Stone Dragon (The Painter Mage Book 5)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Mac had sent Lacey back to the library, dismissing her. She’d watched me for a moment before doing as Mac instructed, practically running back. I had the impression I’d shared more than I should with her.

  I sat in a sturdy chair with weathered arm rests that curled up on each side. It reminded me of the chair in the basement of my father’s house. Mac sat across from Hard and me near one end of the table. Both had their hands resting atop the table, and studied me, waiting.

  The door opened, and a short woman with deep black hair and narrow eyes glanced at each of us before closing the door behind her. Reem. She walked stiffly, her hands stuffed in her sleeves, as she took a seat at one end of the table.

  “What is this, Hard?” she asked. She stared at me with no sign of recognition in her dark eyes.

  “Not yet,” Hard said.

  I watched him. Had they actually raised another to Master level? That was unusual, but probably necessary if they’d lost two. Hell, I’d come thinking there were three Masters missing. Hard waited, not making any expression I could read.

  Then the door opened again. Another woman, this one with deep black skin and long straight hair. She was tall and slender and moved in a way that reminded me of some sort of tiger. When she saw me, she smiled, flashing white teeth.

  Something about her set me on edge. I couldn’t place what it was. Maybe it was because I’d never seen her before when I was still in Arcanus. That’s not to say a painter couldn’t learn enough in ten years to reach Master level, but it wasn’t common.

  “This is him?” she asked. Her voice was accented and fluid.

  “This is Escher—Oliver Morris,” Hard said.

  “And he has finally returned,” the woman said. “It is about time.”

  I frowned at her. “I’m sorry, and you are?” I expected something odd, like Hard or Ash or Reem. Hell, maybe she was the new Elder.

  “I am Shiza. We have never before met.”

  “No. I’m pretty sure I’d remember.”

  Shiza twisted to take in Mac and Hard. “You have summoned us all here. Why this place? You know he should not be here.”

  As she said it, I suddenly understood where I must be. This room was where the Masters convened. None other than the masters were allowed in the room. I actually agreed with Shiza. I shouldn’t be here.

  Hard faced me, eyes catching mine. “Oliver is here as a representative of the Protariat. He has taken his father’s place.”

  Reem’s eyes widened slightly, becoming something more than thin slits. “The others have allowed this?”

  “If what Oliver tells us is true, he has the support of the Trelking.”

  “Alright,” I said. “What’s this about? How is it you know about the Trelking and the Protariat?”

  Hard and Mac glanced at each other. “It should be us asking you that question, not the other way around,” Mac said. “Only the Masters know those terms. They are kept from painters who aren’t ready for such knowledge. It can be dangerous otherwise.”

  I smiled and laughed. “I think you might be surprised how many painters know more than you think.” I thought of Nik and myself, but there were other painters on the other side of the Threshold. Most didn’t have much strength, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have their uses. The Trelking put them all to work, finding ways to use even the weakest painter. Only those who had his favor were given meaningful tasks.

  “You have crossed?” Shiza asked.

  “Yeah. I’ve crossed. And now I’m back with no intention of returning.”

  “Yet you survived. You must not have been gone for long.”

  I looked over at her with amusement parting my mouth into a smile. “Long? Maybe ten years. If the Trelking had his way, it would be longer, but I decided it was time to get away from all of that.”

  Shiza brow knitted in confusion and she turned to Hard. “He should not have survived for ten years across the Threshold. We were warned—”

  Hard cut her off with a shake of his head.

  My smile deepened. “What were you warned? That death would come to painters on the other side? That hunters would attack?” I paused, looking at each of them. “If you know of the Threshold, then you know the hunters are contained.” I watched their expressions. Most guarded them well, but not Shiza. “Wait… you don’t know the hunters are contained. Seems the Elder didn’t share that with you, did he? Didn’t tell the other Masters he’s got guard dogs standing watch to make sure the hunters can’t cross again?”

  Hard leaned forward and focused on me. “You are certain of this?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve been on the other side of the Threshold for most of the time since I left. Well, was asked to leave. I’ve only been back in Conlin for a few months and have only seen hunters a couple of times. So maybe they’re not completely gone?”

  “How did you survive?” Reem asked.

  It took me a moment to realize she didn’t question whether what I said was true. “I had help,” I admitted. “The same help my father asked to make certain they don’t cross the gates.”

  “What happened when you crossed the Threshold?” Mac asked.

  “Nothing. Well, I was claimed by the Trelking, forced to study with him, and made a painter soldier in his magical army. But I’m done with all that.”

  The Masters all looked at each other, ignoring me.

  “What do you know about the Protariat?” I asked. Jakes hadn’t shared much with me, and now that I’d sort of assumed a position I didn’t want, I figured I’d better try and understand as much about it as I could.

  Hard rubbed his chin and frowned. “We have been trying to gain a seat on the Protariat since your father died.”

  I didn’t bother correcting him. As far as Hard was convinced, my father had been dead from the moment he first disappeared from Arcanus. I doubted that was true. And finding the dryad in his rooms made it even less likely.

  “The Protariat will not allow it. The seat has to be claimed, we were told, but never how to claim it. And you say you threatened the Trelking to take a place on the council?” He shook his head. “Even had he trained you,” Hard went on, clearly not believing everything I said, “you wouldn’t be powerful enough to make a credible threat against the Trelking. Even the Elder would not have risked that, and he was the most talented painter among us.”

  I heard the grudging way Hard admitted that about my father. Most spoke of the Elder with nothing but flowing praise, but it seemed there must have been some jealously from within the ranks of the Masters. The powerful always wanted more power.

  Yet, even Hard hadn’t known my father was more than a simple painter. Not that there was anything simple about the Arcanus Masters, but the Elder was something else. To use some of the magic he had, to create some of the protections he’d placed not only around Conlin but around the Rooster, his home, the shed, had taken power beyond what a painter would be able to accomplish. Somewhere along the lines, he’d learned magi magic, the same as I was learning studying with Nik.

  “I might not be a powerful threat,” I agreed, “but powerful enough. And I didn’t want the seat on the Protariat. Hell, I didn’t know what I was claiming when I told the Trelking I would be protecting Conlin.”

  “That should not be enough,” Hard said. “Simply not wanting to take the title, that should not be enough.”

  “It helps I’m sort of dating the Trelking’s daughter.”

  Mac smiled slightly. “That would be a credible threat.”

  “Hey,” I said to him. “I’m not threatening her.”

  “I saw the two of you. I would never accuse you of that,” Mac said.

  “She’s here?” Hard asked.

  “She came through the door with Oliver.”

  “The door is sealed,” Reem said. “We made certain of that when Ash—”

  Hard cut her off by raising his hand.

  “What happened with Ash?” I asked. “I mean, what happened? Taylor claimed Hard opened the
first door and he made a crossing where he was lost. She said Ash died when Reem and he opened another doorway.”

  Mac met Hard’s eyes and something passed between them. Hard nodded.

  “When your father disappeared, he left behind notes we used to help us open the door. We think he left them for us to find so one of us could carry on in his place.”

  I snorted. From what I’d learned of my father, I doubted he’d left his notes for them. If anything, they had been meant for me. My father had meant for me to have the golden key and the book, both of which had been useful so far. I didn’t know what the blank vellum was intended for, but there was no doubt he intended me to have that as well. So I suspected the notes, and the bowl the Masters had pilfered from him had been meant for me as well.

  Mac watched me and then nodded. “Hard managed to open the door in the library. Once we learned the trick of it, we recognized it was never meant to be difficult, only that one with the proper knowledge should be able to open the doorway. We found the other doors and—”

  “And Hard tried opening one of them, not knowing anything about them,” I finished for him. I could see Hard doing it. As much as he had always admonished me about attempting arcane patterns, he had been even more daring when it came to trying things he didn’t understand. I had always wondered why, but now I thought I was beginning to understand. Hard wanted to know the things my father knew. He wanted to be like the Elder.

  “I studied the other doors,” Hard agreed. “I made no attempt to open them. The Elder’s notes were not clear enough about what would happen, only that making a crossing through the wrong doorway could have dangerous consequences.”

  Huh. Now I was even more curious where the other doors opened into.

  “What happened to Ash then?”

  Reem’s face clouded. “Ash was foolish. He thought Hard was taking too long with his studies. The Elder was gone, he would say. One of us needed to claim his place. He was always the most ambitious.”

  “Ash was the most ambitious?” I stared at Hard as I asked.

  “You know little about the Masters, Oliver,” Mac said. “And you have been gone from Arcanus for many years. Ash has been the most ambitious, especially since the Elder disappeared. He pushed himself in ways the rest of us wouldn’t, studying the dangerous patterns…”

  He trailed off and cleared his throat while watching me.

  “Anyway, none of us knew what he was doing. Taylor went with him. She was skilled but equally ambitious. When he managed to trigger the doorway and was pulled through, Taylor managed to summon Reem and me in enough time to see it closed. We sealed the outer door after in a way that it would take all of us to open it.”

  Now I understood why it had been so hard for Devan and me to get it open. I was actually kind of surprised we had managed at all, given that all of the masters had worked together to seal it closed.

  “So Ash was taken, and Taylor went after him,” I said. “Does that about sum it up?”

  Mac nodded. “What happened to her? Lacey has been… well, Lacey has struggled losing her father and her sister. And her mother died when she was young, leaving her pretty much alone.”

  “How did her mother die?” I wondered if it was some magical attack. I seemed to remember Ash’s wife around Arcanus. She was a decently skilled painter too.

  “She had cancer,” Mac said. “There was nothing for her.”

  I sat in silence. Had there not been anything for her, or had she been too afraid to leave Arcanus and seek actual medical help? They were so scared of the hunters, I wondered if she’d hidden away, letting the cancer eat her rather than seeking real help.

  “Taylor spent the last year searching for another crossing,” I said. “When she found one, she very nearly released hunters into the world, unsealing a gate my father had hidden. Had it not been for me and some new friends, she would have succeeded.”

  “Reckless,” Reem said. “See, Hard? The door should remain sealed as we’ve said.”

  “Escher came through. It is no longer sealed,” Hard said.

  “The door wasn’t sealed as well as you might think,” I said. “If the two of us could open the door—”

  “But you said one was the Trelking’s daughter,” Reem said.

  I shrugged. There was that.

  “Why have you returned?” Hard asked. “Why did you really return?”

  “I told you why. I’ve been told I serve the Protariat and now there’s something I’ve been asked to do, but I don’t know how. I need to see if my father might have stored something here that would help me understand the task before me.”

  I glanced at each of the masters, letting my gaze linger on Shiza. She still made me nervous, though I still couldn’t put my finger on why.

  “Now, other than the library and his rooms, I need to know what else of my father’s belongings you might have. I’d like to start with the bowl.”

  It was Hard who answered. “If you serve the Protariat on this side of the Threshold, we are obligated to help. Come, Escher, let me show you what only the Masters of Arcanus have ever seen before.”

  10

  Hard led me through a narrow doorway, one so small I had to duck to get through. Once past, he’d put his arm up to keep me from moving any further. “Wait,” he commanded.

  I didn’t know what else to do. The room was dark, almost eerily so, but gave the impression that there were a thousand eyes staring at me from the darkness. When the lantern flared to life, I understood why.

  The room was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Walls appeared made from some clear crystal that caught the light of the single lantern in the middle of the room, amplifying it and sending it bouncing from crystal to crystal, so the entire room glowed with reflected light. It was a circular room cut out of the heart of the mountain surrounding Arcanus.

  “Gods,” I swore, looking around. None of the rest of Arcanus looked anything like this. It wasn’t just the crystals, it was the scale of the room. Everything seemed smaller than it should. The doorway. The ceiling overhead. Even the room itself. “What is this?”

  “This is a place of the Masters,” Hard said. He spoke with such reverence that I laughed. He looked over at me sharply. “And that is why you should not be here.”

  “The Masters? As if you created this?”

  “Not us. This preceded Arcanus. This room belongs to those who came before us. They are the ones who created what we know as Arcanus.”

  I could tell from the way he said it that he didn’t know how to explain it any differently and suspected what he meant was that there had been another magical entity who had created this room. I shouldn’t be surprised, not with knowing what I did of Arcanus and now of the doors in the hall outside the library. There was power in Arcanus, but that power wasn’t matched by the people who currently reside here.

  “And this place?” I asked. “What is here?”

  Hard stopped before an ornate table. Scrolling patterns were etched into the surface of the wood, making it incredibly detailed and complex. It would take me the better part of a day to even know where to begin trying to understand the patterns. Hard ran his hand over the table, almost in a loving way. “This is where we store the most valuable items, those items that could never be replaced. The Masters of Arcanus all strive to have their creations important enough to be placed here. Few are. This table, for instance. It is nearly a thousand years old, and created by masters whose work has outlived them.” He turned to meet my eyes. “I show you this, so you will have the proper reverence, Escher.”

  “Oliver,” I snapped, without looking up at him.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the table. The pattern merged with the wood, burned into the wood much like what Adazi had done with his pattern in the barn, granting a greater permanence to the pattern. The black surface had a bright polish, catching the light of the single lantern in the room and throwing a reflection that strained to match that of the crystalline walls. The patterns on the
table were more than intended to draw power, they had meaning. I could feel it thrumming through the table with an energy that sizzled from it.

  Before I knew what I was doing, I placed my hand on the table and pressed my will through the patterns on the surface. The table began to glow with a soft inky black light. That wasn’t quite right. The table started to absorb the light from the lantern, drawing it away.

  I leaned toward the table, pushing more of my power and will into the table, feeling the way it drew me forward. There was something almost familiar about it, something that seemed to call to me…

  Hard pushed me back, slamming into my chest with more power than I’d expected.

  “Oliver!”

  He was shouting. How long had he been shouting? His voice had taken on a strain to it, becoming thready and anxious.

  “Damn, Hard. You don’t have to be so rough.” I massaged my chest where he’d hit me, my eyes still drawn to the table. There was something compelling about it.

  Hard stepped in front of me, blocking me away from the table. He was watching me with a surprised expression. “That was my fault. I should have warned you, but I didn’t expect you to be effected quite so strongly.”

  “What is it?” I felt like a cloud were being lifted from my mind, as if whatever the table did was finally shaking free.

  “We don’t know what its original intent was, but now it’s used in testing. There’s a reason it’s kept here. With patterns that powerful, there aren’t many safe to use it.” Hard glanced over his shoulder at the table. “And usually it’s only Master level painters who are drawn to it. It’s part of the testing we use to identify those who can become Masters.”

  “Why did it draw the light?” I asked. I’d never seen a pattern do that. There would be uses for something like that. If you could draw away light, you could move undetected. I could think of many places such a thing might be valuable, especially if placed on something as innocuous appearing as a table.