The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

by Irene Radford

  “Lady Rejiia to you, boy,” she lifted her arrogant little chin in contempt. Her nose wrinkled at the same time as she caught a whiff of the odors of the dungeon. She caressed the head of the statue before moving into the cell.

  “Adding incest to your sins, Lady Rejiia?” Jack quipped, tired of their need to add insult to injury with the appellation “boy.” Suddenly he was beyond pain, and fear. All that was left of him was a glimmer of hysterical humor and that wouldn’t last long.

  “What do you mean by that, boy?” Rejiia approached Jack, looking as if she would spit on him. Anger blazed from her eyes and some of her control slipped, changing her beautiful face into a mask of ugly hatred.

  “I mean, that if Simeon isn’t your father, then he’s your father’s brother. He’s obviously your lover, you stink of him. Or don’t you care about such things?” With the clarity of pain and knowing he wouldn’t survive much longer, Jack saw it all.

  Queen Rossemikka, who had been a victim of Janataea’s and Krej’s manipulations, had warned the Commune of the coven’s dynastic plans. Royal marriages and births throughout the world had been arranged and scheduled along with appropriate assassinations. Generation after generation of alliances came down to one or two people eligible to claim multiple thrones.

  Simeon claimed descent from Rossemikka’s much older, exiled, half sister. Thus he should rule Rossemeyer. His marriage to Queen Miranda of SeLenicca had produced a princess who could claim both thrones. If she married the heir to Coronnan, the entire continent would be united under one crown.

  Rejiia shared a common great-grandfather with Darville of Coronnan. She, or her child, could claim the Coraurlia, the dragon crown, if Darville and Mikka had no children. Jack wished he’d taken the time to catch up on current events since leaving the mines. He had no idea who was alive and well and who wasn’t.

  What seemed most important, now, was that the coven would control Queen Miranda’s daughter, Jaranda, and whoever inherited Coronnan. Stargods help them all if Rejiia passed off a child of an incestuous relationship as heir and mate to Jaranda, another incestuous relationship.

  Greedy madness shone in Simeon’s eyes. He, like Krej, was too ambitious to wait for the coven’s plans to come to fruition. He wanted to rule and exploit for himself and not the coven.

  I have to end this madness, Jack thought. No matter the cost, I have to stop the coven.

  A jolt of memory rocked his mind away from Rejiia’s spitting indignation. Years ago, Jack had claimed the name of “Yaakke.” A name out of legend. A name of power and great reverence.

  A thousand years ago, Yaakke, son of Yaacob the Usurper, had united three clans in northern Coronnan to form the first kingdom. Yaakke had met the Stargods in the sacred clearing and vowed eternal fealty and reverence if the three red-haired brothers would save his wife and child from the plague. The plague was banished and Yaakke charged with the duty of eliminating the power of the winged demon Simurgh. He had succeeded but only after bitter and bloody battles. Yaakke died two days after the last battle.

  Now Simeon’s coven was attempting to reestablish the bloody rituals of Simurgh as the one true religion. Once more, the duty of preventing the deaths of innocents fell to a man named Yaakke.

  If he was ever to earn the right to a name, Jack had to complete this quest, even if it brought him an ugly and painful death.

  Katrina tripped on the slimy steps into the dungeon. Her guards grabbed the chain binding her wrists and yanked her upright. The strain on her arms and shoulders made her cry out.

  “Careful o’ t’at one. His Majesty wants her undamaged,” warned a jailer who was missing at least three teeth. He caressed a long iron bar in his arms, as if it were a beloved pet.

  “I know. I know,” groused the guard who still hauled upward on the chain. “Won’t be no cuts or bruises. Just enough pain to keep her in line.” He pulled hard on the chain and Katrina stumbled forward in his path.

  She had been brought to the same manor house on the outskirts of the city as she had been that night three years ago when King Simeon gave her to Owner Neeles Brunix. Apparently the king didn’t want to soil the palace with dungeons and torture chambers and prisoners who would eventually be sacrificed to the coven.

  The odors of sweat and fear, of midden that had never been flushed clean, and blood—lots of blood—assaulted all of her senses. She swallowed heavily to force calm on her stomach.

  She stumbled again. This time she dropped to her knees, unable to hold herself upright any longer. Her hands rested on the straw-covered stone floor. A vibration passed through her hands, much like the one that had shaken the factory just before she was taken by the guards.

  Alarmed, she looked up at the grim-faced men, who seemed to be hovering outside one particular cell. None of them seemed to notice the shaking. The hideous statue of a weasel that had once been in Simeon’s study rocked with the trembling Kardia.

  Before she could analyze the nature of the vibration, her guard lifted her by the elbows and thrust her past the snarling statue, into the cell.

  “Never utter your blasphemies again, boy,” King Simeon screamed at a man, hanging by his wrists from the wall. “My mother was Jaylene D’Rossemeyer, exiled daughter of the late king. Jaylene, not Janessa. Janessa’s children are all bastards and not a drop of royal blood in them.” Spittle dribbled from the king’s mouth and his eyes showed more white than color.

  “Tell that to your aura,” Jack defied him.

  Jack! Oh, poor Jack. Katrina looked closer at the magician who had vowed to help her. He had shielded her from Brunix and the palace magician last night, and opened his mind to her. Her heart shrank and burned for him. If only she could ease his pain.

  Blood and bruises spread an ugly stain across his left side up into his naked chest, and probably his back, too. His bare feet looked swollen and raw. More bruises marred his jaw and wrists. Arms stretched wide by the rings holding his manacles, he seemed to cling to consciousness by the barest of threads.

  Death was the only way to ease pain now. There was no escape from Simeon’s dungeons. Just as there was no escape from his mines.

  But Jack and P’pa escaped the mines, a tiny thought whispered into her mind.

  “What do you mean about his aura?” The black-haired beauty who was always at Simeon’s side these days thrust the king aside and stood squarely in front of Jack. None of them seemed to notice Katrina.

  “I mean that Simeon’s aura is almost identical to Krej’s, and his magic smells just like Janataea’s. He’s brother to those two, which means you’ve been sleeping with your uncle, Rejiia.”

  Rejiia reared back in alarm.

  “And borne him a child,” Katrina added from across the cell, noting the woman’s now flat belly. “An abomination by anyone’s standards.”

  At last they all looked at her. She almost wished she’d kept her mouth shut. The malevolence dripping from Simeon’s and Rejiia’s demeanor echoed that of the weasel, and was almost enough to physically push her back into the arms of her guard. A disgusting thought, almost as unpleasant as the thought of Simeon sleeping with his niece.

  “You can’t prove that!” Simeon defended himself. “My servant destroyed the runes that Brunix copied. I have the shawl with the runes woven into the flowers. I have unraveled it and burned the threads. No one will ever prove that Janessa was my mother. Therefore, I decree that it is not so. It is treason to say otherwise.”

  “You’re insane,” Jack breathed. His chest heaved and he winced in pain. “As insane as Janataea was just before she died. The Tambootie has rotted your mind.”

  Katrina agreed with Jack. She didn’t know the people Jack spoke of, but she saw Simeon’s eyes and knew that madness lay behind them.

  “We will discuss this later, Simeon,” Rejiia ordered. She edged away from her lover as if she, too, believed he had lost control of his mind. “These two must be kept alive and reasonably healthy until the Solstice.”

  “I ca
n’t allow him to spread treason,” Simeon protested. “Tattia put the runes into the shawl to warn the queen. But I had the lacemaker murdered and the shawl destroyed with her. But the shawl survived to haunt me. I have finally burned it and all who know of it must die. I want him dead now. Guard, slit his throat. Now. I demand his death. Now.”

  Chapter 34

  ‘Don’t be a fool, Simeon.” Rejiia brushed the mewling aside as she faced Jack once more. “He has the transport spell. While he is in pain, and hungry—totally vulnerable—I will strip his mind and have the secret. I will also learn where the Commune hides. This boy will be the instrument of their destruction!”

  Jack bit back a retort. Why waste energy asserting his right to a name? He’d need all of his strength to combat Rejiia’s mind probes.

  Then he made sense of her statement. Some of the Commune had escaped the fire at the monastery! Fervently he prayed that Jaylor and Brevelan and the baby had been among them. If they had, then the remnants of the Commune might have retreated to the clearing or Shayla’s lair. He had a place to send Shayla for final healing.

  If he managed to save himself long enough to patch her wing. If he managed to think of something else during Rejiia’s spell. He didn’t dare consider what would happen to Katrina. He had to somehow survive until he was sure Katrina was safe.

  “I am the king,” Simeon asserted. “My will rules. This kingdom exists to serve ME. Kill the blasphemous boy.”

  “In this house, by your own decree, the coven rules,” Rejiia returned. “And I am the focus of the coven.” She stared at the red-haired man with contempt.

  Good. Division within the coven reduced their power and purpose. And Rejiia was female, she couldn’t gather dragon magic. She, too, was limited by her body’s reserves.

  “You were the focus only while you were pregnant. I allowed you to take the focus because of your connection to the Gaia. You aren’t pregnant anymore, and you lost the child, so I take back the focus.” Simeon pouted like a little boy. The reek of Tambootie on his breath intensified.

  Jack guessed the leaves of the dragon tree had finally inflated Simeon’s sense of superiority beyond all limits of reality. The same thing had happened to Krej and Janataea. Neither believed themselves mortal anymore and had left their bodies open to physical attack.

  “Don’t push me, Simeon. The coven looks to me for leadership,” Rejiia warned. Then she turned her attention back to her prisoners, authoritative and purposeful. “Loosen the girl’s chains so she may sit or lie against the opposite wall. Then clear this room. I need space and concentration.”

  The guards obeyed, fixing a long chain between Katrina’s right manacle and a ring in the wall. Then they backed out of the cell. Simeon refused to follow, but he did station himself against the door, leaving Rejiia free to work inside the damp stone room. She planted herself between Jack and Katrina.

  An advantage to Jack. If he couldn’t see the girl cowering in the far corner, then he wouldn’t be distracted by her. Wouldn’t allow his thoughts to linger on her and draw Rejiia’s attention to her under the influence of the probe.

  Jack blanked his mind, trying desperately to think of nothing at all. If Rejiia’s spells had nothing to latch onto, perhaps they’d fly in one ear and out the other.

  “What about this?” A new man wearing the uniform of an army officer entered the cell. Lanciar, the spy from the mine, who had helped Jack escape and then betrayed him. He carried a dead bird by the feet in his outstretched arm. His nose wrinkled in distaste.

  “Ah, the familiar. Throw it into the midden,” Rejiia dismissed the man and his burden.

  “No!” Jack howled. “You murdered Corby. You’ve taken my only friend in the world.” Once before he’d scattered a mind probe into erratic bird thoughts. Maybe he could do it again. If they believed his grief and panic.

  “That’s right, boy.” Lanciar smiled. “You have nothing left to live for. You might as well give up your secrets so you may die in peace. But before you die, I want to thank you. That little session we had searching for the dragon opened me to my full powers where the coven’s rituals couldn’t. I am now a master magician, one of the coven and eager to watch this spell so that I may learn to use it interrogating prisoners of war at the newly activated front. We won a stunning victory last week and captured or killed at least half of Darville’s troops.”

  “Not Corby!” Jack yelled again, ignoring this latest disaster. Think like a jackdaw, remember the bird’s scattered thought patterns.

  “We’ve done this before, boy. Three years ago, at the coronation. That time, the stupid bird intercepted the probe. Now he’s dead. There is only you and me and my magic.” A small dart of glowing dark green appeared in Rejiia’s hand. As dark as her magic, almost black. The same color he’d found in another dungeon, back in Coronnan. Rejiia had broken Jaylor’s wards and stolen Krej from his cell. Krej, who lingered in his tin statue form at Simeon’s side, blinked at Jack with knowing eyes.

  Can’t think of Krej and that one hint of animation. Can’t think about Jaylor or Coronnan. Think like the bird. Random. Meaningless.

  Rejiia lay the probe on her outstretched hand, murmuring an incantation. Eyes half closed, her face became a mask of emotionless concentration.

  The probe grew in length. Its sharp point broadened into an arrowhead, big enough to hunt wild tusker. Wide. Sharp. Barbed. Impossible to remove once it caught on meat. The meat of Jack’s mind.

  The hot sweat of pain turned icy on his back. The burn of scraped skin beneath the manacles numbed. All discomfort gathered in his brain, a concentrated mass of terror.

  “This will only hurt for a little while, boy,” Rejiia cooed. The lines of her face softened into sensuous pleasure. Her breasts strained against the rich fabric of her gown. Her body radiated seduction. “Give me your thoughts. Join your mind with my mind, your body into my body. Share with me the ultimate intimacy.”

  Jack’s breathing deepened against his will, until it matched Rejiia’s heavy rhythm of passion. His heart pounded in his ears and his body strained to fulfill her promise of the sexual delights.

  His thoughts returned to Katrina and the few moments of openness they’d shared within the shelter of his armor. Sweet, innocent, honest. Reluctant to give herself to any man without love, with less than total commitment from both of them. A sweetness he’d never know.

  Rejiia had offered herself to him once before. Not from passion, but in payment. She was a whore. A filthy, amoral, spiteful, selfish whore.

  Sickened by her, Jack’s body and mind lost all interest in Rejiia. But he continued the litany of her vile attributes. “Incestuous bitch! Adulteress. Traitor. I will kill myself before I betray my Commune. The transport spell dies with me as it should have died with the passing of the Stargods.”

  “I love to rape innocent boys,” Rejiia sighed with pleasure as she blew the pulsing probe from her hand as if sending a lover’s kiss. “They learn to revel in the pain!”

  Jack slammed his eyelids closed, praying that the probe wouldn’t gain entrance to his mind through a vulnerable eye.

  A slight whirring sound circled his head. Pressure built, squeezing his skull, demanding he open himself. More pressure until he thought his head would explode with it. His eyes seemed to bulge and his ears filled with a roar of unnatural sound. He fought the urge to cry out, to open any part of himself.

  Think of quiet. Peace. Solitude. A gentle brook babbling down a mountain side. Hot springs filling a pool with enough warmth to bathe. Calubra ferns screening the path . . . the path back to the clearing.

  “The clearing . . .” he heard himself say. “Brevelan’s clearing.”

  Katrina watched in fascinated horror as Jack twisted and writhed as much as his bonds would allow. He fought the slimy black arrow of magic with eyes closed and muscled hunched.

  She knew the moment Rejiia’s spell penetrated Jack’s defenses. His body relaxed, his face lost all expression and he began to speak. Inco
herent words, gibberish, or a foreign language.

  Rejiia flushed with embarrassment at this failure in communication. Then she screwed up her face into ugly contortions, concentrating her will on her victim. His words finally made sense.

  “To find the clearing, take the path behind the pub, up hill to a large boulder split in two. The path seems to go around the boulder. You must step through the broken halves . . .” Jack recited in a monotone.

  “Yes, yes, but what pub? Where?” Rejiia stamped her foot in frustration.

  “Fishing village of no name. Step through the two broken halves of the boulder, under the fallen tree and onto a game trail . . .”

  “Where is the fishing village?” Rejiia screamed. Her hands reached for her perfect hair as if to tear it from her scalp. At the last second she thought better of her actions. “Fetch me some Tambootie, Simeon. I must press him harder.”

  “No name village south of the capital. The game trail ends at a creek. Wait for the opening. Brevelan opens the path to those in need of her healing.” Jack sagged against his chains as if unconscious. Sweat ran in rivulets down his cheeks and chest.

  Katrina hoped he’d passed beyond the pain and guilt of succumbing to the spell. When he awoke, he’d be chilled and she wouldn’t be able to comfort him.

  In frustration she yanked at her chains. Simeon glared at her for quiet. His lips curled in a feral snarl, exactly like the expression on the face of the tin weasel. Katrina ceased her struggle.

  “We will come back to Brevelan’s clearing, boy. Give me the transport spell,” Rejiia demanded. A fat oily leaf as broad as her palm appeared out of nowhere and drifted into her outstretched hand. She nibbled the tip of the leaf and licked droplets of oil from the vein.

  A smile crossed her face and her hands began to flutter with new animation. Katrina hadn’t been aware of the sagging in the woman’s shoulders until this new resurgence of energy.