by Jeffrey Hall
I read, said Moso.
“The Chassa is familiar then?” said Dargu.
“He says that Tree-Song was the greatest botamancer out of all the Time of Twenty.” An impressive superlative if what Moso was saying was true. The Time of Twenty was the group of twenty botamancers responsible for helping lift civilization from the jungle by making the Star Road and keeping the forest at bay.
Wings spoke up behind them. “She is the greatest botamancer who ever lived. It is said she could make plants grow to the size of mountains and make trees talk.”
“She must have been some smooth-talker to convince plants to do that,” said Wish. He didn’t know much about botamancy, other than that when a botamancer spoke to a plant conviction and understanding of the language was paramount in getting it to do what you wanted. The greater the ask, the more control and relationship the botamancer must have or risk the plant’s retaliation.
“It wasn’t how she talked, it was how she sang.” Dargu wiped his forehead as if the excitement of the conversation was causing him to perspire. “While the rest of the botamancers were grappling with how best to ask a certain genus of plant how to shed their fruit, she discovered the True Tongue, a language familiar to all plants, not some whisper limited to a specific type of vine or a unique flower. A language that when spoken, could grab the entire forests’ attention at once. But not only that—she figured out how to sing in this language. And don’t we all prefer a song to a boring demand?”
I’d prefer he’d hurry up and tell us what he wants, said Moso.
“So what does the box have to do with it?” said Wish. Moso was right. He was eager to get to the man’s proposal too.
“Tabari, as great as she was, was a prideful person. Her success as a botamancer bred an army of others interested in learning from her, trying to replicate the incredible feats she was doing on a daily basis. But she refused, wanting to keep the knowledge to herself in order to keep her status as the greatest of all the botamancers. But that type of hubris and selfishness drew plenty of enemies. There were those who would kill her in order to get to her knowledge. Knowing this, rather than destroying her work for fear that all of her knowledge would be lost, she tore off the page of her notebook that kept the one song she had written down in True Tongue into six different parts and placed them into boxes that she hid around the city of Fangmora and its surrounding areas, hoping that people would follow the trail of the boxes instead of killing her.”
Moso signed, and Wish translated. “The Botamancer’s Boxes.”
Dargu nodded, lifting the piece of paper from the box. “Countless have gone searching for the boxes, and no one has succeeded. Many have called them myths, just a rumor spread by Tabari herself to throw them off her scent. And yet here is one of them, found in the nest of a forest lizard as if it were nothing more than common trash.”
Wish licked his lips. It was an artifact, and artifacts were valuable. He tried to restrain his excitement. “How do you know it’s one of the boxes?”
“It’s what’s inside.” He pointed to the scrawl on the paper. “I have never seen another plant language like this before in my life. The connection of the words, the flow of the lettering... this is a part of the song, that I have no doubt.”
“What are you offering for it?” said Wish.
Dargu smiled. “For this box alone? I’d give you two hundred lunars.”
Wish’s eyes bulged. Moso’s tail dropped. “What did you say?” said Wish.
“Two hundred lunars if this is the only box you choose to pursue, but if you choose to find the others for me, then I have more to offer you.”
Find the others? said Moso. Wish was too stunned by the figure offered by Dargu to even acknowledge his partner. Two hundred lunars.With it he could pay off the Green Men’s tax and still have some left over to give to Marli and his daughter.The gods were rarely this funny, but sometimes they surprised him with how they answered needs in the darkest of times. He opened his mouth to tell him the sum for the one box would be plenty, but Moso insistently pulling on his shirt kept him from doing so. What does he mean find the others?
“How can you find the other boxes?” said Wish, distracted. His mind wasso busy churning over the offered sum that he didn’t even think to argue with his friend about asking any more questions.
“The boxes themselves.” Dargu flipped over the box and pointed to the inscription carved on its bottom. “Each box has a clue to where another might be written in one of the six original languages of Fangmora as a test of the seeker’s linguistic skills and intelligence.”
Ask him how much he will give us if we look for the others?
“What does it matter?” said Wish.In his head he already had the weight of two hundred lunars in his hands.
Just ask, said Moso, squeezing the bottom of his shirt for emphasis.
“How much are these other boxes worth to you?”
Dargu scratched his naked chest, but Wings spoke for him. “If you were to find the five remaining boxes, then my master would be willing to pay you a sum of two thousand lunars.”
For a moment, there was no movement in that place other than two beetles chasing each other from one plant to another. Finally Moso broke the silence by nodding his head vigorously in agreement.
“Is that a yes?” said Dargu.
“Let me talk to my associate in private first,” said Wish, and he dragged Moso away by the scuff of his shirt into one of the many rows that ran through Dargu’s garden.
Get off of me, said Moso, shoving away Wish’s hand. Are you mad? Did you not hear him? Two thousand lunars to find some stupid boxes.
“Stupid boxes scattered across the city. Maybe you forgot the title of our profession, but we’re jungle-divers, not city-divers.”
What’s the difference except the thousands of trees are thousands of people?
“Trees are straightforward. People are not.”
Moso frowned. I am not going to throw away a fortune just because you’re scared of people.
“We already have a fortune. Two hundred lunars is plenty.One hundred for me. One hundred for you.”
Plenty for who? One hundred lunars would last me a year, at most.One thousand lunars could last me the rest of my life.
“But who knows how long it will take to even find these things? I need seventy-five lunars by the end of the week.”
Moso raised an eyebrow.
“The Green Men are trying to make space in the Trough for their war effort against the king and have raised their taxes.”
Do you think that will keep them at bay? The Green Men are hoatzins. Give them seventy-five lunars and the next week they’ll ask for one hundred and fifty. And what about the priestess and your daughter? Do you think what’s left will protect them? Twenty-five lunars will barely be enough to redo the walls to that place to keep out the jungle and the rapists and other criminals eyeing it like a piece of meat on a string. When the war erupts between the king and the Green Men, and it will, places like that will be the first to fall in its wake. Remember what I said? She wants security above everything. Come knocking on her door with a sack of moons and she’ll change her tone. One hundred lunars won’t do a thing, but one thousand will change all of your lives.
Wish rubbed his head, attempting to keep Moso’s reasoning from finding its way in it. Deep down, he knew he was right. One hundred lunars would buy him time from his problems, but not freedom. One thousand, on the other hand, that would allow him to buy a place closer to the inner city and away from the conflict, a place large enough to house his father, his mother’s bones, and even Marli and the baby, if that would prove tothem that he could provide for them. Still, something didn’t feel right about the offer.
“We barely know anything about this man. He cavorts with night plants and out of the blue offers us more money than many of our employers have ever seen. How do we know he can even pay?”
Ask him then.
Wish stared at his partner. T
he Chassa’s eyes did not look away from his own, as if he were trying to impart his decision by a look alone.Wish returned to the study and Moso followed.They found Dargu and Wings huddled together in hushed conversation.
“I mean no disrespect by this question,” said Wish as he approached, “but two thousand lunars is a large sum of moons for anyone. How do we know you have the reserves to pay for such a job?”
Dargu waved his hand, batting away the concern. “Wings.”
The Eclectun bowed, then entered into the rows of plants.
“A fair question,” said Dargu. A beetle had landed on his bare chest and illuminated his face. Wish noticed scars on his chin and jaw, running up and down his face like stripes.He wondered if they were memorials to the harsh lessons he had learned in studying to become a botamancer. “However, I assure you the offer is real.”
Wings reemerged with a wooden chest.He dropped it onto the desk with a loud thud.Its contents jangled, and once more Moso and Wish exchanged a glance. Wings reached into the long feathers on his abdomen and pulled out a small key whose end looked like a spider. He unlocked the box and opened it.And there, shining back at them thanks to the purple light of the jar of beetles like small instances of twilight, were stacks upon stacks of lunars, all neatly aligned and positioned so that they would not topple or shift even with the chest being handled just as it was.
Wish’s heart sped in his chest. All Moso could do was laugh.
“I have the reserves”—Dargu traced the top of one of the lunars with his finger—“if you have the ability.”
“Why?” said Wish, barely aware of the question he’d just asked until he realized Dargu and Wings were staring at him. “Why not do it yourself?”
Dargu closed the chest. “I am not as resourceful as I once was, nor am I willing to trust something of this magnitude with anything less than a professional. I have heard you are both the best, and the best should be compensated as such.”
At last someone who appreciates the fine work we’ve put in over the years, said Moso.If he wasn’t so ugly I might kiss this man.
Wish scratched his chin. “How about two hundred for the first box now, and the rest when we find the others?”
Dargu shook his head smiling. “And squander your drive? You’ll need that fire inside of you if you are to complete this job. If you want the two hundred lunars now, you can have it. But the rest of the job will be given to someone a little more… hungry.”
Not sure I understand his reasoning. Either way, it was worth a shot, signed Moso.
“What does hunger matter in any of this?” said Wish. “You said it yourself, we’re professionals.”
Dargu scratched his naked chest. “I fear that even professionals such as yourself will need something else to complete this job.”
Wish chewed his lip, trying to hide his frustration.
“So, what is your decision?” said Wings.
Wish looked from the chest back to the man and his assistant, his mind running with a thousand questions and concerns. Two thousand lunars meant this man owned them. It meant that they would crawl in dirt and shit for him.It meant that they would scrounge the bottom of this forsaken city for him and find all the nightmares and anxieties Wish knew lay waiting for him. But two thousand lunars also meant the only solution to all of his problems. A way to buy freedom from his worries.
At last Wish nodded his head. “We’ll find all your boxes.”
Chapter 4
Finally you got your head out of your own teeka, said Moso.
Everyone was smiling, except for Wish. There were two thousand lunars on the table, but they still had to be earned and earned quickly.
“So where do we find the next box?” said Wish.
“Listen to the second song of the stones
With the help of the city’s bones.
They will show you how to hear,
And find what I have found dear,” said Dargu.
“Fine rhyme,” said Wish, annoyed by the riddle.
“It’s what’s etched on the back of the first box in Old Hiss.”
One of the first languages of Fangmora, said Moso. What does it mean?
“What does it mean?” restated Wish.
“Where do stones have songs?” said Dargu.
“The Crone Stones,” said Wish, referring to the pile of rocks that slid down the Crone countless years ago and pummeled half of old Fangmora.Itwould have killed most of its population too,if not for Notha and her voice, a thing still cast about the now resting stones and ruins in the north of the city. A thing said to still be alive by Welkin magic, a wild power that is born into unlucky individuals from time to time around the world. A power that when released could reshape the fabric of the land to its unpredictable will. There were many examples of the magic’s ability throughout Fanglara, but the Crone Stones were the most recognizable of them all.
“Exactly,” said Dargu. “I believe another box is hidden somewhere there.”
“But where? What does the rest of the rhyme mean?” said Wish.
Dargu shrugged. “That’s what I’ve hired you to figure out.”
We’ll find a way to turn over every last one of those stones if we have to for those lunars. Come on. Moso was already halfway down the nearest row of plants.
“There are many stones. It may take a while,” said Wish, already feeling the pressure of time on his shoulders.
Wings stepped in front of Dargu. “Then I would get started immediately.”
Wish tried to look past the Eclectun in hopes of seeing his master’s reaction, but found Dargu was already back to his desk, clipping the leaves from the plant.
Wish turned and followed Moso up the stairs.
The Crone Stones lay sprawled before them like a heap of forgotten, giant’s treasure. The boulders that many years ago fell from the neck of the Crone, the part of the mountain just below its snowy, white-capped head, had taken on the lustrous hues of jungle moss and were overrun with patches of gold, green, and purple, like tarnished replicas of jewels. And still visible in the gaps between the stones or curling out from underneath them were the remnants of Old Fangmora. A piece of wall here, a shard of broken glass there, and even some fragments of the trees the stones had brought down with them during their descent down the mountainside made the area a reminder of the violence their coming wrought, and not the meditative place that so many Fangmoran citizens now used it as.
Everywhere Wish looked there were people strewn across the Stones. Some lay upon them bathing in the great fire like they were breads being baked, others climbed them as if they were stairs that led to the altar of the gods, and there were even some who stood at the bottom, singing along with the song that emanated from them, a soft lilt that rose and fell, an undying recall of Notha’s voice echoing out of the stones to produce a tone that most people thought was the music that would save them from their troubles. Even from where he and Moso stood at the bottom of the Stones looking up, Wish could hear it.
It truly was beautiful. It was the type of song that burrowed its way beneath his skin and made residence there, pushing up every pore before finding its way into his stomach, where it made him feel full. Satisfied.
It was the same type of feeling he felt when he was with Marli...before she left him.
Perhaps finding these stones wouldn’t be as unpleasant as he thought?
“Out of the way, green-fuckers.” A man bumped Wish as he hurried down the path towards the stones, taking with him Wish’s brief feeling of hope.
Watch where you’re going, you smook-soaked trit, swore Moso as he screeched and went for his dagger. But the man kept going, unaware or unconcerned with retaliation.
“So certain about this job now?” said Wish.
Moso smiled and ran a hand through the green fur on his head.Two thousand lunars and I won’t have to be offended by people’s lack of manners anymore, and neither will you.
Wish scanned the hundreds of rocks that littered the slope.
How were they supposed to find one little box in all of it? They would be here for days, excavating, searching, dealing with the countless others who flocked to the Stones. He was already starting to regret saying yes to Dargu’s deal, but the promise of two thousand lunars jangling in their pockets made him push past his worries.
“Let’s get started,” said Wish. “You take the east and I’ll take the west.”
Works for me. Listen to the song, I guess?
“With help of the city’s bones.”
They looked at each other, shrugged, and went off in opposite directions in search of the box.
It was tedious work.Wish peered into every crevice created by the fallen stones, even lifting up some of the smaller ones only to unveil collections of bugs and salamanders that made the darkness their home and fed off the fingers of creamy fungus that grew on the damp underside of the rocks. He tried to listen to the song, but there were no words to it, only a long, drawn-out chant made from Notha’s hoots. How was it supposed to show him where the bones were?It wasn’t long before the great fire took its place high in the sky, hanging belowa string of choppy clouds, and poured its oppressive heat onto his back as he leaned over and dug.Soon sweat pooled in his shirt and drizzled off his face in salty currents. It was never that hot in the jungle, and he found himself wishing to be in the protection of its shadows as he peered between another set of stones with no result.
After what felt like hours, he sat back on the rocks, halfway up the pile, wiped his brow, and took a swig from the water pouch that swung from his belt.He was exhausted and frustrated. There were still countless other stones to check and thousands of other places where a box could be hidden, if it was even still there. Who knew if someone had stumbled across it before just like he did out in the jungle? Perhaps they were wasting their time.
It wasn’t long before Moso scurried up beside him, panting, his fur matted and shiny from his own sweat.
“Anything?” said Wish.
Next time you lift a stone, let me put my head underneath it before you put it back down. Anything to keep me from hearing this song anymore.