Madness of Flowers

by Jay Lake

  "Reports of my arrest are sadly exaggerated," he told them. Then, more softly: "Take me home."

  "We found Jason," Kalliope said as Enero hoisted Imago up onto his horse.

  "I never would have guessed. Somewhere near the Bridge of Chances?"

  "So you were being with Zefat," said Enero. "We were to wonder very badly."

  "So was I. How is your man?"

  Enero's face closed briefly. "Alive, but being unable to awaken."

  "I am sorry. These bastards did for him when they snatched me." Imago waved at the bailiffs and the crowd behind them as the freeriders wheeled and headed across Terminus Plaza, away from the Limerock Palace. "Just once," he said, "I'd like to both enter and leave that place in good order."

  Well after the evening bell, Enero, Kalliope, and Imago returned to the little café for Imago's much-delayed dinner. A crowd of Winter Boys blocked the door as they ate. He had noted crossing the Bridge of Chances that the tree was already being cut for lumber.

  "Repairing that stonework is going to be expensive," Imago said as they waited for their food.

  "Don't change the subject," Kalliope snapped. "What were you doing in the Limerock Palace?"

  "We were to be considering you in grave danger."

  "Oh, I was," Imago told them. "I talked my way out of it. Suffice to say that if you ever see Syndic Wedgeburr anywhere near me, he should be detained and stuffed down the nearest well."

  "Permanently?" Enero asked.

  Imago considered that a moment. "Yes. He's had his chance."

  They badgered him until his pease soup came, but he would not say more. Steaming hot, it smelled both salty and green—exactly what he wanted. Digging into the meal, he gave them both a long look. "Enough. What happened to Jason? Why that ridiculous tree?"

  "Saltfingers took me below." Kalliope shuddered. "I still don't believe what you did down there last winter."

  Imago waved a chunk of bread at her. "Continue."

  "We went to the number four stormwater pond. I had no idea there was such a city beneath the City. The lilies were dying for lack of light, but they were still there. Then he took me to a vault down somewhere near Terminus Plaza. Said his boys had been hearing voices in the area. We found books and maps spread out on boards along a walkway. Food, too, and a still-warm candle.

  "Saltfingers went stalking then, with me behind him."

  "I've had that particular thrill," Imago said dryly. "I trust you stayed out of the flow."

  "Yes." She snorted. "We caught up to them as they tried to come up by the Bridge of Chances, where Saltfingers had taken us into the tunnels in the first place. Jason didn't realize it was me at first. He made a green . . . " Kalliope paused a moment. Then: "It was a tiny forest in his hand. Only he held it for a weapon. Then Marelle told him to stop, that it was me. He looked set to toss it anyway, 'til Saltfingers told him not to be every kind of idiot at once. So he threw the thing down the tunnel the other way. It burst into that giant fir tree that shot upward through the stones like a festival rocket, sucking up water and dust and anything around it.

  "We climbed out through the hole."

  Imago took a long sip of his kava, savoring the additions of goat's milk, Sunward cinnamon, and red pepper. Much better than being locked in a courtroom with a psychotic judge and several angry bailiffs. Much, much better. "Where are they now?"

  "Marelle is being at the Rugmaker's Cupola, looking into the offices," Enero said. Imago's heart started at that news, though he didn't want to think too hard on why. The freerider continued, "Jason is being at the Potter's Field. I am being told he is to be talking to the plants there."

  "He's not been the least bit right since Bijaz raised him," said Imago. "Again."

  Kalliope looked down at the table. "He wasn't right before, either. All this is to my account."

  "Some of it," the Lord Mayor told her.

  "I'm thinking of sending him after Onesiphorous." Imago stirred more sugar into his kava. "Someone needs to go find if my chamberlain yet lives."

  "He can't go alone!" Kalliope almost shrieked.

  "She is having the right of it," Enero added. "Jason is being as bad as Bijaz. Uncontrolled power and poor trustfulness."

  It occurred to Imago he could solve two problems at once here. "Will you go with him?" he asked Kalliope.

  She stopped cold, then looked thoughtful. "I have been abiding here, awaiting some purpose." Her expression seemed relieved. "May I sleep on it?"

  "Don't sleep long," Imago said. "Once I talk to Jason again, that decision may be made."

  "I will find you at the morning bell."

  "Very well."

  On his way back up the hill to see Marelle, surrounded by a mob of Enero's nervous horsemen, Imago found himself delayed yet again. Biggest Sister slipped through his security like they weren't there and fell into step with him.

  "Lord Mayor." Her voice was clipped. She was dressed in her usual gray leather, like a high-class footpad except for the close-spiked hair. Her intense gaze would have frightened off victims and rescuers alike.

  "Ma'am." He'd learned to be cautious with her.

  "Have you heard word from Port Defiance?"

  "No." At the pained look on her face, he added, "I'm sorry. I can't help but think Onesiphorous is dead or imprisoned. I would not know of the sister you sent with him."

  "I hear nothing either."

  "It is about time for me to send someone else there to act as my eyes," he said. "And possibly my hand. Prepared for the worst, which Onesiphorous was not." Imago sighed. "I sent him down the river to deal with the absent dwarfs, persuade them home. Not to halt revolution and invasion."

  They fetched up in front of the Rugmaker's Cupola, Enero eavesdropping shamelessly.

  Biggest Sister ignored the freeriders to focus on Imago. He knew that look, had seen it during their long night together when she had told him again and again what to do to her, with her, inside of her.

  She broke his thread of memory: "How will you get your agent there?"

  "Agents." Imago realized that he had made up his mind about sending Kalliope, assuming she had made up hers. "I have not thought on that yet. Perhaps overland, though the road south dies long before Port Defiance."

  "I may be able to offer assistance." Her face was hard now. "The Tribade aims to rescue our Big Sister there. If she is beyond help, we will claim her price tenfold and tenfold again. I can take one or two down the river with mine, if they are patient and tolerate discomfort."

  That certainly described Kalliope. As for Jason, who could say of him these days? "I believe this will suffice." He bowed. "I thank you for your generosity. What support do you need from the City Imperishable?"

  "Only to give us undisturbed run of the docks two nights hence. I would prefer to have as few eyes as possible looking on."

  "Where?"

  "South Quay. Closest to the winch tower."

  "I cannot answer for those within the Limerock Palace, but my people will keep their attention elsewhere that night. The burglars will be pleased."

  "The Tribade will take care of them." She was deadly serious. "Have your agents to me at the morning bell that day."

  "So it will be done."

  She nodded and stepped between two horses, vanishing from one stride to the next.

  "How does she do that?" Imago asked Enero. He didn't really expect an answer.

  "I am thinking it is a trick of light and shadow and the twisting of the eyes," the freerider answered quite seriously. "This is not to be done in a bright, empty room."

  "Very few things are, my friend." He stopped. "Too much, today. I already intended to tell you that I have secured your message to Bas Luccia. I will need three or four riders to see it through. Do you want to send your men, or hirelings?"

  "To be sending one of mine, with hired horsemen filling out the number."

  "See to it to your satisfaction."

  Enero nodded and wheeled his mount away. Imago headed wi
thin for the long, winding climb to his office. He hated those stairs, but it was probably good for his wind.

  He couldn't decide if he hoped Marelle was up there now or not. He might rather see her in the morning when he was rested, but his curiosity burned.

  The question answered itself when Imago arrived at his empty office. He looked into Onesiphorous' old space, but she was not there either. Even Stockwell was gone. Only the night duty clerk at the head of the stairs was present to nod him good evening. He crawled onto the divan in his office and was asleep in moments.

  Bijaz

  When it came his turn at the ropes, much of his sanguine demeanor evaporated. It was one thing to be blasé about the competence of the Northern Expedition's mountaineers when he was safely at the docks. It was another to be lashed to a slack line, handed a pair of gloves, and told to get on with it.

  Bijaz spun as he ascended, climbing and kicking off the rock, until he passed into shadow. The ascent merely took an eternity. As he approached the belled entrance, a shorter rope was thrown out, with loops tied near the end.

  "Grab on," someone shouted. "We'll pull you in. Climbing the lip is a mother bitch."

  Bijaz didn't fancy stepping from line to line, but he didn't have much choice. He disengaged one hand to lean across empty air. The actual transfer was simple enough, then he was being hauled over the lip.

  "There you—" a sweating man began, then stopped when he saw who it was.

  Bijaz became very aware that he scrabbled for purchase on a rounded surface which wanted him to slide backward into empty air. His helper stood just on the inner slope, eyeing him speculatively.

  "Please," Bijaz said. On impulse, he added: "I'm afraid."

  The moment of decision passed as the sweating man reached to pull him all the way in. "Whump was a right bastard," he muttered, "cross-eyed freak and all. But what you did . . . "

  "What I did was not allow him to kill me."

  "Aye. He ever was one for making points the hard way." The sweating man clapped Bijaz on the shoulder. "I'm Mattieu Gambardella. I know full well who you are."

  Still conscious of the immensity of open air not far behind him, Bijaz gasped for the breath he didn't realize he was holding. "Trust me to do right by those who do right by me."

  Gambardella laughed as he untied the rope around Bijaz's waist. "There's little enough being done right before we get home, I'll wager. Maybe you need to watch your back, sir dwarf, but in time there'll be those to watch it for you."

  Bijaz returned Gambardella's clap on the shoulder.

  Light streamed through the opening, setting the rest of the globe's interior in dark shadow by contrast. Bijaz shaded his eyes until he could get a decent view.

  It stank. He could see a teeming mass of those horrid bats in the upper arc of shadows, furry maggots clinging to the ceiling. The entire top of the globe was alive. Worse, the bottom arc was deep in their scat. It formed a putrid, pale mass with an awful life of its own. The smell was rank to the point of sickening.

  Protruding wooden posts and brick stubs gave evidence that there had once been interior structure. The supports extended at odd angles and random intervals.

  Bijaz sat on a stub along the downsloping curve, well above the faintly luminous mass of guano. He was comfortably far below the bats squirming on the ceiling.

  "Come on, dwarf," shouted someone. It was Orcus, standing in the glare of the entrance gripping three lines. "Your turn, your shortness."

  Bijaz waved. He clambered back up to the opening where he was lashed in and dropped outward to make the next stage of the climb. The moment when he slid past the last of the crumbling stonework and into the open air nearly forced his guts between his teeth. He settled in and resumed his climb, this time always tugged slightly upward by the rope.

  The man who hauled him in at the next globe—Arcus, Orcus' twin—had a sour expression. "We've lost two up here," he warned. "Mind your step real good."

  Bijaz knew it wasn't personal. On board the riverboat the twins had been kind enough, for all that they weren't City men.

  "I'll be careful," he said. "And my thanks for the warning."

  This globe was different. Irregular holes punctuated the shell where chinks had fallen away. The monkey bats didn't seem to favor this place. The ceiling was clear, and there was no steaming pool of pale sludge at the base.

  Most of the interior stubs and beams were gone as well. He realized their decay must have caused damage to the shell.

  The expedition warped its way up to two more globes before nightfall. These were at roughly the same level, perhaps a third of the way up the cliff face. The men spread out between the pair.

  The globe in which Bijaz found himself stank. That meant bats would soon be dropping from the ceiling, but it also probably meant a safe footing on the shell. This time he climbed up the curve until the wall arched over his head. He secured a length of rope to a substantial stub of old stone, then wound his chest and waist tight.

  That left him closer to the little horrors, but it took him above the restive, irritable troops. Judging from the calls at the entrance, Ashkoliiz and the ice bear were in the other globe, though one of the Northmen arrived here, alongside Pierce. There was a great stack of supplies, too—tenting and bales and food sacks, which Pierce directed be spread out.

  The sunlight began to fade. Waiting for the monkey bats to leave their nest was like waiting for the rain. The first drop would come unnoticed. You might think the second a fluke. But when they tumbled like autumn leaves from the ceiling, bringing a shower of dust and guano with them, Bijaz felt as if the storm was breaking.

  The air moved in strange, fitful gusts. It set his hair standing on end and made his mouth dry. When their squeaking began to echo, he nearly panicked. That was thunder to the furry rain, a thousand lancets of noise instead of an honest rumbling. He felt as if his ears were bleeding.

  Bijaz huddled close to the curve of the stone, watching men scramble below. Two full rope lines of men slid down the curve into the roil of guano. Others screamed.

  The skin on his neck prickled with the rush of wings, the flash of tiny eyes.

  He had to stop this. He couldn't stand it any more.

  Bijaz reached one hand out into the open air and thought of wheat fields and the reaper on the crown of the hill and blood draining down the furrows to ensure the summer harvest and where the bones came from that were ground to feed the soil, until he found the green, and behind the green all colors.

  He pulled those colors into the world with him.

  The bats fell silent between one heartbeat and the next. Where there had been swirling, chittering monkey-faced horrors, a blizzard of rose petals now swirled in shades of gold and tan and brown and yellow.

  The flowers settled quickly, already graying in the last of the light, to cover the white lake of shit at the bottom of the globe. They encased the dozen men struggling upward with flecks of fading color to drown their curses.

  Bijaz, still clinging to the wall like a muscular spider, looked down to see every pair of eyes inside the globe staring up at him in utter silence.

  The magick had more than one price, of course. He did not sleep at all that night, not with a watch armed with torches and spears keeping its attention on him instead of the door.

  The next day, Bijaz continued to find himself the object of a very focused, respectful attention. The Northern Expedition hadn't reacted to his killing of Whump. The late thug had been unpopular, a knife-edged bastard. Transforming a few hundred thousand bats into rose petals had been somehow worse.

  Today they'd treated him like a bundle of explosives—touched at their peril, but dropped at their greater peril. If the men of the Northern Expedition had been certain he couldn't fly, someone would have cut his rope.

  Late that afternoon Bijaz struggled over a hummock of rock when he realized he was at the top. A wide ledge sloped upward. A wooden frame stood before him, tree trunks the thickness of his thighs la
shed together supporting the climbing rope above the rocky edge. Several of Wee Pollister's heavies belayed the line. One of the Northmen was prodding exhausted troops into stacking their supplies. Others worked different sets of ropes.

  More cliffs rose to the north, nothing like the sliced-away face they had just ascended. These were knees, with valleys and folds between, that promised access onward and upward. Somewhere in those further heights was the nickel mine Ashkoliiz spoke of. He saw trees, too, so different from the bare face of the cliff and dry prairies along the river.