by Orrin Grey
How far did this thing go? The air had grown noticeably cooler and damper. How deep did you have to dig for that to happen? The spoiled-milk-and mold-odour had grown strong enough to force its way through the fabric of his mask. Were the walls growing narrower? What would happen if he couldn’t turn around in here? Dread pooled below his stomach, started to rise. Relax. Relax. He stopped, concentrated on breathing slowly and deeply. You’re fine. Relax. The fear subsided.
He swept the cell phone up and around the stretch of tunnel he was standing in. Its blue-tinged glow showed only rock, nothing to account for the smell. Could it be some species of microorganism residing within the rock? Holding the cell phone in front of him, he continued forward.
Maybe fifteen feet ahead, the tunnel ended in darkness. Some kind of rock? Coal? Was there coal in these parts? It wasn’t stone, he saw as he drew nearer. The light went out into it, as if he were looking into space, which, he realised, he was. His father’s tunnel had broken into a cave.
At the end of the passage, James halted, shining the cell phone back and forth. The light revealed a low ceiling arcing over something shining — water, a subterranean lake whose margins lay beyond his light’s reach. Directly before him and to his right, a rock shelf gave the lake a shore. James set a tentative foot onto it. The rock held. He brought his other foot down beside it and, when the shelf did not crack and spill him into the water, began moving along it.
This must be part of the aquifer that supplied the house’s well. Had his father been trying to reach this? How had he known about it?
To his right, a white rectangle lay on the floor. Bags — large bags made of heavy white plastic, a dozen or more flattened and stacked neatly. There was green lettering on the top one: “Ammonium Nitrate”, under the words a percentage, “34.40% N”, under that a measurement, “Weight 500kg”, and finally, under that, “Produced in Ukraine.” He knelt to check the other bags. More of the same. Wasn’t this what the Oklahoma City Bomber had used as the active ingredient for his homemade bomb? Was that what his father was doing, planning to blow up the house from below?
No, that was ridiculous. One thing was certain: Whatever his purpose, his father had been here. James stood and continued along the shore, keeping close to the wall. Who knew how deep that water was? There couldn’t be anything living in it, could there? An image of an eyeless fish, its skin translucent, flashed across his mind’s eye. Thanks, National Geographic. When he came upon his father, it was almost anticlimactic. Back braced against the wall, he was standing with his hands in his trouser pockets, the casual pose of a man passing the time. Were it not for the detail that his pants were rolled above the knee, presumably to avoid dirtying them on the white fertiliser heaped most of the way up his shins, he might have been acting the punchline to an elaborate and overlong joke: Oh, hi, son. What brings you here?
“Dad!”
His father’s eyes were closed, his lips parted. He did not respond to James’ shout. James drew near the edge of the pile of fertiliser and stretched his free hand to his father’s chest. Through his shirt, his skin was distressingly soft. James waited. The rotten-milk-and-dirt smell was overwhelming; he could feel it filming the surface of his eyes. Under his fingertips, his father’s chest stirred, barely enough to register. A thrill ran up James’ arm. “Hang on, Daddy,” he said. “I’m getting you out of this.”
Dementia: That was the only answer that made any sense of … this. No doubt, his father had been sliding into it for far longer than any of them had realised. His refusal to depart the house suddenly seemed less stubbornness and more anxiety. A surge of pity swept over James. Placing the cell phone on the floor with its screen angled towards his father, he stepped into the fertiliser. He slid his hands between his father’s arms and sides, bringing them up and around his back, hugging his father to him. God — there was nothing to him. How long had he been standing here? “Hold on, Dad,” he said, lifting and stepping back. His arms sank into his father’s back. His father’s chest flattened against his. He tilted towards James, but did not come loose from the fertiliser. Grunting, James strained upwards. Between his arms and his chest, his father’s trunk shifted, as if his bones had grown, not just brittle, but spongy. The reek of bad milk and mold clouded the air around them. He leaned back, pulling as hard as he could. Sweat tickled the sides of his face.
There was a sound like wet cardboard tearing and his father was free. Overbalanced, James fell, pulling him on top of him. The base of his skull cracked on the stone shelf, detonating fireworks in front of his eyes. A host of sighs escaped his father. Taking him by the shoulders, James gently rolled him onto his back. “Hold on,” he said as he struggled to his feet, swaying with dizziness. Pressing the back of his head with one hand, he retrieved the cell phone with the other. He turned the screen to his father.
He did not scream at what the light disclosed. For a long time, his brain simply refused to register the gaps below his father’s knees, insisting that he must be confusing the fertiliser caked on his father’s skin with blankness, absence. In the same way, his brain would not acknowledge the long rents in his father’s neck, the top of his chest, as anything more than shadows. The pale fronds pushed out of the ends of his legs, the vents in his neck and chest, the front of his shirt, were hair, dust, cobwebs. Not until his father’s eyelids raised and revealed a pair of orbs speckled with rust-colored patches did James make a sound, and that was a low moan, the utterance of an animal when it understands that the jaws of the trap have bitten deep into its leg and will not release it.
His father’s mouth opened. The tip of his tongue appeared, trying to moisten his lips. His voice was a thin wheeze forced out. “Who?” he said.
James did not answer.
“Light,” his father said, his eyelids lowering.
James did not move the cell phone.
With the weak, tentative motions of something very old or very sick, his father twisted from side to side. He was trying to flip over onto his stomach, which he could have accomplished more easily had he removed his hands from his pockets or if his legs had extended below the knees. Instead, he relied on his elbows and hips. It required several attempts. Once he had succeeded, he raised his head as if scenting the air and started a half-crawl towards the mound of fertiliser. His body scraped on the rock floor.
What sent James running from the cave and what had become of his father was seeing the things he was leaving in his wake and identifying them as pieces of his father, chunks of flesh that more resembled the pale meat of a large mushroom. That, and the white threads that rose out of the place where his father’s legs had been immersed in the fertiliser, and that inclined towards him as he worked his way back towards it. When what had been his father shoved itself up onto the pile of fertiliser, it exhaled, the sound of something come home.
Cell phone in hand, James fled up the tunnel to the basement, roughing his hands, his head, on the rock, not caring, concerned only with escaping what he had witnessed. The knot of emotion in his chest was indescribable. He scaled the basement stairs three at a time, emerging into the kitchen and daylight that stung his eyes. He stumbled across the living room, out the front door to his car. As he was reversing up the driveway, he realised he was still wearing his improvised mask and breathing in the odour that had saturated it. He clawed it from his face, rolled down the window and flung it into the tall grass beside the driveway.
When he was almost home, James pulled to the side of the road, shifted the car into Park and screamed until the cords on his neck stood out, slamming his hands against the steering wheel until it cracked on one side. When he could scream no more, he picked his cell phone up from where he’d flung it on the passenger’s seat and dialed his sister’s number. Her answering machine picked up. Voice hoarse, he told her he had changed his mind: He wasn’t going to visit Dad, after all.
For Fiona
THE WHITE HANDS
By Lavie Tidhar
Lavie Tidhar has been
nominated for a BSFA, British Fantasy, Campbell, Sidewise, World Fantasy and Sturgeon Awards. He is the author of Osama and of the Bookman Histories trilogy, as well as numerous short stories and several novellas.
CLITOCYBE RIVULOSA — FOOL’S FUNNEL
ON THE ISLAND OF CHANTERELLE, there are extensive mangrove swamps in which thrive the CLITOCYBE RIVULOSA, or FOOL’S FUNNEL mushroom.
It is a pleasant island, Chanterelle, located in the South Seas, and prior to the HUMAN-FUNGI ACCORD of 945 AF, it had remained unexplored. It is a mountainous island, thickly forested, with white, dazzling beaches scattered amidst the dark and cool lagoons in which the mangroves spread out, their endless roots feeding into the shallow water where a plethora of fish live and die.
Amidst the roots of the mangroves, there sprouts the Fool’s Funnel, a white, flat thing, about a body’s length across, lacking obvious beauty, but possessed of a certain porousness and longevity which were to prove of great use when discovered.
There are no native humans on the island, nor sentient fungi.
The first humans to arrive on Chanterelle did so in large canoes, dug out of the trunks of MIGDAL trees, with as many as fifty rowers to a boat. The human expansion of 1015-1230 AF led from the main human continent of ADAM, across the South Seas, colonising many of the islands. It was on Chanterelle that they discovered the Clitocybe rivulosa, but it was not until two centuries later — in or around 1354 AF — that the first FLOAT, or FUNG-RAFT, was built and launched.
There is a small island off Chanterelle, called PADDESTOEL, where humans have made their base — one stepping-stone of many in their great migration across the South Seas. Children born there played often in the shallows and the more adventurous built their own, small canoes to explore the nearby “mainland” of Chanterelle. There, no doubt while innocently playing, in the manner of human children, they discovered the properties that make the Fool’s Funnel so interesting.
The children used the Fool’s Funnels as stepping stones, discovering that the fungus could easily bear their weight. Later on, they began severing the fungal cord from the mangroves it fed on. To their no-doubt-obvious delight, they discovered that the maimed mushrooms continued to function, not only in carrying their weight, but now — free-floating — could also act as miniature boats.
Shortly after that discovery, the famous PADDESTOEL ISLAND RACE began, which has been celebrated annually ever since. Contestants attempt to circumnavigate the island using a freshly-harvested Fool’s Funnel as their vehicle. No engines or paddles are allowed.
A passing marine enthusiast, the soon-to-be-famous GOBALAK YIGMAQ, traveled to Paddestoel in early 1351. On witnessing the children at play, he realised the immense importance of what they had discovered. Obtaining funds from the island-nation of ONDDO, Yigmaq began an ambitious ship-building program on Paddestoel — the first such we know of in human history.
What Yigmaq had discovered is that, by lashing several of the floating fungi together, he could create a marine vehicle to rival — and soon surpass — the fragile human canoes. Within only a few short years, the island-nation of Onddo had built — and armed — the world’s first-ever fleet of fung-rafts. In equally short order, they had conquered nearly a quarter of the known world, in the process ending the short-lived Human-Fungi Accord, which had lasted just over four hundred years.
HYGROCYBE COCCINEA — SCARLET HOOD
This tale comes to us from pre-empire Onddo.
It tells of a rebel — a vigilante — called “Scarlet Hood”.
He was born of a human-fungal love affair that shook the court of Onddo. His mother was a human, a princess of the court, by the name of Agatha’. His father was the notorious pirate captain, AGARICUS AUGUSTUS — THE PRINCE.
Scarlet Hood was thus born of royalty, yet out of both wedlock and polite society. He was delivered on the pirate holdout of PLAT UITZETTEN, a floating fungal island. A poem written of his birth said:
He was human-shaped, yet porous,
Deathly-pale but for his hooded head!
Scarlet like a pirate’s wrath.
Scarlet like an executioner’s mask.
Hygrocybe Coccinea!
To live is to want.
His father was captured shortly after by the AMANITA PHAL-LOIDES and executed horribly. His mother killed herself when she received the news. He grew up in poverty, reared by human and fungal pirates, and learned to wield a sword before he learned to write.
He returned to Onddo a dashing young captain. Men desired him. Women found him irresistible. He was welcomed for a time at the court, a curiosity, an aberration, yet a charming one. But soon, he fell afoul of the authorities. The Scarlet Hood saw first-hand the injustices of the court, the poverty of the people and he decided to fight. Before long, he was running wild on the island, robbing and killing, yet only the rich. It is said he distributed their wealth to the poor. He fomented revolution. For a time, he seemed likely to actually win, to bring down the dynastic monarchy on Onddo.
For a time.
ARMILLARIA MELLEA — HONEY FUNGUS
The HONEY FUNGUS, or ARMILLARIA MELLEA, is a non-sentient fungus originating on the island of ZBOHATLÍK, but cultivated extensively elsewhere. It is now a prohibited substance on all islands and land-masses. Cultivation, distribution, smuggling and use can result in heavy fines, imprisonment and the death sentence.
It is said the notorious vigilante, SCARLET HOOD, had become addicted to the honey fungus during his time on ONDDO. He became its main distributor on the island, importing the drug through his connection with the pirates of PLAT UITZETTEN.
The drug creates a feeling of well-being, as though “drowning in honey”. It is highly addictive to both humans and sentient fungi. The Zbohatlík Cartel is said to control 80% of the market share and is the most powerful criminal organisation known to this editor.
MAMARANG AND SUMULPOT
A tale come to us from the fungi-continent of UYOGA.
Like most pure fungi narratives, its interpretation and retelling into human terms is uncertain. It has been transcribed as a poem, which goes:
Mamarang, she fleshy good
Spore-bearing age she come!
Sumulpot, he handsome, handsome gilled (and/or) hooded.
Thinker-poet, love (find attraction/spore-connect)
Together, together.
Mamarang and Sumulpot
Go into dark forest.
The tale, then: Mamarang and Sumulpot fell in love (SPORU-LATED), but, being of different fungi-clans, ran away into the DARK FOREST, a mythical place in FUNGI MYTHOLOGY where rebel fungi traditionally run, something like our equivalent of a PIRATE ISLAND. There they had many adventures, until, at last, they reached a giant MIGDAL tree (though these only grow, to our knowledge, on the human continent of ADAM). There they grew onto the roots of the giant tree, producing many spores which grew into a new phylum, of which both humans and fungi, to this day, speak only in whispers ….
AGARICUS AUGUSTUS — THE PRINCE
Pirate lord of PLAT UITZETTEN, father of SCARLET HOOD, heir to the Uyogan dynasty of RUSULA. Died at the hands of DEATH CAPS by administration of POISON PIE.
HEBELOMA CRUSTULINIFORME — POISON PIE
Non-sentient fungi originating in a forest area on UYOGA, used primarily by the DEATH CAPS, who are immune to their effect. Cause slow and agonising death in both humans and fungi.
ONDDO, FALL OF
The Maritime Empire of ONDDO stretched, at its zenith, over an entire quarter of the world, including significant holdings in both the continents of ADAM and UYOGA, as well as numerous islands. It controlled the island of CHANTERELLE, where the rare FOOL’S FUNNEL fungi grows, and from where its fleet originated.
By the 1600s AF, the empire had reached its apex and, early in that century, first encountered the DEATH CAPS.
“They seemed to come from nowhere,” the historian GLJIVA wrote in his Rise And Fall of Onddo. “They wore no armour, they had no human features, they used
no rafts. Their superiority lay in control of the sky itself.”
The Death Caps rode the semi-sentient LEPIOTA PROCERA, or PARASOL MUSHROOM. The Death Caps were parasites. When they landed on human lands, they attached themselves to human hosts, burrowing into their flesh and minds, controlling them and feeding on them, discarding each human like edible fruit and moving on to the next.
“The Reign of Terror lasted for centuries,” wrote Gljiva. “They could not be stopped. They bombed the fung-rafts from on high and glided on the winds to pass any defense. They leeched secrets from our minds; they turned our sons and daughters into cattle. They were unremarkable to look at, ruthless in their actions, and sometimes excellent poets.”
Gljiva records a rare visit to the court on Onddo:
“I came into the harbour. The sky was dark with Parasols. The fung-raft was crewed by docile humans. We came to land. The city, once great, sprawled before us. It was transformed.
“In place of stone walls, stout houses, now grew fungal houses, expanding and contracting softly, as though breathing. The roads were slimed with spores. I saw a man hanging from the rafters of a colonised Migdal tree, thousands of exotic fungal breeds leeching its life, growing on its roots and branches. The human, a male, was hanging motionless, fungus growing over his naked body, his fingertips, his penis, his nose. Only his eyes were clear. He saw me and blinked. Our eyes met. He was aware. He knew what was happening to him. I turned my eyes.
“I came to the court. The palace rose before me. Enormous, bulbous, breathing, porous, it was hideous and beautiful at once. I came to the throne room. It was dark, warm, moist. I fell to my knees. I offered myself up to be used and discarded. I felt the way one feels in a place that is holy.”
