The Winter Oak

by James A. Hetley

  The hell with it. He turned back to the kitchen, dumped the remaining half-cup in the sink, and grabbed his hat and jacket. He needed out. He needed to escape from a place where Jo was supposed to be, substitute a place where her absence wasn't so noticeable. And at least the rain was fresh.

  Fresh and clean and cold, with a wind behind it that cut right through his fog and cleared his thoughts. That poem wasn't wearing through the veil between the worlds, it was just waking up memories. Bardic magic was a pile of bull, concocted of fantasy and wishful thinking. And Jo stripping Brian with her glance was just the same as David admiring high-school sex-goddesses at the mall. Aesthetic appreciation, not proof she'd be happier elsewhere.

  "Fleeing danger, legs uncaring,

  "Dropping weapons fled the bard.

  "Turning, weeping, no choice offered,

  "Came again to battle hard."

  Happier elsewhere, indeed. Damned brain, still chewing on epic battles. What would he do if Jo disappeared? Brian had tried to warn him off, before the first time, but David hadn't really understood.

  Now he knew, remembering how they'd leaned together against a tree, weak-kneed and drained and supporting each other, drenched in sweat and blood and pain, staring at the impossible hulk of the dead dragon only to find what stood behind it. They'd gone through all that just to be frozen helpless by a snap of Sean's fingers.

  Now David knew just how many layers of danger waited, each one more vicious than the last. Sean had been little more than Fiona's shadow, and Brian said that the surviving dragon was even larger and smarter than the one they'd killed. And mad like you wouldn't believe, where the other one had merely been bound by Dougal's spell to guard the path.

  That nibbled at the flavor he wanted, the unavoidable clash between two doomed characters, neither at fault. A Greek tragedy sort of thing, with the scheming gods forcing Achilles and Hector into fatal conflict.

  Or whatever. David choked on the image of himself playing either role.

  He'd been wandering, sloshing words around in his head like a sourdough panning sand for the rare flecks of gold. At some point the rain had stopped, and he found himself looking down the river at an orange ball peeking out from under the clouds. Naskeag was offering him a sunset, to show that all storms have an end. The ice was breaking up on the rising tide, another early sign of spring.

  A flock of pigeons clattered overhead, feathered rats that infested the downtown, and they suddenly broke and scattered. A winged arrow shot through the panicked birds and knocked one spinning in a puff of feathers.

  Peregrine. He'd never seen one before, but that's what it had to be. Maureen had told him that a pair nested high on a cornice of one of the bank buildings, raising brood after brood, feeding on the fat slow MacBird critters. City pigeons must be peregrine heaven.

  Peregrines and coyotes, skunks and raccoons and sometimes a moose or bear on Main Street, the wild world crossed into city life. Borders were often permeable things, not Berlin Walls topped with razor wire that you couldn't cross or, once crossed, you never could go back. Maybe Jo could be a city falcon.

  And maybe she'd flown back to the nest by now. He turned his back on the sunset and crunched back over the melting snow. Besides, he'd left the heat on under the coffeepot.

  Neither poem connected. Not yet. More accurately, both sucked. He had maybe a line here, a line there. But he knew what he wanted, and he knew how to get there. The rest was just him slogging along through a swamp of words.

  No sign of Maureen's junk Toyota in the parking lot. Instead, a police car sat parked near the apartment, engine idling its exhaust fog into the cold damp air. Its cop waited behind the wheel, patient, watching. Hey there, remember us? We haven't gone away. Cops made him nervous, even at the best of times. Cultural conditioning, examine your conscience whenever you see the uniform. He almost turned the corner and walked on.

  Where the hell was Jo?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Shen's nest lay empty.

  Eight nest mounds, eight hatchlings spread in a rough circle in the marsh, spaced far enough apart that Khe'sha could keep eight brainless appetites from devouring each other. They were devouring him, instead. The marsh had faded into a weary haze of feeding, guarding, chasing, snatching naps when enough of the hatchlings lay torpid with the night's cold or with full bellies. Each time he jolted awake in fear of what had happened while he drowsed.

  He shook fatigue out of his eyes and looked again. Shen? Gone? She wasn't a rover like Po or a constant obsessed hunter like Ka. She had been the watcher of the clutch, not ill or weak or slow-witted but content to study her world with sharp eyes, missing nothing but rarely moving from the top of her mound. She would compose great songs when she grew old.

  He sniffed the air and tasted the black water of the swamp. Her scent was growing stale, as if she'd swum away the moment he'd last left her. And there was another flavor in the mix . . .

  Old One.

  Khe'sha raised his head, slowly, slowly, slowly, and narrowed his eyes. He sniffed again. Old One, indeed. He drew the scent deep into his nose, savoring and remembering each nuance of the blend. Matching it. Drawing a picture in his mind's eye.

  The Master stood there, dead though he was, and the male with the yellow hair, and the red witch, and the black. And another. And yet, the scent was only thick enough for a single thief. Deception.

  Khe'sha slipped through the tangled grass and thorn-bush of the marsh, tracking. The trail led toward the keep. He found Shen's aroma mixed with the intruder's. He did not find Shen. If this went on much longer, he feared he would grow angry.

  Blood tainted the water. He tasted it, savored it, measured the amount and the freshness of it. Old One again, a blend he did not recognize. But then, he had never tasted the yellow one. He had never tasted any Old One who still lived.

  The amount seemed small, a large scratch or minor bite. Khe'sha slowed, sniffing to the right and to the left. Shen had come this way, but not by swimming. Her scent touched the swamp grass and hung thin in the air. The Old One's blood lay on the swamp grass, as well, and Khe'sha chuckled deep in his throat. The hatchling had teeth.

  Rage built in him, and he fought it down. Seven other mounds called to him, with seven other nestlings. He must not follow this scent for long, no matter how important.

  He pushed forward through the grass and reeds and water. Each stroke of his tail pushed him farther from the nestlings. He remembered Po, always searching. He remembered Ka, always hungry and sure where to find her next meal. He had not yet visited Liu and Kai on this circuit. Shen's scent pulled him forward. The others tugged him back. He thought the tension might split him in the middle.

  He had searched too long. He could feel it. He raised his head and memorized the lines to the keep, to a tall tree, to the path of the sun, telling him exactly where he stopped. He stood for a moment, quivering with the tension drawing him in both directions at the same time. Then he turned.

  Liu had wandered, but could be found. Kai slept on her heap of mud and reeds, fat belly to the sun. Khe'sha pushed on through his route, finally returning to Ka and Ghu. He found them safe and separate. He found Po and dumped him back into a hole in the muck and buried him almost to the water line. Let the rascal dig for a while. The work would put some muscle on his thin body.

  And then he was back at Shen's mound, with no Shen and with the sun passing beyond the Crown of Heaven. He swam heedless of the brush and grass, plowing along the line the thief had followed. He found his furthest point, and slowed, and tasted the water and the air.

  The traces faded and staled with the time he'd lost, as sun and wind and water fought him. He followed. Her scent remained mixed with the taint of the Old One. It swelled and ebbed, turned fresher and aged, as if he followed through eddies in the stream of time.

  He found drips and smears of blood, but far less than he would wish. Small teeth could not do much damage. Once the hatchlings had minds and memories, he could teac
h them where to bite their prey and their enemies, places where even a nip could kill.

  Tension grew again, pulling him forward and pulling him back. He felt as if he had two brains, one commanding the forelegs and one his rear and tail. They argued over his path. He pushed on through the swamp and neared the far shore. He touched solid ground. He had to return. He had to go forward. Shen needed him. Ka and Ghu and Po and the others needed him.

  He sighted on the keep, and the large tree on a distant hill, and memorized the shape of the hard lands. He turned back. The heat built inside him and told him that he was pushing too hard, too fast. His bulk wasn't suited for a long chase. He turned and swam on, ignoring it. He had to.

  Ka clung to a branch, nearly halfway to Ghu's mound. Khe'sha knew that she would rest, and swim on, and finally she would reach that tantalizing smell. She would keep trying until she did. Persistence -- it was a virtue in adult dragons. It kept him going. However, it would be her death if he didn't stop her. He nipped her up and carried her back to her mound and buried her in the muck to slow her down. He swam on.

  Ghu attacked him, always attacking anything that moved. Po had wandered. He circled the swamp, feeding, capturing, guarding his hatchlings. His brain started to buzz with the heat building inside his body. He pushed on from Shen's mound, straight to the hard lands and his last scent of her. He followed the reek of the Old Blood into forest and up hill, until it turned and headed straight for the gray keep on the horizon. He turned back.

  He dove into the cold black waters of the wallow he'd dug in the center of the marsh. A spring flowed there, fresh and clean and icy, and he bathed in it to chill his body. But he couldn't stay. He soaked in the depths until his heartbeat slowed, though only to the rate he would normally call high. He drank deep from the coldest flow. He swam on.

  Ka had dug herself out, a tunnel narrow and straight and perfectly aimed at Ghu's mound, barely disturbing her own. He turned and drove through the water, tail and legs pushing like the final lunge to take his prey. He followed her scent as she had followed Ghu's. He passed the shrub where she had rested. He did not find her. His head buzzed and his vision blurred, throbbing with the beat of his heart.

  He found Ka. He found both of them. Ka was dead. Ghu crouched over her body, her half-eaten body, flattened his head against her torn hide, and hissed, a dragon defending his kill.

  Khe'sha felt the world spin, his body's heat pounding in his head. His eyes darkened and his legs shook. He slumped forward until his chin rested on the mound.

  Shen and Ka. Two females, both gone. Six remaining mounds, six remaining hatchlings. Four males and two females. Trouble, in this land where nest-mates must become life-mates because there were no other nests.

  Khe'sha found his thoughts and forced them back into place. The heat had nearly killed him. Or he had nearly killed himself, pushing his body too far, too fast, too long. Humans and Old Ones could do such things. So could the hounds they trained for the chase. Their bodies allowed it, even encouraged it. They could hunt and kill by sheer endurance, wearing their prey into the ground.

  Dragons could not.

  The old songs told that story, as they told all things. They told of dragons pushing beyond their bodies' limits, performing great deeds that echoed down the centuries and dying in their triumph. Pan'gu had been the first.

  But I have failed. Heroes triumph and we remember them in song. Failure is forgotten. Ka is dead and eaten. Shen has gone to the stone tower. I remain.

  And the hatchlings still needed him. He rose, legs weak and dark spots whirling across his eyes. He slid down from Ghu's nest and pointed his nose along the open water that led to Po's mound. He swam, slowly, weakly, still feeling the heat flow from his body into the water.

  The stone tower stood above him on its hilltop. He looked up at it from time to time in his rounds, remembering. The hatchlings would grow, their scales would harden, they would learn to think. He would be free.

  He would compose the song of Sha'khe and teach it to the hatchlings. Only then could he destroy the tower and all that lived within it. That might not fit the dark witch's plan. She wanted to follow a fresher trail, heedless of the cost to others. He must wait. Even so, time swirled strangely, and he wondered if the days now passed the same for Shen as they did for him and for her nest-mates.

  He would find out when he destroyed the keep. That would be his song.

  * * *

  Fergus wiped sweat from his forehead. Part of it was fading horror, a vivid waking nightmare of that panicked instant when a knife spun so close to his head that it pared a sliver from his ear and left blood trickling hot down his neck. Part of it was fever. His right biceps throbbed under its stinking bandage, reminding him of the cost of slavery to a mistress like Fiona.

  She'd wanted a dragon hatchling. She'd wanted someone else to bear the risk of stealing it. And there were things she hadn't bothered to tell him when she made him steal Dougal's boots and pants and shirt and Brian's camouflage poncho to muddle the scent trail he left behind him.

  He could have stolen the huntsman's leather jerkin, or even gauntlets and a shirt of chain mail, if he'd known. The scent would have been the same.

  No, she'd wanted more than just the hatchling. She'd wanted a lab rat for one of her experiments.

  He eased through the cool stone of the cellar wall, making use of the welcome that the masons and quarrymen had left behind when they departed, centuries ago. Human or Old One, slave or master, all men who worked and understood and loved good stone were kin.

  An empty corridor waited -- no deadly witches. He felt tension drain out of his shoulders and reminded himself that each breath he drew was a gift, after facing Fiona in her maze. And this deep-worked living stone was a gift. Dusty and musty, black as pitch to normal eyes, the walls glowed for him, gently giving off the Power they'd soaked up since the sun had last shone on their faces.

  What did this dark maze hide from prying eyes?

  He brushed his fingers over the fine-grained sandstone, feeling the magic within it. It hummed like a faceted diamond scattering fire. And yet unlike, as well, as if the light it broke and spread had been stolen from another kind of sun.

  It centered on that hidden room. So did the deep and ancient pain he'd felt, and the anger. He traced his own glowing footprints back to it, puzzled again by the faint older prints that went in and came out, relieved by the smaller recent prints that did leave and took their deadly steel with them. He'd rather not meet that surprise again.

  Good manners told him to enter by the door, not asking the stone to let him pass through unless he had no choice. He'd often wondered if others could do the things he did with stone, if they only treated it with respect and worked it the way it wanted to be worked. If they spoke to it and listened to the answers.

  He scowled at the crude plane gouged into the side of the central menhir, the cruder Christian idol hung on it. They broke the shape the stone's heart had asked from ancient hands. They weakened and changed the Power and brought dissonance into the song that whispered in his ears. He brushed his fingers across the pillar and asked it if it could be made whole again, if the stone felt another shape still hidden within the five faces it showed the world.

  Something woke after long dreaming. Facets glowed back at him, bedding lines in the stone's grain where hands like his could guide a chisel and redirect the power that flowed from beneath his feet. The heart could be healed. It reached out to him, tentative with something very close to hope.

  But what did it do? He studied the flow of energy across the floor and through the labyrinth and swirling into the quartz starburst set before the menhir, he read faint traces of Ogham runes held as memories rather than visible marks in worn old stone, he watched as phantom feet traced the pattern and left their smears on the dust and vanished between one step and the next. He shuddered as cold fingers walked like those footsteps down his spine.

  Crude as it might look, the chisel-work defacing this fo
cus had been deliberate and precise, guided by malice and a mind that read stone as clearly as Fergus ever could. Cool blue flows of energy struck the damage and scattered, sparking purple at his touch like a mountain crag that felt a coming thunderstorm. Some unknown hand had broken the magic with precise strokes of iron on stone. No, he thought, bent rather than broken. Power still flows. It just no longer flows the way the original work intended.

  That unknown hand had turned the labyrinth into an eddy out of the stream. He had no way to calculate where the portal had once led, but now the way was blocked. He preferred to leave it closed until he knew what waited on the other side. He felt too much pain and anger here to act without long thought.

  He knelt and studied the quartz focus. Like the paving pattern of the labyrinth, it showed the hand of a master. Milky opalescent stone formed a perfect Solomon's Seal, six-pointed and as smooth as glass, as broad from point to point as the length of his arm, yet carved from a single crystal. It fitted into the natural stone of the floor as if it had grown there. This work had escaped damage. And it hid something. He could feel it.

  He touched the face and eased his thoughts into the crystal lattice. His hand followed, flesh moving like water through the spaces between atoms of silicon and oxygen. Cool power flowed back along his wrist, soothing the throb and burn under his bandages.

  Down, down, down into the stone he reached, drawn as much by the ease of pain as by curiosity. His wrist entered, and his forearm, and finally his elbow until he lay flat on the floor and reached the full length of his arm and knew that the quartz crystal was as deep as it was wide, pure and flawless. Only Power could form a crystal of that size and quality.

  His fingers touched ice and told him it was fire. He traced facets and edges, reading them and building a picture in his head. Equilateral triangles. Obtuse facets. Icosahedron, bigger than his fist. He tried to flow into it and read its heart. His fingers slipped off, unable to grip or penetrate.