The Silent Dragon: Children of The Dragon Nimbus #1 (34 page)

(And the Well of Life. Save the Well of Life and the rest will sort itself out.)

“Who?” He looked around frantically for sign of the speaker. It sounded like a dragon. But not really a dragon. Something akin . . .

(We are all kin.)
Dragons, Tambootie tree, ley lines, you. All kin. All connected.

The staff vibrated in his hand as if it had spoken. Not the staff, the mother of the staff, perhaps.

In the far distance he heard bells ringing in the city. What? Why?

Not once in his weeks in the city had he heard them ring except on rest day morning to call the people to temple.

This was not rest day.

Alarms. He remembered something about codes within the alarms, but no one had taught him the meaning of the long and short peals.

He had to get out of here; get back to the city; fight off invading armies, kill the Krakatrice and Lucjemm.

Ah, Lucjemm, why’d you have to turn out to be a traitor? I thought you were a friend when I needed a friend.

He frantically searched for a way out. Jabbing the wand into the pit wall to create a handhold just brought on a new onslaught of muck and the hole filled in as soon as he yanked the stick free.

What else could he do?

The tree! Low hanging branches. If he could just reach one sturdy enough to hold his weight. He sloshed and squelched his way to the center of the pool again. The water was down to his armpits. He jumped again with the glowing wand extended. Water dragged at his clothes, keeping him well below the lowest branch.

“
S’murghit!
” he yelled to anyone who might care.

He was alone.

Wand was too short, even if it did give him a bit of light to catch details.

An idea struck with a jolt akin to Lukan throwing him headfirst against a rock during a wrestling bout. With the wand in his right hand for light, he grabbed the thick end of his new staff and reached the tip upward. Up and up, standing on tiptoe, the tines of the forked end brushed the bottom of the lowest branch—a weak and spindly looking thing at that.

“Come here,” he coaxed the tree. “Lower the branch, just a tiny bit. Just a little.”

He stretched again. Maybe the staff cupped the branch.

“A little help here, please,” he pleaded with the tree, the dragons, the land, the water, and the air.

The branch remained out of reach.

Glenndon closed his eyes, nearly giving into defeat. The chill water broke apart his mental fog.

What do I need here?

“I need the branch to drop lower. What will make that happen?” In his mind he saw a gentle breeze swishing through the upper canopy of branches.

Slowly, carefully, he grounded himself and steadied his breathing. With just a little magic, all he had left, he extended his awareness upward, making sure he maintained contact with all the elements. He had to search a bit to find Fire in the anger within his heart. Water and Land enfolded him. Wind eased past his mind, more concerned with getting from here to there than pausing to gossip.

“Come play with me,” he whispered. “Come twist and twirl, and swoop and swirl. Come be my friend and tell me of the places you have been.”

Air caressed his face. He reached out the wand to draw spirals for the wind to follow.

Tree rustled as the wind tossed its leaves about.

“Closer. Just a little closer.” He stretched up again with the staff. The two tines tangled with a stout branch. He twisted it until leafy side shoots wrapped around and around his staff.

“Thank you, air. You may go play somewhere else now. I bid you good journey. Thank you, tree,” he added the last for good measure.

The breeze died. The branch lifted.

Glenndon hung on for dear life. At last his feet dangled above the water. He swung his body back and forth, pumping his legs for a wider arc, greater momentum.

Just when he thought his shoulders would pop out of their joints and his body flagged, he let go at the farthest end of his pendulum and dropped onto solid ground.

The staff fell beside him, tines broken off to mere nubs, two more knots on the complex pattern of wood grain.

He still clutched the wand. Its glow faded as sunlight grew stronger. He examined it more closely, running his hands the length of it, feeling it tingle against his fingers, much as the oil from the Tambootie leaf had made his body hum with magic.

Not wood at all! You are made of bone.
From the size of it, he didn’t think it had come from a human. Not even a sledge steed.

Are you dragon bone?

(An arm bone of an ancient and revered ancestor,)
Shayla said.
(This is where we come to die. Our bones glow with magic. Only a few humans are privileged enough to find one. Congratulations and welcome to my nimbus. Use the wand judiciously. The magic within is not infinite.)

CHAPTER 51

V
ALERIA LISTENED TO THE ALARM bells. There was a pattern. She just couldn’t figure it out. The long peals and the short. What did they mean?

She needed her human body and brain to figure it out.

She remembered the pain in her joints and muscles as she shifted from human to flywacket. Even with Lyman helping it hurt.

Now she was alone in her head. With Lillian so deeply asleep, she had only herself.

With a deep sigh of resignation she drew in huge lungfuls of air. Easier than before. One, two, three, she steadied her breathing until her mind freed from the constraints of a body. Slowly she visualized her legs stretching out, lengthening, ankles and knees popping into new positions.

Her hip still ached from the dislocation, but stretching it felt good, natural.

She moved upward, pushing her arms high over her head to bring her shoulders into new alignment. As she moved, her skin pulled black fur inward, leaving only a fine fair down on her body, a little thicker on her head. Her muzzle retreated into a nose and mouth, but her teeth . . . She left the incisors sharp while blunting the others.

Only her sharp, pointed ears remained. She thought about leaving them in place, just to scare people. I would be nice to have the augmented hearing of the cat. No, she’d better behave this time. The people in the palace wouldn’t appreciate the joke.

Beside her, Lillian shifted uneasily in her sleep. Valeria nudged her with an elbow to push her to full wakefulness and awareness.

She had room in her head to be herself and only herself. And Lillian. She would always make room for her twin.

Valeria wondered if she missed the old man who had restored her life but drained her health.

No. But she’d probably miss his knowledge of all things magical and his affinity with the dragons.

(You have your own affinity with the dragons, young Valeria. A name fitting for a purple-tip dragon who is also a flywacket.)

Lyman’s voice wasn’t so far off after all. But she didn’t need him at the moment. She needed to pay attention to those annoying bells. Behind her eyelids she built a wall, not a flimsy mud and stick wall, a solid thing of stone and mortar like the palace. Something sharp stabbed her eyes, reaching to the back of her skull. She winced but ignored it, building the wall even higher. The stab withdrew and took her headache with it.

Fists banging on doors matched the rhythm of the bells, stronger and louder than Lyman trying to beat down her inner defenses. The tramping of hasty feet up and down the staircases and out in the streets needed her attention. And Lillian’s.

The bells rang again. A slightly different pattern. An alarm. A coded alarm!

“What’s happening?” Lillian asked. Eyes still closed, she stretched and flopped onto her back.

“You healed me,” she told Lillian. “But now we need to move, join the others. Something bad is happening in the city.”

“I did? How’d I do that?”

“Think about it. But later. We need to get dressed and follow the people leaving the palace.”

As if in answer to her questions, Lady Miri flung open the door to the bedchamber of the young princesses. “Up, up, everybody up. The rebels are invading. No time to dress. Manda, Josie, get up!”

Then the old seamstress, who seemed to be everywhere at once, the one who’d absorbed the spirit of the old man when he vacated Valeria’s mind, dashed into the maid’s alcove. “Lillian, Valeria, up on your feet now. I’m to see to your safety. And it’s good to see you yourself again, Valeria,” she whispered.

Hadn’t Da put Maisy/Lyman in a prison with magical wards?

Valeria scanned the woman’s aura. Something had changed from yesterday. The soft pink and blue looked frozen, unmoving with the pulse of her life. Jagged black lightning bolts couldn’t penetrate her barriers.

Lyman was safely locked inside her. Maisy was strong enough to contain him. For now.

“Where are we going?” Lillian asked, rubbing her eyes free of sleep grit. She yawned, drawing in enough air to inflate her all the way down to her toes.

Valeria yawned too in instinctive reaction. She watched the old woman through half open eyes, feigning grogginess.

“You’ll be safe with me, girls. Just come. Quickly. We haven’t much time.” She cocked her head listening to the newest round of bells. The pattern had shifted again.

“The enemy has crossed the third level of bridges,” Maisy said. “Not long now. They’ll be at the gates in moments. We have to run. Now.”

Lillian bounced out of bed and flung a dress over her shift. She found clogs to protect her feet.

Valeria moved more slowly, still watching Maisy’s aura to make sure the old man didn’t escape.

In the outer room she heard Lady Miri and her companion Lady Chastet urging the princesses to greater speed as well, but more gently and respectfully than Old Maisy.

“Da . . .” Valeria began a protest.

“Your Da sent me. You’re to come. Now.”

Don’t trust her, Lily. She thinks Da sent her, but Lyman could be lying to her.

Lillian nodded slightly in acknowledgment, then said “Come along, Val. I’ll help you if your hip hurts too much. As long as we’re together, we can handle anything.”

Valeria limped heavily as she and her twin followed the old woman down a back staircase that spiraled through an outer wall and into an empty courtyard.
Let Maisy and Lyman think we are vulnerable. Surprise is our best weapon,
she told Lillian.

Before Valeria could figure out where they were in relation to the rest of palace Maisy wrapped her arms around both of them, holding tight enough to squeeze the breath from them.

“Hold on now,” she said. “I won’t hurt you.”

The world went black then flashed bright with twining coils of life energy.

(You must become a flywacket again. The flying cat’s strength and agility will be needed,)
Shayla informed Val.

She could trust Shayla. Right now she didn’t want to trust anyone, except Mama and Da and Lillian. And maybe Glenndon.

I need to be myself!

(You will be. But not yet. The king, the magicians, the dragons need you to be the flywacket a little longer,)
Shayla insisted.

A nudge from Mama in the back of her mind only confused her more as she shrank back into her cat body.

“I have to rest,” Darville moaned. His knees sagged as his head drooped. Whatever made him think he could leap to the defense of the city and dash into battle?

The Coraurlia weighed heavily on his brow and his heart.

He had to do it. He had to find strength hidden within himself. Deep inside his heart, not in the flask of fortified wine Mikka carried in her sash.

She wiggled to retrieve it. Her movements jostled his arm.

He suppressed a cry of pain.

“I’m so sorry. So, so sorry,” she murmured repeatedly.

“I’ve had enough,” Darville said firmly. For the first time in a long time, losing himself in drink and pushing his responsibilities aside, for a time did not sound appealing. He needed to keep moving, needed to get to the barracks. Then he could sit.

Jaylor, supporting from the left, anchored his staff and shifted his grip across Darville’s back, steadying his balance. The glow ball on the tip of the staff faltered as he poured strength into his friend.

They were nearly of a height, but, thankfully, Jaylor had always been broader of shoulder and hip, with a barrel chest to support his heavy bones.

“We only have a little farther to go,” Jaylor coaxed. “Once you stop, you won’t want to get up again. Better to keep moving.”

“You need food,” Mikka said. She felt his face, neck, and hands with sensitive fingertips. “Cold and clammy with a rapid pulse. I don’t like this. The only good thing is the lack of fever.”

“Once we’re in the old University buildings, I can summon a healer,” Jaylor said. “But I can’t do much of anything underground. I can’t even talk to the dragons to find out what’s going on up there.” He urged them all forward again, pounding the braided wood of his staff against the stone floor with each step. The glow sprang back to life and flickered with the movement.

“Indigo has already called for a healer to meet you at the end of the tunnel,” Glenndon said from a few feet away. A strong light haloed him, blurring his features. The only thing discernible about him was a new confidence in his posture and a staff in his hand—the source of the blindingly bright light.

“Glenndon, I am mighty glad to see you,” Jaylor said on a long, relieved exhale.

“And I you. Indigo said I was needed belowground when I got back from Sacred Isle. There is chaos in the streets, people fighting each other to get to safety. I saw soldiers on foot moving toward the palace, still five levels out. But they are pushing aside or killing anyone who gets in their way. They are moving fast. And . . . and the river has slowed to a trickle, they don’t need boats or bridges. I waded across at the last two crossings. I think the Krakatrice built a dam upriver, dirt and rocks and fallen trees, not permanent but enough to allow the troops to walk from island to island and only get their boots wet.

New chills ran up and down Darville’s spine, not from poison or blood loss. From fear. How could he fight so formidable an enemy with only half strength?

“Every snake old Baamin and I killed was in the process of damming a river.” Jaylor pounded his staff again. “It’s their instinct to divert water away from the land, create a desert. As they did on the Big Continent centuries ago.”

Silence as they took in that bit of information.

“Fire. We need fire, lots and lots of fire to defeat them. They seek to destroy Coronnan,” Darville said. Anger made his steps firmer, steadier. “Lucjemm might think he’s saving our land, but the snakes are lying to him, making him believe that what they want is best for everyone. We have to kill every last one of those monsters. With fire and sword.”

“And magic, Father. We have magic. If they destroy the land, they destroy the dragons,” Glenndon finished the thought for them. “I think I know what Lucjemm is planning, but I’ll need help from anyone and everyone. Have Robb and his journeymen come?”

Jaylor shook his head. “I don’t know where they are. And that worries me. Have you eaten, Glenndon?”

Glenndon nodded. “I found a meal hidden in my boat after I got out of the water-filled pit Lucjemm and his pet snakes dug.”

“But you got your staff. That’s the important thing,” Darville said, remembering the night Jaylor had found his own tool. “But what’s that glowing wand in your belt?”

Glenndon shrugged, like he had before he learned to speak.

“May I?” Jaylor asked, holding out his hand to examine the strange stick.

“It’s dragon bone.” Glenndon held out the white wand, letting them all see it but not touch it. “The island is littered with them. If you know how to look, and the dragons let you see them.”

“Is that how you found us in this warren of tunnels?” Darville asked, urging them all forward toward the exit. He thought he heard an echo of the bells in the far distance. The tunnels muffled the sound. He needed to be out there, helping and directing.

“I found you by the stump of your staff, Da.” Glenndon grinned hugely, thumping his own staff against the ground. The light flared again, revealing a short distance to solid stairs leading upward. Upward to the University cellars and nearly the end of this endless journey.

“Where’s Linda?” Darville’s thoughts flew beyond the immediate need to get to the barracks. Once the family was safe in the old keep, he expected her to come looking for him.

“She should be guarding her sisters,” Mikka replied. “They know what to do. We’ve taught them well. I haven’t sensed any fear from her.”

“No, Mikka. Lucjemm is obsessed with her. We have to find our daughter.” Darville lurched forward, stumbled, and nearly fell. “She may not fear him. She’s bold to the point of recklessness.”

“Wonder where she learned that,” Mikka muttered in derision.

Darville ignored her words. “She thinks she can defend herself because she beat him at sword play. But the snake . . .” Darville surged forward. His body betrayed him and his knees folded. He’d lost a lot of blood.

Glenndon caught him. “Come along, Father. We’ll find her together and stop Lucjemm and his plots, together.”

Jaylor draped Darville’s left arm about his shoulders, taking most of his weight. Glenndon propped him up on the other side. Mikka led the way, guided by the light glowing from the tips of two magicians’ staffs. Darville’s son and his best friend.

For a few moments life felt as if it had shifted into a natural and normal pattern after a long session of chaos.

Then the sound of the alarm bells filtered down the staircase. Four long, one sharp.

The enemy approached the gates of the palace.