Madness of Flowers

by Jay Lake

  "There's nothing to fight, no port to attack to convince Tokhari to come back to the sand sea. Someday our serais will be empty. The Tokhari will just be dark-haired families with odd names, as much Gronegrii or City men as anyone else. Then someone else will find our lands empty and learn our arts of living, or discover new arts which serve them better. That's the world, Onesiphorous. It may be that your people's twilight has come. They will not vanish. They will simply become something else."

  "Perhaps." He suspected the queen of Angoulême would have said much the same thing. "I thank you," he told her, squeezing her hand.

  The bow watch scampered back along the deck, having been forbidden to call. "Snag Point ahead," he whispered hoarsely.

  Onesiphorous stood. "Prepare to light the firepots. Captain, fight the ship as you see best. Kalliope, are we made ready?"

  "See," she said, laughing. "You even sound like a general."

  Imago

  The wasps were everywhere and nowhere. The City Imperishable had lapsed into panic. Most people retreated to their homes, abandoning carts and baggage in the street.

  A squad of the surviving Winter Boys under Astaro found him leaving the square shortly after the attacks. At least he wasn't heading back to the Rugmaker's Cupola alone.

  They headed north on Arbogaster Street, angling toward the Root Market along a more circuitous route than he would ordinarily have taken. He wanted to see a bit more of the City, and stay away from the waterfront.

  Something buzzed loudly overhead. The freeriders drew their pistols. Imago looked up as a massive shadow crossed the stars. A wasp bigger than a house. It was gone as fast as it had appeared. The horsemen drew closer together.

  This was worse than the noumenal attacks of last fall. Those had been random, and fatal only to an ill-chanced few. The wasp swarms had already killed dozens in Terminus Plaza, and could easily have taken the lives of hundreds more. If they were the scouts for an invasion, the City Imperishable was done for.

  "You did not call the wasps." Between one moment and the next Biggest Sister was walking next to Astaro's horse, where Imago rode double.

  Astaro startled, saw that it was her, and twisted around to grin at Imago. "She is being a cat in the evening."

  Biggest Sister smiled sourly. "As I've said before, shadows and focus. What will you do now, Lord Mayor?"

  "I do not know. My forces are reduced. I sent my noumenal actors away. There are only the flowers to protect us."

  "You take your strength where you find it," she said. "Where will you find more?"

  He sighed. In her direct way, Biggest Sister had flushed his deepest thoughts into the open. "If I were desperate enough, I might go down beneath the New Hill and call up the Old Gods once more."

  "Are you that desperate?" she asked.

  "No." Then he blurted, "But I soon will be."

  Biggest Sister touched his hand, oddly tender. "You will hear more from me. Wait, before you do anything drastic."

  He nodded, but she was gone.

  Astaro turned to him. "We are to be returning to the Rugmaker's Cupola now. Not safe here."

  "Not safe anywhere," Imago said.

  The Winter Boys grumbled among themselves in their southern tongue.

  Passing through the Root Market, he saw potatoes scattered in the street, and many stores shuttered. Somehow that made him as sad as any of the day's other losses. In time he knew he'd grieve the Card King more, and Marelle most of all.

  The City Imperishable truly had begun to sicken.

  The Rugmaker's Cupola was a disaster. The front doors had been shattered. Debris from a recent struggle was scattered in the great circular hall at the base. Not to mention broken furniture and a blizzard of papers thrown down from above.

  This had been a slap at Imago and his legacy.

  Astaro sighed. "Nine more of us were dying in the fight. Finally we were to be retreating to the castle beyond." He nodded toward the door which led to the old fortified Tokhari embassy from the days of empire. It had obviously withstood assault quite recently. "They were to be leaving off after a time, but your offices are to having been sacked."

  Imago climbed the spiral stairs. Five levels rose from base to top. What wasn't piled in drifts of broken wood and paper littered the balconies as he ascended.

  "Bailiffs?" Imago couldn't see Imre and his brothers destroying a seat of government.

  Astaro grunted. "Restorationists again. Like the madmen of winter."

  "Who else did they kill?"

  "Only freeriders. We were to be keeping all the clerks safe."

  Imago stopped, saddened by that statement. "Thank you. You have given up your leader and half your numbers for me. The City has shown little for it." More freeriders crowded behind Astaro, staring. "This isn't your fight anymore. It never was but for Ignatius' coin."

  "Enero was to being our fight," Astaro said slowly, his voice thickening. "In the case DeNardo is to be returning from the North. He is to be taking Enero's place. Then we will being to decide."

  One of the others rattled off something long in their language, but Astaro ignored it.

  DeNardo? Who the hells was DeNardo? "No one will be returning from the North," Imago told them. "You should make your own decisions."

  "Oh, no." Astaro smiled, a hard-edged, predatory grin. "We are to be having word. DeNardo is to be coming."

  Imago was astonished. "How would you know?"

  Astaro shrugged. "You will to be asking DeNardo himself. All we are knowing is he comes. We are not knowing with who or why."

  "Who is DeNardo, anyway?"

  "Enero's brother. To be watching quiet what happen here, no attention being on him while Enero is to be leading. Different tales to be told home."

  There's always another layer, thought Imago. That was oddly comforting.

  His office wasn't the wreck he'd expected. In fact, someone had been cleaning it, or at least arranging the trash. Imago looked into the chamberlain's office.

  Stockwell the clerk cowered within, brandishing a letter opener. "I'm warning you—" he began. Then he screamed and fainted.

  Of course, Imago thought. Stockwell understood Imago to be dead. The Lord Mayor stepped to Stockwell's side. This office was clean too, and a desk had even been rigged from broken furniture. He knelt beside the clerk and patted his cheeks. "Come on, there."

  Stockwell's eyes opened. "You . . . you were killed."

  "A temporary condition." Imago forced a smile. "I've been in prison actually. 'm still slug pale, but very much alive."

  "Your funeral . . . "

  "I've been to the grave. Very touching. We have larger problems now, I'm afraid."

  "I wouldn't know, sir." Stockwell sat up. "I've been hiding. What else was there to do? And someone might need the files again someday."

  "You've done well. It's someday now, as I am back in the Rugmaker's Cupola."

  Something big fluttered outside. Imago jumped in panic, fearing another wasp, but it was just a huge sheet of cloth falling past the window.

  The Winter Boys had thrown the Burgesses' banner off the roof.

  "Good." Half an hour ago he was ready to ask Saltfingers to stand as his psychopomp one last time. He now realized that if this ninny of a clerk could find a way to look to the future, so could Lord Mayor Imago of Lockwood.

  Imago found the bear's bell amid the wreckage of his office, and pocketed it for luck. He took his poppy, wilted now but still recognizable, and tucked it into a buttonhole of his shirt. He was still costumed as himself—dark trousers, a white shirt with an untabbed collar and no necktie, with a cloak over it.

  He trudged up the wooden ladders to the roof. There had been no morning or evening bell these last few days since he'd escaped. The Temple District as always clattered and clanged away, but Imago was surprised to find that he had missed the bone-shaking racket in his office.

  The clouds had cleared, leaving only the stars in their glory with a new moon drifting dark. The City
Imperishable doused its lights, huddling in fear, or also a more practical effort not to give the wasps something to home in on. That left the heavens blazing.

  Mai, he thought. This is Mai. So much had been stolen from him in that cell. Out here was the opposite of imprisonment—open sky and a far horizon.

  He held the tiny bell out, fragmentary imitation of those which had fallen silent. The carillon was still there. Someone had probably stolen the clappers for scrap by now, but the bells remained.

  Good.

  Imago waved the silver bell at its massive iron cousins. Then he turned to the west, where the sun had fled beyond the far-distant Yellow Mountains, and where the Saltus first flowed from. He rang the bell once, twice, three times.

  Then he walked around the tower until he faced south. The Limerock Palace and the Sudgate hulked in the starlight. Onesiphorous had vanished in that direction. Three times again he rang the bell.

  West, toward the Rose Downs: sunrise, and the breadbasket that fed much of the City. There he rang the bell three more times.

  Finally, north. The Silver Ridges lay there, and somewhere beyond them, Bijaz's grave. He rang the bell another three times.

  Nothing happened. No wasps, giant or small. None of the rumored bats. Marelle did not spring whole-bodied from the stones, nor did Enero rise from the dead.

  He was a fool. Bijaz might have made something appear. Jason could have turned the bells to melons. The poor godmonger Archer would have found wisdom in the tiny silver echo.

  Imago was just a failed Lord Mayor.

  He made a conscious effort to cheer himself. The City would live to see another day. Wasps could be killed; people did it all the time. At least Wedgeburr wasn't a threat at the moment.

  Voices echoed down in the street, which surprised him. Imago leaned over the decorated battlement. Half a dozen people gathered at the door below, with several lanterns. A few more walked up the street, one carrying a torch.

  They slipped into his tower.

  More were coming.

  More went inside as well, though the crowd outside seemed to grow faster than the trickle heading within. Imago wondered what it meant. Not an attack, not with the quiet talk and occasional laughter drifting upward. Some of his partisans? This was the City Imperishable, and these were its people. They seemed to have visited his grave in numbers, unsafe as that had been with Wedgeburr in control.

  Imago thought he glimpsed Imre and a few other bailiffs in their red wool uniforms. They weren't pushing forward with warrants. Rather, they stood amid the others, waiting their turn.

  Someone lit the Burgesses' banner on fire. It was almost a party down there. As best as he could tell everyone carried a poppy. People glanced often at the sky,

  They show courage, he told himself, and headed for the narrow door.

  An Alate waited there, wings flexing in the starlight.

  Imago jumped, surprised. The day had already been full of frights.

  "You called." The Alate's voice was high and narrow.

  Called? Thinking quickly, he opened his hand and showed the little silver bell. "Yes, I did. I am Lord Mayor of the City Imperishable. My city is in dire need of aid."

  Bijaz

  They walked southward all afternoon, finding no intact wood. In time, DeNardo called a halt. The Northmen were trailing far behind.

  Bijaz waited for them as DeNardo made camp and Ashkoliiz sulked. Ulliaa and Amalii finally caught up with him. Ulliaa looked sickly pale. They sat and Amalii laid a six foot snake out. Bijaz couldn't tell if it was dead or just stunned.

  "I am to lose my name soon," Ulliaa announced. "The world begins to forget me."

  Bijaz mentally translated that. "You are dying."

  "Yes." It was Amalii. "Our third had no remembering when he was lost. There is yet time for Ulliaa to remember."

  "I am pleased for you," Bijaz offered. To his surprise, he meant it.

  "Will you remember as well?" Ulliaa's voice creaked.

  The snake was worrisome, but Bijaz nodded.

  Amalii stroked the animal. It wriggled back to life within his grip. Bijaz had no idea what sort of snake it was, just that it was longer than he was tall and thicker than his forearm. It flickered its tongue at Amalii.

  The Northman began to chant. This wasn't the language they usually spoke. Bijaz listened for something of the meaning behind the words. It was an opening, and invocation. Chilly wind blew as Amalii continued, bearing the hard scent of ice and sharpening some very unpleasant recent memories.

  The snake coiled around Amalii's arm. It worked its way up and across his shoulders, then doubled back past his neck and reached for Ulliaa. Ulliaa raised his hand, grasped the snake's neck, pulled it close to his mouth and made a noise such Bijaz had never before heard.

  It was as if all the words a man might speak in his life tore from the Northman's mouth at once. A god-shout that could have awakened a Creation from a sleeping, empty sky. Bijaz's ears popped and bled. The air grew so cold that ice flurried around them in tiny crystals. The snake swelled, then spasmed in death.

  Ulliaa slumped over.

  Amalii laid the snake out on the ground and immediately sliced it open. He cut a great length, examining the organs. Bijaz would ordinarily have been quite curious, but his head was buzzing with thoughts and memories and words which did not belong to his life. A wall of ice like a frozen fall, glittering with colors he could not name. Some great fish, longer than three men, laid out on snow and being butchered. Sex with Amalii and Ashtiili, sharing slick cocks and the taste of one another as they bound their triad with the flesh. A woman crooning as he thrust his hand into a fire, only to draw it out again unburned. The wounded boys ran crying to their mothers, but he was taken down into a hole in the stone to be buried alive and reborn. A seal screaming as he clubbed it to death, then stripped its skin to wear so he could swim beneath the ice for hours.

  These were echoes of Ulliaa's death shout, setting themselves into his head.

  That was a mighty power indeed.

  Bijaz shook the false memories away, retreating to his wheat field. To his surprise he nearly collided with the reaper man, who reached for him with the scythe. Bijaz smiled and stepped aside.

  Amalii handed him several purpled gobbets. "Eat now," he said, "and remember." The Northman consumed those he'd kept for himself, then lapsed into quiet.

  A liver? Bijaz couldn't tell. He swallowed, letting the thick, sticky meat slide down his throat. He licked the snake blood off his fingers and waited.

  After a while Amalii opened his eyes. "His name was Ulliaa."

  "His name was Ulliaa," Bijaz repeated.

  They both stood. The dwarf followed the Northman, who set off looking for DeNardo. The bodies of man and snake were nothing more than empty flesh now.

  The two of them trailed slowly into camp.

  "The other is being dead?" DeNardo asked.

  Bijaz nodded. "He has been sent to his next trial with honor." A fragmentary memory surfaced of the same ceremony for a different brother, the sacrifice on that occasion an ice bear that had laid itself down for the knife. The snake was all they had here. It must have felt very wrong to the Northmen.

  "I'm sorry," Ashkoliiz said in Civitas.

  The north bank eventually widened again—a combination of a bay in the line of the mountains and a southward curve of the river itself. The resulting bottomland was filled with shattered stumps and scattered spears of well-gnawed heartwood. Bijaz had been seeing living trees for months, a trick of dream and divination. Now they were all dead. The little stands they'd seen coming on first reaching the river had been stricken, but this was an entire region stripped to nothing.

  The Eater of Forests.

  He couldn't see how everything fit together. Giant wasps, man-faced bats, tiny wasps, all living out a cycle just as the creatures of garden or field did. But these monsters had a cycle that spanned centuries and encompassed destruction.

  The Northern Expedition had
raised this killer of trees to head for the City Imperishable. Why? To purge the southern ghosts from their ice?

  That did not matter now. What mattered was how quickly he could make his way home, warn Imago, and raise a defense. Marelle and her archives might hold answers. Bijaz needed to reach the City ahead of the Eater of Forests.