The Crumbling Kingdom

by Jeffrey Hall

  Whispering emanated from the darkness. Four heads leaned into the light, each with a mane of a spiky protrusions surrounding it. They came closer, and Wish saw they weren’t heads at all, but four large flowers, each a different color. Purple, black, white, and red.

  “Have you heard of Grala’s bouquet?” said the voice.

  The flowers coiled closer, hovering just inches from his face. “N-no,” managed Wish.

  “Finally an answer that isn’t another question. Answer what I ask or else you will soon have a deep understanding of what it is.”

  The smell of the flowers reached Wish’s nose. Their stenches were all potent, all different. A scent of rotting flesh. Another of fiery spice. Another of sour milk. Another of blood. It made his stomach turn.

  “The fourth box. Who else knows where it is?”

  “The Fangkind.” Wish swallowed, knowing he could only name the other culprit caught inside of Boz’s shop. “The other jungle-diver. That’s it.”

  “Who else did you show the tracing to?”

  “The tracing?”

  The black flower shot forward. Its petals flexed. A shimmering powder of pollen was sprayed in Wish’s face. The rotting flesh smell engulfed him, and then came the pain. It felt as if his skin was falling away from his skull, raw and painful. He cried out, fighting against his bindings to free his hands and claw away the feeling, but couldn’t.

  “The flesh flower is the first of Grala’s bouquet. It gives the sensation of your skin peeling away from your bones. The next will feel as though acid has been added into the rawness of your skin. After that, needles. And finally, it will attack your mind. This is only the beginning of your pain, but it need not go any further if you cooperate. Now, who else did you show the tracing of the third box’s clue to?”

  His mind churned up names as the pain continue to radiate from him. Moso. Dargu. Wings. They all saw it. But if he said their names then they would end up here too. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to say, “No one else.”

  More whispering. The black flower faded away in favor of the purple one. This was the one that smelled like strong cinnamon or trip pepper. Its petals were long and thin like the fingers of a Gibbon. Wish opened his mouth to argue, but the flower’s petals clenched into a fist. A sticky wetness sprayed out.

  The voice’s comparison was right. It felt like acid being slathered over his raw face. The sensation of burning was unlike anything else he’d ever felt before, even compared to the touch of the flower they had used to subdue him in Boz’s workshop. It felt as if someone had left a torch on his face, and all he could do to combat the pain was cry out louder, an inconsequential noise with his throat as ruined as it was.

  Finally the flower’s spray stopped.

  “Lies will do no good here, either,” said the voice. “I’ll ask again. Who else knows the location of the fourth box?”

  And this time Wish spoke the truth, anything to avoid the touch of the flower. They already knew about the others, they had to. At least that’s what he told himself. “Moso.” He swallowed, and spat out the other names, each move of his lips sending waves of pain along his face. “Dargu. Wings.”

  “Dargu and Wings?” said the voice, and Wish thought he heard the voice snicker. “Where are they hiding?”

  “I…I don’t know.” The red flower took the purple one’s place. “Wait! It’s the truth. I’ve met him two different places. Once in the Chatter district, the other in the inner city.I don’t know which one they are in now.”

  “Were the other boxes there when you saw them last?”

  “I don’t know,” said Wish.

  The red flower shot forward, brushing his face like hair in the wind. When it pulled back, it felt as if a thousand bees were stinging his cheeks and chin, digging their weapons beneath his raw and burning flesh. He cried out again, tears squeezing out from his eyes as he did. “I don’t know!” he yelled. “I don’t know! We delivered the boxes and we haven’t seen them since!”

  His muscles bulged against his bindings. He wanted nothing more than to burst through them and tear away the pain covering his face, but they were too strong. All he could do was scrunch his nose and bite down to bear the feeling of needles entering his skin. Finally, the feeling started to subside, and he heard the voice speak again.

  “We believe you.”

  “Then why did you use the fucking flower!” shouted Wish.

  “Because the flowers are as effective in wringing out the truth from spoken words as they are at getting you to speak in the first place.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “Ah, there is the emotion. Anger. Fear. Buried deeply beneath that thick bark you call skin. The bouquet is always able to find it.”

  “Let me out of this and I’ll show you all the emotion you want.” Wish clenched his fist, imagining what he would do if he were to escape this prison.

  The red flower retreated, the white one taking its place. Wish’s lips closed. The smell of sour milk combined with the pain made him queasy. He swallowed down bile.

  “We have one more question for you.” If the voice had any concern about his threat, Wish did not hear it. The white flower twisted and turned, rotating like a hand trying to unscrew the cover to a hot-top bowl. “Do you have any idea what you’ve become involved with?”

  Wish furrowed his brow. What kind of answer could he give that would free him from the pain? “It’s … it’s just a job.”

  The voice snickered again. “Just a job, you say, as if it’s as common as running dung from a stable. Those boxes are priceless. Not just some job to earn moons from. They are power beyond any that you will ever know.”

  “I need the lunars. What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to understand.”

  The white flower shot forward, a thorn elongating from its middle like a fang. It pricked his cheek before pulling away in a strand of blood, nothing but a slight pinch compared to the pain the other flowers had just caused. The flower recoiled, returning to the shadow with the other plants like beasts resetting their ambush. And as he watched them retreat into the darkness he felt himself follow, stumbling forward into the tangle of their limbs, his bindings falling away. When he came to his feet he was in the jungle.

  The four flowers were gone, returned to the underbrush that lay knotted to either side of him. A dull light pierced through overhead, failing to illuminate the forest’s colors that Wish knew existed somewhere beneath the grey veil the lack of light cast over the canopy.

  Wish stretched, running his fingers over the nearest bush just to make sure he could still feel. The bush’s leaves prickled his fingertips. How had he ended up here?

  It didn’t matter. The pain was gone. So was the city and all of its disorder. He felt relieved. He felt safe.

  He walked along the path laid before him, breathing in deeply, trying to fill his lungs with the sweet smell of the boko plants that hung from the nearby trees like sapphire bracelets gifted from a lover, attempting to rid himself of the stench of the flowers. It didn’t take long. Before he knew it the torture he had endured seemed like a distant memory, a suffering that belonged to another person.

  He kept walking, losing himself in the jungle’s knots and tangles like he so often did, allowing himself to be swallowed by its shadow so he could hide away from the prying eyes of the city somewhere at his back and all the problems that infested it.

  He forgot about the boxes. His father, Marli, his daughter... they existed in the same place as the torture. A distant worry, one that could not find him this far out in the jungle.

  All that mattered was the beauty of the place. The simplicity of it. A place where everything made sense. A place where he knew its inhabitants and what they wanted and what they would do. Even the creatures he’d never seen before. Their fur, their horns, their tails—all the features of their bodies—gave clear signs of their intention and how they would react if he came too close or made the wrong move.

  And j
ust as he thought those thoughts, a pair of blaze birds chased each other across the trees, their small orange wings gleaming like fire as they chirped and whistled. Wish stopped to watch them play, enamored by their brilliant colors and how they juxtaposed against the grey light of the jungle. They hopped from branch to branch, there only long enough to squawk at one another and pluck at each other’s feathers, before racing to another rung of the ladder of trees that seemed to grow forever into the hidden sky above.

  He marveled at how easy and carefree they played. Even surrounded by so many predators, they unabashedly trounced through the forest, daring a snake to strike or a spider to try and catch them in its web. He wondered how they could do that. He wondered how difficult it was for them to cast aside their fear in favor of their game. But even as he asked that he knew it was easy for them. Creatures never complicated things. Their emotions and thoughts were always much more straightforward.

  It was a welcome reprieve from the pain he had just escaped.

  He stood and watched the birds climb into the canopy, mesmerized by their movements and simplicity, wondering to himself if he should even bother moving on in the forest or if he could just exist there in that state for days like he wanted to.

  He almost did, but the lingering thought of the people he cared about still bit at the back of his mind. As much as he tried to subdue them, as much as he tried to distract himself with the beauty of the birds and the forest, he couldn’t completely forget them. They still needed him. He supposed there was still some part of him that needed them too.

  He turned and started to wander back into the forest, but stopped when he heard one of the blaze birds let loose a loud squawk.

  They were higher up in the canopy now, but he could still make out their orange feathers. To his surprise they were no longer playing. One of the birds stood upon the other’s body, pecking at its neck, the one beneath it dead. And with each violent strike, a flurry of feathers fluttered down over the forest, resting upon leaves and vines. Smoke rose from where the feather settled.

  Wish squinted, unsure if it was just the dark haze of the forest playing tricks on him. But beneath the smoke rose fire, small tongues of it flickering out of the feathers like demons breaking doorways into the world. The tongues lashed out, sending spittle of embers onto nearby leaves, causing new fires to sprout. Soon the entire canopy was full of dancing flames, a tribal celebration of smoke and scorch up in the sky.

  Wish stared in disbelief. How could the bird’s feathers have caused such a catastrophe? The entire jungle was burning and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He searched his surroundings, trying to find a way to stop the flames, but there was nothing.

  Soon the entire canopy was shedding ash and ember. The fire raced down the trees, taking the underbrush in its embrace, trying to surround him and burn him along with the rest of the jungle. There was nothing left to do except run.

  He charged back the way he came, breaking through the thick knots of bush that stood in his way, tearing his skin on thorns as he did. But as fast as he ran, the fire moved faster. It swept in behind him, filling in the path he created with roaring flames that snapped and growled like orange fangs of a predator in pursuit.

  He ran and ran, not knowing how he would escape, or in what direction he was headed, but there seemed to be no savior ahead. It would be only a matter of time before the fire took him.

  Until he reached a clearing in the forest. Rising from its center was a giant wall of wood with dribbles of water seeping over its top like small waterfalls falling down mountainsides.

  It was a reservoir, one big enough to wash an ocean over the fire turning the jungle to ashes and prevent it from burning anymore of it. A large lock hung from a handle. An axe lay next to it. All he needed to do was break it and the water would flood the jungle.

  He ran to the axe, but just as he was about to pick it up, he heard his father yell his name.

  “Ati!”

  Wish turned. His father hung at the edge of the forest, the part that the fire had yet to burn, his wrists bound with vines, dangling from the canopy like a monkey without another branch to swing to. What was he doing here?

  Wish eyed the fire. It would only be minutes before it took his father, but if he could just release the water in time then he could save him and the jungle.

  He lifted the axe and swung. The blade connected with the lock, barely leaving a scar. He swung again, harder this time. But there was only a scratch.

  “Come on!” he yelled, swinging again and again, but every time he hit the lock it barely made a single dent in its stubborn construction.

  “Ati! The fire!”

  The blaze roared. The trees beside his father crackled with flames. In moments they would jump to him, and when they jumped to him they would jump past the point where he could still save the jungle with the water in the reservoir.

  Wish looked from the lock to his father and then to the jungle, his home crumbling to ashes, and froze.

  “Ati!” his father screamed. “There!”

  He followed his father’s eyes, and there, huddled in a cage made of wood beside the forest was Marli, their daughter held closely against her chest as she stared at the coming fire in horror. Beneath the scream of the fire and his father’s calls, he hadn’t even heard them.

  Marli’s eyes met his. They swelled with tears, something he had never seen in her face before. And when the fire’s chaos dimmed, he thought he could hear his daughter’s cries. A wail that seemed to call his own name.

  The fire was atop of them too. If he saved his father, then he couldn’t save her or the forest. If he saved Marli and his daughter, then he wouldn’t save his father or the forest. And if he stayed to break the lock then they’d all burn, but the forest might still survive.

  Wish gripped the axe, his hands sweating. The heat of the fire reached across the gap in the forest to engulf him in its hungry jaws. His mind drowned with hesitation, trying to imagine a life without any of them, and failing.

  And as he stood there motionless, the fire marched forward.

  It reached them both at the same time, and above the crackle and barks of the flame, he heard their screams, terrible yells that spoke of a pain he’d never know, noises that seemed to call out his name in blame. He closed his eyes, unable to watch them burn, but the blackness of his lids could not hide him from those sounds.

  And as the fire flared around him and took the rest of the forest, the trees cried out too, calling his name in the pop of their wood and the crumbling of their leaves, asking him to open his eyes. Asking him to save them.

  Wish awoke sweating. His face felt raw as if he still stood in the middle of the burning blaze. He swung his head, expecting to see the fire roaring on either side of him and the ashes of his family caught in its wake, but there was only darkness. The lone light still lingered further away, but there was no one behind it, no flowers to infect him with pain. He was alone. Safe. At least for now.

  But no sooner had he thought that did he hear a pitter-patter at his back like tiny feet tiptoeing against the floor.

  “Hello?” He winced. When he spoke his face still hurt.

  The shuffling grew louder.

  He turned his head as far as he could in his bindings, but saw only darkness behind him. What new creature was his captive unleashing against him? He tried his bindings again, but found them to be as strong as ever. He was exposed. There was nothing he could do to protect himself against the new threat except bite and spit.

  The sound came closer and then stopped. Wish could feel the presence of something or someone behind him. It was the same feeling he felt when he stared into the darkness of a bush mouth or the impenetrable shadows of the forest and wondered if something stared back at him. He always knew when there was a living creature nearby. It was another sense. One he’d earned from his long years of surviving in the deep bush of the forest. It wasn’t just his imagination. There was something behind him. The only question wa
s what it would do to him.

  He gritted his teeth, ready to bear another round of pain. What else did his captives want from him? What other questions could he answer? Why did they even bother to keep him alive any longer? Perhaps they didn’t intend to and the creature at his back was sent to finish the job the flowers had started.

  He felt something brush against his hands. A fang? A nose sniffing its prey? Whatever it was, he could still wiggle his fingers despite the vines tying his hands. If he felt it again he would grab hold and at least make the creature work for its meal.

  Something prodded his wrists. A furry claw. Slowly it worked its way down the rest of his bindings, coming to his palms— Wish clamped down his hands like a trap, squeezing as hard as he could.

  There was a familiar screech as he felt a fist pound against the back of his neck.

  “Moso?”

  He gave a yip of affirmation. Wish let go. The silhouette of his partner came into view as he stood before the light. His tail flickered like a black snake in the shadow.

  You goddam hoatzin, he swore. You nearly broke my finger. I should just leave you here—

  Wish stared in disbelief. Was he still dreaming? “Where … where is here?” he fumbled to say.

  Stay quiet, will you? Moso cut away at the bindings on his feet. You’re in the hideout of the Limbs.

  That’s what he’d suspected. “How did you find me?”

  Turns out some of my associates did know a thing or two about where to find them. Went to our meeting spot, waited for a while. Got impatient. Wish’s bindings snapped. He had use of his legs again. Moso hopped on top of his lap to saw the vines on his chest. Went to Boz’s and saw the mess that waited there. Between the petals left behind and the reports of a few locals it wasn’t hard to figure out what happened. The Limbs took you. Decided to have a look in here myself. The vines on his chest fell away. Moso went to his back and sawed the bindings on his hands. Wish felt a snap and he was finally free.

  “I owe you one,” he said as his partner came back into view.