by Ben Galley
“Your arm looks like a toasted tanga fruit,” said Laughs.
“Fuck you, newt!” screamed Baji, a slanderous term for a Kodo. “I should have let those monkeys have your tongue.”
Laughs only smiled.
Trinka did not act as humorous. “We need to move from this street. Now.”
Tama wasted no time to react. “Get her to her feet,” he ordered Laughs, and when the botamancer attempted to aid Baji, the bandit shoved him away and forced herself upright, biting her lip as she did.
The group ducked into a nearby alleyway just as the rising whisper came to a crescendo.
“Stay hidden,” ordered Trinka.
“What is it?” asked Scrap, terrified, but curious to see what else the Flaw had pervaded his family’s home with.
His answer came as the snout of a giant cobra came into view. Its head was so large that it rivaled the skull of a martrisk, one of the great, furred beasts the people of Ollithax rode in the barren North. Its fangs looked like great swords and its eyes like golden shields with emblems of onyx daggers painted down their centers.
It slid over the rubble Scrap had created and rose to survey the city.
Trinka put a hand to Scrap’s chest and held him against the wall. He was sure she could feel his heart pounding beneath her palm.
And then the giant viper unveiled its horrible hood. The two flaps of skin that dangled from either side of its head stretched like sails in a storm, displaying the unbelievable patches of flesh that they consisted of: scales of glass. But it was not normal glass that some people made windows from or poured wine in, but rather glass with curves and flaws and tints, glass that formed strange images at the center of each of its scales.
It was only when Scrap dared to squint at one of the scales, that he saw the junk totem he once made for one of his competitors, the carving of a bullfrog on an ara-ara staff with a minute scar he had put there so that it would explode and shatter, destroying his rival’s store in the process. Scrap’s business had boomed after that, but so did his guilt after he saw the totemist upon the street, scarred and high on only the gods knew what. He spent weeks in taverns trying to drown his regret until his business grew so intensely that he no longer had time to loathe himself or remember the man’s face… Until now.
He could see the man’s empty eyes staring back at him in the scales of the snake. His pupils were like pits dug to collect all the dreams thrown away and forgotten and stomped on as if they were nothing more than ants. Pits that wanted Scrap’s own dreams.
He almost walked into the alley, ready to cast his ambitions into those lifeless pits as a way to repent for all that he had done, but Trinka covered his eyes.
“Don’t look,” she whispered.
Scrap clenched his eyes closed, thankful for the disruption. Suddenly the desire was gone, but the guilt still remained, lingering like a bruise in his chest. “What is it?” he said, gasping for air.
“Another demon from the Flaw. One of the many challenges I faced when I first came here.”
Scrap heard the snake slither and hiss, and Trinka pulled her hand away. The viper had turned away from the alley to face a lone dire monkey that wandered out into middle of street. As if mesmerized, the monkey stood in front of the viper, pointing, emitting a small mewl. The snake rocked back and forth. The monkey swayed with it, until the viper lashed out and devoured it up to its waist in a snap.
Trinka saved Scrap from watching anymore of the gory spectacle. “There are other ways to the Threndadi besides the main avenue.”
They followed her through the alley, thankful to put the snake at their back. They emerged into a new street so overtaken by moss that barely a piece of the spirit stone glowed in the shadows cast by the tall buildings that outlined it.
“I’ve never seen a snake that size before,” said Tama.
“Then you have never seen me piss,” said Laughs.
Baji’s grunts interrupted their banter.
Scrap went to her. His stomach roiled as the smell of her arm reminded him too much of his mother’s capybara roast. He swallowed. “Can you lift it?”
Baji tried, grunted, and then spat.
“If I find my family’s totem I’ll take care of it.”
“Find me these jewels you promised, and I’ll find a way to make it work once more,” said Baji. He pointed at Laughs. “Just don’t expect me to go saving his teeka again.”
“I’ve an entire forest as my ally. Why would I need the help of a tree worm?” said Laughs.
“Tree worm, is it?”
Tama stepped between the two, and the presence of the Boarling and his axe was enough to quell their anger. He glared at Trinka, impatient. “Which way to the Threndadi?”
Trinka pointed down the street. “West.”
They crept down the stone roadway, keeping to the shadows in order to avoid the eyes of the owners of the noises that rang out from the unseen places of the city. The rooftops, the innards of buildings, the dark sewer systems that ran beneath their feet, they were all places that bred strange and unnerving sounds. Laughter. Roars. Grumbles. Whispers.
It felt like they were in the middle of a faceless audience and expected to perform, and for every movement there was some new yell of affirmation or discontent.
The further they went, the more the Threndadi rose above the rest of the buildings, its golden dome broken and tarnished like a giant fruit infected with rot. Scrap’s anticipation grew.
His ancestry was just on the other side of its wall. The totem that had given his family everything lay buried beneath the rubble of the city’s center. It was so close, yet it still felt like he was back in his bed in Dust Break, thinking of it like it was some far away, impossible dream.
He supposed the threat of the Flaw made him feel that way. It was so close, but only the gods knew how much danger stood in the way of finding it.
“Look,” said Baji, and Scrap turned, his sling raised.
But there was no enemy, only a large statue of a human face with sapphires for eyes, gems so big that they looked like chunks of sky torn away, balled up, and stuffed into the carving.
Trinka was right, Scrap had never seen jewels so big.
“Look at them,” said Baji. “They’re as big as a—a—”
“A jagrall’s head,” said Trinka.
Baji hurried over to the statue and wedged her dagger underneath the nearest sapphire. With only one arm to do the prying, she struggled to budge them. She fought and cursed and spat, only for her dagger to break and send her tumbling to the ground.
“Smook manta!” she swore.
“Looks like the gems are quite happy where they are,” said Laughs, smiling.
“We should keep moving,” said Tama, scanning the surrounding buildings.
“We’re not going anywhere until they’re out,” said Baji. “I didn’t lose an arm to walk past a sapphire that would buy me half of Dusk Break. Now either help me or leave me.”
Tama sighed, went to the carving with his axe and wedged it between the stone, using it as a lever to pry it out of its spot. The statue crumbled. The sapphire shifted. And with one final grunt, Tama pried the gem free, where it fell to the ground in a loud thud.
Baji was upon it immediately, gazing into the sapphire as if it told some future that was grander than any she could ever imagine. She tried to lift it, but with her burned arm it was impossible.
“Who can carry it for me?” said Baji, looking at the others with desperation.
“A gem that size?” said Tama, shaking his head. “It will slow us down.”
Baji showed her teeth. “Don’t be hoatzins. I’ve bet you lifted soldiers three times the weight of the sapphire in the wars and still swung an axe into a neck or two.”
“Soldiers are worth more than stones,” said Tama.
“Then why
are we even here together? To sightsee like our friend the jungle-diver, or to help one another get what they are looking for?”
Scrap couldn’t argue with her there. When he had proposed the idea to Baji in that smoke-filled den one night, he had promised the bandit there would be others who would help her get what was promised to her. Treasure. Gems. Enough wealth so she could finally retire from her life as a nomadic thief, a life that involved her running with scrupulous crowds to steal and murder her way to her dream of going north to Hell’s Steps to fish its shorelines. He had told her that everyone in their group would do anything to make the trip worthwhile for her.
He had built his entire business on coming through on his promises and he wasn’t about to break one now.
“I’ll carry it.” Scrap went to the sapphire and lifted it. He was surprised at how heavy it was. Tama saw him struggle and took it from him immediately.
“If you insist on carrying your family’s totem out of the Threndadi, then you’ll need the free hands to do so.” Tama put it in his own pack, and though it pulled on him, he bore the weight as if it were nothing but a piece of bread he had tucked away for later.
“The other one.” Baji pointed to the other sapphire.
“Isn’t one enough?” said Scrap, and as he spoke, a growl echoed down the street. It wouldn’t be long before something else found them.
“Not when there is another staring me back in the face.”
Scrap sighed, and nodded to Tama. The Boarling complied, though he did not look happy about it. Seconds later and the other sapphire rolled to the floor.
“Well?” said Baji, waiting for one of the others to pick it up.
“I can’t hold another,” said Tama.
“If you want me to lead you through the Threndadi, then I can’t be weighed down,” said Trinka.
Baji turned to Laughs.
“What?” said the botamancer.
“My arm is cooked because of you. It’s the least you can do.”
“Your arm is cooked because you are weak,” said Laughs.
Scrap responded before Baji, not wanting it to escalate any further. “Can’t your plants help in anyway?”
“Plants? I’d be embarrassed to ask for such help.”
“Laughs—”
“Fine,” said the Kodo, and from his pack he unraveled a loop of blue vine which he quickly tied into a makeshift harness. He slipped the sapphire into it and lifted the thing over his back, whispering to the still-living vines that made the harness as he did. “They’ve agreed to take some of the load, but only because I promised them a taste of my own sweat in the process. Consider your favor repaid,” said Laughs.
Baji said nothing as she licked her lips, staring at the blue gems peeking out from their packs.
Suddenly a drone overhead broke the silence. In the sky there were three winged creatures hovering over a nearby building. Their long snouts twitched as they stared at the group, flapping their translucent wings so fast that they blurred. They looked like malformed mosquitoes. Scrap did not want to see what they were capable of.
“To the Threndadi. Now.”
They fled the statue. The winged creatures followed, their drone growing louder as they flew in pursuit. They rounded the bend in the street, and there it was, purging all the worry of the creatures at his back, stopping his run: The Threndadi.
The building his great grandmother had built in his head with her countless stories finally stood before him, unabated by the rest of the city or his imagination. It swelled into the sky like a flexed bicep, the great dome with the countless vines running off of it like veins bulging off its white, stony flesh. The cracks and holes that perforated its exteriors did little to tarnish its beauty or the awe he felt then.
Only Tama’s insistence pulled him free of his daze. “Come on, you fool!”
Scrap followed the others to a small hole in the building’s side just as the flying creatures dove. They scurried through one by one, Trinka first, then Baji, then Laughs. Scrap arrived just as Tama stuffed himself through, the sapphire barely fitting. The Boarling reached his hand through the hole to help Scrap as the drone grew louder at his back.
“Hurry!” yelled Tama.
Scrap took his hand, and allowed himself to be dragged through the hole. He had almost made it through before something grabbed his foot. One of the mosquito creatures had latched onto his boot and was attempting to pull him back through. The strength of such a skinny creature!
Scrap panicked. The only thing that kept him from being pulled out into the city was Tama. The Boarling held on, securing his feet on either side of the wall as he tried to wrench Scrap free of the creature’s grip.
“Don’t let go!” screamed Scrap as images of what the mosquito could do to him if he was pried free ran through his head. The drone sounded louder. The mosquito creature was furious as it pulled harder. Scrap felt his hand slip in Tama’s sweat-ridden grip.
Suddenly a green rope coiled around Scrap’s wrist. It tightened and pulled, adding new strength to the tug-of-war happening between Tama and the mosquito.
Scrap slipped free and fell forward, sending Tama onto his back. The creature hovered outside the hole, plunging its snout through the hole. But the hole was closed by a family of vines, tangling into a knot to seal it shut, shutting out the mosquito and its drone.
It was only then that Scrap noticed Laughs’ whispering.
Tama helped Scrap to his feet. “You run slow.”
But Scrap barely noticed his barefoot upon the damp stone beneath him.
They had made it. He stood inside the Threndadi, and its innards demanded all of his attention. Though darkness prevailed, the shafts of light that fell through the cracks in the domed roof illuminated the great chamber they stood in. Bena trees, giant vegetation whose limbs hung out like the spikes of an impossible mace, grew in each of the Threndadi’s four corners. The trees’ many arms stretched over the main chamber, allowing thick walls of vines to dangle over it, creating hallways and rooms that stored the many artifacts that the former masters of Hathis gathered over the ages. In the small fraction of the vines Scrap could see, there were botamantic blades grown from dark leaves, books with titles written in Beak and Trill and other arcane languages, and totemic masks, faces carved into shaped pieces of whitewood that could amplify sight and smell or give the wearer protection from arrows and slings. But they were totems he knew, not his family’s.
The five wandered inwards, their eyes wide with wonder.
“Look at it,” said Baji, still cradling her arm. “This entire wall is worth a mountain of lunars.”
“The craftsmanship of these blades is flawless,” said Laughs. “It must have taken some botamancer to talk to the leaves into this form.”
The only one who did not allow her fascination to linger was Trinka. She crept in front. Silent. The artifacts beside her were now nothing more than decorations on walls.
Scrap saw Tama recognize her intensity, and the Boarling quickly turned his attention. “What was it about this place that made you turn back?” he whispered.
Trinka spoke as she crept forward. “The shadow.”
“You turned back because of a shadow?” said Baji.
“When you spend enough time in the jungle, you learn to the fear the shadows as much as the sight itself.”
Baji went to respond, but Laughs interrupted with a gasp. They turned the corner of one of the vine-made walls and saw flowers growing from large, crimson vases like a collection of serpents. The blossoms themselves were droopy and purple. Their middles looked like pursed lips, and their petals folded into jagged teeth.
After hearing Laughs describe them countless times over in his shop, Scrap didn’t need to ask to know that they were the fabled biting blossoms the botamancer had been seeking.
Laughs crept towards them, his hands shaking
, perhaps from excitement, perhaps from nerves. “There you are,” he said as he trembled before the plants like they were gods about to pass judgment.
“How could they have survived all this time without rain or light?” said Baji.
“The biting blossoms don’t persist on such common food. They are predators. They’ve lived on the flesh of the creatures that were foolish enough to cross before them.”
“Then why aren’t they biting you?” said Baji.
“Because they’re full,” said Laughs. He pointed to the stalks which were engorged like snakes that had just swallowed something whole.
Trinka stood off to the side, looking down the dark hallway of vines. “Whatever you plan on doing with these plants, I suggest doing it soon.”
“What are you planning on doing?” said Baji.
“Finally practicing the long-lost language on the real thing,” said Laughs. “Convincing it to give me its seeds so its line can be spread and cultivated as it was always meant to.”
“And how do you plan on doing that?” said Tama, looking on in interest.
“I have a joke for it,” said Laughs. The Kodo cleared his throat, and the giant sapphire bobbed on his back like a growth about to pop. He whispered, and Scrap and the others backed away.
The words he spoke sounded like grunts and groans, as if old trees were bending in the wind. Suddenly the biting blossoms shivered and stretched. The stalks turned their attention, so the center of the flowers looked at Laughs like the eyes of some deep-jungle beast.
“By the gods, it’s working,” said Laughs in Lowman’s tongue, himself surprised by the plant’s response. The flowers tilted as if they were confused and wondered why they had been awakened. Laughs continued in the groaning language of the biting blossoms, until one of the stalks straightened, folded its petals to a close, and then spat onto the ground a seed as slender and long as Scrap’s thumb.
“By the gods, it worked,” said Baji, admitting the amazement that Scrap felt. Laughs had done it. He had joked his way with the fabled biting blossoms to give up one of its seeds.
