Shônsair knew she must not make even one mistake here, for this beast was part of the gestalt entity that comprised the Cemetery reality. They learned as a group; if one beast found a clue, all would know, and all would make immediately for the person involved.
So Shônsair replied, “I know nothing of what you seek. Look elsewhere.”
“You are a gynoid,” it insisted. “Tell me where the offspring is. We will search the whole urb for it if necessary.”
“I know nothing of any offspring,” Shônsair said. “What is such a thing?”
It seemed to believe her. This was the important aspect. If it sensed a clue, a link, it would never let go. She must act her part.
Again it asked her, “Where is Alquazonan’s offspring? She is of your kind. Is she tall? Large? Who is she?”
“I know nothing,” Shônsair repeated.
“Fagh!” The beast flung her arms away and loped off into undergrowth. Shônsair waited until it was out of sight, then forced her way through the hoverfly drifts to the southern hedge of the Venereal Garden. She stopped. She must not appear suspicious. Those people who had heard the news had barred their doors and lay cowering inside. The streets were empty of locals for as far as she could see.
A terrible dilemma confronted her. If she made through the streets she would become an easy target—if her urgency made her run, the more so. Although the Cemetery beasts presently had her recorded as irrelevant, if she did anything to arouse their suspicions they would requestion her. The slightest hint of Zahafezhan would bring the entire Cemetery upon her. And what of Zoahnône and the humans at the inn?
Above all, what of Alquazonan? Shônsair thought as she never had before. Had the Cemetery beasts known of the pregnancy they would surely have made straight for the Wild Network Guildhall. They had not. They must therefore know that Zahafezhan had been born, and that meant the men of Emeralddis who had attacked the Determinate Inn were behind this.
And what of Baigurgône? Had she orchestrated the raising, or had she suffered dissipation?
Shônsair knew she had to make for the Determinate Inn as soon as possible. The slightest guilty stutter from Manserphine or any of the others would bring catastrophe upon them. The same applied to any senior clerics of Our Sister Crone who found themselves caught. One slip…
Presently only a few serpentine beasts slithered through the drifts, their metal skins scraping against the dead hoverflies, a sound like foil crinkling. Shônsair could now hear the sounds of hammering on doors as the frustrated beasts, seeing empty streets, started forcing their way into houses. She knew she could not use even the darkest alley.
So she began struggling through back gardens, across gates and stiles, through damp fields. The beasts were keeping to streets and alleys, focussing their attentions on houses because that was where people lived. If she could follow tracks and fields south, she might make it. Close to her left lay the Woods, in places hidden by mist, only a few insects littering the ground. She followed its edge until she was due east of the Shrine of Our Sister Crone, then paused. Here she would have to make back into the built-up parts of the urb.
A few gardens lay before her. That was a start.
She struggled through them, then risked a paved alley cleared by local residents. A few more gardens followed, and then a track on which only huts and sheds had been built. She was now in areas she knew. A few more gardens and she was looking over the field behind the inn.
Morning mist helped her, a few banks rising from damp ground at the edge of the field. She jumped over a fence and made at top speed to the wicket gate at the far side, where she looked for Zahafezhan.
Zahafezhan was there, standing motionless in the back garden, her naked skin speckled with dew, her feet hidden under hoverfly drifts.
At the inn Shônsair tried to open the kitchen door, but it was locked. She tapped on a window.
Vishilkaïr noticed her. Urgently she signalled for him to let her in.
Inside, she discovered them all. Fortunately Manserphine had spent the night with Kirifaïfra. She said, “We are in desperate trouble. Somebody at the Shrine of the Green Man has offered a bargain sufficient to raise the entire Cemetery. The beasts are forcing their way into houses—”
“What are they doing?” Zoahnône interrupted.
“They seek Zahafezhan in Veneris. They know she is in this urb. If one person gives us away, we are doomed.”
Manserphine, white faced, said, “What can we do?”
“We have to leave Veneris,” Shônsair said. “The terms of the bargain will like as not be strict, so if we are lucky the beasts will only search this urb. We can perhaps save ourselves by taking Zahafezhan to another, but whatever we do, we must hide her.”
“But where?” Zoahnône asked.
“And how?” Vishilkaïr added.
“The way I came,” Shônsair said. “Our only hope is through the Woods.”
“But it’s full of men,” Manserphine protested.
“Zoahnône and I will fight them off if they attack us,” Shônsair said, “and we have weapons. If we can defeat five clerics, we can defeat any motley band of beggars.”
“You mean we’re coming with you?” Vishilkaïr said, indicating Kirifaïfra and himself.
“You have no choice,” Shônsair said. “This inn is known to certain people as a base. One accidental hint from Yamagyny or her kin, one direction from the clerics of the Green Man, and your inn will be torn stone from stone.”
“But Zahafezhan!” Manserphine cried, screwing up her face. “She’s not ready. She hasn’t walked a step.”
“She is attached to subterranean hardpetal veins,” Zoahnône replied. “We have to take a chance. She has not visibly changed for days. We must temporarily uproot her.”
“That’s a huge risk,” said Kirifaïfra.
“We have no time,” replied Shônsair. “Mists are evaporating. Soon the sun will be high and every garden will be watched. We have to go now!”
“I will lead,” Zoahnône said. “You all have five minutes. Pack bags. Food, weapons, water. Then return here.”
They stood stunned.
“Move now!”
Shônsair saw Manserphine hurry to the bay window and look out. “Too late!” Manserphine gasped. “They’re here.”
She followed and peered out. From both left and right, Cemetery beasts were loping through the street drifts toward the inn.
~
Nuïy lay on his bed. It was early evening. The day had passed quietly, marked by lessons in grammar from Raïtasha.
The Shrine was quiet around him. He felt tired. Success made him want to relax, to reflect on his victories and on the reward the Green Man was sure to offer him. He dozed.
Somebody was hammering on his door.
He opened it to find Deomouvadaïn and two muscle-bound clerics. “Yes, Recorder-Shaman?” he said.
“Follow me.”
Nuïy felt a hint of trouble. “Where?”
“Hmph. To the Court of Heresy.”
Nuïy stood firm. Could they have guessed already? Only twelve hours had passed since the raising of the Cemetery.
“First, I wish to know why,” he declared.
Deomouvadaïn kneed him in the groin, then hit him over the back of the head as he bent over. “That’s my reason, Pinkeye. When I say follow, you follow.”
Nuïy was pulled to his feet by the clerics and frogmarched along the corridors of the Inner Sanctum to the Court of Heresy. He knew his end was close. This would be the final infraction.
The Court of Heresy was as before. Same chamber, same clerics. He stood in the dock wavering from the blow Deomouvadaïn had given him. With only one eye, he found focussing on the faces of any of the clerics before him difficult.
Sargyshyva first took a sip from a goblet of water, before saying, “So. There’s rumour of necromantic chaos in the hag urb, Pinkeye. What d’you know of this?”
“Nothing, First Cleric,” Nuïy replied. “I am constrained to the Shrine.”
For this remark, Deomouvadaïn hit him across the head with a piece of wood. Nuïy crumpled.
“Stand up,” Sargyshyva said.
“Less sarcasm,” Zehosaïtra suggested.
Nuïy wiped the blood from his good eye and tried to stand straight.
Sargyshyva continued, “So you know nothing, Pinkeye. How d’you explain the message we received early this morning?”
“Message?” Nuïy said.
“One of our guards received an electronic note from the Cemetery reality.”
“I know nothing, First Cleric,” said Nuïy. They stared at him. Quite innocently, he added, “Perhaps something important?”
Deomouvadaïn grabbed his hair and slammed his head into the wood of the dock, one, twice, three times, so that Nuïy was so dazed he collapsed again. This time he was unable to stand up.
Deomouvadaïn grabbed an arm and pulled him up, then propped him against the front of the dock.
“Not good, Pinkeye,” Sargyshyva said. “So. One final time. What d’you know of the Cemetery and this message implicating you?”
“Nothing, First Cleric,” Nuïy managed to mumble.
Deomouvadaïn made to strike him, but Sargyshyva raised one hand, and he halted half way.
“In this instance we don’t need t’deliberate,” said Sargyshyva. “Yea, I do hereby pronounce the sentence on Pinkeye. He’ll be confined from this day under hut arrest. When the first snows come, Our Lord In Green will decide whether he’s t’be taken down into the dungeons, or made humus of straight away. The final sentence will be carried out on Midwinter Day. That’s all.”
Nuïy was led out of the court by Deomouvadaïn, then taken to his hut by the two clerics. He was thrown inside, and then the door was padlocked.
CHAPTER 24
Order departed from the Determinate Inn. With half a minute to act, they had no time for anything except escape.
Zoahnône shouted orders. “Kirifaïfra, Shônsair, get Zahafezhan and carry her. Manserphine, Vishilkaïr, go scouting a few paces ahead. Make along Shônsair’s path. Omdaton… just go and hide.”
Manserphine followed Shônsair out of the inn, while Zoahnône barred the front door. Kirifaïfra and Vishilkaïr armed themselves with lead-shot convolvulus. Omdaton made for the hedge marking the adjacent garden and flung herself over it. As Manserphine ran into the back garden she heard hammering on the inn door, and she prayed for safety under her breath. The proximity of the Cemetery horde terrified her, as if death itself was on her tail.
The mist was rising, but a few banks remained, and one covered the wicket gate. Zahafezhan stood where she had grown. Shônsair bent down and threw aside piles of hoverflies before lifting her, but the hardpetal veins attached to her feet came too, and she was left supporting a half-vertical body, limp as a corpse. “Pull them off!” she ordered Kirifaïfra.
For a few seconds he just stared, as if he had been asked to cut off her feet. Then he knelt and pulled the multicoloured veins, at first gently, then forcefully, until they snapped. Zahafezhan relaxed.
“Go!” Zoahnône said, running towards them, “they’re coming around the side.” The exposed hardpetal veins left in the ground writhed and expanded towards them, as if trying to reconnect.
Manserphine stood gasping for breath at the wicket gate. The insect carpet was hampering movement and the mist bank had already drifted, exposing the gate, so she pointed at a nearby bank ten yards into the field, and said, “There! Hide in the mist.”
Shônsair ran carrying Zahafezhan over her shoulder, her immensely strong body hissing with the effort. She was just a blur as she ran past Manserphine; a whirr of biomachinery and a crunching of insects under her feet. Kirifaïfra could not keep up.
Manserphine looked back. It was possible to see this far into the garden from the kitchen door. Only she and Vishilkaïr remained. She followed Shônsair, and in seconds all five of them stood in the mist, unable to see anything, around or above.
“Quiet!” Zoahnône whispered.
She was gathering them to her, Manserphine and Kirifaïfra, then Vishilkaïr. Some kind of intuitive hearing allowed her to follow Shônsair, who was already moving.
They emerged from the mist bank. They had moved north east, perhaps twenty yards. The field lay around them, to their right a line of hedge, to their left tangled bushes and trees. Shônsair moved with exaggerated strides, Zahafezhan like a sack over her shoulder, making for the nearest mistbank. They all followed. Manserphine heard cries from the inn and the sound of wood crashing against wood.
The deactivated insects crunched and tinkled at their feet. Too noisy.
Again she urged Our Sister Crone to save them. If the Cemetery horde entered the inn thinking people cowered inside, they might yet escape. If they heard anything from the field other beasts would home in and all would be lost. She had to stop herself whimpering under the pressure.
They made the mist bank.
Shônsair said, “There is a copse of young fir just ahead. In that we will be better hidden. Are you all ready?”
They ran. A hundred yards of dead hoverflies lay between them and the firs. Manserphine glanced back as she ran, and between two clouds of mist she saw a section of the inn hedge, and the wicket gate. No beasts stood there.
At the fir grove they paused. Zoahnône examined the ground behind them. “I believe they did not hear us,” she said. “Now we must endeavour to remain hidden. When they find the inn empty they will suspect an escape. The next ten minutes are crucial. Nothing in the gestalt entity must see us.”
“Where to?” Manserphine asked, her hand tightly gripped by Kirifaïfra’s.
“Lead us to the green lane, and then to the gardens,” Zoahnône told Shônsair. “That way lies our best hope.”
Shônsair settled Zahafezhan on her shoulder then strode off. Even unladen, it was difficult keeping up with her. They groped and forged their way through the thickly planted trees, tripping over brambles, stung by nettles, until they found themselves bunched up by an algae covered fence, rotting at the bottom. At least here there were but a few insects rusting on the sodden earth.
“Shhh!” Kirifaïfra hissed.
They stood silent and still. Manserphine heard a thumping sound, one-two, one-two, rhythmic under tinkling metal, as of a man limping through the hoverfly drifts. It closed, slowed, then passed by. She knew that a really big beast had just loped past on its way to the Determinate Inn.
Zoahnône pulled out a fence slat and looked through. “All clear.”
Through the enlarged gap they crept, Kirifaïfra and Zoahnône going ahead to scout the path. Nothing moved. The mist had evaporated now, and the low sun lit every step of the way.
At the end of the lane they peered out to scan the street. Nothing.
“That is the first garden,” Shônsair said, indicating the way with a nod of her head. “A short alley, three or four more gardens, and we shall be at the outskirts of the urb. The Woods are just a few hundred yards away.”
They climbed over the hedge and made for the next one. A series of faltering, damp and unsteady runs followed, until they were all wet and greened, the legs of their breeches and their skirts shredded, panting for breath at the edge of a long field. A few hundred yards away lay the Woods, green topped, darkly shadowed at ground level.
“We should go now,” Zoahnône said, “before it’s too late.”
Manserphine looked to either side of the field. Far off to the south she could see men fishing in a pool, and behind them, gentle hills. North she saw the ruins of an ancient wall, that she knew led up to the Venereal Garden.
“Nothing about,” she said.
“Let’s go,” Kirifaïfra urged.
They ran. Shônsair was not troubled by Zahafezhan’s weight. They crossed the gap in minutes, to find themselves in dense, dark, cold woodland, the bitter green trunks of trees standing around them like fences.
They rested. Nothing moved in the wood, but birds sang and there was fluttering in the canopy. Here, the undergrowth was thick, nettles and bramble and dock. The ground was damp, soft under their feet.
Manserphine looked west. The sunlit outskirts of Veneris seemed very bright, orange and pink in the light of the rising sun. All lay silent.
“I think we’ve done it,” Zoahnône said. “Well done, all of you.”
“Well done to Shônsair,” Kirifaïfra said. “She saved us.”
“That’s true,” Vishilkaïr said. “A few seconds of hesitation and the beasts coming around the side of the inn would have…” He left the possibility vague.
“What now?” Manserphine asked.
“We must find a safe house,” Zoahnône replied. “Obviously, Veneris is out of the question.”
In silence they all thought.
Eventually Kirifaïfra said, “Veneris may not be wholly out of the question. There are a couple of districts lying on the very edge.”
“Such as?” Vishilkaïr asked.
“The Cemetery and the Venereal Garden.”
There were laughs at this. “The Cemetery is out,” Zoahnône said.
“Not so the Venereal Garden,” Kirifaïfra said, adding more harshly, “where I used to work. In the eastern glade there is a tumbledown house that used to belong to carnal researchers. It is completely invisible behind a thick curtain of flowering chestnut and rhododendron. We could hide there.”
“How safe do you judge it to be?” Zoahnône asked.
Kirifaïfra thought.
“Remember,” Zoahnône cautioned, “the future lies in our hands.”
“It is safe,” Kirifaïfra said. “As an abode for courting couples or ladies seeking satisfaction, it is too dark and damp. It is no longer used for research purposes. I myself haven’t taken women there, oh, for—”
“If you
don’t
mind,” Manserphine interrupted.
“Sorry.”
Zoahnône took counsel with Shônsair then said, “Very well. Lead us there. But remember that nobody must see us go in.”
Kirifaïfra led them along the edge of the Woods, until Manserphine glimpsed the top of the Gazebo Azure to her left, pale blue like a huge death cap mushroom. Kirifaïfra took them a few more yards, then, at a dry stream bed, he stopped.
“There lies the eastern boundary of the Venereal Garden,” he said, pointing to a thick hedge of hawthorn and briar rose on the opposite side of the fields.
“It will be impossible to crawl through,” Manserphine said. “Our clothes will rip to shreds.”
“I know a way. Leave it to me.”
He left them, running across the field then casting north and south, bent over as if looking for prophylactics in the turf, until he stopped, got on his hands and knees and pushed into the hedge, apparently sniffing for something. In this pose he crawled a few yards, before stopping, then running back.
“I’ve found the tunnel,” he said.
“Tunnel?” they queried.
“The old stream ran under the hedge through a clay pipe, which we can crawl through. I found it from the smell of musk. It is the ancient escape route of women caught in passionate embrace by their men. I myself have—”
He looked at Manserphine, who said nothing.
“Lead on,” Shônsair said, hoisting Zahafezhan more securely upon her shoulder. They crossed the field then crawled through the tunnel into the Venereal Garden proper, which lay thick around them, a tangle of rhododendron, violets, wild clematis and honeysuckle, all twisted around hairy tree trunks and naturally eroded hardpetal statues. Birds sang, and the perpetual stridulation of the urb was reduced to a whisper.
Kirifaïfra led them to a path of slate, but soon they were off that and once again surrounded by rustling leaves, chittering birds, and long tendrils from which honeysuckle bloomed. There were some insects about; bees and a few late butterflies. Wild flowers bloomed in small clumps; foxgloves, cowslips and campion. After ten minutes Kirifaïfra told them to wait. He vanished into especially thick undergrowth. Manserphine listened. At the very edge of hearing she thought she heard cries. The central glades of the Venereal Garden would not be too far away.
He returned, gesturing them to follow. They forged through massive rhododendron branches so heavy with flowers they drooped to the ground. In places they had to bend to avoid the tangle. Great tree trunks stood all around.
It was dim. The sky had clouded over, and the air was cool. Manserphine shivered. Then she saw a stone wall ahead.
It was the building. The upper storey was in ruins, but its floor remained to make a roof for the ground level. Suspiciously they entered, to find four rooms filled with ferns and fungus, and a musty smell. The stone structure was sound but there was no glass in the windows. Slugs, snails and even an adder had made their homes here.
“It will do for now,” Zoahnône said.
Kirifaïfra was scrabbling at the floor. Manserphine knelt at his side and asked, “What are you doing?”
He pointed. Manserphine saw thick veins of red, purple and yellow under the remains of flagstones. “Hardpetal!” she cried, reaching out to hug him.
“This area is thick with the stuff. I thought it might be. The veins must have been attracted to the psychic reek of sex. Gynoid and human. Those statues we saw by the hedge are natural symbols of carnality, created by self-organising hardpetal.”
“We could replant Zahafezhan here,” Shônsair suggested.
“Do it,” Manserphine said, knowing without thought that it was the right thing to do.
Kirifaïfra uncovered veins in the corner of a room and they stood Zahafezhan upon them. Her toes seemed to twitch.
“Is she attached?”
“I think so.”
They waited. Zahafezhan lost her limpness then stood straight, like an old bloom dunked in water, although the sheen on her skin was dull as if she missed the sun, and the flower at the crown of her head seemed tarnished, as if it were brass, not gold.
So they set about making themselves as comfortable as possible. Manserphine and Kirifaïfra took one room, the gynoids another, leaving Vishilkaïr alone with Zahafezhan. They threw out woodland debris, the snails and the slugs, and covered the open windows with curtains woven from cold-coconut leaves harvested nearby. The door was sound, but unhinged, so that they left.
Night fell, and they discussed what they should do.
“Our first task is to resettle the Cemetery beasts,” Zoahnône said. “It seems they knew Zahafezhan was in Veneris. If we can somehow show them that she is out of reach, they may simply return to their earth.”
“Can bargains be left open?” Manserphine said.
Kirifaïfra seemed awkward with this question, but he said, “Sometimes. The beasts will have been offered a great prize to pay them for finding Zahafezhan, and that will make our task more difficult.”
“The course of action is obvious,” Shônsair said. “Zoahnône and I must enter the networks and cast about for an answer. If we are lucky, Baigurgône will not notice us.”
“What about food?” Vishilkaïr said.
“Food?” said Zoahnône.
“Yes. You may not need it, but we do. I’m starving.”
“Then that is a problem for you,” Zoahnône replied. “We have other matters to attend to.”
On that icy note, Shônsair and Zoahnône departed the ruined house.
Manserphine lay sleepless that night in her chilly room, wrapped in a cloak with Kirifaïfra at her side, beneath them a bed of bark and dead bracken. Not comfortable. Her stomach rumbled. All they had had to eat was berries and wild potatoes.
So quickly had the day passed, and now the night dragged on. Her insomnia forced her to listen to every chitter, every crack of twig and rustle of undergrowth, every flap of wing. Helpless, she imagined silvery beasts homing in on her turbulent mind, grabbing images from the networks, pulling ancient maps from databases, and then finding them.
At dawn she heard steps in the undergrowth. She woke Kirifaïfra, who stared in the dark, the whites of his eyes gleaming.
It was Zoahnône and Shônsair. “We have extraordinary news,” they reported.