Trading by Shroomlight

by C. M. Simpson

  “Wait for me!”

  “I got you,” Tamlin called, answering his sister and letting the others know she wasn’t alone.

  Marsh hesitated, but Roeglin intervened. He says to go on.

  She caught the flash of thought that it was a good thing she hadn’t heard what else the boy had said. Do I want to know?

  He’s not impressed with either of us but he’ll get over it.

  He’ll make us both sorry, you mean.

  Roeglin’s mental tone took on a hard edge. He can try. This is what we are, for now. Boy needs to accept that or...

  Or what?

  Or accept waiting at the monastery. He can’t have it both ways.

  Marsh almost wished she had the same choice.

  It’s too late for that.

  I know. It didn’t stop her from wishing it could be different.

  14

  Living Shrooms

  They caught the second group of raiders just before they reached the cavern’s edge. If Marsh hadn’t been scanning ahead as she ran, the raiders would have caught them. As it was, she and Mordan barely had enough time to break to the side before entering the ambush zone.

  Roeglin caught the warning in her head and veered to the side, alerting the others to what was waiting. The raiders turned to face them, but Mordan smashed into one line, and Perdemor and Scruffy bounded into the second, wreaking havoc among the raiders and destroying the concentration of the two rock mages who’d been waiting to dissolve the floor beneath their feet.

  Marsh didn’t stop to watch. She used Roeglin’s trick, hurling darts into the first raider to show his face. His crossbow dropped from nerveless fingers as the first dart buried itself in his chest, and the second split his skull. By then, she was close enough to slam her shield into his partner, hacking down with her blade.

  She didn’t have it all her way, though. None of them did. Tamlin arrived in time to save Roeglin’s life by sliding a shield of darkness between the shadow mage and the blade that would have ended him, and Aisha had learned from their previous encounter.

  A raider screamed in terror as he dropped throat-deep into the stone at his feet. Aisha made a sweeping motion with her hand, and his head rolled across the floor. Her blue eyes were solemn as she looked for the next one and Marsh wondered just how many years of nightmares she was about to suffer.

  It’s a bit late for that now, Roeglin told her. You were the one who allowed them to come.

  I didn’t exactly have a choice, she snarled, thrusting her sword hilt-deep into her next opponent. She didn’t bother trying to free it, just thanked the shadows and sent them back to where they’d come from. Drawing a second sword, she looked for the next target...only to find that there weren’t any.

  “Aisha!” she called, running over to where the child was standing, looking down at the head. “You okay, Aysh?”

  The little girl’s eyes were dark as she met Marsh’s eyes and raised her arms to be picked up. “He was a bad man?”

  Marsh hugged her close, catching Brigitte’s eye across the clearing. “Yes, sweetie. He was a very bad man.”

  “Good,” Aisha said, but she still wrapped her arms around Marsh and buried her face in her neck.

  Marsh patted her back, holding her tight as she carried her away. Roeglin met her once the bodies were out of sight and pulled them both into his arms. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and Marsh couldn’t tell which one of them he was apologizing to.

  Tamlin came and stood nearby, and Roeglin snaked out an arm and pulled the boy into their hug. “Thanks, Tams.”

  The boy wrapped his arms around them. When he replied, his voice was muffled. “Just don’t leave us behind again.”

  Roeglin hugged him tighter. “No,” he agreed. “Who’d save my ass then?”

  His words brought a choked laugh from the boy, and Aisha managed a sniffly giggle. Gustav cleared his throat. “We need to move.”

  Marsh set Aisha back on her feet and was relieved when Perdemor and Scruffknuckle crowded around the little girl. Henri appeared as Brigitte moved in to lay a hand on Aisha’s shoulder and received a hug in return. He rolled his eyes. “You do know that having children on the battlefield is a dumb idea, don’t you?”

  Aisha dropped him into half a foot of softened stone and stuck out her tongue. To Marsh’s relief, the girl remembered Henri was on their side and didn’t cut him off at the ankles. Zeb and Gerry snickered as they pulled him onto solid ground, but Gustav wasn’t impressed.

  “Sulema said there’s a water source at the back of the cavern,” he told them and looked at Marsh. “What can our rescued farmers tell us about it?”

  “That it’s lunchtime and the story’s better heard over a hot meal?” Marsh replied a short moment later.

  Gustav frowned, but then shrugged. “Very well. Which way are they?”

  The farmers had returned to the ruined village and salvaged food from the debris. They’d also gathered edibles along the way. The resulting stew was the best thing they’d had since leaving Shamka, and even Henri’s mood improved.

  The story, such as it was, might not have been better for being told over a hot meal, but it was nonetheless.

  “The shrooms move,” Obasi told them, his eyes wide. “I swear one followed me almost all the way home two cycles ago.”

  “And recently?” Gustav was skeptical.

  Obasi shook his head. “I haven’t been back. That one that followed me, I swear I saw it waiting on the village outskirts beside the swamp trail, and I didn’t want to risk it catching me when I wasn’t watching.”

  His grandmother snorted and waved her spoon at him. “More like you finally listened to an old woman’s warnings about shroom fever.”

  He ducked his head, his skin flushing a slightly darker shade. “That too, grammama.”

  “Shroom fever?” Gustav asked, and the old woman turned to him.

  “When you go, make sure you wear masks and keep your skins covered. It’s not the right season for the spores, but you still need to be careful. Stay out of the groves.”

  She glared at Mordan and shook her head in the kat’s general direction. “And that goes for you kats too. The fungus isn’t picky about who it chooses for a host, and you don’t want to get sick.”

  “Noted,” Gustav told her and looked at Obasi. “What do you plan to do next? We can escort you back to Shamka if you need us—”

  Obasi shook his head. “No. You need to look at the water source,” he told the Protector captain. “You’ll never know if it’s suitable if you do not.”

  “It isn’t, though, is it?” Marsh asked, and Obasi gave her a secretive smile.

  “That is not for me to decide, and we will be safe if we stick to the cavern’s edge. We’ll make for Sulema’s Shelter.”

  Their confusion must have shown, for he explained, “It is the first place you visited when you arrived. Sulema planned it as a fallback point long ago.”

  “How long have the raiders been coming?” Marsh asked, and Obasi shook his head, his smile growing wider.

  “It was not just for these raiders,” he told her. “There have been other dangers before them.”

  “But there’s been no mention,” Gustav protested, his face troubled. His consternation was reflected on Roeglin’s face.

  “You did not call for help.”

  “You’ve had troubles of your own,” Obasi told him. “The Deeps Monastery cannot watch over all the caverns all the time.”

  “That will change,” Gustav declared. “The Protectors will be there in the future.”

  Obasi’s face clouded and then went slowly blank. Marsh was about to ask if he was okay when his grandmother laid a hand on her knee. “Hush, child.”

  Even Aisha stilled, her large blue eyes growing wide as she stared at him. She crept over to Marsh and crawled into her lap, turning around so she could face the world, Marsh’s body at her back. After a moment, Obasi’s expression cleared and he favored Gustav with a soft, sad smile. />
  “The Protectors will try,” he agreed, then shook his head, “but we have a long way to travel, and grammama is very slow. We will see you again if the Deeps permit it.”

  He rose gracefully to his feet, and his people followed him. Even his grammama, whose scramble to get upright was less graceful because of her age. Gustav followed them to his feet and picked up his pack. “How long will it take you?”

  “Most of two days,” Obasi told him. “We will be very careful...and our pace will be very slow.”

  “Call me slow one more time, grandson, and you will be carrying me,” his grammama snapped, and he flinched.

  “I thought I was going to be doing that anyway, grammama.”

  “Cheeky boy.”

  They were both smiling as Gustav dug into his pack. Their smiles faded as he took out half the food he’d been given. “You will need this.”

  Aisha unslung her pack and set it at Obasi’s feet. “And dis.”

  “We will take turns carrying it,” Obasi assured her. “One pack should be enough.”

  Zeb, Gerry, and Jakob were next to offer food and they took it, refusing any more when Brigitte, Henri, and Izmay stepped forward.

  “You will need it more than we will,” he said, folding Brigitte’s offering back into her arms, “but thank you.”

  Before Marsh could ask him what he’d meant by that, he’d picked up Aisha’s pack and turned away. His grammama stepped in front of her and poked her in the chest as she went to follow. “You need to go the other way, child...and take your people with you.”

  She shuffled around and walked after Obasi leaving Marsh to stare at her retreating back.

  “Your people?” Gustav demanded. “I thought you were all my people.”

  Marsh looked at him. “Well, you are our captain.”

  He lifted his head and watched as Obasi’s people walked into the shrooms and the gathering shadows. “The other way, she said?”

  Marsh nodded. “The way to the water source.”

  Gustav sighed. “Which your Obasi says will not be sufficient.”

  Marsh met his gaze and then sighed as well. “I’m sorry.”

  “Well, at least he understood that I’d need to go see it anyway.”

  “He did. Shall we?”

  They trekked back to the village and then followed the path that Obasi had termed the swamp trail.

  “Damn! I didn’t even feel him add that in,” Gustav murmured as he led them to the turn-off and down the path leading out from the village.

  Marsh exchanged glances with Roeglin. She hadn’t felt Obasi’s intrusion either. He shook his head, and Aisha looked from one to the other of them. “He askd-ed nicely,” she assured them and frowned her expression troubled. “I told him he should have asked you too.”

  Roeglin was clearly surprised. “You did?”

  Aisha nodded, but they had reached the end of the trail and Gustav signaled a halt. They gathered around him, studying the water that lay in a silent pool tucked at the base of the cavern wall. From what Marsh could see, the wall curved toward the back and the pool continued beneath it. A soft glow shimmered across its surface and was undiminished as it disappeared.

  Movement caught the corner of her eye, and she turned toward it. Mordan stepped out from between two of the tall brown toadstools and cocked her head. Marsh reached along the connection between them, and the kat welcomed her.

  There are others here.

  Others? More humans?

  Yes...no. Mordan shook her head, raising her lips in a silent snarl.

  Marsh stared at her. I will check.

  This time when she stretched her senses into the cavern, Mordan rode with her, the kat elated and frustrated by what they shared.

  There she said, her mental presence pouncing on an odd life sign. This one. Its scent is human, but it is not human. I cannot find it. I cannot find what it is.

  Marsh focused on the life sign and saw what the kat was getting at. It was definitely human, but it was also clearly something else as well. Gustav, meanwhile, had been studying the wall at the rear of the cavern.

  “Is that an opening?” he asked, and they turned to follow the direction of his hand.

  As they did, one of the conical fungi at the edge of the long dark crack in the cave wall did move. The horizontal strips running along its skin rose and fell, then it began shuffling toward the crack. Staring at it, Roeglin, Izmay, Brigitte, Zeb, and Gerry pulling spears from the shadows.

  “Halt!” Gustav shouted, and Gerry lashed out with a long tendril of shadow.

  As it wrapped around the fungi’s bulk, Jakob and Henri jolted forward, Marsh racing after them. Mordan came too, the kat closing the distance between herself and the shroom in several long bounds.

  Or she would have if one of the shrooms close to the path hadn’t lashed out and caught her mid-bound. The mushroom’s booted foot slammed into the kat’s side, knocking her out of her trajectory and bringing her abruptly to the ground.

  The kat landed hard, clawing her way back onto her feet and slinking belly-down toward the offending fungus. Marsh altered course, preparing to defend her familiar, and the team broke into two smaller groups. Roeglin, Tamlin, Gerry, and Zeb pivoted to go after Mordan.

  Jakob, Izmay, Brigitte, and Henri continued after the original fungus. It caught them by surprise by shedding its conical outer shell and resolving into a more human form...if humans wore flat shelf-like protrusions like a second skin.

  The sight of it gave them all pause, but the man didn’t stop. He bolted for the crack in the wall, and they went in pursuit. As they vanished into the gap, Marsh caught up with the one that had attacked Mordan.

  It cast a glance at the crack and then raised its fists. Marsh had the impression there was a human standing in front of her, but also something else. The woman’s eyes were as blue as Aisha’s, but her skin... Marsh blinked.

  The woman’s skin was no more human than that of the shrooms that proliferated on the walls around them. Marsh’s eye caught on the flat, shelf-like fungi growing from a rock face and she couldn’t help but compare the similarities with those and the long, flat growths on her target’s skin.

  She could hear the voice of Obasi’s grandmother in her head. “Wear masks, and keep your skin covered. The fungi aren’t picky about who they choose to be hosts.”

  Marsh stopped, raising her hand. Keep them back, Ro.

  Roeglin pulled the why out of her head and swore. ”Shag the shrooms,” he muttered, but he passed on what he saw, and Henri brought his team to a halt.

  Gustav called out, his voice echoing over the water, “We mean you no harm.”

  A response hissed back from beyond the cavern wall. It sounded as if it had been drawn from vocal cords too long unused. “That issss what the othersss sssaid.”

  “And?”

  “They are dead.”

  Marsh kept her eye on the human-mushroom in front of her, but Gustav hadn’t finished.

  “They are not us,” he called.

  “Be that asss it may, we are not ready to join your cavernsss.” This was said with such vehemence that Gustav raised his hands.

  “Do you mean them harm?”

  The voice coughed as if it meant to laugh but had forgotten how. “Not unlessss our homesss are threatened.”

  “We are the same.”

  “These others. What did you do with them?”

  “We killed them all,” Gustav told it, and Marsh tensed, waiting for her opponent to attack.

  “Ssso do we. Through thisss cavern, they shall not passss.” There were a few seconds of silence as though the owner of the voice wanted that message to sink in before it added, “And neither ssshall you.”

  Gustav raised his hands. “I understand.”

  “You will let my people return unharmed.”

  Gustav glanced around, but apart from the person Marsh was facing and the one closest the gap, there were no other shroom people in sight. The Protector captain cleared hi
s throat. “I agree.”

  He made a gesture with his hands, clearly calling Henri and others back to where he was standing. Looking at Marsh and the shadow mages and made the same gesture. Everyone but Zeb and Tamlin moved back, and then Marsh uncurled her fists and pulled her hands back to her shoulders.

  “I’m going,” she told the creature in front of her. “I hope you can understand me. I am going, and I’m taking the kat with me.”

  It regarded her warily, its fists still raised, but it didn’t move as it watched her back slowly away, Mordan reversing at her side. It was only when Tamlin and Roeglin moved in alongside her and joined her in her backward journey that the shrooms around them moved and a half dozen more of the secretive humans stepped out of hiding.

  Their skin, Roeglin murmured.

  It’s perfect camouflage, Marsh finished.

  Does it hurt? Aisha wondered, and Marsh gave her a sharp look.

  One of the strangers looked at them, and her voice filled their heads with warmth. No, little one. We are not in pain. This is just the way we are.

  Aisha stared at her, her young eyes wide with surprise, but the woman turned away and followed her companions through the shrooms. Marsh and the others watched as they made their way along the edge of the pool to the crack in the wall.

  They were clearly being watched because the voice spoke again. “Do not follow.”

  They all shook their heads, and Henri backed another two steps away from the crack. When the last of them had disappeared, the strangely sibilant voice spoke. “For that, you have earned our aid.”

  In the pool, shadow dimmed the water’s glow, and a small black boat sailed out from under the ledge. It moved straight to the water at Gustav’s feet and bobbed there. Take thisss. If you need usss, blow three short blastsss and help will come...but warn your other alliesss. We do not want to die repaying our debt.

  Gustav reached down and lifted the small craft from the water. No sooner did he cradle it in his hands, than the shadows creating it disappeared, revealing a whistle made from a small, hollow tube. It was strung on a cord of woven shroom fiber.

  Gustav looped it over his head. “Thank you.”