The Wandering Dragon (Children of the Dragon Nimbus)

by Irene Radford

  CHAPTER 31

  “LILY?” SOUSKA ASKED hesitantly from the doorway to their hut. She held the leather curtain aside, peering into the dark interior. She spotted a hunched figure outlined against the glowing embers of their banked fire at the center, just below the smoke hole. Her companion and fellow healer shuddered and sobbed. Her skirts couldn’t muffle her cries. The staff she didn’t always remember to carry with her lay on the far side of her pallet at an odd angle. She must have tossed it there upon entering.

  “Lily, what’s wrong?” Souska closed the physical distance between them in three strides. She knelt to hug her friend.

  “Go away,” Lily choked out.

  “I can’t.”

  “Just leave me alone.”

  “Why?” Souska searched her mind and the dim interior for inspiration, something, anything that might have caused this collapse.

  Ah, the clay bowl of water and an unlit candle sat on the floor between Lily and the hearth ring. Souska couldn’t see a sign of Lily’s shard of glass, the third ingredient to a correct summoning spell.

  “Because . . . because . . . I can’t do it! I can’t talk to anyone through . . . through this.” She waved vaguely at the bowl as she gulped, trying to control her breathing and her crying.

  There was something else she kept hidden. Souska didn’t know how she knew, only that she did. “You managed the spell when you called Maigret for help.”

  “I was desperate. I used every scrap of energy I had and I still did a piss poor job of it. Linda answered the call, and you eavesdropped.”

  Souska kept her mouth shut. That spell had actually worked best by being scattered so that anyone in the University could have answered. Maigret had not been well and wouldn’t have answered without Linda’s prodding her out of bed.

  “I’m not very good at the spell, but I can do it if I have to,” Souska said instead. “Usually I only call Lukan when I know he’s going to be available to answer. And he’s hasn’t been answering me much at all. I’m not sure I can get through to Maigret or Linda.” Heat rose to Souska’s cheeks.

  “You love my brother,” Lily said flatly.

  “I . . . um . . . he was a friend to me when no one else even knew I was in the room.” Her face continued to burn with embarrassment.

  “You love him. And I think he cares for you if he’s been summoning you while he’s on journey.”

  “He’s not supposed to call the University or his masters. But there are no rules about easing his loneliness on the road by talking to a friend each night.”

  Lily swallowed a smile, no longer absorbed in her own misery. “Even if we don’t salt the fields I think we should burn them so the fireweed will sow itself.”

  “Harvest first, then burn the stubble,” Souska confirmed. “Burning will draw some of the extra salt to the surface. Maybe we can scrape it off, screen the dirt out of it and—I don’t know, do something with it other than poison the fields. Krystaal didn’t sound interested in sending food stores here. It will be a lean winter with only eggs and rationed grain, but the village should survive.”

  “We can forage out on the plains. I’ve seen oaks fat with acorns and nut trees south of here, beyond the ravages of the storm,” Lily offered.

  “Do you still need to contact Maigret?” Souska asked tentatively.

  “Not yet. I’m a journeyman on journey. It is my task to do what I must on my own. I just . . . I’ve never met anyone before who didn’t trust the dragons completely and without question.” And who sowed the seeds of distrust in me.

  Souska heard the last unspoken words. Heard them in the back of her mind where the dragons lurked sometimes.

  “I think part of being a journeyman is learning to trust yourself. Relying on the dragons all of the time is almost like calling for help when you should make your own decisions based on information you have at hand.”

  “When did you get so wise, little Susu?”

  “Susu? That’s what my gran called me when I was little.”

  “Did your gran teach you this wisdom?”

  “I don’t know. But sometimes I hear her words, almost as if she’s still standing behind my left shoulder, but I know she can’t because she died nigh on four years ago.”

  “You’d be surprised who stands beside you,” Lily said softly. Her gaze grew unfocused as she stared at Souska’s left ear. As though she examined Souska’s aura. Or something beyond normal vision.

  “Death hides behind a left shoulder.” Souska shuddered in apprehension. Chills climbed her spine and spread to her fingers and toes.

  “No. Death lurks wherever she wants, usually on the hill. Your gran has settled behind your left shoulder, clinging to you as she can no longer cling to life. She’s not ready to go with Death. Not yet. Her love lets her ghost linger with you. Her love tells you what you need to know when you are too uncertain of yourself to make a decision. Don’t doubt your gran, even if you do doubt the dragons.” The white spot on Lily’s forehead glowed like sunlight through ice.

  “Are Gran and the dragons one and the same?” Or was the ghost of her grandmother a harbinger of death yet to come. Death already walked heavily through the village. Souska didn’t think she’d left yet, even if she had retreated for a while.

  Breathe in, hold. Breathe out, hold. Lukan reminded himself. All on a count of three. Glenndon only needed three breaths to ground his body and bring forth his magic. Lukan always, always, needed more. Out here on the semiarid plateau he had little magic to tap. He’d found a thin ley line running deep beneath his feet. That fed him a little bit of magic in fits and starts. He and Chess needed to alternate tapping the energy within the Kardia or they’d drain it for sure and certain.

  What was wrong with this place that the lines, which ran thick and prevalent everywhere in Coronnan, seemed blocked and uncooperative here?

  Earlier this year Glenndon and Da had discovered a disruption in the flow of energy from the Well of Life throughout the planet. They’d released the blockage and recapped the well with porous clay rather than poisonous iron. Maybe the recovery just hadn’t reached this far yet.

  Or maybe the snakes disrupted the flow as badly as the iron flagpole rammed deep into the well.

  “This would be easier if a dragon came flying by and spread magic like a gentle rainfall,” Chess grumbled. He looked almost as tired from the effort of drawing energy in as if he’d worked magic without the aid of the ley line.

  “We have to do the best we can with what we’ve got. Now, I think I’ll forego trying to FarSee into the back of the buildings. Save everything you’ve got for conjuring and throwing fire,” Lukan advised. He rammed his staff partway into the turf right over the ley line. Then he braced himself against it, trusting the natural wood to align with the Kardia.

  A faint vibration ran through the staff to his hands. Then his toes tingled. He breathed easier, in rhythm with the land. That helped.

  Chess stood slightly behind him, feet planted on either side of the line. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.

  “Um . . . Chess, shift your feet inward and relax your shoulders. This is a natural process, not a wrestling match.”

  “Oh.” The boy grimaced in chagrin. “This isn’t easy. I can gather dragon magic right, left, and sideways, if there’s any about. But I can’t even see the line, let alone feel it.”

  Lukan wanted to roll his eyes. No wonder Chess was still an apprentice.

  “Just, ah, place one foot before the other right there.” He pointed to a place where he thought the ley line seemed a bit brighter than where he stood. “A finger’s width to your right,” he corrected Chess when the boy moved.

  “Here?”

  “Yes, right there. Your feet are in alignment with the line. Not either side of it. What does it feel like?”

  Chess shrugged.

  “Maybe if you take off your boots.”

  “Huh?”

  “Just do it. And wiggle your toes against the dirt. Feel t
he land with your bare skin.”

  Chess didn’t look happy. “I have to get my feet dirty?”

  “No dirtier than standing over the fire controlling the bellows and breathing soot all day,” Gerta said coming up behind them. “I’ve scanned the back of the buildings and think I found a route in that will keep us hidden.”

  Lukan nodded in agreement with her, mostly concentrating on Chess’ grumbles as he plunked heavily onto the ground and tugged at his worn footgear. The soles were so thin he should feel every pebble and imperfection in the land.

  But he didn’t.

  Surreptitiously, Lukan examined the boy’s feet. Blisters on the balls of his feet had healed into thick calluses. Same with the back of his heels. He’d needed new boots a long time ago. He probably hurt so much just walking that he couldn’t pay attention to the ground. First order of business was to get him footgear that fit. As soon as they returned to the city.

  Which they couldn’t do until they finished their job here at the farm. Which they couldn’t do without magic.

  He shook himself free of the self-defeating loop.

  Then he repeated his instructions to Chess, and to himself at the same time:

  “Align yourself with the nearest magnetic pole, feel the tug on your back. Place your feet directly over the line. Breathe deeply, again and again. Wiggle your toes in the dirt. Feel the life within the Kardia. Thank it. Draw it deeply inside. Let it fill your lungs and your heart anew. Feed it into every crevice of your body and let it renew your energy.”

  Peace, calm, and firm resolve filled Lukan. His heart beat a lilting counterpoint to his breathing. He found the rhythm of the land and his life.

  “And finally, open your eyes and see the world from a different perspective.” He did so himself. Every tuft of grass and scraggly shrub took on keener definition. His world titled slightly left. Colors brightened and blended shifting to the left of the spectrum as well.

  “Wow,” Chess breathed. “Is this what magic always feels like?”

  Lukan half-smiled. “When you do it right, yeah.” He continued breathing deeply in the slow rhythm of life in this foreign land. “Let your eyes cross a little, as if you are searching for an aura around a person.”

  Chess did so. He’d been taught well, but he didn’t always practice skills outside his talent with controlling fire. “Now drop your gaze to the ground. You are searching for the aura of the Kardia. A silvery blue aura that forms a complex web . . .”

  “Stargods, I didn’t know it could be so beautiful. Why didn’t anyone ever explain it to me like that before?”

  Lukan shrugged and continued to drink in the power of the land.

  “Wonderboys, it’s time to get to work. All of the guards are gathered at the farmhouse for the evening meal,” Gerta prodded them toward their purpose.

  Keeping his eyes slightly crossed and his focus on the ley line, Lukan followed the enticing bit of silvery blue as far as he could on a straight path behind the farm buildings. It seemed to define a depression where water had run—long enough ago that the mud was dry as a brick and cracked like ancient mortar. When he could delay no further, he veered off to approach the slight rise behind the barns. At the top of the rise he dropped to the ground again and turned his enhanced sight toward the wooden buildings.

  “By my calculations, the snake barn should be dead center,” Gerta whispered. “Storage to the right and left. Slave quarters to our right on the corner, right angle to the barn.”

  Lukan nodded, not willing to waste the energy of words. Chess added his own silent agreement.

  “The sequence should go like this,” Gerta said, eyes constantly shifting, wary and alert. Lukan remembered she was more than a blacksmith’s daughter. She’d trained as a soldier, part of the queen’s elite guard.

  Maybe this mission wasn’t as hopeless as he thought.

  “Chess, can you conjure fire as easily as you control it?” Lukan remembered how easily the boy kept cool and calm while minding the bellows and coals in the smithy. Lukan could do it, but he hadn’t the affinity. He was . . . a generalist, with a broad understanding and ability to work with each of the four elements but no real talent with any one of them.

  Unlike Glenndon, who commanded everything in the universe to do his bidding.

  “Of course.” Chess didn’t roll his eyes, but the disdain in his voice conveyed his opinion that anyone who couldn’t bring fire to his fingertips and order it about was an idiot.

  “Good. You stay here. I will let you know when to loose a fireball directly into that back wall, and maybe smaller fires into the storerooms. Gerta, you’re with me. If you can find a stick to leverage the planks apart all the better.” He dropped back behind the hillcrest, into a dry creekbed, and made his way along the ley line a bit before approaching the other side of the farm’s quadrangle.

  Slowly, carefully, he and Gerta moved from shrub to shrub, zigzagging their way around the hill, and approached the back of the slave quarters.

  “This is too easy,” he muttered. “It’s still daylight and there’s no one watching.”

  “As if they have dropped their guard because they fear nothing. The snakes are their defense. Who’d dare come here?”

  “Us.” Lukan flashed her a grin. “Let’s hope they remain complacent a little longer.”

  “Time to get this over with. I see a gap in the wall to start our escape hatch.”

  Lukan gestured a finger across his lips. They needed silence.

  Gerta pulled her dagger—the one that had helped transform his staff into a crutch—and slid the blade between two planks. The wood groaned loud enough to wake the soundest sleeper.

  Lukan quickly stuck his staff into the opening and leaned on it. “Give me a place to stand and a long enough stick and I can move mountains,” he grunted.

  The wooden plank splintered vertically and hung drunkenly from a single supporting peg where it met the roof.

  Questioning whispers greeted them from the inside.

  Gerta returned reassuring words in the rapid patois of Amazonia—mostly the same language that Lukan spoke but more clipped with short vowels and dropped endings. Then she moved to the next plank. Pressure from the inside released that board more quickly. And a third.

  Then a horror-filled shriek from the people inside. They shrank back from the hole in the wall.

  “What?” Lukan demanded.

  Gerta pointed behind him.

  He whirled to face the open maw of a black snake twice as long as himself and as thick as his thigh. Its eyes gleamed a bright, sparkling red. Venom dripped from its hand-length fangs.

  CHAPTER 32

  MARIA DIPPED A clean rag into the bowl of beta arrack. She dribbled the amber liquor onto Robb’s brow, his wrists, his chest, and his feet, trying to bring down the fever that burned within him. The spirits evaporated almost immediately with little effect on the magician’s body temperature. When she wiped his skin with another rag doused in water, the cloth came away stained a dark brown.

  Something strange was happening. She’d never encountered this illness before. Where did it come from? Was it contagious? The guards and servants stayed away from this room, making superstitious warding gestures if they had to linger at the doorway to hand her a cask of spirits or a pitcher of water.

  For once, Geon and Bette found other errands than to watch the sickroom door closely.

  No longer embarrassed at the sight of a man’s naked body—he wasn’t a man anymore, merely a patient in dire straits—she moved her wet cloths farther up Robb’s legs to his knees. Someone had told her once that the back of a person’s knees held a core of heat. If so, she needed to cool that part of him as well as the more obvious points.

  As she twisted his left leg to reach the back of the knee she stilled. Long streaks of brilliant red edged in black stretched up to nearly his groin. A closer look showed chafing on his inner thighs, right where a saddle would rub him raw, nearly pulsed with malignant fire.

>   She spread beta arrack across the streaks.

  Instantly Robb eased his thrashing. Almost a sigh of relief.

  “We went to the farm, my lady,” the short and skinny guard, Bobbeh, the one Robb called Scurry, said from the doorway. Nervously he rubbed his hands together. “He was alone with the king when they inspected the barns.”

  “No,” she gasped. “He wouldn’t.”

  Scurry said, “He was fine when we mounted up a few moments later. By the time we left the halfway stable, he was limp with fever. I had to help him into the saddle. He could barely hold onto the reins.”

  “Was . . . was the saddle leather stained?”

  Den shrugged, making him look more than ever like a bulky badger full of determination and obstinacy. “Maybe. ’Twas an old saddle, dark and worn.”

  “Thank you for telling me that. This disease is not contagious. It comes from close contact with the snakes, not from touching another sick person. Will you sit with him a short while? I must speak to His Majesty.”

  “Don’t know what I can do to help.” Bobbeh moved a few steps inward. His partner Den remained on the landing.

  “Bathe as much of him as you can, with the spirits first and then clear fresh water. If he rouses at all, make him drink three sips from this mug. No more. He can have water if he can take more drink. But only three sips of the medicine every hour.”

  Bobbeh nodded and took her place on the stool beside the bed. Maria hurried as fast as she could to the king’s private courtyard. He’d left orders not to be disturbed while he entertained Princess Rejiia there. Maria wanted to disturb that arrangement.

  “Your magician is dying,” she said quite loudly the moment she spotted Lokeen sitting on a stone bench, leaning against the back idly. In front of him, Rejiia pranced and sang a wistful tune, kicking at flower heads and flicking water droplets at the king from a decorative fountain.

  Her servants puttered in the dirt in a back corner of the yard, by the wall. Maria noted how they always remained out of Lokeen’s line of sight. Their constant watchful presence bothered her more than she wanted to admit.