The Silent Dragon: Children of The Dragon Nimbus #1

by Irene Radford

  Silence again.

  I need to go home.

  (Choose wisely.)

  Meaning he had more than one home to choose from. Well, there was the clearing with Mama’s cabin. The University with its massive wooden buildings. Where else?

  (Choose wisely.)

  The tone of that command told him he hadn’t considered something else. Something important.

  Home was home. What other choices could there be?

  (Consider the needs of those who love you.)

  He didn’t like that. He’d landed here in a desperate attempt to escape . . .

  Now he couldn’t remember what exactly had driven him here other than intense loneliness and homesickness. He needed to go home to Mama, and Da, and Lukan, and the twins, and the little ones. To the other students. And to his friend Indigo.

  A flash of another mind crossed his own. Someone . . . someone he couldn’t quite identify but knew he should.

  (Caught you!)

  CHAPTER 19

  GLENNDON FELL, uncontrolled, to who knows where. He flailed his arms and legs, frantic to find something, anything to latch onto.

  He had arms and legs? He had a body to flail?

  (Caught you,) Indigo chortled. (Hid from me. But I found you.)

  Indigo. My friend.

  “I’ve got you, Glenndon. Stop fighting me!” Da said. He sounded angry. More angry than relieved.

  Da, thank you.

  “Don’t thank me yet.”

  Glenndon opened his eyes to find himself in the middle of the circle of master magicians at the University. Twelve stern men glowered at him from their posts, with Da at the south, closest to the magnetic pole.

  A sense of direction steadied him. He grounded himself toward the constant pull of the pole.

  “What were you thinking fleeing into a transport spell without a definite destination and time in mind?” Da demanded. His fists clenched and his jaw worked as if he chewed his anger into smaller bits so he could swallow them.

  Glenndon hung his head in dismay. He’d made a big mistake. A huge and dangerous mistake. But he wasn’t the only one.

  “Look at me, Glenndon, and explain yourself.”

  He couldn’t. That other presence he’d felt in the void just before Indigo and Da yanked him out nagged at him. He tried flashing an image to Da.

  It bounced back at him in brittle shards, worse than any mind-blind wall. He threw up an arm to shield his eyes from the ricochet.

  “Now I am going to take you back to the palace and make sure you stay there,” Da fumed.

  But . . .

  That protest made less impact than his first attempt.

  Da made a ritualistic gesture. The dome of power that shielded the twelve magicians from outsiders and joined them to each other in the spell dissolved. Each of the men, except Da, rotated shoulders and necks, shrugging off the tension of holding their magic and tuning it to the whole. Hard work. Now that they’d been dismissed they’d wander inside the University in search of food and sleep to replenish their reserves.

  Da stood firm, shoulders hunched, fists clenched. The right hand looked as if it might snap his venerable staff in two.

  Glenndon’s belly began gnawing at his backbone. He’d used a lot of energy through the course of the day. Before he could indulge in food and sleep he had to convey some urgency to his Da.

  “Come along then.” Da grabbed his collar and closed his eyes in preparation to transport them both.

  No magic would penetrate his shields. Not now.

  Glenndon closed his eyes and prepared to transport himself back into the void.

  Da grabbed his dominant left hand as well as his collar to stop him. “You aren’t going anywhere without me. And I say when and where.”

  Glenndon opened his mouth. A twisted, croaking sound emerged.

  “I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer, boy. Even if it is bad enough to finally force you to try to speak.”

  “Val . . .” He couldn’t get anything more past the dry closure in the back of his throat.

  “I know you were in the void . . .”

  Glenndon shook his head. “Valeria,” he finally managed to push the sounds out.

  “What about your sister?”

  “Void.”

  Da stopped short. He turned his head right and left, eyes flicking faster than his neck could swivel. “Lillian, where is your sister?”

  Glenndon felt Lillian’s sobs more than heard them.

  “How did she manage that?” A morsel of pride underrode Da’s concern. “I have to go find her,” he sighed.

  Let me. I know where I felt her last.

  “No. The void is no place to wander around without direction and anchors. I had the full circle and a juvenile dragon holding tight to me while I looked for you, Glenndon.”

  Indigo?

  (Got her. Safe with me.)

  “Indigo?” Da called out.

  A yawn met both their inquiries.

  (Sunset. Sleep now.)

  “I don’t trust that dragon . . .”

  This time Glenndon stopped his Da from charging off up the mountain alone. Trust the dragons. You always taught us that. When all else fails, trust the dragons.

  “We’ll see.”

  “Da . . .” and then Glenndon ran out of words. He wasn’t sure he’d know what to say even if he had spoken all his life. So he fell back on what had always worked. He sent an image to Da. An image from his earliest memories, which he’d never forgotten, or could forget.

  He took his Da back in time to the anxious hours right after the twins’ birthing when everyone feared for the life of the younger and weaker twin as well as for her mother. The magician healers and midwives could do nothing for the babe as they worked hard to stop Brevelan from bleeding to death. (That was why there was almost a ten-year gap between the twins and Sharl, the next youngest.) Left in a cradle to die alone, too weak to even cry out her hunger and fear, Valeria threatened to slip out of this life, as if she never existed.

  Glenndon, drawn to the tiny baby, stood over the cradle, willing her to live. He stuck the middle two fingers of his left hand in his mouth and sucked, instinctively falling back into the infant habit for security and understanding.

  Into the dark corner of the cabin by the hearth stumbled two misshapen figures. He recognized the young, broad, and sturdy back of Jack, Da’s apprentice who had since grown into his master status and taken up the position as Ambassador to SeLennica. He half dragged, half carried the frail form of an old man. Lyman, the oldest of the old magicians. No one knew just how old, only that life slipped away from him. He fell to his knees, pulling Jack down with him. “Witness,” the old man wheezed.

  “Aye,” Jack agreed.

  So did Glenndon, only without words, not exactly sure what he had to witness, or what “to witness” was.

  Old Lyman leaned over the cradle, gnarled hands grasping the edge with white knuckles. Then he breathed into baby Valeria’s face. A dark mist emerged. To Glenndon’s adult mind he now recognized the shape of the mist as that of the outline of a dragon, or a winged cat.

  Valeria gasped and opened her eyes. A tiny wail came from her puckered mouth. Her face took on color. The wail grew to a howl of anguish as Lyman breathed his last and collapsed across the top of the cradle.

  Jack drew him away, holding his head against his chest, rocking the corpse. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he somehow rose and carried the dead magician away from the miracle of life in the cradle.

  Toddler Glenndon rushed to the cradle, trying to take the baby to someone who could tend her. His three—almost four—year-old arms couldn’t quite lift her.

  But then a midwife arrived and relieved him of the burden of caring f
or a new baby, but not of the burden of what he had witnessed.

  The face of the midwife seemed familiar. Then he gasped. Old Maisy. The seamstress to the royal family had helped save Mama and the baby during that time of trial. Maisy had nursed him back to health when he almost died of the putrid sore throat.

  Da reeled beneath Glenndon’s grasp on his arm. “That cannot be!” he gasped.

  Trust Valeria to the dragons. Somehow, she is one of them. I do not know how or why.

  “For now, I have to get you back where you belong. Tomorrow I will deal with my daughter and her secret.”

  I belong here.

  “Not anymore. I thought we made that clear to you. King Darville needs you. You are near fully grown. Your duty to him as your king is your priority right now.”

  I am not his son.

  “You can sort that out later. He needs you. You will fulfill your duty to him and to the dragons.”

  “Not my father.”

  “Keep talking, boy. We’ll make a master of you yet. After you fulfill your duty to Darville and Mikka.”

  Mikka. The queen. The lovely queen who had been gracious and kind, not expecting anything more of him than what he was prepared to be.

  “You will also find what Indigo sent you to find.”

  Glenndon cocked his head in question.

  “You aren’t the only one the dragons talk to.”

  CHAPTER 20

  WHEN THE MAGICIANS LEFT Coronnan City—when we, the lawful citizens of this land, drove them away—they did not take everything of value. I have stumbled upon a cache of old books and scrolls. The oldest of the old writings of the Stargods forbid any but magicians and nobles from learning to read. Bah, a blatant attempt by the corrupt practitioners and their pet dragons to suppress true intelligence. A desperate measure to gather all political and economic power unto themselves.

  But I have found a different scroll, an even more enlightening one. It speaks of witchsniffers, those who can detect magical power in others. I need to find one. The people of Coronnan need me to revive the honorable profession. A witchsniffer will root out the source of the king’s magical appearance and disappearance within the palace. A witchsniffer will show me the way to rise above all others and become king. Without magic.

  “I don’t see why I can’t be the heir,” Linda grumbled. A book from the earliest days of the kingdom, back when Master Magician and Battlemage Nimbulan made the pact with the dragons to control magic and bring peace to a war-weary world, lay open and nearly forgotten in front of her. The words twisted into numerous interpretations until they could mean almost anything. She sought logic again in the treaty formalizing the lord of Coronnan City as king, first among equals, with the lord from each Province sitting in Council with him. The only clause that made any sense and seemed unwilling to slide into a new meaning was the one assigning a master magician as a neutral adviser to each lord. The Senior Magician sat behind and to the left of the king in Council as conscience and learned mentor.

  So why didn’t the lords still have magician advisers? And why was there only provision for a king and not a reigning queen?

  “You can’t be the heir because that’s the way it’s always been,” Chastet said. She stood on a portable dais with Old Maisy crouched before her, pinning new lace trim to the hem of a favorite green gown she’d grown too tall for.

  “Women are expected to organize and socialize, smooth over ruffled feelings, discover what happens behind the scenes . . .” Miri added. She stabbed at a piece of embroidery with a needle too big and blunt for the delicate floral design. Like Linda, she’d never quite mastered the subtleties of fine needlework.

  Old Maisy snorted something around a mouthful of pins.

  “Speak up,” Linda commanded. She pushed aside the book she couldn’t concentrate on.

  “Seems to me, men are afraid of women,” the old woman said, tugging at the lace to make it hang straight.

  “Afraid?” Now that was something that had never occurred to Linda. “What do they have to fear from us? They are bigger, stronger . . .”

  “Less skilled in the subtle arts of discovery,” Maisy finished for her. “Look at that brother of yours; fleeing Stargods only know where the minute he’s faced with having to learn court manners and dress. Gone two whole days now. Chop wood he can do. Throw weapons he can do. Talk, not so much.”

  “But P’pa talks all the time. He’s a master of diplomacy,” Linda protested. She agreed that Glenndon hadn’t impressed her as good for much besides diverting and burning arrows aimed at a dragon—her dragon. A royal dragon. Like the battlemages of old, like Nimbulan.

  “But who does your P’pa talk to before entering the Council Chamber? Not Fred, his bodyguard and friend. Your M’ma, that’s who. The king and queen are quite a pair, well matched. Her strengths make up for his weaknesses.” Maisy mused. “Now, off with that gown, milady, and I’ll have it ready for you to wear tonight at the court gathering.”

  “If there is a court gathering tonight. P’pa has called every dignitary in the land to the palace so he could introduce them to Glenndon. But without him, they are . . . they are stuck with me. Me. So why can’t I be the heir?”

  “Because men need the illusion of power and control,” Miri said. She threw the embroidery down in disgust. “I say we women should do something, make ourselves important in public as well as private. We need to do more than push out babies and dress prettily.”

  “Yes, we do!”

  “Take more than determination to bust through a thousand years and more of tradition,” Maisy reminded them.

  Linda chewed her lip. Maisy was right. She needed a plan. A subtle plan that would force the Council to ask her opinion and rely upon her advice. Marching in and bashing sense into their dense heads wouldn’t work. M’ma was the best person in the whole world at devising plans.

  Of course. M’ma truly ruled Coronnan, but from the background.

  “Maisy, I need a new outfit for tonight,” she said, still mulling over what she needed to do before then. “Tunic and trews befitting a prince.”

  “Your Highness! Surely you don’t mean . . .” both Miri and Chastet squealed.

  “Are you certain, Princess Rosselinda?” Maisy asked. A spark of mischief lit her eyes. She suddenly looked younger than her usual stout middle-age figure.

  “Yes, I am certain. With a sword belt and cap. It is time I remind the world that I am the king’s oldest child. I can wield a sword with the best of them. I can ride a steed better than most of them. I am well educated—which is more than most of the lords can say—observant, and conversant with dragons!”

  And one day, when the time came, in the far future, Linda would wear the Coraurlia, just like her P’pa. She had held the crown and felt its magic but not been burned to ashes by it.

  Valeria reveled in the warmth that made her muscles languid; softness cradled her back properly, removing the constant ache. Is this what most people felt when they awoke in the morning? Rested and ready to face the day?

  She allowed herself to drift a few more moments in comfort, knowing it would all disappear when she rose.

  She knew she rested in a bed, but not the big, downy bed where Mama and Da slept in the room behind the big room. Sometimes when she was ill, Mama let her sleep there.

  She reached for Lillian as the soft light of dawn pried at her eyelids.

  Her questing hand met with a wall of woven grasses and twigs.

  (Welcome,) said a voice in her head. Not Mama or Lillian. Not Glenndon. Everyone else she knew used words instead of mind connections.

  “Who?” She tried to open her eyes, but sleep grit held them down. Anxiously she rubbed them clear and tugged at her lashes, trying to pry them open.

  At last a small glow of early golden light drifted around he
r, not quite filling the space, but enough to see that she reclined, not on a bed, but in a . . . in a nest?

  She sat up abruptly, peering closely at the down and moss that cushioned her, the feathery boughs of everblue and sturdy lumps of hardwood woven together in a huge circle. The walls of the nest rose high, taller than she.

  “Where . . . where am I?” she whispered.

  (Home. Where you belong.)

  “This isn’t home. Home is Mama, and Da. Home is the cabin in the clearing with my friends and family.” Panic made her heart flutter and her spine chill. Her breathing became fast and shallow. The woven walls around her started spinning. She lay back down, fighting for breath and consciousness.

  (We are your family.)

  “I want my Mama. And my Da.”

  (Are you certain? Are we no longer enough for you?)

  “Who are you?” That was the big question. The voice sounded like it expected her to know where she was and who she spoke to.

  Nest. Big nest. Too big for any bird of prey. Too big for anything but a dragon.

  A dragon.

  “Shayla?”

  (Yes, child.) A different voice. A softer one, less demanding. More . . . friendly.

  “Why am I here in your lair?”

  (Do you not remember?)

  “No.”

  (What do you remember?) The first voice again, impatient, like a teacher admonishing a student who had not studied or practiced. Baamin, the senior male.

  There was a legend that when his magician body died, the dragons honored him by allowing him to transform into a dragon body. He wore magician blue on his wing tips, veins, and horns. Hadn’t he been Da’s teacher at the University before the Leaving?

  “I remember weaving myself into the dome of power as the master magicians formed a spell circle,” Valeria mused.

  (You are the only one in a human body who could do that. The only female who can utilize dragon magic,) the teacher said. (Do you know why?)

  She felt as if the teacher’s thoughts were shoved out of their mind. But not by her. By the other voice. Shayla, the matriarch and ruler of the dragon nimbus.