The Dragon Guard (4 page)

The room fell back into normal, everyday, electric lighting, and seemed much smaller and dimmer in comparison.

Then . . . something tapped at the porthole window.

J
ASON swung open the porthole window. He'd taken the screen out months ago, and worked on oiling the hinges so it moved smoothly—and quietly. His head followed the pathway of his hand, cautiously, into the dusk, as he peered out. Something brushed at his head as it winged past, swift and dark as the soon to fall night. He jerked back instinctively as the crow gave a laughing CAW at him, and circled around the corner beam of the roof.

Jason crawled out of the porthole, finding it a more difficult job than he had many months ago when he'd first left his room that way, and stood on the slanted roof which made up the ceiling and walls of his attic room. A figure sat, knees doubled up, arm out for the crow to land on. With a smile, Jason went to join him at the precarious edge of the house.

“Well met, Jason Adrian,” said Tomaz Crowfeather solemnly, his rich deep voice full of the inflections of the southwest American Indian. His crow nibbled a bit on his denim sleeve, before tucking his head under his wing and resting.

“Fine,” Jason said as he settled down next to his elder. “We won in the League semifinals today, going to the finals!”

“That is good. But you sent a message of worry?”

Jason nodded. Quickly and as clearly as he could paint the imagery, he told of the spectral Jonnard who'd challenged him on the soccer field. Tomaz listened with great interest, saying nothing till Jason had finished, and then asking him only a question or two to clarify. Then both fell into deep silence while Tomaz considered what had happened. Finally, he gave a low grunt. The very last of the sunlight caught the silver rowels on his belt and turquoise stone bracelet, as he gestured at Jason.

“Jonnard is not wise. He has given us forewarning that the Dark Hand is prepared to move again. We can use this in two ways: first, to tweak at Brennard that his son is a fool, and second, to ready ourselves. This is good you told us of this. Gavan will have to know as soon as possible.”

“I tried contacting him, but I got no answer.”

Tomaz nodded. Jason watched his face, noticing for the first time that a bit of gray had begun to show among the straight black strands of the Magicker's hair, and that the weathered lines in his strong face had grown deeper and sharper. A Magicker aging? The thought almost chased away his other concerns. “Eleanora is ill, Jason.”

“What's wrong? Cold or something?”

“We don't know what's wrong.”

Those words, coupled with his noticing new signs of age on Crowfeather, made Jason grow very cold for a moment, and stopped his words in his throat. He thought of the Magicker Fizziwig, Gavan's class-mate, who'd suddenly aged into a white-haired old man, and then into death. . . . He managed to take a breath. “Not . . . that . . .” he said.

Tomaz lifted and dropped a shoulder in a shrug. “We do not know yet.” He stood, in a fluid movement that did not even disturb the crow on his forearm. “Jason, I will pass this on, but you must keep trying to contact Gavan or Eleanora or Freyah with this, in case I don't reach them. It's too important to let go.”

“You won't be able to tell them.”

“Possibly not.” Crowfeather looked over the sea of ordinary rooftops, as night began to hide most of them well and truly, and treetops brushed about them in a gentle night breeze. “I have a project I must tend to, and will be gone a while.”

“Where?”

Tomaz smiled slowly, and dropped his free hand, large and warm, on Jason's shoulder. “I follow the track of the wolfjackals, Jason. I trust you to keep this between us, but you, more than the others, may understand.”

The scar on the back of his hand gave a tiny pulse of pain, and Jason flinched slightly. “Tracking them here?”

Tomaz shook his head. “No. Tracking them to where they came from, and where they go—and to what master they answer.”

“But . . . but . . . they belong to the Dark Hand.” Tomaz shook his head again. “No, Jason, I do not think so. Although they seem to thrive on the evil and chaos the Dark Hand stirs up, events suggest that Brennard is no more in charge of them than we are. Then . . . who is? We need to know.”

Jason shivered, in spite of himself. It sounded like something very dangerous. “Gavan knows you're going?”

“He alone knows. And now you do. This is not the kind of thing I wish shouted from the mountain-tops.” Tomaz squeezed Jason's shoulder. “I should be reachable by crystal, but I may not be able to answer, so you cannot depend on me for a while.”

“I understand,” Jason said quietly. He did understand, but he didn't like it. “Is there anything we can do to help Eleanora?”

“No answer there either. It may just be exhaustion from her working with Jennifer, or it may be . . . something else.”

Jennifer was a young Magicker, like Jason, but she'd run into an edge of dark magic that had stunned her, terrified her, and made her shut all of them away. Eleanora was determined to heal the fear in Jennifer, even if she never returned to Magicking. Jennifer was older than all of them, nearly sixteen, and she'd been a summer camp counselor to Ting and Bailey. How far away last summer seemed now.

Tomaz tickled the chest feathers on his crow, waking him, and then turned his wrist and moved his arm, setting the bird into flight. The beat of wings filled the air for a moment, then the crow glided away sullenly to find a treetop for the night. “There is a Council meeting tonight, Jason. I suggest you go and tell them what you told me.”

“Ugh. All that arguing.”

Tomaz laughed. “That is true. But at least we all have free will to argue with, right?”

“We must have lots of free will, then.” Jason shuddered again. “All those objections. I'll do what I can.”

“Do that. And even more importantly, do what you are driven to do, as a Magicker. Find that last gate, Jason, that will open Haven fully and anchor it down. We need that, all of us.”

Jason dropped his head down, and stared at his feet. “I'm trying,” he answered. He felt unsure as a Gatekeeper, knowing little of how it worked or even if that was truly his calling. If every Magicker had a specialty, who was to say that was his? Magick seemed so vast.

“I know that. And I know that if I say to you, try harder, it would not make a difference because you are doing your best. Do not let the Dark Hand distract you. It may well be that that is one of their chief aims right now. Your vision needs to be the clearest of us all.”

The house below him seemed to awaken.

“You'd better go,” Tomaz agreed. “I think it is nearly dinnertime, and it is not wise for anyone to find you out here on the roof.”

Jason hesitated, then gave Crowfeather a hug. “Be careful!”

Tomaz looked surprised for an instant, then pleased. “That I will be, young Magicker.”

Jason crept along the eaves of the roof and wiggled back into his porthole window. His shoulders almost stuck for a moment, and he wondered how much longer he would even be able to wriggle through. Everything changes, he thought, as he dropped back into his room.

Joanna's voice sang up the stairwell. “Dinner!” Had it been that long? His stomach growled impatiently, telling him that it had. Jason dropped his door down and open. Meeting the Magickers Council on anything less than a full stomach would be a terrible idea. Dinner first, definitely!

B
RENNARD sat and stared at the evening sky overhead. It was not dark yet, but creeping toward it, even as its constellations edged toward those of spring and then summer. Time. Time was eternal and yet of the essence. For all his abilities, it eluded him. He was Time's prisoner, and would have to suffer its punishment the same as any other prisoner. Well . . . not quite the same. He'd already far outlived most of his contemporaries.

That, of course, had not been entirely his doing. In standing up to Gregory the Gray's tyranny and misguided direction of Magick, he'd set off a backlash of energy that had affected everyone alive with even a touch of Magick in them. There was no way he could have anticipated that. It killed many by stunning them and leaving them vulnerable to the harsh realities of life many centuries ago. Still others, it threw forward through time . . . and a few more were merely cushioned in a kind of void until they awoke now, in this time and place.

He'd been almost as big a fool as Gregory had been. Brennard would admit that, even if only to himself. Still, he had ambitions and a plan to achieve. He steepled his fingers, then heard a faint, escaping sigh from across the room and remembered he was not alone.

The Dark Hand sat arrayed about him, in various postures of meditation and attention, sprawled on their chairs and cushions. Seven of them, the elite of his followers. Four men, three women. And one of them obviously was yawning in his sleeves, tired of waiting for the statement that he'd almost forgotten he'd gathered them to make. He regathered his thoughts.

“It is important, at this time, to know our enemies as well as we know ourselves. I called you all together for an accounting.” His gaze swept the room. His words brought alertness back to their faces as they turned to watch and listen. “First . . . Dr. Anita Patel, of Gregory's Council.” He put his hand on a staff lying across his knees, a staff carved to look startlingly like a cobra with its hood spread, a crystal held in its fanged jaws. The crystal was fractured beyond repair, and dull, with black streaks coursing throughout it. He lifted the staff. “She betrayed them for us, but I do not trust traitors. I think I can say that she is of no worry to us now, however.”

He dropped the staff on the floor. The crystal fractured even more, spidery lines opening up on its dulled surface. The Hand closest to Brennard shuddered involuntarily and looked away from the staff. Their crystals were their magickal life. Seeing one so destroyed was like seeing their own hearts break. Brennard smiled thinly.

He paused as Jonnard came in quietly, folded his long legs, and took up a large silken cushion in the corner of the atrium. His dark hair was slicked back wetly as if he had just bathed, his face tilted to watch the gathering sunset. However, he also watched his father warily out of the corner of his eyes, and Brennard knew he had his attention.

Brennard put a little more strength into his voice as he continued. “We have our enemies numbered, and knowing them as well as we know ourselves is the key to their undoing. Gregory's Council is unraveling, and we need to use that to our advantage.”

“Gregory's lot are loyal,” observed a quiet voice near Brennard. “Gavan Rainwater is his acknowledged heir, and holds the Council close.”

“Are they? Are they now?” Brennard put the toe of his shoe out and nudged the cobra staff at his feet.

“This one was not. She was theirs, then she became mine. What do we know of them now? We know Freyah has retreated to a pocket of her Magick, making a defense there, and that pocket takes most of the Magick she has available. She is Gregory's own sister, but still there is no help there for Rainwater.” He looked about the room, hearing a soft murmur of agreement.

“Then there is Rainwater himself . . . well, Gavan is young, impulsive, and still lacks a polish to his training and talent, and he knows it. He leads because there is no one else who will do it, and the others know that as well, jeopardizing the very thing he has been forced to do. He won it by default and there are those who can . . . and may yet . . . take it away from him. He is distracted by his love for Eleanora, and her own well-being, I hear, is not good these days. They argue with me that Magick is not finite, and yet, my argument becomes more and more compelling that it
is
.”

“As for the lovely Eleanora, her ailment takes her out of consideration. We will not face much when we face her.” Brennard held his hand up, ticking his fingers off. His hands, like his features, were slender with a hint of underlying steely strength. The years of comatose isolation after his sorcerous battle with Gregory the Gray had taken their toll but he seemed, finally, to be regaining all that he had lost. He had begun to look dangerous again, like some shadowed creature just emerging into the light, and he smiled slightly as if prizing that image. He ruled strong people. He needed to be seen as one who could best them.

“There are four others who could worry us. The herbalist FireAnn will take Gavan's side, of that there is no doubt. Her abilities will make up for the loss of the physician Anita Patel was.” Brennard put his hand to a thick bracelet wherein a huge, clear crystal was embedded, and he traced it lightly. It flared with a warm light in answer to his touch. “The Moor Khalil has never been transparent to me, and my understanding is that he has brooked some opposition to Rainwater's plans, as well. If I can't see into his motives, neither can Gregory's Council. Therefore, one may assume he has his own agenda. We all know of Isabella's indiscretions and her love of power and money. As for Tomaz Crowfeather . . . coming from the Hidden as he does, from talent that has not been nurtured or instructed by any of the Magickers we know . . . he is also unfathomable. He has been involved in activities Gavan Rainwater knows nothing of, and I know little. He is a dark crystal to be examined, and deciphered. These three then, we must watch and know. Isabella, Khalil . . . and Crowfeather.” He lowered his hands.

A chorus of voices answered him. “It shall be done.”

“Good,” he said. “Very good.” He stood then. “But first and most important is the One, the younger Magicker, Jason Adrian. He must be used, and if he cannot be used, he must be stopped.” Brennard paused, his dark gaze sweeping the room. “My son Jonnard has been training to handle that One, under my strictest supervision. You will cooperate with him if he asks for your assistance.” Then Brennard sketched his hand through the air, leaving behind a glowing symbol, stepped into the shadowed corner of the atrium, and seemed to disappear entirely from sight, although the weight of his presence took much longer to fade. No one said anything. Jonnard got to his feet and left by the main door, head thrown back, a slight, knowing smile on his face. Silence followed him.