Flowercrash Read Online Free PDF

one small.
    “The large one is hardseeds for your innkeeper, the small one is for you.”
    Manserphine nodded. “I’m obliged to Cirishnyan.”
    “I am requested to invite you to our floral home bed just after flower- close, to meet our spirit of floral sculpture.”
    “Tonight?” She shrugged. “Flowered up.”
    Pollonzyn departed. Downstairs, Manserphine put the large chest on the bar and invited Vishilkaïr to open it, which he did as if it might contain an explosive.
    Kirifaïfra ambled into the room, and Vishilkaïr said to him, “See here nephew, a chest of fine brass cowries.”
    Kirifaïfra sniffed the air. “They have a superb aroma, don’t they?”
    Vishilkaïr agreed. “I wonder why that would be?”
    “A very sensual bouquet,” Kirifaïfra concluded.
    Manserphine was not to be outdone. She said, “You might think you know what you are talking about, but you do not. And I have noticed a few things about you two, such as the fact that your inn has so few guests, and you are frequently out, and you, Vishilkaïr, wear rather splendid clothes.”
    “We go out to buy food and drink,” Vishilkaïr objected.
    Manserphine’s face hardened. “I’m not joking. You know who I am. I’m one of the most important people in Zaïdmouth. If you are sensible and not the chuckling rakes you sometimes appear to be, you will keep your mouths shut and let me get on with my life.”
    “I quite understand,” Vishilkaïr said. He put a hand into the box and pulled out a fist of cowries, which he let trickle back. “I suspect this will more than settle your bill until spring.”
    “Good. Then it’s agreed. I like this inn, and I hope to find respect here. Let’s make the next season a good one for all five of us.”
    “All five?” Kirifaïfra queried.
    “All five,” Vishilkaïr said firmly.
    ~
    Manserphine departed as the sun set, making east for Novais along the route she had previously walked. It was a cold, clear night, and the fug in her head had been replaced with clarity. After a while she saw ahead the lamps of the urb, laid in serpentine forms across the hills.
    At the Shrine of Flower Sculpture she presented herself to Cirishnyan, who led her up a spiral staircase to the top of the bell, where they paused at a blue door guarded by an armoured woman. When the door was opened and they walked through, Manserphine found herself inside a vast chamber, perhaps a quarter of the volume of the Shrine; and yet it was empty. A single window of orange let in evening light, which gleamed through clouds of dust to make an oval upon the floor. She noticed that girls on the far side of the chamber were beating the floor with cloths, so as to raise more dust. They wore wetted masks across their mouths. The walls of the chamber were contorted into shapes that reminded her of relief maps, and these were damaged by scorch marks.
    “This is the bed of our spirit,” Cirishnyan said.
    “Is she here now?”
    “She always grows here. Wait awhile, and she will come to meet you.”
    Manserphine sat down to await events. After a few minutes she noticed that the dust motes illuminated by the window were circling in a pattern, and, defocussing her eyes, it seemed as if they were making a face. There was the faintest odour of burning above the melange of flower fragrances that permeated the Shrine. Manserphine considered what she saw, and wondered if electrostatic charges created by controlled currents in the hardpetal walls were making the dust move in patterns, thick here, thinner there, to manifest the illusion. It really was a face. The face of a woman, perhaps, with pointed ears and large eyes.
    “There she is,” Cirishnyan whispered.
    “Is this the spirit of floral sculpture that you worship?”
    Cirsihnyan nodded. An intense joy permeated her features, and she seemed too awestruck to speak.
    “How will I be affirmed?” Manserphine asked.
    “Her appearance has affirmed you. Dustspirit has accepted you into our