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Authors: Irene Radford

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BOOK: The Wizard's Treasure (The Dragon Nimbus)
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Prayers complete, she searched for traces of Marcus’ magician-blue tunic, trews, and sash. She suspected the color matched his eyes exactly. Robb on the other hand, with dark, hooded eyes that brooded mysteriously, favored black for all but his identifying tunic and cloak.
She worried about him. He hadn’t accepted his transition to ghosthood with Marcus’ good humor and optimism.
“Over here, Vareena,” Marcus called to her.
Without seeing him, she sensed the smile behind his voice. Her own lips curved upward in response. He told wonderfully funny accounts of their journeys. He made her laugh when her life seemed so hopeless. She searched the curtain wall on the other side of the gatehouse tower for signs of his vague outline.
“No, I’m over here by the well,” Marcus called again.
Vareena turned toward the stone circle that enclosed the pool of water. It had once provided for over one hundred men. Now it served only two. She trusted Marcus to direct her correctly. She’d never had a ghost trick her. Or lie to her—unlike the people of her village.
“I brought you breakfast,” she said to the air, hoping she directed her words in the proper direction. She’d waited four days to come back. Ghosts never needed to eat more than once or twice a week.
“Thanks, I’m hungry.” The trencher of bread and cheese covered by a plain linen cloth floated from her hands. Ghosts could touch inanimate objects in this world, but not a living being. Life energies generated a barrier that repelled ghosts from humans and humans from ghosts.
“Did anyone ever tell you how beautiful you are, Vareena?” Marcus asked. “I would compose poetry to you, but you defy the limitation of words.”
She dismissed his admiration. Other ghosts had told her as much. They had no one else to speak to, share their thoughts with, or pass the idle hours. Of course they fell in love with her, or her mother before her, or her grandmother before that.
If she were as beautiful as they claimed, then some normal man would have claimed her as his wife by now.
Nothing could come of Marcus’ flirtations. These men were ghosts, after all. And she must cater to them until they died. Quite likely these two could last for the rest of her life rather than a bare two years.
“Step into shadows, so I can see you, please.” She continued to search the area around the well for some trace of distorted light or a wisp of mist.
There! The outline of Robb, the dark and brooding one, materialized on the far side of the well as he slumped to sit on the ground with his back against the stone circle.
“Why bother eating,” Robb grumbled. “We’re trapped here until we die. Might as well hasten the process and get on into our next existence.”
His dark eyes burned through the mist of the gloaming into her soul.
“I wish I could help you,” she murmured. Her entire body ached for him, trapped here with no hope.
And then she realized that she ached for herself as well.
“Coronnan is doomed. We’ll never find the dragons and return magic to the Commune. Without dragon magic and controls, the lords will tear the country apart. Three hundred years of peace will evaporate like mist in sunshine. I wonder if this gloom ever evaporates. Everything is lost because we sought shelter here during a storm.” Robb buried his face in his hands.
“Is he always so gloomy?” Vareena asked, wary of her own sensitivity to his emotions.
“No. I can usually persuade him to look on the bright side.” Marcus moved around the well until he crouched beside Robb. “We’ll find a way out of this, friend. We always do. My luck will return. It always does.”
“And if your good luck has deserted us permanently? As the dragons deserted Coronnan?” Robb thrust Marcus’ placating hand off his arm.
“Then you will develop a plan, like you always do.”
“I told you yesterday and the day before, and the day before that, your luck has run out and I never had any.”
“There has to be a way out of here. I don’t know how or why yet, but there has to be,” Vareena said. Did she truly believe that? She must, or she would not have said so.
Her mother had taught her that lies—even those said in comfort—served no purpose. Vareena had never knowingly lied before.
Tentatively, she reached to touch Robb’s shoulder, offering what comfort she could—as she would to any living person in the village. Her hand tingled as she neared him. Resolutely she pushed herself closer, resisting the urge to jerk her hand back. The strange sensation in her hand and arm did not really hurt. Felt more like the pinpricks when she lay too long with her weight on a hand or foot.
At last she made contact with him—almost. Her hand did not so much pass through him as curve around a soft mass, not quite liquid, not quite solid. Then the barrier of energy broke through her willpower and thrust her hand aside.
Her hand and arm had not faded when she touched the ghost, however briefly.
Robb looked at her. All of his hurt and despair poured from him into her. Her heart twisted and found a new rhythm.
The world seemed to shift beneath her feet as she sought a new destiny. One that included this sorrowful man.
“I brought a deck of cartes to help pass the time.” She proffered the painted sheets of pressed wood.
Robb took them from her. He shuffled them idly. “Maybe I can finally win a game with Marcus now that his luck has deserted him. That’s about the only good that’s come out of this mess.”
“I will help you find a way out of this,” Vareena vowed. Her heart ached for the sadness that made Robb’s shoulders slump and his mouth frown. “I promise on my sacred duty to serve the ghosts that haunt this place, that I will find a way to help you back into this existence. We will end the curse of this place so that no one becomes a ghost here again.”
Perhaps then I will finally be able to claim my acres in Nunio and be free.
 
Robb stood in the shadows of the north tower above the kitchen and refectory watching Marcus watch Vareena. After hours playing a complex three-handed game of cartes—which Marcus won quite handily—Vareena had left on errands (she said for the night but only a few hours had passed) and returned again while the sun still rode high in the sky.
Part of his heart rejoiced every time Marcus sighed with longing directed at Vareena. If Marcus did truly love the woman—her maturity might give Marcus the steadying influence Robb thought he needed—then Marcus would forget his longtime passion for Margit. Margit would be hurt, of course. But when she healed, then perhaps, if he courted her very carefully, perhaps Robb could win her heart.
Another part of him coiled in anger against his best friend. How could Marcus be so callous? How could he forget Margit so easily? How could he hurt her thus?
He remembered the first time he’d seen Margit. She had met them in the market square near where her mother sold baked goods.
“Tell Jaylor that the queen swears she will educate any daughters she bears in the ways of Rossemeyer. I presume that means she will bare her breasts and cover her hair. But the Gnuls in the city whisper that magic is not illegal in Rossemeyer and the queen wants her daughters to learn to throw magic.” Margit’s harsh whisper reached Robb’s ears before he realized that Jaylor’s spy in the palace had found him before he’d spotted her.
He honed in on the direction of the whisper and spotted several of the queen’s maids examining the produce in the cart where Marcus and Robb lounged in seeming idleness. All of the maids were dressed alike in fine green brocade with low bodices and skirts that fell in wide folds to completely cover their shoes. All five of the women had veiled their hair as well. But one of them, the tallest among them, wore her finery awkwardly. She tripped upon the long skirts, had trouble keeping her blonde braids confined beneath the gauzy veil and slouched her shoulders in an attempt to hide the vast expanse of her upper breast exposed by the lack of gown.
Robb nudged Marcus with his elbow. They both stared at the girl with open admiration until she eased away from her companions and sent them a withering glance in reprimand. Robb had lowered his eyes in apology. A brief nod of his head acknowledged her whisper as she reached across them to examine a ripe melon.
Marcus continued to stare at her with mouth slightly open. “I think I’m love,” he said quietly when the women had moved on.
“You are always in love,” Robb returned. A flare of jealousy burned through him. Marcus attracted any number of women and fell in love with most of them in turn. His rejects found solace in Robb’s arms.
He’d never loved anyone. But Margit . . . this new apprentice of Jaylor’s intrigued him. Margit. He caressed the name in his mind. Margit.
He could love this girl.
But as their friendship developed, Margit clearly preferred Marcus. Robb’s best friend had remained faithful to Margit—as faithful as he was capable of being—for nearly three years, never declaring his love for another until now.
Robb had kept his love for Margit a secret for all that time. He heaved a weary sigh, wondering if something good might come of this disastrous quest after all. If he could return to Margit with comfort and companionship while Marcus chased after Vareena . . .
Vareena emptied her carry basket of firewood and kindling at Marcus’ feet. Her brother stood in disapproving silence at the gate. But his stern posture broke frequently as he cast weary glances about the courtyard, seeking what he did not have the talent to see.
Robb allowed his eyes to cross slightly as he sought the aura of the man who escorted his sister so diligently. Spikes of orange fear shot through the multiple layers of fire green. A man of passion without a single hint of magical talent.
Vareena, on the other hand, sparkled around the edges of her aura of bright pink and pale yellow. A minor talent that would go unnoticed anywhere but in this haunted monastery.
Then Vareena lifted her eyes from the firewood to search the courtyard. Her gaze rested on Robb for a long moment. He looked away first. The longing that burned in her gaze embarrassed him. He had no interest in her as a woman, only as a helper in this dilemma. His heart truly belonged to Margit and Margit only.
Reluctantly, Vareena turned to her brother and retreated back to her normal world in the village.
Normal. What was normal anymore?
For years he had trained to work only dragon magic and revile anyone who dared tap rogue powers. As magicians had believed for centuries, Robb had held to the tenet that any use of rogue, or solitary magic, had its roots in evil. That had been normal. Then the dragons had left Coronnan, taking their communal magic with them. Over the last three years Robb had come to accept solitary magic as normal. The wandering life he and Marcus led as journeymen carrying out Jaylor’s missions had become normal.
How long would he and his best friend be stuck here before this half existence between reality and the void became normal?
He couldn’t allow that to happen. Coronnan needed dragons so that honor and respect could be restored to magic and magicians. Only with dragons could magicians combine their powers, have them amplified by orders of magnitude to overcome any solitary magician. The Commune of Magicians was dedicated to enforcing law, ethics, honor, and justice among themselves and throughout Coronnan. He and Marcus were Jaylor’s last hope for bringing the female dragon Shayla and her mates home.
Yaakke had failed, having gone missing some three years ago.
Now he and Marcus must remain missing in this hazy gloaming indefinitely.
Didn’t that half-haze ever dissipate from the sky? He kicked the stone wall of the tower in his frustration. All he wanted right now was to see honest sunshine reflecting off Margit’s blonde braids.
In the center of the courtyard Marcus arranged the kindling and wood into an efficient campfire. He snapped his fingers and brought a flamelet of witchfire to his fingertip. It leaped from his hand into the kindling, chewing hungrily at the fuel.
They were ready to try a summons spell again, in broad daylight, when they had a better chance of someone being awake at the University to respond. Possibly the containment spell around the monastery weakened the spell to the point a sleeping magician would not notice the faint hum in the recipient’s glass.
BOOK: The Wizard's Treasure (The Dragon Nimbus)
8.15Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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