The Wandering Dragon (Children of the Dragon Nimbus)

by Irene Radford

  Only Skeller appeared as worn and dreary as the interior of the room.

  Another mumble from Skeller that sounded sort of like “Noon tide,” but could have been “None today.”

  Lukan pounded the butt of his staff on the floor. He liked doing that. He’d never handled a magician’s staff before—legend had it that if any other person touched a staff it would burn the hand off. Now he had one of his own. And he liked the way energy tingled from the grip into his hand whenever he touched it to the ground. Pounding filled him with renewed confidence. He was a real magician now.

  “Must you do that?” Skeller whimpered, pressing his long fingers into his temples. At least he remained upright. Kind of. If leaning his elbows on the table and staring at overlapping beer stains was upright. “You pound that thing louder than a dragon screeching in distress.”

  “Heard one of those lately?” Lukan tried to remember the last time he heard a dragon call. Yesterday. At the mass funeral on Battle Mound. Three of them: a green-tip and a red-tip, males, and, more important, an all-color/no-color female. A young one. She hadn’t looked as big as Shayla, the matriarch. They had roared a bass harmony to the last hymn. Someone like Skeller, who hadn’t grown up with dragons, might think their crooning was a screech of distress. Or grief at the loss of so many people during the storm.

  “So what ship did you book passage on?” he prodded Skeller with an elbow to keep him from falling asleep again.

  “Didn’t.” He looked the length of the table until he spotted his breakfast bowl in Lukan’s hand. “Get your own.” He grabbed it back and slurped up a mouthful, drinking directly from the bowl.

  “What do you mean? You’re the one who was insisting that we have to sail as soon as possible.” Lukan signaled the barkeep for another bowl of cereal. And a tankard of new beer.

  “No passage to book. Passenger cabins full up.”

  “So, what did you mean when you said ‘noon tide’?”

  “You are working the topsails and I am assistant to the cook.”

  Lukan liked the idea of climbing tall masts and perching on the yardarm or in the crow’s nest. “So we’re crew, not passengers. Will we get paid or is just getting us from here to there our wages?” He gobbled several bites of his fresh bowl of breakfast, then drank half his flagon. He hadn’t realized how taxing last night was. Talking to Madame Oak must have drawn heavily on his magical, and physical, reserves.

  “Two silver dragini each,” Skeller said. He looked a little more awake and less green around the edges.

  “How much did you drink last night?”

  “Too much and not enough?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m still missing Lily.”

  Before Lukan could reply to that, a flurry of movement from the steep staircase that led to guest rooms abovestairs caught his attention. Rejiia descended. Her long black traveling gown floated around her feet, emphasizing her grace and elegance. She’d bound up her glossy black hair in a fine cowl of silver mesh with sparkling white beads—too bright to be pearls, too much color to be crystal or diamonds. Iridescent. That was the right word. As if she’d woven bits and pieces of dragon fur into the strands. The long white stripe that began at her left temple swirled through the black tresses in an artful pattern.

  Lukan stared in wonder at her beauty, enthralled with her aura of power.

  “Close your mouth, boy,” Skeller whispered. “Remember that she is still more cat than human. She throws rogue magic and discards lovers like broken toys.”

  He jerked his head toward the tall, scarred man and the plain, older woman who followed Rejiia’s every move. The other, rather ordinary and easily overlooked, man was missing from the entourage.

  “I’ve heard the legends,” Lukan whispered back. He did remember to close his mouth, but he couldn’t remove his gaze from the vision that graced this poor tavern.

  Then she turned her head and smiled at him. The world faded away to whispers of background noise and images. He only noticed her sharp cat’s teeth in the logical part of his mind. All thought dropped to a more primitive part of his body that reacted keenly to her presence.

  CHAPTER 9

  THE BOY FELL into my trap with hardly a second breath of hesitation. I drift toward him, pleased that I have worn the best of my plain traveling gowns. The fine woolen threads will keep me warm aboard ship. Here in this dismal tavern the cloth clings to my curves, and swirls around me like an enchanted mist.

  Once I could have used enchantment to create this illusion on any outfit, no matter how rough. No more. Rather, not yet. I must conserve my strength for important magic.

  I hear my father whisper into the back of my mind that bringing a University-trained magician into my coven is important. Enticing a son of Jaylor is more important.

  I tell my father to go away. He has chosen a cozy fire, mulled wine, and his stories of olden times. I have chosen to live now, in the world, creating my own adventures rather than reliving someone else’s old and boring ones.

  Lukan is my adventure. I need time to lure him in slowly so that he thinks the whole thing is his idea. Too much too soon makes for fragile and brittle chains. A constraining leash that he will soon break and free himself. My bonds will be strong and lovely, like a silken braid.

  A braid.

  As I watch, his aura begins twisting and folding, wrapping him in layers of protection that include his newly won staff. There is no pattern or looping in the wood grain yet. I must get it away from him soon, before it mimics the braid of his magic, so like his father’s. Even his aura carries the same blue and red lights that used to make Jaylor stand out in any crowd, magician or mundane.

  As I approach Lukan, slowly, measuring each step carefully so I do not startle him, the bard rears up from his slump against the table and grabs the boy’s shirt collar.

  “Think with your brain and not . . .” He breaks off his tirade, looking up and down Lukan’s body. Then he twists to look over his shoulder at me. His eyes narrow and he takes one deliberate step sideways so that he breaks my line of sight to Lukan’s eyes.

  Immediately Lukan shakes his head, shriveling the thrall of my beauty.

  “We have a ship’s captain to report to,” the bard says, clearly, distinctly, as if singing his words.

  “Ship. Noon tide,” Lukan mumbles. Then he shakes himself all over and looks out the window toward the street. Workers and shoppers alike begin to fill the cobbles. They shout at each other, hawking their wares and ordering others about. His eyes focus on the jumble of daily activity.

  “That’s right. And we have to help ready the ship for passengers and cargo,” the bard says.

  Noon tide? Passengers and cargo? Bless the great Simeon, they sail on the same ship as I. I will have nigh on a week to weave my allure around them both.

  In the old days I’d need only a day. Now I am more cautious. More patient.

  “Innkeeper!” I call imperiously. “Bring me meat. Rare and juicy. I will dine on nothing less.”

  Robb lay flat on his back on the comfortable bed. The only thing he lacked was Maigret beside him and the two boys in their cribs. Instead of wrapping his arm around his wife, he could only cover his glass with an open hand, letting the inherent coolness filter through his skin. A slight tingle within the tool, magic left over from all the spells he’d thrown through the glass, still lingered, ready at his command.

  “You are lucky I allowed Lokeen to think I sent the glass back to the treasury,” Maria said from the doorway. She leaned against the closed portal, making certain he heard the latch click shut.

  He knew from routine that the guards outside would not unlock for any but her command. Every day that passed, he suspected more and more that, except for a chosen few, every man in the castle served her first and Lokeen second. Something in their posture reflected their respect for her. They listened to her. With the king they stood overly stiff and stared into the distance, barely acknowledging his orders.
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  The king kept his throne because of the punishment only he and his guard captain controlled.

  “What is so vile about Lokeen’s punishment that every man quakes in his boots?” Robb asked, not looking up. He kept his free arm draped across his eyes as though he had a headache, while his other hand shielded the glass and the slight residual magic contained within it.

  “Do you know the beast called Krakatrice?” she asked.

  He heard her prowling the room, inspecting every item, including the empty pottery scrying bowl and the unlit oil candle on the table.

  Robb stilled. Even his blood seemed to cease flowing at the dreaded word. “I read in old chronicles that the Stargods and their helpers rid this world of the monster snakes that turn lush land into desert. The beasts looked to a matriarch with six wings on her back.”

  “Not all of the beasts died at the hands of my ancestors, the first Amazons of Amazonia.”

  “There have been no reports of the snakes infiltrating civilized lands until recently.”

  “The eggs,” Maria said flatly. “Properly buried just after laying, deep in cold lands with no moisture, the eggs go dormant for hundreds of years. When they are unearthed and slowly warmed, they revive and hatch.”

  “That must be how the younglings appeared in Coronnan last spring,” Robb mused, thinking hard and not paying much attention to his hostess. “I fought enough of them a-dragonback. But always more came. More killed livestock and people, all the while instinctively trying to dam rivers and divert the water elsewhere . . .”

  “You fought the beasts? You killed them?” Maria moved to his side, grabbing the fine fabric of his robe and shaking him with each word.

  He’d never seen her move so quickly, not bothering to hide her limp or reduce her pain.

  “One of our healers might be able to straighten your leg, permanently. Or at least build you a boot to compensate for the shortness and the twist,” he said cautiously, not certain he wanted to tell this woman everything, no matter that she’d been kind to him.

  Her kindness had a price. He just didn’t know what it was yet.

  “They might even find the cause of your lisp and correct it. They removed extra tissue from beneath my eldest son’s tongue to help him.”

  “Enough of your babble! Our healers have tried everything with no success. Now tell me how to kill the beasts!”

  “Can’t be done without dragon fire and ensorcelled spearheads knapped of obsidian.”

  Maria rocked back on her heels.

  Robb peeked around his arm. She looked off into the distance, fingers caressing something beneath her blouse—a talisman of some sort he guessed. He might as well not be in the room for all her awareness of him.

  “Where are the snakes?” he whispered, wondering if his words would penetrate her deep thoughts. “How does Lokeen control them?”

  “The Krakatrice survive on fresh meat. They thrive and grow on fresh blood,” she said, blinking rapidly to bring herself back to the world. “He can only feed them so many live prisoners before they outgrow their dungeon cells and must be turned loose and replaced by new hatchlings.”

  Robb swallowed heavily. The lump in his throat would not dissolve.

  “If I tell Lokeen that I have allowed you to keep your glass as well as your robe, he would drop us both into the dry cell.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

  “He can have the black robe back. I prefer the blue, threadbare and worn as it is,” he croaked around that persistent lump in his throat.

  “Blue? Strange, your predecessor demanded black and red. He shredded and burned the blue. The cloth was fine, I wanted to open the seams and remake the pieces into other garments.”

  “He had to burn it to separate himself from the University. Though I have never done it, I think Master Magician Jaylor could have found the man through his robe.” That was a flat-out lie, but Maria couldn’t read his aura to know that for certain.

  “You have never told me the name of King Lokeen’s previous pet wizard,” he prodded. He knew by the simple process of elimination. But he needed confirmation. When he knew for certain, he could scry for the man. Once he found him, Lokeen might, just might, grant Robb a little more freedom in return for the favor. Freedom to seek escape.

  “I was never told the mage’s name,” Maria said flatly. “If he told Lokeen, he never said it aloud. We in the palace who were forced to serve him called him ‘Sir.’ Nothing more, certainly nothing less, though we had other names we called him behind his back. He was the one who devised the scheme to reanimate the eggs and ship them to our spies elsewhere, to bring low his enemies. But Lokeen was the one who kept a few and feeds them prisoners.”

  “Lokeen will do anything to keep his throne,” Robb said. “No matter how cruel.”

  “Or illegal,” Maria added. Then she turned slowly, with her usual cautious steps, and left the room, without telling Robb why she had come to begin with.

  He had his glass, for now. He knew what he had to do. Quickly, before he too became food for the Krakatrice.

  “Breathe deeply, and follow my instructions,” Maigret commanded Souska.

  “In on three, hold three, out on three, hold three,” Souska repeated one of her earliest lessons in magic. She let the familiar ritual of proper breathing fill her with calm until the magnetic pole tugged at her left side, and the wooden floor tingled against her feet through her soft house shoes.

  “You figured out that if you light the candle, you are part of another’s summons. You can hear both sides of the conversation,” Maigret continued as her own breathing deepened and her eyes crossed slightly.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Souska replied, knowing Maigret would not see a nod of acceptance. How did her mistress go into a trance so deeply and easily? Souska sat on her stool beside Maigret, fully aware of her surroundings with a slightly enhanced sensitivity.

  “To participate in the conversation with me and Marcus, you must do more.”

  Souska took another deep breath, deeper than before, letting the fresh air from the open window fill her lungs, soothe her anxious pulse and bring her closer to alignment with the pole.

  “With two fingers hold the rim of my glass.”

  Souska placed her right thumb and forefinger on the golden rim of the circle of glass, as big around as Maigret’s palm.

  “Now with your other hand you must bring a flame to your fingertip and set it upon the candle wick.”

  “Um . . .” Souska had only ever lit a candle with her dominant right hand. Her left was much less dexterous. But her right was now occupied with the glass . . . She reached to replace her grip on the glass with her left hand.

  “No.”

  She froze with her left hand a hair’s width away from the rim.

  “Once you begin the gathering of energies you must continue as you started. Light the candle with your left hand.”

  “But . . .”

  “Do it! Right or left. Both hands must work equally well no matter which you prefer.”

  “But . . .”

  “Do it properly or ground the spell and leave so that I may start over from the beginning. Alone.”

  That “alone” meant that Souska would be excluded from more advanced lessons. Possibly forever. She’d be stuck doing nothing more than stirring potions that someone else concocted and scraping parchment free of letters someone else wrote.

  “Concentrate,” Maigret whispered. She must have noted the moment of Souska’s decision. “Concentrate on the fire within your soul. Find it in your blood, in your center, in your love for your journeyman.”

  That was a bit more perceptive than Souska thought she’d let on.

  She did as commanded. Looking deep within herself to the very core of her gentle magic that let her understand how plants worked together, how her simple songs brought out the best of each flower or leaf. And there, somewhere behind her heart she found Lukan’s red and blue aura swirling around, pushing her to do more, be better, learn all
that she could. Demanding that she want more out of life than perfuming soap and freshening bed linens.

  She needed to grow into flavoring foods with the extra bits that each person needed to fill the holes in their bodies depleted by hard work. She should extend her knowledge further into medicines that would oust illness and repair damage.

  Her magic flared along with her warming emotions. Fire appeared in the midst of Lukan’s aura and pushed itself through her blood, igniting her desire to throw this spell with all the accuracy and speed that his years of practice had given him.

  “Not much, but enough,” Maigret snorted at the pitiful little green ember glowing at the tip of Souska’s left forefinger. “Light the candle.”

  Souska exhaled and moved her finger, only to find the coal fading, flickering, almost dying as she breathed on it. Hastily she gulped and willed the flame back to life. It spluttered a bit.

  “Remember the fire within you,” Lukan seemed to whisper into the back of her mind. “Remember.”

  She did so. The flame found a hint of life. Was it enough? She touched her finger to the charred wick before it could die again. Just when she despaired that the flame would never find a life of its own, it bent, sniffed around the wick, and finally crawled over to it, like a cat seeking a new and different lap. The candle burned steady, then stronger and stronger until Souska thought it would hold on its own.

  “Breathe,” Maigret reminded her, on a chuckle.

  Souska choked on her own breath. One cough that laid the flame flat. The second made it waver again. Then she found the control to bring air in and out on a proper cadence, and the flame held.

  “Now, together we must place the glass in the bowl of water. Do not drop it. We must set it down gently, without a splash and with as little ripple as possible to keep the glass clear and clean, otherwise, the images will be distorted. You cannot tell truth from lie in a distorted image.”