The Broken Dragon: Children of the Dragon Nimbus #2 (32 page)

Something in Skeller’s too-neutral tone stabbed Lukan in the gut. “At least you got to say goodbye,” he said, not knowing what else to say.

“I’d said goodbye to the mother who loved me ten years before. I said goodbye to a wasted husk of humanity at the end. Something in me died that day too. It’s taken me four, almost five years to bring it back to life. Lily helped. She helped a lot.”

“She’s like that.”

“Take some time to talk to her on our journey. Val too. I have a feeling you all need to find closeness again. Find your childhood playmates again and cherish that.”

“You said you had a brother . . .”

“He . . . he’s taken refuge elsewhere, with . . . comrades who think and feel as he does.”

Lukan remained silent. One of Mama’s tricks. Forcing the other person to fill the gap with words.

“I’m not going to say anything else at the moment.” Skeller stood up, carefully stowing his harp in its case and slinging it onto his back. “Come, your sisters are expecting us to help them pack for the journey.”

“We don’t need much,” Lukan said, bewildered by Lily’s need to sort and organize.

“We don’t. But they do. Trust me. If we give in on this, they’ll be a lot happier and easier to travel with, until they discover they’ve packed too much and discard half of what they brought.”

“Why not discard it all now . . . ?”

“Because then they wouldn’t be happy.”

“Women!”

“Get used to it. We need them as much as we want to pretend we don’t.”

A
N HOUR AFTER
clearing and grounding the protection spell, Glenndon took a deep breath and focused on his palm-sized piece of glass, floating in a bowl of fresh water barely large enough to contain it. He didn’t dare ask for more clean water than that. They had so little to spare until the cistern refilled naturally and they got the pumps working full time. He was already tired from freeing up the kitchen pump and reversing the containment spell. A drink of cold fresh water would help a lot to revive him. Later. Others had more need than he. The first cup out of the pump, he and Mikk had used to wash away the spell that had saved them. They’d thrown the magic together; they needed to end it together. The second cup of precious water he’d confiscated to open communications again.

He knew he should contact the University first to find out who had survived and what damage they’d sustained.

He knew it in his head.

His heart and his gut rebelled. Some things were more important. He called into memory the unique shape and color of Jaylor’s magical signature: a blue and red braid that twisted back on itself, knotting in an uneven pattern.

Nothing. No vibrations. No colors. Nothing but a milky swirl of nothingness.

Biting the insides of his cheeks in abject fear, he decided to go to the source. Linda had told him to come home. Linda must know Jaylor’s fate.

Before he’d severed communications with the outside world, he hadn’t needed a spell to find Linda. He kept the summons spell open anyway. Just in case. Resolutely he cleared his mind, breathed deeply of the fetid air inside his bedroom—the closest thing to privacy he could find even though he shared the space with Mikk, Keerkin, and Frank. Two families of merchants inhabited the outer rooms of his suite. Young mothers with two children each occupied Frank’s and Keerkin’s tiny alcoves. Every nook and cranny in the palace and the old keep was filled to overflowing with people.

People they’d saved from the flood.

Half in a trance, with his body firmly oriented to the magnetic pole, he stared into the glass and reached out with his mind to find his half sister.

Her face appeared in the glass and in his inner vision.

Linda
,
he said softly. He bypassed the glass and spoke directly mind-to-mind.

You’re alive
! she cried in the same intimate form. Tears streaked her face. But she smiled.
No one could reach you. We feared everyone in the city lost! My parents and sisters
?

Safe
, Glenndon reassured her.
The flood is clearing. Many are dead. We don’t know how many yet. We don’t know if anything is left of the city other than the palace and the University
.

Glenndon
,
she said hesitantly.

My Da
?

I am so sorry. We could not save him. His heart burst with the effort of breaking the storm
.

Something stabbed Glenndon’s heart. The explosion of light and popping air pressure just before the storm surge; his staff trying to merge with the eye of the storm . . . He knew there was more to that phenomenon than the creator of the storm releasing it to do its worst.

He realized that some part of him shied away from the truth. Da was always one to take the burden, to protect others from working beyond their ability. Each time he came back a little weaker. This time he’d tasked himself too much.

Say something, Glenndon
.

Can’t
.

You just did
.

He took a moment to teach his lungs to breathe again and his heart to pump. His world seemed dimmer, less vibrant. He nearly lost his anchor to the Kardia and the magnetic pole, set adrift in time and place.

Mama
?

Oh, Glenndon, I am so sorry. The shock sent her into labor too early. She hemorrhaged, and we lost her too
. This time Linda choked on unshed cheers.

The world came to a halt around Glenndon. He felt as if . . . as if he were alone in the void without the comfort of life umbilicals or dragon voices teaching him something important.

Nothing.

Glenndon, speak to me!
Linda cried.
Glenndon, you’re going transparent like a dragon with golden tips. Don’t you dare fade to nothing. Don’t you dare
!

(Be comforted,)
Shayla said.

Glenndon had never heard the dragon matriarch sound so gentle and nurturing. The humor had left her mental voice; it was sad, but not prostrate with grief. As Glenndon was. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think straight. Did his heart and lungs work? Did he even blink?

His eyelids moved. Once. Twice. A third time brought forth tears, and he didn’t bother blinking them away.

(Good. You are returning to life. Death is not yet your home. You have much to do before you can embrace the next stage of existence.)

Did Mama and Da embrace death
?
He couldn’t imagine it. They both had so much to live for. They both attacked life with such enthusiasm. He saw them together at the end of the day, sitting opposite each other before the hearth, she with some mending, or knitting, or other small task. He with a text or some small piece of carpentry. A child asleep in each of their laps. Da would lift his head from whatever he was doing and smile. At the same moment Mama would look him squarely in the eye and return that smile. Then they’d tuck the little ones into their cribs and wander into their private bedroom holding hands. Not a word passing between them.

He sighed.
I hope they are together. I can’t imagine them apart
.

That earned him a dragon chuckle. (
They wouldn’t have it any other way. And neither would we
.)

Did you foresee this, Shayla? Did you know from your dragon-dreams that they must die together even as they lived together
?

(No. But they do not surprise me.)

Glenndon let go of the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, easier in his mind.
I will miss them
.

(You have luck that you have a second set of parents. Your father and his wife love you, and need you. Now return to your chores. All of Coronnan needs your strength, your inventiveness, your courage, and your love.)

Love. Will I find love as Mama and Da did
?

(That is beyond my knowledge at this time.)

You gave Mama a dragon-dream when she first met my Da. You showed her happy and loving with six children and a loving husband
.
That made his breath catch a moment. Six children in the dragon-dream. The seventh had killed her. The birth order of the children came differently from the dream. But not the number.
Can you do the same for me? Give me a hint of my future
?

(Later. When events sort themselves out. Trust yourself, my golden prince. Trust your father. Beware of small boats and rogue waves.)
The dragon withdrew from his mind, as gently as she had entered it.

“Glenndon!” Linda’s voice came through the summons spell and into his mind, loud and demanding.

“I am returned to myself, little sister. I . . . I just need to grieve a moment.”

“You looked like a dragon,” she said, hiding her fear with a delicate snort of disgust. Linda would never do anything with less than royal subtlety and politeness.

“I needed to talk to them. Shayla is most comforting. What of my family? Did Val and Lily get home in time?” He had no doubt that Val knew the transport spell. She was too good at observing and mimicking from the shadows. “What’s to become of the little ones?”

“Maigret and I have taken Jule and Sharl into her household. Maigret is missing Robb mightily. Filling their quarters to overflowing with lost ones seems to help. Lily and Val came home in time. Lukan was there as well. Your parents passed on surrounded by friends and family.” For some reason she had withdrawn her mind from his and spoke only through the spell.

He gave a sigh of relief at her news. His other family here in the city demanded so much of his time and attention he doubted he could have left them without a great deal of guilt.

“Glenndon, Valeria and Ariiell say that I must warn you that Lord Laislaic is in league with the king of Amazonia—Lokeen by name. They planned for Ariiell to marry the king. Laislac was to receive a box of Krakatrice eggs to use as a weapon to bring Father down and become king himself. The eggs were hidden in a case of wine carried beneath Ariiell’s litter. The crate broke during the storm and the eggs hatched . . .” She shuddered slightly in fear. He’d rescued her from a tangle of Krakatrice, and Lucjemm’s obsessive need to own and control her, last spring. Then she drew a long restorative breath.

Glenndon braced himself, almost knowing what was to come. “The magic in the storm winds released the snakes from the eggs.”

Linda nodded. “They feast on the carcasses of animals killed by the winds. Master . . . Lord Marcus has sent five masters and their journeymen and apprentices to deal with them. They carry bespelled obsidian blades. They know they have to use ley line magic to end that menace.”

One problem Glenndon didn’t have to deal with. Yet. Thankfully water was the bane of Krakatrice. They couldn’t come near the capital and survive.

Pieces of information fell into place quite naturally, as if they needed Glenndon to not think about them in order for them to fit. Krakatrice eggs in a crate of wine from Amazonia. He gasped. “Was . . . was Master Samlan the ambassador from Amazonia?” What had become of the ambassador during the flood? If he was indeed Samlan, then he’d fled the city by boat before conjuring the storm.

“I . . . I don’t know. I’ll ask Skeller.”

“Who?”

“A friend of Lily’s. A bard from Amazonia.”

“Oh.” He thought he remembered a shorthaired bard wandering around the fringes of the caravans the day Val and Lily had left with their lady charges.

“Val also says to beware of a rogue magician.”

“I know that Samlan created the storm with magic aided by a Krakatrice bone.”

“He’s coming ashore.”

“When? Where?” Glenndon began a hurried accounting of the few magical tools in his possession. Nothing less than a gathering of master magicians could control Samlan if he still had the Krakatrice spine. Yanking control of the storm had killed his Da . . . and Mama. For that he must pay and pay dearly.

“We think he’s headed for the cove below Castle Saria.”

“A dangerous landing. Maybe the rocks will slice him to ribbons.” Remembering nightmare tales of the place made him feel easier. Fishermen who knew the tides and currents and how they changed from moon phase to moon phase could negotiate the treacherous cove. Few others had survived.

“There’s more.” Linda looked like she was hiding something by diverting the topic. He knew her well. Knew intimately how her mind worked, because they worked alike. This was why she’d withdrawn from him and communicated only through the glass, flame, and water.

“Tell me the more, then tell me what you don’t want me to know,” he demanded.

She looked away briefly, as if consulting someone else. When she turned back to her own glass and candle flame, her face and mind were blank. “Samlan’s spell centered around a need to restore order to the time before the Leaving.”

“Logical. He never wanted Da to be Senior or Chancellor.”

“Krej and Rejiia were near Val’s caravan, stalking Ariiell. They got caught up in the magic!”

“
S’murghit
!
The storm restored them! I don’t need two more rogue magicians on top of Samlan.”

(One at a time. We will help,)
Shayla reassured him.

“One at a time, Glenndon. Deal with one problem at a time. Have your FarSeers watch the Bay for signs of Samlan’s boat while you help rebuild the city. That is your duty. Krej and Rejiia are the responsibility of the Circle,” Linda reminded him. A bit of royal authority and hauteur crept into her expression and voice.

How could he disobey? “Yes, Your Highness. I will do my duty here. But please keep me informed how you and the Circle intend to deal with Samlan, and the Krakatrice, and . . . and everything.”

“Very well. And Glenndon . . .”

“Yes?”

“Give my parents a hug from me and tell them I love them.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He cleared and grounded the spell, then sat staring into the distance wondering what to do next, when all he really wanted was to tear off in a boat and go hunting Samlan, the author of this destruction.

Shouts and bangs broke out above him. Two stories up, someone tried to break through his wards around the tightly rationed food stores. Loud footsteps pounded toward the trouble. One problem he could delegate. Making contact with the University he couldn’t.

With a deep sigh he gathered his energy for the next summons.