The Dragon of Trelian

by Michelle Knudsen

  She watched him taking in her words, watched him accept that she was right. No harm in one last little push, though. “Besides,” she added, putting the journal down beside her and offering Calen that hand, too. “Don’t forget I’ve got Jakl’s strength, too. Surely between the two of us, we can lend you enough to send your little mind-message to Mage Serek.”

  Calen smiled at her choice of words. Then he nodded and took her other hand. “All right.”

  He closed his eyes. After a second, Meg closed her eyes, too. She reached out for Jakl and felt him awaken to her attention. Then they waited together.

  She felt a tentative brush at the edge of her awareness. Calen, trying to find his way. She tried to make herself steady and open so he could take what he needed. For Maerlie, she reminded herself. And for all of us. She didn’t know if Jakl could possibly understand what they were trying to do, but she felt him behind her, supporting her, ready to lend her strength. And then, slowly, she felt a sort of . . . drawing out. It was strange, but not unpleasant. Something was flowing from her, through her hands, into Calen’s. Into Calen. He inhaled sharply but didn’t pull away. Whatever he was doing, it worked fast; she felt weaker already but made sure not to let it show. She knew Calen would stop instantly if he thought he was taking too much from her.

  Softly, like the barest whisper, she felt him reaching out to Serek. The mage responded instantly, as if he’d been waiting. His sending was stronger; she could actually hear his words in her head. Calen, where — he seemed to stumble, and she sensed his attention directed her way. Who — Idiot boy, what are you playing at? You can’t —

  With an effort, Calen broke into his master’s exasperated tirade. Meg’s perspective was so . . . odd. She could feel Calen feeling his way through the spell, learning how to send the words almost as he spoke them. Can you help us? We have proof. But she’s coming. . . .

  Serek’s anger and frustration cut off abruptly. Stay there. I’ll find you. Don’t reach out to me again. Then the connection was gone.

  “Wow,” Meg murmured, suddenly exhausted. “He’s angry a lot, isn’t he?”

  “Meg? Meg!” He released her hands at once, nearly pushing them away. “Meg, are you all right? Did I — did I hurt you?”

  She shook her head carefully. “No. No, I’m all right.” She smiled thinly, wanting to reassure him. He didn’t need to know she had been on the edge of losing consciousness for a moment there. Now that he’d let go and stopped the flow of — whatever it was — he had been taking from her, she thought she’d be all right. She felt Jakl gather himself protectively around her and sent him a burst of gratitude through the link. “That magic stuff really does take a lot out of you, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, well . . .” He was still searching her face, trying to make sure she was really okay. “It gets easier with practice.”

  “So now . . . we wait?”

  He nodded. Then he gave her a tired half-smile. “Care to place a wager on who finds us first?”

  She thought for a minute. “My money’s on Mage Serek. Seems the safest choice. Besides, if I’m wrong, we probably won’t be alive long enough for you to collect.”

  Calen barked a short laugh and shook his head, but he didn’t say anything else. He picked up the diary again, looking through the various notes and diagrams. Meg shifted so she was sitting beside him, then closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder. It was almost peaceful, sitting in the dark on the cold stone floor, waiting to see what would happen next. She was too tired to be terrified. She hoped Calen was too tired to be terrified, too. She hoped Sen Eva was too tired to find them. Actually, she hoped Sen Eva tripped in the dark and fell down some hole into the deepest levels of the dungeons, where no one would ever discover her. Well, no, that wouldn’t work, because they wouldn’t know what had happened and so they’d have to keep worrying about whether she would show up eventually. Better to hope that she fell out a window and impaled herself on a pointy fence post in front of the castle where everyone could gather around and watch her die a slow and horribly painful death. Or perhaps —

  “Slaarh,” Calen said suddenly.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “That’s what Sen Eva said to the portal mage, didn’t she? Something about the army of slaarh and men trained to handle them?”

  She tried to remember. “Yes, I think so. Do you know what those are?”

  “I think that’s what those monsters are called. Look.” She opened her eyes and looked at the pages of the diary he was holding in front of her. Along with a detailed list of instructions she didn’t understand, there was a rough sketch of a creature that looked very much like the garden monster and the thing that had attacked them in the air. “So that’s what we saw,” she said. “An army of slaarh. Coming to kill everyone or whatever that terrible portal man intends them to do. Wonderful.”

  “I think Sen Eva is responsible for bringing them here. I mean, I don’t think they’re natural creatures. I think she summoned them from somewhere else. These instructions talk more about portals, and how to bring things through. . . .” He trailed off, reading.

  Meg frowned. “So why doesn’t she just bring the portal mage through as well? That’s what he wants, isn’t it?”

  “There must be more to it than that. Maybe the monsters come from someplace that’s easier to reach or something.”

  Suddenly she realized what he was saying. “When you say ‘somewhere else,’ you don’t just mean another country or some distant island across the ocean, do you?”

  He shook his head. “No. I mean someplace that’s not part of this world.”

  Not part of this world. “She’s very powerful, isn’t she, Calen?”

  “It seems she is.”

  “And she learned everything from a book?”

  “You can learn a lot from a book,” he said. “I’ve been discovering that myself over the past few weeks. But with that other mage teaching her as well . . . that would explain why she’s able to do the things she can do.”

  “He doesn’t seem to have been a very good influence,” Meg said. “He’s even more evil than she is. Those things he said. I wonder what he meant about Queen Lysetta.” There had been scores of theories about what had happened to Lysetta, but she was pretty certain none of them had involved a secret portal mage with a diabolical plan to take over the world, or whatever he was planning. She wondered if he’d lured Lysetta down into that secret passage somehow, tricking her or threatening her or promising her something she wanted like he seemed to be doing with Sen Eva. Or maybe he’d had other helpers back then who carried out his orders and trapped the poor young queen alone and frightened in that dark and secret cell. . . .

  A movement in the darkness caught Meg’s eye and wrenched her back to the present. Her heart pounded painfully within her chest, and she realized with profound regret that she was not, in fact, too tired to be terrified, after all.

  Calen had seen it too; she felt him stiffen beside her. They didn’t bother to speak or move. If it was Sen Eva, they were already dead. It seemed to take forever for the dark shape to materialize into the welcome form of Mage Serek.

  “How —” Calen began, but fell silent immediately at his master’s sharp shake of his head. Wordlessly Calen rose to his feet, then bent to help Meg to hers. Standing was much harder than she would have liked. Calen reached an arm around her waist and supported as much of her weight as he could. As soon as they were up, Serek turned and began to walk swiftly and silently back the way he had come. Calen and Meg followed as quickly as they could.

  Calen was practically carrying her, yet it took all her strength and concentration to keep moving forward. This wouldn’t do; if they encountered any trouble, neither of them would be able to run or fight this way. Jakl had rested; he could probably help to strengthen her again. Closing her eyes, she tried to draw on the link. But although she could sense the dragon’s energy, it didn’t seem to help. Whatever Calen had taken from her had left her
weak in a way that Jakl’s strength could not restore.

  Mage Serek led them down another dark hallway that looked just the same as all the other dark hallways, then stopped and touched the wall. A panel slid open, creating a doorway into — of course — another dark hallway. Serek waved them through and then stepped in, closing the panel behind them. Meg felt annoyance try to well up inside her; why didn’t she know about these secret passages? She’d lived here a lot longer than Serek. But she was definitely too exhausted to deal with that now. She made a mental note to be annoyed about it later and kept moving.

  Several dark hallways later, Calen suddenly stopped. Meg’s eyes fluttered open — she had been relying on Calen to guide her, and besides, there wasn’t really anything to see down here anyway — and she looked ahead. And up. And up. At the enormous spiral staircase winding tightly and endlessly up into the gloom. She fought the urge to mutter something very unladylike and looked over at Calen. He was looking back at her, concerned. As usual. “You know,” she whispered with a small smile, “if you keep that up, eventually your face is going to freeze that way.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.” She shook her head wearily. “I can’t do this.”

  “Can’t Jakl —?”

  “I already tried. It’s a different sort of weakness. He can’t seem to help.”

  Mage Serek had already begun to climb. “Serek,” Calen called softly after him.

  Serek turned back impatiently. He really was always in a bad mood, it seemed. Or at least at the edge of one. There was no need to explain; Meg could see him taking in the situation with a glance. He hesitated, then lifted one hand and waved it before him, palm facing out.

  Meg’s exhaustion abruptly vanished. She gasped with the sudden shock of it. It wasn’t completely gone, not all of it — she was still tired — but it was the kind of tired you could force yourself to overcome.

  Serek had already continued moving up the stairs. Meg took a breath and started up herself. Calen followed a few steps behind her. He seemed to have benefited from Serek’s spell as well. She wasn’t sure how long they went on that way, like ghosts drifting silently through the walls of the castle. She tried not to think about anything except putting one foot in front of the other, moving ever closer to whatever destination Serek was leading them to. Surely her and Calen’s work was done now and the adults would take over, anyway. She didn’t think she had ever been more ready to hand over responsibility to someone else. Maybe one day she’d be fully capable of handling this kind of thing, but not yet. She was still too young, too inexperienced, too . . . tired — gods, when were these stairs ever going to end? She risked a glance up and almost collided with Mage Serek, who had stopped on the landing that was now directly before her. A second later, Calen bumped into her from behind. Meg turned to grab and steady him as he lost his balance on the narrow steps and nearly fell backward down into the darkness. Calen swallowed and squeezed her hand gratefully. Serek shook his head in weary disgust, then turned and opened the small door at the edge of the landing.

  They emerged into the open air. Meg blinked in the sudden brightness of the day. The afternoon sky was overcast, but after the endless darkness of the lower levels of the castle, it was like walking out onto the surface of the sun.

  “Where are we?” she asked Serek in amazement.

  “We’re above the North Tower,” he answered calmly. “You can look over the edge to see for yourself, but be careful about it; we don’t want to draw attention to either your own sudden return or the presence of this place.”

  Meg crept forward and peeked over the edge of the stone wall that ringed the flat, open tower rooftop surface. The view was amazing; she could see everything from up here. Calen made a small, horrified sound beside her and sank to the ground. His face was slightly green.

  Meg turned back toward Serek and opened her mouth to begin telling him about what they’d found, since it was apparently all right to talk out here, but he raised a hand to stop her before she got a word out. “Wait,” he said. “Your parents and sisters will be here momentarily. You can tell us everything at the same time.”

  Her family. Suddenly she was overwhelmed with a desperate need to see them. To see them and touch them and tell them everything. No more secrets.

  So they waited. Soon enough the door opened, and before she even had a moment to be terrified that it could be Sen Eva, Maerlie stepped into view, followed an instant later by Morgan, her mother, and her father. Meg didn’t know if she had ever seen a more welcome sight. She rushed forward, feeling smaller and younger with each step, until by the time she reached Maerlie she was sure she had become a little child again, wishing for nothing other than to be swept into her sister’s safe and welcoming arms.

  Maer did indeed sweep her into a fierce hug, but a second later was pushing her away to arm’s length, glaring at her with a mix of fury and relief and love and confusion and pain. And then she was pushed aside by Morgan and Mother and Father, and for a moment Meg was blissfully lost within the resulting tangle of arms and faces and bodies and group hugs in various combinations. Finally a quiet cough from Serek’s general direction broke up the little reunion. Calen had gotten back to his feet and was now standing patiently beside his master. He was making a valiant effort to hide it, but she couldn’t help but notice the wistful expression on his face as he watched her with her family. As the two groups converged in the center of the tower space, Meg went to stand beside Calen, taking his hand firmly in her own. He was her family too, even if he didn’t realize it. She would have to make sure he did come to realize it and that he was duly welcomed by the others. Calen and Jakl both.

  SOMEONE MUST HAVE BROUGHT THE KING and queen up to date, Calen realized, because they didn’t seem at all surprised to see Meg — happy, certainly, and relieved, and concerned, but not surprised — or shocked at any of the significant words and phrases Meg was cautiously mentioning in the course of her explanation . . . words like magic, and traitor, and murder, and even dragon. He wondered who that lovely responsibility had fallen to. Morgan, probably. He did not envy her.

  Serek had led them all over to a shaded area with square and circular stone structures that Calen guessed were meant to function as chairs or tables or whatever anyone wanted them to be. Currently they were chairs. He sat quietly beside Meg, nodding or adding details when she asked him to but otherwise letting her have the telling of it. The spell Serek had worked at the base of the stairs was still in effect; Meg still looked a little tired, but she was definitely more her old self than she had been before, with her inner strength practically shining from her as she told the others about what they had seen in Sen Eva’s room. Serek was paging through the diary as he listened, occasionally lifting an eyebrow or shaking his head slightly in what Calen interpreted to be extreme shock or astonishment at something he read.

  “So I don’t know what we should do at this point,” Meg said now. “Sen Eva knows she’s been discovered, and she certainly must suspect Calen and me, even if she doesn’t know for sure. I don’t see how she can proceed with her original plan now, but I can’t imagine she’s just going to give up, either.”

  “She cannot give up,” Serek said without raising his eyes from the book. “She must succeed or die. She has left all other choices far behind.”

  “So the choices are ours, then,” Meg’s father said firmly. “We must decide how to act, and quickly. She will not allow us much time to debate.”

  Everyone fell silent for a moment, reflecting on this. Calen wondered if Meg noticed the way her family kept stealing glances at her, almost as if they weren’t entirely certain who she was. He could sympathize. He was constantly aware of the ways in which Meg was different — more — than before, and he’d been with her while she changed. Her sisters and parents were seeing all the changes at once. Only Serek seemed unfazed. As usual.

  “What choices do we have?” asked Maerlie. She seemed remarkably composed for someone who had recent
ly learned she was the target of a murder plot. “Mage Serek, do you feel there’s enough evidence against Sen Eva to alert the Magistratum?”

  “Oh yes,” said Serek, still without looking up. “There is no question that the woman’s been practicing unmarked. And some very questionable practices, at that. It will take time for the council to act, however. I do not think we can wait and do nothing in the meantime.”

  “Agreed,” said the queen. “Which brings us back to the question of what to do.”

  “We must detain her somehow,” said the king. “Mage Serek, is there some way to prevent her from performing magic? Something you can do, perhaps?”

  “If I could take her by surprise, I might be able to temporarily incapacitate her,” Serek said. “But taking her by surprise at this point seems unlikely.”

  “What about Wilem?” Calen asked suddenly. All eyes turned to him, except Serek’s, which were still locked on the book. Calen swallowed nervously and went on. “He wasn’t with her; he might not know yet what’s happened. What if we could get to him before she does?”

  Meg got it instantly. “That’s brilliant, Calen!” she said. “We can arrest him first and use him as leverage to get her to cooperate.”

  Maerlie looked shocked. “You’re talking about using him as a hostage!”

  “Well, yes!” said Meg, raising her voice ominously. Calen didn’t think the others appreciated yet how strongly her anger at Wilem burned inside her. “Maerlie, he was going to kill you. Kill you and frame Prince Ryant and plunge our kingdoms back into war! How can you hesitate for even a second?”

  “It’s just, I don’t —” Maerlie looked to Morgan and her parents. “We don’t do that sort of thing, do we? Wouldn’t it be wrong?”