Dandelion Fire

by N. D. Wilson

  “Eli!” she yelled.

  “What?”

  The voice came from above her, from up in the tree's canopy. Old Eli, with his bag slung over his shoulder, came moving down through the leaves and lowered himself onto her branch.

  “I can't sleep here,” Henrietta said. “I need to get down.”

  “You've been asleep for an hour.”

  Henrietta pulled herself upright and let her legs dangle. She wasn't looking forward to the needle pain when they woke up. “When did you get back?” she asked.

  “An hour ago. You were snoring.”

  Henrietta glared at him. “I was not. Where did you go?”

  Eli pulled in a deep breath and yawned. “I have been risking capture and destruction. And without doing much good. We need to move through these hills and over the next ridgeline. Then you can rest again.”

  “What?” Henrietta shut her eyes and leaned her head forward. “You said we were done. You said we were almost safe.” She looked back up.

  Eli was chewing on his lower lip. It made his beard move. The top of his head was sunburned.

  “I was wrong,” he said. “We have to keep going. Now.”

  He slipped off the branch, grabbed a lower one, and dropped eight feet to the ground.

  “How long have we been walking?” Henrietta asked. She stretched her numb feet carefully down to the next branch.

  Eli grunted. “Does it matter?”

  “Yes. I want to know.”

  “Why?” Eli asked. “So you can wallow in your misfortune? No one has ever had to walk all night before. You are the very first.”

  Henrietta dangled, then dropped. Pain shot up through the arches of her feet and throbbed in her shins. She hopped for a moment and then sat down to rub them.

  Eli laughed.

  Henrietta wrinkled up her nose at him. “And I'm starving. I could lay down right here and just die.”

  “You're right. You could. Why don't you try it? I'll come back in a couple years and see what's left. As for food, good I fed you before we started.”

  “That was last night,” Henrietta said. “It has to be lunch by now.”

  Eli looked up at the sky and squinted at the sun. “Not yet. But maybe you'll get lunch tomorrow. If we start moving now.”

  Henrietta stood up and puffed her hair out of her eyes. Right now, she wanted to cut it all off. “Fine,” she said. “I'm ready. Where are we going?”

  “We'll find out,” Eli said. He turned and started walking up the slope.

  The hill in front of them climbed sharply. Trees were scattered around the rising slope, but higher up, they grew dense, broken only by enormous jutting rocks.

  Henrietta tried to stretch her legs while she walked, and she swung her arms to loosen her shoulders. “What do you mean, we'll find out? What are we looking for?”

  “We are looking for old mage-doors,” Eli said. “These foothills become mountains, and they run the length of the continent. Once, the mountains were the demesne of a single wizard. An order grew around him, and they spread themselves through the ranges, in heights and valleys. They had a choke hold between the northern and southern seas, and the lands on either side saw little of each other without paying tributes for passage. They carved enclaves into the rock and built towers on the peaks, and they connected them all with doorways in stone. Many were disguised, but some were open. And not all were destroyed.”

  “So we're looking for one?” Henrietta asked.

  “Yes,” Eli said. “For one in particular. It may still lead us to the coast. One of the old way stations is in a cave not far from here. I meant to explore it while you slept. One doorway led far to the north, where the wizards retreated long ago. But I couldn't approach it. So we seek another.”

  Henrietta was breathing heavily. “Why couldn't you approach it?”

  Eli veered left, marching diagonally up the slope, weaving through trees and rocks. He turned and pointed back across the hill's long face.

  “You can see the slope below the cave from here,” he said, and he kept walking.

  Henrietta hopped up on a rock and looked back. She wasn't sure what she was looking for. But when she saw it, she knew. The green tree canopy was marked by a ring of orange. Inside, the leaves were a paler shade of dead, and in the very center, the trees were gray. Below the tree line, a swath had been burned through the tall grass. But Henrietta had seen farmers burn fields before, and she knew that fire hadn't been used. The grass would have been black. Instead it was gray and shorter than the rest, curled and gray. Dust, ash, stirred above it in the breeze.

  She jumped back off the rock and hurried after Eli. “What's happening?” she yelled. “Is that what you were talking about? The life-sucking? Why don't you just shut the door?”

  Eli stopped and turned to look at her. His head was bright and sweaty. He took off his glasses and polished them on his sleeve. “If I were to walk past that doorway, or even into the cave, then I would either find myself turned to ash or pulled through and then turned to ash.”

  “I can't believe you let me sleep so close to it.”

  “You were in a tree,” Eli said. “Trees are strong. On the ground, and I would be carrying you right now. Only I wouldn't. I would have left you.”

  Henrietta's feet were slipping sideways down the slope. She grabbed at rocks and trees as she passed, trying to brace herself and catch up with Eli.

  “I still,” she said between breaths, “think that you should, well, just try and shut the door.” She looked up at Eli's back. “If that's where everything is coming from.”

  “I appreciate your sage counsel,” Eli said. He turned around and watched her catch up. “When my sister, queen of all living things, blames me for everything now happening to her back garden and goat—if she survives—then I'm sure you could testify to my guilt. ‘O Queen, I told him he should just shut the door. That would have done it.' ”

  “You don't have to be nasty,” Henrietta said. “I could help you try.”

  Eli cocked his head in surprise. “And how would you do that?”

  “I don't know. We could roll a rock in front of the cave or something.”

  Eli leaned back and laughed. It wasn't a mean laugh, but it was patronizing, and Henrietta didn't like it.

  “Thank you for your offer,” he said. “But it really wouldn't help, even if we both survived. The draw isn't coming from the door. It's pulling from the far north, but it is in concentration through the door. Closing it could only buy pointless time. And only if we could close it. Which we can't.”

  Henrietta stopped beside him and put her hands on her head to breathe. He smiled, turned directly up the slope, and pushed on.

  Henrietta took a deep breath and followed. “So what happened to the wizards, then?”

  “You know,” Eli said over his shoulder, “you would have a much easier time if you focused on breathing.”

  “I'm not tired,” Henrietta said.

  “Liar. You were ready to lay down and die a while ago. Your life was so hard, what with staying up late and missing breakfast.”

  “What happened to the wizards?”

  “I will tell you,” Eli said, “if you beat me to the ridge. We really should be going faster.”

  Henrietta held her breath and started running, pushing forward with deep, painful strides. The bones in her feet felt like they might spring loose. She ran past Eli and smiled.

  “Don't be idiotic,” he said. “Just walk faster. Find a pace you can hold.”

  Henrietta didn't slow down. Eli had been shaking her off for long enough. And she'd let him. And she'd complained too much. A stitch knotted tight in her right side and then on her left. The two of them joined in the center of her stomach and contracted. She spotted a large rock jutting out of the trees at the ridgeline, and she resolved to climb it. That's where she would be waiting when Eli reached the top.

  Her legs burned. They were slow, full of acid and sludge, and her lungs wanted to rip wide op
en. Every part of her wanted to stop, except her will. Her will wanted a different body. One with wings. She slowed, but she wouldn't let her legs stop moving. Only fifty more steps. She nearly tripped on a rock, but caught herself. A branch tangled in her hair and kept some. She closed her eyes and pushed through, ignoring the scratches on her arms and face, and the tugs on her hair. She moved faster, ripping through tangled branches and tripping on low, sprawling trunks and brush. And then she laughed.

  She had reached the stone. A sharp face overlooked the hillside, but its back sloped gently into the ridge. The stone was pale where it wasn't covered with dry lichen and cracked and knobby on the side. Even with boiled legs, climbing wouldn't be difficult. She scrambled up onto the edge of the great stone's back. A carpet of scrub oak spread out in front of her, running down toward the valley. In the far distance, beyond much lower hills, she thought she could see the river.

  Laughing, happy and relieved that she had actually made it and not just given Eli another reason to be smug, she cupped her hands to her mouth.

  “Hey, Eli!” she yelled. “What happened to the wizards?”

  “They faded like mist,” a quiet voice said, “and went the way of all flesh.”

  Henrietta overbalanced and nearly fell into the oaks tangled beneath her. Waving her arms, she looked up to the end of the rock outcropping. On the very peak, there stood a man, as tall as any she had ever seen, even taller with nothing but the sky behind him. The man wore leather gloves on his hands. One of them gripped a thick bow beside his waist. A quivered flock of arrow stood up above his shoulder.

  Henrietta turned and ran down the back of the rock. She was falling. The ground rose up suddenly, and her tired legs gave out against it. Dust rose, a rock dug into her ribs, pushing the breath out of her.

  Strong hands gripped her shoulders from behind, and she was on her feet. She spun and tried to kick, but her body was quickly twisted back. An arm slid down over her head and shoulders. She couldn't move her upper body, so she stomped and found a booted toe.

  “Peace, little sister,” the voice said in her ear, “unless you wish to be tied.” Then it grew louder. “Where is the little Fitzwizard?”

  “The birds are tracking him,” another voice said. “He's moving along the ridge beneath the trees.”

  “Follow him. Bring him to the well.”

  A storm of horses pounded away behind her, but one passed where she could see, gray and speckled black. Standing straight, she wouldn't have reached its shoulder, and she could feel the vibrations in the ground as its huge, hairless hooves drummed by.

  Eli wouldn't have much of a chance.

  When the horses were gone, she was turned around suddenly and found herself looking into the eyes of the tall man. They were smiling and strangely colored— dark green in the center but with rims of pale blue. His face was rough but clean-shaven, and his hair was black. A scar on his left temple ran back into his scalp, and his hair was streaked gray around it. He looked a little like her father. But not. She'd never been this afraid of her father.

  “You are young to keep such company,” he said. “What is your name?”

  Henrietta didn't want to say anything. She wanted to meet this stranger's eyes with a cold stare and defy them. But she wasn't good at saying nothing. So she lied.

  “My name is Beatrice,” she said.

  The man didn't blink. He leaned closer, staring, until she could smell pepper on his breath.

  “That name has not shaped you,” he said. “Are you a liar?”

  “No,” Henrietta said angrily

  “Then what are you called?”

  “I am called Beatrice.”

  The man didn't look away. He spoke again, quietly.

  “What is it you are called?”

  Henrietta's neck began to droop. She wanted to look down, or up, anywhere else, but he wasn't letting her.

  “Henrietta Dorothy Willis,” she said.

  “And you are called Henrietta?”

  She nodded.

  “Then come, Henrietta, you will ride with me.” He straightened up, put a hand on her shoulder, and led her around to the side of the stone. “Tell me no more lies,” he said, “and we shall get along.”

  He whistled, low and sharp, and an enormous chestnut horse surged slowly up from beside the stone, prancing to a stop in front of them.

  “I am called Caleb,” the man said, “and this is Chester.”

  stood with his thumbs tucked beneath his backpack straps on top of the warm stone slab and blinked in the sun. His breaths were long and slow, and he was savoring them. The only noise was made by the breeze slicing itself through the trees. There had to be insects, though Henry couldn't hear any. If birds had made homes in the trees, they were keeping them all secret.

  Henry had only been to Badon Hill once, but he couldn't count how often his dreams had brought him to the tall trees and the breeze coming off the sea. The island hill fell away into mossy shadow on every side of Henry's perch, swallowed by giant trees with their heights rooted in the sky. He was standing on the very crown of Badon Hill, on the ancient rectangular rock, set in the clearing surrounded by the ruins of the old stone wall. Behind Henry stood an ancient tree, weather-worn, with splaying branches and a wide crack in its trunk, a crack that led through a cupboard and into an attic. Far below him, out of sight but not out of smell, there sprawled the sea.

  Henry walked down the length of the slab and jumped off, making his way to the corner, where he knew he would find the bones of the big black dog from his oldest Badon Hill dreams. They were there, the yellowed skull, caged ribs, and others swallowed by grass. He didn't know why he had dreamt it, the dog, running back and forth between the tree and the stone, and digging at both, but he knew that it was important to him. Somehow.

  Leaning his back against the warm rock, Henry shut his eyes and let the sun warm his face. Then, with a deep breath, he straightened and opened his eyes. For a second, they wouldn't focus. Threads like jet streams morphed between the trees, knotting them together in a single word, a single story and song. Henry could hear Nella telling him to stop, but he blocked out the pain in his head and the pounding of his heart. He was seeing the raging, laughing life that he had only felt whispered before. And he knew that this storm of names and living words was Badon Hill at rest. Badon Hill, dreaming. His tongue dried and tightened. He wanted to try and speak this language. He wanted words in his mouth to be alive, to take on flesh, wood, bark, sap, leaves, rings of annual laughter and sorrow. He wanted to speak life.

  Henry's mouth hung open wide, his joints throbbed, ignored. He turned in place and saw the wind.

  It was a single epic creature, a sliding, rushing, legless back. Henry put out his hand and watched it divide around his fingers, around his dancing dandelion fire, and rejoin itself on the other side. It was single, but many. Every tail spun off and found its own personality, shaped another narrative, and then rejoined the rest. Henry put out his other hand. He could grab on. He knew he could. He could be carried away.

  Suddenly, the world roared. Henry felt his arms begin to spasm, his eyes rolled back in his head. But even that was no protection. His first sight was gone, but his second sight continued on, carried by something as loud and strong as Niagara. It could rip him apart.

  Henry fell to the ground, tucked his legs to his chest, and grabbed his ears. He curled tighter and tighter, breathing hard, trying to push it out of his head, fighting the spasms he felt building in his joints. The trees and wind were shouting their names, their histories, proclaiming their glories with violence.

  All went quiet. The world sang on, but Henry's mind stepped out of the roar, reblanketed with simpler perception, perception more easily survived.

  Henry opened his eyes slowly. His jaw hurt. It was locked wide open. Grindingly, carefully, he closed it and sat up.

  Badon Hill rustled in the breeze, insectless, birdless, content with its quiet life. Henry knuckled his eyes and looked around caref
ully. His head was drumming. He wished he had brought Tylenol.

  In front of him, the gray stone was still blurry. Henry shut his eyes quickly. After a moment, he opened one and squinted at what should have been the flat face of the long, rectangular side of the rock. It was flat at the edges and across the top, but at the center, there gaped a black arch, just peeking above ground level. Henry could see grass running in front of it, but it looked false, an illusion deceiving only his first sight, like Darius's chin. In front of his feet, the ground actually fell away into an uneven stairwell. Henry scooted forward and looked down. The stairs were narrow, descending to the black arch. Henry slid his leg through the grass and held it out over the stairs. Strangely, he felt resistance where ground level was pretending to be. It wasn't merely illusion, but his foot still passed through and settled on a narrow stair. Henry slid forward again and stood. Both feet were on the stairway. He looked around himself. Grass ran up to his knees and between his legs, but he could look through it, at the dark, wet stone beneath his feet. He took another step, and another, wading deeper into the ground. The grass was around his thighs. He didn't like feeling cut in half, so he walked all the way to the stone, with ground level around his ribs, and then he ducked below it.

  Henry was squatting at the gaping mouth. He wasn't sure he wanted to go in. Actually, he was sure he didn't want to. But he was just as sure that he didn't want to move on without looking. He pulled off his backpack and went digging for the flashlight. When he found it, he pointed the beam through the arch and saw that the stairs hadn't stopped. They continued down into darkness.

  After quieting his stomach's reaction to the idea, he eased himself through the low doorway. After counting twenty steps, Henry found a floor with his light and then his feet. The ceiling was just high enough for him to stand with his head tilted.

  He was in a little oval room. The smooth stone walls were pocked with niches and miniature alcoves, some of which looked as if they held things. On the far wall, a door, as wide as it was tall, was set into the black stone. Its surface crawled with carvings.