“I still have no idea what a Lodestone is,” Derek said.
“The Lodestones are paths between Earth and Artaeris,” Fortuna said from the back seat.
“Got it,” Derek said. “Sorry. I’m not that familiar with traveling between worlds. I’m used to solving child abductions, stuff like that.”
“That sounds like a noble job,” Fortuna said.
“Noble,” Derek said. “I like that. Look, instead of traveling to another world, let’s just put this thing down, okay?”
“I don’t think you can,” Jack said. “You saw it tear up the sheriff’s office. And we need to find Edalwin. How ’bout this. When we get to your reinforcements, then I’ll take off the amulet and try to locate another Lodestone.”
“What about the one near Salina,” Sally asked.
“No good,” Gerlock said. “The troops that attacked our camp are likely still there. Wait a second. I see something.”
Jack looked through the sunroof toward the back and saw only the darkness of night and the quiet radiance of the stars. He kept looking, and noticed a patch of starless black sky that was growing.
“I see it!” Jack said. “It’s gaining.”
“Come on Ryan,” Derek said, “where are you? There! I see them. Those black SUVs in the median. Jack, sit down. Buckle up, everyone.”
Jack sat down, buckled the seatbelt, and closed his eyes. They would survive the next few minutes, or they would die. It was out of his hands. His job was to find another Lodestone. He reached up and slipped the amulet off his neck and tucked it into a pocket. The world opened up to him again. The tug of Hillacre felt distant but distinct. And there was the pull of the Lodestone at Salina. He felt others, and tried to distinguish the sense of them and their distance.
“Here we go,” Derek said.
Jack felt the car brake hard and then swerve off the road onto the median. He opened his eyes. Just ahead of them on the median bathed in the light of the headlights were four big black SUVs. Jack could see several men wearing body armor and holding large guns crouched next the vehicles. As they came to a bumpy stop next to them, Jack could see stark terror written on their faces.
“Out!” Derek yelled as he threw open his door. “Get behind the trucks! Ryan, fire, open it up now!”
There it is, Jack thought, a Lodestone we could make by dawn. Outside, he heard the guns crackle with explosive energy, and the wyvern roared overhead. The others were all out of the SUV now. Thankfully, Derek had left the vehicle running. Jack reached up and started fiddling with the Navi. He backed up the view until he could see their current location and Hillacre. Out of the corner of his eye he saw men running around to the far side of their trucks, and felt a tremor shake his seat. The wyvern was on the ground.
Jack savored the feel of the Lodestone he had found and compared it to the Hillacre Lodestone. How far is it? This was all so new to Jack, and their lives depended on him. There. He had it. He felt its distance relative to Hillacre. Scanning the Navi, his eyes traveled west from Salina.
“Denver,” he said, and slipped his amulet back on.
Just then the doors of the SUV opened and Derek, Sally, Gerlock, and Fortuna piled in. Sally was crying, and Gerlock looked grim. Derek banged a fist on the steering wheel, and then punched the ceiling over and over until Fortuna reached a hand forward from the back seat and rested it on his shoulder.
“Derek, we must fly,” Fortuna said.
Derek punched the ceiling again, then threw the car into gear and gunned it forward. He swung the wheel to the left and drove straight to the southbound side of the interstate, then headed north on the shoulder. Jack looked back and saw men firing repeatedly at the beast as it picked up one of the SUVs in its mouth and threw it at them. The highway curved, and the scene dropped out of sight. Derek immediately cut over the median to the northbound side and accelerated.
“We need to go here,” Jack said, pointing to Denver.
Derek glanced at the Navi and nodded, but did not speak.
“We have to be there well before dawn so we can find it, okay?” Jack said. “I’ll take off the amulet when we are close and narrow in on it. So, what happened?”
“It was unstoppable,” Derek said in an even, unemotional voice, “so Ryan sent us back toward our truck and got heroic.”
Sally continued to cry quietly. Jack glanced back questioningly at Gerlock, who was staring forward grimly.
“Ryan charged the beast,” Fortuna said, “and got up under a wing. He shot his fire-wand at the first joint on the wing. Brave and brilliant. I don’t think it can fly anymore.”
“And?” Jack said.
“And then,” Gerlock said, “he died.”
Chapter 11
DENVER
EDALWIN SAT IN the dark and shook with despair. The shackles had stubbornly resisted every assault she could conceive, and shut down all her powers. Her throat was dry like a parchment curling up in flames. There was no indication of time in the dark, dank hole, but she was fairly certain she had been captured over a day ago. In that time, she had been treated to one small bowl of water, pushed through a slot in the door with no warning and almost wasted. Thankfully, she had blindly lunged forward and caught it, keeping some of the water from sloshing out. Now she sat on the floor near the door.
Flittering on the edge of her awareness was a weakness in Drakin’s work, but she had not been able to find it, let alone exploit it. She had tried until her arms trembled from the pain of each failed attempt, as the shackles were cleverly designed to reward attempted escape with a severe shock. She had tried to gently tease the flaw out into the open with the very edge of her focus, but had failed.
Her mind wandered, and she thought back to the day she had met Jack. She had been living in Paris, Texas, and had just experienced the joy of having a foster child adopted by a young couple. Jack needed help, and the caseworker had asked her to take him in. He had been an angry and insecure eight-year-old, and Edalwin, wearing the name Edna at the time, had delighted in him. He had such heart buried under the bristling layers of hurt and rejection.
Jack had also clearly been tampered with. He’d felt as much like a Lodestone as a person, and Edalwin knew that no good would come of it for the boy or anyone else. She had taken him in and hidden him the past four years; weaving what little magic she could on Earth into his clothes as she washed them, the food he ate, and the house they lived in. She’d also moved them to Hillacre to be closer to the Lodestone, so she could try to study what had been done to him, but it had been a fruitless search. She needed her full powers, but she had walked away from Artaeris for good, and had never planned to return. Edalwin had learned grace, but the thought of going back to the land of her past had been too daunting. She had done too much evil, and the problems she had created had been too large for her to ever face.
All that changed in a moment when the Seeker bit Jack’s leg. She had returned, and so confidently left Jack and Sally in the Darksbane with the rangers. She trusted the rangers, but had taken precautions all the same. The amulets that hid them from Drakin’s scrying also revealed them to Edalwin herself. Or had revealed them, until that moment the shackles had locked on her wrists.
A tear born from frustration and anger tipped out of her eye and traced a line down her dirty, bruised cheek. She loved Jack with all her heart, and when he needed her most, she was helpless. As she sat in the dark weeping, she felt the fuzzy edge of her consciousness see the flaw in the shackles sharpen into clarity. At first, she ignored it, assuming it was hallucinations setting in. Yet the sense of awareness grew, and with sudden insight Edalwin knew Drakin’s weakness. His magic was constructed on power, knowledge, torment, and dominance, but knew nothing of love.
Just then, Edalwin heard a faint meow from just outside her cell door. A smile slowly formed on her face. Help was on the way.
~~~~
Jack woke with a start. He looked over at Derek, who held a finger to his lips and then pointed to the ba
ck seat. Derek was no longer wearing the bulky body armor, and his gun and shoulder harness were lying in the center console between their seats. Sally, Gerlock, and Fortuna were sleeping soundly. Derek pointed at the Navi. Jack looked, and realized they were only a few miles east of Denver on I-70. He quickly took off the amulet and reached for the Lodestone. He could feel it much more distinctly now. It sat somewhere a bit to the northwest of Denver in the mountains. Jack drew a circle with his finger on the Navi map to tell Derek the general area, and then tapped his finger on Highway 72. Derek nodded his understanding, and he slipped the amulet back on.
Jack closed his eyes for a moment to rest them. He jerked awake when Derek shook him. It was still dark, but Jack could sense they were out of the plains and in the mountains. He glanced at the Navi. They were on Highway 72 just past a long, straight section of road and into the twisty mountain passes. Jack looked behind him, and saw that Gerlock and Fortuna were awake. Sally was slumped over on Fortuna sleeping.
Jack lifted the amulet off again and put it in his pocket. The Lodestone was just up ahead in an area marked Coal Creek Canyon Park. He zoomed in on the map and found a road just up ahead that wound its way into the park.
“Might as well wake Sally up,” Jack said. “We’re here. Take a right on Cattle Trail Drive just up ahead.”
“Yep,” Derek said a moment later, “here it is. I’m guessing we’ve got thirty minutes until sunrise, so everyone chow down. You’ll see a big bag of food down by your feet, Fortuna. Hit a Wendy’s drive through when I stopped for gas a few hours back. There’s some bottled water in the back behind you Gerlock, if you look behind your seat.”
The road cut into the mountains another mile and then came to an end. Jack could sense the Lodestone within a few hundred yards to the west. They all sat in the SUV and ate in silence for a few minutes, and then Derek turned in his seat so he could see Gerlock and Fortuna.
“I’ve been going along with this,” Derek said, “and honestly, what choice did I have? Even if I didn’t believe in it, I’m pretty sure that dragon was willing to eat the skeptics along with the believers. But I’m still struggling with the whole ‘travel between worlds’ concept. I’m going along, mind you. Whoever was behind that thing that killed Ryan is going to pay, whatever world they’re on. But how is it going to happen, and are we sure we want to chase after a centuries-old woman who is known on the other world as some ancient evil? Is that our best play?”
“You said you help find abducted children,” Fortuna said. “That is your vocation?”
“Among other things, yes,” Derek said.
“If you want to help save Jack, and possibly Sally, from Drakin,” she said, “then this is the right course. The Edalwin we met… has it only been three days? That Edalwin was not the Edalwin of our history, but I fear Drakin is. He’s an ancient, implacable foe.”
“All right, I’ve got a lot more to ask,” Derek said, “but we better get moving. Jack, lead the way. Everyone grab a water bottle.”
Jack swung out of the truck and waited for the others to get out. The night was clear, bright, and cool. He saw Derek quickly strap on his shoulder holster and cinch it tight. Jack set out toward the west, walking slowly on a winding course through the rough terrain, the others following him. In about ten minutes, he crested a small ridge and saw it a short distance off. Behind him hints of early dawn were appearing on the horizon.
The Lodestone was nothing more than a broad, ten-foot-tall pile of rocks. They all scrambled up it and Jack closed his eyes and reached toward Artaeris. He could feel the Lodestone there getting closer to its pair on Earth.
“Okay, so, last time I did this we all got in a circle and held hands,” Jack said. “We should probably do the same thing again just to be sure.”
The others circled up and took each other’s hands. Jack looked slowly from face to face as dawn approached. Sally, who looked tougher to Jack than when they’d started. Fortuna, then Derek. Jack wasn’t surprised that Derek had ended up next to Fortuna. Lastly, holding Jack’s right hand, Gerlock, a man who had saved his life several times already for no other reason than it was the right thing to do.
“Uh, so is this going to hurt?” Derek asked.
Jack smiled and closed his eyes. The sun cracked the horizon to the east, and Jack felt the Lodestones come together. He reached out to encompass all of them, then grasped the Lodestone on Artaeris and pulled them to it.
Chapter 12
DWARVES
THE MOUNTAINS SHIFTED, but did not go away. Sharp peaks surrounded them on all sides, hiding them in deep shadows from the rising sun. Jack saw that they stood on a huge, flat, tabletop-like rock set on the floor of a narrow valley. He let go of Gerlock’s and Sally’s hands and smiled to himself. Hopefully, his ability to move between worlds would catch Drakin off guard. The others in the group were looking around, and Derek wore a stunned expression on his face. He hadn’t let go of Fortuna’s hand yet.
“The Daggerfels,” Gerlock said. “I suppose we might as well sit down and wait. If we head off, it will only make them more suspicious.”
“Gerlock, do you recognize this Lodestone?” Fortuna said as she smiled at Derek and dropped his hand.
“I do not, but look at that peak to the east. Isn’t that the backside of the mount we see from the other side when we stand at the western edge of the Darksbane?”
“Remarkable,” Fortuna said. “I think you are right. This is tremendous. We can’t be much more than two hundred miles from Fortress, and once we are in the Darksbane, we’ll have means to move quickly, even if it’s exhausting.”
“We might as well be ten thousand miles from the Darksbane,” Gerlock said, “until we sort things out with the dwarves. They’ll not be in a trusting mood, I suspect, having us pop in like this. Sit down, everyone, so it looks like we are waiting for them. We will need to act like this is purposeful and ask their help. They have odd ethics when it comes to uninvited guests.”
Gerlock sat down as he spoke, and Jack and the others followed his lead.
“So, the dwarves?” Sally asked.
Fortuna nodded. “Be very proper. They respect formality. And be careful, as they are crafty. Where you see three, there are really six watching you. Here they come.”
Jack saw a large, shaggy, bearded head come up step-by-step into view on one side of the Lodestone rock. As the dwarf stepped up onto the rock in the shadowed light of morning, Jack had the distinct impression that the inventor of bobbleheads had modeled his work after a dwarf of Artaeris. Several more followed the first up onto the Lodestone and stood with the first until there were ten in all. Each had an abundance of course-looking hair and plentiful beards, and none of them looked as though they had ever been washed. Their heads were huge for their bodies, though even with their large heads, Jack was pretty sure they were shorter than Sally. They were decked out in layers of dark clothes, with mixed fabrics and leathers, and all carried a variety of weapons. The lead dwarf was resting his elbow on a massive ax that he’d grounded.
“Good day to you, fine travelers,” the dwarf said in a deep, gravelly voice. “I am Verdag ul’Trag.”
“A fine day it is, Verdag ul’Trag,” Gerlock said, rising to his feet, “and I wish you all the best. I am Gerlock Forestdean.”
“It is good to have such fine folk visit us,” Verdag said. “Mayhap the wizard who brought you here to this small corner of the world would announce himself along with his intentions?”
Gerlock looked at Jack. Unsure of what to do, he stood up. “Good morning. I am Jack Paris, and I brought this group here, though I didn’t know we were coming here specifically. And I’m not actually a wizard, though I seem to be able to use the Lodestones. My intentions, uh, were to escape Drakin.”
Noise erupted from the dwarves, and Jack realized a moment later they were arguing in their own language. It sounded like a rockslide, and it rapidly devolved into two factions with a dwarf representing each side in fisticuffs. Verdag look
ed on for a moment from the side, then gripped his ax by the blade and brought the thick wood handle down on the head of one of the combatants in a violent blow. Jack gasped, sure he had just witnessed a murder, but the dwarf he struck merely shook a fist at Verdag and disengaged from his opponent. Verdag worked for another minute to restore order, then turned and faced Jack’s group again.
“Now, as we were discussing, fine sir,” Verdag said to Jack, “you say you had cause to escape from Drakin and sought refuge here?”
“Well,” Jack began, but Gerlock shifted on his feet and stepped on Jack’s toe hard. Jack yelped in pain and tried to cover it with a fake cough.
“I would not presume on our esteemed hosts for such generosity,” Gerlock said. “We would instead ask for safe passage that we might make haste for the Darksbane Forest.”
A low grumble started up among the dwarves behind Verdag at Gerlock’s words. Verdag shifted for a moment on his feet, glancing back at the other dwarves, clearly uncomfortable.
“Yet any show of courtesy,” Verdag said, “short of refuge would be in poor taste with the stated threat of Drakin looming, yes?”
At this, a murmur of approval started among the dwarves and Verdag, clearly pleased with himself, turned and shouted a few commands at them in what Jack assumed was dwarvish. The dwarves rapidly deployed in a loose formation around the group.
Gerlock sighed. “We’ll need to follow them,” he said in a low voice. “Refuge will involve delays if it is granted, and if it is not, we’re in trouble.”
“Honored guests,” Verdag said, waving them toward the edge of the Lodestone, “please join me in our halls so we can discuss your case.”
Jack and his companions were marched off the Lodestone via a stone stairway carved into the side of the rock. At the base, they turned toward a rock wall on the west side of the narrow valley. There was no path to speak of, and he was forced to choose his steps carefully through the rocky terrain. Jack was beginning to wonder exactly where they were going when Verdag stepped up to the rock wall and used his body to block whatever it was he was doing. A section of rock rumbled backward and to the side, revealing a wide but short entrance into the mountain.
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