Suibhne is standing with arms folded in front of the Atlas Tree. The last time he was here, he pretended to burn it down.
This time, all he’s going to do is chop up the roots.
Suibhne needs an ax. He makes one out of nothing. It’s easy. Suibhne can control the power of the Archon.
They always forget about Suibhne when they talk about the Archons. Suibhne can do anything they can do. It’s probably better they forget. Suibhne is not good with the public.
Tara is coming in a hovercar. If she sees what Suibhne is doing, she’ll try to stop him, so he’d better get to work.
It’s much harder than chopping down the larches. Larches are wimps. Luckily, there’s a large area of root sticking out where Chase’s branch connects to the tree. It used to be almost completely separate from the system of sub-trunks, but over time, it connected back. It needed a lot of root support for that, so now there’s root visible on the cliff side. Saves the trouble of going through rock.
Whack. Whack.
Tara jumps out of the hovercar and rushes over. “Suibhne? What the fuck are you doing?”
“I cannot tell a lie; it is I,” Suibhne says, holding up a pencil-thin rootlet. “But the question is why.”
“You tell me,” she says. She’s inching towards the ax a little bit. Suibhne thinks it’s making her nervous. Suibhne thinks she wants to take it away from him.
Suibhne puts the ax on the ground. “Maybe he had a psychotic break.”
She lunges for the ax. Suibhne does not try to stop her. “He? You? Or one of the other emanations?”
“Suibhne was quoting George Washington. Probably apocryphal, though. Suibhne can’t figure why he’d want to murder an innocent cherry tree. Although cherry trees are kind of twee, you know, precious. Just so la de da all the time. But not nearly as smug as larches.”
She throws the ax over the cliff and into the sea. It doesn’t fall any faster than Daniel did. Gravity is funny like that.
Tara’s voice is level, in a really scary kind of way. “I don’t care fuck-all about George Washington. I want to know why you were trying to chop down the Atlas Tree.”
“We needed this.” He shows her the root again.
“Suibhne…” she says. Her voice is very soft. She’s so close, Suibhne can feel her breath. It makes him want to have sex. Here, in the Ipsissimal Park, which is kind of shameless. But then again, it’s his tree. I can do whatever I want here.
“Tara always tries to distract Suibhne when he has something important to say.” Suibhne hopes he doesn’t sound too whiney. Whiney is not sexy.
Suibhne is getting distracted. “Like that time in the bathtub. He was trying to tell you about the Denolin Turym. Then you would’ve known.”
Suibhne sees in her eyes, first surprise, then understanding. She touches his face. “Ash. You did try to warn me. Then you weren’t setting me up. I’m so sorry I didn’t trust you.” She presses her face against his neck. I want. I want. But there’s something in Suibhne’s hand.
“You have to take this.” Suibhne sounds growly, hopes it doesn’t scare Tara.
She looks at me, brown eyes burning. I burn in them.
She takes the root from Suibhne’s hand, from my hand. “Why?”
“To make it better.”
She’s silent for a moment. Maybe it’s an hour. Maybe Suibhne should learn how to play the piano. It seemed to help Valentin.
“I don’t get it,” she says. “Why did you attack Atlas?”
“A new tree will fix things.”
“So you want to destroy Atlas?”
“No! No, no, no!” Suibhne runs my fingers through his hair. It messes up his ponytail. Hair is sticking up at odd angles. I look like a lunatic.
Suibhne is a lunatic.
“Then why…”
“You have to plant it.”
She looks at the piece of Atlas in her hand. “This is root stock,” she says, finally understanding. “It’s not from the branches, so we won’t have a situation like Owen if we cultivate it.”
Yeah! Now she gets it. “It will start fresh.”
“Is this Ashvattha?”
“No. That’s all planned. This is something completely new. Random, like Wynne asked for.”
“I’m still not certain I understand, but I’ll do it. I trust you. Now come back in the hovercar with me.”
Suibhne turns and waves goodbye to the tree. He really hopes that Atlas doesn’t interpret all the hostile gestures he’s made towards it as an indication of dislike.
Atlas is me, after all.
As we fly back to the palace, Tara leans back against Suibhne. It’s nice. Flying along the beach, the sea and the starlight, Tara warm against my chest. It’s nice.
She thinks it’s nice, too. I’m so happy I could float out of the hovercar. It’s a good thing I don’t have to worry anymore. Suibhne did his bit.
Ugh, no, Suibhne is wrong. There’s one more thing he needs to do. “When we get back to the palace, Suibhne needs to borrow the Staff of the Matriarch, ok?”
Tara sits up abruptly. She doesn’t say anything. She’s weighing how dangerous it will be to humor Mad Suibhne.
“I promise I won’t wipe out sentient life in the Domha’vei.” Suibhne places his right hand upon my heart. Well, not directly on my heart. He probably could, if he wanted, but it would get messy.
“That’s reassuring,” she says. She’s being sarcastic.
We stop at the display case to get the staff. Since she’s carrying it, Suibhne opens the door to our suite. Also, it’s just polite. She is the Matriarch, after all.
“Where did that come from?” she asks.
In the center of the room is an enormous porcelain dish filled with soil. It stands about a meter tall. The base is square, but the sides taper so that it’s larger at the top than the bottom. It’s an off-white porcelain; each side replicates the same pattern in blue glaze, an ancient Chinese design of peach blossoms and fruit. Well, the Chinese designs usually have one or the other, because peaches don’t bloom and fruit at the same time. But the fruit isn’t really a peach. It’s a nau’gsh nectarine. A nau’gshterine.
There are moths, too. Usually, the Chinese designs pair bats with peaches. Suibhne doesn’t get it. I and I is a mothman. A batman would just be silly.
“Suibhne made it,” I say proudly. “It’s a penjing pot. It’s not quite finished, though.” There are unglazed depressions in the centers of the peach blossoms where the lady-bits of the flowers generally go. Also, there are recesses at the tips of the moths’ antennae.
“Stick the Staff of the Matriarch into the dirt. Right in the center. Then put the root next to it.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to grow this hydroponically?”
I can’t help wincing.
“I guess not. Would some RootRiot help?”
“RootRiot is always good, especially with gin.” Suibhne hopes Tara gets the hint.
She does. She waters the root, and then she gets us something to drink. While she’s doing it, I notice the trading cards lying in a pile on the table. “Suibhne’s card sucks,” I say. “It’s not as bad as Valentin’s or Wynne’s, though.” Suibhne looks at Tara hopefully. “Can we make my trading card better?”
That’s a great pick up line, isn’t it?