The Broken Dragon: Children of the Dragon Nimbus #2 (22 page)

Her will and fierce concentration kept the fire alive with the essence of its primary element.

“Rejiia and Krej could easily eavesdrop on the conversation if I tried to summon someone. Or interfere and make me do things they wanted but I didn’t while I thought I talked to my father,” Ariiell admitted, also wrinkling her nose at the disgusting odor.

“Now I’m glad I never spoke to him. He’d have only sold me to someone else earlier . . . before . . . before I had your help. Remind me to thank you when this is over.”

Val stored that bit of information, not having the time or attention it deserved. Right now she needed to get through to Da.

At last the colors in the glass swirled, folding her purple tones in with Da’s braid until they were all mixed up, indistinguishable one from the other. That shouldn’t happen.

Then the colors dissolved, bleeding out of the glass into the water that supported them.

Surprise at this oddity overcame her cautious routine. The magic broke loose from the spell and backlashed while she was still pushing new power into the summons.

Lightning ripped across the skies, grabbing hold of her magic and sending it flashing through the enclosed litter, burning and savaging everything in its path.

Light and pain penetrated her mind through her temples, all the colors swirled into one white blinding flash of lightning.

“Valeria!” Lady Ariiell screamed. “Don’t you dare pass out and leave me to the mercy of this storm and my enemies.”

(S
AVE OUR BOY
!)
old Baamin’s dragon voice echoed again and again in Jaylor’s mind.

“When did he become your boy?” he shouted back. Slowly, he swept his staff before him in search of obstacles that might stand between him and the path to the University. Souska had insisted she couldn’t leave Brevelan, even for a few moments, let alone long enough to walk the half mile to the University and back again.

(
You know
,)
replied the man who had commanded the University from Jaylor’s earliest days as an apprentice. The man who had personally handed Jaylor the position of Chancellor of the University and Senior Magician upon his deathbed, and then sent his spirit off to become a dragon, to live out his destiny. A destiny foreseen only by dragons.

The words beat a path inside Jaylor’s mind, much as his feet beat one through the underbrush of the forest. “Glenndon was conceived in the void.”

A sense of agreement in the back of his head.

He flew back in memory to the night he’d experimented for the first time with leaves of the Tambootie tree. No one had written about the essential oil in the leaves that boosted one’s perceptions, one’s magical talent, and one’s sense of invulnerability. He’d eaten too much and crossed into the void, the true realm of dragons, without knowing how or where, or anything more than the wonder of finding hundreds of colored umbilicals that represented the life spirit of everyone he’d ever known, alive and dead.

Darville and Brevelan had thought him dead and sought comfort together. Their love for each other and for Jaylor had reached out into the void and found him, returned him to his body.

In the wondrous aftermath, none of them, except perhaps the dragons, knew who had fathered the child Brevelan carried. At the time they didn’t need to know. As the baby grew it became obvious. His coloring, his build, even his speech patterns, telepathic as they were, mimicked his true father.

But his magical talent surpassed all expectations. That had always given Jaylor hope that some small piece of himself had become a part of the boy. Brevelan had a strong talent rooted in the Kardia. Her affinity with plants and animals was often overlooked as a magical gift. King Darville, Jaylor’s best friend and comrade in mischief, had a touch of talent, but only a touch, just enough to allow the Coraurlia, the glass crown given by the dragons to the rightful kings of Coronnan, to recognize him.

Where had Glenndon’s talent come from?

“The void. The dragons gave him what he would need at the moment of conception,” he whispered. Yes, Glenndon was as much their boy as Darville’s. Or Jaylor’s. They all claimed a piece of him.

(
You finally figured it out
,)
Baamin admonished him, much as he had when Jaylor finally threw a spell correctly during his apprentice years.
(
About time. Now what are we going to do about our boy
?)

“Whatever we have to.” Jaylor set his steps more firmly and promptly stumbled over a stump. He wasn’t on the path. “Linda!” he roared. “Linda, I need your help.” He hated admitting it. He felt small and useless needing a child to guide him.

Then he remembered Linda had returned to the University for her scheduled classes.

“Lukan!” Maybe the boy was lurking around home. He’d taken off again the moment Maigret had proclaimed Brevelan stable and in need of sleep. No one had seen much of him since . . . since Jaylor had gone blind. “Lukan, I need you,” he said more softly. Contritely. He really needed to reconcile with the boy.

“Lukan’s gone,” a small voice said to his left. “Let me help.” Sharl slipped her tiny hand into his and nudged him half a step the right.

Amazing that she sounded so calm with her mother ill and in bed. Had anyone looked after her and Jule since Brevelan collapsed?

“Mistress Maigret told me to take Jule to play with her boys. She didn’t say I shouldn’t come back to help you,” she said. A little uncertainty crept into her voice. Jaylor held her hand tight.

He shouldn’t be surprised that she had understood his thoughts, even though he hadn’t spoken. She was his daughter after all. “Thank you, Sharl. You are a big help.” He moved another step in the direction she indicated.

Immediately he felt the difference in the ground through the soles of his boots. The dirt on the path had been packed hard and solid by the passage of feet over the years. Off the path he felt only the softness of broken saber ferns and composted leaf litter. He tapped his staff on the path, memorizing the vibration through the wood to his hand. Then he tapped off the path and felt the tip sink in a bit.

“Thank you, Sharl,” he repeated. He allowed his little girl to guide him even though he now felt more confident that he could manage on his own.

Like combining and throwing dragon magic, he had more power to negotiate the forest with help.

In that instant he understood the source of the storm that caused the dragons so much agitation, felt the wall of clouds, permeated with magic and every drop of moisture they could gather. The rogue magician who manipulated air and water like child’s toys had a dragon bone, like the one in Glenndon’s staff. Only it was a big bone, possibly a shoulder or thigh, or an entire leg bone, and he used it to hold all the magic he and his circle—probably standing in a half circle to contain the back edge of the storm—could gather. With a storage place for the power, the rogue and his companions could do much, much more than just throw wind and rain.

The enemy controlled all four elements, combined them, and inflicted massive destruction well beyond his reach.

“Stargods! Lily and Val are in as much danger as Glenndon.”

He paused to gulp back his trepidation.

“It’s okay, Da. You’ll figure it out,” Sharl reassured him.

The faith of a child. Her faith in him strengthened his wavering courage. He couldn’t fail. He had to save the twins and Glenndon for their own sakes, his own, and their mother’s. But he also couldn’t fail because a six-year-old had faith in him.

“Baamin, I’m going to need some help. Bring every dragon to the University.”

(Not enough room.)

“Then perch on the roofs and in the trees. We’ve got work to do. A lot of hard work.”

Wet. Soaking wet. Wet running off his face, down his neck . . .

Glenndon blinked to clear his eyes. Gloom lay thick among the shadowed trees. Silhouettes wavered and blurred. He took a cautious breath to make sure he wasn’t underwater.

Memories of Lucjemm trying to drown him in a pit on Sacred Isle pressed against the logic of knowing he’d survived that incident with the help of a Tambootie tree and his staff.

“My staff?” he croaked out.

“Beside . . . you . . . sir,” Frank said gruffly, back to him. He drew a deep breath between each word.

The wet continued to soak Glenndon to the skin, chilling him to the bone. His teeth began to chatter.

“Almost there, sir,” Keerkin reassured him. He too seemed to be working very hard to breathe around his words.

Glenndon remembered to look for his staff. Beside him. Where was he and . . . His hand found the rain-slick knob at the top of the length of twisting wood. He found the three smooth circles that had been the anchor point of twigs. Then his fingers reached down and around. The straight dragon bone embedded in the wood felt warm and reassuring and . . . dry.

Dry? In all this wet? The swaying edges of the trees began to make a little sense. If his men carried him. But he swayed, rather than bounced.

“Found it!” Keerkin crowed. “Fox den in an old tree, burned nearly hollow at the base.” He jerked his head to the right.

Frank angled that way. In five heartbeats—Glenndon counted them, not able to decide what else to do—he found himself lowered to the ground and rolled up against a tree trunk, facedown. His right arm stretched farther than it should if he was against a solid tree.

Wiggling his fingers, he found a crumbling edge to a triangular opening. A fast-moving fire, long ago, must have damaged the tree, scorching the bark. Over the years the tree rotted behind the damage but continued to grow upward, healing and compensating for the hole.

“Anybody home in there?” Frank yelled, beating against the trunk with a rock.

Something small and furry scurried over Glenndon’s fingers and exited. A small rodent had taken up lodging. Nothing as big as a fox.

“Can you get inside, sir?” Keerkin asked, neatly folding a blanket. The blanket the men must have carried Glenndon on.

“Where did you get a blanket?” Glenndon’s mind was still as fuzzy as his eyesight.

“I’ve gotten to know you, sir, over these past few months. When you say your errands will take a couple of hours at most, something always happens and we’re gone most of a day. Or night. Never fails. My da says your father was the same way. Your da . . . um . . . Lord Jaylor too, for that matter. I always have extra food, water, blankets, and bandages in my pack.”

“Always?”

“Always. Even for a trip to Market Isle. Now crawl in there and feel around. Should be big enough to shelter all of us if you don’t mind rather close quarters.”

“If it will get us out of this rain, I don’t mind.” Glenndon reached around the opening. At least four feet high and five across. Must have been a bad fire. Then he leveraged himself to his knees and crawled forward. His shoulders cleared the edges. Three more cautious knee-steps forward before his head brushed something semisolid. A shift of balance and his left hand was free of the soft nest of rotting wood, shed fur, and decaying leaves. Stretching it forward, he encountered a layer of spiderwebs before reaching solid wood. The tree was huge. Not unusual on Sacred Isle, where the trees were considered holy and no one dared disturb them, except journeymen magicians on quest for a staff or priests performing arcane rituals.

He turned and sat with his back against the charred wood. Only a faint hint of smoke reached his nose. He brushed away a layer of wet from his face and banished the smell. Only an echo of memory from the tree.

“Come on in. Nice and cozy,” he called, drawing his knees up to his chest to make room for his companions.

His head ached and his eyes didn’t want to focus. Something about a tree splitting after a lightning strike . . .

He felt around the back of his head. His skull ached before he encountered a thick knot. His hair seemed stuck in the mess. Just touching his barely retained queue sent needle pricks all over his scalp.

“Um . . . Frank? About those bandages . . .” He felt the two men crawling in beside him, one on each side. He didn’t care which was where, only that their combined body heat lessened the chill threatening to invade his bones.

“Later. We need to figure this out, sir.”

“Figure what out? It’s a storm. A bad one,” Glenndon dismissed it. That didn’t sound quite right. If only his eyes would focus properly.

The inside of the tree was darker than the gloom outside. He could barely see outlines and the opening in the tree.

“A storm fueled by magic, sir,” Keerkin said quietly, as if afraid to venture an opinion.

Memories flooded back into Glenndon. He gasped as he relived the oppressive weight to the air, the irritation of every sensitive spot on his body, and the ugly copper color of the cloud underbelly. Copper shaded with sulfur.

“How bad is it?” he asked, wondering how long he’d been unconscious.

“The river is receding,” Frank said flatly.

“That’s good.”

“There’s an awful lot of water coming down.” Keerkin’s voice sounded as if he’d turned his head away from the conversation.

“And the tide was still coming in . . .” Frank sounded as if he wanted to say more but something held him back.

“The river was rising when we beached,” Glenndon countered them.

“Now it’s not.”

“What does that mean?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“Storm surge,” Frank said. He sounded firm, as if there were no other explanation. He knew the river better than Glenndon or Keerkin. He’d grown up in the city with all its tales and lore.

“Explain,” Glenndon demanded.

“The eye of the storm is still offshore, gathering energy.”

“Gathering water,” Glenndon finished for him. “Pulling water from the Bay and the river.”

“Aye.”

“And when it has gathered enough and moves toward us?”

“It will release that extra water in one gush.”

Glenndon closed his eyes and gulped. He did not want to visualize a wall of water engulfing the city, drowning the islands. Washing away thousands of people. The king and queen, his half sisters. His family!

“How big?” he finally whispered.

“Don’t know, sir. Stories tell of a time before the covenant with dragons and Quinnault became king with his foreign wife, Katie. A battlemage had lost a battle he should have won. He was angry. Wanted revenge. He conjured a storm.”

“Like this one?”

“Maybe. No one knows for sure. The rain fell for days and days. People moved to the mainland or the bigger islands with some height to them. It wasn’t enough. When the surge came it wiped out everything. People, buildings, animals, everything. When the water receded—in almost as big a gush as it came in—the only things left standing were the old keep and the monastery that became the University.”