Dragon Nimbus Novels: Vol II, The

by Irene Radford

  “No one won this battle, Lord Kammeryl. No one truly wins any war,” de Tanos ended on a sigh of grief. The sweet smell of Tambootie flowers sharpened into the more usual scent of oily leaves and aromatic bark.

  A pang of longing for the taste of the Tambootie sent aches into Nimbulan’s joints. He resisted the craving.

  “My magician won.” Kammeryl glared at the Peacemaker. His aura sprouted black spots, losing its recently restored balance.

  Grief replaced Nimbulan’s urge to indulge in Tambootie. “I won at the cost of murdering my most promising apprentice in order to end the carnage. That is not victory. If we have to kill each other to win your battles, soon there won’t be any magicians left. New magicians are hard to find and we rarely beget children to inherit our talents.”

  He’d never have a son or daughter to replace Keegan, only more apprentices. He had to hold close the boys who remained with him, love them and nurture them as well as train them.

  “Nimbulan lost more than a traitorous pupil,” Quinnault added. “Look at your magician, Kammeryl, really look at how gaunt and worn he is. In the last hour he’s eaten three meals and still he hungers. His bones nearly poke through his skin. How long since he slept a night through? He cannot rest because the lords will beggar themselves to find a more powerful Battlemage. I beg of you Kammeryl, take this opportunity to treat with Hanic. Give your army, your people, your land, and your magician a respite.”

  “Peace is useless. Other lords see peace as weakness. They’ll stab me in the back.” Kammeryl dismissed Quinnault’s suggestion with an impatient gesture.

  “What is left for you to continue the fight with?” Quinnault continued to hound the warlord.

  “My magician. The best magician in all of Kardia Hodos. He guarantees me victory at any cost. He’ll have to conjure me the illusion of troops.”

  “If Nimbulan breaks his covenant with the Stargods to perform such an unnatural spell, Hanic will have to find an outland magician to defend himself—perhaps he’ll recruit Moncriith, the Bloodmage whose talent demands he fuel his power with the death and pain of others.” Sadness dragged Quinnault’s shoulders down as all three men crossed themselves in the Stargods’ ward against evil. “There will never be peace once blood powers are tapped.”

  “What if all magicians refused to fight your battles?” Nimbulan asked. A glimmer of hope beckoned to him like the red crystal in the void. Men moving in harmonious patterns until manipulated to violence by . . .

  “You might as well wish for flywackets and dragons,” Kammeryl snorted. “Magicians will never unite. They guard their secrets too well. Too jealously.”

  “That is the case now. But what if all the magicians banded together and refused to make war?” Nimbulan asked.

  Quinnault looked up sharply. Ideas seemed to blossom in his eyes. Nimbulan nodded to him and tried to pass encouragement mind-to-mind. But the Peacemaker’s solid mental barriers didn’t allow such communication.

  “Why I . . . I’d . . .” Kammeryl stammered, at a loss for words and bluster for the first time since Nimbulan had known him.

  “You’d hasten to the treaty table,” Quinnault prodded him. “You’d run with eagerness because war is too costly.”

  “ ’Tisn’t worth thinking about. Magicians can’t prosper during peace. Of what use are they but to fight battles for lords such as me?”

  Ackerly had asked the same question years ago when he’d first realized his talent would never match Nimbulan’s. Neither of them could think of another magical profession Ackerly could pursue.

  Nimbulan watched the canvas door flap behind Kammeryl’s jerky exit. The lord’s stiff spine and rigid knees helped him pretend that his dignity was intact. But his aura swung wildly from orange to purple with growing black spots in each layer. Nimbulan hoped Ackerly had access to more women for the warlord.

  As if summoned by Nimbulan’s thoughts, his assistant appeared in the doorway. “Nimbulan, please come. The hospital. Terrible. A stranger leads a virulent dispute in the hospital.” Ackerly wrung his hands together, looking over his shoulder toward the source of the disruption.

  “The hospital?” Nimbulan pulled muddy boots over his house slippers. “Why would anyone disturb the hospital.” His filthy formal robe, not cleaned yet from the battle, would have to do. In his weakened state he dared not trudge across the camp in the rain without protection. He checked the pockets for wand and glass and other arcane tools. A rustle of dry leaves reminded him that he’d stuffed some Tambootie in a pocket some time during the battle. He threw it onto the brazier rather than eat it now. He’d had too much already.

  “I think it’s the Bloodmage, sir. Moncriith. He’s demanding that a witchwoman with the healing talent be brought to justice for dealing with demons.”

  Neither of them suggested they turn the matter over to Kammeryl. Disputes within the camp fell under the warlord’s jurisdiction. But Kammeryl d’Astrismos might very well wade into this brawl, in the hospital, with fists flying.

  “Please wait for my return, my Lord Quinnault. We’ll continue this discussion over a meal. Many issues lie unresolved.” Nimbulan plunged into the storm.

  “Stargods! Hasn’t there been enough death today?” Quinnault raised his hands in supplication. “That fanatic Moncriith won’t be satisfied until he’s the only living soul left in Coronnan.”

  Chapter 4

  Witchlight glowed through the bubble of armor around the huge hospital tent. Nimbulan looked up through the armor. Raindrops sizzled and evaporated when they touched the magical shields. The wind circled, howled, and sought new targets when it couldn’t attack the tent itself. He shuddered with a chill as several drops of cold rain penetrated the armor and his blue robe of oiled wool.

  Something was weakening the armor.

  Outside the tent, rows of wounded men waited beneath the bubble for their turn with a healer. Strangely, their comrades, battle-weary men who should be resting and eating, washed and cared for them. He’d never seen common soldiers tend the wounded before. That activity belonged solely to healer magicians.

  Shouts of anger and dismay disturbed the aura of peace that should have surrounded the hospital, along with the armor. Lumbird bumps climbed Nimbulan’s spine as the warmth faded and two more drops of rain worked through the magical armor to land on his head.

  The brawl within the tent must be disrupting the protective spells.

  Armed guards converged upon the tent door at the same time as Nimbulan.

  “Let me try to calm them before you use force to end this.” He waved the armed men to stand behind him.

  A sergeant held the tent flaps open for him. Eerie blue light surrounded a litter at the center of the tent. The blue was paler than Nimbulan’s robe which matched the signature color of his magic. Whoever was at the core of the light wasn’t one of his magicians.

  Wounded men filled row upon row of pallets, cots, and litters around the core of blue light. Three gray-robed healers stood in a sentinel circle around the core of the blue light, their backs to it. They held scalpels, saws, and other surgical implements as weapons. They seemed prepared to use them against the shouting men pressing toward the blue light.

  “Burning is the only cure for demon possession. We must take the girl to the funeral pyres and throw her into the purifying flames,” Moncriith shouted. The Bloodmage just barely reached medium height, yet he dominated the crowd of taller men. His faded red robe took on the color of old blood—indicative of his perverted style of magic.

  A shiver of disquiet snaked down Nimbulan’s spine. Moncriith pitched his voice to draw listeners into his aura and meld with his opinions, right or wrong.

  “Break her magic!” a wounded soldier called from a nearby pallet. “I saw her during the battle, her and her wicked familiar. They called the dragon what nearly killed me with its flames and talons.” He held up a hand burned by magic and raked by long furrows. Probably his own fingers had made those cuts, seeking to shed a ball of
magic thrown by Nimbulan or Keegan during the battle.

  “I saw it, too,” another man agreed. His wounds weren’t evident.

  “Dragon dung!” Nimbulan pitched his voice to penetrate the verbal fray. No one paid him any heed.

  “She saved my life and three others that I know of.” A man with a bloody bandage around his head joined the healers in defense of the blue-lit litter.

  “Look what she’s doing for Sergeant Kennyth! He lost that arm saving me.” Another soldier limped to join the man with the head wound. “The witchwoman saved his life and she’s givin’ him back his arm, too. We owe her. Kennyth’s the best sergeant in the whole s’murghin’ army.”

  Moncriith advanced on the bubble of light. “Myrilandel wields the power of demons. No healer blessed by the Stargods can do the things she does. ’Tis unholy. ’Tis evil. The demons who possess her body will attack us all. Kennyth’s soul has already moved into another plane of existence. Yet his body lives. He will become her undead servant.”

  “Enough!” Nimbulan shouted. The ridgepole vibrated with the power of his voice.

  Silence reigned. All the participants turned to face the Senior Magician. Moncriith turned slowly, almost contemptuously, to confront a recognizable authority.

  “So you finally crawled out of your lair, Nimbulan,” Moncriith said without inflection.

  “You are not welcome here, Moncriith.” Nimbulan took two steps closer to the bubble of blue light, trying to see around Moncriith and the healers.

  Not a bubble, an aura. He saw two forms within the glowing layers of energy. A kneeling woman lay collapsed over a supine male, her hands locked onto his upper arm at the source of the blue light.

  “My mission is to halt the encroachment of demons into the very heart of Coronnan. My followers are prepared to take this witchwoman by force, if necessary. My people are fresh. Yours are battle-weary, Nimbulan. Will you throw them against my people for the sake of one demon-possessed witch?” Moncriith raised his voice again to preaching tones.

  The thought of another battle exhausted Nimbulan. When would it stop?

  When the harmony of dancing lords is no longer disrupted by self-serving magicians, he thought. Moncriith was the one breaking the harmony this time. Where were the Bloodmage’s followers? Surely not in the hospital tent.

  “You dare condemn any healer? You who take lives to fuel your magic, dare condemn healers! Do your followers know how you fuel your magic?” Nimbulan aimed his words at the wounded more than at Moncriith.

  A wavering in the blue aura diverted Nimbulan’s attention. Something important was transpiring and he needed to investigate and study the phenomenon. He needed Ackerly at his back, protecting him, warning him of intruders.

  “I don’t hide what I am behind platitudes. I draw blood only from myself and my enemies. I never feed upon innocent lives like you do!” An odd light gleamed in Moncriith’s eyes as he turned his full attention on Nimbulan.

  Fear of Moncriith’s fanaticism swelled within him. This one man might charm half of Coronnan to his distorted view of magic.

  “Healers serve all who come to them in need. No matter which lord they serve.” Nimbulan fought the urge to back away from Moncriith’s fervent appeal.

  “Every true healer in Coronnan is occupied solely with the armies, Nimbulan. The common people have no one to turn to but demon-possessed witchwomen. Your healers do nothing but patch up and mend enslaved soldiers so that Battlemages, like yourself, can throw the men back into the wars. Endless wars. Needless wars.”

  Nimbulan’s vision of magicians manipulating lords flashed before him again.

  “Without healers, the death and carnage would be much worse.” Nimbulan ignored the idea that soldiers were slaves to the lords who recruited them—sometimes by force. “Men will fight with or without magicians to back them up. You threaten to renew the battle over one witchwoman. You are no different from any other Battlemage, Moncriith,” he said, half believing his own words. The other half lingered in the void with the vision of symmetry and peace—magicians standing away from the balanced, political dance of the lords.

  “With every true healer employed by the armies, you condemn the innocents of Coronnan to the mercy of demonic powers wielded by witchwomen,” Moncriith said. “Dangerous powers that risk the immortal souls of all of us. The witchwoman here, Myrilandel by name, a demon by birth, leads her sisters in this evil work. Only I can protect you, the men of Coronnan, from her.”

  For the first time, Nimbulan caught a glimpse of the woman at the core of the blue light. The power she wielded reached out to touch his own, begging him to add his strength to her spell.

  He coiled all traces of magic deep within him lest she taint it, or learn from it.

  Suddenly he realized the truth of Kammeryl’s accusation that magicians would never work together.

  “There are no such things as demons. They are the product of your overvivid imagination.” Nimbulan latched onto Moncriith’s latest argument. All his other defenses of his profession and colleagues were shaken to the core by the events of the last few hours.

  “You close your eyes to the evidence of demons because you have been bewitched by her. I see how your eyes linger on her false beauty. I see how your aura reaches out to join hers. If you, Nimbulan, and your ilk could do aught but lead innocent men into battle, you would oust the demons and keep them from destroying souls. You, Nimbulan. You are responsible for this carnage and the perversion of magic.”

  Myri awoke from her trance instantly alert to danger from Moncriith. No fire menaced her, and she lay on a soft mattress, not a pyre. She couldn’t relax beneath the warm furs that kept off most of the chill wind leaking through the pavilion walls. She didn’t trust the feeling of comfort or the sensation of protection shrouding her. She knew Moncriith would try to trick her into confessing her association with demons.

  If only she could remember her childhood, or her parents, she might know if he spoke the truth about her. She rarely managed to keep images of her life for more than a day or two. Already Magretha and the village in the western foothills where she died were fading from her memory. Only Amaranth remained constant. The flywacket, in his purely cat form, purred gently where he rested, a heavy, secure weight on her chest.

  Someone moved nearby. She turned toward the sound of footsteps shuffling on carpets. Through closed eyelids she sensed light around her; light that would stab and blind while her head ached with the aftermath of a healing. Yet she had to know who stood by her so protectively.

  “Who are you, Myrilandel?” a man asked her gently. Not Moncriith.

  If she knew the answer, she would tell him.

  “Overworking magic will rob a person of their wits. Your sense of self will return as your talent and your body revive. Perhaps I should ask where do you come from?”

  He lifted a cloth from Myri’s forehead and replaced it with a cool one. Blessedly cool. The throbbing in her head subsided a little.

  “I come from nowhere,” she replied. Her voice sounded hoarse.

  “I have never heard of a drained talent taking memories with it. Perhaps you are in need of the ritual trial by Tambootie smoke.”

  Trial! Smoke! Surely this man was one of Moncriith’s followers, sent to lull her into trust.

  She had lived many places—none of them home. She had no memories of her parents to tell him. Magretha was the only parent she remembered. Her guardian had chosen a solitary life at the fringes of society when someone abandoned Myri in the woods with only Amaranth to care for her. The witchwoman needed a successor to her work and a healthy youngster to care for her in later years. Home had been a long series of shacks or caves. They’d fled to a new one every time local villagers began blaming an ugly old woman and her strange fosterling for every ill that life brought them.

  Myri had few memories of her own about those early years, only the stories Magretha told over a winter fire. Indeed, most of her memories began with Magretha’s death.r />
  The comforting weight of her familiar disappeared. When? “Where is Amaranth?” He always helped her recover after a healing. He would warn her of danger—of Moncriith.

  “Who is Amaranth?” The man sat down upon the bed where she rested. The rocking of the mattress sent her insides sloshing about and upset what little equilibrium she had attained.

  “Merawk!” Amaranth growled and hissed at the man. His weight pressed against her side now.

  “Yeow! You miserable animal. I’m not going to hurt her.” The man jumped off the cot cursing. More movement, and a weight landed upon her chest.

  Amaranth stretched his warm, furry body atop Myri. He butted his head into her chin. She found his ears with her fingers and scratched. She gritted her teeth against the pain in her head. Amaranth was back where he belonged; nothing else mattered. His rumbling purr brought peace to her stomach.

  With new courage, Myri opened one eye a tiny slit. A tall man, thin almost to gauntness, sucked on his hand where Amaranth had scratched him.

  “You are a magician,” she stated the obvious. Only the strange cult of men who controlled the forces of nature cut their hair so oddly, straight at the shoulders, with the back tightly braided. This man’s dark auburn mane was shot with silver and slightly disheveled. Instead of tunic and trews, he wore formal blue robes, the kind usually reserved for audiences with noble personages. The length of blue cloth draping from his shoulders and loosely belted added to his height and did nothing to hide his slenderness.

  “And who are you, Myrilandel? You have a huge talent for healing, nothing short of miraculous. Kennyth’s arm will be weak, but you gave it back to him and saved his life. And yet you are so poorly trained, you let the magic control you. We brought you back from the brink of death.” He held his hand out, palm raised, fingers gradually curving so that his little finger almost touched his palm. A curious gesture that seemed a part of him.

  “Moncriith allowed you to help me? Probably so he could enjoy the spectacle of watching me burn.” He had crowed with delight as he watched another witchwoman burn. Myri had used his distraction to escape that village.