The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

by Irene Radford

  Nimbulan drank down the spicy brew gratefully, as did Quinnault.

  “I’ll fetch the book, Magician Nimbulan.” The child dipped a shy curtsy, then scampered down the stairs. She looked a lot like Kalen, probably one of the magician girl’s numerous sisters. All of the family had been tested for magical talent, but only Kalen seemed to have it—unless one counted Guillia’s ability to sense the nutritional needs of every magician living at the school.

  Kalen could transport anything. She’d make short work of this chore. But she wasn’t here. The now familiar ache of loneliness drove Nimbulan to tear a furious bite from his bread. Kalen had been exiled along with Myri, and he couldn’t go find them until the invading fleet from Rossemeyer had been repelled.

  “You realize, of course, that the obstacles in the Bay won’t be enough,” Quinnault asked. “Some of the ships will get through.” He pointed where some of his men set up a fire pit in the center of the courtyard. Huge cauldrons filled with oil sat nearby, ready to be boiled and thrown on invaders who managed to come ashore.

  “What do you suggest?” Nimbulan ignited the kindling with a snap of his fingers without leaving the parapet. He breathed a deep sigh of satisfaction that the simple spell worked. Then he levitated the first cauldron onto the frame above the fire. He controlled it until it was firmly settled. His mind whirled as he withdrew from the levitation. Thirty years as a Battlemage and he couldn’t think beyond the first assault. Where was his mind?

  (With Myrilandel,) a voice in the back of his head reminded him. (Think long. Think like a dragon. Myrilandel is part of the whole.)

  “If we still had some catapults, we could fling burning oil at the ships,” Quinnault suggested.

  “Witchfire would be better. Only a new spell can extinguish it. It can be guided more accurately than oil and will also give us enough light to pinpoint the ships.” Nimbulan’s mind started working again. He latched onto familiar patterns of strategy and battle plans. “But we don’t have any catapults. We dismantled our siege engines after the last battle. We thought the wars ended, so we used the timbers in the new wing of the palace as a reminder of the devastation we brought on ourselves.”

  The two men stood in silence a moment, remembering that awful day when Quinnault had been forced into single combat with his archrival, Kammeryl d’Astrismos. His priestly training hadn’t prepared him for the dirty fight that ended with Kammeryl dead and Quinnault nearly so. Only Myri, with Amaranth’s aid, had brought her brother back from the brink of death.

  Now Amaranth was dead, and Myri was missing. Nimbulan cursed himself for letting his mind drift from the coming battle. He couldn’t do anything about Myri until this battle ended.

  What would he do once she was safe? She couldn’t return to Coronnan. He had responsibilities here. Magicians weren’t meant to be family men. He had no precedents to latch onto.

  “Some of Kammeryl’s engines were abandoned and left to rot,” Quinnault mused. “I wonder if they’re still usable? Who can you spare to go check? The old man?” He pointed out Lyman’s white head amidst the younger men at the edge of the forest.

  “Old Lyman might surprise all of us before the day is through. But you’re right. He’ll be more useful locating a couple of catapults than wearing himself out hauling trees.”

  Nimbulan checked the level of the sun. The red-yellow orb of light eased past high noon toward the horizon. The turning tide hummed in his blood. His sensitivity to the planet told him precisely how long before the flood tide allowed passage across the mudflats. He looked downriver toward the Bay and the line of ships hovering offshore. Dared he waste a little precious magic to check the decks for signs of activity? No. The armada would hoist sail at sunset. Not before.

  He watched the waves a moment, noting how high they reached on the mudflats. Each one drowned more of the shore than the previous one.

  He and his teams hadn’t nearly enough time for all that needed to be done.

  Chapter 8

  “Remove that squalling child from my presence if you cannot control her,” Yaassima screamed. The Kaalipha wrenched a handful of her own white-blond hair, as if tearing it from her scalp could ease the headache the baby’s fretful crying caused.

  Shyly, Myri covered her breast and rose from her chair at the head of the Justice Hall. She’d endured today’s Dispensation of Favors for as long as she could tolerate it. Moncriith stood at the back of the former temple to Simurgh, glaring at her while she nursed the baby.

  “Whore of Simurgh!” he mouthed a curse at her. The hatred in his eyes dominated all of the emotions swirling about the Justice Hall. Myri’s distress at his presence must have reduced her milk and upset her child.

  Nursing a baby in public was one of the most natural and proud acts a woman could perform. But the assassins and thieves, including Moncriith, who looked to Yaassima for work and pay, were a hardened lot who viewed any woman’s breasts as objects of unbridled lust. Even the women among the outlaws stared at her with moist lips and wide eyes.

  Myri wondered how long Moncriith would feign obedience to Yaassima. He didn’t usually accept anyone’s authority but his own. Unless he wanted to use Yaassima in some convoluted plot before he murdered her. And drew magical power from her pain and death.

  Myri had almost reached the stairway leading to the royal suite when Yaassima’s words stopped her cold. “Take the child to the wet nurse, then return to help me preside over the Dispensation of Favors.”

  “Maia’s babe has been dead two days. Her milk has probably dried up,” Myri said, thinking furiously for a way to prevent separation from her child. She had never met Maia, only knew her from Nimbulan’s memory of her and a few rumors the servants had related.

  “Maia is a Rover. Everyone knows that Rover women make the best wet nurses.”

  “Rover women hire out as wet nurses so they can steal the babies and raise them as their own. Will you risk this child to Rover theft?”

  “No one steals from the Kaalipha of Hanassa.” Yaassima gestured to Myri to withdraw. Then she sat back in a high thronelike chair with a deep sigh.

  Myri knew the Kaalipha would wait patiently for her return. You will have a long wait, Yaassima, she thought.

  Back in the privacy of her own bedchamber, she slammed the door that separated her from the common room. Yaassima’s chamber was adjacent to Myri’s. A thick wall of stone separated them, but Myri had no doubt Yaassima had spy holes and listening spells to observe Myri.

  No one awaited her in the suite. Maia must not have come yet.

  “You may watch, but you won’t enter this room easily,” Myri whispered to the absent Rover. The door had no lock, so she pushed a heavy blanket chest in front of it. The dark wood scraped aside the colorful rugs scattered across the stone floor. The screeching sound reminded Myri, painfully, of Amaranth’s cries of distress just before he died.

  She blocked the sound from her mind as she stacked two chairs on top of the chest. Then she stood a clothes chest on end in front of the pile. Not satisfied, she shoved the bed against that.

  “I will rest undisturbed until my milk comes back,” she said to the blocked doorway.

  She needed liquid to replenish her milk while she rested. Greedily she drank from the pitcher that always sat on the stand beside her bed. As the water slid down her throat, she tasted copper and salt, different from the usual sulfur tang that permeated everything in Hanassa. Drugs.

  The same drugs Erda had given her during the baby’s birth. Yaassima must have ordered them, needing Myri docile and obedient.

  Myri almost sobbed. She couldn’t plan her escape while drugged. This was the last dose she’d take. From now on, she’d test all her food and drink. For now she must rest, must fight the grief that threatened to overwhelm her.

  She threw herself across the bed, cuddling her baby close. The infant whimpered, still hungry.

  “Soon, Baby. I’ll feed you soon,” she promised her hungry child.

  She press
ed both hands into the delicate flesh above her heart. The magical dart had penetrated Amaranth in the same place. Tenderness beneath her fingertips told her a bruise formed there, whether from her own hands or in sympathy with Amaranth’s wound, she didn’t know.

  Tears of loneliness slipped down her cheeks.

  Time lost meaning. The baby cried herself to sleep.

  Voices in the outer room of the suite startled Myri awake from heavy dreams of crashing to the Kardia from a great height.

  “When Televarn returns from his mission, I must send you back to his slave pens,” Yaassima said sternly from the other side of the door.

  Had Maia finally arrived? Myri wouldn’t stir until she knew whom the Kaalipha addressed.

  Her breasts ached, too full of milk. Her arms were damp from where her milk had soaked through her shift and gown. It still smelled sweet. How long had she slept? Beside her, the baby cried again. Silently, she reached for the infant, determined to feed her herself. Maia would have no tasks awaiting her.

  “For now you may tend to Myrilandel. I fear for her health. Do what you must to get her to open the door and see that the child stops crying.” A note of desperation entered the Kaalipha’s voice.

  “Yes, ma’am.” A different voice. One Myri hadn’t heard in a long time. Kalen. Her adopted daughter was safe. She would have to open the door to see her. Would Yaassima use that moment to take the baby from her?

  She clutched the baby, urging her to feed more quickly. All her latent desire to transform into a dragon and fly away faded as she nurtured her young. Purple dragons had no gender. As a dragon she couldn’t care for a baby. This was a task only she could perform. Maia—and through her, Televarn—would never get her hands on this baby.

  A loud squalling sound told her she held the baby too tightly. Still, she couldn’t let go. If she released her grasp, even a little, they would steal her baby. Myri knew that they had kidnapped her, betrayed her, exiled her, separated her from Nimbulan and her other children. They wouldn’t stop until she was utterly bereft and destroyed.

  They took form in her mind. Moncriith’s face dominated the form, surrounded by the flames he claimed would cleanse her and Coronnan of demonic control.

  Vaguely, she knew the drugs clouded her mind.

  “Myrilandel, let me in, please. Let me stay with you.” Kalen pleaded from the other side of the door. Last spring, the girl had said the same words to Myri. Kalen’s father had disowned the girl when all magicians who could not, or would not, gather dragon magic were exiled from Coronnan.

  Kalen’s mother had cried out at the girl’s expulsion, but would not defy her husband or abandon her other children to stay with the girl.

  “Myri, if you don’t let me in, I’ll have to go back to Televarn. He . . . he’s made slaves of Powwell and me. He forces us to . . . he forces . . .” She broke off in a sob.

  Kalen was adept at lying and wearing the emotions people wanted to see in her. But Myri had never known her to cry.

  “Give me a moment. I’ll let you in, but not the thieving Rover woman.” Myri began dismantling the barricade. She cursed and muttered under her breath, knowing Yaassima had found a way to force her into the action.

  Several minutes later, Myri focused her gaze on Kalen. The little girl stood in the doorway, wringing her hands and looking over her shoulder toward the center room of the suite. The girl’s auburn-tinged braids swished with her movements. Concerned gray eyes met Myri’s above a small nose with a wide spread of freckles strewn across the bridge.

  “Kalen.” Myri drew her adopted daughter into a tight hug. Kalen was safe. The baby was safe. Where was Powwell?

  “Yes, Myri, I’m here to take care of you. Can you tell me what happened?” The girl urged her toward the padded rocking chair near the hearth. She slammed the door behind her, putting a barrier between them and the Kaalipha.

  “You’ve grown in the last few weeks. But you still can’t keep your hair bound up properly.” Myri smoothed a stray strand of hair from the girl’s face.

  The musky smell of Kalen’s familiar was absent. Myri didn’t like the weasel like creature that had adopted Kalen soon after they settled in the clearing. “Did your ferret follow you from the clearing?”

  “I . . . um . . . my familiar isn’t in Hanassa.” Kalen buried her face against Myri, clinging to her tightly. “Will you brush my hair later? Do you remember the hours you spent brushing it when we lived in the clearing? What made you shove all this stuff in front of the door? Is the baby all right?”

  “Her name is Amaranth. My baby must be Amaranth.” Myri gently disengaged Kalen’s fierce hug and settled into the padded chair, the baby feeding greedily.

  Kalen froze. “You’d only allow that if Amaranth had died.”

  “I felt him die. I almost died with him. The pain. Oh, Kalen, the pain was terrible . . .” Tears gathered in her eyes at last. “We have to find Powwell and get out of here, Kalen,” Myri whispered so that Yaassima, safely in the other room, couldn’t hear. “We have to keep Amaranth away from the Kaalipha and away from Televarn’s people. We have to warn Nimbulan. Amaranth didn’t have time to tell him that Televarn plans to kill him as well as my brother.”

  “Maybe we should let him. What did Nimbulan do for you after he’d seduced you, left you pregnant, and then exiled you?”

  Powwell slipped from the shadow of the cave mouth into the slightly lighter blackness of the open street. The Rover guards dozed before their fire within the cave, seemingly unaware that one of their slaves was escaping. Where could he go? There was only one known exit from Hanassa—a gate controlled by the Kaalipha’s magic.

  He wasn’t certain enough of the way Televarn had brought the captives into Hanassa to be sure there was a true exit beneath the palace.

  If he had to resort to drawing blood to find enough magic to open the regular gate tonight, Powwell would—after he found Kalen and Myri.

  You have to get me out of here! Kalen had called to him telepathically shortly after the Kaalipha’s elite guards had removed her from Televarn’s slave pens.

  I’ll get you all out, Powwell had sent back to her.

  Myri’s too ill. We’ll have to leave her behind. But you have to get me out. Soon, Powwell. Soon, please.

  That last message had bothered Powwell. He didn’t want to leave Myri behind. He’d promised Nimbulan he’d take care of the witchwoman. He’d promised.

  Thorny, he alerted the hedgehog before reaching inside his pocket to pet the miniature hedgehog. The timid creature kept his spines relaxed and soft. Calming energy soothed Powwell’s fears and firmed his resolve.

  Time had run out. He had to get Kalen and Myri out of Hanassa tonight. This morning he’d watched as two of the Kaalipha’s personal guards, uniformed and sober, had slapped chains and a gag on Kalen and dragged her into the palace. Usually such rough handling preceded an execution.

  He placed each foot soundlessly in front of him. He’d make less noise if he ran barefoot along the baked mud roadway. Impractical at best, even in warmer weather. No one maintained the roads here. Cracks, stones, and refuse littered them, traps for the unwary.

  At the next cave mouth, Powwell paused, listening with every sense available to him. Thorny wiggled a little, adding his senses to Powwell’s. Light snores filtered through the darkness. Two, no, three people slept within. He peered with his Sight beyond Sight into the interior; an easy spell that didn’t require much strength. The fire had burned down to a few shapeless coals. He should be safe crossing in front of the opening. If anyone were still awake, they’d have built up the fire on this freezing night. At least there wouldn’t be snow. This high desert rarely saw any moisture at all.

  He looked up through the tunnel-like opening of the city walls to check the stars. The great wheel had turned past midnight. The guards should be dozing. He ran soundlessly toward the first of seven rock outcroppings strewn across the bowl of the crater that housed the city of Hanassa. Mud huts clustered around ea
ch of the outcroppings. The jumble of buildings and pathways created a mapless maze.

  The setting moon hid behind the crater walls. Faint starlight glimmered just brightly enough on the minerals embedded in the rocks to show him a rough outline of obstacles. He paused, wrapping the deepest shadows around him like a cloak. He checked landmarks, orienting himself to his memorized path. The escape had to succeed tonight. If he was caught, he’d never get another chance.

  He counted his heartbeats. One hundred. The sentry should pass in front of him now. He detected no movement, no sound. Where was the man? The next leg of Powwell’s journey across the outlaws’ city was the most exposed. He had to wait for the sentry to pass before proceeding.

  At last he heard a faint trickle of water. Ah! The sentry taking a piss. Couldn’t he use the latrine at the beginning of his patrol route?

  Powwell wrinkled his nose in disgust. He couldn’t get out of this hole in the mountains soon enough. He’d wasted too much time learning Hanassa and its routines. During those weeks of patient observing, he’d become so frightened by the violence and cruelty of the outlaws that he would resort to blood magic to get Kalen and Myrilandel out of here.

  Yaassima had killed her consort because he was liked by the outlaws of Hanassa and therefore threatened her control over him and the inhabitants. Then she had killed her own daughter because the girl refused to dip her hands into her father’s blood.

  He shuddered in revulsion. He’d seen Moncriith in the city yesterday. Moncriith also reveled in blood. If he and Yaassima teamed up, no one in the city would live long.

  A little blood magic paled in comparison to the river of death Powwell imagined running through Hanassa.

  Thorny puffed up inside Powwell’s pocket.