Into the thinking kingdoms - Alan Dean Foster [44]
Flowers went flying as the silvery leaf slashed through stems. Cutting a path through hopeful friend and convicted antagonist growths alike, showing no preference for one blossom over another, the traveler slashed and hacked indiscriminately until it had reached its companion. Advancing on its long, motile double stems, it traveled far faster than the victorious blooms could move the motionless body of the downed visitor.
The astonishingly durable leaf cut a path all around the recumbent individual. Then the taller visitor bent double and, in a display of strength and agility no flower could match, lifted the motionless one up onto its shoulders. Turning, it began to retrace its steps. Hopeful growths tried to trap its stems with their own while tendrils and strong roots sought to ensnare it and bring it down, but that single sharp leaf kept swinging and slashing. Against its irresistible edge not even the toughest root could endure.
Continuing to mow down all before it, the traveler crossed the contested area and rejoined the third member of the group. Though still swaying unsteadily on multiple stems, this largest of the three continued to stand against the combined efforts of every blossom in its immediate vicinity. When the recharged azaleas and honeysuckle tried their vaporous attack a second time, the visitors placed the tips of their leaves over the front part of their blooms, with the result that the effect of the previously overpowering effluvia was not repeated.
Together, the three began to make their way northward across the hills. Millions of alerted flowers waited to contest their passage, but there was little they could do against the devastating power of the silver leaf. In addition, the largest member of the party was now once more fully alert and sensible. It swung its own leaf-ends back and forth, tearing great gouges out of the earth, shredding blossoms and leaves, stems and roots, with equal indifference.
In the immediate vicinity of their flight the devastation was shocking. Whole communities of blooms were destroyed. But the demise of a few thousand flowers was as nothing to the ocean of color that covered the hills. It would take only one growing season for the despoiled route to be fully regenerated, and new seeds would welcome the gift of open space in which to germinate.
Eventually, each family of flowers gave up the idea of enlisting the travelers in the fight for control of the dried bogland. Instead of trying to restrain the visitors, they inclined their stems out of the way, allowing the remarkable but dangerous specimens free and unfettered passage through the hills. As the ripple of understanding passed through endless fields of brilliant color, a path opened before the travelers. At first they were reluctant to put up their murderous leaves and continued to hack and cut at every blossom within reach. But their suspicion soon ebbed, and they marched on without doing any more damage, increasing their pace as they did so.
Behind them, in the expansive hollow once occupied by the bog, violets wrestled with hollyhocks, and periwinkles took sly cuts at the stems of forceful daffodils. The war for the new soil went on, the adventure of the intruders already forgotten. Once, a small would-be sapling sprang from the dirt to reach for the sun. It might have been a sycamore, or perhaps a poplar. No one would ever know, because a knot of active foxglove and buttercup sprang upon it and smothered it. Deprived of light, it withered and died.
No tree was permitted to grow on the lush, fecund hills. No mushroom poked its cap above the surface, no toadstool had a chance to spread its spores across the fertile soil. From hill to dale, crest to crevice, there were only the flowers. They throve madly, creating a canvas of color unmatched anywhere, and waited for the next visitors. Perhaps others would be more amenable to persuasion, or more flowerlike in their aspect.
It was truly the most beautiful place imaginable. But for one not a flower, a chancy place to linger and smell the roses.