by Jeffrey Hall
Even as he spoke the song rose, a mocking crescendo reminding them that it was there like a piece of bait that could not be reached.
Wish restated the first stanza of the riddle on the box. “Listen to the second song of the stones, with the help of the city’s bones...”
By the Flaw, what the fuck are the city’s bones? The remnants of Old Fangmora? I’ve seen plenty beneath the rocks, but there’s nothing there. Only ruins.
“The help of the city’s bones,” restated Wish, hoping that if he kept saying the words he would uncover some secret meaning beneath them.
“City is full of bones.” A voice jolted them from their exhausted stupor. Sitting on a stone not far from them was a Pangolian crone, so old that some of her plates had fallen out and the ones that remained looked like rotted wood.With her tail curled around her legs, she watched over the Crone Stones beneath her.From the looks of her frailty, it was amazing that she was even able to climb as high as she did. “This city was built on bones—an endless amount of dead men and women erected everything you see before us. And now the jungle is trying to take back all that work, slithering its own bones beneath it to push out the rest of us, and the spirits of those who came before.”
Wish raised an eyebrow. “Its own bones?”
“The creepers. The lichen. The fungus. It’s everywhere, hiding beneath the flesh of this place.” The crone’s long tongue flickered out of her mouth. “Turn over any stone, look behind any wall, and you’ll see it.”
“Say that again?”
The Pangolian smiled, showcasing a gummy mouth. “Already said what I said, don’t have much time left in this life. Would rather not spend it repeating things.”
Good, I’d rather not waste anymore of my life listening to her nonsense, said Moso.
But it wasn’t nonsense. Though she didn’t repeat it, Wish was still replaying her words over in his head. Turn over any stone, look behind any wall, and you’ll see it.
“The mushrooms,” said Wish.
What? signed Moso.
“Thank you, Mim,”he said, using a word of respect for a woman in Fangmora.
But if she heard she didn’t show it, content to look up at the great fire and let its rays glimmer off her withering plates.
Wish scrambled down to some of the smaller stones below, and Moso followed, screeching, no doubt trying to get Wish to turn around so he could sign some obscene gesture and ask him what he was doing.But he only stopped when he came to a stone no bigger than his foot, wedged between three boulders. He lifted the rock and a family of cocktailed newts squirmed away to avoid the invasion of light, their tails splitting and extending as they fled.And there, on the underbelly of the stone, grew exactly what he was looking for.
A fuzzy, cream-colored collection of mushrooms, dangling like newly forming fingers.
Moso caught up to him. What is it?
“Do you know what kind of fungus this is?” said Wish. Moso was much better at remembering the name of plant life than him.
He spelled out its name in letters. Baga fungus.
“Baga. What language is that?”
By the Flaw, I don’t know. Could be Squill. Could be Squawk.
“Could be Old Hiss?”
Could be, said Moso, the widening of his eyes saying he finally understood.
“Could Baga mean bone?”
Moso crept low, his nose coming to within inches of a mushroom’s head. So what? Do we talk to it? Sing to it? We’re not botamancers.
Wish rubbed his head. “What do most people do with mushrooms?”
Moso rubbed his belly.
“Do you know if it’s poisonous?”
Moso shrugged his shoulders. I’ve never seen it on anyone’s plate before.
Wish plucked one of the mushroom strands from the stone, and a trickle of waxy, golden pus replaced the missing fungus. He held the mushroom up to the light of the great fire, where it wilted and bent like a crone. It was a strange looking thing, a fibrous tentacle with barely any features to indicate what it would do to him if he ate it. If it was poisonous he doubted that newts and insects would be sustaining themselves on it.
There was always the chance they were immune to its effects.
Are you sure about this?
Wish shook his head. “Just be ready to put your fingers down my throat if I go under.”
Moso smiled slyly. I’ve more experience with this type of thing. You sure I shouldn’t do it?
“You’re small. If it is poisonous, it’ll affect you quicker.”
This is the one time I allow for you to call me small.
Wish surveyed his surroundings. Everywhere he looked he felt like people were glancing at them. The group at the highest point of the stones pointed down in their direction. A couple on a nearby stone gazed and whispered at them.There was even a man pacing the bottom of the pile, occasionally stopping to afford them a glance before carrying on with his redundant path. They were creating more stories, conjuring more lies about them and their profession, calling them monsters, feeding the ever-hungry rumor mill with bits of gossips too delicious not to digest and pass along to the next hungry ear. How was he ever expected to escape its oppressiveness and live a normal life between these walls?
Two thousand lunars, he answered himself, whispering it in his head like a promise that had been made. A promise he planned on keeping.
And then his thoughts turned to the jungle, like they often did, and he tried to imagine walking beneath the thick canopy, encased in shadows, the millions of eyes and mouths of the city, of its people and their unpredictability, turned away by the shield of darkness the trees provided. Safe. If he was lucky, maybe the mushroom would make him feel the same way. If not, two thousand lunars would eventually allow him to turn back there for good.
He put the mushroom to his lips. “Here’s to changing our lives.”
To changing our lives, old friend, said Moso, laughing.
Wish bit down. An oily pus squirted into his cheeks. It tasted like dirt, like the bark worms he would occasionally sustain himself on when in the deep jungle. He swallowed it immediately to rid his mouth of the taste. When it finally passed his tongue, he coughed, his body trying to rid itself of the vile flavor, of the poison he was no doubt putting into it. He retched, but refused to let it go, tilting his head back.
Well? he saw Moso sign.
Wish spat,then looked around.Other than the wretched taste in the back of his mouth and the tears in his eyes, he felt nothing.He shook his head. “Maybe it takes some time?”
Maybe. Or maybe we’re completely wrong. Moso started turning up some of the smaller rocks, his tail signing furiously with anger. Maybe we’re just supposed to keep turning up everyone of these damn things until we turn into bones.
“Calm down,” said Wish. Though he felt the same frustration welling inside of him, he knew anger rarely led to the right solution. He had seen Moso act on it hundreds of times before and all it ended up doing was putting them further away from their mission or almost getting them killed.“There has to be something else we’re missing or—”
A fleck of gold fell from the sky, floating down to the stones like a piece of ash kicked up from a flame. He blinked and it was gone.
What?said Moso.
“Did you see that?”
See what?
Wish opened his mouth to speak, but didn’t say a word. A thousand golden flakes trickled down from the clouds above, twirling, flowing with the light wind that passed down from the mountains, a precipitation of light as if the great fire were shedding its skin in hopes of becoming something even greater than it already was. Everywhere he looked the flakes fell, accumulating around the stones, the people, the nearby homes and beyond, forming an aura around their shape before disappearing and letting the new ones settle into replace them.
“Moso,” said Wish. “Moso, are you seeing this?”
Seeing what? When his tail flickered it tossed the flakes that had fallen upon it int
o the air, where they hung momentarily like minute fireflies before dying.
Moso tugged on his shirt and shrieked to try and gain his attention, but his voice sounded muted, as if Wish were atop a mountain and Moso was calling up to him. So did the rest of the world. The voices of the others upon the stones, the sounds of the nearby jungle, all of it sounded so far away.The only thing that didn’t was the song, but not the song that normally rang throughout the Crone Stones. He didn’t know when it had happened, but it had been replaced.
He could still hear the lilting, reverberating chant of Notha’s voice, but it too sounded distant. What rose in its stead was a haunting collection of whispers, almost like a thousand creatures were humming together, a tune that sounded like a bruisefoot bird trying to attract a mate. But in this song there weren’t just sounds, there were words.
Step back.
Open your eyes.
And you’ll see.
A tree. A tree. A tree.
Beneath their roots.
Beneath the stones.
And you’ll discover.
A lover. A mother. Another.
“Can you hear that?” said Wish.
Hear what? Are you feeling okay? Is the mushroom doing something?
“It’s another song. The second song.”
Moso perked up, and when he did, another pile of golden flakes fell from him before they could dissolve. What’s it saying?
“Step back. Open your eyes. And you’ll see. A tree...”
Great. More riddles.
Wish looked around. There were only a few sets of trees anywhere nearby. The square nearby with a collection of threadleaf. The patches of forest that still grew on the face of Crone facing the city, far up and out of reach, and lastly a small grove of whiteseed trees growing beside a house nestled on one of the many streets that wound beside the Crone Stones. If Tabari wanted to make it difficult she would have hidden them high up the mountain, but there were countless trees there. She left clues for people to find these damn boxes. Specific instructions so long as people were willing and smart enough to look for them. Upturning every tree in a forest of that size would take longer than searching every stone. They had to be in the grove of trees growing along that house or in the square.
Wish walked towards the closest of the two, the square. He didn’t bother waiting for Moso.
A tree? Are these the trees?
But Wish didn’t answer. His eyes were locked on the threadleaf trees and the spindly, knotted roots that were woven above and beneath ground like serpents moving upon the sea.
“Beneath their roots. Beneath the stones.”
It had to be there.
He reached the square and fell to his knees, ignoring the golden rain dripping from the trees’ leaves and the small group of men gathered beneath them playing a game of rockturn. Wish wasted no time. The soil that made up the square’s floor beneath the trees contained fragments of cobbled stone. He plunged his fingers into it and started to scoop it out.
It’s underneath there? said Moso, watching on, scratching his head.
Wish kept digging, upturning more rocks, wiping away the pools of gold that would collect inside the hole before disappearing. He felt even hotter than being beneath the blazing great fire. Perhaps it was the excitement, or perhaps it was the mushroom’s effects. Yet he didn’t let it stop him from digging deeper.Every scoop he took, every inch further he went, he felt closer to finding the box.
“What do you think you’re doing?” someone said, but Wish didn’t look up. The voice sounded miles away. The question wasn’t meant for him.
He kept digging.
“You’re putting holes in our field.”
Wish was well beneath the roots now. How deep did he have to go? Besides, that was only one part of the roots. There were still dozens more.
“Hey green fucker, we’re talking to you.”
The boot sparkled, golden and beautiful, before it kicked up into his face. He fell back, holding his nose.
His vision blurred. He could feel warm blood trickling over his cheek.
“You trits,” said a voice. “Burrow your holes in the jungle where you belong.”
Moso shrieked. Wish rolled over to his side,and he saw his partner facing a trio of men with his dagger unsheathed, daring them to come a step closer to Wish.
“What are you going to do with that, little monkey?”The speaker was a Treeback. In the gorilla’s giant, fur-covered hand was one of the stones he was using to play rockturn. It was the size of Moso’s head.
This little monkey will take your heart with this, signed Moso.
Wish went to rise and pull the Chassa back, but froze as he came to one knee. The Crone Stones rose before them again, as gigantic and imposing as ever, yet this time they were different.
The deluge of gold fell over them, but not at random like he had originally thought. In some places they fell like a pouring rain during the Season of Storms, and in others they barely fell at all. The results were a collection of gold tracing the spaces between the rocks, outlining distinct shapes amongst the calamitous pile that had lain strewn along Northern Fangmora for countless years.
Three trees.
Their tops filled and robust, their limbs drawn with golden clarity, their trunks long and beautiful.And their roots, three strands of gold dangling from their trunks, outlining three smaller pairs of rocks. Nine in total.
“A tree. A tree. A tree.”
Wish scrambled to his feet and hurried away from the square.Moso ran to catch up to him.
“Come back here again and we’ll add you to the game.” The Treeback yelled after them, but Wish already felt like he was on the other side of the world.
By the gods, what are you doing?I was ready to scrap with those smooks and you get up and leave?
“I know where it is.”
Where? Moso sheathed his dagger, looking over his shoulder.
“Do you see those cracks in the stones? The smaller ones there, there, and there?”He pointed to the golden roots.
I think so.
“Somewhere beneath there.”
Are you sure?
“Check those ones.”He pointed to the stones on the far left of the Crone Stones. “I’ll check over there.” He pointed to the ones on the other side.
Moso peered at him. You sure you’re alright?
But Wish was already gone.He climbed the stones to where the flakes fell to create the roots. The breaks between the rocks glowed like veins of treasure waiting to be mined.He lifted the first rock and was surprised by how loud the song became.
It’s the mushrooms, he decided. Even as they twitched from their perch on the rock it looked as though they were a chorus swaying in unison as they belted out the strange song.He looked beneath the stone, expecting to see the box staring back at him, but instead found a growth of ardent curls. The lover’s flowers.
How could they grow beneath stones? he thought. Out of all the things the golden flecks congregated around, they swarmed the flowers, gathering upon their petals like a hive of insects insistent on tearing them down.
He dropped the stone and climbed to the tree outlined in gold. His heart hammered inside his chest. His sight throbbed with each beat. All the while the song kept playing over and over again, a chant urging him forward, begging him to discover the secret it was so desperately hoping someone would find.
When he arrived at the next set of stones it felt as though the mushrooms were screaming at him. Everything else was silent.Gold fell everywhere, blotting out his surroundings. There was nowhere else to look. All that existed was the tree. He pried upthe middle of the three stones that made the tree’s roots and suddenly the singing stopped. The mushrooms on the stone’s underbelly were stiff, as if each one were watching him in quiet anticipation.On the other side was a deep, waist-wide hole where no creatures dwelled and no gold fell. Darkness prevailed.
He tossed the stone aside and climbed down. The hole was damp and smelled heavi
ly of soil. It reminded him of a broadback’s nest without the millipedes that took residence there. He scurried deeper inside, going so far that only his feet remained on the outside. It felt as though the hole might collapse on him or that a flood of gold might pour in over him and never allow him to find a way out should he go any deeper. He reached out, pawed about the moist, dark soil, and felt things squirming beneath his hands.
Worms. Grubs. Dirt spiders. He had no doubt that they all existed so far beneath the surface.He hated reaching in blindly. It was only a matter of time before something bit him.The box had to be there, but where?
He thought he heard someone behind him. He was about to turn around to see if Moso had finally caught up to him when his finger brushed the corner of something hard.
The second box.
He lunged, secured his fingers around the edge of it, and pulled as he backed out of the hole. He emerged from the darkness and brought what he had in his hand before him. Covered in soil and a pair of squirming, aggravated worms was a box much like the one he had retrieved from the trogi’s den. He brushed aside the debris and brought it to the light.
Carved onto its face was a forest of interlocking trees, their limbs tangled with one another like a group of fanatics praying with each other, their arms around each other’s shoulders.He flipped the box over and saw the lines etched into its wood, telling them where the next one waited to be found.
He squinted, fighting with the darkness beneath the stones.He had just enough time to read it before a shadow cancelled the rest of the light.
He turned as a stone came crashing into his head. When it connected the world seemed to shatter into a million brilliant flakes of gold.
Chapter 5
He felt the pain before he opened his eyes. It radiated from the center of his head, down his nose, and into his jaw.All he wanted to do was return to that place of darkness and rest, but the small voice in the back of his head wouldn’t let him.
There was still work to be done. There were still people that needed him.