Dandelion Fire (28 page)

Henry braced himself and found his feet. The wizard glanced at him and smirked, tight-lipped. Henry could feel something building, static, tension, something.

The pulse came suddenly, without words. It came from inside the wizard.

Monmouth jumped behind the mast, but was thrown back into the prow as the boat shivered and wood cracked. Henry lunged for the man, but a raised hand stopped him. He felt his throat close and his feet lock in place. His body began to arch backward, grinding his spine.

As the wizard laughed, the faerie landed on his head.

The two of them fell to the ground, with the faerie's legs clamped around the man's throat.

Henry picked himself up and stepped toward the bodies to help, but he froze in confusion. What he saw was more than two bodies. Fire and frost and even lightning all took shape in the air and faded before striking either. Water was turning to ice in the bottom of the boat. Henry's eyes widened and saw even more. The faerie's strength was green. Writhing webs swirled around him and around the wizard's body. All of them met and withered against a cloud of sharp whiteness. But the faerie's threads were fewer, fading.

“Help him!” Monmouth yelled, lunging to the bodies with a lifted knife, its blade already painted dark. The faerie was thrown off and lay limp and panting. Mon-mouth's knife shattered in the air.

Henry blinked and collected himself. What was he doing? He jumped forward and felt the air around the wizard bite into his skin. Monmouth had both hands suspended above the man's throat, struggling to close.

Henry picked up the gray bag and slid it over the wizard's head. The man screamed, but it was cut off by Monmouth's hands slamming into place.

“Don't kill him,” Henry said. “Not like that.”

Monmouth looked up, confused, but he didn't stop.

“Kill him now,” a throaty voice said. “Now, now, now. Now!”

The world cracked, and Monmouth flew into the air, grabbed on to the sail, and fell into the boat. The bag ripped open, and the wizard stood up.

The faerie bounded past Henry, and flame burst from his hands into the taller man's chest, wrapping around behind him. The wizard stepped back and overbalanced as the boat dropped down a wave. The faerie wrapped himself around the man's shins and pushed him backward through the splintered gap and over into the sea.

The thick faerie immediately ran to the tiller at the back of the boat and swung them slowly away from where the man had fallen. Then he ran to the sail, untied a rope, swung a beam, retied it, and ran to the rail to look for the wizard.

“Ha,” he said. “There's one more of the necronancies gone to feed the merpeople. In that water, he'll
be ice already, and that's the truth.” The faerie turned around and faced Henry. “And you,” he said. “I sit inside that spider sack and listen to them jabbering about you. Mordecai's son? Just a bit of paddy's cake, and that's all, standin' there oglin' a fight like it were a bit of puppet entertainment. We should toss you over, too.”

Monmouth sat up and put his hand to his head. His features were sharp, and his face pale beneath his jet hair. He was slight and very young. Henry hadn't noticed just how young in all the chaos. He couldn't be eighteen.

The faerie looked over at Monmouth and then up into Henry's eyes. His face was even with Henry's ribs. Bright eyes sparkled above flushed, puffy cheeks, and his brown hair was as thick as fur. His nose looked almost round, like a knob.

“I'm sorry,” Henry said. “I'm just slow right now.”

“Slow?” The faerie laughed. “Do you even have the sight? Are you a true seventh? What am I doing now?”

The faerie held his breath and stood on one leg.

“You're standing on one leg,” Henry said.

“Beginner's luck,” said the faerie. “What now?” He stuck out his tongue.

Henry reached out and poked it. The faerie sputtered, grimacing.

“Right,” the faerie said, and he took a deep breath and held it, still standing on one leg. His cheeks grew, and his eyes widened. His skin went red and then purple, and the air began to shimmer around him.

“Are you serious?” Henry asked. “You're doing a headstand.”

The faerie gasped and dropped his foot. “I knew it.”

“I was joking,” Henry said. “You were just on one leg again. What are you trying to do? Do you think you're invisible?”

The faerie squinted at Henry and rubbed his belly slowly.

“I don't think,” he said. “I am. How're you doing that?”

Henry was confused. “I can see you. I do it by looking.”

“He's real,” Monmouth said, standing up carefully. “I wouldn't have just done what I did if he wasn't. Probably shouldn't have, anyway. That was Carnassus's son you just tipped over, and he won't be pleased to lose him.”

“Carnassus?” the faerie asked. “That old mountain goat will have his own life to mourn soon enough, sending his little wizmancers onto a faerie mound. There are protocols, you know. The committee won't stand for it.”

“And what could a gaggle of yelping faeren do about it?” Monmouth asked.

“A gaggle?” The thick faerie marched over to where Monmouth stood. “Shall I gaggle you?”

Henry could hear the two arguing, but he was feeling sick again. Too sick to pay attention. The small boat continued to bob and sink, but with no one steering, the bow slid back and forth as well. His legs were turning to jelly.

“Where are we going?” he asked, swaying. “I need to get back to Badon Hill.”

He slumped down into the bottom of the boat and curled his legs against his chest.

“Or the Deiran Coast,” he said, and he shut his eyes.

stood in the quiet throne room. Moist, cold air drifted through the high windows and settled around him. His senses were throbbing. He could feel the strength in the stones beneath him. Each one was ready to burst, filled with life that belonged elsewhere. Any more, and they would begin to move.

He pulled in a long, slow breath, noting each droplet that he drew into himself from the air. He was full to bursting as well, teeming with the treasured, savored glories of grasslands and streams, of insects and gnarled trees. Some of the strength had been woven around the rest, to keep him from flying apart. But inside, somewhere, Darius knew that he could never turn back. Despite the cool air, sweat stood out on his broad forehead. His own spark was gone. He had become a mere jar for the stolen lives of others, and he would be forever drawing more.

He looked slowly around at the black, curtained doorways that lined the room, sensing each. There was the one that he himself had come through, leading back into the strange house where his adopted son had been imprisoned.

Not one led to the world he knew. He had come through into a place of legend, a place he had first heard about in the gibbering marginalia in the oldest, most unintelligible books that had belonged to his own adoptive father, Ronaldo Valpraise—a man he had believed to be wise, but had only been a fool, afraid of real power.

This was real power. Nimiane, daughter of undying Endor, sat on the throne a dozen steps from where he stood. Her face, lovely and terrible, was smooth in rest. Her eyes were closed, but the white-faced cat was alert on her lap, and her pale hand moved slightly through its black fur. Darius stared into the cat's eyes and knew that Nimiane was staring back. She possessed the animal, and its vision had replaced her own.

Darius felt life approaching, and then he heard feet slowly climbing the stairs from the hall into the great stone room.

Carnassus, the old wizard, wizened, with flesh like the skin of a withered mushroom, rose into view, leaning on his staff, and stepped onto the thriving stone floor. His neck was thick on his small body, and a long white beard grew from the tip of his chin. He looked up at the gray sky through the windows and around at the doors.

“The boy.” Nimiane's voice was flat. Her eyes remained shut. “They have not returned with the boy.”

“No,” Carnassus said. “They have not. The voyage to the doorway is short, but the seas may be rough.”

“They are not returning,” Nimiane said quietly. “I had hoped to possess the boy at the first.”

Carnassus shifted on his short legs, and his staff tapped the stone. Darius could hear its anger beneath him. “They may yet return,” Carnassus said.

Nimiane opened her blind eyes, pulled in a deep breath, and lifted her face toward the roof. “Old man,” she said. “Your son is dead. He was strong. I felt his life pass, and I gathered its strength into the stones beneath your feet.”

Carnassus didn't move. When he spoke, it was only a whisper.

“What of the son of Mordecai?”

“He lives. But fear the wolf before the pup. You told me Mordecai was dead.”

Carnassus pulled his beard and swallowed. “So the faeren claimed. He did not return, so I did not doubt them.”

Gathering up her cat, Nimiane stood. “His spark is hidden but not yet gone. Wherever he may be, his dying day will find him. Though we may extinguish the seed before the sire. Prepare the mountain ways. The first blow must fall.”

Henrietta lay flat on her back, her limbs splayed. Tall, dry grass swayed around her. There was not a single corner of her body that wasn't clamoring for relief, hoping for healing attention. She had spent nearly an entire day
on the back of a horse, and what part of the day she hadn't spent riding had been spent hiking, and she hadn't really slept the night before, and she hadn't eaten anything that counted as actual food since the eggs by the river.

A single rock or clod or bulge of turf was digging into her back, where she thought her kidney used to be. And she didn't care. Wherever it was, her kidney had worse things to worry about, she was sure, and moving the clod would require moving herself first.

She could hear the horses stomping and men laughing as they unstrapped bags and saddles. Someone was singing. How anyone could sing after being shaken and bounced and jostled all day was beyond her. She'd been to a rodeo once, and now she was pretty sure she knew what the bronco riders felt like afterward. And they only had to last eight seconds. She must have lasted eight hours, and it didn't matter that the horse had walked most of the time. It had always been moving.

Something shrieked in her ear, and she jerked despite herself.

Perched on an old log beside her was one of Caleb's birds. It was big, and its head was cocked, eyeing her. As tired and ready for death as she was, she didn't like sprawling beneath the bird. Its black, hooked beak looked needle-sharp, and its golden eye seemed hungry, especially glowing out of the black band around its snow-feathered head.

Groaning, Henrietta sat up and scooted slowly away. “Wait till I'm dead,” she muttered. “Then eat whatever you want.”

Thinking about the rodeo made her think about Kansas and her sisters and her parents. She wondered how many lasts she would have savored back in Kansas if only she had known—the last ride in her father's truck, the last time her mother handed her a bath towel hot out of the dryer after a shower, the last time she had smelled the ripening Kansas grain, her last barbeque, fireworks, baseball game, movie, or flushing toilet. A world of horse transportation wasn't likely to have plumbing.

Henrietta took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. How often had her father been hunting his memory for lasts when it had seemed like his eyes could do nothing but focus on the horizon? She bit her lip and tucked her hair behind her ears. She had to stop it. No wallowing. She had to live now. Right now. Right where she was.

First making sure that the big bird hadn't moved toward her, she looked around the patchy meadow for Caleb. He wasn't hard to spot.

The big man walked toward her with his saddle over one arm and his black bow in the other. The black dog, pony-size but exuberant as a puppy, bounded around him. Caleb smiled at her and then turned and chirped through his teeth at the bird. It flared its wings wide, wider than Henrietta was tall, and danced in place, spitting its sharp call.

The dog dropped to its belly in the grass, lolling a tongue the size of Henrietta's foot. Caleb set the saddle and bow on the ground and lowered himself onto the log beside the bird. He stroked its belly with the back of his still-gloved hand. It tucked its wings away and bobbed in place.