They have evaded me. The staff is broken and useless but still they find magic to counter my plots. They must have been helped. But who? Who would dare defy me?
Baamin. The old meddler must have found a way. He is dangerous, not as weak as I thought.
I’m not sure I have time to neutralize him.
The Council comes.
I will inform them of the battles my armies have won. No one will dare question my information. If I say the battle was won, then we won.
They will be forced to see that only I can save Coronnan. Only I can be their king. The University must be terminated. Only I can control the magic.
I’ll need more Tambootie.
Night had come round again. Alone, wrapped in his nearly invisible dark cloak, Jaylor studied the village behind him and the castle above him on the hill. It was a huge castle. One of the oldest in the kingdom, dating back to before the Great Wars of Disruption, possibly even to the time of the Stargods. It stood on a strong defensive point overlooking the bay on one side, the capital valley on the other.
From the crenellated outer wall, a single sentry commanded a full view of the narrow but fertile valley. The back of the citadel was dug into a cliff. Five tall towers soared upward, imitating the sheer, unscalable walls of the cliff face. As tall as those towers reached, the rock barrier behind was higher—so high no enemy could scale downward or drop into the stronghold and live. Neither could they approach unseen.
There, displayed in the grand hall, protected by Tambootie wood paneling, he hoped to find and free a glass dragon.
If he was strong enough.
If he knew how.
If he could manipulate any magic without the aid of his staff.
Once again he saw in his mind the clouds of colored magic, heard Krej’s chanting voice, close to the music his daughter used as a channel, but not quite. Jaylor had always used his staff to control the raw power he drew upon. His magic was tightly focused. Krej’s was just as powerful in final effect but spread over a broader surface.
It was the difference between a widely spread drizzle and a short intense squall. They both dumped the same amount of rain with entirely different intensity. Great bursts of energy opposing a slow, smooth dispersion. Would his magic be strong enough to blast through Krej’s before his strength was gone?
He rubbed his hands along the short pieces of his staff. Zolltarn had set out to steal or destroy it, probably on Krej’s orders. They had succeeded.
“It was only a focus, not a part of the magic,” he reminded himself. Still, he felt naked without the length of twisted wood.
But the staff was gone and he was alone. Jaylor had only himself to count on, or blame, for this night’s work.
The small gate by the kitchen midden was easy to find, since he knew where to look. Elder Librarian had done his work well in providing the original building plans for the castle.
The sky was black; no moon showed through the clouds during this bleak hour after midnight. The cooks and drudges would all be asleep. He must work his magic and leave before they arose for their morning baking.
He slid through the dark halls, one hand on the cold stone walls, counting his steps, memorizing his path. The great hall was at the top of a narrow stair. A tapestry to his left was the entrance to the banquet hall, formerly a soldiers barracks. Opposite that opening was a thick, locked door.
The lock snapped under his mental probe. The door to the wine cellar at the University had been harder to open. Krej must not fear intrusion. The lock was merely for show.
The smell of the Tambootie wood paneling assaulted Jaylor’s senses. It filled his head and made the constant craving for the leaves of the tree deepen. But there was no change in the amount of magic he controlled.
Cautiously he moved toward the menacing figures on display. He recognized the great tusker and gray bear from Brevelan’s descriptions. There was an empty pedestal that must have held the spotted saber cat—the one Krej had released to entice Darville into the mountains. Other figures loomed about him, but he didn’t take the time to investigate.
And there, in the center, rearing up on hind legs, wings half unfurled, was Shayla. Starlight from a dozen open windows glistened through the glass dragon. She shimmered as if alive, just waiting to pounce on her prey.
Jaylor swallowed. His quest was nearly ended. He just had to break this one last spell!
He turned away from Shayla so that he saw her only by sliding his eyes far to the left. The bundle of his staff in both upraised hands, he counted his breaths. In—one, two, three. Hold—one, two, three. Out—one, two, three. In again, hold it three. Out for three counts. His heartbeat matched his breathing. His mind and body stilled and prepared.
Blue lines of power slipped before his vision. He found one that pulsed in tune with his heart and lungs. It flowed through him with ease.
Vibrations of magic trembled in his hands and along the pieces of wood. He aimed the jagged ends of them at the glass sculpture slightly behind and to his left. Silver-blue webs encircled his fingers and reached out to every corner of the room until they found the glass dragon.
The magic encircling Shayla hummed and wavered. The dragon blinked in surprise. She fought the spells woven around her.
Jaylor pushed more power through his body. He felt himself rising to the heavens with the magic that was all around him.
The humming grew louder, shriller. His ears hurt, his mind reeled as his heart beat faster and faster until it would no longer be contained within his frail body. Shayla fought him, fought all the magic. Her eyes grew larger, her mouth tried to open.
With one last, mighty shriek Jaylor crashed to the ground and Shayla froze.
“Jaylor!” Brevelan wrapped her arms around the staggering magician. Dawn crept through the windows as she led him to the nearest chair. “Where have you been for two days and nights?” Her fingers checked his pulse as she pushed aside his soggy cloak.
His breathing was ragged and his heart irregular. Exhaustion left his skin gray and tight.
“I failed. I’m sorry.” Tears flowed down his cheeks in the dried path of others that had been shed earlier.
“Shayla. You’ve been to Krej’s castle, alone?” Darville marched into the sitting room from the sleeping chamber. He hadn’t slept anymore than Brevelan had these past two nights.
Brevelan eased a lock of hair off Jaylor’s forehead, checking for fever. His eyes were too bright, his pulse too rapid. “You need food and rest,” she commanded as she beckoned Darville to help their companion into bed.
“I’ll not sleep. If I do, I’ll dream of Shayla, trapped within the glass forever. She tried so hard to be free it nearly broke my heart.” Jaylor dropped his head into his hands, his body racked with sobs.
“What went wrong?” Darville began to pace along the same path he had nearly worn into the hearth carpet since Jaylor’s midnight departure. His boots trampled a garden of faded woven flowers.
“Nothing, everything. I couldn’t use my staff. There were traps in the magic, more traps than I’d planned for.”
Jaylor didn’t resist Brevelan’s attempts at comfort. He was too preoccupied to notice the tune she hummed. She forced strength and peace through her fingers into his scalp as she massaged his temples and brow.
“We’ve overcome his traps before.” Darville stopped his pacing.
“Not like this one. Trapping Shayla in glass was probably the greatest piece of magic ever thrown. Breaking that spell would be even greater. I’m not even a master yet, how could I be so arrogant as to think I could accomplish anything close to Krej’s power?”
“Stop that, Jaylor!” Brevelan ordered. “You’re tired and temporarily defeated. But you’ve already accomplished great things. You’ll break the spell. You just need more time and a little help.” She drew him up to stand beside her. “Now off to bed while I fix a hot meal. When you’ve slept, we’ll try something new.” She couldn’t allow him to see the worry she felt for
him. He’d never been this self-doubting. Many ailments of the spirit she could heal. This one was deeply rooted, feeding itself with memories of every failure from his youth.
“You don’t understand, beloved. If I don’t manage to break the spell, Shayla will die, the nimbus will be broken, and Coronnan will be at the mercy of Krej and all the outland kingdoms. If I do manage to break the spell, I’ll die. I’m not sure my mind will allow that.”
“Would some Tambootie help?” Darville looked hopeful.
Jaylor stopped to think a moment.
Brevelan hid her fear. The last time he had eaten of the Tambootie his mind had been lost, nearly forever. What would a repeat dosage do?
“I don’t think so. Krej seems to have found a way to feed his powers with the drug. I just separate from my body when I use it.”
Good. He had dismissed the dangerous idea. “A new staff, then?” Darville prompted. Jaylor just shook his head and wandered toward the sleeping room.
“A new staff, indeed.” Brevelan glared at Darville. “A magician’s focus is highly personal. Not just any piece of wood will do.”
“I was only trying to help.”
“You did. We’ll mend the old staff while he sleeps.”
“Mend the wood? You can’t do that.”
“I think I can, with a little help.” The tune was already forming in her head. After all, a broken staff couldn’t be so much different from a broken bone or the dislocated shoulder of a golden wolf.
Chapter 33
Stupid, stupid, STUPID! Ambassadors all the way from Rossemeyer to offer an alliance and now they want to withdraw. Can’t they see how much I need their armies, their wealth? With their support I could win the war in a week and conquer all of my enemies in a moon.
But they insist the alliance is dependent on our prince marrying their princess. News that Darville is missing caused them to retreat into private counsel. They wouldn’t even consider marrying the chit to me. Of course, I’d have to eliminate the current wife. About time anyway. The only brats she can whelp are girls and I need sons.
Seems the King of Rossemeyer has moral reservations against such a move. S’murghing fools. Why be squeamish about breaking marriage vows of fealty and honor taken before the Stargods—gods that no longer exist—when an entire kingdom, nay empire, is at stake!
I’ll take some Tambootie. Then I will be strong enough to convince the drooling imbeciles of the rightness of my course. Perhaps I should feed the ambassadors some Tambootie as well.
From his outpost in a fisherman’s hut, Baamin closely monitored the activities in Krej’s castle. Yaakke had placed a piece of glass near a candlestick in Krej’s chosen meeting place. Through his own glass and a hearth fire Baamin “saw” the family solar above the banquet hall. Seven of the Twelve sat on benches, chairs and window sills, wherever there was a place to rest their ample bottoms. Some were weary from a long journey. Others were fearful of Krej. One, Lord Andrall, was downright worried about the course of the war.
The border city of Sambol had fallen to SeLenicca three days ago. Krej’s army had been routed. The enemy was marching up the Coronnan River unhindered.
Clearly, Queen Miranda of SeLenicca and her consort, King Simeon, would not allow the proposed marriage alliance with Rossemeyer to take place.
“We do not have the resources to fight the square beards.” Andrall’s weariness showed in the planes of his face. “There is no prince to receive the ambassadors from Rossemeyer. They are leaving at dawn. How long before their army joins that of SeLenicca? They both want our copper and our gold, not to mention our crop lands and protected fishing.”
“You must find a way to call the dragons, Lord Regent!” Lord Jonnias urged. “If only one dragon flew over the enemy encampment, they would run back to their own lands in cowardly fear.”
“There are no dragons left, fool!” Krej nearly screamed. That is why King Darcine is so near death.”
Apparently only Baamin knew that Darcine had indeed died yesterday morning at dawn. The messenger bearing those dire tidings would arrive at the castle within hours. If Darville were not present when the news reached the Council, they would be forced to name a new king.
Krej was the only candidate.
Unless there was a live dragon present. Shayla could refuse to consecrate Krej as king. She could choose Darville as the next ruler.
Not even the Council of Provinces could argue with a dragon.
Baamin closed his observations of Krej’s castle. He had to summon Jaylor. They were nearly out of time.
Lights winked from the arrow-slit windows of Krej’s forbidding castle. It loomed over the valley, massive, black, unapproachable in its cliffside isolation. The sun hovered a hand’s width above the great expanse of the bay. A gloomy twilight hovered in the sheltered valley below the home of the Lord of Faciar, Regent of Coronnan.
Darville tugged the coarse woolen peasant’s hood closer about his face. The sword strapped to his back made it impossible to humbly slump his shoulders in imitation of the other men around him. Still, it was surprisingly easy to blend in with the crowd of villagers trooping into the castle to prepare for the evening’s festivities.
He almost wished for his familiar wolf form and senses. His tall human body just couldn’t hear and smell as well. He had to be more alert than ever. Grief for his father had to be pushed aside until a later time.
A sensation of being watched prickled along his spine. He bent over from the waist, back still straight, to catch a runaway apple. Using his position, he looked about. No one seemed overly curious. He straightened up cautiously.
He noticed Jaylor’s eyes dart anxiously about as he bent to heft a bulky sack to his shoulder. There was a weariness in his stance, as if he carried a burden heavier than the sack and the mended staff secreted within it. If his posture were merely an act to blend in with the peasants, Darville would applaud Jaylor. But it wasn’t. The magician had been depressed for days. When the summons came from Baamin, his mood had become worse.
Darville couldn’t read Brevelan’s feelings at all. Sometimes she seemed to have absorbed Jaylor’s onerous worries. Other times she was bright and cheerful. Right now, she just kept her face buried in the basket of cabbages she carried. Earlier, Darville had combed a great deal of flour through her hair to mask its bright color. Now it was tightly braided and coiled at the nape of her neck, like that of any respectable matron.
The length of her slender neck tantalized him. He suppressed the need for her that filled him day and night. Not until this adventure was finished could he indulge in the luxury of thinking of Brevelan as his own. When he ruled the kingdom, then and only then could he make Brevelan his queen.
Torches flared at the kitchen entry. A guard, in Krej’s colors of green and dark red, scanned each face. Doubtless the Lord Regent had passed orders to watch for the trio.
Darville only hoped Krej still believed him to be a wolf so the guards would not be on the lookout for a tall blond prince as well as an equally tall magician and their delicate witchwoman companion.
The guard grabbed Jaylor’s shoulder, spinning him to face the light. Darville’s breath caught in his throat.
Before his eyes Jaylor’s shoulders drooped, his profile blurred and shifted. Fascinated, Darville watched the spell of delusion transform his friend from youthful magician to stooped and wizened old man who needed the suddenly visible twisted staff of wood to support his body.
The guard shrugged and allowed him to pass. Darville let loose the air he’d trapped in his lungs. Several more people passed through the inspection point without question. Brevelan was next.
A heavy hand came down on her shoulder. She looked up with frightened eyes, like a startled doe. Her face was very pale in the torch light. The guard fingered a tendril of hair that had escaped the thick coil. His words dropped to a whisper.
Darville saw the heat rise in her face. He kept his eyes on the guard while his free hand sought the dagger at h
is belt.
Killing the guard would only draw more attention to himself. He slid the long knife back into its sheath. He had to control his emotions.
Even as he berated himself he watched Brevelan’s eyes turn cold. She raked the man’s body with her gaze and it was obvious he came up lacking. This time the guard’s face turned red. He dropped his hand and allowed her to pass.
Once again Darville breathed deeply in relief. Just a few more people and he, too, would be into the castle.
The guard stopped another woman. She seemed more receptive to his proposition. They lingered in the doorway blocking the passage of the other peasant helpers.
“Hey! What’s the hold up?” Darville heard himself shout in the rough estimation of a peasant accent. “We’ve got work to do. Let’s get this s’murghin’ inspection over with. Lord Krej don’t like his dinner bein’ late!”
“Yeah. Don’t want the lord angry with us for your dallying!” Another man called.
“Stop pesterin’ our women and get on wi’ yer job.”
“Stop yer yammerin’.” The guard cursed the mob surrounding him. Embarrassed he passed them all through with only a brief glance at their faces.
Sometimes the best way to avoid detection was to call attention to oneself.
The kitchen was hot. An entire side of beef roasted in the giant fireplace on the central wall. Darville sniffed deeply of the belly-warming aroma. Game birds turned on smaller spits at side hearths. Long tables down the center of the huge room were crowded with men and women chopping vegetables, sifting flour into cavernous bowls, and doing all the other noisy, busy work necessary to preparing a banquet. Small boys darted about fetching supplies while smaller girls swept up discarded peelings and other residue.
Heat and savory smells washed over the prince. The noise of a hundred people filled his head. It was like coming home. The kitchen in his own palace was much the same. As a small, lonely boy he had sought refuge there when his parents and tutors were too busy to entertain him.
Dragon Novels: Volume I, The Page 31
