Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III

by Irene Radford

  The dog sat up and licked Bessel’s dangling fingers. Automatically, he scratched its ears. He felt more confident of his future when he touched the animal. Are you going to be my familiar? he asked it.

  The dog replied with an enthusiastic lick of Bessel’s hand. Together, magician and familiar backed up a step, away from Scarface. The symbolic distance they put between them and the Senior Magician widened immensely.

  He couldn’t allow Scarface to succeed in his plot to oust anyone in all of Coronnan—magician and mundane—who might oppose him.

  Wind-drift smiled slightly. What did the man know? Bessel didn’t dare try to read his mind.

  A ripple of anticipation and dread passed through the crowd as King Quinnault and Lady Jorghe-Rosse faced each other in determined silence. The desert warriors who accompanied the lady waited patiently, swords drawn, for a signal from her to fight or withdraw.

  “Excuse me,” said a tall man verging on elderly from the back of the crowd.

  Nimbulan! If anyone could sort out this mess, it was the retired Senior Magician.

  He’d aged greatly in the year and a half since he’d lost his magic. His skin looked pale, and the wrinkles around his eyes had deepened. But he still stood straight and his step sounded firmly on the flooring stones beneath the rushes. His dark auburn hair had gone almost completely gray. Contentment shone from his eyes. He greatly enjoyed his new role of husband and father. Bessel half expected to see Nimbulan’s daughter Amaranth toddling along behind him, or tucked under his arm. Certainly, his wife should be close by. The three were inseparable.

  But he couldn’t see Myrilandel or their child in the crowd. Where was she?

  Scarface bowed slightly, barely deferring to Nimbulan. Wind-drift exchanged a curt nod with the retired magician. Quinnault released the widow’s hands and also turned his attention to the newcomer. King and magician had become great friends during the long process of bringing peace and stability to Coronnan.

  Were these two strong men strong enough and wise enough to keep Scarface under control?

  The warriors from Rossemeyer wavered a fraction in their defensive stance as Nimbulan passed them. They reasserted their hostile posture once more when the lady remained firm. They had faced Nimbulan the Battlemage and lost the last time Rossemeyer tried to capture Coronnan’s rich resources.

  “My condolences, Lady Rosselaara.” Nimbulan bowed respectfully to the new widow; the first to grant her an identity other than as the ambassador’s wife.

  With a Rosse in front of her name, she had to be a royale, a king’s sister or daughter, used to having her every whim granted. She’d also have influence with her government. Her family would rally around her.

  Would the Commune support Bessel as firmly?

  Not while Scarface led them.

  Lady Rosselaara bent her head a little in acknowledgment of Nimbulan’s greeting. The first indication that her neck didn’t have a pole rammed down it.

  Nimbulan stepped forward, never taking his eyes off of the widow. “As I understand it, Lady, your husband died fighting the Bay and a storm. Worthy adversaries for any warrior. Adversaries that have defeated more good men than I care to remember. He did not die without honor.”

  “I will have a death for a death. How does one kill a storm?” Lady Rosselaara cocked one eyebrow at Nimbulan.

  The aging magician returned the gesture. “Magic will shift a storm elsewhere. Nothing can stop it altogether. But the magicians of Coronnan do not tamper with balances of nature. We strive only to predict storms and prepare for them.”

  “This magician conjured the storm!” The pilot pointed a finger at Bessel. “I know he did. I saw him ram his staff into the deck and roll up his eyes in a trance. I felt the Kardia shift beneath the Bay and move great obstacles that weren’t there the day before. Then he spoke demon words. He called up the storm and drove my barge onto a bar of his own making.”

  “Is this true, boy?” Scarface wove his fingers in an intricate pattern—his habitual gesture for seeking information and truth.

  “No, it is not true. I maintained a light trance so that I could understand the conversations in five different languages. I would never call up a storm or create a bar of debris. Raanald tried to navigate around the bar, but it caught the rudder and snapped it. Then the waves caught us crosswise and threw the ambassador overboard. I found him plastered against one of the old tree snags from the last sea battle by the currents.”

  “Then why didn’t my depth finder warn of the bar’s proximity?” The pilot trembled all over in his anger.

  “It did. You kept changing course erratically because you didn’t trust it.”

  Stunned silence filled the room.

  Bessel looked from Scarface to Nimbulan and back to the pilot, seeking a response, any kind of response.

  “If you do not trust the machine, why should we use it at all?” King Quinnault asked. “Is the machine faulty?” He looked to his queen.

  She shrugged her shoulders. The machine had come from her people, from distant and mythical Terrania.

  The pilot glared at Bessel, his mouth clamped firmly shut.

  “Then perhaps the pilot is the one who must answer for my husband’s death,” Lady Rosselaara said. “He will speak readily as my blade lops off pieces of his anatomy.”

  The pilot straightened his shoulders and stared back at her with all of the arrogance of his guild backing him up. He knew himself too valuable to Coronnan for King Quinnault to give him over to foreign justice.

  “Answers will be found, Lady,” Nimbulan intervened. “But by our methods. If anyone is found negligent in this matter, justice will be served.”

  “I don’t care for justice, Magician. I care only for vengeance.”

  “Will the death of an innocent bring your husband back to life?”

  “The death of a guilty man will give me back my husband’s honor.”

  “Then if any are found guilty, you will be informed of his fate.” Nimbulan returned her determined glare. “Go home now, Lady Rosselaara. Go home and grieve. Prepare your husband for his funeral rites.”

  “You have one day to deliver the guilty man to my door so that he may be buried beneath my husband. If he is not dead at this hour tomorrow, I will kill him.” Lady Rosselaara turned on her heel and marched out of the room. The litter bearers exited with her, carrying their fallen ambassador. Her honor guard sheathed their swords, wheeled as one, and followed her.

  No one needed to utter the “Or else,” that followed her final words.

  “Now what?” Quinnault asked of no one in particular. “We have conflicting testimony. We have the problem of an untrustworthy depth finder. I am open to suggestions, gentlemen.”

  “I never liked having to rely on any machine,” Queen Maarie Kaathliin said. She shifted the baby to her shoulder, easier now that the foreigners had left. “We should learn to read the mudflats another way.”

  “Such as?” Scarface intoned, stepping forward to stand beside the king, his rightful place as Senior Magician. The place that Nimbulan resumed all too easily. Wind-drift held back.

  “Where is your famous magic, Master Scarface?” The queen turned her gaze to the ugly man who had forsaken life as a Battlemage and mercenary to join the Commune. “Why can’t your magicians plumb the depths of the Bay and chart the course for the barges?”

  “We have tried, Madame.” Scarface looked more fierce than regretful. He kept his accusatory gaze upon Bessel.

  The young magician wished he could disappear. He tried fading into the background—a trick Nimbulan used often. But he couldn’t tell if it worked.

  “Again and again, we have tried,” Scarface continued, finally looking away from Bessel toward the queen. “But dragon magic, legal magic, is more in tune with the elements of Air and Fire than with Water and Kardia. To delve into Water and Kardia deep enough to chart the channels we need rogue magic. Upon pain of death or exile, we cannot violate our covenant with Coronnan. Only d
ragon magic can be combined and amplified by many magicians working together. Only dragon magic can be controlled with ethics and honor.” The Senior Magician repeated the first rule of the Commune, staring back at Bessel, daring him to admit his lapse in legal magic.

  Bessel remembered the day he had taken his oath to king and Commune. At the time he had truly committed himself to obeying the laws of the Commune and Coronnan. Yet today he had violated one of the most basic of those laws. He had tapped a ley line, violated his oath.

  Would he violate it further in order to stop Scarface’s mad crusade to control all of Coronnan? He’d not be much help to anyone unless he stayed in the Commune.

  If he hadn’t tapped a ley line to help his mother, surely he would never do it again. Never! Couldn’t the Commune give him some kind of probation rather than death or exile?

  “Master Scarface, please have one of your magicians take statements from the boatmen and Journeyman Bessel,” King Quinnault ordered. “I would know who speaks truth in the matter of the storms and the machine. Then I will need you in my office in one hour to plumb the depths of the diplomatic mess caused by Ambassador Jorghe-Rosse’s death.”

  “Very good, Your Grace.” Scarface bowed respectfully along with everyone else in the room as the king exited with his wife. The mundane courtiers and servants filed out of the Great Hall as well.

  “I will discuss this matter with Myrilandel, the dragons’ ambassador,” Nimbulan said. A half smile lit his face. Of course he’d discuss it with Myrilandel, his wife. “There must be a way to read the Bay with magic, the same way we . . .” a look of sadness—nearly pain—crossed his face. “The same way the Commune uses magic senses to find veins of ore and tests the fertility of soil.” He resumed his normal, dignified demeanor.

  “There is another matter that must be discussed in private, among the magicians,” Scarface intoned. “Bessel, you will come with me.” Scarface beckoned his journeyman to follow him back to University Isle where the Commune would hold court.

  Bessel couldn’t move. All heat left his body.

  “The pilot felt you use rogue magic, Bessel,” Scarface reminded all who listened. “You know the punishment for that infraction.”

  “You will take the word of a mundane and prejudiced witness as truth without so much as letting the boy defend himself?” Nimbulan asked. He shifted to stand beside Bessel.

  The dog took up his protective stance in front of Bessel again.

  The journeyman appreciated the gesture of support, but knew his case was hopeless. Only the dog truly believed him.

  “I, too, felt the kardia shift as Bessel tapped the power of a ley line,” Scarface said. “He has no defense.”

  Chapter 18

  Past midnight, the route between Palace Reveta

  Tristile and the University of Magicians,

  Coronnan City

  Bessel sloshed behind Nimbulan all the way across the bridge to University Isle. The bedraggled mutt kept close to his heels every step of the way. It cringed away from the other magicians as if expecting to be kicked and beaten. Bessel kept close to Nimbulan, his old master, gleaning some measure of temporary safety from his vibrant personality. But nothing could ease the dread eating a hole in his gut. Very soon he would lose the Commune forever. All because he had tapped illegal magic in a failed attempt to save a life.

  If he had succeeded, would Master Scarface consider leniency?

  Bessel doubted it. The Senior Magician of the Commune was as inflexible in his expectations as Lady Rosselaara of Rossemeyer.

  Did he truly want to remain in the Commune with Scarface at its head?

  He had nowhere else to go. He needed the Commune more than it needed him.

  But someone had to stop Scarface.

  More magicians joined the procession from the palace as they neared the University. They closed in around Bessel, excluding the shaggy mutt from their perimeter, as if they knew it would help Bessel escape justice. The dog whined and danced to penetrate the circle.

  Bessel missed the creature already.

  “Scarface will have trouble gathering enough magic to implement any punishment,” Wind-drift muttered from behind Bessel.

  “No one’s seen a dragon in days. Not since Scarface removed most of the books from the library,” Master Whitehands, head of the healers, replied. “I’ve got an apprentice watching the skies from atop the tower. He’s really talented with FarSight. His reports of dragon activity are dismal. They haven’t been seen hunting bemouths in the Bay. That’s their favorite food and keeps the number of monsters down to tolerable levels. Our fisherfolk will be in trouble if the dragons don’t return to hunting.”

  “We’ll be in deeper trouble without any dragon magic to gather,” Wind-drift reminded him.

  Bessel turned around to ask a question, but the two masters had withdrawn from his proximity. Two potential allies against Scarface. Were there more?

  “Did you hear that?” he whispered to Nimbulan as they proceeded through the University. The sound of many boots slapping the flagstone passageway nearly drowned out his words. But it didn’t mask the angry barks of the mutt.

  Nimbulan merely nodded, holding one finger to his lips to signal silence on the subject.

  They proceeded in single file up winding stairs to the tower room above the classrooms. Bessel feared separation from Nimbulan. Behind him, he could hear the dog yipping as he followed the troop. The risers narrowed and steepened each step of the way. Up three flights they climbed. Bessel’s heart beat faster, and his legs grew heavier. His drying clothes grew stiff and weighed heavily against his chilled skin. There didn’t seem to be enough air in this tight stairwell.

  At last Master Scarface passed his left hand over the lock of the tower room. The portal sprang open. Only the Senior Magician could work that spell alone. The other masters needed three different magical signatures to move the lock.

  One by one they filed into the working room that was almost filled by a round black glass table. Bessel had been in this private enclave of masters only once before, the day the roof had been finished. Dragons had had to lift the unique and incredibly valuable black glass table onto the roof of the next lower level and then the room was built around it. The tower would have to be destroyed to move the table.

  No one else in all of Kardia Hodos possessed any artifact made from so much glass. Only dragon fire burned hot enough to eliminate the impurities in sand, turning it into true glass that wasn’t so brittle and flawed it shattered at the lightest touch. Dragons had made the table for the Commune. They had given it to Nimbulan in time for the former magician to work his last and greatest spell—protecting Coronnan with a magical border.

  But Nimbulan had been forced to leave his magic embedded in the black glass. He’d made his choice, to save the life of his wife, Myrilandel, rather than save his talent.

  His magic glowed within the table surface, casting blue highlights within the black glass.

  Nimbulan touched the surface with reverent fingers. A look of aching loneliness crossed his face. Then he tucked his hands within the sleeves of his tunic and raised his head. No emotion crossed his face or radiated from his aura.

  Bessel grew colder yet, trying to imagine his life without magic. He was about to learn what it felt like. Without the Commune and dragon magic he had nothing, was no one.

  The dog whined and scratched at the closed door, reminding him that he had one friend. Bessel closed his ears to the dog’s entreaty. He didn’t dare trust its offer of faithful companionship. It, too, would desert him if Scarface stripped him of his magic.

  Only Master Lyman was missing from the ranks of twenty master magicians come to pass judgment on Bessel. He wondered briefly if the master magicians—all new since Nimbulan’s retirement—had shunned the old librarian because he hadn’t cooperated with the banning of certain books. Bessel hoped not. The Commune needed Lyman’s knowledge, wisdom, and gentle approach to diplomacy.

  A measure of
resolve replaced Bessel’s momentary depression. He had to find a way to stay in the Commune. Coronnan needed him in a position to counter Scarface. He couldn’t do that exiled or dead.

  Each of the master magicians took a reserved chair placed around the massive table. The chair backs boasted vivid embroidery worked in each magician’s signature colors. Every piece of needlework was as unique as the magician who sat in the chair. But together, with hands linked around the glass table, their magic and their souls blended, became one, amplified, and worked miracles.

  I’ll be a part of that miracle again. Somehow, some way, I’ve got to stay in the Commune.

  “Arbitrary punishment is not our way, Bessel,” Scarface said, almost kindly. “Do you have an explanation for your heinous actions?”

  A glimmer of hope blossomed in Bessel’s heart. “You told me to save the ambassador’s life at all costs. The only way I could hope to do that was to see the current that trapped him and drag him free at a moment of slackening. I didn’t have the time or strength to do it with mundane skills. Dragon magic did not respond to me beneath the waters of the Bay. I used the tools available.”

  “And still you failed.”

  “If I had tapped the ley line when I first sensed trouble, I might have been in time. I failed because I hesitated to use solitary magic.”

  “As well you should. Any use of rogue magic opens the doors to chaos. Only dragon magic allows many magicians to combine their powers and impose ethics, honor, and justice upon all magicians.”

  “I know, Master. And I am sorry for my transgression. It will not happen again.” Bessel bowed his head, hoping Scarface would take the gesture of humility into account.

  “Once you have tapped rogue powers, there is no going back. You will be tempted again and again. Others will find excuses to do so as well. We must make an example of you.” Scarface’s voice rose as his scar whitened.