Darville limped in a few moments later. He lay panting where he dropped.
Brevelan stirred a little and moaned. Blood still trickled from the darkening spot on her temple. Jaylor touched the spot as gingerly as he could. She moaned again and dropped back into the darkness that held her mind.
Helplessly he held her close against his chest. His stomach turned cold when he touched her pale face. She was so still! He was almost too tired to search for her mind or her aura. Somewhere he found enough magic to examine her more closely. She lived, but her mind had retreated from the raw emotions of the villagers. She was hurt more within herself than without.
And he was untouched. Guilt cramped his gut. His personal armor had protected him. It had risen so fast, so instinctively, he was barely aware of its presence; he hadn’t thought to extend it to her and Darville. His thoughts had been only to fight, and anger at the cruel superstition that moved strangers to attack an innocent woman.
Darville’s ear pricked at a rustling nearby. The hair on his back and neck stood up in warning. No sound issued from his throat as he prepared to spring at any intruder.
The noise stopped. Jaylor reached for the pieces of his staff again even as he extended his personal armor to include his companions. His favorite tool might be useless for magic, but it had proved an effective club.
“Journeyman?” A small voice whispered from the bushes to their left. “Journeyman, Master Baamin sent me to help.”
Jaylor relaxed his grip a little as he recognized the kitchen boy who so cheerfully washed the wine cups.
Darville remained alert.
The boy emerged from his cover, a leading rein in each hand. Behind him two steeds plodded. They were handsome beasts, well fed and curried. Jaylor couldn’t say the boy was equally well cared for. He was skinny, ragged, and dirty, but older and taller than when he’d last seen him. Boy stood straighter with more confidence, too.
“Here, sir. It’s the best steed I could steal from Krej’s stables.”
Jaylor squinted at the ragged lad huddled before him. Why had Baamin sent this boy? Wasn’t there anyone else at the University more intelligent, more reliable?
“I’ll take the wolf across my saddle. We’ll follow quick as we can.” The boy urged the mounts forward.
Jaylor tried to capture the boy’s eyes with his own and failed. Boy looked everywhere but directly at him. Mostly his gaze hugged the ground.
“The wolf will be fine.” He reached to scratch the ears of the exhausted Darville. The wolf returned his gesture with a weak lick across his hand. He was tired and sore but recovering. “It’s the lady I’m concerned about. The steed must carry us both swiftly. There’s a monastery in the inland hills, several hours from here. Do you know it?” Few were aware of the existence of that retreat. The inhabitants were mostly older magicians who no longer had the strength to gather magic and throw spells. They spent their days mapping the heavens for an omen of the Stargods return and painting wonderful images of miracles. These respected elders had one of the best healers in the kingdom at their disposal.
Jaylor pulled Brevelan’s limp form closer. A large purple swelling was already appearing on the side of her face. No rain penetrated his thick copse to wash her pale face clean of the blood and mud of their attack.
“I don’t know the place. But I can follow. May I hold her while you mount, sir? You’ve got to leave quickly. The steed will be missed and they’ll chase you.” Finally, the boy looked up. His dark eyes were wide and innocent. They begged Jaylor for understanding and. . . . He didn’t know what the boy wanted from him.
Jaylor shook his head clear of the need to open his soul to those eyes. Even if this was the kitchen boy, Jaylor had learned too much to entrust his secrets to anyone.
“No.” Distrust filled him. The boy had arrived too soon, before the fight was truly begun. He couldn’t possibly have run all the way from the castle in the amount of time the inn patrons took to gather and launch their assault.
The boy had to have stolen the two mounts and headed for the inn about the time Jaylor was throwing his transformation spell onto Darville. Before any of them knew trouble was brewing.
Instead of speaking further, Jaylor lay Brevelan across the steed’s back. With one hand he steadied her inert body and tangled the other in the coarse mane of the fidgeting beast. He vaulted up. Once settled, he shifted Brevelan to cradle her against his chest.
“The wolf is not damaged. He can run beside us to the monastery.”
“My master, Baamin, bade me to watch out for you three. I’ll follow with the wolf.” Grim determination stretched across the boy’s face as well as . . . disappointment?
Jaylor wasn’t sure what to make of the boy. Better to keep him in sight than risk his spreading mischief elsewhere. They still had a long ride to safety.
“Very well. Follow as best you can.”
The first of the wounded from the battle of Sambol limped into the capital. Of one mind, they headed for the market square beneath the walls of Palace Reveta Tristile. Shocked and benumbed citizenry followed in their wake.
As the crowd grew, so did their anger and bewilderment. Lord Krej had promised victory. They had put their trust in the man who promised safety and protection.
Emotions ran high, surging ahead of the exhausted soldiers to the gates of the palace. Shouts awakened the dozing guards. Pounding fists on the closed gates alarmed the Council.
Baamin inched his way through the crowd. Everywhere there were cries and wails of anguish as news of death and mayhem followed in the wake of the retreating army.
Most of the capital citizenry ignored the magician’s progress toward the palace walls. They were too caught up in their own misery to notice anything. The rest of the people were either openly hostile or avoided contact with him with disdain. They recognized his blue robes if not his face.
Baamin nearly wept at the disrepute fallen on magicians as much as at the anguish of the people around him. There had been a time when he could prowl the market and no one looked twice at his magician’s robes. Magicians were commonplace in the capital. University-trained healers and priests were sought after frequently.
He forced his way toward a stricken soldier who stood swaying, barely standing with the support of a plain walking staff. A bloody bandage wrapped his head, another barely covered a gaping wound along one arm. Gently Baamin touched the man, lending him strength as he sought a rudimentary healing spell.
“Get away from him, ye murderin’ sorcerer!” An unkempt woman pushed Baamin away from the man he sought to help.
“Keep your treacherous ’ands to yerself, sorcerer!” another woman spat at him.
“We’ll take care of our own. If it weren’t for the pampered magicians, we wouldn’t be in this war. My Johnny wouldn’t be dead!”
“Kill the magicians and stop the war!”
Baamin backed away, doing his best to fade into the crowd. Fortunately they were so caught up in the press toward the palace that the malcontents didn’t have time to carry through any threats to his person.
At a shop entrance he discarded the blue robe, and was clad in only a simple shirt and trews—like everyone else. Only then did he press forward through the crowd.
He stopped short before a dry fountain. It had been twenty, possibly thirty years since he had wandered through the capital city alone. As soon as he had received his master’s cloak he had been assigned to a court. After ten years he had returned to the University to teach and do research. Most of his time in those days was taken up with his duties. There were servants to run into the market for him, deliver messages, and so forth. Excursions outside the University walls were limited to trips into the countryside with his students.
And in the last fifteen years, since becoming Senior Magician and adviser to the king, he rarely left the University except to go to court. Those trips were usually in the company of soldiers, servants, courtiers, scribes, and other hangers on.
Baamin
had not truly come in contact with the people of Coronnan since his journeyman days.
Carefully he watched the people around him. Those who continued to go about their daily business had no use for magic. Those who bewailed the losses in the battle sought their own, unlicensed healers and priests—not those who were University trained and magicians of the Commune first.
In the last thirty years, magic had been confined to the realm of politics.
No wonder the people sneered at him, avoided him, made the sign of protection against evil behind his back. Magicians, like politicians, had become dirty and evil in their minds.
And Krej exploited those fears in his public attempt to discredit and strip the Commune and the University of talent and authority.
But Krej’s promises had backfired. Distraught women pelted the formal balcony with sewage and rotten vegetables. With new resolve, Baamin faced the protected window where royals were accustomed to appear before their people.
Krej emerged from behind drawn shutters. The disgusting missiles ceased to reach as far as the balcony. The Lord Regent looked weary, strained. He licked his lips frequently, as if thirsting for something unattainable. Finally, Krej lifted a benevolent hand to silence the jeering crowd.
Baamin, ever sensitive to the presence of magic, nearly recoiled from the soothing power emanating from that hand. No, not directly from that hand, from someone hidden behind the shutters, or possibly standing at a further distance. Anger boiled up in him. Never in the history of Coronnan had magic been allowed to sway the will of the people—at least not since the Great Wars of Disruption.
Now Krej was authorizing illegal magic openly, because he thought there was no one to notice or counter the spell. Baamin fought the urge to throw his own spell over the crowd. That action would put him on the same level of deceit as Krej. He couldn’t live with himself if he sank to such a level. And in that moment he had proved to himself that he had not been the prancing rogue who stole the last dragon from the kingdom.
He raised his own hands. For the first time in his life he was grateful for his short stature. Krej could not see the raised arms above the crowd.
A tiny silver-blue spiderweb appeared between his fingers. Baamin concentrated all his will into maintaining the filaments of magic light.
Like any good spiderweb, the magic became sticky, attracting flies. Krej’s spell was the fly lured and trapped into the web.
The angry noise of the crowd rose to a new crescendo. No longer lulled and persuaded by Krej’s magic, they pelted the Lord Regent anew with filth and rotting garbage.
Krej raised both hands and the spell increased. Baamin continued to draw power into his hands. His arms ached with the strain of holding them up under the onslaught of new magic. Still he trapped Krej’s power.
This couldn’t be the Lord Regent! Yaakke was still at Castle Krej reporting on the regent’s activities. Who, then, wore the mask and glamour of the king’s cousin? And who maintained that glamour? Pieces of Jaylor’s puzzle began to fall into place.
“People of Coronnan!” image-Krej addressed the crowd. His voice boomed over the populace. The people shouted angry curses back. “Listen to me. We have won a great victory.”
“Lies! All lies. Our wounded say different,” an angry tradesman shouted back.
“Count the dead. They are more than the living!” cried a woman with a black shawl of mourning over her hair.
A rotten apple smashed into image-Krej’s chest. It splattered against the plush nap of his overtunic. His outline wavered, revealing a slimmer, shorter man than the Lord Regent. The bloody mess of a spoiled egg followed the apple. It missed the target as magic armor finally surrounded image-Krej. More proof that the man on the balcony had no control over the magic flying into Baamin’s trap.
Stones appeared among the flying missiles. An overripe pear penetrated image-Krej’s armor, followed by a jagged piece of paving.
Image-Krej retreated to the safety of the room behind him as guards moved out into the crowd. With cudgels and staffs they pushed the crowd back from the palace courtyard, back from the market square, almost into the surging Coronnan River.
At last Baamin lowered his trembling arms. His knees sagged. He barely had the strength to stand, but he forced himself to melt back with the crowd rather than be discovered by the guards.
No more would he allow magicians to be merely politicians, isolated from the people, oblivious to their needs. Magic needed to be for the good of the general populace and not just the lords and leaders.
“You can’t bring her in here!” a stooped old man with wispy gray hair and beard whispered to Jaylor from the safety of the monastery gate. “No woman may pass through that door.”
“I’m a journeyman on quest. I demand a healer for myself and my companions in order to complete my quest. It is my right.” Jaylor pushed the gate with his booted foot a little harder than he meant. It flung out of the old man’s grasp to crash against the stone walls of the outer court.
“There hasn’t been a woman inside these walls for three hundred years. Just her presence could disrupt the entire flow of magic among the brothers.”
“S’murghing nonsense.” Jaylor stomped into the courtyard, surveying the place. Darville, followed by Boy and the horses, stayed close on Jaylor’s heels. Like a castle, the monastic retreat was built with tall crenellated outer walls, a courtyard with stables and kitchens, carpenter shop and smithy housed in sheds around the yard, backs against the defensive walls. The heart of the monastery was the stone tower in the center, right next to the impressive chapel. Both edifices butted up against the eastern wall.
The guest hall to the far right stirred with more activity than the main building. Three men, coarsely dressed in homespun, sat on stools before the entrance. Their boots were new and clean. Stacks of armor and weapons surrounded them. A grizzled, gap-toothed man dunked a soiled rag in a bucket of grease, then applied it to a sword. A very long and sharp sword.
“Lord Krej is gathering mercenaries,” the gatekeeper continued to whisper. “They have stopped here to rest and gather new supplies.”
Rude male voices erupted from within the guest hall in bawdy song. The smell of stale beer, urine, and unwashed bodies followed the obscene lyrics out the window.
“Show us to a room away from the dormitory. We’d rather not disturb them.” Jaylor stepped forward again.
A fold of his cloak drooped to reveal more of Brevelan’s face and head. The gatekeeper gasped at the sight of her University red hair.
Jaylor could almost read the man’s thoughts. Hair that bright indicated a rare and special magical talent in males. What, then, was this woman capable of?
“In Masters’ Hall there are many empty quarters.” There were hardly any masters left to inhabit the spacious suites.
“Fine. The wolf will stay with me. The boy must return to his duties with the horses.” Jaylor beckoned Darville forward.
A servant ran out from the stable to catch the steeds. He ran an admiring hand along the neck of Jaylor’s mount as he looked to the old man for confirmation that these magnificent steeds would really be entrusted to such as he. The boy yanked the reins away from him.
“I’ll keep watch for your return,” he called to Jaylor as he vaulted into his saddle. With the clatter of shod hooves against stone, Boy disappeared through the center gate.
Jaylor mounted an outside staircase that led to the isolated third story of the main building. No soldier poked his head outside the guest hall into the gathering darkness. Only the three cleaning armor were in a position to see him, or the burden he carried, and they appeared too involved in their work to notice.
Darville’s nose brushed his leg with each step, unwilling to be separated from Jaylor and Brevelan.
With the scuttling gatekeeper in the lead they slipped down a dark corridor toward the wing reserved for masters.
They stopped before a massive doorway. The portal was sealed by magic. The old man touch
ed the lock with his staff. The door remained firmly closed.
Jaylor heaved against the resistant wood with his shoulder and a muttered spell. The door sprang open.
“How did you do that? You’re only a journeyman!” The old man gasped in wonderment.
“This has been a long quest.” He buried his face in Brevelan’s hair. “Too long and dangerous a quest.”
“I’ll send the healer.” The old man backed away in awe.
“Puppy?” Brevelan roused from her stupor.
“He is safe,” Jaylor assured her.
But he didn’t hold her any closer, didn’t caress her hair.
Her first waking thought had been for Darville.
Chapter 31
A warmly furred, wet muzzle pushed at Brevelan’s hand. She scratched his ears.
“Yes, Puppy, I know it’s time to get up,” she murmured. Her eyes were so heavy it couldn’t possibly be morning yet. She lifted reluctant eyelids. Pain slashed through her head from the light of a single candle. Memory followed the pain with equal ferocity. She and Darville weren’t back in her safe clearing anymore.
“Where are we?” She curled into a tight ball, burying her painful head in her arms.
No verbal answer, only Darville nudging her. She opened her right eye, the one that didn’t hurt as much as the other. Threadbare tapestries, which had once been rich, covered the walls of a very large room. A real candle lit the space beside the bed, while a gentle fire in a fireplace, not a central hearth, added warmth as well as cheery light. Sturdy shutters covered long narrow windows barring the cold and rain from these opulent furnishings.
Cautiously she stretched to explore the bed where she rested. It was too wide and comfortable. More than wide enough to accommodate herself and two others who had grown used to sleeping rough, drawing warmth from each other. They’d never get used to these luxurious surroundings designed for the wealthy and privileged who lived in the capital. Was she in the palace?
Dragon Novels: Volume I, The Page 29
