The Silent Dragon: Children of The Dragon Nimbus #1 Read online

  “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.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  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.

  Contents

  Your Grace,” Lord Andrall said quietly

  Also by Irene Radford

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Map

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  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

  MY 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 peo
ple 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.

  CHAPTER 1

  SIXTEEN YEARS LATER.

  AND THEN THERE WERE NONE. No dragons in Coronnan. But that did not last long. They belong to this world of Kardia Hodos. They have been here longer than people. The magicians brought them back to Coronnan. All of them. Dragons fly the skies once again. But only a few, and rarely Shayla, the matriarch. The Council of Provinces has curbed their influence, their mystique. To invoke a dragon curse is to accuse someone of being untrustworthy. I helped the process under the guidance of my pretties.

  The dragons are the source of magic. Magic has robbed me of everything good and loving in my life. Magic must be eliminated, and so the dragons, all of the dragons, must die.

  Too long have I waited. Coronnan has been at peace, has become complacent. Now turmoil brews. I see an opening, a chance to once more show these blind imbeciles the value of my guidance and the evil that is magic. My retainers already listen to me and root out all traces of magic. They fear the dragons. If the lords turn deaf ears to our wishes and bring a magician into the royal circle, the people will revolt. I shall lead them.

  I have allies; they do not know who they truly follow. But soon, soon I shall reveal myself and my pretties.

  Then the Dragon Crown and Dragon Throne will be mine. But I will not accept the symbolism of the dragon. I will not rule by the grace of the dragons. I will rule by my own leadership and the will of the people. New laws. New traditions. A new monarch with true majesty.

  Me.

  Glenndon dashed ahead of his younger brother, out the side door of the University. He paused in the courtyard to bow respectfully to the circle of twelve paving stones, each with the carving of a different sigil representing a different master magician. Lukan’s footsteps sounded heavily behind him. Behind him, Master Marcus pounded his staff upon the wooden steps of the building that was as much home to Glenndon, Lukan, and their younger sisters as the cabin in the clearing half a mile away.

  “Come back here. Both of you!” Marcus called, pounding his staff again.

  Waves of magic rippled through the ground, tickling the soles of Glenndon’s boots, seeking him, trying to glue his feet to the Kardia. Or at least slow him down.

  Glenndon sent a magic probe into the dirt, melding with the ground and soothing the magic that twisted it. Then he set off again, casting aside his pale blue apprentice robes and dropping them in Lukan’s path. The younger boy stumbled as the cloth tangled his feet.

  “You won’t get away with this, Glenndon,” Marcus called again. “You cannot trade chores with your brother just because he can speak and you won’t.”

  I answer to Master Robb. Glenndon set his mental voice at a shout. Lukan is your apprentice. With another burst of speed he ducked into the sheltering shadows of the deep mountain forest.

  Please, shelter and hide me, he begged of a straggly Tambootie tree that seemed to rear up in the middle of the well-worn path but was really only a vision of a rare tree that hid deep in the towering forest.

  A sense of acceptance, and possibly humor, enfolded him.

  “Glenndon?” Lukan called from the University grounds. “Where are you? I can’t find you!”

  Sorry, L
ukan. We’ve been through all this before. I’m sick of it. Poor Lukan was an adequate apprentice magician. But he’d never have Glenndon’s strength and imagination.

  The masters recognized both their limitations and gave them tests and assignments to give Lukan power and force Glenndon to speak. Neither of them had any objection to trading those assignments.

  So, once again, Glenndon fled the ire of the master magicians, leaving Lukan to face them and take his punishment. Glenndon would face his own reprimands later, when he’d had time to ease his frustrations and think up a way out.

  He veered off the main path toward home and sought his favorite spot overlooking a gentle pool at the base of a small waterfall. He ripped off his confining boots that he only wore with his formal robes and dangled his feet in the warm water.

  Hot springs made pockets of the glacial runoff warm enough for bathing, or just easing tired feet. Farther downstream a larger fall created a pool deep enough for swimming. But this small catch basin was his favorite for just thinking.

  Sun had warmed the flattened boulder he sat upon. He shook his head to loosen his blond queue and leaned back, braced on his arms, staring at the interwoven canopy of leaves and branches.

  A tingling thrill coursed through his blood. Magic! That elusive Tambootie tree grew nearby. They were becoming increasingly rare in the areas touched by humans. But here, deep in the mountain forest, some of the trees flourished. He searched for the telltale fat green leaves with pink veins. The taller and more common everblue trees blocked his view. But he felt the Tambootie. He knew one was nearby, almost singing to him.

  But in all the years he’d been coming to this glade, he’d never found it.

  He blanked his mind in the first stage of meditation, aided by the surge of magic from the Tambootie. Soon he’d be old enough and skilled enough for a journeyman magician’s staff. Soon. If his Da ever agreed that he had mastered all of the tasks set before him. Mastered them better than his classmates who had already been promoted.