The Glaciermen #16: Mycelium

Early access prepublication manuscripts of "The Glaciermen"

It’s Wednesday, my dear readers!

Apologies for the day-late posting of this next section. I held off an extra day so as to give you more satisfying chunk of writing. As much as a try—which varies significantly based on how much discipline I can muster—I haven’t managed to get a backlog of these written so as to keep to the Tuesday release schedule. I won’t stop trying, or trying to try. (Or doing, for the there-is-no-try fans out there).

Well, let’s get into it, shall we…

(Link to previous segment if you missed it, and a link to the beginning, if you’re new).

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Mycelium

Lee gingerly placed his foot onto the first step of the stone stairway climbing the side of the chasm. He shifted the yolk on his shoulders, sucking in an involuntary breath it pressed against the bandages around his chest and back. The pain had been manageable lately, but whenever something jostled the wraps it caused spiderwebs of stinging pain as the rough cloth rubbed against the sensitive pink tissue of his freshly forming scars.

The initial excitement of the Claiming had worn off within the first agonizing day of his recovery. He had been once again relegated to the bed mat in the back of Aguta’s chambers, subject to the same daily ritual of food, rest, and language lessons. On the tenth day, the illness in his lungs had returned as well, extending his stay by a few weeks as his body struggled to heal and fight the disease at the same time. The one relief was that Aguta had been more open to Lee’s questions, even if his answers were usually unsatisfactory.

Lee pulled his attention back to the task at hand. A jar of seal oil hung from each end of the yolk. They swung haphazardly whenever he walked, and he still could not figure out how to get the rhythm right so they weren’t fighting him with every step across the uneven stone and shifting pebbles of the chasm floor. And the stairway was the worst. He had to pause every few paces to let them settle their swinging so they would not disrupt his balance and send him tumbling down the side.

The boy sighed and took another step, careful to keep the yolk stable to minimize any swinging. Another step and he had to pause again to let the swinging of the jars settle down. 

Servants, Lee thought, taking another step. That was the word Aguta had used to describe the relationship between the sikanuk and the tunlaq. Lee was beginning to realize what that really meant–hard labor. Not that he had seen any tunlaq since waking up that first time in Aguta’s chambers.

“Hey Paleface!” 

Lee looked up from his next step toward the voice coming from higher on the stairs. Lee cursed under his breath. Only one person called him that name anyway, but he was still hoping it might be someone else.

“Having fun doing the work of a woman?” 

It was Nantuk, the son of Muktuk the fisherman. He was a year or so older than Lee, but scrawny, with a curling smile full of brown teeth and a whiny voice. Lee was hoping to avoid a confrontation.c

“Just pulling my weight,” he replied in a flat voice, then added, “For the Bargain.”

Nantuk sneered at the answer and began strutting down toward Lee. 

“Bet you wish you could come out with the men and fish, maybe even hunt a seal?”

Lee desperately wanted to go on a hunt, and while he knew the prospect was nearly impossible, hope still showed through the blank mask he was trying to keep on his face.

“Ha! Paleface wants to hunt a seal. Sorry—real men only. No weak outsiders allowed. Anyway, my father and I are going out to stick us a fat one later. Enjoy carrying it up the stairs for us when we come back. Now get out of my way!”

Lee held his tongue and turned to give the older boy space to walk past. Nantuk trundled down the stairway, trailing an air of superiority as thick as smoke. 

“Oops!” he said as he passed by, faking a stumble and shoving Lee against the wall of the chasm, spilling some of the oil from the jars onto the stone.

Nantuk sniggered to himself, skipping down the rest of the stairs to dash off toward the tents of the village. Pain seared across Lee’s scars and hot anger burned in his chest, but once again he held back. Nantuk's father, Muktuk, held sway with the rest of the village, and Aguta had made it abundantly clear he would not tolerate Lee causing any more discord. It had been hard enough as it was to convince the elders to let Lee stay.

Several frustrating minutes later, Lee reached the first landing of the stairway. He paused for a moment to catch his breath, then stepped toward the carved entryway in the rock face. He brushed aside the animal hide flap serving as a door and entered the gloomy chamber behind.

“There you are, Tigua. What took so long?”

It was Lusa, the first woman Lee had seen since leaving Sandy’s frozen corpse back in the pit. There were many of them here, actually, but they stayed mostly out of sight, carrying out necessary tasks deemed unmanly, laboring inside the tents and carved chambers of the chasm. Unlike the men, who sported just their loincloths and moccasins, the women wore more modest coverings spanning from shoulder to knee.

Lusa looked much like the rest, with a plain face and long, black hair which was usually braided and hanging down her back. Lee couldn’t remember seeing it any other way. She was old, at least as old as Lee’s grandmother, and her skin carried the wrinkled tracks of many years of squinting. She was stern like Aguta, and was quick to make sure Lee was not slacking in his duties, but she was fair and never mistreated him for being an outsider. Lee liked her.

“I asked you a question, Tigua.”

Tigua, that’s what everyone called him now, excluding that pissant Nantuk. Even now, the name felt strange to Lee’s ear. It was short for Tigua’ak, adopted one. Lee supposed everyone dropped the last syllable out of laziness, but he didn’t mind. It was easier that way. A gentle smack to the back of Lee’s head brought him out of his reverie. 

“Get the rocks out of your ears boy!” Lusa chided, “And why aren’t these jars all the way full. Have you been spilling again?”

“Sorry,” Lee said, “I bumped into Nantuk on—”

“I don’t want your excuses, and don’t be spilling next time. Now get in there and refill the oil. The godsight won’t feed itself.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Lee took a patch of cloth from his belt and tied it around his mouth. Then he freed one of the jars from the yolk and hefted it into the crook of his elbow. He walked to the far end of the room and used his free hand to pull aside the flap to the deeper chamber. As many times as he done this in the past weeks, Lee was still not used to it yet.

The moist air within the chamber clung to his skin and filled his lungs with sticky thickness, but the smell was the worst part—an acrid, metallic scent that kept Lee on the edge of nausea despite repeated exposure. No matter how much he scrubbed in the lake afterwards, somehow the smell managed to linger on his skin.

A thick layer of fungal mycelium covered the walls, ceiling, and most of the floor of the chamber. Here and there a mushroom cap protruded. A cleared walkway led into the center of the space where a cauldron simmered above an intricate ring of perforated ceramic channels. A dancing tongue of flame sprouted from each hole. It reminded Lee of his grandmother’s gas stovetop, but much larger. According to Lusa, the cauldron contained a concoction of water, seal blood, and various herbs. The steam from the simmering liquid filled the air and condensed on any available surface. The spongy layers of fungus greedily soaked it in.

A few feet from the cauldron was a reservoir of oil which fed into the burner. Lee carefully emptied the jar of seal oil into its top. A spill was risky, as a stray splash might touch the burner and spread to the reservoir, engulfing the room in a whoosh of fire. It had happened years ago to one of the women in the village, burning her severely and leaving her skin permanently deformed.

Lee stepped out of the chamber briefly to swap the empty jar for the remaining filled one—and just as importantly—to take a few deep breaths of the fresher air. He returned to the chamber and began pouring it into the reservoir. Halfway through, with the pungent smell thick in his throat, Lee felt a heaviness in his stomach and had to stifle a gag. An involuntary twitch in his abdomen made his shudder, causing the stream of pouring oil to wobble dangerously close to the edge of the reservoir. 

No spills. Lee reminded himself, thinking of the burned old woman. 

He set the jar down and wiped his forehead. Another gag forced its way into his throat.  Lee tried to swallow and force the feeling away, but it didn’t work. He felt the fish and gruel paste of his breakfast churning in his stomach.

He was going to vomit. 

Lee stumped toward the exit of the chamber, but the nausea was overwhelming, and he veered off to the side of the entryway. A painful convulsion twisted his guts, so he put his hand on the wall to support himself as bent over to empty the contents of his stomach onto the hungry mycelium on the chamber floor.

Once there was nothing left to expunge, Lee stood back up, alternating between spitting and taking deep breaths. He moved to wipe his forehead again, then stopped. In front of him on the wall, where he had braced himself, his hand had left an impression in the fungus. A viscous liquid was beginning to ooze out from the mycelium where it had been crushed under the weight of this hand. 

“Uh oh.”

Lee stared at the ooze as it began to glow an iridescent blue in the perfect impression of his palm and fingers. He turned to get back on the cleared path, then stopped again. His footprints, where he had stepped off the path onto the mycelium on the floor, also radiated a blue light. 

The boy carefully hopped back onto the path, finished emptying the oil jar into the reservoir, then exited the chamber with the best unreadable expression he could manage.

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And that’s it for now folks

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