Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III

by Irene Radford

  He prayed to the Stargods and whatever other forces might hear him that she hadn’t triggered the gate too soon and ended up in the void without an anchor.

  The colors grew more intense, stabbing into his eyes. Powwell clenched them shut. The pain lessened a little. He concentrated on refinding his planetary orientation, hoping to understand how the dragongate worked. Or where it was taking him.

  Energy pulsed around him. He tumbled with it, losing all sense of up and down, right and left. Time and distance became meaningless. He had no idea where or when he traveled, only that he traversed a great distance.

  Numbness filled his mind.

  The dragongate held him seemingly forever.

  Was that a moment of sleep?

  He became aware of his body. No longer tumbling. Energy flowing around and with him, heat and light soothed the aches in his joints. And then . . .

  And then there was green. Lots and lots of green. He lay in it. Breathed its moisture. Luxuriated in the comfort of being home.

  Home! Yes he was home, in Coronnan. The South Pole tugged at his feet, watery sunshine broke through the cloud cover. Sunset was still hours away.

  But where was Yaala?

  He looked around carefully, moving as little as possible. The rocky overhang looked the same as when they’d left it. Hours ago? Days ago?

  No, the season hadn’t changed by more than a few hours. Early spring. The dark of the moon tonight. Not quite noon now. The rain shower dissipated quite rapidly as sunshine broke through the clouds. The rain had just begun when they entered the dragongate for the first time at dawn.

  So where was Yaala?

  Strident voices pierced his ears. Angry men off to his left.

  They probably walked the road that ran from Myrilandel’s village over the pass into the Southern Mountains. It passed near Hanassa on its way to the desert kingdom of Rossemeyer.

  Powwell listened closely.

  Men shouted in a language he hadn’t heard since before leaving Hanassa. Rovers! Stargods, he had to get out of here.

  He heard a heavy sledge scraping the packed dirt of the road.

  Powwell opened his senses with magic, striving to understand what was going on. He hoped Yaala wasn’t the center of that argument. It sounded as if the men might come to blows in a moment.

  “S’murghin’ four-legged dimwit. Get over here!” a man shouted.

  A steed screamed and stamped the ground.

  Powwell heard the clang of iron shoes striking rock on the rough road. Not a Rover steed. Rovers didn’t shoe their beasts.

  A whip cracked. The steed roared in pain. Powwell felt the terror of the high-strung animal. Leather snapped and hooves pounded the road, disappearing in the opposite direction.

  “Piedro’s going to kill us now. He really wanted that steed, a second man said.

  “The Kaaliph refuses to believe steeds are too smart to use the dragongate,” the first man muttered.

  The import of the words broke through Powwell’s mind. Piedro must have taken the title of Kaaliph after all the other contenders had died.

  The brief triumph Powwell had felt when he watched Yaassima and her pet Bloodmage murder each other faded to disgust. Hanassa had merely traded one ruthless leader for another.

  Piedro now ruled the city; Piedro, the cruel one who had delighted in slamming his fists into Powwell’s gut when he kidnapped him along with Kalen and Myrilandel a year and a half ago.

  “We have to get these supplies through today. The gate won’t open a true path again for another moon,” the first man said with a grunt. “Let’s move these sledges now. Lord Balthazaan is going to be right on our heels when he discovers how much we’ve stolen from him. When he hired us, he told us to leave most of this for him to sell on the black market.”

  “We left the lord extra jewels from Piedro’s hoard. The lord can get more supplies from the king. We can’t get anything but what we can carry through the dragongate until Rollett digs open the tunnel,” the second man grunted as if hauling something very heavy.

  “Well, you better hope Magician Rollett never gets the tunnel gate open, or we’re out of a job.”

  “If Piedro wants the tunnel kept closed so he can play benevolent ruler by doling out food at starvation rations, why don’t he just execute Rollett as a troublemaker?”

  “Because the consort doesn’t want Rollett dead yet. And what the consort wants, Piedro orders. Now move it. The dragongate opens in about two hundred heartbeats.”

  Powwell had to hide. He couldn’t let these Rovers catch him at the entrance to the dragongate. But if he went too far, he’d lose the chance to get to Hanassa for another moon.

  But where was Yaala? He couldn’t go to Hanassa without her.

  A light touch on his shoulder jerked him out of his confusing mind loop. Yaala stood over him, a finger to her lips for silence. She motioned for him to follow her.

  Powwell scrambled to his feet. He resisted the urge to hug her. They hadn’t time to indulge in emotional displays. He followed Yaala behind the outcrop of rock she favored just as the Rovers entered the opening in the trees.

  We have to follow them, Powwell sent to his companion.

  Yaala shook her head. She had no magic, so she couldn’t talk to him mind to mind.

  Yes. The gate won’t open for another moon.

  “Too dangerous,” she mouthed. “Rovers.”

  I know. But if we are very quiet and step through the gate behind them, they won’t look back. They never do. We can hide in the tunnels once we get through.

  Yaala shook her head again. Tears of disappointment touched the corners of her eyes. She wiped them clear, then straightened her shoulders in determination. One quick jerk of her chin showed her willingness to risk following Powwell.

  We’re in this together.

  “You’re in this with me!” the first Rover said, grabbing Powwell by the back of his collar. “Did you forget, boy, that all Rovers have magic? I heard every word you thought. Piedro’s gonna like the present we bring him. New victims to execute for his consort. That lady never gets enough blood. She’s worse than Yaassima.”

  Chapter 11

  Near the Southern Pass between Coronnan and Rossemeyer

  “I won’t be a Rover slave again!” Powwell screamed.

  This time he would return to Hanassa of his own free will and in command of his actions, not the victim of kidnap. He’d rescue Kalen this time or die trying. But he’d never be a slave again.

  He slammed his staff into the gut of the man who seemed to be in command of the raiding party.

  The Rover countered by grabbing the twisted staff with both hands.

  Powwell wrenched it away. His balance shifted back. He stumbled over Yaala. She thrust her hands against his back, pushing him onto the balls of his feet. He swung the staff end over end, clipping the second Rover in the jaw.

  Thorny gibbered inside Powwell’s pocket, afraid of Powwell’s violent reaction. Powwell absorbed the pain from the tips of the hedgehog’s sharp spines pricking his skin through his shirt and continued circling with his staff. Thorny wanted to be away from here. Powwell did, too. For different reasons.

  Powwell maneuvered his opponent around until the Rover’s back was to the overhang and he himself was in the open. The dragongate, when it opened, should be no more than two paces away.

  Thorny didn’t like that idea at all and hunched. His spines withdrew, then bristled with deeper penetration. Powwell renewed his attack on the Rover with sharpened senses and strength.

  A third man and a fourth appeared in the forest opening from the direction of the road.

  Yaala flung dirt in their eyes. She swung her pack in a broad circle, catching the first one alongside his temple. He teetered into the men behind, toppling them all.

  The Rover leader still menaced Powwell with a knife. Powwell circled the staff one more time and brought it down atop the man’s wrist. Wood cracked. Bone snapped. The man howled in pain and dro
pped his weapon.

  “Hurry, Powwell, the dragongate opens,” Yaala ducked the man with a bright red weal on his temple. She slid from behind the overhang into the arched shadow.

  “Which scene?” Powwell didn’t take his eyes off the Rovers. Two of the newcomers staggered upright with clubs and knives at the ready.

  “The right scene. The right time,” Yaala called back.

  Powwell dove after her into the vortex of power that warped distance in an eye blink. He had to trust that Yaala was right this time. All of his instincts screamed to wait and view the other end of the portal himself.

  He had to trust Yaala when he hated to trust anyone but himself and Thorny.

  The pit beneath the city of Hanassa

  Yaala hit the once-familiar ground running. Her balance reeled in the sudden blackness of the lava tube tunnel. A wall of air heated by the lava core greeted her, nearly searing her lungs. She could barely breathe. Walls pressed against her from all sides, much smaller than she remembered. She needed to clutch the jagged walls for support. She didn’t dare. Powwell needed room to pass through the portal directly behind her. Could he use his magic to stop the Rovers from following?

  What could she do to help her friend? Not much without tools.

  Running footsteps behind her. Powwell. Stargods, please let it be Powwell.

  The tunnel had changed shape after the kardiaquake. Last time she had been through here, a person could turn around in the narrow confines. Now the walls seemed to grab and block her with every pace. Powwell would have trouble breathing in here. More trouble than usual when underground.

  “Duck,” she called back over her shoulder, hoping her friend wouldn’t knock himself senseless on one of the protruding rocks. At least the tunnel was only ten paces long. It used to be thirty. Or was it a different tunnel? If the dragongate had switched openings, that would explain the changes in its patterns.

  A lighter blackness signaled the opening of the tunnel into a huge cavern.

  Flickering remnants of yellow light told her that at least one of the generators continued to power the lighting system.

  The hulk of Old Bertha, the largest of the machines that generated ’tricity, sat huge and silent within the vast cavern. She looked bigger in the shadowy light, without definite edges and ends. The generator filled nearly the entire cavern with blackened metal and broken conduits. The pipe connecting the machine to an underground lake lay in three broken pieces. Steam erupted from the first open end where the pipe passed above the lava core of the volcano. Upon meeting the comparatively cooler air of the labyrinth, the steam spread out and condensed into water. A new lake formed beneath the pipe, rusting the other sections. Water dripped from every surface, compounding the accumulated rust on Old Bertha.

  After only a year and a half, the damage looked beyond repair.

  She didn’t have time to grieve over the loss of the machine. She needed a tool, a weapon. Powwell had rammed two magician’s staffs into the guts of Old Bertha to create a diversion when they escaped from here. The machine was now dead. The staffs served no other purpose now. She grabbed the exposed end of the one that had belonged to Nimbulan, instinctively trusting the tool used and shaped by the honorable old man over the one carried by Scarface.

  The seven-foot shaft resisted her tugs. Clumps of rust broke free from the machine around the opening. She pulled again with a downward twist. The wood snapped. She fell backward into a small pool of warm water as four feet of the staff broke free of the machine’s grip.

  A momentary pang of regret at the destruction of Nimbulan’s staff touched her throat. Then she remembered he wouldn’t be needing it again. He’d lost his magic in defense of Coronnan. But she needed a weapon. She scrambled to her feet, holding the staff horizontally in front of her.

  Powwell erupted from the tunnel mouth and whirled to face whoever might follow.

  One Rover pelted through the tight tunnel, screaming his rage. He held his club tight against his chest. The narrow walls and low ceilings hampered his movements.

  Powwell drove his own staff straight into the man’s eyes. The Rover ducked below the staff, coming up with club extended. Powwell jumped aside. The Rover kept running forward.

  Yaala tripped him with the broken staff. He landed facedown in the spreading lake of hot water beneath the broken pipe. Much hotter than the isolated pool she had fallen into. He yelped and rolled to the side, keeping his face free of the steaming liquid.

  Mist formed around the splashes. A cold mist. Everything else within the pit was hot. Stifling.

  The mist grew, nearly solidified into a human form, but a veiled form without distinct features.

  “The wraith!” Yaala said out loud. Chills ran up and down her spine. The fine hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end in atavistic fear.

  “With my head and heart and the strength of my shoulders, I renounce this evil.” The Rover crossed himself repeatedly, scooting away from the apparition.

  A ghostly white arm reached toward Powwell. Entreating. Lonely. Desperate for . . . something.

  The Rover reacted first, running back into the tunnel.

  He leaped through the dragongate as the inviting green of Coronnan swirled into the wild spiral of closure.

  Powwell and Yaala followed their enemy, skidding to a halt on the crumbling ledge overlooking the flaring molten rock of the pit. They looked back over their shoulders.

  The wraith approached slowly, still holding out a skeletal arm. The ghostly mist filled the narrow tunnel. Their only escape lay a thousand feet below in the boiling lava.

  Chapter 12

  The pit beneath the city of Hanassa

  Shooting flames of boiling rock lulled Powwell into a kind of trance. He needed to step off the ledge, just one step and he would. . . . He deliberately pushed away the allure.

  (Follow me. Find your destiny in me.) It sang to him like the haunting temptation of the void.

  He closed his mind to the temptation and turned away.

  The misty wraith stopped its pursuit the moment he turned to face it. But it still held out a ghostly arm entreatingly.

  The mist flowed in the small currents and eddies of air around the humanlike figure at the center. The tendrils shaped into the suggestion of a long tail wrapped around the “feet” of the wraith. Other bits and pieces of opaque vapor suggested wings and spines, minus the distinctive single horn sprouting from the forehead like Shayla and her nimbus of dragons.

  Powwell dismissed the dragon features and concentrated on the human body within. Yaassima had coveted draconic features. Yaala had inherited a few, like the prominent spinal bumps of vestigial spines, and an extra eyelid. Myrilandel, Shayla’s daughter in human form, had the near colorless skin, hair, and eyes of a dragon. None of these women came close to a real dragon in awesome size and power. Nor did the wraith.

  Yaala edged closer to him, away from the spectral being. He wrapped his arm around her waist, holding her close to his side. Whatever the wraith did to them, they’d face it together.

  He took one step forward. The only way out. The wraith retreated one step as well.

  Powwell tucked Yaala behind him, keeping her hand in his. The tunnel didn’t offer enough room for them to walk side by side. She squeezed his hand in silent reassurance. He took another step forward and another.

  The wraith flowed backward at an equal pace. The edges of the mist took on a darker hue. Hints of rosy purple? Powwell sensed alarm growing within the bizarre figure.

  When they reached the big cavern, where the derelict machine sat like a monstrous spider presiding over the web of tunnels, he breathed a little easier. The wraith hadn’t harmed him yet. It seemed almost afraid of him. Or for him?

  In the distance he felt more than heard one small machine chugging away. That would explain the dim light. Little Liise, a docile generator who rarely broke down, worked at that particular rhythm. She supplied power to the lights down in the pit and nowhere else. The
rest of Hanassa would be in darkness except for natural torches, candles, and oil lamps. Piedro, Kaaliph of Hanassa, wouldn’t have enough ’tricity to mimic magic as Yaassima had.

  “What do you want of us?” he asked the wraith quietly. His words echoed in the nearly silent cavern. They seemed strangely empty without the machines’ constant yeek kush kush sounds.

  The wraith twisted in upon itself. It raised both thin arms. The vague form suggested that it held its palms up, begging. The tail and wing illusions shrank. Was it writhing in pain? More like indecision or frustration.

  “Do you need our help?” Yaala asked, slipping up beside Powwell. She kept her hand in his. The moisture on her palm told him how nervous she was. She should be comfortable here in this labyrinth of tunnels, the only home she had ever really known.

  The wraith covered its face with ghostly hands and drifted apart, as mist before sunlight.

  “What do you suppose she wanted?” Powwell breathed a sigh of relief.

  “She?”

  “I guess. I had the suggestion of a female beneath all that haze. I don’t know why.” He shrugged, not knowing how to examine the feminine feel of the wraith’s pleading. He didn’t mention the dragon illusion. Most likely it was just that, an illusion meant to trigger a response of respect and awe.

  “Let’s get out of here.” Yaala tugged at his hand.

  Powwell followed her slowly, oddly reluctant to leave the wraith that had once haunted him. He never thought he’d be hesitant to depart the inner chambers of the pit and the slavery he’d known here. Suddenly, he became aware of the miles of kardia pressing down upon him.

  His breathing became shallow and labored. He needed air. He needed sunshine. He needed OUT! Stargods, I hope the gate to the palace is open and unguarded.

  Satiric laughter echoed in his mind. A flicker of white tantalized his peripheral vision. Did the wraith taunt him with foreknowledge of the lack of exits?