Dragon's Royal Guard (Dragons Of Charok: Shifters Between Worlds)

by Meg Ripley

  Varhan nodded. “Fascinating. Anything else?”

  She shook her head. “Not that I’m aware of. Where did all this come from? Why can I do this?”

  “As I said, I don’t really know. Perhaps your heritage?” He looked to Julian.

  Her father cleared his throat. “Not that I know of. This is going to take some time to get used to, so perhaps we should get back around to why we’re really here. Varhan, we hoped you’d come back to the States with us.”

  “And leave my glorious castle?” He gestured at the tiny hut and laughed. “I’m just kidding. You know I’ve always lived minimally. It doesn’t matter to me where I live. But why would you want me to come back with you?”

  Julian seemed to have recovered somewhat. Perhaps it was the tea. He set his mug down and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “I want your help. I’ve been trying to find a way to get back to Charok for the last twenty years. If there’s anyone who can do it, I know you can.”

  Varhan chuckled again. “If that’s so, then why did you wait so long to find me?”

  “I didn’t know you were here. And I could ask you the same thing. You knew I was on Earth, because you sent me yourself. Couldn’t you have just come to the same place?”

  The wizard tipped his head from one side to the other, a smile playing on his lips. “It doesn’t always work that way. In any case, it wasn’t my role. I’m not sure it was yours, either. But Kaylee is a different matter.” He turned to her, his eyes alight. “You’re a completely different matter.”

  “Once again, I have to ask what that means.” She was growing impatient with these constant riddles and partial truths. She still didn’t quite understand what a star child was, and yet according to this man, she was supposedly one.

  “I mean that we’re not all sitting here because of me, and we’re not all sitting here because of your father. We’re sitting here because of you.” He touched the tip of his finger to her nose.

  Kaylee scowled at him. “Okay, I admit this was my idea.”

  “No, no. It’s much more than that. But I don’t have all the answers, and I wouldn’t even try to give them to you. If I were you, I would worry more about understanding the questions than finding the answers.”

  “But what about your answer?” Julian pressed. “Will you come back with us?”

  Varhan looked from Julian to Kaylee and back again. “Let me just pack my things.”

  5

  Six Months Later

  Kaylee breathed in the stiff night air, sensing the energy that crackled through it. They had been working so hard for so long, and she wasn’t sure she’d hardly slept at all over the last few months. Between school and this, her life was completely taken up. She didn’t really mind, though. She knew they were working toward something big.

  “I think we’re ready,” Varhan said, his voice a mix of joy and anticipation. “The stars are all aligned correctly, at least as far as I can tell. I’ve spent far too much time studying the constellations on Charok, and I’ve had a lot to catch up on.”

  “Seems to me that you’ve done very well.” Julian clapped his old friend on the back. “You’ve come here and done a lot more in a short time than I’ve been able to accomplish in twenty years or more. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this.”

  The wizard leaned on the railing that surrounded the balcony along the back side of the house. “Don’t get too excited. Remember what I said: this is only a glimpse into the old world. If all goes right, we’ll be able to see what things are like on Charok. I can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to talk to anyone—provided anyone is still there, of course—or even that it will work.”

  “Varhan, you’re too hard on yourself. You were the one who got us all here in the first place.” Julian’s grin took up his entire face. It was a welcome look, considering how tired he’d seemed lately.

  The wizard’s grip tightened on the railing. “Still, I’m concerned.”

  “But we’ve been over everything about a million times!” Kaylee enthused. She could feel how close they were to making this happen. Even though it wasn’t exactly a portal to Charok, it was something so much bigger than they were. She needed this. She knew it had something to do with the way she’d felt her entire life, and ever since she’d started working with Varhan and Julian, she’d no longer felt as though she was searching for something that could never be found. She’d long dismissed the ‘star child’ talk as crazy, old man nonsense, but she knew they were finally working toward something. “We’ve mapped all the stars and traced the energy between them. We’ve gone over the spell so much that I’m pretty sure I’ve been saying it in my sleep. We have all the ingredients we need. What more can we possibly do?”

  Varhan sighed and took one of her hands between his. He was like an uncle to her already, and his kind gaze meant the world to her. “My dear child, I can’t tell you how proud I am that you have such talent. I only wish that I knew as much as you when I was your age. But you have to understand that magic works differently here on Earth. Your scientists say that physics is the same on any planet, but that’s not so with magic. I can’t predict what kind of side effects there might be. I couldn’t forgive myself if one of you got hurt.”

  “We both know the risks,” Kaylee assured him with a glance at her father, who nodded his assent. “We’re doing this. We’ve got to.”

  The small smile that cross Varhan’s lips was enough to let her know that he wanted this, too. “I guess I’m just used to being the only one involved. It’s been wonderful having research partners, though, especially ones like the two of you. But there’s one more thing that’s been weighing heavily on my mind.”

  “Go on,” Julian encouraged.

  “Let’s say everything goes according to plan, and we can see what Charok is like now. There’s a good chance we’ll see nothing but wilderness and ruins, but what happens if you see there is still life there? Dragons, even? You know we won’t be able to bring them over here, at least not yet. I have no reason to believe that the spell that brought you here would work in reverse to send you back.”

  Julian tipped his head back to the stars. “I know, but it would be something else for us to work on. And it would give me a lot of hope. All these years, I’ve been devastated to know that I made it out alive when so many others perished. I have my loved ones, and I’m very grateful for that, but I’m far too lucky. I’d like to think there are still others out there like us who managed to survive.”

  “Well, there’s only one way to find out.”

  The three of them went back inside and to the library. They’d debated for the last several weeks on the best location for the performance of the spell. While they didn’t want anything to happen to the library if something should go wrong, it had quite a bit of open floor space to give them room to move about. All of their research was close at hand, as well. The idea of doing it outside had been kicked around some, but there was too much risk that they might be seen. It would only take one person who happened to be flying a drone overhead or going for a late-night walk on the trail through the woods and they would be found out.

  “All right. Here we go.” Kaylee began shoving furniture up against the walls, requiring her father’s help to lift the heavy leather sofa and the coffee table. The area rug was easily rolled up and placed on the back of the couch, and Julian retrieved a broom to sweep the floor beneath it clean. They’d already traced a large circle on the wooden floor, taking care to make it as perfect as possible.

  “I know we all know this very well, but I’m going to check our work as we go along.” Varhan picked up the ballpoint pen and notebook he’d been writing with. He’d been fascinated with the modern writing tools, and while he often commented that an old-fashioned quill was more stimulating, he liked the fact that he almost never an out of ink. “First, the salt.”

  Kaylee fetched the canister of salt from a nearby shelf. She now knew that it would absorb extra psychic energy that di
dn’t belong there, serving as a bit of protection for them. She carefully sprinkled it all along the circumference of the circle on the floor.

  “Next, the citrine.”

  Since her aunts ran a New Age store, it had been easy to find the crushed citrine that aided in communication. The stone glittered beautifully in her hands as she spread it over the salt.

  “The silver bowl.”

  Julian handed this to Kaylee. It was already filled with celery seeds and coltsfoot, and she set it in the very center of the circle. Her father then handed her three smooth stones, their black surfaces marked with brilliant splotches of white. Kaylee had fallen in love with the snowflake obsidian as soon as her father had brought it home, and she placed them at equal intervals around the silver bowl.

  “I think we’re ready to go.” Kaylee stepped out of the circle to pick up a box of matches.

  “No, no. I want you to say it. I’ll light the herbs,” Varhan insisted.

  Kaylee paused, one foot inside the circle and the other outside. “But you’re the wizard. You’re the one who knows how to do these things.”

  He smiled and bobbed his head. “In the past, yes. But there’s no doubt that among the three of us, you’re the one who’s gifted with words. They roll off your tongue like they were made for you, and it would be a shame to let one of us old geezers stumble over them.”

  “Well, all right.” She took the notebook from Varhan and stood near the silver bowl. Her eyes drifted down to the words on the page, written carefully in the wizard’s Charokian script. She didn’t need to read them. She knew exactly what they said, and in her heart, she knew what they meant. Most of it couldn’t quite be translated to English, but the general idea was one of reaching out to the past and over distance to reunite two things that belonged together. It thrilled her heart to think she might soon be seeing the place where she’d come from.

  “Julian, you know your role?” Varhan asked.

  He stepped inside the circle, and the three of them crouched down so that their toes were between the obsidian stones. He laid a hand on each of their shoulders. “Yes, but I’m still not sure I’m the right one for the job. I mean, my sister-in-law is a psychic. It seems to me that she would be far better at stabilizing the two of you.”

  “You keep saying that, but I keep telling you that she wouldn’t. She only knows what’s here on Earth, and it’s much better if we’re all natives of the land we’re trying to reach.” Varhan braced the match in his hand against the outside of the box. “Are we ready?”

  The other two nodded, and he struck the match. The small flame fizzled brightly, and Varhan made sure the stick had completely caught before dropping it into the dried herbs. They blazed up, and Kaylee knew it was time.

  She closed her eyes and recited the words in a language far more suited to dragon tongues than human ones. It sounded like nothing more than a series of clicks and growls with a few vowels thrown in, but the meaning was clear. Kaylee let the words take over her mind as she felt the warmth of the flame on her face and the steadiness of her father’s hand on her shoulder. Though she couldn’t see him, she knew Varhan was tracing delicate patterns in the air with a tiny wand made from an ancient tree that had grown near his home in New Zealand. She lost herself in the tranquility of it all, her lips moving on their own, and she felt that she could drift off to sleep right where she was.

  It was only when she heard the gasp from Julian that she opened her eyes again. Her lids were heavy, but she forced them back wide when she saw that the floor beneath them had completely disappeared. They were hovering over a red mountain, the boulders and precipitous cliffs clear beneath their feet. The vision wobbled slightly, as though they were on a tall tower that wasn’t quite balanced, leaning out over the forest at the base of the mountain and then floating to the other side of it completely.

  “That’s it,” Julian choked. “That’s Mount Rokalo, where the royal caves are.”

  Kaylee didn’t recognize any of it, but she craned her neck in an attempt to see it all more clearly. She’d never seen anything as beautiful as the contrast between the ruddy stone and the deep emerald of the trees that surrounded it. The mountain itself looked as though it belonged in the desert, yet the forest was thick and deep.

  “Yes.” Varhan’s voice trembled. “It’s working! Oh, praise be to all the spirits that watch us from above!” He clapped his hands gently.

  “Can we see anywhere else?” Kaylee asked, desperate to find out more about this place.

  “I’ll try.” Varhan rubbed his hands together and pressed them to the floor. The circle of vision beneath them started to shift slightly.

  Movement caught Kaylee’s eye just on the outer edge of it. “Wait. What’s that?”

  Julian sucked in his breath. “It can’t be.”

  But Kaylee knew. She had already known as soon as she had seen it—or rather, them. A small flight of dragons careened though the air near the summit of the mountain, their scales glistening in the sunlight. “Varhan, is there any chance that what we’re seeing is taking place at a different time? I mean, this is happening right now, right?”

  The wizard swallowed audibly before replying. “As far as I can tell, yes.”

  “Incredible,” Julian whispered.

  Kaylee felt as though she could float there above Charok all day, but the universe had other plans. The herbs in the silver bowl had burned down to a slow smolder, but the celery seeds began popping from the heat. Ash tumbled over the side of the shallow container. Kaylee instinctively took a slight step back, still squatting near the center of the circle, but it wasn’t enough. The obsidian stones that surrounded the bowl began cracking and splitting, sending shards of black stone into the air.

  “Something’s going wrong,” Varhan said. “Get back, quickly!”

  The three of them scrambled out of the circle. The vision beneath them had changed completely, a white, swirling mist obscuring the beautiful scenery that’d been there only a moment ago. Kaylee’s heart thundered in her chest. “What do we do to stop it?”

  “There are a few things I can try, but I’m not sure,” Varhan admitted, large beads of sweat forming on his forehead. “The spell was designed to only last for a few minutes. It should just wear itself out and stop, but I’m not sure what’s happening here. I’ll get my book.”

  Kaylee had never felt so helpless as she watched the mist change. It turned from white to red to a deep blue, and it began spinning so fast that it formed a vortex at the center. To her surprise, the bowl and the remnants of the stones fell right into it. A rising wind was now flowing through the room, rifling the open books on the tables and whipping her hair around her face. “I think we need to get out of here!”

  “Not yet!” Varhan shouted over the noise. “I can’t just leave it! I don’t know how far it will go!”

  Kaylee looked to her father, who nodded grimly. She understood. While she was no wizard, an out-of-control spell could be a very dangerous thing.

  The door to the library flew open, but not because of the wind. Jake filled the doorway, his eyes wild as he took in the scene. Naomi was just behind him, clinging to his arm. “What the hell is going on in here?”

  Nobody took the time to explain. It was too much to put into words when a whirlpool of air and magic and who-knew-what-else had opened up at their feet. Instead, Varhan moved around the circle to Kaylee’s side and handed her his spell book.

  Kaylee took the ancient journal in her hands, feeling its cracked leather cover and smelling the stale paper. The wizard poked his finger over her arm at a spell. “Read it! Out loud!”

  “Shouldn’t you be doing this?” she yelled, trying to hand the book back. The wind rushed loudly in her ears.

  “No time for modesty!” he insisted. “Read! And don’t stop until I say so!”

  Kaylee could hardly hear her own voice over the gale that tormented the room, but she did as she was told. The verses he’d indicated were written in the same odd writ
ing as the original spell, but the words were different. Kaylee paid little attention to them as she let them flow from her lips.

  As soon as she was done, Varhan shook her elbow. “Keep going!”

  The vision at her feet that had become a real thing so quickly terrified her, so she allowed herself to get lost in the words. Her tongue brushed the roof of her mouth and slid across the backs of her teeth as she spoke. She didn’t stop the spell even to breathe in, reciting the words with every movement of her lungs. She closed her eyes. Varhan’s hand on her shoulder kept her rooted as she spoke, and soon enough, she felt her father on the other side.

  A gasp from her mother made her open her eyes again. The mist now looked as solid as water, and it spun so fast, it made her stomach churn. The downdraft in the center had now lifted upward, and a dragon came shooting out of it. The beast nearly hit the high ceiling before he caught himself on one of the heavy wooden timbers. Three more came after it.

  Varhan bent forward and touched the portal with the tip of his wand, and in an instant, it froze back into the hard, wooden floor that it had been originally.

  6

  Archard shoved the rest of his clan behind him and spread his wings, feeling a ball of fire building in his chest. It had been a normal day on Charok when the sky had opened up and sucked them through a long, winding passage full of light that made his stomach turn. Now, he had no idea where he was or why, but he knew he didn’t belong there.

  “Who are you, and what do you want with us?” he demanded.

  A man stepped forward, holding his palms out and grinning from ear to ear. “I can’t tell you how happy we are to see you!”

  This fool was clearly of no consequence, but some sort of magic had happened to bring them there. Archard craned his neck toward the little old man on the other side of the room, who was trying to dislodge a stick from the floor. “You! You’re a wizard! Are you all wizards?” It was the first conclusion he’d come to, considering this confined, stifling place they were in. Only a wizard would put them in a place like this.