by epubBillie
Afterwards, he watched them as they walked down the path towards the town, but he had gone inside by the time they turned the corner to walk around the foot of the ridge, returning to the house where Armand lived.
Philippe was eager to discuss what they had seen in Gaspard Gruiller's garden, but Armand was disinclined to accommodate him. It had surprised Philippe to learn that Armand's wild surmise about the fate of the birds which visited the garden was actually correct, and it seemed to him an item of gossip worth spreading (for Gruiller had not asked them to keep silent about what they had seen). Armand, on the other hand, seemed only to desire solitude and the company of his books, so Philippe soon left him alone.
When night fell, Armand closed and locked the shutters of his window as usual, and went to his bed in a state of some exhaustion, having slept so badly of late. This time, however, sleep came very quickly to claim him, and he did not toss and turn at all. He was later to tell Philippe that he believed he had slept dreamlessly for a long while before he was visited by a very dreadful nightmare.
The nightmare began, as had his peculiar dream of some days earlier, with the sound of something attempting to gain admission at his window - first by rapping as though to demand that he open the shutters, and then by tearing at the edge of the wood with clawed fingers.
In the end, Armand explained, his dream-self had risen from the bed and gone to the window, unlocking the shutters and throwing them open. There, hanging upside-down from the eaves like a great bat, was a monstrous creature with brightly-coloured feathered wings and a manlike face with thick, rubbery lips. Its body resembled a plucked bird, the skin all puckered and dappled, and its limbs (of which there were four in addition to the wings) were like the limbs of eagles, scaly and taloned.
This creature snatched at Armand's dream-self, and lifted him as though he weighed hardly anything at all - but this action was not hostile, and almost seemed protective, for as the daemon launched itself into flight it hugged Armand to its bosom as a mother might clutch a child. Fearful of falling, Armand wrapped his arms about the waist of the peculiar creature, as though accepting and returning its embrace. He reported that as they flew he could feel the beating of the great muscles in the daemon's breast, where his face was pressed against the wrinkled skin.
There were, he said, no teats upon that breast at which an infant could suck.
The flight was but a short one, for it took him only to the further end of the ridge, where Gaspard Gruiller's house stood, with the facing window wide open and brightly-lit, as though the tower were a lighthouse for the insidious things which haunted Parravon at night.
Armand was delivered by his carrier into the garden beside the house, and found himself in the space between the end of the bower and the five great toadstools, which did not form a circle - as Armand now perceived them - but a pentacle.
Inside the pentacle stood a creature like the one which had brought him, but bigger by far, standing almost as tall as that strange high hedge. Its vast wings were feathered like the legendary firebird, glowing from within, all glorious in red and gold. Its capacious arms were stretched aloft, with the claws widespread as though to catch the silver light of the bountiful stars. Its slender legs had flattened feet like those of a fowl, so that it could stand upon the ground instead of searching for a perch, as its smaller companions must.
The expression on its face, as it looked at Armand, was paradoxical, for the face - so Armand said - was uglier than he could ever have imagined, with horrid bloodshot eyes and a nose like a huge serrated beak, mounted above a mouth crowded with sharpened teeth.
And yet, said Armand, the gaze of those foul eyes was not predatory but fond; and the black tongue which crawled in serpentine fashion between the cluttered teeth was not licking the outer lips as though in anticipation of a meal, but teasing him with its little motions as a mother might tease her child with friendly grimaces.
When his dream-self had borne this inspection for a few long minutes, Armand felt himself taken up again, and lifted to the roof of the bower where the brightest and the best flowers grew, and he was tenderly placed among them, in the middle of a crowd of perching daemons.
He already knew what to do, and bowed his head immediately to a succulent bloom, taking the central style into his mouth as all the others were doing, sucking greedily at the milk which was within, carefully prepared by the wondrous flowers from the tender flesh of captured birds.
The taste, so Armand said, was sweeter than he ever could have imagined - though his father's table, at which he had feasted throughout his life, had been as well-supplied with sugary delicacies as that of any tradesman in the city of Parravon.
When Armand related this dream to Philippe he told him that there had been more, and that his wild adventure must have continued for several hours, but that the rest of it evaded his waking memory, and could not be recalled.
Philippe was more impressed by this dream than he had been by the first which Armand had related. He was almost ready to believe that there was something truly awful about the garden which they had seen, and that Gaspard Gruiller might actually have signed some dire pact with the daemons of Parravon. And yet, he told himself as he listened to Armand's feverish recital, a dream is only a dream, and the shutters at the window had never in fact been opened - nor were there any additional scratches to be seen upon their outer face.
With these doubts in mind, Philippe told Armand that his nightmare, however frightening it may have been, could not be taken seriously as a revelation. Perhaps, he suggested, the dream had been a kind of release, by which all the anxiety Armand had been storing up had at last been discharged.
Armand dismissed this explanation out of hand.
"There is more," he said, excitedly, "for when I woke this morning, and went to my book, I discovered at last the passage for which I have been searching - the passage which helps to explain what manner of things these monstrous flowers are, and what dreadful harm they can do."
So saying, Armand placed the open book before his friend. But Philippe could not read, and Armand was forced to say aloud what was written there.
"The followers of the Old Faith," he quoted, "believe that every living element of the natural world is properly destined for the nourishment of others."
"As the flower feeds the bee which will make honey for the bear, so the leaf feeds the worm which will later take flight as a brightly coloured thing, which will feed the bird which feeds the hawk, which will fall in time to earth, as the bear falls also, to feed the tiny things which crowd the fertile soil, where the roots draw nourishment to feed the flower and the leaf."
"So it is that everything which lives is born from the soil and the sea and the air, and must return in time to soil and sea and air, so that all may be renewed, forever and ever without pause or end."
"But the followers of the Old Faith say also that there is an evil in the world, which seeks to pervert the weave of destiny. There is an evil which alters the flower or the leaf to become the nourishment of daemons, so to spread the seed of chaos within the world."
"Those who believe this have the following warning to give to the unwary: Beware the treasonous beauty of that which is food for daemons, for though it harbours the milk of ecstasy, it promises destruction."
When he heard this, Philippe Lebel felt a chill in his heart, and for just one moment he saw the world as Armand Carriere saw it: as a peculiar and magical place full of threats and confusions, in which no man could live in comfort and safety. It was not the kind of world in which he desired to spend the remainder of his days.
"Can you not see," said Armand, "that Gruiller keeps his garden for the nourishment of daemons, who fly there by night? I cannot tell whether he is their servant or their master, or what he may have to do with the other horrid things which happen in Parravon by night, but this I know: that man's soul is not his own, and his garden is a thing so vile as to terrify the mind of any honest man!"
But Phil
ippe would have none of this. "Armand," he said, truly believing that he was reaching out a helping hand to save his friend from unworthy fears, "this is nonsense. The Old Faith is for gypsies and the ragged men of the forests. We are of the town, and have better gods to guide us. The excellent gardeners of Parravon have shown us that the flowers of the wild are there to be tamed, arranged and regimented to our pleasure. Gaspard Gruiller is but a gardener, after all. He does not seek to make a secret of his garden, but willingly took us into it to show off his pride in his achievement. Lay down that book, I beg you, and take up another, which will teach you the ways of the merchant in the market, and the arts of civilized men."
Philippe said that his friend looked long and hard at him then, but said nothing, and finally laid the book aside. They both went to the window, to stare across the ridge at the tower-house and the tall dark hedge which surrounded its garden.
"Did we really play along that ridge when we were children?" asked Philippe, with a small laugh. "The thorn-bushes must have been sparser then, for I am sure that we could not find a way among them now."
"It was a long time ago," Armand replied. "And we were children then, very different from what we have become."
Early the next day, Armand's mother came to his room to search for him, because he had not come to breakfast. She found the room empty, with the bed in disarray and the shutters wide open. She went to the window and looked out, and immediately saw her son's body, some little distance from the wall, deep in the bosom of a thorn-bush.
It was not easy to reach the body, and the elder Carriere had to call upon the assistance of his neighbours to hack a way through to it. Philippe was one of those who helped with this dire work, and thus was able to see the corpse of his friend before it was taken - with great difficulty - from the bush.
It was plain that Armand had fallen into the bush from a height, and the only sensible hypothesis which could be offered in explanation was that he had undone the shutters of his window during the hours of darkness, climbed up on to the sill, and launched himself from it in a prodigious leap, which had delivered him inevitably to his fate.
The thorns had punctured him in very many places, hard-driven by the force of his fell, and when they had finally pulled him free of the bush they saw that there was hardly an inch of his flesh unmolested.
It was as though he had been ripped and rent by many wicked claws.
When the company returned to the Carriere house Philippe told them all about the dreams which Armand had suffered, and about their visit to Gaspard Gruiller's strange garden.
Because it was the first time he had told the story it was far more confused in the telling than the version which you have just heard, but it would probably have made no difference if every detail had been in its proper place, for these were townsmen and tradespeople, and though they bolted their doors most carefully at night, they were inclined to believe that whatever the dark might hide was no concern of theirs. Nightmares, they agreed, were a sign of madness and folly, and if any more proof were needed that poor Armand had been utterly deranged, one only had to look at the peculiar books which he had chosen to read.
As for Gaspard Gruiller, the elder Carriere and all his friends were unanimous in declaring him a good neighbour. If the plants in his garden captured and devoured birds, that was certainly peculiar, but Parravon had no shortage of birds, and the great majority were a nuisance to other gardeners, so Gruiller's activities must be counted to the public good.
And if any further proof were needed that the gardener was worthy to live among honest tradespeople, there was the universally acknowledged fact that he was a man with no significant debts.
THE STAR BOAT
by Steve Baxter
"You're drinking alone?" The stranger's voice rasped against the friendly hubbub of the tavern.
Erik lowered his tankard and thought it over. Between campaigns, Erik - the one they called Erik the Were - always drank alone. Everyone knew that.
So who was this? He had made enough enemies on his many campaigns. Had one found him now?
The weight of his battle-hardened axe pressed against his thigh. He turned slowly, wiping froth from his moustache.
A rich purple cloak swaddled the stranger. No face could be seen in the hood's shadows. The stranger stood utterly still, like a lizard.
"Yes, I drink alone," Erik growled.
"Then let me buy you another." The stranger reached out a gloved arm.
Erik wrapped the thin wrist in one hand. The stranger spat like a snake and snatched back his arm. Beneath its covering the flesh had been cold.
"I mean no offence." Trembling, the stranger sat on a precarious stool opposite Erik. He had no drink and he kept his hood over his head. "I know of you," he hissed, breathing hard. "You are Erik. A mercenary. A fighter whose fame passes far beyond your forsaken Norsca." Erik caught a glimpse of yellow eyes deep inside the hood. "You have just returned from Araby?"
"Yah. So?"
The stranger shrugged. He indicated the rest of the tavern, half-armoured Norsemen waving money at serving women. "I can see it was a rewarding trip," the stranger said drily. "But you're not a man to throw money around, are you?"
Erik remembered Araby...
The sunlight stamped down on fire-hot sand, scalding the blond bodies of the Norsemen. He stood ready with the ulfwerenar, the wolf-kin. The werewolf warriors howled their discomfort.
The metal of his sword burnt his hand. He closed with Arabs whose breath stank of spices and who fought with knives clutched in long teeth; a growl built deep in his throat and he felt his lips stretch around a thrusting jaw; a red mist covered the sun and his teeth sank into dark flesh -
Erik the Were.
His breath rattled in his throat. The stranger was watching him. He forced himself to relax, to loose his grip on his tankard.
"I risk my life for my pay. Why throw it at some fat barman?"
"Very admirable."
Raucous singing drifted through the crowd.
"Ah." The stranger cocked his head. "I'm no expert on your aboriginal music, but I can make out the sentiments. Companionship, the bond of death." Again the shadowed head swivelled at Erik. "And where are your companions, Erik?"
Erik worked his hand around his tankard. "I choose my own company," he growled.
"Really?" The stranger leaned closer; his sibilant hiss turned to a whisper. "You see, I know why they call you the Were. You have a trace of the ulfwerenar in your veins, but your blood is not pure. You are both wolf and man... but you are neither wolf nor man. Are you?"
"So?"
"I've seen your type before. The wolf in you makes you a formidable warrior... the little you dare release. But you are a warrior wary of himself. Eh, Erik? And none of your comrades in arms, human or Were, see you as one of your own. Do they, man-were? How many of them will drink with you now? Is your wolf blood a gift or a curse, Erik?"
Erik slammed one fist on the tabletop. Heads turned. When they met his glare they turned away.
"What do you want?"
"My name is Cotza." The stranger stood. "I travelled here to find you. I have an assignment for you. A challenge for the great and courageous Erik the Were. A journey to the northern wastes; a search for ancient treasure... I have a room in the tavern called the Dragon's Tooth. Come at dawn." Cotza reached into a deep pocket and threw a handful of coins onto the table. "Here," he said. "Until then, drink and forget your loneliness, man-were." And he turned and strode out of the tavern, his gait awkward and rolling.
With a snarl of disgust Erik brushed the coins onto the floor.
A little before dawn Erik settled his account and left the tavern. His breath frosting over his beard, he walked through Ragnar's deserted streets. At the edge of the little town he climbed a small rise.
Pine-clad mountains swept down from behind Erik and pushed ridged fingers into the sea. The stars began to die; frost glistened. The lights of Ragnar and a dozen other small towns glit
tered in the fjords.
Mist covered the sea, and the mournful sound of a longboat's dragon horn floated out of the fog. Grumbling voices drifted up to him out of Ragnar. The house of the Husthing - the town council - shouldered its way above the mass of squat buildings, its bell tolling the hour.
It was all very ordinary, human, comforting. Erik shivered and turned away, and looked to the north. Darkness clung like smoke to the northern earth, oblivious to the dawn.
Far to the north lay the great waste. It was a land of night. That lingering dark was the banner of the Chaos Powers.
Something in him stirred. He touched the mat of fur that covered his upper cheek. The cloaked stranger's words had carried truth. Erik was a solitary man. Others could sense the seeds of Chaos in him, the traces of were-blood, even when the physical signs went unnoticed.
He remembered a child goaded day after day by his fellows - a child who wasn't like the others, a child who was thickset, hirsute...
That child had never dared to do what he longed to do, to howl and bark and bite into the throats of his tormentors. For what if the wolf refused to subside, what if the wolf overcame the little boy and trapped him somewhere inside?
Erik the Were. A child terrified of himself.
The stranger had seen into his most secret heart. Erik felt exposed, weakened; anger coursed through his thoughts. He pulled his cloak tighter around him and stalked back into town.
He rapped at the door of the Dragon's Tooth. The innkeeper was fat and bald. He grumbled as he led Erik up to Cotza's room.
Erik pushed open the door. There was no bed in the room. A large iron bath held water that steamed in the draught from the door. A massive trunk stood open in one corner. On a table a plate was stacked with damp greenery. It looked like seaweed. The dish was garnished with the mashed-up remains of insects.
Cotza stood motionless in the centre of the room, facing Erik. He still wore his purple cloak.
