The Wandering Dragon (Children of the Dragon Nimbus) (30 page)

“Have you also made progress with the disease?”

“Yes, Mistress. Of those who survived, all but one have shaken off the fever. They rebuild strength, and we’ve changed their medicine to foxglove to maintain a steady heartbeat. We’ll wean them off that drug within a day or two.” Lily said. She sounded more firm and confident than her quivering chin belied. Perhaps a fuzzy image was the best course this time.

“So why have you summoned me?”

“We have a bit of a problem.” Quickly Souska outlined the procedure to cure the last man felled by the Krakatrice fever. “What do we do with it?” She tried not to wail or cry, but that was almost as much effort as maintaining the spell. Maigret’s image wavered in the glass.

“Where is it now?” Maigret demanded. A spark of interest glinted in her eyes, pushing aside some of the signs of her grief and weariness.

“In a triple-covered clay and metal pot beside the midden. We thought the smell of rotting things might mask the smell of rotten magic.”

“Good thinking. But you must put it inside a fourth bowl and cover that as well. If there are any Krakatrice roaming that our hunting teams have not found, the smell will attract them.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Lily replied. Her breathing came easier, and her jaw firmed.

“And . . . I will have to consult with others. Perhaps the dragons know.”

“Mistress Maigret, the dragons do not seem interested in our plight. Krystaal refused my request for food to keep this village from starving once we’d burned the fields to rid the land of the miasma.”

“Oh?”

Souska didn’t know quite how to continue.

“I’m told the dragons are busy elsewhere. Let me consult with the other masters. Stand by your glass an hour after sunset. I should have an answer by then.” The glass went black, then cleared, becoming an inert tool devoid of magic to make it useful.

Souska sat back on her heels and calmed her heartbeat and her breathing. “I have to tell Lukan.”

Lily merely cocked an eyebrow at her. “I’m going to check on Stanil.” She left without another word.

Souska extinguished the candle and lifted the glass free of the water. Then she started the spell again, keeping the image of Lukan firmly in her mind. Light the candle—she had to dip the wick into the hearth embers inside the hut to manage that. Deep concentration, steady breathing, grounding herself in the Kardia until she felt the magnetic pole tug at her back. Then she dropped the tiny shard of glass gently into the water and positioned the candle flame to reflect properly onto the glass and water.

In her mind she followed the flame across hill and vale, helped it leap across the ocean to Amazonia and then watched it search for Lukan.

Nothing.

She found nothing but blackness and the reek of rotten magic.

L
OKEEN SCREAMS AND holds his head in his hands, pressing fingertips into his temple so fiercely I can see his nails drawing blood and bruises spreading. “My babies are dying. All of them. Fire and storm kill them. Where did this catastrophe come from? Oh, my poor babies.”

I prod him impatiently, pretending to soothe him. “Look out the window, my darling. Look across the courtyard to the dungeons. They are whole and strong. Your snakes thrive.”

“What is this waking dream?” he asks, looking bewildered. “So real.”

“You fell asleep and dreamed,” I reply. “Nothing more than your fears preying upon your mind.”

“No. No, no. It is real. My pets here in the castle are restless, disturbed, upset. They need . . . they need blood. Lots and lots of fresh blood.”

“They need more than fresh blood. They need royal blood. Feed them the dwarf. Or your son.”

“Which son?”

“Your choice, they are both useless.”

“Captain, have the guards round up all the followers of Helvess, including Faelle. Send them into the dungeons. Feed them one by one to my babies. Let them know their punishment for their sins of sexual perversion.”

“Yes, Your Majesty!” My captain slams his clenched fist against his heart in eager agreement.

I catch his eye. We will glory for many days in the bloodbath to come.

When my captain is gone, I send Geon to follow and make certain the chore is done correctly. His ruthlessness and loyalty to me are unquestioned. He accepts pain along with sex. My captain would rather give pain. I can foresee a time when he challenges my authority, if not my power.

Robb knew that he dreamed. He drifted through a blacker than black landscape slashed by undulating streams of light. The colors twisted and coiled, entwined, and braided with each other, like berry vines gone wild. A dim green beam that might once have been the color of deep water at the end of the Bay but now dimmed to gray pulsed slowly, laboriously, then rapidly as if in panic, kept circling and circling him. He wanted to reach out and touch it. Every time he tried to grab it with hands that were not really there, it slipped away. Elusive. Taunting.

A bright orange and red coil came closer and closer. It throbbed with anger, trying to beat at him. It too never quite reached him.

“Only a dream,” he told himself. The words echoed in his mind, but not his ears.

(Is it only a dream?)
someone, something, asked. He should know that voice. His memory became as slippery as the green band of light that grew fuzzy along the edges.

“If not a dream, then where am I? Why do I feel nothing, no pain, no fever, no despair? Only loneliness.”

The orange and red streamer brightened and nudged him. He thought of Maigret. A smile blossomed inside his mind that smelled of flowers and herbs and clean laundry drying on a fresh mountain breeze. He felt as if he should reach out and hug the light.

(Where should a magician be when not inside himself?)
the voice asked. It sounded like . . . a lot like Jaylor, but not quite, more like old Baamin, Jaylor’s master and predecessor as head of the University. Someone had told him that Jaylor had died. Brevelan too.

That saddened him greatly, almost as much as the loneliness. Bright orange and red nudged him again.

Maigret. She lived. And so did their two young sons.

The green shed some of the gray and brown that muddied its color. The edges firmed, with only a little fuzz.

(If you can see your own life umbilical, then you have not yet died.)
A new voice, feminine he thought, chimed through his mind like delicate bells made of finest glass. Precious glass that could only be made by dragon fire burning impurities out of the sand.

His mind conjured an image of crystals suspended in the sunlight and shooting prisms in every direction.

“Am I talking to dragons?”

(Who else would speak to you in the void?)
the chuckling female voice asked.

“The void.” His mind went numb. “The void is a transition place between life and death.”

(
Or a resting place when life is too difficult to bear.)
This came from another voice, one he was certain he’d never heard before. A combination of many voices, a marriage of male and female, young and old, soprano, alto, tenor, and bass all braided together. He thought of slender grapevines woven into bridal crowns.

“I’m not afraid to die. But I would like to see my Maigret and our sons one more time.”

(Is that what you desire most in the universe?)

“Yes.” If he had a body, he thought he’d cry, cry for all the lost moments of love for his wife and children.

(Then live. But you must choose to fight hard to regain your life and health. Death is the easy course. Life is difficult
.
)

“But to live is to love. Death is a . . . a void.”

(Then choose love and fight for it.)

The vines of light dimmed. The blackness eased.

Pain engulfed every muscle and joint in his body. He nearly wept for joy that the grinding aches and stabs meant he lived. He had a chance to see Maigret again. And the boys.

More sensations intruded on his awareness. Candlelight brushed his closed eyes. A soft mattress beneath him. A warm blanket covered him. Coolness touched his face.

And his staff rested beneath his left hand while his right cradled his glass.

He lived and he had the tools to become whole again.

“Great Mother bless you,” Lady Maria gasped. “The fever has broken and your heart beats a normal rhythm.”

Maria tended his illness. Not Maigret. Sadness and loneliness engulfed him once more.

But he lived. He had a chance to go home. But he had to fight for it. The dragons said he had to fight.

If it took every morsel of his strength and will, he would fight to go home again to his family.

What is wrong with Lokeen? He seems complacent, eager to fall into my spells and obey my slightest whim. Like when I asked for the lives of the dwarf and his son. And then, when most inconvenient, he defies me. The two people who stand in my way still live. He won’t even arrest them. It is as if he breaks holes through the bubble of love and lust I weave around him.

He promised me the lives of the followers of Helvess. I could not bend them to my will, so I will use the energy of their miserable deaths to fuel my power. Lokeen’s guilt over the execution of his son will also lend me power.

But what is this? The temple is empty! All of the outcasts have fled, melted into the populace of the city. Nowhere to be found. Power drains from me in disappointment.

A doubt wiggles into my mind. Did Geon move ahead of my captain and warn them?

No. Impossible. He is not talented enough. But he is smart enough to go his own way without telling me. I must watch the watcher.

I feel as if I am an apprentice again, a raw beginner who must learn every spell by rote and then bend my will to make them work. The lash of a whip does not stir Lokeen. A kiss lulls his obstinacy but does not break it.

So while he sits at his desk and reads reports and letters, while he signs his name and seals it with hot, sea-green wax, I watch quietly from across the room. I choose a straight and hard chair for this chore. I do not want comfort. I want a constant reminder of what I am about. Geon stands behind me. My captain stands beside Lokeen. Bette drifts around the room in seemingly lazy circles, widdershins, pretending to bring order to the chaotic room. She arranges scrolls into new patterns, then scatters them. She dusts a piece of furniture then blows on the rag, sending minute bits fluttering around the room to find new resting places.

All this touches the edge of my awareness. I lean forward, perched on the edge of my chair, relishing the crease in my bottom and the ache in my lower back. These small pains aid in my concentration. As my eyes cross and lose focus, I look inward until the world dims and tilts. Then the object of my inspection jumps into clear view, an island of bright reality in a gray world that has no meaning.

Lokeen has no aura!

Why?

I can see my magic woven around him in tiny threads of red magic. Black holes mar the beauty of my carefully constructed tapestry. The weaving is complete. I did not leave those holes. The ripped threads of enscorcelment dangle weakly around the holes. Inside the holes.

If Lokeen had broken through my spells the threads would have burst outward.

They collapsed inward from a mighty thrust.

Wait! The loose threads are not rigid, they soften and unravel as I watch. They bleed black sludge. They
BLEED
! Some other magician has tainted my magic. Someone stronger than me has a tighter control over Lokeen than I.

I must learn who. Quickly. I must bring him—the holes have a feeling of masculine precision rather than feminine rage—into my coven. I must learn his secrets. I will be the strongest magician in Amazonia. Anyone stronger must be absorbed or eliminated.

I am in the mood for elimination. A bloody execution will give me power and remove my rival
.

If I were a follower of Helvess, where would I hide
?

Lukan swam upward through thick layers of sleep. He knew he had slept and awakened numerous times. He knew he had dreamed. Which was the dream and which memory?

A chill invaded his joints. Moisture dripped down his face. He must be awake. He’d never dreamed rain before. But he’d slept under weeping skies often enough. Then a deep ache from hip to toes and back again on his left leg crept into his awareness. He needed to shift his hips, roll over, flex the knee; move something to relieve the pain that grew sharper with every heartbeat.

“No.” A heavy hand squeezed his shoulder. “You have to remain still a little longer.”

“Wha . . . ?” His voice cracked and cut off. Had he truly swallowed a bucket of desert dust, or did he merely need water? His tongue flicked across his lips involuntarily. Dry. Rough and flaking. He encountered an irregular protrusion that tasted like . . . like copper.

Blood.

Even as he acknowledged the bruise where he’d bitten deep and drawn blood, he noticed the soft drizzle dissolving the dried blood and soothing his parched mouth.

“You’ve had a fever,” Chess said. He sounded far away, then close, and then far away again. His voice wavered with uncertainty.

“What happened?” Lukan ground out. His voice caught twice while uttering two words, but he got them out.

“You killed the snake. It bit you during the death throes.”

“I remember that. Not after.” He swallowed, fighting to get moisture into his mouth and throat. Nothing worked. In the end he left his tongue hanging out and let the drizzle coat it.

“Gerta and Juan carried you to the knoll where we left the steeds. They returned to the city. He looks for a way to return home to Coronnan and report to Glenndon and Marcus. She said she’d be missed,” Chess said in an even tone. The boy shifted from behind Lukan to kneel beside him. Worry lines had turned him from the inquisitive boy, just touching his teens when he left the University, to a wizened creature Lukan couldn’t identify.