They entered a dank, dark wing, one built where the sunlight would never filter, its walls and doors old and stout and scarred. It spoke of misery, much as a dungeon would, telling of prisoners from the past that were treated a little bit better than those shackled down in the stony cellars, but not much. Gavan put his hands to the wood of one massive double door. There, guided by Trent's quick gestures, he cut the cords of enchantment holding the door shut, one crystal knife edge at a time, while Jason listened for interruptions headed their way.
The door fell open. Gavan stood for a moment on the threshold as if uncertain whether to enter. Trent leaned in and waved a hand signifying all clear. The three entered an ill-lit room that smelled like an old attic, musty and closed up. Slowly, Trent turned in a circle, indicating all the walls. Indeed, rather like the closed-in corridor and Magick-proofed room in the academy, Magick here was meant to neither enter nor leave. Nor were its occupants.
The entry room looked sparse and worn, almost devoid of all furniture and heat and warmth. A broken lute sat in the corner, as if leaned there with as much care as could be given an instrument with missing strings and a soundboard punched out far more than it should be. Somehow Jason thought she might have played it anyway, setting it across her lap, and trying to coax some sort of music from its remaining strings. Eleanora was like that. Gavan caught him looking at the instruments, and his mouth quirked bitterly. He must have thought nearly the same thing.
“Tormentors!” A low, hoarse whisper came from the dark room beyond. “Banshees!”
“FireAnn.” Gavan stepped into the second room carefully, his eyes narrowed, peering into the permanent twilight. A rustle of clothing, and then he fell back, with a wild woman howling and clawing at his throat. Gavan wrestled with her. Jason kicked the outer door shut, muffling the noise, while Trent jumped in, calling the redhead's name, over and over.
Gavan wrestled her down to her knees, his hands on her wrists. FireAnn growled in disappointment, hot tears welling in her eyes. Her hands, misshapen from arthritis, curled into claws as if she would fight him yet. “Now, now,” he murmured softly. “It's Gavan, FireAnn. It's me, finally. We've come to get you.”
“She doesn't know us,” Trent said numbly.
Jason bit his lip. In the long weeks, her hair had gone from copper-red to silvery-red though a kerchief still tamed her unruly natural curls, and her eyes of emerald green glared dully at them. He took one arm from Gavan and signaled for Trent to hold the other. “Go find Eleanora.”
The other did not hesitate. He bolted past them, his cloak sweeping over them as he did. FireAnn threw back her head and looked around, owllike, if totally dazed. Jason stroked her wrist soothingly, but kept a firm grip as he felt muscles still wiry and strong.
She squinted at him. “Jason, lad, is that ye?”
“Nobody else but.”
The camp cook and chief Magicker herbalist stared hard and long at him. “And how do I know this, lad? There's nobody but tricksters around.”
Jason leaned close. “I'll eat anything you cook but red Jello.” He shuddered a little at that, having had all he could stomach of the red fruity flavor when very young.
She gasped. “Lad! But ye canna stay! There's traps everywhere. Take your friends and flee whilst ye can. Do ye hear me? Afore the banshees and others know ye're here.”
“We know,” he said softly, quietly, firmly. “It'll be all right.”
“No, no, no.” She shook her head vigorously, curls bouncing under her faded scarf. “The boy is as mean as the devil himself and he'll come for ye, he'll come for Eleanora. The lass can't take much more. She thought she felt Gavan the other day, thought he'd come for us, and it near broke her heart.”
“FireAnn. He has come for you, and this time we won't leave without you. But you must be quiet, and help us.”
“Hist! Quiet, he says. All right, then, quiet I'll be.” FireAnn twisted her arm in his grasp. “She did this. Her and her Leucators, taking the very life out of my bones. And that other, the watcher, he drinks of what we hold all the time, small sips, and thinks I canna tell!”
“I know.” It hurt him to see her half-crazed and twisted as she was. Jason heard heavy steps and looked up. Gavan stood, a slender figure bundled in a wretched-looking blanket in his arms, but she wept, and held her arms about his neck, and it was indeed Eleanora. He straightened his shoulders. “Get us out of here,
now.
”
Trent and Jason drew FireAnn to her feet, and they linked together, Jason cupping his crystal, as Trent kicked the outside door open. It was then the scream hit, a wailing of banshees woven together, piercing their eardrums with anger and dismay. Rebecca's scream of terror from that morning couldn't hold a candle to this decibel-challenging screech.
They shrank back, discovered.
39
Webs
R
UN!” “Run?” Jason looked at Gavan.
“We can't Crystal out from here without Tomaz and the others. I haven't enough strength to jump to him and then out. We have to get to him on foot. So,
run.
”
“No!” Trent threw his free arm out, blocking them. “It's like a spiderweb down there. We'll be caught for sure. We can't run. Creep out, maybe, the way we came in.”
Gavan stood stock-still, listening, cradling Eleanora tightly to his chest. He tilted his chin to Jason. “Find out if that was his diversion and if not, tell Tomaz to stay low and quiet.”
Jason ran his hand over his crystal of quartz and gold and lapis, and made the link. Tomaz seemed as baffled as they were about the screaming, but agreed to lay low for the moment although he indicated urgently that they should get out. Jason repeated that to Gavan.
The fortress fell silent. Gavan shifted his weight. “It is possible that was no alarm. Isabella is known for her temper. We've no way of knowing what set it off.”
“Then I say we get to Tomaz, link up, and get out.” Trent tapped his feet on the hallway floor in impatience.
“Trent in front. Jason, behind me.” Gavan took a slow breath. “I am counting on you both, lads.”
Trent led FireAnn behind him, saying, “Not far to go.”
She put a crooked finger to her lips in answer. Told to be quiet, it seemed she would. She stumbled along behind Trent, trying to pick her way as he did. Jason watched anxiously. Gavan followed, moving as though carrying Eleanora was no burden at all to him, and perhaps she wasn't.
Jason raised a Shield for the rear and tried to keep track of Trent in front. The stairs sounded with every one of their steps upon it. No matter how quiet and cautious they tried to be, the old wood complained. Every slow step they took was with Trent guiding them through it as if they were climbing through barbed wire. It looked odd. He unwove webs they could not see, although they sensed the magic all about them, malevolent and harsh, a mirror image of the power they used, and as they went farther, the more tangled it got. Jason felt the shivering of the power as it shrugged past, seeking and missing him time after time. It gave him the same creepy crawlies as bugs did.
At last they reached a door to the outside compound, and it swung open invitingly, the haze of afternoon struggling to shine through it.
At the sight of daylight, cloudy though it was, FireAnn broke away from Trent. She staggered out of the fort and into the compound yard with her hands in the air, and did a wobbling Irish jig of joy. “Free,” she cried in a cracking voice and then sank to the ground. Trent grabbed her up, shushing her. She nodded and began to cry, softly, brokenly.
It pierced Jason's heart to hear her. A murmur came from Gavan's bundle. Gavan dipped slightly in answer so that Eleanora could put her hand out and comfort FireAnn. Little could be seen of her but the frayed blanket and one terribly thin arm. His eyes and heart filled with the drama of the scene, but his ears heard a noise behind him. He turned.
Jonnard smiled thinly from the fortress door. “I thought I heard mice scurrying about.”
“Difficult to hear with Isabella ranting.”
“Sad but true.” He came out of the doorway.
Jason raised his Shield between them. He called Tomaz to them, his hand over his crystal and added, “Now,” to Gavan and Trent. “Or never, I think.” He could feel the power welling up in Jonnard. They had gambled the Dark Hand would be as drained as they.
Gambled, and lost.
Tomaz, Stef, and Rich appeared in a shimmer. Jonnard dropped his shoulder and Jason instantly sensed the gathering and focusing. He charged forward, dropping into a sliding tackle, Shield up, and drove Jonnard off his feet gasping. Trent was the one who linked them all, as Gavan stood, dazed, and tried to protest, and Trent told Tomaz, “Now, now, go now!” amid the dazzle of crystal energy. The last thing Jason heard was Trent's thin voice from out of the nothingness vow, “I'll be back!” Then they were gone.
For one quick moment, he cursed himself for not going with them. All would stand or all would fall, but he knew better. They had a good chance of getting out, and he had a good chance of keeping Jonnard from blocking them.
Jason rolled and got up. “That,” he said, “was soccer.”
Jon spat dirt from his mouth. He dredged his crystal out of the ground behind him, and did not even try to stand before focusing a blade and slinging it at Jason, intent on cutting him in two. Jason danced away as blade hit Shield, and sparks flew, and Magick hummed angrily like a hornet's nest greatly disturbed.
Jonnard leaped to his feet. He wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, then spit aside one last time. “You never cease to amaze me,” the young man said, circling Jason warily. “Although I would rather you just
cease.
”
“Oh, I can't do that.” Jason kept his power up, just as cautious. “I have friends who depend on me.”
Jonnard swapped hands, crystal blade sparkling, and then he had a blade in each, and dropped into a stance the other recognized all too well. Jason took half a step back, turning his foot on a large rock on the stony fort courtyard. It saved his head, as he bobbed suddenly, and the blade cut through the air so close, the ends of his hair sizzled.
Jason spun away. “Another duel?” he said as he straightened up, dancing a little from foot to foot, loosening himself up, just as he would before a soccer match. His boots weren't as limber, but his muscles felt good. Not all of him was mind and Magick! Madame Qi's long runs, and hard work and exercises, had seen to that. “I don't always win, but I seldom lose.”
Jon showed white teeth in a wolfjackal snarl. “I will see you finished off.”
“Not if I can help it.” Jason dodged again, as Jon's hands moved in a slash of light, crisscrossing. He went to the ground, rolled, and came up, not knowing how close it had been, only knowing he hadn't been hit. That was what counted. He laughed. “How about a bet? If I win this time, you and the rest of the Dark Hand go back.”
“Go back? Back there? You must be kidding. If there is one thing that you and I agree upon, it is that going back means becoming someone's laboratory experiment. Going back will never be an option.” Jonnard moved with dangerous grace. Magick fire seemed to outline his entire form, dazzling Jason's sight of him. His name, after all, was Jonnard Albrite, despite the dark nature and every intent of his birthright. “And you have nothing to wager that I value. Anything you have, I can take from you.”
Jason hesitated. Just for a moment, his mind taking stock of what he had that he valued, the faces of his friends and family flickering through his thoughts, and in that instant, his foe struck.
The blade sank deep. He reeled back in white-hot pain, his arm on fire with the hurt of it, wrenching away, feeling the blood fountain up. He put his hand to it, still holding the crystal, and as blood washed over the quartz, it seared him a second time. Jason cried out. He held the gaping wound shut, still moving, not giving Jon a chance to hit him again, and wondering if he could get the blood to stop.
He gasped with the torture of it, once, twice, narrowing his eyes, trying not to howl or cry, shaking with the effort. His crystal hummed loudly and grew searingly warm and he pulled it away to see . . .
Nothing.
Yet, not nothing, but an angry white seam of a scar showing through his torn sleeve where before there had been a gash of bloody flesh. It ached and throbbed in fresh pain still, every pulsing ebbing a little as though his body could not realize it had just been healed, nerves still yowling with being freshly cut. His finger traced the ropy scar.
He'd done that. But how?
“Well, well. Blooded your crystal.” Jon made a
tsking
noise, circling around him. “Not a good thing to do.”
Jason shook it off, gathering his scattered thoughts. “What are you talking about?”
“Blooding your crystal. They didn't tell you? Alas, your education is sorely lacking. It might be the death of you.” Jon slashed again, lightning quick, but Jason saw it coming this time.
Arm still sore, it was his feet that reacted. He kicked out, curved instep meeting that round rock that had nearly tripped him earlier, half the size and probably twice the weight of a soccer ball. His foot met it squarely. It felt like one of the best kicks he'd ever taken as a forward. The rock shot through the air, arcing like a cannonball at Jonnard's head. The young man ducked away, and it caromed off his shoulder with a solid, sickening thump of rock against flesh. Jon let out a cry, going to his knees.
“Someone,” Jason observed, “is going to be very upset you let her captives get loose.” He gripped both crystals tightly and felt them answer to him. Shield or flee, and he decided that fleeing would be best for now. Home, he thought, picturing the academy, and felt the chill of
between
take him. Jonnard's shout of pure hatred and anger pieced the void as he went.