The Broken Dragon: Children of the Dragon Nimbus #2

by Irene Radford

  Lukan? he called.

  Either his brother was brooding, again, or was preoccupied and needed a full summoning spell to break through his perpetual anger.

  Linda? Surely you can receive me! Again nothing. His telepathic sending didn’t bounce back at him. More like it just . . . evaporated, or got absorbed by someone else.

  Glenndon released the tentative connection to dragons and family reluctantly. He trusted the dragons to be available when he needed them. He was learning to trust his human companions to watch his back.

  “What is that I smell?” Keerkin whispered through the growing dusk.

  Glenndon didn’t think his clerk had enough magic to sense the thick blanket of strange energies warring with each other. That was why he was a clerk and not attached to the University in any capacity. Did he still have ties to the University? If so, who did he report to? If not, where was his true allegiance? To the king or Glenndon?

  Or himself.

  Or someone else?

  Clouds roiled across the sky, bringing a premature twilight to the east. Fires sparked and snapped within the churning mass.

  “It’s just the storm,” Glenndon said, hopefully. He wanted to believe that more than lose his trust in the man.

  “Something isn’t natural about the storm,” Frank grunted, putting his back into the oars. “Moving too fast.”

  “How do you know that?” Glenndon asked.

  “Been rowing this river since I was a tot,” Frank grunted.

  “I’ve been here five years and never seen anything like that,” Keerkin agreed, pointing at the mass of black clouds the color of rain-slick basalt cliffs with fire burning off any clinging vegetation, covering the entire horizon from north to south.

  “No, it does not look, or smell natural,” Glenndon said, tasting acrid air that carried a taint of ley lines as well as dragon magic. Only a powerful magician could have called up that storm. Or an entire Circle of Master Magicians. He knew of no Circles outside the two Universities. And neither one of them would do such a thing.

  Except . . . rogues attracted disgruntled outcasts. He knew of only one rogue. Had Samlan built an entire circle of magicians?

  No. Surely he couldn’t have in just a few months since his exile from the Forest University. Surely not . . .

  Wind roared above them, trumpeting the arrival of its parent storm with raucous glee that would have drowned out a dragon screech.

  Suddenly suspicious of everyone and everything around him, Glenndon checked the men’s auras.

  Frank’s remained a normal white afterglow with tiny orange-tinged spikes of alarm. Keerkin’s too showed the layer of white next to his skull topped by another narrow layer of sea green that suggested a minor magical talent. Then . . . then nothing. Some of his emotions should show through. Blue calm, red anger, yellow happiness, shades of orange concern. Something.

  “Um . . . Keerkin, just how much magic do you have?” Glenndon asked.

  “Do you have a plan for stalling the storm? I can support your talent with whatever dragon magic I can gather, but not much more. Weather is more a ley line talent and I can’t find those, let alone tap them,” he replied a little too eager. “I haven’t worked more magic than lighting a candle or keeping a quill sharp since I left the University five years ago.”

  “I’m not sure I can do much either without a dragon’s presence,” Glenndon admitted. “Mama and Lily are the storm watchers in my family.” He watched Keerkin carefully while he spoke. The man was hiding something. Perhaps instinctively. Blocking his aura from the sight of another magician required more talent than the clerk admitted to.

  (Spy,) another mind whispered into his own.

  Spy?

  He chuckled silently to himself. Da had spies all over the capital. A habit he developed right after the Leaving. Why would Jaylor, the Senior Magician, withdraw his spies just because magic and magicians had returned to everyday life and politics in Coronnan?

  Glenndon turned his mind back to the more immediate problem. “How far to Sacred Isle?” he asked. The one time he’d come here, by himself to acquire his staff, he’d taken a longer route around the outermost islands because he didn’t know the river as Frank did, afraid he’d get lost and end up in the middle of the Bay.

  “About five minutes. I’m fighting the outgoing tide as well as the current. Still a lot of snow coming off the mountains, running the river higher than normal this time of year.”

  That didn’t sound right either. Last spring the Krakatrice had caused a drought with warmer than normal temperatures. Even if all the rain and snow that had been blocked from falling on Coronnan returned in gushes these last three moons, the river should still be lower than normal. The rain and snow had drenched SeLennica instead.

  “Frank, slide into the lee of that temporary ait,” Glenndon directed, pointing to a lump of a sandbar that had no more than two years’ worth of grass and saplings clinging to it. The coming storm looked strong enough to wipe it out, as happened so often within the delta.

  “Gladly,” Frank panted.

  “What are you thinking, Your Highness?” Keerkin asked while Frank rested, using the oars only enough to keep them in place.

  “I’m thinking someone with strong magical ties to weather wants to keep us from Sacred Isle tonight, or at least delay us. I’m not going to let that happen. Shift places with me, Frank.” They made the tricky maneuver without overturning the little boat.

  With fresh energy, and shoulders made strong from chopping wood and lately sword practice, Glenndon channeled some of his magic into the oars as he dipped them deep into the water and pushed them out into the current. He concentrated on the water, letting his mind blend with it; understand its need to move faster and faster to its destiny out in the Bay.

  He’d learned that trick from Valeria. She merged with the soil, plants, and burrowing insects or worms to hide from others while observing them. He needed to do much the same with the water.

  “Um . . . Highness?” Frank stammered. “Why are you fading into nothing? You look more like a dragon than a human.”

  Glenndon ignored him. He’d deal with the consequences of fatigue, hunger, and headache later.

  They sped upriver, barely skimming the water’s surface.

  CHAPTER 22

  THE LADIES SEEMED to have disappeared from the public rooms in the palace. Mikk overheard a maid whisper something about the heavy air making her lady’s hair frizzy and unmanageable. He was almost grateful to avoid Miri’s and Chastet’s interference.

  Though he did think he looked rather dashing in a roguish way wearing leather instead of brocade.

  A quarter hour later, Mikk led Geon across the bridge to University Isle and up to the postern gate. An apprentice magician, clad in wrinkled and stained pale blue tunic and trews, yawned as he waved the royal visitor into the walled complex.

  “Excuse me, Apprentice,” Mikk addressed the young man, near his own age with thick dark hair drawn back into a three-strand queue that looked as if it hadn’t been refreshed in several days. Unconsciously, he maintained a clear distance of three arm’s-lengths. “I wish to consult with your librarian.”

  “Huh?” the boy asked around another yawn. The red rimming his eyes suggested at least one sleepless night. Perhaps he had an excuse for his yawns and unkempt appearance.

  “Yes, I have some questions.”

  “Um, Master Aggelard isn’t feeling well today. Something about shifting air pressure playing havoc with his arthritic hands. He’s not taking visitors.”

  Alarm bells seemed to clang inside Mikk’s mind. Almost as clear as the city bells that signaled invasion or flood or fire.

  “The shifting air pressure is precisely what I need to consult with him about,” Mikk said.

  “But . . .”

  “It’s important.”

  “Well, maybe Master Bommhet can decide if it’s important enough to disturb the old guy.” The magician ran his fingers along the edge of
the pedestrian portal.

  Mikk saw a series of scratches in the stone. Then the apprentice’s fingers paused and the series of straight and crossed marks glowed green. Mikk guessed this was some kind of magical communication. A flash of pure lust seared from his groin to his head and back again. He wanted, no needed, to know how to do that. Geon too seemed fascinated, leaning his head closer to the portal, almost blocking Mikk’s view.

  He bet Glenndon could tap into those markings and know where every master in the University was at any time.

  Deep loneliness followed the want. Mikk had been left out of this exclusive group of men. Even if he’d followed his grandmother’s wishes and joined the Temple, he wouldn’t fully belong in this University, with real magicians.

  “Master will see you. Down the long hall, third door on the left. He’s in the gallery around the library.” He waved again for Mikk and Geon to proceed.

  Mikk followed the directions, noting how the central courtyard, for all its ancientness, was swept clean of litter and everyday dust. The mortar between the massive building stones gleamed without a trace of mold or mildew—hard to do with the constant moisture from the river and the bay. The interior smelled just like any other very old stone building, slightly musty from hundreds of men living and working here for centuries.

  His nose itched as something else filtered through his senses, something he associated with . . . with Glenndon. Not Glenndon specifically, his staff. His magical staff made from a branch of the Tambootie, the tree of magic that dragons fed upon.

  So much dragon magic had been thrown within these walls that the scent of it permeated the stones themselves. If Mikk squinted in the dim light—glow balls hovered near the ceiling where it met the walls—he could almost see the sparkle of magic within the stones themselves: tiny shards of many different colors and variations on those colors. Each color and combination of colors represented the magical signature of a specific magician. A talented person could meet them all just by touching those stones.

  He wanted to be that talented person.

  “Sir.” Geon prodded him toward the doorway they sought. The servant cast an eager glance toward the massive double doors that marked the entrance to the library.

  Mikk shook off his reverie and pushed open one side of the iron-banded oaken doors, cautiously, almost reverently, hoping he entered a temple full of books, worthy of respect and awe.

  He was not disappointed. Rows and rows of shelves, freestanding and affixed to the walls, flowed around him and upward for three stories. Bigger than the tower archives in the palace, this library must contain a copy of every tome ever penned. He stood for a long moment, mouth agape, staring and needing to read every word of every book there. For the first time in his life he felt as if he’d come home. This was where he belonged.

  “Not that one, boy,” a querulous voice came from Mikk’s left.

  Mikk started, wondering what he’d done wrong.

  He heard a soft, quickly stifled chuckle from behind him. Geon found amusement in his embarrassment! Then his servant nudged his elbow and pointed to a huge circular desk at the center of the room.

  An old man, shrunken and frail, wispy hair nearly nonexistent on top but spilling down to his dark-blue-clad shoulders from an untrimmed half circle around his skull, bent over the desk peering into a bowl of water. A lit candle stood in its stick, nearly guttering, behind the bowl.

  So that was how one worked a scrying spell! Mikk had read about it but never mastered the positioning of the bowl and candle. The circle of glass must be floating on the water.

  “To your right, boy!” the old man admonished, never taking his eyes off the bowl. “Yes, that one. It has a record of the flood five hundred years ago.”

  Above them, the sound of shuffling feet alerted Mikk to the presence of another person. “The title is wrong. This one is a record of harvests transported downriver fifty years ago,” came a disgusted voice from the shadows of the gallery.

  A flood? A flood five hundred years ago?

  “Excuse me, Master Aggelard?” Mikk ventured, taking five steps closer to the old man. He had a long way to go to consider himself within conversing range.

  “Not now. Can’t you see the master is busy?” the other voice said.

  “Excuse me, the apprentice at the gate said I might speak to Master Bommhet with questions about the storm I sense brewing east of the bay.” Mikk looked up. Way up.

  A male figure came into view wearing a blue robe almost the mate to the one enshrouding the old man. He bent over the railing that looked too low to keep him on the gallery if he bent forward too far. “Ah, you’d be the one from the palace. What’s your question? Ask it quickly, then leave us to our important work.” He seemed almost as old as Mikk’s grandfather. Surely too old to be called boy. But then Master Aggelard looked ancient. In comparison a man of sixty would be a boy.

  “Sir, the storm does not seem normal.”

  “Of course it’s not normal,” replied Aggelard. “Sensed it did you? You haven’t been trained in magic though. So you can’t be the boy wonder Glenndon. Which one of the royal brats are you?”

  “Mikkette, sir.” Mikk doffed his cockaded leather cap and bowed as deeply as he would to the king. “The family call me Mikk.”

  “Ah, the get of that sorceress. Must have inherited the talent from her. Go talk to Lord Jaylor and get yourself enrolled before your senses get you in trouble.” He barely looked up before returning to his bowl. “Bommhet, that book is too new. I need the one to the right of it!”

  “That’s not it either!”

  “Well, then, look further. Or get yourself a new set of eyes to read the title.”

  “Master Aggelard, perhaps I can help find the reference you need,” Mikk offered hesitantly.

  “Can you read?”

  “Yes, sir. My grandmother intended me for the Temple.”

  “Your first test, boy,” Bommhet called from above. “Is to read faded titles on books too low for me to bend and see properly.”

  “I have some talent in finding books by feel,” Mikk replied, looking around for a way up to the third level.

  “So do I. So does every apprentice in the University. But the storm is interfering, and we’ve worked all the boys so long and hard trying to shore up dikes along the riverfront they’re useless. I need intelligent eyes, not necessarily talent.”

  Geon pointed to a circular iron staircase behind Master Aggelard and nodded. Then he retreated to an obscure spot behind a freestanding bookcase where he could observe in silence and obscurity.

  As Mikk watched, Geon’s fingers caressed a book spine and eased it free of its fellows. How much observing could the man do if he was reading a text?

  “That man of yours can fetch me fresh candles,” Aggelard reproached all of them. “Best make use of anyone who can help while real magicians are out preparing for the worst. I know I’ve read an account of a battlemage raising a storm that flooded the entire river all the way to the headwaters. I know it. I just have to see the spell to know if we can counter it.”

  “Food,” Glenndon gasped as he grounded the little boat on the narrowing beach of Sacred Isle. He’d not been this tired or hungry since he got lost in the void after an unplanned transport spell that had no timing or destination, just escape. He’d felt like he’d been lost in the sensory deprivation for days. Da and Indigo had snatched him back after only an hour, but when he landed in the University courtyard, at the center of the working circle, his stomach felt like it was gnawing his backbone.

  This was worse. He’d expended too much energy skimming over the water ahead of the storm. The storm itself seemed to have sucked him dry of magic reserves as well.

  Only dragon magic had left him. He still had access to ley lines to replenish him, if he had enough strength to find one.

  Frank handed him a hunk of yellow cheese, the salty kind he liked best, though the palace chef considered it peasant food and beneath his dignity to use. A fat r
aindrop plopped on the delicacy halfway to Glenndon’s mouth. More precursors to the storm turned a heel of day-old bread soggy.

  Glenndon nearly swallowed them whole. And the now-swelling-with-moisture jerked journey meat Frank pulled from his inner pockets.

  “We’ve got to get the boat higher!” Frank yelled over the roaring wind. He leaped free and began tugging fruitlessly at the bow. Keerkin joined him. His narrow shoulders barely carried enough muscle to lift three sheets of parchment.

  Grudgingly, Glenndon pocketed the remains of his hasty meal and crawled free of the boat. He landed on his knees beside it, the river lapping at his boots.

  “This is weird,” Keerkin said, able to help Frank now that the boat had lost Glenndon’s extra weight. “Floods come after the storm, on high tide and water upstream trying to get downstream.”

  “Tell that to the storm.” Glenndon half-rose, waddling beside them and into the tree line fifty feet away. Surely the river wouldn’t rise that far in the few short hours he needed to be here.

  “Help me turn the boat over so it doesn’t fill,” Frank grunted, placing one hand on the edge and the other on the hull.

  Glenndon knew Keerkin would be useless at the task. He pulled the last of the bread from his pocket and thrust it into his mouth and chewed while he helped Frank. Together they managed to pull the boat another few feet deeper into the forest and turn it over. If worst came to worst, they could take shelter beneath it.

  Then he finished the cheese and looked for more in Frank’s knapsack.

  “Hey, leave some for us!” Frank demanded, grabbing the stash of food away from his prince.

  “Sorry.” Glenndon’s cheeks burned with shame.

  Lightning flashed right over them, near-blinding him. Afterimages of a tall everblue tree splitting down the middle lingered as thunder clapped like boulders slamming into each other during a massive avalanche.

  Instinctively, Glenndon reached out with his magic to divert the half tree that broke free and fell directly toward them.