Dragon Novels: Volume I, The

by Irene Radford

  Tears streamed down Hilza’s face. “I can’t help it, Katey. I can’t stop coughing. Why does Maaben blame me?” She choked out the words around a raspy throat.

  “I don’t know, Hilza.” Katrina cradled her youngest sister against her chest, rocking her gently, humming an old lullaby to soothe her.

  All is quiet, all is still,

  Sleep, my child, fear not ill,

  Wintry winds blow chill and drear,

  Lullaby, my baby dear,

  Wintry winds blow chill and drear,

  Lullaby, my baby dear.

  “Maybe Maaben is afraid,” Katrina cooed to her now quiet sister.

  “She hates me,” Hilza whispered around a sniffle.

  “Hush, little one. Hush.”

  Let thy little eyelids close,

  Like the petals of the rose;

  When the morning sun shall glow,

  They shall into blossom blow,

  They shall into blossom blow,

  When the morning sun shall glow.

  “P’pa is trying to raise more money. He’ll come home tonight with bundles of firewood and a fat chicken for our dinner.” Katrina’s mouth watered at the thought of meat, so long absent from their table.

  “And M’ma?” Hilza murmured drowsily.

  “M’ma has made a wonderful lace shawl for the queen. If Queen Miranda accepts the gift, then M’ma can go back to work at the palace.” M’ma had worked the shawl with weaving silk, a thread much heavier than most lacework. Yet the fibers worked up to appear filmy and frothy. If M’ma started a new fashion trend, then she would be in demand to design more shawls and maybe veils. The Kaantille family would be rich again.

  “But the queen may not like the gift,” Hilza protested. She partially roused from her sleepiness but didn’t raise her head. The cords of her neck stood out rigid and hard under Katrina’s caressing fingers.

  “She must accept it, little one. No one makes lace like M’ma does. The shipments of lace overseas are fetching less and less money since M’ma left the palace. Queen Miranda has to take M’ma back.” She hoped.

  The lace factories had stopped buying M’ma’s designs. She’d falsely promised exclusive rights to the patterns once too often.

  The front door slammed again. A heavy reluctant thread on the steep stairs. That would be P’pa. If his steps dragged, then his mission had failed. There would be no chicken for dinner.

  Another step behind P’pa. This one springier and lighter. A stranger. The door to the workroom opened slowly. P’pa stood there, a deep scowl on his face. Defeat seemed to drag his shoulders down, shortening, reducing him to a haggard old man.

  “What is it, P’pa?” Katrina looked up at her parent, frightened and insecure. She kept Hilza’s weary body cradled within her arms, face buried in her lap.

  “Is your mother home?” P’pa looked around the room, peering into shadows He seemed to fear what he might find.

  “No” Katrina answered.

  “Good.” Was that relief in his tone and the raising of his shoulders?

  A tall, hooded stranger appeared behind P’pa, pushing to gain access to the room. “Almost as cold in here as it is outside, Merchant Kaantille.” The thin man rubbed his long-fingered hands together, not with cold, but with some kind of eagerness.

  Katrina had seen those hands before. “Take the blasted patterns and be gone!” P’pa bellowed impatiently.

  “Patterns? P’pa, you didn’t!” Katrina darted across the room to her lace pillow, heedless of Hilza. She clutched the velvet bolster with its cache of patterns to her chest, letting the bobbins tangle. Pins that held her latest lace into the pattern pressed through her clothes, pricking her skin.

  “I’m sorry, Katey. I had no choice.” P’pa looked at the floor.

  “Give me the pillow with the patterns, girl.” The thin man stepped closer, hands reaching for her treasure. His hood fell back revealing the dark-eyed owner of the first lace factory she and M’ma had approached. The man M’ma had insulted.

  “No. I don’t care how much money you paid him. The pillow and patterns are mine. My dowry. He can’t sell it.” She swung around so her back was to the stranger. She hated the gleeful revenge that burned in his brown eyes.

  “Give him the pillow, Katrina. Give it up or watch your sister die of the lung rot and the rest of us starve or freeze to death,” P’pa ordered. His voice was as weak and reluctant as his steps.

  He was right. The patterns contained within the pillow with its engraved bone bobbins were the most precious things left in the house. Even the glass window in the workroom had been sold, the opening covered with scrap wood. M’ma’s pillow and patterns had remained at the palace when she was dismissed and could not be retrieved.

  “I can’t, P’pa. If I give this up, I have no future.” Katrina dropped to her knees, her legs suddenly too weak to hold her upright.

  “If you don’t, we’ll all starve, Katey.” P’pa pried her fingers up and yanked the bolster out of her arms. He thrust it at the eager stranger.

  A single bobbin broke loose from the tangle of fine cotton threads. Katrina caught it within the folds of her skirt. The men wouldn’t notice one bobbin missing. Not one lonely little bone bobbin out of forty pairs.

  “Take it and be gone. I don’t want to ever see your face gain.” P’pa ushered the stranger toward the door.

  The man shoved a fat purse into P’pa’s still outstretched hand. It slipped through his fingers and dropped to the floor with a clank that echoed around the silent room.

  Katrina glanced at the bobbin still clutched in her skirt. “Tattia Kaantille” the engraved letters spelled in a spiral around the slender piece of bone. She traced the letters from bottom to top. Something sharp caught on the threads of her skirt. The glass bead on the bangle had shattered in the fall.

  Chapter 9

  Rejiia listened through the night for magic on the wind. Not long after midnight, she sensed a spell of braided magic winding its way through the encampment like a ghost of stray mist, questing but not disturbing.

  Red and blue. The Senior Magician was scouting the army with that spell. She had watched Jaylor work magic in the capital often enough to know his signature colors.

  Silently she crept from her bed behind a heavy screen in the largest pavilion. Marnak the Younger, her husband, snored on a cot on the other side of the screen. A year of marriage and he still hadn’t found the courage to join her in bed. A shiver of loathing coursed through her as her nightrail brushed against his cot.

  She thought she might have more respect for him if he’d raped her on their wedding night, as her father had advised. But now? The weak little lordling was still dependent upon and submissive to his father. Rejiia would rather sleep with the sergeant who patrolled the nobles’ section of the encampment than with her lawful husband.

  Outside the tent, she sniffed for the magic again, clearer and sharper in the fresh air. Half invisible, she followed the drifting red-and-blue braid to the edge of camp. Earlier, she had ordered a single tent set up here. A delusion slipped from her fingertips. She smiled in delight as she transformed the miserable private’s shelter into a huge royal pavilion with Darville’s personal banner flying above.

  The magic circled the delusion briefly then hesitated at the opening, scanning Rejiia’s form. She gave the questing magic an image of Darville tall, blond, dynamic in his masculinity. The red-and-blue braid persisted, wanting reassurance.

  Reluctantly, Rejiia ambled around the edge of the camp, cloaked in the image of her royal cousin. She paused and spoke to several of the sleepy soldiers, as the king would do.

  Darville had stolen the crown that should have been hers. She hated him and resented his presence even in this imaginary form.

  At last Jaylor’s magic was satisfied and retreated to the monastery. It smelled of curiosity partially satisfied.

  Rejiia hummed a joyful tune she’d heard the troops singing as they marched from the capital. More than sli
ghtly bawdy and confident, the song collapsed the delusions. Her body tingled with power. Maybe she should seduce the sergeant, right under Marnak’s nose.

  No. Not tonight. She should save her maidenhead until she needed its destruction to fuel a spell of real importance. Her bed and a well-deserved sleep enticed her back to the camp. “Perhaps I’ll dream of looting and rape and fire. Tomorrow the Commune dies along with my bastard sister and her brat. Brevelan stole my father’s love from me. Now she will pay.”

  Yaakke forced himself to walk west, away from familiar jagged peaks toward the more rounded mountains of SeLenicca. Shayla’s hiding place was in a valley near rounded mountains, stripped of timber. The only mountains like those were west of Coronnan. He counted four more steps and then four more.

  “Shay-la needs me. Shay-la needs me,” he recited in rhythm with his steps.

  The more space he put between himself and the dragon lair, the less worn and confused he felt. Every time he looked at his body, he was afraid he’d start to fade into transparency—like the dragons.

  Hunger gnawed at him constantly. He’d devoured all of the food he’d been able to scavenge in Brevelan’s clearing—including one of her precious flusterhens. Villagers were shy and suspicious of strangers in this part of Coronnan, so he’d had to steal a few provisions here and there, including a pack and cooking utensils. Still he ached with fatigue and emptiness.

  How long had he been in the void?

  He looked at the sky for some indication he’d chosen the right direction. A deep overcast didn’t betray the position of the sun.

  Corby the jackdaw cawed enthusiastically above him, dropping a smelly blob on the trail behind Yaakke. He looked from the bird to his deposit, then along the trail. Sure enough, Corby had spotted a crested perdix lurking in the scrubby grasses. The characteristic head bobbing and twisted topknot were not fully developed in the bird. Probably a youngster without the sense to migrate.

  Yaakke stood hunter-still. His mouth watered at the thought of a true meal cooked over a campfire. A palm-sized rock appeared in his fist. Desperation enhanced his reflexes and trued his aim. He flung the stone directly onto the perdix’s bobbing head.

  “Thanks, Corby. I’ll save you some!” Yaakke plunged toward his prey.

  “Owe me one, owe me one,” the jackdaw cawed.

  Almost, Yaakke considered eating the meat raw, feathers and all. Then something deep inside him sickened at the thought. Methodically he sought a campsite.

  One good thing about being a magician: he could start a fire even when the wood was wet. He settled his pack beneath an overhang where the soil was reasonably dry. His tin pot came readily to hand. It always did, no matter where he’d stuffed it.

  He’d seen a Rover trick once that might help him find Shayla or Jaylor—or someone who might help him. He needed food and rest first. When he had some grains and the gutted perdix simmering nicely, he granted himself the luxury of a quick wash and a fresh shirt. As he ran his fingers over his jaw and neck, the texture of his skin seemed changed, coarser, rougher. Using a calm pool at the edge of the creek as a mirror he checked for cuts or rash or just left over mud.

  Nothing quite so usual greeted his reflection. Dark shadows creased his jaw and upper lip. The beginning of a beard! A rather complete and dark beard at that. Well, several days’ worth anyway. The facial hair seemed soft and fine now. Soon enough it would grow thicker and heavier.

  At last!

  About time.

  “La, la, la, la,” he sang, testing the quality of his voice. To his own ear the notes sounded his same childish soprano.

  “Loo, loo, loo, loo,” he sang again, on a lower tone. Much lower than he used to sing.

  “La, la, laeeeeek,” he tried the high notes and lost all control.

  Good. By the time he found Jaylor, maybe he’d be through the worst of the change and be able to speak like a man. Jaylor could authorize his trial by Tambootie smoke and promote him to journeyman. Once promoted, he could claim a larger piece of glass for focusing his spells. The trial might also grant him a vision to guide him to Shayla.

  “Shayla needs me.”

  Yaakke tried the notes again and didn’t croak until almost two tones lower than last time.

  Corby jeered from his perch atop the boulder at Yaakke’s miserable attempt to sing.

  “Your voice doesn’t sound much smoother, bird!” Yaakke returned to his campfire, anxious to try the Rover trick.

  Just before leaving Shayla’s lair, he had seen something very frightening reflected in water. More than reflections. A vision, or another dragon-dream. Jaylor and Brevelan and the baby had stood in the middle of a raging inferno, desperately seeking escape.

  The vision had ended before Yaakke had seen an accurate picture of where Jaylor and Brevelan were. He needed to know where, or what direction in order to direct a standard summons spell.

  Yaakke knew deep inside himself that Jaylor and his family needed help.

  He’d been granted the vision for a reason. He had to find Jaylor and warn him of the fire. Or help him escape.

  If the trick worked.

  The trap is set. By an hour after sunrise, the Commune will cease to exist. An hour later my agent will inform King Darville how it happened and who was responsible. Jonnias and the Marnaks will never be trusted in Council again. When they realize the depth of the rift between themselves and their king, the three sniveling lords will revolt. The rest of the Council will blame Darville for the newest civil war. He won’t be allowed to survive as king of a country tearing itself apart and he without an heir and with a witch for a wife.

  Within a few moons Coronnan will be in such chaos, the coven will be able to step in and enforce law and order on their own terms. Soon, so very soon.

  Four horsemen backed by a thousand soldiers rode up to the gates of the monastery. Jaylor watched the three noble banners fluttering above the lieutenants who each represented a lord: Jonnias, Marnak the Elder, and Marnak the Younger. Higher than the three fluttered a fourth banner. The man carrying the symbol of a crystal dragon and a golden wolf didn’t wear a uniform of the royal household or army.

  An aura of hate shimmered over the entire army.

  “I don’t like the smell of this,” Jaylor growled to Brevelan who stood by his side at the window of their tower room.

  “I sense a great deal of anger out there.” Brevelan edged behind Jaylor, putting a physical barrier between herself and the roiling emotions of a thousand armed men. “Anger and fear. They do not come in peace.”

  “Can you isolate Darville in the throng? I want to talk to him privately before I face those emissaries at the gate.” Jaylor leaned against the windowsill, trying desperately to find one familiar blond head among the battle-hardened men.

  Brevelan’s eyes closed in concentration. Her pale skin turned whiter; but shadows hollowed her cheeks and furrowed in her brow. Jaylor resisted the urge to reach out and offer her strength and comfort. If he touched her right now, her contact with the army below would shrivel.

  “No. There are too many people out there to find one soul.” She shook her head. Huge blue eyes, clouded with bewilderment and pain, looked up to his. “Our king is the one person I should be able to isolate at any distance. He hides himself from me.”

  A momentary pang of jealousy brought a red mist to Jaylor’s eyes and judgment. Brevelan might be his, Jaylor’s, wife now. Darville might be very much in love with his own bride, Rossemikka, now. But he could never forget that little less than a year ago, Brevelan had made a very hard choice between the two men.

  The possibility that the king’s seed had fathered Glendon remained.

  “You know it is you I love, Jaylor,” Brevelan reached across the barrier of his emotions.

  A hard spot in his heart dissolved. Her small hand sought his. With those few words the jealousy died and love reblossomed in his chest. He clung to her hand, the simple gesture binding them together.

  “What do we d
o about them?” She gestured to the horsemen who were pounding on the gates for entrance.

  “I know Darville’s banner gives this army authority. But I cannot find any reason our friend would betray our location to those three lords. He might tell Lord Andrall—his loyalty has never been questioned. But those three?” He shrugged in disbelief.

  “Could it have been a trick to disarm your suspicions. You would open the gate willingly for your king.”

  “Aye. But not to Jonnias and the two Marnaks.”

  The wind shifted slightly, carrying the babble of voices from the army. The aura of hatred intensified.

  “I believe we have been betrayed, Brevelan.” By whom? An agent of the fanatical Gnostic Utilitarian cult which decreed that all knowledge must come by hard work and experience, not magic? His best friend? Jaylor faced that painful possibility reluctantly. His spy should have told him about this army before it left the capital. Perhaps the Council had decided to secretly remove Glendon, the king’s bastard son, from Jaylor’s and Brevelan’s custody.

  Never! Jaylor resolved. “Show Master Fraandalor an image of Shayla’s old lair and have him begin transporting the library and the telescopes there. The time has come to find a new sanctuary for the Commune.” Regret hung heavily on his shoulders.

  The sanctity of this remote retreat for aging magicians, priests, and healers should not be violated by an army bent on destruction. Darville should not have succumbed to any of the forces that wanted an end to all magic in Coronnan.

  “Will we be able to protect everyone there?” Brevelan looked out over the undulating sea of soldiers that spread across the hills. The noise of their coming increased.

  “If Krej couldn’t find the path up the mountain without help, then this mundane army won’t be able to either. There is shelter, water, and privacy.” He snatched a quick kiss from her. “Go quickly. I’ll stall the lieutenants at the gates.” The ancient wooden barriers were beginning to buckle from the pounding of sword hilts on the planks.