Queen in the Mud: Book 2, Chapter 8

// Author's Note: There has been one significant edit from the previous chapter (chapter 7) to make note of:

The final section of chapter 7, the part involving the alternate perspective from Mudpuppy, has been redacted and will be moved further towards the end of book two, where it fits better. I generally try to keep from making major edits like this, even on early access platforms like Patreon, but there's always a risk of something like this happening.

For those of you who have already read this redacted section, you can consider it a sneak peek for the latter half of book two.

Updates should be more frequent now. Apologies for my recent hiatus. //

Chapter 8

~ 256,523 years and 33 days ago ~

A sea of stars stretched out all around me in the vast emptiness of space. The endless expanse of constellations broke up the dark spaces between with glimmering lights and shining nebulas.

Weightless under the starlight, the machine flickered to life. Electric blood coursed under my metal skin. The frame-flickering lenses of my eyes refracted celestial lights from distant stars. My hair streamed out behind me into the void like the ion trails to a cosmic engine. I drew a breath, and my body shifted to the sound of gently groaning steel.

Fear was the furthest thing from my mind, floating alone in space like this; it was too surreal an experience for me to register it as anything other than a dream. I had always imagined space as being bleak and dark, but this place was full of crisp light and nebulous color. I exhaled, and my metal body creaked with the motion.

Something was watching me.

A brief pang of alarm shot through me, and the feeling of being watched immediately receded, as though a timid child had been scared away after their spying had been discovered.

My brief moment of fear subsided and curiosity took its place. This hidden observer was shy, not malicious.

The seconds stretched out as I stared out into the stars before me, but the dreamlike serenity from before didn’t return. Instead, the sight only made me feel well and truly alone.

Where had the observer gone? There was nothing but empty space here. Nothing, save for my metal body.

I felt bad for scaring the observer away, and gently called out to her. The electric radio waves of my voice spun out through the vacuum of space.

The feeling of being watched returned again, this time slowly, like a child peeking out from behind the curtains. I searched through the stars for the observer. I searched through luminous nebulae and past the titan’s winking eye of a neutron star pulsar. I sieved through the hyperdense core of a black hole supercluster and I peered into the hidden places that dark matter shadowed from the eyes of men. I searched, but I failed to find her.

She watched me curiously from her hidden place and realization dawned on me.

I stretched my consciousness out to hers and found a mind that was truly inhuman, something unfathomable and alien. A mind like woven fabric, draped across the minds of five others. She spoke, and her words etched themselves across my metal skin.

[Q4rxm%7 authorization granted.]

~ Present Day ~

I woke with a start and only barely managed to keep from letting out an alarmed scream at the sight of a canine skull staring down at me.

“Sib! You scared the crap out of me!” I pressed a hand to my chest. My heart was slamming, and a bone-rattling chill had settled itself over my skin. My breaths were shallow and my mind felt cloudy.

The bone slug ignored my outburst, her green eyes searching me over with the kind of single-mindedness that she normally reserved only for plants. “The hairy one sent for me. You were tossing and turning in your sleep. Bad dreams?”

“What? I’m not sure.” I couldn’t catch my breath. “No, I can’t remember.” I went to sit up, but Sib put a leather-gloved hand on my chest and gently pushed me back down.

“You have a fever. It’s likely just a cold, but you should rest in the back of the wagon today. Try to get some sleep, and here--” She paused in her signing to push a tangled lump of brownish-green leaves into my hands. “Chew on these. It’ll calm your symptoms. If you have any discomfort, let me know.”

“I’m fine, really.” I lied, and rather unconvincingly at that, given the shallow-breathed weakness in my voice. After what had happened the other day, it was more important I was awake and aware. “I should go up front with Thaddius. There could be more bandits.”

Sib’s skull mask rattled hollowly as she shook her head. “I don’t believe you have anything to worry about. If there is another incident, the hairy one can handle it.”

“I don’t know about that. Thaddius seemed pretty dead set on killing those bandits before.”

She inclined her head to the side slightly, in a look of consideration. “Is that what you think? Perhaps I’m mistaken, but I was under the impression that your swordsman could move a great deal faster than was displayed in our previous altercation.”

“What do you mean?”

“I believe that if he had meant to, he could have executed that bandit leader and been halfway through the rest of that ragtag group of derelicts before you had a chance to raise a word of protest.”

I propped myself up on my elbow and leaned forward. Now that I thought about it, he had even told me what he was going to do beforehand. He would have known that I’d never give the order to kill those bandits, but in his mind, that was the best solution he could think of. Had he been forewarning me so I had a chance to stop him? “You think that Thaddius let me stop him?” I sneezed, wiping away the goop on the back of my hand.

Sib gave me what I took to be a displeased look, then pointed stubbornly at the lump of leaves in my hand. More to appease her, I shoved a couple leaves in my mouth and chewed. They tasted like dirt. The slug girl gave an approving nod.

A moment later, her hands started moving again. “I believe he gave you an opportunity to stop him, and an opportunity to say nothing and have the problem go away. Now that you’ve made your position clear, I’ve every confidence that your swordsman will respect your wishes.” She paused to straighten her back and peer down at me with her lime green eyes. “And that’s why you should stay here and rest while your subordinate takes the helm. Have faith.”

I threw up my hands and plopped back down into the orange furs. “Alright, alright. You win. I’ll take it easy today.” I chewed on my leaves. There was a subtle, bitter medicinal taste to them past the more overwhelming flavor of dirt. “Thanks, Sib.” For more reasons than one, I thought.

She nodded and settled in at the other end of the wagon across from me.

The day ambled by with the jostling of wagon wheels and the labored grunting of the gurbas as they plodded along. I dozed off on occasion to be met with non sequitous dreams, waking up occasionally to a fit of sneezing, or to chew medicinal leaves and watch the clouds roll by.

The leaves helped lessen my aches and shivers. My mind felt a little clearer, my breaths a little less labored. Sib explained to me that growing sick during a long journey such as this was not uncommon, and that it would pass in a day or two. A day or two of nothing but sleep and bitter leaves still left a bad taste in my mouth, though, in both the literal and figurative sense. Put simply, I was bored of sleeping and was craving a distraction.

“Sib,” I called out. The slug girl looked up from the other side of the wagon, where she’d been writing in an old brown notebook. “Tell me about your homeland. The continent of bone, I think you called it?”

Sib closed her notebook, which I knew from past experience contained notes taken in a foreign script and depictions of local plantlife. She was a surprisingly good artist, with an exacting eye for detail. Maybe that was what made her such an effective alchemist. “You want to learn about my home?”

“I’m curious.”

She pensively tapped a finger against the mottled cover of her notebook before nodding slightly. “I suppose I can appreciate curiosity. What do you want to know?”

“It’s really a continent of only bones? Just… bones, everywhere?”

Something in her eyes gave me the impression of a nostalgic smile. It was difficult to get a read on her with her face covered like that, but her eyes were expressive. “Yes. In any direction, and as far as one can see, the land is made of bone. Colossal spines make up vast mountain ranges. Shattered bone fragments fill the spaces between jutting rib bones and the yawning orbits of ancient eye sockets. There is little in the way of footing, though, as the spaces between lend themselves to a complex subterranean cave system. The only plants that live there are those that are cultivated by people such as myself.”

“How is that even possible, though? Where do all the bones come from?”

Sib paused for a moment to think before responding. “There are theories, but no one truly knows for certain.” She hesitated again, and I got the impression that she was a little out of her depth with this topic.

“The largest and oldest bones are all but impervious to physical damage,” she started. “Some believe that the titans of whom these bones belonged were equally near impervious, and that their bones inherited this trait after their demise. It’s suspected that over time, and due to a lack of weathering forces capable of eroding those ancient bones, the remains of sea-bound monstrosities collected on the ocean floor, entangling with other similar remains into a heap that only grew larger as time went on.”

“And eventually there was so much that you could call it a continent?”

“We are making light of certain geological events, but yes, that is my understanding.”

“Huh,” I said, pushing myself up slightly to get a better look at Sib as she signed to me. “So, people live in these bones?”

“...Some, yes. Those unfortunates who live without a Traveller tend to carve their homes into the elder bones, such as the spine mountains I mentioned earlier. The older and larger bones are harder to work with, but less likely to be shifted by mammoth worms, and resistant to the burrowing acid of the eaters.”

“What’s a Traveller?”

“I think…” Sib cocked her head to the side with a hollow rattle, “I think, in your language, you would call them a snail. But that name feels diminutive and unfitting compared to their grandeur. In my language, the word we use for them means, ‘Traveller,’ so that is what I will call them. For the vast majority of my life, I lived in the wandering city carved into the outer shell of the ancient Traveller known as Sama’Zhillu.”

“Wait,” I said, frowning, “You’re saying that you used to live in the carved out shell of a live, giant snail?”

The look of irritation Sib gave me came across quite clearly. “I think that if you saw Sama’Zhillu in person, you would think differently. To see a Traveller is to see a moving mountain, whose shell peaks past the cover of clouds. My people and our civilization would not exist without them. Some revere the Travellers as gods. Fools, all of them, but the point stands.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Sib held up a hand and shook her head to the sound of rattling bone. “You’ve nothing to apologize for.” After a moment, she added, “Your description is apt. The Travellers are, essentially, giant snails. I am a little too prideful at times. There is value in humility, particularly for my people. As for all our learning, and for all our intelligence, we are only fleas on the backs of titans.”

“Insightful.”

“Thank you.” Sib bowed her head slightly in a show of respect. “I’ve had time to reflect on it, and seeing these strange lands has changed how I think. Before, living without a Traveller meant death, but the people here have never heard of them, never seen them. The people here balk at the idea of a mere snail carrying the weight of civilization on its back, but that is the reality I lived for much of my life. It’s a different world, here. I’ve needed to change to survive.”

“I think I can relate,” I said, smiling somewhat ruefully at her.

“Yes, I suspect you can. The forests and lakes of the northern wilds are all you’ve known for your life?”

“Not… exactly.”

“Then you’ve travelled?”

“Yeah, I think you could say that,” I sheepishly agreed. That was technically correct, right? I did literally come from another world, after all. “It’s complicated.”

“I see.” Sib considered this for a moment before nodding slightly, more to herself than to me. “I suppose the workings of mages are rarely simple. I should have expected as much.”

Maybe this was a good time to change the subject. “Do you think we’re almost at Belshaad?”

“Seems so. We were passed by a few carriages and guard patrols while you were sleeping. There’s another coming up, now.” Sib indicated the side of the wagon with a flick of her head.

I pulled myself up and peered over the edge of the wagon’s wooden sides. An old man chewing on a long strand of wheatgrass glanced up at me, raising one bushy white eyebrow in consideration before looking away. His wagon was hitched to one of the most unusual animals I’d seen since coming to this world.

“Sib!” I whispered anxiously, waving her over. “What is that thing?”

The skull-masked alchemist traded incredulous glances between me and the strange beast. Her eyes settled on a look of dubious amusement, as though this was common knowledge and that I was clearly playing a joke. Her fingers danced out a hesitant answer. “...That’s a horse.”

“What? That’s not a horse! It has… fingers!” I said, wiggling my hands and frowning in disgust.

“I thought you said you had travelled?” Sib cocked her head to the side. “Horses have fingers.”

“Its face looks like a capybara.”

“...I don’t know what that is.” She folded her arms over her chest. “Are you poking fun? Or… Has your fever gotten worse? You should lay down.”

“I’m fine,” I insisted while staring, mystified, at the strange ‘horse’ as it plodded past us. A smile born of renewed enthusiasm crept onto my face.

Over the next few days, more wagons and pedestrians came to share the road with us, confirming that we were finally nearing Belshaad after our long journey. The ‘horse’-drawn carriages and wagons were the most common, but there were other strange animals among these farmers and traders as well.

One of the more common ones was a brownish pink, fatty pig thing that my Examine skill had identified as a ‘Minnowlean.’ It had eight legs along its segmented body, making it look like a kind of gross cross between an insect grub and a pig. They were farm animals, apparently, and were raised for their meat.

We passed by a ranch that had a number of giant, morbidly obese iguanas roaming around a pasture. They had bright blue udders like those of a cow’s under their gluttonous, vibrantly colored bellies. The giant iguanas watched us curiously with flicking, bulbous eyes from the other side of their enclosure as our wagons rambled by.

There were traders with carts full of ornate brocade, those with sacks of grain and others with herbs smelling of incense. At some point, the dirt road turned to one of well-worn cobble, where bare-footed travellers, richly dressed merchants and armored soldiers walked all the same.

As we crested one of the many grassy hills that were so common here, the distant silhouette of a city came into view. Finally, after months of travel and only a scarce few days after recovering from my passing cold, we arrived in Belshaad.