Madness of Flowers

by Jay Lake

  "Naturally." Imago shook the dunny diver's hand, then sank to the floor against a plate mail skirt. "And you?"

  "Fired from me job by Crusty Alice. Me and the boys went below. We been amusing ourselves closing off the flows from the Limerock Palace and certain quality homes about town."

  "Never make an enemy of a dunny diver," Imago said solemnly. "I thank you for my rescue."

  "I just crawls the walls. It was them harridan women made me do it."

  "Thank you for the candle, too."

  "Candle?"

  "The little brass holder, with the candle stub. You brought it to me sometime before the rescue."

  "Ah. That one. Them what jailed you didn't leave it?"

  "No." Imago was too tired for fear, but he felt a cold twinge. "A dwarf came later. Small and pale, much like you. Kept me my sanity, I believe."

  Saltfingers glanced about, though they were alone. "Him that's the messenger brung it, I'm thinking."

  "The messenger?"

  The old dwarf mimed drawing a bow. "We don't say the name, below the stones. It might call him. He's got errands now."

  Archer, Imago thought. His companion on that last, mad trip beneath the New Hill. The godmonger had vanished when the Old Gods had appeared with bloody intent, a casualty of the cruel strengths briefly unleashed. "That's terrible."

  "That's life as a rent boy for the gods," said Saltfingers matter-of-factly. "Or afterlife, mayhaps."

  His world was full of the dead. Far too many of whom were unwilling to remain in that state.

  "Will you be at the Festival of Cerea?"

  "Would not miss it for all the world, your worship. Now if you'll excuse me, seeing as you're in health, I've got me a chain of office to recover."

  The next day the Tribade doctor swathed and veiled Imago in widow's blacks and led him out of the Sudgate. He felt as if each lift of his foot would make him float away. This was as bad as when he'd first been shortened.

  Outside, Biggest Sister helped him into a waiting trap.

  "Sit quiet, weep some," she told him.

  "And don't move that arm about," the doctor added. She pressed something small into Imago's bandaged hand. "A keepsake."

  The trap rattled away through the surge of beggars, fishwives, and feral children. He looked at what he had been given. A bullet, deformed and stained. It must be from the wound just above his elbow.

  They headed for Water Street and north across town. The quays were chained off, ragged men sitting guard. No more of the blockade-stuck ships had made a departure. Most gangplanks were drawn up. The docks were far more quiet than they should have been, even now.

  Heading across the Water Street Bridge, Imago caught a glimpse of the Rugmaker's Cupola looming high above. An enormous banner drooped from the tower—the red crown-and-keys of the Assemblage of Burgesses.

  Further north, Imago saw that Ducôte's scriptorium had burned. The great beast of a press slumped among the charred beams. The old dwarf had been alternately a hero and a meddlesome thorn to Imago, but his loyalty to the City Imperishable and its people had been beyond doubt. Imago vowed anew that if given a second chance he would run Wedgeburr through himself.

  Waxy white poppies grew in the ashes of the scriptorium. Imago realized he'd been seeing them in the gutters, along little park strips, and even in pots on windowsills. They were everywhere.

  They took the Artemis Street turnoff. The driver followed the declining neighborhood to a stand of cypress near the edge of the Potter's Field. He clucked the horse to a halt, then waited.

  No questions, Imago thought. He slowly climbed down. Imitating an old woman was not difficult. Out here the widow's blacks made every kind of sense.

  He wandered among the wooden markers and the bone piles. It rained; that slow, patient fall with no hint of sunlight. Being outside felt good—he walked in open air, amid the scent of soil and flowers.

  Poppies were everywhere. He passed a number of fresh graves, all marked by little stick dolls with curls of blonde-straw hair. Victims of Crusty Alice?

  Around another corner he found a patch of turned soil mixed with ash. Before it was a stretch of pavers covered with flowers, food and wine bottles, small coins and toys and papier-mâché roses. Even a plush camelopard with a tiny mummer doll tied to its neck.

  His grave.

  Many of the offerings had been kicked over and scattered. More had been set in their place. He walked slowly through this evidence of a city's regrets.

  "Flowers I brought in the winter," Imago whispered. "In a trial to unseat one madman. Now I will bring a madness of them, to throw this fool out and reopen our ways south."

  Imago set his face west toward the River Saltus and the krewe houses, where he might find the Card King and the shelter of the oldest traditions. The Krewe of Faces would embrace him as it had before.

  The city is.

  Surrounded by half a dozen stubby candles, Imago and the Card King dined that night on pickled mudshark from a great clay jar. It was the first solid food he'd eaten since leaving his cell. At the Sudgate he'd been fed only thin soup. Though the shark tasted vile, Imago enjoyed the sensation of chewing.

  Out of his costume, the Card King was just a fat man. Imago, out of his office, was just a bone-thin dwarf with his arm in a sling.

  "Your holy dwarf was a terror, there's no doubt," the big man said, chewing valiantly at the rubbery, pale meat.

  Imago had been experimenting with sucking on skin, but it mostly tasted of rancid vinegar. The smell had already stunned his nose. His tongue could not be far behind.

  "He's off terrorizing the North now," Imago replied. "I miss him, but he needs seasoning."

  "Seasoning and a big pot maybe." The Card King laughed. "He took us all for fools and played us as well as the krewes have ever been played. Like I told him, a dwarf is never bound to a krewe king. I can't figure whether you count or not."

  "I'm no dwarf," said Imago. "Not in the modern sense, raised in a box and educated a certain way. But I am what dwarfs were meant to be."

  "The krewes remember." The Card King tore off another strip. "We are making ready a special stage." He grinned, predatory as the freshwater shark they were trying to eat. "Crusty Alice will shit his silk drawers."

  "You fancy a lashing and a dump in the river?" Imago asked curiously.

  "I fancy getting that fool out of this city's business." The Card King was suddenly serious. "You did a far better job of keeping the sewers clear and the streets paved. And somehow I'm thinking you were making more progress on our difficulties in the water trade."

  "We're all going to be killed if we stand openly against him."

  "No. Not with you in our midst. Besides, your Marelle has thought up clever surprises for the day of your return."

  Imago chewed some more. "Where may I sleep?" he finally asked.

  "I threw an armload of straw into Dorgau's Grip." The Card King pointed toward the back of the warehouse where a giant hand hung in the tangled shadows. "It should be comfortable enough."

  "My thanks, and good night."

  "Don't piss on the floor. Use the jars by the tool-room door."

  Imago picked his way among the ropes and cables stretching across the warehouse. He carried one of their candles against the shadows. The dark was difficult for him now.

  He was not looking forward to his dreams.

  The next day the krewe worked to bring down the costumes and set-pieces. Imago noted no dwarfs among them.

  It was a strange sight. Light filtering through high, grimy windows gave everything the faded look of an old painting. The giant heads, the painted back-drops, the huge props violated his sense of scale. They were all dwarfed here. Paint was being lathered about in great quantities, enough to make the wax in Imago's ears run.

  He tried several times to offer assistance, but was waved off. "It's a bloody great lot of jobs," the Card King finally told him, "that are mostly held for life. Let them do their work."

 
So Imago found a seat on an overturned crown and watched a pageant of history being assembled.

  Eventually he began to see the pattern in the chaos. The Krewe of Faces was building a new stage out of parts of three or four others which they tore apart with great enthusiasm. It was big, articulated in the center to make the tight corners of the traditional festival processional route. A giant figure stood on each half of the stage.

  The front figure was an ugly woman. She was a large puppet, with an operator inside working the ropes and guys to manage the movements. She was designed to lean over and stand back up repeatedly, while bending her head back and forth.

  The rear was a dwarf. He was not articulated at the middle, but instead had his arms raised high. A group of women worked on the movement of those arms.

  When someone climbed onto the stage to test the fit of a broad-brimmed hat, Imago realized what he was seeing—him as the Lord Mayor striking Crusty Alice in the buttocks. When she bent over, her skirt opened like a pair of curtains.

  He went to find the Card King. "We'll all be killed out of hand for that float back there."

  "The main stage?" The Card King laughed. "It's naught but a Judy show made large for the kiddies. Ask anyone."

  "That excuse will last until Wedgeburr gets a look at it." Imago made a pistol out of his hand. "We know how the First Counselor settles disputes."

  "You'd be a man who understands the science of politics. But people are not the same as politics."

  "If I knew politics," Imago told him, "I wouldn't be where I am today."

  "True." The fat man squinted. "You'd likely be dead in the riots last winter."

  Imago wondered where this conversation was headed.

  "The krewes have their own lore," the Card King continued slowly. "We never write it down, but true as anything old can be. I'd have the hide off one of mine who told a squid any of this, but seeing as I'm krewe king, I can do as I please when the need is at hand."

  Imago waited. Patience wasn't so hard for him these days.

  The fat man hummed tunelessly a moment, then:

  "When the last one left

  "And passed the gates

  "Twelve remained

  "Beneath their fates

  "They crept below

  "The cold cold stones

  "Leaving only us

  "To carry their bones."

  He gave Imago a slow, shrewd look. "Your holy dwarf knew the right of it, that winter day we all went down to the plaza. There Jason killed him who was never supposed to have returned, and you came up out of the ground like an early spring bulb. Here was a new day for the City Imperishable."

  "Bijaz told me a little." Imago tried to recapture the details of a hasty conversation. "Why you don't have dwarfs in your krewes."

  "Right. Because the krewes remember. Old Terminus took most of the gods away. They were a bloody lot in those days, on the back of a big and bloody empire. He saw what was to come, the City Imperishable torn by enemies and time. He aimed to change things while they could still be changed. He did the impossible, and reset the balance."

  "You're the old priests," said Imago. "The ones who carry their bones."

  "Almost right." The Card King smiled. "I knew you were a smart man. Before Terminus, it was the dwarfs who tended the gods. Cut down in their youth as sacrifices, the pain of the boxes feeding the holy fires. Find an antique growing box and look at the inlays. You'll see the older story there, still remembered for a while after Terminus."

  "But no more," Imago protested, "not after the gods left. We—the dwarfs have tended the fortunes of the City Imperishable ever since."

  The Card King shrugged. "Waste little, want less. The temples were cast down. The priests of that time were out of work, those who hadn't departed to the sound of trumpets. They knew numbers and letters better than most.

  "After, some of us took up the tasks. The twelve Old Gods who had laid themselves down rather than go adventuring need tending as well. That's why there's twelve festivals and twelve krewes. We keep them laid down, and remember what purpose the City dwarfs truly serve."

  That sparked another memory for Imago. "Bijaz had told me that the gods of the Temple District were all arrivistes."

  "Exactly. Come in on boats or the backs of camels or the fevered dreams of street drunks turned prophet. So many that none ever rise to the top. Gods here have the same problem the government has. Bring all the power to one place, and the beast that is our city remembers what it was. The krewes scratch its stone ears and soothe dreams of ancient power. So do the dwarfs, just by being alive."

  "And so you aim to scratch Wedgeburr as well."

  "Right off his lily arse." The Card King's voice was hard as street cobbles.

  Bijaz

  One of the Northmen found him before dawn. How had he ever thought they looked alike as twins? Ashtiili's nose was flatter, where it had probably been broken once.

  Bijaz nodded. "You are from the ice, yes?"

  Ashtiili met his gaze. Not challenge, just a reminder. I am human, as are you. To these Northmen most people were just talking animals. To be human was something deeper.

  Bothering to remember his name was a great honor they'd accorded to him.

  Finally Ashtiili spoke. "Not this ice." His accent was thick but his Civitas was clear.

  "Beyond the Rimerocks?"

  Another nod. "Knees-of-the-Sky, we say." Ashtiili set his right hand on Bijaz's left arm. "Stand away from the bindings." He walked back toward the fires.

  Bindings, thought Bijaz. What bindings?

  There were bindings aplenty. The might and majesty of a lost empire, bound to the bones of its last true Imperator. Whatever bound the ice to this great valley in the desert. In all, too many bindings to be wary of.

  He held out one hand. Grain flowed from his open palm. A tiny butterfly jittered in climbing spirals until the cold updraft caught it and tore the insect from Bijaz's sight.

  The men had abandoned their excited chatter in favor of a slowed step with heads tucked low. Even the horses fought their reins.

  Bijaz found himself walking with Ashtiili. Both picked their way through ankle-high layers of rock protruding from the stony soil.

  "There is an old word used among hermetic orders," the dwarf said. "Omphalos. It means navel, or center. The ice here is an omphalos."

  "You southerners hoard ancient words."

  Bijaz looked sidelong at Ashtiili. "Hoard them perhaps like family silver, to be drawn out again at sudden need."

  "I have another ancient word," Ashtiili told him. "Telos. The end."

  "How can something be both omphalos and telos?"

  Ashtiili stopped and kicked some gravel aside, then used a rock to draw a spiral in the crumbing gray soil. "Southern world, here." He pointed to the center of the spiral. "Omphalos." He pointed to where the line emerged from itself to trail off. "Telos."

  The Northman scuffed his drawing away, then scribed a series of concentric circles. "Omphalos." He pointed at the center. His hand traced the outer circle. "Telos. Here, all circles same."

  Bijaz stared at the figure as a squad of DeNardo's lights clattered by, gear jingling and leathers creaking. After a moment he came to a conclusion. "And so the worm swallows its tail."

  "Southern thought," said Ashtiili. "Not right, not all wrong." He scuffed his drawing again, cast his stone away, and resumed walking.

  Bijaz trotted along beside, thinking that over. Was the Imperator Terminus both the source and ending of the empire? That made no sense. No one was immortal, not even the gods themselves. With the passage of enough time one would become so lacquered with the armor of experience as to have no volition left.

  But the last Imperator must have bound something to himself far greater than a mere throne. Else he could not have marched into history bearing armies and gods and treasure on his shoulders.

  If Ashkoliiz was right, the power of the old empire was trapped here at the center of this desert. Who would wan
t to let it loose?

  Northmen, apparently.

  He'd been told that if you went far enough into the North you would rise so high that you could see more than one sun. They moved in a line along the axis of the world, spaced a day apart. No matter if that was true, the idea had a certain metaphorical beauty.

  The Northmen came from beyond the Rimerocks. Perhaps they stood as children at the gates of their ice palaces and looked southward at the string of suns sliding across the plate of the world.