Queen of Their Colony (Kindred Tales)

“Well, what do you think?” Terra asked, as the three Monstrum gathered around her. “Should we stay or should we go?”

“That depends on if we believe the king’s information about the Chirrips that release poisonous spoors into the air at night,” Rive pointed out.

“What reason would he have to lie?” Terra asked.

“I think we should go anyway,” Tem said, frowning. “I really want to leave this world behind us!”

“After what we saw at dinner, I’d like to go, too,” Terra said. “But I don’t want to walk right into danger.”

“Why don’t we follow the path as far as we can and see if the king is telling the truth?” V’rone growled. “If we see a bunch of weird plants, we’ll wait here until the night time is over. If it’s only three hours, it shouldn’t make much difference.”

Everyone agreed this would be the best approach, though Rive pointed out they would have to be careful.

“For if they see us looking around, the king might take offense that we didn’t take him at his word,” he pointed out.

“If anyone asks, we’ll just say we’re looking for a good place to camp for the night,” V’rone said. “Besides, didn’t the king say a kind of torpor takes over them at night? They probably won’t even notice us.”

“I hope you’re right.” Tem still had a worried look on his face, Terra thought. It occurred to her that the blue Monstrum had been reluctant to stay in this world from the beginning.

“Hey, everything is going to be okay,” she said, dropping back to squeeze his arm. “We’ll be on to the next world before you know it.”

Tem looked down at her and it struck Terra how ridiculous it must seem for her to be comforting a seven-foot-tall Monstrum warrior. But the Soul of the colony seemed to appreciate it, because he said,

“Thank you, my Lady. I don’t know why this world gives me such a feeling of unease, but I wish to be gone from it.”

“We will be, soon,” Terra promised, smiling up at him.

Tem smiled back and looked a little more at ease.

“Come on, let’s get going,” V’rone growled. “We’ve got some serious territory to cover if the Chirums turn out to be a lie.”

“Chirrips,” Rive corrected him. “But you’re right—let’s hope we can leave this world tonight.”

Terra hoped so too. Maybe it was talking to Tem, but the blue Monstrum’s feeling about the world of giant daisy people seemed to be catching.

She just wanted to get out of here.

THIRTY-TWO

But there was no leaving that night.

They followed the golden, glowing path past the resting area of the giant daisies and down a long rolling hill to a kind of valley. The path continued through the valley, but it was filled with the most enormous mushrooms Terra had ever seen.

The mushrooms had thick, woody stems as big around as large tree trunks and their caps were bright red with large blue spots. Terra, who had taken a class in foraging wild mushrooms as part of a Biology in Nature course in college, thought they looked extremely poisonous.

Not that she would attempt to eat any of these—their caps came up past her head so that, if she were to walk into the valley of mushrooms, it would be like walking under a lot of large, fleshy umbrellas.

The three Monstrum, being considerably taller, had their faces just at the level of the mushroom caps. If they tried to get through, their broad shoulders would doubtless brush against them, because the mushrooms were so big and spaced so closely together.

“These must be the Chirrips,” Rive murmured. “I must say, I don’t like the look of them.”

“I don’t either—they definitely look poisonous,” Terra agreed.

“Should we put it to the test?” Reaching out, V’rone poked one of the caps with a single finger.

At first nothing happened, but then a small cloud of brown dust puffed out of the place the big Monstrum had poked. It coated V’rone’s hand, which he drew back quickly with a curse.

“Wait—don’t wipe it off yet. Let me test it!” Rive exclaimed, when the other Monstrum bent to wipe his hand on the short green grass. He ran the poison finder over V’rone’s hand and frowned at the result.

“Well?” V’rone growled. He was still holding his hand out from his body, as though he’d touched something unclean. “What’s the fucking verdict? Am I gonna die?”

“No, of course not,” Rive said absently. He was still frowning at his poison indicator, which was showing a yellow light. “According to this, the spoors aren’t actually poisonous, though they are toxic.”

“What? What’s the difference?” Tem demanded.

“A toxic substance of this variety won’t kill you, though it will impair your judgment to a certain degree,” Rive told him. “These spoors might act as an intoxicant—they might even have a hallucinogenic effect. It’s difficult to say without proper equipment to study their molecular structure.”