MYCELIUS SPOREBORN's Arc

Chapter 2 of 7

Morning light spilled through the doorway of the hollow mushroom. Mycelius stood inside and looked at the dusty walls. The spores were planted. The soil was rich. Now his people needed a place to live. He rolled up his sleeves and got to work. First he cleared the doorway. He hauled out old dust and dried husks by the armful. Then he pressed his palms to the inner stalk. The wood felt firm but empty, a shell waiting to be filled. He needed it to grow, not just stand still. He walked back to the great fungus tree. Its roots glowed under the earth, blue and gold, turning dead dirt to black soil. Mycelius knelt and dug his fingers near a root. He remembered how his old home had grown its walls. Fungolians did not cut stone. They fed the fungus and shaped it as it swelled. He scooped rich soil from the tree's roots and carried it back, load after load. His arms ached. He packed the dark earth around the base of the hollow mushroom. Then he sat, pressed his hands to the stalk, and waited. Nothing happened. The mushroom stayed the same size. Mycelius frowned. Spores drifted from his shoulders. The soil was rich, but the mushroom did not drink it. Something was missing, some thread to link the two. Then he understood. In his homeland, the buildings had never stood alone. They grew from the same web that fed the whole colony. This mushroom was cut off. Its roots reached nothing. He ran back to the great tree and traced a glowing root with his finger. He dug a shallow trench in the black soil, straight toward the hollow mushroom. Sweat ran down his bark-like skin. He pulled a thin living root free and guided it along the trench, laying it against the mushroom's base. For a moment the root lay still. Then light crept along it, blue and green, sinking into the stalk. The hollow mushroom shuddered. Mycelius stepped back and watched. The stalk thickened. It rose higher, wall by wall. The cap spread wide into a broad orange roof. New growths clustered along the base like small round stones. Ledges pushed out from the sides. Inside, the single room split into levels, room enough to plan and gather. His people would have a home base at last. Mycelius laughed and pressed his hand to the warm wall. The building lived now. It drank from the tree, and it would keep growing. But as he watched, the tree's glow dimmed. The root he had pulled toward the mushroom now fed two mouths. The soil near the trench turned paler, thinner. The great tree could feed the ground, or it could feed the building, but not both at full strength. His colony had a home. Now it needed more than one tree to keep it alive.