The War of the Flowers

by Tad Williams

  The smile broadened. "From what I understand, Master Vilmos, there are not very many people like you to be found here in Faerie." "Fair enough." The little guy was hard work. Theo looked down to see Cumber trying to listen to something earnest Primrose was saying while still keeping a conversation going with the attractive sorrel-haired fairy woman on the other side of him. Poor Applecore, he thought. We're neither of us being very faithful to your memory. It made him feel guilty and it hardened his resolve. "Look, I guess I'm trying to figure out what you're doing here, for one thing, and why you invited me — why you care about me at all. You're obviously an important guy."

  Button turned to whisper something to the ogre on the other side of him, who looked at Theo with something like amusement on his elephantine face before going back to his energetic chewing. "I told him you were the one who was singing with the goblins this evening. There is much talk about you already. You wonder why I invited you? As I said on the bridge tonight, perhaps it will soon be time to fill empty places in some important stories. You have been here less than a day and yet you already found a very powerful empty space to fill. Your kind and my kind do not make music together."

  "Really?" He was flattered and a little nervous. Apparently he hadn't just been jamming, he had been performing some kind of weightily significant cultural exchange. Theo was suddenly very grateful he hadn't known. "Okay, it worked. I'm distracted again. And I'd love to talk music sometime . . ."

  "Then you must speak to Doorlatch. He was a sacred hilltop singer, once." ". . . But that's not really what I want to know now." He took a breath. "Please, if it's not rude to keep asking, what's going on here? Who are you?"

  Button's laugh was easy, unforced. "I am just what you see — Mud Button." He made his face solemn. "No, I forgot, I have abandoned mystery. I am Mud Bug Button. I am a storyteller."

  "And the stories you tell sound like you're trying to start a revolution. That makes you pretty important." "What goes on here is important. I simply happen to have come here at a particular time. It is the others who are also here, and the reasons that brought them to this place, that are important."

  Halfway between a blood-and-thunder preacher and a politician, Theo thought. He seems like the best kind of each, but how the hell would I know for sure, especially here where all the rules are different? "Are people going to fight back against Hellebore and his friends? Because if they are, maybe I am in the right place after all. I owe those bastards something."

  "More than you guess, I suspect." Button again made his strange throatclearing noise as he returned his attention to the bread and the sopping, glazed field mouse on his plate, making it all into a sort of sandwich.

  Theo didn't really want to see the mouse go down, so he concentrated on filling his own stomach with some less avant-garde delicacies. He poured himself a cup of wine that smelled of oranges and cinnamon, then offered the jug to Button, who shook his head. Theo drank off the whole cup before venturing another question. "I met someone who was coming to see you today . . . a pretty strange guy named Nettle . . ."

  Button looked up, smiled, nodded. "My good friend, yes. You will get to see more of him since you are sharing a tent."

  "Hold on, he's the other roommate? They said it was someone named Streedy."

  "Streedy Nettle, yes. That is his name."

  Theo recalled the unfocused gaze with more than a little dismay. "We're sharing a tent with that guy? The tall one? The . . . strange one?" Button was about to laugh, but he managed to keep it off his face. His eyes betrayed him, though; they glittered with amusement. "So you have met him. Good."

  Theo shook his head. "All the more reason for what I was going to ask you. So what's with him? I mean, he said he knew someone that I know — that he heard her voice in his head."

  "Is that someone in the, hem, Thornapple family, by any chance?"

  "Yes!"

  Button nodded. "Let me tell you a little bit about Streedy Nettle."

  "Is this another story with holes in it?" "You must judge for yourself. But since there is no such thing as a story with a true beginning or a true ending, then they must all be circular, and if they are circular, it stands to reason that they will all have a certain . . . open space in their center."

  Theo waved his hand in surrender. "Streedy Nettle. The Thornapples." "Yes. He worked for the Thornapples, did my friend Streedy, if you can dignify it with such a name. Do you know anything about how power is generated in Faerie, Master Vilmos?"

  "I've heard a little," Theo said grimly. "Slave labor until they burn out, basically, right?" "A fair summation. And Streedy was one such producer of power, working in a Thornapple power plant as a capacitor, which suggests he had some native abilities beyond what is normal. In any case, long before he had reached his natural age of diminishment, Streedy was involved in a very bad accident. It is hard to say what happened, exactly, but there was a terrible overload of power for some reason and he was right in the center of it."

  "When you say power here, you're talking about what I call magic, right?" "Ah, yes, you are of the mortal world originally. I suppose that is right. But whatever you call it, it was a terrible event. Streedy was almost killed — he should have died, in fact, but for some reason he did not. When he felt well enough, he ran away. Delirious and slowly starving, he found his way to the outskirts of the City and wandered the streets of Eastwater. I found him. I fed him. I brought him here."

  "Well, that explains about what he's doing here at the bridge, I guess, but not about . . ." "The Thornapples?" Button took another bite of bread, then wiped his mouth daintily with the sleeve of his garment. If it weren't for the fingershaped nose and the yellow fangs, Theo would have felt himself to be in the company of some Bedouin chieftain. "That is a mystery even to me. Something about his accident, the way he was changed. He hears voices. At first I thought it was only madness from a damaged mind, but it is more than that. I have heard enough to know that somehow he has made, hem, a connection of sorts with the power systems of Thornapple House — a fleeting and irregular connection, but it is there — and that he hears things, learns things, because of it. He cannot explain them all, and even though he now seems to understand what has happened, it is still very troubling to him to hear those voices in his head."

  Theo sat back. He was full and almost happy: the despair of the past days was, for the moment, at an acceptable distance. Ghostweed and music, he thought. And a good dinner. It may not be the best way to get through something, it may not rebuild your life or bring back your friends, but it's better than a sharp stick in the eye. "Well, that's all pretty weird, for sure," he said to the goblin, "but at least it makes some sense. I have to stop thinking that the rules I know apply here. It makes me stick out like a sore thumb. It gets me in trouble."

  "Oh, but that's just what you should not stop doing, my friend." Button pushed his own plate away. "It is important that you keep thinking like what you are, or what you long believed yourself to be — a mortal."

  "What are you talking about? And how do you know I'm not a mortal, anyway?" The goblin did not smile this time. "You have few secrets left in this camp, Theo Vilmos. But do not fear. We are your friends, or we would like to be. And we need you."

  "Need me? For what?" "I am not sure yet. But the bad days are coming, the days of fire. No, they are already here. And I sense that we will need you, and need you very badly. Even so, it may not be enough. We live in the days of a Terrible Child, Theo Vilmos. Days when bad dreams walk living under the sun."

  It was too much to absorb. Theo closed his eyes, let the babble of the table flow over him. "Can I ask you one more question?"

  "Of course."

  "You telling your other name tonight. Was that as big a deal as it seemed?" "I do not think any other goblin has ever admitted it to any outside his nest, and certainly not to any who were not of his own tribe. But these are times of change. It seemed the right thing to do."

  "The other goblins seemed to take it
okay."

  "Most here are almost mad with anger — yes, and with hatred of the Flower clans. They are willing to go through nearly anything to find their home-souls again, although some will feel uneasy tomorrow to have heard such a private thing spoken in a public place, and said in front of Uneaten as well — those who are not goblins." He showed a small, yellow smile. "And I daresay there will be more than a few of my kind who will want to kill me when they hear, the tradition-lumbered folk of the Ash Plains Covenant, others who fear the new more than they fear death. And of course there were spies from the Flower families among those gathered tonight. But Choo-Choo and Topsy will protect me." He reached out to pat one of the ogres, who grunted with a mouth full of food. "Long enough, anyway, for me to accomplish my work." Button straightened up. "Come, we have talked enough of such things. Tell me of your world. We goblins seldom see those lands in these painful days. Do mothers still frighten children with our name?"

  Theo considered. "Not really. I suppose there are monster movies, things like that . . ." "Monsters moving?" Button looked at him with a shrewd eye. "I am sure your world would be stranger to me than mine is to you. Tell me a little, then I will let you go and sleep, for I know you are tired."

  And so as the lamps burned down and the fairy-folk talked and laughed and whispered all around him, Theo did his best to stay awake and tell the goblin stories of a strange, magical world in which everyone grew old, the trees had no spirits, and none of the people, not even the lowliest folk, had wings.

  30 FAMILY MATTERS

  The limousine full of bodyguards was already loaded and waiting, a cloud of tiny powersparks drifting up from the coach's exhaust vent. The air in the underground garage was thick with the stuff — Poppy could feel it prickling on her skin. They had been waiting for her a long time.

  Good. She couldn't care less. She saw glimpses of thick gray faces as her father's guards looked out at her through the smoked windows. Even behind darkened glass, their expressions were respectful. Everybody knew what had happened to an ogre named Blocks who had been caught leering at the daughter of his employer, Lord Periwinkle. What was left of the body had been sent back to Blocks' family in twelve attractive ceremonial cases, each bearing the Perwinkle crest. None of the boxes had been very large, although Blocks in life had been a massive fellow. Lord Periwinkle had been voted an official Bestowal of Praise by the parliament for his gesture — more for its deterrent effect on bodyguards and servants everywhere than for the courtesy shown to the bereaved family.

  Wayside, the driver, stood by the door of her father's coach. He nodded his blind, equine head at her as she approached. He was bigger than the average doonie, tall and broad across the shoulders, effectively giving the Thornapples an extra bodyguard: if other doonies were slender thoroughbreds, he was a plowhorse.

  "Afternoon, Mistress."

  "Good afternoon, Wayside. I suppose my father's in a horrid mood because I've kept him waiting?"

  "I've seen him more cheerful, Mistress." He opened the door for her, then closed it behind her with a silent thump that always made her ears pop. As she sat down, her father gave her the withering look that used to send a spasm of panic right through her when she was a child, from the nape of her neck to her groin. She was impervious now, or as close to it as you could get when the person in question could still have you killed with a snap of his fingers.

  Would he do that? she wondered. If I made him angry enough? Her stepbrother's murder had left Aulus, Lord Thornapple, with no heir, so presumably he had some use for his daughters, although she felt sure that was the only reason he cared about them. After Orian's birth had killed his first wife, her father had married three more times, but to his secret shame and public irritation the succeeding wives had produced only five girl children. The other four daughters were all married to scions of important client houses . . .

  Client, as in rhymes with "pliant," thought Poppy. . . . But none of them seemed the type to which her father would entrust what was now, with the destruction of the Daffodils, one of the two most powerful houses in the city.

  Fine, she thought. Better than fine. Let Lavinia's husband Saxifrage have it all. The faster he runs it into the ground, the happier I'll be. Murderers. She stared at her father, mirroring the emotionless mask he habitually made of his features. You and that monster Lord Hellebore. You all deserve to die.

  As that dreadful, cold thought grew in her like ice crystals, the luxury coach bumped up out of the garage and slowed to be waved through the gate and out into Henbane Square. The usual rabble of beggars, protesters, and supplicants was gone; instead, the square was full of well-armed parliamentary constables, a mark that the ruling families were still not entirely certain of their victory. Wayside slowed to let the coach full of bodyguards clear the gatehouse and catch up.

  Her father finally broke the glacial silence. "You have made me wait." With his pale skin, snowy eyebrows, and thick, tar-black locks, he looked like a marble statue that someone had painted hair on for a prank. "By making me wait, you have made our host Lord Hellebore wait, too. Two of the most important people in all Faerie, on whose words and thoughts thousands of people depend, have lost half an hour of their precious time because of a slip of a girl who cannot be punctual."

  "I didn't want to go in the first place." She hated the sound of her voice — dealing with her father seemed to leave her only two choices, frightened or spoiled and whiny. "What do you need me for?" You can think up new ways to murder people on your own, she wanted to say but did not. Poppy's rebellious streak had always stopped well short of suicidal candor, but she was finding it harder than ever these days to keep her mouth shut. The news of the destruction of the great houses and the deaths of her father's and Hellebore's rivals in the Six Families, along with hundreds of others — not to mention the incessant discussion of it among even her most unpolitical friends — had shocked her profoundly when she thought her brief life had made her a complete cynic. The magnitude of the destruction still gave her nightmares.

  And all because my father and Foxglove and that evil, evil man Hellebore wanted more power. I heard them planning it! That was in some ways the hardest part of all, though even now she recognized there was nothing she could have done, not without knowing exactly what was about to happen.

  "What do I need you for?" Her father had been silent so long she had forgotten they had been having what passed in Lord Thornapple's chill, reptilian way for a conversation. "Is that all you can think of to say to the one who has given you every advantage? To one who has raised you in a luxury which even the children of the other high houses would envy?" He shook his head. "It is not as though I ask much of you, Poppaea. To make an occasional appearance at family functions. Not to disgrace us with bad behavior in public. It is not much to ask in return for the life you have been given."

  No, she thought. It's not much. You could ask me to care about you and the family, and that would be a price I couldn't pay.

  "Well, then, Father," she said. "How may I pay you back for all the kindness and generosity you've shown me?" He flashed a tiny smile, sudden and cold as a patch of ice on the road. "You have your mother's tongue. It's too bad she was . . . that she could not learn to control her impulses more carefully. I hope you will not follow her in that way."

  Follow her to what? A philtre overdose that might or might not have been an accident, and might not even have been self-inflicted? At least she knew how to love. She even loved me. "No, sir. I wouldn't want to do that."

  His smile flickered out like a weak flame. It was a miracle it had lasted so long. "I hear your friend, young Foxglove, has announced his engagement to Monkshood's eldest daughter. What do you think of that? Were you two not . . . close?"

  She shrugged. She didn't really know what she felt about Malander and his new totsy, but it wasn't much. It was abundantly clear to Poppy that the city was full of Flower boys who wanted to get into her pants. What did she care who their daddies were? What did she car
e about any of it? And, more importantly, why should her father care about it?

  He settled back against the seat. "Enough of this. You will mind your manners today. It would not hurt for you to apologize for making us late. Nidrus Hellebore is tolerant and understanding of the foibles of children, but a little courtesy goes a long way."

  Silence returned, the familiar waters in which her father swam like a shark. The great window-speckled ivory tusk of Hellebore House was in view now, looming above the smaller buildings. People on the sidewalks peered at the passing luxury coach; Poppy thought their faces miserable, even haunted. She ached to make some noise, to disperse the oppressive quiet, but there was something in her father's manner that she couldn't quite understand.

  Guilt? she wondered. After murdering all those innocent people, after he and Hellebore had filled the streets with soldiers and turned the Parliament of Blooms into nothing more than a dog house for their tail-wagging sycophants, could it be something as ordinary as guilt?

  No. She felt quite certain it wasn't that. ————— A phalanx of ogre bodyguards cleared the ordinary workers of the housetower lobby out of the way like they were trash, shoving them back to the walls as Lord Hellebore himself came down to meet the guests. It was an honor that her father appreciated immensely, she could tell, although the handclasp he shared with the master of Hellebore House was a mere brush of the palms — the respectful salute of two predators.

  But Father is still the smaller animal. He wouldn't have thought up something like that attack on his own, or had the courage to do it. In another time, another place she might almost have admired Hellebore for his boldness — there was something quite attractive about ruthlessness — but she could not get past the death of innocents. And all for what? More power, more political power, for the man who already more or less ruled Faerie.

  He looked it, too. He wore a suit of hand stitched cream-colored spidersilk that a dozen indentured ferisher women had probably gone blind making, and his hair was cut at the youthful and slightly trendy shoulder length. "Poppaea," he said and took her hand, looking her over. His skin was cool and extremely dry. "You are more lovely each time I see you."