H A Z E

by Bandy

Chapter 32

“Believe me, I’m just as concerned as you are,” Romulus said, more annoyed this time. He and Flannel double-timed it through the long corridors of the estate. Flannel kept his head down to avoid the stoney looks of the passing guards and dignitaries.

“I know, but, sir, respectfully, however concerned you are now, you should dial it up just a little bit more.” Flannel wanted to rap his hoof on the floor for emphasis, but at this speed he’d probably trip. “Hypha was foaming at the mouth. His eyes were rolled up. It was like he had a seizure or something.” A lump formed in his throat. “I thought the senator killed him. Poisoned him or kicked him to death or something.”

“Okay, I hear you. I’ll see what I can do about distracting the senator should he come around again.”

“Hypha said he’s coming back in a month, and if we don’t have a whole harvest by then he’s gonna do something awful to him. And, uh. Probably me too. I think that bit was implied.”

“He’s not going to hurt you. Either of you. I won’t let him.” The general’s voice was solid as a shield. Flannel desperately wanted to believe it could protect him.

“Sir? What’s gonna happen in a month?”

Romulus’s eyes grew distant. His hoof drew back. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with.”

They found Hypha right where Flannel had left him. The foam was gone from the sides of his mouth. His eyes looked distant but otherwise fine. A deep purple bruise covered his chest.

Romulus knelt beside Hypha. “He’s gone. You’re safe now.” His voice was surprisingly gentle. Fatherly. “He surprised us. I’m sorry.”

Hypha nodded. His lips stayed sealed.

“I’m gonna pick you up and carry you to the infirmary now. Is that okay?”

“No,” Hypha blurted, “I can’t leave. I gotta protect them.”

“He’s not coming back anytime soon.”

Hypha’s hooves dug into Romulus’s fur. “He will.”

Romulus attempted to pick Hypha up, but Hypha wormed his way out of the general’s grasp and fled to the other side of the room. He ducked behind a stone, peering out from it like a child playing hide and seek.

“Fine.” Romulus put up his hooves in surrender. “Stay.” He turned to Flannel. “Come directly to me if he needs help. Don’t talk to aides. Aides talk.” Romulus turned to leave, but stopped short. “Can you show me which of the stones was showing promise?”

Flannel’s eyes flashed to Hypha. Cat’s out of the bag now. He knew this was bound to happen. But it was for the best. This was what needed to happen. Hypha just didn’t get it. This was his chance to be a hero for a change.

He pointed to the last stone in the lineup. “Back there, sir. It’s—”

Flannel froze. The stone was bare. The mushrooms were gone.

Romulus walked over to the stone to examine it more closely. Across the room, Hypha shifted, keeping his rock between himself and Romulus.

“I can’t tell this one apart from the others,” Romulus said. “How do you know this one’s got potential?”

“Uh.” Flannel scrambled for an expedient lie. “It’s the PH of the soil. It’s showing signs of mycelial growth. We can’t see it with our eyes yet, but it’s there.”

Romulus leaned down until his nose almost touched the dirt. “Good.” He stood up abruptly and made for the door. “Keep me updated. Remember, don’t talk about this to anyone. Come directly to me with any updates.”

Flannel nodded. Romulus’s retreating hoofsteps left a vacuous silence in the air. Flannel felt the tension on his chest build bit by bit, until it was all he could do to contain himself. He bit the inside of his cheek hard until the shape of Romulus disappeared behind the layers of plastic tarp.

Flannel whirled around to face Hypha. “Where are they?”

Hypha flinched. He ducked behind the stone.

“Where are they?” Flannel said again. He marched up to Hypha and only barely stopped himself from hitting him. “What did you do with them?”

“They’re safe,” Hypha murmured.

“What’s that mean? Where’d you put ‘em?” Hypha shrank away and curled himself up into a ball. Anger took hold. Flannel stooped over Hypha and shouted in his ear, “It’s not just you that’s gonna get messed up if we fail. I’m out here too.” Hypha didn’t respond. “Hello? Anyone home? Gods in hell, I should just go back to landscaping.”

“Quit then,” Hypha said softly. “See if he’d let you leave.”

“I’m not—” Flannel stomped his hoof on the floor. “That’s the last thing we need.”

“I agree. We need to keep our heads down.”

“No, that’s not—rrrgh. I don’t mean that, either. There’s politickin’ in the air, and we’re liable to get caught in the middle if we don’t play this right. We gotta tell him.”

The anger passed from Flannel without warning, like the sudden end of a strong prairie storm. He took a deep breath in and let it out through his nose. The whole place smelled earthy and garlicky, with just a hint of sulfur on the back end. The ambient hum of the light crystals made his ears twitch.

“I know you’re scared,” Flannel said. “I’m scared too. It feels like back when I was little, and everyone was sayin’ the griffons were about to rebel. No one thought they’d actually do it. But there was this feeling in the air, like... like...” He blinked heavily. “Nevermind. We know how to grow them now. We should get the rest of the stones ready.”

Slowly, wincing, Hypha stood up. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“What do you think they’ll do with us once we’ve shown them how to grow mother sky?”

That made Flannel stop short. “Uh. They’ll have us mass produce them. They need a lot.”

“Do you think they’ll accept that level of liability?”

Flannel snorted and started towards the supply cabinet. There was a great deal of work to be done today, and based on how slowly Hypha was moving, the lion’s share was gonna fall on him. “I’m not a liability,” he muttered.

---

By evening, all forty eight stones had been prepped and seeded. Flannel fell asleep before his head hit the pillow.

In his dreams, he saw the destruction of his village played out in shadows on the walls of his memory. A pony became a building, then the building burst into flames, then it was a pony again, rolling on the ground as the flames consumed them. He heard the voice of his mother crying out for him.

He jerked awake. It was night outside. He was in his quarters, panting, caked with sweat, but safe. Still, the smell of smoke choked his nostrils, lingering even as the last tendrils of sleep unwove themselves from his body.

“You’re okay,” he whispered to himself. “You’re fine. It’s—” He coughed. “You’re...”

He sniffed the air again and gagged. That smell definitely wasn’t part of the dream. Something was burning. He immediately thought, How does a city made of clouds burn?

Then he realized what fire in a cloud city meant. He bolted out of bed.

Normal nighttime light came through the cloudstone as a dim, star speckled blue. As he raced towards the terrarium, the walls shifted to an angry red. Though he couldn’t hear the telltale crackle and hiss, he saw the light flickering like rattlesnakes spooling up their tails. His heart sank as the colors deepend. For it to come through the walls so vividly, it had to be a doozy of a blaze.

He rounded the final corner, and the heat and sound hit him all at once. It wasn’t one object in the terrarium that was ablaze, but the entire room itself. A singular swath of flame feasted on the piles of curios and priceless artifacts, reaching towards the ceiling, warping the glass roof. One of the panels exploded, sending shards of molten glass raining down to the floor.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow move against the flow of the others. He whirled around and saw Hypha racing out of the reach of the flames. He wore a damp rag over his face.

When he saw Flannel, he pulled the rag down and waved. “Couldn’t sleep?”

The smell, the flames, the nonchalant smile on Hypha’s face—Flannel couldn’t wrap his head around any of it. “What happened?” he shouted over the roar.

Hypha pointed to the conflagration. “There’s a fire.”

“No kidding. Let’s get the guards.”

“No.”

“No?”

“Flannel, I wanted to speak to you about earlier.”

Another glass roof panel shattered. “Does it have to be right this minute?”

“Flannel, I owe you an apology.”

“An apology for what?”

“When we were arguing earlier, I implied you were a liability. But I shouldn’t have said that. You’re not a liability. You’re my friend, and you’re a great farmer. I’m sorry.”

Hypha pressed a drawstring bag into Flannel’s hooves. He looked inside and found the first mushroom harvest from the microplot.

“Those are yours.,” Hypha said. “You grew them. You earned them.”

One of the water barrels bowed outwards and burst like a carcass in the hot summer sun. The flames hissed and reared back where the water gurgled out, then roared back once it evaporated. Flannel flinched. Hypha didn’t seem to notice.

“Okay, sure,” Flannel said, “apology accepted. Now c’mon, we gotta put this out.”

“We can’t. It’s too far gone.”

“Yeah, I can see that. But we gotta do something, otherwise they’ll think we—” Flannel froze as the pieces finally snapped together. “You.”

“Don’t be upset. Please. This is all part of the process.”

“You’re gonna get us killed! This is the general’s estate. This is his stuff.”

“If he read the last report I submitted, he’ll also know the crystal UV lights we’ve been using are showing signs of premature aging. If one of them were to blow out, the whole place could go up.”

The estate rumbled underhoof. Through the glare and the smoke, Flannel caught sight of the cloudstone floor panels disintegrating in the heat. He had no idea cloudstone could do that. He’d never seen a fire of this magnitude in Derecho before.

“Why?” Flannel asked. By now the fire was so loud he had to shout.

“I’m making us indispensable,” Hypha replied.

As Flannel watched in horror, Hypha picked up the bag of mushrooms the general had stolen from out east. A sad smile crossed his face. He heaved them into the fire.

Flannel leapt after them, but he was too slow. The bag went up. Flannel half-expected spirits to burst out, but the bag merely burned like everything else.The mushrooms were reduced to shadows of ash rising into the air.

Another massive cloudstone floor tile disintegrated. Then the one next to it. Then the next six went up in a chain reaction of pops and hisses and groans. The whole estate shook like it was about to explode.

Flannel had barely enough time to grab hypha and gallop out of the terrarium. The room gave one final shudder as the final layer of supporting cloudstone collapsed, and the stones, the workbenches, the cabinets, the molten glass, and the skeletal remains of all their working materials fell through the floor.

The debris fell like a meteor towards the unsuspecting caravan sleeping beneath the city.

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

Eating the fruit of the mountain is said to give earth ponies super strength, future sight, and the ability to fly.

What happens if a Unicorn/alicorn/Pegasus eats it?

[SirCarrot]

Unexpected consequences to come…

[hehelover]

Hypha finally learned to scheme! Hooray!