The Heartwood Crown

by Matt Mikalatos

  The boy pulled a last pin, and a cloud of dirt plumed up around them. Darius coughed and wiped the dust from his eyes. “What secrets? Who are you?”

  “This way,” the Scim said. They had come into a natural stone tunnel. Darius followed him. “You are Darius Walker, right? The Black Skull?”

  Darius nodded, then realized the Scim couldn’t see him. “Yeah. Who are you?”

  The boy stopped and looked up at him. “You came up with the idea for the Black Skulls. The magic involved and the guts it took to come up with it and then use that magic fighting the Elenil . . .” He shook his head. “I respect that, Darius. In some ways it inspired my work here in Far Seeing.”

  “I hate to keep asking this over and over,” Darius said, “but who are you?”

  The little Scim grinned. “My name is Mud. I’m the leader of the anti-Elenil resistance.”

  14

  UNDERGROUND

  She wandered like a deer, her path repeating over the days, her feet making tracks through the woods.

  FROM “JELDA’S REVENGE,” A SCIM LEGEND

  Shula did not think this would work. It was nothing like the way she had entered the Sunlit Lands the first time, but Madeline insisted this was what they had to do. So they stood in the garden nearly three hours after nightfall. Madeline sat in her wheelchair, her backpack in her lap, and Shula stood behind her wearing hers. Madeline had put Yenil to bed herself, even telling her a story. Yenil adored Madeline’s stories, but they had become increasingly rare as her breathing worsened. Shula felt a pang of worry at the thought of leaving Yenil behind. She had checked on her before coming out into the garden, had kissed her on the forehead and whispered good-bye, feeling foolish about the whole thing because she suspected she would only be standing in the dark garden with Madeline for a few hours, and then they would return inside and her friend would admit that there must be another way to get into the Sunlit Lands. Something better than standing by a patch of flowers waiting for something to happen.

  Shula tried to convince Madeline to leave a message for her parents—a note, a text, a voice mail, anything. But Madeline refused to say good-bye to her mother or even to tell her that she was leaving, despite Shula begging her to talk to the woman. Madeline felt it would be cruel, knowing what they knew now: that her mother had been to the Sunlit Lands and that her cracked memory and strange behaviors were in part because she had allowed those memories to be locked away, hidden. “I may not come back,” Madeline had said.

  All the more reason to say good-bye, Shula thought. But Madeline would not be swayed. A common theme with Madeline these days. She didn’t have the capacity to discuss decisions when she had made up her mind. So now they stood in the garden, waiting to go to the Sunlit Lands. They weren’t sure how it would happen. It wasn’t as easy as snapping your fingers or putting on a magic ring. Madeline had followed a magical hummingbird into a sewer and had to squeeze her way through into an underground forest, which led to a door that required her to prove she had the permission of the Elenil to enter.

  Shula’s path to the Sunlit Lands had been even less pleasant. She still had nightmares from time to time about the passage. She, too, had been approached by Hanali. He had come up to her in an alley on the night her parents and brother and sister had died.

  “Greetings, Shula Bishara.” He spoke in Arabic. He was wearing a pale-green jacket and trousers, all silk. He had an ivory-colored shirt with ruffles on it and shiny black shoes with heavily polished golden buckles. His pale hair was loosely pulled into a ponytail.

  Shula held a knife toward him, the blade shaking. “Who are you?”

  He bowed. “I am Hanali, son of Vivi. I have come here from the Sunlit Lands.” He actually called them ‘aradi mada’atan binur alshams, “The Lands Illuminated by Sunlight.”

  He promised her revenge. In a city like hers, who could expect to get real revenge? And who would pay the price? The Russian bombers? The terrorists? The countries that armed them? The sympathizers and rebels, or the government that made alliances with Russians and created a society of such injustice that terrorists could gain a foothold? Also, she had been taught—at church as well as by her parents’ example—that revenge was a lesser thing. That mercy and forgiveness were better for all involved . . . for the wronged as well as the oppressor. She knew that—had been taught it for years—but the raw wound in her heart rebelled against it.

  Hanali produced a thin metal band, silver, about as big around as her wrist. He told her revenge could be had but only for a price.

  When she agreed to take the bracelet, he held it out to her like a bone to a dog, but she didn’t care. She snatched it from him, slipped it on her wrist. It tightened like a noose, and when it finished tearing into her skin, she felt them for the first time . . . the flames. The flames she had demanded, that she had bargained from this strange man. They rose from her own heart, as if it were a furnace stoking fire through her whole body. The fire lit the very air around her, but she herself—her clothes, her skin, her flesh—was untouched. Her hair flowed in shimmering waves of heat.

  Then Hanali showed her the way to the Sunlit Lands. Down, down, down, through rubble and dust and darkness. She squeezed past a corpse, heard the voice of a survivor crying out that she was stuck, could someone please help her, please. Still she pushed forward, wedging herself into smaller and smaller and more difficult ways. Three days of crawling. At least, she thought it was three days. She slept twice. She arrived, broken and burning with fever, dehydrated and numb, at Hanali’s feet. He crouched down beside her and said, “Oh, my dear. The Scim will fear you. Everyone will fear you.”

  He gave her over to Mrs. Raymond, who was in charge of new arrivals. She fretted over Shula, nursed her to health, washed her, put her in a clean room with a clean bed and clean sheets, but Shula did not trust her, not for a moment, because she knew better now. Trust led too often to love. Love led to loss, led to pain, led to where she was today. So she used her flame to harden herself, like a clay pot fired in a kiln. She set about becoming the best warrior for the Elenil that she could be, because being a soldier made her memories easier. Being a soldier meant that she had not murdered anyone, there had just been casualties. She hadn’t caused the death of her parents’ killers, she had eliminated a threat to the security of her city. She did not kill the Scim, she fought them for the greater good of the Sunlit Lands, and if some died, well, that was not her fault. They should not have gone to war if they didn’t want to lose their lives.

  But these old paths to the Sunlit Lands would not work for them. She and Madeline could not reduce a building to rubble and dig their way through it. Madeline said that the sewer she had previously crawled through had not worked for Darius. She and Madeline had both returned from the Sunlit Lands to Madeline’s house through the hedge, led by the Garden Lady, but that path would not open for them now, even when Shula went and stood against it and tried to push into the bushes. Madeline spoke gently into the hedge and nothing changed, nothing happened.

  “We need . . . a hummingbird,” Madeline said, but there were no hummingbirds. Shula had never seen one at night, anyway.

  “We should go back to bed, try again in the morning.”

  “No,” Madeline said firmly.

  But what was to be done if the Sunlit Lands didn’t invite them back in? They couldn’t follow a map or look it up online. They could only wait for an invitation. “Maybe the Garden Lady?”

  Madeline pulled three buttons from her pocket. For some reason the Garden Lady liked small bits of trash and useless trinkets. Part of her magic, maybe. Madeline held the buttons out in her open palm. “Garden Lady? Are you . . . there?”

  The garden remained the same. It wasn’t silent, but there were no strange sounds, no magical lights or unexpected animals. Only the strange out-of-season flowers that kept growing no matter what. Shula moved the wheelchair closer to the flowers, but it didn’t change anything.

  “Maybe it’s all . . . make-belie
ve,” Madeline said.

  Shula knelt beside her. “What does this mean?”

  “Pretend. I have been . . . sick . . . so long. Maybe . . . I made these stories up . . . for comfort.”

  “Am I pretend then too? Is Yenil?” Shula asked, sitting in the grass along the path. She lay back and looked at the stars. The city lights dimmed a lot of them, but a few bright ones stood out. “You walked in the Sunlit Lands. It is not pretend. This is a stupid thought.”

  Madeline twisted in her chair to glare at Shula. “I read all . . . fantasy novels . . . as a kid.”

  Shula laughed, a small joy flickering in her heart. “I read only love stories, and yet I have no love.”

  Madeline moved from the chair to the grass, lying beside her. “I . . . love you. Yenil . . . loves you.”

  Shula laughed again. “I did not read love stories about sisters and children.”

  Madeline folded her hands across her stomach. “I always . . . wanted a sister.”

  Shula winced. She thought of little Amira. She thought of how Amira would crawl into her lap and ask for stories, and how Shula would weave strange, rambling tales that were half Bible, half Thousand and One Nights, and Amira loved them. “A sister is good.”

  Madeline bent almost in half, giving out a strangled shriek, then fell back on the grass again. Shula’s first thought was to check her breathing, but Madeline’s breaths were coming fast and hard. She was wheezing, struggling, and kicking. Shula rolled toward her, and Madeline flailed one hand, waving at her other arm.

  Her wrist—the one with the seed in it—was stuck to the ground. The seed was glowing fire bright. Brilliant green tendrils burst from Madeline’s skin and struck into the ground. She screamed. More shining fingers of plant matter grew from her arm and dug into the ground, yanking Madeline around and pulling her face hard into the dirt. Shula snatched at the vines, breaking as many as she could, but more sprang up in their place. They were burrowing into the soil, digging a hole and yanking Madeline into it.

  Her whole arm was underground now, and her shoulder was sinking. Shula grabbed hold of her other arm and pulled. Madeline cried out, then shouted, “My backpack, Shula!”

  Shula lunged for it, knocking the wheelchair over. She grabbed the pack and headed back for Madeline. Her head was halfway in the hole now, her other arm pushing against the grass, her legs kicking, her feet trying to find a solid place to push back. What was in the backpack that might help? Shula wasn’t sure. She put it by Madeline’s hand, then grabbed her waist and tried to yank back again. She couldn’t move her a single centimeter.

  The ground moved like a wave and knocked Shula back. She leapt to her feet again. Madeline’s entire upper body was in the ground now, and her feet weren’t kicking anymore. Shula grabbed hold of her boots, leaning back and pulling with all her strength, but it wasn’t working. She shouted for Mrs. Oliver, for anyone, to come and help, but no one came. No one heard.

  “Madeline!”

  No answer. Madeline’s legs were gone up to her knees. Shula grabbed both of her boots and yanked as hard as she could, her feet on either side of the hole, her back arched as she struggled. One of Madeline’s boots gave way, and with a sudden burst of speed, her feet disappeared completely. Shula was left holding one boot in her hand.

  “No!”

  The ground was already closing up, returning to normal. Shula swallowed hard, a horror of cramped dark places coming over her. But she had traveled through such places before, and she would not leave Madeline alone down there. Shula jumped into the hole headfirst, felt it closing around her waist. Ahead of her, she couldn’t see anything in the darkness, but she could hear the ground moving, closing. She clawed with all her might, trying to keep the soil and dirt at bay. It was in her hair, falling into her face. She spit it out of her mouth, tried to keep it out of her eyes.

  She pulled herself forward, felt her feet scrape into the hole as it closed behind her, plunging her into total darkness. She wiggled and pulled and fought and managed to get just ahead of the claustrophobic tunnel. It was still collapsing, but she was moving faster now. Not as fast as Madeline, though. The tunnel turned, and for an instant she caught sight of the green glow from the seed in her friend’s arm.

  Shula was on her hands and knees now, crawling as fast as she could, afraid to stop even though she was choking on dirt, even though she couldn’t see anything ahead of her. The smell of wet, rich soil grew overpowering, making her cough. She could die here, she knew. She could struggle with all her might against the weight of the soil and be stuck here until Madeline’s parents decided to excavate the garden.

  She couldn’t catch up with Madeline, try as she might. She paused to spit the dirt from her mouth, which she knew might be a mistake, but she couldn’t keep going like this. She wiped mud and soil from her eyes. She wasn’t going to be left behind, she wasn’t.

  “You’re not going to stop me,” she said, anger boiling up in her. “You aren’t!”

  She felt it then, the burning in her heart, and she didn’t try to stop it. She let the flames come, bright and searing. The tunnel lit with flames, and the dirt clinging to her turned to ash. The dirt moved away from her as if it were afraid, and Shula stoked the flames with grim satisfaction. Soon she could crawl again. The darkness flickered ahead, trying to outpace her bright anger. They thought they could take Madeline away from her? They thought they could take anyone away from her ever again? No. Never. She shouted in defiance, and her flames stretched farther, and the soil drew away.

  Soon she could crouch and then run. She shouted Madeline’s name. Ahead of her, the tunnel forked into three paths. “Trying to trick me?” Shula yelled. “I’ll burn every one of these tunnels if you try to keep her from me. I’ll burn every centimeter, every millimeter if I have to.”

  “No need for that, dear.” A voice floated down from the leftmost tunnel. “Come this way, young lady. I’ll make sure you find what you need.”

  “What I need is my friend,” Shula said, skeptical.

  “I know that right enough, and I know where they took her.” An old woman wearing a ridiculous straw hat appeared from the tunnel. Her grey hair shot out of the hat in all directions, and there were flowers all along the brim. “Shula Bishara. I told them not to try to bring Madeline without inviting you. I told them. I did! Ask them yourself! They said, oh no, it will be fine. Fine, fine.” She raised her eyebrows. “Those addlepates shouldn’t have involved Madeline in the first place.”

  Shula knew this woman, in a way. She had seen her more than once but only when Madeline was there. She thought of the woman as Madeline’s guide, not her own, and she found that right now, with Madeline missing, she did not feel much affection for the old lady, who had done precious little to help them in the past.

  “Other than bringing you home from the Sunlit Lands,” the old lady said, raising an eyebrow.

  Shula frowned, her flames flickering. “Don’t read my thoughts,” she said, and realized she was speaking fluently. Which meant they must be back in the Sunlit Lands, or almost back. In the Sunlit Lands everyone spoke the same language because of the Elenil magic.

  “Not to worry, child. Sometimes old age is better than clairvoyance. I know what young people like you are thinking often enough. Nice to know my guesses are still good, ha! Come on, then, Madeline will be waiting for you. Did you bring her boot? The poor girl arrived with only one boot.”

  Shula looked down at her empty hands. “I had it for a minute.”

  “No problem, dear.” The Garden Lady looked up at the ceiling of the tunnel. “Go get the poor girl’s boot, you ninny.” She leaned toward Shula despite the flames. “The dirt here is dumb as a rock.” She laughed for a long time about that. “Dumb as a rock,” she said, under her breath. Then said it again.

  They came to a small dirt chamber. Madeline lay in the center, half buried, the green glow still coming from her arm. Shula doused her flame, fell beside Madeline and started brushing the soil from her
face.

  “Help me,” Shula said.

  “Bah.” The old lady was digging through a large handbag. “Dirt won’t hurt Madeline.” She put on a pair of rickety bifocals that did not appear to be hers. She had to twist the frame to fit them on her face. “That was quite a sight, you lighting the whole underground on fire. I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.” She poked the side of the tunnel. “Go on, then, what are you waiting for? Open up!”

  The tunnel didn’t move. “We’re trapped.” Shula felt the flames coming again and leaned away from Madeline.

  A boot popped out of the side wall. “Ah,” the Garden Lady said. “That’s the holdup. Just doing what I asked. Oh dear.” She patted the wall. “Sorry, dear, sorry, I forget these things from time to time.” She held the boot up. “Yes, I know I asked you to get it, Wallace. And yes, I know it’s rude to call you a ninny.” Smoke and the stench of burned leather rose from the boot, and it was caked with dirt. A small stream of dirt fell on the Garden Lady’s head, and she shook her hat out in annoyance. “That’s quite enough from you, Wallace. Peace! I won’t call you a ninny, and you stop behaving like one. Fair enough? Fine then.” The Garden Lady smacked Madeline’s boot several times against the side of the wall, then handed it to Shula. “Still better than no shoes, I suppose.”

  The tunnel opened and a cool breeze wafted toward them, bringing fresh, pine-scented air. Moonlight brightened the tunnel. Shula could see trees ahead. “Welcome back,” the old woman said, but she wasn’t smiling.

  Shula put Madeline’s arm—the one without the seed—around her neck and lifted her friend. She carried her out of the ground, and together they came into the Sunlit Lands for the second time in their lives.

  15

  THE RESISTANCE

  You will not let them wage war?

  FROM “THE GOOD GARDENER,” AN ALUVOREAN STORY