Flowercrash (8 page)
The old man was not pleased at being disturbed. “What d’you want, leaf?”
Nuïy presented his hat. “I fear for its safety. Would you temporarily keep it for me?”
Deomouvadaïn frowned. “Why?”
“Other leaves tried to hide it.”
Deomouvadaïn snatched the hat. “All right. Now go away.”
Back at the dormitory, Eletela was at the kennels, leaving only Drowaïtash free. Nuïy asked him, “Would you get me some floorsoap so I can wash the floor? It stinks around here.”
Grumbling, Drowaïtash agreed. With trembling hands, Nuïy pounded the five leaves in water, making a sticky paste. The few drops of fluid he poured into the mug of water beside Mehmatha’s bed. Then he washed his utensils and his hands, and waited for Drowaïtash.
That night Mehmatha was taken ill with stomach convulsions. Raïtasha and a cleric carried him away. His sweating skin was white, his eyes rolled, and he vomited bile.
~
Next day, Nuïy began lessons in the Tech House. Deomouvadaïn seemed concerned by something, leaving his responses short and his lessons vague, but the day passed and Nuïy learned about listening to the networks, the types of plants, and how to focus listening leaves. But that evening in the dormitory he began to feel a sweat come over him, and when he stood up to take off his vest nausea made him fall to his knees, and then vomit. Suddenly he could not stop. The floor around his bed was covered with the remains of supper.
He heard somebody rush out, and then minutes later Raïtasha appeared, and the hospice cleric. “Can you walk, leaf?” Raïtasha asked.
Nuïy was too confused to reply. His stomach felt as if it had been kicked. But he knew who must have had their revenge. He tried to croak out the names Baïcoora and Awanshyva, but his spasming body would not let him. Then he heard another voice, a man’s phlegmy voice.
He was carried away. The night air was freezing and, despite his sweat, he shivered. Then there were bright lights and the smells of a house. Voices spoke. He was wrapped in blankets and put in a bed. The lights departed. Dark.
For the rest of the night Nuïy suffered agonising stomach cramps. Even he, who felt pain less than others, could do nothing other than roll around his bed in a nauseous nightmare, until, when morning came, he was able to sleep for a few hours.
Some hours later Deomouvadaïn walked into the room. Nuïy took the proffered mug of water and drank. His stomach rebelled, but he kept it down. “Where am I?” he asked.
“At my house.”
“I know who did it. The others in the quiet gang. Baïcoora or Awanshyva. They must be punished.”
Deomouvadaïn sat by the bed. “You say you know who did it. Who was it?”
“They stole my hat. The quiet gang, led by Mehmatha. It was one of them.”
“You wouldn’t lie to me?”
Nuïy shook his head.
Deomouvadaïn reached over and grasped Nuïy’s neck with both hands, pressing hard. He lifted Nuïy up so that his face was inches away. Nuïy choked, unable to breath, petrified that here he would be despatched.
“I said, leaf, you wouldn’t lie to me?”
Nuïy managed to shake his head.
Deomouvadaïn flung him to the bed. Nuïy’s head connected with the headboard and he saw stars.
The old man glared at him, clearly disgusted. “You lie to me, you lie to the Green Man. It’s not good. Lying is a flower trick.”
“Yes,” Nuïy managed.
“Now, then. Who poisoned you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hmph. Then who poisoned Mehmatha?”
Nuïy cringed. The game was up. He was found out. He stuttered, “It was me.”
“Did you think me such a fool as not to recognise the symptoms of galatuar poisoning?”
Close to tears, Nuïy shut his eyes. “The truth is, I did not think.”
“You didn’t think. That’s bad. Well, leaf, think now. Who d’you imagine poisoned you?”
Nuïy could not imagine. He only understood facts. “I don’t know.”
“It was me, of course. Can’t you see that?”
Nuïy stared. How could it be? He replied, “But why?”
“Only the Green Man has honour and intellect enough to judge others. You judged Mehmatha. You must be taught yer lesson.”
“But,” Nuïy protested, “you poisoned me.”
“I have the right to make humus of you. Should that ever be necessary. You are a leaf fresh from the bud. I am an old branch. I take my orders from the Green Man.”
Nuïy shut his eyes again and bemoaned his mistakes. He understood what was being said. “I’ve learned my lesson,” he muttered.
“Hmph. Let’s hope so.”
The rest of the week passed without incident. Nuïy and Mehmatha passed one another like growling autodogs, but there were no further incidents and Nuïy’s property was left alone. But he felt insecure. He knew that tensions would boil up again as his career moved ever further away from theirs, and he knew he must choke down his desire for revenge, or devise some plan to avoid his dormitory enemies. He wondered if he could exploit the two youths on his side. But no. Eletela was a buffoon, who only ate and worked in the kennels, while Drowaïtash was too sly to be trusted. Nuïy decided to rely on himself. It was always the safest bet, he reflected.
One night, Nuïy was woken by a cleric and taken to Deomouvadaïn’s house. The old man met him in the hall. Closing and locking the front door, he smiled at Nuïy and led him into a side room.
“Is there any difficulty?” Nuïy asked.
“Not yet. There is something you must do. Must learn.”
“What?”
“Follow me upstairs.”
Nuïy did as he was told. Deomouvadaïn opened a door and told him to enter. Nuïy stepped slowly into a small room. On a low bed lay a naked woman, her legs apart, her arms flung out, her eyes wide and bright. Deomouvadaïn closed the door. Nuïy looked again at the woman. He had never before seen a woman like this. She had oiled her thighs, between them too, so that the gash he saw seemed like a slobbering mouth. Nuïy stared at the triangle of black hair. He thought he could smell her body scent. Appalled, he stepped back. Deomouvadaïn caught him and thrust him forward. Nuïy was so shocked he forgot he had been touched.
“You must experience this before learning to control yerself,” Deomouvadaïn explained. “Un-men will trap you. If you’ve no experience of what they offer there always remains the possibility of succumbing to temptation. You can’t remain inexperienced if you’re to be of use to the Green Man.”
“But,” Nuïy began, “I will not be touched. I cannot do such a vile thing.”
“You must. There’s no alternative. You must show yer control of the un-men by ravishing this one.”
“You do not understand. I will not have my skin touched. I cannot grapple with this un-man.”
Deomouvadaïn replied, “You must. The Green Man can’t trust you if you remain inexperienced.”
“But I cannot.”
“Take off yer breeches. Mount the un-man, then insert yer cock inside the slit. Yer cock will go hard. Do it.”
“No!”
Deomouvadaïn pulled off Nuïy’s cloak, then shoved him toward the bed. “Do it. You will dominate the un-man.”
The woman stared in horror at Nuïy’s deformed belly. Nuïy likewise stared at her. Without looking at what he was doing, he loosened his breeches and let them fall to the floor. Deomouvadaïn shoved him again, so hard that he tripped over the end of the bed, and fell to the woman.
With a cry he twisted his body to avoid her. He slumped to the floor, then leaped up like a cornered animal. Deomouvadaïn stared at him, then strode over, hands bunched into fists.
“Get on top of that un-man,” he demanded.
He reached out to grab Nuïy, but Nuïy, terror surging within him, struck out with both fists, punching left, right, left, right, with his head down, screaming out: Deomouvadaïn was caught unawares by a fury. Then Nuïy lost all control. He grabbed a metal urn and swung out at the old man, screaming incoherently, until Deomouvadaïn was pushed back to the door, with blood on his head and hands. The woman cowered in the opposite corner, curled in a ball.
“Nuïy!” Deomouvadaïn yelled. “Nuïy, stop!”
Nuïy did not hear. He struck again and again. But then Deomouvadaïn managed to grab the urn and throw it aside, and then kick out at Nuïy’s legs and floor him. Nuïy’s head hit the floor and he blacked out for a fraction of a second. A weight pressed on him. His arms and legs were entangled in a blanket. Deomouvadaïn’s bloody face stared down at him.
Before the cleric could speak, Nuïy shouted, “You betrayed me, you pink flower! You betrayed the Green Man by making me unite with the enemy. That is pure evil! You have done evil to the heartwood of the Green Man! We are men, we are not un-men, and we will have nothing to do with them. I will never touch them, never,
never,
until I become humus. Do you hear me? I will not be touched!”
Deomouvadaïn, his breath coming hoarse, said, “Nuïy, calm down. Just quiet. Lie still.”
Nuïy struggled to be released. Even through the blanket he could feel the touch of the old man. “No! Leave me alone. You cannot touch me!”
Deomouvadaïn struck Nuïy on the chin.
“Nghhhhhh…”
~
Nuïy awoke.
He was lying in a bed. The same bed as before. He must be in Deomouvadaïn’s house still. Well, not for much longer, now he had struck the Recorder-Shaman. He was out.
He raised his head to see Deomouvadaïn standing at the door. Their eyes met, and then he let his head drop onto the bolster. He said nothing.
“Now, then,” Deomouvadaïn said. “What do we do now?”
“Throw me to the streets,” Nuïy answered. “I know the penalties for assault.”
“Hmph. Let’s not be so hasty.”
Nuïy remained silent. He dared not hope… he did not want to have hope. He could not stay here with this stain on his character. He looked up again to see the bruises and cuts on Deomouvadaïn’s face.
The old man approached. “We must decide what to do,” he said. “I can see now that you won’t have congress. But how do we get around the dilemma?”
“The Green Man must release me. I will scavenge on the streets of Emeralddis, and die in poverty.”
“That’s unnecessarily pessimistic.”
Nuïy groaned. He had failed. “There is no way out.”
“There’s one way.”
Nuïy sat up. “What?”
“You must swear the most awful oath to the Green Man that you’ll never lie with an un-man. I’m able to witness this.”
“I’ll do it.”
“If you break the oath, you’ll become humus. You can’t doubt that.”
“I’ll do it!”
Deomouvadaïn sighed. “One final problem remains. Oaths sworn on the Green Man require the grasping of hands.”
Nuïy took an oak statuette from the table at the side of the bed and replied, “You hold one end and I will hold the other. We will be connected through the heartwood of the Green Man.”
Deomouvadaïn hesitated, then said, “All right. Now, then. Swear after me. I swear by the wrath of the Green Man that I, Nuïy of the Shrine of the Green Man, shall never have congress with an un-man, until I make humus.”
Nuïy repeated the oath.
Deomouvadaïn stood. “Now go back to yer dormitory. I needn’t remind you of the penalty for telling secrets.”
“You need not remind me,” Nuïy confirmed.
After this incident Nuïy was treated with noticeable respect by Deomouvadaïn, and even by Raïtasha. Nuïy conjectured that his deeds had been mentioned in the upper hierarchy, but he drew no comfort from that. Instead he applied himself to his work, which now took up most evenings, collecting his yellow hat from Deomouvadaïn, then going with him or some other Tech House cleric to continue learning in the plant network chambers.
Another week passed. He began to understand the subtleties of recording through sonic means, and acquired a knack of noting down information passing along the most tenuous of networks. Sometimes he was asked to monitor Veneris networks, and his heart thumped when he thought of the secrets he might overhear, secrets perhaps emerging from the Shrine of the crones itself.
He rejected all drugs. Soon it was realised that he did not need them. In the rarified atmosphere of the chambers he was considered a freak, but he did not mind this. He revelled in his uniqueness. He considered himself apart from the ordinary branches, who came in with minds entranced, deciding in the privacy of his own mind that he was a natural shaman.
But the task of passive recording began to grate after a while. He found his mind drifting as Deomouvadaïn discussed sonic techniques, or the best shorthand to use when working. His mind was a bottomless sea of facts. He realised he wanted to make them active.
Then one day, as he sat with headphones on his ears concentrating on the hissing voices of the networks, a shadow on the wall before him made him look up, then turn around. Deomouvadaïn stood there beside another man. The newcomer was tall, with black cropped hair, heavy beard, and fierce green eyes. He was tubby, almost flabby about the chest and stomach, but he looked strong.
Nuïy flipped off the headphones. “Recorder-Shaman?” he said.
“Hmph. Nuïy, this is Kamnaïsheva. He wants to speak with you. Kamnaïsheva is the Analyst-Drummer of the Green Man.”
CHAPTER 5
There’s going to be a flower crash!
Manserphine knew this as she floated before her alter ego in the bubble space of her vision. The mermaid of these lucid dreams was silent today, but all around her floated a framework of purest white, phosphorescent in the blue tinted water like the remains of a ghostly diatom. Manserphine understood through the intuitive logic of her visions that this structure represented the potential for good. She floated up to the mermaid and tried to speak, but her lips were numb and her tongue seemed glued to the roof of her mouth, so she was forced to collect information by gesture and through flashes of insight.
From the mouth of the mermaid a bouquet emerged, its flowers every colour of the rainbow, plus black and white, and an eighth, almost luminous colour that she knew must represent ultra-violet. These flowers expanded into lines and spots of colour, then somehow
dissolved
into the fluid around Manserphine, like ink into sand. With them went the white structure. Manserphine felt loneliness, and regret for the passing of colour and good. She understood that there really was going to be a flower crash: the flowers represented the networks, and hence goodness.
All around her the leached colour coalesced like oil into small globes that seemed to beseech her. They wanted to be saved, or so it seemed to her. She was beset by thousands of tiny pleas, the innocent wishes of children, and it was all she could do to stop herself reaching out and gathering them to her breast, where she knew they would be safe. She sensed that she was somehow important to Zaïdmouth. Then foresight took her. With the mermaid watching she looked up into sun soaked heights, took a deep breath, and rose, to emerge like a geyser and explode into pigmented rain, which fertilised all about, turning grey ground into stained grass.
There’s going to be a flower crash!
Manserphine returned to the reality of her room. The choking scents of honeysuckle and lemon filled the air, and she began coughing. Hundreds of insects filled the room, whirring around her head, smacking into her, their saw-tooth buzzing filling her sensorium. She was frightened. They crawled up her legs. They struggled in her hair. Panicking, she ran to the window and opened it, whereupon the insects threw themselves as one into the air and sped south over the roof of the inn. Manserphine was left gasping on the floor, her nose streaming and her eyes itching, the memories of the vision fresh in her mind, symbolising all the knowledge she had acquired.
She was exhausted. The power of the vision had drained her. She flopped onto her bed, too tired to dress, and lay slowly freezing as the winter air outside sank into the room. Her bare skin first goosebumped then turned pale. After some time the sense that she was trapped in a paralysed body overcame her, and she forced her icy limbs into motion, closing the window then pulling on her gown. Unsteadily she walked downstairs, to sit before the fire.
Vishilkaïr entered the common room. “Hello. You look ill.”
“I’m just cold.”
He walked over and put a hand on her arm. “You’re frozen. Honestly, you have Kirifaïfra to look after you and you still manage to hurt yourself.”
“Stop fussing.”
Vishilkaïr ignored her. “I must make you a hot toddy. Let me see… plenty of nutmeg, plenty of stingwort, and a touch of the firewater.” He took a glass, a bottle, and poured a three-finger tot. “Add some whiskey… there we are. Drink that.”
Manserphine gratefully took a sip of the liquor. She walked to the bay window and looked out. In the distance lay the sea, grey and blue, criss-crossed with streaks of morning light. Tears formed in her eyes as she watched its rippling motion. She sobbed, and the tears ran down her cheeks, until she was weeping from the longing in her heart. She wanted to skip across dunes of sand, walk along the shore into an evening sun, through the night, then return to greet the morning sun, barefoot, with the breeze in her hair. She wanted to find strangely coiled shells, pieces of rounded wood, odd stones and lumps of metal. She wanted to pick up a lump of amber and reflect on the insect inside.
Kirifaïfra’s strong arms turned her, and she buried her head in the pinny he wore. Her tears soaked his undershirt.
“What is it?” he murmured.
“I want to go there.”
“Where?”
She looked up at him. Vishilkaïr stood at his side, concern in his face. “To ocean," she said. “I’m in the wrong place. I should be by the sea. I should have gone down to the Shrine of the Sea when I was a girl.”
“Surely not.”
Manserphine entertained a thought. “I will go. Now.” She struggled to be free of Kirifaïfra, but he would not let her go. “I must go.”
“You’ve not mentioned all this before,” Kirifaïfra said sternly. “Why should you suddenly want to go down there? Aequalaïs isn’t safe.”
“Don’t be so suspicious. You’ve only heard silly rumours. They are noble and strong and their speech flows like the tide.”
Kirifaïfra tutted. “That’s just an old story you’ve picked up off the networks.”
True. Manserphine could feel the longing ebb, but she struggled once more. “Let me go.”
Kirifaïfra hesitated, then freed her. Manserphine straightened her dress. “Another whiskey,” she said to Vishilkaïr.
It was over. The echo of her surf yearning remained in her mind, but her emotions were quiet, like a deep well at night. She dried her face. This had happened before. After intense visions she would be desperate to see and hear the sea, to smell salty air and wonder at the perfectly flat horizon.
She sighed.
Her drink arrived. “I’m free of it,” she muttered. “Bring me a menu, I’m starving.”
Later that afternoon Pollonzyn arrived at the Determinate Inn asking after Manserphine. The pair sat on the bay window seat, Pollonzyn with ale, Manserphine with a seaweed vodka.
Pollonzyn said, “Cirishnyan has knowledged me regarding a favour we require from you.”
“Flowered up.”
“There was a theft from our floral home bed, a few hours after flower- open. A whole calyxful of abstract petals were stolen from our memories. Cirishnyan suspects the crones. Given that suspicion, she wondered if you could investigate.”
“Scented. Shall we walk after this watering?”
They drank up, then departed for Novais. At the Shrine of Flower Sculpture, Manserphine was shown into a chamber to the rear, where she found irregular beds full of winter flowering blooms, their inner screens twinkling in the soft light of a dozen wall tulips. The chamber was empty except for Cirishnyan, who sat alone, a mournful expression on her face.
Manserphine approached. “Good pollen to you,” she greeted the cleric.
“There has been a terrible theft,” Cirishnyan replied in a doleful voice.
Manserphine sat at the nearest flowers and examined their screens. These being winter blooms, the screens were granular, as if she was looking through frosted glass, and the data windows below were somewhat difficult to follow. From an inner pocket she withdrew her insect pen, a device made to mimic the pollen gathering attributes of a species of insect, which allowed for network manipulation without the presence of actual insects. Like most pens, the end was shaped as a generic bee, which lacked the precision of a pen made to mimic a particular insect but which made for ease of use amongst more than one species of flower.
“What exactly was removed?” she asked.
“Abstract petals. They all related to gardening with softpetal.”
“What fragrance of gardening?”
Cirishnyan sighed. “Large scale—fortresses, walls, all unusual petals, nothing subtle.”
Manserphine pulled the nearest screen towards her, holding it so that it was a foot from her face. She touched the bee end of her pen onto the black stamens, until, after a few experiments, she had the sense of how the data windows moved with the movement of her pen. The flowing intuition of one familiar with flower technology then came upon her. She followed the abstract trail of the raiders until she had dumped all the data into a memory root. She frowned. So far she had not needed to use any knowledge of her own Shrine; anyone here at the Shrine of Flower Sculpture could have done this. By now she would have expected to have noticed a clue, some hint of her fellow clerics.
“I’ve sent the data to a root," she told Cirishnyan. “Let’s see what fragrance it is.”
They watched data flow across the nine inch screen of a giant snow- magnolia, orange and yellow against a frosty green background, but Manserphine was again struck by the quality of the trail. Clerics of Our Sister Crone used carefully tested methods that manifested a certain depth, frequently following the pattern of the act of arousal as enjoyed by some incarnations Our Sister Crone; preparation of the goal, expansion, then a series of data-catches from all across the relevant network, ending in a series of four or five sudden transactions. Nothing like this was evident. Nor did it follow the pattern of numerous shallow events, which characterised the work of clerics from the Shrine of Flower Sculpture.
What, then? “I think I shall play this data as a series of sounds,” Manserphine said.
Cirishnyan hissed her displeasure. “That is leaf knowledge!”
“Scentless,” Manserphine replied, shaking her head. “They garden with sound to the exclusion of almost everything else. We garden enjoying all our senses, as was meant to be.”
Cirishnyan remained unhappy, but she let Manserphine continue. Eventually Manserphine had a recording that approximated speech. She played it. Familiar… she played it once more.
“I have it!” she cried.
“What?”
“By converting the fragrance of the abstract petal theft into a kind of speech I’ve interpreted the thoughts behind it. I
hear
who the thieves are.”
“Who?” demanded Cirishnyan and Pollonzyn together.
“Clerics from the Shrine of the Sea.”
They gasped.
“There is no doubt. I recognise the heaving, ebb-and-flow fragrance of this data.”
Cirishnyan sighed, then cursed in some secret flower-tongue, and while Manserphine did not understand it she recognised the anger on the cleric’s face.
“This is an unfortunate reservation,” Cirishnyan told Manserphine. “I had wished that your intimate understanding of the crone meadow would aid us here, but if we are pestered by the saltysands we have no chance of discovering what gardening they have.”
Manserphine considered this. “Perhaps, or perhaps not.” In silence she considered what had happened to her during recent weeks. She felt as if the direction of her life had shifted slowly toward the south. It was as if her inner face regarded the sea. She did not know why this should be, but she knew it to be true. One option stood out. A visit to Aequalaïs.
“Scentless!” cried a shocked Cirishnyan when Manserphine voiced her thoughts.
“It is not so perilous,” Manserphine insisted. “The sand meadow itself is little known, that is all. It is saltysands home bed that offers peril.”
“I cannot sanction such a visit.”
Manserphine shrugged. “I am not grafted to you. I am Interpreter at crone meadow. If I want to visit, then I shall.”
“But why can you not explore their meadow from our bed here?”
“Of all the meadows, the sandy one is the most isolated. I can only explore fully from the inside, so gardening from here would gather me little. Their flower networks comprise a shoreline ecology.”
“But I shall feel guilty,” said Cirishnyan.
“You need not. I agreed to garden for you, remember. The deed did not involve force.”
Cirishnyan nodded. “Then I shall aid you. Should you go.”
“I think I shall go.”
“I shall request Dustspirit for aid.”
Manserphine thought back to her encounter with the spirit in the motes. “Scentless. I fear Dustspirit. That is, I fear her fragrance.”
Cirishnyan frowned and seemed close to an outburst. Pollonzyn moved to steady her, but Cirishnyan waved her away, saying, “I need no trellis! Manserphine, you must understand that Dustspirit is a purity of good colour. Fearing her is insulting her.”
Manserphine looked away. The tension eased as silent seconds passed.
At length Cirishnyan said, “There is one other petal of aid I can offer. A gynoid.”
Manserphine nodded, eager to please the scowling cleric. “Scented. A strong gynoid, full of pollen.”
“Flowered up. Knowledge me via Pollonzyn tomorrow regarding when you depart.”
Manserphine departed the Shrine and returned to Veneris. Early evening enshadowed Zaïdmouth, and from low clouds snow fell, a light scattering that froze to the hard earth but melted on her face. As she walked, she wondered if she was doing the right thing. Yes, of course: it was the right option and it was the right time. Her banishment allowed her a certain freedom, which she must exploit. If the networks she wanted to explore were in Aequalaïs then there she must go, and if her own life was somehow linked to that urb, then all the more reason.
After a tot of whiskey with Vishilkaïr she retired to bed. A few minutes later there came a loud crash from the adjacent corridor. Nobody stirred downstairs. Wondering if at last there was another guest, Manserphine walked along her corridor to its end, where she looked right and left. She was surprised to see Kirifaïfra walking away towards his door, naked, water running down his back and legs, steaming slightly in the cold air. She stared. His physique was as striking as his face, marred only by a scar traced down his back like a yard of string. She caught her breath in case he heard her. Guilty at this voyeurism, yet unable to resist, she watched him pause at his door, push it open with his toe, then stroll in.
She returned to bed, where she tried to settle. The incident played on her mind. Kirifaïfra’s natural ease intrigued her, and she wondered why neither Vishilkaïr nor Omdaton had come to investigate.
~
Next day Pollonzyn arrived to consider the details of the expedition, but through overhearing their conversation Vishilkaïr came to know what they were planning. He tried to dissuade Manserphine, but she was resolute.
“It is my task,” she insisted. “Let me do what I must do.”