Dream Thing

The old man nodded. “This we do know. This is the one thing I have not told you. It was Quoo Uhl who declared this duty.”

“Ah.” Quoo Uhl was the one who founded the People, gathering together the wanderers of the forest many generations before. Now the boy remembered that Quoo Uhl’s story began with him coming down from the mountain into the forest. “If you had told me this before, it would have been easier to make my decision.” Before the old man could comment, the boy added, “But this way you have been provided with a truer measure of my faith.”

The old man smiled.

Okyek Meh Thih became closer to the old man that day, and he kept the secret of the inscription of the god who ignored mankind, the one called Chuh Mboi Aku. They had left the cavern then, and the boy’s memories of the place were pleasant, for here he had grown high in the eyes of the man he most esteemed.

But that man was long gone, and Okyek Meh Thih was older and sitting alone in the cavern of the dismal elder god Chuh Mboi Aku. He was speaking his plea of enlightenment, in the presence of the ridiculous painting. Why was he keeping company with a power that ignored him when he should be down in the jungle being Caretaker to his People?

Without even his bird for company.

He missed the bird.

He wondered where his bird had gone.

Chapter 16

The young woman caressed the bandaged leg of the purple bird and examined the creature. It scrutinized her in return.

Sarah Slate was in her early twenties and looked younger, but she possessed wisdom beyond her years. It was as if the eclectic knowledge of her globe-trotting forebears had collected inside her.

She knew the science behind the creature. It was Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus, the hyacinth macaw, family Psittacidae, subfamily Psittacinae. Macaws were the biggest parrots, and they were native to South America. They could live sixty years or more, and ate nuts and fruit. They could be tamed and kept as pets.

This one wasn’t exactly tamed, wasn’t exactly a pet. There was much to this animal that was inscrutable. It knew a few dozen dirty limericks in English. It also possessed an intelligence that was far beyond that of any normal bird.

But the intelligence came and went, as if a human personality was wrestling for control of the bird’s mind. Sometimes it came through strong and clear, but usually it was just a drift of static beneath the surface.

Chiun, Master of Sinanju Emeritus and the caretaker of the great bird, had entrusted its care to Sarah, whom he honored and regarded above most others. She was also the only other human that the bird seemed to accept—probably because she had nursed it back to health when its leg was wounded by an angry resident of Folcroft Sanitarium.

The creature had arrived at the sanitarium exhausted and confused, and in search of Chiun. They were old acquaintances. Chiun and the bird had met in the Caribbean months before. Chiun was suspicious of the creature, which made Sarah feel foolish. When she had witnessed its intellect she had been willing to believe whatever words came out of its big beak.

Soon, Chiun did understand the message the parrot was bringing him—but it was too late. The damage was done. The thing Chiun called Sa Mangsang had been stirred from its slumber. Chiun blamed himself—and Remo—for carelessly allowing the awakening to occur. Sarah doubted it. She had heard of the meeting between the man and the bird at a tourist resort on a Caribbean island. The bird hadn’t been unusually communicative then. Why should Chiun have paid attention to the creature?

Chiun spent hours questioning the bird, hoping to get something more from the creature, but the bird had nothing more to say. It was simply the bearer of bad tidings, or so Chiun concluded. Sarah wasn’t convinced.

“Chiun doesn’t see you like I see you, bird,” Sarah told it. She spoke to it constantly, and it always seemed to be listening. “I can see you struggling. You wouldn’t work at it if there wasn’t more for you to say.”

“Exactly, Sarah,” the bird said.

She smiled and rested her chin on her hands, her elbows on her knees. The bird shuffled its feet on its eye-level perch, favoring the good leg, and cocked its head.

“When you say things like that I think you’re really listening.”

“I’m always listening.”

“But how do I know when it’s you speaking, or the bird?”

“Trail mix!” the macaw demanded.

“I thought so.” She smiled and stroked its head, but her disappointment was bitter. The bird seemed so lucid sometimes. It couldn’t be a trick.

Or could it?

The bird was obviously a superior mimic. Its repertoire of dirty limericks was world-class. Was it possible it had been trained to speak a bunch of conversational phrases? Could someone have even coached the bird to respond to certain emotional phrases and voice tones? Had someone crafted the bird’s behavior to give it the illusion of intelligence?

The longer Sarah spent with the bird, the less believable its intelligence became.