Stone Dragon (The Painter Mage Book 5) Page 9

  “It doesn’t look anything like those to cross the Threshold.”

  I glanced down the hall. “None of these do, really.”

  “Why do you think that might be?”

  “I don’t know. There’s too much about the doors that’s not known. I’m guessing my father knew more than anyone, and he didn’t share.” Not even with those he trusted the most, it seemed. If anyone should have known something about the doors, I suspected it would have been Tom, but he didn’t seem to know anything.

  “Can you open it?” Devan asked.

  When I’d been in Arcanus before, the idea of opening this door would have been impossible to even consider. Even studying the patterns carved onto its surface was like a master class, the reason only masters like Hard even attempted it. But I’d changed in the time since I left Arcanus. The patterns on the door were no less complex, and more difficult than anything I could hope to reproduce, but I didn’t have to reproduce the pattern to open the door. I only had to find the right way to trigger it.

  I looked for the sigil like was on a few of the other doors, not certain what I needed to find. There had to be something here if only I could discover what it was.

  “Not sure,” I admitted. “There’s a lot of noise to what’s here. Not all of it’s needed.”

  Devan tapped on a few spots on the door. “These aren’t intended for anything, are they?”

  I studied the shapes where she pointed. One was a tight spiral, slowly twirling. Not inverted, not arcane like some of the patterns on the door. “No. I’m not sure why there would be so many arcane patterns separated like this…” I trailed off, an idea coming to me. With a surge of focus divided into each of the arcane patterns on the door, I pressed my will into them.

  A flash of blue color swirled through them.

  For a moment, I thought that might be all that would happen. Then the colors started to twist through the rest of the patterns on the door, slowly intertwining. Devan and I stepped back, waiting to see what would happen. If it was anything like the door in the Rooster, it would pop open, if only a crack.

  Once the blue lines raced through the door, an outline appeared of a curved doorway. It was narrow, almost too thin for me to squeeze through. I’d have to duck to get through the rest of it, but it was definitely an opening that hadn’t been there before.

  “Huh. I kind of thought we’d see more than that,” I said.

  “They sealed it. Isn’t that what she said?”

  “Yeah, that’s what she said, but should they be able to seal it completely?” Given what I’d seen from these doors, it seemed unlikely even the Masters of Arcanus wouldn’t be able to seal the doors entirely. But how was I to open the door?

  Devan took a step back and then ran toward the door.

  “Devan!”

  She moved too quickly for me to do anything. When she hit the door, it shook for a moment and then there was a steady hissing sound.

  “Now you’ve done it,” I said.

  She glanced back at me. “You’re an idiot, Ollie.”

  “What if you break the door down?”

  “Do you think I can do that? Look at all the protections on the door to hold it in place. And I’m not actually doing anything that would damage the door, just trying to nudge it open a little.”

  I traced my hand along the edge of the door. The line around the perimeter seemed a little more open than it had before. Maybe not much, but enough I could feel a groove where the door could start to open.

  “Give it another shove,” I suggested.

  “Oh, now you want me to do it?”

  I grinned at her. “There’s all kinds of things I want you to do.”

  She punched me in the shoulder, then turned to the door and ran at it again, crashing into it. The door hissed again but didn’t open completely. I touched the separation around the small crack that had appeared when I triggered the symbols. I could almost get my fingers under it.

  Devan nodded and took one more run at the door. Before she crashed into it this time, she flared her magic, making her skin glow with a bright yellow light, and then she hit.

  There was a grinding sound, that of steel scraping on steel, and then a soft fluttering as wind blew through the door.

  Devan glanced over and shrugged. “Maybe I could have tried that first.”

  I laughed. “You were just trying to tease me. You know how much I like it when you glow like that.”

  We stood in front of the door, and Devan took my hand. She must have sensed the anxiety I was feeling, the uncertainty about returning. It had taken years, but I no longer regretting leaving Arcanus. There would only have been so much they would have managed to teach me, and there would have been limits to what they would have taught me. I was a tagger, never with the potential to become an artist. With painters, it’s almost always clear right away which way the painter was going to go. Talent manifests early, especially when dealing with things like artistry. Taggers can work and improve their skill, but the masters never felt they could ever reach the same level, so they stopped teaching. Since I was the Elder’s son, I was given a little more time than usual, but even that nepotism hadn’t helped once my father disappeared.

  “Go on, Ollie,” Devan said.

  I looked over at her, thankful I’d been expelled from Arcanus. I squeezed her hand and then pushed on the door.

  We stepped across. Everything was black. The air smelled different on this side of the doorway. Musty from the aged books of the library. There was a hint of smoke from the fire at the end of the library, but I couldn’t see anything. The air was cool, but not cold. But the darkness was absolute, cutting off even the light from the other side of the tunnel. That told me it was painted. It was a neat trick, but one I’d learned how to counter.

  Devan started to work her magic, the pull of it making the medallion go cold. “Not here,” I whispered. Her magic ceased.

  I didn’t want her to reveal herself too soon. If the masters in Arcanus already knew we were here, then I wanted to have a surprise were we to need it. Devan was my ace in the hole.

  Taking a pinch of red ink, I made a quick circle and infused it with power. Then, using a series of arcane patterns on the inside of the circle, I infused that as well.

  There was a flickering, and then light flashed on.

  As it did, power struck my circle with enough force to drop me to my knees, sending swirls of color across my eyes. I grabbed quickly for a charm in my pocket and pressed out, through my protective circle with a surge of power.

  Had I been wrong? Was this not Arcanus?

  8

  The attack eased, and I stood, holding onto the power in my circle. The light around me slowly eased back and allowed me to see. Devan held onto my shoulder, propping me up, but I sensed the tension in her hands and her readiness to yank me back through the doorway if needed.

  “What happened, Ollie?”

  I grunted and wiped my hands on my pants. “Some asshole thought to attack me.”

  Now that I could see, it was clear we were in Arcanus. Five rows of shelves started about ten steps from us. There was space between the shelves and the doorway. A small table was pushed against the wall, looking no different than it had when I’d been here. Hard’s table, and the one he used to stack his notes and references on. There weren’t any books on it now. A leather wingback chair angled toward the door next to it.

  I couldn’t tell who had hit me with the attack.

  “I’m not here to cause problems,” I said, letting my voice carry.

  Someone groaned near the end of one of the shelves. I glanced over at Devan and released the circle of protection, before making my way toward them.

  Stopping at the end of the shelf, I paused and leaned forward. Sprawled across the ground was a long figure. Flashes of gray hair poked out from under a cap. The ends of the fingers I could see were stained with all different colors, each finger something new, like a kaleidoscope. The person slowly pushed up
and blinked.

  “Oh, damn. Sorry about that, Mac,” I said.

  I hadn’t expected my little offensive to work quite so well. All I’d done was turn the power I was pulling through my circle and push it away. It was something that only worked at certain times. Most of the time, it did little more than create the illusion of greater power. This time, it had damn near knocked Mac out.

  “Escher?” he asked. “But you’ve…”

  “Oliver,” I corrected. I’d never gotten everyone in Arcanus to call me by my preferred name. That had come from my father. He’d given me the name Escher, presumably because he wanted to torment me throughout my life. My mother had given me the middle name Oliver. That was what I preferred. Who’d want to run around life being called Escher anyway?

  “How did you get here?” Mac started again, managing to sit up now and rubbing his hands across his arms. He left a single streak of red ink on his arm.

  At least I understood why the attack had been so potent. Not many in Arcanus ever learn to use much offensive magic. That’s only one of the deficiencies the painters have. Red was great for attacking. It was the reason I used it as often as I did.

  “Came through the door. Sorry if there was a bit of noise. It was a bit challenging to open, but I suspect you know about that.”

  Mac stood shakily and looked around.

  I followed the direction of his eyes. There had been others with him. “Devan,” I whispered.

  She nodded and hurried off. I didn’t care if they were injured, but I didn’t want one of the damn masters to attack me while I was trying to find something in the library. Hopefully, we didn’t need much time. We didn’t have much anyway. Two days until the Wasdig returned, and then I’d be dragged off the Zdrn. Two days to find out what my father might have known about it. Maybe learn a little more about him in the process.

  I couldn’t waste any time having someone slow me down. Maybe we should have come at night. I hadn’t considered hiding ourselves, but given it’d been over a decade since I’d been here, maybe I should have.

  “What are you doing here?” Mac asked. His voice hardened, and I saw him starting to move his hand toward this pocket.

  I grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand back out. “That’s not going to be needed,” I said. “We’re all friends here.”

  Mac eyed me strangely. “Are we, Escher?”

  “Well, we sure as hell aren’t enemies, Mac. I don’t need you dragging your ink out of your pocket to attack me. And it wouldn’t do you a whole hell of a lot of good anyway.”

  That drew a smile out of Mac. “You think you can stop an Arcanus master painter?”

  Devan returned from around the end of the stacks and tipped her head, motioning toward the side. I made a point of looking at her as I answered Mac. “Not just me. And I’m pretty sure I’ve got an answer for anything you might be able to throw at me. Unless you brought Reem along with you too?”

  Mac’s eyes narrowed slightly as he chuckled softly. “Now you sound like your father.” I turned to face him, and he raised his hands as if to ward me off. “Don’t give me that face, Esch—Oliver.” He made a point of emphasizing the ‘O’. “Your father was the best painter to come through here in centuries. Why do you think we worked so hard to try to get you to his level.”

  This time, I laughed. “You think you worked hard? I seem to remember I was expelled.”

  “For trying to learn patterns that are forbidden, especially for a tagger,” Mac drawled. He glanced from Devan to me. “Where have you been, anyway? Last I heard, you’d disappeared.”

  “What? You trying to keep tabs on me?”

  “We keep tabs on all painters, Oliver.”

  I snorted, thinking about how many taggers I knew about living outside of Arcanus. There was no way they managed to keep track of all of them.

  “You don’t want me to know?” Mac asked.

  I heard someone moaning softly from the direction Devan had come from. Who else would Mac have brought with him? Probably another master painter. Ash had supposedly disappeared as well. That left Reem, unless there were other masters now I didn’t know about.

  “I’ve been studying those patterns you don’t think I should know about,” I said and turned away from him.

  Devan motioned to a small figure lying on the ground near the end of the stacks. I was surprised to see it was a girl, and even more surprised when she sat up and looked at me with a face that reminded me so much of Taylor, only she didn’t have the blue streaks through her black hair. She looked ten years younger than Taylor, though, and seemed to be missing the hard edge she’d always carried herself with.

  “Oh, shit,” I whispered.

  “Yeah,” Devan said.

  The girl looked past me to Mac. “Mac? What is this? Where did they come from?”

  Mac pushed past me and helped lift the girl off the ground. “Lacey, this is,” he paused and glanced back at me, “Oliver. He was a student here once.”

  “Where did he come from? What happened with the door? Did you keep it closed?”

  Mac shifted his attention to the door. “Not closed. And that’s where Oliver came from.”

  “What? How?” Dark eyes looked up at me with an urgency. “Does he know where Taylor is?”

  “Probably not. Your sister’s been gone for a year, Lacey. Not much of a chance Oliver would have found her.”

  Or maybe every chance she had found me. Only Lacey couldn’t know that. I didn’t want to break the news about what had happened to Taylor just yet. Besides, I didn’t know what had happened to her. I held out hope there might be something that could be done to revive her, but I had no idea how to start. For now, I’d play dumb. Devan would likely tell me it was a part I was born to play.

  Mac slipped a supportive arm around Lacey and guided her to the chair. When he got her settled, he turned back to me. “Tell me, Oliver. What are you doing here?”

  “Do you still have my father’s belongings?”

  Mac frowned. “Of course. But you won’t be able to get into his room.”

  I glare at him. Even after all this time they still wanted to keep that separation from me, the division between the Masters and the rest of Arcanus. “And why not?”

  “The room has been sealed since you left.”

  “Then unseal it.”

  “We weren’t the ones who sealed it, Oliver. Your father placed protections on the door that prevent us from opening it,” he explained. “No one has been in his rooms since… well, since before you left.”

  I snorted. Figures my father would do something like that and gives me even more reason to believe he wasn’t dead like everyone thought when he first disappeared. That didn’t mean he wasn’t gone now. From what Jakes—and Nik—claimed, the Elder was gone for real now. That was why I’d been positioned to protect Conlin and somehow tricked into serving the Protariat.

  “Let me have a look,” I said.

  Mac studied me a moment, then nodded.

  My father’s rooms were in their own section of Arcanus. He even had his own hallway. Mac led me there after sealing off the door in the library, closing it with a soft hiss. Lacey followed Mac, and it took me a moment to realize she must be his apprentice. The Masters each would take one or two students for direct studies, much like I suspected Hard had taken his daughter, Taylor, as his apprentice.

  The hall where my father had chosen his rooms was stark, nothing like other places throughout Arcanus where ornate paintings were placed on the walls, the frames as ostentatious as the paintings themselves. A few items hung along the hall here, but they were mostly simple things: a flat copper platter, an iron sculpture of an elongated figure, a wooden panel with faint carvings in it. I studied as we passed, looking for signs that something hid in the patterns carved into the wood, but saw nothing.

  “You never asked about the others,” Mac said as we made our way down the hall.

  “What?”

  He looked over at me, his eyes narrow
ed. “The others. You asked about Reem but not the others. You know what happened, don’t you?” He spoke so softly I’d don’t think Lacey could hear, but I watched her for her reaction anyway.

  “I know what happened,” I agreed.

  “How?”

  “Taylor found me.”

  Mac sucked in a soft breath, watching Lacey. “And where is she now?”

  “Someplace safe,” I lied.

  Mac stared at me for a moment, as if he caught something in the way I said that to make him think I wasn’t telling the truth, which, of course, I wasn’t. Then he nodded and continued on his way, guiding me toward my father’s rooms.

  At the end of the hall, Mac stopped before the door. It was made of a thick, stout wood that was almost reddish in color. There was no grain to the wood. I’d always been drawn to the door itself, always impressed with how smooth and its stark simplicity. After all this time away, it still drew me.

  Lacey glanced back at me as Mac stopped. “Wait. This is the Elder’s room!”

  Mac nodded. “The Elder. Oliver’s father.”

  Lacey’s eyes widened. “I thought he’s dead.”

  I grunted. “That’s what they keep telling me.”

  “Oliver, the door has been sealed. Whatever he used is on the inside and prevents the door from opening. It’s a shame, since anything the Elder might have stored inside his room would likely be valuable.”

  I thought of what my father might have stored inside his room. If what Taylor said about the bowl Hard had taken from his room was true, he’d had something that had been useful to them, especially in finding a way to get through the first doorway. From there, Hard had tried opening another doorway, one where he’d disappeared. But we didn’t know where he’d gone from there, or even if he was still alive. There was a part of me that suspected he’d crossed the Threshold. Without a guide of some kind, he was likely dead.