The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

by Irene Radford

  “Who now decides how we should be governed? Council and Commune must come to an agreement.” The old magician was suddenly weary and doubtful of the outcome of that agreement.

  “Without dragons, there can be no legal magic and therefore no Commune,” Krej reminded them all.

  Baamin has witnessed the tremendous power working through Jaylor, tonight. Boy—Yaakke, as he preferred to be called—possessed power as well. With a few more like them he could play watchdog over individual magicians to keep them ethical and controlled. The Commune could still serve a purpose.

  But the throne was in contention. Baamin’s Commune would support Darville, give him the edge to control the Twelve.

  “I’ve lost ten farms, two dozen people, and more, to the raids across the border in the last few weeks,” one lord spoke up at last. “I have to support Lord Krej as regent if not king. He’s shown what he can do for this kingdom. Darville’s young yet. Untried and still showing signs of his ordeal with wolves.”

  Lord Andrall from the extreme north stepped forward to stand beside Darville. “What has Krej done for this country? The army is routed, the battles have all been lost. He’s lied to us repeatedly. And how does he know what is happening on the field of battle if he isn’t using magic?” Andrall swung his gaze back to the regent with malice. “I’ve never trusted you, Krej. I didn’t vote for your regency. Now I stand by my lawful prince. I think once we’ve heard his adventures, we’ll all agree he’s had enough experience to launch the next campaign against our enemies.”

  Baamin looked about in distress. This was what he feared most. The Great Wars of Disruption had begun under similar circumstances. He had to reconvene the Commune immediately.

  “While the king was so ill, it was our right to elect a regent. The dragon didn’t approve Darville as king. How do we know he’s not the ‘evil one’ she mentioned? I stand by Lord Krej.” Lord Jonnias moved to stand beside the regent.

  One by one the lords moved to the side of their chosen commander. Against the wall their ladies separated equally. Baamin felt powerless. This was one time he could use no magic. Decisions like these had to be made freely; if made under magic compulsion they would break apart eventually.

  Finally Kevinrosse, the chief ambassador from Rossemeyer, moved forward. “We came to seek alliance with Coronnan. Our offer was for marriage between Prince Darville and our beloved Princess, Rossemikka. Lord Krej tried to offer himself in the marriage. We found that dishonorable in that he is already wed.” He continued to caress the small cat he carried in his arms. “If he is willing to behave with such disregard for morality in the matter of an alliance, we believe he will do so in every other matter.” He swallowed and looked around at the divided company. “Therefore, Rossemeyer extends the offer of marriage, alliance, armies, and wealth to Prince Darville.”

  “Mere promises from a poor kingdom that has always been our enemy. Promises that our neighbor SeLenicca have vowed will lead to war. Which war do we choose? In either case, Coronnan needs a strong leader, experienced in battle.” Krej dismissed the ambassador with complete contempt.

  “Then we will war among ourselves as much as with our enemies,” Baamin muttered. He felt utterly defeated. The kingdom he had dedicated his life to preserving was divided. But he had seen a dragon this night. He had heard some of her words. There was nothing left to live for.

  “Jaylor?” Brevelan whispered. She knelt beside him, ignoring the arguments of the politicians behind her. Jaylor’s eyes remained closed. Gingerly she felt for a pulse at his neck. At first she despaired of finding any flutter of life.

  But her healing sense pulled outward, demanding to be used. He must be alive. He must. She hadn’t felt his death, only his pain and the utter blankness of his retreat from that pain.

  She flattened her palm against his chest. Energy pulsed through her into his heart. Push, retreat, push and retreat again, forcing Jaylor’s organ of life to pump blood. Push and retreat.

  One beat of response. Barely.

  His lungs shuddered and strained for air. She gave it to him.

  She sought his mind, fearing it had flown away with the dragon, as it had once before. No, it was there, deep within, hiding from the pain. Best to leave it there a while.

  A lilting tune of peace and love came into her head. She sang it to him with crooning care. The notes rose in a haunting cry for her lover to return to her. Her song soared and filled the room with her love for the dying magician.

  “The clearing will be so empty without you, dear heart,” she finally whispered through her tears. “I will be so empty without you.”

  A little life stirred under her hand. The tune came out louder, stronger. She wept with the poignancy of her music and relief that he was fighting to join her once more. His heart stammered in its rhythm, caught her song and found its proper cadence. She felt her own heart join his in the battle to retain life.

  With a tremendous shudder his lungs fought the paralysis of his pain. She took some of the pain away, allowed it to dissipate in her stronger body. Air left her lungs and filled his body and left him again and filled her until he was breathing in the natural course.

  His eyes struggled open, glazed with pain. She tried to take it away, but it was too powerful. Her body and mind recoiled from the task. She had to protect the new life within her as well as his.

  “Shayla?” Jaylor croaked past parched lips and tortured lungs.

  “She is safe,” Brevelan reassured him. Her own lungs were beginning to ache with the force of maintaining his life.

  “There is no magic left within me. I used it all up. There is nothing left of me.” His sadness nearly overwhelmed her. But with it was resignation as well.

  “Your magic will come back.” It had to. She knew he would never be complete without it.

  “No. There is only so much a man can do. This night I used a lifetime of power. There is no more.” His eyes closed. The blackness nearly swept over her, too.

  “Jaylor!” she called. “Jaylor, come back.” Her mind screamed for him, but he was hiding from the pain of loss as well as the pain the magic had ripped through his body.

  “Brevelan.” Darville stooped beside her. “Brevelan, it is important you hear what I have to say.”

  She looked up. Tears blurred her eyes. She blinked them back. There was time yet to think of Jaylor. He needed rest more than her healing touch.

  “Yes, Your Grace, I’m listening.” She had to remember now to address him as her prince and not her friend or her puppy.

  “These men,” he pointed to the richly dressed one who carried Mica and his equally resplendent companion, “have offered an alliance. They want me to marry their princess.”

  Her heart felt stabbed. Darville marry? It would be the end of their companionship, the end of the love that had sustained them through so many weeks of hardship. She clutched Jaylor’s cold hand along with Darville’s, reforging the bond.

  “I told them I cannot. My heart is already committed to you.”

  She sagged with relief. Still she clung to them both, as she had since Jaylor had invaded her clearing.

  “The Council is divided. To reunite them I think it wise for me to marry Lord Krej’s oldest daughter.” He didn’t give her time to feel pain over that. “Though born out of wedlock, you are Krej’s daughter. Royal blood runs strong through you. You have spoken with dragons, that is proof of your birth.”

  Jaylor’s hand twitched in hers. His eyes opened and he stared directly into her soul. Mica hissed and leaped from the ambassador’s arms and into her lap. Her purr spoke volumes.

  Brevelan’s decision was made. “I could never be your princess, Darville.” A tremendous ache surround her heart. Though she loved him, they could not be together. “I can never live in a city, can never preside over a table filled with meat. The numbers of people your princess would need to see everyday would cripple me with their uncontrolled emotions.”

  She sought his eyes for understandi
ng. He, too, was filled with the pain of the separation that must come. “I love you dearly, but Jaylor needs me, and I love him, too. You need someone stronger, better educated, lovelier than I.”

  “But it is you I love. You are more than just my princess, Brevelan. I need you, as much or more now than I did when you rescued a wounded wolf from a killer storm. Coronnan needs your sensitivity and compassion. Only you can guide me as I rule them,” Darville argued.

  “You need a woman bred to politics, educated and sophisticated, who can share your life in the capital. I cannot. Now if Master Baamin will order a litter, I will return to the monastery with Jaylor. He needs me.” But I love you. I love you both.

  “Jaylor, did you give the dragon the vial of medicine before she was enchanted?” Baamin asked urgently from directly behind Darville. There was no answer, only a few labored breaths.

  Almost reverently the old magician removed his own blue cloak with white stars on the collar and spread it over Jaylor.

  Brevelan continued to hold Darville’s gaze with the love they no longer had the right to express.

  “Master, is everything gonna be all right now that the dragons’re gone?” A filthy boy tugged at Baamin’s robes in anxious query.

  Brevelan watched the urchin rather than be tempted by Darville’s pleas.

  “Yes, Yaakke. We will work to make everything right. We know our enemy; we can find a way to defeat him.”

  “What about him?” He pointed a grubby hand toward Jaylor. “Will he be all right, master?”

  Brevelan longed to take the child and dunk him into the nearest bathing pool. But she didn’t have the time or energy to spare. Jaylor continued to breathe by force of her will alone.

  “The best healers in Coronnan will be summoned to make sure Jaylor gets well,” Baamin reassured the boy. “But he has wielded a great deal of power this night at tremendous cost to himself. He needs time to rest and solitude to meditate.”

  “No other healers will be necessary, Master Baamin.” Brevelan stood to face the senior magician and the gathered assembly. “As soon as we are both rested, I will take Jaylor back to the clearing. The clearing Nimbulan created to protect Myrilandel and their children and generations of dragon guardians who followed them. Jaylor and I must be there when the dragons come home.”

  Epilogue

  They think they have defeated me. I still have a few surprises up my sleeve. They shall not deprive me of my treasures or of the power. The Tambootie has made me one with Simurgh. We will not be denied.

  It will take a little time and much planning, but the fools will learn. Somewhere there is an antidote to witchbane. Perhaps I shall take a little retreat and find the answer in an ancient book dedicated to Simurgh. A book whose pages are pressed from the Tambootie. Then I shall start again. Maman will help, she is the high priestess of Simurgh.

  I cannot allow another weakling to rule Coronnan. Only I can wield the power concealed within her depths.

  Only I can have a glass dragon for a pet.

  This book is dedicated to

  Tim,

  my almost perfect prince

  of a husband.

  And in memory of Trinket,

  the Siamese kitten,

  who wandered into our house one day

  and graciously agreed

  to share it with us for

  the next twelve years.

  Prologue

  Four massive plow steeds nodded their long heads, almost asleep in their traces. Coils of steamy breath drifted from their nostrils in the predawn chill. An enclosed litter with plain black draperies was balanced across the four broad backs. The beasts shifted under the burden placed into the litter. Last evening’s spring drizzle continued in fits and starts, and their giant, unshod hooves made little sound on the still damp courtyard paving stones.

  From the exterior courtyard, the black stone walls of Castle Krej appeared wrapped in gloomy silence. ’Twas inside that the storm raged.

  Senior Magician Baamin listened to the protracted arguments with his extended senses and shook his head dispiritedly. The old man gently tucked a warm blue cloak around the prostrate form sheltered within the litter. Only then did he try to say farewell to Jaylor, the only journeyman magician who had survived the quest to find an invisible dragon.

  But at what cost? And for how long?

  The hastily constructed litter swayed. Meager torchlight cast wavering, elongated shadows—like so many ghosts released by the magic Jaylor no longer possessed—around his once strong body.

  “Go in peace, my boy,” Baamin whispered. The young man lay unmoving, unresponsive. Only an occasional shallow breath indicated he still lived.

  A tear touched Baamin’s old eyes. “So much promise wasted on a single spell. But what a magnificent spell, my boy.” He shuddered in memory of the massive amount of magic that had bounced around the Great Hall of Castle Krej a few candle-lengths ago.

  “You have made me proud to name you magician. If I had ever had a son, I would hope he would be as strong and honorable as you.”

  A small hand touched his shoulder. Sympathy and understanding radiated from the slender young woman at his side. He marveled that she could spare so much emotion from her empathic contact with the young man who meant a great deal to both of them. But Brevelan had grown beyond empathy. She had the ability to mutate emotions, ailments, and thoughts and turn them to healing.

  A rare creature out of legends.

  Why was so much talent wasted on a woman who would never be allowed to enter the University for training?

  “I will heal him.” Brevelan wiped the tears from Baamin’s eyes. His sadness lifted a little. Just a little.

  She touched Jaylor’s chest to make certain he still breathed. The faintest glimmer of coppery light passed from her hand into Jaylor’s body. He stirred and groaned within his coma.

  “If anyone can heal him, ’tis you.” Baamin clutched his own shoulder where the witchwoman had touched him. Had that bizarre light passed into him as well? “Take him back to your mountain clearing where you can keep him safe. I’ll send Yaakke with you. His boisterous spirits should keep you both from brooding, and his magic will keep you in contact with me at the University. I shall throw a summons your way at each full moon.” Baamin signaled to his youngest apprentice to join them. Subdued for once, the dark-eyed adolescent moved between the heads of the lead steeds.

  From the depths of his robes Baamin withdrew a large rectangle of precious glass, framed in gold. He tucked it into the blue cloak that covered Jaylor’s shoulders. “Here’s a master’s glass, Jaylor, to go with the master’s cloak. Tonight you have surpassed your quest and earned these symbols of your accomplishments. I doubt any other master magician in all our history could have worked that spell and survived.”

  The old man allowed his sad burdens to settle on his shoulder. He needed to go back to the Great Hall of the damaged castle. The irate lords, the confused young man who should be king, and treacherous royal relatives just might listen to Baamin’s counsel. If they didn’t, the kingdom of Coronnan seemed certain to splinter into rampaging chaos.

  Before the magician could move toward the broad entryway, Prince Darville pelted down the steps from the keep, waving an arm above his head to keep the litter in place a few moments more. “Brevelan, wait!” he called.

  Brevelan turned her wide blue eyes toward Baamin in near panic. “Help me make Darville understand,” she pleaded.

  “Don’t go, Brevelan.” Darville nearly skidded on the rain-slick paving. He came to an abrupt halt within a finger’s length of the small woman with witch-red hair.

  “I have to take Jaylor back to my clearing.” She turned away from the prince, hiding her face.

  Baamin stepped back one pace to observe them. Their love for each other was so obvious, touches of her coppery aura entwined with the prince’s golden afterimage. Baamin ached for their necessary separation.

  Women were a mystery the old man wasn’t sure
he wished to understand. Love and sex wasted too much energy. Energy that Baamin needed to devote to magic and diplomacy. He remembered, fleetingly, the one woman who had claimed his love. After one night together she had deserted him rather than spend her life as the lonely and forgotten mistress of a magician.

  “The best healers in the kingdom, in the entire world, are trained at our University,” Darville asserted. “Come back to the capital with me, Brevelan. We’ll care for Jaylor together.” The prince cupped her delicately-boned face in one of his large, warrior’s hands.

  “You have a kingdom to rule, Darville,” Baamin reminded him. “Your Council is divided. Your cousin seeks to usurp your rightful throne by fair means or foul. You cannot spare the time or energy to heal your friend.”

  “I will heal Jaylor.” Brevelan straightened to her full height, seeming to stretch upward and outward with power.

  Baamin had never seen anything like it in a female. Where did the girl get the magic to give her that kind of an aura? Stargods! Women didn’t have magic!

  Correction, women didn’t have traditional magic. Since Shayla, the last breeding female dragon and source of magic, had flown away, all that was left in Coronnan was the solitary magic thrown by rogues. Without limitations and controls, solitary magic had been outlawed in Coronnan hundreds of years ago.

  “Please stay, Brevelan,” Darville pleaded. His hands began to shake with the strength of his emotions. “I need you. I can’t think straight without you. Your love was all that kept me from sinking permanently into the feral instincts of a wolf body. You have to stay with me.” Darville’s mane of blond hair glistened damply in the combined light of dawn and dying torches. His queue had come undone hours ago. His wild tangles added a sense of untamable vigor to the planes and angles of his too-thin face.