Chapter 17: Roots of the Damned

B.S. 2082 Baisakh 10 – Mustang's Sky Caves, The Fungal Labyrinth

The caves were alive.

Mycelial veins pulsed across the walls, throbbing with the same blackened rhythm as Jay's infected arm. The air reeked of decayed dakini offerings—moldering tsampa, rancid butter lamps, and the iron tang of old blood. The child-acolyte's golden thread had led them here, but even its light frayed against the rot's hunger.

"The Bon-po called this place Nagpo Khandro, the Black Dakini's Womb," Meera said, her voice muffled by the Rakshasa mask she'd refused to remove since Vedant's death. "They believed the mycelium was her veins, pumping madness into the world."

Anika's wraiths slithered uneasily around her, their forms bloated with stolen Squad memories. Rani Lakshmi's presence had grown feral, her whispers now a guttural snarl: "Burn it. Burn it all."

Jay's corrupted arm itched. The fungal bud had split into a black orchid, its petals whispering in Gorakhnath's voice:

"You cannot prune a god's roots, little heir."

The deeper they trekked, the tighter the mycelium coiled around Jay's mind. Hallucinations bled into reality:

Bon shamans skinned alive, their flayed bodies grafted into the fungal network.

Puri puppets of erased timelines, their golden threads fraying into rot.

Himself, in another cave, feeding the sapling his infected arm.

"Focus," Anika snapped, her wraiths dissolving a fungal tendril snaking toward Jay's throat. "The rot's using you as a compass."

The child-acolyte paused, his galaxy-eyes narrowing. "The heart is close. But it's… crying."

They found it in a ribcage of petrified roots—Gorakhnath's mummified heart, preserved in a coffin of singing skulls. It beat once every century, each thump birthing a new vein of madness in the mycelium.

Meera pried the coffin open with her bare hands. "Jayasthiti's scrolls mentioned this. The Malla kings fed it Amrita to control the Kali Gandaki."

The heart was a shriveled fist of muscle and cursed script, its surface etched with the Hevajra Tantra. The orchid on Jay's arm lunged, fungal roots piercing the heart.

"YES." Gorakhnath's laughter shook the cave. "FEED ME, HEIR."

The heart's beat accelerated. The mycelium convulsed, disgorging bardo-born horrors—souls trapped between death and rebirth, reshaped into Puri soldiers. Their faces melted like wax, their limbs stitched with golden thread.

Anika's wraiths attacked, but the puppets absorbed them, swelling into grotesque hybrids of Rani's rage and the bardo's void.

"They're using the mycelium to farm souls!" Anika screamed, her wraith-armor fracturing.

Jay fought with the Trishula, its spine-blade severing puppets only for them to reform. Meera grappled a puppet wearing Vedant's face, her Rakshasa fangs tearing into its throat.

"Pathetic," Vedant's puppet gurgled. "You couldn't save me. Can't save yourself."

The child-acolyte watched, impassive, his threads weaving a net around the heart. "The cycle must break."

Jay plunged his infected arm into the heart.

The cave screamed.

Memories not his own erupted:

Gorakhnath's coronation, his crown a circlet of human fingerbones.

The first Kalpavriksha sapling, planted in a pit of stillborn infants.

Alessandro, centuries past, drinking from the heart to extend his thread.

The orchid bloomed, its roots fusing with the heart. The mycelium recoiled, rotting where the flower's pollen fell.

"NO!" Gorakhnath's roar cracked the coffin. "YOU ARE MINE!"

Jay tore the heart free. The bardo puppets collapsed, their golden threads snapping.

Anika's wraiths retreated into her, Rani's voice finally silent. Meera cradled the Rakshasa mask, its fangs retracted.

The child-acolyte nodded. "The rot is purged. For now."

But the heart still beat in Jay's grip, its rhythm syncing with the sapling's roots.

At dusk, they emerged to a sky swarming with Dashnami skyships, their hulls branded with the Council's lotus-flame sigil. Searchlights scoured the mountains, hunting the heart's pulse.

Meera spat into the snow. "They'll raze Mustang to ash for this."

Anika's eyes glowed faintly blue. "The wraiths… Rani's gone. But she left… something."

Jay studied the heart. The fungal orchid had shriveled, but its roots now vein his ribs. The sapling's voice whispered through them:

"Come home."