But first, as he’d told Rowan, he needed sleep.
Chapter Twenty
Laric felt better rested in the morning. He slept in, and by the time he got up, his sister was already gone—off to school, from what he had learned from Malcolm’s father.
“I think that I will be taking a trip north later today, or tomorrow,” Malcolm’s father said as Laric ate breakfast. “Malcolm has decided to offer his protection. I am quite pleased that he has done so. It is long past time that he take more of an interest in the workings of the caravan.”
Laric smiled tightly, rubbed some sleep out of his eyes, and just nodded. “That’s great. I know that he has been looking forward to working with you.”
“Well, yes. I think he was somewhat hopeful that perhaps you might come along.”
Laric shook his head. “There are still some dangers here that I’m trying to work out.”
“I hope no dragons,” Mr. Essan said, and then he laughed a little.
Laric didn’t say anything. What could he say, after all?
Instead, he thanked him for the food, then headed out. The day was bright and warm, and he felt much better. He had an awareness of Sashaak, though he wasn’t quite sure where to find him. The sense of Sashaak lingered somewhere distant, but not so distant as to be difficult for him to feel, and it left him thinking that maybe the dragon had decided to stay closer.
He kept coming back to the idea of flying on Sashaak. He imagined what it would be like, if he could even tolerate it. He had to question if he would have the strength, stamina, and the ability to stay on the massive creature.
He set off, making steady time. As he passed the quarry, he found his gaze drifting over toward it, curiosity leading him to look at it and wonder about why his grandmother had always seemed to have a special place for the quarry. He didn’t know what it was about it, but she had always been drawn to it. It was, however, where they had found the first egg. Maybe she had left it there to try to hide it, or to protect it. Either way, it had been useful to her.
As he got closer to the shed, he slowed. It had been damaged during Talia’s escape. An unsettling feeling overcame him as he neared it, partly because he felt the strange energy within it, but also because there was some part of him that seemed as if it were reacting to it. As he had been walking, Laric had been focusing on some of the spellslips and spellcraft forms that he had learned from his grandmother, but also some of the different patterns he had learned from Sashaak.
Those techniques were ones that he needed to know. And yet, they seemed to linger within him in a different way. It was almost as if some part of him rebelled against it, or at least rebelled against the idea of it.
He wondered if Sashaak could send something to him, a way of reaching that power, and maybe even to understand why he was out here, but vaguely, he didn’t have the sense from Sashaak that he needed to do so.
By the time he reached the damaged remains of the shed, he felt at ease.
Until a bit of pressure began to form in his ears.
Laric had felt that far too often lately. Often enough that he thought he knew the source of it. Either one of his friends had followed him—and he didn’t think so, because he would’ve noticed them—or there was a mage here.
After quickly forming a detection spellcraft form, Laric swept it in a sharp arc away from him but came up with nothing. He didn’t feel anything, and he didn’t detect anything whatsoever. Just an emptiness.
It didn’t change the potential that began to build, swelling deep inside him, as if it were just waiting for an opportunity to explode outward. Why would that be there now?
He approached the shed more cautiously.
“If you’re there, I could certainly use your help,” he said to Sashaak. “I don’t know what’s out here, and I don’t know if it’s anything to be worried about, but I would appreciate you joining me. And I have some questions for you, anyway.”
He didn’t feel anything except that Sashaak seemed distant. Laric continued to focus, stretching outward to try to reach for the dragon, but the sense of Sashaak remained vague.
Laric picked his way over the pile of debris. It was easy enough to find his way down into the ruins of the shed now that the opening had been blasted free, and so he climbed down into the lower level, toward the main part of the cavern. At one point, this had been a place where he had thought that maybe he could learn some secret of his grandmother, and while he still felt that way, he no longer believed that this was the only secret she had left behind for him.
The pressure that he’d been feeling persisted, though.
Why?
He stepped into the chamber, sweeping his gaze around while searching for anything that might’ve been here. Maybe Talia, or some of the other mages who had been moving through here, had returned. He didn’t know if he would even be able to detect it if they did, and doubted that his ability to use detection spellcraft forms would even come up with an answer, but he felt as if he needed to at least try.
But then he noticed something amiss.
The glyphs on the portal were arranged strangely.
How was that possible?
The glyphs should not have changed. Unless…
Sashaak certainly could absorb glyphs and place them somewhere else, as Laric had seen. If that was the case, then the real question was why Sashaak would’ve chosen to do that here, and why he had chosen to do that now.
“Sashaak,” Laric said.
It felt a little ridiculous to be speaking aloud, especially with the chamber empty like this, and trying to communicate with a dragon that wasn’t here. But he was talking instead to the portal, hoping that something might allow him to gain access to it to reach Sashaak, and perhaps Sashaak might be able to trigger an opening so that he could come through. Laric had no real idea whether that was even possible, and at this point, if it was, he didn’t even know if it would open the way he wanted it to. But he was still willing to try.
“Sashaak,” he said again.
This time, he also tried something else. He felt the potential within himself and began to pull on it. It reminded him of what he did when he was trying to use a spellcraft form or a spellslip, except rather than either of those, Laric simply held on to that power inside himself.
There was no response.
But the glyphs started to move.
Then the portal came open with an odd sort of swirling, shimmering energy.
There wasn’t time for Laric to understand what was making its way through the portal. He feared for the worst but knew that he had to be ready for whatever might try to climb through the opening—and be ready to stop it.
