Spectre Of The Black Rose

Thirteen

Ganelon looked down at the severed ear in his hand. Slowly, he brought the piece of rotting flesh to his lips and whispered into it. The effect was instantaneous. Bratu and the other lunatics, even his beloved Helain, hurried from where they had strayed across the hillside. They huddled together at his feet and looked up at him expectantly.

Beyond the cowering madmen, at the foot of the hill, lay their destination. The Invidians who lived in this part of the Border's Edge Mountains referred to the huge field as Malocchio's Dream Garden. How appropriate, mused Ganelon, that it should be so dismal and twisted.

A low wall of rough-hewn stone surrounded a riot of misshapen greenery. Emerald tendrils, almost like veins, crept from the garden through gaps in the wall. They did not seem intent on escaping the place, but shoring up the stones to keep trespassers out. From the looks of things, the garden had few enough of those.

The greenery was horribly overgrown, the paths choked with weeds. There seemed to be no clear pattern to the beds. They ranged in size from smaller than a child to larger than one of the massive carts used to haul salt at the mine. Some were bunched together, others isolated. The only thing they had in common was the sort of plant crouched upon each: a large, thorn-snarled rose bush with flowers the crimson of freshly spilled blood. Together the blooms formed a blanket of red that resembled a gaping wound slashed into the Invidian countryside.

The semblance was chillingly appropriate. The garden was located upon the site of a massacre, the spot where Malocchio Aderre himself had slaughtered an entire caravan of Vistani. As it was Malocchio's ambition that all Vistani be similarly butchered, so the field had been tagged his "Dream Garden." It was no less a monument to madness than the Whispering Beast's hedge maze. Ganelon hoped that the congruence would work in his favor as he readied his ragged band of lunatics to begin their perilous work within.

"Go to the garden wall and wait," Ganelon said to the two dozen or so soldiers in his mad army.

A few evinced some small comprehension. Most just stared at him blankly. He sighed and repeated the order into the ear the Beast had given him. They immediately turned to the task.

Ganelon wondered what they heard when he spoke to them, if the voice was his own or if the Beast's gruesome present gave it a sinister sound. From what the Beast had said about Helain, she couldn't hear the commands at all. She only aped the others, her guilty conscience goading her to take on their punishments and fears as her own.

It pained Ganelon to see his beloved so distanced from the person he knew her to be. Still, hints of her former self shone through now and then. When the lunatics were at their most manic, she would go suddenly calm. They whirled and capered about; she remained still. The breeze of their passing would stir her red locks and billow her torn, soiled nightdress. Through it all she stood unmoving, letting them swirl harmlessly around her like wasps swarming a gravestone.

He watched her now as she walked atop the low stone wall. She turned, as if she could feel his longing eyes upon her. No spark of recognition lit her face as she returned his gaze. Ganelon finally looked away. She was lost to him.

With a heavy heart, the young man focused again on the task at hand and took a quick accounting of his wards. Most had reached the wall. Once there, they took up their usual crazed behavior.

One woman, whose name Ganelon had forgotten, walked with direction and determination for short spans, only to stop suddenly. All sign of intelligence fled her thin face until, just as suddenly, she would pluck at her hair until she came away with precisely eight long strands. Tossing them over her shoulder, she would turn sharply and repeat the routine. A few more repetitions, and she ended up close to where she'd started.

Some lunatics wept openly, others sat on the ground and rocked back and forth. Only Bratu ventured into the garden. He wandered aimlessly among the maze of plants, slapping at his ruined ears and pointing at the beds. It was a gesture many of the others, still perched atop the low wall, soon copied. They were obviously frightened by something in the garden, something hidden from Ganelon's view by the weeds and the wall.

Ganelon hobbled down to the garden. As he wrestled his braced leg over the wall, he noticed that the roses' fragrance was twined with some other, more ominous odor. It was pungent and earthy, the smell of old rot. At first he suspected the black blight spider-webbed across many of the plants. A closer inspection of the nearest rose bush revealed the actual source of the smell.

The bases of the rose bushes were thick and woody, completely denuded of leaves. They resembled nothing so much as human bones, a trait that allowed them to blend seamlessly with the old skeletons from which they grew.

That was the thing that had so alarmed Bratu and the others. Each of the rose bushes was rooted in a corpse. Malocchio had left the butchered Vistani where they fell, then planted his victory garden amongst the dead. Some of the bodies were partially buried. Some lay atop the dark loam. The branches so resembled bleached bones that the remains were invisible from a distance.

As he walked the weed-choked paths Ganelon realized that some of the corpses were newer than others. They still retained some scraps of desiccated flesh or some tatter of clothing. Around a few of the beds lay coins and small trinkets, even a rusting knife or two. The remains of failed thieves, no doubt, he guessed.

The thought made Ganelon stop dead in his tracks. He peered more closely at one of the bushes. Through the mold-flecked leaves, he could make out wicked greenish-yellow thorns running along the stems and branches. Ribbons of mummified flesh dangled from some of the spikes. Others were dark with old blood.

An insight blazed across his mind: Those aren't thorns. They're teeth. These are corpse roses.

The intuition's clarity stunned Ganelon. He wondered briefly at its origin, but left that problem for another time. The information it had imparted was indisputable. They were all in terrible danger.

"Don't touch the roses," he said into the severed ear. "Stay on that side of the wall!" He directed Bratu to join the others. The Vistana was reluctant to leave the garden, as if he could sense that these poor souls were his people. Eventually, Ganelon took him by the hand and forced him over the wall.

His charges out of harm's way for the moment, Ganelon returned to his examination of the corpse roses. There was no way around it; without the roses, the Beast would not cure Helain. Cautiously he plucked one of the flowers. The stem shuddered and oozed blood as red as the bloom but did not lash out at him. So long as Bratu and the others could harvest the roses carefully, they'd be all right.

He walked back to the wall, giving the bushes as wide a berth as possible. Through the Beast's charm, he gathered the madmen who had strayed from the wall. That none of them had ventured into the garden, as he had ordered earlier, gave Ganelon some small hope as he outlined his orders to them. If he was precise enough in his instructions, they might survive this ordeal.

"All right," he said, "remember why we're here. We are collecting roses for the Beast." At the mention of their tormentor's name, the madmen whimpered piteously. "He does not want leaves or stems or thorns-especially thorns. Whatever you do, do not touch any part of the rose bushes except the flowers."

Ganelon slung the small pack he had been carrying from his shoulder. "The sack tied to your waist is for holding the flowers." He dropped the bloom in his hand into his pack. "Like this. Just the flower, nothing else."

One of the older men, scarcely any hair left on his head, grabbed the canvas sack from his neighbor. He hugged it to his chest as if it were a long-lost friend. Ganelon returned it to its owner quickly, before a brawl broke out; then he led the old man into the garden.

"See, Grandfather," he said kindly, "we want all the pretty flowers, but only the flowers." Ganelon beheaded a few blossoms to demonstrate. With palsied hands, the old man slowly pulled the roses free. Ganelon bit his lip as he watched the man's shaking fingers pluck at the blooms, but the man seemed to catch on quickly. With a quick word of praise, Ganelon was off to get the others started.

At first he kept a careful eye on the demented souls as they went about their task. As the afternoon wore on, though, Ganelon found himself less and less attentive. It was tedious watching them work, or attempt to work. And after three days with the madmen, leading them from the Beast's lair to this field just across the Invidian border, he had little stomach left for the manifestations of their sad, awful, infuriating sickness.

Thoughts of Helain were quick to provide distraction. The fragrance of the roses reminded him of the plans they'd made for the wedding, how they would transform Ambrose's store into a blossom-filled chapel. He was caught up in imagining what that happy event might have been like when a soft voice startled him from his reverie.

"They smell like churches should smell," Helain said quietly. In her hand she cupped a single red rose. "Though they're the wrong color. White roses are my favorite."

Ganelon's heart sang. Even when she turned away in mid-sentence, making it clear that she wasn't speaking to him so much as to herself, the happiness lingered. The old Helain had surfaced for just an instant, long enough for him to realize she still existed. It was enough.

Helain knelt to collect the blossoms from a particularly thorny bush, and Ganelon moved to her side. Even if she weren't aware of his presence, he might bask in hers and hope for another glimpse of her old self.

She hummed a work song from the mine as she plucked the flowers. It had been one of Ambrose's favorites. The stout old fellow sang it endlessly around the shop. Helain went through three verses as she stripped the bush, pausing only when she dropped a large blossom. It fell onto the skeleton beneath the bush, into its open rib cage, where it sat like a suddenly resurrected heart.

Ganelon warily reached into the bones and retrieved the rose. He marveled at the bloom's color, a crimson so deep it was nearly black. He held it out to Helain. She looked first at the blossom, then up into Ganelon's face. Without a word, she slowly shook her head from side to side.

Before Ganelon could ask her why, a shriek of fear rent the garden's calm.

Bratu stood before a particularly large bed, face contorted with terror. One of the partially buried skeletons was moving. The bare bones trembled, seeming to push up out of the ground. Ganelon was at his side in an instant. He immediately spotted the rat, disturbed by the Vistana's proximity, as it burrowed deeper into its home within the bones. Bratu, however, was too blind with fear to recognize his terror's mundane cause.

Mouthing silent prayers to his ancestors, Bratu backed away from the rose bushes. He could not hear Ganelon's murmured words of reassurance or the frightened squeals of the other madmen. He shoved Ganelon's hands away when the young man tried to grab hold of him. An instant later, the Vistana toppled backward onto a plucked rose bush.

The struggle was brief, too brief for Ganelon to react in time to aid the Vistana. The thorns bit into Bratu's back. He howled in agony and tried to stand, but the branches entangled his legs. He reached down, frantic to pull himself free. The limbs of the bush bent to meet his fingers, and the thorns buried themselves in his hand. As they drank in the Vistana's blood, they pulsed and swelled in the wounds until they were all but impossible to shake loose.

More branches wrapped themselves around him, eager for his blood. Finally, the brawny Vistana got his feet beneath him. Using all his considerable strength, he pushed himself up. Some of the branches tore loose. Their thorns etched gory streaks in his flesh as they fell away. Most of the bush kept its awful grip upon him, so that when he stood, the skeleton from which the corpse rose had sprouted jerked to its feet, too. The skeleton appeared to wrap its arms around Bratu, though it wasn't clear if it was acting on its own or merely animated by the vines and branches of the corpse rose.

The sight of the skeletal remains clinging to Bratu shocked Ganelon into action. He reached for the Vistana's hand, but the corpse encircled Bratu's arms and pinned them to his sides. A steady, wet slurping sound came from the thorns as they drank in the man's blood. Even as Ganelon watched, new roses budded upon the stems and blossomed. Their petals were dewed with Bratu's blood.

The feeding frenzy of one plant sent the rest into motion. Branches lashed out, snaring arms or legs or faces with their inch-long thorns. Panic swept through the garden. Most of Ganelon's mad army not entangled by the bushes fled. Because the sacks had been tied to their belts, they carried the precious blooms with them as they scurried over the wall. A few froze, paralyzed by fear, Helain among them.

Ganelon tore one of the madmen free of a bush; the thorns claimed ribbons of flesh from the unfortunate's face as he came away. Shoving him toward safety, the young man stormed through the garden. Bones and branches crunched beneath the heavy tread of his braced leg. He found Helain huddled at the garden's center. Corpse roses snaked all around her, but luck or some unseen hand kept them from her fair flesh.

"I've spilled my flowers," she said, gesturing to the red roses scattered across the path. "There can be no wedding now."

Ganelon tried to pull her up from the ground, but she resisted. A branch snagged his leg. He wrenched himself free, heedless of the deep cuts the thorns left in his calf. However, the blood spilled from those wounds drew the unwelcome attention of another rose bush, and it lurched forward hungrily. The corpse at its base stirred, too. Like a half-dozen others around the garden, the ravenous plant uprooted itself. Supported by its skeletal host, the corpse rose shuffled forward in search of blood.

Ganelon stuffed his own small, rose-filled pack into Helain's hands. "The Beast wants these. Hurry."

He protected her flight from the garden as best he could. The mobile corpses moved slowly enough for Ganelon and Helain to evade them. The lunatics already immobilized by the stationary plants were not as lucky. Crazed with hunger, the ambulatory roses descended upon the doomed men and women. The sounds of their feasting followed Ganelon up the hill, away from Malocchio's Dream Garden. The young man knew that the moist tearing and the agonized screams would forever echo in his nightmares.

When he was far enough from the garden to slow his pace, Ganelon removed the Beast's token from his pocket. "Back to him," he whispered into the ear. "Take the roses back to the Beast."

Ganelon hoped the madmen heard him. He had little chance of catching them now.

As he topped the hill, though, Ganelon was stunned to find the survivors of his mad army kneeling on the ground, groveling before a youth clad entirely in black. The sinister figure paced back and forth through the whimpering crowd, hands clasped behind his back. The steady clank of Ganelon's leg brace drew his attention away from the madmen, and he waited patiently for the newcomer to approach.

"Do you know the penalty for disturbing my garden?" Malocchio Aderre asked impatiently. "I'm going to kill you whether you do or not, of course. I'm just curious as to whether you are ignorant or foolhardy."

The tone was playful, but Ganelon recognized an undercurrent of deadly earnest there as well. He would have to deal with this carefully. Still, he felt an odd sense of comfort in the Invidian lord's presence. He'd spoken with this man before, many times. He just couldn't remember when.

These were more phantom memories caused by the Cobbler's graft, he realized. While Ganelon couldn't recollect the incidents that spawned them, he did remember the Cobbler's advice to him in the Fume wood: for these half-forgotten impulses to be useful, he needed to relax and simply let instinct take over.

"Neither fool nor imbecile, great lord," he said, bowing as deeply as his leg brace would allow. "I am merely an obedient servant on a mission."

"The only servants I tolerate in this land are my own," Malocchio replied. "And you and this… rabble are most certainly not servants of mine."

"Perhaps we are," Ganelon corrected mildly, "after a fashion."

Malocchio kicked one of the madmen. "Only if the fashion this season is for mewling lunatics," he snapped.

"The fashion is whatever you say it is."

A slight smile quirked Malocchio's lips. "Indeed." He studied Ganelon for a moment, then said, "Come closer."

As the young man hobbled forward, a light of recognition flashed in Lord Aderre's dark, penetrating eyes. "Where did you get that brace?"

"A benefactor," Ganelon replied. "He thought it would help me travel the hard road I have chosen for myself."

The Invidian lord reached down and tapped the metal. "This is mine, forged in my keep, by my smiths. It was crafted for a friend."

"I'll return it, then," Ganelon said. He began to undo the straps, adding, "Though a friend wears it still."

"How so?"

"The one I serve is set against Lord Soth," Ganelon said. "That gives us common ground for friendship."

Malocchio snatched up one of the bags of roses, overturning it. "This petty theft gives me reason to know you as an enemy," he snarled. With the toe of one black boot he kicked the petals. "Foes of Soth, you say? What use will these be in battling him? Do you hope to litter his path with them so that he trips and falls down the Great Chasm, perhaps?"

Ganelon finished removing the brace. His leg, free of the weight, felt odd. "I don't understand fully," he said. "I know only that the White Rose has a plan and that it will bring Soth to a reckoning for his crimes."

"The White Rose." Malocchio clasped his hands behind his back again and paced through the prostrate lunatics. "She really does exist?"

"I've seen her myself. She sent me after these roses. They play a part in some ancient sorcery she will wield against Soth. I believe she intends to time the spell so that it coincides with the siege of Nedragaard Keep."

"What siege?"

A puzzled look crossed Ganelon's face. "Why, your own. The Rose told me that your troops were even now moving against the keep."

Malocchio swore bitterly. "Is the Rose part of the siege?"

"I don't think so," Ganelon replied. "She spoke as if it were something she had no part in."

The black-clad man rushed to Ganelon's side, lifting him from the ground. "Is this the truth?" he shouted.

Ganelon averted his eyes from Aderre's face. It was frightening in its fury, marked with traces of the youth's demonic heritage. "It is the truth until you tell me it is not," said Ganelon meekly.

The phrase was one familiar to Malocchio's underlings. The lord of Invidia slowly lowered Ganelon back to the ground. "Put the brace back on," he said, "and tell me more about how you obtained it."

Ganelon did as Malocchio demanded, relating the tale told to him by the Bloody Cobbler. It seemed clear to him as he spoke that Aderre had known and perhaps even valued the Cobbler's victim. That fact could only work in his favor, Ganelon realized. Perhaps it might even afford him influence enough to see Helain and the others back safely across the border.

"Yes, of course they can go," Malocchio said distractedly when Ganelon inquired after the fate of his mad soldiers. "In return for my generosity, though, you will remain here with me for a time. We have plans to lay and treachery to punish."

The Invidian lord dismissed the lunatics with a wave. A few got to their feet, but Ganelon had to take out the Beast's token and tell them to flee back to the White Rose before most would leave.

As Helain adjusted the small pack filled with roses for the long journey ahead, Ganelon took her by the arm and studied her face. Wrinkles creased the corners of those gorgeous blue eyes, the leavings of worry and despair. So, too, the frown that tugged at her mouth. These would vanish after the Beast doused the fire of guilt consuming her from within. She would be whole again, the Helain he cherished in his heart.

If she reaches the Beast, Ganelon thought sadly. The words of Inza's curse were always fresh in his mind; he could not help but wonder if, by sending Helain off, he was not fulfilling it somehow. His direction, his hand, would be her doom.

"Tell her to go back to the Beast," Ganelon said suddenly to Malocchio. "Lord Aderre, please be the one to tell this woman to go."

Malocchio smirked. "Can't bear to do it yourself? Very well. Run along, girl. Deliver your flowers."

She turned, but Ganelon held her hand in his for an instant longer. "I only wish one thing, dear heart, and that is for you to remember me."

Helain's blank expression was too much for Ganelon to bear. He released her hand and bowed his head. Mournfully he watched her hurry off- then stop and turn back to him.

Slowly, eyes fixed on her lover's face, Helain returned. Without saying a word, she took Ganelon's hand and placed in it a perfect red rose. She smiled down on the bloom, then at Ganelon. He fixed that smile in his memory, letting it linger in his thoughts even as she hastened over the hills and disappeared into the forest beyond.

"Now that the wench is disposed of," Malocchio noted glibly, "we can discuss what it is I require of you."

"Yes, lord," Ganelon replied in a subdued tone.

"What do you know of Veidrava?"

"The mines? I know them like the veins on the backs of my hands."

"Fine, fine. You will go there and be the agent of my wrath against that treacherous beast Azrael. I want you to kill him, if possible."

Ganelon laughed bitterly. "Is that all, lord?"

Malocchio did not bridle at the grim joviality, for he knew the last laugh, as always, would be his. "Azrael must be made to pay for his betrayal. Those troops you say are now marching toward Nedragaard were never meant as more than a diversion. They were supposed to stay close to the border, to buy the little monster time in which to perform a rite to oust the death knight from the throne. He would take over Sithicus, hand over Magda and her Vistani as thanks for my help, and the world would be a better place.

"He's obviously got something else in mind. He must have bribed my men, purchased an army he could not hope to raise in Sithicus." The Invidian frowned at Ganelon. "What's your concern? You may speak."

"How am I supposed to challenge Azrael?" The youth held up his empty hands. "I don't even have a sword."

"A blade will do you no good against a thing like Azrael," Malocchio noted. He reached into his black cloak and brought out a small bag. "This, however, will make his twisted little brain boil in his skull."

Ganelon undid the drawstring on the silken bag. The pouch contained nothing more than poppy seeds.

"Slip enough of the seeds into his food, his drink, and he will be the Sorrow of Sithicus no more," Malocchio said brightly.

Aderre reached into his cloak again and produced a clear crystal orb. He rolled it in the palm of his hand, letting the sunlight flare upon its flawless surface. "This will be of use to you against his minions at the mine."

"What does it do, lord?"

"Azrael surrounds himself with creatures of the living dark, salt shadows and the like. This is a conduit for their opposite." He held it up to the sun. The orb flared brightly, almost as brightly as the sun itself, before resuming its appearance of mundane glass. "You need only speak a single word to activate it."

"What is the word?"

"Whatever you choose," replied Malocchio, "though you'll want it to be a word you won't forget."

"Helain," Ganelon replied softly.

The smirk returned. "The wench again." Malocchio murmured something as he passed his fingers over the orb. It darkened for an instant before he dropped it into Ganelon's outstretched hands. "I think you'll be able to remember the trigger."

"There's one thing I don't understand," Ganelon said as he tucked the orb and the seeds into a pouch. "Why are you trusting me with this task?"

"Your dearest Helain," the black-clad youth said. "The rite Azrael hopes to perform will destroy her-and everyone else you love in Sithicus. He'll gain control of their shadows, and they'll be his slaves. I'm certain you can imagine what Sithicus would be like if that were to happen."

Ganelon could imagine. That horrible thought drove him on through sleepless nights and exhausting days as he trekked back across the border, through the Fumewood, and on to Veidrava. At the same time, Inza's curse taunted him. If, as she had promised, everything he held dear would perish by his own hand, was he returning to the mine to save Sithicus, or to destroy it?