VI
Jaquel takes a brush bristled with spindly feathers and coats the entrance of the morgue in some kind of resin.
“Most people can't stand the fungi.” Jaquel informs Vasan. “I see them daily. I smell them daily.” They gesture to the walls of the Mausoleum, speckled in emerging mushrooms of various shapes.
“Every few days I clean all the budding fungi off of the edges of these trees, and leave them outside for the bugs to eat, to keep them from being drawn in. So I'm used to it.”
“What does the resin do?”
“Disguises this place. The fumes from the rot inside attract bugs. The fumes from this resin repel them. If we make it too unbearable for the scarabs to risk, they stay out.”
Vasan opens their beak to say something about the one on their forehead, Jaquel responds prematurely by pointing to theirs. “If a dren has bonded to a drek, it doesn't stray like wild dren do. You're fine.”
With a shrug, Vasan steps in and scans around at the cage-like, honeycomb-like structure of the mausoleum. A rather gridded network of small chambers, most of them covered with vines tightly woven shut. All around them, lines of bark are stripped bare and carved with more mantras.
Vasan starts to breathe shallow as the smell begins to catch up to them. “Not the best job?”
“It's delicate work.” Jaquel clarifies, “However crude it is. They wouldn't trust a newcomer to enter this place.”
Vasan becomes aware of their status as a newcomer in this space. Normally, places where they stay don't draw that contrast, or have an expectation of them to stay long term at all. “Why are you bringing me down here?”
“Many reasons,” Jaquel sparks, “If I'm going to experiment with some strange, magical substance I want to do it in a place where no one from the clergy would think to enter. That would be this mausoleum.”
Vasan has some doubts about how much the smell of the room will interfere, “That's one reason.”
“Another,” Jaquel turns to them, “is that I've been put in some strange states from spending too much time around the fungi here.” They pluck a nearby, shelf-like cap from the soft tree wall and gesture with it, “Sometimes I hear voices. Like a whisper on the back of my neck, or a call from a distant corner.”
“Do you see anything?” Vasan prods. Jaquel's eyes look puzzled.
“Hallucinations?”
Vasan shrugs, “I mean, does anything look different?”
Jaquel twists their head, “Yeah, different. Nothing new though.”
Vasan nods, holding up a truffle again “This is sort of the same deal.”
Jaquel nods, and goes back to finish duties like chipping off mushroom caps and tightening newer weaves. Vasan sits cross-legged with their bag in the middle of the room, eating an orange fruit.
After a few frantic minutes of tidying tangles, twitchy tweaks and tangents too quiet to take in, the grackle sits down with us at the center of the room, rustling to refine their sitting posture for a moment as Vasan finishes another orange.
With a deep inhale and exhale, Jaquel finally turns still and slow. Their voice croaks, “I think I'm prepared.”
Vasan nods, fumbles with the bag, and retrieves two of the truffles. They hand one to their host.
Jaquel gently grasps one with a thumb and a finger, eyeing its details up close, “These taught you how to spin the bugs with you?”
“No,” Vasan shakes their head, “These are what got me here from below the shade belt though.”
“Is this…” The grackle blinks, “a form of travel? I don't know if I can leave here.”
“We don't have to go anywhere,” Vasan flips their head side to side, “but yeah. Sort of.”
Jaquel nods, eyeing this small node of a fungus intently.
“If you want to back out, feel free.” Vasan offers an out to their frozen fellow fungal excursionist. Jaquel's gaze unfreezes and snaps to us.
“I'm ready.”
