The Curse of Arkady (22 page)

Brennard frowned slightly. “You lack much training.”

“And yet I elude you.” Jason put his chin up.

“Here, yes. For the moment.” Brennard gestured. “Out there, yes.” He smiled thinly again. “For the moment.”

“You expect things to change? I expect to get stronger.”

“Do you?” Brennard leaned forward, his expression intent. “What Gregory and I fought about was nothing less than the essence of Magick itself. What if they are wrong and I am right? How can they possibly train you? How can you possibly grow into your potential and protect yourself, and your friends, from the world we have today? What if they are all wrong, and I am right? Ask yourself that.”

“If you are right, why do you pursue me with nightmares and wolfjackals?”

“They are not mine. They are a . . .” Brennard sat back, and his hands made a pass through the air. “They are a negative aspect to the positive forces of the mana. A balance, if you will. For every light, there must be a dark.”

Jason did not wholly believe him for a second. If the wolfjackals weren't his, he did not hesitate to use them, nor did any of his Dark Hand!

“I admit,” said Brennard quietly, “what I offer is not appealing. It would be wonderful to think that Magick is unlimited, that it is flowing everywhere and we can just reach out . . . and hold it. But think, Jason. Is there any resource in your world that is unlimited? The sun? It will burn out. Perhaps a thousand thousand years, perhaps sooner, perhaps later, but it consumes itself. Our water? As we dirty it, there is less and less available. The earth itself? Wind and pollution eat away at it. What then? Nothing. Why should Magick be any different?”

The golden lights illuminating the room flickered. Brennard did not seem to notice it, but Jason did. And the one thing he desperately wanted was
not
to be left alone in the dark with this man. His words made a kind of sense, but there was a catch to them, and Jason knew he would find that catch, if he had a moment or two to himself to think. Here and now, though, was not the time to examine Brennard's teachings.

In fact, it was time to go, Jason decided. He took a step back.

“Don't go, lad. Stay. Perhaps there is something I can teach you, some little thing you will have of me, that might convince you later.” Brennard looked upon Jason, and in his gaze the boy caught a glimpse of power and knowledge.

Jason didn't think staying was an option.

“Your friends aren't nearly so good at denying me,” Brennard stated.

“They're as strong as I am.”

“You think so? I know better. I'll have them, too, perhaps even before I have you.”

He took another step back and sensed the doors right behind him. Once through those doors, he would be in the dark and hotly pursued again. Jason paused. He looked around the room. Why had he felt so much heat at the front doors?

As he looked toward Brennard, and the fireplace, he sensed a curtain of fire behind them, consuming that end of the room, like a wildfire out of control. It danced and wavered like a heat vision mirage, flames licking upon the walls and up toward the ceiling. A cold illusion, Jason thought, but not one which Brennard seemed to even be aware of. What did those flames strive to tell him?

“Good-bye,” said Jason abruptly as he turned and bolted back through the doors he entered by.

Brennard snarled an oath and sprang after him, or so Jason thought because he heard the heavy chair tumble to the floor as he dove into darkness. The moon's singular beam seemed very thin and inadequate, but he'd left the front door open, and raced for it knowing that the end of his dream awaited.

He would reach it this time. He wondered if there would come a time in his nightmares when he did not—and what would happen then?

 

That worry still haunted him when Trent's dad drove by and dropped Trent off for the day. Trent shouldered his backpack as he leaped out of the car, shouting, “I'll call you when I'm ready to be picked up!”

Trent's dad grunted a reply through the rolled-up car window as he pulled away. The two boys sparred a bit, happy to actually see each other. “He doesn't mind your staying out late?”

“Nah. He's got sales projections for next year to work on, said he wouldn't be much company anyway. He doesn't mind driving back tonight, though he said I could stay over if that works out better.”

“Cool. Have you got that stuff for Henry?”

“Sure do. It didn't take much time at all, with the computer and stuff.” Trent tapped his backpack, grinning widely.

“Good, 'cause I need to know how much trouble Henry might be in.”

“Oh? What's up?” Trent trotted up the walkway toward the back door and kitchen, matching Jason's steps.

“I think we're all under attack, in one way or another. I'm not so sure they want to do away with us . . . I think maybe he wants us corraled. Brought in. So we can be used in one way or another.” Jason paused, his hand on the back doorknob. “And I don't think the Magickers can protect us.”

Trent followed him in, looking about to make sure that part of the house was quiet and unoccupied, before whistling softly. “That's pretty heavy, Jason.”

He went to the stove and checked the teakettle to make sure it was full before turning on the heat under it. Then he arranged two mugs and poured hot chocolate packets into each before answering, “I know. But the facts are in front of us. The beacon rarely works. Whether something is interfering with it, or they can't monitor it as they'd like, or whatever. And, face it—we won't use a beacon unless we're under attack. By then, it's too late. We're already in trouble, and we're not trained enough to be able to face all the Dark Hand can throw at us.”

“So what's the solution?”

Jason shrugged. “We need a place of our own. Someplace to be safe and to study.”

“Hogwarts.”

Jason grinned at the fictional reference. “Well, doubt if we could find anywhere so neat, but . . . yeah.”

“Ravenwyng.”

“They're working on that one. I've been thinking that what I need to do is find us a Gate or two, for safety. Like a shadow we can slip into, if we need to.”

“Through the crystals.”

“Yes.”

Trent watched him solemnly. “That'll do for you guys. What about me?”

“I'm thinking I can fix a crystal with a . . . a swinging door. One that anyone can push open or shut.”

“Neat, if you can do it. Dangerous, too . . . what if you can do it, and I drop the crystal?”

“You wouldn't.”

“What if I did?”

“No one else would know how to use it.”

Trent squirmed a bit on the kitchen chair. “It's tempting,” he said slowly, “if you could do it.”

“I'm the Gatekeeper. If anyone can, I can.”

Trent watched him as he poured water into the mugs, making frothy cups of hot chocolate, plopped two big marshmallows into each, and brought them to the kitchen table. “Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.”

“We have to be safe.”

Jason knew Trent couldn't argue with that, and he didn't. Instead he concentrated on sinking his melting marshmallow, pushing it under with the bowl of the spoon and watching it plop! back up onto the surface. “Why can't we just pop in through the Iron Gate to Ravenwyng?”

“First of all, Gavan and the others are working in there, when they can. Council meetings and stuff. And when they're not there . . .” Jason considered. “I don't know, it worries me. Like the alarm beacon. It should work, but frequently it doesn't. I think Brennard has found a way to interfere with Ravenwyng, at least until Gavan gets it settled and locked beyond Iron Gate. Secondly, the Dark Hand knows about it just as much as we do. No, we need a Gate of our own.”

“So you just open one?”

Jason rubbed the back of his neck. He looked at Trent across the table. The smell of the rich chocolate drinks in front of them scented the whole kitchen, and he pulled his mug closer and sipped at the dark froth cautiously. “Well. It's not that easy, I'll admit that. But I can feel one, close by, and it's getting . . . I dunno . . . closer?”

“Feel it?”

Jason nodded. “It's like having itchy palms and you know you're going to get unexpected money or something. It's twitching at me. I know it's there, somewhere.”

“So that's what we're going to do before everything else starts happening? Find a Gate and just pop through?”

“If you'll help.”

Trent looked at him, a chocolate-and-marshmallow mustache riding his upper lip, which he licked off looking quite satisfied and catlike. “What do I do?”

“I need an anchor. Someone on this side.”

“I can do that.” He sank his second marshmallow. “What if there's trouble?”

“Yank me back. Just like . . . just like pulling me by the arm.”

Trent nodded. “I can do that, too.” He lifted his mug, gulped down half his remaining drink, and sat back. “I can't let you make me a swinging door, though.”

“And why not?”

“It's too dangerous. Anything could go in, or come out. Think about it, Jason. It won't work. I'm on my own, unless I'm with one of you, and I'm only as safe as you guys are. Which only means I have to do everything I can to make sure everyone else is okay, so you guys will be able to save
my
bacon when I need it!” He drummed his fingertips on the tabletop, always listening to an inner music no one else could hear. “All right then, let's rock and roll.”

Jason grinned. “Soon as I'm ready.”

 

Later, he thought he'd never be ready for this. Not really. Cupping his crystal in his hand, Jason stood with the early morning sun slanting across his back, Trent with an arm linked through his, and the tickle of a Gate growing stronger and stronger until he knew all he had to do was
Push
and it would swing open. What sort of Gate it was, he had no real idea and there was a tiny, nagging thought at the back of his mind that it could be a trap of Brennard's, but that was why he had Trent here. Like a safety ground for an electrical current, Trent would keep him tied to his own world, no matter what he found on the other side of the Gate.

He took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said. “Here I go.” He rubbed his crystal, looking deep into it, seeing a shadowy plane he wished to open and going through.

The Gate swung in. He stood for a moment, then swirling color hit him, and howling winds, and the stink of unbreathable ammonia, and a sense that something lay before him, all arms and tentacles, swaying and thrashing about.

The Thing lashed out, reaching for him.

“Uh-oh,” said Jason.

J
ASON put out a hand to steady himself, but there was nothing . . . no doorway or pass or rock or tree or anything to hold onto as the wind tore at him and threatened to knock him literally off his feet. The world seemed to be nothing but a swirl of mist and cloud and one wailing, angry
thing.

The only solid thing, it looked like a tall and fleshy flower stalk, with a snapping jaw buried in its top and plenty of vines to catch unwary prey with. It made a noise like a high thin wailing that seemed to be almost out of Jason's hearing range. It swayed as if blindly attracted to Jason.

He jumped away from a whipping tentacle, an orange rope that smelled disgusting and left trails of slime dripping through the air as it moved. A drop touched his arm and stung like a bee! With a yelp he danced out of range and tried to peer into the heavy mists.

The air stank, and he couldn't catch his breath, couldn't breathe whatever was in the wind here. He coughed as he jerked about and knew that, wherever this Gate led, it was not to a place where people could live. He might be on an alien planet somewhere on the far side of the universe, for all he could tell. He scouted about for another moment, just to prove himself wrong, when he heard a scuttling across the rocks.

The thing came after him hungrily, hopping on its one-footed stalk. Jason rubbed his arm, the skin angry and tender, and dodged one, two, now three tentacles frantically searching through the mists for him. Time to go! He put his thoughts back to Trent, wherever he might be, and pulled,
hard.
SsssssNAP!

There was a moment when he had nothing to pull on and another moment when he firmly had Trent in his mind's grip and he boomeranged back where he belonged.

Coughing and choking, eyes tearing with the awful ammonia cleaner smell, he tumbled to the grass at Trent's feet. His friend looked down at him thoughtfully. “I take it that was a no-go.”

Jason rubbed his tearing eyes as he sat up and fought for breath. He nodded wordlessly. After a few long moments of coughing and choking during which he realized he would have died inside that Gate had he stayed much longer, not as a victim of orange tentacles but poison air, he was able to take a deep breath. Trent solemnly passed him a handkerchief which Jason used thoroughly and stuffed in his pocket for laundry later.

“I think that might explain why there aren't many Gatekeepers around,” Trent added thoughtfully. “Theoretically, if you're opening up doors on universal planes, most of them could be really inhospitable. In other words, it's ugly out there.”

Jason snorted. “You think?” He stood, dusting himself off. There was an angry scratchlike welt on his arm where that thing had dropped slime. “If there was only a way to see through a Gate before going through.”

“Maybe the other side doesn't exist till you open it. Which, of course, negates everything I just said.”