Chapter 6: Hatching.
Years of housework had done nothing to improve Renat’s poor cooking. The table held the usual simple fare.
Crisp-crusted coarse wheat bread. A large plate of mushy beans. Thick slices of smoked sausage. A big bowl of vegetable soup chunky with turnips.
Few dishes. Flavor nothing to praise. But plentiful and filling. For folk eating just two meals a day, midday calories were vital.
Cary would turn seventeen by year’s end. The once-naive sprout had grown into a handsome youth. Childish energy settled into quiet steadiness.
Months from true adulthood, yet to Renat and all, Cary was already a capable young man.
Next month he would join village peers at Nightdew Valley for the fate-deciding Lantern Bearer trial.
“The Month of Endless Day nears. Priest Finn will take you to Nightdew Valley. For others, likely a lifetime of pain… For you, easy.”
Renat placed honey- and jam-slathered bread on her son’s wooden plate. She never stinted his nutrition.
The youth kept his head down, gulping turnip-vegetable soup, seemingly ignoring her. His face shadowed, as if burdened.
“Trouble, Cary?” Renat noticed, set down her spoon, sat straight, concern showing.
“Mom… can I… live apart from you?”
Cary hesitated, wiped soup from his lips with rough linen. Eyes shifting, avoiding hers. “I mean… completely apart… I won’t skip sword practice or chores.”
Cary had grown. Such teenage rebellion flickered years ago.
At the table, even on her high stool, Renat was far shorter than Cary on the bench.
Sunlight through the window cast their shadows on rough wood walls. Less mother and son. More silent brother and ungrown sister.
“You already have your own room, Cary. Think you’re grown, need more freedom, independence?”
Seconds later, her spoon clinked dryly on the bowl rim. Voice calm but tense. “No, my child. When you truly become a Lantern Bearer, you may leave me, this village, for a wider, deadlier world.”
“I just… want quiet alone.”
Cary stared at the golden honey bread, expression forlorn. “Days ago… Grandpa Karl died of corruption sickness… He didn’t live to Harvest Month, to see the fields.”
His voice dropped. “Village says… Mom got corruption sickness, that’s why you’re like this.”
Renat listened, heart uneasy, but sensed this wasn’t his true point.
Seeing no reaction, Cary breathed deep, gathered courage, lifted his head. Black eyes met hers. “Was I… born just to be a Lantern Bearer? Then leave, fight in the Black Domain… end like you? I don’t even know my father.”
“Silence! Cary!”
Renat shot up from the stool, tiny feet on the edge for leverage, hands slamming the table. Small face twisted in anger. “I’ll never tell you about your father. It’s for your good! Understand?!”
“I’m done!”
Cary said nothing more. Gulped the last bread roughly, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, grabbed the short sword by the wall, rose to leave.
“Wait!”
Renat hopped down unsteadily, blocking her much taller son. Anger ebbed like a tide. Face softened.
Before him, Renat was tiny. She tiptoed, reached to straighten the skewed belt on his hunting garb.
Cary stiffened, looked down at her straining effort. Stubborn irritation faded into complex emotion.
He slowly knelt on one knee, eye-level with her.
Renat brushed a leaf crumb from his thick black hair, then hugged his rigid frame tightly. “Listen, Cary…”
Voice soft but firm. “I know, these years, all wonder about us. But you need strength first to face, bear those truths…”
She paused, faint choke. “Truth… Mom wishes you just an ordinary child, safe on this land.”
“Renat, Dean Alric from Degbrun Monastery is here.”
Priest Finn’s aged voice outside. Both startled, emotions tucked away, normalcy returned.
Chief Mocus and Finn stood shoulder to shoulder, smiling warmly.
Seventeen years. Once burly Mocus now had frosted temples. Finn’s gaunt face etched deeper by time.
“Dean Alric?” Renat thought, understood. “To repair Nightdew Valley’s lead walls?”
“Yes, we applied urgently last autumn to reinforce them.”
Mocus nodded quickly, glancing past Renat at the striking black-haired youth, smiling satisfied. “Dean Alric oversees in person. Mr. Matt brought materials.”
“Cary, practice alone.”
Renat turned to her son, calm and orderly, like any mother nagging before leaving. “Dinner at the chief’s tonight. Miss Maren wants your Black Domain guidance…”
She stressed. “Your duty as future Lantern Bearer. Remember?”
Feeling Mocus and Finn’s cheerful stares, Cary nodded fast.
“Haha, brave lad!” Mocus laughed heartily, clapped Cary’s solid shoulder. “Village counts on you now! Go, practice swords on the back hill together!”
Seeing this destined black-haired, black-eyed youth, Mocus was utterly pleased.
Wife died early to corruption. First two children failed trials. Eldest Eric crippled by aftereffects. At least his beloved youngest shouldn’t stay trapped in this barren fringe.
If darling Maren joined certain Lantern Bearer Cary, much sorrow and burden on this chief and father would ease.
…
…
Deep in the unimaginable dark of the Black Domain.
At the corrupted blood marsh edge, a rotten red-white meat mountain finally collapsed.
White, ink-green, black pus gushed, joining the marsh’s bubbling dark-red slurry.
One snow-white egg sheath in the fluid cracked quietly. Clear, strangely fragrant yolk oozed—unlike the stench.
A tiny pink tentacle probed cautiously, pushing the shell.
A soft, pure white head-sac emerged, timid as a newborn lamb.
“Woo… whi… chi…”
A newborn Fool Mother. Her snowy tender flesh shimmered pearl-soft.
She unfolded delicately. Dozen fine tentacles swayed like white petals. Two ruby-round eyes on the head-sac curiously eyed the filthy, dangerous black world.
Below, a seam split, forming a maw of dense sharp teeth. Hunger drove it to snap at an unhatched sheath!
“Crack!”
Shell shattered! Yolk and embryo slurped, chewed, swallowed greedily.
In under an hour, all sheaths devoured! On her white head-sac, forehead center, a smaller blood-drop eye opened slowly.
Still unsatisfied, the tiny Fool Mother eyed the collapsed, reeking meat mountain—her long-dead mother.
Wriggling tender tentacles, she burrowed into the soft rot. Sucked pus, tore half-liquefied flesh.
She raced time, gorging nutrients for rapid growth, power to dominate other Black Domain beasts.
“Hiss… gugu… whi?”
Sensing something, the feasting tiny Fool Mother whipped her head-sac, hissing a hoarse, childish warning.
Nearby, a five-meter-long, meter-thick ghoulrot worm appeared. Slow, stiff. Shell nearly gone, exposing rotting innards, death stench thick.
Nearing life’s end, summoned by mystery to this marsh, offering itself to its birthing god.
Adult ghoulrot worms needed fourth-tier Lantern Bearers or higher. But this dying one was weak, barely second-tier, awaiting final cycle.
The tiny Fool Mother’s ruby eyes stared coldly at the uninvited guest, growling impatiently like a cub.
Dark shadow flashed over her white body!
“Pfft—!”
As if crushed by invisible giant hand, the old worm burst without struggle! Foul slurry, shredded organs fireworks-sprayed, soiling the black ground worse.
“Whiwhi… chichi!”
The tiny Fool Mother cooed baby-pleased, satisfied with the slaughter.
Ignoring the gore pile, she buried her head again, savoring mother’s nutrient pus. Each gulp grew her stronger.