His hands continued to grip the basket on the floor in front of him.
“This is something I have to do.” He returned his gaze to his study of the leaves. If only he could look into them, delve their secrets the way he looked into a spell book with his glass.
“I’m sure Krej uses an infusion. It’s safer, easier to control the dosage.” Brevelan continued her preparations for that procedure.
“Maybe he makes a salve of them and rubs it on his skin.” Darville dipped his hands into the basket, then quickly withdrew them as if burned.
Jaylor ignored them. He sought the thin shard of glass in his pack. It was wrapped in a special oiled cloth, several layers thick. When he withdrew it, he felt for a telltale vibration out of habit. The glass was cold and lifeless. No one was summoning him.
With a special vision, used by all magicians when holding a glass, he sought the secrets of the leaves. Their image jumped at him, larger than life. He adjusted his hold on the glass, concentrating on the variegated green and white center vein of a particularly fat leaf that had not yet wilted. He forced his mind to look at the leaf as if it were just another spell cloaked in obscure language in a forgotten book.
“An infusion of sun-dried leaves is the logical answer. How could one man eat that many leaves? But it would take several basketsful to prepare a year’s supply for an infusion,” Brevelan chattered on.
Jaylor ignored her.
Mica climbed into his lap. She butted her head against his hand. He nearly dropped the glass.
Jaylor pushed the cat away. She protested and climbed back. Her almost human stare dared him to push her away again.
“Consult Baamin at the University. Maybe he knows what to do with Tambootie,” Darville suggested.
Jaylor barely heard him. The continued comments of his friends no longer held import. There were only himself and the leaves of Tambootie enclosed within the walls of the hut.
A drop of thick oil on the spine of the leaf shimmered with green and gold, red and blue, purple and orange. All the colors that glowed through Shayla’s fur were in that drop of all color/no color liquid. He touched the drop with his fingertip. It clung. He licked it off.
Sweet/bitter/cold/hot/bland/spicy.
All the flavors of the world burst forth on the tip of his tongue. He tasted all the colors, saw all the flavors. His soul expanded to find more colors, more tastes, new sensations.
Jaylor licked the spine of the leaf where he could see more drops. They exploded into his system, filling him with wisdom and knowledge.
Life was suddenly reduced to a simple equation.
Magic became natural and easy.
He licked the leaf again, chewed its green and white tip, needed more.
His mind soared upward, outward. His soul chose a different direction.
Dimly he knew he licked and chewed a second leaf, a purple one this time, then a third solid green and a fourth mottled pink and green. They gave him the power to merge his mind and body and soul. He chose to drift separately.
“Is he . . .” Brevelan gulped back her fear. “Is he dead?” Fiery green ice sped through her rapidly numbing body. Jaylor! Her mind screamed. Come back to me.
Darville hunched over Jaylor’s slumped form. He felt for life-sign at his friend’s neck. He shook his head in puzzlement, then pushed his shaggy golden hair back out of his eyes and tried again. “I can’t tell.” He shook his head again, this time in despair.
“Let me.” She shouldered him aside. Panic nearly choked her. Jaylor had eaten several leaves, perhaps six or seven, before she and Darville had noticed. They had pulled him away from the lethal basket of leaves, but not in time.
“Jaylor,” she whispered.
Still no response.
Her mind called again in protest. Come back to me!
A faint vibration responded to her call, not from his body but from the void, above and beyond reality.
“Jaylor!” she demanded of the vibration.
It hummed and threatened to drift away, uninterested in her plea.
“Don’t you dare leave me.” She firmed her grasp on that thin thread of life.
It drifted no farther away but did not return. When they had hidden in the bushes beside the path, Jaylor had used a thin umbilical of magic to touch her mind. Traces of that silver thread still trailed away from the faint vibration.
She searched her own soul for the other end of the fragile magic cord. It was buried deep, behind the tiny throbbing bit that was her connection with Shayla. Her end was copper, Shayla’s was as transparent as glass. Color didn’t matter. She had to splice or weave all the magic strands together.
I rode through the day and night for four days. Eight journey steeds died beneath me. I pressed them too hard with compulsions. They failed me. If only those fools hadn’t lost the Tambootie, I could have flown to Coronnan City on the winds.
My magic is stretched too thin. My head aches. There are spots before my eyes. I had to abandon Shayla to my servants. They will transport her to the great hall by sledge. I must be in control of the Council before my agents lead the enemy army over the border. Coronnan will win the battle with them, but only if I am the one to lead our troops to victory. That is the arrangement made with Simeon of SeLenicca many moons ago.
I didn’t have the strength to project my image onto Marnak’s body, nor through Scrawny’s glass. The Council must not act without my “presence.”
I must have my Tambootie to keep up this pace. Coronnan needs me even if the Council of Provinces doesn’t know it yet.
Chapter 23
“You and your cosseted Commune have failed, Baamin.” Krej glowered at the magician who sat in the Council for the ailing king.
“In what way, Lord?” Baamin stalled. The Twelve—the lords of the Council—sat in a round room, larger and more luxuriously furnished than the one used by the Commune. The twelve windows boasted colored glass in the pattern of each lord’s device. Their elaborately carved chairs bore the same designs. The thirteenth chair was specially carved with dragon heads curving over the top, dragon claws at the end of each arm and leg. It was empty now, reserved for the king.
Behind each lord and slightly to the right sat his magician. For three centuries, master magicians had been posted to the twelve courts as advisers and links to the king and Commune. For those same three centuries the magicians had owed first allegiance to the Commune, the combined body of all master magicians, rather than to any one lord—or king.
No one lord could gather power over another through his magician.
The system had been devised by the lords.
Now Krej was throwing doubt on the value of the Commune.
After the nightmares of the last week or more, Baamin questioned his own value within the Commune.
According to Jaylor, Krej had arranged the destruction of the dragon nimbus and therefore robbed the kingdom of Communal magic that could overpower any single rogue.
But how to prove it, when Baamin doubted Krej’s guilt himself.
If the Commune was tightly knit, as protective of its individual members as they were of the whole, the Twelve were even more so. Krej’s treason would have to be proved by concrete evidence, not magical observation.
“The western border is all but gone.” Krej looked into the eyes of each lord in turn. “Raiders are infiltrating. I have pleas for help from six villages that have been sacked, burned, their men killed, and their women raped and kidnapped. Children wander hungry and homeless—vulnerable to the Rovers who also prowl our lands. Word of these tragedies will reach our jealous neighbors soon. They will mass their armies and attack, then they will take our unprotected resources rather than paying dearly for them. What do we have left to fight them with?”
Baamin felt a compulsion spell behind Krej’s words as well as his magnetic gaze. Who dared throw such a spell? Outward magic was forbidden in Council. By law and tradition, a magician was allowed to communicate with his lord through magic b
ut could throw no other spells.
Who had grown so strong that he defied this most valued of prohibitions?
“We have an army.” Andrall, Lord of Nunio, Scrawny’s affiliate lord, argued at the prodding of his magician. “We’ve kept them trained for just such an emergency.
“They’ve gone soft, fighting imaginary enemies,” Krej returned. “And who is to lead them? King Darcine,” he sneered the title, “is near death. His son is missing. Off dallying with his latest mistress, I presume.”
“Don’t you know where Darville secludes himself?” Baamin asked desperately. He tried to throw a truth spell over this domineering lord. The spell bounced back, neutralized and harmless.
Krej was armored. That spell was legal in Council, but it was usually thrown by a magician to include himself and his lord. Baamin couldn’t detect the source of the spell.
“How should I know where our feckless prince has wandered?” Krej stood and began pacing the room with calculated and controlled steps.
“Gentlemen,” he addressed the room, “the kingdom is in crisis. Our protective border is disintegrating, our enemies are massing for attack. Rossemeyer on our southeastern border is demanding marriage to our prince or they will declare war. SeLenicca, to the west, claims such a marriage will be an act of war against them. And where are our beloved king and his son to sort out this nonsense? Darcine lies dying and Darville was last seen out hunting several moons ago. Neither is in a position to guide us. Even the Commune, which has protected us so long, has become ineffectual.”
There were murmurs of anxious agreement around the room. No one questioned Krej’s source of information. Baamin felt the five still strong magicians “nudge” their lords with reassurance. They were men he thought he could trust, men who had been close friends for many years.
The other magicians tried persuasion, without success. If they had powers beyond traditional magic, they didn’t yet trust them enough to call upon them. These magicians were younger than himself. He knew them as masters but not as men. Could he trust them enough to teach them rogue magic?
“I have summoned Prince Darville home from his monastic retreat,” Baamin stalled. He kept his shoulders straight, his face impassive. It would not do for Krej to penetrate his own armor and learn the extent of his magic as well as his doubts and fears. He couldn’t forget that Krej’s face had been beneath the mask of his nightmares at the ball.
“And how long will his return take? There are no monasteries within a week’s hard ride.” Krej answered his own question. “Gentlemen. We don’t have that long. We need to take action now! We must show ourselves as strong enough to repulse all our enemies. Enemies that have been trying to penetrate our border for generations.”
Krej’s pacing ceased. He stood directly behind the king’s chair, a copy of the throne in the Great Hall. His position and posture effectively assumed control and eliminated Baamin from view by the other Council members. His handsome body and the high back of the throne stood between the magician and the rest of the room.
“In the absence of the king, we, the Council of Provinces, have the power to act for him,” Andrall interjected. “We can raise and provision an army, order the magicians to summon the dragons, if necessary.” His voice calmed much of the turbulent emotion in the room. Scrawny was prompting him.
Wasn’t he? The “nudge” didn’t feel right, didn’t carry Scrawny’s signature. Baamin peered around Krej to get a better view of his colleague. Andrall’s magician was staring at Krej as if enthralled. Slippy was actually prompting the Lord of Nunio. Law specifically forbade a magician to advise any but his own lord. And why was Krej’s magician prompting the one lord likely to stand up to Krej?
“What dragons?” Krej thundered. His voice echoed about the room in ominous thunder rolls. All were stunned into quiet.
“Have any of you ever seen a dragon?” Silence greeted that question. “What good is a creature of myth? Where is the magic they are supposed to give us? We must act now, elect a leader.” Himself no doubt. “And send what is left of the army to fight the raiders. Let that be their training ground for the conflict to come with the trained troops and mercenaries our neighbors can summon.”
“Our king still lives,” Andrall reminded them. “We don’t need to elect a leader. As long as we are in accord, we can function for him.”
“Read your history, Lord Andrall,” Krej sneered. “Do you know what happens when you try to run a war by committee?”
Several men in the room shuddered, including Baamin. Stargods! Krej was right. The last time that had happened, Coronnan had dissolved into fifty years of civil war.
“In view of the circumstances,” Lord Wendray from the border city of Sambol stood and addressed the assembled Council of Provinces, “very shortly I will be in dire need of an army. The raiders grow stronger every hour. Even now I should be home organizing defenses. Gentlemen, I am a merchant, governing a merchant city on the western border, not a warrior. Give me an army to defend the vulnerable western reaches. But give me an army led by a capable general.” He leaned heavily on his pudgy fists.
“There are several capable generals in our army,” Lord Andrall argued.
“But none of them has ever seen real combat,” Krej countered. “For that matter, no one within the kingdom has ever seen combat.” He stood behind Scrawny for a moment.
Baamin watched their auras merge and grow. Scrawny! His oldest friend, the magician he trusted most, was in league with Krej. The joined aura of red and green magic expanded to include five lords and their magicians. All five men were linked to Krej by marriage or betrothal to one of his children. All five were weak, malleable men. None of their magicians—three of them old friends who had demonstrated rogue abilities—resisted the illegal magic persuasion.
Couldn’t any of the other magicians see the magic? Why weren’t they fighting it?
“You are the youngest, most fit and best educated of all of us.” Lord Marnak, whose son was to marry Krej’s fourteen-year-old daughter next moon, spoke in an enthralled monotone.
Hastily, Baamin summoned his own magic in a counter spell. Illegal though it might be, he had to break Krej’s command over the Council.
Power rippled through his body. He massed it, allowed it to strengthen, then threw it at the buzzing aura of red and green haze. The power erupted from his mind in a silver-blue dart. He aimed it at Krej’s heart. The illegal aura buckled a fraction under the assault. Krej closed his eyes in concentration. The red and green haze reformed around the shattered pieces of Baamin’s magic.
Deep within the inviolate aura, Krej smiled. His eyes narrowed, evilly. Baamjn didn’t have to hear his mocking laughter to know who had won this minor skirmish.
“Lord Krej is the best qualified to lead us out of this entanglement. He is the strongest and the closest relative to the king,” Marnak mumbled on. “We must make him regent.”
“I disagree!” Andrall stood in protest. The aura rippled around him but did not cover him. Who was Protecting the Lord of Nunjo if not his own magician?
“You have been outvoted Andrall,” Krej drawled. “I am now regent of Coronnan and I command you to be quiet while I make plans for our defense.”
“You must rest, Brevelan.” Darville’s hands gently pressed her shoulders back against the thin pallet on her cot.
She shook her head in denial. “I can’t.” The words came out a croak. She swallowed deeply and spoke again. “If I let go, even for an instant, I will lose him.”
As if in response to Darville’s urging her to rest, her control over the thin copper and silver tendril of magic that held Jaylor to this reality came nearer to shredding. For three days she had maintained the contact. She had pulled on it, spliced it, rewoven it dozens of times, and still he resisted her tether.
A deep sadness threatened to engulf her. Could she continue to live without Jaylor? Yes, she could survive. But did she want to?
She’d known him less than a moon, and a
lready his presence was as natural to her as breathing. She couldn’t let him slip away.
She concentrated on splicing the bond that held them together. The scent of Tambootie floated through the hut.
“At what cost?” Darville sounded as cranky and impatient as she felt.
“How can you ask that?” she demanded. It had been so much easier when Darville was her favorite puppy. Now he was a man, a handsome man who filled the hut with his vibrant presence as much or more than Jaylor ever did.
They had cleared the hut of every trace of the cursed Tambootie leaves as soon as Jaylor’s inert body failed to respond. But the drug was in his system. Removing it from the hut resulted in no change.
Then she had tried coaxing him back with more Tambootie. Still no change.
“He’s my friend, too.” Darville looked chastened. “For many years he was my only friend.” He wandered to the open doorway where a thin shaft of sunlight tried to penetrate the interior. In the five days since Shayla’s transformation, this was the first letup in the rain. “I learned early that the people at court befriended me because I represented power, glamour. Standing next to me made them feel bigger than they really were. Except Jaylor. And a few of the town boys who knew me only as Roy and not as a prince.” He took a deep breath.
Brevelan felt his gentle memories. She had no energy left to strengthen his feeling of quiet nostalgia. She lay back upon the bed.
“It was easy for me to slip away from tutors and guardians. They were more interested in their own positions than in me. That’s how I met Jaylor. He had slipped out, too. He likes being outdoors. He claims he can’t think or study behind stone walls,” he chuckled. “But when we were together, neither of us did much studying.” His grin lifted with remembered mischief.
Dragon Novels: Volume I, The Page 22
