Mist Dragon, page 24
part #5 of Dragon Misfits Series
“I don’t know. She asked what an illusion is other than believing something that is not.”
Henry crouched down near one of the dragon pearls. “You think that by altering reality, you can protect the egg and prevent Lorren from breaking through the illusion.”
“For a time. Eventually, I fear that he might be able to overpower it. When I was with the forest dragon, and she was holding onto the illusion, Lorren managed to break through it. That is why we need to do what we can to protect this egg.”
Henry stepped over to the egg, holding his hands up. He could get within a step of it, but no closer. “May I?”
Jason nodded. “It’s not my egg.”
Henry glanced over at him. “Strangely, I have a sense that it is. Something about it keeps me away.” He pushed on his hands and couldn’t get any closer. “There’s a pressure coming from the egg. I don’t know how to explain it, only as if I feel as if it’s trying to prevent me from getting too close.”
Jason remembered what William had said about the forest being unpleasant. Could he add to it? Maybe that aspect of the illusion would keep others from finding the egg and approaching it.
He focused on the illusion, thinking about the power worked within it, and tried to add to it. He used the power of the dragon pearls, adding those that Henry had given him, trying to build up pressure that would force anyone else away.
He’d never attempted to repel someone from getting close to another within an illusion, and he wondered if it would work. He held onto more and more power, sweeping through the illusion, pressing through the dragon pearls.
Henry cried out.
“What is it?” Jason asked.
“Something is pushing on me. It’s unpleasant and painful. Is it the egg?”
Jason smiled to himself. “Not the egg. I think that was me. I wanted to know if I could augment the resistance and push people away.”
Henry grunted. “I would say that it’s working.”
Jason solidified that connection and locked it in place.
“I’m not going to be able to stay here much longer,” Henry said. “I feel as if I have to move. We should go.”
Jason took a step toward the egg, finding that the resistance didn’t push him back, though as he was responsible for the illusion, he wasn’t surprised by that. He hoped it would be strong enough to hold and protect the egg, but there wouldn’t be any way of testing it.
He probed with power, stretching into the egg, and didn’t feel any latching of the power, and no attempt to feed. Perhaps the egg didn’t need it anymore.
Henry started away from the clearing, and Jason lingered for a moment before following him. As they passed through the boundary of the illusion, Henry glanced behind him. He shook his head. “That was interesting. I’ve been around you when you’ve created illusions before. This is different.”
“I think I added more layers to it,” Jason said.
Henry frowned. “I’m not even sure that it’s a matter of adding layers to the illusion. It’s what you are adding to it. There’s elements that I can feel and smell and even experience emotion within it.” Henry shook his head. “I have been around others who have created illusions, but those were nothing like this. When Thomas does them, it is quite different.”
Jason chuckled, thinking about the illusion master. It had been a while since he had worked with him. “The way I create illusions is different than Thomas.”
“The way you create them is much more dangerous than Thomas.”
They reached the edge of the forest. In the distance, the clearing with the dragons was nearby, and a sense of the iron dragon was more prominent. Jason probed, focusing on that energy to summon the iron dragon. With a swirl of power, the iron dragon slithered through the outskirts of the forest, joining him. Heat radiated from him, leaving his body glowing.
Henry pulled a dragon pearl from his pocket and squeezed it. With a surge of energy, Jason detected what Henry did, the way he connected to his dragon. A dark shadow formed as the dragon began to descend.
“I don’t know if you intend to go now, but knowing you, you weren’t going to wait.”
“I wouldn’t rush off quite yet. Besides, I am waiting for help. I doubt Sarah would be thrilled if I departed without her.”
Sarah was indeed along the street, making her way toward them. She was dressed in her dragonskin cloak, prepared for travel.
“How did she know to meet us here?”
“I connected to her through the dragon pearl,” Jason said.
Henry grunted. “I think your connection to dragon pearls and mine are radically different. Perhaps you will teach me someday.”
Jason snorted. “I’m happy to teach you anything that I can.”
“Unfortunately, I wonder if there’s anything you can teach.”
When Sarah joined them, she looked at Jason, then Henry. “What’s going on?”
Jason told her about the Dragon Guard, about Lorren and the Dragon Souls’ movement.
“That’s what they were doing near the forest,” she said.
“Who?” Henry asked.
“I suspect it was mostly Lorren and his dragons. They must have detected the egg again.” Even knowing it was likely didn’t make that easier for Jason to hear. Jason had no idea if he would be able to prevent him from reaching it. If he started to attack…
“That doesn’t change the fact that Lorach has been moving our way,” Henry said.
Jason closed his eyes. He could practically visualize the movement again, even though he didn’t use his dragon sight. “They were moving south. Sweeping toward us. I don’t know if they can find Dragon Haven, but they will try.” With Jessica, he feared she would succeed.
“Lorren’s presence there makes sense,” Henry said. “He has already shown you what his purposes are.”
“That’s not what he’s after. He’s after the egg, and I have to stop him before he finds it.” He looked over. “That’s not all, though, and you know it. I can’t let Lorren destroy dragons, and we have to keep Lorach from reaching Lorren and his misfits.” Jason didn’t want to even consider what might happen if Jessica discovered enough power to control those dragon misfits.
“Then we go,” Henry said.
“What about my parents?” Sarah asked. “I haven’t seen them in a while. I don’t know where they’ve gone, but I know they are concerned about Lorren. And Lorach.”
“We haven’t spoken to them,” Henry said.
Sarah turned, glancing behind her but bit her lip, a troubled look on her face. “Maybe that’s for the best, too. I doubt they would be pleased. Just the three of us, then?”
“It might be easier to stay hidden that way,” Jason said.
She nodded. “You’re probably right. Well?”
“Just like that?” Jason asked.
“I don’t want you to sneak off without me again. Not like you did with the storm dragon. At least this time, you are getting the help you need.”
“With hundreds of dragons coming toward us, I think we need to go.”
“Let’s see if we can’t diminish those numbers a bit,” she said.
Jason climbed onto the iron dragon and waited as Henry climbed onto his dragon. It took only a moment before Sarah summoned hers, and then they departed.
22
T he dragons circled high in the sky, staying as high as was safe. Jason could feel the ice dragon over him, circling. Every so often, he would pause, borrowing from the ice dragon’s eyesight, and use that to know more about where they were and whether there were Dragon Souls nearby. So far, he hadn’t determined anything.
This was where he’d seen evidence of Lorren moving. Which of the illusions had he gone after?
“How close are we?” Sarah called.
Jason shook his head. “We still have to go a little way.”
They were searching, and unfortunately, he didn’t know if he could stay with Sarah and Henry. Ultimately, he suspected he might need to join the ice dragon to hunt. For now, he would stay to learn what they might find.
There was something out in the distance, though, as he focused on it, Jason couldn’t tell exactly what it was. Not the illusion of an egg, though. He borrowed from the other dragons, using their power, but still could not understand. Sarah watched him, and he could see a question in her eyes, though it was a question he did not have an answer to. How could he when it would explain what he was doing?
Distantly, he could see the dragons moving above the forest, though it was from the ice dragon and his borrowed vision. There was only a day or two, no more than that, before Lorach and the Dragon Souls would reach them. The moment those dragons reached the border of the forest, the people of Dragon Haven would no longer be safe.
“You see something,” Sarah said, guiding her dragon closer.
Jason nodded. He glanced over at Henry, who rode astride his dragon, keeping his body bent low as he looked out over the distance. “They aren’t far from here,” he said. “But I feel something.” Could it be another misfit? It wasn’t Lorren, but he don’t know quite what it was.
He closed his eyes, focusing on what he detected. There was power. Potent power.
A misfit.
“I think we need to see what this is before we deal with Lorach and Lorren.”
“Why?” Sarah asked.
“It seems like this is closer than anything else. And it might be another dragon. If we don’t get to it first…”
Jason didn’t know how to finish. He didn’t know what this was, only that the longer they flew, the more certain he was that he detected something here. It was within the boundaries of what he considered to be Dragon Haven.
He tapped on the iron dragon and the dragon veered off, barely needing any guidance. He seemed to know what Jason could feel, a shared sense between them tracking what Jason detected. They streaked toward the ground, flying above the forest, the strange sense guiding him. A glistening blue lake called to him. That was what he detected.
Jason didn’t recall ever having visited here before, though there was something familiar about it. They landed along the shoreline, rocks dropping off a cliffside until it reached the water’s edge. The day was calm, and the water was flat. Sun shone overhead, reflecting back at them, revealing the image of the two dragons along with the iron dragon’s glowing heat.
Jason approached the rocky edge overlooking the water. The air was cool and crisp, though there was something more within it. As he stood there, he recognized power and familiarity.
“Have you ever been here before?” Jason asked Sarah as she approached him.
She shook her head. “We are careful about how far we venture from Dragon Haven. This is far enough away that we haven’t been willing to spend time out here.”
“I have,” Henry said.
Jason glanced over at him. “What lake is this?”
“There was a time when this was a part of Lorach, though it was long ago. They called it Rostal Lake. I don’t really know much more about it than that.”
“This was a part of Lorach?” Sarah asked.
Henry swept his gaze around him. “All this was a part of Lorach at one time. Before there was a rebellion, most of this was claimed by them. Even if they didn’t live here, Lorach claimed it.”
Sarah stood at the rocky overlook, hands pressed on her hips. “I didn’t realize that.”
There was something strangely familiar about this place. Jason had no idea why he should feel that distinct sense, but he closed his eyes, searching for what he detected and why he should feel something.
It came from within the water.
He took a seat, dangling his legs off the rocky ledge, and began to pull his boots off.
“What are you doing?” Sarah asked.
Jason nodded to the water. “There’s something here.”
“You think you need to go into the water to detect it?”
Jason glanced over his shoulder at Henry. “We found an egg in a river. I need to see if that is what I’m detecting.”
He had no idea whether that river even connected to this lake, but if it did, then that would explain what he detected. He hoped the dragon lived and that it hadn’t been influenced by Lorren. Once his boots were off, he pulled off his cloak, setting it alongside them. He remained in his dragonskin.
He glanced back at the iron dragon. “I won’t be long.”
He jumped.
When he pierced the water, it was cold, and it swirled around him. He ignored it. He had known cold his whole life, and there was no challenge from it now. Less so than it once had been, especially with his connection to the iron dragon and the heat that flowed through him. He took a deep breath while bobbing in the water, focusing on the energy here. He thought about the shell and what he had felt.
Jason plunged beneath the water.
For a moment, he panicked. He wasn’t a swimmer. In the mountains, there was very little freestanding water other than the stream that was almost too cold for anyone to touch. Jason had never had an opportunity to swim.
He knew there was something here. It was power. He could feel it.
He had to reach for it.
He stayed beneath the water. He didn’t attempt to swim. His lungs burned, and he didn’t know how much longer he could stay. Probably not much longer before he would have to surface, gasping for air. He could use the iron dragon to blast out, but if he did so, he might lose his opportunity to gain a connection to whatever dragon was here. Now that he was underwater, he felt increasingly certain there was a dragon.
He tried calling the dragon from his mind. He had been near the egg. He had seen where the dragon came from. He had touched the shell. He should know that dragon.
There was something else he thought he should be able to understand. It was more than just helping the dragon. It was a matter of reassuring it that he wasn’t going to harm it.
He probed outward, using a hint more power that flowed into the lake. As that power swept away from him, he could feel a shifting. It reminded him somewhat of the shifting of an illusion, though this one slipped past him. He didn’t hold back and used everything in his power to probe outward.
Energy was here. He had to find it.
His lungs burned.
Distantly, he could feel power. He recognized a connection. Using that, he propelled himself forward, gliding through the water. He wouldn’t be able to stay underneath the surface for much longer. He would need to take a breath.
An idea came to him.
He could use the forest dragon. Though he didn’t want to draw too much power off her and weaken her, now that she was no longer directly guarding the egg, it might not be a problem. He used her power and created an illusion of a pocket of air around him, then shifted it and created that reality.
He took a breath.
There was a part of him that questioned whether it would work, but as he breathed in and relaxed, the illusion held.
Now he swam through the water, gliding and propelled by the power of his dragons toward the energy that he detected. The water around him was dark, making it difficult to see anything. He probed, using the power of the dragons he had bonded to, and tried to feel for something else. The iron dragon pushed power through him and helped illuminate the darkness.
There was something here.
A darkened shape in the water moved quickly near him.
Jason thrust with the iron dragon energy, using it to try to propel himself toward it. It wasn’t enough. Adding that of the ice dragon, he blasted forward.
As he neared, he realized the translucent shape in front of him was a dragon. It was almost translucent, and different than any other dragon he had seen before. The energy he had detected here radiated from this dragon. He created a spiral of water around him, using a hint of illusion mixed with it, wanting to keep the river dragon—lake dragon?—from escaping before Jason had an opportunity to connect to him.
The swirling power held.
The dragon stopped fighting. It turned toward him, and deep blue eyes that seemed to swallow the water looked at Jason.
“You are the river dragon,” Jason said. “I found your egg.”
The dragon blinked.
Jason tried to focus on the dragon, wondering if he could communicate with the dragon, but he didn’t know whether the dragon could speak underwater. He could feel power, though.
“My name is Jason Dreshen. There are others like you.” He created an image of the iron dragon in front of him, then shifted it to the ice dragon, then the forest dragon, and finally to the storm dragon. All were misfits that he knew. He held off on using the mist dragon or the earth dragons; he didn’t know them as well. “I want to help you.”
He had no idea whether the dragon even needed his help. Water swirled around him, flowing from his connection to the other dragons.
“Have you been approached by any others?”
The dragon swirled, increasingly agitated.
“That was what I thought. I won’t hurt you. I want to help.”
Could the Dragon Souls have tried to come here? Worse, what about Lorren? Jason held onto his connection to the other misfits, flowing toward the water dragon.
It came out slowly, flowing outward. Pressure began to build, and Jason pushed harder, straining. It was almost as if the dragon were fighting.
He tried something else.
He held onto the energy of the forest dragon. He used that connection, that power, and thought about whether he might be able to draw on a new connection. He let power flow from him for a moment before releasing it.
Maybe the water dragon hadn’t been influenced. The dragon seemed capable of resisting Jason’s attempt to probe, which meant that it should have been able to have resisted Dragon Souls. The dragon should have been safe.
What about Lorren?
“I was testing whether you have been influenced,” Jason said.
The dragon watched him, and he had no sense that the dragon understood. He took a breath, frustration filling him. There had to be some way to communicate with the dragon, though what was it going to take? It had to come naturally. He knew that. When he spoke to the other dragons, he had done so in their environment.
