“The doors,” the king gasped. “Did anyone think to barricade the doors?” He tried to pull away from his wife and go to investigate. To stop that wall of water containing half the Bay.
Queen Mikka held him in place. “There is nothing you can do,” she said loudly, firmly, holding his upper arms so he couldn’t leave.
“I ordered the crossbars dropped,” Mikk offered weakly. He hadn’t looked back to make sure they were in place.
They all watched in horror as thick water filled the window opening, blotting out what little light the westering sun offered. It poured in by the tubful. It pounded at the other windows, seeking more openings.
The water spilled onto the floor, spreading out, deepening, reaching for them.
Miri clung to Mikk’s hand as if to a lifeline. As if only he could save her. “I can’t swim,” she whispered.
“I can. I’ll do what I can to save you.”
“I know you will.” She graced him with a smile, and he knew he could do anything. Anything at all.
And he knew what he had to do.
“Glenndon!” he called to his cousin.
The golden prince looked like a bedraggled stray dog at the moment, sunk deep in his grief, held upright only by the will and the iron grip of his companions.
“Glenndon,” Mikk repeated more forcefully. “Is there a spell that will put a temporary wall between us and any more water crashing in?”
Glenndon blinked rapidly as he looked up.
“Well, is there?” Mikk demanded.
“Please, son, if there is anything you can do to protect the people sheltering from this unnatural storm, please do it,” King Darville pleaded from his place on the demi-throne beside the queen, where they should be, in command, leading by their calm example.
“I read something . . .” Mikk suggested.
“I’m sure you did,” Glenndon replied, shrugging out of despair and into action.
“You’ll need fire and Kardia. Stargods only know we’ve got more than enough water and air,” Mikk added, somehow knowing he had to help Glenndon order his thoughts before they could do anything. His Da was dying.
Mikk knew he’d feel just as lost and frightened if something dire threatened Grand’Mere.
Glenndon sloshed over to a round table and started dragging it to the center of the room. Frank and Keerkin jumped to help him.
So did Mikk. He had no intention of being left out of this. He could only learn so much magic by reading. Now he had to do. He’d learned that much if nothing else from watching Master Aggelard.
“The water isn’t coming in as fast as it was,” Miri said, hope giving her voice a firmer lilt.
“The initial surge has passed,” King Darville said, gaze fixed on the window. “It’s settling into a level. It will go down again, very slowly though. Days probably before we see dry land beneath the hilltops. Weeks until we’re rid of it all.”
Glenndon paused, cocking his head as if listening. “The dragons say there are three more surges coming. Lesser than the first, still high enough to drown us if we don’t do something.”
“Can the dragons do anything? There are old tales of dragons being the harbingers of good weather. They are creatures of magic, this storm was born of magic . . . surely . . .” the king said, hopefully.
“If the dragons could do anything about it, they’d have done it! They have other concerns right now.” Glenndon snapped. True pain haunted his eyes. His Da was dying!
With a sweep of his arm, Glenndon cleared the table of cloth, vases of flowers, all the elegant decorations that made the room—at normal times—welcoming. He left only a single candlestick with a ring of dried flowers adorning the base. A sharp snap of his fingers brought flame to candle.
“Kardia in the flowers and fire in the flame,” Mikk said. He tried to follow Glenndon’s motions, wondering if he thought through the spell the same way Mikk did, just faster, without having to concentrate a long time to bring forth the spark.
Water sloshed over the top of Mikk’s half boots. He shook his foot, trying to discard the cloying sensation of impending doom. Outside another roar built, the deep growl gnawing at his belly. “We haven’t much time. What do you need me to do?”
Glenndon placed the tip of his dripping staff on the tabletop and traced with wet lines a five-pointed star surrounded by a circle around the candlestick. Sparkles seemed to follow his tracings, quickly dying as he moved from here to there. The points of the star touched the rim of the round table, flaring at each point and continuing to glow faintly. The circle of the table rim defined the drawn circle, also retaining the fire of magic within the line, more than a reflection of the lit candle, less than a true fire. The symbolism struck Mikk as obvious now that he saw it and he understood the sympathetic elements Glenndon drew upon. He wondered how his cousin would bring them all together.
The magician prince didn’t look up, concentrating deeply on his preparations, moving around the table, shoving people out of his way as he progressed. Sweat popped out on his brow. There was a cost to magic. Working a spell cost terribly in physical energy. He’d be hungry, near to starving before the end. Had anyone thought to bring food into the room?
Then he spotted Keerkin fumbling inside a pack and withdrawing bread, cheese, jerked meat, and dried fruit.
Mikk crept closer to his cousin following him, mimicking every move with his hands and inside his mind.
A half smile crept across Glenndon’s face. You are learning, little cousin. Your mother could probably do this without a thought.
My mother is not here. I am, he replied, not realizing he hadn’t spoken aloud until after the words were passed from his mind to Glenndon’s.
Curiosity is a good thing, cousin. But sometimes it gets you into trouble.
“I need air. A lot of air all at once. You have learned to breathe. Can you empty your lungs completely all at once?”
Mikk shook his head. “I want to help. I just . . . I have experience . . . No training . . .”
“You want to be part of this spell?”
Mikk could only nod, eyes wide in wonder.
Then this is going to hurt, Glenndon said, looking him in the eye. Then without preamble or apology he grabbed Mikk by the shoulders and drove his knee into Mikk’s gut.
All the air inside Mikk flew out in a long whoosh, emptying him of thought, of control. His vision narrowed to a dark tunnel as he gasped desperately trying to draw breath through pain.
Dimly he watched the candle flame flicker and hold as he doubled over, hands splayed on either side of the stick, well within the central pentagram of the star.
“Now the elements are complete and the water will not penetrate the wall of air around Palace Isle. Master Aggelard has directed a similar circle around University Isle.” Glenndon proclaimed. “By the same token, if water cannot get in, nothing and no one can get out, by means magical or mundane. The water will remain at the current level within the bubble. We can’t release it until the river recedes to near normal levels or it will swamp us. I hope you are happy, Father. Neither of us can go to Lord Jaylor in his last moments of life.”
Mikk didn’t really care. He just needed to breathe, and couldn’t.
Miri waded over to him and gripped his shoulder hard. He concentrated on her touch rather than the pain.
CHAPTER 35
AN ANGUISHED BELLOW penetrated Jaylor’s increasingly difficult attempts to breathe. His heartbeat sounded too rapid and shallow in his own ears.
Dragons keening in the darkness sounded louder.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, which seemed to be drifting away quite rapidly, he knew that a dragon grieved. He heard a great thunder as dozens of dragons took flight.
What had set them off? What crisis did he need to tend to now?
If only he could lift his eyelids and check the circle, see who had fallen. If only his chest and left arm didn’t ache so abominably . . . What had he been lifting to strain those muscles?<
br />
(You carried the entire circle on your back and in your heart,) Shayla said angrily. (We await you in the void.)
That made no sense at all. He’d never heard an angry dragon before. Where was the laughter and gentleness?
(In the void.)
“Easy now, roll him onto the blanket. Gently!” That was Maigret directing the care of the fallen, whoever it was.
Jaylor ceased fighting his own lethargy. Maigret would take care of it.
“He needs to go home,” Marcus said more quietly.
His former student’s breath crossed Jaylor’s face, and he wondered why the master magician had come so close. Magicians respected the distance cast by another’s aura and rarely crossed that boundary without invitation or reason.
“Easy now, Jaylor. Breathe easy. We’ll take care of you,” Marcus said.
I’m just tired. Need food and sleep. Suddenly he understood why Glenndon had taken so long to learn to speak. Telepathy was so much easier.
“Why’d he have to do it!” Lukan yelled, off in the distance somewhere. “Why’d he have to do it all alone? Never accepting help, never trusting anyone to know how to do it. Always taking control.”
Jaylor struggled to go to the boy. Time he taught him some manners . . .
Who was Lukan complaining about? The only person who roared and insisted upon doing it himself . . . was himself. Jaylor . . . He’d been taking control of spells for so long he couldn’t remember not doing it.
“Hush, boy. We’ll take care of him,” Maigret said.
Jaylor sensed that she gathered Lukan close in her motherly embrace. Strange, his strongest memories of Maigret were of a rebellious girl who couldn’t stand to be confined by walls or rules. When had she become the nurturer of the apprentices?
A soft blanket of sleep enveloped Jaylor. He drifted easily, only partially aware that time passed. He thought that the pain in his chest and his inability to draw a full breath was all that kept him awake.
“No! No, it can’t be. He can’t be dying. I still need him!” Another scream jolted him out of his semisleep. Brevelan. He had to go to her. Keep her safe in her bed. He had to ease her mind. Make sure she . . .
Dying? Who was dying?
And then she was beside him, holding his hand to her wet face. Crying. Brevelan cried over him.
She should be in bed, taking care of herself and their unborn child. Her seventh child.
The dragon-dream long ago had promised her six. Dragon-dreams did not lie.
“Wh . . . who?” Jaylor croaked through swollen, nearly numb lips.
“Don’t waste energy speaking,” Maigret commanded. “Don’t waste your strength trying to manage everything. You already did that and it nearly killed you.” Her last words came out on a sob.
Then he felt the rim of a cup pressed to his mouth. “Just a sip, Master,” Linda said quietly. “A few drops. Take a few drops, that’s all we ask. ’Twill steady your heartbeat.”
He tried. He really tried but he couldn’t make his throat work. If only he could draw a full breath . . . half a breath would help. But the weight on his chest seemed to increase. Had one of the children climbed atop him?
“Let me try,” Lillian said quietly. The position of the cup shifted as his daughter took command of it. “Drink, Da. You have to drink this.”
Lily, where did you come from? Wasn’t she weeks away with the caravan?
“Val and I transported in the moment we knew how ill you’d made yourself. Now drink.”
Jaylor tried. Lily sounded so much like her mother in that moment of command he felt compelled to taste the nasty smelling brew. Two drops bit into his tongue. He’d spit it out if he had the strength.
Brevelan’s sobs increased.
I’m dying. Truth stabbed him behind the eyes. He’d tasked his heart beyond mending.
No one responded. Not even the dragons.
But he wasn’t dead yet. He concentrated fiercely on what he had to say. What he had to do.
“Staff . . .”
“Your staff is here, Jaylor,” Marcus said. “It will always be with you. You’ll take it into the void with you.” The staff, an old friend and constant companion, glowed warmly beneath his hand. He clutched at it with weak hands, drawing a little strength from it. He needed a little help right now.
Jaylor fought to shake his head in the negative. The staff would have found him, even if he’d left it behind. “Lukan. Staff. Earned it tonight.”
“Yes, yes. I’ll see to it immediately,” Marcus agreed.
One more thing. And then he could rest. Two more things. One after the other. Best to get it done before he ran out of time.
“Letter . . . Glenndon . . . desk.”
“Yes, Master. I’ll see that he gets it,” Linda answered. Of course Linda would take care of it. She’d written the letter for him. Her blood and magical links to Glenndon . . . Jaylor was surprised the letter hadn’t found its way to his son already.
“Brevelan.” He could barely hear his own words. “Brevelan, I love you.”
A wail of anguish. But he didn’t care anymore. He was free of pain. Free of . . . free to soar with dragons into the void. As he had once before. This time his best friend and the love of his life would not be able to bring him back. His staff glowed brightly in his right hand. He reached behind him for the one thing he’d forgotten . . .
Lillian and Valeria reached for their mother at the same time. Desperately they drew her into their combined embrace, their tears mingling into a river of grief and disbelief.
“He . . . he can’t be gone,” Mama whispered. She broke free, flinging herself atop Da, pounding on his chest. “Come back to me, S’murghit. Don’t you dare go without me!”
Lillian didn’t need to exchange thoughts with her twin to convey her worry. Mama was too pale and shaky.
“Of course Glenndon gets a letter!” Lukan sneered. He’d come to the scene late. “What do I get? Nothing. He never even thought of me, even after I saved the spell and grounded it properly when he couldn’t finish the job.” He turned and yanked open the front door of the cabin.
Lily needed to go after him. Needed to heal the gaping hole in his emotions that gnawed at his gut, had done so for a long time.
“Lukan, wait,” Master Marcus called. “Your father told me to give you a staff. He said you earned it tonight.”
“No, he didn’t. That’s just you trying to make up for his lack.” Lukan said no more, yanking open the door and then slamming it shut behind him so hard it bent the latch and swung unevenly to and fro.
Mama’s scream of pain was almost lost in the noise of her departing son.
Go to him, Val. I need to stay with Mama.
He won’t listen to either of us right now. He won’t listen to anyone, Val replied even as she knelt beside Lily, helping her draw Mama away from Da’s bier of blankets laid before the hearth. Mama clutched her belly with tight fists.
If she could lose more color in her face she did so now.
“Lady Ariiell and I will see to Lukan,” Graciella said softly. “We can be of no help here.” She clutched her own belly protectively.
Part of Lily was relieved that her companion had not only come out of her horrified trance, but learned enough compassion for her own child—no matter how ill-conceived—to take care of herself, at least for a short time.
Most of Lily’s attention turned to her mother. “Mistress Maigret, we’re going to need some of your potions!” Val cried even as Mama doubled over gasping for breath.
A bright pool of blood dripped onto the floor beneath Mama’s bedgown, spreading rapidly.
Without direction Marcus lifted Mama into his arms and carried her to the room at the back of the cabin. He laid her gently upon the bed and backed away. “Do your best, Maigret. Please. We can’t lose her too. Together they were the heart and soul of the University, the Circle. With both of them gone . . .” He turned and fled.
Lily gathered clean rags from the ban
dage cupboard. Maigret and Linda rummaged around in a carved chest for herbs.
Val smoothed dull and sweat-darkened hair from their mother’s brow with a damp cloth, murmuring soothing phrases.
Mama moaned.
Lily dashed back to her side, slitting Mama’s gown from hem to hip with her utility knife.
“We’re going to have to cut the babe out,” Maigret whispered, crushing a bitter-smelling mixture in a ceramic mortar. “We don’t have time to save them both. She’s bleeding too heavily.”
“The babe has not thrived,” Lillian said. “It has troubled her for weeks.”
“Thought as much. The babe should be much bigger.”
Lily looked to her in question. She thought Mama looked huge, near to birthing a full term baby at five months.
“It’s all swelling, water and blood. The babe’s too small, probably died weeks ago. And . . .”
“And putrefied,” Val completed the nasty sentence. No one else dared utter the words, lest saying them out loud made them true.
“My good girls,” Mama murmured. She opened her eyes and fixed the twins with a fierce gaze, gripping their hands tightly. “You are the backbone of the family now. Take care of the little ones.” Her grip grew slack as her lips turned blue.
Mama screamed, nearly sitting up in her agony. A gush of foul smelling blood flooded the bed linens.
She fell back. With a light smile she released.
In the far distance Lily thought she heard her mother say, I thought you’d wait for me, my love.
CHAPTER 36
NOT KNOWING QUITE what to do, Skeller stood outside the simple lopsided cabin with extensions up and down, out and back. He took up a guarding post just outside the door, watching the drama play itself out when the boy they’d called Lukan burst away from the grieving crowd. The door slammed behind him and bounced back open as he stalked—nearly ran—into the yard.
Five heartbeats later they both heard a woman scream in extreme pain.
Lukan paled even more. One look at his eyes, red-rimmed and deeply shadowed—almost bruised like Valeria’s—mouth contorted, cheeks pale and hollow, and Skeller knew the boy grieved as much as his sisters. But he tried to hide it.
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