The Wizard's Treasure (The Dragon Nimbus) (32 page)

Read The Wizard's Treasure (The Dragon Nimbus) Online

Authors: Irene Radford

The candle guttered. The glass fell from his nerveless hands. He collapsed in a heap upon the stones, utterly exhausted.
The chill of morning dew awoke him. Automatically, he reached for the precious piece of glass. Pain slashed across his fingers. He yelped and jerked his hand away from the glass, sucking on the bloody cut. His glass had shattered when he dropped it.
His glass. The very symbol of his magical talent. His most precious tool along with his staff. A part of him. Broken. Shattered into six fragments too small to use for even the simplest of spells.
“S’murghit!”
he yelled at the top of his lungs.
“Bloody, tartarian Simurgh!”
He threw the largest piece as far and high as he could, then the next shard and the next. When he still needed to release more energy, he grabbed the piece of gold in his pocket and threw it.
The world shattered. Light blazed. The stones at his feet tilted and whirled. Two heartbeats later his senses righted and he looked out at the world with a new clarity.
The gloaming retreated downward, leaving him above the haze.
“What the . . .” He retreated cautiously back down the staircase to the ground level. The coin glinted at him from the vicinity of the gate, enticing him to return it to his pocket where it belonged.
Robb raced down the stairs to retrieve the coin before he lost it. He paused in the arched entryway of the stairs. No one yet stirred in the monastery. He could retrieve the coin without observation.
He took fifty silent paces across the courtyard. Then stooped, about to place the little bit of treasure in his pocket—protected, out of sight. Hoarded.
The rising sun glinting through the crack in the sagging gate caught his attention.
“Just once more. I’ll try the gate just once more.” Holding his breath he pushed against the heavy panels. They creaked open.
Hastily, he looked over his shoulder to check if Marcus or Vareena came to investigate. The courtyard remained empty.
One more deep breath for courage and he—
Stepped through the gateway into the outside world.
Astonishment kept him pressed against the gate, afraid to step away lest his knees give out.
“I’m free?” he whispered to the winds. Two steps away from the stout walls confirmed it. He could walk away from here. Send help back for Marcus and Vareena. He could tap the formerly crazy ley lines that now ran straight and thick. He could . . .
He had to go back.
Marcus would disintegrate, physically and emotionally without him. He owed it to Marcus to go back.
The coin greeted him upon his return.
“So you are the culprit.” He gritted his teeth and picked up the shiny piece of gold. “And my guess is your original owner was a miser. A miser who refused his next existence rather than give you up.”
Once more the world tilted and light flashed, momentarily blinding him. When he opened his eyes again, a misty veil lay over everything.
“Coronnan has waited years for the return of the dragons. A few more weeks will not make so much difference.”
“Robb, is everything all right?” Marcus appeared at the doorway to his cell, running his fingers through his tangled hair and blinking sleepily.
“Yeah, Marcus, everything’s going to be fine.”
If I can figure this out, so can you. You need the success to bolster your luck more than I do. I’ll wait until things get really desperate to show you the truth—if you haven’t figured it out by then.
 
“Get that cat away from me!” Margit screamed as she jumped away from Amaranth for the fifth time.
“What a sweet creature,” Katrina gathered Amaranth into her lap. “Such a
big
cat. Did you truly fly here or did you just jump from the rocks above us?” She petted him with enthusiasm.
“He’s with me,” Jack said quietly as he scrambled down the last of the rocks. He had to work hard to retain his balance, never quite certain which image was real and which a ghost.
Margit jumped again, startled. “You’re supposed to let your armor down when approaching the camp of a magician. I could have blasted you with . . . with . . .”
“With what, Margit? What spell could you devise that would catch me off guard?” Jack smiled, trying hard to keep any sense of triumph out of his voice. From what he’d seen, Margit would make a competent journeywoman someday. Master status would elude her talents.
“I—I’d have thought of some—something.” Margit worked her nose and mouth in peculiar gyrations.
“Jack,” Katrina said quietly, still stroking Amaranth.
“Ahhhchooo!” Margit sneezed strongly enough to nearly extinguish the fire. “Get that cat away from me.”
“Katrina,” Jack acknowledged the woman he loved, ignoring Margit completely.
“I suppose you’ve come to take me back,” Katrina said quietly, burying her face in Amaranth’s blacker than black fur.
Did she sound accepting or defiant? Jack couldn’t tell while Margit continued to sneeze her head off right next to him.
“No, Katrina, I’ve come to join you, keep you safe on this journey you’ve chosen.”
“I thought that was Margit’s job.”
The apprentice magician sneezed again, three times in quick succession.
Katrina shifted to a rock on the far side of the fire, taking Amaranth with her. She looked up at Jack with hopeful eyes.
Margit continued to sneeze.
“I hope you will welcome my company,” Jack said tersely.
Katrina looked up at him without answering, eyes huge in the firelight.
“Something is different about you, Jack. You are . . . almost vulnerable. Like you were when I first met you.”
“Lonely. Missing you as I would miss my breath or the beat of my heart.”
Her chin quivered slightly. She bit her lip.
Jack waited a moment, hoping she’d say something, anything to reassure him. “I’ll not press you to marry me, Katrina. I know you fear it. But I need to know you are safe. I need to be close to you, look at you, touch you.” He stroked her long, silky plaits.
Margit might not have been there except for her sneezes. Which tapered off as Jack moved away from her.
The funny feeling churned in his gut again, and his tailbone needed to twitch. He knew a sudden compulsion to wash his hands and face—especially behind his ears—in the nearby creek.
“And who is this new companion of yours, Jack? I know you miss Corby, but I never thought I’d see you with a cat,” Katrina continued, as if their future together did not lay between them like an open wound.
“That is Amaranth.” Silently, Jack sent the flywacket an image of rubbing his black fur against Margit’s trews.
“Amaranth?” Katrina looked up at him, love and trust shining in her eyes. Could this be just another ordinary conversation catching up on the news?
“The redundant purple dragon has taken a new form. He’s truly my familiar now.” Jack perched on a rock next to Katrina; close enough to reach out and hold her hand, but not so close as to threaten her.
“It’s as if he now absorbs all of the light he used to reflect.” She tried to stop the black cat from hopping off her lap, but he wriggled free of her grasp and slunk over to Margit. She had her back to the fire and for a moment her sneezes had abated.
“Amaranth,” Katrina called him back.
Under Jack’s prodding the flywacket circled Margit three times, each circuit bringing him closer to her until he rubbed his face against her boots and then her knees.
“Get away, you awful creature.” Margit hopped and jumped farther away from the fire. But she did not sneeze.
Jack sent Amaranth another mental command to return to Katrina and stay with her. Amaranth arched his back and stretched, leaning first backward, tail up, front legs extended. Then he leaned forward, stretching his back legs one at a time. At last he shook himself and leaped over the fire, extending only the tips of his wings for balance. He landed next to Katrina and sat. He accepted a few ear scratches, then began to lave his front paws.
Jack wanted to fish the soap out of his pack and join his familiar in the cleansing ritual.
Margit whirled to face him, eyes huge, hands fishing within her scrip. “Did you feel that? You must have. It was stronger this time, more urgent.”
Then Jack put aside his own horrible fears and opened his awareness. His glass thrummed, very lightly; almost as if he had already answered the summons that had brought it to life.
“What?”
“A distress call. From that direction.” She pointed. “West by southwest.”
“I barely felt it before it was gone.”
“That’s the nature of a distress call, sent out to any magician who might intercept it.”
Jack looked at her quizzically.
“That’s what Lyman says. And I’m betting it’s Marcus. I’m following it. Now.” She stooped to pick up her pack at her feet. “You two don’t need me anymore.”
“Wait, Margit. You can’t go now. It’s dark. The road is uncertain, and we’re very near the border. Who knows what kinds of bandits lurk in the foothills.” Jack gritted his teeth and grabbed Margit’s arm to detain her. His insides coiled in mistrust and an urge to flee.
The moment he touched her shoulder, Margit sneezed three more times in rapid succession.
He whirled quickly and sought Amaranth’s aura, clearly outlined in the firelight. Only the pale purple signature color outlined his black body with energy. Jack sought Katrina’s single aura of crystal and white, like her lace. Margit shone three shades of yellow between sneezes that shifted all her energy to orange while she purged himself of some foreign humor in the air.
Then Jack took a deep breath and sought the first stages of a trance. He stared at the silvery umbilical of life that trailed from his body.
Very few master magicians could see their umbilical anywhere but in the void. Fewer still ever had a glimpse of their true signature colors in the umbilical.
Along with Jack’s signature silver and purple—darker than Amaranth’s—he saw a strange coil of life entwined with his own. Red, black, yellow, brown, and a touch of white.
The same colors he’d sensed around Queen Mikka. The same colors as the cat she had lost when she absorbed her pet’s spirit.
“Ladies, I think I have a problem.”
CHAPTER 27
 
 
 
 
L
anciar shifted the bundle of kindling under his arm for better balance. Satisfied that he’d not drop the load of small sticks and dried grasses, he swung his free arm jauntily and whistled a gay tune as he strolled through the line of trees bordering a chuckling creek. This simple life of trekking across the countryside with the Rovers appealed to him. Almost like being back in the army without the worry and responsibility of seeing to the discipline and well-being of a thousand men under his command.
Indeed, discipline never seemed to be a problem with the Rovers. Their mind-to-mind links with Zolltarn gave them a sense of unity and purpose he’d never achieved in the army.
For a moment he felt very alone and left out of the clan. The whistling tune died in his throat. Alone. As he had always been alone except for those few brief hours when he and Jack had sat on a cold mountain trail while they traversed the void together seeking a way to center and awaken Lanciar’s magical talent. Linked to Jack by mind and magic, he had known a short time of belonging with the universe at large and with one other person.
The next morning he and Jack had parted with hostility. And then, because of his misguided loyalty to the coven, Lanciar had betrayed Jack. Lanciar had never heard if the young magician had survived. He hoped so, even though they belonged to opposing forces on both the magic and mundane planes. Jack’s honesty and unwavering loyalty deserved better than Rejiia had given him.
Guilt made him long for a tall mug of Maija’s ale.
“What troubles you, spy?” Maija asked from directly behind him.

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