The Wizard's Treasure (The Dragon Nimbus)

by Irene Radford

  “You don’t understand! ’Twas but a game. A teasing game, and I . . . he lost control.” A long pause followed her slip of the tongue. “He’s strong. He overpowered me. I had no choice.” She babbled on, trying to make excuses for herself.

  Jack doubted that Andrall’s son had been much more than a passive participant. He knew the young man too well. But he also knew how often his own patience had been taxed by Katrina, and he had his full wits. Mardall didn’t have the reasoning power and emotional control of an adult.

  “Gentlemen, ladies. I do not believe a forced marriage is the answer to this dilemma,” Darville said in a soothing tone. “Surely a retreat into the country for a year or so, a discreet adoption by a childless couple of good family would serve all of us and no scandal need accompany either party.”

  “ ’Twould serve you, Your Grace. You would not have to acknowledge your cousin’s child as your heir,” Laislac replied, sarcasm dripping from every word. “Since you can’t manage to get the queen pregnant yourself.” The insult brought a painful silence.

  Jack suddenly turned his full attention to every breath within the room. Lady Ariiell sought to make her child legitimate with a hasty marriage to Darville’s only blood heir—discounting the exiled Rejiia and her equally exiled sisters. Should Darville die heirless, then Laislac was the logical choice as regent for his young grandson as monarch. Kings had been killed for less.

  This made Jack’s errand doubly important. He knew how to stabilize Queen Mikka’s body so she could carry a child to full term and give the country an unquestioned heir.

  “I would welcome the stability a legitimate heir would bring to Coronnan,” Darville replied. Jack could almost see him pacing back and forth behind his massive desk like a wolf stalking his territory. The king rarely sat still and then only when Queen Mikka held his hand.

  “We will discuss this further, when all of us have had time to reflect on all of the options.” More likely when Darville had a chance to discuss the alternatives with Mikka. “Remember, Laislac, the plight of Lord Andrall’s son is well known. This marriage and his impending paternity would generate more scandal than were Lady Ariiell to give birth to an illegitimate child. Do you really want this?”

  “I insist that Lord Andrall and his son honor their obligations to my daughter. They will marry!” Laislac screamed loud enough for the entire court to hear.

  A few moments later all of the combatants exited. Lady Lynnetta in tears, comforted by the supporting arm of her husband, Lord Andrall. Their son, Mardall, tripped along in their wake, drooling slightly, smiling happily at Jack’s familiar wave. He clutched a stuffed toy—perhaps a well-worn spotted saber cat—and seemed oblivious to the storm that had threatened his quiet, predictable world away from the court. He’d been so quiet, Jack had not realized he’d been in the room.

  Lord Laislac looked as if he’d spit thunder and lightning. His wife, Ariiell’s stepmother, held her chin up and pursed her mouth in a disgusted pout.

  But Lady Ariiell smiled and patted her slightly swollen tummy.

  She was up to something.

  Jack needed to follow her and find out what.

  He also needed to inform the king and queen that he had a possible answer to Mikka’s problem. After tonight, Queen Mikka might very well negate Lady Ariiell’s ambitions.

  Jack slipped into the study and locked the door behind him, both physically and magically.

  “Something else that requires my attention?” King Darville asked impatiently, lifting one golden eyebrow. He barely looked up from the documents that he read most intently. His leather queue restraint had slipped, and he looked in need of a shave. The last confrontation had taken its toll on him since Jack’s witch-sniffer report a few hours ago.

  Still the king maintained his gentle smile and politeness while his eyes narrowed in slight disapproval. Better to risk the king’s irritation than brave the wolflike smile and bared teeth that betrayed his anger. He glanced at his wife, clearly anxious for a moment alone with her to discuss that touchy situation Laislac had thrown at his feet.

  “Your Grace, I believe I have a solution to a recurring problem.”

  Darville half rose from his chair, his full gaze intent upon Jack’s face. “Do we have privacy?” he asked quietly.

  Mikka came to his side and clutched his arm. Darville tucked her neatly against his side in a loving and companionable gesture. Her eyes became huge in her too thin face; not daring to hope.

  Jack closed his eyes and breathed deeply, listening to all of the small sounds around the palace with extra as well as mundane senses. He heard the shuffle of many feet within the building and out in the court-yards. The murmur of many conversations drifted close to his ear. He sorted through them and dismissed all but one. Just above the subtle shift of stones and Kardia settling into each other, he detected a whisper, two heartbeats, the sputter of a rushlight . . .

  He held up two fingers and pointed beneath the floor.

  Darville cocked his head and pursed his lips in consternation. “The tunnels,” he mouthed the words and pointed to his massive desk.

  Jack had heard about the numerous secret passages that riddled the residential wing of the palace. They dated to the earliest construction of the old keep, intended to give the original lord of the islands an escape in time of war. Only one tunnel remained open and well known. It provided a quick trip between the palace and the University complex on an adjacent island. Now that the University served as a barracks, the guards used the tunnel to move quickly between duties, protected from the weather.

  But the other tunnels. The older ones were supposed to remain secret from all but the king’s closest family and confidants.

  Jack drew his sword, actually his staff in mild disguise.

  “Fred?” Darville said quietly.

  “No time,” Jack replied equally quiet.

  “Ready?”

  Jack nodded.

  The king pressed a hidden lever. The desktop slid sideways. He withdrew from the opening quickly, taking Mikka with him.

  Unnatural yellow flame tinged with blue lighted the dark hole where the desktop had been. Witchlight!

  Mikka gasped and held her hand over her mouth to stifle any further sound. Darville pushed her behind him as he reached for his short sword atop the desk.

  A magician eavesdropped on the king. Only a member of the coven would have the audacity to do that.

  CHAPTER 16

  Jack reached down with his sword/staff, with his free hand, and with his magic to yank a startled scullery maid through the hole.

  She squeaked a protest, her eyes wide.

  Jack detected no magic in her aura. He’d heard a second heartbeat.

  The witchlight torch continued to gleam. The magician who had lighted it could not be far. The coven had grown as bold as the Gnuls if they eavesdropped within the palace.

  Jack thrust the maid toward Darville. The king stumbled with his unexpected burden. The two landed in a heap on the floor. Feminine giggles erupted from the froth of flying petticoats.

  Mikka grabbed the girl by the back of her bodice and hoisted her away from the grinning king with a ferocious yank. The queen did not return the smile.

  Jack reached again into the hole, only slightly distracted by the sight of feminine legs protruding enticingly from the tangle of lacy petticoats—too much expensive lace for a mere scullery maid.

  This time his hands came up empty. He peered deeper. The witchlight retreated rapidly.

  Should he follow?

  “Who was with you?” Jack demanded angrily.

  The maid continued to eye the king while patting and shifting her clothing. She giggled as Queen Mikka possessively brushed dust off her husband’s tunic. Darville did not look overly distressed at the attention of two attractive women.

  “Why, no one, My Lord,” the maid replied. She preened and fussed with her mussed gown, making certain Jack saw how low her bodice dipped.

  The king
kept his eyes discreetly on his wife’s face.

  “Don’t lie, girl. I saw the witchlight within the torch.” Jack advanced on the girl until his sword tip touched her throat just below the chin. He hated using violence to intimidate the truth out of her, yet he knew of no other safe way to interrogate her. She’d report magic coercion to the Gnuls and the Council of Provinces.

  “Witchlight!” she gasped, crossing herself, then making the older warding gesture of right wrist crossed over left and flapping her hands—a symbolic banning of Simurgh, the ancient winged demon who thrived upon blood. “I never . . . He never . . .” She drifted off into panicky choking noises as she looked pleadingly at Jack and then at the king. “He said we’d just listen . . . gather gossip . . . harmless, he said . . .” the maid stammered her explanation.

  “I’ll send Sergeant Fred to search the tunnels from both ends,” Darville said as he marched toward the door, pointedly keeping his back to the maid. He tried the door.

  It resisted.

  He turned the key.

  It still wouldn’t budge.

  He looked at Jack, lifting one eyebrow again in a maddening gesture.

  Jack blinked hastily, three times and recited the trigger words that would remove the locking spell, hoping the maid was too concerned with her own hysteria and Jack’s sword point to notice the delay.

  The door flew open at Darville’s touch. Three more guards, led by Fred, almost fell into the room, swords and daggers drawn. Three steps, two turns, double over, and balance on one foot. The maid dove into their clumsy dance for balance, further upsetting them. More laughter and delay.

  She knew more than she admitted.

  “A little late, aren’t you, Sergeant?” Jack said, working his cheeks to keep from laughing at their antics.

  “Fred, take one man into the tunnels and search for anyone who might have carried a torch of witchlight within the past few moments. And you.” Darville thrust the maid into the all too willing arms of the third guard. “Take her to an interrogation room. No one talks to her until I get there. No one. Do you hear me?”

  The guard gulped and nodded. His fair skin turned blotchy red in embarrassment.

  “I didn’t mean no harm . . . only gossip about Lady Ariiell being in the family way. No harm in gossip,” the maid protested as the guard dragged her from the room.

  “And dispatch some men to search the tunnels from the barracks end and the cove three islands over where His Grace keeps his private boat,” Jack added. No doubt the listener had brought the maid along so that she would be caught while he escaped.

  The soldiers scrambled to obey Jack’s orders as if he were the lieutenant and not merely a new recruit.

  Jack smiled to himself. Authority came from within and not from a rank arbitrarily assigned. That had been one of the hardest lessons he’d had to learn.

  When the room cleared again and the desk closed, King Darville sat down heavily in the window seat. Mikka curled up against him, like a cat seeking a lap in the waning sunlight. “I am tired of all these plots,” Darville said upon a weary sigh. “Let’s put your plan into effect as soon as possible. I think we need to summon Jaylor,” he said while leaning his head back against the precious glass covering of the window.

  “My thoughts exactly,” Mikka added, stroking her husband’s cheek. The she touched her abdomen, just above her womb, where she had carried five babes and lost all of them before they quickened. “I am willing to share this body only with the children my husband and I conceive out of love. The cat has to go. I have long lost all affection for the pet I once considered the other half of myself.”

  “I’ll need at least three other master magicians, two purple dragons, and you, Your Grace, in the clearing on Sacred Isle tonight as the moon crests the oak trees.”

  “And is my presence required?” Darville asked. Again that half-ironic gesture of one raised eyebrow.

  “Advisable, but not required.”

  “Is the clearing large enough to accommodate all of those you do require. You must include Shayla in your entourage. I cannot imagine the mother dragon allowing you to play with two of her precious babies without her. And Brevelan, too. She won’t want to miss something this big involving her best friend, her husband, and her dragons,” Mikka added with a smile. She and Darville had shared a number of adventures with Jaylor and Brevelan before duty and responsibility had weighed so heavily upon all their shoulders.

  “We may be a bit crowded,” Jack admitted. “But I believe Brevelan must stay home tonight. She’s expecting again, very soon.”

  “Yes, she is. Twins this time, I believe.” Mikka looked at her hands where she plucked at the satiny texture of her brocade gown. “Even for my best friend, I will not postpone this ceremony. We will have to perform it without Brevelan’s supervision.”

  “Lock the door again and armor the desk against eavesdropping.” Darville roused from his seat, leaving his wife there to stare at her own inner thoughts. “Send your summons to Jaylor from here.”

  “Should be the safest place in the palace for a while. The man with the witchlight speeding away from here should draw the witch-sniffers after him.” Jack pulled energy from the nearest ley line to fuel his spells. The magic tingled through his body in welcome waves. He drank it in, relishing the power that fed his talent and energized his mind. The pattern of tingles was different from dragon magic, but more familiar. He knew how to mold this power precisely.

  Besides he didn’t have a purple-tipped dragon at his fingertips to give him power.

  If he’d been able to gather dragon magic from the air, he’d have been accepted by the University and Commune as a child. But if he’d been accepted and nurtured, he’d not have learned the strength and resilience his adventures had taught him. He’d not have met Katrina, or found the lair of the dragons to bring them home.

  Katrina wouldn’t be planning their wedding for tomorrow if . . .

  Breathing deeply in the early stages of a trance, he set a candle upon the desk and sat in the king’s chair. He couldn’t settle comfortably in the furniture custom-made for the tall and lanky man who paced the room like a caged wolf. Jack moved to the smaller visitor’s chair. It wasn’t exactly comfortable either, made that way to discourage visitors from lingering unnecessarily. But the size was better suited to Jack’s shorter, stockier figure.

  Only then did he retrieve a special shard of glass hidden deep within his scrip. Possession of the precious and rare piece marked him as a magician. As a master magician, he was entitled to a much larger, gold-framed piece. Even journeymen used a larger piece than this. But they were harder to hide. And other than an occasional summons to Jaylor, or a bubble of armor to ensure privacy, he wasn’t supposed to work any magic while in the capital.

  A middling trance settled on his mind. His eyes crossed slightly, and the flame doubled and wavered in his sight. He looked through the glass into the flame.

  “Flame to flame, glass to glass, like seeking like, follow my thoughts to the one I seek,” he murmured in a singsong. His talent flew along the path of his chant through the glass into the flame. In his mind he watched a tiny flamelet jump from the candle, fly along the desk, drop to the floor and travel along the carpet without igniting the fibers.

  King Darville watched the candle, oblivious to the movement of the ghostly flame. It traveled to Mikka’s gown, across her lap, and out the closed window in the space of three heartbeats. The queen shifted position restlessly three times during that brief moment. Her own magical talent might make her aware of the spell, but she couldn’t participate.

  Jack breathed easily again when the flame passed onto the roof of the wing below the study tower. In his mind he followed the tiny spark on its journey far to the South. It gained speed as it traversed the land, uphill, jumping rivers and creeks, through forests, over pastures and plowed fields. At last, it found a nameless little village perched on a cliff above a treacherous cove. It paused a moment as if catching a brea
th near the triple festival pylon, still decorated with flowers, new foliage, and grasses from the Spring celebrations. Then off again, steeply uphill along a narrow but well-trodden path. At the boulder split by a tree, the path seemed to pass to the left. Jack’s mind and the flamelet pressed to the right. He saw the iridescent shimmer of the magical barrier that protected Brevelan’s clearing. No human could pass through this barrier without Brevelan’s or Jaylor’s express wish. But the flame did not live, and Jack’s body remained in Coronnan City.

  A sudden thrumming in Jack’s mind told him the flame had found a piece of glass and sent a signal to the owner that a summons awaited. The vibration of the signal set Jack’s teeth on edge. It had set his fingers twitching before a second flame appeared in his glass. Then Jaylor’s familiar face emerged, as close and clear as if he sat on the opposite side of the desk.

  “What?” Jaylor asked abruptly. His gaze wandered to his left and stayed there. Worry shadowed his eyes and drew his mouth into a deep frown. His beard looked untrimmed, and his hair had pulled loose from his queue restraint.

  “Jaylor, I have a solution and need help. Shayla has agreed to meet us with the twin purple-tips on Sacred Isle tonight,” Jack replied. Jaylor’s distraction worried him. The Senior Magician of the Commune did not allow his students anything but full concentration on any spell and taught by example.

  “Not tonight. No time.” Jaylor raised his hand in the time-honored signal that he closed the communication.

  “But it has to be tonight!” Otherwise Katrina might find another excuse to delay their wedding.

  Otherwise Ariiell and Laislac might find a way to grab the position of heir to the throne.

  “Not tonight. Brevelan is in labor. It’s not going well. I can’t leave her, and I won’t delegate this chore.”

  “What’s wrong?” Darville asked. “Tell him we can go to the clearing instead of to Sacred Isle. Tell him about the eavesdroppers. Tell him that Mikka . . .”