The Broken Dragon: Children of the Dragon Nimbus #2 (27 page)

I must see to my own survival. I send a thought to my waiting apprentice in his own boat. He escaped the city before the storm could brutalize all of the Bay. He will fetch me to safety near the headlands to the South. I will be safe there, ready to rebuild from the ancient citadel of Saria.

“K
EERKIN, COME. NOW.
We have to get out of here,” Glenndon ordered.

“Is it safe?” Keerkin asked, not quite daring to stick his head all of the way outside the tree’s shelter.

“Not for long.” Frank grabbed Keerkin’s hand and dragged him upright.

Glenndon sought an image. Someplace safe, warm, and dry. A clear spot in the palace cellar, a storeroom next to the kitchen. It was where both he and Da transported to and from when they needed privacy. Slowly he built the image in his mind, layer by layer, dust mote by dust mote, the way he’d seen it last . . .

“Make sure you land us someplace high. The entire city will be flooding, any minute.” Frank grabbed his arm, disrupting Glenndon’s trance.

“The palace will be packed with refugees, all above the second floor,” Keerkin added.

“A parapet or roof would be best,” Frank agreed.

“Your rooms, sir?” Keerkin asked.

“Probably seething with people. I can’t risk materializing inside someone else.” Glenndon shifted memories. The semisecret room above the archives. Too difficult to find and get to for just anyone to wander in or seek refuge there.

“Hold tight, my friends. Don’t let go of me no matter what you see or think you see. Just hang on to me and try not to think of anything.”

With a destination image firmly in his mind, he checked the light angles and shadows. Then he reached out with his mind to find a ley line. The place was riddled with them, all thin and spidery. But he didn’t need much. Just enough energy to boost him from here . . .

Into the void.

A tangle of glowing umbilicals wrapped around him, greeting him, begging him to stay and play with them.

He pushed them aside, all except his own golden cord of life, Frank’s uninteresting brown tinged with green, and Keerkin’s muddy jumble of pale and undefined colors. Those he held close to his heart as he dropped them all . . .

Onto the creaking floorboards of the upper room of the archives.

And almost into the laps of an astonished Lady Miri, Lady Chastet, and his two youngest half sisters.

Frank and Keerkin staggered backward, unbalanced in time and place, bodies working ahead of their minds, which were still back on Sacred Isle.

“Will you teach us that game, brother?” Princess Rossejosiline demanded, crowing with delight and clapping her hands.

“Not now, Josie.” Glenndon reached out and ruffled her carefully groomed curls. “Um . . . What are you all doing here?”

“Taking refuge from the coming flood,” Lady Miri said, firmly closing her gaping jaw. “This seemed the only quiet and unoccupied space, so we commandeered it.”

Frank and Keerkin each braced themselves against tall, freestanding bookcases and breathed deeply.

“Good idea. Um . . . you might want to forget what you just saw.”

The two ladies raised their eyebrows in speculation. He wondered what kind of price they’d demand for silence. He hoped it would be as simple as a dance at the next court gathering. After the city had recovered.

“Where are the king and queen?” he asked, changing the subject to something more necessary.

The ladies shrugged in indecision. “They were still in the city rounding up refugees, last I knew,” Lady Miri replied.

“I hope they have returned by now,” Lady Chastet added.

“M’ma is in the formal salon,” Josie said. Her eyes crossed and glazed as if looking into the far distance through a glass floating in water lit by a candle flame.

“P’pa is with her,” Manda added. Her eyes remained focused, as if she didn’t need to think about locating her parents. She was the quiet one. Almost as quiet as Glenndon had been before he learned to speak. He wondered if she read minds as easily as he did.

“Frank, Keerkin, you can stay here and help entertain the ladies. I must report to my father.” Glenndon turned toward the trapdoor.

“You don’t go anywhere without me,” Frank said, following close on Glenndon’s heels while looking over his shoulder at the girls with trepidation.

“Same here,” Keerkin added. “We’re all in this together.”

Glenndon sighed. Was he never going to be left alone again?

Three minutes later he approached his harried-looking father in the salon. The king paced and prowled, shouting orders. Water still dripped from his tunic and boots, mud streaked his cheeks and his clothes. His golden hair looked dark and dull, escaped from his queue hours ago. Even the golden cord that normally held the four-strand braid in place was missing. Queen Mikka sat on the demi-throne, equally disheveled, one hand squeezing Mikk’s shoulder tightly. The boy was as wet as Glenndon, filthy, and looked like he’d been crying.

Without thinking, Glenndon grabbed a memory from his cousin’s mind. General Marcelle. He staggered in shock.

Frank caught him and eased him toward a chair. “Knew you shouldn’t work such a strong spell on an empty stomach,” the bodyguard growled into his ear.

The king nodded to Glenndon, acknowledging his presence and safety without disrupting his concern over water supplies, food, and barricades on all the lower entrances.

Glenndon steadied himself. He’d barely counted bodies in the room, thirty at least—he’d have a more accurate idea if they’d just stop moving—when the silver-rimmed circle of glass in his inside shirt pocket vibrated, nearly bouncing with energy.

He was still reaching for it when an image of Linda, his half sister in exile, closer to him than any of his siblings, came before his eyes. She looked a little transparent, but otherwise fully formed and three-dimensional, not the flat image he’d see in the glass.

“Come,” she said and vanished, leaving in her wake a flood of awesome and terrible images.

“I’ve got to go home. Da is dying!” He stood and took three steps toward the door.

“No.” King Darville, his father, stopped him with a word and a firm glance. “You are the heir. I need you here. You have a duty to me, to the people of our city, to all of Coronnan.”

“But . . .”

“I am as sad and concerned as you. Lord Jaylor is my best friend, closer to me than a brother. I grieve with you and for you. But my duty is here. And so is yours. This is what both your Da and I have been training you for, leadership in a time of crisis. I can’t imagine a greater crisis than the coming flood.”

A new sound grabbed all of their attention, a vast roar that began in the depths of the Kardia and surged toward them from the east.

A wall of water a hundred feet high raced to engulf them all.

S
KELLER KEPT A
wary eye on the black line writhing along the ridgeline running southwest. The other caravan took the road parallel to that long steep hill. This caravan needed to go around the end of the ridge to continue south. The slithering movement did not seem to have a direction. Just back and forth, with forays downhill toward the animal bodies dead or dying on the slope. Would the caravan have time to circumvent the hills and get beyond the black mass?

What of the westbound caravan?

He’d heard of the black phenomenon, but never seen it. It was one of those dark, nightmare tales that bards sometimes whispered to each other when deep in their cups, long after their audiences had gone to bed, but never, ever, composed songs about or used as teaching tales with the young.

Red and black eggs lying dormant in forgotten nests covered with sand. King Lokeen offered a bounty for them, unbroken. He watched in fascinated horror as the nightmare of ancient times took form. Became real. Threatened the lives of thousands of people as well as the land itself. If left to their own devices, those snakes would turn this lush land into sere desert in two years.

And Lokeen exported them to his “allies.”

“We have to get out of here and get help.”

Champion and the few other animals who had managed to stay within the circle of sledges required his attention before he could begin to formulate plans. He hummed a soothing tune as he slid his shirt free of the steed’s eyes. Champion shook his head and tried to rear in remembered fear. Skeller kept a firm hand on the bridle, continuing his hum while stroking the steed’s long nose and letting him walk on a tight rein.

Lily chased after hens and drakes, trying to herd them toward cages—the few cages that hadn’t been blown around and broken apart when they landed.

Champion reared his head up as he turned a tight circle and caught whiffs of the suspiciously tainted air. He knew that danger lay within that undulating mass to the south and west of them, even if the humans did not recognize it. His wariness came from there, not a holdover from the storm, though that left them all more than a bit bewildered and shaken.

Time to gather up whatever they could and get moving again. They needed to get past the tangle and as far away from it as possible. He didn’t think the snakes could be killed with mundane weapons, even at night when they slept. Maybe magic had a use after all; if a magician could kill those snakes, then he’d thank them all.

Skeller looked around and caught Garg’s gaze when he looked away from the black line. “Aye, boy, I see it. Don’t understand it, but I knows it ain’t friendly.”

“We need to get out of here,” Skeller said. “Quickly. It looks like they are feeding on the animals that died during the storm. I don’t know how long before they decide to move on for fresh blood.” Half-remembered bits and pieces of nightmare lore tumbled around his mind in no particular order.

“Agreed,” Garg said as he cast his gaze around the mess of their hasty encampment. “Be a lot easier to stay here the night and get this all ordered and sorted.”

“Not safer. We need to walk all night while they sleep off their feast.”

Movement across the road at the tree line caught his attention. Lady Graciella drifted along a narrow game trail, seemingly unfazed by the disastrous storm. Her unfocused gaze drifted everywhere but toward the writhing black ridgeline.

Skeller wondered if any of the destruction registered with her.

Lily dropped two pieces of a crate that might fit together and dashed to the side of her charge. “Where have you been, Gracie?” she asked smoothing a lock of hair out of Graciella’s eyes and tucking it behind an ear.

With a start, Graciella twitched and fixed her gaze on Lily. “Oh. Is something wrong?”

Skeller couldn’t help rolling his eyes as he turned his attention back to calming and organizing the steeds. When Champion stopped prancing and sidling, Skeller took a moment to check Telynnia. He pulled the case around from his back and opened the latched flap. The harp looked undamaged. He ran his hand along frame and strings still inside the case. Nothing overtly wrong.

Nothing he could do to fix her now, if she were damaged. Just the changing air pressure and humidity could weaken her frame and destroy tension in the strings. At this point, not knowing meant he didn’t have to worry.

Lily escorted Lady Graciella back within the circle of upturned and twisted sledges. “Gather what you can carry, my lady,” she instructed. “We’re moving on now.”

“I need to sleep in the litter. Make sure they harness it to steady steeds.” The lady’s eyes glazed over again, almost as if reality was just too painful to remember.

Where had she been during the storm?

“Cat chased the weasel,” Graciella sang to an old children’s tune. “Up hill down dale. The weasel chased the cat.” She swayed in the rhythm of the tune.

Lily looked toward Skeller in fright.

“What did you see, my lady?” Skeller asked gently, keeping a similar chant to the rhythm of his words.

“Cat chased the weasel. Spin, spin, twist in the wind with sparkling light. Weasel grew up and grew old. Cat hid behind him. Cat grew up and grew young. Weasel chased the cat. Not weasel and cat anymore. All gone.”

“Stargods!” Lily gasped and swayed.

Skeller caught her before she collapsed.

“All the magic in the storm. Gobs and gobs of it. Even I could sense it, smell it. Feel the thickness of it. Krej tapped into it, even in his weasel form. He transformed them. I have to tell Da!”

“Can’t go home. Don’t want to go home.” Graciella turned toward the ruins of her litter, swaying and singing, eyes not focusing.

Lily followed her. Skeller let go reluctantly.

A shimmer in the light made Champion shy and sidle again. Skeller searched the little hollow for signs of more danger.

Lily stopped short and held Graciella away from the shimmer. Within two heartbeats the distorted light coalesced into the outlines of two people. He had to look away from the intense glow of sparkling and swirling bits of matter.

What now? Hadn’t the storm upset the natural balance of the elements enough?

When he looked back, Valeria and her lady stood in front of Lily. Valeria sagged with exhaustion, held half-upright by her companion.

“Val!” Lily dashed to aid her sister.

“Da is dying. We have to get home,” Val gasped.

“You’ve overextended yourself, Valeria. You can take us no farther,” Lady Ariiell said sharply, as if reprimanding a trying student.

“Da?” Lily wavered and nearly dropped to her knees.

Skeller forgot the steed and reached to hold Lily up. Graciella continued drifting in and out of awareness and ignored her companion.

“Da can’t be dying!” Lily wailed. “He just can’t. We need him too much. The king needs him too much.”

“The summons was specific,” Lady Ariiell said.

“We have to go to him,” Val insisted. “I have enough energy for one more transport, if there is food and sleep at the other end . . .”

“We can’t leave our ladies behind,” Lily said softly, taking in Graciella’s detachment. “They are our duty and responsibility.”

Valeria eyed both women hesitantly and shook her head. “I can take you. No more.”

“But . . . but . . .”

“Show me the spell, Val,” Lady Ariiell said, grabbing Valeria by the shoulders and staring deeply into the girl’s eyes. “Show me,” she insisted louder.

“She can’t. It’s a secret. A big secret. We aren’t supposed to know it,” Lily replied, looking anywhere but at Ariiell.

“We haven’t time to dither about duty and secrets,” Val said. “Da is dying
now
.
” She seemed to gather herself and fixed her gaze upon Ariiell.

The lady staggered a moment, shaken by whatever information passed between her and Valeria.

Skeller shook his head, amazed at the amount of trust these people put into magic. He felt like he should shield Lily from the manipulations of her sister and the lady, at the same time he couldn’t keep her from seeing a beloved father one last time. He wouldn’t care to go to his father in such a circumstance, but if his brother or his Aunt Maria needed him, he would do whatever he had to in order to return home at any cost.

All of Amazonia needed him if Lokeen had succumbed to the enscorcellement of the Krakatrice eggs.

“I have the strength to take Lady Graciella and Lily,” Lady Ariiell said. “You just get yourself home. We’ll be two heartbeats behind you, Valeria.”

Valeria nodded and breathed deeply. Lillian and Ariiell matched the rhythm of intake and release.

Without realizing what he was doing, or why, Skeller grabbed hold of both Lily and Lady Graciella and closed his eyes. Intense cold enveloped him and would not let go. His bones ached with it. If he had bones to ache or teeth to chatter.

He opened his eyes a tiny slit and found himself in a vast pool of nothing, without being able to find his feet or any other part of his body.

Almost before he could register that something was not normal, the air around him warmed and a setting sun brightened his eyelids.

(Good-bye. Come again when we can linger and talk.)

He didn’t really hear that faintly amused voice. No. He was certain he hadn’t.

This little boat is as much a menace as the larger one. It bobs and drifts at the command of wind and waves. They have stolen my oars and the tiny mast and sail. I have not enough magic left to recall order to the ocean. Everything I have, everything I am, went into the storm and into the bone. I need help. There are those who will respond to my dream requests. There is one who will respond to my summons. He has no choice. The compulsion I planted in his mind overwhelms his feeble attempts at self-will. He owes me for his high position, for his secret education, for the training of what little magic he can command.

He left Coronnan City the moment he learned about the storm. I made certain he had no choice. He had time to steal a boat and follow the edge of the storm around the Bay while everyone else sought to go inland to higher ground. My control over his mind allowed nothing else.

I will manipulate my other tools. But my apprentice will come for me. He must divert his path from following the shore to my position. He has no choice.