Dragon Nimbus Novels: Vol II, The

by Irene Radford

  The thought of Kalen suffering the agony of that fire hot enough to melt rock, while still alive, nearly made Powwell ill.

  “If Yaassima survived, where is Kalen? Tssonin, where is Kalen?” Desperate hope propelled him upward to face the dragon. “You’ve got to tell me what happened to her.”

  “Tssonin says that he only found Yaassima because she doesn’t belong in the void. If your sister remains there, then she is fated to learn something important from the life forces that shroud her from dragon senses.”

  “What does that mean? Tell me what that means.” Powwell turned on Myri. All his frustration and anger and fear pulsed in his throat. He needed to lash out at something. The dragon was an easy target. Suicide to try.

  Tssonin opened his mouth and breathed fire, renewing the wall between Moncriith and the refugees. Powwell shrank away from the evidence of the dragon’s power.

  “We don’t know what Tssonin means, Powwell. Dragon communication is usually cryptic.” Nimbulan placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

  Powwell shrugged it off. “I have to go find her.”

  (That route is dangerous. You have much to learn before you can enter the void and learn with safety.) A young blue-tipped dragon joined Tssonin on the ledge above the canyon. (Seannin,) the dragon announced his name.

  The dragon’s words rocked within Powwell’s mind. A headache pounded behind his eyes. “Then teach me what I need to know,” he demanded. “I have to find Kalen.”

  Moncriith raised a mundane bow and shot an arrow through the dragon flames that separated him from his quarry. Wood, metal, and feathers penetrated where magic couldn’t.

  Seannin breathed a new stream of green fire. The spinning shaft exploded and dropped to the Kardia in a flutter of ash.

  “We seem to be at an impasse, Moncriith,” Nimbulan said. “The dragons protect us from you. But they do not protect Yaassima. We will depart.”

  “Seannin and Tssonin, will you fly us to the capital?” Myri asked politely.

  “We may still be in time to stop the wedding,” Nimbulan said, heading toward Seannin, dragging Myri and Yaala with him.

  “It’s already too late,” Moncriith called. “King Lorriin will invade anyway. We want more from Coronnan than just a marriage treaty. He needs your arable land and farmers. SeLenicca can never be nurtured by any but the Stargods. I intend to give him what he needs—for a price—once I rule Coronnan as the Stargods dictate I must.”

  Tssonin breathed a new ring of flames around Moncriith and his men, preventing them from menacing the refugees as they clambered aboard the dragons.

  “Do you suppose we really conceived a child this night?” Katie asked, pressing her hands against her flat belly.

  Quinnault looked at the pale skin beneath her hands. An occasional freckle enticed his eye, beckoning him to search her entire body for more. He’d found most of them in the hours since midnight, after the wedding banquet.

  “If we haven’t made a child tonight, we’ll have to keep trying until we get it right.” He couldn’t stop smiling. He felt like an idiot, grinning until his face hurt. Loving Katie was the most natural, satisfying thing he’d ever done. The casual liaisons he’d indulged in paled in comparison to the joy he knew with Katie.

  Questions and problems of kingship faded whenever he thought of Katie. Her father had arrived for the wedding, suitably clothed as befitted the Crown Prince of Terrania. He hadn’t renewed his argument with Katie. When asked about progress on the new port he had nodded curtly and replied, “Before dawn.” He hadn’t said much else the entire evening.

  “I never thought I’d be lucky enough to have a child,” Katie said wistfully.

  “Why not?”

  “Pregnant women and small children are particularly vulnerable to the plague that attacks my people. It comes in waves every few generations. Usually it goes away, naturally, after three or four years and tens of thousands of deaths. This time it has lasted ten years and doesn’t look as if it’s waning. Any woman healthy enough to have children is afraid to have them. That is why we need so much of the Tambootie. We have to get the plague under control before our population dwindles to nothing.”

  Quinnault kissed the smooth skin just above where Katie’s hands still pressed against her stomach. “Your people will have as much of the tree of magic as the dragons can spare. The plague will be stopped,” he promised. A delicate quiver across her skin followed his trail of caresses upward. She reached to bring him higher, matching his passion in yet another long kiss.

  Her response to him delighted and awed him.

  His Katie.

  He released a satisfied sigh. “Wherever you come from Maarie Kaathliin, you belong here now, in Coronnan. With me.”

  “I never thought I’d be happy calling any port home except where I was born. But this certainly feels like home now.” She rested her head against his shoulder.

  For a moment they lay silent, enjoying the contented closeness. Her mind brushed his in a momentary deepening of their mutual joy. Then she withdrew, slowly, as if drifting into sleep, not the quick closing of a barrier.

  “I feel as if I’ve known you all my life,” Quinnault murmured sleepily. It had been a long day.

  “One day can be a lifetime,” she replied softly.

  He drifted on the edge of sleep, reluctant to give in to the clouds that pressed against his brain, lest he awaken and find Katie a mere dream.

  “I’m cold, Scarecrow. I’d like to get my shift.” She squirmed away from him.

  Reluctantly he let her go. The room seemed no cooler than usual for this time of year. “There’s an extra quilt in the wardrobe cupboard.” He rolled to his side, one arm draped across the empty space where Katie had been a few moments ago. Her scent lingered on the sheets. He inhaled deeply, anxious for her to return, too sleepy to follow her movements about the dim room.

  “Mind if I blow out the candle?” she asked from behind the privacy screen that led to the water closet.

  “Mmmmm . . .”

  The soft rumble of voices hovered just below his hearing. He shut out the brief annoyance. The palace never slept. Servants found chores and duties at all hours of the day and night.

  The rumble came closer, louder. A touch of anger colored the tones. He should get up and see what the fuss was about. No one was supposed to disturb him tonight, except for the most dire emergency. He’d had enough of those yesterday to last a lifetime.

  He half-opened one eye, willing the disturbance to go away and Katie to come back again. The tiny night lamp didn’t cast enough light to see her moving about. He hadn’t heard the wardrobe door open or close, nor the curtain to the water closet swish on its sliding rings, only the distant but angry voices. Kinnsell again? Where was Katie?

  He sat up, suddenly alert and alarmed.

  The voices grew louder, more insistent.

  “You can’t go in there!” the steward protested.

  “I must. The kingdom is in dire danger.” A new voice. One he hadn’t heard in several days. Hoped not to hear again until he had some answers. Nimbulan.

  “Open the door, Your Grace!” Fierce pounding followed the magician’s words.

  “Gently, Lan. We need calm and wisdom now,” a feminine voice soothed. A voice he barely recognized. But only one person alive used Nimbulan’s childhood nickname. A woman who had no business being in Coronnan at all.

  His exiled sister, Myrilandel.

  Nimbulan had broken the law by bring the witchwoman back to the capital. He’d been implicated in attempted murder and conspiracy. He’d deserted Quinnault when the king needed his advice.

  The door nearly buckled under fierce pounding.

  “Wait a minute, Nimbulan,” Quinnault yelled back angrily. He reached for his robe. “Katie?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Katie?” he asked a little louder.

  “Just a minute, Scarecrow. I’m . . . um . . . busy.” Her voice came from his dressing room. Not hers. No
t the water closet.

  “S’murghit, Katie what are you doing?” He swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

  “This won’t wait!” Nimbulan replied as the cross bar on the door flew across the room, toward the shuttered window. The door crashed to the floor. Light spilled into the room from the corridor revealing Katie leaning over a strange black box no bigger than her tiny palm, tapping a code into the bizarre apparatus.

  Chapter 37

  The door to Quinnault’s private chambers, in the center of the old keep, had landed on the stone floor with a resounding thunk. Nimbulan stared at the offending barrier with a glimmer of satisfaction. Some of his frustration echoed down the spiral staircase with the collapsing door.

  Some. Not all.

  The entire day had been one thwarted plan after another, followed by a series of long delays. Seannin and Tssonin had been the engineers of many stops along the journey to the capital. Granted, they were young dragons, unused to carrying the heavy load of six adults. Granted, they had all needed a bath and meal while the dragons rested. Granted, Nimbulan had benefited from an aerial view of King Lorriin’s troops hidden in the mountain pass near the border city of Sambol.

  But each stop and detour had pushed them past the time when Quinnault would wed the false princess from a nonexistent country. Now he had arrived too late to prevent the marriage, or the consummation of that marriage.

  He needed to smash something. The door hadn’t been enough.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Quinnault asked in outraged tones. His gaze flicked back and forth between Nimbulan and the princess—queen now—crouched over a strange black box.

  “That looks like one of my ’motes.” Yaala pushed past Nimbulan and crossed the room to the other woman in six long strides.

  “ ’Motes?” Quinnault and his bride asked in unison.

  “Yeah, they turn ’tricity on and off. The Kaalipha uses— used—them all of the time,” Yaala said with unusual enthusiasm. She hadn’t shown so much animation since Powwell had sabotaged the monstrous machines that powered Hanassa.

  “ ’Motes and ’tricity . . .” Queen Maarie Kaathliin murmured. “Remotes and electricity!” Her eyes brightened. “You have generators and remote controls? That’s impossible. The family covenant forbids technology on Kardia Hodos.”

  “If that was indeed what the Kaalipha of Hanassa possessed, they work no longer,” Nimbulan reminded them. He didn’t understand what the queen talked about. Maybe he could use her arcane knowledge to discredit her and end this marriage. “What were you doing, Your Grace?” He pointed at the black box.

  “This is none of your concern, Nimbulan,” Quinnault said sternly. His kingly dignity was severely impaired as he flipped the sheets back across his lap. “But there are several questionable matters that you need to answer for.” He stretched for a dressing gown, just beyond his reach on a nearby chair, while trying to keep himself covered.

  Beside Nimbulan, just inside the doorway, Myri sucked in her cheeks to keep from giggling.

  “The security of this kingdom is my concern, Your Grace,” Nimbulan said, trying very hard not to yell at his king. “I have reason to believe that your bride is a spy planted here by your enemies.”

  “This breech of . . . um . . . protocol is almost enough for me to label treason, Magician Nimbulan. On top of the charges of willfully bringing an exiled criminal within the borders of Coronnan. And suspicion of several charges of conspiracy and attempted murder.” The king glared at his sister, Myrilandel. The harshness of his gaze softened as his eyes lingered on her face, so similar to his own and yet different, changed by the dragon spirit that inhabited the body. Then he caught sight of the bundle she carried.

  His mouth opened slightly, and he almost reached to see the child.

  “My only crime, brother, is that I was born female and unable to gather dragon magic,” Myri said softly.

  “The presence within my borders of magicians who cannot or will not gather dragon magic is a danger to my government and the peace we are trying to build. And so all solitary magicians had to be exiled or executed. I cannot make exceptions for you, sister. I fear you must leave Coronnan.”

  “I know that. And I will, as soon as you are safe from the invasion that threatens you.” Myri bowed her head in acceptance of her fate.

  “An invasion prompted by your marriage to this woman, Quinnault,” Nimbulan said. He looked again at the woman in the corner. He didn’t know what conspiracies Quinnault was talking about, so he chose to ignore them in favor of threats he could unravel. “Terrania is a desert wasteland that hasn’t been fit for human habitation in thousands of years. Even the lizards and flies have abandoned it. She cannot be the Princess of Terrania.”

  “You may leave, Steward. This discussion must remain private.” Quinnault nodded to the servant who still stood in the doorway. He had followed Nimbulan and the others, wringing his hands and protesting disturbing the king on his wedding night.

  The steward sidled past Scarface and Powwell, eyes wide, feet reluctant to move him out of earshot. He stopped in front of Maia and pointed to the mole on her cheek just to the right of mouth.

  The woman in the vision spell questing the source of poison had a mole in the same place. So much had happened in the last few days, Nimbulan had difficulty remembering how short a time ago that was.

  Quinnault nodded acknowledgment gestured the man out of the room. “These other people are not necessary to this discussion either, Nimbulan.” Quinnault nodded toward Yaala who still peered over the bride’s shoulder, trying to examine the black device, and Scarface and Powwell who stood by the door in a guarding stance. “The Rover woman will have to be questioned regarding her relative who tried to murder my queen last night with the tie from my dressing gown.”

  A sly smile that Nimbulan didn’t like at all stole across Maia’s face.

  “Maia’s clan is all in Hanassa, Your Grace. I don’t see how any of them could be involved,” Nimbulan said. “Unless . . . Maia, were any of your people sent to the pit?” He whirled to face the woman.

  “Piedro?” Powwell interrupted. “A Rover-dark man was sent to the pit right after I was. He never did much, just wandered around like he was lost in a dream.”

  “That was the man’s name!” Quinnault said. He almost jumped up, then remembered why the sheet was tangled around his hips and sat back on the mattress again.

  “When was the last time you saw him, Powwell? Did he know about the dragongate?” Nimbulan asked.

  “Maybe. I think he was part of Televarn’s gang when they kidnapped us and took us from the village into Hanassa. He looked like the man who had Amaranth in a sack over his shoulder,” Powwell replied. He stroked something just inside his tunic pocket as he spoke.

  “Televarn again. He must have followed Piedro and helped him escape my dungeons. Lyman said that Rover magic opened the magic seal from the outside.” Quinnault eyed the dressing gown, just out of reach.

  “Televarn couldn’t have done it,” Myri said, dropping her head to stare at the floor.

  “Don’t defend the man, sister, just because you lived with him for a while,” Quinnault said harshly.

  “I am not defending the man who betrayed me twice.” Myri raised her head to glare at her brother. Her eyes lost most of their color as her emotions tumbled across her face.

  Nimbulan touched her arm before she broadcast all of her fears and anger into their daughter. She relaxed a little at his touch.

  “Televarn did not leave Hanassa,” Nimbulan informed his king. “We saw him last with a poisoned knife sticking out of his throat. If he survived, he was in no condition to follow us. Moncriith was in charge of Hanassa by then. He is dead, isn’t he, Maia?” He whirled to face the Rover woman who cowered near the door.

  She nodded mutely, too frightened to do more.

  “Who is in your mind now, Maia? Which Rover has picked up Televarn’s reins of manipulation?” Nimbulan pressed her for an answer.
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  “I don’t know,” Maia wailed. “A voice, a control. The same as always. It could be Televarn. It might not be. We are all so closely related, many times over-related, its hard to tell one slave master from another.”

  “If not Televarn, then who? Lyman insisted the magician who opened the cell door and resealed it had to have Rover blood. You are the only magician I know who has a trace of Rover blood in his heritage,” Quinnault accused.

  Nimbulan’s face went hot, then cold. His frustrations returned and he wanted to plant his fist into someone’s face. Right now, his king looked to be a fine target.

  He took a very deep breath in an effort to control himself. “Your Grace, every one of my relatives carries the same remote trace of Rover blood. That makes them vulnerable to mind manipulation by a Rover mage. I think I know this Piedro from my days in the Rover camp. He had the makings of a powerful mage if he ever broke free of Televarn’s control. He could easily have used the dragongate a number of times to subvert my cousins or brothers, or a number of others with a tiny trace of Rover heritage. He could have been working in Coronnan for moons, or years.”

  “The same way Televarn subverted Kalen,” Powwell whispered.

  Myri shifted her attention from her brother to Powwell, taking the boy into her arms and his grief into her heart. They would both heal in time.

  Time they might not have.

  “You have not explained this ‘dragongate,’ Nimbulan,” Quinnault reminded him.

  Nimbulan briefly explained the strange vortex created by the combination of heat and pressure within the volcano. Their escape from Hanassa, the vision through the partially open dragongate, and their encounter with Moncriith took only a few more sentences. He didn’t consult his journal. The events were embedded deeply in his memory now.

  “All these refugees risked much to help me rescue Myrilandel. I only wish I had had time to fetch Rollett, too. I’ll have to go back for him. Soon.”

  “We have nothing to fear from them, Scarecrow,” the queen said proudly. She continued to tap the device with her right index finger.