Stone Dragon (The Painter Mage Book 5)

by D. K. Holmberg

  I pushed past Mac and stepped over to the door. Devan stood next to me. “Sense anything?” I asked her.

  “Nothing clear. There’s a power here… but you know how it is with the Elder, Ollie. He was able to mask what he did from me. Kinda pisses me off, if I’m honest.”

  I smiled. “Let’s see if we can’t figure out what he did here.”

  There were a few patterns I could try. One would be much like what I’d done in the Rooster, but I suspected I’d get much the same result. My father had a hand in both of these doors. This one should be simpler. It wasn’t meant to cross some distance. Or did it?

  I did the same as what I’d done while in the Rooster and ran my hand along the surface of the door. It was smooth and cool and surprisingly slick. At first, I sensed nothing. Then I felt the same low and steady humming of power I’d sensed from the door at the Rooster. Like there, it was steady, but some places had more than others, like surges or concentrations in the energy that had been placed on the door, holding it closed.

  The pattern formed in my mind as I ran my hand over the door. As it did, I smiled.

  “What?” Devan asked.

  “Oh, I think my father actually was making a joke with this,” I said.

  “Why?”

  In answer, I took a pinch of ink—going with blue again—and made a tracing on the door with the ink. Mac tried reaching for me to stop me, but Devan got in his way and blocked him out. She’s small, but feisty, as well as a hell of a lot more magically powerful than Mac.

  She glared at him, and he backed up a step. I made a point of suppressing my laugh. Mac had always been decent to me, not like some of the masters in Arcanus, but he still had that arrogant attitude about him, the same Hard had.

  As I finished the pattern, Lacey gasped. “You’re not supposed to use those—”

  I paused, my eyes skimming across the arcane pattern that mirrored the energy my father had used—a pattern none in Arcanus would have attempted—and turned to her. “Listen, if you think these are dangerous, I’ve got a few monsters I could show you that would prove just how tame this is.”

  Mac’s face was unreadable, and he watched as I pulled power through the pattern. With a flash of light, the pattern activated and the door opened with a soft snap.

  “Let’s go see what dear old dad might have been hiding in here,” I said.

  I pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  As I did, I felt the building energy at the same time as Devan did. She grabbed me, and we dove to the ground, rolling to the side. I had a charm in hand—the single shot—and pointed, my other hand dipping into a satchel of red ink.

  I couldn’t see what was on this side of the door. Power, but not painter power.

  Energy built again, targeting me.

  “Ollie—”

  “I’m on it,” I snapped.

  I scrawled a quick semicircle around me, cupped it toward the door to keep Mac and Lacey from getting hurt and then powered it, inverting it as I did. Whatever magical energy was out there hit the half circle and bounced off. Using an arcane pattern for protection took a bit more energy and focus—it was a trickier construct—but didn’t require a complete circle. I held the barrier as we were attacked and then pushed out.

  There was a flash of red, and I darted forward, holding the charm in my hand.

  Yellow light surged behind me, and my medallion went cold.

  Whatever was in here had some serious strength. I wondered if my father had locked something in or if whatever was here had triggered protections he’d built into the room. Either way, I had to finish it off before it got past me. Arcanus might have artists, but there wasn’t anyone here with enough experience to take on something with the kind of magical strength I sensed.

  I collided with something solid. I don’t know what it was, but it bounced away from me. There was a flurry of movement near the corner of the room. I tossed a handful of red ink into the air and infused it with a surge of power. Something like that wouldn’t do much more than create a haze of light, but that might be all I needed to see the damn thing.

  Then I saw it. It looked something like a twisted stick, with strange arms and legs poking out of each side, made of what reminded me of gnarled and weathered beach wood. Eyes were dark pits near the top of the stick. I pointed my charm at it and triggered.

  As I summoned power, Devan shouted at me.

  “No, Ollie!”

  The power fizzled, fading to nothing, leaving a slight electrical surge in the air. The wood creature hugged the back wall, scrambling back as if to get away from me. I’d already used the charm, so I hoped Devan knew what she was doing. I grabbed another in case she didn’t.

  Devan hurried over to the creature, her skin still glowing. She reached out a hand. The creature eyed it strangely, but Devan cooed softly to the thing.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  Devan kept her focus on the creature. “Dryad. They’re powerful and shy. I don’t know why your father would have kept one here.”

  “You’re sure that’s what it is? I mean, the damn thing attacked me.”

  The dryad made a motion with its arms, and a knot opened near the top where I suspected its mouth was. If it spoke, I couldn’t hear it.

  “It attacked because you’re not the Elder. I’ve told it that you’re his son. That seems to have helped.”

  I took another step into the room. As the Elder, my father had a series of rooms. The outer room was something like his study. There was a long dresser butted against one wall. A low desk with a chair in front of it rested near the door. A stout wooden trunk was in the corner near the dryad. There was no light in the room other than Devan’s glowing and the remaining light diffusing from the ink I’d dispersed in the air.

  My feet thudded against solid planks of wood making up the floor as I approached Devan. She had guided the dryad away from the wall, but it still watched me with those deep, hollowed eyes. When it spoke, it did so to Devan, and in a voice I couldn’t hear.

  “Why can’t I hear it?”

  “Because it doesn’t want you to,” she said.

  From anyone else, I would have laughed at the odd comment. Given that Devan had grown up around creatures like the dryad, I suspected she knew much more about it than how to speak to it. “Why is it here?”

  Devan whispered something. The way she did reminded me of how she spoke to the figurines she made, the way she breathed life into them. The dryad stared at me as it answered. Devan listened and then turned back to me. “It’s been waiting for the Elder to return.”

  “For how long?”

  “Time doesn’t mean much to the dryads. I don’t think it will be able to tell us anything.”

  “Try, Devan.”

  She shrugged and turned back to the dryad, whispering to it again. The dryad still watched me, rather than Devan as it answered.

  “So?”

  “It doesn’t know. From what it said, probably a few years.”

  Years. My father had left this creature here for years. Had he known he was going to be gone that long? Had he returned since I’d last seen him or had it been the full decade I’d been away? That seemed unlikely. When I’d last come to my father’s rooms, the dryad hadn’t been here. I would have known if it had. Hell, I wouldn’t have survived an attack back then.

  “Oliver?”

  “Shit,” I whispered. Mac was still waiting outside the door. Had he noticed that something had happened inside? Had Lacey? “Can you hide him?” I asked Devan.

  “Ollie, he’s been stuck in this room for long enough. We need to get him out of here.”

  “Maybe I could shrink him and then let him, you know, grow back when we leave.”

  Devan’s eyes widened. “No! You’re not using that thing on him. He only attacked because he thought he was threatened.”

  “You’re taking quite a liking to him,” I noted.

  Devan glared at me. “I feel the way he’s waited. I should have known
he was on the other side of the door, but I was too focused on trying to help you open the door.”

  “Fine,” I said, twisting to face the door to my father’s rooms. “Be ready for questions.”

  I stepped over the semicircle and wiped away the ink I’d used. In the chaos of the attack, the door to the room had closed, or maybe Devan or I had closed it. Either way, it blocked Mac and Lacey from seeing what had happened inside the room. That was probably for the best. I’d seen how Lacey had gone all goofy about the idea of me using arcane patterns and I’d seen Mac’s eyes as I’d triggered the door. He didn’t approve either.

  Pausing at the door, I glanced back at the dryad and flashed a smile. “Sorry about the attack, little guy,” I said.

  I couldn’t tell if he answered. From this side of the room, there was no need to trigger any pattern to open it. Nothing more than simple turning the handle. As I pulled it open, I froze. On the other side of the door stood Mac and Lacey, but there too was Hard. My mind told me it couldn’t be, that he’d been stranded on the other side of the Threshold, but here he was, no different than he’d ever been. And he looked pissed.

  9

  “What the…” I couldn’t even finish. I didn’t know how to finish. All this time, I’d been thinking Hard had disappeared across the Threshold, but maybe that was not true at all? Had Taylor lied to me—to us—about everything?

  “Escher Morris,” Hard snapped. He wore what looked something like a robe, with a hood pushed back and had his arms crossed over his chest. Dark hair was peppered with gray. Even his eyes had flints of gray within them and stared at me with the same mixture of irritation he’d always had. “You were banished from this place.”

  I opened my mouth, but words didn’t come out.

  “Why have you returned?” Hard continued.

  There was a part of me that expected him to change into some horrible creature, that whatever stood in front of me wasn’t Hard, but rather some replica of him like in the science fiction movies I’d been devouring since returning to Conlin.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” He looked from me to the door standing slightly ajar. I doubted he could see into the room, certainly not far enough to know about the dryad, but had Mac seen Devan flaring her magic? That would bring up a whole fleet of questions, though the dryad would do much the same.

  “What the hell, Hard?” I finally managed. I turned to Mac. “I thought he was lost. Or dead.”

  Mac’s eyes narrowed. “You thought Hard was dead? Is that what she told you?”

  I thought about what Taylor had said. I’m pretty damn sure she’d told me it was Hard who had crossed the doorway and been lost. And Hard was her father. She wouldn’t have had any reason to lie to me about that, would she?

  Unless it had never been Hard. She’d said Hard disappeared, but she’d also lied about other things. Had she lied about Ash?

  “Where’s Ash?” I asked, looking from Mac to Hard and then over at Lacey.

  Lacey’s eyes widened slightly, and she turned away, staring at the ground.

  “He’s gone, isn’t he? She didn’t lie about that, did she?” I said.

  Hard’s eyes narrowed. “She? Who is Escher talking about?”

  Mac took a deep breath. “It seems Oliver,” he said, making a point of emphasizing my preferred name, “met Taylor.”

  Lacey jerked her head up and met my eyes. “You know where Taylor is?” she asked.

  The hope in her voice nearly undid me. “Yeah, I said. Last I saw her, she was safe.” That wasn’t totally a lie. I couldn’t tell Lacey the truth, not with the way she looked at me, begging for hope. “And she told me Hard and Ash had gone missing. Now I’m starting to think she wasn’t completely honest with me. So what is the truth?”

  Mac glanced over at Lacey. “I don’t know why she would have told you Hard disappeared.”

  “And Ash?” I stared at Hard, figuring at least part of what Taylor had told me must have been true. She’d drawn the hall of doors accurately at least.

  “Ash was lost,” Mac said softly.

  I considered each of them in turn, finally setting on Lacey. I thought Taylor had said Hard was her father, but maybe that wasn’t the case. She’d wanted my help when she came to Conlin, at least after we’d cornered her. That meant she needed to get me to agree to help. She mustn’t have known Hard and I didn’t get along, but Ash and I? That was pretty well known, especially since he was the one who’d actually thrown me out of Arcanus. If she wanted help, she wouldn’t have asked me to help the one person most responsible for leaving. So she hid that fact, sharing it only later and making it seem like Ash was dead.

  “Damn. Ash is your father, isn’t he?” I asked Lacey.

  She didn’t look up at me as she nodded.

  I laughed bitterly, and Hard glared at me. “You think it amusing Ash is gone? That one of the Arcanus Masters disappeared while conducting studies? Should we have laughed when your father died?”

  I turned on Hard. He might have years on me—given the slow way painters age, I didn’t know how many—but he no longer had the experience advantage he’d once had. Back when I’d studied here, I had feared Hard. Most did. Other than my father, he was considered one of the most skilled painters. Had there never been the Elder, he would have led Arcanus easily. So when Hard made a point of telling me I wasn’t worthy of learning specific patterns, or that I couldn’t handle the techniques needed, I had listened. Had I remained in Arcanus, I would have remained nothing more than a tagger.

  “I don’t even know when he died, Hard.” Hard started to open his mouth, but I shut it by point my finger at him. “And neither do you. How long have you tried getting into his room? Since the moment he disappeared? It must piss you off I show up and manage to open the door within minutes.” I stepped toward him. “You might be surprised how much you can learn when you leave Arcanus, Hard. Why do you think the Elder made a point of leaving as often as he did? You think he stayed tied here?”

  Considering what I now knew of my father, I began to doubt he’d ever spent much time in Arcanus. Maybe only enough to teach.

  But then why had he come here? There had to be a reason. Not only that he served on the Protariat, but something else. It was the reason I’d risked returning. If I could learn anything that would help me understand what the Wasdig expected of me, then I needed to do so quickly.

  “You’re as much a fool as you were when you studied here, Escher.”

  “It’s Oliver,” I snapped.

  Hard snorted. “You won’t even accept the name the Elder gave you.”

  “That’s funny, considering I’m talking to someone who goes by the name Hard.”

  Hard glared at me and then turned to Mac. “Send him away, Mac. See him from this place before he does any damage.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m going to see what things my father might have left for me. And then I might have a look around the library. After I’m done there, then I’ll get going.”

  Hard stepped toward me. “You will leave Arcanus, Escher.”

  If I left, I would have learned nothing more than that my father had kept a dryad in his room. Maybe there was something there that would help us understand the Wasdig and the Zdrn, but I doubted it would be enough to know what would be expected of me and better yet, how to survive it. I needed time, and I needed for Hard to give me space to figure out what I was to do.

  The only problem—well, maybe not the only problem—was that Hard could be an ass. There was only one way to deal with an ass like Hard, and that was to show him how little he might know.

  “Tell me, Hard. Have you ever crossed the Threshold? Have you fought next to the Te’alan against the Druist Mage? Have you ever battled hunters, creatures trained to kill painters, and survived?” I met his gaze. “I have. And now I’m on the Protariat, for better or worse, and I need to know what my father might have stored that can help me understand just what the fuck I’m supposed to be doing!”r />
  It all came out in a bit of a rush, more than I had expected. Maybe I’d gone too far. Likely, Hard wouldn’t believe half of what I said anyway. I don’t know that I would believe if I were confronted by it, and I had lived enough now I understood how little I truly knew.

  Surprisingly, Hard’s face changed. The tension around his eyes softened. The lines on his brow eased. And he nodded. “You were chosen to sit on the Protariat?”

  I don’t know what surprised me the most: that he chose to focus on the last thing I mentioned, ignoring the crazy that preceded it, or that he had heard of the Protariat. Before a few weeks ago, I knew nothing about it.

  “Um, I guess so,” I answered. All the confidence had drained from me.

  “How?” Hard asked.

  Mac watched silently. Lacey wore a look of confusion on her face, one Mac didn’t share. Had I been wrong about that too? Did the Arcanus masters know more than I realized?

  “I claimed Conlin. Threatened the Trelking.”

  Hard glanced at Mac, and they nodded.

  “Come,” Hard said. “We need to talk.”

  We sat in a decent sized room with a large circular table made of a dense wood much like the door to my father’s room. The walls of stone were bare other than a few decorative items. It took me a moment to recognize the patterns twisted into the decorations. Two lanterns hanging on the wall glowed with yellow light. Not electric and not fire, they seemed fueled by a pattern pressed into the base. The air of the room was still and humid. The entire place had an ancient air to it.

  I’d never been in this room. I’d never even been in this section of Arcanus. When Mac and Hard had led me here, I felt a nervous fluttering, as if I were being led someplace dangerous. The only thing that gave me any comfort was the knowledge I probably now knew more offensive magic than either of the two Masters.

  Devan had remained behind in my father’s room, keeping the dryad hidden. I’d made a point of closing the door so that someone else couldn’t open it. They’d need to know the pattern. Mac had seen me draw it, but I wasn’t sure if he would be able to replicate an arcane pattern like that. Lacey was still too early in her training, but if she were anything like her sister, she would have potential, if she didn’t have it now.