Dragon Novels: Volume I, The

by Irene Radford

  None of the ever-present algae marred the stone steps leading up to the hidden doorway behind a wardrobe cabinet. Recently scrubbed or well used? Since his teenage escapades with Jaylor’s band of renegade town boys, Darville had been one to seek regular and anonymous escape from his royal duties. The tunnels had provided him with easy exits from almost every part of the palace.

  How did the king pass unnoticed among his people now, with his damaged left arm in a sling?

  Three raps on the thick door with the butt of Jaylor’s staff, followed by two more short knocks, signaled their arrival. Only a few moments had passed since Margit had summoned them. A few desperate words, then she’d broken the communication to help the queen.

  The heavy wood portal slid aside slowly and silently. Jaylor hesitated before stepping through the portal. No friendly face greeted him.

  “Go on, Jaylor.” Brevelan pushed him through the small opening. “I can’t sense Mikka’s emotions, only Darville’s.”

  Cautiously Jaylor poked his nose through the opening, ready to duck beneath his armor should any menace greet him.

  “At last!” A very pale Margit grabbed his arm and pulled him through the tangle of gowns and scarves that cluttered the cabinet. Worry creased her brow.

  Jaylor turned back to give Brevelan assistance through the wardrobe. The presence of twins in her womb made her bulkier and more awkward than usual.

  His eyes sought Mikka and Darville as soon as Brevelan planted both feet on the carpeted floor. Mikka lay on the bed, pale and unmoving. Darville knelt beside her, holding her hand as if he could will his strength into her.

  The queen’s rich gown of rusty-brown silk revealed only the barest traces of the baby she had carried almost five full moons. The neckline dipped considerably lower than most thought modest, almost to the nipples. She was so proud of her pregnancy, she had reverted to the fashion of her home country, Rossemeyer. Among the desert dwellers who knew death’s constant presence, a woman’s breasts were considered a symbol of life. Mothers were granted the privilege of exposing their bosoms.

  “At last. Brevelan, you’ve got to do something. Save her. Please!” Darville released his wife’s hand and began pacing around the bed with his characteristic restlessness. His golden aura spread outward, swirling with the red and indigo of suppressed energy and serious thought.

  Jaylor retracted his armor a little at a time while he watched Darville. Brevelan opened her satchel before she reached Mikka’s side.

  “Hot water, Margit. Fresh linens, and bowls to mix some potions. This isn’t going to be easy. Maybe you’d be more useful keeping inquisitive courtiers out,” Brevelan said to the maid. She rolled up her sleeves as she took Mikka’s wrist, examining her pulse.

  Margit left quickly, with a sigh of relief.

  “She’s afraid of cats,” Jaylor whispered to Darville.

  Concern shadowed Brevelan’s eyes. She looked up at Jaylor and gestured for him to take Darville away.

  “We’re in the way, Roy.” He guided his reluctant friend into the anteroom. Only Fred waited there, standing guard by the door. “Leave us, Fred. And keep everyone away. The king and queen need privacy.”

  The sergeant nodded and retreated. Quickly he brushed tears from his eyes before closing the door behind him.

  “About time you two showed up,” the king muttered. “I think someone poisoned Mikka to make her miscarry.” The black linen sling, dyed to match his clothing, hung limply about his neck. Over the last three years, the support for his injured arm had become an accepted part of his wardrobe, almost a badge of honor. The constant pain had taken its toll on Darville. Much of his joy in living had faded. He no longer resembled the bouncy young wolf Brevelan had rescued from a snowstorm. He had become an impatient, prematurely old king.

  “Who would do such a heinous thing?” Jaylor asked. Immediately his armor snapped into place. He lowered it deliberately to allow his TrueSight to seek traces of an alien presence.

  “I don’t know! Margit found traces of an abortive in her porridge a few days ago. Everything she eats is tested before she puts it into her mouth.” Darville ran his hand through his mane of golden hair, forcing himself to deliberate calm. “We had word of a Gnul plot. I thought we’d taken care of them.”

  “The coven also has access to obscure poisons.” Jaylor decided the rest of that story could wait.

  Silence hovered between the men. The easy silence of long friendship. Even after three years of separation, the old companionship bound them together.

  Darville flexed and moved his injured arm stiffly up and down, trying to restore movement and circulation.

  “Sit down, Roy. You’re making me nervous. I’ll get you some wine.” Jaylor pushed his friend into the nearest chair.

  “No. I need all my wits about me. This isn’t the first miscarriage. But this one is more dangerous. She hasn’t been well.” He ran his hands through his hair again. They met resistance at his queue restraint. He ripped it off and flung it into a corner.

  “I’ve had reports.” Jaylor handed him a cup of wine. “Drink. You aren’t helping Mikka when you’re near to hysterics.”

  Darville sipped at the cup and put it aside. He returned to rubbing his arm.

  “Does it itch?” Jaylor asked. “That’s usually a sign of healing.”

  “I irritated it carrying Mikka in here from the solar. Fortunately she was alone. None of her women will summon a mundane healer or the Council until I order it.”

  “Let me look. Maybe I can ease the discomfort a little.” Jaylor rolled up Darville’s sleeve, being careful not to brush the black wound with the fabric. He focused his sight beyond sight onto the twisted black wound. A vibrant tingling and disorientation swamped his senses. In the distance, a soft echo of one of Brevelan’s healing Songs teased his hearing.

  The difference between this Song and the one brewing in the royal bedchamber bothered him. Deeper, less certain. What was happening?

  “What are you doing?” Darville stared at the burn that snaked up his arm, almost from wrist to elbow. “I feel weird, something akin to when you used to transform me back and forth between man and wolf.” The king rested his head on the back of the chair.

  Jaylor’s eyes lost focus. He closed them and shook his head clear of the dizziness. He looked again at Darville’s wound. The blackness lifted several finger-lengths above the level of his arm. It shifted and writhed within some kind of barrier. Slender rootlets stretched out toward the living tissue it fed on. Some broke off and dissolved in the air. One, thicker and stronger than the others, almost touched the arm before quickly withdrawing into the black mass.

  “What’s happening?” Darville stared at the raw muscle on his arm where the wound had resided for three years.

  “I don’t know. Don’t move.” Jaylor pushed at the blackness with his finger. An envelope of magic pushed back.

  A scream knifed through his mind and his ears. The blackness dropped back onto Darville’s arm.

  “Mikka!” The king was halfway to the door before he doubled over in pain.

  “Not Mikka.” Jaylor supported his friend back to the chair.

  Brevelan appeared in the doorway. Her eyes asked her questions.

  Jaylor shrugged his answer.

  “Mikka?” Darville looked up from his deep contemplation of the wound that had become a part of him.

  Brevelan shook her head. “I can’t save the baby. If we’re lucky, she’ll recover.” Her jaw clenched and released.

  Jaylor watched her effort to control her emotions. Death always robbed her of vitality. He worried that the death of Mikka’s child might affect the unborn twins.

  “You’re healing, Darville! Thank the Stargods for some good news.” Brevelan rushed to his side and grabbed his arm.

  The king winced and jerked his arm back.

  “Not completely,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “But it is better,” Brevelan said. “The wound is smaller, the edges ra
gged as if scabs had begun to peel away. Is this tender?” Brevelan touched some pink and healthy skin right next to the blackness.

  Hope blossomed in Jaylor’s chest. If Darville’s wound healed, what was happening to Shayla?

  Darville fidgeted as if he needed to continue his wolflike prowl. He kept looking toward the inner room, toward Mikka.

  “Stand still, Darville,” Brevelan commanded in the same voice she used on her young sons—the same voice she had used to order Darville about when he was enchanted into the body of a golden wolf.

  “That still hurts, Brevelan.” The king grinned weakly in acknowledgment of her authority.

  Jaylor peered over his wife’s shoulder to examine the evidence of healing. His extended senses caught a scent of rotten magic beneath a clean aroma of growth. So different from the whiff of magic-gone-awry coming from the bedroom.

  “The strangest sensation came over me.” Darville flexed his arm once more and resumed his pacing.

  Jaylor propped up the door with his back, his staff at hand, ready to focus any spell he might need to throw in a hurry if anyone else responded to the unnatural scream.

  “Then my arm stopped aching,” Darville continued. “That was really weird, suddenly losing the pain after all these years. I almost missed it. It’s become so much a part of me. . . .” The king’s gaze drifted toward his bedroom and his wife. Then he frowned in worry.

  “Evidence suggests you got caught up in a magic spell directed at someone else. I wonder who? And where?” Jaylor moved to a small writing table and pulled out his glass. “Shayla is linked to that wound. I need to know if my journeymen found her.”

  Darville stared at the injured limb again. “Shouldn’t you be with Mikka?” He looked from Brevelan to the inner room once more. Then he stepped decisively through the doorway.

  “The wound is smaller, Darville. Not all of it returned to you. Whatever dissolved is gone for good,” Brevelan said as she followed him back to the bed where Mikka lay pale and thin. “It’s possible that the brief removal of the poison allowed more healing to take place underneath.”

  Mikka shifted uneasily. Brevelan shifted, too, as if experiencing the same discomfort as the queen. Then her head came up sharply and she turned her full attention, physical and empathic, onto Darville.

  “Stop looking at me as if I am your patient, Brevelan. Mikka is the one who needs you.” Darville knelt beside the bed. Mikka reached a hand out to him. He clasped it gently, kissing her fingertips.

  “What happened out there, Darville?” Mikka asked weakly. “What sent Brevelan running to you?”

  Mutely, Darville showed her his arm. “We think one of Jaylor’s journeymen found Shayla and tried to heal her.”

  “I’ve had a sort of message from Yaakke. He’d have the strength and ingenuity to try a healing. I have no idea how to find him, I only know that he lives.” Jaylor shook his head in dismay. “I knew I should have gone after Shayla myself.”

  Brevelan shot him a wrathful glance. He didn’t pursue the subject.

  “You have to locate the boy.” Mikka turned her face away from her husband. A single tear trickled down her cheek. “We have to help him.” She rolled to her side painfully, and curled into a ball. “So Darville can be well. So we can . . . I must . . .” She stopped abruptly. Tears choked her.

  “Mikka!” Darville gathered her into his arms, heedless of his still painful wound. She buried her face in her husband’s tunic. A brief shudder of her shoulders and a quiet sob betrayed her tears. When she finally turned her face back to Brevelan, she was calm and her tears dried. “I have to know, has the poison in Darville’s blood affected our babies?”

  “I don’t think so.” Brevelan’s hand began a rhythmic rubbing of her belly, as if the babes she carried had become unusually active.

  “Is it the black magic in my body that kills our children?” the king reiterated the question.

  Jaylor stood back to study their auras while Brevelan asked more personal questions about the nature of the previous miscarriages. His vision clouded a moment as he thanked the Stargods for both his sons.

  Sadness and love for Darville and Mikka threatened to dissolve his objectivity. Images of him and Darville working together, laughing together, playing together slid around his control.

  He brought clarity back to his magic sight and found Darville’s aura. The layers of colors were familiar, healthy but for the one black spot on the left side. The evidence of Janataea’s malice was reduced in size and intensity.

  Mikka’s aura bothered him. Double layers represented herself and the cat spirit who had shared her body for over three years. The joining of the two souls was an unexpected side effect of a major spell thrown that fateful autumn of Darville’s coronation. At the time, Mikka’s two auras were distinct with separate layers and colors reflecting two individual personalities. Now the edges were blurred and blending together.

  “ ’Tis not the magic in Darville that hinders the growth of your babes in the womb,” Brevelan said quietly.

  “No, please, no!” Mikka cried.

  Jaylor caught Darville’s gaze as he stroked Mikka’s unbound hair. The two men nodded to each other in acceptance of the inevitable.

  “Do you wish the truth, Mikka?” Brevelan asked. “Or do you need to wait until you are stronger?”

  Darville brought Mikka’s right hand to his lips. “I love you, Mikka. No matter the cause, I would never do anything to hurt you. We have to know the truth if we are ever to overcome it.”

  She nodded, once more the proud, decisive queen. Only the paleness of her face against the pillows betrayed her physical weakness.

  “The presence of the cat in your body, Mikka, interferes with your natural rhythms and humors. You cannot achieve the balance necessary to nurture a babe until you are separated from the cat,” Brevelan said sadly.

  “Then you must force the cat out of me. You had to leave the capital too quickly three years ago when it happened. You must do it now.”

  “The cat will not leave you willingly, even if I can find a host body for it. The two of you are bound together in an intricate interdependence,” Jaylor protested.

  “Do it, Jaylor!” Mikka demanded. “I don’t want to share this body with anyone but my children.”

  “I will need time to research the spells and find a host body. I’ll have to find Zolltarn, because he directed the original binding spell. You need to rest and recover your strength. Think about this decision for a time, Mikka. It may cost you your life.”

  “Then my husband will be free to find a new wife to bear him the heirs necessary to secure the peaceful succession of the dragon crown. We cannot allow Coronnan to be thrown into civil war again for lack of a clear succession.”

  “No, Mikka. I can’t allow you to risk your life. There must be another way,” Darville protested.

  “Who will give you an heir?” Mikka asked. “Who in your family line but Lord Andrall’s retarded son is left alive with royal de Draconis blood? Do you honestly want Rejiia, Krej’s daughter, to rule after you?”

  They both looked at Brevelan and Jaylor. Darville mouthed a name: “Glendon.”

  Numbness spread from Jaylor’s gut to his head. How could Darville even think of Glendon as his heir? “No. Oh please don’t ask this, Darville,” he muttered over and over, shaking his head.

  “My son is not your heir, Darville.” Brevelan stiffened. “I will never give him to you.”

  “You have proof that Jaylor is the boy’s father?” Darville challenged her with equal stiffness.

  “You will never take my son from me, Darville. Not you. Not your Council. Not anyone.” Brevelan marched toward the wardrobe. She paused and turned to face them, proud and defiant. “King Darville, I will take my son to Hanassa before I allow you to strip him of his magic and turn him into a coddled and captive prince.”

  “We must return to the clearing.” Jaylor clasped her hand in his own. He couldn’t believe his friend could ask su
ch a thing. Even making allowances for Darville’s grief, he didn’t think him capable of such a request.

  “Is Glendon my son, Brevelan?” Darville demanded.

  She stepped into the wardrobe without answering.

  “You have another child, Brevelan. You are destined to bear more. Please, can’t you share one little boy with us who have none?” Mikka pleaded.

  Some of his friends’ empty pain invaded Jaylor. Darville and Jaylor had shared their youth and many dangers and wondrous adventures since. They’d shared Brevelan’s bed on that long summer quest four years ago. They’d risked their lives for each other and for Coronnan. Could either of them deny Coronnan an heir because Jaylor loved the child with hair and eyes as golden as the king’s?

  “If you can’t separate my wife from the cat, Jaylor, Brevelan, then we need Glendon. The boy should be raised here, to learn all he’ll need to know as the next king of Coronnan.” Darville reached a plaintive hand toward Brevelan.

  “No.” Brevelan retreated to the tunnels and the route home.

  Chapter 26

  ‘Forgive me, Shayla!” Jack lifted his heavy head to plead with the dragon.

  (Forgive me, Jack,) the blue-tipped male dragon apologized.

  “Sorry, Jack, I couldn’t stop coughing,” Fraank croaked hoarsely.

  Amaranth whined in distress, seeking shelter behind his mother again.

  Shayla said nothing. Her steedlike muzzle drooped almost to the floor of the cave. Wings sagging and eyes nearly closed, she swayed and stumbled to retain her balance.

  The spell to heal the dragon had failed utterly.

  Silence reigned in the lair while Jack continued to crouch, nurturing what little strength he had left.

  “Brawck! Strangers come. Strangers come,” Corby croaked. He swooped into the cave, circling and flapping in an agitated frenzy. Harsh caws echoed around the lair with penetrating shrillness.

  “Where? When?” Jack asked the bird, head throbbing with each new sound. He stuck out his arm, hoping the jackdaw would land and cease his noisy complaints.

  Corby dropped beside Jack, pecking anxiously at his clothes. “Brawck. Strangers come. Strangers come,” the bird repeated over and over.