CHAPTER FOUR [sativa]
Myrddin snapped his fingers, and Ozzy and Byron felt the shackles around their ankles come loose.
Ozzy rose to his feet shakily. His stomach ached from all the pastries he’d eaten. Get ahold of yourself.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“I already told you that.”
“Is—is this—are you—is this real?” Byron croaked.
Myrddin took a deep drag from a large glass pipe and laconically intoned: “All you need to know right now is that it’s not too late to save your friend. But we’ll have to hurry.”
“She’s not our friend,” said Byron.
“We’ll do whatever it takes,” said Ozzy.
“Whatever you say.” Myrddin waved his hand and the barn door blew open. He strolled nonchalantly out into the late afternoon sunlight. Ozzy and Byron shared a glance, then rushed after him.
Myrddin led them around the cluster of buildings, and it wasn’t long before they spotted Nell—the joint still hanging doggedly out of her mouth as Matt’s cronies dragged her across a muddy enclosure towards a giant cast-iron cauldron boiling over a fire. A crowd had gathered to watch the grim proceedings.
“What are we waiting for?” demanded Ozzy.
“Shh!” Myrddin hissed—but it was too late. The crowd had noticed them. And there was Matt, striding towards them with fury on his face, raising his silver shotgun.
“Hold on.” Myrddin took Ozzy by one hand and Byron by the other, and leapt up into the air, high above the courtyard. Ozzy became acutely aware that the three of them were hidden from sight—disguised as a gust of blue-tinged smoke dangling in the air.
“One of you has to grab her,” Myrddin commanded.
They were plunging towards the ground—Ozzy felt the contents of his stomach rising—but they were slowing, easing up. Their feet grazed the ground, and there was Nell, just a few feet away from them.
“NELL!” Ozzy shrieked. He and Byron both reached for her, and she spotted them—Matt’s cronies let go of her, they were drawing pistols from the folds of their jackets and pointing them straight at Myrddin.
Nell seized her chance. She lunged, grasping for Ozzy’s hand—
BANG! The shot tore the late afternoon air apart. Pain splintered through Ozzy’s arm—he screamed and slipped from Myrddin’s grasp.
“NO!”
He crashed to the ground hard, just as Nell jumped again, caught hold of Byron’s hand—
“OZZY!”
The scream matched the gunshot for volume. Ozzy struggled to his feet, but a shrill burst of pain exploded in his arm and his eyes smarted and for a moment all he could see was Nell, Byron and Myrddin dangling in the air, high above him—
And the men who’d been carrying Nell were running toward him now. “Oh shit,” Ozzy croaked. The last thing he saw before Matt’s cronies closed in overtop of him was Nell vanishing in a puff of smoke.
* * *
The barnyard was gone. Byron and Nell were pulled in all directions at once: north and east and west and south they scattered, up into the sky and down into the ground, and then Myrddin was piecing them back together and they were slowly sitting up on a wooden patio overlooking a sprawling forest.
Byron opened his mouth to break the silence, but Nell broke it first. “Ozzy?”
“He fell behind.” Myrddin shook his head solemnly. “Please. Sit down.” He gestured to a set of chairs that Byron was sure hadn’t been there a moment ago.“Welcome, my friends, to the Hanging Gardens of the Golden Coast.”
But Nell didn’t sit down. She walked over to the edge of the patio, and leaned against the railing and didn’t speak. Byron wondered if she was crying. He looked over at Myrddin, but Myrddin was gone.
“Where the hell are we?” he said.
The patio was high, high up in the boughs of a giant sequoia, one of several giant sequoias towering like pillars holding up the sky. A grove of sequoias, and the one they were in was dead center, and the tallest by far. The patio clung to its robust trunk. And below them they could just make out…
No way.
Wooden stairwells winding around trunks. Circular windows and doors carved into the wood. Walkways extending between trees. From where they stood Byron and Nell could see in all directions. To the south, the closest islands of the archipelago loomed through a bank of mist. To the east, yellow grassy plains extended into the encroaching darkness of night. Far to the north were cloud-piercing snow-capped mountains.And to the west: the ocean. Marauder’s Cove. The copper sun hovering above the horizon.
Myrddin returned with a platter of sandwiches and frothing ice-cold lemonade. He stood across from them as they drank. Neither of them took a sandwich.
“Is this your house?” said Byron. “The Hanging Gardens of Babylon or whatev—”
“This is my home,” Myrddin answered calmly. “One of many places I call home. Home, you see, is not merely where you’re from. The true traveler brings home with him wherever he goes. He spreads it. It multiplies. Nature’s prerogative.”
“Are you, like, some sort of—of wizard?” Byron blurted.
Myrddin glared at him.
“Shaman… satyr… witchdoctor… thing?”
“Shut up,” Myrddin grunted. “Now, I helped you, so you will help me in return.”
“Help you?” said Byron. “What could you possibly need our help for?”
Myrddin turned to Nell. “You are familiar with Summer Haze.”
Nell nodded.
“Good, good.” A look of sadness came over the satyr’s face. From within the folds of his turban he produced the largest blunt either of them had ever seen. “Summer Haze was my greatest work. My pride and joy. I grew her here, in these gardens. Spent eons perfecting her design. Not just centuries—millennia. Her purpose is simple: to cause those who partake of her to pause in their tracks. To reflect. To observe, and to laugh. When the bud of Summer Haze is burnt, you see, it leaves something behind. More than just smoke, or a smell… it’s like a seed, not planted in the earth but in the air.”
“A seed?”
“Yes. A seed.” Myrddin snapped his fingers, and the end of the blunt burst into flames. “And from this seed, do you know what will grow?” He held the blunt tenderly to his mouth, took a couple of quick experimental drags, and then inhaled deeply, closed his eyes.
“What?” said Nell. “What will grow?”
Myrddin opened his eyes, and they were no longer human eyes but feline, narrowed, vivid sapphire-coloured eyes. His lips twisted into a toothy grin and he exhaled a cloud of smoke, which emerged not only from his mouth but from his nostrils and ears, too.
“Crossing places,” he rasped. “The crossroads, my dear.”
In the air before them, lit by the final threading rays of dusk, the smoke twirled into a giant X before dispersing to the sweltering summer breeze.
“Summer Haze draws strangers together. She induces laughter, carousing, expanded sensory cognizance. For a time, at least, that was all she did.” Slowly the sadness on Myrddin’s face became anger. “But then they came. Lurkers. Raiders. Parasites. They’d been watching me. Spying. One day they made their move. There was a man with them who was well-versed in black magic. You’ve met him—he calls himself Matt. He subdued me, and they took it—all of it.” Myrddin’s voice broke. “All of my Summer Haze.”
The stars were coming out in the indigo sky above them. Nell and Byron were silent.
“Now they’re out there. Thieves, criminals. Murderers. They sell Summer Haze for exorbitant prices. They use it as currency. They rip their own friends off. They start fights. They seek only wealth and power. Mark my words, Children: I will never forgive them for what they’ve done to my beautiful plant.What I ask of you now is this: tonight I intend to redeem the name of Summer Haze. To do that, I will need your help.”
“We’ll do it,” said Nell, her expression grim, quiet and savage.
Byron gave a curt nod. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure. We’ll help.”
“Good. Good. I expected no less.” Myrddin smiled. “Someone down at Marauder’s Cove plans to murder as many people as she can before the night is over. Nell, you will venture down there to stop her.”
“Why me?”
“Because you are the most well-acquainted with Summer, my friend.” Myrddin turned to Byron. “And you—you will go into the woods and find the woman named Caledonensa, and restore her memory. Once you do that, she will lead all of us to a greater place than this one.”
“A greater place than…” Byron trailed off, then steeled his gaze and looked Myrddin in his feline eyes. “And how am I supposed to restore her memory?”
Myrddin took another deep pull on the blunt. “Repeat these eight words to her: I will never resist the call to adventure.”
Clusters of fireflies danced in the air around them. The patio railing was lined with paper lanterns, which began to flicker into life, seemingly of their own volition.
“And as for me,” said Myrddin,“I am going to steal back the supply of Summer Haze that was taken from me, and eradicate the creature that calls itself Matt. Your friend Ozzy will help me.” His expression turned solemn once again. “Eat and drink your fill, my friends. Gather your strength. We have work to do.”
J. Herrera Kamin 