Sword Mountain

by Nancy Yi Fan

  Is she a princess? Dandelion thought. She did dress fancily enough, with a frilly cap framing her face and ribbons tied into bows on each of her ankles. A golden brooch shaped like half of an acorn adorned her collar.

  As if sensing Dandelion’s confusion, she flicked her ribboned feet. “I am Lady Olga to you. My great-great-great-grandfather was a member of the court. I have seen both the king and the queen, and I get to eat caviar.”

  Dandelion looked at the caviar eater, and Olga looked back, expecting her to be awed.

  “This is the Castle of Sky, if you don’t know. The grandest place in the Skythunder mountain range,” Olga went on. “The princes Fleydur and Forlath brought you here.”

  “They’re princes!” exclaimed Dandelion.

  Olga sniffed. “Well, it was all very unusual, but I suppose it was a merely a gesture to celebrate their victory in the war. They wanted you to be like a regular visiting eaglet, so you were assigned a companion to keep you company and bring you meals. Unfortunately that was me.” Olga allowed a condescending smile. “Consider yourself lucky to even step one talon here. I bet you’ve never taken classes with a tutor of the castle. I bet you don’t know how to hold a teacup properly. I bet you don’t even know what caviar is.”

  “I can learn,” Dandelion said.

  Olga snorted.

  “There must be something I can do here once I’m better,” said Dandelion, “to repay the princes who’ve saved me before I go home again.”

  The word home was a trigger, and tears leaked from Dandelion’s eyes no matter how hard she squinted. Olga stared at her. “You mean you want to go home?” she said, surprised. “You’d rather be home than here?” She waved a wing tip at the luxurious room.

  Dandelion nodded. She knew there was only one method of getting off this precipice: flight. She wanted to fly, so suddenly and so much it surprised her. If her wings weren’t broken, if she knew how to fly, she could return to her home at once.

  Yet there was a fear, a fear of … of … she was afraid of flying. Or was it of falling?

  “I suppose everybird likes home best, even if yours is in the valley,” Olga said slowly. “You certainly don’t have to stay here. If you stay, they’re just going to make a fool of you.” Olga leaned in. “A valley fool. You’re in luck, though, because I can take you back down.”

  Olga walked over to the window and slid it open. At once a fresh, glorious breeze sprang in, billowing the tasseled curtains, snapping the corners of the embroidered bedspread, and stirring the few uncovered feathers on Dandelion’s wings.

  Dandelion looked at her bandaged, broken wings. “Take me home,” she said. She looked out the window. The sky was a vivid royal blue, and stars were emerging.

  Dandelion was lying inside a gigantic wicker laundry basket, secured in the folds of sheets, her candle tucked by her side. “Olga?”

  “Be quiet, will you?” said Olga. She and another eaglet, who also wore half a gold acorn pin, held the handles of the basket as they flew out of the castle courtyard.

  “Olga, just one thing, please!”

  “We’re not turning back.” Olga’s voice turned malicious.

  “No. Can you fly a little higher? I want to have a look.”

  There was a pause, and then Dandelion felt the basket starting to rise. Below, she could see the dark smudges of the forest and the castle, too. How beautiful it was, with majestic stained-glass windows that showed silhouettes of birds moving behind them. In a level field lower down the mountain, she saw eaglets playing lacrosse under the lantern light.

  “She’s so heavy!” shouted the other eaglet to Olga. “Come on, let’s put her down on a ledge and rest a moment.”

  They chose the top of a small slope. Dandelion saw that Olga looked unhappy and frightened. She handed Dandelion a crust of bread and a flagon of something warm. Soup. “Eat,” she said. The other eaglet whispered something in Olga’s ear and slipped away. Dandelion gripped the warm bottle of soup, a sickening feeling dawning upon her. She choked down the soup and didn’t have to wait long for what she feared would happen.

  “Wait here,” Olga muttered, her eyes elsewhere. “That eaglet, she has cold talons. She doesn’t want to fly down in the dark. I’ll be back soon, I’ll get somebird else to carry you with me.” She smoothed her frilly cap and lumbered off into the night, and Dandelion heard the sound of her rustling ankle ribbons fade.

  Has she abandoned me? Dandelion wondered. Somehow it didn’t seem unlikely. With her wings bound to awkward splints, she could not get anywhere by herself, so she would just have to wait for Olga to come back.

  Dandelion craned her neck to look around. Uphill, she could glimpse the lights from the castle. Below was a steep outcropping, and she could make out the abodes of well-to-do eagles. All were out of shouting distance.

  Sighing, Dandelion leaned back in the basket and watched the stars. A gust of wind picked up in the mountain, and Dandelion held her candle tighter, wondering whether anybird would find her. I wish I was with Mama and Papa.

  Suddenly the stars lurched in her vision. She realized that that her basket was moving, sliding ever so slightly on the slope’s loose rocks. Dandelion’s first impulse was to get out, but when she sat up, the splint of one wing jammed into a gap in the weave of the basket, sending the basket careening.

  “Ah—!” Rolling on a bed of pebbles, the basket picked up speed, and Dandelion could only grip the edges in terror. She was indeed heading for a drop-off.

  She heard shouts of alarm from some eagles who appeared below her on the slope, but as they hollered, she zipped passed them. They pumped their wings to chase after her speeding basket. A golden blur pulled ahead of the group.

  Whack.

  Something stopped her basket abruptly. Dandelion looked over her shoulder. A lacrosse stick was hooked onto one of the handles.

  “Nice catch, captain,” some eaglet said in admiration. “Best save ever.”

  Talons pulled the basket to a flatter patch of ground. The lacrosse players gathered around Dandelion. The owner of the lacrosse stick was an eagle whose plumage was not the usual brown, but so light that it was tawny.

  He and the other birds gawked at Dandelion. She realized that with her bandages she resembled a mummy in a casket, but when the eaglet with the lacrosse stick laughed, it was a friendly sound.

  “Great Spirit, some fight you must have been in to get that look. To think you almost broke more bones,” he said to Dandelion, flashing a grin. “I’m Cloud-wing.”

  “Thanks for saving me,” said Dandelion, smiling weakly. “I need to go home.” To the valley.

  “Definitely,” another eaglet spoke. “We can give you a lift. What quarter do you live in?” He pointed his beak at the mansions in the distant cliffs.

  Could they possibly think I’m one of their own? Dandelion thought. “I’m not a noble,” she said. “I didn’t mean to come up here.”

  Silence.

  “A valley bird!” one of Cloud-wing’s teammates cried out. All the eaglets except Cloud-wing suddenly backed off. They sneaked looks at one another, beaks hanging open.

  “How did she get up here?” one muttered.

  Cloud-wing turned to look at that bird. “What does that matter?”

  Then there was a fluttering of wings. Olga landed on the cliff, followed by another eaglet.

  “Sorry for the wait,” she said to Dandelion breathlessly. She turned to the eaglet she’d brought. “Come on, let’s go.”

  The lacrosse team stepped back, unsure of what was happening.

  “Olga!” exclaimed Cloud-wing. “You know this eaglet?”

  “Oh, hello there.” Olga smoothed the ribbon on one foot with the toes of the other. “She’s Fleydur’s eaglet. I was assigned to be her companion.” Striding over, she gripped a handle of the basket. Her friend lifted the other one.

  “Then you’re supposed to make her feel welcome,” said Cloud-wing. “Why did you take her outside?”

  Olga br
aced herself to fly. “She’s homesick,” she explained. But just as Olga was about to leap into the air, Cloud-wing raised his lacrosse stick and barred the way.

  “You can’t do this,” he said to them.

  “Why not?” said Olga, taken aback. “I’m trying to help, is all!”

  “You left her stuck in that basket on the slope, don’t you know? The basket almost slid off the edge. That was dangerous! You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t even know where her home is, and her injuries are not healed,” Cloud-wing cried. “She can’t survive on her own like this.”

  On her own.

  His last sentence struck an unknown dread in Dandelion. On her own? But she was going home to her mother and father, wasn’t she?

  Again she had the brief image of the archaeopteryx slashing at her in her mind, but now the image progressed, and she remembered a little more, a few seconds more, of her mother … frantically her mind started shutting off. She could not think. She could not feel. She could not move. Her throat clenched, pinching off her air passage.

  “What’s wrong with her?” yelled Olga, dropping the basket on the ground. The eaglets crowded around, frightened and worried. More birds were coming toward them now. Older eagles joined their ranks.

  Dandelion heard jabbering voices dimly, but she could not respond. She didn’t want to see. She didn’t want to know. Most of all, she didn’t want to remember. She was blissfully frozen, and shadows pooled in her vision.

  When Dandelion’s mind recovered, she was exhausted and weak and tucked into the bed of her sickroom. It was late at night. Candles cast a soft, mellow glow all around her.

  The door creaked, and Olga stood in the doorway, unsmiling.

  “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” said Dandelion, but Olga did not listen.

  “I was just trying to help,” Olga cried. “Now I’m in trouble with everybird, including the princes. And it’s your fault. See if I ever offer to do you a favor again. You even made me look bad in front of—” She shut her beak on the words and scowled at Dandelion. “Humph! All pitiful in bandages, so they feel sorry for you. But underneath”—Olga jabbed a claw at Dandelion’s acornless collar—“you’re still a valley bird.” She spun around and stormed away, slamming the door shut behind her.

  One of her ankle ribbons got caught in the door. Dandelion heard Olga shriek and fall. Olga opened the door again and yanked on the offending ribbon. Her face, beneath her feathers, had turned purplish-red, from embarrassment or anger, Dandelion didn’t know which. Olga scrunched up her glowering face and spat.

  She banged the door shut a second time, as loud as she could.

  Mocking somebird else’s appearance is a surefire way to make yourself feel beautiful.

  —FROM THE BOOK OF HERESY

  5

  PAIN IN PAINTING

  In the darkness of a deeper night, Dandelion pressed her cool, smooth birthday candle against her face. But thoughts invaded her mind and wouldn’t let her sleep.

  She realized now, injured as she was, that she could not go home herself; yet why hadn’t her mother and father come to her?

  But of course, she thought. They couldn’t. Mama and Papa belonged far away in the valley, unable to come up to the mountain to rescue her, because a weaver and a hunter would not be allowed into the Castle of Sky. She would have to wait until her wings healed, and then she could go home to them.

  In the nights, she dreamed of gliding down the mountain, and into a magical valley, and into the wings of her mother. She wept silent tears all night long in her sleep, but awoke convinced that it was dew.

  Hours blurred into days, days into weeks, for Dandelion, trapped on her sickbed. Fleydur visited every day. But while he was not there, Olga, with narrowed eyes, set about making Dandelion as miserable as possible, determined to make Dandelion pay for her humiliation.

  Olga dumped vinegar in Dandelion’s soup and made loud, biting comments about her to nobird in particular. And then Fleydur, the only golden eagle who cared about her, stopped his visits. It was said that he was busy outside on the mountain, so Olga grew even bolder. She did not starve Dandelion, thinking it no fun, but meticulously prepared nasty surprises. Once she brought a piece of bricklike burned toast for Dandelion to eat, spread thick with rancid yellow soap. Seeing Dandelion choke and gag was not enough. She shoved the remains under Dandelion’s bed when Dandelion was asleep, so when the housekeeper charged in a week later to investigate odd smells, Olga conveniently blamed it on Dandelion’s “valley odor.”

  When will I be able to walk and go back home? Dandelion wondered each night.

  One morning while Olga was away for her lessons, the physician marched into her room with a pair of steel scissors, snipped through Dandelion’s bandages, and untied her splints. “Sit up! Then tell me if you feel strong enough to walk,” he said cheerily, tossing off a piece of linen. Dandelion blinked and cautiously emerged from the bandages as if from a second eggshell. She scrambled up, and stood, swaying, on her feet. “Yes!” she cried. Her wings felt barely hinged—it was too soon for flying, but it was better than lying down waiting for Olga’s tortures. She’d run and run—

  Another eagle appeared in the doorway, blocking her way. “You are expected someplace. I am Uri, Prince Fleydur’s valet. He has instructed me to take you to the tutor.”

  “Tutor?” Dandelion cried, horrified. The tutor taught Olga. She didn’t want to see Olga. What would Olga say when she saw Dandelion in class with her? There were all these complications. Couldn’t they understand? All a little eaglet wanted was to learn how to fly, and go home.

  But perhaps … “Will I learn how to fly in class?” she asked.

  Uri looked amused. “Not this class. Concerned with the higher functions of the mind, or so they say.”

  That Fleydur hadn’t told her about this made her a little anxious. But it’s temporary, she assured herself as the valet led her down a spiral staircase and along an empty corridor.

  Uri stopped before a wooden door, rapped, and opened it. “Simplicio!” he called.

  An absolutely ancient eagle teetered out of the room, shutting the door behind him. He wore a black courtier cap and a starchy robe, its severity only diminished by an eye-catching speck of dried spittle on the front.

  “Fleydur has told you she will be in your class?” asked Uri.

  “He has,” Simplicio the tutor croaked. “The valley fledgling, my pupil?” He shook his head. “She hasn’t enough knowledge, no skill. No qualifications at all. She is no duchess, no lady, no daughter of a noble! But she may meet the eaglets here, I suppose. Ought not to be too much of a bad influence. All right then. Come in. You have met Miss Olga already. One of my best students in etiquette, very polite and proper.” Simplicio opened the door, pushing Dandelion inside.

  All the heads whipped in unison over to look at her, their collective gaze like a stinging slap. Dandelion shut her beak tightly. The curtains of the tall windows in the classroom were drawn half closed, so she did not see much detail in their faces, only their brown mirrors of eyes, peering over a sea of rectangular easels. They perched on stools in fan-shaped rows. An empty stool had been placed in the center of the hard tiled floor, next to a lantern that cast a halo of glaring light.

  “Today we are painting,” the tutor explained. “Class, we have a new pupil.” He nodded to the eaglets, who were still staring, transfixed.

  “Who’s she?” a short, pudgy male eaglet in the front row shouted, pointing at her with a dripping paintbrush.

  “My name is Dandelion,” she answered.

  “I can’t hear you, what title is that? Speak up!” the eaglet taunted her.

  “Oh, don’t be silly, Pudding.” Olga spoke from the back row. “She has no title.”

  During the awkward silence, Simplicio shut his classroom door. “If you’d like to know, Master Pouldington, Dandelion is from the valley. She has just recovered from terrible injuries; that is why she is here at all. I hope you w
ill treat her accordingly.” Simplicio turned around. “Do you know how to paint, child? Laws of perspective, ratios, the balance of light and shadow?” Dandelion shook her head. “I thought not!” Simplicio clucked his tongue in satisfaction. “You will hardly be able to catch up.”

  Dandelion was rooted to the spot, not knowing what to do and feeling hopelessly awkward. She did not spy any empty seat in the rows of painting eaglets. There was no extra easel. Olga made a face at her and Pudding still stared at her.

  “She can be the model!” Pudding called. Olga screeched in agreement. “We can paint her today, and she’ll just sit there!” He pointed to the brightly lit, lonely stool in front of everybird.

  “Excellent. That will do. Come, child.” Simplicio clapped his wings, pushing Dandelion to the seat. “It’s quite an honor for you. To my knowledge, most valley birds never get a portrait of themselves painted in their lifetimes.” Tittering came from the class. Dandelion perched on the stool, the wood hard and cold in her talons. Simplicio fussed over the position of her wings, the tilt of her head, and then arranged the lantern till the light beamed to his satisfaction. For once, Dandelion yearned to have the bandages back to hide her body.

  “Yes, class, this is a fine specimen of a valley bird. I expect your paintings will fully reflect the differences between the appearance of the golden eagles on the mountaintop and those in the valley. Pay attention to the darker coloring of her plumage. Anything else, do you see? Yes, Master Pouldington.”

  “They have a hulky, bulky body but a tiny head.” Pudding said. Olga whooped out loud. Giggles came from other birds hiding their faces behind their easels. “They have squarish beaks and swollen feet.” Pudding lifted a talon and wiggled his toes to demonstrate. Half the class again suppressed their laughter, while the other half waited for the tutor’s reaction, though he rarely scolded the young noble, since Pudding’s father, the treasurer, was the one who paid the tutor his wages.