The Dragon Rogues, page 26
“We need to be quick,” he urged.
They reached the door and Leland hurried toward it, pressing his hand against it. With a surge of his power, the door opened, revealing another dark hall on the other side. A bit of light drifted out, as did stale air, though the air had been stale all around them for the entire journey down into this vault.
Jonathan stepped aside. “Heziah, can you give us light here?”
The sorcerer stepped forward, and light illuminated from him and stretched down the hall. At least there wasn’t another creature there. Jonathan cast one more look down at the fallen form of the weren. How much of these protections were his sister’s doing? She had to have a hand in some of this. Maybe she was even the one responsible for placing the protection that Heziah hadn’t recognized, which meant he was going directly against his own sister. He had to finish the job before Jayna found him. He didn’t want to put her in the predicament of having to decide what to do with him.
“Do you think there will be any other guards?” Elizabeth whispered.
“With a weren?” Matthew shook his head. “A creature like that would be difficult to control, and it would be unlikely that anyone would want to be behind them—not without some significant protections.”
Heziah looked over to Matthew, frowning. There was a question in his eyes, but he didn’t ask it.
They continued along the hall. This one was wider than the facade of the hallway they had just been in. The walls were smooth, and there were no enchantments placed along them. The hall stretched only about a hundred paces, not nearly as long as what the first hall had seemed to be. When they reached the end of it, another door filled the entire wall. Nearly twice as high as Jonathan and doubly wide, the iron door looked impossibly stout.
“Do you think this is the vault?” Leland asked, holding his hands out as he probed at it.
“I thought I knew what we might find when we got to the vault, but everything here has been unexpected,” Jonathan said.
He hadn’t expected to come across a strange looping enchantment. He hadn’t expected to come across a creature that would feed on the light. How many layers of protection would there be?
“Check for any enchantments,” Matthew said to Heziah.
Rather than arguing as he once would have, Heziah stepped forward and held his hands out. A latticework of pale light built from him and swept into the door. With a burst of energy, it left a sizzling power crackling along the length of the door.
“There is something here, though I’m not able to fully overpower it.” He glanced over to Leland. “You should try.”
“If you can’t do it, why do you think I might be able to?”
“Because my ability to break enchantments isn’t quite the same as what you can do.”
Leland inhaled deeply before letting it out. He placed his hands on the door. “I don’t know if this is going to work.”
Jonathan imagined power building from the locksmith, his talent activated as he pressed against the iron, trying to overwhelm anything that was in the door itself. It was magic, but it was different than what Heziah used. For that matter, it was different than what Elizabeth used. They all had access to different types of magic, it seemed.
Then again, Jonathan did as well. His connection was vague, one that simply allowed him to detect the use of power. He didn’t know how effective that would be with anything else, but it was still a form of magic.
Then there was Matthew. His was—
Leland looked back at them. “I think this is going to work.”
“Keep building it up,” Heziah said.
“What?”
“I can feel… something. I might be able to help.”
Heziah closed his eyes and faced his hands down at the ground, then he pointed his toes inward. He swept his hands in a circle around him as he twisted in place. While doing that, he mumbled something under his breath. Power began to build from him in a way it hadn’t before, and light poured off him. Heziah continued to turn, magic spilling from him in the circle he made. Jonathan could feel the coursing energy as it pressed outward, and he struggled with that sense of power as he tried to focus on the nature of it.
Leland looked over to Heziah, who concentrated on the door. Jonathan wasn’t able to tell what either of them was doing, only that energy came from both. He didn’t even know what control they had.
He knew they needed encouragement, though. Jonathan felt that he needed it as well. “Keep at it.”
Matthew leaned close to him. “I think that if we haven’t drawn the attention of Vileforn’s protection yet, we will now.”
“Does it matter?” Jonathan whispered back. “With what Heziah did earlier, I think we were always going to alert them to us.”
“Right. It probably doesn’t matter,” Matthew said, nodding.
Jonathan looked at the door, which had taken on a glow as the energy of the magic being poured into it seemed to change it. Faint lines worked along the surface of the door, twisting and turning, and Jonathan recognized something familiar about those lines. He had seen writing like that before.
He pulled out one of the markers from his pocket, the one made of black wood and without any symbols on it. He held it out toward the door and motioned to Matthew.
“Do you see anything similar here?”
“Other than the writing?” Matthew said.
“Exactly. The writing is similar.”
“Well, you did say that the markers reminded you of enchantments.”
Jonathan turned the coin in his hand, flipping it from side to side until he could better see the markings along the surface. He still wasn’t able to read the writing.
The other two continued to push energy into the door, the power that they were using enough to change something about the door. Jonathan could see it. Not only that, but he could feel it. The magic that flowed from them was incredible, and Jonathan marveled at just how much energy these two were able to generate. He knew that Heziah was powerful, but Leland’s connection to his own type of magic was something else. Powerful in a very specific way.
The door glowed brighter as it took on more and more of the light, to the point where it began to vibrate softly. Jonathan looked behind him, remembering a vibration similar to that. He had experienced the same thing when he’d used the enchantment to break into the warehouse last time.
Matthew shook his head. “It’s going to make too much noise.”
“Keep going,” Jonathan said.
“What?”
“This is what I encountered when I got into the warehouse the first time. We’re close.”
“You mean when you were caught.”
Jonathan shrugged. “I was, because I didn’t have a sorcerer with me.”
Sweat streamed from Heziah’s forehead down his brow, and he paused briefly to wipe his face. Leland leaned his head forward, his glasses slipping down to the end of his nose. He still had his hands pressed against the door, knuckles white and jaw clenched tight with the effort of the work.
“Jonathan…” Matthew said.
“No. We’re close.”
Heziah sunk to his knees. Power flickered and faded for a moment, then disappeared altogether. Leland held his hands against the door and lingered there for a little longer. There was a hint of magic, but then he leaned back and staggered. He looked down at Heziah.
“I… I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry.”
Jonathan shook his head. “You did what you could.”
He turned back to the door. The light still swirled within it, and several pockets within the door had collected more of that light. It seemed as if the door itself were storing the light and energy that Heziah poured into it, but Jonathan wasn’t exactly sure why, nor was he sure what it was that they were doing.
There was a pattern on the door, which looked like a sheet of white that covered the metal. This was likely an enchantment, worked into the door with exquisite and intricate detail, far more than he had seen in other places.
Matthew glanced over to him. “I don’t know that they’re going to be able to do anything more.”
Jonathan continued to stare at the door. “This has to be the vault.”
“And if Heziah is unable to open it, then the protections are greater than we can overcome. We always knew the job might not succeed.”
Jonathan tore his gaze away from the door and looked at the others. Leland clenched his jaw. Jonathan tried to ignore the anger in the locksmith’s eyes, the disappointment in Elizabeth’s. He couldn’t tell what Heziah was feeling, but he had a suspicion that he was equally upset.
“If they recover…”
“I don’t know what else I can do,” Heziah said.
They had successfully broken into the palace, gotten through barricades, and made it to the vault itself, but getting in was going to be beyond them. Yet Jonathan had always known that it might happen this way. He hated that it would be the case, though, and he hated that he would fail them.
“I’m sorry,” he said, looking at each of them.
Elizabeth averted her eyes. Leland stared blankly at the door. And Heziah still remained unreadable.
Jonathan had known that the vault was going to be challenging, but he had expected that having a sorcerer with them—someone who could actively work against the enchantments—would be enough.
“What sort of enchantments have you brought with you?” Jonathan asked Matthew.
“I have a few, but I don’t know that they’re going to be able to do anything to make it into the vault.”
“Can you try?”
Matthew looked at him. “Come on, Jonathan. You’ve seen it’s not going to work.”
“I haven’t seen anything. I think we can still do this.”
“What if we can’t get in?”
They would go back empty-handed. He would have to report to the benefactor—if he could ever figure out who that was—that he had failed. And he would have failed his team. All of them wanted something more, something that he hadn’t been able to provide for them.
“You should have asked her for help,” Matthew whispered.
Jonathan shook his head. “She wouldn’t have done anything.” Jayna wouldn’t have gotten involved in this. She had never wanted to be roped into his dealings.
“You don’t know that.”
“She took the job with Vileforn.”
“Did you ever ask her why?” Matthew asked.
“It was the best offer she had,” Jonathan whispered.
Elizabeth watched him. “Are you talking about your sister?”
He looked at her, Leland, and Heziah. He had failed them. They had risked themselves, all because of him. Because he had made a promise to them. Jonathan had convinced them that this job would work. He had to get them out of here. He couldn’t let them end up in prison.
“We’re going to get you out of here. All of you. Then we can regroup. We can find other jobs.” Jonathan thought through what other jobs he might consider. Bartholomew might have some leads for him. None of them would be as profitable as breaking into Vileforn’s vault, but they might be safer.
“But you promised,” Elizabeth said, not masking the hurt in her voice.
Failure meant she would be stuck in her slums. Jonathan glanced over to Leland, the pain in his eyes obvious. Failure meant he would have to go back to working for the administration, breaking locks, spending day after day trying to find the funds to help his mother.
Heziah’s eyes were still emotionless. How angry was he?
“We can’t wait here any longer,” Jonathan said, even though he wanted to. He wanted to do something—anything—to try to find a way through this, but there wasn’t anything he could do.
They reached the fallen form of the weren, smelling it as they neared. Jonathan glanced down at it, and it seemed almost as if the creature had moved, though he didn’t think that was possible.
“He’s going to know that we came through here,” Matthew said.
“He’ll know that someone was here, but he won’t know who it was.”
“Don’t you think he’s going to do everything in his power to uncover who?”
“Probably,” Jonathan said, which meant that he had to figure out a way to hide the fact that the others had been here.
They reached the hall where the guards were still lying motionless. Heziah and Leland still hadn’t said anything. They had to be exhausted after exerting themselves as much as they had, and it seemed as if they’d spent everything within their power in order to accomplish it.
Only, they hadn’t really accomplished anything.
They reached the door and pushed it open into the main part of the palace. Jonathan paused, listening for sounds around him, but he didn’t hear anything that worried him.
He turned to Matthew. “Lead them out of here. Elizabeth can use the facade as you get to the garden, and then beyond there.”
Matthew frowned at him. “What are you doing?”
“You’re right. Vileforn is going to know that something happened here. He doesn’t know anything about the rest of them, but we both know him. He’s going to keep pushing and pushing until he gets his answer, and…” Jonathan smiled. “I’m not going to let something happen to them. They got caught up in this because of me.”
“Jonathan…”
“Go. Make sure they get to safety.”
Matthew grunted. “You better get out of here.”
Jonathan grinned at him. It would be better to have Matthew with him, though if anyone could get the others out of this alive, it would be Matthew. They needed his help, and Jonathan could do this part himself.
“Take these,” Matthew said, handing him a fistful of enchantments from his pocket.
Jonathan took them. He didn’t know what they would do, only that Matthew often preferred various explosives rather than enchantments that added strength or speed, which were favored in other places. Matthew always viewed those as slowing him down.
“Go,” Jonathan said.
They left him and headed toward the stairs, eventually disappearing into the darkness. And then he turned back toward the vault.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Once the rest of the crew was gone, Jonathan turned back to the unconscious guards, his mind racing through what he might be able to do. At this point, he wasn’t sure what he could do. None of his backup plans would be useful here because they were all predicated on the belief that he would be able to overpower the enchantments worked into the vault door. They’d had a sorcerer, after all, and Jonathan had expected that to be enough. But it hadn’t been.
The door itself—and the enchantments—had been too much.
Jonathan had rarely failed. He was the Dragon. His plans, and his teams, were what had made him so skilled and so feared over the years. But despite all his planning, they had not been enough. And they would fail.
Surprisingly, that was partly because of his sister. Not that he would ever tell Jayna she was responsible for his failure, though he wondered how much she already knew. If Heziah was right and the sorcerers were able to feel what anyone else did—the influence of not only the facade but the enchantments they had used—then it might be that Jayna already knew they had come.
It was why he had to stay.
Someone had to take the fall for what happened, and he couldn’t run the risk of the others getting caught. Elizabeth was too young and innocent, and she deserved more than that. Leland had to do whatever he could for his mother. Heziah needed to know that there were people who cared enough to give him a second chance.
Then there was Matthew. His oldest friend, who had hidden a secret his entire life—one that Jonathan had long suspected but never confirmed, which was part of the reason he was not about to let anything happen to Matthew.
He stood in the hall and looked down at the guards. Heziah had used enough power to knock them out so that they still didn’t move.
Jonathan pulled the different enchantments Matthew had given him out of his pocket, running them through his fingers as he felt for their various utilities. If he could figure out their purposes, they might be helpful to him.
Each of these enchantments was a distinct shape. Many of them were made out of stone, though some were metal or wood, and one felt like it was formed from dried dirt. Enchantments often had symbols on them, though not always. And depending on how they were designed, some type of power would explode from them that could benefit him in some way. They reminded him of the markers his benefactor had given him.
The strange wooden markers were a bit different than Matthew’s enchantments, though. The writing was the main thing that separated those from the enchantments. The wooden markers were almost more like what they had seen on the door.
The door.
The markers had seemed like enchantments to him.
No.
He raced back to the vault door. He didn’t know if he was even thinking of it right, but it seemed too much of a coincidence.
When he reached the vault door and the pale glowing light, there was still some residual energy in the door from when Heziah and Leland had tried to force it open. The outline of the writing shimmered, and circular voids were spaced around the door itself. Jonathan shoved the enchantments back into his pocket before pulling out the markers.
He held them up. They were the right size. They fit the small circular openings in the door, as if they had been carved specifically for that purpose.
Could they have been?
He had to find out.
He pressed one marker toward the void of magic in the door, and nothing happened. Jonathan tried another spot, then another, and each time that he tried, he felt resistance to being able to press the marker up to the door. When he reached the fourth one, he was starting to think he had been wrong, when the marker suddenly adhered to the door. It was like a magnet had pulled at him and sucked it in, with a surge of color swirling around it.
