The Dark Portal (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 3) (10 page)

“Gas
es don’t pick specific victims,” Emrys said.

Jake nodded with a wary frown. “It does sound like a deliberate attack.”

“Besides,” Emrys added, “the gases that can hurt you don’t have a color or a smell. This was a black cloud of some sort.”

Jake scanned the surrounding landscape uneasily, looking for any s
ign of this mysterious black vapor. “Have you ever heard of anything like this happening before around here, Master Emrys?”

“No! Can’t say I have.”
The head dwarf scratched his shaggy head, obviously confounded.

“
What do you think it means?” Jake asked.

“
Bless me, I haven’t a clue. Come along, lads. Let’s get you back inside. We’d better let Guardian Stone know about this.”

When they turned away, th
e goblins protested, complaining in chatters, stretching out their little grasping hands toward Emrys, and whining for the gold nugget. “Oh, stop that!” the dwarf scolded them. “It’ll only make you sick! Now, shoo!”

Walking back toward the netting where the girls waited with Ufudd, Jake suddenly stopped, struck by a new thought. “A
re we still on my property in this part of the woods?”

Emrys glanced around. “Yes. Why?”

“I thought the whole acreage here at Plas-y-Fforest was supposed to be protected by ancient magical spells.”

“Aye,” Emrys said
.

“Then how could these creatures have been attacked
here? We’re still on my property.”

“Maybe this has
nothing to do with magic, but with science,” Archie suggested. “Perhaps it’s some sort of virus.”

“But you heard about the black cloud!”

“It could have been toxic smoke or fumes coming off the mine, or even a cloud of insects, like gnats or mosquitoes or even wasps with a sting to which the goblins are allergic.”

“Archie,” Jake muttered.

“What? Some people can die from beestings!”

“I didn’t see any sign of bites or stings on those dead goblins.”

“I’m just trying to say we shouldn’t jump to conclusions before we know the facts,” Archie said. “For that matter, how reliable are these creatures as witnesses? Can we be sure that Striper really saw what he thinks he saw? Maybe there was no black cloud.”

“Why would he lie?
” Jake retorted.

“How should I know?” Archie exclaimed.

“Well, you must admit these goblins do seem genuinely scared of something.”

“I won’t argue that,” Archie agreed.

Emrys nodded. “Master Archie could be right, I suppose. There may be a perfectly logical explanation for all this. It does sound like a deliberate attack, but on the other hand, I never heard of any creature that’s like a black fog.”

“Well, I never heard of tree goblins
till now,” Jake mumbled under his breath.

What really bothered him
was a sudden, gnawing worry about those magic spells that were supposed to be protecting Plas-y-Fforest.

If this was an attack of some sort, then maybe those protective spells
were no longer as strong as everyone assumed. They had been cast hundreds of years ago, after all. Maybe some of their power was starting to wear off.

And if th
at was the case, then maybe the other creatures who lived on the grounds of Plas-y-Fforest and depended on that magical protection for their safety were also at risk.

The dwa
rves, the unicorns, the house brownies…

Even Red himself?

Jake couldn’t say, but it seemed an excellent time to send a message to Great-Great Aunt Ramona. If those magic spells were indeed getting weak, he was fortunate to have a very powerful old witch in the family.

As an Elder for
the Order of the Yew Tree, the Dowager Baroness Bradford would know what to do. No black fog, natural or unnatural, would ever bother her.

Jake decided to
send a message to her at once.

“Come along, boys,” Emrys mumbled with another uneasy glance around. “We should be getting back.”

Jake and Archie ducked back under the netting with the head dwarf. Then they all filed back into the mine and returned to the boat, rowing back to the Atrium to conclude their day’s visit.

Bit by bit, drip by drop, life, so long banished, was slowly returning to the sorcerer. But he was still so weak.

He had to feed again—and this time, he wanted something more satisfying than the life-force of a few scrawny tree goblins.

Such fare would never be enough to restore him to his full power, let alone reco
nstitute his body in due time. Without it, not even
he
could say for certain what manner of creature he was: a wraith, a vapor, a shadow in the moonlight.

A half-forgotten nightmare…

Of course, the goblins were a vast improvement over the vile diet he had started with upon first bursting free of the coalmine.

Too ravenous to care, he had practically inhaled th
e tiny souls of the first wriggly crawling things he had found. Worms and beetles.

Draining their struggling bodies of life had given him just enough feeble strength to fly on toward the nearest farm. There, he had devoured a baby chick he
had found pecking about in a chicken coop. That had helped.

Feeling stronger, he had
fed for a while on the farmer’s fat old cat that was too lazy to run away. The cat had finally broken free of his hold before he drank the whole thing, but still, its energy helped immensely. Its stolen life-force had given him enough strength to return to the chicken coop and devour a whole hen.

By the time he
had finished that feast, he was feeling almost like himself again and found he could even fly properly once more.

With every life he drank, more of him came back from the void into which he had dissolved himself by dark magic
centuries ago, storing away his soul in a state that was neither death nor life, until such time as he could return.

Only a madman
would attempt it, his best apprentices had warned. The devastating spell with which he had preserved his own consciousness was dangerous and rare. But with the Lightriders closing in, he’d had no other choice.

He had turned his faithful gargoyles to stone to preserve them, too, then had wor
ked the Spell of a Hundred Souls. It had been his final act of defiance as a living man—and, indeed, it seemed he had cheated both death and the devil, and somehow, had got the last laugh.

But he still had to feed. Thanks to the goblins, he was doing much better, but he was still a very long way from being Garnock the Sorcerer again, in the flesh.

Truly, he marveled to find himself in such a weak and wispy state, when he had once been so mighty that the very elements obeyed him: air, fire, water, earth. Lead had turned to gold at his command.

Still, he had to give himself
some credit. The fact that he was alive at all—even in this regrettable form—proved how powerful he had been.

And would be once more
, he vowed, in due time.

For now, he
had many questions. But as weak as he was, the answers were slow in coming. He was not even sure how long he had been entombed in that underground chamber. At least a few decades, judging by the state of his skeleton back in that room—poor bones!

In the hopes of orienting himself to his shadowy new existence, he summoned up the energy from the last goblin he had consumed and flew up high into the night sky to look down upon this strange, modern world and try to get his bearings.

Egads, his old village had quadrupled in size!

A sleek metal bridge with towers had replaced the ancient stone one they’d copied from the Romans.

He marveled at the baffling inventions of the day. Torches lined the streets yet burned without a flame. Magic of some sort?

Wir
es strung on huge wooden crosses split the skyline and hummed like they had something important to say.

Off in the distance, a huge metal snake with wheels on its belly slithered on tracks through the hills with smoke puffing out of its head.
Fearsome beast! Maybe some new breed of dragon? Garnock wondered.

As for the people he saw in the streets, the men were
no longer wearing hose and breeches, but odd, long trousers and jacket-y sorts of things—not a link of chain mail to be found on any of them. Such times!

But he only truly grasped how
many years had slipped away when he saw the ruined Cistercian abbey.

It had been a working monastery in his day, a center of power and authority, but now the anc
ient structure was in shambles.

He could barely believe it. It had taken
a hundred years for men to build and now it lay in ruins. Where were all those blasted White Monks? Dead, too?

Well, good riddance.

But as it finally hit him that, indeed,
centuries
had gone by since he had last walked the earth, he was stunned.

After shock came depression. Because this meant that everyone he’d ever known was dead, dead, dead.
Including his former apprentices.

N
ot that he would miss them. Nevertheless, it hit him hard, because in his weak and vulnerable state, it meant he had no allies left to help him orient himself in this strange new world.

He was profoundly alone.

Well, except for his familiars, his loyal gargoyles—especially his two favorites, little Mischief and fearless Mayhem.

Still,
as companions, they were little more than animals. They knew less about this frightening new age than he did.

Garnock let out a sigh as he
wondered what ever happened to his once-young apprentices of centuries ago…

N
o doubt they were long dead.

The stark reality was he had no one to help him navigate through this alien new era or assist him until he was himself again.

A situation of this magnitude, waking up after centuries of a twilight slumber, could give even the greatest of sorcerers pause.

Garnock found himself drawn to the old cemetery outside of town.
At least it was still there, though much larger now than he remembered.

He wasn’t sure why he
wanted to see it. Maybe just for nostalgia’s sake, an urge to read the names of the people he used to know, there on the oldest headstones.

Somehow, it seemed the best place to start.
In this place of death, he was
alive
, when he absolutely shouldn’t be.