Madness of Flowers

by Jay Lake

  "We put more steam, cut rope, someone take tiller, drive her to shore." The officer grew agitated. "Must go now."

  "You couldn't have thought of this before?" Onesiphorous turned to look at the sloop. As Princeps Olivo backed water, the smaller boat's towline went slack. It drifted toward the steamer, but turned on the current as well. Water washed over the rails. The little vessel hadn't quite gone down.

  "Down the stern ladder," the officer said. "Please. Now."

  Onesiphorous leaned over the rail. Rungs were set into the back of the ship. With a long glance at his burning city, he slipped over the rail and climbed.

  "Wait for catch," the officer shouted.

  Whatever that meant.

  He wished Silver had come to see him off, wished that someone had warned him of this. Going near the monster that was Jason was making his guts water.

  He was six rungs down, his feet nearly in the river. The water just below him churned from Princeps Olivo's screws. With a short-long blast of the whistle, the steamer backed harder. The sloop, already closing sideways, rushed toward him. Onesiphorous curled his feet up. He was afraid of being crushed between the hulls. Jason's boat slammed into the steamer's stern about two feet below him, buffered by a long, twisting root that bristled with hairs.

  Onesiphorous ignored his terror and let go of the rung to drop to the deck. The sloop drifted away from Princeps Olivo as he clung to its rail, the river soaking him.

  The boat settled from the roll of its impact with the steamer. Onesiphorous scrambled toward the stern. He climbed over a twisting braid of wooden root-ropes. A bristling knot moved as he passed it, opening to a gray eye which blinked.

  Jason's eye. The color it had been in life.

  He yelped and nearly tumbled into the River Saltus.

  The eye blinked again. Onesiphorous scrambled further aft, struggling to get away. He set his grip on something gelid. The sloop shuddered as he jerked his hand away from another eye, now ruptured and oozing clear fluid.

  This time his shriek was a yelp. The Gronegrii officer was shouting something from the rail. Time, Onesiphorous told himself. There is no more time. He scuttled toward the tiller, ignoring what he saw.

  The ship's wheel still stood at the sloop's stern. It spun freely as the boat rode on the current. Onesiphorous nearly broke his wrist grabbing for the wheel. He tried again, reaching for a spoke on the upswing and leaning into the turn, trying to stop it with the weight of his body.

  The hull protested. Wood groaned as the wheel slammed Onesiphorous shoulder-first into the deck. So close to the wood, he could see hair growing up between the planks. That gave him another shiver.

  He fought the wheel back upright and checked his course. Princeps Olivo was pulling away from him again as the tow line's slack picked up. They had already passed the Sturgeon Quay. The Old Lighter Quay was burning. Worse, the sloop pointed wrong way round, her bow toward the west bank, her stern dragging. He forced the wheel to starboard, splinters jammed in his bleeding palms.

  The sloop wallowed through a turn. Onesiphorous realized that dozens of gray Jason-eyes blinked at him from knots in the twining roots and hair-filled gaps where the planking bulged. The eyes all stared. They all wept, as well.

  "I'm sorry, my friend," he said.

  The wheel seemed easier then, or maybe what was left of the sloop's keel had come back across their heading. The steamer's whistle wailed a double long blast, then the towline parted with a resounding snap.

  He now drifted free. The Old Lighter Quay was definitely on fire. Beyond it was the paved outlet of the Little Bull River, where it spilled into the River Saltus. The next possibility was Miller's Quay, but without a tow, his speed would be slowed too much by current before he could reach it.

  Onesiphorous made for the Little Bull. The river had never been meant for navigation—it lost too much elevation between the east wall and the waterfront—but it had a wide channel to minimize the formation of debris dams during floods. The river's mouth would accept his draft for a few feet, at least.

  Cannon fire roared again from Princeps Olivo. Onesiphorous had no time to look as the sloop slid between the two riprap points marking the exit of the Little Bull into the River Saltus. He ran the boat under the Water Street Bridge. The hull jammed itself beneath the southern span with a horrendous crush of tortured wood. Onesiphorous tumbled backward off the stern. He sank until the surface was a distant green dot and the curtain of bubbles he'd brought with him vanished.

  Clutching his shard of blue jade, he tried to kick upward, but he didn't know where or how. Air was leaving him when strong hands grabbed him to drag him deeper down.

  Imago

  He stumbled through the tunnels beneath the City, utterly lost. He'd found his way down from the kitchens well enough. The path had quickly gone wrong after that. Pursuing a distant lantern, Imago had taken an unexpected turn and lost the light. He knew enough to follow the steam pipes, but when they led him toward a deep buzzing, he turned away only to drop into a lacuna of stagnant water.

  On he wandered, hearing occasional screams, and once something that sounded like cannon fire.

  He should have been able to find his way down here. He'd walked these very tunnels when he'd taken the City into his blood and bone.

  Something began dragging at his feet. Imago reached down in the darkness to find himself ankle-deep in parboiled wasps. He recoiled, nearly losing his balance again, then panicking when he realized what he'd fall into.

  The dunny divers had passed this way with one of their steam pistols. He'd thought this a terrible journey when he'd done it under Saltfingers' guidance. Venturing alone seemed impossible.

  He followed the flow downhill, knowing that would take him toward the Little Bull. If he could find the deeper, older tunnels there, he could pass beneath. Then he'd be near the New Hill.

  Somebody shouted close by. Imago stopped and listened. Dead wasps sloshed around his ankles. The deep thrumming resumed.

  "They's building something, your worship," Saltfingers whispered, almost in his ear.

  Imago leapt. He bit his tongue to keep from shrieking.

  The dunny diver tugged his arm. "The quiet man lives longest," he breathed. "Best be coming with me."

  The two of them backed by feel around several corners and through a side tunnel before Saltfingers sparked his helmet light to life. For a moment, Imago was taken back to his first underground journey with the crazed old dwarf.

  "Don't go that way," Saltfingers told him. "Not if you wants to return." He gave Imago a long look, pink eyes lost in the shadows of his helmet. "Now what would a hard-working Lord Mayor such as yourself be doing down the sewers this fine day? Not seeking the Old Gods again, I hope. You're a man with more sense than Dorgau lent his pizzle, I'm thinking."

  "Dorgau can have his damned pickle," Imago said quietly. "This is the end, Saltfingers."

  "I know it's not good, your worship. We sees a lot down here beneath the stones, for all that we're deep in darkness. And them bugs have opened up a well we didn't know was there, between the Nannyback Downflow and the Little Elbows. On our maps, that's solid bedrock."

  "Maps lie."

  "Or bugs dig good. Which is my kindly old way of saying that we fight for everyone's life down here, your worship." The old dwarf's voice dropped to a growl. "Which is my not-so-kindly old way of saying that you should find your way back up top and fight you some fires, without having me send a man to escort you to your untimely demise."

  "I'm the Lord Mayor here," Imago told him. "You work for me. This decision is mine."

  "No, your worship. I don't work for you. I works for the City Imperishable, stone, street, and soul. It's bigger and older than you or me, and it will never know us any more than we knows the fleas in our hair, but still I works for it. And so do you. Now, if you're bent on dying young, I'll give you a helmet and directions as a funerary offering. But you're cracked, begging your pardon. And better you mend that broken head t
han be off sticking it beneath the stone knives of them best left sleeping."

  "Then give me my damned helmet," Imago said, "and let me go on."

  Saltfingers took his own off and placed it on Imago's head. "Here you go, pup. Follow the Billgate Bypass, take the second stair you find on the left. Mind the old blades down there, still it'll get you under the Little Bull. On the other side it should look familiar." Imago's light full on his face, the dwarf's complexion was fungus pale. "And luck to you, your worship. I thinks you're wrong, but I can still admire your courage."

  "Luck to you," Imago said. "Fight well."

  Saltfingers' last words echoed after him. "Die well, you."

  Bijaz

  Clothed in light, they descended the stairs. War clasped History's hand close, lord and lady arriving at the ball. The floor of the Rugmaker's Cupola cleared rapidly.

  He felt bright and shining as the shard of the sun. It was within him now, transforming and transformative. History had her own light. The deeper, more subtle tones of law and justice infused her narrative, the opposite of his uncomplicated purity.

  They stepped into the street.

  A little man blocked their way. Some part of War vaguely recognized him. History slipped away from Marelle, and she said, "Stockwell. What are you doing?"

  "Don't." His voice squeaked. "Whatever it is you're doing, don't. You have to go down to the Water Street Bridge."

  The light from War's hand became a sword to strike this Stockwell creature down, but Marelle grabbed his arm. She shrieked at the feel of him.

  It was enough to wake Bijaz. He pulled the blow, slashing Stockwell's cheek. The clerk staggered back as the poppy in his collar fell loose. It tumbled to the ground. He raised his hand in protest. A giant wasp snatched him up on a buzz of wings as Stockwell wailed Imago's name.

  Bijaz hurled light and fire after the wasp. Marelle grabbed at him again as Stockwell tumbled to the pavement.

  "The bridge," she said. "Whatever's missing is there. He knew."

  They scuttled toward the wounded clerk. Marelle set the crushed poppy on his chest. Stockwell just stared, eyes blank with terror.

  "Bless you." Bijaz immediately felt foolish.

  "B-b-b-ridge," stuttered Stockwell.

  Marelle tugged and they hurried on. Cork Street was empty, gaming parlors shuttered. Only slivers of heartwood remained of the trees in the median park. At the Little Bull they turned on the North Pleasaunce, heading for Water Street.

  No one was about but them and the billions of wasps circling above. The giants buzzed higher, occasionally visible in gaps amid the glittering streams of their lessers. There was a pattern to the movement. None of the insects disturbed Bijaz or Marelle. They followed in a spiral, drawing their fellows in, until a storm buzzed above the heads of the two.

  "What were we?" Bijaz asked.

  Her voice was distorted. "The City Imperishable."

  Ahead, they could see a ship jammed beneath one of the arches of the Water Street Bridge. A tree rose, swaying as it climbed skyward like a wooden snake from a stone basket. The wasps flowed around it without settling, a turbulence of chitin and rainbow wings reflecting the tree's mad growth.

  Coming near, they saw that it bore fruit—great heavy globes which blinked at them, gray eyes shedding tears like rain upon the broken cobbles.

  Onesiphorous

  He fell from the water onto a matted mass. Boudin released his wrist. Onesiphorous gasped for air, amazed that he could breathe.

  The boy was pale, his skin wrinkled, eyes squeezed shut. Whatever glad words Onesiphorous had died in his mouth.

  "The fare can be paid, but the journey is hard, ah."

  The voice was the swamp-mother's. Onesiphorous looked around the little cave of roots. Eyes blinked from knots and shadows—the brown eyes of the queen of Angoulême.

  Boudin sat corpse-still.

  "You are everywhere," Onesiphorous said. "And nowhere."

  "We are born, we live, we die. It take longer for some than others, ah."

  "Am I here because I paid my fare?"

  A laugh echoed with the crinkle of growing roots. It stank in here, the reek of life beneath dark water. The smell of Angoulême.

  "Sea King, he don't own no rivers. Angoulême, she lie on the border between the river and the sea. So he come to my door like a brother or a bridegroom. He come to your stone City like a beggar from a distant shore."

  "So?" Onesiphorous felt hostile. "This is not my place. My City is dying, I should live or die with it."

  "Listen, you. Make a treasure of your anger, little City man. Such flame is difficult to find after too many years. But I not your enemy today."

  Onesiphorous sat huddled on the roots. "What, then?"

  "Do you know me, Oarsman?"

  "You are the queen of Angoulême," he said.

  "No. I am Angoulême."

  "The place."

  "The city, little City man. I tell you my tale once. Cities never die, they just become something else. What you think those jade veins are? Life of another city, another race and time."

  He opened his hand and showed the blue jade.

  "That city much older," she told him. "Name is lost, but not idea. Angoulême lies amid it. Port Defiance stands amid Angoulême."

  Onesiphorous looked into the blinking brown eyes. "But you were a person once, weren't you?"

  "Once. All living things make more things, ah? Intramothers, they come to make more."

  "Jason is growing into another of you."

  "No!" she shouted. "He grow to himself. He grow to be his city, if you people not burn him or slay the intramothers or otherhow stop him. That fail, your city fail. One lifetime, maybe another. You seen empty cities, ah? That grow, your city grows."

  "Like Angoulême?" he asked, then was immediately sorry.

  "Angoulême still here," she said quietly. "Now go."

  The roots creaked, opening into a dark, root-lined tunnel. With one long look at Boudin, Onesiphorous stepped into the darkness. He didn't say good-bye.

  His steps were small as the seconds that count out a man's dying. He walked through the narrow, damp tunnels of a jade mine, across a swaying metal bridge in a city of high canyons, down a lane paved with ice between walls of falling water, through a granite-floored hall lined with paintings of women with the heads of birds, across a gull-haunted, sun-warmed dockside empty of people where fish rotted in their nets. Tall square towers burned, gray-capped men like mushrooms slunk along fungus-slimed walls, metal carts slithered overhead on high wires, a withered white tree bloomed in an empty courtyard. With every footfall, his body stretched and tightened, shorted and lengthened, became heavy as time and light as the soul's breath.

  Onesiphorous walked through the idea of City, knowing that if he missed his step, he'd never go home.

  Thought was deed. Between that moment and the next, he found himself in an alcove beneath a broken bridge—the Bridge of Chances, he realized, looking up. Overhead, wasps swarmed in a great circling spiral. Out on the River Saltus, cannon boomed.

  He had to stop the firing so this change could finish.

  Heedless of the circling clouds of wasps, Onesiphorous scrambled up the rusted iron ladder, gained his footing on the South Pleasaunce, and raced toward to the waterfront.

  Imago

  The Lord Mayor of the City Imperishable stumbled along the moss-slimed ledge of a half-familiar tunnel. Dead wasps glittered in the water beside him, and the occasional bat.

  He was lost, replaying his own past. There had to be a better answer. One could not call the Old Gods as if they were servants. He didn't care for what they'd do to him, either.

  Imago turned a corner to find another dwarf hunched on the ledge. For a moment he thought it was Saltfingers, 'til he realized this dwarf was naked, and very badly used.

  He bent down. "Archer?"

  "Aye." Nothing showed in the godmonger's eyes except deeper shadows.

  Had that been true when Arc
her visited his cell?

  "They have not let you go."

  "They will not let me die." Archer tried to smile. "I sold myself to them years ago, Imago. Do not sorrow for me."

  "Can you take me to them now?"

  "No. You tread the wrong measure here."

  "Saltfingers said much the same."

  Archer tugged at his beard. "Do not mistake that dwarf. He has no temple nor regalia, but he is as great a priest as any in the City Imperishable."