The Dragon Heir Read online

  So much for a surprise attack. Jason forced himself into stillness, moving only his right arm, which he used to fish for his knife. Gripping the hilt, he pulled it free and sliced carefully at the tendrils within reach. The net parted reluctantly. It was designed to resist magic, and he wasn’t doing much better with an actual blade.

  Something bright streaked across the sky like a comet, then detonated at the height of its arc, flooding the ghyll with phosphorescent light.

  Now the fun begins, Jason thought.

  It took ten precious minutes to cut himself free. Even then, the opening was just broad enough to slide through.

  He knew he should ditch the mission and get out while he could. But his entire life had been a string of bad decisions. He had no desire to slink back to Hastings with the same bad taste in his mouth he’d had since Leicester and D’Orsay killed his father.

  He thrust his body through the breach. As he emerged, volleys of wizard flame erupted from the hillside above, and he flung himself sideways. He scrambled on hands and knees into a grove of trees, then turned to look.

  All around him, black-clad wizards slipped through the forest, directing withering fire toward the tear in the web.

  Jason considered his options. If D’Orsay was smart (and he was), he would stay barricaded inside the hold until the all-clear. D’Orsay’s hoard of magical pieces would be in the keep, too. Along with the Covenant that made D’Orsay ruler of all the magical guilds.

  To the castle, then. But best not to be noticed.

  Jason stuffed his fingers under his coat and pulled out a circlet of dull stone engraved with runes. It was a dyrne sefa, meaning secret heart, an amulet of power. Despite the cold, it was hot to the touch, steaming in the brittle air, drawing power from the nearby Weirstone. Stroking the surface with his fingertips, he spoke a charm.

  Now rendered unnoticeable, Jason threaded through the woods and across the open meadow of the valley floor toward the castle. Away from the shelter of the ghyll walls, the wind assaulted him again. But now he was impervious to the cold, ignited with power and determination.

  The meadow was studded with wind-seared brush, powdered with fine, dry snow, and fissured with ravines. The need to mind his footing warred with the desire to peer about like a tourist.

  These must be the tournament fields.

  Here the blood of generations of warriors had been shed in ritual battles that allocated power to the Wizard Houses. Here the warriors Jack Swift and Ellen Stephenson had fought the tournament that broke the original Covenant and challenged the power of the Roses.

  Here the sanctuary of Trinity was born.

  More than anything, Jason wanted to make the same kind of mark on the world.

  Wizard flares rocketed into the air, lighting the ghyll as if it were midday. Trees went up like torches, sending smoke roiling into the sky. Jason guessed he should be flattered at the intensity of the response to his trespassing. It was like using a shotgun against a gnat. Still the snow fell, glittering in impossible colors as the light struck it.

  Ahead loomed the castle, a forbidding stone structure that might have been hewn from the side of the mountain. Terraced gardens surrounded it, littered with the skeletons of winter-dead plants, like the leavings of a failed fair-weather civilization.

  Squadrons of wizards charged up and down the valley, magical shields fixed in place, splattering power in all directions. Some passed within a few feet of him, glowing white ghosts in hooded, snow-powdered parkas. Jason continued his stubborn march on the hold.

  He’d hoped they’d give up, assuming their intruder had fled. But no. D’Orsay’s wizards gathered near the castle, forming a broad phalanx of bristling power. Charms were spoken, and a great wall of poisonous green vapor rolled toward him across the meadow.

  Chemical warfare, wizard style.

  Swearing softly, Jason disabled the unnoticeable charm so he could use other magic. He extended his hand and tried to reproduce the charm he’d used on the yellow mist. Either he got it wrong, or he simply wasn’t strong enough. The cloud kept coming, relentlessly swallowing trees and stones and fleeing animals. There’d be nothing left alive in the ghyll by morning.

  His only hope was to get above the cloud. Jason turned, sprinted for the Ravenshead, and began to climb. As the way grew steeper, he had to reach high to find handholds above his head, desperately hauling himself up by insinuating his body into crevices and wedging his feet into the imperfections that marred the stone face of the mountain.

  About the time he thought his lungs would burst, he reached a ledge just below the Weirstone and shoved his body up and over. He lay facedown in the snow until he caught his breath, then pulled himself to his feet.

  The ghyll below was a sea of mist, a vast polluted cesspool that lapped higher and higher on the surrounding slopes.

  Then the earthquakes began. Thunder rumbled through the ghyll, and the stones under Jason’s feet rippled like an out-of-control skateboard. The mountain shifted and shuddered, trying to fling him off. Boulders crashed down from above, shaken loose from ancient perches high on the slopes, bouncing past him and disappearing into the sea of mist at the bottom. This was more than wizard mischief. It seemed . . . apocalyptic.

  Jason crouched back against Ravenshead, his arms wrapped around his head to fend off falling debris, his gaze drawn back to the blue flame of the Weirstone.

  It loomed above his head, a faceted crystal the blue-green color of the deepest and clearest ocean. With the stone so near, blood surged through his body, intoxicating him, heating him down to his fingers and toes. Power battered him from all sides, vibrating in his bones like a crashing bass from a magical band.

  As he watched, a jagged crack opened in the solid rock face above him. It yawned wider and wider, a raw gash in the shadow of the stone. Small stones and grit stung his skin and he squeezed his eyes shut to avoid being blinded.

  Gradually, the earth quieted and the stone dimmed. Jason opened his eyes. He crept forward and peered over the edge of the rock. The green mist was still inching up the slope.

  He sat back on his heels, eyeing the new-made cave. Cool air, flowing from under the Weirstone, kissed his face. Maybe he could worm deeper into the mountain until the mist subsided. Seeing no other choice, he plunged into the opening.

  The air was surprisingly fresh to have been bottled up in the mountain for so long. Jason collected light on the tips of his fingers, a makeshift lamp to show the way. As he snaked back into the rock, it became clear that the quake had reopened a cave hewn out of the mountain in centuries past. Scattered across the stone floor was evidence of prior occupation: the bones of large animals, shards of pottery, and metal fittings.

  Jason pushed on, the cave wind blowing against his face. Good, he thought. That might keep the mist at bay.

  The passage ended in a chamber the size of a large ballroom. Far above, the wind whistled through an opening to the outside. That, then, was the source of the fresh air. Jason tried to push light to the ceiling, but the dark vault soared high overhead, beyond the reach of his puny lamp. The Weirstone glittered, a long shaft driving far into the mountain.

  Soot smudged the walls all around, as if from the smoke of thousands of ancient fires. In one corner bulked a great raised platform, eight feet off the floor. Jason found finger-holds and scrambled to the top.

  Here were fragments of fabric: velvets and satins and lace that disintegrated when he touched them. More large bones lay piled neatly in a corner, including what might have been human skeletons. Human and animal skulls grinned out from niches in the wall. He was in the lair of some great predator or the site of a long-ago battle.

  At the far end of the platform was a massive oak door.

  Jason eyed the door. In a movie, that would be the door you shouldn’t open.

  But of course you would.

  By now, the ghyll, the mist, and the wizards searching for him outside seemed a distant threat. He had to get past that door. Something dr
ew him forward.

  Jason pulled the dyrne sefa free once again. Using it like an eyepiece, he scanned the entry. It was covered with a delicate labyrinth of glittering threads, invisible to the naked eye. Another kind of web.

  Extending his hand, he muttered, “Geryman.” Open. The door remained shut.

  Jason looked about for tools. Lifting one of the long leg bones, he came at the door from the side, extending the bone and poking cautiously through the web of light.

  With a sound like a gunshot the door exploded outward in a blast of flame. Had he been standing at the threshold, he would have been incinerated. As it was, he almost wet his pants.

  When his rocketing pulse had steadied, he approached the doorway, again from the side, and peered through.

  Beyond the entrance was yet another door, set with six panels of beaten gold, each engraved with an image. It took a moment for Jason to realize what he was seeing.

  Each engraving depicted one of the Weirguilds. A beautiful woman with rippling hair and flowing robes extended her hands toward Jason, smiling. She obviously represented the enchanters, who had the gift of charm and seduction. A tall, muscled man in a breastplate and kilt charged forward, swinging a sword. That was the warrior, who excelled in battle.

  In another scene, an old man gazed into a mirror, tears rolling down his wrinkled cheeks. He must be a sooth-sayer or seer, who could predict the future, though imperfectly. In the fourth, a woman ground roots with a mortar and pestle. She was a sorcerer, expert in the creation and use of magical tools and materials. Finally, a lean-faced man in a nimbus of light manipulated the strings of a marionette who seemed unaware of the puppeteer.

  Well, there’s the wizard, Jason thought. The only one of the lot who could shape magic with words, and for that reason most powerful.

  The center panel, the largest, was engraved with a magnificent dragon, clawed forelegs extended and wings spread.

  The legend was that the founders of the magical guilds had originated in the ghyll as cousins, slaves to a dragon who ruled the dragonhold. Eventually, by working together, they’d managed to outsmart the dragon. In some versions they killed it, in others they put it into a magical sleep. They’d renamed the valley Raven’s Ghyll, preferring to forget that the dragon had ever existed.

  Then four of the cousins were tricked into signing a covenant that made them subservient to the fifth cousin.

  The wizard.

  By the sixteenth century, the hierarchy of the magical guilds was well established. The ruling wizards had organized themselves into the warring houses of the Red and the White Rose, whose incessant battles decimated the houses over time. The system of tournaments known as the Game had been launched to limit bloodshed among wizards. The Dragon House, to which Jason belonged, harked back to a time before wizards assumed their dominant role.

  Jason studied the engraving of the dragon, knowing such pieces often held important clues. The work had been done by Old Magic, using an artistry lost to time. Power seemed to ripple under the dragon’s metal scales, and humor and intelligence glittered in its golden eyes. An elaborate cloak poured in glittering folds down the dragon’s back, to be caught in the arms of a lady who stood just behind the beast.

  The lady was well-dressed for a servant, if that’s what she was. Her hair was carefully arranged and she wore a necklace with a single glittering gemstone set into the metal. Although she was tiny next to the dragon, she seemed unafraid. She rested one hand on the dragon’s leg in an affectionate way and the dragon’s head arced down toward her as if to continue an intimate conversation.

  In a faint continuous script around the center panel ran the words, “Enter with a virtuous heart, or not at all.”

  Well, that shuts me out, Jason thought. Though by wizard standards he might qualify.

  Who would have made something so cool and then hidden it in the mountain to be found only by chance? And what lay behind it?

  It’s no use. You’re going in. You can’t resist.

  Taking a deep breath, extending his hand, he whispered “Geryman” again, expecting another detonation.

  This time, the double doors swung silently in.

  Once again, he used the dyrne sefa to examine the entrance for magical traps. And found none. Leading with the leg bone, waving it like a sword, he advanced through the doorway.

  It was a storeroom, lined ceiling-high with barrels, chests and casks, strongboxes and coffers, baskets and bins.

  He stood blinking stupidly for a moment, then dropped the bone and pried the lid off the nearest barrel. Recklessly thrusting his hand deep, he let the contents trickle through his fingers.

  Pearls. In all colors, from precious black to creamy white to pale pink and yellow. Large and round and perfect. These must be worth a fortune, he thought.

  He lifted the lid on a small brass-bound chest. Emeralds, in a deep green with fiery hearts. A small gold coffer was filled with diamonds so large that anywhere else he’d assume they were fake.

  There were stones in all colors, spools of gold chain, both loose gems and jewels in medieval settings. Coins engraved with the portraits of long-dead kings and queens. Bolts of velvet and satin shrouded in sleeves of sturdy linen. Cabinets filled with parchment scrolls, fragile with age, and books in leather bindings. Paintings in gilded frames were lined four-deep against the walls.

  In some of the large baskets he found the best treasure yet: talismans for protection, amulets for power, inscribed with spell runes in the mysterious languages of magic. Many were crafted from the flat black stones familiar from his own collection, the magical pieces he’d inherited from his mother. Others were made of precious metals—devised by methods now lost to the guilds.

  They were carelessly jumbled together, and he sorted them into piles, his fingers itching to put them to use. Jason was not particularly powerful, but with these at his disposal, even Raven’s Ghyll Castle might fall.

  Was this the legendary hoard of weapons? It seemed unlikely. The hoard was said to be a living arsenal, regularly added to and used by the D’Orsays. These things looked like they’d lain untouched for centuries. While some of the sefas could be used as weapons, this was mostly fancy work— jewelry, books, art, gemstones.

  Was it possible that D’Orsay didn’t know this was here? Totally possible.

  Jason leaned against the wall, rubbing his chin. Well, now. It wouldn’t do for the Roses or D’Orsay to get hold of it.

  He couldn’t haul everything out in one trip, but he couldn’t count on coming back, either. He might not make it out alive this time. And if he were caught, they’d quickly force the cave’s location out of him.

  He’d have to focus on smaller items, and choose carefully. He zipped open his backpack and set it on the cave floor.

  The magical artifacts were the first priority. He and Hastings and the rest of the Dragon House were in this war for survival. Anything that kept the other Wizard Houses away from the sanctuary at Trinity was golden. The rebels could use these amulets to make the price of conquest too high for Claude D’Orsay or the Roses.

  Jason methodically worked his way through the vault, torn between a growing claustrophobia and the fear he’d overlook something critical. He wrapped some of the more fragile and dangerous-looking pieces in strips of cloth he ripped from the bolts of fabric. Then he shoveled magical jewelry, crystals, mirrors, and scrying stones into the backpack, trying to be careful, hoping he wouldn’t break anything or inadvertently set something off. It was like loading pipe bombs into a shopping cart.

  At the back of the cave, a sword in a jeweled scabbard stood alone, as if its owner had leaned it against the wall, meaning to come back and retrieve it. He gripped the hilt gingerly. The metal tingled in his hand, a kind of magical greeting.

  “What have we here?” Jason muttered, feeling a rising excitement.

  The hilt and crosspiece were of rather plain make, embellished with a Celtic cross on the pommel, centered with a flat-petaled rose. It was som
ehow more beautiful for its simplicity. Jason was no warrior, but he recognized quality when he saw it. As he drew the blade from its covering, it seemed to ignite, driving the shadows from the corners.

  Could this be one of the seven great blades?

  Of the seven, only one other was known to exist: Shadowslayer, the blade carried by Jason’s friend, the warrior Jack Swift, of Trinity. Stroking the glittering metal, Jason wished he could marry himself to a weapon the way Jack did.

  But, no. Always better to be a wizard than a warrior in the hierarchy of the magical guilds.

  Sliding the blade back into its scabbard, he carried it forward and set it next to the bulging backpack. Now what else? he queried the room.

  Niches lined the back wall, in the blue shadow of the Dragon’s Tooth. Some were empty, some displayed treasures, some were mortared shut. Reasoning that the closed niches might contain the most valuable contents, he took the time to break them open with cautious bits of magic. The mountain shuddered uneasily under the assault. Dirt from above trickled onto his head and shoulders.

  A battered wooden chest covered with a tracery of runes stood in an open niche just under the Weirstone. Jason lifted it down to the floor of the cave and pried at the lid. Inside was a collection of scrolls, bound together with linen twine, covered with writing he couldn’t decipher. And a large book secured with a jeweled lock.

  Jason wasn’t much for books, and this one looked awkward and heavy, and who knew if it was worth carrying back with him? Then again, someone had taken the trouble to lock it.

  The lock fell apart in his hands, and the ancient binding protested with a crackling sound as he opened it. This was almost too easy. The text was written in a flowing hand by a scribe or scholar. On the title page was scribbled, Of the Last Days of the Glorious Kingdom and How it Passed Into Memory: A Tragedie.

  Spinning light off his fingers, Jason scanned the first few pages.

  It was a journal, kept by the attendant to some ancient ruler, written in the Language of Magic. He almost closed the book and set it aside, but something kept him reading.