Haven: Book Seven of "The Liminality"

Chapter 2 - Homesteads

So here I am, back at the hollow. I wish I could say it's just like old times, but nothing will ever be the same. All my friends are gone. Half the population has been incinerated, another quarter emigrated. No new souls are arriving and now, when Hemisouls fade, it's permanent. The only thing that has not changed is my desire to be here.

I've been working my butt off for weeks trying to get things cleaned up, but the place is still an absolute mess. The flats look like the aftermath of a rock concert coupled with a disaster scene. Think Coachella with a plane crash. Mostly trash but also larger belongings that people weren't allowed to bring on the ark and also the remnants of their temporary living quarters.

There had been bodies. Lots of them. Thankfully, I didn't have to deal with them. Here, flesh doesn't stay flesh for long her once a soul departs. Roots don't mess around. They to come to reclaim their own, and they did, before I could get around to burying everyone. I mean the same thing is going to happen if you bury someone but there is nothing more gruesome than watching a corpse come apart into a tangle of worms. At least they're quick about it.

One thing I've always appreciated about Root was the self-healing abilities of the land. Mine a quarry on Earth and a hundred years later the stone might be weathered but you still have a quarry. Here, root quakes rip open the land and it seals back up, scarred but back to pretty much the same contour. The hillsides undercut by root miners have already filled back in apart from a few mineshafts that had been shored up with spellcraft. Though the topography might have shifted, the hills are back looking pretty much like they had before the ark builders had come to the hollow.

The damage the killfire does, however, is pretty much irrepairable. It burned pretty deeply into the roots and those burnt parts are now inert and dead—impervious to any attempts at weaving. Those areas will stay burned for eternity or at least until they natural weather into the soil.

The debris the refugees left behind is also pretty permanent. Most of the best weavers in the realm had come here to queue up for the ark. The point of good weaving is to make things that don't come apart. So now I'm stuck with their ultra-stable trash. Muddy clothing. Shattered teacups and dinner plates. Stuffed animals. Dildos. Bedding. Tents. Furniture. You name it.

I spend my days up collecting trash, heaping it up and burning it. It seems a shame that I can't recycle it back into roots. Some of it reverts with a little effort but most of this weaving is top notch, I tell you. Most of this rubbish would retain its form long after my own flesh had reverted to roots, if not for my burning.

Normal fire now seems so quaint and harmless compared to the killfire that had ravaged this place. The hollow was mostly spared, but not so the ridges and foothills surrounding me. Every speck of plant life had been incinerated and the top soil and seed bank as well. I kind of doubt anything will be sprouting after the rains start up again. I have half a mind to weave up some fake greenery just for looks.

But first, I need me a house. Rainy season will be here soon so I've been laying a foundation. It's nice not to have to actually dig. I just compress and collapse the viable roots that still underlay everything and voila! I have a hole in the ground. I'm still working on foundation walls and the subflooring but once I have that, it's simply a matter of marching enough roots out from the quarries to complete the structure.

That's another trick I learned from the master weavers. You don't actually have to transport roots. You can make them crawl to wherever you want them. I mean, you can actually magic them to leave the quarries and creep to wherever you want them to go and self-assemble. I have three separate trains of them now tracking from the mine shafts like ant trails to my construction site where they are in the process of building me a faux fieldstone foundation.