The Wizard's Treasure (The Dragon Nimbus) (34 page)

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

Authors: Irene Radford

Ariiell motioned her maid to take her bag up the rickety staircase to the attic room. She slipped away, leaving her elders to their arguments.
Once inside the drafty space between the main floor and the roof, she dismissed her servant—a spy for her stepmother and probably the king as well—and locked the door. She shoved a table and chair in front of it for good measure.
“Alone at last!” She dug a small candle and piece of glass out of her personal bag of toiletries. The wick burst into flame with a thought. Then she settled down to summon her mentor. Rejiia would find a way to force Darville into recalling her to court. The mission of the coven was at stake.
“Flame to flame, like seeking like,” she intoned the ritual phrases as she breathed deeply. The flickering green bit of fire drew her focus deep within the many layers of color, so like an aura, but more primitive and pure. She was content to sit there staring at the light magnified by her bit of glass.
A hazy yellow/green/blue glow rippled across the clear surface, vibrating slightly with the thrumming magic she had channeled through it.
Her spell must be weak and diffuse because she did not know where Rejiia hid. An answer might take a long time in coming . . .
“What!” Rejiia’s explosive reply burst through the glass before her image solidified. Anger and impatience blazed in her midnight-blue eyes. Her black hair crackled about her puffy face in wild disarray. Dark shadows ringed her eyes.
Ariiell had never seen her in such disorder. She could almost smell the Tambootie leaves on Rejiia’s breath. The drugs within the tree sap might enhance magical power, but it led to certain insanity.
“Rejiia, I need your help . . .” she began.
“Of course you do, you inept little . . .” Rejiia clamped her mouth shut and closed her eyes for a brief moment. When she returned her attention to Ariiell, she appeared calm, gentle, patient, and wise. Her eyes were clear and the familiar lean planes had returned to her cheeks and chin. A demeanor befitting the Center of the coven, a position Rejiia guarded jealously. Even though pregnancy should allow Ariiell to anchor the eight-pointed star rituals, Rejiia had not relinquished her place since her own pregnancy had ousted the late King Simeon from the center.
“What troubles you, child?” Rejiia asked. An aura of love and forgiveness flowed through the glass. But her hair still needed a good brushing.
Ariiell didn’t trust that projected image any more than she trusted Rejiia to do anything except advance herself and the cause of the coven.
“Darville has exiled my entire family from court, Lord Andrall and Lady Lynnetta as well.”
“Did the marriage take place?” Rejiia asked anxiously.
“Of course. Darville presided beside the priest. The entire ceremony was duly witnessed and recorded. The child is legitimate. But Rossemikka did not attend. ’Twas not a state event. I doubt anyone outside the family knows of it.” Ariiell allowed herself a small smile.
“And the idiot?”
“With us.”
“Good. Keep him, close. Sleep with him if you must. We need him alive and well until the child is born.”
“I must return to court, Rejiia. That is the plan. I must be there to poison Darville and his foreign queen as soon as my child is acknowledged the legitimate heir.”
“Plans change. I leave the poisoning to your guardian who is still in the capital.” Rejiia lifted her hand in the gesture to end the summons.
But Ariiell had the book of poisons. Her guardian—whatever his name and status in the coven might be—had asked for it several times. She smiled to herself.
“The plan will not change. My son will rule Coronnan and I shall be regent. The coven will rule Coronnan through me,” Ariiell replied sternly.
“Plans change,” Rejiia stated firmly. Her eyes narrowed with secrets.
Suddenly Ariiell did not trust Rejiia to work in the coven’s best interests. She worked only for herself.
“There may be another heir. I must investigate,” Rejiia continued. “I am needed elsewhere.”
“The coven has decreed that I must remain at court. Now help me return there. Shall I summon the full coven in council?” Ariiell asserted her rights.
“Very well, where are you?” Rejiia sighed and rolled her eyes upward. Dark shadows made her brilliantly blue eyes look as deep and fathomless as the Great Bay at midnight.
Ariiell shuddered with a sudden chill. Rejiia’s anger could be formidable. She wasn’t certain her own magic was strong enough yet to challenge the black-haired, black-hearted woman for the Center of the coven.
Quickly, Ariiell gave Rejiia a brief accounting of her location, still about five hours’ hard steed ride east and south of Castle Laislac, not too far from the small pass through the mountains into SeLenicca.
“Really?” Rejiia’s smile brightened. She laughed loud and long. The echoes of her mirth rippled through the glass to bounce off the walls of the attic room. Rejiia might have been next door. “How interesting. At dawn, you must proceed south on the main road for approximately one league, then turn north by northwest on a drover’s track until you reach the small village perched on a rolling meadow by the river. Above the village at the top of a wooded hill is an abandoned monastery. Go there and wait for further instructions.”
“But that is out of the way! What excuse can I use to separate myself from all these people. They guard me closely.” As they should, since she carried the heir.
“You’ll think of something. Just get there before noon. The entire fate of the coven depends upon you arriving in time . . . Never mind what for. Just do it. You’ll know why when you arrive.” Rejiia ended the summons with a snap of her fingers.
The glass turned cloudy with soot from the candle flame. It ceased vibrating with rippling colors and became once more inert.
The sounds of Rejiia’s misplaced laughter still vibrated in Ariiell’s ears.
Deflated by hunger and exhaustion from the spell, Ariiell fell back upon the single bed. Sleep wanted to claim her, but her mind spun with possibilities and plans.
 
“I don’t like the smell of this,” Zebbiah said quietly.
Miranda started out of a drifting sleep at the pressure of his hand over her mouth. She nodded briefly to acknowledge her understanding of the need to say nothing. He removed his hand slowly. Reluctantly? Did his fingertips truly caress her cheek and mouth?
“Our former caravan leader is scouting the perimeter of the camp. I don’t want him to see which way we travel.”
“The pack beast?” Miranda mouthed the words.
“Tethered away from the other animals.”
“Will he protest?” They both grinned at the thought of the trouble the stubborn beast could cause them if he chose.
“I know a few tricks.”
Miranda rose from her bedroll, careful not disturb her still sleeping daughter. Gently, she wrapped the baby in the covers and carried her to where Zebbiah indicated the pack beast waited.
At first she couldn’t see the animal, only smell his dusty hide. Then, in the predawn stillness, she heard the click of teeth snapping at a tuft of grass just ahead of her, on the other side of the scraggly bush of d’vil’s weed. The thorny vines had a tendency to reach out and grab unwary passersby and cling, and twine, and choke, and infect. The stuff grew everywhere that men had not burned it out and poisoned the roots.
How to get through the bush to the pack beast? Serve the obnoxious creature right for getting caught in the mass. It might starve before they could untwine all the branches and drop them in the campfire.
A flash of eldritch blue fire brightened the entire sky to the south. Miranda ducked, putting her back between the fire and her baby. She tried to cover her head from the unholy beings that might swoop down on them out of that fire. She tried to make the cross of the Stargods, but found her movements hampered by her burden.
Jaranda whimpered from being clutched so tightly.
Miranda settled for flapping her crossed wrists, hoping the antique ward against evil was sufficient protection.
The camp erupted in screams and flailing limbs. Men ran in opposing directions. Women crashed into each other as they tried to escape the eldritch light.
The former leader stumbled into their midst thrashing his arms about, his back aglow with blue flames that did not consume his shirt or skin.
Miranda wanted to run, too. Where? Masses of d’vil’s weed blocked her path. She could escape only into that terrible blueness.
The Zebbiah was beside her. “Good girl. You didn’t panic.”
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she glared at him. “Why didn’t you warn me this was but a Rover trick?”
“Didn’t want to spoil the surprise.” He grinned, flashing his magnificent white teeth. “This way.” He waved toward the pernicious vines that grew thick between them and the pack steed.
“How?”
He grinned again and swept the vines aside with one arm. Strangely, they did not cling to his shirt or dig sharp spines into his flesh.
“Another Rover trick?” She eyed the vines suspiciously.
“Rover magic.”
This time she did cross herself, no longer sure she could trust him. Or wanted to.
CHAPTER 29
 
 
 
 
“
D
o you think we should go back to the library and investigate?” Marcus asked Robb and Vareena. They were lounging around the well, listening to the bees feast on the blossoms of hundreds of overgrown herbs and flowers. No other sound penetrated the high walls. Marcus’ fingers itched to get in there and start pulling weeds, pruning, and thinning.
He decided that when he had a place to call his own, he’d spend lots of time in an herb garden, meditating as he worked.
Maybe his restlessness pushed him to work among the growing things. Maybe this half-death made him long for contact with living things.
He needed to confront the ghost, throw the name of Ackerly at it, give it a chance to tell its story. But he also wanted Robb to be the one to find the answers. He deserved that. He’d been right. They had to make their own luck and opportunities.
The villagers, led by Uustaas, had left them enough food for a week. They didn’t need extra blankets in the warmer weather, and the villagers had no reason to leave their work just to amuse two ghosts and their keeper. Vareena had turned her back to her brother and refused to speak to any who tried to break down her wall of silence.
When the outsiders had left—most of them with unseemly haste—Marcus had seen tears in her eyes. He wanted to hold her in his arms and chase the tears away with kisses. But the barrier of energy had repulsed him quite effectively.
Confronting the ghost seemed the only way to end this half-existence.
“Promise me, Robb and Marcus, promise me, that when you find a way to break the spell that holds you here, you will take me with you.” Vareena seemed to be looking far beyond the restrictions of the monastery walls.
Both magicians nodded mutely.
“Have you noticed that the big spiders crawl everywhere but inside the library,” Marcus added as a challenge to his partner.
Robb’s head came up abruptly. He stared at Marcus a moment, then grinned with half his mouth. He knew something.
“Poking around the library has to be better than sitting out here doing nothing.” Robb heaved himself to his feet.
Marcus followed suit, curious as to what Robb hid.
“Have you figured out how to avoid the true ghost?” Vareena asked.
“We need information,” Marcus stated firmly. How many times had Jaylor, and before him Baamin, pounded that idea into his thick head. Information was the key to power. Information was the key to problem solving. Depending upon luck only worked when backed by information to point him in the right direction. He squared his shoulders, swallowed his instinctive fear of the ghost and marched in Robb’s wake. He knew something, too.
Vareena shuffled along behind him, still shredding the petals from a daisy. She hummed a tune with a catchy repetitive rhythm under her breath. He’d heard that song before. It played itself over and over in his mind without end, like an obsession. Even the bees in the herb garden around the well seemed to buzz in time with it.

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