Dandelion Fire

by N. D. Wilson

  Why couldn't he? He was dreaming. He knew he was. So his eyes could work.

  He blinked, but something was in the way. Not on the outside of his eyes, something back behind them, between his eyes and his soul, a curtain of darkness.

  He ripped at it with his mind. He put his hands on his head and imagined himself digging with his fingers, prodding the inside of his skull with a stick, hoping to weaken, burst, whatever seal was in place.

  His right hand was hot on his temple. He pulled it away and looked at it. His burn flamed up bright, and by its moving light, he could just see the outline of his hand.

  Henry lifted his hand and plunged the fiery word into his eye. The pain seared and he opened his mouth to yell, but there was no air in his throat. He gargled agony, but the itch behind his eye was scratched, and the relief overwhelmed the pain. He pulled his hand away, breathed, and moved it to his other eye.

  Henry's legs gave out, and he dropped to his knees, but he wouldn't move his hand, he couldn't. Not until his block, the itching membrane, the brain scab that closed off his eyes had been burned away. He ground the palm of his hand against his eye, twisted the heat it held into his head, and fell gasping onto his back. His hands dropped to his sides.

  Lying there, with moisture crawling through his clothes and soaking his scalp, he opened his eyes on Badon Hill.

  The thick-bellied trees towered above him, groping into the sky with their distant leaves. On one side of him, they climbed even higher where the ground rose steeply. Above him, the canopy was not as dense, and as he turned his head to the other side, he saw only blue, scattered with fast-roving clouds. He was at the base of the hill, on the edge of the island, where the trees met the sea.

  “Boldly done,” a man said. “Though madness outside, a dreaming.”

  Henry sat up quickly and climbed to his feet. He had been lying on a dense bed of moss. The hill, almost a mountain, rose up quickly on one side; on the other, the moss led to a cliffs edge. Below it, in the water, Henry could see a dock with a small boat tied to it. In front of him, with legs spread and arms tucked behind his back, stood an enormous man.

  He wore black boots up to his knees and a long black coat. Blue trousers stretched to bursting around his thighs. His nose was large and hooked, but it still seemed small above his protruding jaw and between his thick, curling sideburns. He was tall already, half a head taller than Frank, but he was made even more so by his hat, with a flat, round brim around a tapering chimney. A silver buckle was set on the front. The man was smiling.

  “Are you a Pilgrim?” Henry asked.

  “Pilgrim,” the man said, feeling the word with his tongue. “I seek, yes. Even the hard ways. Entering your dream was uneasy. I am called Darius.”

  Henry took a step back. “Why are you here?”

  “I come,” Darius said slowly. “As you are a seventh, a pauper son, a lastborn. I would help you.”

  “Other people have said that.” Henry shifted his bare feet nervously. “What does it even mean? A seventh?”

  “To many ones, nothing. It means they were the seventh-begotten son, that when their father is put to grave-sleep, they shall receive the last heritage, the pauper's portion, a rag's nothing. To others, to you, to me, it is potens. It is the twain sight, the second seeing.” Darius brought his right hand around from behind his back and held it out toward Henry. “It is this.” On his broad palm, there was a scar, almost a brand. As Henry stared, he could see that it was moving, writhing like a slug in pain, brown and slow. A dark whisper stood out in the air above it.

  Henry didn't want to be any closer to the big man, but he couldn't help himself. He stepped forward, staring at the dark flicker, trying to read it. The thick fingers closed over the scar, and Darius lifted his hand to his face. Pulling gently at the curling hair on his cheeks, he smiled. At least his mouth did. His eyes had hardened.

  “You would know what word-flame courses in my blood. You would know the force of my own morphosis.”

  “Um,” Henry said. “I was just looking. You were showing it to me.”

  “I,” Darius said slowly. The smile was gone, and he leaned forward while Henry backed away. “Be the greatest of the magi, of all the lastborn in this age of tem-pore's swamping, in the world in which my lungs draw wind. Not since the Endorian sons walked madless has a man wielded so thickly of natura's mage without shatter. Their potens was greatened because they staved off death, they wove it into their very sarx, their bones, and their bloods. Even now, they live on, deathless in the boneyards of Endor, madful only, addled and entombed, but soul and flesh still stitched as one. Breathing.”

  Henry wanted to run. To jump off the cliff and wake up in the water. He knew he could walk right out of the dream, he'd done it before. But he waited. Darius had a burn like his. He was evil, or nuts, probably both, but he knew more than Henry did.

  “So you're strong,” Henry said. “I'm sorry, I don't understand a lot of what you say. I did get that.”

  Darius straightened up and smiled. “I meant no braggadocc.” He spread his arms, but kept his right fist closed. “I will speak more simpily You have flung a legend wide for me—one I have long sought. You have freed the last Endorian daughter. Together, twain, we will find her and learn the secret of the deathless—the secret of morture—and death harnessed within will gift us life unbroken.”

  Even in the dream, Henry couldn't stop himself from shivering. He glanced at the cliff, and back at the grinning sickness in front of him.

  “The witch tried to kill me,” Henry said.

  “Yet you live,” said Darius.

  “Her blood burned my jaw.” Henry swallowed hard. He didn't think he'd get sick in a dream, but he felt like it. “She's evil.”

  Darius dropped his arms and stepped toward Henry, looking at his face. Henry slid away, toward the cliff.

  “Speech is leapt to journey's end,” Darius said. “But much road waits. First, you must live on. You are yet blind in waking life, and the mage in your blood will shake and rattle soul from body. It has not ended. A warpspasm comes before the second seeing, and it would seal your eyes forever.”

  “I don't understand,” Henry said.

  Darius stepped closer, frustrated. “You have seen it already, natura's life-magic, you have touched it. You will die. Or you will breathe on and wake, able to see the world and the mage beneath, able to grip, to taste, to speak what you see, to pierce illusionaries.”

  Darius stopped in front of Henry and lifted his right hand. Henry felt its weight as it dropped onto his shoulder. He tried to turn. It was time to wake up. Time to leave.

  “Come to me,” Darius said quietly. “My seventh son. I will gird you.”

  was frozen. He couldn't twist, he couldn't turn, he couldn't even roll his eyes. They were locked in the big man's stare, gripped by his all-pupil blackness. He could feel heat, the tingle of the man's slug brand, working its way down through his shoulder into his bones.

  His dream bones.

  Henry, terrified and motionless, grew angry. This nightmare was his nightmare. He could change it.

  “I'm dreaming you,” he said to the black eyes. He could see nothing else.

  “I, you,” the eyes said.

  “I can turn,” Henry said. “I can leave.”

  He couldn't. The eyes smiled.

  Suddenly, in the panicked fury of an animal trapped, Henry's body quivered. He'd managed to move. He'd leaned forward, still staring up into the eyes, and they no longer smiled.

  Henry's teeth ground. “Leave,” he said, and his mind snapped free, painting a new dream.

  Darius's arm slipped off his shoulder as the big man stepped back. The arm jerked up and removed his hat. He spoke. At least a voice like his did. His enormous jaw was clamped shut.

  “I'm a Pilgrim,” he said, “off to Plymouth. April showers bring May flowers.” He turned and stepped toward the cliff. “And …” He was fighting it, trying to shake the pressure of Henry's imagining. “May
flowers bring …” He was off the cliff. “Me.”

  But he didn't fall. The dream quaked, and sky and sea and crawling clouds all disappeared around him. He stood in blackness, turned, and stared into Henry's eyes.

  “Your dreaming is sealed. A way has been prepared. You come.”

  “I can wake up!” Henry yelled. “I can.”

  “You will,” Darius said. “But where?”

  He was gone, and all of Badon Hill with him.

  For a moment, Henry held the moss. Blackness surrounded him, but the cool, wet green beneath his feet, the beginning of his dream, remained.

  A crack echoed through space, followed by Richard's whispering voice. “Henry? Henry? Are you ready? Are you okay?”

  The voice faded. The echo died. The moss was gone. And still, Henry slept.

  Richard had never fallen asleep. He had tagged along after Henry before, but this was the first time he had been included by invitation.

  He lay in his sleeping bag on top of a small pile of blankets that served as a mattress, and he listened for Henry to call him.

  Henry was a loud sleeper. He moaned and hummed and occasionally kicked. The kicking made the floor shake. Richard got up twice to check on him. Both times, he'd cracked the doors just a bit and peeked in. He couldn't see anything, but he could hear better. Henry wasn't awake.

  The third time, Henry sounded angry. Angry and in pain. And there was a crack. He'd kicked something maybe. Hurt his foot.

  “Henry?” Richard whispered. “Henry? Are you ready? Are you okay?”

  Nothing.

  Richard slid quietly into the room and shut the doors behind him. The room was stuffy, but perfectly silent. Henry had stopped his mumbling. He'd stopped moving.

  Richard switched on the lamp and looked down at his friend. Henry was clutching the backpack to his chest, and his eyes were clamped shut. They were oozing a bit again, but they weren't swollen. Richard bent over and touched them carefully and was glad that they seemed normal.

  The air was moving. Blowing past him toward the cupboards, harder, faster, almost whistling. The post-office box was open.

  With a sudden throbbing surge, the room blurred. Richard felt like he'd left his stomach somewhere far behind as he flew toward the cupboard wall, too fast to even throw up his arms, though he tried.

  He needn't have. He was unconscious before he hit it. Only he didn't really hit it. He went beyond it, into another room, and hit another wall, someplace else.

  In a swirl of dust, his body piled limply onto Henry's, and the two of them lay, unaware, in a yellow room.

  Henrietta worked very hard to help her sisters fall asleep. She didn't respond to any of Anastasia's comments or questions or whispers. She'd even ignored an old rag doll that her younger sister had lobbed across the room from her bottom bunk.

  When Anastasia had given up, Henrietta tried to work on Penelope. She used her tiredest voice.

  “Pen, how long are you going to keep your reading light on?”

  “It's not that bright,” Penelope said. “Roll over or something.”

  Henrietta sighed and rolled over, thumping heavily. “But how long?” she asked. “You're not going to stay up till four again, are you? I remember when you did that reading that old Black Rose book. You were a total crab for days.”

  “That's because the book was awful.”

  “You were awful,” Anastasia laughed. “Wasn't she, Henrietta?”

  Henrietta ignored her. “How long, Pen?” she asked again.

  Penelope slapped her book shut. “Good night,” she said, and clicked off the light.

  “Henrietta,” Anastasia said. “Henrietta?”

  Henrietta didn't say anything.

  When her sisters were both breathing heavily, Henrietta slipped out of her bed and cracked open their bedroom door. Then she pulled on a pair of jeans and set her shoes beside her bed. Finally, she positioned herself so she could see Henry and Richard when they walked around the landing. She could already hear them talking upstairs. And thumping. They weren't exactly sneaking.

  She waited. She tried to be patient and waited some more. She got up, opened the door a little wider, and slid back onto her bed. The attic had grown silent, and she struggled not to drift off. When she'd jerked awake too many times, she sat up, wrapped her arms around her knees, leaned her head against the wall, and, staring at the door, fell asleep.

  When Henrietta woke, she had a headache. She was lying flat on her back with her head on the footboard and one leg up against the wall.

  Anastasia was snoring, and Penelope was buried in her blankets. Predawn gray filtered through the bedroom window and out onto the landing.

  Henrietta levered herself up painfully. As quietly as she was able, she got her feet over the edge of the bed and rocked herself to standing. Rubbing her neck, she tiptoed to the door and looked out over the landing. It was empty, and Grandfather's door was shut. Henrietta slipped out of her room, latching the door behind her, and hurried to Grandfather's room. She put her hand on the door and pushed, but it wouldn't budge. She stepped closer and leaned her ear against it, but there was nothing to hear beyond the crackle of the house's joints beneath her feet.

  Frustrated with herself for sleeping, and growing irritated with Henry to compensate, she moved to the attic stairs, held her breath, and began toeing her way up the edges as quietly as possible. When her head rose above the attic floor, she stopped and studied Richard's sleeping bag in the dim light. After a minute, she took another step and studied again. The bag was lumped up enough that he could have been in it, but she could hear no sound of breathing and not a hint of movement. She took the last few steps quickly and stood beside Henry's doors. The rumpled bag beside her was empty.

  At first push, Henry's doors bowed but wouldn't open. She bounced against them and was sprung back.

  Putting her mouth to the crack between them, she whispered.

  “Henry? Henry?” When no one answered, she stepped back and put more force behind her shoulder. With a pop, the doors sprang open, and she stepped into the room.

  The lamp was on, but it had fallen over. Henry's blankets were piled against the wall. The bed was empty. The floor was bare.

  Henrietta sat on the bed and picked up the pillow. The journal was gone, but the letters were there, and on top of them sat the key.

  Well, at least they'd left that. She wanted to catch up to them, and as quickly as she could. It wouldn't be long before everyone else was awake, too, and wondering where they were.

  She smiled as she tiptoed down the stairs. She would be completely nonchalant. Hey, guys, you might want to get back. It's almost breakfast.

  At the bottom, she moved to her own bedroom door, turned the knob carefully, and slipped inside. Her shoes were still on the floor. Not bothering with socks, she finger-levered her feet into them and crept back out, past her parents' room, past the bathroom, and fumbled with the old skeleton key in front of Grandfather's door.

  When she stepped into the room, she couldn't help glancing around herself, peeking behind the door and on the other side of the bed. The room was always otherworldly, but shadowed like it was with predawn light, it sent her skin crawling. And this time it smelled horribly dank, moist, and mildewy.

  The boys had left the cupboard door open, which only made sense. You wouldn't really want to shut it after yourself.

  Henrietta tucked the key into her pocket and closed Grandfather's door behind her. Then she stepped toward the cupboard door, and the carpet squelched beneath her. Water was oozing up around her shoe, but her own crazy escape already felt like ancient history

  Rising up to her toes, she moved through the carpet swamp, squatted in front of the door, and slid herself in.

  The music began just as it had the last time she'd crawled into FitzFaeren. Surrounded by the blackness of the cupboard, she listened to the strings and the rhythms of the dance they moved and guided.

  When her face found the back of the door, she
pushed it open without hesitation. And there, in front of her, was the scene that she had been itching to see again. The enormous beamed hall sparkled with the light from hundreds of candles around the frescoed walls and columns and hanging on the enormous chandeliers. The towering windows were black with night, but they reflected the swirl of dancers moving across the floor.

  Henrietta knew that she couldn't simply wait and watch. If she was going to burst Henry's bubble, she should find him soon. Waiting too long would mean she would be in as much trouble as Richard and Henry. More. Her father would be harder on her.

  So she watched the small women spin in dresses brighter and smoother than any flower, and she watched the men with their boxy, short-sleeved coats. She hunted the room for the face that she knew had belonged to Eli, and then, before she found it, she forced herself to grab the edge of the cupboard and pull herself through.

  The music died. The candles were gone. And the people and the windows and the night and most of the roof and chunks of the floor. It was like standing inside the bones of a huge whale. The ribbed beams still spanned the hall in many places, four or five stories above her. Most of the columns still stood, but the majestic windows had become nothing but oversize holes. Light filtered through clouds and into the desolate place, and all of the wood it found, once bright with stain and inlay, once rich, stood out dull, rotten, bleached, and weathered gray.

  High above her, Henrietta could hear the traffic of pigeons. The sound was common in a Kansas barn, and she liked it there. It made her feel like the barn was still alive, still used. Here, it was an insult, a final desecration.

  Grandfather had written that he'd destroyed this place. Henrietta wondered what he had meant. She hoped he'd been wrong.

  Henry and Richard were nowhere in sight. But she really didn't think they could have gone far, even if they'd come through hours ago. Henry was blind, after all, and he knew that the floor was as solid as a spider-web. He wouldn't want Richard to go quickly.

  At first Henrietta stood and listened, hoping that she would hear some pop or crash just to give her an initial direction. A breeze stirred the pigeons, but otherwise, the rotting hall was perfectly still.