Manserphine shrugged. “I think that’s the most sensible suggestion.”
“Or the least insane,” remarked Shônsair.
“What does Alquazonan think?” Vishilkaïr said.
From her position stretched out on the bed, Alquazonan answered, “I do not think I shall be a good mother. Get rid of it. Plant it in the garden and see if it grows.”
“This seems as good a time as any,” Manserphine said. “Nobody goes into our garden except us. The bulb will be safe there.”
Days passed, and the bulb grew in an unexpected manner.
At dawn of the morning after they planted it, Manserphine crept out to see if anything had happened. It had. The pale heart of the bulb had expanded into an oval lump a foot high, poking out of the ground like the head of a gigantic mushroom. The leaves around it crinkled, died, and dropped off, to leave a leathery skin, pink, brown, marked with irregular splashes of red and black.
Moths avoided it. Yet all around, hardpetal veins emerged from the soil, so that the ground took the appearance of a slightly raised dome.
Over the next week the bulb grew. It grew to a height of six feet, then stopped. Its skin paled to pink, here and there splashed with dark arcs and lines. Limbs became apparent. A head formed, and then, overnight, they had in their garden a naked gynoid, graceful, feminine, her feet planted in the soil, her face that of the infant Manserphine had seen in her vision. She wept to see that face again. Later, it became the visage of a mature woman.
But the strangest thing was the crown of her hairless head. There lay a structure like a great flower, reflecting light from its pure gold petals, glowing like mirrors in the sun.
Zahafezhan was alive, but unconscious.
CHAPTER 22
It was autumn.
Nuïy struggled to make sense of what was happening to him.
Coming to the Shrine of the Green Man had been like tasting a sweet fruit. But now it was being taken away. For days he had seen nobody; not Sargyshyva, not Zehosaïtra, not even Deomouvadaïn, at least not to speak to. From afar he watched Deomouvadaïn go about his daily tasks, and he felt like a forgotten puppet watching his master. He began imagining what it would be like to kill Deomouvadaïn, who had with Raïtasha done so much damage to him.
But that was desperate thinking. He was down, but not yet desperate.
Then one day he caught sight of autodogs being led into the Inner Sanctum. The fact that they were great mastiffs with steel teeth and carbon- fibre hides meant that a tough mission was in the offing. He had been told nothing of such a mission. Suspecting the worst, he rushed into the Tech Houses and tried to listen in on internal conversations, but nothing caught his ear. He waited. Deomouvadaïn appeared at the entrance of the Inner Sanctum, strolled over the bridge, then paused at its end, as if thinking. Nuïy walked up, making the meeting appear an accident.
“Recorder-Shaman,” he said. “What brings you here?”
Deomouvadaïn emerged from his reverie. “Oh, it’s you, Pinkeye. Nothing. Nothing goes on.”
“I have not seen any of you for days.”
“You’re not a cleric.”
“What were those great autodogs to be used for?”
Deomouvadaïn scowled. “Hmph. You keep yer nose out of cleric business, Pinkeye. If you’re wanted you’ll be called. Now then, get back to yer hut.”
He made to leave, but Nuïy said, “Recorder-Shaman, I don’t seem to have a role any more.”
Deomouvadaïn turned his head to say, “Yer role is to become a cleric. That’s a decade off if it’s a day. Get back to yer hut and get studying.”
“But—”
“Any more buts, Pinkeye, and it’s back to the dormitory.”
Nuïy was devastated. This was what he had feared; rejection by the Green Man. There was only one answer. He had to prove himself. He had to help the Green Man win the great struggle against the hags.
The mission started that night. As he kept watch over Deomouvadaïn’s house the door opened and out stepped the Recorder-Shaman in night gear; deep grey cloak, earflap hat and knee-boots. This was fighting attire. Nuïy watched, fingering the dagger at his side. As expected, Deomouvadaïn walked toward the Inner Sanctum, to reappear half an hour later with four men and five autodog mastiffs. One of the men was Zehosaïtra, the others were cleric toughs, none of them under six feet six. Nuïy concealed himself in the shadows of the clerical houses, then slipped through the unguarded eastern gate, to pick up the group as they rode north. The mastiffs were slow, and Nuïy had to hide several times as a nervous Zehosaïtra glanced behind him.
The floods had long since abated. It was an easy trek now, over the causeway through the marshes, then north west to the river through ever deeper drifts of hoverflies. The stench of Cemetery flowers and decaying technology filled the air, and hundreds of necromantic moths fluttered about, forcing Nuïy to tie a kerchief across his mouth against the possibility of breathing them in. He suffered a kind of feminine claustrophobia as he crept through the flowering fields, as if every kind of scented torture was being visited upon him.
At the river the men crossed by means of a stone bridge. Nuïy had expected them to make directly for Veneris, for he suspected their destination was the Determinate Inn, but they did not. The sheer exuberance of the new flower fields was too much. Here, so close to the autohives, the men had no chance of finding a safe path, so they walked north along the riverbank until they reached the Woods, from where they struggled west. Nuïy followed fifty yards behind, his thighs aching from the effort of forging a path through the insect drifts. At one point, the autodogs were visible only as heads bobbing above the rusting hoverfly surface.
It was cloudy, and occasionally he lost them, but always he spotted movement ahead and managed to keep up. At last they reached the outskirts of Veneris. Black-and-white buildings sprang up alongside huts and single storey cabins, before they trod recognisable paths and alleys, and then the narrow streets of central Veneris. Now Nuïy knew where he was. Not far to go.
They stopped two streets away from the Determinate Inn. Nuïy reckoned it to be three hours after midnight, maybe four. The most vulnerable hour of the night. He crept up to the group, hiding behind a line of iris that had closed for the night. He dared not get too close because the autodogs might smell him over the stink of rancid hoverfly oil. He could just hear the conversation.
“Ready, Recorder-Shaman?”
“Ready, Third Cleric.”
Zehosaïtra again. “Ready, group one?”
“Ready,” came the chorus of three gruff voices.
“In the name of Our Lord In Green.”
“In the name of Our Lord In Green,” everybody repeated.
“Bring death to our enemy tonight.”
“Bring death to our enemy tonight.”
Under his breath Nuïy whispered the prayer, and felt better for it.
“All right,” Zehosaïtra said. “We go in quick. No waiting for extra orders if things go awry. You know what to do. Just get the gynoid. Kill anybody in the way. There will be no hesitations. We succeed or die. Clear?”
Again the chorus. “Clear.”
“Then let’s go.”
They moved along the street and into the lane leading down to the inn. As yet they were some hundreds of yards off, for they had entered the street at its further end. Nuïy followed. At the inn they split, two men going with Deomouvadaïn to the rear of the inn, the other standing at the entrance with Zehosaïtra. Nuïy hid just ten yards away, behind a high drift of metal insects.
Suddenly the man with Zehosaïtra lunged at the window adjacent to the bay, using a hammer to smash both glass and wood, until a hole a few feet across had been made.
Nuïy looked up. Lights showed. Those inside were awake. He forced his way around to the rear of the inn, dagger drawn, to see two men climbing in through the smashed kitchen window, following the autodogs who must already be inside. No sign of Deomouvadaïn. He must also be inside.
Lights showed bright. Nuïy waited by the kitchen door, crouched low, dagger held out in one hand, the other bunched into a fist.
Now shouts came from inside the inn. Explosions. Nuïy heard the unmistakeable sound of Deomouvadaïn screaming.
Was that possible? Surely a few un-men could not inflict even small wounds on the Green Man’s chosen few.
Glass smashing. More thuds, then a curious sound like a cough.
An upper window shattered.
Something flew out.
It was a man.
Nuïy cheered. The body struck the hoverfly carpet outside and vanished into it. Nuïy rushed over to make the kill. But the man was dead, neck broken. He was one of the Green Man’s.
Shock.
Nuïy stared up to the window. Silhouettes rushed across its illuminated face.
It could not be.
This disaster must not be allowed to happen!
Suddenly the kitchen door was flung open. Nuïy caught a glimpse of an autodog inside, frozen in an attacking stance. Then a dark shadow appeared, limping, one arm waving free like a false limb. Deomouvadaïn. He disappeared behind a bush.
Nuïy was about to cry out when he heard a whipping sound and he was pulled back against the tree. He struggled. A cord had wound him against the trunk.
A woman appeared at his side. It was the Interpreter hag.
“So, it is you,” she said. “Who are you?”
“Get away from me, hag! I know your wiles.”
“Who are you? Green Man fodder?”
Nuïy screamed at the top of his voice, “Deomouvadaïn, help me! They have me! Help!” He struggled, kicking his legs again and again, raising up clouds of hoverfly debris.
“Tell me who you are,” the hag insisted. “Tell me and we won’t torture you.”
“You don’t frighten me,” Nuïy declared, heartened by this mistake. “I know you hags don’t torture.”
“Ah! So you used to live around here?”
Nuïy struggled once more against the cord. It seemed to give, but in his panic he could not be sure. Gasping for air, he bent over, gave a final, despairing tug, then raised himself upright.
“Who are you?” the hag demanded.
“Help!” Nuïy yelled.
Now he could sense other people in the garden. Lamps were burning across the street. In total panic, aware that he might be touched, even captured, Nuïy flailed against his bonds.
The hag took off the cap she wore to reveal a pale forehead marred by multicoloured marks. “Do you know what this is?” she asked, pointing to the disfigurement.
Somebody emerged from the kitchen door. Two people.
Nuïy heard a swishing sound.
He fell forward.
Just missing the hag.
He half ran, half staggered into the street. A light flashed. Hot pain in his left arm. The smell of burning.
Deomouvadaïn yelled, “Get out!”
Nuïy’s panic made him sprint like never before. He turned left and ran hard, leaving a trail in the insect drifts.
Disaster, disaster once again.
~
The Court of Heresy sat in session.
The chamber was sombre, small, darkly painted, with trailing ivy down the walls and a central pool from which the smell of grass and damp earth came. Nuïy sat in the dock. Before him, a yard or so higher, sat three figures. One more to his side.
The three were Sargyshyva, Gaddaqueva and Zehosaïtra. He looked at their impassive faces. They wore black clothes, with floppy hats dyed olive green on their heads.
To his side stood Deomouvadaïn, also in black, but without the hat.
Sargyshyva said, “The court is in session.”
Nuïy sat tight. He felt no nerves, just dull dread.
“This court is t’hear evidence against the accused man, Pinkeye. Recorder-Shaman, yer evidence.”
“Yea, First Cleric. The accused followed the capture group from our Shrine to the hag urb. At the target site he exposed himself to the enemy. He thereby endangered us all.”
“And was it you who saved us from catastrophe by cutting Pinkeye’s bonds?”
“Yea, First Cleric. The Interpreter hag had captured him and was interrogating him. Pinkeye called for me, pleading for help. Seeing what he’d done, I managed to creep around and cut his cord with a knife.”
Sargyshyva turned to Nuïy. “What does the accused have t’say in his defence?”
Nuïy did not speak for a moment. He realised that defence was impossible; but mitigation was at least feasible. Then he said, “I am loyal to Our Lord In Green. Everything I have ever done since leaving the hag urb has been for Our Lord In Green. I would sacrifice my life for Our Lord In Green. No man can accuse me of heresy, since any heretical act I committed would be against Our Lord In Green and hence impossible. I am constitutionally incapable of betraying Our Lord In Green.” He hesitated, then added, “Death to the un-men! Death to Alquazonan!”
Sargyshyva looked uncomfortably to his left and right, before saying, “This is all very well, Pinkeye. But the facts. Did you or did you not follow the capture group?”
“I followed the lead of Our Lord In Green. Praise him! He led me up to the hag urb. There, I believe I may have made a mistake, but all is under the control of Our Lord In Green. His purpose will be revealed in time. I am loyal to Our Lord In Green.”
Sargyshyva clearly found himself in a difficult situation. Nuïy, playing on his devotion to the Green Man, so well known to these men and across the Shrine, knew that they could not cut across simple faith. He still had a chance of saving himself.
Zehosaïtra said, “Pinkeye. Nobody doubts yer excellent loyalty. We’re here to determine what you did regarding the capture mission.”
Nuïy simply repeated his earlier statement. If he kept to basic loyalty they could not charge him. He added, “When is a mistake a stroke of luck? Who is to say what ferments in the holy mind of Our Lord In Green?”
“Careful, Pinkeye,” Zehosaïtra remarked. “Don’t put our own loyalty to shame.”
Nuïy realised he might have gone too far. He was ordered into the soundproofed cupboard at the back of the chamber. After ten minutes the door was opened and he stepped out.
Sargyshyva said, “Pinkeye, we’ve deliberated, and here’s our sentence. You’ll be confined t’the Shrine of Our Lord In Green for the rest of yer natural life. Our Lord In Green demands yer presence here ‘til you’re humus. Nobody can countermand that. The period of yer initiateship will be doubled. You must be forty years old or more before you become a cleric. That’s all. Recorder-Shaman, show him out.”
Nuïy departed the chamber. Outside he stood still, hardly aware of what lay around him, until Deomouvadaïn cleared his throat, spat, and said, “You brought this on yerself, Pinkeye. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. You got what you deserved. Now get back to yer hut.”
Nuïy turned, and said, “But Alquazonan. Will she be caught?”
“You idiot, Pinkeye. She’s dropped her brat. We were too late. How can we find a brat in the hag urb? Answer me that.”
“But the tough clerics,” Nuïy insisted.
“Hmph. Murdered by the weapons of fiends.”
“But the mastiff autodogs.”
“Deactivated the moment they set foot in the house.”
Devastated, Nuïy walked away.
The Green Man had deserted him.