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.