The Painter Mage: Books 1-3

by D. K. Holmberg

  I thought of the picture Taylor had shown me and wondered how accurate it was. Why would she have shown it to me if she was just going to take the book anyway? “What happened when you tried opening the other doors?”

  “For most of them, nothing.”

  “Most?”

  She shrugged. “None of us had the same commitment to studying the doors as Hard.”

  “Commitment? You mean obsession.”

  “Whatever. Hard devoted everything to understanding the patterns on the door. When we found the other book, combined with what we learned from the Elder, we think he managed to open one of the other doors.”

  I thought that I knew everything that my father had left in Arcanus, but apparently I didn’t. “What else did you learn from the Elder?”

  Taylor glanced away. “Hard took some scraps of paper left in his room. Nothing too useful. But he had a bowl. It took Mac to realize there were patterns worked around the inside of it. Hard used this to help him solve the last piece of the door. And from there, it didn’t take long to understand what we needed to do to open it.”

  I remembered that bowl. My father had kept it stashed toward the back of his desk in his room at home. When we’d gone to Arcanus, he’d brought it with him, though I never asked him why. It looked like something you’d find at a thrift store. White ceramic, one piece of the lip chipped away. Faded lettering along the inside. Could he really have hidden a series of patterns there that would solve the mystery of opening the door in Arcanus?

  And if he had, why would he not have opened it himself?

  My father knew more about painting than any of the Masters I’d met. For him to have known and not used the knowledge seemed unlikely. That meant he had known.

  I ignored the fluttering in my chest. If he had known, that was even more reason to think he might still be alive. “What happened with the door you opened?”

  Taylor’s eyes widened, taking on a haunted expression. “Reem helped determine the pattern, but I’d worked with Hard long enough that I recognized some of the necessary components. The patterns on the other doors had taken immense power to trigger the patterns, but this one didn’t, almost like it was powered differently. I think it drew Hard to it.”

  What Taylor described didn’t sound like my experience. The only time I’d seen anything like that had been when I found her near Agony. Most of the doors crossing the Threshold required tremendous power.

  “They pushed through?” I asked.

  Her eyes widened. “Not quite. We started to activate the door. As we did, we recognized Hard’s influence and knew we were right. He had opened the door. But then it began to glow too quickly, the doorway trying to resolve itself without any influence from us, as if whatever was on the other side wanted through.” She had a faraway look to her eyes. “Reem stopped us before they had the chance to get through. She and Ash placed what protections they could around the door, but it wasn’t enough. Something came through. Ash—” She cut herself off and took a deep breath, swallowing as she did. “Something pulled Ash through. Reem did… something… that destroyed the remaining symbols. Then we went back through the door to library and sealed it shut. None have been through there since.”

  She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees. My imagination worked through what she’d told me, creating an image of a hand—one that in my mind looked too much like the Claw in the park—reaching through the door and grabbing Ash. Painters in Arcanus weren’t prepared for the nightmares that existed outside the walls. How would Ash have reacted? Would he have known any way to get help? Or was he already dead?

  “What do you think it was?” I considered the creatures I knew from the other side, but none had enough power to push through like that. Even Devan might not have had the power needed by herself. It had taken both of us to get across.

  Taylor scanned the trees before turning toward Agony. “There aren’t too many beings of such power, are there?” she asked. “Reem wouldn’t do anything, but I had to. Hard was missing and Ash was now gone. Reem wanted me to stay behind. Arcanus needed its Masters, after all, but I wasn’t ready for the testing. Hard intended for me to follow him, but after seeing that…” She stared at the ground. “I’ve spent the last year trying to understand and managed to come up with only one answer.”

  There was too much to what she’d said, but what I took away was that Taylor was nearly a Master. Given what I’d seen of her skill, I shouldn’t have been surprised, but the other Masters—Hard, Reem, Ash, and Mac—weren’t too inclined to raise many to the level of Master. Doing so diluted some of their influence. That Taylor had Hard’s support meant she would likely have succeeded. She was skilled, I’d seen that. That I didn’t know her from my time in Arcanus told me that she learned quickly. Both made her dangerous.

  “You think a shifter responsible for what happened to Ash? To Hard?”

  Her expression hardened. “How long have you been out of Arcanus?”

  “I think we’ve well established the timeline.”

  She gave me a half-smile. “And what have you seen in your time away? Anything that would explain the kind of power you felt last night?”

  There were plenty of creatures of power. In my time away from Arcanus—in the time that I’d known Devan—I’d met many powerful magical beings. But nothing had pushed with nearly as much energy as I’d felt last night.

  “No. But I don’t know why shifters would attack. They’ve never been known for doing anything like that.” Even on the other side of the Threshold, shifters were rare. Or maybe they weren’t. Maybe they were simply quiet. Either way, what she described wasn’t the work of shifters.

  “Until we violated their realm.”

  Could that be it? Could the shifters be angry that Hard had opened a doorway to them? “That seems a bit much.”

  “Really? And your friend would react so well if we opened a doorway to her realm?”

  I didn’t correct her to tell her that most doorways led to the same world. Really, they were all part of our world, just a part the Threshold protected us from. It kept the magical and the non-magical worlds mostly separated.

  She tilted her head and I twisted to follow her gaze. Devan hunched among the trees, watching us. I hadn’t felt her approach, but then, she didn’t appear to be using any of her power. Instead I think she only watched, ready to protect me in case Taylor somehow put me in danger.

  Devan separated herself from the tree. As she did, her skin took on a soft glow. “He’s lucky to be alive,” she said. “Had it not been for his other talents, he might not be.”

  Taylor stared at Devan and nodded thoughtfully. “But you still help him.”

  Devan tipped her head to the side. “He has his uses.”

  “Are you talking about me?” I asked, interrupting them. I didn’t like the idea of Devan saying I had uses.

  “You’re an idiot,” she chided.

  “What?”

  “You know you might not have survived when you crossed had I not been there. And if you hadn’t known how to stop the theln, you might have been sent back.”

  “You didn’t give me much choice. That’s why the door opened to me.”

  The theln. It was some sort of magical parasite that had attached to her father’s neck. I used black ink and an infusion of dark will to force it to wither. But he lived and thanked me. For that, he’d allowed me to live. And he’d offered to let me learn what I could.

  “You saw the shifter,” Taylor said to Devan.

  Devan nodded. “But you’re wrong about it.”

  Taylor shook her head. “Am I? I’ve chased shifters for the last year. Do you know how hard it is to learn anything about creatures that powerful? There’s nothing but rumors of rumors. And now I’m close. It’s trying to reach through the doorway here. I can pull it out, contain it. And then force it to tell me where Hard and Ash are.”

  Devan barked a harsh laugh. “You think you can contain it?”

  �
��I did until he interrupted me. Had he not interfered, I would have captured it.”

  Devan dropped to the ground next to me. “And then what? Force a shifter to help you cross the Threshold? Or would you demand an exchange of it for your friend? You think something with that kind of power would bargain?” Devan snorted. “You don’t know anything about crossing the Threshold. Had you cared to ask, Ollie might have been able to tell you more than you’d ever want to know.”

  I glanced from Devan to Taylor. Both wore tight expressions. Devan leaned over me, as if using me to keep from attacking Taylor. Taylor kept her mouth pursed in a tight, thin line as she rested back on her hands.

  There was something I was missing. I couldn’t tell what it was, only that Taylor didn’t explain everything. An exchange? No magical creatures would make such an exchange. Not for something like that. And what I’d seen attempting to press through the bronze plate was different than the super powerful shifter that Devan had seen in my yard. That left a different answer to the puzzle.

  “What do you need the shifter for?” I asked Taylor. “What do you think to use it for?”

  She looked away, glancing toward the doorway. She ran a hand through her dark hair, pushing loose strands back behind her ear.

  “Taylor? It wasn’t the shifter that claimed Ash, was it? What did you release through the doorway into Arcanus?”

  She drew her eyes up and away from the doorway. “I don’t know,” she answered softly. “Whatever it was is powerful. Too powerful for two Masters. So powerful, we were forced to destroy one of the doors with no way of reaching back through. Now we have no way to find Hard or Ash.” She choked a little as she said it.

  “You think a shifter can help?”

  “I don’t know.” She met my gaze with defiance. “I came here looking for another access point. Your father’s notes suggested one might be here. After I triggered the statues, the door appeared, but I can’t open it. Even with his book, I can’t open it.”

  And here I thought I’d interrupted her, keeping her from triggering the door. “And the shifter?”

  “It only attacked when I came to Conlin. I don’t know why. I thought you might know, but it appears that isn’t something you learned during your time away.”

  “There are many things I didn’t learn in my time away from Conlin,” I said. I pushed myself up and wiped my hands across my pants. “If you’re done with the book, I’d like to have it back. There aren’t many things I still have of my father’s.”

  I waited, hand outstretched, until Taylor reached inside her jacket and pulled it out of a hidden pocket. I recognized it immediately. The faded brown cover marked with an eight-sided star. The slight brown staining near the bottom, where it looked like he’d spilled coffee. And the pages that practically pushed out the side of the binding. I snatched it back from her.

  “Thanks.” I started into the trees, glancing briefly over my shoulder at Devan and nodding to her. “Come on, Devan. Let her figure out what she needs to do. I’m not helping.”

  After I’d gone nearly twenty feet, Taylor called out to me.

  “You think your father would want you to turn your back on Arcanus? You think the Elder would do that to Arcanus?”

  I paused long enough to answer. “They turned their back on me first.”

  9

  Where the park met my yard, I stopped and waited for Devan. The pine trees Taylor had damaged left an acrid odor in the air. Mixed with it was the musky scent of an animal and I briefly hoped it wasn’t the shifter from the night before. I didn’t have the strength to deal with it.

  Devan didn’t take long to catch up. She looked over at me, a mixture of concern and amusement on her face. “I thought you wanted to help her.”

  I tapped my hand on my leg, bumping against the book now tucked into the pocket of my duster. A sense of relief washed over me at its return. Not that I needed the book—or that I could do anything with it—but it was important enough to my father that he had left it for me. With enough time, I hoped to be able to figure out what it meant, even if it took decades. I might not have the same lifespan as an artist, but taggers lived a long time, too.

  “When I thought she needed help. This…” I waved my hand toward where we’d left Taylor. “Whatever happens is on her.”

  “You’re still thinking about what she showed you of the other side of the door.”

  I didn’t answer. I suspected it meant a different way across the Threshold, each door to a different location. If so, Devan might be able to return. To stay safe.

  “And your friends?” Devan asked. “You’ve never been the one to leave someone who needs help.”

  “They’re not my friends,” I answered. “Hard was the reason I left Arcanus.”

  Devan punched me on the shoulder.

  “Ow!”

  “I think you’ve been feeding yourself the same lie so long, you’ve begun to believe it, Ollie. You really think Arcanus kicked you out, or did you simply outgrow what they could teach you?”

  “I hadn’t learned everything I could before I left.”

  “Really? And would it have changed the kind of painter you are?”

  Probably not. Arcanus was willing to teach taggers only so much. Beyond that, only artists really learned. I was too hurried, too willing to rush through things, to ever have the patience to become an artist. But I had an eye for patterns. That helped me understand the arcane patterns, allowed me to learn them quickly. Had I not left Arcanus, I doubt I would have learned half of what I had.

  “See?” Devan said. “You’re an—”

  She cut off before finishing and jerked her head around, staring back into the park. A soft glow came to her skin and the amulet around my neck went cold.

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t know. Something.”

  “Shifter?”

  The shifter had to be out there still. We’d seen it twice now, the second time only scared off by a combination of what I and Taylor had done. I didn’t know what she wanted with the creature, but I was beginning to doubt that it really meant us any harm. That didn’t mean it didn’t mean Taylor harm.

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  I checked the satchels of ink and grabbed two charms from the pocket of my duster, palming them. “Can you still sense her?”

  Devan tilted her head as if listening. “She’s still there. I don’t think she’s moved.”

  That could mean many things, but if the shifter was out there, I worried what it meant for Taylor.

  I started forward. Devan kept pace. She smiled up at me. “I thought you were going to leave her to deal with this on her own?”

  “You can be a real pain in my ass, you know that?”

  She laughed softly. “Isn’t that why I’m here?”

  “I thought you were here so that I could keep you safe.”

  “Really? By constantly putting me in danger?”

  We veered through the trees. Devan’s soft light guided me. The trees were little more than shadows that reached branches toward me. As we ran, I felt a soft surge of power from somewhere in the distance. I didn’t know what it was.

  “You’ve never really been in any danger,” I said.

  Devan laughed. “I’ll tell that to my father. Really, Dad, the shifter didn’t want to hurt me. We knew it was only going to knock me down, not actually kill me.”

  “After what happened, you think he’d believe you over me?”

  We stopped between a pair of trees. Devan’s glow had stopped, but I felt her holding onto her power. A shadow moved in the darkness in front of us, prowling around the area I suspected the doorway to be in. I slipped from tree to tree, moving as silently as I could, unable to match Devan in stealth.

  Circling around, I saw it clearly.

  A massive wolf-like creature stalked the flat stone sculpture, pausing every so often to sniff at the air. Its back was to us, revealing a massive tail and powerful hind legs. Devan held onto my arm. I suspected sh
e intended to drag me out of here if a magical shitstorm erupted. After the last few days of activity, she knew I wouldn’t have enough strength to do much else.

  But I needed to know what the shifter intended with Taylor.

  With the toe of my shoe, I scratched a hasty cross into the dirt, moving as silently as I could. A cross gave me the necessary focus to sense, to reach beyond me, and with this I could determine if Taylor was still even here. Or alive.

  With a steadying breath, I pushed a soft focus of energy through the cross.

  Awareness bloomed out. I could sense trees and an owl perched in a branch overhead and stone lying across the ground like a scar and Taylor lying atop it, unmoving. The shifter was a void to my senses, as if the magic I drew washed over it.

  But it sensed me.

  It swung its head toward me and locked onto me with deep, brown eyes. When it blinked, I had the sense that it read me, as if it knew me better than I knew myself.

  Devan pulled on my sleeve, already starting away.

  I resisted. If I went, I had no idea what the shifter would do to Taylor. I wasn’t certain I cared, not with how she’d used me to get to my father’s knowledge, but I didn’t want her death on my conscious. Besides, I needed to know why a shifter was in Conlin. If it wasn’t the creature that had tried pushing through the plate, then there was another reason it was here.

  Devan pulled on me, harder and with more intensity.

  I jerked my arm free and raised my hands in front of me, hoping to look as harmless as possible. The charms were still palmed carefully so I could trigger them if needed. One would spill out a perfect circle. If needed, I could use this to protect myself.

  “Show yourself,” I said.

  The shifter snarled with a flash of sharp fangs. It lifted its chin and sniffed. Muscles tensed and for a moment, I thought it might leap at me, but then it sat next to Taylor.

  I traced my foot around the stone in the ground, bringing a sharp line forward as I took a step toward the shifter.

  “Ollie!” Devan hissed.

  I ignored her and took another step.