The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

by Irene Radford

  “The prisoner was found in the brothel. He is one of Televarn’s slaves and has no right to the women there,” Nastfa said, maintaining his subservient position, with his backside in the air.

  “Who found him?” Yaassima stepped down from the dais and circled Nastfa. She caressed his upthrust bottom, not with affection, more like appraisal, as if he were a haunch of pork.

  “I arrested the prisoner, Kaalipha.” A second man assumed the position beside Nastfa. He wore only trews of fine black wool that he’d buttoned so hastily they fastened askew with gaps.

  “Was the prisoner attempting to partner with one of my women?” Yaassima widened her circle to include the second man.

  “No, I was not.” Powwell raised his head as he spoke and shook off the hands that held him up. He could lose that head for speaking to the Kaalipha from an upright position. Just like Yaassima’s consort and daughter had.

  Myri broadcast caution to him. She didn’t have her husband’s easy command of telepathy, only her emotions to project to another.

  “I was searching for my adopted mother, Myrilandel.” He spotted Myri and Kalen beside the dais at that moment. Brief joy lit his face, then he masked all his emotions.

  Kalen took a step toward him. Myri held her back, uncertain of Yaassima’s cruel whims. Safety and escape lay in avoiding Yaassima’s notice.

  How could she distract the Kaalipha from Powwell without drawing unwanted attention to herself and Kalen?

  “Do I understand this report, that you were found in the brothel, rather than attempting to enter?” Yaassima turned her gaze on Powwell. Her long fingers moved from the guard’s rear end to Powwell’s chest. She traced a glowing design over his heart, her talonlike fingernails snagging on the rough cloth of his tunic. Myri couldn’t read the design, but she suspected it was a sigil of control.

  Yaassima snapped her fingers. The sigil disappeared as a knife appeared in her hand. She repeated the symbol with the tip of the knife, slicing Powwell’s tunic and shirt but not his skin.

  “Yes, Kaalipha, I was inside the brothel,” Powwell answered when the other men looked at the floor and shuffled their feet.

  “How did you get past the guards?” Yaassima’s eyes narrowed as she scanned the motley array of half-dressed men. Her gaze halted on the second kneeling man.

  “I used a spell of invisibility.”

  The Kaalipha’s gaze whipped back to Powwell.

  Myri cringed. If she ran and pushed the Kaalipha aside, she might be able to drag Powwell and Kalen through the primary entrance. Where would they go once they were free of the palace?

  She didn’t have enough information!

  “A magician. How lovely. Were you trained by Nimbulan? Or perhaps Myrilandel’s Rover lover was your teacher?” The knife disappeared. Yaassima’s extraordinarily long fingers flexed and opened repeatedly.

  “I received some training from Myrilandel’s husband, Kaalipha.”

  “Can you work dragon magic?” Yaassima’s voice became too sweet. Myri waited in dread for the vicious blow to follow.

  “When there are dragons present,” Powwell said.

  “Can you work dragon magic now, child?”

  “I sense no dragon magic. Nor are there any ley lines near. I have only limited reserves of magic available. I’d rather not waste them on parlor tricks.”

  “No dragon magic!” Yaassima screeched. “No dragon magic! There has to be dragon magic. I am The Dragon, that’s what Kaalipha means in the old tongue—dragon. I am descended from dragons. You will take your magic from me. Show me, boy. Show me this dragon magic, or I’ll know you for a liar and execute you at dawn for the crime.” The torches flared high, adding their green light to the yellow ceiling panels.

  “You may have the blood of dragons in you, Kaalipha. But you are not in dragon form. I cannot gather your magic. Nor can I gather Myrilandel’s while she resides in a human body.”

  Yaassima glared at the boy. Color rose in her pale cheeks. Torchlight reflected green sparks off her white-blond hair. She stood almost a head taller than he. Powwell had grown these last six moons to be equal in height to some of the men present. Yaassima seemed to swell taller yet. Her arms stretched away from her sides for balance as if she expected them to become wings.

  Surprised, Myri stepped forward to watch the Kaalipha more closely. She thought the gesture to be unique to herself. Would Yaassima transform?

  Could she transform?

  All the men except Powwell backed away from Yaassima, recognizing her posture as a threat.

  “I have not the time to test your magic right now. Tell me, though, if you were invisible, how did my men find you? Careful of your answer, boy, your fate resides in my good wishes.” The torchlight faded along with Yaassima’s temper.

  Cold sweat broke out on Myri’s back. This was the moment when Yaassima was the most dangerous; when cold calculation replaced hot temper. Life or death. The Kaalipha of Hanassa controlled them both.

  “I dropped the spell as soon as I passed beyond the guards. I did not want to use so much of my energy until I had to.”

  “The guards were in the anteroom and you were in the brothel?” Yaassima turned back to the two men who continued to kneel with their foreheads on the floor.

  “One of them was with a woman, Kaalipha. He caught me.” Powwell pointed to the second man. The one who had barely had time to pull on his trews.

  “You have done me a favor, boy. I must deal with this man’s disregard of my rules. I grant you life, Powwell. Today. Guards, take this fledgling magician to the pit. A few moons sweltering in the heart of the volcano will either cure him of his desire to escape or kill him.”

  Chapter 10

  Yaassima fluttered her hand in a dismissive gesture. Two fully-dressed guards hastened to haul Powwell away. The other men regrouped in a tighter knot, unwilling to be singled out by the Kaalipha.

  Yaassima did not shift her gaze from the kneeling men.

  Myri swallowed deeply. No execution for Powwell. While he lived, she had a chance to help him escape, along with herself and her daughters. The longer she delayed, the more dangerous Hanassa became.

  “Who was on duty?” Yaassima caressed Nastfa on his buttocks. She reached between his legs and fondled his genitals through the rough wool of his trews. Her palm remained cupped, ready to squeeze with the extra strength of her long fingers. Nastfa gulped. His dark skin paled.

  “Bjorg and Evaar, Kaalipha.” His voice rose in an unnatural squeak.

  Myri smelled his fear and anticipation of pain. She clutched Kalen’s arm for support. Yaassima had been known to prolong her tortures when she sensed Myri’s loathing, as if she needed to punish Myri, too.

  Beside her, Kalen licked her lips. Myri couldn’t tell if she moistened them in reaction to her own fear or anticipation. Her swirling emotions bewildered Myri.

  “Kalen,” she whispered, clutching the girl’s arm tighter. “What are you feeling?”

  “They betrayed Powwell. They deserve whatever she gives them. I want them to suffer for betraying Powwell.” This time, Kalen’s eagerness to watch the men writhe in pain broke through her armored emotions.

  Myri recoiled in disgust.

  “There should have been a third man on duty. Who was he?” Yaassima’s grip on the man’s balls tightened a little.

  “Golin shared the duty, Kaalipha.” Nastfa’s voice rose again in fear, anticipating Yaassima’s grip. His greasy black hair trembled from his reaction. He had nearly Rover-dark hair and skin. But his face bore tinges of yellow and his eyes slanted slightly. He must have been one of the elite assassins of Maffisto before Yaassima brought him into her guard. What power did Yaassima hold over him to make such a ruthless man subservient and quaking in fear?

  “Golin, the man who discovered the magician in the brothel, was also on duty?” Yaassima removed her hand. Nastfa nearly collapsed in relief. His companion began to shake, though. “Golin, who was supposed to be patrolling the entrance, shi
fting the torches every few minutes to cast new and different shadows so an invisible magician would be betrayed by his shadow falling in the wrong place. Golin, who was, instead, naked in the bed of one of my women!” Yaassima slipped her fingers beneath the man’s belt. Her long fingernails tore the fine black cloth of his trews. She yanked the fabric with all of her strength. The cloth tore in three straight lines so that the fabric fluttered to the floor in rags.

  Golin’s shaking increased as the cold night air shriveled his genitals.

  “You are not free of guilt yet, Nastfa. You lead this sorry band of murderers. Yours is the responsibility to keep them in line.”

  Nastfa nodded and maintained his pose. He gulped in air and stared briefly at Myri before dropping his forehead to the stone paving once more.

  That one long look spoke of many secrets that had to remain hidden. What did the man try to tell her?

  “Tell me, Golin,” Yaassima cooed with unnatural sweetness. “In return for refuge in my city, you have the duty to protect my women certain nights of the moon. On any other night you are free to take one of those women back to your quarters. Yet you forsook your duty to me to lie with one of those women tonight. Do you do this often?” Yaassima placed both hands between his legs.

  “You provide for us quite generously, Kaalipha. I had to make sure the women slept soundly. Kestra couldn’t sleep, she claimed she was too cold. She asked me to warm her.” Golin stammered.

  “Kestra. One of Televarn’s women. She dissatisfied him, so he gave her to me as part of his tithe. I should have known a Rover woman couldn’t resist a man. Any man, at any time.” Yaassima looked up at Myri as she continued to stroke and fondle Golin. He grew with her now gentle ministrations. His magnificent proportions would entice most women.

  Myri tried to look away. Something in Yaassima’s eyes compelled her to continue observing Golin’s humiliation.

  “Kestra, isn’t she the one who bore a half-caste child two moons ago? I believe the father was a magician from Coronnan, the one who betrayed Televarn. The one who also fathered Maia’s baby. He did spread his seed far and wide. What was his name?” Yaassima continued to look at Myri. A malicious grin spread over her face.

  Myri swallowed heavily. She knew her husband. Nimbulan, had lived with Televarn’s clan for a season before their marriage. He’d been invited to mate with Maia. Televarn had arranged the union and manipulated their emotions with magic. No other woman of the clan was offered to Nimbulan.

  “ ’Twas Televarn who betrayed my husband, Kaalipha,” Myri said through clenched teeth. “Televarn’s tales change with the wind. He cannot tell the truth.”

  Yaassima smiled again. “Nimbulan’s infidelity is not the issue here. I could have you castrated, Golin, for neglecting your duty.”

  Every man in the room blanched. Myri grew hot, then very cold in her mid-region. She knew Yaassima was manipulating her through her empathic talent.

  “There is no call for that, Yaassima.” She firmed her chin and stared at the woman. She had to stop this. Her own safety paled in significance to the violence that permeated Hanassa. Kalen had already been tainted by it. She had to stop this here and now.

  “You wish to deprive me of justice?” Yaassima raised one eyebrow in speculation. Her hands tightened on Golin as a reminder that her attention wasn’t totally on Myri’s distraction. He shrank again.

  Every eye in the room rested on the Kaalipha. Would she dare perform the torturous procedure with her bare hands, using her fingernails in place of a knife?

  “Golin will be useless to you if he lives. You will destroy his courage and clear thinking. What good is a guard afraid to confront men who challenge him?”

  “Perhaps, perhaps not. I need loyal men. Men who know I hold their lives and their deaths in my hands. Men who know that to fail me will bring worse punishment than my enemies could inflict upon them.”

  She squeezed Golin harder, then abruptly released her grip. He groaned and collapsed, clutching his still intact groin. Yaassima laughed and wiped her hands on the rags of Golin’s trews. “It would be a pity to lose a man who is hung like a sledge steed in rut. I have a better idea. Stand up, both of you.” She kicked at the two kneeling men.

  Nastfa scrambled to his knees. Golin managed to get his legs under him but remained slumped over and groaning.

  “For your punishment,” Yaassima continued, “both of you shall stand guard over the women every night for the next moon. All night. And you shall watch as they service the guards I send to them, every night. You shall help undress the women. You shall help them bathe. But you may not lie with them. If you succumb to the temptation, and they will tempt you mightily, I will castrate and then execute you both. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Kaalipha,” Nastfa and Golin whispered with relief.

  “Louder. I want all of your crew to hear you and understand that they are to make sure you know what you are missing.” The torches flared again, a sure sign of her rising temper and a possibly worse fate for the men.

  “Yes, Kaalipha,” they nearly shouted.

  “Good. Then we will begin now. Someone fetch the women. We will watch the sport together.”

  Golin bent to retrieve the tattered remnants of his clothes and his dignity.

  “No, Golin. No clothes for you. I need to know that you suffer torment and understand why you must endure.” She rubbed him with her dangerous hand. He didn’t fill it.

  Yaassima laughed.

  “He’s so scared he’ll be lucky to get it up again,” Kalen muttered.

  “Precisely,” Yaassima replied. “Come, Myri. You might enjoy this. You haven’t been with a man for many moons. Choose a partner, or several, whatever you desire. If you like, I can provide the means for you to play at being raped.” Her tone told everyone in the room this was an order rather than a suggestion.

  Yaassima clapped her hands. The floor groaned and shuddered. Slowly, the huge altar stone rose from its subterranean hiding place. Stone scraped on stone until the long slab of granite stood a little higher than Yaassima’s waist. A metal stake poked up from each of the four corners. Manacles for wrists and ankles dangled from each spike.

  Yaassima’s victim would rest in the place of sacrifice formerly reserved for offerings to Simurgh. Did Yaassima subject her own daughter to this humiliating torture before murdering her?

  “The tide is nearly out,” King Quinnault shouted with glee as he bounded up the steps to Nimbulan’s post on the battlements. Quinnault cradled his right arm in his left, rubbing the bicep and shoulder.

  Nimbulan raised his head from his crossed arms upon the wall. He blinked grit from his eyes. His deep concentration on the individual ships within the battle had also kept him from noticing the world beyond the tangling fishnets, broken hulls, his aching body, and the death of too many men. He had supervised the entire battle and left the throwing of magic to others. Still the exhaustion of maintaining communications dragged him close to unconsciousness.

  A gentle tug on his back, a lower pitch to the humming in his ears, a sense of weight in his knees, all told him of the shift in the forces of moon and water.

  He sensed no trace of the special stillness in the air that heralded dawn. He longed for the red-gold sunshine to bake the ache from his joints. His eyes were tired of straining through the green light of torches and witchfire.

  “You saved Coronnan this night, Magician Nimbulan.” Quinnault bowed deeply in respect, still holding his arm close to his body.

  “Thanks should go to you and your comrades, Your Grace,” Nimbulan replied as he surveyed the wreckage of the Rossemeyerian armada. “Are you hurt?” He reached a hand to touch the injury. Quinnault shied away from him.

  “I twisted or pulled something out of place.” He shrugged and winced painfully.

  “More than a muscle strain, Your Grace.” Nimbulan probed the tender spot with insistent fingers.

  “Some flying debris broke through the magical armor and bruised it.
Then I had to grab the oars in a hurry when Leauman, my boatman, ducked too hastily. The strain pulled something,” Quinnault said through gritted teeth.

  “I don’t think you dislocated anything. Maybe a bruise to the bone. We’ll get a healer to look at it. I wish you hadn’t endangered yourself out on the Bay tonight. If you had been killed, Coronnan would be in dire straits, victory or no. You have no heir to succeed you.”

  Quinnault dismissed Nimbulan’s concern with a wave at the destruction out in the Bay. “My people needed to see me leading the charge. They fought harder alongside me than they would have if I’d been safely protected by stone walls—remind me later to reinforce that lesson with Konnaught. I’m tried of his scowls of disapproval.”

  “Lord Konnaught should have been exiled upon his father’s death,” Nimbulan grumbled.

  “He deserves the chance to grow into his rightful inheritance. I’d rather teach him to nurture the land and the people than punish him for his father’s tyranny,” Quinnault replied.

  The king stared out at the wreckage strewn across the moonlit bay before continuing. “We won’t be bothered by Rossemeyer again for a while. Ambassador General Jhorge-Rosse must now respect me as a warrior as well as a peacemaker. We’ll present a new treaty to him after we’ve slept.” He yawned hugely, then seemed to shake off his fatigue.

  “We should let him cool his heels for a day or two,” Nimbulan said. A day or two while he and his exhausted magicians slept and ate and slept some more. “We don’t have to make the trade treaty now; we’ve proved we can defend ourselves. The ambassador must learn that the treaty is an offer of friendship more than trade advantages. We also have many prisoners of war to ransom back to Rossemeyer. We bargain from strength this time.”

  Fifty ships had sailed into the mudflats of the Great Bay. Perhaps twelve managed to hoist enough sail to catch the wind that shifted to an offshore direction. Thirty-some ships rested at bizarre angles with their hulls run aground on mud and lethal debris. Five had burned to the waterline, their sailors captured as they jumped for the relative safety of the water. Some of the refugees managed to swim toward departing ships and save themselves. Many more died in the pounding waves and the witchfire that continued burning on the surface of the Bay. Hundreds of men had surrendered to the crews of the fishing boats.