Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III

by Irene Radford

  This was what he needed, a renewal of the magical energy contained within the Kardia.

  If either Lyman or Hanassa had reverted to natural dragon form, both he and Powwell could have gathered that magic. Yaala could have gathered power from a purple-tipped dragon—anyone could gather from the rare purple-tips, even mundanes.

  Lacking a dragon of any color, Rollett had to find other sources of energy to combat or elude the Rovers who still ruled the city of Hanassa.

  He reached again for the wire and the energy he needed.

  “No, Rollett,” Yaala pleaded. Still clutching her head with one hand she tried to step between him and the generator. She stumbled.

  Rollett shifted his reach to hold her upright. Her body fit nicely against his own. “Soon, we’ll be free, Yaala, and I’ll be able to hold you as long as we both need.”

  “It’s too dangerous, Rollett. Don’t touch the ’tricity.”

  “I have to. It’s the only way I’ll have enough power to overcome Piedro and get us out of here. I promise that once we’re free, we’ll make time to explore this thing between us . . . this ’tricity you and I generate all on our own.”

  “Please, Rollett. We don’t know enough about how ’tricity works. No one has ever tried to use it like magic.”

  “Not too long ago no one had gathered dragon magic either.” Resolutely, he separated from her comforting embrace. Out of long habit he stilled his body to make it receptive to the power, reached out and . . .

  Energy coursed through his veins. His body became light as it jerked back and forth. Back and forth. His teeth rattled. Back and forth.

  He smelled burning flesh. His own. Pain jolted every joint and nerve ending in his body.

  “Rollett! Let go. You’ve got to stop this. It’s hurting you,” Yaala cried.

  “Don’t touch me. It’s . . . not . . . supposed . . . to be . . . like . . . this!”

  He couldn’t let go. He couldn’t stop the flow.

  He couldn’t . . .

  Chapter 37

  Afternoon, home of Myrilandel, Ambassador from the Nimbus of Dragons, Coronnan City

  Katie looked around the entry hall to Myrilandel’s home. What could she do to help? Bessel and his mutt were safely out of sight. The healers marched through the doorway. They would repair the initial damage to Nimbulan’s heart. Quinnault comforted his sister.

  She eyed the line of healers led by Whitehands skeptically.

  “I’ve been breaking rules all my life. Why should I stop now?” Katie rubbed her hands together in anticipation of positive action when she felt so useless to help Nimbulan. “I need your assistance.” She snagged a healer journeyman as the procession of gray-clad magicians entered the house.

  At least she hoped the gray tunic and blue trews signified a journeyman.

  “How may I be of service, Your Grace?” the young man asked warily. His gaze followed the healers into the reception hall, clearly anxious to be close to the center of action.

  “Do you know a plant called Fairy Thimbles?” Katie asked him.

  His eyes glazed over blankly.

  “Broad fuzzy leaves tapering to a point. Tall flower stock filled with purple bells,” she described the common Digitalis purpurea that had originated on Earth and followed humanity through colonization of a hundred worlds.

  “Fairy Bells, sometimes called foxglove,” the young man responded, his eyes clearing with enlightenment.

  “Yes! Can you recognize the plant this early in the season? Can you bring me a specimen now?”

  He nodded enthusiastically. “Do you know a medical use for the plant? We know it only as a poison—pretty in the garden but dangerous to ingest.”

  “Yes. Once the healers have stabilized Master Nimbulan, a drug made from the plant can keep his heart beating regularly.”

  “I shall return in a few moments.” The young man’s face brightened, and his eyes sparkled. Katie could almost see the ideas churning in his head.

  “Take the plant to the kitchen and tell the young man there to begin making a . . . a decoction of the leaves.” She didn’t dare name the journeyman in the kitchen lest Scarface at the end of the line of healers overhear. “It must be a very mild decoction, no more than one handful to half a pint of water. Simmer it for about one half an hour. No longer. An effective dose is very close to a lethal one. We must start slow and build up by tiny increments to find the right proportions. We’ll need more leaves to dry and use in infusions. That is a better remedy, but we don’t have time to dry the leaves. I will join you in a moment to help you.”

  The journeyman dashed around the corner of the building toward the back of the house just as Scarface stormed up the steps.

  “Why must you meddle in affairs that do not concern you, Your Grace?” Scarface demanded. The scar across his face whitened and tightened. “You can’t help.”

  How much guilt from his past haunted him so that he could never find peace within himself and therefore couldn’t allow it in another?

  “Is aiding a dear friend in his struggle for life meddling?” she retorted with a sarcastic half-smile.

  “It is if the Stargods have decreed the man’s time to pass on to his next existence,” Scarface replied. As usual he looked over her shoulder at the wall rather than directly at her.

  “Who are we to know the intent of a deity? We are duty bound to use whatever talents and knowledge we have been given. Myrilandel needs her husband, Her babies need a father, King Quinnault still needs his friend, Coronnan desperately needs Nimbulan’s wisdom. I will meddle in whatever way I can to help him.”

  “Perhaps this is the method the Stargods have chosen to tell us that Nimbulan’s guidance is no longer needed or wanted.”

  “Is that the message of the Stargods or of the Senior Magician who replaced Nimbulan but can never truly replace him?”

  “That is not for you to question. You are merely a foreign female who barely hides her illegal magical talent!”

  “I am your queen.”

  “For now. But I know you are also a spy for our enemies. You have lied to the king and all of Coronnan. You cannot possibly be who you say you are.” Now he looked directly at her, accusing, unforgiving.

  Katie swallowed her rush of fear. How much did Scarface know?

  “But I am who I say I am. I do not lie,” she countered. “The dragons have blessed me as consort to their king. Quinnault rules by the grace of the dragons. Do you care to argue the matter with Shayla and her nimbus?”

  “If I must.” Scarface maintained his steady gaze into her eyes. “Dragons have many secrets—secret knowledge they deem dangerous to humans. They recognize the value of some secrets. I do not believe they will honor your secrets much longer, unless you have managed to keep information in your mind hidden from their scrutiny. The plague you carry and the cure you keep secret is clear evidence of your evil intent.”

  “Take your self-righteous anger elsewhere, Master Aaddler. I have never kept the cure for the plague secret. Only the Tambootie can cure the ailment that devastates my people and may be spreading here.” Arguing with him was useless. But he commanded a great deal of power—political as well as magical. If she turned her back on him, he’d presume she fled from guilt and weakness. He’d use that against her. She had to stand her ground.

  “Tambootie is poison to mundanes and only mundanes are affected by this disease.” Scarface stared back at her, not moving from the doorway of Myrilandel’s home. Then he blinked his eyes slowly as if making a decision.

  “Terrania, the land you claim to hail from is the oldest known country on all of Kardia Hodos. Legend says that men first emerged in that land. But it is now a desert waste-land and has been for many, many centuries. Where do you really come from, wife of my king?”

  “We call it Terra now.”

  “And where is Terra that you and your father can only reach it by flying inside the belly of a mechanical dragon? A mechanical beast that spreads the plague you preach aga
inst . . . or have you brought the plague here deliberately to kill us off so you can resettle those who are displaced by the desert sands of Terrania?”

  “How dare you!” Katie slapped his face. Red stained his left cheek in the shape of her handprint.

  “How dare you!” Scarface raised his right fist as if to slam it into her jaw. “How dare you deceive one and all with your lies, usurping my authority by ordering my journeyman to run personal errands when he . . . when none of the Commune even looked to me for confirmation when they received word of that man’s illness.” He pointed to the still form at the center of the healers’ circle. “He’s not even a magician anymore, and they defer to him in all matters. He steals the respect they owe me.”

  “Respect has to be earned,” Katie held his gaze, daring him to inflict violence upon her. “Nimbulan was your friend. You saved each other’s lives numerous times in your escape from Hanassa. Now you wish him and his influence on the kingdom dead.”

  She didn’t know for certain if that last stray thought was her own idea or if Scarface had leaked it to her mind. His ability to guard his psi powers was normally strong.

  “Beware of whom you accuse, Your Grace. My magicians may be more concerned with Nimbulan’s health than with my permission to leave University Isle, but I can still bring you down and your king with you.”

  “Scarface!” Quinnault strode to the entry from the reception hall in a few anxious paces. “Why wasn’t I told that the plague had already brought Lord Balthazaan’s province low?”

  “That neglectful lord always loses large numbers of tenants to disease and privation in the spring.” Scarface shrugged off the news. But he shifted his eyes away from his king.

  He’s lying! He knows something dangerous, Katie thought directly into Quinnault’s mind.

  “This is more than a lord’s neglect,” Katie countered, trying to peer into Scarface’s mind for the truth. “This is a disease that eats the internal organs until you bleed to death from the inside! Bessel watched his mother die of it. He reported dozens of deaths from the same cause. Didn’t you listen to him?”

  “Bessel is not a reliable witness.”

  More lies. What was he hiding?

  “Why isn’t Bessel reliable? He is your senior journeyman.” Quinnault stepped closer to Scarface, towering over him. He looked as if he wanted to beat some sense into the magician as well.

  “A familiar has sought out Bessel. Familiars fear dragons and will not come to a magician using dragon energies. Therefore Bessel obviously uses illegal rogue magic regularly. Besides, Bessel has never been my journeyman. He belongs to Nimbulan and always has. He defies me at every turn. He is a part of this conspiracy to put Nimbulan back into the Commune as Senior Magician even though he is now mundane. I trust no one who has served my predecessor. The mercenaries of Rossemeyer will serve us all well when they assassinate Bessel since you will not condemn him for the murder of Ambassador Jorghe-Rosse.”

  Katie and Quinnault looked to each other for explanation. Her husband’s thoughts, which she could never fully shut out, rolled in chaos as he sought some kind of logic in the last statement.

  Then his mind closed, as if he had slammed a door shut upon Katie’s link to him. She recoiled in surprise. Never in the year and a half of their marriage had he denied her access to his most intimate thoughts.

  Loneliness nearly overwhelmed her need to remain in this conversation.

  “I think you’d best retire to the privacy and security of your apartments in the Commune, Master Aaddler,” Quinnault said quietly—too calmly.

  Let me into your thoughts, Scarecrow! Katie pleaded with her husband. She tried to hold his hand. He jerked free of her tentative touch.

  This terrible aloneness frightened her. Without Quinnault, without her brothers, far from the home of her birth and nurturing, she was lost. She needed to become one with him again.

  She used to enjoy being alone when her large family became too intrusive, too boisterous. But she always had familiar surroundings and the knowledge that when she wanted she could reach out and touch one of them with her mind, or her hand.

  Her father had always respected her privacy when no one else did. And now her father had been exposed to the plague, possibly carried it to others.

  Which others? Lord Balthazaan’s province already reeled under the impact of the horrible disease. Lord Balthazaan. Something . . .

  “Is that a dismissal, Your Grace?” Scarface backed up a step. Surprise almost masked the new surge of anger in his expression and posture.

  “It is.” Quinnault remained closed to Katie. The easy-going diplomat, always ready to seek a compromise had disappeared inside his head and behind his clenched fists. “I have lost confidence in you as my chief adviser, Master Aaddler. I will ask the Commune to elect a new senior, one whom I can trust.”

  “Then think on this, King Quinnault Darville de Draconis, before you give your trust and confidence to Nimbulan, the man you call friend: The Rover woman, Maia, has escaped. The only way she could have broken through our wards is with help—the help of someone with Rover blood and therefore access to the mind-to-mind link of Rover magic. Nimbulan has Rovers in his ancestry. He has lied to you when he claims to have lost all of his magic. He still has Rover magic. He was also Maia’s lover. She bore him a child. Who else in your kingdom would want to help her escape?” Scarface turned on his heel and marched back the way he had come.

  “Lord Balthazaan is Nimbulan’s cousin, isn’t he?” Katie asked, thinking through the convoluted relationships among the nobility of Coronnan. “He would have Rover blood in his ancestry as well. Could an unscrupulous Rover magician manipulate him? We never found Piedro after he escaped, Scarecrow! A Rover helped him escape a magically sealed prison.”

  Lord Balthazaan has enjoyed new prosperity of late.” Quinnault clasped her hand tightly in his to dispel the lingering nightmare of the night Piedro tried to strangle Katie with the silken tie from Quinnault’s robe. “Despite the plague that decimates his population and threatens to close his mines for lack of workers, Lord Balthazaan rides new and expensive steeds. His wife wears the most costly SeLenese lace.”

  “And they both wear a great deal of jewelry,” Katie added, thinking again of the Rover ring that Marilell had almost choked on.

  “Perhaps Balthazaan’s new prosperity results from Rover interference, or possibly your father’s manipulation.”

  “My father carries the plague that has infected Balthazaan’s province.”

  “So is the lord the puppet of your father or of the Rovers?” Quinnault raised one eyebrow. The solid wall that closed his mind cracked a little.

  Katie reached in with her own thoughts, sharing every twisted idea surrounding the issue.

  “The vandalism, the riot, the ambush of supply caravans, that strange storm that killed Jorghe-Rosse . . . Balthazaan was always the first to accuse you of incompetence or tyranny, Scarecrow. Perhaps he engineered the incidents.”

  “Or knew of them in advance to prepare his arguments,” Quinnault offered. “Perhaps Kinnsell and Balthazaan used each other and the Rovers ride their schemes to further their own ambitions.”

  “All of them would like to see an end to our reign for different reasons. I think we need to look closer at Balthazaan as a focus for those who oppose you at every turn, Scarecrow.”

  “The time has come to divide the opposition and thus weaken their resolve.”

  “But first we must tend to Nimbulan. We need his wisdom now more than ever.”

  “I hope we are not too late to save him.” Quinnault returned to Nimbulan’s side, lovingly holding the older man’s hand as a bit of color returned to Nimbulan’s overly pale face.

  “I hope we are not too late to find my father before he infects the entire planet with the plague. There is barely enough Tambootie left to feed the dragons. How can we cure all of our own people without it?” Katie asked herself, the others, and the air.

  Chapter 38<
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  The pit beneath the city of Hanassa, time undetermined

  Without thinking of the consequences, Yaala punched a warning button on Liise’s control panel and threw a switch to break the circuit.

  The bizarre blue arcing that surrounded Rollett and jerked him back and forth in a dance of death abruptly ceased. He dropped to the ground in a boneless heap.

  The overhead lights died, plunging the entire cavern system into darkness. Yaala reeled without a sense of up and down or right and left. Hesitantly, she spread her hands away from her body for balance. Sparks leaped from Liise to her fingers. The residual current needed to complete the circuit. Like a living being, it sought contact rather than die.

  She jerked her hand away. At least she knew how far she stood from the machinery. Rollett should be just there. . . .

  She bumped against his unmoving body and dropped to her knees. “Rollett, wake up!” she pleaded with him for a sign that he still lived.

  He didn’t moan. She heard no movement, no rustle of clothing, no scrape of a shoe on rock, no whisper of air entering or exiting a pair of lungs.

  “Rollett, don’t you dare die on me!” She shook him. Tremors ran through his body.

  “I don’t know if this will work or not, but Queen Katie says it should.” Yaala stuck a finger in his mouth to make certain nothing clogged his air passage. Then she tilted back his head and blew her own breath into his mouth.

  “That works better with two people,” Old Lyman said from behind her. He held a feeble ball of witchlight in his hand. Powwell staggered beside him, barely outlined in the dim light.

  The kardia continued to rumble around them. Dust filled the air, further dimming the tiny light.

  “Help me,” Yaala pleaded with them. Tears streaked her cheeks. She dashed them away with her sleeve. There was no time for this weakness.

  She sensed the constant shifting of the caverns around her. They didn’t have much time. She wouldn’t leave Rollett, and she couldn’t carry him. His life seemed much more important than all of Hanassa right now.