Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III

by Irene Radford

  Shouting in the middle of the crowd disrupted her thoughts. An argument grew around a knot of younger men. She checked to make sure her brother was not one of them. Back home he would be the first to wade into a brawl, fists and feet flying, loving the game of breaking heads to break up the fight. Liam Francis had vanished again. No sign of Sean Michael or Jamie Patrick either.

  One of the disputants, clothed in a gaudy orange shirt with purple piping, threw an overripe pear at his neighbor. The fruit splattered the more sober unbleached linen shirt of a dark-haired man who stood a little taller than most of the crowd. He responded by throwing the remains of his ale into Orange-shirt’s face.

  Both followed through with fists. Their neighbors joined the spreading brawl.

  “Guards, go and break this up. Disperse the people before this spreads even further,” Quinnault ordered.

  Half of the armed escort dispersed through the crowd.

  Katie clutched her husband’s arm, frightened, as the anger spread and engulfed the people standing closest to the bridge. Angry thoughts blasted through her mental armor. The emotions behind the fight made her toes curl and brought lumbird bumps to her spine.

  She’d experienced this sensation only once before, when an assassin had crept into her room the night before her wedding. He’d used magic to instill fear in her, a terror so great she lay immobile, defenseless against his attack.

  “Come, Your Grace,” the sergeant-at-arms suggested. “I’ll escort you to the royal stables. You’ll be safe there.”

  “Take Her Grace back to the palace by whatever back routes you can find,” Quinnault replied. He patted Katie’s hand. “I’ll follow by a different route with the others. We’ll be safer attracting less attention with smaller parties.”

  “No, Quinnault,” Katie said quietly but with determination. “We both need to stay. Someone is amplifying the crowd’s emotions with magic to further their own political agenda. Listen to the argument. Listen hard. We need to stop this here and now!”

  “Filthy foreigner!” Orange-shirt yelled. “How dare you think of marrying off your daughter to my son. I’ll not taint our bloodline with Rovers.”

  Strange, Orange-shirt dressed more like a Rover than the man he accused.

  “Rovers steal our children as well as our hard-earned dragini.” That voice came from a different quarter altogether. The angry emotions swelled, as if being manipulated by a master hand.

  The assassin who had used her own emotions against Katie had been a Rover.

  Confusion muddled her thoughts. Who was behind this?

  “Rovers will rape and control your mind with their magic worse than any Commune Magician.” That voice came from an ordinary woman with muddy blond hair, no Rover coloring in her face or clothing.

  “Bad enough we have to put up with a foreign queen and her prancing lumbird father. We don’t need Rovers and them desert mercenaries freeloading off our bounty. We don’t need a foreign queen controlling our king,” Orange-shirt called to the crowd in general.

  Katie bristled. Beside her, Quinnault clenched his jaw. A muscle jumped in his cheek, and the pulse in his neck beat too rapidly.

  The few remaining courtiers in their party gasped at the audacity of the crowd voicing these sentiments in front of the royal couple. Most of the dignitaries had dispersed at the first sign of trouble.

  “We need a new king,” Orange-shirt yelled above the noise of the crowd. “We need a king who doesn’t bow to foreign interests.”

  “Kill all foreigners!”

  Chapter 3

  Late afternoon, Saawheen, on the Long Bridge to the mainland, Coronnan City

  ‘Speak to them, Quinnault. End this before the violence spreads!’ Katie tugged at her husband’s arm. The moisture on her brow and back turned icy with fear.

  The guards surrounded them, swords drawn. Tension made their arms twitch.

  If any one of them drew so much as a drop of blood, all hope of exerting calm would disappear.

  Quinnault stared at her, gathering his thoughts. Then he nodded his head and took a deep breath.

  “My people.” Quinnault raised his arms above his head as he spoke the words in a voice that carried to the far reaches of the crowd.

  A few people paid heed and ceased their babble.

  “Stand higher on the bridge so that more people can see you,” Katie urged him. Hope sprouted in her chest at the crowd’s initial response to him.

  He took two steps back to the center of the arched span. His height and the elevation made him stand well above everyone. “My people, listen to me!” he commanded again in ringing tones worthy of a battlefield—or a pulpit.

  Katie immediately felt calmer, more confident. Apparently so did the mob. Quiet spread in gentle ripples.

  So this was Quinnault’s magic talent. Nothing overt enough for him to be called a magician, but enough—and perhaps the best talent for a man with aspirations to the priesthood or to leading a diverse populace through tribulation.

  “Listen to me, please. You must cease this violence!”

  Katie saw three men pause with hands upraised, ready to strike. But they didn’t complete their blows.

  “I understand your fears,” Quinnault said. “I lived through the wars, I fought alongside you when rival lords threatened these islands. And when peace came within our grasp, you declared me king. You, the people, decided I should lead you because you knew I would bring the warring factions together in compromise.” Quinnault paused a moment to let his words sink in.

  “Now we must all work together to maintain that peace. We must fight those who would disrupt that peace from within as well as without.”

  Men and women stared in disbelief at missiles of food and stones and tools and clubs they clutched in their hands. A woman in the front ranks deliberately put down the palm-sized rock she had been ready to lob at the man standing next to her. Her neighbor pocketed the hammer he held poised to defend himself.

  Quinnault breathed deeply.

  So you noticed that someone manipulated their emotions with magic, Katie commented on a tight mental line. Best if the magician in the crowd did not eavesdrop.

  Magic? Quinnault cocked an eyebrow at her. His slightly bemused expression could not hide his unease from her.

  Katie searched the crowd for signs of the man with the gaudy orange shirt with purple piping. She should have been able to pick him out in a moment among the more soberly dressed folk.

  I sense magic and conspiracy in this brawl. Someone deliberately fed fear into these people.

  “Disperse to your homes now to celebrate Sawheen, our Holy Day of Remembrance,” Quinnault commanded. “You are good people. You don’t need to listen to those who would use you to fight their fears. You need only live your lives in peace. A peace we have fought for. But now the fighting must cease.”

  “What about the foreigners? What about . . . ?”

  Katie searched the crowd for the speaker. It sounded a lot like Orange-shirt, but she couldn’t be sure. The voice seemed to come from all directions, followed by ripples of unease. She spotted Liam Francis working his way through the crowd with deliberation. Sean Michael and Jamie Patrick approached from other directions, their bright red hair obvious beacons in the mob. She hoped they honed in on the disruptive magician.

  “If you notice people from other lands crowding our city, be assured they bring trade, they bring friendship. I work with their leaders to avoid another war. We all work for peace and prosperity,” Quinnault responded.

  A mood of calm followed his words, more overwhelming than the anonymous voice.

  Katie bit her lip in confusion. Was it right for her husband to use magic to influence the crowd in the same manner another had used magic to bring the crowd to riot?

  (Sometimes, Katie, one must fight fire with fire or magic with magic,) a dragon voice reminded her.

  “What do we do now, Quinnault?” she asked. Her brothers disappeared again, swallowed up in the mass of p
eople. She had no idea if they found their quarry or not.

  “We need to know who started this and why,” Quinnault replied. “My investigators must ask questions and keep their eyes and ears open for more signs of trouble. I’m certain there will be more.”

  Sunset, neighborhood temple three islands west of Palace Reveta Tristile, Coronnan City

  Katie sank to her knees on the cold stone floor of the little neighborhood temple. The last rays of sunlight streamed through the high narrow windows, adding luster to the icon tapestry of the three Stargods descending upon a cloud of silver flame on the back wall of the sanctuary. Beside her, Quinnault bowed his head and murmured the prayers for the dead. Nimbulan, Myri, and Yaala occupied the space just behind the royal couple. Around them—with a buffer zone of empty space out of respect for Quinnault and Katie—the entire congregation recited the same petitions.

  A red-robed priest joined Katie in her prayers. She glanced briefly at him. He kept the cowl of his garment over his head, concealing his face. Unusual that anyone not of the royal entourage would come so close.

  The priest jostled her elbow slightly as he made a very Terran sign of the cross, touching head, heart, and both shoulders. She’d grown used to the locals using almost the same gesture but with a different invocation from the one she’d learned as an infant back home.

  “Almost like being at home,” the priest whispered in a Terran accent.

  “I should have known you’d show up eventually, Sean Michael,” she whispered back to her older brother—the middle one in age of her three siblings. “You aren’t supposed to be here. We agreed, no more family contact. We take no more chances contaminating this culture.”

  “Have to check on my baby sister.” He bowed his head again to avoid Quinnault’s inquisitive look.

  “Liam Francis already did.”

  “Ah, but our youngest brother has not reported back to us. I suspect he has found a tavern and a lady to entertain him for the evening. Like the dark-eyed beauty over there.” He gestured with his chin toward a woman with Rover coloring and Rover-gaudy clothing strung with chains of coins who knelt directly behind Nimbulan.

  “Or Liam Francis may have gone looking for a disruptive magician. I thought I saw you and Jamie Patrick following the same psychic scent.”

  Sean Michael raised a rusty red eyebrow at her. “We found nothing.”

  “Could you look again?”

  He nodded. “And when may I see my favorite niece, the Princess Marilell?”

  “In the morning.” Katie nudged him sharply with her elbow, a familiar gesture to quiet him during church services.

  “Kinnsell is not reporting in to the mother ship either. I really came to haul him back home, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity to see you, little sister.” He brushed her fingertips gently with his own.

  The brief caress filled her with warmth and a longing to hug him close.

  A moment later he slipped away, barely noticed by anyone but herself. A void of loneliness opened in her belly.

  Someone I should know? Quinnault asked her. He dropped his hand to clasp hers. His love channeled through the physical contatct.

  One of my brothers, she replied. She used to think mind-to-mind communications with her brothers came easily. But compared to the intimate contact with her husband, family telepathy seemed a great effort. No wonder her brother had whispered.

  Your family isn’t supposed to be here, Quinnault said.

  Neither is my father. Sean Michael came to take Kinnsell home.

  Odd place to look for your father. I’ve never known him to show the least interest in our customs.

  Kinnsell is only interested in himself.

  And causing trouble.

  Hush, beloved. Our part is coming up. Katie clasped a spray of bright flowers she had laid on the floor beside her earlier. When the priest signaled her forward, she rose and placed the small bouquet of autumnal blossoms on the plain stone altar. “In memory of my mother who passed beyond this plane of existence five years ago. May she find peace beyond the void,” she recited the ritual.

  Quinnault followed her with petitions for a long string of deceased relatives.

  Together they bowed to the altar and returned to their places.

  Then Nimbulan, Myri, and the rest of the congregation followed suit.

  “Who is that woman?” Katie asked, nodding toward the flamboyant woman with a cloud of dark hair and clear ivory skin that her brother had noticed. The two men who placed flowers on the altar immediately after her could only be Liam Francis and Sean Michael. Where was Jamie Patrick hiding? And Kinnsell? She was surprised her father hadn’t found the exotically beautiful woman yet.

  “Her name is Maia. She came out of Hanassa last year with Nimbulan,” Quinnault replied quietly. “She has some claim on him. We shelter her here in this sanctuary with magical armor all around so that others of her kind cannot spy on us through her without her knowledge or consent.”

  “She does not seem happy. What if she decides to leave?”

  “I do not know. I only hope that if she chooses to leave, she will return to her clan and not remain to be manipulated by the Rovers who wish us ill.”

  A wave of distorted images washed over Katie. Her sense of now and then, up and down, real and unreal, swirled around her in a tornado of bright colors and broken images. Her father, Maia, a shuttlecraft from the mother ship. Dragons, dragons everywhere. And a purple cloud so dark it seemed almost black engulfing them all.

  She swayed dizzily.

  “Katie!” Quinnault wrapped both arms around her, holding her upright.

  “Scarecrow. I see trouble. I’ve never had a premonition before, but I see trouble surrounding that woman. Disaster cloaks her aura and it centers around my family somehow.”

  Saawheen Evening, in the home of Myrilandel, Ambassador for the Dragon Nimbus to Coronnan, Coronnan City

  Powwell searched Yaala’s eyes for support, compassion, anything but the fear that lingered there.

  “This is very dangerous, Powwell,” Bessel said quietly from the desk in Nimbulan’s study. “Neither of us has much experience with the void. The spell is illegal. I’m not prepared to sacrifice everything to help you find your sister.”

  “You don’t have to work the spell, only monitor me and bring me back if I get into trouble. You’re the only magician I trust, Bessel.”

  “I’ll monitor you, Powwell,” Yaala said quietly from her window seat. The autumnal sunset backlit her fair hair and skin giving her the illusion of ethereal fragility. Her heavy brocade gown nearly overwhelmed her slight figure. It reflected the current fashion of muted Kardia tones. Bronze and green flecked the gold fabric. Those colors looked wonderful on Queen Katie with her red hair and green eyes, so everyone at court wore them.

  Yaala needed light blues and pinks to flatter her. She also needed a warmer climate. Desert born and bred, she shivered in the drafty window seat. And yet she clung to the light filtering through the oiled parchment pane.

  Powwell vowed to take her home again. As soon as he found Kalen. Yaala deserved the best. More than he could give her.

  “You don’t have the magic to drag me out of the void, Yaala,” Powwell replied. He clasped her hand in reassurance. “I’ll be all right. I’ve researched this extensively.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait for Master Nimbulan to return from temple?” Bessel fiddled with one of the master’s pens. “He’d be able to monitor you. He knows what you are up against.”

  “But he has no magic either.”

  “What if Scarface finds out what we’re doing? This spell requires rogue magic. The whole thing is illegal.” Bessel began tapping the pen against Nimbulan’s desk.

  “That’s why we’re doing it in Myrilandel’s house. She’s the ambassador for the dragons. This house, the embassy, is foreign territory. We aren’t in Coronnan, so the spell isn’t illegal here.”

  Neither Bessel nor Yaala looked reassured by the argument.

>   “I need you, Bessel. And I’m running out of time. I’ve wasted moons and moons trying to figure out where to look for Kalen without going into the void. I’ve tried to abide by the rules of the Commune. Now Scarface has dismissed me from the Commune. He’s cut off my access to the library, to the entire University. I’m a magician outside the Commune; therefore I have to either apologize to him or leave Coronnan by midnight. I have to search the void here and now. Either you help me, Bessel, or I do it alone with only Thorny to guide me.” He petted the little hedgehog within his tunic pocket.

  “Start your trance, Powwell. Best we get this over with before I lose my courage.”

  Powwell sat cross-legged on the floor, placing Thorny on his right thigh, within easy reach. In an emergency, his familiar could bristle his spines, jabbing Powwell back into his body and this reality. He took a deep breath on three counts, clearing his mind of the room, his companions, every stray thought except his purpose. He let go of the dragon magic he kept stored in his body and found a silvery blue ley line deep within the planet to feed him magical energy. Calm spread through him like warm honey. He took a second breath on the same three counts, holding it three counts, and then releasing it on three counts. The absolute blackness of the void flickered around his peripheral vision. He resisted the urge to plunge into the emptiness between the planes of existence. A third breath took him deeper into his trance. Yaala and Bessel became illusory ghosts to his perceptions. Nothing existed in this reality except Thorny who remained a solid and familiar presence.

  The void beckoned him with the soft music of the stars. He almost recognized the melody, needed to hear more to fit the alluring pieces together.

  I’ll tether you to this existence with the umbilical of your life force while you search, Bessel said directly into his thoughts.

  Powwell merged with the blank nothingness of the void. All sense of his body, of direction, of his planetary orientation evaporated. Nothing existed but his mind.