Madness of Flowers

by Jay Lake

  "I am not going with that woman!"

  Wine bottles danced in place. An inkwell cracked. The bells on the roof of the tower hummed.

  Imago stared at Bijaz, face set. "Are you done?"

  "No!"

  Window glass shattered as the wine exploded. Half a dozen bottles sprayed their varicolored contents around the room. Bijaz snapped his fingers. With a hollow sucking noise the dribbling wine condensed into bunches of grapes scattered across the floor.

  He felt large now, larger than he'd been since he was first touched by the Numbers Men. In his anger he contained multitudes—every fist raised for a desperate cast of the die, every soul wagered on one last attempt. Bijaz towered over Imago, rage and frustration boiling within.

  "You cannot turn me aside with those powers, friend," the Lord Mayor said. "I've been touched by the gods, just like you."

  Wheat, Bijaz thought, remembering the field. The scythe fell where it would. Some grains tumbled to the miller's sack, others spent another hour or season in the sun. He saw that horizon, the path which rose where the reaper man had just passed, and knew his own way lay North.

  With that thought, a ball which he had not heard circling fell into a slot. The wheel clicked to silence. He did not need to look to know it was the White Table, setting another pass of his life.

  "I am sorry, sir," Bijaz said quietly. The air in the room was acrid, tangy, metallic—reeking of the noumenal. His anger was gone, his heat drained. "Every day I live is time loaned me by the Numbers Men. Sometimes I forget why they remade me."

  "They did not remake you," Imago said gently. "You remade yourself. They merely set you a new direction."

  "Path," said Bijaz. "Kalliope says I must be on a path. My path lies North."

  "See? It works."

  "I go." To his own surprise, Bijaz smiled. "Besides, that will allow me to jump those writs you keep receiving from the Burgesses."

  "Every well has its coin. Go do what you need to prepare. I recommend sleep. I'll have Enero escort you to Slackwater Princess an hour before dawn."

  "Is he not already away?"

  "Not yet. Our friend has stayed on a bit longer to see this latest affair out. Ashkoliiz alleges she is taking the last of the Yellow Mountain tribesmen with her, as hired swords."

  "There's a neat trick," Bijaz said with grudging admiration. "Picking our pockets with an ancient lie, then using our obols to buy off our latest enemies."

  "Pity the Burgesses couldn't do half so well." Imago shooed Bijaz away. "Go now. Unless it is your fondest wish to spend your evening bantering with me, tend to your own affairs. It may be a very long time before you can pursue them again."

  "Thank you," said Bijaz. "I think. I only have one question before I leave."

  "Yes?"

  "What has become of Jason?"

  Imago looked away, unwilling to meet his eye. "I believe he is well. I do not know everything I should."

  "So you did not have him killed again?"

  That made the Lord Mayor look up. To Bijaz's surprise, tears stood in Imago's eyes. "No. I set him to saving a life, in fact. That journey took him farther than I expected."

  Bijaz felt a sort of obscure betrayal. "I would have liked to bid him farewell."

  "I am sorry." Imago came round the desk and they hugged. "Now go," the Lord Mayor whispered. "I have an office to clean up and a city to run."

  "And a war to win, I think."

  "You go North. I'll turn my eyes south."

  Bijaz nodded. "Good luck locating Onesiphorous."

  With that, they parted.

  On the long, slow walk down the spiral steps of the tower, Bijaz pondered what might be done on his last night in the City. All he really wanted to do was talk to Kalliope.

  They stood in moonlight on opposite sides of the table. It was a tableau in pewter, color leached by night. Two giants facing one another across the plains of the world. Not agreeing, not arguing.

  "I am unsurprised," she said. "Imago can see your road more clearly than you do."

  He'd expected her to protest. Or possibly rejoice. Things had not been right between them since they'd brought Jason back only to lose him once more. This genteel acceptance confused him.

  "I don't want to leave the City Imperishable. You helped me settle in to what I am. No more parlor tricks. I've more control now. I am of the City."

  "And that is why you must go." Kalliope smiled as she traced her fingers across the northern edge of the map table. He stood at the southern edge. The world of the old empire stretched between them. "Who else would he send? Archer vanished during the late unpleasantness. Onesiphorous is lost to us in the south. Jason is missing once more. Imago would hardly send Ducôte or one of the Tribade, and I am not to be trusted. There is none but you. That you are bound so close to the City only increases your value in this game."

  "I know the logic. I was teaching cats to hunt mice before any of you were born." Bijaz was aware that he sounded desperate. "It all makes sense. Just not to my heart."

  She gave him a long, slow look. "You are afraid."

  Bijaz bit off an angry response. Was he? "Yes," he said slowly. "I am a creature of the Numbers Men, the only Old Gods left. If Ashkoliiz is right, I may bear our banner to the resting place of their enemies. Whatever terrible creatures Terminus carried off. Consider this: When I leave, what if my powers remain behind?"

  "Then you will be a cranky old dwarf, just as you have been for years. It is a role well-practiced."

  She had the right of that. He was almost sixty, too old to be adventuring farther than the nearest tavern.

  "You're afraid of something else, too," Kalliope added. "When you say that woman's name, there is a catch in your voice."

  Those ice-blue eyes. "She has made some glamer on me."

  Kalliope laughed. "A very common glamer, I'm afraid, casting a tight net over your little head."

  "I've never—" he began hotly, but she cut him off.

  "It does not matter to me if you ever do. I merely say there are some people who fit others like a lock and key. When lock and key match, you may have a love for the ages. When one fits and the other is indifferent, you may have a tragedy for one. It's in her walk, the line of her jaw, her smell. She has snared you, old friend. And she will never have a care for you, until she needs you for some trifle. Such as your life."

  "No." Bijaz felt a swell of wounded pride. "I have bedded women, men, boys. You and I have coupled. I know love. This is some other form of fascination."

  Kalliope passed around the western edge of the empire to meet him. "Listen." She held out her hands. "We should not fight. I don't suppose we'll see one another again in this life. The ways forward are tangled beyond remedy."

  "Is that sandwalker wisdom?" he asked bitterly, not responding to her gesture.

  "No, just common sense." She took his hands anyway. "Go, defend the City, follow your path, discover what she means to you. I will find Jason. I no longer expect to see my desert again, but then I was born in this city. Perhaps I am fated to die here."

  He stepped into her arms, face pressed against the front of her vest. "I'm sorry," Bijaz said in a muffled voice.

  "So am I, my friend." Kalliope ran her hands through his hair awhile, then pulled him to the cot.

  This time as they made love, she called him Jason. As for Bijaz, he tried to imagine Kalliope with ice-blue eyes, but when he did that all he saw was her brother resurrected. So he made love to the storm he could see in her face by moonlight, and let the seed of the City flow freely deep within her.

  Bijaz idled in the central hall of the Rugmaker's Cupola. It was well before his appointed hour. Kalliope had kissed him good-bye then slipped into troubled sleep. Imago was absent, hopefully also sleeping. There was a murmur of challenge at the door, then a freerider strode in—Malvo.

  "You are to be going now. A dwarf is having great luck, I think."

  "We all go somewhere," Bijaz replied. "As I recall, you are bound for the
road home."

  "Perhaps." Malvo sounded doubtful. "The captain is to be keeping us here by days. I am thinking he is being unwilling to leave you uncertain."

  "If it is certainty that you await, you will die of old age here in the City Imperishable, my friend."

  The Winter Boy laughed. "Maybe yes. As for now, I am having four men to be playing knives-and-smiles with the bailiffs outside. We are to be departing before they are tiring of the game, yes?"

  "Yes," Bijaz said. "Let us away."

  Malvo looked serious a moment, then handed a small dagger to Bijaz. "Captain, he is sending this for you. We are all knowing you to be a god, but even gods are needing a knife sometimes."

  "Thank you." It was the only going-away gift Bijaz had ever received in his life. He'd never gone anywhere before.

  They stepped into the predawn fog. Malvo's men were closed around a pair of bailiffs. One made a show of wiping his sword with a rag. Malvo hoisted Bijaz on a horse and whistled.

  The freeriders were off. Looking back, Bijaz could see the bailiffs trailing on foot, but the redcoats seemed in no mood to tangle with five mercenaries.

  Down at the Old Lighter Quay, the boilers on Slackwater Princess rumbled. She was recently built and so sported the most modern electricks. Pale lights outlined the wide, flat main deck and the three decks above in gleaming array. The wheelhouse gleamed from within. She was more a floating structure than a ship—a riverboat lacked the knife hull and raked masts of a Sunward trader. Sparks floated into the dark sky from tall stacks amidships.

  No one was at the gangplank. Malvo helped Bijaz slip from the saddle. "To be having a care, yes?"

  "To be having a care," Bijaz replied. "And thank you."

  Malvo saluted.

  Bijaz trudged up the board, finding his way onto a lower deck crowded with supplies and sleeping men. Someone cursed quietly as he stepped too close. He located a narrow spot between two bales and sank down into it.

  He barely heard the whistle shriek as the steamship cast off. The thump of the paddles became the heartbeat of a continent in a dream of frozen mountains and a fire in the moon.

  Onesiphorous

  They huddled in Silver's little deckhouse as the boat rocked in a nighttime storm, arguing out the details of the letters of patent and the trade monopolies. Even their shouting could barely be heard above the wind. Her cabin was too low to stand up in, lined with silk and several long, narrow chests of the sort one might use to store rifled muskets. The cabin smelled of spices as well, mixing with the tang of her in a scent which gave him the shivers.

  Onesiphorous concentrated on the business at hand.

  "I cannot grant you the shipping of lumber, grain, or meat," he yelled into her ear. "Those move in quantities too large. I think I can reserve certain manufactured goods."

  It was all lies. They both knew that. Onesiphorous figured if he made a deal which pried Port Defiance free, he could sell the price to Imago and create post facto truth from this paper. If nothing changed, the lies were meaningless anyway.

  "Small things, yes. Electricks and metalwork."

  "Those can be smuggled."

  "You commission us to be inspectors, we inspect smugglers." Her easy smile slipped back onto her face. "Everybody make more money except poor smuggler. That is very special attalassi." She looked thoughtful a moment. "Detta . . . no. Eh . . . Letter of marque and reprisal!"

  He was incredulous. "You learned that term in Civitas just in case of need?"

  "Fisher girl got to know her business."

  Onesiphorous chuckled. "You're probably a princess in Bas Gronegrim or something."

  "Ssardali! No joke that, Oarsman."

  Oops. There was something not to step in. He wondered how close to the truth he'd landed, then put the thought out of his head. Even if it was true, he didn't want to know.

  "No joke," he agreed. Then, changing the subject: "So we have a letter of marque and reprisal granting what? A ship flagged from Bas Gronegrim the right to enforce trade agreements on behalf of the City Imperishable?"

  "To full extent required."

  "Guns and money," he said. The storm outside had found a moment of calm, except for the tiny, rippling drums of the rain.

  "Oarsman got to know his business, too."

  He went on. "Then we have a letter of patent granting Bas Gronegrim duty-free trade and sovereign soil within the City Imperishable, at a location of the Lord Mayor's choosing. We also have trade monopolies on small goods and metalwork shipped to the cities of the Sunward Sea."

  The boat shivered in a particularly violent gust. When the noise dropped off again, she added: "And finished cloth shipped to City Imperishable."

  "All right." Here was the difficult part. "In return, Bas Gronegrim will work to remove the corsairs from Port Defiance, and restore the rule of the City Imperishable. These letters will be worthless until that happens."

  "Feh. I not got fighting ships in my pocket."

  "You don't even have pockets," Onesiphorous pointed out. "Nonetheless, that is what must be. Otherwise make your own deals over in the Flag Towers."

  "We want them gone," she admitted. "You letters make deal sweet, buy certain people who otherwise love the princes of the deck."

  Now that made sense. He just hoped that Silver, or at least the letters, made their way to Bas Gronegrim and into the hands of whoever sat in judgment on their fleets.

  "My regards to your admiralty," he said. "I will write out two copies of everything over the Lord Mayor's signature. We'll both witness the seal. I keep one copy, you keep one copy. Then you'll take me into the swamps."

  "Yes. You crazy go there, dark water swallow a man like shark swallow chum."

  "We're all crazy these days."

  "True, Oarsman."

  They had to wait for the storm to slack off, dozing quietly in the cabin. Much later he was able to work at the documents. In two hours with quill and inkwell Onesiphorous scratched out four letters—the patent, the letter of marque and reprisal, and two separate trade monopolies—in a pair of copies each. Onesiphorous had been on the wrong end of enough writs to have a sense of the rhythm of the language, but he was hardly a lawyer. And he had no familiarity whatsoever with the nautical realm.

  Nonetheless, he did his best. They could all happily sue each other someday if the language he coined this night was at issue. That would mean the City Imperishable had prevailed, after all.

  He wasn't upset about selling rights which weren't his to give away. What sickened him was leaving the City dwarfs behind. It didn't matter that the Openers had rebelled—they'd been sealed out again right quick, while the Boxers cowered in hidden rooms praying for relief.

  There would be denunciations soon. With the money not flowing the port already carried an air of desperation. Going to the swamps might aid Imago but it did nothing for his people here.

  He wrote out another letter to the Lord Mayor, explaining everything. That the report was over Imago's own signature seemed strangely fitting. He didn't bother to copy that one—Onesiphorous certainly didn't need to carry about his own testimony. He countersigned the letter with a flourish, then set the pen down to rub his cramped hand.

  "All done, yes?" she asked.

  "Yes. Now I need wax."

  They sealed each letter, and wrote their mark beneath each seal—some southern glyph for her, and an O for him. Onesiphorous drew a tiny oar beneath each O.

  Quill. It was so old-fashioned. He would have been happier for a ball-calligraph, but somehow it seemed fitting to use an old implement for such plotting. The luxury of the modern was already lost to him.

  "Tide turn before dawn," she said. "I show you one thing by daylight, then we go swamp."

  "Shouldn't we leave now?"

  "No, sleep now." She blew out the lantern and settled to the floor.

  Onesiphorous tried to match her even breathing. Her scent mixed with the smell of spices to excite his imagination until his cock swelled. He dared not to
uch himself, not in her presence. Instead, he lay in a quiet fever until the water changed directions beneath the hull and she awoke.

  They set out in Boudin's boat while dawn was still a ragged pink gleam in the deepest east. Silver paddled quietly to work her way back and forth across the tide's incoming current. They passed between eyots he didn't recognize. Perhaps it was the curls of mist, or the dim light, but Onesiphorous felt as if Silver conducted him through an entirely different city. The water ran heavy with storm wrack, shapes half-familiar and fully strange.