Chapter 4 The Begbéam Moon #2
The entrance to the garden was an archway, curtained over by vines heavy with buds.
Osric and Aurienne stepped through it. As though they had been waiting for this moment, the buds on the vine burst open.
They revealed mauve petals, speckled with white, exuding the sour-sweet scent of crushed nectarines.
“What blooms at the full moon?” Fairhrim studied the nearest flower. “That variegated purple is lovely. I’ve never seen such petals. They look like galaxies.”
Osric and Fairhrim both got a noseful of the flowers’ potent scent and sneezed.
Fairhrim held her illuminated tācn up as she walked. “I don’t know half of these species,” she said, sounding at first shocked at such an impossibility, and then full of wonder. “Some of these specimens are enormous—straight out of the Carboniferous era. What are the Druids feeding them?”
She squatted to observe a colony of plants with deeply lobed leaves. She studied an elegant cluster of wine-red flowers tumbling over a ledge.
Osric, anxious to get into the Faerwundor, asked, “Could you indulge in your botanical sightseeing at another time? We’ve got to get this healing done by dawn.”
Fairhrim stared at the catkin-filled branches of a tree, arching above them, perfuming the air with something sweet.
“I think,” said Fairhrim, awe in her voice, “that everything here is either a drug or a poison.”
“What?”
“Don’t touch anything. Don’t step on anything.”
Osric froze where he stood.
“I don’t recognise all of them,” continued Fairhrim, “but that, just above us, that’s Orphillic—a potent soporific.
That black-leafed plant is King’s Ransom.
Its sap is a potent stimulant when distilled—see where they’re collecting it?
Those pretty white flowers are Frostbell—they’re paralytic.
That looks like a type of Creeping Crescencia—causes bowel ischemia.
Those berries are Lyphithea—they cause death within seconds of ingestion.
That one with the fuzzy leaves is a performance enhancer—I think Bruiser is the street name.
Those shrubs—their roots can be synthesized into tevaquine—makes your brains leak out of your nose.
This mushroom is Widow’s Lace, I think. Witchthorn there; I’ve only ever seen it in the powder form.
And that bed over there is, I suspect, Doom Poppies, only they’ve all closed up for the night. ”
Fairhrim walked ahead of Osric, pointing as she went. “That’s a soporific. That one’ll turn your kidneys to mush. That’s Hecate’s Woodbine, we use it as a chemical restraint at Swanstone. And this whole section here—I’ve no idea. I think they may be hybrids. Experimental.”
“This crop must be worth a fortune,” said Osric.
“I know some pharmacologists who would give up a limb for access to this place,” said Fairhrim. “Hang on…”
Upon her face was an expression so alien it took Osric a moment to place it.
It was confusion.
“What’s the matter?” asked Osric.
“I’ve just realised—none of those plants should be blooming at once.
Not the ones I know, anyway. Most of them bloom in spring—some are late bloomers and only throw up inflorescences in the autumn.
But it’s summer. And we’re in the open air.
These aren’t greenhouse conditions. So how are they all blooming at the same time, as though it’s spring and summer and autumn all at once… ?”
Osric had no answer to offer. They continued into the centre of the spiral. A crooning, tinkling song filled the air as they advanced.
Osric was heavy about the legs after the climb. It had taken its toll on Fairhrim, too; she was dragging her feet.
They finally approached the Faerwundor. The squat tower had windows and doors, but no glass or wood crossed them; the Druids apparently liked to keep things au naturel within. On either side of the Faerwundor’s entrance stood two more hooded Druid sentinels.
Osric bypassed the sentinels in the shadow-walk with Fairhrim in his arms, straight into the tower’s vestibule. He put Fairhrim down when they were safely inside. She was pale-lipped, but didn’t have that particular greenish tinge that heralded vomiting.
“Almost there,” whispered Osric.
“Thank Frīa,” said Fairhrim. “My legs are done for; I can hardly lift them.”
“Mine, too. Keep your voice low and your eyes open. I don’t know if those sentinels are going to patrol.”
Fairhrim sniffed the air. “Something smells awful.”
“Cadaverine,” said Osric.
He and Fairhrim looked at each other. Osric felt a bit sluggish not only in the legs but in the brain. Cadaverine? What had died? He slipped back into the shadow-walk and stuck his head out of the Faerwundor’s entrance.
Neither Druid sentinel moved, in spite of the Fyren popping into existence between them.
Osric prodded one of them in the shoulder.
The Druid slithered to the ground in five or six decomposing parts. Only his torso remained at attention. It had been driven into the stone behind him with a stake.
Fairhrim, who had followed Osric out, said helpfully, “He’s dead.”
Osric pulled the hood off the other Druid to reveal not a face but a pulpy mass of maggots.
“Frīa,” gasped Fairhrim.
“Poor bugger.” Osric replaced the hood.
“Who did this?” asked Fairhrim.
Was there a slight slurring at the edge of her words, or was Osric hearing things?
“I don’t know,” he said. “Let’s get in. The healing is the priority. But be careful—something’s afoot.”
They reentered the vestibule—more accurately, stumbled into it—and peered into the Faerwundor proper. No further Druids, alive or decomposing, were within.
They found a vast atrium bathed in moonlight. The Faerwundor had no roof.
The tower’s interior walls, trickling with wet, were draped with more of those galactically beautiful flowers, which opened as Osric and Fairhrim passed them. Fairhrim got a real dose of one right up the nose; it forced her into a muffled sneezing fit.
On a plinth at the very centre of the atrium stood a great oak tree, stretching its stately arms towards the moon-filled sky.
Osric discovered the provenance of the strange music: in the oak’s branches, chimes of copper and bronze rang softly.
The tree’s roots circled the room and made a sculptural, art nouveau masterpiece of the floor and walls.
Its leaves caught a soft yellow light, as though the sun of another place mingled with the moonlight.
Fairhrim studied the tree’s crown. Osric followed her line of sight.
He thought, at first, that the tree was diseased.
About a quarter of its boughs were bare and dry.
Above that, tender green shoots peeped. The next quarter featured full, dark green foliage, and the final one, leaves burning with the red death of autumn, and heavy with acorns.
“How is it in all four seasons s-simultaneously?” whispered Fairhrim.
She was slurring. Osric regarded her with concern; perhaps it was her fatigue, or an effect of the shadow-walk.
The tree’s roots, blood dark, curled from the plinth into a pond at its base.
Well, it looked like a pond, because it was locked in by wide, flat stones round its circumference—only the surface of the pond moved swiftly, emerging from a source to the right and disappearing in a frothy tumble under a rock ledge to the left.
“Look at the current. That must be the River Istorr. It passes under the Faerwundor. I suppose it surfaces briefly here,” said Fairhrim.
“I thought we were looking for an intersection between watercourses,” said Osric.
Fairhrim pointed at the oak tree’s plinth. A man’s face was hewn into it; carved leaves made up his hair and beard, and a purling stream frothed from his mouth. The water sparkled green, unlike the black-silver river.
“Th-there,” said Fairhrim. “That’s where we’ll want to do the healing.”
They approached. The flagstones underfoot softened as stone gave way to damp moss dotted with violets and the occasional reed.
Osric and Fairhrim stood before the great oak in silence. The tree’s enormity stifled them, made them subdued. They were in the presence of something ancient. The place felt too sacred for words.
The patch of sky above lightened. A warbler sang its aubade. Flutelike notes spiralled upwards. The scent of crushed nectarines filled the air and tickled at Osric’s brain.
Fairhrim tore her attention from the oak to her pocket watch. “Almost dawn,” she whispered. “It’s time.”