He wondered why the boy had stayed home. Surely saying goodbye to his sisters should outweigh whatever teenage temper had sent him skulking away from Mama and Da and the transport spell.
Gently, he kissed his mother’s cheek, slapped Da on the back, and strode proudly down the steps, thumping his staff against the stone with each step. He aimed for a postern door tucked into the massive stone walls of the University. He didn’t look back. Couldn’t look back. He had an awful feeling in the pit of his stomach that whatever he sensed was missing was going to reach up and bite him in the ass.
CHAPTER 5
SKELLER SETTLED HIS harp case and his rucksack more comfortably on his shoulders as he took up a position near the end of the long caravan along with the baggage and supply sledges. A gelded steed nibbled at his pack, curious and annoying in the mischievous way of his breed.
“Easy, boy. I’ve got nothing to appease your insatiable appetite.” Skeller patted the long nose, letting his fingers trace the nap of its short hair, admiring the gentle swirling pattern of growth. There was noble blood in this steed, dilute and distant, but still . . .
The steed snorted. Its breath smelled of fresh hay and grains. Skeller returned the favor, letting the beast smell his breath and acknowledge him. Then he eased away from his new friend. “When we stop to rest, I’ll find you something to eat,” he whispered as he set his steps to counting the paving slates that wound out of the courtyard. No sense letting the magicians on the stairs read his thoughts and stop him from finding out the truth of this expedition. He had no doubt the big man in the blue brocade robes standing by the slender woman with faded red hair was important in the arcane hierarchy of magic and politics. That convinced him of the importance of this caravan.
And the blond youth all dressed in gold tunic and brown trews with soft leather boots had to be the prince of this land. His presence also added credence to the importance of the women in the two litters. Skeller had heard the scandal, of bringing a magician out of the southern wilds to become male heir to a king with only daughters.
Only daughters! King Lokeen and his late queen would have triumphed to produce a surplus of daughters as heirs and rightful rulers of their city-state. Instead, Lokeen had ruled in his wife’s name so long, while she faded away with a long and lingering illness, that when she died, few noticed her passing, and the upstart male was allowed by default to continue as king without a wife to grant him rights and authority.
Rather than spit his disgust, Skeller swished the moisture around his mouth until a note ached for release. He released it softly, followed by another and another until a spritely walking song moved his feet along with the pace of the travelers. His strong baritone voice attracted the attention of the walkers around him. And the steed. The big gelding sidled until he could rest his head on Skeller’s shoulder. It heaved a sigh of adoration, eyes drooping in bliss. The weight of him dislodged the harp case and Skeller had to scramble to keep it from falling. He couldn’t risk damaging Telynnia. Above all else, she was more important to him than even his mission.
“Great Mother, if these people had outgrown the Stargods’ shortsighted stricture against the wheel, I’d be dragged down and left under the rolling wagon,” he sighed to himself.
The sledge pulled by the adoring steed slowed everyone down, but it didn’t founder in the ruts dug by the stout pole frame.
A magician strolled by, whistling off-key, and with a gesture lifted the end of the pole on the sledge ahead of Skeller out of a muddy spot; a journeyman, by his light blue tunic and trews. Magic had its purposes.
Wheels were still better.
Ahead of them, the first litter in the long line tilted as one of the steeds supporting it stepped into a deep hole that should have been filled in months ago. The load beneath it shifted. A lady screamed in surprise and fear. Then handlers and servants rushed to steady the conveyance. Three of them each checked the compartment beneath. What was so precious in there that three men had to check the entire thing, one after another?
Who knew what special treasures grand ladies needed to travel with? Ladies didn’t travel far in his homeland. Peasant women did. Ladies remained in their towers, ruling the lands with a gentle and nurturing hand through the reports of lesser women.
The city-states of Mabastion, as the Big Continent was called here, went to war occasionally. But the women settled their spats quickly and returned to peaceful trade. They were a territorial bunch, keeping each to her own and rarely allowing strangers beyond the ports into the real city and supporting lands.
The blue-clad magician raced forward to the head of the caravan to set the litter back on its journey.
The steed leaned harder upon Skeller’s shoulder, seemingly falling asleep. He pushed the beast away. But the animal returned to breathe his stale breath in Skeller’s ear.
The steed’s handler, a barrel-chested, middle-aged man with graying hair in a sloppy tail rather than tight queue, chuckled but did not correct the steed. “Just keep singing and walking, boy. Lazy Bones will follow you, and the rest of the herd will follow him. You’re doing half my work,” the drover chuckled.
Other drovers picked up the laughter, and the song, adding harmony and counterpoint.
Skeller tried moving faster, to get out from under the burden of the steed’s adoration. Lazy Bones defied his name and increased his pace as well.
“You aren’t a fleet steed,” he sang, caressing the steed’s long nose. “So why are you moving so fast?”
“To get to the end of the journey at last!” the drovers replied, also in song.
“If my love trotted so quick,” a laundress picked up the joke in her hesitant but finely tuned alto.
Then a lilting soprano in the litter closest to Skeller in the long snaking line of travelers added a few words, “He’d be out on his ear in a tick!”
Skeller stumbled and nearly choked as the women turned his simple marching tune into a ribald round at the men’s expense.
“Bring the harp to the cook fire tonight. It’s the only way you’ll keep control of the song,” the drover said, slapping Skeller on the back.
“Thanks for the lift in getting us started, boy,” another said, righting him from the force of the first’s good-natured blow.
“The lady in the litter has a fine voice,” Skeller said half on a query.
“Doubt it’s the lady singing. Shy and sickly she be. Probably the companion. Hear tell she’s the Magician’s daughter. Them magic folk from the mountains sing all the time. Sorta adds something to their spells.” The drover, a younger version of the tough grizzled man but with a proper three-strand queue, turned silent and thoughtful.
“Dragons don’t care for our coin, ’tis gold for which they pine. But I’ve a dragon penny for your thoughts, just don’t ask for mine,” Skeller sang.
“Worth more than a copper penny,” the drover replied, speaking rather than keeping the lilt of the song going. “Magic and magicians are changing. So are politics and politicians. Best keep your thoughts your own.”
Skeller watched him work his way through the baggage sledges, caressing a steed here, slapping another into a brisker pace.
“Keep walking, my friend. My shoulder’s not yours to lend,” Skeller told his adoring steed and ducked away from him to pace behind the litter. A white mare fore and a gray one aft kept the conveyance level, if swaying gently in rhythm with the walking pace.
This one had closed red and green draperies with gold trim concealing the occupants. The one further up the line had lavender and dark rose trimmed in silver, supported by matched pale gray mares. For the first time since joining the caravan he wondered if the women traveled together at all. And which one did he need to follow if they took separate roads?
Mikk patted Lady Miri’s hand where she’d placed it in the crook of his elbow. “You don’t really want to come with me, Miri,” he said, smiling down on her, grateful that in his latest growth spurt he now topped her by almost three inc
hes. So much better for his image as a royal contender to be tall, like Glenndon and the king.
Besides, he liked looking down on her lovely blonde hair, even if it was twisted and twirled and glued into place. It framed her face, setting off her delicate skin and intelligent brown eyes.
A flicker of movement off to his left told him he wasn’t alone. If he ever acted on his impulse to kiss the girl, it would be in full view of Geon, his servant-bodyguard-clerk. The tall, gaunt man would never speak of it. Taciturn and glowering, he rarely spoke at all.
“Oh, Mikk, it’s just so boring at court with Princess Linda off in exile and Glenndon hiding from all social activities. You’re the only one I can talk to. So why won’t you show me this fabulous library?”
Mikk hesitated a moment, not certain how to address a delicate response. “Were you given the privilege of learning to read?” He tried to keep his tone casual. But in the greater scheme of things and the laws passed down by the Stargods, only those with magical talent and bound for the University or Temple were allowed to read. Something about keeping their civilization pure, or some such nonsense he didn’t understand.
If that held true, how had Geon learned to read? He didn’t seem to have any magical talent or . . .
“Of course I can read!” Miri stamped her foot and drew her hand away from him. Her anger set her scant bosom to heaving beneath her tightly fitted gown giving him hints of the glories beneath.
He mentally slapped himself free of the images his imagination conjured.
“I learned alongside Princess Linda and her sisters, and so did Lady Chastet, though you’d never know it to talk to her.”
“Which is why she now attends the young princesses and you sit with the queen. Her Grace is very intelligent and well-read. She likes having equally educated ladies to converse with,” he replied, forcing his eyes to gaze into hers and not at the curves beginning to swell above her bodice.
All concern about Geon observing every move he made vanished.
“So, I need to keep reading new material. Things that will interest the queen.”
And Prince Glenndon, Mikk thought. The girls at court sought out Mikk in friendship. They panted after the Crown Prince.
“How about I bring you something. A good historical account of Battlemage Nimulan and his wife Mirilandel—for whom you are named—and how they brought about the first covenant with the dragons?” He smiled at her, wishing she’d notice this tremendous favor as more than something one friend would do for another. Something a courtier might do for his lady.
“I’d rather pick it out myself.” She pouted prettily.
Did he dare kiss away the frown beginning to form?
“I know, my dear. I know the joys of winding through stacks of books and browsing titles for the perfect one,” he said, patting her hand rather than indulge in a kiss that might get him slapped and banned from her company. “But it is incredibly dusty up there. You’d ruin your gown and hair. I’d hate to see something as lovely as . . . as you besmirched by mere dirt.”
She twisted a bit, showing off the nip of her waist, allowing a bit more of her breast to swell above her bodice, preening for his compliments.
It was a start in getting her to notice him.
“I bet Prince Glenndon appreciates a bit of dirt now and then in his pursuit of knowledge.”
Mikk’s hopes crashed around his ears. Was that Geon chuckling in the shadows behind him?
“I’ll bring you something to engage his conversation at court tonight.” He turned his back on her and proceeded up the turret stairs. He didn’t even look back to see if she watched him while he searched out the proper sequence of stones to push in order to unlock the door. He knew she’d gone off before he’d climbed halfway.
With a sigh, he pushed open the door and let the glory of books wash over him. Here he felt at home. Here he knew the power of his mind outweighed his failures in sword practice or steed racing. If the girls at court could just see him for what he truly was rather than just a small shadow behind the magnificent Glenndon.
He began searching out the books he’d truly come looking for, forgetting Miri and her need of something interesting to read. Dimly, he noted that Geon had slipped in before the door closed and headed off in the opposite direction in search of his own reading material.
“If my mother was Ariiell, the great and evil sorceress, then I should have some magical talent as well,” Mikk mused. “I’d have to have at least a trace of magic if Grand’Mere intended me to study for the Temple. Every priest, monk, and prelate can at least draw flame to candle and incense. It’s part of the ritual, the awe, the authority of the priesthood.”
With Glenndon off doing princely things, Mikk had a few hours to claim as his own. His cousin King Darville only seemed to want him around when he needed to show the court he had two heirs, both viable, both reliable, and both young enough to marry off to appropriate princesses or noble daughters.
In the meantime, Mikk didn’t have to pretend to enjoy the princely sports of swordplay, wrestling, steed training—though chasing cross-country on a hunt was thrilling, as long as he didn’t think about the blood and gore of killing an animal at the end of it, or the chafing on his thighs that left him walking bowlegged for days. For these precious few hours he could indulge in his lifelong passion: learning.
Since coming to the palace three months ago, he’d found all kinds of treasures up here in the tower, treasures that Grand’Pere would not consider proper reading for his only grandchild, or if he did then Grand’Mere wouldn’t and she’d scold both of them and then cry. Grand’Mere cried a lot.
Perhaps that was why she came to court so rarely. She cried too much to be seen in public.
He ran his fingers along the edges of the bookshelves, both freestanding and along the walls, reading the runes carved into the stone through his fingertips. Mostly records of Council Meetings and official ceremonies on this level. They no longer interested him. Though the account of his grandparents’ wedding and the grand celebration that followed had shown him how much they loved each other. She’d been a princess, sister to King Dracine, Darville’s father. Grand’Pere had been the son of a minor lord with little wealth and less power.
No, today Mikk wanted something different, more adventurous. He headed toward the trapdoor and ladder to a sublevel with tales about magic, compiled over centuries. These were publicly acknowledged books, more about the history and personalities of the magicians who had helped shape Coronnan, but there was another archive hidden and accessible only to magicians. Those were the books he needed, books about the working of magic, not just the results. But in order to find that archive, he needed more information from this one.
Secure in his solitude—he’d notice if Geon followed him down the rickety ladder—he yanked on a pull ring embedded in the floor. The stone paving groaned but did not give way.
Strange, he’d opened it easily three days ago.
(Up.)
“Who’s there?” he demanded loudly.
(Look up. You must go up.)
“Who are you?” His words echoed in the high-ceilinged room as he gazed up and spied another trapdoor overhead.
(Join us above.)
Chills ran up and down his spine as dust tickled his nose.
(There is no dust in the up.)
That sounded good. But he’d been warned about enemies of the crown who would not hesitate to kill or kidnap a member of the royal family.
“I’m only second heir and a distant cousin from the female line. I’m not valuable to anyone other than my grandparents,” he muttered.
(We value you. We know who and what you are.)
That was too good to be true.
Still . . .
Fingering the ceremonial sword at his hip, he dragged a wooden bench across the floor and placed it beneath the other trapdoor. Where was Geon when Mikk needed a boost? A gentle tug on the short rope dangling from the wooden square opened the access. A lad
der unfolded until the bottom rested snugly on the floor, nestling into grooves placed perfectly to steady the light contraption.
Mikk tested his weight against a rung just to make sure it was still steady, still stable enough to hold him.
Curiosity overrode any lingering fear or caution, and he near sprinted up until just his head cleared the opening. He could still retreat if he had to. He’d been here once before, and seen nothing but more rows and rows of bookshelves.
Today he found a thick layer of darkness that swallowed light and sound and, above that, long chains of bright and pulsing colored light.
(Welcome to the realm of dragons!)
CHAPTER 6
MIKK MISSED HIS step one rung below the top of the ladder and slid down three. He grabbed tight to the lip of the opening and flailed his feet for purchase. His fingers ached all the way to the bone before growing numb. How could he avoid falling all the way down a good twelve feet to the floor below?
Gasping for breath and heart in his throat, he found a rung and braced his feet.
The blackness faded along with the pulsing coils of light.
(You are not ready.) The voice in his head sounded disappointed.
“What must I do to be ready?” he whispered as much to himself as the voice. “I’ve talked to Glenndon a lot these last three months. We have become close. Friends. He doesn’t hide much from me. He hinted at passage through the void. And being stuck there. I recognize this as . . .”
(You are not ready.)
“Point me toward a book that will guide me to you. Please.” He added the last as an afterthought. He might be second in line to the throne, but even Glenndon and the king had to be polite to dragons. At least he hoped he was talking to dragons. Who else would speak directly into his head?
Surely an enemy magician would seek someone more important to manipulate mind-to-mind.
The Broken Dragon: Children of the Dragon Nimbus #2 Page 5
