The First Sacrifice
The forest screamed in the sweltering early evening mug of the Mycelial Jungles.
All around the chirping, humming, thrumming, cheeping, hooting and buzzing of countless creatures all fighting to survive in this nightmarish hellscape sounded off; a cacophony of orderless life sustaining itself even here.
Trees hundreds of feet tall stood surrounded by the ocean; the warm, salty breeze surprisingly dry today. A Meranti tree stood tall and glorious over the rest of the canopy; just over three hundred feet tall, swaying gently in the coastal wind.
Atop it a woman stood; statuesque and beautiful with hair that flowed outward in the breeze and gave her a look of regality as the tiny branch under her somehow held strong while she stared out toward the sea. Her eyes touched a village along the coast; a pitiful community of less than a thousand who had summoned her as a last resort to avoid death at the hands of the very jungle they had once intended to colonize.
She had done what they had asked of her… she saved them and made the land they had tried to settle their own…
But that was it.
That was all she would do for them. As for her price…
The line was drawn.
They got the land that she had marked out for them.
She got the rest.
Not only would they survive... but they would need no longer fear the Jungle...
For it now belonged to her and, so long as they honored their end of the deal, they would finally live in peace. And it had been a steady year and a half since then.
She had journeyed into the jungles, assimilated many square miles of infected forest, discovered the many flawed infected and made them into her thralls; mindless, formerly human shells in need of direction.
She was more than capable of giving that to them. And then she found it…
Cardikest!
The capital of a civilization that died before humanity had ever been born!!
And now she was its sole inheritor!!! For a time it was fruitful, productive and even hopeful.
New buildings were excavated by her thralls every day!
Grand halls and warehouses were uncovered and emptied of their contents for inventory!
Old looms were found, old designs located and new clothes fashioned from memories of the past!
All around her the civilization of old was propping up her newfound kingdom! But, in due time, fighting the ever adapting jungle grew tiring.
Even excavating more of Cardikest herself grew tedious and boring.
The Hive Mind she had managed to pull together was quiet and simple minded…
… And Lonely… More and more, these days, she found herself leaving the safety of her throne and journeying back from whence she arrived. The little people, far outside of an average human’s sight, scurried around the community.
They had gotten another ship to come in and already there was some fancy lordling strutting about and waving his sword like an idiot.
She sighed at the futility of it all.
For now she let them live… but the moment they decided to cross the line with that sword the deal would be off… For a moment she pitied them.
She was like them once; primitive and uneducated.
In time, perhaps, they would learn to embrace her ways… as she and her kind learned to embrace His. A small figure near the line caught her attention, a border guard’s eyes seeing a young woman stumbling toward the border; a small lump in her arms as she crossed the threshold.
The thralls drooled in waiting but a gesture of her hand simply cast them away from the girl.
Another offering of tribute, perhaps?
She was always willing to accept such things, even if she didn’t need them. Perhaps this was another bowl of rice cakes.
Maybe they’d prepared a nice pig for her again… a particularly healthy piglet was about the size of what the young woman was carrying.
Or perhaps a small barrel of sake; a rare but not unknown treat that they’d presented her with a couple times on festival days.
So seldom did she bother to meet the tribute bringers but today… today she would at least go to the offering place and see what this girl was providing. The girl’s pace was frantic; stumbling and tripping often but never falling.
She leaned against the occasional tree and rested from time to time but never sat.
And, all the while, she cried; sobbing into the quiet little bundle in her arms. Every time the grass creeped toward her bare, bruised feet Linta stopped it.
Every time the thralls got hungry Linta turned them back.
Every creeping vine that wanted to punish her for her idleness Linta restrained.
Curiosity drove the monarch.
What DID the girl hold? Moments turned to hours.
Finally the girl reached the Offering Stone.
She sat on it briefly and caught her breath, slowly shrugging off a shoulder of her fine outfit… a noble girl with long, wide sleeves.
Ever so gently she peeled the cloth back from the bundle and revealed a fussing infant; reaching up in the light of the clearing and grimacing.
The Monarch’s Eyes widened as the young mother began to nurse her helpless baby. For a time the woman considered stepping out.
Nobody had ever come to the Offering Stones bearing… a child.
All the while the girl sobbed over the baby… apologizing, kissing it on the forehead, praying, looking around fearfully.
"Please." She spoke into the jungle, "Please… I’ve brought you an offering…" She appeared behind the young mother like a flutter of the wind, looking down upon her from the other side of The Offering Stone like a looming statue, her finest silks billowing in the gentle coastal breeze of the jungle.
Before the girl could notice her she spoke.
“You are aware of what you are doing?” The girl jumped in place, turning and staring at the Monarch.
“Please Forgive Me!” She blurted out, holding the now sleeping newborn up,
“Please… my father… He told me to kill the child!
It would bring dishonor on our family!
He has demanded it!
And if I do not obey he will send me back to the islands to live with my aunt…
She hates me so and he will kill the child anyway even if I don’t do what he says!”
She slid forward across the Offering Stone on her knees toward Linta, begging…
“Please Take Him!
I Beg You, Please Forgive Me!
I Am Too Weak!!!” For a moment… too long, really… Linta stared down at her as she bowed her head in shame… in grief.
“You do not need to return to them.” She told her simply.
The girl dared to look up at her.
“You do not need to abandon your child…” “I… I have to!” the young woman cried out.
Linta looked her up and down; a young woman perhaps no older than sixteen… a teen no doubt impregnated in an act of passion.
For a moment the Monarch wondered what had become of her lover.
“Please! My Father will kill the child anyway! Please! I Cannot Go Back Without–” “You needn’t go back at all.” Linta cut her off blandly, silencing her instantly.
Again there was nothing for a time; just the screaming din of the jungle around them and the sight of a confused, desperate young woman barely of age even by her own culture holding a sleeping newborn with milk still on his lips. “What… What do you mean?” The new mother asked suddenly. “What have they to offer you if you return?” She heard herself ask the young mother… almost as He once had asked others,
"Would you simply forget this?” “Wha… I… No, I–” “You needn’t return to them after leaving like this.” “But… My father… My clothes and house… my family—” The girl stammered, looking around in a bit of a panic “What good is a family who would kill their own…?” Linta asked quickly… but calmly.
“You would be like them…” She let the girl know, looking her in the eyes,
“You would be like your father.” The girl’s eyes welled up all the more and she sniffed loudly, sobbing and leaning forward as the Monarch caught her.
“I’m Sorry!” She bawled,
“I’m Sorry! Please Forgive Me! I Don’t Know What To Do!”
She wailed into the tropical evening, her snot and drool and tears mixing at her chin into a vile monstrosity of mucus and slime that Linta had the grace to wipe clean as the girl cried into her chest. And, once again, there was no talking between them for a time.
The baby stayed warm in the girl’s arms as she cried into the ancient cloth wrapped around her by the monarch
She knew all too well… this girl was also alone… encouraged to be even more alone.
Nobody should have to feel that… “Come with me.” She told the mother.
“Your child will be safe… and you with him.” She said, letting go and stepping back.
“Your father cannot come into the jungle.
He will never hurt your son.
He will never reach you… but you and you alone must make this decision.” She stepped to the edge of the clearing, looming in the shadow-line of the trees.
Her hand reached out into the light, the rest of her body in the jungle’s shadow.
“Leave the child and go back to your father to be as he wants you to… to be as he is…
Or come into the unknown with me… Join My Colony.
Your son will be safe no matter what happens… but the choice you make now is for yourself alone…”
The girl stared at the hand piercing into the light… slowly drifting back into the darkness and threatening to leave her as the evening began to turn into night. Moments later the Offering Stone's Clearing was empty… alone in the night.
The young woman’s family crest was all that lay upon the great stone slab to betray her visit.
… It was the one thing Linta had asked her to leave. Where they were going there were no clans.
There was only one family… one colony.
And it would never stop growing.
All around the chirping, humming, thrumming, cheeping, hooting and buzzing of countless creatures all fighting to survive in this nightmarish hellscape sounded off; a cacophony of orderless life sustaining itself even here.
Trees hundreds of feet tall stood surrounded by the ocean; the warm, salty breeze surprisingly dry today. A Meranti tree stood tall and glorious over the rest of the canopy; just over three hundred feet tall, swaying gently in the coastal wind.
Atop it a woman stood; statuesque and beautiful with hair that flowed outward in the breeze and gave her a look of regality as the tiny branch under her somehow held strong while she stared out toward the sea. Her eyes touched a village along the coast; a pitiful community of less than a thousand who had summoned her as a last resort to avoid death at the hands of the very jungle they had once intended to colonize.
She had done what they had asked of her… she saved them and made the land they had tried to settle their own…
But that was it.
That was all she would do for them. As for her price…
The line was drawn.
They got the land that she had marked out for them.
She got the rest.
Not only would they survive... but they would need no longer fear the Jungle...
For it now belonged to her and, so long as they honored their end of the deal, they would finally live in peace. And it had been a steady year and a half since then.
She had journeyed into the jungles, assimilated many square miles of infected forest, discovered the many flawed infected and made them into her thralls; mindless, formerly human shells in need of direction.
She was more than capable of giving that to them. And then she found it…
Cardikest!
The capital of a civilization that died before humanity had ever been born!!
And now she was its sole inheritor!!! For a time it was fruitful, productive and even hopeful.
New buildings were excavated by her thralls every day!
Grand halls and warehouses were uncovered and emptied of their contents for inventory!
Old looms were found, old designs located and new clothes fashioned from memories of the past!
All around her the civilization of old was propping up her newfound kingdom! But, in due time, fighting the ever adapting jungle grew tiring.
Even excavating more of Cardikest herself grew tedious and boring.
The Hive Mind she had managed to pull together was quiet and simple minded…
… And Lonely… More and more, these days, she found herself leaving the safety of her throne and journeying back from whence she arrived. The little people, far outside of an average human’s sight, scurried around the community.
They had gotten another ship to come in and already there was some fancy lordling strutting about and waving his sword like an idiot.
She sighed at the futility of it all.
For now she let them live… but the moment they decided to cross the line with that sword the deal would be off… For a moment she pitied them.
She was like them once; primitive and uneducated.
In time, perhaps, they would learn to embrace her ways… as she and her kind learned to embrace His. A small figure near the line caught her attention, a border guard’s eyes seeing a young woman stumbling toward the border; a small lump in her arms as she crossed the threshold.
The thralls drooled in waiting but a gesture of her hand simply cast them away from the girl.
Another offering of tribute, perhaps?
She was always willing to accept such things, even if she didn’t need them. Perhaps this was another bowl of rice cakes.
Maybe they’d prepared a nice pig for her again… a particularly healthy piglet was about the size of what the young woman was carrying.
Or perhaps a small barrel of sake; a rare but not unknown treat that they’d presented her with a couple times on festival days.
So seldom did she bother to meet the tribute bringers but today… today she would at least go to the offering place and see what this girl was providing. The girl’s pace was frantic; stumbling and tripping often but never falling.
She leaned against the occasional tree and rested from time to time but never sat.
And, all the while, she cried; sobbing into the quiet little bundle in her arms. Every time the grass creeped toward her bare, bruised feet Linta stopped it.
Every time the thralls got hungry Linta turned them back.
Every creeping vine that wanted to punish her for her idleness Linta restrained.
Curiosity drove the monarch.
What DID the girl hold? Moments turned to hours.
Finally the girl reached the Offering Stone.
She sat on it briefly and caught her breath, slowly shrugging off a shoulder of her fine outfit… a noble girl with long, wide sleeves.
Ever so gently she peeled the cloth back from the bundle and revealed a fussing infant; reaching up in the light of the clearing and grimacing.
The Monarch’s Eyes widened as the young mother began to nurse her helpless baby. For a time the woman considered stepping out.
Nobody had ever come to the Offering Stones bearing… a child.
All the while the girl sobbed over the baby… apologizing, kissing it on the forehead, praying, looking around fearfully.
"Please." She spoke into the jungle, "Please… I’ve brought you an offering…" She appeared behind the young mother like a flutter of the wind, looking down upon her from the other side of The Offering Stone like a looming statue, her finest silks billowing in the gentle coastal breeze of the jungle.
Before the girl could notice her she spoke.
“You are aware of what you are doing?” The girl jumped in place, turning and staring at the Monarch.
“Please Forgive Me!” She blurted out, holding the now sleeping newborn up,
“Please… my father… He told me to kill the child!
It would bring dishonor on our family!
He has demanded it!
And if I do not obey he will send me back to the islands to live with my aunt…
She hates me so and he will kill the child anyway even if I don’t do what he says!”
She slid forward across the Offering Stone on her knees toward Linta, begging…
“Please Take Him!
I Beg You, Please Forgive Me!
I Am Too Weak!!!” For a moment… too long, really… Linta stared down at her as she bowed her head in shame… in grief.
“You do not need to return to them.” She told her simply.
The girl dared to look up at her.
“You do not need to abandon your child…” “I… I have to!” the young woman cried out.
Linta looked her up and down; a young woman perhaps no older than sixteen… a teen no doubt impregnated in an act of passion.
For a moment the Monarch wondered what had become of her lover.
“Please! My Father will kill the child anyway! Please! I Cannot Go Back Without–” “You needn’t go back at all.” Linta cut her off blandly, silencing her instantly.
Again there was nothing for a time; just the screaming din of the jungle around them and the sight of a confused, desperate young woman barely of age even by her own culture holding a sleeping newborn with milk still on his lips. “What… What do you mean?” The new mother asked suddenly. “What have they to offer you if you return?” She heard herself ask the young mother… almost as He once had asked others,
"Would you simply forget this?” “Wha… I… No, I–” “You needn’t return to them after leaving like this.” “But… My father… My clothes and house… my family—” The girl stammered, looking around in a bit of a panic “What good is a family who would kill their own…?” Linta asked quickly… but calmly.
“You would be like them…” She let the girl know, looking her in the eyes,
“You would be like your father.” The girl’s eyes welled up all the more and she sniffed loudly, sobbing and leaning forward as the Monarch caught her.
“I’m Sorry!” She bawled,
“I’m Sorry! Please Forgive Me! I Don’t Know What To Do!”
She wailed into the tropical evening, her snot and drool and tears mixing at her chin into a vile monstrosity of mucus and slime that Linta had the grace to wipe clean as the girl cried into her chest. And, once again, there was no talking between them for a time.
The baby stayed warm in the girl’s arms as she cried into the ancient cloth wrapped around her by the monarch
She knew all too well… this girl was also alone… encouraged to be even more alone.
Nobody should have to feel that… “Come with me.” She told the mother.
“Your child will be safe… and you with him.” She said, letting go and stepping back.
“Your father cannot come into the jungle.
He will never hurt your son.
He will never reach you… but you and you alone must make this decision.” She stepped to the edge of the clearing, looming in the shadow-line of the trees.
Her hand reached out into the light, the rest of her body in the jungle’s shadow.
“Leave the child and go back to your father to be as he wants you to… to be as he is…
Or come into the unknown with me… Join My Colony.
Your son will be safe no matter what happens… but the choice you make now is for yourself alone…”
The girl stared at the hand piercing into the light… slowly drifting back into the darkness and threatening to leave her as the evening began to turn into night. Moments later the Offering Stone's Clearing was empty… alone in the night.
The young woman’s family crest was all that lay upon the great stone slab to betray her visit.
… It was the one thing Linta had asked her to leave. Where they were going there were no clans.
There was only one family… one colony.
And it would never stop growing.
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