Mycal pushed through the soil and a rend in the bandage, emerging in the cool dawn air. He opened his eyes for what was technically the first time. They were very small eyes, on a very small body, and the first thing they saw was himself, just as small and staring back at him.
“Oh, hello,” they said together. Their voices were as tiny as everything else about them, high and taut like squeaky door hinges. They pulled themselves fully out of the soil, trailing a few loose strands of hyphae that their new bodies could not yet accommodate. Together they crawled across the vast, dirty band of fabric until they found a firmer surface upon which to stand. Testing out their wobbly little legs, they looked around and saw the remains of their own gargantuan, desiccated corpse.
“Well…that’s a shame.”
“Yes, I quite liked that body.”
The shadow of a titan passed overhead, and a monstrous green head lowered itself to examine them. Monkey’s usually small and beady eyes were now almost as big as Mycal’s entire bodies. They waved.
The goblin withdrew and another giant head descended from the heavens. It looked like Aggie, but there were dark rings around her eyes, and dried streaks of black and red staining her cheeks.
“Mycal? Is that you?” She looked back and forth between the two little mushrooms, brow creasing. “Is that also you?”
“Hi!” They waved again, one of them jumping up and down while the other reached for a drooping feather. He snagged it and started climbing, swinging from barb to barb and making his way toward her shoulder.
Aggie lowered her hand and extended a finger, comparatively the size of a tree trunk, in front of the other Mycal. He climbed up and held on as she stood up, lifting him to her eye level.
“Mycal…” She turned her head to the shoulder where the other was settling in, threading his hyphae through the weave of her robe to anchor himself. “And…sorry what do I call you? Are you both Mycal? I’m not sure how this works?”
The two miniature Shroomans looked at her. This wasn’t the kind of question you had to consider in the colony. Individuality was not highly valued, often even actively discouraged, so there was little consideration given to the naming conventions of multiple selves. Mycal and Mycal knew it was different out here. They might be the same person, but they were not identical.
“Maybe one of you could have a new name?”
Mycal locked eyes with himself, and he saw something in that gaze, something cold. He realised in an instant that he no longer trusted himself. How could he? He knew all of his secrets, all of his weaknesses. He was a danger to himself. And he knew he was thinking exactly the same thing.
* * *
The crowd gave a half-hearted cheer as another head rolled down the rose-tinted marble steps of the Cathedral. They’d been white until recently, but the new Cardinal had laid out very specific policies regarding the treatment of heathens, traitors and, most vociferously, monsters. Blood spilt in such volumes and with such regularity was impossible to properly clean, and every day the stone grew a shade darker.
Likewise did the crowd’s mood grow darker by the day as they saw neighbours, friends and sometimes family hauled up to the headsman’s block. What had begun as a cheerful excising of undesirables was quickly spiralling out of control, and no one knew when their name might show up on the daily proscription notices.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Cyril watched the head of Brewmaster Baart bouncing from step to step, little goat horns clacking all the way down. He had been executed ostensibly for encouraging debauchery through the consumption of illicit liquids, but everyone knew that had nothing to do with it. He had been one of the last monsters in the city, having been given a pass in previous purges due to his unique skills and heavily taxed produce. His luck had finally dried up, or, Cyril reasoned, it was their tolerance that had run out. Or the Church’s, at any rate. He was really going to miss those Dry Satyr Stouts.
Louisa nudged him and he snapped out of his reverie, applauding the barbaric display. Had to keep up appearances. For the children. They were staying with their grandmother out in the countryside, thankfully, and didn’t have to witness any of this nonsense. Other families were not so lucky, and there was more than one youngster sobbing atop their parents’ shoulders.
The executioner gave a bow, and a few of the less discriminating ladies in the audience threw various trinkets and undergarments in his direction. “Encore! Encore!”
“I’m afraid that’s all there is for today, ladies and gents. But please, stay where you are. The Cardinal has a special sermon prepared!” There was a flurry of activity as a team of novices frantically cleared the area, mopped up the blood, and rolled out a pulpit. A trumpet sounded a long, clear note, then a choir of young men and women appeared on the balcony and began a solemn chant.
The cathedral doors opened with impractical slowness. Cyril chewed his lip while trying to hide his impatience. Eventually a woman emerged and took her place behind the pulpit. She was impossibly tall, at least eight feet by his reckoning, though he’d thankfully never been close enough to find out for certain. Even so, it wasn’t her height that he found so disconcerting. No matter how many times Cyril saw Cardinal Krossandra Van Maddigo, he’d never get used to that dead-eyed stare.
The woman raised her long-fingered hands like a pair of wings, the choir rising along with them to a shrill crescendo. She clapped once above her head, and the singing ceased. Into the sudden silence she spoke, voice like frozen oil. “Children of the One, beloved servants of Humanity, I thank you once again for your strength, your trust, and your patronage through these dark times.”
Lowering her arms, the novices descended the stairs and spread among the crowd, holding their collection plates out and gently encouraging attendees to empty their pockets. When one of them held their plate out to Louisa, she obediently deposited a pair of silver coins on the plate and touched her forehead in a gesture of prayer to the One.
Then the plate was in front of Cyril. Trying to keep his voice low, he looked at the novice and said, “Ahh…that was one silver for each of us.”
The young man glanced back at Louisa. Wide-eyed and suddenly very pale, she nodded stiffly and repeated the gesture of devotion. His eyes returned to Cyril. “Sir, I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that. Surely you have something more to give, from your own hand? How else would the One know of your devoutness?”
“I…that’s all we had!” His voice rose higher than he’d intended. He was very aware of other eyes watching the exchange, but the cold knot in his stomach was abruptly at odds with the hot words in his throat. “You’ve already bled us dry for this blasted crusade…” A hand gripped him tightly on the wrist. Louisa’s hand. He could feel her terror, her unspoken pleading. She pressed something small and hard into his palm. Her wedding ring.
Brimming with silent fury, Cyril bit his tongue hard and raised a shaking hand over the plate. He hesitated, unable to let the ring go. The novice cleared his throat in that very obvious way that people do when they want you to hear them clearing their throat. He was growing impatient.
Louisa squeezed his other hand and he could hear her silent words. It’s just a ring, it doesn’t matter. All that matter is us, and the children. Please.
He dropped the ring, and he was sure the sound of it hitting the plate was the loudest, heaviest thing he had ever heard. The hollow clang continued echoing in his heart as the novice moved on, but not before gracing the couple with a well-practised look of disapproval, one the Church had perfected over generations. Cyril wanted nothing more than to smash a mallet into the smug little shit’s face.
They endured another half hour of the Cardinal’s sermon, but Cyril didn’t hear a word of it. All he could think of were the hours he had spent making that ring. The gold wrought from the hair of a griffin’s tail, the emerald a gift from a Carbuncle he had freed from a hunter’s trap as a child. The night he had finally shown it to Louisa under the light of a mirror moon and asked her to marry him.
“Hey, it’s over. We can go.” Louisa was pulling gently on his arm, eager to get away from this place. He allowed her to lead him away, not bothering with a final, false, empty prayer.
They were almost out of the square when a voice called out. “Hold on there, Mr Silverton. The Cardinal would like a word with you.”