The Silent Dragon: Children of The Dragon Nimbus #1

“YOUR GRACE,” LORD ANDRALL SAID QUIETLY.

“I am privy to pieces of information the others have no knowledge of.”

The king stopped. He did not turn around.

“You have a son,” Lord Andrall said.

Instantly the men of the Council stilled. Silence sat heavily among them, like a living wall.

“Your Grace?” Lord Laislac asked the unaskable.

“He told you that I have a son. The result of a youthful . . .” He fluttered his fingers in a dismissive gesture.

“A youthful indiscretion,” the king continued. “My baseborn son has been raised in secret at the edge of the kingdom. I have acknowledged him to no one but his mother and her husband. He’s nearly eighteen now, on the verge of manhood.”

“There are ways to make such a child legitimate in the eyes of the law and the priests,” Lord Jemmarc said after a long moment.

“Will the queen agree to legitimize the boy?” Lord Laislac asked.

“This requires much thought and consultation. I declare this meeting at an end.” The king exited quickly without a backward glance.

THE

SILENT DRAGON

Be sure to read these magnificent

DAW Fantasy Novels by

IRENE RADFORD

Children of the Dragon Nimbus:

THE SILENT DRAGON (Book 1)

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)

THE

SILENT DRAGON

Children of the Dragon Nimbus #1

IRENE RADFORD

Copyright © 2013 by Phyllis Irene Radford.

All Rights Reserved.

Map by Michael Gilbert.

DAW Book Collectors No. 1614.

DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

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Nearly all the designs and trade names in this book are registered trademarks. All that are still in commercial use are protected by United States and international trademark law.

This book is for Sara, Lizzy, Joyce, and Lea, who have browbeaten me into being a better writer and taught me
the value of silence, when to use it and when to appreciate it in others.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A lot of time has passed since the last time the
Dragon Nimbus
flew across my computer screen. Since 2005, with THE DRAGON’S REVENGE,
The Stargods #3
, to be precise.

After ten books in this world, in three different time periods, I needed a break. There are only so many ways one can introduce the same dragon. I needed that time to grow as a writer and produce other books in other worlds under other pen names. The characters I left behind needed time to grow up as well. Eventually little details and ideas I left unfinished rose to the surface of the murk we call my brain, and those little details demanded to see the light of day. Once again I found myself in a land where dragons are real and magic works. Once again I greeted old friends and found new ones.

Welcome back to Coronnan and the Dragon Nimbus.

No book is created in a vacuum. I wrote the words, but I needed help in rearranging them so they make sense. Many thanks to Carol McCleary of the Wilshire Literary Agency for believing in my dragons and helping them to find a publishing home at DAW Books. Thanks also to Sheila Gilbert, the best editor in the business as far as I am concerned, for taking a chance on an unknown writer and helping her grow into an established fixture in her office. Carol has moved on to her own writing career. So I need to thank Mike Kabongo of the OnyxHawke Agency for pulling me out of the doldrums and working with dragons again. And then there are the friends and family who have helped me with beta reads, shoulders to cry on, and people to scream at when my characters go off on a tangent and refuse to follow my plot line. Theirs is always better but I need convincing sometimes.

And lastly, much love and thanks to Tim, who knows when to leave me alone and when to surgically remove me from the computer and whisk me away.

I couldn’t do this without all of you. Come fly with me and share the wonders I have seen.

PROLOGUE

M
Y HUMANS ARE such fragile creatures; they have little resilience against strange miasmas that invade their lands from foreign ports, miasmas that carry sickness and death. I have encouraged Jaylor, the chief of the human magicians, to take in refugees who are persecuted for having magic. But these same people carry the red miasma with them; they spread it across the land until many fall victim to throats so sore they cannot speak or swallow life-giving water and a fever that burns them from within until they are nothing but dried-out husks.

My humans call it an epidemic of putrid sore throat.

I have given as much magic as I can to the healers. It is not enough. They do not understand the nature of the pustules that erupt within the soft tissue of the throat. Then the healers fall ill, and cannot heal themselves. That is one of the failings of magic. I weep that I can do nothing more. I grieve at the deaths.

And then the golden boy falls ill, nigh unto death. My golden child, as much a dragon as a human, conceived in the void by two fathers, one magician and one royal, in the realm of dragons. He is the destiny of humans and dragons alike.

Frantically I search among the humans for a healer who will listen to me, who will understand, will work with me to cure my golden boy.

(Jaylor, Shayla here,)
I prod my magician.

He awakens from a troubled slumber, snatched when exhaustion claimed him. With a jolt he sits up, flailing for balance and awareness. “Shayla?” He pauses to find the proper protocol. “Uh, Jaylor here. Why . . . what can I do for you?”

(You must send for Maisy. She is the healer who can save our boy.)

“Maisy? She’s barely trained, a new journeyman on journey.”

(She has the talent. I will work with her. Guide her through what needs to be done to banish this foreign miasma.)

“But . . . but she’s a woman. Women cannot gather dragon magic.”

I give him enough silence to let him know that that has not always been true and may change again. Soon, I hope.

(You must gather my magic while she draws strength from a ley line. Together you will succeed. You will cool the fever with a rebalance of the humors inside our boy while she roots out the core of the illness with herbs and talent unknown to you.)

I leave Jaylor to his own thoughts and plans while I summon Maisy.

“Thank you for speaking to me, Shayla,” Maisy says politely as she gulps away tears. “What brings you to honor me so?”

I explain to her about the putrid sore throat and the child she must heal.

“I . . . I cannot leave Lord Jemmarc’s household. He thinks me a mere servant when I’m really Jaylor’s spy.”

(You must leave, now. You no longer have a place with Lord Jemmarc.)

This brings more tears.

(I’m sorry that you love him and he thinks of you as merely a servant and an ease for his lustful urges.)

“I am ill with the milk fever,” she protests.

(The fever has passed.)

“My baby . . .”

(Takes sustenance from another. Your son will be given to Jemmarc’s lady as a substitute for the children she cannot bear. Your son will grow up not knowing you. He will have opportunities you cannot give him.)
And then I grace her with a dragon-dream, a more real than real vision of the infant grown to toddler, laughing and exclaiming with joy at a new game his other mother plays. That image fades and I reveal him struggling with letters and numbers, growing more and learning swordplay. And then I show a possible future she cannot foresee, her son sitting in the Council of Provinces, acting as their scribe, wearing the fine garments humans treasure.

“My son!” She reaches toward the void to hold those images close to her heart.

(Your son will thrive better here than with the meager resources at your disposal.)

“You’re right, Mistress Dragon. I tried again and again while I carried him to reach his mind and open it to the possibilities of magic. He did not respond. So I tried again hours and then days after his birth. I fear that he is as mind-blind as his father.”

(You have given your son life. All that you can give him. Now you must leave him here in safety. The miasma has not come here yet. You, and only you, can heal the golden child. You must heal him. The future of humans and dragons alike rests on his shoulders.)

“I will go. But I do not know the transport spell. It will take me weeks to walk to the University in the mountains. By then he will be dead.”

(Never fear. I have the ability to guide you through the void safely. I am not allowed to do this except in dire need. The need is dire indeed.)

Maisy does indeed cure our golden boy. But even her ability and the power of Jaylor are not enough. His throat is scarred. Unless a miracle happens, one that I cannot foresee, he will be silent for the rest of his life.

My silent dragon needs another dragon to watch over him. I give the task to a youngling from my last litter: Indigo.