Madness of Flowers

by Jay Lake

Once he woke to find his legs spasming to curl under him. The scars where skin and bone had been fused ached almost as badly as when he was first cut by the Little Man. He cried. That didn't help, so he tried brave memory instead. All he could think of was Enero riding, Jason so crumpled and slow after his murder, Bijaz with that strange pale glow about him.

  Not things he wished to have in his head.

  "Not so easy, is it?"

  A very gaunt, naked dwarf with tangled hair and a nest of a beard squatted at the far side of his cell. The visitor carried a little candle. That light hurt Imago's eyes.

  "No." He waited to see how quickly this dream evaporated.

  "Dark gets to you." The dwarf was familiar beneath the sores and the sadness and the encompassing grime.

  "Wh—" Imago's voice failed. He hadn't spoken in a long time. He tried again. "Why . . . " One word, a ragged whisper. "Why d-does . . . " Another deep breath. "A gh-ghost . . . " One more time, he told himself, hold fast to this thought. "Ghost need a c-candle."

  "Candle? Don't need one at all, me. It's you who needs the candle, Lord Mayor."

  "Why?"

  "'Cause you're still alive, I expect." The dwarf made the two steps to Imago's side and set the little brass chamberstick down next to him. The flame flared as he did so, recasting the visitor's features.

  Imago knew this dwarf. Saltfingers? No.

  "I'm being called," the dwarf whispered. With a miserable expression, he disappeared into the shadows.

  Imago hobbled to his feet and searched the cell before the candle burned out. Nothing but stone and brick, brick and stone. He'd heard no creak of a trap door, nor the sound of stone sliding.

  A hallucination, then.

  He sat down next to the candle, which was close to guttering. Thoughtfully, Imago touched the flame.

  His hand jumped back. For something imaginary, it hurt like the hells. The little rush of air from his reflex pulled the flame after, and it flared out to leave a tiny red coal. Sharp-scented smoke hung in the air.

  He covered his fingertips in the hot wax just to feel the tightness as it cooled and set. Then he hid the candle holder in his rotting straw.

  Every time he awoke thereafter he reached for the last stub of the candle and the little brass dish. The wax casts of his fingertips he placed in the mortar below the top brick course, to help him climb out someday.

  One day shortly after a gobbet of meat had appeared in his bucket, he heard a scraping of stone. Imago froze. He then reached for his treasures. If they came for him now, he was ready to die with dignity. He just wished he could shave.

  Stone scraped again. Someone cursed quietly.

  A man whispered, sotto voce. "Are you sure?"

  Another voice: "It's what they told me. I doesn't asks a lot of questions when dangled by the scruff of me neck like a pup over the drowning barrel."

  A third voice, female. "I'll show you a drowning barrel if this goes any more wrong."

  They didn't sound like jailors. Or bailiffs. Or Burgesses.

  "You in here, your worship?" asked the second voice.

  "He's not going to answer," snapped the woman.

  Another scrape. A thin knife of light stabbed Imago in the eyes. He cried out, then covered his mouth with both hands. The brass chamberstick dropped, ringing to the floor.

  "That's torn it," said the first voice.

  "Open it, now," the woman told him.

  After a series of grunts and a crunching scrape, a very pale, ugly dwarf crawled into the cell, holding a lantern in one hand. The light burned Imago's eyes.

  "Your worship is alive."

  Imago dredged up a name. "Saltfingers." He was right, this time.

  "Come on, then," the woman said. "And quiet while you're about it."

  Saltfingers tugged at him. Imago found that he couldn't move correctly. The dull ache in his arm flared at their touch.

  "Come," they whispered. "Wasting time, wasting time."

  "My c-candle."

  The woman scuttled in and grabbed it. "We'll never get the stone put back."

  "There's always time to set a job to rights." Saltfingers tied a rope to a bar set in the back of the stone, and began tugging the block into the little space where they were crouched.

  Imago realized he was looking at Marelle. The other person was Biggest Sister.

  "I can remember." He stopped. "You're dead."

  "No, fled." Marelle touched his lips. "Silence now."

  Saltfingers set chocks behind his stone. "Back out the way we come in, right to the Maldoror Crossover. Once we's in the tunnels, we's in dunnyman's country and ally ally oxen free."

  "H-how long?" Imago managed to ask.

  Marelle touched his lips again. "Shh."

  "Thirty-six days," answered Biggest Sister. "Your funeral was magnificent. First Counselor Wedgeburr himself delivered your elegy."

  "That . . . " Imago was appalled.

  "Come," said Saltfingers. "Now."

  "First we go to my doctor," Biggest Sister added.

  Imago woke up, unsure where he'd been. Or where he was now. Narrow windows above him admitted a vague light. Rain drummed not far away. The room was high and long, though not wide. Suits of plate mail stood racked—empty, weaponless armor guarding an empty room.

  And one very exhausted Lord Mayor.

  He took inventory. Left arm in a cast and sling. Both hands bandaged. He was going to have all the hells of a time doing anything personal. He seemed to be naked under several layers of blankets. And he felt very, very thin. Ribs strained against his skin.

  "You yet live," said Biggest Sister.

  Imago would have sworn on raw gold she hadn't been there a moment before. "How do you do that?"

  "A simple 'thank you' should suffice."

  "Thank you. And yes, I seem to live. Which is more than some."

  "Seventeen dead in the Great Hall. Ten of your freeriders, including Enero, the Burgess Subat Mykos, two clerks, and three of your followers. Wedgeburr hanged the surviving freeriders from the Costard Gate, though I don't suppose they would have lived long in any case. Put bullets in the heads of the rest of the seriously wounded. Another nine, all of them yours. Burned the bodies in the South Garden." She wrinkled her nose. "It made a horrible stench."

  "I led them there," Imago said quietly.

  "Yes, you did. But the First Counselor would have come for you wherever you were. Wedgeburr's dismissed everyone who worked for you in any capacity, declared a dusk-'til-dawn curfew on dwarfs and foreigners, and has men drilling down by the docks for an assault on Port Defiance."

  "I should have killed him when I had the chance."

  "Mmm." Biggest Sister crouched and took his chin in one hand. She tilted his head, looking into his eyes. "Your pupils match. Doctor said to watch that carefully. Not for me to say what you should have done, but I would have slit Wedgeburr's throat on principle."

  "I tried to be a better man."

  She clucked sympathetically. "Character flaw, that."

  "How stands the City Imperishable otherwise?"

  Biggest Sister shrugged. "Northern Expedition's in the North. Slackwater Princess is far late coming home. Port Defiance continues to blockade the river. There's trouble among the dwarfs there. Your man might have made it into the swamps, but if so, no word's come back. Here in the City Imperishable potatoes are still for sale in the Root Market. Most people live their lives every day."

  Which was true enough. Away from the docks with their fresh-off-the-boat rumors and constant broadsheets, the average citizen had little to do with politics. Only people of a certain set of interests concerned themselves with events in the Limerock Palace. As Gordon the root seller had said to Imago, the next fellow would do just as well.

  "Did your vessel make it south?"

  She nodded. "Your two debarked at Sandy Banks and struck out into the swamps. I'm not certain what that was about, as my women had other concerns to communicate. The Tribade is now active in Port Defia
nce."

  "Good." Talking was tiring him out. Imago lay flat, thinking. It was time to return to his brother on the Eeljaw. Humphrey would lord it over him, while Belisare the family dwarf would scorn him, but that was a quiet existence. He could weigh seed and count harvests and never put anyone's life in the balance again.

  "You're heading out in two days, three at the most," Biggest Sister told him. "The Festival of Cerea is three days hence."

  "Five Mai," he croaked.

  She seemed surprised. "Yes. Good, your brains aren't all scrambled. The Card King will take you on. You will pretend to be pretending to be yourself. Marelle thinks it best to show you to the people thus. If things go badly we can retreat and claim you are an actor."

  He remembered all too vividly the last time he'd had the krewes at his back. "Is that wise?"

  "Marelle says you're going back to the beginning again. Will of the City." Her smile was crooked. "Me, I just want to see the look on Crusty Alice's face. You know it's forty lashes and a swim in the river now to say that name in public?"

  "The River Saltus? With a bleeding back? The sharks would feast."

  Her smile had vanished. "Exactly. We've been counting. Two hundred and seven killed or executed since you were murdered."

  A thought passed by, fluttering strings of memory.

  "Somebody mentioned my funeral. Do I have a tomb?"

  "You were buried in the Potter's Field beneath some pale poppies."

  "Oh, good," he said. "I like those flowers."

  "And unlike certain people, you didn't have to die first in order to come back to life." She stood. "To answer your very first question, it's all in the shadows, and knowing how people pay attention."

  Bijaz

  The new light troop leader was a man named DeNardo. He was a beanpole with curly blond hair who always wore a red vest. He also looked vaguely familiar to Bijaz.

  Under DeNardo's leadership, the men logged a clay-walled canyon, felling trees whose tops rose no higher than the surrounding land. Posts were stripped and shaped and built into a stockade about the muddy pool which was the closest they could find to a spring.

  The weather ran colder here than Bijaz had expected. His cloak didn't cover enough of him. One of the heavies lent him a felt hat which flopped around his ears, but kept him more decently warm.

  One morning a few days after they established a permanent camp, he headed out into the open country to see what might be seen. Just past the partly built wall he chanced to pass close to DeNardo drilling his men with stick-swords.

  "You are to being slow upon the left!" DeNardo shouted. "I am thinking you are women with poor complexions and no men at all!"

  The accent, the strange command of verbs. DeNardo was one of Enero's men.

  That was why the man looked familiar. Bijaz must have seen him around the Rugmaker's Cupola.

  He walked on. It would do DeNardo no good for Bijaz to call him out. The man knew it, or he would not have been so carefully keeping his distance.

  The desert to the north wasn't a landscape of sand, like the fabled dry seas of the Tokhari. Here the ground was graveled in place of good, honest soil, as if the whole world had been paved. The scattered plants were set apart from one another. Each was jealous of its own water, he supposed. They were thick and spiky and difficult-looking, with narrow leaves and sharp thorns.

  Bijaz missed the straggling grasses and struggling lindens of the City Imperishable. Though more gray stone than any kind of growing green, the City never expressed such a harsh character as this place. He wondered if Kalliope's Red Cities had once been something like the City Imperishable, before the green faces of their lands had turned away.

  Bijaz could not imagine a forest having ever grown here. The endless land was sparse, while the rain fell scarce as fog inside a tavern. Still life found a way to prosper. This place was alive, just not as he understood the word.

  He could feel the green lurking beneath the soil. What would Jason have made of this?

  When Bijaz turned back, he found he'd walked much farther than he realized. He had a decent view of the Silver Ridges from here. The fortress-camp of the Northern Expedition seemed little more than a hut. He also had an excellent view of the line of horseman approaching from the west.

  The mounted column had finally caught up. A rising dust cloud trailed them by miles.

  They were fewer than the forty who had set out from the riverfront. Followed by the camels. At least there were enough of the filthy beasts to make a dust cloud. That meant they hadn't all been eaten by wasps or fallen off the trails.

  He ran back to the camp.

  That evening launched a long night of tales fueled by ale from barrels which had come up on camelback. Ashkoliiz had marked them as lye, and so they'd remained unbreached on the journey.

  Priola told their story in the form of a running argument with Azar, the Tokhari who'd led the cavalry column. The third Northman whispered with his fellows at the farthest edge of the firelight during the recounting. Bijaz would much rather have heard that story, but he did not speak their language.

  "So then's we come to the second waterfall," Priola was saying.

  "Water no!" Azar roared. "You Stonesource men piss your pants so much it flow down mountain!"

  That drew a round of laughter.

  Priola grinned. "Piss, water, you camel herders drinks anything."

  A greater round of laughter.

  And so it went through the evening, a mix of hard-edged banter and a certain respect. The camels and the horsemen had ridden a hard track into Jarais Pass. There they were hunted by snow leopards, and fought a pitched battle with a tribe of men the color of chalk who had two knees in their legs. There had been landslides, drownings, three fatal fights between horsemen and camel drivers—the last one, surprisingly, won by the camel driver.

  Some of the animals had foundered in the high pass. Of the two-score foot soldiers and the same number of riders, Priola had lost eleven, while Azar had lost six.

  Eventually Ashkoliiz declared herself pleased with their efforts. Standing silvered in the light of a three-quarter moon, she blessed them all.

  "I declare a day of rest in honor of our efforts. Then our true work begins. We will bring your history home."

  Once more they cheered her. Bijaz wondering what might be listening out in the darkness.

  Ashkoliiz redivided their forces. Priola and Wee Pollister remained in the encampment. The big man had been reluctant to let Bijaz go, but the mountebank insisted that the heavies defend the stockade.

  Bijaz wondered if they would ever return to the camp. Wee Pollister must have thought the same, though the big man didn't voice any objection.

  All the horsemen came, and thirty of DeNardo's light troops. They crossed northward into the wilderness. The horsemen rode as scouts, pickets, and rearguard, allowing the marchers to maintain a strong pace. The ice bear ranged wide as well.

  Still, they encountered checks—canyons too deep to simply scramble through, and miles-wide stretches of tangled thorn. On the fourth day north they entered a field of smoking mounds which gave off a reeking yellow fog, and were forced to find another route.

  All of which made Bijaz doubt whatever map Ashkoliiz was using to guide them. During the climb she had been in firm command, testing her men and their mettle. Here she appeared less certain.

  The closer they drew to whatever remained of the Imperator Terminus, the less resolute Ashkoliiz seemed in their course. Bijaz pondered what that might mean, while keeping a sharp eye out for trees which he never saw.

  The land rose steadily over a fortnight's travel. There came a day when the scouts turned their mounts and dropped their reins to await the column. The land simply ended, sheared off as if by a knife. Far below was a broad plain gleaming bright in the sunlight.

  Ice.

  A vast expanse of ice stretched to the north, pushing a cold wind up the cliff. The rough surface was the blue-white of Ashkoliiz's eyes. Broken
chunks rose upward, seams opened, darker patches and great ripples and strange ridges. It was a frozen ocean. If he'd thought the North chill before, this was winter incarnate.

  Had this desert once been a high sea, trapped between the two mountain ranges until all the water had been drawn down into this cold prison? Perhaps skeletons of leviathans were scattered across the wastes behind him, if only he knew where to look.

  "A great forest grew here," Ashkoliiz said softly next to Bijaz. "Right where we are standing. He marched out of the trees and saw the waters, and he knew that it was good."