The Dragon Guard (32 page)

“Well, well, my beauties. Look what you have found.”

 

Bailey woke. She didn't know why, because she'd been in such a deep sleep that she'd forgotten she was on the ground in a strange place. Everyone around her appeared to be lost in dreams, too, their breathing deep and strong. Stef, back in human form, snuffled a bit in his sleep.

Bailey rolled to her knees and got up quietly. She went to Jason and stood at his side a long moment, listening. He appeared to be in regular sleep now. Before he had been fitful and hot, as though fighting a cold or something, and they'd finally put damp cloths across his forehead to bring down his temperature a bit. He looked better now though, his face turned to one side, lit by the low silvery moon.

Madame Qi opened one eye and smiled at Bailey. “Let him sleep,” she said. “He is still learning much.”

“How do you do that?”

“Teach? Tell me, when you learn something new, something important, do you not dream of doing it?”

Bailey looked closely at Ting's grandmother. “Sometimes. Yeah, I do.” She grinned in sudden realization.

“So, you see.” Qi smiled and closed her eye, leaning back securely against the tree once more.

Bailey thought everything was going to be all right. She walked quietly to the edge of the pond and pulled up the bucket Ting's grandmother had woven for them out of green sticks and lined with mosses. It didn't stay full of water, about half would drain through but it made for a good catch and drink. When it was safer, Rebecca and Bailey had already decided to sneak back for their camping things and extra clothes and other necessities.

She drank deeply of water that tasted more heavenly than anything out of a faucet or fancy plastic bottle before dropping the bucket back into place at the shore. With a hand covering her yawn, she made her way back to the little hollow on the ground next to her mother's sleeping form. Then her eyes opened wide in surprise.

Where she'd been sleeping but a few minutes before now rested . . . well . . . things. Bailey sat down. She combed through the items. Three onions. A small cloth bag with a dozen eggs in it. Three applelike looking fruits. And a stack of four crudely woven but ever so soft blankets. She unfolded one and a tiny bunch of herbs fell out. She picked them up and sniffed. The sachets smelled faintly like flowers and cinnamon.

Bailey looked around. Leaves shifted and twigs cracked in the grove but she saw nothing.

Obviously the items were presents and welcome ones, too, for it meant a breakfast awaited them in the morning. She thought a moment, then slid her bracelet off her wrist, jewelry Ting had made, and she laid it out on a flat rock nearby. “Thank you,” she said softly to the evening air. Quietly Bailey took out the blankets and covered those she could, before crawling back next to her mother and taking a corner of the last blanket. Its scent drifted over her as she fell back into sleep, wondering who had visited them.

 

Gavan still could not see who approached, but he rubbed his wolfhead cane and said, amiably, “Well, then, Isabella. I was wondering how long before you would know I was here.”

“Always astute.” With a rustle of satin, Isabella stepped out of the shadows. She lifted a gloved hand, and the Leucators slunk away, sinking onto their haunches, still watching him avidly but cowed by her presence. “A little too late, but a very clever lad nonetheless.”

“This is an abomination,” Gavan told her. “And it
will
be stopped.”

“Stopped?” She paused, in her elegant designer gown, its hem dragging the filthy floor, jewels sparkling at her throat, ears, and wrists. “By whom? You?”

“Me and the Council. Whatever it takes.” Isabella laughed softly. The sound of it was colder than the flesh of the Leucators about her. “I see no Council. In fact, I barely see a Magicker.” She rustled a step nearer. “Do you really think you need a Shield between us?”

“I'll stand with it,” Gavan said.

She moved again, imperceptibly nearer. He watched her face. Could he tell, with a master of Magick such as she, if this were really Isabella or yet another Leucator? He stared at her eyes. He thought he could. His life might well depend upon it. The problem with dueling another Magicker is that the power they wielded carried more chance of destroying whatever it was they fought for, and themselves, than of saving it. It was best never to come to blows at all.

He didn't think he'd get out of here without a fight, however. His mouth went dry.

Isabella put her hand up, and made a small, elegant gesture with her gloved fingers. The Lantern light from his crystal dimmed.

It could be coincidence, because the spell only lasted so long once cast or it could be that she drained it away. Amusement danced over Isabella's face as she read the expression on his.

“I wouldn't want to be down here in the dark,” she observed.

He had no intention of lingering that much longer. To his flank, he could hear the creatures stirring, growing restless in their chains once more. “How could you have done this?” he asked of her.

She made a noise of scorn. “And why not? It is Magick, to be used whenever it is necessary. I could help Eleanora, you know.” She inched forward again.

“Eleanora?” That did catch him by surprise.

“They have their uses, Leucators, besides running their prey to the ground.”

“I can see how you used them,” he answered stiffly.

“Bah. You see nothing!” She gathered her hem up with her left hand, freeing her legs a bit from the sweeping folds of her dress gown. “Do you think we all slept after Brennard defeated Gregory? Are you really that naive, Gavan? Some were physically hurtled through the centuries but some of us,” and her voice dropped to a low hiss. “Some of us had to live the decades.”

Her sibilant voice echoed in the cavern about her, picked up and hissed softly by the Leucators.

“What are you talking about?”

“This.” Isabella beckoned. “The Forbidden. Yes, I create them and then I draw on them. They have no life but what I give them, and so it is only just that I take it back! Look at me!” She cried out, and dropped her Magicks and he saw her then . . . saw her aged but proud face, deeply lined by the years, the true color of her vibrant hair turn to thinning gray, liver spots multiplying along her porcelain flesh to muddy it. He saw an antique, an old woman of great strength who had once been young but was no longer, even with her powers.

Yet Isabella stood triumphantly, for she might look every day of ninety years old, yet she had lived four hundred years or more getting there.

“Now do you see? Think on Eleanora, Gavan. Do you wish her to sleep forever? I can give her a century or two, even without glamour to hide her years. I can save her for you!” And Isabella laughed again, her voice rising until it sounded shrill.

“At the cost of her sanity? Her soul? Like yours? And the Leucators you gave to the Dark Hand. Do they feed on them as well, or just use them to harass us? Do you even know or care?”

Isabella waved her hand. Her glamour rose again, concealing her, and she became once again the handsome woman he knew. But now, as if she wore a transparent mask, he could see the truth beneath it, if he tried. The illusion was eerie.

Gavan gathered himself. He put the thought of Eleanora away, for even if Isabella told the truth, and he doubted that, he knew his beloved would never choose to stay alive that way. He would find another answer for Eleanora. But first, he had to get out of here
alive.

He threw his hands up in summoning. The Lantern spell flared out in a brilliant, crystalline burst even as Isabella moved to counter him. “If I die here, you and your works are going with me,” he said grimly.

J
ASON'S eyes flew open. He sucked down a deep breath feeling as if he had been drowning. For a moment, he thought he really
had
been as something very wet and sloppy slid off his face and plopped onto his chest as he sat up. The sodden rag looked (and smelled) as though it had lately been part of one of Stef's T-shirts. Jason held it up and off to the side, puzzled. Water ran off it into a little puddle.

“Young master awakes.”

Jason swiveled around. Ting's grandmother sat, a bamboo cane across her knees, watching him, a twinkle in her deep-set eyes as if she saw something that gave her great pleasure. “Grandmother,” he smiled. “Am I still dreaming?”

“Do you think so?”

“I don't know.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. Sunlight glanced off deep blue water and he winced at its brightness even as he yawned. A look at the Iron Mountains told him he was where he remembered, great stone dragon crouched and roaring out of the cliff side. He hadn't done that, the dragon had, as a reminder he supposed of what they had shared and what it expected out of Jason. Warrior or guard. It looked as awesome as the dragon itself. He stood.

“Where is everyone?”

“Rich and the one known as Stefan-cub are off gathering wood, with Trent guiding. Henry, Bailey, and her mother are trading.”

“Trading?”

Ting's grandmother inclined her head. That made no sense to Jason, but then he wasn't sure if he were truly awake yet and into that state where anything would make sense.

“And Ting?”

“My granddaughter is making arrangements to return. She brings my things and things of her own. Much work to do here.” The wizened Chinese woman looked about.

“Bringing your things?”

Grandmother stood as he did. She planted her feet firmly on either side of the bamboo cane. “I stay. The bones of this earth are powerful, and give me strength.”

“That's great!”

She winked at him. “So you say now. When I am done with you, you may not feel the same.”

“Ummm . . . why?”

She raised her cane and tapped him on the side of his leg, lightly slapping his calf. “Great power means great discipline. You must learn it inside and out, or the power will use you rather than you it. With what you know comes great responsibility. I will teach you Wu Shu, the martial art of my province, which is more than fighting. It is a discipline for the mind and soul.”

“I can use all the help I can get.” He stretched gingerly, still feeling sore from the soccer game.

“You will have more help from me than you want,” Ting's grandmother promised him. She gave a giggle that reminded him intensely of Ting. “Here. We saved a bit of breakfast for you.”

She passed him a speckled brown egg and part of what might have been an apple on a broad green leaf and motioned for him to sit again. He did so. The egg was hard-boiled, so he peeled it and found it chewy and good. The fruit wasn't quite an apple. It reminded him how near and far from home they were. He chased it down with a few swallows of water. She watched him intensely, then leaped to her feet. The gold threads in her black silken outfit glittered. “Now. I am Madame Qi Zhang. You will call me Master Qi.”

He bowed back. “Pleased to know your name, Ting's grandmother.”

That mischievous grin flashed. “So we hope.”

He remembered his dreams. Without more than a touch of thought in introduction, she'd appeared to him. Very soon, he thanked his soccer coaches for making him run circuits all day long, for she had him trotting about the valley of Haven till the breath knotted in hot little pinches in his lungs and he staggered to a stop, hands on his knees. Madame Qi would give him five breaths, before stamping her cane, and he'd bolt off again feeling like a skittish thoroughbred colt in its pasture. When she'd run his legs off, she made him stand and just center himself.

With legs like rubber, he wondered that he could stand at all. She spoke to him as he stood, with a voice barely audible, until it was as much a part of him as the racing pulse that slowly calmed to where it should and then quieted even more. He could feel the blood river inside him, cleansing and feeding his body from within, and Qi's words helped him look inside to see that. He stood so long he felt as if he were part of the Iron Mountains itself: tall, still, quiet, and strong.

It was sometime in that moment when he felt the bones of the earth, as Qi called them, the natural power of merely being that sank deep into this corner of the world. Sank deep and strong, yes, and allowed him to touch and draw from it. He opened his eyes then, to see Qi sitting on the grass watching him yet again. The sun slanted steeply across the sky.

She smiled, deepening the many lines in her face. “You are a good student.”

“You are a masterful teacher.”

She winked. “Ready for more?”

“I . . . think so.”

“Good.” She tapped her cane and stood. “Show me.”

Jason took a deep breath, then let his mind drop his body into a nimbleness he didn't know he had, somersaulted and tumbled his way across the grass with such speed and vigor he couldn't stop himself in time and bowled into the small Chinese elder. She wobbled a bit and paled, then caught herself.

“Master Qi!”

She held her hand up. “I will be fine. It is true that this old body would prefer not to be an acrobat. Yours, however, should not argue with you.”

Jason readied himself. “Tell me and I'll do it.”

He was limper than a noodle when she finished and let him fall to the grass. She stood over him.

“Tomorrow,” she promised, “you will do better.”

Jason managed a groan.

The valley filled with voices.

“Jason! Jason, you're awake!”

He got up on one elbow to see Bailey racing toward him. He threw his hand up. “Don't touch me. I hurt all over.”