As soon as the teenagers were attired in their uniforms and had retrieved their assorted weapons from the saddlebags, they formed up in neat and orderly lines and awaited the General’s orders. Despite the omnipresent trepidation that weighed down on her soul, Margaret was impressed by the soldiers’ discipline, especially given that their median age appeared to be around seventeen.
She was greatly perturbed about the fact that aside from the General, she had not seen another adult anywhere. She knew how sensitive a topic was that of child soldiers in this part of the world, so she decided it was in her best interests to keep her mouth shut for the time being. Quite unexpectedly, she found herself on the verge of trusting the General, with his genial speech, gentlemanly manners and unfailing politeness, but she could not let her guard down completely; not only was he a soldier, he was evidently an enslaver of children, something she found even more reprehensible than his rampant militarism.
Margaret was snapped out of this trance of contemplation when the General spoke some words to the child soldiers in their language. In a single, unified movement they saluted him and then marched off into the city, leaving him alone with Margaret on the steps of the palace, in front of the opulent-looking doors. He turned to her and bowed deeply.
‘Doctor, I bid you a formal welcome to the ancient city of T’Kalanjathu, forgotten wonder of the Ancient World and current headquarters of the Antidote.’
‘Th-, thank you sir,’ Margaret stammered.
‘I imagine that you have a number of questions. I also sense that you are feeling fearful, confused, overwhelmed and anxious. Let me take you to your room where you can have a hot bath and relax. I will have someone bring you a hot meal and coffee, or wine if you would prefer? All of our food and drinks are cultivated in this area, except for the wine, which we import, for grapes will not develop adequately for wine cultivation in this climate.’
‘I, erm, I … yes, thank you sir. I-, whaa…’
Margaret trailed off in mid-sentence as, all around her, the buildings started to light up with a multicoloured glow. The sight was one of dreamlike beauty, and the magnificence of it was beyond anything Margaret had ever imagined she would see outside of a cinema.
‘Jesus, I feel like I’m in that movie Avatar,’ she murmured, spellbound by the awestriking spectacle unfolding before her.
The General beamed a toothy smile at her.
‘I suspected you would enjoy our display of bioluminescence, Dotor. This is how T’Kalanjathu was illuminated at night for centuries, well, thousands of years ago at least. While most other cultures, in their thirst for fuel, have been mutilating the forests and digging up the earth since the dawn of time, the K’Nganwa found a way to work with nature to create light in the darkness of night. Well, before our age of decadence and degeneration, at least. It is to that golden era that I have tried to restore the city. Here we have no need for coal plants to tear up the earth and foul her air, nor do we need to get power from splitting atoms, with all the potential for cataclysmic disaster that that entails. You see, these stones of which T’Kalanjathu is constructed are not actually brightly coloured themselves; they are a deep grey, in their plain and unadorned state. It is the fungi that grow on them that give them their multitude of colours, and when the sun sets these tiny organisms start to glow, and thereby provide us with light throughout the night. As long as we keep the fungi damp and thus alive, which is done through our systems of canals that harness the hundreds of streams that pour into this river valley, the fungi will continue to illuminate this city.’
‘That’s … that’s amazing. I’ve seen bioluminescence once before, on a beach in Jamaica, but I was told it was almost an exclusively marine phenomenon.’
‘It exists on land too, but it is much rarer. In the depths of the rainforest there grows a certain type of mushroom that is bioluminescent; the ancient K’Nganwa worked out a way to cultivate these naturally glowing fungi and used them as light sources in all of their cities. When I first arrived here to set up my headquarters a few decades ago, there were but a few square centimetres of this fungi that remained alive, and they survived only in one of the deepest dungeons beneath the city. The rest of it, which had once lined all of the city walls as you see now, had vanished two thousand years ago when the civilisation of the K’Nganwa collapsed. Thankfully a good friend of mine, an esteemed Dutch biologist, was able to assist me with the re-cultivation of the fungi, and after years of hard work we were once again able to adorn these walls with their glowing beauty, and thus restore them to the magnificence of a time two thousand years past.’
A sudden flush of courage heated the blood within Margaret’s veins; she wasn’t sure why, but a spark ignited her temper, momentarily injecting her core with fire. She turned and scowled at the General.
‘I appreciate your little history lesson, but I have to ask you, sir, when are you going to explain to me
