The Dragon Guard (27 page)

Telling Ting, no doubt, most of what had gone on. She finished as he settled down on his spread blanket, waved at him, and curled up next to her mother's back.

He settled back on his blanket, which did little or nothing to pad the hardwood floor underneath. If he weren't so tired, he didn't think he'd ever be able to sleep, but the last few days had made him feel worn and edgy. If he'd learned anything, it was that he had to trust himself. He had to trust his instinct that Tomaz knew what he was doing, and it was vitally important, despite the fact they all desperately needed him. He trusted Trent, after all, had never doubted his friend's value as a Magicker. He trusted Bailey, with her boundless enthusiasm for everything, and quiet Ting who was often Bailey's shadow—yet so much more. He trusted Gavan's vision for an academy to both hold Magickers secure and educate them. His instincts, surely, were guiding him where he needed to go. Jason dropped into dreams, wondering what he could do next.

 

In the morning, he knew. The sound of FireAnn's percussion on pots and pans and yelling, “Breakfast, come and get it, lads and lassies!” permeated the dawn. He waited until after they'd all eaten and stood in the cafeteria kitchen, washing and cleaning up.

“I'm going back to Haven,” he announced, “and opening the last Gate there. It's where we need to be.”

“But you said we were cut off.”

He nodded. “We were forbidden.”

“Then . . .” Henry stopped cleaning the pot he held and stood, dish towel in one hand and pot in the other.

“And we're going. Everyone but Rebecca.”

Bailey's mother frowned. “If it's something dangerous—”

“It is, but I need you here as an anchor for Bailey. The two of you are very close, and if we get in trouble, she'll be able to reach and get you, and . . .” he paused. “It's like throwing a line to someone, and having them pull it over, see?”

“I see,” she answered slowly. “What is it that could be that dangerous?”

“Just a dragon,” answered Trent.

Stef grunted and rolled his shoulders. “Big one, too.”

“A . . . dragon.” Rebecca sat down on a kitchen chair, her face pale.

Jason hesitated. She'd taken everything so well up till now.

“Mom, really, it's okay.” Bailey hugged her mother tightly about the neck. “If Jason says it is, it will be.”

“Well, I don't know . . . that much . . .” Jason faltered. “I just know it's what I have to do.” He looked round the kitchen. FireAnn, her bounteous red hair bound back in a soft green bandanna, stood at the kitchen doorway, twisting bundles of herbs to dry on the many hooks about the kitchen walls and beams.

“Sounds dire, lad,” she said, in her soft Irish voice. She wiped her hands on her apron. She was thin and wiry and had a strong nose, and her love was in her herbs and cooking. “He closed the Gate, as I hear tell. Ye're not to trespass there, ever again.”

“But that's just it.” He faced FireAnn and then swung about to look at all of them. “He had no right to close the Gate. I opened it. I opened the Iron Gate and the Water Gate, there. Twice I was led there, and all of you said I had to find the third way there to stabilize it. It's the only place Magickers can go to be safe right now. And I belong there. It's where my senses, my thoughts, take me. And I have to trust that. I have to trust myself.”

“Think he'll listen to reason?”

Jason shrugged at Trent's question. “I have no idea. We've had a lot of conversations. I used to think he was my friend. But I just don't know. You all can come with me, and help—and I do need your help—or you can stay and wait to see if I do it. Either way, I'm going.”

“Count me in,” said Bailey.

“Me too, bro.” Trent waggled his fingers against the thigh of his pants, tapping out a heroic ballad of some sort, heard only by himself.

“The two of us, of course,” Rich said, putting an elbow into Stef who seemed a bit stunned by the idea of facing the dragon.

“And me,” Henry finally offered, although he seemed to have gone pasty white again.

“Should I get Ting?” Bailey started to uncage her amethyst.

“No. She can anchor us, if needed. Ting and your mom. Best that way, I think.”

Bailey waggled an eyebrow. “She's gonna be so peeved. She keeps saying she is missing all the excitement.”

“Ye'll be creating a backwash here,” FireAnn stated. “The best I can do is to stay and try to dampen that, so nothing comes to feed on th' energy or any of ye in a weakened state.”

“Ummm . . . thanks.”

“Think nothing of it, lad.” She winked at Jason.

“Ready, then?” Jason fingered his crystal. He wasn't sure he was, but he didn't think it was the kind of moment anyone could actually be ready for. You either took a deep breath and plunged in or you didn't. Sometimes the things you did were life altering and they had to be handled that way, because if you thought about it too much, you'd never do anything. You'd freeze in indecision.

“Go for it,” Trent told him. He looped an elbow with Jason and reached for Stefan.

In moments, he could feel them all joining him. As he opened the Iron Gate and brought them through, he could hear Rebecca Landau cry out softly, “Bailey, I love you!”

Her gentle words were drowned out by the roar of the beast bearing down on them, jaws open, huge eyes glaring.

“You shall not pass!”

T
HE orange-red guardian of the Gate rushed them. Its scales glittered brilliantly in the morning sun, but not as brightly as its bared fangs. Jason fought not to back up as he said, “Steady,” to his friends. He could feel the molten breath of the dragon as it flew down upon them.

All hope for a talk first fled. So many times he had come here, just to talk, and now there seemed no chance of it. It would be war between them. He brought his gemstone up, readying to Shield.

“Hold it,” muttered Trent. “Something's not quite right.”

They had maybe two heartbeats before the dragon would be upon them.

“What is it?”

“Illusion. I think.”

“You think?” Rich countered, his voice breaking off on a high-pitched note, as he and Stef jostled their elbows.

“Note to self: illusions difficult to perceive under pressure,” cracked Trent, even as the beast swooped directly overhead, its passage buffeting them with a hot wind as it . . . disappeared.

They blinked.

“Gone.” Jason turned in his tracks, surveying the area.

“Told ya.”

Bailey let out a quivery breath. “What do we do now?”

“Do you have a p-plan?” asked Henry as he pushed his glasses squarely back onto his nose with a nervous gesture.

“I think his plan is to use us all as dragon bait while he finds the Gate he needs,” Rich told Squibb. He steadied Stef who'd gone to his knees, body torn between staying human and going bear, at the sight of the menacing dragon.

“That works for me,” Jason said lightly. He looked down the pass into the valley where they'd always hoped to build Iron Mountain Academy. Bailey punched him in the arm.

“You wouldn't!”

“Of course he wouldn't,” said Trent. “I would, but he wouldn't.” He ducked as Bailey swung a nudge his way.

“Seriously,” Jason told them, leading them down into the valley. “I haven't much to go on but a gut feeling, and that means unless I find the Gate right away, we may all become dragon bait. It will know we're here, if it doesn't already.”

“Think that illusion would be tripped by anyone here in the pass?”

Jason nodded. “Probably.”

“Wouldn't a doorbell be just as good? Or maybe a big brass door knocker?” Bailey swung her head about vigorously, ponytail bobbing.

“I think a two-thousand-pound dragon can pretty well use anything it wants for an alarm.”

Lacey let out a few sharp chitters as if feeling as disagreeable about the whole matter as Bailey did. “It's not like we've ever done anything to
it
.” Bailey rubbed the little creature's nearly transparent pink ears.

“Guys,” Jason began and then stopped.

“What?” They all halted in their footsteps, turned, and looked at him.

His face flushed with a slight embarrassment. “Well. It's kind of hard to concentrate with everyone talking and arguing.”

Trent put a hand up. “Pipe down, everyone. Shaddup, in other words.”

Stef grunted, ducking his big square head down between his shoulders. Rich, though, did not grow still. “Just tell us what we're looking for here, okay? I mean, I could stumble over buried treasure here or something and not know it.”

“I'm not sure what we're looking for. All I know is, I'll know it when we find it.”

Trent gestured. “How about everybody spread out a little bit, like we did when we had to find the ley lines?”

Stef groaned. He scrubbed both hands up the sides of his head and over his crew cut. He rolled his shoulders from side to side and began a reluctant, lumbering walk. Rich caught up with him and thumped his back. “It's all right, big guy. I've got you covered.”

“It's not that I can't find ‘em,” Stef muttered. “It's because they make me itchy all over, like a spiderweb, you know? And I
hate
that.” He scratched his head again.

“They do?” Trent stared with obvious fascination.

“Yeah, they do.”

“That's great!”

“It is?” Stef stopped in disbelief and squinted at them.

“It has to be. Ley lines are natural energy lines of Magick running over the Earth, right? And we're all in tune to them, but if you can feel them without any dowsing rods or gear like that, you're really sensitive. Call me stupid, but I think what Jason needs here is probably going to be at the center of a nest of ley lines. Power, you see? And if you can feel it that well, you can lead Jason right to it!”

Stef grunted. “It'll be like a beehive,” he muttered. “Stinging me all over. The bear won't like it.”

“Then we'll keep a grip on him, Stef,” Rich promised his friend. Steering his friend down the grass and rock slope to the valley below, he chanted football plays and facts back and forth, keeping Stef's mind off the unseen power that webbed the area. They trotted slowly away from the rest of the group.

Henry shadowed Bailey. He still looked uncertain of events as he did. Trent fell into step with Jason. “Stands to reason, doesn't it?”

“It does. I should have thought of that.”

“Not bad for a guy with no Talent.” Trent gave him a grin.

“You've got tons of Talent,” Jason told him. “We just don't know what it is yet.” He rubbed his crystal.

“It has to be here, right?”

“It has to be,” agreed Jason. “All the time I've been looking, every time I was worried or tired or whatever, this is where I came. It's like part of me knows instinctively what the rest of me is fighting to figure out. It
has
to be here.”

Trent nodded in agreement as he agilely negotiated the downslope with Jason. “Have any idea how big it is, here?” He surveyed the valley. “Is it just a tidy little land basin or are we looking at a continent here? Or an entirely new world?”

“I don't know. Not sure if it'll make a difference. The Gate, till it's anchored, probably exists everywhere and nowhere. It's like a . . . a shadow. All I have to do is catch a corner of it . . .” Jason's voice trailed off in thought as he trotted closer to the clear blue pool of water, the lake that took up much of the valley's area. He wondered how close he was to that description. Could something as important as a Gate begin as insubstantial and wispy as a shadow? Or had he already seen the Gate and just not recognized it for what it was?

Jason made a fist about his crystal and stumbled to a halt. No. No, it couldn't be. He looked around at the spine of the Iron Mountains edging the valley, and the faint spray off the long waterfall that fell from it into the pool, and across the rolling slopes of soft, green grass.

What he'd said to Trent wasn't quite right. Every time he sought the gate, he came to the valley—and the dragon.

No. And yet . . .

“Everyone stop,” he called out. “I've found it. Or rather, I know what it is.”

The Magickers halted. Rich and Stef perched on one of the big broken boulders at the foot of the mountains, while Bailey delicately chose a patch of clover and sat down cross-legged. They all found a place to rest and turned to look at him.

“I need the dragon,” Jason told them.

“Frankly, Jase, I thought our strategy here was to avoid the dragon, and maybe not get eaten or flamed while we did it.” Trent watched him.

“I'm serious.”

“I don't think this is a good idea.” Henry took his glasses off and cleaned them vigorously. “I'm with Trent. I thought we wanted to stay away from it.”

“Things change. Look, I know what I know, when I know it. And what I know is that, just like it's right coming here to find the Gate, it's right to find the dragon.”

“If it has closed off the Iron Gate to you, what makes you think it'll let you open another?”

“That, I don't know. Yet.” Jason shaded his eyes to scan the horizon.

“Any way you can call it?” Bailey paused to tighten the laces on her sneakers. Lacey perched on her thigh, and nibbled on what looked like a bit of raisin scone. Breakfast from that morning, courtesy of FireAnn.