Dark Tales From Dandelion

1

Fiona pulled a Rakshasa down to her by making it heavier with a low vibration, but in the middle of its descent, the Rakshasa counteracted the thrumming with a lightening vibration, flappi.ng its black, bat-like wings to momentarily soar away from her. Fiona cursed, then fired at the thing, but it was too quick and flew to the side at an impossible speed. Vance shot as it dodged, this time striking true in the stomach of the creature. It struggled to stay in the air and Fiona thrummed into herself, making herself lighter, and climbed up the needle-filled branches of the closest white tree. With the light vibration she was quick, jumping from one branch to the next, making it up to the Rakshasa in just three bounds. She jumped off the tree and pulled her sword out, trying to slice the creature’s head off, but missed and split its wing in half instead. Fiona fell to the ground slower than normal because of her lightening, but the Rakshasa plummeted to the ground in an awkward spiral. As soon as it hit, Vance stabbed it in the face with his blade. The Rakshasa screamed. The others—still painting the sky with their white bodies and black wings—dived into the dark clearing.

Putnam took his oily black form and slid up the side of a tree to the top. Vermilion followed suit, climbing up on the opposite side of the clearing, Prudance cooing from the sling strapped tightly to his chest. Fiona had never seen the Drake move so fast.

Vance and Fiona stayed behind to receive those that made it past the phase-shifter and Drake.

“Putnam!” Vance yelled. Putnam looked down. Vance threw his sesnickie blade to the phase-shifter who caught it and nodded his appreciation. Vance was now only armed with a gun which worried Fiona, but she decided to put her gun up and go with the blade for this fight. Two guns seemed to be enough and she could aid with the vibrations. Fiona focused and began splitting. She decided she wasn’t quite ready to split in too many ways while also fighting, so she only split three ways, giving her one vibration for herself, and two more for any Rakshasas that came down.

Angels dropped like dead flies from the sky as Putnam danced from tree-trunk to tree-trunk, slicing into the things with masterful precision, then disappearing into the white branches. Those that got through this defense were shot down by Vermilion, or clawed to shreds by Pip whose long body gave them a height advantage.. There wasn’t much for Fiona to do but wait. For every one that was taken down, there was another that took its place, so surely at some point Putnam would become overwhelmed.

Vance started firing. Putnam had slowed.

“Fiona!” Vance cried. “His heart! They know!”

Fiona looked from The Drifter to Putnam. The phase-shifter was not moving as fast, but why then, were the Rakshasas not going past him? There was a cluster of black wings gathering in the area of the branches where Fiona had just seen Putnam. No! she thought. She attuned the Inner Vibrations.

There were twelve surrounding Putnam now and all of them were thrumming into him. She tried to penetrate their ranks with her own thrummings, but there were too many. She cycled through all of the mantrums, but in her panic she was overwhelmed and they kept slipping through her grasp.

“I can’t stop them!” She yelled to Vance.

“Me neither!” Vance yelled. The wind howled with the force of the black wings. The air thickened and everything felt darker.

“LEAVE US,” Fiona spoke in Seru toward the Rakshasas , but to no avail. “Vermilion! Help him!” She cried, but he was now busy with his own group of four Rakshasas trying to grab Prudance and kill him.

“RUN! NOW! ALL OF YOU! FLEE!” Fiona heard screaming through the group of Rakshasas. It was Putnam’s voice. A loud sound like a horn’s blow rang out. And then the sucking started.

2

“RUN! NOW! ALL OF YOU! FLEE!” Putnam screamed as loud as he could. There was no way of knowing if they’d heard. He grabbed the phase warp, his eyes and mouth becoming endless voids, sucking on the fabric of reality. The forest seemed to bend into him. He was a never ending indrawn breath, sucking everything into himself. The Rakshasas tried flying away unsuccessfully and were pulled into Putnam. He was an endoheist. As far as Putnam knew, this was death for him as well as everything in the illusion box around them. If he was right in his thinking, the Forever Forest was it’s own catoptric cistula, along with the other Veils they’d gone through. When Red had kept the form of Vermilion upon dying, Putnam had decided that this was the only thing it could be. Red was a shifter that had traveled to another potential, and had kept the shape he had been last when he died, or so it seemed. Maybe it was the form that Red identified with most, Putnam hadn’t figured that part out yet, but he had frozen in Vermilion’s form. Yet Putnam could still shift, so these couldn’t be separate realities they were traveling through in the Endynas valley. The only other option would be the catoptric cistula—the illusion box. These were used often by phase-shifters to trap opponents in if they needed a quick escape. Some were portable. Putnam assumed these—the Forever Forest and the battlefield at the third Veil—were too big to be portable.

This was the only chance he thought he could give his friends. Illusion boxes acted like separate potential realities, without you having to actually go to one, so he was thinking what he sucked away as the endoheist would be contained within the catoptric cistula.

The Rakshasas shrieked as they were pulled into the nothingness of Putnam, trees following close behind the creatures. Putnam ceased to exist. Putnam was the sucking, and the void. He felt nothing.

3

The sucking was terrible. It pulled on Fiona’s cheeks as she looked up in awe of what was happening, the wind growing stronger as she watched. It looked like the trees, the Rakshasas and the sky were willingly bending into a point in space that had been Putnam not long ago. She could feel her own form begin to bend slightly toward it. The pull threatened to raise her into the air and she started to panic. Vance thrummed into her and pulled her back down.

“VERMILION!” Vance called up to the Drake’s form as it drifted from one group of trees to the other in midair. Fiona could feel Vance start to thrumm and realized what he was doing. She thrummed into Vermilion as well, pushing through the vibrational repelling grips of his guns, making him heavier, then thrummed into herself and the surrounding members of her group making them all heavy enough to stay on the ground. She could feel it slipping and knew they needed to get out and fast. Vermilion hit the ground and they all started running except for Vance.

“GO!” He shouted.

“Come on!” Fiona yelled back. The Drifter stayed put and ran for the nearest tree. He started climbing. Fiona’s heaviness vibration was still on Vance so he couldn’t just float up with the rest of the things being pulled into what was Putnam—for now. Fuck! Fiona thought. Then she remembered the rope in her belly. She made Vance light for a moment, then focused her whole attention on one huge tug on Vance. As he surged toward her, she made him heavier again so he wouldn’t slam into her.

“I won’t leave him!” Vance cried from behind Fiona.

“You will,” She said and she tugged on him again. Vance stopped resisting and followed. She didn’t know what the connection was between them, but she didn’t plan on letting Putnam waste his sacrifice. She was certain he wanted no one to try and help him. Quint and Carter caught up with them as they ran. Fiona had the heaviness vibration going through every one of them and it was difficult but manageable for the time being. Her abilities seemed to come and go depending on how much she was thinking about using them, how much pressure she was putting on herself to use them, and how much she needed them. It was frustrating, but at least they were doing the trick now. She urged them all forward. It was like running through sludge. The heaviness made it harder to move, and the sucking of the hole Putnam had created pulled at their backs, the sound of it a deafening roar.

“VANCE! HELP ME!” Fiona shrieked through the wind. Vance looked at her, then nodded. She could feel him thrumming serenity. He was powerful. The wind went from deafening to a distant woosh as the air around their group stilled like a bubble had been placed around them.

“I … don’t … know how long I can … hold it y’all, but I’ll try,” Vance said through gritted teeth. He was obviously struggling and he was already out of breath from running.

“I’m going to drop my heaviness vibration, then we all run as fast as we can. Do any of you know where the exit is?” Fiona asked.

“The … exit is the … sixth Veil. The one I … told you about,” Quint said, running beside her, Carter on the other side of Quint. They were all winded from trying to move quickly with a heaviness vibration in place, and Fiona felt like she may fall from the pain in her right ankle any moment. All of the dirfweeds had been lost to the sucking. Voiddamned limp, she cursed.

“The one that gives you pleasure?” She asked.

“Yeah. That one. The motherfuck of them all,” Quint said.

“You know how to get there?” She asked.

“We ain’t far. I’ve been in that clearing before. We keep goin’ this way and we’ll be at the tower,” Vance said.

“Have you tried looking in a mirror?” Pip sent to them all.

“Pip, what?” Fiona said. The sesnickie had been acting strange since they’d reunited.

“Huh? Oh—it-it’s nothing, everyone, sorry,” Pip sent.

“Just let it be, Pip, for Void’s sake!” Quint said.

Trees outside of Vance’s bubble were being ripped up by the root. Vance winced as white needles from the trees pattered the barrier like hail.

“Quint … little help here?” Vance said.

“What’s the mantrum Vance?” Quint asked.

“Ellenda-vi-shpo kindo,” Vance managed to get out.

Fiona felt Quint attune the vibrations. Vance visibly relaxed. I’ll have to remember that one. I wonder if it’s in the book, Fiona thought.

They ran for about five tiks and then a gigantic, black, mountain-shaped tower started to become visible through the storm of white needles and trees.

“It’s there! Look!” Quint said. The shape was taller than any of the mountains that surrounded it. Fiona looked at Quint who smiled like a child looking up at the tower. Vance’s mouth was open as he looked. The shield wavered and a branch tore through the air toward Fiona’s face before Vermilion deflected it with a forearm, leaving a long bloody scrape underneath a torn jacket.

“Quint! Vance!“ said Fiona sharply. They quickly remade the shield.

“Sorry y’all. The Veil should be right up there,” Vance said, pointing to the edge of the trees. These trees close to the edge were also beginning to pull free, some heading in the direction of Putnam’s suck hole, some just leaning that way, swaying back and forth.

The group ran for the tree line and then they were through. Morning was teasing its face over the top of the mountainous tower. The air was still, and the roar of the thing Putnam had become could not be heard as if the forest was its own little self-contained world. Fiona was so relieved … finally—

She turned her head back toward the trees. The chaotic wind made it rain white needles, uprooted trees threw them through the air. It was a storm that she was safe from so long as she stayed on this side of it.

If she could just … walk through. One. More. Time.

She started running back to the trees. She made it through and immediately felt the most extreme pleasure she’d felt in her five and a half years of memory. Vance was beside her. The sucking was intensifying, pulling at their clothes. Fiona cared for nothing but the perfect bliss she felt from the Veil. She smiled and looked to Vance who looked back and smiled as well. They gripped each others’ hands and jumped up and down, laughing at how silly everything was. They walked out and then back in again, voices calling after them as they did, but they paid no mind.

They felt the same rush of warmth, apathy and contentment. They did this three more times. By the third time, The sucking was so powerful that they had to hang on to the branches on a couple of the remaining trees, trees that didn’t have much time left. Fiona and Vance laughed hysterically. Fiona could see nothing wrong with her behavior. This is how you were supposed to feel. This was living and she did not want to ever—

She saw the bones. They covered the ground around this place—no … the ground was made of the bones. A faint memory played in the back of her mind, but she couldn’t quite form the full picture of it. Some of the bones on top still had flesh attached, some of it blowing like loose strands of hair toward the sucking. She stopped laughing. She felt a strange confusion like she shouldn’t be here, but where was here? Looking around, she remembered Vance who was still just laughing and barely holding on to the base of a very unstable tree. She looked at her own hands holding onto a similarly weakly rooted tree. Then she heard her name—and then Vance’s—being called very faintly. The world outside the forest looked like it was covered in a thick fog. She hadn’t cared about it before, but now ….

“FIONA! VANCE!” Vermilion yelled. Vermilion … he was out there. Out there past the fog … but why?

Fiona looked from the bones, to The Drifter, to the fog.

“Vance. I think we are supposed to go there. To the fog. And stay.”

“Fuuuuuuuuck that!” Vance said, then threw his head back and laughed. “I ain’t nevah felt so good in all my Voiddamn life!”

Fiona turned her head toward the fog wall again, then back to Vance, but Vance was gone. She felt for the connection between them in her stomach, but it was absent as well; a gnawing hollowness resided there now instead. She looked back to the fog. Now she fully realized she needed to get over to the other side of that fog wall before she too was sucked into the void.

She still felt a strong urge to go out only to come back through again and feel the perfect euphoria, but she was fighting this urge one moment at a time as she pulled herself by the roots and branches that still had some kind of hold to the earth. Pulling out her sword, she tried for a soft spot in the ground ahead of her(which really felt like above, not ahead, because the hole was sucking her toward it, making sideways the new up,) at first hitting only hard bone, then getting a hold through the bones and into the dirt. She pulled herself up onto the blade, using it as a foothold that she now stood on. She was going to have to jump—there were no other branches to use for hand or foot holds. As she prepared herself, the area below her shoulder blades began to burn worse than it ever had before and her vision began to darken. It was like being inside of a tunnel while wind raged outside.

Not now, she thought. I don’t need to blackout right now. Fiona felt like she was being stabbed in her shoulders and there was a grinding motion happening inside of her. What the fuck. It was like cutting new teeth very quickly. Something was making its way out of her body through her shoulder blades. She jumped up toward the foggy wall where the tree line had been, and as she did, she chanted a mantrum she hadn’t ever heard before, it’s syllables falling at the edges of her consciousness like they had before when she’d pulled Red through into the Endynas City. She hadn’t lost complete control, but she wasn’t the one chanting, or at least it didn’t feel that way. She felt lighter and heavier at the same time, and for a moment the world righted itself as she jumped through, then she slammed down with the gravity of the world outside of the forest.

Quint, Vermilion, Carter and Pip stood above, staring down at her. As she rose on all fours, they didn’t take their eyes off of her. She caught a glimpse of her shadow.

“What are you looking at?” She asked impatiently, any trace of the sixth Veil euphoria gone from her voice.

Two shadows spread out to either side of her shadow’s torso. Her back felt tight and slick like she’d been sweating. The group across from her looked up above her head. She turned her own head to see what they were looking at. Two giant, wet, black wings spread out behind Fiona to either side of her. Rakshasa wings.