The Broken Dragon: Children of the Dragon Nimbus #2

by Irene Radford

  Instead he’d found the King of Amazonia staring blankly into a bowl of water. A candle flame reflected light upon a tiny shard of glass in the bowl. Lokeen mumbled strange words in an oddly accented spate, then paused as if listening to a reply from within the depths of water . . .

  Three months later, Lokeen’s magician adviser moved permanently to Amazonia and began taking on more and more royal duties. The same nameless magician who had come to Coronnan City as ambassador.

  Champion snorted and sidled, trying to come close enough to Skeller to rest his heavy head on an inviting shoulder.

  Skeller had an impression of tiny whips filling the air, lashing steed hide with stinging barbs.

  “You too, my friend?” His own skin felt as if rubbed raw by wind-driven sand. How long had the irritation crept up on him until he could no longer ignore it?

  Champion didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Skeller knew what the massive gray beast thought and felt . . .

  How did he know?

  He’d never questioned it before, assuming everyone communicated with beasts. But they didn’t. On six caravans over the past three years, Skeller had grown into the role of speaker for the steeds and their needs to the drovers who should have known.

  “How did I know where the harness and collar were rubbing you wrong, Champion?”

  “You knew because he told you,” Lily replied for the steed. She slipped into the rhythm of his stride.

  “Does Lady Graciella sleep?” he asked, knowing that was the only time Lily could sneak away from her.

  “Aye. Restlessly though. The litter is hot and stuffy. But she won’t let me open the curtains. Not even a little bit for some fresh air.”

  “Not that the air is so fresh,” Skeller grumbled, wiping sweat off his brow with a kerchief. He lifted his lank hair off his neck, suddenly understanding why the local men braided their hair.

  “There’s a storm brewing,” Lily replied.

  “Not today. Our sky is blue, even if it is slightly off color, enough sulfurous yellow blending in to push it toward an unnatural green.”

  “As green as a campfire. Did you know that our natural flames are green because of the heavy concentration of copper in the wood?” she asked. Her face tried to brighten, and failed, as she deliberately looked away from the gray smudge on the northwest horizon.

  “No. I did not know that. What color should it burn?” Logic. He was comfortable with logic, but wondered how Lily knew such esoteric things.

  “If you leech out all the copper . . . my da could tell you how to do it, I don’t understand it all . . . the flames burn shades of red, orange, and yellow. The same colors as the sun.”

  “If you look closely at the heart of a green fire, a normal fire, you can sometimes see the red heart of the flames. I’d never wondered why before.”

  “Maybe that’s why you don’t understand magic or its place in the world. You’ve never looked for it.”

  “I’ve never needed magic before,” he mused, wondering if basking in the glory of her smile, or feeling the tingle of her nearness before she reached to hold his hand was magic of a sort.

  “The black cat with one white ear and the large, tin-colored weasel with flaking gold on the tips of its pelt are still following the caravan,” she said quietly, peering into the undergrowth on the other side of the caravan.

  “I know.”

  “Ask yourself why.”

  “They’re hungry.”

  “They are natural enemies to each other.” She looked at him, sternly, with a bit of contempt in her eyes. “And yet they are always together. Close together.” Anger began to swell in her chest, replacing softer emotions.

  He’d never seen her anything but gentle and caring. Nurturing, fitting to any proper woman from Amazonia. She’d said she didn’t eat meat because she felt the life passing out of the creature . . .

  “I think you are a thing of magic. You’ve brought magic into my life. The magic of love,” he blurted out before he could think twice.

  She stopped, eyes wide with wonder.

  He had to stop too, even though it meant Champion would plod into moving in place rather than leave him behind.

  “Lily, I . . .”

  She nodded with a tiny smile as she pulled his hand up to entwine their fingers.

  “Falling in love was not part of my plans right now. Eventually . . . but . . .”

  She stood on tiptoe to brush his cheek with her lips.

  At the last second he turned his head and captured her caress with his mouth. Gently he gave in to the wonder of kissing her, tasting her warmth, blending his mouth into hers.

  Slowly she drew away.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  They stood there, silent and still for a long moment. Then energy seemed to fill her. “Now think about magic and the way your music changes the world around you. Think about ways to make your songs banish Rejiia and Krej and the smell of rotten magic that surrounds them.” She loosened her grip on his hand, ready to bounce back to the litter.

  “It isn’t the cat and the weasel that smell rotten. The steeds tell me it is something in or around Lady Ariiell’s litter.” How did he know that? He just knew it. The moment she’d said rotten, he’d known where and what it smelled off.

  “Then we need to sweeten it with music and herbs and a thorough cleansing ritual. I know just what to do!” She skipped up the line of the caravan in the direction of her sister.

  “I still don’t know what magic is, Champion,” he said resuming his march. The silent steed followed him, content to be beside him as long as he could rest his head on a willing shoulder.

  CHAPTER 17

  GLENNDON’S EARS RANG with fullness that wouldn’t pop, and the air in his suite seemed to carry devil’s vine thorns that made his skin itch.

  Whatever was wrong with him was worse than the buzzing in his head whenever the girls hung around him, pressing too closely, touching his arm, trying desperately to get him to notice them.

  Oh, he noticed them alright. But then the shallowness and the greed in their thoughts penetrated his mind, even when he tried to block them out. The daughters of the court didn’t want him. They wanted his position and prestige.

  Miri and Chastet were the worst, the highest ranking in their generation. Somehow they both thought he belonged to them by right of title. Like a rich piece of brocade or fine lace. More like a prime steed ready to take to stud.

  So he hid in his suite whenever he didn’t have something specific to do for his father. And to ease the ache and chafing after the latest hunt that had lasted most of the morning. He’d liberally applied a salve Mistress Maigret had sent him. It soothed the burning skin and smelled sweetly of mint. But the ease didn’t last. Within an hour or two he longed for more. More each time.

  Something was wrong with the formula. He needed to talk to Linda to see if she could fix it.

  Mostly he needed to talk to Linda. She always put his problems in perspective and gave him insights into court personalities to laugh about.

  Don’t fret. I’ll see about using a different mint, more alcohol, and less bean oil, she said across the miles without him having to work a scry or summons spell.

  “The air in the city wants to smother me almost as much as the girls do,” he grumbled in response.

  It’s almost perfect here in the mountains, if a little too dry. The south wind is picking up but it carries no clouds with it. We need rain. Come for a visit.

  Keerkin rummaging through hundreds of pieces of parchment disturbed Glenndon’s reverie.

  “I wish,” he whispered to her. “But I can’t.”

  The connection faded.

  “I . . . I’m sorry, sir. I can’t find the original missive from Ambassador Amazonia,” Keerkin apologized. “I know I put it here in this pile, ready to scrape clean and use for notes later. I know it!”

  The calm Linda brought to Glenndon’s mind evaporated and anger rushed back in to replace it, like a
wave returning to an empty shore.

  “Three S’murghin days! We’ve looked for that letter for three days. I’m beginning to think we imagined it.” He snarled as he paced his suite, bedroom: right seven steps, left ten steps, left again four paces to the bed, thirteen paces around the monster piece of furniture that required three wooden steps to climb into and near fifty yards of brocade to drape the four posters and canopy—he still slept on the floor before the hearth with a woolen blanket as he did at home in the Clearing—then another four long strides to the corner, back along the tapestry-covered interior wall to the doorway into his sitting room.

  “Is it possible, sir, that the missive was removed by magic?” Frank asked from his customary post beside Glenndon’s desk in the parlor.

  That made Glenndon pause a moment. “Magic?”

  “I distinctly remember receiving the parchment,” Keerkin said, coming alert.

  “And I remember watching you read it, sir,” Frank added.

  “Therefore, I did not imagine it,” Glenndon concluded. “I received it. I read it and tore it in half.”

  “I took the pieces from your hand and folded them neatly. When we returned here, I put the pieces in this cubbyhole, atop three other pieces awaiting time to scrape them clean.”

  “What’s in the cubby now?” Frank asked, stretching his legs and tilting the chair back onto two legs.

  “The three pieces that were already there, but not the torn missive.”

  “Removed by magic? Or stolen by mundane hands?” Glenndon sank into his desk chair; an uncomfortable straight thing not designed to ease anything. He rarely sat there, except to transcribe Council proceedings into a neat hand.

  A neat hand.

  “Ambassador Amazonia writes a neat hand. A too-neat hand. One that has had much practice at the arcane art of writing. Where did he learn?” he asked the air as much as his companions.

  He thought about General Marcelle’s network of wharf rat spies. Would they know if Amazonia had a university? Did they honor reading and writing for all, or reserve it for the elite?

  Did they honor or respect magic?

  He didn’t know enough to plan a strategy for countering the ambassador’s accusations.

  If he could just breathe fresh mountain air for a few moments he could clear his head of the pressure that robbed him of thought while filling him with anger.

  Did Amazonia have clearer air?

  Long ago the Stargods had commanded that in Coronnan, Rossemeyer, and SeLennica the wheel was forbidden as was reading and writing. Those skills were reserved for magicians.

  Glenndon did not know if Amazonia even worshiped the Stargods—they spoke the same language, basically, but it sounded strange to his ear, oddly accented with cultural references he didn’t understand. They might adhere to a different religion and allow everyone to learn reading and writing. And the use of the wheel.

  He knew nothing about the country or their rude, lying, cheating ambassador.

  “Three days since I wrote an apology. Are you certain you delivered it into his hands?” Glenndon demand of Keerkin, who laboriously transcribed Glenndon’s hastily written notes about the latest decisions from the Council of Provinces.

  He wanted to break the pen in half to make Keerkin cease the endless scratching against parchment.

  “Yes, Your Highness. As I have repeated every hour for the last three days, I placed the scroll directly into the hands of his secretary. He read it, smiled, handed it to a page, and dismissed me without a word,” Keerkin replied, putting a final flourish on the ending words.

  His complaint was delivered an hour after the ambassador departed the embassy, and he hasn’t been seen since, General Marcelle had said.

  “The ambassador never read it. He left the city before presenting his credentials to be the ambassador. It is my job to receive him and accept those credentials before presenting him and those credentials to the king. He left before his note was delivered by a street messenger.” Glenndon fought to unclench his fists.

  “Perhaps he hopes to push your father, the king, into a high state of anxiety over a potential war in order to win better trade concessions.” Keerkin shrugged and attacked the next sheaf of papers that required organization and neatness. S’murghit he was calm. Too calm. Irritatingly calm.

  The pressure inside Glenndon’s head wanted to explode. Couldn’t Keerkin feel it?

  “Perhaps he’s angling for a betrothal between you, sir, and one of the royal daughters,” Frank added, juggling a long dagger and a shorter utility knife, gripping the blade tip of one, tossing it into the air, retrieving the other by the grip and tossing it up while catching the first. Over and over, always knowing precisely where each one was and how it spun.

  Today the knives spun faster than usual. Frank tossed them higher with more aggression, as if he absorbed some of Glenndon’s mood, but not the deepening pressure in the air that made it hard to breathe and more difficult to think.

  A good skill to practice. Glenndon hadn’t bothered to master it, begrudging the time and patience. Like today. He had a rudimentary knowledge of swordplay which worked out much of his frustrations. Still, he preferred to defend himself with magic.

  Magic.

  “Keerkin, did you notice anything unusual in the aura around the ambassador’s household?”

  “Unusual how? I’m not very skilled at reading auras. I can detect their presence on individuals but the colors all blend together.”

  “If anyone in the household had worked magic recently, could you sense it or smell it?” An elegant, University-trained style of writing. A disappearing missive. An unwillingness to show himself to . . . to someone who might recognize him.

  Keerkin shrugged again. “Unlikely.”

  Glenndon began pacing again, winding his way around stray pieces of furniture. He’d tried to eject most of it as unnecessary, but servants kept returning it. Why did he need a dozen stiff and simple wooden chairs, five intricately carved chests, three worktables, four dainty serving tables and three high-backed, over-stuffed armchairs?

  “I need more information,” Glenndon said. Maybe he should talk to Mikk—if he could pry the boy out of the archives. Mikk did seem a keen observer and his blue and yellow aura held tight to his body, as if suppressing a talent that wanted to explode in glorious magical colors, like the queen did. She needed to hide her magic from prejudiced mind-blind courtiers who would rather condemn her as a witch than accept any form of magic.

  “Shall I recruit a spy to place in the diplomatic household? That might be hard. I heard the ambassador brought all his own servants and retainers, not hiring anyone local,” Frank said, catching his knives and sheathing them in one smooth movement.

  “Amazonian ships won’t hire local sailors even when short of crew. What are they afraid of?” Glenndon puzzled over the problems of remote observation, cursing his limitations. A simple scrying spell wouldn’t work without a designated recipient, and then he could only see what was reflected in a bowl of water illuminated by a flame.

  He might be able to ride a dragon’s mind. Indigo was usually willing to help, but then, he’d only be able to see what the dragon could see, outside.

  He needed a talisman to plant in the household. Something receptive of an observation spell. Something the ambassador would touch and then place in the center of his most frequented room, like his desk in an office.

  “I need to send the ambassador a gift,” he told his companions. His ears popped and his mind cleared. For a moment.

  Keerkin looked up from his work. “The apology should have been enough. If you were indeed at fault, which you weren’t. Why should you send the man a gift?” He flipped the quill back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

  Glenndon grabbed it from him and set it flat on the desk.

  “Something costly?” Frank asked, cocking his head, as if thinking, or listening to a dragon.

  Glenndon wondered just how much magical talent his bodyguar
d possessed. Both he and his father were supposed to be mind-blind. That didn’t mean they hadn’t hidden their gifts from the sight of the court.

  Frank needed enough talent to sense someone creeping up behind them, or a covered pit before their steeds stepped into it. Maybe the dragons did advise him occasionally.

  “Something special, that the ambassador will treasure and use often,” Glenndon said a little too loudly as his ears filled again.

  “Ah, something useful as well as expensive,” Frank agreed. He half closed his eyes in thought.

  Silence filled the room, except for the continuous scratching of Keerkin’s quill pen. The man could copy words endlessly without thinking, often mimicking another’s handwriting so closely only another magician could tell the difference.

  Stargods! He could have forged the note from the ambassador.

  But he didn’t. I trust him. He wouldn’t do such a thing. I’d see the lie in his aura.

  The bobbing of the feather tip caught Glenndon’s attention. It made odd little circles and lines back and forth, up and down, drawing him into a meditative state. A welcome relief from the scratchiness of the air and heavy pressure in his ears.

  “A pen,” he whispered. “Any man who writes as neatly as does the ambassador must write often and long. He needs an endless supply of pens.”

  “Quills do wear out,” Keerkin acknowledged, pausing to examine the nib and reach for his penknife to sharpen it. Tiny shavings of quill drifted onto the desktop.

  A pen made from a dragon bone would hold a spying spell and never need sharpening.

  “I have an idea.” Glenndon grabbed his feathered cap, the green one with a fluffy squawk-drake plume pinned to it with a costly emerald-studded brooch. He yanked out the annoying feather and cast it onto the cold hearth.

  Frank checked his weapons for readiness, and stepped behind Glenndon.

  “I have to do this alone.”

  “No, Your Highness. My orders from my father and yours are to stay at your side at all costs.”