The Dragon Guard (29 page)

“The accountant approached next. He held a woven cage of small size, efficient and neat. A sparrow sat inside, picking insects out of the air. He said nothing, but put the cage on the floor at the emperor's feet, bowed deeply and backed away. Sparrow and emperor looked at one another a moment.

“Beautiful birdsong came through the air, as the third candidate brought in his cage, far bigger and prettier, containing a lovely canary who sang as if for the gods themselves, or so the priest maintained. He too set his cage on the floor.

“The mayors came in together. They presented a large clay pot. ‘We both hatched ducks,' they said proudly. ‘And in alliance with one another, have butchered them and cooked them, in a dish fit for an emperor. Thus may all eat and prosper.'

“Indeed, smell from the clay pot was wonderful!

“Ding waited to go last for his turn. The emperor turned expectantly to him.”

The dragon motioned to Jason. “You with your empty nest. What do you do?”

Jason blinked.

“Quickly,” said the dragon. “What do you do?”

“I enter, and put the nest on the floor and tell the emperor I failed,” said Jason finally. There were a thousand clever things that came to mind, but he did not like lying, never had, and not even as the humble gardener could he see doing it.

“Nothing else. Excuses?”

“I have none. I did my best, but I failed.” Jason shrugged.

“And that is what Ding did, and said,” the dragon told him. “The mayors told him out of the sides of their mouths that he was a fool, and could have described a mighty phoenix, but that the bird had escaped him. The others just stared. The emperor rose to announce, ‘I have chosen my heir, and it is Ding. The eggs I gave you all were infertile. He presented no grand illusions or imposters, but told the truth and showed no fear in presenting it. I wished to choose an honest man, and a man who is not afraid to judge himself.' And so, in due time, Ding became an emperor.”

“I guessed the riddle?”

“Not quite.” The dragon tapped his claws together. “Warrior or guardian?”

Impossible! thought Jason. Would the dragon never give up? “Guardian,” Jason finally, reluctantly, told him. “I would only fight if I had to, and to protect those I needed to, I guess.”

The sinuous serpent drew back, coiling, as if for one last fatal strike. It looked at Jason, its eyes gleaming.

“The Gate is Open,” the dragon said. “Pass it if you dare.”

L
IGHT blazed around him. Jason lost his vision as he fell through it. The air smelled of fire and copper, burning away all his senses as Magick roared past him, over him,
through
him. He tumbled in midair, as though caught up in the winds of a hurricane, all the power swirling around him. It made him want to scream in fear and shout for joy and roar in triumph, all at once, and he could not make a sound. Instead, he seized it. Jason spread his arms and rode it, surfing across the Magick as if it were a vast, curling wave.

He had never felt anything like this before, and knew his world had changed, and as it bore him through the void, it began to lose strength, and he realized he would probably never feel anything so fierce, so pure again.

And it was his. He was part of it, braided into it, held up by it.

He threw his arms up, fists clenched in sheer joy. The Magick carried him through forever, then began to lower him, and his voice came back, shouting aloud in victory, as it washed onto an edge of now, and deposited him gently there.

Jason dropped his arms. He felt incredibly weak from the rush, and his heartbeat surged in his throat painfully, subsiding slowly as he took a few great breaths. He stood in a dirt cave and he walked out of it, ducking his head to avoid sharp outcroppings of rock. Outside, the sunlight made him squint as he turned back around to see where he'd come from.

He'd walked out of the Iron Mountains, through a cave he'd no idea had existed. Or maybe it hadn't, before. He'd opened a Gate, after all. Jason stood, swaying, his knees still weak, his whole body feeling limp with the effort, but he put his chin up and looked at the Gate.

Chiseled out of the rough, rust-red stone of the mountain, was a pouncing dragon, jaws opened wide to gather up any who dared to enter, with sharp teeth of stone. It looked awesome. Jason grinned broadly.

“Jason!” Bailey tackled him and he went to the ground, laughing. The others dog-piled on, all screaming and pummeling him.

“Did you see that? A Dragon Gate! Did you see what you made?”

“We didn't know! You disappeared and then the dragon, and then everything got really quiet. Then we could hear the mountain moaning.”

“We all thought, ‘Earthquake!' ”

Jason rolled over, still grinning, and trying to protect his ribs from the hugs and pinches and nudges of his buddies. “And then what?”

“Don't you know?” Bailey stared at him, aghast.

“I,” Jason told her, “was on the inside, don't forget.”

“Oh!” She tossed her head.

“Whole mountain shook,” Stef grumbled. “Dust and pebbles poured down. We figured it was all over, place was coming apart. We figured you were done for.”

“Woah.” He rubbed his face. He hadn't thought of that, of what might happen to the unstable Haven if he failed.

Rich sat back on his heels, his normally pale face reddening from being out in the sun so long, his freckles standing out as though he'd been hit with chocolate chips. “So you killed the dragon?”

“I don't think so. I hope not. We were friends.” Jason struggled and managed to sit up. Everything looked as if it was going to spin around, and he closed his eyes.

“Friends don't eat friends,” Bailey said firmly.

“Did you get eaten?”

“Noooo.”

“Well, then.” Jason opened one eye to peer at her.

Trent leaped to his feet. “So. We're good here?”

“Should be.”

Stef let out a bearlike grunt. “We'd better be, because you let off so much power, it's like attracting flies.”

“Or something like that.” Rich stood, too. “Is it always like that when you open a Gate? I don't remember feeling anything before.”

“Never,” vowed Jason, “like that.” And it probably never would be again, and that was fine with him. Some things should be a once in a lifetime experience. He still felt overwhelmed. He tried to stand. “I think you guys need to . . .” He paused. He wobbled to his feet.

Henry put his arm out to try and catch Jason. “Do what?”

“Camp. Or something.” Jason swayed on his feet, and his ears roared, and blackness threatened to gobble all his thoughts. He pulled Rebecca Landau through and knew he had to shut the Gate because of the backlash crashing down on him. He left a tiny crack open for Ting and only hoped she could find it, and them. Jason felt the weakness surge back through him, and fell into darkness. Something squeaked and he hoped it was Bailey in surprise and not the pack rat as he fell.

 

Ting sat in the client lobby, waiting for both her mother and grandmother. Her mother had gone to move the car around, and her grandmother was being wheeled into the reception area even as Ting shifted restlessly, trying to ignore the other outpatients and their families. It was like a library in that no one wanted to speak above a whisper, and the marble flooring held a chill that the sun glinting through the corridor couldn't warm, and there was a feeling that several of those waiting held little faith in the treatment they'd received that morning. Waiting for the end, her grandmother had told her, walking in. “They have no faith!” She'd swung her cane about vigorously. “Even if I go, I live on. In your mother, in you. That is faith enough.”

And now, just a bare hour later, she was being wheeled back out, the color behind her naturally tanned and Asian-pigmented skin gone pale, her arm bandaged where the IV had been, and one of those paper cup masks over the lower half of her face. She raised a hand to grasp Ting's firmly as the nurse said, “I'll be back when the car is here.”

Ting's grandmother hardly took up any room at all in the wheelchair. Ting slid in next to her, pressing against her so she could lend her own body's warmth. “How do you feel?”

Ting's grandmother wrinkled her nose. “Bad taste in my mouth. Even my best tea leaves will taste awful for days.” She rubbed Ting's hand in her own. Her hand held strength in it still, although it was wrinkled and somewhat shrunken by her illness and age. “But what can one do?”

“Mom'll be out front in a minute. Then we'll go home and you can rest.” Ting leaned her head against that of her grandmother's. She smelled of medicine and antiseptics and it would be good to get her home where she could brew ginger tea against the nausea and she would smell of that goodness instead. They were sitting that way when the wave of power hit them.

It rippled through the clinic lobby like a shock wave. Ting sat back in the wheelchair with a smothered gasp as it lanced through her as though it were pure sunlight, almost blinding. It gripped them both so strongly neither one could move and they could hardly breathe—and it continued to just pour through them. Ting's eyes stung with the brilliance that no one but the two of them seemed to see!

Her grandmother's hand curled tighter over hers. “What is it?” she managed.

“I don't know!” Ting wanted to shout with joy though as it soared around her. She tasted Magick in it. In fact, it
sang
with Magick. But where it came from, or what caused it, she had no idea. She put her chin up to face it, seeking it as a flower did the sun. It felt glorious, and her grandmother gave a soft sound, rather like a purr, as they clasped hands.

“Someone is a master,” her grandmother said. They breathed in the Magick for another few, long moments before it began to fade and then was gone.

Ting blinked and realized someone had honked a car horn out front, at the doors. She let go of her grandmother's hand and went to the back of the wheelchair to push it out in answer. “I wonder what happened.”

“We must go there.”

“Where?”

“You can find it,” her grandmother said confidently.

“But Mom . . .”

“She will understand.” Her grandmother got to her feet. She wore silk trousers and a black silk jacket quilted in gold thread with a small tiger embroidered over her left pocket. She tugged her clothes into place. “Leave a note.”

Ting fished around in her purse, scribbled something quickly, and left it on the wheelchair seat. She took her grandmother into the empty corridor, got her crystal out and Focused. After a shaky try, she found the trail of Magick and, gripping her grandmother's hand firmly, took her there.

 

Gavan woke with a jerk. He leaped to his feet, dismayed at having slept so soundly or so late, and being awoken so abruptly. He swung his cane about, searching for intruders, for trouble. Then he stopped, puzzled. Nothing or no one to sense. He took a deep breath, and sat back down by Eleanora's side. “Alarms over nothing.” He touched her cold, still hand, then added, “Not nothing if it's over you, that's not what I meant.” He rubbed the wolfhead on his cane as if gathering his thoughts. “Aunt Freyah kept me awake half the night raving over the kids. Worry over you kept me awake for most of the rest of the night. I am up against a rock here, Eleanora, without any answers. I keep asking myself what your father would have done, and yet I cannot help having angry thoughts that Gregory put us in this position. If only he'd dealt with Brennard instead of seeing him get stronger and darker every day . . .” Gavan paused. He traced a finger down the side of Eleanora's sleep-frozen face. “Of course, that wasn't his way, nor yours. I'll admit my position varies from day to day. There are days when I'd seek Brennard out now just for the satisfaction.” He took a deep breath, which was good, because when the wave hit him, it was so strong, such a lash of power, that he could not breathe again for many long moments. It flared through the diamond gemstone gripped by the wolf's pewter jaws of his cane, and shone through like a laser beam, sharp and glaring white, and he'd no doubt if he Focused it, it would cut through steel. He sat pushed back in his chair with the force of it, felt it part every fiber of his body and flow through him unstoppably. When it had gone and he could finally breathe again, he took two or three whooping gulps of air, then knelt down beside Eleanora.

Its passing had tousled her long brunette hair into a jumble, but other than that, she seemed untouched. Perhaps not entirely untouched. The lines on her face seemed to have relaxed, and she wore more of a serene expression in her deep rest. Nothing untoward, though, and for that he gave many thanks.

He stood and shook his cane. He had no idea what had just happened, but he
would
find out.

 

Khalil paused in his study, his hand stretched out to take down a dusty leather book fastened with cords of twisted gold, and felt the power sweep over him. He considered it for a moment until he had absorbed its strength, its flavor, and its portent. He smiled slowly. The act would have come sooner or later, but the consequences of the chaos it would rip loose by its doing . . . He shook his head. They had no consideration about what it was they were doing. He had some research to conduct, then he would look into the matter.

He continued smoothly reaching to take his book down, and opened it carefully, for the pages were greatly aged and written many a century ago. He sat down under a strong electric light and began to read.

 

In dark chambers halfway across the world, Brennard jumped to his feet. The power that had swept through left him chilled and shaking in his chair. He put his hands to his face, cupping his eyes a moment, for the Magick had nearly blinded him, and it took him a while to recover. Then he threw his head back and let out an angry roar. He flung his hand out, swiping a Ming vase aside and smashing it to the floor where porcelain centuries old and valuable beyond compare shattered into a thousand pieces.