by Ann Gimpel
Jonathan found his voice. “How could a two- or three-year-old child not need its mother any longer?”
She shrugged. “’Twasn’t my problem. I figured your da would come up with a human woman to replace me.”
He thought about telling her that hadn’t happened but swallowed the words. The emotional poverty scarring his childhood wasn’t at issue here. It wasn’t why they’d summoned the goddess. He cleared his throat. “Thank you for coming. We need your help.”
Arianrhod narrowed her eyes. “Aye, and I thought it must be something like that.”
Lachlan and Britta stepped forward. After a brief exchange of glances, Lachlan spoke for them. “Goddess. We, too, are grateful you are here. Britta and I are dragon shifters—”
The goddess rolled her eyes. “I am not stupid. I can see. I also doona sense the dragons, so I’m guessing ’tis why you have need of me. What’s happened to them? Did they get angry with you and retreat to Fire Mountain?”
Britta shook her head. “The bond doesna work that way—”
Arianrhod interrupted. “The bond I know about doesna allow ye to be separate from your dragon. Ye are in one form or the other.”
“There is an older, more powerful bond…” Lachlan explained it, sketching the differences in just a few words.
“Och, so you were separate from your beasts and someone—or something—made off with them.”
Jonathan nodded. “Lachlan and Britta believe they’re somewhere else in time.”
“Seems simple enough.” The goddess spread her hands in front of her. “Why are you all still here? Why havena you begun to search?”
Lachlan blew out an impatient-sounding breath, as if he were trying to be polite. “Only dragons and Celts hold the secrets of time travel. We canna go after them on our own.”
“Ah, I see.” Arianrhod moved next to Jonathan and laid a hand on either side of his head. He tried to guard himself, but a shock rattled through him. The goddess looked up, a pleased expression etched on her ageless face. “My…son has the power.”
He gasped, struggling to catch his breath. “M-maybe I do,” he stammered, “but I am untaught.”
“Taught by witches, ye mean.” Arianrhod sneered. “It comes down to the same thing.”
“I resent that.” Mary Elma started toward the goddess, but Mauvreen lunged for her arm and grabbed it.
“Wise witch,” Arianrhod muttered. She added, “Mayhap I made a mistake by not claiming my son, yet I canna undo it now,” under her breath.
“How quickly could my mate learn to bend the strands of time?” Britta asked in a clear, ringing voice.
“Your mate, eh?” Arianrhod’s gaze swept appraisingly over Britta. “Can’t fault him for his taste. I assume your dragon likes him too.”
“Aye. Tarika adores him.”
“Ye’re mated to that one?” Arianrhod’s eyebrows rose. “She’s one of the First Born. I had a dragon lover, er associate long ago. ’Twas a relative of hers.” She cleared her throat, looking mildly chagrined by her slip. “Which other dragon is missing?”
“Kheladin,” Lachlan said.
“Mmph. I havena heard of him.”
“Likely ye wouldna have,” Lachlan concurred. “He is a youngling by dragon standards. With all due respect, my lady, we need a way to track those who—”
“Do ye have any idea who or why?”
Jonathan glanced sidelong at his mother. She seemed to have no patience for allowing anyone else to finish their sentences. Lachlan answered evenly. “Aye. We believe the Morrigan is behind this. She would maintain chaos and war on Earth until there is naught left.”
“Pah! What a nuisance she has become. Yet she doesna work alone.”
“How do you know?” Jonathan asked, curiosity burning deep. Had Arianrhod been in their minds, or did she know something new?
“The battle crow has never worked alone. She co-opts others to do her bidding, discards them once she’s burned them up, and finds new allies.”
“In this instance, ’tis two other dragon shifters—bonded the more traditional way,” Britta said. “Unfortunately, one of the dragons, Malik, was an egg-mate of Tarika’s.”
“Mayhap an egg-mate,” Arianrhod clasped her hands before her and eyed the group, “but not one of the First Born, which means he is expendable.”
“Will ye help us?” Lachlan held his hands out in a gesture of supplication. Jonathan guessed it cost him dearly. From what he’d seen of Lachlan, the dragon shifter was a proud man. He probably hadn’t asked for assistance very often over the years of his life.
Arianrhod creased her high, patrician forehead in thought. “Ye already asked for aid from us to clip the Morrigan’s wings, did you not?” At Lachlan’s nod, she went on. “We have a non-interference policy into human affairs.”
“Aye.” Britta stepped closer. “We know.”
A corner of Arianrhod’s mouth twisted into a shrewd smile. “I have a suggestion. I havena been much of a mother.” Jonathan opened his mouth, but she held up a hand. “Doona bother contradicting me. I see the truth of your heart in your eyes. I shall take advantage of this opportunity to, um, train my son. If we find dragons along the way, so much the better.”
Smiles lit Lachlan’s and Britta’s faces. “Thank you,” they said with one voice.
“Yes.” Jonathan inclined his head toward his mother. “Thank you very much. How shall we begin?”
The goddess scanned the group. “There are too many. I will take three, the two dragon mages and my son.”
“I want to stay with Lachlan,” Maggie countered. “I’m his mate.”
“Your magic is green. Ye’d be nothing but an impediment.”
“Mine isn’t.” Mary Elma straightened her spine. “Take me in her stead.”
Arianrhod was silent for long moments. Finally, she shook her head. “Nay. Ye’d argue with me at every turn. I doona need turmoil. My first offer is my last. Three go with me, or I leave you to figure how to find the dragons without me.”
“We accept,” Lachlan said.
“What?” Fury rode beneath Maggie’s words. “I love Kheladin too. I’ve ridden him.”
“Lass,” Lachlan sounded torn, “we can sort this out once Kheladin and I have returned. Ye canna bargain with the gods once they have made up their minds.”
“You can’t just leave me here.” Maggie took a step toward him; angry color stained her cheeks. “We’re stronger together. What about the prophecy—?”
Mary Elma and Mauvreen closed on Maggie, flanking her. “We shall discuss this later, child,” Mary Elma growled.
“If we doona leave soon,” Arianrhod said, “I may change my mind and depart without any of you.” She opened her arms. Magic crackled through the air. “Get closer,” she hissed. “Doona make me squander power.” She skewered Jonathan with eyes that looked suddenly alien. “Pay attention…son. This may well be the only lesson ye ever get from me.”
Arianrhod pursed her lips; her gold and silver gaze shifted to Maggie. “Ye say ye rode the dragon, lass?”
Maggie’s head snapped up. Hope blazed from her blue eyes. “Yes.”
“Get over here. I will bring you with us.”
Chapter Thirteen
Arianrhod watched her son through hooded eyes. He’d grown into a comely man. Mayhap ’twas wrong of me to do as I did. Her thoughts turned to her magically conceived sons, Dylan and Lleu, neither of whom had comported themselves particularly well. Dylan was dead by his uncle’s hand, and Lleu had sunk to near obscurity…
She held their traveling magic close, prepared to loose it once she had a destination in mind. “Should we try the past first or the future?”
“If Rhukon is mixed up in this, I would vote for the past,” Lachlan said. “’Tis where he sent me when he tried to separate me from Maggie.”
“Why would he have wanted to do that?” Arianrhod demanded.
“On account of the prophecy,” Maggie murmured.
“Aye, ye me
ntioned it a little bit ago. If I knew about a prophecy, I wouldna have asked,” the goddess said, her tone terse. “Answer me quickly afore I must recast our traveling spell.”
“Maggie and I are Earth’s only hedge against the Morrigan’s wholesale destruction,” Lachlan said. “She’s tried many strategies to keep us apart so she can continue to sow chaos and poison the planet.”
“With the help of Rhukon, Connor, and their dragons, she’s damn near succeeded.” Maggie muttered.
Arianrhod pursed her lips. “Hold. Is this the prophecy where the dragon shifter and his mate, who comes to her power so late ’tis a blooming miracle she finds it at all, drive the battle crow into Fire Mountain where the dragons imprison her?”
“Likely,” Britta said. “We hadna heard that last, but it helps to have a goal mapped out. Thanks.”
“It also explains why they targeted our dragons.” Lachlan made a rude-sounding grunt. “Without them, there’s no access to Fire Mountain.”
“Oh yes, there is.” Britta squared her shoulders. “I went alone as a maid when I had but seventeen summers—”
“The dragons would have killed you and spit you out had Tarika, or one of the others, not wished to bond with you,” Lachlan said.
“Och aye, and I wasna aware.” Britta sounded cowed.
Since there was little advantage in discussing Britta’s stupidity as a youth, Arianrhod refocused them. “Returning to the current problem, ’tisn’t likely those at Fire Mountain would welcome a prisoner they had to ride herd on until the dawn of the next age—unless a dragon escort brought her and insisted.
“I know enough. We shall leave. We will begin our search in the past. Pay close attention to this spell, son. Come into my mind and watch its making and deployment.”
•●•
Jonathan gripped Britta’s hand. Arianrhod seemed to be warming to him, but he didn’t trust her. How could he? She was the same woman who’d abandoned him as a toddler. He wondered how long she’d lived. Surely the short span of his life was trivial when balanced against her thousands of years of existence. Which means she hasn’t changed at all, and I need to guard myself.
“Aye.” His mother winked at him. “Ye should. Now join your mind to mine, or ye’ll miss how to anchor your spell. When time traveling, ’tis essential to maintain an anchor at a known place…”
Heat rose to his face as he listened. She’d been in his thoughts, and he hadn’t even tried to shield them.
“It wouldna have mattered,” Britta focused her mind voice only for him. “The gods can blow past any barriers we erect to keep them out.”
“I’ll get better at this.”
She squeezed his hand. “Of course ye will. Let us learn the secrets of time travel, and then we willna need the Celts.”
A pearlescent tubular structure formed around them. The walls were grayish and warm, as if the conduit were alive. Arianrhod chanted one incantation to call the working and another to seal them into it. Her magic had a pungent scent, like motor oil mixed with salt water.
“We are ready.” She inhaled deeply, once, twice, and turned her attention to Jonathan. “Once ye are within the time portal, ye must take care we are the only living things inside it.”
“No shit.” Lachlan snorted. “Kheladin and I were verra nearly trapped by Rhukon and Connor in a time portal.”
Arianrhod turned her hands palms up. “Sometimes the hardest lessons are the ones we remember best.”
Lachlan screwed up his face as if he’d bitten into something sour; he opened his mouth, but Maggie jabbed him in the ribs. Jonathan choked back a snicker. Likely, Maggie had borne the brunt of her grandmother’s lectures for a long time, so she probably recognized Arianrhod’s Lecture 101 format. Aside from that, it was always better not to argue with older women. Like Mauvreen for example. He was sorry he hadn’t paid better attention to some of her pontificating, though; it might have stood him in good stead. While he was lost in thought, the bottom dropped out of his stomach.
They fell through the time tunnel. He wasn’t certain quite how, but he still held Britta’s hand. It took a few anxious moments for him to realize that, even though he was moving at breath-stealing speeds, he could control his rate of descent by manipulating something like a chording mechanism infused into the walls of the passageway. Tones seemed to do the trick. He experimented with cadence and pitch until he was confident he wouldn’t crash to an unseen bottom and end up a pile of bones.
Arianrhod floated next to him, a look of grudging admiration on her face. “Now ye have that part to hand, call on seeking magic to follow the sense of evil ye sensed on the beach the dragons were snatched from.”
“How do you know where we were?”
She pursed her lips. “Tsk. I thought ye were smarter than that. Your mind is an open book to me. All mortals’ are, but because we share blood…”
Lachlan and Maggie drew near. “I have been trying to do just that,” Lachlan said. “Tracking the feel of Rhukon, Connor, or the Morrigan. So far, I havena felt a thing.”
“Might they have erased all sign of their passage?” Britta asked.
Arianrhod shook her head. “Not possible. And there is no other time portal.”
“Does that mean they didn’t go into the past?” Maggie asked.
The goddess peered closely at the labyrinthine walls with their folds of flesh-like coverings. “We are only to the early sixteen hundreds. I say we descend at least another thousand years afore we try the other way.”
Jonathan thought about it. He wasn’t certain if he had any latitude at all with his mother, but he pressed forward anyway. “I can’t say exactly why I think this, but I believe we should move ahead in time. And not very far. Maybe I’ve watched too many spy movies, but the best place to hide something is as close to in plain view as possible.”
“I’m inclined to agree with him.” Lachlan chanted a low note and held it. All of them slowed until they hovered in the tunnel.
“’Twill take more time if we doona find them and must retrace our steps back this way,” Arianrhod argued.
“Aye, but mayhap we willna have to return to the past at all,” Britta said.
The pearl-gray walls shuddered and developed pink overtones. “How long can we stay in this time portal?” Maggie asked.
A corner of Arianrhod’s mouth turned down. “There isna a pat answer. We stay until it expels us. If we are not in a familiar time, we wait until it allows us entrance again.”
“You act as if it’s alive.” Jonathan stared more closely at the shiny walls with their mucous-like coating.
“Och aye.” Arianrhod grinned. “’Tis. Ask me later how it came to be. ’Tis far too long a tale right now. Two of you vote for the future. What think ye?” She eyed Britta.
“I agree with Jonathan. It seems if they’d passed this way moving deeper into the past, I’d sense something of Tarika, yet I havena felt aught.”
“Witch?” Arianrhod glanced at Maggie.
“Barely a witch as you pointed out earlier.” Maggie smiled, but it was mostly teeth without any warmth behind it. “I’ll do what everyone else thinks. I don’t know enough to be useful here.”
“Ye dinna like my comment about you coming late to your magic.”
“Not much.” Maggie shrugged. “But the shoe did fit. Let’s get out of here if we’re leaving. This place gives me the creeps.”
Jonathan privately agreed with Maggie’s assessment but kept his mouth shut. There was a sense of arcane magic in the time portal, with roots so deep it was unsettling. It took longer to move up the tunnel than it had to descend, almost as if something wanted them right where they were. Jonathan stole a glance at Arianrhod when he thought she wasn’t looking. Her forehead was creased with worry, but she smoothed her features as soon as she became aware of his eyes on her.
“How can you tell where we are?” he asked.
“Aye,” Britta cut in. “I would like to know too.”
“See yon nod
e?” Arianrhod pointed as they moved past it. “They are placed at intervals on both sides of the portal. Date ranges are carved into them, but ye need a certain magic to be able to read them. ’Tisn’t as exact as ye may like, which is why we set an anchor in the time we left.”
“We must have passed it,” Jonathan said. “For a long time, I felt it above us, but now it’s below.”
Arianrhod nodded. “Our first stop is coming up. Ye said not verra far into the future. I picked fifty or sixty years.”
“Pay attention.” Lachlan snapped. “Use your magic. I just sensed Kheladin.”
“Aye.” Britta sounded so excited Jonathan’s heart sped up for her. “Tarika came this way.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t been certain when he’d proposed the near future as a destination, yet his intuition had rarely failed him. If their luck held, they’d rescue the dragons and maybe be back in modern day Scotland in time for supper.
“In your dreams.” Arianrhod shot him a wry glance.
“Damn it! Stay out of my head.”
“Just remember, ye called me. Not the other way round. Get ready. I will instruct the portal to disgorge us.”
“Ready for what?” Maggie asked.
“Ye doona know what we will find, lass. ’Tisn’t the same world ye left. There may be things trying to kill you as soon as ye emerge. Keep your wards up and be vigilant. Otherwise, there may be more of you needing rescue than the dragons.”
“Will we still be in the British Isles?” Jonathan asked.
“Mayhap. Hard to say. The time tunnel has a mind of its own, which is why—”
“—we set an anchor,” Jonathan finished for her and earned himself a sour look.
“Doona be cocky. Ye still doona know much, and what little ye do know can get you killed.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
Arianrhod rounded on him. “Doona be calling me that.”
“She’s right.” Britta floated next to him. “Blood ties are strong. Our enemy could use the knowledge against us. They could make something from your blood to torture her or vice versa.”