Dandelion Fire

by N. D. Wilson

  “They are pauper sons, both green,” Frank said. “We've brought them because they need our help.”

  Roland cleared his throat. “The Central Committee needs to assemble. I didn't know what to do with them.”

  A hard, acidic voice rattled in Henry's ears. “Who are you, Roland, to summon the committee?”

  And another. “Since when do provincials summon anything?”

  “Misters Braithwait and Radulf, sirs,” Roland said quickly. “I apologize. But there was a notice—”

  “Since,” Frank's voice rang out loudly, “the before-unknown seventh son of Mordecai arrives, pushed before a storm of darkness. Nimiane of Endor, once entombed, sits in Carnassus's seat.”

  “Yes,” the first voice said, “we have been informed. But she seeks no quarrel with us. This boy, the small one, a notice has been issued, has it not? Is he not the Whimpering Child who disturbed and unearthed and dusted off this old evil before releasing it? Hold him in a lower borough. Hold them both. We will deal with them in time. The committee is slated to meet at week's end.”

  Hands grabbed Henry from all sides. He tried to struggle, but strange speech slid into his ears, and his legs went limp. He fell, but did not reach the ground. Small shoulders were propped beneath his arms. He was being carried. Half of him at least. His knees dragged on the ground behind him.

  “Week's end!” he heard Frank yell. “Do you hear that, Roland? Good we have taken action! The elder faeren will sit in committee by week's end. The relief is overpowering. I wonder the witch-queen hasn't surrendered herself already! I hope we have room for her on the agenda!”

  The voice died as Henry was dragged gradually down through the tunnels. His eyes were foggy and unfocused. No matter how much he blinked, he could see nothing more than the occasional smudge of light around him.

  He heard a door open, and he was thrown inside. Shortly after, a body landed on top of him, and the door slammed.

  “Monmouth?” Henry asked.

  The body grunted.

  Henrietta, though tired beyond her experience, had not fallen asleep easily. The lumpiness of the ground and coarseness of her cloak-blanket would not have bothered her. The lumpiness in her mind was the problem. Caleb had refused to answer any of her questions. He had merely smiled at her and promised to answer her in the saddle tomorrow.

  But she hadn't been able to stop asking herself the questions tonight. Even when she did fall asleep, she didn't think she had. Her dreaming mind asked as many questions as her mind awake. The only difference was that it imagined answers.

  Caleb was her uncle. This was her father's world. She was traveling to meet a grandmother that she had never heard anything about. Caleb had only said that she was happy, but not well.

  Did she have cousins? How many? What were they like? Would she hate them? Would they hate her? Would she ever see Kansas again? Could she learn to keep hawks? What had her grandfather done to FitzFaeren? Was Eli really evil?

  And there was the witch. Would her new world even survive? Had she helped destroy it before she'd ever seen it?

  She was sitting on a tall horse, not as heavy as Caleb's, cloaked in gray, holding a horn bow, smiling down at Henry and Anastasia and Penelope and Richard. And Zeke. Then she woke with a jerk.

  Caleb was lifting her body. He laid her on the log. She teetered and sat up.

  “Stay there,” he said, and he turned and ran.

  The sky was gray, dully anticipating the dawn, and men were yelling. Horses neighed and stamped.

  Not far from her, a dappled mare lay on its side, dead. Its eyes were rolled back in its head and a clot of dried blood hung from one nostril.

  “Caleb?” she yelled. “What's happening?”

  Then she noticed the tall grass all around her. It had curled. Even in the dim light, she could see that leaves on the trees were mottled and dry.

  She stood up, holding the cloak tightly around her shoulders. Hooves pounded, and Caleb came roaring toward her, running beside his great chestnut. As he approached, he kicked off the ground and swung onto the horse's back. He had no saddle, it was on the ground near Henrietta's feet, and no bridle to speak of. On the horse's hooves came the black dog. The horse stamped and puffed beside her, and Caleb reached down, gripped her forearm, and pulled her awkwardly up in front of him.

  “Leave the tack!” Caleb yelled. “Weapons only!”

  Other horses and riders were already galloping away, down the gentle slope toward a break in the trees. Caleb clicked his tongue, the chestnut crouched its rear legs and sprang forward. Henrietta had thought it was going to rear and shake them off, but instead, they were pounding down the hill, Caleb's hand pressing her head down as they tore through branches and then leapt a stream.

  The birds were screaming in the air, and the enormous black dog passed them and rushed ahead, leaping logs before they did.

  There was no talking above the drumming of the heavy horse hooves and the snapping of its hocks ripping through grass and brush. Caleb held her tight with one arm as the horse puffed like a train between her legs. Other riders were stopped ahead. The dog rushed into them and then backed out, nosing in circles through the grass. It pawed a dead quail, then nosed another small animal, a rabbit or gopher of some sort.

  Caleb somehow brought his horse up. Turning sideways and pawing at the ground, it stopped as two more riders joined the group. Behind one of them was tied a body wrapped in blankets. The other led a horse on a lead. On it were two more bodies.

  When the horsemen had all gathered, Caleb spoke.

  “We will eat as we go. Forgive me, all of you. We should have pressed on through the night, but I did not fully understand the danger. It would have been better for the horses to collapse beneath us than to lose those three.” He nodded at the bodies. “Pray for them as we ride. I hate to think of their strength poured into the enemy.” The chestnut turned, stamping. “We push hard, but if the mounts die, they must do so beyond the doorway.”

  The men nodded and turned their own horses. Some were saddled, some were bare. The horses' eyes were all wide, and their nostrils flared broader than Henrietta's fist. The men's faces were as hard as stone.

  Caleb clicked his tongue again, and the horse gathered itself and galloped toward a break in the trees, this time not as quickly. A black shape crept into Henrietta's vision, and she looked down to see the dog running beside them.

  “How did they die?” she asked. She had to yell to be heard, and her throat was tight.

  They leapt a log and a smaller stream, and Henrietta's face bounced off the horse's neck. She would have fallen had Caleb held less tightly.

  His voice was calm. “They and the horse drank from the stream. Two of the birds fell as well.”

  This did not clear things up for Henrietta. All the horses had drunk from the stream the night before. She'd been given water from it as well. “How is this happening?”

  “Sorcery,” Caleb said. “The wizards' new mistress has begun in earnest, and we are caught too far north. If the horses are slow, some of us may die before the sun sets.”

  “Are they behind us?”

  “Not yet. But soon. Tomorrow, maybe, or in a few hours. And it is not likely that they will be behind us. They will be in front of us, in the hills around my city.” She heard Caleb blow out a long breath. “She is much stronger than I had hoped. Her draught flows through the ground and through watercourses. The weakest things have already given up the struggle and faded. The stronger leave, or they will die as well. We will not touch any water until the world grows green again.”

  Henrietta remembered the night before. “Is Eli coming with us?”

  “He made his decision. He cloaked himself and fled in the night on a stolen horse, ever afraid that death may overtake him. That is still a terrible thing in his mind.”

  “Aren't you afraid of dying?” Henrietta asked. She knew she was.

  “I have ridden with death, and walked beside it. Some say I have sought it.
The search would not have been difficult, but I look for the death of my enemies first. That is much harder to find.”

  After a moment, Caleb continued. “When I am called, I will go. But that call has not yet come.”

  room was dark with a smudge of light near the top. Henry still couldn't see. The darkness was crawling with movement and wiry shapes, but nothing clear.

  He held up his hand, looking for the golden burn on his palm. It was there, bright and crawling, sharper and cleaner and faster the longer he looked at it. It made his head hurt again, throbbing behind his eyes and at the base of his skull. But now when he looked up, he could see.

  The walls were solid, earthen in parts, planked with carved wood in others. If he left his eyes anywhere for long, all of it began swimming into strands, woven in place, shaped by strange words he could not speak, though he knew they could be spoken.

  “There's so much magic,” he said slowly. “Everything. All of it is magic.”

  Monmouth groaned on the floor. He had a lump on his forehead, just below his dark hairline. Streaks of dirt stood out on his pale face. He put his right hand to his head, and Henry watched the burn on his palm. It was green, with flicking, twisting silver.

  “You're in a faerie mound,” Monmouth said. “Everything in the world has its hidden glory, its magic. Here it'll be doubled and trebled. They can make things real on many levels.”

  Henry blinked, wondering how long he could keep seeing without his head exploding. The door was made of tightly bound reeds. The ceiling was green clay, and a single lamp hung from its center without a chain. He could see the twisting strands that held it up, but he knew they would disappear if he relaxed to his normal sight. The whole place would.

  He shut his eyes to let his head recover. “What are we going to do?”

  Monmouth's voice was tired, pained. “Apparently, we are waiting for a committee meeting.”

  “Does your head always hurt when you, you know, see?” Henry asked. He was grinding his knuckles against his eyebrows, and the pain was actually a relief.

  “No,” Monmouth said. “It did. Years ago. But you grow into it. Right now my head hurts because someone clubbed me when they dragged us off.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I resisted. They tried to numb my legs. They had to use an older technique.”

  “What are we going to do?” Henry asked again.

  “Henry,” said Monmouth. “I'm going to sleep.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my head won't hurt in a dream. Talk to me there.”

  “What?” Henry asked. But Monmouth didn't say anything else. “Monmouth?”

  After a moment, the young wizard's relaxed breathing filled the darkness. Henry stood, shifted his eyes, and ignored the pain in his skull. He walked to the door and pushed on it. There was no handle or latch, so he couldn't pull.

  His aching head quickly became impossible to ignore, and looking around made him dizzy. He could see the room in at least three different ways, dark and muddled, shaped and clean, and crawling with sculpted magic. None of them helped him, so he lay down on the floor and closed his eyes.

  They were grateful.

  “I waited,” Monmouth said. “Your dream is strong. I couldn't keep my own when it came.”

  “What?” Henry asked. They were both sitting on the floor in the center of the room. The room was bright and clean. Nothing was writhing. The walls were earth and plank and no more. It was far more sensible than the reality.

  “Your imagination is stronger than mine,” Monmouth said. He smiled, and Henry could see that the lump was gone. As Henry thought of it, it appeared. Monmouth grimaced, and his hand shot up.

  “Ow,” he said. “Do you mind? I don't have to have it here.”

  “Sorry,” Henry said. “I didn't mean to.”

  “Take it away, or I might as well be awake.”

  Henry tried. Nothing happened. He couldn't dream it away when his mind knew it was really there.

  “I'm sorry,” he said again. “I don't think I can.”

  Monmouth stood up. “Right. Well, at least it's not as bad here. I already tried to get out. The room is charmed to keep us in.”

  “But we're dreaming,” Henry said. “How can they keep us in?”

  Monmouth smiled. “You're more than just a body, Henry York.”

  “You mean our minds? That's where you dream, right?”

  “Your mind is part of your body. This is different. You can shape dreams, but real ones come from outside of you. You learn to travel through them and to ride them, forcing them toward truth if you like, or into fantasy. I've never really been good at it, but there were dozens of old books and scrolls on dream-walking in Carnassus's library. I read most of them.”

  Henry looked around the room. Dreams had always been strange to him. Now that he'd been pulled out of one by Darius, and accurately dream-walked Badon Hill, he was prepared to believe anything Monmouth said.

  He stepped over to the door and reached out his hand to feel the tight reeds. In Byzanthamum, Nella had said something about dreams. She'd told him to believe his. How do you believe a dream? he wondered. It doesn't say anything.

  The reeds felt almost fused together. They probably were. He turned back to Monmouth. The wizard was massaging his head. The lump was smaller, but it grew when Henry looked at it. Then he looked at Monmouth. Really looked at him.

  Monmouth looked back, first with anger and then with surprise. Something changed in him, shrouded what Henry was trying to see, but only for a moment. It didn't matter. Henry could still see. Monmouth looked like Nella had, a collection of strong green strands, living words all moving slowly, written on top of each other, tied together, growing together.

  But in places there was darkness, stiffness, and stagnation—death, fighting with the rest.

  Monmouth's eyes were narrowed. “What do you see?” he asked.

  Henry blinked. “What do you?” His head wasn't hurting. He could do this in a dream.

  “I see fear and confusion,” Monmouth said. “And damage. There is some strength, but it's all unguided and without purpose, outside your control. And you have a sinkhole in your face. In your jaw. It's small, but it's stronger than the rest of you, and it's growing. What do you see?”

  Henry swallowed, wishing he could pull clothes over everything. “I”—he paused—”I don't know.”

  “You're not quite as strong as I thought,” Monmouth said. “I don't mean to be rude, it's just that I thought you must be incredible if the witch wanted you so badly.”

  Henry put his back to the door and slid down with his knees against his chest. “I know,” he said.

  “Did your father really defeat the witch?”

  Henry shrugged. “Never met him.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “I'm going to sleep.”

  “You can't go to sleep. You're already dreaming. Why would you want to?”

  “It won't have to hurt in a dream.”

  Henry dreamed that he fell asleep. And so he did.

  This time, Monmouth wasn't there. For a moment, Henry could see a faint ghosting of his outline, but he blocked it out quickly. His own shape, equally faint at first, grew stronger until he was looking down at Henry York, sleeping with his knees hugged against his chest. As for himself, the self that was seeing, he was without any shape at all. He lifted what he knew were his arms, but saw nothing. And then, slowly, the head of a stemless dandelion bloomed in midair.

  Henry turned, stepped over himself, and walked through the door.

  One faerie stood outside, leaning on the jamb, yawning. His arms were crossed, and a stick with a knobbed root end was tucked under one arm.

  Henry moved past him and wandered down the corridor. Lamps hung from the ceiling low enough that he ducked around them. Then he wondered if he had to at all. He felt like he had a head to move, but he wasn't sure if he did.

  He was looking for stairs or ramps, anything leading up. The corridor was str
ange. Though extremely earthy, it didn't seem at all dirty. The floors were slate, unlike the dirt floor in his room, and the upper walls were green clay sculpted into panels, sometimes complicated friezes and occasionally a jumble of contributions without any theme whatsoever.

  Everywhere he went, the lower walls were paneled with a pale wood, pickled unnaturally white, almost whitewashed, and many of the doors were the same. Others were made of reed, like the one he'd walked through, but still tinted white.

  When he found stairs, he went up, hunched into the tightly spiraling space. Two faeries trundled down and straight through him without hesitation, though both shivered as they moved on.

  Henry climbed until he had found another level, this one busier, and then he climbed again. The tint of the clay changed, grew smoky, streaked with brown and even red in places, but everything else seemed cut from a mold, though the halls rose and fell and bent and curled beyond the ability or desire of any human architect outside of a madhouse.

  Finally, on his fourth level, passing by a group of laughing faeries, he saw a broad, low door. The knob at first looked like iron, but at second glance appeared to be wood with the bark still on, perfectly grown to a functional shape.

  Hanging on the knob was a large wooden sign with carefully painted black letters. Strangely, the painted letters seemed to be in imitation of those on a typewriter, though the artist hadn't been able to resist adding little flourishes on each t, and the whole thing had been fancily underlined.

  At first Henry wondered if it might be a bathroom, but then he walked in.

  The room was posh. Thick red carpet, like an overgrown lawn, covered the floor. A large, round window made up of triangular panes was set into the end. The walls, pale green here, had been smoothed into perfectly rectangular panels. In the center of each, there was a face, the same face, but expressing different variations on a theme—serious. Or maybe pompous. It was fat-cheeked and heavily browed, and it was also sipping a drink in a deep chair by the window.

  The faerie that owned it was rather slim, and the heavily featured face was balanced on an oddly slender neck. His hair was cut close on the sides and was bald on the top. He was clean-shaven and wore round, black spectacles. Most remarkably, he was wearing a satin fuchsia bathrobe that had obviously once belonged to a woman.