The Silent Dragon: Children of The Dragon Nimbus #1 (17 page)

CHAPTER 25

G
LENNDON ROTATED his shoulders painfully. Every muscle in his back, thighs, and arms protested the movement. Years of chopping wood to feed the family hearth had built up strength and breadth. It hadn’t prepared him for the more delicate and controlled movements of holding a sword with either hand before him and executing endless drills of circling, shifting, aiming, and lunging. Over and over and over for nearly three hours. Good thing he already had calluses on his hands. Even with gloves he felt the tight burn of blisters rising from the different grip.

His stomach growled in hunger. He should seek out something to eat in the Great Hall, or even in the family apartments. Could he ask a servant to help him find something in the kitchen to tide him over until the evening meal?

But first he needed quiet and privacy. A place to clear his thoughts and ease his body. So he walked slowly toward an inner courtyard he’d espied from his own room. Pretty flowers grew there, just coming into bloom in vibrant reds and pinks and yellows. Strong vines with wickedly long thorns climbed over trellises and looped around arches to offer shady bowers. The sweet and strong scent of showy flowers with no purpose but to ornament a garden felt lovely, but empty. There was something missing.

He cast about, seeking the truant element. Too sweet, his senses told him. What mitigated the honey density of the blossoms? His mother would add something spicy or salty to a recipe that cloying.

His nose found salt in the ever-present breeze off the Bay. Nothing sharper to counter the perfume.

A sharp scent. Aromatic.
Tambootie!
The garden needed Tambootie. He hadn’t seen, smelled, or sensed any of the aromatic tree since leaving home. The capital remained denuded of the tree of life. No wonder the dragons shunned this part of Coronnan.

He closed his eyes, letting the sweetness cloak him. A person could hide amongst the climbing vines and dense foliage for a long time before the inevitable squire sought him out.

Since arriving at the palace he’d been alone only during the hours he tried to sleep in the too-big, too-soft bed, or wandered the maze of tunnels beneath the palace when he could not sleep. At least no one had been present to tell him he couldn’t curl up in a blanket before the wall hearth. There he slept soundly for a few hours only after exploring another series of tunnels.

He caught a lilting tune on the soft spring breeze. His spirits lifted. “Mama. Home,” he whispered to himself, surprised when he actually heard the words with his ears and not just his mind.

For a moment, with his eyes closed and the scent of fresh bread baking close by and the light music sung by a sweet soprano he could almost believe himself home, in the clearing, approaching the cabin, soon to be welcomed by his family. His real family of brothers and sisters, Mama and Da, cats and dogs, birds, flusterhens, and gray scurries chittering at him or twining with his legs.

He breathed deeply, his muscles relaxed. A tightness in his neck that he hadn’t realized he’d been hunching around released.

Not home. No aromatic Tambootie or dragons whispering on the wind. He didn’t belong here.

Then he opened his eyes.

Definitely not home. Stone walls rose around him like a canyon in the high mountains. A swath of green lay like a carpet at his feet. A glorious riot of bright flowers in artificial groupings, heavily pruned to contain their growth and train them into unnatural shapes, grew around him.

He’d found the garden he sought.

Not home. He almost turned around, certain that he belonged here no more than he did in the stifling atmosphere of formal court.

The singer raised her voice a little.

Not Mama.

Disappointment almost brought that tightness back to his neck. But the music was so lovely, a special tune that crooned love.

He needed to twine his voice with hers, mimic each sound, harmonize with it in his own deeper, masculine tones.

Before he could think about what he did, he opened his mouth and let the words of the first lullaby his mother had sung to him spill forth. The blockage in his throat loosened. Part of it dissolved and flowed outward with the song.

Sleep softly my little one,

Sleep gently my baby,

Papa keep watch,

Mama hold dear.

Sleep softly my little one,

Sleep safely

In my care.

The singer echoed his words, one phrase behind him so that they sang in a round counterpoint. Together they brought the song to a soft ending that tapered off into silence.

“I didn’t know you could sing,” Linda said peering from behind a tall column of greenery that grew over a wooden arch.

A huge black cat also peeked out. Its fur absorbed the noon light, showing purplish highlights. It twitched its nose at him and ruffled long fur all the way down its spine to the fluffy tail.

A wingtip of iridescent black feathers sprang forth from a hidden flap.

Linda’s mouth opened as she stared in wonder. Then her eyes rolled up and she collapsed in a faint at Glenndon’s feet.

Plop. Plop. Two drops of cool water dripped onto Linda’s forehead. She knew it. She felt it. She didn’t want to face it. Just before the blessed darkness had claimed her she’d seen . . . she’d seen the impossible.

(Why do you fear me?)

A gentle, childlike voice in her head. Not Glenndon. He had deeper, more mature tones to his mental voice, even if he did sing in a tentative tenor.

“I spoke to a dragon. I faced down an army trying to kill her. Why indeed did I flee from a cat with wings?” she murmured, not sure she spoke aloud until she heard her words.

A low chuckle greeted her words. “Open eyes,” Glenndon said in his harsh, underused voice.

Had she heard him speak before, outside her head that is? She couldn’t remember.

Linda obeyed, fluttering her lashes until she got used to the light streaming around them. Glenndon’s worried frown filled her vision. Behind him, something black hovered. She presumed it was the black cat who . . . who had hidden wings. “So you can speak.”

Glenndon nodded hesitantly.

“When you have to.”

A more aggressive head movement.

“So, who’s the cat? He speaks like a dragon.”

“Fl . . . flywacket.”

“Huh?”

(I was a dragon. Now I am not. Indigo here.)

“Princess Rosselinda here,” she returned automatically, remembering the dragon protocol P’pa had taught her under the gaze of Shayla, the grandest dragon of all. “My friends and family call me Linda.”

(Linda.)
Indigo sounded as if he tasted the word.

She wondered if he was getting ready to sample her flesh. Flusterbumps broke out along her arms and spine.
Don’t think like that. Dragons respected humans. They loved the royal family; were tied to it magically.
If legend and lore could be believed.

(Pretty name. Pretty Princess.)

“You didn’t greet Indigo,” Linda said to Glenndon as she propped herself onto her elbows trying to sit up.

“Before. Friends,” Glenndon replied succinctly.

A new thought brought her upright in a hurry. “Dragons reflect light. That’s how they seem invisible. But you absorb light, like . . . like . . . the deepest dungeon.” She had no other image to explain a big, really, really big dragon with crystal-like fur collapsing into this oversized cat.

Reverses,
Glenndon said into her mind, as if he’d run out of voice.

“If you say so. Indigo, that’s a name for dark blue. Were you a blue-tipped dragon?”

(Not exactly.)
Indigo sounded embarrassed.

Glenndon flashed a mental image of a juvenile dragon, about the size of Belle, her fleet steed. His body still shone with silver lights as his fur matured into the transparent crystals of an adult. Outlining his wings, and tracing along the wing veins, a deep, dark blue that was
almost
purple, but not quite, showed clearly where his body tended to fade in and out of view as the light shifted.

(No dragon twin. Not really purple.)

“Huh?”

“Purple special,” Glenndon croaked. “Always twins. Can only be one. The other must become—something else.”

The longest string of words she’d heard from him. Each one sounded less certain than the previous one.

“How?”

He shrugged, having run out of words again.

(Anyone can gather magic from a purple-tip dragon,)
Indigo said proudly. He stretched his cat neck and rippled his fur from ears to tail. The iridescent wings peeked out from their pouch, or fold, or whatever the extra flap of skin and fur was called.

“Anyone? Even me?”

Indigo purred and bumped his head against her chin, almost knocking her flat again. She scritched between his ears.

Glenndon looked worried.
No magic. My Da and your father said never use magic at court.

“A lot of courtiers and nobles don’t like magic. They want to control everything, and they can’t control a magician. But they aren’t logical about it if they brought witchsniffers in trying to catch P’pa throwing magic.”

“Yes,” Glenndon said, surprised at her observation. “Control.”

“You are learning to control your voice better with each word.”

He shrugged and blushed.

“You have to practice.”

He made a face, twisting one side of his mouth up and the other down, eyes scrunched and nose wrinkled.

“I don’t like practicing sewing,” Linda said. “We’ve all got something we have to learn that we don’t like.”

A relaxation of the ugly face.

Sing,
Glenndon said mentally, his eyes brightening.
Practice speaking by singing. Mama sings all the time. She taught me that tune you sang to Indigo.

“She did? My M’ma taught it to me. It’s a lullaby.”

Yes.

“What else did she sing? Something we might both know.”

Again he shrugged. She was getting tired of that response.

Linda sorted through all the tunes she knew, excited by the idea that singing might release the locks on Glenndon’s voice. She needed to start with a simple tune, something familiar, something that might be common in the distant exile of the University of Magicians.

Indigo’s purring took on a catchy rhythm, something one might dance to.

Glenndon picked up the beat slapping his hand against his thigh and humming a phrase or two, snatches of something . . . something old. Something very old.

“Yes! Old Maisy sings that when she’s sewing. She says it helps her keep her stitches even.” Linda hummed along seeking words to fit the phrases, the rhythm.

The music flowed with her blood and lightened her mind.

Dance, dance, wherever you may dance

Prance with a lilt in your feet . . .

A smile filled Glenndon’s face with light. He touched his throat tenderly, eyes nearly alight in wonder. Then he smiled again and nearly vibrated as he picked up the answering phrase.

Dance, dance, whenever you may dance.

Twirl and jump and keep the beat.

Together they sang the chorus and moved into the second verse. Linda picked herself up off the ground and sat on the bench, patting the place beside her. Indigo leaped to join her. Glenndon unceremoniously shoved the cat’s bottom to make him move away and replaced him on the bench, never missing a beat or a word of the song they both enjoyed.

An old song out of history, dating back as far as the Stargods, binding their different childhoods and giving them common ground to build on.

CHAPTER 26

J
AYLOR AMBLED ALONG a little-used path between the clearing and the University, seeking privacy to meditate and strengthen his connection to the magnetic pole. He needed to listen to the breeze and hope the Kardia spoke to him of birds and wild creatures.

Exhaustion dragged at his bones and stabbed at his eyes. He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to ease the strain of bright sunlight stabbing him through the trees.

He couldn’t keep up the search for the Krakatrice with Baamin and continue running the University and keeping the Circle of Master Magicians organized and working together compatibly much longer. Even with the assistance of Robb and Marcus working with younger dragons than Baamin, the work was too much, too exhausting, almost fruitless. For every one of the ancient menaces they killed, three more appeared. Where were they coming from! Maybe he and Baamin could train Lukan to ride and fight with a younger dragon. Maybe he should extend the training to all of the journeymen. If they had enough obsidian spear tips. If . . .

Lukan didn’t focus well on any single task. He flitted from idea to idea without ever completing something unless Jaylor sat with him and forced his attention back to the primary task. Fighting a giant snake from dragonback with magic, fire, and dangerously sharp weapons required concentration.

S’murghit, if only Glenndon hadn’t been called to the capital by Darville, the boy could wipe out the enemy with a few well-placed thoughts.

But Darville had recalled his son to the palace. And Jaylor felt his absence every moment as a huge ache in his heart. It was like there was suddenly a hole in the family.

He needed quiet, to practice the trick of fading into the background and eavesdropping unnoticed while in plain sight.

Like a dragon.

What he really needed was sleep. About three days of uninterrupted sleep before his short temper would relax.

And Brevelan’s quiet healing songs. She alone could soothe his temper and reduce the pressure around his heart.

But he never had enough time to just sit with her anymore.

Snatches of conversation drifted through the tufted branches of the everblues. He sighed in resignation and leaned against a boulder where he knew a ley line passed beneath. With his feet firmly planted upon the silvery blue that teased and taunted his senses but never fully showed itself, he drew in strength and magic to heighten all of his senses and revive his tired body.

Jaylor reached out with his mind to listen, to feel the vibrations of feet walking and the shift of tree branches as someone, two someones, pushed them aside.

The murmur in the distance was not a stray breeze playing tag with the tree canopy. It was men’s voices drawing closer.

He heard the name “Glenndon,” quite plainly. Alarm bells rang in his mind. He listened more avidly.

“It’s not right,” a deep male voice thundered across the network of paths in and around the University buildings.

“Hush,” replied a lighter tenor voice. “He’ll hear you. S’murghit, the entire University will hear you.”

Ah, that was Master Magician Dennilley. Middle-ranked, neither senior nor junior, younger than Jaylor, but older than newer members of the Master Circle.

Jaylor anchored his staff and tilted the knobby top toward the source of the conversation. His hand tingled, absorbing information as rapidly (and perhaps more accurately) as his ears. This sounded like something he needed to know.

“The boy is still an apprentice and he’s assigned to the court. That place belongs to the Senior Magician, or one of the Master Circle!” bass voice insisted.

Master Samlan. He was older than Jaylor by a decade or more. He’d accepted Jaylor as Senior, quite reluctantly, after old Master Baamin had died. As the man who had stood next to Baamin in seniority and power, he thought he should have been made Senior instead of the much younger Jaylor.

But Samlan had closeted himself within the old University in the city so tightly that he had little or no experience in the outside world. Politics bewildered him. Change confused him. Many of the other ancients had the same problem. Well, they weren’t exactly ancient, but at least old enough to know everything about everything magical. He thought of librarians and healers who never looked beyond their own talents and jobs.

“If the court is now open to magician advisers, why didn’t Jaylor tell us, let us decide who should go?” Dennilley asked mildly. “
When
the court is open to us, then masters should sit behind the left shoulder of the lords in Council. But are we certain that the court is open to us again?”

“Jaylor sent his son to them. I should have gone in his stead whatever his reasons.”

Jaylor ground his back teeth together trying to keep from shouting at the self-centered, pompous . . . He ran out of expletives for the man who wore blinders, seeing only what he wanted to see.

“But only his son. And the boy went directly to the king, not the Council of Provinces,” Dennilley reminded him.

Jaylor sensed that the young master took a step or two backward to separate himself from Samlan. Something more drove Samlan than affronted seniority.

“What difference does that make? The boy is only a boy. He can’t possibly know enough about economics and politics and diplomacy to advise the king. In Circle tonight I will demand the right to replace the boy. If Jaylor does not agree, than we must vote to remove him. We have that right!”

“We should ask Jaylor to share information rather than assume he is supplanting us with a lesser magician,” Dennilley cautioned.

Jaylor stood a little straighter. So that was what Samlan wanted. He was tired of waiting to control the power and prestige of being Senior.

Did he stop and think about the fatigue, the worry, the loneliness?

“What if the boy is there to infiltrate the court. To spy for his father?” Dennilley removed himself another two steps. Still the voice of caution. He rose in potential in Jaylor’s mind for that.

“We have other spies in residence!” Samlan thundered. “What good is one more? Are you with me in the vote to depose Jaylor?” Samlan demanded. His words bounced from tree to tree, picking up echoes and menacing undertones as they traveled. An ominous portent.

“I can’t let you do it, old man,” Jaylor muttered to himself, keeping his voice from traveling any farther than his own ears. His face grew hot, his belly tight, and the pain behind his eyes pounded more fiercely.

“I have plans to make.” Jaylor lifted his staff from its anchor in the Kardia. His anger grew cold but more intense. His mind sorted and classified options almost before he thought them through.

“Now I know why I’ve allowed my children to eavesdrop on conversations and spells. I will need Lukan for certain. He likes to hide in high places. The twins?” He remembered quite vividly what had happened the last time he’d urged them to observe from hiding and in silence. A niggle of worry replaced rigid calculation.

Could Valeria survive another such adventure?

“All life is risky. She’s the best observer I have. I’ll just have to keep her out of the void.”

“He’ll be mad if you tell him,” Lillian whispered from the top of a nearby tree.

“Better mad than exiled from the University,” Valeria replied.

Jaylor paused a moment to think about Valeria’s last comment. Yes, his family would rather risk his wrath at their eavesdropping and gossiping than do nothing and risk the disgruntled masters overcoming him and exiling him and his family away from the University, away from the clearing. Away from their home.

He continued on to his private office at the University, chuckling at how well he’d trained his children. His love for them outweighed any threat from his rivals. He had plans to make and his children to thank. He never could stay mad at them for long.

With that thought the pressure behind his temples eased and heat in his face dissipated.

King Darville studied a map spread across his desk. Each of the four corners was anchored with a different object—an inkwell, a dagger, his half-full mug of beta arrack, and the Coraurlia—to keep the huge parchment from rolling up again. General Marcelle stood on the opposite side of the desk tracing the course of the Coronnan River back to its source in the Western Mountains.

“That attack on Sambol was a feint. A test of our will and preparedness,” he grumbled.

“I agree. They came out of the darkness at dawn, fired a few salvos of arrows and retreated at the first sign of resistance,” Darville said.

“They gave up too easily for a well armed force of two hundred mounted soldiers. And they all wore the crest of SeLennica. Why would the queen ask your assistance, Your Grace, in delicate negotiations while preparing an attack on us?”

“Perhaps they came from somewhere else and only wanted us to blame SeLennica to provoke a war,” Darville mused. That’s what he would do if he wanted both countries vulnerable to . . . to what?

Two assassination attempts and now this. Connected? Coincidence?

Jaylor had taught him long ago not to believe in coincidence.

“Who else is enduring a long dry spell?” he mused, not really asking anyone other than himself.

“I haven’t heard of anyone but us missing the spring rains,” Marcelle replied. “Those troops couldn’t have come from anywhere but SeLennica by way of the main pass. The southern pass you keep tapping is closed, the slopes around it trackless and too steep for steeds. The road through the primary pass to Sambol is smooth and broad with gradual inclines for a reason.”

Darville’s attention followed the crest of the mountains. He couldn’t forget the addition of miner’s acid to the Amazon oil on his sword. Mines occurred mostly in mountains, strong doses could melt rock around mineral deposits.

“Here,” he said resting his finger on the southern pass, near Lake Apor, Laislac’s Province, and a base camp for a series of mines in nearby foothills. The lake was a headwater of a tributary to the mighty River Coronnan that carried the trade of his country to the Great Bay and the capital city that guarded the port. Except for a few rapids and waterfalls near the lake, the water became an easy, near silent route for small canoes and light barges to ride to the heartland of Coronnan.

He’d have to remember to step up the guards there. Who could he trust to lead them? If he were older, more experienced, or
spoke,
Glenndon would be the obvious candidate. Good training for the Crown Prince.

No one else came to mind. He needed General Marcelle
here.
He needed Glenndon’s unique talents to explore the extent of the reduced rainfall.

Dare he ask Jaylor to scout the region from dragonback while he and old Baamin sought the Krakatrice?

“The raiders actually came from here.” He tapped the pass again. “They circled around in the dead of night to make it look as if they had come from the primary trade route.”

“Why that pass? It connects one small military outpost on the SeLennica side of the mountains to a walled trading city on our side,” Marcelle said. “Even Lord Laislac doesn’t live there, or keep more than a token guard. It’s a long journey. Invaders would need provisions for an extra week of travel with no place to replenish across the entire mountain range. The main pass has outposts with stockpiles of journey foods, tackle, steeds, and weapons. They used the main pass this time and will again.” He pointed to Sambol near the headwaters of the river, a much larger and more important trading city.

“Too obvious. We keep the end of the pass guarded and the guards alert because it is the primary pass that leads to the highest navigable waters of the River Coronnan. No, if Queen Miranda wishes to invade Coronnan, again, she’ll send her troops through here,” he tapped the small outpost on the lake impatiently, “because the pass is narrow and steep, often clogged with rockfall. We maintain only a token patrol there to keep out unwanted riffraff and spies. All of whom come through the pass on foot, without steeds or more supplies than they can carry on their backs.” He moved his finger to the mining symbol nearby without saying anything. These days he never knew who might listen to private conversations.

“What makes you think Miranda will invade? She concentrated on rebuilding her country after the last war, consolidating her power base and unifying her people,” Marcelle continued to search the markings on the detailed map for notations of other points of interest. He nodded slightly as Darville tapped the mine again.

“My last missive from Ambassador Jack indicated restlessness among the people,” Darville said quietly, hoping no one overheard. “They’ve shifted their economy from heavy exploitation of resources to agriculture. Fifteen years of decent food and a stabilizing economy and the old nobility is restless. They have the leisure to remember old grudges and prejudices. We are foreign; therefore we are to blame for their years of privation. They want war to prove they are right.”

“Is that why the queen has sent three agents to my wife to seek a possible alliance between my grandson Mikkette and her daughter Princess Jaranda?” Lord Andrall asked, entering the room, unannounced, with an armful of more scrolls—smaller but more specific maps of sections of the border.