Flowercrash

by Stephen Palmer

  “I know nothing, First Cleric,” said Nuïy. They stared at him. Quite innocently, he added, “Perhaps something important?”

  Deomouvadaïn grabbed his hair and slammed his head into the wood of the dock, one, twice, three times, so that Nuïy was so dazed he collapsed again. This time he was unable to stand up.

  Deomouvadaïn grabbed an arm and pulled him up, then propped him against the front of the dock.

  “Not good, Pinkeye,” Sargyshyva said. “So. One final time. What d’you know of the Cemetery and this message implicating you?”

  “Nothing, First Cleric,” Nuïy managed to mumble.

  Deomouvadaïn made to strike him, but Sargyshyva raised one hand, and he halted half way.

  “In this instance we don’t need t’deliberate,” said Sargyshyva. “Yea, I do hereby pronounce the sentence on Pinkeye. He’ll be confined from this day under hut arrest. When the first snows come, Our Lord In Green will decide whether he’s t’be taken down into the dungeons, or made humus of straight away. The final sentence will be carried out on Midwinter Day. That’s all.”

  Nuïy was led out of the court by Deomouvadaïn, then taken to his hut by the two clerics. He was thrown inside, and then the door was padlocked.

  CHAPTER 24

  Order departed from the Determinate Inn. With half a minute to act, they had no time for anything except escape.

  Zoahnône shouted orders. “Kirifaïfra, Shônsair, get Zahafezhan and carry her. Manserphine, Vishilkaïr, go scouting a few paces ahead. Make along Shônsair’s path. Omdaton… just go and hide.”

  Manserphine followed Shônsair out of the inn, while Zoahnône barred the front door. Kirifaïfra and Vishilkaïr armed themselves with lead-shot convolvulus. Omdaton made for the hedge marking the adjacent garden and flung herself over it. As Manserphine ran into the back garden she heard hammering on the inn door, and she prayed for safety under her breath. The proximity of the Cemetery horde terrified her, as if death itself was on her tail.

  The mist was rising, but a few banks remained, and one covered the wicket gate. Zahafezhan stood where she had grown. Shônsair bent down and threw aside piles of hoverflies before lifting her, but the hardpetal veins attached to her feet came too, and she was left supporting a half-vertical body, limp as a corpse. “Pull them off!” she ordered Kirifaïfra.

  For a few seconds he just stared, as if he had been asked to cut off her feet. Then he knelt and pulled the multicoloured veins, at first gently, then forcefully, until they snapped. Zahafezhan relaxed.

  “Go!” Zoahnône said, running towards them, “they’re coming around the side.” The exposed hardpetal veins left in the ground writhed and expanded towards them, as if trying to reconnect.

  Manserphine stood gasping for breath at the wicket gate. The insect carpet was hampering movement and the mist bank had already drifted, exposing the gate, so she pointed at a nearby bank ten yards into the field, and said, “There! Hide in the mist.”

  Shônsair ran carrying Zahafezhan over her shoulder, her immensely strong body hissing with the effort. She was just a blur as she ran past Manserphine; a whirr of biomachinery and a crunching of insects under her feet. Kirifaïfra could not keep up.

  Manserphine looked back. It was possible to see this far into the garden from the kitchen door. Only she and Vishilkaïr remained. She followed Shônsair, and in seconds all five of them stood in the mist, unable to see anything, around or above.

  “Quiet!” Zoahnône whispered.

  She was gathering them to her, Manserphine and Kirifaïfra, then Vishilkaïr. Some kind of intuitive hearing allowed her to follow Shônsair, who was already moving.

  They emerged from the mist bank. They had moved north east, perhaps twenty yards. The field lay around them, to their right a line of hedge, to their left tangled bushes and trees. Shônsair moved with exaggerated strides, Zahafezhan like a sack over her shoulder, making for the nearest mistbank. They all followed. Manserphine heard cries from the inn and the sound of wood crashing against wood.

  The deactivated insects crunched and tinkled at their feet. Too noisy.

  Again she urged Our Sister Crone to save them. If the Cemetery horde entered the inn thinking people cowered inside, they might yet escape. If they heard anything from the field other beasts would home in and all would be lost. She had to stop herself whimpering under the pressure.

  They made the mist bank.

  Shônsair said, “There is a copse of young fir just ahead. In that we will be better hidden. Are you all ready?”

  They ran. A hundred yards of dead hoverflies lay between them and the firs. Manserphine glanced back as she ran, and between two clouds of mist she saw a section of the inn hedge, and the wicket gate. No beasts stood there.

  At the fir grove they paused. Zoahnône examined the ground behind them. “I believe they did not hear us,” she said. “Now we must endeavour to remain hidden. When they find the inn empty they will suspect an escape. The next ten minutes are crucial. Nothing in the gestalt entity must see us.”

  “Where to?” Manserphine asked, her hand tightly gripped by Kirifaïfra’s.

  “Lead us to the green lane, and then to the gardens,” Zoahnône told Shônsair. “That way lies our best hope.”

  Shônsair settled Zahafezhan on her shoulder then strode off. Even unladen, it was difficult keeping up with her. They groped and forged their way through the thickly planted trees, tripping over brambles, stung by nettles, until they found themselves bunched up by an algae covered fence, rotting at the bottom. At least here there were but a few insects rusting on the sodden earth.

  “Shhh!” Kirifaïfra hissed.

  They stood silent and still. Manserphine heard a thumping sound, one-two, one-two, rhythmic under tinkling metal, as of a man limping through the hoverfly drifts. It closed, slowed, then passed by. She knew that a really big beast had just loped past on its way to the Determinate Inn.

  Zoahnône pulled out a fence slat and looked through. “All clear.”

  Through the enlarged gap they crept, Kirifaïfra and Zoahnône going ahead to scout the path. Nothing moved. The mist had evaporated now, and the low sun lit every step of the way.

  At the end of the lane they peered out to scan the street. Nothing.

  “That is the first garden,” Shônsair said, indicating the way with a nod of her head. “A short alley, three or four more gardens, and we shall be at the outskirts of the urb. The Woods are just a few hundred yards away.”

  They climbed over the hedge and made for the next one. A series of faltering, damp and unsteady runs followed, until they were all wet and greened, the legs of their breeches and their skirts shredded, panting for breath at the edge of a long field. A few hundred yards away lay the Woods, green topped, darkly shadowed at ground level.

  “We should go now,” Zoahnône said, “before it’s too late.”

  Manserphine looked to either side of the field. Far off to the south she could see men fishing in a pool, and behind them, gentle hills. North she saw the ruins of an ancient wall, that she knew led up to the Venereal Garden.

  “Nothing about,” she said.

  “Let’s go,” Kirifaïfra urged.

  They ran. Shônsair was not troubled by Zahafezhan’s weight. They crossed the gap in minutes, to find themselves in dense, dark, cold woodland, the bitter green trunks of trees standing around them like fences.

  They rested. Nothing moved in the wood, but birds sang and there was fluttering in the canopy. Here, the undergrowth was thick, nettles and bramble and dock. The ground was damp, soft under their feet.

  Manserphine looked west. The sunlit outskirts of Veneris seemed very bright, orange and pink in the light of the rising sun. All lay silent.

  “I think we’ve done it,” Zoahnône said. “Well done, all of you.”

  “Well done to Shônsair,” Kirifaïfra said. “She saved us.”

  “That’s true,” Vishilkaïr said. “A few seconds of hesitation and the beasts coming around the si
de of the inn would have…” He left the possibility vague.

  “What now?” Manserphine asked.

  “We must find a safe house,” Zoahnône replied. “Obviously, Veneris is out of the question.”

  In silence they all thought.

  Eventually Kirifaïfra said, “Veneris may not be wholly out of the question. There are a couple of districts lying on the very edge.”

  “Such as?” Vishilkaïr asked.

  “The Cemetery and the Venereal Garden.”

  There were laughs at this. “The Cemetery is out,” Zoahnône said.

  “Not so the Venereal Garden,” Kirifaïfra said, adding more harshly, “where I used to work. In the eastern glade there is a tumbledown house that used to belong to carnal researchers. It is completely invisible behind a thick curtain of flowering chestnut and rhododendron. We could hide there.”

  “How safe do you judge it to be?” Zoahnône asked.

  Kirifaïfra thought.

  “Remember,” Zoahnône cautioned, “the future lies in our hands.”

  “It is safe,” Kirifaïfra said. “As an abode for courting couples or ladies seeking satisfaction, it is too dark and damp. It is no longer used for research purposes. I myself haven’t taken women there, oh, for—”

  “If you don’t mind,” Manserphine interrupted.

  “Sorry.”

  Zoahnône took counsel with Shônsair then said, “Very well. Lead us there. But remember that nobody must see us go in.”

  Kirifaïfra led them along the edge of the Woods, until Manserphine glimpsed the top of the Gazebo Azure to her left, pale blue like a huge death cap mushroom. Kirifaïfra took them a few more yards, then, at a dry stream bed, he stopped.

  “There lies the eastern boundary of the Venereal Garden,” he said, pointing to a thick hedge of hawthorn and briar rose on the opposite side of the fields.

  “It will be impossible to crawl through,” Manserphine said. “Our clothes will rip to shreds.”

  “I know a way. Leave it to me.”

  He left them, running across the field then casting north and south, bent over as if looking for prophylactics in the turf, until he stopped, got on his hands and knees and pushed into the hedge, apparently sniffing for something. In this pose he crawled a few yards, before stopping, then running back.

  “I’ve found the tunnel,” he said.

  “Tunnel?” they queried.

  “The old stream ran under the hedge through a clay pipe, which we can crawl through. I found it from the smell of musk. It is the ancient escape route of women caught in passionate embrace by their men. I myself have—”

  He looked at Manserphine, who said nothing.

  “Lead on,” Shônsair said, hoisting Zahafezhan more securely upon her shoulder. They crossed the field then crawled through the tunnel into the Venereal Garden proper, which lay thick around them, a tangle of rhododendron, violets, wild clematis and honeysuckle, all twisted around hairy tree trunks and naturally eroded hardpetal statues. Birds sang, and the perpetual stridulation of the urb was reduced to a whisper.

  Kirifaïfra led them to a path of slate, but soon they were off that and once again surrounded by rustling leaves, chittering birds, and long tendrils from which honeysuckle bloomed. There were some insects about; bees and a few late butterflies. Wild flowers bloomed in small clumps; foxgloves, cowslips and campion. After ten minutes Kirifaïfra told them to wait. He vanished into especially thick undergrowth. Manserphine listened. At the very edge of hearing she thought she heard cries. The central glades of the Venereal Garden would not be too far away.

  He returned, gesturing them to follow. They forged through massive rhododendron branches so heavy with flowers they drooped to the ground. In places they had to bend to avoid the tangle. Great tree trunks stood all around.

  It was dim. The sky had clouded over, and the air was cool. Manserphine shivered. Then she saw a stone wall ahead.

  It was the building. The upper storey was in ruins, but its floor remained to make a roof for the ground level. Suspiciously they entered, to find four rooms filled with ferns and fungus, and a musty smell. The stone structure was sound but there was no glass in the windows. Slugs, snails and even an adder had made their homes here.

  “It will do for now,” Zoahnône said.

  Kirifaïfra was scrabbling at the floor. Manserphine knelt at his side and asked, “What are you doing?”

  He pointed. Manserphine saw thick veins of red, purple and yellow under the remains of flagstones. “Hardpetal!” she cried, reaching out to hug him.

  “This area is thick with the stuff. I thought it might be. The veins must have been attracted to the psychic reek of sex. Gynoid and human. Those statues we saw by the hedge are natural symbols of carnality, created by self-organising hardpetal.”

  “We could replant Zahafezhan here,” Shônsair suggested.

  “Do it,” Manserphine said, knowing without thought that it was the right thing to do.

  Kirifaïfra uncovered veins in the corner of a room and they stood Zahafezhan upon them. Her toes seemed to twitch.

  “Is she attached?”

  “I think so.”

  They waited. Zahafezhan lost her limpness then stood straight, like an old bloom dunked in water, although the sheen on her skin was dull as if she missed the sun, and the flower at the crown of her head seemed tarnished, as if it were brass, not gold.

  So they set about making themselves as comfortable as possible. Manserphine and Kirifaïfra took one room, the gynoids another, leaving Vishilkaïr alone with Zahafezhan. They threw out woodland debris, the snails and the slugs, and covered the open windows with curtains woven from cold-coconut leaves harvested nearby. The door was sound, but unhinged, so that they left.

  Night fell, and they discussed what they should do.

  “Our first task is to resettle the Cemetery beasts,” Zoahnône said. “It seems they knew Zahafezhan was in Veneris. If we can somehow show them that she is out of reach, they may simply return to their earth.”

  “Can bargains be left open?” Manserphine said.

  Kirifaïfra seemed awkward with this question, but he said, “Sometimes. The beasts will have been offered a great prize to pay them for finding Zahafezhan, and that will make our task more difficult.”

  “The course of action is obvious,” Shônsair said. “Zoahnône and I must enter the networks and cast about for an answer. If we are lucky, Baigurgône will not notice us.”

  “What about food?” Vishilkaïr said.

  “Food?” said Zoahnône.

  “Yes. You may not need it, but we do. I’m starving.”

  “Then that is a problem for you,” Zoahnône replied. “We have other matters to attend to.”

  On that icy note, Shônsair and Zoahnône departed the ruined house.

  Manserphine lay sleepless that night in her chilly room, wrapped in a cloak with Kirifaïfra at her side, beneath them a bed of bark and dead bracken. Not comfortable. Her stomach rumbled. All they had had to eat was berries and wild potatoes.

  So quickly had the day passed, and now the night dragged on. Her insomnia forced her to listen to every chitter, every crack of twig and rustle of undergrowth, every flap of wing. Helpless, she imagined silvery beasts homing in on her turbulent mind, grabbing images from the networks, pulling ancient maps from databases, and then finding them.

  At dawn she heard steps in the undergrowth. She woke Kirifaïfra, who stared in the dark, the whites of his eyes gleaming.

  It was Zoahnône and Shônsair. “We have extraordinary news,” they reported.

  “What news?”

  “Baigurgône is no longer mistress of the Cemetery,” said Zoahnône. “The Cemetery reality was cut from its substrate.”

  “But there is hope for us,” Shônsair said. “We found a copy of a message she sent. It was logged to Sargyshyva and Zehosaïtra of the Shrine of the Green Man, and it named one Nuïy as the man who raised the Cemetery. We have seen his face. He is the man who atta
cked Alquazonan in the northern Cemetery. He was at the Determinate Inn with the old man.” She looked at Manserphine, to say, “And it was he who you caught in your cord on the night of the attack, and questioned, before he escaped.”

  Manserphine nodded. “Then he may be an agent of change. Who is he?”

  “We do not know. But we must find out.”

  “And the Cemetery beasts?”

  “We do not know the exact words of the bargain, but they search only the urb. We intend revealing Zahafezhan to them so they understand that she is out of reach. Then we hope they will return.”

  “And we can return to our homes,” Kirifaïfra said.

  Shônsair hesitated. “Possibly.”

  The plan was put into action later that day. With Zoahnône skulking in free network space outside the edge of the Cemetery reality, ready to monitor the response, Shônsair sent images and words. They were bright and loud so the beasts could not fail to hear when, between searches, their minds were free. In just seconds every beast knew the truth. The Cemetery reality, which had acquired a misty, formless structure as if doused in chlorine, seemed to freeze back into its original shape.

  It had worked. The beasts recognised that their part of the bargain could not immediately be fulfilled. An hour later, people looking out from their upper floor windows saw silvery shapes loping north. Those with a view of the Cemetery saw the flowers tremble as new holes were dug and the beasts returned to their subterranean haunts.

  ~

  They stayed a second night in the tumbledown house, just in case. At dawn Manserphine apprehensively walked into central Veneris. As she approached the Shrine and the market area she saw that normal morning business was clearly returning, for there were clerics about, merchants, and many people simply out to find food.

  At the Shrine she made straight for her room. She began sorting her clothes, then changed into a new dress. She washed her face.

  “Hello?”

  Manserphine turned to see Yamagyny. “Come in,” she cheerily said.

  “We wondered where you were,” said Yamagyny.