“Nice trick, Jaylor.” Krej moved into the hut, inspecting corners and crevices as if expecting filth. “Transporting me out of an important meeting without my consent. We’ve been trying to perfect that spell since time began without success. How’d you do it?” An aura of menace pulsed around him. Fury blazed from his eyes.
“Your daughter needs your help.”
“My daughter? She’s acknowledging me, is she? Who’s to say I will accept yet another bastard brat as being my own? Tell me how you did it, Jaylor.”
“I’ve seen your presence linked with hers through magic. You are the only person alive who can save her and her child.” Jaylor saw a glimmer of fear in Krej’s eyes and something else, too. Was it respect? He wasn’t sure this prideful rogue would help if he knew the elusive spell was thrown by a mere boy, an untrained apprentice.
“If you’ve enough magic to transport a living being across half of Coronnan, then perform whatever spell she needs yourself.”
“My magic was . . . damaged releasing Shayla from your glass imprisonment.”
“For that disservice I refuse to assist,” Krej snarled. “Don’t you realize how much this kingdom has benefited from the loss of dragon protection! New ideas and trade, economic growth, creativity . . .”
“I see invasion on the horizon,” Jaylor returned heatedly. “I see outlaws pillaging and raping, because the magic border dissolved before we had a chance to open it through negotiation. Crime is running rampant in the streets because the magicians don’t have the combined power to predict and intervene.”
“Master! My lord, please,” Yaakke intervened. “While you argue, Brevelan lies dying.” He crossed the small room to hold Brevelan’s limp hand. “Help her.” He gulped back a sob. “Please.”
“Lord Krej.” Jaylor forced himself to use the honorific. “If we accomplish what needs to be done to save your daughter—my wife—our baby—then Coronnan’s tie to the dragons will be severed forever. You will have accomplished what you set out to do.”
“You heard the dragon the night as she flew away. She and her consorts will never return as long as I hold power. I intend to remain in power a very long time. Give me another reason to help two peasants with a difficult birth. There isn’t enough food in the kingdom for those that live. Why add another mouth to feed?”
Images flooded Jaylor’s mind from Yaakke. The boy’s search for Krej had found the lord in the middle of a magic ritual with seven other faceless rogues. The aura of magic around them all was strong and complete.
“Save my wife and child and the kingdom will never know from me that you are truly a rogue magician in league with a coven of Simurgh, or that you have found an antidote to the witchbane. In the eyes of the world you will remain as mundane as you claim to be.”
Krej stared at Jaylor, mouth slightly agape in surprise. Malevolence filled his eyes. “Word of my contact with the coven must never leave your mouth. On pain of never-ending death at the hands of Simurgh.”
“I swear.”
“Swear by Simurgh!”
“I swear by the Stargods, or none at all. And your coven must not harm the kingdom.”
“Very well. An oath on those you believe in is better than no oath at all,” Krej acknowledged. “You might not believe this, but my plans are for the good of Coronnan.” He turned his back and stripped off his rich tunic. The cream-colored cambric shirt he wore beneath the velvet and brocade was sheer and clean.
Yaakke’s tears stopped, but he continued to hold Brevelan’s hand with reverence. “She’s the only one who treated me like a real person. Everyone else sees me as a witless kitchen drudge. You have to save her, my lord, Master. You have to save her.”
“My daughter, huh? I thought she was mine the first time I saw her. She’d make a better heir than any of the brats my wife produces on a regular basis. At least she inherited some magical talent.” Krej pushed the sleeves of his shirt above his elbows and strode to the fire. “Must you live in this hovel?”
The hut had never looked ruder, poorer, smaller.
“Don’t forget your grandson,” Jaylor reminded him. “Your first grandchild.”
“I wasn’t much older than she is now when she was conceived.” Krej looked down on the wilted form on the bed. “Her mother was my first bedmate, not the best, but memorable because she was the first. I’ll need a glass.” He turned back to Jaylor with brisk authority. Jaylor produced his master’s glass from a place of honor on the shelf above his bed. Possession of such a fine piece of rare, clear glass was the achievement of a lifetime.
He’d never used it.
“They made you master?”
“They didn’t know I’d live.” Reluctantly, Jaylor handed his treasure to the man who had been his archenemy.
“I’ll need some Tambootie.”
“Why?”
“To counteract the witchbane Darville douses me with on a weekly basis.”
“Here, sir.” Yaakke produced two fat leaves of the tree of magic out of thin air.
“Have you taught the boy how to transport people? We would pay much to learn that spell.”
“My name is Yaakke,” he asserted.
“Yaakke? Son of Yaacob, the usurper. A bit audacious, Boy.” Krej sniffed and turned his back on Yaakke. “Brevelan, give me your hand.”
“No!” Jaylor shouldered his way between his wife and her father. “I cannot allow you to touch her.”
“You ask my help, then dictate the terms of the spell?”
“I protect my wife from a man who has tried to kill her more than once.”
“Then how do you propose I save her life? If I can’t touch her, my magic can’t reach her.”
“I will be your staff. Focus your magic through me.”
“Magic warps and reshapes wood. Look at your own staff to see how much. You risk your life to save the chit. Is she worth it?”
“Yes!”
Chapter 9
Where was Janataea? Uncle Rumbelly was going to be very angry when he heard how Rosie had disgraced herself with the prince.
Rosie hugged the shadows in one of the corners of her spacious apartment. The little space between the big bed and the wardrobe looked snug enough to hide her from whoever the Lord Regent of Rossemeyer sent to punish her. She slid to a sitting position, her back to the wall.
Rosie didn’t like the smell of the room she had been given. It was too clean, the hangings and furniture smelled of soap. There was no dust to collect the scent of those who passed through the room. How could she hide in a room that wouldn’t mask her scent?
And she was alone. Utterly alone. Janataea was the only one she knew in this long, long wing isolated from the rest of the huge palace. Kevin-Rosse was quartered across the city, on an entirely different island, in the embassy.
That was another thing she didn’t like, the islands. Hundreds of them connected by slender, untrustworthy bridges. The city was nothing but islands surrounded by water. Deep water. Shallow water. Muddy water. Clean water. All of it moving very rapidly toward the Great Bay.
Rosie shuddered and ducked her head against her knees.
Janataea had promised to be back in a matter of an hour, long before Rosie finished her interview with Prince Darville. But her time with the prince had been cut short.
“H-hsss-ch,” she hissed to herself. “I mistrust him. Him and his witchcat.”
What was she to do? Janataea would tell her.
But Janataea was gone on an errand. Gone for hours now. Janataea had broken a promise.
“I can’t trust anyone but myself!” she wailed. “And sometimes I can’t trust myself. Why did I say those ill-timed words to the prince when we hadn’t even been introduced?”
A light knock on the door sent Rosie scuttling deeper into the shadows. She crouched, ready to launch herself into either flight or an attack.
The knock came again. Louder, longer. “Your Highness?” a strange male voice asked. A gentle voice. Reassuring, trustworthy. �
�Are you there, Princess Rossemikka?”
“Who . . . who is it?” she stammered from her hiding place.
“Senior Magician Baamin, Your Highness. I have a message from Prince Darville. May I come in?”
Baamin, the magician from the University whom she was supposed to seek out and poison. Kevin-Rosse promised dire punishment if she did not.
The magician sounded so meek and gentle he could not be a threat to Rossemeyer. She didn’t dare trust him. He was a magician and therefore incapable of telling the truth.
In Rossemeyer, magicians were solitary scholars who sought the mysteries of the universe. They were known to lie, cheat, steal, and even kidnap and murder to serve their quest. But this was Coronnan, where the magicians were trained in a university, posted to the lords as advisers. Coronnan’s magicians were supposed to be trusted.
“I do not wish to speak of the prince.” She found herself standing. Her muscles relaxed from their panic. She didn’t know why.
“Then we won’t speak of him.” A pause while Rosie searched the room again for some sign of Janataea’s hovering presence. “This door is thick. Talking through it strains an old man’s voice. May I come in?”
“Do you need permission to enter any room?” She quivered in fear.
A low chuckle drifted to her perked ears. “When entering the presence of a lady, a gentleman always asks permission.”
Rosie decided to trust his politeness. “Then you may enter.”
“Through a locked door?”
“You are a magician.”
“That is true.” The bar across the inside of the door lifted easily and the lock turned by unseen hands.
Rosie gasped as the massive panels of hard oak swung open on silent hinges. She wanted to protect herself with one of the gestures she’d seen used whenever a magician passed. But she didn’t know the rituals, didn’t know if they worked.
Framed in the doorway was a man about her own height, with a round face and a twinkle in his blue eyes beneath massive white eyebrows. His robe was the same color as his eyes and was much too big for him. He almost tripped over the hem on his first step forward.
Baamin looked up and down the corridor, then hitched the middle folds of his cumbersome garment higher through his belt of golden rope. He strode confidently toward her, only to trip again on an uneven tendril of fabric.
“Dragon dung! Oh, excuse my language, Princess. I haven’t had time to commission a new garment.” He fussed with the blue wool again to hide his blush.
His embarrassment warmed Rosie’s heart. How could a man with such an inviting smile and humorous eyes be evil?
Unless all of his actions were a charade designed to lull her suspicions.
The smell of beta’arack permeated the man’s skin and clothes. A smell almost welcome in its familiarity.
“Have you come to punish me for . . . for . . . the scenes I made today?” Rosie hung her head, not wanting this endearing old man to be the one to lock her in the tower. Maybe that was not deemed punishment here. Maybe she would be thrown into the churning river.
“No, Princess. We do not punish people here for being afraid.”
Rosie sensed the coils of compulsion traversing the gap between herself and the old man. Her head reared up in instant fear. She retreated from the magic toward her hiding place against the wall.
“I have come to find the root of your terror and see if we can banish it.” The compulsion vanished. “Perhaps you ran from the cat because you do not know what wonderful companions they can be.” His voice invited her to confide in him. He reached a trembling, age-spotted hand to her in friendship.
Rosie shook her head in denial.
“Perhaps we should sit. This old body tires easily these days.” He dragged a light, armless chair from the corner and set it at an angle to the padded chair beside the fireplace. “I may not sit until you do. ’Tis court protocol.”
Rosie edged toward the chair, uncertain if she should trust him or flee. The door had been left politely ajar. She could run. But where? She chose to sit, curling her legs beneath her.
“Now tell me, Your Highness, what do you like about our fair country so far?” His tone was fatherly, inviting her to be candid.
“Nothing.”
“Oh, dear, dear me. That is very unfortunate. Are we so much different from your home in Rossemeyer?” Baamin reached across the narrow gap separating their chairs to pat her hand.
Rosie started to withdraw from his touch, as she would with any stranger. Then, at the last moment, she allowed her hand to remain in her lap. He covered it with his warm, dry palm. His skin was callused and cracked with age, but his touch was gentle, ever so gentle and reassuring.
“Everything smells wet. The river is too big and too close.” Rosie wrinkled her nose.
“I understand Rossemeyer is very dry.” He reached into his robes and withdrew a flask that smelled of the familiar distillation of the treacle beta from Rossemeyer. He offered her a sip. Rosie shook her head. He took a long swallow and continued, “Your few rivers are narrow and irrigate only small areas, I hear. Rain falls but once or twice a year on the plateaus.”
Rosie shrugged instead of commenting.
“Once the winter rains begin here, they won’t stop until next summer. Damp does terrible things to an old body. I don’t like the wet either, Your Highness.” Another swig from the flask, and he put it away. If she could gain access to that flask, she could insert the poison Kevin-Rosse had given her. But did she really want to?
“Your gown is lovely, Princess.” His words took on a lulling quality. “The color is very like your eyes. The chair’s upholstery is a shade darker, as if it were made for you. Sitting there, you look very like a queen. Do you want to be our queen?” He fumbled in his pockets and withdrew a small square of glass.
As he peered more closely at her dress and the chair, his eyes were enlarged. Rosie could see the rheumy fatigue in them.
“What is that glass?” A glimmer of curiosity sparked through of Rosie’s misery.
“An aid, my dear. These old eyes don’t see very well anymore. With it, I can see the details of your gown much better. Such a wonderful color on you.”
“I don’t much care what I wear. But I did choose this fabric. I like the feel of it.” Rosie ran her free hand along the nap of the brocade.
“An excellent choice.” Baamin straightened in his chair and looked at her levelly.
Rosie did her best to push herself back into the recesses of the soft pads of her chair. She knew that look. This pleasant old man was going to tell her something she wouldn’t like.
“Princess, you were expecting punishment. Will you tell me why?”
She looked away from him, into the brightness of the fire. Punishment was expected, endured, not spoken of or protested. Yet . . . yet she didn’t want to be thrown in the river, or shut into a lightless tower room, or deprived of food.
“My uncle disapproves of everything I do.”
“Your Uncle Rumbellesth, the Regent of Rossemeyer?”
She nodded. “He says I am defiant. Only an abomination would dare do the things I do.”
“And what do you do that he believes so awful?”
“I . . . I . . . um . . . Master Baamin, I don’t know. I don’t remember doing any of the things he proclaims illegal!” she wailed.
He disappeared! In the middle of the opening ritual he vanished from the coven’s protected shrine.
We have sought that spell for countless generations. Always we have failed. Every ritual breaks down, or the subject dies.
My rival performed that little feat just to make my bid for power seem trivial. He did it to seek the focus himself. He will claim the succession by right of birth. I cannot allow that. She was my mother as well as his. I will dissolve the coven before I allow him to take Maman’s place. I will destroy him and form a new eight-pointed star.
Then I will take control of Coronnan, and Rossemeyer, and SeLenicca. No more
will my people be exiled. No more will we be a fragmented race.
If I must take Tambootie to succeed, I will. I am powerful enough to control the addiction. My rival believes he has mastered the weed. I know he has not.
“I was prepared to die when I unraveled your spell, Krej. Even hoped I would, because I could imagine nothing greater in my lifetime than saving the dragon nimbus of Coronnan. Indeed, I was almost disappointed when I woke up.” Jaylor gulped back the emotion that thickened his throat.
“Brevelan saved me. I’m told her song of healing was the most beautiful music ever heard in our kingdom. That’s what she has given me. More than life, more than magic. Your daughter has shown me the beauty of life, the beauty of her spirit. I must do everything in my power to save her and the child she carries.”
“A bit maudlin, Jaylor.” Krej sniffed in disdain. “However, you will make a better staff than any mere piece of wood because you won’t resist the flow. You might even help shape it. Let’s get to work.”
Jaylor peered closer at the red-haired lord. If he didn’t know the man so well, he might just think Krej was touched with emotion, too.
That thought vanished with the change of expression on Krej’s face as he nibbled on the succulent leaves Yaakke had given him. His bites were small, as if he were only consuming the leaves as a necessary prelude to working magic. But his eyes took on the light of a fanatic, eagerly anticipating the heights to which the drug would take him. The second leaf disappeared into Krej’s mouth in one eager gulp.
“I need more. There weren’t enough essential oils to combat the witchbane.” His pupils dilated and began to glaze.
Yaakke squinted at Krej in the way Baamin had taught all of his students to focus magic sight. “Your aura nearly fills this room. You’ve had enough,” the boy pronounced. “Any more and you won’t be able to concentrate. You might kill Brevelan.”
“You dare contradict me? Me!” Krej roared. He lifted his hand to strike the boy.
Yaakke stood firm.
“Are you feeding magic, or are you feeding your craving?” Jaylor asked. “I followed you into a Tambootie trance once. I know the needs the drug induces.”
Dragon Novels: Volume I, The Page 43
