(Prologue)
Hudwit paddled through the twisting waterways coated with effluence that swirled and illuminated the descending shadows. He admired the abundance of fungi in all miraculous colors that had begun to emit clouds of dancing spores. The drifting spores swirled about before blotting the eyes of poor citizens all throughout the City of Morrol. Thankful he wore his mask today, he poked a passing button mushroom the size of a fist that flailed long grasping tentacles. The appendages whipped at his hand and spread a phosphorous slime where they touched. Hudwit quickly withdrew his hand as a momentary dread caused him to fear for infection.
Laughing at his foolishness he continued paddling away from the night into the city's gloom.
He pulled up to a port space nearly hidden in a crack between the mossy bluestones that made up the promenade on either side of the Morrol River waterway. Its fingers crept all throughout the city that endured its greasy touch for the trade that made the Morrol so prosperous. As the river fed the citizens it slowly ate at their homes from below, corroding the bedrock that provided a perfect foundation since times beyond what anyone’s grandparents would know.
He tied the headline to a chunk of stone covered with feathery albino crabs telescoping their eyestalks to better observe the intruder. Hudwit remembered the festivals of the yeti crab, the mascot and one-time savior of Morrol, from when he was a kid. The old ones would tell stories of the great yeti crab fabled to have saved the city from attack a thousand years previous. Children would battle in the annual crabbing festival trying to catch the mythical black yeti crab that was rumored to migrate nearby this time of year. The adults drank until their vomit mixed with spilled fermented crab juice that washed through the street. Vendors would give children free crab balloons that would be forced to fight and pinch one another until a loser was popped.
He laughed recalling when the waters hadn’t run with that mysterious illuminating substance and was so clear one could watch the crabs catching guppies that hid beneath the sand. Hudwit couldn’t recall when the waters had begun to darken but it seemed about the time the fungi had started to sprout from between the promenade’s stone crevices.
Pulling his boat up into the crack he counted the odd assortment of flotsam gathered in his boat that day:
1 dried giant blowfish bobbers used for shark fishing
1 stuffed yeti crab with cutesy lashed stalked eyes and a big smile illogically with perfect human teeth
3 un-paired footwear including a sandal, half-waist clamming boot and shoe laced with frayed wire
2 bait floaters that apparently ripped off some poor fisherman’s line
6 burlap snack bags carelessly tossed into the river
1 Waterlogged letter that still seemed salvageable
Hudwit dumped everything in a large chitin shell that served as a bag. He pulled the makeshift strap over his shoulder and used the stone crack to climb up to the promenade.
The trench-coated lantern lighters had begun their rounds agitating and feeding the sleeping glow grubs. A lantern lighter leered at him with an odd grin that left one side of his face slack. Hudwit thought he could make out a black fog in one of the lighter’s eyes as he twitched an awkward nod. The misshapen man pulled a bright blue handful of grubs from his bag to replace the fully grown moths escaping from the lantern.
As his feet pattered over the cobblestones, buildings loomed in slanting fashion, each connected with clothes lines and belching the crimson smoke of blood pine. He wound through the streets stepping over refuse and ignoring the shadows within windows that followed his passing. The usual moss that collected about the buildings’ heat vents appeared to be defending attack by intruding fungi that attached tendrils to disease its prey. Odd alley cats slunk along the walls and followed him before losing interest or crossing into a rival’s territory.
