The War of the Flowers

by Tad Williams

  "We struggled a long time. But he had a body, and a strange and crippled one at that — I of all people understand that now. Bound as he was to that malformed shell, he did not have the strength to prevail in a long struggle. When his earliest and deadliest attempts to destroy me failed, I knew that eventually I would win. In that strange place he was like a jellyfish of shadows and lightning, but I burned like a comet — white-hot, blazing with hatred. As he weakened he tried one last time to banish me from his plane of existence, but I had the upper hand and I turned his own power against him. His soul or whatever it might be went shrieking away into the ultimate darkness, leaving me exhausted but victorious. With my last strength I wrapped his empty body around me like a blanket and found myself back in Faerie again. But I was stuck in the Remover's rotting, alien carcass, and despite many attempts, I have not been able to replace it with anything less dreadful, this body that bears the residue of a million horrible thoughts, sights, deeds. If you think I have done bad things, Theo, you should feel comforted to know the hell in which I have trapped myself.

  "When I regained my strength I was desperate to see Erephine, to show her that I had returned to her against all odds, even if it was in this grotesque form. I tried to contact her but received no reply. I sent her message after clandestine message without hearing anything back — if I had not seen occasional mention of her on the talking mirrors I would have feared that she had died. After a while I began to consider that her family might somehow have turned her against me. Much had happened during the years I had been absent — the Flower War had come and gone, the Violets had been destroyed as I had supposed they would be and six families now ruled New Erewhon and Faerie instead of seven — but it was still a short time by fairy standards, far too short for a love like ours simply to evaporate. I decided I must have her brought to me, to get her away from her cursed family and show her how I had broken the very laws of time and space to be with her again.

  "Things did not go as I planned. My hired hands brought her to me but she was strangely resistant. The woman I had loved and who had loved me beyond all meaning now acted as though the time that had passed in Faerie during my absence had changed everything — impossible in a race that lives for centuries! I could not show myself to her directly, of course, not in the form I was wearing — I was cloaked and masked like the Phantom of the Opera or some other melodramatic nonsense, and this made her suspicious despite all the proofs I offered her. She demanded to know what I looked like — she said that I might be hiding from her because I was not Eamonn Dowd at all but the infamous Remover trying to embroil her in some scheme! I had my employees transport her across town to my old house in Forenoon, which I had reclaimed under a new name. I had hoped to remind her of what we had together, but it quickly became clear that something dreadful had happened — that her parents had found some Faerie magic to brainwash her, to make her think she didn't love me anymore. And after all I had been through! It was a terrible night, me demanding that she admit that it was really me that stood before her, that she remember our love, and she insisting in turn that I was trying to trick her, complaining that she was tired and frightened and wanted to go home. Home! To the very people who had tried to pull us apart!"

  My God, Theo thought, he really is crazy. He can't even imagine she might just have changed her mind, fallen out of love. "At last, in desperation, I revealed myself to her. 'This is what I did for you!' I shouted. 'This is the torment I suffer every day to be in your world!' But I should not have done it. She was not ready for the truth. She screamed and screamed and tried to escape and I was forced to restrain her — not physically, because this body does not have that sort of strength, but with certain charms I had found in the Remover's vast library. I suppose I was more hasty than I should have been — remember, I was also tired, and heartbroken, and much of the Remover's science was new to me. I silenced her and made her pliable, but only at a terrible cost."

  Theo finally broke the long silence. "What does that mean?"

  Dowd sighed. "Step forward. Now turn to your right. Do you see that wooden casket?"

  Theo stared at the nearest pile of strange objects. The black chest was a little over a foot long and almost as wide. "Yes, I see it."

  "Open it. Go ahead. Do not fear — there is nothing in it that can harm you." He picked it up carefully — it was surprisingly heavy — and slowly lifted the lid. Inside, couched on dark gray velvet, lay the stone head of a woman, a white marble mask carved in an attitude of serenity and repose. Whoever the model had been, her beauty was unearthly. "I don't underst . . ."

  The stone eyes opened. The lips curled into a rictus of horror and the mask began to shriek. Theo gasped in terror and dropped the box, which thumped down onto the floor and landed on its side, the lid open. The screaming grew louder.

  "Close it!" shouted Dowd. "Close the lid!" It was one of the most terrible sounds Theo had ever heard, an endless shrill of raw terror. He jammed his hands over his ears, almost weeping, and at last managed to kick the ebony box shut.

  "She is seldom awake," said Dowd in a shaken voice. "I did not think . . ." "Jesus Christ, what did you do to her?" "Nothing, not intentionally. Somehow the charm I used to calm her only paralyzed her body. In an attempt to reach inside her and bring the real Erephine back to the surface, I pulled out her essence but could not reintegrate it. Do not look at me — I did my best! Do you think I wanted this?" His voice shook. "You don't understand. Her family soon tracked us down and I was forced to escape, taking only her essence with me. Her body is still alive, unlike my own mortal form, but it is virtually empty. Her family has installed the shell, for that is what it is, in a sanitarium outside of the city, but she, the real, true Erephine, remains with me." He was quiet for a long moment, as if he'd lost his way in some prepared speech. "I saved her," he said weakly, "and one day I will reunite body and mind again . . ."

  "You're a fucking monster, do you know that? Saved her? You drove her mad and then you took her mind and locked it up in some statue!"

  "Listen to me, you don't understand . . . !" "I understand as much as I need to!" Theo strode toward the corner where Dowd hid in shadow. "Is this the kind of help you've got in mind for me, too? No fucking thanks. I was an idiot to stand here listening to you. Come out! Come out of there or I'll drag you out."

  "Stay away, boy!" Dowd's voice rose to a hysterical pitch. "I'm warning you!" Theo made it another few steps forward before the mandragorum caught up to him. He was close enough to see some of the shape that was Eamonn Dowd trying to struggle away from him and into deeper shadows like a bat with two broken wings. It was incomprehensible, really, at least in that brief instant, something that might have been a mass of slime and dead leaves and chicken bones picked half clean, although even that did not really explain the complex wrongness of what he saw. Worst of all, what stopped him even before the hand of the root slave clamped his shoulder, was the momentary glimpse of the ruin that was Dowd's face, the distorted knob of head whose only clear features were the eyes, the only human things in the glistening, tattered face, eyes that were wide with terror and misery and shame. Theo could not help himself. He recoiled with a cry of disgust.

  "I told you not to come near me," Dowd screamed. "I told you! I should kill you."

  "For what? For seeing what you've done to yourself?" "Done to m-m-myself?" Dowd sounded like he was having trouble breathing. "H-how can you say such a thing, boy? Was it me who banished myself from Faerie in the first place? Did I double-cross myself?"

  "Oh, God. Yeah, in a way you damn well did." Theo had reached the point where he no longer cared. "The hell with all of it. The hell with you. Just tell me what you're going to do to me."

  Dowd calmed himself a little. "The same thing Hellebore and Thornapple and the others would have done if they'd been able to lay their hands on you. As the heir of the Violets you possess some kind of key they think will allow them to access the ultimate source of power, the beliefs of the mortal world.
I don't need to destroy the sanity of our old world to achieve my goals — I do not need so much power — but I must find out what that key is and use it to restore Erephine and myself to some semblance of normality. I am sorry, Theo, but unlike Hellebore, I will do my best not to harm you."

  "Drop dead, you psycho — there is no key. Everyone's hunting for me but I don't have anything! No key, no magic wand, no one ring to bind them all — nothing!" He writhed uselessly in the grip of the mandragorum.

  "We will not know for certain until I have a chance to examine you. Don't you see, it's only fair, after all they did to me, to Erephine. That is why I pretended to search for you on their behalf, even though I knew exactly where you were. Hellebore needed me and I needed him, because I have slowly taken resources and knowledge from him under the guise of doing his bidding, until I think I have discovered much of what I need to know." "So you're not really any different from Hellebore, are you?" Theo spat on the floor. "Oh, I forgot — you're going to try not to kill me while you're doing whatever you do."

  "I am not Hellebore," Dowd said coldly. He had shrunk back into the darkened corner again; Theo could see him only as an irregular shadow. "I have done terrible things, but I did them for love."

  "That's one of the most frightening things I've ever heard." The other mandragorum suddenly stepped out from the shadows by the wall and into one of the pools of light. Theo felt sure that Dowd had suffered more recrimination than he could stomach, that he was going to have the root slave beat Theo unconscious or worse, but then it wobbled and bent forward as if in a bow and just kept bending — collapsing, really, in the most surreal, cartoonish way possible. It fell into several huge pale slices that thumped onto the floor and rolled.

  "What the hell . . . ?" was all that Theo had time to ask, then half a dozen figures spilled out into the room from the spot where the root slave had stood — armed constables in what looked like riot gear, eyes hidden behind insectoid goggles, beehive guns trained on Theo and the place where Dowd sat hidden by shadow. Two more men dressed in civilian clothes stepped out behind them, one extremely tall and thin and somehow vaguely familiar, holding what looked like a whip made of curling light. The other was of more ordinary size and all too recognizable.

  "Tansy." Theo spat on the ground. It was a futile gesture, but it didn't look like he was going to get to make any other kind of gesture in the near future.

  "Yes, Master Vilmos — or should I say Master Violet? I am alive, thanks to you. You merely left me to die instead of finishing me off." There was something wrong with the fairy's face, an unnatural gleam. "You are clearly out of touch with your true heritage."

  "Shut your hole, Tansy," said the tall, dead-faced one. "Father wants this done quickly."

  Doomed, Theo thought as he looked at the array of flaring gun barrels pointed in his direction. His veins seemed to be trying to pump icy water through him instead of blood. He had recognized the tall one, or at least the family resemblance. He must be Hellebore's kid — the one Poppy said was completely mad.

  38 THE BROKEN STICK

  "This is outrageous!" Eamonn Dowd's voice boomed so loud out of the empty air that Theo stumbled and even the helmeted constables flinched. Tansy covered his ears as Dowd's voice blared again. "How dare you break into my sanctuary like this, uninvited?"

  "Spare us," said the tall, pale fairy. "You're a traitor, playing both ends against each other. My father has already heard and decided." "What are you talking about?" Dowd sounded so alarmed that Theo's spirits, already at rock bottom, began scraping themselves a hole so they could sink even lower. "That's a lie, Anton Hellebore! I have done your father countless favors — your entire family . . ."

  Hellebore raised his hand and snapped his fingers. There was a flurry of musical tones like the harmonics at the top end of a guitar neck, then a complicated gleam of light near the ceiling above Hellebore's head slowly became the glinting outline of a spiderweb stretched across the space where two walls met near the door. A curiously mechanical-looking spider crawled out of the dark spaces and into the middle of the web. "You're not the only one who can hide in the shadows," the younger Hellebore said. "We sent this in here the last time you were out visiting us." He gestured again and Dowd's voice filled the room.

  ". . . That is why I pretended to search for you on their behalf, even though I knew exactly where you were. Hellebore needed me and I needed him, because I have slowly taken resources and knowledge from him under the guise of doing his bidding, until I think I have discovered much of what I need to know."

  Theo looked around desperately for a way out, but there were armed constables on all sides and at least two of them stood between him and Cumber's sleeping form.

  "All right, Anton," said Dowd. "You have me, I'll admit it, although you know perfectly well that your father not only understands the advantage of playing one's rivals off against each other, he does it himself. So let's not waste time arguing when we could be bargaining. You want my more-orless grand-nephew, and doubtless you know that I have lots of other valuable information as well, things gathered over many centuries by my predecessor. My own needs are few and I have no illusions about fighting with your father over ultimate power — all I ask for letting you take the Violet heir without resistance is a day to leave the City . . ."

  "You bastard!" Theo shouted. Anton Hellebore had the disconcerting laugh of an idiot child. "That's funny, it really is. But it's a bit late to be surprised by anything he does, Violet or Vilmos or whatever you are. You already know what Dowd did to his own family, not to mention the so-called love of his life. Now ask him what he did to the baby that was in your woman's belly."

  For a moment, a sharp, panicky moment, Theo believed the young Hellebore meant Poppy — that they knew about her somehow, had captured her. Then it sank in.

  "The miscarriage?" he asked, turning to the shadowy spot where Dowd crouched. In a day of bizarre surprises, of terror and revelation, he could barely encompass one more. "Cat's miscarriage? You did that?"

  "For Hellebore! I didn't want to. I hated doing it! But if I hadn't he would have pulled you out of the mortal world right then, to keep the birthright from passing on, and I . . . I wasn't ready . . ." A strange, choking sound came from both the air and, for the first time, audibly from the huddled form. "I wasn't ready . . . !"

  Theo could not speak.

  Hellebore's lips twitched briefly, as though he had learned to smile from a manual. "Well, that was fun, I must say." "You're a fool, Anton Hellebore." Dowd's anger now sounded like nothing but bluster. "Your father would never make such a mistake. Now Vilmos is angry at me — you've made it even harder for us to put him to use. Not only can't you do it without me, now I will have to work very diligently indeed . . ."

  "No, you're the fool, Dowd," said Lord Hellebore's son. "We don't need anything from you at all." He turned to the constables. "Shoot him." In an instant, before Theo even had time to do more than flinch, two of the armored men stepped forward, goggles darkening as they lowered their weapons. The muzzles flashed and for an instant a whine like a plane's engine filled the room and seemed to suck everything toward it like a tunnel of vacuum. The whole shadowed corner of the room where Dowd had hidden flew apart, bits everywhere, tatters floating down. Theo heard one harsh breath, a raw gurgle, and then the twitching thing in the wreckage stopped moving. Something rattled down between the rafters and fell to the floor, rolled near to Theo's feet. It was a wasp — a spent bullet in the form of a tiny bronze automaton, legs kicking feebly. Theo could only stare at it, stupid with shock.

  He's dead. Dowd's gone. Just like that. "Now bring out the salamanders and burn the place." Anton Hellebore seemed utterly unmoved by what he had just ordered done; he might have been a cadaver jolted just strongly enough to move around in a semblance of life without actually feeling anything. "Oh, and someone put this shorttimer in the coach. So you're really one of those weakling Violets," he said, grinning at Theo. "Well, I can't say I'm surprised."
He turned back to the beetle-eyed guards. "Don't damage him fatally, but if he resists, hurt him. You, why are you moving so slowly? Take the one with the caul over his face, too. Maybe he knows something useful."

  Four constables grabbed Theo and Cumber as the others began to empty sacks they had been carrying onto the floor, spilling out dozens of tiny reddish creatures with bright golden eyes. If they were salamanders, the words didn't mean quite the same thing here — there was something of amphibian shape to them but they also looked a bit like cartoon demons as they fled the center of the room and scuttled toward the nearest dark hiding places, some of them already smoldering into flame. Tansy was almost jumping in place with anxiety. "My lord, you're not really going to burn this place, are you? The knowledge collected here is invaluable . . ."

  "The knowledge here is false." For the first time there was real fury in young Hellebore's voice. "I should have known the Remover was a mortal — he never understood anything I told him, couldn't answer any of my questions. He didn't like the way I performed my experiments, either. I should have known!"

  "But there are things here gathered by the original Remover . . . !" Theo watched, sickly fascinated even as the guards handcuffed his hands behind his back. The surface of the restraints was strangely wet and rubbery, but Theo was distracted by something else: Count Tansy's features seemed almost to flicker and slide, inconstant as an oil slick. His face — it's held together by some kind of charm, Theo realized, like the kind that Poppy was talking about, youth charms, beauty charms. He must have been really messed up in Daffodil House.