Sargyshyva began, “So, first I must relate what we know. I must do this so you understand the power we wield. We know that somewhere in Zaïdmouth lies an android born of Alquazonan. By what name is it called?”
“Zahafezhan.”
“We know Zahafezhan is part of a plot t’alter the networks. Such an alteration would be inimical t’the culture of Our Lord In Green. We desire a culture of masculine honour. It’ll be bright and bold. Perhaps primitive. We hold dear the value of the brain. We despise soft womanly emotions. It’s transpired that the existence of Zahafezhan, and more like it, would bring about such a soft culture. Naturally, we oppose that. D’you understand so far?”
Manserphine nodded.
“Excellent. Now, we need t’find Zahafezhan.”
He stopped talking. Here Manserphine knew he expected his first answer. For some seconds she wrestled with her conscience, wondering what she could possibly say. She sighed.
Sargyshyva glanced at Gaddaqueva, and said, “The nail clippers.”
“No!” Manserphine shouted. “I know where she is. In the Venereal Garden.”
“Where exactly?”
Manserphine looked from Sargyshyva to Gaddaqueva, who stood by what seemed to be a pair of shears. “I don’t have any choice, do I? In the eastern part. There’s a thick grove of rhododendrons and trees.”
“What species of tree?”
“Oh, beech I think.”
Gaddaqueva moved to pull the shears off their wall hook.
“Definitely beech,” Manserphine said. Gaddaqueva did not return the shears to their hook. Appalled, Manserphine realised that every mistake she made would bring him nearer. Cumulative errors would compound, and when he reached her the torture would begin.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “They are beech. The rhododendrons are red and orange.” She glanced over to Gaddaqueva, hoping he would retreat, or return the shears to their hook with this piece of extra information, but he remained still, holding them firm.
“So,” Sargyshyva said. “You’re getting t’understand the process of questioning. Does Zahafezhan have a particular location?”
“Inside a ruined house.”
“Where is this house?”
“Inside the grove.”
Sargyshyva paused. “So. The house definitely lies inside the grove?”
“Yes.”
“Is it defended?”
Manserphine paused. She could not put her friends into peril. She thought of Kirifaïfra. Gaddaqueva walked forward a couple of paces and she said in a tumble of words, “Yes, yes, people live there. They’ll defend themselves if they’re attacked.”
“Who are they?”
The slightest hesitation before Manserphine’s answer made Gaddaqueva take another pace. He was perhaps twenty yards away.
She said, “Two gynoids. And a man. There were two men at first.”
“What are their names?”
“Shônsair and Zoahnône and Vishilkaïr.”
Gaddaqueva began to walk forwards, the shears raised.
“That’s all I can say!” Manserphine cried.
“You said four,” Sargyshyva pointed out.
“Kirifaïfra of the Determinate Inn,” Manserphine immediately said. “Please don’t hurt me. I’m telling you everything.”
“You’re not doing as well as you might be,” Sargyshyva said, shaking his head. “I’m afraid the Second Cleric is rather impulsive.”
“I’ll tell you everything,” Manserphine said. Her fear was making her squirm in the embrace of the chains.
“Let’s hope you do. We want our answers before you become incapable of telling us them.”
“Oh, please don’t hurt me. I’ll tell you everything, I promise.”
“Very well. Gaddaqueva, stop inching forward. Now, Interpreter. What is Zahafezhan? Does it have special defensive abilities?”
Manserphine stared. He had asked the question she could not answer. Gaddaqueva moved forward, until he stood at her side, the shears horizonal, blades exposed.
“We need an answer,” Sargyshyva reminded her.
Manserphine spoke in a jumble of words. “She’s a manifestation of the networks. I mean, a being, a part of the networks. She represents all that is good.”
“Any defences?”
Pressing herself back into the iron post, Manserphine stuttered, “She’s not really alive yet.” She wanted to tell them that she did not know what the final deed was, but she knew she could not. They would construe it as hiding, or lying.
“I see,” Sargyshyva remarked. “So. A strange state of affairs.”
“Yes, it is,” Manserphine agreed.
“And what will she become?”
Manserphine looked from Sargyshyva to Gaddaqueva, and back. Her mind went blank. No plausible answer came to her.
Sargyshyva gripped the neck of her dress and tore the entire garment away. With face twisted in disgust he looked at her stomach, then told Gaddaqueva, “There lies the most repellant part of the un-man. The belly.”
“Yes, the belly,” Gaddaqueva said, lowering the shears so the blades were a foot away from Manserphine’s skin.
“It’s not like a man’s,” Sargyshyva said. He turned, to say, “Zehosaïtra, come here, if you would.”
Zehosaïtra approached.
Sargyshyva said, “Be so good as t’show the un-man yer belly.”
Zehosaïtra undid his shirt to expose a muscled stomach. Sargyshyva struck it with the back of his hand, then said, “Now that, un-man, is what a belly should be like. Flat. Hard. Yours protrudes, and it’s soft. Our Lord In Green thinks that’s wrong.”
Manserphine, petrified, could not answer.
Gaddaqueva tested the shears.
Manserphine felt her knees giving way. She shrank back. In her mind something called out, and she whispered, “Sweet Kiri, save me!”
She fell. She jerked backwards at the roaring in her right ear. Mist hissed across the room like steam from a vent. The men jumped back, staring at her.
The metal braid fell from her hair. It twisted like a serpent, expanding, jetting steam and fluids, now three feet long, now six feet. In just ten seconds it was an upright, four-legged serpent, polished silver, with one red eye and one green, thrashing its tail, snapping serrated jaws.
The men scattered. Sargyshyva was not quick enough, and he fell, one leg in the beast’s mouth. Manserphine screamed. The beast pulled him, shook him, then closed its jaws, tearing Sargyshyva’s throat with a single bite. Blood spurted across the floor as Sargyshyva writhed.
The creature leaped to its feet and followed the other two men. Gaddaqueva was at the door, fumbling the keys to the lock. Zehosaïtra was shouting. The beast lunged at him as Gaddaqueva slipped through the door and slammed it shut. Again Zehosaïtra screamed. His throat was bitten out in one. He fell to the floor, twisting, spraying blood.
The creature returned to Manserphine. Thinking it would kill her, she screamed and tried to hide behind the post, but all it did was clamp its jaws over the chains, and bite. They fell apart.
Manserphine understood that it really was here to save her.
It leaped across the dungeon to stand below the window. Stretching, it made a stair of its knobbly back for Manserphine to climb, which she did, reaching the window and squeezing out. She stood on the edge of muddy water, the sky ten feet above her. She seemed to be inside an empty moat.
The beast roared and followed her, squeezing with difficulty through the window. Again it stretched to allow her to climb up to the light.
Manserphine found herself on paved ground, crouching beside the Inner Sanctum. A group of men twenty yards away stood staring.
The beast returned to its original shape and roared at them. It began loping towards the nearest exit, which lay some yards off amidst orchard trees. Manserphine followed.
“There they are!” came a cry.
Manserphine turned to see Gaddaqueva and a group of archers standing on the Inner Sanctum roof.
“Fire!” he yelled. “Kill them both!”
The beast grabbed Manserphine in its upper arms and leaped forward. Two arrows hit, and it shuddered.
Five men stood waiting at the nearest gate, scimitars at the ready.
The beast stopped. Its steaming breath was coming hoarse, and Manserphine quailed, realising that it was not invincible.
Suddenly it shivered. They rose.
She looked around to see wings.
Air rushed past her ears as with considerable exertion the beast flew, ten feet above the ground, now ten yards as its wingbeats came stronger and it crossed the outer wall. Arrows still whipped past, and a third hit it in the neck. Eyes shut, Manserphine gripped tight.
They flew north. The heaving body of the beast was difficult to grip. More than once Manserphine slipped but hung on by squeezing with her legs.
She dared to open her eyes. Buildings lay below her. The beast was flying slowly, descending, clearly exhausted. The marshes lay nearby.
They flew on. Minutes passed and their progress became slower. Now the edge of Emeralddis lay close. She glanced back to see Gaddaqueva following on a great black autodog, his hair flowing free, a weapon in his hand, his fierce face upturned and grinning.
Suddenly the beast shuddered. Manserphine smelled burning. The marshes lay directly below them.
They began losing height. Manserphine screamed, and again implored the beast to save her, but to no avail. Gaddaqueva was riding close, hurtling along the causeway, perhaps twenty feet below.
The beast swerved in the air and turned, making towards Gaddaqueva. He pulled back his mount. Just a few feet above the ground the beast stalled and shivered, throwing Manserphine into the marsh at the edge of the causeway. She screamed as she fell.
She lay uninjured. Soft algae and stinking weeds cushioned her fall. A few yards away the beast plummeted, crushing both Gaddaqueva and his autodog to the ground.
Manserphine knew this was her one chance to escape. Doubtless the beast had deliberately sacrificed itself.
She clambered onto the causeway and ran, stumbling in her weakness, looking back to see a pile of twisting flesh, silver, black, red, as the autodog, Gaddaqueva and the beast struggled.
Her breath came hoarse. She was exhausted, and, practically naked, cold too. When she reached the end of the causeway she had to jump off into long grass and rest. If the autodog survived, it would follow her scent, she knew that, but she simply had no more energy.
Long minutes passed. She heard nothing except birds and the sucking, bubbling marsh.
Nothing followed her. Some time passed. A tiny portion of energy returned to her freezing body. She stood, surveyed the land, saw nothing, then stumbled west towards the river.
The sun peeked from between clouds. Manserphine hid, afraid that she might be seen. She looked back towards Emeralddis to see that the urb was quiet, almost peaceful. Through marsh vapours she saw nothing of Gaddaqueva or the beast. The autodog at least must be dead.
At the river she drank polluted water, then made north, until she found a bridge. She knew which it was. Veneris lay half an hour to the north.
Despite her fatigue she struggled on, until she saw houses and huts, and, behind them, the lanes of the outer urb filled with hoverflies. She pushed her body forward. In a dry ditch she found a torn cloak, which she wrapped around her body. She wrapped her bleeding feet in tough leaves. Through side streets she walked, ever north, until she glimpsed to her left the roof of the Shrine of Our Sister Crone. A little later she noticed the rounded top of the Gazebo Azure, and she knew the Venereal Garden was close.
She walked along the outer hedge of the Venereal Garden, entering it by the tunnel. Cool trees surrounded her. Now she knew she was about to collapse. She staggered, leaning against a trunk, which she gripped as for a moment her legs lost their feeling. A final effort took her to the tumbledown house.
She heard sobbing.
She stopped at the front door. That was Vishilkaïr weeping.
Full of apprehension, she opened the door. It creaked. Inside she saw them, and, hearing the sound, they turned to look at her.
Vishilkaïr turned last. At his feet lay a body wrapped in white cloth.
Manserphine stopped and stood absolutely still. They looked at her. Vishilkaïr was quiet. She knew who lay in the shroud, and she knew he was dead.
She walked up to Vishilkaïr, then knelt at the head and began to unwrap the shroud. Vishilkaïr reached to stop her, saying, “No, you mustn’t.”
She slapped him away. “I must see his face.”
There he lay. Kiri. For some time she stared at him, before standing up, unsteadily, and holding on to Vishilkaïr when he stretched out an arm.
“The bargain was real,” he said, tears streaming down his face. “He wanted to do it. I couldn’t stop him. I did try.”
Manserphine, shocked, fell to the ground. Exhaustion seemed to become a force, like gravity. She lay at Kirifaïfra’s side, eyes dry and open, her body shaking. The other two departed.
“Was it quick?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t here. Zoahnône said it just grabbed his back with its teeth and killed him instantly. It was the parent of the one in your hair. A life for a life.”
Manserphine curled up into a ball.
Silence fell over them. Despite her encompassing exhaustion, rest eluded her, as if Kirifaïfra’s unearthly presence was dragging her mind into continual wakefulness. This, she knew, was the meaning of the vision of the black cloud, and even now she felt it descend upon her mind. She departed consciousness, not into sleep, but into some other zone, between waking and slumber, where she explored the boundaries of her numbness and discovered their vast extent.
Next day, when the shock that was meant to insulate her mind from the truth had faded, there was sobbing, the pair of them holding one another, the others looking on.
“I must go soon,” Manserphine managed to tell them. “The final deed is upon me. I must go.”
“Where?”
“To the Core Garden. Come with me to the beds of orchid and foxglove, and watch over my body. If I don’t come back, lay me at his side and cover us with Venerisian earth.”
CHAPTER 28
In the Cemetery, Nuïy looked upward. Seeing the green disk in the heavens he made a final, despairing attempt to leap out of his gloom. He felt himself rise. The green disk neared, and now he could see patches of violet in it. He reached out, and with a cry of fear clutched it.
There was a flurry of colour, the smell of flowers, and Nuïy found himself lying on his back in a garden.
Crouched low, ready to defend himself, he examined his surroundings. It was dark, but not as before; this was more like sombre evening. Around him lay scores of flowering trees and bushes, heavy with nocturnal scent, between them paths and lanes, while through the air moths and night-bees flew, and tiny fireflies the colour of blood. Nuïy felt repelled by the sight.
He sat against a tree. Depression again took him. He had left the Cemetery, his one true home. Now he sat on foreign ground—a stinking garden. The soft sky seemed to smile upon him. He scowled up at it, but then saw a dark disk like a circular olive, marked with black and grey. Home. He knew that he had jumped from disk to disk, from reality to reality.
He sagged against the tree bole. Now he truly was lost. In the real world his body would dehydrate and eventually die. Then he supposed he would lose his mind.
He felt his skin harden in response. A long time ago he had welcomed this manifestation of his pristine mind. Now it was happening again, a symptom of the loss of hope.
He welcomed it again. He would end up trapped inside himself; and even he, who had hidden so much in the depths of his subconscious, could see the meaning of that.
When the featureless sky changed from deep violet to deep blue he began to wander the Garden. Perfectly combed cirrus clouds floated in from the direction of strongest glow. He presumed it was virtual east.
No sun shone here, nor had there been stars.
He hated it. The purple flowers stank, and because they did he tried to break them off, but somehow, as if the Garden was acting against him, the stems always wriggled out of his fingers and he was left in sullen silence, cursing the fact that everything was against him. He trudged on, following a turf path. He kicked the plants, but they dodged aside. Even after a frenzy, jumping up and down in the carefully tended beds, he stepped back to see everything as before. He spat. The mucus changed direction and landed harmlessly on grass.
He swore. He could not live here. He would rather die than suffer such a nightmare. He could not go on.
He sank against a tree, these bitter thoughts swirling in his mind. He did not know what to do.
In the end there was only one thing to do. Keep on going.
He explored for an hour before noticing a line of dark grass in the lawn before him. He crossed it. The faintest sensation of change itched at the back of his mind, and he looked back, expecting to see people, perhaps an un-man; but he saw nobody. He walked on. Warmth made him sweat. He paused, looking in every direction, seeing only flowers, more flowers, endless flowers. He gritted his teeth. He could go mad here, collapse, writhe on the ground and beg for it to end. He felt his skin harden in response, though he retained his mobility. But he needed this expression of invulnerability as a defence against the horror of the reality.
He hastened through an arch and into an arbour.
Somebody there, sitting in a stone chair.
The un-man was tall, her braided hair decorated with beads, her face hard, with pinched lips, and dark eyes like those of an addict. She wore the richest clothes Nuïy had ever seen, fine black wool, silk, and soft leather boots. She remained sitting, as if expecting him.
Nuïy stopped short. He had heard of the Sea-Clerics, and he thought this might be one. If she attacked him he would hit out, but for now he would wait.
She looked up at him, and said, “A soft breeze playfully in my hair, tentative steps across the morning sand, the surf calls me.”
Nuïy understood the words, but there was no meaning. He said nothing.
The woman got up, and said, “Three logs in the harbour, so hard, so cold, time flitting fast like the foam at the edge of a wave.”
Flowercrash Page 41
