Flowercrash (13 page)

The week passed, and then he was back in the Tech Houses, listening to ethereal voices describing the changes he himself had effected, with a grim Deomouvadaïn standing at his side. He applied himself to his work with fervour. He made no mistakes. He intercepted data so fragmentary a machine would not have noticed it, and with virtuoso feats of memory analysed it before the other clerics had even begun their annotation.

There came the first day of a new week of drumming. That morning Deomouvadaïn and Kamnaïsheva appeared unexpectedly on his doorstep.

“Today is the day of the test to be witnessed by the Third Cleric,” Deomouvadaïn said.

“Very well,” Nuïy replied. “I will comply.”

Deomouvadaïn nodded, but so slowly Nuïy suspected trouble. Then the cleric continued, “In the western sector of Emeralddis lies the Percussion Lodge. After meeting the Third Cleric we’ll ride out there. Once we’ve settled, the Analyst-Drummer will detail what you’re to attempt.”

“All is clear so far.”

“Good. Mind yer manners. The Third Cleric may look slight and wear thick spectacles, but he has a mind like a steel razor. Attempt no familiarity. If you pass, he may dispense with formality.”

Nuïy nodded. The two clerics led the way from the hut, walking with their hands clasped at their waists, crossing the abyss into the Inner Sanctum, then passing down the dim corridor that led to the initiation hall. This place they passed. Deomouvadaïn, who led the way, turned left up a staircase, and they ascended three floors. From slit windows Nuïy was able to glimpse the panorama of the Shrine.

Zehosaïtra awaited them in a room decorated purely in green. From the rafters twigs and leaves hung, copper green with age, while olive rugs laid across the floor in a random pattern hid grey stone. Nuïy noticed that all the food was green: apples, leeks, beds of lettuce, and bowls of what seemed to be a puree of peppers and cucumber. Even the bread was green, though it smelled freshly baked and made Nuïy’s mouth water.

Nuïy looked at the Third Cleric. He stood quiet, slightly stooped, examining Nuïy.

“We’re here,” Deomouvadaïn said with a respectful bow.

Zehosaïtra nodded. “If there’s nothing else to consider, I will lead on.”

In silence they trooped out, and again they walked in the single file required by their faith. Thinking of the green room, Nuïy understood that for this test Zehosaïtra was an incarnation of the Green Man.

At the kennels they paused. Nuïy was startled to see four pairs of initiates, among them Eletela, bringing out four autodogs of various sizes, one a golden brute with slobbering jaws, another a smaller, more elegant beast of silver and bronze. The eyes of the autodogs were like saucers, full of lenses and other sensors. Nuïy smelled oil on the breeze.

Zehosaïtra jumped astride the large dog, nodding his satisfaction to its handlers. Deomouvadaïn and Kamnaïsheva got on theirs, two carbon-fibre hounds with sabre teeth, leaving Nuïy to glance apprehensively at the silver whippet. Though it was far larger than a real whippet, it seemed to Nuïy that he would crush it if he sat on it. But, after the tiniest gesture of the head from Deomouvadaïn, he had no choice but to mount. The dog’s back creaked as his weight made it bow, but it supported him.

Zehosaïtra told his dog where they were going, and the others followed.They rode out of the Shrine and into Emeralddis. Everyone who saw them stopped what they were doing to stare, making Nuïy realise how unusual such processions were and how important he must be; and because Deomouvadaïn could not see his face he allowed himself a few moments of pride. They rode north along the centre of the street then took a left turn along the western avenue, until Nuïy smelled a salty-rotten smell and knew that the seaweed choked river was not too far away. Through gaps between houses he saw the western marsh flats.

They stopped at a green building a hundred yards long that seemed to sit in a dip in the land like a pear upon sand. Nuïy dismounted the whippet, which promptly switched itself off. He looked up at the structure. It was not stone, and seemed to be some coarse variant of hardpetal, but he knew that substance should not occur within the boundary of Emeralddis. The door was an empty hole. There were no windows. A number of pale cables sprang out from the sides, to bury themselves into the earth, like roots.

Nuïy quietly asked Kamnaïsheva, “What is this place?”

“The Percussion Lodge.”

“What is it made of?”

“Compressed papyrus leaves. The substance is related to the evil building material used in Novais and elsewhere. Because the Green Man despises petals, he gave us this.”

“Is it as good as hardpetal?”

Kamnaïsheva glared at him, and Nuïy realised he had asked a stupid question. Instinctively he knew this coarse material would be inferior to the effluvia of the flower networks, which when compressed was able to hold trillions of unit junctions in a ball the size of an egg. But nobody here would be able to admit that.

Zehosaïtra led them through a short hall and inside. Nuïy found himself in a chamber with walls of reflective green. He walked up, to see his own face stretch and yaw as imperfections in the wall altered the reflection. It was cool. The floor was matte, pierced here and there with grilles from which an earthy smell emerged. White nodes grew like nitrogen-fixing balls from pendulous extrusions, and from these matted roots sank themselves into the ground.

Deomouvadaïn and Zehosaïtra sat upon the floor, pulling themselves into cushions that they found in a hall locker. Then Kamnaïsheva walked to the hall and from another locker took a great drum, a four-footer with wooden hide-fixing pegs and a mass of cables at the base like a beard. He gave it to Nuïy. The drum was far heavier than any in the Drum Houses, and Nuïy knew it must contain metal.

“Bring it to this wall,” Kamnaïsheva said. Nuïy complied. “Let it merge with the wall.”

Nuïy did not understand, but he did not need to. The free cable ends whipped and curled, causing nearby roots to follow suit, until both parts merged into a single hank of cable that linked drum to ground to wall.

Kamnaïsheva brought out a stool. “Sit, Nuïy.” He adopted the formal attitude of a teacher, before saying, “This is the test you must pass. You have already noticed that the inner walls of the Percussion Lodge are reflective. That is because they are knowledge sensitive. They manifest the identity of databases, procedures, even whole systems. When I give a codeword, streams of data will enter the banks of the Lodge. Images will form, also sounds. Using only the drum and the rhythms stored in your memory you must alter the data into a new system. This new system must manifest the heartwood of the Green Man. Do you understand so far?”

“Yes.”

“Remember that all networks are dynamic systems. Although the soil of Emeralddis is rigid with innumerable roots, they are nonetheless changing. You must be dynamic. The change you make must not be a static, surface effect. You must be ready to feel the flow of data and to respond to it in real time.”

Nuïy nodded. He understood all of this. “Very well.”

Kamnaïsheva nodded back. “Are there any final questions?”

“Is there a time limit?”

Kamnaïsheva glanced across at Zehosaïtra. “None that we have decided. But do not be tardy. The Third Cleric is a busy man.”

Nuïy said, “Then I am ready.”

“Effomnegeen!” Kamnaïsheva called.

Sensory overload. Nuïy almost jumped off his stool from the speed of the response. He sat inside a jungle of flowering vines, lianas everywhere carrying massive pink blooms like lips, above him nets of blue and purple flowers, far off at the end of the Lodge fronds of red and orange clematis. Water trickled, insects stridulated, and he thought he even smelled the scent of the blooms. The shock made him quiver, but soon, as he remembered that this was a manifestation of thousands of databases interacting to mimic a jungle, he controlled himself. He gripped the drum between his knees. Already his memory was flinging out the contents of rhythmic compartments. Soon a tentative structure built itself before his mind’s eye. He heard it resonate in his mind’s ear.

Go!

He drummed. The hide was warm and bone dry, so it resonated to perfection. No slackness in this device. Every rhythmic sequence sent data metaphors directly into the system.

He began by sending leaf data in an attempt to change the inner structure of the flowers to that of leaves. Some of this was successful; he saw blue flowers turn green, saw petals go flat. He repeated successful rhythmic sequences, building up a data into a series of waves so perfectly timed the networks seemed to throb in synchrony. When he had changed every flower above him he realised that he was succeeding. Now he had proved the power of his skill, he must look and hear deeper, to change the jungle itself into a cool, leafy glade, with thick trunks and mossy boughs, suitable for the presence of the Green Man.

After fifteen minutes of slow drumming he had altered every flower to a leaf, but then he saw that new flowers were curling out of buds with time-lapse speed, glowing with the intensity of their yellows, oranges, and reds. Nuïy brought in faster, more complex rhythms, adding fills to crush the chirrupping sound into something more like a soughing breeze among leaves.

More flowers grew. So this was the dynamic quality that Kamnaïsheva had warned of; the Lodge had its own systems, and they wanted the jungle back. Now he was fighting, competing against a great inhuman brain.

This excited him. He revelled in the challenge. He had no doubt that he could convert this abomination of a jungle into cool forest.

He drummed on. To give himself more memory he stopped tracking real time. He immersed himself into the jungle, feeling hate and disgust in his mind as he did so. He wanted nothing more than to convert this place—that seemed like a nightmare from his childhood—into the clean green of the Green Man. He felt that if he succeeded, the Green Man himself would notice him.

Choosing new metaphors of growth and change, of the cycle of leaf to humus to nutrient to leaf, he attacked the systems, forcing the jungle to accept colder rain, to put down deeper roots, to alter the thinness of the soil into something cooler, deeper, more rocky. By forcing biomass to enter the soil and leave the jungle itself, he achieved a new depth that the jungle could not fight. Its shallow diversity was no match for simple depth. Nuïy smelled humus, felt cold rain on his skin, and heard the sounds of thrushes, owls, and, far above him, a lark. Because he felt
right
sitting in this environment he was able to use feedback from his own senses, enriching the forest, making the leaves grow, banishing insects, creating tough bark and thick roots and chunky acorns.

The forest responded. Slim green saplings sprang up just yards away, and he felt new leaves caressing his skin as they shot up around him. Rainfall ceased, the heavens cleared and the sun came out. Birdsong deafened him. Leaves were all around now, almost suffocating him, as the glade he had created became a small opening, then just a gap between huge trunks and leaf-loaded boughs.

The intensity suffocated him, but he loved it. He felt as if the Green Man had manifested. Leaves and branches struck his skin, and his feet stood upon damp soil. Down through the forest the sun shone in columns angled away from the vertical, creating pools of light that he could just see through the press of leaves. He heard deer. He felt badgers tunnelling below his feet. He was
here.

A distant voice tried to pierce the forest noise. It reminded him of his own voice. A growling, phlegmy voice. Another drifted beside it, deep, possibly angry. Nuïy could only concentrate on the forest. He had stopped drumming. His limbs seemed paralyzed as he breathed in the beauty of the forest.

The voices were closing—

“NUIY!”

The voice yelled into his ear. He fell off his stool. He smelled the breath of the shouter. His vision was poor, blurred, particularly in his right eye.

Two men were pushing through the undergrowth. Deomouvadaïn and Zehosaïtra. Nuïy watched with horror as their green streaked faces closed.

“Nuïy!” they shouted, “get out!”

He was lying in a forest, an awesome, gloomy, dank—

“Nuïy! Wake up!”

Somebody grabbed his hand. He screamed and pulled it away.

A voice barked, “No, Third Cleric, he won’t. He’s physically remote. Let me get him!”

Nuïy tried to wake from the trance. He remembered something about percussion. A huge, green structure like a pear.

“Nuïy!”

He was suffocating amidst branches and leaves that entwined around his legs. Bramble and nettles caught his arms. Birds everywhere. The sun made the serrated edges of damp leaves glitter. Smell of humus.

“Nuïy! Quick!”

That was Deomouvadaïn. Nuïy tried to focus on the grizzled hair and beard, but it was difficult. The forest was dragging him deeper inside its interior. He was being sucked away from the real world. He did not mind.

A stick was thrust into his face. “Grab it!” Deomouvadaïn shouted. When he did not, Deomouvadaïn smacked it against his head. Faint pain.

When Deomouvadaïn ordered him again, he grabbed the stick. He was dragged along the peaty soil into a less dense area, full of nettles, docks and ivy. Deomouvadaïn was crawling through the undergrowth, pulling him.

He recognised a tunnel. The hall. When he saw daylight, and against that the silhouette of Kamnaïsheva, he returned to the real world, stood up, and with Deomouvadaïn at his side stumbled out of the Percussion Lodge.

The four men stood in the road. A crowd had gathered. Nuïy looked back to see the walls of the Lodge trembling, here and there twitching in the aftermath of some spasm.

“Well, lad,” Zehosaïtra said. “Well, well…”

Nuïy felt ill. He had hurt the Third Cleric perhaps. Something bad had happened, and he was the cause.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

Kamnaïsheva said, “There is nothing to apologise for. We were taken aback. You passed, Nuïy. You did far more than we expected.”

“What happened?”

“You altered the visual and sonic metaphors of the data as we hoped you would. But then you went a level deeper. The substance of the Percussion Lodge itself became malleable and manifested your streams of data. You created the physical semblance of a forest. We have never seen anything like it.”