Dragon Nimbus Novels: Vol II, The

by Irene Radford

  Ackerly wanted the magic to prove the men honest or tricksters. He didn’t have enough magic to not use it whenever possible.

  Within the trance, Ackerly gathered power in his belly until it expanded throughout his chest and flowed down his arm into the staff. The flowing grain of the wood glowed blue with brilliant green sparks all along the length. He pushed more power into the staff until it rose of its own accord and pointed at the three men.

  Sweat broke out on his brow. His shoulders trembled with the strain of maintaining the flow of power. He didn’t have the ability or skill to tap a ley line to fuel the magic. Only his own stamina produced the energy for this spell. He’d have to finish soon or drain himself of all strength.

  He almost wished the Tambootie worked for him. He could use some enhancement right now.

  More power into the staff. The wood glowed with heat, burning his hand. More power still and the blue light shot from the end of the magical tool into a cloud of sparkling dust that settled upon the soldiers. Blue truth glowed around their heads in a brilliant aura for all to see.

  “Ooo!” a camp follower in a patched green dress cooed. She reached a hesitant hand to capture some of the glowing dust. “So pretty.” She sprinkled the dust in her hair and pranced in front of her customers.

  Ackerly lowered his staff to the ground and leaned heavily upon it. His arms and legs trembled with fatigue.

  “If any of you had lied, the truth spell would have turned red and burned right through you, leaving only a skeleton,” he said. An exaggeration to be sure, but such demonstrations kept the crowd honest. None of them would ever dare lie to Ackerly again. They might even pay him to find out if a comrade lied. That was worth the fatigue and hunger that gnawed at his belly and brought stabbing pains behind his eyes.

  “What should we do about the flywacket?” The sergeant stepped forward, ready to stand by his men now that they were proved truthful.

  “Did you capture it or the girl?” Ackerly asked.

  “No. They disappeared without leaving a trail.”

  “Which direction?”

  “East.”

  Moncriith was headed east. If the girl and her familiar could be found, the Bloodmage would be the one to root them out of their hiding place. How could he make Moncriith pay for this information?

  “Send a small patrol with tracking dogs that way. Report back here if you find anything. Anything at all. If you find nothing, return here at this hour tomorrow. I must discuss this with the other magicians.” He bowed deeply and stepped back toward the tent. He wished he could fade into the shadows and disappear like Nimbulan could. Like the witchwoman seemed to have done.

  But he couldn’t. He could only retreat like an ordinary man.

  Chapter 9

  “Why don’t we wait for torches and assistants?” Quinnault de Tanos remained three steps behind Nimbulan as the magician measured the long corridor with his paces. Pale yellow sunlight pierced the interior gloom in long streaks through the narrow windows.

  “I can see fine,” Nimbulan replied. “Sixty-seven . . . sixty-eight . . . sixty-nine. I want to find the kitchens. Maybe someone left some food. Seventy . . . seventy-one . . . seventy-two paces,” he said.

  They’d found a motheaten blanket, probably threadbare before the priests left, upon a stone bed carved into one of the small cells. Nimbulan had stumbled over a broken sandal in the bathing chamber. Nothing else remained. No furniture, no clothing or linens or decorations. Nothing.

  “How long has this place been empty?” Nimbulan asked as he tried the door handle in the middle of the long passageway. He couldn’t move the latch with brute strength. Briefly he wondered if magic would remove the weight of years and rust on the mechanism.

  “My father explored the place as a teenager. My grandfather mentioned once that he might remember someone living here during his childhood. Caretaker, squatter, or priest, I have no idea.” De Tanos turned in circles as he walked, surveying the masonry and the view from narrow arched windows. Even the storm shutters had been removed.

  “Help me with this door, please.” Nimbulan stood straight and rubbed his shoulder where he had shoved against the wooden panels.

  Together they leaned their combined weight into the door while Nimbulan wiggled the latch with a releasing spell. The handle lifted, but the door remained firmly closed.

  “We can come back later with tools and more men, Nimbulan,” Quinnault said. “The kitchens should be in one of the wings, near an end, not in the center. No sense in burning the entire structure if a cooking fire blazed out of control.”

  “Yes. Logical. But this secured door puzzles me. Every other door is wide open to the wind and the elements. The stone beneath each window is heavily damaged by repeated rain and sunlight. What is so special behind this door that it alone is locked and protected?” He stared at the door one more time, trying to pry its secrets free of the closed panels.

  No images stirred his imagination.

  He paced to the other end of the corridor. Seventy-two steps. The closed room sat in the exact center of the monastery.

  “Did anyone ever offer a reason for the priests leaving this place?” He hastened to catch up with Quinnault who had turned into the eastern wing of the one-story structure. Only the central portion of the U-shaped building rose to a second story. They hadn’t discovered access to basements. On these islands, the water table might be too high to allow digging a deep foundation.

  “I have heard only rumors of the haunting. Was the guardian spirit a ghost?” Quinnault poked his head into another empty room, this one larger than the individual cells of the residential wing—a refectory perhaps?

  “It didn’t act like a ghost. Most spirits of the dead are rather lost and bewildered, seeking guidance to the void between the planes of existence.”

  Keegan would have been a ghost without Nimbulan’s help. Why, Keegan? Why did you make me kill you? The pain was still too new and raw to dismiss. The guardian had relieved his other annoying little guilts, but not that one. He must have done something wrong in bringing up the boy.

  “The kitchen is through here.” De Tanos led the way through a low doorway at the end of the corridor.

  Nimbulan added up his mental count of the length of the corridor. Forty-eight paces. The east and west wings were the same size. The south-facing central wing was almost twice that length as well as double in height.

  Three narrow stairs brought him down into a room that took up half the wing. Two massive fireplaces, one on each outside wall showed sooty stains around and above the hearth. They’d been swept clean of ashes, but no amount of scrubbing would remove the smoky stains. Kindling and firewood lay neatly prepared for the touch of a flame. Long worktables stretched down the center of the room, clean and clear of equipment or debris. The scrub sinks were equally clean and empty.

  Someone had taken time to clean and tidy up—as if they didn’t want to leave a mess for the next cook.

  Quinnault’s footsteps echoed eerily across the stone flooring. Nimbulan tried to walk more silently. The extreme emptiness of the entire building suddenly struck him. Noise of any kind seemed out-of-place.

  Nimbulan forced himself to speak in normal tones rather than whisper. The vast emptiness made the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

  Had the guardian spirit come back?

  He looked around. No writhing mist awaited them.

  “The last inhabitants weren’t attacked and driven out. Not if they took time to clean the kitchen. Perhaps a plague decimated their numbers and they combined with another facility.” Quinnault opened cupboards to reveal more emptiness.

  “Perhaps. A hot, wet summer could breed any number of diseases in stagnant pools among these islands.” Nimbulan drifted toward the pantries and storerooms at the west end of the room.

  “My people have never suffered any plagues living on the islands or nearby shoreline. Summers are either hot and dry or cool and wet. But the river is consta
nt. The tides from the Great Bay keep the level fairly regular, regardless of rainfall or snowmelt.”

  “We must search further for answers. Perhaps another monastery has records. De Tanos, can you light the fire someone so kindly left us? I’m still rather damp and chilled.”

  “Not without a firestone and tinder. Is there a firebox around? My magic is too minimal to generate flames.”

  “What can you do? That’s the first spell I learned.” Nimbulan stomped back to the hearth. An image of flames dancing merrily among the kindling brightened his mind. With a snap of his fingers and two words to trigger the spell, he transferred the image from his mind to the reality of the hearth.

  Flames licked eagerly at the dry wood.

  “I never wanted to be a magician. I only wanted to be a priest. When I try very hard, I can pick up people’s thoughts. It’s so much work though, I haven’t tried since I passed the preliminary examinations.” Quinnault didn’t drop his head in shame at his paltry talent.

  Ackerly would have.

  Nimbulan smiled at the comparison. Successful magic was as much a matter of attitude as talent. De Tanos would have been a very good priest, and his magic—the ability to help people confide their troubles so he could find ways to help them—would have grown. Ackerly’s talent, though stronger than the lord’s, hadn’t improved one bit in thirty years of constant practice, because he wanted to have more rather than work to improve what he had.

  Too bad Ackerly had no respect for his wonderful talent as an administrator. Nimbulan and his apprentices depended upon Ackerly every day.

  “At least you can build up the fire while I poke around the pantry, Quinnault. There might be more wood in the firebox by the back door.”

  The pantry door opened as easily as all of the others, except the center room. Again, Nimbulan found shelves and cupboards swept clean. “Do you know what’s really missing? Cobwebs and mice droppings. It’s almost as if someone cleans this place from top to bottom frequently.”

  “Maybe the guardian kept the vermin out as well as people.” De Tanos leaned against the pantry door, blocking what little light filtered in from the kitchen. The three high windows in the outside wall offered little illumination.

  “Possibly, or . . .” Nimbulan sniffed the air and stamped his feet. “I wish that pool of ley lines hadn’t been barricaded. I sense magic of some sort, but I can’t tell the nature or source. Maybe there’s a stasis spell on the monastery. Nothing changes until someone breaks the spell.”

  “In which case, our coming here, and the guardian’s disappearance may have disrupted the magic field enough to erode the spell. Will the walls come tumbling down once the magic dissolves?” Quinnault looked anxiously at the thick stone walls surrounding them.

  “I doubt the mortar will crumble so quickly. How’s your fire?”

  “Fine. Did you find anything in here?”

  Nimbulan peered into the pantry. He held his left palm up and brought a hint of magic into his vision. The shadows took on definite lines, still black on gray, but with outlines and texture.

  A single journey pack sat in the center of the middle wall of shelves. He approached the bundle with care.

  “What do you see?” De Tanos moved into the room, one hand extended into the gloom to find obstacles before he tripped over them.

  “A trap perhaps. I don’t know. I am suspicious of something so conspicuous in an otherwise empty building.” Nimbulan spread his hand above the pack. Tendrils of magic shot from his fingertips into the heavy leather seeking answers.

  He shifted his vision to InterSight. Radiant shades of green surrounded the pack, indicating heat. The temperature beneath his fingertips did not change.

  Something within the pack quivered in answer to his magic probe. Nimbulan traced the outline of the minute vibrations. A thin “string” of power drifted away from the core. When he touched it, an image of a closed door rose in his mind. A door very like the one in the center of the abandoned monastery.

  “A trap or a clue, I’m not sure.” He followed the now-glowing, green “string” around the pantry to the door, one finger extended just above it, maintaining the sensation of a long-dormant being rousing from sleep.

  Quinnault walked behind him, two paces back. The lord kept one hand on the hilt of his short sword.

  The magic led them through the kitchen, up the three steps to the corridor, and along the passageway to the intersection of the main hall. The image of a locked door grew stronger, more vivid.

  “Curious. I’ve never seen a spell constructed so subtly.”

  “Is the guardian present in the spell?” Quinnault asked, looking around for the column of fire or mist.

  “I can’t determine the signature in the weaving. Only the presence of something that has waited a long time.” Nimbulan paused at the locked door. The magic led through the keyhole. He touched the lock with his questing finger.

  Again the pack flashed through his mind. This time the image hovered beside the lock.

  The metal latch grew warm under Nimbulan’s finger. “If I’m following the clues properly, we need to bring the pack here.”

  “It could be a trap.”

  “It could, but I don’t think so. There is no hint of malice in this magic.”

  “But you said it was a subtle spell. The violent intent could be buried beneath layers of innuendo and diverting spells.”

  “You learned your magic theory well, Quinnault de Tanos,” Nimbulan said. “But I am a Battlemage. I am well-versed in all forms of destructive magic. No. This spell has the feel of curiosity, intelligence, and a quest for knowledge.”

  “Why don’t we leave this for another day when you have the backup of your assistants and apprentices?” de Tanos asked. “The day grows late. If we are to get off the island, we should start now.”

  “How? Our boat sank.”

  “The causeway is clear at low tide. There are farms and the family keep on the next island. I have other boats to take you back to camp.”

  “Why didn’t you say so? Here I’ve been thinking we were stranded and would have to signal a fisherman with a fire after dark.”

  “Like as not, the fisherman would see the signal as evidence of haunting spirits and stay away.”

  “How long will the causeway be clear? I want to investigate this puzzle while we’re here.”

  “Several hours. When the moon is full in spring and autumn and the tides run high, the passage can be dangerous, but not today.”

  “Good. Come with me. We need to bring the pack to the door. But it must not stray from the path of the magic I followed here.”

  Moments later, Nimbulan held the slight bulk of the pack beside the lock. Slowly, testing for undue warmth or stabs of light, he pressed the old leather to the latch. A faint hum filled the corridor.

  “What? Where?” Quinnault spun, belt dagger extended, seeking the source of the increasing noise.

  Bouncing balls of green, blue, and unholy red witchfire joined the hum reverberating around the passageway.

  Nimbulan dropped the pack, pressing his hands against his ears. He didn’t quite dare close his eyes against the bright witchfire. He had the sense that while he watched them dart around, they wouldn’t attack him.

  Quinnault ducked a buzzing blue ball, slashing at it with the flat of his blade. The noise grew to an intolerable level. He dropped the dagger to press his hands against his ears. The clatter of metal against stone barely registered against the incredible whine of sound.

  Suddenly the witchfire flashed and died. The hum ceased.

  Nimbulan’s ears rang in the silence.

  The latch clicked open quietly.

  He looked from the latch to the crumpled leather on the floor. Jerked meat and dried fruit spilled from the pack. He bent to touch the journey provisions. They seemed real.

  The door opened a tiny crack. He pushed gently against the panels. The hinges didn’t creak. No dust met his nose.

  He looked closer.
Light spilled into a vast room around the edges of many closed shutters. A sense of warmth and welcome surrounded him. He sniffed for magic and found only the special scent of vellum and leather.

  “Books? Lots and lots of books!” He raced to the nearest window, throwing open the shutters. These, too, opened without protest or signs of age.

  He turned slowly, holding his breath with anticipation. Walls and walls of books awaited him.

  Chapter 10

  “You’ve returned at last.” Ackerly scowled at Nimbulan. He had said he’d return before sunset, and so he had, barely. Ackerly’s anxious waiting hadn’t made the time pass faster, adding to his irritation.

  “You won’t believe the adventures I’ve had today, Ackerly. Lord Quinnault and I found the most amazing treasures.” The Battlemage brushed past his assistant in the doorway to the large pavilion. The glowing aura of the setting sun behind Nimbulan’s back followed him into the tent.

  Ackerly shied away from the energy his friend radiated. That yellow-gold aura effectively barred Ackerly from sharing Nimbulan’s thoughts and enthusiasms.

  “Lord Kammeryl has been looking for you most of the day. Some amazing things have happened here as well.” Annoyance bristled the hair on the back of Ackerly’s neck. Nimbulan positively bounced as he walked. “Will you stop for a moment and listen, Lan? Maybe you need some Tambootie to settle you.”

  “I’ve never felt better, Acker. Send a page for Lord Kammeryl now. I need to tell him that you and I and the boys will be spending the winter away from his fortress. We leave as soon after dawn as Lord Quinnault can send a barge for our books and equipment. Books—” He trailed off in a kind of dazed reverie. His aura increased in size, if that was possible.

  “We can’t leave Lord Kammeryl d’Astrismos! He depends upon you for protection. We depend upon him for employment.” Ackerly’s supper formed a lump in his belly. What would he do for food and shelter away from the lord’s stronghold? The thought of weathering the winter storms outside the snug warmth of his room near the kitchen filled him with dread. No more tasty tidbits pressed upon him by the scullery maid. No more stolen kisses and frantic fumblings with the wenches in the armory. No more gold paid out every moon.