Madness of Flowers

by Jay Lake

  Slackwater Princess had covered a thousand river miles from the City Imperishable to this region. It would take the four of them all summer and well into the autumn to make their way home on foot.

  They walked until sundown, detouring around the marshy outlets of streams, scrambling up and down banks, forcing their way through stands of brush. There were no trees at all, just more groupings of shattered stumps surrounded by a mass of slivers.

  DeNardo called a halt atop a little bluff. Bijaz examined a stump at close quarters. Pale globules clung to the debris, ranging from the size of raindrops to muskmelons. When he touched a small drop with the tip of a stick, it quivered before bursting into a flowing mess, like the remains of a garden slug.

  There was plenty of firewood from the ruins of a small grove at the base of the bluff. Bijaz set that alight as darkness fell.

  Amalii began to chant. This resembled the song he'd sung to the snake. His voice rose and fell in a conversation with the fire. As Ulliaa's memories continued to sink into his own mind, Bijaz found the words tugged at him more and more. Where the other had been an invocation, this was a lamentation.

  He was surprised when Ashkoliiz joined in. Her part of the chant was infrequent, an occasional harmony that crossed with Amalii's voice to form something which stirred the hairs on Bijaz's neck.

  She seemed genuinely sorrowful, for the first time since he'd known her.

  In time Bijaz walked away from the fire, staring north and west. The river was noisy here, talking with its speed. The cliffs held an echoing silence, different from the rustling stillness of open country. Something big moved in the brush along their backtrail.

  "DeNardo," Bijaz called softly.

  The Winter Boy approached quietly.

  Bijaz mimed listening. DeNardo nodded and slipped down the slope. The dwarf wrapped his arms around himself and waited nervously.

  "What?" asked Amalii.

  Startled, Bijaz hadn't even realized that the chant had finished. "DeNardo is hunting whatever out there hunts us," he whispered.

  Amalii nodded, then limped after DeNardo. Bijaz realized he was better off watching Ashkoliiz than facing away from her. He found her subdued.

  This seemed as good a time as any to speak to her frankly. He asked the question which had been on his mind since the beginning, in one form or another. "What was it you intended? Truly, beneath all the stagecraft?"

  "To prove myself." Those ice-blue eyes gleamed in the firelight. "Iistaa needed me, so she made me need her in turn. The elders of Black Cleft Council sent the triad to watch us both, me for being too flighty and female, the ice bear for being, well, herself."

  "And you just wanted to be right? A hundred men have died for that, while an entire city now stands in peril."

  "Right. Wealthy. Feted for my perspicacity." She hugged herself. "Who could have known how difficult this would be?"

  "What of Iistaa?"

  Ashkoliiz shook her head. "I thought I knew. Now . . . " She took a slow breath. "In the North, entire lifetimes are spent to realize a single moment. I have begun to wonder if she spent us all to arrange what you released."

  That neatly paralleled Bijaz's own speculations. "But why?"

  "We see time differently, so high above the world. Sometimes that bends a person's reasoning beyond recognition."

  "It still cannot be nonsense. A person—" Bijaz was interrupted by a quick, sharp shriek. He grabbed a brand and ran to the edge of the slope. DeNardo ran out of the darkness moments later, Amalii stumbling close behind.

  "Who was hurt?" Bijaz asked.

  "Not to being hurt," DeNardo said. "Surprised."

  That startled Bijaz. "Something surprised you enough to make you scream?"

  "Iistaa," said Amalii.

  "The bear?"

  "Her spirit is so great it can remember itself, even in death."

  "Where is she now?" He hated the panic in his voice.

  "We led her into the river."

  "She is not to be swimming so well," DeNardo added.

  "So now she's in front of us?" Bijaz demanded. "There's no way we can walk home with her ambushing us at any step of the way."

  "You'd best conjure a boat, then, little godling." Ashkoliiz's tone was smirking.

  Whatever moment of honesty they'd been sharing was lost. "There's an answer here somewhere." Bijaz tried to keep from snarling. "But if you don't know what it is, you might wish to keep your mouth shut."

  "Being enough," DeNardo snapped. "Sleeping awhile, then going on while it is still night."

  Bijaz lay on his cloak and stared at the stars. Avoiding the endless replay of his aborted conversation with Ashkoliiz, he wondered how to lift them over the miles to home. A memory came unbidden, of the battle of Terminus Plaza. The Alates had sided with Imago.

  How in all the brass hells would he call an Alate?

  Try, he thought. Reach out and try.

  He imagined a flying steed. Not like the monkey bats, but something large and graceful, with the dignity of a thinking man. He remembered crows picking through the wheat field when the reaper man had passed. They flew to carrion and war, following the scythe as it hissed through the world.

  He'd flown, too, if he'd reached high enough to break off a piece of the sun. How did it feel to fly? How did it feel to have the wind beneath your feet and the world open forever around you as you plummeted toward the ground, beating wings you didn't have and screaming for—

  Bijaz awoke with a shriek, startling the others. They were on watch two-and-two now, so only Amalii had been sleeping.

  Everyone stared as an Alate landed next to the ashes.

  "You said my name," it told Bijaz in a voice like a cliff face, cracked and high and stony.

  "Ah, welcome." That was the best he could do in the moment.

  Onesiphorous

  They attacked Port Defiance with the incoming tide. One of the firepots spilled, setting his banner afire. The men clashed their weapons, shouting fit to raise the dead. The people of the city covered their lights and pulled their shutters to.

  That was fine with Onesiphorous.

  Further to the east a single white firework lofted to end in a transitory chrysanthemum. Jason was moving against the black ships.

  Their attack flotilla split up to weave between the islets. Xanthippe D. passed his old haunts, right by Axos and Lentas with their great, absurd wooden bridge.

  There was no sign of the corsairs yet.

  Most of the boats made for the Flag Towers. The Harbormaster would be holed up with his new friends. If they could get into the waters beneath, they could board the building like a ship.

  The first trouble came with a bright flash just north of the Flag Towers. Cannon fire landed among the lead elements of Onesiphorous' little fleet, splintering a fast sloop and sending a steam-powered raft spinning.

  He had no plan for that. Everything he and Kalliope had discussed assumed the corsairs lurked in their castle.

  "What do I do?" he shouted at her.

  "Keep sailing!"

  Three more salvos rippled in quick succession—the corsairs had at least four ships out there. Xanthippe D. took a hit near the bow that left a sailor screaming like a girl until one of his fellows clubbed him on the head with a belaying pin. Captain Pottle cursed violently and set his men to patching the damage.

  They were far too small to carry a chirurgeon. Anyone hurt would depend on luck and a strong constitution for their survival.

  Onesiphorous stood in front of his banner, screaming by the light of his firepots. "You want me, then come and get me, you stupid cunt-mouthed, arse-brained, dog-fucking, motherless whoreson suckers of your father's flaccid cocks!"

  He seized one of the pots, heedless of how it burned his hand, and hurled it uselessly toward the dark ships. "Cowards! Buttery maids! Rent boys!"

  "Get down." Kalliope tackled Onesiphorous as another salvo crossed overhead. The banner and its frame vanished, leaving the roof of the deckhouse in flam
es.

  "I think I sprained my ankle," Onesiphorous hissed.

  "It's one thing to lead," she growled. "It's another to make a target of yourself." She kissed him, then let him up.

  He tried to stand, and nearly collapsed. Men screamed all around. A steam engine shrieked its way toward catastrophic failure.

  Their attack had broken on the rock of impossibility—small boats were no match for cannon.

  "Turn the fleet!" he shouted. "Board their ships. We've got no other chance!"

  The call was taken up, passed from boat to boat.

  "You're an idiot," Kalliope said affectionately. "And you're going to get us all killed."

  "We're all going to die anyway. If they've readied their ships, they've also placed snipers on the parapets of the Flag Towers. We might as well die clever as die stupid."

  Onesiphorous limped to the bow, slipping on someone's intestines. A sailor brought him a rifled musket. He sighted in on the shadows ahead before he realized he didn't know how to use it. Still, he felt good with the weapon in hand. He pretended to hold his fire while examining the trigger and the tiny levers around it.

  "Above and forward, on the left side," Kalliope whispered. "The safety catch. It's intended to keep foolish dwarfs from shooting their own nuts off."

  "I'm too short to shoot my own nuts off with a rifle."

  "Then someone else's nuts."

  "Isn't that the whole point of a rifle?"

  As they turned away from the Flag Towers, the fleet was met with a chorus of jeers and a rattle of small arms fire. The ambush would have been complete if the black fleet had let most of the attackers sail into the trap, then cannoned them as they fled.

  "Hold fire," he shouted. "Wait for close range."

  It sounded good. His men weren't going to hit anything in the dark anyway.

  Laughter rippled in the distance, followed by another devastating round of cannon shot.

  "Are they moving?" he asked Kalliope. "Or have we changed our course?"

  She scrambled to check with Captain Pottle, who was directing the effort to fight the fire. A moment later she was back. "He believes they've weighed anchor and are tacking across the current."

  "Tacking? That means sails. They've not got steam?"

  Kalliope hummed a brief moment while she thought. Then: "I understand that the corsairs run very fast sailing cutters. Given the least bit of wind they can beat anything with an engine. Steam's for heavier, slower boats."

  "By all that's holy, why aren't we keel-hauling across the windward or whatever it is steamships do that sailing ships don't?"

  "Because that's not what we planned for," Kalliope reminded him. "This was an assault landing, not an open water battle."

  "Wait 'til we catch them. We'll see an assault." He thrust the rifled musket at her. "Here. Shoot something. I need Pottle's help."

  The captain looked at Onesiphorous as if he were stupid, then the light dawned. "We can reverse back through the islands of the city and head right down the wind at them. It's blowing off the shore at the moment."

  "So we'll come right to them if we do that, then be behind them where they can't reach us?"

  "It's a suicide run," Pottle told him. "Some captains won't follow you. But some will. And that gets us away from the firing out of the Flag Towers. Even better, if we close in tight on the ships, they can't gun us down so easily with their heavy weapons."

  "All they can do is outnumber us." Onesiphorous glanced into the darkness as another cannon volley went wide, crashing into buildings. Now that his fleet had broken formation, they were just so many small boats.

  Pottle found a wooden hailer and began shouting over the rail. Xanthippe D. came about, chugging toward her next opportunity to be a target. Onesiphorous headed back for the bow.

  "Thinking like a general?" Kalliope asked as he crouched down next to her.

  "I suppose." He stared into the gleaming darkness between two islands, seeing a pale line of foam as an unknown vessel cut toward the west. No one had their lanterns hung this night. "Do real navies fight in the dark?"

  "Of course not. And they don't fight in port, either."

  "Speaking of fighting in port, where is your brother? Their ships were out of position, but he had hours to see that."

  "Trust him to do what he can," she said.

  "I don't trust anyone tonight. It's all up to chance now. Even my last orders probably only got through to a handful."

  "Another reason ships don't fight in the dark. Signal flags are difficult to see."

  "There's always rockets." He sighted down the rifle again. Someone ran across a bridge, a dark shadow against the gleaming starshine, but Onesiphorous let them go. "Of course, we don't have any rockets."

  "Genius," she said. He noticed she'd found another rifle.

  "Do you know how to reload this?"

  "You are worthless!" she shouted, but then she kissed him again.

  At least he would die laughing.

  All too soon, Xanthippe D. slipped into an open channel. Onesiphorous saw the silhouettes of four large sailing ships ahead. They appeared fast and deadly. How many more were in port?

  He looked around to see how many boats had followed.

  "If you see someone moving on board, take your shot," Kalliope told him.

  "I'll be lucky to hit the water. I've never fired a gun in my life."

  "You're never going to have a better chance to learn."

  The boiler grumbled as they picked up steam. Pottle had decided to lead by example. Onesiphorous twisted to see two motor barges following.

  When the cannon fire opened, it took him a moment to realize the shots were going in the wrong direction. The muzzle flashes were behind him. The balls struck the ships ahead. Shouts echoed from the corsairs, along with the ringing of a signal bell.

  "Full on!" he screamed.

  "Shut up," Kalliope suggested. She took a shot, then loaded another cartridge.

  Onesiphorous also took a shot, though for all he could tell his round had hit the moon. He turned to see who was firing in support of them. Something caught his eye as he moved, and so he glanced back ahead. A pale figure was climbing one of the enemy hulls ahead. A number of them, in fact.

  "Look," he whispered. Another salvo passed overhead.

  She was staring the other way. "Who the hells is that? Three big ships, steamers."

  "I thought you said steamers didn't fight."

  "No, I said corsairs don't use steamers. Other people mount guns on steamers. Slower, bigger ships with heavier cannon."

  Ahead, the pale climbers had gained the corsair's rail. Onesiphorous had the sick feeling those were the swamp-mother's fire dancers.

  That unlucky ship's mast exploded into bloom. Branches erupted with a noise like ripping cloth. It glowed green as leaves budded amid a thousand tiny crackling pops.

  "I know where your brother is," Onesiphorous said.

  "Brace for impact!" shouted Captain Pottle.

  Impact? He was in the bow watch station and he couldn't see anything close.

  Xanthippe D. struck something low in the water that rang like a gong. The boat bucked, drenching Onesiphorous and Kalliope in cold seawater. The boiler shrieked over the sound of a woman cursing.

  "I think we hit the turtle," Kalliope yelled above the racket.

  The assay boat shuddered as something belowdecks gave way. Two of the corsairs had recovered sufficiently to exchange salvos with the approaching steamers. Xanthippe D. listed dead in the water between the two ranks of cannon. Her boiler was howling.

  "Abandon ship!" Someone began thrashing the assay boat's bell.

  Onesiphorous risked standing. The two barges following were still making way. His boat didn't lack for rescue, but this was no night for a swim.

  He realized who the steamships must belong to.

  "I think we won," he told Kalliope. "Time to go."

  "You're utterly fey, you know," she said. "Battle rage. It kills good men."
>
  Xanthippe D. lurched again. Her list became more pronounced. Onesiphorous set his rifle down and slipped into the water. Kalliope followed him, even while screams began to echo across the water from the corsair which had been boarded.

  Panic began to set in as Onesiphorous found a chunk of wood to cling to. What the hells had he been doing?