The Dragon Heir (32 page)

“Can't we use it against
them?” Bill asked.

Seph shook his head. “We
don't know how.”

“Could we…couldn't we
give it to them?” Ross asked. “I mean, if it's no good, anyway.”

“That's not an
option,” Nick said. “You'll have to trust me on that.”

What does he know that he's
not telling us? Jack wondered.

“We're just a small-town
police force,” Ross said. “We don't have the manpower or equipment to
handle major trouble. We need help. I could call the governor's office. Bring
in the National Guard.”

“It wouldn't do any
good,” Seph said. “They might kill a few wizards with conventional
weapons, if they took them by surprise. Then the Roses would immobilize and
slaughter them. There'd be just that many more bodies on the ground.”

Ross nodded, looking almost
relieved, as if he didn't want to contemplate that conversation with the
governor. “Okay. What if the—ah—underguilds
left? Wouldn't the—wizards leave Trinity alone?” The police chief was
doing the best he could to master the jargon, to grapple with the monsters
who'd come out from under the bed.

“It's too late for that
now,” Jason said. “There are hundreds of wizards out there. There's
no way we can get through without being captured or killed.”

“These are children, too,
remember.” Becka leaned her hips against the kitchen counter.
“Whatever powers they have, you can't expect them to … fall on their
swords.”

“It doesn't matter,
Mom,” Jack put in. “We'd try to bust out if we thought it would do
any good. We'd surrender if we thought it would save the town. But…they know
we're intertwined with the people here. And wizards are vindictive. The Anaweir
are throwaways to them. Those they think they can use as hostages, they'll
take captive. The rest, well …” He found he couldn't quite put it into
words.

But Jason could. “They'll
kill everyone: men, women, children, down to the dogs and cats. There won't be
a building left standing. They'll burn everything to the dirt. Then poison the
ground so nothing grows here again. It'll be like someone nuked the commons.”

“Isn't there anyone who
can help?” Becka asked. “Where are Linda and Hastings?”

“We don't know,
Becka,” Nick said softly. “They went to England, to secure a hoard of
magical weapons, to keep them out of our enemies' hands. So we'll have to do
the best we can on our own.” He patted her shoulder. “All is not
lost. We have some principled wizards on our side. Seph may be young, but he's
quite powerful. And there's Jason. Iris. And me,” he added, as if it were
an afterthought.

“And me,” Leesha
said. She was still sitting on the hearth, but her chin came up stubbornly,
like she was ready to pick a fight.

“All right, Seph, Jason,
Iris, me, and Leesha,” Nick said. “And a few others.”

Dread coalesced in the pit of
Jack's stomach. A handful against hundreds. If they could even trust Leesha.

“We have warriors,”
Nick went on. “There's Jack and Ellen, of course, and we also have a
formidable army of ghost warriors. We have hundreds of sorcerers, enchanters,
and seers. We hold a large collection of magical weapons, and we actually know
how to use most of them.” Nick grinned, and Jack felt a little better.

“All right, then,”
Becka said, straightening, regaining her familiar focus. “Think. What can
we do about the … people? We could put them in the Convocation Center, but that
would just become an easy target.”

“We need to hide them
somewhere,” Ellen suggested. “Tell them some kind of story to make
them stay put. How many basements would it take to hide ten thousand
people?”

“You know, I can't picture
telling citizens of Trinity we're under attack by wizards,” Bill said.
“Being drummed out of office is the least of it. I wish we could find a
way to get them out of here.”

And how, exactly, are we
supposed to do that? Jack thought. Dig a tunnel under the wall? And how long
would that take?

That gave him a glimmer of an
idea.

“We have to come up with
a place to put them until this is over,” Seph said. “Like…like a bomb
shelter, or something.”

“Well,” Jack said
thoughtfully, “There's the salt mines.”

“Come on, Jack,”
Jason snapped. “We don't have time for…”

“I'm serious,” Jack
said. “There's plenty of room, and they're well-ventilated and …”

Jason's bleak expression
reorganized into interest. “What are you talking about?”

“They mine salt under the
lake,” Ross Childers explained, eyeing Jack speculatively. “Have for
years. The mines are like huge, man-made caverns that go halfway to
Canada.”

Jack grinned. “Halfway to
Canada, but all the way to the Sisters.”

Bill Childers nodded
grudgingly at Jack. “You know. That's an idea.”

“I never heard of any
salt mines,” Jason said. “Where are they?”

“The entrance is in the
industrial park on the lakefront,” Ross explained. “Within the—ah—perimeter. Some students and faculty from the
college got arrested for picketing there back in the spring. Seems there was a
proposal to close the mines and use them as a nuclear waste reservoir.”
Ross rubbed the bridge of his nose with his forefinger, looking over at Becka.

Jack rolled his eyes.
Naturally, his mother had been the ringleader of the protest.

Becka waved her arrest away,
not the least bit apologetic. “After we killed the nuclear waste idea, the
owners gave us a private tour of the works. It's like an underground palace,
what they call room-and-pillar construction. The mines run as far north as the
Sisters, and there are ventilation shafts that come up through some of the
smaller islands.”

“So we could bring people
out through the mines and up on the Sisters,” Ross concluded.

“It'll be like the Mines
of Moria,” Fitch said. “Hopefully without the orcs.”

Jack nodded. “It's not
perfect. I mean, you'd still have to work out the food, and there'd be long
lines for the Porta-Johns.”

“We have tons of bottled
water and MREs in the basement of City Hall,” Ross said. “In case of
terrorist attack.”

“Well, I'd say this
qualifies,” Ellen muttered.

“The food bank is
full,” Becka said. “We just finished the annual drive. But how are we
going to get people to go into the mine?”

“Imminent nuclear
accident,” Fitch proposed. “At Ohio Power. All of northwestern Ohio
could be contaminated. It'd be better than a chemical spill, since radiation is
nondetectable. So we go door-to-door and tell people they have an hour to pack…”

“Half an hour,” Seph
put in.

“Half an hour, and then
they have to go down into the mines for their own protection until the all
clear.”

Seph leaned against the
mantel. “Nobody's allowed to leave. We can't let word leak out about what
we're doing. The Anaweir will be vulnerable once they leave the
sanctuary.”

Jack shuddered. It was his
idea, and if it all went bad …

Ross's thick fingers twitched,
beating a tattoo on the table. “Once they reach the Sisters, we could fly
them out then, or send boats from the mainland, and…”

“No.” Seph shook his
head. "No way. If the Roses get wind of it, they'd be even more vulnerable
out on the water.

“I'll take care of the
phone service on the islands, too,” he added. “We can't let anyone
know they're there. Which means we have to finish this thing before the food
runs out,” he said, half to himself.

“Don't worry,” Jason
said, smiling crookedly. “Once this starts, it'll be over in no
time.”

“Will and I'll go
door-to-door,” Fitch said. He was dressed in his urban-pirate garb, khakis
and camouflage and military-surplus boots, heavy chains around his neck, a
bandana tied rakishly around his head. Next to him, Will looked like a member
of the Jaycees.

“You'll need help,”
Seph said, inspecting him skeptically. Jack knew what he was thinking. Some people in town
would likely slam the door if Fitch appeared on their stoop in the middle of
the night. “We have to reach everyone before people begin leaving for
work.”

“Fitch, why don't you and
Will handle college housing?” Becka suggested. “When you finish the
dorms, start in on the streets south of campus. I'll work the north end.”

“I'll help, too,”
Leesha announced.

Everyone swung around to look
at her. Jack had forgotten she was there.

“You?” Jack blurted.

“You can use my
help, you know,” she said defensively. “I can be very
persuasive.”

“We can use every willing
hand,” Nick said.

“Deal,” Fitch said.
“You come with us. Let's go.” He tossed Leesha a bandana like the one
he wore. “Tie that on your head or arm or something.”

Leesha glanced at Jason, who
was gazing into the fireplace, pretending not to be listening, then followed
Fitch out the door.

Oh, well, Jack thought. If
Fitch can forgive being kidnapped and dragged to the ghyll as a hostage, I can
go with it.

“Ellen and I will work
the perimeter, to make sure no one sneaks out,” Jack said to Ross.

“I'll go back to the
station and brief first shift,” Ross said. “I'll send along some
black and whites to help clear the houses, escort people to the mine, and keep
them from slipping away. We'll stick with the story about a nuclear accident.”

He banged through the door.

The others left in twos and
threes until it was just Seph, Jack, Ellen, and Jason.

“Well,” Ellen said,
sliding Waymaker into its baldric. “We'd better get going, too.”
Ellen looked from Seph to Jason. “What do we do when the Anaweir go? Do we
go with them or what?”

Jason shook his head. “If
we go, the wizards will know we've escaped somehow. It won't take them long to
find the entrance to the mine. And if we take the Dragonheart with us, they'll
track us down for sure. I don't think we want to be out on a rock in the middle
of the lake when that happens. We have to make a stand, and here is as good a
place as any.”

But they'll level the town,
Jack thought. He felt his childhood spiraling away from him, like rope
uncoiling from a spool. “It seems weird. Everybody knowing, I mean,”
he said. “Even if we get through this, it's never going to be the
same.”

“I don't think that's
going to be a problem,” Jason said. “We'll all be dead.”

When Seph opened his mouth to
speak, Jason raised his hand to stop him. “I know we have weapons. I know
we have talent and smarts and right's on our side and all that. But I've seen
what's out there. Wall or no wall, they're coming in. If this were any kind of
a fair fight, we'd win. As it is, we lose. No matter how much flame you
take.”

Seph stiffened. “I'm not…”

“Come on,” Jason
muttered. “Do you think we're stupid? As if you're not juiced enough on
your own.”

“Seph.” Ellen stood
and got in Seph's face, coming up on the balls of her feet, her hands fisted at
her sides. “You promised.”

“I promised not to use it
unnecessarily. And I don't.”

“It'd be nice if he'd
share with some of the rest of us,” Jason said.

“Come on, Ellen,”
Jack said, suddenly eager to leave the stifling room behind and commit mayhem
on someone. “Let's go help round up the stragglers.”

“So,” Jason said,
when Jack and Ellen had gone, “you haven't heard from your parents?”

Seph looked at him warily, as
if worried they were still on the topic of flame. Then he shook his head.
“Wish I could've asked D'Orsay if he'd seen them, but I didn't want to
give anything away. I don't even know if they made it to the ghyll.”

“Well,” Jason said,
“if they're in Raven's Ghyll Castle, that would explain why they haven't
called.”

“Yeah.” Seph
knuckled his forehead, as if it hurt. He looked bad, Jason thought. There were
dark shadows under his eyes, the bones in his face stuck out even more than
usual, and his hands trembled a little. When he noticed Jason looking, he
shoved them into his pockets and glared at him, tight-lipped, as if daring him
to raise the subject.

Whatever, Jason thought. Nick
and Linda and Hastings had dumped on Seph, for sure. And they were dancing all
around the possibility that Linda and Hastings might be dead.

Maudlin. You're getting totally
maudlin. “So it's as bad as all that?” Seph asked.
Jason looked up, startled, thinking Seph had somehow seen into his mind. But
then Jason realized he was talking about the situation in the sanctuary.

Jason recalled the ranks of
pavilions that encircled the walls, the flicker of wizard lights through the
trees. “Yeah. Worse.” He paused, wondering how to frame his
next words. “I've been thinking. There's some kind of connection between
Madison and the Dragonheart. We should bring her back.”

“No.” Seph answered
so quickly that Jason knew he'd been thinking the same thing.

“But she can help,”
Jason persisted. “The Dragonheart is the key, and we need to give her a
shot at it. It's not just us. It's everybody else, too. There's going to be a
slaughter. It could be the end of the underguilds.”

“She's not one of us. She
has her family to think about.” Jason got the impression Seph was trying
to convince himself. “Besides, she may not be vulnerable to magic, but she
can be killed just the same. I don't want to be responsible for that.”

“She'll do it if you
ask.”

“You sound like my
father.” Seph raked his hair back impatiently. “Of course she'd say
yes if I went to her and told her we'd all be killed if she didn't.”

Jason shrugged. “I don't
like it either, but…”

“Don't you get it?
I've done nothing but put her in danger from the time we met. If we knew
anything for sure, it'd be one thing. But it's all hunches and speculation. We
have no proof Madison could help us at all. If it's as bad as you say and we
bring her here, she'll be killed with the rest of us. At least, this way, somebody
stays alive.”