The Place
The Bittermire Warrens are a poison marsh the color of rust, and the rust is the water, and the water is the law. The marsh stretches six kilometers from the dead river to the black hills, and the ground gives underfoot, and the giving is the first sentence. The air is thick green with bitter, and the green is a color you can taste, and the taste stays for a day after you leave. The fungal gardens are the firm ground, and the fungi grow in rings of white and pale green, and the rings are the roads, and the roads are the borders. The sky over the mire is a flat grey that does not move, and the rain comes in the smell before it comes in the sky, and the smell is the calendar. The water is rust, and the rust is the tide, and the tide rises with the rain and falls with the silence, and the silence is the second sentence. There is no landmark, because the marsh does not keep landmarks, but there is one: the Bitter Tree, a black trunk standing in the middle of the mire, dead for a hundred years, and the dead tree is the meeting place. What makes the Bittermire Warrens themselves is the price of the air: to breathe here is to pay, and the marsh collects in full.
How They Live
The Venom Goblins live in the warrens on the firm ground, and the firm ground is the fungal ring, and the ring is the house and the border and the law. They build in the bone of the dead tree and the root of the living mire, and the warrens rise two meters above the soft, because the soft is the moat and the moat is the first defense. Light is the fungus, pale green and faintly toxic, and the goblins stopped being affected a long time ago, which is both a gift and a mark, and the mark is in the skin. Food is the marsh: the bitter root, the poisoned fish, the venom, and the venom is bottled and labeled and priced, and the pricing is the trade, and the trade is the economy. Water is the rust, and the rust is drunk without flinching, and the flinching is what the marsh is for. Heat comes from the fungal fire, which is a green flame that gives warmth and gives nothing else, and the green flame is kept low because the low is the honest heat. The defense is the poison itself, and the poison is the marsh, and the marsh is everywhere, so the defense is not a wall, the defense is the world. The day is measured by the tide of the mire, which rises and falls with the rains, and the rains are read by the smell. Every visitor who drinks from the marsh has already paid the first installment, and the installment is the welcome, and the welcome is the debt.
People
Home of the Venom Goblins, whose mire-clans are counted by bottle. Fourteen bottles of venom per clan at the last count, and the count is kept in the ring, and the ring does not lie. The venom-judges lead, and rank is decided by the taste, because the taste is the only judge the marsh respects. No healer is welcome, and the healer is not needed, because the marsh is the healer and the healer is the poison. A surface trader who has crossed the mire calls it the only market where the air is the first item in the ledger.
In Stories
The place where the poison has a price, and the price is you. Uaellaen has bought venom here twice, and both times the goblins looked at him and said the same thing: you are not what you think you are here. He did not correct them. The correction is a luxury of the dry ground.