Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III Read online

  “Master Lyman, have you read this book?”

  “Title and author?” Lyman scrunched up his wizened face in thought.

  “Ceremonies of Symbolic Magic written by one Kimmer, a scribe from the south. I think this was copied from the original text.” Bessel stared at the fine tooling on the leather cover. Traces of gold leaf still clung to the ancient embossed lettering.

  “Kimmer? Ah, yes. Kimmer of the south. A fine scholar and one of our most prolific authors. Sadly, I have not had time to read this text.” Lyman started to shove books back into place, withdrawing from Bessel’s presence.

  “Uh, Master Lyman?”

  “You have another question?” Lyman poked his head back into the shelf opening. “Two questions in one sitting from the same student? Could it be that one of you is beginning to think enough to ask questions?”

  “Master Lyman, someone has torn some pages from this book. Who would do such a thing?” Distress made Bessel’s voice rise in pitch and volume. He immediately lowered it to a more appropriate whisper. “I think I’ve found a reference to early blood magic. It was used for healing rather than power! This is important.”

  “Hush, boy. You must never say that out loud! I told Powwell the same thing when he read from this text. I also told him to hide this book.” Lyman scuttled around the bookshelves and grabbed the book away from Bessel. His funny, old-fashioned tunic that hung to his knees and he’d belted on the outside to hold up his trews made him appear more a harmless gnome than a powerful and wise magician.

  Had Powwell removed the crucial pages from the book? Why? Surely he wouldn’t need blood magic to rescue his sister. But then, in Hanassa, maybe he would.

  The main door to the library banged open. Master Scarface stood framed by the massive double doorway. The scar that gave him his cognomen made a vivid red pathway from temple to temple across the bridge of his nose.

  “Out!” he commanded. The scar bleached white, clear evidence of the tension he kept carefully contained. “All of you students out of here now. The masters have important work to do. We cannot be disturbed.”

  A dozen apprentices gathered up their books, scrolls, and writing implements in preparation for leaving.

  “Don’t take anything with you. Leave the books behind. Just get out of here. Now.”

  While I still have the courage to do this. Scarface’s stray thought penetrated Bessel’s mind. What was the Senior Magician going to do?

  “Quickly, boy, hide the book and get yourself away by the postern door.” Lyman thrust the book back into Bessel’s hands and shoved him toward the back corner of the three-story-high room that filled the entire central wing of the U-shaped University building. “Hide yourself well without magic. He’ll smell your magic if you use it.”

  “Lyman, show yourself,” Scarface ordered as he stalked into the library. Three master magicians, all of them new since Scarface had taken over leadership of the Commune a year ago, followed closely upon his heels. All of the master magicians seemed more willing to follow Scarface than make a decision on their own. That was how Scarface had become Senior. No one else wanted to do it.

  “Yes, Master Aaddler?” Lyman stepped in front of Bessel, giving the journeyman cover for his quick retreat.

  Bessel kept his ears open and his magical senses alert as he sought a dark corner for himself and his book. He knew he needed to hear the truth beneath the spoken words.

  The Senior Magician winced at the use of his true name. Since he had taken over, all of the masters had adopted working names and reserved true names for only the most solemn occasions.

  “The books must be separated by categories,” Scarface said, looking directly into Lyman’s eyes rather than at the books. The intensity of his gaze suggested he attempted to influence Lyman with magic.

  “They already are cataloged and categorized.” Lyman didn’t falter or succumb to the mental manipulation.

  “For the safety of the Commune and those who seek knowledge here, a further separation is required. The queen’s dragon dream foretells danger in the knowledge contained within these books.”

  The three satellite magicians moved to flank Scarface, becoming a solid wall of determination.

  “I have studied the matter. We can no longer delay in removing dangerous information from the reach of vulnerable apprentices.”

  “Dangerous as in . . . ?” Lyman remained firmly in place, blocking the other magicians.

  “All references to rogue magic must be placed where only master magicians can access them. All references to machines that mimic magic must be set aside for later culling,” Scarface announced. “None of my students have need of this forbidden knowledge.”

  “You are going to ban books?” Lyman asked. For the first time, Bessel watched the old man fumble for a retort that would misdirect or perplex. Lyman stood blinking, mouth agape. He radiated emotional pain.

  “We must remove dangerous books from the hands of vulnerable children and those who would misuse the forbidden knowledge secreted therein.”

  Chapter 8

  The void between the planes of existence

  Pulsing energy jolted through Yaala, the only sensation available to her as numbing darkness enfolded her. She had no body, no perceptions, only thoughts and the rippling currents tingling her mind. Something akin to the ’tricity generated by her beloved machines beneath Hanassa. But different. Unnatural.

  (Your ’tricity is unnatural. We belong here,) a voice said inside Yaala’s head.

  Where am I? she asked. She wanted to speak but had no mouth to form the words. Only her mind existed. Her mind and the voice.

  She retained a brief memory of seeing the dragongate start to form and dashing forward to stand beside Powell. Then, before she could reach him, she fell into . . . nothing; nothing but the repeated jolts.

  Her thoughts spun, seeking order out of nothing.

  (You have found a place where you do not belong and cannot stay.)

  I have never belonged anywhere but with my machines. How do I return to them?

  (Is that what you truly wish?)

  I have no alternative.

  (There are always alternatives.)

  Then I make the choice to return to Hanassa. With Powwell. The image of underground caverns filled with giant generators and transformers formed slowly in her memory. Gradually, she completed the picture with all of the colors and sulfur smells she had lived with so long. Then she added the memory of Powwell following her about with tools and oil rags.

  (That is the one place I cannot send you. Dragons do not venture near the realm of the renegade.)

  Abruptly the voice disappeared. And Yaala was left alone in the nothingness, with only her mind and her memories. And the jolting energy.

  All energy followed definite currents. She remembered that much from her study of the machines. Even when ’tricity appeared to flare in random directions, it followed some kind of pattern, using the air as a conduit when no wires existed.

  Therefore this strange energy had a beginning and an end. She had but to follow it.

  She took a moment (if time still existed, which she doubted) to study the patterns of the energy. At first, they seemed random and directionless. Gradually, she tuned her mind to the frequency of the flow. At last, she found a rhythm. It pulsed in her mind almost like music. Haunting and compelling.

  (Follow me!) it seemed to say. (Follow me home.)

  Her mind blended with the pseudo ’tricity and joined the pulsing dance it created out of nothing. A kind of joy filled her. If she’d had a body, she would have laughed.

  Laughter. One of many things missing in her life. Yaassima had laughed, but only when cruelty lit her mind. Yaala had never found anything to laugh about in Hanassa, even as a small child. Fear had dominated every aspect of surviving the Kaalipha’s strange whims and bloodlust.

  Now Yaala laughed and understood that her life could never be complete until she put aside her fears. Yaassima was dead. Yaala’s
mother could no longer terrorize her. I am free of her! She laughed out loud, needing to include others in her mirth. But who?

  Powwell, her only friend, was on that lonely desert plateau, lost in time. Nimbulan and Myrilandel were back in the capital. And she was lost in the void.

  I don’t want to be alone.

  The energy swirled in a stronger vortex. Colors erupted around her. Her limbs tingled as they had when she tumbled through the dragongate.

  Abruptly she found herself sitting beside a large tree with a rocky overhang sheltering her from a spring rainstorm.

  Evey joint in her intact body ached and rippled with the residual energy. Especially the base of her spine where she seemed to have landed on her butt on the hard forest floor.

  “Was I in the magicians’ void?” she asked whoever might be listening.

  The tree branches whispered among themselves as the wind rose and the rain intensified. Their conversation meant nothing to her mundane senses.

  She crawled to her knees, searching her surroundings for clues to her whereabouts. She needed a drink. The hours she had spent on the desert plateau had evaporated every spare drop of moisture from her.

  She knew how to survive. And survive she must. Yaassima had taught her that. The only valuable lesson her mother could impart.

  She knew how to survive alone.

  The rocky overhang looked promising. Rain ran down the rocks in heavy rivulets. She lapped at them, refreshing her parched throat.

  A small measure of strength returned to her with the influx of water. She drank more deeply and filled her waterskin.

  Yaala crept deeper beneath the overhang until a large outcropping sheltered her back from the pelting rain and fierce wind. Her prominent spinal bumps fit nicely into the crevices as if made to fit her unique body form.

  “Right back where I started from. Only this time I don’t have Powwell.” A deep ache opened within her, unrelated to the physical distress of her adventures.

  “Powwell!” she howled, more alone than she’d ever been before. More alone than when Yaassima, her own mother, had executed Yaala’s father and dipped her hands in the still warm blood.

  “Oh, Powwell, find me, please. I don’t want to be alone.”

  The city of Hanassa, home of renegades, dragons, magicians, and mundanes

  The kardia rumbled and rolled beneath Rollett’s feet in the hellish volcanic crater called Hanassa, home to mercenaries, political outlaws, thieves, murderers, and exiled rogue magicians.

  Stargods? Not again!

  “Everyone out! Get out of the tunnel now!” he yelled as he dashed forward. Two dozen men streamed past him, each seeking the exit. Some of them showed signs of panic as they ran. Rollett touched each man on the shoulder, offering reassurance. They calmed down and cleared the tunnel in an orderly fashion.

  The confines of the excavation amplified the sensation of motion from the quake. Dirt trickled through cracks in the ceiling of the lava tube passage. Instantly Rollett scanned the partially blocked tunnel with every sense available to him.

  He and his crews had almost reached the section where three men had died the last time the only known exit from Hanassa had collapsed on them.

  “I won’t sacrifice any more men to Piedro’s bloodthirsty god Simurgh,” he proclaimed to any who might hear. “I won’t let this cursed city trap me any longer.”

  With his last words he slapped his hand onto the most vulnerable crack. Before he’d had the chance to breathe deeply twice, magic coursed through his fingers into the unstable tunnel. On the third breath the calm of a light trance descended in waves upon his muscles. His mind floated free of the restrictions of his body. He followed his magic into the walls of the ancient volcano.

  He found the imbalance of broken layers of solidified lava and aeons of dirt. A push here, leverage there, and the tunnel stabilized at the same moment the kardia ceased quaking.

  Rollett returned reluctantly to his sweating and exhausted body.

  “Is it safe, Rollett?” one of the masons whispered from the tunnel entrance. Rollett had elevated the man from captive slave to honored workman soon after they began the first digging-out of Hanassa.

  “I think so. Give it a moment.” He breathed deeply of the hot dry air, willing the air to feed his undernourished body and give him reserves of strength. He’d found no ley lines in this hellhole to replenish his magic. The dragons had deserted this part of the world centuries ago, taking their special magical energy with them. He had only himself to fuel his talent.

  He drank deeply from the skin tied to his belt. The sulfur-laden water almost tasted good. He drank again until the rancid flavor made him gag. Then he knew he’d had enough. He’d learned his first week in Hanassa to avoid dehydration at all cost. Water was more precious than food these days.

  Both were in short supply.

  Without food and fresh water, he didn’t have enough of himself left to give at the rate Hanassa used him up. Excavating the tunnel was their only hope to open the city to outside supplies.

  “Why don’t you just climb up the crater walls and slip through the holes in the fence?” the mason asked. His eyes kept returning to the tumble of dirt and boulders behind Rollett. The mason crossed himself and stepped back into the daylight.

  Six moons ago, three men had died in the last cave-in. Rollett hadn’t been close enough to stop it with magic then. He and his crew had lost nearly a year’s work in a few moments of quaking kardia.

  “You needn’t fear the ghosts of those men. They died honestly.” Rollett stood up and squared his shoudlers. But they are the last ones to die in this tunnel.

  “You’ve got the strength and courage to climb the crater,” the mason encouraged him, returning to the issue Rollett couldn’t explain to himself let alone to one of his crew.

  “You have the strength to escape, too, friend. But I made some promises that keep me here. I intend to keep them.”

  “No one else in this cursed city believes in promises.”

  “And they have lost their belief in themselves. They have lost control of their lives. Until I finish what I set out to do, we must make do with the few supplies some of our comrades send through those gaps in the barbed fencing. Not enough to make life easy again, but enough to give Hanassa hope that we will burrow out of here.”

  He remembered the first time he had encountered the fence a year and a half ago. The climb up the outside slopes of the mountain in the desert heat without enough water and food had nearly killed both him and Nimbulan. Then the disappointment of encountering the unbroken line of barbed fencing had nearly ended their mission before it truly began. He and his master had been trying to break into Hanassa to rescue Nimbulan’s wife. Now men braved the crater and the fence to break out of Hanassa.

  “I hope you succeeded, Old Man,” he whispered to his memory of Nimbulan. “I hope you found a way back to Coronnan where you can lead the Commune in the fight for justice and peace. I don’t like to think you died in that last battle we fought together in the Justice Hall. Your body should have been among those we carted out and buried, but it wasn’t. Though if you escaped, I don’t know how.”

  Scarface, the Battlemage who had become a mercenary, had also disappeared that night. Rollett had never trusted the man, although Nimbulan had. Something about the way the man manipulated the camaraderie of his companions . . .

  If you were responsible for making certain I got left behind, Scarface, I’ll see that you pay in all of your next existences.

  Rollett deliberately separated himself from past grief and suspicions. He needed all of his concentration here and now.

  He probed the tunnel one more time with his magical senses. “It’s safe to come back in, but you’ll need to shore up the walls here and here.” He pointed out the weakest spot to the hovering mason.

  “I have decided that masonry and mortar require too much precious water,” a newcomer said from the tunnel entrance.

  “Would you rather
watch your city starve, Kaaliph Piedro?” Rollett asked the Rover who had grabbed power the moment the old Kaalipha had died, taking the previous Rover Chieftain and her pet Bloodmage with her.

  Piedro’s dark eyes narrowed, hardly veiling the animosity behind them. His lithe body betrayed him, he looked more than ready to spring upon Rollett like a legendary spotted saber cat. Then he twisted his head as if listening to a light tune borne on the wind. He shook himself a little and replaced the mask of reasonableness on his face and posture.

  “I feed the city. My people work hard at cutting a stairway up the crater walls to the fence. We will have access to the outside world again, when I deem it safe,” Piedro replied. “My Rover magic tells me that the outside world is not safe at the moment.”

  Rollett couldn’t penetrate the man’s emotions with or without magic. Rovers had strange powers that few outsiders understood or could participate in. One had to have Rover blood to use Rover spells.

  “Safe for you or safe for honest workers who were brought here as slaves against their will?” Rollett asked, forcing an air of innocence into his tone. “You don’t feed the city, Piedro. You keep us on starvation rations so you can pretend to control the rabble. But you are still sleek and strong. Where do you get your supplies if all the exits are blocked?”

  He held back the anger that sent heat through his veins. He hadn’t the strength to challenge Piedro openly. And now he’d exhausted himself holding the tunnel together during the kardiaquake.

  What do you have hidden in the labyrinth beneath the palace, Piedro? He and the Rover Kaaliph stared at each other for a long moment, assessing, weighing, mutely challenging.

  “Mix the mortar,” Rollett ordered the mason. The broad man scuttled out of the tunnel. Rollett could taste the man’s fear as it permeated the air.

  Piedro licked his lips, savoring it.

  “Invoking terror only gives an illusion of control,” Rollett said, as much to himself as to the upstart Kaaliph. “You don’t have Yaassima’s cunning or her magic.” The late Kaalipha had governed with a bloody fist. Infractions of her few rules met with swift and fatal retribution. But she had rules. Those who broke the rules knew the consequences.