The Dark Shadow of Spring (2 page)

Alex clasped the handlebars of his bike again and coasted toward Clark and Ben on the bridge, Nina and Daphne on either side of him. As they approached the bridge, a small burst of flame and tiny fountain of water arose simultaneously out of the metal box resting between Clark and Ben.

“Ha!” Ben said with glee. “Water douses fire. I win.”

“Hmm, one more,” Clark said in a low, rumbling voice.

As Alex came to a stop, he watched Clark and Ben counting off to three silently at the same time with their fingers. Then they both spoke a rune-word spell simultaneously and there was another burst of flame as a plume of dirt erupted from the box.

“Yes!” Ben said, bouncing up and down with excitement. “I win again!”

“Mmm, no,” Clarke said with a frown. “Fire scorches earth.”

“No,” Ben said, frowning back at Clark. “Earth covers fire.”

“Ahh, I don’t think you remember the rules very well,” Clark said.

“Lex,” Ben said, turning to Alex for the first time. “Tell him. Fire scorches earth, right?”

“Depends on the rules,” Alex said to his two friends. They were playing
Elements
and, now that he was closer, he could clearly see the small metal box divided into four equal segments: one containing a tiny burning fire, two containing small samples of water and earth, while the final segment was empty. It was a game that many kids in Runewood played to pass the time.

“Rules,” Ben said, his voice rumbling nearly as low as Clark’s. “You don’t need rules to tell you that earth puts out fire. If you’re going camping and you need to put out a fire, what do you do? You kick dirt over it. Earth covers fire. Simple.”

“As much as I hate to agree with him,” Daphne said, “Ben has a point.”

“Well, sure,” Clark said, “but you make glass by blasting sand with fire.”

“That does sound reasonable,” Alex said.

“Sand!” Ben said, blinking rapidly as he craned his neck back to stare up at Clark. “It’s dirt, not sand.”

“Ah, but you see, I didn’t have any dirt,” Clark said with a wide grin. “So I filled the box with sand from the riverbank.”

“No dirt?” Ben said. “There’s dirt everywhere. It’s a farm town. Look under your fingernails!”

“I think Clark is right,” Nina said cocking her head thoughtfully. “If it had been dirt in the box, then Ben would be right, but since it was sand, that seems to change the rules and, since the first rule of
Elements
is that there are no real rules, then Clark’s rule about sand and fire seems to apply.”

Alex laughed at his sister, admiring her rambling logic while Ben stared at her open-mouthed.

“That,” Ben said, “doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“Rules don’t have to make sense,” Daphne said.

“Yeah,” Nina added as she poked Alex in the ribs. “Like rules about how old people have to be to join certain clubs.”

“It’s not a club,” Alex said, rubbing his ribs. “It’s a Guild.”

“Rules,” Ben said, hopping down from the bridge. “I don’t understand how I’m ever supposed to win if no one can explain the rules.”

“Hmm, I guess you’ll have to rely on luck,” Clark said with a smile as he blew out the small flame and packed up the
Elements
box.

“We’ll need some gorping luck where we’re going,” Daphne said.

“We don’t need luck,” Alex said, trying to sound like he meant it. “We have skill and planning.”

“Right,” Ben said, “Which will be useless if the dragon changes the rules.”

“Speaking of things changing,” Alex said, trying to change the subject. “Where’s Rafa?”

“Hmm, he said his aunt had some chores for him to finish on the farm,” Clark said.

“Mountains,” Ben said. “Rafa’s going to meet us at the base of the mountains.”

“Then what in the name of Erebos’ earwax are we waiting for?” Daphne said as she kicked off and began to pedal over the bridge. Alex and the others pedaled after her, Ben on a bike that was as small as Daphne’s while Clark rode a colossal contraption that looked as though its frame had been reinforced with steel girders.

They road along the Ravenstone Bridge across the Azure River and continued along North Street, which soon became the dirt-packed North Road that led through the farms and fields north of town. They rode for some time, the early spring sun warming their backs. Clark and Ben bickered about the rules of
Elements
, Daphne came up with ever more inventive curses for the horseflies that swarmed around them while they rode beneath the shade of the intermittent trees along the road, and Nina held a running conversation with herself that alternated between naming all of the animals they passed and listing, for anyone to hear, all the reasons that the age limit for membership to the Young Sorcerers Guild should be lowered, if only just once, to make room for an exceptionally talented young mage who looked remarkably like herself.

Alex, on the other hand, said little. He was thinking about where they were headed and what they were about to do. He was as nervous as the others, but while their anxious energy was expressed in talkativeness, his came in the form of contemplation. He looked over his shoulder across the fields and town to the Crimson Forest and the Copper Blood Mountains at the southern edge of the Rune Valley. Like most of its inhabitants, Alex had never been outside the valley and probably never would be. There was no magic outside the valley.

The power of magic — the energy that made magic possible — came from the land, from the earth itself. Thousands and thousands of years ago, during the War of the Shadow, the magic had been burnt out of most of the land upon the earth. Only a few pockets of magical energy remained. Normally, the Earth would have replenished the depleted magical energy, but the war had so scarred the land that, in most places, magical energy would never again arise. The Rune Valley, and a handful of other secluded places around the globe, escaped the magical blight. Because it was one of the few places where the land still radiated magical energy, it drew to it magical people and magical creatures. People like Alex’s Iroquois ancestors a hundred generations ago. People like Ben and Clark and Daphne’s families. And even more magical people, as well.

Alex’s daydreaming was interrupted by another curse from Daphne.

“Great Gorgon Goobers!”

Alex followed Daphne’s gaze and blinked in surprise. A kangaroo hopped at a furious pace across the open field of wild grass to the right of the road. The kangaroo was on a direct course to intersect with Alex and the others at the base of the mountains where the North Road came to an end. As Alex looked at the kangaroo, it raised a furry paw and waved at him. Then it ducked its head down and doubled its speed, its great legs stretching longer with each hop.

“A race!” Alex heard Daphne shout as she spurted ahead of the group. Alex and the others pumped harder to catch up, but Daphne was already too far in the lead. In seconds, the kangaroo’s path had converged with theirs and it hopped through the field parallel to the road. The strange animal raced neck and neck with Daphne as the road came closer and closer to where it dead-ended in a wall of mountain rock. Alex winced as Daphne brought her bike to a sliding halt inches before crashing into both the rocks at the base of the mountain and the kangaroo, which came to a sliding stop right beside her.

“Beat ‘cha,” Daphne said to the kangaroo between gulps of air as Alex and the others came to a stop around them.

The kangaroo cocked its head at Daphne and then did what Alex knew it would. It spoke.

“Nearly killed me, you mean,” the kangaroo said.

“Not my fault you can’t figure out how to stop with those giant feet,” Daphne said, grinning at the animal.

“I can fix my giant feet, but you’ll still be crazy no matter what you do,” the kangaroo said with what might have been a smirk.

“You say that like it’s a problem,” Daphne said, wiping the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.

“That’s the best one yet, Rafa,” Nina said, smiling up at the large marsupial.

“Thanks,” the kangaroo that wasn’t really a kangaroo said.

“Why a kangaroo?” Alex asked his friend.

“Hopping,” Ben said, laughing. “He loves hopping.”

“Loves showing off, you mean,” Daphne said, climbing off her bicycle.

“You are the definition of irony,” Rafael the kangaroo said, hopping sideways toward a small stand of bushes. “And to answer your question, Lex, kangaroos have pouches.” The kangaroo pulled a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt from its pouch and leapt behind the bushes.

After a momentary burst of red light, a young Hispanic boy with hazel brown eyes and high cheek bones popped his head over the edge of the bushes. The boy was Rafael Santiago, best friend to Daphne and Alex, the final member of the Young Sorcerers Guild to join the day’s mission, and a changeling, able magically to transform into any living creature. He was also an orphan of sorts, his non-magical parents having abandoned him in Runewood with his Aunt when he was five years old after they had discovered his magical ability. A changeling’s magic was part of their nature, allowing them to transform even outside the Rune Valley. Rafael’s parents had found they couldn’t raise a child who could turn himself into a giant frog at will.

“Hmmm, a pouch,” Clark said nodding his head. “I wonder how many sandwiches he can fit in there?”

“Hungry?” Ben said. “How can you possibly be hungry again? You just ate twenty minutes ago.”

“Well, my mom says I’m a growing boy,” Clark said, pulling an apple from a nearby Macintosh tree.

“Growing mountain is more like it,” Rafael offered as he stepped from behind the bushes, now fully dressed and brushing leaves from his shirt. Alex smiled at his friend as he dismounted his bike and stashed it behind the bushes. Alex, Daphne, and Rafael had been the first members of the Guild. They had started calling themselves The Young Sorcerers Guild to contrast themselves with the Mad Mages Club, a group of troublemaking mages a year older. The Mad Mages Club wouldn’t accept members who weren’t full-fledged humans. That left Daphne and Rafael out of consideration. Ben and Clark had joined the Guild a few weeks after its creation and were an excellent fit.

“Ready for an adventure?” Alex asked Rafael as he stepped up to the other boy.

“Is that what we’re calling our suicide mission today?” Rafael asked.

“It’ll be fun,” Alex said.

“That’s what you always say,” Rafael countered.

“And I’m right most of the time,” Alex protested.

“Most of the time we nearly get killed,” Rafael said.

“That’s the fun part,” Alex said with a laugh that wasn’t as loud as he’d hoped it would be.

“When you two stop chatting like two old ladies at Sunday brunch, we’ve got a gorping mountain to climb,” Daphne said.

“And a dragon to find,” Nina added, stepping a little closer Alex.

“Easy,” Alex said. “Only one mountain. Only one dragon. How hard can it be?”

“Has anyone ever pointed out that your optimism has no bearing on reality?” Rafael asked Alex.

“Yes,” Alex said, “but I ignored them. Besides, we have Clark.”

“Right,” Ben said. “Find the dragon, Clark.”

“Ahh, okay,” Clark said, sniffing the air once and then heading toward a well-worn mountain path near where the North Road came to a dead end. Alex looked around at the others momentarily as he adjusted the knapsack on his shoulder and then gave them all a big grin. This is what the Young Sorcerers Guild had been created for: having adventures and practicing magic. And waking the dragon would be their biggest adventure yet. With that thought firmly in his mind, Alex followed Clark up the mountain path.

Chapter 2: The Dragon’s Lair

Climbing the mountain took much longer than Alex had anticipated. After an hour of hiking, Clark led them off the path and into the dense forest trees. They climbed for another hour before Alex called a halt to rest. Alex leaned against a pine tree, a cool April breeze pushing a low-hanging branch into his hair. He reached up a hand to knock it away. The wind kicked up again, swaying the branches of the trees overhead. Alex breathed deeply. It smelled like spring. But while he could smell spring on the verge of awakening the forest and bringing the valley back to life from its winter slumber, he couldn’t smell the magic. Clark could.

Clark stood in the sunshine seeping between the trees, his eyes closed, drinking in the warmth of the light. “How much farther?” Alex asked, walking over to Clark and looking up at his friend’s wide face.

Clark opened his eyes and took a long, deep breath through his broad nose. “Hmm, not far,” he said.

“That’s what you said two gorping miles ago,” Daphne said from behind Alex.

“Well, we’re almost there,” Clark said. “It smells really strong. Like raspberry pie.”

“Why does magic always smell like food to you, Clark?” Nina asked as she stepped up behind Daphne. “Why doesn’t it ever smell like smoke or sawdust or grass or something?”

“Stomach,” Ben said. “Because Clark is ninety-percent stomach.”

Clark looked down at his best friend. “Hmm, maybe ninety-five percent.”

“I don’t care how many raspberry pies you ate, I’m tired of walking through this awful smelling forest,” Rafael said. “It bothers my allergies.”

“You don’t have any gorping allergies,” Daphne said.

“Yeah, and I didn’t eat ninety-five pies,” Clark added, seeming mildly intrigued by the prospect of doing just that.

“He’s just trying to be funny,” Nina said.

“Everyone knows I’m never funny,” Rafael said. It was hard to tell from his tone of voice whether he believed that thought or not.

“Rafa’s right,” Alex said, wanting to change the subject back to the mission at hand. “We should keep moving. If we’re going to wake the dragon, we should do it before the sun goes down.”

“This way,” Clark said in his deep baritone, sniffing the air twice and lumbering off along an old deer trail that wound its way up the side of the mountain. The Guild fell in behind him single file, Alex following close behind, thinking about the dragon and his plan to wake him.