Broken Dragon (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 3)

by D. W. Moneypenny

  Diana caught Mara’s eye and gave her a warning expression.

  Mara rolled her eyes and said to Ned’s back, “I’ve been given to understand that the medallion works as a metaphysical prism of sorts, reflecting and refracting the energy of its keeper, if you will. However, it takes time before its effects are detectable.”

  “Interesting. To what end does the medallion do this?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Mara was caught off guard.

  “For what purpose does the medallion redirect and refract your energy?”

  “Ah, it is designed to give insight into your, well, into the facets of your consciousness on other planes of existence.”

  Diana smirked at her daughter, as they approached a large woodshed at the end of the fenced lot that made up the backyard. A security light at the corner of the building winked on, illuminating the path that led to a small door at its center. When they arrived, Ned pulled out a set of keys and lifted the padlock dangling above the doorknob. Once it was unlocked, he opened the door, reached to the right and flipped on the inside lights.

  He walked around to the far side of a workbench that stood in the middle of the floor and ran the length of the building. “Come on in,” he said. “I’ve got it over here in this toolbox.” He walked toward a large metal chest of drawers.

  Mara scanned the inside of the building, and admired the range of tools and appliances sitting on shelves and hanging from the low rafters. Many of the devices she could not identify, which surprised her.

  “Are all these tools used for jewelry and working with metal?” she asked.

  “Oh, there’s a little bit of everything out here.” He pointed to several shelves and corners of the building. “Over there is woodworking saws, routers, and back there is a kiln for ceramics. Most of the stuff on the table I use for the metal and stonework.”

  He turned from the tool chest and approached the workbench, handing the copper medallion to Mara. “Here it is. I was hoping to experience the same vibe with this as the original, but it just didn’t seem to have the same spiritual oomph to it. I sensed nothing from this.”

  It was an exact duplicate. Mara would not have been able to distinguish it from the original. It covered her palm, just like the other one. She hefted it up and down, feeling its weight. Exactly the same. She ran her fingers over the blue azurite crystals that surrounded the center sunstone, then stroked the symbols between them, the symbols Ping had taught her represented the elements of perception and the elements of reality. She was amazed at how accurately Ned had recreated the Chronicle.

  “This is absolutely astounding. It’s an exact duplicate,” she said, almost reverently.

  He smiled at her and rubbed a finger over the face of the medallion “You seem to be getting more from it than I did. Perhaps you are more attuned to these runes than I am.”

  Mara continued to stare at it. “Perhaps.”

  “I would like you to have it,” Ned said.

  “Oh, I was just hoping to borrow it, until we can recover the original. Would that be possible?”

  “If you prefer, but I will probably just end up melting it down at some point for the metal and stones.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to destroy it. What if we just bought it from you now instead of waiting?” Mara said, looking to her mother for support. Diana nodded.

  “I couldn’t charge you for it. Even with the copper and gems, the materials didn’t even add up to a hundred dollars,” he said.

  “What about your time?” Diana asked.

  “If I wasn’t working on that, I would have been doing something else. It isn’t as if it took me away from doing the things I love.” He pantomimed, pushing it toward Mara. “Go ahead and take it. I insist.”

  “It’s a pretty Chronicle,” Hannah said.

  Ned smiled at her. “Is that what you call it, a Chronicle?”

  “The Chronicle,” Hannah corrected, then added, as if it explained her credibility on the subject, “I’m from the future.”

  Mara’s throat tightened, and she choked out a cough. Diana laughed nervously.

  Ned didn’t seem to be put off a bit and replied, “Well, as old as I am, I guess you could say, I’m from the past.”

  CHAPTER 46

  Ping’s Camry was parked at the curb in front of the Lantern house when Diana turned into the driveway. Sam was just emerging from the passenger side, and the interior lights of the car came on. Leaning down over the passenger seat so he could be seen, Ping waved but didn’t get out of the car. Mara jogged over to his window, and he lowered it.

  “Why don’t you come in for dinner? We can catch up now that you are out of the hospital,” she said. “I’ve got a few things I’d like to pick your brain about.”

  “That’s very kind of you, but, to be honest, I’m ready to have a quiet evening at home. It’s been a while since I’ve had one of those,” Ping said, smiling, but his eyes looked tired. “How about, if you come by the bakery tomorrow, I’ll make us some sandwiches for lunch?”

  “That works,” she said. “You’re okay though? No lingering symptoms from the events of the other night? No rumblings from you-know-who, right?”

  “I’m fine, and I think the dragon is asleep for the duration, a notion that strikes me as a wonderful idea.”

  Mara lightly tapped the roof of the car and stepped back, as Ping pulled away from the curb. She watched his brake lights brighten at the end of the block, and stood there until the car turned at the corner and disappeared into the night.

  “Hey, are you coming in?” Sam yelled, standing in the open front door. Everyone else had already gone inside.

  Mara jogged up the driveway and the porch steps. Sam turned to go in, but Mara grabbed his arm and pulled him back outside the door.

  “Hey, did you know Hannah will be gone before Christmas?” she asked.

  Sam looked mildly confused. “What?”

  “She says I told her that she would be back in the future before Christmas. Did she ever tell you that?”

  “No, but I never asked her when she expected to return. I guess it never occurred to me,” he said. “Let’s go in. It’s getting chilly out here.”

  Mara stuck her head in the door to see if anyone was in the living room. It appeared Diana and Hannah either went upstairs or into the kitchen. She waved Sam forward into the house. As she took off her jacket and hung it on the coat tree, she said, “Don’t you think it’s odd that she never told us?”

  “Not particularly. If we didn’t think to ask her, why should she have thought to tell us? She is only five years old, you know.”

  “Yes, Mom keeps reminding me of that,” she said.

  Sam handed his coat to her, and she put it over her own on the coat tree. “Does it freak you out that she may be leaving soon? It seems like you’ve gotten used to having her around, even if it’s only been for nine days.”

  “As long as she gets back okay, I think I’ll adjust. I mean, I’ve got to be better prepared to be a good father in the future than I am right now. Don’t you think?” he said.

  “You’ve held your own just fine, considering the circumstances,” she said.

  They walked toward the couch in the living room, when Mara stopped suddenly and held up a finger. She turned on her heel, walked back to the coat tree and dug under Sam’s coat to get to her own. After a moment she returned to the couch where Sam sat and handed him the medallion Ned had fabricated.

  “Wow, this is a copy?” he said.

  Mara nodded. “You can’t even tell the difference, can you?”

  “Not at all. If you had told me that you had the original back, I would have believed you,” he said.

  From the staircase, they heard Hannah clattering down the steps, talking loudly to her nana, whose regular, modulated footfalls trailed after her. Mara and Sam looked to the living room entryway just as the little girl bounded into the room with a shopping bag and announced, “I bought you brand new T-shirts!”

  S
he sat down the bag directly in front of the fireplace and reached into it, her head disappearing inside for a second. After she straightened, she held a wad of black fabric out to them.

  Sam took the shirts and asked, “Where did you get the money to buy us T-shirts, bean?”

  “We didn’t need money. Nana let me use her credit card.”

  Mara laughed. “That’s how I avoid the whole money thing too.”

  Sam handed her one of the shirts, and Diana spoke from the entryway, where she leaned against the frame. “Hold them up. Let’s see.”

  Mara shook the shirt in front of her and then held it up to her shoulders. “Whattaya think?” she asked.

  Sam snorted and said, “Perfect.”

  Mara looked down at the shirt emblazoned with a cartoon boy riding a dragon over the words How to Train Your Dragon.

  * * *

  Mara sat cross-legged at the head of her bed, staring down at the duplicate Chronicle of Creation. She wondered if it was possible for this copy to be used to display the three-dimensional sphere that represented a map of the realms. It seemed odd that it would be as simple as that, even if Ping persisted on saying that the copper medallion had no power, that the ability to see and cross between realms came from a progenitor, not this ornate thingamabob.

  She had hoped her mother would be willing to sit down with her and meditate, help Mara focus enough to see if she could actually conjure up the big blue bubble. However, Diana wanted nothing to do with the device, which was not surprising, considering her last interaction with it had led to her body being taken over by her counterpart from another realm. Not only had her mother refused to help with the Chronicle, she had banished Mara and Sam from the living room, after putting Hannah down for the night. Diana then meditated but not over the Chronicle.

  A knock came at her bedroom door, and Sam cracked it open enough to speak without shouting through it. “What did you want to talk to me about?” he asked.

  “Come on in,” Mara said. “I wanted to talk about this.” She pointed to the Chronicle.

  Sam entered the room and said, “Okay, what about it?”

  “Originally I assumed Mom would sit with me, while I tried to activate it, just to see if it would work, but she begged off, saying it gave her the heebie-jeebies after all that happened before,” she said. “Anyway it occurred to me that it might be a better idea for you to be here with me while I try. Would you mind?” She pointed to the foot of her queen-size bed on the other side of the Chronicle, inviting him to take a seat.

  “Sure, I guess.” He shrugged and took his place across from her. “Why do you need anyone at all? I mean, you’ve activated the Chronicle on your own several times before, right?”

  “Yes, but this isn’t the actual Chronicle, and I suppose I thought having someone around for encouragement would increase the likelihood that it would work,” she said.

  “Bag the encouragement, sis. I’ll just prompt you to do it, then you’ll see that you have the ability, and we can all get along with our lives. After all, Ping said it’s just a talisman, and the ability to use it comes from you. Why sit around fretting about it, when we can just do it, no fuss, no muss?” Sam said.

  Mara shook her head. “No, I hate when you do that. It makes me feel weak and needy.”

  “Well, stop being weak and needy, and I’ll stop prompting you.”

  Mara gritted her teeth. “Don’t be a jerk.”

  Sam held up his hands above his head and said. “Make a bubble, sis, and I’ll stop being a jerk. I promise.”

  “Sometimes I forget you’re a little brother, and then there are times like now …” she said.

  Ignoring her, he closed his eyes and placed his hands in the dhyana mudra, the classic meditation posture, in which his arms rested along his crossed legs and the fingers of his right hand rested atop his left, while the tips of his thumbs touched.

  “Nice form. Have you and Mom been practicing behind my back?” she said, taking the position herself.

  Sam opened one eye and said, “Are we doing this or what?”

  “All right, all right. I’m getting with the program. Give me a minute to get my wits about me.”

  They sat in silence for several minutes, while Mara concentrated on not being peeved at her brother. Once her heart rate settled, she tried to envision the translucent blue sphere erupting from the copper medallion. She couldn’t get the picture to come into her mind. She kept recalling the events in Stella Reese’s kitchen earlier that day, the way the sphere looked and acted on that occasion. It was subtly different, the black tear inside the bubble, how Abby walked out of it, the way she seemed to draw energy from the periphery of bubble to display the molten ball of glowing mercury, even how the nodes and lines appeared at the twitch of her wrist. It was all different, like she had more control or practice. Maybe Mara was doing it wrong.

  Sam cleared his throat.

  Mara narrowly opened one eye to see him staring back at her, exasperated.

  “Exactly how long do you guess this will take?” he asked.

  “We’ve only been at this for a minute or two.”

  He shook his head and glanced over at the digital alarm clock on the nightstand. “It’s been just shy of twenty minutes since I closed my eyes. I about fell asleep.”

  “Really? I guess I got distracted thinking about this afternoon.”

  “What happened this afternoon?”

  Mara closed her eyes and said, “Later. Let’s do this.”

  “Maybe it would help if you held the Chronicle in your palm. Isn’t that how you normally use it?” Sam nodded toward the medallion lying on the bed.

  Mara opened her eyes. “You know, that’s true. Maybe that’s my problem.” She picked it up and held it in front of her. She slowly closed her eyes and concentrated again.

  “Isn’t there something you say before you got it to activate, some kind of incantation or something?”

  “Don’t let Ping hear you say that. You know how he gets about all the magic references. But, yes, I used to say something to activate it, but it really wasn’t necessary.”

  “Looks like it might be necessary now, ’cause I’m not seeing a blue bubble, sis.”

  Her eyes snapped open and said, “Maybe if you would stop haranguing me, I could get it to work.” She looked down at the medallion and said, “Show me creation.”

  The Chronicle floated a few inches above her palm and spun, its blue crystals emitting a blue light that smeared into bright circular tracks. Then it flipped vertically while it spun, turning into a blur. A brilliant light radiated from it, and the floating medallion transformed into the familiar roiling ball of shining mercury.

  Mara smiled. It was working.

  The bubble burst from the molten ball, but as it passed through Sam to fill the room, his body disintegrated into a mass of shiny cubes, pixels that flew in every direction. Before panic could take hold, Mara watched the pixels come back together, reassemble themselves.

  But not into the familiar profile of her brother. Sam was gone.

  In his place, sitting across from Mara in the center of the transparent blue bubble was another Mara, with a stern expression on her face.

  CHAPTER 47

  Having forgotten she was sitting at the head of her bed, Mara attempted to jump to her feet and lost her balance, stumbling backward and crashing into the wall above the headboard, setting off several electrical snaps, as her head and arm passed through the edge of the static sphere that filled the room. She gave up trying to reestablish her balance and tumbled to the mattress, landing on her side, splayed across the pillows. Clawing at the bedspread, she pulled herself up into a sitting position and demanded, “What have you done with my brother?”

  The other Mara raised a finger and drew a circle in the air, pointed to the bubble around them. “Does anything look different to you?”

  “Answer my question,” Mara said. “Where is Sam?”

  Her counterpart’s eyes looked upward, a
s if she were solving a difficult puzzle, and in a mocking tone said, “Let me see. How would Sam explain it to you?” She paused and tapped her cheek with an index finger. After a moment she said, “Ah, pixels. That will work.”

  Mara leaned forward, reaching out, and said, “Bring him back now!”

  The other Mara dodged her and raised her hands in warning. “Even though I’m not using my own body at the moment, it might be a mistake for you to touch me. I’m not sure if it will set off an explosion or not. Just calm down, and I’ll explain everything. I’m not here to harm you or Sam.”

  Mara drew back and fell against the pillows. “What do you mean, you’re not using your own body?”

  “I guess you could say that I borrowed Sam’s pixels for a few minutes, so we could talk,” she said. “Don’t worry. He won’t be harmed, and I have no desire to stay here any longer than necessary,” she said.

  “You’ve placed your consciousness inside Sam’s body?”

  Her counterpart shrugged. “That’s as good an explanation as any. I didn’t want to just show up and have a prompter start telling me what to do.”

  “So where is Sam right now?”

  “He’s still in here somewhere, but I’m sort of in the driver’s seat for the moment. I was going to park him in another realm somewhere, but, with all the riffraff running around, I wasn’t so sure how safe that would be. Believe me, he’ll be as good as new, when we are done talking.”

  “So talk,” Mara said.

  Her counterpart waved her finger in a circular motion above their heads again. “Have you noticed anything different recently?”

  Mara glanced upward, into the blue haze that surrounded them. Black contrails of fading mist crisscrossed the inside of the bubble, some leading to a particular node, others seemed to fade into nothingness. All of them appeared to be coming from the node directly above Mara’s head, almost as if something sooty had been dragged across the air, polluting and corrupting the clear blue static of the bubble.

  She shook her head. “I’ve not seen that before, but it has been a few days since I’ve interacted with the Chronicle. What is it?”