The Silent Dragon: Children of The Dragon Nimbus #1 (35 page)

CHAPTER 52

“I
CAN FEEL THE LAND drying as the river slows,” Lucjemm said on a thoughtful smile. “Only the Bay keeps moisture in the air. I can do nothing about the Bay. But the land responds to me and my lovely. The river obeys us and it deserts its old banks, seeking a new route to the ocean, far to the north.”

Linda gagged, fought the burning bile in her throat. And turned a false smile back to him. She had to learn his plans. Information was more precious than gold. “Where are we going?” she asked sweetly, as if she believed his vile musings.

“The one place in Kardia Hodos where all power comes together. The one place where the armies will meet and the destiny of this land will be determined,” he chortled.

“I don’t like the sound of that.” She stopped abruptly, digging in her heels at the center span of the bridge that led to University Isle. Her boots caught on an imperfection in the planks. It gave her an anchor to resist his tug on her arm.

A large group of people surged around them, like the receding river used to seek ways around the obstacle of the islands. Unlike the islands that welcomed the river on their banks, the people seemed to bounce off an invisible bubble surrounding herself and Lucjemm. No one touched her, and she . . . she tried to reach out and grab a large man to help anchor her but before her hand stretched more than a foot she encountered a burning wall as invisible as the air.

Linda bit her lip, fighting her fear and the lingering rawness across the back of her hand. What could cause the river, the lifeblood of Coronnan, to dry up?

“The rebels will meet your father’s troops at the barracks. We will watch a new government rise from the ashes of the battle. Truth and right will win.” Lucjemm renewed his grip on her with both hands.

“I will need a strong consort to rule this land. I prefer you, my princess, to Jaranda of SeLennica, a pale and wistful blonde. I adore your fabulous mane of hair.”

Linda held back, digging in her heels. Lucjemm’s depravity had grown just since leaving the palace. His eyes refused to focus on anything . . . except . . . perhaps the thoughts inserted into his mind by that hideous snake draped around his neck and shoulders.

“My lovely does not like the idea of me having any consort but her.” Lucjemm removed one hand from Linda’s arm to pet the snake’s head.

Linda tried to wrench free, willing to risk the burning invisible wall, but he firmed his hold with the other hand, fingers digging into her upper arm until she was certain he’d leave bruises.

“My lovely has promised; she and I will rule together.”

“Wrong,” Linda sneered. “She lies to you. You are nothing but a tool to get her into position to rid the land of people and animals and . . . and anything green and lovely. She wants a sere desert with no life but her and her mates.”

“No, no, no. I will rule with her as my tool, my weapon. This land belongs to me, and I choose the princess who will stand by my side. I decide. I am to be king.”

His hands moved to her throat, squeezing until she had no words to counter him.

As darkness crowded the edges of her vision and stars burst before her eyes, she forced herself to nod in agreement.

The bells rang again. The rebel army approached the palace. Lucjemm cringed at the sharp noise. “Make it stop, Linda. Make it stop. It hurts our ears.” He released her to slap his hands over his ears.

The bubble of burning energy receded with him.

A plan began to form in Linda’s head. She had an idea. The bells. There were bells in the old University tower. If the battle took place there, the clash of swords would swell the noise.

“We have to get inside the University walls. The bells won’t sound so loudly in there,” she coaxed. “But first we must get past those archers on the walls.” She pointed toward the crenellated parapet.

A long line of men and women, over one hundred, stood in the openings. They all held longbows or crossbows. “The test to become a royal archer is to be able to shoot the eye out of a carrion crow at one hundred paces,” she pointed out. “They have to recognize me or we will not get through the gate.”

“I failed the archer’s test,” Lucjemm said wistfully. “My lovely tells me that if I let her guide my aim I can win any archery contest. I can’t allow that. I will not use magic for myself. When I am king I will allow no magic in all of Coronnan.”

“But your lovely is a creature of magic, a form of dragon,” Linda said softly.

Lucjemm finally focused his eyes on her, then shifted his gaze back to the snake around his neck. “A dragon?” He touched the leathery wing membranes. “What is the right choice? Magic with dragons, magic without dragons? Magic? There must be no magic. Therefore I must dismiss my lovely. But I cannot . . .”

He grabbed his head in confusion. Then his eyes cleared and he grabbed Linda by the back of the neck, propelling her toward the gates.

“Those archers are loyal to my father,” she said. “If I do not go willingly . . .”

“They will not shoot me while I have you,” he snarled and yanked her off balance. “My lovely will protect me.” As she stumbled forward he wrapped one arm around her waist, the other across her throat. His thumb pressed deeply against her airway. “Now you are too close for them to risk shooting.”

“The dragons will protect me from you and your betrayal,” she choked out. “You betrayed our friendship.”

“You betrayed
me!
You accepted your magician brother into your household. He has taught you magic.”

“Glenndon is bound to me by blood. As are the dragons.” She had to defend Glenndon. She’d only go so far in placating this delusional madman.

“Are they bound to you? When I kill the king, will a dragon die?”

Linda squirmed under his hold.

“There is not enough Tambootie left to keep magic alive. The dragons no longer have enough power to protect themselves, let alone a mere princess. My pets have seen to that!”

With that, he marched them through the open gates of the barracks along with a throng of the populace seeking refuge from the approaching army.

He pushed her forward, cutting off more and more of her breath every time she resisted. He marched her directly toward the flagpole at the center of the courtyard. The stones beneath her feet vibrated with each step.

Half the archers turned inward, aiming for Lucjemm. One by one they shook their heads, unwilling to shoot their princess in order to kill him.

Linda doubted mere arrows, with or without flames, could penetrate the bubble the Krakatrice wound around them. She had to separate Lucjemm from his snake.

They stepped into the circle of paving stones surrounding the flagpole.

“Do you feel that, Linda? Do you feel the power beneath our feet? The stones confirm my right to rule over them. The only army that defends the center of the world is an old woman, a black cat, and the magician’s young daughter.”

Glenndon burst through the doors of the old University into the open courtyard. Dimly, he acknowledged that Da had designed the new University to match the old, smaller and wooden instead of stone, but with the same floor plan. He could find his way around the three-story central building and the lower cloister wings if he had to.

First he saw Old Maisy—presumably with Lyman joined to her mind—holding Lillian’s hand while Valeria, still in flywacket form, stropped her ankles, growling and hissing at everything that moved.

Half-dressed city folk filled the courtyard, milling about in agitated circles. Men looked anxiously toward the archers along the outer wall. Some carried small caskets of valuables, others wore layer upon layer of fine clothing. Women looked anxiously for their children, or clutched favorite gowns or jewels to their chests. Children screamed in uncertainty. Or raced about in a new game of tag.

He heard a repeated refrain. “Bloody dragons; where are the bloody dragons.”

Others shouted: “Kill the magicians. They caused this.”

Only a few asked, “Where’s the king? Where are the king’s soldiers?”

A fistfight erupted between two teens with opposite questions. No one sought to quell their violence. Another fight broke out on the other side of the courtyard. This one spread to a dozen citizens. Men flinging fists, women slamming iron fry pans on unwary heads.

He tried to make sense of the chaos while Da found a bench near the main doorway for the king to rest upon. The archers along the wall looked anxiously at a young couple headed for the flagpole.

Lucjemm with a stranglehold around Linda’s neck. No wonder the archers dared not fire.

The stone steps vibrated beneath his feet. His staff tingled against his palm with suppressed magic. The wand glowed, even in daylight.

“It is like a storm-tossed sea with waves breaking higher and higher but retreating farther and farther to build up momentum to break through the stones,” he said quietly to Da, still keeping an eye on his sister and her unwanted escort.

He had to rescue her. Too many people were between him and her. He could blast Lucjemm in the back with a fireball, but the boy kept shifting and turning right and left, around and around, moving too quickly to aim and hope any weapon, magic or mundane, would strike him and not Linda.

Glenndon wanted to wipe away the moisture from the spray of those imaginary ocean waves. His ears roared with the ceaseless pounding, blocking out all other sensation. He forced his mind to retreat, as he would run from an approaching wave. He found something for his mind to cling to in the shaft of iron standing tall and deadly above the sea. “Only the pole is keeping the power from eating the stones away and spilling outward and upward.”

How many would die if he and Da failed to contain the magical energy?

It had to be done to revive the dragon nimbus and the Tambootie. It had to be done to save Coronnan from the Krakatrice.

He had to get that iron pole out of the Well.

The milling populace stayed outside the circular brick pattern. He watched a young child, no more than four or five, younger than Sharl, step onto the outer ring of bricks. He screamed and hopped about as if burned. His mother scooped him up and retreated to a far corner behind a pillar on the left-hand cloister. A guard on the roof supported by that pillar peered over briefly to see if he was needed, then returned his attention to handing firepots up to the archers on the outer wall above him.

A roar outside the gate demanded attention. The army approached. All the archers but two turned back to face the enemy. They couldn’t do anything at the moment to save their princess, but they could do their duty and defend the fortress.

Glenndon looked back at the flagpole. He and he alone had to finish that job before tackling the rebels. Until the Well was opened and restored, he could be of no help to the army. A layer of bricks close to the flagpole began to heave and undulate, ready to blast upward from their resting place. The snake around Lucjemm’s neck and arm rippled in the same pattern.

Glenndon gritted his teeth at the way his former friend manhandled his sister. He wanted to rip out Lucjemm’s throat.

“Da?” he called to Jaylor.

“I see, Glenndon.”

“Linda!” Queen Mikka gasped.

King Darville growled something obscene and struggled to get to his feet. Da held him down with some effort.

She’s scared,
Glenndon whispered to Da.
But she’s angry too, just waiting for the right moment to claw his eyes out.
He kept a part of his mind linked to hers, letting her know that he’d do everything he could to help her. But he had to break through the shimmering aura of power surrounding both her and Lucjemm.

“Touch your staff to mine,” Da commanded Glenndon. “Ground it well before you join your magic to mine. We need dragon magic to combat land magic.”

“I can’t find enough dragon magic to join,” Glenndon said under his breath. He cast about for the ephemeral presence in the air. Each probe of his mind and talent came up empty, as did the special place behind his heart where he stored the magic.

“
S’murghit,
neither can I,” Da said.

The wand glowed brighter.

“There’s magic in the dragon bone!”

Da smiled. “May I hold one end? You take the other. We should be able to join our magic through it.”

Glenndon yanked the length of bone from his belt and grabbed the thick end, holding the slender tip out to Jaylor.

Da folded his fingers around the bone respectfully.
You are a strong telepath; link your mind to mine and follow everything I do, exactly as I do it. When I do it.

Glenndon shifted his link from Linda to Da, alarmed and comforted that she refused to break contact with him while Lucjemm controlled her body.
You cannot help this time, sister.

I can and I must. We must stop the Well from exploding before Lucjemm uses it to control the snakes. They are coming, relentlessly.

He can’t use the power. He’s mundane.

Don’t bet on that. He feels the stones vibrating like a drumbeat at a festival dance. He’s humming a tune that matches the rhythm.
The song pounded through his head, competing with the waves of magic against the stones in a battle of loudness.