Pour out powder into floor cracks. Smells strong, like pantry mould. Barely enough to overpower stench of urine.
Work powder into earth. Masonry ready to collapse. Dungeon upkeep not priority for guards. I inspected tunnels beforehand.
Should never try to avoid decay. Lichtfans normally fight it; glad they didn’t this time.
Rumble takes hours to come. Tunnel-grubs are here now, and they want powder.
Floor gives way. Dust fills air, and guards with torches are blind.
Light is only for what cannot endure.
Reunited with tunnel-grubs, I collapse tunnel behind me, and make way home.
Zerianne
“Please let me go after her, sir,” I say to the high commander, in his gorgeous office with floor-to-ceiling faceted crystal windows reflecting off mirrored walls.
The tall high commander pokes a lit fireplace with an iron. The top of his head, like all of the upper class, is shaved with the skin showing a dark tan.
I am aghast at the waste of beautiful birch to make a fire he does not need.
The high commander pulls out the glowing tip and inspects it.
“No,” he replies. “The tunnels lead back into Dunkelherrscht. You have neither the rank nor the experience.”
I must sway him. If I do not, the men will spread lies that I cannot succeed at any assignment, even one as simple as locking up a harmless old woman. They will recommence their refrain that a Lady should never be allowed to join the guard.
“Sir, I am the best person to track her down. I arrested her. I recall the way she smells, the way she moves.”
The high commander smiles at me like I am a child who has just attempted something adorable.
May darkness take him.
“You in Dunkelherrscht? No. You wouldn’t last a few hours in their endless night.”
His smile vanishes and the fire poker becomes a weapon in his grip. “You are dismissed, Ensign.”
I salute and march out of the room, my palms as hot as his fire poker.
Silreena
Sneak through hidden tunnels. Tunnel-grubs wriggle happily behind. They know what’s coming.
Seems like I’m only one who recognizes tunnel-grubs need light. Lichtfans say, “We need light the most,” but they don’t. Makes them soft. Blind. Lazy.
Tunnel-grubs grow in light. Soothes their hunger. No one trusts Silreena the Strange with much, but they should trust as caretaker.
I recognize what things need. Give it to them.
I shovel through dirt now. Tunnel grubs see, start to help. They’re much better diggers, but still a lot of work. I could have used more help, but would have had to ask.
And no one wants to hear. Silreena the Strange is for laughs, maybe, but never for listening.
Better to show through action. Easier than pretending importance before work is done.
Finally break through surface. Extra surprise of carrots, tumbling down in web of roots.
Tunnel-grubs don’t care about carrots. They scuttle straight into beams of light.
They bathe.
I encourage them to keep quiet. Hard to do with five of them.
Teep and Rov grow eyes. They break open like mushroom caps out of mycelium.
Tunnel-grubs have complex life-cycle. Changing. Growing happier. Becoming what they could be when finally given what they need.
Farmers going to make rounds soon. I need to get out. Hard to get tunnel-grubs back. They would stay here forever. Wish I could let them.
Coax four of them back into tunnel, but Rov won’t come. I have to climb up out of hole and pry him away. He’s bigger. Can barely get arms around him.
On way back down, cloak catches on stray root and tears. Better than getting caught—I can hear workers making rounds through fields.
Rov and Teep help steer way back with new eyes. They’re better than me underground now. Never expected it.
I can’t believe people call them pests.
Zerianne
They have gotten my locker. Wood chips from its ruin line the floor, and for the first time, the smell of wood fibres makes me nauseous. How dare they turn the smell of nature into something horrid?
A message is carved into the remaining piece of my locker door:
Woman can’t even police a woman.
It is an absurdity. There is no one around to laugh at me. No one for me to blame. This way, it becomes a message from everyone.
My chest hitches every time I breathe. I feel foolish as my hands shake putting the iron key into the lock. I have been through worse. I have sworn so many times they would never stop me.
I change into my uniform, brushing a tear away that should be used on a plant, not wasted on these scoundrels.
Why do I so long for their acceptance?
Exiting the barracks, I walk along the dirt path at the edge of the Lichtfall fields.
There is still no one around. They have planned for no accountability. If I complain, they could say someone outside the guard did it.
Bathed in the reflected sunset, I gaze longingly at the beautiful daisy and pine-coloured concentric circles. They are aligned with the patterns of the sun’s radiance, those crops most in need of light at the centre.
Somewhere at the far side is my family’s homestead. I drink in the fresh air, life and pollen of a life I once knew. If I am strong enough, perhaps one day I will be able to return and nurture the land.
The farther I get from the hate-filled locker, the easier it is to breathe. However, the insults tangle into a knot I cannot untie.
I see a dark spot in the brilliant patterns of the field, and I look around for the farmer. Are they not aware of this wasted land?
Perhaps I can help. It is the closest I have come to farming for a while.
Closer to the dark patch, I see the earth has caved in. The tilting crops jut in like the teeth of a beast.
This was intentional vandalism, and my heart aches the same as it did years ago.
It had been the end of the year, close to harvest, when a Dunkellian man broke in. He gorged himself on our crops, trampling and tearing up the harvest as though the sun were at its end.
Then he torched everything.
My mother sobbed in the soot, her tears channeling down the black on her face as she brought one mutilated plant after another up to her lips and kissed them. We could not get her out of the field for hours.
Although we scraped through the next few seasons, mother developed incessant stomach pains.
Now she cannot work the fields, and is shunned for it.
As am I, for the work I had to take up thereafter.
I am paid far better on the guard, enough to hire mother the help she needs. It was and still is a struggle, but I know if I am strong enough, I can bear the burden.
The light shines where we cast it.
The only light the hole in front of me deserves, however, is the light of clarity, in order to find out who would do such a thing.
Then I see a piece of grey fabric caught on one of the roots farther into the hole.
Crouching down, I pick up the mycelium weave. A Dunkellian, of course.
Lifting the fabric to my nose, my grip tightens as I recognize the mix of compost, dried autumn leaves and petrichor.
Silreena. Recognition burns a dizzying mixture of inadequacy and rage. Insults and repeated injuries against what remains of my dignity.
Can’t even police a woman.
My fist shakes. I will catch her. Blacken the fact I am not permitted.
Deeper into the hole, I can see the way is blocked. There will be no following her that way.
That will not stop me, though. I will sneak into Dunkelherrscht and make sure Silreena can never hurt another Lichtfan crop ever again.
High on the wall separating Lichtfan and Dunkelherrscht, I am but a distant observer to all life. No one would expect me to jump down.
; I pass a few guards who grunt but do not meet my gaze.
At the far end where the wall meets the cliff is the massive heap of compost that Lichtfans dump onto the Dunkellian side. It is normally a blight on the landscape, but today it is my gateway to redemption.
I have timed my arrival with the guard change, so when there is a gap, I jump.
I impact and the putrefaction flows up and over my head. I cannot breathe, and thrash until I see the grey light of air again.
Soon I am hiding in a dark alley—every alley here is dark—changing into a confiscated mycelium cloak. As I walk away, tufts of compost fall off and join into a blanket on the mud.
The compost is soon replaced by mushrooms in every nook. Bright spotted mushrooms provide the only colour next to the tight-packed grey and brown buildings.
Where there is brightness here, there is death.
I come upon two boys and their mother. They strike at one other with staves while the mother watches. When one of them falls into the mud, the other pauses his attacks. That gets him cuffed by his mother.
“Stop being soft!” she yells.
She demonstrates what she wants him to do by kicking the downed boy.
“Again!” she snaps.
The boys get up and set upon each other again. I bite my tongue. I have seen similar scenes in my time guarding the wall, but never so close that I can smell the blood coming down lips.
When one of the boys starts weeping, the mother’s voice rings at them to stop.
She crouches down and cradles the weeping boy in her arms. “I know you hurt, my child,” she says.
Her voice has shifted as abruptly as a flowing stream darting around winter’s grasp in the last throes of fall.
“You remember why we do this?” she says, beckoning to the other boy to join them.
“So we can win.”
“Why?”
“So we can taste light and fruit.”
“I had part of a strawberry once,” the standing boy brags.
“Hush now,” the mother says as she finally sees me.
I have been entranced by the unexpected tenderness. I have not the time to sift through what I have seen, however, because my intrusion brings the hard edge back to the mother’s features.
My only relief is the fact that their accent is not strong, so I may pass for one of them.
“Excuse me, do you happen to know where Silreena Wesolek is?”
The mother squints. “Don’t know.”
“Silreena the strange! Silreena the strange!” the boys parrot, laughing. “That’s her real name.”
“Hush,” the mother snaps. “I don’t know where she is, but it’s likely she’ll be with everyone else at the arena for the daylight glory. Not that you could find someone in the masses, though. You headed that way, too?”
I nod, grateful my disguise is working. The arena seems as good a place as any to continue my search, so I follow the mother and boys through the dense, dirty streets, aware I am inhaling spores with every breath.
They do not smell as badly as I had imagined, and for a moment, if I close my eyes, I feel as though it is spring.
Silreena
Tunnel-grubs are restless in dripping caverns. Developing faster. The more light I give them, the more they want. The bigger they are.
Cursed Lichtfans. Took everything, and now I can’t give mine what they need. Every trip across wall is dangerous.
Today, though, has other option. Even Lichtfans know spectacle requires light and so for these tournaments, they give it to us.
Everyone will be there. Could take grubs into patch of sun without being noticed.
Running late. Grandmother said she used to keep schedule with sun cycle. Must have been nice.
Give mushrooms quick water, then whistle to tunnel-grubs. Could carry them once—no more. All five have eyes now.
Setting buckets to catch water, I hurry out toward arena, the grubs wriggling behind.
Zerianne
I am walking shoulder to shoulder in crowds of Dunkellians, regretting my hasty decision to partake. I cannot turn back now, though, as I am swept into an enormous, foul-smelling coliseum.
Every surface is spongy, a weave of wood fibres with a crackling web of thick white tendrils wrapped around everything. The Dunkellians carved the entirety out of a fungal network.
I am ushered to a seat in the first rows just behind a mob of men and boys twitching with bloodlust.
Someone claps me on the shoulder: a woman with the face of a young lady, and the eyes and grey hair of a crone.
“Glad I’m not the only woman sprouting for this,” she says, grinning with wide-gapped teeth.
“I don’t know why there aren’t more of us here,” I say, hoping not to stand out.
“That’s what I’m always thinking,” the woman says. “I don’t understand why they haven’t opened the competition up to us. Every year I hope—hope we’ll get our chance at the light, eh?”
I nod and smile.
“Name’s Plorath,” she says.
I am saved the trouble of replying by a collective silence that steals over the crowd.
One of the heliostat mirrors walks sunlight toward us. Although it is not nearly as bright as the light in Lichtfall, in the oppressive darkness it is a sight to behold.
The beam from the mountains splits the Dunkellian world open and offers a glimpse into heaven.
The light reaches the centre to shine on a man in a mycelium robe so long it blends into the web around him. He holds the huge cap of a carved, dried mushroom. He holds it up to his lips and his voice echoes across the coliseum.
“Welcome. The light graces this day of struggle and triumph. Though we need it not, we are grateful, as it freshens the darkness hereafter.
“In the light, the best warriors will battle for the honour to be front guard in the sacred tunnel routing. May every drop of blood spilled today bear new life tomorrow in the grand cycle. May our bodies bring bounty.”
“May our bodies bring bounty,” the crowd echoes.
The man walks to the side, where he is raised by guards onto a stage adorned with giant mushrooms. He sits in a shadowy throne, and nods to a hooded man with a maul.
The hooded man lifts his maul above one of the enormous mushrooms, and smashes it. A cloud of spores erupts.
The crowd roars, and two bare-chested men rush into the arena.
For the first fifteen minutes, they kick, punch and throw mud in each other’s faces.
It is what I imagined Dunkellian bloodsport to be, but I feel like I have dug and found roots of a plant infected with an unknown parasite. I cannot shake the words of the boy from earlier:
So we can taste light and fruit.
Staves and clubs push up out of the ground, and I hope the men do not kill each other.
I scan the crowd for any sign of Silreena, but the mist of spores makes distant figures hazy. Despite the violence that surrounded my guard training, I do not want to watch it today.
“Will the winner really get to be on… the first guard?” I ask.
Plorath is all too happy to answer. “Yes! They get to be the front warriors to fight the mountain worms when they next attack. Can you imagine being lucky enough to win?”
“No,” I reply honestly.
“I dream that sometimes. To be retired, have as much food and drink as I want. To be able to go into the light when I want to. The killing I’m not so sure about, but if it gets me there, I’ll do it, you know?”
Plorath holds up her arms and sways as if drunk off illumination. This is the second mention of a competition for light, but I’ve never heard of any of it. Certainly not Dunkellians being allowed to come into Lichtfall whenever they pleased.
“That cannot be true,” I say.
“I didn’t believe it for a while, either, but then my friend’s husband speared a mountain worm. I watched with my own eyes as he got promoted
and got fatter than an armillaria mushroom. Of course he didn’t share with poor Betty, who works just as hard as she did before.”
I gape at the bloodied men still fighting and immersed in the raucous cheers of the crowd. Are they really killing each other to have a slice of life in light?
One of them men collapses, and the chants grow deafening.
“Finish! Finish! Finish!”
My stomach turns. I look away.
The crowd boos, and reluctant clapping spreads slowly. I hazard a glance back to see one man helping the other up.
Thank the light for that.
The robed man presents the victor with a mushroom wreath, then announces the next match.
The light greys as the next match begins, and I feel I am the only one who thinks it strange. The high mountaintops are free and clear of clouds. There is no activity around the heliostats.
Wait… there is something, a bright cloth waving, is there not? It is so thin it is hardly noticeable, and the Dunkellians probably ignore it because they know not what appearance the reflected light is meant to take.
Someone is waving a thin flag in the beam. It must be to scatter the light, steal a bit of it.
Could it be Silreena?
She was sneaking about in the hallowed light when first I met her. Later, she tunnelled into the fields. Was she merely trying to sneak into Lichtfall? No, if that were the case then she would have stayed in once she had dug the tunnel. Instead, she fled and collapsed it behind her without a care to how much damage she did along the way.
No, Silreena must be after light.
I am soon back out on the streets.
The ramshackle buildings grow more dense and tall, so I lose sight of the waving flag. Every Dunkellian seems to be reaching for the light in some way, whether it be by fighting or by building tall and wobbly mud structures.
I guess at the building where the flag-waver is, an entry with the door ajar. The residents have no worry of theft; there is little to steal.
Up narrow, uneven stairs, I slow near the top, quieting my footsteps. I brush past a rough curtain and onto a roof with a short ledge the only barrier to the wind and a dizzying height.
Hear Me Roar Page 2
