The War of the Flowers

by Tad Williams

  "You will interfere with the project if you remain," Hellebore said to the kicking sprite held between finger and thumb. "He cannot do what he is meant to do with you so close to him — even your tiny bit of lifeforce will confuse the connection."

  She reached up, clawing at his finger with her hands. "And you can go and shag yourself, you pasty-faced . . ." "You will not be able to approach him again." Hellebore flicked her away with surprising force — a slight movement of his hand and she went whizzing away through the air as though shot out of a gun and vanished out over the lake.

  Keep flying, Theo silently begged her. Keep flying. Get yourself out of here . . . !

  "Now," Hellebore told Theo, "you will wait here until I am ready for you." He turned and walked back toward the others. For once, Theo desperately wanted to follow the fairy lord — proximity to the glowing pit and its vivid, liquid colors was making him feel like he imagined an epileptic did just before a seizure struck — but he could not make his legs move. The smoldering amber and smoky purple-blue bubbled without noise or even substance. From his standing imprisonment at the edge of the pit he heard Hellebore saying something, and from the corner of his eye he saw the Terrible Child taking up a position on the opposite rim, but something even more disturbing had arrested his attention: deep in the pool of light, so faint that at first he thought his eyes were creating patterns out of nothingness, lay two vaguely human shapes.

  There are bodies in there. The horror that was making his skin prickle and his breath hitch seemed to be happening at a distance, but he could still feel it, like the screams of someone being murdered a few apartments down coming up through the floorboards. Bodies. Is it . . . ?

  "The king and queen!" cried Lord Foxglove, who sounded almost as frightened as Theo. "By the Trees, Hellebore, surely we dare not meddle with their resting place . . . !"

  "Shut your mouth," Aulus Thornapple said, but there was a hairline crack of fear in his voice as well. "Don't speak about what you don't know, Foxglove."

  Now the bodies in the crypt of light seemed to come more strongly into focus, as though they rose toward the surface without getting any nearer, but as Theo stared helplessly he still could make little of them except that one had a more female shape than the other and that both seemed tall — taller than even Anton Hellebore, although it was hard to judge anything through the distortions of the glowing medium. He saw hints of other attributes as well — a crown, a curl of dark hair that wavered in the pulsing light like tide-swept kelp — but this only confused him, because at the same time he saw other aspects of the two figures that did not match, contradictory and simultaneous: a hand suddenly became a claw, a curlyhaired head was at the same moment a bald dome with a crest of stretched flesh like the fin of a sailfish. The sword lying on the king's breast blurred and became a club, then a musical instrument almost like something the goblins had played. The gem cupped in the queen's graceful hands grew into an egg, then a flower, while the hands themselves also changed shape like candlewax in a fire, fingers long then stubby, talons appearing and vanishing, skin changing color, growing fur like mold that disappeared again in a moment. It was as though a hundred different figures, a thousand, floated in the smoldering depths, all reflected in one place, so that not a single version came to his eye without bearing traces of all the others.

  But although each and every one of these spectral, superimposed kings and queens lay arranged as if for ritual burial, they also had one other thing in common: though their eyes seemed as variable as everything else — round as an owl's or slitted, some spike-pupiled like a cat's or a snake's, others covered with some kind of film, or invisible but for a gleam from beneath lowering, bony brows — all the eyes, every pair on each and every one of the royal bodies, were open.

  "They're alive." Lord Foxglove's voice was a horrified whisper. "Oberon and Titania . . . they're still alive!" "Of course they are, you idiot," said Hellebore. "They are chained, not dead. They are Faerie, they are its embodiment — its heart. If they were dead we would probably not exist. How could we have survived without them?"

  "But . . . but you didn't warn me . . ." Foxglove seemed on the verge of weeping. "You said we were just going to tap the mortal world!" "And where do you think such power will go, once we have it?" Hellebore laughed. "Without using the king and queen, it would be like channeling the Moonflood into a rain barrel."

  Foxglove fell into a shaking silence, but someone else spoke up — a halting voice that Theo did not recognize for a moment. "It was you, wasn't it? The Seven Families. You did this to them."

  Hellebore smiled. Except for the Terrible Child, he seemed the only person not overwhelmed by the weird power of the place. "The little ferisher speaks at last. I seem to remember you worked for Lady Jonquil. Obviously she was wise to see something in you. But you are only halfright. The king and queen were badly weakened by the last Gigantine War, had expended almost all their energy to hold the fabric of the realm together. They were in no position to fight back when we staged our little . . . coup."

  "You wouldn't have needed to steal their power if you hadn't been so busy imitating the mortals' ways." Cumber spoke like one who expected at any moment to be silenced. "Is that why you hate mortals — because you recognize that they are alive in a way you are not? That they change and grow, make mistakes, learn — but all we of Faerie can do is mimic them? You spent years among them, they say, studying them. Was it interest, or envy?"

  "Mortals have their uses, even perhaps some talents we do not." Hellebore seemed to be enjoying the discourse, as though he wanted to savor every single part of this triumphant hour. "That proves nothing. I cannot give milk. That does not make a cow my equal."

  "But, Nidrus!" said Foxglove. "Surely this explains the problems we have been having, the difficulty maintaining energy in our world, if the king and queen have been kept helpless all this time, imprisoned . . ."

  "Of course it explains it," snapped Hellebore, but he still did not seem very angry: rather he seemed to be enjoying the playing out of some large and very complicated joke whose full extent was still not obvious to anyone but himself. "It was never meant to be a long-term solution. I argued years ago that if this realm was not eventually to become cold and barren and dark, we had to find a way to tap the old science of the mortal world, but it was the resistance of those sentimentalist idiots like Violet and Lily and Daffodil — not to mention your own craven family, who didn't even have the courage of such convictions, however wrong they might be — that kept us from that solution."

  "I can assure you," Foxglove said, "that if I had understood . . ." "If you had understood, you would have been pissing yourself in fright just as you are now. You are terrified to discover we have usurped the king and queen, aren't you? It was all well and good when you thought we had no choice, that they had died defending the realm — you Coextensives resented their control, too — but since your conscience was clear, you were satisfied. It is always that way. The cowards not only rely on the brave to take the needed actions, they wish to be protected from the truth of those actions as well." Hellebore snorted. "Count Tansy may be from another one of the fence-straddling families, but at least he had the wisdom to recognize early which side of this particular conflict was going to win. In fact, we might not have been able to harness even what power we have had without his help, since I did not trust the Remover with the secret of the king and queen's true state — discretion that has proved wellfounded."

  Theo yearned to speak but the pull of the smoldering pit and the bubbling thoughts of the Terrible Child were too powerful.

  "So you've owned Tansy for a long time." It clearly was not easy for Cumber to talk, and he must have felt, as Theo did, that he would not take what he was learning anywhere but the grave, but even in these last moments the ferisher remained true to himself: he wanted to know the answers. "He had already helped you commit the greatest treason of all."

  "He does indeed have a keen eye for both sides of an eq
uation," Hellebore said. "A bit too keen. Quillius Tansy, come forward." Obviously, Tansy did not obey quickly enough: a moment later Theo heard him protesting as the guards dragged him to Hellebore. "It has come to my attention, Tansy, that although you have long professed loyalty to me, even if secretly, you let Hollyhock and the others use you to bring the Violet heir across from the mortal world without telling me until he was here in Faerie. This muddled my plans and caused me a great deal of needless irritation. I suspect you were hedging your bets in case my design should fail, so that you could claim to Hollyhock and the others that you had been on their side all along."

  "But, Lord Hellebore!" Tansy shrieked in alarm, his features showing more than a trace now of the terrible damage that had been mostly hidden. "How can you believe such . . . I did my best . . . I never . . ."

  "I note your protestations of innocence," Hellebore said. "I am sure the king and queen have noted them also, even in their slumber, although they may take a rather different view of it when you are shortly introduced to them."

  "Black iron! Here, just a moment, Hellebore." It was Lord Thornapple, his voice shaky with the fear that seemed to have seized him now as well. He stepped forward to the edge of the depression, looking down with obvious alarm into the pit; bruise-colored light played on his face. "Nidrus, I don't . . . You never said anything about . . . about waking them up."

  "No, I did not, Aulus,"— he made Thornapple's first name sound like an insult — "and I am not planning to do so. What I said was that Tansy is about to be introduced to them." He turned and waved a hand. Instantly two of the constables stepped forward and seized Tansy by the arms. "You of all people should know there are rules that must be rigidly observed," Hellebore told the struggling prisoner. "That is why it is science. And this sort of process has its rules, however infrequently it is attempted. A blood sacrifice is necessary." He nodded to the constables. "Slit his throat and throw him in."

  "No!" Tansy screamed. As though he had lost almost all control of it now, the fairy's face began to shift and slide beneath the skin as if pieces of his skull had broken free and were floating loose like pack ice. It was a horrible sight: Theo wanted to close his eyes, but couldn't. "These others are expendable, not me! I did everything you asked, Hellebore!"

  "Hurry, Stepfather!" The Terrible Child's eyes were closed, his face seized in an ecstatic grimace. Perched on the far rim of the depression, he looked as though he were standing in a kitchen full of wonderful smells. "The moment has grown ripe."

  "Yes, Tansy," said Lord Hellebore, "you did everything I asked, but you are a traitor by nature — you wake up every day intent only on doing what is best for Quillius Tansy. Because you wanted the power I promised you and feared my anger, you betrayed the Hollyhocks and the Daffodils and your other allies, but at the same time you left a door open so that you could turn to them again if our enterprise did not succeed. And one day you may conceive another idea, however wrongly — the idea that doing my bidding is no longer what is best for you. I will spare us all such a future annoyance." He turned to the constables. "Do it now."

  "But, Lord Hellebore . . . !" one of the guards holding Tansy said. They were all looking at the pit and their terror was obvious even behind the goggles that covered half their faces. "Here . . . where the king and queen . . . ?"

  "Of course, here. That is the whole point. By the Well, is there anyone else who wishes to question me? Do it now or you will go in with him." "Let me, Father!" cried Anton Hellebore, bounding forward. The younger Hellebore pulled a long, wicked-looking bladed tool out of his breast pocket and, with startling economy of motion, grabbed Tansy's long white hair, yanked back his head, then dragged the blade across his throat. Tansy's shrieks turned to gurgles, his face becoming an almost unrecognizable puzzle of bruises and healing scars as he lost his grip on the cosmetic charm for once and all. Blood spurted from the wound, and much of it guttered down his front. The guards, their mouths screwed up in expressions of fear and disgust, did their best to hold him without getting splashed.

  "Throw him in, curse it!" said Lord Hellebore. The constables took a few steps down into the depression and flung Tansy away from them. He stayed up for a few staggering steps, knocked down one of the standing shards of broken glass, then tumbled blindly into the pool of light.

  Theo flinched, half-expecting some kind of explosion, some great outflaring of heat and light, but although the fairy vanished struggling into the bright depths, within seconds the only sign of what had happened was a reddening of the plasma so that the whole thing glared like a sunset sky.

  "Yes," shrieked the Terrible Child, "the blood has opened the door, Stepfather!" He raised his little arms as though asking to be lifted, embraced. "Hurry! Help me reach through!"

  Hellebore walked back toward Theo. This is it. My turn. He struggled until a bolt of pain slammed down his spine but he could not move from the spot. He thought helplessly of Tansy's last moments, lurching down that slope as the life fountained out of him. But what if they were not his last moments? What if Tansy was doomed to live forever, dying forever, in that pool of scarlet light? What if that was going to be Theo's fate, too? He let his eyes flick across the others gathered on the edge of the low hilltop, the lords Thornapple and Foxglove, terror struggling with greed and anticipation on their faces, Cumber Sedge hanging in the grasp of two constables, the Terrible Child already immersed in some paroxysm of joyful discovery. Then something else caught his attention, although he could not have said why — a small movement on the far shore of the lake. For a moment he thought it might be the ferryman Robin Goodfellow, especially when the manlike shape slid over the bank and into the water, but then it was gone and did not come up again.

  Too late, whatever it was, if it even mattered. Hellebore stood in front of him now, pale face masked in calm despite an inner furor that only leaked out through his crazily intent eyes. Theo could feel the fairy lord's will like a physical thing. "Your turn, Violet child. We need the key to open the final door."

  Theo tried to speak and found he could, although every word hurt coming out, as though he were disgorging a train of objects covered in thorns. "I . . . don't . . . know . . . about . . . any . . . key . . ."

  "You are the key, fool. Your true father would not let me have control over the powers of the king and queen, even when we had all sworn not to meddle with them. The others backed him and I did not have the strength then to make them do otherwise. We two were given authority over this place, the first place, so that we could only use the powers prisoned here if we agreed, Violet and Hellebore. But of course we did not agree."

  "And . . . I . . . still . . . don't . . ."

  "It no longer matters. You are not your father. You cannot resist my will, Theo Vilmos — Septimus Violet. Hold out your hands." Despite every ounce of resistance, even though he fought until the muscles in his arms writhed and cramped, Theo saw his hands slowly rise. Hellebore took them with his own. The fairylord's flesh was cool and dry. Bizarrely, he began to sing, although in a tuneless and hurried way.

  "The toil of Death now enwraps feet and hands and head, but does not bind the heart!" There was poetry in Hellebore's chant, but none in the uninflected way he spoke. Still, Theo could feel something swimming up from inside him as though to a summons, a deep movement without physical substance. If he was the key, he was being fitted into the lock and turned, just like those fail-safe launch systems down in the nuclear bunkers. That's why he's saying it like that, singing. The pressure in Theo's head made him feel he was plunging into a miles-deep ocean trench. Because it's not poetry to him, it's a formula. It's just science. Like the formula for an H-bomb . . . "Here where all the Great Lords stand, one by the other Trunk to trunk, brother to brother

  Now let the power of the first hill, of the Master and Mistress of Trees

  Open to me!

  "The darkness of Between now blinds eye and deafens ear, but does not shroud the heart!

  Here where Time itself first stir
s, alone and indivisible Coil swallowing coil, all invisible

  Now let the power of the first hill, of the Master and Mistress of Air

  Open to me! "

  The endlessness of Silence now stops every tongue, but does not mute the heart!

  Here where the first bird sings, waking all the stars Alone in the ash-tree, making what it mars

  Now let the power of the first hill, of the Master and Mistress of Song

  Open to me!

  "The circle of this charm Is mine

  The breaking of this stick Is mine

  The kindling of this flame Is mine

  The blowing of this cloud Is mine

  The circle of this charm Is mine

  The circle of

  This charm

  Is

  Mine."

  The shift of pressure inside Theo grew stronger, became something else, a feeling of something breaking free that had been moored so long and so firmly that he had thought it a part of himself. Suddenly the Terrible Child was in his head again, but no longer simply as a presence that poked and prodded. Now the cold joy that was the child began to leach Theo's own life and energy away, as though he were on one end of some great conduit with the empty vacuum of space on the other side.

  Give it to me, the child crooned as the pressure mounted. Let go. You are done. Theo fought, struggling against the flow, but it was only a fading reflex: whatever the key might be, an idea or a thing, it would not belong to him much longer. He did not feel queasy, but still felt as if he needed to vomit, to void himself of something that was no longer wanted. It was like waiting to give birth, but bleak and hopeless, as if he knew already that any issue would be dead. His mind flashed to Cat and then he could not get free of her again, of her terrible, bloodless face in the hospital, lit only by despair. In some ways he hardly remembered her, but he ached at the thought of what he was helping to release, however unwillingly, on the world and people he had known and even loved. Johnny, Cat, her friends and family, his co-workers at Khasigian's, people Theo hadn't even met, all were going to be plunged into some kind of endless age of horror, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He wasn't even an integral part, he was just a key — an inanimate appliance as far as Hellebore and the rest were concerned.