Murggok the Veilkeeper's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

The blight reached the shallows before dawn. Murggok the Veilkeeper crouched at the water's edge and pressed a mossy hand to a dying reed. The stalk crumbled to grey ash under his fingers. His two orange eyes narrowed inside the shadow of his hood of vines. He had watched the sickness crawl across the swamp for seven nights. It moved like slow smoke through the roots. Every plant it touched turned brittle and colorless. Murggok was the guardian here. He had sworn to wake the heart-tree at the swamp's center, so its roots could shelter every hidden creature forever. If the blight reached that tree first, there would be nothing left to wake. He rose and waded toward the green dome that rose from the lilies like a lantern. Its glass panels glowed with old magic. Inside, he kept a driftwood totem studded with turquoise stones. The stones held the calm of the deep swamp. He would carry that calm to the heart-tree and burn the blight off the roots before it arrived. He lifted the totem from its pedestal. It was heavier than he remembered. He turned to the door and stopped. A green light bled through the mist behind him. The air thickened. Vines on the floor stirred and lifted, and from them rose a shape of glowing coils and drifting leaves. The Moss Mother. The spirit of the swamp itself. Murggok had felt her presence a hundred times in the water and the wind, but she had shown herself to him only twice before. Both times he had knelt. He knelt now. "Put it down, Veilkeeper," she said. Her voice moved through the dome like wind through a hollow log. "The stones soothe. They do not burn." "Then the tree dies," Murggok said. "The tree dies if you carry that alone." A tendril of light drifted toward the totem and cooled its glow to a dim blue. "The blight feeds on stillness. Your calm will feed it." Murggok's hands tightened on the driftwood. "Tell me what burns it." "Hunger," she said. "Small mouths. The mushroom folk eat what rots. Wake their elder. Send the tribe into the reeds before the sun is high. What they cannot eat, you cut and drown." "And the totem?" "Leave it. It will quiet the tree while the tree still sleeps. That is all it can do today." Murggok set the totem back on its pedestal. The turquoise stones dimmed against the wood. He bowed his head until his vines touched the floor. When he looked up, the Moss Mother was gone, and only wet leaves lay where she had stood. He pushed through the door into the grey morning. The nearest ring of mushroom huts sat two bends of the channel away. He had until the sun cleared the cypress tops to reach the elder and wake the tribe. The blight was already in the shallows behind him, moving toward the heart of the swamp.