The Curse of Arkady (3 page)

“I think,” Jason said slowly, “that being a Magicker—past, present, or future—is too important to forget. I won't forget Henry, and I hope someday he'll have a chance to remember just who all of us are. Ting, if you do see him, tell him I'd like to talk to him sometime. Maybe over the computer, he'd like that.” Jason rolled his paper into a scroll and popped it back into a vest pocket. “We're the only ones left from camp with crystals and our full memories of what happened.” Silence fell over all of them as they remembered the dreadful storm of power called mana that brought wild Magick as well as torrential rain and thunder and lightning, nearly destroying Ravenwyng. Their summer of learning the mysteries of Magick had come to a sudden ending, but Ravenwyng had survived, with their help. Jason took a deep breath. “I called us all together to . . . well, to make sure everyone was all right, and to see if we could set up a ring, to keep tabs on each other, to help out.”

“We've got the alarm beacons if something goes wrong,” Danno said. He watched Jason's face. “The last thing they taught us.”

“What if it's not enough?” Jason looked around at all of them sprawled on Trent's back lawn. He did not want to discuss his dreams and what Gavan had said, but the foreboding it had left him with was like a bad taste in his mouth that wouldn't go away.

“What did you have in mind? We can't meet like this all the time.” Trent studied the crystal in his hand, saying nothing else, but Jason knew his inner thoughts. They'd used their crystals to step through, but that ability was new and rather untried with them, not to be misused or used often. They all needed far more training. Destinations could be rocky, even dangerous without it. The elder Magickers were busy trying to ready a training program that would make up the gaps, but until then, they had to be very careful what they did.

Trent, of all of them, was in the most jeopardy. Only Jason knew his secret. Trent had no power. Not even the elder Magickers had seen through the powerful screen of wit and knowledge he'd thrown about himself. His quick mind and deep wealth of reading knowledge had kept him from being discovered, and his love of magick made him eager to be a Magicker in any way he could.

“Most of us have access to computers. I was thinking, an e-mail ring. Just a daily check on how we all are, if we've seen anything odd or felt anything.”

Stefan grunted. His thick, square face reflected the bear being he could abruptly shapeshift into. “I could do that,” he said.

“Me, too.” Bailey and Ting answered almost at once.

“That would work for me,” Danno agreed. “Getting away to meet in person is a lot trickier. Especially since my dad's company may be transferring him overseas for at least a year, and if that happens, we're all going.” Rich shrugged. “Whatever,” he said, as if supremely bored.

“I think it'll work. Better than phoning and trying to explain the charges.” Trent crossed his arms over his lean figure.

“E-mail,” Bailey added, looking about at all of them, her golden-brown ponytail bouncing as she did, “could be faked. I suggest a password. Just to identify it's really us.”

“Finally something cool.” Rich smiled slowly.

“How about Excalibur?” said Trent.

“How about freakazoid,” countered Stefan. He clambered to his feet, shifting his weight back and forth restlessly. The backpack on his shoulder held his football gear, lumpy pads and helmet and all.

“How about something serious,” said Jason. “Like what Tomaz warned us about, the curse. How about Arkady?”

Each of the seven thought about it briefly, then nodded in turn. “Done, then. Every day, when you can, send a note. We'll take down each other's addresses and we're finished.”

Ting nibbled on one fingertip as she wrote out the e-mail lists for everyone, looking as if there were something she wanted to say.

“What is it, Ting?”

“Should we include Jennifer?”

Jason thought about the older girl, blonde and willowy, who had been Ting's and Bailey's cabinmate and counselor. “Well . . . I don't know . . .”

Ting fidgeted.

“What do you think?”

The pencil wobbled in Ting's hand. “I heard . . .” she said softly. “She's avoiding all of us. She has a boyfriend. She's different from last summer.”

“A boyfriend? Oh, mannnnn.” Trent frowned. He'd always had a kind of interest in Jennifer, Jason remembered. Not that he'd ever own up to it.

“Maybe it's best we don't, then. Till she makes up her mind and everything?”

“All right.” Ting nodded, and her expression calmed as she returned to writing out copies of the lists.

It only took a few moments, and then Ting and Bailey had their crystals out. They focused and disappeared in a soft shimmer. Stefan fished his out with his great, clumsy paw of a hand, yet held his gem with a kind of tenderness as he looked into it. Rich followed him like a shadow at Stefan's heels. Danno winked at them, before focusing on his crystal and vanishing. Soon only Trent and Jason remained. Trent slapped his hand against Jason's shoulder.

“There's another reason we can't meet like this too often, besides needing more practice. We could be leaving a trail the Dark Hand might pick up on.”

Jason thought. “Not if we went into the Haven.”

“You're the only one who's really been there, Jason. And I couldn't get there without you.”

“It's something to think about, though. The Haven is out of time and place. It could be the perfect spot for us to go to if there's trouble. I need to look into it.”

“Meanwhile, how about I find out, if I can, who this Arkady is and what this curse might be? I wonder why Tomaz or Gavan couldn't just tell us what the curse is.”

Jason nodded in agreement. Books and knowledge were Trent's great asset. He knew all the myths and fables, and what he didn't know, he could track down almost immediately with his expertise on the Internet and libraries. “I think,” he said slowly, “we need to know as soon as possible. A warning isn't enough. We need to know what to look out for.”

“Something you didn't tell us?” It was a question Trent looked like he really didn't need answered.

“Like that line from Ray Bradbury,” Jason said, quoting one of his favorite books. “‘By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”'

Trent grinned. “Actually, I think that started with Shakespeare, but I get your meaning. And forewarned is definitely forearmed in this case. I'll let you know whatever I find.”

“And I,” answered Jason, “hope you don't find anything, but we both know better!” He rubbed the back of his left hand, where the scar of the wolfjackal bite looked healed and yet still remained tender. It would never go away, that mark, and there were times when it was just as fresh and painful as if newly made, despite all the months of healing. He thought of the night he'd gotten it, the very first night of summer camp, before he'd even been told he had been born with Magick in his blood. With a shudder, he recalled the snarling ambush of the beastly wolfjackal and the ripping of his skin as he'd fought it off.
You're mine!
the beast had snarled at him before slinking off into the darkness.

After a moment's hesitation, he added, “This is serious business, Trent.”

“I know.”

“You could be the easiest one for the Dark Hand to get to.”

“Or the hardest. I can't leave a Magick trail, can I? Besides, we don't really know what Brennard is up to, if anything. Supposedly, both he and Gregory the Gray haven't been seen in a couple hundred years. His followers are pretty much on their own.”

“That doesn't seem to have stopped them, and anyone who can make Gavan or Tomaz worried is gonna scare me.” He thought. “I think they can move throughout our world pretty much at will. They're more organized than the others.”

“It comes of
not
having a Council, I think.”

That made Jason smile. “No long arguments about how to do things, right?”

“You've got the idea.” Trent leaned against the back railing of the yard deck.

Jason hesitated for a long moment, but Trent seemed to be waiting for him to say something else, so he composed his words. “I still get dreams.”

“Still? I thought those got pretty well squelched at camp.”

“Maybe for everyone else, but not me.” Jason rubbed his chin. “Why me?”

“Think you're the weak link in the chain?”

“I hope not. I don't want to, but—sometimes—I wonder.”

Trent considered it, then shook his head vigorously. “Nah. It has to be more than that. If Brennard was looking for the weak ones, he'd have come after me. Or Henry. Or Rich, maybe. I think he's drawn by strong talent, and that means you, bud.”

Jason shifted uneasily. He did not think of himself as being any more gifted than any other Magicker. If anything, he'd been cursed. He rubbed his scarred hand again. The only way of knowing for sure if the wolfjackal had marked him as Brennard's own was a way he did not wish to try, and that was to let Brennard tell him face-to-face. “I don't want to meet either Brennard or Jonnard again.”

“One thing you have to consider is that Tomaz sent the note. I'll do all the research and digging I can, but he's the one you ought to talk to. And, with those dreams, you can't wait to do it.”

“Think so?”

“I know so. Look. We're all hanging out here, and we're brand new. It's like driving in rush hour right after you get your learner's permit! You're crazy if you don't ask for help.”

“You're right.” Jason's head bobbed in reluctant agreement. “I'll get hold of him as soon as I can, and let you know what happens. But you've gotta let me know if anything starts happening to you!”

“Look. I'm going to worry about you, and you're going to worry about me. That's what friends are for. I promise you,” and he marked his finger over his chest. “Anything weird and you'll hear about it.”

“Right back at you.” He cupped his crystal. “Time to bail, then.”

With a wave to Trent, he looked into his crystal, focused on a doorway back to his own place with total concentration, and then stepped through.

“G
OD help me if I ever agree to another Council meeting,” Gavan Rainwater muttered to himself, and rubbed his temple with the cool pewter wolfhead that adorned his cane. The massage failed to alleviate the dull, pounding throb of a headache as he tried to listen to the droning words of Macabiah Allenby, who was most strenuously protesting the warning Tomaz Crowfeather had sent to those new Magickers his Talents could find. At this table in the Ravenwyng meeting hall sat some of the most powerful Magickers alive—and there were few enough of those, unfortunately—and Gavan knew that they were not here because they were happy.

They should be happy. Because of the efforts of his staff, the camp had successfully been drawn beyond the borders of the Iron Gate, and now rested temporally in a Haven, a pocket of magickal mana that put it outside of the time stream of the world. Gavan was now concentrating his efforts on anchoring Ravenwyng in the small dell dominated by the Iron Mountain Range. Anchoring it and warding it against ricocheting back into place. That was why he'd agreed to a Council meeting in the hope of securing the aid of a few more Magickers in getting those wards set. But he would not get it from the six who'd come in to join his own staff. Instead, he was facing an inquisition of his actions and plans.

Tomaz, on the other hand, seemed to be amused by Allenby. The Native American was leaning forward on the long conference table, his elbows firmly planted on the table's edge and his chin resting on the steeple of his fingers. The deeply weathered lines of his face curved in an otherwise neutral expression.

Allenby, as bald as an egg except for a white fringe of hair that ran around the circle of his head, and then descended about the edges of his lower face in a wispy beard, sucked in an enormous breath and launched into what one could only hope was the summation of his speech. Gavan wove and locked his fingers together. They sounded like old women, all of them, old women gathered at the laundry vats, to argue and gossip and vent old spites. He'd come forward in time, most of them had, yet these six seemed mired in centuries long past. He sighed heavily. If anyone else at the table heard him, they made no sign, except that Tomaz looked at him briefly, with humor dancing in his dark eyes.

“And furthermore,” Allenby wheezed, “the usage of such familiars as Crowfeather's ravens ought to be deplored, if not totally banned, in the future. Movement of that sort might attract the Dark Hand's attention, and put us all in jeopardy!” He stopped suddenly, as if finally out of words or breath, or both.

Tomaz waited a long moment as if making sure Allenby had finished. The Council member sat back in his chair, took out a neatly folded handkerchief and mopped first his face, and then his bald head.

“Now then,” Tomaz said mildly. “The movement of natural creatures is far less likely to attract the attention of Brennard's people than any other method we could use. I also hope you don't suggest that we leave the children in the dark, uninformed. Yes, it might be said we failed in our attempt to educate so many in such a short time. We live and learn. They
lived and learned.
And a remarkable handful stayed by our sides to combat the wild Magick of a mana storm and the attack of the Dark Hand through it. I call that an amazingly successful failure.” Tomaz smiled, slowly, the expression dawning on his face like the sun coming up on a desert landscape.