoome cubs, then mice, and finally just specks in his eyes. But he could enjoy life even without it.

The cell the apish ones had cast him into might have been been enough to hold a small army of their kind. He could barely turn around in it. The stench of the cell, of himself by now, was terrible, almost as bad as the stink of the cave he had explored once, where the bats had clustered like the armies of the dead. Cramped, cold, beset by insects, and hungry, he waited for whatever fate the hairless apes had planned for him.

Waiting was the worst part. He knew that death in the hole was not what the ones who had taken his wings and freedom had planned. The creatures were apes, or apelike, any, and apelike, would use him in some sort of cruel game. If the apes could not have eaten, fought or played with him, they would not have been interested in him.

If only he knew what they were going to do with him! He thought of the lore he had heard about the small creatures who built cities greater than any ant cities. He knew they sometimes punished their own kind by torturing and killing them before the rest of the tribe. But he had not, to his knowledge, ever bothered one of the apes, nor had he stolen their crops or cattle. Too often he had seen others of his kind slain for such acts. The hairless apes were too numerous, their weapons too clever, to trifle with.

Still, he had been told that the hairless ones knew about God, and worshipped Him in strange ways. Frequently they would kill another of God's creatures and offer it to God, as a gift of meat. Sometimes they even offered the handsomer members of their own tribe. Could he be a sacrifice? Something like himself would be a great creature to the apes, and would bring greater rewards if offered to God. He rather liked the idea of dying that way, if he had to die at all. A creature fit to feed Him! And, he noted wryly, they were also offering the lives of seven of their own kind, hunters who had not been lucky.

He wished they would come for him. Soon they would open the small door in his prison's ceilng, and let down some joints of meat, never enough to do more than take the edge off his apetite. Was that door opening now?

It was the great door, the huge block of stone he had tried so hard to move. Now he could escape; at last he could escape from the cell into whatever the apes were going to do to him. The light from the outside hurt his eyes.

A dozen of the apes rushed in and started trying to drive him out. They jabbed his back and sides with long spears, shouted and gestured toward the doorway. Although he wanted to leave the prison, even leave it to his death, he could not move quickly after days of inactivity. He took many jabs because of it, and would have taken more had the apes not feared him.

One came toward him with what looked like a length of rope. He shied instinctively, not wishing to be bound again. The apish creature laughed and snapped the "rope" so that the tip struck him just below the eye, tearing sensitive skin.

It was all that he needed to bring his rising anger to a boil. The ape had come too close to use his weapon; he fell flaming, screaming to his comrades for help as he died. Two of the spear-wielders rushed him; a flip of his tail sent them crashing against the walls. Neither would live to see his own death.

The apes, screaming angrily, prepared to attack him in earnest this time, to kill rather than torment. One, apparently their leader, barked an order as they charged. They stopped and fell back. The prisoner noted that the one who ordered the others was dressed differently from them. Like his inferiors, he wore woven cloth and the stolen hides of bulls over his true skin, but his clothing was dyed a bright crimson, while the others wore their natural colors. They were like insects in this respect, too; the leaders had to be bigger and prettier thann the followers. If they were not naturally so, they had to make themselves so.

They were driving him toward the door again, but this time more gently, with more consideration toward their victim and their own lives.

Glad to leave the prison, he was still shocked at what he found outside. He was at the bottom of a great stone bowl. Steep stone walls encircled him completely, the heavy door having shut with surprising speed behind him. He saw at a glance he could not climb out of this new prison, and with his broken wings he could not fly out. He was trapped again in a larger prison, even crueler than the old one, for he could see the sky and freedom where the ceiling should have been. Along the sides of the bowl, up above where he could reach, were throngs of the apish ones, more of them than he had believed existed in the world. Packed closer than the bats in the caverns, they stared and jabbered at him. The sun stung his eyes, the noise stung his ears, the stench of the massed bodies was worse by many times than his own. He knew the apes' attention was fastened completely on him. Under the weight of more than a thousand eyes, he felt crushed.

He heard a voice cry out in his own tongue.

"Why did you do this to me? Why did you trap and impison me, cripple me whie I was helpless? What did I do to you? Are you people never happy unless you're destroying somebody? Why? Tell me, curse you! Why did you do this?"

Then he realized the voice was his own. He noticed an odd thing. Wherever his glace fell the apes turned their heads, unable to meet his gaze. Unable to fight them in any other way, he fought them with his eyes. Leaders in their bright clothing, workers in their drab, soldiers in their armor,

He glared again at the crowd of apes. Wherever his glace fell the apes turned their heads, unable to meet his gaze. He fought them with his eyes. Leaders in their bright clothing, workers in their drab, soldiers in their armor, even the apes on the great chairs at the center of the bowl, which he knew were whaat the others called the "king" and "queen" averted their eyes.

All turned from his gaze but one. At first the Highlander thought he was blind, unseeing. The seats around the apeling were empty, and he recalled that apelings often shunned the sick or crippled members of their group. But then he saw that the ape was too aware to be blind. Perhaps he was shunned by the others because he came from a different tribe, for the Highlander saw some very slight differences in his features. And he knew that those who were supposed to have powers--"priests," "magicians," and other terms he only vaguely understood--were shunned. But why was he unafraid to look him in the eye?

The ape, an old one by the great tufts of gray hair on his face, looked at him without hate or malice, even without fear. He was surprised at how well he could read the expression in the eyes of the little ape, despite the strangeness of his body and the distance between them. There was curiosity and interest in those eyes, and great sadness, and ...

It was the bitterest of blows: that he had been knocked so low by the apes that now he was a thing for them to pity. Hate and scorn he could have taken, for those feelings, he knew, were often born out of fear. But pity was born out of his own weakness, not his enemies'. He had felt pain and misery; now he felt shame. He wished they would send another squad of soldiers out after him, to slay him this time.

Another huge door opened, again with amazing quickness for something so heavy and ponderous, and released a second prisoner. The prisoner was a creature somewhat like himself, but of the smaller lowland race. Though slighter in build than his own race of mountain dwellers, they were quicker and reputedly fiercer. He had never seen a Lowlander at close range before. The other was thinner, he lacked the enlarged front tusks, he had a horn on the end of his nose, but he was basically the same in shape. He was gaunt and bedraggled, as if he too had spent a long time in a cage. Both of his wings had been broken.

When the Lowlander saw him, he bellowed in fury. Angered, crazed by his long imprisonment, he was ready to attack anything he could. The Highlander realized he would have to fight his fellow. There was too much hate in his opponent's heart, and in his own, to try to calm him with talk of peace.

They circled each other, neither quite ready to attack. Vaguely the Mountain Dweller realized the apes were screaming about something, that the two reptiles were doing something that displeased them.

Then the Lowlander spat a long jet of venom at him, clear as water, but deadly as any acid. He tried to dodge, but ended up taking most of it on his already damaged wing.

The pain drove all thoughts of fear, of peace, of thinking, out of his mind. Battle-madness overwhelmed him. Nothing but his opponent existed. The bowl, the apes, the soldiers, the sad old one: they were gone. Only the Lowlander remained. And unless he was killed first, the Lowlander would soon be gone, too.

He caught the smaller opponent square in the chest with a blast of flame, then hurled himself at him.

He did not think clearly after that. Sometimes he was rolling on the ground with his enemy, sometimes he was standing on his hind limbs, biting and clawing, bear-fashion. He was seared by venom and his own fire. Several times he shook his quicker opponent loose from him, each time feeling the Lowlander's teeth. Claws ripped at the thick plates on his belly. He felt the savage satisfaction of striking home with his own teeth and claws several times.

Finally the fight ended. He locked his teeth onto the back of his opponent's neck in a grip the other could not break. He bit down hard with all his strength...strength...

As his opponent fell, the world seemed to come back; he was back in the bowl, its sides now slick with blood. The apelings were there, now cheering, laughing, voicing their approval at the top of their lungs. The Lowlander lay dying before him, as he himself was dying, albeit more slowly. He had been too badly bitten and torn in the contest to live long.

Realization of what he had done hit him. He had killed a creature not very different from himself to please the apelings. He had been tricked into fighting for their amusement, baited and teased until he had lashed out at one who would never have bothered him save that he had been equally tormeted. Shame for allowing himself to be tricked, guilt over the slaying, and the knowledge that he had done it merely for another's amusement struck him as the other never had. He collapsed on top of the Lowlander's body.

He was dying, but his senses were still with him, and would not leave him for a while. He closed his eyes, but he could not close his ears. He heard the screams of the apes, their delight and approval over the double death.

Then over the cries and laughter, he heard something else: a voice, calm and purposeful, confident and strange, intoning words that he could not understand: a voice that he knew belonged to the old apeling with thatches of hair around his face, and pity for beings as powerful as himself. He felt something else happening to him.

A strange light spread over the stoone bowl, the arena. The king, the queen, the hunters, the soldiers--all the spectators but one--shrieked in terror and fled.

As the one remaining spectator watched contentedly, two strong, unwounded dragons lifted great, sound wings to the heavens and flew away from the grim stone bowl, not harming the apeling city, but shaking it slightly with the sound of their joy.

- - - - - - - - - -

The Stone Pit originally appeared in THE DAMNED THING, The Fanzine of the Bergen County Science Fiction Society, Volume I, Number 1, Spring 1980 and is reprinted with the permission of the author.