The Broken Dragon: Children of the Dragon Nimbus #2 (34 page)

L
UKAN WOUND HIS
way through a cluttered storeroom. Nothing neat and organized here, a clear sign of neglect by the lord and lady. He kept his glowball small, illuminating only a small puddle of light around his feet so he didn’t trip over a sack of tubers or a leaning barrel of salted meat.

His nose itched. He swiped at it with his shirtsleeve.

“The flour is rotting,” Ariiell whispered, half a step behind him. “What kind of reception do they expect to put on for Lady Graciella’s return?” She seemed angry, not just annoyed.

“More than rotting flour and overripe red fruit,” he whispered back. “Magic.” Ley line magic that smelled faintly of earth and ocean, flowers, and tall trees. Dragon magic smelled sharp and aromatic, exotic in comparison. He looked around for a source of the power.

Tiny trickles of silvery blue led inward. They combined into a barely solid line against a wall. A glimmer of light showed around a doorway. The line crept under it. Losing potency in an effort to follow the stones rather than sink through them into the land beneath.

A trapped line, then, not a natural one.

Lukan doused his glowball and pressed his ear against the wooden panels. Ariiell did the same, pressing her body close to him from behind.

He gulped as her musky scent filled his senses and blotted out all thought.

“Concentrate, you idiot. I’m not going to seduce you here and now. Though I might consider it later.” The latter came out on a chuckle.

Lukan’s face heated almost to burning the roots of his hair. He was grateful for the darkness so she couldn’t see his embarrassment.

“Listen!” she hissed.

“We need another day of dry before you bring in the first hay,” a man said in educated tones.

“In time for the Solstice celebration. We’ll erect a Festival Pylon and dance, as we did in ancient times.” A woman’s husky tones sent enticing shivers up Lukan’s spine.

Behind him, Ariiell went rigid.

Her wary alertness told Lukan more than he wanted to know. Krej and Rejiia spoke in the next room.

“Who else is with them?”

“Kitchen staff of three, and five villagers,” Ariiell whispered directly into his ear. “Elder retainers who remember him from the old times.”

How did she know? She must have counted heartbeats. That was something journeymen learned in the first few weeks after promotion.

Lukan forced his hearing deeper, consciously blocking the everyday sounds of words, clothing rustling, fire crackling, scuffing of restless feet. Deeper yet.

Ka-thump thump. One heart. Strong and confident. Krej. He found its rhythm and banished it from his mind. Three more hearts sounded in his mind, pounding different beats. One too fast—he thought that was excitable Rejiia—another slow and steady, listening and noncommittal, the other faint, as if it was somehow muffled or the owner stood apart from the others across the room.

He had to fight to find the rest. But find them he did, and agreed with Ariiell’s assessment.

Now what?
he asked.

We wait. And listen. Until they are alone
.

Sound advice. Mama and Da would have said the same.

Krej issued a few more orders about the crops. Then a stool scraped across the stone floor. More foot shuffles.

Lukan felt a lessening of the pressure against his deep hearing before he heard doors opening and closing.

At last.

“Now, my dear, we have rested, eaten our fill, bathed, and attired ourselves in appropriate clothes. The time has come to plan our next move,” Krej said.

“And what is that, dear Papa?” Rejiia spat.

Trouble between them?
he asked Ariiell.

Always. We can take advantage of that
.

Graciella led Skeller, Lily, and Val through six cellars, each a step lower than the previous one. Skeller recognized casks and barrels bearing the seals of Amazonia, Venez, and SeLennicca burned into the staves. The first room contained dry goods, flour, salt, and sugar. The next held barrels of dried fruit, then hanging meat, heavily salted to preserve it, then wine casks. The last two rooms remained empty, too damp to store anything without risking heavy mold and rot.

Amazonia didn’t have tall mountains and jagged cliffs near the sea. His mother’s castle sat atop an artificial hill overlooking the vast plains to the east and the seaport to the west, so tunnels were not common to him. Fascinating. He wanted to linger and examine the stonework and chisel marks. He couldn’t. A mission awaited him. One he didn’t want to think about, but had to.

He fingered the long knife sheathed at his belt. Would killing a man
feel
different from hunting animals for food? He’d given up the latter as he’d given up so much inherent to daily life in Amazonia. He gratefully joined Lily in her meatless diet because the thought of killing anything turned his stomach now.

He’d never taken the life of another
person
.

He pondered the various strengths of his companions. Graciella appeared vague and incapable of making a decision. But she harbored a lot of anger and fear. Val, though slight of build and often sickly, revealed whipcord-lean muscle and fierce determination. She also had a formidable magical talent, or so everyone told him. Then there was Lily. His gentle, nurturing, empathic Lily.

She had to know his trepidation. She had to feel his determination to do what had to be done.

Skeller lifted a heavy crossbar from the last door in their path. Sound and the scent of the sea washed over him the moment he pushed the door outward. He followed the muted boom of the surf, magnified by the twisted natural cavern. His nose told him that salt air awaited them only a few yards away. One more turn and they would face the enemy.

The man he had to kill.

Lily reached for his hand and squeezed. She gave him a weak smile of encouragement. He was a prince, trained for battle long before he cast away his heritage and embraced music. He could do this. He had to do this. It was his duty to the world, to himself, and to Lily.

The dragons have deserted me. I see them flying between large white clouds toward the city. I hear their belling calls. But their magic stops short of me and my little boat. I can no longer gather their magic.

I feel as if the special organ behind my heart, where I store the energy I gather from them, has shriveled into a desiccated, hard-shelled nut. Did I use too much of myself in creating the storm?

I do not think so. I am offended that the dragons give their magic to my enemies but not to me. They do not understand and appreciate what I have done for them. I have brought the Circle of Master Magicians back to the glory days without the manipulation and interference and changes implemented by Jaylor.

Women at the University! Legalizing ley line magic! Younger men ruling when older, more experienced masters are cast aside, ignored, and kept in ignorance of facts. That is what Jaylor brought.

I will restore the Circle to the basics of the covenant with dragons. I have restored Coronnan by wiping away the corruption of my enemy.

And still the dragons withhold their magic from me.

Very well. I can survive without their blessing. In time they will recognize the rightness of my actions. For now I will use the ley lines I espy on the strand to bring me and my boat to safety.

I can see a nice one running parallel to the shore. I pull on it through the medium of the water and the boat. The soles of my feet tingle with power. The energy moves upward to my heart and my mind.

The magic gives me full vision above and below the water. I see the route through the deadly rocks. The land and my minions await my return
.

“I
NEED TO
flex my magical muscle,” Krej said as he left the kitchen area. “A summoning spell I believe is what we need.”

“What we need is to grab Jaylor’s daughters and find out what is happening in the capital,” Rejiia insisted.

Lukan put his hand on the door latch to follow them.

“Wait,” Ariiell whispered, placing a hand on top of his. Then she waved an intricate design with her fingers and touched the doorjamb, the hinges, the iron strips binding the door planks together, and then finally the latch. Her face paled, and she bit her lip. Sweat dotted her brow.

She had little magical stamina after sixteen years alone in her tower.

How much strength had Krej regained after those same sixteen years locked in the body of a tin weasel?

A plan began to form in the back of Lukan’s brain. If he could push the two rogue magicians to overextend their strength, become vulnerable . . . he could . . . What? What could he do? He wasn’t even an official journeyman yet. What skills and spells could he bring to the battle?

Ariiell cut short his musing by pushing gently on the door. It eased open silently even though a bit of rust tinged the hinges.

A quick assessment showed the kitchen empty. The hearth had been banked, and the workers had gone off to other tasks. The room was huge, taking up the entire undercroft of the hall above. A cook could roast an entire ox over the hearth. A leather treadmill on wheels would turn the spit when two boys walked on it.

Wheels
!
Lukan had never actually seen one, though he’d read about them in some of the oldest writings in the library. He wanted to kneel down and examine them minutely, figure out why the Stargods forbade them.

But he didn’t have time. Not now anyway. Later maybe.

His mind turned to the task at hand. “If Krej used wheels in the kitchen, what other things did he do within the castle that the Stargods forbade?”

“He turned living creatures into statues,” Ariiell said hesitantly. Then her words gained steadiness and verve as she let her anger build. “The creatures lived inside their frozen sculptures, still aware, but unable to move. More than once he bragged how he held Shayla, the dragon matriarch, captive.”

“That is why the dragons left Coronnan,” Lukan affirmed. He turned toward the narrow staircase that twisted upward into the hall, Ariiell close on his heels.

Twenty steps up, without a landing, the air grew fresher, his sense of space around him opened. He encountered a leather curtain. Beyond he heard nothing.

Ariiell stopped short.
Heartbeats
,
she reminded him.

Lukan focused his hearing once more.
Two
, he mouthed, holding up two fingers.

Ariiell nodded. Then she pointed straight forward with one finger. Her other hand fluttered around.

Krej was still, Rejiia pacing.

“The ley lines are disrupted. I can’t get the candle to reflect in the water,” Krej complained.

A summoning spell. Lukan’s gut grew cold. He couldn’t allow Krej to find out yet about the chaos in the city and the disruption at the University. He’d take advantage of the crisis to regain control of the government and the Circle.

They needed time to recover.

“What about the dragons?” Rejiia asked. Her voice faded as she moved farther away.

“Nothing! Are you certain this glass is pure?” He kicked something, perhaps a chair or table leg.

“It was your spare glass, hidden in the secret recess in the inglenook. You took it out yourself and examined it.” Her voice rose again, with strong emotion as well as proximity.

She’s still ruled by the cat
, Lukan thought.

Dangerous. Cats are unpredictable
, Ariiell agreed.

Lukan smiled as he readied an old trick. A prank he used to play on Glenndon when they were little.

A pump in the kitchen below. He found the mass of metal in his mind and followed it. Iron pipes led down into a cistern. And
up
. He had water in the alcove on the exterior wall, across from the massive fireplace on the interior wall.

I need to see where she is.

Ariiell pushed the leather curtain aside three finger-widths without disturbing the rings and rod that suspended it.

Lukan prepared himself, watched and waited . . . waited . . . He had to be as patient as when he watched and waited for Glenndon to tread across the right part of the path near the creek.

Rejiia, tall and proud, with a fabulous mane of black hair streaked with blazing white from left temple to the ends near her knees, looked . . . far too young to have spent sixteen years trapped in a cat body. Twenty-five, he guessed. No more. How?

Krej, though, looked old, stooped and slowed by a joint disease that twisted his fingers. Older than he should look; ancient instead of late middle age.

Something had gone amiss during the restoration spell. As if Rejiia had shoved some of her real age onto her father.

If she could do that, then . . . a truly formidable sorceress stalked across the far side of the hall, came to the center to peer over Krej’s shoulder, then marched toward the mantel. “Your candle is too short,” she said succinctly. “It’s not reflecting properly. You are rusty, old man.”

She moved again, unable to sit still. Like a cat twitching its tail. Two more steps. He needed her to move two more steps . . .

And he pulled.

Water responded, spouting out of a gilded faucet into a shallow basin. He pulled harder. More water. It moved too fast to settle into the bowl and bounced up, showering Rejiia with a steady stream.

She screamed and ran toward the main entrance as if fire burned her. She had to escape. Now! She covered her head with her hands, dodging drops that became streams seeking her specificially.

Lukan pulled more water through the pipes and sent it showering across the room to drench Krej’s white hair.

Rejiia’s emotions flooded the room, nearly sending Lukan scurrying back to the kitchen.

Krej paused only half a heartbeat before following her, ducking and hunching his shoulders against the assault of water.

“They aren’t too separate from their animal selves,” Ariiell chuckled.

“I’m guessing they learned to react together for self-preservation,” Lukan admitted. He walked cautiously toward the tall table in the center of the room, keeping an eye on the main entrance. The door remained open and untended, creaking in the constant sea breeze.

Resolutely, he picked up the palm-sized glass circle edged in silver from the basin of water. A journeyman’s tool. “I’m a journeyman now. I claim this as my right.” Deftly he wiped it dry on the cloth clumped nearby, then wrapped it in a neatly folded square of silk.

“Can we go back to your sisters now?” Ariiell asked anxiously. “I’m feeling a need to stomp and throw things and screech uncontrollably.”

“Hang onto your sanity a few more moments. I think we need to walk out the front entrance and around by the village, make sure Krej and Rejiia aren’t coming back for a bit. They need to run until panic gives way to logic again. The old Krej would never have left the room. How long now?” He offered her his arm and escorted her from the ancient and gloomy castle.

“There is no other way?” Lily asked her companions. She watched the waves beyond the treacherous jutting rocks in the cove. Just after low tide, the rocky strand was bigger than she had envisioned, stretching a mile or more between headlands. The mouth of the natural cave that led to the castle cellars was well above normal high tide lines. On the ocean side of the promontory, she saw little evidence of the storm and flood.

All of the rain and surging waves had gone directly into the Bay and up the River Coronnan.

Just beyond the tallest of the jagged spires a sailboat tacked back and forth, waiting for the tide to turn and begin to fill the cove once more.

She saw a single man sitting at the tiller, manipulating both rudder and sails with magic instead of hands.

Samlan. The man who had destroyed a large portion of Coronnan with his vengeful ambition. The man who had caused both of her parents to die.

“We agreed,” Val replied.

“This is something the Circle of Masters should be doing,” Lily replied, trying to find a different path.

Only one path remained, and Samlan turned his boat onto it.

“The Circle has other tasks,” Skeller said gently, squeezing her shoulder. His other hand fingered the pommel of his dagger.

Lily knew the keenness of that blade. When she’d first met Skeller she’d watched him skin a rabbit with it in a few quick slashes; as efficient as Mistress Maigret or Val.

Since that time, Skeller had given up eating meat. He’d shared her distaste for taking a life. Any life. Val still ate meat. Val didn’t share the pain and terror of the victim—large or small—that Lily did. That was a talent, or a curse, she’d inherited from their mother.

But Skeller’s knife remained sharp, the blade straight and true.

“Samlan sent the Krakatrice eggs to Ariiell’s father, knowing they would wreak more destruction when they hatched,” Graciella said, coming out of her vacant state for a moment. “He restored Krej and Rejiia to their natural forms. This castle once belonged to them. They used this cove for executions. Horrible executions.” She shuddered, then set her chin in determination.

“The Circle uses every magician they can find to fight off the Krakatrice and to rebuild the city,” Val continued. “We are the only ones left.”

“Lukan . . . ?”

“Is searching the castle, making sure Krej and Rejiia don’t sneak up on us,” Val reminded her.

The sailboat wove a convoluted path among the rocks. As Lily watched, the boat keeled over, mast almost touching the waves to avoid a rock that would rip the hull to shreds. Then it righted and continued forward. Samlan seemed calm and assured. He touched the waves and rocks with the tip of his staff to aid his navigation through the maze of obstacles, both obvious and submerged.

“He’s powerful,” Val stated. “Can you feel the magic he’s using to guide him in?”

“I don’t have to,” Lily said flatly.

“He’s exhausting himself,” Graciella added. “See how he falters beside Traitor’s Rock?”

“I see.” Val raised her hands, fingers pointing directly at the boat. She walked toward the incoming waves and adjusted her feet for better contact with the ley lines within the Kardia. Her eyes closed and her brow furrowed in a deep frown as she pushed her magic out toward the boat, the water, and that viciously sharp rock.

Her aura spiked bright purple slashed with red. She used a huge amount of energy.

Samlan responded with a stronger push with his staff against the rock, forcing his boat away from the knife-like protrusions. But he overcompensated into another rock, just as sharp above and below the water.

They all heard the crash and boom of the surf, the groan of sundered wood as the hull scraped stone.

The boat rocked violently, sinking rapidly.

Samlan scrambled to keep it afloat as long as possible, shedding mast and sail, using his staff to fend off more rocks. He lost his balance and toppled into the water, still holding his staff.

He bobbed to the surface, gasped and sank again. The staff floated. He clutched it desperately.

“Is the staff straightening back to its original grain?” Lily asked no one in particular.

Beside her, Skeller shrugged. Graciella didn’t seem to hear and Val was too engrossed in her repulsion spell to pay attention.

Lily held her breath, hoping, praying that the relentless tide and the punishing rocks would do their work.

Val kept pushing, crashing the boat, pulling the ferocious waves inward. She sagged with fatigue. Color drained from her face while her aura deepened.

Lily reached to hold her twin upright and feed her strength. Graciella and Skeller beat her to it.

Val dropped her hands, unable to sustain her battle with wind and waves.

Samlan rode a wave ashore. He landed on the pebble-strewn beach facedown, feet still in the water. The next wave tugged at his shirt and trews, but did not reach far enough to drag him backward, or drown him.

Slowly he lifted his body, bracing on hands and knees, head hanging lower.

He crawled forward three paces and collapsed again. “Help me!” He reached forward a plaintive hand, lifting his head, and stared sharply at the companions. His gaze burned deep inside, compelling Lily . . . to come to him, to carry him to safety.

She had to obey. Her hands and feet moved without her willing them. And yet . . .