Trading by Shroomlight

by C. M. Simpson

  He settled himself into his chair and regarded her intently. “And what would we have done then?”

  Marsh didn’t have an answer for that.

  Sulema’s gentle voice cut in before anyone else could speak. “Why don’t you tell us your theory and we can all work to see if there is a safe way for you to test it out?”

  This time, Marsh looked at Gustav before she replied.

  He looked back, raising his eyebrows and regarding her in pretend shock. “Oh, so now you want my permission?”

  He looked at Roeglin. “What do you say, shadow mage?”

  Marsh couldn’t help it. She shot a quick glance at the mage. He was smirking, his hazel eyes alive with mischief as he regarded her. “We could just let her go it alone.”

  Sulema rolled her eyes. “I told you to be kind,” she scolded Marsh. “Now you’ve upset two of them.”

  Marsh wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

  “What were you thinking of doing, child?” The gentleness of her tone gave Marsh the courage to look her in the eye.

  “I was going to try to open a gate in the shadow.” Marsh caught the start of disbelief on the faces around her and closed her eyes so she couldn’t see them anymore. Trying not to think of how crazy she sounded, she rushed on. “I think it’s like shadow-stepping, except you open the path you take so others can follow.”

  “Like you and Mordan?” Roeglin asked, but Marsh shook her head. “No, Dan steps with me...or she used to. Now she knows how to do it on her own.”

  “She copied you?”

  Marsh shook her head. “No, I took her with me, and she understood how it was done and did it herself.”

  “So she did copy you.”

  “No.” Marsh was firm and kept a hold on her temper. “She took the knowledge, soaking it up like a...like a sludge slime...” Mordan gave a growled a protest. “Or something.”

  The kat huffed out a puff of air and Marsh continued. “Anyway, she knows how, and not by copying.”

  “And?” Gustav pushed, clearly not impressed by Marsh’s digression.

  “So, the raiders open gates for people who don’t know how to do shadow magic, so it’s not the same. It’s more like the way rock mages open a wall of rock so others can pass through it.”

  “And you want to do that to shadow.”

  “Yes.”

  “What makes you think you can?”

  “Because it works for rock.”

  Roeglin groaned and buried his face in his hands. “Not the same.” The words came out muffled.

  Marsh glared at him. “Is so.”

  “Is so not,” he argued, and she pushed back her chair, trying to think of somewhere to go.

  “Is. So. Too!” She growled, not realizing just how much she sounded like Aisha as she moved her hands to carve an arc through the air.

  The shadows flowed to her fingertips and then settled in the shape. Shadows were fine and the caverns were safe, but her family—her uncle, her cousins. Marsh felt a lump form in her throat. How was she ever going to reach them?

  It is dark in the cave of water, Mordan suggested, and Marsh tried to picture the bathing rooms at Hawk’s Ledge. The Kat wasn’t quite right. Sure, the communal entry was dim, but each cubicle had lanterns bathing it in warm golden light.

  The gasp from beside her made her open her eyes just as a wet sponge flew through the small window in front of her. It hit her in the face, sending water down her front and soaking through her tunic to the skin. The smell of lavender-scented water made her realize what she’d done, but the window was gone.

  She stumbled back from the now-empty space, reaching for her chair. Roeglin made sure she didn’t end up on her ass, then wrapped his arm around her shoulders once more. “Well, you showed us, didn’t you?”

  Marsh didn’t know what to say.

  “And you were going to open a gate to where, exactly?” Gustav still wasn’t impressed.

  Marsh found it hard to find her voice. “I-I hadn’t worked that out yet.”

  She looked over at their hosts. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure how this helps with defending the cavern. It’s just something...”

  “You’re going after the raiders’ home base?” Tabia asked, and Marsh nodded.

  “Yes. Once the caverns are secure. I’m—”

  “We’re,” Roeglin corrected and Gustav cleared his throat.

  Marsh continued. “We’re going after the raiders’ home base.” She glanced down at the kat. “I’ve made a promi—”

  “Several promises,” Roeglin interrupted.

  She turned to him, frustrated by his constant interruptions. “Do you want to tell the story?”

  He raised his hands in placation. “No. Sorry. Please. You’re doing so well with the details. Why don’t you go right ahead?”

  “Smartass.”

  “Don’t you want to finish?”

  “Children!” Gustav’s reprimand brought their squabbling up short. He turned to Sulema. “Mages,” he said, then realized who he was speaking to. His face flushed scarlet. “No offense intended.”

  Sulema smiled. “None taken. You wanted to discuss the defense of our cavern with us?”

  The faint emphasis on “our” was almost a warning, and Gustav sat a little straighter. “We meant no offense.”

  “None is taken,” Sulema told him, relaxing a little. “We could do with the help. What did you have in mind?”

  Slowly, Gustav went over what they had intended—to warn them and then help them set up an independent force. “But I think it might have gone a little past that stage,” he added, “so I was going to offer our assistance for whatever you had in mind.”

  Sulema’s face clouded. “We hadn’t reached that stage yet,” she admitted. “What have you done in the past?”

  “It’s a sinkhole, you say?” Gustav asked, continuing when they nodded, “Well, it’s a bit different to the other surface accesses we’ve encountered, but this is what we’ve done in the past.”

  By the time he had finished describing what they had done at Mika’s Outlet and then repeated at the Piermonts’ stud, the leaders were shaking their heads.

  “The sinkhole opens to the sky,” Kwame told them. “Without it, we wouldn’t have the climate we need for growing the kaffee and chocolate.”

  “The plants need the humidity of the grotto,” Tabia explained.

  “And the warmer temperatures,” Sulema said. “Our druids have only been able to do so much, and while you’ll find the plants in other areas, even they have seasons when they do not produce. They produce all year round in the Grotto. Sealing the sinkhole is out of the question.”

  Gustav let out a long breath and changed the topic. “Do you know how the raiders reached you?”

  “Well, it wasn’t from the tunnels,” Kwame told him. “We had guards on that. None had passed.”

  Marsh frowned. “Had you had any strangers through town just beforehand?”

  Sulema shook her head. “We had travelers often, but in the last few months since the caverns went dark? I don’t think so.”

  “And Katlego is beyond us.”

  “Katlego?”

  “She ran the waystation, but we could not reach her before the raiders took them.”

  “I see, and what...” Gustav let his words peter out as a commotion erupted outside.

  “Later!” Sulema snapped, slipping out from behind the table and racing for the door. “Our fighters have returned.”

  “Fighters?” Gustav asked, following her, but neither Kwame nor Tabia stopped to answer.

  He hurried after them, Roeglin and Marsh following in his wake.

  Healers emerged from the huts around them, some hurrying for the medical center and others running for the rock face. Marsh noticed the fighters running with them. These men and women didn’t stop in front of the rock face but ran right through it. She didn’t hesitate; touching Mordan through their link, she headed after the warriors.

  Scruffknuckle bounce
d past her, ears pricked and silent, Perdemor running at his side, the kit’s eyes intent. Marsh almost stopped, but Mordan veered after her cub and Marsh went with her.

  Call the shadows, Marsh. Roeglin’s voice intruded in her mind and Marsh did as he asked, gathering the shadows as she ran. She pulled it from the heights of the ceilings and the depths of darkness between the shrooms and slid through the narrowing gap in the rock face, relieved when she made it to the other side.

  She hadn’t noticed it closing.

  Ahead of her came an all-too-familiar screeching, and Marsh wondered if Perdemor and Scruffknuckle knew how to use their teeth against the shadow monsters, as Mordan did. There was no time to check, though. Shouts told her the battle had been joined.

  She darted forward.

  Why’d you want me to call the shadows, Ro?

  It doesn’t matter now.

  Marsh surveyed the fight before her and agreed. Releasing the shadow, she ran to join the fighters.

  Call them back to me.

  I’ll get help.

  Whatever help he found, he’d better find it quick, Marsh thought, calling her shadow blade and shield and relieved when there was no pain as she did. The blade appeared in her hand, and she brought it forward in a slashing sweep as she blocked the first clawed strike of the monster she’d chosen.

  Unfortunately, it had chosen her, too, and shimmied away from her stroke. Marsh let her momentum close the distance between them, glad of the shield when it drove clawed fingertips toward her. They hit the shield, and the creature gave a roar of surprised frustration.

  “What’s the matter, sweetie? You never met a shadow mage before?”

  It lashed out with its other claw just as Marsh drew the sword back and then thrust it forward. This time, she’d kept her arm tucked close to her side, and the shield obscured its vision. The first it knew of her blade was when she drove it deep into its gut.

  The creature screamed again, this time in surprise and pain—and then it fell forward over the blade. Marsh used her shield and her boot to get it off the sword, dancing back as two more advanced, taking its place.

  “Nice to meet you!” one of Sulema’s warriors shouted, coming to fight at her left.

  “Likewise!” she replied, bringing her blade around in another sweeping strike and then thrusting forward. This time the shadow monster danced back, only to shriek with pain as Mordan took its feet out from under it with a clawed forepaw and then seized its head in her jaws.

  The warrior beside her hesitated, his sword faltering against his opponent. His opponent was just about to take advantage of his lapse when Perdemor dropped from the top of a nearby calla, breaking the shadow monster’s neck with a reverberating snap.

  “Get your shield up!” Marsh snapped just as Sulema’s voice echoed through her mind.

  Fall back to her!

  She caught a flash of her own face and had an idea. Watching the wary advance of the second shadow monster, she reached for the energy flowing beneath the calla caps. If she could outline her enemies in shroom light, then she could surely call the energy to herself.

  It came as an ethereal blue glow that shrouded her in both warmth and light. Marsh had a brief vision of setting herself alight and pulled the energy into a shield in much the same way as she used the shadows.

  Interesting effect, Roeglin commented, but she didn’t have time for his smartassery. Sulema was speaking.

  To the light. Fall back to the shield of light.

  Shield of light. It gave Marsh an idea. She pulled more of the shroom light from its home among the calla caps, drawing it into her shield. The shadow monster roared and swung at it in frustration.

  Well, that’s one way to test it.

  Shut it, Ro!

  The monster’s claws hit the shield and scraped across it, just as they would have done for a shield of shadow.

  Nice!

  Marsh was too busy fending off the monster’s attacks to form a reply—and the Grotto’s warriors weren’t the only ones drawn to the light.

  Tell them to hurry! She told Sulema and did not expect the leader’s reply.

  Call the lightning. My people are as clear as they can be. The lightning might be all that saves the lives of the rest.

  Marsh didn’t wait to hear more. She reached for the lightning hiding in the shadows. She called for it to fall on the shadow monsters to draw a line of destruction through the shrooms before her until not a single shadow monster stood whole beneath it.

  Mordan roared, and she froze.

  “Dan!”

  But it was too late. Lightning tore out of the cavern’s shadows striking down the monsters. Dan roared again, and panic rolled through Marsh.

  Just the monsters, Marsh prayed. Just the monsters. Nothing else. Shadow monsters only. Destroy them all.

  The lightning roared as though answering the kat’s challenge and Marsh flung a hand toward it.

  Monsters! Only!

  The lightning continued, then just as suddenly stopped.

  Without her commanding it to. Marsh stood there, surveying the carnage in front of her until she noticed that it wasn’t. The shrooms still stood, the callas slowly regaining their glow, the brevilars gleamed gold, and the brown noses, rosebud toadies, and blue buttons remained untouched—by the lightning, at least.

  The same could not be said for the shadow monsters. Their shattered remains lay splashed across the cavern’s stone floor and the once-pale calla trunks. Gore dimmed the golden glow of the brevilar and gave the blue buttons a purple hue. Movement interrupted her gaze, and Marsh blinked.

  The hoshkat came into view, stopping when she saw Marsh and peering cautiously toward the ceiling.

  “Dan!” she cried, the word coming out on a sob, but the kat ignored her, turning to lift something from beside her and drag it out from under the shrooms.

  Perdemor and Scruffknuckle appeared, also, tails first as they worked together to pull a similar burden toward Marsh.

  “What have you got there?”

  6

  After-Battle Clean-Up

  Mordan, her kit, and the pup didn’t answer Marsh, but let her find out for herself. Together, they dragged two bodies back to the line of men, ignoring the blood and gore-soaked stone. Marsh met them partway there.

  Her feet skidded on the remains of shadow monsters, and her stomach lurched. What she saw made her forget the state of the floor. Mordan dropped the body of the fighter as soon as Marsh dropped to her knees beside it.

  Behind her, other warriors moved forward, and Marsh hoped that at least one of them had healing. She also hoped she had enough to deal with the damage she was seeing. Deep gashes had rent the man’s armor, and the wounds slowly oozed blood where she thought they should be bleeding more freely.

  She wondered how long it had been since they’d been hit and then decided it didn’t matter. She could only do what she could. She didn’t dare look at the fighter the kit and pup had dropped beside him.

  “One at a time,” she breathed and was briefly aware of another presence looking out through her mind.

  We’re coming, Sulema told her. I’ll have some of the shield stand overwatch.

  Marsh didn’t answer. She’d reached through the worst tear in the warrior’s armor and was feeling her way along the edges of the wound, making sure there was no cloth between her hands and his skin. What she felt instead didn’t bear thinking about, so she thought of his skin, whole and uncut, of the organs beneath it undamaged.

  “As they should be,” she whispered. “Make them as they should be.”

  As she spoke, she drew the energy from around her, her shield unraveling as the light slid from it and into her hands. Warmth flowed over her and through her, the pale gleam of shroom light turning faintly green as it vanished into her skin.

  Under her palm, she felt skin move, knitting back together. Other things moved too, beneath the skin, and Marsh concentrated on guiding the healing to where it was needed. The voice that spoke
from behind her was new.

  “Move to the next one.”

  Next one? Marsh blinked, her awareness expanding to include the world around her. And since when had she let herself become so unguarded.

  Before she could argue, two warriors lifted her patient and carried him away, while another two came and set someone down in his place. Parallel grooves had left the woman’s arm in tatters, and a sword cut had opened her cheek to the bone.

  Marsh didn’t need to be told where to send the healing, but the voice intervened as soon as the muscles had knit back together and skin had started to form.

  “Leave it. The rest of us can finish up.”

  Again, her patient was whisked away before she could protest—and replaced by a third. Marsh took in these injuries with a sinking heart, but she tried anyway, placing her hands over another torn gut and asking the magic to “heal what is broken.”

  The light flowed, Marsh drawing from the world around her and barely aware when Mordan came and sat down beside her. When the voice came again, it was accompanied by a gentle grip on her shoulder.

  She was on her feet and pivoting away before she could think. The warmth dropped from her hands, and she’d pulled a sword and buckler from the shadows as she went. Those around her froze. The woman standing before her waited, her calm gaze not shifting.

  “We are returning to the cavern. Are you coming?”

  Mordan sat at her feet, the kat’s face as puzzled as Marsh had ever seen it.

  What was she doing? There was no danger. The other pride had seen to that.

  Looking around, Marsh saw the kat was right. Warriors moved around her, but they were moving back toward the rock face, not out to meet an enemy. She let the sword and buckler dissipate.

  “Sorry.”

  The woman shrugged. “I am Rehema. Your captain is waiting.” Her lips quirked into the tiniest of smiles. “And your shadow mage.”

  He’s not my shadow mage, Marsh thought, following Rehema back through the wall.

  Roeglin sighed.

  And I thought I was.

  His protest made her smile. Not likely. There’s Zeb...and Gerry...and Iz. That last thought was lost to a yawn.