Chapter 12

The Red Queens

Wellesley, Massachusetts, sits like a jewel in the suburban crown west of Boston, a town of tree-lined streets and elegant homes. Nestled on the southern edge lie the Gothic towers and Georgian brick of Wellesley College--one of the nation's most prestigious women's liberal arts institutions.

Mellicent Green, leader of the Red Queens, the coven that enforced the Covenant--the agreement that had ended the feuding of covens of witch-crafters and crafters spread across the world--the senselessness that had followed the hundred years of burnings.

Mellicent had advocated for her apprentices to matriculate here despite the strong objections of some of her more conservative sisters. She thought it important, especially in this modern age of technology, that the girls receive a well-rounded education.

Unfortunately, it also meant that with that much freedom, there came a tendency for them to go native. The girls were not fully normal humans, however much they wished to be. They had to be regularly reminded that bad behavior would not be tolerated.

Thus her visit to Charity Wilson, who had been running around undisciplined and wild and whose grades were abominable.

Charity's dorm room was in one of the older halls, a cozy single on the third floor with tall windows that let in the autumn afternoon light. The room had the bones of institutional architecture--cream-colored walls, scuffed wooden floors, a narrow bed with a wrought-iron frame--but Charity had made it her own. Textbooks were stacked haphazardly on her desk beside a laptop plastered with stickers. A tapestry hung over the bed, and string lights wrapped around the window frame cast a warm glow in the evenings. A mini-fridge hummed in the corner, and her closet door hung ajar, revealing a messy tangle of clothes and shoes.

Shameful.

"Aunt Millicent, how nice to see you," said Charity Wilson, rising from her desk chair with a forced smile.

"No need to butter me up, girl. Your grandmother gave me strict instructions to check up on you. Your grades last semester were abysmal. I'm going to need an explanation."

She fell silent as her eyes caught a poster on the wall of Charity's dorm room. It featured a tall, tanned, shirtless, very fit man in shorts installing some molding in a kitchen. The man was peering back at the photographer, his green eyes narrowed with annoyance. He had what appeared to be green ivy tattooed on his lower back. That wasn't what shocked her to her core. The glyphs that ran down his spine were the real shocker--ancient glyphs with drawn with twisting calligraphy that defied description. She felt her chest clench so fiercely she feared she was having a heart attack. She gasped to catch her breath.

"Aunt Millicent?" Charity's voice shifted from defensive to alarmed. "Are you all right?"

The older woman's hand shot out, gripping the edge of Charity's desk for support, her eyes still locked on the poster. "Where..." she managed hoarsely. "Where did you get that?"

Her grandniece touched her shoulder. "Are you okay, Aunt Millicent? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I'm fine, dear," Millicent said after she caught her breath. "Where did you get that poster?"

"Maryanne got it from her sister in Seattle. Everybody's trying to figure out who he is."

After quickly and thoroughly lecturing her niece to buckle down and study harder and behave herself, Millicent

was back on the road, her mind working furiously.

She pulled over and thumbed a number on her cell.

"Elaine, tell me about the Emory covens. You were there a year ago, weren't you?"

"Yes, don't you remember? There was considerable unrest there. Althea was hospitalized. The old Keeper went missing. And we wanted to take the measure of his heir. Didn't like him much. Too headstrong. But he turned out to be a rather ordinary example of a Keeper, I'd say. The old man chose poorly. As you recall, there was a rumor of a hag. But I'm sure that was overblown.

"Things settled down. There appeared to be no threat, so I came home."

"He killed the hag?"

"I don't know. Personally, I think that was just a rumor to mask all the infighting. He barged into my meeting with the ludicrous claim that there were faeries infesting the town. I was assured the matter was taken care of. Why all the questions?"

"I just left Maryanne's dorm room. She had a poster on the wall of a young man with five of the old god's glyphs on his back. Mother knows what powers they grant. The old man weaponized that boy."

She thumbed up the pictures she had taken on her phone and forwarded them to her sister.

Elaine gasped. "That mother-damned old man. Althea must have known about this. She should have informed us immediately. I'd like to strangle her."

"Call Thorne and set him loose on the hunt. I want that dratted Althea dead. Elisabeth Van Horn as well. We need to cut out the cancer out there. It is high time those two covens were put under some discipline instead of running willy-nilly doing things their own way. Living next to that thinning has given them the impression they are not ruled by the Compact. We will correct that, and then we will put paid to that Keeper's boy.

Chapter 13

Interlude:

The Forging--Learning to See

The next phase of his training began in a fog bank in the middle of the Great Swamp.

Malak the Seer and Zeba the Healer woke him one morning before dawn, two shadows against the dying campfire. No words, just a jerk of Zeba's chin toward the forest. Lachlan rose and followed.

He followed them running at a pace that would have been impossible in his old life. He still marveled at his endurance, at the body that had been built from a year of painful relentless training.

The runs had become something unexpected: fun. Each stride was a test of balance; each obstacle a game. He leapt over fallen logs with the grace of a deer, his feet finding purchase on wet stones he would have slipped on months ago. His breath came deep and steady, his muscles singing with effort rather than screaming with exhaustion.

They ran all day, stopping at midday for tea. The Murk changed around them, growing darker and damper, until by late afternoon the trees stood in standing water and the air grew hot and humid. That evening, they came upon the edge of a vast swamp.

Lachlan's newfound joy evaporated. The Great Swamp. Of all the places in the Murk he hated and feared this place the most.

The water stretched before them, black and still, interrupted by twisted trees that seemed to claw at the sky.

They stopped, and like they had done for years, they set up camp with practiced efficiency. He gathered deadwood and started the evening fire, his hands moving through the familiar motions while his mind raced.

He was terrified.

New things meant some fresh hell was starting for him. Always. The pattern had been established: comfort, then change, then suffering that reshaped him into something harder and stranger than what he'd been before.

As the fire caught and the darkness pressed close, Malak sat across from him. Her eyes reflected the flames, ancient and knowing. When she spoke, her voice was different than usual--lower, rhythmic, hypnotic. It demanded his full attention in a way that made the rest of the world recede.

"Now the second part of your training begins," she said. "We will teach you to see the world."

Quinn waited, watching her face in the firelight.

"You are blind now, boy. Held captive by your language. Held fast in a web of incomplete perception." She leaned forward, and her eyes seemed to pin him in place. "Your words name things, and in naming them, you stop truly perceiving them. You see 'tree' and stop seeing the particular tree before you--how it leans, its sickness or health, whether it shelters prey or predator. You see 'fog' and stop feeling how it moves, what it hides, what it reveals."

"I don't understand," Quinn said.

Zeba laughed, the sound like rocks grinding. "Of course you don't, little rabbit. But understanding is only a part of the problem."

Malak continued as if he hadn't spoken. "We will break you of that. You will learn to step out of the prison of self--the chattering monkey mind that names, judges, and anticipates. You will learn to perceive the reality of your reality. Understand it so completely that you and it are one. Subject and object dissolving into pure experience."

Quinn opened his mouth to ask how, but Zeba's expression stopped him.

"Don't worry, little rabbit," she laughed. "Pain will teach you."

The next morning, when he woke, he was alone, the world shrouded in fog. The fog was impenetrable, a grey-white wall that began two feet from his face. The campfire was dead and cold. The troll women were gone.

Quinn stood slowly, his heart already beginning to race. He could hear the croaking of frogs, deep and resonant. The splashing of swamp creatures moving through water. The drip of condensation from unseen leaves. Somewhere distant, something released a long, bubbling wail that raised the hair on his arms.

Then Zeba's voice came out of the fog, disembodied and cold.

"The first lesson is seeing. Move forward, little rabbit. You must travel through the swamp."

Quinn took a tentative step into the fog.

The sound of her black staff whooshed through the air--he heard it too late, felt it too late--and struck his shoulder with that familiar, agonizing precision. The pain was like lightning, like fire, shooting down his arm and across his back. He went down to his knees in the cold mud, gasping.

"Move, little rabbit. The only way out is through."

Quinn staggered to his feet, anger flaring through the pain. He peered into the fog, trying to see her, trying to anticipate the next strike. He took three steps forward.

The staff came again from a different angle. He heard the faint shuffle of footsteps, dodged left--and almost avoided it. Almost. It clipped his other arm, a glancing blow that still drove him to his knees with the specific, terrible pain of a strike to the nerve cluster.

"Move, little rabbit. The only way out is through."

The blind journey through the swamp became a nightmare of frustration and pain.

Quinn tried everything his conscious mind could devise. He strained his eyes until they watered, trying to pierce the fog. He listened as hard as he could, but the swamp was full of sounds--too many sounds, a cacophony of croaks and splashes and drips and rustles. He couldn't pick Zeba's movements out of the chaos.

He tried to be strategic, to anticipate where she would be. She struck him from behind.

He tried to move erratically, to be unpredictable. She struck him anyway.

He tried to run. He crashed into a tree he never saw, then stumbled into water up to his thighs, and the staff found him there too, cracking against his ribs.

"Move, little rabbit. The only way out is through."

Hours passed. Quinn lost count of the strikes, lost count of the times he fell. His body was a map of bruises, each one a lesson unlearned, a perception failed. The fog never lifted. The swamp stretched on forever.

He wanted to quit, to simply stop moving and let whatever came next come. But the lessons the troll women had beaten into him over months were there: the only way out is through-- there is endurance beyond the point where endurance seemed possible. So he kept moving.

Until finally, shaking with exhaustion and frustration, something in him broke.

Not broke down--broke open.

Malak's voice came through the fog, and this time it was different. Softer. Almost gentle.

"Your mind blinds you, child. Stop trying to think your way through. Your mind is too slow, too tangled in words and categories and fear. You have other tools. Older tools. Let them work."

Quinn stood in the cold water, breathing hard, and something inside him released.

He stopped trying.

It didn't happen all at once. It was more like a gradual settling, like silt drifting to the bottom of a stirred pond.

Orchestrated visceral expansion of sensory awakening and transcendence.

This is the crucial moment--the shift from conscious effort to subconscious flow.

Quinn took a step forward, but this time he wasn't trying to see through the fog. He wasn't trying to hear Zeba. He wasn't trying to do anything at all.

Instead, he simply noticed.

The air moved differently where something solid interrupted it. A tree was not just invisible--it was a presence that changed temperature, that blocked the faint breeze, that altered the way sound traveled. He couldn't see it, but his skin knew it was there.

Another step. His foot settled on submerged roots rather than plunging into deep water. He hadn't known they were there--hadn't thought about it--but his body had felt the way the water flowed around them, had sensed the subtle stability beneath.

The fog itself told him things. Where it was thick and still, nothing moved. Where it swirled and eddied, there were gaps--air currents, obstacles, living things disturbing the stillness.

He kept walking.

His five senses began to work in harmony, no longer discrete channels of information but a unified field of awareness. He couldn't see, but he could smell--and the smell told him everything: the rot-sweet scent of stagnant water versus the cleaner smell of flowing current, the musk of an animal den, the particular green scent of living leaves versus the brown decay of fallen ones. Each smell was a warning or reassurance.

He could hear, but not the way he'd been hearing before, straining to isolate individual sounds. Instead, he let the entire symphony of the swamp wash over him. The sound became texture. The frogs' croaking created a baseline, and anything that disturbed it--a pause, a change in rhythm--meant something was moving through their territory. The splash of water here versus there told him about depth and distance. The rustle of leaves spoke of wind direction, solid ground, and branches he might need to duck beneath.

He could taste the air, bitter with decay in some places, almost sweet in others where night-blooming flowers opened.

Most importantly, his skin became a single vast organ of perception. Temperature told him things his eyes couldn't--swamp water was colder than land, so the chill around his ankles warned him when he was wading too deep. Warmer patches in the fog meant he was near one of the massive, ancient trees whose bark held the day's heat. He walked for hours.

His mind drifted into a sort of aware dreamy state, watching without judgment, observing his own movement through the swamp as if from a great distance. There was no fear in this state, no anticipation, no pride when he successfully avoided an obstacle or strike. Just a calm, crystalline awareness--pure perception without the filter of thought.

He moved through the fog like water, like something that had always belonged there.

His foot found solid ground without testing it. His hand caught a low-hanging branch before it struck his face, without him consciously seeing it. His body swayed away from Zeba's staff again and again, not through prediction but through a kind of intimate knowledge of space and time that needed no translation into language.

In this state, there was no separation between Quinn and the swamp. He didn't navigate through it--he flowed with it, part of its pattern, responding to it the way it responded to him. Subject and object dissolved into pure experience, exactly as Malak had promised.

When the fog finally lifted--suddenly, completely, like a curtain drawn back--Quinn was standing at the edge of a clearing on solid ground. The afternoon sun was shockingly bright. He blinked, feeling drunk, feeling newborn.

Malak and Zeba sat on a fallen log, watching him. They were not smiling--they never smiled--but something in their ancient faces had softened.

"You have learned to see," Malak said.

Quinn looked down at his hands, then back up at them. His conscious mind was struggling to reassert itself, to put words to what had happened, to understand, categorize, and explain.

"Don't," Zeba said sharply, as if reading his thoughts. "Don't trap it in language yet. Let it live in your body first. Let it become as natural as breathing. Only then will you be able to think about it without losing it."

Quinn nodded slowly. But he could feel the state already beginning to slip away, the chattering mind returning, but somewhere deeper down, something had fundamentally changed. A door had been opened. He'd glimpsed what lay on the other side.

He rustled the wood to assemble the evening fire.

The next morning, he awoke in fog again. Zeba's staff whistled out of the fog and found a shoulder forcing him forword. Lachlan desperately tried to find that special place of awareness.

And couldn't.

The next days and weeks were pain and frustration. The special awareness would come and go. Twice he drowned when he stumbled into a sinkhole of mud and mire. The swamp was endless. The days were hell.

And finally, after a timeless time of confusion and despair, he found it again. Never again to lose it. His mind was altered for good.

That night Malak came to him in his dreams as she always did. "Tomorrow we start the next step."

Chapter 14

Quinn

As Quinn walked back to Northmarket, he was deep in thought, trying to figure out his next steps. On the one hand, he felt rising panic that time was passing; on the other, the devastation he had just witnessed had to be dealt with. He really wanted to shout, "Why does it have to be me?" but he was afraid his self-pity would instantly draw Malak the Seer to lecture him on the merits of facing facts.

Each step into this mess added another layer of shit to this mission. Obviously, getting some sort of relief effort in Eastmarket was going to be a pain, but it seemed no one else was going to step up. The problem was that he knew he was a blunt instrument on a job that demanded a delicate touch of practical politicking.

He needed coins. Lots of coins. He thought of the Dragons, and a memory came out of nowhere.

Eleven-year-old Lachlan and Mr. MacLeish, the old man who was his guardian, were sitting on the porch of Keeper House awaiting sunrise. It was the old man's habit to regularly quiz young Lachlan on his development.

Young Lachlan was hungry. His mind was mostly on the delicious smell of the breakfast that Mrs. Periwinkle was cooking for him and the old man.

The old man noticed and growled, "Pay attention, boy. Are you learning anything from that professor? Seems to me all he talks about is fishing. I'm not paying him to teach you how to fly fish."

"Oh yes, sir, I am. Lots," Lachlan said earnestly. He loved Professor Lamblin's classes, especially the fishing ones. He hurried to change the subject from fishing to books. "We are studying English literature this month. He gave me a book about dragons. Katie said there were no such things. But in Oldtown, they always talked like there really was one. Have you ever seen one?"

The old man puffed on his pipe. "You have no end of questions. Don't think I don't know what you're up to. There most certainly are such things as dragons." The old man grew pensive. "They are creatures of magic. Very dangerous. You will meet them someday. You are going to have to use your wits to deal with dragon-kind."

Lachlan stilled with dread. Terrifying tales of dragons abounded in Oldtown.

"Dragons, sir? How would a kid like me deal with dragons?"

The old man gave him a glare. He did not like to be interrupted when he was lecturing.

"Dragons collect things. They are like pack rats. They call their collection 'The Hoard.' It's their strength and weakness. It's the source of their power and long life. Their weakness is their avarice. One cannot force them, but one can manipulate them. No other treasure is as valuable to them as red gold. They will go to unimaginable lengths to gain it."

The story entranced Lachlan. Treasure. He imagined a dragon perched on a pile of gold. This story was far more interesting than the old man's usual lectures on tactics and strategy.

"Have you ever seen this red gold?"

"No. To see it and touch it is to die, but my master tucked some away for a rainy day. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to show you. Come along; you need to know about this room anyway."

He led the boy to the rear of Keeper House to a wall under a stairway. He produced a massive set of keys, selected a tiny crystal key, and touched it to the wall. A door appeared where there hadn't been one before. Lachlan was used to this by now. Keeper House was full of mysterious nooks and crannies.

The old man opened the door. Inside was a cavernous room. A jumble of old-fashioned steamer trunks and cardboard boxes took up most of the floor space. Wooden shelves on each wall held a collection of dusty tools and unidentified knickknacks. Piles of old clothing lay everywhere.

"This room is where the Keepers of old stored things they considered important. Red gold, or dragon gold, as it is also called, is extremely rare and very poisonous. A fist-sized chunk is priceless to dragonkind. Handling it will cause a very painful death. It's back here somewhere, or it was when my father showed it to me. Here it is."

The old man shoved a collection of fur coats aside and pointed to a dull gray metal box.

Lachlan looked at it. "It doesn't look like a treasure to me."

"I assure you, to dragonkind, it is priceless."

The ordinariness of the dull gray box was not nearly as romantic as diamonds, rubies, and gold, so Lachlan soon forgot the room under the stairs.

Life in Oldtown was strictly 'root hog or die.' Those fortunate enough to have a clan or extended family to rely on could depend on their relatives for help or vengeance. Those without a clan had to make their way on their own. Most of the time, they starved and died.

Quinn decided he was going to change that, with apologies to any future unintended consequences. He made a decision that would forever alter Oldtown's future.

He quickly caught up with Kurt and the two dwarven women. "Kurt, I've got to head home and get something. Would you wait for me at Raven's? I've got an errand at the Bank. After that, we will have a chat with Mr. Whiskers."

"What are you up to? More social work?"

"Just wait for me, okay?" Quinn snapped. "And shut it. You're the one who got me into this mess."

"Okay," the big man said agreeably. "I'll just go flirt with Maalia for a bit."

By the time Quinn rushed home to Keeper House and returned to Oldtown, it was near dusk. He hired a carriage to take him to the Dragon Bank. A carriage was not his usual mode of transportation when he was in a hurry, and he was carrying a literal fortune in his backpack. He figured it was best not to take chances.

As soon as he arrived at the Dragon Bank, the dragon whip quickly began burrowing deeper into his body to hide. It was ever terrified of its cousins.

Two ten-foot-tall, slate gray griffins guarded the bronze doors to the entrance. Their eagle eyes tracked him with suspicion. But they made no move to stop him when he pushed through the massive bronze doors and entered the reception area. The same nameless little gnome who had greeted him months ago gave a deep bow.

"How may this being serve you, Master?" the gnome's reedy voice sang in High Alfar.

"I have come to speak with Mistress Pang Guang."

"I will tell. Please sit." The little being sped off.

Quinn sat and admired the white marble walls and floor, shot through with gold filigree. He wondered how they had managed to ship the marble here from Italy.

Surprisingly, he felt out of place. At heart, he was still a beggar kid at a fancy ball. He was comfortable in the depths of the Opari or the slums of Oldtown. Even the Court of Queen Uonaidh didn't faze him. In this place, he felt like a dirty-faced street kid expecting at any minute to hear a harsh voice call out, "Hey boy, what are you doing there?"

Pay attention and get your shit together. This could go wrong on so many levels.

After a five-minute wait, a massive orc dressed incongruously in an English butler's morning suit strode up and wordlessly gestured for him to follow. At the hallway's end, the orc effortlessly opened two massive brass-bound white oak doors that Quinn estimated weighed north of a ton. The huge being gestured again for him to enter.

"Thank you, brother beast," Quinn grunted the formality in flawless orcish.

That elicited a flicker of surprise in the impassive being's eyes.

The Lady Pang Guang rose gracefully to greet him from behind a huge black lacquered desk inlaid with white mother-of-pearl dragons flying across an alien landscape.

A handsome Asrai leaned casually against the wall. He eyed Quinn calmly.

The Dragon Bank's assassin.

Quinn nodded respectfully to the being. This being and his group of enforcers were the reason nobody dared mess with the Dragon Bank's assured contracts.

The white dragon's daughter wore a high-collared scarlet cheongsam. Her thick ebony hair set off her porcelain skin. Calm, cold almond-shaped eyes exuded an aura of timeless beauty and sophistication.

"Nín hăo," he said politely, giving a slight bow of his head.

She nodded and gestured for him to sit in the U-shaped configuration of black leather chairs.

"You are welcome, Keeper," she sang in High Alfar. "Would you care for some tea?"

Quinn nodded and waited as she poured into some paper-thin green bone china teacups, no doubt crafted by some long-dead Ming Dynasty potter.

The tea poured and sipped took care of the formalities. Time for business.

"I have decided to expedite the rebuilding of Eastmarket," he said calmly.

She raised her eyebrows. "Indeed, may I ask why? It is well known that the Keeper does not involve himself in matters outside his area of responsibility."

"This is an exception. Let's just say the suffering offends me, and the slavers profiting from it, pisses me off."

"Are you implying some criticism of my father's actions?"

"Not at all. The portal needed to be destroyed. If I had to be critical, I would say that your inaction afterward is the problem, but I'm not here to sit in judgment. I just want a line of credit to rebuild. Open-ended."

Quinn watched her ebony eyes, lifeless as river stones, staring back at him, revealing nothing of her thoughts.

"Well, Lachlan Quinn, I will say it is entertaining to watch the feared Walker of Shadows sit in front of me and make a fool of himself. The days are ever boring, so I will play your game. What surety do you offer to back your request?"

"Why this, of course, mistress." Quinn reached into his pack and, with some effort, pulled out the surprisingly heavy dull metal chest with a complicated glyph welded into the lid and set it down amidst all the dainty china teacups.

Her mouth fell open and her eyes widened. No longer the inscrutable dragon lady, she eyed the ugly gray chest as if it were the most precious thing imaginable.

Quinn offered a bland smile. "I had a bit of red gold lying around, and I thought you might be interested. I figure it's almost a hundredweight of it."

Her mouth opened. She let out a piercing scream that rattled then shattered the cups on the table.

The assassin and the orc instinctively covered their ears. Quinn ignored the sound and stared calmly at her.

The two massive doors crashed open, and Pang Lei, the Bailong Dragon, stalked into the room. He didn't look like the most feared being in Oldtown--just an old Chinese man in flannel pajamas, annoyed because someone interrupted his nap.

His eyes immediately went to the table that held the gray metal box.

"This came from my grandfather's hoard. How did you come by it, boy?"

Quinn saw with amusement that the question had an absent tone to it. Both dragons were staring at the box enthralled, like a couple of Catholic priests might stare at the hammer and nails used to fix Jesus to the cross.

"My father or his father found it, I imagine. Please wait until I am gone to open it. Now, about that line of credit?"

The old man turned to stare at Quinn. His eyes were pure white, with no discernible pupil. They now glowed like the headlights on his truck.

Quinn decided that while he might be blind, he could see exceedingly well.

"We have a bargain, Keeper. We will honor your drafts."

"Oh, one more thing. I need to borrow your assassin."

The old dragon and his daughter were entranced, gazing at the gray metal box. Lady Pang Guang absentmindedly nodded permission then waved a dismissive hand.