“The magician boy?” the lady asked. “I see no staff.”
“Over there,” Lukan inclined his head toward the corner of the house where it stood, ready and waiting for his command.
She sighed and nodded.
“My letters need to go farther abroad than the city. Can you dispatch them?”
“I . . . I am only a journeyman, my lady. I do not know the spell,” he admitted. Shame heated his cheeks all the way to the tips of his ears. He should have learned that spell. He knew the principles of it. Any magician could figure that out. But he didn’t know the particulars. He’d skipped classes that week—he and Glenndon had gone fishing at a lake outside the village at the base of the foothills.
“Magic isn’t what you need, my lady,” Gerta interrupted. “You need to reestablish your contact with all of the female soldiers who have been removed from the guard. It is a disgrace that Lokeen has exiled the core of our history and culture from the castle. Amazonia was founded by women warriors. We need to return them to places of honor rather than hiding in fear of a mere man.” She stood two heads taller than the lady, jaw firm, spine straight, head proud.
Lukan lost his heart to her in a single breath.
“How can I contact them?” Lady Maria asked simply. “Lokeen has been most thorough in his purge of anyone previously associated with the queen. I am watched. The guards think I wish a new pot spider-arm specially made for my personal hearth.”
“That I can make for you. And I know how to find a few of my troop. I am too well known; my absence would be noted. There are others working the caravans and ships who come and go at will. Give me your letters and I will see that they are dispatched by trustworthy messengers,” Gerta said.
The lady nodded and fished three quarter-fold parchment sheets from the interior of her light linen cloak. She placed them into Gerta’s outstretched hand with a snap.
“How have we been reduced to this travesty?” Skeller asked shaking his head. “Forsaking our laws, our most honored traditions, for the greed of one man.”
“It all happened slowly, Highness,” Chess offered. “Very slowly.”
“My sister is as much to blame as any,” Lady Maria sighed. “She hated making decisions lest she disappoint someone. She gave over all but the most formal of ceremonial duties to her husband. We got so used to turning to him for a decision, accepting his decrees as stemming from her, that we hardly noticed when she died and he should have stepped aside from the throne.”
“And I ran away rather than face my responsibilities to marry a suitable princess.” Skeller hung his head.
“You escaped certain death at the hands of a monster,” Maria reminded him. “And now you are back, you must do your duty.”
“I have no love for . . .”
“Love is not part of the equation. It never has been and never will be in royal families.”
Lukan had to gulp. He knew there was little chance that Skeller might find happiness with his sister Lily—and not just because of the trauma of murdering Samlan. Eight years separated them, as well as rank and nobility. Lily would never be happy living in a city beyond the first few days of curious exploration. Now he knew for certain that his beloved sister would never have a chance with the man she loved.
And his brother Glenndon, childhood companion in mischief, confidant, and . . . and friend, faced a similar fate. As heir to the dragon crown of Coronnan he was destined to marry for alliance and treaty, not for love.
Sadness swept over Lukan, and he was very glad that he was just a lowly magician journeyman without royal duty and honor.
Lily watched Souska as she carefully measured the hellebore and crumbled it into the mixture of mushrooms and algae. Together they counted the dried leaves: one, two, three, four, five. Each ingredient drifted into the mixture bubbling sluggishly in a ceramic pot over a low fire in their hut.
“No more than five. Ever,” Souska warned. “A little less if you are treating a person of small stature or one who is very old.”
“How do you know if it’s the right amount?” Lily asked her, committing every motion to memory. A number rhyme came to mind, something Mama used to teach her to make potions. The tune made it easier to remember details. Skeller would use the same method.
“You have to trust your experience and the lore handed down from grandmother to granddaughter through many generations,” Souska replied.
Lily sat back on her heels. From this perspective, she saw one mushroom cap that hadn’t broken into powder completely. She ground it a bit more with her pestle.
“Can you mix it too fine?” Lily persisted with her questions. “Does overgrinding push the essential components out of the plant and into the mortar?” The last words sounded breathy and hesitant.
Souska ran the back of her fingers along Lily’s cheek and brow. “Your pulse is rapid and a low-grade fever persists. I think you need the first dose.”
“No, no, I’m fine.”
“No, you aren’t. Your skin is clammy, your hair lank. And your breathing is ragged. You are only days out of your sickbed, and you used up every scrap of strength you had initiating a summons to Maigret. A sloppy summons that had no secrecy built into it.”
Lily had the grace to blush. But it didn’t warm the spot on her forehead. Death had said that she could not call her. Yet. “I will recover. There are others worse off. They need this precious brew before I do.”
“You need it to keep going. I am here to help. You needn’t do it all.”
“For that I thank you. I’m surprised Mistress Maigret allowed you to stay.”
Souska sniffed the concoction and did not answer.
Lily followed suit, concentrating on the separate scents of each ingredient, as Mama had taught her. She had to understand the heart and soul of each plant. This would be easier, better, if she’d gathered the components herself, whispering a prayer of thanks to their voluntary separation from their growing medium. She had to work hard to banish the odor of her own sweat, the last meal she had cooked in the tiny thatched hut assigned to her, and the stale ashes in the fire pit. Gradually, she isolated the mustiness of the mushroom, the faint scent of rot in the algae, the sweetness of the hellebore flowers. All there. All in the right proportion. Time to add it to the infusion of willow bark tea.
She poured the boiling hot tea into the mortar. The brew sizzled and bubbled as the medicine absorbed the liquid and the mortar cleansed itself of residual bits, dumping them into the tea.
A swish with a wooden spoon and it was ready to decant.
Souska pushed the first cup into Lily’s hands. “Drink it. All of it.”
“But . . .”
“First rule of the Healer’s guild: Never try to treat another with the same ailment as yourself. You and the villagers get well and then we deal with curing the land. I’m going to the headman’s hut to start dispensing this to the ailing.” Decisively she unfolded her legs and rose, lingering until Lily drank as ordered.
“Now I know why Maigret ordered you to stay and help,” Lily said as she blew a cooling breath across her tea.
“No, you don’t. She ordered me to come because I’m the least valuable apprentice.”
“But you’ve learned so much . . . you know how to handle the hellebore.”
“Anyone could have given you a written recipe and left.” Souska shrugged. “Your brother taught me much over the summer. But it’s not enough. Never enough to make up for . . .” she drifted into silence hanging her head in shame.
“Lukan is good about that. He’ll make a fine teacher someday.”
“As will you, if you survive. Now drink. It’s best when hot.” Souska took the bowl of medicine and walked resolutely toward the largest hut in the village. It stood square and solid in the center of the half circle of dwellings. “It’s not that I’m not grateful to the University for taking me in when no one else wanted me. But . . . but now they don’t want me either.”
A new chill invaded Lily, as if
Death’s cold mist had wandered by. She peeked out the doorway toward the hilltop. Death still lingered there. Not here.
I have learned not to ask of Geon how he manages what he manages. He waited until the chatelaine of the castle—a pitiful deformed dwarf of a woman I would not allow in my home—left the castle. Then my servant presented my credentials to an underling. She had not the real authority to accept me as a guest in the castle, but neither did she have the authority to decline a visit from the great-granddaughter of a king of Coronnan.
My royal blood is well documented: My father’s father was younger brother to old King Darcine—Darville’s father. Of my father’s legitimate children I am the eldest. My sisters, if they still live, dwell in exile in Hanassa, or maybe Rossemeyer, somewhere disgusting, with our mother.
By the time the dwarf—I am told she would be queen but for her deformity—returns, I have settled in sumptuous quarters conveniently near the king’s private suite, the rooms where he actually sleeps and dresses rather than the more formal receiving room in his privy chamber and robing room.
“If we’d known you were coming,” the chatelaine says on a sniff, as if I am unwelcome and she would oust me if she could, “we would have made certain that King Lokeen was in residence to receive you. As it is, you must wait upon his convenience.”
“And when will that be?” I ask on an equally disdainful sniff.
She shrugs and turns on her heel to make her slow way out of my rooms. “His Majesty comes and goes as His Majesty pleases. We dine one hour after sunset. Be prompt. No one will bring you food if you are not. Your servants may eat with the other servants in their hall belowstairs.”
I swear that I will kick that woman into the murky water of the harbor myself as soon as I am entrenched. I must remember that, royal blood or no, I am a guest. I must behave.
That does not mean I can’t begin to ensnare the populace with my enticement spells and seductions. Bette and Geon can begin with the servants and administrators. They already scout out the hidden passages and forgotten rooms in the castle. I have my sights set on the captain of the guard. He holds the most powerful position in a castle hierarchy. By the time I win a proposal of marriage from Lokeen, I need to control all those loyal to him.
CHAPTER 22
“MASTER ROBB, YOU will work magic for me here,” King Lokeen announced as they dismounted in the forecourt of the manor at the midpoint in the return journey to Amazonia.
Robb groaned as he slung a leg over the saddle and slid to the ground beside his pony. “Thank the Stargods for small blessings,” he whispered to the mount, whose strong back was not nearly so broad or far off the ground as the regular riding steeds they’d use to return the rest of the way.
“What spell do you need me to throw?” he asked, pasting an expression on his face he hoped would pass for a smile but felt like a grimace.
“You will locate your predecessor and the ancient artifact I lent him. I must have the artifact back.” Lokeen slapped his open palm with his riding crop for emphasis as he marched into the manor house. Clearly he expected Robb to follow obediently.
Robb allowed his reluctance to serve Lokeen to show in his dragging steps. After what he’d witnessed in the charnel house at the farm, he had no desire to do anything to help a king as mad as this one. Insanity was the only explanation for how the man enjoyed the blood thirst of his pet snakes. Or else the Krakatrice had possessed his mind and his morals. Perhaps he was the pet and the snakes made all his decisions for him?
Thank the Stargods he has no matriarch Krakatrice. At least not one I saw. He’s getting all his eggs in the wild, dormant for many decades, perhaps centuries, and therefore not as strong or as fresh. There is still a chance that a team of dragons and magicians can take down the tangle, search out and destroy any more eggs, and end the tyranny.
“Sir, I must have either the name of the man you seek or some personal possession,” Robb said wearily. “I have told you this before.”
“Names are the key to a man’s magical power. Your predecessor would not appreciate my giving you his name. He would not want you to have power over him.”
Robb ground his teeth. “Then I cannot find him and you will not get your artifact back.” Which suited him fine. Anything to thwart this madman.
“Oh, but I have a personal possession,” Lokeen said, flopping down upon his lounge in the shade of the interior courtyard. Servants scurried to bring refreshment. “You may sit.” Lokeen waved casually toward an adjacent lounge.
Robb eased his butt into contact with the slight padding beneath the upholstery. Not enough to cradle his aching joints. He’d need a few moments to adjust to this new posture before raising his feet as the king did so easily.
Gratefully he sipped the proffered wine and honey-dipped dates and nuts. But he said nothing. The quest was Lokeen’s; Robb was only the reluctant servant. Prisoner. Slave.
“Aren’t you curious as to what personal possession I hold hostage against the magician’s return and good behavior?” Lokeen asked, licking honey drips from his fingers.
Robb lifted his eyebrows but still kept his mouth shut.
Lokeen giggled. Another sign of madness?
“No curiosity?”
Robb remained silently passive.
“Oh, very well. I did so want to surprise you. Now I shall just have to show you.” He clapped his hands imperiously.
A black-clad old man with a permanently bowed back emerged from the shadows carrying a wooden box with rich inlays of different colored woods and gemstones. The old man held the ends of the box between his opened palms, as if unwilling to touch it any more than he had to. It fell the last inch to the inlaid table between Robb and the king. He’d dropped it, close enough that Lokeen knew his reluctance but could not chide him for damaging the box.
As long as my hand from wrist to fingertip. As wide as my palm. Suddenly Robb didn’t want to know what was in there.
“Go ahead. Open it. Open it. Open it!”
Robb gulped. Then, holding his breath, he reached forward and flipped the top off with one finger. Steeling himself against the worst, he blinked rapidly, daring his eyes to focus and really not wanting to.
Nestled in a soft bed of lamb’s wool rested a man’s left little finger, neatly severed from the hand at the palm joint. A smudge of dried blood encircled the cut end where a bit of bone protruded.
He gagged.
“My magician left here in a boat with his three masters, two journeymen, and two apprentices just before the solstice,” Lokeen said. “He gave this to me willingly and placed a stasis spell on it so that it would not rot.”
“Such a spell should have died if your magician died. Therefore I must presume he lives.”
“One would think so.” Lokeen shrugged on a half smile—as if he were hiding something.
“But you altered the spell.”
“Yes! You are smarter than he was. You figured it out.”
“You coerced one of the master magicians to extend the stasis, make the deterioration dependent upon time, not the life of the owner of the finger.”
“Three moons he’s been gone. The stasis will only last another moon. You must find him for me now.”
Robb gulped back his distaste. He could do this. He’d done worse than touch a dead finger. He’d killed Krakatrice, at close range.
A servant appeared at his side with a silver bowl filled with clean water, a candle, and his glass on a tray.
“A ceramic bowl would be better, closer to the Kardia . . .”
“Silver is mined from the Kardia.”
Robb nodded.
“No more stalling. Find my magician and my artifact.”
Robb drew in a deep breath. He could make it the first stage of entering a trance, or merely the gathering of energy to find a way to postpone this search.
“I said, stop stalling or you will become the next meal for my pets.”
Robb breathed again and felt his peripheral visio
n close in on him. A third breath and his vision burst into a full circle of awareness, individual objects blended together and at the same time stood out starkly delineated. With a thought he brought a flame to his fingertip and touched it to the candlewick.
The easy part. The familiar and routine part of any spell. He could do this in his sleep.
Now for the innovative part. He must engage his intellect, his talent, and all of the energies he’d gathered since leaving the city yesterday morning. He must think, while maintaining the detachment of the trance. But he also had to make the process look like a spectacular and supreme effort in case he failed. Lokeen would have no excuse to say he hadn’t tried hard enough.
He placed his open hand above the finger and raised it. The finger followed his gesture. He guided it over to the bowl and slowly lowered the grisly bit into the water. It touched the surface, floated a moment and dropped silently to the bottom of the bowl with barely a ripple on the surface.
Next Robb positioned the candle so that the flame reflected on the water, showing endless repetitions of itself between the water and the polished metal bowl, both partial and complete. In this case, perhaps the elegant silver bowl proved better than the simplicity of a container made from the body of the Kardia herself.
Finally he eased his glass to float on the water. The finger shone through it, magnified until he could see individual pores and hairs, every detail of the severed muscle, bone, and blood vessels. Another three breaths to hold the finger in his mind. Gradually he built up layer upon layer of imagery of the man who used to be attached to that finger. He didn’t need to know that renegade master magician Samlan had offered it up as hostage. The finger knew, and it showed him the man in full, majestic anger aboard a storm-tossed boat, holding his staff aloft with a bandaged hand while cradling a piece of ancient bone with the other. On either side of him, his magician helpers also held the long bone, so old it had fossilized to stone. A bone so old it had given up its hold on life eons ago.
The Wandering Dragon (Children of the Dragon Nimbus) Page 17