Autumn for Black Tree

Chapter 12 The Sour Throne (2/2)

Paxiss made her way back to the bathhouse before Farren had gotten out and left his keys in the pocket of his clothes on the floor. She spent the rest of the day sniffing in and around the palace until sundown came. She finished her evening duties and snuck away to the tip-top trees. Barley was there waiting.

"I have something to tell you!" They both said, almost in unison.

Barley laughed and let her go first. She told him about the fungal throne and the terrible smell and how she tracked it. She could see in his eyes how proud he was of her for learning to use her abilities with such precision. She couldn't blame him. She was proud too.

"So you tracked the smell all over the palace?" he asked.

"And outside too. I don't know how far it goes. My work didn't take me out too far today. But it's got something like roots crawling through the ground. It's like a network underneath our feet. I tried to track it and see if it came out this way but it doesn't."

"A network..." Barley had his fingers draped over his chin while his pointer finger tapped his cheek.

"So what was your thing?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"Your thing! We both had things. I told you mine, you have to tell me yours."

"Oh right!" he said.

He cracked his knuckles and his eyebrows jumped up and down. "I found the monster."

"WHAT?!" Paxiss screamed.

"Come on! You didn't doubt me, did you?"

"Just shut up and tell me!"

Barley told her all about the beetle monster, the vapor, and how it essentially ate an entire farm.

"It was sad how little they had left," he told her.

Paxiss was quiet. "This is bad," she whispered to herself.

"I feel like we're almost there, though. We just need to put all the pieces together and confirm it."

"Why do you think we are the only ones who get the green cough from that smoke it breathes?" She asked, "No one else seems to mind."

Barley pressed his lips together. "You know, I think it might be the reason no one minds a lot of things around here."

"How do you mean?"

The knight scratched his leafy head. "I've been working on a theory. It seems like everyone here has some sort of haze around their minds when it comes to some of the off things about the village. I think the tree growing from me can filter things out. I've been able to test poisons before and taste things others can't taste with just my hands or pieces that I can grow. I wonder if that's why I'm sensitive to it."

"But what about me?" she asked.

"I'm not sure. But I figure since my ability keeps me safe, maybe yours does too. Maybe your body burns it away or something. I don't know. But if our systems fight it, maybe in others it taints their minds. Makes them susceptible to bad ideas. Or maybe tolerate a status quo that isn't healthy for them."

Paxiss rubbed her eyes in mental exhaustion. "This is madness."

"Yeah, but if it's true," said Barley, "that would mean this creature is like a parasite. It feeds off of the town like a host."

"But then how long has it been here? And what is my mother doing feeding it?"

"I don't know," said the knight, "but you need to rest up for tomorrow. I'm going to follow up on that fungus thing tonight."

Paxiss nodded. "Right, I'll drop a cloth where it leads outside the palace grounds. You can follow it and tell me what you find. Seriously, if it's big, please just come and wake me up. I probably won't be able to sleep tonight anyway."

Barley listened and Paxiss headed home. He soon found himself outside the palace grounds with a bright red linen laid out at his feet. Barley had left his shoes at home and instead padded the soles of his feet with bark. He now stood still behind the piece of cloth with this feet together. Slowly he grew small cleats on the bottoms of his feet that seeped into the ground like roots. They searched for a moment before they located the sour fungus. She was right. It was like a network. Something like veins in a body were all through the ground. Barley took another step and found more. The sensors on his feet worked like taste buds, only perceptive in a slightly different way. With each foot fall he could taste the sour buttermilk and wet dog smell that Paxiss had told him about. It was going to be a long night.

A few hours later, Paxiss awoke in the dark to knocking on her window. It was a gentle knocking this time. She knew it wasn't the kings soldiers. She sat up on her bed and peered outside to see the soft eyes of her knight.

"Hey," he whispered, "What was the first thing your mother had you do when you had to start growing the paleotus shrooms."

"The first thing?" Paxiss rubbed her eyes and yawned.

"Umm, I had to plant a mushroom scarecrow in the ground. Why?"

Barley laughed and looked down shaking his head.

Paxiss cocked her head. "What?"