The Crumbling Kingdom

by Jeffrey Hall

  The king grunted. “It is difficult upon the fringe of the city. The jungle tightens its coil around this place by the day. My resources are stretched so thin that the foot of a fly would tear a hole through them. Of course a rebellion would arise amongst such chaos.”

  “It appears your resources are all kept in storage,” said Wish boldly. He was exhausted of listening to people tell him things that weren’t true, their position be damned.

  One of the guards gripped her spear. The king raised his hand to keep her from doing anything. The smile was no longer on the king’s face. “What good do fruit pickers and beggars provide the city? As far as I’m concerned they are just another barrier keeping the jungle away from the true citizens of this nation.” He uncrossed his legs and leaned closer. “If only they were more like you. If only they did not fear the jungle. If only they embraced it. Then perhaps we wouldn’t have this unfortunate uprising.” The king shrugged. “It matters not. They will have their wish soon. There are plans in motion to help turn the tide of the jungle and once again put me in the good graces of these people. Perhaps then they won’t have reason to rebel any longer.”

  “What plans?”

  “Do not overstep your boundaries too far, jungle-diver. I am still very capable of trimming back the forest.” He patted the armrest of his chair, where a long sword rested, sheathed in a hollowed-out bone. He leaned back against the chair. “I understand that there was a bit of an incident involving you and fire and bloodshed.”

  “I was being chased.”

  “Sounds like the typical day for someone in your line of work. I appreciate the dangers you are willing to take to earn a lunar. I would appreciate it even more if you kept your line of work away from the inner city and out in the jungle where it belongs.”

  Wish nodded, wondering what would come next.

  “The fire. The general disruption... consider it forgotten as a favor from an admirer.” The king nodded, and one of the soldiers came forward and cut his bindings. He flexed his wrists, reveling in the freedom of his hands again. The king continued. “You play an important part in keeping the jungle at bay, though you may not see it. You will eventually.”

  The king pointed to the guards at his side. Two of them came forward to give him his possessions, including a new set of boots.

  Wish took the new footwear, and felt something heavy inside of it. He looked and saw the box wedged inside. He hurriedly opened the box and ensured that the fragment of Tabari’s song was still there. To his relief it still sat in its cushion of purple cloth.

  “An interesting box you have there. An artifact of the forest?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I was close to adding it to my own collection, but alas, I find my storage is rather full at the moment.”

  “Thank you,” Wish forced out.

  The king swiped his hand, brushing away his manners. “Come before me again and the favor may not still stand.”

  “Understood,” said Wish.

  The king crossed his legs again. “You are free to go, great jungle-diver, but go with caution. The jackal looks angry tonight. There are rumors that blood will be spilled in the streets, make sure that you are not washed away with it.”

  Wish nodded and the soldiers guided him away while a flurry of birds crossed overhead, a jubilation of flight celebrating his fortune at least for the time being. A fortune he always knew was fleeting when dealing with people.

  The soldiers led him out another doorway to the temple. Outside there were battalions of soldiers tightening their armor, sharpening their weapons, prepping their mounts...

  He leaned closer to the soldiers that guided him and whispered, “What’s happening?”

  “Just gearing up for patrol,” said one of the soldiers.

  “This doesn’t look like patrol. It looks like war.”

  “Perhaps it is,” said the other soldier. “Perhaps you should take the king’s advice and avoid the streets this evening.”

  Wish swallowed and went to open his mouth, but the soldiers pushed him away. “Move along while you still can. You reek.”

  He needed no other encouragement. He hurried away from the temple, his hand on his machete as the twilight settled in overhead, washing the sky in a dark red stain. Immediately his thoughts turned to the Nest and his father, Marli and his daughter. He hoped to the gods that he’d reach them in time before anything unfolded.

  The streets of the inner city were strangely quiet. They should have been alive with revelry just like the Gold Row and outer markets, yet there was barely a soul amongst them other than a few stragglers hurrying to doorways. It was as if they had been given a message that no one else received.

  He hurried down a street that had been painted to look like a flock of birds. The box slapped at his back like an annoying reminder of the caution he should have kept for those that sought it, but he couldn’t think of anything else but his family. Those thoughts carried him all the way to an archway that was shaped like a bow with an arrow carved in its middle, and into the Gold Row.

  The nearby markets made up for the lack of people within the Striped Streets behind him. Thousands congregated around street performers and small stalls selling hot foods as the city once again turned over with the ending of day. Whatever the message given to the inner city, it was not received from the rest of Fangmora. Everyone carried about their business as if it was nothing more than another normal night, a time when the people’s only jobs was to try and find happiness beneath the dire circumstances that encroached the city. For a brief moment Wish thought that maybe there was nothing to worry about, but his thoughts quickly changed as the Singer sounded from somewhere closeby, howling a dreadful song that Wish had never heard before.

  “The bones are coming down the hill.

  The blood is flooding the streets.

  The heads are rolling one by one.

  The bodies are coming undone.”

  And as that verse finished, roars sounded down from the southern part of the city. Savage screams that drowned out the commotion nearby and silenced the crowd.

  The horns of war followed, blaring like strange animalistic calls into the sky.

  “What is that?” one of the people started to say. But then screams rose up from amongst the crowd, and people started running.

  Wish ran towards the crowd, taking out his short spear. He watched a horde of terrified faces rush past him. “What’s happening?” yelled Wish to a Fossala, huffing, his eyes wide as he looked back over his shoulder.

  “The Trough,” said the Fossala. “It’s under attack.”

  “Move aside!” A battalion of soldiers shouted as they rushed the other way, their weapons drawn.

  Wish followed.

  “Where are you going?” shouted the Fossala.

  But Wish was already moving, his heart hammering inside his chest, his hands wrapped tightly around his spear.

  “Do you really think it looks better that way?” She held back her daughter’s hair, a ribbon of black fur tied around it to keep it in place.

  “With what little hair she has, yes.” Ati’s father leaned closer, cocking his head to both sides in order to get a better look. “She looks fiercer, and that is never a bad thing.”

  Marli agreed. Fierceness and strength ruled this world. The more she showed of them, the more likely her daughter was to survive it. That’s if the Great Bird didn’t come along and take them before she grew older. But that was looking less and less likely, especially with this man constantly reminding her how wasteful her faith was.

  He had definitely been a welcome change of care compared to the near dead ones that were carried through her door. His attitude, his energy, his laughter, all of it helped to brighten the dullness that constantly plagued her when she was stuck to her room, now that they had gotten past their initial awkwardness. The more time she spent with him the more he reminded her of Ati. His mannerisms. The way he spoke. The way he would look into her eyes when she
spoke in return as if there was nothing else more important than the words leaving her tongue. It was like having Ati beside her without all the darkness and desire to see the jungle. If he wasn’t so many years her senior perhaps she would have run off with the man from all of this.

  Her daughter let out a playful squeal and smiled. She seemed to be enjoying her new hair.

  “May I hold her for a bit?” asked Ati’s father.

  Marli handed her over, thankful for the reprieve, happy to see the man smile as big as she when he took her. It had taken some time to trust him with her, but when he had made the point of being nothing but an old cripple that posed no threat, Marli eventually conceded.

  Now they played together constantly, and Marli was happy to see someone else receive the same joy from her daughter as she did. It was a thing meant to be shared, not locked inside a dark room.

  But it wouldn’t last much longer. The man’s injuries were almost healed. Risa would be by soon, do her own check, and force the man out just like she’d wanted to do as soon as she found out Marli had taken him as her care. That had been an argument, but eventually Marli had won it by convincing the Grand Priestess that she was just doing the work of the Great Bird. Still she had been keen on checking on her, constantly eyeing the man and looking for any reason she could to kick him out onto the streets, which was beginning to look more and more likely if Ati didn’t return soon.

  Marli cleared her throat. “Have you thought anymore about where you will go?”

  Ati’s father clucked his tongue at her daughter, only briefly taking his eyes away from her to address Marli. “Don’t concern yourself with my safety. You’ve a much more important one to take care of. Isn’t that right, shasala?”Little light. A playful term he had given her daughter the second day in Marli’s care.

  Marli shifted uncomfortably. “The streets are unkind. Trust me I know. They’ll not be helpful to someone like you.”

  “What’s that? An aging cripple?” He smiled. “I’ll manage. Where do you think my son gets his resourcefulness from?”

  She smiled and looked out the window. The great fire was falling behind the mountains, landing on the tops like a featureless head upon spikes, bleeding a soft red across the rest of the sky. The streets seemed quieter below it. An unusual thing for that time of the day. It almost seemed like the city was preparing for something. A celebration? A storm? She never knew. “Do you think he’s alright?”

  He laughed. “Careful, you almost sound like you care.”

  Marli gave a half smile, trying to show that she didn’t. “Are you worried about him?”

  The man looked at her daughter as he spoke. “Worrying about him is all I would do if I didn’t keep telling myself he’s alright. It’s the disease of a parent. Worry. You’ve only just the beginning of its infection. Give it time and it’ll worsen enough to keep you up at nights long after you are overtired. That’s just the way it is. That’s just the way it will always be. And eventually, when it’s reached the worst it will ever get, you’ll find remedy in giving up. You’ll find a way of sleeping once more when you realize that there’s nothing you can do and your children are your children and the world is the world. Try as you can to shape both, our hands are nothing but bone and flesh, meager substances against will. Only then, only once you realize this, can you truly overcome that illness.”

  And Marli thought she knew what he meant already. The worry for her daughter was already there and growing. Everyday, every new ability her daughter showed added some new complexity to Marli’s thoughts. A new thing for her to think about and wonder what would happen if she were to do something wrong. What if she climbed out of her crib and Marli was not there to catch her? What if she walked out into the street or into the jungle? What if she spent her entire life in this room just like Marli had?

  The questions flooded her, drowning her in a sea of doubt and anxiety, and from what Ati’s father had just said, it sounded like it would only get worse. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps the sooner she brushed away those thoughts and just gave up on them, the sooner she could move past her worries and start to truly appreciate her daughter and her own life.

  “It must have been hard to give up,” she said.

  “It was. It still is. Maybe I’ve never actually done it. I still feel that sickness in the back of my head, constantly wondering if I’ll ever see him again, and if I do, what will have happened to him.” He looked up from her daughter, and his smile left. “It’s a much more terrible sickness when you’re the reason for him being in harm’s way.”

  “He would be in the jungle with or without you.”

  Ati’s father nodded. “I agree, but he wouldn’t be in there for such dangerous reasons. He raises the lunars because of the other’s fear of that danger. No one wants to go into the jungle even if they need what it has to offer. They’re terrified of it. But Ati will gladly face it in order to earn the lunars to keep me out of danger... Well, that, and to help keep this place upright and a roof over your heads.”

  Marli looked out the window, afraid to meet the man’s eyes and see an accusatory look.

  “No,” said Ati’s father, resting a hand on her knee, “I do not blame you.”

  “You don’t?”

  He shook his head. “I did. After what you did to him he would spend days within the forest trying to forget you. And I cursed you for that.” His gaze returned to her daughter. “But now after meeting her. After meeting you. I don’t think you’re the reason he went deeper into the jungle. I think you are another reason pulling him away from it.”

  Marli shifted in her seat. Did he know how hard she had tried to push his son away? Did he know what she had said to him? How greedily she grabbed for his heart when they were together, and how easily she’d thrown it away when she obtained what she needed from him? Perhaps if he did then maybe he wouldn’t have forgiven her.

  But maybe he was right. Maybe after all her attempts at pushing him away, the bond they had created in those weeks together was still strong enough to keep him from the jungle for good. That, and his daughter.

  Ati’s father leaned closer to Marli. “Have you thought anymore about where you will go?”

  Another topic of conversation they had had over the last few days. He loved nothing more than to remind her of all the time she wasted within this room waiting on a god she had never seen and maybe never would, a suspicion she had held in silence for years. But his question brought all the fears that came along with it. Where would they go if she were to leave the Nest? What would she do? The same worry that plagued her about her daughter, also plagued her about their future. She wanted to go, but she wanted to know there was some place to go to.

  “I’m still thinking,” she admitted, and turned to look out the window so she didn’t have to face his gaze.

  “Think for too long and you’ll have thought your life away.”

  “I know,” she said. “But it’s not that easy. Facing the streets by yourself is one thing, but facing it with an infant is a new task entirely.”

  “Better than raising her in a cage, right, shasala?”

  Her daughter cooed as Ati’s father bobbed her on his knee.

  “Fine,” said Marli sternly, frustrated from his constant advice. As much truth as there was in it, it was redundant. A constant scraping against her peace of mind. “Maybe I’ll go give the jungle a try. It seems to suit your son.”

  “Please. You are much less desperate than that. The jungle is only a place for tangled souls, and my son’s, I am afraid, has been knotted ever since his mother passed away.”

  She looked down the street to where the Trough met the walls and at the canopy rising over it. The treetops swayed lightly from the lesser creatures playing within them. Flowers blossomed beneath the falling great fire, shining golden, red, and purple. It didn’t look dangerous from where she sat, but what did she know? The closest she had ever come to it was the time she had spent sleeping inside one of the cracks in the wall to
avoid the dangers of the drunken celebration that impeded upon her usual sleeping spot when she was still an orphan on the streets. Maybe all she needed to do was take a walk with Ati and she would understand why it meant so much to him.

  She started to turn back and ask Ati’s father about his wife when movement at the top of the wall caught her eye. A woman hurriedly climbed over its edge, dragging with her a rope tied with three chunks of spiky wood. She stood, jumped off the edge, and left the rope on the ground as she sprinted into the Trough.

  “What is it?” said Ati’s father, probably noticing the concerned look on Marli’s face.

  “I... I don’t know...” she started to say, but the smell of bile rose to her nose from the wood dangling on the nearby wall. She sniffed, and went to tell Ati’s father what she smelled, but before the words could finish on her tongue a set of claws appeared on the edge of the wall. A monster’s head followed it. It had three horns, long pronged things that looked like blades coming from its nose. Its eyes were black as if infected by the shadow of the jungle from which it came. Its ears were large and jagged like a pair of leaves.

  It climbed to the top of the wall, where it perched for a moment, a gigantic thing, an ape gone wrong, a mammoth given fangs and teeth and claws. It jumped down to the ground and gathered the rope in its mouth, quickly devouring one of the pieces of wood attached to it. Marli watched breathlessly as it swung its head, still hungry, still angry, but she swore when she saw another five peer over the edge.

  “Marli. What is it?”

  She rose to her feet. “The... the jungle. It’s here.”

  Wish sprinted towards the commotion, pushing aside the crowds of horrified people as he did. By the time he reached the midpoint of the Gold Row, bloodshed had already begun.

  A thorkin stood in the center of a square, its teeth red, a mangled body in its claws as it roared, a path of blood and destruction behind it. Stone lay strewn across the ground. Market stalls were toppled. Bodies of the injured and dead littered the streets, as if the creature had sampled every bit of the city before ending up at the square for its main course.