by M. E. Thorne
Did my cousin Charles attempt to make the same crossing while fleeing south, or was he captured by the Luminark?
Not that I would feel much pity for my wayward cousin, even in the hands of the inquisition. But I also couldn’t afford him spilling any secrets, like the location of Gloomglow and our ancestor’s artifact.
Wherever he is, I hope he’s at least keeping his wits about him.
Any thoughts about Charles were quickly forgotten though, as we passed the fallen grandeur of Marshul. The swampland and the jungle had vied to see which one could consume the ruins first, but the skeletal remains of the nation persisted. We saw massive, stone walls, their entire surface marked by glyphs that even the goddess’s blessing could not translate. Huge murals, their colors faded and tiles chipped, loomed out from vine-encrusted structures, as the earth did its best to pull everything down into the wet soil.
The air was incredibly humid, I felt at times like we were moving underwater; my clothing stuck to my skin as I tried to fan myself to keep cool. Even Vexile, who seemed immune to the heat we experienced in Duskhaven, was uncomfortable in the murky air.
Following the map Garnet carried, we made our way to the first harvesting site. According to Dougherty, the area had once been an orchard, where the adherents to the twin gods had experimented with a variety of fruit crops. Garnet assured us most of them were edible, and the ones full of acid were easy to identify.
The crawlclaw was only able to make it a few kilometers into the marshland before we had to leave the beast behind. While its clawed legs were fantastically adept at crossing the marshy land, it struggled when moving through the twisted, tree-lined waterways that defined the area around the orchard.
Instructing the driver to wait, we unloaded several bushel baskets and followed Garnet into the bayou.
“The grove is located on a small island just ahead,” she informed us, her crossbow ready in her hands. “I’ve never seen anything scarier than the occasional water snake or vampire squirrel, but the Captain says you can never be too prepared.”
“He was clearly a soldier, in his past life,” I ventured, “do you know much about his history?”
She frowned, “I don’t think there’s much to tell, I guess his story was a lot like the rest of ours. I grew up as an auxiliary, a slave soldier for the empire.” She rolled up her sleeve, revealing an ugly brand in the shape of a leering sun on her bicep. “We were used as arrow fodder and laborers for the enlisted troops, doing all the nasty stuff they didn’t want to do, like digging latrines or charging fortified positions.”
“Do you know how long he’s been at the watchtower?” I asked.
She shook her head, before showing us how to cross between two trees. “No clue. I think he just found the watchtower and saw it as his duty to help and guide everyone who would come after him.” She laughed darkly, “I know I’d be dead by now if it weren’t for him.”
We crossed a half-collapsed stone bridge and came to the grove, which was resplendent with strange and twisted arboreal life.
“The twin gods’ acolytes were obsessed with the cycle of life and death,” Vexile explained as we surveyed the area. “They saw it as their duty to improve both aspects of their gods by breeding and creating new forms of life and finding ways of integrating them into their ever-expanding ecosystem. Their goal was to have each death feed directly into a new life.”
I looked towards her. “You keep referring to them as the twin gods, but don't they have names, like Revina and Alruna?”
“Any details about the twin gods, including their names or genders, was considered one of the greatest secrets of their sect,” my queen explained. “Those secrets died with their followers.”
Garnet pointed out a section of trees, which featured gnarled trunks and boroughs ripe with strange, spiky red fruit. She knocked one down with a nearby stick, then demonstrated how to break the fruit’s hard shell open, revealing a large pit wrapped in yellow, edible flesh.
“That leads me to another question,” I considered, as I worked with Vexile to gather as many pits as we could fit in our basket. “Gods are empowered by their followers; your earlier lessons made it sound like they wouldn’t even exist without their initial belief. What happens when there’s nobody left to believe in a god?”
Vexile had discovered that her new form made her exceptionally skilled at climbing trees. She was able to wind her away up a trunk, then easily plucked down the fruit to toss below.
“Before the Godsfall, the gods of old would die when their believers were destroyed,” she stated simply, as she threw down more fruit. “They were intrinsically linked with their believers. Human worship gave rise to gods, and then the gods empowered their human followers to conquer their neighbors and spread their beliefs. Without anyone to believe in them, the gods would fade away into nothingness, just dust in my history books.”
“So the twin gods are dead?” I ventured.
She appeared to be uneasy. “I don’t know if Primevals can die, like the gods of old. People still believe in life and death, they’re aspects of mortality that we can never escape. Maybe the twin gods are just dormant, having lost power and form with the death of their believers?”
I gathered more fruit pits. “Are there no more believers of the twin gods?”
“Nobody knows,” Vexile slithered over to the next tree, “Their nation is gone. The Luminark inquisitors apparently found them impossible to convert or subjugate, so they pushed for their eradication instead; very few slaves could trace any ancestry back to Marshul. But it’s always possible a handful of believers still exist, hiding in the deepest parts of the jungle or on some remote, marsh island.”
Our conversation drifted off after that, my thoughts running in uncomfortable directions. Imagine being a god, preserved only by a few, fanatical followers. I guess it’s an existence not dissimilar to a flickering candle flame.
Breaking the silence, Garnet talked as she packed the shelled and pitted fruits. She explained that they could be used to make jams or preserves. She even offered to provide us with some recipes that they used back at the watchtower.
Eating several pieces, I found the fruit’s flesh delightfully tangy and sweet, but the sticky juice they left behind was hard to get off my fingers.
We visited several more groves, spread out across a chain of islands. None of the fruits or nuts we harvested remotely resembled anything from Earth, but both Vexile and Garnet were able to identify several types that could potentially be cultivated in Gloomglow’s arid environment.
“The acolytes of life and death were real sticklers for creating plants that could grow in any environment,” Garnet said, wiping some crumbs off her shirt. “You could probably plant these trees in the middle of the tundra and harvest a crop in a few months.”
Returning to the crawlclaw, we entrusted the driver with our bounty, then hurried off to another area, deeper in the jungle. We needed to move quickly if we wanted to make it back to the watchtower before nightfall. From what Vexile had described, I did not want to risk spending more time than necessary in Marshul.
“There’s a bunch of ruins ahead,” Garnet explained, as she beat back the bush, “Dougherty thinks they were all part of some kind of laboratory or something. Some really weird plants grow around there, but we’ve found a type of grapevine that can pretty much thrive anywhere, even with almost no water. We cultivate some of them on the wall outside the tower.”
The land quickly became even more overgrown, with huge, spire-like trees jutting through the soggy soil. They supported their massive weight and height with gigantic root systems, which spread out like grasping claws, desperately grabbing onto the earth.
“Watch out for owltigers,” Garnet warned, as we crouched and crawled through a root-bound tunnel. “They don’t usually come out during the day, but they’re nasty bastards. If we spot one, run and climb the nearest thing and start pelting it with whatever you can find.”
I didn’t even want
to ask what an owltiger looked like.
Venturing into the glade around the laboratory ruins, I saw the ground between the buildings was surprisingly clear, nothing grew near the stone walls outside the vines Garnet had mentioned. They grew in thick bunches, with midnight black bundles of berries.
“I wonder if these things poison the ground against other plants,” I said as I checked out the area. I couldn’t find a single blade of grass or weed growing near the vines.
“Something to be careful of, if we decide to cultivate them,” Vexile agreed. She plucked one of the berries, then popped it into her mouth, before puckering her lips, “So sour!”
I tried one myself, and I had to agree. They were strangely spicy and sour, like a cross between a hot pepper and a lemon.
“They make great juice and tea,” Garnet swore to us, “plus, when you get really tired of gruel, you can pop a few of them into your bowl to add some flavor.”
Taking her word for it, we harvested several handfuls of berries, then used Garnet’s service knife to cut off some starters, using instructions provided by Emil.
As we worked, I tried to speculate what life had looked like in the area, before Marshul’s downfall. The destroyed buildings were narrow and rectangular, none of them taller than three stories. They ran in regularly spaced rows, their interiors filled with collapsed timber and damp fungus. There was little to no sign of what kind of scientific activity, if any, had occurred there.
As Garnet had described, the few plants that grew there, in cleared terraces I could only think of as gardens, were truly odd. There were huge, multihued trees, their delicate, pink, blue, green, and purple branches swaying in the breeze. Other plants looked like oversized venus flytraps, with huge, wet maws that twitched whenever anything moved nearby.
We took special care to avoid stepping near any of them, sticking close to the buildings.
“I think this is a pretty good haul for the day,” I announced, dusting off my hands after packing another basket full of berries and vine samples. “If we want to avoid any issues heading back to the watchtower, we should start making our way there soon.”
Cutting through the ruins, we were just about to step back into the jungle when Vexile suddenly grabbed me and hauled me next to a wall.
“Garnet, hide!” she commanded.
The girl disappeared, quickly climbing behind a nearby rubble pile.
Breathing shallowly, I tried to detect whatever had set Vexile off. I didn’t hear a sound outside the rustle of the leaves.
Then I felt the ground shake, ever so slightly, like some great weight had hammered the earth. Crouching down, I peeked around the corner as a huge beast stepped into the clearing at the other side of the ruins.
Whatever it was, it looked nothing like a tiger or an owl.
Some weird miscommunication with the goddess’s blessing of tongues, I thought wildly.
It looked like someone had shaved a black bear and glued feathers to run along its molted hide. Its huge, monstrous head was dominated by a bone-white beak, which looked sharp enough to cleave through rock.
The most disturbing thing was that it was the size of an RV camper.
Hurriedly, I shoved Vexile towards an opening in the wall, allowing us to hide inside of the ruined building.
“How the fuck is that thing so big?” I hissed, once we were concealed.
Vexile could only shrug. “Owltigers have terrible vision, but a strong sense of smell. We can only hope we don’t smell like prey and that it passes through on the way to find better game.”
Glancing out the doorway, I saw Garnet still hidden across the way, behind a pile of rubble. I waved for her to join us, but she was scared stiff. The owltiger wandered closer, its beak raised into the air, the nostrils located just above the bony bill flaring as it tried to catch our scent.
I fumbled around, trying to find something to throw. “How fast are those things?”
“Not very fast, they’re typically ambush predators,” Vexile answered, looking frightened. “Why?”
“Because I think I’m about to do something incredibly stupid.” I grabbed a half-crumbled brick and then leaned against the door frame. My heartbeat was incredibly loud in my ears.
The beast was drawing close to Garnet’s hiding spot, she was trying to aim her crossbow at its face, but her hands were trembling too hard.
“Throw this brick and distract it,” I whispered frantically, trying to hand it to Vexile, “once its back is turned I’ll jump out and grab Garnet,” I pointed towards a nearby, half-collapsed building. “We can hide out till the thing gets bored and wanders away.”
“Unless it jumps you as you try to run,” she hissed. She moved towards the doorway. “I can move much faster than you. You distract it, I’ll grab Garnet.”
Before I could stop her, she snaked out the doorway, keeping low. I hurled the brick, sending it towards the far end of the clearing. It hit with a brittle crunch. The owltiger snapped its head towards the noise. As soon as it did, Vexile launched forward, grabbed Garnet with her tail, and slithered into the nearest building.
By the time the owltiger turned around, both of them were completely out of sight.
But it must have smelt them, since it leapt upon the structure they were hiding in, smashing its huge paws against the ancient stone.
A strange, desperate rage burned inside of me. The beast was tearing at Vexile and Garnet’s hiding spot. Drool spilled out of its open beak, and I could see the thing was salivating, thinking about its next meal.
That’s my fucking wife, you stupid monster!
I spotted Garnet’s crossbow, dropped when Vexile had grabbed her. Without so much as I thought, I dashed outside and snatched the weapon up. I had no clue how to use the thing, but I pointed it towards the beast’s exposed flanks and pulled the trigger.
The bolt flew towards the owltiger’s side, glancing off the hard bone of its shoulder blade.
Slowly, it turned to stare at me with small, angry eyes.
“Fuck,” I cursed, lowering the now-useless weapon, some rational part of my brain asserting that I had just gotten myself and Vexile killed.
The thing howled, a bone-shaking sound that was a horrifying cross between a roar and a shriek. Abandoning Vexile and Garnet, it charged at me.
I barely dived out of the way in time, throwing myself behind some rubble as it barrelled into the adjacent stone wall, knocking itself senseless as it smashed the ruins apart.
Taking the opportunity, I heeded Garnet’s advice and grabbed another brick then headed towards the nearest tree, which was sprouting through a nearby building.
The thing screamed again, clearly enraged.
Skidding to a stop, I braced myself next to the building’s door and threw the brick at its face. It hit the owltiger in the beak, which did nothing but anger it further.
Its claws threshed the wall I had just been standing in front of. I desperately ducked into the building and towards the tree. But found almost no purchase against its smooth bark.
It smashed its head through the narrow doorway, trying to snatch me up with its beak.
Grabbing every shred of Revina’s blessing, I screamed in its face, “Stop!”
The air resounded, and the thing reared back, more shocked by the volume of my command than anything else.
“You feathery bastard, leave him alone!”
Vexile, taking advantage of the beast’s stunned state, struck from behind. She slithered under its belly before coiling around the owltiger’s front leg. She wound around it tightly and constricted her body. I heard bones break as she strained to stop the monster.
Hobbled, it stumbled back, clearly badly injured and still thrown off balance by my voice.
I took the opportunity to throw several more stones and bricks at it, battering its face and hitting it at least once in the eye. It roared again, hurt and enraged.
Vexile loosened her grip, but just to rush up towards its neck. Rearing back, she bared
her fangs before she sank them into the owltiger’s flesh. Tendrils of virulent, green magic ran under its skin. Everywhere the magic touched, flesh putrefied and rotted away, inflicting lethal wounds.
The owltiger stumbled back, flattening the ruined building behind it. Vexile released her grip and threw herself free as the monster began to thrash and convulse.
Grunting, I managed to catch her, breaking her fall with my ribcage.
“Robert!” she cried.
“I’m fine,” I groaned, pulling myself free. I took a deep breath, confirming my ribs were battered, but not broken.
The owltiger was having a full-on seizure, its muscles clenching and cramping as whatever toxin Vexile had injected coursed through its veins.
With a pitiful, raging squawk, it shook and died, flopping to the ground in a shuddering heap.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” I admitted as I gingerly kicked its corpse, confirming it was dead.
My queen took a moment to spit whatever blood and venom were left in her mouth. “I didn’t either,” she admitted. “I just trusted Revina would give me the tools I needed to protect you.”
I kissed her on her cheek, “And I’m damn happy for it.”
A stunned Garnet crawled out of her hiding spot. “Is it over?”
Chapter 11
By the time we made it back to the crawlclaw, it was getting dark out.
“We should camp,” Garnet suggested. “It’s dangerous to move through the wilds at night.”
I scowled, feeling vulnerable after our misadventure. “Is there somewhere nearby where we can safely camp for the night?”
She nodded, “There’s a small set of ruins, only a short distance from here. I’ve used it occasionally when I got caught out like this. Follow me.”
The ruins were a series of temples and shrines, concealed in a small, marshy cove.
I helped the driver unsaddle and feed the crawlclaw while Vexile and Garnet gathered firewood for the evening. As our guide had said, there was a concealed fire pit, which would hide the light of the flames from any outside observers. There were several different rooms we could sleep in.
