The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

by Irene Radford

  The shouts and clangs of mock battles deafened observers on the nearest mainland from dawn to dusk. Those not so occupied sought refuge from their numbing fear of invasion in prayer or charms. In living memory nothing had so threatened the peace of their mundane lives as the news of border raids that penetrated ever deeper into the provinces.

  Coronnan was going to war. Troops had been mustered from every station of life in all twelve provinces. No one was exempt. Training took place near the capital, and then massed troops marched somewhere to the west.

  Baamin sighed heavily. He was Senior Magician and king’s councillor. But no one had told him the location of army headquarters. He knew, of course. But he wasn’t supposed to know. He had been abandoned along with the king he had served well for so many years.

  No one else bothered to remember the king who lingered near death. Lord Krej was their leader now. He infused the populace with the energy and knowledge to save them all. Something the magicians hadn’t been able to do when crisis struck.

  Baamin’s own self-doubts heightened his lonely depression. Was he responsible for the terrible disasters that threatened his homeland? Or had he only dreamed those terrible moments in Shayla’s cave?

  “Aah . . . aah . . . aahchoo!” Seven students dived to protect feeble candle flames from the blast of the sneeze erupting from the eighth apprentice.

  Inside the University, the few remaining apprentices shivered and sniffled in the damp classrooms. Fuel had been rationed for Lord Krej’s grand defense of the kingdom.

  “How are we supposed to learn a summons if you blow out our candles!” one frowning boy complained as he wiped rheumy eyes with the back of his sleeve. Greasy tallow candles gave off a lot of oily smoke and a weak flame. Spells became misdirected in the clouds of ugly smoke. The good beeswax tapers had all been confiscated by Lord Krej and his generals.

  Apprentices, too, had been commandeered into the army. There was no magic left for them to work. Therefore the University had no right to reserve boys from service to their country. Of the thirty apprentices entrusted to Baamin a few weeks ago, only eight showed any rogue potential. He had lied and lied and lied again about the boys’ ill health and weak constitutions so the recruiting officers would overlook them.

  “Now, boys,” Baamin soothed his irritable charges. “We’ll try it one more time. Find a core of magic deep within you.” He paused long enough to allow them to do this. “Close your eyes and keep a strong image of your receiver in your mind. Now send the magic through the flame into the glass and onto your partner.”

  Only the sound of an occasional raspy breath broke the silence of the room. Baamin’s gaze wandered to the newest apprentice, sitting in the corner, away from the other boys and their contaminating colds. His concentration was absolute. The rest of the boys might not have existed. His candle burned steady, bright and clear, unlike the other boys’, magnified by the glass he held in front of it.

  The kitchen boy. Who would have thought the stupid drudge, who possessed only a charming smile and a willingness to please, would turn out to be the most adept rogue magician of the lot?

  Baamin didn’t know how else to explain this newest phenomenon. The boy couldn’t gather magic. So he had been barred from the classrooms years ago. He could, however, drag up enormous quantities of the stuff from some other unknown source. They really should give him a name. “Boy” just didn’t seem to describe him anymore.

  “Did anyone ever give you a name?” he asked under his breath.

  The boy shook his head. He was concentrating on sending the flame through his precious shard of glass across the room to his study partner.

  Across the room, one of the boys sitting in a circle sat up in surprise. The summons had reached him. No one else was having the same success.

  “Would you like a name?” Baamin prodded.

  The boy nodded again as he prepared to receive his partner’s attempt.

  “What name?” This was why the boy was considered stupid. He was incapable of carrying on a conversation.

  “Only when I’m concentrating on something else,” he replied to Baamin’s thoughts.

  “What?” The senior magician had to sit, hurriedly. The boy was thought-reading, without a trace of a magic umbilical and while learning a new spell! This was unheard of.

  “Nimbulan could do it.” The boy sat back in his chair as his partner once more tried to direct enough magic to send his flame through the glass and across the room.

  “Did you read that in his journal, too?” Baamin felt moisture on his brow. The room was frigid and he was perspiring. What was he going to do with the boy?

  “You’re going to train me. That’s what you’re going to do with me.”

  “Stargods!” Baamin kept his mind closed. The boy looked up, puzzled.

  “You shut me out.”

  “It’s impolite to read another’s thoughts without an express invitation.”

  “How else am I supposed to know what’s happening around me?”

  “How long have you had this . . . er . . . talent?”

  “Don’t you have it, too?”

  Baamin’s head threatened to separate from his body. All the blood rushed to his stomach and tried to turn that beleaguered organ upside down. The hot moisture on his brow turned icy.

  “Lesson is over,” he announced to the boys. “Pick new partners and practice going from one room to the next. We’ll meet again after supper.” The boys rushed from the room, eager for food and replenishment. Baamin snagged one collar before its owner could escape.

  “Pick a name for yourself.” His tone commanded the boy to obey without hesitation. He didn’t try a compulsion spell; it wouldn’t work. Like the truth spell, the boy would just absorb it, dissect it for any new knowledge, and likely turn it back on the throwing magician.

  “Like what?” The boy’s eyes opened wide, revealing dark brown windows that begged him to open his mind again.

  The senior magician resolutely kept it closed. He knew too many secrets to allow this untried boy unrestrained access to them. But then the boy had probably been private to state secrets for years.

  “Anything you like. You seem to have no family to please, and no traditions to fall back on. Choose something that describes yourself, or what you would like to be.” He tried to resume the friendly father figure image that invited trust.

  “I want to be like Nimbulan, or like you, sir.” The eyes begged entrance again.

  Baamin was falling deeper and deeper into those eyes. At the last moment he stepped away from the boy, shaking his head clear, his thoughts firmly shuttered. How much had this boy learned from people who didn’t know of his telepathy?

  “Quite a bit, sir. That’s why I can do magic. I’ve been practicing what the boys think about when they study.”

  Stargods! He’d found a way into his mind anyway.

  “And just where did you find the magic to practice with? You were tested several times, and you can’t gather magic.”

  “Why gather and store it? There’s a never-ending supply at your feet.”

  “At my feet?”

  “Yes, sir. In the ground, there’s bluish-silver lines. They look kind’da like the dragon wing tips. Can’t you see ’em, sir?”

  Baamin shook his head in dismay. He couldn’t see them yet, but before the boys had finished supper he’d find a way.

  And where had Boy seen a dragon to know what the lines looked like?

  “I don’t think you should call yourself ‘Nimbulan’ or ‘Baamin,’ Boy. People would think you were giving yourself airs above your station in life.” An inkling of a plan took shape in Baamin’s tired brain.

  “But I won’t always be a kitchen drudge, or an apprentice.”

  “No, not always. But for now it’s important that everyone else sees you as a kitchen drudge, perhaps in the palace where you could hear the court and army gossip.” Again the boy’s eyes widened. He saw what Baamin wanted.

  “A name�
��s important. I’ll think about it while I’m listening to the regent’s cook and steward.”

  “Lord Krej leaves for his own castle next week.”

  “I’ll practice the summons spell tonight. I’ll need you as a partner so I can find your special vibration anywhere.”

  “Uh . . . Boy, have you ever read a man’s dreams?”

  “Only once, sir. Too boring and confusing.” He shrugged his shoulders in a timeless gesture of dismissal.

  “Do you think you could tell if a man’s dreams originate within himself or are imposed upon him?”

  “Never tried.”

  “Forget I asked.” Baamin shooed the boy toward his dinner. He couldn’t take the chance of anyone reading his current nightmares.

  “Halfway to the capital by dawn?” Jaylor snorted sarcastically. Dusk was crawling across the countryside and they were barely two hours’ walk from the village. Rain plagued every step.

  Buckets of intense downpour flooded creeks already swollen with spring run-off. Hard-packed roads and newly plowed fields took on the cloying texture of the mile-wide mud flats in the Great Bay. Every step Jaylor took became an effort.

  Rain such as this could only be the Stargods mourning the loss of their beloved dragons.

  If he was tired, wet, and chilled from the ceaseless plodding, how did Brevelan feel?

  “A figure of speech. We need to hurry. Who knows how much damage Krej has done already.” Darville reached again for the missing sword at his hip. “Come on. We can’t fly like dragons. We’ve got to reach Krej’s castle between here and the capital as soon as possible.” He lengthened his stride to emphasize his need.

  “I think we’d best find shelter for the night,” Jaylor voiced his own opinion. “We’ll make better time in the morning when we’re rested and fed.”

  Darville stopped short. Their eyes met each other’s in defiance, over the top of Brevelan’s head.

  She shivered and they both reached an arm to draw her close. They shivered with her, feeling everything she felt.

  The men’s eyes met again in challenge. The rain dripped into silence, surrounding them with a wet curtain. The three of them might have been the only creatures alive.

  “If you’d both loosen your hold a bit, I might be able to breathe.” Brevelan pushed at both their chests.

  Jaylor felt the heat from her hand. He wanted to take the time to absorb it, cherish it. Instead he eased his grip on her shoulder. He noticed Darville did the same.

  “You’re feverish, dear heart.” The cause of the heat in her hand disturbed him. His own body flushed in sympathy. “We’d best find shelter.” Even Darville, with his one-track, lumbird mind, should see the sense in that.

  “Last summer, a charcoal burner gave me directions and a meal. He moved back to the village and died last winter.” Her eyes closed in momentary pain. Jaylor knew she had felt the man’s death, probably nursed his last illness.

  “Perhaps his hut is still standing. I’m not sure I could find it again from this direction.” Brevelan shivered again. This time her arms encircled both men to bring them close again, as if she needed the heat of their bodies to chase away the chill of the rain as well as the chill of death.

  Her sense of loss passed quickly. But not before it engulfed Jaylor and, from the look of him, Darville, too. They were becoming too sensitive to her uncontrolled emotions.

  “We’ll more likely find leaning walls and a collapsed roof,” Darville grumbled as he kissed the top of her head. His lips lingered a moment. Jaylor felt their cherishing warmth almost as soon as Brevelan did. He clamped down on his instinctive jealousy. The three of them were too closely linked. They all knew/felt what the others did.

  “I’ll scout ahead.” Darville broke the empathic link. “If I were a charcoal burner, I’d want my hut sheltered from the weather, close to the burner but protected from a chance flame.” He scanned the woods around them. “Over that way.” He dropped his pack and moved off in an easy lope. Even in man form, his stride resembled that of a golden wolf.

  Jaylor snuggled Brevelan close against him within the folds of his cloak. His chin rested on top of her head so that her breath fanned his chest. “He won’t be long,” he reassured her.

  “He will probably find the place by smell.” Her tone was light, almost a giggle.

  Smiling, he, too, kissed her hair. “There seems to be some advantage to changing him back and forth. He’s a wolf with a man’s intelligence and a man with the keen senses of a wolf.”

  “And what of you? What have you retained from your flight with the dragons?” She looked up into his eyes.

  “I don’t crave meat if that is what bothers you.” Instead he craved the Tambootie, just as the dragons did. The giant winged creatures required the herbage as part of their balanced diet. It also gave them invisibility. He didn’t need it for health or protection, yet he still felt compelled to eat it.

  Jaylor allowed Brevelan to probe and absorb his emotions. “What I remember is a tremendous sense of wonder. They are such magnificent creatures, yet so sad. Without Shayla, their need for Tambootie is all that keeps them in Coronnan. Their anger at Krej may be strong enough to break that one chain. If they can find Tambootie elsewhere, even a different variety that doesn’t make them invisible, they’ll leave, taking their gatherable magic with them.”

  Some of the sadness engulfed them both. They gulped back sobs together.

  “We have to save Shayla.” Brevelan stepped away from the embrace. Her determination surrounded her like an aura.

  “We have to get you warm and dry,” Darville broke into their private thoughts. He grabbed his own pack and Brevelan’s as well. “The hut still has a roof and a stash of dry firewood. There’s a stream nearby for clean water.” He marched off, leaving the others to follow.

  A fresh torrent of rain strengthened the existing downpour, sending icy runnels down Jaylor’s neck. “That’s all we need, more water!” he called after his friends and lovers.

  Love. It was their love, for each other and theirs for him, that had brought him back from the ecstatic flight with dragons. Only an emotion so powerful could break his addiction to the herb that fed the dragons and created their magic. But would it last? Would their love be enough to fill the aching emptiness left behind when the evil herbage wore off?

  No wonder Tambootie was considered the essence of evil. Even now he hungered for it, wondered if he could work any magic at all without it.

  The raiders have gone too far. I paid them to harass the farmers and steal a few cows. Instead they have burned everything in their path.

  The merchant city of Sambol on the border is in danger. No traders have dared pass through the region because of the raiders.

  Simurgh take them all! I only needed an excuse to raise the army and discredit the Commune. I don’t need a full-scale war and a disruption of trade.

  All my generals and lords keep running to their priests and shrines to pray for guidance and deliverance. Stargods, indeed! We must rely on ingenuity, perseverance, and cunning, not on feeble prayers to nonexistent deliverers. Simurgh helps only those who fight for themselves and for him. If my head didn’t ache so badly, I could convince them with a snap of my fingers.

  Chapter 27

  Baamin crept softly around the islands of Coronnan City. The cloying mist of midnight saturated and chilled his plain brown cloak. His boots made soft squishing sounds in the mud. Only this late were the streets free of milling crowds, soldiers, and priests. He needed privacy to trace out and memorize each of the elusive silvery-blue lines Boy had brought to his attention.

  His path took him across a series of city bridges east to west, the same direction as the sun.

  The line he was following wavered and fled from beneath his feet. He paused and squinted. It eluded him.

  “Stargods, help me,” he pleaded. This wasn’t the first time he had lost track of the power. His body cried for sleep. The blankness of fatigue covered his mind. And yet t
he need to know more gnawed at his soul.

  He hadn’t been this tired since his apprentice days, learning to gather magic and throw it back out again. No wonder Jaylor wielded this rogue magic with ease. He was big, with powerful shoulders and a horrendous appetite. He could probably lift a sledge steed without magic.

  Out of long habit, Baamin reached within himself for some magic to guide him and to restore his aching muscles. The well was empty. He hadn’t even tried to gather any magic in several days. Deliberately he stepped back onto the silver-blue line, at least where it had been the last time he could see one. From the depths of Coronnan he pulled some magic into his tired body. He allowed it to feed and restore him, more so than a meal and a nap could.

  Had he done this in his dreams and traveled to the far corners of Coronnan, wreaking havoc? He’d always been taught that the very essence of rogue magic was evil. The idea surfaced that his untapped rogue talent had finally eaten away at his University-trained ethics.

  He tried to banish the idea and failed. If only Lord Krej were not a constant reminder of how the greed for power corrupted.

  Krej had to have lost his magic talents when he left the University fifteen years ago. But his addiction to power could have developed during his magical training. Since assuming the Lordship of Faciar, he must have nurtured the insatiable need to the point of seeking out a rogue to do his dirty work.

  Baamin could never accept Jaylor’s assumption that Krej was the rogue himself. The lord’s presence in the capital while the rogue was operating in the southern mountains was too well documented.

  If Krej were deposed or killed, would the rogue return whence he came and leave Coronnan in peace?

  Sounds from one of the small cottages sent Baamin slinking into the shadows. “S’murghin’ hound!” A disgruntled voice drifted across this quiet corner of the city. A door opened. Another muffled curse and the thud of a foot catching the cur in the ribs. “Stay out all night. I’ll not disturb my sleep just so’s you can pant after that bitch in heat.” The door slammed.