The War of the Flowers

  Instead of going over into the inviting darkness he was yanked backward into the boat so abruptly that the air whooshed out of his lungs and he bumped his head on the boat's other rail as he fell. The whole craft swayed alarmingly as he struggled onto the bench again. The swift pressure of Coathook's talons still hurt his arm even after the goblin had let go. Cumber had not moved, but was watching with startled eyes. Theo looked at his companions, then back at the glimmering shape beneath the surface. It had slowed its pace and they were beginning to pull away. The lean, predatory features no longer looked quite so human. He thought he could feel a certain disappointment emanate from it that lingered in his mind like a faint odor even after the swimming shape vanished into the depths.

  Theo was trembling and breathing hard, as though he had actually been pulled into the water and had been forced to struggle for his life. The nymph-band around his wrist seemed hot and tight, chafing his skin. He nodded at Coathook to show that he was grateful, that he understood. He thought he understood, anyway. He suspected that the thing in the water had been much more interested in him than his two companions.

  There's such a fine line here, he thought, between a useful reminder and getting yourself killed. Or worse. Coathook's paddling was so smooth and silent that Theo did not realize for some moments that the goblin had stopped and that the boat was stopping too. They were in among the pilings of a dock, but although what he could see of the dock was made of wood, the posts were cylinders of ancient stone that loomed through the river-mist like a half-submerged Stonehenge. A soaked and deteriorating wooden ladder tied to the nearest one led up through a hatch toward the purpling sky. The goblin drew his hand across his mouth again, reminding them to be silent, then pointed to the ladder. As Theo got unsteadily to his feet and clambered up, moving far enough for Cumber to climb out behind him, Coathook made another sign, this one unrecognizable, and then turned the little boat around; within a few heartbeats he had disappeared into the roil of fog. Theo looked down at Cumber with wide eyes. The ferisher seemed almost as alarmed as Theo was, but only shrugged. Perhaps he had known Coathook was not going to wait for them, but it was strange that the goblin had not even mentioned coming back to pick them up. Theo found it hard not to feel a bit betrayed.

  What do you want? he chided himself. You're not the center of his universe or Button's, either. You wanted to go and get yourself killed trying to help a friend. Well, they helped you get here. Now you're on your own.

  He climbed the ladder, pausing to gather his courage before thrusting his head through the open hatch. The catwalk of weathered timbers was empty and the warehouse wall featureless, a long stretch of salt-stained boards with only the smallest remnant of its original coat of white paint. He wanted to ask Cumber how this broken-down barn could be the headquarters of one of the most dangerous creatures in Faerie, but if the creaking ladder hadn't already alerted the occupants that someone was out here, he didn't want to do its job for it.

  The ferisher came up behind him and crouched. Together they listened to the slap of waves on the pilings below, the cries of waterbirds, and, briefly, a distant voice rising above the other noises in a snatch of quaveringly alien song. Theo took a breath and stood, then followed the catwalk around toward the side of the building away from the water. They were at the end of a long stone pier that pushed out at least a hundred yards into the Moonflood just a short distance from where it joined Ys. A line of ramshackle buildings in different shapes and sizes covered the pier all the way to the end, as though some weird circus train had ground to a shuddering, bumping halt a moment before it would have rolled off into the water. But if the building they were to enter was the train's engine, it did not look the part: it was a featureless rectangle with no visible windows. In the pre-dawn light its high blank sides gave it the look of some ancient stone slab, the foundations of an antediluvian temple where screaming victims had once been sacrificed.

  Steady, Theo told himself. Don't make it worse than it is. But the windowless walls disturbed him. Who lived like that? Who would build a long low box like this at the end of a pier and leave no openings to the ocean breeze, no view of the estuary and the sea? He suddenly saw the building as something different, not a temple, not an edifice at all, but the shell of some immense, angular thing.

  Instead of being in character with the rest of the structure, the door set in the side of the building was a small and quite ordinary thing of windscoured wood with a single tarnished bronze handle, as though someone had built a storage closet into the base of the Sphinx. Theo looked at Cumber, who seemed one loud noise away from running for his life — not that Theo blamed him: In fact, I'd be right behind him. He reached out his trembling hand toward the latch. This is crazy, he thought. It's a warehouse. Even if it's full of monsters or guys with guns or . . . or whatever, on the outside it's just a warehouse and I'm not psychic. Why should I feel like I'm about to walk through the Gates of Hades?

  Before he could touch it, the door silently swung open. Theo gasped and jumped back, half-expecting something slimy and otherworldly to stretch a tentacle out of the darkness and yank him in, but no such appendage appeared. The door remained open. The darkness beyond remained impenetrable.

  Whoever, whatever . . . they must know we're here. No use trying to sneak up on them. Still, he didn't feel like shouting "Hello!" either. "Do we have a light?" he whispered.

  Cumber, bug-eyed and unable to look away from that dark opening, shook his head several times before he realized what Theo had asked and turned the headshake into a nod. He fumbled out a small witchlight sphere like the one he had produced in the underground garage. He ran his thumb across it and passed it to Theo as it bloomed into a swampy glow.

  As Theo stepped through the door the first thing he noticed was that the glow didn't seem to go very far — that it showed him his own legs and arms and a suggestion of a flat vertical surface beside him that might be a wall, but did not illuminate the greater darkness. All he could see for certain was that the dark, carpeted floor seemed to go on for some distance. He was also aware — he couldn't have missed it — of a powerful unpleasant smell. The sour-sweet odor was frighteningly similar to the thing that had found him three different times in three different rotting bodies, but after a moment he realized this smell was more complicated, a combination of scents that had putrefaction in it, but also strange sweet spices and the vigorous essence of growing things, the smell of a fistful of wet mud and spring grass bumping improbably against the reek of burning sulfur, of whiskey and cinnamon and excrement and other far less recognizable things all jumbled together until it made his eyes water.

  Strange as it was, he couldn't really waste time considering it, not with his heart thumping like some insanely overhyped click-track as he edged forward through the near-darkness, brandishing what he was beginning to think was a faulty witchlight. He reached out toward the spot where it looked like there might be a wall and was relieved to find something cool, hard, and ever so slightly damp. He slid his foot forward and found that the solid floor continued. He bent, holding the globe at the height of his shoetops, and suddenly the hallway began to grow brighter.

  "Theo . . . ?"

  "Ssshh!" It happened quickly but smoothly and had nothing whatsoever to do with the witchlight in his hand. Within a few moments he could see that they were standing at one end of a long hallway with matte-black walls on both sides and a carpet of the same shade beneath their feet. At the far end, basking in a little directionless glow of its own, a door with a golden nameplate waited.

  I wonder whose name is on that? But it was only a tiny flick of curiosity in the midst of dread, like a bird flying just ahead of a storm. He looked at Cumber. Cumber looked back. It was pretty clear to Theo that if either one of them suggested turning around instead of walking down that long, black hallway toward the door, the other would agree.

  Applecore, he reminded himself. Applecore with that corkscrew. Fighting with that thing to help someone she did
n't even know. Despite the carpet which all but silenced their footfalls, by the time they reached the door Theo felt like they were walking across bubble-wrap in stone shoes, each step excruciatingly loud. The weird odors were making him light-headed, but instead of reducing his inhibitions it made him feel like the worst sort of stoned, paranoid teenager stuck at a stoplight next to a cop car.

  The nameplate had the word "Enter" scratched on it in a crude, almost childish hand. As he watched, the word ran off the golden rectangle like water; a moment later the word "Push" appeared in its place.

  Is that somebody's little joke? Anger gave back a little of his bravery, although it was stretched thinly over a great deal of raw terror. He reached out and shoved the door open, then stepped through.

  The room beyond was completely unexpected after the featureless hallway. Jumbled mountains of objects stretched yards above his head on all sides, thousands of unfathomable things scattered seemingly at random, as if someone had crashed an old-fashioned pharmacy into a particularly disturbing toy shop at high speed, then liberally sprinkled the wreckage with the contents of the Library of Alexandria. Pinkish-purple dawn light streamed down from oblong windows high above, illuminating the piles so that it all looked a bit like a stage set or a Disneyland ride.

  Dazzled and overwhelmed, Theo did not notice the massive figure in the shadows behind him until it reached an arm around his chest and immobilized him, then pinioned his head with its other huge hand. The arm across his torso was so tight that after he let out his breath in a panicked gust he could get no air back in again. He was lifted up until he dangled helplessly above the floor, struggling unsuccessfully to breathe. Sparks danced before his eyes. Everything turned red, then black.

  ————— Even though someone was speaking to him, he was not at first aware that he was awake, or where he was, or even precisely who he was. The voice itself was a strange thing, insubstantial as wind stirring a pile of leaves, but oddly loud, as though the person speaking might be small enough to sit inside his ear.

  ". . . Your pardon," the breathy voice was saying. "They are not very subtle, I'm afraid. You are awake, aren't you?"

  Memory came back, and with it a quickening of his heart, which did not help his pounding head any.

  Not good. Something not good happening. Theo was lying on the floor. Cumber lay beside him, arms at his sides like a toy put neatly back in its box, his face covered by a semi-transparent membrane so unexpected and baffling that for a wretched second Theo thought the ferisher had been skinned.

  "Don't worry, he's not dead," the invisible presence explained. "It's a caul. He's sleeping. I wanted to speak to you alone."

  Theo got up into a crouch, looking from side to side trying to discover the source of the voice.

  "I'm in the room with you," his captor told him. "But you really don't want to see me. You'll be happier where you are." Theo pretended to look for the Remover, if that was indeed who the speaker was, but meanwhile he was getting his feet under him, unobtrusively balancing himself to move quickly. Half his mind was screaming at him just to run for the door and keep running, Cumber Sedge and even Applecore be damned, but he was also wondering how far and how fast he could drag the unconscious ferisher and what it was that had manhandled them both so easily in the first place.

  He turned and grabbed at Cumber, but no sooner did his fingers touch his companion's clothes than a pair of pale shapes almost as big as ogres but much stiffer in their movements stepped out of the shadows near the doorway. Theo froze as the things walked slowly toward him and stopped a few yards away. They looked like living statues, crude ones at that, their features barely defined in the chalky white flesh, the eyes black dots that he recognized a startled moment later were nothing more than holes punched into the heavy, dead faces.

  "Please," the voice said, "do not challenge them. They are not very subtle, the mandragora, and I would prefer not to have to wait for you to regain consciousness again."

  "Mandragora . . . ?" The twinned faces stared at him, unmoving, impassive. They might have just arrived from their perches atop the cliffs of Easter Island.

  "Children of the mandrake. Each slave has been carved from one of the great roots. Very time-consuming, actually, and finding the roots is a long and boring and dangerous process, but once you've got them they're very useful. Incredibly strong and about as much sensitivity to pain as a steam locomotive. But, as I said, not extremely good with more complicated tasks like grappling someone without crushing them to death. I truly did not wish them to be so rough with you."

  "I've seen one of these before." Theo slowly disentangled his hand from Cumber's coat. Keep the Remover talking — that seemed the best bet right now. Maybe it wasn't as bad as it seemed. Maybe he treated all his guests this way. "There was one in Daffodil House. Just before . . ."

  "Yes." The Remover actually sounded a little regretful. "A waste of a great root, and really for no purpose except to allow Hellebore to gloat." "You . . . you know about that?" He suddenly realized that not only was he helpless, this person, whoever he was, might be more of an ally of the Hellebore faction than Button or Primrose had known. He might already have contacted them. "Did you do it? Did you help them do that?"

  The Remover did not sound overly disturbed. "The dragons, you mean? No, no — Nidrus Hellebore is quite capable of thinking up something like that on his own. Oh, yes, he certainly is." His voice had an odd note in it. Theo looked around the room again and saw that the shadows seemed darker in the room's north corner. He even thought he saw a little movement. The Remover must be sitting there watching him from the depths of that insane clutter, like a dragon crouched on its hoard.

  "What are you going to do with me?" To his surprise the Remover laughed, not an arch-villain's chortle but an honest wheeze of near-breathless amusement. "You know, I can't really say, at least not in the short term. In the long term . . . well, I'll explain. But at the moment, I'm just trying to appreciate the irony."

  "Irony?" It seemed he was going to be allowed to survive for at least another few minutes. Theo began surreptitiously to examine his surroundings. Now that his eyes were adjusting to the dim light, he was even more certain that he had discerned the Remover's position: far back in the corner, half-hidden by a ring of draped statuary, was something that looked a bit like a high-backed chair occupied by a very complicated shadow. Theo took a step toward it.

  "Don't!" the voice said. "I told you — you will not like what you see."

  "I've seen all kinds of shit since I've been here. How much worse can it be?"

  "You'd be surprised," the voice told him. "Besides, it is not entirely your feelings I am concerned with. I am . . . ashamed of what I have become." Theo retreated a few steps. What little he could see of the thing in the chair was certainly unsettling — a suggestion of stick-like limbs, but also of membranous folds and glistening wetness. "Okay. You said . . . irony." "Yes. It is ironic that I expended so much effort to bring you to me, and failed so completely, and yet here you are in my place of business. Voluntarily." Again came the whispering laugh.

  "What do you mean?" "The irrha that I sent to capture you — that one that is still no doubt hunting you. Do you have any idea what sort of energy it costs to summon such a thing out of the old, dead places? And what mostly forgotten skills are necessary to keep it in the breathing world for such a long time?"

  "You sent that thing after me?" His panic, which had eased for a moment, came rushing back like a fever chill. "Then . . . then you are working for Hellebore." So all this had been for nothing. Not only hadn't he found a way to free Applecore, he had saved the bad guys the trouble of waiting until he reached Hellebore House. "God, I really am an idiot."

  "Perhaps. But it's a bit more complicated than that. I had hoped for just this chance, the chance to have you to myself. The irrha is a creature of instincts, but it is compelled by the summoning. In this case, it's compelled to do only one thing — to seize you and bring you here, to this p
lace."

  "So you can turn me over to Hellebore, get the credit, earn a tidy little commission." Theo looked over to where Cumber lay on the floor, caulfaced, his chest moving shallowly. "You bastard. I should make you kill me — or make your big old root monsters kill me. Better than letting Hellebore and Thornapple get their hands on me." A thought wiggled up through the anger and fear. "But I'll make a bargain with you. Let him go." He pointed to Cumber. "They don't care about him. Let him go and I'll let them take me quietly."

  "Interesting." The tone was flat. "You would do that for a friend? What they plan for you is terrible, you know. And not just for you." Theo suddenly recalled Lord Hollyhock's speculations on the afternoon that Daffodil House burned. "You're talking about Old Night, aren't you? What they're planning to do to the rest of the mortal world. Some kind of black magic tidal wave . . ." And even as he said it Theo realized that he could not afford to sacrifice himself for Cumber Sedge, for Applecore, for anyone. He had no idea what he was supposed to know but he could not take the risk. He turned abruptly and bolted for the door.

  It was a near-miss, or seemed to be. Even as his fingers brushed the latch a huge, doughy hand curled in the back of his shirt, which tore at the seams but held long enough for the thing to enfold him in its grip. He kicked and fought, trying to reach the mandragorum's face with his free hand, to scratch at its eyes and enrage it. He knew it might be his last moment, that he was choosing suicide over being made a tool of the Hellebore faction, but although he sunk his nails deep into the thing's sockets there was nothing there to injure; the damp, fibrous substance just scraped away and spattered down his wrist. The thing pulled him in, wrapped him in its massive arms, held him fast.