The Silent Dragon: Children of The Dragon Nimbus #1

by Irene Radford

  He almost recognized the tune. His mind sought and failed to find the lyrics that owned the music.

  “What was that?” he roared to anyone and everyone within hearing distance and beyond.

  Lillian shrugged. Valeria watched in wonder, choosing to retreat into silence, just like Glenndon.

  “Just sunlight bouncing off the white cliffs,” Lillian said on a yawn.

  “That fireball smelled of Glenndon,” Lukan said, staring in awe at the huge spell. He’d wandered over from where he practiced carrying firewood with his mind from one disorganized pile into a neat stack. “How’d he do that? I need to try it.”

  “No, you don’t,” Jaylor ordered, grabbing his son by the collar and turning him away from the magic’s trajectory. “That magic also smells of desperation. Hasty and piecemeal. I hope Glenndon is all right.”

  Wind whipped around the tree canopy, bending the top boughs low. Shayla screeched in distress and anger above them. Her wings beat hard and fast against the air, propelling her back to the sanctuary of her nesting cave on the mountain’s high slopes.

  Even Lillian looked up from her chores to watch the distortion in the air that could only be a dragon.

  An image of men gathering in a grassy vale flashed into Jaylor’s mind.

  “Oh, my. Glenndon just saved Shayla.” The words spilled hastily out of Valeria’s mouth.

  “. . . from attack by soldiers with crossbows,” Lillian finished the sentence.

  “Heh?” Jaylor asked. “It appears Shayla is not talking to me at the moment. She always reports to me or your mother first.”

  “She did not greet me,” Valeria said.

  “She only shared the image. Now she’s gone,” Lillian continued for her, for them.

  “Is that the princess?” Lillian asked.

  A reflection of Valeria’s original image skittered across Jaylor’s vision. One of the twins—who knew which one—highlighted the slim figure in an elegant riding costume with long multi-hued hair watching the arrows fly. Her mouth gaped in horror.

  “Show me more clearly!” Jaylor demanded.

  Valeria bounced the image from Lillian back to their father, and over to Lukan, complete with highlights.

  He studied the image a moment, looking directly at Valeria. Or through her. He couldn’t decide which.

  “This is getting a little vague and dim with all the bouncing around, but I do believe the girl is Princess Rosselinda. She looks just like her mother.”

  “She’s gorgeous,” Lukan sighed. Then he pulled himself out of adolescent reverie. “And the tall man? The king?” Lukan asked, tilting his head in puzzlement.

  Jaylor nodded, eyes slightly crossed, still examining things in his head.

  “He . . . he does look a bit like Glenndon.” Lukan blushed, like he was afraid to admit what they’d all avoided saying. “But the eyes are different.”

  “Noticed that, did you?” Jaylor said grimly.

  Lillian gestured to Valeria in a private sign. Still bubbling with the magical energy she’d borrowed from the fireball, Valeria sent soothing waves of empathy around the clearing, making sure they lighted on her father and brother.

  Immediately, Jaylor’s shoulders relaxed and the frown lines around his mouth and eyes eased. “Shayla only showed you what angered her, not what would sadden us. If anything hurt Glenndon, her anger would overshadow everything else. I’m sure we can stop worrying about Glenndon. For the moment,” he said

  Is that true, Shayla? Valeria and Lillian asked the disappearing distortion in the sky.

  Jaylor had no problem eavesdropping on their mental conversation. So far. At least when they weren’t consciously keeping him out.

  (Of course,) Shayla replied.

  Valeria relaxed, and so did her twin.

  “Come, I believe your mother has a meal ready.” Jaylor ushered them toward the cabin, still sorting out images and how strongly each of his children performed magic.

  “I smelled yampion pie earlier,” Lukan said eagerly. “With Glenndon gone maybe I’ll get a piece big enough to ease my hunger.”

  Jaylor’s mood darkened again and his shoulders slumped. “I hope they feed him correctly in the City.”

  “We all worry about him, Da.” Lillian slipped her hand into his.

  Valeria followed suit. “He’s hungry now though.”

  Jaylor raised his eyebrows at her.

  “A quick thought is all I need to find him.”

  “She’s always been able to sense where he is,” Lillian added.

  “For as long as I can remember, almost like an instinct.”

  CHAPTER 14

  LINDA ROUGHLY GRABBED her steed’s reins from their loose tie around a sapling. Fortunately she and P’pa had tethered their mounts far enough away from the dragon that they did not spook as much as the others. With another yank, she freed P’pa’s stallion.

  “Easy, Your Highness,” Fred said quietly, placing his gentle hand atop hers. His hand might lie lightly now, but the calluses on his palm and the muscles in his arms reminded her that he wielded weapons as casually as she did a pen. He probably juggled sword, knife, and throwing stars with more skill than she did any kind of word play. All the while his queue remained tight and controlled; a knotted leather thong with metal tips wove around the braid, making his hair another weapon if he ever removed the strip and used it as a whip or garrote.

  “Fred, you have been a friend to me and my sisters for as long as I can remember.”

  “I try, Your Highness.”

  “I missed you these past two weeks. I didn’t realize how naked P’pa looks without you beside him, until you came back. You are so much a part of the background, I don’t think anyone notices you until you are absent.”

  “I missed you too, Your Highness.” He reached out to tousle her hair, as he had before her coming of age. Reluctantly he returned his palm to his sword pommel, respectful of her rank.

  “So, as a friend, tell me about this Glenndon.” She focused on the two stiff figures atop the next knoll. Both tall and blond, both broad of shoulder and slim of waist with long legs. One elegant, confident, and poised, the other roughly clothed and hunched warily, out of place.

  “He has been yanked away from his family and friends, his home, and all he holds dear. Be gentle with him, Your Highness. Do not judge too quickly.” Fred took the leading rein of the stallion and began a slow return to the hilltop.

  “Couldn’t he have put on some better clothes? He looks like the gardener just come in from digging in the dirt.”

  “Those are his best clothes, Highness. Except for perhaps his formal magician’s robes. But I do not think that would be acceptable at court.”

  Linda stopped short. Belle nudged her from behind with an imperious nose. She stumbled forward a bit from the prodding mare. “Are they so poor at this exiled college of magicians that all they can afford to wear are rags?”

  “Not rags, Highness. Look closer. Roughly woven certainly, but not a ragged spot or mending patch on him. Out of style perhaps, but serviceable, durable, and unobtrusive. Perfect for traveling on the king’s highways.”

  “But you did not come by the highway. I saw you appear out of nowhere in a cloud of sparkling dust bright enough to rival the dragon.”

  “Saw that did you? I thought all attention was on the dragon.”

  “Most, not all. I was looking directly at you. Couldn’t miss it if I tried.”

  “Hmmm, I’ll have to remember that. You aren’t as mind-blind as most people. Maybe you can cut through Glenndon’s wall of lonely reserve.”

  “Lonely?”

  “Think how you would feel if a stranger arrived with a letter demanding you go halfway across the continent to meet a relative you’d never met who was claiming y
ou as heir. Glenndon knows no one here and is forbidden to use magic to contact those he loves, including his parents.”

  “But P’pa is his father.”

  “His Grace may be his sire. But Lord Jaylor, Senior Magician and Chancellor of the University of Magicians is his Da.”

  “Oh.” Linda slowed her steps while she thought about that. Suddenly the disreputable traveler Lord Jemmarc had declared an idiot didn’t look so horrible.

  “Is he an idiot?” She didn’t think he could be if M’ma and P’pa had agreed to bring him to court as a possible heir to the Dragon Crown. Lord Andrall’s son, Mardall, had been excluded from the line of succession because he was . . . had problems learning and growing beyond the mental capabilities of a five year old.

  “Glenndon is probably smarter than you and me combined, Little Lindy. But very few people will be able to see that. Come, time we introduced you to your brother.”

  “My brother. My older brother.” She tasted the words, wondering if they’d ever stop feeling alien.

  “You do not sit that steed easily, Glenndon,” Darville said. He’d wanted to call the boy “son” and didn’t quite dare. Glenndon’s stony silence made the king’s gut roil with uncertainty.

  Linda rode on Darville’s right, as she always had.

  Glenndon stared at him a moment from his precariously balanced seat atop the steed to the king’s left. An image of looking at his own feet moving silently through the forest flashed across Darville’s mind, so fast he almost didn’t catch it.

  “You walk everywhere at . . . at the University complex?” He’d known since the beginning that Glenndon did not talk. Why should he be surprised at the clarity of his telepathic communication? The boy had had a lot of practice.

  A feeling of assent answered Darville’s words.

  “Have you ever ridden?”

  Blankness. “I guess not. We’ll remedy that soon enough. We walk about the City mostly because it is so crowded and the streets are so narrow.” He tried to conjure a memory of walking across one of the numerous bridges that connected the city islands in the river delta. Then he imagined the latches on each end of every bridge. In times of invasion the inhabitants could retreat inward, removing the bridges as they went so the enemy could not follow. The tricky currents in and around the islands made approaching by small river boat inadvisable to anyone who had not grown up knowing which side stream to take and which inlet to beach a boat upon.

  Glenndon graced him with a blazing smile.

  “You caught those images?”

  The boy nodded eagerly.

  “Your Da taught me to swim when we were Linda’s age,” Darville added. “We were great friends, in and out of trouble, exploring every island, getting to know them all intimately.”

  Glenndon’s face fell and he turned away, watching the grass and trees rustle at their passage. He looked more than a little pale and shaky.

  Darville remembered times when Jaylor had much the same pallor and listlessness . . .

  “Has your mother ever learned to eat meat?” he asked, wondering what he might have with him to offer the boy in the way of food.

  Glenndon shook his head, but he swallowed a glimmer of a smile.

  “Do you and your . . . Jaylor also avoid meat, since that meant an animal losing its life to feed you?”

  A quick image of Jaylor, Glenndon, and another boy—a little younger, thinner, and less muscled, but the spitting image of Jaylor—eating vigorously in a long refectory filled with other blue-robed people carving thick slabs off a haunch of venison filled his mind.

  Darville smile openly. “I wouldn’t tell your mother about that either. Her anger would be . . . formidable.”

  Linda bristled at that for some teenage, female reason he couldn’t fathom. Then she changed the subject most haughtily. “I can teach Glenndon how to ride, as you taught me, P’pa.”

  “You have lessons and exercises in diplomacy. Glenndon will join you at your spyhole behind the Council meeting chamber,” Darville said. “You will help him learn court manners and protocol. I’d like the opportunity to teach him to ride and swing a sword.”

  A sense of angry objection radiated out from Glenndon.

  “Yes, I know your mother taught you manners and protocols. I suspect what you needed for life at the University is a bit different from the court. I can’t imagine life with magicians is as devious and manipulative as it is with nobles, all cloaked in exquisite politeness and double speak.”

  Glenndon laughed out loud, long and heartily.

  “I guess not. I remember your Da using a truth spell once. It wasn’t pretty.”

  Glenndon nodded.

  “So magicians also have to learn to cloak their words in half-truths and innuendo so they don’t truly lie, but also do not reveal the truth.”

  Linda’s eyes went wide in wonder. “I must learn to spot such actions.”

  “Yes you must. Glenndon will teach you.”

  His two children surveyed each other, weighing and assessing strengths and weaknesses.

  “Can Glenndon figure out who tried to kill you by weakening your sword?” Linda asked quietly.

  Glenndon looked about in wild panic, shaking his head and moaning.

  Darville couldn’t tell if he meant that he couldn’t do it, or if the thought of finding the truth behind the assassin frightened him.

  Fred leaned over and grabbed the steed’s reins just before Glenndon tried to bolt back toward the vale they’d left behind half an hour ago.

  “Where are we, P’pa?” Linda whispered to her father as they dismounted in the courtyard of a strange stable. Glenndon nearly fell out of his saddle and spent long minutes massaging his thighs.

  Long, low-roofed stone buildings stretched down opposite sides of the yard. Steeds poked their heads out from half doors along those buildings, curious to see the newcomers. The end building looked like a massive barn, also made of stone, that towered above the compound. The fourth wall, with the broad double gate, appeared to be four stories of quarters for the families who managed the steeds.

  Beyond the stable, spacious pastures, also neatly fenced, spread out in three directions. She’d spotted a number of steeds grazing on the bright grass.

  She thought they might be on the north shore of the Coronnan River, but couldn’t be certain after the serpentine route they’d taken around the fringe of outer islands, crossing four or five bridges, some broad and arched over a wide channel, others narrow and low. They’d passed compact fields showing the first hints of new plantings and marked by neat fences. Few people lived this far out. Not many pairs of eyes to note the passage of their king and his miniscule entourage.

  “Where do you think our steeds are housed? Not in the city itself where space is precious.”

  That made sense. “Do we walk back to Palace Isle?” She estimated the distance to be at least two miles, maybe more considering the jagged pattern of bridges. Nothing lay in a straight line through Coronnan City, to slow down invaders and avoid unstable temporary aits.

  “In a way, Little Lindy,” P’pa laughed.

  Fred led them into the stable at the far end, where the left-hand building met the barn. He kept a wary hand on his sword, eyes searching the shadows for signs of danger.

  Glenndon watched everything. His hesitant steps looked more cautious than curious. Would he be able to detect danger lurking behind the high wooden walls of the steed boxes?

  His hands clenched and released at his sides, at the ready.

  Ready for what?

  Linda drew closer to her father. She’d trained in sword and bow, more out of boredom than a need to protect herself. P’pa rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder, letting her cling just behind his right side. His left hand dominated, she knew better than to interfere with his ability
to draw his sword and defend them.

  History lessons of war and murderous power struggles among the lords suddenly became real, more than just stories she had to memorize.

  Seemingly satisfied that they were alone, Fred moved into a large, loose box intended for mares about to foal. Narrow alleys for grooming tools and buckets and stools and such separated the box from the other narrower stalls. The hay on the floor and in the feed box was fresh, as was the water in the trough. It looked ready for use at a moment’s notice.

  In the back corner, closest to the barn, Fred ran his fingers along a stone seam. Linda heard a tiny click as Fred pressed his hand flat against a stone about even with Linda’s chest.

  Glenndon watched him as closely as Linda did.

  Slowly a section of wall swung inward on well-oiled pivots. Darkness, blacker than a cloudy night at the new moon, yawned before them. It smelled damp and musty. She wondered when the door had last been opened. Recently, judging by the care taken with the silent hinges. But it smelled of long disuse.

  “I should not need to tell either of you that this passage is known only to the family and special retainers,” P’pa said quietly.

  My parents?

  Linda heard Glenndon’s question almost as if he had spoken directly into her ear. But the words blossomed in the center of her head.

  Beside her, P’pa stiffened and grimaced, then made himself relax. Why?

  “Your Mama and Da know that the palace and Palace Isle are riddled with secret passages and forgotten rooms. I do not know if they have ever been through this one,” he replied.

  Glenndon turned a tight circle, sniffing the air much like a cat or dog would, learning who had passed through here.

  “You are both considered my heirs. You need to learn as many of the hidden paths as possible. I do not trust some of the lords to value your safety above their quest for power.” With that, P’pa turned sideways and took two long steps into the darkness. He disappeared as soon as his shoulders cleared the opening.

  A heartbeat later, a torch flared, revealing him and a steep staircase of damp stone descending behind him.