The Wizard's Treasure (The Dragon Nimbus)

by Irene Radford

  “Yes, I’m sure that’s the color she wants. Enough dye for a gown and three skeins of linen thread.” He sighed in relief, grateful this chore was complete. “I just hope I did this right.” This decision was harder than passing one of Old Baamin’s magical exams.

  He searched his scrip for the proper coin without haggling. The coin was real. Three years ago he’d paid for goods with illusory coins. He still felt guilty about it and tended to overpay.

  “Anything else I can get for you, soldier?” The woman smiled at him as she wrapped three packets of powder into a clean cloth.

  “This will do.” He wanted to hurry back to the palace and Katrina. Someone might recognize him and remember the cocky apprentice who had terrorized this market square on the day of the king’s coronation over three years ago.

  Just then, a man wearing brown robes thrust passersby away from him as he descended from the arched bridge. He wrinkled his nose repeatedly, sniffing the air and holding his right arm out in front of him, fist clenched.

  “S’murghin’ Gnul,” the merchant muttered behind him. She rapidly packed up her skeins of pretty threads and folded her awning.

  “The dye?” Jack asked.

  She scuttled away without reply.

  Before Jack could search her aura for traces of magic, she disappeared around a corner. But if the man who strode purposefully in this direction was a witch-sniffer from the Gnostic Utilitarian cult, Jack dared not use any of his talent. Even reading an aura could alert some of the more sensitive sniffers.

  “You there, soldier!” The Gnul pointed at Jack.

  Jack’s armor snapped into place in instinctive fear. He put on a bland expression and faced the sniffer. “Me?” He pointed toward his own chest in silent inquiry.

  “Yes, you. Apprehend that woman. I must question her. She may be a foreign witch.” The sniffer waved obliquely in the direction the dye merchant had disappeared.

  “But she didn’t do anything but try to sell me some dye,” Jack stalled. What made this man think he had the authority to question anyone? Would he go after Katrina next because she was not born in the city and was unmarried?

  “Obey me, man! You are obligated to obey the orders of the Council of Provinces.”

  “I am obligated to obey the orders of my king and no one else, sir,” Jack replied. “I do not recognize you as a member of the Council of Provinces. Nor are you one of their retainers.” The hair on his spine and nape bristled.

  Shoppers and merchants alike began drifting closer, listening avidly.

  Jack searched their faces for any sign of an ally. No one looked in the least sympathetic. Their fear of magic gave the witch-sniffers all the authority they wanted. The Gnostic Utilitarian cult had fed that fear with horror stories. Every death within the city—murder, accident, disease, or old age—was caused by a magician’s spell. Every financial setback or change in the weather became the revenge of a disgruntled magician. To make matters worse, ritually slaughtered cats, dogs, rats, even goats and sheep were often found laid at the foot of Festival Pylons around the city as if for a magical sacrifice.

  Jack knew no magician would leave evidence lying around so openly, even if they needed the blood of the dying animal to fuel a magical talent.

  But the Gnuls didn’t care about truth, only about instilling fear in the hearts of the innocent so that the cult could take control of their lives.

  Nervously, he fingered the short sword at his hip, wishing the weapon were his staff instead. He knew how to defend himself with a magician’s basic tool. He’d worn the blade and guard’s uniform barely a full moon.

  “Are you protecting the witch, young man?” The Gnul continued to press closer to Jack.

  The crowd grumbled disapproval of all witches. Two men threw stones where the dye merchant had had her awning. One of them whistled very close to Jack’s ear.

  “What witch?” Jack faced the accuser, trying to keep his fear out of his voice and posture.

  The witch-sniffer had gone from wanting to question the woman to actively accusing her without benefit of trial or evidence. Every accused had the right to a public trial. He wondered if the Gnuls and their witch-sniffers ever bothered with the legal process.

  The crowd went silent and closed ranks in a near perfect circle around Jack and the Gnul.

  “The woman who just ran away. The woman you were doing business with. What were you trying to buy from her? A love potion, perhaps, or poison to use on our king?”

  Jack allowed a laugh to explode at the nonsense. “All I wanted was some dye for my betrothed to use on her wedding gown.”

  The crowd didn’t think this was funny. Angry mutters began rising. The sound nearly drowned out the sound of Jack’s heart pounding too rapidly. One stooped, old woman licked her lips. “Gonna have us a witch-burning,” she sniggered.

  “Seize this man for aiding a witch!” the Gnul shouted.

  “Not again,” Jack sighed. The last time he’d come to this market square three years ago he’d fled a man bent on destroying him. Must he do so again?

  Two burly men grabbed Jack’s arms.

  Deftly Jack twisted and shifted his weight. His captors lost their grip. While they stumbled forward, he ducked and slid backward. He’d learned something useful during his three years of slavery in King Simeon’s mines.

  “Catch that man, he’s a witch!”

  “Not this time, witch-sniffer.” Jack ran. He knew this city from years of scavenging the streets before Baamin and the University of Magicians recognized his potential. He knew places . . .

  Before he could change his mind, he dove into the river. Cold water closed over his head. He swam deeper, praying to the Stargods that he had enough breath to take him beyond sight of the witch-sniffer.

  Lungs burning and eyes smarting, he broke the surface well downstream from the market island. He heard the tramp of many feet on a nearby bridge as the witch-sniffer raised the hue and cry. Coronnan City was made up of hundreds of little river islands connected by bridges.

  Within minutes, the current took Jack past a large residential island. The Gnuls would have to wind their way through twisting alleyways to traverse the island. Then they’d have to cross another bridge to catch up to him.

  He recognized the blue-painted rowboat tied to the next dock. “Still using that leaking scow, Aquilla?” he asked the absent Bay Pilot who had befriended him many years ago.

  He grabbed the gunwale and heaved himself into the little craft. It rocked, threatening to dump him back into the water. He gasped for air and willed the boat to steady. First one leg and then the other over the side. At last he sprawled facedown in the bottom of the boat.

  Then, carefully, he sat up and reached for the oars. A deep growl stopped him. A white-and-brown water dog faced him, teeth bared.

  “I think I have a problem.”

  Wind howled through the trees like a lost soul moaning over separation from its body.

  Robb ducked deeper into his cloak.

  Marcus threw his cloak hood back and shook his hair free of restraint, glorying in the power of the storm.

  “Typical,” Robb muttered to himself. “I’m miserable, and he can’t get enough of this storm.” He plodded a few more steps in Marcus’ wake, searching the path for signs of habitation. With each step he dug his staff into the mud. Maybe grounding his tool of focus in the Kardia would help him see around the rain.

  Too quickly, he chilled and lost strength. The little bit of magic drained him.

  He caught up to Marcus and shouted into his companion’s ear, “We’ve got to find shelter. Put up your hood. You’ll catch your death of cold! This storm is getting worse.” He huddled into himself, trying to keep his body warm. Rain dripped from the edge of his hood onto his chest where the cloak gaped.

  Marcus shook his head. “The storm will clear. We have time. With luck we’ll be through the pass and out of the rain by nightfall.”

  They had decided to try passing into SeLenic
ca in a more obscure location, well south of the armies. Their trek had not been easy, plagued with spoiled supplies, poor hunting, foul weather, and general bad luck.

  But Marcus hadn’t allowed the miserable conditions to dampen his good spirits. That made Robb grumble all the more.

  His feet slid out from beneath him, and he landed flat on his face.

  Lightning crackled around them, playing bizarre patterns of light across the thick gray clouds. Marcus laughed out loud at the energy singeing the air. “This is almost as good as gathering dragon magic!”

  “Look, there’s a light.” Robb pointed with his staff toward the meager flicker atop a wooded hill off to their right. The flames burned blue and red rather than natural green.

  “It’s witchlight! We can spend the evening with another magician,” Marcus chortled.

  “We’re mighty close to the border with SeLenicca. I’m not sure I want to meet another magician around here. No telling if he’s friendly or not.” Robb shivered as he stood up and tried rearranging his cloak. His hood slipped back in the process. Now he was drenched on the inside as well as without. “Never know it’s nearly Summer around here. The loss of the dragons combined with the intensive battle magic at the other pass seems to have made a climactic shift.”

  “Between the two of us, we can take on any magician even without dragons. As long as they don’t surprise us. The storm is giving me power.”

  “Dragons,” Robb grumbled. “If we weren’t chasing invisible dragons, we’d be home beside a nice warm fire with a mug of spiced wine. Despite the seeming benevolence of dragon magic as opposed to solitary magic, I sometimes think the politics surrounding dragons makes our entire quest worthless.”

  “If we weren’t here, we’d be freezing our bums off as we spy through every corner of Coronnan for Jaylor and the Commune of Magicians. Stop grumbling. Let’s see what’s up. You said yourself, we need shelter.” Marcus marched forward.

  “Admit it, Marcus, your infamous good luck has finally run out,” Robb grumbled. “I can’t remember being colder, wetter, or hungrier on any of our previous quests. Maybe it’s time to start planning ahead a little better and making preparations for the next disaster.”

  “Stop being pessimistic. Of course my luck is holding. There’s a light. That means someone with a fire and shelter to keep the fire going. We’ll be fine for tonight. Then we can start out new and fresh in the morning, when the storm passes.”

  “If it passes. Let’s just hope that unnatural light isn’t marsh gas or a ghost,” Robb said. As they pushed up the hill, he checked his dagger and shifted his grip on his staff for better defense.

  “We’ve traveled the length and breadth of Coronnan for three years now while the Commune has remained in exile, and you always look for the worst to happen,” Marcus said lightly. “And it never does.”

  “I don’t have your luck. I have found that preparation and forethought work better than waiting to see what happens. Besides, we’re too close to the border with SeLenicca. No guarantees that your luck will continue once we cross the border and run out of ley lines to fuel our magic.”

  “Ah, but over the border we will find dragons. What better luck than to find a dragon and return with it to Coronnan so that the University of Magicians and the Commune of Magicians can gain credibility once more?”

  “This isn’t dragon weather. It’s foul and unpleasant and s’murghin’ cold. There aren’t any dragons nearby. I’ll believe we’ve found dragons when we actually return to Coronnan with them. I’ll believe that magicians will regain honor and integrity from dragon magic when the Council of Provinces reinstates the Commune into the University buildings and Council Chamber and not before.”

  Robb trudged beside Marcus uphill along an overgrown and narrow game trail.

  “Look, Robb, there’s a building with nice stout walls. The light is coming from a window niche. We’ll have you warm and dry and cheerfully lecturing me with a nice cup of something hot to take the chill out of your innards and your mood.” Marcus grabbed Robb’s sleeve and pulled him forward at a brisk pace.

  Trees crowded their path, sheltering them from the wind if not the rain. Robb looked up to scan the walls that towered above them. “I only sense one life,” he said through chattering teeth. “I can’t smell any magic, but that is definitely witchlight.” He gnawed his lip in puzzlement.

  “Witchfire won’t throw out much heat. Let’s hope there’s some dry fuel about to turn it into green flame.” Marcus lifted each foot carefully in the slick mud on the upward path. His staff kept him balanced, but he leaned on it heavily.

  “How tired are you?” Robb asked, concerned. “Don’t try to hide it just because I’m in a foul humor.”

  “One of us has to keep moving. Otherwise you’d crawl into a badger hole and call it shelter. A hot infusion of Brevelan’s special blend of spices will taste very good once we get inside and light a real fire.”

  They hadn’t much left of the tasty treat and had agreed to ration it. Robb agreed they really needed it today.

  Soon enough, stone buttresses jutted out from the walls, making their path as crooked as Old Baamin’s magical staff.—S’murghit! He wished the old Senior Magician hadn’t passed on to his next existence. Robb would welcome the old man’s cranky wisdom now.

  The neatly dressed stones fit together snugly.

  “I wonder how old this place is?” Marcus reached out a hand to caress the stones. “I can’t sense any residual energy embedded in the stone by the mason who shaped it.”

  “All I feel is the deep cold of many Winters,” Robb added, mimicking his friend in trying to read the wall. The old cold burned through to his bones. “Old enough to harbor ghosts,” he said. He touched his head, heart, and both shoulders in the cross of the Stargods. “I’m not sure . . .”

  “Oh, come on. We need shelter and a fire. Let’s find the gate.” Marcus clumped around the perimeter of the wall. Only an occasional window slit broke the smooth surface between buttresses. The rain eased, but the cloud cover lowered.

  “Almost a mile around,” Robb stated. His breath made small chill clouds in front of his face. “Wonder if this is an old monastery. There were a number of them during the Great Wars of Disruption. But we only know of one left standing after peace came to Coronnan. Many of them disappeared as people made use of their building stones for other purposes. A few may have been converted into palaces or Summer retreats for the nobility.” Talking—lecturing as Marcus claimed—kept him from thinking about the thickness of the haze they nearly swam through. All of his senses were distorted, untrustworthy. He felt . . . inadequate.

  “Wonder if anyone has lived here in the last three hundred years.” Marcus stared up at the top of the wall, a good twenty feet above their heads.

  “We’ll know soon enough. Looks like a gatehouse tower jutting out from the main wall on the next corner. Of course we walked the long way around before finding it.”

  “We walked deasil, as we should. Walking widdershins is bad luck.”

  “First time I’ve ever known you to care about your luck. Prepare yourself for anything. An entire band of outlaws could be hiding within these walls.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Robb shifted his grip on his staff and brought it forward, ready to channel magic down its length or flip it and use it as a mundane weapon.

  “We’d know if there were hostiles within this building,” Marcus said. “I only sense one life. Feels mostly mundane, not a magician at all. Strange. One life with a minimal magical talent I’m guessing; enough power to call a ball of witchlight, but not enough for us to sense.”

  “Or someone with incredible armor that allows us to sense his presence, but not his magic. Solitary magicians, raised outside the dragon magic tradition, are known to be quite cunning. He could be lulling us into dropping our defenses so as to make us easy prey.”

  The gatehouse rose out of the walls like a huge malignant growth—nearly a quarter of the wall’s
width and twice as high. The two young men slowed their steps and crept around the corner.

  “This place is defended more like a castle than a monastery,” Marcus whispered.

  “What do you expect? It was built as a refuge when civil war tore the land apart for three generations.”

  Marcus shushed Robb with a finger to his lips as he peered around the next corner, staff at the ready.

  Robb shrugged and crept forward, peering through the thickening gloom. He kept his larger body in front of his friend. In a fray his brute strength was well teamed with Marcus’ agility.

  Marcus peeked over Robb’s shoulder. The formerly stout wooden doors hung askew on weary hinges. The wind made them creak with each new gust.

  The dense air almost seemed to pour out of that gate. What kind of ghosts and demons hid within it?

  Silently, they edged closer. Robb led them through the gap in the doors. Thick oak had shrunk away from dozens of bronze bosses that had reinforced the wood. Green corrosion brushed off on his cloak like soggy mushroom spores. The hinges protested mightily. They both froze in place, waiting, wary.

  No one challenged them.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Marcus pushed forward to lead the way across the broad courtyard. They faced a two-story building shaped like a squared-off steed-shoe. Thick columns supported the second story where it hung over the first, creating a sheltered passage. Two of the pillars lay broken in the courtyard.

  Robb sighed wistfully. He wished people had more respect for these old buildings.

  “That way.” He pointed to the glimmer of light creeping under the door of one of the ground-floor cells in the southern wing.

  A number of long paces took them across the courtyard. They climbed six steep steps from the courtyard to the colonnaded passage. Marcus rested a hand on the wooden panels, seeking. “One life force, barely stronger than the witchlight,” he whispered. “Stargods! He’s dying!” Marcus pushed hard against the door. It flew inward, banging against the wall to their left.