The Gate of Bones (45 page)

“We should have given him Snowheart. A crystal. Anything he could have relied on if there were trouble.” Gavan paced back and forth. Henry, Trent, and Jason watched.

“I think we don't give him enough credit,” Henry said, pulling his glasses into place.

The two men stopped arguing.

“I mean,” Henry said apologetically. “He's done a lot of trading. You should hear his stories about caravanning through flash floods, and clan wars, and stuff. He's a resourceful guy.”

Gavan flicked the edge of his cape back. “True enough.” He took a deep breath. “Pyra will undoubtedly be scouting the area.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“She could use help.”

Tomaz nodded. “I'll offer.”

“All right. And the rest of you. We're going to have to watch each other's backs from here on, carefully. The attacks are spreading. We have to be a target, sooner or later. Stay close. No one wander off.”

Doing laundry could hardly be called wandering off, Jason told Trent, as they hiked down to the pool. “Although if you wear those jeans one more day, I think they could stand on their own.”

“Hey, hey! These are vintage jeans. Holes and all.”

“Henry's offered to buy you new ones.”

“They take time to break in.” Trent's expression looked serious. “Do you think I want to wear stiff, scratchy new denim? Give me soft, old, worn denim any day!”

“I think you just don't want to let go.”

“Maybe not. Just like Bailey wears that old watch of hers, even though it's never kept time here.” Trent dumped his bag on a rock ledge. “Looks like Ting beat us down here.”

Ting rounded the water, a muddy smear across her nose, and a full pouch of greenery bulging on one hip. “Either of you seen Bailey?”

“No. Better watch yourself going in, Gavan's put the word out no one is to go off alone.”

“Too little too late, I think.” Ting stood on one foot and then the other. “I can't find Bailey.”

Jason dropped his laundry bag next to Trent's. “Leave that, we'll find her, you go on.”

“Okay. Don't get her in trouble, all right? We're gathering Rich's potion stuff for him. She said she'd go downriver.”

“Understood. I'll give you a holler when we find her.”

Trent matched Jason's long strides down the stream. “Think she's in trouble? Fell in or something?”

“Bailey is so stubborn if she fell in, she'd float upstream. She just got involved, probably. Or Lacey ran off again.” They ducked under the cooling overhang of the forest's edge. Trent picked out a fresh boot print in the soft shore of the river. “She went this way.”

They had gotten deep into the forest when the shout hit Jason and drove him to his knees. He doubled over, gasping with Bailey's pain and terror.

“Jason! Jeez, man, what is it?”

“Trouble. Big trouble.” He grabbed Trent's hand and Crystaled without warning or thinking. Cold
between
rushed past them both.

He felt it the moment they touched ground. He jumped to his feet, still linked with Trent. Bailey's mouth opened in a silent scream and she reached for them as the Bone Gate roared wide open behind her. He could feel its pull, its yearning for him, for her, for Trent.

“She's caged!” Trent yelled over the moaning and wailing of the Gate.

“Show me!”

He reached for Bailey, tracing the bonds that held her, and Jason's crystal flared about his neck as he grabbed her hand and held on. The Gate pulled her and she hung in the air between them. He cut her loose strand by strand, but the Gate sucked all three in. Bones crackled underfoot and he gagged at the stench of rotting things. It glowed as if it could feed off them, its darkness lightening to the color of gangrene.

“Don't. Let. Go.” Bailey mouthed to them.

“Hang on!” Jason yelled at her. He dug in his heels. The Gate promised him things, whispering in his ear of undying life, power. He wanted nothing but the three of them out and safe.

Trent cried out, “That's the last rope!”

Jason lifted his hand, crystal Fire streaming from his fingers, the pendant on his chest so hot it felt as if it could burn through his shirt.

And then they had her, pulling her toward them, out of the abyss, out of the Gate of Bones, and it wailed in frustration and grief at losing its prey.

W
HAT WERE YOU thinking?” Rebecca waved a hand. “If we had a dungeon, I'd throw you in it for a few days.” She paced in front of the girls. Bailey opened her mouth, and her mother jabbed a finger in the air. “I'm not done talking, young lady!”

Gavan said aside to Tomaz, “I'd punish them myself, but I think a mother's wrath is probably worse.” Tomaz chuckled, his hand covering his face. Both men cleared their throats and quieted when Rebecca gave them a look as well.

She swung back on Ting and Bailey. “I could have—we could have—lost you. There's no excuse for going off alone. Latrine duty for a month. Darning duty. Laundry duty.”

Bailey shuffled her feet. Finally, spent, Rebecca dropped her hands, eyes red, and she said, “Don't ever, ever, ever do that again!”

“Yes, ma'am,” both girls echoed each other.

Rebecca gathered them up in a massive hug, hiding her face against them for a moment. Tomaz stirred, and dropped a leather gathering pouch in Bailey's lap. It fell open, to reveal not only the harvest of thane grass, but a tightly curled up furball who woke from sleep long enough to twitch her tufted tail. Bailey beamed at Tomaz, and hugged the pouch to her chest.

Gavan waited respectfully for a few minutes before saying quietly, “Be that as it may. We need to know what you can tell us. All three of you.”

Rebecca let go, retreating to the corner, where Madame Qi sat, her back straight, her face lined not only with her age but great worry. She took Rebecca's hand and held it for a few moments.

Bailey said defensively, “He told me the abyss was caused by our Magick warring, like what happened between Gregory and Brennard. He said we were all creating it, and it would take two of us, one from each side, to heal it. That's why I went.”

“Did you not think of who he was?”

“Of course I did!” Bailey looked up defiantly. “But if something could be done, we'd do it, wouldn't we? We'd do what we could to stop that thing. I thought he meant what he said. Even if he didn't mean to heal it, he could still be right.”

Gavan leaned on his cane, wolfhead gleaming. Bailey looked at it and thought of the wolfjackals. “Even the wolfjackals are afraid of it.”

Tomaz took a step forward. “You saw them?”

“A pack. They ran in, and circled me.”

“Chaos draws them, we know that. They need it.”

She shook her head at Tomaz. “It wasn't like that. I thought I was going to die, one way or the other. But then, one of them crept close and took my hand and tried to pull me free. A few of the others came to help. They dug at my boots, but nothing they did could move me. Jonnard drove them away.”

Tomaz inclined his head slowly. “They are not tied to the Dark Hand, though they serve it sometimes. They are like what they sprang from, Chaos. I can't predict them.”

“Sounds like they were just saving dinner, to me.” Trent waved a hand.

Gavan faced him. “What did you feel?”

“Jonnard had her all spun up. It took us a bit to cut her free. The thing itself—” He shrugged, his face tightening. “It is like a nasty pit of slime. I can't explain it better than that.”

“Negative energy?”

“The most negative energy I could imagine.” Trent crossed his arms over his chest, as if protecting himself.

“Jason?”

Jason had been studying the floor, listening. He looked up. “It's definitely a Gate. How it opened, I don't know, but it knew me, knew my powers.” He rubbed his hands together lightly.

“Could Jonnard have spoken truly?”

Jason shifted uneasily. “There's a lot I don't know about Gates, but I don't think so. I do know, it's opening still. It's devouring. It could take everything with it and still be hungry.”
And it wanted him. It wanted him the most.

“Could you close it?” Gavan looked him in the eyes, and Jason met it, unflinching.

“Maybe.”

“Did you Open it? Somehow, without knowing?”

Jason shook his head violently. “Never! Not something like that!”

“I had to ask.”

“Did you?” He stared back, and after a moment, Gavan did look away.

Rich took out his flask and took a drink, shuddered, and capped it, putting it away. “What do we do now? Is anybody but me bothered that the only one who heard Bailey through the crystal was Jason?” He swept his red hair from his forehead. “Has Jonnard got that kind of power?”

Gavan cursed. Words spilled from his mouth that would have made Shakespeare blush, and he stamped his cane into the floor, driving a dent into the wooden boards. “Is this true? No one else heard?” He pointed the cane at all of them, sweeping about the room.

Trent spread his hands. “I'm deaf to those things, I never hear anyone.”

“N-not a thing,” answered Henry. He took his glasses off, cleaned them, and set them back on.

Everyone else just shook their heads.

Tomaz tapped his fingers on his silver-and-turquoise belt. “If he had that kind of power to tap, we wouldn't be in this struggle. We'd have been swept away already.”

“Maybe he's just learning. Maybe the Gate feeds him.”

“If it does, then we've no choice but to do everything we can to stop him, and close the Gate.” Gavan stamped his cane again. “We can't afford any weaknesses if we're going to strike at the Dark Hand.” He pointed at the boys one by one. “Search party. Ting and Bailey will hold the academy.”

“What are we looking for?”

“Renart. Safety. An answer to the Gate of Bones. Whatever it takes,” Gavan answered.

 

The academy went deathly quiet after the search party left. Ting dragged her feet as they started their chores and finally Bailey nudged her, hard. “We got off easy.”

“Maybe. But at least you got to do something, even if it was wrong.” Ting sighed. “I feel absolutely useless.”

“Don't. I think that's why Jonnard keeps failing. He's picking on us one at a time. Henry. Stefan. Jason. But we're more than that, we're all of us. You can't bring us down one at a time.”

Ting considered her. “I don't know. Maybe you're right, maybe not.”

Bailey hugged her. “Of course I am! I'm always right except when I'm wrong.”

Ting laughed in spite of herself. She pushed Bailey away gently, about to say something else, when the academy lanterns flickered. One by one, the crystals dimmed to the lowest of lights and even though the sun shone outside, the great building grew dark.

From upstairs came a shriek. “Death! Death and disaster! Banshees!”

FireAnn appeared at the top of the stairs, her hair unbound, red-and-silver curls wild about her head, her hands upraised. “The banshees come!” Cackling, she tottered down the stairs, grasping the banister for dear life.

“Jonnard's back!” Bailey swung around wildly, dashing to the front door to drop the guard bolts in place.

Madame Qi came out of the kitchen, the wooden spoon she was holding fragrant with the aroma of Rich's potion, its sweetness permeating the air. “Something is here.” She gestured. “Feel it, Ting?”

“I've felt it before,” Ting answered slowly. “It's settled over the whole place.”

“Demon.”

“Banshee!” FireAnn reached the landing and grabbed for Bailey. “Protect Eleanora! Go to her, lass!”

Bailey unwrapped FireAnn's twisted hands from her arm carefully, saying, “Stay here.” She took the stairs two at a time, leaping upward to the third floor where Eleanora rested. The door was thrown open, and a coverlet lay on the floor. Eleanora swayed by the side of her father's coffin. She turned to Bailey.

“It's come for Father.”

“What has?”

“I'm not sure. Can you feel it?”

Bailey spun on one heel. Defeated, she shook her head.

From the doorway, Ting said quietly, “I can. It's dampening everything. I can't reach Gavan or Jason or anyone.”

“It's Jonnard!”

“No,” breathed Eleanora. “It's not Jonnard.” She looked up. “It's not one of us, it's something beyond.”

“We need to get out.” Bailey took Ting's and Eleanora's hands, pulling them from the room.

“Gregory!”

Freyah burst in. “Get her away from here.” Her voice snapped briskly. “I'm staying with him. I've kept him this long, I can keep him a bit longer.”

Bailey looked at the sarcophagus and the feisty silver-haired woman as she sat on it, and crossed her arms. “I think he's probably as safe as he's gonna get. Come on!”

She and Ting had to draw Eleanora with them. Still weakened, she struggled gamely to keep up with the girls, her breathing growing ragged. Madame Qi and Rebecca were trying to soothe FireAnn as they arrived downstairs.

“Is it an attack?”

“Only one way to tell. I'm taking a look.” Bailey took a deep breath, stepping to the front door. She unbolted it, then drew it back. Or tried to. The door stayed firmly shut in its frame. She braced her heels, pulling on the handle with all of her might. It wouldn't open.