The Mushroom Wars

Chapter 2

A cloud of grassy, unctuous smoke rolled over me. I gasped, to check that I still could more than anything. The smoke reached into my lungs with scratchy tendrils.

I coughed.

Pain lit up my body like a wildfire. There were so many puncture wounds over me, my brain in such a fog, that I couldn't even count them. I tried to flex my limbs and felt strips of skin all along my knees and elbows flayed and stuffed with grit. The arm pinned over my head felt like wax. It was not my arm, but a lifeless binding that held my torso to the rope.

My eyes squinted against a twilight brighter than the noonday sun. I saw a pile of moss and dry leaves hunched over a cluster of golden trumpets.

What's happening? Where am I? I'm rather uncomfortable hanging from the tree and I would really appreciate being back on the ground. All came out as one long, rolling groan.

The moss jumped. A trail of smoke rose up from it, like kindling ready to catch.

"Grand explorer!" A cloud of smoke billowed over me. "My brother is awake!" The moss stood up.

Even with my body and mind suspended in a burning jelly of twilight, the words grated. I twitched my arm and pain shot through it. I understand why you might make that mistake, especially given my current situation. In truth though the situation is a bit more complex than you might imagine... "Unnghh... Guh..." My tongue was tacky, and it refused to coordinate with my jaw.

The moss set down a big wicker basket filled with yellow trumpets. It turned toward me, and I saw a sliver of wrinkled skin. I suspected that I was, in fact, dealing with a human. A man, presumably.

He wore a leather cloak coated in a thin layer of moss. I counted five strings of cloth pouches wrapped around his body. Two hung across his body like sashes while two more hung like messenger bags under his arms, and a final one wrapped around his waist like a belt. I couldn't count the pouches.

"I don't mean to annoy you my brother."

Grating, like steel wool.

"Uihm uhnad" Words were still a struggle.

He swayed toward me, and all of his bags swayed with him. A fat, olive cigar dangled on his lip. His beard and hair were both in pencil thin braids. They hung like a black and white beaded curtain over his face.

He got closer, and I saw that his braids were studded with dried mushroom caps, like dozens of pastel buttons framing his face in a mosaic of muddy colors. He had emerald green lichen growing all around the top of his head that made it hard to tell where he ended and the cloak began.

"But the plants you walk with are powerful." He broke out in a toothy grin. His cigar glowed red. "Just like me. A younger me." He exhaled, wrapped us in a cocoon of smoke. "...or an older me. Hopefully both, eh?." He clapped my shoulder and a thunder of pain boomed through my body.

He hitched a thumb toward the river bank. "Beautiful, broken up muskies." He walked over to the dripping wooden spikes. He leaned down and took a deep whiff of the milky purple liquid. "Belly berries, shaky puff flowers, black crunchies."

I grunted and worked my tongue against the roof of my mouth. I pursed my lips and stretched them in a silent roar. I wiggled my jaw, my ears, and my eyebrows.

"Ahh, your face is loose, eh?"

He pinched my cheeks and shook them. I was hit with a wave of vertigo. He slapped me back and forth, three times on each cheek. His fingers were rough, and each slap flayed off the top layer of skin. He palmed my face - manicured fingers pressing into my hairline. My world dissolved into static as his hand vibrated.