Artifacts, Dragons, and Other Lethal Magic

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  Blackwell glanced down at the dragonskin tattoo between us. He looked suddenly disconcerted, as if he was just putting together that it was an actual tattoo skinned from a dead guardian.

  Kandy hunkered down beside us, joining the conversation while continuing to block Blackwell’s path to the door. “You think he was still searching for the final instrument? Why wouldn’t he have mentioned it? He … bequeathed Pulou the map but not the reasoning behind it?”

  I glanced at Blackwell, who, of course, was eating up every word. I’d have to worry later about what damage having him around was going to do in the long run. “I’m not sure he was … all there when he passed on his mantle.”

  Kandy nodded. “Old wolves can get like that too. Highly and irrationally territorial, usually resulting in an ill-founded challenge. It’s better to die at the teeth of a younger wolf than to slip away into the unknown, only half aware.”

  “Okay … say the map isn’t finished,” I said. “We’re seriously lost in the middle of China, then. We can’t just wander around the mountains for the rest of our lives, hoping we bump into the shrine.”

  Blackwell tugged his ancestor’s journal out of his pocket and began flipping through it. “I might be able to get us closer.” Eyeing me, he grinned slyly. “Then you can do whatever it is you do when your magic fills the room, dances across my skin, and beguiles my senses.”

  “Creepy much, sorcerer?” Kandy spat, before I could express my own dismay.

  Attracting Blackwell was seriously low on my to-do list. As in, nonexistent.

  “I have to know what I’m dowsing for,” I said.

  “In the middle of nowhere? You just have to find something new.”

  “Right. While we freeze to death. Easy-peasy.”

  ∞

  Blackwell’s transcribed notes actually proved useful. The sorcerer quickly identified an existing, snow-covered trail that branched off from the grid point portal and carved its way through the mountain. Warner and Drake broke the path ahead of us, plowing effortlessly through what looked like months of accumulated snow. And after finding two magical landmarks — both of which had to be literally dug out of the snow and ice — and more consulting of Blackwell’s journal, we stood in a somewhat sheltered spot at the edge of an icy cliff. I was trying really, really hard to not think about the drop behind us.

  Though, thankfully, it wasn’t currently snowing, Warner had insisted on roping Kandy and me to him when the wind had intensified and the path began to narrow. Blackwell was similarly tied to Drake, and neither of them was pleased about it.

  No one suggested roping the vampire up. I think Kett might have gotten a good laugh out of the idea, though.

  Blackwell carefully unfolded a parchment rubbing that had been hidden within the pages of his ancestor’s journal. He held the delicate document up to an eroded etching on the rock outcropping we were huddled beside. Warner, Kett, and Drake were attempting to create a wind block, but they were only partially successful.

  “It’s a match,” the sorcerer said.

  “About freaking time,” Kandy snarled.

  The werewolf’s and Blackwell’s lips were tinted blue, so I had to assume my own were as well. I wasn’t beyond cold yet, though. Which was good, because I thought I remembered that being one of the first signs of hypothermia.

  This was the third time Blackwell had pulled rubbings from the journal. He had offered up each translated clue one at a time, keeping the rest to himself in a bid toward making himself invaluable. Unfortunately, with a deal in place and no working map, there wasn’t much I could do but follow the sorcerer’s lead.

  I was tired enough that I had long since stopped caring. Whether the extreme cold and the perilous conditions were forcing Blackwell and I to bond to maintain our sanity, or whether I was actually just freezing to death, I didn’t know.

  “You’re up,” Blackwell said. As he turned his dark-eyed gaze on me, he carefully refolded the rubbing and replaced it in the journal.

  “That’s all you have?”

  “The rest is conjecture,” the sorcerer said. “My ancestor had to turn back before he found the next gatepost. Then he died. After he wrote the final section of the chronicle, but before he could pursue it further.” Blackwell flicked his thumb across the last pages of the journal. They were blank. “He was searching in far less inclement weather, of course.”

  “We are not here of our own choosing, sorcerer,” Warner said. His tone made it exceedingly clear that he was more than ready to toss Blackwell off the cliff we were currently perched on.

  “We have about two hours of daylight left,” Kett said.

  “Really helpful, vampire,” I groused.

  Kett laughed quietly.

  “Could you all step back a little?” I asked.

  “No,” Warner said.

  I eyed the sentinel. He stood stoically, blocking me from the worst of the wind, and didn’t elaborate on his objection.

  Kandy unclipped her belt from the rope that held us a few feet apart, pivoting and clipping onto the rope that Drake anchored.

  Then everyone else shuffled back the way we’d come.

  After they had disappeared around a curve in the cliff face, the sentinel grinned down at me wolfishly. “You know my magic well enough to seek beyond it.”

  Well, that was a hard point to argue. Being intimate with an Adept — skin to skin, exchanging touches and bodily fluids — might have multiple benefits. One of which was warming me with the remembrance of the last time I’d been curled around the man who was now shielding me from the windstorm.

  “Hmm,” he said. “That look isn’t particularly appropriate when you are wearing so much clothing, alchemist.”

  I laughed, then turned back to study the carvings Blackwell had found. Like the other two sets the sorcerer had uncovered and matched to the rubbings his ancestor made, they were smoothed from centuries of weather. But if I studied the curves and edges carefully, I could superimpose an image in my mind’s eye — something similar to the leaf pattern on the dragonskin tattoo.

  “I wonder if this is what the treasure keeper saw.” I shucked off my glove and reached for the cold stone before me. “But for some reason, he couldn’t find the shrine of the phoenix.”

  “If seeking out evidence connected to the legend of the phoenix is even what we’re doing,” Warner said, still doubtful.

  “Worship can exist without evidence,” I said. “We could simply be seeking out a sect of sorcerers or a coven of witches who based their worship on the idea of the phoenix figure. Peacefulness and healing doesn’t sound like a bad thing to base your faith on.”

  Warner grunted in acknowledgement but said nothing else, letting me concentrate on running my fingers over the ice-cold carvings before me. I had to bend slightly forward. The carver had apparently been shorter than me. The stone was so cold that my skin was sticking to it. I tried to ignore the sensation as I focused my dowser senses away from Warner’s magic — even as dampened as it was — along with the hints of Kandy, Kett, Drake, and Blackwell that I could still pick up.

  I thought about how the sorcerer had talked of using my necklace as an amplifying device. Certainly, I had coaxed magic from it on many occasions, and I used it as an anchor, or to ground or focus myself. But I hadn’t really figured out how to amplify my own magic with it. Maybe it just did so naturally.

  “I can taste … subtle fruit … but I can’t place it. Sweet, with an acidic finish. Almost like melon, but nothing I’ve eaten before. Not that I can recall.”

  “Pear,” Warner said.

  “I’ve eaten pears before,” I said, pissy about being interrupted.

  “Asian pear,” Warner said evenly.

  I had a fleeting memory of seeing light-brown-skinned, round fruit at a vendor’s in the Granville Island Market.

  “They’d be crisper than the pears you’d be accustomed to,” Warner said. “More like an apple. Juicy too.”

  “I don’t really pick
up texture like that. Just taste. I mean, unless it’s a memory … like how your magic tastes creamy and smooth like the gelato from Mario’s.”

  Warner chuckled quietly, possibly recalling me feeding him said gelato in bed about a month previous.

  I blew on my hands to warm them, then returned my attention to the carvings.

  “We don’t even know if this is going to help,” I muttered. “I might just be picking up the magic of the carver …”

  “And if that Adept carved more gateposts, it will lead us forward.” Warner was in patient mode, which usually drove me a little batty. But I was too cold to be feisty.

  “I can also taste some kind of toasted grain, and … maybe tea.” I shoved my hand back inside my glove, then into the pocket of my parka. I buried my chin and nose behind my scarf, exhaling a few times to warm my face.

  I looked up at Warner. At least an inch of icy snow had gathered on his shoulders while he stood there blocking me from the worst of the wind.

  “You take me to the best places,” I groused.

  He lifted one eyebrow at me. “You take me to the best places.”

  I laughed, then sobered. “I’m going to have to lead.”

  He nodded, not happy about it. I didn’t want to be the one pushing through the snow either.

  Warner stepped around me, then tucked his hand up underneath my jacket to grab my leather belt.

  I was instantly assaulted by the wind and blowing snow, and now my back was cold. “Don’t do that,” I cried. “That’s just mean. You already have me tied to you.”

  “I’ll hold the rope as well,” Warner said. “Regardless of whether I can drag you back, I don’t want you falling in the first place.”

  I huddled deeper into my jacket without further protest, likewise wanting to avoid taking a wrong turn. I stepped forward into the virgin snow, beyond where Warner, Drake, and Kett had been standing. It came up to my knees. I slid slightly into the step, then felt my hiking boot find purchase on the icy rock beneath it.

  Delightful.

  Kett had deemed the snowshoes too cumbersome early on, and having never used them before, I’d been glad. But now … well, no true West Coast girl wanted to be trudging through snow up to her knees. Not without a ski lodge and a spa nearby.

  “We’re moving,” Warner yelled back over his shoulder.

  The others moved forward to gather behind us. We were going to have to advance single file.

  I cast my dowser senses forward in search of tart, juicy pear and roasted grains.

  I picked up a hint of carrot cake and cream-cheese icing instead.

  “Shailaja,” I said, tugging my hood closer around my face until I had absolutely no peripheral vision at all. But better that than my nose freezing off.

  Warner huffed. “I expected her sooner.”

  “Would you hang out in this?” I gestured around us as I took another knee-high step through the snow. “It’s faint. She’s just checking in.”

  “And the leeches?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t taste them.”

  “As in their magic doesn’t have a taste?”

  “No taste I understand, at least.”

  Kett’s peppermint magic brushed against me.

  “You heard?” Warner asked quietly.

  “Yes,” Kett said, slipping by me.

  I looked for the vampire but saw no evidence of his passing in the snow, either around or before me. I cranked my head sideways and got a face full of icy flakes for my trouble. I also got a glimpse of the crazy vampire scaling the cliff face running alongside us to the left.

  I started to protest.

  Warner interrupted me. “Let him do what he’s good at,” he whispered, practically pressing his mouth to my ear.

  “He’s no match for her alone,” I hissed back.

  “Not true,” Warner said. “He was no match for Shailaja the first time. Now he’s drunk from her. That changes the game. Plus, he has us to back him.”

  I shivered, but not from the cold. Someone wasn’t making it through all of this alive. I just hoped it wasn’t one of us.

  “Pears …” Warner prompted.

  I nodded and focused forward.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  We stood before the door to the shrine of the phoenix as the sun began to wane. Why it was that we always approached our darkest deeds at the beginning of the darkest part of the day, I didn’t know.

  I gazed up at the deepening gray of the sky. The windstorm that had pressed us throughout our slog up the mountain from the final landmark had abated, so that only a few stray snowflakes swirled around us now.

  “It didn’t seem so snowy in Rochelle’s sketch,” I murmured.

  “You just need to look closer, alchemist,” Blackwell said.

  I ignored the sorcerer, watching instead as Kett dropped gracefully down the side of the cliff. He stepped out of the ever-deepening shadows to our left and approached the door.

  Blackwell flinched at his appearance.

  Kandy chuckled, a disturbing sound that raised the hair on the back of my neck. I turned to glare at the werewolf.

  She flashed me her predator smile, but she toned down the creepy vibe.

  The ornately etched door was carved into the side of the mountain — as expected. It appeared larger in person than it had in Rochelle’s sketch, but I realized that it was my sense of self that was skewed rather than the oracle’s perspective. Apparently, I felt more insignificant than I actually was … at least when seen through someone else’s eyes and rendered in charcoal.

  The narrow path we had been following beneath the snow and ice widened as it approached the door, extending twenty feet across and terminating at a dead end.

  With the door sheltered on two sides as it was, the snowfall before it hadn’t accumulated as much as on the trail, coming up no higher than our ankles.

  As we stood arrayed before the door, the sun broke through the light cloud cover. An orange-red ray brightened the top left corner of the door for a brief second, before the sun dipped below the snowcapped mountains spreading endlessly to the west.

  The touch of the sun triggered a wash of magic tasting of tart pear tea. It rippled across the etched leaf-and-flower motifs on the edges of the door, filling every furrow and ridge with a deep amber glow. The gleaming magic flowed through the stone, illuminating the carved branches until they stood out like magic-filled veins. The main lines of the design twisted and curled, meeting and pooling around a two-foot-wide circle at the center of the door.

  Then the accumulated sun-triggered magic flared into the image of a majestic bird in flight. The deep amber energy blazed across the center stone, then washed forward into the open path where we stood.

  Positioned directly in front of the door, Kett flung his arms across his face. Twisting his body away, he threw himself into the shadowed face of the cliff.

  Warner and Drake both spun to the side, allowing the magic to wash across their backs.

  Blackwell grunted as if in pain. He stumbled back a few steps.

  Kandy stepped up beside me, blinking into the magic as I was. She pushed back her hood, lifting her face to the dying rays.

  I felt … sun kissed and chosen. Just for a brief moment.

  Then the magic was gone. Depleted.

  The door stood before us, as inert as before. But even though it wasn’t physically carved into the stone in any way, I could still see the image of the bird etched across the center of the door when I blinked.

  Our extremely different reactions to the sun-triggered magic were perplexing and disconcerting.

  Drake and Warner were staring at the door, completely shocked. Then they looked at each other.

  “It can’t be,” Warner said.

  “And if it is?” Drake asked.

  “Then we stand on the edge of our own doom,” Warner said, turning to catch my gaze. “I’ve slept through centuries. Woken to find a warrior with whom I can celebrate the ages. Only to face the final e
xtinction of the guardians.”

  A tendril of cold fear shot through my belly.

  Inexplicably, Drake laughed. “You and I have been told very different bedtime stories.”

  Warner stiffened his shoulders. “My mother — Jiaotu-who-was — was an exceedingly able teacher. As was the treasure keeper.”

  “Cool.” Drake shrugged. “Suanmi and Chi Wen see things differently … and if I understand the succession properly, they have both walked the earth for many more years than your mother had when you were under her tutelage.”

  “Different guardians carry different beliefs.”

  Kett appeared on my left, slipping out from the shadows. His face, neck, and hands were crimson, as if he’d been severely sunburned.

  “Jesus,” I said, momentarily distracted from Warner and Drake’s disturbing conversation.

  Kett grinned at me. His cheeks cracked. A few layers of his skin crumbled into ash. “It’s been over a millennia since the sun has burned me so badly.” He sounded oddly pleased.

  “I told you he was old as ass,” Kandy groused. “How old does a vampire need to be to walk outside even on a cloudy day?”

  Kett’s gaze was fixed on the door as Drake crossed over to examine it. “Old,” the vampire said.

  Awesome. I loved it when all the deepest secrets came to light at exactly the wrong time.

  Kandy snorted, then turned to start pacing the perimeter, keeping Blackwell hemmed in. Not that the sorcerer noticed. He had his nose buried in his notebook.

  Ignoring Kett’s revelations for a moment, because I wasn’t sure I could process that he’d somehow been burned by the magic amplified through the door, I stalked up to Warner.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “So whatever you and Drake get, you need to share with the group.”

  Warner glanced past me. I turned to see Blackwell madly scribbling away in his journal — recording our conversation, maybe?

  “I’m overreacting,” Warner said, pitching his voice low. “It was just a shock. Drake is correct. We’ve been taught different versions of the same myth.”

  “It’s still flummoxing to me that dragons even have myths.”