The Dragon Guard (20 page)

He had the eerie feeling that anchoring on Jason, rather than protecting Henry from that awful thing that was happening to him, had led the Dark Hand to the Iron Gate. What if he had somehow sent great trouble to Jason? What if the thing in his mind had left him only because, linking to Jason, it had found better, more important prey?

No, for the moment, he was in this alone. Till he knew what he was dealing with and how to strike back at it, Henry decided.

Somewhere outside his room, the world returned to normal. He could hear his toddler sister fussing in her bedroom. That he could handle. He got up and padded down the darkened hallway to her room, so his mom could sleep a little. It was either a diaper or bottle emergency and after what he'd just been through, he had no doubt he had the answer to
that
problem.

 

Jason felt a cold wind shear past him even as he stepped through his lavender crystal. It burned at his ears and nose and exposed throat and as soon as he could, he put the hood of his sweatshirt up and shoved hands and crystal deep into waiting pockets. The time shift here was not as obvious as expected, it was the dead of night on this world, too, color and shadows in shades of grays, blacks, and purples, and he wondered if there was ever a daytime here for he'd never seen one. But then, he'd only been here two or three other times, and all of them when he could sneak away, so if they ran in parallel, it would be nighttime here too. Still, it gave him the creeps. The moon overhead was not the moon of his time and place. It hung like a silver-bladed scimitar, low and curved and remarkably large in the sky, as though it could slice out and behead him.

Jason turned on his heel. This was the world where he'd found Gregory the Gray's crystal. The world where wolfjackals seemed to roam freely and, indeed, the place which might be their home. The world where, when he tried to contact Tomaz, he seemed to see him. All of which did not make him feel particularly good or safe. He hurt where the Leucator had grazed him. His skin burned with an icy coldness, and his body ached where Jon had pummeled him.

He'd had worse bruises and injuries in soccer, and he'd garner more the next day, but he hated to go into a game already aching. He'd no choice and it wouldn't slow him down, not with his teammates depending on him, and the fierce joy of the game awaiting him, but he moved deliberately and carefully now. In the darkness, he couldn't afford to slip on an unsteady stone and wrench a leg or knee, laming him. That would be unthinkable.

He picked his way down a slope where what looked like grass crackled under his feet like brittle frost, and from the sharpness on the evening wind, just might be. A tree reared up with stick branches hung with icicles and black skin wood, looking far more dead than alive. Surely this world had a spring awaiting it . . . didn't it? It would have to have a cycle of life and rest and seasons, wouldn't it? The wolfjackals, if they ranged here, would have to have food, and that prey would have to have food or vegetation to support it and so on. Nothing just existed.

Or did it?

Jason picked his way over a frozen brook, little more than a stride wide, cut into the bottom of the slope. He stepped onto a vast, open field, and imagined what it might be like at the height of springtime. It was nearly the size of a soccer field. Would it be filled with grass and grazing animals? Flowers? Small rodents tunneled into freshly turned soil, and birds pulling worms out of the ground, and bees drawn close by nectar. Now it was nothing more than a darkness around him, flat and almost mirrorlike as if frozen like black marble.

Jason slowly turned about, casting his gaze over the desolate scenery. He could see from where he stood now, far in every direction, which was what he wanted. He had no wish for a wolfjackal to be able to spring upon him, unseen. If anything approached him now, he'd spot it.

He took his crystal out again. Jason looked into it and sent a call out for Tomaz. He put every fiber of his being into it with such force that when he finished, the spell flung him back a step, arms outstretched for balance, and he hung there a moment as if caught in midair. He fought to be centered before realizing his feet had never left the ground. Feeling as if he were a giant hawk either lifting into flight or swooping in to settle, Jason lowered his arms and just stood. The power of his call for Tomaz washed around him. His ears buzzed with it.

Gregory's crystal stayed warm in his hand, about the only warmth that could be found in the bleak landscape of this world. He brought both his hands together just for that heat and it flashed with an eerie glow as he did. Jason did a slow turn, looking about, listening to . . . nothing, yet the hair at the back of his neck prickled as if he sensed that he was being watched.

And he could be, anything could be possible. As bare as the landscape seemed to be, there were scraggly shrubs and winter-browned grasses, a boulder here and there. Yet anything that watched him could hardly be big enough to threaten. Unless it spied.

Jason finished his circle and took a deep slow breath. The Magick enveloping him from the call began to ease away. It left him with a faint tingle over his skin, making him want to scratch inside his heavy shirt and sweatshirt and unable to get at it. His ears stayed cold even inside the thick hood. The wind plucked at him as if knowing he hadn't really dressed for whatever winter and nighttime this world could hold. He danced in place to warm his legs up.

Then, a faint something reached his hearing. He could not quite identify it at once. Perhaps the thin, high screech of a hunting owl or the wind whistling through a skeletal branch. Jason turned to face it, trying to catch it better. He reached up and lowered his sweatshirt hood. After a long moment, he heard it again. Pitched almost too high for him to hear, something wailed in the night air. He did not think it could possibly be Tomaz answering his call. The Magick or perhaps his very presence seemed to have attracted something else. He shivered as much from the eerie sound of it as the cold. He could not identify it, but whatever it was, it sounded like it was headed his way.

He readied himself by stowing Gregory's crystal and getting out his own, because he knew how to Shield really well with it. If pressed, he could also bring up a sword of energy which, for lack of any other description, seemed to be something straight out of the
Star Wars
movies. But he did not come to fight, he'd come to find Tomaz. If he were attacked, he'd retreat and head home the same way he'd come. He'd come for answers, though, and he didn't want to leave until he had a few, and Tomaz needed to know about recent events. Crowfeather seemed to have blocked everyone from him but Jason, and that made his burden that much heavier.

The howling suddenly filled the air, keening, rising and falling in pitch, and sounding from all about him like a whirlwind of noise. Jason spun about, seeing nothing but dark clouds boiling in the sky. A tongue of silver lightning licked through them, yet it brought no thunder. He knew that sound now, and he did not wish to face it. As he recognized it, the scar on the back of his left hand twitched painfully.

Wolfjackals, running in the storm of their own chaotic Magick, rushed toward him. The last thing he wanted to meet here and now, and yet he'd expected it. Every time he'd glimpsed Tomaz, wolfjackals had been there. Lightning split the sky again and in its glare he could smell both the power of the natural phenomenon and the Magick it carried. With howls louder than thunder, the wolfjackal pack leaped out of the sky, eyes glowing like green moons, as they bounded to the ground and raced toward him.

He brought his Shield up immediately in expectation but nothing in his wildest thoughts prepared him for what he saw next.

Tomaz rode the pack leader, astride its powerful wolfish shoulders, his own dark mane of shoulder-length hair loose in the wind, a gleam in his eyes. Jason rocked back, steadied himself for anything, as the Navajo shouted words to him in his native tongue that Jason could barely hear above the wind and the howling. The wolfjackals swung about in a wide circle, racing about him, drawing closer with every pass until he could smell their hot breath, and their sharp claws flung pebbles and bits of frozen grass at him as they churned to a halt, growling low.

Jason faced most of them, although one or two snarled at his flank. He could not keep them all to the fore of him, and the beasts knew it, but it was Tomaz he wanted to look in the face.

Crowfeather raised a hand, and said only, “Jason.”

What he wanted to answer boiled through his mind. What was Tomaz doing with these beasts, and why, and when was he coming back, and did he have the answers he was seeking and did he have any idea at all how badly things were going in his absence. But he said nothing for a long moment. Then he said, “Eleanora is in a deep sleep. Something dark attacked her, and it began to take her. Aging. Other stuff, and the only thing Gavan and Khalil could do was put her to sleep.”

Tomaz frowned. Here, in the barest of moonlight, Jason could see silvery streaks in his dark, unbound hair. The conchas on his belt and bracelet rattled, disks of silver studded with turquoise and other stones, little mirrors of light pooling about him. “How is Gavan taking it?”

“Not well. We tried to find sanctuary for her with Aunt Freyah and she turned us away. We need you, Tomaz. The Council is falling apart. Isabella has been making Leucators for Brennard.” Jason gestured with one hand, realizing the spill of words held a sense of hopelessness. “And I can't find the Gate. There's only one of Gavan.”

“I am not done here.” Tomaz stroked the bristling neck of the beast he rode, and its growling stilled slightly as if soothed by his touch. “I can't come back yet, Jason, but I can, and will, send some strength with you for Eleanora's sake. Come here.” He lifted a hand and reached out for Jason.

Jason hesitated. To approach Tomaz would be to enter the pack, for the beast he rode was now surrounded by its smaller pack mates, all growling hotly at him, their teeth gleaming whitely and drool falling to the ground in such warm drops that the frost melted where it touched. What if he saw an illusion? What if only wolfjackals awaited him? He felt his scar tighten and throb.
You are mine
, the wolfjackal who'd bitten him had said. Was he?

Jason stepped forward. The nearest wolfjackal spun on its haunches and snapped at him. Teeth clashed against his Shield and sparks flew with a stink of Magicks meeting. Jason looked at the beast as it cowered back, red slash of a tongue licking its chops in wounded surprise.

“Hurry,” urged Crowfeather. “I cannot hold them long, if at all.”

Jason leaped two strides, carrying him to Tomaz's side. The Magicker leaned out, and his rough callused finger traced a sign on Jason's forehead. “See clearly,” he said as he did so. Molten heat singed Jason's skin, and then cooled as fiercely.

“It's all I can do,” said Tomaz. They traded a long look.

“Hurry,” answered Jason.

“I will. Send me word if things worsen.” Tomaz paused. “Jason, I would never try to turn you against anyone, but be wary of Isabella. This is a bad thing she has done, and it may not be the worst of her actions. She is dealing with Chaos and every action swings the balance more and more out of control. Promise me you will stay clear of her.”

“I will.”

Tomaz dropped his hand and thumped the wolfjackal on its flank. Turning its head, it snarled at Tomaz's booted foot, but whirled about in answer and flung itself across the ground, bounding away from Jason. The other wolfjackals yipped and howled in disappointment, then raced after their pack leader, leaving Jason alone in their wake.

He let his Shield drop and put his hand to his forehead.
See clearly.
If only he could!

Jason rubbed his crystal and thought of home.

‘
I
DON'T know whether to commend you or punish you.” Antoine Brennard sat in his great fan-backed chair which framed him rather like a throne, and let one hand drop over the arm of the chair as if pondering his own statement.

Jon stood in front of him, unimpressed at the moment because he knew his father's temperament. If he were going to have been rewarded or beaten, both would have happened on the spot, at Iron Gate itself, or a heartbeat away. Brennard was quick to anger and strike or shout, and just as swift in any other emotion, though few emotions ever held him for long. Jon knew it well, for he was just like his father, with a few exceptions.

He held his silence, watching his father's face. The weariness that had driven his breath clean away was gone, and he knew that he had but to reach out for Henry Squibb again and he would be charged. But from the way Henry had tried to fight him, he also knew he should not try again too soon, lest the bird figure out just how caged he was and how to escape as well. It would take Jon too long to find another Magicker to draw from as easily.

Unless . . . The temptation to drink from his father's aura again bathed him. Why not? It had been even easier the last time than draining Henry was, and Brennard had not even known. Jon felt spent, old, and so he reached out. He made contact so easily, because they were father and son, he supposed, and his father's angry energy rushed into him. Even as Jon felt its incandescence fill him, his father sat back with a calmed sigh. Perhaps, thought Jon, this was a thing that was good for both of them.

His father stirred from his thoughts. Brennard raised a finger. “None of us was prepared to do battle, yet we almost had them.”

Jon gave a slow nod.

“The Leucator was a mistake.”

“Perhaps.” He would not admit more than that. He could not, and his father would be suspicious if he did. Turning a Leucator from one thing into another had never been done before, yet he
had
done it, if imperfectly, and he knew his father must be mulling that over in the back of his mind. How much effort, how much of a draining would such a thing take, and would it be worth it? Perhaps. Perhaps not. He waited. It was past his bedtime and although he didn't have a very great need for sleep, as he could easily get by on four or five hours, he looked forward to a rest this evening. The fight had taken more out of him than he'd wanted.