by Ginn Hale
Grover stared at him. Lawrence’s allegiance and obedience to the Office of Theurgy and Magicum glittered across his chest in an array of bright medals, but what he suggested sounded like insubordination—or worse if the Tuckers were reporting to the House of Representatives.
“Are we talking about an act of treason here?” Grover asked in a whisper.
Lawrence’s expression turned particularly grim. “Please help me, Grove. I don’t know that I can do this without you.”
Grover silently absorbed the enormity his small gesture belied.
A mage flouting the orders of his theurgist superiors might as well be defying God. Wasn’t that the law? Grover couldn’t imagine that either of the Tuckers would take such insubordination lightly. And it wasn’t as if an accomplice would get off easy either. If he and Lawrence got caught at this then likely they’d share a gallows.
Only minutes before Grover had been thinking that assaulting the Tucker brothers wasn’t worth hanging for. But stopping them? That might be. Grover felt sick at the thought of being strung up—he’d seen too many men kick and jerk at the end of a rope not to—but he forced his fear down.
“How soon can you get packed up and ready to ride?” Grover asked.
“First light tomorrow morning.”
“They’re going to notice you missing.” Grover belatedly realized that he still gripped Betty’s saddle. He set it down and spread a blanket over the downy feathers of her back.
“They won’t,” Lawrence replied.
Grover waited for Lawrence to explaining his certainty and got nothing for his patience.
“Won’t they?” Grover prompted as he buckled Betty’s saddle in place over the blanket and secured it to the lead as well. When Lawrence still hadn’t responded, Grover turned to him. “You’re asking for my help on this venture, so you might want to get back in the habit of being straight with me. Now, why shouldn’t I expect the Tuckers to light out on our trail right away?”
Lawrence considered the question for a moment.
“Honora is familiar with a huge variety of spells, not all of which are…legal.” Lawrence leaned into the stall and again lowered his voice to a whisper. “I’ve provided her with my hair and blood. She should be able to assume my form for at least the next month. She and her maid have already made arrangements for her to claim to retire to her sickbed tonight if she’s needed to take my place.”
Grover raised his brows. He’d heard tall tales of wicked witches, doppelgangers and boo hags stealing people’s shapes, but he’d never thought it could really happen. Most spells, as far as he’d seen, were simple and elemental, like the shining spheres of light floating through the stable.
“If she’s discovered she’ll face beheading, so you can’t tell anyone about any of this.” Lawrence added, “Not even George or Cora.”
“I’m not the one who got himself engaged to Cora,” Grover replied, then he realized the response wasn’t much of an assurance. He wasn’t even quite certain why he’d said it. “You know full well I can keep a secret.”
Lawrence nodded. “What about you? Will anyone remark on your absence from the boarding house?”
“No. I keep to myself for the most part. If folks don’t see me around for a few weeks, they’ll just think I’ve taken myself off to sulk in the woods.”
“Brood off into the wilderness often these days?” Lawrence asked, though his expression was friendly, teasing.
Still it rankled. After he’d learned of Lawrence’s death, Grover had gone out and lost himself in the wilds. No one had seen him for the better part of a year, and he couldn’t rightly remember where he’d been himself. But that wasn’t something he wanted to share, so he just offered Lawrence one of those shrugs he seemed so fond of.
Lawrence drew back from the stall, allowing Grover to lead Betty out of the paddock. He walked alongside Grover until they reached the stable doors. When he touched Grover’s forearm, they both stilled. Grover felt the heat of his fingers even through his coat.
“I can’t say how glad I am to see you again, Grove.” Despite his words Lawrence’s expression remained downcast. “But I’m also sorry as hell to have to drag you into this mess.”
“I’m a grown man. Ain’t no one can drag me into anything I don’t want.”
That won him one of Lawrence’s wide smiles, though it didn’t last so long as Grover would have liked. Nor did Lawrence’s warm hand remain on him. Instead he stepped back.
“Ride safe,” Lawrence told him.
“Always do. Betty’s the reckless one.” Grover swung up into Betty’s saddle and started out across the grounds, but he couldn’t resist one glimpse back. Lawrence remained in the doorway, his eyes closed and his head bowed. Then he suddenly swung his ivory hand up and through the air as if raking aside a curtain. At once the lights all around him burst, and the night swallowed Lawrence completely.
Chapter Three
Early-morning light filtered through the dense branches of fir and spruce trees, burning the dew scattered across the needles to a white mist. Warm gusts buffeted Grover’s hat and wound the perfume of sage blossoms around him. Lark buntings and a couple warblers sang out from their roosts in trees. Then came the rising caws of a little bluefoot dinosaur proclaiming its dominion over a patch of scrub oak.
Betty raised the crest of feathers atop her head and let out a proud crow in response. Some critter in the shrubs skittered away. To his credit, the spotted Palouse stallion carrying Lawrence took the noise—and Betty’s company—in stride.
“Is she always so vocal?” Lawrence asked. He’d forgone his blue federal uniform for simple civilian clothes, a wide-brimmed hat and an old hunting coat that Grover remembered from years ago. Noting the slack fit of the coat, Grover couldn’t help but recognize just how spare Lawrence had grown.
“No. Most of the year she just chirps and coos. But for a week or so in spring, she likes to let all the world know she’s here.” Betty getting her blood up was one of the reasons Grover preferred not to be out in the wilds with her in May. Last year she’d slipped away from him for nearly a week. She’d come prancing back to him one evening just when he was about to give up on searching for her.
Grover hoped she’d learned her lesson.
“She only crows in the morning,” Grover added. “The rest of the day she’ll be quiet as a shadow. If there’s a bigtooth or a thunderbird anywhere near, she won’t make a peep, don’t worry.”
“Bigtooth?” Lawrence asked.
“One of them dinosaurs.” Grover tried to think of just how to describe the giant beast. He pointed to a slender poplar. “Stands on two legs about as tall as that sapling there. About forty feet from its nose to the tip of its tail. Great big head full of long teeth, huge hind legs but with weird, stunted arms.”
Lawrence eyed the tree as they rode past it. “Is the tail remarkably muscular? Fuzzy speckled plumes growing down the neck and back?”
“Yep. You’ve run across one, yourself?”
“Maybe not the exact same species, but something similar. Tyrannusdente.” He reaching into the pocket of one of his saddlebags and drew out a slim, leather-bound journal. It reminded Grover of the sketchbooks Lawrence had used to fill up with drawings and watercolor studies when they’d been boys. Lawrence held the journal out and Grover took it from him. Dark stains as well as singe marks speckled the aged cover. The thick pages within felt soft from wear.
“Ignore the first six pages,” Lawrence said quickly. “They’re a mess—I hadn’t gotten used to using my left hand.”
Seeing how self-conscious Lawrence looked, Grover flipped past the crimson-spattered watercolor studies of disfigured human bodies, ragged teeth and grotesquely distorted faces. Though in one corner, at odds with the horror surrounding it, Grover recognized the blue profile of the mountains rising in the distance ahead of them.
Lawrence must have been able to draw the landscape in his sleep for the number of times the two of them had passed beneath the shadows of the towering peaks.
Beyond that page he found detailed drawings of animals and plants. Some—like the tusked deer or plump black-and-white bears—Grover had never seen before, but many others he recognized.
If they weren’t exactly the same breeds of dinosaurs he had encountered in the mountain valleys, they were very close. Three-horns with brilliant red crests shared pages with four-winged beasts and several long-legged creatures that resembled Betty—though they sported darker feathers. Pterosaurs of all sizes and colors filled a spread of two pages. On the twelfth page Grover found the painting of a bigtooth as well as several smaller animals, sporting jagged maws and large sickles for talons.
“That’s a bigtooth, alright. Ones around here grow more olive plumage, but otherwise it looks the same.” Grover considered the overgrown trail ahead of them. Betty knew the way, and this close to Fort Arvada they weren’t likely to encounter much dangerous wildlife. Still the sight of the bigtooth, even in a drawing, set Grover on edge.
He glanced to Lawrence. “How did you get close enough to draw it?”
“I didn’t unpack my sketchbook until it was dead. They’re called liè lóng in China. The hunting dragon.” Lawrence too studied the surrounding stands of fir and spruce warily. “Get many in this area?”
“Only three regularly venture far from the rift,” Grover replied as casually as he could. Used to be none of them ranged beyond Mirror Lake, but each year more edged farther into populated territory. “Mostly they trail herds of big game. Three-horns and whiptails like you’ve drawn here.” Grover lifted the sketchbook and Lawrence nodded.
“Triceratops and tenontosaurus,” Lawrence informed him. “Though three-horn and whiptail strike me as much better names.”
“Well, however you call them, they aren’t the only game bigtooths are getting used to hunting. Late last fall I saw one tearing after a herd of elk.”
“Did it catch any?” Lawrence asked.
“It didn’t strike me as wise to linger and find out what it might do if it didn’t,” Grover admitted.
Lawrence laughed and Grover passed his sketchbook back to him.
After riding farther west, the close stands of fir opened to a spring meadow. Small pterosaurs and hawks circled and swooped through the open blue sky. Grover searched the horizon for any sign of thunderbirds. One of them could spear a man and his horse with a stroke of its enormous beak. Grover guessed that it was too early in the year for many of the cloud-white giants to be hunting near Fort Arvada. Still, he’d feel more at ease when he and Lawrence could travel under tree cover.
Though now, gazing at the vast expanse of sky, Grover remembered the Tuckers’ airship. They’d make better time flying above the craggy land instead of riding across it.
“How long before they’re going to start looking for the rift without a guide?” Grover asked.
“I expect that Honora may be able to delay them a week or two, but not much beyond that.” Lawrence paused a moment, watching a speckled green pterosaur roll in the sky and snap up a butterfly. Grover could almost see the desire to stop and sketch flicker across Lawrence’s sharp face. Then he returned his attention to Grover. “How long do you think it will take to reach the rift?”
“If the weather holds and we don’t have to take a long way round to avoid a three-horn herd, it should be about sixteen days.” Grover pointed northwest to where the diamond-sharp ridges of two mountain peaks rose over the rolling hills. “We’ll swing under Two Guides and track north and follow the riverbank southwest.”
“River?” Lawrence asked.
“The new one that the rift floods tore open. The waters swallowed up all of the Grand Lake valley and swept south and overflowed the entire Arkansas River.” He and Lawrence had often hunted around the lake when they’d been boys. All those secret places where they’d lain down together now lay far beneath fast-moving waters. “For lack of much creativity, I call it the Rift River.”
“Sensible, that. So sixteen days to Fire Springs?”
Grover nodded and continued riding. It wasn’t until they’d crossed the meadow and returned to the shadows of dark pines that it struck Grover he hadn’t told Lawrence the rift had opened at Fire Springs. An uneasiness began to gnaw at his gut. He thought back over their few conversations. But no, he hadn’t once given away the exact location of the rift opening.
At last Grover wheeled Betty around, blocking Lawrence and his horse.
“If you already know the rift opened at Fire Springs then what the hell is going on here?” Grover demanded. “Why am I playing guide?”
Lawrence flinched like Grover had hit him with a hot poker. Surprise alone couldn’t account for how the color drained from his face. He looked gray and sick as he met Grover’s gaze.
“I don’t know where it is exactly. The terrain has all changed.” If he was lying, it didn’t show.
“But of all the hills and valleys, you just figured it was the one where you and me used to fool around?” Grover asked.
Lawrence shrugged.
“That ain’t no kind of answer, Lawrence.” Grover paused, hearing a sharp squawk drift through the trees. The call of a wild ridingbird, like Betty, but a good distance off. He returned his attention to Lawrence, though he lowered his voice. “You know a lot more than you’re telling me about all of this.”
“Yes.” Lawrence looked none too happy but didn’t offer anything up to make either of them feel better.
“Just sayin’ ‘yes’ ain’t gonna cut it.” If Grover’d had any tobacco, he’d have spit it. “Either you start being forthcoming or I’ll turn right around here and now and ride back to Fort Arvada.”
“You wouldn’t let the Tuckers get to the rift first.”
Grover wasn’t certain if Lawrence was calling his bluff or expressing alarm at the thought of the Tuckers reaching the rift before him. Either way, Grover wasn’t going to back down. Too much danger surrounded them in just the lay of the land. Grover didn’t need other surprises springing up when Lawrence could have warned him.
“All I have is your word that you’re planning to close the rift once we reach it. But these silences and shifty looks of yours make me worry you aren’t up to anything better than the bullshit the Tuckers have planned.”
“Grover, I wouldn’t… You know me—”
“No! I knew you. Then you signed up to fight a war halfway across the world and left me!” Grover clamped his mouth shut and drew in a deep breath. He hadn’t meant for so much of his hurt to come rushing out. This wasn’t about what was behind them but what lay ahead, he reminded himself. He continued in a calmer tone. “It’s been eight years and most everything has changed. So if you want me to trust you then you better give me a reason to. Tell me the truth.”
Lawrence brought his ivory right hand up to his face and clenched his brow as if trying to keep his head from bursting apart. With a heavy sigh he dropped his hand back to his reins and looked to Grover.
“I’m not keeping things from you because I want to lie to you, Grove. I’m trying to do what little I can to protect you…”
“From?” Grover asked, and when Lawrence offered him a pained expression he added, “Telling me who I need to watch out for would sure as shit make it easier for me not to walk into anything, don’t you think?”
“The Tuckers first and foremost. But also sycophants like Sheriff Lee. There’s an army of immoral sons-of-bitches who’d like to blame anyone else for the consequences of their politics and greed.” Lawrence scowled. “If they catch us, or if I can’t make it… You’ll be on your own against them, and the less you know, the less they can blame you for.”
“You really think men like Sheriff Lee need anything other than the color of my skin to blame me for anything?”
Grover snorted at the thought.
“No, but the Director of Theurgy and Magicum will. And in this case having them underestimate you might just save your neck. So long as Nate Tucker doesn’t suspect that you’ve learned his secrets, he may assume you’re too insignificant to bother hunting down and killing.”
“Yeah, what about his brother David?”
Lawrence shrugged but he dropped his gaze to the ground. There was something there, Grover realized. But was it worth going after if Lawrence really was just trying to safeguard him from Theurgy and Magicum politics? Grover studied Lawrence, considering the situation. Then he shook his head.
He hadn’t been sheltered from the world since his ma’s death had left him to earn a living for himself at fifteen. Lawrence hadn’t been able to defend him then, and Grover sure as hell didn’t need him to now.
“I appreciate you trying to protecting me,” he said. “But I’m not the little boy you knew back in the day. I ain’t been that for a long, long time. I’m man enough to hunt whiptails alongside bigtooth dinosaurs. And I’m tough enough to knock Sheriff Lee on his ass if I need to.” Grover held Lawrence’s gaze. “Bet you a silver dollar I could even lick you in a fight if it came to it. Mage or not.”
Lawrence laughed but not unkindly. He lifted his head and gazed up into the dark branches of the pines surrounding them, as if seeking an answer there. His horse stamped, growing impatient just standing. Absently, Lawrence stroked the animal’s neck.
“I haven’t ever, in all my life, thought you weren’t tough. That’s the one—maybe the only—mistake I haven’t made,” Lawrence said. “I wish to God I had possessed even half your grit back when we were boys. Instead, I let Reverend Dodd and Mr. Haim’s insinuations rattle me so badly that I panicked and abandoned everything that mattered… Now it’s too late.”
“It ain’t so late as all that,” Grover replied as offhandedly as he could. “It’s not even midday.”
