by Scott Kaelen
“If you’re sick of life, why not just wander into the ocean? Gorven says—”
“Gorven Althalus speaks the truth. And yet… Tell me, would you take the coward’s way out?”
Oriken shrugged. “I don’t know what it’s like to wish for death, to prefer the prospect of that over life. But, hey, I’m not in your shoes.”
Up ahead, Ellidar grunted softly. Mallak quirked an eyebrow at the guard’s back then flicked a glance at Oriken. “Ellidar knows. All my knights know. The people of the city, those who remain, have come to terms with the changes, even improved their lives because of them, and many have made peace with their pasts, presents, and futures. But here in the castle, what does a knight have left to occupy his time?”
Oriken shrugged. “Weekly tourneys of lob-the-lumber? Horse-grooming contests?”
“You are being facetious, I know, but what horses? They were all put to the pyre within the first year of the gates being closed. Driven mad, you see. Couldn’t take the babble of noise from the minds of… us humans. I had no choice but to order the creatures destroyed.”
“There are next to no horses left in Himaera,” Oriken remarked. That he was indulging in a conversation with an undead sovereign of a bygone time felt utterly surreal, but he allowed it to go along in the hope that it was leading to information concerning Dagra.
“What happened to them?” Mallak asked.
“Word is that after the Uprising they were mostly all sold to the Arkh.” He shrugged. “Don’t ask me why, I ain’t got a clue. Best we got now is mules, for the most part. You’ve heard the expression ‘a one-horse town’?”
The king shook his head.
“Well, we’re less privileged in the Folly, and mules ain’t so good for riding. I reckon they’d be useless for your knights.”
As the corridor arced around, Ellidar came to a stop before a plain bronze wall.
“Huh? A dead end?”
“No,” Mallak said. “Now we go deeper.”
“Deeper? We must already be fifty feet below.”
“Indeed we are.”
At a nod from Mallak, the guard drew aside a drape and took hold of a lever secreted behind it. As he pushed it upwards, the fake wall slid to the side and disappeared into a niche to reveal a wooden platform with an iron wheel and a mechanism of cogs. A series of pulley wires ran down beyond the structure, indicating to Oriken that it was used for transportation up and down the chute. Ellidar took a torch from the wall and stepped onto the platform.
The ghost of a smile played on Mallak’s face. “I did mention that this is a ledge of the Pit, did I not? Ah…” He tugged a flag from the wall and passed it to Oriken. “A precaution. To put over your face. The risk is somewhat higher down below. We don’t want you catching anything, do we?”
“Such as?”
Mallak shrugged as he stepped onto the platform. “The blight, perhaps?”
Oriken folded the flag in half, secured it over his nose and mouth, and tied it behind his neck. “If I catch that shit,” he said from behind the makeshift mask, “I’ll kill you.”
“A fair warning, and duly noted.”
With the scarf secured and tucked into his shirt, he joined them on the platform. Ellidar handed him the torch and, for the first time, made eye contact with him; it was a brief but hard look which Oriken took to be a warning, though of what, he had no idea. The guard grasped the wheel and began to turn it with ease. The contraption juddered slightly, then began a smooth descent. After a while, Oriken glanced up into the shadows of the chute to see the faint glow of the corridor some twenty feet above; he watched as it dimmed and shrank from view. Soon the rough-hewn ceiling of a wide tunnel rose up beside them, and the contraption came to a stop. Ellidar took the torch from Oriken and unclipped the platform’s side. As he stepped out, the light fell upon a set of iron tracks upon which sat a mine cart.
“Are you taking me digging for rocks?” Oriken asked with a feigned grin. “If so, I should warn you – I don’t know one end of a pickaxe from the other.”
Mallak cast him a sidelong glance. “Yes, you do. But worry not, our destination is not much farther.”
They followed Ellidar to the cart. Once all were inside, the guard took the rear lever in one hand and pumped it down and back up, repeating the process. The cart rattled along the tracks, slowly gaining speed.
“I’ve been thinking,” Oriken said as the tunnel walls cascaded by. “If all life in Lachyla got blighted, then where did all the creatures and insects go? You’ve told me about the horses, but I’ve seen no bugs, no flies or spiders – thank the stars for that. And the trees are nothing but standing fossils.”
“Aren’t we all?” Mallak mused. “Most of the animals vacated the place early, no doubt sensing the change in the balance of nature. All the small things know, you see?” The king cast Oriken a pointed look. “Only the curious creature of man lacks the sense to avoid Lachyla.”
“Now hold on a minute—”
“That was no low jab, dear outlander, merely an observation. The animals give the city and the graveyard a wide berth. Even the grasses shy from the walls as if sensing the difference within. The fish, too, out below the cliffs, do not venture into the shallows. Humans, on the other hand, have lost these primal senses, if indeed they ever possessed them at all. As for the trees within the walls, they were rejected as vessels. They cannot ambulate as we, you see? That, coupled with their lack of flesh and blood, makes them redundant as anything but fungal hosts – something at which they excel. Do not venture too close to the trees, for they possess a fruit which all year round is ripe for the picking; or, rather, for the popping. Many of my subjects were turned in such a fashion. The pustules are quite pernicious.”
Oriken gave him a flat look. “I hope you don’t talk to your dinner guests that way.”
The king chuckled. “Dinner? I’ve scarcely eaten more than the rare morsel for over two hundred and seventy years! Ah, there’s that confused look again. All will become clearer in just a moment.” The cart slowed to a crawl as they approached a curve in the tunnel, from around which spilled a wan, spectral glow. “We are here.”
“Where?” As the cart made the curve and jarred to a halt, Oriken stared dumbfounded at the monstrosity that dominated the huge cavern before him.
“Welcome,” Mallak said, “to the Mother.”
Oriken reached for his sabre.
“Stay your hand, outlander,” Mallak said quietly as he stepped out of the cart. “Even if you went at her like a berserker with that sliver of steel, all you would accomplish is to antagonise her. You do not want that.”
Reluctantly, he released his grip on the sword. “Her? How in the black fuck is that thing a her? It’s a…” He stared at the entity that filled the far reaches of the cavern. “What is it?”
“The Mother is nature’s highest pinnacle, the result of untold aeons of trial and change, culminating in a lifeform that is quite on top of the food chain; an ancient, impervious hybrid of animal, plant and mineral. Her roots stretch deep beneath the ocean. Her shell, tougher than anything on Verragos, encases her heart. And her pods”—Mallak gestured to the cavern’s ceiling—“bears the sweetest and the most bitter of fruits.”
As the faint echo of the king’s words faded, Oriken became aware of an almost inaudible thrum-thrum, thrum-thrum that could only be emanating from the creature before him. He lifted his gaze from its thick body to the cavern’s lofty reaches, where rainbow motes blinked like a thousand watching eyes. Myriad vines hung from a network of inky-black cylinders; at the end of each, a pale, cocoon-like oval emitted an effulgent glow, putting him in mind, not of the skins of fruits, but of the egg sacs of some enormous spider. Suppressing a shudder of revulsion, he turned his eyes away.
Mallak strolled into the cavern and squatted to his haunches, picking up an object that fit into his fist. He gestured for Oriken to approach and held it out for him to see.
Stepping out of the minecart, Oriken wa
lked slowly towards the king, his muscles tensing as he drew closer to the hulking entity. Looking down at Mallak’s open palm, he bit back a terse laugh. “A deadstone.” It was smaller than the Chiddari stone and the one set into Mallak’s throne, but the likeness was unmistakeable. “Sure. Why not? You were mining jewels, and you unearthed a monster.”
“I don’t believe you understand,” Mallak said. “These are the fruits of the Mother. When they are ripe, they fall, and we gather them. Here is the safest place to keep them now.” He rose and handed the stone to Ellidar, who carried it towards the cavern’s far corner; there, a large mound glittered in the shadows like a dragon’s hoard.
“Khariali’s teats,” he whispered beneath the scarf. A pile of countless jewels. Except they’re not just jewels, are they? But if their client wanted to believe they were…
Any might pass for the Chiddari stone, even without the silver banding, so getting his hands on just one would land them the five hundred silver dari that waited for them back in the tavern’s safe-room.
With a sigh, Mallak said, “I expect it would have been prudent of me to order the burial jewels to be collected and brought to this cavern. But, even now, that would still likely incite an uproar among the citizens. Our transcendence notwithstanding, traditions must still be respected.”
“By Maros’s warty arse, traditions!” Oriken shook his head at the king. “You spent your whole reign defending your city and its people from outside threats—”
“And still we were conquered.” Mallak nodded, an expression of sadness and supreme weariness clouding his features. “Not from outside, but from within, at the very heart of the kingdom.”
As Ellidar returned, the three stood in silence, Mallak casting a long look at the cavern’s colossal inhabitant. Glancing at the stalwart guard, Oriken wondered what thoughts were running through the unreadable man’s brain. As for Oriken’s own thoughts – other than the distant hope of getting his hands on just one deadstone – he knew exactly how he felt about the otherworldly entity that was single-handedly responsible for turning an entire city into condemned, limbo creatures. For a decade he had wandered Himaera, first with Dagra and later as a freeblade, oblivious that something so bizarre could exist. Clearly there was no killing the creature – it had been here for a long time, and was here to stay. But if word got out that a trove of jewels was secreted deep beneath Lachyla, the death’s-head-on-palm symbol would be completely ignored. People would swarm to the Blighted City in the hope of finding a fortune to save them from a life of hard and ungratifying labour. Not that there was anything wrong with treasure-seeking, but he didn’t want it to be a free-for-all. If the Chiddari jewel alone was worth half a thousand silvers, then three sackfuls of the stones would bring…
Forget it, he admonished himself. Some things go beyond wealth, right into the realm of Leave It The Fuck Alone. He cleared his throat. “So, er, you call this thing your mother, right? I can’t say I’m seeing a huge family resemblance.”
Mallak’s gaze lingered on the creature before he turned to face Oriken. “More correctly, she is the Mother. My own mother’s body lies quite at peace within her tomb beneath the castle courtyard, mercifully untouched.”
“Huh.” Like I could care less about your rotting mother. “So, this is the piece of shit that’s done to Dagra what it did to you and all your people. What about me and Jalis? Are we infected, too? Will we all have to stay in this—”
“Calm yourself, outlander. You and the lady Falconet are not infected. But the longer you stay, the greater the chance you will be.” The king drew a breath. “Please understand, there is no malevolence here. Only natural instinct.”
“So you say.” He nodded towards the behemoth. “Is it aware? Of me, I mean.”
“She is as aware as any lifeform that dwells in the shadows of Verragos, though her perception is unfathomable, even to us. You might say she is a queen.”
“Like a bee?”
“A closer approximation would be a forest’s heart tree, or another theory put forward by a few of my citizens is that she is akin to the never-seen catalyst of a fairy ring.” Seeing the confusion in Oriken’s eyes, he added, “Mushrooms.”
“Yes, I know what a fairy ring is!” Oriken shook his head. “But do you know how crazy that sounds?”
The king eyed him shrewdly. “You are a man who believes what he sees. That much I know from Dagra’s mind and from reading your character. The truth is here, right before you.”
Oriken barked a laugh. “Oh, I do believe it. It’s just absurd. The queen of the mushrooms. I guess that would make you all her fairies.”
“Your fatuousness is duly noted, but the dynamic between the Mother and ourselves is considerably more complex than mushrooms and fairies. She dominates Lachyla.” Mallak gestured towards the hill of deadstones. “Those are her fruits, or, more accurately, her clones. Trees, as I mentioned, are her hosts. And we humans are her vessels.”
“Vessels,” Oriken echoed. “So, the moral of the story is don’t let a weird fungus grow in your mines. Why didn’t you just kill her – it – when you had the chance? You could have avoided so much tragedy.”
“Not so. For all her strength, she is only an extension of something much more primal. Out across the ocean, in the heart of a colossal mountain far beneath the waves, is the First Mother – the true progenitor of her species.”
“This is too much.” Oriken twisted his hat, then secured the scarf tighter beneath his shirt. “Why the necessity to reanimate corpses? And why turn the living into… whatever you are?”
“As I mentioned, it is about the blood and the meat.” Mallak’s tone was matter-of-fact. “She is flesh. She is plant. She is stone. She is formed of the living and of the dead. From the First Mother to the Mother, to the newest of her clones and vessels, we are all a part of the greatest and most dominant organism on and under Verragos.”
“You’re all part of a rotting nightmare, if you ask me.”
“Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not advocating any of this. My stance on the whole sordid situation is not too dissimilar to your own. I find it quite deplorable, in fact.” Mallak nodded to the hulking creature before them. “And the Mother senses it. There is nothing she can do, of course. Well, there is much she can do, but it goes beyond her nature to shrug off a compatible vessel. More’s the pity.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
“Because I want you to understand.”
“Nothing you’ve shown me is of any use to Dagra.”
“No, I’m afraid it isn’t.”
“Well, I reckon I’ve seen and heard all I need, enough to know I should leave this cavern right now. How’s that for understanding?”
Mallak cast him a flat look, and nodded wearily. “It is the minimum I expected. But, in time, I know you will look back on this moment with a more… enlightened perspective. Well then, let us return to the throne room.” The king barked a mirthless chuckle, then added, “Before the Mother takes a liking to you.”
Shade opened her pace as they neared the pass between the two hills, cutting around the side of a knotted bogberry thicket. A peal of thunder clapped as they cut into the grassy pass, and a sheet of lightning lit the sky. Shade jogged ahead to the edge of a cluster of bushes at the base of the hillock, then turned to face the group.
“We’re here,” she said.
Eriqwyn stopped as she reached the woman and peered around her. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”
Poking a thumb over her shoulder, Shade said, “Round the side of that bush at the base of the hill you’ll find the entrance to an old nargut’s den.” She flashed the group a smile.
Onwin strode past her to approach the prickly shrub. “Let me take a look.”
“Don’t fall in,” Shade advised, a mocking tone in her voice.
“Don’t mind me, missy.” The hunter crouched to sweep the sodden grass from beneath the bush. “I’ve a way with the old nargut.”
“N
one down there. Hasn’t been for a long, long time.”
“How do you know that?” Eriqwyn asked.
Shade’s eyes trailed down Eriqwyn’s body as she drifted closer. “I know because I’ve been going into that hole”—her mocking gaze lifted to meet Eriqwyn’s scowl—“for a long time.”
Eriqwyn clenched her teeth. The innuendo was not lost on her.
“How long?” Wayland asked.
The seamstress kept her eyes on Eriqwyn as she answered. “Oh, twenty years? I was… quite young.”
I’ll bet you were, you bedevilled creature, Eriqwyn thought as she edged past her to Onwin.
The rain tamped down onto the hunter’s cloak as he clutched hold of the grass at one side of the concealed entrance, eased the foliage aside with his hunting knife, and leaned in. A long moment later, a muffled grunt issued from the hole and he emerged. “Can’t see any nargut spoor. A few rodent leavings, but it looks like the feller who dug this den is long gone.”
Wayland glanced at Eriqwyn, and she gave him a brief nod. He passed her his bow and the wrapped skin of torches, kicked the grass aside and lowered himself in.
Eriqwyn waited in the rain for her group to descend into the hole. Once Lingrey had eased himself in, she handed him the torches, quivers and weapons, his cumbersome pitchfork going in last. As she readied herself to enter, a muffled cry issued from the tunnel.
“What’s going on?” Eriqwyn hissed.
“Sorry there, young’un,” she heard Lingrey say, then his voice rang clearer as he called back to her, “My fault! Stuck me fork in the lad’s rump.”
Muttering a curse, she entered the lowered herself into the nargut’s den, her boots slipping but finding purchase in the damp dirt. As she crawled into the blackness, the muted rumble of the storm faded behind her. Up ahead, she heard Lingrey climbing to his feet as he reached the others in the first hub of the den. The strike of flint on firesteel resounded through the cramped space, and within moments an orange glow banished the deeper darkness as the first of the torches was fired up.