Flowercrash

by Stephen Palmer

  “Yes.”

  “D’you want to drum?”

  “Yes.”

  Deomouvadaïn stopped walking. “You must continue yer work for me,” he said softly.

  “I want to. I enjoy listening in the Tech Houses.”

  “Don’t be seduced by drumming. Listening—quiet observing—is the heartwood of the Green Man.”

  Nuïy sensed tension in Deomouvadaïn’s voice, but he ignored it. “I agree,” he replied. “The Green Man is separate.”

  “You must continue listening to the audio sequences.”

  Nuïy felt a distance between himself and Deomouvadaïn, and he knew it was because he recognised the potential of drumming. He said, “I do not listen sequentially. I record all sonic information, then analyse it. I hear all voices at once then separate them at my leisure.”

  Deomouvadaïn nodded. “I see.”

  “But soon listening will be redundant.”

  Deomouvadaïn frowned. “You will be staying with me, leaf.”

  “I did not mean that. Soon the flower networks will crash.”

  Deomouvadaïn stared at Nuïy, then looked about as if for stray ears. “Come with me immediately,” he demanded.

  Frightened, Nuïy followed Deomouvadaïn to his house. There, he was told, “Repeat to me what you just said.”

  “Soon the flower networks will crash. I thought you knew—”

  “I didn’t. How did you hear of this crash?”

  Nuïy took a deep breath. “As I sat disentangling the voices of yesterday’s listening, I heard a lone voice speaking. It said there was going to be a flower crash. It asked somebody if the flower crash was imminent, but the other person was inaudible. I suspect a network entity was conversing with a real person. The only other useful information was that this real person was instructed to make for Blissis, there to seek a gynoid.”

  Deomouvadaïn stared again at Nuïy. “Tell nobody what you’ve just told me. It’s the Green Man’s secret. D’you understand?”

  “Nobody will hear. But they might guess what I know.”

  “They won’t.”

  Nuïy could not help himself. “But they might. If the flower networks crash, everything created by the un-men will collapse. Then we can take over! The un-men will not want the flower crash. Therefore we must have it.”

  “You speculate. The Green Man doesn’t like speculation. Keep yerself to yerself. Tell nobody of this.”

  “But—”

  “Nobody.”

  Nuïy felt desperation come over him. “Recorder-Shaman, the superior clerics must learn of this. We must tell them.”

  Deomouvadaïn bunched his hand into a fist and hit Nuïy on the side of his face. It was so quick and unexpected that Nuïy simply dropped. He tasted blood. In moments his eye began to close. Since Raïtasha’s blow his right eye had been weak, but now it saw only defocussed fuzz.

  “Get up,” said Deomouvadaïn.

  Nuïy struggled to his feet.

  “Tomorrow you’ll receive yer punishment. See me outside my house at first light.”

  “But Kamnaïsheva said to see him—”

  “My orders override his.” Deomouvadaïn kicked Nuïy in the shin. “You must learn that the Green Man doesn’t like boys who answer back.”

  “Yes. My eye…”

  “You don’t need eyes. You need ears.”

  Cowed, Nuïy returned to the dormitory, where all the others lay asleep. Midnight had already passed. Drowaïtash half woke, but said nothing, and Nuïy was able to slip into his bed and consider his failings.

  At dawn, dreading what was to follow, he waited outside Deomouvadaïn’s house. Half an hour later Deomouvadaïn looked down from an upper window, but said nothing. Two hours passed. The suspense made Nuïy fret to distraction. At last, as casually as if they were about to go for a stroll, Deomouvadaïn emerged and led Nuïy east into the orchards. In the northern quarter small trees grew, and some were showing early blossom.

  Deomouvadaïn stopped at a cherry tree covered with small pink blooms. “This is an abomination,” he remarked. “Pink flowers are the ultimate insult in the eyes of the Green Man.”

  “Yes, Recorder-Shaman.”

  “We grow them to breed a species that has no flowers.”

  “I understand.”

  Deomouvadaïn reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of nail scissors. “You’ll cut every blossom off. For every leaf you remove, one further tree will be treated by you in the same manner. If you remove more leaves than there are cherry trees in this orchard you’ll be expelled from the Shrine. When every blossom is cut off, you’ll make a pile of them. I’ll return at that point. Don’t leave before you’ve finished.”

  Nuïy looked up at the tree. He had thought it small, but now it looked huge.

  “What do you say?” asked Deomouvadaïn.

  “Thank you for your mercy,” Nuïy mumbled.

  Deomouvadaïn departed without further word. For some minutes Nuïy just looked at the tree, and although he knew the task was finite it seemed uncountably infinite. The pinkness weighed down upon him. His skin crawled at the thought of having to touch so much pink. At last he summoned up the strength to begin, but before he had cut off a score of blossoms Kamnaïsheva strode up to him.

  “Have you forgotten my order? I instructed you to return to me at dawn.”

  “The Recorder-Shaman punished me,” Nuïy said, looking down at the ground.

  “My wishes supersede his. I will see the Recorder-Shaman and demand an explanation.” With that, Kamnaïsheva strode away.

  Nuïy returned to his task. The stems off which the flowers bloomed were tiny, so the nail scissors were a good tool, but their sheer numbers meant that, as morning passed through noon to become afternoon, and then early evening, he had only deflowered half the tree. All the upper boughs remained pink, and now it was too dark to continue.

  Night fell. The sky was cloudless and Nuïy shivered. Even with his insensitivity to cold, he knew it would be a bad night. With no other option he lay on the ground, curled up, and tried to sleep. For two hours before dawn he managed to drift into half-slumber, but as light returned to the sky he was blearily awake, the scissors in his hand. Nobody came to attend to him.

  That day passed like a week. Nuïy heard the clock chime the hours, but his mind seemed to be extending, a sensation he had never before felt. It was as if his self was leaking away. He put it down to humiliation and lack of sleep, but it worried him. At length, as evening arrived, he cut the final blossom off the final bough. Somebody had been watching him, for a minute later Deomouvadaïn appeared to survey his work. He had cut no leaves, although one had dropped off of its own accord. Deomouvadaïn said nothing about it, if he noticed it.

  “Gather these flowers into a pile six feet long,” he ordered Nuïy.

  Nuïy did as he was told.

  “You’ll sleep here tonight,” Deomouvadaïn said, “on this body of pinkness. Think on it as you do. I expect no further outbursts of selfish answering back.”

  “Yes, Recorder-Shaman.”

  “I’m the pre-eminent cleric below Zehosaïtra. You’ll follow my orders. Don’t think you’re special. You’re useful, nothing more. You must come to understand that.”

  “I will.”

  “Lie down on the blossom.”

  Nuïy did so. So ashamed was he that he turned away. He heard the sound of Deomouvadaïn’s boots retreating, and after that silence. Then he heard laughter. He looked up to see initiates giggling at him. Amongst them were Mehmatha, Baïcoora and Awanshyva. Nuïy turned away. He hardened his already crystalline mind. He could ignore them. He knew how to do it now. But it was a stern test, for during the evening every initiate and a few clerics came to see the boy on the pink bed.

  Humiliating days passed after the punishment. Nuïy spent mornings with Deomouvadaïn in the Tech Houses, afternoons drumming with Kamnaïsheva, and the first part of the evening catching up on the Leafmaster’s lessons. Most nights he dro
pped exhausted into his bed. In the dormitory the atmosphere was quiet, but under the calm an undercurrent lurked that he knew could surface at any moment. The three in the quiet gang hated him. He knew they envied his luck.

  In the Tech House he heard nothing more from the soft voice that had spoken of the flower crash. He knew Deomouvadaïn was annoyed, and perhaps did not believe him, but he never once thought to make anything up. Talk of a flower crash ceased. Meanwhile he passed Kamnaïsheva’s naming test, every rhythm recalled, with its identity and its purpose.

  But then a day came when he disappointed Kamnaïsheva, and it highlighted the fact that he was not some chosen one destined to rise into the highest esteem of the Green Man. On that day Kamnaïsheva said, “Now that you have mastered the drumming rhythms you must begin to create your own. You understand the relationship between sonic pressure and information transfer. Hence you are ready to devise your own rhythms.”

  “Create?” Nuïy said. “Devise?”

  “Yes. The rhythms you have memorised were devised over a period of decades by clerics of this Shrine. It is but one step from learning to creating.”

  “I do not understand create,” Nuïy said, frowning.

  Kamnaïsheva paused, then said, “By generalising from the rules you have learned, you must make new rhythms. There is a direct relationship between the patterns you drum and the effect on the networks. Because of this, you can create a new effect with a new rhythm.”

  “Generalise?” Nuïy said.

  Kamnaïsheva looked at him. Nuïy glanced aside. Then Kamnaïsheva said, “Generalisation is the process of coalescing facts to discover underlying structure.”

  “I understand facts,” Nuïy said, pleased that they had returned to things he knew.

  Again Kamnaïsheva remained silent. After a few moments he asked Nuïy, “Do you not wish to change the networks with new rhythms?”

  “If I heard the rhythms, yes.”

  “You can hear them in your mind’s ear.”

  “Where?”

  “You have memorised over three and a half thousand rhythms,” Kamnaïsheva insisted. “Take parts of these rhythms and assemble them into new ones.”

  “But they are inviolate.”

  This led to the longest silence. Kamnaïsheva stood up, walked around the room, experimentally tapped a drum, then returned to Nuïy. At last he said, “Very well. We will halt the lesson here. Return to the Leafmaster.”

  Nuïy departed the Drum House, mystified. There was a problem, but he did not know what it was. For the first time since meeting Kamnaïsheva he felt lost, as if a ceiling had appeared to stop his ascent. He wondered what would happen next.

  ~

  In a chamber a few yards square two men sat. The walls around them were panelled with wood, while the ceiling depicted a brown and green mural of leaves emerging from a mouth.

  Deomouvadaïn and Kamnaïsheva looked at one another. In this ritual chamber they must remain polite.

  Kamnaïsheva began, “We must discuss Nuïy.”

  Deomouvadaïn nodded. “Are you attempting to pluck him from my bough?”

  “Nay, Deomouvadaïn—”

  “For he is mine. I need him for the technology woods.”

  Kamnaïsheva nodded in agreement, but then said, “Nuïy is unique. You have but mediocre information if you believe he is best suited to remaining in your woods. He can aid the whole forest of Our Lord In Green.”

  Deomouvadaïn waved an impatient hand at Kamnaïsheva and looked up at the ceiling. “I believe that not.”

  “Have you not hearkened to his characteristics?”

  “Which?”

  “His intense concentration. His loyalty to Our Lord In Green—”

  Deomouvadaïn scoffed at this. “Such is not unusual in our Shrine.”

  “Then what about his restrictive physicality? His unbelievable memory —for facts alone? His inability to generalise. His deficiency of imagination. In summary, his apartness?”

  Deomouvadaïn looked uncomfortable now, but gruffly he replied, “So?”

  “Nuïy is a holy autist. With his aid we could replant the entire Garden with trees.”

  Frowning, Deomouvadaïn considered this, scratching at his beard to cover the surprise he felt at this revelation. “Do you truly believe so?”

  “Yea. He can drum complex motes of rhythm without making a mistake, having hearkened but once to them. He is irreplaceable.”

  “Hmph.”

  Kamnaïsheva leaned forward slightly. “Come sunrise I will be forwarding information to Zehosaïtra regarding Nuïy. I propose that you and I have dual control of Nuïy—”

  “Nay!”

  “And we work with him for a se’night each. These half day lessons are too inconvenient. The lessons with the Master of Leaves must cease, for the moment at least. I will deal with any objections raised.”

  Deomouvadaïn nodded his head. “Very well. Make certain any objections are quelled.”

  “I had that intention.”

  Deomouvadaïn laughed once, a short sound like a cough. “What then do you believe Nuïy ultimately capable of?”

  “Presently I confess I am unsure. I was somewhat taken aback by the stolid lack of creativity afforded him by Our Lord In Green. That makes our task more problematic.”

  “May Our Lord In Green ever be correct.”

  “Aye to that. But the potential of Nuïy’s sap and heartwood is enormous.”

  Deomouvadaïn considered what he had heard. “Very well. Doubts I have, but for now I am in accordance. So we must build a suitably dramatic test. Nuïy must perform this in the presence of Zehosaïtra.”

  Kamnaïsheva nodded. “We can discuss that later. You continue fertilising his earth. He respects you. Presently he mistrusts me. Your steady boughs are important to his growth. You are a kind of father to him. I will try to keep away, except during my lessons with him.”

  “Very well.”

  Kamnaïsheva nodded. “Then we are finally agreed. It is good that we can hear ear to ear.”

  “Speak not of that. Let us turn our thoughts to Nuïy. Now we must speak in absolute unity regarding the question I am about to put. Has he mentioned to you aught of an event termed flower crash?”

  “Nay.”

  “Recently Nuïy overheard a network entity conversing with regard to such an event. If the flower networks of the un-men are indeed about to crash, we must prepare. Nuïy himself is keen to disseminate this information. It is why I punished him.”

  “What do you suggest?” Kamnaïsheva asked, quietly.

  “Amongst other things, we must determine whether the hag un-men know of this event. If they do not, we can attack when it occurs, as they lie in disarray.”

  “And if they do know?”

  Deomouvadaïn shrugged. “Doubtless some other violent strategy will be forwarded by Our Lord In Green.”

  “Doubtless.”

  “You have the ear of Sargyshyva more than I,” said Deomouvadaïn. “Devise some method of telling him this news calmly. He will not like it.”

  “I will do that.”

  “Then all is settled. It remains for us to devise Nuïy’s test. I myself have one final test for him to pass.”

  “The bramble test?”

  Deomouvadaïn nodded. “Nuïy is brilliant, but fragile. He may fail. If he does, I will make humus of him.”

  “So Our Lord In Green decrees.”

  CHAPTER 8

  After a week of drumming, Nuïy, following his new timetable, returned to the Tech Houses and to Deomouvadaïn. It had been a difficult time. His right eye remained defocussed, and he thought he might have a detached retina. He suffered for the first time in his life from headaches; mild, but present nonetheless. Suddenly his insensitivity to pain became a worry, for he wondered if his body was changing under the stress of working for the Green Man.

  One day, Deomouvadaïn took him back to his house, offering him a glass of beer and an apple. Surprised, Nuïy accepted them, check
ing the apple for suspicious marks and the beer for oily swirls.

  Deomouvadaïn said, “I’ve a task for you, Nuïy. There’s somebody in Emeralddis who has offended the Green Man.”

  “How?”

  “Never mind that. You only need to know who. As you’ll realise, the Green Man mustn’t be offended. Do you know the punishment?”

  “No.”

  Deomouvadaïn thought awhile, then, in a voice light compared to his usual gruff tones he said, “The punishment is death, of course. I’m rather busy. You must perform the deed.”

  Nuïy stared. How often he had thought of killing other people, especially those of his family. Now he was being asked to do a favour that would allow him to kill. How strange that would be. He could not imagine what it would be like, but he knew he wanted to know.

  “I will do my best,” he said.

  Deomouvadaïn coughed up phlegm. “It’s no easy task,” he said, doubtfully. “You must succeed.”

  “I can do it. I will do it for the Green Man.”

  “Very good.” Deomouvadaïn pulled a scrap of paper from his robe and passed it to Nuïy. “There’s the name and address. My signature at the bottom will allow you out of the Shrine. Now to the method. Recall the Leafmaster’s lesson concerning the senior clerics. Sargyshyva performed a great feat to affirm himself under the boughs of the Green Man.”

  “I can remember his exact words. ‘Sargyshyva, at that time the Second Cleric, knew he would soon become First Cleric. Ummagaïdira had lung cancer and would soon perish. So Sargyshyva performed a deed. Under the cover of night he entered the Shrine of Root Sculpture. There he stole from the Sculpted Hedge itself a root of death. Pursued by enemies, he returned south. He lost his enemies in the marshes.’”

  “Correct,” said Deomouvadaïn. “That root was the precursor of roots used by ascetics of the Green Man to dispose of undesirables. You’ll use such a root.” Deomouvadaïn handed him a packet. “This must be introduced into the mouth of the victim. Such is yer task. Success is essential.”

  “I will find success.”

  Deomouvadaïn scratched at his beard, then coughed again, as if nervous. “I’ve two further items of news. Firstly. At the end of this week I’ll be transfering you to a hut in the northern clerical accomodation. The dormitory is no longer suitable for you. Secondly. You must in a fortnight take a crucial test. Later I’ll give you the details. However I can say now that you’ll be observed by the Third Cleric.”