by Neil McGarry
But the prize of the Garden was the great tree at its center, seemingly as high as the Narrows itself, its broad canopy stretching in all directions. She had never seen its like; both bark and leaves were a deep, rusty brown-red that glowed richly in the afternoon light. Just beyond this strange tree lay a single building, fronted by an open portico, that looked almost like a crude temple. Beyond it lay the last walls of the Narrows, and beyond these, farther down the hill, she could see the very top of what must be Broken Gate.
Adori noticed their surprise and smiled. “Quite the sight, eh?”
Lysander shook his head. “This—this isn’t possible. Sure, some people keep little gardens, but the soil down here just isn’t good enough to support all this. It never has been!”
“Things change,” Adori said grimly.
Castor took all of this in with tight, gray eyes, but Duchess was less stoic. "Adori, when I heard there was a camp down here, I envisioned twenty or thirty people, but this..." She gestured helplessly. Amabilis may have stopped his deliveries of steel to the Deeps gangs, but clearly his work had had its intended effect: Morel’s splinter faith was thriving. She thought again of Adam Whitehall’s prophecy, of a dark flower that would bring forth a poison that even Keeper Jadis would not know.
Adori shrugged. “This started with Morel and a few of his fellows, taking over space no one else wanted. By now, though, there are a few hundred of us, with more every day, it seems.” Duchess watched her closely; she hadn't known Adori very long, true, but behind the woman’s words she sensed reluctance.
Just then, the rest of the Moon Flowers, led by Navlea, emerged from the Narrows with the surviving Silent roped together in a long line. Without direction from Adori they herded their prisoners to the temple-like structure. The people they passed looked upon the Silent with unfriendly eyes, and more than one spat in their direction. No love lost there.
A tall Ulari woman carrying a bucket of water approached, offering Duchess a drink from a wooden cup. Walking all the way down from the Shallows was thirsty work, and Duchess gratefully drank. Then the woman moved down the line to serve the others.
“What's that building?” Duchess asked, pointing across the garden.
Adori had been having a short whispered conversation with the water-carrier, but she glanced up to see where Duchess was pointing. She paused, frowning. “Keeper Morel’s sanctuary,” she answered finally.
“An alchemery?" Duchess asked. Keeper Jadis had such a place in the Gardens in Temple, although he had not permitted her to enter.
Adori blinked. “Yes,” she replied, seeming perturbed, though whether at the guess or the question itself, Duchess could not say.
As Navlea and the prisoners vanished into the alchemery, Duchess said, “And what of the Silent? What’s to become of them?”
Adori turned to watch as the doors of the alchemery closed. “Might be they'll repent; if they do, they can join us.” She turned back in time to see Lysander raise an eyebrow. “It’s true,” she went on, gesturing to the village. “A good number of people here came over from a life in the gangs.”
“And if they refuse?” asked Castor.
Adori turned to look him in the eye. “Then they’ll have justice.”
A chill went up Duchess’ spine. “I can see why they join,” she said lightly. “There's food, shelter, safety—why isn't everyone in the Deeps down here?”
“Because entry into the Gardens carries a price.”
The voice had come from behind them, ringing loud and clear as the bells of the imperial palace. She turned to see a man emerge from one of the houses. He was perhaps thirty years old, with hair and a mustache red as fire, a sharp contrast to the patched black robes he wore, so faded they were more gray than black. His eyes were as green as the garden itself, and they sparkled with keen interest as they regarded Duchess and her companions.
“A price?” Lysander frowned. "I've heard that before."
The man moved closer, and as he passed Adori he touched her gently on the arm. There was a strange and comfortable intimacy to the gesture. As he reached Lysander, he replied. “The price is not coin or flesh, but sacrifice. Mayu’s gates are open only to those who leave behind all that they were or might become, stripped of vice and virtue both. We enter her gardens as naked as we entered the world, free of all earthly encumbrances.”
Adori cleared her throat. “Keeper Morel, this is Duchess, Castor and Lysander.” Morel said nothing, and she added, “Lysander I know from way back—used to be one of the Tenth Bell Boys.”
Morel nodded, but his eyes never left Lysander's. He gestured around them. “Few who flee the Deeps ever return. Why did you come back, and why did you leave?”
Lysander snorted. “I was too old to be a lightboy and too young to be a corpse.”
Morel raised one ginger eyebrow. “There’s truth there, hidden in the humor. You fear revealing yourself to others, but down here the truth is not something that can be hidden, nor hidden from. It encloses us like bark, from root to branch.” The man's intensity was overwhelming, although for the moment it was directed only at Lysander. It was like the rest of them no longer existed. “I ask again: why did you leave?” He put a gentle hand on Lysander’s shoulder.
Lysander’s grin withered, and he seemed to try to pull away without quite succeeding. “I’d seen too many people die,” he said quietly, his bluff humor gone. “I was afraid of the Shallows, but there was more to fear in the Deeps.” Duchess had known Lysander more than eight years and had never seen him blush, but now his face went crimson.
Morel looked at him with gentle understanding. “The same horrors that you fled are why I came. But there is no shame moving where your heart wills you. The Deeps have need of me, and perhaps the Shallows of you.” He smiled. Lysander made no reply, but the eyes he turned to Morel were both wary and grateful at once.
Morel turned then to Castor, who had stood silent and watchful. “And you, quiet one—Castor, was it? A fine name, from he who was the devoted brother.” He glanced down at Castor’s sword. “You come well-armed to a dangerous place, though me and mine strive to make it less so.” He glanced back at Duchess and Lysander. “Your escort, I presume? Well chosen and unfortunately necessary.” Castor said nothing, but his eyes narrowed slightly as Morel took a step closer. “Still, silence can be a shield that protects, and a curse that isolates.” He leaned in close. “The reed sings of separation—cut from its bed, its wail makes men weep, for it knows a heart torn open with longing. All parted from their source long to return.”
His voice was only one level above a whisper, but Duchess heard his words, as did Castor. Doubt entered her guardian’s gray eyes, and he dropped his gaze from Morel’s as if suddenly ashamed, although at what she could not have said. Castor had unflinchingly faced down the Brutes, the Silent, and even the walking dead, but Morel’s gentle words made him falter.
The whole scene set her teeth on edge. Seeing how easily Morel spoke to strangers of private truths, she saw how quickly such intimacy might be turned to devotion. She understood why Jadis thought he could make use of such a man.
Morel smiled, not unkindly, and clapped Castor on the arm. At last he turned towards Duchess. As his eyes met hers they seemed to darken somehow, as if confused by what they saw. Whatever words he’d been preparing died on his lips along with his smile, and silence fell. Adori glanced sharply at the renegade keeper, and one or two of the Moon Flowers reached for their weapons. Morel stopped them with a gesture, and in that moment, Duchess’ mind flashed to the night she had met Jadis on the Godswalk, when he’d given her the moonshadow that made Castor’s seeming death and resurrection possible.
Jadis had told her that in their Lady’s sight, while in her holy places, keepers might hear and judge the hearts of others as their Lady did. Yet when listening to her heart, he had heard nothing. There was something about her, something in her, that confounded the keepers as surely as the facets. She suddenly understood why the Firs
t Keeper had sent her and no other to treat with this man.
“This is Duchess,” Adori reminded, as if Morel had forgotten. “She says she has a message for you. From Jadis.”
Morel regarded her curiously and, to her eye, warily. “You are different from your companions,” he said in the same low voice he’d used with Castor. “Something I am sure Jadis noticed as well.” She said nothing, and in the silence that followed he seemed to come to some decision. “Walk with me, if you would.” He turned towards Adori. “Show our guests somewhere they can rest and take refreshment before their climb back up the hill.” His gaze encompassed her companions. “Please, rest. Take comfort in my Lady’s bounty before you travel on.”
Castor looked in her direction, a warning in his eyes that she felt in her heart. But what could she do? She’d come to deliver a message, and Morel clearly was not ready to hear it in the open. “Go with Adori,” she said to him and Lysander both. “I’ll be fine.”
“Indeed she will.” Morel’s smile was warm with reassurance. “No harm shall come to her in this place, on that you have my word.” And with a final glance back, she followed Morel into the heart of the Gardens.
* * *
As impressive as they were, the True Gardens were small compared to their up-hill counterpart, and it took little time for them to reach the alchemery. Still, the plant life they passed was surprising in its diversity and health, and beyond the many vegetables grew flowers to rival anything in the Common Gardens. There were blossoms of red, and yellow, and blue, in such variety that the eye was dazzled. The fecundity of growth was overwhelming, even in the shade of the deep-red leaves of the great tree. Duchess was no expert on gardening, but she knew that plants did not grow this way so late in the year. Hard work alone had not produced this bewildering profusion, not here in the most derelict part of the city.
There was something profoundly unnatural here. Every plant that her elbow touched, every scent carried on the breeze, every moving shadow of the tree unnerved her. In the face of these wonders, she felt almost a child, stumbling after her betters, and part of her wondered if this had not been Morel’s intent. This was a dance, and once again she found herself in the unenviable position of not knowing all the steps.
Instead of heading directly into the alchemery, Morel led her along its side. From there, Duchess could see down a final slope to the city walls, gray and solid, and the massive arch of Broken Gate itself. Even at this remove the portal was tremendous, taller than any building in the Shallows and easily wide enough for five wagons to pass abreast—that is, if the entire structure had not been choked with tumbled gray stone. She only barely restrained herself from gawking. It was a sight she’d never thought to see. Broken Gate was as old as the city itself, a remnant of Old Domani. Iceni herself might once have stood where Duchess was standing and seen the same thing. No one had used the gate in centuries, and from what she could see, no one ever would again. The place didn’t even appear on maps anymore.
“Sad, isn’t it?” Morel said, looking at the gate. “According to legend, Broken Gate shall open only when man has repented for his sins.” He turned to her. “It may be true. When I first came to this place, I gathered a group of us to try to shift away some of the rubble. We worked day and night for weeks.”
She looked away from the gate. “What happened?”
He shrugged. “It was as the stories said. Nothing we could do proved any good. The pile would shift and move and settle, but for all our toil the gate was as clogged as it had ever been. We put the bit of stone we had cleared away to good use in the village and left it at that.” He gestured. “Let us go inside.”
The alchemery was much as she might have envisioned; light streaming through high windows shone down upon rows of shelves and tables stacked with vials, cages and wooden boxes. Within were plants and small animals of every description: herbs, mosses, ivies, flowers dried and pressed then laid upon sheets of parchment, moths fluttering against glass-topped boxes, butterflies crawling within cages, larva and worms squirming through wooden containers full of leaves and dirt. As they passed one table, her ears made out the distinctive clicking of what she knew to be the feeding of deathwatch beetles.
At the center of the building was a low platform before a wooden chair, and on that platform lay the unmoving figures of three Silent. They lay perfectly still, and only by the slight movement of their chests did Duchess know they were not dead. Drugged, she imagined; like all keepers, Morel possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of plants and their uses, both nutritional and pharmacological. While she watched the men on the floor, Morel took a seat in the chair like a magistrate preparing to pronounce sentence. Trepidation tightened her belly; could she trust Morel’s guarantee of her safety?
“You have a message for me,” Morel said at last, and although there was good humor about his eyes she sensed unease. Perhaps he assumed his seat of authority to make her equally uneasy, but she promised herself she would not oblige.
“First Keeper Jadis sends his greetings,” she said. This wasn’t a familiar role. “He wants an end to the...misunderstandings between you.”
Morel laughed, long and loud. “Misunderstandings! How lovely you manage to make murder sound.”
She gestured to the Silent without actually looking at them. “There are horrors throughout Rodaas, both high and low. Isn’t that why you came back to the Deeps?”
He leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “It is,” he allowed, “but where I seek to heal, Jadis prefers to control.” His eyes searched her own. “Or did you not know his nature?”
“His nature is obvious to anyone with eyes to see. He does little to hide it.”
“And he proposes...what? An alliance?”
She nodded. “Two are stronger than one. Jadis wants—”
“Oh, I can guess well enough what he wants,” Morel muttered, and she eyed him with a new respect. When she was evasive, he pressed, but when she was direct, he evaded. Even stripped of his gifts, Morel was an impressive opponent.
Yet she was in no mood for a game. “Will you hear him out?” If he was going to give her a way out, she intended to take it. She had delivered the message and could tell Jadis in all honesty that she’d done her best.
Morel sighed. “You do not understand. Jadis’ gifts are always poisoned. Literally and figuratively.”
“Gifts of unknown provenance generally are.” He wasn’t the only one who could press a weak flank. “Often the most miraculous turns of fate are revealed to be nothing more than the machinations of others.” She remembered Amabilis and Finn, the weapons and the Key of Mayu, and evidently so had Morel, for his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. What had he done with the dagger once he’d received it?
“Jadis wants to win the Evangelism,” Morel replied after a pause, as if she’d never spoken. “And he wants my help to do it.”
She tried not to smile. “For the moment there’s a temporary peace—chains on the statues in the Godswalk—but if something doesn’t change things could quickly become worse...”
“Worse?” His green eyes went wide. “Worse? As if Jadis understands what that means.” He was on his feet, pacing. “Before all this nonsense, there was a system in the city, bad as it was. Things worked once, but the Evangelism has changed all that. The beggars had somewhere to go, something to do, and the coin they brought back from the Godswalk fed them and their families. It let them seek what meager pleasures they could from the rare Shallows merchants who would serve them. The charity the nobles dispensed so conspicuously was the fuel that kept alive the guttering flame of their lives.”
She realized his point. “And that charity has suddenly stopped.”
He resumed his seat, at ease once more. “Gone. Overnight. Because no one knew which faith would be ascendant. Starvation the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the War of the Quills has begun to set in. What do you think sparked the riot in the Halls of Dawn?” He leaned forward, his hand on one knee as he
gestured expansively with the other. “And this is only the beginning.” He gestured to the Silent. “As resources become more scarce, as the fighting becomes worse, more and more end up joining the likes of these. For protection. For a sense of control over their lives.”
She looked down at the figures on the platform and saw the one in the center was the same man who’d have killed her if not for the intervention of the Moon Flowers. She thought of the brand across the young man’s throat she’d seen on the Coast Road—the mark of the Red Smiles, who knew they were already dead. She thought of the Silent cutting out their own tongues to prove their devotion to their mad brothers. She thought again of the suffering she’d witnessed on her long way down the hill, and she knew Morel spoke the truth.
His eyes were upon her when she looked up. “What would you have me do with these?” he asked casually. She looked back at the men, who in so many ways were like mad and starving dogs. They had tried to kill her and Lysander and Castor, yes, but now she saw filthy hands and gangly arms and skin stretched tightly over ribs.
You never wound a snake; you kill it.
She sighed. “I don’t know.”
Morel chuckled gently. “I’m certain you’ve gotten an earful of the First Keeper’s philosophy of doubt, his sermons on the evils of certainty.” He shook his head. “If so, you have been misled. Jadis will speak at length on how mystery is preferable to knowledge, but beneath it hides a craving for surety. We all wish to know, don’t we? Who we are, what we want, our place in the world. Jadis revels in uncertainty that he might avoid such questions, but I know better.”
“What will you do with them?” She indicated the Silent.
“They shall be given a chance to repent.”
“It’s not easy for a tongueless man to say he’s sorry.”
He smiled brilliantly. “Much like the reed, the heart sings its own song. We read them as we can.”
“And if they refuse to repent?”
“Then they will receive justice.”
