The Magickers (26 page)

“Don't give him false hope. It's bad if he's been marked, very bad. You worried about infection, but I can tell you that you've no idea what a wolfjackal can sink into you.” Dr. Patel sighed. “Regardless of what Gavan wants, he may not be able to help, this time.” She stood, straightening her sari. “And he drew blood, don't forget that, FireAnn.”

She sucked in her breath, and looked sadly at Jason. “A blood pact?”

“Not quite, but . . .” the doctor's voice trailed off.

Jason shivered. “You have to tell?”

“Do you think it wise to keep a thing like this hidden?”

After a long moment, he shook his head. The thought that he might be the weakness that would get Bailey or someone else hurt, or bring the wolfjackals back, knifed through him. “No,” he said quietly. “I wouldn't wish this on anyone!”

“That's a good lad,” returned FireAnn soothingly. She wiped her hands on her apron as she straightened. “Wonder if they need help out there.”

“I imagine they could use a bracing cup of tea when they're done.”

Cook nodded. “Fix a cuppa, I will, then.” She hurried down the corridor to what must be a small kitchenette off the offices because shortly thereafter, he could hear some pans rattling, although a great deal quieter than the usual clatter and bang at the mess hall.

Dr. Patel leaned against the corridor. She studied her own hands a moment, before meeting Jason's gaze. “There is no way I could not tell.”

He sighed. “I know.” Finally, he felt warm again although it might be with shame. Standing up, he handed the shawl back to her, the silken fabric shimmering for a moment between his fingers. Magical? He would not doubt it, if she told him. “Sometimes, I ask myself, why me?” He rubbed his hand again. The slight tenderness that had almost gone was back, as painful as it had ever been.

“Perhaps, in that, we are all lucky. Another young Magicker might not have handled it. Do you think just anyone could have stood against the wolfjackals now, marked as you were?” Whatever else the doctor might have added was cut off by the sharp, piercing whistle of the teakettle and FireAnn's cheerful voice calling them back for tea.

Before either could head down the corridor, the door banged open and Gavan blew in, pulling Eleanora behind him. He kicked the door shut, grinning ear to ear, his hair mussed as though he'd been standing in a high wind. Eleanora cleared her throat, as she patted down her clothes, and tried to put some order back in her dark, tangled hair.

“Well,” he said, in a deep, pleased tone. “I think we showed them what we can do.” He looked at Jason then. “And it appears to be time for a talk with you, Jason. You know both more . . . and less . . . than you should.”

Eleanora walked on her shoe soles, and she was so diminutive that she barely came to Jason's throat. She drew her shoulders up, but could not levitate, and it was then he knew the toll it had taken to stand off the wolfjackals. Magick demanded a price. She looked as pale as alabaster. The thought scared him. She put a hand up on Gavan's shoulder to steady herself.

Before Gavan could utter another word, however, Anita interrupted. “FireAnn,” she said, “has tea ready. Shall we all have a bracer before we discuss anything?”

“Most excellent idea,” breathed Eleanora. Gavan moved down the hall, pacing himself to her unsteady steps. He murmured something toward her ear that Jason couldn't catch, but it brought two bright dots of color to her cheeks.

FireAnn not only had a huge, steaming pot of tea ready, but she'd also set out a plate of cookies and a second plate of little jam tarts. Jason slid into his chair with a rumble from his stomach that said food would be very welcome. He helped himself to one tart and two big gingerbread cookies, their tops crackled from baking and sprinkled with sugar. No one said anything but, “Please pass the cookies,” or, “Cream and sugar, anyone?” and “Thank you, I will have another,” for several long minutes.

Then Gavan put his cup down, and as the doctor refilled it for him, he mopped cookie crumbs off his mouth and remarked, “We chased them off with their tails tucked between their legs.”

FireAnn cheered. “Well done!”

He nodded. “It taxed us more than it should have. They were very strong. That lends credence to Tomaz's worry that a manna storm is approaching. They're drawing on it already. How, I've no idea. The Dark Hand has ways I'm not familiar with.”

Anita stared at the tablecloth thoughtfully as FireAnn rocked back in her chair. Then the doctor looked up, gazing at Jason. “Before more is said,” she remarked quietly, “there is something you should know.”

“Yes?” Gavan arched an eyebrow.

Jason waited uncomfortably, then as the silence dragged on, he realized she would not say it, and she waited for him to. Tart halfway to his mouth, he put it down on his plate. “I was bitten,” he told Rainwater and Eleanora, putting his left hand out, palm flat on the table, so that his crescent scar would be clearly seen on the back of his hand. The thin white scarline had gone purple and angry looking. That did not worry him so much; he knew it would be faded by morning.

“That's not from tonight.” Eleanora looked at him, and the worry in her eyes made him feel awful.

“No. It happened the first night. I ran into this beast coming out of the restroom.”

Gavan rubbed the side of his nose. “And no one knew? You told no one?” He threw his linen napkin on the table. “Damn it, how can we keep safe if we're too weak to even know when the Dark Hand is among us?”

Eleanora reached out and laid her hand over his. “Gavan,” was all she said, a note of warning ringing in her voice.

He inhaled and looked to Jason. “Go on, Master Adrian. I sense there is more.”

“It grabbed me. Its teeth . . . tore me. I pushed it away, and it heard FireAnn in the mess hall. It backed away and just disappeared, then.”

“Said anything, did it?” Rainwater's clear blue gaze rested on him.

Unable to trust his voice, Jason shook his head. How much worse could it be? Would they deny him the chance to be one of them? Perhaps much, much worse if he repeated what the wolfjackal had said to him.
You're mine . . .

Gavan also nodded in agreement. “Talking does not come easy to them. They are not made for it. I imagine it causes them pain, but I doubt their maker cares. What did you do then?”

“I went back to the restroom. I washed, over and over. It hurt. It was this bloody gash.”

Eleanora gave a muffled sound. He looked up to see her wringing her hands, musician's hands that it would be a crime to hurt or scar.

“I'm . . . I'm all right now,” Jason told her. “When I got up in the morning, it was nearly all healed. I went to see Dr. Patel anyway. The pain went all deep inside, like a bad bruise or something. I was worried. Well . . . rabies and stuff, you know?”

“They are from beyond the veil,” Gavan said. “They do not carry our diseases, nor are they vulnerable to them. They carry plagues of their own, however, and we do fall to them.”

“He didn't tell me,” the doctor interrupted softly, “that he had been bitten. I should have pressed him a bit. He was worried about infection, so I cleansed it and gave him some ointment for it.”

FireAnn had only been listening, leaning on one elbow, and sipping her cup of tea. Now she commented, “Perhaps that is why Jason doesn't sleep like the others. One Magick outweighing the charm? He doesn't succumb to the Parting song and blessing.”

They all stared at him. He shrugged. “I don't know why I don't sleep. I wake up at home, but I don't have trouble going back to sleep.”

“Another mystery,” Gavan sketched a fingernail on the tablecloth. “You have a nose for them,” the camp leader said. “You keep showing up.”

Jason flushed with embarrassment. “I don't mean to,” he answered slowly.

“Nonsense!” FireAnn stood and freshened all their teacups. “Of course you do! You've a large curiosity bump, nothing wrong with that. Me mum and you would get along right well.”

Eleanora smiled wistfully. “I haven't seen Beulah in years,” she responded. “How is she?”

FireAnn nodded. “She's doing well enough. Now, lad. Keep talking.” She settled back at the table.

“I don't know what else to say.”

“Have you seen wolfjackals again, before tonight?”

“Once or twice, I thought . . . could have been something else, in the brush.” His own voice sounded funny to his ears, and he stopped short of telling them he thought he'd been followed several times. They probably thought he was coward enough.

Gavan scratched at his chin. “Not good news, but then, not unexpected either. We knew they would come hunting, I had just hoped we'd have our defenses up first, our Iron Gate shut. Now we'll have to step up our efforts to locate it. We're going to start mapping the ley lines tomorrow.”

“Lay lines?” Jason looked about in confusion. “And what do you mean about a Gate?”

“L E Y,” furnished Eleanora. “Trust me, you will know far more about them than you want to know. A more boring task, I cannot imagine, but it has to be done. Ley lines are natural bands of Magick, or manna, the energy that Magick uses, rather like magnetic fields that occur in the earth naturally, and we're going to be identifying our network in the next few days. Think of them like power lines, cables, buried deep within the earth for us to discover.”

“As for the Gate.” Gavan rubbed his palm over the top of his cane. “Imagine that we can fence in this camp with magical wards. There are Havens that were fenced like that centuries ago, and Gated. The Gates move a bit, on ley lines, but we're fairly sure one is here. We can move that fencing to surround the camp and merge into a Haven, we believe. It won't be easy, but it can be done, and then we can have a safe place to learn and teach.”

“It must not be easy to be a Magicker.” Jason picked up his tart and began to nibble before his stomach could let out a rumble of hunger loud enough to be heard by everyone else. Smiling, FireAnn nudged the tart plate a little closer.

“Never has been, nor does it ever seem to be destined to be.” Gavan tapped his cane upon the floor. “I must ask you, Jason, to hold your tongue about what you've seen and heard. I can't explain everything to you now, and even if I could, you don't know quite enough to understand it. Be patient with me?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“One, and let us pray it is not longer than what is left of our night, for me to answer.”

“Do you know about the nightmares?”

He threw a look at Eleanora, then glanced back to Jason. “Yes,” he said quietly. “We know a bit about the nightmares.”

“Who is the man in the tomb?”

“We're not sure. Do you remember well enough to tell us?”

“He's very, very pale. Sometimes he has short, dark curly hair. He wants me to come to his side. He reaches out with his hand. I used to think—I used to think it was my father. I had dreams of him like that, before. Now I don't know anymore.”

“Sometimes?” echoed Eleanora. Her teacup shook slightly in her hand.

Jason nodded. “Sometimes, I would swear, it's a different man. Long, silvery-gray hair. He seems . . . older. He doesn't reach for me, though, and he doesn't scare me so much.”

FireAnn sucked in her breath and then coughed several times as though she'd inhaled a cookie crumb. She put her napkin to her face and turned away.

“Perhaps, Jason, on another night . . . you'd do a bit of dream exploring for us? Until then, I really haven't any answers I can give you.” Gavan smiled lightly. “But those nightmares are why we try to give everyone a good night's sleep, even if they don't want it.”

Jason nodded. “One more?”

“Only if it is exceedingly short.”

“You're not going to throw me out?”

“No,” said Gavan Rainwater thoughtfully. “At least, not yet.” He rolled the silvery wolfhead sculpture on his cane between his palms. “Don't think that some of you won't be sent home, because some will. That's why FireAnn here has been cooking up a Draft of Forgetfulness for days. Not everyone is cut out to handle the Talents we've been given, and we cannot send them home remembering what has occurred.”

“You just . . . take their memories?”

“The potion does.”

“You'd mess with their minds like that? What about the oath we swore?”

“The Draft makes it easier to live. If you don't know you've lost something, you can't mourn for it or search to get it back. The Oath keeps them safe, even though they've forgotten. We have no choice, Jason. There is a vast world out there that would love to . . . mess with our minds . . . if we are ever found out. I don't know about you, but I'd not care to be on the Internet in an autopsy finding out what made me tick!” Gavan stood.

“All right then. New agenda, items of import. Mapping the ley lines so the Gate can be located and closed against the coming storm. Getting Bailey Landau back. General training must be sped up a bit; we've a lot to teach them and the days are flying past.”

“Bailey will be found,” Eleanora reassured him.

“Master Rainwater,” Jason got out as Gavan started to leave.

“Yes, Jason?”

“Do you think anyone could ever go back to ordinary after seeing a Magicker?”

“Like anything in life, sometimes you've got no choice.” Gavan pivoted in a swirl of dark cloak and then was gone down the hallway, his footsteps echoing.

Dr. Patel stood smoothly. “I'll walk you back to your cabin, Jason.”