Diamond turned away from the sun, staying in the open, following the rubbery ground deeper into the reef.
Stout buildings were gathered up ahead, each fashioned from massive coral blocks. The buildings had no windows, just narrow high slots, and every door was built from heavy timbers and iron hinges, closed and sealed tight. Diamond had built ten thousand forts with blocks, and forts didn’t look too different from these structures. He slowed when they were beside him, and after glancing over his shoulder, he slowed again, trying to clear his mind.
The creature was closing again.
Diamond reached behind his back. The knife was still wrapped inside the worn leather, and he pulled it out and unwrapped it as he spun hard, slashing the air with the bright blade.
The creature dipped its head, out of reflex.
Diamond tried another swing.
Up came an arm, the motion too quick to follow. There were little spikes on the fist that smashed into Diamond’s wrist, bones shattering as the hand went numb and weak. The knife that he had carried across the world fell to the ground, skipping back the way they had run. Any fear or caution inside the armored creature was finished. It laughed at the human. It laughed and walked away and kneeled, not even bothering to watch Diamond slump over, holding his damaged arm close to his belly. The silly knife needed to be snatched up by the blade, and the breathing mouth said, “You don’t know how to fight.”
“I don’t,” Diamond agreed.
“My father says, ‘He is an innocent, and we don’t need innocents. Teach him what you know, King.’ ”
“What’s King?”
“My name,” said the creature.
The hand holding the butcher’s blade had six fingers, matching thumbs on opposite sides of a broad hard palm.
“What does that mean?” Diamond asked.
“What does what mean?”
“King,” he said.
The spitting mouth had bright teeth, sharp teeth leading back to flat ones. The talking mouth took a long breath. “The king is that great man who sits on the world’s largest chair. It is an empty chair today, unclaimed and lonely. But my destiny is to fill the king’s chair and make this world my own.”
Diamond considered using his good hand and arm, striking that very strange face.
But King read his face, his body. Laughing loudly, he said, “Try fighting and I’ll beat you to death.”
Diamond did nothing.
“I’ll beat you so dead you won’t wake again for a day.”
The boy took a little step backwards, then a larger one.
“Here,” King said. “Take your toy.”
The odd hand turned the knife, offering the white bone hilt to Diamond.
“Take it and hurt me now.” Then with a soft, almost tender voice, King said, “Please.”
Diamond shook his head. He said, “No,” and turned away from the creature, walking slowly in the same direction that he ran before. The fortified buildings were behind him and the valley ended with the steep face of a cliff—except at least one deep cave was cut into the cliff. He hadn’t seen the cave while running, obscured by curtains of fabric and webs of string colored to look like pink coral and deep shadow.
King suddenly knocked him forwards.
The half-healed wrist broke again.
Diamond stayed on his knees, panting. “Do you see it?” he asked.
“See what?”
“That strange machine,” Diamond said.
“I see plenty of machines,” King replied.
“No, the big one that’s hiding.” Then he got his feet under him and stood. “Maybe your eyes aren’t very good.”
“My eyes are spectacular.”
“Behind those curtains,” Diamond said, pointing with his working arm.
King stepped past him. Perhaps his vision wasn’t great, or maybe he wasn’t in the mood for this game. Either way, it took the creature a moment before he stopped seeing only the camouflage. That’s when he discovered a long sleek contraption that dwarfed the wheeled vehicles behind them. Curiosity dragged him a few steps closer and then he paused, intrigued but not wanting to be. Finally King forced a laugh. He sounded human and he sounded otherwise, and he looked back at the little creature that he had already broken twice.
“That’s a papio wing,” he said.
“What is a papio wing?”
“It’s a machine that flies. Except it can’t stay up for long, and these shitty beasts don’t have half enough to courage to launch them.”
The wing looked like a fletch ship, except the ship had been squeezed to a tiny dense body. Maybe it swelled up when it was filled with hydrogen gas, or maybe not. But Diamond was impressed with its sleek contours and the bright corona scales fixed over its skin and that a hungry toothless mouth below with a single glass eye above. There wasn’t room for more than one papio onboard the wing, and just looking at the marvel caused a hundred new questions bubble out of his tired head.
“Impressive,” he said.
“You want to be impressed,” King said. “Let me amaze you.”
Diamond turned.
And King grabbed the Master’s knife by the hilt, driving the keen steel blade up underneath one of the big scales on his chest. Flesh and bone put up a hard struggle, but the arm was powerful enough to push past the resistance. Then the creature released the knife, the hilt hanging in the air, and he laughed and the lower mouth spat up bright purple blood. “Clipped an artery, by the way this feels,” he said.
Voices called out from a distance.
Diamond turned away from his tormentor.
The old papio couple was walking towards one of the wheeled machines. The old woman appeared even frailer than before, but she managed a steady pace as her companion held her closely, lovingly. They were talking, but those weren’t the voices that Diamond could hear.
He broke into a slow, slow trot.
A string of humans emerged from the stunted forest. The Archon was with two of his men, and there was the Master and Seldom and Elata. Father was trailing, holding Mother by her hand while he dipped his head, speaking quietly while she stared at her son.
Diamond ran faster.
King jogged up beside him, spitting purple blood at the boy’s feet.
Diamond stopped.
“Don’t run away from me,” said King. “Because if you run again, I’ll grow bored chasing, and somebody will abuse those old people of yours.”
“No,” Diamond said weakly.
“Believe me,” said King. “It would take very little to rip the arms out of that slayer’s shoulders.”
With his good hand, Diamond grabbed the exposed hilt and yanked the knife free.
“Are you ready to cut me?” King asked.
Diamond said nothing, cleaning the wet blade against his trousers and wrapping it inside the old leather. Then he put it under his shirt again, this time on the right hip, and he trotted close to the two papio.
King was relaxed, victorious and happy. The contest had gone perfectly, and he was the champion of the world, and running beside Diamond, he certainly didn’t expect the defeated boy to shove him from the side, shoving him high while pushing hard with both legs.
The creature fell onto the runway’s surface.
“What was that?” King asked, laughing. “That was nothing.”
But then the old papio woman shuffled close to him. Once again, she said the word, “Careful.” And then those old jaws opened wide, and she calmly bit King hard in the face.