Stone Dragon (The Painter Mage Book 5) Read online

  “I always had an eye for that sort of thing,” she said, dismissing the comment. “That’s not so much about any type of magical power as it is about focus and concentration. But since I’ve been here, I’ve noticed the effort I put into some of these things gives them different effects than I realized. Take your charms for example. The one that resembles the sculpture in the park that nearly took down your house? Neither of us expected that one to be quite so powerful, but it was. I think most of that is the fact that you’ve gotten stronger, but some of it is probably my fault.”

  I smiled, thinking of the first time I’d used the Agony charm. We had thought Jakes was trying to attack us, and all we wanted to do was get back behind the door of my house and let the protections my father had placed on the house keep us safe. The charm was supposed to make a fifty or hundred foot circle of explosion, but it had been double what we expected. I guess I had thought it had more to do with the shape of the charm than anything, but now Devan was telling me it might be because of what she had done?

  “And these guys?” I said, pointing to the lion figurine.

  “They’re more like your charms than anything else. The first time I made one, it was more out of boredom. I’d always carved the shapes of some of the creatures we’d see on the other side,” she said. I remembered she usually used wood, and her carvings were always impressive. “And when I got to this side and did the same thing, something was different. All of a sudden, I was able to breathe life into these things.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Ollie. It suits you too well.” She smiled as she said it and nudged me in the ribs. “You’ve seen what I mean. It happened first when I was working with the first sculpture. I made it like the trolls who serve my father, thinking they could be kind of cute.”

  I snorted, and she shot me a look.

  “Hey, I think you’re cute, so careful. Anyway, when I finished making the first of the trolls, I breathed on it. Nothing intentional, but as I did, the figurine started stretching out. At first, I didn’t know what was happening. Was it something of my father’s that he was somehow controlling? But then I realized it responded to me. It took a while for me to begin to understand how to use them.” She looked up at me and held my eyes. “I’m still not entirely clear about everything with them. They respond to me, and I know how to animate them with life and draw it back, but not much more than that.”

  “Isn’t that all there is to know?”

  Devan’s eyes widened for a moment. “Not at all. What if there’s a price? With the things we do, Ollie, there’s always a price. I don’t feel anything when I breathe life into the figurines, but that doesn’t mean nothing does.”

  I turned at the next corner, driving a little faster than was safe. I figured if I were pulled over, it would end up being Jakes who stopped me so we’d end up with the same result either way.

  “Who do you think pays the price?” I asked.

  Devan looked down at her sculpture and shook her head slightly. “I don’t know.”

  We finished the drive to Jakes’s house in silence. Devan remained focused on her figurine, twisting it from side to side as she held it out to the light. As we pulled into the long driveway leading up to the fifties style rambler, I leaned over to her and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.

  “What is it about this one?” I asked, staying close to her.

  She shrugged. “It’s different than some of the others. I started by trying to create my own, using something of a lion, and something of a chatyl.” She held it out to me as if I should know what a chatyl was. “As I worked, it became less the chimera in my mind and more of the chatyl. Even the scales are there.”

  At least now I understood why the light seemed to come off the sides of the figurine so differently. “What can it do?”

  Some of the others were easy. The trolls were big and strong. The snake fox was quiet and powerful. There was an eagle-like one I’d seen her using, testing as she lett it fly overhead. I wondered if the dragon she’d made could do the same, or maybe it was meant to be one of those Chinese serpent dragons without wings. The chatyl looked like nothing more than a big cat.

  “Fast and vicious. It’s sort of a hunter. I figured if we ever needed to search for something, it might be good to have.”

  “Anything you know of that can take on real hunters?”

  I didn’t know enough to take them on myself. The shifters did, but they suffered each time they did.

  “Yeah,” Devan said.

  I waited, but she didn’t answer. She pushed open the door to the truck and climbed out.

  Jakes’s house had once been his father’s, so like me, he lived in a bit of a hand-me-down. His was nicer. Not only the lot—Jakes’s house sat on an acre of wooded land—but also the house had been lovingly maintained over the years, keeping most of the charm it likely had possessed when it was first built. It had been painted a few times since then, at least one of those times by my father, giving it a layer of protection few other houses in Conlin could match. The wooden fence snaking around the perimeter of the yard was patched with lighter wood where the Nizashi had trampled it. It disrupted the flow of energy that had once prevented me from using much of my painter power in the yard, leaving the yard more vulnerable than it once had been.

  If I ever had more down time, I needed to see if there was anything I could do to restore what had been lost. Not so much for Jakes—he was powerful enough I didn’t worry about him taking care of himself—but more for the shed at the back of the lot that held a sort of prison that my father and Jakes’s father had created.

  We circled around the edge of the house. Given that it was the middle of the day, neither of us expected anyone to be here. Jakes was likely out patrolling, or at least making a show of patrolling while he was serving as the guardian of the doorways. Kacey, another shifter that I still wasn’t certain her relationship with Jakes, was probably working at the Rooster.

  As we reached the back of the yard, the sliding door opened and Jakes stepped out onto the deck. He was shirtless, revealing his heavily muscled chest, the kind that would make him a likely candidate for Mr. Universe were he so vain. All he wore were faded blue jeans.

  “Jakes? You’re not working?” I asked, stopping short, feeling a little shocked he was here. I made a point of standing in front of Devan. I didn’t need her seeing a physique like that. There was no way I could compete.

  His mouth pulled into something that resembled a smile. With Jakes, it was often hard to tell. “Morris. I didn’t think I’d have to answer to you.”

  “Yeah, well there are lots of things we don’t expect, aren’t there?”

  Jakes jumped down from the deck, landing with all the grace of the shifter he was, and he prowled toward us. I half expected him to take on his wolf form. “Something troubles you.”

  I snorted. “Guess you could say that.” He cocked his head and waited for me to explain. “So you ask me to serve as protector of Conlin, but you don’t tell me what that means other than I would need to provide some sort of balance. When the Trelking made his play—”

  “It was not only the Trelking,” Jakes interrupted.

  I glanced at Devan. “Yeah, well when the Trelking and Brand made their play for Conlin, I got a little mad because they were messing with my stuff.”

  “You agreed to serve as this place’s protector,” Jakes said.

  “And I’m not even sure what that means. Only that now we’ve got some creature who’s suddenly appeared out of nowhere, using strange staff magic like some sort of wizard, and claiming that I need to honor a bargain that was made.” I paused, letting my frustration sink into Jakes. “Oh, and he claims I served the Protariat.”

  Jakes didn’t blink as he stared at me. “What is your point, Morris?”

  “Wait, you’re saying I’m a part of the Protariat?”

  “You agreed to serve,” Jakes said.

  I shook my head. “I agreed to
serve the city. I never said anything about the Protariat!”

  I kept flinging that name around as if I understood what it meant when in reality, I had no idea what the Protariat was or what purpose it served. My father had sat on it. The Trelking did. Probably others of similar power, but I didn’t know enough about them to say with any certainty.

  “The Protariat provides the balance,” Jakes said, his voice calmer than I wanted him to be. I needed passion and argument from him, but I’d rarely seen either out of Jakes.

  “What exactly is this balance? Why don’t you sit on it as well? You’re serving in your father’s place too?” Jakes stared at me, not blinking. I shook my head in irritation. “And why was there a half demon creature sitting in the old Crastor plant down at the north end of town?”

  Jakes hesitated. At least I had his attention. “You claimed there was a wizard seeking your services.”

  “Would that be any better?”

  He twisted to sniff at the air, leaning into the wind and taking a long breath. I wondered what the shifter part of him sensed if anything at all. Had he sensed anything, I figured we would have seen him down at the plant along with us. Instead, Devan and I had the joy of greeting the Wasdig all by ourselves. What would have happened had I not learned even that single magi technique? That had been the reason the damn Wasdig stopped attacking, mostly because he thought I was someone I was not.

  “What did this creature look like?” Jakes asked.

  “What? Your super sniffer not able to tell you what the thing looked like?” I snapped.

  Jakes stood with arms crossed his exposed chest. I became acutely aware of how much more powerful Jakes was than me. Not that I needed much reminder, but seeing him standing there, it was more than a physical strength he possessed, it was his magical strength too. Shifters are powerful and possess a different magic, one that was as different as Devan’s was to mine. I shouldn’t push him so hard, but he still kept things from me that I knew would help me, especially as I tried to come to grips with what I was supposed to do now that I’d agreed to protect Conlin. I couldn’t very well protect the city if I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing.

  “Morris, I have not detected anything. Does that not worry you?”

  I glanced at Devan. It was the same for her with shifters, so I suspected she didn’t feel a whole lot of sympathy for him. As I turned back to Jakes, I sighed. I needed to go easier on him. Since I’d returned to Conlin, he’d only faced the hunters, lost his father, dealt with a painter who turned out to be a shifter and lost a friend who’d been helping Adazi. Maybe Jakes deserved a little more slack than I was providing.

  “Ah, well, he was tall. Probably ten feet, and muscular. Didn’t like clothes so the two of you would get along fine. Had orange or red colored skin. Two blunted horns came out of its head. And, like I said, he carried a staff he slammed into the ground to make his magic. This was powerful stuff, too.” Enough that he would have overwhelmed my circle within a few more minutes had Devan not accidentally crossed the edge of the circle.

  “Did he name himself?” Jakes asked.

  “He calls himself the Wasdig, if that means anything to you.”

  Jakes’s face tightened, and he looked like he might snarl. Then it relaxed, and he turned back to me. “That means nothing to me. You said the creature was a demon?”

  “Not a demon,” I said, “only looks like one.”

  “Are you certain?”

  With any other person, this conversation would seem odd, but with Jakes, talking about demons and magical creatures and invisible hell creatures was pretty typical for us. That didn’t make me feel any better about all of it.

  “Jakes, trust me when I tell you I’ve looked into the eyes of a demon,” I said.

  More than one, actually. The Trelking thought to summon one once, deciding I needed to know how to do it as well. The process is surprisingly easy but takes a hell of a lot of power, strength most painters don’t have. Thankfully. Working with arcane patterns, you begin to master things you never thought were possible before. Such as destroying a village or summoning a demon or killing. Yeah, none of that is easy.

  “I can see you have,” Jakes said. “The creature asked for protection?”

  I frowned, thinking about what the creature had said. Had it asked for protection, or was there something else it wanted? I couldn’t remember. “An escort,” I began. “Don’t know where it’s supposed to bring me.” The Wasdig had said some sort of name, but I couldn’t remember it. Strange, considering my memory was usually pretty good.

  “He said he’s to bring you to the Zdrn,” Devan said.

  Jakes spun to her. “You are certain this is what it said?”

  “Remember who you’re talking to,” I said to Jakes. I didn’t like the tone he’d taken with Devan, something like an accusation but mixed with an undercurrent of unease. If Jakes felt uncomfortable, then I probably should too.

  “She is the heir to the Trelking. She should know about the Zdrn.”

  “Well, she doesn’t, so why don’t you share with me what it is?” I said.

  “It is a practice that should have been abandoned. And perhaps it has been, by most. A dark practice, one where the powerful come together.” Jakes paused and made a point of looking in my eyes. “The Zdrn serves as something like a peace accord and a test, but only for those strong enough to broker it. I do not know what last it was called, but know that the Protariat sends a single representative. It seems it is meant to be you.”

  4

  Jakes left Devan and I standing in the middle of his lawn. Something about needing to go find Tom Brindle, owner of the Rooster, a diner where the magical gather, but I suspected there was another reason, especially seeing how he shifted into his massive wolf form and bounded off in a hurry. Jakes didn’t go anywhere in a hurry unless there was a reason.

  I looked around the lawn. Tall oak trees dotted the lawn, reaching high over the roof of the house. With as warm as the fall had been, the leaves hadn’t started changing colors yet, though they had started to droop a bit. A few pine trees were set between the oaks, seemingly at random, but I’d come to learn there wasn’t a whole lot of random in Conlin, not when it came to my father. And if there was anything I’d learned, it was that my father had been involved in helping form the protections around Jakes’s place. They might have changed over the years, but they were still pretty impressive.

  The shed toward the back of the lawn had been designed to look much like the house. It was painted in the same light brown and had shutters over the two windows, making it nothing more than some quaint little shed when the reality was quite a bit different. Beneath the upper level, where Jakes’s father had stored the usual rakes and shovels and lawnmowers, was a lower level, where my father had burrowed out something of a magical prison where he stored his statues that were like what I’d done with Nik. Inside there were other creations my father had made, things like the crystal ball, with the patterns made into it so subtly that you had to struggle to see them. It was a miniature version of my house.

  “What do you think it means that I’m meant to go to the Zdrn?” I asked Devan. The question had been bothering me since Jakes described what it was. I hadn’t agreed to serve on the Protariat, only to help keep Conlin safe. The others on the Protariat were much more powerful than me, beings like the Trelking or my father. I had nothing like their ability.

  “I think it means the Wasdig is meant to bring you someplace,” Devan said. “I’m still trying to work through what that might be.”

  “We’ve got three days,” I started. “Why does there have to be a deadline like this?”

  Devan flashed me a smile. “Three days is plenty of time.”

  “For what? If I need a creature like that to escort me, then wherever we’re going is bound to have even more dangerous things. You think I can handle anything more than that?”

  “Do we have a choice?” Devan asked.

  “We? I’m th
inking you can sit this one out. Whatever it is.”

  She jabbed me in the ribs, making a point of hitting me in the same one that had been injured before. I bent over, grabbing at my side. “Damn, Devan!”

  “Don’t be stupid, Ollie. If you’re summoned to serve the Protariat, don’t you think we should go and find out why? And maybe see what my father might have had to do with it?”

  “Do you really think he would have done this to me?”

  “You saw his face when you agreed to protect the city. That was the face of someone who’d just gotten what they wanted. Don’t ask me to tell you what it is, but if he’s happy, then I think you need to be a little nervous.”

  Or maybe a lot nervous. And Devan was probably right. The Trelking had seemed far too interested in seeing that I was willing to protect Conlin. At the time, I thought it had more to do with the fact that he didn’t want to worry about the Druist Mage attacking on this side of the Threshold, but maybe there was a different reason.

  Had he known the Zdrn would be called? He must have known my staking my claim to the city I’d suddenly agreed to serve the Protariat, but what did that mean for me?

  I needed to know more, and Jakes either wasn’t willing to share or wasn’t able.

  “Jakes had told me that his father served on the Protariat,” I said.

  “So did the Elder,” Devan agreed.

  “And your father.”

  “We’ve established that all the major players were on the Protariat,” Devan said. “What’s your point?”

  “Only that we don’t seem to know very much about what it is. Or how it fits into this other group, the one where the Wasdig is meant to bring me into. Or even why it was me he came and summoned.”

  “Why are you so certain it summoned you?”

  “Because it came on this side of the Threshold.”

  “What if the Wasdig wanted the Elder? For that matter, what if it would have wanted Jakes’s father?”

  “Either would have been better suited than me.”