“Will we be safe in the valley, Grandfather?”

“Yes. You will see. It’s not a very big valley, but there is a spring, and a little river runs from the stream down the mountain. Next to the little river grows many sweet fruits on trees. The vines are strong and flexible, wonderful for cordage. The tree fronds are long, straight and wide, wonderful for clothes, roofs, whatever we need. When fruits are not in season, you can pull tubers from the ground, all different types. Big, fat grubs can be found under the bark of fallen trees. There are even birds that have wonderful feathers for you to decorate yourself with.”

The little boy smiled and rested his head on his grandfather’s back. He had asked that question many times in the last week, as their little tribe escaped north. It was boring, sitting in the basket on his grandfather’s back, but talking let him not think about the horrible hole where his parents were supposed to be.

“Are we going to get there today?”

“Yes, yes. Very soon.”

They moved through the dense cloud forests in the upper reaches of the mountains. Down towards the sea, it would be unbearably hot and tropical. Up here, the lowland steam turned into perpetual fog, shrouding the mountainsides in cool mists.

“The valley is very interesting. Did I tell you about it?”

“Tell me again? I forgot.”

“Well, it’s the most secret place that isn’t a secret. That is, lots and lots of people know about it, but nobody talks about it. You see, it is one of the six Huixpa. You know what the Huixpa are?”

“The places where Chupilalizachi set down her great cauldron and cooked the stew of life before pouring it out and making the oceans.” The little boy repeated by rote.

“Where the legs of the cauldron were. It was a very big cauldron.”

The little boy nodded.

“All that life magic boiled up in that place, and sank through the legs and into the soil. Everything lives better there. They grow bigger, have more and healthier children, even the food tastes better.”

“So why don’t people live there now?”

“Because it’s a small place way up a mountain!” The grandfather laughed. It wasn’t a completely honest laugh, but grandparents do that kind of thing for their families.

“It’s way up a mountain, and it’s never been near anything very important. All the people who know are little farmers and mountain folk. Oh, some big tribes will claim it as a holy place, now and then. I think some bastards have even burned it out a few times. But it always comes back. And the heart tree rises again.”

“Tell me about the heart tree? I don’t think I really understand.”

The grandfather shifted the wicker basket on his back. It wasn’t comfortable, but a lifetime of laboring in the jungle meant that he was not too concerned about comfort. Still, nobody wanted to get chafed raw. It was way too easy to pick up a nasty infection that way.

“The heart tree, mmm. Well, it’s what it sounds like- its the heart of the valley. People figured it out. The tree makes its own little kingdom, and things grow in the kingdom that makes a circle of plants grow, then they make their own connections, and so on until the valley is full of good things. It’s just a tree, but its a tree with deep roots. It keeps coming back, and starting the forest over again.”

“I want to be like the heart tree!”

“We all do, good grandson. We all do.”

It was another hour, but the exhausted tribes folk slipped into the narrow gap in the mountain. Barely five minutes later, the valley opened up into an Eden.

Ripe fruit hung from the trees, thick and sweet, the birds and wasps swarming around them. So much you could build with, so much you could eat!

The little boy started crying. “I wish Mom and Dad could live here with us.”

“I do to, good grandson. I do to.”

They got to work fast. Job one was raising some kind of shelter, so they set to it with a will. The children went off to gather food, and when that didn’t take them long, sent to gather vines and palm leaves. Many hands made light work- the basic frame of a long hut was built in an afternoon. It had a roof but no walls. Still, it was going very well.

Long grass and yet more palm fronds were gathered, then beaten with sticks until they became fibrous and plaint. They were shredded and heaped into piles. They would become little nests for people, so they could stop sleeping on the ground. It would do, until beds could be made.

Dinner was roasted cassava and shockingly sweet mango. There were a lot of sniffles, as the hot meal reminded them of everyone who they had lost. But there were also smiles and laughter, the warmth in their bellies slowly warming their hearts.

The tiny tribe settled down for the night, piled in together, keeping warm in the cool night air. They could probably make a fire, but no one was ready for that kind of risk just yet. Even in the fog, it felt like a fire would be too easy to see.

“Grandfather, with the Invaders find us here?”

“No. We are north, and they are attacking west. We are in the mountains, and they stay on the plains. We are safe.”

The little boy nodded and snuggled in closer. He didn’t really believe in safe anymore, but it was good to hear Grandfather say it.

The night was terribly dark in the cloud forests, but here and there, color and light flecked the air shaken by a jaguar’s coughing growls. Shelf mushrooms the size of dinner plates jutted out from the side of trees, releasing bioluminescent spores that spun gaudy rainbows on the night breeze. Fireflies flecked about, advertising for a mate. It was dark, and terribly beautiful, and peaceful in the hidden valley.

There was no great alarm, no great change in the air. It was just that, slowly, never waking, the tribe stopped breathing. One after another, they just… stopped. Their bodies briefly bloated, then started to disintegrate. Insects swarmed over, as the bodies decomposed rapidly. Weeks or months worth of decomposition, taking place in the space of a couple of hours.

The nutrients were eaten and brought into the earth by insects, by bacteria, fungus, by gravity as all manner of liquids puddled on the surface. The invisible networks of fungal connections below the surface channeled the nutrients to the grand network of plants, enriching the whole valley. And at the heart of the valley was the heart tree.

The nutrients flowed there, and down, down, down. Thirty feet down. A glass ball trapped in a soft, belly cocoon was slowly bathed in pinpricks of blue lights, spinning and twisting like they were searching for something. Eventually, they found it.

As dawn broke, the heart tree split open, and a huge man fell out of it. His fingers dug into the earth with casual power, gripping the soil as he vomited bile. He drew a deep breath through his wide nose, learning the history of this place in a second. His back muscles briefly flexed as he pushed himself to his feet. In the dawn light, it looked like a demon lived on that broad back. The big man leaned his head back and roared.

“I LIVED!” He laughed so hard his belly hurt. “A boondoggle was it? I lived, you bastards.” He was speaking a sort of gutter Nacon, a dialect that had not shaken the air in ten thousand years.

He let himself fall backwards, his heavy frame slamming into the earth. He didn’t let it hurt. He stretched his body widely, luxuriating in the ability to move and feel. To smell the thousand, thousand living things just below one finger.

The fortress was in fine shape. He was worried that something would happen, but it looked to be at least seventy years old. Yeah, the fortress was doing great. He dug his hand into the ground and pulled out a tuber the size of his fist. He ate it raw, as the flavor receptors in his mouth exploded with joy. Gods, FLAVOR. How had he forgotten about flavor! It was so good! The tuber reacted first with his spit and then with the gastric juices left in his stomach. As the starch and sugars broke down, they transformed. Some went into energy, and building muscle. A smaller amount turned into sickeningly powerful enzymes stored in glands under the big man’s tongue. He could spit them out whenever he wanted, and dissolve any human thing they landed on.

He rushed to eat a fruit, and nearly had a stroke as the sweet orange flesh melted in his mouth. Slowly, slowly, the plague engines began to work again, ready to turn his every breath into a war crime. He ate a different fruit, and a new set of options for the plagues became available.

He looked around with a smile. He had outlived the pursuit, and awoke with an arsenal at hand. And speaking of, there was something he really had to do. He bit the tip off his left pinky, spat the flesh onto the ground, and drew the sacral forms with his blood before the wound healed. When he was ready, he declaimed-

“I, Stone Heart Bo-, Madman Bo-, Murdersage Bo-, I Boqui! Swear that I shall destroy the Nacon! And let none stand in my path.”

The forest seemed to throb in recognition of his oath. He smiled, the tip of his finger already mostly grown back.

“Now, I just need to figure out how long it's been. I think I buried a cell phone around here somewhere. It should still work, right?”