Tad Williams - The War of the Flowers (retail) (pdf)

by Tad Williams

  Theo could not help but think of Poppy Thornapple, of her schoolgirl cynicism and ennui. "I suppose it was at one of the parties at Stock House where I met him," Primrose continued. "The Stock clan had made a lot of money during the Gigantine War and wanted people to know it, so they used to throw the most tremendous parties almost every week's-end. The new horseless coaches would line up at the gates, trailing back for miles, and all the windows of the tower would be lit up. You could hear the music from blocks away." He smiled. "It may have been false in some ways, but it was certainly exciting.

  "Anyway, at that time there were very few mortals left in Faerie. At the height of the Gigantine War the Parliament of Blooms had passed a number of laws to make it harder to get in and out of Faerie — not that the giants were likely to be sneaking in unnoticed. The Clover Effect dates back to that parliament. Powerful science was put to work to make sure no one cheated on the travel restrictions and it made a lot of hardships, especially for those with strong ties to the mortal world. But that was the mood of the time. You know, we almost lost that war. That's the thing you have to understand, why people ignored so much and let so much happen that should have been resisted. Because we almost lost. In the last battle alone the giants destroyed what seemed like half the City. Right near where we're sitting, most of the Longshadow district was smashed to dust by their catapults during the invasion — that's why we call it Warstones now. I don't know if you've seen it. It's never really been rebuilt properly. The fight was terrifying, even from a distance — if you've never seen a giant fully armored for battle . . ." He shook his head. "Forgive me. I'm losing the thread of my story.

  "In any case, because there had been so few mortals around after the war, your uncle was a little bit of a celebrity — a very minor sort, but still wellknown and welcome in many high houses. The Stocks were what are now called Symbiotes or even Creepers — sympathetic to mortals — and so Dowd was a regular at their weekend gatherings. Tertius Stock sort of made a younger brother of him. Tertius is dead now — killed in the Flower War that happened a few years later. He and his family sided with the Violets against the other six ruling families and lost the gamble, but that's another story . . ."

  "So what was Eamonn Dowd like?" Theo asked. "Remember, I never knew him. He'd been dead a quarter of a century or so when I first learned of him."

  Primrose sat silent for a long moment, considering. People were shouting outside the tent, children shrieking, laughing, enjoying the afternoon sun by the ancient river. "It's hard to describe him fairly, since my view of him has been so colored by what happened later, what he did to my sister . . ." He closed his eyes; Theo waited as patiently as he could. Cumber Sedge, he saw, was actually making notes in a small writing book. "He was amusing, that was one of the first things you noticed about him. He knew that to us he was very strange, that his appearance and habits seemed hopelessly odd, so he played them up. That was one of the reasons the Stocks liked him, I imagine — he was their trained mortal, as charming as a dog dressed up like a person and standing on its back legs. I beg your pardon if I offend, but that is how we felt about mortals, and that was why Eamonn Dowd proved so clever. It is hard to fear something that mocks itself."

  "What did he look like?" The fairy gave him an exasperated look. "What did he look like? A mortal. I find it hard to tell one of that kind from another, to be honest with you. I suppose by the standards of his race he was fairly ordinary — not too short, not too fat. He had skin like yours, dark hair, and dark whiskers on his upper lip."

  "A mustache." "Just so. We do not wear them here, although there are some kinds of gnomes that do, who in fact grow them extremely long. Your great-uncle used to make this part of the joke, often signing himself 'the Tall Gnome' in his letters."

  "He wrote letters to people here?"

  "We all did. It was considered rude in those days to use one of the swifter but more scientific means of, say, answering an invitation. I was too young then to be much concerned with such things myself, but I remember when one of our cooks, worried that she would be too late to buy the best something-or-other for that night's dinner party, actually flew to the market. Used her wings while on house business! Mother was horrified, of course — nothing like that had happened in our family since the Winter Dynasties. So, yes, we all sent letters and notes, usually hand-carried by servants."

  "Did you like him?" Primrose frowned. "Again, it's hard to say. I suppose I did, but not in the same way as the Stock clan did. I found it admirable that he worked so hard to fit in, that he took his rebuffs — and there were many rebuffs, of course — without rancor. Insulted in public by one of the mortal-hating families, he would make a joke of it and continue on. Balked in some business or social scheme by the same attitude, he would smile and try to find another way to manage. I wonder now if he was not all the time hating us for what we did to him, how we treated him . . ."

  "Not from what I've read."

  "Pardon?" "I have a notebook of his. Cumber has it at the moment, actually. I've read it and most of what he has to say about New Erewhon — that was his name for this city — is pretty admiring. Of course, it doesn't cover his whole time here . . ."

  Primrose leaned forward, alert now, his long body almost seeming to tremble as though he were a pointing hound. "What does he say about my family? About my sister?"

  The sudden intensity of the fairy lord was unnerving. "Nothing, really. I went back and re-read after you . . . after you and I met. He doesn't say anything about your sister, not if she's also named Primrose, but he does mention you in passing — that he saw you coming back from a moonbrandy party or something with some kobos . . ."

  "Kobolds," said Cumber.

  "Ah. Sphene and . . . and Jasper." Primrose's eyes were focused near the tent ceiling.

  "Huh?" "The two kobolds. I cannot remember their family names. We were great friends during the Bloom Years." It was the first real smile Theo had seen from him. "They were lovers — not of mine, but of each other. They were artists. No one remembers them now, I imagine — even back then very few people wanted to see art that wasn't sanctioned by the Flower elite. They were a little bit fashionable for a while during the Bloom Years among the more adventuresome crowd, but I lost track of them when the Flower War came. I wonder where they are?" He came back from his reverie. "Please forgive me. What were we discussing?"

  Theo shrugged. "I was telling you about Eamonn Dowd's notebook. It ends kind of suddenly. His last entry sounds despairing. Probably because of whatever happened with your sister."

  "Might I see the book sometime? It is possible I might recognize things that even Master Sedge would miss, since I was there."

  "Sure. You and Cumber can work it out. So, not to open the wound or anything, but what did happen with your sister?" The fairy's thin face darkened, a pale golden flush that almost matched his hair. "It is not a surprising story, really. We Primroses pride ourselves on our open-mindedness, and my sister Erephine was always a rebel. Mother and Father liked to say tolerant things about mortals? Well, she would take a mortal for a lover and see what they thought about that! That was bad enough, of course — my father and mother did not really want their principles tested to that degree — but then Eamonn Dowd went too far. He dishonored my sister and the family, although the first dishonor was milder than the later, crowning blow."

  "What did he do? Did he . . . did she get pregnant?"

  For a moment Primrose's look of anger turned to confusion, then he laughed, a sharp bark. "Shade and Stream, no! We live long lives. Even a mortal lover is more a notoriety than a disgrace, and a halfling child — well, suffice it to say that in the old days, it's said, fully a tenth or more of the children of Faerie were half-mortal. Short-lived but fertile, your adoptive race. No, he convinced her to marry him."

  "Marry . . . That was the dishonor?" "It is one thing to make love to a mortal, even to bear a half-mortal child — a woman may have many children in her life by many men, after all — bu
t quite another for that mortal to force himself into one of the oldest clans. By marrying a daughter of Primrose House your great-uncle was inserting himself into something almost as old and precious as Faerie itself. It was a disgrace my parents could not simply ignore."

  Theo shook his head. "You'll have to bear with me, but to me it doesn't . . . it doesn't seem like that big a deal. No offense." "I suppose to one raised among mortals as you say you were, it might be hard to understand. But here it is a grave insult to the family. Worse, it is dangerous to a family like ours. Our bloodlines and the handing-down of family power are important to us in ways you may not understand . . ."

  "Yeah, but even so, why is it only Dowd to blame? Wasn't it her fault at least as much as his?" Caradenus Primrose scowled but his words were civil. "She would not have done it unless he pressed her. Something so shocking — it had happened here only one or two other times in recorded history, although there are many more instances of it happening in the mortal world. But with a daughter of one of the famous Seven Families? He might just as well have set Primrose House itself on fire. No, it was worse, because the house could have been rebuilt, but honor can never truly become spotless again." He was shaking. "I apologize for my anger. It is still close to my heart."

  "I've gathered. And I'm sorry I don't get it," Theo said. "I'm not just sticking up for my . . . for Eamonn Dowd. Maybe he just didn't understand the rules as well as you think he should have."

  Primrose was fighting hard to find his equanimity. "I might, with the greater knowledge and maturity I now have, be able to agree with you that part of his crime was due to misunderstanding our ways, despite all the time Dowd had lived among us. But you have not heard the second part.

  "The marriage was brought before the Parliament of Blooms to be unmade. It was a terrible blow to family honor to have the union paraded in public, but it was the only way to separate them in accordance with the Old Law. My sister at first did not wish to part from Dowd, and had even gone so far as to move into his terrible little house out in Forenoon, doubling our family's shame. The parliament, to its credit, did not waste time and promptly ended the marriage. Dowd was banished from Faerie and my sister returned to the care of her family. She was angry, but I truly believe she was already regretting her headstrong decision to marry a mortal. She raged against my parents and their interference in her life, but I never heard her profess to be broken-hearted at losing Dowd.

  "Dowd himself perhaps felt differently, but whatever the case, his banishment was mandated and carried out, although for some incomprehensible reason it apparently was not effective. These were unsettled times — the Violets were feuding with some of the other Seven Families and everyone could feel the growing likelihood of a Flower War. In any case, somewhere in the early days of open and violent hostilities between the ruling families, Dowd reappeared, to our complete surprise. In truth, we did not know he had reappeared at first, we only knew that my sister was stolen right out of Primrose House. In fact, at first it was suspected to be another move in the already deadly struggle between the great houses. It was only later that we caught the lawless gang of cavetrolls who had perpetrated the act and learned that Dowd had been their ringleader, that they had delivered Erephine to him. But by the time we discovered that, it was too late. Dowd was gone again and my sister was . . . ruined."

  As the fairy fell silent, remembering, Theo wondered how much of this dramatic story was true and how much was Primrose family legend. The Eamonn Dowd who wrote Theo's book might have taken great risks for love, but it was a little hard to believe he would do anything quite as criminal as this sounded. Still, Theo did not want to voice any open doubts — his relationship with this fairy lord was far too fragile. Instead, he ventured another question.

  "I'm sorry — I'm sure this must be painful — but why do you say he was banished and came back as though that was such a surprise? I mean, he got here in the first place, didn't he? It might have been illegal or dangerous or whatever for him to come back, but it wouldn't have been that hard, would it?"

  Primrose was still brooding, so Cumber answered. "It's the Clover Effect, Theo, remember? People — mortals and fairies — can cross from one world to another, but only once each way. Once your uncle was sent back, he couldn't return. Not wasn't supposed to — couldn't. Lord Clover and the people working with him invested a lot of powerful science to make sure that would be true. If there are loopholes, none of us has ever heard of them."

  "So if I finally manage to get out of here, I can't come back." Not that at the moment that sounded like a bad thing, but this was the first time he'd even considered it. "Ever?"

  "Not unless the law changes, and that would take a unanimous vote in the Parliament of Blooms," said Cumber. "Then they'd have to undo it, which would be terribly hard — just the thaumaturgic foundation for the Effect took months to install. But as Lord Primrose said about something else, that's another story."

  There was still much of Primrose's tale Theo didn't understand. "Back to your sister, if it's not too hard to talk about it. Ruined, you said. How? What happened to her?"

  "It's been many years," said Primrose. "It should not hurt so much. It happened in the middle of many larger and, yes, more terrible things, but it still causes me great pain. My parents never really recovered. We rescued her, you see — that's how we know it was definitely Eamonn Dowd who took her, why his guilt is proved by more than the word of the hired kidnappers who never actually saw his face. The place she was held in had been paid for by money out of Dowd's accounts here in Faerie, and the letter he had written to welcome her was found, too, and it was unquestionably in his handwriting. But he was gone by the time we found his lair. He left her behind like a cast-off shoe." The fairy took a deep breath. "We do not know what happened, what he did to her, but when we found her, she was mad — unalterably mad. No, worse than that. In those who are mad there is at least a trace of what they were, sometimes far more than that. In my sister there was — and still is — simply nothing of the woman we knew."

  "What does that mean?" "She is empty. What we found lives and breathes, nothing more. She is a husk. Dozens of the most esteemed doctors have examined her over the years but none of them could help her. She seems to have had her thoughts and . . . and her entire person . . . expelled from her like a yoke blown out of a hole in an eggshell." A tear glittered in the corner of his eye, shocking Theo: he had never seen one of these people cry, or even seem close to doing so. "It would be far better if she had died. Then we could have given her to the Well, mourned, and gone on. Instead she is a walking corpse in a sanctuary for the mad located outside the city. I go to see her a few times a year. It used to be more often than that — I would arrive with plans to read to her, to tell her family news and sing to her songs from our nursery days. She must be inside that shell, somewhere, I would tell myself, the pretty, kind little Erephine you knew. Now I visit her only on festival days and cannot wait to leave again. I do not read stories to her. I sing no songs."

  After a long silence, Primrose abruptly stood. "But this is not your fault, and my attack on you was wrong and unfair. My tragedies are not yours. I hope we can be friends, Master Vilmos."

  "It's Theo, remember? And . . . I'm really, really sorry about your sister." "Thank you." He gave Theo and Cumber a kind of salute, one long finger touched to his jaw, and then went out of the tent, eyes still a little shiny in the corners.

  "Wow," said Theo after a bit. "Just . . . wow."

  —————

  "I will not deceive you," said Mud Bug Button. "It will be dangerous for you to go. But I fear it will be even more dangerous for you to stay here." This is certainly our day for visitors, Theo thought. More surprisingly, the most important person in the entire refugee camp at the Old Fayfort Bridge had come alone to see them in their tent, without even his bodyguards. He's got the common touch, no doubt about that. "You want us to leave here already?" he asked.

  "No, you misunderstand me." The gob
lin looked far more at home squatting on the dirt floor than had their previous visitor. "Only for tomorrow. Certain voices have spoken to me, told me that tomorrow will be a bad day for you to be here."

  "Voices?" Theo looked uncertainly to Cumber, who was listening quietly. "Do you mean spirits or something?" Button smiled. "No, Master Vilmos, no spirits. I speak of, hem, certain employees in the Lord Constable's Chamber who are sympathetic to our cause. They tell me there will be many, many parliamentary constables here tomorrow. The reason they will give is to protect those distributing food and supplies to the many poor people who have fled their homes and come to the bridge, but the real reason is to look for you and Primrose and others wanted by the Parliament of Blooms. Perhaps for me, too, but I do not think they know my name yet, only my . . . shape."