The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

by Irene Radford

  “Her name is Erda,” Yaakke interpreted. “But we won’t all fit into her boat. She wants to take the princess with her, too. His Grace and I can take my boat.”

  “How do you know all this?” Darville asked.

  “Just listening . . . sir.”

  Respect for any elder, other than Baamin, had always been difficult for Yaakke. Brevelan allowed a moment of surprise that the boy had used any title at all in addressing his prince.

  “I won’t go anywhere with you, Darville,” Rosie finally spoke.

  “Nor will I,” square-beard added. He raised a fist and smashed it against the unbreakable wall of magic. He continued to beat at it with increasingly frantic blows. “I can’t stay here. I’ve got to get the girl away from the capital. He’ll send me to the mines if I fail!” he wailed.

  The old woman looked up from her examination of Brevelan to glare at the foreigner. “Choices, none you have, minion of the sorcerer king,” Erda spat. “In boats, my men take all. Zolltarn likes not intrusion in territory his.”

  “Zolltarn!” Brevelan and Darville gasped together. The last time they had run into the king of the Rovers, he had attacked them and deliberately shattered Jaylor’s staff at the behest of Lord Krej.

  Suddenly, the crowd in the market square swelled in numbers. All of the newcomers wore black trews and vests, red or purple shirts, and multicolored scarves tied closely about their heads, the uniform of Zolltarn’s clan. The tall, black-haired chieftain strode forward, sliding through Erda’s armor as if it were nonexistent.

  Zolltarn fingered the tiny metal earring Darville wore. “A pretty trinket, Prince of Wolves.”

  “Keep your thieving hands to yourself, Rover.” Darville ground out the words painfully, as if his jaw were paralyzed.

  “I can’t allow old Baamin to trace you just yet.” Zolltarn closed his hand around the miniature dragon.

  “And I can’t afford to separate myself from his protection.” The prince forced his left hand onto the long dagger at his hip.

  Strange hands reached from behind Darville, preventing him from drawing his weapon. Brevelan opened her mouth in warning as she took one step forward. Erda blocked her path.

  “We have magic that is older than time. Learn now not to defy us.” Zolltarn yanked on Darville’s earring. Blood dripped from the hole torn in his ear. Empathic pain ripped through Brevelan, blocking her vision and will.

  Gone! The princess is gone. I knew I should have compelled her to obedience. But she grows resistant to the spell. The more I use it, the more I have to use it. Especially now.

  Dragons only know what will happen if she comes into season while she is away from the palace and out of my control. That time is rapidly approaching.

  I must find her. I will resort to the Tambootie. The leaves of the tree of magic will enhance my vision and calm me so that I may concentrate on my spells.

  Chapter 21

  “Jaylor is the only person I know who can eat more than you do.” Darville watched Yaakke gnaw the last taste of meat off a flusterhen bone. His third flusterhen, not to mention several helpings of tubers and squash.

  The Rovers had willingly supplied the boy with whatever he wanted to regain his strength. Zolltarn’s people had a magical task for him. But they hadn’t specified that task, as yet.

  Darville didn’t intend to wait around long enough to find out. He continued his minute examination of the tent he and the boy occupied, seeking a hidden exit, a makeshift weapon, anything that would aid an escape.

  He and the boy were in a large, family-sized tent, possibly Zolltarn’s own. The interior was as exotically furnished as the exterior colors promised. Bright fabrics and rugs lined the walls and floors. Ropes of colored beads and bizarre statuary littered tables that could be folded and stored flat while traveling. The camp stools were covered in thick tapestry to rival the best furniture in the palace. And everywhere hung braids of garlic. The smell permeated the air and all of the furnishings. Was the herb hung so prominently for convenience, or as a ward?

  A fire glowed in the center, giving off light and warmth. Smoke ventilated through an opening in the fabric ceiling. Evening was falling and so was the first rain of the autumn.

  “Did Jaylor really eat this much before . . . ?” Even Yaakke, it seemed, was reluctant to speak of Jaylor’s ordeal after freeing Shayla from her glass prison.

  “He ate more; much more. He was bigger than you at your age.” Maybe the boy could slip under the outside edge of the tent. This back wall showed the promise of a looseness in the guy strings.

  “I imagine the Council will be searching for me by now,” Darville mused. “Zolltarn doesn’t have much time for whatever task he plans for you, Yaakke.” He played with the tent fabric to see if any guard was alerted by the activity.

  He heard a shuffle of feet just beyond the tent. Then a hand smoothed the wall from the outside.

  So much for that idea. The entire circumference seemed to be heavily guarded.

  Now what? He had to get out of here and rescue the others.

  Brevelan and Rosie had been led to one of the smaller shelters by the Rover women. Jaylor, hollow-eyed with strain, but whole and strong otherwise, was heavily guarded in another. Dragons only knew where Mica had gone. Darville hadn’t seen the cat at all on the trek to the Rover camp, here on the mainland, northwest of the capital.

  And what about square-beard? Like the leader of the band of raiders Darville had encountered in the field, the man was likely an agent of King Simeon of SeLenicca. No one from that kingdom had legitimate business in Coronnan. Darville would give his eyeteeth to know why his rival monarch was so bent on kidnapping the princess. But did he dare take the time to liberate the man from the Rovers? Presuming that he got out himself.

  “Zolltarn’s going to ask me to summon Baamin here.” Yaakke quaffed a full tankard of ale. “Did you get the sense we were sorta being herded to Last Isle, like so many sheep?” Yaakke asked between bites of tubers.

  “I hadn’t thought about it. Seems an unlikely coincidence that all of us should end up in the same confrontation with an agent of King Simeon, just as Zolltarn waltzes in and captures the lot of us.”

  “He wants to bargain something. I don’t know what. He keeps his thoughts closely guarded.”

  “With me as hostage, he’s likely to get whatever he asks for. But there are some who will gladly allow another to remove me from their path.” Darville threw a twig into the fire and watched it glow and swell with heat before igniting. Coronnan was in that glowing stage. Being kidnapped by Rovers could be the final act before the entire country blazed into civil war. The Council would blame him, of course. The Commune would blame the Council. Individual lords would attack their neighbors.

  Stargods! Was there no end to the divisive bickering?

  “You were an incidental prize. He’s after something bigger. Much bigger. But I can’t tell what.”

  “More of your ‘listening,’ Yaakke?”

  “Can’t help listening if people practically shout their thoughts.” The boy shrugged. “Zolltarn has pretty heavy natural armor, though. Not much leaks out.”

  “You could be a handy person to have around. Who else knows of this ability of yours?” Darville turned his interest from fruitless plots of escape to the possibilities the boy presented.

  “Old . . . Master Baamin knows. Brevelan suspects, but she’s never said or thought anything about it, except that it’s impolite to listen to people’s private thoughts without an invitation. She can do it if she throws a spell.”

  “She doesn’t need to with me,” Darville admitted. “When we’re close together, in the same room, she and Jaylor and I can read each other very clearly.” That was probably why the Rovers had separated them, to keep them from plotting an escape.

  “But you don’t have any magic!”

  “There are other magics, Yaakke. Magics that have nothing to do with spells and ley lines and dragons. Like friendship and loyalty and l
ove. Especially love.”

  “These Rovers are the first people I’ve met who have natural armor. Most magicians have to throw a spell to put it in place.” Yaakke shook his head in dismay. “I can hear the guard outside the tent pretty well, but he’s young, only about my age. The oldsters send my thoughts in circles, and yet I can’t smell any armor. Sorta like the drunk with the square beard. His armor was imposed on him. Couldn’t get so much as a hint of his thoughts.”

  “You seem to have a nose for magic. Why were you so late in being apprenticed?” Darville was puzzled by the boy’s history, or lack of one.

  “Probably because I’ve been listening to people’s thoughts and seeing ley lines for as long as I can remember. I didn’t realize other people didn’t do the same until I spent some time with Master Baamin. He was the only one who gave me real tasks—other than picking up after people and scrubbing dirty dishes. He was the one who noticed that I heard what he was thinking.”

  “Trust Old Baamin to discover something valuable that everyone else overlooks.” Darville grinned a little as he used the more common description of the Senior Magician, rather than his proper title.

  “Yeah. I won’t need to actually throw a summoning spell with Old Baamin.” Yaakke eased into the familiar form with an answering grin. “I could just speak to his mind with my mind. But I don’t think we want Zolltarn to know I can do it.” He picked up a horn spoon to delve into the pot of stew at his side.

  “Good thought. Make the task appear a little harder than it is, if you can.” Darville’s mind began to plot. The boy could be a weapon, especially if he could communicate with their companions without throwing a summons.

  “Have you smelled the Tambootie these people use?” Yaakke grimaced as he tasted the stew. “It’s in everything, the fire, the food.” Yaakke leaned closer to Darville and whispered. “I think even the bedding is stuffed with Tambootie leaves. Jaylor told me they put timboor, the dried berries of the Tambootie, into a lot of their foods.”

  “I can’t smell anything but garlic.”

  Yaakke sat straighter and cocked his head as if listening. “Zolltarn has decided I’ve eaten enough to regain my strength. He’s coming.”

  Brevelan pushed the seeking hands of Erda away from contact with her baby. She wasn’t in labor yet and felt no need for the healer’s touch.

  “Where is my husband? I must see Jaylor, now.” She tried to put a compulsion on the woman and met a . . . a blank wall. That was the only way to describe it. Usually when she reached out with her empathic powers, she could feel the winding paths of a person’s emotions and guide those emotions to inner healing. Their thoughts became evident with the course of their feelings.

  Erda had the same kind of armor Jaylor had. Only Jaylor’s armor couldn’t resist her loving mental touch anymore.

  “Baby come. Soon.” Erda shifted enough to throw a handful of herbs on the small brazier. She began a low chant, rocking her body back and forth in rhythm with her internal music. The aromatic smoke drifted through the tent, making Brevelan’s head spin.

  Timboor! How could she maintain control in the presence of that addictive drug?

  “Must you pollute the air?” Rosie asked from the other side of the hot fire. They were all damp from the rain and the river crossing. But the princess seemed inclined to huddle closer to the warmth than either Brevelan or Erda found comfortable. “May I wash my hands and face?”

  “Fetch the water from the river yourself, if you must. You know that. Everyone in this camp fends for themselves,” Erda spat back at the girl. “No one is servant to another, told me yourself.”

  Then Rosie looked up from the fire. Brevelan felt the fear and bewilderment in the princess. There was an emptiness there, too. An emptiness that prevented her from understanding what was happening, why she had been kidnapped and was now a prisoner.

  “By Simurgh the all-powerful, what have they done to you, child? You are not the Mikka I taught so many seasons ago.” Erda shifted her attention from Brevelan and the baby to the princess. She crossed her wrists and fluttered her hands three times. “Bold the monster has grown in her quest for power. Stopped must she be.”

  Alerted by Erda’s tone, Brevelan peered closer at Rosie, narrowing her eyes and vision. Awareness of the girl’s true nature crept in slowly. “Stargods. We have to find Mica.”

  “Keep your magic in,” Erda ordered. “Baby too curious. He come soon. Too soon.”

  “I will bear my child in my own home, at the proper time, with my own healer, and with my husband at my side,” Brevelan insisted to Erda, though she never took her eyes off of Rosie.

  “No healer have you. Just yourself. No man can help when baby becomes stubborn.”

  “Why do you care?” Brevelan wanted to get up and pace the confines of the tent. She was restless with unanswered questions and the unnatural lack of freedom. Her eyes kept going back to Rosie. The need to help the princess rose in her. If she could only touch her mind . . . if only she could coax Mica out of hiding.

  “Baby is strong. Great Magician he be. We have few children. Baby will replace the one we lost.”

  “Not bloody likely!” Brevelan spat. “This is my baby. I’ll not give it up to the likes of you!”

  All of her attention arrowed in on the threat Erda posed to the baby.

  “Keep you, too, if we must, to have the baby.”

  “You want to keep me prisoner, too,” Rosie stated before Brevelan could protest. “You were pushing me to choose your tribe over being kidnapped by that foreigner. Why?” Some of the confusion cleared from her eyes. Some, not all.

  “Zolltarn has his reasons. He will do much the plans of The Simeon to destroy. Mate with you himself, instead of the sorcerer king.”

  “I don’t want to mate with anyone.”

  “You think that now. A few hours, a few days at most, you wait. Accept you will, any man who comes near you.”

  “Never!”

  Erda laughed. An evil, knowing cackle that swelled and filled the tight confines of the tent.

  “My price, Master Baamin, for the prince and his princess, unharmed, is a seat on the Commune of Magicians.” Zolltarn dropped his demands upon his audience with studied casualness. His fingers touched the tiny metal dragon that now adorned his ear.

  “No, Baamin. You can’t allow a Rover access to our government, our armies, all of our secrets!” Outrage screamed from every pore of Darville’s body. He rose to his feet in one swift movement so that he could stand taller than the seated Zolltarn. The Rover merely glanced up at him, then returned his gaze to the Senior Magician, seated on a chair on the other side of the fire.

  “I could sweeten the pot by curing Jaylor of the warp in his magic,” the Rover offered.

  Baamin bit his lip in indecision. Darville paced a figure eight around the fire, looping around his companions. Yaakke continued to eat.

  “You offer a great deal,” Baamin stalled.

  He ran his hands up and down his staff, caressing the texture.

  “He offers you nothing,” Darville spat. “He knows he can’t hold me long, with the Council guards waiting just beyond the camp. How do we know he can cure Jaylor anyway?” he challenged.

  “I have access to powers you have yet to dream of, Baamin. Elemental powers. Very old powers. My people threw magic long before the Stargods left behind their gifts within the blood of their heirs.” Zolltarn leaned forward in his enthusiasm. “I will release the princess unharmed. If you force the issue, I will make certain that I am the one to mate with her when she comes into season.”

  Darville exchanged a worried look with Baamin.

  Mikka had feared this outcome. Any child she bore was destined to become a pawn in a diabolical plot to control the three kingdoms—magically and temporally.

  “How will you cure Jaylor?” Darville decided to avoid the issue of mates and births and inheritance.

  “A binding spell,” Zolltarn addressed Baamin.

  Darville gla
red at the Rover. Zolltarn was ignoring him, just as the Council had time and time again. They saw him as ineffectual. The real power in Coronnan lay not in the hands of the monarch, but in the Council and Commune.

  “Binding is only temporary. The spell needs things I couldn’t translate to complete.” A new voice joined the conversation.

  Darville turned to face the man in the doorway, hand automatically reaching for his missing dagger.

  “Jaylor,” he breathed a sigh of relief. “Brevelan.” Darville nodded to the slight woman who appeared at her husband’s elbow. Behind her, like a shadow hiding behind a pillar of strength, stood Rosie.

  “How did you get here?” Zolltarn stood so quickly his camp stool collapsed.

  Jaylor stalked up to the rover chief. “I escaped. I am no longer your pawn, and neither are my wife and the princess,” he hissed at Zolltarn. Two tall and powerful men, itching to strangle each other, stood eye-to-eye, nose-to-nose, strong will to stubbornness.

  “Your magic is broken. You couldn’t escape,” Zolltarn protested.

  “There are powers other than magic in this world.” Jaylor lifted his clenched left fist and rubbed the raw knuckles with his right. “You set a magician to guard a magician. The poor boy outside my tent had defenses only against magic, not against brute force.”

  “He’ll reinforce the binding spell with a ritual.” Yaakke joined the conversation. There was no food left to divert his attention. The others stared at him in amazement. The boy just chuckled. “You’ll be the focus of an eight-pointed star, Jaylor.”

  “How do you know this?” Zolltarn didn’t remove his gaze from Jaylor for a single moment.

  “You dropped your armor,” the boy replied, searching the area around him. “I haven’t had enough vegetables. Have you any more fresh greens?”

  “Will the spell work, Zolltarn? Can you cure Jaylor?” Baamin forced his shorter body between the glaring men.

  “It will work,” the Rover confirmed.