By James Lecky
There are those men who, through either good or ill fortune, find their path early in life and dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to it, forsaking all other pursuits or pleasures.
Such a man was Vergallen Gift, poisoner to the court of Cardinal Kirill of the Sonnilon Temple in the vaunted city of PameGlorias. For the better part of seventy years he had laboured in the Cardinal’s gardens and it was rumoured – although rarely loudly and never publicly – that each one of the white roses growing in the southern corner of the estate represented a lord or lady sent to the tomb by his lethal concoctions.
Since childhood he had been fascinated by flora and fauna, and tended his plants as another man might nurture his children, with a strict but boundless love. Wolfsbane, monkshood, toadroot, columbine, wormwood, nightshade, hellebore, mandrake, hemlock: to Vergallen Gift these were words more beautiful than any poet – even the celebrated Venedict Du Lac of House Kellovech – had ever written.
More than that, he was one of the few men of those Latter Days who understood the nature and nurture of those alien blooms that had found their way to Earth, their seeds blown across the void by cosmic winds or carried in the crevices of meteors.
By right, none of these plants should have survived their transplantation: for the ancient earth was no longer an hospitable place, even to those who had been born on her surface, but the love and care furnished by the old man upon his alien plants, supplemented by dark incantations supplied by His Eminence Cardinal Kirill, brought forth such blooms as had never been seen before in the history of the world.
The dragonflower, the stinging rose, howling orchid, shriekweed, the fire lily – a multitude of exotic blooms whose very existence was against the laws of nature, but whose presence gave Vergallen Gift a joy that no man or woman had ever been able to match.
One evening as the moribund sun crawled below the horizon, spreading carmine rays across the streets and towers of PameGlorias, Vergallen Gift took his last walk of the day through the estate, making sure that all was as it should be.
As ever, he stopped first at the rose garden, taking time to greet the flowers, remembering some by name and the nature of their demise:
“Lord Hayasdan of House Herhoven… hemlock in his wine.”
“Contessa Marineh of House Amirian, pricked by a thorn from the stinging rose.”
“Baron Zaven, whose life was ended by angel’s trumpet”
“Bishop Dirayr, sent to his gods by the juice of the fire lily.”
Each memory, each efficient death, brought pleasure to him. But it was the pleasure of a task well done rather than that of a life taken, for Vergallen Gift was not by nature a cruel man. An artist rather than an assassin, he passed no judgment on those he had slain, but simply carried out the wishes of Cardinal Kirill, content to let any guilt or blame rest with His Eminence. He felt no more remorse than a blade would feel as it cut a recalcitrant throat.
His obsequies done, he turned his steps towards the western corner of the estate where the alien plants grew. It was a large grove, separated from the other gardens by a huge thorn bush – so private that even the Cardinal himself had rarely set foot there – and passable only by a small entrance expertly hidden from inquisitive eyes. At his approach each bush, creeper and vine in the grove shimmered and shook, turning towards him. Those plants that were capable of sound – the howling orchid, the shriekweed, the crooning flytrap, the singing narcissus – called out to him in voices that were melodic or dissonant according to their nature.
“Ah, my little ones,” he said, “What do you have for me this evening?”
Then carefully, almost reverentially, he harvested the sap, petals and leafs with which to make his deadliest poisons, speaking softly and lovingly to his plants as he cut and pruned. At times, certain of them shied away from the touch of his little golden sickle and he chided them with mock anger until their vibrations ceased.
His task completed, he sat for a while listening to the plants until night claimed the city and the large yellow moon dominated the sky.
Finally, he rose, sighing with the weight of his years, and bade the farewell to the grove for another day.
“Goodnight, my little ones, goodnight.”
As he left, they rustled and rattled and called once again.
And so the singular life of Vergallen Gift continued from day to day in macabre contentment.
***
In the winter of his eighty-third year, he was summoned into the presence of His Eminence Cardinal Kirill, a summons that gave him a morbid thrill of delight since more often than not it meant that the Cardinal’s required the use of his talents.
He dressed in his finest clothes – moleskin frock coat and grey leather breeches – and slicked his long grey hair back from his forehead. The face that presented itself in the mirror was older than he recalled – for it had been many months since he had occasion to appraise his own appearance – the lines deeper, skin like ancient papyrus, but his grey eyes still glittered with keen intelligence.
“There are a lot of years left in you, old fellow,” he said. “A lot of work still to be done.”
Satisfied, he left his small house on the edge of the estate and made his way along the tree-lined boulevard to the Cardinal’s palace.
Snow crunched beneath his boots, but the air was filled with the scent of blossoms; the Cardinal detested winter and paid a small cadre of enchanters to guarantee that his gardens remained in bloom even in its harshest depths; the same enchanters he employed to keep his face and body insured against the passage of time.
The Cardinal was waiting for him in a vast drawing room, seated upon a throne carved from ebon marble into the likeness of Sonnilon herself, her winged arms enfolding him tenderly. He wore the red robes and skullcap of his office and his pale, hawk-like face shone with practiced beatitude.
A young man stood to his left, dressed in the grey robes of an acolyte.
“My old friend, how very good of you to come,” the Cardinal said, in tones so sweet that even Vergallen Gift himself, who knew the capricious nature of His Eminence better than any man alive, had no reason to doubt the sincerity of his words.
“I am ever and always at your service, Your Eminence,” the poisoner replied, kneeling and kissing the garnet ring on the Cardinal’s left hand.
Kirill smiled without showing his teeth. “It is good to know that in these turbulent times there is at least one man I can rely on.”
“Quite so, Your Eminence.”
“And yet.” Here the Cardinal rose from his throne and the arms of Sonnilon parted to allow him to stand. “And yet, I cannot help but feel that it would be better if there were more like Vergallen Gift around me.”
“Your Eminence?”
“You are not a young man, my friend. For that matter, neither am I.” And this time when he smiled the long pointed teeth of the Cardinal were clearly visible, yellowed like those of a rabid wolf. “And when you are gone who will there be to serve my interests?”
“I have many years left in me, Your Eminence.”
“But I have many more left in me. By the grace of the goddess, even hundreds more.”
“If the goddess wills it.” But Vergallen Gift left unspoken the thought that the Cardinal’s longevity was due as much to the intervention of demons as angels.
“Therefore I have decided that it is time that you were given an apprentice, someone to carry on your work and legacy against that unfortunate day.”
“As Your Eminence wishes.” But the old poisoner could already feel bitter tears of disappointment and hurt welling up in his eyes.
“Avvelenare Otrava,” the Cardinal said to the young acolyte. “Meet your new master, Vergallen Gift.”
Avvelenare stepped forward and acknowledged the old man with a short nod of his head.
“This dear young man has no one in the world,” the Cardinal said. “A foundling left at the steps of the Temple and delivered into the loving arms of Sonnilon. Teach him well, old friend, so that he may be as dear to me as you once were.” Again that wolfish smile. “Or rather, as dear to me as you are.”
“I will endeavour to please you in all things, Your Eminence.”
“As I knew you would.”
***
When a man lives for a long time, he learns to cope with pain. The human body is, at best, a fragile thing and Vergallen Gift had learned to ignore those bone-deep aches and twinges that now accompanied even the meagrest of tasks. But the knowledge that he was to be replaced pained him more acutely than he believed possible. Moreover, the fact that he would be required to train his replacement sharpened the pain to an exquisite degree.
But in all things he was a good and faithful servant, so he bent himself to his master’s wishes and began to instruct Avvelenare Otrava in the ancient and noble art of the poisoner.
Each morning he would lead the young man through the poison gardens, pointing out the plants by name and nature.
“Wolfsbane to slow the heart.”
“Wormwood to take the sight.”
“Nightshade to take the breath.”
“Autumn crocus to clot the blood.”
“Hemlock to numb the limbs.”
“Skullcap to steal the mind.”
Avvelenare proved himself an able pupil despite his tender years. He was no more than a boy, fourteen or fifteen years old, with a smooth-faced androgyny which he tried to offset by shaving his blonde hair close to the scalp. Within weeks he had mastered many of the basic toxins and venoms and proved himself adept at the creation of lethal concoctions. But more than that, he took as much delight in the gardens as did Vergallen Gift himself. His eyes would light up at the very mention of monkshood and he would smile when the scent of belladonna wafted through the bushes.
And as time passed, Vergallen Gift’s pain eased and he came to regard the boy as the son that – until now – he had never even dreamed of. And for his part Avvelenare Otrava came to think of the poisoner as the father that he had never known.
“He’s going to have you killed,” Avvelenare said one evening as they finished work. ”You know that, don’t you?”
The old man nodded. “I’ve know it from the moment I saw you. It will not be long before the Cardinal orders my death – I am party to too many of his secrets, have played too great a part in his advancement for him to allow me to live much longer.”
“And yet you have taught me your secrets?”
“Not all. And not yet.” The old man smiled. “You are a good pupil, my boy, and the plants love you.”
“You could leave,” Avvelenare said. “If you know so many secrets surely one of the other noble houses would give you shelter.”
Vergallen Gift smiled wanly. “The gardens still require my attention,” he said.
“I understand,” Avvelenare said.
“I knew that you would.”
They sat in silence for a long time, neither one able or willing to give voice to their emotions. The sun sank and the indifferent moon took its place, casting the gardens into stark monochrome.
Finally, Vergallen Gift stood.
“Come with me,” he said. “I have something to show you.”
He led Avvelenare past the rose garden towards the tall wall of thorns in the western quarter of the estate.
As they entered the alien garden, the fire lilies burst into flame to light their way; the shriekweeds called out to them with high piping voices; the stinging roses rattled their stalks and the howling orchids moaned like damned souls; even the dragonflowers, the haughty kings of the garden, deigned to turn their bulbous blooms towards them. Colours sparkled and flashed, shades of red and blue and purple and black that had their origins in the deepest recesses of space, pigments that few men had ever set their eyes upon.
“I never dreamed,” Avvelenare whispered. “I never dreamed it would be this beautiful.”
“All that is planted may grow,” Vergallen Gift said. He laid a thin hand on his apprentice’s shoulder then took the little golden sickle from his belt.
“I have much to teach you.”
***
Time passed, and still the Cardinal’s order did not come, as if he were waiting for time – the great executioner – to do his work for him.
But the patience of men such as Cardinal Kirill is not, nor can it be, infinite. Perhaps he saw Vergallen Gift’s insistence on clinging to life as a personal affront, or perhaps he simply grew tired of waiting.
Whatever the reason, he finally dispatched the Morder Zunft of PameGlorias in the summer of Vergallen Gift’s ninetieth year.
They came in the hour after dawn, two tall, slender men dressed in purple livery, their faces covered with red inquisitor’s hoods and daggers held naked in their hands.
They found the poisoner and his apprentice beside a bed of mandrakes.
At their approach, Avvelenare stood and faced them – he had no weapon other than his sickle, but brandished it threateningly at the two masked men.
“No,” Vergallen Gift told him. “It would do no good.”
“You would allow them to take you?”
“All that lives must grow and all that grows must die,” the old man said and walked to meet his murderers.
A flash of steel, a high arc of thin blood, and the deed was done.
They left him where he fell and scurried away, half-shamed, half-elated after the fashion of their kind.
Avvelenare Otrava cradled him in his arms and wept.
***
“Old plants often stunt the growth of saplings,” His Eminence Cardinal Kirill said. “And if that happens they must be pruned back or cut away completely – surely Vergallen Gift taught you that much?”
“Yes, Your Eminence.”
“Then you understand why he had to die?”
“Of course, Your Eminence.”
“And you bear me no malice?”
“None, Your Eminence.”
Cardinal Kirill smiled his rabid smile. “You would not tell me even if you did, is that not so? But you are a wise young man, Avvelenare, wise enough to understand that revenge is a fool’s business.”
“Why should I seek revenge for an old man, Your Eminence? His life was all but ended.”
“Quite so,” the Cardinal said. “And with his passing all this is yours.” He swept out a hand to encompass the estate and its poison gardens. “Within reason, of course.”
They stood on the steps of the Sonnilon Temple that lay adjacent to the Cardinal’s palace. The rituals for the departed soul of Vergallen Gift had been completed, albeit in a perfunctory manner, and the old man’s body lay in state in the temple, looked over by an obsidian statue of the goddess herself.
Only Avvelenare and Cardinal Kirill had attended the ceremony; although once, the young man had glimpsed two red-hooded figures lurking in the shadows, the assassins of the Morder Zunft come to pay their last respects, but they had not lingered long.
“May I ask a favour of you, Your Eminence?”
“Of course, my young friend – as long as it is within my power to grant it.”
“Will you allow me to bury him?”
The Cardinal turned and stared at him.
“Why?”
“The soil needs nutrients. And, after all, his life and death were here – it seems fitting to me that Vergallen Gift should rest in the gardens.”
“Very well,” the Cardinal said, “he may rest here.” Then, his decision made, the Cardinal’s tone and expression changed from one of sombre piety to cruel purpose. “And when you have finished I wish you to visit me in my chambers – the Earl Veduc has recently voiced certain criticisms towards my policies; an offering from the poison gardens may silence his chattering.”
“I have no doubt that it would, Your Eminence.”
***
Avvelenare Otrava took the body of Vergallen Gift and buried it with his own two hands in the grove beyond the thorn wall, so that the old man would be near to the things he had loved best.
The plants were strangely silent as he worked regarding him with blank faces, and yet he was aware that they scrutinised his every move.
Only when he had finished and tamped the soil over the grave did they begin to move and articulate again; yet their sounds and behaviour changed in some small, subtle way, as if they acknowledged the presence of their new master while paying tribute to the old.
They reached out their tendrils towards the grave, pushing and probing into the newly turned soil.
“Look after him, children.” Avvelenare said. “Let him sleep well.”
***
In PameGlorias the seasons linger, blending together into one long autumn lit by flashes of winter and summer. Spring is a fleeting thing at best, a memory almost as soon as it has registered.
In time, as the slow seasons drifted on, even the name of Vergallen Gift had been forgotten by all but a few. But his gardens continued to thrive under the guiding hand of Avvelenare Otrava; the rose bushes increased in number, with red blossoms mingled amongst the white as the Cardinal’s new poisoner marked his achievements:
“Lady Jagellon, autumn crocus in her food…”
“Prince Magnus, a tincture of caladium and daffodil…”
“Milady Zerbst, delphinium and doll’s eyes…”
“The Margrave Valdemar, larkspur, moonseed and privet…”
The grove beyond the thorns had flourished, too, under his dutiful care and attention and its otherworldly toxins had graced the palates of many a noble in PameGlorias. Dragonflower and shriekweed had stolen first the mind and then the life of Baron Gedes of House Cervallion; Lady Beldevian had died screaming at the touch of a bouquet of stinging roses and Lord Thurmeon had drowned in his own blood after inhaling the scent of a howling orchid.
But of all the flowers in the grove, his most beloved was the one he had planted all those years ago and watered with his tears; the strange and twisted bush that grew from the grave of Vergallen Gift. It was not of the ancient earth, yet nor was it a product of the stars either – it resembled a rafflesia flower but was darker in hue, with a myriad of little blooms covering its thick stem.
At its centre was a large bulb, as big as a man’s head. Even after many, many seasons it had never opened, but it shifted and twisted like a thing in pain when the rays of the moon fell upon it.
“Almost ready to blossom. And not before time.”
Tenderly, almost reverentially, he took his sickle and cut away one of the small flowers. The sap that flowed from the stem was red, as thick and dark as heart’s blood.
Almost as soon as the flower was cut it withered and died, its petals turning to a perfect black crystal, so dark that it appeared to absorb rather than reflect light.
“A fitting gift for His Eminence, eh, little ones?”
And the blossoms rattled and rustled and hooked and shrieked in reply.
Avvelenare Otrava was an old man by now, well into his sixties, and immune to the scents and sounds of the grove, stimuli that could have killed other men or driven them half insane. The passing years had been indifferent to him: his skin was brown and wrinkled, his hair and beard still dark though shot through with grey and his body lean and tautly muscled. But his movement were more studied and stately than they had once been, his fingers gnarled and often rebellious.
He stood and brushed the dirt from his clothing – it would not do to enter the Cardinal’s presence with mud on his tunic. Finally, he left the grove and walked towards the palace, cradling the crystal flower in his left hand.
As he entered the Cardinal’s throne room His Eminence said:
“You have news for me, Avvelenare Otrava?”
“Yes, Your Eminence.” Avvelenare bowed low as he spoke.
“Well, what is it?” the Cardinal’s tone was sharp. The poisoner’s request for an audience had been unexpected and Cardinal Kirill had no time for the unexpected.
“A new bloom in the garden, Your Eminence. A new weapon against your enemies.”
“I have poisons, Avvelenare Otrava.”
“Not like this, Your Eminence.” He took a tentative step forward and opened his hand to reveal the crystal bloom.
The Cardinal beckoned him to come further and then took the flower from him.
“Exquisite,” he said. “Quite exquisite. A deadly beauty, eh? Where does it grow?”
“In the grove beyond the thorns, Your Eminence.”
The Cardinal smiled slightly. His sorcerers had worked hard to retard the years and he had barely changed – his eyes were darker, his teeth longer and more yellowed – but other than that he might have been the same man that Avvelenare Otrava had known as a child.
“Show me,” Cardinal Kirill said.
“With pleasure, Your Eminence.”
They walked there together under the light of the waxing moon. The Cardinal’s bodyguards, three tall, silent men dressed in crimson, their silver breastplates and conquistador helmets burnished to a brilliant sheen, accompanied them.
The plants made no sound, no movement as they entered. Only the flower in the centre of the grove acknowledged their presence, turning its petals to meet them, and a wave of sweet, yet fetid perfume rolled across the grass: a mixture honeysuckle, sulphur and rotten meat.
“This?” the Cardinal said, and his lip curled back slightly from his teeth
“Aye, Your Eminence, almost fifty years a-growing and now it is ready to bloom.”
As if to prove him right, the flower shivered at the sound of Avvelenare’s voice and the bulb at its centre moved.
“All that is planted may grow,” the poisoner said. “Each in its own season.”
The bulb opened, slowly almost painfully. Its thin, membranous covering tore away and long trails of blood-red sap poured from the wound.
And its face was revealed. The face of Vergallen Gift, nurtured in the soil of the alien grove for five decades.
“You once told me that I was a wise young man, Your Eminence,” Avvelenare said. “Wise enough to understand that revenge is a fool’s business.”
”What is this abomination?”
“An old fool’s revenge.”
“Kill him,” the Cardinal said to his guards, his tone dispassionate but full of icy distain.. “Kill him and burn the grove.”
The howl of the shriekweeds – a tightly focused cone of sound – felled the guards before their weapons had cleared their scabbards. The perfume of the Gift flower hung thickly in the air filling the Cardinal’s lungs and holding him in place. His eyes were wide, filled with rage and – perhaps for the first time in his long, long life – fear.
All around him the grove had erupted into life; star born colours flashed and flickered in the darkness, the cacophonous music of other worlds rang and echoed, wordless but full of anger, hatred and triumph.
“I have never forgotten, Your Eminence,” Avvelenare Otrava hissed into the Cardinal’s ear. “I have never forgotten that you ordered the death of Vergallen Gift. And,” he pointed at the grimacing, bleeding flower, “neither has he.
“But then what is one death to you when there is so much blood upon your hands?”
The Cardinal’s mouth moved but no sound emerged for the perfume that held him motionless rendered him speechless too.
“What is that you say, Your Eminence? You believed me loyal since I had killed so freely for you? No? You threaten, then? The Sonnilon Temple will not let this act go unpunished – there is no place on this ancient earth where the Morder Zunft will not find me, you say? That hardly matters. All that lives must grow and all that grows must die. Even men such as you and I.” Then Avvelenare Otrava took his little golden sickle and tenderly, almost reverentially, cut the heart from Cardinal Kirill’s chest.
That done, he planted it in the soil of the grove, while the alien plants reached for the Cardinal’s upright corpse and drew it towards them. His eyes remained open, staring into the vibrant darkness. And it may have been that even in death he saw the fronds that sliced his skin and the tendrils that tore his flesh.
“Goodbye, my little ones,” Avvelenare Otrava said. Then he turned to the Gift flower. “Goodbye, Father.”
The sun was rising as he left the grove. He walked through the estate, out into the city beyond; the winding streets and narrow alleyways soon swallowed him.
***
The hunt for the missing Cardinal lasted a week. Finally, it was the sound of screaming that led the searchers into the grove beyond the thorns where a new flower bloomed. Few of those that saw it slept peacefully thereafter.
It had grown quickly, this flower, and it had the face of Cardinal Kirill of the Sonnilon Temple, a face that writhed and twisted and howled in mortal agony as acidic sap coursed through its stamens and petals, while beside it a broad leafed blossom with the face of Vergallen Gift smiled in cruel satisfaction.
About the Author
James Lecky is a writer based in Derry, N. Ireland. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Sorcerous Signals, EDF, Mirror Dance, Alphelion, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Jupiter SF and the anthologies The Phantom Queen Awakes and Emerald Eye, The Best Irish Imaginative Fiction.
©2009 James Lecky
