The War of the Flowers

by Tad Williams

  "That man attacked us!" Cumber shouted back at the constable; he was dragging at Theo's arm, trying to slow him down. "We didn't want to . . ." "Shut up. Where do we go?" Theo demanded. Cumber was still staring. Theo looked back and wished he hadn't. The constable was kneeling over the body on the ground, and for a moment it appeared that he was giving the victim the kiss of life, but the thing's ragged arm was around his neck, holding him in place, and it was the constable who was twitching and struggling. "Oh, sweet Jesus," Theo murmured.

  Cumber ran on half-heartedly, still staring back at the bizarre scene. "But what's . . . ?"

  "It's taking a new body!"

  "New body . . . ?" Theo slowed down until Cumber Sedge was in front of him, then gave the ferisher a rough push that made him stumble and almost fall. "Damn you — run! That wasn't a person! It's that corpse-thing that already tried to kill me once!"

  They had only gone half a hundred yards when the dark, bulky shape of the constable stood up and let Rufinus' limp body slump to the ground like a sack of rubbish. The constable swiveled his head in a very unnatural way until he located Theo and Cumber; then, like a mechanical toy or an insect, he turned the rest of his body to face the same direction before starting after them at a heavy, awkward trot.

  Theo put his hand on Cumber's backbone and shoved him forward, propelling the ferisher back toward the smoking, spotlit hulk of the Daffodil House conference center and the greater safety of other people.

  But would the frightened constables trying to save lives at a disaster site intervene to save him from what looked like one of their own? Even in his exhaustion and confusion Theo could see that it was much more likely they would hold him up long enough for the thing to catch him. As he suddenly veered from the glaring lights and confusion near the front door, Cumber slammed against him and they almost fell down. He looked back and saw the constable-shaped thing had narrowed the distance to only a few dozen yards.

  "Where do we go?" "There!" Cumber pointed to a door in what looked like a small hut or a public restroom just to the side of the looming outer wall of Daffodil House.

  "Are you crazy? We'll be . . . trapped in there . . . !" "Do what I say!" Cumber bumped him toward the door. Theo scrabbled it open and they plunged through onto a small landing, then almost fell down the stairs when the door closed behind them, sealing them in darkness.

  "What the hell is this?"

  "Down. Hold onto the railing." They had reached the bottom of the fourth short flight when Theo heard the door groan open above them and the first sounds of booted feet on the stairs. He and Cumber spilled off the bottom landing and out into a flat space. Suddenly a greenish light leaped out all around them: Cumber had produced one of the small glowing spheres from his pocket. They were in a vast room, low but wide, and they were entirely surrounded by . . . parked cars.

  "A garage? We're going to die in a garage?" A sudden spark of hope flickered through him. "A car — you have a car here!"

  "No," said Cumber. "But there's a way out of here that leads to the other side of the grounds. This way!" They stumbled to the far side of the garage, but when they pulled open Cumber's escape door it was to find the corridor full of smoking wreckage from above, the way blocked. Their pursuer had just come down off the stairs at the far side and started across the garage floor toward them, boots knocking echoes, a stone-faced, stiff-legged shadow.

  Theo turned to the smoldering wrack, hoping that at least he could find a piece of burning wood to use as a weapon. Comic books and fairy tales and movie images flittered through his head — a torch, they're scared of fire, monsters are scared of fire, aren't they? — then Cumber began to pull in a different direction.

  "Over there! The main stairs!" "Are you crazy? We'll just get trapped inside the building and it'll fall down on our fucking heads! At least here we might be able to get past that thing, get out into the air . . ." Theo didn't want to die in some hole like this and he certainly didn't want to die gasping for breath inside the smoking husk of Daffodil House after he'd fought so long to get out.

  "No," Cumber shrieked, "the stairs go down! There's a stop for the train!" Theo stared. The constable-thing was moving swiftly but not hurriedly. Its arms were spread wide, and for a hallucinatory moment Theo imagined them stretching to fill the garage from wall to wall. Cumber yanked his elbow so hard he almost fell over. Hopeless, helpless, he allowed himself to be pulled back across the open floor toward the blockhouse structure at its center. The door would be locked, Theo knew it as surely as he knew his own name. He would have to play hide-and-go-seek around the structure like the smart pig locked out of his brick house, the wolf getting closer and closer until exhaustion ground him down and the hungry thing grabbed him at last.

  But the door was unlocked. When they had slammed it behind them, Cumber wasted a few critical seconds searching for a latch that wasn't there. They gave up and headed down.

  More stairs, tripping, stumbling, sometimes falling in the shaking, nearuseless light of Cumber's torch. Stairs. This is hell. Hell is stairs, was all Theo could think. I'd sell my soul for a goddamn elevator.

  But I don't have a soul, do I? I'm some kind of fairy.

  Okay, settle for an escalator, then.

  "Do you actually think there are going to be any trains?" he gasped. Above them, they heard the stairwell door rasp open. "Of course there aren't going to be any trains with the complex on fire! But there are tracks . . . and tunnels and . . ." Cumber tripped and caught himself, moaned with pain.

  "Your leg — I forgot." Theo got under his arm. "Do you want me to carry you?"

  "You can't do it. Just help me. I'll manage." Two more flights, both of them gasping now, then they skidded out onto a platform, slipped and got tangled and fell to their hands and knees. The dimming light of Cumber's globe showed a tunnel mouth at either end of the tiny station, dark holes that the swampy light could not pierce.

  "Look, that thing doesn't want you," Theo whispered as he helped the ferisher up. They could hear the steady slap of footsteps coming down the stairs, still distant but magnified by the echo. "Just me. It probably won't even notice you. Just wait until it comes after me, then go back up the stairs."

  "Shut up," said Cumber wearily. "You make a wretched hero. Let's get down onto the tracks."

  "Which way?" "Away from where half of Daffodil House has probably collapsed onto them, don't you think?" Cumber Sedge crawled to the edge of the platform and began trying to let himself down onto the siding a couple of yards below. Theo, who despite his countless bruises and aches and his rawscraped lungs was in much better shape than his companion and at least a foot taller, hurried to climb down first so he could help him. Here was another one who hardly knew him, he could not help thinking, but was risking his life on Theo's behalf.

  "Thanks," he whispered as he lowered the ferisher down to the tracks.

  "Let's not die. That would be thanks enough." Gravel crunched underneath their feet as they limped toward the tunnel, the greenish light wavering on the walls, making everything seem misshapen.

  "Back home you have to worry about stepping on the electrified rail. Is there something like that here?"

  Cumber snorted. "Nothing so easy to avoid."

  "And you're really sure there won't be any trains running?"

  "You'll hear them if I'm wrong."

  Theo sneaked a look back. The little station platform was still empty. The darkness began to grow thicker and thicker around them. Theo worried that the tunnel was filling with smoke, that he had breathed so much now he could not smell it or taste it anymore, could only guess the air was thinning by the dimming of his sight. "Shit," he said when he finally understood what was happening. "Your little flashlight thing. It's dying."

  "It's not meant to be used this long. It's for taking notes in lecture hall." Cumber narrowed it from a glowing orb to something more like a flashlight beam, but it did not seem to grow any brighter.

  And when it finally goes out? Theo could not
help thinking. When it's just us in this pitch-black tunnel . . . with that thing behind us . . . ? He strained for the sound of boots crunching behind them, but their own dragging feet were making too much noise. He stopped so he could hear better.

  "Blood and iron, have you lost your wits?" Cumber turned and staggered back, grabbed Theo's jacket and pulled him hard. "It's either behind us or it isn't — what good is standing there listening going to do?"

  Theo let himself be led forward again. The light from Cumber's little globe had grown so faint that it took him a moment to notice that the roof of the tunnel was gone and that they were in the open again — or at least as open as anything could be this far underground. It was too dark to see much of anything, but he had the impression of vast spaces and thought he could smell something more primal than the tunnel smells, a yeasty funk primarily made up of mud and growing things and . . . water?

  "It's a canal, a bit of Ys," Cumber confirmed. "Or rather, it's some tributaries that flow into Ys — it's all practically a sewer down here now." "And think I see little lights out there, too." Theo squinted into the middle distance. The pinpoints of glow mounted up on either side of the track as though he and the ferisher were walking into some amphitheater built expressly for fireflies.

  "It's Deeping Hollow, the kobold city," said Cumber. "Well, not just kobolds — all kinds of folk who've lost their places in the city up top. Goblins, tommy-knockers, undocumented bogles . . ."

  "Would they help us?" "Are you joking? The only reason we haven't been robbed and murdered so far is probably because they're all terrified by what's been happening aboveground so they're lying low."

  "Then where are we going?" Theo suddenly did not like the look of the clusters of small lights, and he liked even less the series of distant whistling cries that began a few moments later along the upper reaches of the invisible valley, like coyotes howling to each other from the tops of desert buttes.

  "I don't know. But wherever it is, it has to be better than standing around and waiting for that dead thing to get you, doesn't it?" Theo could only grunt. It had already been the murderous mother of all bad days to begin with, and now he had to drag his bone-weary body through the depths. He was tired of pain, tired of endlessly walking, tired of being pursued. He was tired of darkness. I guess the only thing I'm not tired of is living, he thought. Which is why I'm doing all this other bullshit.

  The cries from the sparkling darkness in the upper reaches of the kobold city were getting louder and more insistent. Theo bent to pick up a few good throwing-stones from the bed of the railroad track and the blood that rushed to his head almost tumbled him over. Then, abruptly, the whistling noises changed pitch, became more frantic, more confused. A moment later, the invisible observers all fell quiet — a blanket of silence that started behind Theo and Cumber Sedge and rolled over them. Theo looked around in surprise as the countless tiny lights began to wink out.

  "I think they just spotted our friend," whispered Cumber. "And they don't like him any more than we do." Theo supposed he was grateful that at least the ambush seemed to be on hold. He squinted back down the tracks, trying to figure out where the sudden darkening of the lights had begun. "It couldn't be more than a quarter of a mile, maybe less," he whispered. "That thing's slow, but it never stops — I don't think it even gets tired. Good God, it must have walked halfway across Fairyland with its guts fallen out just to get to Daffodil House . . . !" He turned back to the track ahead of them and looked up, startled. By the fading light of Cumber's globe he saw what seemed vertical towers looming up only a short distance ahead of them. "What the hell is that?" he hissed.

  "Railroad bridge." Theo didn't like walking on trestle bridges. He had almost been caught on one by a train while larking around stoned in the Marin hills with Johnny and a couple of the guys from one of their earlier bands, and although he had laughed about it in later years, he had never shaken off the memory of the few moments when he had not been certain he would get off in time, when he had been forced to think about jumping down forty or fifty feet into a rocky gorge. Now another such bridge loomed right above them, the trestles no more than a ghostly filigree, stretching away over an expanse of dark water that the failing light could not even touch, so black it might have been starless space.

  "Do we have to go over it?" "Unless you want to turn back and try to outwrestle that thing that's following us, yes, I'd say we have to." Cumber's voice was brittle with pain, but Theo was not going to be so easily silenced.

  "How long is it?"

  "How long? I've only ever been over it on the train. Not that long — a few hundred steps, I should think." "Good." Theo clambered out from between the tracks and started down the embankment at the side. "Then we can swim across instead." He cocked his head to listen. The waters below were almost silent — there couldn't be much current.

  "You are mad, you really are." Cumber staggered after him, clutched at his arm. "Look at this, Theo. Look!"

  Theo couldn't understand what he was talking about. "Look at what? The bridge? I damn well see it!" "No, look at what's on your wrist, fool." Cumber pushed up the sleeve of Theo's jacket, exposing the bracelet of grass. "That's a nymph-binding. Have you forgotten?"

  Theo was nervous at how loud Cumber was getting. "Sort of, yeah. So what?"

  "So what? You belong to the nymphs. The next time you get into any body of water bigger than a bathtub, you're theirs. No arguing. You won't be able to bargain your way out of it, either, unless you've been picking up some pretty fancy talismans on our little trip today and I just missed it."

  "What are you saying? That . . . that I owe them my life or something? But I didn't agree to anything like that!" "No, but Applecore did, to save you. A nymph-binding's an old loophole that gives you a chance to go find treasure to exchange for your servitude." He shook his head. "You may have fairy blood, Theo Vilmos, but you don't know anything, you really don't. Faerie works on bargains and agreements. Our science is all about agreements, not like that silly randomness they believe in your world. You ask, you get, you pay for it."

  "So if I just dove in there . . . ?" "Then whoever lived there would get to claim you. And I promise you, it wouldn't be a pretty little river-nymph like the ones Applecore saved you from, oh no. It would be something that lives deep in that black water and drinks and eats whatever the City spews out."

  Now Theo was beginning to panic, and not just from the unpleasant picture Cumber was painting: they had been standing and talking far too long. "All right," he whispered, "you win! We can't swim. We'll have to cross the bridge. But let's hurry — that thing is going catch up with us any moment!"

  They scrambled back up to the train tracks and onto the trestle bridge, forcing their endlessly aching muscles into yet another effort, stumbling every few steps. Theo did his best not to think of the distance down to the water that lapped at the pilings and what might swim beneath its opaque surface. They had only gone a few dozen yards when the tracks beneath their feet began to vibrate, a soft but distinct bumping that slowly grew louder.

  "Footsteps?" Theo gasped. They looked back, but there was no sign of their pursuer. Cumber then swung the light around; nothing was visible ahead of them, either. Theo turned and took a few steps back, peering into the distance. The little globe still gave off enough light that he felt he should be able to see anything that made so much racket.

  "Theo . . ." Cumber sounded very strange. He whirled to see a nightmare shape climbing up over the side of the bridge in front of them, surprisingly nimble for its huge bulk. It was vaguely humanoid, with pale, warty skin that glowed like the underside of a luminous mushroom. It looked only a little taller than a man but about five times heavier: as it slouched confidently toward them it almost seemed to fill the bridge. It blinked a few times — its eyes were small and black as raisins — but did not seem otherwise put off by their light. The creature's rubbery mouth looked big enough to swallow Theo up to the shoulders. It stopped in front of them, but its body
continued moving for a long moment afterward, like gelatin — it was hard to tell if the bulbous creature was sagging with fat or whether its skin merely bunched and accordioned like the folds of a rhinoceros' hide. The only thing certain was that it was monstrously big and incredibly ugly, and that it stank like a tidal flat.

  "Yum," it said in a deep, bubbling voice. "Strangers on my bridge. What have you brought me?" "I've crossed this bridge on the train a hundred times and never had to give you anything!" Cumber's righteous indignation was undercut a bit by the quiver of terror in his words.

  "Ah, got a deal with the railroad, I have," the thing said cheerfully. "Family rights — we've had this bridge for centuries and I get my little slice, regular. But folk traveling on foot — that's a different matter. Tell you what, though," it said to Cumber, "you give me your chum's head, I'll let you have a free pass for three whole years." It leaned forward to examine Theo, who was rigid with fear and did not move a muscle even as the thing's dreadful breath washed across his face. "Well, two years," it said.

  "We just need to go across this once," Cumber said. "We're being followed by something very, very bad."

  "Worse than me?" The thing smiled, showing jagged teeth of many different lengths. "Come, now. You'll hurt an old troll's feelings."

  "It might be," said Cumber, struggling to keep his voice even. "And it doesn't bargain." "We'll see." The troll looked intrigued. "But first things first, if you're in a hurry." It scratched its chin — or the great shapeless pouch of leathery flesh where a chin should be — with a huge, cracked fingernail. "All right, then, I'm thinking . . ."

  "Maybe you'd accept my rail pass?" Cumber asked hopefully. The troll laughed, a sulfurous hiss. "Rail pass. That's a good one." It brought talon to chin again. "Tell you what. I can afford to be generous, since times have been good — not only my stipend from the railroad, but now that all these folk have moved down from aboveground there are always little ones playing on the tracks, so it's been a jubilee year for me. And if they're blowing each other apart up there, it will only get better. So I'll give you a bargain. A finger."