Dragon Nimbus Novels: Vol II, The

by Irene Radford

  Powwell held up a weary hand.

  “Forget it, Powwell. I’ll take care of it.” Briskly, Ackerly instructed the boatman to bring extra scullions with him at dawn when he brought the cook over from the keep on the big island. In a few moments he’d cleaned up the shambles Nimbulan left behind him with increasing frequency. When they’d both been apprentices, Nimbulan was known for his fastidiousness. This mess was worse than ever, clear evidence that the Tambootie Ackerly always added to Nimbulan’s food had impaired his judgment.

  Something needed to be done before Nimbulan figured out what had happened to his gold. Something drastic.

  “May I help you clean up, Ackerly?” Lyman raised one white eyebrow with his query. “You seem troubled. Perhaps you’d like to talk?”

  Not bloody likely, old man. You have a way of ferreting out secrets that I don’t want told, he thought. Then he smiled and said, “Not tonight. I have much to think on. Take a hot brick to bed with you, Lyman. You’ll sleep better with warm feet.”

  Nimbulan slumped in his cross-legged position, his shoulders nearly touching his knees. The fatigue of a long session in the void with the boys made him dizzy and nauseated. The elation of one small success sent his heart leaping into his throat.

  Combining magic was possible. He’d witnessed it last night with a simple door opening. Today he’d participated in a similar spell to move a chair two hand’s widths away from its original position.

  I could have done it myself with only minor effort, he thought. So why this tremendous fatigue? Rovers wouldn’t combine magic if the process were always so tiring. Maybe something in their rituals?

  The deliberate vagueness of the book in the library irritated and intrigued him.

  He sat up to assess the boys’ condition. If they were in as bad shape as he after such a small achievement, he’d have to let them eat and rest. He needed a full meal himself, though they’d all partaken of a hearty breakfast at dawn. The water clock showed only an hour had passed since then.

  The workroom spun. Each of his three young apprentices wavered and became three overlapping images. Hastily, he put his head back down. His brief glimpse of the boys had shown them collapsed on the floor in a similar condition.

  “Food, Ackerly. We need food,” he murmured, never doubting that the ever faithful Ackerly was nearby and ready to supply his needs.

  A bowl of warm broth and a mug of cool cider appeared beneath his nose. Shoved there by Ackerly, no doubt. He sipped cautiously until his stomach stopped rebelling.

  He peeked at the boys. They, too, were reviving, but still kept their heads down.

  “Here, Master. I think you’re ready for this now.” Rollett handed him a plate of thick bread, meat, and cheese, and a jug of cool fresh water.

  “Where’s Ackerly?” Nimbulan asked between gulps of water. Using Tambootie always left him thirsty and needing to empty his bladder. As if the drug drained all liquid from his body.

  “He said he had an errand to run on the big island, sir. He and Lyman crossed the causeway just after the morning meal. He left strict instructions for you to finish the water and all of the food. Lord Quinnault was here while you were in the trance. He’ll be back later. Oh, and a messenger from Lord Kammeryl arrived. He’s waiting for you in the courtyard, wouldn’t enter the buildings, said they were haunted.”

  Nimbulan chuckled. The shadowed guardian spirit of the monastery hadn’t been seen or heard from since he covered the well of ley lines two moons ago. If he reappeared again, he’d come through the courtyard where the messenger waited.

  “Anything else, son?” he asked between mouthfuls. The food had a strange taste to it today. Probably an aftertaste from the Tambootie. He’d used a large dose this morning. He gulped more water to wash his mouth clean. The bitter taste lingered.

  “A different messenger from Lord Kammeryl came earlier and left this for you.” Rollett placed a rolled parchment into Nimbulan’s hand. “He said it was urgent but didn’t wait for a reply. He said you’d know what to do when you read it.”

  Nimbulan unrolled the message. His palms started sweating and itching. He rubbed them on his trews and looked at the sprawling handwriting he didn’t recognize. Not Kammeryl’s. The lord couldn’t read or write for all his brilliance with maps and strategy. Some new clerk probably wrote the missive.

  The written symbols blurred and danced all over the parchment, refusing to form words. Nimbulan closed his eyes and shook his head to clear it. He reached for the water again. His system should have cleared itself of the after-effects of the Tambootie by now. He’d never had the legendary hangovers some magicians suffered.

  He put down the parchment and rubbed his eyes clear. When he opened them, he could focus. The pale faces of his three apprentices greeted him. A little color tinged Powwell’s cheeks, but blue veins pulsed wildly beneath the skin of his hands and neck. The other two were in no better shape.

  “You boys aren’t used to the void.” The problem with the spell finally hit Nimbulan like a sandbag between the eyes. “I was dragging you through the void by myself as well as holding the spell together. Rollett, put the boys to bed for a few hours, then bring your classmates and Ackerly here, and Lyman, too, if he’ll come. You all have some experience in the void. If any of you can get there on your own, besides me, I’ll promote you to journeyman immediately.”

  “About time,” Rollett muttered as he led the young apprentices out of the windowless workroom.

  A few moments later, Rollett directed Maalin, Bessel, Jaanus, and Gilby to sit on the floor in a circle close enough to hold hands. He assumed the place to Nimbulan’s right. A big grin creased his face. “I’ll be journeyman before the hour passes,” he said smugly.

  “Me, too,” Bessel chimed in. “I’ve been practicing and Tambootie doesn’t make me sick like it does Maalin and Jaanus.”

  “Shouldn’t I observe?” Gilby looked nervously toward the door. “Master Ackerly and Old Lyman aren’t back from the big island yet. There’s no one to guide your return if something should go wrong. You always told us, Master Nimbulan, never to go into the void without an anchor to pull us home.”

  “Correct, Gilby.” Nimbulan gulped down a fresh pitcher of water. His tongue felt thick and clumsy. Yet he felt refreshed and fired by his eagerness to complete this experiment successfully. “Step out of the circle and monitor the fire. Try to maintain a light trance without any Tambootie. At the first sign of trouble, grab Rollett and me first. We’re the strongest and should be able to help you pull the others back. Not that I’m expecting trouble. This same spell worked this morning. Only the inexperience of the apprentices held us back.”

  He snapped his fingers. An infusion of Tambootie leaves in hot water brewing in large mugs appeared before each of the six experimenters.

  “Drink up, boys. I’m anxious to see how this procedure works.”

  They all hoisted the dose of Tambootie to their lips and drank deeply of the bitter brew.

  “Breathe in, one, two, three,” Gilby guided them.

  Reality blurred around Nimbulan. People and furniture grew fuzzy around the edges. His heart rate increased with excitement. He was finally going to prove that magic could be combined and thus control any solitary magician. No single Battlemage could defeat the combined might of Nimbulan and his helpers. Only then could magic and magicians remove themselves from war and politics and become neutral servants of all the people of Coronnan.

  “Breathe in, one, two, three,” Gilby chanted a second time.

  The void beckoned Nimbulan, crowding out the lantern light in the workroom. He’d never climbed into the black nothingness so easily. His elation didn’t keep him from checking on the boys. All four were still seated in a circle holding hands, but each aura reached for the void individually.

  “Breathe. . . .”

  Nimbulan lost track of Gilby’s chant as blackness enclosed him. He looked around for the others.

  Nothing. No one.

  T
he blackness robbed him of sight, hearing, smell, touch. Only the bitter aftertaste of timboor lingered.

  Timboor! Poison Timboor, not useful Tambootie.

  Chapter 18

  Ackerly bent over Nimbulan’s crumpled body. He listened carefully with ears and magic for signs of breath or heartbeat.

  Nothing.

  He pulled his glass from his trews pocket and held it beneath the master magician’s nose. No cloud obscured the pristine clarity.

  Tall and thin in life, the man he had served since they had both been boys, seemed diminished, shrunken in death.

  “In the end we all are reduced to this, regardless of talent,” he whispered to himself. “How much Tambootie did he have?” he asked the assembled apprentices. All eight of them who now looked to him for leadership and training.

  His heart beat a little faster with excitement.

  Grief, he told himself. Only grief. But now I can make something of this ragtag school. Something important. Something profitable.

  “He took a standard dose with the younglings right after we broke our fast at dawn,” Rollett said through the tears he choked back.

  “That spell succeeded, but he was greatly fatigued. Once he’d eaten and drunk deeply, he took another standard dose with the older boys,” Gilby finished. White-faced with shock and guilt, the young man’s hands shook and his shoulders trembled. “I tried to pull him out of the void. Him and Rollett first, like he said, but his soul wouldn’t return to his body.”

  “We followed him into the trance just like always. But when we got to the void, he wasn’t there. I saw the others but not him!” Jaanus added. “He wasn’t there.”

  The others nodded their agreement. Something had gone terribly wrong between the first and second dosage. Or perhaps all the years of accumulated addiction had finally taken him.

  Ackerly looked at Nimbulan’s body once more for obvious signs of why he had died. Beside him lay a wrinkled piece of parchment, partially unrolled and flattened. The writing wiggled and bounced around as he watched. He reached for it then quickly withdrew his hand.

  “The guilt is not yours, boys,” he said still staring at the parchment. “Where did this come from?” He pointed at the written message.

  “A courier from Lord Kammeryl d’Astrismos,” Rollett replied, also staring at the parchment. “He didn’t wait for a reply but said it was urgent.” His mouth remained slightly open, eyes wide, as the implication of the spell contained within the message penetrated his grief.

  “Maalin, you are good with fire. Burn the thing, without touching it, as soon as we leave the room. It is tainted with magic and poison. I sense blood in the ink—the work of a Bloodmage!” Ackerly bowed his head and closed his eyes until the gasps and murmurs of the apprentices died away. “I should have been here to guide the spells. I could have intercepted the message and kept Nimbulan from going into the void so soon after the first spell. If he’d waited, the poison in that parchment might not have affected him so strongly.”

  Powwell sobbed openly. Zane and Haakkon sniffed.

  Suddenly their love for Nimbulan irritated Ackerly. They don’t love me! But he was the one who made sure they were fed and had blankets and firewood to keep out the winter chills. He was the one who did all the work around here.

  He suppressed his anger. After Nimbulan was safely buried, he could show these ungrateful boys where their loyalty should lie.

  His thoughts kept returning to the possibilities for the future, now that Nimbulan and his ideals no longer hindered him.

  “We must dress him in his ceremonial robes for burial. Delay will serve no purpose. There is a crypt beneath the chapel. I can think of no more fitting place for him to take his final rest. We will bury him at sunset.” Abruptly, he turned on his heel and exited the room before he broke out in shouts of glee.

  Free, I’m free at last! He’d just slip Nimbulan’s formal robes over his everyday clothes. That way he wouldn’t have to pay the village women to wash and prepare the body. A little delusion spell would make the boys think he’d wrapped the body tightly in expensive shroud cloths, but he’d only use strips from an old sheet. No use spending any more money on the dead than necessary. They certainly weren’t in a position to appreciate it.

  Only briefly did he wonder at the warmth and suppleness of the body that had supposedly been dead for some five hours.

  A tangle of bright umbilical cords knotted and dragged Nimbulan across the void so fast he couldn’t comprehend the colors or his destination. He sensed, more than saw, a purpose or design in the symbolic life forces. All seemed to be shimmering crystal tinged with a primary hue. Except the center one. The one driving the others flashed all colors of the spectrum so fast it appeared to be no color at all.

  A thought struggled to be born in his consciousness, for he had no body or brain left to house such things. These strange life forces must be guiding him to his next existence. An existence free of his addiction to Tambootie. The drug was necessary to enhance the inborn talent of magic. Too bad it also hastened his next existence. An existence he couldn’t yet imagine, but wanted to reach. Now. Without delay, before he regretted leaving Coronnan and his work unfinished.

  (The time is not yet ripe for you to leave your destiny behind.) The bright life forces wrapped tighter around him, propelling him deeper into the void, or out of it. He couldn’t tell which without a body to sense direction.

  Once before that voice had sent him out of the void. Who? What?

  His questions and concerns dissipated. The effort to remember was too much. Better to drift with the bright life forces. Red and blue, green and yellow. Red for Keegan. Blue for himself. Yellow for Ackerly. Green for the combined auras of his apprentices. Iridescent crystal all color/ no color reminded him of Myrilandel with her pale blond hair and skin so thin her blood veins shone through it, pulsing purple shadows like bruises. . . .

  (Go back, Nimbulan.)

  Why?

  (Impudence in a human will not be tolerated!)

  Was that a chuckle behind the demanding voice? Nimbulan fought the lethargy of the sense-robbing void. Laughter. Humor. Irony. These were the qualities of Life. Qualities he missed greatly, had known too little of these last years. So many of his friends and acquaintances had died. We should have explored the world with laughter rather than fight each other to the death, he mentally addressed the spirits of all his fallen comrades.

  He appreciated the quirk of fate that he found laughter in the infinite darkness but not in his corporeal life. He laughed with the voices who loved Life and wanted to make the most of it.

  What was his life? All he’d known for many years was a driving need to find new magic, better magic to protect his lord. The only lord capable of holding together the volatile factions of Coronnan and ending the wars.

  He’d supported that lord—what was his name?—and his father for nigh on twenty years. Neither man had accomplished much in that time.

  No lord had.

  (Lord Quinnault de Tanos dares to dream of peace when the others are too shortsighted to think farther ahead than the next battle.)

  Or the next lover, Nimbulan added, remembering Kammeryl d’Astrismos and his string of younger and younger bedmates. A wave of revulsion flooded his consciousness.

  (Does your reaction to that man tell you the value of your loyalty to him?)

  Too heavy a question. The tangle of bright life forces danced around him with sparkles of joy, of life, love, and laughter.

  Laughter. He’d miss laughter if his next existence proved as full of war and responsibility as the last one.

  (Your latest life doesn’t have to end. You can fill it with love and laughter, with family and friends. You don’t have to be grim and sad all of the time, if you place your loyalty correctly this time. If your loyalty belongs to peace and not to one man who will betray you, you will know Life to its fullest. Peace. Love peace. Love life. Love the one who draws you back to Coronnan. . . .)

  A
sinking sensation. Tendrils of pain. Cold. Hands and feet that trembled with weakness and chills. A hard bier pressing against his aching back.

  “I’m alive. I have a body,” Nimbulan whispered through stiff and parched lips. “I’m thirsty and hungry.” Sound echoed in his ears. The kind of sound that bounced against stone walls.

  He tried to open his eyes. He thought they were open. Blackness still surrounded him. A different blackness from the sense-robbing void. Sense-cleansing as well. All traces of a Tambootie hangover had disappeared.

  The sound of dripping water, steady and rhythmic, awakened his other senses. Mold and something rotten assaulted his nose.

  Feebly he snapped his fingers on his right hand, too tired to lift it more than a finger-length above his chest. A tiny flicker of witchlight sat on the end of his index finger. Not much. Enough. He lay on a stone slab in a stone niche—open blackness to his right, solid, damp stone to his left, above and below.

  The witchlight vanished, leaving false flashes before his eyes. He’d seen enough. Only the walls of a crypt were lined with open niches the perfect size of a man’s body.

  He pressed his feet hard against the end of his bier trying to straighten his cramped knees. This burial chamber had been intended for a shorter man.

  Men were shorter in centuries gone by.

  An old crypt. A very damp and untended one. Where would Ackerly and the boys bury him but beneath the chapel in the old monastery? They must have believed him dead. Perhaps he had been dead for a time. During the time he’d wandered the void with the pretty crystal umbilicals.

  For a moment he wanted nothing more than to be a part of the intricate dance of life-that-was-not-Life.

  Some force beyond his ken had given him back his life. The destiny planned for him by the Stargods had not yet been fulfilled.

  And yet the void was so beautiful, so peaceful. . . .