Dandelion Fire (35 page)

Eli was back on his horse, and the other riders were around him. Caleb slid up onto his horse, grabbed Henrietta, and pulled her up in front of him.

“Eli,” he said. “You are a liar and a coward and a thief. You think you have no master, and so you are lawless in your self-worship.”

Eli flushed. “I have no love for myself.”

“Self-loathing and self-worship can easily be the same thing. You hate the small sack of fluids and resentments that you are, and you would go to any length, and betray anything and anyone, to preserve it.”

Henrietta was shocked. She watched Eli's face darken, and then grow white with anger. He opened his mouth, but Caleb raised his hand to stop him.

“Swear fealty to Hylfing now,” he said. “Eli Fitz-Faeren, belong to something other than your puffed self.”

“I—I don't know,” Eli stammered.

“It was not a request.” Caleb's voice was bone-hard. Henrietta felt fear surge through her, and she couldn't even see his face. “If you do not, I will spit you to a tree. Your theft could have cost a life from among my men. If you felt the sudden growth in danger and did not tell us … three more lives have already been added to your tally. Swear.” Caleb paused. “Now.”

Eli sat, frozen. Henrietta heard Caleb draw another arrow from his quiver.

“Please don't,” she said suddenly. “Don't kill him.”

“Peace, Henrietta,” Caleb said. “Be still when you have no understanding.”

Henrietta bit her lips.

Thunder tumbled slowly across the sky. The rain had made up its mind. It came down hard, needled and stinging, warm but cooler than the air.

“Eli?” Caleb asked.

“I swear,” Eli said quietly. Henrietta strained to hear him in the rain. “Before God and these witnesses and all the witnessing world, I swear to serve Hylfing, pursuing its good, its purity, and its peace.” Avoiding Henrietta's eyes, he looked up at Caleb. “Will that do?” he asked sharply. “Or did you have something else in mind?”

“That'll do,” Caleb said. “What awaits you if you break this oath?”

“An arrow, I presume.”

“Something sharp, anyway,” Caleb said. “Right—” Caleb turned to the others, but Eli interrupted him.

“You realize, of course,” Eli said, his hair limp and wet, “that I remember you when you wept to be suckled. As a babe in a soiled nappy.”

Caleb laughed. “I cannot remember you as anything. Anything at all. But let us change that.”

The men all smiled, but briefly.

Caleb pulled a cloth out of his cloak. “Blind the horses. We are within a mile of the old gateway. The death will worsen as we approach, so there will not be another moment for stopping. Come what may, we will ride to the door and through. Do not fall to the ground. That is where the drain is strongest. Once we are in, if a mount or rider stumbles, there will be no time for a rescue. Do not breathe until you are in the light. Follow on my heels with weapons ready. We do not know what waits for us before, in, or through the evil door.”

The men all pulled out scarves and rags and bandages and bound them around the horses' tossing heads. When the horses had quieted, the men drew blades or notched arrows on bowstrings. Caleb nudged his chestnut to a trot, guiding him through the brush with his knees.

The rest followed in a line.

Henrietta had a knot in her stomach. Her body no longer ached, or maybe it did and she failed to notice. In days of wild adventuring, she had reached a new level
of nerves. They were riding toward something that could kill them. Three bodies were already wrapped in blankets.

Even Caleb's body felt tense behind her, and the horses whickered as they went. The black dog trotted with his nose up and ears high.

The grass around them was more than curled. As they rode, it went from brown to gray, and all of it was battered down in the rain.

Henrietta's wet hair was slicked back, and she didn't bother to wipe the running water from her face. Instead, she sucked at it with her lower lip. It was her first drink of the day.

She didn't need to ask Caleb where they were going. Ahead, she could see for herself. They were heading for an outcropping of stone surrounded by leafless trees. A funnel of gray death was traced toward it on the ground. Soon enough, she could see the open door.

Thunder rattled the sky in the distance. She saw no lightning. Her eyes were on a growing black mouth, just a little too symmetrical to be a cave. She swallowed hard as the ground leveled out in front of them. Dead ground. Gray ground. Every blade of grass, twisted into wet, ghostly corkscrews, lying back, pointing toward the door.

Caleb clicked his tongue, and the chestnut surged. For the first time, Henrietta thought of the birds and squinted into the rain.

“I released them,” Caleb said in her ear. “Long ago.
You may see them again. For now, prepare to hold your breath. If you grow dizzy, cry out and clutch the horse's neck. Do not fall.”

Henrietta nodded.

“Be stubborn,” Caleb said. “As stubborn as a stone mule.”

She clenched her teeth and expanded her fistfuls of mane. She could do that.

Caleb continued, and his voice was a chant. “Your life is your own, your glory is your glory, but you will lose it if you keep it for yourself. Grasp it for the sake of others. What might you do with it? Do not let the demon woman take it. Do not breathe.” The words did not stop, but Henrietta could no longer understand them. They were no longer for her.

The door was in front of them. The horse slowed, but not much, as Caleb guided it in. Henrietta caught her breath and entered dead, rushing darkness with her eyes open wide.

She felt the pull immediately, like a hook set in her guts, tearing its way out. Gasping, her breath was gone. The horse's hooves sparked on stone, and others clattered behind her. She wanted to breathe, but she couldn't open her mouth. She wouldn't. Something would come out if she did. Something important. Her skin felt stretched, peeling. They were in a broad, circular room, a polygon, each wall a doorway. Faint light came through some of them. The chestnut surged toward one
in the darkness, and Caleb corrected it, angling toward another. Henrietta felt her eyes pulling her that way, her hearing—

She opened her mouth to breathe, and sickness filled her. She was turning inside out, leaning, falling off the horse. A strong hand closed over her mouth from behind and pulled her up. She was pinned against Caleb's chest. Her eyes burned as she shut them.

Something clattered to the floor behind them, and they were through, into rain and much louder thunder.

Henrietta threw up through Caleb's fingers. He moved his hand, and she threw up again, down the horse's shoulder, and again, finally, on the ground. Then she sat up and realized she was crying.

Caleb had turned the horse and was watching others emerge. One. Coughing. Two. Strong. Three. The horse stumbled out of the doorway with Eli on its back. It staggered sideways and crashed to the ground with twitching legs. Eli rolled free into thick brush.

“Up, Eli!” Caleb yelled. The rain and thunder drowned him out.

The chestnut moved toward the fallen man, and Caleb slid off its side.

Caleb was on the ground and had lifted Eli up behind Henrietta before she could even think to object. Three other horses bounded into the rain, and a fourth carried a limp rider, who tumbled to the ground. No others followed.

Caleb reached up and slapped Henrietta across the face.

“Wake up!” he yelled. “Hold! Eli, take her to the house you knew as my mother's. Take her fast. You will not betray my trust.”

“Wait!” Henrietta yelled. “Where are you going? Don't send us alone!”

“Go!” Caleb yelled. “The wizards are through ahead of us. On the ridgeline.” He pointed back. The cave mouth was set between boulders near the top of a long slope that climbed into a ridge. In the wind and the rain, Henrietta could see nothing. And then she saw cloaks, dark cloaks moving down toward the doorway. “They are coming! Go now!” Caleb slapped his horse's rump, and she felt its strength tense beneath her. But there was no strength behind her to hold her on. She clutched and wobbled. Caleb was running toward the man on the ground, carrying his bow in his hand. An arrow was still on the string.

Henrietta turned away, terrified, bouncing onto the horse's neck.

Away in front of her was a rolling plain, divided by a river. Straddling the river mouth, she could see a small city with pale walls and spires.

Beyond it stormed the sea.

“The city of your fathers,” Eli said behind her. “My city. May it weather the tempest.”

Lightning struck beside them.

lifted Henry back onto his stool. Quiet voices rustled through the room.

“The accused will stand for committee examination,” Radulf said.

The hands grabbed him again, this time pushing him to his feet.

Henry wobbled. They wanted to kill him. And he was standing in front of hundreds of people in his underwear.

Braithwait eased his bulk around the table, stepped off the platform, and made his way toward Henry. He was carrying a wooden pointer.

The round faerie stopped and stroked his thick beard.

“Who is your father?” Braithwait asked.

“I don't know,” Henry said. “You tell me, you're the ones who—” Henry's throat tightened. It didn't merely tighten. It closed off entirely. Radulf sniffed from behind the table.

“Answers only,” Braithwait said, and poked Henry in
the chest with his stick. He turned around, pacing. “So, you do not know who your father is?”

Henry tried to speak. His mouth wouldn't open.

“Let him talk!” someone yelled from back.

“Look at him! He's Mordecai's boy right enough.”

“Same nose!”

Radulf banged his mallet and scowled. When the room was quiet, he nodded to Braithwait.

“We presume from the chaotic, unfocused nature of your ah, how shall I put it, aura, that you are nameless. Is that correct? Has a christening or other naming rite ever been performed over you?”

Henry still couldn't speak. He shrugged. He knew he had a name, but he was pretty sure no ritual had come with it.

Braithwait stood in front of him and bobbed on his toes. “Could you explain, for the benefit of the committee and those assembled here, the meaning of the primitive symbol on your belly? It appears to be a type of brand, a mark of possession. And I should warn you, such things are not in truck with anything other than dark corruption and evil. How did you acquire it?”

Henry chewed on his tongue. His jaw was beginning to ache. Fear and worry were moving into panic. He looked up at Tate. The faerie wasn't even watching. He was slicing more cheese.

“I warn you,” Braithwait said. “Your silence shall be interpreted by this body as an admission of guilt.” The
faerie's voice rose, rumbling up to a roar. “Have you bonded yourself to darkness? The scarring on your body and face make it seem so! Did your continued actions, after notification from this body, result in the unentombment of a witch, excuse me,
the
witch-queen of Endor, bloodthirsty in rage and madness? Speak up, boy!”

Braithwait brought his pointer across Henry's stomach.

He winced and tried to double over, but could not move. He tried to grab at his stomach, but his arms were locked in place. He could only look down and watch the stinging stripe welt up, joining and crossing the scars made in Byzanthamum.

The crowd had begun to rumble. They were more than rumbling, they were roaring.

Henry shut his eyes, trying to absorb the sudden pain, to drive it away. He could hear the yelling and the banging mallet. Over it all, he could make out the voice of Fat Frank.

“I'll cut off your hand, Braithwait! Touch him again, and off it comes!”

Men and women shouted, babies cried, and the mallet banged.

Somewhere under and through all the noise came the sound of typing.

As the din of the crowd ebbed into muttering and complaints, Henry opened his eyes and looked around.

A chair scraped back, and Tate rose to his feet. Then
he climbed onto his chair and, from there, stepped onto the table.

Radulf banged his mallet. “Chair addresses William Tate!” he yelled.