The Broken Dragon: Children of the Dragon Nimbus #2

by Irene Radford

  Skeller had felt like this boy looked the day his mother died. He’d run away two days later, before Queen Skalleria’s funeral pyre had finished burning.

  Skeller couldn’t let Lukan repeat all the same mistakes that he had made.

  “You need to stay.” He grabbed Lukan’s shoulders and spun him around to face the cabin.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” Lukan sneered back, trying to push Skeller out of the way. “Who are you anyway?”

  Skeller held his position. Though not as tall as Lukan, he had a few years’ maturity and muscle mass on the boy. “Skeller. I’m a bard, and Lily’s friend. For her sake as well as your own, you need to stay. At least until the funeral. You’ll regret it your entire life if you don’t.”

  “How would you know?” Lukan pushed at him again.

  Skeller braced for it and managed to stay upright, and in Lukan’s path.

  “Because I made the same mistake.”

  They glared at each other, weighing and assessing.

  “For Lily. Please. She needs you right now.”

  “No one needs me. The twins have never needed anyone but each other. Glenndon’s off being the grand prince in the city . . .”

  “What about the two little ones huddling in the corner? They’ve just lost both their parents. Is anyone thinking about them?” He’d wanted to tightly hug the young boy and and girl, but was afraid he’d disrupt the attempts to save Lily’s Da and her mother by getting in the way.

  Lukan took half a step backward and chewed on his lip.

  Marcus, the older man in a dark blue robe, stepped out of the crowded cabin, closing the door quietly behind him. A splotch of dark blood stained the front of the fine fabric. He looked up at the sky, screwed up his eyes and breathed in and out, trying for regularity. Each exhale came out more ragged than the previous one.

  Lukan began easing around Skeller, obviously putting distance between himself and the older man.

  “Ah, there you are, Lukan. I’m glad you didn’t get very far,” Marcus said. “There are decisions to make before you leave on your journey.” He stepped closer, keeping his gaze fixed on Lukan.

  “You and Maigret seem to have it all well in hand. Feel free to take over the family as well as the University.”

  “Lukan, it’s not like that.”

  “Isn’t it? Why should I stick around? No one will listen to me anyway. Da never did. Why should you?”

  “Because I am your master and you are my responsibility!” Marcus yelled.

  Taken aback, Lukan closed his mouth and dropped his eyes.

  Skeller decided to change the subject, divert attention, and take some responsibility off his own shoulders—though he truly wanted only to dash to Lily’s side and hold her close while she cried out her sorrow. She needed to do that before she could resume her duties.

  “Sir,” Skeller addressed Marcus. “I don’t know who to report news to, but someone in authority needs to know . . .”

  “I know about the storm.”

  “That too . . . but . . .”

  “Do you know there is a tangle of Krakatrice feeding on the dead left behind by the storm?” Ariiell asked from the far side of the yard. She and Graciella sat together on a stump with deep ax slashes. A chopping block.

  “What?” Marcus demanded, turning toward the two women, staff raised, eyes a-bulge.

  “Krakatrice, ugly black snakes, females have six wings. Feed on blood, fresh if they can get it, meat will do in a pinch,” Skeller supplied the missing information.

  “I know what they are. I’ve killed my fair share of them too. Why are they in Coronnan? We turned the last matriarch to ash months ago.”

  “They are here because my father conspired with some magician named Samlan to bring Coronnan to its knees,” Ariiell said, quite calm and sane. “King Lokeen was quite pleased to get rid of the eggs. Let them destroy Coronnan rather than Amazonia.”

  “Just who are you?” Marcus leaned forward, peering at the willowy blonde curiously.

  “You won’t remember me. I’m Lady Ariiell, Lord Laislac’s insane daughter.”

  “I remember you,” Marcus said.

  Skeller and Lukan looked at each other, wondering when they’d become redundant to this conversation.

  “I was there, in the old monastery, when . . . when you . . .”

  “Brought down the Coven, twisted enough magic to turn Krej and Rejiia into their totem animals, and generally caused enough problems to upset the line of succession?” She quirked an eyebrow at him, then gracefully resumed her seat.

  “Yes, that,” Marcus agreed. “I was still a journeyman. But I was there and I remember it all.”

  “Fine. Now you seem to have more authority than you did sixteen years ago, go deal with the most recent crisis. I’ve had enough of being sane and coherent for one day. I think I’ll throw a screaming fit until all those cats go away. I really don’t like cats.” She waved at the passel of furred creatures perched on the thatched roof of the cabin, watching the human activity closely.

  Skeller remembered Lily’s tale of Ariiell and Marcus’ adventures. “Sir, another thing you need to know . . .”

  “What now? Don’t I deserve a little time to grieve for the loss of my friend and mentor?”

  “You wanted to be head of the University,” Lukan mocked. “You want my Da’s job, don’t expect to go home to your family before next week.” A little color came back into his face.

  Good, Skeller thought. The boy was thinking again and not just reacting to strong emotions.

  “A stray cat followed the caravan,” Skeller said quietly. “Lily seemed to think it quite important.”

  “A stray cat? Lily and her mother always have . . . had a dozen of them about.”

  “A black cat with one white ear. Thin and paw-sore but not ill, quite friendly for a stray.”

  Marcus’ head reared up in alarm. “And was the cat alone?”

  “No. There seemed to be a tin-colored weasel with golden yellow tips to its pelt waiting in the shadows.”

  “What was old is new again,” Graciella sang. “Change is reversed. What was new is now old. Round and round. Change and change. Dance in a circle. Dance for life.”

  Ariiell picked up the tune and wove her fingers in a childish game. Both women seemed to pull a veil of forgetfulness across their faces and unfocus their eyes.

  “Stargods,” Marcus groaned. “I don’t even want to ask what that means.” He buried his face in his hands.

  Skeller shrugged his shoulders, keeping his eyes on the two women, trying to see if either of them faked their sinking into insanity.

  Lukan reached out and patted his master’s shoulder.

  “It means she saw the magic in the storm restore the cat and the weasel to their original forms,” Lily said, appearing in the doorway, Valeria for once not semiattached to her. She dashed to Skeller’s side, burying her face in his shoulder.

  Gratefully, he wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. It would all come around right again, as long as he could hold Lily and they could face the world and their problems together. He’d run away from home, seeking a life without violence—violence that Lokeen courted and encouraged among the people. Skeller needed a life without physical brawls to settle arguments, without executions for crimes committed and perceived. Lily represented everything he’d run toward. She was his new home.

  “Oh.” Lady Ariiell raised her head and fixed Skeller with a piercing gaze, as if she knew how important her next statement was to him and him alone. “My father, your precious Lord Laislac, has arranged for me to marry King Lokeen of Amazonia. From violence we come, to violence we go.” Then she dropped her head and resumed singing nonsense nursery rhymes with Graciella.

  The next morning, as dawn brightened the eastern sky and sent shafts of golden light atop the ugly mass of water that stretched from horizon to horizon—mere inches below the level trapped within the palace’s magical protection—Glenndon paced the pa
rapet of the highest spire of the palace. He stared malevolently at the thinning cloud layer as if it were the source of all his disappointments in life. As he watched, a freshening breeze from the interior shredded the pall, revealing tatters of brilliant blue sky.

  He frowned at the omen and promise of better weather. It wouldn’t do any good until the flood that swirled through the city up to the second-story windows of the palace dissipated and he could break the wall of magic that kept the water out of the building. Perhaps a week. Even with the force of tides and rain-swollen river currents pushing it back out to sea, it would take time to move all that water back to where it belonged.

  Until then he could do nothing, go nowhere, help no one. And could not be with Jaylor, his Da, and his mother in this time of trial.

  Not only could he not leave the palace by magical or mundane means, he could not throw magic through the wall for a proper summons spell. Even his unique mind link to Linda was broken.

  He turned his attention away from the sluggish, muddy, debris-filled water that lapped at the palace walls, twenty feet above normal river levels, toward the rising north and west. He could see hilltops, far away, many miles away. To the south, well beyond the horizon, toward another chain of mountains, where he’d grown up, where his family lived, the land was flatter than to the north, stretching along the Bay coastline for many, many miles of farms and pastures. It was all underwater, with no relief in sight. Maps told him that the land rose quickly, three days’ journey that way. Rolling grassland gave way to forests broken by small river settlements. He couldn’t see that far. A FarSeer couldn’t see that far with the magical wall in place.

  Lily and Val had traveled in that direction over a week ago. He prayed they’d passed beyond the flood regions. His heart was full-to-breaking with grief and frustration already.

  He gave up peering in that direction for any sign of life above the water.

  To the west, he thought he saw tall trees poking above the flood. Surely Sacred Isle would be spared. If the Stargods ever thought to intervene they would save that one place from too much destruction. He had a particular fondness for one special Tambootie tree. Was that a gentle tug from the dragon bone embedded in his staff trying to reach out to the other dead dragons and host trees?

  Bits of green and the tops of a few trees showed more clearly to the north on what he suspected was the second line of rolling hills. Cattle and steeds gathered there. Maybe he discerned a farmer’s roof ridge. Hopefully city dwellers who could not get to the palace or University had managed to run that far.

  He doubted it. As if to prove his statement, a body drifted by, facedown, arms and legs splayed. A man he guessed, since it wore trews. Another body, a woman this time, bobbed in hidden currents a few feet away.

  “Stargods guide their souls to the void so that they may fly free of this life with the blessing of the dragons,” he whispered, a prayer learned in childhood.

  When this was all over, there would be many candles lit and prayers said for the dead. Father already planned a mourning service inside the palace for when the refugees sorted themselves out and counted heads to see who was missing.

  One thousand people saved. Perhaps an equal number in the University. Two out of ten people from the city saved.

  Among the dead General Marcelle, Glenndon’s friend and mentor in the practice arena; his father’s friend and loyal adviser. He’d sacrificed himself to save the cistern from damage. To save the city’s water supply. They couldn’t access the subterranean cavern now, but later, when the flood receded, they’d need fresh water more than anything. Mikk and General Marcelle had seen to that. At the cost of the general’s life.

  The boy had shown more initiative and responsibility than Glenndon had given him credit for. Perhaps he should spend some of the idle hours while waiting for the flood to go away teaching Mikk the basics of magic. Show him a few useful things like lighting a candle, purifying stale water, or turning nasty smells into more pleasant ones. They’d likely need that one a lot in the coming days with too many sweaty bodies crammed into too small a space for too long, without enough clean water for bathing. Even with spells, they’d only have enough water for drinking and cooking. The trapped floodwaters were just too tainted to hope for safety.

  “And what of you, Da?” he asked the air, or the dragons, or whoever might be listening. “Did you survive? Is Mama well?”

  No answer. Not even the dragons could break through his invisible wall of magic to give him news.

  Glenndon pounded his staff onto the stone floor and screamed his defiance and dismay.

  The flood swallowed the sound, not even giving him the satisfaction of a decent echo.

  At last my apprentice approaches. I am nigh unto death with thirst and sunburn. His boat is not much bigger than mine, but it has an intact sail. Expertly he tacks and comes alongside my little dinghy. He has obeyed my compulsion to come for me, abandoning the young prince he was charged to guard. He took the position I found for him eagerly, hoping to learn something of magic. But he could not ignore my orders, even if he developed some loyalty to the boy. He has no loyalty to anyone but himself and his quest to become a magician. His obsession made him an easy target for my control over him.

  Now, using his lifelong skills in a boat to circumvent the storm along the Bay shore, he comes to me eagerly, hoping I will fulfill my promise to teach him magic.

  He throws a rope ladder down to me without a word. I’d reprimand him for his lack of manners, for not greeting me. But that is his way. A silent observer who speaks only when required or ordered. He’d learn more magic if he asked questions rather than just watching.

  “Could you find nothing better than this leaking tub?” I demand of him.

  He shrugs and assists me aboard. Then he hands me a skin full of fresh water. I drink it down without hesitation.

  As the last swallow sloshes around my mouth, moistening the delicate tissue I taste something. Something off. Something strange.

  “Poison!” I gasp.

  He merely lifts his eyebrows in that maddening way of his.

  CHAPTER 37

  “WHY?” I CROAK to my traitorous apprentice.

  He shrugs again. “I do not like you. I do not like being a servant to the second heir of Coronnan. I do not like the destruction of my home you caused. I do not like being kept in ignorance. You promised to teach me magic. You didn’t.”

  Quite a speech for the taciturn Geon.

  “I have my reasons for keeping you uninformed and ignorant,” I growl at him.

  He watches my face for signs that the poison is taking effect on my body. I allow him to see a slight grimace of pain and slump my posture protectively over my cramping belly.

  I do not allow him to see the packet of powder I draw from my belt script. I needed those few seconds of conversation to know which counteragent to use. I always carry several. I had the right ones. One for me. One for him. One never knows who one can trust.

  As I straighten, I loosen the knots and drawstring with a tiny sliver of magic. Then I throw the caustic residue into his eyes.

  He screams and covers his face with his arms. He screams again and again, rivaling the passing gulls in strident tones. When he drops to his knees and his voice turns to moans I take the remaining powder from his hand.

  I have only minutes to act before the purgative begins its work of clearing my body of his feeble attempt at assassination. I use those moments to shove him overboard. He lands flat on his back in the dinghy. I cut it adrift and set the rudder of my sailboat toward Saria where I can be more certain of my welcome.

  I should have expected Geon to try something like this. He was more adept at shutting me out of his dreams than my other tools.

  As I contemplate how to draw my minions to my rescue I empty my guts back into the ocean and feed the fish the poisoned water.

  Val watched her parents’ funeral pyre crumble to ashes and the last glowing ember cool and fade. Someone, prob
ably Maigret or Marcus—Lord Marcus now—would gather the ashes into a lovely silver container. Soon Lord Jaylor and his Lady Brevelan would rest together, for all time, on a shelf in the ceremonial hall of the University. She hoped they stayed here in the Forest University Da had built and run for over fifteen years. The king, and probably Glenndon, would campaign to have them taken to the old University. They didn’t truly belong there.

  And she didn’t belong here anymore.

  Val stood there, watching and waiting—she didn’t know for what—long after the rest of her family and the members of the University had drifted away to other tasks, other duties, other responsibilities.

  What was her life to be like now?

  Lily still had her journey to complete, escorting Lady Graciella to Castle Saria. The dark and gloomy castle was built into a mountainside hundreds of feet above the Bay, accessible only by a single road that climbed from a supporting village around the jagged cliffs. So it had probably survived the flood the master magicians had seen in their FarSeer spells.

  Val suspected Skeller would choose to go with them—with Lily.

  Lukan had a journey of his own to accomplish, first to gain a staff and then to complete whatever task Marcus determined for him—probably to find Master Robb.

  Glenndon had his duty to the king and Coronnan. She knew he’d have to help with the aftermath of the flood. Lukan would take Da’s letter to him once the land had drained.

  The Circle of Master Magicians had elected Marcus their Senior Magician and Chancellor of the Universities. He in turn had decided to journey to the old University in the city and take up the reins of his responsibilities as Senior Magician and adviser to the king. His wife Vareena and their children would follow him shortly. The Circle had yet to elect a separate Chancellor of the Forest University, but conversations and votes tended to favor Maigret, simply because she worked well with everyone, generating no enemies, while the men tended to gather strong factions around themselves. None of them could command a majority of votes. And so by default, Maigret would step in and organize them, as she always did.