Fungus of the Heart (10 page)

And I sing:

He betrayed his soul for turnip bread,

Every chance he got.

He even gave the Goblins head,

Without a second thought.

The bard closest to me points his flute at my heart, and says, “Hold your tongue, you…giant.”

“That’s the best you can come up with?” I say. “I’m barely taller than you are.”

A much shorter musician gets in my face and says, “The Escapist is a hero, boy.”

“You don’t know anything about him,” I say.

“I know he escaped the Farm. And no one escapes the Farm. He’s gonna help us end this war.”

“Even if the Escapist was the Gnome of your ballads, he couldn’t stop the Goblins. No one can. We’re fucked.”

At this point, my escort returns from the latrine, and says, “Sorry for the delay, sir. Must’ve eaten a bad mushroom this morning.”

“How horrible for you,” I say, stabbing at his ears with sarcasm. Because only days ago, I would’ve killed for the most malicious of fungi.

“Thank you, sir. We’d best move on now. The General’s eager to finally meet you. Lately, he’s spoken of little else.”

I tell him to lead the way.

But instead of following the soldier, I watch the eyes of the bards. I wait for the moment. I hold my breath.

Then the truth smacks them hard.

“You’re not the Escapist,” one of them says. Insists.

“You’re too young,” says another.

The other one just drops her drum.

Maybe I orchestrated all this to cheer myself up, but the looks on their faces don’t bless me with a single chuckle.

The problem, I suppose, is that this isn’t one of my plays. And the irony of my cruelty doesn’t outweigh the fact that these are real Gnomes, with real feelings.

“Is he really the one?” someone asks. It doesn’t matter who.

My escort nods, smiling like he’s proud. Like he’s my father.

And as the last of the hope drains from the wasted crowd, a jagged clump of empathy twists in my gut.

Of course, this doesn’t stop me from loathing these fools for their ignorance.

Their innocence.

They cloud their minds with lyrical delusions, and they see war when there’s only slaughter. They see heroes when there’s only me. And they see a future when there’s none to be had.

Still, the plastered lute player was right about one thing.

No one escapes the Farm.

Because even though my body’s walking and talking here, my spirit’s back there in the cage. Curled up on the floor. Begging for mercy.

Torture can do that to a person.

*

One heartbeat in the hut, and I can already tell General Torrent expects me to save the world.

Sure, his face looks stoic enough. But I can see the childlike excitement in his deformed wing. There, he can’t stop himself from twitching.

“Well done, Swan,” the General says to my escort. “Once again you’ve proven yourself a better Gnome than I. Double rations for you tonight.”

“Thank you, sir,” Swan says.

After the soldier leaves, the General motions for me to join him on his blanket.

It’s not polite to refuse his offer, of course, so that’s what I do.

The General grins.

Then, he says, “Who were you?”

“Were?” I say.

“I may be a Riversoul, but I’m smart enough to know that you’re no longer the Gnome you used to be. I’m asking you who you were before they took him from you.”

Suddenly, I’m bursting with respect for this stranger.

And I’m not one of his soldiers, but I already want to die for him.

Or maybe I just want to die.

“My name was Feather Thundersoul,” I say, sitting.

“The young playwright?” the General says.

“That’s the one.”

“Before falling from grace, I was lucky enough to attend one of your plays. And I must admit, I’m quite a fan. Even with this war haunting my skull, many of your words remain with me.”

And I can’t help but smile, like I’m proud. Like I’m still Feather Thundersoul.

“Forgive my manners,” the General says. “Can I get you something to eat? Drink?”

I’m hungry and thirsty, but I shake my head.

“Can I get you anything else?’ he says. “The last I heard, you were female. Has your status changed, or did the Goblins deny you your choice of gender?”

I want to lie.

I want to hide my foul desire to be female behind my beard.

But to remain male would mean shouting silent soliloquies to the world.

“I’m not looking for a mate,” my features would say. “Because I don’t need anyone right now. Because I’m happy with myself.”

The thought overwhelms me with nausea.

“They wouldn’t let me shave,” I say. “They knew I would’ve killed myself with the razor.”

“Of course,” the General says, standing. “Shall I shave you then?”

“OK,” I say, before the other part of me has time to say no.

The General’s wing spasms.

Soon, I’m soaking my chin in a basin of warm water. And General Torrent whistles, honing and stropping his razor.

I can’t help but remember the first time my fathers shaved me, because they whistled too. Back then, my yearning to abandon childhood was more than a little confusing to me, but my fathers shined and kissed my naked cheeks. Made me feel proud of my womanhood.

Now, General Torrent’s rubbing Aloe on my skin, searching my eyes for a savior, I’m sure.

I want to tell him the truth.

I want to disappoint him now, and get the hard part over with.

But I close my eyes instead.

Soon, his blade caresses my face. And I feel cared for, and special. And maybe this is all a manipulation to get me to open up and spill my guts.

But I don’t care.

At least he’s using kindness instead of the alternative.

Afterward, he leans over and kisses my cheek, like he’s a family member or a friend. And I let him.

He shows me my reflection in a sword, and says, “Adequate?”

I nod.

I almost thank him.

“Now,” General Torrent says. “Why don’t you tell me everything you remember.”

“Alright,” I say.

And I give him most of the details, but I don’t tell him everything. I don’t tell him that when I was trapped, all I could think about was going home. But now that I’m free, the thought of returning to the Yard makes me want to puke my heart out.

I can’t face them.

They’d see a relative, a friend, when there’s only a walking, talking scar.

I finish the story of my so-called escape.

“Is there anything else?” the General says.

“No,” I say.

And once again, General Torrent can’t hide his true feelings from me, as his wing droops with disappointment and despair. He is ashamed of me, of course. But even more than that, he hates himself for believing in me.

Still, the General says, “I’m sure this information will prove invaluable to the cause.”

“Right,” I say.

“This may be too much to ask, but in my role, I’m often disallowed the luxury of courtesy. So I beseech you, cousin. Would you postpone your journey home to remain in our hutment for the time being? I’ll have more questions for you in the days to come.”

And, naturally, what he’s really saying is, “Could you help me to create an illusion of progress in order to bolster morale?”

I can’t help them win the war. But I do know something about putting on a show.

So I say, “Sure.”

*

General Torrent invites me to the battlefield the same way he invites me to tea. With a grin, and a look of tenderness in his eyes.

And, once again, I accept.

Swan sits beside me, on the branch. Just in case a Goblin decides to climb the tree and slay me.

Of course, this won’t happen.

The Goblins are too busy being slaughtered.

“Why don’t they have a fighter with them?” I say.

And Swan says, “Lucky for us, sir, not all Goblins can afford bodyguards. General says the economic stratification of Gob society is one of the few weak points we can exploit. ”

“Ah.”

The brutality I faced at the Farm felt so real. Too real. But now, looking down on the violence below, I feel detached. Numb.

I watch as the circle of Gnomes overpower the parents, and close in on the Goblin youngling.

“What’s the point of killing them?” I say.

“What do you mean, sir?” Swan says.

“They’re obviously not Farmers. What good can come from this?”

“General says this is a war of societies. Maybe these Gobs don’t work at the Farm, but they eat the Gnomes kept there. They’re part of the system. And any affront to that system will benefit our cause.”

“I see.”

My forehead’s starting to throb, and I blame the thoughts clustering in my head. So I focus on the battle again.

Like General Torrent, many of the Gnomes aren’t quite natural bodied. They have shells, claws, scales.

One soldier has a horn jutting out of his eye socket.

Another has a fox head for a hand.

And I say, “I’m surprised you managed to recruit conjurers into your army. The Stonesouls seemed bent on never leaving the Yard, back when I was living there.”

“The Stonesouls remain as stubborn as ever, sir. They refuse to fight with us.”

“Then who’s doing the conjuring?”

“General says the creative minds of the Thundersouls are conducive to spellcasting. Given enough practice.”

I should’ve guessed, but maybe I didn’t want to believe the General could make such a reckless mistake.

There’s no way a Thundersoul could ever properly invoke a spirit. This requires a stillness of mind, a quieting of inner demons that a Gnome like me could never achieve.

Believe me, I’ve tried.

*

Once again, my mind paints a dreamscape of the Farm. I see smears of blood, blurry faces. Sometimes I’m a prisoner. Sometimes I’m a guard.

Nothing makes sense anymore.

The nightworld used to barrage me with sanguine images that I channeled into my plays. Even in the worst of times, I gave the Yard hope. I insisted the meaning of life was home and love.

But now I know that everything’s meaningless.

And the thunder of my soul is silenced.

So instead of writing my dreams into a notebook by my bed, I put on my hat, and follow the screams that woke me up.

The sound leads me to a hut on the outskirts of the encampment. A hut that most of the soldiers avoid altogether.

Of course, I have no doubt what manner of creature these shrieks belong to, as this sound has become commonplace to me in the past few weeks.

Sure enough, I find a Goblin in the hut. Tied to a post. His skin overgrown with boils and buds. The tips of the flowers drip with pus.

“What’s wrong with you?” I say.

The Goblin strains against his ropes, and I can hear his boils popping.

Then he says, “I’ll swallow you whole, you fucking grub!”

After wincing, I say, “How long have they kept you here?”

He screeches in pain again.

I survey the room, and see two blankets scattered with clay canisters and jars. Mortars and pestles. Beyond the blankets, there’s an athanor.

“I’ll drink every last drop of you!” the Goblin says.

Turning my head, I see myself tied to the post. I’m pleading for mercy.

“You’ll kill me if I let you go,” I say. Whisper.

And the Goblin says, “I’ll devour you, and shit you onto your mother’s fucking face!”

Someone touches my shoulder, and I’m sure another Goblin’s come to finish me off. Finally.

“Forgive me,” General Torrent says. “I’m the one to blame for disrupting your nightworld, as I’ve consistently failed in finding a gag that Number Twelve can’t bite through.”

“I’ll butcher you and all your family,” the Goblin says.

“That’s far from polite, Number Twelve.”

The Goblin stares at the ground.

“What’s wrong with his skin?” I say.

“He’s ill,” the General says.

“I thought Goblins couldn’t get sick.”

“That is the common presumption, yes. But I never did hold much value to such sensational beliefs. Life is too fragile a thing to be so indomitable.”

“Did you do this to him?”

“Physically, yes. I gave him this disease. However, if you’re looking for the responsible party, you’ll have to look at this tragedy in a more systemic light. The Goblins themselves…”

The General keeps talking, I’m sure, but I’m back in the Farm again. Coughing up blood.

I return to the hut when General Torrent pats my back.

And he says, “I understand your disgust. And I wish war didn’t beget the need for horrible acts. In the end, all we can hope for is a quick resolution.”

“Yeah,” I say.

The General smiles. “Now if you’ll excuse the interruption, I must ensure that our prisoner doesn’t starve to death.”

I watch the general as he removes an arm from one of the larger jars.

Of course, it’s common knowledge that Goblins eat other Goblins, but not like this. There’s always ceremony involved. Intimacy.

As he chews, the Goblin’s eyes seep with tears.

And the General says, “I give myself few allowances when it comes to pride, but I do deem myself excellent judge of character. And I have no doubts that you, Escapist, will soon become one of our finest soldiers. Suffice it to say, I’m pleased you decided to stay with us.”

“Thank you,” I say, as the arm bone snaps. “Sir.”

*

After the training session, I brew a pot of root tea and try not to think about home. And like usual, I fail.

Swan sips from his cup, and says, “I can taste your misery.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I say.

The soldier shakes his head. “No need for apologies. I only wonder if there’s something I can do to lift your spirits.”

“I doubt that, sir.”

“Well. If you ever need a friend, don’t hesitate to call on me.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Swan drinks for a while, then readjusts his already straight hat. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone this, but you could use some good news.” He leans forward a little. “General says he’s not a Gnome who lets himself hope for the best, but due to recent developments, he believes the tide of the war will soon change. Very soon. He doesn’t want the whole Army to know, so don’t tell anyone else.”