The Silent Dragon: Children of The Dragon Nimbus #1

by Irene Radford

  But these tunnels are too damp for her. I must walk them alone, make my own judgments, and report back to her. I learn more without her thoughts clouding my own.

  I know that Glenndon is my enemy, but . . . he has become a friend.

  My lovely yanks my thoughts back to her purpose. I did not know she could do that from such a distance.

  What is this Well of Power? I have found nothing about it in the archives. Curse the magicians. They have stolen every book about magic and taken them away. Knowledge is power. Without knowledge of this well, this source of power, it will remain intact, a way for the magicians to always work magic even after I destroy the dragons.

  My lovely insists that the dragons are the true curse to this land and must be eliminated first. Who knew such a cute little creature could be so wise. Its voracious appetite bodes well for good growth into a formidable weapon. I will need it when we face down the dragons.

  First things first. Bring the dragons down, and that will force the magicians to seek the Well to continue their cruel domination of normal humans. I shall follow them and that will be their undoing. A well is easily poisoned. Easier than poisoning the king. That did not go as planned. The well is secret and therefore unguarded. All I have to do is watch and wait.

  After I take my army to the dragon trap. What to use as bait? Rather, who to use as bait?

  My lovely tells me that we must sacrifice someone important. I do not like . . . My lovely will not be denied.

  Jaylor bent over the double cot where Valeria and Lillian slept. Gently he kissed Val’s brow. “Time to get up, little one.”

  “Why? It’s still dark.” Valeria rolled over and draped an arm around her twin without opening her eyes.

  “I need you both to come with me as my extra eyes.”

  “Call Indigo. And you have Glenndon in the city already. Someone has to stay here and take care of Mama and watch the masters,” Lillian finished the thought.

  “Marcus and Robb will take care of the University. They are better able to mend breaches with those who waver in their loyalty. Lukan can take care of Mama and the little ones. He thirsts for responsibility. Let him prove himself now and earn his staff when I return. Now hurry, we haven’t much time.” He prodded both girls with a shake of the shoulders and a stab into their minds.

  “I don’t want to go,” Valeria shook off his heavy hand and absorbed his mental probe like a knife through butter, in one side and out the other. He blocked it from returning to him, not willing to endure another headache.

  “Think about it while you eat.” Jaylor prodded them both again, more vigorously.

  What if I stay here until after Da leaves? Valeria asked her sister. She was so sleepy she didn’t bother guarding her thoughts from her father.

  “You have to be ready to transport when he’s ready or he’ll leave us behind.” Lillian grabbed Val’s arm and dragged her out of the bed. She continued to hold onto her twin as she turned her around to face the pitcher and ewer beside the clothes press.

  “That’s what I thought I said. I want to get left behind,” Val protested.

  “Val, this is important,” Jaylor said firmly.

  “If Da wants us to go to the city with him, then we have to go,” Lillian insisted. “Think how exciting it will be to actually see the city, stone buildings, bridges, ordinary people. Markets!”

  “If you are so excited about going, then go. I want to stay here. I never want to leave this mountain. There are no dragons in the city.” She turned back toward the bed.

  “We’ll get to see Glenndon again,” Jaylor reminded them. Sometimes he had to work around his daughter’s stubbornness (so like his own) like water seeking a leak in the roof, entering one place, wiggling around and appearing elsewhere.

  That made Valeria pause. “I truly and surely miss Glenndon.”

  “If you won’t go, then I can’t go.” Lillian pouted. She tossed her sunlit blonde and red braid over her shoulder and turned her back on her twin.

  “Why not?”

  “You know why.”

  Jaylor raised his eyebrows in question. Both girls clamped their mouths and minds shut, barring him from entrance.

  Perhaps Brevelan understood the secrets of teenage girls better than he did.

  An hour later, having made sure the girls ate as much honey-laced porridge as they could swallow, Jaylor led them to the center of the clearing, where Brevelan awaited them.

  Brevelan. He hated leaving her. Hated it every time he flew off on Baamin’s back to battle more Krakatrices. Though there hadn’t been another sighting for several weeks now. His heart ached worse than usual. He pulled his wife into his arms, burying his face in her hair, drinking in her unique scent.

  “If I ever get lost, I need only think of bread baking, flowers growing, and your sparkling blue eyes to pull me home,” he said, then kissed her soundly.

  “Do you have everything?” She gestured to a pile of satchels and bags scattered at their feet.

  He cupped her face with both of his hands. “I don’t have you following behind me, my love.” His only love.

  “My adventuring days are over.” She glanced at Jule and Sharl playing with a tame gray scurry, its bushy tail curling upward and tiny front paws holding a nut the children had given it. A curious flusterhen squawked and pecked at the seeds lumped into Sharl’s apron. She was supposed to be feeding the flock, not playing with a wild pest.

  “We had some interesting times when we journeyed together.” Jaylor smiled.

  “Go, dearest Jaylor,” Brevelan said. “Take the girls and teach them something of civilized behavior while you are there.”

  She turned away from him and gathered both girls into her arms, clinging to them as desperately as she had Jaylor. Sometime in the last few months the twins had grown taller than their mother (Valeria not quite so much as her sister, but still taller), and she had to stretch to enfold them into her embrace. “I shall miss you both,” she whispered, kissing each girl on the cheek, then holding them tight again.

  Jaylor chuckled. “I wonder if the princesses will teach them manners or if our twins will show the prim little girls how to run wild and steal onions on Market Isle.”

  “As you did for a young prince sorely in need of a friend?” They both laughed. Brevelan stepped away from her girls and pushed them gently toward Jaylor.

  “What are they talking about?” Lillian whispered.

  “I don’t know, but I think they are sharing a part of their past they don’t want us to know about.”

  “Oh.” Lillian sounded disappointed. “They never kept much from us before.”

  “Except that bit about King Darville being Glenndon’s father.”

  “I wonder how that happened.”

  “You won’t find out by whispering behind our backs,” Brevelan said. She speared them with a reprimanding gaze. Then she clasped her arms around Jaylor’s waist and gave him one last fierce squeeze. “Take care of yourself and our girls. Don’t make me come after you.”

  “I’ll do my best. But I might just go looking for trouble so you will come after me.” He kissed her nose and stepped away, slinging a pack over one shoulder and slipping his other arm through the straps of another. “Grab your bags, girls, and hold on to me tight. One on each side.”

  Valeria and Lillian stepped into the circle he’d drawn in the grass with pebbles long ago. Brevelan backed away.

  Jaylor opened his mind to Valeria and Lillian, showing them an image of a dark storeroom. Barrels and boxes were stacked neatly around the sides, leaving the middle of the room open. “See the empty space, girls. Fix it in your mind. Firmly. Don’t let your thoughts wander from that spot. Lillian? See the room.”

  “I can’t, Da. It’s all fuzzy.”

  Valeria sighed and reached around in
front of him. Lillian’s hand grabbed her so that they made a circle. Now can you see it?

  Lillian nodded.

  “Good. Now hang on tight and don’t let that room move so much as a feather’s width from your vision.” Jaylor counted slowly, evenly, timing his breathing to his count. Valeria matched him. Lillian joined in, after a quick mental prod. “Here we go,” he said when their hearts and lungs and minds fell into identical rhythms, matching the pulse of the Kardia beneath their feet and the song of the wind in the tree canopy.

  Darkness swirled around them. Jaylor caught a brief glimpse of the bright tangled cords of life tying them together. Then more darkness that spun around and around them in ever tightening spirals until . . .

  CHAPTER 36

  INDIGO BRUSHED HIS FACE against Glenndon’s calf, nearly knocking him over.

  “What?” Glenndon froze in place as soon as he regained his balance. He wished Linda had ignored her mother’s panic and come with him. But they couldn’t leave Mikka raising an alarm and hurting so deeply over the possible loss of her daughter.

  They just couldn’t. He’d have gone back to Mama in a similar situation.

  The flywacket chirruped like a normal cat, not using his intelligent mental voice.

  “We know that the official archives are in the East Tower. They aren’t the magical archives left behind at the Leaving. Do you know where we need to look next?”

  (Down.)

  “That’s what I was afraid of.” Glenndon shuddered at the thought of the weight of the river and tons of dirt and rock pressing upon the tunnel. He knew the river sought an opening, any opening, to collapse the stones on top of him . . .

  Indigo chirruped again, sounding very much like laughter. (Dig deeper.)

  “That’s not much help. We’ll start with the Well.” He plodded down the steps and along the main passage.

  (Down,) Indigo repeated.

  “Not tonight. We’ll look for the archives another time. We only have a few hours to explore tonight.”

  (Down.) Indigo scampered ahead of him. The light beneath his feet seemed to dim.

  Glenndon continued on, following the ley lines, looking for patterns in the joining and separation of the lines, noting now-familiar landmark runes as he turned this way and that.

  Indigo stopped and turned a full circle, nose working rapidly.

  Glenndon gathered a glow ball into his palm.

  A flitter of movement down a side passage, where the lines did not wander, captured his attention. Not Indigo. The flywacket had pranced ahead along the main passage, his bushy tail gathering dust and cobwebs. This other movement, here and gone in less than a heartbeat belonged to someone else. An eavesdropper? Or some other denizen of the deep?

  He should have sensed a presence. But he’d been so engrossed with the ley lines that the Kardia could have quaked and shaken the wall stones loose and he’d not have noticed.

  Who? he asked Indigo.

  A mental shrug akin to his own silent responses to questions. (No smell.)

  Everyone has a smell.

  (Masked.)

  He caught a whiff of acrid smoke, a common odor close to hearth fires that were quenched with water when they grew too hot. An odor strong enough to hide behind, but not so strong or alien as to alert Glenndon. Someone stalked him. At a distance. Or someone who knew the oversized black cat would be with him set and doused a fire deliberately to produce masking smoke. Someone who knew that Indigo’s sense of smell would alert him to the stalker.

  Glenndon gazed longingly at the tangle of ley lines that merged and grew fat, lush with power at the junction just ahead, the junction that plunged downward into the bedrock beneath the river. He was close to the Well. He knew it.

  His stalker must not be allowed to find it. Anyone who couldn’t find it on their own didn’t have enough talent to know what to do with the source of power.

  The one who followed in secrecy could not be allowed to suspect how close they were to the Well.

  Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Indigo?

  (Games?)

  Yes!

  Glenndon made a show of turning in a circle, holding up his glow ball. He examined a number of cracks and crevices, the floor, the ceiling. He sent a spider scuttling to safety away from the center of its web. A mouse squeaked as it fled into a tiny hidey-hole. A tiny lumpy black snake slithered rapidly away, avoiding the puddles. After several minutes of appearing lost, Glenndon turned resolutely back the way he’d come and then darted along a wide passage with a dwindling ley line sliding along the wall at about knee level.

  The rune at the beginning of this tunnel looked like a loaf of bread. He headed toward the kitchens.

  Indigo scampered off in the opposite direction, mewling and chirruping as if he chased prey.

  He’d never get lost down here.

  Hm. What would it take to push his pursuer into wandering down a looping dead end for a very long time before stumbling on a way out?

  Glenndon could discover the stalker’s identity by counting heads at court and seeing who was missing. Only his father had dismissed the court and the Council. The lords and their retainers had departed for their own lands, or residences in the city. Many were missing.

  The smell of yeast and flour enticed him forward. The cooks had set the day’s bread to rise. His stomach growled in response. He still hadn’t replenished his energy reserves since working that healing spell with Linda the previous afternoon. He had the perfect excuse to slip into the storeroom and thence into the larder for some fruit and cheese. He’d even welcome some stale, day-old bread or jerked meat.

  A new sound made him stop short in the act of opening the trapdoor that would allow him access to a small clear spot created by an odd stacking of storage barrels. From inside the room, no one would suspect this empty space. Had it been created by a spy?

  The air thrummed with power. He tasted the aromatic spice of Tambootie. The delicate new leaves at the tops of the trees rather than the fat, oil-rich, succulent leaves lower down.

  He tensed and watched as the air in the center of the room glowed and sparkled. Only one person would dare use a transport spell into the bowels of the palace.

  From between two barrels he peered at the shifting light. Three forms coalesced out of the shimmer. The magical light faded quickly replaced by a glow ball in the palm of the central figure. Tall, broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, with dark auburn hair and a tightly braided formal queue.

  “Da!” Glenndon stood up and vaulted over the precariously balanced barrels. He hurried to hug Jaylor in relief. The sight of the twins stopped him. “Why?” he pointed at the girls, suddenly tongue-tied. He couldn’t see their faces very well in the dim light.

  “We’ve come to help,” Lillian said. “Haven’t we, Val. Val?” she repeated herself when her twin failed to speak up.

  The smaller of the two girls wilted. Glenndon just barely caught her before she slumped to the floor. “What did you do, Valeria? Manage the entire transport spell yourself?”

  “She couldn’t do that!” Da insisted. “Shouldn’t be able to. She has no training, nor does she know the secret. The lifesaving secret.”

  Glenndon knew better.

  “Now what?” Darville yelled at whoever pounded on the door to his suite at this horrible hour before dawn. Not even the birds that cheeped at the first glow of sunlight on the horizon were awake yet. The only sign of life in the palace, in the city, was the smell of new bread rising.

  He sat in a large, padded chair by the hearth, hair unbound, sleep shirt and robe rumpled, sleepless with worry. What was he going to do about a divided and angry Council? A Council he’d dismissed.

  He looked into the empty goblet that dangled from his fingers. No, he dared not drink more. Especially now that dawn app
roached. He needed to be awake and aware, not dulled and sluggish.

  Mikka stirred in the big bed, moaning slightly at the disturbance but not coming fully awake. She needed rest. More than she was willing to give herself.

  The pounding renewed itself with increased vigor.

  Darville stalked to the door. If the pounding hadn’t awakened Mikka, his own footsteps wouldn’t. He opened the door a crack to peer into the long corridor reserved for royal family quarters.

  “Father,” Glenndon whispered, trying hard to keep his wide smile from splitting his face.

  “This had better be good news,” Darville growled.

  “Come,” Glenndon said and beckoned him to follow toward his own room. His smile never faltered.

  Darville stepped into the corridor, closing the door silently behind him. “What?” he whispered to his son. Mikka might sleep through a kardiaquake. The servants and retainers in the wing wouldn’t.

  Glenndon just urged him forward with an imperious wave of the hand he could have learned only from Linda.

  An enormous black cat brushed its face against Darville’s leg. He nearly jumped with fright. He hadn’t seen a cat in the palace since . . . Ambassador Jack had banished the cat spirit from Mikka’s body fifteen years ago. The cat chirruped and nearly attached itself to Glenndon’s heels, tail high and fluffy, ears twitching with normal awareness but no alarm.

  Then with great ceremony Glenndon opened his own door and bowed as nicely as any practiced courtier, for Darville to precede him.

  “You’ve been working hard on your technique,” Darville complimented him, not relaxing his wariness.

  “Linda,” Glenndon replied.

  The cat agreed with him with a purr and more face rubbing. Absently Glenndon reached down and scratched between its fuzzy ears. It had tufts growing out of them and more whiskers than any cat had a right to.

  Darville resisted the urge to add his own caress. Somehow it seemed like betrayal of Mikka to accept the cat.