The Gate of Bones (48 page)

“So we have much hope in him yet,” Tomaz added. He stood. “I'll see you all in the morning.”

Slowly, they all drew away. Bailey and Ting went up the stairs last. At the top, Bailey turned around and looked down.

“What is it?”

“Did you ever look at something and realize it'll never be the same again?”

She'd felt that in the moments she stood in the fog. She nodded solemnly. They hooked arms together.

“Things change. They always do.”

“Sometimes they change too fast.”

I
F A TRAP WON'T work,” Isabella mused, “then perhaps the direct approach.”

“You would recommend what?” Jonnard sat, charging a handful of crystals on the table in front of him, their gemstone transparency gleaming with an inner fire, bursting with the power he put into them. Eyes still dazzled a bit, he narrowed them as she caught his attention.

“I think we need to talk to the Council. Convince them we can be quite helpful.”

“I'm not following you, Isabella.”

“That, my son, is why I still lead.” She rose. “Get a carriage ready. We have a trip to make. Naria, I believe, before the storms move in and the roads get muddy. I don't know how long it will take these people to make a decision and do something, so we had better make haste now.”

Jonnard swept up his crystals and pocketed them in his cape, his mouth twisted in a swallowed word. His failure with Bailey and Jason had not earned him any respect from her. The day would come. Soon.

 

“Rich doesn't look good again.”

“Did he take his medicine?”

“Yup.” Stefan shifted his weight uncomfortably. “I think we should take him to see Kektl. I know you think it's 'cause I want to see Beryl, and I do, but that's not it.”

“I know it's not,” said Gavan, not unkindly. “Let me take a look at him.” He let Stef lead the way, noting that despite his lumbering size, the young man had developed a kind of grace. Most certainly his body had gone to muscle now, instead of just largeness, and it was obvious the sword work had done him a lot of good.

Rich huddled on his cot, covered with all of his blankets and most of Stefan's. Still, he shivered and shook, and a cold film pooled over his forehead. Gavan let out a deep breath. “All right, then. You take Rich. I'll get Jason and let the others know, and we're off.”

Rich rolled an eye at them. “I'll be fine. Really. Once the Ice Age goes away.”

Stef pulled him out of bed and hoisted him over his shoulders. “Nice sense of humor. Don't give up your day job.”

“Shivering
is
my day job.”

Jason joined them outside. “He's really that sick?”

“I don't know. Yes, he's feeling badly, but if it's the blackmarrow or if he's picked up something, I can't tell. It's a new world, we could all be exposed to something we have no immunity to.”

“Oh, joy,” Rich mumbled from somewhere around Stef's armpit. “A hypochondriac's paradise.”

“Then you should be happy.”

“I'm giving it up,” he said. “It takes too much of my time.” He stopped talking to shiver and groan as Gavan took them
between.

Kektl looked a little startled as they all appeared before the outer doorway of his home and practice. He looked up from the leg and ankle of his young patient, eyes widened at the sight of Rich, and motioned to them. “Please. I won't make you wait long.”

Stef rolled Rich onto a chair. He promptly drew his knees up under his chin and tucked all the blankets he had brought with him around himself. The young lad Kektl bandaged shot him a wide-eyed look.

“I had ten stitches,” the boy told Rich. “I didn't cry once.”

“I cry all the time,” Rich fired back. “It gets me attention.”

The boy edged away, drawing a curt word from Kektl who calmly straightened his bandaging out and then finished. To Rich, he said, “Don't tease the lad.”

“Right. I'm sorry.” Rich sat up, shedding his blankets. “That was pretty brave, actually. And keep it clean!” He called after the lad who sprinted away as soon as Kektl said, “You're finished.”

The healer washed his hands in a minty smelling basin, then came over. “Let's have a look at you.”

Anticipating the question, Rich muttered, “Yes, I've been taking my medicine.” His teeth chattered and he gritted them between every word.

“How much and how often?”

“Four times a day. A swig from the flask.”

Kektl pursed his lips critically. “Actually, I told you three. Four if three didn't work, and I said to take a ladling spoonful. A swig can be more or less, and in your case,” Kektl took Rich's hand in his and eyed the thumbnails and then looked at his eyelids. “I'd say you took even more than that. The good news is he's overmedicating.”

“But he looks worse than ever,” Gavan responded.

“Because thane grass is, in itself, a poison. That's why the doses have to be worked out and carefully administered. I'll give you a spoon, and I want it used.” Kektl turned to a small, carved bureau, with legs like paws, opened a drawer and fished out a flat-bottomed spoon with a hole in the handle. “I suggest you tie it to the flask. Three times a day, absolutely no more. Two times tomorrow and no more today at all. You need to work that out of your system.”

“You're giving him a poison?”

“Thane grass is much milder, really an irritant, but it counteracts the blackmarrow. It's the best I can do, for now.” Kektl smiled sympathetically. He went to the basin and washed his hands again. “How is everyone else?”

“Fine.”

“That bite?”

“Clean and healing well.” Gavan bent over and rubbed his ankle as if checking. He nodded. He dropped a few coins in the dish on the bureau provided for payment, and Kektl gave a deep bow.

“Would you care to stay the day and night?”

Stef looked hopeful, and his face fell as Gavan shook his head. “Much to do before winter sets in.”

“I remember those days well.” Kektl made a sign of gratitude, his six-fingered hand flashing gracefully. A commotion in the street outside drew everyone's attention.

Kektl bowed and went out to see who hailed him. He returned, a little drawn, and made another bow. “It is discovered you are here. The Council has sent for you. You may leave if you wish, but . . .”

“Council? Is that the same one that meets with the guidance of the Spirit?” Jason had been quietly watching, brought along only to help Gavan in case of fatigue, but the words went through him with a disturbing ripple.

Kektl nodded at him. He started to tell Gavan no, but the headmaster had already begun answering, “Perhaps we should meet them.”

“I will tell them you'll be along, but you have a sick member who needs to remain in my care.” Kektl glanced at Rich. “He should stay quiet for a while.”

“All right. Then it's the three of us, and I suggest you two listen and learn.”

Jason murmured a vague word of agreement. When the escort came for them, and took them to a great house, with tall arched doors, the sinking feeling of a dream come true hit him.

The Council stood in robes at the far end of the hall. Most of the finer details didn't match his foreboding at all, except a group of people waiting for them, and to the side stood Isabella and Jonnard. If he had felt better about that for a moment, it fled.

“We are here at the Council's behest,” Isabella said. “Come to give them a helping hand, as it were. How fortunate to find you here today, although we've been here several days, in discussion. Troubles have beset our lands.”

“And ours. Strange that the trouble seems to be quite close to your borders.”

“It comes, brethren dear, from strikes made against us. I've told the Council of everything that falls between us. We're all agreed.” She reached out and put her hands on the railing before her. “The warring must stop.”

Stef made a low growl in his throat, only to find Gavan striking his cane across his chest as if to hold him back from anything further. Gavan tilted his head toward the speaker of the Council. “Are you mediating, then?”

“We will if we have to, but we prefer you make your own terms with each other.”

Gavan absorbed that. “Very well.” He faced Isabella. “Close the Gate. It is an abomination.”

“Of that, we're also agreed. However,” and her glance flickered. “We didn't open it, so we have no control over it. There is only one we know of who can be called Gatekeeper.” She looked past Gavan to Jason. “It is a Gate of the dead. The only thing that can close it is . . . a life.”

Jason only half heard her. His dream played loudly in his mind, muting the sounds around him. He heard Gavan make an exclamation, then a denial, and then, with a flash of his hand, he Crystaled them out of there, before Jason could blink and Isabella's words could sink in.

Gavan paused at Kektl's to gather up Rich and then brought them home, so angry he said scarcely a word to anyone.

If it was a dream, it was a very bad one.

They gathered at the worktables, and Ting's quick fingers braided a thong for Rich's spoon and attached it to the flask while Jason related as much as he remembered of the Council meeting.

Trent frowned. His fingers drummed the table in agitation. “You couldn't have heard her right.”

“Well, I'm baffled.” Stef scrubbed a hand over the top of his head. “Isabella got snotty, Gavan got angry, and we got yanked out of there. That's all I know.”

Jason's mouth drew tight. “Think about it, Stef. That Gate is rogue. It will take everything a Gatekeeper has to close it. Everything.” He shoved away from the table and left them all sitting there.

Ting looked after the disappearing back of Jason, her forehead creasing in bewilderment. She swung around to Trent. “What is he talking about?”

Trent said nothing. He looked down at an invisible spot on the table and appeared to study it intently.

Stefan slapped his heavy hand over the imaginary target. “Come on, you know, so give it up!”

They traded looks all the way around the table. The sound of Rich scuffling his boots filled the otherwise quiet room.

Stef frowned heavily. “Come on, guys. I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer—” He paused. “Well, actually, now with all my training, I
might
be that, but you know what I mean! What's Jason talking about?”

Trent cleared his throat, then took a long, slow breath, and sat back with a squaring of his shoulders. “He hasn't said it directly, no one has, but everything seems to point toward it. Closing the Bone Gate will require a sacrifice. Not just any sacrifice, but the ultimate one.”

“Oh, no.” Bailey paled. She reached out and took Ting's hand in her own, and both girls trembled slightly.

Stefan kept his steady gaze fixed on Trent's face, waiting for more.

“That's all I think I know. It'll take a life to close the Gate.”

“You have to tell someone!”

Trent shook his head. “I think almost everyone knows, they're just not talking about it. And neither should we.”

“I almost . . . I was
there
. . .” Bailey gulped. “If you two hadn't pulled me out, who knows. . .”

“And that's probably how he knows. He felt it. He knows what lies in there.” Trent's words fell heavily among them.

H
EAVY RAINS BROUGHT a few days of rest and peace. The bone fiends quieted as if even the undead could not face nature's fury. The Magickers all concentrated on patching the roof, which inevitably had a few leaks, or tossing Ting off the stairwell banister in her hedgedragon form to teach her how to fly and a myriad of other duties and classes. Some assignments seemed a lot more fun than others.

Jason grew increasingly restless. He woke early on a gray morning which found the sun breaking through again, and had barely dressed when alarms began to shrill. He roused Trent and ran outside to find the valley awash with wolfjackals and two crows.

Snowheart swooped through the air, her shrill cries ahead of the alarms, sharp beak and talons plucking at the invaders with a nip here and a rip there, attacking as only a crow can do, with speed and agility. All she could do was harass and tease the wolfjackals, but she kept them dodging and yowling from her, distracting the beasts as they circled the academy. Midnight joined her, his smaller, more muscular body weaving patterns in and out with hers, the two birds turning an entire pack of wolfjackals despite their flashing jaws. Yet for all their effort, the wolfjackals only altered their course to another path, bearing down on the academy.

For all their help, the crows of Tomaz also hindered. No one dared send a crystal flash at the wolfjackal pack for fear of hitting one of the birds. Instead, they concentrated on circling the academy as Gavan and Tomaz shouted orders, and the Magickers ran to their posts. Blushing, Ting poofed into her hedgedragon form, pearlescent scales glittering in the late afternoon light, flying not nearly as well as the crows. Twice she bumped into either Bailey or the corner of the academy eaves, letting out a tiny cloud of pink smoke as she did, her tiny dragonish ouch of pain. She flitted and darted at the wolfjackals as they circled past Bailey, her little dragonish talons extended, her Chinese body curling and uncurling as she hissed and spit in hedgedragon fierceness at them.

Bailey bit her lip to keep from laughing, for Ting was hardly as fierce as she thought she was, although the wolfjackals swerved away from them as they galloped past, their howls on the air. Bailey kept ducking away from her as she bopped up and down, still trying to get the hang of flying in hedgedragon form.