The existence of Dolparessan deathweed was long thought to be a myth, or rather, an invention of Ernst Sider, the original surveyor of the Domha’vei. Although the official reports merely stated that Dolparessa was “uninhabitable,” anecdotal reports from his crew indicated the presence of a plant of extreme toxicity; perhaps hostility would be the better word. The plant’s spiny blue-green leaves emitted a noxious gas which burned lungs and blinded on contact. When the victim was thus incapacitated, the plant extended prehensile vines which wrapped themselves around the unfortunate’s body, puncturing through skin with poison-tipped needles. The victim would then be dragged into an orifice filed with digestive fluid, much like a pitcher plant. The survey team reported six deaths due to this organism; one survivor eventually committed suicide, as the neurotoxins proved to linger in the body for upwards of two years, and the prescribed cellular scrubbing by nanobots was unavailable at such distance from Earth. However, when Skarsian colonists finally arrived on Dolparessa, there was no sign of this carnivorous nightmare. Despite the confirmation of the other horrifying rumors from Dolparessa, the tales of gigantic reptilian avions and blood-drinking squirrels more vicious and intelligent than wolverines, it was widely supposed that Sider had planted the deathweed story to keep colonists away from a paradisiacal world he regarded as his personal property, to cover up some scandal concerning the crew deaths, or both. Nearly a millennium later, during their ground-breaking research into the nutrient bump mystery, Pauly and Derminnin uncovered the preserved remains of a plant matching the descriptions given by Sider’s traumatized crew. Amazingly, the find was dated to be twelve hundred years old, somewhat after Sider’s pioneer visit but before the advent of colonization. Any attempt to question the Cu’enashti about the mysterious fate of the Dolparessan deathweed is met with stony silence.
Illustration from Beinecke MS 408 (also called The Voynich Manuscript), circa 1404-38.*
Briscoe sniffed the wind. No sign of Merhna, which was peculiar, but lucky. If he couldn’t smell her, he was far out of her range. He did smell Mac’kellr, through the trees, inside of a modest house in the center of a clearing. The other humans in the area were a considerable distance from him.
Wrong, this was all wrong. Although it was likely Briscoe could easily handle any trouble that befell him, his nature was suspicious. Born of my misfortune, he wouldn’t allow himself to be duped into the same mistakes.
As he approached Mac’kellr’s location, his attention was diverted by faint sensations: flickers of nul-energy which raised gooseflesh on his skin, a low keening noise. If he wasn’t mistaken, there were Cu’ensali located within an outbuilding near the main house. He felt a stab of anger followed by distaste. It wasn’t just that the Cu’ensali had caused so many problems. He loathed everything they stood for.
Frowning, he considered his options. Did they mean to attack? Maybe they had captured Mac’kellr and intended to use him as bait. If that were the case, it would make sense to investigate the outbuilding rather than go directly to Mac’kellr. If he encountered Puce, he wouldn’t try to negotiate. He would capture the murderous sprite and see him brought to justice.
But as Briscoe drew closer, the noise increased. It wasn’t the faint wing-buzzing normally associated with Cu’ensali flight. It was a choir of agonized moans and sighs.
He cautiously ducked into the shadow of the building. It seemed to have once been used for storage, but was now half-rotted. A wooden structure. We knew that during certain periods of Dolparessa’s history, wood had been used, generally when synthetics were too expensive or scarce. It was certainly larch-wood – no Dolparessan would ever fell a nau’gsh. Nevertheless, it was unsettling.
The door creaked slightly as he opened it. His first impression was that the far wall was dotted with tiny pink holographs, like trees decorated for the Valentine’s Festival. Then the image resolved and he saw the Cu’ensali, dozens of them pressed back against the wall with their wings strangely distended. It reminded him of a butterfly display. But what could be keeping them suspended? Perhaps the energy cage technology had been modified to create a sort of flypaper?
It took a moment before he could admit what his eyes revealed to him. It wasn’t that difficult to see in the darkness illuminated by the faint pinkish glow – we were perfectly capable of vision in the infra-red. It took him a moment because, like any of us, Briscoe trusts his sense of smell and his tactile perceptions of energy more than he trusts his sight. Smell and touch told him there was nothing holding the Cu’ensali. His eyes told him that they had been nailed to the wall.
The disappearance of the nul-houses from Cu’ensali trees wasn’t just harassment. They had been recycled to create nails coated with nul-matter.
Briscoe gasped, then gagged. Then he felt Mac’kellr approaching from behind. He didn’t bother to turn, didn’t want to look at the man capable of doing this.
“It’s the solution,” Mac’kellr said. “It will be a final death. The nails will disrupt the coherence of their consciousness, like those occasions when you were shot with nullets.”
Then we hadn’t been as clever as we thought. “How long have you known?”
“It was an obvious possibility. We have plenty of Cu’enmerengi sympathizers, but few Cu’enashti. The members of the MPP are either those who have been directly affected by the burnings, or those with Chosen who are activists. You’re really the only Cu’enashti who gets involved in politics, and producing a new emanation is hardly an issue for you. We confirmed our suspicions when you got within Hellborne’s range.”
“Now that was stupid of me. I was taking care to stay out of the reach of your wife. She’s not as strong as Elma’ashra.”
“Compared to you, everyone is a weakling. That’s why we want you on our side. This will work, Ashtara. With the Cu’ensali dead, its tree will be freed. We won’t have to burn any trees – isn’t that what you wanted? And it has the added advantage of destroying the sprites completely instead of recycling them back into the nul-universe. Over time, there will be fewer and fewer of them.”
“Doubtful, as nau’gsh roots cause the release of nul-energy. We’re responsible for creating them. That’s why Puce wants to destroy all the trees.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Then we’ll just have to kill them as soon as they emanate. At least the precious trees will be spared.”
Mac’kellr smelled all wrong, like he was stalling for time. Briscoe could feel a human female approaching, but what was she going to do? From what he could smell, she was unarmed. If she tried to help Mac’kellr, Briscoe’s primary concern would be to not injure her during her futile attack.
Briscoe turned to face Mac’kellr. “There’s a better way,” he urged. “A natural way. We can minimize the amount of Cu’ensali emanating into this world, maybe eliminate it entirely. We know how to do that now.”
“What, with mushrooms?” said Mac’kellr. “The Cantor told us about that insulting idea. You’re a complete fool. I don’t know whether it’s because you’re an idealist or simply out-of-touch with reality. We’re still faced with the Cu’ensali already here, and they hate us. The situation is kill or be killed.”
“Like this?” snapped Briscoe, taking a step towards Mac’kellr. “Did these attack you, or are they just hapless Cu’ensali that you happened to catch?”
“It doesn’t matter. If they don’t want to exist, why does it matter if they die?”
Briscoe, furious, took another step forward. Despite his anger, he hadn’t lost track of the woman who had arrived at the back door. She was trying to take him by surprise, but he could brush her off like a fly. The disturbing thing was that apparently Mac’kellr had dragged more humans into the conflict.
And then the hairs rose on Briscoe’s neck. He was close enough to feel the energy radiating from her. Not a human at all.
« That’s Doriina! » said Patrick.
It was incredibly stupid of us. Like any normal Cu’enashti, Titusashra had more than one emanation. In her case, she had three: Lady Merhna, Ophelia, the flower-face, and Doriina. Doriina rarely emanated; she was a watch-dog whose sole purpose was to protect Mac’kellr.
It didn’t matter to Briscoe. Mac’kellr was right. Ashtara, with five – no, six – trees in his grove was that much stronger than any other Cu’enashti. He didn’t need to emanate martial arts experts like Mickey or Constantine to fight the likes of Doriina. Briscoe tensed, feeling her raising her hand behind him to strike a blow, raising her empty hand.
He wheeled around suddenly, his arm defending against her thrust. The knife sliced deep beneath the elbow. Then there was pain, cold and unbearable, the horrible sensation of unravelling into static. They’d used the nul-matter coating on more than just nails.
Briscoe staggered back towards the wall. The keening of the Cu’ensali filled his ears. He remembered it too well now, the agony that Seth and Owen had experienced when they were shot. It felt as though the universe were coming undone.
She’d meant, of course, to stab him in the back. If the blade had remained in the wound, we would have been in serious trouble. As it was, Briscoe’s skin glowed with blue fire, drinking power from Canopus to repair himself.
Doriina raised the knife again. Briscoe dropped to the ground, swiping his left leg in a low kick. She fell and rolled, crouching near Mac’kellr. “Get away from him!” she screamed, brandishing the blade wildly. “Get away from my husband!”
« N’aashet n’aaverti, » said Whirljack. « She’s none too bright, but she’s loyal. »
« She’d never be convicted under Cu’enashti Law, » said Ross. « Protection of the Chosen supersedes all other considerations. »
Doriina grabbed Mac’kellr’s hand and broke for the exit. Briscoe primed himself to transform door, wall and lock into a solid barrier of iron, but his arm throbbed, and as his head spun, his ears were filled with agonized buzzing. Changing his mind, he yelled, “If there are any Twist in the area, contact Marty. Tell him to let Zosim know where we are, and to arrest anyone suspicious.”
As his adversaries ran out into the forest, Briscoe turned to the wall and began to pull out nails. When he yanked the Cu’ensali free with his left hand, his right hand pressed back against the wall, causing his wounded arm to surge with a cold ache. He clenched his teeth at the feel of the nul-matter against his skin.
« It will take less strength if you transform the wall to gelatin, » suggested Barnabas. « Just don’t do it all at once, or the trapped sprites will sink to the floor while still impaled. I don’t think that would be fun. »
« Don’t bother with the ones who seem to be fading in and out, » Malachi added. « They’re too destabilized to recover. Leaving the nails in will grant a quicker death. »
Briscoe grimaced. Perhaps that was what they wanted – a final, irrevocable annihilation? How different was that from returning to non-existence? At a certain point as nul-entities, we had started to feel, if not to think. Was that any different for Cu’ensali?
And then he halted, recognizing the sprite he was about to free. It was Puce. He wondered if Mac’kellr had even known that he’d managed to capture public enemy number one.
Briscoe hesitated, then pulled out the nail. It was too cruel a death, even for this burner of trees.
He refused to look at Puce, dropping him roughly to the floor. Then there was someone in his face, not Puce, but someone he recognized. It was Fandango, the one who had kept Chase imprisoned. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why are you helping us?”
“Because you’re suffering.”
For a moment, Fandango hovered unsteadily, then sunk to the floor, too spent to stay aloft. She sat on the cold stone. “I still don’t understand.”
“I don’t like to see anyone suffering, even my enemies.”
“Why not?”
“Do you want to see your enemies suffer? Do really hate us that much?”
“I don’t hate you at all. I’m indifferent. When we had captured you earlier, I didn’t particularly want you to suffer, but I didn’t care if you did, either. Now Puce, Puce hates you.”
As if to make the point, Puce swooped up and drove a nail into the area between Briscoe’s shoulder blades. If his aim had been better, he would’ve hit the spine. Briscoe howled, swatting at Puce, groping at the nail to dislodge it. But the presence of the disruptive nul-matter was making him clumsy and uncoordinated, and it took him a few attempts before his twitching fingers were able to grasp it.
“Kill,” said Puce. “Kill kill kill.” He gestured towards the wounded Cu’ensali gathered on the floor, then pointed at the pile of nails.
“Killing me is counter-productive,” gasped Briscoe. “I haven’t released all your people yet.”
“Moron,” said Puce. “Diediedie.”
“Just stop,” said Fandango, exasperated. “Can’t you see he’s stupid enough to help us? And you’re just antagonizing him.”
Puce continued to jump and wave at the other Cu’ensali. To their credit, some of them seemed to be appalled at the thought of turning on their savior, but the attitude of the majority was I’ve just been impaled, you imbecile, I’m in no condition to attack anyone.
In the distance, Briscoe heard shouting and the whoosh of hovercars. The Cu’ensali must have heard it too: the ones who were strong enough to fly took to the skies. Too late, Briscoe realized that Puce had escaped again. He continued to pull out nails.
“Fandango, just answer the one question, the potentially stupid question that Chase asked earlier. If you hate life so much, why do you even bother to emanate?”
“Same reason as you do. The trees make us do it. Duh.”
Briscoe freed the last Cu’ensali who seemed to have any hope of survival. He crouched on the ground, facing Fandango. “I hate to disillusion you, but the trees don’t make us emanate,” he said. “Mothmen and dryads come out of the trees when they make contact with human consciousness, someone who inspires them to experience animal life for themselves.”
Fandango’s antennae recoiled away from him. “Eww,” she said. “Gross.”
SSOps didn’t find Mac’kellr or Doriina. They had to be helped, hidden by someone powerful. The likely answer was Elma’ashra. This was an enormous problem: if we couldn’t convince the Cantor, our plan stood no chance of succeeding. She must’ve known what Mac’kellr was doing. How could she countenance that?
Briscoe went directly to Elma’s hotel room. Perhaps it wasn’t quite right to say that he felt tired or ill – under normal circumstances, we didn’t feel those sorts of things – but his spirit was weary, and he was sickened by what he had seen. Mac’kellr and Titusashra, no matter how opportunistic they could be, felt they were doing the right thing. Part of Briscoe agreed with them. He just didn’t understand how it was possible to hate enough to justify such cruelty.
« I do, » said Lorcan. « When Puce stabbed Briscoe in the back, I wanted to run that nail through that pink toasterlicker’s head. I wanted to put him between two nul-boxes to see if he would pop like a zit when you pressed him. I wanted to coat a nail file with nul-matter and…»
I think we get the idea. If I may continue: when Briscoe arrived, the prophetess was alone, sprawled on the couch, completely zoned on Gyre. “Oh, it’s you,” she said. “Just don’t disturb the mattresses. Fishpoles don’t grow in wormholes, you know.”
“I’m looking for the Cantor. Or Hellborne. Either one.”
“I know that. Did you know that proto-Cu’enashti synchronize spin in accordance to harmonics of the prime number sequence?”
« Wait, » said Cüinn. « If Daniel is 2, then Vassali is 241, so he should be able to synch by increasing the frequency of his waveform to 120.5 times faster than Daniel. »
« It doesn’t work, » grumbled Davy. « That’s why we need Stephen. »
« Aha, » said Seth. « Then it goes by order of the correspondence chart, not by order of emanation. »
Briscoe noticed a bowl which held only a few crumbs of puddins. He took the bowl to the sink, filled it a quarter of the way with water, then alchemically synthesized his own. He was hungry.
He sat in a chair across from her. She reached into the bowl. “Hey, these are turneefp puddins. I like the unonion ones.”
“I didn’t make them for you,” he replied. “Also, is the prime number thing for real? I thought you couldn’t see nul-energy.”
“No, but I can see Tara making that prophecy three months from now,” said Elma, taking another handful. “Geez, turneefp. Couldn’t you even do sweet vokkroot?”
« That would make Vassali 163, » Seth continued, « He’d have to have a frequency 81.5 times greater than Stephen. »
« Stephen hasn’t emanated, » said Barnabas. « That doesn’t really help. »
“I need to see the Cantor,” said Briscoe, trying to ignore the distraction. We have a potential solution to the Cu’ensali issue, and I need to know if she’ll support us.”
“The Cantor will, Hellborne won’t. Hellborne will never get over losing Heavensent.”
“Heavensent isn’t exactly gone.”
Elma stopped in mid-crunch.
“She is, but she isn’t. The energy couldn’t have been lost, not like that. But all her memories are gone. Her personality – I don’t know. How much is made of memory, how much is inherent tendencies? The next time, she could be as different as Lugh from Owen. But what we know now would indicate that a Cu’enashti emanation is like a piece of a puzzle. It doesn’t make sense outside of the big picture, but it retains its own integrity. Except that’s not quite right. The pieces don’t fit together in any order, and the big picture changes. Maybe like a kaleidoscope.”
“A what?”
For a moment, Briscoe tried to think of the words to explain. Then he realized that it would be pointless to explain by using an analogy to something with which she was unfamiliar. Instead, he grabbed a vase and tossed the silk flowers to the side. « Driscoll, help me, » he said.
An instant later, he handed her an exquisitely crafted tube of metal and glass; on the far end was a lens filled with rare and brilliant gemstones suspended in a gelatinous suspension. “Hold it like a telescope,” he directed.
“A what?”
“Put the small lens up to your eye and look through the tube. Then rotate it.”
Elma stared through it for a while. “I don’t understand,” she said. “It looks like some kind of primitive holographic projector with a very limited range of images.”
“Forget it,” said Briscoe. “The point is that fire will burn a branch, but it won’t destabilize a nul-entity. Heavensent’s essence – maybe we should call it a soul? – still exists, and is still bound to the Cantor and to Hellborne. That would still be true even if the Cantor Tree burned entirely although that would be a horrible thing. It probably results in a return to the nul-universe – at least, that’s what the Cu’ensali seem to think.”
“I don’t think knowing that will make it any easier for her. It certainly won’t make her stop hating the Cu’ensali.”
“I hate the Cu’ensali. If she knew what I knew about the Cu’ensali, she’d hate them more. One of those fuckers stabbed me with a nul-matter coated nail not two minutes after I saved his life. But that doesn’t mean that we get to eradicate them. Humans hate spiders. Should we go around stomping on all of them?”
“Humans brought spiders to the Domha’vei because they were useful,” said Elma. “Are Cu’ensali useful?”
“Useful is a relative term,” said Briscoe. “Whether something is useful or not, or beautiful or not, isn’t what determines whether it’s considered a weed. A weed is something you can’t get rid of. A weed is something which persists.”
“In that case,” said Elma, grabbing another handful of biiskits, “humanity is the most persistent weed in the history of the universe. You know, this isn’t your fault. Hey, do you see my stash? The table won’t hold still long enough for me to grab it.”
“That’s probably a sign, as you seem to have no problem with the biiskits,” Briscoe said, eying the empty bowl. “I think you’ve had enough – Gyre, that is. I’ll make more biiskits. I’ll compromise and make sour vokkroot.”
“I can judge for myself when I’ve had enough,” said Elma, slamming her hand down several times on the table. “Hey! Stay put! Anyway, don’t blame yourself for what happens.”
Briscoe froze, the newly-created biiskits clattering at the bottom of the bowl. “What’s going to happen?”
“Um, nothing in particular. I was speaking in general.”
“You’re a prophetess. You don’t speak in general.”
Elma slumped back on the couch. “Turn on the media push. I’m not chasing that datapad around the room.”
Briscoe waved his hand over the datapad. A holographic image of flames sprung up beneath his fingers. “Responders are rushing to the site of what is believed to be the worst forest fire in known Dolparessan history. The Last Range Forest, a huge wilderness area north of popular resort Chalkolo Beach, is thought to have caught fire in the early morning hours. As yet, there seems to be no need to evacuate nearby ports-of-call, but we’re here to give you up-to-the-second information. With us is Cyanne Greene, the area supervisor of the Department of Forestry. Cyanne, the circumstances of this fire are unusual.”
“Very unusual, Victr. Forest fires don’t happen on Dolparessa. They don’t happen because the particular combination of wind and dryness which facilitates them never occurs. They don’t happen because the forests are sacred, and our people exercise a kind of care in the wildwood exemplary for humans. Above all, they don’t happen because the Archon doesn’t allow it.”
“Cyanne, do you suspect foul play?”
“Considering recent events, and that it’s an old growth forest with no registered Cu’enmerengi or Cu’enashti…”
The bowl dropped limply from Briscoe’s hand. Elma caught it, saying, “When you kill a sprite, its tree dies. Hellborne figured that out a few days ago, but she didn’t tell Merhna.”
“Because they were the decoys. And so were you, too fucked up for me to smell that you were hiding the truth from me.”
“Hellborne wants everything to burn,” said Elma. “A fire like that won’t die until it burns itself out.”
Briscoe put his rage into his fist, taking a wild swing at the window. He didn’t even notice the cuts on his hand before the mothman had jumped out and was flying west over the Sea of Illusion.
*The Floatfish text decries the loss of a potentially profitable bioweapon – trans.