Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III

by Irene Radford

  “Ah, but over the border we will find dragons. What better luck than to find a dragon and return with it to Coronnan so that the University of Magicians and the Commune of Magicians can gain credibility once more?”

  “This isn’t dragon weather. It’s foul and unpleasant and s’murghin’ cold. There aren’t any dragons nearby. I’ll believe we’ve found dragons when we actually return to Coronnan with them. I’ll believe that magicians will regain honor and integrity from dragon magic when the Council of Provinces reinstates the Commune into the University buildings and Council Chamber and not before.”

  Robb trudged beside Marcus uphill along an overgrown and narrow game trail.

  “Look, Robb, there’s a building with nice stout walls. The light is coming from a window niche. We’ll have you warm and dry and cheerfully lecturing me with a nice cup of something hot to take the chill out of your innards and your mood.” Marcus grabbed Robb’s sleeve and pulled him forward at a brisk pace.

  Trees crowded their path, sheltering them from the wind if not the rain. Robb looked up to scan the walls that towered above them. “I only sense one life,” he said through chattering teeth. “I can’t smell any magic, but that is definitely witchlight.” He gnawed his lip in puzzlement.

  “Witchfire won’t throw out much heat. Let’s hope there’s some dry fuel about to turn it into green flame.” Marcus lifted each foot carefully in the slick mud on the upward path. His staff kept him balanced, but he leaned on it heavily.

  “How tired are you?” Robb asked, concerned. “Don’t try to hide it just because I’m in a foul humor.”

  “One of us has to keep moving. Otherwise you’d crawl into a badger hole and call it shelter. A hot infusion of Brevelan’s special blend of spices will taste very good once we get inside and light a real fire.”

  They hadn’t much left of the tasty treat and had agreed to ration it. Robb agreed they really needed it today.

  Soon enough, stone buttresses jutted out from the walls, making their path as crooked as Old Baamin’s magical staff.—S’murghit! He wished the old Senior Magician hadn’t passed on to his next existence. Robb would welcome the old man’s cranky wisdom now.

  The neatly dressed stones fit together snugly.

  “I wonder how old this place is?” Marcus reached out a hand to caress the stones. “I can’t sense any residual energy embedded in the stone by the mason who shaped it.”

  “All I feel is the deep cold of many winters,” Robb added, mimicking his friend in trying to read the wall. The old cold burned through to his bones. “Old enough to harbor ghosts,” he said. He touched his head, heart, and both shoulders in the cross of the Stargods. “I’m not sure . . .”

  “Oh, come on. We need shelter and a fire. Let’s find the gate.” Marcus clumped around the perimeter of the wall. Only an occasional window slit broke the smooth surface between buttresses. The rain eased, but the cloud cover lowered.

  “Almost a mile around,” Robb stated. His breath made small chill clouds in front of his face. “Wonder if this is an old monastery. There were a number of them during the Great Wars of Disruption. But we only know of one left standing after peace came to Coronnan. Many of them disappeared as people made use of their building stones for other purposes. A few may have been converted into palaces or summer retreats for the nobility.” Talking—lecturing as Marcus claimed—kept him from thinking about the thickness of the haze they nearly swam through. All of his senses were distorted, untrustworthy. He felt . . . inadequate.

  “Wonder if anyone has lived here in the last three hundred years.” Marcus stared up at the top of the wall, a good twenty feet above their heads.

  “We’ll know soon enough. Looks like a gatehouse tower jutting out from the main wall on the next corner. Of course we walked the long way around before finding it.”

  “We walked deasil, as we should. Walking widdershins is bad luck.”

  “First time I’ve ever known you to care about your luck. Prepare yourself for anything. An entire band of outlaws could be hiding within these walls.”

  Chapter 6

  Robb shifted his grip on his staff and brought it forward, ready to channel magic down its length or flip it and use it as a mundane weapon.

  “We’d know if there were hostiles within this building,” Marcus said. “I only sense one life. Feels mostly mundane, not a magician at all. Strange. One life with a minimal magical talent I’m guessing; enough power to call a ball of witchlight, but not enough for us to sense.”

  “Or someone with incredible armor that allows us to sense his presence, but not his magic. Solitary magicians, raised outside the dragon magic tradition, are known to be quite cunning. He could be lulling us into dropping our defenses so as to make us easy prey.”

  The gatehouse rose out of the walls like a huge malignant growth—nearly a quarter of the wall’s width and twice as high. The two young men slowed their steps and crept around the corner.

  “This place is defended more like a castle than a monastery,” Marcus whispered.

  “What do you expect? It was built as a refuge when civil war tore the land apart for three generations.”

  Marcus shushed Robb with a finger to his lips as he peered around the next corner, staff at the ready.

  Robb shrugged and crept forward, peering through the thickening gloom. He kept his larger body in front of his friend. In a fray his brute strength was well teamed with Marcus’ agility.

  Marcus peeked over Robb’s shoulder. The formerly stout wooden doors hung askew on weary hinges. The wind made them creak with each new gust.

  The dense air almost seemed to pour out of that gate. What kind of ghosts and demons hid within it?

  Silently, they edged closer. Robb led them through the gap in the doors. Thick oak had shrunk away from dozens of bronze bosses that had reinforced the wood. Green corrosion brushed off on his cloak like soggy mushroom spores. The hinges protested mightily. They both froze in place, waiting, wary.

  No one challenged them.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Marcus pushed forward to lead the way across the broad courtyard. They faced a two-story building shaped like a squared-off steedshoe. Thick columns supported the second story where it hung over the first, creating a sheltered passage. Two of the pillars lay broken in the courtyard.

  Robb sighed wistfully. He wished people had more respect for these old buildings.

  “That way.” He pointed to the glimmer of light creeping under the door of one of the ground-floor cells in the southern wing.

  A number of long paces took them across the courtyard. They climbed six steep steps from the courtyard to the colonnaded passage. Marcus rested a hand on the wooden panels, seeking. “One life force, barely stronger than the witchlight,” he whispered. “Stargods! He’s dying!” Marcus pushed hard against the door. It flew inward, banging against the wall to their left.

  Robb followed closely, alarmed and ready to defend them both with spells and mundane strength. The sight that met his eyes chilled him more than the storm.

  An old man, wasted to skin and bones, lay crumpled upon a stark bed that was pushed right up against the narrow cell’s wall, barely made comfortable by a thin pallet and blanket. His image flickered in and out of view, like a dragon in sunlight. His long white hair and beard were matted and yellowed with illness and neglect.

  A little ball of blue/white/red witchlight nestled in a window niche high above his head. The light did not flicker or cast shadows. So why did the ancient man fade in and out of reality?

  Half the time he looked as transparent as a ghost, but his chest continued to rise and fall with great effort. He hadn’t passed into the void between existences yet.

  “Start a fire. He needs warmth,” Robb ordered. He thrust Marcus aside as he raced to the side of the narrow stone bench that served as a bed. “What ails you, elder?” he asked respectfully as he pulled pouches of herbs from his pack.

  Marcus busied himself throwing kindling into th
e rusting brazier beside the bed. The room was small enough that only a little fire would heat the space nicely. He ignited the twigs and leaves with a snap of his fingers and added larger sticks as quickly as he could. At least the old man had prepared for a fire before illness, injury, or just plain old age felled him.

  From the fine cut of his stylish robes and trews, Robb guessed that he had come from a noble and wealthy family. Probably a younger son grown beyond usefulness. He and Marcus would have heard of an heir or lord gone missing. After all, they had spent most of the last three years gathering the gossip of Coronnan.

  “Save your medicines for yourself, lad,” the ancient waved weakly at Robb’s packets. His voice faded and grew with his flickering image. “Leave here. Quickly. This place is cursed. Don’t get trapped . . .” His breath gushed out of his chest on a dry rattle like leaves stirred in a drying breeze.

  At last his form settled into the current reality, a dry husk that no longer held his spirit trapped between worlds. The witchlight died, leaving only the light from the small fire.

  Robb gently closed the old man’s staring eyes. “I didn’t even have time to ask his name,” he said sadly. “I’ll hate burying him without a name.”

  “At least he did not die alone.” Marcus looked up from the merrily blazing fire. A little heat spread out from the brazier.

  Robb and Marcus set about straightening the old man’s limbs. When he lay peacefully on the stone bench, looking comfortable and glad that he no longer struggled through life, Robb searched his pockets for some clue to his identity. His fingers brushed against cool metal disks.

  He fished one out and stared at the shiny gold. The soft metal glowed in the gentle firelight. It caressed his fingertips and eyes with an almost living color. His jaw dropped as he recognized the one hundred mark on the old-style coin. The face and inscription did not trigger any memory in him.

  “Our fortune is made, Robb. He’s got dozens of gold coins in his pockets. Dragons only know how many more are stashed around this lonely monastery.” Marcus held up a handful of coins. He gulped as he, too, held them up to catch the light.

  Robb’s vision fractured into a dozen bright rainbows.

  The world tilted.

  He fought to retain his balance, eyes focused clearly on the gold coin and nothing else. A fine veil of mist seemed to cover everything.

  “The Commune can buy a lot of respectability with these. Not to mention books and equipment for the University,” Marcus said. His voice came from a great distance. “This gold will liven up our games of cartes.”

  “We haven’t time to daydream about gold and fortunes,” Robb replied as he placed two of the coins upon the ancient’s closed eyes. A third rested in his pocket. Keeping one coin for himself would hurt no one. And it might give him an edge against survival during his long treks around Coronnan. Unlike Marcus, he had no desire to settle in one place for a long, long time.

  He bowed his head a moment in silent prayer. “This man is very dead, Marcus. And he said this place is cursed. We have to get out of here. We need a plan.”

  “Not until after the storm passes. We can spend the night searching the place for his stash.”

  “Marcus,” Robb began testily. “Marcus! You’re fading into the walls. Marcus, don’t you dare leave me and take your good luck with you!”

  * * *

  “Nice doggy,” Jack said quietly. He dared not move.

  The beast growled again and showed even more of its teeth. Saliva dripped onto the dock above the boat.

  “Nice doggy.”

  “She doesn’t like to be called doggy,” a man replied roughly.

  “Good mopplewogger,” Jack said, still not moving.

  The dog pricked her ears and sat.

  “Nice mopplewogger,” Jack coaxed. “Don’t suppose you remember me, doggy?”

  The dog rose up on its long legs growling again.

  “Different dog. It’s been ten years, wharf rat. You don’t have to steal the boat. I’d loan it if you asked,” the man said with a chuckle.

  “Want to call off your mopplewogger, Aquilla?”

  “Ten years and you’re still running from bullies. Want to trade that prissy uniform for a real one?”

  Jack dared to look away from the dog long enough to take in Aquilla’s Guild of Bay Pilots uniform of maroon and gold. His weather-beaten face crinkled in laughter.

  “I’ve made oaths of loyalty elsewhere. Want to call off the mopplewogger?”

  “Lilly, come,” Aquilla said. The shorthaired dog growled at Jack one last time before returning to her master’s side. She sat on Aquilla’s foot and leaned her head into him. Absently the pilot scratched her ears.

  “So what kind of trouble you running from this time, wharf rat?”

  “Witch-sniffers. And I have a name now. Old Baamin decided I wasn’t too stupid to have a name after all. I’m Jack.” Jack scrambled onto the dock. His clothes sagged and dripped. He must indeed look like the wharf rat he had been as a child. Aquilla had rescued him when bullies had stolen his food and beaten him nearly senseless.

  “Your loyalty to the University of Magicians was misplaced ten years ago. It still is. You should have come to work for me. Not many men have an affinity for a mopplewogger.”

  “I don’t seem to have any kind of bond with this one.” Jack held out his hand for the dog to sniff. She growled again and he jerked his hand away from her all-too-large teeth.

  “That’s because she caught you trying to steal my boat. You look like you need a meal and some dry clothes.” Aquilla jerked his head toward the cottage above the dock. “Is that a palace guard’s uniform underneath all that river muck?”

  “Yes.” Jack tried to wring some water out of the sodden wool tunic.

  “You’ll be better off as a Bay Pilot. Every government recognizes the worth of the Guild. Even the Gnuls. Not so the palace guard. Once the Gnuls depose King Darville, you’ll be out of a job and quite likely become fuel for their next bonfire. But without the Bay Pilots, no one gets through the mudflats to deep water and the trading ships. We’ll always have work.” He negotiated the steep path up to his home. Lilly leaped eagerly ahead of him. Jack followed more slowly. His wet boots slipped on the river clay that packed the path.

  “The Gnuls had better not find out about your mopplewogger, then,” Jack added. “One hint of how these dogs smell the differences in water depth and salinity to show you the way through the channels of the mudflats and they’ll burn you all for magicians.”

  “They wouldn’t dare.” Aquilla whirled around and faced Jack, eyes wide with horror.

  “They’d dare. One of them just accused me of witchcraft because I failed to pursue a woman he chose to question. Her only crime seemed to be that she was single and spoke with a foreign accent.” Just like Katrina. “The sniffer had no evidence; no complaints against her; nothing. He just ‘smelled’ magic in her vicinity.”

  “Tomorrow there will be another hundred witch-sniffers in the capital. I’m to retrieve them from the port at high tide.” Aquilla’s face drained of color.

  “Make sure your mopplewogger stays hidden below-decks.”

  “Always do. But, Jack, what are we going to do? Pretty soon there will be more witch-sniffers than mundanes in the city.”

  “That is going to present a problem.”

  Chapter 7

  Vareena sat before the sparkling fire in the central hearth, contemplating her fate. Not long now. She’d miss Farrell when he passed on. But his death gave her a chance at freedom.

  Freedom.

  She tasted the word and liked the feel of it in her mouth and her spirit.

  Rain spat upon the flames through the smoke hole in the thatched roof. One of the glowing splinters of wood on the edge of the blaze sputtered and died. She didn’t bother reigniting it. It had withered to mostly ash now anyway. Like Farrell.

  Her spindle lay idle at her feet. She just could not concentrate on keeping her threads smooth a
nd free of slubs while the storm raged and her ghost sat alone up in the abandoned monastery.

  He’d pass soon. The fever had returned yesterday, stronger than before. He had no interest in cartes, or tales, or even the chicken stew with pickled beets. A part of her heart sobbed with the coming grief.

  But his passing would give her freedom. She fingered the silver amulet through the protective cloth of her shift. Her father and brothers must never find it. They’d confiscate it and sell it for sure. In their eyes women had no rights and could own nothing but the dowry determined at her coming of age.

  She’d take her two cows and three chickens with her.

  In the outside world, women could own property and select their own husbands. Farrell had promised her that as well as the three acres in Nunio.

  Neither she nor her ghost understood what had brought him here to the sanctuary of the monastery. He had wandered in two years ago, seeking a night’s shelter after becoming separated from a trading caravan that was headed for the pass into SeLenicca. After that first night he had not been able to leave. He did not remember dying.

  She only knew that he brightened her lonely days, made her feel useful and important. And now he offered her freedom.

  At a price. His death.

  The wind howled around her father’s cottage. Vareena shivered and drew her shawl closer about her. She should have gone to the ancient monastery hours ago. Farrell needed her. He felt the cold so acutely. She would take him her extra blanket though he usually refused the little comforts she offered. She should have gone to him before noon, as she usually did. But the storm had come upon them quickly and she had been hard pressed to get the villagers, sheep, and plow steeds under shelter. Already the creek threatened to flood.

  The ghost needed her. She sensed him passing into his next existence, finally. He’d lingered between this world and the void for two years, neither here nor there. Neither alive nor dead. A nameless man—he’d admitted that Farrell was but the name of his boyhood hero, a man he wished to emulate—lost to his loved ones. Only Vareena cared for him. Cared about him.