Before he realized he had no magic left to fight the storm or the tree his head exploded in pain, and darkness laced with giant stars crashed around him.
“Mama, I can’t find Glenndon,” Lukan shouted, running into the garden toward his mother. “He tried to summon me, but by the time I could withdraw from my lessons, he was gone. No trace of him. And the dragons won’t answer a call either.”
She straightened from picking red fruit—juicy orbs with thin skin that made the driest of stews succulent. Her face blanched and she clutched her belly. “Not again,” she moaned.
“Mama?”
She waved at him to assist her. He hastened to take her elbow and escort her back toward the cabin. When he placed the flat of his hand across her waist to support her back he felt the knobs of her spine nearly cutting through her bodice. Alarm over her condition banished his concern for his older brother.
“What do you mean not again?” He was afraid she meant something was wrong with her and the baby. She seemed to wash her personal linen more often than usual. Sometimes when she hung it out to dry she hadn’t managed to wash away all of the blood spots.
“I mean Glenndon has this habit of wandering into situations that block his magic. Mostly exploring underground, which he hasn’t done for awhile. When he needed to run away, he always sought the dragons and they masked his presence. At least you explore the tops of trees and cliffs. I can always find you.” She patted his hand and turned her face up to smile at him. The smile quickly twisted into a grimace.
Lukan scooped her into his arms and carried her the rest of the way into the cabin. All the while his mind screamed for Mistress Maigret to come to his aid. Quickly.
CHAPTER 23
SKELLER LISTENED CLOSELY to Telynnia. Her strings swelled and responded sluggishly to his fingers and the tuning pegs. Her carved wooden frame felt damp. She should be light and joyous now that the shadows surrounding the other half of the caravan were gone.
He certainly felt freer in mind and spirit, except for the heavy air that made his head ache and his sinuses throb.
“I know I didn’t drop you in a creek or spill ale on you,” he muttered. “What’s wrong?”
The caravan master had stopped before sunset, having moved south only a few miles from the crossroads. In the far distance to the west, a dark line at the base of the ridge identified the other half of the caravan, also stopped early. Everyone seemed listless and sad at the separation. Why, he didn’t know. Moving away from the stinking shadow beneath Lady Ariiell’s litter was a relief. His need to be alone with his music, and his harp had never seemed this strong before.
So he did what he did best: prepared to lighten hearts with a song and put some verve into setting up camp. Only Telynnia wasn’t cooperating and his voice felt thick, as if he were coming down with a sore throat.
The harp responded to his ministrations with a discordant twang.
He was about to twist the peg hard enough to break a string when Lillian peeked out of Lady Graciella’s litter. His heart lightened despite the oppressive air and his unease about her dependence upon magic.
She looked distressed. He knew she missed her sister. Twins. No wonder they bent their heads together so often, faces moving in reaction to silent communication. He’d known twins in Amazonia who could do that. The closeness of these two seemed stronger. Almost magical.
There was that uncomfortable thought again. Everything in his education and wandering experience had taught him that magic had no value. The effort of doing things with his own hands gave value to a chore.
Lillian smiled hesitantly at him. A soggy grin beneath tear-reddened eyes. He smiled back, trying to reassure her that all was well.
But it wasn’t and couldn’t be until he managed to fix Telynnia’s problem.
He thought he heard a roar overhead that could be wind, or could be a dragon. But the trees near the ground stood upright, branches still, not a hint of a breeze, let alone the raging storm his mind heard.
Carefully he slipped Telynnia back into her case and tightened the strap across his shoulder to secure her. Then and only then did he dare sniff the air.
His nose dried instantly, all moisture evaporated, and banished everything but the scent of dust. Heavy dust. Sharp and coppery dust.
Telynnia should be just as dry, in need of oil on her frame and clear water on her strings. But she wasn’t.
His head and sinuses still felt as if smothered in a thorny blanket even though the cloying damp disappeared. Instantly.
He looked up, squinting against the weird glare of sunlight trapped behind a pall of clouds. His heart nearly stopped beating.
Champion pawed the ground and snorted in impatience. The laziest steed in the world impatient? More likely irritated. His eyes showed more white than dark gray and he rolled them in . . . fear!
A quick scan of the other sledge steeds, oxen, and milk goats showed them all sidling sideways and braying their alarm. Up ahead the lead stallion reared in his traces. The caravan master was hard put to keep the animal calm.
He’d seen something similar before. On the wide plains inland from Amazonia. The copper-yellow cast to the underbelly of the thickening sky; the sudden flash of lightning setting fire to something within the clouds; the strange taste to the air. And the animals knowing something was wrong long before the humans did.
“We have to circle up now!” Skeller yelled, using every bit of his musical training to pull volume, clarity, and authority from his gut to his words. “Make a circle. Lash down everything. Every tiny pot or length of rope. Lash it down! Now!” His head nearly exploded with the force of his voice.
Frantically he gestured for Lily to obey him. She paused halfway out of the litter, eyes nearly crossed in concentration, facing west. The direction her sister—her twin—had gone. Was she warning them?
He hoped so. This storm was big. Bigger than the horizon on an open plain.
Garg and the other drovers nearby stared at him. At least they’d stopped moving forward.
“Circle up. This storm will kill us all.”
Garg looked up at the sky, then assessed the state of the animals. “Ye heard the boy. Circle up or get blown all the way to Hanassa!”
A clod of grass and shrub twigs, ripped up by a sudden gust from somewhere else hit Skeller square in the face, knocking him backward. His last thought was a faint hope that the winds would not begin to rotate, at least not until the caravan was circled, lashed, and secure.
Four masters, three journeymen, and two barely-trained apprentices are hardly enough to conjure the storm. If I had not subverted Master Robb’s students, I would not have this many. My place of exile does not value magic. Dragons rarely fly there, granting us their power.
But I have secret ways of entering dreams and robbing other masters of their control, their strength, and the formulae of their spells. I will conquer Coronnan by way of my own power. Return the mighty country to the way it was.
Power may not be enough. Air, water, fire, and the Kardia rage at my control over them. They wish to destroy me.
I need to force that destructive power against my enemies and not allow it to backlash to those who have sheltered us, the Master Circle in Exile.
This storm takes on a life of its own, pulling air and water from the land as well as the sea. The storm spreads north and south of its own accord.
It endangers my magical tools on their journey to the far west.
Only my circle of magicians keeps the storm from breaking east to find more water in the ocean and add that fuel to its fury. I must rely on the talisman my new king granted me. Fitting that the one tool I will use came from Lokeen. This spell, controlled by this ancient relic, will give him the opportunity to increase his political power tenfold.
And I will restore the world to the way it should be, free of the taint of Jaylor and his perverted magic.
I need to break Coronnan, its king, and those who control the two Universities. What will I
do if my conjuring destroys everything?
What if it wipes Coronnan clean of all that is good as well as evil?
I will have nothing left to rule over.
I must gather more power, more strength, more control. I will have to partake of the Tambootie, though it is dangerous. Not as dangerous as allowing this storm free to run rampant where it will. It must go where I will it.
“No, Brevelan, you may not get up!” Mistress Maigret admonished, holding her patient flat on the big bed with one finger.
Lukan moved around to the head of the bed and fluffed some pillows. He didn’t know what else to do.
He had no idea where Da had gone, and he didn’t truly care to find him.
“But I have a meal to prepare, and laundry, and the hearth needs sweeping . . .” Mama protested. She looked as if she might cry.
“You need to stay in bed or lose this baby,” Maigret returned.
“But . . .”
“This is my apprentice, Souska.” The potions mistress gestured to a girl near Linda’s age to come forward.
Lukan had barely noticed her, other than as another body in the too crowded room. Linda had bustled about, fetching and mixing things at Maigret’s direction. He wasn’t sure what the girl with bouncing brown curls and round cheeks did.
“Souska comes from a family that expected her to cook and clean and tend little ones.” Maigret glared at Linda accusingly. Certainly the former princess had never learned such mundane chores, though she might have tended her younger sisters under the supervision of a governess.
“Nice to meet you, ma’am.” Souska dipped a polite curtsy, eyes wide at the honor done to her.
Lukan surveyed the girl as curiously as his mother did. She looked sturdy and middle height under her pale blue robe. Pink tinged those round cheeks and full lips. Mama’s gaze strayed to the girl’s hands, strong and roughened with many calluses.
Linda hid her hands behind her, but Lukan remembered that her long fingers and slender wrists looked far too fragile to lift more than a decorative ribbon or piece of lace.
“She’ll do for you as long as necessary,” Maigret continued. “Probably until the babe comes, and I’m guessing he’ll come early by the size of him.”
Mama’s hands fluttered over her belly. Then she looked straight up, as if she could see through the ceiling, loft, and roof to the bilious blue sky above. “The dragons are uneasy. So is the babe,” she said, barely loud enough for Lukan to hear.
“Lukan,” she firmed her voice and breathed more deeply. “Lukan, go to your master and have the FarSeers look toward the capital. Shayla and Baamin are . . . are afraid.”
“I’ve never heard of a dragon being afraid,” Maigret said, mouth turned down in puzzlement.
“I have,” Mama said. Fear caught in her voice. “The day that Krej ensorcelled Darville into the body of a golden wolf, then left him to die at the base of a cliff in the middle of a snowstorm. Darville was the last living royal link to the dragons, bound to them by tradition, blood, and magic. He almost died. Shayla was afraid that day.”
Master Marcus! Lukan screamed in his mind. Then he took off at a run, all approving thoughts of Souska banished, all concern for his beloved mother overcome by the looming threat he sensed in the air and in the silence of the dragons.
“Sir,” Mikk whispered to Master Bommhet. They were both on their knees pulling out each book in order, feeling the spine and reading the cover title. Sometimes they had to open a book to find text to know if it was the one they sought. They’d already searched three stacks of books top to bottom, moving deasil around the gallery. Hours had passed. No light filtered in from the outside; they relied entirely upon glow balls. “Sir, I think the book we seek has been removed from the library.”
“If that were so, young man, then I would not see it so clearly in my scrying spell!” old Master Aggelard yelled from his desk below them.
“Perhaps, sir,” Bommhet wheezed and spat out some dust, “the book has been moved and cloaked from our view?”
“Nonsense. No master of the Circle would do that. And none of the apprentices and journeymen, either here or at the mountains has the skill and power . . .” He sat in silence for a moment, staring into the distance rather than at his glass within the water. He’d burned through three more candles while they searched and was in need of another.
“What?” Mikk mouthed to Bommhet, knowing now that the gallery was designed to carry the faintest of whispers back to that central desk.
“Politics.” Bommhet mouthed back, then set his jaw firmly closed. No more words would explain that.
Mikk had heard enough ranting and slimy manipulating in the Council Chamber over the past three months to know that politics carried a number of connotations, some of them quite vile, others merely the triumph of compromise. He guessed that magical politics were just as convoluted and this particular issue was sensitive. Possibly volatile. He’d get no other answer even if he could read minds like Glenndon could.
“Sir?” Mikk swallowed his curiosity long enough to ask one burning question. “Could the person who conjures this storm have stolen the book and cloaked its absence with a spell?”
“No!” Aggelard shouted. He waved his hand over the bowl of water, mumbled something and peered deeply again.
“Yes,” Bommhet said more quietly.
“But . . .” Mikk protested, looking back and forth between them.
Bommhet waved away his protest. “Help me up. My knees don’t like squatting so long.” He stuck out a long arm for Mikk to grab.
Mikk had done this many times for both his grandparents. He locked his grip around the master’s elbow and braced his own arm with his other hand. Bommhet mimicked his action as if he too had had to request assistance many times in the past. Mikk braced himself with a wide stance as he heaved and the magician levered himself upward with a grunt and a wince. When he was on his feet again, he bent double, rubbing his offended knees and brushing away some grit at the same time.
Together they made their way down the spiral staircase, Bommhet stepping sideways and gripping the railing with both hands. Mikk moved slowly, staying two steps ahead of the master, ready to catch him if he fell.
When they stood over Master Aggelard at the center of the ground floor, Bommhet braced his hands on the round desk and leaned forward until he was eye-level with the shrunken form of the ancient librarian. “Master Aggelard, our rival has four masters with him. Almost enough for a full circle. He may have added journeymen to his cause. I suspect they conjure this storm from exile.”
“But how could he get the book?”
“He was here before the Leaving.” Bommhet slapped the desk vehemently. “He knows this library. Undoubtedly he read the same chronicle you did and remembered it.”
“But . . . but . . . how did he get the book now, since our return to the old building and resurrecting the library from all its hidden places?”
“He could not have entered the building unannounced,” Bommhet agreed.
“A disguise? Or an accomplice?” Mikk offered, intrigued by the possibilities. No one outside the University spoke of these squabbles. Magicians always, always, presented a united front to the outside world.
Mikk had believed, like so many others, that the magical ability to read minds meant that magicians settled their differences easily and reached compromises amicably. Apparently he was wrong. Magicians were just like any other family or group. They fought each other as much as the Council of Provinces did. The recent, but short-lived, civil war among the lords echoed a split in the Circle of Master Magicians.
What other echoes would he find hidden inside this enclave?
“We have to accept that the book is not here. You, sir, have to remember as much of it as possible so that we can counter the spell,” Bommhet insisted.
“The city needs to prepare.” Master Aggelard’s voice quavered. “Even if we break apart the eye within the circular winds, the storm surge already bui
lding will flood the city halfway up the palace walls.”
“Boy,” Bommhet said in his most commanding voice; there might have been a bit of compulsion behind it.
Mikk found himself straightening to show his attention.
“Run to the king and warn him. Set the temple bells ringing. We are out of time!”
CHAPTER 24
THE SMALL CIRCLE of glass, framed in gold, buzzed and nearly bounced out of Jaylor’s pocket. The noise and smell of fear in the inner room of the cabin had quieted. Thank the Stargods. He wanted desperately to be in there, holding Brevelan’s hand, soothing her brow, fetching and carrying for her.
He hadn’t been here when she’d collapsed. He’d been closeted with Marcus at the University, just talking about everything and nothing. Wasted time. Wasted energy. He should have stayed home.
And now he needed nothing more than to be beside his wife.
But he couldn’t. Maigret had banished him until Brevelan had slept and eaten and slept again. She still slept with Souska sitting at her side. He could give his attention to the summons instead of biting his cheeks in worry over Brevelan.
Maybe he needed something to take his mind off his ailing wife. His wife! His companion, lover, friend, helper. The mother of his children. Their lives had been so intricately twined since that long ago day when they’d first met . . . here in the Clearing. She with a song of joy in her heart, and he with a mission that lost importance the moment he caught a glimpse of her bright red hair shining like fiery gold in the sunlight . . .
He turned away from the bedroom, holding the frame as if his fingers alone kept it upright, and fished the annoying glass into view. He had to squint and hold the thing up to his nose to pick out a complex twist and knot of five strands of light in varying shades of gray.
Though his sight had improved a bit, he still had trouble making out colors. Magical patterns tended to carry vivid hues akin to the magician’s personality. The pattern belonged to . . . no one he could think of offhand, and he couldn’t get any clues from the colors.
The Broken Dragon: Children of the Dragon Nimbus #2 Page 19
