Summer's Fall

by Carol E. Leever

  "She'd serve your head to you on a platter," 7 informed him. "And then her dragon husband would eat what was left."

  "I thought she was your friend!" Omen protested. "I grew up playing with her daughter. Why would she do something like this?"

  "Ally not friend," 7 replied. "There's a difference."

  The growing feeling of betrayal in his gut was sharp and cutting. He remembered the instant the hex had struck. "Kyr saw the hex coming. He intercepted it. It was supposed to hit me, not him."

  7 nodded his head. "You know your brother sees things others do not."

  The weight of Kyr's sacrifice settled over him. I'm supposed to protect Kyr, and he protected me. I have to keep him safe. "Sundragon Amar said the Widow Maker was attracted to mystics. And Liethan Corsair said the Widow Maker has been spotted recently. If I take Kyr to sea . . . " He broke off again, not certain how much he could say.

  "There is a chance the Widow Maker will find you," 7 finished for him.

  I can't let that happen! "Is there some other way into the Autumn Lands besides the Mountain of Shadow?" Omen pressed.

  "You could try going into Nvrel," 7 suggested. "It is riddled with openings into the Night Lands, and from there you might be able to find a way into the Autumn Lands. But Night Dwellers are far more dangerous than Autumn Dwellers. And Nvrel is twice as far away as Kharakhan. It will take longer. And you'd still have to cross the Luminal Sea."

  Omen's shoulders sunk. "Can't you make a portal to Kharakhan?" he asked his father. "We have a portal to Lydon and Terizkand. Can't you just make one to Kharakhan?"

  "The portal has to be made on the other side. I can't open a portal from Melia," 7 explained. "I'd need to go to Kharakhan, make a portal there, and then link it back to the one here. I'd have to cross the Luminal Sea, and you would have to wait."

  Omen's stomach dropped. There's no other way. We have to go to sea.

  7 closed his eyes for a second and bit together his lips. "I'll see if Kadana's ship is still at port," he said finally. "She was heading back to Kharakhan, and her ship is fast. If anyone can get you safely there, it's Kadana."

  "Maybe mother will convince Indee to remove the hex, and then I won't have—" Omen cut himself off before he could refuse the quest again.

  "But Omy, is you forgetting? Who else can save the losteded king?" Tormy blinked his giant amber eyes, seeming bewildered. "We is being the heroes. And there is being savings to be done."

  "No matter how rotten it was of Indee to hex you and Kyr, Tormy has a solid point." 7 put an arm around his son's shoulders. "Not to mention, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who can remove Indee's hex." He pointed him toward the entryway. "You're going on this quest. And you should avoid saying anything that might trigger the hex, or Kyr gets burned. And you can't take too much time; these sorts of hexes grow. That's what your mother wanted me to tell you."

  7 stopped outside in the courtyard and looked up at the clear sky. "I can go with you to Kharakhan, and then build a portal home once we arrive. But building the portal is going to take weeks, so you'll need to investigate Khylar's disappearance on your own while I'm busy."

  Omen stared at his father. Hope and embarrassment warred inside of him."You're coming to Kharakhan with me?" he asked, uncertain.

  "If the Widow Maker is out there, I'm going to have to," 7 replied. "But you should take some friends as well — they can help you once we arrive in Kharakhan."

  Omen knew that his father wasn't happy about leaving Melia. And he knew his mother would be even less pleased. Which may have been why she was so angry. She knew dad was going to come with me.

  Guilt gnawed at Omen. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. "I'll be fine alone," he said with false bravado. "Or mostly alone — Templar and Liethan will come. Maybe Bryenth too. And if the Widow Maker finds us, we can fight it off. Between my psionics and Templar's magic—"

  "No!" 7 cut him off harshly. "That's why I'm coming with you. If the Widow Maker shows up, you'll leave the fighting to me and hide below deck."

  Omen felt as if he'd been punched.

  "Hopefully it won't come to that," 7 continued quickly. "Kadana knows to steer clear of the creature's hunting grounds. Our best options are to avoid it or else — outrun it."

  "You want me to hide below deck?" Omen sputtered. "I've never run from a fight!"

  "This isn't a fight you can win." 7's voice was low and stern, filled with warning. "The Widow Maker is an ancient leviathan — it subjugates the minds of its victims. You've never been in a true psionic battle, and—"

  "What are you talking about!" Omen snapped. "You and I duel all the time. Just now when I came home —"

  "Listen!" 7 clasped Omen's shoulder tightly, his gaze so intense that Omen shrank back a little.

  "That isn't a psionic duel," 7 spoke quickly, relentlessly. "I've never hurt you; I've never even tried to hurt you. Those are just simple exercises to teach you to keep your shield up. Even the other things I have taught you — levitation and other psionic manipulation — are useless when it comes to a true psionic duel. A battle between two psionicists takes place in a matter of seconds, and there are no flashy tricks. One person wins, and the other person ends up utterly mindless — brain-dead. Most psionicists never risk touching a stranger's mind for fear of attack. You only touch the mind of someone you trust absolutely."

  Omen flushed, imagining the reality of such a battle. His tongue felt dry and too thick. There were stories of terrible magical duels that left the loser stripped of all magic, but he'd never heard much about psionic duels. The possibility of losing the ability to think struck a deep terror in him. Complete helplessness. "But my shield is strong," he said uncertainly. "And aren't the Daenoth psionics stronger than everyone else's?"

  "Yes, we're stronger," 7 agreed more gently. "And your shield is excellent — when you remember to keep it active. Against a human psionicist, I wouldn't be worried. But the Widow Maker isn't human — it's ancient, and powerful, beyond anything you can imagine. It controls the minds of tens of thousands of dead souls it has devoured. It steals their power. You're no match for it."

  "But if—" Omen's words were cut off by a sharp cry. His mother's voice called out to both of them. Without another word, they rushed back into the manor, Tormy capering behind them.

  Avarice stood in the foyer with Kyr, a white bandage wrapped around his left hand. The boy clamped both hands over his ears and shook his head back and forth violently. Tyrin, still in Kyr's pocket, stood up on his hind legs, front paws stretching upward toward the boy's thin chest as if wanting to pull himself up to the boy's face.

  "They sing and they cry and the people are marching into the sea!" Kyr blurted out, his expression twisted. His words rang out like a death knell in Kahdess. "You cannot sing and swim! Their mouths are open and they claw for breath!"

  "No, Kyr! Not the Language of the Dead!" Avarice slipped her hands around the boy's thin shoulders, trying to keep him from twisting back and forth. "Stop! Stop!"

  "Kyr!" Omen ran forward and caught hold of his brother's face. "Kyr, it's all right!"

  Kyr's eyes, wide and frightened, locked onto his. "Do not leave me all alone with the screams. I like Omen's music, not the song of death, not the cries and the wails of the water."

  "7, can you—" Avarice began.

  Abruptly, 7 turned away from all of them. "Something's wrong!" he hissed.

  Omen's eyes went to 7, but his father gazed around sightlessly, searching.

  Off in the distance, the bells in the Temple of the Sundragons began sounding in warning.

  Chapter 6: Song

  OMEN

  Omen knew the various patterns that rang regularly from the bell tower of the Temple of the Sundragons, but this agitated blare screaming through the city diverged drastically from anything he had heard before. The heavy undertones — From the largest bell, he guessed — colored the loud clang, clang and undeniably warned of danger.

  His heart racing, Omen
hurried after his father who returned to the courtyard, searching heedfully. The bright sky had dimmed with evening, and a heavy band of unseasonal clouds had rolled in.

  Dark shadows passed overhead. Dragons! In a matter of moments, five of the great creatures flew by. Omen caught glints of their uniquely colorful underscales. "Hold Dragons," Omen murmured with reverence.

  While it wasn't unusual to see one or two of the Hold Dragons throughout the city, the sight of five of them in the sky all at once was breathtaking. And troubling.

  "They're headed for the shore." 7 motioned Omen back inside, pushing past Tormy who pranced nervously around the foyer, tail twitching wildly.

  Racing through the manor, 7 flung open the double doors to the back gardens with a precise psionic burst.

  Perched high on the western cliffs of Melia, Daenoth Manor was surrounded by several lush, tiered gardens, which led to a large rocky outcropping and the stone staircase that wound down the cliffside to the beach.

  Omen wrapped his fingers around the cold marble of the top garden banister and set his sights on the vast ocean before them. He breathed in the salty air and scanned from the water to the cliffs that rose north and south of the city.

  Avarice, Tormy and Kyr had followed after them, the boy having fallen silent once the warning bells had begun. Tyrin had climbed up Kyr's body and perched on his shoulder. Behind the family, several servants had made their way outside. All looked frightened. Omen spotted his little sister Lilyth racing from one of the lower gardens up a wide side staircase.

  "What's happening?" Lilyth called out, her long dark hair flying behind her as she raced to her mother's side.

  High in the sky, the glittering shapes of dragons circled far out over the ocean. They skimmed over the crests of the waves, then rose high on the air currents only to turn and circle back again as they searched for something beneath the surface. Omen's eyes tracked four Sundragons as they glided mere feet above the water. Along the cliffs, six more dragons perched on rocky outcroppings, intently focusing on the shoreline, great claws digging into the hard rocks, wings spread wide — ready to launch into the air at any moment. As one, they turned westward, gleaming jeweled eyes locking onto their dragon brothers who zipped over the turbulent ocean waves.

  "Ten Hold Dragons!" Omen exclaimed. Even growing up in Melia, he'd never seen so many dragons all at once.

  This means trouble.

  "Where are the other two?" Lilyth asked, awe in her voice. She turned a full circle, scanning the sky for the remaining two Hold Dragons.

  "If the threat is real, they wouldn't leave the city," Avarice replied. "One dragon always has to stay in Lord Darshawn's Hold." Her angular brows furrowed. "The other would be scouting the city."

  "Is they being hungry?" Tormy asked as he placed his front paws on the marble banister and stood on his hind legs to watch the dragons going in circles over the water. The wind blew his fur back against his face. His white ruff shimmered in the stormy light as he gazed excitedly out to sea. "Maybe they is fishing?"

  "I don't think they're fishing, Tormy." Omen shivered with anticipation. Something is really wrong!

  "What's that strange music?"

  Omen turned to see Conley, the footman, standing behind him, his head cocked to one side, a bemused expression on his face. "It's rather melancholy, isn't it?" the man continued. Several of the maids crowded together beside Conley. They too stared off into the distance, listening to something Omen couldn't hear.

  "Shield your minds. Now!" 7 ordered. He reached out for Lilyth and Omen.

  Omen didn't hesitate — the familiar tune of the strongest shielding pattern he knew played through his head. The pattern formed clearly and brightly, triggering his power as he closed off his thoughts from intrusion.

  Powerful magic brushed over his skull. Along with his own shielding pattern, he felt the touch of his father's psionics surrounding him and reinforcing his mental shield. That power linked immediately with Lilyth and then his mother, the cats, and Kyr. 7 shielded them, supported them, and for one brief moment Omen stood under the cloudy sky linked in perfect harmony with his family.

  Unlike magical patterns that could be learned from a book or a scroll, psionic patterns could only be taught mind-to-mind. Everything Omen knew about psionics he'd learned from his father. The patterns had to be internalized — for Omen they took the form of music, loud and clear and brilliant in their harmonies. For his mother and Lilyth, they took the form of movement, like dance steps rooted deep in muscle memory. He could feel their minds awash with the patterns, moving forms and swirling currents unique to each of them.

  Tormy and Tyrin had no psionic abilities, but Omen sensed his father's shield encompassing them as well — their feline minds gleaming like bright beams of pure emotion. And beside them, the raw, unformed chaos of his little brother Kyr — whose abilities were utterly untrained, unprotected, exposed. Without the shielding bracelet he wore on his right wrist, he'd be vulnerable to any random attack.

  Since he'd rescued Kyr from the deserted city, there had hardly been time to teach Kyr basic skills, let alone teach him the first thing about psionics. The few attempts Omen had made had left him engulfed in swirling confusion and given him brutal headaches. Kyr's grasp on reality was tentative, containing no solid fixture, no point of origin, and thus his mind produced nothing but chaos.

  He might not ever learn to use psionics.

  Omen couldn't guess how his father navigated the snarls of Kyr's mind enough to shield the boy, layering his protections over that of the bracelet. 7's mind was powerful, unbreakable, familiar. Omen understood the mnemonic devices his sister and his mother used to hold their patterns in place, but he had never been able to understand his father's. 7's mind was filled with layers and layers of sharp angles and edges, points and vectors that seemed more chaotic than even the psionic patterns themselves. Everything in 7's mind moved at a speed Omen could barely comprehend.

  Eerie music flared. Deafening, it surrounded them — spilling forth the agonies of loss and terror and longing. The song had words, but Omen could not make out the language. There were harmonies, but he could not distinguish individual voices. Percussion throbbed as if from a heartbeat, but he could not follow the uneven rhythm.

  It's in my mind! he realized. Not my ears. He wasn't hearing the song — he could feel it vibrate through his bones, pulse through his blood. It reached out to him, trying to grab him, trying to overwhelm the steady melody he used to keep his shield in place. But each time it tried to latch on to his thoughts, the dreadful sounds slid off the surface of his shield, unable to truly touch him.

  "I is hearing singing!" Tormy exclaimed, ears perked forward.

  "I is hearing it too!" Tyrin chirped from his perch on Kyr's shoulder.

  "Dark words and dark waters," Kyr shook his head, still speaking Kahdess. "It cries and sings, and they listen. And now they all march away, all gone, all lost."

  "What is it?" Omen asked, troubled and jumpy. He could only guess that this awful music was what Kyr had been hearing all along. It was the first time Omen had heard the imaginary things Kyr claimed to hear all the time. He's not making it up! "Is this what you've been hearing, Kyr? Do you know what it's saying?"

  "Omy!" Tormy's voice cracked with alarm. With a great bound, the cat leaped away from the banister toward the stairs leading down to the lower garden. He barred the way down with his body.

  The five servants who had followed them from the house shambled toward the stairs, all staring ahead blankly — so lost, they seemed oblivious to the drop before them. Meanwhile, the cook and two of the upstairs maids had stepped from the manor and were moving toward the trail as well, faces expressionless, eyes locked on the distant waters.

  "Stop them!" Avarice hollered. She blocked several scullery maids before they could move past Tormy and make their way down the stairwell. Lilyth grabbed one of the cooks by the arm, and Omen ran down the balcony staircase to stop the two young gardener's assist
ants from taking the cliffside stairs.

  "What's happening?" Omen bellowed up to his father, catching each of the boys by their wrists. While both tried to continue walking away, they didn't struggle against him. Movements slow and stilted, they seemed unaware of Omen's grip.

  Above, on the upper balcony, Tormy had knocked down Conley, the footman, and had placed one heavy paw on his back, holding him pinned to the ground. Lilyth had a firm grip on the the back of the cook's tunic, keeping her in place. 7 cut off the remaining servants who were trying to walk down the staircase and shooed them back up toward the house.

  "It's the music," 7 shouted back, answering Omen. "It's calling to them."

  They are being controlled. Omen shuddered with disgust.

  One of the dragons on the cliff roared and leaped forward, wings catching the wind as he dove down toward the beach.

  Omen stared in disbelief as people on the beach, men and women alike, walked as if in a trance toward the water. They had come from the city, wandering down the northern path to the far trail and the white sand beach.

  The dragon — Sundragon Amar, Omen noted — landed in the crashing surf, placed his great body between the ocean and the townsfolk, wings still unfurled as he barred their way.

  "He's going to jump!" Lilyth shrilled. Omen spun — northward along the cliff he could see a man heading toward the ocean. Unlike the people who had at least sought out the trail, this man marched straight toward the edge.

  Another dragon launched — Sundragon Geryon. Omen recognized the amethyst sparkle of his underscales. The man on the cliff took a step into nothing and fell — no scream echoing from his mouth. Geryon swirled in the sky, banking sharply, one enormous claw reached down and caught the man straight out of the air.

  But along the cliff's edge, more people started to appear. One more dragon hovered just over the cliffs and beat his wings furiously; the force of the wind pummeled the people and sent them backward to the ground. Another dragon launched into the air, tilting northward toward the city's docks.