Posad continued working the mud into the soil with a three-pronged garden fork. “You spoil him,” he said.
“I can’t help it. He is so polite.” Spider fed the last of the feed to the tree and shook his hands to the remaining branches. “Sorry, fellows. All gone.”
The branches brushed his shoulders as if in gratitude, and the tree righted itself. Spider watched the grains of feed float down the trunk, opaque and glowing like snow-flakes turned into tiny stars by light.
The tree was vital to fusion. Only with it could John combine Genevieve’s body with the plant tissue. The process would destroy her will and ensure complete compliance. The fusion carried its own dangers, Spider reflected. Genevieve could lose all cognitive ability, which would make her useless to him. She could retain too much will, and then she would try to murder him. But he had little choice in the matter. The diary was simply too important.
Posad swung the rag over his shoulder and pushed the wheelbarrow forward. The growth on his back and right side had gotten larger in the last few days, the way it always did when the colony was about to split. Thick purple veins clasped the flesh of the hump under the pink, glistening skin. It drew the eye.
Like most of the Hand’s altered humans, Posad had been conceived as a weapon. He was meant to be the Bee Master, commanding swarms of deadly insects. In combat conditions the idea proved grossly impractical, but Posad found his niche, taking care of the plants that provided them with chemicals for alteration.
“I can’t find Lavern,” Posad said, brushing the dirt from his pants with his shovel-large right hand.
Spider pondered that for a moment. Lavern was one of their strongest hunters but more unstable than most. He showed cannibalistic tendencies, which meant he was close to being replaced. He was deployed only under strict supervision, and as far as Spider knew, Lavern shouldn’t have left the house.
“Do tell,” Spider said.
Posad grimaced. “Karmash said to keep an eye out. Lavern was fine last night, but he isn’t fine now.”
His second in command had sent Lavern out. Spider felt a wave of fury begin to swell and counted to three in his head. “Are you sure?”
“The Goldmint isn’t picking him up. Come, see for yourself.”
They walked down the path. The wheelbarrow creaked with steady regularity, the sound of worn wheels mixing with the dry scratch of gravel.
The stench of old urine hit Spider’s nostrils. The path turned, and they halted before an enormous blossom. Seven feet wide and pale yellow in color, it hugged the ground, rising to Spider’s waist. Boils, as big as his fist and filled with murky liquid, covered the thick flaps of the meaty petals. A network of pale false stamens rose to the ceiling, anchoring itself to the wooden framework of the greenhouse roof.
Up close the reek of sewage squeezed moisture from Spider’s eyes. He stared into the tangled web of the filaments, seeking the true stamens among the mess of the false. He counted thirty-one. The thirty-second stamen drooped to the side, its antler thick with white fuzz. The stamen had matured and produced pollen. The link between Lavern’s magic and the flower no longer suppressed its development.
“Lavern is dead,” Posad said. “I thought you should know.”
Spider nodded. The gardener reached over and hacked the stamen off with a short thick knife. The second man they had lost in the Mire since Cerise had left the Rathole. First Thibauld, who failed to report in and whose stamen had been cut yesterday. Now Lavern, who should have been safe at base.
Spider left the hothouse, striding briskly to his study. A small rush basket perched at the bottom of the staircase. He looked at it for a second and climbed the stairs. Two more baskets sat on the landing. He passed them and reached the upstairs hallway. More items woven of rush littered the narrow corridor. Stacks of carriers, linen hampers, and bread bowls leaned against the walls; round waste bins set into each other formed rush colonnades; intricate hampers vied with flower panniers for space. Their dried plant odor mixed with the stench of algae that always permeated the house.
Spider growled under his breath, dodged a tower of round planters teetering precariously with his every step, and pushed into the small room that served as the reception area for his office. Veisan hunched in her chair, her fingers plaiting the rushes into a rug. A heap of rushes lay at her feet next to an equally large pile of baskets.
At his approach, Veisan surged to her feet, her strong hands tearing the braided rug. “M’lord!”
“Have Karmash see me,” he ordered.
“Yes, m’lord.”
A huge rush creation resembling a hollow duck sat between him and the door. Spider kicked it into the corner.
“And stop cluttering the place. We’re not basketry merchants.”
“Yes, m’lord.”
He entered his study and walked past the rectangle of a massive antique table to the window. Pitch-black. It took a fraction of a breath for his enhanced eyes to adjust, and then the darkness blossomed, unfolding before him like a flower to reveal the strand of cypresses next to the flooded plain.
Karmash had disobeyed him. Yet again.
Spider’s anger pushed his senses into overdrive, as the implanted glands squirted catalysts into his bloodstream. He unlatched the frame and swung the window open. A cascade of night scents and noises washed over him. His acute hearing caught Karmash’s particular gait, and he faced the door. The steps drew closer, and Spider smelled the musky scent of the breaker’s sweat.
“Enter,” he barked. There was a momentary pause. The door swung open. Karmash stepped inside, his hulking form dwarfing the doorway, and shut the door behind him. His white hair dripped moisture. Spider’s nostrils caught a hint of swamp water.
“Were you swimming?” Spider asked.
“Yes, m’lord.”
“Was the water warm?”
“No, m’lord.” The big man shifted from foot to foot.
“So it was more of a brisk, invigorating kind of experience?”
“Yes, m’lord.”