The War of the Flowers

by Tad Williams

  "Got it!" Poppy said as she yanked open the door. Theo ran around to the far side and climbed in, vaguely conscious that the seat seemed to wrap itself around him in a disturbingly lively way but in too much of a panic to think about it.

  "Just drive," he said. "Distance." He turned to look. The thing was coming up fast now, stiff-legged but still horribly quick. He could see the face bouncing slackly under the helmet as it ran, its wearer uninterested in conveying mortal emotions, perhaps not even comprehending such things. "Now! Hurry!"

  The car hummed to life and almost jumped away from the curb. Theo had only a moment to pray that they were not parked in a dead-end street. They weren't. He looked back again to see the thing watching them go. There was nothing in its posture that spoke of defeat or frustration. It would simply start all over again — already it was walking after them as it dwindled from view. Theo was suddenly extremely grateful the thing hadn't captured any bodies that had wings. It didn't really seem to plan, so its horrible single-mindedness had at least one useful side effect.

  Still, given a choice, he would rather have not been chased by a relentless, deathless monstrosity, even if it did have a character flaw. But nobody was giving him a choice.

  ————— Half an hour later she pulled into the access road that led to the Old Fayfort Bridge, parked and turned off the runabout's lights. He reached across and took her hand. "Well, pretty interesting date, huh?" He tried to laugh but couldn't really manage. It was all a bit too awful for anything but the grimmest kind of humor.

  "What are you going to do now?"

  "About Applecore? Or about . . . you and me?"

  She shrugged, smiled sadly. "Both, I guess. It's not a very good time for us, is it?" "I don't know. I don't know much of anything. But I'm not going to just disappear or something, if that's what you're worrying about. Well, I suppose I might, but it won't be by choice."

  "Don't say that, Theo. We'll think of something. I have friends — some of them know important people . . ." "Yeah, but nobody, no matter how important they are, is going to make Hellebore stop what he's doing, and for some reason nobody can explain, I'm wrapped up in that." There were dozens of questions he should ask her, he realized, things that the daughter of Hellebore's partner might know that others wouldn't, but it was too late and he was too damn exhausted. "Can I see you again?"

  "Of course." She took his hand, held it to her lips, then pressed it against her cheek. He stroked her black hair. "Of course."

  "I need to think. I need to ask questions. I know some people too. But I'll call you soon — if I can figure out a way, I'll even do it myself this time." Their kiss again threatened to turn into something much more involved. It was extremely hard for his conscious mind to raise a quorum for letting go of her — his feet and legs wanted sleep after a day of walking and running, but the rest of his body thought the feet and legs were idiots, and the bits between his legs were on the verge of staging a full-scale mutiny. He pulled himself free while he still could, kissed her a few more times, then backed clumsily out of the small car. It wasn't that it was too early in their relationship — it was wartime, for God's sake! — but more that he didn't have a place for her in his life yet, and feelings this surprisingly serious and strong would just blow him apart, otherwise.

  "Theo?" she asked as he came back around to the driver's side window to kiss her goodbye again. "Do you really share a tent with a goblin? And sing with them?"

  "Yeah, pretty much." He hesitated, worried that she would say some stupid upper-class thing about them being dirty or criminal and, without meaning to, make him feel wretched about liking her so much.

  "That's so great. I always wanted to know a goblin. My father never let me go near any of them." He thought of Button's apparent plans for revolution. "Everyone may get to know the goblins better one of these days." He kissed her. "Goodnight, Poppy. Thanks for . . . for everything."

  "I shouldn't say this," she told him, "but I'll say it. You'd better call me." Theo waved as she made a laborious three-point turn and then headed back toward the City. He felt more like a teenager than he had in years. Yeah, been here before — I live in a world that makes no sense, the authority figures are all out to get me, and my glands have taken over.

  He walked back to the refugee camp feeling a bit like he should sneak in quietly so he wouldn't wake his parents.

  33 THE LAST BREATH THEY TOOK

  "I am pleased that you have come to see me, Theo Vilmos." Theo took a seat on the woven mat across from Mud Bug Button. The goblin handed him a bowl and poured steaming water into it from something that looked pretty much like a teapot, but Theo was learning not to make assumptions. "Thank you. What is it?"

  "Tea." "Good." He sipped, blew, then sipped again. It tasted a little bit like root beer and a little bit like cilantro, but it wasn't too bad and there weren't any small animals floating in it so he decided he'd leave the inquiry at that. He sat for a moment just holding the bowl, letting his thoughts settle like the bits of leaf drifting down through the tea, although it was a bit hard to concentrate with all the grunting going on at the far end of the bridge's tower room. The two ogre bodyguards were taking turns doing twohanded lifts with a chunk of granite the size of a home entertainment system.

  "Why are they always in pairs?" Theo asked. "Ogres, I mean. Nobody's ever got just one." Button smiled his pointy smile. "Is that truly what you came up here to ask me? The reason is that they are usually brother and sister, at least among what the fairy lords call the better houses — 'better' meaning of course 'richer.' It is a superstition among the Flower-folk that siblings work together better than any others, and since ogres often give birth to male and female twins, and since the security trades draw ogres in the same way that housecleaning draws ferishers and home-management draws hobs, it is not, hem, impossible to find brother and sister pairs willing to work as guards, especially since they can draw the highest salaries." He looked over to Choo-Choo and Topsy, then lowered his voice. "In fact, the belief runs so strong that when one sibling is killed, even when that death saves their master's life, the other is almost always let go afterward. Can you imagine something so terrible? To lose your twin and then your job as well? But it is only a belief, as so many things are, unquestioned and even foolish. A surviving ogre twin, called a 'widow' or 'widower,' will often be a very fierce protector for the next master, since they no longer have divided loyatlies." He shook his head. "The Flower-folk never understand that, or do not want to believe it, and they continue with their fetish of sibling bodyguards. It is a common insult among the fairy lords to say, 'So-and-so's guards had never even met until they started working together,' meaning that, hem, So-and-so was too poor to afford to hire twins."

  Theo watched the gleam of sweat on leathery hides, the bulge of muscles. "So are your bodyguards brother and sister?" Button laughed. "These two? They are indeed. But I am no slave to Flower fashions, I hasten to say! They are the bodyguards of Caradenus Primrose. They came with him, but he has, hem, transferred them to me, I suppose. He fears for my life. He is a kind fellow, Primrose."

  "I wouldn't have agreed with you the first day, but I think I do now. How did he come to be here? He's never said anything to me about it." Button poured himself another bowl of tea. "I sense that you are avoiding the true concern that brought you here, Theo Vilmos. But I am in no hurry, and we may reach the mountain by many roads." He sipped, contemplated. "Actually, how Primrose came to be here is very closely wrapped up with how I came to be here."

  "I wondered about that, but I didn't know if it was rude to ask . . ." "It is never rude to ask a goblin anything because we love to tell tales, but what you will get — as you must know by now — is a story with a hole in it, as we always say.

  "Perhaps you have thought on this a bit, Theo Vilmos. Perhaps you have said to yourself, 'Button must have suffered some terrible loss at the hands of the Flower-folk, to bear them such a grudge.' Perhaps you imagined my family, hem, brutally slaughte
red, or my mate ripped from my arms and dishonored by young fairy lords. But it is nothing so simple. In fact, I wonder how often it is that people who have suffered such losses can work usefully toward the sort of changes of which I dream. It seems to me that when the wheel on which a pot is made is crooked, the pot will be crooked also, however ambitious the potter. The bigger the pot, the more severe will be the flaws. Make it big enough and that original crookedness will cause it to shatter the first time you set it over the fire.

  "That is how I feel. I believe a change is coming for the way we live. I look back and see I have been on a long journey, and some of it has been through evil times, but nothing so simple as, 'They killed my family, and thus they must be overthrown.' My mother and father are alive, living here in this city. My father is a gardener, now with a business of his own, taking care of the grounds of some of the greatest houses. He is happy — or, hem, he thinks he is. My mother, too, after many years washing windows and cleaning floors, now has the leisure to spend time with her grandchildren. You see, Theo, I have several brothers and sisters and they are not so concerned with the machineries of Faerie as I am. They have lived more . . . conventional lives. So my mother, too, believes herself happy. Perhaps she is.

  "Ah, but you see, I had the evil luck to achieve some education. I was the youngest and so by the time I grew my parents could scrape together enough money to send me to one of the goblin academies. You look surprised! There are such things, truly."

  "I didn't doubt it," Theo said. "I only . . . are they just for goblins?" "Of course. The Flower families and their admirers are hard put to share schools and neighborhoods with lesser fairies of their own type. I imagine your friend Cumber Sedge could tell you some stories of what it means to be a ferisher living in one of the high houses . . ."

  "He has." "Just so. No, the Flower gentry are not yet ready to see their children studying alongside goblin children. For one thing, it might make them question the differences between us that they have always seen as beyond dispute. And now you may hear a little bitterness in my voice, Master Vilmos. Because of course, I did not conceive these ideas by chance. There is no tale of some singular terror, but there is of course a catalogue of petty insults and small denials, heaped one upon the other, day after day, until taken together they weigh more than any one event. I do not know much of the mortal world but I imagine there are people there who experience the same things I have . . ."

  "There are. Of course." "Then I wish I could have met such mortals — it would have been instructive to consider the similarities and differences. What drives me is not what you would think, perhaps. The worst was not when some rich idiot would curse me and call me a 'skin-eater' or suggest I was dirty or a drunkard without bothering to learn anything about me. Even the knowledge that had we goblins proved useful for their power-generation needs our entire race would have been burned away like kindling by the Flower lords with scarcely a second thought was not what galled me most — that is almost too big for one home-soul to encompass. No, the worst was that even the kinder fairies I met, the decent sort, had to keep reminding themselves that I was another living, thinking being. The surprise when I said something intelligent! The praising of almost any achievement by me as if I were a farm animal who had learned to solve cipher-charms! It was this more than the outright cruelties that ate at me, Theo Vilmos. And when I came out of the academy, afire with new ideas and puzzled that all my classmates were not blazing, too, it was to discover that, hem, my own family no longer understood me either, and that there was no occupation awaiting me where I could usefully employ my mind. Unless I were to strike it lucky and be taken up as a sort of curiosity by one of the more unconventional Flower families, as with your friend Cumber, I could look forward to nothing more challenging than clipping the hedges of the wealthy or, perhaps, owning a small store on the edge of Goblintown.

  "Years went by and I could find no satisfying uses for my learning, for my ideas. You have seen the condition of our society, Theo Vilmos. It is not a happy place and the more I studied it, the more I learned of what had happened since the Gigantine War and the death of the king and queen, the more I became convinced that the edifice was rotting from within. Perhaps it is wishful thinking, because if the system survives I doubt I will see any change for my own people within my lifetime, however much longer it lasts." He smiled and looked over at Choo-Choo and Topsy, who were resting and drinking from a bucket of water. "Which will likely not be long, no matter how well-prepared Primrose's ogres might be."

  He poured himself more tea. "There are no great surprises in this tale, Theo, as I mentioned. I met Caradenus Primrose while my father had the contract to maintain the endless north lawns of Primrose House. We are great ones for agreements and contracts, we goblins. We hold our honor dearer than our lives and we have always considered our given word the most sacred bond. Thus a contract, any contract, is to us a thing of powerful science. To my proud father this compact with a Flower family seemed a sort of acceptance by his betters, whereas to them he was only another sort of servant. But that is beside the point.

  "Caradenus has always been an unconventional member of a very conventional class and he went out of his way to talk to us and the other laborers on the family estate. He had even learned some words of Goblin, which, hem, he liked to practice." He chuckled, then had to wipe tea off his lower lip. "By the Taproot, he speaks it abominably! Like a man with a cockatrice struggling to get out of his mouth. But never tell him I said so!" He looked quickly over to the bodyguards again in case they had heard. "It is admirable Caradenus has tried to learn, but the first time he tried it on myself and two of my comrades he actually came up to us and said, in our tongue, 'Greetings, my head is Primrose the smallest and you are commanded to eat your names with me.' The habit of subservience runs very deep — not surprisingly, when my people have been killed in the past for insufficient respect in nearly all the high houses, and every work camp in Willow and Birch has a grave pit where the bodies of those goblins who have been worked to death or have resisted authority can be discarded — so we did not laugh. I found out later he would not have minded, or rather he would only have minded that he had the words so badly wrong."

  Theo didn't want to think too much about grave pits. "So you became friends?" Button looked surprised. "Oh, no. Not so easily — I still am not sure whether we could call each other friends. He and I are from different worlds, almost as much as you and I. But we spoke often and learned from each other. He, hem . . . hem — your pardon, I have an old injury to my throat — he thought more about the problems of the world than any Flower I have met, although we did not always agree on the solutions and he was still bound very strongly to some of the most conservative ideas of honor and tradition, even as he questioned things that were more fundamental, like the difference between types of fairies and the inequalities of our society."

  The goblin took a long drink of his tea. "Primrose was a great help to me when I most needed him, although it troubled his principles, I think. But it is a mark of how different he is from his fellows that, just as he weighed his debt of honor against you in the light of what he learned, then decided he had been wrong, so he put even his own beliefs to the test when it mattered. In any case, he helped me to escape when no one else of his class would have even considered it.

  "So I left my family and our little foothold in society behind. When Primrose found me again he too had begun to break with his own clan, although it was more in his heart than in his head. He loved his family, you see, and could not entirely separate who they were from what they were." Button poured himself a little more tea, then filled Theo's bowl as well. "He was not ready yet to break entirely with the way of life in which he had been raised and I think he still harbors some hopes that it can simply be . . . reshaped. I do not feel the same." He showed his long teeth; it was not a smile. "But we agree that change must come, and he is honorable. So, no, Theo Vilmos, Caradenus Primrose and I are not quite friends — I f
ear the gulf between our peoples is too great — but we have found something that is useful and perhaps even comforting to both of us."

  Theo sipped the tea. Somewhere, he had lost the thread. "But you said he helped you to escape . . . Escape what? It sounded like you were just working for your father and . . ." He lowered the bowl. "Oh. I get it. That's the hole in the story, huh?"

  Button took a little more tea.

  "Do I have to guess? You had to escape because you did something — got in trouble. Right?" Button swirled the dregs in the bowl and looked back at Theo. "But you didn't do anything to his family, because then he would have thought he had to kill you, like he did with me." He pondered. "And you didn't just run away, or put up some inflammatory posters or something, because you said 'escape' and you also said his principles were troubled. So you must have done something really bad." Theo suddenly found the yellow, slot-eyed stare difficult to meet. "Did you . . . kill someone? One of the big-deal fairies?"

  Button's very sharp teeth appeared again. "You are practically a goblin yourself now, Theo Vilmos. You have filled the hole in the story. More tea?"

  "Hang on. I've been helping you because . . . because you seem like you're trying to do the right thing. But I think I need to know about this." He looked over to the bodyguards, who had finished their workout and were regarding him with an offhand but nevertheless focused sort of interest, as though they could feel his tension from across the room. "What happened?"