The Broken Dragon: Children of the Dragon Nimbus #2

by Irene Radford

  Linda had her work here with Mistress Maigret, an able and learned secretary and assistant.

  With Lady Ariiell refusing to return to her father and an arranged marriage with a foreign king, Val had no responsibility to take her anywhere. The ugly knot of guilt and pain in Ariiell’s mind had dissipated almost to a point where she didn’t need The Forget anymore. The lady’s fate must be decided by others now—or even by herself. An awe-inspiring thought that daunted Ariiell into her vague retreat from reality again.

  So, what would Val do? What could she do?

  Take care of the little ones, Mama had said with her dying breath.

  That should be Lily’s job. She was the nurturer, the one who enjoyed cooking and telling stories, and guiding lessons, and maintaining the kitchen garden and the herbs and . . .

  Val understood magic. She didn’t understand or appreciate children.

  A stick snapped behind her as someone trod carelessly along the path from the University to this mournful clearing.

  “Valeria?” Ariiell asked tentatively.

  “Yes?” Val didn’t turn away from her contemplation of the ashes of life and death.

  “I’ve had a vision.”

  Val came alert. Ariiell sounded quite sane at the moment. She still lapsed into periods of glazed indifference, but less often and for shorter periods of time than when they first started this journey together.

  “What kind of vision?”

  “More than a dream, less than reality.”

  “That sounds . . . ominous.”

  “Yes, quite. I realize now, that some of my dreams on our journey were not true dreams, more like directions from outside myself.”

  Mama had talked about dragon-dreams, visions of the future, or warnings.

  “Do the dragons talk to you?”

  “No. I think this is a magician. A rogue magician who is trying to control me.”

  Valeria forgot to breathe for a moment.

  “Why tell me? This sounds like something Lord Marcus should know about.”

  “He’s so busy. And . . . and I don’t know . . .”

  “You don’t know if you can trust him.”

  Ariiell nodded and swallowed heavily.

  “I understand.” Val knew how hard it was for Ariiell to trust anyone. She’d been betrayed by everyone: people she loved, people who should take care of her, but only used her. Val had built a small trust with her while enclosed in that litter that gave the illusion of blocking out a big, scary world outside. They’d formed an understanding through the letters that Val wrote for her then dispatched by magic transfer spells.

  “This rogue magician is adrift in a small boat. He wants me to meet him in the cove below Saria with food and supplies and a means to take him to safety.”

  “Um . . . Is this rogue Samlan by any chance?”

  “I think so. And if you are going to save Coronnan from him, we need to go soon and make sure he does not get to safety.”

  “I’ve had some troubling dreams of late,” Lily confessed to her sister and Ariiell sitting on the ground across from her. Skeller sat slightly apart from them tuning his harp and humming a sad little tune with a hypnotic drone of a bass note beneath the melody. She suspected he composed a new ballad, possibly in honor of Mama and Da. Graciella half hid behind Lily. They had gathered for privacy near the little waterfall that tumbled into a broad plunge pool heated by a hot seep coming out of the core of the mountain. Too many people wandered in and out of the cabin and the home Clearing, wanting to help, needing to verify that Mama and Da had truly died and didn’t still live there. At least Lukan had not run off on his own, or hidden up a tree, or in the thatch. His presence kept the most prying of the visitors away. He joined them in this semisecret discussion now.

  Lily hadn’t shared her dreams with anyone but Val and didn’t want to trouble the others with a recounting of the latest nightmare of trying desperately to climb the broken cliff face below Castle Saria. The crashing waves towering above her, tugging at her, pulling her to her death felt too real, more real than the quiet loft room she shared with Val, Ariiell, and Graciella. Mistress Maigret had taken Jule and Sharl home with her.

  Lady Graciella had described the cove to Lily and Val in painful detail. She knew its wickedly sharp rocks pointing straight up above the tide and hiding below, waiting to shred living flesh from bone. She knew of the erratic tides and strong currents where ocean met bay at the solid outcrop of rock.

  “I thought I was sharing some of Graciella’s nightmares,” Lily said, hanging her head, not willing to meet the all-too-knowing gaze of Lady Ariiell.

  “I’ve had the same dream,” Graciella admitted. “I woke up in a cold sweat of fear, almost saddened that I didn’t drown and end the nightmare forever. I thought it came from the time Lucjemm showed me the cove and explained the ancient form of execution. He threatened me with the same fate if I didn’t give in to his demands.” The last came out as a bare whisper that Lily had to strain to hear.

  “I thought he only threatened you with opening a vein and letting his snake feed on you,” Val protested.

  “That too.”

  “I dreamed I was adrift in a boat and in need of rescue,” Linda said, stepping into the little clearing. “When I woke up I felt an unnatural compulsion to run off to this ragged coastline and rescue someone.”

  Graciella and Ariiell looked aghast, mouths slightly agape at the intrusion.

  “I came looking for someone who might know why Jule won’t eat his yampion pie. Mistress Maigret and I have tried everything to keep him happy but he misses his Mama and doesn’t understand that she’s not coming back.” She stopped talking and looked everywhere but at the others gathered together. “I heard you talking,” she rushed to explain her uninvited presence.

  “Did you put a dash of nutmeg and an extra dollop of goat’s milk in the vegetable mash?” Lily asked. How many times had she made the same dish with Mama? How many times had they talked through the process to discover the essence of each plant and what it needed to complement and complete it?

  Never again. She was on her own with the cooking now. Val never helped because she didn’t understand what to look for with nose and fingers and an open mind. She had no empathy with plants.

  Not like Mama.

  Oh! Mama. A wave of grief nearly swamped her heart and mind. She had to blink rapidly and swallow deeply to push away the sudden spate of tears.

  “I’ll try the nutmeg, but I think I need to know if what is troubling you is also troubling me.” Linda swept aside the skirts of her pale blue robe and plunked down on the ground cross-legged. Just like any other apprentice. All traces of the former, haughty, fashion-conscious princess had vanished. Though she still maintained her upright posture and impeccable politeness and protocol.

  “My dream is similar to yours, Linda,” Lukan said, angrily clenching his fist and pounding it into his thigh. “I don’t like being manipulated. Samlan left the Circle because he wouldn’t bow to Da’s authority—even though Da kept secrets from him when he shouldn’t.”

  “So what are we going to do about it?” Val asked.

  “We should tell Lord Marcus,” Lily said.

  “He won’t do anything,” Ariiell said on an indelicate snort. “I know him of old. He’ll dither and delay until he has no choice but to take action, often too late.”

  “Maigret knows how to jump into action,” Linda offered.

  “But neither of them will allow any of us to go,” Lukan reminded them. “We’re supposed to hide here and grieve for the next year or two or whatever.”

  “We each have to grieve in our own way and our own time,” Lily said. “Sitting and hiding from the world doesn’t feel right.”

  “Got a bit of itchy feet?” Skeller asked. “Know how that feels. As long as we’re leaving to complete an essential task and not just running away. I’ve done both often enough to know the difference. Running away doesn’t accomplish anything other than delaying th
e inevitable.” He turned his head back to the harp, unwilling to meet the gaze of anyone. His deep thoughts remained hidden.

  Val cocked her head and looked at her sister curiously. Lily felt her twin’s mind seeking her thoughts. Deliberately she cut them off.

  “I won’t stay here any longer than I have to,” Lukan said. Finally his angry clenching relaxed, as if making the decision sent his anger elsewhere.

  “I have to stay,” Linda said. “The University is where I belong at the moment. It is where I need to be. At least until Glenndon opens communications again. I don’t know if my father will call me home to help rebuild or not.”

  “It’s been five days . . .” Lily hesitated lest her constant worry over her brother’s silence bleed over and divert her from this other task.

  Linda shrugged. “All of you . . . go if you must. I won’t say anything until after you’re long gone. But I need to stay here. I also need an end to the nightmares. If this rogue magician taps into the mind of someone more vulnerable than any of us . . .” She stared long and hard at Graciella and Ariiell, knowing who was the most vulnerable among them. “Someone else might not realize they were being manipulated and do precisely what Samlan wants.”

  “We can’t allow that,” Val said.

  Graciella and Ariiell nodded in agreement.

  Linda rose gracefully and retreated, brushing leaf litter from her robe as she walked.

  “That just leaves when and how we leave,” Skeller said, putting his harp into its carrysack with gentle care, as if the instrument was the most precious thing in his life.

  Lily doubted she could ever be more important to him than the harp. And that saddened her.

  “Val, are you rested enough to transport yourself and one other?” Lukan asked.

  “Stargods, yes! People have done nothing but stuff food into me and make me lie down for another nap since we got home. I can take two if I have to.” She looked around the gathering, fixing each of her companions with an assessing gaze, weighing mass and ability in each of them.

  “I know the spell,” Ariiell said.

  “How did you . . .” Lukan protested. He looked ready to jump up and pound something, or someone. “That spell is the Circle’s biggest secret.”

  “I had to show it to her to get Lily and me home,” Val said defensively. “It was necessary.”

  “The dragons can make her forget it when we’re done,” Lily said.

  “I can carry two,” Ariiell continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted. “But I’m not sure I’ll be much use afterward. Sanity is hard work and I get tired of responsibility very quickly.”

  “Do you know the spell, Lukan?” Skeller asked, amusement coloring his voice. Had he learned that wry chuckle from the dragons?

  “Of course! What kind of son of my father would I be if I didn’t eavesdrop and learn things on my own? He’d never teach me anything so I learned to mimic everything and figure it out myself.”

  “When do we do this?” Lily asked. In her mind she organized her pack, and Val’s, with a change of clothes, medicines, bandages, food, waterskins, a cook pot . . . all of the little things necessary for a long journey without a caravan full of supplies to rely on.

  “Midnight,” Val and Lukan said together.

  “Betwixt and between, neither one day nor the other. The time when the world grows quiet and the dragons reign,” Skeller said/sang, composing music as he spoke.

  “The dragons . . . ?” Ariiell looked frightened.

  “The dragons will know what we are doing. But they also know how to keep a secret if they approve,” Lily replied, knowing in her heart that Indigo eavesdropped as they spoke.

  “And will they approve?” Graciella asked, looking more frightened than usual.

  (I am with you always,) Indigo said in the back of Lily’s mind.

  Lily and Val cocked their heads in identical listening poses. “They approve and will watch over us,” they said together.

  “Don’t bet on it,” Lukan grumbled.

  CHAPTER 38

  “S’MURGHIT, WHAT IS that smell?” Mikk gagged, burying his nose and mouth in his sleeve as he stepped into the palace forecourt for the first time in a week. Last night Glenndon and King Darville had agreed that the flood had receded below the base of the palace gates outside. This morning the protective wall of magic had shown signs of breaking down, as water inside the palace began leaking out slowly along the bottom of the bubble.

  But there was still a foot or two of water in the courtyard.

  “That smell is the dead, lingering to remind us of what we have lost,” King Darville said sadly. He lifted his face toward the sky, but he kept his breathing shallow. A gesture sent a dozen men scattering around the walls of the palace and the old keep in search of . . . an end to this disaster.

  But the challenge of rebuilding was daunting. Coronnan would be a long time in recovering.

  “It doesn’t smell much better out here than in there,” Glenndon said, pointing back toward the palace. He looked like he needed to cover his face, as Mikk did. One glance at his father and he endured without protection. But Mikk saw him weave his fingers in a now familiar pattern while his mouth moved, whispering a nonsense rhyme. Within a moment he’d balanced the acids in the air with a base scent similar to clean grass and fresh ocean breezes, achieving a faint smell of freshness in their immediate environs.

  Mikk repeated the small ritual for himself and managed to come up with fresh baking bread. Not sweet like he wanted, but at least enticing rather than hideous.

  The scent of yeast and flour made his stomach growl. Just that little spell ate up the small bit of fuel his scant breakfast of grains and boiled water granted.

  “That smell can’t be healthy and we can’t keep it at bay forever,” Mikk said, peering through a crack between the great double gates. The force of the water had pushed them out of alignment so they couldn’t close completely.

  That brought back the memory of struggling to close the gates between the river and the cistern. He bowed his head and grieved anew for General Marcelle. He wondered if the well had refilled with fresh water seeping through natural filters in the limestone. They could certainly use some fresh water in the palace, for drinking, and cooking. He didn’t think there’d be enough to bathe a thousand people.

  “No, leaving dead people, stranded fish, and rotting plants in the open is not healthy. And we have to do something about it before we can begin the rest of the cleanup,” King Darville replied. He walked over to the gates and gave the sagging one a shove outward. It scraped and groaned against an accumulation of dirt and debris on the outside. “We’ll have to clear this before we can do much of anything.”

  “Part of the obstruction is the remnants of my wall of magic,” Glenndon grumbled. He scanned the walls. “The spell is eroding. But there’s still enough of it intact to keep us from leaving, or communicating with the outside world.”

  “Can you take the remaining wall down now?” King Darville asked, kicking at the debris sifting in through the small opening between the gates. “The river retreats. Much of the city should be accessible, if there’s anything left. I doubt the bridges survived even after collapsing them.”

  Mikk looked at the mess with a bit of trepidation. He really did not want to have to inhale a vast quantity of this foul air to reverse the spell.

  “Mikk and I will take care of that right now, sir,” Glenndon said, grinning wickedly at his cousin.

  Mikk’s heart sank to his belly.

  “It won’t be so bad,” Glenndon slapped him on the back, hard enough to make him stumble.

  “What do you need me to do?” he asked weakly, knowing he had no way out. Every bit of magic he’d read about seemed to demand a price—and he’d read a lot more this last week, combing the archives for reading material when there was not much else to do except wait for the water levels to return to normal.

  “Bring me one cup of fresh water so I can wash the ceremonial table
clean of my marks,” Glenndon replied.

  “I’ll look in the cistern,” Mikk replied and dashed in the direction of the kitchen courtyard and access to the city water supply. He stopped just short of the stout metal doors set deep into a stone shed sticking out from the exterior wall and still part of it. Stinking, squishy mud and rotting grasses and seaweed nearly covered the entire courtyard. He’d have to dig his way through half a foot of the stuff to get to the cistern, then hope none of it had seeped into the water.

  He sighed in regret as he looked about for a tool. Nothing about magic was easy or provided a shortcut without cost.

  “The pump in the kitchen draws water from the cistern,” Glenndon said quietly, coming up behind him.

  “Oh. I thought . . . I hoped . . .”

  “You hoped you’d find General Marcelle alive and lurking down there, safe and sane.” Glenndon clutched Mikk’s shoulder as they shared a moment of grief. “I hoped the same. But I know he couldn’t stagger to the end of the tunnel and climb onto dry land from the river end. Not with a knee so badly damaged he couldn’t climb the palace steps. Nor could he get back to this side of the doors, not if you latched them properly. I know you did. I shared your dream of that final thud of the crossbars dropping into place.”

  “How . . . how could you share my dream?”

  “I’m not sure. As horrible as yours was, it was better than my own nightmare of climbing jagged cliffs with hungry waves lapping at my feet and making the rocks too slick to cling to.” He swallowed deeply and looked up. His free hand trembled.

  “I’ve had that same dream,” Mikk admitted. “I’ve also dreamed of being set adrift in a small boat on a stormy sea and needing rescue. I thought perhaps I was reliving my fears that some of our people took to their boats, hoping to ride out the flood rather than flee.”

  Glenndon froze in place, barely breathing. Then he fixed his penetrating, golden gaze on Mikk. “Did you feel compelled to rush out to rescue one man set adrift?”