The Crumbling Kingdom

by Jeffrey Hall

  Moso licked his hand and ran it through his fur. You trust a gambler like me still? Even after all you’ve seen me do?

  Wish gave a half-hearted laugh. “You’ve saved my life more times than I can count. If that’s not a reason to trust then I don’t know what is.”

  Moso shook his head. I feel terrible that you should give me such a limited commodity as your trust.

  “Just don’t put on the Leg Holes, eh?” said Wish, stepping beneath a low-hanging branch.

  We get these two thousand lunars and I will never have a reason to go back to those holes. The jungle will be behind me, I’ll have paid… Moso’s tail curled to a stop.

  “Paid what?” said Wish.

  Moso looked ahead absentmindedly. Paid enough women to build a wall between me and any back alley betting shop.

  Wish eyed the Chassa, wondering if the monkey could really do what he said and walk away from the places he so often frequented. Maybe he could. Maybe now that his debts were paid he would really stay away. Maybe all he really needed was enough money to kill his addiction once and for all.

  Enough of this talk, said Moso. Let’s get the boxes in our hands first, and then we can start deciding how we’ll spend the rest of our lives.

  Up ahead Agra had pulled a lizard down from a low-hanging vine and was whispering to it as he hobbled forward. Do you think we can trust this man?

  “What choice do we have other than trying to sneak into a village of streaked ones?”

  Walking straight into the middle with a lunatic doesn’t seem much safer.

  “Wings trusts him.”

  And you trust Wings? Maybe I was wrong about your ability to trust... All that bird wants is for us to get the job done for his master. He doesn’t care about our safety.

  “I asked the same question before we took the job, and yet you didn’t stop to think about our employers.”

  Still don’t care about them. My only care is what they’re putting us through, and how we come out the other side. He licked his hand and ran it through his fur.We’ve done some crazy things in the past, but this might top the list.

  “Then let’s watch each other’s backs in there.”

  Like always, said Moso, adjusting the belt on his hips.

  They walked for most of the day, adhering to paths carved in the jungle by other jungle-divers and animals who had stamped down the bush on their way to hunt or mate or whatever other business belonged to them. They passed many creatures and plants and places that Wish had become familiar with over the years, all things that made him feel as if he were home. It made it easy to turn his thoughts from the worries that plagued his mind to the fascinating details the jungle put into all of its creations. The fire like pistils of the candle flower, the twisting, ornate horns of the clacking beetle, the way the eyes of the moon monkeys sparkled like stars in the canopy as they gazed down from their roosts at them as they hurried past. It was a fine, welcoming distraction, but it did not last long. Soon they felt the familiar squish of ash berries against their boots.

  “Here it is again!” cried Agra as he picked up one of the berries and placed it on his tongue. “The taste of home.”

  “How much further until we reach the village?”

  “Not long now. Another mile or so in and we’ll start to see the signs.”

  “And what are we going to do? Just go knocking on some doors?” said Wish. He had glimpsed plenty of the streaked ones’ villages before. They were foreboding places. Not the type of village where one could stroll in and start asking its residents where they could find their chief.

  “The Red One will know I am here.”

  “Is that so?” said Wish.

  “So’er than so,” said Agra, and he picked up a few more of the berries.

  I don’t know if I like this man anymore, signed Moso.

  “Just stay close.” Wish put his hand on his machete and left it there.

  The forest changed to live up to its name. Everything turned black thanks to the smudge of the broken berries that littered the ground. The bushes, the vines, the trunks of the trees, they all looked as though they had been burned but the fire had been too weak to turn anything to ashes. The residue even found its ways onto their clothes and armor, giving the three their own black stripes like a rite of passage to enter the streaked ones’ domain. It was an unsettling place, one that Wish rarely liked to go to. Mostly because it was dominated by the streaked ones, but also because of how it stifled the prismatic beauty of the jungle so completely.

  It wasn’t long before they started to see signs of their destination.The warnings of flesh and bone.

  Hanging from the low branches of treesand stuck upon pikes placed in the ground were chunks of meat, strangely undigested and ignored by the other creatures of the forest.The bloody hunks of sinew were meant to attract prey foolish enough to try and take the trap set by the great predators that lurked close by.

  I think that used to be a piece of a thorkin, said Moso, pointing to a large grey hand that dangled from a braid of onyx rope.

  Wish felt the scars on his shoulder tingle, and rubbed the hilt of his machete. “Two thousand lunars worth this?”

  I’d sell my life a lot cheaper than that. Moso smiled and playfully tugged on the finger of the dead thorkin’s hand as they passed.

  “Just up a little further,” said Agra. There was a new hurry to his step. An excitement. His wooden leg couldn’t move fast enough. He stumbled over stones and downed branches, but the obstacles were only minor. Wish and Moso had to hurry to keep up with him.

  “Shouldn’t we slow down?” said Wish. But Agra only walked faster. “If we come rushing into their village, won’t they be spooked?”

  “Just a little further,” repeated Agra under his breath. “Just a little further.”

  “Agra–”

  Agra stopped. “We’re here.”

  “Here?” Wish looked about them. There were plenty of the meat traps around them, but no sign of any village.He opened his mouth to ask him what he meant again, but swallowed his words when he noticed a pair of eyes staring at them from between two blackened stones.

  A streaked one.

  It stood there silent, its ears high and prominent like proud weapons on display. It wore a jerkin of ragged leafmail, a piece of armor crafted from the debris of some tree that Wish could not name. The black stripes that dominated its face made it difficult to see amongst the dark features of the Black Orchard.If it weren’t for its golden eyes Wish might have missed it altogether.

  Moso tugged on Wish’s pants and nudged his chin to the other side. Two more of the creatures stood silently watching, their eyes not leaving the three, one of them still with blood upon its maw from what must have been a fresh kill.

  Wish’s heart pounded in his chest. He gripped his machete, ready to pull it out should any of the creatures pounce, though he doubted it could do anything against three creatures of that size and ferocity.

  What do we do? signed Moso.

  And as if Agra had interpreted his fellow Chassa’s question, he spoke. “Move forward. Don’t do anything sudden. Take your hands away from your weapons.”

  “I thought you said they were your brethren,” said Wish.

  “They are. You aren’t. Now follow me.” The old Chassa waddled forward, holding his hands out to either side of him, no longer using his cane, as if to show the creatures he came in peace.

  Wish removed his hand from his machete, but Moso kept his on his dagger. He noticed the three creatures’ eyes shift.

  “Do what he says. Let go of your daggers.”

  Smook mada. His tail flashed a curse before he slowly removed his hands from his daggers and let them dangle at his sides.

  Together they walked forward,careful to follow Agra’s every step.

  They moved slow. They were careful not to trip over any of the downed limbs or pieces of meat that littered the ground. The further they went the more of the streaked ones appeared from behind the f
orest. Wish saw none of them arrive, none of them move, except for the rise and fall of their chests as they took slow breaths and the shift of their eyes as they followed the three’s movements like they were more prey that needed to be sized up and studied. Wish wondered how many times he had been watched by such creatures in the forest and never knew they were there.

  At last they saw the first sign of the village, a small hut made from the carrion of four large jungle deer, their skins gone, but their bones and meat still attached. Their bodies made up the roofs and walls, their antlers, makeshift doors into the abode.

  Wish could already smell the reek of the place. Rotting flesh. A stench so powerful it made his eyes water and bile rise in the back of his throat. He wanted to pinch his nose or stifle it in the crook of his arm, but dared not for fear of offending the creatures.

  Soon they were surrounded by houses like the first. A mass grave which no one ever bothered to bury. A celebration of the conquered and the dead displayed for all to see. Everywhere they looked there was some new dwelling made by the kills of a forest creature, a construction of carrion held together by ties of vine and gods only knew what else such brutes would use to make such huts.

  More streaked ones emerged from the dwellings the further they went. Women and children and elders, the littlest of them the only ones making a sound, mewls that sounded akin to the house cats that some took in as pets in Fangmora. Somehow those innocent noises only made it worse, as if they were there to emphasize the terrible silence the creatures looked upon them with.

  It didn’t take long to realize they were surrounded. A crowd of eyes and stripes had formed around them. It was difficult to discern between them.

  Every part of Wish thrummed with fear. Sweat dribbled from his body, no doubt creating a tantalizing smell to the many noses that inhaled his scent as he passed. He wondered how quickly that many mouths could devour him. The only thing that gave him any sort of calm amongst that place was Agra’s confidence. Up ahead the Chassa smiled as he walked forward.

  What the fuck are we doing? Moso’s tail twitched ever so slightly, just enough to tell Wish he felt as panicked as he did.

  He wanted to turn around. He wanted to confess to the creatures that they had made a grave mistake, and the thought of the box and what it would mean for them was the only thing that kept him from doing so. If they could just somehow survive this...

  A growl from somewhere behind the crowd of streaked ones in front of him broke his thoughts. The other creatures responded in unison, an ear-wrecking boom worse than any thunder he’d ever heard.

  Agra stopped. The crowd of creatures parted,and walking through its middle to stand before them was what could only have been what Agra called the Red One.

  Its fur was the hue of blood, the stripes that decorated it the color of midnight.And where the others’ stripes looked like scars, this one’s looked like lightning bolts, jagged etches of black stretching this way and that. It wore no clothes and walked with a staff made of one long bone. Atop of the staff was a tooth. Though the creature stood a foot shorter than the others of its kind, the size of its presence was gargantuan. The others gave it space as if it were a walking behemoth.

  It came before Agra and stood. Wish could see the old Chassa’s eyes. For once they did not move. The Red One put his claw to the monkey’s chin and lifted it. A rumble came from the creature’s throat, and as it did its lips and whiskers pulled back to reveal the set of black fangs that hung beneath them like rows of stalactites formed in a deep cave.

  “I... I have missed you, my friend.” Agra’s lips trembled as he spoke.

  The Red One sniffed him and grumbled.

  “I know, but I come for another reason too.”

  The Red One’s eyes fell upon Wish and Moso. Its ears flattened upon its head.

  “They... they come from behind the walls, but they are not of the walls—”

  The Red One growled. Agra turned to address them. “The Red One says he knows you. Says he has smelled you both upon the trees of his home. Says he has watched you walk beneath the roof of leaves as if it were your own.”

  I always knew we were famous, signed Moso. His own feeble way of breaking the tension.

  “Tell him why we are here. Tell him why you brought us,” said Wish. By the gods, he wanted to hurry this along. Everywhere he looked more of the creatures were appearing, creating an impenetrable wall of fur and fangs which would not have a way out.

  Agra said, “They’ve come—we’ve come for a box. One given to your ancestors many years ago. One given to you by—”

  The Red One snarled.

  Agra nodded. “Yes. Her. The wood-waker.”

  The creature’s tail swished. It emitted a succession of barks, a throatier version of a dog’s.Then it came towards Wish and Moso. It stopped before them, its great golden eyes dilating as if it were about to pounce. This close Wish could smell it, a potent stench of flesh, blood, and soil, stronger than anything in the village. The barks turned once more to a low, constant rumble in the back of its throat. Wish could see its teeth now.Each black fang looked like a sliver of night—he could not tell if it was the saliva that caused them to sparkle like they did or if miniature stars were trapped within their marrows.

  “The Red One says that the wood-waker entrusted them with her secrets.They had the same understanding. A respect, for each other, for the forest. Even with her power, they knew she would never do them harm, nor would they do her harm, even though her flesh smelled the strongest and sweetest they had ever smelled.”

  The Red One growled and Agra’s interpretation continued. “She knew that one day someone would come looking for her secrets. She said that it was up to us to decide who they are given to.”

  We’re excellent at keeping secrets, said Moso.

  Wish swallowed and spoke. “We respect your kind. We would never hurt—”

  The Red One roared, silencing even the birds that sang in the surrounding trees.

  For a moment nothing else sounded. Agra cleared his throat and spoke softly, as if afraid if he spoke any louder the Red One would roar again. “He says you’re lying.”

  “Lying?”

  “He says that you took the claws of one of their tribesmen.”

  The Red One scanned the surrounding members of its kind and pointed. One of the creatures emerged from behind the others, one hand on its curved blade, the other gone, his arm dangling at his side. Though he could barely tell the difference between any of the others, he remembered the creature.It was its eyes. A shade more golden than the rest.

  Smook, swore Moso.

  Wish scrambled to find the words to say. “It... it was my kill. It came after me first. I was protecting myself. Just like you did with the Thorkin, Agra. Tell him.”

  Agra shook his head. “That may be the case, but it wasn’t there like it was when I killed the Thorkin. It doesn’t know for sure, even after what my brethren has said.”

  The Red One’s eyes traced Wish’s.

  “How can it know then? That was years ago. There is no way of seeing into the past.”

  “No,” said Agra, smiling. “But there is a way of seeing into you.”

  The Red One roared, and the others of its kind responded. It raised its staff into the air and with each shake of it another round of roars boomed from the gathered crowd.

  Agra yelled above the rest, still smiling. “It wants a Tasting.”

  Of what? Rum? Wine? Moso’s head spun furiously.

  “Of you.” Agra pointed to Wish. The crowd quieted.

  “What does he want?” said Wish.

  “What all of my brethren want. Meat. A taste of your flesh. A piece of you to understand all of you. A way for you to understand each other.”

  Wish suddenly felt the hunger in the creature’s eyes. He was aware of every part of himself, the flesh that covered his bones. The sinew that held him together. His fabric. Pieces of him that made up all of him. Tissue. Muscles. Veins.

&nbs
p; Food.

  His heart pounded. He wondered if the creature before him could hear it and smell the blood it pushed through the rest of him. He wondered if it made him even more tantalizing.

  “The sacrifice is worth it. My own tasting changed my life.” Agra tapped his wooden leg, and Wish suddenly became very aware of what the creature wanted.

  Smook, cursed Moso.

  “What... what does he want?” said Wish. His mind ran over every part of his body, imagining what it would be like to lose it and how he could keep on living without it.

  The Red One looked him up and down. He rumbled.

  “It only ever wants a piece of what can tell him the most about you.”

  The Red One sniffed and made a purring sound.

  “It wants your hand.”

  He almost blurted out, “No,” but stopped.

  Wish brought his hands before his eyes, looking at them like strange artifacts that were no longer his own. Just things of value. Things that could be taken by the highest bidder. Currency. Could he still exist without one? Could he still climb trees and make a way of life by the jungle? He’d have to learn how to exist without one, but he could find a way.

  But would he be able to hold a woman?He still remembered the way Marli felt upon his fingers, a softness no tree could offer. He’d never have the experience again with just one of them. Could he hold a child? He still dreamed of picking up his daughter and talking to her. Could he do that without a hand? Could he walk through the walls of the city without having much attention given his way?

  No.

  Yet what good would it be if he never was able to see them again in the first place? Marli’s words replayed in his head.

  “What have you given up for her?”

  He surprised himself in that terrifying moment. He thought he was doing all of this to make sure his father was safe, yet Marli and his daughter kept cropping up in his head, even despite the threat that stood before him.

  Ask him if there’s another way, said Moso. Beside him his partner looked between the Red One and Wish furiously. There has to be.

  But Wish knew there wasn’t. The creature had said the box was important.They’d only give it up for the right reason, for the right person. How else would they see that?