The Gate of Bones (16 page)

Tomaz nodded. “I should imagine that's it. It always has been. Brennard and then Jon have been after Jason from the very beginning. After Fizziwig, too, although poor Fizzi hadn't the skill to open many Gates or keep them open. They killed Fizziwig in their haste. But Jason. Jason has a great deal of ability he hasn't called on yet.”

“In other words,” Gavan said dryly, “Isabella has no intention of staying bottled up here on Haven.”

“I don't think she does.”

“Neither would I, if I wanted to be an empress, I suppose. Well, that's it then. Jon came after his trap was sprung, hoping to find Jason. He did not. He caught Bailey instead. He retreated as soon as he discovered that. So. We keep Jason as far from them as we can.”

“Even so far as to send him back home?”

They traded looks. Gavan shook his head slowly. “Let's hope it doesn't come to that. Going home for Jason could be even deadlier than having Isabella get her hands on him. She will value the Magick in him. Back home, they'd tear him apart trying to figure out how he ticked.”

“Then,” commented Tomaz, “we know what we have to do.”

“Aye. But no idea how in hell we're going to manage it.” Gavan laughed at himself, and the humor did not reach his blue eyes. “The improbable just became more impossible.”

Tomaz dropped his hand on his friend's shoulder. “We'll accomplish it one step at a time. It will be like skirting quicksand. We'll need to plan each step carefully.”

“Jason won't go to them easily, if at all.”

“Not for himself. So we must watch the others carefully. I suggest you get Stefan and Rich back to the academy tomorrow, and keep them here. Isabella is a cold one, but it won't take long for her to realize that Jason's great vulnerability lies not in himself, but in his friends.”

“Done.” Gavan stood up, leaning slightly on his cane. Its support felt comforting, and worse, necessary. He was exhausted, he thought. “Shall we tell them?”

“Not quite yet. I want to find out a bit more about our wolfjackals first. If you permit it, I think I need to visit Khalil and talk with him.”

Khalil had stayed in their world, where he'd always been, lost in the deserts of what was now known as Dubai. His estates were hidden and yet substantial, and his Talents as well. But he was a Magicker, and an ally, and Tomaz was probably right in seeking him out.

Every time Jason opened the Gate, the world of Haven trembled. Isabella and Jon would feel it. Let them feel it! He thought. Let them wonder what it is we're doing. They'll think it an attack on them, somehow, as if all worlds revolve about them.

Sometimes, they did.

I
SABELLA STUDIED her journals, with a growing irritation buzzing around her, rather like an irritating fly. But she could see nothing as she glanced up. She took a moment to extend her senses about her, wondering what the problem could be, and then a sharp knock at her door interrupted the investigation. She frowned, and rubbed at the bridge of her strong nose.

A good, imperious nose, at that.

“Come in.”

Tormun, one of her head guardsmen, came in, smelling of the barracks and whatever else such men smelled of, his thumb tucked into his heavy weapons belt, and an apologetic look on his rough face. “I . . . I beg pardon, madame, but . . . well, downstairs . . . the chains are rattling. It's spooking the men, madame.”

“Spooking them? Are they men or nervous beasts?” Isabella let out a tiny snort of disdain and got to her feet with an immense rustling of her vast gown. “They know what the sound is.”

“That doesn't make 'em any easier about it, madame. That's not why I'm here, though. I just thought you would want to be aware. Those t'ings are restless, mighty restless.”

“Perhaps I should send some of the men down to keep them company?”

Tormun went white. He stiffened, rather than taking a step back, and his body hunched as though in disagreement with his mind about what action to take. Then he got out, “If it pleases you, madame.”

“It does not. Those
things
as you call them are powerful sorceries, not to be trifled with. I am grateful you alerted me to the problem. I shall attend to it.” Isabella scooped up a heavy ring of keys at the corner of her desk and swept past Tormun at the doorway, the hem of her gown catching for a moment on his boots and then drawing free.

It wouldn't do to let the guardsman see her concern, but she had no more real understanding of her constructs than most people did. She made them, they flourished to some extent, she fed off them, and they continued to flourish or they died. She descended into the far basement levels of the fortress, found the cumbersome key to the padlock, and entered the dark realm where she kept her Leucators imprisoned.

Most of them were on their feet, pale faces gleaming in the Lantern light she viewed them by. Their shackled ankles and wrists shook in agitation, as they moved, paced, within the tiny confines of each individual prison. Restless, indeed. But why?

She knew their faces as she passed by them. Some had decayed to absolute ghoulishness, but she knew them. Old friends, old associates, an old Magicker . . . one or two more old husbands. A Leucator had been created, with a bit of stolen soul and flesh, as a hound. It would not rest till its twin, the rightful living being, was found and it was reunited. Unfortunately, like many hounds, it had a tendency to destroy its prey when caught. Leucators, early on, had been decreed to be used only in desperate, desperate need, and never to be made lightly.

Isabella would not be where she was if she had followed rules. She had discovered a far better use for Leucators in her experimentation with their creating. They could, when fed off of carefully, maintain the reserve of Magick within her, and extend her own life greatly. She was one of the few who had survived the magic duel between Brennard and Gregory the Gray without being stunned into a centuries-long coma, or thrown forward through the ages. She had lived the entire time, and lived long, and thanks to her efforts, many of those who were alive now, owed their continued existence to her.

She did not expect them to thank her. In fact, she had already been condemned for it. Isabella grasped the hem of her gown, skirting her way through the whining golems carefully, searching, looking for the core of the unrest. It was true that she had plundered the assets of many, with no one to stop her, and she'd built a fortune doing so. She'd also spent a fortune cocooning those in comas, making crypts to shelter their slumbering bodies, hiring watchers, bribing their families to bear what could only be called witchcraft. In some cases, she'd moved the bodies altogether, knowing if she did not, there would never be peace.

Had she done it to save the Magickers? Not really. It was more in the line of further experimentation. What had magic done to them? When would it wear off? Had it cleansed them of all Talent, or preserved it . . . and why?

Everything was useful to know. And those in slumber rarely knew that they contributed to her Leucators, or that she fed off their state in many ways. It was all in line with Antoine Brennard's beliefs that Magick was not renewable, that when it burned out, it was gone, and so it must be used carefully, weighed out miserly, stolen from others if necessary to avoid harming oneself . . . when magic was gone, it was gone. Gregory had argued that Magick was a Talent for harvesting and bending the natural powers abundant all about them. One could lose the Talent to fear, fatigue, illness, death, but if one knew oneself, it could be renewed. Perhaps not overnight, if greatly taxed, but inevitably, like great tides of the vast oceans, Magick existed and always would. So far, it appeared Brennard was correct. At least, that was Isabella's belief and it had helped her to prosper.

A ghoul hissed at her, as her crystal's Lantern light fell across it. It had been working at the manacles about its wrists, nearly had its slender limbs freed, blood slick on its skin and aiding in the escape effort, as it tried to slide loose. Isabella drew herself up, and studied the Leucator of Eleanora.

“Now,” she said quietly, “that won't do. You injure yourself and her . . .” Isabella gazed up, where her captive, no doubt, was equally restless. “You'll have your time, my pet, I promise you.” She stretched out her free hand and stroked the lanky brunette strands of the Leucator's hair. It hissed again, shrinking away from her, chains rattling fiercely as it tugged sharply over and over, trying to free itself. The mere nearness of Eleanora's presence obviously tortured it. Isabella wanted to draw from it, but she could feel the weakness in it, and knew that she dared not. As for the other Leucators in the dungeon, most were even weaker. They should be recovering from her tapping of them, but they were not. The raids had drawn much from her, and her resources were growing unreliable, for reasons she did not yet understand. Isabella withdrew her hand. Not tonight. Perhaps in a day or two.

Instead, Isabella veiled a mild calming spell over it and watched it sink down to its knees, then into a cross-legged pose, hunched over as its breathing deepened and it fell into slumber. She smiled thinly. “I promise you, little Leucator, your hunt will be successful before this is all over.”

She made her way back through, the Leucators subsiding into silence as she did, as if the Eleanora duplicate had been the instigator of all their unhappiness, and perhaps it had. Isabella did not feel the shimmering wave of unleashed energy till she stood at the threshold, stepping out.

It hit her. Rolled over and immersed her, a wave of unmistakable power, and it caught her for a moment, blinding her.

Somewhere, a Gate opened. She could feel the mighty breath the world took in and the even mightier exhalation as it swung back and forth. Isabella knotted her fists. That Gate! Hers. The one she needed and rightfully should have power over. That Gate. That damned Gate the boy had opened.

Isabella closed her eyes against the shiver of power dancing along her skin with sparklike touches. This, this likely had brought the Leucators to their feet. They could sense great Magicks. She opened her eyes slowly, renewed in her determination that a Gatekeeper would be hers.

She turned and left the dungeon.

 

Jon's head jerked back as he awoke from an unintended nap in his room, his boot heel falling to the floor with a thump from the chair seat he'd propped it on. Books and papers in his lap shifted abruptly, and he grabbed for them, even as he felt the ripple of power. He frowned. Jason was opening and then slamming shut the Dragon Gate, a wash of power reaching him like a ripple effect. Yet, the touch was unmistakable, almost a taunt. In fact, Jon thought, as he stood slowly and gathered himself, it was a taunt. The Magicker wanted him to know he had the power, and had used it, and done it so quickly they couldn't act on it. Jon gritted his teeth together. It was an intentional slap in the face, warranted perhaps by his encounter with Bailey.

Jon brushed his hair from his face, and paced his quarters. There had to be a way he could rein Jason Adrian in . . . and then a thought occurred to him. A smile slowly spread over his face. He'd have to think it through, and put it to paper before he suggested it to Isabella, but yes . . . yes, he might have a way to bend the Gatekeeper to their needs.

Yes, indeed.

H
ENRY FOUND the best way to let his mother know he was home, without kicking up a huge fuss, was just to show up for the next planned meal, as if he'd never been away. So he grabbed his baby sister out of the playpen, took her into the kitchen, and slid into his usual place at the table for lunch. The toddler didn't seem to have grown too much since he last saw her, and after a frowning look as if reassuring herself as to his identity, she settled in his arms and resumed banging her handful of plastic keys against the edge of the table and babbling in a language only she knew.

Time flowed differently between home and Haven. He could see that most decidedly every time he came home and looked at his siblings. The toddler grew in leaps and bounds, but then most children did . . . still, he could see it in her. His other brothers and sisters seemed to lag behind, but he himself . . . Well, it was apparent that he was growing faster than anyone except his baby sister.

Henry hugged her, glad that she'd decided she knew him as the same old familiar big brother who did most of the babysitting for her . . . when he was around. He couldn't help being a little sad at missing her, something that even the mysteries of Magick couldn't quite offset.

He was more than happy going back and forth, though. He nudged the empty backpack at his feet, and listened to the rustle of paper inside it. Lists, and more lists, of things he was to get. The oddest things were the sets of sewing and embroidery needles, but both Rebecca Landau and Madame Qi had been very insistent. These, he'd been told, are the best bartering kits . . . high quality needles of stainless steel absolutely do not exist in Haven and probably never will. Consider them as priceless as gold or diamond gems, and bring back as many packets of them as you can!

Maybe his mother would make more sense of it when she took him shopping. The needles, at least, were relatively cheap. Trent's needs might cost money and would definitely eat up his time. Research, research, research! As for what Gavan and Tomaz had asked him for, he was nearly clueless. They had pressed their scraps of paper into the palm of his hand at the last instant, and he wondered if he were meant to keep his efforts secret. Probably, he should. Seemed best. Better safe than sorry, and all that—

“Henry!” A blur swooped down on him, smelling of soap and lavender water, and hugged him tightly, and he grinned ear to ear with happiness.