The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

by Irene Radford

  At last she made contact with him—almost. Her hand did not so much pass through as curve around a soft mass, not quite liquid, not quite solid. Then the barrier of energy broke through her willpower and thrust her hand aside.

  Her hand and arm had not faded when she touched the ghost, however briefly.

  Robb looked at her. All of his hurt and despair poured from him into her. Her heart twisted and found a new rhythm.

  The world seemed to shift beneath her feet as she sought a new destiny. One that included this sorrowful man.

  “I brought a deck of cartes to help pass the time.” She proffered the painted sheets of pressed wood.

  Robb took them from her. He shuffled them idly. “Maybe I can finally win a game with Marcus now that his luck has deserted him. That’s about the only good that’s come out of this mess.”

  “I will help you find a way out of this,” Vareena vowed. Her heart ached for the sadness that made Robb’s shoulders slump and his mouth frown. “I promise on my sacred duty to serve the ghosts that haunt this place, that I will find a way to help you back into this existence. We will end the curse of this place so that no one becomes a ghost here again.” Perhaps then I will finally be able to claim my acres in Nunio and be free.

  Robb stood in the shadows of the north tower above the kitchen and refectory watching Marcus watch Vareena. After hours playing a complex three-handed game of cartes—which Marcus won quite handily—Vareena had left on errands (she said for the night but only a few hours had passed) and returned again while the sun still rode high in the sky.

  Part of his heart rejoiced every time Marcus sighed with longing directed at Vareena. If Marcus did truly love the woman—her maturity might give Marcus the steadying influence Robb thought he needed—then Marcus would forget his longtime passion for Margit. Margit would be hurt, of course. But when she healed, then perhaps, if he courted her very carefully, perhaps Robb could win her heart.

  Another part of him coiled in anger against his best friend. How could Marcus be so callous? How could he forget Margit so easily? How could he hurt her thus?

  He remembered the first time he’d seen Margit. She had met them in the market square near where her mother sold baked goods.

  “Tell Jaylor that the queen swears she will educate any daughters she bears in the ways of Rossemeyer. I presume that means she will bare her breasts and cover her hair. But the Gnuls in the city whisper that magic is not illegal in Rossemeyer and the queen wants her daughters to learn to throw magic.” Margit’s harsh whisper reached Robb’s ears before he realized that Jaylor’s spy in the palace had found him before he’d spotted her.

  He honed in on the direction of the whisper and spotted several of the queen’s maids examining the produce in the cart where Marcus and Robb lounged in seeming idleness. All of the maids were dressed alike in fine green brocade with low bodices and skirts that fell in wide folds to completely cover their shoes. All five of the women had veiled their hair as well. But one of them, the tallest among them, wore her finery awkwardly. She tripped upon the long skirts, had trouble keeping her blond braids confined beneath the gauzy veil and slouched her shoulders in an attempt to hide the vast expanse of her upper breast exposed by the lack of gown.

  Robb nudged Marcus with his elbow. They both stared at the girl with open admiration until she eased away from her companions and sent them a withering glance in reprimand. Robb had lowered his eyes in apology. A brief nod of his head acknowledged her whisper as she reached across them to examine a ripe melon.

  Marcus continued to stare at her with mouth slightly open. “I think I’m love,” he said quietly when the women had moved on.

  “You are always in love,” Robb returned. A flare of jealousy burned through him. Marcus attracted any number of women and fell in love with most of them in turn. His rejects found solace in Robb’s arms.

  He’d never loved anyone. But Margit . . . this new apprentice of Jaylor’s intrigued him. Margit. He caressed the name in his mind. Margit.

  He could love this girl.

  But as their friendship developed, Margit clearly preferred Marcus. Robb’s best friend had remained faithful to Margit—as faithful as he was capable of being—for nearly three years, never declaring his love for another until now.

  Robb had kept his love for Margit a secret for all that time. He heaved a weary sigh, wondering if something good might come of this disastrous quest after all. If he could return to Margit with comfort and companionship while Marcus chased after Vareena . . .

  Vareena emptied her carry basket of firewood and kindling at Marcus’ feet. Her brother stood in disapproving silence at the gate. But his stern posture broke frequently as he cast weary glances about the courtyard, seeking what he did not have the talent to see.

  Robb allowed his eyes to cross slightly as he sought the aura of the man who escorted his sister so diligently. Spikes of orange fear shot through the multiple layers of fire green. A man of passion without a single hint of magical talent.

  Vareena, on the other hand, sparkled around the edges of her aura of bright pink and pale yellow. A minor talent that would go unnoticed anywhere but in this haunted monastery.

  Then Vareena lifted her eyes from the firewood to search the courtyard. Her gaze rested on Robb for a long moment. He looked away first. The longing that burned in her gaze embarrassed him. He had no interest in her as a woman, only as a helper in this dilemma. His heart truly belonged to Margit and Margit only.

  Reluctantly, Vareena turned to her brother and retreated back to her normal world in the village.

  Normal. What was normal anymore?

  For years he had trained to work only dragon magic and revile anyone who dared tap rogue powers. As magicians had believed for centuries, Robb had held to the tenet that any use of rogue, or solitary magic, had its roots in evil. That had been normal. Then the dragons had left Coronnan, taking their communal magic with them. Over the last three years Robb had come to accept solitary magic as normal. The wandering life he and Marcus led as journeymen carrying out Jaylor’s missions had become normal.

  How long would he and his best friend be stuck here before this half existence between reality and the void became normal?

  He couldn’t allow that to happen. Coronnan needed dragons so that honor and respect could be restored to magic and magicians. Only with dragons could magicians combine their powers, have them amplified by orders of magnitude to overcome any solitary magician. The Commune of Magicians was dedicated to enforcing law, ethics, honor, and justice among themselves and throughout Coronnan. He and Marcus were Jaylor’s last hope for bringing the female dragon Shayla and her mates home.

  Yaakke had failed, having gone missing some three years ago.

  Now he and Marcus must remain missing in this hazy gloaming indefinitely.

  Didn’t that half-haze ever dissipate from the sky? He kicked the stone wall of the tower in his frustration. All he wanted right now was to see honest sunshine reflecting off Margit’s blond braids.

  In the center of the courtyard Marcus arranged the kindling and wood into an efficient campfire. He snapped his fingers and brought a flamelet of witchfire to his fingertip. It leaped from his hand into the kindling, chewing hungrily at the fuel.

  They were ready to try a summons spell again, in broad daylight, when they had a better chance of someone being awake at the University to respond. Possibly the containment spell around the monastery weakened the spell to the point a sleeping magician would not notice the faint hum in the recipient’s glass.

  Robb moved to Marcus’ side, staying slightly behind so he could feed the fire without distracting his friend from his spell.

  Marcus acknowledged him with a slight nod as he breathed deeply, in three counts, hold three, out three, hold three. His eyes glazed over, and he stared into the flames, seeing something far, far away. Slowly, deliberately, he brought his square of precious glass up to eye level and recited the ritual words that would summon Jay
lor, Senior Magician of the Commune.

  Robb fought the urge to dive into his own trance and participate in the spell. If dragon magic were available, he could combine his own talent with Marcus’ and boost the power of the spell far beyond the sum of their two talents. Without dragons, he could only monitor his friend and keep the fire going for as long as the spell took to reach across Coronnan to the protected Clearing near the University.

  “Flame to flame, glass to glass, like seeking like,” Marcus chanted over and over again.

  Robb grew cramped sitting cross-legged on the hard-packed surface of the courtyard. He shifted uneasily and fed yet another log onto the fire. The sparks leaped high, greedy for more fuel.

  His back ached. He reached out with a tiny magical probe and checked Marcus’ pulse. He’d been in trance a long time. Surely Jaylor would answer the thrumming vibration of his glass no matter what time of the day or night. If he couldn’t, then an apprentice or another magician would intervene with his own glass and flame. He could not imagine a situation that would keep every magician in the Commune and University away from communication at the same time.

  The probe lost contact with Marcus’ pulse. Robb risked touching his friend. His skin was cool and had taken on the waxy pallor of exhaustion and hunger.

  “Wake up, Marcus. Return to your body and your thoughts. Come back slowly, easily.” Robb held his friend’s hand, infusing warmth and strength into the chill skin.

  Marcus slumped and sighed heavily. His eyelids fluttered. He looked up bleakly. “I couldn’t get through. I don’t think the spell climbed the walls any better than we did.”

  “My plan didn’t work.”

  Chapter 13

  “Did you feel that?” Margit asked Ferrdie and Mikkail. She touched the little shard of glass in her scrip. A moment ago it felt as if it vibrated with a summons. Now it lay quiet again.

  For years, during her time as Queen Rossemikka’s maid and Jaylor’s spy in the capital, the summons spell was the only bit of magic she could work. She had mastered all nuances of that spell very well and should know that characteristic thrumming in her glass.

  But now the sensation had dissipated like mist in a fog. A summons did not work that way. The glass should continue to vibrate until the one summoned found a flame and a bit of privacy to answer.

  She’d known a spell to linger in her glass for the best part of a day.

  “Feel what?” Mikkail returned. He looked up from the text he studied at the long library table. Darkness had driven them inside, otherwise Margit would have insisted they continue their reading beneath a tree in the fresh air. She had chosen a table beneath a shuttered window, which she opened to the night air.

  Ferrdie looked around anxiously as if expecting to be beaten for doing his homework.

  Since she’d adopted masculine clothing and hairstyle, the boys in her class accepted her more readily, asked her to study and practice with them. WithyReed still did not call upon her in class, but the other masters took her more seriously. Almost as if a gown set up a barrier between them.

  Or a challenge. Dressed as a boy, she did not threaten their preconceived ideas about females and magic. She wondered briefly how Brevelan, the wife of the Senior Magician, coped with the archaic attitude.

  In asking the question, she knew the answer. Brevelan ignored the masters who treated her as subhuman. That irritated the masters immensely because their lofty opinions meant nothing to the wife of their Senior Magician.

  Briefly, Margit explained the strange half-sensation that her glass had interrupted a summons to someone else. Both boys touched their glasses within their scrips. Both shook their heads. Mikkail shrugged his shoulders and returned to the treatise written by the ancient magician named Scarface.

  “What’s this word, Margit?” He turned the scroll so she could see it.

  “Complementary,” she replied.

  “So the elements of Fire and Air are ‘com-ple-men-tar-y’.” He sounded each syllable carefully as Margit had taught him, so he’d remember the word next time he saw it.

  “And Kardia and Water are complementary. I wonder if one could negate a spell by invoking opposing elements?” she mused.

  “An interesting theory you may explore as part of your next advancement test, Margit,” Jaylor said from the doorway.

  All three apprentices jumped to their feet in respect for the Senior Magician.

  “Sit, sit, return to your studies.” He waved them back to their stools and their books. He carried his younger son under one arm and a cat on his other shoulder. Lately, he was rarely seen without at least one of his two sons and some of the overflow of animals attracted to the shelter of Brevelan’s Clearing. The first Senior Magician in many generations to have a family, he took his duties as a father very seriously—especially now that his wife Brevelan was heavily pregnant again. She needed a break from the excessive energy of her two sons and husband.

  “Have any of you seen Master Librarian Lyman?” Jaylor asked, looking about the jumbled shelves of the library. They’d lost a number of books in their years of running from refuge to refuge before building a new University in exile. But they’d retrieved many more books from unexpected sources as silent sympathizers found circuitous ways to send the treasures. Not everyone was willing to consign books to Gnul bonfires. Lyman, the ancient librarian, hadn’t managed to sort and shelve them all properly. Nor had he appointed an assistant to help him.

  Perhaps Ferrdie? Margit thought the job perfect for her meek friend.

  “Dozing in the corner,” Margit whispered to Jaylor.

  “I’ll not wake him then. He needs his rest.” Jaylor started to back out of the room.

  “Master Jaylor?” Margit stopped him. “Did you just sense a summons gone astray?” Her hand automatically went to her scrip, testing the glass again for residual vibrations.

  “Did you?” Jaylor’s eyebrows rose nearly to his dark auburn hair.

  “Aye, sir. But it . . . evaporated. I’ve never had anything like that come through my glass before.”

  “Neither have I. Keep alert, Margit. And work on the paper about opposing elements to negate a spell. You’ll find some preliminary explorations on the subject over by the last window on the right. Don’t wake Master Lyman. He’s getting old and needs his rest.” Jaylor quietly left the library.

  “Master Lyman was born old,” Mikkail muttered.

  “I heard he doesn’t eat. He just inhales the dust from the books,” Ferrdie offered.

  Margit had to smile. The boy just might break away from the trap of his fears if he could repeat a joke that had followed apprentices for—forever.

  “No, I don’t breathe book dust, little boy, I eat apprentices who disturb my nap!” Lyman called from the corner. His wrinkled skin and wispy silver hair almost blended into the shadows as if he were as invisible as a dragon.

  Ferrdie cowered behind his book.

  “And I was born older than I am now. I don’t age, I young,” Lyman tugged his beard and winked at Margit. “Now, come along, Margit. Get the study on your topic. Only way you’ll make journeyman in time to answer that distress summons you intercepted is to get the paper written and impress the masters that you aren’t just a girl.”

  “Distress summons?” Margit’s voice came out on a squeak. The only person she knew who might send a distress summons that would reach her but not Jaylor was Marcus.

  Once again she knew a stab of hot fear that her love had been lost and out of communication for many moons.

  “Nothing to worry about just yet. He’s safe for the moment. But you must push forward to be ready when you need to be.”

  “How did you know it was a distress summons, Master Lyman?”

  “Because I’m older than the oldest dragon, and I’ve seen it all,” the frail old man retorted. “A distress summons that is interrupted is the only summons that hits more than one person like a stab in the side and then evaporates into mist. The sender is lucky someone cau
ght it and is willing to prepare for it. Now, research and write that paper. You don’t have enough knowledge and talent to plan ahead as Robb does or to trust in your luck like Marcus does.”

  “Then I’ll have to improvise.” She flashed the old man an impish grin.

  These intruders have one hundred days. That is all. One hundred days and they die. They will not figure out how to steal my power in that time.

  “Tell me a story, M’ma,” Jaranda demanded. The regal, imperious tone of the three-year-old lost a lot in translation around the thumb she sucked. Her eyelids drooped.

  Mother and daughter had consumed every scrap of food they could scrounge from the kitchen and pantry. For the moment they were replete and happy.

  What about tomorrow?

  All around them, they heard small crashes and groans as weakened walls and ceilings gave way. How much longer could they safely stay here? With atavistic fear, she resisted going forth into the city.

  “Come sit in my lap, baby. I’ll tell you a story.” She opened her arms where they sat on the floor of the workroom. Round bolster pillows spilled yards of soft lace around them. Straight-backed chairs by the pillow stands offered the only seating in the room. So she and Jaranda sat on the floor where they could be together. They had found elegant withdrawing rooms with comfortable furniture, bedrooms with lace curtains, and little private salons all over the palace. All of them had breaches in the walls or ceilings and offered little protection. The workroom remained intact and felt like home. How long? What about food tomorrow?

  “Once upon a time, in a country far, far away . . .” she began the story.

  “How far away?” Jaranda asked as she snuggled her head into her mother’s lap. She sucked her thumb again.

  Part of the woman knew she should do her best to discourage the little girl from the baby behavior, but with life so unsettled, their future so uncertain, she allowed Jaranda whatever comfort she could find.

  “Many days’ travel by barge up the river, farther away than you or I have ever been. Farther away than either of us would want to travel.”