The Broken Dragon: Children of the Dragon Nimbus #2

TODAY MIKK WANTED SOMETHING DIFFERENT, MORE ADVENTUROUS.

There was an archive hidden and accessible only to magicians. Those were the books he needed, books about the working of magic, not just the results.

Mikk yanked on a pull ring embedded in the floor. The stone paving groaned but did not give way. Strange, he’d opened it easily three days ago.

(
Up.)

“Who’s there?” he demanded loudly.

(Look up. You must go up.)

“Who are you?” His words echoed in the high-ceilinged room as he gazed up and spied another trapdoor overhead.

(Join us above.)

Chills ran up and down his spine as dust tickled his nose.

(There is no dust in the up.)

That sounded good. But he’d been warned about enemies of the crown who would not hesitate to kill or kidnap a member of the royal family.

“I’m only second heir and a distant cousin from the female line. I’m not valuable to anyone other than my grandparents,” he muttered.

(We value you. We know who and what you are.)

That was too good to be true.

Still . . . He dragged a wooden bench across the floor and placed it beneath the trapdoor. A tug on the short rope dangling from the wooden square opened the access. A ladder unfolded until the bottom rested snugly on the floor. He sprinted up until just his head cleared the opening. He found a thick layer of darkness that swallowed light and sound and, above that, long chains of bright and pulsing colored light.

(Welcome to the realm of dragons!)

Be sure to read these magnificent

DAW Fantasy Novels by

IRENE RADFORD

Children of the Dragon Nimbus:

THE SILENT DRAGON (Book 1)

THE BROKEN DRAGON (Book 2)

THE WANDERING DRAGON (Book 3)*

The Stargods:

THE HIDDEN DRAGON (Book 1)

THE DRAGON CIRCLE (Book 2)

THE DRAGON’S REVENGE (Book 3)

The Dragon Nimbus:

THE GLASS DRAGON (Book 1)

THE PERFECT PRINCESS (Book 2)

THE LONELIEST MAGICIAN (Book 3)

THE WIZARD’S TREASURE (Book 4)

The Dragon Nimbus History:

THE DRAGON’S TOUCHSTONE (Book 1)

THE LAST BATTLEMAGE (Book 2)

THE RENEGADE DRAGON (Book 3)

The Pixie Chronicles:

THISTLE DOWN (Book 1)

CHICORY UP (Book 2)

*Coming soon from DAW Books

Copyright © 2014 by Phyllis Irene Radford.

All Rights Reserved.

Cover art by Paul Young.

Cover design by G-Force Design.

Map by Michael Gilbert.

DAW Book Collectors No. 1642.

DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA).

All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher. In such case neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

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U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
—MARCA REGISTRADA
HECHO EN U.S.A.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-63737-1

To my sister Sally who has proven over and over that broken doesn’t mean done.

L
IKE A SPIDER
sitting in the center of his web, I seem immobile and harmless. As I have done for decades. I have set my bait. I have only to wait for each of my prey to come forward and stumble into the far-reaching strands of my web. They do not have to step far away from their own desires to find me. I am the key to their dreams. Their dreams will give me my dreams. Mine are more encompassing, more important. Mine belong to the future and the many generations to come, and reach deep into the past. Their dreams are limited to the here and now.

The past must be my template. It must guide the future. Restoring the past ensures the future.

Let them scheme and plot. If I can read their dreams while they sleep, surely I can find a way to speak to them through the void and make them think they form their own plans and solutions. King Darville of Coronnan thinks he has two heirs: his bastard son and his aunt’s bastard grandson. I have poisoned the queen so that she can never give him the male heir he dreams of. Neither of his heirs is worthy, neither has been raised to think like a king.

The University of Magicians and its leader Jaylor think they have regained power and prestige within the government. Also a mistake. He and his minions Marcus and Maigret—I have stolen Robb out from under their noses—tamper with the proper magical fabric of the land and will pay for their sins when I restore the land of my birth to its natural order.

I only regret that I must depend upon women to spring the traps I have set. Women have no place in proper magic. But then, men are always disgustingly vulnerable where women are concerned. I have found allies who know this truth and will give me what I need to complete my plans, my revenge. The women and my followers will serve me, and then I will discard them, as is proper. And none of the criminals, royal or magical, will know the source of their downfall. They have dismissed me as inconsequential, too conservative, not imaginative enough, too much talk and not enough action, for the last time. Everything is in place so that they must acknowledge the righteousness of my cause, pay homage to me. And then die.

“R
EADY OR NOT
here I come!” Valeria called to her supposedly hidden siblings. Slowly she peeked through her fingers to make certain six-year-old Sharl and two-year-old Jule had found places that were not out in the open. They needed to think they played this game correctly and that they won honestly.

Ah, there was one tiny bare foot visible behind the chopping block. On the other side of the sturdy stump with the hacked surface, Val spotted her twin Lillian crouching beside their youngest brother. Her faded blue dress, the same color as her aura, didn’t quite fit behind the perennial landmark in the family clearing.

A faint giggle behind Val revealed that her older brother, Lukan, had climbed an everblue tree, dragging their sister Sharl with him. Lukan always went up. His routine never failed. Lily on the other hand always sought deep contact with the ground, trusting their mother planet, Kardia Hodos, to shelter and shield her.

“I spy . . .” Val called as she deliberately ran in the wrong direction. “I spy the hoe someone didn’t put away.” She turned a double circle with the tool held high for all to see.

More giggles. She sensed Sharl oozing down the everblue from branch to branch, responding to her need to put everything in its proper place, even when tidying up was someone else’s chore. She needed order and organization to function. Even at six, she’d be a wonderful help to Mama when Lily and Val left tomorrow to take their journeyman’s journey.

They all needed this last game together before the family split in different directions, perhaps forever.

A pang touched her heart. No, she wouldn’t think about that yet. She would enjoy this game
now
, as she hadn’t been able to for most of her sixteen years.

Val dropped the hoe and ran toward her twin. “I spy Lily!” she crowed. “Behind the block.”

“Have to tag me first,” Lily called back. She jumped up and darted away, leaving Jule “hidden.”

Val laughed out loud and levitated a loose handful of grass, ferns, and dirt from the forest verge. Without bothering to touch the clump, she flung it at her sister. It landed square in the middle of Lily’s back with an audible thump.

“Oh!” she whoofed as she stumbled to a halt, as the game rules dictated. “No fair! Magic isn’t in the rules.”

“It is now.” Still laughing, Val swung around and headed toward Lukan’s tree. She ran for the sheer joy of feeling the wind cooling her overheated face and ruffling her hair.

“Tag you, tag you,” Jule chortled in his baby mastery of two words at a time. He’d been talking his own nonsensical language almost since the moment of his birth. Nonstop. Now he finally put sounds together in something resembling words others could understand.

Val slowed a little, to give her brother a chance to catch her skirt in his grubby fist. Meanwhile she sought something suitable to fling at Lukan, still up in his tree. Something that would bring him down from his perch before suppertime.

A flusterhen squawked in mighty disapproval as Jule tripped over the bird. In protest at the indignity, the hen loosed an odiferous white stream. Val thought new dirt into covering it quickly. Then she smiled with a wicked idea. While the dirt coalesced around the blob she pushed a tendril of magic beneath it, lifted it high and pushed, keeping an image of Lukan in her mind’s eye.

The damp clod plopped against something soundly within the thick branches.

“S’murghit, Val!” Lukan cursed, then repeated it three times. The sound of cracking branches followed his rapid descent from his sanctuary.

Not wanting to be on the receiving end of his temper, she whirled to run around behind the cabin. Oh, he’d stomp and storm and yell for an hour. Then when she least expected it, he’d apply suitable revenge.

A deep, wheezing cough stopped her before she moved a step. Her breath caught in the back of her throat. Pressure in her chest threatened to crush her. She bent double, forcing blood to flow into her head before she passed out from lack of air.

“Breathe, Val,” Lily ordered, pressing on her spine.

A tingle of strength flowed from Lily’s hand into Val. It helped her fight the restriction in her throat and lungs.

“I’m all right!” she gasped, tilting away from Lily. Her twin had done this too often, giving her strength while Val gave her magic in return.

“Val?” Lukan asked cautiously.

The two little ones clung to Lily’s skirts as she backed away. Tears threatened as her jaw twitched and eyes blinked. Clearly she was disappointed that Val had rejected her once-necessary ministrations.

“The flywacket is out of me, no longer leeching me of strength. That cured me of most everything. I just need to catch my breath,” she told them angrily. “I’m not an invalid anymore!”

“I guess you aren’t,” Lukan agreed. “But no more running for now. Mama probably has supper ready.”

“Do you think Da will get home in time . . . ?” Lily asked hopefully.

“Doubtful,” Lukan didn’t seem to trust himself with more than one word. He wouldn’t voice his true anger toward their father, or his frustration with life in this sheltered clearing, his masters at the University, the world in general. Of being left behind while their oldest brother, Glenndon, went to the capital to be heir to King Darville, and Val and Lily went off on their own journey.

As if to change the subject he picked up Jule and held the boy against his shoulder, stroking his soft hair until he rested his head and found a thumb to suck—dirt and all.

“Da is still in the capital. He’s not due home until late tonight or early morning,” Val confirmed.

“Just in time to leave again with you two on some secret errand.” This time Lukan’s frustration shone through his voice. “He doesn’t even stay around long enough to notice how sick Mama grows, by the day.”

“She’s pregnant again. She’s not young anymore . . .” Val stated the obvious. Lily’s scowl stopped her. “Is it more?”

Lily nodded. “I don’t know what pains her, but this pregnancy is different from Jule and Sharl.”

“With you two gone, I don’t know how to help her,” Lukan confessed.

Val knew this was his real fear and that he masked it with his habitual anger. “We need to talk to Maigret the potions mistress, and Linda her apprentice, and . . . and Marcus, before we go with Da tomorrow.”

“Has anyone noticed how changeable Da’s health is?” Lily asked. “Mama puts something in his tea every morning. But he’s not always home and he won’t accept medicine from anyone else. If he even knows he’s taking medicine.”

“His color is higher than normal,” Val said, realizing for the first time just how unusual it was. “And his temper is shorter. He won’t let anyone do anything for him. He has to do everything himself.”

“Controlling everything and everyone to the tiniest degree,” Lukan said bitterly.

“I wonder . . .” Lily said, resting her left hand on Sharl’s dark red curls.

“What?” Lukan encouraged her.

“Just . . . one of those old stories. Something about Da accidentally taking an overdose of the Tambootie and . . . and getting lost in the void for a long time. Could that have damaged him in some way?”

“I don’t know,” Val murmured, suddenly seeing patterns. “Glenndon has a Tambootie staff, and he got lost in the void right after he went to the capital to become Crown Prince.” The story of their eldest brother being the child of the king, conceived during that episode when Da was lost in the void, suddenly made sense.

“Val, you were lost in the void,” Lily said, biting her lower lip. “The dragons had to rescue you.”

“But I had no association with the Tambootie. And I still had the flywacket—a kind of dragon—while I drifted in the realm of dragons. I’m safe. And healthier than I have ever been.”

“I think we need to warn Glenndon next time we see him,” Lily continued. “If nothing else, he can keep an eye on Da.”

“You can warn Glenndon if he ever deigns to receive us again,” Lukan sneered. He held Jule closer and stalked toward the cabin and the welcoming smells of yampion pie. Da’s favorite. That he wouldn’t be home to eat.

“When we are all separated, I think we need to scry each other. Often,” Val said quietly. “We need to know what’s happening here with Mama, and you, Lukan, need to know what is going on elsewhere.”

“If something happens to Mama . . .” He bit his lip as he blinked rapidly, forcing back tears. “Lily, you’re the empathic healer in the family. I’m going to need your help and advice. Maigret and Linda are good magicians and healers but . . . they don’t feel what’s wrong with their patients. They just treat symptoms. You will know what is wrong.”

“But . . . but my talent isn’t strong. I can receive a scry, but I can’t initiate one.”

Val needed to reach out and reassure her twin, be the strong one for a change.

“But I can summon you,” Lukan reminded her. “I’m not a great and wonderful magician like Glenndon. But I can put together most spells. It just takes me longer than it does him.”

Like a full heartbeat instead of half of one
, Val thought sarcastically.

“How . . . who will come get me with the transport spell? I’m not likely to be able to walk back here in time if you really need me.”

“I will,” Val insisted.

“You know the transport spell?” Lukan asked cautiously.

“Of course I do. And so do you. We wouldn’t be Jaylor’s and Brevelan’s children if we hadn’t eavesdropped and spied on our masters.” They all grinned widely. Even Lily. She might not have enough magic to throw the spell, but she knew in theory how it worked.

“Then I need to work out a way to include all three of us in a scry, no matter how far apart we wander.”

“We’ll always be family,” Lily reminded them. “Family is the strongest tie of all.”

Above them, a nearly invisible dragon bellowed an agreement.

“Get that evil beast away from me!” a woman screeched, from behind the stout wooden door reinforced with iron bands and magic wards.

Lillian, daughter of Senior Magician Jaylor, flinched at the noise akin to a dragon in distress. Her ears hurt, but she dared not show her weakness in front of her Da and her twin, Valeria. They both possessed more magic in their little fingers than Lillian could ever hope to control.

Nor did she wish to admit that she had dreamed that strident voice. Upon recognizing it in daylight, with her eyes and mind wide open she knew that deep-rooted fear—terror—fueled that voice.

“Kill it!” the woman yelled. A loud clank of something metal hitting the door followed.

A cat screeched in the same tones as the woman, outrage and fear battling for dominance. If it was like any other cat, outrage would win. It too hit the door, claws scrabbling for a purchase against the wooden surface.

This time both Da and Val backed up, making a warding gesture with their hands.

Lily deferred to their superior experience and skill and followed suit. There wasn’t a lot of room to move on the landing, five stories up in this isolated stone tower. She might escape up or down steep spiral stairs cut into the stonework if she had to give the others more room to work.

Unless she could fly. Which she couldn’t. And neither could the lady held within the tower. Her sister had dreamed of flying with dragons. That was the one experience Val had not shared with her.

The lady had tried to fly, at least twice in the last fifteen years. Fortunately her companions had stopped her in time.

Or was she truly fortunate in continuing to live? Here. A prisoner of her own insanity?

“Da, do you smell that?” Lily asked. Her nose wiggled in search of the almost sweet scent of hot coals merging with the wooden door, followed by the acrid stench of cat urine and fire clashing with the magical wards.

“Aye. Time to intervene I think. Before she kills the cat.”

“This is ridiculous. Can’t anyone see the terror in her mind?” Val demanded, hands on hips, chin thrust out. She stepped forward and passed her open palm across the door in the intricate rune pattern that would release the wards and negate any lingering fire from the coals.

Lillian couldn’t even see the wards, let alone hope to make them obey her. She’d studied the rituals. But she had no talent to make them work.

“We’re coming in, Ariiell,” Val called. She pushed gently against the door. It swung inward about half a hand-width. Out streaked a gold, black, and gray cat, eyes wide, ears laid back, and fluffy tail bristled as wide as the rest of her body.

Lillian caught a whisper of a name. Grilka. She smiled that the cat willingly shared her true name—not the one the cook and servants called her—Grilka.
A lovely name for a lovely creature
,
Lily reassured the cat.

She stepped out of the cat’s way rather than stoop to soothe it. In its current mood, she’d probably walk away with bloody scratches on face and hands. The poor creature disappeared down the stairs, not even trying to quiet its footfalls.

The door opened wider. “I have to kill her. Kill her and that filthy weasel that follows her. They’ll steal my baby. That’s all they ever wanted from me was my baby!” A skinny woman with lank and tangled honey blonde hair appeared, an open warming pan held over her shoulder like an ax, ready to chop something to shreds. She’d been pretty once. Gaunt cheeks, parched skin, wild eyes, and worry lines on her brow, around her eyes, and turning down her mouth had robbed her of her beauty.