The Silent Dragon: Children of The Dragon Nimbus #1

by Irene Radford

  She cast off the covers, finally, and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, seeking the portable steps with her toes. A stealthy hand slid across her mouth.

  Startled, she bit down. Hard.

  “S’murghit, Linda I need you to stay quiet, not alert the others,” Lucjemm cursed. He hopped away from her, sucking on his fingers.

  She could barely see him. Dawn had not yet sneaked around the edges of the window shutters.

  A long shadow slithered from around his neck, down his arm. A wedge-shaped head nuzzled his fingers apart.

  Was that a long, forked tongue licking away the blood she’d drawn?

  She gagged, then clenched her mouth shut, stilling every muscle, every thought, waiting; afraid to capture the snake’s attention. Her heart pounded loudly in her ears and her breathing remained sharp and shallow. Her blood tingled in her toes and fingertips, ready for . . .

  “Hush, my princess,” Lucjemm leaned over and whispered in her ear. The snake had disappeared. Where? She nearly panicked at the thought of it slithering beneath the covers, unseen, ready to bite . . .

  Maybe she’d only imagined it. She hoped she’d only imagined it. Lucjemm’s breath was warm and sweet, smelling of fresh fruit and flowers, not blood and carrion as she expected with the snake image so fresh in her mind.

  “You are safe with me, my love. I have come to take you to safety.”

  Her rigidity must have told him she did not believe him.

  “Trust me, my darling. Your father sent me. I will not allow anyone to hurt you.” With that, he placed a gentle kiss on her cheek.

  She wanted desperately to trust him.

  “Come with me now, my love. We have things we must do to ensure the safety of the kingdom,” he pleaded.

  The alarm repeated.

  Linda stilled again. This was an opportunity to find out his plans, to learn just how far he’d gone in his betrayal of the kingdom and the crown. Her ladies and the governess could tend to her sisters.

  “I . . . I must dress,” she whispered.

  “Certainly, dearest. I shall turn my back to protect your modesty. Though soon we will have no secrets of mind or body between us.”

  He withdrew a few steps. She looked over her shoulder to make certain he had turned his back, then leaped out of the big bed on the opposite side from him. Hastily she dragged on undergarments and her trews beneath her nightrail. Strangely, he did keep his face averted from her. This gave her the courage to turn her back to him as she dragged off her sleeping garment and threw a masculine shirt and vest on. At the last minute she grabbed a leather jerkin with long sleeves. Scant armor against a determined attack, but more protection than just a shirt.

  The horizon only hinted at sunrise. A chill breeze blew off the Bay. The days might grow exceedingly warm, but it was still early spring with cool nights. She could justify the extra clothing if he asked. While his back was still turned she secreted sharp throwing stars in each of her thigh pockets and small knives in the tops of her boots.

  Fred had taught her to be prepared for attack from any quarter at any time. He’d given her these weapons for a purpose.

  “Will Glenndon be coming?” she asked quietly as she stuffed her braid beneath a cap. Too much hair had escaped control; not enough cap. It would have to do.

  “No. We do not need your brother for this.” Lucjemm turned around and graced her with one of his charming smiles.

  Her heart melted. Briefly. She reminded herself that she really couldn’t trust him. But she needed to keep him smiling and willing to share his plans with her. Then she’d throw something sharp at his eyes and make a run for it and tell P’pa everything.

  “Glenndon and I share everything. We’re very close. I’d like him to come along.” You’re only a thought away.

  Glenndon did not respond to her brief probe.

  Brother? Where are you?

  Still nothing. But she did catch a whiff of water rank with decaying plants.

  Flusterbumps ran up her arms and down her spine.

  “Now is not the time to cringe with cowardice,” Lucjemm sneered at her. “Where is your famous royal courage, Princess Rosselinda?”

  She firmed her spine and her chin, staring him straight in the eyes. “Ready and waiting for you to tell me your plan. I have a duty to my sisters and our retainers. I must make certain they are safe.”

  As if to punctuate her statement the alarm bells rang out again. Three long peals, a pause, then two short. Stargods, the enemy approached the third bridge already.

  “They can fend for themselves!” he shouted. Then he calmed, instantly, as if his outburst had never been. “What I must show you cannot be told. It must be experienced.” He grabbed her arm roughly and pulled her hastily out to the landing around the broad staircase that led downward toward P’pa’s office and other public rooms. She glanced toward her parents’ suite. No glimmer of light peeked beneath the doorway. The office and all of the other private rooms looked equally dark. Where were they? The alarm bells were tolling long and loud. Servitors and retainers ushered people down the stairs in an orderly mass. But there was no sign of her parents. Had they gone to the old keep already?

  She was on her own.

  I wish Glenndon were here.

  (Courage,) Indigo’s voice came to her unbidden. (You are not alone in this. I cannot bring your brother to you yet. You must keep your mind open to me. You will not see me, but I will follow you. I will rescue you when the time is right. You may wish it sooner, but you have to be patient. Play this game to the end. All the way to the end.)

  The end of me?

  No answer.

  Glenndon’s teeth chattered, his bones ached, and he could no longer feel his toes. His knees sagged and his head drooped in weariness. Water surged up his nose and down his throat. He coughed and gagged. The vile burning taste of regurgitated swamp burned the full length of his throat.

  He spat and snorted to get rid of it.

  Can’t fall asleep. Have to keep moving.

  Still blowing crud out his nose, he inched to his left, facing the walls of the pit, again. With fingers and knees and nearly numb feet he explored the edges for the sixth or eighth time, seeking something solid to grab hold of and leverage himself upward. Fifteen feet across, he figured. The rim? He pulled the glowing stick out of his belt and jumped extending it as high above him as possible. The tip brushed the rim sending clods of rank mud and grass raining on his head. He ducked and huddled close to the wall until debris stopped falling. He couldn’t trust the crumbling dirt at the top even if he could jump high enough to reach it.

  He pushed at the water, making it slosh a little. It lapped below his chin. It had receded three inches. At least. Absorbed by the dirt? Hmm. How long before it lowers below my knees?

  He rested his back against the wall without danger of slipping down and drowning.

  Linda! he summoned the most receptive mind he could think of. He caught only a foggy wall of sleep that his weak probe could not penetrate.

  Da? Are you there? He found only a busy turmoil, anxiety and fear, barely an acknowledgment that they both lived.

  Valeria! he called into the night with every bit of magic and love he could muster.

  Something stirred at the back of his mind. His sister was still healing. All her strength and magic had to go into setting bone and muscle to rights again. Val, just wake up and tell someone I’m in trouble. Please!

  He hoped he survived long enough for Da to realize this was more than just a failure of his journeyman test.

  He looked up. Again. Anxious to find something, anything to get him out of here before his mind numbed and he drifted off to sleep and drowned.

  The outline of tree branches appeared more clearly above him than the last time he’d looked. He could count th
e vibrant green of the new leaves that stretched over the pit. Fat leaves veined in pink.

  As the light grew slowly around him, a shaft of low sunlight glimmered on a drop of oil on the pink tracery on an older leaf.

  Tambootie! The tree of magic. The tree of life for the dragons. Of course the Tambootie grew on Sacred Isle. Where else would they grow unmolested by humans?

  Please grant me sustenance, so that I may save this land from Lucjemm and his Krakatrice, your enemy as well as ours. Help me return to the city so that I may assist in restoring the Well of Life, he prayed to the Stargods, the dragons, to anyone who might be listening, prayed that this tree still held enough vitality to renew his talent and help him out of this pit.

  Someone must have heard his pleas. A leaf as big as his palm drooped from a low branch. He took a tentative step toward the middle of the pool and swatted at it with the glowing wand. It dropped and drifted in a tightening spiral atop the murky water. He snagged it before it could sink in the whirlpool of its own making.

  “Thank you!” Gently he licked the oil from the central vein. Instantly his mouth burst with exotic flavors, spicy, aromatic, gentle, and invigorating at the same time. Another drop on his tongue held bitterness, yet it cleared his mind.

  He couldn’t see any more oil droplets so he nibbled the tender tip of the leaf. His toes burned from the insult of frigid water trapped inside his boots.

  He welcomed the pain as a sign of returning life and energy. He wanted to gobble the rest of the leaf. An old story or lesson heard in childhood warned him against too much too soon. One small bite at a time, chewing thoroughly and counting to sixty in between, he consumed the rest of the leaf.

  His stomach awoke and growled angrily. Queasiness swamped his newly warmed body and mind. One deep breath, then two, and a third helped ground him. Another round of meditative breathing settled his stomach and eased his aching joints.

  “Thank you,” he repeated. Somewhat restored, he needed to find a way out.

  A transportation spell was still beyond his strength and concentration. Tricky at the best of times, he didn’t want to find himself inside out and trapped within a stone wall somewhere he didn’t want to be.

  Something like a dragon chuckle wiggled through his mind. Not a dragon.

  The tree perhaps? He’d never known a tree to have a mind, but he wasn’t beyond believing it could happen. Especially with a Tambootie.

  Another laugh of agreement, soft, barely a whisper. Under normal conditions he’d not hear it, or understand it.

  The tree snapped. The sound ricocheted loudly in the quiet just before dawn.

  Glenndon started and clung to the wall of the pit, hands grasping for a weapon, anything. All he found was mud. Mud laced with rootlets.

  Then a splash in the center of the pool sprayed his face. A long branch stripped of greenery and side shoots bobbed to the surface. The narrow end forked into two, each tine the length of his arm from wrist to elbow. The full length of the shaft appeared to be nearly twice his height.

  “Is this my staff?” he asked hesitantly.

  He caught a sense of agreement.

  At dawn, if you are found worthy, the Stargods will grant you the gift of a fallen branch to use as a staff, Da had said.

  Well, he had a fallen branch the right length and sturdiness. He hadn’t cut it.

  “Thank you, again,” he said and clasped the staff in the middle. His fingers traced the whirling grain down the length. “Whirlpools broken by knots,” he half-laughed. “I’ve never seen my magic before but that sounds like my pattern. Da’s is a red and blue braid of light and energy. His staff also looks braided.”

  Another sense of agreement laced with impatience. He had a staff, now he needed to get out of the pit and get back to the palace to save the world from Lucjemm and his snakes.

  (And the Well of Life. Save the Well of Life and the rest will sort itself out.)

  “Who?” He looked around frantically for sign of the speaker. It sounded like a dragon. But not really a dragon. Something akin . . .

  (We are all kin.) Dragons, Tambootie tree, ley lines, you. All kin. All connected.

  The staff vibrated in his hand as if it had spoken. Not the staff, the mother of the staff, perhaps.

  In the far distance he heard bells ringing in the city. What? Why?

  Not once in his weeks in the city had he heard them ring except on rest day morning to call the people to temple.

  This was not rest day.

  Alarms. He remembered something about codes within the alarms, but no one had taught him the meaning of the long and short peals.

  He had to get out of here; get back to the city; fight off invading armies, kill the Krakatrice and Lucjemm.

  Ah, Lucjemm, why’d you have to turn out to be a traitor? I thought you were a friend when I needed a friend.

  He frantically searched for a way out. Jabbing the wand into the pit wall to create a handhold just brought on a new onslaught of muck and the hole filled in as soon as he yanked the stick free.

  What else could he do?

  The tree! Low hanging branches. If he could just reach one sturdy enough to hold his weight. He sloshed and squelched his way to the center of the pool again. The water was down to his armpits. He jumped again with the glowing wand extended. Water dragged at his clothes, keeping him well below the lowest branch.

  “S’murghit!” he yelled to anyone who might care.

  He was alone.

  Wand was too short, even if it did give him a bit of light to catch details.

  An idea struck with a jolt akin to Lukan throwing him headfirst against a rock during a wrestling bout. With the wand in his right hand for light, he grabbed the thick end of his new staff and reached the tip upward. Up and up, standing on tiptoe, the tines of the forked end brushed the bottom of the lowest branch—a weak and spindly looking thing at that.

  “Come here,” he coaxed the tree. “Lower the branch, just a tiny bit. Just a little.”

  He stretched again. Maybe the staff cupped the branch.

  “A little help here, please,” he pleaded with the tree, the dragons, the land, the water, and the air.

  The branch remained out of reach.

  Glenndon closed his eyes, nearly giving into defeat. The chill water broke apart his mental fog.

  What do I need here?

  “I need the branch to drop lower. What will make that happen?” In his mind he saw a gentle breeze swishing through the upper canopy of branches.

  Slowly, carefully, he grounded himself and steadied his breathing. With just a little magic, all he had left, he extended his awareness upward, making sure he maintained contact with all the elements. He had to search a bit to find Fire in the anger within his heart. Water and Land enfolded him. Wind eased past his mind, more concerned with getting from here to there than pausing to gossip.

  “Come play with me,” he whispered. “Come twist and twirl, and swoop and swirl. Come be my friend and tell me of the places you have been.”

  Air caressed his face. He reached out the wand to draw spirals for the wind to follow.

  Tree rustled as the wind tossed its leaves about.

  “Closer. Just a little closer.” He stretched up again with the staff. The two tines tangled with a stout branch. He twisted it until leafy side shoots wrapped around and around his staff.

  “Thank you, air. You may go play somewhere else now. I bid you good journey. Thank you, tree,” he added the last for good measure.

  The breeze died. The branch lifted.

  Glenndon hung on for dear life. At last his feet dangled above the water. He swung his body back and forth, pumping his legs for a wider arc, greater momentum.

  Just when he thought his shoulders would pop out of their joints and his body flagged, h
e let go at the farthest end of his pendulum and dropped onto solid ground.

  The staff fell beside him, tines broken off to mere nubs, two more knots on the complex pattern of wood grain.

  He still clutched the wand. Its glow faded as sunlight grew stronger. He examined it more closely, running his hands the length of it, feeling it tingle against his fingers, much as the oil from the Tambootie leaf had made his body hum with magic.

  Not wood at all! You are made of bone. From the size of it, he didn’t think it had come from a human. Not even a sledge steed.

  Are you dragon bone?

  (An arm bone of an ancient and revered ancestor,) Shayla said. (This is where we come to die. Our bones glow with magic. Only a few humans are privileged enough to find one. Congratulations and welcome to my nimbus. Use the wand judiciously. The magic within is not infinite.)

  CHAPTER 51

  VALERIA LISTENED TO THE ALARM bells. There was a pattern. She just couldn’t figure it out. The long peals and the short. What did they mean?

  She needed her human body and brain to figure it out.

  She remembered the pain in her joints and muscles as she shifted from human to flywacket. Even with Lyman helping it hurt.

  Now she was alone in her head. With Lillian so deeply asleep, she had only herself.

  With a deep sigh of resignation she drew in huge lungfuls of air. Easier than before. One, two, three, she steadied her breathing until her mind freed from the constraints of a body. Slowly she visualized her legs stretching out, lengthening, ankles and knees popping into new positions.

  Her hip still ached from the dislocation, but stretching it felt good, natural.

  She moved upward, pushing her arms high over her head to bring her shoulders into new alignment. As she moved, her skin pulled black fur inward, leaving only a fine fair down on her body, a little thicker on her head. Her muzzle retreated into a nose and mouth, but her teeth . . . She left the incisors sharp while blunting the others.

  Only her sharp, pointed ears remained. She thought about leaving them in place, just to scare people. I would be nice to have the augmented hearing of the cat. No, she’d better behave this time. The people in the palace wouldn’t appreciate the joke.