Dragon Novels: Volume I, The

by Irene Radford

Nothing. The animal just continued to stare, patient and controlled. More controlled than Jaylor felt under the influence of that golden stare.

  Jaylor swallowed, clamped his teeth shut, and pulled. He felt the strain across his shoulders first, then his chest. Breathe. Must remember to breathe. He pulled harder. His other hand pushed with greater intensity. Sweat dampened his shirt and trickled down his nose.

  “Move!” Jaylor grunted. He was tempted to stop and rest. He didn’t dare. The wolf was awake. Pain glazed the yellow eyes. If Jaylor relaxed, the animal would attack. Fear increased the pressure he applied to the joint.

  “Move!” He grunted again. This time he visualized the bone sliding into place again, much as he had seen the cup fill with wine in the University cellars. With his thoughts came the sound of grating, like a rasp on stone. The ground beneath him seemed to vibrate with the force of his efforts and the rhythm of the girl’s tune.

  The joint snapped into place.

  Jaylor sagged in relief. But he didn’t let go of either the paw or the joint. He had to see the joint with his mind to make sure it was reset properly. He’d do it in a moment, when his shoulders and arms ceased quivering from the strain he’d put on them.

  “You did it!” Awe tinged the girl’s voice. Her fingers reached underneath his and dug into the thick fur. A different tune filled the clearing. “He’ll need a bandage for a few days to make sure it doesn’t slip out again.”

  Jaylor nodded, too spent to speak just yet. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he knew the woman spoke the truth.

  He closed his eyes as he sank back onto his heels, his body and mind drained of energy. He’d used his magic once too often these last few days. Even with the nap yesterday and the drugged sleep last night, he could barely move his chest to breathe. His fingers reached for the timboor tucked into his pouch. He wasn’t aware of the gray berry until it was halfway to his mouth.

  Disgusted with himself, he shoved the magic fruit back into the darkness of the leather pouch. He wouldn’t use the drugging effect of timboor to rebuild his store of magic. Nor would he allow himself the luxury of artificial strength.

  “I need to get him inside, near the fire.” The woman’s soft words penetrated Jaylor’s tired mind.

  Inside! The wolf probably weighed more than she did. Stargods! How was she supposed to get him inside? He’d have to help. It was only a few steps, though it looked a league across the clearing.

  Wearily, he opened his eyes again. “I’ll help you.” His voice came out as a croak. A little ale, or even water would sure help him right now. He hadn’t performed that much magic. This aching fatigue could be a kind of hangover from the timboor. He firmed his resolve to avoid the berries even as he felt his fingers inching toward the pouch.

  “No. You rest. I’ve done this before.” She smiled. The sun shone with her happiness. He closed his eyes against the glare and laid his head next to the panting chest of the wolf.

  “Stupid.” he told himself. “This beast is still in pain and could lash out.” His gaze lingered on the yellow eyes. Wolf and man continued to stare at each other, measuring and evaluating strengths and weaknesses.

  The girl returned in just a moment with a blanket. Gingerly, while Jaylor cradled the injury, they rolled the beast onto the blanket. She rested briefly before dragging her burden inside.

  For the first time, Jaylor looked at her. Really looked at her. Her eyes were clear and sparkling blue, like the Great Bay in sunshine. Her skin was dusted with healthy freckles, already kissed by the sun at the equinox. A thick braid of University red hair hung down her back to below her waist.

  It was rare to see hair that red outside the University. Rarer still on a woman. Not all magicians had true red hair, like hers. Jaylor’s light brown locks only took on red lights in high summer when he spent most of his study hours outside. But it was more common to find red hair on a talented person than not.

  Women had no talent, so they rarely if ever had red hair. He shuffled his numb body after her as she dragged the wolf toward the hut. “What is your name?” he finally asked. He didn’t want to think of her as “The Witchwoman.”

  She was young for a witchwoman. Usually they were old and ugly, forgotten widows.

  “Brevelan.” The name floated over his tired consciousness like a soothing blanket.

  “You are as beautiful as your name.” Brevelan. Cool, calm meadows laced by quiet stream, sunshine and blue skies filled with rainbows. He reached for her hand and gathered it close against his chest. “I’m Jaylor.” Peace. Sleep.

  Brevelan placed a fresh bowl of water beside Puppy’s sleeping body. She didn’t want him moving any farther than necessary when he awoke. He would be thirsty from the herbs she had given him to ease the pain.

  Jaylor, the magician, slept beside Puppy, next to the central hearth.

  He could get to his own water when he awoke.

  “Mrroww!” complained Mica. Jaylor slept in her place. Her back arched as she climbed onto his wide chest and settled in for a bath. Her multicolored fur already shone with cleanliness. Brevelan knew this was just a cat’s way of testing a new sleeping place.

  Cats had a way of probing a person’s integrity. Mica seemed to trust this stranger. Brevelan wondered if she should. She didn’t trust easily. If this man were indeed sent by her home village, she’d have to run again. But where? He stirred and mumbled something in his sleep. Mica braced herself against the movement then settled down as his big hand rubbed her soft fur.

  Such strong hands. Strong enough to fix a wolf’s dislocated shoulder as well as throw some nasty magic. His whole body looked as big and strong as his hands. Magicians had to be strong or they didn’t last long at that University of theirs.

  He wasn’t bad looking either. Straight, clean lines to his nose and eyes. Beneath his untrimmed beard, his cheeks looked a little drawn, as if he hadn’t been eating or sleeping properly. And that filthy, bedraggled hair and beard. Dusty brown now, but once washed and combed she was sure it would lighten up to a full head of auburn curls.

  Some forgotten need in her wanted to smooth those unruly curls off his brow, feel the soft texture of his hair, ease some of the worry lines around his eyes.

  “Forget it, Brevelan,” she admonished herself. “He’s a man. You won’t get any tenderness or understanding out of the likes of him. So why try giving any?”

  Would he never wake up? It was full dark, there was a thick soup of yampion root and beans ready for the eating. She was sure he’d need feeding when he finally did wake. Then she could ask him to go. Or sleep outside. Her own sleep would be much easier with him away from her bed. A bed that was more than wide enough for two.

  “Well, Wolf, your mistress says there is a bathing pool upstream from here.” Jaylor found himself addressing the pet in the same tone Brevelan used. He wondered if the girl had been alone so long she spoke to the animals just to hear her own voice.

  The wolf turned his head to the right and whined. Jaylor followed his lead. Sure enough, they paced along a well-worn path beside the chuckling creek. Just beyond a slight curve in the path a fallen log and some well-placed stones created a small dam. Behind the blockage, the creek widened and deepened into a clear pool.

  Jaylor tested the water with his hand. Still cool, but the frigid snow melt was warmed by an underground hot spring. He could shed his worn and dusty clothes for a real bath.

  The wolf was not so cautious. He sprang from a low crouch directly into the center of the pool. For a moment his golden fur was lost in the splash of arching waves. Shimmering crystal drops caught the sunlight in a wonderful dance then fell back into their bed. The wolf opened his mouth in a grin. He whined again in a plea for company.

  “I’m coming, Puppy,” Jaylor answered the animal’s plea. Right now the wolf appeared immature enough to deserve the name. Most of the time he was just “Wolf.”

  Quickly, Jaylor shed his tunic and trews, boots and loincloth. He dabbed his big toe in the cool w
ater. He withdrew the cold toe then sank his entire foot into the pool.

  Wolf whined again and paddled toward him. When he was knee-deep in the water he stopped and cocked his head toward Jaylor in question. Without waiting for an answer the wolf shook his fur clear of the drops that clung to the long guard hairs.

  Jaylor couldn’t retreat fast enough. Cold water sprayed over his naked body. Lumbird bumps rose on his arms and legs and the cold penetrated to his bones. Wolf looked as if he were ready to shake again. “At this rate, I might as well dive in.” He resigned himself to the cold plunge.

  The center of the pool was deep and clear, warmer than the shallows. The hot springs must concentrate here. He swam a few strokes before standing. He found he could just rest his toes in the mud and have his head break the surface of the water. But he had to keep his hands moving to maintain his balance. Air filled his lungs and he, too, shook his hair and beard free of excess water.

  “You remind me of my misspent youth, Wolf.” The beast was paddling around him in wide circles. ‘My friends and I used to splash each other a lot on stolen afternoons along the river.” That was the summer when Jaylor had been twelve and his companions ranged from eleven to fourteen. “There were four of us who used to slip away from our studies for afternoons of adventure. We had nothing in common except the urge to escape.”

  The many isolated islands in the delta of Coronnan River offered the perfect playground for adolescent boys.

  “All four of us schemed together, but Roy and I usually ended up paired.”

  It had been a surprise to Jaylor, who had grown up along another smaller river in the north, to find any resident of Coronnan City who had never learned to swim. He thought all the population of a city totally surrounded by water and many lesser islets would have learned to master swimming early.

  Roy had been so surrounded by adults—tutors, servants, guardians—he’d never been allowed to play in the water and thus had never learned.

  Jaylor taught him to swim that summer and earned many a dunking in the years that followed.

  “I met him in much the same manner I met you, too, Wolf,” he mused as he began to swim. His muscles stretched with a new lightness as the water cleansed his skin and his mind.

  “We both claimed the same island for an afternoon of freedom,” he continued his reminiscence. “He arrived by boat; I swam ashore about the same time. We challenged each other. I didn’t know enough magic then to defend myself.” He chuckled as he slowly made his way back to the bank and his clothes.

  “That time I lost. But the next fist fight I won.”

  Wolf bounced out of the pool and sprayed everything around with water again. Jaylor didn’t even bother to step away from the shower.

  “Shall we explore the paths, my friend?” The beast grinned and cocked his head in a gesture so evocative of Roy that Jaylor had to look twice to make sure a human intelligence did not lurk behind those golden eyes.

  Jaylor dressed hurriedly. Now that he was out of the water, the air was rapidly chilling his damp body. He needed to keep moving to get warm again.

  Wolf took a few steps back the way they had come. Jaylor started in the other direction. The wolf spun in place and bounded after him.

  The path was not well traveled past the pool. Jaylor had to push giant calubra ferns out of the way. Each time he touched one, the fronds shook and gave out the faintest wisp of fragrance. By summer the scent would be druggingly powerful, a legendary aphrodisiac.

  Wolf bent his nose to the faint trail. It was now no wider than a hand’s breadth. No human foot had trod this way in many days. Jaylor watched the animal as he sniffed and played with the scents in the air and on the ground. With a sharp yip he bounded off the trail.

  Curious, Jaylor also stepped off the trail in the same direction. He met an invisible wall. His hands pushed at the barrier. Inside him, the magic he had gathered strove to counteract the magic that tried to flow through his limbs from the outside. He stepped back onto the path. His magic stopped fighting the exterior forces.

  The border should have been like this. Jaylor squinted his eyes, allowing his magic to see what hindered his movements. There! A shimmery distortion, like looking at the bottom of the pool through several arm’s lengths of water. He pushed at it again, allowing the magic forces within him to meet the wall.

  Nothing happened. He pushed again, using more strength and speaking the border release spell. His hand burned and pulsed, but the wall still did not give way.

  He moved along the path a few more steps and tried again. If anything, the wall was stronger here.

  Every few feet he pushed again, and again, until his hand was raw from the energy he’d expended.

  “One more time. Then I’ll circle back to the clearing again.” He was getting tired. He needed rest and food to restore the magic in his body.

  And not those meatless concoctions Brevelan served.

  Using his eyes as well as both hands, Jaylor levered himself against the wall. It absorbed his strength then rebounded, pushing him back and back and farther back. He crashed through the underbrush, tumbling heels over head with the force of the thrust.

  Brevelan stood next to his prone body.

  “Did you have a nice bath?” she asked.

  He was back in the clearing.

  Chapter 7

  “Dragon dung!” Baamin cursed. This was the third time a very simple spell had failed. He held his viewing glass to the light. There were no cracks, no flaws. Its smooth surface was perfect.

  So why couldn’t he make contact with any other magician? Several were waiting for his summons. They should be on the alert to answer through their own glasses.

  He took a deep breath. In, three counts. Hold, three. Release, three. His mind was drawn out of his body and hovered just below the beckoning void of a deep magic trance. Magic flowed through him with velvet ease. Colors wavered and swirled in the glass.

  At last!

  He heard laughter, coarse and mocking. Alert to the spell going awry again, Baamin pushed the image closer to completion. Instead of the gaunt, lined face of the man he expected, a shaggy-headed monster with the body of a man looked back at him and sneered.

  “With my head, and my heart, and the strength of my shoulders, I renounce this evil,” Baamin recited the formula of the Stargods as he crossed himself. For good measure he completed the warding with the winged gesture of Simurgh.

  “You didn’t think I could do it, did you, Baamin?” The words floated about the room, followed by the image of Baamin’s oldest enemy stepping out of the glass.

  Baamin jerked back, throwing his armor in place as he sought answers to this abomination. This was the kind of prank he would expect of Jaylor. But how could a young man conjure up this manifestation of the red-haired beast/ man Baamin had fought during his trial with the Tambootie smoke? That nightmare existed only in the shadow world of Baamin’s tortured dreams.

  Eavesdropping on another’s dreams was forbidden. To make doubly sure no one learned of his nightmares, Baamin had personally destroyed all records of his testing, all references to the beast, when he assumed leadership of the Commune.

  His gnarled staff came to hand readily. He poked the vision, making certain the staff was as armored as he. Hard flesh and bone met the probe. The beast hadn’t even bothered to cover his well-muscled body with clothing, other than a barely adequate loincloth. In Baamin’s dreams, his nemesis had the decency to wear the same robes as Baamin did.

  “Yes, Baamin, old friend. I’m real and I’ve come out of your dreams to haunt you.” The mouth of the image worked but the words came from some other, indefinable direction. “I’m putting an end to the Commune.” This time the image threw back his head and laughed long and loud. The gesture was familiar, belonging to a different man. Baamin was too befuddled by the presence of this monster to remember who.

  “Every time you and your toadies throw the smallest spell, I’ll be there to twist it round backward, sidewa
ys, or split it into good and evil twins. Dragon magic is finished, Old Baamin.”

  A knock on the door banished the image but not the voice. “Another time, Baamin. We’ll finish this when I choose, and you’ll not know ahead of time.” The rolling laughter bounced around and around the room in decreasing spirals of sound until the glass absorbed it.

  Rational thought deserted Baamin as he sat, stunned by the perversion. Had another magician read his dreams? Or had he gone insane and conjured up the beast again? The Commune had fought the monster back into another dimension after Baamin’s adolescent testing with the Tambootie smoke had made him real.

  Jaylor was the only other magician whose hallucinations had taken on three dimensions. But the red-haired beast had remained dormant at that time.

  A second knock roused the senior magician from his stupor. He shook himself to mask the trembling that began deep inside him and radiated out to his hands and neck and knees. He couldn’t allow anyone to suspect his own nightmares were interfering with his magic. Not yet, not until he had assured his supremacy over the Council as well as the Commune and University when Darcine passed on.

  “Come,” he called to the supplicant at his door. His voice broke. He was just tired. Perhaps he’d dreamed the beast/man. No magician in Coronnan could break apart one of Master Baamin’s spells.

  The door opened a crack. He could see one brown eye peering at him.

  “Be you busy, master?” The voice was shy, hesitant about bothering a master magician.

  “Not anymore. You disturbed my spell.” Baamin growled. He reached for his flask and swallowed the last of the sugar water. Then he popped a mint into his mouth to hide the lack of alcohol smell. Stargods, he’d give a year of his life for a hearty swig of beta’arack, distilled from the monster treacle betas grown only in Rossemeyer. But he couldn’t afford to befuddle any of his senses right now.

  One of the kitchen boys crept into the room, wide-eyed and fearful. About ten or eleven years ago, the orphan, known only as “Boy,” had been sent to the University from the poorhouse, one of many foundlings indentured each year. Boy was so late in developing that he couldn’t be tested for magical talent. He was unusually slow at his lessons and undersized, but he worked hard and was willing to please, almost to a fault. He had his uses, especially when Baamin needed errands completed in secret.