Madness of Flowers

by Jay Lake

  No, a flower.

  He saw a flower.

  Once again Bijaz felt a desire to speak to the reaper man. But he could not walk—his legs would barely twitch. His arms were wood, his tongue leather. He'd been hung on a pole.

  A scarecrow, set to guard this path to power.

  He wondered how to get down. If only he had water, his mouth would be moist and he could shout for help. If only he could shout for help, he could be pulled down and drink his fill. His thoughts ran in a tight circle, yielding nothing.

  I am a god. I can make light.

  A beam leapt from his right hand to flood the day with brightness. Far away, the reaper man stopped his work and turned to look.

  I can make fire.

  As it had in the mines, a spout of fire leapt forth. The wheat before him caught, and the flames quickly spread until billowing smoke obscured his view of the reaper man.

  I can make flowers.

  He willed the flames to become bright roses. They did, as smoke crystallized to falling ash.

  The reaper man ran with acre-long strides, his scythe across his shoulder as he stepped from hill to hill. Bijaz wondered at his hurry when the first lightning bolt struck behind him.

  Thunder tore at his hearing. As it died away, something very large growled. Bijaz tried to look, but the pole trapped him. Instead he twisted his hand so the palm faced behind him and made more light.

  Something shrieked. A blow landed which shook his pole, driving splinters into the raw skin of his back.

  The reaper man bounded closer. Another roar erupted behind him.

  This time Bijaz made fire with his backturned palm.

  The answering roar was anguished. The next blow tore through the pole to take him in the head. Blood sluiced down his back.

  The reaper man stepped over him, tall as the sky and dark as a thundercloud, to pour down hard rain. Some fell upon Bijaz, washing away his misdeeds. Tongue wetted, he cried for help.

  A woman with tight-cropped gray hair and a fierce expression leaned close. "Are you trying to talk to me, old dwarf?"

  "Help me," Bijaz whispered. He was hot, and thirsty as the sand sea.

  Triumph shone in her eyes as she tipped a flask of water to his lips.

  Onesiphorous

  They were rioting in the Ivories, the district surrounding the Flag Towers. Onesiphorous limped as quickly as he could over bridges and along balconies, cursing with every step. He found that the ferry at Copperbottom Channel was missing. He could see his destination, but he couldn't get across the water.

  The tide was racing, and Onesiphorous was cold already. He would not swim this.

  Was there another way? He tried to use the blue jade like a key, as if it would open some ancient, secret door in the rock behind him. Nothing happened, of course.

  "Ssardali," hissed a woman. "You hard to catch for little man." She took the jade from his unresisting fingers. "I got boat."

  Silver wore a crisp uniform of white duck over knee-high boots. Now he was certain where the fighting steamships had come from.

  Onesiphorous followed her to a little launch. Eight uniformed sailors waited at the oars. She barked orders, and they began to pull, coordinated as the legs of a waterbug.

  "The Flag Towers," he gasped.

  "Yes. Elsewise we no get you out of here." Silver turned the blue jade over in her hand. "Where you find this?"

  "Up the coast," he said cautiously. It had been the key to get him across, in a manner of speaking. If he'd simply leapt into the current, she might not have caught up to him.

  "This buy entire ship. Maybe fleet, if the rock got no flaws." She grinned. "You show me more, I tear up letters of patent."

  "All I have, I'm afraid." Onesiphorous slumped. "Have you picked up any survivors out on the water?"

  Silver shrugged. "I chasing you, not doing rescue." She returned the jade fragment.

  They pulled up at the large stone landing which served as the formal entrance to the Flag Towers. Dead dwarfs were scattered across wide marble steps leading upward.

  "By the hells," Onesiphorous hissed. He would not have his people killing one another.

  "Here." Silver pressed a pepperbox pistol into his hand.

  He had no more idea how to use that than the rifle he'd held earlier, but Onesiphorous gripped the weapon tight and raced up the steps. He slipped twice on blood before gaining the top.

  A glance back showed Silver following with her sailors. They carried rifles.

  Good, thought Onesiphorous. Someone would know what they were doing.

  The main hall was empty, except for more bodies. Some still groaned. The furniture had been smashed, and legs taken for clubs. Noise ahead promised a full bore riot in progress.

  Onesiphorous raced for the far doors, only to find them barred. Somebody tugged one open from the other side. "Come on, we've al—" The voice stopped when the speaker realized who stood waiting.

  Onesiphorous shoved the doors wide and kicked the door warden in the nadgers. He was on a landing above the Harbormaster's receiving room. A high, vaulted ceiling loomed above. An empty throne stood on the opposite landing at the far end of the room. Both landings were lined with brass urns taller than he was.

  Dozens of dwarfs and full-men were fighting in the space below. They were killing each other.

  Onesiphorous shoved one of the huge urns down the stairs. The clangor distracted most of the combatants. He tried to follow up with a pistol shot to the ceiling, but the trigger was stuck.

  Someone sniggered.

  A rifle volley from behind him brought down shards of plaster.

  That got their attention.

  "Hear me," Onesiphorous shouted. "Opener or Boxer, Slashed or Sewn. It doesn't matter who you are. The blockade is broken, the corsairs are banished. If we don't all of us go home to the City Imperishable at once, it will fall!"

  "Could be better," Silver whispered.

  "Who the hells are you?" called out one of the full-men.

  "He's that Slashed bugger," said a dark-skinned dwarf, looking like a boxed Sunwarder.

  "I'm a dwarf." Onesiphorous' temper was slipping away. "As is every one of you short-arsed buggering little bastards."

  He waved the pistol, which went off this time. A chip of gold leaf spalled off the throne at the far end of the room. Wiser heads below ducked.

  "You Dorgau-blasted Openers have been listening to full-men. You Boxers are no better. Me, I don't give a thin damn about any one of you dockside bastards." Onesiphorous lowered the pistol. "What I do care about is your children, and their city. I'm going home. This woman's navy is taking me. If any of you want a ride, you're welcome to join us. Otherwise stay here and be hanged with the Harbormaster and his men." He hurled the weapon to the steps, where it bounced and discharged once more.

  Everyone down below ducked that time. Onesiphorous turned to see Silver getting to her feet. She and Onesiphorous pushed past each other. He was heading for the entrance as she retrieved her pistol.

  "Launches be outside soon," she shouted. "Anyone want to follow him, to come."

  Moments later they were back down in the boat. The riot did not seem to have resumed, but no one had followed them to the landing either.

  "We are done for," he said mournfully. "My people will not listen to reason."

  "My pistol may be done for." Silver turned the weapon over in her hand. "You hard little man."

  "We are a people used hard."

  "I send launches anyway."

  They reached one of the big steamships. Silver scrambled up a rope ladder, leaving Onesiphorous to follow up the tall hull. He hadn't realized how big this ship was.

  On board, he found himself alone with four of Silver's sailors. They seemed to want him at the rail, out of everyone's way. He looked back across Port Defiance.

  The city was waking up, as it had not done since the corsairs had come. Lights, laughter, boats in the water. Onesiphorous had hoped for justice tonight, but he sup
posed peace might have to be enough.

  When Silver finally returned, he told her, "We must find Jason. I need to take him up the river."

  "Who Jason?"

  "An ally of mine. He was east of the city in a little sloop. He attacked the corsairs from the landward side."

  She nodded. "Yes. He signal when he see us. Admiral think we found out."

  So Jason had brought them into the fight. Onesiphorous wondered how he had been able to find the Gronegrii fleet when the corsairs hadn't seen them. "I need to find him and his sister Kalliope. She was with me on the assay boat Xanthippe D."

  "Where Xanthippe D. now?"

  "Lost," he said shortly.

  "She come out of water with you?"

  "No."

  Silver sighed. She spoke quickly to one of the sailors, sending the man off at a run. She turned back to Onesiphorous, saying, "Letters you make me still to be honored by City Imperishable?"

  He knew a change of subject when he heard one. "Certainly."

  "Then we go up river when tide is right." A smiled flashed. "Your Jason come. We find this Kalliope, she come too." Silver saluted, then departed.

  This version of Silver was so different from the ragged fishing girl he first met. She had so much in common with Enero, though they spoke two different languages beneath their Civitas. Onesiphorous wondered what it would be like to live in the young, uncomplicated nations along the Sunward Sea.

  He reminded himself that nothing in life was uncomplicated. Especially the politics of cities.

  Jason's sloop had been taken in tow behind Silver's ship, Princeps Olivo. By daylight the iron-clad steamer seemed impossibly tall and strange, with her raked masts and enormous guns mounted in turrets upon the deck. She was white too, crisp as the linens in a Heliograph Hill restaurant.

  The other two steamers shepherded their prizes back south. Negotiation had resulted in the undamaged corsair ship sailing free. Silver seemed pleased, whatever the arrangement had been.

  "I want to go down to the sloop," he told her.

  Her face set in a hard quirk. "No. Bad on ship. Jason live, let him be."

  Onesiphorous was too tired to argue.

  The Gronegrii navy had brought several dozen dwarfs aboard as well. The riot had reportedly not resumed, though individual grudges continued to be settled throughout Port Defiance. No one had seen the Harbormaster.

  Onesiphorous hoped they'd find a new government soon. He was in no mood to play kingmaker.

  Princeps Olivo sailed with the dawn, ghosting into the Saltus channel dead slow until she found her bearings. Onesiphorous stared west into the shadows of Angoulême. People stood there in dories and little flat bottomed boats, and even canoes.

  He raised his hand high to them, something between a wave and a salute. Red birds burst from the canopy of the jungle, circling like feathered flame as Princeps Olivo picked up steam, heading north.

  Silver found him an hour later. "Hello, Oarsman."

  "Actually, my name is Onesiphorous."

  "Oarsman better name." She laid a hand on his arm. "You know a man name Enero in your city?"

  He was surprised. "A Bas Luccian. High officer, working as a mercenary. Lord Mayor Imago would struggle much harder without him. I think he was due to return south this spring."

  Silver smiled. "Enero, my massatro. Eh . . . we to be married."

  "Betrothed?" Onesiphorous found it delightful that such a warlike, clever woman was destined to marry such a warlike, clever man. "Your children will be beautiful and fierce."

  "I glad you know him."

  "I'm glad to know you. I will dance at your wedding."

  "Of course!" She laughed.

  They steamed north between walls of jungled swamp, heading for whatever had set even the queen of Angoulême to worrying. At least some good will come of this, Onesiphorous thought. He'd never realized that Enero had a girl waiting at home. He hoped the freerider was still in the City Imperishable.

  Imago

  Back at the Rugmaker's Cupola, Stockwell slipped him a note. He didn't recognize the handwriting.

  Dwrf awoke, took wtr, slpng now

  Imago's heart leapt. "Bijaz?"

  Stockwell nodded. "Doctor says leave him alone. If anything happens, she'll send a Sister for you."

  "Very well." Within, he exulted. He had not managed to kill the old dwarf. It would be very good to hear what had actually taken place on the Northern Expedition.

  Stockwell plucked at Imago's sleeve. "One more thing, sir."

  "Yes?"

  "The farms to the north? Up around Sourapple Roads?"

  "Yes?" This didn't sound good.

  "Their people are coming in. Saying there's thunder to the north and west. Riders out that way aren't returning. They're afraid sir, but no one can say what of."

  "How do you know?"

  Stockwell blushed. "Been listening in the Root Market when I'm out shopping. Saw a lot of those big horses, the ones that pull the plows. They don't usually come in to market. So I sent boys to ask around."

  "Well done," said Imago. "I haven't heard so much of this intelligence as I used to. Please do keep me informed."

  The clerk bowed, still blushing, then stumbled off.

  Imago sighed and climbed the stairs. When he reached his office, he saw that Marelle had covered everything in rough brown paper. She'd blocked his shelves, his desk, his daybed—all but the window. Even the back of the door.

  Notes were everywhere.

  All his flat surfaces were stacked with books, papers, scrolls, mounded in tides of paper. Pencils, quills, fountain pens, sticks of chalk were scattered about.

  It was a mess.

  "I am searching for the truth embedded in our history," she told him. "Look here."

  A chart was drawn on a paper hanging next to his window, covering the bookshelf behind his desk.

  Wasps Giant Intramothers

  Small Eater of Forests (above?)

  Poppies?

  City Imperishable Stone dogs

  Alates History

  The inevitability of change

  "We're missing something," she said.

  "We're missing a lot." He took her in his arms a moment. "Bijaz awoke briefly while I was at the docks. Something has happened at Port Defiance. The river blockade may be broken. We await further news."

  "Excellent!" She broke away and pointed at her chart. "We need to know more."

  "What you've got there doesn't mean much to me now," he admitted.

  "Think about this: A farmer grows grain. His cattle eat the stalks and stubble. They shit in their pens. The farmer spreads the manure on his fields to help more grain grow. It's a cycle."

  "Like money," Imago said. "Seed money becomes operating cash, which generates profit to repay the seed money with interest."

  Marelle giggled. "You should have been a dwarf. That would be obvious to anyone raised in a box."

  "Not me. I learned it the hard way."

  She continued. "The wasps and the trees are part of something. That word the Alate used, 'intramother.' I found it in the archives, but there's no explanation."

  "It means something," he protested. "It must."

  "Of course it does." She flipped her grease pencil in her fingers, staring at the sheet. "I've been reading on the life cycle of wasps, on species gigantism, on forest plagues. There's just not enough here."

  "There may never be," he told her.

  "There's not enough time. And what do the poppies have to do with it anyway?" She snapped her grease pencil.

  He eyed the chart. "Don't put them with the wasps. Put them under the City. Those only grow here, they're thickest in the Potter's Field, and no one has ever seen them before. They fit the cycle."

  "Maybe that makes sense."

  He watched her scribble notes awhile longer, wishing mightily to go up on the roof and see to Bijaz. Imago had learned to heed what the Sisters told him. And while he was most afraid of Biggest Sister, the doctor came a very
close second.

  Reports of wasp attacks began filtering in that afternoon. After Stockwell's first two notes, Imago went downstairs to leave Marelle in peace.

  His people had lost the giddy mood which had overtaken them in the wake of the attack on the Winter Grove. Poppies were present in profuse abundance as well—on hats, buttonholes, weapons harnesses, as well as stacked in a big tub by the doors.